by Lynn Kurland
He must know they would never escape.
She tried to swallow the knot of dread choking her, but it lodged like a gallows noose against her throat.
He knew. He knew, because he was cursed. The pall of misery hung over him. All his wives had died tragically. She was doomed to be another victim of The Black Gryphon.
Yet he'd hidden it from her. Why?
Because she was frightened, and he didn't wish to frighten her more. It was no matter to him that she'd tried to flee their marriage, that she'd said terrible, hurtful things about him, that she'd poked and prodded at his painful history as if it were fiction lived by some hapless character in a fable. Still he protected her. Still he did all in his power to save her.
She had sadly misjudged the man who was to have been her husband. And now, because of her childish flight, she had doomed the both of them. She wished to God she could turn back time's plow and unfurrow the ruts she'd gouged in their lives. But it was too late, too late.
Sir Ryance resumed working with scarcely a moment's repose, toiling away at his Herculean task with nary a complaint. She ought to let him stop. It was clear he only dug at the wall to assuage her despair. He'd been right at the beginning. There was no escaping this grievous tomb.
She bit her lip to quell its trembling. She wouldn't cry, and she refused to panic. The Black Gryphon, Ryance, had carried a heavy enough burden in his life for three men. She would not add herself to the weight he bore. Nay, she thought, she would suffer in silence, and if she could do anything to ease his spirit, say anything to atone for the harsh words she'd spoken…
A trickle of pebbles rattled along the wall to Hilaire's right. It was an innocent sound, truly, and yet it prickled the tiny hairs along the back of her neck.
"What was—" she began.
"Hist!"
Tense as the highest string on her harp, Hilaire waited, her ears pricked up for the slightest noise. But none followed.
After a long moment, Ryance turned back to the wall. "Must have been a…"
Before he could finish his sentence, a deep growl like thunder shook the ground, and suddenly Hilaire relived the nightmare of the rockslide all over again.
Rocks rumbled and pounded and shrieked. Metallic dust tainted the air, smothering her. She was knocked to her knees or fell, she wasn't sure, and a barrage of cobbles battered her arms as she crossed them protectively over her head.
This time, in a few moments, it was over. And, miraculously, she was mostly unhurt. She gagged on mildewy dust and coughed it free of her lungs, flaring her nostrils to seek breatheable air.
Perhaps, she dared to hope, groping about her, the stones had shifted in their favor. Perhaps the passageway was clear now. Or his sapping tunnel had reopened.
"Can you… see anything?" she asked, unable to conceal the excitement in her voice. "Can you see light?" She patted the rocks around her and ventured forth at a crouch. "Sir Rag?" The taste of metal grew suddenly strong in her mouth. "Sir Rag?" It was the taste of fear.
She scrabbled about more urgently now, running even her injured hand along the uneven ground. "Sir…" Her fingers contacted chain mail, then the buckle of a greave behind his knee, and she sighed in relief. He was here. He was here. He'd probably dived facefirst onto the ground at the first rumblings, protecting himself from the collapse, and was too stunned to move. "Sir Rag, I was so worried. Are you…"
Her fingers shrunk atop his mailed calf. "Sir Rag?" There was no reply, no movement. Her heart thrumming furiously, she traced her fingers up along the back of his leg, past the poleyn to his thigh, but there she was forced to stop.
An enormous boulder straddled his motionless body, pinning him to the ground, crushing him like grain beneath a millstone.
six
"Nay!" she cried, scraping her throat raw with the scream. "Nay!" She tugged hard on his leg, terrified, desperate, but he didn't respond. The word rasped from her over and over like a metal file on an iron pot. "Nay! Nay!"
He couldn't be dead. She'd just been talking to him. He couldn't be. He wouldn't have left her. Not when she needed him. Sweet Jesu—she couldn't bear to die alone. Horror seeped out of her on that one piercing syllable. "Nay!"
Her own labored breathing grated on her ears, and she knew it would turn to whimpers if she didn't seize command of her wits. It was no time to indulge in selfish panic. Despite her fears, there was a chance Ryance still lived, and she might be his only hope. With a determined sob, she clenched her fists and gradually willed her terror to subside.
When she'd regained a modicum of control, she set about examining him more thoroughly. She could feel naught through his mail leggings save the thickness of muscle with which he was endowed. But she discovered if she lay flat against the tunnel floor, she could slip her good arm into the crevice beneath the boulder, along the length of him, and find his hand.
As she clasped the limp fingers, tears started in her eyes. His hand was slippery with blood, not from the avalanche, but from the pointless digging he had done for her sake. Sweet Mary—his knuckles were raw, and she could feel the jagged edges of broken fingernails. And she knew he'd done it for her.
Then, as she traced questing fingers over the pads of his callused hand, she found a miracle. A pulse beat in his wrist. He was yet alive.
A wordless cry of joy escaped her, unfettered for a brief moment by the fact that her situation was no less hopeless. He was still trapped beneath the boulder. They were still prisoner within the earth. And the shadows still pressed in upon her.
Reluctantly, she let go of his hand and knelt by the boulder. She made the sign of the cross, clasped her fingers before her, and squeezed her eyes tightly shut.
"Heavenly Father, blessed Mary, please forgive your wayward servant her trespasses." She blushed to think how many of them stained her soul, now that she'd caused so much trouble. "I have sinned much against this man who was to be my husband. But I beseech you, do not take him to your bosom, not yet." She shifted, and a sharp rock bit into the bare skin of her knee, but she tolerated it like a penitent monk enduring the lash. "He is a good man, a kind man, and I have done him much wrong. But if you will save him, if you will seize him from death's arms…"
She opened her eyes, nonplussed. What? What would she promise? What could she bargain with? She gulped.
He was a good man. He was a wonderful man. Aye, he'd had his share of misfortune, and there was an air of gloom about him. But wasn't it her maid who was always saying the love of a good woman could transform a man from a beast to a prince?
"If you let him live, God, I vow… I vow I will marry The Black Gryphon willingly." Her voice shook under the weight of her promise. "I will care for him and honor him and love him as a wife must love her husband." For a moment, she felt dizzy. What was she promising? She hadn't even seen his face. She didn't truly know him. And yet she knew him better than most brides knew their betrothed. "In the name of Jesu, this I pray," she added for good measure.
Then she waited.
No light suddenly appeared before her. No sound disturbed the silence. She reached her hand out for Ryance's calf and gave it a jiggle, but he didn't respond.
Now she grew angry. Satan's ballocks! She'd just promised away the most valuable thing she had to offer. What more could God want? Did He not hear her plea? Did He not understand her sacrifice? Or perhaps, she thought, lifting her chin against the painful insult, God considered her beyond redemption.
A tear squeezed out between her lashes, but she vexedly swiped it from her cheek. She would show Him. She would show God. If He wouldn't help her, she'd do it without Him. She'd bring Ryance back to the living, even if she had to wrestle the devil to do it.
Pushing up her sleeves, she started jostling the dozing knight wholeheartedly.
"Wake up! Wake up, damn you! We're never going to get out of here if you don't wake up. Do you hear me?" She poked at his calf. "I know who you are. But know this: I'm not afraid of you. And I don't believe in your damne
d curse." She shook his leg like a mastiff shaking a rabbit. "Wake up, you… you selfish knave! What kind of knight are you to desert a lady in her hour of need?" She raised her fist and pummeled the back of his leg until her knuckles were scraped from the chain mail and tears rolled down her face. "Wake up, Gryphon! Wake up, you son of a harlot! Wake…"
It was no use. His heart might beat, but he was as dead to her as wood.
She rocked back onto her heels and then slumped onto her hindquarters, defeated. Her hand struck the low strings of her harp, which had somehow survived the rockslide, and out of habit, she gathered the instrument to her bosom for comfort.
No sooner had she surrendered to despair than the shadows of her mind began to creep in. They'd been there all along, she realized, waiting for her, waiting while she played her silly little game, waiting for her to succumb to their embrace. She felt them coming for her, promising peace, delivering death. She shuddered and clung to the harp like a magic amulet.
"You're not real," she murmured, but her voice was reedy and uncertain.
The shadows answered her, pressing closer, brushing their chill fingers atop her shoulder, against her cheek, over her eyes. She gasped and felt a cold rush of air enter her lungs, as if one of them had dived down her throat to claim her from the inside. She closed her lips against a scream and dug her fingers into her harp, engraving the wood with crescents from her nails.
She had to think of something else, anything but the ominous shapes surrounding her. Her harp. Her maid. The flowers outside her window. The sea.
The sea… He had told her about the sea. She closed her eyes and imagined it lay before her—an enormous coverlet stretching as far as the horizon, the fabric shifting from gray to green to blue, white frothy caps bobbing up toward the vast sky—the vast, open, bright, cloudless sky.
She saw it clearly now. The sun sparkled on the waves. Seabirds circled overhead. And she stood on the deck of a grand ship, slicing through the sea like shears through silk. She took a long, deep breath, and she swore she could almost taste the crisp brine air.
They were gone now. The shadows were gone, fled to the corners, vanquished by the vision Ryance had given her.
Ryance. She had to save him. Somehow she had to get him from beneath that boulder. She set her harp aside and groped her way toward his legs again. She crouched, seized his ankles, and tugged backward, wincing as needles of pain shot through her injured hand. The gravel skidded beneath her heels, but his body didn't budge. He was imprisoned by the rock.
Gingerly, aware she was touching him in a most inappropriate manner, she ran her hand up along the back of his thigh and over the curve of his buttock. It was there the edge of the rock met his armor, wedging him against the floor. She wondered if she could drag his hips sideways into the crevice and pull him out that way.
Clenching his tabard in her fist, she pulled as hard as she could, cursing foully under her breath, but only succeeded in twisting the garment. He was stuck fast.
She sat back, panting. The only way she'd get him out was if she lifted the boulder off of him. Refusing to be daunted, she set about measuring her adversary.
The rock was large, as big as the oak chest at the foot of her bed. Its left side nested in the bed of gravel, but at the right, it angled up and perched on a shelf of stone. If she could somehow get her shoulder beneath that side and lift it up a few inches…
But it was too low to the ground and too heavy. An ox couldn't have lifted the thing. Even if she did manage to raise it, how would she move Ryance from beneath? Lord—what was she to do?
If she only had a lever of some sort…
She remembered watching her father's masons rebuilding the chapel. They'd transported and overturned scores of heavy granite blocks with a system of ropes and winches and pulleys, but the cornerstones they'd levered into place using nothing more complex than a wooden plank.
A wooden plank… a wooden…
Her harp. Of course. If she could slip her harp diagonally through the crevice, anchor it against the floor, and rock it back onto its seat, it would lift the boulder. Then, if she shoved the harp forward, the rock would wedge itself into the dip at the top of the harp, and she could pull Ryance out.
She plucked the instrument quickly from the floor, but as soon as her fingers contacted the curved wood, her throat closed. She'd had her harp as long as she could remember. Her mother had taught her to play as a little girl. Her musical talent was a source of great pride to her father. Whenever she grew melancholy, she had only to pluck out a madrigal, and soon the harmony would dispel the mists of sorrow.
She caught one string upon her fingertip and released it, letting its pure, light tone resonate in the cave. Using the instrument so roughly would irreversibly damage it. The stone would abrade the wood finish and possibly crack the sounding box. Yet, she thought, giving the harp a teary hug of farewell, it was without a doubt the instrument's noblest calling.
With only a slight grimace of remorse at the atrocious grating noise, she slid the instrument across the gravel into the crevice until it lodged under the boulder. Then she straddled the harp, gripping the top edge along the highest strings. With a few preparatory breaths, she tipped in counterbalance, and gradually, slowly, she felt the rock give. When the boulder raised a fraction of an inch, she became so ecstatic she nearly dropped it through the floor.
But it wasn't enough. She eased the harp back into place. The base wanted to skid against the uneven floor. If she was going to do this at all, she'd have to be quick. Summoning up all her strength, she dug her heels into the earth at either side of the instrument, joined her hands atop the apex of the harp, and groaning with the effort, leaned back with all her weight. This time the boulder lifted at least an inch, and using one foot, she kicked the base of the harp forward to wedge it beneath the elevated rock.
The wood creaked in protest at the tremendous weight, and Hilaire gasped. Had she made things worse? Would the rock drop even further? She dove for Ryance's feet and attempted to haul him backward. There was still little clearance, and she struggled to twist him free, wincing as his chain mail scraped betwixt the boulder and the gravel floor, afraid of what she might be doing to his exposed skin.
The harp groaned again. Hilaire tugged hard.
"God's bones!"
He was stuck. His breastplate must be caught. Damn his broad knight's chest! She groped with one hand along the underside of the rock, seeking the snag. It was the edge of his epaulet. She skinned her knuckles holding it down while she straggled to wrench him backward.
One of the harp strings popped under the strain.
"Come on!" she panted. "Come on!"
She struggled back, her heels skidding in the dirt. A second string popped. The wood screeched in slowly rising complaint.
"Come… on!"
She scrambled to her feet as several more strings broke, portending the fatal cracking of the harp's spine. Then, just as the instrument gasped out its final splintering word, she managed to pull him clear.
She didn't know if the boulder simply came to rest back where it was or fell further and sealed the crevice, and she didn't want to know. Either way, her harp was gone, and if she hadn't moved swiftly, he, too, would have been lost.
But she'd saved him. She'd saved Ryance. She mopped her forehead with the back of her sleeve and paused for a moment in silent victory.
There was still much to do. His heart beat, aye, but was his body sound? Curse the dark—she couldn't even see if he bled. She'd have to assess his injuries by touch then. And to do that, she'd have to remove his coat of mail.
She took a deep, steadying breath. Then, with her sense of propriety strained to the limits, she began undressing the near stranger.
Someone was disarming him. Perhaps his squire. But the lout fumbled with the rivets as if he'd never done the task before. Ryance would have upbraided the lad, but he couldn't move, couldn't speak.
Then he remembered the accident. There had be
en another rockfall. He'd been knocked forward and…
And now he was dead. That was it. That was the reason he couldn't move. It was an angel taking his armor from him, for what need did a knight have for chain mail in heaven?
But nay. The Black Gryphon was not destined for heaven. More likely it was one of Satan's minions stealing his plate.
He lay helpless while the wretch unbuckled his greaves and cuisses and epaulets, then struggled with his chain mail and hauberk.
Then the poking began. First his arms, then his chest, then along the length of one leg. Someone seemed intent on finding each and every one of his bruises.
But it was the hand pressed with sudden and alarming candor upon his loins that roused him from his stupor. Demons might lay claim to his mail, but…
"What the devil do you…" he slurred.
"My lord!"
Much to his amazement, it was Hilaire. With a startled gasp, she removed her hand.
"I… I cannot see in the darkness," she explained, "and I…" She'd clearly not meant to touch him there. And Ryance couldn't help but wish she would again. Already that neglected part of him roused to her brief caress. "But you're all right?" she asked.
"So it would seem." He groaned, sitting up dizzily. "What happened? Are you hurt?" It rankled at him, knowing he'd lain helpless while she ministered to him, unable to come to her defense.
"I'm fine. There was another collapse. You were knocked breathless by a great boulder, and I used my harp to pry…" She sighed shakily. "It doesn't matter. You're safe now, and you seem whole. You've a nasty gash on your forehead, but as for the rest, I felt no broken bones." She gasped again softly. She obviously didn't want him to know how extensively she'd examined him.
He found her feminine modesty rather charming. "I'm grateful for your tender care, my lady," he murmured, though it was more desire than gratitude his body expressed to him now. He slicked his fingers briefly across his brow. Indeed, it was swollen and wet with blood, but the cut was insignificant. He'd wear but a mottled bruise on the morrow.