LadyOfConquest:SaxonBride

by Tamara Leigh

  As she stared at the one who sat a horse far better in the raiment of a soldier than that of a monk, anger tumbled through her. Yet another of his deceptions. And there would be more.

  Their destination Andredeswald, their mission massacre, Rhiannyn stared after them as Pendery and his men grew distant. She could do nothing to prevent the deaths. Nothing to stop the warring between the conquered and the conquerors.

  Still, she cried, “Nay!” and did not stop, even after Maxen Pendery disappeared from view. Later, she pounded her fists and feet against the door, and when food was brought to her, she flung it against the wall.

  Not until it was past dark and exhaustion caused her to collapse on her pallet, did she quiet. But then she dreamed—nightmares in which she plunged to the bottom of her grave, heard Dora’s chanting, and tasted dirt. Almost as disturbing, each time she awakened, she frantically searched the dark for the one who had delivered her from death.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  At the landing before the door to Rhiannyn’s tower room, Maxen paused to unbuckle his chain mail hood. He pushed it back, causing the numerous links to ring as they settled around his neck. When they quieted, he listened for other sounds, but there was only silence, as if Rhiannyn had gone.

  Although he did not believe escape possible, especially since Christophe had been given no choice in accompanying the war party into Andredeswald two days past, and a sentry had been posted to ensure no others attempted to free her, Maxen quickly lifted the bar and pushed the door open.

  He stared at the slight figure curled on the pallet across the room. Knees hugged to her chest, tunic up around her calves, hair spilled over her face, she slept.

  During his exchange with the sentry, he had been told of her outbursts. She had screamed, pounded on the door, kicked it, and hurled the basin and food. And again the next day, though of less duration. Doubtless, she was exhausted.

  He strode across the room and dropped to a knee beside her. Ignoring the pain shooting through his side, he reached to shake her awake. And left his hand upon the air as something warmer and brighter touched her first. Through the small window, sunlight slanted its first rays across her legs.

  Attraction gripped him as he looked from tender-fleshed ankles to firm calves, from a softly rising and falling chest to a lovely neck that invited kisses forbidden him as a monk. But if he turned his back on all he had been taught as a man of God, it was forbidden no longer. And his body knew it.

  Why Rhiannyn? he wondered. Why not the servant, Theta? Why this one who was Thomas’s downfall, the sight of whom ought to make his fingers convulse with deadly intent, rather than restrained desire? More and more he understood his fallen brother’s obsession. Hate her, certainly, but want her…

  That, too.

  He swept the hair back from her face and looked from lashes shadowing dark circles begot by wakeful nights, to a mouth full and waiting for the man who sold his soul to her.

  But even as he berated himself for not heeding the voice urging him to put distance between them, he brushed a thumb across her lower lip, trailed fingers down her jaw, and settled them at the hollow of her neck.

  Innocent, Christophe said, but he was wrong. Had to be.

  Desperate to vanquish her from his thoughts, Maxen closed his eyes and silently recited prayers he had not spoken since before Guy had brought news of Thomas’s death.

  Light where there had been dark. Warmth where there had been cold. Breath where there had been none.

  The night melting into blacks and grays and streaks of crimson that ran down the sky into a clear, sparkling stream, Rhiannyn realized it was a dream. The grave was not real. The wood was not real. But neither was the stream real, nor the man standing over her whose vengeful face rippled in the water. He was gone.

  So why do I feel him so strongly? she wondered, then told herself to ignore the sensation, the easier to remain in this less terrifying dream. Far better here than all the waiting within prison walls that were silent but for her fits of frustration and anger.

  But the feeling of him grew, causing the sunlit stream to blur and darken. Determined to stay beside it, she commanded her hands to carry its cool water to her lips, to splash it on her heated skin—

  That last was a mistake, wrenching her up through the thin veil of sleep and opening her eyes wide.

  And here was the reason she felt the presence of Maxen Pendery. Eyes closed, lips moving slightly as if in prayer, he knelt beside her—his hand at her neck.

  Fearing he intended to strangle her, she forced herself to remain still. Think! she silently urged. Look!

  She slid her gaze down his chain mail to his sword, then to his dagger. The sword was out of the question, but not the latter.

  Help me, Lord, she prayed and swept her hand forward and pulled the dagger free.

  One moment Pendery’s hand was at her neck, the next it encased the fingers she clenched around the hilt. “Give over,” he growled.

  She thrust back against the wall, kicked both legs forward, and slammed her feet into his chest.

  It moved him only inasmuch as he surged upright, and still gripping her hand upon the dagger, dragged her with him and onto her toes.

  “Accept your defeat gracefully,” he said between his teeth.

  “And die gracefully?” she spat, the burning in her strained shoulder nearly making her cry out.

  He stepped onto the pallet, pushed her back against the cool stone wall, and held her there with the press of his body. “Upon my word, you will not die this day.”

  She knew to heed the emphasis that she would not die, but he was too close and she was too easily broken to give it more thought. “I am to believe it was not your intent to steal the breath from me?” she demanded.

  “You tempt me,” he said, “but I vow you are quite safe.”

  Safe with this man? Never. Still, she said, “For how long?”

  “For now.”

  “That is supposed to reassure me?”

  “I offer no more. Hence, will you give over, or do you prefer I take the dagger from you?”

  She tilted her head farther back and considered her childlike hand engulfed in his and the blade jutting from it. In the latter, she saw her distorted reflection beneath Pendery’s towering shape. As difficult as it was to accept another defeat at his hands, she had lost all advantage. Thus, a token struggle was all that was left to her, one that could leave her broken and long in healing.

  She eased her grip.

  “Wise,” he said and took the dagger and released her.

  As he returned the weapon to its sheath, Rhiannyn considered the open doorway. If she could make it past him and get the door closed and the bar dropped into place, might she escape? How many would she have to elude?

  Too many, and Maxen Pendery would be the first to give chase. She glanced back at him and found him watching her.

  “Again, wise,” he said, as if he knew her thoughts.

  She lowered her gaze and noticed the dark streaks coloring his armor. Doubtless, the blood of Saxons.

  “Why have you come?” she asked.

  “There is something I wish to show you.” He took her arm and pulled her toward the window where she had two days earlier watched him ride out from the castle.

  Dreading what awaited her there, certain it would evidence he had accomplished what she had prayed he would not, she allowed him to position her before the window that was too narrow for them to stand side by side.

  “Watch,” he said.

  Acutely aware of his breath stirring her hair and his mailed chest against her back, she struggled to put him from her mind, but he would not budge—not until a clamor arose from the wood.

  Emerging onto the clearing surrounding the castle, Pendery’s soldiers rode on either side of scores of Saxons whose trudging feet hazed the air with the dust of their defeat.

  “I always keep my word,” Pendery said near her ear. “As promised, the sunrise is most spectacular.”
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br />   For Normans, but not the Saxons whose land this was—whose children would be reared in the knowledge they were born to a beaten people if the conquerors were not ousted from England.

  She struggled to hold back tears, but they fell, and a shudder moved through her.

  “Rhiannyn.” It was so softly spoken, it nearly slipped past her. Pendery pulled her around and lifted her chin. “It does not have to be this way.” His voice was gruff, as if he were also pained. But if he was, his ache was rooted in something distant from hers.

  Swallowing convulsively, she stared at him through tears.

  He inclined his head. “I but require a name.”

  Were it as easily produced as he believed, could she speak it? She would have to, for the one he sought was not only responsible for Thomas’s death, but would be responsible for the fate of the Saxons who were now Pendery’s prisoners.

  With anger wrought of helplessness, she swept up a hand and slapped his face. “Death upon you,” she said as his skin flushed red. “Villain! Cur! Nithing!”

  It was the last—coward—to which he responded. He caught the wrist of her offending hand and the other when she raised it to land a second blow. “Let it be, Rhiannyn!”

  She narrowed her lids. “If I do not?”

  “Then chain and manacle will be your constant companions.”

  The thought of being bound made the breath go out of her and her anger slip sideways.

  “Good.” He loosed her and stepped back. “Now, we talk.”

  She clasped her stinging palm with the other and waited.

  “The destiny of those men and women”—he jutted his chin toward the window—“is in your hands. Reveal which of them murdered Thomas, and the rest will live. Hold to your secret, and their lives will be wiped from Norman soil.”

  Ignoring his reference to the land of the Saxons, she said, “You would take the lives of all for one?” She shook her head. “I do not believe you would welcome the slaughter of so many innocents upon whatever conscience lingers in the deepest of you.” Rather, she did not wish to believe it.

  His eyebrows soared. “Innocents? Under Harwolfson’s direction, they pillage and kill no less than those they accuse of doing the same.”

  “Who have done the same!”

  “Regardless, by one or all, justice will be done. And if you think to test me, their deaths will be upon your conscience, not mine.”

  Defiance once more opened her mouth. Helplessness closed it. Lowering her gaze, Rhiannyn stared into the emptiness between them. “Do I tell the truth, you will not believe me.”

  “If it is the truth, it will hold.”

  She shook her head. “Only a lie you are willing to believe will satisfy.”

  “Who killed my brother?” he pressed.

  She raised her chin to better brave his anger. “Thomas had just wounded Edwin when a dagger flew from out of the trees. I did not see, and I do not know, who threw it.”

  His shoulders rose with the breath of what she prayed was patience. “Better a lie I would be willing to believe,” he said, “than the pitiful one you have told.” He closed a hand around her arm. “Come, see what you have wrought.”

  As he pulled her out of the room and down the stairs, her pleas fell on ears deafened to the truth, albeit a truth she had made seem a lie by withholding it.

  Between the gatehouse and the causeway leading up the motte to the inner bailey and its donjon, Pendery pulled Rhiannyn in front of him so she faced the drawbridge over which the Saxons would be herded.

  Feeling the curious regard of those on the walls who had paused to watch them, she tried to turn to Pendery, but his hands held her firm.

  “Watch,” he said.

  “Maxen, I beseech you—”

  “My lord!” he corrected.

  It burned her to address him as such, but if it allowed her to reach him, it would be worth the sacrifice. “My lord,” she choked, “on my life, it is the truth I tell.” She peered over her shoulder. “Hear me. I—”

  “Even if it were the truth,” he said, eyes on the drawbridge that took the first footfalls of the approaching party, “the end would be the same, for to let Thomas’s murder go unavenged would be the downfall of all that is Pendery. I will not allow it. This day, the Saxons learn who is master and who is not. Now watch.”

  Heart beating so hard it hurt, she looked back and saw the first of the captives step onto Norman ground. Having obviously discovered during the clash in Andredeswald that Pendery was not the monk he had pretended to be, they focused their attention on her. Displayed as she was—as the traitor she was not—their eyes felt like daggers.

  Quelling the impulse to declare she had not betrayed them, Rhiannyn clenched her hands as the Saxons, bound one to another, many clutching at wounds, entered the bailey.

  When all were within, her searching eyes revealed the unexpected. Edwin, Dora, and several others were not among those taken prisoner. Dead, then?

  “Where is Edwin?” she asked.

  “Escaped.”

  She jerked her head around. “You did not tell me!”

  “With good reason.”

  Then he had thought if she knew of Edwin’s escape, she might try to save these lives by putting the blame on one whom Pendery could not lay hands to. He understood the workings of her mind—rather, her desperation.

  The Saxons herded before Rhiannyn made her want to slip out of her skin. Even Aethel regarded her with everything opposite fondness. None believed her innocent. If the Normans did not kill her, her own might.

  Pendery released her and strode toward the conquered. “I seek the murderer of Thomas Pendery,” he raised his voice for all to hear. “Deliver him, and your lives will be spared. Deny me, and all will suffer.”

  The silence was so thick with hatred, it was hard to breathe.

  “When your brother welcomes you to the fiery pit, pretender of God,” Aethel finally spoke, “he will tell you who did it!”

  “Death to the murdering Normans!” another yelled.

  A woman stepped forward, straining her bonds. “Death to Rhiannyn the betrayer!”

  Frenzied shouts rose from others, but as Rhiannyn was assailed with imaginings of her demise, the men-at-arms closed around the prisoners.

  Mouth grim, Pendery returned to Rhiannyn. “It falls upon you,” he said. “Which one?”

  “I do not know.”

  “You lie.” He took her arm and drew her nearer the Saxons, making her suffer a closer look at their hatred. “One last chance, then there is bloodshed.”

  Throat constricted, she looked from face to face and wondered if the sacrifice of one could be justified to save the others. And who would bear the burden of that sacrifice?

  She shuddered. “I do not know,” she said again and lowered her gaze. It fell on Pendery’s fists, so tight the knuckles were white.

  “That is your answer, then,” he said, “and soon you will have mine.” He called to a knight, and when the man stepped forward, pushed Rhiannyn toward him. “Return her to the tower.”

  As she was led away, she heard him call out his commands. The Saxons were to be divided, the young and uninjured incarcerated in the cells beneath the donjon, the others—comprised of women, the aged, and the wounded—quartered in the outbuildings of the lower bailey. In the center of that bailey, a gallows would be erected by noon on the morrow.

  Alone in her tower room, Rhiannyn was tempted to loose her emotions as she had on the days past. Instead, she tucked herself tight in the corner of her pallet, and with knees pulled to her chin, prayed for the lives that would soon be forfeited.

  And prayed.

  And prayed.

  Amidst the commotion caused by the disbanding of the Saxons, Maxen called Guy to his side.

  “Aye, my lord?”

  “I seek among the rebels one who bears a shoulder wound.”

  “Many are wounded,” the knight reminded him, “and several likely bear such injuries.”

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p; “This injury will be days old. Too, the man is much my size.”

  His task made easier, Guy said, “If he is among these Saxons, I will bring him to you.”

  If, Maxen mused. The one who had escaped when Dora had sought Rhiannyn’s death might be among the dead left behind at Harwolfson’s camp. Or he could have fled with his leader. But if he was here, he would be the first to suffer.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Curse Rhiannyn! Curse her closed mouth! Curse her for testing me! Curse this flesh for desiring her!

  Waves of anger swept Maxen. But it was not anger alone that wrung moisture from his body where he lay on the bed, clothed in undertunic and braies, covers thrown to the floor. Nor was it anger that made his thoughts turn on drivel. Something else had awakened him from a vision of Rhiannyn clothed in golden hair.

  Heat. It moved beneath his skin, scraping at him with fiery claws as if to dig its way out.

  He sat up. Swaying as he peered into the darkness hanging over his chamber, he slapped a hand to the mattress to steady himself and found it damp. He lifted his other hand and slid its palm down his slick chest.

  Was this heat—this malady—another dream? Or as Christophe had warned, had the wound become infected?

  He searched along his side for the bandages his brother had applied over two days past. In all that time, they had not been tended to in spite of Christophe’s urgings. Now would Maxen pay the price of ungodly obsession? Would the Saxons—and Rhiannyn—stand triumphant over his grave?

  He dropped his feet to the floor and stood, grabbed the bedpost, and staggered against it. Hating himself for his weakness, he bellowed for Christophe.

  Beyond the screen arose the sounds of grunting and grumbling, the screech of benches and hurried footsteps.

  “My lord?” Guy asked as he came around the screen carrying a torch.

  “Where is Christophe?” Maxen demanded.

  “Likely tending the Saxons’ injuries.” Guy’s brow furrowed. “What has happened? Are you ill?”