I struggled against Sir Rylan’s grip, and just when I thought I would wriggle from his grasp, there were other hands on me, pulling me slightly backwards. Dunstan moved in front of me, trying to block my view.
“Let me go!” I cried out again, pushing against the strong arms of the soldiers around me.
“Please, Queen Alexandra,” Dunstan pleaded.
Branford’s hands flew rapidly as he wound the rope around Janet’s form, further securing her as she cried for mercy. He yanked roughly at the binds and then turned to walk several feet away to a large stack of firewood, stockpiled for the winter.
He piled it at her feet.
“No! Branford, please!” I screamed, but he would not even turn to face me.
Janet, however, did look toward me.
“Lady Alexandra!” she cried out. “I did not know—I swear I did not! Please! Please!”
Branford signaled one of the other guards, and a moment later, the sentinel handed him a brightly burning torch. He moved close to Janet, and I could hear her pleading with him. His chest rose and fell, his eyes narrowed, and he dropped the torch into the dry wood at her feet.
“No!” Janet cried out. “I did not know! I did not know!”
“Die, you witch!” Branford growled and spat in her face. He took several steps backwards to avoid the flames as they spread around the practice figure, the dry wood, and my handmaid. Though his back was still to me, he was at least close enough I knew he could hear my words.
“Branford—what if she truly did not know? You cannot—you cannot do this if—”
He wheeled around suddenly, his bright green eyes blazing with fire and hatred.
“Did not know? Did not know?” he screamed as he shook his fists. “She was taking direction from my enemy! She knew exactly what she was doing! She used you, used your kindness, and plotted to destroy us, Alexandra!”
The flames grew brighter as Janet’s screams grew louder. I yelled at Branford to stop what he was doing, but he turned back to me with eyes as bright as the flames behind him. Branford’s body was shaking as he cried out.
“She took my dignity…she took the shine from your eyes when you knew I was leaving to try to father a child by another. She nearly destroyed me, and I will watch her burn for it!”
He turned back to the scene in front of him, and Janet’s eyes looked around my husband, searching me out as she fought uselessly against her bonds. I twisted my body in an equally fruitless attempt to disengage myself from the grip of our neighboring knight.
I could feel something sharp sticking into my side—something from Sir Rylan’s belt, I thought—as I watched the wood catch fire and the flame grow larger around the feet of the girl who had stayed with me many nights when Branford was not there. It was the same girl who brought me breakfast and made me eat even when I did not feel like it. It was the same girl who had tried to win the acceptance of my husband over and over again, always trying harder when he ignored her.
And the same girl who brought me my morning tea every day without fail.
“Please, no…” I heard myself whisper. There was no way she could have possibly known what she was doing. Edgar must have threatened her—given her no choice in her actions. I could see her trying to kick out at the burning logs, but Branford knocked them back toward her, snarling words I could not hear. I watched with wide eyes as her head tilted backward, and she let out a long howl. The flames had reached her legs, the flesh blackening as her skirts burned away.
She screeched once more, and then Janet’s innocent, frightened eyes transformed into an expression I had not seen before. They narrowed, darkened, and glared in my direction as her lips turned up into an inhuman grin. She shook her head wildly as she looked into my eyes and screeched across the field.
“You are an idiot!” she screamed. “You will believe anything!”
I felt the hard steel of Rylan’s armor as I fell back against him, and it felt as though the words coming from the mouth of my…of my friend…were burning me as surely as the flames from the fire singed her skin.
“I knew!” The frightening image from the middle of the flames screamed out to me. “Every time you drank that tea, I knew it was killing any child that would try to grow within you! I knew his seed would never find purchase in your body! I knew it, and I was glad!”
I tried to step back further, the horror of her words hitting me dead center in my chest and knocking all breath from me. As I moved backwards, I was again met with Sir Rylan’s armored chest and strong arms as he held me against him and tried to turn me from the view of the field.
Janet laughed maniacally until the flames licked higher. She screamed as the fire burst out along the clothing around her chest and arms and then her hair. The brisk wind carried the smoke and filled the area, causing my eyes to clench shut when the smell of burning hair reached me. I could still hear her screaming though Rylan’s body now blocked my view.
The screams abruptly stopped though the crackling of the fire continued for some time. The stench covered us all, and I tried to block it from my mind as tears streamed down my face. I felt a new set of arms on my shoulders, and Rylan released his grip as I fell into Branford’s embrace.
“It’s over,” Branford said, his voice expressionless. “She cannot harm you again.”
I wrapped my arms around his neck, and he pulled me against his body as I sobbed into his shirt.
“I thought…I thought she was my friend,” I whispered through my tears. The repulsive smell of charred flesh attacked my nose and made it sting.