The Conquest

by Jude Deveraux

  "Did not take the child? What do you mean?"

  "I do not know," Rogan said. "The man is always full of words."

  At the very idea that Tearle didn't take Rogan's son Zared's heart leaped, but she made it be still. She had believed in him once, but she was not going to believe in him again. She stood there rigidly, seeing that he was having difficulty in standing, but by some great force of will he was making himself remain upright. He had not looked in her direction since he had left the courtyard.

  "Rogan," Liana said, "I want to hear what the man says."

  "Nay," Rogan said. "I will hear no more of his lies." He turned to his men. "Take him below."

  Zared would not have thought that Tearle had any fight left in him, but he struggled against Rogan's men when they put their hands on him.

  It was at the struggle that Rogan's son let out a cry of protest and ran toward the men. The child, who was afraid of nothing, ran straight into their heavily shod feet.

  Everyone else in the room was so intent on what was happening with the adults that no one but Liana saw the child. She gave a scream of fright, and when she did nearly everyone looked down and saw the boy just as one of Rogan's men's fists came toward the boy's head.

  With his last bit of effort Tearle twisted and used his own body to protect the child from the blow. The fist hit Tearle's side, and everyone in the room heard the crack of Tearle's ribs.

  For a moment all was still, everyone too stunned by what had happened to move. Tearle was on the floor, his body protectively over the child.

  Liana went to her child, but the boy put his arms around Tearle's neck and held on.

  Zared did not seem able to move as she stood to one side and watched. Tearle, with tears of pain in his eyes, rolled to a sitting position and took the child in his arms.

  He looked over the boy's head to Liana, who was standing by, shaking with fear from having come, again, so close to losing her child, for had the man's fist struck the child, it would have no doubt killed him.

  "We have become friends in the last days," Tearle said, his voice strained and shallow.

  Rogan started toward the man and boy, but Liana put her hand out to stop him. "What happened?" she whispered.

  They could all see that it was with utmost difficulty that Tearle spoke, and there was no imagining the pain the sturdy child must be causing him as he moved about on Tearle's lap, but the boy would not leave Tearle even when his mother held out her arms to him.

  "I could not sleep," Tearle said, and they could hardly hear him. "I went below, and…" He took a breath and closed his eyes for a moment against the pain. "The child was there. We… we played with a ball for a while." Tearle took another breath. "I must have fallen asleep. I opened my eyes, and the gate was open, and the child was gone." Tearle winced as the active little boy kicked him in the stomach, but Tearle merely put his hand on the child's foot and gently held it.

  "I went to the gate and saw the boy walking toward the forest." Tearle took a breath. "My brother's men watch this place."

  "We know that," Rogan snapped. "I will not listen to this."

  Liana put herself between her husband and Tearle. She was protective of the child and anyone whom the child befriended. "What did you do?"

  "I saddled my horse and went after the boy," Tearle said, and he looked at the boy fondly, his big hand on the back of the child's head. "My brother's men had taken him, just as I feared."

  The boy sat down in Tearle's lap and began to play with the tattered remnants of his surcoat.

  Tearle looked up at Liana. "I could not kill my brother's men, and I could not risk injury to the boy. I went with them in order to protect the boy."

  "I will listen to no more of these lies. He is a Howard and is as dangerous as a snake," Rogan said.

  Liana turned on her husband. "Do you think your son is so stupid that he does not know an enemy when he sees one? Was the boy so at ease with the other men?"

  "He was frightened of the other men," Severn said. "Remember, Rogan? The boy screamed when one of the men came too near him."

  "I remember nothing," Rogan said, but he didn't move toward Tearle.

  Tearle looked down at the boy in his lap. "My brother's men are barbarians. They would have killed him for the sport of it. I could not allow that." He ran his hand down the boy's leg. "He is a fine lad."

  Zared had not said a word, but it was at that moment that she knew he was telling the truth. He had done just what he said he had done: He had gone after the boy and stayed with him to protect him.

  "He is telling the truth," she whispered to her brother, and she could feel Tearle's eyes on her.

  "A Howard does not know how to tell the truth."

  "He does, and he is," Zared said, her jaw clenched. "He did not take the child." She glared at her brother. "Where did you find my husband?"

  When Rogan did not immediately answer her she knew without a doubt that her husband had been telling the truth, and suddenly she felt lighter than she ever had in her life. "Where was he when you found him?" she practically shouted at her brother.

  "He was returning," Severn said.

  "Returning?" Zared's heart became even lighter. "You mean he was coming back here? He was bringing the child with him and coming back here? I thought you said you killed the other Howard men."

  Rogan had a look on his face that said he was not going to speak, so Zared looked to Severn,

  "They were chasing him," Severn said quietly.

  At that both women erupted, and they attacked the two brothers. "He was running away from his brother's men? You killed the Howard men, and then you beat the man who was saving your son?" This last was from Liana.

  Liana went to her husband and looked up at him. "Is your hatred so strong that it colors your judgment? For weeks I have seen you punish this man, and day after day he has taken your abuse, yet I have seen no evidence that he is the devil that you claim he is." She gestured toward her son. "Look you at them. Your three-year-old son has more sense than you do. He knows a friend when he sees one."

  With that she turned to Tearle and bent to him. "You may be a Howard, but you have proven that you are a friend. Thank you for saving my child." She leaned forward and kissed Tearle's cheek, then took her heavy son from his lap and stood up. "Take our friend and care for him," she said to the men. "He is to be treated with the utmost care that we can offer him."

  Tearle pushed the helping hands away, hands that a moment before had tried to kill him. Slowly, with much pain, he managed to rise without aid. "I will stay here no longer. I will go home."

  Liana looked at him and nodded. She felt very bad for the way she had treated him in the past few weeks, but she understood that he did not want to see any of the Peregrines ever again.

  Zared moved to stand beside her husband and looked at her brother in defiance. "I am going with him."

  Before Rogan could protest Tearle turned to look down at her. "No," he said.

  She looked up at him. "I want to go with you. Wherever you go, I want to go with you."

  His swollen face was cold and hard. "No. I do not want you."

  Cold fear washed over Zared. "But I trust you. I know you did not take the child. I know now that you are not my enemy."

  His face did not soften. "You did not believe in me. I saw the hatred in your eyes. You thought I was guilty, just as your brothers did." He looked away from her as though the matter were settled and looked at Liana. "May I have the return of my horse? I would leave now."

  Liana's eyes widened. "You cannot think to ride a horse. You are injured, and you have no men to go with you to protect you."

  "I would leave this place now," he said, gasping against the effort.

  After that no one stood in his way. No one tried to persuade him to remain in the Peregrine castle. Even Zared stood to one side as he walked out of the room and out of her life. She watched him go, and she wanted to go after him, but her pride wouldn't allow her to go. If he didn't wa
nt her, then she didn't want him.

  "Go after him," Liana urged Zared.

  But Zared shook her head and walked up the stairs to the hallway of bedrooms. She kept her shoulders back and her eyes straight ahead, trying to will herself not to think. If she allowed herself to think, she knew that she would remember how many kind things that Tearle had done for her. From the first he had been good to her. He had put his body between her and the trampling horse at the tournament, and she had no doubt that he had saved the life of Rogan's son.

  Yet she had always doubted him. Liana had told her to go with her instincts, but Zared had not. She had allowed generations of hatred to influence her, and she had based her opinions of the man not on what she saw, but on what she thought to be true. Just as she wasn't as filled with hatred as her brothers were, just as she was different from them, she was sure that Tearle was different from his brother.

  As she moved down the hall she became aware that something was different. She stopped walking and rubbed her arms as though from cold. Then, slowly, she turned and looked behind her. The door to the haunted room was open.

  For a moment she stood where she was. She could see sunlight streaming out of the doorway and into the hall, yet she knew that it was gray and cloudy outside. The haunted room was always kept locked, and she had never been in it in her life. Before Rogan had married the second floor over the solar had not been used because everyone was afraid of the haunted room. It was said that when the lady inside was needed the door would be unlocked.

  Zared looked about her and knew that she was the only one in the hall. If the door was open, then it must be open for her.

  She took a step toward the open door, and her feet felt as though they were made of stone. She could barely lift them, but she shuffled along, inching toward the door.

  As she rounded the corner she held her breath, not having any idea what she would see inside the room. Monsters, perhaps? Ghouls?

  She was shaking as she entered the room, and the blood had drained from her face. For a moment her terror reached a peak, and she was ready to scream or run or both, but after a moment she let out her breath. There was nothing in the room but chairs with pretty cushions on them, a tapestry frame, and carpets on the wall. For all that the room had been kept locked for years, it was clean and fresh. And there was no one in it.

  Zared began to breathe easily, and she walked to the frame and looked at the half-finished tapestry. She touched the design of the lady and the unicorn on the tapestry, and as she did so a piece of paper came floating down from the ceiling.

  Zared's hand froze. She stood rooted where she was, her breath held, her body beginning to tremble as she looked at the paper on the floor. She was terrified to turn around, afraid of what she would see. Would a ghost be standing behind her?

  It was some minutes before she could move. There was no sound in the room, nor did she hear anything from outside the room, even though the door stood wide open.

  All at once, and with all the courage she could muster, she turned on her heel and looked behind her.

  Nothing. No one. There was no one in the clean room that should have been dirty. There was only sunlight in a room that should have been as dull as the day outside was.

  It took Zared a few moments before she could still her shaking body enough to look back at the piece of paper on the floor. Her legs felt a little weak from her fear, but she managed to make them work long enough to get to the paper and pick it up.

  She hadn't had enough lessons from Tearle to be able to read the entire message, but she didn't need to know how to read to know what the paper said. It was the correct number of words, and it was shaped the same way as the writing above the fireplace in Rogan's brooding room. She knew the words by heart, as all the Peregrines did.

  When the red and white make black

  When the black and gold become one

  When the one and the red unite

  Then shall you know

  It was a riddle that had been handed down in their family for centuries, long before the feud with the Howards and Peregrines began. No one had ever had any idea what it meant. When Zared was younger she had spent sleepless nights trying to figure out what the riddle meant. Sometimes she thought that if she could figure out the answer, then she could save her brothers from death. But she had grown up seeing her brothers and her father and her mother die. There had been times in her life when she had been frantic to solve the riddle, thinking that the responsibility of saving her family rested on her thin shoulders. She could not wield a sword with her brothers, but she could, perhaps, help in some other way.

  She held the paper tightly in her hand and walked out of the room. Behind her she heard the door close itself and lock. She refused to think about such a happening. "It was the wind," she whispered, and she walked faster down the hall.

  Perhaps if she could solve the riddle she could understand what was going on in her life, and perhaps she could get her husband back.

  Chapter Sixteen

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  Tearle bit into the apple and watched his brother's men train. Or perhaps he should think of them as his men, he thought, since his brother was so ill. Tearle knew that he should feel some loss at his brother's approaching death, but he couldn't bring himself to do so. He was sure that hatred was killing his brother. Even on his deathbed Oliver Howard could speak of little else but his hatred of the Peregrines.

  "They will try to take all that I have worked for," Oliver would whisper night and day. "You must be strong and keep them away from what we own. They will know that I am not here to keep them away."

  Tearle didn't answer his brother. It seemed that all the world thought he was weak. His own brother thought he was not strong enough to hold the lands. The Peregrines had always thought he was made of softness. Even his own wife—

  He did not pursue that line of thought. In fact, for the three months that he had been back from the Peregrines' he had made a constant effort not to think of the woman he had stupidly made his wife. For weeks he had lain in bed, raging with fever, close to death as his body fought off the effects of the beating the Peregrines had given him when they had judged him without a trial.

  On that day three months before, after that beating, on the long, painful ride back to the castle, he had kept the picture of his wife before him. He had thought that she would be enraged at what her brothers had done to him. He knew that at times she did not trust him and that sometimes she did not understand him, but he had been sure that she knew enough about him to know that he would never be so low as to take a child prisoner.

  Yet when he had dismounted he had looked into her eyes and seen that she believed the worst of him. She thought that he had done what they accused him of. Even after having lived with him, after having spent a great deal of time with him, she thought he was capable of stealing a child. She thought that he had married her in order to perpetuate the feud between the two families. He looked into her eyes and saw that the hatred she felt was stronger than any love that she would ever feel for him.

  For a while, between the pain of his body and the pain in his heart, he hadn't cared what the Peregrines did to him. It was instinct alone that had made him save the boy when he had seen the child was going to be struck by the man. That action had cost him much in pain, but in the end he guessed it had saved his life. At the time he hadn't cared much one way or the other, for his hatred of the Peregrines was equal to theirs of the Howards.

  He had answered Liana's questions because for the first time he'd seen a Peregrine with a face that was not twisted with hatred. He had watched as she had stepped between her husband and him.

  It was only later, when Tearle had been proven innocent, that Zared stepped forward. She said that she was ready to go with him. She was ready to go once she had been shown that he was not the villain that she had thought him to be. But he hadn't wanted her then. She hadn't believed in him when all she knew was what she had seen of him. She hadn't believed hi
m when he told her he loved her. She had believed only in her brothers and their hatred. Hate had meant much more to her than love.

  Later he managed to get on his horse, and he'd managed to stay on it long enough to ride to where his brother's men were camped. They carried him home in a cart, Tearle only half conscious, and later Oliver's wife Jeanne had nursed him through his fever and his raging.

  He was nearly fully recovered. He needed sunshine and air and some exercise and much food, for he had lost weight in his three months' recovery. Jeanne said that he would be as good as new in a few weeks, but Tearle knew that he would never recover from what had happened to him. He had been a naïve child when he had married the Peregrine brat. He had thought that love could conquer her hatred. But he had been wrong, for love had lost and hate had won.

  It was while he was leaning against the wall, his body soaking up the weak sunshine, that he noticed something unusual about one of his brother's men. There was something familiar about the boy, something about the way he moved his sword. The boy didn't look very strong, but he was agile and quick on his feet and thus managed to miss most of the blows aimed at him.

  Suddenly Tearle sat upright. That was no boy—that was his wife!

  His first impulse was to grab her by her hair and pull her off the field, but his second impulse was to leave her where she was. But if one of his brother's men should recognize the brat as the youngest Peregrine, she would be ordered killed as fast as Oliver could speak the words.

  He made himself lean back against the wall. How long had she been inside the Howard castle? How was she keeping her sex a secret from the boys? She must be living with the other men, sleeping in a bed with the boys.

  Again he had an impulse to grab her, but he forced himself to stay where he was. Damn her and her whole family, he thought.

  He watched her as she darted away from the boy's sword, and every time the boy came close to hitting her Tearle almost jumped up. It was when the boy knocked the sword from Zared's hand and sent it flying that he almost interfered, but he managed to make himself stay on the seat. He looked with disgust at the apple in his hand; he had crushed it.