Secret Thunder

by Patricia Ryan

  Perhaps, Faithe told herself as she stepped out into the warm spring afternoon, she would be as fortunate. Her new husband, used to the ways of the sword and the crossbow, might be so bored here that he'd leave her in peace and she'd have Hauekleah all to herself again.

  All eyes were upon her as she walked slowly through the entry gate that provided passage through the stone wall surrounding Hauekleah Hall—a wall that had stood since Roman times. Shielding her eves against the sun, she squinted down the dirt path that connected her manor and the village it encompassed to Foxhyrst and the other great market towns to the west.

  Two men on horseback rode toward her on that path, one tall in the saddle, the other slumped over. Faithe's mouth felt chalky. She wiped her damp palms on her plain wool kirtle. Field-workers abandoned their plows and livestock and ran to join her house staff in what felt like a defensive phalanx around her. As always, their loyalty and affection moved her immeasurably. If for their sakes only, she could never abandon Hauekleah to the Normans.

  As the riders drew closer, she saw that the upright man gripped a sword in one hand and the reins of both mounts in the other. The insensible one swayed in his saddle. The fellow with the sword dropped the reins and grasped the other man's tunic to keep him from falling. Leaning over, he whispered something into his companion's ear and gently patted his shoulder.

  "He's hurt." Faithe stepped forward.

  Her young reeve, his eyes full of worry, grabbed her arm. "Nay, milady..."

  "That man's hurt." Faithe shook Dunstan off and approached the two men, wondering which one was Luke de Périgueux. They were sizable men, both of them, with hair as black as ink. The injured man—she saw the blood on his tunic now, and a raw gash on his forehead—had his hair shorn in the Norman style, while the other wore his unusually long and bound in back.

  Faithe's servants followed her, Dunstan and some of the burlier men flanking her protectively. The man with the sword pointed it at them as they approached. Faithe hesitated, along with the others. It wasn't the weapon that gave her pause, for although he was armed, he was but one man and they were many; it was the way he looked at them.

  Some of his hair had come loose and hung over his broad forehead, enhancing his feral image. His eyes were deep-set and fierce against oddly swarthy skin. Black stubble darkened his grimly set jaw. He didn't look like any Norman soldier Faithe had ever seen. He looked untamed... as menacing as a beast with its fangs bared.

  Faithe's gaze traveled to the ornate pin holding his mantle closed—a golden disk inset with black stone in the shape of...

  A dragon. A black dragon.

  Merciful God.

  "That's him," someone whispered.

  Faithe stifled a sudden urge to cross herself. So this was the man to whom she would be wed within a matter of days, this dark, savage creature with murder in his eyes and a quivering broadsword in his hand.

  Forcing her fear beneath the surface, Faithe stepped forward, her escorts at her sides.

  "Stop right there," de Périgueux ordered in French-accented English as he thrust the weapon toward them. "I'll have none of your Saxon tricks." His voice rumbled like thunder; his tone was that of a man accustomed to being obeyed. That he spoke English came as something of a shock. She'd never known a Norman to utter a word of her native tongue.

  Faithe clutched her skirt in both fists. "We mean you no harm."

  "Tell that to my brother. We were ambushed in the woods not a mile back."

  "Ambushed!"

  He scanned the faces behind her. "Where's your mistress? My brother needs help. He's badly wounded."

  Faithe lifted her chin, consciously ignoring his sword, which was aimed directly at her. "I'm Faithe of Hauekleah. I'll tend to your brother."

  Those intense eyes of his pinned her with a look of astonishment, his gaze lighting on the handful of brass keys hanging from a long golden chain around her neck, which he evidently hadn't noticed before. He surveyed her from head to toe, taking in the unbound hair that hung loose over her breasts, the humble kirtle she'd shortened for field work, and the patched slippers soiled from that morning's gardening. As usual, she'd gotten too caught up in the day's chores to bother overmuch with grooming, and as a result looked more like an untidy adolescent than a chatelaine.

  Even when she did bother to dress in her finest silks and adorn herself with jewels, Faithe looked far younger than her four-and-twenty years. She'd learned to counteract her youthful appearance with displays of unflinching confidence, even when they had to be feigned. Therefore, when Luke de Périgueux's attention returned to her face, she met his eyes steadfastly.

  He held her gaze. She saw his throat move as he swallowed; his penetrating eyes darkened from brown to black. So... it unnerved even the infamous Black Dragon to come face-to-face with his betrothed.

  Faithe nodded toward his sword, still aimed at her throat, and said quietly, "If you'll lower that, my lord, I shall see to your brother."

  * * *

  "Gently, now... gently," Lady Faithe urged as six of her men, gripping the edges of Alex's mantle, carried him through a gate in an old stone wall and over the threshold of the enormous timber manor house it surrounded. Alex was unconscious, his face drained of color. Luke muttered a quick prayer as he followed his brother into a vast whitewashed hall flooded with sunlight, its lofty roof supported by two rows of thick oak posts. Each post, he noticed, had a garland of flowers wound around it from top to bottom, and floral swags hung from the ceiling beams. The green rushes that crackled underfoot were likewise strewn with sweet blossoms whose scent perfumed the air.

  Lady Faithe gave orders for a pallet to be placed next to the central hearth, a stone slab on which a low fire crackled beneath a brass kettle. "Lay him down carefully," she said, and her men obeyed, handling Alex as if he were a newborn pup. "Bring me some soap and my medicine box," she told two maidservants as she ladled warm water from the kettle into a bowl. "And clean strips of linen and blankets." Her soft, girlish voice seemed unsuited to command, yet her servants jumped to do her bidding.

  Odd, Luke thought as he divested himself of his mantle, for such authority to be invested in a girl of such unassuming appearance. Not that she was plain. Indeed, she was slender and fair, as Lord Alberic had promised in the letter in which he'd offered Luke her hand in marriage—and therefore her estate. Her light brown hair, fine as silk, framed a face as appealing as any he'd ever seen. She had those soft hazel eyes he'd only ever seen in England.

  Luke was grateful for his bride's comeliness, although he'd expected someone more... polished. Saxon or no, she was a high-born lady, yet she wore no veil or fur or jewels, and her face was as sun-burnished as that of a common field laborer. The chatelaine's keys hanging around her neck were the only indication of her rank.

  Kneeling beside Alex's pallet, she unbuckled his swordbelt—empty, since Luke still held his brother's sword in a fierce grip. Luke took the belt before she could hand it to the woman helping her, buckled it over his own tunic, and sheathed the sword. That he chose to keep the weapon close at hand was clearly not lost on Lady Faithe, who glanced warily in his direction, then proceeded to unlace Alex's boots.

  Luke wished he didn't feel the need to defend himself and his brother from these people. After all, he was their new lord. Yet they regarded him as the enemy. No doubt Lady Faithe found his presence here particularly loathsome. He was a victorious invader, she his war prize. Who knew what depths of bitterness might simmer beneath her seemingly harmless exterior. Saxons were tricky. It was in the nature of defeated people to use cunning to resist their conquerors—to put on a show of cooperation while fighting back in whatever sly way they could. He'd have to keep a close watch on her and those whom she commanded with such subtle skill. Hence the sword, although in truth Luke felt ill at ease bearing arms. In fact, this was the first he'd done so since entering the monastery after the incident in Cottwyk.

  Two months of prayer and seclusion had lulled the fury within
him into an uneasy hibernation, yet it would be naive to think he was free of it forever—or to blame it on a handful of dried leaves. Those herbs had merely awakened a beast that lay curled up within him, waiting for the chance to kill and maim—a beast that was part and parcel of who he was, that had always been with him and would never leave him in peace.

  Squatting down, Luke lowered his head and rubbed his left arm below the painful knot near his shoulder, thankfully his only souvenir of the ambush. When he looked up, he saw Lady Faithe's hand slip into the pouch of her girdle. Steel flashed as she withdrew a knife and brought it to Alex's throat.

  Luke whipped out an arm and seized her wrist, jerking her hand—and the knife—away from Alex. She cried out and tried vainly to pull away from him. He grabbed her other hand and yanked her to her feet, clenching his teeth at the searing pain in his upper arm. The knife fell into the rushes.

  "None of your Saxon tricks," he growled. "I told you." She struggled. He tightened his grip on her wrists.

  She winced, but met his eyes squarely. "Let go of me," she rasped, "or they'll kill you." He followed her gaze to see every man and woman in the huge room closing in on them, many wielding crude weapons—hatchets, shears, cleavers—that they'd produced with remarkable speed.

  Leaning down, Luke stared directly into her eyes. "If you harm my brother," he said quietly, "I'll kill you." He squeezed her wrists to underscore the threat. She hitched in her breath.

  A young, fair-haired man advanced menacingly on Luke, but Lady Faithe shook her head. "Nay, Dunstan. It's all right." Dunstan stopped in his tracks, glowering at Luke, a dagger at the ready.

  "You'd kill your own wife?" she asked unsteadily.

  "We're not married yet."

  She was trembling, he realized, but to her credit she raised her chin and said, "You Normans think you're so civilized, but I've never yet heard an Englishman threaten to kill a woman."

  "I've never yet seen a woman—Norman or English—try to slit the throat of a wounded man entrusted to her care."

  "You think so little of me?"

  "I don't know you," he said. "And I'm beginning to think I don't want to. Much less be wed to you."

  Her soft eyes frosted over. "'Twould suit me well if you were to ride away from here and leave me in peace."

  Luke allowed himself a grim smile. "And 'twould suit me if this estate were simply appropriated and given to me outright... Sister Faithe."

  Her golden face paled, and Luke knew he'd threatened her where it mattered this time. Hauekleah must be very dear to her heart. Indeed, why else would she have agreed to marry a strange Norman knight rather than lose it? That her stake in this union was as great as his was useful to know.

  "You're hurting me," she said tightly, glancing at her immobilized hands. "Let me go."

  Luke released her. She let out a ragged breath and rubbed her wrists, now marred by livid marks where his fingers had dug into her. He bit back an apology, reminding himself that, just moments ago, this woman had been aiming a knife at his brother's throat.

  "Go about your business," she told her staff. They slowly dispersed, except for young Dunstan, who stayed close in an apparent effort to keep watch over his mistress. A plump, older woman brought her a wooden box with brass fittings and a bar of yellowish soap, which she set on a nearby bench. "Thank you, Moira."

  "We could simply take Hauekleah from you," Luke told Lady Faithe, only to see her face lose even more of its color, highlighting a constellation of pale freckles across her nose and cheeks. "But 'twould be a brutal business. Regardless of what you may think, your new rulers are a civilized people. Why settle with the sword what we can settle with a marriage?"

  In point of fact, Lord Alberic would undoubtedly have seized Hauekleah by force, as was his inclination—provided he could observe the fighting from a safe distance, as usual—had not the alternative of granting it to Luke amused him more.

  Alberic was a petty and pampered creature, his one great weakness a paralyzing fear of battle—a rather inconvenient attribute in a military commander, which was what he'd been before he'd maneuvered William into naming him sheriff. He'd managed to hide this flaw from everyone but Luke, who'd seen him hunker down in a ditch at Hastings, blubbering and shrieking as the battle raged around him. The other witnesses to this shameful display had perished at the hands of the English, and no doubt Alberic wished Luke had succumbed to the same fate. From his lordship's attitude toward Luke since then, it was clear that he despised his most celebrated knight for being privy to his cowardice. Not that he was outwardly hostile; fancying himself a diplomat, Alberic couched his maliciousness in a facade of remote disdain. For his part, Luke had never revealed what he'd seen to a living soul, except for Alex; it would be his word against that of Alberic, still very much a favorite of King William's.

  For months, Lord Alberic had resisted the idea of granting a conquered estate to Luke. Finally, under pressure from William—who'd interpreted Luke's seclusion at St. Albans as a form of protest for his lack of reward, and didn't want to alienate one of his most renowned military heroes—the sheriff gave him Hauekleah by means of marriage to Lady Faithe. It was meant as a sort of mean-spirited jest, of course. Hauekleah was a humble farmstead, nothing like the grand estates he'd bestowed on his other knights. Little did Alberic know that the holding he'd intended as a subtle insult suited Luke perfectly. His fondest boyhood memories were of farm life. He could live contentedly at Hauekleah—provided he managed to keep his Saxon bride and her villeins under control.

  Another serving wench laid a pile of blankets and linen on the bench. Lady Faithe started to turn toward them, but Luke grabbed her shoulder and forced her to face him. "Hauekleah is mine now, my lady, with or without you. Rest assured I'll be keeping a close watch on you. If you even think about causing harm to my brother—if I but see it in your eyes—then I'll refuse this marriage and let Lord Alberic take Hauekleah by force."

  Lady Faithe twisted out of his grip. "You can't honestly think I meant to cut your brother's throat."

  "I saw you with my own—"

  "I was trying to cut his tunic off."

  Luke studied her seemingly guileless eyes, then looked at his brother, lying on his pallet in his blood-soaked clothes.

  "Do you think," she said, "if I'd intended to murder him, that I'd do it right in front of you?"

  A good point, Luke had to admit. She knelt and retrieved her knife from the rushes. Crouching, Luke snatched it from her. "I'll do it." Most likely she was telling the truth. If not, she was a consummate liar. Regardless, he'd best reserve judgment on her character—and withhold from her the right to wield knives around his brother—until he'd gotten to know her a bit better.

  Anger flashed in her eyes, but she backed away, giving him room to maneuver. As he cut through the heavy wool of his brother's tunic, she pulled the pieces off and handed them to the plump maid, Moira. Alex's undershirt sliced easily. She peeled the crimson-stained linen from his injured side with great care.

  Her hands were those of a woman who spent her days working. They looked strong and capable, and even slightly work-roughened, but well-shaped. She wore no rings and kept her nails blunt.

  "What weapon did that?" she asked as she examined the ghastly wound.

  "'Twas some type of mallet, with a spike on top."

  She nodded. "That's a farm tool. We use it for driving stakes and breaking up the earth. How many men were there?"

  "Just two, but they surprised us. They popped out of the woods a mile down the road. One had that mallet, and he went straight for Alex. The other had a sling." He touched his left arm high up, where it had been hit, sucking in his breath as the hardened lump throbbed with pain.

  "Are you hurt?"

  He gritted his teeth. "'Tis of no concern. If you Saxons could aim, 'twould have been my skull that stopped that rock, and then I wouldn't be here to tell the tale. No doubt they meant to knock us out and then finish the job with that mallet, but they weren't u
p to the task."

  "I take it they got away."

  Luke grimaced at the memory. "I would have gone after them, but Alex needed me. The one with the mallet may not get far—I took Alex's sword and stabbed him in the gut before he ran off." He paused for a heartbeat. "Did you send them to ambush us?"

  Seeming unsurprised by the question, she tossed her head in a partially successful attempt to flip her hair over her shoulder. "My men have standing orders to give all Normans a wide berth. I care far too much about Hauekleah to jeopardize it by encouraging my people to attack yours." She stripped away the last of Alex's shirt. "The bleeding has stopped." She began untying Alex's bloodstained chausses. "Here, help me get these off him."

  Luke hesitated, discomfited by the sight of her loosening his brother's hose and untying the drawers beneath them. "Isn't there some manservant who could do this?" he asked. "Someplace else?"

  She cast him a wry look. "If it's your brother's modesty you're protecting, I assure you he's quite unaware of what's happening, and my servants have all seen—"

  "Nay, I meant..." Why was he fumbling for words? "Surely it's not considered proper for a lady of rank..." He shook his head in exasperation.

  She laughed, and he was torn between pleasure at her luminous smile and humiliation at being the cause of her mirth. "You're serious," she said.

  "No Frankish lady would expose herself to a naked man, much less take his chausses off herself."

  Lady Faithe chuckled as she carefully worked the chausses and drawers down over Alex's wounded hip. "I can't think that makes the Frankish husbands very happy."

  Luke almost smiled. He tried to imagine his stepmother or sisters saying such a thing, but they'd rather die than let even the most mildly bawdy remark pass their rouged lips. Just as they'd rather die than undress a man with their soft white hands; no wonder their husbands always looked so unhappy. "Here." He used his knife to cut the remaining garments from his brother's body, leaving him entirely naked. Alex certainly wouldn't mind. One thing he'd never been was shy.