The knight thundered by Raine and his men. “Ambush!” he shouted over his shoulder. “The Welsh have attacked and the king is down!”
Raine spun around to take his shield and lance from his squire. “Taliesin, ride back—” The order stopped midway out Raine’s mouth as he stared into the frightened fawn eyes and thin, freckled face of Sir Odo’s ten-year-old page. “What in hellfire are you doing here, and where is my squire?”
The boy quailed beneath Raine’s fury. “B-back at Rhuddlan where you l-left him, sire. He said there was something there you w-wanted to keep from falling into the earl’s hands.”
There was nothing at Rhuddlan that Raine wanted to keep from Hugh, beyond the castle itself. More likely Taliesin had spotted that green-eyed wench he fancied. Women would be the death of that boy. He would be the death of the boy, when next he got his hands on him.
Raine sent one of the other squires back to alert the rest of his army. He had started to touch his spurs to his destrier, when he spotted Sir Odo’s page hunched over his cob, trying to blend inconspicuously into the middle of the pack of knights. He glared and pointed at the boy. “And you, lad … you keep away from the fighting. If I catch you trying to be a hero, I’ll blister your backside with my sword belt afterward. Is that clear?”
They rapidly pressed single file along the path created by the fleeing horses. Before long they could hear muted sounds of fighting—neighing horses, screams and curses, the hysterical bleat of a trumpet. They emerged into a clearing atop a small rise, and Raine took in the flux of the battle at a glance.
Below them King Henry and a small band of knights were trapped in a narrow wooded defile. The way ahead was blocked by felled trees, their retreat cut off by the enemy, who sniped at them from the protection of the forest. The knights in their cumbersome armor were no match for the fleet-footed Welsh and the deadly, mail-piercing arrows of their longbows. Already the narrow path and stream were clogged with the bodies of men and horses.
“The king is dead!” someone screamed, and at that moment the king’s men broke, running for the dubious safety of the forest. Raine saw the royal standard fall. “A moi, le Raine!” He shouted his battle cry and spurred his horse down the rise.
Bellowing like a man possessed, Raine rallied the fleeing royal troop. He paid no attention to the arrows that came at him from all sides, fighting his way toward the place where he had last seen the king. He found Henry on one knee trying to fend off a battle-ax with a shattered shield. Raine leaned from his horse and slashed backhanded with his long sword, striking the attacking Welshman in the chest with a blow that rattled Raine’s teeth and nearly cut the man in half.
Raine leapt from his horse and hauled the dazed king to his feet with one hand, while with the other he snatched up the royal standard from where it lay, trampled in the mud. He waved the banner with its distinctive fox device high over his head and his voice carried clearly over the tumult of battle.
“A Henri, le roi!”
Within moments it was over. A Welsh olifant blared a retreat as the enemy melted back into the thickly wooded hills.
Raine blinked the battle fog from his eyes. Wiping his bloody sword on the hem of his bliaut, he turned to his king. The young monarch’s freckles stood out like ink marks above his red beard. His protruding gray eyes were wide with fear. Raine realized it was the first time Henry had ever truly been close to death.
“You look in fine fettle, sire,” Raine said with a lazy smile, “for a man who’s supposed to be dead. Owain of Gwynedd will be sorely disappointed.”
“Aye, he will.” Henry’s voice cracked, and he had to clear his throat. Then he threw back his head and barked a laugh. “He will at that!”
The king’s normally ruddy color started to come back into his face. His large, coarse hands clasped Raine’s shoulders. “You saved my life.” He fixed Raine with his eyes and his voice grew rough with genuine emotion. “Be thinking what you want most, my dear friend and bravest knight, for if it is in my power, be sure that I will grant it.”
“Your Grace. I ask only that I might serve you.”
The king’s fingers tightened and he shook Raine gently. “It was more than a man’s life you saved on this day. You saved a kingdom.”
Aye, I did. Raine lowered the lids over his eyes to hide the surge of hope he felt. And you, my lord king, are going to give me Rhuddlan for it
“Now is no time to be taking a nap, my lady.”
Arianna opened her eyes and looked at the face of a boy. He had the palest skin she had ever seen, which made the dark red brows on his forehead look like cuts. The brows arched above sloe-black eyes that glinted with a strange, shimmering light. He blinked and the light faded. His mouth quirked into a mischievous smile that was all boy.
Arianna tried to sit up and the world reeled. The boy slipped a firm hand beneath her arm, steadying her. “Whoa, careful,” he said. “Don’t sit up too fast.”
When the earth stopped tilting she looked around her. She was still inside the wine vault. The blond Norman who had tried to rape her lay sprawled among split sacks of the illegal flour. His head was laid open with a bloody gash, and she thought he was dead until a drunken snore puffed out his lips.
Her temples throbbed and nausea cramped her stomach. She closed her eyes for a moment. “What happened?”
“You must have struck your head and passed out for a minute,” the boy said. He had a strange voice. The words he spoke were ordinary Welsh, but he almost sang them.
Arianna’s eyes opened and her glance flickered back to the knight. The boy flashed a knowing grin, pointing to the stone quern that lay beside the snoring Norman. “He seems to have struck his head, as well.”
“I didn’t …” She faltered. She remembered swinging the quern at the Norman’s head, but she had landed only a glancing blow, for he had cursed her afterward, and pawed at her breasts. There had been something else … a figure in a vision that had seemed real living, breathing flesh. And a flash of blue fire …
The stone walls of the vault suddenly tipped again and Arianna groaned. She thought she might have to vomit. She took several deep breaths and touched the swelling lump on her forehead.
The boy rose to his feet with a smooth, athletic grace. He was dressed as a Norman squire, but he wore on his head a battered helmet gilded gold, a relic from the time of the ancient ones. Arianna had seen such a helmet only once before—in the hands of the bard who had given her the magic mazer. But the bard had been an old man, and the face below this helmet belonged to a youth who couldn’t have been older than seventeen.
He held out his hand to her. “I don’t mean to rush you, my Lady Arianna, but we really should be getting the hell out of here.”
She stared up at him; she did not take the proffered hand. “You know who I am?”
“Know you, my lady? How could I not know you, when your beauty, your wit, and your charm are so legendary. There isn’t a red-blooded man in all of Wales who would fail to recognize you.”
He gave her such a delightful, teasing smile that Arianna couldn’t help smiling back. “What nonsense,” she said.
“Aye, isn’t it.” He held out his hand again. “Now, if you will, my lady …”
She waited for him to enlighten her with his identity, but he did not.
“I’m not leaving with you until I know who you are.”
He cocked his head at the blond knight snoring among the flour sacks. “You’d rather stay here with him?”
Arianna’s pointed chin took on a stubborn tilt her brothers would have recognized.
The boy sighed. “I am called Taliesin, but if you must have my pedigree it would take me all day and night to list it. Would it suffice you to know that the first sight my eyes saw upon my birth was the snow-capped peak of Yr Wyddfa Fawr? I am,” he added with obvious pride, “a bard.”
Arianna was impressed in spite of herself, for Welsh bards were of a chosen few and almost always of noble blood. But she was al
so suspicious. “Then why do you dress as a Norman squire?”
“Why are you dressed like a kitchen wench?”
Arianna acceded his point. She took his hand and let him help her to her feet. She was only a little dizzy now, and she was relieved to discover she would not have to throw up after all. “You are a child of Gwynedd then?”
“Did I not just say so?” he snapped irritably. “Now are you coming, or no?”
“Do you know my father? Are you taking me to him? Where are you taking me?”
He rolled his eyes heavenward, muttering something that sounded oddly like “Goddess, preserve me.” Then he sighed. “I’m leading you to safety, my lady.”
But at the door he paused, snapped his fingers and muttered a curse before turning back. When he emerged again from the recesses of the vault, he carried the golden mazer. He had the bowl cradled in his hands and for a moment Arianna was sure it pulsed and glowed. But when he pressed it into her hands and she touched the metal it felt cool and ordinary. There was a new dent in the rim, where it had struck the wall.
She glanced at his face. His jet eyes shimmered brightly, then dulled.
“Are you quite ready to leave now, my lady?” he asked, irritated, impatient, as if she had been the one to send him back for the bowl.
He led her up the narrow mural stairs and behind the passage screen that opened into the great hall. She looked with trepidation within, where a great fire burned, and men crowded around the trestle tables, drinking and eating. A jongleur, wearing a gaudily striped tunic, moved among the raucous warriors, strumming a gittern and singing a raunchy song. Arianna was sure the man looked right at them as they passed, but he sounded no alarm and his voice didn’t miss a single note.
They passed through the heavy iron-banded door of the tower. The gate to the shell keep was wedged partly open by a stone, though it was guarded by a pair of spearmen. The men leaned against the wall and passed a cannikin of wine back and forth as they shared a naughty tale about a monk tupping a burgess’s wife. Arianna and the boy walked practically beneath their noses, but the guards appeared not to see them.
It’s as if they can’t see us, Arianna thought, and felt an awe tinged with fear.
A second later, she was smiling over her foolishness when a knight, who climbed toward them up the motte steps, casually nodded his head and called a greeting to the boy. No one had sounded the alarm simply because they all knew Taliesin and trusted that he had the authority to be taking her … wherever he was taking her.
Arianna followed the golden helmet as it descended the timber stairs. She debated the wisdom of placing her own trust in this strange boy. But as promised, he was leading her safely out of the keep. Once free of the castle she could always break away from him; for, in truth, she was more than a little afraid of him. The image of that wraith in the doorway haunted her. He had been like an angel of vengeance, blue fire leaping from his finger to …
But, no, she had been the one to knock out the knight, she had struck the man down with the stone quern. The rest had all been only a dream, brought on by the blow to her head.
She studied the slender back that moved in front of her, the thin waist, narrow hips, and lanky legs. He was all too real, a mere boy, and an irritating, cocky one at that. He wasn’t an angel. He was too much like one of her brothers.
They crossed the drawbridge and entered the bailey, and walked into an enshrouding whiteness. Never had Arianna seen mist so thick. It was as if she were looking at the world through a winding sheet. The mist had a strange density to it, but it wasn’t damp. Rather it glimmered and glinted like millions of ice crystals, though it wasn’t cold either, and it glowed as if lit from within. She could hardly see two inches in front of her, yet the boy forged ahead, his long legs covering so much ground that she had to run to keep up with him.
Though Arianna saw no one else, she heard others moving about within the bailey. Sounds echoed around her—the whinny of horses, the curses of men, someone whistling a drinking song. Occasionally she caught the glimpse of a shadow. Yet she had the strangest impression that she and the boy were the only ones enclosed within the impenetrable mist, that just beyond them the sun shone warmly in a blue sky.
They passed through the gatehouse, again without challenge. The mist was less thick here, though tendrils of it curled up from the river bank. The boy picked up his pace after they crossed the drawbridge. Arianna cast a quick glance over her shoulder at the castle. A low-lying, foggy cloud hugged the keep and tower, explaining the origin of the mysterious mist. God’s eyes, but she was starting to let her imagination run away with her.
Taliesin led her at a quick trot down the rutted road toward the town. The gate swung, moaning, on its battered hinges. Within the walls the streets were deserted, for those still left alive had long since fled into the forest. But though empty of people, the way before them was littered with water-logged loaves of bread, ripped tunics, stoved-in buckets, and other things the Normans had thought too useless to steal.
The stink of wet, burnt timber hung in the air. But as they neared the market square, Arianna saw that the narrow wooden shops and houses belonging to the well-to-do burgesses had been spared. The Black Dragon was no fool; the new Lord of Rhuddlan would need the tax revenue produced by the draper, the miller, the saddler, and their ilk.
A squealing pig darted out of an alley, trailing saliva from its snout, and startling Arianna into an embarrassing scream by nearly colliding with her legs. She tried to sidestep out of its way and tripped over a scattered pile of faggots. She would have gone sprawling, except that the boy was suddenly there to catch her. Though he was slender of build, there was a strength to his grip that was oddly comforting.
“Mind your step,” he said in his mellifluous voice. They were the first words he had spoken since leaving the wine vault.
“Shouldn’t we have set off through the forest?” Arianna asked, her voice betraying her uncertainty.
“Nay. We’d do better to go by boat.”
Arianna nodded. They could sail out the river estuary and up the straits. Within hours they would make landfall in Gwynedd—a trip that would take days traveling overland on foot.
They walked in tense silence the rest of the way to the river wharfs. A grainy powder dusted the gray weathered boards of the dock, flour from the looted mill house nearby. It was eerily silent but for the slap of water against the pilings. Taliesin went immediately to a skiff and began untying the mooring lines. He helped Arianna into the small boat, settling her down in the bow, then climbed in after her. He expertly hoisted the single sail.
Arianna felt a sudden surge as wind filled the canvas. He flashed her a bright smile as he pulled off his beautiful helmet, carelessly tossing it toward the stern. As he adjusted the tiller to allow for the current, the wind caught his long hair, billowing it around his head. It was a bright, orange-red color, like the fur of a fox.
They sailed up the long tidal estuary of the river Clwyd. The land here was flat, sandy beaches and wild marsh grass, stretching to the variegated green sea. Arianna breathed deeply of the heavy, salty air. Shore birds dipped and soared, riding the wind currents, and in spite of all that had happened on this day, she felt suddenly carefree, as if she flew with them.
They slid out the mouth of the estuary and into the open sea. The storm had left the water frothed with while caps. Arianna stood at the bow, looking toward home, enjoying the feel of the sea spray on her face as the skiff cleaved the waves. Then she heard the sail flap behind her, and the boat heeled suddenly as it took on a new tack. She whipped around, gripped by fury, and fear….
For they sailed now not toward Gwynedd, but England.
The boy was not at the tiller. He was right before her, staring at her with those shimmering jet-black eyes. Where are you taking me? she asked, except that she had used no words, for they had only just formed in her mind. But he, it seemed, answered with a thought as well.
Forgive me, my lady, he said
. He pressed a dripping sponge to her lips and nose. Panicked, suffocating, she opened her mouth and sucked in the reeking fumes of the narcotic henbane plant.
It was the last thing she remembered before darkness overwhelmed her.
She smelled bean potage cooking over an open fire, heard laughter and the cheerful lilt of a reed pipe. Arianna opened her eyes. The flame of a brass oil lamp winked back at her.
She stirred, and pain shot up her legs. She lay, she discovered, on a densely packed straw pallet that would have been comfortable if her feet had not been bound to her hands with leather thongs that cut into her flesh. Her mouth felt dry and cottony, as if it were stuffed with a rag. It was stuffed with a rag, she realized an instant later; there was a gag across her mouth. She swallowed, and almost retched over a bitter metallic taste, as if she had just bitten down on a sword.
She lifted her head, trying to see her surroundings. She was in a campaign tent sparsely furnished with an iron-studded war chest, a leather coffer, a brazier filled with cold ashes, a padded stool … and something odd—a treelike object made of woven straw and shaped like a man’s upper torso. She stared at it, trying to puzzle out what it was, and then it came to her. It was what a knight would hang his coat of mail on, when he wasn’t armored.
She was trussed up and lying in a knight’s tent. A Norman knight’s tent by the look of it. And as if in confirmation she heard footsteps passing by and the clipped, nasal intonations of French.
Arianna squeezed her eyes shut. She had trusted that wretched, hateful boy, and he had betrayed her by delivering her into the hands of her enemies. Tears trickled out from beneath clenched lids to run down her cheeks, soaking into the gag. She didn’t know why, but the pain of this betrayal made her weep when Ceidro’s death and all that had followed afterward had not.
After a long time she opened her eyes onto the conical canvas roof. Gold-tinted clouds scudded across the smoke hole above her. It felt too early to still be today, so it must already be tomorrow, and she must have slept unconscious through the night. The boy must have bathed her, too, for she was no longer covered with mud. Even her hair had been cleaned and she’d been dressed in a new tunic that didn’t stink of the stables. He had kept her magic mazer for himself though, for it wasn’t with her and she didn’t see it lying about.
Keeper of the Dream Page 5
