by Delle Jacobs
"Hobs?" he guessed.
She looked at him as if she could not understand why he even asked.
"Mayhap Normans do not fear them as the local folk do."
"Then they would quickly learn their error."
The coolness of the air within the hole ahead seemed to pull them inward, and the darkness laced about them like a cloying garment. Like Thomas, he had no fondness for dark places. He looked back over his shoulder at the young woman and her torch, then reached out his hand. Her upper lip thinned minutely as she gave over their only source of light. But it illuminated nothing but more darkness.
"This is the cavern?" he asked.
"Aye. Here, it is narrow, but it widens out. It comes out near the river. Have a care going in."
Alain wished she had said that sooner, as he barked his shin and stumbled at the unexpected first step.
"Mayhap I should go first, lord."
"Nay." He held the torch lower, so that he might see where his feet should go.
Only a little way in, the cavern leveled, and he stopped, holding the rush light high. Grotesque columns, parodies of those more perfect ones of the stone tower, rose to a ceiling high above, beyond the torch's dim light. Cascades of stone curtains dribbled down toward the cavern's rough floor. A fine, gritty sand crunched against the stone at his feet when he walked.
"This is the way she left, then?" It occurred to him the prospect of encountering a hob did not seem to bother her.
"I would think so."
Alain didn't. He looked back at the footprints he had made, and hers behind her, but saw no others leading down. He held the torch high up to the slanting walls to examine them. One might be able to climb them and get out without leaving tracks, he supposed, but why bother? Mayhap the lady had dragged something behind her to obscure her footprints? Yet the sand showed no sign of such disturbance.
Satisfied, and yet not, Alain handed back the rush torch. They returned to the small entry, where he lowered his head to pass. He again took the torch and held it while Edyt stepped through. Some instinct caused him to reach out to assist her before he recalled she was a servant. It was not proper.
"I will see the lady's chamber, now," he said next.
She cocked her head to the side with a puzzled frown. "It is but a bedchamber, lord."
"In itself unusual. Few but kings and queens have such luxury as a private chamber. But I vow, I like the idea. I would see it."
He thought more on that as he followed Edyt's lead out of the understory of the stone tower. Anything to keep his thoughts from the lithe, swaying motion of the enticing hips. There were many things in this castle that were very unlike things as he was accustomed to them. Even as it was now, the castle was immense. The lord's chamber was more spacious even than that of Rufus' in his hunting box at Waltham Forest, its furnishings at least as elaborate. Like the elegant purple cloak he had removed from the earl's body, the castle's opulence seemed incongruous with this wild and rustic country.
Edyt walked ahead with her smooth, lightly swaying gait back through the bailey and hall to the unusual wooden staircase and balcony at its far end. She reached for the keys that dangled from the hemp cord at her waist, and inserted one in the lock.
"Why the lock?" he asked, for there was none on the lord's chamber.
"It has always been there," she replied, and pushed open the heavy door. Answering, but telling him nothing.
This chamber, too, was smartly fitted, with a pair of shuttered narrow windows and yellow plastered walls, in conspicuous contrast to the remainder of the somber castle. A curtained bed with feather mattress stood by another wall, with a door that led to the middle chamber. By the windows, a large chest, intricately painted, with fittings of brass.
"Open it," he said, pointing to the chest.
"Open it? But lord, it is of little consequence."
"I would see it anyway."
"It is locked."
"Unlock it." As she had the key on her person, he wondered why she objected. Mayhap she felt her mistress' privacy was being invaded.
She turned the key, lifted the lid, and stood away. Inside, the garments, of a good quality but more serviceable than fine, lay in neatly folded stacks, precisely fitting the chest's dimensions. Except for those on top, which were wadded into a careless ball. Silk kirtle, linen chemise, girdle. A wimple of soft silk, of a pale yellow.
A metallic flash caught his eye as it tumbled into the fabric, and he probed among the folded garments after it. A ring. Gold, in an interlaced, twining pattern common to the area, yet quite old. Celtic, mayhap even a Norse design.
"Tell me of this." Alain held out the ring for the girl to see.
She seemed impassive except for her subtly gripped hands. "It is a gold ring."
"I find you exasperating in what you do not say, Edyt. Mayhap you could tell me something I do not already know?"
"It belongs to the Lady Melisande. It was a gift of her mother. And I think it is very old."
"Ah. Now I have learned the lady had a mother. How enlightening. Begone, Edyt. I see I shall have to solve the puzzle alone."
He saw the fleeting look of a woman slapped and knew he had taken his teasing too far. She was hardly like Chrétien, whom he could bait endlessly. He wished he had not said it. But he would not retract it.
"Edyt."
"Aye, lord?"
"Draw me a bath. I have had enough of the dust of the road. Before supper. I like it hot."
"Aye, lord." She made the merest of curtsies, before she turned and left the chamber.
* * *
You see? He will kill you!
Aye, kill you, you fool! Flee!
Melisande glided away, carefully forcing each step to perfection to conceal her rampant fear. From the moment he had ridden in, and all through this hideously long interrogation, she had quaked inside, desperately schooling her face and forcing her hands to be still.
As she left the hall, she gripped her hands together so tightly her knuckles whitened, to curb their trembling. Her heart pounded so hard, she thought it might beat itself to death against her chest.
Christ's blood, how had he gotten the cloak? She'd sent it with Fyren to the grave! She had wrapped it about the body, herself!
There! Leave it! Let him die of it!
Be still, she told the demons. I will not listen.
This time, she would not let them goad her into hysteria.
She needed the Norman lord alive. She could not think of herself.
CHAPTER 4
The devil voices pummeled her with their screams. She would not listen. Still, fear showed in the trembling of her hands if it did not in her eyes. She did not want to die. But the Norman's black hawk-like eyes probed her, seeking out her every weakness, finding it, lunging for it. Somehow, she must control herself. If he even sensed her fear, he would jump at it.
She had been so sure the wretched thing was at last gone, buried safely out of anyone's reach. And now, he wore it about his shoulders as if he had been gifted with it personally. She would never wish such a gift on anyone, and now it was in the possession of the man she needed most to live.
How long would it take to do its deed? Her mother had died within a fortnight of receiving it. Enthralled with its beauty and enraptured with the sudden, kind attention of the cruel husband who had ignored her so long, she had wrapped herself in it, and grown weaker by the day as the dye's poison seeped insidiously into her skin. Poor mother, again so trusting, discounting all the years of abuse, as if they had never happened. And Fyren had used his own daughter to deliver that carrier of death. How he had bragged, laughed at Melisande's gullibility.
How long would it take, this time? She didn't know. Arsenic absorbed through the skin, but the process was passably slow. Only when the poison went through the mouth did it act with such frightening speed. If a person handled the garment, then handled food, could it not go more swiftly? Could the poison possibly be on a person's hands, even though it cou
ld not be seen? She could take no chance. She had to get it from him, destroy it permanently this time, without anyone knowing.
She must be, as she had always been, solitary and secretive. None could be trusted. Not even the most loyal of her people would fail to connect her with Fyren's sorcery, and she would burn for it.
Fyren was dead. She had seen him die. Yet he still reached out to haunt her, and his demons sucked her soul dry. She had been a fool, and like a fool, she had thought him finally harmless and given him the purple cloak for his shroud. Believed he merely sought to be buried in it, a symbol of his many evil triumphs. But even dying, Fyren had schemed, and knowing his enemy, had placed the malevolent garment precisely where it would tempt the Norman most. Fyren had known the Norman would take it as symbol of his victory. And if it was true, as Fyren had claimed, that the cloak was charmed with a compelling spell, then the Norman could not resist. The man seemed fond enough of it.
Even in dying, Fyren had to win. It was as if his hand reached out from the grave and snatched another victim.
Never. She would not let Fyren win this time.
More immediately, she had to keep her own skin. So she'd best see to the lord's bath, and quickly, lest he grow suspicious of her slothfulness.
Melisande found Nelda in the kitchen, beyond the hall.
"The lord wishes a bath before supper, Nelda. And he likes it hot."
"Aye, la– "
Melisande hissed her to silence. "Be more careful. Say nothing if you cannot trust your tongue."
"Aye."
Nelda's shock at her lapse hung on her face. Melisande patted her friend's shoulder to show her forgiveness. It would happen in just that way, she was sure. Someone would forget, call her by name or title. She wished she could flee.
Then how was she to save the Norman from the poison of the cloak, yet save herself from him? She did not want to die. Before, she had thought it did not matter greatly. But now, suddenly it did, and she could not say why. And even more, she did not want him to die. She could see no answers. Yet, somehow, she must find a way.
* * *
The small bath house had been Fyren's pride. Built of yellow sandstone like the hall, amidst a group of grey stone and whitewashed buildings, the little one-room structure had a hearth built to one side and a deep wooden tub, like an oversized barrel. Kettles of water steeped over the fire, and one after another were poured into the great tub until the water was at last suitable for a lord's bath.
As she awaited the Norman lord's arrival, Melisande stood alone, unhappily in the company of nothing but her own fearful thoughts. She practiced a stillness of body, mimicking a statue of stone, but her hands gripped each other, fidgeting.
He entered the stone bath house, and his eyes searched over every corner, a habitual thing with him, for he seemed to miss nothing. Seeing her, his black brows arched to a high angle over even darker eyes.
Dread rose in her, forming a tight band about her chest as her heart pounded. Melisande gripped her hands. "Will there be anything else, lord?"
"I have not finished yet, Edyt. In fact I have not yet begun."
The sound of her mother's name startled her. It made a poor disguise, one that would not fool his clever mind for long. "Aye, lord. Does your squire not come to assist you?"
"Squire? Why should he come? It is not his duty."
Abruptly, the Norman crossed his arms before his chest, grasped his tunic and pulled it upward over his head, his powerful shoulders flexing as the garment peeled off. His black hair bunched stiffly after the tunic's passing, then settled down to skim his shoulders.
She was stunned to silence. He expected her to bathe him?
Melisande caught her breath, gulped. "Lord, it is not fitting."
Again he cocked his head, his angular brows raised. "Have you never helped a man with his bath, Edyt?"
"I- It is not fitting."
"Not fitting? But there is no lady in the household. Surely the task should fall to you."
"Lady?" Melisande's voice sounded like a squealing mouse when the cat caught it.
"In the south, it is common practice. It is the duty of the lady and her daughters to assist her husband's guests in their baths." He loosened his braies.
Melisande rolled her eyes upward to scan the wooden roof. "Oh."
The Norman's mouth turned downward at its corners in a futile attempt to keep from laughing, then his low-pitched chuckle rumbled out like distant thunder.
His laughter drew her back to him like iron to a lodestone. She shouldn't have been looking, but her gaze riveted to his lean, hard body, to a broad back with massive shoulders above solid, thickset legs and hard, round buttocks. Beneath golden skin, corded muscles flexed and changed their shape with his movements. Melisande forced her gaze back to the planks above her, concentrating on those slits where the light showed through.
"Ah, yes, I see, Edyt. The roof has holes. We must see to that." The timbre of his voice danced like a lively air from a wood flute.
The water splashed loudly behind her. She studied the plank roof as if she had never seen it before.
The Norman let out a loud, contented sigh as he slid down into the steaming water to the wooden stool, all the way up to his neck. He leaned back, rested his head against the tub's rim, and closed his eyes.
She was watching again.
And the silence was intolerable. "Is it the custom of the people in the south to bathe often?"
"It is my custom. But it is all too uncommon, I fear. Ah, there is little that feels as good as a tub of hot water. This bath house. This is a fine idea. Edyt, tell me about Fyren."
She didn't want to talk about Fyren. But it seemed better than the embarrassing alternative. "What do you wish to know?"
"What killed him."
"He killed himself, so they say."
"I do not believe it. He had no reason."
He was too clever. And she had not thought out her strategy well enough. Her mind raced for an answer, but she blurted out the first thought that came. "The priest cursed him, but he did not believe in God. I cannot say it was the curse. But it is said he took a poison every day, so that none could poison him."
"And he finally took too much?"
"Mayhap."
"He was an intelligent man."
"He was a madman."
The Norman eyed her as if she had just done something inexplicable. Then he leaned back, again closed his eyes, and his breathing became slow and easy. Melisande picked up the discarded garments littering the stone floor, folded them all neatly and set them on the low wooden bench. With the very tips of her fingers, she picked up the purple cloak, and even as she folded it, held it as far from her as she could.
"Edyt."
"Aye, lord."
"The soap, Edyt."
"Oh. Aye."
She laid the cloak aside and carried the soap pot back to the tub where the Norman lord soaked himself. Great streams of water ran down from his black hair, and in rivulets down his face. He must have dunked his head while she was not looking.
"The hair, Edyt."
"Hair?"
"Aye, the hair. Would you not wash my hair, or must I beg?"
The little room was dark, save for the small hearth fire, and Melisande said a small prayer of thanks for that. Still, standing behind his back, she could see every blessed part of his body beneath the water, from the bobbing black curls on his chest, all the way down to his toenails, and everything in between. Everything. Some parts of a man's body must be lighter than others, she thought, as they also bobbed. . .
She busied her hands with the lather of the oozing soap, which she worked into the stark black strands. His hair became soft, silky, between her fingers. He hummed quietly, a low rumble coming up from his chest, like that great monster cat, Rufus, when he purred.
For just that one moment, she would let herself savor that pleasure, the pleasure of pleasing. She allowed her fingers to stray downward, crossing over the black point
s of hair at the nape of his neck, to skim over the firm rounds of muscle that filled out broad shoulders and strong arms. His resonant hum deepened, and a contented smile spread across his freshly shaven face, inviting her touch. . .
The soap would do it. The purpose, after all, was to get the man clean, was it not? She dipped a small cloth into the little vat and conscientiously applied the soap in ever-extending circles beyond his shoulders and over the rugged ripples of his chest. The rumbling purr smoothed to contented breathing.
He leaned forward. Melisande applied the soapy rag to his back and the fascinating curve of his spine, now a ridge, now indented, as he flexed his body beneath the water. Impulsively she let a finger trace downward along that enticing valley.
