Chapter 10

Some days later, in the late afternoon of the appointed day for the consummation of her relationship with Igor, Yolande had the two girls, Isobel and Yseult, bathe her. Afterwards, they massaged her body with scented oil and dressed her in a silk shift. They brushed her hair till it shone, and put a little shadow on her eyes, and some rouge on her lips. Yolande was not accustomed to beautifying herself; in fact she despised women who spent all their time making themselves attractive to men. But she wanted to make sure that Igor would be overcome with desire to the extent that he had no thoughts of anything but possessing her. Yolande never thought about her beauty; if she had, she would have realised that even without artificial aids her allure was such that few men could resist it.

It was just getting dark when Igor came to her room. Ideally she would have made her escape while it was still light, so that she could see the road. But in darkness there was far less chance of being followed. She offered him a glass of wine, and pretended to drink with him, but in fact she did not. She needed to keep a clear head. Igor’s eyes followed her everywhere, full of lust.

“Come and sit on my lap, my love,” he said.

She did not see how she could refuse, having invited him to her room. “Let me secure the room first,” she said. “We don’t want interruptions.” She gave him a coy smile as she put the heavy wooden bar across the door. Breaking it down would not be easy. To one side of the door was a small aperture, through which guards sometimes peered to make sure that the prisoner was still present. This she covered with a napkin. Then Yolande lowered herself onto his knee, and he put his arm around her waist. Through the thin silk of her shift she could feel his cock underneath, pressing hard against her ass. She shuddered at the thought of it. What an ugly thing was a cock, she thought, and how especially ugly must be Igor’s! He was stroking her belly with one hand, while the other was around her breasts. Much to her consternation, she felt her nipples getting erect. Why was her body betraying her in this way? He started to pull her shift up. She knew all too well where his hand would likely go next. Abruptly she got to her feet.

“Should we not be so much more comfortable in bed, my lord?” she said, with what she hoped was a winning smile.

“Oh, indeed,” he replied eagerly.

“Just give me a minute to arrange the room,” she said. She wanted darkness, as far as possible, so that he would be unaware until too late of what was coming. She drew the curtains and blew out all the candles except one by the bed. She asked that Igor turn his back while she peed into the chamber pot that was under the bed, and while she was unobserved she quickly took the knife from its hiding place in the wall and put it under her pillow. Now all the remained was to get him into bed. Even though she was repelled by the idea of him seeing her naked, she decided that just a glimpse would propel him quickly towards her, his mind full of only one thing, and so she got into bed and sat up, then slowly pulled her shift over her head. Igor had the briefest sight of her bare breasts, lovely in the candlelight, before with a single puff she blew the candle out, and it was dark.

She heard Igor stumbling towards her, tearing off his clothes as he came. Once naked, he got into bed beside her and reached out to embrace her. Yolande had killed more than a few men, but that had been in the heat of battle. How would it be to kill a man in cold blood, albeit one who in her opinion well merited death? She felt him close, lying alongside her, his breath, hot and foetid, on her face, his hands groping. Reaching under the pillow, she grasped the knife. She knew exactly where to place it for a quick death. She put her hand on him, feeling his ribs, finding the spot, then with a single thrust she stabbed the knife into his chest. Igor gave a strangled cry and a cough. Yolande moved away, not wanting his blood on her, but she still gripped the knife, and she twisted it round before pulling it out.

She got out of bed and threw off her shift. She felt for Igor’s pulse; it was weakening already, and then it stopped. She packed a woollen dress, some boots and the little package of food she had saved into a bag. Quickly she began to knot together the sheets and curtains and anything else that could be made part of a rope down which she would climb to freedom. After half an hour she had employed everything useful she could find; she calculated that the rope would still be a dozen feet short. So be it; she would have to jump the last bit.

Igor’s sword was lying on a chair. He wore it everywhere, partly no doubt through vanity, but also because he feared attack. Igor had made many enemies; he thought it likely one of them would catch up with him one day. Little had he suspected who it might be. Yolande buckled the sword round her bare waist, then hung round her neck the bag containing her clothes and food. Tying one end of her rope of sheets to a leg of the bed, she threw the rest out of the window and climbed out after it. Carefully she descended, before jumping the last few feet. She landed in a heap, but with nothing broken.

The castle keep was surrounded by a moat. Despite the warm summer’s evening, the water was cold. As quietly as she could she swam across, then put her dress and boots on. With a loping run, she set off along the road that led east, to the Deep, Dark Wood and beyond it to her kingdom. After two hours running she was beginning to feel tired. She sat and rested for a while, drinking a little water from a stream. When she set off again, she saw in the distance a field in which two horses stood, apparently asleep. She walked stealthily up to one. Just before she reached it the horse lifted its head and neighed. She made some soothing noises, then grabbed its mane. Springing up onto the horse’s back, she kicked her legs and the horse began to trot forward.

After a while she dismounted and fashioned a bridle from a girdle which was intended to accompany the dress she wore. Then she remounted. It felt good to have a horse’s back between her bare legs, to feel its strength and warmth. Yolande was sufficiently self-aware to realise that the feelings she got from horse-riding were not unrelated to those she might expect from congress with a naked man. But better a horse than a man between my thighs she thought, especially a man such as Igor. She felt no remorse about killing him. His death would be a mercy to many, and would save future victims from his lust. And she did not doubt that he would have killed her in an instant had it suited his purposes.

Just before morning, she saw trees ahead. As she got closer the trees grew thicker; soon she was in the wood. She looked for a path going in the right direction, and soon she found one, though it was partly overgrown. As she rode through the dense forest she kept hearing sounds, a rustling in the trees above her, even what sounded like some grunts. It’s just squirrels, she thought, though there might be bears around too. She was confident that with her sword she could fight off a bear, but the horse might panic and bolt.