by Tamara Leigh
“I will hunt them down,” he continued. “I will not rest until I am certain Thomas’s murderer is among those whose lives I take.”
Her chill deepened as if death walked past her. Wishing her arms free so she could hug them about her, she said, “It will be innocent lives you spoil.” Like her mother’s life, which had been taken in the Norman raid upon their village.
“The same as Thomas,” Maxen Pendery said.
True. His life had been lost for no other reason than the desire to possess her. “Thomas was innocent,” she agreed. “He should not have died.”
The air stirred with her captor’s retreat, and she heard his long strides carry him away.
She blinked behind the blindfold, marveling that he had not struck her. Surely he wanted to, but something in him that was not in Sir Ancel denied him the indulgence.
“Maxen,” she called.
His footsteps halted.
“I say again,” she unthinkingly slipped into her own language, “your revenge should be against me. My people are not responsible for what befell your brother.”
When he finally answered, it was in French. “You will speak my language if you speak at all. Your language is dead.”
It was then she realized his accent was so thick it bore little resemblance to Thomas’s or Christophe’s. It was more like that of Sir Ancel who had been raised on the continent. “Do you not know our language?” she asked in French.
He returned to her, and this time when he spoke, it was from high above. “Unlike my brothers, I was raised in Normandy. Thus, I do not embrace your vulgar Saxon tongue.”
He meant to offend her, but she understood his feelings for a language not his own. She had been barely conversant in French before Thomas had come to Etcheverry, but he had insisted she learn, and she’d had little choice living amongst those who spoke only French—excepting the Penderys who were equally conversant in Anglo-Saxon.
“You did not understand what I said?” she asked and startled when his hand settled at the base of her neck, reminding her of when it was Thomas’s hand there.
“I do not need to.” His grip was firm, but not so firm air was denied her. “Responsible you may be, but I want the one who spilled his blood.”
“You have the one!”
“When you break—and you will—whomever you protect will be mine.”
He did not know her, she assured herself. Ever she had been told she was more headstrong than a woman ought to be, and Maxen Pendery would learn it soon enough.
“You must desire this Harwolfson very much,” he said.
She told herself not to dignify his taunt with a response, but protested again, “He is not my lover!”
“Then you will not grieve overly much when I take his life.”
“Only a fool would be so certain it will fall that way,” her tongue once more defied her. “Take care lest he kills you first, Norman pig.”
His grip tightened slightly. “His death or mine, Rhiannyn, you and I will see it together.”
Determined to speak no more, she seamed her lips.
“One thing more,” he said. “By your deceit, I am lord of Etcheverry and beyond, and you will show me respect. Thus, you will address me as my lord, and nevermore speak my given name.”
As if her time with him might stretch to years.
“Do you understand, Rhiannyn?”
Do not challenge him! warned the cautious side of her.
“Mayhap you ought to understand something, Maxen Pendery,” her other side triumphed. “Never will I accept you or any Norman blackguard as my lord.” She thrust backward and wrenched out of his hold.
If he had not snatched hold of her arm, pressing fingers into one of several bruises Sir Ancel had inflicted, she would have landed at his feet. As she suppressed a whimper of pain, he righted her on the stool.
Releasing her, he said, “You will accept me as your lord.”
Once again, he retreated, and when his footsteps went silent, she slumped.
All for naught. As none believed her capable of murdering Thomas, she had given herself into the hands of the enemy only to become a pawn to a Norman bent on blood. And her people would pay with their lives.
Another’s approach brought her head up. As evidenced by a powerful odor, it was the man-at-arms who had delivered her here. Like the man before him, his fingers bit into her bruises.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked as he pulled her from the room.
“Depends.”
“On what?”
He pushed her up against a moist wall. “On whether or not you would like company.” He fit his body to hers, causing the meager contents of her belly to churn.
She swallowed hard, and when fairly certain she could hold down the bile and gruel, lifted her chin. Staring into the blindfold, she said, “I would rather keep company with the rats!”
She felt him tense and braced herself for the blows Maxen Pendery had held in reserve. But neither did this man strike her. For fear of denying his new lord the privilege which, heretofore, had belonged to Sir Ancel?
“As you wish,” he said and wrenched her forward.
Fool, Maxen silently chastised as he watched Rhiannyn disappear around a bend in the corridor. A misplaced sense of gallantry had tempted him to defend her, and if the perverted guard had not pulled back, he would have aided her. A mistake, for the Saxon woman would have discovered his weakness—that the blackguard in him was sometimes more gray. He must not forget who she was and what she had done.
But neither could he forget the bruises, cuts, and scratches the torchlight had revealed. When he had caught hold of her arm to prevent her from falling, he had felt her response to the press of flesh made tender—likely, by Sir Ancel who had been unable to disguise his rancor when Maxen had arrived at Etcheverry hours past. The man’s power over Christophe having been wrested from him, the embittered knight would have to be watched closely.
Maxen returned his thoughts to Rhiannyn. She was different from what he had expected. He had come prepared for a female expert at using her body to further her lies. Instead, she had gained his grudging respect by wielding her sharp tongue, rather than abundant wiles—full lips which would be softly inviting outside the ravages of imprisonment, long hair which promised gilt-colored tresses beneath the filth, well-proportioned curves which not even her foul, torn garments could disguise.
Had she lain with Thomas?
He ground his teeth. Though he began to understand his brother’s obsession, he would not share it. And yet—
“Almighty!” he growled and told himself she deserved the punishment Ancel had dealt her. And more. He had seen the dark stain across her bodice that was surely Thomas’s blood. So what were bruises and scrapes when she, not his brother, lived?
A semblance of enmity restored, he flexed his shoulders. Though from his teachings at the monastery, he knew vengeance was God’s, his impatience would not allow him to wait for however long the Lord might take. And Rhiannyn would provide the means by which Thomas was avenged. Soon she would lead him to the murderer. Then Harwolfson, his kith and kin, would suffer the full extent of the Pendery wrath.
CHAPTER FOUR
A rhythmic scraping tugged at Rhiannyn where she dwelt in the haze between sleep and wakefulness. Narrowly opening her lids, she peered across the cell and waited to discover whether the sound was imagination or truth.
Truth. Torchlit face uncertain, Christophe peered through the grate in the door. “Lady Rhiannyn?”
She sat up. “What do you here, Christophe?”
“I have come to help.”
Unfolding her stiff body, she rose and took the two steps to the door. “Help?” She went up on tiptoe to look nearer upon Thomas’s brother.
He lifted a hand to reveal a key. “I have come to free you.”
Her first thought was it must be a trap, but she could not believe he would be so deceitful.
She gripped the bars. “You know I was Thomas�
��s downfall.”
“I do not blame you as…” He pressed his teeth into his bottom lip.
“As Maxen does,” she finished what he feared to speak.
His eyes sprang wide. “He has not hurt you, has he?”
“He has done me no harm.” Not exactly true, but neither could she define what he had done to her.
“But he may.” Christophe’s eyebrows pinched. “No matter how he presents himself, he is foremost a warrior.”
“He does not know you are here?”
He shook his head. “Like Sir Ancel, he has forbidden me to see you.”
Rhiannyn considered the key and what it offered. To see again the blue of the sky, the gray of a day filled with rain, the moon and stars, to breathe fresh air and touch the morning dew, to feel the warmth of the sun…
Selfish, she silently chastised. In an England ruled by grasping Normans, freedom meant little more than survival. For her, it would mean warning Edwin and his followers of the revenge with which Maxen Pendery intended to smite them.
“When your brother discovers me gone,” she said, “what punishment will be yours?”
“He will not know it was I who released you.”
“And if he learns it was you?”
Though worry flashed in his eyes, he said, “I can see after myself.”
Nay, he could not. If she was to escape, she must do it in a manner that would not cause Christophe to suffer his brother’s wrath. Turning away, she rubbed her chilled arms. “I cannot.”
“You must! The desire to avenge our brother eats at him. Are you prepared for what he could do to you?”
She returned to her corner, lowered to the floor, and wrapped her arms around her knees. “If the choice be you or me, I must stay.”
A key scraped in the lock, and the door swung open, letting in more torchlight. With a quick, uneven gait, Christophe crossed the cell.
“Clothes to conceal your person.” He dropped a bundle beside her.
Rhiannyn grabbed it, scrambled upright, and thrust it at him. “Return these whence they came.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “You will need them to slip free.”
Bewildered by a resolve she had rarely glimpsed in him, she dropped the bundle at his feet. “Leave now and no more concern yourself with me.”
“Think of your people, Rhiannyn. If you sacrifice yourself—”
“If I escape, it will be without your aid.”
He laid a hand on her shoulder. “Then you will not escape. Many were the lives Maxen took at Hastings, and just as he showed no mercy there, none will he show you.”
“So be it.”
“My lady, do you not remember the ballads sung of The Bloodlust Warrior of Hastings?”
One could not forget those verses raised to the rafters by Thomas’s men while consuming great quantities of drink. They were triumphant, crude, and frighteningly vivid in their accounts of the Norman warrior who had slain Saxon after Saxon, earning himself Duke William’s high regard.
“I remember,” she said and waited for what she hoped Christophe would not tell.
“The ballads are of Maxen.”
Fear cramped her belly. “They are but songs—”
“They are not. It was hardly more than a game—albeit deadly—Edwin and Thomas played. But now there is Maxen, and a more worthy opponent Edwin will not find.”
It took most of her resolve not to stagger, and what remained of it to accept she had no choice. If she did not leave this day and warn Edwin, there might not be another chance.
“End the bloodshed that has already taken too many lives,” Christophe pleaded. “Once you are returned to Edwin, he will take you far from here.”
Would he? Would he accept her back amongst their people? When she had refused to accompany him into the wood after Thomas fell, he had accused her of siding with the Normans. And like Thomas, he had cursed her.
“You will do it?” Christophe pressed.
Regardless of whether or not Edwin yet had feelings for her, he had to be warned. But would he listen? Could he be convinced to turn from a life bent on vengeance? There was one way to find out.
“I will do it,” she said.
Christophe sighed. “You must take your leave now, whilst Maxen is with his steward.”
“But the guard—”
“—sleeps well.” He smiled sheepishly. “With some help.”
Christophe was dabbling in herbs again. And not their healing aspects.
“I have tethered a horse in the grove,” he said. “It is not very worthy, but neither will it be missed for some time.”
Rhiannyn dropped to her knees and opened the well-worn mantle he had bundled around other clothes. She drew out a peasant’s gown.
“Too large,” Christophe said, “but it is all I could manage.”
“It will be a fitting disguise.”
“Had I time, I would have brought your own garments.”
“Worry not,” she said. “It is a wood to which I go.”
“But still you should have the gowns that were made for you.”
She smiled sorrowfully. “As long as Normans rule England, I have no need of fine garments.”
He looked away.
Wishing to console him as she had done in the past, Rhiannyn stood and captured his hand. “I will not forget you. You have been a good friend.”
He colored, and his eyes shone with tears. “As have you.” He lifted her hand, pressed his lips to it, and turned away. At the door, he peered over his shoulder. “Was it your betrothed who did it, my lady?”
Knowing it was useless to maintain she had murdered Thomas, and there was nothing to be gained in allowing him to think Edwin guilty, she said, “He did not.”
He nodded and exited the cell.
“God be with you,” she whispered when the forlorn youth, whose transition to manhood he had fought this past year, went from sight. Then she readied herself for escape.
CHAPTER FIVE
As Andredeswald drew her deeper into its embrace, Rhiannyn wondered for the dozenth time at the sense of being watched.
She halted her horse, closed her eyes, and concentrated on the sounds—small animals scuttling for cover, the drone and buzz of insects, air puffing at the leaves, the huffing of her horse.
Though she did not believe this feeling of being watched was unfounded, she detected nothing untoward. Opening her eyes, she tipped her head back and searched the trees for one of the lookouts Edwin would have set about his camp.
She sighed. Wherever he was, the man was not ready to show himself.
Urging the horse forward, she worked the fingers of one hand through her snarled hair. Would any recognize her? she wondered, having earlier caught her reflection when she had paused to drink from a stream.
It had not seemed her face. Dark circles rimmed dull eyes that had once shone warm brown. Hollows beneath her cheeks made her face appear gaunt. Pressed lips looked as if they had never known a smile. Tangled, filthy hair hid all evidence of the golden tresses Thomas had so admired. Eight and ten years aged, yet she might be nearer thirty.
Just as well, she told herself as she guided the horse around bramble. If she had been old and unbecoming when Thomas first laid eyes on her, he would not have desired her. He would be alive, and Maxen Pendery would remain in whatever dark place he had crawled out of.
A whispered rush of air brought her chin around a moment before something struck the back of her neck and pitched her from the saddle.
Her cry silenced by her meeting with the ground, consciousness dipping toward darkness, she dug her fingers into the soil and tried to raise herself to her hands and knees. Failing that, she lifted her head and strained to make sense of the jubilant voices. Though their words eluded her, there was no doubt they were Anglo-Saxon.
Shabby, cross-gartered legs approached, and a few moments later, rough hands flipped her onto her back.
“Looks familiar,” one of two men said.
Rhiannyn shifted her gaze from him to a gap-toothed, bearded face. “Aethel?” she whispered.
“Indeed,” her departed father’s friend said, and she knew it was he who had slung the stone, hitting her exactly where he had aimed. This once, it would have been nice had he been less accurate.
“Is it her?” the other man asked.
“Aye, Peter. ’Tis Rhiannyn whom Pendery stole from Edwin.”
She sighed. It was beyond good to hear Anglo-Saxon spoken again.
“Traitor,” Peter spat. “Norman whore.”
Aethel straightened to his enormous height and seized the other man by the neck of his tunic. “Keep your tongue about you, lad, else I’ll cut it from your mouth!”
As Peter stammered, Aethel returned to Rhiannyn. “You have come alone?”
She nodded, the movement making her grimace. “Escaped.”
He lowered to his haunches and probed the swelling at the back of her neck. “Had I known ’twas you, I would have received you more kindly.”
“I hurt.”
“’Course you do.”
“Edwin…”
“I will take you to him.”
“He needs to know—” She cried out when his arms came around her.
“I have hardly touched you, little one,” he said as he straightened and settled her against his chest.
“My ribs. Are they broken?”
His concerned face dipped near hers. “We shall let the white one be the judge of that.”
Dora. The old, unnaturally pale woman who, two years past, had appeared in the Norman-ravaged village of Etcheverry. Though the survivors had feared one of such white countenance, a handful—Rhiannyn among them—had come forward to peer into the cart bearing their dead thane’s son.
Although Edwin’s torn and broken body had been testament he would not be much longer among the living, Dora had promised the villagers a miracle. She would return Edwin to life, and in him they would have a leader capable of taking back their lands.
None had believed her, for even if Edwin’s body could be mended, all knew his will would thwart her. As a housecarle, it had been his duty to die alongside his king, and to live would mean disgrace. But Dora had persisted in nursing an enraged Edwin, and true to her promise, he had lived.