by Janzen, Tara
Numa blocked his path, her milk-white body trembling, her gaze fixed across the flames and rising smoke to the far wall. Ragnor was there, and the bitch liked him no better than any maid, yet it was unlike her to disobey merely to indulge a fit of personal pique.
“Gå,” he whispered, modulating his voice to make the command little more than a breath.
When she hesitated, he looked once more across the fire, trying to discern what held her so enthralled. A pile of rags had been chained to the cresset, and it undoubtedly contained an urchin or, considering Ragnor’s vicinage, a virgin. Still, there were urchins aplenty in Wydehaw and enough virgins if one gave the definition a broad range.
A swath of white-blond hair tangled in the small heap held his interest for a moment. Then he moved on, a flick of his cloak against Numa’s hock telling her he would abide no more rebellion.
When he reached the foot of the dais, he found himself turning once again toward the hearth. For a man compelled by very little besides his own whim, that he turned at all surprised him. He blamed the deviant behavior on Numa’s unprecedented interest. The face he saw lifting from the pile of rags was another surprise, and for that he had nothing to blame but an unknown facet of his own nature. He hadn’t realized he harbored a conviction that jewels should be chained only when they were to be worn about the neck.
Pale blue eyes with the startling crystalline quality of gemstones peered out at him from gamine features streaked with blood and mud. Terror marked the maid’s gaze, and though he took pride in his ability to frighten the innocent and the not-so-innocent alike, he was disconcerted by the girl’s reaction. She would have to be made of sterner stuff if she was to survive a night of Ragnor’s attentions.
Dismissing the novelty of a new conviction—which brought him up to a grand total of two, possibly three—he returned his attention to the lord and lady of the manor. He was not above preying upon their more insidious weaknesses when he had the strength, but he hunted other game this night. His friend, the Welsh rebel Morgan ab Kynan, had been sighted in the mountains on the Coit Wroneu, a month late by Dain’s reckoning, but no less welcome. Dain was in need of some good company after the long winter, and Morgan and his band of men were companionship at its best.
Also, rumors had been flying for months concerning their old friend, Caradoc, whom some now called the Boar of Balor Keep—an inauspicious name to Dain’s way of thinking. Most of what he had heard was either too fantastic or too atrocious to hold more than a grain of truth, yet even in the grain there was that which disturbed him. Morgan could be counted on to have winnowed the wheat from the chaff.
“Lord D’Arbois, my lady,” he addressed the pretty, young pair on the dais.
“Dain, good friend.” Vivienne spoke, her voice coy and silky. “I pray our request has not taken you away from more important concerns.”
“I am always ready to serve, milady.”
The briefest smile twisted Soren D’Arbois’s mouth. “Aye, ’tis one of your more endearing traits, sorcier, this willingness to serve.”
The lord and lady were a matched set, both high of brow and cheek, with honeyed hair and fair faces. Soren was more hawklike in the shape of his nose, but Vivienne’s mouth held the stronger streak of cruelty. Rumor said the old baron had married the blood too close in the match of his eldest son. Looking upon the husband and wife, Dain was inclined to believe the story.
“Willingness can be a virtue or a vice, Baron.”
“The lady assures me ’tis not one of your vices,” D’Arbois answered dryly, lifting a goblet of wine in feigned salute. He drained the cup and wiped his sleeve across his mouth. “But to business, Lavrans. Ragnor has brought me a mystery.”
“And I thought he hunted roe,” Dain said, softly mocking.
“So he did,” D’Arbois said. “The buck escaped, but not the doe.” Pleased with his accidental rhyme, the baron allowed a smile and gestured toward the hearth. “Behold.”
An anguished cry echoed through the hall. Dain turned to see Ragnor hauling the girl up by the scruff of her neck and gown. Numa trembled at his side, baring her teeth in a silent growl. To soothe her, Dain traced his finger along the length of her muzzle.
Ragnor shook the girl, and she cried out again. Fresh blood seeped from the long gash at her temple, making a garish stripe of red against the colorless strands of her hair. Numa lifted a paw in readiness to attack. Dain swore silently and motioned for Elixir to move to his left side and control the bitch. One forlorn maid was not worth a fight, no matter the prettiness of her eyes.
“My lord,” he said casually, “the next time you require a mystery, send a lighter hand on the hunt, for Ragnor has broken the one he’s brought.”
“More than I would have wished,” D’Arbois agreed, though without any regret in his tone. “I trust you will be able to put her back together, and when she is of apiece, return her that we may together plumb her secrets.”
Dain refrained from reminding his lord that when the occasion or the need arose, he would prefer to plumb female secrets alone. The possibility of all manner of mésalliance involving at least himself and D’Arbois had already been much hinted at by the baron and refused by himself, though never openly discussed. D’Arbois’s single strength was his ability to keep from being directly rejected. Still, Dain would have preferred not to physick the chit. Maids screamed when he stitched. They cried for all manner of reasons. Sometimes they pleaded, but never for the right things.
“If it pleases my lord.” Dain stepped toward the hearth, because he really didn’t have a choice, and was rewarded with a warning howl of outrage from the red giant. On another, the theatrics would have seemed overplayed. With Ragnor, such was to be expected. They were at check—and Dain realized that the true sport of the evening had just begun. He had been summoned to perform a part in a nasty tableau; that of being the one to take the jewel-like beauty from the raging beast. No one else, not even D’Arbois, had dared. With good reason.
All around him, Dain heard trestles being pushed back or taken down to make room for the combatants. The hunting dogs and mongrels moved with the tables, careful to avoid drawing Elixir’s attention. Dain, himself, was more wary of Numa. Being female, she was the less predictable of the two, as she’d so aptly proven with her response to the girl.
Servants scurried through the hall like silent wraiths, eager to empty the tables and refill the cups, making all ready for the rare entertainment to come. Dain hoped not to disappoint, though he’d thought he’d done his night’s work by freezing Noll to the Druid Door.
Fresh pitch was added to the cressets. Torches were set out in iron stands to ring the hearth, enclosing the section of wall where the girl hung from her chains and Ragnor’s fist. Dain entered the blazing circle alone, leaving the hounds behind with a quiet command. The odds were already in his favor, assuming the maid was on his side. He looked at her, a pale outline against the soot-covered wall, and saw her blanch.
He could be assuming too much.
Numa whined behind him, so like a woman, but to have his bitch tear out the knight’s throat wouldn’t leave much room for his own personal glory—and he was more than a trainer of hounds, much more.
A low hum snaked around the perimeter of the great hall, as wagering took place with lightning speed. Ragnor was near seventeen stone in weight, but Dain had no intention of letting the exhibition disintegrate into a physical ordeal, not when the knight’s mind was as weak as his arm was strong, and not for a mere maid. Finesse and timing were the keys, and an invocation to turn Ragnor’s guts into a churning, knotted mass of fear.
A smile flitted across his mouth. He knew just the thing.
He moved forward with slow, measured steps, giving Ragnor enough time to contemplate his immediate future and all of eternity should he be defeated by Wydehaw’s mage, but not enough time to steal the opening gambit. At five paces away, he palmed a bit of miscellanea out of a pocket in his cloak. A quick glance proved it to
be a black stone. He slipped it back and tried again. Draconite had its purposes, but felling giants wasn’t one of them.
A chunk of petrified snake’s tongue came next, but he always needed more snake’s tongue than he had. Pieces of mermaid’s purse, wren’s teeth... he found naught he could use until the end, and a costly trick it would be besting Ragnor if the green bauble was broken or lost in the bargain.
Just out of striking distance, Dain stopped. His nose twitched in distaste; the knight stank more than would seem humanly possible. He turned his attention to the girl and let his gaze drift over her, noting the depth of her head wound, the glazed look in her eyes, and the circle of bloody marks on her shoulder.
The last gave him pause. A flame of anger sparked to life in his breast, irritating him no small measure. The knight didn’t smell human because he wasn’t, but ’twas none of Dain’s concern. The urchin’s fate was incidental, as nothing. He looked again at the ragged bite, and much to his disgust his anger flamed high enough to singe his reason.
“There are better ways to eat a maid, Ragnor,” he chided, shifting his gaze to the knight. He took a step closer and bowed his head to whisper for Ragnor’s hearing alone. “Shall I have D’Arbois chain thee to a wall in my tower so that I may teach you the tender placement of teeth and the gentler uses of thy two tongues?”
The knight stumbled in a brief retreat, hissing a name that caused Dain to laugh aloud. If he could claim buggery as his only sin and be done with it, a better man he’d be than the one he was.
He advanced a step, his laughter softening to menace in the stillness of the hall. “You rutting whoreson. I could eat thine balls to break mine fast and know nothing but the pleasure of having food in my belly.”
“S-sodding bastard.” Ragnor edged closer to the wall, hauling the maid and her chains with him. The metal links jingled against the iron cresset and scraped along the wall.
“You repeat yourself, lackwit,” Dain said, following him. “If ’tis name-calling we come to, I will need a mightier foe... but, for mortal combat, we are a fair enough match. Be still, valorous knight, and I will reveal my weapon.” With a wave of his hand, the green bauble appeared in fingertips that only a second before had been empty.
Ragnor flinched, pulling back as far as the girl’s chains allowed. Torchlight shot through the transparent ball no bigger than a small hen’s egg, setting it afire to burn hot and green in Dain’s hand.
“Do you know of serpent’s stones, dear fool?” Dain rolled the ball across his fingers and down the back of his hand as if it floated on his skin, a droplet of water going home to the sea, smoothly, without a ripple. He stopped the green orb on his wrist and smiled at Ragnor. “Ah, yes. I see that you do.” The ball slipped into the vee between his index finger and his thumb, balanced for the space of a breath, and dropped into his open palm.
“I give you Brochan’s Great Charm!” he called out, lifting the orb high and letting his voice rise to fill the hall. “Born of the froth of a thousand serpents tangled in a frenzy beneath the stones of Domh-ringr, laced with their venom and blood and hardened by their fiery breath!”
A gratifying gasp sounded around him. He leaned forward and extended the gift on the tips of his fingers. “Leave the maid, Ragnor, or take her and the stone. You may have both or neither. These are the terms I offer.”
In answer, the knight drew a blade. A nervous tic jumped at the corner of his right eye, causing the whole side of his face to twitch and jerk. “This is my term, w-wizard. Take your cursed stone or I’ll p-prick thy heart.”
“Upon the peril of your soul, Sir Squint.” Dain glided forward, his attention focused on the dagger, and began chanting under his breath. “With this stone, whether you take it or nay, I impose upon thee that thou mayst wander to and fro through a land of faerie dreams. That small dwarf, whose power could steep the king’s host in deathlike sleep...”
The dark melody of the sorcerer’s voice drew Ceridwen like a moth to flame, entrancing her with a promise of sweet oblivion. Death it would be, she thought, a faerie’s death to escape the devil named Ragnor, a faerie’s death to put her forever beyond her accursed betrothed’s reach. A more fitting fate Abbess Edith herself could not have foretold. Indeed, she had foretold Ceridwen’s fate as such: that a troublesome maid who delved too deeply into the mysteries and heresies found in the discards of the ecclesiastical scriptoria would no doubt, and most deservedly, come to her end by way of evil enchantment.
What the pious lady had not known was that evil enchantment would appear as the path of salvation compared to the damnable heresies and prophecies Ceridwen had read in those discarded manuscripts. Written upon timeworn parchment bound in red leather had been her name, and below her name, her destiny, and below her destiny, her fate.
A shudder passed through her. She would not be led like a lamb to slaughter, not by ancient prophecy. She’d said as much, whispered in silence from her heart to God’s ear, at every office of every day, until she’d convinced herself the damning passages referred not to her, but to the same-named goddess of the old religion. And wasn’t every word of the old stories heresy anyway? And what was heresy if not the most despicable lies?
Then, not a fortnight past, the despicable lies had become truth. A princely summons had come to the abbey, betrothing her to the son of Carn Merioneth’s destroyer, returning her to the very place she had sworn to avoid at all costs, for fear she was the wretched Ceridwen of the red book. She’d been torn between despair, denial, and anger ever since.
A sob rose in her throat. Death it would be before more of Ragnor’s degradation, death before she accepted the eternal damnation of her proposed marriage.
“... and let it be known”—the sorcerer’s voice lured her back—“that whosoever tries to unbind the dire enchanting art of the spell, before the thousand years are done, shall join thee in an everlasting hell...”
A thousand years of sleep and grace? Ceridwen thought. ’Twas more than she could have dreamed for. Thus emboldened, she lunged for the deadly serpent stone and caught it. Instant warmth pulsed across her palm and up her fingers, bringing painful life to frozen limbs, until with a gasped cry, she clutched the talisman to her breast and succumbed to the promised, enchanted sleep.
Dain watched, stunned, as the maid crumpled to the floor with his ball of green glass locked in her grimy fingers. He had sorely miscalculated the sternness of her stuff. None other would have stolen his bauble from beneath his very nose.
Rapid footfalls sounded Ragnor’s retreat. The coward had dropped her the moment she had touched the stone, letting out an unmanly scream of fright.
Sighing, Dain looked around. It was done, for better or for worse. He spotted the seneschal and beckoned. “Unchain the maid.”
The man bustled forward to do as he was bid. A snap of Dain’s fingers brought Elixir and Numa to his side, for a moment anyway. Numa soon deserted him for the girl receiving the seneschal’s ministrations.
Strange chit, Dain mused. Who would have thought she had enough fight left in her to grab the charm and save herself from the beast of Wydehaw? Now if only she had enough fight in her to vanquish the screams sure to rise in her throat when he stitched her together.
~ ~ ~
A small smile played about Lady Vivienne’s mouth as she watched Dain advance on Ragnor, watched Ragnor pale with fear. ’Twas always a pleasure to see the sorcerer, just to watch him move, such a lovely, dangerous man. Elusive. He hadn’t come to the hall for weeks, and she’d long since run out of excuses for sending for him. Lying could be so tiresome, especially when it didn’t get her what she wanted.
It took a true crisis to bring Lavrans forth anymore, though how one small beggar constituted a crisis was beyond Vivienne’s comprehension. Yet she was grateful for the opportunity, and for the break in the drudgery of her evenings. Had she known that marriage to a March lord would amount to little more than exile in a heathen land, she would have fought her father harder on the m
atch. Had she known that marriage to Soren would so quickly turn platonic, she would have refused altogether, no matter her initial attraction or the alternative of scandal.
As a younger maid, she had dabbled in amorous yet innocent liaisons—a whisper, a caress, a kiss, mayhaps another caress—then had delighted in tantalizing her priestly confessors with the most highly detailed and, in the beginning, embellished accounts of her sins, revealing the deeds with all the breathless fervor and subtle hesitations of a king’s courtesan. More than one priest had sought her out in the dark recesses of the church after giving her absolution and penance. All but one had found her impossible to bully and difficult to seduce, but then, the one to whom she had succumbed had been young and beautiful, and had approached her with naught but an ingenuously eager smile. For two weeks she had confessed to him night and day, so sweet had been their love. In the end, impetuosity had proven to be no friend of discretion, and they’d been caught in flagrante delicto.
The young priest’s punishment had been three years’ exile from Paris to be spent contemplating his sins in a Benedictine abbey. Hers had been life imprisonment in the March of Wales.
No man had pleased her since, except for Soren when they had first been wed. If he pleased his men and boys half as well as he had pleased his wife, they were lucky indeed. ’Twas not unheard of this affliction of her husband’s, but it was damned frustrating in a place as isolated as Wydehaw, where the most interesting possible replacement was a recluse living in a tower whose only entrance was a door that could not be breached.
She’d tried drugging Lavrans once, so she could have him brought to her bed, but he’d no sooner lifted the cup of wine to his mouth than he’d smiled his most charming smile and poured the drink into the rushes. She’d been told the draught was imperceptible. The damned leech who had sold it to her had paid for his mistake with a bout of her fury he had not soon forgotten, not with his simples smashed all over the floor and her refusing to pay for the damage. She’d heard he was still suffering from the setback. Fair enough. She was suffering too, suffering from love, or mayhaps lust. Sometimes it was difficult to tell the two apart.
