Secret Thunder

by Patricia Ryan

  Felix shook his head resolutely. "If it wasn't for me, you wouldn't be in this fix."

  Luke actually laughed, so absurd was the notion of his troubles being the fault of this well-meaning child. "I'm perfectly capable of mucking things up all on my own, Felix. What are you doing?"

  Felix had squeezed his little head through the vent hole and was in the process of jimmying his arms and shoulders through. "I've got something for you."

  "You'll get yourself killed. Go back."

  "Milord," he grunted as he wriggled through, "if you wouldn't mind catching me..."

  Luke had little choice, as Felix was already halfway through the hole. Grabbing the child, he lowered him to the floor. He could scarcely believe he had fit through that narrow opening; for once his size had served him well.

  Felix reached behind him and pulled something out of his belt, handing it to Luke with an expression of pride. It was a short pickaxe, the type stonecutters used.

  "I found it out by the cookhouse," Felix explained. "'Twas the best I could do by way of a weapon."

  "You did well." The pickaxe's iron spike could pierce a skull. "You're a handy man to have around." For all the good it did. Luke had a weapon, but Baldric seemed very determined not to open that door. "Now, let me give you a boost so you can get out of here."

  "That won't be necessary, sire."

  "You're not staying here, and that's—"

  "Baldric!" came a boy's frantic cry from outside. "He's dead! Sir Luke, he's—"

  "What's this?" Baldric exclaimed. "What are you little beasts up to? Begone, or I'll—"

  "He's dead!"

  "Who's dead?"

  "Sir Luke! He's gone and kilt himself!"

  Luke looked down at Felix, barely visible in the darkness save for his wide, toothy grin. "Your idea?"

  "That it was."

  "Get away from the door," Luke ordered him. "Take that rope and wait in the corner there."

  The boy obeyed.

  Luke stood to the side of the door.

  "What makes you think he's dead?" Baldric demanded.

  "We saw him! We climbed up to the vent hole—"

  "You what? You little—"

  "Just to see 'im," the boy said. "But he was sprawled out on the floor with his eyes half open and a dagger sticking out of his throat."

  "He don't have no dagger," Baldric said.

  "He must have had it hidden somewheres," said a second boy, sounding remarkably convincing. "Or else someone slipped it to him. But he's dead as a stone."

  "As a stone," piped up another voice.

  "There's blood everywhere."

  "Everywhere."

  "Christ's bones," Baldric growled.

  "You don't need that knife," one of the boys said loudly, obviously for Luke's benefit. "I told you, he's dead as—"

  "Hush!"

  Luke heard a metallic jiggling in the lock and braced himself. The door opened slowly. A dark shape eased through. Luke made out an outstretched hand, the glint of steel.

  Gripping the pickaxe by its head, Luke slammed the wooden shaft down on Baldric's arm. He dropped the knife and howled in pain. Luke grabbed Baldric by his tunic and yanked him into the storehouse, where he stumbled and fell. He tried to rise, but Luke was already on top of him, the pickaxe's iron spike pressing into the cur's throat.

  Baldric sucked in a panicked breath and rasped, "Don't kill me!"

  "Kill him! Kill him!" the boys chorused.

  Luke cocked his head toward the youngsters. "They think I should kill you."

  "Nay, please. Please!" Baldric was trembling all over. "I'm begging you, milord!"

  "Milord? Was I your lord when you tied my hands behind my back and locked me in here?"

  "I'm sorry, sire, truly I am!" Baldric's eyes were filling with tears.

  "Kill him!" the boys demanded, crowding the doorway.

  "Perhaps I should hand you over to them," Luke suggested, to spirited agreement from his young audience. "That might be amusing to watch."

  "Sire, please!" Baldric wailed. "What can I say? What can I do?"

  "You can tell me where my brother is."

  Baldric's mouth gulped air; he looked like a carp in a barrel, waiting for the cook. "I... I don't rightly know."

  Luke turned to the boys. "He's all yours."

  "Nay!" Baldric screamed as the boys crowded around. "I mean, I know what Orrik told Firdolf to do with him, I just—"

  "What?" Luke demanded. "What were Orrik's orders?"

  Baldric's throat bobbed. "Firdolf was to tie him up and gag him, and then dump him in the woods."

  Luke swore harshly. With Alex immobilized, and smelling of blood from his head wound, he'd be irresistible prey for the forest predators. "I take it Orrik expected the wolves to finish what he started and didn't have the guts to finish himself."

  "Orrik did say as how there wouldn't be much left of him come morning."

  "Exactly where did Firdolf leave him?"

  "I... I don't know, sire. He was to take him deep in the forest, where no one would find him till... till there was nothin' left to find."

  Luke pressed the spike deeper into Baldric's throat; he gagged and choked. "Don't! Don't kill me!"

  "You deserve to die." Slowly, Luke eased up on the pressure. "But I don't deserve to have my conscience sullied with the death of an insect like you."

  "Oh, thank you, thank—"

  "Felix," Luke said, flopping Baldric onto his stomach, "bring that rope over here. Bram, Alfrith, find me some rags."

  Luke tied Baldric's hands and feet, then gagged him securely. "Mustn't have you drawing undue attention to yourself."

  Taking the key off Baldric's belt, and retrieving his knife, Luke shooed the boys out of the storehouse and locked it, then hung the key on the door handle where it would be easily found.

  "We'll stand guard over him," Alfrith offered.

  "He doesn't need a guard," said Luke. "And I don't want Orrik coming back and finding you here. But you're not to speak of this to anybody, do you hear? I don't want any harm coming to you because you helped me."

  They grudgingly agreed to keep mum.

  "Did any of you see Firdolf take my brother away?"

  The boys all nodded. "We all seen him," Alfrith said. "Everyone was watchin'. He trussed Sir Alex up and threw him over a packhorse and took him on down the road into the woods. Them two wenches, the twins—"

  "Lynette and Leola," one of the older boys supplied with a dreamily lecherous grin.

  "They run after him till they couldn't see him no more, then they just sat in the road and cried."

  "Has Firdolf returned?"

  "Aye," Felix said. "He come back around nightfall."

  "Where does he live?"

  "In that little hut by the fish pond, the one that's half belowground."

  "You're brave and clever fellows," Luke said, "the lot of you."

  "'Twas Felix who planned the whole thing," Bram said, "and talked us into goin' along with it. We reckoned if the runt of the litter" —he slapped his youngest confederate on the back— "had the ballocks for it, we did, too!"

  Felix laughed along with the rest of them, his metamorphosis from pariah to comrade now fully realized. In fact, from all appearances, he'd fallen comfortably into the role of leader, despite his size and ignominious history.

  "Excellent work, Felix," Luke said. "I'm lucky to have a man with your talents at my disposal."

  Felix's chest expanded to twice its size. "Thank you, milord!"

  Luke ordered the boys back to their own homes, watching as they dispersed to make sure none of them lingered around the storehouse to "stand guard." Letting Orrik get his hands on them would ill repay them for effecting his escape.

  For a few long moments he gazed up at the shuttered windows of Faithe's bedchamber, wondering if it would ever be their bedchamber again. He actually took a step toward the house before drawing himself up shortly.

  Luke wanted to see her—needed to see he
r—but now was not the time. Although he was fairly sure he could slip into the house undetected, Alex was out in the middle of the woods somewhere, bound and gagged and waiting for the wolves. They might even have come by now. Getting to him had to take priority over seeing Faithe.

  Turning on his heels, Luke sprinted to the fish pond, keeping to the shadows and creating as little noise as possible, and located the sunken hut Felix had directed him to. Only the thatched roof and about two feet of wall were aboveground. Dim light filtered between the ill-fitting slats of wood with which the humble dwelling was constructed. He heard voices from within, and the jabbering of a baby.

  Squatting down, Luke whipped aside the bearskin covering the doorway. A woman shrieked; the baby in her arms started crying; a dog barked. Half a dozen faces looked up from bowls of something—it smelled like peas—that they were eating around the fire pit. None of the faces belonged to Firdolf.

  "Milord!" someone said—a man of middle years. Luke recognized him as Eldred Woodward, Firdolf's father. He grabbed the dog, an enormous black beast—as it tried to lunge for the doorway. Luke had taken a step down into the hut, but backed up swiftly; he'd stay right where he was.

  "Where's your son?" Luke demanded, looking from Eldred to his wife, Meghan, busily unlacing her kirtle as she shushed the shrieking infant.

  "Beggin' your pardon, milord," Eldred said as he struggled to hold tight to the rope around the snarling cur's neck, "but I thought you was locked up in the storehouse."

  "Not anymore."

  Eldred smiled and nodded, seeming perfectly satisfied with that answer. "That's a right ugly eye you got there, sire."

  "Where's Firdolf?" Luke repeated.

  "Dunno," Eldred said.

  "I know he's been back."

  "Aye, he come back," Meghan said as she withdrew a ripe breast and shoved the nipple into the babe's mouth, instantly quieting him. "But then his sweetheart come for him, and he went out again."

  "She ain't his sweetheart," a young girl said with an elaborate roll of her eyes. "He just wishes she was." She snickered, and her siblings joined in.

  "Are you talking about..." Which twin was it that Firdolf had taken a fancy to?

  "Leola," the girl supplied. "She wears the one braid."

  "Aye, that's the one." Meghan leaned over her suckling babe to spoon some soup into her mouth.

  "When did she come for him?" Luke asked, shifting his weight as he squatted in the doorway.

  "Right after he come back," Eldred said.

  The dog writhed and growled, baring long, discolored teeth. It had yellow eyes, like a wolf. Luke thought about Alex lying in the dark woods, bound and gagged, and shivered.

  "He up and left in the blink of an eye," the girl said, grinning.

  "I would too, if she'd of come for me," Eldred muttered under his breath. Meghan lifted her skirt and shot a foot out, catching him in the shin. "Ow!"

  "Do you know where they went?"Luke asked.

  There came a flurry of shaking heads.

  "He were gone just like that," Meghan said.

  "Just like that," her daughter echoed.

  Luke sighed. "Where do they live, the twins?"

  "They've got a place all their own," Meghan said, on account of their parents is dead and their older sisters is all married off. Tis back behind Hauekleah Hall, near the punfold, where the stray animals are kept. They've got flowers growin' in a trough out front."

  Luke retraced his steps swiftly, cursing every moment's delay in getting to Alex. He gave Hauekleah Hall as wide a berth as possible as he darted quietly among the house servants' cottages until he came to the one Meghan had described.

  Through the cottage's open window he saw the twin with two braids, Lynette, stuffing bread and cheese and fruit into a satchel by the light of a lantern as she stood at a table.

  He entered the cottage without knocking. Lynette squealed and dropped the satchel. "Oh, 'tis you, milord!" she whispered. "How'd you get out of the storehouse? Oh, look at your poor eye!"

  "Where's your sister?"

  She pressed a finger to her lips and cut her eyes toward a curtain stretched across the width of the cottage, dividing it in half.

  "In there? Is he with her?"

  "You mean Firdolf? Aye, but—"

  Luke strode toward the curtain, but she grabbed him by the tunic.

  "Let me go!" He twisted out of her grasp. "I'm going to make him tell me where he left Alex."

  "Leola's already set herself to that task, milord."

  A muffled moan came from beyond the curtain, a man's moan. Bed ropes squeaked.

  "Ah," Luke said.

  "He didn't want to tell her what he done with Sir Alex, 'cause Orrik told him not to, and he's afraid of Orrik." She gazed up at him through lowered lashes. "But Leola can usually change a fellow's mind about things."

  Feminine whispers floated through the curtain.

  "Oh," Firdolf groaned. "Oh... oh God."

  Lynette took a step toward Luke and reached up to gingerly touch the stinging flesh around his eye. "What a nasty thing to do to such a lovely eye," she cooed. "Does it hurt?"

  "Nay," he lied, backing up until he felt the table behind him.

  She made tsking sounds as she drew closer. "You mustn't deny it. I know how it must pain you. I'd dearly love to make it better."

  Her hands stole up to rest on his shoulders. He took them and lowered them to her sides. "The Lady Faithe tends to my wounds. Just her."

  Lynette smiled slowly. "How lucky for her," she murmured.

  "Oh, yes!" Firdolf gasped. "Yes! Oh my God, Leola!" The squeaking quickened, keeping time with his harsh breathing.

  Lynette continued to smile at Luke. He slid sideways to put some distance between them. Turning, he indicated the satchel full of food. "Do you mean to take that to Alex?"

  "Aye, soon as we find out where he is."

  "Hold still," Firdolf growled. "Yes... yes..."

  "I should think you'll have your answer soon," Luke observed.

  "What are you doing?" Firdolf explained in breathless outrage. "Come back here! Leola, for God's sake, I'm just about to—"

  "I don't know, Firdy. I just don't feel right enjoying myself like this, knowin' Sir Alex is out there in the middle of the woods somewheres..."

  Firdolf made a sound between a groan and a whimper. "Leola, please. You can't stop now."

  "I wouldn't, if I knew I could go fetch him after we're done here, but I don't even know where to find him, and you won't tell me. Perhaps if you told me...

  "He's in the woods to the southwest. In a clearing. I'll tell you how to get there, just please finish—" He sucked in a breath. "Oh! Yes..." The bed ropes set up a furious racket, and presently Firdolf let out an ecstatic howl the likes of which Luke had never heard before.

  Moments later, the curtain flew open. Leola stood there, wearing a dressing gown that hid little, inasmuch as it was open down the front. On a large bed behind her, Firdolf sprawled naked, his eyes closed, his chest still pumping.

  Leola smiled with delight when she saw Luke. "Milord! You got out!"

  Firdolf bolted upright, gaping at Luke and clutching the sheet between his legs.

  "You poor thing," Leola purred as she approached Luke. "Look at your eye."

  Lynette cleared her throat and indicated her sister's open robe. "Leola, sweetie..."

  "Oh. Right." Leola's movements were unhurried as she covered herself and tied the sash. "Good news. Firdolf's agreed to tell us where he put Sir Alex." She turned toward her bed partner, who continued to stare at Luke in abject terror. "Ain't that right, Firdy?"

  The young man appeared to be nodding his head, but he might have just been shaking.

  "Firdy?" Luke prompted.

  "Right!" he croaked, bobbing his head up and down. "I'm sorry, sire, I was only doin' what Orrik told me. I didn't want to..."

  Luke strode toward him purposefully, causing him to shield his head with an arm. "Just tell me where he is," Luke
said.

  "In... in the woods southwest of here."

  "I know that. How do I find him?"

  "T-take the road till you come to the second stream, and follow it south. When it b-branches, go right. When you see the stand of birch, leave the stream and ride straight for the tall boulder. There's a kind of clearing beyond there that dips down, like a little valley. That's where I put him."

  Turning away, Luke grabbed the satchel off the table on his way out the door, ignoring Firdolf's litany of apologies and the twins' pleading to come with him. "Don't tell anyone I was here."

  The stable was close by, and blessedly deserted. Saddling up his mount and Alex's, which he led by the reins, he followed Firdolf's directions through the woods, guiding himself by the bright moonlight.

  Relief consumed him when he spied the tall boulder that marked the drop-off to the clearing where Firdolf had left Alex.

  And then he heard the growls.

  Chapter 23

  The silvery beasts slinked in the moonlight, circling their quarry as wolves were wont to do. Luke had to strain to make out the dark form in their midst, obscured as he was by tall grasses. Alex lay on his side, his hands and feet tied, a white cloth wrapped around his mouth. The grassy hollow was larger than Luke had expected; his brother was a good hundred yards away.

  As Luke rode forward, a wolf broke away from the pack and lunged for Alex, only to retreat when his prey kicked out with his bound feet. They'd probably been harrying him this way for some time—feinting in and out while they worked up their collective courage to attack; although ruthless hunters, wolves tended to be wary of men.

  The largest one, less cautious than the others, rushed in and closed its jaws around Alex's leg before he could respond. Luke kicked his horse into a gallop as the wolf pulled and tugged, ripping Alex's chausses; Luke saw dark smears of blood on his brother's calf. This success emboldened some of the others; they pounced on their helpless victim with ravenous growls.

  The animals who'd hung back to watch all scattered when Luke reined in his mount and jumped down. The four who'd closed in on Alex merely bared their fangs, their hackles raised, low rumbles of warning issuing from them.

  "Over here!" Luke yelled, waving his arms. The large one took a few lazy, menacing steps toward him. Luke withdrew Baldric's knife—an inadequate weapon, but all he had—and held it at the ready. "Come on! Come on, you godforsaken curs!"