Lords of Conquest Boxed Set

by Patricia Ryan

  “What ails him?” Thorne asked Geneva.

  Shaking her head, she spooned up some porridge from a bowl on the table and carefully fed it into her father’s mouth. “He’s been this way for a week. They’ve bled him twice, but it hasn’t helped.”

  “Poor Grandpapa,” Ailith said, putting her little arms around him protectively. “Please get better soon.” Godfrey’s eyes looked helplessly toward his granddaughter.

  “Enough to turn your stomach, isn’t it?” growled Bernard from behind them. Thorne wheeled around, his hand automatically reaching for the hilt of his sword, which, of course, he’d surrendered. Geneva ordered Ailith from the hall, and the child scampered away, unaware that anything was amiss.

  Bernard had several men with him. “Search him,” he told Boyce.

  “He already gave me his—”

  “Search him anyway. Check his boots. These Saxon bastards are sneaky.”

  Thorne allowed Boyce to pat him down, and then he removed his boots himself and shook them out to prove he’d secreted no dagger there. He had, in fact, briefly considered doing so. The notion of getting Bernard alone and opening his throat with a hidden blade had been tempting for an instant—before he realized it wouldn’t help Martine. The charges of heresy were a matter of public record now, and Bernard’s death wouldn’t obliterate them. In fact, for Thorne to kill her accuser would surely only add fuel to the case against her.

  Bernard took a seat at the table and bellowed, “Wench! Bring brandy!”

  Lady Clare scurried out from a dark corner and set a pitcher and cup before her master, who then pulled her roughly onto his lap. She averted her gaze from Thorne’s, but Bernard grabbed her by the chin and yanked her head around so that she had to face him. “She’s not much for looks, but she does come in handy from time to time.” He closed a hand over one of her small breasts and squeezed so hard that she winced. “‘Tis quite extraordinary, really. She’ll do just about any damn thing you please. And there’s no limit to what she’ll put up with.” He bit her earlobe, and tears of pain filled her eyes. “Is there, my unassuming little hare?”

  “No, sir,” she whispered, looking down.

  Bernard turned his reptilian eyes on Thorne. “But then, you already know about her extraordinary devotion to me, don’t you?”

  “Quite well,” he said tightly.

  Bernard smiled coldly, then pushed Clare off his lap so abruptly that she stumbled and fell. As she scrambled back to her corner, he said, “She claims to be in love with me. Have you ever heard of anything so ridiculous?”

  “I can’t say as I have.”

  Bernard’s smile faded as he reached for the pitcher. “Why did you come here, woodsman? Or should I say... my lord woodsman?”

  As coolly as he could, Thorne said, “I want to give you Blackburn.”

  Geneva gasped. All eyes—even Godfrey’s—turned toward the Saxon. Bernard inspected him through narrowed eyes over the rim of his cup, and then swiftly tossed its contents into his mouth. “In return for retracting my denunciation of your lady bitch, I assume... calling off the forces of Mother Church.”

  Thorne’s hands contracted into fists. “Aye.”

  Bernard sat back and smirked. “‘Tis an empty offer, as you well know. You hold Blackburn in fief from Olivier. You can’t just give it to whomever you please.”

  “But I can abandon it,” Thorne said. “I can simply ride away and never come back. Since I have no heirs, ‘twill be Olivier’s again, to dispose of as he will. You should have no trouble convincing him to grant it to you. I understand he’s the one person in England who actually likes you.” Ignoring Bernard’s sneer, he said, “I’m offering you a much greater reward than you stand to gain from Martine’s execution for heresy. One of the most valuable baronies in Sussex, as opposed to a handful of scattered holdings.”

  Bernard said, “What if I want them both—Blackburn and those other holdings?”

  “You’ll have them,” said Thorne. “You’ll have it all. Just make them free Martine and I swear before God and all the saints that we’ll walk away from what was ours and never try to take it back. We’ll go to France. You’ll never see us again.”

  “I’ll have it all...” Bernard said. “And what will you have? I don’t see that this arrangement benefits you in the least. That makes me suspicious.”

  Geneva said quietly, “He’ll have Martine.” She smiled at Thorne. He had never seen her smile before, and was amazed at the way it transformed her face into that of the beautiful young woman she once was.

  Bernard chuckled meanly. “Sister, you don’t know Thorne Falconer as I do. Love has no place in his life.” He spoke to Geneva as if the Saxon weren’t even in the room. “‘Tis one of the few reasons to admire the man. Nay, he’s got some mischief up his sleeve. As land-hungry as he’s always been, there’s not a chance in hell he’d give up Blackburn just to keep that troublesome wife of his from the stake. He’ll lure me into releasing her and then double-cross me.”

  “There will be no double-cross,” Thorne promised. “There are no cunning motives behind my offer. Your sister is right. What I do, I do so that Martine will live.”

  Bernard shook his head. “You’ve deceived me before, Saxon. ‘Tis the way your kind operates. You’ve often said ‘true love’ is a trap for the weak, and the one thing you aren’t is weak. ‘Tis wretched creatures like that wench in the corner” —he nodded toward the cowering Clare— “who fall prey to the fiction of romantic love. She might be willing to give up everything for love, to become a slave, to humble herself, but not you. I know you too well.”

  “The love I feel for my wife,” Thorne said slowly, “is nothing you’ve ever experienced or could hope to experience, nothing an animal like you could begin to comprehend. It is humbling, but in the same way that kneeling in a great cathedral is humbling. One feels like a small part of something vast and unfathomable. It’s what separates men from beasts, which is why you’re incapable of it. I thought I was incapable of it once, but I’m not, thank God.”

  “What a very pretty speech,” drawled Bernard, sitting back lazily. “But why waste all those high-flown sentiments on me if I’m too base to understand them?”

  Thorne crossed to the table and leaned on it, towering over Bernard and ignoring the tip of Boyce’s sword, which rested just between his shoulder blades. “To convince you that I won’t double-cross you and that my motives are simple and honest. I love Martine with all my heart, and that is the only reason I want you to free her. I give you my solemn oath. I’ll swear on anything you want. Retract your denunciation, and everything that is mine will be yours.”

  “You love her that much?”

  Thorne slowly straightened up, and Boyce withdrew the sword. “I do.”

  “I’d say she’s put a spell on you.”

  “You’d say it if you believed it, but you no more think she’s a sorceress than I do. You’re not stupid enough to believe your own charges.”

  “That I’m not. But neither am I stupid enough to miss an opportunity to acquire Blackburn.”

  Thank God. “Then you accept my offer?”

  Bernard smiled slowly. “Nay. ‘Twas most entertaining to listen to you make it, though. Especially that charming bit about how you feel like a small part of something vast and—”

  “But you said you wouldn’t miss an opportunity to—”

  “Woodsman,” Bernard growled, sitting forward, “I don’t need you or your pathetic deal to acquire Blackburn any more than I need your permission to take back lands that were rightfully mine to begin with. You will abandon Blackburn, but not in return for your wife’s release. You’ll abandon it because you have no choice. Because if you remain in England until the conclusion of the trial, I promise you that you, too, will be arrested for heresy—”

  “Me! That’s absurd.”

  “It’s all absurd,” Bernard countered, laughing. “Fantastically absurd, and ridiculously easy. If I denounce you, you’ll stand tri
al and have to prove your innocence, which might be rather difficult. You criticize the Church, you rarely attend mass, you read pagan writings... You will most certainly be branded a heretic, and then you’ll be tied to a stake and roasted alive. Can you imagine the agony? You can’t save your lady, but you can still save yourself.”

  “If I leave England immediately,” Thorne said, and Bernard nodded. “That’s clever, I have to admit. If I do leave, you won’t have my meddlesome influence in the trial, and I’ll be abandoning Blackburn, which you can talk Olivier into granting to you. If I stay to help Martine, you’ll see that I burn, and you’ll still end up with Blackburn.”

  “There is only one logical choice for you to make.”

  “Love has very little to do with logic,” Thorne said. Bernard rolled his eyes.

  “Why are you doing this?” Thorne asked. “Knowing that you can get Blackburn even if you release her, why go through with the trial? Why let her die?”

  Bernard stood quickly, knocking his chair over. “For the simple, unadulterated pleasure of watching her writhe in torment as the flames peel the flesh from her bones!”

  Thorne leaped on the table and lunged at Bernard, but Boyce and two others grabbed him and hauled him back.

  Bernard laughed hysterically. “For the thrill of listening to her shriek and beg and moan. That’s why I’m doing this, woodsman.”

  Thorne struggled against the three pairs of massive arms.

  “She made a fool out of me!” Bernard screamed. More quietly he said, “So did you. But you’ll see I’m not so easily bested. I hope you don’t leave England. I want to see you burn, as well. There’s no greater form of suffering known to man. Nor, I expect, any more enthralling form of entertainment.” He turned toward the stairwell. “Get him out of here,” he told Boyce. “And don’t give him back his weapons until he’s across the drawbridge.”

  Chapter 24

  “It’s time, milady,” said the guard from the door of the windowless little chamber.

  “Just a moment, please.” Martine finished plaiting her single braid and secured it with a short bit of string, then slipped on the white linen coif they had given her, letting its ties hang loose. She smoothed down her sacklike gray kirtle, noting how it hung on her thin frame, evidence of the single daily serving of brown bread that had been her sustenance during the month of her imprisonment. She knew it had been a month, because the guards told her the date whenever she asked, and today, the first day of her trial, was June the second.

  They’d dressed her almost exactly as the girls had dressed at St. Teresa’s, in a severe uniform resembling that of a novice. That was good. It would enhance the impression of piety that she hoped to project, an impression that at one time would have been flagrant fiction, but now could almost pass for the truth. For she had learned something new over the course of this long and arduous month during which she had been questioned ceaselessly, deprived of food and sleep, and threatened not only with the flames of hell, but those of the pyre. She had learned to pray–not to pretend to pray because people were watching and it was what was expected, but to summon all the faith in her heart, inadequate though it might be, and beg God to show her the path that would save her.

  “Is this necessary?” she asked as the guard tied her hands in front of her.

  “Orders, milady,” he replied, leading her out of the chamber for the first time since her captivity had begun. Three other guards surrounded her and together escorted her through the dark stone passages of Battle Abbey to the room in which her trial would take place.

  It was a large room, with a dozen armed guards in attendance and scores of people seated on benches around the perimeter, every one of them looking at her. This was all she noticed before her eyes squeezed shut in response to the bright morning sunlight—sunlight she had long pined for but now couldn’t bear to face—streaming in through the windows.

  Is Thorne here? she wondered as her guards drew her forward, urging her down on a hard little stool in the middle of the room.

  Her stool was situated in the midst of a beam of sunlight so blinding that for a moment she could see nothing else. Someone said her name. She raised her bound hands to shield her eyes, but someone else snapped “Lower your hands!” so she did. Voices buzzed, the charges—now all too familiar to her—were read, and other things were said, but she took little note of them, struggling as she was to accustom her eyes to this searing light.

  When she finally got used to it and could take in her surroundings, she found that she sat facing Bishop Lambert, who occupied a high, canopied throne on a dais at the far end of the room; most of the onlookers were behind her. The throne, more majestic even than Queen Eleanor’s, was upholstered in one shade of red silk, the obese bishop in another. As he spoke, he gestured with his fleshy, bejeweled hands, which glittered and twinkled with every move. Above him hung an ornate, gilded crucifix. To his right a clerk sharpened his quill at one of those little writing desks like the one she had used at St. Dunstan’s. To his left, on a long bench, sat a row of black-clad priests, looking very much like crows on a tree branch.

  One of them rose and approached her. It was Father Simon. “Lady Falconer...”

  “Father Simon.”

  “My lady baroness,” the bishop intoned, “you are not to speak unless asked a direct question, and then you are to answer in a simple and straightforward manner. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, my lord bishop.” If meekness was what was required to avoid the stake, she would swallow her pride and be meek. All of her senses were alert. She must do and say only the right things, the things that would convince the bishop of her innocence.

  Bishop Lambert nodded to the clerk, who inked his quill, and then to the priest. “You may proceed, Father.”

  “My lady,” said Father Simon, “when did you receive your demon companion, who most often takes the shape of a cat?” The onlookers murmured briefly before the bishop’s upraised hand silenced them. The clerk hunched over his parchment, scratching away industriously.

  Martine blinked. “My... my what?”

  Simon pressed his lips together. “I believe you heard me. When did you receive the creature you call Loki?”

  “I... three years ago.”

  “And what form did your master take when he gave you this companion?”

  Martine took a deep breath and worded her answer carefully. “A man named Beal gave me Loki. He was a stable hand at St. Teresa’s.”

  Simon turned to the clerk. “Note that this Loki is a minor shape-shifting demon.” The clerk nodded as he wrote. “He was granted to her by her master in the form of a man three years ago at the Convent of St. Teresa in Bordeaux. ‘Beal’ is most likely a shortened form of `Beelzebub.’”

  Someone behind her said, “Oh, for God’s sake!”

  Thorne! She turned and saw him, on a bench against the wall to her right, sitting with Brother Matthew, Felda, and Geneva. He tried to rise, but Matthew held him down and whispered furiously into his ear as four guards closed in on them.

  “Lady Falconer, turn around,” the bishop demanded, but Thorne looked directly at her now, and said her name, and Martine couldn’t wrest her eyes from his. “Lord Falconer, you will be ejected from this room if you interrupt again, do you understand?”

  She saw her husband tense, his expression one of outrage, but then Matthew grabbed his arm and hissed something, and he marshaled his features. “Yes, my lord bishop,” he said stiffly.

  Bishop Lambert nodded to a guard behind her, who took her by the shoulders and forced her to face the front once more. As her eyes swept the benches along the wall, she noticed Bernard, sitting back with his legs crossed, smiling, and next to him, Lady Clare.

  The bishop nodded to Father Simon, who kept his back to her as he asked, “When your master copulates with you, does he continue to assume the form of his stable hand, or of some other being?”

  “Copulates with me!”

  “Answer!”

&n
bsp; “How can I answer that? I don’t know what you’re talking about. I have no master!”

  Simon swung on her. “Heretic! We all have a master, and His name is God Almighty! How dare you so boldly deny His authority!”

  “I didn’t!”

  “You just did.”

  “Nay! You’re confusing me!”

  “Silence!” commanded Bishop Lambert. “Lady Falconer, you will cooperate with these proceedings or we’ll take you to the pyre immediately, do you understand?”

  Helpless and overwhelmed, Martine turned and glanced back toward Thorne. He looked furious, and very grim. Matthew met her eyes and nodded, as if encouraging her to answer the bishop.

  “Y-yes, my lord bishop,” she murmured. “I understand.”

  Father Simon said, “Lady Falconer’s rejection of God’s sovereignty is a matter of public knowledge. Guards, bring in the first witness.”

  There followed a procession of house servants from Harford Castle who stood before the bishop and swore that Martine, refusing to accept Ailith’s death, had been heard to say, To hell with God’s will. They testified also that she had used sorcery to revive the dead child and that Thorne had attacked Father Simon when he tried to prevent it.

  At midday the bishop suspended the trial for an hour, and Martine returned to her chamber for her bread and watered ale. When the proceedings resumed, a number of Bernard’s men attested to the fact that Edmond seemed incapable of consummating his marriage to her. Bernard himself testified about the jug of adulterated brandy found in his brother’s bedchamber. Not only did she poison Edmond, he claimed, but she forced his ailing wife to drink from a jug of claret later found to contain a suspicious sediment. He bowed his head and crossed himself as he described how the lady Estrude had become insensible within moments of ingesting the potion, and died shortly thereafter.