Lords of Conquest Boxed Set

by Patricia Ryan

  She turned her head toward the window. “It’s lovely.”

  “You should hear it up close.” Something almost mischievous flickered in his crystalline eyes. He took her hand in his and rose, pulling her to her feet. “Come with me.”

  “What?”

  “Shh...” He guided her carefully through the somnolent bodies and out the door, into the damp night. “This way.” As he led her by the hand across the abbey’s public courtyard, she reflected on how relaxed—almost carefree—he had seemed all day. Almost like a different person. Father Gregory seemed to think she was responsible for the lifting of Rainulf’s melancholy, but she doubted she had that much influence over him. More likely, it was simply being away from Oxford that had done the trick.

  He guided her into the church and closed the door behind them. Sound blossomed around her, and she gasped, momentarily stunned by its beauty and power. She caught a quick glimpse of rows of hooded monks and dozens of lit candles before he quickly pulled her into one of the nave aisles, where they wouldn’t be seen. “We shouldn’t be here,” he whispered. “I just wanted you to hear this.”

  The chanting—amazingly loud, yet ethereal as a silken veil—resonated throughout the enormous church. Corliss had never heard anything quite like it. Rainulf released her hand and grasped her upper arms gently from behind. “Close your eyes,” he murmured into her ear. “Let it inside you.”

  She did as he instructed, opening her ears and mind and body to the celestial tones of a hundred voices raised in sacred song. He held her pressed back against his chest, and she felt the drumming of his heart in primitive counterpoint to the airy chanting. The steady heartbeats reverberated throughout her as the voices rose in unison, filling her up, lifting her to a place of weightless serenity, of earthly ecstasy and holy perfection.

  All too soon it ended, and the brothers filed out through the transept. Rainulf’s hands eased their grip, and he lightly stroked her arms, causing her heart to trip wildly. “What did you think?” he whispered, his hot breath tickling her ear.

  She turned to face him. “It sounded... amazing. Like Heaven.”

  He glanced over her shoulder, then abruptly seized her and pushed her back against a pillar, pressing himself against her.

  “Rainulf! What—”

  He clamped a hand over her mouth and lowered his mouth to her ear. “The abbot.”

  Corliss listened and heard soft, sluggish footsteps advancing toward them. Rainulf touched her lips with a finger and she nodded. The footsteps passed excruciatingly slowly, the abbot being well advanced in years. Rainulf flattened himself against her in an effort not to be seen. With the cold, hard marble at her back, and his unyielding warmth in front, she could barely breathe. A flood of giddy intoxication overcame her, and she stifled a giggle that bubbled up in her throat.

  He covered her mouth again, whispering, “Shh,” but she felt his chest shake, and knew that he, too, was fighting to maintain his composure. A kind of gasping chuckle escaped him, and she slapped her hand across his mouth. The absurdity of the situation—each of them covering the other’s mouth—struck them both at once, and they fairly choked with laughter, spurred on as much by fatigue as by their predicament.

  They both peeked around the pillar and watched the old abbot shuffle down the nave and out of the church, seemingly oblivious to their presence. “He must be hard of hearing,” Rainulf said.

  “Thank goodness.”

  He took her hand and drew her to the door. They watched until the abbot disappeared into his lodge, then sprinted across the courtyard, holding hands and laughing like prankish children. At the door to the guest house, he turned her to face him and rested his hands on her shoulders. He was breathless, and still smiling. Regardless of the cause of his surprising good humor, it utterly delighted her.

  “Shame on you, Corliss.”

  “What?”

  “You’re a bad influence on me.”

  “It was your idea!” she pointed out huffily.

  “I never would have done it with anyone but you.” He trailed the back of one hand down the side of her face, his gaze wandering from her eyes to her mouth. She saw his lips open slightly, and thought—or imagined—that he moved a hairsbreadth closer to her. Then his smile faded, and he backed away. “We’d better get some sleep. We’ve another long ride ahead of us tomorrow.”

  She nodded, not trusting herself to speak, and followed him into the guest house.

  * * *

  It was late the next afternoon when she first saw the round, whitewashed castle keep rising in the distance above the rolling pastures and woodlands through which they rode. A crenellated stone wall surrounded the castle, and a banner snapped on its high tower.

  “Is that Blackburn?” she asked in a small voice.

  “That’s Blackburn. We have just one stop first.” He pointed, and Corliss saw, nestled in the river valley below them, a low arrangement of neat stone buildings.

  “Another monastery?” she asked.

  He nodded. “St. Dunstan’s. The prior, Brother Matthew, is an old friend of mine from university. We’ll just say a quick hello and be on our way.”

  A black-haired monk was waiting for them as they rode through the front gates.

  “Matthew! How goes it?” Rainulf leapt down from his horse and embraced the prior.

  “I’m well. And very happy to see you!”

  Corliss dismounted and tried to be inconspicuous, but the prior’s keen, dark eyes quickly settled on her. “Is this boy with you? Do famous magisters have pages now?”

  “This is Corliss,” Rainulf said, then hesitated, glancing uneasily at the monks, lay brothers, and servants who’d gathered around. “Corliss is...” He met her eyes; she grinned and shrugged, as if to say, Tell them. “Well, it’s a rather involved story, but Corliss is actually—”

  “Look!” cried a young monk, pointing to the road that led from Castle Blackburn to the priory. A horseman was tearing toward them at breakneck speed, his enormous white mount kicking up a trail of dust.

  Matthew chuckled and shook his head. “He must have seen you and couldn’t wait for you to come to him. Thorne’s got an impatient streak.”

  “Aye,” Rainulf agreed. “We’ll have to save our visit for some other time, Matthew.” He walked to the gate and waited, hands on hips, as his friend rode toward him.

  The big white stallion snorted and danced as he was reined in. Thorne Falconer dismounted and wrapped Rainulf in an enthusiastic bear hug. Corliss gaped, taking in the Saxon’s size. He was taller even than Rainulf, with the most massive shoulders she’d ever seen—a human warhorse. His long, golden brown hair and humble tunic enhanced his slightly barbarous image. He wore no fur or sword to signify his rank. All this was odd enough, but when he asked Rainulf how his journey had gone—in English!—her jaw dropped open. She’d never thought to hear a baron speak her native tongue. Never mind that it was his native tongue as well. The ruling class of England spoke French exclusively; she’d never heard of an exception.

  He spoke to Brother Matthew in French, but reverted to English as he got back on his horse. “Martine’s been anxious to see you, Rainulf. I promised I’d bring you back right away. You don’t mind, do you?”

  Rainulf exchanged a grin with the prior. “I wouldn’t want to disappoint Martine.” He remounted, and Corliss followed suit.

  The baron’s vivid blue eyes assessed her curiously as they rode slowly back up the path toward the castle, three abreast with him in the middle. “I must say, Rainulf, I never thought to see the day you’d be traveling with a servant. What happened to that famous humility of yours?”

  Rainulf sighed and cast her a slightly apologetic look. “Corliss is... a friend, not a servant. And there’s something—”

  “Corliss, eh?” He regarded her skeptically. “Isn’t that a woman’s name?”

  “Not always, my lord,” she said. “It can be either a man’s or a woman’s.”

  “None of that ‘my lord
’ business, boy,” the big Saxon remonstrated. “Friends of Rainulf’s must call me Thorne.”

  “Thank you... Thorne.” She caught Rainulf’s eye and mouthed Tell him, but before Rainulf could speak, Thorne reached over and punched him on the arm.

  “Look at you! You’re not a priest anymore! I’m still not entirely sure how you managed to get out of it.”

  “Neither am I,” Rainulf conceded.

  Thorne shrugged. “Mayhap it’s just because everyone likes you so much.” He turned to Corliss and said, “He’s always been able to get away with things no one else could. His charm has earned him special favors all his life.” His voice took on a low, conspiratorial tone, and he winked at her. “Especially from the fairer sex.”

  Corliss sat up straighter in her saddle. “Really?”

  “Aye.” Thorne chuckled good-naturedly. “He was reputed to be quite the swordsman in his university days.”

  Corliss frowned. “Swordsman?”

  “In bed.”

  “Thorne—” Rainulf began.

  “Of course, I didn’t know him back then. I met him when they chained him next to me in a prison hole in the Levant. After a year, Queen Eleanor bought our freedom, and we returned home along the overland route. That’s when I first became aware of his amorous skills. We were traveling through the Rhineland—”

  “Thorne,” Rainulf interjected, “there’s something you should know about Cor—”

  “Later!” said Corliss, knowing she’d never get to hear the story once Thorne found out she was a woman. Rainulf shot her a look, but she ignored him. “What happened in the Rhineland?”

  Thorne leaned toward her with a grin. “There was this sweet young farmwife who let us sleep in her loft. Can’t remember her name...” He glanced over his shoulder. “You were always so good with names, Rainulf.”

  “Sigfreda,” Rainulf said, staring straight ahead.

  “Sigfreda! That’s right. Lovely. Hair the color of ripe wheat. Rainulf and I had picked up enough German from our cellmates to be able to talk to her. Turned out her husband had gone on Crusade and never returned. She was... lonely.” He shrugged. “We stayed with her two nights. The first night, I slept upstairs in the loft and Rainulf shared Sigfreda’s bed. The next night, Rainulf got the loft, and I got Sigfreda.”

  “Ah,” Corliss said.

  “That first night,” Thorne said, “I lay up there in the hay listening to the most astonishing sounds from below.”

  Rainulf groaned. “Thorne...”

  “All the more astonishing because of my own inexperience. I’d been a pious and chaste youth when I took up the cross. Two years of battle and imprisonment had cured me of my piety, but left my chastity intact. So I lay awake for hours, wide-eyed in the hay, wondering at every little gasp and giggle, every crackle of the straw. And then, when the screams came—”

  “Screams?” Corliss stole a glance at Rainulf; his ears were purple.

  “Every once in a while,” Thorne explained, “Sigfreda would let loose with the most alarming... I hardly know how to describe the sound. At first I thought the imprisonment had gotten to Rainulf, after all. I thought he’d gone mad and was killing her in some slow, torturous way. Then I realized she was just, well, enjoying herself. Very much. I was impressed.” He laughed. “So was she.”

  Turning to Rainulf, he said, “You ruined her for me, you know. The next night, when it was my turn, all she could talk about was you. Your endurance, your vigor, your ‘sorcerer’s hands,’ I think she called them.”

  A small smile crept past Rainulf’s stony defenses. “I knew I’d be taking a vow of chastity soon. I was inspired.”

  “Well, your inspiration was my downfall,” Thorne said. “I’d never been with a woman, and I finally decided I must be incompetent, because I couldn’t get her to scream like you did. She assured me I wasn’t doing it wrong—I just wasn’t doing it as right as you had. When I told her you were taking Holy Orders, she burst into tears.” To Corliss he said, “Not an uncommon reaction, as I understand. I’m told the ladies of Paris went into mourning when Rainulf took his vows.”

  Corliss looked back and forth between the two men, gathering her thoughts. Certain aspects of the ribald anecdote confused her—that a woman should scream during sex made no sense, unless it was causing her pain—but one thing was clear. Her image of a virginal Rainulf was clearly off the mark—way off the mark. She cleared her throat and tried not to sound as astonished as she felt. “I had no idea our Magister Scholarum was quite such a legend,” she said with forced nonchalance.

  “Aye, ‘legend’ is the right word,” Thorne said. “And now that he’s renounced his vows, perhaps the legend can continue. What say you, Rainulf? Are you ready to enslave the ladies of Oxford as you once did those of Paris?”

  “Enslave?” said Rainulf.

  “You enslaved their hearts, only to break them when you became a priest.

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Oh, I heard all about you at the queen’s court in Paris, before I returned to England. The ladies would whisper of your extraordinary seductiveness, of the deep and reckless passion hidden beneath your scholarly robes. They’d confess how they’d given themselves to you eagerly, even knowing you didn’t love them. And then they’d ask me why a man like you would want to be a priest, and they would weep.”

  “I do hope you comforted them,” Rainulf said dryly.

  Thorne smiled. “What else could I do?”

  Both men laughed easily, and Corliss shook her head in astonishment, thinking, I really don’t know Rainulf. I don’t know him at all.

  The horses’ hooves clattered on the drawbridge, and Corliss swallowed hard, staring up at the spectacular majesty of Blackburn Castle as it loomed over them. She whispered a hurried prayer—”Please, God, don’t let me throw up from nerves before I even get inside”—and crossed herself as they rode single file through an opening in the great oaken door. The outer bailey—with its stone-and-thatch structures surrounding a central fishpond—reminded her of Cuxham. Or it would have, except that everyone here seemed content, even happy, whereas smiles were rare within Roger Foliot’s domain.

  The inner bailey was a maze of gardens, both utilitarian and ornamental. Against the far side of the wall from the keep stood an enormous stone dwelling, which Thorne identified as his hawk house.

  “Birds live in there?” Corliss asked. It was as large as Sir Roger’s manor house!

  Rainulf laughed. “Thorne’s falcons are his babies. He lives for them.”

  “I live for Martine,” Thorne said, a statement so matter-of-fact, yet so intimate, that Corliss hardly knew how to respond. “I keep falcons merely to amuse myself when she’s had enough of me.”

  As they dismounted in the tree-lined courtyard outside the keep, Rainulf said, with a smug grin, “By the way, Thorne, there’s something I didn’t get a chance to tell you about Corliss before you launched into that bawdy story of yours.”

  “Something about Corliss?” Thorne glanced at two young women hauling baskets of laundry down the wide steps of the keep’s forebuilding, and lowered his voice, grinning. “Is the boy an innocent? Too delicate for tales of Sigfreda?”

  “The boy is a woman,” Rainulf said mildly. “And by her very nature too delicate for such tales.”

  The big Saxon blinked at Rainulf, and then turned to stare at Corliss, taking her in head to toe. When he met her gaze, she broke into a wide grin and shrugged. “It’s true, my lor—I mean, Thorne.”

  He blanched, then turned to glare at Rainulf. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he demanded in a fierce rasp.

  “I tried. You were too busy describing Sigfreda’s screams of ecstasy to—”

  “Rainulf!” Thorne cast a horrified look in Corliss’s direction.

  “She’s heard it already,” Rainulf pointed out. “From your own mouth. Too late to worry about her feminine sensibilities now.”

  “Too late to worry about whose feminine sensibilities?�
� They all turned toward the soft voice, which belonged to a young woman standing at the top of the stairs. Corliss instantly knew that this was Martine Falconer. She had her brother’s impressive height, flaxen hair, and regal good looks. A band of hammered silver encircled her head, but she wore no veil over her two long, thick braids, which hung down on either side of the largest stomach Corliss had ever seen on a pregnant woman. In the curve of one arm she held a black cat with white boots. Smiling, she lifted the hem of her voluminous blue silk tunic, descending the steps with a good deal more grace than Corliss would have thought possible.

  Thorne raced up the steps to take her arm, closely followed by Rainulf. “Martine!” Her brother kissed her on both cheeks. “You look wonderful. Full of health.” She did; her deep blue eyes sparkled, her face glowed.

  She laughed. “I look like some great sow that’s been fattened up for just a bit too long.” Like Rainulf, she spoke the Anglo-Saxon tongue with a pronounced Norman-French accent.

  He studied her vast belly with an expression of wonderment. “Nay, you look...”

  She laughed again and petted her cat. “Fat. Say it.”

  Shaking his head, he murmured, “Beautiful. More beautiful than ever.”

  Corliss felt an irrational stab of jealousy, despite the fact that Martine was Rainulf’s sister. Perhaps it was her very womanliness, her fecundity—and Rainulf’s awestruck reaction to it—that so discomfited Corliss. She fingered her chin-length hair and looked down at her dusty chausses, feeling suddenly self-conscious, even a bit foolish in her masculine garb.

  “So, whose sensibilities has my husband bruised?” Lady Falconer asked with a smile. “Whom has he insulted now?”

  “Corliss.” Rainulf gestured to her to step forward. “I hope you don’t mind an unexpected guest, Martine.”

  “Of course not.”

  “Thank you, my lady,” said Corliss.

  “It’s Martine,” the young baroness corrected, looking a little confused. “I must have misheard Rainulf. I thought he said something about feminine sensibilities.”

  Thorne leaned down and whispered something in her ear, whereupon Martine fixed her widening eyes on Corliss. The cat leaped from her arms and darted away, though she seemed scarcely to notice. “Oh.”