Those gathered beheld him with eyes full of suspicion.
'You'd better tell us what happened,' Jared said.
'I'll do no such thing. The Queen swore me to silence on the matter. All I can say is that I left her chambers at a half past five this morning. At which time she was still sleeping and safe in her bed. Look! We are wasting time! We should be out there looking, rounding up suspects.'
Daniel moved menacingly towards him. 'Right now, you're the main suspect. I say we put him in a cell until he talks.'
The others agreed and Gavin was hauled away by two armed guards.
Meanwhile, just half an hour's ride away, ropes were chafing Naphtalie's wrists and great limestone slabs burned her knees with their icy touch.
'I might have known you'd be in such a state,' Father Ashley said, shaking his head sadly. He had never been with a woman sexually, but he knew the signs of ravagement and Naphtalie was displaying them all. Gavin's finger marks were blooming a faint indigo on her naked hips, from where he had held her tight to his body during their carnal engagements. Her left breast bore suction marks from his ravenous mouth -- from his torrid claiming of what was his. Worst of all, at least in Father Ashley's eyes, he could smell the odour of male emissions and could see the sheen of it still coating her legs. It made him positively seethe.
'You will never get away with this. You do know that, don't you?' she told him.
The gravity of her situation dawned on her with his reply.
'I answer to God and no one else. God has outlined his plan for you. He has told me the Whore Queen shall not live another day. You will be made an example of.'
'So everyone else is a wicked sinner but you are the right hand man of God; chosen to mete out justice? Please...stop and listen to yourself. Just because someone enjoys the pleasures of the flesh without choosing to limit themselves to merely one or to become shackled to a spouse in order to do so, does not make them evil. You know I am capable of good deeds. You remember the young orphan boy I pardoned from here? Peter, I think his name was. He attacked the Queen's carriage. I entrusted his moral development to you rather than pass the ultimate sentence. I was merciful. And are the coffers of this orphanage not full of the Queen's coin, donated and delivered by my own self and my servant Magnus only yesterday?'
'Oh you are very good at fooling everybody; distracting them with your 'good deeds' but I know what a fetid bitch you really are and so you must be cleansed,' he said, rolling up his sleeves and brandishing a metal studded flail.
Realising there was little point in saying anymore, Naphtalie bowed her head, bound and naked on the floor and resigned herself to what she knew must surely come.
Just down the hall, several rooms away, the young lad named Peter was huddled up in his bed listening to the Queen's screams. He was not cold tonight. He had an extra blanket and a belly full of food, thanks to the Queen's generous contributions to the orphanage. He was in pain though -- the pain of empathy. He had felt that flail many times. He had the scars to prove it. He remembered the glee, with which Father Ashley wielded it. That ugly lizard tongue clamped between his teeth. Eyes shining in perverse pleasure. Oh yes, Peter remembered it well and he could not endure reliving it.