Impatient now, Rhys moved to pick up the jar. His head swam from the effort as he held it up and looked at Brian. “‘Tis naught but a salve. From the smell of it, one much like an ointment for horses.”
“And of what use was it on you?” Brian retorted. “Do you have aches you would ease with ointment instead of female attention?”
Rhys frowned. There were dim memories of the strong scent, expanding warmth, and the maid spreading her hands over him, murmuring soft words in a strange language. Enchantment, Brian claimed, but the truth was that not even a night of love play had lessened his need. He still had the tight, burning ache inside, and it made his answer sharp.
“You’re the only pain I’m suffering at the moment. Pray, get you gone, and stir the others to action. We’ll leave within the hour.”
“Sir Robert readies them, my lord,” Brian said shortly. “We’ll await your arrival in front of the inn.”
Rhys still held the blue jar tight in his hand and looked up. “Pardon for my surly nature, Brian. Too much wine has shortened my temper.”
“I hope ‘tis only the wine that’s changed your nature.” Brian took a step back and said softly, “You’ve not been the same since the day in the weald.”
It was near enough to the truth to make him irritable, so he offered no argument on his behalf. He focused instead on the more necessary action of dressing but found himself stumbling and clumsy, unable to manage even the simplest buckle and baldric. Chagrined, he suffered Brian’s help. Not since he was a green lad had he required aid after a night of drinking. Worse, the memories he had of the night were hazy and unclear.
When he was ready, he turned to Brian. “Have Morgan bring Malik to the front, and I’ll join you soon.”
Brian held out Rhys’s gauntlets. “Shall I accompany you?”
“Nay. I fear you would not like my mission.” He did not miss the taut twist of Brian’s mouth, nor the quick narrowing of his eyes before he turned away. “Brian—I intend to take my leave of her.”
“Yea, but does she intend the same?”
“What do you mean by that?”
His fists clenched and unclenched at his side; worry and strain marked his face as Brian turned back and blurted, “She will not loose you, Rhys. I know it. Don’t ask me how I know, for I swear by all the saints I could not tell you. But I know.”
“Do you really think me enchanted?”
“Not, mayhaps, as you think I mean it. But yea, lord, I think you are in her thrall whether you are wont to admit it or not.”
His head pounded, his stomach heaved, and he didn’t feel like listening to absurd theories. But Brian was a good friend as well as a loyal knight, and he held him in great affection. Slapping the gauntlets idly against his palm, Rhys said mildly, “If I’m enthralled by anything, ‘tis by a night of soft female curves, not by magic. And I am not the only man so enthralled, for even Sir Peter found his way to the hay with a kitchen wench.”
“I’ve seen that kitchen wench, and what she spreads is her thighs, not magic. It’s not the same with the other.” His broad chest lifted in a heavy sigh, but there was a glint of humor in his eyes when Brian added, “If not magic, it must be powerful wine to lay you so low you must have my help to dress the next morning.”
Rhys grunted. There was no escaping the truth, but it left his temper raw to admit it. Brushing past Brian, he left the room and the inn, clomping down the narrow, dank staircase and through the common room. Fresh air burst onto his senses, bright light and the sharp tang of horses and goats and chickens all mixing together in a familiar blend in the village street.
When Rhys stepped from the stoop, Sir Robert strode toward him from the stables, his broad face creased in a worried scowl. “My lord, there is bad news I must give you.” He halted. Sir Robert drew close, shaking his head as he said, “Some of the men have fallen sick, my lord.”
“Sick. Of what malady?”
“I do not know, my lord.” Sir Robert shook his head. “I thought at first it was only the scours that comes with too much drink, but some of the men who drank only a little seem to have it as well. ‘Tis an affliction that has them groaning at the trenches, I fear.”
“How many are ill?”
Sir Robert grimaced. “‘Tis easier to count how many are well—myself, Sir Brian, Sir Peter, your squire . . .”
Rhys swore softly under his breath. Another delay. First Prince John, then his own folly, and now even nature conspired to keep him from Wales. But there was nothing he could do but yield to the unavoidable, and he gave orders for Sir Robert to see the men tended with all due care and haste.
He switched directions, moving toward the stables to see to the men, halting again when Morgan approached shaking his head. “I put the poultice on Malik’s leg like you bid, m’lord, but it did not work. He’s lame.”
Rhys muttered an oath. He had a flash of memory—a slow smile and burnished skin, dark eyes staring up at him and the warning that the horse would be lame. “Are you certain?” he asked, and his brow creased at the flash of surprise and affront in Morgan’s eyes. “‘Tis not what I meant to say. I know you can tell when the animal is lame. Is it only a bruise, or worse?”
“It’s hard to say. But he would not bear your weight today, m’lord, even should we be able to leave. Mayhap not the morrow.”
“Then it looks,” Rhys said grimly, “as if we linger awhile in Edwardstowe.”
Chapter Six
“ALL OF THEM?” Sasha pressed her lips together in a mirthful line, pretending dismay. Biagio, however, felt no such restraint. He grinned broadly. “Yea, so the innkeeper’s daughter tells me. It seems a mysterious malady felled all those knights who lingered late in the tavern last night. Even those men who did not drink too heartily are laid low and are now groaning into trenches behind the stables.”
“Then ‘tis doubtful they will travel today.” She nodded with satisfaction and sat down on a plump cushion beneath the tent’s silk ceiling. A bit of a bellyache would be the worst of it for them. Those who drank the most would suffer the most, but other than that, there was no harm in the potion that had laced their wine.
“What was in the potion?” Biagio plopped down on a striped silk cushion and crossed his legs at the ankles, leaning back on his elbows and regarding her with a lifted brow.
“Mistletoe berries with a pinch of tansy oil. It’s potent, but not harmful if used properly. Tansy in itself would have been too strong. And bitter. There are some who brew it in a tea to kill internal worms and even unborn children.” She frowned. “I do not deal with those who practice dark magic. They are dangerous people.”
“Yet you have magic of your own.” Like this . . . you know what I’m thinking . . . can hear it as if said aloud. . . .
“Perhaps, but I don’t use it to hurt people.” When he hooted with laughter, she glared at him. “Who have I ever hurt with my Gift?”
He rolled to one side and leaned his head on the slant of his palm. “Where shall I start? Madríd, perhaps, when you told that fat Spanish friar that his mistress was sleeping with the bishop—”
“He had his hand on my leg, and I would have told him the pope was on fire if I thought it would get him away from me.”
“Oh, and the time in Rheims, when you told the buxom wench with the busy hands that her husband Jacques knew about her dalliance with the pretty Frankish knight named Sir Conrad . . .”
“The buxom wench,” Sasha pointed out, “would have gotten you killed if you’d kept listening to her blandishments. I was only protecting you. She was a slut.”
“And the innkeeper’s daughter is not? Yet you seem to think nothing of sending me to whisper sweet words in her ear to find out what you want to know.” He toyed with the hilt of the dagger in his belt, eyes narrowing slightly. “He is a lord, not just a knight. Did you know that?�
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She sighed. “Yea, I heard him called so. But whether he is a lord of lands or air, is another matter. There are those lords who own naught but a title and debts. I don’t yet know his situation.”
A faint smile curled Biagio’s mouth. “But I know.”
This was a familiar game, a play of wits that all too frequently ended in a quarrel. She shrugged. “When I’m ready to know, I’ll find out easily enough. He must have a reason for not flaunting his rank.”
“Perhaps because he’s not likely to keep his title. They come and go, you know, rather like the wind at times.”
“The winds of change alter much, but not usually the earning of a title.” She frowned. Biagio had thrown up his own barriers—cleverly forming images of the kitchen wench in various stages of undress—to keep her from learning the truth. She switched tactics. “I don’t care if he’s a prince or a peasant. He’s the knight of the prophecy, the one who will—”
Biagio made a rude sound and sat up, putting his hands on his knees as he leaned forward. “How do you know you’re not interpreting it wrong? The prophecy was a long time ago, and it’s not as if an actual gryffin with wings and talons rode down a shaft of sunlight to land at your feet.” One hand clenched into a fist, and there was frustration in his dark eyes. “He is only a man, bella, like any other. Last night should have proved it to you.”
She stared at him. Did he know what had happened in the dark bed? But he could not, for the images in his mind were of a heavy, sleeping knight oblivious to the world, with no hint of speculation about what might have happened when he left them alone. She sat back again and shrugged.
“You’re right. It’s not just the prophecy.” His brows flew up at her admission, and she added slyly, “It’s my intuition.”
Biagio groaned. “The same intuition that almost got us taken prisoner in Poitou?”
She frowned. “That was different. I felt I could trust him. Not once did Duc Phillipe think about what he planned, not once. I was as surprised as you when those men came bursting through the doors with swords. Good thing we were only the entertainment.” She shuddered at the memory. “If we had been actual guests of Comte le Monte, we would be dead.”
“A near escape.”
She looked up. “Yea.”
Bella, bella, he is not the one. . . . Search your own mind and heart for the truth. . . .
Angry, she surged to her feet. “He’s the answer, I tell you. Do you think I would be doing all this if I didn’t really believe that?”
Biagio was on his feet as well, facing her angrily, head bent and nose almost touching hers. “No, but I think you won’t look past that stupid prophecy to the truth. I’m not like Elspeth. If you want to bed the swaggering fool, be my guest, but don’t hide behind some noble cause to justify it.”
“If I want to bed him, I will. I’m not bound by any restraints other than my own good judgment, and certainly not by you.”
“You’ve shown that well enough,” he snapped.
His words faded, the tension between them sizzling like raindrops on a hot rock as they glared at each other.
“Children, children,” came the mild reproof from the open tent flap, and Sasha and Biagio whirled at the deep, mocking voice. Rhys stood in the opening, bending slightly so his head didn’t bring down the tent. A faint smile curled his mouth.
Sasha recovered first. “Beau sire . . . we didn’t hear your approach.”
“Obviously. Family quarrel, perhaps?” His inquiring gaze shifted from her to Biagio.
“Nay, beau sire. Not that. Our only kinship is that of long friendship. As you may have guessed, he is more like a brother to me than a servant.”
“I see,” he said, but it was obvious he didn’t. Not the truth, anyway. How much had he heard?
Cursing the lack of her Gift with this man, she put on her brightest smile. “You are out early this morn, beau sire.”
“Yea, and just in time to stop bloodshed, it seems.” He looked thoughtfully from her to Biagio, the silk tent flap draping over one of his broad shoulders like a Saracen cape.
Biagio quivered beside her. His muscles were tight with the strain of anger. Prophecy or not, he’s not the one for you, bella.
“We . . . quarrel sometimes, but never seriously,” she said to Rhys, ignoring Biagio’s simmering rage. “Biagio always ends up apologizing—”
Liar, liar, hair on fire . . .
“—and then I forgive him,” she continued, stepping closer to Biagio to give him a swift, surreptitious kick to the ankle, “and we are friends again.”
Ouch! You go too far.
“But enough of our petty problems. We were about to break our fast, beau sire. Would you care to join us?”
I’ll feed him henbane and tansy.
Rhys looked back at her. She smiled. “I’ll have Elspeth prepare us a tray. And Biagio will fetch it.”
Don’t do it, bella . . . fool, fool if you do. . . .
A quick nudge in Biagio’s ribs with her elbow spurred him forward. He jerked away, then nodded curtly at Rhys before brushing past him and out of the tent. Silk fluttered in his angry wake.
Rhys had turned to watch him and now looked back at her, a lazy smile on his mouth. “You must have left early, sweet flower. I awoke, and you were gone, leaving me only memories and this—”
He produced her scarlet shift with a flourish. Praise God he had not given it to her while Biagio was still there. He would have immediately leaped to all the right conclusions.
“Your colors,” he said softly, “worn in your name. Worn in the lists of love instead of war.”
She clutched at it, and the silk drifted over her palm. Rhys curled his fingers around her hand, holding it lightly. She looked up, startled and annoyed at the swift leap of her heart. He gazed down at her, blond head brushing against the silk ceiling, his eyes as gray as smoke and as wise as time, the knowing smile on his lips making her think of things she shouldn’t.
She managed a shaky smile, gently removing her hand from his grasp. “It was kind of you to bring it to me, beau sire.”
“I didn’t bring it to be kind.” He lifted the dangling end of silk she held, wound it slowly around his fist, and drew her closer. Her hands pressed against the front of his wool surcoat, knuckles grazing the studs in his wide belt. She looked up, and he put a curled finger under her chin, thumb brushing against her lightly. “I came to see you, little flower.”
There was that annoying thump again. Ridiculous, that he should be able to affect her like this. Sweetly, “I’m flattered, beau sire.”
She abandoned the silk shift and withdrew to a safer distance, putting up a barrier of coquetry and space between them, trying to think of something witty to say, something that would make him laugh and divert him from the subject of the night before. That was dangerous ground. Every time she thought of the scene in his room—and she had lain awake those last few hours of darkness dwelling on every moment of it—she felt that peculiar tightness in her chest again, and the queasiness in her stomach, as if she’d eaten too many green apples.
Rhys remained in front of her, the faint smile still on his mouth and his eyes knowing. He filled up the small space of the tent. Why had she asked him to stay? But if she didn’t, how would she ever bring up the bargain they had struck? There should have been more time, time to plan what she would say, to remind him of his sworn oath.
But maybe this was best. He was here, they were alone, and it would take Biagio more than a few minutes to find Elspeth and have her prepare a tray.
“Sit here, beau sire,” she said and pulled forward the folded chair he’d used the night before. It was unwieldy and stubborn, and she tugged and pushed at it unsuccessfully, cursing under her breath.
“Allow me.” Rhys bent, took the chair by each side, gave it a
smooth shove that spread the balky legs apart, and snapped it into place with a faint click of brass hinges and wood. “‘Tis how it’s done, I believe.”
“So I see.” Her disgusted mutter sounded ungracious, so she flashed him a quick smile. “Betimes, I am not very good with these things.”
“You have other talents,” he said softly, and she looked away from the gleam in his eyes. He moved around the chair, so close he was almost atop her, and she took a step back. Scarlet silk flashed in the air, catching her head in the loop, a gentle tug on the noose urging her forward, his voice a smooth purr almost in her ear. “Has it caused you trouble to come to my bed?”
“Trouble?”
“I heard part of your disagreement with Biagio. It seems that you’ve earned his disapproval.”
“Yea, a bit.” She looked up at him. “But ‘tis my life and my decision. No one else’s.” She took a deep breath. Now or never, while he seemed to be in a pleasant mood from their tryst. “And I did what I said I would do, did I not, beau sire?”
“Yea.” His finger moved to touch her left ear, circling it with light, feathery brushes that made her shiver. “You definitely did, lovely flower. You came to my bed as promised. ‘Tis a sweet memory.”
She breathed deeply with relief, then spread a hand against his chest. Her fingers were dark in contrast to the pale linen of the tunic worn beneath his wool surcoat. “Then you are well satisfied?”
His hand covered hers, large and strong, with long blunt fingers that looked capable of anything. His palm was rough and callused. “I am satisfied you kept your promise. It should be a memorable night.”
Constrained by the silk shift he held, she toyed with the untied tunic lace beneath her fingers. “A night in return for a labor, beau sire. My promise kept. What of yours?”
Amusement edged his voice. “My promise?”
She looked up at him. “Yea, beau sire. The victory you promised me. What of it?”
Smiling, he lifted a corner of her shift, rubbing it between his fingers as he murmured, “Ah, the wearing of your colors. I returned the red silk to you. Is that not enough?”
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