Lord of Legends

by Susan Krinard

  It was unthinkable. She still knew nothing about him and was no closer to learning.

  “Are you very thirsty?” she asked.

  He lowered his chin, the veil of hair obscuring his eyes, and shook his head. She felt only a little relieved.

  Remembering the blanket, she shook it out, refolded it and placed it at the foot of the bars again. Ash didn’t touch it. That uncanny stare continued to follow her as she bent all her attention on selecting one of the books.

  Will he understand? Or is this all just wasted effort?

  No, not wasted if there was the slightest chance of discovering just how much he could understand.

  She sat in the chair, the chosen book in her lap, and set the lantern a little distance from her feet. It cast eerie shadows about the room and provided the bare minimum of light she would need to read. Her hand still tingled from the feel of Ash’s tongue on her flesh, and several times her fingers slipped from the pages.

  At last she found her place. She cleared her throat.

  “‘East of the Sun and West of the Moon,’” she read aloud.

  Ash cocked his head, dropped into a crouch against the wall nearest the bars and let his hands dangle over his knees. As she began to read about the girl whose destitute father had given her to a mystical white bear in exchange for wealth and comfort, she began to wonder why she had chosen this tale, in particular, of all those in the book, or why this book of the three she had brought.

  And she wondered—as she related how the girl had been visited every night by the same handsome prince, only to be deserted each morning—why, instead of the great white bear, she saw another creature, pale and elusive as a ghost, a beast very much like a horse but a thousand times more beautiful, his eyes black as a moonless night, his broad forehead topped by a glittering spiraled horn.

  Startled, Mariah lost her place and looked at Ash. He was listening intently, but otherwise neither his posture nor his appearance had altered.

  The Donnington coat of arms. Why should it so vividly come to mind at this moment? No one could have looked less like such a magical creature than Ash. It was certainly beyond any possibility that he should guess what fancies tumbled through her mind, and he looked entirely unresponsive to the story she was reading.

  He doesn’t understand. How shall I ever hope to—

  Suddenly he stood, moved to the bars and opened his mouth. His lips moved without producing any sound, but he pointed at the book and then gestured toward Mariah’s face.

  “What is it?” she asked, half rising.

  He gave a sharp, impatient gesture, and something very near anger crossed his features…not the savagery of their first meeting, but an arrogant, impatient emotion, as if he were no mere prisoner but a prince himself.

  “You wish me to finish the story,” she said.

  He nodded and gestured again toward the book. With a sensation quite unlike the satisfaction she had expected to feel at his response, she bent to the pages once more.

  She related how the girl lived in luxury but saw no other person by day and only the prince by night. The girl became very lonely. One night, she bent to kiss the prince as he slept but woke him by letting drops of tallow fall on his shirt. He told her that he had been cursed by his wicked stepmother to be a bear by day and a man only by night, but that now he would be forced to leave her and marry a hideous troll.

  Glancing up again to gauge Ash’s reaction, Mariah saw that his lips were forming a word she could almost make out: troll. It was if he recognized that one word out of all those she had spoken.

  The possibility encouraged her. She continued the story until she’d reached the end, where the girl, who had undertaken a long and dangerous journey to reach her prince at the castle East of the Sun and West of the Moon, had helped him to outwit the trolls who held him captive.

  “‘The old troll woman flew into such a rage that she burst into a thousand pieces, taking the troll princess with her. The bear prince and his love freed all the trolls’ captives, took the trolls’ gold and silver, and flew far away from the castle that lay East of the Sun and West of the Moon.’”

  She closed the book and let it rest in her lap, watching Ash out of the corner of her eye. Frowning, he walked away from the bars and began to pace the length of his cage with his long, graceful stride.

  Suddenly he swung around, his nostrils flared and his eyes unfathomable. He studied her so intently that her stomach began to feel peculiar all over again.

  “Why a bear?” he asked.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ASTONISHED, SHE JUMPED up, nearly upsetting the chair, tripping on her skirts and stepping on the fruit that still lay on the towel. “You…you can speak!” she stammered.

  He lifted his head and tossed his hair out of his eyes. “I speak,” he said. His voice was a lilting baritone with a slight English accent, unmistakably upper-class. “I…” He hesitated, gathering his words. “I speak now.”

  Now. Which implied a before, a time…when? Before she had come? Before he had been confined to this tiny prison?

  Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you answer my simple questions?

  But she didn’t ask aloud. She had made progress. If he had deliberately deceived her, it must have been because he hadn’t trusted her. All she’d done was read a fairy tale, and yet…

  “Why a bear?” he repeated.

  A whole army of questions marched through her mind, but the situation was far too chancy for her to ask them. The best thing she could do was play along.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “It’s simply part of the story, the way the writer wanted to tell it.”

  She could see the thoughts working behind his eyes. “But he became a…man.”

  Excitement began to build in her chest. “Yes. When his curse was broken by the love of the girl.”

  “Curse,” he said. His frown became a scowl so intimidating that she was glad of the bars between them. A moment later nothing but bewilderment showed on his face. “I don’t remember.”

  “Don’t remember what?” she asked very quietly.

  He gave her a long, appraising look. “You do not know?”

  “I’m afraid…” She tossed aside the temptation to equivocate. “I didn’t realize you were here until this morning.”

  If it were possible to swoon from nothing more than a stare, she might have forgotten that she’d never fainted in her life. She had the feeling that he could have snapped the bars in two if he’d put his mind to it.

  “Who am I?” he asked.

  As if she could answer. But surely he must have realized from her previous questions that she was as ignorant as he was.

  “I don’t know,” she said, drawing the chair closer to the cage. “I wish I could tell you.”

  “Donnington,” he said. Without hatred, only a calm indifference.

  She braced herself. “What about Donnington?”

  Ash gestured at the cage around him. “He…did this.”

  The validation of her worst supposition made her ill enough to wish that she could run from the room and empty her roiling stomach.

  This isn’t the Middle Ages. People don’t imprison other people for no reason.

  And Ash was deeply troubled, even dangerous. There was no telling what was real in his mind and what imaginary. Who could know that better than she?

  But Nola had heard the rumors about a captive on the grounds. And he looks like Donnington’s twin….

  She sucked in her breath. “You believe that Donnington put you here,” she said, matching Ash’s emotionless tone. “Do you know why?”

  His hair flew as he shook his head again, on the very edge of violence. One moment calm, the next raging. Sure signs of insanity.

  There would be no logical answers from him. Only the bits and pieces she could glean from the most cautious exploration. She must put from her mind the enticing contours of his body, the intensity of his eyes, the hunger…

  She bent abruptly to
gather up the spoiled fruit and left just long enough to toss it into the shrubbery outside. Ash was clutching the bars when she returned, his face pressed against them.

  “I will not leave you,” she said, knowing her promise was only a partial truth. “I am your friend.”

  “Friend,” he repeated.

  “I care what happens to you. I want to help you.”

  Belatedly she remembered the bottle of water she’d brought and considered the basin Ash’s keeper had left just inside the cage. She would have to take the risk of filling it with fresh water.

  She crept toward the cage, knelt and poked the bottle’s neck through the bars. Ash made no move toward her, and she managed to fill the basin halfway before it became too difficult to pour. She glanced at the towels that still hung over the back of the chair. Rising, she wetted one thoroughly, walked back to the cage and held the moist towel up for Ash’s inspection.

  “Wash,” she said, demonstrating for him by bathing her hands and face.

  He followed her every movement, his gaze finally settling, as always, on her eyes. “Wash,” she repeated.

  “Yes,” he said. “Wash.”

  Her throat felt thick. “If I give this to you,” she said, “you must not touch me.”

  He seemed to understand. When she extended the towel, he simply took it. No flesh touched flesh. But as he withdrew his hand, she saw something that made the squirming minnows in her middle seem like ravenous sharks.

  His hands were burned. Red and black marks crossed his fingers and palms, stripes matching the bars he had so often grasped. There were similar stripes on his face. Even as she stared in horror, they began to diminish.

  “Good God,” she whispered. Without hesitation, she seized his hand, wrapping it in the wet towel he still held. “How did you burn yourself?”

  “Iron,” he said in a low voice.

  “Iron? You mean the bars?” She touched one gingerly. They were cold, not hot.

  “I don’t know how you did this,” she said tightly, “but your hands will need to be bandaged. And your face…” She looked up from her work. The brands across his jaw, cheeks and forehead were gone. She peeled the towel away from his hand. The marks were disappearing before her eyes.

  She dropped his hand. It brushed the bar, and an angry red welt formed across his knuckles.

  Astonished, Mariah took his hand again. The welts were nasty and raw, but they lasted no longer than she could murmur a prayer.

  She raised her head. “Ash,” she said. “How is this possible?”

  He seemed not to hear her. “Ash,” he repeated.

  Her face felt as fiery as his vanished wounds. “You…don’t seem to remember your name.”

  His fingers tightened on hers. “Ash is my name?”

  “I…” She felt utterly foolish, befuddled, incapable of harboring a single rational thought. “For a while. If…if you approve.”

  His head cocked in that way she found so oddly endearing. “Ash,” he said distinctly. “I…approve.”

  Relief weakened her knees. “Very good,” she said faintly. “Have you any other injuries?”

  “No injuries.”

  She closed her eyes, grateful to be allowed a few moments to recover and focus again on the questions that must be answered.

  “Ash,” she said, pushing everything else from her mind, “who else has come here? Who has been bringing you food and water?”

  His black eyes seemed to gather all the lantern’s light. “The man,” he said.

  “What man?”

  Ash hunched his back, slinking about the cage in a perfect imitation of the stranger she’d seen skulking near the folly.

  “Who is he, Ash?”

  “I do not know.”

  “When does he come?”

  He frowned, lifted his hand and held up three of his fingers.

  “Three days ago?”

  The frown became a scowl, and he raised his fingers again.

  “Every three days?”

  His forehead relaxed. “Yes,” he said.

  He knows his numbers, Mariah thought. “When was the last time he came, Ash? Was it this morning? The first time I visited you?”

  “Morning.”

  Thank God for that. Whoever this keeper was, he was unlikely to return for another two or three days.

  “Did he ever speak to you?” she asked.

  “No. Only you.”

  So no one had spoken to him. How long had he been wrapped in a shroud of silence?

  Distressed and wishing to hide it, Mariah glanced stupidly at the damp towel in her hands. “I think you ought to wash now,” she said.

  “Dirty,” he said, gesturing down at himself, compelling her gaze to follow. She noted that his—she swallowed—his “member” was very much in evidence beneath his loincloth.

  “Yes,” she said thickly. “Quite dirty.” She moved to wet the towel again. She managed to pass it to him without looking at him, and after a brief pause she heard him sweeping the cloth over his body, followed by the almost inaudible “plop” as his single garment fell to the floor.

  She squeezed her eyes shut, wishing her mind to become a perfect blank. This feeling had nothing to do with the way he’d licked her fingers. A lunatic might make just such an inappropriate gesture, lacking the qualities of courtesy and judgment found in the sane.

  But there had been purpose in it.

  “Mariah.”

  The sound of her name nearly wrenched her out of her prickling skin. Involuntarily she turned. He was quite, quite clean, and he had neglected to retrieve his covering.

  She shut her eyes again, edged to the chair, felt for the trousers—giving up entirely on the drawers—and used the tip of her boot to push them toward the cage. “Please,” she gasped. “Put on these trousers.”

  “How?”

  Good Lord. “Haven’t you…ever worn trousers before?”

  “No.”

  She opened her eyes for a fraction of a second and could barely stifle a gasp. He was quite…quite…prominent. And she was very, very hot.

  He has not come to his present age in a perpetual state of nakedness. He has simply forgotten all his old life. How am I even to begin?

  “Show me,” he said.

  Her eyes flew open again. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Remove—” He pointed to her walking dress. “Remove that.”

  She nearly choked. “Ash!”

  “Did I speak incorrectly?”

  He spoke beautifully. Breathtakingly. For a man who hadn’t been able to talk less than twenty-four hours ago, he’d become downright verbose.

  “That is quite unnecessary,” she said, knowing that outrage would do no good and possibly much harm. “One does not remove one’s clothing in the presence of others.”

  “Never?”

  The one exception flooded her mind with fantastical images that sprang unbidden from her imagination. “Not in society,” she said as steadily as she could.

  “This is wrong?”

  His gesture and glance down at himself made his meaning exceedingly plain. In vain she made another attempt to shut her wanton thoughts away.

  “It is not polite,” she said. “You must dress.” She held the trousers up against her body with shaking hands. “You put them on, so. Step into one leg, then the other. The buttons are here.”

  “Do they not make it difficult to run?”

  Laughter burst out before she could think to forestall it. “Gentlemen seldom find occasion to run.”

  “Am I a gentleman?”

  Very good, Mariah. A fine beginning. “You will not need to run,” she said. “Can you put them on, Ash?”

  “You wish it,” he said, as serious as the monk he most decidedly was not.

  “I wish it very much.”

  He held out his hand. Half turned away, she passed the trousers through the bars. The mad beating of her heart almost drowned out the sound of his movements. She counted to herself, waiting for him t
o gather up the garment, put it on, fasten the buttons over his…his burgeoning masculinity. If the buttons would close at all.

  If the dowager could see what’s in your mind, Mariah…

  “I am finished.”

  Her skirts hardly rustled as she moved, stiff as an automaton, to face him.

  Dressed he was not. But at least he wore the trousers, half-buttoned. She should have been grateful that they weren’t on backward, though they were much more snug than she had bargained for. He was still quite…noticeable.

  “A shirt,” she said, before her imagination could run away with her again. Just as gingerly as before, she placed the shirt at the foot of the bars. He took it, frowned, turned it about, then snorted with something very like disgust.

  “You put it over your arms,” she said, pantomiming the action.

  “Show me.”

  She was beginning to feel more than a little as if he were making sport of her. But had he a sense of humor? The mad might laugh, but seldom with any kind of understanding. If Ash were mocking her, it was a peculiarly subtle form of mockery. Thus far he had been far from subtle.

  Despite the generous cut of the garment, made for a broad-shouldered, muscular man, Mariah had to struggle to pull the shirt over her snug sleeves and tight bodice. It belled out over her bustle, but she was able to fasten the buttons.

  “There,” she said. “You see?” She pirouetted to show him every angle. “Simple as pie.”

  “Pie?”

  “Something very good to eat.”

  “Is it simple?”

  It took a moment for her to grasp his meaning. “Well…my mother always found it—”

  “Your mother?”

  Mariah blinked and faced Ash squarely. “Let us return to the subject at hand.” She unbuttoned the shirt and pulled it off, prepared to give it to him. Ash had fixed his gaze at the point where her gathered overskirt flared over the bustle.

  “What is that?” he asked.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Is that where you keep your tail?”

  Another shock raced from the soles of her shoes to the very tips of her hair. “My…my tail?”