by Janzen, Tara
Dain’s voice rose in the hall, and Vivienne leaned forward in her chair, her smile fading in anticipation of his next move. The crowd gasped as he lifted a charm into the air. A serpent stone, rich magic indeed to save a beggar girl.
Ragnor drew a blade, holding it in a manner better suited for protection than attack, but Vivienne was reluctant to take a chance. She reached for her husband and bent her head near.
“Ragnor’s prize is not worth the sorcerer’s blood. Stop your beast before he goes too far.”
“No.” The Baron of Wydehaw’s gaze did not waver from the torchlit circle.
“I would not have him marked,” she insisted, staring at her husband until he was forced to acknowledge her with a shift of his gaze.
“Have you no faith in the man?” he asked.
“Only faith that one day he will be mine, and when that day comes, I do not want him scarred with Ragnor’s rage,” she said through her teeth, her irritation growing with the delay. “Stop the beast.”
A strange scream rent the air, jerking both their attentions back to the drama taking place by the hearth. Ragnor had dropped the dirty beggar and was beating a hasty retreat from the hall.
Soren burst into laughter, a hearty chuckle unlike what she’d heard from him in some time.
“So much for the beast, my dear,” he said. “I think our sorcier has won the day and the girl, while Ragnor proves to have the balls of a newt.”
Vivienne sank back into her chair, partially relieved and yet even more discontent. Her husband’s wording did little to improve her mood, as the statement wasn’t exactly correct. Out of desperation, she’d taken Ragnor to her bed once, and a more miserable experience she’d never had, coarse and brutish, like the stupid man himself, worse even than her nights with the seneschal, who had merely bored her to death. The cook, at least, had smelled like fresh bread when she’d had him. The squire didn’t bear remembering at all.
’Twas Dain Lavrans she wanted.
“Aye,” she murmured to herself, watching him with a narrowed gaze. ’Twas the sorcerer she wanted.
Chapter 3
Dain threw home the bolt on the Druid Door, locking out the servants who had carried the maid into the tower and then taken Noll away, and anyone else who might think to seek him out that night. Ragnor would be lying in wait for the girl throughout the keep, but braver men than the red giant had sweated out the last of their courage in the northern tower of the upper bailey. Dain knew the knight would not press so much as the toe of his boot on a black or white stair. The maid was safe from Ragnor the Red whilst she was in the Hart Tower. Mayhaps she was safe even from Wydehaw’s mage. Dain hadn’t decided yet.
He turned and passed her where she lay on a pallet next to the fire. She looked deathly pale, but his cursory examination had shown the bleeding to have stopped and her breath to be warm and even. The bastard had broken her ankle, but Dain had set a good share of bones. After he got the swelling down, he could do this one better than most.
Elixir and Numa settled themselves on either side of the hearth, elegant heads resting on outstretched paws, tails curling toward the heat. Erlend had been evicted from his rough bed to fetch eggs for the work ahead. A lightning-struck guard had indeed been brought into the hall shortly after Ragnor’s retreat, but D’Arbois had relegated the poor sod to the village leech so that Dain could mend the urchin.
He shrugged free of his cloak and hung it up to dry and steam by the fire. The gambeson followed, unlaced by a deft hand. Rain fell in frozen sheets from the night sky, beating against the wooden shutters that sealed the two unglazed tower windows. The winter had been long and hard, a test of survival for all who resided within the castle walls. Even his resources, varied and covert as they were, would not stretch much farther without the pinch being felt. It was not a good year to be taking on extra mouths to feed.
He glanced over his shoulder at the maid. ’Twas unlikely she would survive through to Beltaine, May Eve, let alone become a burden on his larder. Ragnor had already had a taste of her and judging from his reaction, one taste would not suffice. Small comfit that she was, it wouldn’t take more than another bite or two to finish her off.
An irritated grimace tightened his mouth. Hapless victims of marauding knights were not his responsibility, but were there a reason to do so, he could save her from Ragnor. The knight was easily swayed by the casting of magical spells and dark incantations. Yet in the end ’twould prove futile. If not the red beast, another with more lust than superstition would claim her. Dain only hated to see good work and physick go for naught.
He lifted his hand to the shelves of storage jars lining the curved wall of his chambers. Clay vessels held most of his desiccated materia medica: herbs, simples, and less pleasant concoctions. Receipts requiring days of steeping were kept in glass containers. Dried herbs, flowers, and other plants hung from the rafters. He had his own collection of relics displayed on the mantel, but to date, none of the small bones had revealed any saintly powers.
The truly powerful artifacts and fossils he had collected over the years were kept in an iron chest chained to the foot of his bed. Much of his past and most of his heritage were nestled in the folds of crimson wool contained therein. Many of his secrets and a few of his regrets shared the cloth.
He glided his fingers across the letters marked on each container and chose what he needed for the making of pudre ruge. By twos, he carried the vessels over to the table holding his mortar and pestles. From the highest shelf, he gathered henbane and white poppy for a sleeping draught. If the maid awoke from her faint before he started, he would render her insensible again, or at least as insensible as he deemed reasonable. Too much of the draught accomplished what his green serpent stone could not—a true death-sleep.
The chit still had the bauble clutched to her breast, which suited him fine for the moment. He had a generous tolerance for those who believed in his wily magic.
Bandages came next, set out on the table in neat piles. He filled the cauldron with water and swung it over the fire. A leather spice pouch was laid close to the brazier. Most of the castle folk went to the village leech or the witch, Madron, who lived on the forest edge of the demesne, to have their ills cured and their wounds stitched, which also suited Dain fine. He had no desire to see his days filled up with puking and mewling varlets; and in truth, he went to Madron himself when in need. He and the witch had much in common with their simples and their tricks, and with the deference given them both by the wilder folk in the forests.
A frantic clanging of the bronze knocker announced Erlend’s return. No one else would choose to make such a racket with the gargoyle staring them down.
“Milord, milord.” The old man’s voice cracked with a hint of desperation. “Open ’er up, milord.”
Milord? Dain stopped in the middle of reaching for the marked wine cask. The graybeard must have brought more than eggs and asked for none of it.
Dain strode over and opened the door, and the old man stumbled inside, his hands full of booty, his beard flecked with pastry crumbs. Below him, down in the darkness of the stairwell, a man cursed loudly.
“The devil take ye, ye swivin’ bread-bandit!”
“Bread?” Darin asked, eyeing the load of foodstuffs.
“Aye.” Erlend’s rheumy eyes nearly twinkled. “Good wastel and some little fig pies I ate on the way. I’m most sorry I am, jongleur, but me mouth got away from me and they’re all gone, every one.”
“The Devil, ye hear!” the man called up. “Aye, and methinks he’s already in yer company, ye soddin’ old bastard.”
“And the eggs?” Dain asked, ignoring the insult echoing up the stairs.
“Enough for all.” Erlend hobbled over to the table and emptied his hands of the rain-splashed bread, except for a pasty he tucked under his arm.
Dain bolted the door and walked back to his shelves. “How many is enough?”
“Seven.”
“Let’s have them, then.�
�� He pulled down a copper bowl and set it before the old man. Patting pouches and the roll of tunic above his belt, Erlend managed to locate and retrieve five eggs. Dain looked down at them in the bowl. “And the rest?”
“That’s all of ’em. All seven of ’em.” The old man beamed.
“Of course,” Dain said, chiding himself for expecting a truer count.
“Will you be needin’ me for anything else?” Erlend asked, doing a poor job of trying to hide the pasty with his sleeve.
“I’ll call for you, if I want you.”
“She’s a bit o’ a wee thing, ain’t she,” the old man said, looking down where the maid lay on the pallet. “I s’pose I could help ye with gettin’ her gown off.”
Dain felt a muscle tighten in his jaw. “I think not.” He concealed his irritation with as little success as Erlend concealed his pasty. “Go eat your filched supper and find a bed elsewhere.”
“Elsewhere? I’d not be safe elsewhere, not with me...” He stopped himself, his thin mouth tightening in a stubborn line.
“Pasty.” Dain provided the missing word with impatience. Nothing about the night had gone according to plan.
“Aye,” the servant confessed, albeit grudgingly. “It’s a pasty.” He pulled the loaf-sized pie from beneath his arm. “But not much of one, I’d swear it on me old mother’s heart.”
“No need,” Dain said, ready for the man to be off. “I’ve eaten Renaud’s pasties.” What did it matter to him if Erlend wanted to peek up the maid’s skirts? Nothing. Nothing was what it mattered, yet he wasn’t going to allow it. “You may use the room below stairs tonight.”
Erlend opened his mouth, then hesitated, his lips working silently before he spoke up.
“It stinks like the Devil’s own fiery pits down below, what with all yer mixin’ and fixin.’ Ye know it as well as yer standin’ there.”
“The upstairs chamber then?” Dain asked, one dark eyebrow arched in false innocence. He could tolerate only so much insurrection in an evening. Fortunately, his words had the desired effect, saving him from the bother of a more vile threat.
“Yer a wicked, selfish man, bard-boy,” the old man grumbled, heading for the stairs that led to the room below. “’Twouldn’t be no fat off yer calf for me to have a look up ’er skirts. Nothin’ there I ain’t seen afore. Nothin’ worth spendin’ the night in yer strange damned eyrie.”
Dain had thought not.
Erlend disappeared below the hatch in the floor, mumbling and grouching. Dain turned back to the wine cask he’d been reaching for, a small cask of D’Arbois’s best, compliments of the ever-hopeful Lady Vivienne. The seal was intact. A smile crossed his face. ’Twas good to know there were a few things the old man didn’t dare.
He put some wine on the brazier to warm, adding a portion of water and spice. A mighty clap of thunder boomed and rolled across the heavens. Wind rattled the shutters. With a careful hand, he tapped measures of henbane and poppy into his mortar. The Wye and Llynfi rivers, which flowed on either side of Wydehaw Castle, would be rising higher with each hour of rain. Mayhaps the maid had saved him from a useless foray. The renegade he sought had no doubt watched the weather and the rivers and long since moved to higher ground.
When the draught was mixed, he poured a cup and knelt by the maid. Sad and bedraggled thing. Lost and alone. He dipped warm water out of the cauldron into a basin. All manner of evil and misfortune befell women who found themselves in such dire straits, and she seemed to be faring worse than most, having ended up in the Hart Tower of Wydehaw with only himself to keep her safe. He wet a cloth and carefully wiped it across her brow. Mud and blood came away, revealing skin as tender as a seraph’s smile.
He drew the cloth down the center of her nose, then under each eye. She had been sorely abused. Besides the wound on her temple—a hand’s-span length of torn flesh he would have to mend—she had dark bruises on her cheeks and a deep red mark on her neck where Ragnor must have sucked hard on her, no doubt in preparation for the bite on her shoulder.
Dain let his gaze drift downward. There would be the mess of the rape to clean up. Ragnor was brutal with a maid. He should have thought before to check her there for bleeding. He had enough irony in his nights without the girl’s life seeping out from between her legs as he so carefully tended her head.
He reached down and pulled up the hem of her coarse woolen gown and kirtle, modesty being beyond his means or his inclinations. The poor quality of the gray cloth was enough to prove her lack of worth, except that the chemise beneath the outer garments was of fine linen trimmed with silk riband—a mystery, indeed—and below the chemise another mystery. Her naked limbs were smooth and clean, the hair of her mons softly curled. She had not been touched, not by Ragnor, not by anyone within the last few hours.
Mayhaps never?
Something about her pristine mound put the question in his mind, and once there, it demanded an answer. He straightened from where he knelt at her side and went to his shelves again. Tucked into a corner between the wall and a corbel he found a small vial of rose oil, a gift to him from the maid Edmee.
It was a simple enough examination, performed with a gentle and fragrant hand. When he was finished, he sat back on his heels and pulled down her gown. Aye, she’d been sorely abused, but she was virgin still.
He’d needed a reason to save her, and he’d been given two. There could be a rich ransom for a virgin wearing a linen-and-silk chemise, providing he could keep her out of the baron’s clutches and Ragnor’s bed, and providing he could track down the one willing to pay.
A low moan shuddered from her lips, sounding of pain and distress. He reached for the sleeping draught.
“Mychael.” She spoke the name in an agonized whisper, giving him pause. He shifted his gaze to her face. She was bruised and swollen, yet there was a delicacy about her features that he found appealing. He would do his best not to scar her overly much.
Unbidden by intent, he reached out and stroked the side of her face, using much the same manner as he used to soothe Numa. It would be easy enough to arrange to keep her in the tower with him. If Soren wanted her whole, he could be convinced to wait until Dain pronounced her healed. Ragnor could be put on a short leash, or sent away to maraud farther afield in Elfael. The favor to her and her lord would cost Dain little and possibly bring him much gain. Such was life in Wydehaw.
He traced the curve of her cheek with his fingers. Aye, he would keep her... and keep her virgin? His thumb glided across her full lower lip, his skin warming with the sigh of her breath.
The night was not what it should have been. Had things gone according to plan, he would be in Morgan’s camp, feasting on stolen D’Arbois cattle and digesting the latest news from the north. Wine would have been passed and stories told, and no doubt they would have gotten around to the curious tales whispered of Caradoc. Patricide was not unheard of and there had been no love lost ’tween father and son, but ’twas the manner of the rumored murder Dain found disturbing and thus hard to believe.
On the morrow he would search out Morgan and learn how far Caradoc had wandered from the straight and narrow path that had led three boys to take the cross and follow Richard the Lionheart into hell. For they had been boys on the Crusade, he and Caradoc and Morgan, and not the men they had thought themselves to be, a fact proven on the bloody sands of Palestine; and proven for Dain again as a captive in the tents of the Saracen trader Jalal al-Kamam.
Some, though, need not go so far from home to find their virtue hanging in the balance. Dain lifted a handful of the maid’s pale hair and remembered the startling light blue of her eyes. She stirred, releasing a breathy groan, and he let the white-gold strands fall back to her side.
She was pretty.
~ ~ ~
Hours later, Dain washed the last of the girl’s blood from his hands. A dozen candles blazed on the floor surrounding the pallet and in the torchères he’d set at his side for more light. Never had he taken so many stitches in so sm
all a space, both on her face and her shoulder. He’d given her a portion of the sleeping draught before he’d put the needle to her flesh, knowing he was in no mood for screaming and crying.
Now a sound or two, or a tear, would be welcome. She was too quiet, and becoming more intriguing all the time. He’d found a book in the folds of her ragged cloak, bound in red leather and marked on the cover with gold, a rare thing to be carting around the wilderness.
He finished dressing her wound with his concoction of pudre ruge and sealed the whole with albumen. Ragnor had cut her deliberately; the wound followed her hairline too closely for it to have been an accident. With time, the scar would barely be noticeable, but he wouldn’t be complimenting the knight on the accuracy of his torture. Damascene steel was required for truly subtle blade work. Compared to what Dain could inflict, Ragnor’s neat slice looked like butchery. Mayhaps one day he would give the red beast a personal lesson with his Syrian dagger.
He returned to the foot of the pallet and removed the cold compress from her ankle. The swelling was finally down. He felt carefully along the bone, probing with his fingertips to determine which way the break lay. When he knew as much as he would, he braced himself and, taking her foot in his hands, pulled.
Her pained cry brought the flicker of a smile to his lips. He had never yet killed anyone with henbane, an omission on his list of sins he had hoped not to remedy with the maid.
After splinting and wrapping her ankle, and listening to her cry and sniffle through the whole procedure, he moved to her side. He could do nothing more for her, except wipe her tears.
He leaned across her for a cloth, and the sniffling stopped with a soft inhalation. The contact he’d made was chest to breast, a position already proven to be rare in her life.
