by Susan King
After a long, cold, pounding ride to Graymere Keep, they had been led to Whitehawke’s newly built chamber hall, and up to this bedchamber near the gallery that overlooked the great hall. A guard had brought bread and watered ale and had bolted the door.
That had been hours ago. Then, quite late in the afternoon, they heard the first thrumming of the pipes and drums as the Twelfth Night feast began in the great hall.
The children had been distracted from their fear, hunger, and boredom by the sounds. Emlyn told them a story and divided the bread between the children and Betrys, only swallowing a dry mouthful herself. Finally she and Betrys had coaxed them to sleep on the deep, dusty feather mattresses.
She lifted the shutter hook, letting in cold air and pale lavender light. Snow feathered down in gentle spirals, and the sky seemed tinted with an amethyst wash. Breathing in the fresh, damp air, she peered out into chill silence.
The chamber hall was built directly into the outer curtain wall. Rough-hewn limestone stretched down to a slanted base, which met the frozen moat far below. Beyond the moat, a steep ravine tumbled away to the black depths of a river. From where she sat, Graymere Keep seemed suspended in an icy ring of water on a base of jagged rock: an impenetrable, inescapable fortress.
She remembered that Nicholas had once mentioned Whitehawke’s new keep, built over a steep drop that no army could scale. The older Norman-built tower keep was in the center of the bailey; she vaguely remembered seeing it when they entered.
There was no possibility of escape here. Sighing, she closed the shutters and went to the hearth to sit on a low stool.
She stared into the weak flames. Surely Nicholas knew of the capture by now, and would be on his way to Graymere, enraged and ready for battle.
Whitehawke must intend to keep them as hostages, but why? His fury toward Nicholas must have led him to this. Emlyn was afraid to ponder what else he might attempt.
Closing her eyes, she prayed, and the whispered Latin phrases calmed her a little. After a time, she heard the outer door bar shift, and the door creaked open. Emlyn leaped up to stand straight and firm in the bronze light.
Glancing briefly at the closed bed curtains, Whitehawke walked toward her. His black tunic merged with the shadows and his long white hair reflected the warm light as he stood before her, his pale gaze piercing and flat. The odors of strong wine and oily torch smoke lingered about him. She had not seen him since Ashbourne, and the force of his presence was startling. Raising her chin to return his stare, she tried to quell her fear.
“Lady Emlyn. Your quarters are comfortable?” His voice was a deep rumble, his tone mild.
“ ’Tis freezing in here, and the children are hungry, though thank God they sleep for now. Is this how you treat your guests?” she snapped.
“Not usually,” he said, towering over her. “God’s teeth. I will have you know that the imbecile Chavant gave the order to take the children, not I. Seizing babes is for cowards.”
“And for kings.”
He tipped an eyebrow. “Such insults are treasonous when spoken within hearing of your king.”
“What mean you?”
“King John arrived this morn. He sits at the feast in the hall below this room.”
Fear and anger spread like hot poison through her body. She clenched her fists. “Does he know you make prisoners of your son’s family?”
“Prisoners? Nay, my lady. You are my daughter-in-law, and will be staying here for a little while.”
“Where will the king go when he leaves here?” she asked, suddenly remembering Nicholas’s suspicions regarding his father.
He stared at her, his eyelids hooded. “I have no idea. The king comes from sacking the rebels at Pontefract. Since I am one of his most loyal men, he chooses to rest here for a day or two. Do you wish an audience? Think you he will show leniency to the wife of a rebel baron?” He smiled, wolflike and dangerous in the flickering firelight.
“I have neglected to congratulate you on your marriage, my lady,” he added. Then, quick as a snake, he grabbed her by the shoulders, forcing her to look up at him. “You were to be my bride. Mine,” he said, his hot breath reeking of onion and decay with every wheezy exhalation.
“Nicholas had the prior claim, and took it,” she said.
“Where were you those weeks we searched?” he demanded, his voice clotted with anger. He shook her. “You betrayed me! Your absence was a humiliation to me!”
“I—I stayed with villeins, my lord,” she said.
“The Green Man? Or did the Thorne keep you?” She winced at his painful grip. He was so much larger than her that he could have lifted her from the floor with no effort. “You stayed with the one who took you. Did you whore yourself for him?”
“My lord,” she said, pushing against his powerful arms. “Do not speak to me thus. I did not wish to marry you. When Nicholas offered, I married him, as my father had arranged.”
“I am not some snot-faced young suitor for you to reject!”
Her jaw hurt, she was hungry and tired, and her shoulders ached from his grip. “Let go of me,” she said irritably, pummeling at him. “Let go!”
He opened his large hands suddenly, and she stumbled free, rubbing her arms and glaring up at him. He hovered over her. “How dare you reject a betrothal arranged by the king!”
Her own anger and discomfort flared like a wall of flame. “I am no sword blade to be used in your war!” she yelled. “You and your son have each wielded me against the other! The king regarded me as just one more sheep to be handed over with Ashbourne! I have been abducted, tricked—” She realized then, with a burst of horror, what she almost said, and mustered her composure. “I am full and proper wed to Nicholas. His offer was accepted by my parents.”
“Nicholas wed with you to grind the blade at me, misdoubt it not. Why else wed so quick? You do not carry his child that I can see.” He narrowed his eyes. “Where did you hide? And how did he find you when my men could not?” He paused, and then raised his eyebrows as the truth dawned on him. “Of course. He had the children. You went to him.”
She remained mute, allowing him to make his suppositions. He nodded, continuing. “But I am not here to rail against you for marrying my son when you were promised to me.”
She blinked in surprise. “What do you want, then?”
His blue eyes were shards of ice. “The Black Thorne.”
“Thorne?” Her voice sounded wooden, half-witted.
“My men saw you with him at the waterfall. Tell me where he can be found.”
She stared dumbly at him. “I know naught of such a man.”
“Do not be a fool,” he warned her. “By the devil, I scoured half the York shire looking for you—so I could find him! You know where he hides himself in that dale.” He reached out and grabbed one loose, uncombed golden braid, drawing her toward him as if he held a leash. “Tell me where to find his lair, my lady, do you wish to see the light of another day!”
“Nicholas will come for me,” she said, wincing against the pull on her hair. “He and his garrison will knock at your gate!”
“He would not dare to attack this keep with King John here. And you will be dead ere Nicholas sees you again, if you do not speak! Give me the Black Thorne!”
“Villeins saved me. I know of no Thorne.”
“Tell me,” he said, his voice rough as crushed stone, his grip tight and sharp on her braid.
“I met villeins only. And all the forest looks alike to me.”
Two spots of livid color stained his cheeks. “You lie.”
“I cannot help you.”
Letting go of the plait, he struck her across the face. Stumbling but keeping her balance, she raised her eyes defiantly.
“I cannot help you.” She cradled her throbbing cheek.
“You can and you shall. The bratlings will stay here under guard. Your silence will harm them, my lady. Remember that. Give me what I ask, for their sake.”
She stared at h
im silently, breathing hard, her mind whirling. Nicholas and the children were each threatened, whether she stayed silent or spoke. She had to risk that Whitehawke would not actually harm children. She said nothing.
Grabbing her arm, Whitehawke dragged her across the room to the door and pulled it open.
“Mayhap you will not care for our donjon,” he said, and shoved her across the threshold into Chavant’s waiting arms.
Icy bursts of wind whipped at her cloak as Chavant hauled her across the bailey like a recalcitrant mule. An eerie half light was cast by gently falling snow. Whitehawke strode ahead briskly, crossing the yard, passing soldiers and servants without a word.
Rising from the center of the bailey like a monolithic stone box, the old keep blocked the wind and the milky light. Emlyn stumbled up the steep, crumbling steps and entered the darkened doorway, pushed by Chavant. Whitehawke lifted a burning torch from its stone socket just inside the door, and mounted a flight of curving steps ahead of them.
He spoke over his shoulder, “This tower keep was built over a hundred years ago. We use its rooms for storage now.” His tone was mild and conversational. “If we are ever besieged, our attackers would run short of supplies long before we would. Every room is packed with stores—sacks of flour, barley, oats, and beans. Barrels of cured meat and salted fish. Tuns of wine and ale, and water enough to fill a pond. Resin torches, candles, blankets—enough to keep us for six months or more.”
Listening as she went, pushed upward by Chavant’s prodding hand at her back, Emlyn negotiated the steps carefully, stumbling a little over the dips and bumps in the worn stone.
At the third and uppermost level, Whitehawke stopped at a door. “One chamber here is not used for stores.” She heard the shrill scrape of a key, and the door creaked open.
Shoved inside the room, she pulled back her hood and looked around. Beyond the pool of light created by Whitehawke’s torch, she saw only shapes and degrees of darkness.
“Chavant,” Whitehawke said, “get down to the hall and see to our lord king. Bring word if he needs my attendance.”
Chavant nodded and left, shutting the door. Whitehawke turned in the center of the room, holding the torch high. “But for dust, this room looks just as it looked then.”
Her eyes adjusted to the dimness, and Emlyn saw a curtained bed, a high-backed chair, a table, a wooden chest emerge from the shadows as the torch swept in slow circles. A large tapestry hung on one wall, and the wall opposite was pierced by a slender arrow-slit window.
Thick dust coated every surface. Cobwebs spun delicate, lacy bridges between the table and the bed, the canopy and the wooden rafters in the ceiling. Emlyn’s nose twitched, and she coughed.
Whitehawke set the torch in an iron sconce high in the wall, then strolled to the table and ran a finger along the dusty surface. “She spent her last days here.”
Cold, fleshy bumps rose along Emlyn’s arms. “Lady Blanche?”
“Aye,” he said gruffly. “This was her favorite chamber in the days when we lived in this keep. She would watch the stars here, of a night.”
Emlyn stepped closer. “You speak of her with affection.”
He blew out a mirthless chuckle. “I admired her beauty. She had eyes like silver, hair like ebony. She had a sharp mind for a woman, and could read and cipher like a priest. She had good knowledge, as well, of plant medicines.” He shrugged. “But women are weak and untrustworthy creatures. She betrayed me. Humiliated me.”
“She gave you a son, she ran your household,” Emlyn offered.
“Blanche betrayed her marriage vows. She had a lover, though she would not admit it. I knew the man, a knight. I confronted them, challenged him to a tourney. Julian can tell you this.”
“I have heard none of it,” Emlyn murmured.
“I knocked the man from his charger and killed him. Then I went home and shut my wife in this room.”
“You imprisoned her.”
“ ’Twas not unheard of. Even King Henry shut his Eleanor up to keep her hands from the reins and quell her tongue. I locked her in to teach her humility. And I sent her son to her sister.”
“What happened to Lady Blanche?”
“She starved to death,” he said flatly. “Here in this room.” He rubbed a hand over his face and hair, wildly, as if scrubbing at something. Snow light from the window picked out shining peaks in his hair, like demon’s horns. “Before a week was out.”
“My God,” Emlyn breathed. She knew of people who had fasted for ten days and more and been no worse for it. Others, though, were more fragile, and suffered ill after a day or two.
“I eat no flesh. I fast often. I had a convent built.”
“You regret your cruelty, my lord,” she said. “The priests say God forgives those who repent.”
He turned to stare at her. “I have no regrets,” he snarled. “Her death was her parting insult to me. She died rather than admit her adultery, out of spite. I ask no forgiveness from God. I was in the right.”
Emlyn blinked at him, confused. “Then why do you forgo flesh food? Why the convent?”
“Priests’ advice for the sake of my eternal soul. I do not regret the punishment I gave her, but Blanche showed me a final humiliation. Her death keeps me from heaven.” He pounded a fist on the table. “Do you hear? She keeps me from heaven!”
“Lord Whitehawke.” Emlyn held her voice firm, though her heart beat rapidly. “My lord, do not commit another such act. Let us go. Send the children, at least, back to Hawksmoor.”
He paced the room, and she realized that he was very drunk from his Twelfth Night feast, for he swayed and shuffled at the turns. “Nay,” he said, shaking his head. “I cannot let you go. You, too, have betrayed me, and caused me humiliation.”
He crossed the room and grabbed Emlyn’s face in one large hand, his meaty fingers cold on her skin, his grip forcing her head back. “Give me my enemy if you would be free.”
“I have said I cannot help you.”
His fingers pressed deep into her jaw, bruising the skin. “No woman will ever best me again.” He was panting now, and reached a hand to rub his upper chest, though his grip on her face grew tighter. “Give me the Black Thorne!”
She met his glare with her own, silently, her breathing a soft rhythm between his noisy exhalations.
“Why such loyalty, lady?” he drawled dangerously. “ ’Tis misplaced. You owe fealty to your husband, and to the bratlings in the chamber hall.” He shoved her then, violently, and she fell back, crashing down onto the bed. The straw-filled mattress rustled beneath her, raising a cloud of mold and dust.
“Stay here, then,” he bellowed, “and think on Blanche’s fate!” His dark height towered over her, and he raised his hand. She winced away, covering her face, listening to his hoarse breathing. After a moment, he turned and went to the door.
“Soon you will see the wisdom in speaking. You are stronger stock than Blanche. A time without sustenance will clear your thoughts, as any holy fast will do.”
He opened and then slammed the door. Emlyn heard the key rotate in the lock. Leaping from the bed, she ran to pull at the ring handle set in the door.
“Nay!” she screamed. “You cannot!” Beating on the door until the soft flesh of her palms was bruised, she heard only silence. Thick walls and three levels of chambers stuffed with sacks and barrels absorbed sound like a tower of feather beds.
After a while, Emlyn crossed to the window. Freezing air soothed her heated face. Beyond the beveled stone frame, the sky shimmered with infinitesimal layers of falling snow.
She extended her arm out the deep-set, narrow aperture, able to reach no farther than her elbow. Tiny flakes fluttered and melted on her palm, cold and fresh and pure. Far across the courtyard, faint sounds from the Twelfth Night feast drifted, muffled by the silent, thick snowfall.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Christ’s trews, our friendship is at an end for certain,” Peter muttered. He squirmed on the cart seat
and adjusted his gauzy veil. “I swear, my lord, next tourney that is given, I will win enough land to leave your service at last.”
Nicholas looked over his shoulder as he leaned forward and slapped the reins. “If we live through this, I shall give you the land myself and be glad to see you gone. An old grandmother could not gripe more.”
“An old grandmother would not have had to shave off a mustache for a friend’s cause.” Peter picked at the folds of his skirt.
Nicholas cast his friend a side glance and pinched down a smile. “Mayhap not. But I am too tall to be the wench. Brush up those charming red curls of yours, and we will gain admittance without delay.”
“This is a witless scheme,” Peter complained. He spread his knees and propped one boot upon the side of the cart.
“But costumes are always welcome on Twelfth Night.”
Peter grunted sullenly. “Go milk cranes.”
“You have armor and weapons beneath that pretty borrowed gown and cloak of yours. Remove the female clothing as soon as we are in, and out of sight, if it makes you feel better.”
“I feel a twatling fool,” Peter muttered.
“Well, even with that tender babe’s face of yours, you still need this darkness to pass as a woman,” Nicholas said, urging the slow ox forward as they lumbered closer to the castle walls. “Think you the gatesmen would admit two armed knights?”
“Nay. But the miller and his wife, bringing ale and baskets of fresh bread for the feast, will be inside in a trice.”
“Aye, and the ruse had better get us in. I paid near the miller’s income for a year for this wagon, and the same all round the village for the bread and ale and clothing. Straighten up, would you, and sit as becomes a woman. We are near the drawbridge.” Nicholas pulled the hood of his cloak down to shadow his face in the reflected light of the thick, rapid snowfall. Soft drifts covered the ground and piled on the parapet and against the base of the castle in gracefully tapered shapes, nearly glowing in the darkness.
