Pale Moon Rider

by Marsha Canham

  Maggie went to the bed and inspected the bandages on his hand. They were clean and dry, as were the strips around his arm and thigh. The cut on his face was healing to a thin red line, dotted with scabmarks where the stitches had been taken out the previous day. When they had first carried him on board ship, he had looked like a mummy, with bandages around his ribs, his leg, his arm, his hand, even slung diagonally across his chest. Roth’s bullet had caught him high on the right shoulder but Maggie had found it on the first pass of the knife. It was the deep cut across his palm that had worried her the most, although they had found a doctor in Portsmouth before they sailed who had inspected her stitchery and said he could not have done a better job. With care and vigorous strengthening exercises he would likely regain the use of the hand, though it was doubtful the grip would be as powerful as before. Tyrone was just thankful he could move his fingers and that the numbness of the first few days was gradually giving way to sensation, even though that sensation was pain.

  Ignoring the frowns from all three observers, he swung his legs over the side of the bed and struggled to sit up. In the end, it took the combined efforts of Antoine and Maggie to haul him fully upright, but he wore such an inanely happy grin when they were finished, they forgave him his bullheadedness.

  “Well, that’s me then, off to my berth,” Maggie said. “You too, Your Grace. Especially if you are to be up early to stand the morning watch. Badgered the captain, he did,” she added by way of explanation, “until the poor man agreed to let him drill with the crew.”

  When Maggie and Antoine were gone, Renée found the pale gray eyes waiting for her, narrowed in anticipation of a protest.

  “He asked me first, and I couldn’t see any harm in it. Would you rather have him comfortable and knowledgeable about the workings of a ship, or terrified and propped at the rail alongside Finn and Dudley?”

  Renée, who’d had no intention of arguing with anything that served to bring her brother farther out of his shell, smiled and murmured, “Why did I know you would be a corrupting influence on him?”

  “Turnabout is fair play, mam’selle. Why should others not suffer upheavals when I am but a mere shadow of my former self?”

  Her smile faded slightly and she averted her gaze, turning to her portmanteau instead to begin searching for a clean night rail. They had been on board the ship two nights and she had spent both curled in a nest of blankets on the floor, refusing to leave the cabin for more than a few minutes at a time in case Tyrone called out or needed her. In that time, her relief over his surviving Roth’s bullet had gradually turned to dismay, then a creeping sense of guilt, for she knew precisely what it had cost him to spirit her and Antoine away from Coventry. He had declared a willingness to walk away from all he possessed at a drop of a hat, but she suspected that was not entirely true. He had settled himself into a comfortable home, a comfortable life, and managed to acquire a degree of respectability in the community that might have continued indefinitely had he given up his night time activities. And all for what? A hasty departure for a foreign country, burdened with a woman, an old man, and a boy who were now dependent upon him at least until they could find some way of supporting themselves in the new world.

  Biting her lip, Renée pushed aside the silk underpinnings in her valise and withdrew the velvet jewel case. She had all but forgotten it, and, as she opened the lid and stared at the glittering array of stones, she suffered another pang of guilt. Guilt and anger that so much had happened, so many lives had been changed because of a few strands of red glass.

  “I suppose I could save these as a memento,” she said softly. “Though I should prefer to simply toss them into the sea.”

  Tyrone, who had been adjusting his seat on the edge of the bed, glanced over just as she was about to fling them through the open porthole.

  “Good God, don’t do that! You will be throwing away a healthy portion of our future if you do.”

  Renée’s fingers curled around the stones, grasping them back just in time. “But … in the passage … I thought you said they were worthless imitations, just glass.”

  “I said they had a duplicate set made. You were the one who assumed you were wearing the worthless imitations.”

  With a great deal of effort, he maneuvered himself off the bed and, with the sheets draped around his waist, limped over to where she stood in front of the bank of gallery windows.

  “The night your uncle arrived at Harwood,” he said, plucking the necklace out of her hand, “when I said I grew tired of listening to them debate politics? I paid a little visit to Edgar Vincent’s room. Not very imaginative for a clever man to hide his valuables under his mattress. I switched the pieces from one case to the other, just for the hell of it, not really thinking he wouldn’t notice the exchange.” He paused and clumsily unhooked the tiny gold clasp with his bandaged fingers before draping the sparkling camail of rubies around Renée’s slender white throat. “Imagine my surprise when I caught my cuff on the bracelet and realized they were the real stones, and that he hadn’t noticed the switch.” He let his hands linger on the curve of her neck, let them stroke gently up beneath the fall of her hair. “I did notice him and Roth watching me closely however, waiting for my reaction, testing me perhaps to see if I would question their authenticity.”

  “So … they both thought I was wearing the fake suite?”

  Tyrone shrugged. “The lighting was poor, and they both had other things on their minds.”

  “And your declaration in the music room, that I could bring them with me or leave them behind … ?”

  “Was delivered with genuine sincerity, I assure you. I was as sincere then as I was when I told Corporal Marlborough to divide the jewels in the saddle pouch among Roth’s men; that it was a fair price to pay for them to ride away and forget what they saw on the road that night.”

  His hands went around her waist the same time hers crept up and curled around his shoulders. “My only regret, of course, is that we do not have the Pearl of Brittany to complete the Dragon’s Blood suite, but”—he shrugged again and brushed his lips over hers—“with what Maggie managed to remove from my cabinets, we should have enough to live on for the next, oh, thirty or forty years anyway. After that, I should expect at least one of our seven children will be able to support our dotage in some style.”

  His lips were warm, their rovings invitingly mischievous, but Renée’s remained unmoving and unresponsive. When he straightened and looked down at her inquiringly, her eyes were wide and dark, a deeper, unfathomable blue than the midnight waters that creamed back off the hull of the ship.

  “Thirty or forty years?” she whispered.

  “You did say if I asked you, you would run away to the ends of the earth with me, did you not?”

  “You read my lips? But you said—”

  “Yes, well, perhaps my French is a little better than I let on.” He bowed his head, silencing her embarrassed protest with a kiss. This time she relented willingly, but he was the one who hesitated to accept the invitation, and it was the probing gray of his eyes that were searching hers with absolute seriousness. “I cannot promise you I will become a changed man, Renée. I cannot promise you there will not be nights when I want to ride with the wind and howl at the moon. But what I can swear to you here and now is that I love you with my whole heart and soul, and so long as my nights and days are filled with you, I will do my damnedest to be the kind of husband, lover, man that you deserve.”

  “You are already more than I deserve,” she said, tears of happiness shining in her eyes as he kissed her closer into his arms.

  It was with no small surprise she felt the further evidence of his amazing powers of recuperation, and with no objection at all, she let him abandon her a second time while he threw the bolt across the cabin door. He had forsaken the bedsheet as well and was gloriously naked, splendidly aroused when he took slow, stalking steps back to where she stood.

  “We may have to make a few more minor adjustments
in technique,” he murmured, “but where there is a will—”

  “There is a way,” she finished, holding up something else she had retrieved from the valise.

  It was the Pearl of Brittany, the huge and lustrous center gem encircled by the fiery red body of the ruby serpent.

  He looked at the brooch, then looked at the smile in her eyes and swore softly. “And you wonder that I have been a corrupting influence on your brother?”

  The smile spread to her lips, turned into a joyous laugh, as she opened her bodice to the moonlight. “Come then, m’sieur le capitaine. Do your best.”

  THE END

  I hope you enjoyed Pale Moon Rider. You may have noticed references to the jewels Tyrone was asked to steal, one of which was named the Pearl of Brittany. Sometimes we authors like to sprinkle little gems like that through our books. In this case, the pearl in the brooch was named after Eleanor, the Lost Princess of Brittany, also known as the Pearl of Brittany. Her story is woven into the three volumes of my medieval trilogy, along with my own interpretation of the Robin Hood legend. If you enjoy tales of outlaws, why not try the grandest outlaw of them all?

  A sneak peek at Book One of the Robin Hood trilogy, THROUGH A DARK MIST

  Servanne’s young body ached from top to toe. She had fought off bouts of faintness and nausea all through the long, seemingly endless night of torment. There had been no bells tolled to mark the passing hours. The fires inside the shell of the pilgrims’ hall had been banked, fading from insipid red to frilled white ash. All but two of the torches that sat in black iron cressets had been doused early in the evening. The remaining two had been allowed to burn down to stubs, and then left to smoke listlessly in their rusted cradles. Only the waning brightness of the stars overhead marked the slow passage of the hours, and they, for the better part of the night, had been cloaked behind drifting banks of opaque mist.

  Dampness and cold were Servanne’s only companions. Biddy had fallen fast asleep within an hour of her declared tenacity. Apart from the odd restless nicker from the horses and the contented snores of the men who had made their beds on piles of old rushes, there was only the occasional hiss and crackle from the dying fires to break the leaden silence.

  Slowly, however, the gloom and shadow that had enveloped the abandoned abbey distilled to a murky, half-lit dawn. The mist began to recede into the forest. Figures and objects, smothered by darkness, slowly took shape and substance again and, responding to some inner timepiece, the huddled figures began to stretch and yawn, and push knuckled fists into crusted, bleary eyes. A round of coughing and spitting bestirred the dogs, who took up where they had left off the night before rooting in the rushes in search of food scraps. The men greeted one another, some groaning over swollen heads and sour tongues, some exchanging ribald complaints over other stiffened, ill-exercised joints. Somewhere a goat bleated and an axe bit into wood. Beyond the stone walls, a flock of birds were startled out of their rookery and rose above the gaping, scorched beams in a screaming black cloud.

  Sparrow came swooping down out of nowhere, landing with a whoop and cry that nearly sent Biddy tumbling sideways off her log stool.

  “You said you did not want to sit,” he chirruped good-naturedly to Servanne. “Did you also mean you did not care to wash or clear away the night vapours?”

  Servanne was too weary to take offense at his humour. “I would like very much to refresh myself.”

  “Follow me, then. Follow me.”

  Biddy’s stiffened joints creaked and cracked as she tried to heave herself to her feet, and with Servanne’s help, she finally managed. Moving was another matter entirely and she scooted her mistress on ahead while she followed at a slower, more cautious gait.

  Sparrow led them out into the courtyard and around to the rear of the stone buildings. Here, the thick outer wall had once boasted a low postern gate through which the monks could enter or leave the grounds without disturbing the main gates. The entryway was all but overgrown by weeds and thick ropes of ivy, but a space had recently been hacked through the bramble and it was there Sparrow paused, grinning back at Servanne as he beckoned her through the gap.

  For a brief, lack-of-sleep-induced moment, she thought the little man was helping her escape.

  The spurt of newfound energy the thought triggered lasted only until she was on the other side of the wall and saw the path that led into the greenwood. Returning to the abbey along the path were the two women she had seen the previous night, both of them carrying full buckets of water.

  “The cistern inside the abbey has gone dry,” Sparrow explained, ignoring Biddy’s muffled oaths as she fought off a web of vines that had fallen on her. “But there is a sweet stream just ahead. Follow me. Follow me.”

  He danced cheerfully into the deeper woods, his stubby hands fluttering as he pushed aside the saplings and pale green fronds that overgrew the pathway. He kept chattering to himself, or singing—Servanne cared less which. Nor did she care that the air was fresh and cool, tinged with the pungent smell of evergreen, or that their footsteps made very little sound on the rich, loamy earth they walked on. So absorbed was she in her own misery, she did not see Sparrow halt. A sharp cry and quick hands saved them both from tumbling headlong over a ten-foot drop of rock that marked the abrupt end of the path.

  To the left was a steep, rounded escarpment which rose to a high, bare promontory of jagged rock. Silhouetted against the metallic blue of the morning sky was the outline of a man, undoubtedly a sentry, who, from his elevated position, would be able to see a fair distance in all directions. Halfway down the rocky escarpment, a wide smooth sheet of water flowed out of a fissure in the wall, streaming over a series of moss-covered ledges, cut like steps into the curve of the cliff. It collected in a deep blue basin below, part of the pool darkened by the shadow of the overhanging promontory, the rest sparkling warm and inviting in the early sunlight.

  Obeying Sparrow’s pointed finger, Servanne carefully picked her way down the narrow trail that edged the embankment. At the bottom, it leveled out and she was able to walk onto a flat table of rock that leaned out over the water’s shallow end.

  “You can have a bit of privacy here, if you want it,” Sparrow said. “I will go back and see where Old Shrew-Tongue has gotten herself. 'Twould be a pity to see her spill arse over heel into the pool.” He thought about the image a moment and added with a chuckle. “Aye, a dreadful pity.”

  He was gone in a wink, vanished back into the undergrowth that swarmed the edge of the embankment. Servanne stared at the fronds until they had finished rustling, then gazed instinctively up at the sentry, who made no effort to pretend he was not staring directly back down at her.

  Escape was the farthest thing from her mind as Servanne gingerly lowered herself onto her knees. She bowed her head and leaned forward to stretch the aching muscles in her neck. With a weary sigh, she unfastened the heavy samite surcoat and peeled it off her shoulders, then, on an afterthought, removed the jewelled broach that held the linen bands of her wimple pinned closed at her throat. Slowly, moving with the stiffness of a ninety-year-old woman, she unwound the starched collar bands and set the headpiece with its flowing caplet of cloth neatly on the blue crush of samite. She uncoiled the two thick braids of her hair and, using her fingers as combs, unplaited each glossy braid and shook the long, rippled mass free. When it was completely unfettered, she ran her splayed fingers across her scalp to massage it, nearly weeping with the pleasurable sensation of freedom.

  As she was bending to dip her hands in the glassy surface of the pool, a loud splash farther along the shore caused her to jump and stare across the pond. A pale shape streaked below the water, erupting from the silver-black surface again several yards ahead of the spreading rings he had generated. Servanne recognized the chestnut mane of hair even as the Black Wolf shook it vigorously to scatter the clinging droplets of water. It was apparent he had not yet seen her, however, for as he began to walk into the shallower water, he was intent upon scrub
bing his chest and arms with the handfuls of fine sand he had scooped from the bottom. A second dive brought him out of the shade and into the sunlight, and this time, when he stood, the water streamed in glistening sheets from his head to the tops of his powerful thighs.

  A man’s naked body held no surprises for Servanne. Her husband had slept nude beside her for three years. Visiting knights and nobles had thought nothing of stripping naked and either being bathed by her or in front of her as was the custom in welcoming a guest to one’s castle. Some had been as virile and solidly thewed as this forest outlaw, although she could not, upon the instant, recall a chest quite so broad, or a belly so tautly ridged with bands of muscle. The hair on his chest glittered like a copper breastplate; a sleek line of it funnelled down to a smaller thatch that swirled around his navel. Lower still and it grew into a tight, dark forest at his groin. What lay like a restless beast within that forest would have been more than enough to cause Servanne’s heart to leap over several erratic beats if it were not already stumbling headlong over another disturbing sight.

  Furrowing down his right side was a swath of misshapen scar tissue fully as wide as her hand, as long as her arm, distorting the surface of his flesh from his armpit to his buttock. Circling the same shoulder was a shiny patch of skin, resistant to the sun’s tanning effects, and marking clearly where a chirurgeon’s crude efforts had attempted to compensate for skin and muscle pared away from the upper arm. The shoulder itself was as gnarled as bark. His left thigh bore similar evidence of horrendous wounding—injuries one sustained from a battlefield, not a cornfield.

  Under different circumstances Servanne would have been amused by the look of complete surprised that jolted the stern, stoic features when he realized he was not alone in the small glade. His hands froze halfway to reaching for a weapon that was not there. His eyes widened and flared with something akin to panic—though she could not imagine there could be anything on this earth able to rouse a fright in his soulless heart. As it was, she could hardly find cause to laugh at his reaction when her own sorry predicament was just as unsettling. Her head was bare—an unthinkable breach of propriety, even here in this pagan’s forest. She was alone. (Where the Devil had Biddy taken herself to?) She was certain there must be smudges of dirt and dried tears streaking her face, and her hands shook like those of a palsied invalid.