Lord of Vengeance

by Lara Adrian

  “And I am to trust you come alone?” Nigel called. “Truly, you must think me the veriest fool to believe your pledge of peace once again.”

  Something was amiss. If Gunnar could not tell from Nigel's smug expression and his cryptic responses, he would have seen it in the puzzled, expectant looks of the guards. Nigel was conspiring with someone, and it seemed quite possible from the wicked gleam in his eye, that Nigel, rather than the baron, might have called for Gunnar's death. Now more than ever, he needed to see d'Bussy in person, and Raina too, for the unsettling feeling in his gut told him she was in peril as well. “I don't know what you've done, Nigel, but I swear to you, I will uncover your treachery and you will pay. Damn it, open this gate.”

  Nigel considered the request for a long moment, then acceded with a curt jerk of his head. The drawbridge lowered and Gunnar led Burc's mount across the great expanse of wood planks, warily eyeing the score of guards as they glared down at him from the crenellated wall-walk. Murder lurked in their faces, a look Gunnar had worn often enough to recognize on sight. Yet none of them made an untoward move. As Gunnar neared the portcullis, one man spat into the moat.

  “Murdering whoreson,” someone grumbled from atop the wall.

  Murder? It would appear he was accused of such, yet he was the intended victim. He was the one who should be hurling angry accusations. Unless something had befallen the baron. No sooner had the thought flickered through his mind than the portcullis grated open and the gate swung wide, revealing a glowering Nigel flanked by at least a score of armed men.

  “I cannot decide whether you are the bravest man I've met,” Nigel said, his smile fading, “or the stupidest.”

  “Move aside,” Gunnar ordered, “lest I deem myself your judge and executioner.”

  Nigel laughed aloud. “My judge and executioner? What did you think to do, Rutledge, simply march in here by yourself and claim what you've been trying to steal from the first?”

  “I warrant you are the one with the avaricious goals.” Gunnar nudged his mount farther into the bailey and drew the reins of Burc's destrier until it came up beside him. “I suspect this man can testify to the baron as to the depths of your perfidy.”

  “There is precious little of import to the baron at the moment,” Nigel said, scarcely able to contain his mirth.

  Gunnar's gut clenched. “Bloody hell. What have you done--”

  “Nay, not I, Rutledge,” Nigel interjected. “You. 'Tis what you have done that concerns us all.” He snapped his fingers and nigh a score of guards closed ranks on Gunnar. “Take him away.”

  “Bastard.” Gunnar leapt from his mount and drew his sword. Instantly, Nigel jumped back into the crowd of soldiers.

  “Seize him!” he shrieked, but more than a dozen blades were already poised at Gunnar's throat.

  The guards stripped him of his weapons, two men stretching his arms taut while Gunnar struggled futilely to break free. Four other guards pulled Burc from his mount and deposited him on the ground at Gunnar's feet.

  Once both of them were subdued, Nigel smoothed back his hair and tugged the hem of his tunic back into place. He came within spitting distance of Gunnar's face and whispered, “It will give me great pleasure to slowly--and very agonizingly--finish what this incompetent lout was sent to do.”

  A sickening dread flickered in Gunnar's gut as Nigel turned his attention to Burc and crouched down beside him.

  “P-please...have...m-mercy,” the knight sputtered.

  “Oh, I will, Burc.” Nigel nodded grimly and reached out to wipe a bloody smudge from the man's cheek. The day's last rays of sunlight glinted on the slim blade of the dagger Nigel then withdrew from beneath his mantle. With a quick movement, he slid the blade between the knight's ribs and jerked it upward. Burc's eyes widened; his breath caught in his throat, erupting in a faint gurgle.

  “You'll tell no tales today,” Nigel whispered, resheathing his knife as he came to his feet. He announced blandly, “This man is dead.”

  “Nay,” Gunnar shouted, bucking against the guards who held him. “Damn your black soul, you murdered him. You murdered d'Bussy as well, didn't you?”

  “Take the prisoner belowstairs to await me,” Nigel ordered coolly, then waved his hand over his shoulder in Burc's direction. “And dispose of this carcass, before it rots.”

  Chapter 25

  Raina spent the remainder of the day and the whole of the night in her chamber, unable to bear the idea of facing a castle full of people who, as Nigel had informed her, likely blamed her for their lord's demise. She refused to leave the sanctum of her room even when she heard the hall belowstairs being prepared for the first meal. Grief and guilt left her empty, but without an appetite for food or any other comfort, save the quiet of her chamber.

  She sat on her window ledge, staring out at the fast approach of dawn and welcoming the end to the darkest day of her life. Yet through her pain, despite her anguish, she prayed for the chance to see Gunnar again.

  She had not removed his rings. The feel of those precious gifts, nestled between her breasts and close to her heart, infused her with strength, with hope. Grief plagued her and doubts assailed her, but her faith in Gunnar remained. She could not have been wrong to trust him. Not after all they had become to each other. He loved her; she felt it in her very soul, believed it with all her heart. She needed to believe it, now more than ever.

  A sharp rap on her door sounded, jolting her back to bleak reality a moment before Nigel entered her chamber. He was dressed in fine cream-colored silks, newly fashioned it seemed, and more befitting a high lord than one of his foot soldiers. His flaxen hair gleamed nearly as bright as his eyes, his sparse little beard neatly trimmed and waxed into a grim point at his chin. If Raina felt as though she had died yesterday, it seemed Nigel had been reborn, cast in the role of baron and unabashedly delighting in it.

  “I am told you will not be breaking fast in the hall,” he said with an imperious scowl.

  He smelled of heavy perfume and wine as he swaggered toward her perch at the window. Something in his expression made the hair on the back of her neck prickle to attention.

  Her brother.

  How long had he known of their true relationship? And why had he kept it from her? If it was evidence of duplicity she sought, it seemed she need not look any farther than Norworth's own walls. Deceit abounded in this keep and all her life she had been unaware of it. So naive.

  No more, she vowed.

  She pivoted on the wide ledge, placing her feet on the solid oak of her chamber floor. “Nigel, I want to see my father--”

  “Impossible,” he rejected softly, coming to stand beside her and gazing out over the bailey.

  “I must see him with my own eyes--”

  He turned his head to face her, his expression stony. “I said nay, Raina. Trust me, you'll not want to look upon him in death.”

  “But what if he is alive? You left him alone out there. How can you be certain he is dead?”

  “I am certain,” he said with impatience. “He is dead.”

  “Then if you are right, at the very least he deserves a proper burial, here at home. I want you to send a search party out to locate him--”

  “They will never find him.”

  His clipped reply was so resolute, so cold, Raina nearly shivered. “Then you must lead them. Please, Nigel, I beg you. Do this one thing for me...for our father.”

  “Our father,” he whispered quietly. His bravado dimmed markedly with the simple forming of those two words. He scoffed. “What did he ever do for me besides push me away, forsake me and deny me what was rightfully mine?”

  The bitterness in his voice made Raina ache inside. She had never been denied any of her father's affection. But she had been denied the truth. “How long have you known, Nigel?”

  He pursed his lips and let out a heavy sigh. He attempted a chuckle but it was a terrible, humorless sound. “I suppose from the moment the slut who bore me first realized she could wound me wi
th the knowledge.”

  “If you knew all this time, why did you keep it from me?”

  “He made me vow, told me he'd as soon slit my throat as have you hear he had lain with a filthy peasant-whore.”

  “So, my fa--” Raina squeezed her eyes closed against the pain of this further betrayal by her father. “Then he knew as well that you were his son?”

  “He did. He knew it, and he hated me for it. Many times I wondered why he did not do away with me. Of course, letting me live--in his very keep--was much slower torture. Every day I saw the breadth of what I was denied, and every day I hated him more and more.” He looked at her suddenly, his eyes filled with some emotion she did not understand. His voice was soft, regretful. “I wanted to hate you, too. God's truth, I tried, but you were always kind to me, called me your friend.” He reached out and caressed her cheek, then let his knuckles gently graze the length of her arm. “Before I could help myself, I was falling in love with you.”

  At first she doubted she had heard him correctly--hoped she hadn't. But he was looking at her so strangely now, so covetously, that she had to swallow her revulsion. “Nay.” She backed away from him, feeling her skin crawl where he had touched her. “Nay, I don't want to hear this.”

  “I know it must come as quite a shock to you. But I hope with time, you will come to love me as well...as my wife.”

  She sucked in her breath, aghast. “You can't be serious,” she cried, feeling her insides twist and coil in budding panic. The bed suddenly came up against the backs of her thighs. “We cannot marry, Nigel. The church would never allow it. For pity's sake, we are kin!”

  He shrugged and came toward her. “Aye, but now the only two people who know that misfortunate fact are right here, in this room. I have no cause to bring attention to our mingled bloodlines--”

  “I certainly do.” She sidled away along the length of the bed, refusing to turn her back on him.

  He advanced slowly, his chuckle low and wicked. “But you won't.”

  “You cannot force me into marriage, Nigel. I will never stand for it!”

  “Oh, I think you will,” he replied with a confident smile. “In fact, you will stand before a priest in the morn--”

  “Nay.”

  “--and you will pledge to love, honor, and obey me unto death...or I will deliver up your precious lover's head as a wedding gift.”

  Raina froze, her heart nearly ceasing to beat. Gunnar.

  “Do you know where he is? Oh, God, Nigel. What have you done to him?” She raced forward, clutched his sleeve. “Please, I beg you, tell me--”

  “Ah, that's more like it, my love.” He grinned smugly. “I do know where he is, and as for what I've done to him, well now, that remains to be seen.”

  “You must take me to him.”

  “Mayhap, after we are wed.” He smoothed her hair back from her face. “Mayhap not even then. You must trust me; I know you are capable because you trusted him. Perhaps if I take you to my bed you will be more inclined to do so, hmm? Was that not all it took for you to turn traitor to your father with him?”

  “I am no traitor,” she averred hotly. “And neither is Gunnar. So far as I have seen, the only person skilled in treachery is y--”

  “Have a care with that sharp tongue, my lovely,” he chided, placing his finger against her lips. “Best you learn now to keep my mood pleasant, for I can just as easily lock you up in the bowels of this keep as I did...”

  He did not have to complete the thought. The truth was there and he knew it as well as Raina did. Gunnar was at Norworth. Raina tried to keep the relief from showing on her face, but inside her entire body sang with joy. She wanted to laugh, to cry, to scream her relief. Gunnar was there, and she knew in her heart that he was alive.

  And she would find him.

  “I will be watching you closely,” Nigel warned, “and I expect you to dine at my side--quietly, and cooperatively--this eve when I announce our decision to marry.” She started to protest but he hushed her with a lift of his brows. “If you won't do it for me, do it for Rutledge. He's in quite a state, and I don't know how much more of my temper the poor wretch can take.”

  * * *

  Raina endured the evening meal at Nigel's side on the dais, quietly accepting the castlefolks' condolences and weathering the traveling whispers of blame and doubt. Nigel did not even trifle with affecting a pretense of grief, instead enlisting a troupe of jongleurs to entertain and breaking out cask after cask of wine. It did not seem to bother him in the slightest that only he took any measure of enjoyment in the inappropriate gaiety of the meal.

  Neither did it appear to faze him to hear the gasps and stunned reactions of the folk when he stood on the lord's table and made his announcement that he intended to marry Raina in the morn.

  Raina, alternately torn between weeping and screaming, found it difficult to keep her emotions concealed. Bewildered hesitant congratulations were offered up by the men and the women of the keep, no one daring to question either the timing or the basis of the union. As Nigel told them, Norworth needed a lord and he was only too honored that Raina had asked him to serve them in that capacity at her side, as her husband.

  Only after Nigel had gone off to lead a dance did Raina allow her composure to slip, praying that Gunnar was all right. She nearly jumped out of her skin when someone placed a tender hand on her shoulder.

  “Oh! Evard,” she said on a deep exhalation. “You startled me.”

  The guard's wizened face was etched with concern. “Is aught troubling you, my lady? I mean, aside from all that has...occurred of late.”

  “Nay,” she lied as brightly as she could, her gaze on Nigel, who was busy toying with the laces on one of the female entertainers' bodice. “I am--I will be--fine, thank you.”

  He did not look convinced, leaning in to speak softly. “'Tis not my place to say, and my apologies if I offend you, my lady, but your choice in husband leaves many of us to wonder if you are not making a hasty decision due to your grief over the loss of your father--and the surrounding circumstances.”

  She looked at the old guard's face and knew she could be honest with him. “Whatever Nigel has told everyone,” she said in a hushed whisper, “I know that Gunnar had naught to do with what occurred yesterday. Further, I'm certain that if I could see my father, I would have proof of Nigel's duplicity.”

  Evard smiled an understanding, sympathetic smile. “I can assemble a search party, my lady.”

  Hope began to flicker in Raina's bosom; she was not alone in this after all. Still, the odds of locating her father--whatever had befallen him--were slim. “Wynbrooke lies many hours to the north of here, and though I know my father did not make it as far as that before he was...” She could not speak it. “I cannot tell you for certain what path they took, but--”

  “We will find him,” Evard assured her. “I'll not return until we do.”

  She squeezed his hand gratefully, thanking him for his loyalty and whispering a prayer for his success as he stepped off the dais and motioned for a group of men to follow him out of the hall.

  A few hours later, Nigel had at last tired of celebrating, and, grasping Raina's elbow, entreated her to follow him abovestairs to her chamber. He stopped at the door and faced her, blocking her path within. “I could not help but notice my hall was missing a handful of men at the close of sup--Evard, John, and Delwyn, to name a few. I do hope you aren't brewing up a scheme in hopes of putting off our pending nuptials.”

  “I sent them out to find my father. As your interests seemed elsewise occupied, I took it upon myself to have him brought home.”

  He smiled thinly. “Ah, Raina. Ever the devoted daughter. I can only hope you'll make as true a wife.”

  “I will,” she answered evenly. “Though not yours.”

  “Stubborn unto the end, I see. Well, it makes precious little difference now. Prepare yourself, my love, for in the morning you and I will be wed, and come tomorrow eve--” He grinned wolfishly and opene
d the door to let her pass. “--I will be planting my heirs deep and frequently within your belly.”

  “Over my dead body,” she declared as she stepped inside.

  Behind her, Nigel's answering chuckle was a maniacal titter. “Nay,” he returned, “as it would seem, 'twill be over your father's dead body.” He grasped the iron latch of the door. “Pleasant dreams, sister dear,” he hissed as he pulled it closed.

  * * *

  The entire keep was abed and the hour was late when Raina stole out of her chamber in search of Gunnar. Armed with a small dagger and carrying a tallow candle to light the way, she crept down the narrow, spiraling staircase that led to the keep's oubliette, the place of forgetting.

  Greenish-brown moss grew thick on the walls, attesting to the prison's lack of recent use, and the steep stairs were slick with moisture. The air grew colder and more fetid the lower she climbed into the abyss.

  At last she reached the door to the prison chamber, its iron-banded panels black with age and damp to the touch. She listened a moment for signs of life beyond that door and heard nothing. Steeling herself for the worst, she grasped the cold metal lock bar and lifted it up, then pushed against the heavy oak panel. The leather hinges groaned as the door yawned into the blackness.

  A rush of damp, cold air assaulted her senses, carrying with it the stench of mold and decay. The light from her candle did little to illuminate the room, which might have been a blessing. If the walls of the stairwell made her cringe, the walls of the prison were positively revolting. Her stomach lurched violently and bile rose in her throat as she peered about the room. Reeking mold and mildew stained the walls and formed a slippery paste on the stone floor.