Keeper of the Dream

by Penelope Williamson

  She heard the hoarse blast of the olifant sounding the retreat.

  She ran along the wall-walk, slipping and sliding on the wet stones. She hurled herself down the stairs and into the bailey just as the huge iron-bound gate screeched open and the drawbridge crashed down with a clatter of its mighty chains.

  There was no time for her brother and his men to enter the castle back through the sally-port. Their only chance was to make it through the gate and close it behind them before the enemy could get through. The blinding rainstorm, which had first been on the side of the Normans, would help them now.

  But no sooner did the thought form in Arianna’s mind than the downpour stopped, as suddenly as it had begun.

  Through the open gate Arianna saw her brother and what was left of his men race across the field. A group of mailed knights rode in hard pursuit, cutting down the stragglers like a woodcutter felling trees. In the forefront of those knights was a man in dull black armor on a soot-black steed.

  And yet, yet … there was a chance that they would make it.

  “Virgin Mary, Mother of God, save them,” Arianna prayed as the first of the Welshmen reached the drawbridge. Their horses’ hooves pounded on the old wood. Hundreds of crossbow bolts rained down, striking the wall and the gate and the bridge, clattering like hail. Ceidro pulled up beside the bridge, letting his men go first, and Arianna thought how their father would be proud.

  Then Ceidro was across the drawbridge and through the gate. The doors started to swing shut behind him as he turned to face the charging enemy. A high-pitched squeal echoed throughout the bailey as the guard in the gatehouse began to wind the windlass, hauling up the chains to the bridge.

  “Ceidro!” Arianna’s shout turned into a scream as the knight in black armor easily leapt the growing span between the ground and the bridge. His iron-shod lance caught Ceidro square in the chest, lifting him from the saddle, hurling him to the ground.

  Horses thundered past Arianna where she stood among the fighting men, frozen with horror. Then, heedless of the slashing blades and flying hooves, she ran to where her brother sprawled in dreadful stillness beside the gate.

  He lay on his back, his eyes staring sightless at the sky.

  She threw herself across his blood-soaked gambeson, cradling his cheeks between her palms. “Ceidro, please …” Her hands slid down his face to clutch his shoulders and she shook him roughly. “Ceidro, please don’t be dead.”

  She wanted to scream, to wail, but it felt as if some great beast had ripped open her chest, tearing out her heart and lungs. She opened her mouth, tried to breathe, and thought she was dying. She wanted to cry, but she couldn’t.

  She didn’t notice the horn that trumpeted the Norman victory, or hear, in the heavy silence that followed, the groans of the dead and the dying. Nor did she see the horses milling around her, trampling blood-soaked pennons into the mud, or the shattered shields and broken stubs of lances. But when a raven landed nearby, she screamed at it to go away, that it had no business being here.

  A pair of boots came up beside her, splattering mud on Ceidro’s face. She took the sleeve of her tunic and gently wiped off his cheek. “Be careful,” she said. “You’re getting him dirty.”

  The boots were trimmed with metal and mounted with pointed spurs. Her gaze moved up long legs encased in mail, to the edge of a hauberk slick with rainwater and the tip of a sword that dripped blood into the mud. Slowly she lifted her eyes.

  She saw a dark face framed in metal. The nasal on his helmet curved down over his nose, giving him the look of a predatory bird. All that she could see of his features was his mouth, and it looked ruthless and cruel. He moved and Arianna flinched, but he was only loosening ‘the straps of his helm. He pulled it off, then pushed back the mailed hood of his hauberk.

  The wind lifted his sweat-dampened hair, hair that was as black as the ravens that wheeled overhead. She looked into his eyes, but they didn’t see her. They were focused on the distance, and they were gray and cold. And as hard as his dull black armor.

  They were the eyes of the man in the vision.

  2

  The knight stared hard at the bloodred walls of Rhuddlan keep. The rain had stopped, the wind had died, and a gray mist roiled in off the river, enshrouding the motte and bailey with an air of mystery and gloom.

  The castle was his now. His. He felt the old fires of ambition flaring within him. Once, when he had been young and full of faith and hope, he had sworn that someday he would wrest for himself a title and land. Someday, he, the earl’s bastard, would forge for himself a dynasty to rival that of his father’s. It seemed only fitting now that the dynasty would be built here, at Rhuddlan. The scene of his father’s betrayal.

  Title, land, and power.

  His. At last, at last these things would be his.

  Sheathing his sword, Raine had started to turn his back on the keep, when he felt someone’s eyes on him. He looked down, startled to see a girl staring up at him with a look of rage on her face. She knelt beside the body of a young man.

  Wet, tangled dark hair framed a pointed, sharp-boned face filled with eyes the dusky green color of the sea on a wintry day. Those eyes held him, and he thought of dark, misty mountains, hidden forests, and fairies dwelling beside deep, forgotten lakes. For a moment he felt a childish compulsion to make the sign of the horns to ward off the evil eye.

  He shook his head over his own foolishness. He had taken a step away from her, when a raven landed on the bloody chest of the slain boy. The girl screamed and rose up, and Raine froze, expecting her to leap at him like a cat, all teeth and bared claws. But she flung her fury at the raven instead. The bird flew off with a flap of black wings just as Raine heard a familiar voice shout his name.

  A knight approached the open gate at a canter. His silvered coat of mail sparkled like newly minted coins even under the gray skies. He rode a cream-white palfrey accoutred with a gilded saddle and a breastplate decorated with jingling bells. In his wake followed a squire mounted on a dappled rouncy with a hawk on his fist. Another twenty knights in full panoply galloped in a pack behind them.

  Raine’s eyes narrowed. This dazzling knight was his younger and so-very-legitimate half brother, Hugh, Earl of Chester, ruler of a good part of England. And the man who had everything Raine wanted.

  He turned his head and spat the taste of envy from his mouth—

  And caught the flash of a blade out of the corner of his eye. He whirled, throwing up his arm. A quillon dagger grazed the mail sleeve of his hauberk with a grating of sparks. All Raine saw were muddy tangles of dark hair and blazing green eyes. The girl pulled back the dagger and came at him again. But this time he was better prepared. He grabbed her wrist, squeezing hard. She made not a sound, though he was almost crushing it enough to break the bone. When the weapon dropped from her outstretched fingers, Raine let go of her.

  And knew an instant later that he had made a mistake.

  She flung herself at him, her clawed fingers going for his eyes. He jerked his head aside and her nails raked his neck. She rained blows on the front of his hauberk, heedless of the fact that she was cutting the hell out of her hands on the sharp metal links. She did it all in a silence that was more unnerving than her crazed fury.

  She went for his eyes again. This time he grasped both her wrists, twisting her arms behind her back. She tried kicking him instead, and she seemed to have as many legs as a spider. There were thirty knights and over a hundred and fifty men-at-arms in Raine’s army, and he wondered what in hell had them all so busy that they couldn’t come take this cursed madwoman off his hands.

  “Will”—he grunted as her head flew up, connecting with his chin, and nearly causing him to bite off half his tongue—“somebody get her off me, for God’s sake!”

  He spotted his second-in-command standing in front of him, a grin like a drunken jester’s all over his gnarled and pitted face. Raine thrust the squirming, clawing, kicking, and scratching female into a startled Sir
Odo’s arms. The big knight automatically wrapped her up in a bearlike embrace. She struggled a moment longer, then stilled. But her eyes, glowing like a pair of firebrands, remained fixed on Raine’s face.

  “Murderer!”

  It was the first sound she had made.

  Raine daubed at the blood that trickled down his neck. He spoke to her in Welsh, the language she had used. “What hell spawned you, woman?” When she said nothing, he snapped, “Answer me. Who are you?”

  The girl’s full lower lip curled into one of the finest sneers Raine had ever seen. “I, you Norman piece of filth, am the woman who’s going to kill you.”

  Her vehemence startled him a moment, but then he laughed. “The road to hell is littered with the corpses of those who’ve tried to kill me.”

  “Doubtless they were all cowards. Surely none was Welsh, else you’d be roasting in hell yourself by now.”

  Raine laughed again. But then he glanced down at the discarded quillon knife and his face sobered. The day he had seen a five-year-old child slice through a man’s tendon, he had stopped thinking of anyone, no matter what their age or sex, as harmless. He wouldn’t put it past the wench to have a dozen such daggers hidden about her.

  “Strip her,” he said to Sir Odo in a clipped voice. The girl sucked in a sharp breath.

  Sir Odo grinned, flexing his arms. “No reason to get her naked, sire. The wench is all bones. If you want to swive her, why not just toss up her skirts?”

  The girl’s eyes opened wide. Then she exploded like a bung out of a fermenting cask, rearing, flinging back her head, smacking it into the knight’s jaw so hard, Raine heard the bones crack together. “Christ Jesus!” Odo bellowed. She jammed an elbow into his midriff. Snarling another curse, the big knight shook her until her neck snapped.

  “I said strip the wench, not kill her,” Raine called out, though he made no move to take the girl off Odo’s hands.

  “I don’t guess the wench is in the mood for a tupping, sire,” Sir Odo said around grunting breaths.

  At his words the girl stiffened, then she made a strangled, whimpering noise, sagging back into the big knight’s arms. “Please, don’t …”

  Sir Odo looked down at her lolling head and a look of tenderness came over his gnarled face. “Ah, the poor dearling … sire, will you just look at the poor dearling?”

  Raine looked. The girl’s eyes, glazed now and filled with terror, had focused on the body sprawled before the gate and a dry sob tore from her throat. Raine saw a wretched, pathetic whore. But Sir Odo, Raine knew, had suddenly seen a broken sparrow that needed mending. The big knight was always swallowing some wench’s sad tale, and though Raine kept expecting these rescued waifs to strip the man down to his braies and leave him with the pox, they never did.

  Sir Odo stared at his liege lord with big, sorrowful brown eyes that often reminded Raine of a milk cow’s. “If you’re still feeling randy, sire, let me find you another girl.”

  Raine stared at her a moment longer, at her pale, mud-streaked face. “Christ’s bones … just get her out of here.”

  Rich laughter floated over his head, and Raine turned. His younger brother sat atop his palfrey, one leg hooked negligently around the saddlebow, amusement brightening his splendidly handsome features. “Can this be the Black Dragon’s legendary way with women that I have heard so much about?”

  An answering humor glinted in Raine’s eyes as he heaved a mock sigh. “As you can see, I have but to look at them and the poor, besotted creatures fling themselves right into my arms,”

  Earl Hugh tossed back his head and emitted another hearty laugh. His gaze fell on the girl, and Raine was surprised to see his brother’s cornflower-blue eyes darken with lust.

  “In truth, she doesn’t appear to be overly fond of you, big brother,” Hugh drawled. “Do you mind if I relieve you of this particular bit of the spoils? Or we could even share the plowing of her, if you like. Such hot passion as hers could help to pass an interesting hour or two.”

  “Hell, Hugh, show the child some mercy. She’s just lost her man,” Raine said, then wondered what in God’s eyes had possessed him. He was becoming as soft and addle-pated as Sir Odo. The “child” had almost buried her dagger in the back of his neck. Even now she was looking death at him and muttering something that sounded like a Latin prayer but was probably a witch’s incantation.

  Raine felt a shudder curl up his spine, and he whipped around to growl at Sir Odo. “I thought I told you to take her away.”

  Sir Odo nodded his big, shaggy head. “Aye, that ye did. But then where now, by all that’s holy, am I supposed to put her?”

  Raine gave the big knight a look that said he didn’t want to be bothered with details. “Use your initiative. It’s what I pay you for.”

  Hugh nudged his horse forward for a better look at the girl. “I trow, Raine,” came that drawling, sardonic voice. “Sometimes you are as squeamish as a maid. She’s a whore, not a child. And she’ll be wanting a new protector soon enough.”

  Raine said nothing. But he looked again at the girl to see if he had missed something the first time.

  His gaze roamed the length of her, starting with the worn, dung-splattered felt boots and moving up the shapeless, drab gray tunic and cheap, civet-fur mantle. The tunic and mantle were splotched with mud and blood, and her hair fell in tangled, wet clumps over her shoulders. What he could see of her face was … well, striking—he would grant Hugh that. But she was likely one of the castle whores, and as whores always swarmed around an army more plentiful than corpse-geese, Raine couldn’t see what the fuss was about.

  Odo had hesitated a moment longer, but now he began to drag the girl toward the keep. She bucked violently, trying to break away, and she almost succeeded. The knight wrapped his big arms around her again in a crushing embrace, squeezing her so tightly that her feet came off the ground. For a moment longer Raine and the girl faced each other. Her eyes pierced the distance between them, and a look of the purest hatred blazed from those smoky green depths.

  “Murdering Norman bastard,” she said on a hiss of breath.

  Raine’s face remained as blank as fresh parchment. He didn’t care that she wanted him dead, or why. He had spoken the truth when he’d told the girl there were many who had tried and failed to kill him. By the time he had turned and stepped forward to greet his brother, he had already forgotten her.

  Earl Hugh of Chester sprang from the saddle with a jingling of bells. He clasped Raine on the shoulders, giving him the kiss of peace. “Well met, brother.”

  “Hugh.” Raine nodded stiffly and moved out of his brother’s embrace. Beside the young knight’s splendor, Raine suddenly became aware that he was covered with the grime of battle.

  Hugh flashed a knowing grin and used the sleeve of his bliaut to rub off the black smudge on Raine’s nose left by the nasal of his helm. His eyes fell on the oozing bloody scratches and the grin widened. “You look about as pretty as a horse’s ass, dear brother.”

  Raine couldn’t help smiling back at him. “Thank you.”

  Hugh doffed his helm and ran his fingers through thick curls the color of burnished gold. He looked around, his mouth pursed with exaggerated awe. “Well, well … I see you’ve dispatched many a man to hell this day. And with your usual thoroughness.”

  Raine looked around him as well. He saw a field littered with riven shields, broken lances, and corpses. He felt no satisfaction over his victory. The Welsh had been sorely outnumbered and no match against his crossbows and mailed knights. Their leader had been a fool. “At least they died on the field of honor,” he said to Hugh. “And not a cow’s death in their own beds.”

  He saw Hugh’s frown and allowed a lazy smile to curl his own lips. He had said it just to goad his brother, who thought himself a coward because he rode terrified into every battle. Hugh hadn’t yet learned that every other man out there was also scared enough to piss in his braies. In truth, Raine thought, he would sell his own soul for the chance to
die an easy death in a bed. But he wanted it to be his bed. Not in some lice-ridden tavern or among the rushes of another man’s hall. At the thought, his gaze shifted up to the mist-veiled keep.

  Hugh stepped in front of him. His brother’s expressive mouth bore a bright smile, but his voice held a honeyed malice. “I believe I owe you my thanks, Raine, for winning me this castle from the accursed Welsh. But then my gratitude is hardly enough for you, now is it? I forget you fight for profit, not honor.”

  The shock Raine felt didn’t show on his face, but Hugh’s words had been like a mailed fist in his gut. He’d never expected that his brother would put in a claim of Rhuddlan. It was such a paltry bit of land compared to the hundreds of commotes Hugh already ruled. And it is mine, damn it, Raine thought. He had taken it, and now it was his.

  “Name your reward,” Hugh was saying. “A new destrier? But how about a white one this time—black is so unfashionable. Or what say you to a new coat of mail?” He flicked his fingers against Raine’s hauberk. “This one is beginning to get that battered look.”

  Raine said nothing; he didn’t even blink. He knew why Hugh was doing this. His brother had always had the knack for discovering the things Raine wanted most and then ensuring that they were denied to him. Hugh would go after the Honor of Rhuddlan for no other reason than to keep Raine from having it.

  Hugh’s smile had faltered. “Didn’t you hear me, Raine? I said I was going to claim Rhuddlan of the king.”