Amie stared into the fire and clasped her arms tighter to her knees. Earlier, while Tamberlane had adjourned to the anteroom to quietly discuss matters with Roland and Marak, she had bathed the dirt and lingering stench from her skin. The mud along with the last of the walnut stain had been washed out of her hair and with the ends turning naturally upward as they dried, her face was now surrounded with a soft cloud of glossy yellow curls. She was not yet accustomed to the absence of weight and ran her fingers frequently through the curls, a recurring gesture that sent spikes and whorls standing upright on one side of her face or the other.
“You never asked me if it was my intention to murder him when I struck him with the candlestick."
“It is not my place to ask, nor is it necessary for me to know.”
She was silent for a long moment... a moment in which he turned his head to look directly at her. “But if you wish to tell me, Amaranth, do so with the knowledge that I am no more a priest than I am a cabbage farmer. I no longer have the power to cleanse any sins that may be burdening your soul. Indeed, my own sins have yet to be fully expunged in the eyes of the Holy See." He raised his goblet with an airy gesture and drank again. "Thus, if it is the solace and absolution of a confessor you seek, you would do best to seek it elsewhere.”
He had used her name without conscious thought, and by all sense of logic and common sense it should not have sent such a strong flutter down Amie’s spine. But it did. He had also addressed her in Norman French instead of Saxon English, a silent nod to her recently discovered bloodlines.
There was something else in his voice tonight—a blurred edge to the words that made Amie glance to the hearth beside him where the flagon of wine caught the flickering light from the fire. Odo had always turned the cruellest when drinking. The wine sharpened his tongue, turned his words to daggers. It hardened his body which made her own go tense and cold inside with fear.
She saw nothing of the drunken beast in Tamberlane. He was mellow, to be sure. His dark hair was fallen over his brow in a silky wave, his face looked somehow softer, as if a decade of deeply etched lines and angles had been erased. There was no threat in the way he held his body; it was stretched out in an effort to find some comfort in the hard chair.
“I do not seek to make my confession,” she said carefully. “Not for the sin of wanting to murder a husband, at any rate."
"You have more serious sins to atone for?"
“Vanity, pride, foolishness, recklessness...shall I go on?”
“Ah yes, all punishable by several score of pater nosters recited whilst kneeling on kernels of wheat.”
“You speak lightly of such things,” she said softly. “But I know...”
When she bit her tongue to halt the words, he looked directly at her. “Yes? What is it that you know?”
She had been thinking of earlier, when she had been in his arms, her face buried against his throat. Her hands had felt the bulk beneath his tunic, most of it muscle to be sure, but there had also been the unmistakable prickle of horsehair. She recognized it at once, having seen poor Friar Guilford’s expression of quiet agony one hot afternoon when he had worn a horsehair shirt beneath his robes to atone for taking the Lord's name in vain.
It seemed unwise, however, to mention her discovery to Tamberlane at that moment, and so she glanced instead at the prayer niche. “I know now that you keep an altar in your room. You display your crusader’s mantle and sword, the reliquary with the precious shred of wood from the holy cross."
"Objects. They serve as pathways to memories, nothing more, and while some of those memories would curdle your blood to hear, there were others that are recalled fondly." A crooked smile played across his lips. “As for the reliquary, there are so many in England alone that purport to contain true shreds, the holy cross would have to have been a thousand feet high and equally as wide.”
He tipped his goblet to his lips but found it empty. Before he could pull himself straight in the chair, Amie had cast aside the heavy blankets and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. She was modestly clothed, having donned a shapeless garment that Inaya had given her for sleeping. The sleeves were bell shaped and overlong, the hem dragged behind her on the floor as she hastened to the hearth.
She knealt beside Tamberlane's chair and picked up the flagon of wine to refill his cup. He hesitated but a moment before holding out the goblet. She poured slowly, carefully, the stream of red wine catching the light from the fire. When the goblet was full, she set the flagon aside again and settled back easily onto her heels, folding her hands lightly on the tops of her thighs.
Tamberlane raised the goblet and studied her over the rim as he sipped. She had turned her face into the warmth of the fire and he was struck again by the delicacy of her nose, her cheeks, the swan-like arch of her throat. The stain had washed out of her hair so that the tips of every curl seemed to catch the light and sparkle.
Just as before, he found himself battling inner demons, not daring to acknowledge how sweet a countenance she had, how slender her shoulders, how narrow her waist. When he'd held her earlier, he had felt the ripe firmness of her breasts pressed against him and he'd thought his heart was going to beat out of his chest. The cropped hair only added to the cherubic quality of her face and he surrendered, howsoever involuntarily, to the most unmonkish thought of wondering how it would feel to run his fingertips along her cheek and across the shape of her mouth.
In his mind’s eye, he lowered his lips to hers and explored those same contours; he caught her about the waist and pulled her up hard against him, tasting her, feeling her, drinking in the sheer wonder of her womanhood.
A cinder snapped in the fire.
He blinked and set the goblet aside. Pushing to his feet, he mumbled something about the heat becoming oppressive and started across the room toward the stairs that led up to the roof.
“Oh please,” she said at his back. “May I come with you? I would take a breath of fresh air as well.”
He paused and closed his eyes briefly, for his purpose in going to the roof was to remove himself from temptation. “There was rain earlier. It will be damp.”
“A moment only,” she pleaded. "Please."
Tamberlane touched his forehead to the cold stone. His chest and back were a mass of abraded nerve endings from wearing the coarse horsehair shirt. His hands trembled if he did not keep them clenched into fists, and his mind had wandered to the bed more often than he thought possible during the night, regardless how much wine he consumed.
He needed air. He needed something to distract his thoughts away from soft lips and a slender body.
Without waiting for Amie to join him he took the narrow stairs two at a time and flung himself out into the night air, filling his lungs with an audible, sucking gasp. The wind was gusting strong over the parapets and snatched at his hair, pushing it back off his brow. The smell of dampness was thick and pungent; it had rained earlier and the roof was dotted with puddles that reflected light from the waning moon.
Tamberlane walked over to the wall and pressed his hands flat on the wet stone. There were more sentries than usual patrolling the outer walls, more torches burning in the inner and outer wards. The brightest blots of light were around the stables and main gate. The portcullis had not been lowered—to do so would have been an insult de Langois could not have ignored. But there was a strong presence of Taniere guardsmen walking back and forth across the draw, sworded and armored, flanked by more men in the barbicans.
Taniere Castle was not an impregnable fortress by any measure, but it was defendable. The only real vulnerability was the drawbridge and gate when both were open, and that weakness could be sealed with a moment’s notice.
Tamberlane had been around fighting men most of his adult life and he recognized a dangerous adversary in the red haired knight... one who would wait, bide his time until all the advantages were in his favor. Doubtless he would know by morning the exact fighting strength of the Taniere's garrison. His m
en would have charted the walls, the baileys, the approaches. He would have ruled out a frontal attack of any kind and would be eager to know if there was any other way in or out of the castle.
Amie came up behind him and peered through a gap in the stone teeth. She had the blanket drawn close around her shoulders and snatches of the wind made the bottom twirl around her legs. Above them, the last lacy shreds of cloud were scudding toward the southern horizon and the moon kept breaking through, watery and pale. The light gave substance to the village on the far banks of the lake. Odo’s men had made use of the empty cottages to stay out of the rain, but the occasional gray blur of a sentry could be seen moving around the perimeter.
“There was a storm the night we escaped from Belmane,” she said softly. “Lightning such as I have never seen. God’s way, perhaps, of telling me I should have stayed and taken my punishment. If I had, all of those innocent people would not have died. Friar Guilford would not have died.”
“Innocent people die every day. You cannot let what happened at the village weigh you down, for the guilt is not yours to bear. Your actions were dictated by fear for your own life.”
“And that justifies it?”
“It allows you room to forgive yourself.”
"Have you?"
"Have I what?"
"Forgiven yourself."
Tamberlane’s head turned slowly and his eyes were like spearheads, glittering and sharp.
“The horsehair shirt you wear next to your skin,” she said quietly. “I felt it earlier.”
“My sins would make yours seem trivial by comparison.”
“Is that why have you have cloistered yourself away in this castle like a...a...” she waved her hand, searching for an appropriate word.
“Like a monk?”
She blushed at the blunt sarcasm. “You said yourself you were no longer a priest."
"Yet not quite a cabbage farmer."
"I see you as a knight. A brave warrior knight who fought beside his king in the name of the Holy Sepulchre."
"Would you still think of me as that brave knight if you knew I walked away from the battlefield? That I shed my sword and my armor and walked away from the screams and cries and bloodshed without a backward glance, without any attempt to stop what was happening? Further, that I bowed my head and bared my neck to a Saracen's sword and my only a prayer was not for forgiveness or absolution, but for the end to be swift and painless?"
"Sometimes it takes more courage to walk away than to stay," she said softly.
Ciaran had no response. The image of her set against the firelight was still scorched on his mind. Her mouth kept drawing his stare like a magnet.
What harm, he thought? What harm for a man who was no longer a priest to want to feel like a man?
The palms of his hands grew damp and he curled them into fists... but that was no help. Nor did the pain caused by pressing the knuckles into the stone leave him feeling any less desirous of gathering her into his arms and kissing her until neither of them had the sense or wit left to fight it.
Standing motionless by his side, Amie was aware of the acute tension in the air between them. The night sky, the moonlit landscape... it all seemed to fade, to recede so far into the background it was as if she and this dark brooding knight stood alone at the very top of the world and there was nothing to distract them. Her mouth went dry but another part of her body reacted in a way that sent shivers spilling down her spine. It was not possible, not imaginable that she could want to feel those arms go around her again, that she should want to feel the press of his hard body against hers... but she did.
Her fingers lost their grip on the blanket, the strength to hold it gone from her hands as it slipped down her shoulders.
“You should go back inside," he said, his voice raw and hoarse.
Her lips moved to form words, but there was no sound. Her body was shimmering inside, her limbs and belly were heavy as lead while her head felt so light she feared it might float away. She saw his hand come up and felt a finger touch her cheek, touch the wetness that was streaking down to her chin. He angled his hand into the moonlight, studying the glistening tear caught on his fingertip as if he had never seen or touched such a thing before.
Such an intense wave of longing swept through her body, it took Amie several breathless moments to send her gaze climbing slowly up from his hand to his shoulder... then from his shoulder to the square ridge of his jaw. By that time, he had bent his head closer so that their breaths mingled in soft white puffs on the cooler air.
“Go inside now,” he murmured, his lips brushing against her hair. “Before I am tempted to commit a sin that neither one of us could scrub away with mere horsehair.”
Amie shivered again. The throbbing between her thighs was very real, commanding every thought that was not already held hostage by his voice, by the hunger in his eyes. Each pulse was so strong it verged on pain, the ache so near to pleasure she feared she could not take a step or move without betraying her shame.
Throughout the long months of her marriage she had never once experienced desire or passion. She had endured. She had suffered Odo's gropings and thrustings but she had turned her mind into a blank wall that nothing could break through, not even the pain of the lashings.
But this... this overwhelming tenderness was shockingly new to her. As new as the longings, the sweet, shivery tension, and the knowledge that she was not completely dead inside.
“I would stay with you, my lord,” she whispered, "if you wished it."
He groaned and took a deliberate step away. He held his hands up, the fingers splayed, in a gesture of finality that had her stumbling back, had her snatching the blanket tighter around her shoulders before she turned and dashed quickly back to the stairs.
Ciaran watched her move away. The loss was almost physical and he put a hand to the stone to steady himself. His wits felt scattered as he turned and stared out over the parapets, the soft echo of her stammered offer ringing in his ears.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Tamberlane did not return to the solar that night, nor did Amaranth manage to close her eyes until it was nearly dawn. When she awakened, Inaya was gone and the pallet tucked away under the bed. Amie climbed gingerly out from beneath the heavy covers and padded barefoot to the garde-robe; when she was finished, she stood by the fire a long moment, rubbing her hands in the heat of the flames.
She was still not altogether certain what had happened last night. Lord Tamberlane had wanted to kiss her, she was sure of it. Had she wanted him to? The thought was as foreign as the notion that she might actually have craved the needs and hungers of another man. Not just any man, mind, but a monk. A priest who had taken vows, and from all that she knew of Lord Ciaran Richard Edward Tamberlane, he was not one to break a vow lightly.
A sound from the outer landing startled her into dashing back toward the bed, but it was only Inaya with little Jibril in tow. His huge brown eyes peered from behind his mother’s skirts, his hand was clutched tightly around a fistful of the silk as if he had no intention of ever letting go. Marak was few steps behind, bearing a stoneware bowl steaming with one of his infernal possets.
“It might ease you to know that Lord Tamberlane is, at the moment, escorting Odo de Langois and his men to the outer bailey. They are fed and refreshed, profuse in their thanks for our hospitality, and vowing to remove themselves from our forest within the hour.”
“He is leaving? Odo is leaving?”
“He received a summons from Prince John, as I understand it, and is being forced—reluctantly I am sure—to temporarily abandon the hunt.”
Amie whirled around and ran up the steps to the rooftop. She sought the same merlon where she and Tamberlane had stood during the night and was peering anxiously through the gap in the wide stone teeth when Marak moved up beside her.
“You wished to wave a fond farewell?” he asked dryly.
“I want to see if he looks back.”
“If he looks b
ack?”
She shook her head, too intent on peering below to offer explanations. The ground was covered by a thin blanket of mist, a milky haze that rose no more than knee deep and swirled apart in creamy waves wherever beast or man cut through it. There were still puddles in the courtyard below, and mud on the path that led across the outer bailey to the barbican gates.
She spied Tamberlane at once, his dark head bare of headgear, his broad shoulders encased in hunting green. Odo de Langois stood by his side waiting for the hostlers to bring their horses from the stables. He had his helm tucked under his arm and held his gauntlets in one hand, slapping the leather fingers on the palm of the other, seeming to be chatting about things of little or no consequence. His brother Rolf stood slightly behind, his eyes still roving the walls, the arched bridge in the curtain wall, the well where half a dozen women were already gathered and squabbling like geese.
Odo’s cousin, Sigurd, was standing at ease behind her husband, digging for something in his nose, the other three knights were trying to catch the eye of a milkmaid.
There were no furtive glances, no conspiratory exchanges. Odo’s laughter was hearty enough as he clapped a hand to Tamberlane’s shoulder and thanked him once again for his generosity. When their squires brought forth their horses, the knights mounted and clattered their way across the courtyard and beneath the arched bridge.
Tamberlane followed as far as the bridge in the curtain wall, his hands planted on his waist, his focus on the small party as it made its way across the outer ward and through the barbican gates. Odo's fiery red hair made him easy to follow as they rode across the draw and cantered casually along the bank of the lake to the village.
Once there, the knights were joined by the crossbowmen and men-at-arms who had spent the night on shore. After some brief instruction, the men hastened to gather up their belongings and, two by two they fell into step behind Odo and his brother, who led the way into the darker mists that blurred the edge of the forest.
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