I smile serenely, in love with myself and pleased with my progress. I will be a maiden for all eternity, with skin softer and suppler than my daughter Seren’s.
Alas, poor sweet Seren—I smile more deeply—perhaps my most beautiful daughter will discover a bit of irony in wedding a beast… someone beneath her… someone who offers me great riches and power… but hideous to awake to. I will arrange this. But later.
Right now, I study my choices: One man wears a doublet, with chainmail gussets sewn into the vest and the sigil of his house emblazoned on the front— a golden two-headed falcon with a maxim that read Altium, citius, fortius.
Swifter, higher, stronger…
How swift would he be if I should happen to drop my spell of glamor and show my true self? I laugh inwardly at this… my breasts quaking with amusement, for not even my own daughters could possibly anticipate the truth: I am seventy years old—my mother’s age when she died. And, aye, she had me when she was but twenty, and spat my brother out one year later, before letting her womb rot and die.
I did the reverse. I let my womb lie fallow until I grew older… wiser…. I had my first-born child at the age of forty-six—older than my lover, and he never knew it. I bore Elspeth to bind him to me, and then, I was weak, allowing Emrys to get me with child—and oh, how my brother loved this news, even as I lamented an end to my plans. But life gives us choices, does it not?
Alas, my Emrys is gone—his bones resting in a reliquary—and one day, I will hand them to my daughter Rhiannon, because it will please me immensely to show my little girl how the weak should end. I will tell her all about the father she never knew, and how he died, and she will fall to her knees and weep… but I tell you what she will not do: She will not embrace the Death Crone’s rage. This is why my daughters will ever be poppets, made to serve my needs. The thought alone makes me happy—truly happy—for the first time since learning Elspeth ran away.
Ungrateful little bitch.
She could have had so much. She could have slept in the high priestess’s bed. She could have cast her spells into the Witch Goddess’s cauldron and she could have ruled Blackwood in my stead.
But nay! Oh, nay! She would prefer—what? A life on the run? With no safe harbor? Ever? Because some day, I tell you, England will, indeed, hand the crown to a lady… and that woman will be me, not Matilda. I have a hundred lifetimes to see it done… little… by little… by little.
One man across the room peers at me now—the one with the doublet—and I am drawn to him. I think about Blackwood. I think about Rhiannon and decide that she’s the one who should inherit Blackwood anyway—for her father and for me—although my second eldest first requires a lesson in obeisance.
Annoyed now, I am compelled to retrieve my scrying stone… to look and be sure my will is being done. But I am equally hungry for something else… and the night is no longer quite so young.
The other occupant of the room is a kitchen boy, taking his supper. The innkeeper hired the boy to keep him about as a second choice, but it is my experience that boys like that are never good to keep after a letting. They run their mouths. They run away.
Unfortunately, the other choice seems antsy. Apparently, he’s a deserter, who, rather than meet his fate at the end of a sword blade, fled the battle. Luckily for me, the innkeeper has a reputation for helping unfortunates find a way across the narrow sea.
Calais. Calais. The sanctuary of the hapless.
Considering the deserter now, I fiddle with my ring, wondering over the spell I’ve been meaning to try… and thinking, down in my bones, now could be the time.
Daw is his name.
Daw.
In my native tongue, it means beloved one.
Come here, my beloved, I say without moving my lips.
Blinking, the lad peers up from his tankard, glancing in my direction—fair-haired with bright blue eyes, like a Viking. He’ll do, I decide, and push my hood back, allowing him to see me for the first time. But, of course, he cannot resist, for I am a siren. I am a Goddess. I am lust incarnate.
I meet his gaze, and revel in the bright red aura of desire that ignites about him like a glorious flame. He arises from his bench and the youth in him warms my blood. My nipples pucker, and my hand falls beneath the table, sliding beneath my robe; I am famished.
“Hail,” he says.
“Halloo, Daw.”
In my peripheral, I see the innkeeper comes out from behind the bar and taps the kitchen boy on the shoulder to draw him into the back room as Daw seats himself in the facing bench before me. His cheeks are flushed, and his brow is moist with sweat, but his eyes are filled with lust while mine are filled with bloodlust. My aura draws his in, black swirling tendrils furling about the bright red desire, and sucking it hungrily inside the black.
“May I buy you an ale?” he says, but I know all he has in his purse is a single coin he was given by the innkeeper for cleaning the stable.
“What a dear, dear man,” I say with a warm smile.
I shed my cloak now, revealing myself to his lustful gaze. “I am Morwen,” I say silkily, and the Crone in me revels behind my shy Maiden’s smile.
Chapter Fifteen
Despite the gritty wine, Malcom was half soused when the knock sounded on his door—a soft, tentative rap he may not have heard if he were not already painfully awake.
Wearied of attempting to finagle a comfortable position in the wooden chair, he rose to answer the door and found a young maid by the name of Alyss shrinking behind it.
He remembered the lass from his last visit. Not daring to look him in the eyes, she deposited a number of items into his arms, begged his pardon for the intrusion, then turned to flee as quickly as her legs could carry her.
Malcom was accustomed to such treatment from the fairer sex. He wasn’t the most agreeable sort, nor, in truth, entirely pleasing to look at. He fingered the scar at the upper right corner of his forehead. Although he’d managed to save his face, for the most part, his body was a testament to the violence he’d engaged in over the past eleven years of his life.
He closed the door again, and supposing the gifts must be for Elspeth, he carried them into the room, placing them at the foot of the bed where she slept so peacefully.
Somehow, the knock on the door hadn’t disturbed her, and he marveled over the trust she’d placed in him to sleep so soundly, even despite the fright she must have taken over Beauchamp.
A blind man couldn’t have missed the look of fear on her face when she’d laid her eyes on the man—or the stiffness in her body when they’d ridden into the bailey.
Skirting around the bed to the side where Elspeth lay, he stood scrutinizing her a long moment, trying to make sense over the protective feelings he was experiencing.
He understood intuitively what his Da must have felt when he’d taken Page into his keeping—enduring even her fury in order to save her feelings. Her father had cast her away, crowing to his Da that he could “keep her or kill her, he cared not which.” In fact, those were his precise words, Malcom remembered. And lest he should wound her more than it seemed she must be already, his father had traveled all the way back to Scotia without ever telling Page the truth, even when his own men questioned his judgment and his sanity. In the end, his father had been prepared to do battle for her honor and defied even their king.
Was Malcom prepared to defy his?
The answer to that question niggled him because it made him question his own moral boundaries—and, of course, his motives as well. Was it a man’s duty to keep his oaths at all cost? Or should he be compelled to break them for the ones he loved?
He didn’t even wish to examine the point that he couldn’t possibly love Elspeth. He didn’t even know her. At any rate, back in those days when his father championed Page, his Da had never truly considered David his king, nor had he given David any oath, so the decision for him had been much simpler. And yet, could he imagine a world or circumstances where his father would not ha
ve defended him, or Page, no matter who he must defy?
Remembering that day before the Battle of the Standard, when he’d faced his father across a battlefield, he felt sick to his gut anew…
There stood a man who’d loved his kinsmen well, and his son no less. Yet, compelled by his own honor, Malcom had been forced to call him enemy.
His father’s broken heart had been evident in those stark blue eyes, and Malcom had turned away with a sting in his own, lifting his sword regardless.
It hadn’t mattered that he didn’t trade blows with his father that day. What mattered was that he’d turned his back to the man who’d raised him, raising his sword against men he’d once considered compatriots, and his own sire could have easily died that day.
All these years later, it still gave him a turn of the gut.
So, then, would he now defy his king for a woman he barely knew, when he so readily had turned his back on his father? And what was this burden he felt—this undeniable sense of responsibility for the woman lying in that bed?
It was a conundrum for certain—one he didn’t care to think about overmuch.
In the end, he must do what he was compelled to do, and damned be the consequences. Damned be everyone. Damned be himself.
Raking a hand through the growing stubble of his beard, he considered returning to the chair… but it was past time to seek Beauchamp. There would be time aplenty to sleep later… after he was dead.
He’d wake Elspeth once it was time for repast. As pleased as he was that she’d eaten a bit of the cheese and bread, he hoped she might be a good bit hungrier when she awoke. Certainly, Beauchamp would offer them a heartier meal belowstairs and the journey to Aldergh was bound to be long. He wanted to leave on the morrow with a belly full. Considering the situation with his father, he daren’t stop again at Drakewich, or anywhere else on the journey north. Already, he’d tarried long enough—and to that end, if indeed she meant to accompany him all the way to Aldergh, he should impress upon Beauchamp to sell him another horse. That way, she could ride more befitting a lady. And neither did he prefer forcing Merry Bells to carry the weight of two.
Sighing again, Malcom rubbed the back of his neck to relieve a bit of tension, thinking about Cael d’Lucy. Elspeth might have been well served by an alliance with that man, but Malcom found himself inexplicably pleased she did not aspire to be his wife. Admittedly, she was a woman he could covet for himself—if he allowed it—and for an instant, just an instant, as he stood watching Elspeth sleep, he imagined again this could be their bedchamber… at Aldergh… And he remembered the waking dream he’d had, and his body sprang to life.
Oh, how he longed to crawl into that bed beside her. But far more than simply igniting his ardor, the images accosting him again gave him an intense longing for more than mere pleasures of the flesh. He longed for sleepy embraces and good night kisses… wee bairns clinging to his knees.
Ach, but God, it had been far too long since he’d enjoyed any such familial sounds, and right now, he craved them with a part of his soul too long denied.
So, then, was this why that impossible proclamation burst from his lips?
Did he covet Elspeth to be his bride?
The answer to that was: aye. He did.
Inexplicably, Malcom found himself bonded with the girl. But he would not have her unless she desired him as well—and for that matter, despite the morning’s considerations, he would never hand her over to a man she did not wish to wed, no matter what Stephen decreed, and no matter whether she returned Malcom’s ardor or not. He was Stephen’s man in all things military, but he would no more hand this woman over against her will than he would betray his own mother… or a wee boy… as someone he’d once trusted had done to him.
No matter how old he might grow, Malcom would never forget that intense sense of betrayal and loss. And he would never forget the day when he’d found himself standing before Aldergh’s gates, knees trembling and tears pricking at his eyes over merely the anticipation of being reunited with his father. Six years old he’d been that day—a wee lad torn from the bosom of his kin.
So, then, unless Elspeth herself should decree it, he could never allow her to be used against her will. But now that the notion had wormed its way into his head, he wondered… would she welcome an alliance with a Scots born man from the hinterlands… whose station was little different from the lord of Blackwood’s? And even if she would agree to such a proposal… would Malcom, indeed, be willing to break his oath to keep her?
Crossing his arms, studying her face in slumber, he wondered… what was it about Elspeth that seemed so oddly familiar… could it be that he knew her mother?
Her father was dead, so she’d said; who was he?
At last, realizing there could be no better time to tend to his wound than now, whilst she slept, he removed his gambeson, tossing it onto the bed, grateful that Beauchamp had not yet asked what he was doing in the vicinity. He lifted the hem of his sherte, shrugging it off as well.
Opting for lighter accoutrements, he’d packed the hauberk and coif into his saddlebag, knowing full well that they were riding into allied lands and he wouldn’t need them—not today.
It was only belatedly, as he tossed the sherte onto the bed that he realized his wound did not pain him. Surprised by the revelation, Malcom twisted to see what he could find… and found himself befuddled as he stared at the spot on his shoulder where his wound should have been… but wasn’t. It was gone.
Gone as in gone—not simply healed. There was no trace of blood, not even a scab, or a long-healed scar. By all that was holy, it was as though there had never been any wound at all. At least not on his shoulder. Right there, in that very spot, his skin remained entirely unblemished, with nary a scratch. But… it couldn’t be. Shaking his head in bewilderment, he retrieved his sherte, if only to inspect the integrity of the material, and sure enough, he found a rent as big as his fist.
The gambeson, as well, bore a telltale rip.
Only his shoulder had evidence to the contrary:
Slowly, he turned to Elspeth, blinking down at the girl. He knew instinctively—inexplicably—that it must have been her. Only what had she done? Naught that he could remember.
Mentally, Malcom retraced their steps since last evening. She’d washed his wound with his rag. Then later, after supping, she’d rubbed a salve on him that she’d made from herbs she’d foraged. Already annoyed, and unwilling to suffer the scent of his own burning flesh, he’d denied her the opportunity to cauterize the wound, thinking it far too soon anyway, and hoping it would heal on its own, because, God knew, he already had too many hideous scars and didn’t relish another.
Of course, she had argued with him, only briefly, before setting about to making her salve, crushing herbs on the back of his shield with the hilt of his dagger. And then she’d also made him a strange tea, and whatever she’d given him put him straight to sleep…
Confused, he pressed his fingers into the flesh at his shoulder. But there was no soreness. Very simply, and mysteriously, the wound had… vanished.
Dumbfounded, Malcom tossed the sherte back down on the bed and went to retrieve a clean tunic from his bag—one last time, checking the ruined hauberk. Like the sherte and gambeson, the damage there remained. And now, again, he turned to study the girl sleeping on the bed…
Who the hell are you, Elspeth of Llanthony?
Chapter Sixteen
Stifling a yawn, Elspeth opened her eyes, slightly disoriented.
Having slept so soundly for the first time in two days, it took a moment to register where she lay. The curtains were still drawn, and it was impossible to say what the hour might be.
“My lady?”
Startled by the whispered voice, Elspeth bolted upright as a torch swept into the room.
Malcom was gone. Two women approached the bed—a lovely fair-haired woman with a sweet face and kindly brown eyes, joined by another with hair much the same color as Elspeth’s—only cur
lier—and eyes the color of a bright blue flame. Both women were young, or at least younger than Elspeth, and their auras were not threatening—shades of pink, green, orange and silver.
Seeing that she was awake, the second woman, the one holding the torch, proceeded across the chamber to set her flame to each of the cressets, before putting the torch—the one she held—into a brace by the door. Afterward, she returned to stand behind her mistress, her hands crossed before her submissively.
“Art awake?” asked the girl with the fiery hair and disarming smile.
“Aye,” Elspeth said. “Where is Malcom?”
“Your lord husband?”
Elspeth hedged, furrowing her brow. But then she nodded, blushing, surmising that one of these women must be Beauchamp’s sister. The lady that addressed her smiled wider. “He’s belowstairs, in the hall, speaking to my brother. As it has been many hours since you laid down to rest, my lord was concerned.”
Malcom was concerned? Elspeth scooted to the edge of the bed, casting her feet over the side. “I… I am fine,” she reassured the ladies. “I am but wearied from travel.” And, it was true, although she didn’t know why, though she was far more tired than she had ever been in her life—as though, body and soul she’d suffered some great ordeal, and perhaps she had.
“I thought as much,” the girl said, smiling still. “But you should be up now, or you’ll miss the feast we’ve provided in your honor.”
“Feast?”
“Aye, my lady. Alyss and I have come to help you dress.”
Realizing belatedly that she was still wearing the Llanthony tunic and breeches, Elspeth laid a hand atop her breast and gasped. “Oh,” she said in consternation.
“You need have no cause for worry, Lady Aldergh.”
The epithet startled Elspeth so much that she blinked.
“Your lord husband already explained… you lost your gown in the burn when you stopped to wash.” But she hid a shy smile as she peered at her lady’s maid, and their private exchange left very little doubt as to what they truly believed she and Malcom had been doing by the burn. Just to make it clearer, both their cheeks flushed so darkly that Elspeth thought they looked like poppets with painted cheeks.
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