The Rose of Blacksword (Loveswept)

by Becnel, Rexanne

  There was no time for her to plan what to do, how even to stop Blacksword from revealing all to her father should his life be spared. She would face that problem later when she had to. Right now she knew only that any pain he suffered would be on her head, and she simply could not bear any more guilt.

  “I promised him a reward,” she stated more softly. “You cannot just murder him.”

  “ ’Twill hardly be murder.” Sir Edward gave her a hard, scrutinizing look. She had to fight down the color that threatened to rise in her cheeks, but she met his gaze squarely. She knew instinctively that he preferred very much to believe what she said if only because any other story was much too unpleasant for him to stomach. He wanted his daughter whole and unsullied. Unless he were faced with undeniable proof to the contrary, he would accept her story.

  The uncomfortable silence was broken by the entrance of a serving girl who halted, then waited in the corner to show Rosalynde to her chamber. But Rosalynde stood there silently pleading with her father to relent.

  “I will look into the matter,” he finally conceded. “I promise you I’ll not make my decision in haste.” Then as if any further discussion of the matter was closed, he turned to leave. “Sleep now, daughter. We’ll speak later of what will be done.”

  One prison was very much like another, Aric thought with disgust as he cast a bleary eye about the black hole he’d been thrust into. Cold. Dark. Smelling of urine and mold. With a grunt of pain he pushed himself up to a sitting position then gingerly raised one hand to his brow. An enormous egg had raised up on his forehead; his knuckles were raw from the one blow he’d managed to get in against the group of knights who had overpowered him; and his left arm felt as if it had been yanked from his shoulder. But he was still alive, and he tried hard to take some comfort in that.

  Damn the bitch! he thought bitterly. Damn her to hell for throwing him to the wolves the first chance she got.

  With the cold assessiveness of a man long accustomed to fending for himself in difficult circumstances, he examined this latest prison into which he had been cast. The chamber was small, less than twice his length square. The walls were rubble and stone, too rough to lean against with any degree of comfort. The floor was stone as well, covered with a stale layer of straw. The only light admitted was from the steel bar grate in the heavy oak door, and it was barely enough to see by. A small bucket chained to the wall held water; a hole in the floor allowed human waste to be washed away. All in all, it was not a place he wished to spend much time in. But then, it was unlikely he would have to, he reasoned cynically. Once she ran to her father with her sad tale of woe, it was unlikely he’d live out more than a day or two. He well knew that the one thing prized above all in a noblewoman was her virginity. Handfast ceremony or no, her father would no doubt rather kill him than risk the chance that his daughter’s imperfect state might be revealed to anyone.

  Once more he cursed the moment of insanity when he’d thought he might win both maid and demesne for himself merely by the bedding of her. He must have been mad! But then, as he recalled how she had looked standing in that quiet pool with the sunlight glinting sparks off her wet lashes, and her slender arms and shapely ankles exposed to his view, he knew just what sort of madness it had been. He’d been completely and unexpectedly overcome with desire for the strange nymph-like creature she was, and it had totally clouded his thinking. Now it appeared he would pay dearly for his mistake.

  In the hollow darkness of the little cell, he tried hard to attain that same state of calm he’d finally reached in the prison at Dunmow. It had not come easily. He had fought the unfairness then of being falsely convicted, the frustration of not knowing who had singled him out in such a way, and the incompleteness of a life not lived out as expected. Yet in the long days and nights as he’d awaited the inevitable hanging, he’d come to a grudging acceptance of his fate. He’d vowed to meet his maker with as much dignity as he could muster.

  But then when the sudden intervention had come, he’d been almost angry. The peace and resignation had been ripped away, and all the raw fear and pain were exposed once more, much like a wound torn wide apart after it had barely begun to heal. The ragged urchin who had so fearfully mounted the grisly gallows had appeared at once both an imp of the devil and an angel of God. He’d been unable to believe she was more than a figment of his imagination, a manifestation of his suppressed prayers for salvation. Yet she had stood there, timid … terrified … made bold by her own desperation. In her fear she’d grabbed hold of his tunic and her startling eyes had blazed with heated emotions. But it was not the heat in her eyes that had swayed him. Perhaps in different circumstances he would have been moved by those huge, piercing eyes. But that day … that day it had been the unexpected warmth of her knuckles grazing the skin of his chest.

  In a strange way he had already started to die by the time she had made her way up before the jeering crowd. When he’d finally resigned himself to his fate, he had begun to let go of life. But her warm touch … It had been like the touch of life itself, enticing him—goading him—to take one last chance, to not give up.

  Aric leaned back against the rough wall, ignoring the sharp jut of stone against his sore shoulder. He’d taken the chance and he’d escaped the hangman, but now he could see that it had only been a stay of execution. A temporary reprieve. Now it was over.

  With a vicious oath and a grunt of pain, he got to his feet and then flexed his left shoulder gingerly. God’s blood, but he did not want to die! Restlessly he paced the small dank chamber. Three strides across the foul-smelling space then back to where he’d started. Just as impatiently his mind turned round and round, seeking some escape, some way out of this hellish pit he’d landed in. But here too he met only with stone walls. No matter how he struggled to find a solution to his dilemma, it all came back to the same thing. Unless she chose to defend him, he would die. Unless she denied that he had spoiled her virginity, his chances were grim indeed. What he said would matter less than nothing to her father. It was all up to her.

  On that thought he placed both of his hands against the stout door and leaned his weight against it in resignation. If his fate was in her hands he was doomed.

  Rosalynde descended the ancient stone stairs one groggy step at a time. She was home, she kept telling herself over and over. That was what she had wanted and she should be happy at last. Yet that did nothing to dispel the awful feelings of dread that hung over her like a heavy shadow. She was still exhausted and completely disoriented. Although she’d just awakened, something told her it was long past dawn. And even though she’d been bathed by some maid last night and now wore a new gown that, though not fancy, was nonetheless reasonably clean, she still could not quite enjoy her newfound safety. Too much was still unresolved from last night. As her senses sharpened she had a nagging feeling of guilt for her lengthy slumber. The situation with Blacksword was still uncertain, and she needed to know whether her father had set him free. Then she spied Cleve sitting alone at a table with a huge platter of cheeses, broken meats, and dried fruits before him, and looking far too pleased with himself. If Blacksword had been freed, Cleve would hardly appear so content.

  “Cleve!” Her cry stopped him in the process of stuffing one more chunk of cheese into his already overfilled mouth. “Cleve!” she repeated, this time in an accusing tone.

  At once he jumped up, a look of complete guilt on his face. A fresh bandage was wrapped about his head and she noticed that he too looked newly bathed. But she had something far more important than his appearance on her mind as she approached him. Something was going on, and she was certain he knew exactly what.

  “Why did no one awaken me earlier? What hour is it?” she demanded. Then her stomach let out an embarrassing growl, and she could not help reaching out for a handful of raisins and devouring them ravenously. “Why is there no one about?” she added suspiciously.

  “It’s near midday, milady. And as for the whereabouts of the castlefolk, well
, as far as I can see, there aren’t too many inside servants to begin with.” He cast a disdainful glance around the admittedly shabby surroundings. “And those that there are have all gone out to view that villain. That Blacksword.” This last he said almost boastfully. Even her sudden frown could not quite diffuse his obvious satisfaction.

  At once Rosalynde was alarmed. She had slept more than half of the day away. With Cleve’s hostility toward Blacksword—Aric—he might have told her father anything. But more than his lies Rosalynde feared that Cleve might have told her father the truth, and throughout it all she had been left to sleep, blissfully unaware. As frightened as she was angry, she rounded on him with her fists planted imperiously on her hips.

  “What is going on around here, Cleve? Tell me now what you’ve done.”

  But Cleve was not easily cowed, even by her, for he keenly felt the righteousness of his own anger. With a stubborn jut to his chin he stood up and scowled right back at her. “Your father questioned me this morning and I told him nothing but the truth of it—how that man bullied the both of us. How he is a thief and a murderer—and boastful of it too!” The boy pushed his shaggy hair from his brow. His dark eyes glittered with emotion. “And then there’s what he did to you!”

  Rosalynde gasped at the painful truth of his words. “You … you didn’t say anything … not to my father,” she finished weakly.

  Under her horrified gaze Cleve’s angry glare slowly faded until he finally looked down at the floor. “That swine should hang,” he muttered furiously.

  “What did you tell my father?” Rosalynde whispered urgently. She crossed the remaining space, grasped his arms, and stared fearfully into his eyes. “What, Cleve? What?”

  Anger warred with loyalty on the young page’s face. Rosalynde knew instinctively that he would never deliberately do anything to hurt her. He’d proven beyond any doubt that he would risk his very life to protect her. But she also realized that he saw Blacksword as a threat to her. It was as pure and simple as that. Even though she knew her own shameful part in the deed, Cleve saw only Blacksword’s guilt. He would no doubt say anything to see Blacksword punished for his crime. But in doing so, had he sentenced the man to death?

  “I told him—” Cleve’s face took on a mutinous expression and he shook off her desperate grasp. “I told him what I saw. That he was accosting you, trying to … trying to …” He stopped abruptly. “It’s true, isn’t it? I told your father that I stopped him before he could—” He looked away then and took a harsh breath before he peered resentfully back at her. “I told him nothing happened. But it did, didn’t it?”

  Rosalynde could not answer him. No matter how true it was, no matter how undeniable, she simply could not bring herself to say the words aloud. Yet her very silence seemed to condemn her.

  In the awful stillness of the great hall Cleve’s eyes seemed to go almost black. The petulance in his face jelled into a harder emotion. Had she not been so consumed by her own self-reproachful thoughts, she might have even imagined that he shed the cloak of boyhood at that moment. His youthful ideals had been crushed by reality. He could never be a boy again.

  “You don’t understand,” Rosalynde finally choked out. Her mouth was as dry as dust even though tears clouded her eyes. She felt hot with shame and yet her face was pale and colorless. “You don’t understand.” Then she whirled away from him and fled recklessly from the hall.

  She did not plan her pell-mell flight from Cleve’s accusing eyes. She could not think or reason what she must do. But when she charged into the glaring sunlight of the inner bailey, into the unexpected clusters of castlefolk gathered there in the midday sunshine, she came to an abrupt halt.

  To Rosalynde’s still-disoriented senses, the scene in the bailey was not quite real. It was a bad dream, a familiar reassuring place, yet possessed now of a strange and ominous tension. It was her home and yet everything was somehow wrong. Several faces turned at her sudden appearance. Then a wave of murmurs and whispers swept through the crowd until every neck craned to see her, every eye peered her way. Rosalynde was taken aback by her sudden preeminence, and in her beleagured state of mind it seemed that Cleve’s accusing stare echoed now a hundredfold in these new and unknown faces.

  As she stood there, frozen, she realized that this was very much a recurrence of her dreadful ordeal in Dunmow: all those expectant faces waiting to be entertained, no matter that it was at the dire expense of another. Panicked anew, she nearly turned and fled, so unnerved was she by it all. But then she heard Cleve’s step behind her and at once her resolve strengthened.

  It took only a quick glance across the sea of faces to ascertain what was going on. At the far end of the bailey beyond the alehouse, a man was tied to the gate that led into the stableyard.

  Blacksword.

  Aric.

  His arms were spread wide; his back was bared to the waist. Before him a knot of men clustered, and a little beyond them stood her father. Then the brawniest of the group of men separated himself from the others and approached the bound Blacksword, shaking out a long leather whip as he advanced.

  “No!” The scream tore from her lips as she dashed down the few steps then pushed her way through the staring crowd. She heard the sharp crack of the whip even from across the bailey, followed by the gasp of the crowd, and she winced as if the wicked leather had cut her own skin.

  “No! No!” she cried out once more, unaware that it came out only as a frantic sob. But the spectators’ attentions were no longer focused on her. Everyone had heard the gossip: Some fiend had been foolish enough to attack Sir Edward’s daughter. Now he was to pay with a painful stripping away of his flesh until he begged for the final relief from his pain at the hangman’s noose. With every snap of the vicious whip, the entire assemblage jerked in response. Yet they waited still for the next and the next, both repelled and uncontrollably drawn to watch the grisly flogging.

  But Rosalynde felt only a sickening anguish for what was happening. Sobbing and gasping for breath, stumbling blindly as she ran, she broke into the little clearing as the whip drew back then snaked cruelly out once more. She watched in frozen horror as the stiffened tip of leather cut through the air then flicked with deadly precision across Blacksword’s broad, sweating back.

  “Stop! Oh, please God, stop!” she prayed aloud as her stomach twisted with revulsion at such a cruel deed. Standing unbowed, his hands tied in place against the sturdy wooden gate, Blacksword could not see her. But she could see him, and what she saw filled her with terror and shame. His back already showed the fierce red welts of too many strikes of the whip. The last one had finally drawn blood. Before her unbelieving eyes the whip struck once more, and she saw with agonizing clarity the thin red tear against the firm brown flesh and then the several bright lines of oozing blood that slid down that strong unyielding back.

  Unable to bear it even a moment longer, Rosalynde tore her eyes away. Then she saw her father and she knew what she must do.

  “Stop this, Papa! Stop it!” she pleaded as she rushed to his side. She grabbed both his hands to force his attention to her. “You can’t let this go on! You can’t!”

  Her father’s face was grim as he finally met her eyes. “He gets no more than he deserves.”

  “He deserves none of this. None of it!” she begged, heedless of the tears that flooded her face. “I promised him a reward.”

  “So you said before, but ’tis clear he was too impatient to wait for it. In his greed and lust he wanted something more—” He broke off then and signaled to the man with the whip to resume his gruesome task. Once more the unforgiving leather cracked, and this time Rosalynde felt as if it struck her to the very heart, tearing her—ripping her—asunder. She could not let this go on! In a fury she rounded on the man, seeing in her fear and pain how he drew back once more to flog the unbending man who refused to sag or whimper beneath the whip’s savage bite. In an outburst of energy she flung herself at the thick-muscled arm that held the whip.
<
br />   Her strength was not enough to stop the man. Had she been able to think clearly, she would have recognized that fact at once. But the scowling fellow knew better than to strike the very woman whose honor it was he now avenged. One swat of his other hand would have rid him of her pesky interference. But he dared not. It was her father who finally dragged her away. It was Sir Edward who grabbed her and shook her until her teeth fairly rattled in her head.

  Then he took an angry breath and glared down into her frightened, stubborn face. “Mind what you do, daughter! Do not shame me by this unseemly display!”

  “If you flog him—” She gasped for breath as she locked her haunted eyes with his furious ones. “If you flog a man whom you should reward, then you shame yourself.”

  There was an unearthly silence in the castle bailey. Not a soul moved. No one dared speak. Every ear strained to hear what passed between father and daughter, and a hundred possibilities circled in as many minds. But their words were low and muttered, and no one heard a word save the two of them.

  Finally the glowering Sir Edward turned and, with only a terse shake of his head, signaled the man with the whip to halt. Then, ignoring both the waiting crowd and the still-bound prisoner, he dragged his unruly daughter away.

  12

  “Impossible!” Sir Edward shot his daughter a furious look. “I’ll not reward a ruffian for his misdeeds.”

  “Papa, please. I beg you!” Rosalynde clutched her hands tightly at her stomach as she watched her father’s angry pacing. “You’ve listened to Cleve. You’ve listened to Sir Roger. Why can you not listen to me?”

  “This is not your concern. Women should not interfere—”

  “It is solely my concern!” she shouted in self-righteous indignation.

  At such a blatant contradiction of his words, her father turned and gave her a baleful glare. “Is this the same biddable child I sent to Millwort? Is this foul temper a sample of the lessons you learned at your lady aunt’s knee?” He studied her with ill-concealed impatience. “I am Lord of Stanwood, miss. Everyone—everything—here falls under my protection. Those who dare to threaten anything of mine do thereby threaten me. And I take no threat lightly. There is no way but for him to pay, and harshly.”