Lifting her chin with a flash of defiance, Rhiannon stepped boldly into the night.
* * *
The gamekeeper’s cottage nestled deep in the wooded deer park on Hatfield lands. In the soft purple dusk she slipped among the rustling spruces, silent as the red deer whose gentle presence she sensed nearby. Her passage didn’t startle them, for they sensed her affinity and accepted her among them.
Not so the drugged guard; him she had feared. But Kat Ashley led her unerringly past danger to this swaybacked cottage, shuttered and sleeping among the deer. A thin seam of golden light spilled beneath the door.
Mistress Kat bustled up to the portal and tapped—a signal to whoever waited within. Then she beckoned kindly to Rhiannon.
“Come along, dearie. Here’s someone right glad to see ye. I’ll just step back along the path and raise a ruckus if someone comes.”
Within, the snug room was white-plastered and wood-floored. Overhead, sides of cured meat swung from smoke-stained beams. A merry fire crackled and danced, shedding its friendly light over the trundle bed before the hearth. With a pang, Rhiannon recalled the cozy nook snuggled deep in the Faerie wood where she’d made her home. A surge of homesickness swelled up, making her eyes sting and her throat thicken.
Then she beheld the familiar form propped on pillows in the trundle bed—gray-streaked dark curls clipped in the Roman fashion, features drawn with weariness, but his beloved eyes steady as a guiding hand.
“Welcome, dear heart,” her foster-father said gently.
“Oh, Ansgar!” With full heart and brimming eyes, Rhiannon flew across the chamber to his side. “How I prayed Her Grace’s searchers would find you! I’ve been so dreadfully worried. I should never have left you, but Lord Beltran would heed nothing I told him. I intended to return...”
At her captor’s name, a frown darkened Ansgar’s pain-worn features, but his grip on her hands was strong. “I tracked you and the priest as well as I might, but this accursed shoulder slowed my pace. ’Tis grateful I am to find you safe and well here, child.”
“He’s kept me safe enough,” she allowed. “My lord is a capable guardian—too capable—and he’s no priest. How are you feeling, love?”
Even while her heart overflowed with joy, her mind catalogued his pallor and breathing, the white bandages binding his arm to his chest, the pungent odor of healing herbs. Marigold probably, a poultice plastered on the open wound to prevent festering...
“At least you’re well tended, Lady be praised.” She nodded satisfaction. “You’ve no fever and the wound smells clean. How did you manage?”
“Lady Linnet has been a most devoted caretaker.” Ansgar smiled. “She’s just a slip of a girl, but faithful, and her heart is kind. She could have gone to her own kin here in the mortal realm, who must surely mourn her for dead. But somehow she seems less than eager to return to them, and no knight would press a lady to act against her wishes. Rather than abandon us to our fate, she returned to the battleground and found me.”
Rhiannon forbore to comment upon Linnet’s kindness. Ansgar the divine spear might be the greatest knight England had ever known, the hero of countless lays and legends, but he was naïve as a child where matters of the heart were concerned. His own heart had been buried with Arthur’s long-dead Queen Guinevere. He’d dwelled alone and celibate in Faerie ever since, oathbound to Rhiannon’s defense by a vow he’d sworn to Arthur on his deathbed. But he’d saved Linnet from her wrathful pursuer the day she blundered through the mists into the Summer Lands. Small wonder, then, the girl clove to him as her protector.
Now that she’d been returned to her own kind, her wits no longer befuddled by Faerie magick, Rhiannon hoped the girl’s love for him would fade. Otherwise, the poor child was destined for heartbreak.
Red is for heartbreak...
Briskly she shook off the chilling memory of Morrigan’s malice. “And where is Lady Linnet now? I’ll be pleased indeed to see her well.”
“Mistress Kat smuggled her into the house for a clean gown and provisions. I gather the lady of the manor does not intend that her captor or yours discover our presence,” he said dryly. “Which is all to the good. Rhiannon, we must flee tonight.”
In the midst of checking his bandages, she lifted her startled gaze. “That has certainly been my goal. But I gave my parole to Lord Beltran.”
His dark brows drew together. “That was unwise, child. You must reach the Tudor Queen.”
“I know the Veil is thinning and my mother is—is failing—”
“Your mother is dying,” he said flatly.
Rhiannon’s heart swooped like a sparrow fleeing the hawk. Never had anyone dared to speak those words aloud in Faerie, though the bitter truth was guessed by all. Queene Maeve had ruled for millennia before the Romans came to the isle they called Britannia. But even the Fae faded in time, and the strife and strain of the looming Convergence merely hastened her fall.
And when the Queene passed, her heir Morrigan would take up the crown.
The Faerie Queene had never claimed to love her mixed-blood daughter. But despite a lifetime of her benign neglect, Rhiannon would not stand tamely watching while her mother died and two realms plunged headlong into war.
“We still have time to save her, Ansgar. I will save her—that I swear to you.”
“Time flows swiftly in the Summer Lands,” he murmured. “As mortals reckon it, we’ve been gone a sennight.”
She heard the words he did not speak. Your mother may be dead by now, or nearly so. The Convergence may have already begun.
A fist of panic squeezed her chest. Suddenly, she was struggling for breath to fill her lungs. “I’ll reach the Tudor Queen in time.”
“How? I doubt very much this inquisitor fellow intends to take you.”
“Nor does he.” Renewed annoyance with Beltran’s high-handed treatment made her voice crisp. “He intends to leave me somewhere for questioning...a church in Yardley, I think he said...and continue his journey alone. If I hadn’t given my parole, I would have been locked in a dungeon, treated far less honorably and unable to leave in any event.”
“Damn.” He frowned. “I suppose he plans to do this shortly? He’d the look of a man in a hurry during our brief acquaintance.”
“He intends to leave Hatfield on the morrow.” Somehow Rhiannon felt uncomfortable discussing Lord Beltran Nemesto beneath her foster-father’s perceptive gaze. Restless, she wandered to the hearth, where a kettle hung over the flames, and busied herself there. At least the fire would justify the uncontrollable heat rising in her cheeks. If he guessed the way Beltran had kissed her...the way she’d kissed him back...
“Be logical, child, and clear your mind,” Ansgar urged. “What exactly did you swear?”
Rhiannon paused to recall the words, which she’d crafted with some care for precisely this reason. Every Faerie ever born knew how to shape vows to her advantage. “I gave my word...as the Dreaming King’s daughter...not to seek escape while I rest beneath that roof.”
“There! Well spoken, child. You didn’t seek to escape, but left the manor honestly. Beneath this roof, no oath binds you.”
She voiced an incredulous laugh. “That’s slicing the thing rather fine, don’t you think? My lord’s clear belief was that I’d bound myself not to escape at all.”
“Ah, but that isn’t what you said.” Ansgar watched her keenly. “For the Lady’s sake, you
’re one of the Fair Folk, child, and our need is most dire. He should have bound you more carefully than that. Likely he doesn’t believe you, thinks you some foolish girl playing at fantasies, doesn’t he?”
Face averted, she nodded. Indeed that was what Beltran believed or tried to believe—his skepticism being one of his more maddening qualities.
“Let this be a learning experience for him.” Her foster-father shrugged, then paled as the careless movement jarred his shoulder. “I only wish I could journey with you. But as matters stand, I’d only delay you. I must needs follow at a more sedate pace. Your best hope is to reach the Tudor Queen at speed, if you think he’s likely to pursue you.”
“Oh, he’ll pursue me, that you may believe.” Somehow Rhiannon never doubted it, despite the pressing business he’d cited. “Though he seems passionately to want nothing to do with me, he’d consider it an affront to his own honor if I escaped his vigilance and his Catholic judgment. But, my dear, I can’t flee now.”
“Why not?” Suddenly his eyes narrowed. “Rhiannon—tell me he hasn’t...”
Her foster-father paused delicately. To her irritation, she flamed crimson and busied herself brushing earth from her bottle-green slippers. “He’s done nothing. He’s an honorable man, Ansgar, despite his calling.”
Aye, he’s honorable and brave and stalwart. He can even be gentle. But the harsh strictures of his faith have twisted him.
And he consumes my thoughts beyond reason.
Still, she’d resolved to bury those feelings, after Morrigan’s terrible prophecy. Perhaps her sister was lying, but Rhiannon would not risk her immortality for that.
She must never let him close to her again, and Goddess knew she wanted no other man in her bed. If she fled Beltran, the curse could never come true.
“You may believe, foster-father, I would be more than glad to escape him.” She quashed the odd little pang of regret that stabbed through her. “The reason I say there’s no purpose to it is because he has the treaty. He took it from me, remember? Without the treaty to trigger the spell when Mary Tudor signs it, there’s naught to bind either the Fae or the mortals.”
They fell silent, impaled on the horns of the dilemma she’d been wrestling with since yesterday. Rhiannon sat on the floor beside his low bed and slipped her hand into his worn grip for comfort.
Their silence held until Kat Ashley bustled in with kindling for the hearth.
“What’s this now? Cat got your tongue?” the stout woman said cheerfully, lowering her burden with a grunt.
Exchanging a glance with Ansgar, Rhiannon sketched the broad outlines of their predicament. Uncertain how much Elizabeth shared with her governess, she said nothing of the Convergence or the Faerie realm, but spoke in general terms about her urgent need to speak with Mary Tudor and the life-and-death document she must deliver.
“I would not mind so much the delay if—if I knew the Church’s questions would only be—questions,” she faltered, steeling herself against the fearful images that reared up in her mind. “But my mother’s health is failing, Mistress Kat, and we’ve precious little time. Still, without that document...”
“Oh, posh! Is that all that’s holding ye, dearie?” the older woman exclaimed. “Is my mistress a Boleyn and the Great Harry’s daughter for nothing? She has her father’s stubbornness and her mother’s wits, and that you may tie to. Besides which, milady, I daresay there’s something she wants from you.”
Chapter Eight
Beltran struggled back to consciousness as the first spears of sunrise stabbed against his closed lids. He stirred against the icy flagstones where he lay face-down before the altar, arms spread in a cruciform shape. Sharp blades of pain pierced his stiffened joints. He bit back a groan by habit, conditioned to ignore the agony of a lifetime of such vigils.
He’d discharged his penance for the momentary lapse of reason that left him kissing Rhiannon le Fay in a public garden as though he’d devour her, all but fumbling with eagerness to raise her skirts.
So much for the Blades of God and his vow of chastity. He’d tumbled from grace once more. Why the hell was he so clearly ill-suited for this—the only life he’d ever wanted?
But soon the bell must toll for Lauds. Elizabeth’s chaplain would be wanting his chapel back.
Grimly ignoring the white-hot needles of agony piercing his shoulders, Beltran pushed to hands and knees, then climbed stiffly to his feet. Around him the chapel coalesced—the old Catholic relics he’d always loved, which Hatfield’s Protestant mistress so reluctantly displayed: the golden monstrance blazing on the altar; the holy table draped with crimson damask. Beeswax candles burned to stubs around the figure of sorrowful St. Sebastian, bound to his post and pierced with arrows, slain at the Emperor Diocletian’s command, his eyes raised soulfully toward Heaven. Nearby stood the haloed figure of St. Catherine, who’d famously consecrated her virginity to Christ rather than wed a pagan Caesar, and looming behind her the breaking wheel.
The Inquisitors still used the Catherine wheel at San Miguel to break the bones of condemned witches and others who flouted God’s authority. God had broken the wheel to save Catherine, but He seemed disinclined to intervene for the Inquisition’s victims. Beltran had seen it used himself, though never yet by his command. The Cardinal claimed his reluctance to torture in God’s name was the sole obstacle preventing his rise to a far greater station.
Beneath the penitent’s robe of undyed wool, his muscles knotted tight with sudden spasms. After his nightlong vigil in the unheated chapel, the air was cold enough to freeze the wine in the chalice.
Not so young as I used to be—nor yet a mumbling fool gumming your porridge, man. Brace up.
Briskly he rubbed his arms and slapped his chest for warmth. His hands tingled as hot blood rushed painfully back to the frozen limbs. Finding the shirt and hose he’d left folded on a pew, he shrugged into them. Despite his aching bones and the gnawing hunger in his gut, his mind was blessedly clear, the clamoring voices of guilt and unworthiness silenced by the purifying rite of contrition.
When he knelt before the altar last night, his body had been burning for her. Rhiannon. Now, in retrospect, their encounter had acquired an air of unreality, like a dream. He blamed himself for kissing her, for yielding to the temptation of silver-gilt curls and leaf-green eyes and pert breasts he’d been aching to cup for two days.
Yet the girl was indisputably different from the discreet widows of means who customarily slaked his lust, or the mistress he’d left behind in Rome. Unwedded and innocent, for one thing—barely more than a child, her beauty fresh and unspoiled as dew sparkling at dawn. Or so he’d thought.
The way she’d warmed under his kisses, the winsome sweetness that made his heart ache...he’d been so careful not to hurt or frighten her. Though some primitive part of him had wanted to roar in triumph like a beast when he claimed her and she yielded.
Then the way she’d arched against him and purred like a cat, the knowing slide of her fingers, the matter-of-fact way she’d moved his codpiece aside and eagerly worked his throbbing length, crooning for him to spill in her hand—the woman who’d touched him then was no innocent.
Almost as though she’d been a different woman entirely.
You were wrong about her, clearly, beguiled and
befuddled by her witchcraft.
And something else was bothering him, something he’d almost forgotten. Something she’d said or done that reminded him of a dream he had sometimes, whose details he could never quite recall.
That dream was pure sensation, the feeling of plummeting through an endless abyss, wind howling around him, tattered wings fluttering in his wake. Falling away from the incandescent light of Heaven, away from all consolation, away from the source of life and warmth and grace into harsh and lonely exile, his heart twisted with bitterness and simmering with inconsolable rage.
Inevitably he woke aching with loss, feeling as though he’d been stabbed in the back by his closest friend. In fact, now he thought of it, he’d had the dream again last night, while he lay as though crucified before the altar. Yet he understood it now no better than before. Why should any God-fearing man dream of fallen angels, unless the dream was devil-sent to test his faith?
The half-remembered images nagged at him like a sore tooth as he shrugged his doublet around his warming body, stomped his feet into his boots and strapped the sword called Judgment across his back. The solid feel of the leather-wrapped hilt restored him fully to himself. The assurance and authority of God’s Vengeance settled around him like the cape he swirled around his shoulders.
No more dallying in gardens, man. You’ll confess your lapse to the Cardinal as usual, and take your punishment like a proper Blade. The girl—Rhiannon—goes to the church at Yardley, and with hard riding you’ll see the walls of London tonight.
Muttering a word of thanks to the hovering chaplain, Beltran strode from the chapel.
* * *
The girl wasn’t at Lauds, which made him frown as he sang his psalms and said his prayers with Elizabeth’s carefully devout courtiers ranked behind him. Despite the ordeal looming before her, she hadn’t troubled to attend Mass since he’d met her, nor made any pretense to seek the solace of prayer. Probably a heretic as well as a witch—but the latter would be easier to prove.
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