by Tamara Leigh
Feeling Rowan’s hard, accusing gaze, she looked to Wulfrith’s wound. The blood must be stanched. She swept up the hem of the tunic he had given her and tore a strip from it.
Dear Lord, do not let him die, she silently pleaded as she reached to his shoulder. Deliver him. I ask it in Your holy name.
When she had first come to Wulfen, never would she have believed such a prayer would cross her heart. Nor would Rowan have believed it. When he had shot Garr and she had cried out, his eyes had looked through her as if she were no longer known to him.
Hardly had Annyn begun to wrap Wulfrith’s wound than she was dragged upright.
“I said stand back!” Sir Abel bit. Gone was the good humor that had set him apart from his older brothers. Before her now was a distant, hard-hearted Wulfrith. But then, his brother had been injured, perhaps mortally. And she was to blame.
He shoved her back. “If he dies, so shall both of you.” He dropped down beside his brother. “Squire Charles, Squire Warren, I give these two into your care to be bound and kept full in your sight until we arrive at Stern.”
“Aye, my lord.”
For the first time, Annyn looked to those gathered around. Wrath stared at her—hatred for what had been done to their lord.
As Squire Charles advanced with a rope, Rowan rose and glared at her. “Never would I have believed you would betray,” he rasped.
She cringed at his condemnation. She could not blame him, though, for she would feel the same if she had not known Wulfrith as she had this day. “This I know.” She turned to Squire Charles.
He despised her, and as she could not fault Rowan, neither could she fault this young man. She put her wrists together. While he bound her, so tightly she would surely lose feeling, Squire Warren seized Rowan’s sword and dagger.
Annyn turned and watched as Abel wrapped his brother’s wound with the linen of her tunic. Would Wulfrith make it to Stern? How many leagues?
The pound of hooves announced the arrival of the remainder of Wulfrith’s men, and at their head was Sir Merrick. He drew near, looked upon Wulfrith, then met Annyn’s gaze. But the anger she expected was not there. Sorrow, regret, and something else, but not anger.
Why? What set him apart from those who looked at her as if they longed to do to her as Lavonne had done? Merrick was loyal to Wulfrith, she did not doubt, and yet it was as if he was divided. By what? Between whom? And what did it have to do with her?
She frowned. Perhaps it had nothing to do with her and all to do with Jonas. He had squired with her brother. Her breath caught. Could it have been he—
Nay, but perhaps he knew who.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Only as a young boy longing for home had Stern seemed so distant.
Garr meandered in and out of consciousness, never long enough to more than bring the speeding ground to sight and revive his anger with remembrance of who had turned him from his purpose. Where was she? If his men allowed her to escape...
As he was lifted and carried, torchlight pried at his lids. Passing through the doors of Stern’s great hall, he opened his eyes and saw his mother, Isobel, dressed entirely in black as she had dressed every day since wedding Drogo thirty years ago. Yet for all that dark, she smelled of roses. She hurried alongside him, her anxious face aging her years beyond the last time he had seen her.
“Garr,” she gasped when she saw he had returned to consciousness.
He closed his eyes and opened them again. “Where is she?”
His mother shook her head.
Abel leaned into sight, showing it was he who bore Garr’s upper body. “She and her man are imprisoned in the outer tower.”
That dark, filthy ramble of cells that—
“Of whom do you speak?” Isobel asked, her voice softly rolled with accent.
“Once Garr is put to bed,” Abel said, “I shall tell you all of it, Mother.”
Isobel bit her lip and nodded. “The solar. He shall have my bed.”
“What of the physician?” Abel asked as they repositioned Garr to convey him up the winding stairs.
Isobel stepped back to allow them to precede her. “I sent for him when your messenger arrived an hour past. He ought to return soon.”
As they began the climb, Garr looked to his shoulder. It was bound with linen, the blood on it dried. He would not die as his brother feared, he told himself, his training of men proving time and again the power of belief. He had lost a goodly amount of blood, but it was stemmed. However, that did not mean he would regain full use of his arm to wield a sword as all Wulfriths must do.
The strength of his anger dimming his consciousness, he once more succumbed to darkness.
Annyn tucked her legs tighter beneath her. Under cover of her mantle, she flexed her hands that were slow to regain feeling from Squire Charles’s rope. Of course, the terrible dank and chill of this place did not help.
She swept her gaze around the dim that the single torch in the corridor outside the grated cell failed to light. Rowan sat in the opposite corner. Though she could barely see his shadow, she knew he watched her. What to say now that they were alone? Was there anything?
Aye, but would he believe it? For years they had blamed Jonas’s death on Wulfrith, but now...
“Why did you not kill him in the wood?” Rowan’s voice shot across the cell.
He spoke of yesterday when they had tracked the deer. “The time was not right.”
“Not right?” She heard him lurch to his feet. “I was there—waited for you to do what you vowed you would do. And you did not!”
She huddled deeper in her corner, but pulled away when the moisture weeping the walls penetrated her clothes. “’Twas simply not right.”
“Did you lie with him?”
“I did not! He thought me a man ’til last eve when—”
“Had I not come for you, would you have lain with him?”
It was she who had ended the kiss—a kiss that had done unspeakable things to her. Quivering with remembrance, she pulled her mantle nearer and wished it were longer so she could gather more warmth about her.
Rowan came across the cell. “I saw you in his arms. You put him from you, but not ere first you gave to him.”
She had prayed he had not seen that much. Though she knew she ought to preserve the little heat left to her, she stood. “I would not have lain with him.”
“Then he would have ravished you had I not come.”
All of her protested. Though once she might have believed Wulfrith capable of forcing his attentions on a woman, she no longer did.
She met the glint of Rowan’s gaze from beneath her hood. “I shall endeavor to forget you spoke such to me.”
“The same as you have forgotten what Wulfrith did to your brother?”
She drew a deep breath. “He did not do it, Rowan.” She pushed her shoulders back to brace for his response.
“Did not do it?” he bellowed. “Just as he did not put that bruise on your face?”
Annyn touched the tenderness. “Just as he did not. ’Twas Baron Lavonne who struck me, the one to whom Henry would see me wed.”
Rowan was silent a long moment, then demanded, “If Wulfrith did not hang Jonas, who did?”
“I do not know, but I tell you it was not he.”
“Fool woman! Your brother lies dead and you allow Wulfrith to lay the same hands to you that killed Jonas.”
“Nay, I was wrong. We were wrong. It was someone else. It had to be.”
“It had to be because you wish it to be!” He shoved his face near hers. “When you let him touch you, did you think to ask about the rope burns on Jonas’s neck that he hid from us?”
“He believes Jonas hung himself, but I—”
Rowan’s hands descended to her bruised arms. “Never would he have killed himself. You know it, Annyn!” He pushed her back against the weeping wall. “And yet you believe Wulfrith’s lies for want of giving yourself to him.”
She was sick unto death of bein
g ill-used. “Believe what you wish,” she snarled, her tone so cutting its jagged edge sliced even her. “I no longer care.”
With a gust of breath, Rowan released her and turned away. “I do not understand how you can so easily forget Jonas and the evil done him.”
She pushed off the wall. “I have not forgotten him. He was my brother!”
Rowan swung around. “As he was my—”
Silence snapped up the rest of his words, his pain transcending Annyn’s anger and meeting her own that had yet to find its release.
Longing to cry, she dropped her chin to her chest. Of course Rowan despised her championing of Wulfrith, just as she had despised Uncle Artur’s refusal to believe Wulfrith was guilty of wrongdoing.
She lifted her head. “I know Jonas was as a son to you, and you were as a father to him, but so much has changed, so much I do not understand.” She laid a hand to his shoulder, and he tensed beneath it. “I do not know what our fate is to be, but while we wait, let us be at peace with one another.” Would he allow it? Or would he leave her utterly alone?
After what seemed minutes, Rowan heaved a sigh. “Let us be at peace. Come, ’tis bitter cold.” He guided her to the corner of the cell from which she had risen.
Side by side they huddled, near enough to draw heat from one another, though not enough to warm them that they might find rest after so many hours in the saddle. When Rowan’s arm finally came around her, drawing her closer than she had ever been to him, Annyn was grateful. Still, it was hours before she slept, but not a single minute did she waste as she gave herself over to prayer as she had not done in years.
Seeking refuge in God as Wulfrith had told her he did, she prayed for forgiveness for what she had intended to do, prayed for Rowan to see past revenge as she had done, prayed for those at Wulfen harmed by her deception, but mostly prayed for the man who lay bleeding somewhere beyond these walls.
“I would see those responsible for my son’s injury.”
The accented voice brought Annyn awake. She lifted her head from Rowan’s shoulder and realized he was rigid where he held her against his side.
“But my lady,” a guttural voice protested, “Sir Abel ordered that none were to enter without his leave.”
“Ah? A mother must seek permission from the whelp she bore?”
Annyn startled at the realization of who came to them.
“I say now and not again, open the cell!”
Wulfrith’s mother was Scottish, Annyn realized, though the lilting accent had obviously gone soft after many years among the English.
“Aye, my lady.” The light of a torch breached the dim of the cell.
Rowan withdrew his arm from around Annyn and stood. Though every muscle in her protested, she also rose.
The guard peered through the grate at them and, satisfied, fit the key in the lock. The door swung inward to reveal the broad figure of their jailer and the torch that brought the light of the outside in.
Annyn put up a hand to shade her eyes from the glare.
“Lady Isobel of Stern be here to see ye. Give her no trouble and I’ll give ye none.” The jailer stepped to the side and rested a hand on his sword hilt.
Lady Isobel appeared. Dressed in black, from her veil to her slippers, she stepped into the filth. Her pale face beautiful despite the age and sorrow etched there, she looked from Rowan to Annyn before continuing forward.
“Ye ought not go so near, my lady,” the jailer warned.
She continued forward until she was a stride from them. She measured them, though for what Annyn did not know. All she knew was that never had she felt so far from a woman than at that moment when she stood before one who would not look a man even if she sheared her hair, donned men’s clothing, and wore filth upon her as Annyn did.
“You are Lady Annyn?” the lady finally spoke, her eyes lingering on Annyn’s bruised cheek.
Annyn lowered her hand from her eyes. “Lady Annyn Bretanne of Castle Lillia upon the barony of Aillil.” She nodded to Rowan. “Sir Rowan, Castle Lillia’s captain of the guard.”
Lady Isobel denied him acknowledgment. “My son, Abel, has told me what transpired at Wulfen Castle and during the journey to Stern.” Her gaze traveled down Annyn and up again. “Incredible as it seems, I see ’tis true.” Her lips pressed to a thin line.
“I am sorry, Lady Isobel. What happened should not have.” Beside Annyn, Rowan stiffened further, still firm in his belief that Wulfrith had killed Jonas.
“It should not have happened?” The woman tilted her head. “Was it not my son’s death you sought, Lady Annyn?”
“It was, but—”
“Then you ought to be satisfied, hmm?”
Annyn felt as if speared. Had Wulfrith died? “Does your son yet live, Lady Isobel?”
Though the woman’s eyes turned moist, the accusation there did not soften. “Aye, Wulfrith lives.”
Relief swept Annyn, followed by bewilderment. Even Wulfrith’s mother called him by that name. Perhaps he did not have another.
“But if infection sets in...” The lady drew a breath and turned away. “I must needs pray.”
As Wulfrith had done the night Lavonne came to Wulfen. Had he learned it from his mother?
Lady Isobel swept past the jailer. “See they are given pallets and blankets and better than bread and water.”
“But, my lady—”
She halted in the doorway. “When my sons are gone from Stern, to whom do you answer?”
The man’s jowls jerked. “I shall do your bidding, my lady.”
Then it was she who kept Stern Castle? Most peculiar—and enviable.
In the corridor, Wulfrith’s mother looked back and fixed on Annyn. “Though ’tis true my son has a terrible anger, I need none to tell me ’twas not he who struck you, just as I need none to tell me he did not murder your brother.” Her dark eyebrows rose. “But this you already know, Lady Annyn.” Then she was gone.
Their jailer followed with a huff, a creek of the door, and a click of the lock.
Once more in darkness, Annyn looked to Rowan who pivoted and returned to the corner. She lowered beside him, but he did not offer his warmth again. And so the day—or night—wore on. Eventually, pallets, blankets, and passable foodstuffs were brought to them, but no further word did Rowan speak.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Four days lost to him, four days of hardly knowing dream from reality, four days of thundering pain and heat.
Garr stared at the ceiling of the solar his father had occasionally shared with his mother and breathed in the scent of mint-strewn rushes as his thoughts went to the woman who besieged his dreams. Where was she? The outer tower? It was what Abel had told.
“Garr?”
He followed the voice to the chair alongside the bed. His mother’s smile, that never quite met her eyes, greeted him.
Wafting the scent of roses, she stood and laid a palm to his forehead. “The fever has passed,” she pronounced as she had less than a quarter hour ago when he had first awakened—spoken once more as if to convince herself the danger was over.
She bit her lower lip. “I feared.”
“You feared wrong, Mother.” He had not been going to die, and certainly not from an arrow to the shoulder, regardless how much blood and infection it had let. He looked to his bandaged wound. It was clean and dry.
His mother stepped back. “You are right, of course. God would not allow it.” She who had given all of herself those first four years of his life to make him a godly man, lowered to the chair’s edge.
Garr shifted his gaze to the ceiling that was patterned with fleur de lis, closed his eyes, and sent thanks heavenward. His arm was spared, the fear of awakening and finding it severed having haunted his dreams. Then there was Annyn who had come in and out of them...
“Abel told me of Lady Annyn,” his mother said, “and the reason for her and her man’s imprisonment in the outer tower.”
It was to be expected, and likely Abel had left
nothing unspoken. Determining he would not be drawn into a conversation about the woman, Garr flexed his shoulder. Though it pained him, it was no longer agonizing. He would be swinging a sword within a fortnight, would gain back what was lost—he prayed.
“I went to see her.”
“For what?” Garr demanded.
“To speak with her, of course.” She frowned. “The woman is not as expected.”
Garr felt his anger swell. “What did she say?”
“Little. Though, forsooth, I did not give her much leave to do so.” Isobel sank deeper into the chair. “What she did say was that she would not have had happen to you what did. Curious, hmm?”
Garr chafed. Though the physician had warned him not to move from his back, he pushed up to sitting and drew a deep breath against the pain.
“You should not.” Isobel protested. “The physician—”
“I know what he told, Mother, and I tell you: Annyn Bretanne is a deception. You shall not speak to her again.”
She narrowed her gaze, a portent of things to come as when Drogo had lived. Though deeply religious, she had often been at heads with the husband she had not wanted and who had made seven children on her, of which five had survived to adulthood. For all the warrior Drogo had been, and though he had never put his Scottish bride first, she had often come close to turning him from his purpose. And all dissension had begun with her incessant wearing of black to witness the darkness cast upon her by a forced marriage when her heart was given to another. Though Drogo was dead, she continued to wear the color.
Still, for all the years of having borne witness to his father’s bitterness, for which none could fault Drogo, Garr felt for Isobel Wulfrith. She had been a good mother those few years before her husband had, in turn, taken each of their sons to Wulfen, the love she denied Drogo given all to her children.
Nevertheless, in the deepest reaches of Garr where the boy had been banished, dwelt resentment, and not only toward her. Though it was customary for a boy to begin his page’s training at the age of seven, Drogo retaliated against Isobel by taking their sons from her upon their attainment of four years and made them train alongside others far older. And no quarter had he given.