Changeling Read Online Free PDF

she drew back and hit him once again, hard, and he dropped down like a fat stunned ox before the slaughter.
    She picked up a jug and flung water over the coals smouldering on the rug beneath him and then, cautiously, she kicked him gently with her slippered foot. He did not stir, he was knocked out cold. Isolde went to an inner room and unlocked the door, whispering ‘Ishraq!’ When the girl came, rubbing sleep from her eyes, Isolde showed her the man crumpled on the ground.
    ‘Is he dead?’ the girl asked calmly.
    ‘No. I don’t think so. Help me get him out of here.’
    The two young women pulled the rug and the limp body of Prince Roberto slid along the floor, leaving a slimy trail of water and ashes. They got him into the gallery outside her room and paused.
    ‘I take it your brother allowed him to come to you?’
    Isolde nodded, and Ishraq turned her head and spat contemptuously on the prince’s white face. ‘Why ever did you open the door?’
    ‘I thought he would help me. He said he had an idea to help me then he pushed his way in.’
    ‘Did he hurt you?’ The girl’s dark eyes scanned her friend’s face. ‘Your forehead?’
    ‘He knocked me when he pushed the door.’
    ‘Was he going to rape you?’
    Isolde nodded.
    ‘Then let’s leave him here,’ Ishraq decided. ‘He can come to on the floor like the dog that he is, and crawl to his room. If he’s still here in the morning then the servants can find him and make him a laughing-stock.’ She bent down and felt for his pulses at his throat, his wrists and under the bulging waistband of his breeches. ‘He’ll live,’ she said certainly. ‘Though he wouldn’t be missed if we quietly cut his throat.’
    ‘Of course we can’t do that,’ Isolde said shakily.
    They left him there, laid out like a beached whale on his back, with his breeches still unlaced.
    ‘Wait here,’ Ishraq said and went back to her room.
    She returned swiftly, with a small box in her hand. Delicately, using the tips of her fingers and scowling with distaste, she pulled at the prince’s breeches so that they were gaping wide open. She lifted his linen shirt so that his limp nakedness was clearly visible. She took the lid from the box and shook the spice onto his bare skin.
    ‘What are you doing?’ Isolde whispered.
    ‘It’s a dried pepper, very strong. He is going to itch like he has the pox, and his skin is going to blister like he has a rash. He is going to regret this night’s work very much. He is going to be itching and scratching and bleeding for a month, and he won’t trouble another woman for a while.’
    Isolde laughed and put out her hand, as her father would have done, and the two young women clasped forearms, hand to elbow, like knights. Ishraq grinned, and they turned and went back into the bedroom, closing the door on the humbled prince and locking it firmly against him.

     
    In the morning, when Isolde went to chapel, her father’s coffin was closed and ready for burial in the deep family vault – and the prince was gone.
    ‘He has withdrawn his offer for your hand,’ her brother said coldly as he took his place, kneeling beside her on the chancel steps. ‘I take it that something passed between the two of you?’
    ‘He’s a villain,’ Isolde said simply. ‘And if you sent him to my door, as he claimed, then you are a traitor to me.’
    He bowed his head. ‘Of course I did no such thing. I am sorry, I got drunk like a fool and said that he could plead his case with you. Why ever did you open your door?’
    ‘Because I believed your friend was an honourable man, as you did.’
    ‘You were very wrong to unlock your door,’ her brother reproached her. ‘Opening your bedroom door to a man, to a drunk man! You don’t know how to take care of yourself. Father was right, we have to place you somewhere safe.’
    ‘I was safe! I was in my own room, in my own castle, speaking to my brother’s friend. I should not have been at risk,’ she said