“I can’t like this plan of yours, monseigneur.”
Pensive, Katrin curled on the bed in Rafael’s tower, arms clasped around her updrawn knees. Though she was wrapped in her fur-lined robe against the chilly night, nothing could quench the flicker of fear as Rafael prepared for war.
Ethelred’s summons had plunged the entire castle into frenzy, ending the Hocktide festival in disarray as their guests streamed home to scramble against the Viking threat. Katrin had been scrambling, too—preparing for her part. Consequently, she’d barely seen her new husband since the tidings arrived, which did nothing to reassure her.
Serene as a bishop, Rafael sat before the fire clad only in black trews, saber lain across his knees as he sharpened it. Ruddy light spilled over the taut contours of his torso and flashed against the clan motto engraved on the blade: For the Glory of God and Argent.
“You think it can’t be done, madame?” Tension stiffened his frame and curled his bare toes against the floor. His prior life had hardly prepared him for this.
“I’m ready to do my part as best I may.” Evading his question, she slid off the tangled bed and paced to the window.
The night was far advanced, the keep slumbering uneasily. The castle on the hill rose like an island, a pale moon staring down on the crenellations. Sentinels prowled the curtain wall and stared out at a roiling sea of fog.
Within these guarded walls they’d already been to bed—another of their desperate couplings. Rafael would ride at dawn, bound for the south and certain bloodshed. Tonight neither of them could sleep.
“It’s your part in this I dislike, Rafael. You insist upon riding into battle against the scourge of England and his howling hordes bearing only what fits in your saddlebags. You’ll lead against the Vikings a ragtag gaggle of churls armed with harvest scythes! Your brother thinks you’re beyond mad, and I wish you’d heed his counsel. You place yourself too much at risk.”
“As Belmaine, it’s my place to ride in time of war,” he said tightly. Steel whined along the whetstone. “Thus it’s always been in this clan. Yet I’m a far cry from my sainted brother Bannan. It’s all Borovic can manage not to say it to my face. Must I now suffer this lack of faith from my own wife?”
“’Tis not lack of faith in you! It’s simple good sense. You haven’t the training to lead men in battle—”
“Do you think I don’t know it?” His blade rang against the sharpening stone. “I’ve dreaded this moment since the day I assumed the barony. But I’m given no more choice now than I was then! I swore an oath before God to serve my brother as best I could. If I came not gladly, my oath is no less binding.”
Is this what it means to love? Am I sick with worry for his safety, or merely terrified at losing his protection?
She turned her back on the moon-washed heights. “I won’t quarrel with you on the eve of your departure.”
He straightened from his chore to stretch cramped muscles. Her breath snared at his deadly grace as lean muscle rippled beneath his skin. Skin she’d licked with a wine-damp tongue, tight nipples she’d teased until he sought salvation blindly in her body…
Conflict raging, she closed her eyes and composed her turbulent heart. When she looked up, he’d returned to his task.
“We’ve thoroughly discussed this strategy, Katrin.” Steel moaned against stone; fire ran along the lethal crescent. “The pressing need is for speed, not strength. With Borovic here to oversee the forging of swords and armor, and you at his side to arrange our provisions, the first supply wains should be rolling within days. Then the men of this shire who follow, once they finish their planting and that of their marching neighbors, will form the strong backbone of our fighting force.”
“Why were provisions not already gathered? Your brother is lax in his duties.”
“The duties were Bannan’s,” Rafael said irritably. “Like the tithes he didn’t gather. Why not ask him to explain it?”
Checking his temper, he sighed. “I’ve thought well upon this. It’s the only way. Otherwise the Vikings will raid inland while the army tarries…perhaps even here.”
“Still I fail to comprehend why it must be you who leads the army! Borovic enjoys playing the hero well enough on the tourney field, with ladies to applaud and throw roses at his feet.”
“Ah, but that comes with the title. In exchange for the barony and Ethelred’s fabled niece, I must lead Argent’s levy for the king. Borovic remains to defend the shire if the war comes here.” He slanted her a keen glance. “Now of all times, my brother is well pleased by that arrangement.”
She heated to her fingertips. Did he know Borovic had sworn to have her?
“You’ll be confessing me to your priest within a month…”
Rafael held his blade against the fire, eyes narrowed to assess the wicked edge.
Dear God, she couldn’t be left behind. Rafael might be as much a stranger here as she was, but he was her only ally.
She looked up beneath her lashes. “I’ll ride with you to the south.”
His head lifted, alert as one of his birds of prey. “That seems unwise.”
“I’m accounted a fair shot with the bow. I could join your archers—”
He uttered an elegant snort. As her brows rushed together, he laughed and lifted a hand to stay her. “I don’t doubt your courage—I’m not so great a fool, Katrin! But our straits aren’t yet so dire that we must risk even our women in battle.”
“But a woman’s danger is no less than a man’s.” She kept her tone reasonable. “You’ve said yourself the Vikings may come here. I’d rather be near you.”
“I won’t see you placed in peril on the battlefield.”
Immune to her guile, damn the man!
He studied her shuttered features. Then, wily as a woman, he smiled. “I’ll fight better knowing you’re safe within these walls.”
Safe indeed. She glanced aside to hide the thoughts simmering behind her eyes. Was there any safe place in the world for a woman in these dark days?
She changed tactics. “Well then, if I can’t fight, I’ll cook and keep you in kingly comfort.”
Shaking his head, he prowled toward her, feet soundless as a cat’s. Despite her determination, her body turned molten at the dark promise in his gaze.
As always, he could beguile her with no more than a look.
“Nay, Katrin.” His hands spanned her waist. “You must trust me to keep you safe, though the concept of trust is foreign as Greek to you. I’ll leave four of my Anjou knights to guard you—and every one of them would die before he fails me. Will that content you?”
In vain she struggled against the teasing flex of his fingers. In imminent danger of losing the battle, she touched the hot skin stretched across his chest. Her head swam with desire.
“Will it content me, Rafael? I fail to comprehend how it should, unless you propose they take your place in my bed, as well.”
She felt the shock jolt through him. His voice deepened, accent thickening in warning. “Nay, wife—that I do not propose. And neither, I trust, do you.”
He pulled her against his heated frame, still musky with the smell of passion. She’d thought herself sated, but now the coil of lust uncurled in her belly.
He kissed her, certain of her response, tongue still flavored with the salty sweetness of her own wanton flesh. Yielding, she wrapped her arms around his neck and melted against him.
Yet he held apart, hands just beneath her breasts. “I won’t be twisted this way and that to suit your purpose, Katrin. I’m not my ox-headed brother, to be cozened into selling my soul by a few sweet words and a smile.”
“So fiercely you speak,” she whispered, breathless with danger and rising passion.
Even angry, a contained ferocity that made him vibrate, he was as violently aroused as she, straini
ng steel-hard against his trews.
His breath hissed through his teeth. His deft fingers slid beneath her chamber robe until it parted, revealing white skin from her throat to her thighs, then eased the garment aside until it whispered from her shoulders to pool at her feet. Cold air from the window raised gooseflesh along her back.
Abashed, she edged away from the casement, but he held her trapped. Under the heat of his gaze, her breasts swelled and tightened, ripe fruits aching to be plucked.
“Rafael—”
“By the seventh angel.” He pulled her hard against him. A shock rolled through her as her nipples scraped against his chest. The blade of his desire nudged against her pulsing womb, barely shielded by a layer of damp wool.
“Keep your words of love, witch,” he muttered, face hidden against her neck. “I want only your vow that you’re mine and no other’s.”
Feeling the sting of that rejection, she said stiffly, “You needn’t fear I’ll pine over you. I lied when I told you I loved you.”
She couldn’t see his face; he’d made certain of that. But he went rigid, as if her words were a weapon that struck him. His voice was muffled against her body.
“Love where you will in your secret heart—it matters not to me. But the rest of you I will not share. Be certain of that.”
* * *
Now Belmaine was gone, and half the able-bodied men gone with him, thundering south to join the king’s levy. Their departure left the halls and courtyards of the castle empty as her bed—a ghost-riddled shell huddled behind the walls.
Draping the corridors, brilliant banners in gold and silver slowly gathered dust and cobwebs. Frightened women clustered in the hall at night and strained to hear untoward noises, while skittish children played hide-and-seek in echoing courtyards. More than ever, Caerwyne was an enchanted castle, dreaming beneath a witch’s spell.
But the armory glowed red in the night while the blacksmith hammered out swords and armor. The remaining churls labored in the fields, racing against time to finish the spring planting that would stand between them and starvation in the lean winter months, before following their fellows into battle.
Katrin surveyed the modest stores squirreled away in larders and storehouses, and made difficult decisions about which could be spared for the war-host without emptying the bellies of those left behind. The redoubtable dowager, while grudging, had agreed she could perform these tasks. It was tiring and anxious work, but Katrin was glad for something useful to occupy her.
She was grateful too for the Anjou knights—the stern-faced lions who guarded her. Still, as they murmured among themselves in their French tongue, she wondered what they thought of their duty. She couldn’t ask, since they spoke no common tongue. Sometimes she feared she’d scream aloud to rend the shroud of silence and voice her desperate loneliness. Yet, when she drove herself hard enough, she crawled into bed so drained she slept without dreaming.
Sometimes despite her efforts she lay awake, staring up at the canopy of Rafael’s bed, and wondered how he fared in the south. She should feel relieved for this reprieve from his disturbing presence, the parry and riposte of half truth and evasion as they circled one another, wary as enemies seeking advantage.
Yet honesty compelled her to admit she missed him: the knowing arch of his brow, the deft wit that turned disaster into a wicked quip, the heart-stopping perfection of his tenor soaring at Mass.
Because she was often afield, she didn’t see much of Borovic, who had his own duties. In the hall she kept a decorous distance between them, thankful when Aelfwydd began to appear once more, thin and white after her ordeal. The girl huddled before the fire and stared into the shadows with haunted eyes, as if seeing the shades of her stillborn children. Though he treated Aelfwydd with indulgence, Katrin suspected the earl hadn’t returned to her bed, a state of affairs unlikely to produce the heir he so desperately needed. Surely this untenable situation couldn’t continue for long, but how did he mean to end it?
Only the dowager appeared undaunted by the eerie stillness. As if nothing were amiss, that worthy matron stoutly ordered the legions of laundresses and sewing-women in their accustomed duties, and left the war-provisioning to Katrin. Beneath the dowager’s oversight, the sheep were sheared—an unavoidable duty whether the countryside was bracing for battle or not—followed by the tedious tasks of carding the slippery hanks and spinning the coarse fibers into thread.
Cate had begun to swell with the king’s bastard. Sometimes she watched Katrin in a way that raised the hackles on her neck. Too, Katrin noted that Borovic’s eyes followed Cate’s voluptuous form as she moved, still graceful despite her belly.
Well enough. If he turns his attentions to that slattern rather than plaguing his good-sister or his ailing wife, that’s all to the good.
The first supply wains trundled south, groaning with weapons, chickens clucking, goats and pigs straggling after on the hoof. Then the planting was finished and the rest of the war-host could march, captained by one of the Anjou knights. Barely a score of men remained behind to defend the women and children who couldn’t fight. Spring ripened toward summer, but no word came from the front.
Then, one afternoon, the sentries spied a company of armed men riding for the castle.
It was uncommonly hot that day, walls shimmering beneath the sun’s blazing eye. Katrin knelt in the herb garden, heat beating on her back, trying to show Elspeth and Anne the difference between the young onions and the weeds they were uprooting.
She glanced up as Alix came skipping into the courtyard, orange tabby clutched to her breast.
“Milady, come quickly!” Her cry brought them all to their feet. “Outside the gates—an army with the royal standard!”
Katrin stood rooted to the earth, assailed by unreasonable fears.
“It’s Ethelred.” Triumphant, Cate glanced at her mistress’s white face, and left brushing the soil disdainfully from her skirts.
Elspeth and Anne rushed after her with a flurry of questions. Elayne stood frozen on the threshold, terrified as a rabbit. Katrin stared into the girl’s wide gray eyes.
“St. Catherine save us,” Elayne whimpered. “Are they coming for us?”
“For us?” Katrin said faintly. “Why should anyone do that? We’re here with the king’s blessing.”
Elayne struggled to master her fear. “Of course, you’re right. You must think me a great fool.”
The sight of her fear brought Katrin’s under control. “For now, child, we’d better go out to meet them.”
On the curtain wall, armed men scurried hither and yon. A frightened knot of servants huddled in the courtyard. Slowly she descended the mural stair to join them, head high, to belie the anxious pounding of her heart.
Borovic strode forward to meet her. “They say they’re Ethelred’s men, and they bear the golden wyvern—but it may be a ruse to open the gates. Go to the heights and see if you know them. Be very certain, Katrin, before we let them in.”
Nodding, she climbed to the allure with him close behind, the sun beating down on her head until it made her dizzy, then looked down from the rampart.
Across the moat, clustered before the gatehouse, a mounted warband bristled with spears and longbows, fifty men strong, horses sweating in the heat. Among them rose the familiar wyvern of Wessex, and her heart faltered. But, seeing no sign of Ethelred among them, she rallied.
Yet there beside the banner—
The bottom dropped from her stomach. Dear God, she’d know anywhere that tall rangy form clad in ring-mail and dusty leather, features obscured behind the slanting cheekguards and nasal of his helm. Still formidable, even on guard as he obviously was, standing within range of a dozen arrows in a land bracing for war.
Heedless of her own concealment, she stood staring down at him. The wind fluttered the kirtle of blue bordered wi
th Celtic gold around her, and teased tendrils of bright hair from her braids.
As if he sensed her presence, his head rose sharply, eyes glittering as they scanned the heights. When he saw her, he lapsed into utter stillness.
Her dreamlike paralysis was shattered by Borovic, dragging her behind a merlon.
“Stand not so exposed!” he hissed. For a moment, she could only stare at him.
He grimaced with impatience. “Speak! Do you know those men?”
“Aye,” she said, voice strained. “I know them. Their captain is…he’s Lord Kildarren. I think you’d better open the gates.”
He looked at her oddly. Suddenly she was afraid of what must be in her face. She couldn’t even say what she felt to see Eomond again, except a stupefied numbness.
To her relief, Borovic bellowed down for his men to open the gates. Beneath her feet, the trunnions unwinched with a clatter. The drawbridge boomed down across the moat like a hammer from Heaven, raising a cloud of dust. Numbly she followed her good-brother down to the courtyard.
She recalled Eomond ravening like a force of nature amid the scorched ruins of her castle, wolves scattering in fear before him. She recalled him naked in her bed, showing her what two years of marriage to Maldred had not. And she recalled him turning his back on her, time and again, leaving her to Ethelred’s tender mercies.
That was the crux: she would have done anything for him, but he hadn’t been willing to fight for her. His stiff-necked honor and the king’s regard had been far more important to Eomond, Lord Kildarren, than she was. He’d led her to her fate like a lamb to the slaughter.
As she reached the courtyard, the portcullis rattled upward. Straight and unflinching, she rooted herself in the earth.
Borovic loomed over her protectively, gripping her elbow, as mounted men clattered inside with the sword-theyn at their head. The earl strode forward, chivvying her with him despite her reluctance, and hailed them with his booming voice.
“Well come to Caerwyne, vassals of my good friend Ethelred! I’m Borovic of Argent.”
Eomond hoisted off his helm, and Katrin waited for her heart to give another great leap. Streaming blond hair, stern wind-burned features, high cheekbones fringed by tawny whiskers, dark eyes flashing—not handsome but imposing, dwarfing the men around him with sheer physical presence as he’d always done. Nay, he hadn’t changed—but she had.
By Royal Command Page 28