by Amy Tolnitch
“Nay,” Amice cried. “You cannot. You will reopen the wound.”
Piers stared at her, his jaw clenched tight.
“She is right, Piers,” Cain said. “I will find the place.”
When his brother looked at him, his gaze was so bleak Cain’s fury doubled. “The bastards took Giselle into the forest.”
Cain nodded. “Did you recognize them? Anything about them at all?”
“Nay. They wore no colors.”
“How many?”
“Three. I did see that much.”
Cain put a hand on Piers’s shoulder, sensing his shame at not protecting Giselle. “I shall find her.”
“If it is indeed the Bishop behind this, he means to kill us both.”
“He shall fail.”
“What if—”
Amice shushed him.
Cain pressed a kiss on Amice’s lips. “Take care of him until I return.” He gave Piers a sharp look. “You will do as my lady bids. I vow I shall not return without Giselle.”
Piers blew out a breath. “See if you can bring back one of the bastards alive. I would know who threatens us.”
“If I can.” Cain gestured to Rauf, a member of his garrison. “Gather ten of your men.” He smiled thinly. “We are going hunting.”
Padruig crept through the forest, following Cai closely and listening for any sounds out of the ordinary. After the hard rain, the sky had cleared and moonlight sifted through the trees.
Cai loped along, pausing from time to time to scent the air, his long body taut with focus. Suddenly, the wolf stopped and lifted his head. In a moment Padruig heard it too, the sound of feet crushing leaves and twigs. He drew his sword and moved behind a wide oak tree.
A figure burst into sight, running without any effort to quiet its passage.
Before Padruig could try to stop him, Cai raced toward the person and uttered a short bark. To Padruig’s shock, the figure dropped to his knees and put its arms around the wolf.
A sliver of moonlight glinted off pale hair, and Padruig realized the figure was Giselle. He rushed over and put his hand on her shoulder. She was crying, broken sounds that tore at his heart. “Giselle. ’Tis Padruig.”
“Help. Please, help me.”
Padruig removed his hand and realized it was wet. The coppery scent of fresh blood filled his nose. “Are you hurt?”
“Nay.”
“Are you being pursued?”
“I … I am not sure.”
“Can you walk?”
She sobbed in response.
“Come.” He sheathed his sword and slung her into his arms. “Cai shall warn me if others approach. You can tell me what happened once we are safe.”
She burrowed into his chest like a wounded bird seeking solace.
He moved quickly toward his dwelling, his senses alert for sounds of pursuit.
“You seem to making a habit of rescuing me,” she said, her voice breaking.
“This time you appeared to be rescuing yourself.”
At that, she fell silent and didn’t say another word until they reached his home.
Giselle couldn’t seem to stop shaking, though Padruig’s solid warmth cradled her and Cai stayed close as they moved through the trees. Dear Lord, she had killed a man. She closed her eyes tight, but the image of his face swam in her vision, blood pouring from his neck, his eyes wide in shock.
It wasn’t until she heard the thump of a heavy door that she opened her eyes. She felt her life playing itself over as Padruig gently deposited her on a stool and built up the fire. Cai sat on the floor next to her, his strangely knowing gaze fixed on her face.
“Drink this,” Padruig said, pressing a cup into her hand.
She took a sip, and warmed wine trickled down her throat.
Padruig took the other stool. “You are safe now, Giselle.”
“Thank you.” She gazed into his calm eyes and let out a breath. Then she glanced down at her clothing and began shaking all over again. Her bliaut was soaked with blood. She moaned and closed her eyes.
“Giselle,” Padruig’s voice said close. “You are safe.”
Dimly, she felt him unlace her bliaut, then her undertunic and lift them off. She’d opened her eyes, but a murky fog pressed down on her, trapping her limbs and blurring her thoughts. He ran a damp cloth over her face and arms, carefully cleaning each hand. Blindly, she reached out and found Cai’s thick fur.
Within a few minutes, she found herself enveloped in one of Padruig’s tunics. He tied a length of leather around her waist and sent her a faint smile. “ ‘Twill do for now.”
“Please … Burn my clothes.”
He nodded and gathered up the soiled garments, rolling them into a ball and taking them away.
Giselle stared into the flames and forced herself to calm. It is over now, she told herself.
“What happened?” Padruig asked.
With a cry, Giselle jumped up. “Piers! We must find Piers!”
“ ’Tis full dark out.”
She shook her head. “You do not understand. They shot him. They took me away. He was bleeding. He told me to run, and I did, but Angel wasn’t fast enough and they caught me.” She pressed a hand to her mouth but failed to stifle a sob.
Padruig held up a hand. “Slower, Giselle. Who?”
“The Bishop of Ravenswood’s brother and two others,” she spat. “Filthy whoresons,” she added, fisting her hands.
“I thought the Bishop wanted naught to do with you.”
“He didn’t until I found out he’d lied to me, that he’d stolen my birthright from me.”
Padruig nodded and stood. “What of the men?”
She rocked back on her heels, but managed to remain upright, digging her nails into her palms. “They … the brother meant to …” She flushed and met Padruig’s angry gaze. “One tried to …” she gulped and stopped.
“I ken.” Padruig calmly slid a dagger into his boot.
“I … killed him, Padruig,” she whispered. “With his own dagger while the others slept.” She didn’t even realize she was crying until she felt him wipe her cheeks with the sleeve of his tunic. He held her close, rubbing her back as if she were a child.
“You did what you had to, Giselle. ’Tis no an easy thing, I ken.”
“His face, he …”
“Earned his fate.”
Giselle let out a breath. She would pray for the man’s soul nonetheless.
“About your husband.”
She stepped back. “We must find him.”
“Aye. Cai,” he called to the wolf. “Come.” The wolf trotted to Padruig’s side and followed them into the night.
Piers awoke dripping with sweat, the edge of a nightmare slowly fading from his mind. Giselle, he thought and sat up in bed. His shoulder hurt enough that he gritted his teeth, but he stood and drew on a fresh tunic. Thankfully, his chamber was empty of a nursemaid to try to push him back into bed.
He threw open the window shutters to find it was nearly daybreak. Streamers of orange and gold spread across the heavens, lightening the gray sky. The shore was absent birdcalls, the only sound the soft rush of the waves against the sand.
His chest tightened as he made his way out of the chamber. No matter what anyone said, if Cain had not returned with Giselle, he was going after her himself.
When he entered the great hall, his mouth dropped open. He swayed on his feet, so overcome with relief he felt lightheaded. “Giselle,” he croaked.
Her gaze shot to him, and she leapt up with a cry. In an instant, Piers found his arms full of his wife, her fingers touching his face, her mouth curved in a broad smile.
“I wanted to check on you, but Amice persuaded me to let you rest,” Giselle said.
Piers slung an arm around her shoulder and made his way to the dais, where his brother sat, ringed by Amice, Father Michael, Gifford, Saraid, and … he blinked. “Padruig?”
The big man nodded. “ ’Tis good to see you up and walking. Giselle w
as most worried for you.”
Piers took a seat, shaking his head. “It appears I owe you thanks once again for rescuing Giselle. What happened?”
For a moment, no one spoke.
Padruig took a long drink of ale. “ ’Tis Giselle’s story.”
Piers gazed at Giselle, who was staring down at her lap. “Giselle?”
She blew out a breath and lifted her gaze to his. “I … escaped.”
Piers took her hand and felt the tremor beneath her skin. He also felt the pad of a bandage around her wrist and scowled. “The men were from the Bishop?”
“Aye.” She frowned. “One was his half-brother, a man called Donninc.”
“How did you manage to get away?”
The silence at the table grew heavier.
“They tied me to a tree, but they did not do a very good job of it. I suppose they did not expect I would be brave enough to try anything.”
“Fools,” Piers said, squeezing her hand.
She gave him a tremulous smile. “One of the men tried to … I loosened the ropes and stabbed him. Then I ran.” She reached for a cup, but her hand was shaking so badly she knocked it over. “Padruig and Cai found me.”
Piers gazed at her. He could read between her words enough to guess one of the bastards had tried to rape her. Anger surged in his belly. Anger and shame that he’d failed to protect her. “Well done, my lady. Well done.” He pulled her close, and stroked her hair. “I am sorry I was not of more use to you.”
She leaned into him, and her body relaxed with a long shudder.
“Bastard should pay for this,” Gifford spat, slamming his cup down on the table. “Seizing an innocent woman, attacking Piers. ’Tis unpardonable! And by a man of God, no less.”
“I do not believe the Bishop of Ravenswood can rightfully claim to be a man of God,” Father Michael commented.
Piers shook with the strength of his fury. “Would the coward show his face at Falcon’s Craig. I would enjoy sending him to meet his God.” He sent men to attack our woman, Eikki growled. Kill him. For once Piers agreed with him.
“You cannot go after him, Piers,” Cain said as if he’d read Piers’s mind. “Not openly. The man is too allied with the king.”
“Donninc told me the Bishop had ordered him to kill me,” Giselle shouted, startling Piers so much he let go of her.
“You should stay within the castle until the matter of Kindlemere is resolved,” Padruig told her. “I will remain as well.”
Though the implication he could not protect his own wife rankled, reason won out and he gave Padruig a nod. “Another pair of eyes and a good sword arm would be welcome. Who is Cai?”
“Cai is Padruig’s wolf,” Giselle told him.
Piers blinked. “A wolf?’
Giselle smiled. “Aye. He is the one who found me.”
Padruig nodded. “Aye, and led me to you.”
“Well,” Piers said. “Imagine that.”
“I shall send word to the king of this perfidy,” Cain said, his expression grim. “I suspect any relation of the Bishop’s is cunning enough to absent himself. It will be Giselle’s word against the Bishop’s.”
“What of Piers?” Giselle asked. “He was attacked as well.”
“He is not able to identify the men,” Cain said.
Piers put a hand on her shoulder. “Padruig is right. Stay close until the king grants our petition. Once Kindlemere is decreed yours, the Bishop will have nothing to gain by harming you.”
Giselle looked at him, her eyes bright and shiny. “Other than his hatred of me.” She sucked in a breath. “I believe you are right, though. He is too cunning and protective of his position to risk losing it all.” She covered a yawn with her slender hand.
“ ’Tis time for you to rest,” Piers told her.
“I am weary.” She rose. “Do you need me to tend to your shoulder?”
He smiled at her. “Nay. Amice did a tolerable job.”
His sister-in-law gave a huff from the other end of the table. “I shall send Nona to you, Giselle,” she said.
Piers watched her leave, his heart heavy in his chest. By Saint George’s sword, how close he’d come to losing her. He was tempted to follow her to their chamber, but told himself to leave her be.
Gifford chuckled. “Look at him, my dove,” he said to Saraid. “Every bit as besotted as I predicted he would be.”
Piers turned back to find all of them smiling at him with knowing expressions. He rolled his eyes and took a sip of wine. “I was concerned for Giselle, of course. She is my wife.”
No one’s expression changed. Even Padruig’s usually impassive face held more than a hint of mirth.
Piers tried to frown but found himself unequal to the task. “Well, hell,” he finally said and applied himself to food and drink.
Instead of immediately seeking refuge in slumber, Giselle drew out her rosary, smoothing her fingertips over the golden agate. She curled into a spot on the window seat and gazed out over the sea. Guinevere padded in and thumped down onto the floor with a snort.
Well done, Piers had said, upon hearing she’d killed a man. Well done. The stones tumbled through her fingers.
What had she become? What had happened to the rules that had governed her life for so long?
One: Your only purpose is to serve God. As she threaded the rosary through her hand, she thought perhaps that was not her only purpose after all. The highest one, true, but surely God did not expect her to forsake living at the same time.
Two: Unless necessary for a task or in prayer, your voice shall remain silent. That may be so in the Abbey, but not at Falcon’s Craig where the halls rang incessantly with talk and laughter.
Three: Idleness is a sin. She tilted her face toward the weak sun. No, she’d not been idle exactly, but at the moment idleness held a great deal of appeal.
Four: Your body must be a pure reflection of God’s grace. Are not all of God’s children a reflection of His grace? As to the pure part, well, she’d lost that, and if she were being honest with herself, it happened at the moment she’d first laid eyes on Piers.
Five: Honor God by imbibing simple food and drink. Somehow, she didn’t think good wine, lamb in a garlic and saffron sauce, and apple tarts qualified as simple. She sighed.
Six: To flaunt your body is an offense against God. She thought back to the bathhouse, and shivered. The way Piers had looked at her, his brown eyes darkening as he stared at her breasts had made her feel such warmth in her belly she knew if that was flaunting her body she would do it all over again.
Seven: To covet possessions is against God’s will. She stared down at her finely woven, blue bliaut, and then looked around the chamber, the wide bed piled with soft covers, the carved trunks against the walls. The comforts were far from her mean cell at the Abbey, and she was glad of it.
Eight: Hard work is a tribute to God’s greatness. Well, she hadn’t toiled as she’d done at the Abbey, but she had not been completely idle either.
Nine: The only purpose of fornication is to bear children. She looked down at Guinevere and flushed. An image of Piers’s face at their wedding supper sprang into her mind. They lied, he’d said, with that beguiling grin of his. Heat flooded her face as her mind traveled once more back to the bathhouse. “I have definitely strayed from that rule,” she told Guinevere, who responded by thumping her tail.
Ten: Obey and submit to those in authority. Number ten was sounding more and more to her as a way for the Abbess to ensure Giselle did whatever the Abbess directed.
Eleven: Displays of emotion are coarse and vulgar. She’d displayed more emotion in the last month than she had in the past fourteen years of her life. “And it feels good,” she said defiantly.
Twelve: You must resist temptation, for it is the work of the devil. On that one, she saw nothing but Piers, gloriously naked, reaching for her, touching her. Her husband was one temptation she feared she’d lost the ability or interest in resisting.
And s
he had killed. In her own defense, to be sure, but killed nonetheless. She swallowed thickly, remembering the look of shock in Hatchet’s narrow eyes, the blood pumping from his throat. She drew in a shaky breath and said a prayer for the man’s soul.
“I did what I had to do,” she said aloud, and stretched out on the bed. Guinevere jumped up and settled in next to her, laying her furry head on Giselle’s stomach. Giselle hugged the dog close and shut her eyes, praying she could shut out all of the thoughts and doubts swirling in her mind.
But as she drifted in that hazy state between sleep and wakefulness, another place slowly crept into her mind.
A high-backed, heavily carved chair, the top of a man’s head coming into view. He sat in a vast solar, lit by a crackling fire and candles along the curved walls. The chamber smelled of woodsmoke and the vinegary scent of sweat.
“I can still see your face,” the man’s voice whispered to no one. “Still smell the scent of roses on your smooth skin, still remember your smile. Oh, yes, that smile. Taunting me, tempting me. “
The man stood and strode across the solar, picking up a silver chalice. He turned it so that it caught the firelight. “You were the only one who ever guessed my secret. Beautiful, bewitching Annora, with eyes far too perceptive.” He cracked out a bitter laugh and tilted his head back, drinking from the chalice.
“You knew, yet you sought me out that night. Sought my counsel.” He flung the chalice against the wall.
“And like Adam, I was unable to resist the temptation.” He dropped to his knees and sobbed.
Chapter
XV
You cannot be serious,” Aldrik said slowly, punctuating each word with a slam of his fist against the table. A jug toppled to the rush floor, but he ignored it, glaring at the pathetic lump of humanity before him.
“There weren’t nothin’ we could do, your grace. Somebody must have helped the wench get away.”
Aldrik fisted his hand. “Why was she still alive?”
The simpkin shifted on his feet.
“I see.” Aldrik’s gut clenched at the realization of Donninc’s weakness. “He thought to enjoy the girl first.”
