Lord of a Thousand Nights

by Madeline Hunter

  Ian fingered the joints in the rock wall. “The lady must have been very young at this marriage. A child.”

  “She was twelve. The church permits it at that age.” Ian found some loose mortar and pulled out his dagger and probed. “Presumably Sir Robert waited to take her to his bed.”

  “I wouldn't know.”

  Aye, he would. He was the sort of steward who knew everything. Ian pulled at the stones he had been probing. They didn't budge. Once more he began a careful pacing of the floor. “What sort of a man was Sir Robert?”

  “He was a good man. A brave knight, highly honorable, and something of a scholar.”

  “Do you think she killed him?”

  Andrew deliberated before responding. “She came here a frightened mouse. There had been no love in her home, and much strife. Robert gave her freedom, wings, care. Nay, I do not think she killed him.”

  Ian turned his attention back to the well. “You know, of course, that it is not dry.”

  “Really?”

  “The bucket did not hit mud, or even dry dirt. It came up as clean as it went down. Someone has covered the water with something. A door or plank. How do you think she did it?”

  “She? I'm sure that I don't understand you, Sir Ian.”

  “Lady Reyna. I see her hand in this. How did she get down there? I can find no hidden doors in the floors or walls.”

  Andrew shrugged. Ian knew that, short of torture, he would not get the man to speak. “Well, steward, what do you suggest?”

  Andrew appeared to ponder the matter. Ian wasn't fooled in the least. “We will have to do as your army did. There is the river for bathing, and a spring near it has good water for cooking. The latter could be carted in every day and the women sent to the river as needed with laundry. Under guard, if you prefer.”

  Ian had been wondering about the point of this sabotage, but Andrew's solution provided the explanation. In order to provision the tower with water, in order to bathe in this summer heat, the gate would have to be opened frequently. The tower would become significantly more vulnerable.

  He glared at the well that had suddenly made his work here much more difficult.

  He should have let Reyna take a horse and run away to hell itself if she wanted.

  That evening, the hall filled for supper. Lady Margery sat to Ian's right again, but he saw to it that the place on his left remained empty for Reyna. The only other spot available at the high table was near the end amidst six of his knights.

  Venison in a savory sauce had been prepared. The castle folk knew that Alice and Reyna had cooked it un-supervised, and they munched only on bread in a dejected way. The aroma from the plates permeated the hall and one could hear stomachs growl. Finally, Ian's men bravely picked at their portions and a few others dared to follow.

  Reyna suddenly appeared on the steps, and every eye turned to her. She wore a pretty blue cote-hardie that hung more loosely than it should. Her blond hair was bound into a thick plait that dangled down her back. With a determined expression, she strode across the hall to the high table. She moved up behind Ian, and he waited for her to take the place beside him.

  Instead, she reached over his shoulder and plucked a chunk of meat from his plate.

  She dramatically held it up high and examined it. Glaring a challenge around the assembly, she placed the meat in her mouth, chewed broadly, and gave a solid swallow. She looked up to heaven, as if awaiting divine judgment. Silence claimed the hall while everyone watched and waited for the food to hit her stomach.

  Ian smiled at her performance, and turned to eat himself.

  A violent gesture beside him stopped the action. Reyna suddenly gagged. Her face turned red. She bent over, her arm clutching her stomach. She fell to the floor.

  Pandemonium broke loose. Men shouted and women screamed. Those who had eaten stared aghast at their plates. A few rose and stuck fingers down their throats.

  Ian threw aside his chair and dropped down on his knee beside Reyna. Christ, he had killed her. With all of the rumors about a poisoner, he should have considered that it might be true, but be someone besides Reyna.

  He felt incredibly vacant and helpless while he watched the poison do its work. A crowd gathered around with silent, morbid fascination. Finally, desperate to attempt something to save her, he reached to turn her over and try to force the meat back up.

  While his hands closed on her body, a relaxed repose spread over her face and limbs. Ian's chest clenched at the image of death's peace. He felt an overwhelming urge to embrace the last warmth of her life, and began to do so.

  Her lashes fluttered open. Those lovely lips moved. “Take your hands off of me, Englishman.”

  A tight moment of shocked silence greeted her miraculous resurrection, and then laughter broke throughout the hall. Reyna threw off his hands and scrambled to rise.

  Fury at the scare she had given clapped through him like thunder. He hauled her up after him. “Do anything like that again and I'll—”

  “You'll what?” she hissed while she righted her garments and jerked her arm free. “Trick me into betraying my people and returning to this place that holds only danger for me? Keep me here to await the trial which must eventually come? Force me to perform a ritual at every meal that confirms their suspicions?”

  Ian looked her in the eyes and she looked right back, bravely and belligerently. “Seat yourself,” he ordered, re-taking his chair.

  To his further annoyance, she walked away and plunked herself down in the free space among the knights.

  Still livid at the way Reyna had made a fool of him, still confused by the hollow despair he had felt when he thought her dying, Ian pointedly looked away from the little blond woman and turned his most charming smile on Lady Margery.

  He held his own with Margery throughout the meal, but a part of his awareness remained solidly fixed on the end of the table. He heard the light conversation while Reyna bantered with the knights. He heard Sir Lionel's florid flattery. He noted Sir George's suggestive innuendoes. Finally, someone told a quiet joke and their laughter broke out in peals.

  His gaze drifted to Reyna. She smiled brightly, and delightful little swells formed over her high cheekbones. He realized that he had never seen her really smile before. It transformed her face, making her appear very youthful and sweet.

  Sir Lionel and Sir Matthew beamed at her in a besotted way. They would probably begin writing poems for her by nightfall. Sir George, however, watched her with a hooded, predatory expression.

  Ian thought about the lady's artless kisses. A widow and not a virgin, and for all he knew not even virtuous, but not what George assumed, either.

  Morvan had said to see to her safety. Well, there was only one way to do that.

  Chapter FIVE

  Reyna watched with misgivings the reactions of the men around her. She had provoked such attention before from visiting knights or lords, but her status as Robert's wife had protected her from unwelcome complications.

  She debated how to handle any advances, should they come. Maybe such men got dangerous if a woman didn't reject them in the appropriate way.

  The chatter around her abruptly stopped. The men looked past her, through her. She startled when hands came to rest possessively on her shoulders. Twisting her head, she looked up into brooding eyes beneath feathery lashes.

  “Your meal is finished?” Ian asked.

  “Aye.”

  “Then let us retire, my lady.”

  The insinuation shocked her speechless. The men around her scooted aside. Ian took her hand and lifted her up to step over the bench. He drew her toward the stairs.

  It was either follow, or create a spectacle that would garner the attention of the whole hall and not alter by one whit the conclusions that Ian intended these men to draw. Still, she wanted to pummel and kick and make a clear statement that repudiated his gesture.

  She glanced at his calm profile. “You are despicable. Is it your intention to see that I have not
hing left here?”

  “It is my intention to see to your safety as I was ordered. In the opinion of those men whom you enjoyed beguiling this evening, you are a loose woman at best and a harlot at worst. To your mind you may be the persecuted widow, and to many of these people you may be a murderess, but to my knights you are only the woman who came to my tent and offered herself to me.”

  “Not really, and only in good cause.”

  “To a man at war looking for some warmth and pleasure, such details hold little consequence.”

  They had reached the stairs. He ushered her up, his hand still resting on the back of her waist. She ascended until they were out of sight, then turned to him. “You need come no further. I think that you made your point to your knights. Now they are certain that I am a loose woman.”

  “Aye, but my woman, and none of them will touch you now.” He gestured upward. “I will escort you to your chamber. I want to check its walls.”

  He followed silently, an unsettling presence behind her. Up past the third-level chapel, then past the fourth-level chambers for knights and servants, and finally into the passage flanked by the solar and the small rooms claimed by Margery and the other women. She quickened her step and put some distance between them. She wanted to run in and bar her door.

  She walked to her desk and began folding and rolling parchments with shaking hands. Even though she knew he was coming, his slightly delayed arrival startled her and she jumped back from the desk.

  He entered casually. His gaze quickly took in the narrow bed and the three tall night candles, already lit by the servants. She moved away from the desk, over to the wall beside the door, and pressed herself against the cool stones.

  “A small chamber. The one Lady Margery uses is larger. Did she displace you when Thomas and she came?”

  “Nay. I have always been here. I chose this chamber. It has three window slits, and the others have only one.”

  He glanced to the table strewn with parchments. “Better for your reading?”

  “Aye. And at night, if the candles gut or blow out, there is still some light.”

  “You fear night demons?”

  “In a way.”

  He began pacing around the narrow room, examining the walls, occasionally feeling at the mortared joints between the stones.

  “What are you looking for?”

  “Chambers, carved into the thick walls. Do you have one?”

  “If I did, what would you expect to find there? Hemlock?”

  He ignored her and continued his search.

  It unsettled her to have him in this space. His size and energy and lithe movements filled the chamber like a mild invasion and put her on her guard. She pressed closer to the stones, feeling their rough edges on her back. He didn't speak for some time, just methodically continued his search, pushing aside her clothing chests to check behind them.

  “Were you faithful to him?” he asked while he crouched near the floor. He spoke as if it were the most natural question in the world, and not an intrusive query.

  She hesitated, and he glanced over at her, his dark eyes seeking hers. “Aye,” she said.

  Aye, she had been faithful. With her heart and her body. Only once had there been a misunderstanding, not on Robert's part, but on hers and, more disastrously, on the squire who fell in love with her. They had grown up together, and she saw him as a brother. In her ignorance, she had not recognized the signs that his affection had changed. When she was seventeen and he a year older, Robert had abruptly sent him away. She had been angry and confused by Robert's gentle explanation until, at his parting, that sweet friend had kissed her in a most unbrotherly way.

  Her hand went to her lips at the memory. She noticed Sir Ian standing now, looking at her. “Aye,” she repeated more firmly.

  He sauntered over to the table. He moved like a lean, strong, coordinated animal. A big cat or a young horse. He was a man with total confidence in the strength and beauty of his body. He fingered the parchments. “What are these?”

  He was the conqueror, she reminded herself. He had the right to question anything he chose. “Letters. I correspond with several people. Robert encouraged me to write to men of letters with questions I might have on my readings.”

  “So your husband was a scholar, and taught his young wife to be one. It must have been a consolation to you.”

  She heard the pity and criticism. Kind of your husband to find some occupation for you under the circumstances. After all, you had no children to busy yourself with, did you?

  “Robert taught me to read English and Gaelic and Latin and Greek, and encouraged me to use his books. He himself was both brilliant and chivalrous, both strong and kind. Like King Alfred.” She let the last words drip with their own criticism. Unlike you.

  He raised his eyebrows at this reference to the great English king of antiquity. “King Alfred, no less. Your husband was an impressive man indeed. To whom do you write?”

  She wished he would leave it alone. “I have written to many men, but only a few have responded. They might not receive the missives, of course, but I suspect they do not bother with a woman's query. One philosopher, Thomas of Chartres, did respond most kindly, and informed me of several women on the Continent with similar interests. Over the last few years these women and I have corresponded.”

  “I have heard of Thomas of Chartres. In fact, I met him once. Do not put it about that you correspond with him, my lady. Last year he had to answer a charge of heresy.” Before she had a chance to absorb this startling information, he added, “Do you mourn him still? Your King Alfred?”

  He stunned her with the impertinent question, and with the confused responses it summoned in her. Did she still mourn him? Certainly at first she had, deeply, almost dreadfully. Now she had moved to acceptance and warm memories, and to resentments that provoked guilt. Resentment that he hadn't prepared her better for the old hatreds from which his presence had shielded her. Resentment that protecting his memory placed such burdens on her. Resentment that he had died at all, leaving her horribly, vulnerably, alone.

  “Nay, I no longer mourn him in the way you mean.”

  “Did you kill him?”

  Finally, the question hanging between them since he began down this path. “Do you think I did? Most everyone else does.”

  “Nay, I do not.”

  He hadn't hesitated. Poignant gratitude squeezed her heart. “Why don't you think so?”

  “One does not become known as the Lord of a Thousand Nights without learning something about women.”

  “Aye, I suppose not. Well, I did not kill him, but I think that perhaps someone did. His illness had all the signs. But my denial will not matter. I had the chance to do it, and the knowledge, they think, and I am a Graham. It was only this siege that saved me. Maccus Armstrong was visiting Harclow before coming here for my trial when your company arrived.” She did not have to add what would have happened if Maccus had come and judged her and found her guilty.

  A dangling image from her dreams, of herself limp and blue, flashed through her mind. It had been a sporadic premonition her whole life, but recently the nightmare had become sharper and more frequent. She laid her head against the stones and fought back the panic that always threatened when she considered that possibility.

  Ian walked over to her. “Your being a Graham will not work against you anymore. No Armstrong will sit in judgment of you. Morvan Fitzwaryn will be the lord soon, and if anyone demands a reckoning, it will be him. He is a fair man.”

  Perhaps it was the flickering candlelight, but she thought that she detected concern and sympathy in those fathomless eyes. She saw so little of either any more. Her spirit lurched hungrily at the notion that someone believed her.

  He just stood there, a hand span away, completely comfortable with the silence between them. His expression did not change, he did not move, but suddenly, clearly, the mood between them altered as if a different air had been let into the chamber. His long gaze unse
ttled her, and the wariness she had first felt when he entered returned. His presence here, his personal questions, his belief in her innocence, had produced a strange intimacy.

  “Let me leave,” she said. “I have a friend in Edinburgh who will help me. I will be safe.”

  He reached out and stroked her jaw and chin in that affectionate gesture he had used two nights before. “I can not.”

  Her skin prickled where he touched her. The room held an unnatural stillness. Candles flickered behind him, casting his face in shadow, but still she could see the firm jaw, the straight mouth, the eyes looking down intently. She could hear herself breathe, could feel the aura of his power and maleness, could smell his compelling, faint scent. She thought his gaze would absorb her.

  “You can. If my father demanded my safety, it was merely a gesture on his part. He does not care about me.”

  He slowly shook his head. “It is not just that.”

  What, then? She almost asked, but she didn't have to. The answer throbbed between them, frightening her, finally splitting through her ignorance with its intensity.

  His hand took her long plait and eased it up from her back until he held its length. He slid off the ribbon that secured its end and began letting the thick tresses unwind, combing them out with his fingers. “You have been avoiding me, Reyna,” he said, watching his hands. “Hiding from me.”

  She glanced down at that hand stroking higher and higher, working out the plait, occasionally grazing her through its thickness. A shaky, weakening, delicious fear spread all through her. “Not hiding,” she lied, trying to sink back into the stone wall. “I have been evading all the men. You warned the women were to avoid misunderstandings.”

  “It is a little late for that with me.” He slid his fingers under her hair until they rested behind her ears and he cradled her face in his palms. “And I misunderstood nothing.”

  “That is not fair.” She tried not to look at his wonderful face, vainly seeking some safety from the uncontrollable and unnameable feelings. A demanding expectation swirled through her, pulling apart her secure sense of purpose. His rough hands felt so warm, so welcome on her skin. The contact soothed and terrified her. “What happened in your tent was not my intention. You took advantage of me.”