Light Casts No Shadows, part 6.

   Now, I recall little of that first night in Thornton Manor, for the first thing I looted was Thornton's wine cellar. 
   In my rsge, I smashed open bottles with my sword and quathed from the shattered glass.
   Then I went from room to room, gathering all of value. Gold, silver, gems, diomonds. plates, clocks, cutlery, chests of coin, bags of money, weapons, jewelry. There was plenty.
   Half blind with wine and rage I roamed about the manor, hunting like a demented beast. I smashed open anything that was locked, defaced every painting of Thornton or his kin. Some things I destroyed simply for the joy of seeing them break. The greatest, wildest joy came from knowing that I took from Thornton.
   I carried arm-fulls of it down to the cellars, and piled it in an empty vault between the wine cellar and the cell where I had placed the lady.
   I thought little of her that night, nor do I believe I heard her weeping.
   After gathering my hoarde I selected the finest bottle of red, opened it in the conventional manner, and took it to the cell that held my collection.
   There, I sat upon my treasure, like a dragon on its hoarde, and drank. Suddenly time and labour caught up with me, my boiling blood became ice, and I was exhausted. Empty and exhausted. I drank from his wine. 
   At the darkest and coldest time of night, just before sunrise, Jacques joined me.
   "How does it feel, now that you have all that you wanted?" he asked.
   "I feel nothing,' it was true, my heart was but a lump of slag in my chest.
   "Come now, tell me. How does it feel? I have lead you here, guilded you in your hours of weakness. Where is my reward?"
   "I feel nothing.
   He cursed in French. How I hate that language.
   "Thornton took all I had from me. He stabbed me in the back as I served my country. Now I have taken all that he had from him. That is all, it is over."
   I finished the last drop of wine and lay down on my gold.
   "What of the girl?" he asked with a smile.
   "What of her?"
   "What will you do with her now that you have her?"
   "Nothing."
   "Nothing," he snarled. "What sort of a man are you? I know exactly what I would you with her..."
   "You are foul," I growled. "Why couldn't you have stayed in France?"
   "I often ask myself the same question."
   Then, I believe, I passed out.