by Jacobs Delle
De Mowbray jerked at his reins, whirling his mount toward Philippe, and his face twisted with sudden rage. “I am Northumbria!” he bellowed. “All that is north of the Humber is mine. I’ll not bow to a damn Scot. You ask where I stand? I stand and die for Northumbria because it’s mine, and if it means allying with Rufus to keep what’s mine, I’ll do it.”
Philippe cocked one brow. Seemed pretty clear to him. If it meant turning on Rufus, de Mowbray would do that, too. But that was nothing Rufus didn’t already know.
Philippe had been surprised to see the Black Earl of Northumbria riding toward them, although it was well known de Mowbray did not sit about idly in his finer castles, as others might. He was as wild and primitive as the remotest Viking Celt in the untamed Western Isles, and as suspicious and vigilant as the king himself. A man with no honor, consumed with his own importance, and yet blunt almost to the point of honesty. Save for the muffled clopping of hooves in the dirt and rough panting of the dust-colored dogs that ran alongside them, the trip was silent. Philippe kept his own counsel, now and then catching Leonie’s wary gaze. Each time de Mowbray attempted to rein back, Philippe blocked his view of Leonie by doing the same. He ignored the man’s dark glower.
Soon they reached the outpost, which except for its thick timber palisade was little different from the tiny stockade they had left that morning. Perched on a tall, conical hill flattened at the top, and surrounded by a deep earthen moat, it had a timber tower and outbuildings that Philippe estimated could hold no more than twenty men.
The river ford was shallow, although in winter it would probably be swift and deep. A crude drawbridge of roughly hewn planks lowered into place, and the party rode their horses across in single file. Philippe glanced about in every direction but saw nothing that led him to suspect de Mowbray had any nasty plans in store for them. He noted the tracks of wagons—the dowry train that likely had left for Bosewood this morning.
“You’ll want to refresh,” said de Mowbray as he dismounted and hurried up to assist Leonie down. Philippe gritted his teeth but let the man have that small win.
“Then,” de Mowbray continued, taking Leonie’s hand upon his arm for escort, “break your fast. Castle Bosewood is barely two hours’ more ride. My men and I will make escort if the lady is so determined.” De Mowbray’s sharp black eyes glanced back briefly at Philippe.
“I am determined, Lord Northumbria,” Leonie said. “Do not think so ill of it. Many a woman marries for the sake of duty or family.”
De Mowbray meant to find a way to speak with Leonie privately. There was no stopping him. At first Philippe thought to bar him, but decided perhaps it would be better to let the man have his say. Still, he could not easily forget the stories that were told of the Black Earl. One of them was rape.
Still.
He’d give the man a few minutes. But not in a way that threatened the girl. She had already been through too much.
De Mowbray pointed Philippe toward the latrine and offered his solar to Leonie for her convenience. “’Tis not a solar at all. We have no womenfolk here, lady, and ’tis not fit for one such as you. But ’twill give you a bit of privacy.”
Philippe narrowed his eyes but could find no justification for his suspicions. It was what any reasonable man would do in such primitive circumstances.
Leonie hastened to the tiny hall, following de Mowbray, while Philippe was given first seat in the latrine, followed by the knights who had ridden out that morning. Soon he, too, headed for the hall. But as he reached the corner of the timber hall, he heard voices.
“Say the word, lady, and I will take you to Scotland.”
“You are kind. But it would brand you a traitor to Rufus, and he will not forgive you a second time. Nor would I be a traitor to my king.”
“I do not cower from Rufus.”
“I would not call you coward, Lord Northumbria, but that is not the point. I would not be the cause of a war for England, and you would most certainly be forced to side with Scotland. Why would you do this? You owe nothing to me.”
“But to your lady mother, I do.”
“Why? What is it you know about her?”
Philippe rounded the corner, startling the towering de Mowbray, who bent anxiously toward Leonie.
“It’s not your mother’s memory he honors, but his own gain,” Philippe said as he stepped in front of the huge man. “He cares not to increase his holdings, like your other suitors. Your holdings lie within Northumbria’s lands, but they are in the king’s gift. This man cares more to decrease the king’s power, not to increase his own. The moment you go off with him, you are ruined, Leonie. You would lose everything for the sake of the man who would claim to save you.”
De Mowbray’s face turned crimson, and his hands balled into massive fists. “Such a lady should not be forced to marry the man who brutalized her!”
“So says the man who led his men to rape an entire convent of nuns in Normandy.”
“’Tis a lie! No man of mine touched any of them! ’Twas Robert Curthose’s men that blamed us unfairly. And what would you, you cock-sucking whore to a sodomite? You say you want nothing, but here you stand, taking it all, and would have us believe it is the lady who lies!”
“She remembers wrong. Leonie, tell him I was not there. Think, girl, can you not remember?”
He watched in horror as the girl’s face changed from anger to confusion, then pain. With a gasp, she held her head between her hands, trembling. “Can’t—hurts my head—”
She arched and cried out, her head snapping back as if she had been hit. He lunged for her, catching her as her knees buckled and she went limp.
Philippe eased her to the floor and sat cross-legged, holding her in his arms, his mind flashing back to the evening he had found her in the forest with her bloody hair spread over her like a veil.
“Blazes in Heaven, is she ill?” asked de Mowbray, bending over. “What have you done to her?”
“Get some water. A wet rag,” Philippe replied as he caressed her flaxen curls away from her brow. “Easy, Leonie,” he said, stroking her hair and cheek. “I have you. You are safe.”
De Mowbray handed Philippe the cup he had just been given, which Philippe held to Leonie for little sips. Then he took the wet cloth held out for him and wiped it tenderly over her brow, face, and neck, leaving it to rest on her forehead.
De Mowbray knelt on one knee beside them. “What is it?”
“I think the injury to her head. This happened yesterday as we were riding. And I think too in her uncle’s hall before the king, barely three days after she was attacked.” Philippe glanced at de Mowbray, whose evilly black eyes softened into concern. “But she gets better, don’t you think? For a girl who was only a week ago thought to be on her deathbed?”
“Aye,” de Mowbray responded, his words drawn out. “Aye, lass. You’re a strong one. You’ll be all right. Takes time to heal, you know.”
Philippe thought she had been hit harder by the odd faint this time, but he dared not say so. She could not seem to lift her head from his shoulder.
“Hurts to think,” she said. “Like someone stabbed me in the head. I can’t think.”
“Then don’t.” Philippe stroked her hair while something wrenched his heart. If he were wise he would not touch her for any reason. But all he could tell himself was perhaps he was not wise. “We won’t talk about it anymore.”
He stopped to wipe the cool, wet rag over her face again. “Just think about good things. Your family. Your cousin Claire. You’re fond of her, aren’t you?”
“She’s like a sister.”
“Aye. You should see them, de Mowbray, so different, yet both so beautiful as they walk together.” Ah! What did he think he was doing, to say such flattering things? He did not think her beautiful!
“Hm,” said the black-eyed earl. “Haps I’ll be wanting to meet this Claire if she’s as beautiful as our lady here.” But as he stood, he signaled to his soldiers. One brought up a maze
r of ale, and at the earl’s direction offered it to Leonie.
Leonie frowned and brushed it away as she tried to raise her head. “Cease your overweening flattery, both of you. You can let me up now. I’m fine.”
“Of course. But tarry a moment longer,” Philippe said.
“I’m fine. Let me rise.”
Nay, she was still weak and wobbly and too stubborn to admit it. Even her hand trembled. “A moment longer. It can do no harm. Think of that young boy who follows you about. You’re fond of him, and he thinks you are the rising sun.”
“Sigge,” she replied, and with a sigh let her head lie back on his shoulder. “Aye.”
“A smart fellow, isn’t he?”
“He wants to learn everything.”
“He’ll become a cleric, then.”
“Nay. He wants to be a knight. Always nattering about wishing he had a sword. But he’d surely cut his foot off with it.”
“A blacksmith’s boy become a knight? The world can be a harsh place for those who dream. ’Tis not his place.”
“His grandfather was a knight. Severin de Brieuse.”
“The traitor?” De Mowbray leaned back. “I remember William executed him and confiscated his lands. His widow died, they said, of starvation.”
Leonie tried to nod, but it was a stiff movement, cut short by pain. But his fingertips resting on her neck told him her pulse was no longer pounding.
“A blacksmith took in de Brieuse’s son as his apprentice, else he would have died, too,” she said, and slowly leaned out of Philippe’s arms to sit on her own. “Harald is Sigge’s father. He took a Saxon name to honor the smith and turned his back on his father’s memory. He doesn’t want to be anything but a blacksmith, but Sigge is different. He says he wants to be like the Peregrine, except that he wants to ride a white horse instead of a grey one.”
“Ah, lass, your heart is too soft,” de Mowbray replied as he leaned forward, his hands propping on his bent knees. “You must not let it ache for those you cannot help. The other knights wouldn’t accept the boy, nor would the king. ’Tis said a traitor’s blood endures forever. ’Tis a rare thing even that a traitor’s son survives.”
Philippe released his arms to let her sit alone. “But if his father would allow it, we could bring him to Bosewood. We could find a use for him, surely.”
She shook her head in a very slow motion. “He wouldn’t leave his family.”
This time when she tried to rise, Philippe allowed it. De Mowbray stood and took her hand to help her up. Philippe got to his feet and watched as the wounded girl became once again the strong and confident lady. He had been wrong. Now he knew that. She had not sought to trap him. Somewhere in her head, the real memories had gotten lost. He sighed as another new revelation seeped into his brain. He cared very much what she thought about him. That was the one thing, for her sake, that he should have never allowed to happen.
Like a noose tightening around his neck, he felt choked. He could protect her from everyone else. But how could he protect her from him?
Leonie straightened her back, and the long, lithe girl seemed to grow taller. A certain regal air came over her, which Philippe realized was a mask to hide her fears. “Lord Northumbria,” she said, “it would please me if you would escort us to Bosewood and attend me at my wedding there.”
De Mowbray’s black eyes remained hooded beneath heavy lashes, but Philippe caught a rivalrous look flashed at him before the earl stepped back and bowed. “Your servant, lady,” de Mowbray said. “My apologies that the meal I have set for you is scant. Your company wasn’t expected.”
As Leonie became more sure-footed, Philippe became aware of the huge, shaggy hound de Mowbray called Ilse nuzzling his hand and whining. He patted the dog’s head, but she pulled away, then came back to nudge his hand again.
“She wants something you have,” de Mowbray said. He fluffed the dog’s long, shaggy ears. “What is’t, Ilse? Show us.”
Ilse bounced in a sideways leap and turned to run to Philippe’s horse, then jumped repeatedly at the panniers behind the saddle.
“Oh, the bone,” Philippe said. “She insisted I bring an old bone she found.” He shrugged his shoulders and walked to Tonerre’s side, where he removed the weathered bone and tossed it to the dog.
Ilse leaped into the air to catch it, then trotted to de Mowbray, who took the bone and examined it while the dog sat as her tail swished rapidly back and forth on the ground. The huge man turned the bone, studying it, frowning. “Where did she get it?” he asked.
“We don’t know. Somewhere near the traveler’s stockade where she found us. She brought it back after she leaped the fence and chased our attackers.”
“These attackers, did you see them?”
“Nay. It was in the middle of the night. But we heard a tremendous fight, as if men were being attacked by wild wolves. But then she came back with this, which could hardly be the bone of a man recently killed. Yet she presented it like a trophy.”
De Mowbray grunted. “’Tis one, of a sort. Well, Ilse, you know what to do with it.”
Ilse took the bone and ran toward the drawbridge. Halfway across, she dropped it into the river. De Mowbray said nothing more and led them toward the crude wooden hall.
“What in the names of the saints is that about?” Philippe asked. “It’s a human bone. You should bury it properly.”
“Not a man. A gholin. Best to toss it into water so it can never reunite with its owner.”
Philippe frowned. “Gholin? What’s that?”
“Not sure,” said the earl, and his wild black curls bounced with the vigorous shaking of his head. “They’re like walking skeletons. Haps they’re the bones of men who rest unquietly in their graves. Whatever they are, they’re evil. Ilse hates them. She hunts them down. I’ve not seen them about for a long time. Till now.”
His frown deepening, he looked back at Leonie, whose face had turned ashen again.
“Do they—have eyeballs?” she asked.
It was de Mowbray’s turn to frown. “Aye, they might. You haven’t seen them, have you, lass?”
“In the forest. Brodin woods. It was the day Philippe first came to Brodin, when a little boy cut his foot on something metal. I went back to find the metal but found that thing with a sword.” She shuddered. “But when I had to pass the place again, there was no sign it had ever been there.”
“Then might that have been what assaulted you in the wood?” Philippe asked.
She glared at him. “I know what I saw there, sir.”
Philippe wouldn’t let Leonie out of his sight as long as they remained within de Mowbray’s walls. He had no doubt he owed his own life to her. Why, when she could easily have set de Mowbray against him with a mere nod? Philippe could possibly have taken the Black Earl in a fight, but not all of his men as well. And how strange that de Mowbray honored her requests when just as easily he could have forced her to his will. There was something. Philippe shook his head. He was imagining things. Everyone knew the Black Earl of Northumbria had the blackest of hearts.
After a crude meal of tough meats and havercakes, they set out again, accompanied by de Mowbray and his men. The road to Bosewood was broader, less rutted, and less full of possibilities for havoc, but until they set eyes on the castle’s curtain wall Philippe did not mean to relax his guard.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
IN THE BEGINNING of the next leg of their journey, Leonie appreciated the protection the two men gave her, but the excessive vigilance soon began to wear thin. She felt like a prisoner with the two enormous men riding on either side of her, so close their leggings often brushed her skirt. They bickered about everything, from who should ride on which side of her to whether she should ride at all. Philippe thought the earl should send to Bosewood for a litter and his own troops to escort them. De Mowbray insisted Philippe was a bloody fool if he expected Bosewood to have such a civilized conveyance.
Every moment she spent with Philippe brought new q
uestions, puzzles to her mind. He had held her so tenderly, cradling her like a mother with her sick child. Sometimes his tongue had been sharp, but he had only protected her. Was it simply because Rufus had commanded it? Something was wrong with that.
Yet the memory was so clear—
She stopped the thought before it could assault her again. It was like a hard wall in her mind that she could not penetrate, and her efforts only battered her mind till it was sore. She must not. Philippe must be right. Something was wrong with her. Very, very wrong.
And if that was so, she could not trust anything her mind told her.
But the men flattered her falsely. She knew she was not beautiful. If men stared when she walked with Claire, it was only to compare her lovely, tiny cousin with the gawky giantess walking beside her. Before, she had never really cared, being secure in the knowledge that her dowry was sufficient that the king would find her a suitable husband.
Then there had been Philippe.
De Mowbray reined in his great brown warhorse, and all the men behind him did the same. He pointed down the road. “There,” he said. “That road turns north toward Bosewood, only a mile more. If you look, you can see its curtain wall where it sits on yonder hill, the River Wear winding at its feet.”
Leonie frowned, shading her eyes from the afternoon sun. The hill rose above the trees and was easy to see, but she could not make out the castle.
“I see it,” Philippe said. “Is the wall complete, then?”
De Mowbray gave a disgusted grimace. “They’ve done naught to finish it in several years. There are gaps at the back.”
“A lack of funds? Rufus provided well to have a castle here.”
“A lack of ambition. Theobald paid little attention to his obligations. He was obsessed in searching the woods for some sign of his lost wife.”
“He looked for my mother?” Leonie asked. “I thought he hated her.”
“He did. He hated Herzeloyde even more for escaping him. I don’t doubt what would befall her if he ever found her.”
“So she is alive,” Leonie said.