Dragon Tree

by Canham, Marsha

  Tamberlane drew on every ounce of strength he possessed. Blow after blow set his opponent on the defense, and after more attempts than Ciaran cared to count, his blade found an opening. The strike caught the knight under the left ear and even though the steel-pot helm was shielding the point of contact, the sheer fury behind the blow caused the knight’s neck to snap violently from the spine. Horse and rider spun for a turn, the latter slumping forward with all substance suddenly drained from arms and legs. He reeled to one side and if not for a spur hooking in the stirrup, the weight of his body armor would have carried him straight to the ground. As it was, it kept him canted at an odd angle as his horse galloped away into the woods.

  Tamberlane stared, his brow gleaming with sweat, his chest heaving from the exertion.

  He squeezed his eyes shut and heard a great roaring in his ears.

  It was the roaring of a thousand voices, the screams shrill with religious fervor. The sun was beating down, the heat was rising in waves off the desert sand. The steel of his sword was so hot the blood bubbled and sizzled along its length and the palms of his hands were scorched raw.

  “Are you all right, my lord?” Roland rode up beside him. “Have you been struck? Are you injured?”

  Tamberlane gasped and blinked his eyes open. The desert vision faded along with the shivering echoes of the screams and he wiped a hand across his brow, damning the oily wetness he found there. There was blood on his sleeve where the knight’s blade had slashed him, but the cut was a trifling thing, scarcely worthy of the concern on his squire’s face.

  “No. No, I have not been mortally struck. And you?”

  “I... I think I have broken a finger, but I give thanks to God that it was not my sword hand.”

  Tamberlane looked grimly around the clearing, sincerely doubting God had been present that day. There were thirty, perhaps as many as forty bodies strewn amidst the smoldering wreckage of the village, many of them women and children.

  “Who do you suppose they were, my lord? Why did they do this?”

  Tamberlane clenched his jaw. Three years was a long time, yet there were those with longer memories who might search him out, not content with the punishment decreed by the Order, or by his own self-imposed exile to the backwoods of nowhere. But he did not dare give voice to any suspicions. Instead, he dispatched Quill and Fletcher to follow the scattered raiders at a cautious distance and to give warning if they appeared to be regrouping for a counterattack.

  Apart from that, he made no comment as he dismounted and walked slowly over to the body of the dead knight. It lay face down in the crush of ferns and with Roland's help he rolled it onto its back. There were no markings on the tunic, no clues as to whom the dead knight owed his allegiance. He was dressed in drab from his tunic to his gloves and bore no crest or blazons on his gambeson.

  A mercenary?

  A quick search beneath the dead knight’s mail confirmed the guess with the discovery of a small leather pouch clinking with silver coins.

  Tamberlane closed his fist around the pouch and pursed his lips in thought. No question, then, they were paid assassins, yet the weight of the purse did not match the weight of sin for committing mass murder. Moreover, mercenaries would expect something more than a few coins—plunder or loot at the very least. Again, it was a poor village. What little of worth the tenants had was in their livestock and in the crops they harvested to pay their rents and tithes—a mere pittance to men accustomed to the wages of war.

  Aware of Roland and the others watching him, Tamberlane tugged at the leather gauntlets, difficult to remove from a corpse's fingers, but when he pushed the sleeves of the mail hauberk above the wrist, there were no tracings on the skin.

  He refrained from glancing at his own wrist, at the tattoo of the five pointed star that marked him as a member of the Order.

  He pushed to his feet and glanced at Roland. “Have the men checked for survivors?”

  Roland shook his head. “They are all dead, lord. We caught them while they were searching the bodies and finishing any who might have had a heartbeat. There was a young girl—" he paused and looked across the clearing. "But she appears to have succumbed to her wounds."

  Tamberlane wiped the blade of his sword clean on the dead knight’s jerkin then resheathed the weapon in his belt. He frowned at the slight stinging sensation in his hand and noticed for the first time the layers of skin that had been peeled from his fore and middle fingers when he fired the longbow.

  “There is one other,” he said. “She was sorely wounded and I doubt if she lives still, but I left Maude and Hugo to stand guard.”

  “Shall I send a man to check?”

  Tamberlane thought it a useless gesture, but he curled his tongue against his lower lip and issued forth a piercing whistle. The sound shivered around the clearing a moment before fading, and when there was no immediate response from the dogs, he scowled and strode back to his horse. “I will see what holds their attention while the rest of you collect your wits and make for the north road.”

  “The road, my lord?” Roland looked shocked again. “Are we not going to bury these good people?”

  “There are too many graves to be dug; we would be here a sennight. Send word to the abbey instead and advise the monks their shovels and prayers are required.”

  “But sire—"

  “You have already disobeyed me once today by charging into a fight without waiting for my signal,” Tamberlane said quietly. “Are you spoiling to do so again?”

  “No, my lord. I just thought—"

  “There is naught to think about,” Tamberlane said bluntly. “We have no way of knowing if this was their full force or if those who ran so nimbly into the greenwood ran towards a larger host of men. If so, they will not be pleased with the turn of events. Waste no further time arguing. Go to the north road and wait for me there.”

  Roland’s lips pressed into a flat line, for he had served as squire to Lord Tamberlane long enough to realize that once the former Templar's mind was set, it was as immovable as a mountain.

  "Aye, my lord. The north road."

  Tamberlane wheeled his piebald around and headed back into the woods. He gave another short, shrill whistle and moments later Maude came bounding up to lead him back to the riverbed. Hugo was still standing guard, his massive front paws planted firmly apart, his eyes fixed threateningly on the dead knight, ready to attack if the corpse should suddenly spring to life.

  Tamberlane called him off with a quiet word and knelt beside the body, searching for clues as to why mercenaries would be hired to attack and slaughter the unarmed inhabitants of an entire village.

  The head, half-submerged in the stream, had been severed enough that it lay at an odd angle to the torso. Tamberlane was able to unfasten the ruined pennyplate camail and remove the helm without having to roll the body onto its back, but the face—if he was expecting to find some revelation there—was unfamiliar.

  The vill was part of his demesne, though he scarcely paid it any heed. The rents were paid on time, there were no disputes to be settled. Indeed, he was hard-pressed to remember the name or face of the village leader.

  It did not take a great leap in reasoning to surmise that the attack had been launched against him. He had striven to spend the last three years in the shadows of obscurity, yet if someone wanted to find him, it did not take more than a question whispered in the right ear.

  Perhaps he should have shed his name along with his Crusader’s mantel. His family would have had no objections.

  The sound of Maude’s heavy panting made him turn his head. The girl lay a few feet away, her face paler than any living thing could be. Her skirt was still bunched above the top of her thighs, her legs crudely splayed where the knight had kicked them apart. The sword had scratched a thin red ribbon from each ankle to her groin and where the lines met, the point of the blade had caused bright streaks of blood to run down into the cleft of her sex like a jagged streak of lightning.

  A
gainst the whiteness of her skin it had been easy to miss seeing the silky bush of yellow hair that grew there, making him reassess his initial assumption that she was a child.

  Whether it was his own monkish discomfort that prompted him to cover her, or the thought that it was no way for a maid to lie, even in death, he unstuck his boots from the muck beside the stream and dropped down on one knee beside her. He was about to smooth the hem of her tunic back down to her ankles when he heard a faint rattle in her throat. He looked at her face again, and although her skin was as translucent as old wax, he noticed what he had missed before: a thin blue vein in her temple throbbed erratically, another fluttered in the slender column of her neck.

  She was alive.

  The metal tip of an arrowhead was protruding from her shoulder. There was blood staining her gown from neck to waist and she had lost enough to soak the leaves beneath red. Already there was a small army of ants gathering to feast on the fresh bounty.

  When his gaze returned to her face, he was surprised again to see that her eyes had flickered open. They seemed to roam without purpose or focus for a long moment before fixing on the shadow that knelt beside her. A startling shade of violet-blue, they widened in terror when she saw the shadowy figure leaning over her.

  Tamberlane remembered the sword poised over her cleft. The mercenary had been on the verge of impaling her, of tearing into her sex to mutilate her in a final act of contempt and he realized at once that she feared he was that same brutish knight.

  “Easy, girl, easy. The cur who did this to you is dead. The one who meant to harm you is dead. You have nothing to fear from me.”

  “Dead?” she gasped. Her eyes rolled once side to side, then came to a halt on Tamberlane’s face again. “As am I?”

  Tamberlane had seen enough mortal wounds to know that the likelihood of her surviving out the day was slim. He had to lean forward to catch the faintly whispered question, and it was just as well, for the act of straightening allowed him a moment to decide whether it was kinder to lie or tell the truth.

  She saved him the need to decide by moving her hand and curling her cold fingers around his wrist. “I beg you... end it. End it now.”

  Tamberlane drew further back. On a field of battle, to find a comrade-in-arms so gravely wounded, he would not have thought twice of obliging, of ending the suffering quickly and cleanly. The fact that she was begging him to show her an equal mercy should not have unsettled him, and yet it did. Enough so that he stared, and continued to stare as a clear, fat tear swelled at the corner of her eye and trickled down her temple.

  Despite scratches on her cheek and grime on her face, she had a sweet countenance with softly sculpted features and a delicate tenderness. He surprised himself by thinking of her as pretty. Pretty... and undeserving of such a fate.

  “It is not your time to die just yet.” He made the declaration without any foundation whatsoever, and from whence the words or the falsely offered hope came, he knew not. In any case, she was not fooled. Her lashes, long and honey-gold, fluttered again and the grip on his wrist tightened.

  “Please... it would be a kindness.”

  The plea, uttered with desperate futility stabbed his chest like the point of a dagger and for reasons he could not explain, opened such a well of anger and rage, it spilled through his body like acid.

  “You do not have my leave to die,” he said gruffly. “So do not even think to do it.”

  With a flush rising in his face, he blew out half an oath and bowed over her again, sliding one arm beneath her shoulders, the other beneath her knees. Without stopping to acknowledge the foolishness of what he was doing, he lifted her off the bed of leaves. A gasp escaped the blue-gray lips as her wound was jarred; another brought her head rolling against his chest as he grasped the horn of his saddle and pulled himself up onto his horse. The action was awkward, undoubtedly an agony for the maid, and by the time he was settled with her cradled before him, he could feel fresh blood from her wound soaking warmly into his sleeve. He whistled once for the dogs then picked his way carefully but quickly back through the woods in the direction of the north road.

  Roland was there with the woodsmen, and to judge by the look on his face, he would not have been more surprised had his lord emerged from the greensward carrying the body of Richard the Lionheart in his arms.

  Jaw slack, mouth gaping, he stared at the girl.

  “She is still alive,” Tamberlane said, forestalling the question.

  “Alive, my lord? Did she know who attacked the village?”

  “We had no time for idle chatter. Here, take her from me. You likely have a gentler touch.”

  Roland moved his horse closer, but one look at the arrow lodged in the girl’s shoulder made him draw back.

  “The arrow is acting as a stopper, my lord. Jostle her too much and the bung may pop free.”

  “The bung will pop free if I throw her to the ground.”

  The squire’s gaze rose sharply and Tamberlane swore under his breath. “Very well. She will likely be dead before we reach the castle anyway. Where is the stag? You have not left it to rot in the woods, have you?”

  “We thought... that is to say, my lord, I thought—"

  “Well you thought wrong. We came out to put meat on the board tonight, and by God, there will be meat."

  Tamberlane took up the reins and spurred his destrier onto the road. The girl’s head bounced a moment but then settled back into the crook of his shoulder with such a soft sigh, he looked down, expecting to see her eyes open and staring up at him again.

  They were not and his own gaze slipped unwittingly to where her breasts were pillowed against his chest. A ragged tear in the bodice gave him a shadowy view beneath the cloth and he glimpsed a flash of silver cut in the shape of an ornate crucifix.

  The sight of it set his jaw in a grim line, for here again was proof that faith was no protection against evil. It had taken him many long and bloody years to learn that. The girl had discovered it in less than a day.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Taniere Castle was perched at the tip of what had at one time been a finger of land that stretched out into the silky smooth waters of a lake so small it bore no name. When the Normans had conquered England and replaced the Saxon’s mud and timber keeps with stone fortifications, a small army of men had labored for months to dig an aqueduct fifty feet wide and equally as deep to completely surround the castle with water. The crumbling breastworks had been replaced with rock and mortar walls twenty feet high and twelve feet thick. The wooden enclosure was razed and in its place grew a massive stronghold consisting of a stone keep three stories high, with a slanted base measuring five hundred long paces down each side of the square. Each corner was surmounted by a tower extending out over the crenellated walls. The parapets that spanned the distances between these four towers provided a breathtaking command of the view of the surrounding forest and distant hills for miles in every direction.

  The only way into the island fortress was across a drawbridge that was guarded at one end by a gatehouse, and at the other by an arched portal flanked by ominously unwelcoming barbican towers. The walls of the barbicans were slit with cross-shaped meurtriers through which archers could fire at anyone addled enough to try gaining entry uninvited. The gate itself was built of solid oak timbers a foot thick, banded with iron on both sides, forged by a master into a depiction of coiled dragons whose heads and claws interlocked when the gates were closed. Recessed another eight feet beneath a stone arch was a multi-spiked portcullis which could be dropped to trap attackers within.

  Inside the wall, a large grassed common formed the outer ward and was ringed with stone outbuildings that contained, among other things, the stables and smithy. Entry to the inner ward was through a second sturdy curtain wall that divided the grounds in half, requiring visitors to pass through yet another arched gateway.

  Oddly enough, despite the strength and extent of the fortifications, the castle was not located in a strategical
ly important area. The vast forests of Lincoln were to the north, the sea to the east, the richest baronies in England to the south and west. The lake was less than three hectares in size, surrounded by an outer ring of greenwood so dense it would take an army months to hack its way through.

  Taniere’s existence had never appeared as anything more than a passing notation in the crown’s registry. No king had ever visited. No rival barons had ever vied for its possession. It had no real strategic value and before Tamberlane's arrival, had stood empty for several decades. The walls had became overgrown with brambles and lichen. The vaulted passageways and chambers had become home for invading hoards of birds and spiders, the latter spinning huge blankets of white filaments from beam to beam, doors to sills.

  The inhabitants of the village that had sprung up along the shore of the lake told the usual stories of ghosts and dragons and unsettled spirits to discourage children from crossing the draw and possibly tumbling to their deaths from the high stone walls. Those children grew into the men and women who cautioned their own offspring to stay well away from the hulking ramparts. Several of the village men went so far as to raise the drawbridge and bolt it to the wall, ensuring that whatever demons dwelled within the walls remained there.

  So it had remained, silent and steeped in shadow, until one spring day the villagers awoke to the sound of grinding chains and groaning timbers. The drawbridge was being lowered, and, waiting patiently on shore was a knight dressed in plain armor. He had arrived with a small caravan of four wagons, a meager handful of servants, and a strange assortment of retainers, one of whom proved to be a dark-skinned woman whose cheek was horribly disfigured by a puckered scar. Clutched in her arms was a small child, his eyes wide with awe as he watched the huge draw being lowered.

  Standing beside the knight was a tall figure completely swathed head to toe in flowing black robes. Even his face was shielded by an elongated hood and it was not until later that the villagers learned he was completely devoid of any coloring whatsoever. His hair and skin were white, his eyes were a transparent gray rimmed in pink and shielded by white lashes.