The undercroft swam woozily back into view. His head was pounding. Huge dark barrels stacked on their sides loomed around and above him. He was propped askew against a barrel with his legs splayed in front of him. Another cask to his right dripped wine from its spigot. On the edge of his vision, he could just see a dark red, misshapen stain from the drips pooling on the earth floor, but… Pain. Terrible pain on the right side of his neck. He groaned aloud.
Something was lodged above his collarbone. If he turned his head even slightly, it set off a searing pain. He swivelled his eyes back to straight ahead and held his head still, desperate to reduce the agony. His vision began to focus in the gloom. How did he come to be here?
Not a heavy drinking session. A struggle. Someone hit him on the head and stuck this knife in his neck that he was feeling now, like a lump of hard bread stuck in his gullet, a solid, unyielding intrusion in his flesh, agonising his every breath. His head was angled slightly downwards and he could see a long dark stain spilled down the front of his tunic. His blood, not wine. He breathed out on the pain.
With his left hand, he tried to reach for the thing jammed in his neck, but his arm dropped back weakly onto the floor beside his hip, palm splayed upwards, jarring the injury. Even if he could pull the blade from the wound, would his life’s blood gush out?
He tensed the muscles in his left thigh to see if he could stand, but could barely lift his leg at all before it collapsed back down, enfeebled. He was pinned. Could not move any part. He panted with the heavy ache of the knife, trying to regather himself. Had to keep his eyes from closing. ‘He-lp!’ he croaked. A rat in a dim corner ahead of him froze on its hindquarters, its front paws held together in front of its chest.
There was rustling to his left. Too noisy, too big for a rat. Someone was riffling through the parchments in his satchel. Someone who had stuck this dagger into him. He was still here! Panic rose to meet the pain.
Legs came into view in front of him. Yellow hose. Muscled legs. He could just see the edge of a green tunic, but couldn’t lift his head to see who stood there. Yellow and green. Late summer, when the sun warms the ripening wheat. Not the right time for a poem … The legs came closer, green shoes stepping delicately between and over his calves, moving to his right. His throbbing neck was immobile, but his eyes swiveled, straining to see what the legs were doing.
Had he gone? ‘Help!’ he croaked tentatively. Nothing happened. ‘Help! Help!’ he tried again, a little louder. Suddenly, the man was behind him, wedging a leg between his back and the barrel, a knee pushing him forward to bend at the waist. He screamed at the torment of his neck. Taken into an embrace, a filament flashing past his eyes, a necklace dropping round his damaged throat. He should try to slip his fingers between the desperate pulse of his artery and the cruel garotte, but he had no power. He clung feebly to the man’s arm and watched his feet scrabble in the dirt in front of him, raising dust.
This is the prologue for my new novel in progress, Love’s Knife, which is the first book in a medieval murder mystery series: the Trobairitz Sleuth Series.
I will be serialising chapters from the novel for my paying subscribers – one chapter a week, starting next week. And I will continue to post on my medieval research for both paying and free subscribers. The novel will be published in ebook, hardback and paperback formats on 3 September 2024. Paying subscribers will receive their choice of a free ebook or paperback of the completed novel.
Absolutely gripping beginning! Can’t wait to read the rest! ☺️📖