Secret Thunder

by Patricia Ryan

  And he'd betrayed her with an act of unspeakable savagery, a betrayal no less inexcusable for having transpired before they'd met. He should have known it would fall apart, sooner or later. He hadn't wanted to sully their marriage by bedding her too soon. As it turned out, he'd sullied it irretrievably before they'd even been joined in wedlock. And there was no way to undo what he'd done, to wash away the harm.

  For a brief time, he'd been a happy man. He'd begun to think he could bury the Black Dragon once and for all, and forget the bloodthirsty creature had ever existed.

  Fool, he thought, gazing with consuming sorrow at the innocent beauty of his sleeping wife. You are the Black Dragon. You will never escape the beast.

  Luke dressed quietly, taking pains not to awaken Faithe, then pinned his mantle over his shoulders and slipped from the bedchamber. In the great hall, he found Alex curled up in naked contentment with his wench. Leaving by the back door, he made his way to the stable, saddled up his horse, and rode to the river.

  Pausing his mount on the bridge that led north, he unfastened his mantle pin and studied it by the faint, early-morning glow from the east. He rubbed his thumb over the little onyx dragon imbedded in the golden disk, remembering the day his father had presented the mantle pins to his two younger sons. It had been just before Luke and Alex had left to join William's invasion of England.

  Luke's normally stoic sire had been moved to tears that day, not only because he feared for his beloved sons' lives, but also because he knew he might never see them again even if they lived through the invasion. After all, their purpose in following William had been to gain English estates—and England was very, very far from Périgueux.

  As fate would have it, he never did see them again. He died at Christmastide, and all Luke had to remember him by was this pin. It was Luke's most cherished possession. Unlike his brother, so careless with his belongings, he never let it out of his sight.

  Turning it over, he read the words on the reverse side, the same parting wish that was inscribed on the back of Alex's mantle pin... which was now in the hands of Orrik.

  Closing his fist tight around the pin, Luke whispered the message out loud: "Be strong and of good courage." And then he hauled back and hurled the pin as hard as he could over the side of the bridge. It sailed in an achingly perfect arc, submerging with a soft splash the moment it hit the water.

  Luke watched the point of impact until the last telltale ripple had dissolved. And then he kicked his mount into a gallop and rode until he and the horse were both exhausted.

  The sun was fully risen by the time he returned and handed his reins to the stable boy. Reentering Hauekleah Hall by the back door, he ducked into the kitchen for something to ease his thirst, only to find the big central table lined up with kitchen wenches plucking pigeons and tossing them into a giant pot. Most roasting and stewing generally took place in the cookhouse; in its absence, the kitchen had evidently been pressed into service.

  "Milord!" Massive, ruddy-faced Ardith Cook emerged from the pantry, holding a slab of bacon in one hand and a cleaver in the other. "A pleasure to see you this mornin'. What is it you be needin'?"

  "Some ale," he said. "And perhaps a bit of bread to break my fast."

  "Lynette!" Ardith bellowed. The wench who'd kept Alex warm last night jumped up from the table. "You heard his lordship. Bring 'im some bread and ale." She slammed the bacon down on a stone slab and imbedded the cleaver in the meat. "Ain't it a bit late in the mornin' to be breakin' your fast, milord?"

  "I've been out riding."

  Ardith nodded and yanked the cleaver out of the bacon, then proceeded to hack it up into pieces, grunting with the effort. "Lord Caedmon was much the same, rest his soul." She paused in her work to execute a cursory sign of the cross with the hand that held the cleaver. "He'd take those long rides first thing in the mornin', then show up here and eat everything that hadn't made it into the stew pot yet."

  Her assistants chuckled in accord as they stripped the feathers off the little birds.

  This wasn't the first time Luke had heard Hauekleah's villeins speak of their last master, but it was the first time he'd found himself interested in their comments. He tried to recall what had been said before, but all he could conjure up was a vague impression that Faithe's first husband had been well liked.

  Again, he pictured in his mind the barbaric creature who'd appeared in the doorway of that Cottwyk brothel. How could that wretched soul and the respected Caedmon of Hauekleah have been one and the same?

  Lynette appeared with a hunk of white bread and a horn of ale, which she handed over with a coquettish smile. "Is there anything else your lordship might be needin'?" she asked from beneath lowered lashes.

  "Nothing at all," he replied, just soberly enough so that she'd know he meant it. Alex would probably laugh if he knew one of "his" twins had decided to flirt with Luke. So would Faithe, for that matter; she struck him as being too self-assured to be much prone toward unreasonable jealousy. And it would be quite unreasonable. For one thing, Luke had taken his father's lectures on marital fidelity to heart; he had no intention of betraying Faithe with another woman, ever. And, although Lynette and her sister had a certain voluptuous appeal, to be sure, they didn't... glow from within, as did their mistress. They didn't have golden skin and a magical smile and slippery hair that was always everywhere. They didn't laugh in that remarkable way that suddenly made everything clear as rain. They didn't smell like almonds and thyme. They didn't have gentle, knowing hazel eyes that looked right into him. They weren't Faithe.

  "So," Luke said with deliberate nonchalance as he leaned against Ardith's worktable, "your late master liked to hunt and hawk, I understand."

  "Aye." Ardith's huge body jiggled with every thwack of the cleaver. "He brung home plenty of game for the supper table, I'll say that for 'im."

  "I hear naught but good things about him," Luke said around a mouthful of bread.

  "Nor will you." Ardith scooped the diced bacon up in her meaty hands and added it to the pigeons in the stew pot. Wiping her hands on her apron, she turned and heaved her great bulk toward the pantry. "He was a right agreeable sort, our Lord Caedmon."

  "Right agreeable," one of the kitchen girls chirped.

  "As goodly a master as ever lived," echoed another. There was a little flutter of movement as the wenches paused in their plucking to cross themselves.

  "He was a red-haired fellow, yes?" Luke washed his bread down with a swallow of ale.

  "Aye," Lynette sighed. "And right handsome for one of that breed. Some of them are a bit... you know... milky-skinned and sickly-like, with wee little piggy eyes. Not our Lord Caedmon."

  "A big fellow," someone else offered. "Not as sizable as your lordship, but good-sized, and vigorous."

  "Never had a cross word for no one."

  "Never."

  "Always cheerful."

  "Always."

  "Really." Luke bit off some bread and chewed it thoughtfully. "Did he dress humbly, like her ladyship, or more in keeping with his station?"

  "Oh, he liked his fine tunics and furs," Ardith offered, waddling back into the kitchen with an apron full of mushrooms, which she dumped onto the chopping stone. "Nothin' too fancy, mind you. He weren't one for jewels and that. He dressed simple, but fine simple, if you know what I mean. Always the best wool, the softest kid for his boots."

  "Kept his beard trimmed nice," Lynette said. "Took a tub bath twice a week!"

  "He was city-bred," one of the girls explained.

  "Brung up in Worcester."

  "A ward of the bishop."

  "They say his father was Lord Stigand, Archbishop of Canterbury."

  One of the others laughed derisively. "Everyone knowed he was King Harold's bastard son."

  "Twaddle!" Ardith raised her cleaver high. "'Twas Pope Alexander himself sired our Lord Caedmon!" She attacked the mushrooms with a vengeance.

  Luke drained his horn in one swift tilt. Next they'd be claiming he'd been
the illegitimate son of the Lord God Himself.

  Try as he might to superimpose their portrait of a well-scrubbed, urbane—and semidivine—Caedmon on his mental picture of the Saxon from the brothel, the images just didn't fit. Something was missing, some secret, some vital piece of information without which he'd never understand what had happened that stormy, half-remembered night. As he swallowed the last of the bread and bid the kitchen staff good day, he resolved to unearth that secret.

  * * *

  The bonfire, built atop the hill between the river and the vineyard, had died down some, but still lit up the night sky. Several dozen villagers continued to dance around it—to the accompaniment of reed flutes, cowbells, and makeshift tambourines—in ale-soaked celebration of St. John's Eve, the twenty-fourth of June. The men carried torches; the women wore their hair loose and crowned with floral wreaths. Boys darted among them, flourishing their glowing brands.

  Faithe was gratified to see Felix among their number, waving his brand and laughing along with the rest of them. The turning point had come one afternoon last week, when the other boys had stumbled upon Felix taking a solitary swim in the river. That he knew how to swim amazed and impressed them; that he was willing to teach them how elevated his status from pariah to comrade in the blink of an eye.

  Faithe, sitting with Luke in a secluded spot against a moss-covered outcropping of rock, watched the revelers through half-closed eyes, her feet moving in rhythm to the music. They'd done their dancing, she and Luke. Earlier, when it seemed as if every soul in Hauekleah had joined the circle around the bonfire, he'd let her coax him into it. She'd been impressed with his restrained grace as he executed the simple movements of the traditional dance, and gratified that he'd joined in just to please her. Gratified and a little surprised, for he'd been out of sorts for several days now.

  It began the day the cookhouse burned down and she'd gone searching unsuccessfully for Orrik. She remembered her conversation with him in the horse pasture. He'd remarked that she'd stopped twisting her wedding ring. They'd spoken of hot baths and comfortable beds. She'd thought they were going to make love that night.

  They hadn't. His choice, not hers. He'd withdrawn from her that evening, and remained that way since, buckled back into that armor she'd thought he was shedding. For a while, he'd seemed so relaxed and happy. Now, he was much as he'd been when he first arrived at Hauekleah. He rarely smiled. On the infrequent occasions when they spoke, she had the impression that he was preoccupied with things she knew nothing about. His thoughts seemed focused, not on the world around him, but deep within himself.

  A niggling thought had begun insinuating itself into her mind whenever she contemplated Luke's renewed detachment. Perhaps he was like Thorgeirr, after all. Perhaps, despite his best intentions, life at Hauekleah had begun to wear on him, and he was mentally removing himself from everything about it, including her, in preparation for the day he left.

  Except that sometimes, often, when she looked in his direction, she found him studying her with extraordinary intensity. At such times, she fancied a hint of something almost like fear in his eyes, mingled with the yearning that he couldn't hope to disguise.

  Whatever the cause of his reticence with her, she hated it. The rapport they'd established had been such a precious thing to her, a thrilling gift, unexpected and full of possibilities. And now it was gone. She didn't know why, only that its absence filled her with sadness.

  Stealing a glance at him, she saw that he was staring off at something beyond the bonfire. Tracking his riveted gaze, she discovered the object of his interest to be his brother, lounging on the other side of the fire with Lynette and Leola cuddled up on either side. Faithe did not deceive herself that it was Alex who had so captured Luke's attention. All men liked to stare at beautiful women, especially when they came in matched pairs. The sisters were mirror images of each other, remarkably similar in every respect. Their own mother, now dead, hadn't been able to tell them apart; it was she who'd trained the girls to distinguish themselves by how they braided their hair.

  Luke wasn't the only man staring at the threesome. Firdolf had spent most of the evening gazing at them sullenly from the other side of the fire as he steadily emptied a wineskin. It was, of course, Leola—she of the single braid—on whom his attention was fixed. Earlier, he had asked her to join him in dancing with the others, but she had refused. Alex had grinned and shrugged at him, whereupon he'd stalked away to get quietly sotted all by himself.

  The flesh around Luke's eyes tightened in concentration as he gazed upon the girls. "Caedmon didn't have a twin brother, by any chance?" he asked, without taking his eyes off the threesome beyond the fire. They were the first words he'd spoken to her in quite a long time.

  Puzzled, Faithe said, "Nay. What on earth would make you think that?"

  "Did he have any brothers?"

  "None that were raised in Worcester with him. He quite possibly had half brothers, and perhaps half sisters. I suppose we'll never be certain, since no one knows for sure who his father was. All the likeliest candidates have legitimate heirs, so I suppose it's possible."

  "A half brother..." Luke shook his head slightly, his brows drawn together. "Nay, I think not."

  "What makes you think Caedmon had a brother?" she asked, perplexed by his interest in her late husband, but eager to keep him talking.

  "I just thought it was" —he shrugged— "a possibility. I was just wondering. I don't really know why." He still hadn't looked at her.

  They sat in silence for a time, then she said, quietly, "We can talk about Caedmon if you want to."

  He did look at her then, turning his head toward her, his eyes huge in the dark.

  "Moira told me you were asking about him yesterday," she said. "'Tis natural that you'd be curious about the man I was married to for eight years. If there are things you want to know about him, you can ask me."

  He lifted the flask of ale to his mouth and drank from it, then gazed at the dancers with such a taciturn expression that she decided she'd somehow disturbed or insulted him. Finally, he said, "They tell me he was a good man."

  "He was," she said. "Everyone liked him." She decided to elaborate on that, since she was in a better position than her people to be objective about the matter. "In truth, that was partly because he didn't exercise any real authority with the villeins. He rarely ordered them to do anything, and never disciplined them. That was all left up to me, which, of course, was how I preferred it."

  "And it never troubled you that he was so uninterested in Hauekleah?"

  "Oh, from time to time I wished he'd care more. But one can't have everything. As I've said, he was good to me. He never struck me. I'm sure he was faithful. And, although he never really fit in here, he tried to make the best of it. He found pastimes that amused him. All in all, despite our differences, we got along better than most married couples." She watched the dancers cavorting around the fire, remembering this same celebration last summer. Caedmon had lifted her up and spun her around and around until she shrieked with laughter. "In some ways, he was... this may sound silly to you."

  "Nay. What?"

  "He was like a big brother." Except in bed, of course, but she had no intention of sharing such matters with Luke. "I liked him. I was looking forward to growing old with him."

  Luke turned his face from her; a muscle stood out in his jaw.

  Faithe took off her chaplet of tiny ivory roses, which was beginning to irritate her scalp. Laying it in her lap, she brushed the silken petals with her fingertips, enjoying their sweet perfume mingled with acrid wood smoke. "But then word came last summer that your army was planning on crossing the Channel and challenging King Harold," she said softly, "and Caedmon knew he'd have to join Harold's forces. He didn't relish the idea, I can tell you that."

  Luke seemed suddenly more alert. "Nay?"

  "He wasn't a soldier, he was... well, not a soldier. He hadn't been trained in fighting, although of course he could shoot an arrow and
handle a sword passably well. I could tell he was anxious."

  Luke nodded, seeming intently interested.

  "Don't misunderstand me," she said quickly. "He wasn't cowardly. I don't mean to imply that. He didn't deny his duty or try and get out of it. It's just that he... would rather not have had to go. Caedmon was a man of peace. The skills of war come naturally to some men, but not to others. Dunstan was much the same—willing to go, but not happy about it. Orrik was the only man among them who seemed truly eager for battle."

  Luke snorted, as if this didn't surprise him.

  "It took a few weeks to gather up the supplies and weapons they'd need before they could set out to join Harold. I was so worried for Caedmon. He... changed. He'd be belligerent one moment and terribly melancholy the next. He lost his appetite. He refused to speak to me of his fears, although I knew he felt them. He'd get these dreadful headaches. When the vomiting started, I called in a surgeon. He told me this sort of thing happens to some men before they go into battle, and not to worry overmuch. So I tried not to."

  Luke was very quiet, listening attentively.

  "They left almost exactly a year ago," she said. "You know the rest. He was taken prisoner and died over the winter. I never saw him again."

  Luke took her hand, the first he'd touched her in days. "I'm sorry."

  She forced a small smile. "'Twasn't your doing."

  He seemed to stiffen; his hand left hers.

  "There he is!" a young voice cried out. It was Felix, running toward them with his brand, followed by Alfrith and the others.

  "'Tis the Black Dragon!"

  The pack of boys converged on Luke and laughingly waved their brands at him. "Go away, Black Dragon!"

  "Get out of here!"

  "Go back to where you came from!"

  Faithe laughed along with the boys, until she noticed Luke's nonplussed expression. He seemed almost to shrink back against the mossy stone, staring at the taunting children as if he truly didn't know what to make of them. She laid a hand on his arm. "They're supposed to be driving away dragons," she explained. "'Tis all part of St. John's Eve. And, you being the Black Dragon..."