Keeper of the Dream

by Penelope Williamson

  Raine searched among all these men for the obvious culprit. A flash of copper caught the corner of his eye.

  “Taliesin!” he roared. “What in bleeding hell is going on here?”

  The boy danced up, his face bright with excitement. “These are the Lady Arianna’s lovers, my lord.”

  “God’s death!” Arianna said again.

  “God and all his angels …” Raine echoed, looking around the bailey again, not sure he wanted to believe the evidence of his own eyes. The cursed squire had gathered every male in northern Wales from fourteen to sixty.

  Raine heard a choked giggle, and he turned to his wife. She, too, was looking around the bailey and then her gaze settled on the squire. She put her hands on her hips and tried to glower at the boy, but her mouth kept twisting and puckering as she struggled not to laugh. “What in God’s holy love did you think I was going to do with all these men?”

  The boy’s chest puffed out like a rooster’s and he grinned, looking inordinately pleased with himself. “I thought to give you a wide variety to choose from, my lady.”

  “Get rid of them,” Raine said.

  Taliesin’s black eyes grew round as cartwheels. “All of them, my lord?”

  “Not so hasty, husband.” Arianna pretended to give serious consideration to a handsome youth with long, curling black locks and soulful brown eyes. The boy gave her a shy smile in return. He was wearing, Raine saw, a short tunic and very tight chausses that showed off a pair of shapely, muscular legs.

  “Get rid of them,” Raine said again. “Every bloody one of them.” He pointed at the smiling youth. “Him first.”

  Laughing, Arianna slipped her arm through Raine’s, leaning into him. “Perhaps I really should keep one or two prospective candidates on hand, husband. Should you again become negligent in the marriage duty.”

  Taliesin’s head bobbed eagerly. “Aye, ’tis a known fact that a well-loved wife makes a malleable wife, and with some women it takes more than one man—”

  “Shut your mouth boy, else I’ll have the tailor sew it shut for you.” Raine grinned at his wife. “The Lady Arianna is merely trying to make me jealous with her foolish suggestion. A ploy that only a witless nit would fall for.”

  Taliesin’s gaze flashed from Lord Raine to his lady and back again. Thick-lashed lids lowered quickly to cover a sudden flash of moonlight glimmering in jet eyes. He heaved a put-upon sigh. “You might have told me so before I went to all this trouble.”

  The watchman’s horn shattered the din within the bailey, signaling the approach of riders. “Taliesin,” Raine growled. “That sure as hell had better not be any more prospective lovers.”

  Dazzling sunlight broke through the dissipating swirls of mist, flashing off the silver mail of a knight on a white destrier. A squire bearing shield and lance and a falcon followed.

  “Why, it’s Earl Hugh,” Arianna said in a tone of voice that brought Raine’s head sharply around. She smiled, looking pleased to see his brother, and Raine felt a stab of sick jealousy that he told himself to ignore and knew he wouldn’t.

  Earl Hugh rode up to them with a jingle of bells and a flash of silver. He dismounted, turning as he did so, his blond brows rising higher and higher as he took in the turmoil within the bailey.

  By the time he had made a complete circle, amusement shone like sunlight on his handsome face. “Dare I ask what this is all about?”

  Arianna stepped forward, hands folded at her waist, and curtsied prettily. She flashed Hugh an impish smile, which Hugh returned with a slow, lazy smile of his own and a look that started at Arianna’s muddy shoes, took in her torn and stained bliaut, the leaves and bits of bark in her hair, and the well-bedded, thoroughly-bedded, look about her that Raine knew his brother would not fail to miss.

  The look he hoped his brother wouldn’t fail to miss, just as he hadn’t failed to miss the look of hunger that had flared in Hugh’s cornflower-blue eyes at his first sight of Arianna.

  Hugh’s mocking gaze moved over to Raine, and he didn’t try to hide the desire he felt for his brother’s wife. The message Raine sent back through eyes flint-gray and hard was just as unmistakable: She is mine, and if you so much as think of touching her, I will kill you.

  “Are you giving something away here today?” Hugh drawled. “Or is it always this crowded at Rhuddlan on Tuesdays?”

  “I had it in my mind to take a lover,” Arianna said, unaware of the currents of rivalry and antagonism that flowed between the two brothers. “And now I’ve changed it. Poor Taliesin is not pleased.”

  Hugh’s brows shot up even higher. “If you should change it back again, do let me know.”

  Raine slipped his arm around his wife and drew her against him. “It was only a little jest that got out of hand.”

  Hugh sighed, feigning disappointment. “I see…. Well, I bring you tidings”—he cast another amused look about the bailey—“which might be welcome tidings, given the overcrowded conditions of your poor little castle. King Henry has laid claim to the title of Toulouse. He’s assembling an army at Poitiers and he’s calling all his vassals to arms.” Hugh’s smile was dazzling. “You, big brother. He particularly asked for you. His best and bravest knight.”

  Raine said the one thing he knew would wipe that smile off his brother’s face. “Henry picked a damn poor time to start another war. Arianna’s pregnant.”

  Six years of marriage had yet to give his brother an heir, and Sybil was twenty-seven and getting older every day. Raine knew how Hugh would envy him his pretty wife with her young womb that was already bearing fruit.

  Hugh only did keep his smile in place with a visible effort. He bowed slightly in Arianna’s direction. “My felicitations on your fertility, milady.”

  Raine had felt Arianna stiffen as soon as he’d told Hugh of her pregnancy. Now she pulled out of his embrace. “Thank you, my lord earl. My husband is most pleased. It seems he is at last to get what he most wants in life. And I have done my duty, so he is pleased about that as well.”

  Hugh turned his gaze onto Raine. “Will you be obeying the ban then? Or will you elect to pay the scutage?”

  Scutage was money paid by a knight in lieu of military service. But all of Raine’s funds, even funds he didn’t have yet, were tied up in the building of his new castle. There was no way he could afford to buy free of his duty to answer Henry’s ban, the call to arms owed to his king.

  “I’ll go and fight,” he said.

  He glanced at Arianna, but she was looking at Hugh.

  “Pity you are to lose your husband so soon after your wedding, Lady Arianna,” Hugh said. “Alas, I will not be here to console you.” He shrugged, flashing an insouciant smile. “Duty calls and Chester has been boring of late.”

  “My lord Raine, too, must do his duty by his king,” Arianna said. She sent him a look he could not read. “At least this time it won’t be Welsh mothers who will be burying sons killed at the Black Dragon’s hands.”

  The tangerine light of a summer’s dawn broke upon the bailey. A group of armored warriors milled within the shadow of the gatehouse, having breakfast. A varlet walked among them, carrying a pot of ale and a broad flat basket piled with bread loaves. He poured ale into leather blackjacks and passed around the loaves, and the men dunked the bread into the ale to soften it before stuffing it into their mouths. The smell of the bread and ale mingled with the aroma of horse and metal and leather … and excitement.

  Arianna stood at the foot of the steps to the great hall, watching Taliesin, his golden helmet flashing in the sun, as he fastened a breastplate to the saddle of Raine’s charger. The big black horse pawed the ground and tried to take a bite out of the squire’s leather tunic. There was a gray-and-pink splotched bald spot on the animal’s rump where the hair had never grown back properly after his burns had healed.

  Beside her, shifting his bulk from one big mailed foot to the other, stood Sir Odo, who would be staying behind with a troop of men to guard the castle. Together th
ey waited as Raine, armored in his black hauberk, strode toward them.

  He had made love to her throughout the night with a desperation that frightened her, as if he feared he might never return. That desperation had been there, in a lesser degree, during all the times that they had made love during the past week. They made love, but they never spoke.

  He stopped before them, and she saw that he carried in his hand his seal, the symbol of his lordship. She expected him to give the seal to Sir Odo, so she was surprised when he took her wrist and laid the heavy, embossed piece of latten into her palm.

  “Whatsoever is done by my wife, the Lady Arianna of Rhuddlan, shall be done in my name,” he said, loud enough for all to hear.

  “I will serve you well, my lord,” she answered, her throat thick.

  In front of Sir Odo and all his men gathered within the bailey, he brushed her lips with a sweet, fleeting kiss.

  It took forever and seemed only seconds before the provision and armor carts rolled out the gate, followed by the arbalesters and the men-at-arms. The knights, mounted and therefore able to move at a faster pace, got a more leisurely start, but soon they too were gone. Only Raine and his squire and a chosen handful of his men remained.

  The others, mounted already, waited for Raine just inside the castle gate. For the second time that morning, Arianna watched him walk toward her and she thought, This time he will say it, he will say the words.

  He said nothing, not even good-bye. He only stroked her cheek once, then turned on his heel, mounted his horse, and left her.

  She waited until he was halfway across the tilting fields before she ran after him, crying his name. For a moment she was afraid he wouldn’t turn back. But then he did, sending his men to ride ahead of him and dismounting to wait for her.

  She ran across the field, the dew-wet grass dampening her skirt, hampering her legs, so that for a moment it seemed as if she ran forever and got nowhere. Then she was throwing herself into his arms and the doubled rings of his hauberk bit into her chest, and he was kissing her hard in that rough, fierce way of his.

  He held her at arm’s length, rubbed his knuckles across her cheek. “God’s love, what a babe you are. Don’t cry, little wife. I’m coming back.”

  “I’m not crying,” she said, though tears blurred her eyes. “And I don’t care if you come back or not, Norman.”

  His smile was very male and pleased with himself, for he knew she lied. “You chased me all the way out here to tell me that?”

  She fumbled at the girdle around her waist, where she had stuffed a wadded ball of silk. “I forgot to give you this.”

  He smoothed out the crumbled, wrinkled ball. It was a pennon for his lance; she had made it for him. On the rectangle of bloodred silk she had woven his black dragon device, using strands of her own hair.

  He said nothing, but he smiled at her, that beautiful, heart-stopping smile. He pulled her into his arms to kiss her again, a kiss that was deep and rough and full of hunger.

  When the kiss ended, she clung to him still. “Oh, Raine, I—” She stopped, shocked at what she’d been about to say. “I’ll miss you so,” she said instead.

  “I’ll miss you, too, little wife.” His hands moved up and down her arms. “I must go,” he said. But he didn’t.

  Instead, he pulled her back to take her mouth one last time, then set her purposefully away from him and strode back to his horse without looking around. He mounted, and still without looking he cantered down the road, catching up with his men. And still without looking he rode with them south toward the channel and France and King Henry’s war.

  Arianna stood in the green grass of the tilting field and watched his figure get smaller and smaller, hoping he would turn around one last time, knowing he wouldn’t. Just as he was about to disappear over the last rise, he whirled his rearing charger about, and she saw his arm lift in farewell.

  She ran back to the castle. She raced across the bailey, clattered up the wooden steps of the motte and into the keep. She took the stairs up to the top of the tower two at a time.

  She crawled out onto the little catwalk that wound along the edge of the oak-shingled roof and from there, if she stood up, stretching tall, she could see him still, a tiny black dot shrinking on the horizon. She watched that dot get smaller and smaller until it had vanished completely.

  She turned away from the empty road, and pressing her back against the rough shingles, she sank slowly to the ground. She lowered her head and rubbed her eyes against the hard bones of her knees.

  I should have told him, she thought. I should have told him that I love him. Now he was gone.

  20

  “Milady, you should see the commotion in the hall!”

  Edith burst into the chamber, bringing shouts and laughter with her. Her round, pockmarked face glowed bright as a torch from too much Christmas ale.

  Arianna had sat on a stool before the brazier to comb her hair, though at the moment she was amusing herself by running her thumb over the ivory teeth, creating an irritating whine. She planted a listless little smile on her mouth and glanced up at the huffing servant. “What is happening?”

  “The Lord of Misrule has just commanded Bertha to name all her lovers before the entire hall. Oooh, saints deliver us! I tell you, my lady, there is many a married man squirming like a worm at this moment.”

  Edith fell into a fit of giggles. Arianna burst into tears.

  “My lady! What is amiss? Why do you cry?”

  “I’m not crying,” Arianna said. “I never cry. God’s death!” She flung down the comb and buried her face in her hands.

  Edith patted her shoulder. “It’s your condition, milady. It makes you weepy for no reason.”

  “Aye … I suppose so.”

  Nay, it is because Raine is not here, Arianna thought. Oh, God, I miss him so. It was a constant ache, this yearning to see him, to touch him. An ache deep within her chest, like a wound that was bleeding from within.

  Edith closed the door, shutting out the discordant blare of a sackbut and the smell of ale and smoke that billowed from the great hall below. All of Rhuddlan had come, napkin and mug in hand, to partake of the lord’s Christmas feast.

  At first Arianna had been excited about the Christmas preparations. It gave her something to do, a few moments at a time when her thoughts were occupied with something other than Raine. She had the hall decked with so much holly and ivy and bay boughs it looked like a summer’s day had been captured and brought indoors. The Yule log had been burning in the hearth for twelve days—a log so huge it had taken twenty men to carry it in. She had cajoled the cook to turn out all the traditional Christmas foods—gingerbread dolls and frumenty, tripe pie and sweet pear wine. As a crowning glory to the festivities, a sack of pennies and a tun of wine had coaxed a traveling band of mummers into stopping by to pantomime the baby Jesus’s birth in a stable.

  Ralph, the cowherd, had been the one to find the bean hidden in the Christmas bread loaf and so had been crowned Lord of the Misrule. His first command had been for the Lady Arianna to sing a solo whilst dancing a jig atop the table. Thanks to her brothers, Arianna knew a considerable repertoire of bawdy songs. She chose one that was risqué enough to delight the crowd, but not so shocking as to stop the heart of the castle’s palsied priest. But it wasn’t long afterward that she had pleaded fatigue and left the hall.

  She hoped Raine’s people would think her health was the reason she did not stay for the ringing of the midnight bells and the singing of the Christmas carols. But it had really been the laughter and the sight of couples kissing and dancing that had driven her away.

  Edith took up the comb and began to work out the tangles in Arianna’s hair. “I heard many comments tonight on your beauty, my lady. You are blooming with the babe.”

  Arianna huffed an unladylike snort. She picked up the pretty ivory-backed mirror that Raine had bought her that day they went to market together. Her wavering image glared back at her from the glazed metal s
urface. If he rode into the bailey this very moment, she thought, he would find a wife with a protruding belly, bloated ankles, and a disgusting pimple on her forehead.

  The baby kicked and Arianna winced. It was said the harder and more often a baby kicked, the more likely he was to be a boy. If that were true then surely she was breeding a knight who would grow up to be a champion jouster like his father, for he pummeled her day and night.

  Arianna sighed. In truth, she did feel tired. Though she doubted she would sleep. Her gaze went to the marriage bed. It filled the room, on its carved platform, with its heavy curtains of green sendal. It was empty without him.

  She burrowed deeper into her robe of soft vair and drew closer to the brazier. She sought warmth, though she wasn’t cold. It was this time of the evening, in the hours before sleep, when she thought most often of their last night together.

  They had made love again and again, until they fell exhausted into sleep, he still inside of her and they so tightly entwined together it seemed there wasn’t a place their bodies didn’t touch. But not once in all those hours of loving had they touched one another’s soul. She had waited all through that night for him to say the words, the tender words. But the words had not come and so she had held close to her heart the thoughts she longed to speak aloud. What was it he felt when he held her and kissed her? she wondered now. When he entered her body and filled her with his own?

  “Milady?”

  She looked up, and was startled to see Edith standing there, with Myrddin’s golden mazer in her cupped hands. “What are you doing with that?” Arianna demanded, more sharply than she’d meant to.

  “There was a pilgrim wandering by today, milady. He sold me a flask of holy water from St. Winifred’s spring. I thought it might be fun to see whether the babe shall be boy or girl.” She looked around the room, confusion mottling her face. “I saw this drinking cup sitting on the chest over yon and thought to pour the holy water into it. ’Tis all right, isn’t it?”