Patricia Ryan - [Fairfax Family 01]

by Falcons Fire

  She and Ailith descended with a brass lantern to the cellar, a cold, fetid cavern with walls of weeping rock and a floor of beaten earth, in the middle of which had been dug a well. Piled up around the perimeter were pyramids of barrels and stacks of crates.

  Ailith looked around excitedly. “Auntie Felda says there’s a secret passageway down here! If I’m good, she’ll show me where it is someday!” She ran to a barred iron door streaked with rust. “This is where the bad people stay. If I can’t stop bothering Mama, she’s going to have me locked in here.”

  Martine followed her to the door and jimmied aside the plate covering the little peephole, which stuck halfway.

  “Lift me so I can look!” Ailith begged. Martine held her up, and they pressed their heads together to peer into the dark compartment. The lantern didn’t help much, but Martine could make out the wet granite walls. The cell was no larger than a privy chamber, and just as rank, stinking of stale urine and rotten straw. She heard a faint rustling as something scrabbled beneath the straw. There would be a horrible little room much like this one in Lord Olivier’s keep. The bandits who murdered Anseau and Aiglentine would be there, waiting for the noose between sessions of unspeakable tortures.

  An occasional drip of water rang through the silence; otherwise the cellar was as quiet as a crypt.

  Shivering, Martine carried the child to the stairwell. “Let’s get out of here. We’ll go find my brother. Then perhaps you can take us up to your mama’s chamber and introduce us to her. The more I hear about her, the more eager I am to meet her.”

  * * *

  “Leave me be,” groaned Ailith’s mother. “I don’t want any more headache powders.”

  Rainulf took the little cup from his sister, thinking that it was often those most in need of help who resisted it most strenuously. “‘Tisn’t a headache powder, my lady,” he said, tilting the cup so that she could see the amber liquid within.

  Martine said, “‘Tis a tonic for melancholia. An infusion of valerian, skullcap, and mistletoe. Quite effective.”

  Geneva, Countess of Kirkley, took the cup, tipped it over, and poured its contents into the rushes. She handed the empty cup back to Rainulf, pulled her woolen blanket up to her chest, and turned her dark, listless eyes upon Martine.

  She reclined in bed amid a mountain of feather pillows, wearing a soiled sleeping shift. Streaks of gray dulled her lank black hair. Her face had the color and texture of candle wax. Rainulf knew that Martine did not consider Lady Geneva to be ill at all, just lazy. His sister understood incapacity of the body, but not of the soul.

  “Melancholia?” Geneva said. She pointed a finger at her daughter, half-hidden behind Martine’s skirt. “Ailith! Did you say anything about melancholia to—”

  “Nay! I said you had a headache! I did, I—”

  “I surmised it,” Martine said, reaching behind to pat Ailith comfortingly. “They say you never leave your chamber, and I know that you’ve been... that you no longer—”

  “That I’ve been cast aside? I think melancholy is a perfectly natural response when one has been tossed away like kitchen scraps to the dogs, don’t you? I hardly think it requires a tonic, since it’s what any rational person would feel under the circumstances.”

  From down in the bailey Rainulf heard Thorne and Lord Godfrey returning from their afternoon of hunting, and he waved to them from the window as they entered the keep. Martine stiffened at the sound of Thorne’s voice. For a woman of such intellect and perception, she could be exasperatingly wrong about people.

  “You should have taken the tonic,” Martine told Geneva. “You should get out of bed and get dressed and get on with things.”

  Rainulf shook his head. “Martine

  Of course she barreled on, ignoring him. “Your melancholy may be natural, but ‘tis nonetheless ruinous. Not only for you, but for your daughter. She needs you. Not just your horrid threats about locking her downstairs in that cell, but you. A proper mother. And if you really knew what was best for you, you’d realize that you need Ailith, too.”

  “Need Ailith?” Geneva sat forward, quivering with indignation. “Why do you think I’m here?” She balled her hands into fists and screamed, “She ruined my life!”

  Ailith cowered behind Martine. Rainulf went to her, picked her up, and left the room, only to find Lady Estrude and Clare listening in the gallery, their hands over their mouths to stifle their giggles. Geneva screamed louder than ever. Ailith clapped her hands over her ears and pressed her face into his shoulder.

  “If she’d been a son, like she was supposed to be, I’d still be mistress of Kirkley, instead of that harlot my husband’s taken to his bed! Need Ailith? I wish to God she’d never been born!”

  A hunting horn sounded in the distance. Estrude and her maid stopped giggling. Clare bit her lip and looked toward the sound with her sad, shining little eyes, but her mistress bore an expression of weary resignation. Geneva ceased her screaming. Martine stepped into the hallway and looked toward Rainulf as the horn sounded again.

  “Oh, good,” Estrude drawled, her voice hard. “The boys are home.”

  Soon came the distant yowling of the dogs and the whoops and halloos of the hunters. Martine wondered which voice was that of her betrothed. For the third time since arriving in England, she felt her stomach tighten in anticipation of seeing him.

  Felda appeared and took Ailith from Rainulf. “You’ve met the hawks, Father,” she said. “Now come the dogs.”

  Martine followed Rainulf down the winding staircase from the third level to the first. Even through the thick stone walls of the keep, they could hear the party approach, like rolling thunder barreling closer and closer. By the time they reached the guardroom, the men were already there. To Martine’s astonishment, they were still on horseback, having ridden their mounts right up the stairs and into the keep. Not only that, but it seemed the hunt had yet to conclude.

  They had run a wounded deer into the keep ahead of them, a magnificent stag with a spread of branched antlers to rival those on display in the great hall.

  Martine, at the foot of the stairs next to her brother, stood paralyzed with disbelief at the pandemonium before her: six or eight mounted men, a dozen or more deerhounds, and the stag, all galloping, leaping, howling, and screaming in a nightmarish whirlwind. The hunters mainly kept to the perimeter of the guardroom, where they rode in overlapping circles around the dogs and their terrified prey.

  The animal ran wild, crazed with panic and pain. Five arrows protruded from its shoulders, haunches, and neck, but apparently these had not been mortal wounds. Martine wondered how a party of experienced hunters could fail to bring down a deer in so many shots, and then realized, with a wave of revulsion, that they weren’t trying to kill it at all. They were tormenting it for sport, much as they might bait a tethered bear.

  The cry of a baby rose above the din, quite perplexing until Martine realized it was the stag, bleating in terror. Blood ran from its wounds and foaming spittle flew from its mouth as it thrashed to and fro, struggling to remain upright. Martine looked into its eyes, which were swollen in agony.

  “Stop this!” she screamed, but her words were swallowed up in the cacophony that filled the guardroom. Something had to be done. This had to stop. She looked toward Rainulf, thinking he would know what to do. He met her eyes and shook his head, grim-faced, as if to say the situation was out of their control. Rainulf was a man of no small wisdom. He knew all about this compulsion to inflict pain; he knew when it could be stopped and when it couldn’t. It horrified Martine to feel so helpless in the face of such cruelty.

  Which one was Edmond? Was he part of this? The horsemen were a blur of whirling capes and drumming hooves; she couldn’t hope to make out one from the rest.

  No, that was wrong. There was one. One who sat motionless on a flaxen-maned sorrel stallion before a wall radiant with row after row of steel broadswords. The one to whom the others looked from time to time, the one who pointed out directi
ons and spoke commands.

  He wasn’t Edmond. He was too old, in his mid-thirties at least. He had straight hair, black as ink, and a gray-flecked beard trimmed close. His tunic was the color of amethyst, his cloak of black lambskin. Around his neck, on a silken cord, hung an ivory hunting horn chased with gold and onyx. His eyes, small and dark, glinted as he watched the stag careen and snort and stamp its hooves. He was smiling, but it was a dead smile, a smile of the lips but not of the eyes. Alone amid the turmoil, he seemed eerily calm.

  This was Bernard. As she realized this, she saw him notice her for the first time, standing in the stairwell watching him. He nodded, still smiling that lifeless smile. When Martine did not respond, the smile left, and his eyes, hard and black as a reptile’s, studied her slowly from head to toe. Then the smile returned, but it was different now, more of a smirk. He returned his attention to the deer, and so did Martine.

  Much of the animal’s fur had become soaked with blood. At one point its legs buckled and it gored one of the deerhounds in the hindquarters with the tines of its antlers. The dog collapsed, yelping, then rose unsteadily and began limping away. Bernard dismounted, and his men slowed their horses so as not to trample him underfoot. He grabbed a mace and kicked the dog to the floor. Then, with a single downward blow, he crushed its skull. Tossing the weapon aside, he lifted the lifeless animal by a hind leg and flung it out the door.

  The stag still blundered about convulsively, crashing into the rack of crossbows. As if this had given Bernard an idea, he pointed to the rack and called out, “Boyce! Over here!” One of his men—big and burly with a long, wiry red beard—dismounted and tossed him a crossbow and bolt. The crossbow was an instrument of ungodly power that could speed a bolt clear through the finest armor. For that reason the Church had forbidden its use against Christians, but not, it seemed, against deer.

  The men reined in their mounts to watch Bernard load and cock the weapon. His target now lurched uncontrollably, its hooves skidding on its own blood and feces.

  “Shoot it in the nose!” someone hollered.

  “Aye! The nose!”

  Boyce said, “Meaning no disrespect, Bernard, but I wouldn’t waste the effort. ‘Tis a moving target. Thorne Falconer’s the only man I know who could make that shot.”

  “I think too much is made of the woodsman’s talent with the bow,” Bernard said. “When was the last time he deigned to favor us with a display of it? Perhaps he’s lost his touch from letting his birds do the work his arrows once did. I, on the other hand, have stayed in practice.”

  He took careful aim and released the bolt, but it missed the stag completely and grazed Boyce’s upper arm before embedding in the wall, between two blocks of stone. The men burst out laughing as Boyce’s eyes rolled up, his face twisting into a grimace of pain.

  “Damned if you weren’t right, Boyce,” Bernard called out over the guffaws. “I shouldn’t have wasted the effort!”

  Boyce looked down at his wounded arm and then up at Bernard. Presently he began to chuckle and then roar with laughter, his face reddening and eyes tearing with the effort of it.

  “Damned right I was right,” he choked out, slapping his thighs. It astounded Martine that he could even speak, after having been shot by a crossbow. “Never try and show off with a moving target. Look.” He pointed with his good arm toward the stag, still upright on its wobbly legs, its head flailing back and forth. “It’s still moving. Damn thing just won’t give up.”

  Martine heard footsteps on the stairs behind her, and then a pair of strong hands took her by the shoulders and moved her aside so he could pass. It was Thorne.

  Bernard lost his smile as soon as the Saxon stepped into the guardroom. “Ah. The falconer. Just in time to join the merriment.”

  “Now we’ll see some shooting,” said Boyce.

  Bernard said, “Boyce thinks you can hit this stag in the nose. I say your reputation exceeds your skill.” He and Thorne regarded each other with ill-suppressed hostility. Presently Bernard’s humorless smile returned. “Care to prove me wrong, woodsman?”

  Thorne said, “Someone give me a shortbow.”

  “Dear God,” said Martine, stepping into the room. She looked on in dismay as Thorne caught the weapon that someone tossed him, and the arrow that followed. To her surprise, Rainulf seemed unperturbed by his friend’s participation in this nightmare. Could he really be that forgiving?

  Well, she wasn’t. As Thorne began to draw the bow, she reached out and grabbed the arrow from him, then struck it as hard as she could against the stone wall, snapping it in two.

  “You disgust me!” she said.

  The guardroom was frozen in silence for a brief moment, the only movement the thrashing of the deer. Then came the low whistles and disbelieving chuckles of Bernard’s men. She faced Thorne squarely, ready to tell him exactly what she thought of this cruel sport, and of him for accepting Bernard’s challenge. The way he looked at her disarmed her, though. Instead of the anger she had expected, she could swear she saw the briefest flicker of amusement, and something else—admiration?—in his eyes.

  Nevertheless, when he turned back to the guardroom, he said, “Another arrow.” As soon as he caught it, Martine reached for it, but this time he grabbed her wrist in a powerful grip, then looked to Rainulf for assistance. Her brother took her firmly by the arm and led her back toward the stairwell.

  The stag bolted in various directions, tottering on its legs like a jointed toy soldier. Thorne drew the bow, watching, waiting for the right moment.

  Bernard said, “Well, woodsman? Can you hit it in the nose?”

  As the animal swung around to face him, Thorne swiftly dropped to one knee, aimed, and took his shot. The stag’s head flew up and it lost its footing, crashing to the floor in a clatter of antlers. Its eyes rolled up and it emitted a ragged wheeze. Then it settled into the stillness of death, Thorne’s arrow protruding not from its nose, but from its breast.

  Thorne rose, his expression neutral in response to Bernard’s sullen glare. “Probably.”

  The arrow had clearly pierced the stag’s heart. It dawned on Martine as Rainulf released her arm that mercy for the tormented beast had been Thorne’s intent all along. Rainulf had realized this from the first, assumed it. Why had it not occurred to Martine? Her cheeks burned with shame for having presumed the worst, and she felt silently grateful to Thorne for not looking in her direction.

  Bernard eyed Thorne with cold antipathy. Boyce choked with laughter at what he evidently considered a fine joke, but the rest of Bernard’s men groaned in disappointment and muttered invectives under their breath.

  “I think the falconer disapproves of our little sport,” Bernard said tightly. “Spirits tend to run high toward the end of a long hunt, and the men welcome such diversions. But you wouldn’t know about that, would you, woodsman? You take your lap birds out and come home a few hours later with your pathetic catch of small game that wouldn’t fill the belly of one of these dogs. I honestly don’t know how you can hold your head up. My little brother was bringing down boar before he had hair on his—” he glanced toward Martine, smirking, “chin.” His men snickered.

  Thorne scanned the room. “Did Edmond return with you from the hunt?” His eyes rested on Boyce, sitting against the wall with blood running down his arm. “Or did you accidentally shoot him, too?” Only Boyce laughed, although some of the others appeared to be biting their lips.

  “My brother has, indeed, returned safely. He’ll be in shortly, with a gift for his bride.” Bernard turned his hard eyes on Martine. “This is the lady Martine, is it not?”

  Thorne said, “Martine of Rouen and her brother, Father Rainulf... Bernard of Harford.”

  “So I gathered,” said Martine, her voice flat.

  A low murmuring arose from Bernard’s men. Martine heard whispers of “She’s a cold one” and “The boy’ll have his hands full.”

  The whispering abruptly ceased, and Martine followed the gazes of the others to t
he doorway. A young man stood there, looking upon her with grave interest. She knew immediately that this was Edmond.

  Chapter 7

  Her betrothed was comely, as had been promised, with dark eyes and skin brown from the sun. His lips were full, his neck ropy with muscle. Unlike his brother, he was plainly dressed, his hair stuffed into a threadbare blue woolen cap. He stood with his weight on one hip, both hands clutching a gray blanket tied around something enormous that rested on the floor beside him. She caught a whiff of gaminess and wondered about the contents of the blanket.

  Bernard stepped around the dead stag and plucked Edmond’s cap off his head. Black, curly hair, matted from its recent confinement, sprang forth. It was long, falling past his shoulders. With his swarthy features, that hair, and his layers of drab garments, he looked like a barbarian—or an infidel.

  “My dear Lady Martine,” Bernard said, “may I have the honor of introducing your betrothed... my brother, Sir Edmond of Harford.”

  The couple continued to stare at each other. Neither said a word, nor did they move. The tension proved too much for Bernard’s men, who soon commenced their whispering and snickering.

  Thorne said, “Edmond, your brother tells us you’ve brought a gift for Lady Martine.”

  Bernard nudged his brother forward. Edmond approached Martine, dragging the bundle with him. The blanket, she now saw, was spotted with dark patches. It was blood, she realized—blood that had soaked through from the inside. The closer he got, the more sickening became the stench that rose from the bundle, causing her nostrils to flare and bile to rise in her throat. She watched his hands as he untied the blanket. They were dark brown, but not from the sun; they were too dark for that. Dirt? No, more like something liquid that had dried. Blood. His hands were covered with dried blood.

  He flung the blanket open, releasing a wave of unspeakable foulness to which he seemed oblivious. “For our dinner tomorrow,” he said, straightening up. “Our betrothal dinner.”