"What must he think of me?" she whispered to the hounds.
What must she think of herself?
She had thought any feelings of desire or lust—and it had been lust, she could not deceive herself into believing it was anything else—had long ago been destroyed by Odo de Langois.
Without knowingly doing so, she ran her fingers across her lower lip.
It had been a new and unique experience to feel herself wanting more. More of the taste of his lips, more of the feel of his hands holding her, more of the heat of his body pressing against her. He had wanted her too, there had been no mistaking the bold thrust of arousal. To that end, it had been almost as shocking and unique an experience to have a man like Ciaran Tamberlane stop and push himself away.
Amie found herself staring at the dogs again. She felt a creeping sense of alarm rise up the back of her neck and did not understand the cause of it until she realized that in all the time she had been watching them, neither Maude nor Hugo had moved. Their bodies were perfectly still. Their chests did not even rise or fall to draw a breath.
The feeling of dread increased as she stretched a toe out and gently prodded Hugo’s flank.
Nothing.
The wolfhound’s limbs were limp and unmoving.
Something glinted on the floor beside them and Amie identified the vial that had once held the potent drops Marak had given her. It was empty now. The floor was stained blue where the contents had spilled and been licked up by the two wolfhounds.
“Jesu,” she whispered. “Mother Mary, and Joseph. Now I have killed his dogs.”
Her clothes were nowhere to be seen. Gathering the blanket around her shoulders, she rose gingerly off the bed and, stepping quickly to one side, kept her back pressed flat against the wall as she scraped her way sideways to the door. She had seen enough of Tamberlane and the hounds together to know there was great affection shared between the three. The notion that she might, inadvertently, have caused their deaths made her stomach rise up and burn sourly at the back of her throat.
At the door, she fumbled with the latch for several seconds before she was finally able to pull it open. It was dark in the corridor. The clouds were low and there was no moon to flood the courtyard. The only light came from the very far end of the long walk, where the statue of St. Alban stood guard over the breezeway that led to the pilgrim's hall.
Amie took a step and bumped into something lying at her feet. It threw her off balance and she tottered forward, only saving herself from a bad fall by sticking her hands out in front of her. The fingers of her left hand sank into something horribly wet and spongy while those on her right brushed against the large jewelled salamander brooch she had last seen pinning together the top of Sir Boethius’ woolen cloak.
With a hoarse, horrible gasp she saw that the mush beneath her left hand was where his face should have been.
He was dead! The dogs were dead! They had been left to guard and protect her and now they were all dead!
Amie shot to her feet and scrambled several terrified steps along the darkened corridor, using her hands to scrape her way along the rough stone wall.
“Lord Tamberlane!” Her cry echoed hollowly through the empty silence. “Sweet Jesu, is anyone there?”
She paused beside the cold marble statue of the saint, then started running along the breezeway toward the glowing light. The hem of the blanket tangled around her legs and she fell heavily to her knees, skinning both through the rough wool. She heard a sound just ahead and gave a hopeful shout.
“Lord Tamberlane!”
A door swung open and the brilliant flare of a torch cast its light in her eyes, blinding her. Odo de Langois stepped out behind it and stood glaring down at her, his eyes gleaming red, his hair a fiery frame around his face.
“Elizabeth.” Her name was snarled with more venom than Satan himself could have mustered. “Elizabeth, my lovely bride. Did you think you could run away from me? Did you not think I would find you regardless of where you ran or who you spread your thighs for in exchange for his protection?”
“No,” she gasped, scrambling back. “No...!”
He roared an ugly laugh and took an ominous step toward her. He reached down to snatch at her arm but Amie was too quick. Fear helped her leap to her feet and she darted past him, fleeing as fast as her legs would carry her.
Odo’s laughter followed, punctuated by the ominous thud of his boots in pursuit.
At the end of the breezeway she risked a glance over her shoulder, but he was a large man with long legs that ate as much in a single enraged stride as three of her smaller ones. He was gaining quickly, fueled by his rage and hunger for revenge. In a panic, Amie whirled around and ran straight into the pilgrim's hall, into the center of the huge chamber where she was again brought to a skidding halt.
There were no men sleeping on the floor, no men huddled on benches in front of the fire. Instead, they were all standing about the circumference of the room, their bodies touching shoulder to shoulder to form a solid ring of around her. All of their faces were obscured behind the wide steel nasals of their helms, and she recognized no one.
Tamberlane should have stood a head and shoulders above the others, but she did not see him.
Turning in a wide, desperate circle, with the blanket fanning out around her feet, she searched for Roland, for the foresters Fletcher and Quill, for Lord Geoffrey de Ville.
She spun again, even more frantically for the circle of men was starting to close in, sealing off the exit from the hall and trapping her within. Odo was inside the ring with her, the torch held high, the flame crackling and snapping over his head.
“No,” she gasped. “No...!”
“Amaranth!”
She turned, her gaze frantically searching the dark, sullen faces for the one who had called her name.
Odo took another ominous step forward. “Elizabeth... come to me. Come willingly and I vow it will go easier on you.”
She looked at her husband, at the false smile on his face, at the torch with its dripping globs of hot pitch.
“Amaranth!”
She spun around again, a sob caught in her throat, for it was him. It was Tamberlane’s voice but she could not see him, could not find him even as the ring of wooden-faced men moved ever closer, forcing her toward the center of the room where Odo stood waiting.
“Amaranth! Can you hear me?”
She gasped as someone reached out and grabbed her. She tried to bat his hands away, to shove her fists against his chest, to lunge and twist and break his hold, but he was too strong. His arms went around her and his hand quickly covered her mouth when she opened it to scream.
“Amaranth! It is I, Ciaran! Hush, girl, hush. You are quite safe! All is well, you are safe!”
Safe? She squeezed her eyes shut. Her mind latched on to the word as if it was the end of a rope and she was clinging to it, hanging over a cliff. Safe? Was he mad? Odo was right there...!
She opened her eyes again and looked wildly around. She was not in the pilgrim's hall, she was the monk’s tiny cell. She was not standing inside a shrinking ring of spectre-like figures, she was sitting up on the narrow bed, the blankets in disarray.
Ciaran sat on the edge of the cot beside her, his arm holding her close against his chest, his hand clamped gently—if firmly—over her mouth to prevent her from screaming again. Standing beside the bed, their ears pricked upright, were Maude and Hugo very much alive and looking for intruders to maul.
Amie thought her mind was about to explode.
Maude and Hugo were alive! Tamberlane was alive! He was here and he was holding her and that meant...?
“You were having a bad dream,” he said gently. “It is over now. I am going to take my hand away from your mouth and I would beg you, for the sake of any hairs left on anyone's heads, not to scream again.”
Slowly, almost finger by finger, the pressure over her mouth relented. Amaranth looked stupidly around the room, her gaze touching on the dogs,
on the open door and the concerned face of Sir Boethius—very much alive and perplexed—who was watching from the entrance to the cell, his sword in hand.
"I was dreaming?" she whispered. "But... it was so real." She looked down at her hands, at the one that had sunk into the mush that was Sir Boethius's face. "It felt so real."
"An ill-effect of Marak's little blue potion if you take too much," Tamberlane explained. "I have suffered it myself and swore there were fire-breathing dragons in my bedchamber. I wielded my sword and did battle with so many chairs, the carpenters could scarcely keep my chamber furnished."
“I woke up," she whispered, "and the dogs had been poisoned, Sir Boethius was dead. You were gone and... and... Odo was here. I ran and tried to look for you but...”
Tamberlane interrupted gently. “The dogs are quite alive, as you can see, as is Boethius. De Langois is a half hundred leagues from here and likely crouched in some rat hole to wait out the weather. You are completely safe, Amaranth, I vow it to be so.”
She looked up into Ciaran’s eyes, her own silvered with tears. She was shaking so hard that words and vows were not enough; she crumpled forward against his chest and pressed her face tight into the curve of his shoulder. “I will not be safe until he is dead.”
Even before the whispered words left her lips, she knew it to be the truth. She had known it the instant she had seen the look on Friar Guilford’s face when he told her Odo was still alive. She knew it when they fled the castle that night, and she knew it when she ran into the woods with an arrow buried in her shoulder.
Tamberlane was aware of her tears, hot and wet, sliding down his neck and he felt the tremors in her body as she wept quietly against him. He glanced over and signalled Boethius to remove himself and close the door, then lifted his hand away from her hair long enough to point a silent command at the dogs to retreat and lie in the corner.
Amaranth remained cozened in the warmth of his arms long after her tears had ceased. She felt so safe, so protected by the shield of his body that she did not want to leave it.
Eventually, however, she knew she had to extricate herself and did so with soft, embarrassed smile.
Tamberlane straightened as well, admittedly relieved to be able to draw a breath without taking in the scent of her hair, her skin.
“Better?”
She nodded and bit down lightly on her lower lip. If waking and finding the dogs dead and Odo chasing her was all a terrible dream... was it also a dream that Tamberlane had taken her into his arms and kissed her?
“You should try to sleep more," he was saying. "There are still several hours to go before dawn.”
Amie shivered and gathered the blanket tighter around her shoulders. "I do not think I could close my eyes again, my lord."
How well he knew that feeling! How many hours, nights had he spent pacing the rooftops of Taniere dreading the notion of sleep. Sleep brought the dreams, the sound of screaming men and women, the sweat of the desert heat, the smell of blood and scorched flesh.
“Look you, here,” he said rising from the bedside. “Roland brought a cup of broth earlier. We can warm it over the brazier. There is bread and cheese also,” he added, unwrapping the folds of a square cloth. “And two handsome slices of mutton.”
“I am not very hungry.”
“You need to eat. If the rain lets up, we will have a very long day of riding ahead of us.”
Amie glanced at the window, surprised to see and hear the rain beating a faint tattoo on the shutters. Her dream had all been silence and shadows.
She gave her head a little shake to clear her thoughts. “And if it does not let up?”
Tamberlane shrugged and carried the cup of broth over to the brazier. After balancing it carefully over the glowing coals, he straightened and Amie could see where the linen of his shirt was still dark with dampness and clinging in patches to his skin.
Following her glance, he smiled crookedly. “There was not enough heat in all of Christendom to dry all of our clothes in the meager space we fought to procure in front of the fire. in the Pilgrim's hall. Not even the shine of a new coin could budge some arses from their warm perches. Eat,” he ordered brusquely, noting that she had not touched anything in the opened cloth yet. “All of it, to the last morsel.”
“Only if you will share it, my lord.”
“I have already enjoyed the mutton,” he said with a wry arching of an eyebrow. “But the goat cheese is quite excellent.”
Amie smiled and broke off a piece, handing it to him. She broke another and nibbled at it, declaring it was, indeed, delicious. The mutton was tough and stringy, boiled out of all hope of flavor from a beast who had likely been well past its prime for growing a worthy coat of fleece. The bread was unleavened and could have been used to resole her boots. The best part of the meal was the re-heated broth. It was strong and steamy and took the last of the chills out of Amie’s body.
Tamberlane sat against the damp stone wall, watching her while she ate. At one point she glanced over and saw that his eyes had drifted closed. He looked exhausted. She could not even begin to reason when he might have slept last. She recalled Marak saying that the Dragonslayer never slept, but she had thought it to be an exaggeration. Now she was not so sure. There were smudges under his eyes and a heaviness in his shoulders that suggested he was fighting the urge to lay his head down.
“My lord, I will not be able to close my eyes again this night but there is no need to waste a perfectly good cot. You need sleep more than I and you will not do so with your back stiff and your boots squeaking with water.”
Before he could offer up a protest she was out of the bed and kneeling before him, her hands starting to tug at his wet boots.
“No stop,” he said, scraping his foot to the side. “I am perfectly able to rest right here.”
“Indeed.” She caught his foot again and set it back in front of her with a firm thud. “And by morning there will be rot between your toes, they will fester and begin to fall off, then we shall have to drag you the rest of the way to Exeter in a litter with your brain in a fever and your eyes rolled to the back of your head.”
He stared at her unblinking for the length of several heartbeats before the iron that formed his jaw began to melt. By degrees it softened as a grin crept across his lips and in the end, he actually laughed. He laughed so long and hard that Amaranth fought through various shadings of a blush and was able to laugh as well.
When she had removed both of his boots and set them by the brazier to dry, she stood and pointed sternly to the bed.
“And if you give me further grief, my lord, I will summon Sir Boethius to assist me in lifting you onto the bed and tying you down.”
“My dear lady, I—”
She bent over and brought her face close enough to his that his smile faltered and whatever he was about to say hissed away on a breath. “I will allow you to retain the rest of your clothing, sirrah, wet as it is, but only if you do as I say and get into the bed.”
The green eyes stared back calmly as he attempted to recover. “The guise of a shrew does not become you, my lady.”
“Nor does the guise of a pillock do aught for your appeal as a guardian and fearsome protector, my lord.”
Tamberlane’s gaze kindled a moment while he pondered if there was any wisdom or benefit to be gained by arguing further. He readily admitted that was beyond tired, there was no denying that fact. Boethius was outside the door, the dogs were alert... An hour with his eyes closed was all he needed.
He scowled and heaved himself to his feet, swaying as the rush of blood hit his head. He crossed over to the narrow cot and, after unbuckling the wide leather belt from his waist, eased himself onto the mattress and lay back, resting one arm across his forehead and keeping one stockinged foot on the floor.
Amaranth watched him for the few seconds it took for his breathing to become deep and slow. She settled herself down where he had been sitting and one at a time, the wolfhounds laid down beside
her, one across her feet, the other at her side. Maude put her big, soft head on Amie's lap seeking a rub behind the ears.
Amie's gaze was drawn to Tamberlane’s sleeping form. She had seen the brief flicker in the depths of the green eyes when she had bent down to order him into the bed. She had heard the soft hiss of his breath escaping and she had known, right there upon the instant, that not everything that had happened in this monk's cell had been a dream.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Two hours later, a quiet tapping on the door roused Tamberlane out of a surprisingly deep sleep. He came instantly awake and glanced quickly toward the corner, but saw Amaranth cocooned in her blanket, her head resting on Maude's body, using it as a pillow. Hugo was already on his feet, standing poised at the door. His growl was barely audible indicating it was most likely Roland on the other side. The squire had stepped on his tail once and had never been forgiven.
Ciaran swung his legs over the side of the bed and raked his hands through his hair. The scored marks on the night candle told him there was still an hour to go before the big bell in the belfry would call the monks to morning prayer. It also occurred to him that Roland was showing unusual discretion by knocking first before entering, and as a precaution, Tamberlane drew his sword before he unlatched the door.
It was not Roland, however. It was Brother Ignatius in the company of another, much older, shorter monk.
The latter had the squinted eyes of a man who had spent many an hour toiling over illuminated manuscripts in poorly lit scriptoriums. His tonsured head wore a fringe of gray hair and his skin bore such deep wrinkles, he could have tucked his brushes and quills into the folds.
The wizened blue eyes of the older monk glanced down at the naked sword in Tamberlane’s hand. “I see I shall have to instruct Brother Dominick to have more care with regards to relieving our guests of their weaponry at the gates. This is a house where peace and prayer rules above all.”
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