by Tamara Leigh
Theta laughed. “Mayhap you would like to finish cooling our lord, Rhiannyn?” She stepped forward and swiped the saturated cloth across Rhiannyn’s heated cheek. “Or yourself.”
It was always this way between them, though it would surely become worse now that Rhiannyn was of a status beneath Theta’s.
“As you seem to enjoy it,” Rhiannyn said, “I would not deny you the pleasure.”
Theta flashed teeth whose white starkly contrasted with blacker than night hair “I had hoped you would say that,” she drawled.
Wishing herself anywhere but here, Rhiannyn picked up the garments Christophe had brought her and noticed their fine material. They were the ones Thomas had ordered made for her, and which he had presented the day before her escape from Etcheverry. Never worn, both gowns were far from a commoner’s clothing.
Though unadorned, the beige chemise was fashioned of linen woven so tightly it had a sheen that would glide smoothly over her skin when she moved. In contrast, the overgown—the bliaut—was of heavier material, its V neckline, flared sleeves, and hemline embroidered with threads that glinted with gold. Shorter than the undergown, the bliaut would fall to mid-calf, leaving a length of chemise to skim the ground. To complete the look, there was a sash of braided gold strands to define the waist.
The garments were not what Maxen would choose for her. Dare she don them, or should she request something more appropriate?
“Rhiannyn.”
She saw Christophe had come to stand before her. Beyond, only Sir Guy and Theta remained. “Aye?”
“For now, there is nothing more I can do for Maxen,” he said, in that moment seeming more a man than a boy. “He should sleep, but if he awakens, he may wish something to drink. On the table is wine you can give him. I have added herbs for his pain.”
The thought of trying to put drink to Maxen’s lips unsettling her, she asked, “Where are you going?”
“To tend the wounded.”
“The Saxons?” She glanced at Sir Guy and saw from his expression he did not approve.
“Aye.”
Though it was difficult to ask the question that had burdened her since she was brought to Maxen on the night past, she said, “What of the hangings your brother ordered?”
Christophe looked to Sir Guy. “They will wait until he is well enough to witness them himself.”
The knight’s mouth tightened, but he did not oppose the decision.
How long the reprieve? Rhiannyn wondered. For however long Maxen lay abed unable to govern? Or until the fever took him and it was another—Sir Ancel—who carried out the death sentences?
“Do not forget,” Christophe said, indicating the basin of water.
She nodded.
For a long time after he and the others left, she stared at the screen around which they had disappeared. Then she set about keeping her promise to Christophe.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“Maxen!” Rhiannyn cried. “I cannot do this alone. You must help me.”
He kicked, tossed his head side to side, and called for drink in a voice so hoarse it sounded as if his throat were filled with sharp stones.
“Maxen!”
His arm shot out, nearly knocking the goblet from her hand. “Accursed fire,” he growled.
Remembering Christophe’s warning against too much movement, Rhiannyn set the goblet on the table, drew her hand back, and slapped him.
His lids flew open. Eyes bright with the illness gone to his head, he snarled, “Witch!”
Were she of wax, she was certain she would melt from the heat of his stare. “I but try to help,” she said. “You were throwing yourself about, and I feared the stitches would not hold.”
“You feared I might not die.”
“That is not true!”
“Is it not?”
Knowing that to argue with him in his present state of mind would be useless, though in his other state it seemed little better, she pressed her lips tight and tucked a tress of freshly washed hair behind her ear.
His gaze moved from her face to her chest that was clothed in the clean chemise she had donned when his thrashing had interrupted her bathing.
Uncomfortably aware of the thin material, she crossed her arms over her breasts.
His lids lowered, and as she watched the slow rise and fall of his chest, she wondered if he had once more lost consciousness.
“Thirsty,” he mumbled. “So dry.”
“I have drink.” She retrieved the goblet.
He narrowly opened his eyes. “Think you I would take it from your hand?”
Bridling at the suggestion she would poison him, Rhiannyn said, “My hand, or not at all.”
His eyebrows jerked. “Then it must be.” With effort, he levered onto an elbow to receive the goblet’s rim against his lips. Eyes fixed on hers, he drained the contents.
Thinking he would settle back to sleep, she was caught unawares when he gripped her arm, pulled her down onto the bed, and leaned over her.
Distantly aware of the goblet’s clatter, she stared up at the man who blotted out sight and feel of all but him. And when he took her face between his hands and lowered his head, his mouth upon hers was so unexpected she was too shocked to struggle. But once surprise passed, something stronger than the instinct for survival moved through her. She fought it with a litany of transgressions against her people and her person, but it was stronger than the past, and she heard herself sigh.
It was then she discovered Maxen’s motive. He trickled warm wine into her mouth, and though her natural reaction was to expel it, he sealed his mouth over hers, giving her no choice but to swallow or choke. She swallowed.
He lifted his head. “Now if I fall, I do not fall alone.”
Assailed by equal parts indignation and humiliation, Rhiannyn snapped, “If you thought I meant to poison you, you had but to ask me to drink ere you.”
He smiled faintly. “This held more appeal.” Eyes heavily lidded with malaise, he said, “Would you like a proper kiss, Rhiannyn of Etcheverry?”
“I would not!”
He opened his eyes wider, and she saw the predator, though not the one who had chased her through the wood. This one was of want. This one gently slid a hand from her jaw to her neck.
She strained sideways. “Pray, do not—”
“You are not Harwolfson’s,” he slurred.
Though unfamiliar sensations ran through her, she quelled the urge to struggle for fear she would cause him further injury. “Release me. You are ill and—”
“It has been a long time.” He lowered his head and touched his lips beneath her ear.
Rhiannyn knew better than to close her eyes, but she did and felt what no man had made her feel. It was more than a kiss. More than a touch. It was the promise of—
The promise of a Norman! she reminded herself. “Nay, Maxen, you do not want this. You do not want me.”
He moved his lips lower to a place between neck and shoulder.
“Remember Thomas!”
His head came up. Out of feverish eyes, he stared at her, then he dropped onto his back.
Struck by an incomprehensible sense of loss, Rhiannyn could not move. It was as if his had been the arms of—
Of what? she silently demanded. A lover?
She rejected the thought, reminded herself of the arms of her mother, father, and brothers who were dead. She wanted nothing to do with the arms of the enemy—and Maxen Pendery would ever be that to her.
“Never will I forget Thomas,” he said. “And neither shall you.”
She lunged off the bed and distanced herself to the full extent of the chain.
Eyes tightly closed, Maxen groaned.
Was he in pain? Had he further injured himself? She prayed not, hoped the herbs Christophe had put in the wine would give him ease.
Lowering her eyes down him, she saw the coverlet was around his bare calves beneath the hem of his undertunic. She knew she should cover him, but feared going near him aga
in.
“Would you have me summon your brother?” she asked.
When he did not answer, she guessed he had returned to sleep.
While she stood there, she tried not to think on what had happened between them. And failed. Why had she felt something only Edwin ought to make her feel? How was it her enemy had such power over her?
She was still pondering it when Sir Guy came around the screen.
His brow wrinkling as he took in her state of dress, he crossed to his lord and drew the coverlet over Maxen. “He rests well?”
Rhiannyn stepped to where the bliaut lay on the chest and pulled it on over her head. As it settled past her knees, leaving the longer chemise to cover her lower legs and drag its hem in the rushes, she said, “He awoke a short while ago. I gave him wine, and he returned to sleeping.”
“Was he in pain?”
She looked up from knotting the sash around her waist. “He did not speak of any, but I believe so.”
He inclined his head. “What did he speak of?”
She was taken aback by his question. “Little, though he suspected I had poisoned his wine.”
“Understandable.”
She put her chin up. “Because I am Saxon?”
“Because one Pendery has already died because of you.”
Though she accepted the blame, she was sick of hearing it spoken so often by murdering Normans. “How many of my people died because of him?” She jerked her chin at Maxen. “How many innocents did your liege slay in the name of the usurper?”
The knight’s eyes hardened further. “In battle, many were the Saxons who fell to his sword, for which he spent the past two years in repentance.”
“Repentance! All he knows of that is his mockery of it when he donned monk’s clothing and pretended holiness to deceive Edwin and his followers. He does not know God, and never will he.”
“You are wrong. The monk is the truth of him. Since Hastings, and prior to his being summoned to Etcheverry, he served in a monastery. If not for Thomas’s death, he would yet be there.”
Rhiannyn nearly gaped. Upon discovering the identity of the monk who had saved her life, never had she considered he was truly of the brotherhood. She had thought it pretense, the tonsuring of his head an act of sacrifice in the name of revenge.
Reflecting on the night he had preached at the camp, and later when he had stood before the horde and pronounced them sinners for what they meant to do to her, it seemed possible Sir Guy spoke the truth.
Maxen—Brother Justus—had swept away her suspicions by presenting himself as a monk worthy of his station. She had felt God in his words, drawn strength from them, and known a kind of peace before Dora had shattered it with her accusations. Still, the man Rhiannyn had come to know these past days did not fit the monk Sir Guy said he had been.
But as if to push her nearer the truth, she recalled the words Maxen had spoken when he had kissed her.
It has been a long time.
Surely only a man long without the company of a woman would desire one he hated.
She shook her head. “His anger is too great, his manner too vengeful.”
“You are surprised?” Sir Guy raised his eyebrows. “A second brother has been killed, forcing Maxen to renounce his chosen life to hold safe what belongs to his family. Non, Rhiannyn, he is not a saint. No man truly of this earth is. He is but a man who, in one day, lost two things precious to him. And both because of you.”
Yet another lost life upon her conscience. Maxen was not dead—at least, not yet—but the man he had chosen to become after Hastings was no more, and all because she had refused to be Thomas’s wife.
Sorrows multiplying, she looked past the knight to his lord and acknowledged that somewhere there dwelt a human. A man who had given his life to God to atone for the lives he had taken. A man who had risked his life to save hers. But did he yet exist? If so, could he be reached?
“Had I known…” She trailed off, for she did not know what difference it would make had the truth of Maxen Pendery been known.
“You would still be Saxon,” Sir Guy said, “and he Norman. You would protect the one you refuse him, and he would seek him.”
In one thing the knight was wrong. Regardless of who had killed Thomas, if she knew the name, she would speak it to save the lives of all the others.
“I warn you,” Sir Guy said, “If Maxen dies, I will seek your punishment.”
“This I know.” She moved her gaze to his lord’s still form, and heard the knight’s booted feet crush rushes as he departed.
Where was the Maxen of mercy? she wondered. Where was the one with the power to bring peace to Etcheverry? And peace this Norman must bring, for to continue believing the Saxons would one day drive out the Normans was a delusion too long fostered. Barring a miracle, Duke William and his barons were here to stay.
Accepting that hurt even more than Rhiannyn would have believed, but it also gave her hope.
“You will not die, Maxen,” she whispered. “Where you are, I will find you.”
Following a nooning meal accompanied by raucous noise from beyond the screen, Christophe and Theta returned.
Rhiannyn stood and looked to the other woman. “You are not needed,” she said.
Theta’s smirk flattened as she turned from the table upon which she had emptied her armful of bandages. “What speak you of?”
“I will assist Christophe in tending his brother.”
“Truly?” Christophe said.
Theta pushed past him and halted so near Rhiannyn the latter was forced to tip her head back. “As if any would trust you! Is it not enough Thomas is dead because of you? And Maxen may die as well?”
It bothered Rhiannyn that the woman referred to the new lord of Etcheverry with such familiarity, the same as she had done with Thomas even after he had made it clear he would not wed her.
Though Rhiannyn longed to step back so she would not have to crane her neck, she knew it would appear as if she backed down. “Maxen will live,” she said, “and I will assist Christophe to that end.”
“Away with you! Take your chain and cower in yon corner.”
“’Tis you who must leave,” Rhiannyn persisted.
Theta snorted. “She is high and mighty for a prisoner, would you not say, Christophe?”
The young man hesitated, clearly uncertain as to the role he should play in this contest of wills.
“I will not leave,” Theta said and shoved Rhiannyn.
Recovering her balance, Rhiannyn said between her teeth, “And I will not tell you again. Go.”
There would not be a better time for Christophe to prevent a fray, and as if he sensed it, he stepped between the women and took hold of Theta’s arm. Unlike his brother who stood well above him, he came eye to eye with the woman.
“To tend my brother,” he said, “I need only one other pair of hands. As Rhiannyn is willing to lend hers, your time is best spent tending your people.”
Surprise flashed across Theta’s face, but was quickly displaced by anger. “At your side is where I belong, not alone among filthy Saxons.”
Had Rhiannyn not been separated from the woman by Christophe’s body, she might have set herself upon Theta. It was insult enough to be called names by the Normans, but by one who was also of Saxon birth…
“I have spoken,” Christophe said. “Henceforth, Rhiannyn will assist with my brother.”
Theta peered around Christophe and gave Rhiannyn a twisted smile. “’Tis good to know you are as much a harlot as I, but when Maxen is done with you, know this—he will come back to me, just as Thomas would have had you not murdered him.”
Her belief that Rhiannyn’s offer to assist Christophe was an attempt to gain Maxen’s bed was almost laughable, but no laughter spilled from Rhiannyn. The intimation that Maxen had already had the woman to bed was too disturbing.
Hips swinging, Theta withdrew.
“I apologize,” Christophe said. “I should not have allowed her to say su
ch things to you.”
“You are not at fault. Theta says what Theta wants.”
“If not that she is so unmoved by the sight of blood, I would not have anything to do with her. But she serves me well.”
“I understand, Christophe.”
He nibbled his lower lip. “Mayhap you will explain why you have offered to take her place.”
“Sir Guy told me the reason your brother is the way he is—what he gave up to succeed Thomas.”
“You did not know?”
She shook her head. “I thought it a disguise your brother used to deceive me. Now I better understand, and methinks there must be some compassion in him, some way to reach him and prevent more deaths.”
Sorrowfully, Christophe shook his head. “The Maxen I knew of old—years before Hastings—might have been reachable, but this one… I fear not even your goodness and beauty can change who he has become.”
But if he could not be changed, why had he committed his life to God following the slaughter at Hastings? Could one truly incapable of change do something so selfless?
“Methinks you are a dreamer, Rhiannyn.”
She blinked, offered Christophe a strained smile. “And you are becoming a terrible skeptic.”
He shrugged. “Maxen brings that out in others. But come, let me show you what needs to be done.”
She followed him to the bed and watched as he raised his brother’s undertunic and removed the bandages.
“It is not worsening,” he said as he examined the wound, “but neither does it look to be improving.”
“The stitches hold?”
“They do.” He began to instruct her in how to cleanse the wound, and as he spoke, he performed the task and explained his reason for using the salve he had chosen.
“Now you.” He placed fresh bandages in her hands. “When I raise him, pass these beneath.”
They quickly accomplished the task, though more for the strain on Christophe’s arms than the comfort of his brother who slept through it.
“Secure them,” Christophe said and began picking through the items on the table.
Had it been any other whom she passed her hands over, it would have seemed meant for a simpleton. But it was Maxen, and her fingers turned clumsy as they swept smooth muscle.