“Nay,” he repeated fiercely. “Never think that. Never. I don’t regret a moment of what we’ve done. Do you hear me? Not a moment. I don’t want to live without you. I…I…couldn’t live without you.”
The executioner bound him to the opposite side of the stake. Then Garth reached behind him to catch her hand.
“It won’t be long now,” he assured her.
As Garth’s warm fingers closed around hers, Cynthia felt the sharp, icy terror of the moment slowly drain out of her. Her pummeling heart still beat violently against her ribs, but its pace slackened.
It was too late to have regrets, to agonize over what might have been. Garth couldn’t save her now. He could only be with her. But it was enough to have the strength of his comforting hand as the consuming fire claimed their bodies.
Through bleary eyes, Cynthia took in all the details surrounding her with a curious detachment. Time slowed. Every movement, every smell, every sound came to her now with crystal clarity.
Below her, a horse stamped its hoof, crushing a tiny daisy in the courtyard grass.
Beyond the crowd, a chicken squawked and flapped ineffectual wings as a hound snapped at it through a hole in the wattle fence.
Two little girls at the fore fought over a cloth doll.
Mothers with babes she’d birthed sobbed in loud protest, pressing futilely against the restraining wall of scarlet knights.
Behind the row of guards, Roger buried his head in his hands.
The aroma of pork pastries wafted past.
Heads she’d once bathed with healing elixirs hung in impotent grief.
Nearby, a wool merchant wrested her cart brazenly past the guards, undaunted by the spectacle about to take place, extolling the virtues of her wares. Cynthia noted wistfully that, like herself, the woman was also large with child.
Below, the executioner’s brand blossomed into flame, and odor of curing pitch curled sweet and heavy into her nostrils.
Images flashed by more quickly.
A beautiful dark-haired wench in burgundy skirts flirted saucily with one of the guards.
A hawk wheeled high overhead, screeching.
Black smoke blew across Cynthia’s field of vision as the brand was brought aloft.
The merchant called out, “Worsted! Fine worsted!”
A wave of heat suddenly made Cynthia nauseous.
The flirting wench gave the guard a coy wink.
Cynthia could almost taste the ash as the burning torch swung by.
“Broadcloth!”
Icy fear made a cold sweat break out over Cynthia’s brow. She clutched in panic at Gath’s hand. He gave her palm a long, slow, steady, calming squeeze.
“It will be over in a moment,” he whispered roughly. “And then, I swear, nothing will keep us apart.”
Cynthia bit her lip. “I…we…will love you forever.”
The dry tinder snapped and popped as it ignited. She coughed as the first acrid smoke rose. Holding tight to Garth’s hand, she willed herself not to scream.
CHAPTER 22
Below Cynthia, the wool merchant’s wagon rolled slowly forward. She frowned as it steered perilously close to the fire. Faith, if the woman didn’t take care…
The stack of cloth in the wagon shifted, writhing as if it were alive. At first she thought it was a trick of the fire. But the fabric continued to undulate. She blinked back the impossible sight. Yet before her eyes, the wool bulged upward like a foaling mare’s belly, billowing out, then falling away at last to deliver its contents.
She gasped, inhaling a lungful of acrid smoke. Up sprang a knight in full armor wielding two enormous swords. He struggled to his feet in the middle of the cart, kicking the bundles of cloth aside.
Then, with a great cry, the man slashed toward her with both swords. Cynthia thought for an instant that he meant to slay her outright. She closed her eyes, but didn’t flinch. It would be a blow of mercy, after all. But his blades came down instead on the binding ropes. She found herself untethered so abruptly that she nearly tumbled onto the crackling tinder below.
In the blink of an eye, Garth, cut free as well, scooped her into his arms. Then, without a backward glance, he tossed her through the air over the smoldering kindling. It was the executioner who saved her from a fiery death. The black-hooded giant caught her in his massive arms to set her down safely upon the ground. While she was still dazed, he threw back his hood, revealing a handsome, swarthy face, an overlong mane of gleaming black hair, and blue eyes that sparkled as he grinned.
Before she could gasp in surprise, the pregnant wool merchant appeared at her side, her eyes narrowed in concern. “Are you all right?” she asked, cradling Cynthia’s belly as tenderly and familiarly as if she’d known her all her life.
Cynthia could only nod.
The knight who’d sprung from the cloth wagon now tossed Garth one of his two swords. To her chagrin, the weapon looked as natural in the chaplain’s hands as the Bible. Garth leaped from the pyre, scorching his tunic as he just cleared the flames burning high now.
“Come.” As the wool merchant urged her toward the haven of the castle wall, Cynthia caught a glimpse of the pretty, dark-haired wench still flirting with the guard. As she watched, to her amazement, the lady whipped a silver sword from beneath her skirts and, without blinking, savagely attacked the former object of her affections. The man drew his dagger, scarcely able to defend himself from the woman’s fierce blows.
“Never mind her,” the cloth merchant said, tugging Cynthia by the wrist. “She’s only showing off.”
At last out of the press, Cynthia stared in wonder at the turmoil taking place around her. Here and there, what had appeared to be crippled beggars shrugged off their ragged cloaks to reveal coats of mail and gleaming swords. They hauled the scarlet guardsmen from their mounts, leaving a fray of confused, walleyed horses rearing in the close confines of the courtyard. The peasants scattered from the trampling hooves, dropping staffs and aleskins in their haste to escape. The fire blazed on, high now against the shimmering towers of Wendeville.
In the middle of the melee, Cynthia spotted Garth. In his smudged and tattered tunic, his teeth bared in a ferocious grimace, he looked nothing like a man of the cloth. He’d become a warrior. He slashed right and left, pummeling shields, nicking mail, wounding flesh. He spun and lunged as intuitively as if he’d been born to the blade, moving with the grace and power of a wolf on the hunt.
And while the tumult grew around her, Cynthia noticed that a great green wave poured slowly in through the gates—men mounted in such tight formation that their horses rode flank to flank. The wool merchant saw them, too.
“It’s fortunate my husband arrived early, though he had a devil of a time finding Garth. You see, Holden’s been at Wendeville for almost a week now with his spies,” she confided, “secretly planning your rescue. The fighting should be over soon enough now that the de Ware armies have come out of the wood.” She winced as the dark-haired wench spun past to sink her sword into an unfortunate victim’s thigh.
Holden was Garth’s brother. Then the dark-haired warrior wench must be… “Cambria?” she murmured.
The wool merchant smiled. “The one and only.”
“And you’re…Linet?”
The poor woman had no time to answer. Her green eyes widened in alarm as the executioner’s blade whizzed over their head, missing them by inches.
“Sorry, my ladies!” the man called as he pursued a terrified guard.
“I’m Linet, and that is my reckless husband.”
“Duncan?”
“You may call him Dolt, if you like,” she said with a frown of mock severity. “He’s in rare form today.” She clucked her tongue. “It seems to me he lit the pyre a little too soon. You might have been scorched.” She leaned forward conspiratorially. “I told him Holden should have played the executioner. He has the more suitable temperament for it. But nay, Duncan just had to have the villain’s role. He simply adores that ebony wor
sted cloak.” She shook her head. “Men.”
Cynthia’s head was spinning. She frowned, trying to understand. “Holden…was the man in your cart.”
“Aye, and if he slashed any of my swatches with those great blade of his, there’ll be the devil to pay.”
Cynthia felt overwhelmed. As much chaos riddled her brain as filled the courtyard. Moments before, she’d been prepared to die. Now she chatted with Garth’s kin as if they’d been friends forever. Her executioner had become her savior, and her gentle chaplain had become her sword-wielding hero.
The de Ware knights filled half the courtyard now. Few had bothered to lower a lance or raise a blade. Their sheer numbers were enough to intimidate most of the scarlet knights, who readily surrendered their weapons, kneeling for mercy on the sod.
Cynthia searched among the confusion until she spotted Garth. He had ceased fighting, but his chest still heaved with unleashed strength. It was a side of him she’d never beheld. With his snapping eyes and a bloodied sword gleaming in his fist, he looked like an avenging saint.
“Go on,” Linet said, nudging her forward. “It’s safe enough now. Go to him.”
She wanted nothing more. Leaving Linet behind, she picked her way through the crush of people, one arm shielding her belly. She was halfway to Garth when he swiveled his head to look at her. His shoulders dropped, and his face lit up with a strange mixture of emotions—relief, wonder, perplexity…but mostly sheer adoration.
She felt as if she were made of pure light, so well did his look warm her. All the weeks spent in darkness vanished. All her fears dissolved like water into the soil. His gaze felt like a protective cloak wrapped around her, her and their babe.
He dropped his sword, and she rushed into his embrace with all the grace of a suckling lamb, eager for the nourishment he provided her soul. His arms closed about her tentatively, and he gasped as her protruding belly mashed against him. But she needed this, and if the babe had survived nearly three months of watery pottage and the dank dungeon and the near fatal kiss of fire, surely it could survive a jostling by its father.
She pressed closer, and at last Garth returned the hug, clasping her about the shoulders and back and head as if to assure himself that she was real. She burrowed her head against his chest.
His clothing smelled of smoke. Perhaps Linet was right, she thought with a smile. Duncan had set the fire a bit too soon. But none of that mattered now. Garth was here, safe, and she wanted nothing more than to snuggle against him for the rest of her life.
She hardly noticed when the cheer arose around them. Garth returned the encouraging calls with a smile and a wave.
Then he murmured to her, “You should go inside now, away from the bloodshed.”
Cynthia shook her head in apology. “Inside? I’ve spent almost three months inside. There’s nothing I want more right now than to feel the sun’s light and the wind’s breath.”
Garth tucked her hair behind her ear and nodded.
“Garth!” Duncan called. “Are you going to introduce your ladylove to me?” He whirled his black cloak dramatically over one shoulder and waggled his eyebrows. “Or is your head so dazed you can’t remember your manners?”
“If it’s dazed,” Garth replied sourly, “it’s only from that too close brush with death.”
“Ha! If it weren’t for me, oh so holy Father,” Duncan fired, “you’d be roasting in hell even now!”
Cynthia swayed a little, weary with shock and disturbed by the vivid image his words conjured.
Linet jabbed Duncan in the stomach. “Mind your tongue, Duncan,” she muttered. “Can’t you see she’s in a delicate condition?”
Cynthia had to smile at that. No one had ever used the word delicate to describe her. But Linet’s chiding worked. Duncan had the grace to look abashed.
Holden marched forward then, a mahogany-haired, more serious version of his brother, his helm stashed under his arm, his sword at the ready, a forbidding scowl furrowing his brow. But the eyes that met hers were calm and steady, and afforded her a high level of respect. “The Abbot’s soldiers have been subdued,” he told her. “What would you have me do with them?”
Cynthia blinked as he awaited her command. The man was speaking to her. God’s wounds—how would she know what to do with prisoners of war? Wendeville had never been under siege before. And besides, unlike his sword-wielding wife, she knew nothing of warfare.
Before she could frame a lame reply, Cambria came to her side. A smudge of someone else’s blood painted her cheek.
“I’d gather them in the great hall to secure their fealty,” she suggested, her voice arching over the words with a slight Scots lilt. “They appear to be misfits and halfwits, most of them, fairly harmless. And who knows? Maybe if they see your caring ways with your own vassals, they’ll come to love you and follow you in time.”
It was a wise suggestion. “Aye,” Cynthia said. “Thank you.”
Holden left at once to begin moving the prisoners.
“Now, I have just one more question,” Cambria said to the group when her husband had gone. “Where, my lords and ladies, has the Abbot gone?”
Cynthia’s breath flew quickly from her parted mouth. “He’s gone?” Her voice came out on a thin thread of sound.
Garth rested a solid hand aside her neck, pulling her toward him. “As long as I have breath in my body,” he said, his voice rough with emotion, “I swear that man won’t touch you again. I don’t care if he’s a priest or a cardinal or the Pope. He won’t lay a finger on you.”
The determination in Garth’s eyes made her believe him. She could trust him. He would protect her.
Cambria, however, wasn’t so convinced. She gave Garth a quick appraising glance from head to toe, probably remembering that castle she’d once taken out from under his nose.
“We’ll find him,” she said, “within the hour.”
Eventually, the fiery pyre dwindled into a mass of gray coals, its glowing crimson heart beating out the last of its life.
The de Ware force operated like a well-crafted loom. Holden and his knights rounded up prisoners while their squires stabled the horses. Pages collected discarded weapons, wiping them clean with rags before sorting them into neat piles. Linet directed two women in the repairing of the damaged wattle fence around the chickens while Garth tended the wounds of one of Cambria’s unfortunate victims. Duncan gathered a pack of distressed, sniffling children and kept them occupied, regaling them with some clever tale.
Cynthia surveyed the damage to the courtyard. Her herbs were crushed beyond saving, plowed under by horse hoof and cart wheel. The fire had scorched the sod. And what was left of her grass had been trampled into a muddy mess.
But the seasons would turn again. The ground could be repaired. By next spring, a whole new garden would grow up to replace…
Someone was sobbing.
She let her gaze drift along the castle wall. There, deep beneath the shadows of the dovecote’s eave, Mary sat upon her knees, rocking back and forth, crying as if her heart would break.
Slowly, Cynthia ambled over, dodging knights and pages packing weapons. As she neared, she could see something large and black writhing on Mary’s lap, some injured animal or…
“Oh, my lady,” Mary wailed. “Forgive me, my lady, and forgive him, I beg you.” Her young face was ugly with weeping. “Please forgive him.”
“Who, Mary?” Cynthia asked gently, coming closer.
Mary glanced down at her lap.
The Abbot. His cassock was drenched. He writhed in agony and groaned, gripping his stomach as if he would tear it out. Cynthia dropped down beside him.
All her fears, all her hatred were forgotten in that instant. A man was suffering. She had to help him.
“What happened?” she asked, brushing her shift aside.
“I didn’t mean…” Mary wailed.
She took Mary by the shoulders and shook her once. “Tell me what happened.”
Mary blinked her ey
es. “I couldn’t let him do it, my lady. Don’t you see? It’s a mortal sin to kill an innocent babe. I couldn’t let the Abbot’s soul burn in the eternal fires of hell. I couldn’t!”
Cynthia glanced at the Abbot. His skin was a sickly shade, and blisters swelled and distorted his mouth. Poison. “What did you use, Mary? What did you give him?”
“Hellebore. Wine with black hellebore.” She laced her fingers over her face and began to cry again in earnest.
Cynthia slowly began to rub her palms together, though the sinking in her heart told her it was futile. Black hellebore was a powerful poison with no cure.
“Bloody hell.” It was Garth. “What’s happened to him? What…” Then, realizing Cynthia’s intent, he grabbed her abruptly by the arm. “Nay. Nay, Cynthia. You owe him nothing. Stay away from him. Stay away from the devil.”
She ignored him, focusing on the heat growing between her hands.
“He tried to slay you,” Garth reasoned. “Faith, he tried to kill our unborn child! How can you—“
“How can I not, Garth?” she answered without looking up. “Just as you’re a man of God, I’m a healer.”
He fell silent then, and as she worked she heard others gather behind her, but none uttered a word. She laid a hand upon the Abbot’s clammy brow and closed her eyes. He made small mewling sounds, twisting in pain as the poison seeped into his veins.
Finally, she withdrew her hand. As she suspected, it was too late to save him. But it wasn’t too late to relieve his agony.
“Fetch my opium wine from the cellar. Hurry!” she directed to no one in particular. Someone sped to do her bidding. To the Abbot, she said, “The pain will be over soon. The opium will ease your suffering.” She stroked his head gently with one hand and laid the flat of her other palm upon his cramping belly. Warmth filled her, stronger than she’d ever felt before, and she directed the energy toward the Abbot, moving it in soothing waves over his stomach.
Gradually his grimace relaxed, and his breathing, though shallow and rapid, was at least devoid of moaning. His onyx-dark gaze was puzzled as he raised it to her.
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