Fire Dance

by Delle Jacobs

  "If I may suggest, lord," said Gerard.

  "Do so."

  "The holdings of Anwealda and Dougal are central to this campaign, for Rufus cannot capture Carlisle without going through the Vale of Eden. But Cyneric's is out of the way. It could serve to harbor rebels, but as it guards the Aire Gap, it is a threat now. Wallis could hold it with little effort, for his holding abuts it. Thus, you may keep your second where he is most useful to you, here, and decisions about fiefs could be made later when it is more apparent what land there is to be divided."

  "I will think on it. But let us attend to today's affairs today. And tomorrow, Gerard, you will ride forth with Robert and Hugh to Anwealda's holding, and leave Hugh there with his men. You will harry the neighborhood for the knights, but see that the common folk are not terrorized."

  "Tomorrow may be too late, Alain," said Robert. "Let us ride today."

  "True. Aye. Then, leave when you are ready."

  He watched the Saxon and Norman knights file out of the small chamber and listened to their clinking noises and boisterous banter as they hurried down the wooden stairs. They would be busy for the remainder of the day gathering the supplies and heading off to reinforce Anwealda's holding. And he would have a day to learn more about his own demesne.

  He was disappointed, in a way. He had hoped they would be excited about his map. But they had merely thought it inaccurate. They all seemed to have clearer concepts in their heads than could ever be drawn on paper. The advantage of the illiterate mind, he supposed, was that it must commit so much more to memory.

  He trundled down the stairs after them, out of the hall. In the lower bailey, villeins hauled out carts to supply the new outpost. More villeins struggled with the great stone blocks being winched upward to their place on the curtain wall, while masons waited to set them in their bed of fresh mortar. Wooden scaffolding creaked with their movements. It galled him to see such an enormous effort put into an unacceptable site. He would change it if he could. A simple mound and moat with wooden tower and palisade would be better than this.

  The untenable holding to the north was of greater concern. He could build his new motte and bailey there. It could be done in a few weeks, and would provide greater security for Rufus. He resolved to discuss it with Chrétien.

  Alain's interest in mottes and baileys was soon distracted by the sight ahead of him of Edyt's braid as it swung at its tip, an accent to her brisk pace. On one hip she carried a willow basket with a great pile of linens as she made for the beck that rushed beside the castle. As she passed the bath house, he came up behind her. Quietly.

  "Edyt."

  Her arms flung into the air so suddenly that she dropped her basket. Smothering a smirk, he watched benignly as she retrieved linens from the grass and hastily shoved them back atop those that had not spilled. He should feel guilty for his trick, he supposed.

  "Aye, lord."

  "I would talk with you."

  "Aye, lord. I– I know the cup was precious to you, but it is cracked and I cannot fix it. If you wish to punish me,– "

  For a reply, he took her arm in his hand and led her into the dark coolness of the little stone bath house. Inside, he turned her to face him, and tried not to laugh at the wideness of her brilliant blue eyes. He lifted the basket from her hands, placed it on the low bench, and folded his arms.

  "Now, Edyt, what is it you are about?"

  "I go to take linens to the hall, lord."

  "I refer to that odd display this morning. What mischief is that, Edyt?"

  "None, lord, it was not malice, but merely a slip. A bone, I think. I utterly mislike them on the floor, you know."

  "A bone? Through your shoes?"

  "They are but soft leather, lord."

  "Aye, but would they not have protected you from a bone?"

  "Well, there was something, I am sure."

  "Indeed. But there was no bone, Edyt. I looked."

  "Then, mayhap it was merely a cramp in my foot. You may punish me, lord. I did not mean to break your cup."

  Alain's chuckle rumbled up from deep inside him. "I vow I am unaccustomed to having young maids assault my drinking cup, but I care naught about it, Edyt. But I would like to know your mischief."

  Her lips parted, as if awaiting a word that would not come.

  Rosemary. The coolness of the bathhouse held her scent, the soft but pungent, piney scent of rosemary that always lingered after her. Here it permeated everything, as if this small stone building were especially hers. And he had seen her come from it at the first light of dawn that first morning. Did she sleep here? Why here? Why not the hall?

  The rosemary. Aye. It was a part of what had stirred him from his sleep the previous night. A mere whiff of it could bring intense arousal to his body.

  Alain crowded her closer to the cool stones behind her.

  "What were you doing in my chamber last night, Edyt?" His voice was a growl calculated to frighten a guilty maid free of her sins.

  "I, lord? I was not– "

  Now he knew it was her. The chamber had echoed of her, the scent, the feel, the essence. He had known it in both soul and body. Aye, in body. She drew him like a lodestone. Brought a violent ache, an awakening of his need. He stood close to her, and his hand touched the velvet smoothness of her hot cheek. So close to her, he drank in the aroma that was hers.

  "It was you," he said. "The rosemary. It clings to your hair. What were you doing there, Edyt?"

  "Nay, lord, it was not I. The rosemary is in the rushes. I use it often."

  Rushes, indeed. She herself had told him Fyren never allowed rushes in the sleeping chambers for fear of fire. "You have not put rushes in my chamber, Edyt. But I smelled the rosemary there last night. What did you seek?"

  "Naught, I tell you."

  The one hand wove itself through her hair above the loose yellow braid, and the other encompassed her at her waist.

  "It is in your skin, like the depths of a pine forest. No other has a scent like you, Edyt."

  Before she could object again, his lips descended and captured hers, feather soft and tingling. Passion slammed unexpectedly through him, like the blow of a hammer, so that he tightened his embrace suddenly, pressed her pliant body firmly to him. Her small hands touched him, burned an incendiary trail across his chest, moving outward as if she thought to encircle him with her arms, yet did not.

  With a moan, he deepened the kiss, found the willing recesses of her mouth and the tentative touch of her tongue to his. He felt her meld into him. Nothing had ever felt so right.

  Or was so wrong. No. It must not be. He'd done it again, done precisely what he had been determined he would not do. Agonized, he grasped her arms and stood back from her. He knew it for what it was, now. Not merely that she caught his fancy. There was a natural music that sang between them, something more perfect than either of them alone. If there were a world for them together, he knew he would choose it over this one.

  But there was not. His loyalty, devotion, his very being, were pledged to another. Rufus had betrothed him to a lady, sight unseen, and as he found her. And he had not even managed to find her.

  He could not have this girl. And he could no longer delay what must be done. He turned away and clasped his empty arms over his chest.

  "I must find you a husband," he said, and thought his voice sounded like feet crunching in gravel.

  "Nay!"

  He might at least face her. Again he turned. Her blue eyes were wide, round, and frightened.

  "This cannot continue, Edyt. It is not good. There are no constraints, nothing to stop– Something must be done. One of my knights, mayhap."

  "Nay, lord. I do not want a husband."

  "Not a Norman, then? A Saxon, mayhap. Or Gerard?"

  "Gerard is married, lord, and has a young daughter."

  "Then he shows you too much interest. Surely, there is another."

  "Nay, lord."

  "Why not? I did think every young maid sought the protectio
n and security of a marriage. You could do well for yourself."

  "Nay, lord. I am imperfect."

  He felt the corners of his lips dance against his will, and the stiffness in his body ease. "If you say naught, no one will notice. How are you imperfect, Edyt?"

  "I am a foundling. I have naught to bring to a marriage."

  "I will give you a dowry."

  "But a man would be a fool to marry one whose family is unknown. His children might be deformed, or simple, or mad. No one would want me, lord."

  "You do not know your family? I thought you said your mother managed the household before you."

  "Aye, well, she took me in at Lady Edyt's behest. Hence my name. Do not trouble yourself with my concerns, lord, I am happy as I am."

  "Happy? I have never seen a maid so grim. But think on it, Edyt. Surely there would be someone."

  "I must go, lord."

  The girl grabbed her basket and hurried out the door. For a moment, he stood in the darkness and watched her scurry across the bailey and down the hill to the gate.

  When he again stepped out into the sunshine, he saw Gerard, arms folded. Laughing.

  * * *

  "Do not laugh at me, Gerard. It is not funny."

  "Aye– Edyt. But I think he is more likely to bed you than do away with you."

  "You do not know whereof you speak."

  "And I will not ask. I will keep my promise. But why not let me hide you if you are so afraid? I can find someone."

  "I cannot. Not yet. There's something I must do first."

  "Something more important than your life?"

  "Aye. Far more important. I want him to govern here. And I must see that he will be safe, first."

  "Edyt, he is a knight of great prowess and renown. He does not need a mere maid to keep him safe."

  "This time, he does. Once I have done this thing, I will let you hide me. But for now, you must keep your promise."

  The blond knight nodded, with soft sadness in his brown eyes, and gave her a reluctant smile.

  She wished she could tell him, but she couldn't. For so long, she had had no one but Gerard and Thomas. She could not bear what they would think of her when at last they learned what they protected. But she was selfish and she needed their caring. No one could understand the evil that was within her, nor the demons that haunted her. Not even Thomas knew of them.

  The burden was hers alone. She would far rather have them all think her empty in the cockloft than to know the truth.

  CHAPTER 8

  Ah. He thought so.

  In the darkness of his chamber, Alain stood beside the narrow slit of a window as he watched an indistinct figure skirt the boundary of the bailey, clinging to the shadows of buildings, avoiding the bright light of the moon. First pausing, the figure then darted from the concealment of the kitchen through the door of Fyren’s bath house. In that fleeting moment, he spotted the silvered flash of pale yellow hair in a long rope of a braid.

  Edyt. None other.

  She surely did not bathe, so late at night. She slept there, he was sure. But why? Did she meet someone there?

  Alain threw the purple cloak about his shoulders and crept down the wooden stairs. The guard at the hall door cocked his head quizzically as Alain passed. Alain wondered if he had noticed the girl, or if she had hidden herself out somewhere else beyond the hall.

  With quiet steps he crossed the bailey to the chapel. He sat in the doorway and leaned against the weathered door, and tugged the cloak around him to wait out a long night.

  When the throbbing headache came upon him, he decided it must be from the awkward position in which he was forced to sleep. But he couldn’t let the opportunity pass. If she conspired against him, he needed to know. Or perhaps it was merely a lover and he overstepped his bounds.

  He shifted his shoulders and huddled back into the corner. He’d slept in worse circumstances many times, even, in fact had done so on the march north to Cumbria. Why should a headache be bedeviling him now? Yet it pounded as fiercely as if he had been hit by a hammer.

  Grumbling to himself, he shifted again, this time lying down in front of the stone threshold. He rubbed his fists against his eyes and closed them again.

  But he did not sleep.

  When dawn’s twilight etched the rim of the world, he saw movement at the bath house door. The girl stepped out, looking about, and skittered across the bailey to the kitchen. Tucked within the cradle of her arm was a rolled bundle, like a bedroll. He waited a few moments as the sky lightened, then ambled to the bath house. The odor of rosemary permeated the cool, damp air. But nothing else. No one else was there. But he could distinguish the corner where she had lain with her bedroll, for the stone flags were darkened with moisture everywhere else.

  He supposed someone could have slipped by him in the night, but he was quite sure he hadn’t slept. Yet why, when she could have the comfort of the hall, did the girl sleep alone in a cold, damp place such as this?

  Did nothing about this strange place make sense?

  God's grace and all the bloody saints, what sport was Rufus making of him? The one maid to haunt him with her presence, and the other with her absence? This castle, which was no castle at all, but a mockery of a monastery with a curtain wall? Fyren's sudden, unexplained death? Answers only brought more questions.

  And none of it explained the pain that banged against his skull from the inside, as if it meant to beat its way out. He blinked away the fuzziness in his eyes and crossed the bailey as if nothing was wrong.

  * * *

  The bell in the village church rang out, calling for vespers. Shortly, the evening meal would be served, for his little household manager was very predictable. She, not he, set the time for supper.

  He was in a pensive mood as he strolled down the stone steps and crossed the bailey to the hall, musing at the way the late sun turned all the walls to gold. Wondered how it would reflect on Edyt's yellow hair if it flowed free and waved in the breeze like a pennon.

  As he entered the hall, Alain stood aside and watched the bustle of servants who set up the evening meal. The pleasure of possession rushed through him as he watched preparations for supper. All the trestle tables were in place, with their linen cloths of sparkling white. Trenchers were being set out. On the dais, his place at center, with the wooden maser he had been given the morning before. He chuckled to himself, remembering that odd incident and Edyt's lame apology. Another thing that didn't make sense.

  A steady parade of maids and young men filed between the kitchen and the hall's side door. Could one of these girls be his missing bride? But the creature he imagined would be unlikely to have any such skills, nor would hardly toil in the scullery. All that, just to avoid a marriage?

  He had also observed girls in the village with the same skeptical eye, and with the same conclusion. He had even considered the young boys, wondering if the mousy lady might disguise herself as one of them, but he saw no likely candidates.

  All that he had really found was that even though his senses told him she was here, in his hall or his village, he was not so anxious to find his bride, after all..

  A commotion drew his attention back to the hall's door, where Gerard rushed in, still huffing from a hard ride, and, still in stride, doffed his helm and handed shield and sword to his squire. From the bailey came sounds of other mounted men pulling their war horses to a halt.

  He dashed down from the dais where he had been standing and met Gerard halfway from the door. "Something is up?"

  "Aye, lord. We arrived in time, or we would have found a slaughter. Instead, we caught Anwealda's men between us and the fort. A goodly number escaped, and we took no prisoners who lived, so we could not question any of them."

  "Did he have foot soldiers?"

  "Nay. I was surprised. Only knights. I left Hugh, along with most of the men and the supplies."

  "And the villeins? The carters?"

  "I left them as well, to hurry back with the news."

>   Alain gave a thoughtful nod. Gerard seemed always to make the most prudent decision. A good knight. A good leader of men. Too good, perhaps.

  "I have been thinking, Gerard," he said as the two of them washed their hands with the bowl brought to them. "We need a stronger outpost there."

  "Aye. Anwealda was pampered by the Scots, being one of them. He needed no fortification against them. But we do."

  Alain waited for Chrétien and the other knights to finish their supper, listening to their descriptions of the battle at Anwealda's fort, assessing further strengths and weaknesses from their stories.