If only he could embrace warfare as Alex did. The White Wolf, they called Alex, a tribute to the stealth that made him such an effective swordsman. The enemy never knew he was there until they felt his steel sliding through them. In another man, such lethal skill might earn him a measure of envy from his colleagues, but the amiable twenty-year-old was the most popular soldier at Foxhyrst.
Luke kept his dependence on the potent herbs a secret from Alex out of shame. What kind of weakling was he that he must resort to such measures before he could aim his crossbow at the enemy?
At one time he had truly felt the dragon's fire in his breast, and would enter each engagement screaming war cries and eager for blood. But his blood-thirst had come to sicken him, and now he must chew that loathsome herbal concoction before battle to reproduce it. If only it didn't affect his senses so. Often he could recall little of a battle until weeks, even months, later. In fact, he had no clear memory of having taken Cottwyk Castle today—just fractured, nightmarish images, and the vague sense that he'd done something particularly irredeemable. Were it not for his blood-spattered chainmail, he might think it had all been a dreadful, half-remembered dream.
The voices in the loft grew belligerent as the rain intensified, dribbling through a hole in the thatch to form a muddy puddle near Luke's head. Seething with anger at the whore, the Saxon, and himself, he brought the jug to his mouth again and gulped. Every time he moved his head, things spun sickeningly, so he tried to lie still. He stared in the fire, squinting to make out the form twitching and writhing in the flames. Moving closer, he saw that it was a young man, little more than a boy. He was saying something in English. Luke strained and heard the word "Please."
Nay! He reached out to sweep the specter away, but it just leapt back up, writhing in torment in its hellish inferno, its eyes trained on Luke, its mouth working silently... "Please."
Something flickered on Luke's arm, and he struggled to focus on it. "Jesu!" His shirtsleeve was on fire. Sitting up, he slapped at the burning linen, but the flames spread swiftly, consuming the thin fabric and searing his arm. Grimacing at the pain, he pulled his mantle tight around himself to smother the flames.
"Christ." A sudden bout of shivering racked him. He wrapped his arms around his updrawn legs and squeezed his eyes shut. Ride it out, ride it out...
The brandy, the lack of sleep, and those damned herbs had joined forces to drive him even further into madness than he'd already sunk. "Ride it out," he whispered, lowering his head to his knees. "Ride it out, ride it out, ride it out..."
When he opened his eyes, Luke found himself crouching on the floor of a strange cottage, rocking back and forth, back and forth. He blinked at the dreary, unfamiliar surroundings, at the flames crackling in the clay-lined pit, at the dark form of a man on the other side of the fire, asleep.
"Alex?" The man didn't move. Luke shifted to get a better view of his face. It was Alex.
Over the sound of heavy rain came a man's voice, from above. A woman spoke then, and Luke had a mental picture of a fleshy wench with curly red hair.
The whore.
The place began to look familiar. He remembered coming here. He'd come here for a woman, and Alex had tagged along to be companionable. But someone had stolen the woman from him and was upstairs with her now.
He had a senseless urge to climb that ladder and take what he'd come here for. His hands curled into fists, and his mind's eye saw him slamming them into the Saxon's head until he didn't move anymore.
Luke rubbed his fists on his forehead and forced deep breaths into his lungs. Ride it out.
Lying down, he tucked his mantle around himself. Sleep. That was what he needed. To sleep it off.
* * *
Luke snapped the bunch of small, purplish grapes off the vine, imagining the velvety wine the brothers would make from it. Holding the fruit over his open mouth, he crushed it in his hand so that he could drink its juice. The grapes burst open with a moan, spilling thick red blood over his fingers and into his mouth.
No! He gagged and choked, thrashing against his confining mantle. Another moan echoed through the tiny cottage, and another, accompanied by the rhythmic crackling of straw overhead.
A woman's breathless voice: the whore.
His whore—Luke's. Not the Saxon's. His.
Luke leapt to his feet, fury blooming red hot within him. He crossed to the ladder in a single stride and climbed it three rungs at a time. The Saxon, rutting away between the whore's pale legs, turned with an expression of outrage. Luke grabbed him and jerked him off her, then smashed his fist into the bastard's face. The Saxon groaned. Luke hit him again, and again, and again, until he lay limp and bloodied in the straw.
The whore was trying to crawl away. Luke seized her from behind, whipped her skirt up, and mounted her.
She cried out.
Luke came abruptly awake. What... ?
He sat up, trembling and sweating and struggling against the mantle that enclosed him like a cocoon. Next to him, coals glowed in a fire pit, on the other side of which his brother slept soundly. From the loft came the sounds of enthusiastic coupling.
Was that a dream? It had felt so real, so...
Tremors racked him. He was a menace, the condition he was in—a mindless beast, capable of anything. He must leave this place. Now.
Gaining his feet awkwardly, he circled the fire pit and knelt down next to his brother.
"Alex." Luke grabbed the sleeping man by his shoulder and shook him. "Alex, wake up." He slapped his brother on the face. "Come on, Alex. Let's get out of here. Let's go."
Alex didn't so much as alter his breathing. He wouldn't wake up till he was good and ready. What was Luke to do? He couldn't leave Alex here alone; it was dangerous. A lone Norman soldier asleep in an English brothel with a lunatic Saxon upstairs who hated their kind? No, Luke couldn't just ride away, much as he would have liked to.
Luke returned to his spot on the other side of the dying fire and lifted the brandy jug to his mouth again. He'd drink himself insensible, that's what he'd do. He'd drink himself into a deep and harmless stupor.
* * *
A crack of thunder jolted Luke. He raised his head and looked around, disoriented to find himself lying facedown in straw. He'd been on the packed earth by the fire pit the last he remembered.
He tried to rise, but his head hit something hard—a ceiling beam—and he sank into the straw again. Christ, where am I? What's happening?
Another discharge of thunder made him flinch. Lightning flickered through a tiny window, briefly illuminating a cramped space between a straw-strewn floor and a thatched roof: the loft. Dread shivered through him.
Luke crawled backward toward the ladder, but his feet met something heavy and unyielding. He turned as another flash of lightning revealed the obstruction: the Saxon, on his back in the straw, his eyes half open, blood trickling from his slack mouth.
No. Luke shook him; he was entirely limp. His chest didn't move; no breath came from his mouth.
God, no. Luke suddenly felt all too sober. No.
An anguished cry from outside drew him to the little window. Thunder crashed as the sky lit up. He saw the whore running away in the rain with her skirts gathered up, her white legs flashing, her kirtle unlaced down the back.
Before the wavering light died away, he saw something else as well—blood on his hand. He flexed his fingers; his knuckles stung.
Luke closed his eyes and remembered his fist impacting the Saxon's face with savage force. It wasn't just a fanciful imagining this time, but a real and vivid memory—the memory of something he'd done, just moments ago. He'd pulled the Saxon off the whore and punched him as hard as he could, killing him with a single blow to the head.
He tried to remember more, but it was all a red blur, just as in the aftermath of battle.
What have I done?
"Luke?"
Alex! Even he couldn't sleep through this violent thunder. Luke clambered over the Saxon's body and
peered down into the main room of the cottage. His brother stood at the table, lighting the lantern, his tunic rumpled and his cropped hair sticking out at all angles.
"Bring that up here!" Luke called out. "Hurry!"
Alex joined him in the loft, bending over nearly double as he held the lantern over the dead Saxon. "Who's this, then?"
"He came in after you went to sleep."
Alex nudged the corpse with the toe of his boot.
"Did he smell like this when he was alive?"
Luke kneaded his forehead with his sore knuckles.
"What happened?" Alex asked in a tone of mild curiosity.
"I killed him."
Alex yawned as he squatted down. "Why'd you do that?"
"I... I can't remember much."
Alex smiled crookedly. "I'm not surprised, considering that empty brandy jug I tripped over."
"How can you find this amusing?" Luke demanded. "I killed this man. This isn't like taking a life on the battlefield. This is unconscionable."
His brother shrugged. "You must have had a reason."
"Aye. I murdered him over that woman! I took a man's life over a two-penny whore."
Alex waved his hand dismissively. "Nay—I meant you must have a good reason, even if you're too drunk to remember it."
"I think I'm mad," Luke said hoarsely. "Is that reason enough?"
"You're drunk, but you're not mad." Alex glanced around. "Where's the wench?"
Luke nodded toward the little window. "I saw her running away."
"In this storm?"
"She seemed upset."
Alex frowned and held the lantern toward his brother. "What happened to your arm?"
Luke looked down to find his right shirtsleeve hanging raggedly, the edges scorched. His forearm was reddened and blistered, the hair singed off. "I don't know. I must have burned myself." He stood, cursing when his head collided with the ceiling.
Alex chuckled. "I think you're more a threat to your own safety than anyone else's."
"This dead man might not agree." Luke stepped over the Saxon's body and started down the ladder. "I'm going to find her."
Alex followed him downstairs. "Why bother?"
"She was here. She saw it all. She can tell me what happened. I've got to find out."
Alex sighed. "I suppose 'twill set your mind at ease. We should wait for dawn, though. And perhaps by then the storm will have let up."
"Aye, and perhaps by then she'll be miles away."
"She's on foot," Alex reminded him. "She won't get far."
* * *
She didn't, but it took them a while to find her on the obscure trail she'd taken. They spotted her around midmorning, sprawled faceup at the top of a hill, unmoving in the cold, gray drizzle.
"Mother of God," Luke muttered as they rode toward her.
Even the normally implacable Alex blanched when they were close enough to get a good look at her. "What do you suppose—?"
"Lightning." Luke slid off his horse and knelt to close the woman's eyes and murmur a prayer over her burnt remains.
Alex dismounted as well, but walked a few yards in the other direction to vomit at the side of the trail. "Let's go," he called out as he remounted his horse.
"We can't just leave her here," Luke said.
"Someone will find her."
"Nay!" Luke rose to his feet. "This is my doing. I'm not going to just ride away as if nothing—"
"Shh!" Alex grew still, and Luke followed suit, knowing how uncanny his brother's hearing was. "Men." Alex pointed down the dirt track. "From that direction. On foot, so they're probably English. I suggest we continue this conversation from a more private location."
Luke grudgingly mounted up, and the brothers secreted themselves in a nearby copse of trees as a cluster of dark shapes materialized in the rain. When the Englishmen got close, Luke could see that one of them led a mule dragging the Saxon's body on a stretcher. They gathered around Helig's corpse with expressions of rage and horror. One began to sob into his hands. A burly fellow squatted down and inspected the body with open curiosity, poking at the charred feet and peering closely at the strange, fernlike pattern burned onto her face and arms. Two men fled into the bushes, their hands covering their mouths.
The burly fellow stood and withdrew a small, shiny object from his tunic. Luke squinted to make it out, groaning when he recognized it. "Alex," he whispered, "that's your—"
"Damn!" Alex clutched at the collar of his open mantle, where his pin should have been.
Luke shook his head in dismay as the Englishmen passed Alex's mantle pin among themselves, examining the little pearl-encrusted wolf's head, turning it to puzzle over the Frankish inscription. Several of them raised pickaxes, reaping hooks, and pitchforks into the air. From their outraged exchange, it was clear that they intended to find and punish the Norman bastard who murdered one of their brethren over a whore.
They tied Helig's body over the back of the mule and returned the way they had come, brandishing their weapons.
"They probably won't connect that pin to me," Alex said. "Only our own men know me as the White Wolf. Still, I think it's time we put some distance between ourselves and Cottwyk, don't you?"
He flicked his reins, but Luke grabbed them, halting his progress. "I'm going to surrender myself to Alberic."
"What?"
"He's the sheriff now. He'll see I get tried in the king's court for—"
"Are you mad?" Alex exclaimed.
"Very possibly," Luke said softly.
"Do you have any idea what these Saxon savages will do to you if you admit having killed one of their own?"
"I'll be in the custody of the Normans."
"They'll get to you somehow. Why invite trouble when we can just ride away and no one will be the wiser?" Alex closed a hand over his brother's shoulder, looking as grave as Luke had ever seen him. "I can't let you do this. You're exhausted, and you've got a head full of brandy. You're not thinking straight."
"What if they do find out that's your pin? I can't let you be implicated in a crime you didn't commit."
"And I can't let you go on stepping into harm's way for me."
"I don't know what you're—"
"You're always looking out for me," Alex said. "Even in battle. I see you keeping an eye on me. And when something goes wrong, you're always there. You've saved my life more than once, at risk of your own. I owe you."
"You don't owe me anything. And you can't stop me from giving myself up."
Alex grinned smugly. "If you do, I'll tell them you're lying to protect me. I'll say I did it. They'll believe me, too. They've got the evidence right in their hands—that pin."
"I'll just tell them you're lying to protect me," Luke said.
Alex shrugged. "Then they'll probably just hang us both. 'Tis a far better course of action to simply return to Foxhyrst and pretend this never happened."
Luke rubbed his eyes while he pondered the trap that had snared him. Alex kept quiet for as long as he apparently could before saying, "Well? Can we leave here?"
Luke nodded slowly, and the brothers set out through the woods, away from Cottwyk. "I'm not going back to Foxhyrst, though."
Alex gaped at him. "You're not—"
"There's a monastery at St. Albans. I'm going there."
Chapter 2
Two months later: The Cambridgeshire manor of Hauekleah
"Milady! Milady!"
Faithe looked up from the daisies she was tying together to see young Edyth burst through the open doorway of Hauekleah Hall, red-faced and breathless. Ewes' milk spilled from her two full buckets, soaking into the fresh rushes.
"Edyth!" Faithe scolded. "Slow down. You're getting the new rushes all—"
"There's two Normans headin' up the road," the dairymaid gasped. "One of 'em must be him—the Black Dragon."
Silence fell over the great hall as the house servants turned apprehensive gazes on their young mistress. Faithe's fingers grew cold, and she realiz
ed she had stopped breathing. She set down the daisy garland and rose from her bench, summoning all the composure at her disposal.
"His name," Faithe said quietly, "is Luke de Périgueux."
Edyth blinked. "But Master Orrik, he says they call him the Black—"
"His name is Luke de Périgueux," Faithe repeated, her gaze sweeping every member of her raptly attentive audience, "and as he's to be your new master" —she drew in a steadying breath— "and my lord husband, you are to address him with respect or suffer the consequences. Am I understood?"
Faithe's famuli, unused to such threats or admonishments—for Faithe rarely found them necessary—exchanged uneasy glances.
"Am I understood?" Her words were softly spoken, but clear.
There came a chorus of murmured assents, accompanied by the occasional pitying look. They viewed her as a martyr, she realized—first widowed by the Normans, then forced to choose between marriage to one of their own or the loss of her ancestral home.
Faithe tucked her hair behind her ears and smoothed her kirtle, hearing the crackle of parchment in the pocket of her skirt. The letter from Lord Alberic, the Norman sheriff to whom she now owed allegiance, had been treacherously courteous in that manner the Normans seemed to have perfected. He'd told her little about the husband he'd chosen for her, only that he was a knight named Luke de Périgueux and that he was famous for his soldiering skills. Skills used against her people... her husband.
Know, my lady, his lordship—or, more likely, his lordship's clerk—had written, that you would be fully within your rights to refuse this marriage. In such an event, I will endeavor to dispose of the estate by other means. In other words, she could marry the notorious Luke de Périgueux and remain at Hauekleah, or refuse to marry him and let the Normans seize it—in which case she'd no doubt spend the rest of her days languishing in some convent somewhere. Worse, the sprawling farmstead that had been her family's for over eight hundred years would fall into the hands of strangers, enemy strangers.
Better to give myself to some Norman devil and keep Hauekleah, she'd decided. Her grandmother, Hlynn, had done much the same, entering into a loveless marriage to a Danish warrior chief rather than relinquish Hauekleah to the Northmen. Finding farm life tiresome, Thorgeirr had stayed but a single summer—long enough to build a new manor house and plant the seed of Faithe's father in Hlynn's belly—and then moved on. Although it was rumored that he lived for many more years, Hlynn never saw him again, and counted herself lucky.
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