The Taming

by Jude Deveraux

  There were no men waiting at the tower. Instead, in the darkness, a rope hung down from the top of the wall. He threw off his eyepatch, pulled the stuffing that formed a hump from his back, and untied his leg. He took a knife from inside his dirty shirt, put it in his mouth, and began to climb.

  He expected men to be waiting for him at the top of the rope, but none were. Silently, he lowered himself down a rope on the other side of the wall.

  Once he was on land again, he ran, crouching, across the middle ward. He melted his body into the dark stone of the outer wall as he heard laughter. Two guards walked by, never noticing Rogan a few feet from them or the rope hanging in the shadows down the wall to their right.

  Rogan had one more wall to climb before he reached the moat. It took him precious minutes of searching to find the rope and then to start climbing. At the top, he had to pause because he heard a man’s voice followed by a woman’s giggle. Rogan waited until they were gone, then he heaved himself onto the wide, flat parapets.

  The next rope was farther down the wall and Rogan climbed down it swiftly. In the shadows, hidden in tall reeds, was a tiny boat with two oars. He got in it, crouched down, and waited. He kept his eyes on the wall above him, watching so hard that he rarely blinked.

  It was a long while before he saw the dark shadows of the heads near the top of the wall where the rope hung. He had begun to give up hope. The Howard bitch had indeed left the ropes and the boat, but would she bring Liana?

  Rogan held his breath as he watched the two heads. They seemed to be talking. Women! he thought. They must put everything into words. Words were everything to them. They talked when a man tried to bed them. They talked when a man gave them a gift—they wanted him to explain why he gave them a gift. But worst of all, they talked when they were on top of a wall surrounded by armed men.

  Then everything happened at once. One of the women’s hands went into the air as if she meant to strike the other one. Rogan was on his feet and running toward the wall. There was a woman’s cry above his head, then the sound of men running along the wall. Rogan had his hands on the rope, ready to climb up, when Jeanne shouted down at him.

  “No!” she called to Rogan. “Save yourself. Liana is dead. You cannot save her.”

  Rogan started up the rope and was six feet off the ground when it fell away and he hit the earth. Someone above had chopped the rope off.

  “Go, you fool,” he heard Jeanne scream, then her voice was muffled as if someone had put a hand over her mouth.

  Rogan didn’t give himself time to think, for arrows were beginning to rain down on him. He ran for the boat, but two arrows had hit it and it was sinking. He plunged into the cold water of the moat and began to swim, arrows whizzing past his head.

  He reached the bank, then ran, crouching, across the northern bank, just outside the walls of the western bailey. Sleepy guards, hearing the commotion across the moat, were coming awake and looking down the walls at the steep bit of land between the inner and outer moats. When they saw movement, they shot arrows.

  Rogan reached the outer moat just as an arrow scraped across his back, searing his skin. He jumped and began to swim northward, away from the walls but into the north lake, which fed the two moats. He was a strong swimmer, but he was losing blood. When he reached the shore, he had to pull himself onto the land, where he lay in the reeds for a moment, coughing water from his lungs, his sides heaving with exertion, blood covering his back.

  When at last he could walk, he made for the forest, hearing the hooves of Howard’s men on horses not far behind him. He and Howard’s men played cat-and-mouse the rest of the night and most of the next day as Rogan hid from them, then they circled back and he hid again.

  At dusk he jumped on a Howard knight, slit his throat, and stole his horse. The men chased him, but Rogan whipped the horse until it bled and he outran them. At dawn the horse stopped, refusing to go further. He dismounted and began to walk.

  The sun was high in the sky when he saw the outline of Moray Castle. He kept walking, stumbling over rocks, his muscles at last giving out after weeks of abuse.

  One of the men on the parapets saw him, and within minutes, Severn was riding furiously toward him. Severn leaped off his horse before it stopped and clasped Rogan to him just as Rogan collapsed.

  Severn was sure his brother was dying when he saw blood on his hands from Rogan’s back. He started to pull Rogan toward the horse.

  “No,” Rogan said, pulling away. “Leave me.”

  “Leave you? By all that’s holy, you have put us through hell. We heard Howard had killed you last night.”

  “He did kill me,” Rogan whispered, turning away.

  Severn saw the wound on his brother’s back. It was still bloody and deep, but it was not enough to kill a man. “Where is she?”

  “Liana?” Rogan asked. “Liana is dead.”

  Severn frowned. He had just been beginning to like that woman. She was a great deal of trouble, like all women, but she wasn’t a coward. He put his arm around Rogan’s shoulders. “We’ll find you another wife. We’ll find you a beautiful one this time, and if you want one that’ll set your bed on fire, we’ll find her. As soon as—”

  Severn wasn’t prepared when Rogan whirled on him, slammed his fist in his jaw, and knocked him to the ground.

  “You stupid bastard,” Rogan said, straddling his brother’s legs and glaring down at him. “You never understood anything. You with your high-born slut locked away, you fought her all the time. You made her life hell.”

  “Me?” Severn put his hand to his bloody nose. He started to rise, but one look at Rogan’s face made him decide to stay where he was. “I wasn’t the one who slept with other women. I didn’t—” He stopped because the anger had left Rogan’s face. He turned away and walked into the forest.

  Severn got up and went to stand behind his brother. “I didn’t mean to insult her memory. I liked her, but she’s gone now and there are other women. At least she didn’t betray you with Oliver Howard as your first wife did. Or did she? Is that why you’re so angry?”

  Rogan turned to his brother and, to Severn’s horror and disbelief, there were tears that were beginning to roll down Rogan’s cheeks. Severn could not speak. Rogan had not shed tears at the death of his father or any of his brothers.

  “I loved her,” Rogan whispered. “I loved her.”

  Severn was too embarrassed to watch this. He could not bear to see his brother cry. He backed away. “I’ll leave the horse,” he mumbled. “Come back when you’re ready.” He left very quickly.

  Rogan collapsed to sit on a rock, his face buried in his hands, and began to cry in earnest. He had loved her. He had loved her smiles, her laughter, her temper, the pleasure she received from the smallest things. She had brought laughter to him after a lifetime of hatred. She had given him clothes without lice or fleas, food that didn’t grind his teeth down. She’d brought that arrogant bitch Iolanthe out of hiding, and she didn’t know it but she’d made Zared ask Rogan to buy her some women’s clothes.

  And now she was gone. Killed in the feud with the Howards.

  Perhaps her death should increase his hatred of the Howards, but it didn’t. What did he care for the Howards? He wanted Liana back, his soft, sweet Liana who threw things when she was angry and kissed him when she was pleased.

  “Liana,” he whispered, and cried harder.

  He didn’t hear the footsteps in the soft bracken, and his grief was so deep that he didn’t move when the soft hand touched his cheek.

  Liana knelt before him and pulled his hands away from his face. She looked at his tear-stained face and tears came to her own eyes. “I am here, my love,” she whispered, and kissed his hot eyelids, then his cheeks. “I am safe.”

  Rogan could only gape at her.

  Liana smiled at him. “Have you nothing to say to me?”

  He caught her and pulled her into his lap, then went rolling with her to the forest floor. His tears turned to laughter as he
rolled over and over with her in his arms, his hands running up and down her body as if to reassure himself she was real.

  At last he stopped and lay on his back, Liana on top of him, holding her so close she could barely breathe.

  “How?” he whispered. “The Howard bitch—”

  She put her fingertips to his lips. “Jeanne,” she said pointedly, “saved our lives. She knew one of her women was a traitor, and moments before she came to me, she overheard something that made her believe she knew which one it was. She sent me one way and took her traitorous maid the way you went. The woman thought Jeanne, shrouded in a cloak, was me and tried to stab her. Jeanne killed the woman while I was safe further down the wall. She had to tell you I was dead because she knew that otherwise you’d never leave the grounds.”

  She caressed Rogan’s cheek. “I saw you swimming. If the Howard men hadn’t been so interested in you, they would have seen me. Jeanne had horses waiting, so I was never far behind you, but you traveled so fast I could not catch you.”

  Her peasant’s hood had fallen away in their tumbling and her hair had come down. It lay softly on her shoulders. Rogan touched it. “Do you find it ugly?” she whispered.

  He looked back at her, love in his eyes. “There is nothing ugly about you. You are the most beautiful woman in the world and I love you, Liana. I love you with all my heart and soul.”

  She smiled at him. “Will you let me judge the courts? Can we add on to Moray? Will you stop fighting with the Howards? What should we name our son, my love?”

  Rogan’s anger began to rise, then he laughed and hugged her to him. “The courts are men’s business, I’m not adding on to that heap of stone, Peregrines will always fight Howards, and I shall name my son John, after my father.”

  “Gilbert, after my father.”

  “So he can grow up to be lazy?”

  “You’d rather he spent his life impregnating the peasant girls and teaching his children to hate the Howards?”

  “Yes,” Rogan answered, holding her and looking up at the sky. “We may disagree on most things, but there is one we seem to agree on. Take off your clothes, wench.”

  She lifted her head and looked at him. “I am always obedient.”

  He started to speak, but she kissed him and he didn’t say another word for hours.