And then...
Panting in terror and agony, the youth looked at the crossbow in Luke’s hand, then met his gaze. He had hazel eyes, like Faithe’s—soft English eyes. “Please,” he mouthed in the Anglo-Saxon tongue.
Luke’s comrades jeered the boy’s plea for mercy.
“Please.”
Luke turned and walked away. The Black Dragon had no interest in mercy.
“Nay!” Luke sat up, shaking and yanking at the scratchy blanket that covered him. His heart pounded in his ears.
“Luke?” came a gentle whisper in the dark.
“Faithe?” Luke looked around frantically, disoriented. He could see nothing, but he knew he wasn’t in his own bed.
Soothing hands found him and stroked his sweat-dampened brow. Warm breath fanned his face. “We’re in the great hall of Foxhyrst Castle. Remember? We’re staying the night.”
He ran a shaky hand through his hair. “Aye. I remember.” They’d had to bed down in this gigantic chamber with at least twenty others—visitors, servants, and a few soldiers for whom there was no room in the barracks. Luke had chosen a relatively isolated corner and positioned Faithe’s pallet between his and the wall, to offer her a measure of privacy. She slept in her green silk kirtle, he in his shirt and chausses, having removed his tunic.
“Were you having a nightmare?” she whispered.
“Aye.” Luke heard a soft whisper of silk as she left her pallet and joined him on his. He wrapped his arms around her gratefully and pulled her down to lie next to him.
She kissed his neck. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Images swam in the darkness. He sorted through them, knowing he couldn’t tell her everything, wishing desperately that he could. “There was a boy...”
“Aye?”
“I didn’t remember him,” Luke said softly, so as not to awaken the others, “until this afternoon, when Griswold reminded me about that day... the day we took Cottwyk Castle.” Drawing in a fortifying breath, Luke said, “He was a Saxon. I wounded him, and he fell to the ground about ten yards from me. Some of the others, they...” He shuddered. “You don’t want to hear this.”
“Tell me,” she whispered firmly.
“Oh, Christ. They ripped off his chain mail and disemboweled him.”
Her arms tightened around him reflexively.
“I told you you didn’t want to hear this,” he said.
“What happened then?”
Luke rubbed his chin on the top of her head. “I hadn’t wanted to remember the rest. I’d stopped myself from remembering all of it this afternoon, but it came back in my dream, what happened after that.”
She waited patiently.
“He looked at me, the boy. First he looked at my crossbow, and then he looked at me, and he said—well, I couldn’t hear him, but he looked right at me and said, in English, ‘Please.’”
“Oh.”
“He was begging me to kill him, Faithe.”
“Yes.”
“And I didn’t.”
“Oh, Luke.”
“I turned and walked away.”
“Why?”
“Because I was a monster, without conscience or pity. I was less than human.”
“You were under the influence of those herbs. You could never do that today.”
That was true enough. He was incapable of such cavalier brutality today. “You’ve tamed me.”
“I didn’t have to. ‘Twas the herbs that made you walk away from that body, not your own nature.”
Luke nodded. The herbs. They’d surged through him, taken him over, like a demon inhabiting the shell of his body.
“I’m sorry you were forced to remember that,” she murmured.
“Being here, among my old mates, talking to Griswold... I’m remembering more and more of what happened that day.” Why was the whore screaming? “I’m not sure what to make of it all.”
“Don’t try to make sense of things you did or experienced while you were chewing those herbs. ‘Twould be like trying to find reason in madness. Put it out of your mind.”
More truth—more good sense. But that awful day, shrouded in a bloodred haze, wouldn’t let him put it out of his mind. The haze was slowly burning off, like fog. As it dissipated, and the events of that day were clearly revealed to him, yet more questions arose to torment him.
Why was she screaming? Why?
“Think no more of this tonight,” she whispered, holding him close. “Try and get some sleep.”
“I doubt I’ll be able to sleep now.” He quivered with tension.
“Then let’s make love.”
“What?” he chuckled. “Here?”
“Aye. Here.” She licked his throat, one hand snaking down to his hips to pull him toward her.
“We can’t,” he protested, even as his body insisted that it most assuredly could.
“Why not?” She moved against him in a frankly sexual way that aroused him intensely. To look at her, one would never guess that she could be so sweetly wanton. The contrast between the demeanor she presented to the world and the sensual creature she became in bed had the power to flood his loins with heat.
“How can you even ask why not?” he demanded in an incredulous whisper. “Stop that.” He banded his arms around her to still her.
“Don’t you like it?” Insinuating a hand between them, she molded it to his erection; he sucked in a breath. “You do,” she accused in a whispery little giggle. “I can tell.”
“Of course I do,” he growled low in his throat. “But we’re not alone here.”
“They’re asleep.”
“We’ll wake them up.”
“Not if we’re quiet.” She massaged his turgid flesh through his chausses.
“Don’t do that,” he said hoarsely, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to stop her.
“Don’t do this?” She stroked him firmly, just the way he liked.
“Oh, God.” Luke found himself on his back, with her hovering over him. He heard a silken rustle, sensed her raising her skirts, felt her knees on either side of his hips as she straddled him. “Faithe, no. Not here.”
Leaning down, she breathed into his ear, “Have you never done this with others nearby?”
“Aye.” Of course he’d tupped women in the presence of others. He couldn’t count the number of times he’d shared a woman with his comrades, or found himself in a brothel with enough wenches to go around, but only one room. But he’d been a soldier then, eager for nothing more than physical release, and the wenches had been... “They weren’t like you, those women. You’re—”
“Highborn and refined,” she finished, mocking him with laughter in her voice as she untied his chausses. “Convent-bred. Easily disturbed. Easily shocked.”
“Does nothing shock you?”
She laughed softly. “I rather enjoy a little shock from time to time. It keeps the bodily humors in balance.”
He moaned softly at the first touch of her bare hand on his throbbing organ. Her fingertips slid over the little drop of moisture at the tip. “You’re ready for me,” she said. “I’m ready for you, too.” She found his hand in the dark and pressed it between her legs. He probed her slick heat and heard her breath quicken.
“Let’s go outside.” He wrapped his hands around her waist, but she seized them and forced them onto the pallet on either side of his head.
“Don’t make me hold you down,” she whispered laughingly.
They’d been his words, that stormy afternoon in the barn, words meant to subdue, to control. Her turning them around this way took him aback, and he stopped struggling for a moment—long enough for her to maneuver him into her, just a bit.
“Oh, Faithe. Don’t...”
“Don’t what?” Holding his wrists down, she lowered herself onto him, taking his full length inside her. He felt her hot flesh close around him, felt the delicious, intoxicating pressure of her body squeezing him...
He moaned.
“Shh.”
“I cannot believe you’re doing this.”
“Lie still. Don’t talk.” He felt the soft glide of her hair on his face, her warm lips against his. “Don’t talk.”
She kissed him, her tongue mimicking the slow, steady rocking of her hips. He did lie still, although it would have been an easy matter to wrest his hands from her and pull her off him. Something in her tone and manner had stripped him of his will in this matter, absolved him of accountability, and he found, to his astonishment, that he liked it.
He liked having her hold him down and take him, almost but not quite against his will. He liked lying motionless in the dark, with strangers sleeping nearby, and letting his gentle, well-bred wife tup him senseless. He liked the tight little bands of her hands around his wrists, the hot luxury of her mouth plundering his, the slippery-snug embrace of her most intimate flesh. Each lazy stroke coaxed him closer and closer to completion.
He arched his hips to meet her thrusts. Instantly, she raised herself until they almost uncoupled. “Nay!” he whispered.
“Don’t move,” she reminded him. “And don’t speak.”
He forced himself to lie still, with his loins on fire and his heart on the verge of exploding. She resumed her maddeningly slow lovemaking. He felt her body tighten, heard her breath come swiftly as her own climax approached.
“Faster,” he whispered desperately, his body taut and shuddering.
“Shh.”
“Oh, God, Faithe.” It pained him to lie unmoving while this mounting urgency consumed him. His chest heaved. He was drowning, submerging in this intolerable pleasure.
He groaned.
“Don’t—”
Swearing harshly, he whipped his hands out of her grasp. She tried to rise off him, but he seized her hips and rammed her down hard. They moaned in union. Her fingers bit into his shoulders.
He thrust upward as he worked her hips, whispering her name, wild curses, things that made no sense. She whimpered as her body contracted around him, setting off his own sudden, frenzied climax. Pleasure erupted from him, consumed him entirely. He forced what might have become a scream into a low, ragged growl of gratification.
Breathless and shaking, they held each other tight until the last of the tremors coursed through them. And then they kissed and kissed, stroking each other’s hair, laughing softly into each other’s mouth, breathing endearments and declarations of love against each other’s lips.
Faithe grew heavy in his arms; he pulled his blanket over both of them. The other day in the barn, she’d threatened to seize the reins he held so tightly and show him what it would be like to let go of them—and that’s exactly what she’d just done. She was wise in strange and mysterious ways, his sweet little Saxon bride. She’d turned the tables on him, exercised a sexual authority he’d thought to be his exclusive domain.
She’d shocked him. And he liked it.
As he drifted off to sleep, he reflected with a smile that his bodily humors had never felt more perfectly in balance.
Chapter 17
“Aquitaine,” said Isaac Ben Ravid in his guttural accent the instant Faithe removed the mantle pin from her pouch. “‘Tis from Aquitaine.”
Damn. Luke closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
“Aquitaine? Are you sure?” Faithe asked.
Isaac’s warm gaze grew chilly for the briefest moment, as if she’d insulted him.
“I don’t mean to doubt you,” she said. “But you barely saw it. Are you sure—”
“Put it here.” The old man pointed to one of several anvils on the huge, scarred table in the middle of his workshop—a large room at the rear of his house. Morning sunlight poured into the chamber from two tall windows behind him, which flanked a small furnace. His handiwork, in various stages of completion, was displayed on shelves all around the perimeter of the room. There were gold and silver caskets, cups, circlets, girdles, brooches... even a few items, like a large silver chalice, that had obviously been commissioned by an officer of the Church.
Isaac sat at the table and picked up a tiny hammer, one gnarled hand automatically tucking his long white beard into his robe to keep it out of the way. He leaned over the brooch, so that all that could be seen of him was the top of his strange, pointed hat.
“This design around the edge,” he said, pointing with the slender handle of the little hammer, “is typical of the southern regions of the Frankish empire, as is the way the gold has been burnished.”
“But why Aquitaine?” Luke managed. “Why not Tolouse or Gascony?”
Old Isaac smiled a bit condescendingly. “There’s a world of difference between a mantle pin from Tolouse and one from Aquitaine. This” —he tapped the pin with a fingertip— “reminds me of the kind of thing I saw in the cities of Ventadour and Périgueux. The jeweler who created this piece is from that area.”
“Périgueux?” Faithe said. “It’s from Périgueux?”
Luke clenched his jaw until it hurt.
“Aye.” The old goldsmith lifted the pin and inspected it closely. “Or Ventadour, or perhaps Brive-la-Gaillard. Somewhere in that area.” Turning the pin over, he read the inscription out loud “‘To my youngest son. Be strong and of good courage.’ Did this pin belong to a soldier?”
“That’s what we think,” Faithe answered.
Isaac nodded. “Those sound like the words a father would say to his son when he sends him off to war.” He rubbed his thumb thoughtfully over the piece and then handed it back to Faithe. “Why are you looking for him?”
She tucked the pin back into her pouch. “He murdered someone. My first husband.”
The old man’s expression sobered. “Then he should pay.”
“I intend to see that he does,” Faithe said quietly.
* * *
“Périgueux, eh?” Orrik’s gaze narrowed on the pin he held.
“Or Ventadour or Brive-la-Gaillard,” Luke quickly put in. “Somewhere in the area of Aquitaine.”
“He seemed very sure of it,” Faithe added, gratefully accepting the horn of ale Lynette handed her. She’d had no time to rest up from her exhausting trip to Foxhyrst, nor to change out of the dusty, rumpled kirtle she’d slept in last night. No sooner had she and Luke entered Hauekleah Hall than Orrik had appeared and begun hammering them with questions.
Alex joined them and took the pin from Orrik. “I suppose it might have come from Aquitaine.” He glanced at his brother. “It does look something like yours, after all. We already knew that.”
Luke accepted his own horn and drained it swiftly.
“Périgueux...” Orrik scratched his beard.
“Or any city of Aquitaine,” Luke repeated testily.
“That might be helpful,” Orrik said. “Folks from down there tend to be darker than those from the north. You two are perfect examples.”
Luke and Alex exchanged sober looks. Wondering at the cause of it, Faithe asked, “Do you know of someone? Another soldier from Aquitaine?”
“Nay!” they said in unison.
She sighed. “‘Tisn’t much to go on... a soldier with dark coloring.”
“But ‘twill help,” Orrik said. “We can enlist some men to help us make inquiries. Baldric can be spared, and his brother, Nyle, and there are three or four others, all good men.”
“How do you propose we use these men?” Faithe asked.
“They can start in Cottwyk and work their way out from there,” the bailiff replied, “visiting every single hamlet and farm and city in the area until someone identifies the man we’ve looking for. ‘Twill be a much more thorough search than I was able to perform on my own. We have more information to go on now, and we can get half a dozen men to help us. One of them is bound to turn up something.”
Faithe handed her empty horn to Lynette and turned to her husband. “What think you, Luke?”
He shook his head. “I don’t like it.”
Orrik rolled his eyes. “I suppose you have a better idea.”
; “I’m going to send those men to Hastings,” Luke said.
There was a heavy moment of silence.
“Hastings,” Orrik said tonelessly.
Luke cleared his throat. “‘Tis wiser to start from the beginning—from Caedmon’s disappearance last October. I mean to investigate the reason for that disappearance, and track his movements through the winter.”
Faithe let Orrik ask it, not wanting to appear to doubt Luke, especially in front of the others, but not understanding, either. “Why? ‘Tis his death we’re investigating, not why he left Hastings, or what happened to him during the winter.”
Luke rubbed the bridge of his nose. Alex turned and looked out the window, leaning on the sill.
“The more we find out about what drove him away from Hastings,” Luke said, “and how he lived, the better we’ll be able to piece together the events that led to his death.”
Orrik shook his head. “I don’t see it.”
“Perhaps the circumstances surrounding the killing aren’t what they seem. Perhaps that’s why you’ve had so little luck in finding the man responsible, because you’ve assumed that Caedmon was killed over a...” He glanced uncomfortably toward Faithe.
“It’s all right,” she said quietly, touching his sleeve.
“But what if that’s not the way it was at all?” Luke continued. “What if Caedmon knew his killer? What if it had naught to do with the woman? What if—”
“What if, what if, what if,” Orrik growled. “This is absurd. Caedmon died because some Norman cur couldn’t wait his turn. I’m sorry, Faithe.” He’d gone red in the face, as he always did when he was upset. “But, for God’s sake! We know how he died, we know why he died, and it doesn’t have a damn thing to do with his disappearance from Hastings.”
“I think it does,” Luke said calmly.
“Then you’re a fool,” Orrik spat out.
“Orrik!” Faithe gasped. Alex turned around.
“And frankly,” Orrik ground out, seemingly oblivious to Faithe’s outrage, “I’m more than a little curious as to why you seem so determined to detour this investigation away from the time and place of Caedmon’s death. Sending those men to Hastings would be a waste of time, as you must be aware.”
Lords of Conquest Boxed Set Page 93
