Yet he’d grown to manhood among them, learned to swim in that sea of scorn and venom, watched with hidden satisfaction as the weak and the unworthy broke beneath the lash of discipline. He’d overcome gnawing hunger from the everlasting bread-and-water fasts, ignored the ache of sleeping on stone floors with nothing but a threadbare blanket and his prayers to warm him.
And the peasant-lad had thrived. Though he’d proven unworthy of a priest’s chasuble, the Blades of God had welcomed him. And this strange girl beside him, with her incandescent passions, she too had thrived, dressed richly as the princess she styled herself. Her wealth had come from somewhere. Men willingly laid down their lives to defend her.
But who would protect her from him? Against the Church’s wrath, Rhiannon le Fay would be utterly defenseless.
Slowly the shadows of his past receded. The forest coalesced around him, cold sunlight slanting through spears of brittle poplar, cruel wind biting exposed skin.
Damn cold for April, and that’s God’s truth. Looks like England’s destined for another famine year. Whatever the cause, this girl spoke truly about the ill fortune cursing this land.
Riding alongside, Rhiannon studied him curiously. “What is it, my lord? Thine aspect is most severe. More so than usual, I mean.”
The corners of her lips curved wryly, but her concerned gaze invited him to trust her. The realization that he felt tempted to do just that brought cold sanity rushing back.
She was a suspect witch. What greater evidence of her enchantment did he require than this—the fact that she tempted him, of all men living.
“Look after the state of your own soul, lady.” Abruptly, he spurred ahead. “For the abbey lies yonder, and your interrogation.”
At that moment, a horse and rider exploded into the road before them.
Chapter Four
For one mad moment, as the fiery chestnut stallion erupted from the trees, Rhiannon feared some new assault. Her departure from Faerie on this mission of peace had not occurred without rancor. Her sister’s faction, violently opposed to the scheme, had nearly overwhelmed those loyal to the ailing Faerie Queene.
Too well they recalled the last Convergence, when her father King Arthur had reigned. This time, they burned to avenge his bastard son—their traitorous prince Mordred whom Arthur had slain—and howled for mortal blood.
Don’t be foolish. Sternly Rhiannon put steel in her spine. My brother Mordred is long dead at our father’s own hand, and the dead do not return. As for Morrigan...Mordred’s mother, Arthur’s lover, Arthur’s bane...as a creature of darkness, she cannot walk the mortal realm until nightfall.
Not that it ever thwarted her when Morrigan wished to work her mischief. Her sister was a mistress of illusion, one of the best in Faerie. She’d tricked her mother’s own lover into lying with her by weaving a simple glamour. Morrigan had merely assumed the likeness of the Faerie Queene and summoned Arthur to Avalon.
Beneath her, Astolat shied violently, nearly flinging her from the saddle. Lord Beltran’s firm hand on the bridle steadied her. As the chestnut stallion bore down on them, the Blade of God drew his sword in a single sure stroke to plant himself between Rhiannon and danger.
The stallion skidded to a halt before them, flaming mane tossing, red as the tumbled curls beneath his rider’s stylish French hood.
“Dear God have mercy upon my soul!” the newcomer gasped in a clear, frightened voice. Rhiannon glimpsed her white face stark against the severe black of her riding habit. Her eyes blazed like wheels of silver fire.
Not Morrigan then, for certain, Rhiannon thought wryly, wincing from the holy Name.
The rapid tattoo of hooves and the violent snap of foliage heralded the lady’s pursuers, whoever they might be, closing in. The redhead’s sharp eyes fixed on the flaming cross that swung against Beltran’s chest.
“I beg your protection as a gentleman and a Christian knight!” she cried, glancing frantically over her shoulder.
“You have it,” Beltran said.
Whatever his shortcomings might be—and Rhiannon had determined they were many—cowardice and indecision didn’t appear to be among them. Swiftly he kneed his charger forward, sword angled across his body en garde, and stationed his stalwart frame protectively before both women.
Rhiannon cast him an appreciative glance. For the first time, the width of his shoulders, the bulge of biceps beneath his doublet, the resolve knotting his jaw promised not threat, but reassurance—protection from any foe that threatened. As formidable a foe as he’d proven to be, he lacked nothing as a guardian.
The redhead wheeled her chestnut neatly into place beside Rhiannon and shot her a swift assessing look.
“Who are you?” the lady whispered, eyes sweeping over Rhiannon’s disheveled finery, the silver gleaming on Astolat’s fine-tooled bridle, and the coil of rope that bound her wrists before her.
“I’m Rhiannon.” Fascinated, she stared at the fiery-haired newcomer—not beautiful, but blazing with drive and spirit. Her energy crackled in the air around her like an aura, as though the woman were Fae herself.
“Follow my lead,” the redhead urged. “Otherwise, say nothing.”
Rhiannon was unaccustomed to following anyone’s lead, but she was given no time to protest. The next instant, a trio of riders burst from the undergrowth. Encumbered with swords and armor, the scowling men sweated freely in the crisp air as they plunged to a rearing halt.
The foremost figure, tall and dashing in plumed cap and shoulder cape, nudged his fine-blooded stallion toward them in a prancing walk. Armed to the teeth, two surly-looking guards followed his lead.
“If you love life, gentlemen, keep your distance,” Beltran said calmly.
The leader’s pale eyes, set in ascetic features, assessed the Blade of God standing like a castle in his path. That icy gaze flickered indifferently over Rhiannon to the redhead.
“My lady Elizabeth.” Curtly, he bowed. “You’ve led me a merry chase.”
“Why, Sir Henry Bedingfield!” The redhead pressed a white hand to her breast. “God-a-mercy, you should have identified yourself. I fancied a gang of cutthroats pursued me.”
Her lordly pursuer brushed a miniscule speck of dust from his brocade hose. For a man who’d just been galloping madly through a forest, he appeared bored by the entire affair—a player who’d lost interest in a too-familiar role.
“You knew well enough who followed, Your Grace. Do you still think to slip my vigilance?”
“Indeed, sir, you do me great disservice!” the lady cried. “I spied a fox in the bracken, the very fiend who’s been terrorizing our poultry all winter, I’ve no doubt. Why, Sir Peter Killigrew told me this very fox bit a sleeping babe in its cradle, can you imagine?”
Sir Henry plucked a dried leaf from his well-barbered beard. “The only fox in this forest is the one who sits before me, pleading innocence so prettily. Who are these new confederates, Your Grace? More conspirators in the Dudley plot?”
Beltran kneed his horse forward. “We’re no conspirators in some Protestant plot against your good Queen Mary, man, merely travelers chance-come upon a lady in distress. Why do you hound and harry this lady?”
“By the Queen’s own writ, this ‘l
ady’ is charged to my keeping. It’s my duty to ensure she’s not caught up—unwitting or otherwise—in another anti-Catholic plot,” the newcomer said stiffly. “Although Sir Dudley has failed in his heretical scheme to overthrow our rightful Queen Mary and her Spanish lord, the innocence of certain persons in this household has yet to be proven.”
Rhiannon’s thoughts raced. Could this be true? The Tudor Queen’s own people now sought her downfall? Had the Faerie Queene chosen the wrong sister for their treaty?
“I’d advise you to step aside, stranger,” Sir Henry finished gruffly. “This is no affair of yours.”
When the man placed a casual hand on his belted sword, a current of tension crackled visibly through Beltran’s frame. Around them, the forest held its breath, all the customary sounds of wind and woodland fallen silent.
“Sir, I implore thee!” Rhiannon leaned past him and appealed to Sir Henry. “Do not provoke him, or I swear thou shall rue the moment.”
“Indeed?” Sir Henry arched an elegant brow. Discreetly, Rhiannon tucked her bound hands beneath her mantle. She’d hoped this man might prove an ally who could help her reach the Tudor Queen he proclaimed to serve.
Yet her disastrous encounters with mortals in this realm had taught her to approach them with caution. This one, she now sensed, would prove unsympathetic.
“And who might you be?” Sir Henry murmured. “His fancy leman?”
Rhiannon was uncertain of the word, but the disdain in his tone was biting.
Lady Elizabeth gasped. “For shame, sir! These are still my estates, no matter what my sister suspects of me. I’ll see no woman so abused on Hatfield lands.”
“Enough!” Clearly Sir Henry had lost patience with the charade. The two guards sidled forward, seeking to flank Beltran, who loomed like a fortress in their path. One eased a hand toward the knife in his boot.
Beltran flung back his cloak and leveled his sword at Sir Henry’s throat. “Keep your distance. And tell your underling to keep his hand away from that boot-knife unless he wants my sword through his throat. I won’t warn you again, man.”
They all froze. The standoff stretched the air tight between them. Lady Elizabeth’s hand stole to Rhiannon’s arm and squeezed tightly. When Rhiannon glanced at her pale face, resolve burned there like a white flame. The lady wasn’t frightened witless. Far from it. Her clever eyes measured the scene playing out, and Rhiannon could almost hear her thinking...
For a confused moment, she wasn’t certain what to wish—for the conflict to escalate, allowing her and the beleaguered Elizabeth to flee? But then, surely, men would die. How could she call herself a healer and wish for that?
Indeed, Beltran Nemesto had saved her life when the bandits attacked. If he were injured, how could she leave him to bleed out his life on the forest floor while the cold-eyed Sir Henry dragged Lady Elizabeth off to imprisonment?
Swallowing a sigh, she straightened her shoulders and assumed a commanding tone—the tone Queene Maeve deployed to compel instant obedience. These foolish men, like strutting roosters, would be at each other’s throats in a heartbeat unless a woman took charge.
“Thou heedless creature, dost not recognize the man before thee?” she declared grandly. “He is Lord Beltran Nemesto, Church enforcer. Thy lady has appealed to him as a Christian knight for protection.”
When she declared Beltran’s name, Sir Henry blinked. One of his guardsmen edged his horse back.
The other guard crossed himself and muttered, “God’s Vengeance.”
At her elbow, Lady Elizabeth’s fingers tightened.
“Ah,” Sir Henry said softly, eyeing Beltran with new respect.
“There, you see.” Fiery head lifting, Elizabeth spurred fearlessly forward. “This man’s reputation precedes him from Rome. Will you cross swords with a Blade of God over trifles? Certainly I ought not to have pursued the fox so heedlessly, but my intention was never to disobey the Queen, my sister. Let us all return to Hatfield, these good travelers included, and warm ourselves with hot mulled wine and a brisk fire.”
The Queen, her sister...
A new awareness stiffened Beltran’s shoulders; the wind ruffled his cloak around his boots like ebony flames. In passing, Rhiannon wondered how she’d grown so attuned to the man’s reactions after so few hours in his presence. She sensed the coil of caution tightening around him, clear as the nervous skip of her own heart.
Sir Henry swirled his cape and bowed elegantly, this time to Beltran. “My lord, this situation is regrettable, but I have my orders from the Queen’s own lips. I fear you must step aside.”
“When did my sister ever say I could not converse with a servant of God’s own Church?” Elizabeth smiled winningly all around. “Indeed, I am supposed to take instruction for the betterment of my soul, am I not?”
At this, the beleaguered Sir Henry raised his eyes toward heaven. After a moment, he signaled subtly to the men behind him, and his henchmen relaxed. For the first time, Beltran shifted his attention away from the threat.
“Your Grace.” In a single forceful movement, he sheathed his blade and bowed from the saddle. “Forgive me for failing to recognize you. We haven’t met.”
“You’re forgiven.” Lady Elizabeth extended a regal hand, which Beltran raised to his lips with surprising style. Clearly, the Blade of God knew his way around a royal court.
As she acknowledged him with a dazzling smile, Elizabeth’s eyes danced with mischief. She looked like a woman who could appreciate a man who’d ridden fearlessly to her defense and ably defused a dangerous situation.
Rhiannon, well schooled in mortal etiquette, rummaged through her store of knowledge on the Tudor court—the treasure-trove of gossip and custom Lady Linnet had shared while she lingered, beguiled, in the Summer Lands. She’d spoken of the difficult history between Catholic Mary, proud daughter of Katherine of Aragon, and the Protestant Elizabeth—daughter of the witch Anne Boleyn. Mary had always considered her half-sister a bastard, though the English Parliament had legitimized the girl years ago.
Suddenly, the pieces dropped into place.
“Thou art the Tudor princess,” she whispered, so surprised she said it aloud.
“Nay, not princess,” the lady said swiftly, with a glance toward Sir Henry. “I was barely two years old when I was first proclaimed a bastard, and my good Catholic sister has shouted my status to the heavens ever since. I can never inherit the English throne. Thus, I am merely Lady Elizabeth. Indeed I aspire to nothing more. You’d do well to recall that.”
Clearly relations between the sisters had not improved since Linnet’s sojourn at the Tudor court. And how not? English King Henry had renounced the Pope’s authority and divorced Mary’s mother—his wife of twenty years and the mother of his only living child. Then he’d cast aside both mother and child like a pair of boots he’d outgrown, banished them from court to shivering misery in some remote estate. All to wed the upstart Anne Boleyn in a dubious dead-of-night undertaking. Their daughter Elizabeth was named a princess, Mary herself stripped of title and property and forced to wait on her half-sister like a servant. Was it any wonder Mary showed rancor to her now?
As for Elizabeth, she herself had known her mother beheaded, her royal title stripped and herself proclaimed a bastard by that selfsame father before she was three years old. She’d seen herself replaced in his changeable affections by his son with his next wife, Jane Seymour. Though the pair were sickly and short-lived both, Eliz
abeth had never regained her place.
Rhiannon felt an unexpected sense of kinship with this spirited mortal—a woman whom, unless she was much mistaken, had more than a drop of Faerie blood coursing with the Tudor through her veins. Lady Elizabeth sparkled with it—her hair flame-bright, eyes burning like twin stars, every word she spoke crackling with magick of which she likely had no notion.
Both of them bastards, both of them outcasts, both of them tainted by mixed blood.
Still, Elizabeth Tudor was Mary’s sister. If Rhiannon could not reach Mary’s distant ear, perhaps she could entreat this quick-witted royal sister to adopt the cause of peace.
To succeed, of course, she’d have to elude Beltran’s vigilance. Elizabeth was the heretics’ great hope for a Protestant Queen, and Rhiannon a suspect witch in his custody. A frown furrowed his tanned brow as his keen eyes searched her, as though he sensed the current of hope eddying through her tired body.
“Your Grace, we cannot linger,” he told Elizabeth abruptly. “I’m overdue in London on papal business. The Archbishop of Canterbury is expecting me.”
“Why, all the better, sir! I’d never dream of keeping the Archbishop waiting. We must ensure you’re well refreshed and provisioned for hard riding.”
A brittle note had invaded Elizabeth’s voice when she named the Archbishop—Lord Reginald Pole, the supreme Catholic authority of England, Mary Tudor’s most loyal ally. Rhiannon recalled that the Protestant princess and her sister’s Catholic magnates were nothing close to friends.
The flickering candle of hope flared higher in her breast. Since Lady Elizabeth and the Church were rivals—the lady’s own mother beheaded for witchcraft, among other crimes—surely the Tudor princess could not entrust an innocent woman to Rome’s tender mercies.
Magick by Moonrise Page 6