He found what he was looking for immediately, hanging, along with a broadsword and pair of crossed spears, on one of the mighty pillars that supported the rafters—it was a battle-ax with a three-foot shaft. Its thick, trumpet-shaped blade was a bit dull, but would suffice.
He hefted the heavy weapon in his hand and smiled grimly. The wench needed to learn that he would never tolerate her locking him out of a bedchamber, any bedchamber. It was important that she learn this now, for he suspected there were going to be many more little rough spots like this in their marriage in the years to come.
He took the stairs two at a time and strode down the length of the gallery, tossing the ax from hand to hand. “Arianna!” he called out. “Will you quit behaving like a child and let me in?”
This time she didn’t even bother to curse him. He allowed five beats to tick by, and then he swung the ax with both hands and all his strength at the door.
He thought he heard a scream, abruptly smothered, but he could not be sure, for the wood cracked with a loud splintering wail. He pulled back the ax and swung again. A dozen more whacks and the door sagged in the middle like a deflating bladder, hanging by one hinge. He punched it in with his foot and burst across the threshold.
And nearly skewered himself on the tip of his own sword.
She held the weapon out in front of her with both hands, for it was heavy. But she held the blade true, and he had never seen her angrier.
They stood facing one another, both breathing heavily, he with the ax in his hand, she with the sword pointed at his middle, and he realized he had no idea what he was going to do next.
He tried a smile. “Will you kill me with my own sword, little wife?”
She did not smile back. “I ought to geld you with it.”
He tossed the ax aside. He took a single step toward her. The sword did not waver. The muscles of her wrists and arms tightened.
“What you saw … it was not what you think.”
She gave him one of those sneers she could do so well. “What do I think?”
“I have been faithful to you, Arianna. Even through those long months when we were parted, I lay with no other woman, not even a whore.”
“I’m sorry you suffered on my account. But then Sybil was not in France to tempt you.”
“Sybil is a childhood friend and that is all.”
“You are lying in your teeth!” She flung the sword down into the rushes and spun away from him.
“I am not lying about this, Arianna, and you know it.”
She walked the length of the room, then turned back. She folded her arms across her breasts. “I’m going home to Rhuddlan.”
He drew in a deep breath of relief that she had said home to Rhuddlan, not Gwynedd. He didn’t want to have to keep her by chaining her to his bed. But he liked even less the idea of another confrontation with the Prince of Gwynedd, should he have to fight his way through Wales again to drag her back.
“We’ll leave soon,” he said, trying to make his voice sound calm and rational. “I’ve a brood mare to buy first and some other things.”
Her head snapped back and forth. “I’m going now. You may stay if you like. Stay forever. I care not what you do.”
This time he caught the telltale quiver in her voice. Her eyes were wet and dark, filled with pain. He ached to hold her—hell, he ached to do more than hold her. But part of his success in war was due to an ability to know when to press on and when to retreat.
“Go home, then, if you want, and I’ll follow you in two days,” he said. “But I won’t let you leave until the morning. It’s already growing dark and it’s too dangerous to travel at night.”
“What do you care what happens to me?”
“I have said you may leave tomorrow, Arianna. Do not push my temper further.”
Her chin jerked up and he expected her defiance, but instead she said, “Very well. But I will not share a bed with you this night.”
His jaw tightened. “Aren’t you afraid I will spend the night with Sybil?”
“I’ve told you. I no longer care what you do.”
He kept his face blank as he turned away from her and started out the room. Splinters of wood and split bands of iron were strewn like giant jackstraws over the floor. He pictured the look on Hugh’s face when he saw the ruined door, and he almost laughed. He paused with his hand on the jamb and looked back. She stood at the window, her back stiff, her eyes focused on the distant blue hills of the Tegeingl.
“On my honor, Arianna, she is not my lover. Nor will she be.”
Her shoulders jerked, but she did not turn around. But then her voice, proud and strong, came to him as he stepped over the broken door and into the gallery.
“I’ll be waiting for you at Rhuddlan, husband.”
Arianna reined in her horse and looked back across the Cheshire plain. A gust of wind whipped at her mantle, bringing with it the smell of rain. Thunderheads billowed thick on the horizon, the flat gray of steel. The color of his eyes.
Just then, clouds of orange-and-black striped butterflies, sensing the coming storm, rose up from the flattened grass, obscuring her last sight of Chester’s pink towers.
Taliesin’s saddle creaked as he leaned over to study her face. “This is not like you, my lady. To run like a corncrake over a little competition.”
“I am not running away, for Sybil is not my competition.”
His red brows arched up. “Oh? Why, then, are we leaving the battlefield?”
“The battlefield is not here, it’s at Rhuddlan. And it is not another woman I must fight, but a man’s fool pride.”
“You do mean to fight for him then?”
She pulled her horse’s head back around, kicking him into a trot to rejoin her escort and Edith, who carried Nesta. “God’s death, you fool wizard. I love the man. Of course I’m going to fight for him.”
Taliesin cantered to catch up with her, then eased down to her gait. He rode well, but then he did everything well, as was to be expected of someone who had doubtless lived for centuries.
He heaved a huge sigh, his eyes on a stray butterfly that danced between his cob’s ears. “I am not a wizard, my lady. Where you acquired this ridiculous notion, I do not know, but if my lord comes to hear of it the blame will be mine. He will string me up by my thumbs—”
“Stop flapping your jaws, churl. I need quiet to think.”
Taliesin let her think for the space of two heartbeats. “What are we going to do to get him back into your bed?”
“We will do nothing.”
“I was thinking a love philter might suffice.”
“You would. And I would have a husband on my hands crazed with lust and trying to tup every female within a day’s ride. Nay, you will have one small part in this plan, boy, and see that you do not bungle it.”
Taliesin did not look pleased to be relegated to a small part of any plan. “What is it I’m supposed to do?”
“Bring him to me at the standing stones at midnight on Lugnasa night. Get him there if you have to use magic to do it.”
“I know no magic, my lady.”
Arianna snorted so loudly her palfrey craned its head around to see what was making the racket.
They rode in silence awhile, then Taliesin began to hum the chorus of a bawdy song. He tried again, “I still think a love philter might help—”
“Do you wish to be flung from a catapult into a cauldron of boiling oil, you worthless wizard?”
“Nay, my lady, please! And, my lady, I am not a wiz—”
“Or spitted on a pike and roasted over a slow fire like a fat goose? No love philter, do you understand me?”
He sighed. “Aye, my lady.”
They crossed Offa’s Dyke and there, beside the road, was the chestnut tree where she and Raine had eaten their dinner two days before. She thought of the vision she’d had on that day—of a young Raine bearing Sybil down to the grass, his man’s sex hard for her. There had been a violence in his masculi
ne need, she remembered, a fierce and raging urge to possess. But there had been softer feelings there, too, a yearning to give pleasure, to protect and cherish. Once he had not been too proud to reveal his love.
“Taliesin? Would your goddess send Raine to me if she never meant for him to love me?”
“I fear I do not understand what you mean, my lady. The Black Dragon loves you. Even the most witless of females could see that.”
Sighing, she turned and looked at him. “I do know he loves me, but I want to hear the words. For only when I hear him say the words, will I know that he has at last admitted the truth of them to himself.”
He thought how very good it felt to be home.
The setting sun washed the castle with a soft orange color. The wail of a horn echoed over the flat marshlands and the smell of burning oak and green yew came to him on the wind. Normally the hayward’s horn marked the end of work, but today had been one of rest, a holiday to celebrate the festival of Lammas and the beginning of the rye and wheat harvest. This evening the peasants would dance caroles around bonfires and drink the lord’s ale.
And perhaps, Raine thought, perhaps the lord and his lady will do a little private feasting of their own.
He smiled as he patted the purse that hung from his belt, heavy with the trifle he had bought at the Chester fair. It was a very expensive trifle—a brooch in the shape of a dragon, set with pearls, rubies, and emeralds. It was a trifle he really couldn’t afford, but then it was a known fact that a man lured no hawks with an empty hand.
She was not in the hall where he expected to find her. The hall, in truth, was empty but for Sir Odo’s page and Rhodri, who were heating pokers in the fire to mull cider. He called out a cheerful greeting to the boys and actually smiled. At this uncharacteristic good humor, their mouths fell open in shock, then they looked at one another, shrugged, and went back to their cider.
He was about to ask them the whereabouts of their mistress when Sir Odo came lumbering in, tally sticks and abacus in hand and a scowl on his brow, to discuss the expected income from the harvest. Raine spent the next hour with his bailiff—it wouldn’t do, anyway, he thought, to appear overanxious. But when he finally mounted the stairs and entered their chamber, she wasn’t there.
Taliesin was, sprawled on the padded chest beneath the window, a harp in his lap. “Where is the Lady Arianna?” Raine asked of his squire.
“Out and about.”
Raine flexed his jaw. “Out and about where?”
The harp erupted into a sudden tinkling glissando. Taliesin glanced up through a veil of fox-red lashes. “Do you want your wife back in your bed, my lord?”
“She never left my bed.” Raine strode the length of the room. He took off his sword and sent it sailing with a clatter onto a table, then pulled off his broigne and flung it at a stool, missing. He spun around. “What is it to you, anyway, where Arianna sleeps?”
“You are horn-mad and irritable with it, and I grow weary of putting up with your foul temper.”
Raine advanced on the boy, thinking to give him a good taste of his foul temper, but Taliesin tossed something at him, grinning. “Don’t hit me, sire. Save your strength. You’ll need all of it for later.”
Raine snatched the thing that Taliesin had thrown out of the air. It was a small leather bag, closed together with a bit of string. “What’s this and why will I need my strength for later?”
“It’s a love philter, my lord. A bit of that in a cup of wine will make the one who drinks it near mad with desire.”
Raine pulled the string loose, opening the bag. He sniffed its contents, which was a soft brown powder, like fine dust. It smelled musky. “What’s in it?”
“Mandrake root, of course. Also the pulverized liver of a toad and boiled hedgehog fat. Among other things.”
“God’s blood.”
“No. Not that,” Taliesin said, and laughed.
Raine growled another curse, but he stuffed the packet beneath his belt.
Taliesin plucked at the harp strings, creating a lilting, dancing tune. “Aye, that’ll put a good stiff bone in your braies, milord.”
“I don’t need it, you fool. I’ve been walking around hard as a battering ram for months. Are you sure this will make her mad for me?”
“Tonight is Lammas night as you know, though in Wales they do call it Lugnasa. In the time of the ancient ones, the women gathered around the meinhirion and offered up prayers and sacrifices to the god Lieu for a bountiful harvest. Arianna is a seer and so a part of her is drawn to the old ways. She will go to the standing stones tonight and there she will perform the ritual dance …” Taliesin lowered his voice, and his black eyes took on a strange and shimmering light. “Naked.”
In spite of himself, Raine felt a tingling in his groin. He scowled at the squire. “Why do I get the feeling I’m playing with loaded dice? You’re arranging something, and whatever it is, I doubt I’m going to like it.”
The squire tossed a fiery lock over his shoulder and looked up with wide eyes, innocent as a maid who’d spent her life in a convent. “Oh, no, my lord. Goddess forfend. Arranging things—that isn’t allowed.”
“Damn right it’s not allowed.”
The girl danced among the stones. A night wind, thick with the smell of the sea, bathed her face. The air was soft, warm, caressing her flesh like a lover’s hands.
A curlew cawed a warning, and she whirled, to see a knight on a black charger riding toward her.
He bore down on her and his hair, black as a raven’s wing, floated behind him like a banner on the wind. The charger’s hooves struck stone, and sparks flashed as he pulled the great beast to a halt, for he had seen her. The girl shivered, but it was not with fear.
She began to dance again.
Moonlight splattered the dunes with silver. The sea slashed across the beach, cutting between the rocks like scythes. He dismounted before he entered the circle of stones. He paused to watch her dance, watched as a white mist rose out of the ground like steam, enveloping her and the stones, until it seemed they danced with her. The wind whispered, telling tales long forgotten and best not remembered.
She danced, legs flashing silver, like the sea, among the grass.
She stopped suddenly before him, so close that the tips of her breasts almost brushed his chest. She had a wreath of mistletoe in her hair, which flowed over her shoulders, dark and thick, like a living mantel. But the rest of her was wondrously, gloriously naked.
He was afraid to touch her for fear she would disappear from the earth forever. She is a fairy, he thought, a creature of dreams, of yearnings that come deep in the night. Elusive, ephemeral, woman—he had never felt stronger, more powerfully male.
She took his hand.
And led him to the altar. Candles burned in melted pools of wax, surrounding the dip in the stone. The flames shimmered in the water … liquid fire.
They say that if a woman can get a man to drink of water that has touched the meinhirion, then he will love her forever.
Love her forever …
He waited for her, his breath suspended somewhere between the earth and heaven and hell, waited for her to move, but she did not. So he did it for her.
He took her finger and dipped it in the water.
A crackling stream of fire leapt up her arm, flooding her in an incandescent light. Slowly, he raised her finger, wet and shining golden, up to his lips. A single drop glistened on the end of it, throwing off rainbows of light, and he caught the drop of water-fight with his tongue.
Heat blasted through him like a Sahara wind, searing him bare. He felt a shiver of fear, but it was too late to go back. He didn’t want to go back. He lowered his head and rubbed his tongue, wet from the water, across her lips.
Her mouth closed over his with a sudden, shattering hunger.
His fingers dug into her buttocks, and he crushed her to him hard. The wind flayed his skin. He was burning, melting, like silk held too close to a candle’s flame. He could feel
their pulses beating, hear them, pounding, pounding, pounding in tempo with the surf at their backs, until it seemed the pumping of their blood was at one with the tide, one with the pulsating, driving force of life. Together, beating together.
Her mouth parted from his, and he groaned at the loss. His lips felt naked, his mouth empty, his tongue lonely.
But then she was undressing him, her mouth following her hands as she pulled off his tunic. She rubbed her palms over his chest, her fingers tugging gently at his hair. “You are a warrior,” she said. “My black knight.” He pushed out against her hands in a deep, unconscious breath.
She knelt before him, her mouth to his belly, and she kissed the arrow of hair where it disappeared into his braies. He shuddered beneath her lips. A groan escaped his clenched teeth, and he pressed his fingers against her head.
She opened the belt that held up his braies and let it fall unheeded to the ground. His braies sagged around his hips and she pulled them down further, freeing his sex. She cradled it in her hands.
“You are so strong, so hard,” she said, and the words made him stronger still, harder still.
She lowered her head and took him in her mouth, and his breath left him on a soft keen.
But it was too much, the pleasure was too much and he couldn’t bear it. He pulled her down with him into grass wet by a silver dew.
She straddled his hips, poised above him on her knees.
He slid two fingers into her and opened her slowly. She arched, her head falling back so that her hair brushed his hips, and her breasts thrust up high and full. Her thighs began to tremble first and then it spread like ripples over her body until she was shuddering and convulsing and then shouting his name, and his eyes stung with a sweet, hot joy—that he could bring her to this, that it was his name she cried.
She lowered her head and looked at him with eyes wide open and dark with desire, her mouth swollen and slack. He dug his fingers into her hips, and lifting her high, he sheathed himself slowly, slowly inside of her. He wanted it to last. He wanted it to last forever.
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