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Her One Desire
(c) 2008 Kimberly Killion
Father must protect me or I am dead.

Lizbeth Ives stumbled off the last step of the stairwell in her haste and landed hard on her knees. The guards’ footsteps echoed in the distance. She glanced over her shoulder. Dancing shadows brought the torch-lit stone walls to life and sent her already pounding heart into a frenzy.

Scrambling to her feet, Lizzy clutched the neck of her mantle, safeguarding the document hidden in the bodice of her gown, already envisioning her head atop the chopping block. Her throat burned with every step. The passageway seemed longer, narrower, darker than it had when she was a child. She rounded the corner, and a bout of dizziness set her off balance. Her eyelids pinched shut, if only for a moment to ease her escalating fear. She swallowed hard then inhaled the sour stench of the dungeon, a smell she would never grow accustomed to regardless of the years she’d spent in the Tower.

Two men, who’d guarded the dungeon since her childhood, straightened in front of the arched doorway as she approached. She forced her steps to a calm, even clip.

“Good den, Lady Ives.” One guard dipped his head in greeting.

“Sirs.” She acknowledged them with a quick bow. “I have need to speak with my father.”

“He is at work,” the taller replied. “Lord Ives will not be pleased with your interruption, m’lady.”

“Then I will suffer his fury of my own will. Now step aside, and allow me entrance.” The authority in her voice shocked her, but she had no time for niceties. Lord Hollister’s blackguards would be upon her any moment.

“As ye wish.” Each guard slid sideways, granting her access.

She entered the antechamber and set the bolt in place. A single rushlight illuminated the short passage before her.

Only ten more steps.

She clutched Mother’s rosary, sliding her fingers over the glass beads to count her steps, until she reached the chamber door.

Crack.

The sound of Father’s whip snapped in her ears and jarred her insides. Her fingers stilled over the door lever. She cursed her lack of bravery and wished for the thousandth time she’d been born to the smith or the miller. She wrapped her rosary around her wrist, shook out her hands, and then fisted them to cease their trembling.

Father would not pity a coward.

She summoned the courage to push open the heavy door. The sharp odor of burnt flesh singed her nostrils, sending her hand immediately to her face. She set the iron bar in its catch, then turned toward her father.

Her presence went without notice. Father wouldn’t hear a tree if it fell behind him.

Crack.

He wielded his whip, delivering a blow that sliced into a man’s back in a slash of crimson. “Confess and pledge fealty to the sovereign liege of England or die as a result of your obstinacy,” Father demanded, his tone heinous, cold, cruel. She hated the person he portrayed beneath the black cloak.

“I confess naught.” The prisoner’s white-knuckled fists gripped the iron rings binding his shackles to the stone wall. Thick blue veins laced through his forearms, matching the color of an ancient symbol inked around his muscular arm above his elbow. Black hair clung to his nape by the sweat of his suffering. He did not cry out or plead for mercy, though the bold red lines painting his bronze skin told her he’d been in Father’s company long enough to yield. Still, the fool held tight to his tongue.

She turned her head away from the scene only to fall upon a blood-soaked man crumpled in the corner. He bore a similar mark around his arm, indicating an affiliation between the two prisoners. Father’s methods had obviously been more than he could withstand. The pallid color of his skin told her his blood had failed to flow some time ago.

The scrape of metal knifed up her spine as Father released the prisoner’s manacles from the hooks in the wall. The large breath of relief he blew as he fell into a puddle at Father’s boots came prematurely. She knew Father’s routine—whipping preceded the burning. The man’s crime would determine what followed.

She squared her shoulders. “Lord Ives.” Her voice sounded small, weak, and she abhorred herself for fearing her father. She cleared her throat and clutched the tails of her sleeves, now a tangled mass in her hands. “Lord Ives,” she called out louder. “I have need to speak with you.”

Father whirled, his amber eyes filled with the light of madness. “Begone!”

He raised his whip to her, and she searched for a glimpse of the gentle man she once knew. Her heart jumped. She pushed the hood of her mantle back. “Nay, Father! ’Tis I, Lizzy.” Holding her arm in front of her face, she braced herself for the biting sting, all the while praying he would not deliver the blow.

His grip on the knout eased the same time a raspy howl filled the chamber.

The prisoner reared up from the floor, all flesh and rigid muscles. With his fingers clasped into a giant fist, he drove the iron cuffs into Father’s temple, knocking him sideways into a trestle table. Wood splintered like miniature arrows. Metal instruments clanked onto the floor. Father faltered but retained his footing.

“Nay!” She vaulted across the chamber and clung to the prisoner’s forearm as his powerful fist caught Father in the nose. Osborn Ives was a big man indeed, but the force behind that blow knocked him off his feet and into the wall.

The impact sent a jolt through her breast.

Father staggered. The black whip slipped from his gloved hand and coiled into a ring like a dead serpent. The lump sliding down her throat mimicked her father’s body withering to the floor along with her hope for protection. Desperation, hopelessness, and anger surged.

“Get away from him.” She shoved the prisoner hard.

He grunted, but remained steadfast to his position. His fingers curled around her forearm. “Scream, and ye will cease to breathe.”

“I will not. I vow it upon my soul.” She struggled to break free of his bruising grip, her eyes fixed on the only person she had left in the world. “Please, he is my father.”