The Murders of Richard III by Elizabeth Peters

head finally convinced him. He was standing on that very head—upside down, to put it plainly. His arms were tightly bound to his sides and his legs were tied together. A gag covered his mouth. He was blind. Literally blind; his eyes were uncovered and open, but he could see nothing. He could smell, however. The smell filled his nostrils and increased the nausea which his position and his injury had instigated. One other sense, normally unused except by the genuinely blind, came feebly to his assistance—the generalized sense of location centered in the nerve cells of his face. Thomas’s brief state of consciousness was fading again, but he was a man of considerable intelligence; his reeling brain put the data together and came up with an incredible answer. The smell of stale wine, the sense of enclosure in something narrow and confining, the absurd, humiliating position. Thomas tried to swear, choked, and fainted again.
    When he regained consciousness the second time he opened one eye to check the stimuli beforedeciding whether to retain his senses. The result was reassuring. He was prone and horizontal; his limbs ached, but they were free; light greeted his eyes, and there had been a fleeting suggestion of a face, haloed in flame and pale with what Thomas hoped was anguish on his behalf. He opened his mouth and croaked like a frog.
    â€œWhat did you say?” The voice was Jacqueline’s. It was cool and controlled and mildly querulous.
    Hurt, Thomas opened both eyes and blinked them till they got used to the light. It seemed blinding after the darkness that had surrounded him earlier, but it was only the dim bulb in the ceiling of the wine cellar. He was lying flat on the dusty floor, and beside him, turned over on its side, was an empty barrel—a large barrel, fully five feet high when erect.
    Someone put a glass to his dry lips. Thomas drank. The liquid tasted like vintage champagne to his dusty throat. He realized that it was champagne. Jacqueline had opened a bottle. Thomas swallowed, and repeated his question.
    â€œI’m afraid so,” Jacqueline said regretfully.
    â€œI was in a barrel?”
    â€œThat’s the third time you’ve asked that.”
    â€œI still can’t believe it. I won’t believe it. Oh,God—” Thomas sat up and glared wildly. “Who else saw me?”
    â€œThis is no time to be worrying about your male ego,” Jacqueline said. She spread her knees and received Thomas’s head neatly in her lap as he fell back. “Thomas, darling, you aren’t hurt, you know. Only the classic bump on the head. But—you really did scare me for a minute!”
    The wobble in her voice restored some of Thomas’s battered vanity. Her lap felt comfortable—soft, cool, silky. He wriggled his head into an easier position and relaxed.
    â€œIt took you long enough,” he said grumpily. “It’s a wonder I didn’t die of congestion of the brain or something.”
    â€œYou were only in—in that thing for a couple of minutes.”
    â€œHow do you know? It felt like days.”
    â€œI waited for ten minutes before I started to look for you. Considering the time it took to knock you out, truss you up, and—er—insert you…”
    Jacqueline’s voice was still unsteady, but Thomas suspected another emotion than concern. He squinted up at her, saw the corners of her mouth quiver, and suddenly smiled with the good humor that was one of his most endearing characteristics.
    â€œI must have looked like an absolute fool,” he said. “My feet sticking up out of that thing…I don’t blame you for laughing.”
    â€œI’m not laughing,” said Jacqueline.
    Thomas sat up. He garnered Jacqueline into his arms and for a time they sat in silence while she made gulping noises into his shirt front. Finally she detached herself and sat up on her heels. Her face was smudged with dust and her