Coral’s grip on Susan’s arm was firm but not painful. There was nothing particularly cruel about the way she was moving Susan along the downstairs corridor, but there was a relentlessness about it that was disheartening. Susan didn’t try to protest; it would have been useless. Behind the two women were a pair of vaqueros (armed with knives and bolas rather than guns; the available guns had all gone west with Jonas). Behind the vaqs, skulking along like a sullen ghost which lacks the necessary psychic energy to fully materialize itself, came the late Chancellor’s older brother, Laslo. Reynolds, his taste for a spot of journey’s-end rape blunted by his growing sense of disquiet, had either remained above or gone off to town.

“I’m going to put ye in the cold pantry until I know better what to do with’ee, dear,” Coral said. “Ye’ll be quite safe there... and warm. How fortunate ye wore a serape. Then... when Jonas gets back...”

“Ye’ll never see sai Jonas again,” Susan said. “He won’t ever—”

Fresh pain exploded in her sensitive face. For a moment it seemed the entire world had blown up. Susan reeled back against the dressed stone wall of the lower corridor, her vision first blurred, then slowly clearing. She could feel blood flowing down her cheek from a wound opened by the stone in Coral’s ring when Coral had backhanded her. And her nose. That cussed thing was bleeding again, too.

Coral was looking at her in a chilly this-is-all-business-to-me fashion, but Susan believed she saw something different in the woman’s eyes. Fear, mayhap.

“Don’t talk to me about Eldred, missy. He’s sent to catch the boys who killed my brother. The boys you set loose.”

“Get off it.” Susan wiped her nose, grimaced at the blood pooled in her palm, and wiped it on the leg of her pants. “I know who killed Hart as well as ye do yerself, so don’t pull mine and I won’t yank yer own.” She watched Coral’s hand rise, ready to slap, and managed a dry laugh. “Go on. Cut my face open on the other side, if ye like. Will that change how ye sleep tonight with no man to warm the other side of the bed?”

Coral’s hand came down fast and hard, but instead of slapping, it seized Susan’s arm again. Hard enough to hurt, this time, but Susan barely felt it. She had been hurt by experts this day, and would suffer more hurt gladly, if that would hasten the moment when she and Roland could be together again.