“She’s safe, sire. Never fear.”
“Safe? What is that supposed to—” But Taliesin wriggled free, slithering like an eel in and out among the columns to disappear into the crowd.
“Goddamn it!” The monks suddenly ceased their chanting and Raine’s curse echoed against the soaring ceiling like the clap of a bell.
“Raine?”
Raine jerked his eyes from the last place Taliesin had been and onto his king’s perplexed face. “I’m sorry, Your Grace. I wasn’t listening.”
“I said that it is impossible to wage a proper war against a people who refuse to stand and fight in the open. What say you to the notion of making inquiries of this petty prince? To see if he is whipped enough to sue for peace.”
“I say we don’t stand a piss-pot’s chance of conquering the Welsh.” Raine saw Hugh roll his eyes, but he knew King Henry preferred plain speaking and he went on. “But then neither can Gwynedd defeat us. It’s a stalemate and Owain knows it. He might agree to talk peace. The best you can hope for out of it all is to compel him to do homage to you for Wales, then let him rule his country as he wills, declare yourself the winner and leave.”
Henry nodded reluctantly. He might not like his alter natives, but he was no fool. “And if he doesn’t agree to my terms?”
“He will.” Raine allowed a slow smile to curve his lips. “Particularly when you inform him that we have his daughter.”
Henry’s protruding eyes bulged even further with his surprise. “We do?” He tossed the naked capon bone into the rushes and slapped his greasy hands together. “Ah, Raine, Raine, my best and bravest knight, do we?”
“How on earth did you ever acquire Gwynedd’s daughter?” Hugh asked, a worried frown on his face.
Taliesin came toward the king bearing a tray of nuts and wafers.
“Aye, Your Grace, I have her,” Raine said, silently praying that was still the case and trying to catch his squire’s eyes.
“Then we shall send a messenger to Owain immediately,” Henry exclaimed as he paced. “By God’s eyes, but I would barter my immortal soul to see the fellow’s face—”
“If I might make a humble suggestion, Your Grace,” said a clear, young voice.
Henry stiffened and whirled, to gape at the kneeling servant who had suddenly spoken without permission. “Who are you to dare interrupt your king?” he roared.
Raine sighed. “Forgive him, Your Grace. The lad is my—”
“Bard,” Taliesin supplied, with a bright smile.
“Squire,” Raine ground out between clenched jaws.
“Your bard!” Hugh hooted. “You have no land, no castles, yet you have yourself a bard.” His laughter boomed throughout the nave. “I suppose no self-respecting knight-errant should be without one.”
Henry quelled Hugh with a single look. His big hand fell on Taliesin’s shoulder, propelling the boy to his feet. “You are Welsh, lad, are you not? I detect a certain accent in your speech.” Raine had detected it as well. The wretched boy had spoken flawless French for two years and now he had suddenly acquired a Welsh burr on his tongue.
“I have heard that yours is a race of people that believes in the freedom to speak one’s mind, even in front of a prince,” Henry was saying with a hard-edged smile. “So I will listen to what you have to say, and afterward Sir Raine will have you flogged for your impertinence.”
“Aye, well …” Taliesin cast an apprehensive glance at Raine, then focused all his attention onto the king, flashing a smile so dazzling that Henry blinked. “Your Grace, do not ransom the Lady Arianna back to her father. Rather, keep her as hostage, as surety against the prince’s future aggression.”
He paused, and when this elicited no response from the three men he plunged on. “As your hostage she becomes your ward and you can dispose of her as you will, either to convent or marriage. I say give her as bride to the new Lord of Rhuddlan. For the prince will not likely attack the man and castle that harbors his only and most cherished daughter.” A stunned silence followed this speech. Taliesin kept his gaze carefully fixed on the king.
“But I’m already married,” Hugh finally said.
Raine said nothing, merely stared at his squire with an utterly appalled look on his normally impassive face.
The king stroked his beard. “There is merit to what you suggest …”
Taliesin’s head bobbed with his enthusiasm. “Aye, aye, much merit, milord. And think, too, since Your Grace is torn over the disposition of Rhuddlan, perhaps Your Grace might want to hold a tourney to decide who wins the honor. A trial by mock combat. A tourney would also be a grand celebration to mark your victory in Wales, milord.”
A slow smile broke over Henry’s face. “Aye … Aye …”
“But … but …” Hugh sputtered.
Taliesin turned the full power of his beautiful smile onto Hugh. “Should you win the tourney, my lord earl, you could always reward a most deserving and loyal vassal with the fief and the bride.” His gaze passed on to Raine’s frozen face. “You, sire, are of course free to take the Lady Arianna to wife.”
“Fight a tourney for Rhuddlan!” Hugh exploded. “That is the most ridiculous—”
“By God’s eyes!” Henry roared. “But I do like the way this lad thinks. He has a brain like mine.”
“He’s a God-cursed fool,” Raine said, completely unmindful of the fact that he’d just insulted his king. He rather liked the idea of settling the issue of Rhuddlan in a tournament, for he had no doubt that he would win. But to have to take Owain’s daughter to wife … For this I will kill the boy, Raine thought. This time, for certes, I will kill him.
But to his horror Raine heard the king’s bullish voice exclaiming, as if it had been his idea all along, “You, Sir Raine … and you, my lord Earl of Chester, will meet man-to-man in a joust with blunted lances. And the winner will get Rhuddlan and Owain’s daughter as the prize!”
“Up, up, up, milady!” The bed curtains snapped apart with a rustle of embroidered damask and a cloud of dust. Bright sunlight pierced through the closed lids of Arianna’s eyes.
Groaning, she rolled onto her stomach and pulled the pillow over her head. “Go away, Edith. Leave me alone.”
There was no reason why she should get up. Not when this day promised to be another like yesterday. A day spent spinning out the hours shut up in this bedchamber within Rhuddlan’s great hall, while the King of England met with her father. And used her as a whip to bring Gwynedd to heel. Even now they were probably setting the price of her ransom. She dreaded finding out what her life would cost her father, and Wales.
The maidservant had not gone away. She pulled back the bedcovers, exposing Arianna’s naked flesh to the sting of the cold morning air.
“God’s death!” Arianna leapt up, snatching at the fur-lined robe Edith held out. But the woman’s bovine smile didn’t waver. She had a round, poxed face, with small, squinty eyes like squash seeds and wren-brown hair that hung in strings over her bony shoulders, like a hank of flax. She had yet, in four days, to say anything to Arianna beyond the commonest banalities.
“It’s too fine a day to be a slug-a-bed, milady,” Edith said, and smiled again.
Arianna gritted her teeth around another blasphemous curse. Couldn’t the fool woman see that she was a prisoner? She could spend the day abed or up and pacing the floor and it would make little difference.
Nevertheless Arianna did get up, going over to the laver by the window. As she washed, the ringing of the chapel bell drifted in on the breeze, calling the faithful to worship. But she wouldn’t be able to attend Mass until after the nooning. It was the only time she was allowed out of the bedchamber, and even then she was accompanied by guards—two thick, knotty fellows, each big enough to carry off the prize ram at a wrestling match.
On a stool beside the empty brazier, Edith had set a tray of manchet bread glazed with honey and a pot of ale, and Arianna sat down to break her fast. “ ’Tis wash day, milady,” Edith said, as she s
tripped the bed. “You’ll be having nice fresh, clean sheets this night.”
“Thank you, Edith,” Arianna said, giving the woman the warmest smile she could muster. It was hardly Edith’s fault that she was a prisoner of the Normans, and Arianna felt guilty for having taken her temper out on the hapless servant.
Her arms loaded with linen, Edith bustled from the room. Arianna wandered over to the window. It was indeed a beautiful morning, though it had poured rain throughout the night, turning the yard into a sea of mud. At least she hadn’t been shut up within the keep’s stone vault this time. Her prison was a comfortable chamber in the long, two-storied timbered hall within the bailey.
The yard below her window was alive with activity. A cook, lugging a steaming cauldron, emerged from the kitchen, almost colliding with a baker who performed a fancy two-step while balancing a tray of loaves on his head. Now that the chapel bell had ceased its pealing, she could hear the smack of the laundresses’ wooden paddles beating sheets in the wash trough. A cart piled high with new rushes for the floors rattled by beneath her window.
Just then the watchman blew his horn and the gate swung wide. A dozen men on horseback clattered at a fast trot across the drawbridge, the man in the lead bearing the standard that had haunted her dreams—a black dragon on a bloodred field.
Rache and lyam-hounds dashed among the flying hooves. The pack bayed in a fever of excitement, red tongues lolling. A man bore a slaughtered boar’s head on the point of a spear, while another blew on the hunting horn, announcing the kill. The black knight reined up before the hall. He must have been out hunting since dawn. His horse’s sides were flecked with foam from the gallop of the chase, but still the spirited charger danced about, so a squire had to run up and hold the stirrup for the knight to dismount. The squire, she saw by the flash of his red hair, was that wretched, traitorous boy.
The knight had on spurred boots that were higher than was fashionable, reaching to his knees. His plain leather tunic was slit up the side for riding. It revealed thighs encased in tight chausses that hugged every sinew of lean, hard muscles built from hours spent in the tilting yard. His head was bare and the wind stirred his raven-black hair. His chainse showed white beneath the open neck of his tunic, contrasting with the sun-browned skin of his hard and ruthless face. His incredible arrogance was evident in the very way he walked, in his purposeful, long-legged stride and the sauntering sway of his lean hips.
He stopped just below her window. Close enough to spit on. He stood in profile to her and the sun highlighted the sharp bones of his predatory nose and high cheekbones. He was close enough that if he tilted back his head he would see her. But he was in deep conversation with his squire.
Though she was his prisoner, the only time they had been face-to-face since that day in his tent was last afternoon, when their paths had crossed in the bailey while she was on her way to Mass. She had made certain he knew just what she thought of him by allowing all the hatred she felt to show in her face, and he … he had looked right through her with those opaque gray eyes.
She was of no importance to him beyond the ransom she could bring. In truth, she thanked God nightly that he had no desire to lie with her, for she would be returned to her father a virgin still. But for some reason she couldn’t begin to understand, his lack of interest stung her pride. Dozens of men had begged for her hand in marriage, but none had been deemed good enough for her. Yet this Norman knight, who was a drab’s by-blow without title or land, looked at her—when he bothered to look at all—as if she weren’t good enough to wipe his boots.
Arianna started to push away from the window when her gaze fell on the laver nearby. The basin was filled with water covered by a soapy scum left over from her wash.
Before she could lose her nerve, she picked up the basin and flung the contents out the window, shifting her aim at the last minute so that the water landed not on his head, as she’d originally intended, but at his feet. The water splattered on the wet ground, splashing mud onto his boots.
The knight’s dark head snapped up and around. Arianna looked right through him, then she shifted her gaze over to the squire, who was also staring up at her, surprise on his face, and she smiled at the boy.
“Oh dear, forgive me, Taliesin,” she said in her sweetest voice. “I didn’t see you there. I hope I didn’t muddy you.”
The squire had been standing well apart from his master and had not been touched by the flying mud. A big grin stretched his mobile face. “Nay, and good morrow to you, milady.”
“Good morrow, Taliesin,” she said, flashing a brilliant smile in return.
Arianna turned from the window, pleased with herself. That had certainly shown the Norman that if she meant little to him, he meant even less to her.
A few moments later the sound of footsteps on the stairs caused Arianna to regret her rash impulse to put the man in his place. But when the door swung open it was Taliesin who entered.
“Sir Raine summons you to the bailey, milady,” he said, his face blank, though she thought she caught a twinkle of gleeful anticipation in his eyes.
Arianna’s mouth went dry. She nodded and, her spine rigid, her head held high, she followed the squire out the chamber. But it was the two burly guards, and not Taliesin, who brought her outside and into the bailey.
The knight stood next to the hitching post beside the hall’s front stairs. She stopped before him and met his hard, gray eyes. “You wished to speak with me, Norman?”
He braced one muddy boot against the rail. “Clean them.”
Arianna’s chin jerked up. “Summon a servant.”
“You dirtied them, wench. Now you will clean them.”
There wasn’t a trace of inflection in his voice, and his eyes remained flat, inscrutable. They could have been discussing the weather.
She gave him a freezing smile and cooed in a sing-song, “Clean your boots, sir bastard knight? Why, I would sooner eat them.”
He bared his teeth back at her. “Shall I summon the cook?”
He wouldn’t dare, would he? Of course he wouldn’t dare. “You wouldn’t dare.”
He shrugged. “Nay, you are right. It would be a waste of a perfectly good pair of boots.” His face hardened, and his eyes took on a lazy, dangerous cast. “Clean them, wench. Or feel the flat of my sword across your backside.”
She heard a snickering coming from the two guards behind her, which was abruptly cut off at a look from their master. The laundresses had stopped their beating, and an expectant silence had fallen over a bailey, which seemed suddenly filled with people. Even the mews and kennels were quiet. She thought of how humiliating it would be to be beaten like a disobedient child in front of all these strangers, and she knew she didn’t have the courage to test his resolve.
His eyes had fastened onto her mouth, as if he waited for her to speak. Her lips felt suddenly dry, and she wet them with her tongue. “I … I don’t have anything to wipe them with.”
His hand lashed out and Arianna flinched, thinking he meant to hit her. Instead he grabbed a fistful of her bliaut and yanked. The material gave way with a loud rip and Arianna flinched again. He jerked at the thin silk cloth twice more until a piece of it came free in his hands. He held it out to her.
“Now you do,” he said.
Beneath her bliaut, Arianna wore a pelisse, and beneath that a chainse. He hadn’t exactly stripped her naked, and her cheeks burned more from anger than embarrassment. She snatched the piece of ripped cloth out of his hand, but in the next instant she was possessed with a desire to laugh. It seemed he thought her good enough to wipe his boots after all.
Leaning over, she brushed off the drying flecks of mud. The boot was made of the finest Cordovan goatskin, but it had long since seen better days. The leather had almost worn through at the inside of his calf, from rubbing against his horse’s flanks. Her father would have thrown such a pair of boots out long ago. The knight obviously needed the money she would bring him. It angered her to think
that his lot in life would now improve because of her.
Finished, she glanced up, expecting him to be watching her and gloating over her humiliation. But his eyes were focused instead on the keep at the far end of the bailey, and she saw to her surprise a look of naked hunger on his face.
“I’ve finished, Norman.”
His head jerked around, and he looked at her a moment, and she thought he might really be seeing her this time, though his face had regained its usual closed expression. He studied the boot, pointing to the heel. “You missed a spot.”
Arianna’s jaws clenched. She bent over, rubbing so hard her hand slipped and she cut her knuckles on the sharp edge of his spur. Tears of pain stung her eyes and she cursed beneath her breath.
“Did you say something, wench?”
She straightened with a snap. “I said give me the other boot and damn you to hell.”
His lips moved slightly, and she thought he might be about to smile. Instead, he dropped the spotless boot to the ground and supplanted it with a muddy one. Arianna finished the task in silence.
He examined her work. “Passable, but just barely.” His head came up and she saw in his eyes the glint of some unnamed emotion that came and then vanished. “I wouldn’t hire myself out as a servant though, if I were you. You haven’t the talent for it.”
In spite of herself Arianna almost smiled. But before she could think of a snappy retort he had started to turn, and she realized he was about to walk away. She had found out nothing about what he intended to do with her.
“Wait!” she cried out, louder than she’d meant to. He paused, black brows raised in a mild enquiry. “Have … have you spoken with my father? Is the ransom arranged?”
“The matter has been concluded to my king’s satisfaction,” was all he said.
Arianna wanted to scream with frustration. She wanted to slap that impassive face. She wanted to pound her fists against his indifferent chest. She wanted to make him feel something. “Well, it has not been concluded to my satisfaction! You owe Gwynedd a blood debt, Norman. The day will come, and soon I pray, when that debt will be paid with your life.”
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