"Aye," Tearle answered. "She has her heart set on Colbrand, but she knew her father favored you, so she made sure you were no longer a contender for her hand. She made everyone laugh at you."
Severn looked at Tearle. "A woman did this?" he whispered. "This was no Howard trick?"
"I can guarantee it was no Howard trick." Tearle glanced at Zared. "Perhaps Lady Anne thought it was a great joke."
Zared could see blood staining Severn's neck as his anger seemed to rise from somewhere deep inside himself.
"A joke?" he said. "I have been made to look like less than a man, and she believes it to be a joke? She has made even the lowest of the low laugh at me. Me! A Peregrine. Who is she? Naught but the rich daughter of a trumped-up merchant, while I…" He trailed off, no longer able to speak.
"Where is she?" Severn managed to croak out after a while.
"Eating dinner, I believe," Tearle said cheerfully. He released the woman from his grip, but she did not move.
"I will show her what it means to be laughed at," Severn said.
"My lord," the woman cried, "you cannot—"
Severn pushed past her and left the tent, the woman following him, begging him not to harm Lady Anne.
"What have you done?" Zared hissed at Tearle.
He smiled innocently. "I do not yet know what I have done, but based on your brother's temper, I can guess."
Zared didn't waste more time talking to him but ran after her brother. Maybe she could stop the worst of whatever Severn planned to do. Maybe she could prevent him from making the Peregrine name more of an object of ridicule.
Zared ran, Tearle right behind her. "I'll kill you for this," she yelled over her shoulder at him. Why in the world had she ever believed him when he'd said he could get Anne Marshall married to a Peregrine? After Severn made his accusations to Hugh Marshall people were going to laugh at them even more than they had.
She reached the Great Hall just as Severn reached the high table where Hugh sat, his daughters on either side of him. Hundreds of men and women ate and drank at the long tables set up in the hall.
Zared started to run to her brother to stop whatever foolishness he intended, but the accursed Howard man grabbed her about the waist, put his hand over her mouth, and pulled her into a shadow. No one would have noticed had he torn her arms off, for all eyes were on Severn, his handsome face enraged as he glared down at Anne.
Severn didn't look at anyone else in the hall except her. He leaned across the table, grabbed her by the shoulders, and pulled her up. She screamed at him, and more than a dozen men drew their daggers and started for Severn, but Hugh Marshall put his hand up to halt the men. He was fascinated and eager to see what the big man was planning for his daughter.
When Anne was halfway up Severn caught her waist and dragged her across the table. When Anne saw that her father was going to allow no man to rescue her she began to fight for all she was worth. She beat Severn with her fists and kicked out at him, trying to hit him, but she succeeded only in knocking over wine pitchers, goblets, platters of meat, trays of vegetables.
"Unhand me!" she screamed. "Father!"
When the guests realized the performance was sanctioned by Hugh they sat back down and began to enjoy the spectacle.
Once Anne was on Severn's side of the table he tucked her, screaming, kicking, clawing, under his arm and hooked his foot over a bench. He pulled the bench to the middle of the space between tables—the space left for acrobats and other such performers— and sat on it.
"Help me!" Anne screamed. "Someone, I pray you, help me."
Severn tossed Anne across his knees, flung all but one of her petticoats over her back, and applied his hand to her firm little buttocks.
Whack! "That is for the mud in my helmet," he said. Another whack! "And that is for the mud on my face."
It was at that moment that the diners began to understand what it was about. They knew enough about the slovenly Peregrine ways, and they had had ample time to observe the too-fastidious ways of the beautiful Lady Anne, and all they had to do was put one and one together.
Hugh Marshall was the first to laugh. It was a joy to him to see his too-clever daughter brought low in such a way.
"And for the sawed lances," Severn said, applying his hand at each sentence he spoke. "And the honey. And the banner."
Anne stopped struggling at the first sound of laughter. Her fear was replaced by anger and hatred. She clenched her fists, gritted her teeth, and refused to cry at her humiliation. For humiliation it was. He was not hitting her hard, just enough to sting—and that, if possible, made her even angrier.
The huge old Great Hall echoed with laughter, the laughter of everyone: guests, servants, entertainers, children, even the dogs started scampering about.
At long last Severn pulled Anne's skirts down and stood her upright before him while he still sat on the bench. The crowd quieted as they waited to hear what Severn had to say.
"That should teach you to play tricks on men."
With him sitting and Anne standing they were nearly at eye level. He wore a smug look of triumph. She spit in his face.
The crowd hushed.
Severn, after a second's anger, grabbed her by the back of the neck and pulled her to him, and after a second to look at her he put his mouth on hers.
The crowd began to laugh and applaud, and when Severn continued holding Anne and didn't break the long, hard kiss they began to stamp their feet in approval.
Anne fought him throughout the kiss, but she was no match for his strength.
When at last he pulled away from her Severn picked her up in his arms, walked toward the table, and proceeded to drop her, bottom first, onto her father's half-eaten plate of food.
"I suggest you keep closer watch on your daughter," Severn said loudly, then he turned to leave the hall.
The people were laughing again, but now, he thought, they weren't laughing at him.
Throughout Tearle had been holding Zared against him. He hadn't had to hold her mouth to keep her quiet, and he probably hadn't had to hold her at all, but he refused to release her.
As Severn started to leave, the beautiful Lady Anne left behind on a large plate of pork, Zared jerked away from him. "Now Hugh Marshall will never allow his daughter to marry a Peregrine," she hissed.
"Halt!" Hugh Marshall shouted, and the entire hall grew quiet instantly.
Severn stopped where he was, his hand ready to go to his sword in order to defend himself. Zared stepped from the shadows, ready to fight beside her brother.
Slowly Severn turned to look at Hugh Marshall.
Hugh stood, and when Anne tried to get off the table he pushed her back down.
"I have something to say to you, Peregrine."
"I can hear you."
There wasn't a sound from any of the hundreds of people in the big room. They held their breaths. Would the fierce old Hugh declare war on the poor Peregrines for the way his daughter had been humiliated?
Anne turned and glared in triumph at Severn, her arms across her chest, her bottom in pork roast, her feet in cabbage stew. She hoped her father would order a particularly vile death for the man.
"It is my wish," Hugh said into the silence, "that you…" He took a breath and looked about the room. "I would be honored, sir, if you'd take my daughter in marriage."
The roof nearly fell in at the explosion of laughter.
Zared's mouth fell open as she watched her brother's chest swell in pride. Swaggering, Severn made his way to the high table, then leaned across Anne as though she weren't there, tore a leg off a roast pig, sat on the table near Anne's head, and began to eat.
"How much gold do you give me to take the wench off your hands?"
The crowd was laughing so hard they could hardly stay on the benches, and how Severn loved it! He was going to take his time in the wedding negotiations and enjoy this moment when the crowd wasn't laughing at his family.
Zared stood where she was, watching as Sev
ern bargained with Hugh over Anne's dowry, and she knew that the Peregrine reputation would not suffer from the bargaining. She could see men's heads nodding in approval as Severn asked for more and more gold if he was to take on the burden of Lady Anne.
Zared had some sympathy for Anne, but not much when she remembered how hard everyone had laughed at Severn. But one look at Anne's face, red with rage, and she sensed that perhaps Severn wouldn't have the last laugh, for she doubted that Anne would be an easy person to live with.
After a while she grew tired of the noise and left the hall. There would be much to do to prepare for Severn's wedding.
Outside there were very few people, for they'd all heard of the excitement and jammed into the hall to hear Severn bargaining for the uppity Lady Anne.
A hand clamped on Zared's shoulder. "Do you forget our bargain?"
Zared turned to see the Howard man, and she remembered everything.
"What bargain?" she said, stalling for time. Her mouth was growing dry.
Tearle smiled at her. "I have given your brother his rich bride."
"You gave her to him? You had nothing to do with it. My brother got the woman by… by…" Humiliating her? By making people laugh at her? "You had nothing to do with it," she finished.
"I caused it all. I told your brother that Anne played those tricks on him."
"Yes, but that is not what made Hugh Marshall offer his daughter. My brother did that on his own, without your help, so there is no bargain between us." She turned away, but he caught her shoulder and turned her back.
"I arranged all. I know your brother's temper, and I know that when he is angry he has no control, he—"
"He can control a sword, and if he were here now, he'd control it through you!"
"Oh?" Tearle asked, not at all perturbed. "He could not control his temper today, as I knew he would not be able to. Had Anne another father, not one such as Hugh who values strength above brains, I would not have told Severn what Anne did. But I rightly guessed that Severn would do something such as he did, and that Hugh would be pleased by it. I, little wife, arranged their marriage."
"Wife?" she said under her breath. "I am not your wife and will never be. I cannot keep a bargain that was not fulfilled. You could not have known what would happen. Severn could have killed the woman— he was angry enough to do so—and then where would we be? Or her father could have—"
"I took note that Severn does not hurt women. If he did, you would have bruises aplenty, for I have never seen a woman deserve chastising as much as you do."
"You know nothing. Hugh Marshall could have ordered Severn killed for what he—"
"It is a sad but true fact that Hugh cannot abide his younger daughter. She has more brains in one foot than he has in all his body, and he resents that. Also, I have heard it rumored that he was not her father. He's the sort of man to want to repay Anne for rumors she could not help."
"You mean for me to believe that you knew all this, and that this is why you brought the maid to Severn?"
"No, I brought her to Severn to give him the wife he wants so that I may have the wife I want."
She could only look at him, unable to say a word. After a moment she recovered herself and turned away. "You could not have known what would happen, therefore you did not bring about this marriage, therefore my bargain with you is void." She started to walk away.
She walked about ten yards before she stopped. What would he do now? she wondered. Go to his brother and raise an army to attack the Peregrines? Challenge Severn to a combat to the death? Tell Severn who he was and cause a war?
She looked back and saw that he was walking in the opposite direction. She ran after him. "What are you planning now?"
"Planning? I plan? You have just told me that I am incapable of planning."
"What are you going to do to us?" she asked, teeth clenched.
"Do to you? Why should I do anything to you?"
"Because I'm not keeping my bargain. I mean," she said quickly to cover her error, "what are you going to do to my family because I won't marry you because your bargain was false?"
"I will do nothing," he said, smiling.
"Oh, I see. Your brother will do all. Do you go to him to plan war now? Will you use what you know against us?"
Tearle's eyes widened. "I would never tell my brother or anyone else that a Peregrine refused to fulfill a bargain. I would want no one to know that a person who bore the proud, ancient name of Peregrine was so lacking in honor."
"We Peregrines do not lack honor," she screeched at him.
"I know that to be true of one brother, but you… Tell me, is your brother Rogan like you or like Severn?"
She tightened her fists until the skin turned white. "We are all honorable. I am most honorable."
"If you say it, it must be true."
She wanted to kill him, to run a sword through him and watch him bleed. "I will marry you," she shouted.
"No," he answered, moving away.
She stepped in front of him. "No? But our bargain was for me to marry you if you got Anne to marry Severn."
"Severn did that himself. I did not have the pleasure of paddling the beautiful Lady Anne; he did that himself."
"But you told him Anne had played the jokes."
"What did that have to do with paddling her lovely bottom?"
The man was truly stupid, she thought. "If you had not told him, Severn wouldn't have known, and if he hadn't known, he wouldn't have gone to Hugh Marshall's Hall and taken Lady Anne—" She stopped.
"Yes? Are you saying that if I hadn't told Severn, he wouldn't be betrothed to Anne now?"
She refused to speak to him.
"So if I did have something to do with the betrothal taking place, then perhaps I did fulfill my part of the bargain."
She refused to speak, but she gave a tiny, curt nod.
"So it seems that I kept my end of the bargain, but you do not wish to keep yours. I understand now. Good day, Lady Zared." He smiled at her and started walking.
She caught his arm. "Where are you going?"
"Home to the evil brother you so fear." He smiled. "You seem concerned that I plan some revenge because you will not keep your word. It is my idea that breaking an oath is revenge enough. You must live with this on your conscience the rest of your life. Were it me, I could not bear myself, but then you are a Peregrine, not a Howard, so perhaps your name means less to you than mine does to me. However, it is your choice. I will not force you to honor your own word. It is my belief that one has honor or one does not. In this case it seems that you do not. Therefore—"
"Cease!" Zared yelled at him, her hands to her ears. "I will marry you."
"I could not ask that of you, for you seem to doubt that I kept my end of our bargain."
"You kept it!" she hissed. "I have told you so. Do you wish me to shout it from the rooftops?"
"It might be pleasant were you to tell your brother you wish to marry me."
"Wish to marry you? You are the last person I would wish to marry."
He started to walk away.
"All right! I'll tell Severn I"—she swallowed— "that I wish to marry you. He would be suspicious otherwise."
"How kind of you," he said, smiling. "Shall I meet you in the church in two hours?"
"Two… two hours?"
"Of course, if you would rather not fulfill your part of the bargain, I can leave now. If you can live with your dishonor, I am sure I can."
"I will be there," she said, then she angrily turned on her heel and left him.
Tearle smiled at her back. He was very happy.
Chapter Eleven
« ^ »
Zared sat rigidly on her horse, trying not to look at the man who rode beside her, the man who was her husband. They had been married for two days, and she was still a virgin. She was glad, of course—glad that the Howard man had not touched her—but some part of her, some part deep within her, resented the fact that he had not made her his wife.
But then she had said a few things to him that seemed to make him quite angry.
After she had agreed to marry him he had lost no time in going to her brother to ask his permission for the marriage. Severn, still involved in his own marriage negotiations, had not wasted much time in thinking about giving his permission. He liked Tearle, and he thought Liana had sent him, so Severn quickly consented. Zared had been hurt at how little attention her brother had paid to the matter of her marriage. Severn had given her a perfunctory kiss on the forehead and gone back to counting coins with Hugh Marshall.
Zared hadn't said a word to Tearle as they walked to the church, and her mumbled replies to the priest in answer to his questions could hardly be heard. After the ceremony she had stood rigid as Tearle had bent and kissed her cheek. There were others in the church, and they were snickering, for it looked as though the big man was marrying a slim boy. Zared kept her head up, refusing Tearle's arm as they left the church and went to their waiting horses.
She mounted and then tried to still her growing fear. What did the Howard plan for her? Did he mean to take her back to his brother's place, to the place for which Peregrines had died? Would he turn her over to his brother to use against her brothers?
"I am not the devil," Tearle said as he mounted his horse. "You need not look at me as though I mean to torture you."
She hadn't answered him. She didn't ask him where he was leading her or what he planned to do with her. Of course, he had said that he was going to take her back to her brothers and that he would live with the Peregrines, but she was not sure she believed him.
They left the Marshall lands, taking only what they could carry on their horses, and outside the grounds they were met by three men—Howard men.
Zared knew then that she had been betrayed by him. She cursed herself, for she knew that her marriage was going to cause the deaths of her two remaining brothers. She rode beside the man who was her husband, but she did not speak to him. Several times he tried to talk to her, but she didn't answer him. It took all her strength and all her courage to hold back her tears. She tried to think of ways to kill the three knights who rode with them, but she didn't think she could do it. She had to face what she knew was going to happen.
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