by Jill Barnett
That kiss. Dear Lord, but she wanted that kiss again.
A shout sounded from the fields beyond the castle. He released her abruptly, and together they moved to the battlements and looked down. Riders approached escorting a long column of wagons. Pennants with red rearing lions waved in the breeze.
When he turned toward her, there was an odd glint in his eye, amusement with a snatch of arrogant pride, something that worried her a little. He raised his hand toward her. “Come.” For just a moment she hesitated, then nodded toward the procession below. “What is this all about, my lord?”
“About?” he repeated, then took her hand in his and, without looking at her, only staring straight ahead, drew her along with him back toward the stairs. “’Tis your bride-price, my lady.”
Chapter 20
Clio had never seen a mechanical bird before. She had not known such a thing existed and never thought to own one. According to Merrick, this one had once belonged to the great Macedonian Alexander.
She looked at the brass bird, and thought of Pitt, then quickly prayed that he was well out there in the forest. Perhaps he was swinging upside-down from the branch of a willow tree or happily sitting atop the head of a fox or a badger or some such thing and picking out lice—his favorite sport.
The mechanical bird she held cupped in her hands was a strange looking thing. She almost wished it could talk. What tales it would have to tell!
She glanced at her cat, who had been listless since her goshawk disappeared. Clio placed the brass key in a small notch hole in the middle of the bird’s back and wound it, ’round and round, the way Merrick had showed her.
The bird made an odd clicking sound, then its wings rose a little with each click, until they were spread as wide as those of a gyrfalcon.
Cyclops arched his back and hissed, suddenly awake—a miracle in itself—and squatting down on his haunches. His tail swung back and forth and he stared at the brass bird with his one eye.
The day before, Old Gladdys had placed a black eye patch where Cy’s missing eye should be, which gave him a heathen air and had sent Brother Dismas into fits and cries about the cat truly being a familiar.
The mechanical bird with the illustrious past began to shuffle in a jerky circle.
Cyclops pounced. His fat belly landed right atop the bird, which still made a scratchy noise, like that of a broken bell. Clank, clink, clunk!
It inched out from beneath Cy’s bright fur, jerky brass wing first. He curled his paws around the wobbly bird and pulled it against his furry chest.
There were a loud pinging noises like flat chapel bells and a loud boing!
Cy screeched and whipped out the door so fast that if it weren’t for spotting his tail, Clio might have thought the cat had just disappeared into thin air.
She glanced back at the mechanical bird.
It lay on its side on the floor, its wings at an odd angle and a bouncing wire in the shape of Dulcie’s ringlets poking out of its back. She rose from the stool near her new bedstead, crossed the room, and picked up the pieces, then set them on a small table that was covered with small jewel chests, golden cups, thick plates, and assorted reliquary caskets.
When she turned back and looked around her, she was still unable to believe what she saw. The goods flowed from her chamber into the solar.
On the stone floors were hand-loomed rugs with intricate designs of silken nightingales, winter roses, and white horses. Flemish tapestries were rolled and stacked along the solar wall, beside chests of cloth the color of jewels, some of the lengths made of threads so shiny they looked as if they were spun from real jewels—sapphires, rubies, emeralds, and amber. There were others woven with metal threads of spun silver, copper, and gold, and a chest held braid and tassels and ribbons that shone like moonlight.
Atop an ornately carved ebony tester frame, with a rosewood truckle bed that slid underneath, was a plush wool-and-feather-filled tick made from rich woolen damask. There were pure linen sheetings spun from finely worked flax and bleached so very white that you could almost smell the sunshine in them. Scattered all over the bed were earth-toned pillows made of downy goat hair woven into a soft, thin cloth called Kashmir.
From the East, in the land where the mongoose weasel lived, came a wooden wheel used for spinning wool into the finest of thread; it sat in a corner by a golden strung harp and three fluted reed instruments that sounded as deep and as mellow as the midnight call of a lonely wood owl.
A small sloping scribe’s desk for writing sat next to its matching stool with leopards carved on the base. Merrick had seen them moved near the highest and broadest open solar loop so daylight came inside and shone on the polished burl of the desktop.
And now, when Clio looked at it, glowing in the rich sunlight, the polished wooden top looked the same rich color as a warm summer sunset.
But like its giver, the delightful desk held deep, wonderfully surprising secrets hidden from the casual eye, for when she had lifted the desktop, there was a compartment beneath. ’Twas filled with parchment so fine it was as thin as the skin of an onion. Next to the thin paper was a polished wood box of writing quills with different-sized cut points and a horn filled with precious indigo ink—a gift from a sultan who was impressed by Merrick’s riding skills.
There was more. So much more. Every corner. Every nook had something new, something more unique and pleasurable than the last. As she scanned the room, she felt overwhelmed and awestruck by all the riches that sat before her very eyes. Here. Inside Camrose, her home, the place she wanted restored to elegance. But this was more than elegant.
’Twas almost too much, she thought for a moment. But what was too much wealth, too much majesty?
Confused by her thoughts, she turned and stopped when she caught her reflection in a large piece of polished brass that Dulcie had hung near her new silver water basin and matching ewer with a handle in the shape of a prowling lion.
It did not escape her thoughts that these riches were given to her by the Red Lion; they were his property and he had chosen to give them to her. Before, she had always thought scornfully of a bride-price as a purchase payment, like that for an auction slave being sold to the highest-bidding master.
But somehow, Merrick had made her feel as if these were gifts, presented to her and selected only for her. Special presents, not to buy her, but to provide her with pleasure and comfort. She knew that the thought sounded wishful and foolish, but it felt so very true.
She stared at the polished brass.
Was that she staring back? She cocked her head slightly. She did not look like herself. She reached up and touched the blue, teardrop pearls that hung from her headpiece, a gold and jewel-encrusted fillet with pearl drops along the crown that were the same color as Merrick’s icy eyes.
Her skin was flushed as if she had walked in the hot summer sun, and there was a sparkle to her green eyes. She touched her red and slightly swollen lips with her fingertips.
Kissed. She had been kissed.
Not a groping old bishop’s kiss in a dark corner of the stairs, or a stable lad’s quick peck on the cheek, but a man’s kiss. A real kiss. One so intimate she had not thought such a touch existed.
She gave a dreamy sigh.
The sultans of the East might be impressed with Merrick’s riding skills, but Clio was rather more impressed with his kissing skills. She smiled a wicked little smile that made her belly flip and her blood tingle through her veins as if she were being leeched.
She had promised to wed Merrick. She had given her word.
She did not know what surprised her more, that she had agreed so readily, or that he’d actually asked. If she had said no, would he have accepted that? Some perverse part of her wanted to test the theory, but another part of her knew she never would.
She tried so hard not to care. She tried so hard not give an inch to him. She tried and she failed. He won her, as surely as if she were the prize in a tourney.
And he did so not wit
h brute force, not with bribery and the riches that now surrounded her. He did not do so with kisses that made her wits go walking or her heart throb. She supposed that his surprising kindness was part of what changed her mind, as was the gentle firmness she had seen in him the last week.
But the one thing that finally did win her was something so much more powerful, so remarkable. ’Twas the greatest gift he could have ever given her: the right to say no.
Sometime before Lauds, when Clio couldn’t find a wink of sleep atop her plush new bed, she had gone up on the battlements and stood there, her back pressed against the cold, damp stones. She stared up at the night sky, where it was so clear that the stars looked as close as the fireflies in the Great Forest beyond.
Once when she was small, she had ventured into that forest and seen strange flecks of light spinning through the air in flitting circles that looked like flaming bees. They had frightened her and she’d run to her mother’s arms, crying.
But her mother carried her back inside the forest, hugging her tightly so she wouldn’t cry, and then had shown her what those flickers of light truly were. Caddis flies were what she had called them.
She had told Clio that the villagers called them fire-drakes and believed they brought good luck to those who watched them. Like the eastern star that proclaimed Christ’s birth, the fireflies were friends to the angels, and God himself decreed in those first days of creation that the Caddis would be so blessed that they could dance in the air.
Clio never forgot that day, because that was one of the few memories she had in which she could still see the clear image of her mother’s face.
So she stood on that wall walk and watched the sky, feeling comfortable and easy. She pretended those stars that flickered like the Caddis were there to bring her luck. Her sleepless mind drifted back as if by magic to the wonderful kiss atop those battlements, and she stood that way until dawn came and the stars all melted away.
With a deep sigh, she turned to go back to her bedchamber, but a door in the courtyard squeaked like Thud and Thwack’s piglets. Clio moved to the wall and braced her hands atop the stone, peering down.
In the dawn light she saw Merrick walking across the inner bailey, and her gaze followed him as if compelled to do so. There was something about the way he walked, the cock in his hip, the way his strides ate up the ground, the way his arms moved little yet his right hand rested on his sword hilt even though he was within safe grounds.
She saw that his shoulders stayed straight as he moved, his head high. His black hair gleamed almost silver in the new light and was getting longer and beginning to curl where the ends met his shoulders. He wore a leather tunic the same color as his hair and dark crimson braies that clung to the honed leg muscles of a true warrior.
His soft leather boots came almost to his knees, and golden light flashed from his knight’s spurs. In the crisp morning air, the rowels jangled when he crossed the bailey and met briefly with the master mason and builders. She had the feeling he knew who and what was around him, even then.
For some inexplicable reason she hid in the shadows and felt her face flush and flame. He could not see her, yet he sensed her. She could feel it, this strange invisible bond that seemed to link them as one mind, one thought.
She felt sweat break out on her brow, and she did not move, even held her breath until her chest began to tighten. Slowly, furtively, she peered out from the shadows. She felt like a thief.
Merrick had turned back to the master builders, and within moments they all disappeared out the latest of the castle’s new defenses: an inner portcullis that had been added last week to double protection.
She stood there feeling strange and somehow light, as if she were only half there. She glanced up at the golden dawn. Perhaps the stars were like the Caddis, there to bring her good luck. After all, she had gotten a good glimpse of Merrick.
Then she chided herself for being every kind of fool.
Of course that was silly thinking. If good fortune had truly been on her side that morn, he would have been wearing only that loincloth.
A few busy days later, Merrick was bent over the high table, his palms holding down the curling edges of one of the master builder’s drawings.
“I spotted some Welsh devil on your Arab horse.”
Merrick looked up.
Sir Roger stood in the archway of a side entrance to the great hall. His helmet was tucked under one arm and his mail hood had been pushed back and sat gathered at his neck like a yoke.
Leaves and sticky moss stuck out from his red hair, and grass and dirt peppered his mail tunic. There were great clumps of mud splattered all over his armor, so much so he looked as if he had been dipped in it.
He walked toward Merrick; water and mud squirted out from the sollerets on his feet. With every motion of his arms or legs, water dripped from his armor joints in trickling trails all over the flagstone floor.
Merrick let his gaze slowly travel over his friend, from the wet weeds in his hair to the mud clots beneath his feet. “I’m surprised old Langdon didn’t teach you that you cannot swim in armor.”
Roger made a rude gesture and threw his gauntlets and helm on a bench. A soggy marsh marigold landed next to Merrick and he looked down, then picked it up and dangled it in front of him. “Lose this?”
Roger spat one of Merrick’s favorite and most colorful curses.
Merrick had seldom seen Roger like this. His usual mood was light, sometimes insufferably so. Merrick turned back to the bridge plans. “You are not your merry self. The ladies will be heartbroken.”
Roger sat down across from him.
The moment his ass hit the bench, there was a loud squish. He winced slightly, then caught Merrick’s amused look. “I was chasing the cursed devil of a rider for you.”
“For me.” That bit of bunkum was even too much for Merrick. He gave a wry bark of laughter.
“Aye, for you. ’Tis your horse.”
“Odd, I thought it might be because you have been trying to buy, barter, wager, or wheedle that mount from me ever since I’ve had him.”
Roger was staring at his hands, shaking his head in disbelief. “I’ve been doing everything possible for over the last two years to get you to sell me that blasted horse.”
“I know.”
He looked up at Merrick. “That is all you have to say about it? I thought you’d be ranting the walls down over losing that horse.”
Merrick shrugged. “I have other horses.”
“Are you fevered?”
Aye, Merrick thought, ignoring Roger’s puzzled look. His blood was hot, but the heat wasn’t from any disease. ’Twas all Roger needed to know, that he was hot from a woman. He’d never hear the end of it.
He chose not to respond, but sat there in silence, pretending to examine the castle plans, which could have been upside-down for all he knew.
Roger, too, was silent for a few long seconds, then grudgingly admitted, “It took my squire and two men-at-arms to pull me from the river.” He jabbed his dagger into a green pear that sat in nearby fruit bowl and took a huge bite, then chewed it as viciously as if it were tough and stringy mutton. “I about drowned.”
“I can see that.”
Roger just grunted. With an intent look on his scowling face, he was on to his second pear, jabbing and stabbing, poking and slicing it with his knife.
“Are you going to eat that fruit or kill it?”
“Both,” he answered with his mouth full.
“Should I ask how a man of your famous horse skills ended up in the river?”
“No. Not if you value your life.”
Merrick did laugh out loud.
Roger scowled at him, which made him laugh harder. Roger ran a hand over his filthy and mud-speckled face, then stared at his palm. After a moment his expression changed from indignant anger to one of sheepish amusement. “I suppose it would have been amusing to watch, were it not happening to me.”
“Had it happened to me
, you’d have been crowing and howling until I was ready to jam my fist in your face.”
“Aye. That I would.”
“’Tis only your pride that is sorely wounded.”
“No.”
“You are hurt?” Merrick could hear the strain in his own voice. The memory of Clio and the arrow was still too fresh in his mind. He loved Roger like the brother he never had.
“Only my ass hurts.” Roger shifted from one side to another. “ ’Tis sore as Saint Apollonia’s teeth. That river bottom was damned rocky.”
Merrick tossed him a damask pillow from the lord’s high chair, and Roger caught it and, to Merrick’s surprise, used it.
When he looked at Roger again a few seconds later, Roger’s gaze had drifted up to the rafter beams, his expression half thoughtful and half in awe. “You should have seen the rider, Merrick.” He shook his dagger with a pear on it to emphasize each word. “I’ve never seen anyone ride like that. He looked as if he’d been riding that horse of yours all his life.”
Roger turned and looked at him. “They looked like one whole beast when they rode up and over that craggy hill at Pwllycalch.
“They rode over Pwllycalch?” Merrick was surprised. The jagged and deadly hills of southern Brecon near the Usk Valley were infamous for their ruggedness. There was a local folktale that only the fey ones could traverse the chalky shale hills, because under the light of the moon they were said to sprout the wings of falcons and fly out of sight.
“Aye. They were up and over those rocks and halfway across the valley before I could make it past the first gorge. Made those desert riders from Damascus look like old, feeble women.”
But feeble old women were the last things on Merrick’s preoccupied mind. He was thinking of Clio, lost in an image of her face, that special face, and the earthy sweet flavor of her warm mouth.
And so it was that Roger sat across from him thinking of a different image—that of a horse and rider, the finest he’d ever seen, flying across the wild Welsh valley as if they were drinking the wind.
