“What blood debt?”
He looked genuinely surprised. She realized suddenly that he truly didn’t know the identity of the youth he had struck down before the gates of Rhuddlan. “The man you took this castle from, the man you killed with your lance … he was my brother.”
His eyes widened slightly. “Ah, I see … So that explains why you’ve been trying to stick something lethal in me since first we met.” He shrugged, shaking his head. “I owe you no blood debt, girl. The blame for your brother’s death lands on your father’s and King Henry’s heads for starting this fool war in the first place. And on the boy’s own head for being stupid enough to fall for a trick the veriest babe shouldn’t have fallen for.”
He hesitated, and though his voice remained flat and cold, she thought his face softened a little. “It was war, my lady. If it was in truth my lance that killed your brother, it wasn’t personal. God willing his soul found salvation.”
Tears burned her eyes, but she would be damned first before she would weep before this man. It made it worse somehow, knowing that he was right. She drew in a deep breath to alleviate some of the crushing ache in her chest, and to her horror a sob burst from her throat. Humiliated, she whirled, stumbling away from him, but he snagged her arm, hauling her up against his chest. His fist closed around her hair, pulling her head back and he brought his mouth down over hers.
She went still as all the breath left her body. His lips moved over hers, hard at first, then gentling. She brought her hands up between them, to push him away. Instead her fingers curled around the edges of his leather tunic and she clung to him as the blood rushed from her head. She didn’t know she kissed him back, she didn’t hear him groan. Her senses reeled, focused only on the strange, sweet, and painful feel of his lips on hers.
He released her mouth. She looked up at him, dazed, confused by the sensations that coursed through her body. She was dissolving, melting, burning up inside. Her lips parted open.
His head dipped, but then his fist tightened in her hair and he pulled her away from him. He stepped back, staring at her with eyes that were wide open and filled with the same bewildered shock she knew were in her own.
That afternoon Arianna sat on a stool before the empty brazier, listlessly picking at a bowl of veal piquant, when behind her the door flung open, slamming against the wall. She whirled in alarm, her fist pressed to her breast, just as a boy came hurtling into the chamber, shoved in by one of the guards.
“Rhodri!” Arianna jumped up to fling her arms around the boy. But her joy turned immediately to horror as it occurred to her what her younger brother’s presence must mean. “Oh, Rhodri, is Father dead? Has he been captured?”
“Leave off, Arianna, for the love of Christ. You’re smothering me.” Rhodri wriggled out of her hug. At fourteen he considered himself too old for such displays of affection. He smoothed the front of his ruffled tunic. “Nay, Father is well. He’s just agreed to a truce with that devil’s spawn, King Henry.”
“A truce? Have I been ransomed then? Are you here to escort me home?”
“Well, not exactly.” Rhodri’s eyes shifted away from hers.
“What exactly?”
He ignored her, prowling the room. Like all of Owain’s children, he bore the Gwynedd features. His eyes were several shades paler than Arianna’s, the color of baby ferns. His hair was a lighter brown, tipped golden by the sun. Though it had only been a little over a month since she had last seen him, he seemed to have sprouted a foot. He was all skinny arms and legs.
He stopped his prowling when he discovered her dinner. He tore off a piece of bread, stuffing it in his mouth.
Arianna heaved an impatient sigh. “Rhodri, will you tell me—”
“Aye, aye.” He spoke around the food in his mouth. “As I said, Father signed a truce with England. He paid homage to King Henry, but England has agreed to withdraw and respect in future our right to rule ourselves. In return he had to give up Rhuddlan, along with the whole of the cantref of Tegeingl, and two hostages as surety for future peace.” He took a swig of the ale to wash down the bread. “Us.”
Arianna’s mouth quirked into a funny smile. “Us? We … we’re to be the hostages?” The thought of being condemned to a life in England was so horrible she could scarce imagine it.
“Aye.” Rhodri’s chin began to tremble and he clenched his jaw to stop it. “At least we won’t be locked up.” He shuddered. “I don’t think I could bear that. It won’t be so bad, you’ll see,” he said, sounding as if he tried to convince himself. “I’m to be made a squire in some Norman’s household.”
“And what of me?” Arianna asked, though she hardly needed to. Women hostages were invariably entombed in some convent. She told herself such a life would be for the greater glory of God, but that didn’t make her feel any better. “Oh, Rhodri. I don’t think I will make a particularly good nun.”
“Huh? Who says you’re going to be a nun? You’re being married off to the new Lord of Rhuddlan. Whoever he’s to be.” He tilted back his head and started to drink again from the ale pot.
Arianna seized his arm. “Married! Married to whom?”
“Jesu. Look what you’ve done.” The ale had splattered over the front of Rhodri’s tunic. He wiped at the wet spot, then picked up another piece of bread and began to gnaw on it. “King Henry is to hold a tournament to find out who it’s to be—a joust between two contenders. One is the Earl of Chester—’course, he already has a wife and plenty of castles, too, so he’ll no doubt bestow the honor onto one of his vassals and that’ll be the man you have to marry.”
“And the other one?” She snatched the bread from his hand. “Damn you, Rhodri! Will you leave off eating for a moment?”
Rhodri gave her a wounded look. “I’ve been trying to tell you, if you’d only let me get a word in. The other knight to joust will be the Black Dragon.”
Though she had expected, dreaded, as much, Arianna didn’t want to believe him. She shook her head wildly back and forth. “Nay, you lie, Rhodri. Father wouldn’t do this to me. He wouldn’t marry me to such a man.”
Rhodri’s eyes filled with pity. “Father explained it all. ’Tis for Gwynedd that he does this. Once the truce is signed and your, uh … marriage takes place, King Henry will withdraw and leave us in peace to rule ourselves.” He lifted one shoulder in a tiny, hopeless shrug. “Mayhap the Black Dragon won’t win the joust.”
Arianna spun around, clutching at her hair, her scoffing laughter hoarsened by the sobs that threatened to burst from her chest. She wanted to rage at how unfair it all was, but then she’d always known that when she married it would be for the good of Gwynedd, and to a man she’d likely never met before. It was just that a secret part of her, the romantic part of her, had always believed that she would take but one look at her betrothed’s handsome face, gaze once into his adoring eyes, and fall wildly in love. As he would fall passionately, irrevocably in love with her.
But it hadn’t happened that way.
Her eyes clenched shut and she saw a man’s face—hard and remote, with a ruthless mouth and cold, flint-gray eyes filled with nothing at all.
The face of the man who would be her husband.
6
“I’ll marry the wench if I must, to get Rhuddlan. But I sure in hellfire don’t have to like it.”
“Goddess, preserve me,” Taliesin muttered beneath his breath. He blew on the pointed bronze boss of Raine’s shield, then gave it a vigorous polish with a linen rag. “She doesn’t appear to think much of you either, my liege.”
Raine stopped pacing the narrow confines of his tent to point a finger at his squire. “And don’t think I’ve forgotten who’s responsible for this entire mess. I still intend to punish you for it too. Once I decide on a method painful enough. At the moment I’m torn between putting you blindfolded into a pit with a wild boar, or dropping you from the top of the keep into a cauldron of boiling oil.”
Raine’s threats as usual had no effect on his
squire. Taliesin grinned as he rested the shield against the side of a war chest to admire his handiwork. He had varnished it red, then painted Raine’s black dragon device on the vaulted surface.
Bright sunlight streamed through the open flap of the tent, causing the red canvas walls to glow like the inside of a brazier. Outside, a loud fanfare from a brace of horns competed with the incessant clatter of squires nailing on spear heads and heralds crying out knightly challenges, for within the hour the tournament would begin.
Taliesin placed a stool in the center of the tent, along with Raine’s boots. Raine’s brooding gaze had fallen on the raw gouge in the pole left when the Lady Arianna had attempted to take off his head with his own sword. He traced the mark with his finger and the squire, watching him, flashed a teasing smile. “Mayhap, sire, you should wear your armor when you go to bed her.”
In spite of his sour mood Raine had to laugh at the picture conjured by his squire’s words. In truth, the thought of bedding the wench was the only thing that pleased him about the marriage. He wanted her naked and beneath him. He wanted to ravish her mouth with his tongue. He wanted to thrust himself so hard and deeply inside her, she’d well and truly know who mastered her.
Raine’s sex swelled, thrusting against his tight braies. The reaction, unbidden and instantaneous, surprised and annoyed him. After the vigorous romping he had indulged in this past week with a cinnamon-haired wench by the name of Maud, a whole bevy of women strolling naked past his tent shouldn’t have been able to raise more than his eyebrow. Always before, no matter how long the abstinence, he could still maintain an iron control over his sexual appetite, but he’d never felt lust like this. He could almost taste it in his mouth, like blood.
With reverent care, Taliesin had lifted the burnished mailed hosen that lay across the bed and brought them to Raine. “The Lady Arianna will make good bedsport, don’t you think so, sire? The bards of Gwynedd all sing of her beauty.”
“Doubtless they’d better, since she’s old Owain’s daughter. They’d be singing her praises if she had a face shaped like a battle-ax and warts on her nose.” Raine eased down onto the stool, stretching out his legs so that Taliesin could pull on the hosen and trying to ignore the throbbing heat in his groin.
Taliesin knelt and began to fasten the buckles that ran up the back of the leg armor. “The two of you will get along much better once you’re wed,” he said. His brow furrowed, and he sighed as he pushed on Raine’s boots. “At least I hope so.”
Raine stood, stamping down his heels. “It is her place to learn to get along with me.”
“And if she does not, you can always pack her off to a convent once she produces your heirs.” The boy was laughing as he climbed onto the stool, bearing Raine’s coat of mail. “Shall I pray that she conceives quickly and often?”
Raine shook his head, unable to keep from smiling at his squire’s antics. Turning, he grunted as the hauberk settled onto his shoulders. The mailed coat, varnished a dull black, was made of a double thickness of tiny, finely tempered steel links and weighed close to thirty pounds.
In spite of what Taliesin implied, it was not Raine’s intention to treat the girl cruelly once they wed. Nor would he set her aside once she produced his heir. As long as she performed her duties as his wife, bred him sons, and obeyed his commands, he would treat her well. If she rebelled, however, she would suffer for it.
“Sire, I really do think you misjudge the Lady Arianna. Is your dislike of her because you’ve heard those ridiculous rumors that she’s a witch?”
Raine hadn’t heard, but he wasn’t surprised. Half the women in Wales claimed some sort of talent for bringing lovers together, casting spells, and predicting the future.
“Well, they’re all terrible lies, sire. The Lady Arianna is a true filid, a seer in the manner of the ancient ones, and much revered by our people.”
“Aye? Well, she can’t be very good at it and more’s the pity. Otherwise she’d have seen her own future soon enough to have avoided it, and we’d both have been spared a marriage neither of us wants.”
Taliesin heaved a loud sigh as he buckled the leather baldric at Raine’s waist. Raine unsheathed the sword, flexing and loosening his wrist with a few practice parries. It was not the sword he normally fought with, but rather an arm of courtesy used only in tournaments, its blade dulled, the point blunted. His lance would be dulled, too, and made of brittle wood to shatter on impact, for the Holy Church preached that a man who died in a tournament was automatically condemned to the fires of hell. A destination, Raine thought with a mental shrug, most knights were bound for in any event. Still, they normally tried not to kill each other in the course of a tournament, although it frequently happened.
Raine became aware that Taliesin was watching him intently, and he wondered what new mischief the boy was up to. “What have you done now?”
Taliesin’s eyes went blank and round. “Who me? Why nothing, sire. It’s just …” He licked his lips and cleared his throat. He scuffed the dirt with his shoe. “It’s about you and the Lady Arianna and, well … it seems you haven’t exactly taken to one another. I didn’t want to mention this to you before, but the Lady Arianna is your destiny, sire, and you’ve bungled things so badly I fear you are now going to have to go on a most arduous quest to win her love.” A baffled expression crossed the boy’s face. “I can’t understand why this is happening, but the whole thing is not going at all as smoothly as I had once thought it would …”
Raine stared at Taliesin as if the boy had suddenly started gnashing his teeth and foaming at the mouth. He’d never noticed it about the Welsh before, but he was beginning to suspect they were all a little mad.
He was sure of it an instant later when Taliesin said, “So I was thinking … there’s still time before the tournament starts, my liege. Time enough to pay your respects to the Lady Arianna. Ask her, mayhap, if you might wear her favor. Woo her a little.”
“No.”
“Why not? Do you fear she’ll attack you again? If she does, all you needs must do is kiss her. That seemed to work well the last time.”
Raine stared at Taliesin in stunned silence, then he threw back his head and laughed. It was either that, he thought, or go mad along with everyone else.
He was still smiling moments later as he left the tent and Taliesin called after him. “You’re going to speak to the Lady Arianna then?”
“No, I am not,” he said. He meant it too. At the time.
Raine strolled the avenue of gem-colored tents and pavilions that hugged the banks of the river Clwyd, sheltering within the shadow of Rhuddlan’s walls. A smoky haze drifted on the air from great fire pits where boar and stag roasted for that afternoon’s feast. But the gold-and-blue banners that lined the way still snapped in a breeze that took the edge off the heat of the summer sun.
The road to the castle was crowded with knights on destriers and ladies on white mules; boys playing football and squires airing their masters’ hawks; and everywhere people selling things, from horse dealers to pasty hawkers to armorers pulling carts piled high with weapons. A jongleur wearing a rainbow-striped mantle strolled past, strumming a gittern and crooning a love song. But he could barely be heard above the blare of trumpets, the clang of timbrels, and the beat of tabors, all clamoring for attention.
King Henry had sent out criers over a twenty-league radius announcing the tournament. Knights and nobles and their ladies had come from as far away as Shrewsbury for the event. For the past week hundreds of peasants had been drafted to build the lists and loges on the grassy plain that stretched beyond the castle moat. The lists—the long narrow field where the jousting would take place—was fenced off by a wooden palisade. Behind the lists rose the loges, the wooden grandstands where the king and other noble spectators would sit.
Raine always walked the length of the lists before a tournament. But today he had a hard time focusing his attention on the condition of the ground he would soon be galloping across at breaknec
k speed. Rather, his gaze was drawn again and again to the crowded loges.
The tiered benches were shaded by a red-and-white striped canopy and festooned with gay pennons. Everyone had dressed in their finest. The bright sunlight sparkled off gold and silver embroidery and added a glistening sheen to scarlet velvet, indigo samite, and jade silk. It twinkled in the precious stones that adorned brooches and chaplets, belts and girdles.
In all of this gaudy and dizzying spectacle, Raine searched for a single face that had been seared forever on his soul, for the flash of pale gold hair, the color of the hottest sun. Then he saw her, walking toward him across the field, and in spite of his rigid control, he felt his heartbeat quicken and his face break into a smile.
“Raine!” she cried.
She began to walk faster, and then she was running, running toward him, and he thought that at any moment she would be in his arms.
Sybil stopped running before she got to him, aware suddenly that she couldn’t throw herself into his arms no matter how badly she wanted to. She covered the last few feet in a more sedate fashion, though her legs shook so badly she wondered how they supported her.
She drank in the sight of him. He had been nineteen when last she saw him, and had not yet attained his full growth as a man. He was taller now, his chest deeper, his shoulders broader. The prettiness had been stamped out of his face, along with the gentleness.
“Oh, Raine …”
His gaze moved over her and his pale eyes warmed and darkened. “You haven’t changed.”
She laughed softly, her hand fluttering up to her hot face. “Oh, aye, I have. I’ve grown older and fatter. This morning I found yet another gray hair. I plucked it out, but I can’t keep doing that else soon I’ll have a bald spot, like a monk’s tonsure …” Her voice trailed off as she realized that she was babbling.
He smiled, and in that smile she saw the barest trace of the boy that he had been. “I was hoping you’d come,” he said.
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