“I heard you. I was just wondering what you would do with it,” Raine said, imbuing his voice with boredom. “I thought you found Wales dreary.”
Either he failed, or perhaps his brother simply knew him too well. Hugh’s eyes opened wide with exaggerated surprise. “Oh, Raine … surely you didn’t think you would be allowed to keep such a valuable fief as Rhuddlan for yourself?”
Raine continued to stare blankly at his brother until Hugh’s eyes were the first to shift away. But he couldn’t help saying, “Why don’t we let the king decide,” though he knew well that whatever Hugh asked for, the king would feel compelled to grant to him. The Earl of Chester was too powerful a baron for Henry to offend.
Hugh knew it too. His smile was dazzling. “Oh, by all means, we shall let the king decide. He has summoned you, by the way. That’s why I’m here. Our good King Henry is about to engage that wicked Welsh chieftain in a rather nasty battle, and he has asked for the presence of his best and bravest knight. That’s what you’re best at, isn’t it—being brave? You needn’t worry though. I shall take good care of Rhuddlan in your place.”
A bowman suddenly lurched between them, waving a burning firebrand in Hugh’s face. The earl recoiled violently, stumbling backward and nearly falling on his butt in the mud. He put a hand to his forehead and to Raine’s amusement a horrified look crossed his brother’s face as he realized his hair had been singed.
“Get out of my way, you pricklouse!” Hugh roared.
The bowman giggled drunkenly. “My lord earl. Do we burn down the hall, or no?”
Hugh looked as if he were about to choke on his fury. “Christ, man, use your head. Where will I sleep tonight if you fire the hall?”
Laughing openly now, Raine turned and bellowed for his squire. “Taliesin!”
A youth of about seventeen with russet-colored hair ran up, leading Raine’s sweating destrier. “Sound the trysting horn,” Raine told him. “We’re joining the king.” He fixed Hugh with a hard look. “But tell Sir Odo he’s to stay behind with a contingent of men. To help Earl Hugh secure the castle.” And look after my interests were the added words, unspoken yet understood by all.
The squire glanced from one brother to the other. He had skin as fair as a girl’s and his smile was beautiful. “ ’Tis done, my liege,” he said, somehow making the mundane words sound as melodic as a song. But he did not scurry to obey Raine’s command. “Sire? What happened to the girl?”
Raine was thinking about whether to send a messenger to tell Henry he was on his way. His attention focused on Taliesin’s face. The boy wore an odd look, a sort of worried smile. “What girl?”
“The one that, uh … attacked you.”
First Sir Odo, then Hugh, and now the boy…. Women, Raine thought with a shake of his head. They could wreak more havoc than a Saracen ambush. He struggled to keep a smile off his face. “You stay away from her, Taliesin. You’re too young for that sort of trouble.”
Taliesin’s brow furrowed. “But, sire, it’s not I—”
But Raine had turned abruptly away as the sound of an agonized wail suddenly penetrated his consciousness. It had been going on for quite some time now, but he’d paid it no heed. He’d heard it so often in his life—the scream of a wounded man who knew that he was dying. Yet now Raine was suddenly possessed with a terrifying certainty that someday very soon, if he didn’t stop the fighting and the killing, that screaming man would be him.
He gritted his teeth around an oath. Hugh was right, he was turning squeamish as a maid. “Tell Sir Odo to find the bloody priest and castle leech,” he said to his squire. “And either get that man healed, or get him shriven and buried.”
“Aye. But, sire, about the girl—”
“Taliesin,” Raine said in a calm, flat voice. “I gave you an order.”
No one dared to disobey the Black Dragon when he used that tone. The squire dashed off, calling for Sir Odo. Hugh grasped the charger’s bridle, holding it steady for Raine to mount. Raine swung himself into the saddle and Hugh stepped back quickly as the spirited war-horse reared.
Hugh laughed up at him. “Do try not to get yourself killed, big brother.”
Now it was Raine’s turn to smile. “I won’t, little brother … and you can wager Rhuddlan on it.”
Raine brought his horse under control and started for the gate. But as he crossed the drawbridge, he turned back for one last look at Rhuddlan. He had taken this castle. It was his, by God, a part of his past and all of his future. And it would remain his. No matter what he had to do to keep it.
He felt an odd exhilaration. For the first time in a very long while, he had something to fight for.
Arianna leaned against the rough wooden staves of a beer keg and rested her chin on her drawn-up knees. That big, ugly knight had disposed of her by locking her in the castle’s wine vault. It was part of the tower cellars, built deep underground within the motte. But the Norman had, with a kindness surely uncharacteristic for a man of his race, left with her the stub of a tallow candle.
The small flame flickered forlornly, casting looming shadows on the stone walls. The room was stacked with barrels of wine and ale. The smell of yeast mixed with the tart tang of vinegar into a fumy aroma that made her head reel. She could hear the sounds of revelry from the great hall above. Drunken songs, trumpets and laughter, the wail of a pipe. Occasionally she heard a scream.
Arianna’s throat worked as she struggled to swallow. She blinked, and her lids grated as if they had been coated with sand. Her eyes ached as though she had been weeping for hours, yet she hadn’t shed a single tear. She hurt beyond tears.
Ceidro was dead. Her brother was dead and she had failed. Failed to take revenge on his murderer.
Even worse, she had allowed herself to be captured. She remembered the sight of the village woman running up the road, the knight on the white charger pounding after her, and Arianna shuddered, feeling a primal terror she only dimly understood. She hadn’t seen what happened to the woman afterward, but she knew…. Rape. Arianna would have no value to her family after that was done to her, though duty and honor would still compel her poor father to pay handsomely for her return.
She rubbed her forehead across the hard bones of her knees, squeezing her eyes shut. But that was a mistake, for immediately the image of the black knight appeared. Even after all that had happened, she knew the vision had yet to be fulfilled. He waited for her still, somewhere in her future, and never had she known such fear.
“No!” She thrust herself to her feet, her hands balled into fists. She couldn’t afford to be afraid, else she would fail in her duty.
She paced the dimensions of her prison. The floor was packed earth, not covered with rushes, and dampness seeped through the soles of her felt boots. Water trickled in a stream down one corner of the cellar’s stone wail. She had already tried the stout oak door a dozen times, but she lifted the latch once more. It was still bolted from the outside.
A particularly raucous bellow of laughter echoed from above and Arianna jumped, backing quickly away from the door. They would drink up all the wine and ale in the buttery soon, and then they would descend into the cellars for more. And they would find her.
For a moment Arianna’s control slipped and she shuddered. But she refused to give in to her fear, telling herself she must concentrate on escape. She dug the toe of her boot into the dirt. It was packed solid, she had no pick, and even if she did she would be a withered, toothless crone by the time she had dug her way through the motte. She frowned at the barrels of ale and wine. Her brother Cynan had once sliced his hand open on his sword while drunk and hadn’t even felt it. Perhaps she should drink her way into oblivion, then she wouldn’t feel or care what was done to her. Oddly, in one corner of the room, she suddenly noticed, were several sacks of flour stacked among the kegs. Tucked beneath an empty bag was a small stone quern, a hand mill used for grinding grain. Someone within the castle had obviously been grinding grain illegally and hiding his nefa
rious activity here deep within the wine vault.
She picked up the quern, hefting its weight in her hands. She looked at the door. Its hinges were old and rusted. Perhaps she could use the quern like a chisel to …
The door flew open, banging against the wall like a clap of thunder. Arianna reared back, a scream bursting from her throat before she could stop it. A man stood before her, resplendent in a bliaut of sky-blue satin, a pelisse trimmed in ermine, and a mantle the red-orange color of a sunset. He wore a gold chaplet on his head that was no brighter than his hair.
Arianna scuttled backward until her hips struck the wall.
He didn’t come after her. He leaned his shoulder negligently against the jamb, crossed his arms, and grinned at her. She recognized this Norman lord, though he had removed his splendid coat of silvered mail. He had sat on his white palfrey and laughed with the black knight while the big one had held her in his bearish grip. They had discussed her in mocking words she couldn’t understand, because, though her father had made her and her brothers learn that impossible Norman tongue, she had never been able to follow it when spoken rapidly.
He spoke to her now though, drawling the words. He told her what he wanted to do to her and she understood him very well. “Keep away from me, you Norman cur!”she cried, and was not surprised when he laughed. She had sounded ridiculous even to herself.
He pushed off the doorjamb and took a step into the vault. Arianna flung the quern at his head. It sailed two feet through the air and landed on the packed dirt with a dull thud.
He stopped and eyed the hand mill with a quirk of one blond brow. Then he laughed again. “You’ve got spirit. I like that in a woman. My bitch of a wife is as timid as a hedge hen.”
He took another step. Arianna pressed back against the wall and swallowed the terror that rose in her throat.
He stopped when he was a hand’s breadth away from her. This close she could smell him—sweet wine, sweat, and a spicy perfume. Fine lines radiated around his eyes and the skin below his cheekbones looked sallow and slack.
She eyed the distance to the door. But he barred the way to escape. She shifted the tiniest bit to her left. When he didn’t appear to notice, she shifted a bit more. If she could distract him but a moment …
“You should not be doing this if you are married,” she said. “ ’Twould be a grievous sin.”
His eyes glittered with mockery. “Ah, but sinning is such fun.”
He lifted his hand. Arianna froze, but he didn’t touch her. Instead he reached up to his neck and unclasped the gem-studded crescent brooch that fastened his mantle. He pulled off the heavy silk-lined cape and let it slither to the floor, then held the brooch out to her. “I always pay my women first. I find it makes them much more generous in turn.”
A fury engulfed Arianna, freeing her from her paralyzing fear. “Norman swine! I’d kill myself first!” she cried, knocking his hand aside.
His gaze left her momentarily, to follow the brooch as it rolled, glittering in the dim candlelight, and Arianna ran for the door.
He snagged the trailing edge of her mantle, swinging her around and slamming her back against the wall, pressing the length of his body against hers. His breath washed over her face. “So you like to play the ravished virgin, do you?”
He kissed her hard. She tried to twist aside, but he clasped the sides of her head, holding her in place. His tongue slid between her lips and she gagged. She arched against him and he laughed into her mouth, pushing his thigh between her legs. She felt his erection and terror filled her. She fought harder, and he pressed harder, banging against the golden mazer that dangled from her waist.
“What the hell?” Grasping the bowl by one of its handles, he wrenched it off her belt. He threw it across the vault and it struck the stone wall with a loud clatter.
But he had given her the space she needed. Arianna had nine brothers and they had taught her how to fight dirty. She slammed her knee up hard into his crotch.
He gasped and fell to his knees, cupping himself. Arianna sprinted for the door.
His hand snaked out, grabbing her ankle, and she crashed to the floor. She struck her head against the metal band of an ale keg and a jagged bolt of pain streaked across her eyes. For a second they both lay there, while his wheezing breaths filled the vault, and Arianna struggled to keep from passing out. She tried to jerk her ankle free of his grip, but his fingers only tightened. Black dots danced before her. She shook her head and the black dots bled one into the other, her vision dimmed. She saw the smooth, rounded edge of the stone quern and she stretched out her hand, her fingertips not quite touching….
A pulsating, glowing light suddenly filled the open doorway in front of her. A lambent mist rose from the ground, swirling upward.
“No …” Arianna shook her head hard, trying to clear it of the swirling mists. God help her, she couldn’t be having a vision now. There wasn’t even a pool of water.
But the glowing mist remained and within it a slender figure began to take form, a wraith, floating in the air on a sea of luminescence. Light shot up in rays around its head, like the halos of the saints painted on the chapel walls.
The Norman lord didn’t see the flickering wraith in the doorway. He had pushed himself to his knees, his hand groping up her leg. Hysterical laughter bubbled in Arianna’s throat. Of course he didn’t see it. It was her vision, her dream. She inched forward, stretching out her arm, and her fingers curled around the mill….
The mist swirled and eddied and darkened to the color of blood. But the sea of light around the wraith glimmered, brightened. He lifted his arm and pointed … pointed right at the knight.
The light pulsed, throbbed. It was so intense now, it burned Arianna’s eyes; all she saw was a piercing whiteness. She felt the knight’s hand close around her breast, and with the last visages of her conscious control, she swung the quern, aiming for the place where she hoped his head would be, though she could see nothing but the cold, white light.
The quern thudded into something soft and she heard a grunt and a curse. “You’ll pay for that, you bitch.”
Fingers tore at her clothes, kneading her breasts. The light shimmered, flared, she saw the figure of the vision so clearly she thought he must surely be real. A blue-white flame shot from the end of his pointing finger, a bolt of fire that leapt across the room to strike the knight, engulfing him in a sudden flash like lightning.
In the second before darkness swallowed her, Arianna thought she heard the knight scream.
3
It was the closest he had been to home in six years.
If he could call it home. It was, at least, the place where he had been born, where he had lived the first fifteen years of his life. They had been years spent in the Earl of Chester’s stables, shoveling dung and dodging the marshal’s fists.
He had been back only once since he had left. And on that day, that single day out of all the days of his life, he had been full of such hope that anything, even love and happily-ever-after, could come true if only you believed. It had been the same month as this, July. The sun had risen in a sky that was the exact lavender-blue of her eyes and the air had smelled of primroses and the sea, and …
But, no, it was wiser, safer, not to remember at all.
The man they called the Black Dragon rode with half his company of knights, moving at the fast pace of a good war-horse and well ahead of the main body of his army. Henry’s summons had not sounded urgent, but it was never politic to keep a king waiting.
They traveled through the thick of the Coed Euloe, a forest of mountain ash, pine, and tangled oak thickets. The storm had blown away and the sun was out, but the world beneath the dense leafy bower was the dim gray of twilight. The air smelled of the damp earth, and their chargers’ hooves made no sound as they padded across a ground mulchy with leaves and rotting cones. The trill of a blackbird was the only thing to break the soft silence. Amid this quiet and peace, the knight tried not to think, because on the
other side of these wooded hills lay the English border, and just across the border was Chester … and home.
He could go there now. Now that his father was dead.
If he went home now, Sybil would be there. She would greet him at the gate of the castle, and her face would light with joy, for it had been so very long. “Oh, Raine …” she would say. Just that. Raine. But the sound of his name falling from those lips would be sweeter than the song of an angel.
She would send servants for food and drink, and she would lead him into the great hall. There, she would play and sing for him, just as she had when they were children. He would feast his eyes upon her—but only on her pale blond head as she bent over her psaltery, for then she couldn’t catch him looking at her and see the pain in his eyes. She would ask him what he had done, the sights he had witnessed these last six years. She would laugh in all the right places, and tears would form in those lavender-blue eyes when he spoke of the sad times.
But eventually the evening would end. Then he would watch as the girl he had once loved climbed the stairs without him, to enter her bedchamber. The chamber where she had spent every night of the last six years … sharing his brother’s bed.
Raine cursed savagely beneath his breath. He should have had the sense to stay away from this corner of England. Maybe he shouldn’t ask the king for the Honor of Rhuddlan. It was a marcher lordship, true enough, and like the other borderland fiefs it could be parlayed, if its lord was ambitious enough, into one of the more powerful baronies in England. It was all he wanted now, all he needed, but for one thing—it was too damned close to Chester.
The silence was suddenly shattered by the sound of a large animal in panic crashing through the trees, and Raine pulled up just as a riderless war-horse burst through the underbrush in front of him. Blood spurted from a wound in the charger’s neck. It wheeled, rearing, tossing back a head that was all flaring nostrils and red, burning eyes. Close on its heels followed another horse, this one with a man in chain mail on its back.
Keeper of the Dream Page 4
