“Nay, ’twould na benefit him with castle walls ta protect us.”
“Then come to bed.”
It took every shred of his willpower to look away from the temptation she presented simply by breathing and peer at the dark countryside. “Soon.”
She hesitated. “I had not thought to have this talk in such a strange place, but perhaps you need to hear it now. What if I were to tell you that I’m with child?”
He gave a start, then took her by the arms and stared down at her face as if everything he ever needed or wanted to know was to be found in her gentle eyes. For a moment he did not trust himself to speak around the swelling in his throat. “A bairn,” he said softly. “My bairn.”
“Then you are happy?”
He laughed and kissed her swiftly and then enfolded her in his embrace. “Happy? Aye, ye’ve made me that, sweet Abrielle.”
“Then welcome home,” she whispered.
He laid his large hand on her stomach, and she sighed. Feeling a new hopefulness, she was inclined to think of the joy their children would bring to them. She told herself that her marriage would not always be filled with the tension of sieges and attacks. She and Raven had to live for the future—and the infant growing inside her.
BEFORE DAWN, A horn sounded to alert the household, all of whom were already up preparing for the grim day. Those not in the courtyard rushed outside, only to see soldiers running at them, waving them back, their faces harsh with fear.
The first volley of fiery arrows lit the sky, rivaling the coming sunrise, raining down on the courtyard from where Abrielle and the women had just fled.
CHAPTER 22
Under a dark sky that the sun didn’t pierce, the sight of flames flying in the sky made one stare in horror. The terrible screams of frightened people jolted Abrielle back to life, her heart lurching painfully. Although the women were urged back inside, and Isolde dragged Elspeth within the keep, Abrielle could not go. Most of the burning arrows landed harmlessly in the dirt of the courtyard, but several hit the roof of the stables and the barracks, and men were forced to climb up, passing buckets to one another to douse the blaze.
A lone shriek made her whirl around, and she saw a child staggering, waving her burning sleeve in fear. Abrielle ran to her and used her own skirt to smother the flames. She handed the dazed child to her sobbing mother, and then ran about the courtyard, stamping flames wherever she saw them on the ground.
In minutes the fires were extinguished, and she waited in shock, wondering when the next volley would be launched.
“What is happening?” she demanded of Raven’s captain of the guard as he rushed past her. “Why have they stopped?”
The man turned briefly. “They don’t have the men or equipment to force their entrance, so they are using your fear against you, my lady. They want you to wonder when the next attack will come.”
There were sudden shouts from the soldiers on the battlements only moments before another volley of flaming arrows cleared the curtain wall.
“We’re trained in this, my lady,” the captain called as he began to run toward the barracks. “Our own archers even now fire constantly on the enemy, who must dodge or hold their shields above their heads. Fear not!”
At least the children were now safe inside, Abrielle thought, glad she didn’t have to hear such a piercing scream again, one that had frozen the very marrow in her bones. She was not the only woman to remain in the courtyard, smothering flames with blankets, shouting and pointing when a fire started where they couldn’t reach. Men were stationed at the wells, constantly bringing up water and filling buckets.
Overhead, the clouds roiled, but no rain fell to aid them. The air was oppressive with the hesitation of the storm, and the heat of the flames that sometimes resisted death. An hour later, there was a larger gap between the launching of the arrows, and Abrielle had a moment to stare about her. The dovecote had gone up in flames, and no one had been able to save the poor birds. A pile of hay near the stables still smoldered. Women and men sagged wearily wherever they could sit during a moment’s respite. Faces were blackened, garments charred, and hair singed.
“Abrielle!”
She heard her husband’s stern voice.
“What are ye doing?” he demanded fiercely. “Go inside at once!”
“I will not! I am doing nothing more strenuous than stamping on flames.”
“I demand that ye—”
“This is my home now, is it not?” she cried. “I will protect it, too!”
Raven had never felt such fear in his life as when he espied his wife—the woman he loved more than life and who was carrying his child—darting from the path of flaming arrows. Inside him a surge of tenderness warred with his need to see her safe.
“I’ll care for her!”
Raven and Abrielle turned to see Cordelia marching toward them. Wisps of blond hair stood out from her dirty face, and she dragged a singed cloth behind her that she’d obviously been using to fight the flames.
“Can you take her inside?” Raven demanded.
“I shall try,” Cordelia said firmly. “Now go do what you need to.”
With a nod, Raven loped away toward the stairs leading to the battlements.
Abrielle folded her arms across her chest. “I shall not go.”
“I know,” Cordelia said wearily. “But promise me you’ll take care, and you’ll stay near me at all times.”
“I promise,” Abrielle said, looking up at the sky with dread. After a moment she said softly, “How long can this continue?”
“Until they run out of arrows.” Cordelia leaned against an empty horse trough. “But if they planned this all along, then they came prepared.”
“Do not say that.” Abrielle stared up at the clouds, her anger flaring. “Why does it not rain?”
To her horror, more arrows streamed out of the sky, a trail of flames behind them. Her vow to stay with Cordelia came to naught when they both scattered to put out fires. Abrielle beat at flames with the small rug she’d taken from inside, coughing when she inhaled a blast of smoke. But she had a moment’s clarity in which she realized that there were fewer arrows than when they’d first begun. Raven’s archers were surely hitting their targets. All the keep had to do was outlast Thurstan’s supply of men, and then it would be over.
“The roof!” a soldier shouted from the battlements.
All eyes looked up in shock and fear, but those on the ground could not see the top of the keep. Yet Abrielle realized that only the roof on fire could motivate such tired men, who suddenly ran across the walkways overhead connecting the battlements to the keep. Abrielle had never prayed so hard in her life.
But she could not continue to watch the sky when she heard a familiar voice scream. She stared wildly around her, only to see Cordelia frantically beating at her own skirt, where flames licked along the hem and rose higher. Abrielle started to run, but before she could even take two steps, Cedric appeared through the haze of smoke and knocked Cordelia to the ground, smothering the flames with his own body. Abrielle swayed and sat down on a bench near the garden.
Weeping, Cordelia clung to Cedric, letting him rock her, before at last she straightened and wiped at her wet, dirty face.
To Cedric, she had never looked more beautiful. “Lass, are ye well? Are there burns?”
“Nay, you saved me in time,” Cordelia said, hiccupping on a sob as she gave him a wobbly smile.
“What a brave, fine lass ye are,” he said, grinning. “Now take Abrielle and go inside. Surely there will soon be wounded who need your attention.”
“The roof—”
“Is being attended ta even as we speak,” he said. “Now go.”
Although there was a somberness in his manner that boded ill, Cordelia gulped and nodded, meeting Abrielle’s exhausted gaze.
Abrielle forced herself to her feet, knowing that she was so tired, she might do more harm than good in the courtyard. “I will go.”
Leaning
on each other, the two good friends slowly trudged up the stairs and into the great hall. To their surprise, there were only a few servants about. Elspeth came out of the kitchens and, on seeing them, hurried over.
“Where is everyone?” Abrielle asked.
“Oh, dear, are you hurt?” her mother demanded.
“Nay, I am sure I look far worse than I feel.”
“Isolde has led women up into the sewing room to look for heavy cloth to put out fires,” Elspeth interrupted, looking askance at Cordelia. “She fears for you.”
“I shall go to her. Abrielle, you will remain here?”
“Aye, I will, and this time I mean my promise.”
Cordelia nodded and hurried away.
“And the servants?” Abrielle said.
“Most are trying to help in one way or another. Would you assist me in setting out bread trenchers for the stew?”
“But, Mama, surely I can be of more use to the injured.”
“The Seaberns have their own healer. Even now, she has set up her medicines in the chapel, but thankfully, there are only a few injuries so far.” Elspeth stared into her daughter’s eyes. “But you, my dear, need to rest and eat.”
Abrielle frowned at the way her mother was hovering over her. And then the truth dawned. “You know, do you not?”
“About the babe? Aye, I guessed. I imagine a man like Raven would not need long to give his seed life.”
Abrielle sighed. “We wanted to tell you all in a special moment, where we could celebrate.”
“And celebrate we shall, for ’tis a joyous event. I shall be a grandmother at the same time I become a mother all over again.”
Abrielle felt a smile tug at her lips.
“Vachel will become a father and grandfather all at once!”
Shaking her head, Abrielle groaned with a faint amusement.
“Now you are feeling better,” Elspeth said. “Now come, the trenchers are near the kitchen. Help me set them at the tables.”
Two other women emerged from the kitchen to help as Abrielle took a stack of bread and began to walk to a far table. For a moment she could almost forget that outside the sky rained fire, and that people battled to save her new home. The few women working with her did not speak, concentrating on their tasks with the dull lethargy of exhaustion.
Ad then an unholy scream echoed through the hall, the sound like a demon from hell. Abrielle whirled and had only a moment to see a heavy woman rushing at her, wild black hair fanning back from her distorted face. The witch, Mordea, Desmond’s sister, had come for her vengeance.
OUTSIDE THE KEEP, Thurstan de Marlé broke in two the shaft of an arrow that protruded from his chest, distantly surprised that he didn’t feel any pain. He watched the flames on the roof spew higher, and waited for the cries of lament to begin over the death of Abrielle Seabern. His revenge was so close at hand that he could taste its bitter sweetness.
ABRIELLE ONLY HAD a moment to fling up her hands, but her meager defense was useless against Mordea’s insane strength. Her taloned fingers closed about Abrielle’s neck, cutting off the very air she needed to breathe. Abrielle clawed desperately at the woman’s hands, but could not pry them off.
Mordea shook her like a dog. “Ye won’t give birth ta another heir, not when my Thurstan deserves all ye stole from him!”
Women screamed and fled for help, but not Elspeth. Seeing her daughter in the grip of a madwoman focused her mind, replacing terror with grim determination. No fear could exist for long in a mother’s heart when her child was in danger. Snatching up a pitcher, she ran at Mordea from behind, lifted the pitcher high, and brought it down on the woman’s head, shattering the vessel into a thousand pieces. Mordea staggered and fell, taking Abrielle with her.
Raven burst through the great double doors just as Abrielle rolled clear of Mordea’s slack arms and came to her knees, coughing violently. Elspeth started to sob, pulling at her daughter as if to get her far away from such a source of evil. But Mordea did not move.
Raven swept Abrielle into his arms, lifting her right off the floor in his need to hold her close to him. He felt the frantic thudding of her heart…and his own. “Are ye all right, my love?”
She nodded, her coughing finally fading, her hand at her sore throat. “I’ll be bruised, but none the worse for wear, thanks to my mother. Please put me down so I can go to her.”
Elspeth stood alone, hugging herself, crying, and the two women fell into each other’s arms and sobbed loudly. More and more people streamed from the doorways leading down corridors, gathering around and whispering.
Raven rolled Mordea onto her back and saw her sightless eyes staring at the ceiling. “She’s dead.”
With a gasp, Elspeth lifted her head from Abrielle’s shoulder. “But I didn’t mean to kill her!”
“Mama, you were saving me! Her death was an accident, yet she was an evil woman who was bent on destroying anyone she could.”
Elspeth nodded several times, her tears slowing until she heard her husband’s voice. Then she sank into Vachel’s arms and cried again.
“How did Mordea enter the keep?” Abrielle asked hoarsely.
Raven rose to his feet and put his arm around her, speaking with grim certainty. “The serfs entered just before we closed the gates. ’Twould have been easy enough for her ta disguise herself, especially with the cloak she’s wearing. I blame myself. Thurstan’s forces hadna yet arrived, so I assumed that he had no one near enough ta pose a threat.” He closed his eyes for a brief moment. “I could have cost ye your life, Abrielle.”
“Nay, think no more of it,” she said firmly. “This siege is not yet finished.”
“They send in fewer and fewer arrows. Their stores are surely depleted, and more men lie on the ground than yet stand, the victims of our archers. I say that we tell de Marlé that his plan didna work and see what he does.”
“We could offer him her body,” Abrielle said, glancing with a shudder at the dead woman. “She was almost an aunt to him. And I’m coming with you.”
“Abrielle—”
“How can I be in more danger at your side than I’ve already experienced here?”
And he could not disagree with that.
On the battlements, Abrielle received her first view of the countryside spread out below the castle walls. She felt sick upon seeing the several dozen men lying in heaps, only a few barely stirring. But when she turned and caught her first sight of the castle roof, a corner of it still ablaze as men worked frantically, she could no longer pity the brigands who were foolish enough to follow Thurstan’s cause.
Only a dozen men stood upright below, dipping arrows into fires built for that purpose. She looked up at the dark sky, black clouds threatening. Rain might be their only hope for stopping the whole roof from going up in flames, which would take the entire keep with it. If the flames spread any farther, they would soon have to abandon the building.
“Thurstan de Marlé!” Raven shouted.
Down below, the soldiers paused, and Raven could see the man they turned to. Thurstan stood in the forefront of his men, his shield hanging awkwardly at his side, no longer protecting him. Raven realized that he had been hit with an arrow, and only remained standing out of sheer determination.
“I see your roof in flames,” Thurstan called back, obscene laughter threatening in his voice. “It will not be long now, Seabern.”
“’Twill be longer than ye think, de Marlé. Your men are dwindling, and my men will soon have the fire under control.”
Abrielle glanced back at the roof, and wondered if her husband only bluffed.
“I offer the body of the woman ye considered an aunt, the woman ye sent in alone ta do your work for ye.”
Thurstan let the point of his sword lower into the earth, and he almost staggered as he leaned against it. “She failed?”
“She did!” Abrielle cried indignantly. “I am here, Thurstan, and I yet thrive!”
His head hung for a moment, all of his p
lans falling into ruin around him. But he gathered the last of his strength and shouted, “You’re a traitor, Abrielle of Harrington!”
His refusal to use her married name made her flinch.
“You’ll never be able to return to the country of your birth,” he added savagely, falling heavily to his knees.
“Your words mean nothing to me!” she cried. “Raven is my husband, and by the blessings of God and king and my own woman’s heart, to him I’m bound.”
As she looked into Raven’s beloved face, rain began to fall, dripping down his skin like tears of joy. In the distance, she heard the cheers of their tired people.
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