by Lisa Jackson
Her father sighed sadly. “But ye’d best not wait too long with that grandson.”
“Don’t talk such madness,” she chided, refusing to believe that her beloved father would soon die.
But ’twas as if he were deaf. “Holt, he will be a good husband to you,” he said, patting her hands and smiling without reason, as if he had no mind left. There was hushed talk between his men that he was addled, that the loss of his wife and two children, coupled with his age, had finally caught up to him, that he’d taken one too many blows to the head in the heat of battle in his younger years. “A lucky lass ye be to marry a knight as brave as Sir Holt.”
Despair raked sharp claws down her heart. “Nay, Father,” she said boldly, knowing this was her last chance to change his mind.
“Do not argue with me.”
Grasping his hand more urgently, she whispered, “But Father, I need not a husband—”
“Shh,” he said, then coughed loudly, his chest rattling, his body clenching against the pain. “God in heaven,” he growled, once the attack had passed. He reached for a mazer of wine on a bedside table. His hounds, two gray hunters, lifted their heads and glared at Megan menacingly, as if she were the reason their master no longer rode wildly through the forests and underbrush, drinking mead, whooping loudly, and flushing out deer, boars, and pheasant for them to chase.
Beneath the dogs’ yellow-eyed glare, Megan inched up her chin. Even the snarling beasts appeared to blame her for the ills that had plagued Dwyrain. Cayley, whom Megan had trusted with her secret, had told the story of the crippled prophet and his curse.
“But Father,” she pressed on, “remember, the magician said that should I marry this man of your choosing, the marriage would be cursed, and—”
“Shh, child! I believe not in such devilment!” Ewan grumbled, bellowing as he once had, only to end up in a deep, bone-jarring hack. “ ’Tis against the teachings of the church. Father Timothy said ’twas a trick the cripple played upon you, a trick that toyed with your weak mind.”
“My mind is far from weak,” Megan said quickly, and silently cursed the priest for his false piety. The man was too swift to point to the fault in others, too hasty to give a tongue-lashing, too eager to see punishment meted out when none was needed. Unlike Father Andrew, a kind and wise man who, during his 12 years as chapel priest at Dwyrain, had always seen both sides of a disagreement, Father Timothy was young and all-knowing, with a glint of pleasure in his eye when anyone was caught in a sin. ’Twas as if he enjoyed watching others explain their sins and beg forgiveness.
“Aye, I know you not to be thick-skulled as Father Timothy proclaims, but I cannot believe in witchcraft and the dark arts. What would your mother, rest her soul, think?” With a deft movement, he crossed himself, as he sometimes did when his thoughts turned to Violet and her early death. Then there were other times when he acted as if he’d forgotten she’d left this earth.
“I know not.”
“Well, I’ll ask her, the next time she comes to visit,” he said, and she looked for a hint of humor in his cloudy eyes, but found none. Nay, he believed that his wife, though dead, walked these halls and that she often carried baby Rosalind with her or spoke of Bevan.
“You trust not the sorcerer’s prediction but you speak with Mother’s ghost.”
“Her spirit,” he said, correcting her as he scooted upward on the bed and cleared his throat. The effort caused even more strain on his tired face. “You think I’m addled,” he said, glaring at her through foggy eyes.
“Nay—”
“It is my curse these days. The servants act as if I’m not only blind, but deaf as well, and that I have no mind left. The truth is that I do talk to your mother, Megan, and she asks about you. Aye, I know that she is dead, but believe it or not, at times her spirit glides down from heaven to be with me.” He clapped a broad hand over his heart. “She was and always will be an angel. My angel.”
Megan didn’t know what to say; to argue against something he wanted so feverishly to cling to would be unwise. Why cause him any more pain? If he thought he could speak with his dead wife and children, what did it hurt? “Aye, Father. An angel she is.”
He smiled beneath his snowy beard. “I’m glad you believe me, child, because your mother, she wants you to marry Holt!”
Megan jumped off the bed as if she’d been sitting on the red-hot embers of Cook’s fires. “You tricked me!”
He laughed and the sound echoed in her heart. “No more than that silly prophet did a few years ago. Now, go on, get dressed and, please, daughter, be happy.” Yawning broadly, he waved her away.
“I love Holt not,” she said, and her father grimaced at the words.
“ ’Twas the same for your mother and me.” At the sharp lift of her head, he motioned awkwardly, as if scattering flies. “I know, I know, you thought differently, but love does not grow easily at times, even with your mother and me. Over the years I became devoted to her and she to me. Love sometimes comes with time, daughter, and you have long to live.”
Too long, she thought, if I am to be Holt’s wife. Shuddering inside, she watched as Ewan closed his eyes to rest. Within mere seconds, he was snoring gently, blissfully unaware of the treachery that was mounting against him, the treason she could feel in the hallways. Like rats scurrying through the rushes, the whispers of betrayal darted through the thick walls of Dwyrain.
“The baron, bless him, is not himself these days,” Father Timothy had whispered to the steward months ago as the two men stood beside the miller’s cart in the inner bailey beneath the open window where Megan had sat on the ledge. Their voices had risen up to her like smoke from a fire.
“Aye, and it’s a sad day,” Quinn had responded, shaking his head, his bald pate shining in the autumn sunlight.
“And without Bevan to become the baron … Ahh, I fear the worst and pray that a man like Sir Holt will step forward and marry the baron’s daughter, Lady Megan, so that the castle will once again be secure.”
“Aye. Holt would be a good choice.”
Megan’s heart had frozen for a second, but she had not believed that her father would insist upon the marriage.
Another time, she’d heard one of her father’s most trusted soldiers, Cawfield, confide in the sheriff, “ ’Tis a pity, that’s what I say, when a man’s mind goes. There was a time when Ewan of Dwyrain was a fierce warrior. Who would have thought?” Cawfield had been standing guard and his voice had drifted toward the bakery, where Megan was checking that Llyle was not wasting the flour that he was allotted and that there would be plenty of good-sized loaves of wastel, as Gwayne of Cysgod was visiting. But she’d stopped at the sound of the men and tarried in the rose garden, where Cawfield’s voice could be heard clearly over the honks of geese and ducks waddling near the eel pond and the creak of the chain and bucket at the well. “Ewan was a strong leader,” Cawfield continued. “I pray that he heals soon.”
Others hadn’t been so kind. The mason had grumbled, “Who can rely on an old relic with half a brain to protect us?” and Ellen, a woman who tended to the geese, had crossed herself and asked to be delivered from Satan as well as the protection of so weak a lord. Ellen, too, believed that Holt alone could rule Dwyrain as a strong, fair lord.
Was Megan the only one who doubted him?
Aye, Holt was a handsome man, tall and strong, with shoulders as broad as the handle of an ax and sharp features that had caused many a scullery maid to sigh and swoon. He was quick with his wit as well as his sword and had, in the past few years, wormed his way into her father’s empty heart. From the beginning, he’d noticed Megan, even when she was but a lass, his dark eyes slitting a little as he stared at her, and Megan had always shivered inwardly, sensing that he was trying to imagine what she looked like without her clothes.
She’d overheard him tell ribald jokes to his men and had commented about one of the milking girls—that he would like to drink from her big tits and do his own kind of milking. The m
en had laughed uproariously and Megan had thought Holt crude.
And now she would be his bride. A sour taste rose in the back of her throat.
Realizing there was no escape, she closed the door to her father’s chamber behind her and swept down the hall, her footsteps muted by the new rushes laid upon the stone floor.
Despite the fires burning brightly in the great hall and the tapestries hung on the walls and doorways, the keep was drafty. Megan felt cold as death. In but a few weeks the Christmas revels would be upon them and she, God help her, would be Sir Holt’s wife.
Not for the first time, she considered defying her father and fleeing. Once upon Shalimar’s broad back, she could ride swiftly through the gatehouse before the portcullis could be lowered! She would race the mare deep into the forest, where she knew of hiding places where no one, not any of her father’s soldiers or even the band of outlaws that resided in the wooded hills surrounding the castle, would find her. Yes, she could ride to freedom … ahh, would it were so!
She nearly bumped into one of the seamstresses, who was hastening down the hall with another young woman, but Megan ducked into an alcove before being seen.
“… doesn’t know how lucky she is to be marrying the most handsome man in all of Dwyrain. I would gladly lift my skirts for that one and, oh, to be his wife …”
Megan’s stomach clenched and she slid deeper into the shadows while the seamstress, a silly, freckled-skinned girl named Nell, paused to lean against the wall. Nell was carrying a white silk tunic with gold brocade and rabbit trim. Megan’s heart dropped to the floor, for this was her best tunic, the one in which she was to be married.
“… if I were Lady Megan, I would lick my fingers to be Holt’s bride.”
“And what else would ye lick?” Grace, one of the cook’s daughters who often worked in the kitchen, asked with a suggestive giggle.
Megan’s stomach turned over, and she realized she should step forward and scold the girl for gossiping idly, but she wanted to overhear what the maid would say next.
“Shh, Grace—such a tart ye be!”
A big girl with ample breasts and a gap between her front teeth, Grace flirted often with the soldiers.
Nell rambled on, “ ’Tis true, the lady loves him not, and all the pain she’s brought to this castle is but proof she has not a pure heart. Did ye not hear about the curse that prophet, the lame one Lady Megan met in the forest, laid on this castle?”
“Aye. Everyone in the castle and the villages heard, but I don’t believe in prophets or curses of the pagan ones,” Grace said, crossing her chest hastily, as if in fear that the very Devil himself might swoop down upon her.
“Well, ye’d better change yer way of thinkin’, because since that time there have been strange deaths and evil within the walls of Dwyrain.” Her voice dropped and Megan strained to hear. “ ’Tis all because of her. Had Lady Megan not been out riding that day against the baron’s wishes, she’d not have met the sorcerer and he’d not have laid the curse on this castle.”
“ ’Tis not true,” Grace said, though there was little conviction in her words.
“Aye, ye can say as much because ye did not lose a brother to the sickness that crept through Dwyrain like a thief and took the lives of many, including the baron’s wife, his wee babe, and his only son. Ye remember Sir Bevan, Grace, and don’t be lyin’ to me and sayin’ ye dinna. If ever there was one who could turn a lass’s head, he was one.” She sighed dreamily, clutching the tunic to her.
“Another one ye would lift yer soiled skirts for?” Grace asked, raising her eyebrow.
“Aye, quick as a cat jumping for spilt cream,” Nell said with a laugh as they continued, making their way past the smoldering rush lights.
Megan didn’t move. Her eyes were moist, her stomach tied in painful knots when she thought of her mother, tall, stately, prideful but loving, a woman whom everyone in the castle trusted. Violet of Dwyrain. Dead. “God be with you, Mama,” Megan said with a sniff, then thought of her brother Bevan, one year older than she and a devil of a boy who loved mischief. He had not been felled by the sickness that claimed so many but had drowned in the creek near Hag’s End Lake.
Bevan and Megan had been fast friends, always getting into trouble, forever telling secrets. As he’d grown, he’d been groomed to become baron. “ ’Tis silly, really,” Bevan had told her when they were riding far from the castle one day and they paused to let their mounts sip from a stream. Over the tops of the trees, the towering walls of Dwyrain were visible and Bevan squinted as he stared at them. “Ye’d be a much better lord than I. Too bad ye be younger and a girl.”
“You’ll be a great baron,” she’d predicted and he’d grinned.
“Ye’re right, sister. I’ll be the best!” Then, yanking on the reins, he’d given a loud hoot, kicked his gray palfrey in the flanks, and raced off across the creek, splashing noisily through the water.
Aye, she missed her brother and tiny, giggling Rosalind as well. Not even two years old, with only a few teeth and a silly, bright smile, the baby had succumbed to the dark death that had stolen through the corridors of Dwyrain.
Losing his wife and Baby Roz had been the start of Ewan’s ruin, Megan thought sadly, squeezing her eyes shut, remembering her father, strong then, kneeling in the mud and laying roses on the grave of his beloved Violet. He’d wept openly, and Holt had been with him, helping him up, whispering condolences, his hands steady.
Then, only weeks later, the tragedy of Bevan’s drowning. Megan had heard her father’s hoarse wails when he’d been told the news, then watched his stoic decline as his son had never again opened his eyes.
Before the deaths of family, friends, and servants, Ewan of Dwyrain had been a powerful ruler, one of the most envied of King Edward’s barons, a fair man known for his good sense and coarse humor. Now, he was but a shell of the man he’d once been, a husk of that courageous soldier who had ridden into battle against the Scots.
There was a time when no one in the castle had dared defy him, no one questioned his judgment, no one considered going against him. At present, there was malcontent, and the soldiers guarding the gates of the tower were new men, unfamiliar faces who looked to Holt for leadership, or old, tired friends who whispered between themselves that Ewan was addled and ill fit to rule.
Megan leaned the back of her head against the cool stone walls of the alcove and remembered the prophet’s words. You will marry in the next few years at the bidding of your father, but the marriage will be cursed—
“Dear God, no.”
Sickness. Deceit. Betrayal.
The sorcerer’s words rang in her head as they had been whispered through the keep. True, they’d all come to pass. The blame will be placed on you.
Had it not? Most of the servants would no longer look her in the eye. Even some of the peasants avoided her. ’Twas as if she were a leper or worse. She’d been blamed for the armorer’s son falling off the north tower, and for the baker’s wife delivering stillborn twins—even Bevan’s death, from drowning in the creek, was said to have been her fault. It mattered not that he’d been brought back to the castle barely alive and she and the doctor had tried to nurse him back to health, nor that she’d spent hours in the chapel under Father Timothy’s watchful eye, praying for her brother’s life.
Yet, despite all the horrors blamed on her, Holt wanted her.
Guilt chased after her as she hurried onward, toward her chamber and the cold, brittle fact that she was to become Holt’s bride.
“Oh, would I were you!” Cayley eyed her sister with envy and Megan squirmed, uncomfortable in the long silk tunic that had been altered for her wedding.
She wanted nothing more than to shed this finery and ride Shalimar as fast and far away from the castle as she could. “If you want to be me so badly, then you marry Sir Holt,” she said, mindful of Rue, the old nursemaid who was fidgeting with the hem of the tunic, her needle and thread working steadily.
“Shame on ye,
lass,” Rue muttered, but when her gaze met Megan’s, there was no gladness in her tired eyes, and she quickly glanced away again, turning her attention and the conversation back to her work. “I know not why Nell could not mend this hem. Look at the way it droops! Sometimes methinks that girl has her head elsewhere!” Clucking her tongue, she worked swiftly.
Cayley pushed aside the window covering. A shaft of pale winter light slipped through the tanned hides and the noisy honks of geese rose up from the yard. There were shouts and the creak of wagon wheels and Megan bit her tongue, knowing that the few straggling guests who hadn’t arrived the day before were now filing into the keep.
“Aye, Holt’s a handsome one,” Cayley persisted as she hoisted herself up to the window ledge. Tucking her knees beneath her chin, she stared down at the inner bailey and eyed the new visitors anxiously, searching, no doubt, for Gwayne of Cysgod.
“A handsome man does not a fine husband make.”
“Oh, but it helps! Why not marry someone who is pleasing to the eye rather than an ugly old toad like Sir Oswald?”
“At least Oswald is kind.” Megan finger-combed her hair and Rue squawked loudly.
“I spent hours on those plaits! Don’t you be undoing them now; all the flowers will fall out!”
Megan cared not. Her worries about Holt were too deep for her to be concerned about the braids that were wound around her head.
Cayley was right, he was a handsome man with his thick brown hair, eyes as dark as midnight, and a quick, cold smile. Strong and able, Holt was considered her father’s most trusted knight. He had courted Megan for nearly a year, and in that time, he’d done nothing but swear his undying affection for her and his loyalty to all that was Dwyrain. Yet she doubted him and didn’t trust the glint in his eyes when he looked at her.