The Circle Of A Promise

by Helen A Rosburg

  The tension in Baldwin’s body built until all he could hear was the sound of the blood rushing through his veins. His usually orderly thoughts whirled crazily, until there was nothing but chaos in his brain and a hot, red rage in his heart. He spun.

  Maggie stepped aside with a small gasp. The earl did not seem to notice her. He yanked the door open and swept past down the stairs, his long black hair lifting from his neck in the breeze of his swift passage. The uncertain guards, who still milled about the open tower door below, pressed themselves to the walls. Baldwin did not appear to notice them, either. He strode past into the courtyard as the more drops of rain pattered on the cobblestones.

  Someone had put the hamstrung charger out of its misery. It lay, throat gaping, in a pool of congealing blood. William’s crushed form lay nearby. Baldwin headed straight for the gruesome corpse.

  “Imbecile! Half-wit!” he screamed, and kicked the broken body. “You deserved to die!” Another kick. “Get up! Get up!”

  Rage and hatred contorted the earl’s narrow features. Saliva flecked his chin. He kicked the corpse of his minion again and again, to the accompanying roar of thunder, until his boots and the hem of his tunic were stained with blood. Over and over he shrieked at the dead man to rise.

  One by one the onlookers turned away. All but Maggie. She no longer feared her lover might learn her part in his prisoner’s escape. When the earl finally sank to his knees, exhausted, she came and knelt at his side. The rain quickly soaked them both.

  After a time, he allowed her to lead him away.

  Despite his double burden, the noble gray stallion galloped steadily through the downpour. Stephen kept to the muddy track, but did not fear pursuit. Their tracks would soon be obliterated, and they were headed on a westerly route as well. Baldwin, if and when he chose to search for them, would head directly northeast, for Ranulf’s castle. He would not find them along the way. They continued on through the heavy rain. Streaks of lightning occasionally, briefly, lit their way through the stormy night. Eventually the stallion’s heaving sides began to steam. Stephen slowed him to a walk and turned in the saddle.

  “We’re going to have to find someplace to spend the night,” he said quietly to Mara. “We’re far enough from Baldwin to be safe, and I’d like to spare the horse.”

  His betrothed remained silent and immobile.

  “Are you all right, Mara? If you fear to stop, we’ll keep on.”

  After a while she shook her head. Her hair and clothes were sodden, and she was so cold her body was as numb as her emotions. “I’m. I’m all right,” she muttered hoarsely. “Stop. Please.”

  Stephen’s stomach tightened at the dead sound of Mara’s voice. He recalled, with vivid horror, the scene at Ullswater castle. Mara had undoubtedly witnessed the carnage. She had seen her parents brutally murdered. And what had she suffered as Baldwin’s prisoner? Stephen dared not think. Not now, not yet. He had to find shelter.

  The countryside around them was green and wooded. There were no villages, and only two or three widely scattered shepherds’ cottages. Visibility was poor, and Stephen would have missed them entirely if they had not been close to the road. The feeble light from their small windows barely penetrated the soggy gloom.

  Stephen feared to compromise the inhabitants by asking them to shelter fugitives from the earl’s wrath, but Mara needed rest and warmth. Soon.

  The deserted hut, set well back among the trees, would have passed unnoticed had Stephen’s attention been less focused. As it was he almost missed it He turned the stallion off the road and approached the small, tumbledown structure cautiously.

  One wall was missing completely, the other crumbling. Barely half of the rotting thatched roof remained. Dead and moldering leaves littered and floor and banked against what was left of the walls. Nothing had ever looked so inviting.

  Stephen dismounted and held out his arms for Mara, who fell into them. He steadied her and led her into a corner beneath the sagging roof.

  The sudden cessation of rain beating on her head and shoulders was wonderful. Mara’s daze slowly lifted. She looked around, took in the details of her surroundings, and sank to the leafy ground. She leaned back and closed her eyes.

  Stephen watched his bride-to-be with concern. He knelt by her outstretched legs and lightly touched her shoulder. Her eyes flew open.

  “Mara, are you all right?”

  Her eyes closed again as she nodded. “I’m just. cold. So cold. And tired.”

  Although her body already relaxed toward an exhausted sleep, Stephen saw convulsive shudders tremble through her. He grasped her upper arms, and was aghast at how icy her flesh had become.

  “Mara.” He gave her a little shake, and her eyelids fluttered. Stephen rubbed her arms, trying desperately to ease the dangerous chill. “Mara, I’m going to find some dry wood, start a fire. I’ve got to get you warm. I won’t go far.”

  She was too exhausted to reply. She thought she gave a small nod but wasn’t sure. She was so terribly cold and numb.

  Yet that was good-good because her mind couldn’t summon the strength to remember the massacre, her parents’ gruesome deaths, her part in the treachery that brought Baldwin’s fist down on them all. Her fatigue was so great, all she could do was sit and listen to the small sounds Stephen made as he searched beneath the leaves for twigs and bits of dry wood. Then she heard him strike his flint, and she heard the flesh-and soul-warming sound of a crackling fire.

  Mara turned her face to the warmth and saw the redness of the flames through her closed eyelids. She felt the frigid chill recede from her flesh.

  Stephen returned to kneel at Mara’s side. Purple bruises of exhaustion remained under her eyes, but some of the frightening pallor had left her face, and a hint of color touched her cheeks.

  “I don’t even have a cloak to give you,” he murmured. “I’m so sorry. Sorry for everything.” He looked away for a moment, lips compressed. He had to force himself to continue. “I. I rode with my knights to Ullswater, Mara. To get you. I know what happened.”

  She did not open her eyes. She turned her face away.

  Stephen’s concern deepened. He took her shoulders in his big hands. “I know you can hear me, Mara,” he said. “If there’s anything more I can do for you, please tell me. Let me help you, Mara. Please.”

  Mara opened her eyes slowly. She looked at Stephen squarely. “You can do nothing,” she replied dully. “Unless you can undo what I have done.”

  “What you’ve done? What could you possibly have-”

  “I am responsible for their deaths,” she said, her voice toneless. “All of them.”

  “Responsible! For Baldwin’s perfidy? You could not in any way be responsible, Mara. You would never knowingly invite this tragedy upon your family. I will not believe it.” Stephen took Mara’s chin in his hand and forced her to look at him. “Never forget that it was you who got us out of Baldwin’s dungeon tower. It was you who stood at my side, you who fought at my side and saved us. I have never witnessed a greater act of courage. And I have seen many valiant deeds.”

  The fire’s warmth seemed to have roused the gelid blood in her veins. Mara allowed memory to flow back into her.

  She remembered seeing Stephen on the stair, the wonder of his presence when all hope had deserted her. She remembered Maggie and her brave sacrifice, their stand in the yard, the sword in her hand, the brief moments of the fight, their flight upon the great, gray charger.

  Something had stirred to life in her then. It stirred again now.

  Stephen had come for her. Against all odds, he had come for her and rescued her from a fate too horrible to imagine. Her own part in the action was nothing. She had simply done what she had to do. The growing warmth in her kindled to a small flame.

  He had come for her, risked his life for her, this man who knelt beside her with her chin tenderly cupped in his hand.

  “Stephen, I.” The words caught in her throat. Tears pushed at her eyelids. The words
that swelled Mara’s heart, the thing that she wished to say was too big, too overwhelming, to give voice to. She wasn’t ready. Not yet.

  Instead, Mara tried to push to her feet. “The horse,” she mumbled. “The horse. I-We have to take care of him.”

  Relief flooded Stephen like a wave. “I’ll take care of him, Mara. Don’t worry. He served us well. Stay by the fire and keep warm.”

  She sank back gratefully. Exhaustion still held her in its coils, but Mara no longer felt that weariness sucked her very life away. Through half-lidded eyes, she watched Stephen tend the stallion that had carried them so far, so fast.

  The huge animal was docile. Stephen unsaddled him easily, and drew him out of the drizzle and into the flickering circle of firelight. He stroked the long, smooth curve of the horse’s muscular neck.

  Mara couldn’t keep her eyes open any longer, could no longer seem to support the weight of her eyelids. They did not even open when the stallion lowered his head and nuzzled her shoulder. His warm breath blew against her neck. Blindly, she put a hand out to touch his great, damp head, and a faint smile curved her lips.

  “You rescued us, didn’t you?” she whispered. “I think I’ll call you. Hero.”

  Stephen knew, when he saw her hand drop to her lap, that she slept. When he eased down beside her and put his arm about her shoulders, her flesh was no longer icy, but warm and vital. He allowed his own eyes to close.

  The stallion stood watch over them both.

  Jack had spent his day lurking as close to the castle gate as he dared. He abandoned the cart in a stand of ash and requisitioned its horse as his mount He was ready to ride the instant he saw Stephen and his rescued bride.

  But his anxiety had grown along with the lengthening shadows. It turned to fear when thunder rolled, and there was still no sign of his master.

  Jack cursed himself for ever having left Stephen. What had made him think his master could effect such a daring rescue all alone? He was on the verge of risking all in an attempt to reenter the castle, when the most amazing thing happened.

  He was near enough to hear the commotion. He sat a little straighter on his big, brown horse and watched the gate intently. Just as a light rain started to fall, a handsome gray charger pounded over the bridge. On its back were the two people Jack wanted most in the world to see.

  Grinning ear to ear, Jack nocked an arrow in his bow and prepared to pick off at least the first person in pursuit of the pair. Then another amazing thing happened: The gate closed.

  Jack lowered his bow. His jaw gaped. It was incomprehensible.

  Yet it had happened. And Jack wasted no more time pondering the imponderable. He set off at a canter behind the gray stallion.

  His mount was slower than the charger, even with the charger’s double burden, and his master’s tracks were soon eliminated by the rain. But Jack had seen Stephen head west, and he knew Stephen’s mind. He continued on the western road.

  The rain lessened, but the ground was thick with mud. The cart horse plodded on slowly, and Jack dozed fitfully on the animal’s broad back. He almost missed the faint light flickering through the trees.

  Jack halted his horse and slid to the ground. He moved through the wood as silently as the fox he resembled. He had to clamp his hands over his mouth to keep from shouting with joy when he saw who it was in the ramshackle structure.

  The two were sound asleep. Stephen’s arm was around Mara’s shoulders; her head was on his breast, one slim, elegant hand resting on his chest. Over his heart.

  Only the gray stallion noticed Jack, and it pricked its ears curiously.

  He backed away as quietly as he had come.

  A smile lit his fine, sharp features. The rain was no more than a lingering mist. He would sleep in the open for the remainder of the night, the old brown horse his companion. He’d done worse.

  Far to the east another pair slept, but not in peace. Tormented by his dreams, Baldwin tossed restlessly on his wide bed. Despite the chill in the air, his linen shirt was rank with sweat An arm, flung to one side, caught Maggie on her injured cheek and she woke. It was not the first time that night.

  “There, there,” she murmured, and stroked the earl’s pale, damp forehead. “Sleep, lord. Sleep.”

  The earl’s lips continued to work in silent conversation. From time to time Maggie caught a word or phrase spoken aloud, and she knew why his body tried to flee from the dreams in his head. They were dreams of blood and death. Revenge.

  She lay back on her pillow, but sleep eluded her the rest of the night. Mara was gone, yes, but her ghost haunted them. The earl would not sleep in peace again until he had recaptured his prize and taken his revenge. Maggie remembered the young man with the long, dark hair, the kindness in his gaze, the guilt and sympathy when he had struck her. She was sorry, truly sorry, he was going to have to die so horribly.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Thomas could keep still no longer. His anxiety was too great, the impatience and inactivity too unfamiliar. For the tenth time that day, he toured the castle grounds.

  No one would ever guess a massacre had occurred, bathing the courtyard in blood. Not a trace of the carnage remained. Thomas, along with the knights sent by Alfred, had been amazed by the outpouring of aid and sympathy from the people who tenanted Ranulf’s estates. Once they saw the castle manned again, its defense against the earl secure, they had flocked to help.

  The dead had been decently buried. Because the castle had no chapel or mausoleum, Ranulf and his lady lay side by side in Beatrice’s garden, in the shade of the flowering pear. What was left of the kennels had been razed, the scorched stones hauled away to leave no reminder. The hall and sleeping apartments had been scoured and set to order, fresh rushes strewn upon the ground. The rooms looked empty, however, stripped of their luxuries.

  A small staff of men and women, vassals whose homes near the castle had been destroyed, stayed to run the kitchen and look after Stephen’s knights. All was set to rights, and in good time. It only remained for Stephen to return with his bride.

  But as the hours of the second long day passed, Thomas grew increasingly pessimistic.

  The weather did not improve his mood.

  Yesterday it had rained. Though the present day was dry, the sky still threatened. Purple clouds hung low, without break, and a fitful, moisture-scented breeze stirred the air. Thomas felt it lift the thin and soft brown hair from his neck. He scrubbed at the faint stubble on his chin.

  The day neared its end, and he didn’t like to wait. He doubted he could stand another night wondering what had become of his baron and comrade. And he cursed himself for allowing Stephen to embark on such a desperate plan with such little hope of success. Splendid as she might be, no woman was worth losing one’s life.

  “Thomas.”

  He flinched, startled, and turned to see Walter approach. The knight, shorter than both Thomas and Stephen, was nevertheless broader and walked with the peculiar gait of a man with heavily muscled legs.

  “The stables are in order,” Walter reported. “All our horses are bedded. There was plenty of room. There were only a couple of palfreys left after Baldwin took what he wanted.”

  Thomas nodded. “Thank you, Walter.”

  “Thank me not. Merely direct me to the next task. You know I loathe idleness.”

  “We are of the same mind, old friend. But I.” Thomas hesitated. “Well.”

  “You want me to have your horse saddled?” the man asked. He had the insight of long association.

  “You know well my orders. I am to remain here, in charge, until the baron’s return.”

  The two men exchanged knowing looks.

  “I. I suppose I could go,” Walter volunteered. A grin played at the corners of his mouth. “No one ordered me to stay put. I could take a few men, in case I ran into anyone needing assistance. I might even-”

  Walter was cut short by a sudden and sharp bark.

  But all the dogs had been butchered. They had bot
h seen it. The men turned in unison toward the source of the sound.

  The hound emerged from behind a pile of refuse near the kitchen building. His coarse gray coat was dirty and matted, dried blood covered his large head, and one eye was nearly swollen shut. He was lean from starvation and wary of the two men. His lip curled into an ugly snarl as he moved past them toward the gate. Once well away, he broke into a run and did not stop until he had reached his goal. He placed his broad forepaws against the gate and scrabbled at the wood, whining piteously all the while.

  Thomas and Walter exchanged another glance. Then Thomas grinned.

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” he breathed. His next words were shouted. “Open the gate! Quickly! Let that dog out!” To Walter, he said, “That hound knows something we don’t.”

  “Let’s find out what it is.”

  There was no time to go for their horses. As the gate lifted from the ground, the men sprinted for it in hot pursuit of the lean, gray hound.

  The long sleep had left Mara’s body rested, but she had eaten nothing in over twenty-four hours and she felt weak and shaky. The gash on her temple had closed, and the swelling had subsided, yet her head ached miserably and each step Hero took set it throbbing anew. Each step bringing her closer and closer to Ullswater Castle.

  The curious lassitude had returned. Mara had awakened to find Jack hunkered with Stephen by the small fire. She had been glad to see the loyal servant, and had managed a smile in reply to his cheerful greeting. Then Stephen had told her they would ride immediately to Ullswater.

  “My knights hold the castle,” he had informed her. “It’s safe, Mara. You’ll be safe there.”

  “Safe,” she had murmured. “Yes, Stephen, safe. As long as there is no more treachery from within.”

  Sobs had threatened to choke her, and she buried her face in her hands. Stephen was at her side in an instant.

  “Mara, what is it, what’s wrong? What do you mean?”