by Lynn Kurland
“You imbecile! She couldn’t tear her eyes from you all day long.”
“Nay, I was far too careful . . .”
“Saints, man, Warewick likely noticed!”
Christopher found he had no reply for that. He dragged his hand through his hair, then rubbed his fingers over his face. Then he turned, threw open his shutters and let the stiff breeze from the sea blow into his chamber. It chilled him immediately, bringing with it a small return of sense. Colin was right; he hadn’t been careful, not as careful as he should have been. And even if Gillian hadn’t noticed the day of their wedding, she surely would have suspected something was amiss when he walked right into a stool he should have seen clearly at a dozen paces, then fell and struck his head on a chair a sighted man could have easily avoided.
Aye, he conceded with a sigh, she had known. But that still didn’t change the fact that she had gone to Alice to buy the knowledge to seduce him. What other reason could she have had other than to hold his babe as ransom, demanding gold in payment for its return? And if she had known of his blindness from the start, that meant that she had been plotting against him from the start.
“You should find her and apologize,” Colin said.
“Leave me,” Christopher said, not turning from his window. “I’ll speak no more of this.”
“Chris—”
“I said leave me!”
“Bloody stubborn whoreson,” Colin muttered.
The door slammed with a resounding bang and Christopher found himself alone with his thoughts, finally. He sat on his heavy wooden bench and let the sea air brush over his face, tug at his hair. Usually the smell and the sharpness of the wind’s touch pleased him. He wasn’t surprised to find it had no effect on him at present.
So she had known from the first. All his posturing, his valiant efforts to appear normal, all had been in vain. Why had she bothered to remain by his side so long? He sighed deeply. He would have the marriage annulled, then send her back to her father. At least he’d had the good sense not to bed her.
He leaned forward and dropped his face into his hands. His wife was likely weeping in the chapel, so there was no hurry to go fetch her. Knowing Gillian, she wouldn’t have the courage to venture further than that. He would send Jason for her after a bit, then have Colin take her home.
I’m trusting you, Chris, to see to her.
Christopher ignored the voice in his head, the voice of a man who had no inkling of what his sister truly was.
It was a good thing William was dead and couldn’t see it for himself. It likely would have killed him.
• • •
GILLIAN WASN’T STOPPED AS SHE FLED FROM THE HALL, through the inner bailey, through the outer bailey, over the treacherous bridge, and across the drawbridge. That not a one of Christopher’s men tried to learn of her intentions was only another sign of how little she mattered in the grander scheme of life at Blackmour. It wasn’t every day that a woman ran from the keep as if the Devil himself chased her. Nay, she would die in a bog and no one would be the wiser, nor would they stir themselves to care.
And though the desire to fall into a ditch and weep until she was ill was very strong, her fear was stronger. Christopher had every intention of sending her back to Warewick. Why he had even wed her was something she would never understand.
One thing was certain; she would die before she returned to her father. There was little threat in that, as she was certain her father would kill her if she dared show her face at his hall.
She would go to London. It couldn’t be very far. Aye, London was the only safe haven left to her.
She ran until her legs were unsteady beneath her and her lungs were on fire. And when she could run no more, she dropped to her knees and gasped for air. Just a tiny rest, then up again. At her current pace, it wouldn’t take her long at all. It had seemed to take several days to travel from Warewick to Blackmour, but that was likely because she had been so apprehensive.
She was apprehensive no longer; she was determined. Christopher wouldn’t have the satisfaction of casting her away and her father wouldn’t have the satisfaction of beating her. She would beg the king for mercy and thwart both her father and her in-name-only husband.
By the time she could breathe again, the fog had rolled in from the sea. It was an eerie mist, one full of ghostly shapes. She jumped up and ran, praying she was still going south. It was impossible to tell, as she couldn’t see anything but her hand in front of her face, and that not very well at all. There was no light from the sun.
She ran, then she walked, then she ran some more. Soon she had no more energy for tears, just enough for drawing in great, gulping breaths.
Soon she had no more energy for even that. She stumbled a last few paces, then saw a tree loom up before her suddenly, and then more trees beyond that. The forest. She had seen the forest to the south, but it had seemed much further away.
She had obviously made good time. She dropped to the ground and panted until she had finally caught her breath. Then she lay back, pulled several handfuls of rotting leaves over her and closed her eyes. She would rest for a bit, then rise again and perhaps find something to eat. Aye, that was a sensible enough plan. Just a short rest to regain her strength.
Peace stole over her as her racing heart slowed and her breathing eased further. Soon even the chill bothered her no more. She relaxed completely, lulled into a deep sleep.
And she dreamed of a lone dragon circling his aerie perched on the edge of the sea.
eleven
CHRISTOPHER KNEW THE SUN HAD SET ONLY BECAUSE HE heard the distant sounds of preparations for the evening meal begin. He sat on a stool in the middle of Gillian’s unwarmed chamber and let the cold sink into his bones. The bitter chill was keeping him sane. When a body was on the verge of freezing, he didn’t have the energy or the heart for simpler emotions such as guilt or fear.
Both of which threatened to overwhelm him.
He fingered the flat of the blade laid across his knees. It was a light weapon, a weapon fashioned especially for a woman’s strength of arm. Gillian’s blade. It was, he knew, the last shred of hope she had clung to as he’d broken down her door on the night after their wedding.
And now that hope rested on his knees while his wife was outside his gates, unprotected.
He had waited too long to see what had become of her. He had expected her to have run to the chapel. She hadn’t been there when Jason had gone to fetch her, nor had she been anywhere else in the keep. In truth, she had vanished.
Then he had found the sword. He had been searching through her trunks like a plundering servant, half expecting to find bags of his gold stashed away for her future use. Instead, he had found a length of cold metal sheathed in a finely tooled scabbard. Especially cold were the two stones set in the hilt.
William had once said he planned to have a sword fashioned for his sister. Christopher had given William an emerald to use, merely in jest. He realized then that William never jested about his sister. Abashed, he had listened to William describe in detail how innocent she was and how he had struggled to teach her to defend herself. But Gillian would never need the knowledge in truth, for if something happened to William, Christopher would be there to see to her. Wouldn’t he?
Christopher ran his finger over the hard gems in the hilt and wondered which of the two was his unwitting gift. For the first time in years, he felt the hot sting of tears form behind his eyes. Not even when he had learned he would never see again had he wept. The urge he felt now had everything to do with the innocent who was outside the impenetrable walls of Blackmour without the one thing she could have used to defend herself. Saints, he had been a fool!
The memory of her terror on the night of their marriage caught him full in the chest and left him gasping. Terror? She would know it in full measure out in the dark.
At least William was dead and couldn’t come disembowel him. Christopher knew he would have deserved it for having let the child from h
is sight. She likely couldn’t tell bloody east from west and now he was crediting her with conceiving a plan of ransoming his babe? He was the one with the darkness in his heart. He had no right to believe the same of her.
He lifted his head at the sound of a light footstep.
“Aye?”
“No word, my lord,” Jason answered, crossing the chamber. “The men have searched the village and found nothing. I heard one of the guards say he thought he saw someone hurry across the bridge, but he cannot remember who it was, what he was wearing or what he looked like.”
“He cannot remember!” Christopher exclaimed. “Are my men such fools they cannot mark who comes and goes inside my gates? What of the other guards?”
“I don’t know, my lord. I will return and see what else is to be learned. Can I not see to your comfort first? A fire, perhaps, or some wine—”
“I need nothing,” Christopher said flatly. “Nothing but tidings.”
Once Jason had gone, Christopher wrapped Gillian’s sword up and placed it in her trunk. He would find her alive and well, and she would be pleased to know her sword had not been disturbed. It would come in handy when he opened his arms and invited her to run him through.
“Christopher!” The faint voice grew in volume as it drew closer. “Chris, where in the bloody Hell are you?”
“In here.”
“By the saints, I can’t see a thing. Where are you?”
“Stand still, Colin. What did you learn?”
“She ran through the gate just after noon today. None of the guards stopped her, as they assumed she intended to come back. She hasn’t. The fog’s thick, Chris, but we have to search. I’ll organize a party and we’ll leave posthaste. I’ll send word as soon as may be.”
That message delivered, Colin’s boots retreated swiftly from the room, carrying Colin with them.
Christopher stood in the center of Gillian’s bedchamber and fought with himself. He hadn’t been outside his gates since he had been carried in them three years earlier. Inside his keep he was safe. He knew every inch of his hall, of his baileys, of his battlements. But outside? Outside his gates was terrain that had changed since he had been blinded, terrain that terrified him worse than any battle ever had.
He turned away from the door. Colin would manage it. Colin always did. He was a fine tracker with good instincts.
But Christopher knew he himself was better. He could move about in the fog as if it weren’t there. His squiring days at Artane had only honed the skill he had first learned at his own home. He could track a rabbit in the rain for leagues and find it in time for supper. And, if the truth were to be known, he did know the area surrounding his home. He knew where the gullies and bogs were, where the forest began and ended and what lay in between.
He could use Jason as his eyes. More than that, he could use his own instincts. Gillian was running blind. Who better than a blind man to follow her?
He left her chamber and walked slowly to his. He dressed in hose and a handful of tunics, worn one on top of another. He would need the warmth; it would also give him something to put on Gillian when he found her, for she would be chilled.
His fingers were stiff and uncooperative as he tried to buckle his sword belt around his hips. All his foolish suspicions came back to haunt him vengefully. Gillian had known from the beginning that he was blind. She hadn’t been plotting to hurt him. How could she plot betrayal, when all she had wanted was a safe place to sleep?
Wasn’t that why he had wed her in the first place?
He was sure he couldn’t bring himself to trust her entirely, but he wasn’t going to be the cause of her death. He would bring her home, explain what he did and did not want from her and the tale would be finished. She would remain, but she would remain out of his way. She would be free of her father’s beatings and he would be free of her foolish plans to seduce him.
He snatched up his cloak and strode downstairs. He heard Colin’s gasp the moment his foot hit the floor of the hall.
“By the bloody saints, what do you think you’re doing?”
Christopher smiled grimly. “You’re beginning to sound like my mother, Colin, so I suggest you leave off. Jason, come with me and we’ll discuss our strategy.”
Jason’s shoulder was suddenly and quite conveniently under his hand.
“Command me, my lord, and I’ll do your bidding with gladness.”
Christopher felt his chest tighten at the tone in Jason’s voice. There was pride there that he hadn’t heard in years. Three years, to be exact. It had to have been difficult to go from being squire to arguably the fiercest warrior in the realm, to being that self-same warrior’s nursemaid.
Christopher put his arm around Jason’s shoulders. “Think you she knows north from south?”
“Doubtful, my lord. I know she won’t go to Warewick, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she went to the king.”
“Aye,” Christopher agreed, “but she couldn’t have gotten far today. We’ll fan out and search south, then pull back and go west. And, Jason,” he said, lowering his voice, “you’ll have to be my eyes. My brilliant stallion won’t let me run him into a tree, but I’ll be useless beyond that.”
“My lord, it would be an honor to serve you this way. I shall not fail you.”
“Of course you won’t, lad. Artane’s son doesn’t know the meaning of the word.”
A quarter of an hour later they were riding across the drawbridge. Colin was behind, minding the men, and Christopher rode before the company with Jason at his side. Jason talked only loud enough to be heard over the clatter of horse’s hooves, though at present he could only describe the suffocating darkness.
Christopher could imagine that perfectly well without any help.
• • •
GILLIAN WOKE TO THE FEEL OF A COOL HAND AGAINST her brow and a voice that murmured soothingly.
“Hush now, child.”
“Berengaria, will she live?” a voice asked, from a distance.
“Aye,” the voice that belonged to the hand said, “she’ll live. She’s strong.”
Gillian wanted to speak, but she was too weary. She kept her eyes closed and slipped back into her dream. She had started out dreaming of Blackmour and a dragon; then she had begun to walk. Whether it had been only in her mind or she had risen to her feet in truth, she couldn’t say. The mist had been relentless, blocking out all but the faintest of light. She could have walked for an hour, or she could have walked for days. All she knew was she had been, and still was, bone weary and cold.
And sometime during that interminable night, she had felt herself falling. Gentle hands had caught her and laid her on a soft bed. It was then that she had first heard the voices.
“Not that, Magda, you fool! ’Tis a pinch of understanding you want, not misunderstanding!”
“But the pots all look the same to me.”
“Aye they would, to a pitiful novice such as you. Only a full-fledged witch could tell the difference. Now, take you some of this understanding and add it to the potion. The lad is hopelessly pigheaded and Gillian will never win him without some aid from us.”
“He is handsome though, isn’t he, Nemain? And she so fair. What fine children they will have together.”
“Lucifer’s knees, Magda, cease with your mooning! Keep stirring, lest you burn this again.”
“Hush, you two,” a third voice had said, the weathered voice Gillian found so pleasing. “The child needs rest, not your potions.”
“A love potion is never wasted,” the second voice lectured.
Gillian finally forced her eyes open and saw an older woman leaning over her, a woman with soft blue eyes and silver hair.
“Good morrow to you,” Gillian whispered.
The woman smiled. “And to you, child. Rest now. Your lord will come for you soon and you don’t wish him to see you with your eyes red and swollen.”
“But he cannot see me,” Gillian said, fighting to keep her eyes open.
&nbs
p; “Your knight is learning to see things his eyes never could, girl. Be patient with him.”
Gillian closed her eyes and tried not to weep. After all, the silver-haired woman was trying so hard to make her feel better; not weeping was the least she could do in return.
Unfortunately, she knew the woman was wrong. There would be no reason for her to have patience with Christopher for he didn’t want her in his house.
She knew the thought should have troubled her deeply, but she had no energy for being troubled. She was hard pressed to stay awake.
“What is your name, my lady?” she managed with the last of her energies.
“Berengaria, my child.”
• • •
“SHE ISN’T HERE.”
Christopher dragged his hand through his hair and blew out his breath in frustration. He turned to Colin. “You looked everywhere?”
“Aye. Not a sign of her.”
“Then we go north. Perhaps she lost her sense of direction in the night.”
“Chris, the men are weary. We should let them rest for a few minutes—”
Christopher reached out and jerked Colin close. “My wife is out there, likely frozen to death or worse, and you speak of weariness?” he hissed. “Damn you, Colin, I will not have her suffer for my foolishness!” He shoved his brother-in-law away from him. “Go home, if you wish it. I’ll go by myself.”
He heard Colin walk away, then heard him give the command to mount up. Christopher swung up into his saddle and let Jason’s voice lead him. Two days. Two fruitless, eternally long days of searching and finding nothing. Gillian wouldn’t have gone north. Surely even she knew that Scotland lay to the north. The only answer was that she had become lost and wandered off in the wrong direction.
He forced himself to think of the things that could have befallen her in the past two days. Death by exposure. Death by becoming supper to any number of wild animals. Each and every second of her suffering would be more drops of blood on his hands.
He cursed himself as he urged his mount forward. He had treated her abominably and he deserved whatever anguish his actions would bring upon him. Gladly would he make his penance if by some miracle he could find her alive and unhurt. Perhaps a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. On his knees. William would certainly have suggested the like, had he been alive to do so.