by Tamara Leigh
Somehow, she had reached that other side of him, and found hope in it—until he asked if she would yield to him, as if theirs was a battle of life and death such that if she did not, she might suffer the same as a knight who refused the one whose blade was against his neck. In her case, she would know suffering if she did yield, for she was not unmoved by his touch. And his kiss, particularly this last one, had fit her too well.
Determinedly, she pulled herself back to this moment when there was no one to prevent her from doing what she must to once more become one with her people—if it was possible.
Though she had not previously ventured out among them, certain Maxen would forbid it, she had watched from a distance as the Saxons built his wall. Long were the hours and strenuous their work, and with only his promise of reward to carry them.
As she descended the causeway, a bucket in each hand, the three kitchen servants who followed her bearing equal burdens, Rhiannyn reflected on Aethel and the four others still imprisoned beneath the donjon. Twice she had attempted to slip past the guard, but had been forced to retreat to avoid discovery. Perhaps with Maxen gone, the guard would ease his watch.
Despite the number of men Maxen had taken with him, he had left behind a great many to ensure the Saxons did not try to take advantage of his absence. And all of those men seemed to be following her progress across the bailey. However, it was not they who roused a shiver of apprehension as she neared the workers. It was fear of her reception.
She wondered if she should have heeded Lucilla’s warning. The woman regularly carried food and drink to the Saxons, and when Rhiannyn had asked to take her place, she had protested. But Rhiannyn had persisted, and it was too late to turn back.
“See who has come down off her fine perch,” called a Saxon man atop the wall.
Rhiannyn recognized him as Peter who, with Aethel, had come upon her in Andredeswald after she had fled Etcheverry. He had not liked her then, and clearly less so now.
The men on the scaffolding, those on the ramps up which the stone was conveyed, the handful working the hoists and pulleys, and the women whose job it was to mix mortar, paused to search out who had caught Peter’s attention. And none appeared any more welcoming.
Rhiannyn set her buckets on the ground. Behind, the three serving women noisily lowered theirs, then came the sound of retreating footsteps, portending she would stand alone.
“I have brought drink,” she said, “and midday bread and cheese.”
A woman named Meghan stepped forward and wiped a forearm across her sweaty brow. “What be a Norman harlot doing among lowly Saxons?”
“A Saxon among Saxons,” Rhiannyn said. “And as I am not Norman, neither am I the harlot you make me to be.”
“Ha!” Peter laughed. “Even were you not, still ye are a betrayer.”
“I did not betray you.”
“Aye?” snapped another Saxon. “Then why do we build a wall against our own when ’tis on the other side we ought to be?”
“It is true I led Pendery to Edwin’s camp,” she said, “but I vow I did so unknowingly. As you were deceived, so was I.”
“We are to believe ye?” Peter asked.
“No doubt, you will believe what you like, but still I would have you hear the truth.”
“A traitor’s truth,” another woman slung at her.
Rhiannyn moistened her lips. “I grew up amongst many of you. You know me, and if you search your hearts, you will see that never would I betray you.”
“I would not see that,” Meghan said. “For the bed of the handsome monk, methinks many a harlot would turn.”
Rhiannyn sighed. Having outworn the argument of her innocence, knowing it would take time and patience for these people to come around, she said, “There is food and drink aplenty.”
Meghan tossed aside her mortar hoe, crossed to Rhiannyn, and looked bucket to bucket. “By the hand of the enemy we are fed.”
“An enemy you have accepted so you might know peace again.”
“Ye think so?”
Fear uncoiled within Rhiannyn. Had they lied to Maxen? Did they plan to rebel? Hoping it was but anger this woman spoke, Rhiannyn said, “I pray so.”
Meghan propped her fists on her hips and lowered her gaze down Rhiannyn’s gown. “The lord be a bit stingy. Of course, he is only concerned with what is beneath.”
The Saxons snickered, as did their Norman guard.
Rhiannyn longed to tell these people she was less than they, that when the wall was completed and they were released to the land, she would still be a captive, but she could not. Even were they capable of pitying her, she wanted none of it.
“The bliaut suits me fine,” she said.
“Easy in, easy out, hmm?”
The snickering grew louder, stirring resentment similar to what Rhiannyn felt during her encounters with Maxen, but she said, “Do you intend to eat?”
Meghan snorted, then knocked Rhiannyn off her feet and slammed her to the ground alongside the great tub of mortar.
Before Rhiannyn could recover her breath, the woman sat upon her and delivered a fist to the left eye. Amidst glaring pain, Rhiannyn knocked aside the next blow and countered with a punch. It was poorly executed, for she had never come to fists, but she caught Meghan hard on the nose and mouth.
The woman yelped, and when she toppled onto her back, Rhiannyn shoved onto her knees and straddled her. “Do you wish more?” she demanded.
Removing the hand clapped over her face, Meghan revealed bloodied teeth and said, “Aye, much more,” and snatched hold of Rhiannyn’s hair and flung her to the side.
Once more on her back, Rhiannyn saw Meghan gain her feet.
“Get up!” the woman said, fight in her stance.
Rhiannyn swept her gaze over the Saxons who had left their work to more closely follow the contest, and their Norman guards who seemed more interested in bettering their view than ending the confrontation.
Reassuring herself Meghan and she were well matched—neither taller or heavier—Rhiannyn said, “Let us end this.”
The Saxon woman breached the space between them and fell on her with flailing fists.
Numerous times over the course of what could have been no more than the spit of an hour, Rhiannyn was the recipient of painful blows, but she gave back much of what she was given.
It was the tub of mortar that decided the contest. Slammed back against its rim, she evaded the next attack by jumping to the side. Meghan, unable to check her headlong rush, doubled over the tub. As she wheezed, struggling to return air to her lungs, Rhiannyn twisted one of her arms up behind her back.
Meghan shrieked. Saxon and Norman voices rising around them, Rhiannyn pressed the woman down toward the mortar. “Would you care for a closer look?”
“I give!” Meghan cried. “Bless it, I give!”
Feeling as if outside herself, Rhiannyn bent to the woman’s ear. “I require more.”
“Speak!”
“No longer will you name me harlot. Nor will you seek to engage me in further scraps.”
At the woman’s hesitation, Rhiannyn pressed her arm farther up her back. “What is your answer?”
Meghan groaned. “Agreed!”
Hardly had Rhiannyn released her than John, the master mason, strode forward. “What goes?” he demanded in poor Anglo-Saxon.
Knowing she appeared a mess in her begrimed clothing and with an eye swelling closed, Rhiannyn stepped before the Norman whose job it was to supervise work on the wall. “A disagreement now settled.”
“Is that right?” He looked from her to Meghan. “I have no need of more trouble than already I am given by this lot of griping Saxons. Return to your kitchen duties and vex me no more, woman.”
Rhiannyn shook her head. “I would stay and work alongside my own.”
“Be gone!”
“But I—”
“Surely you could use one more pair of hands, Master John?” a voice called in her language.
All turned a
nd shaded their eyes to see who stood atop the wall. Looking the lord but for the droll smile curving his mouth, Sir Guy crossed his arms over his chest.
Rhiannyn was surprised he spoke Anglo-Saxon, never having heard him utter a word of it.
“But Sir Guy,” John protested, “see what this one has wrought.” He jerked a thumb toward Rhiannyn. “She will be more hindrance than help.”
“Has she not said the dispute is settled?”
“Aye, but—”
“Put her to work.”
“I do not think Lord Pendery would approve.”
“If there is question upon his return, I will answer to him.”
The man tossed up his hands. “Upon your head.” He turned back to the Saxons. “Be quick about your bread and drink. There is much to do before dark falls.”
As the others moved away, Rhiannyn continued to stare at Sir Guy, who should have been the first to send her back to the kitchen. Why had he not?
His own gaze fixed on her, he swept a hand before him in silent invitation for her to join the others.
She nodded her thanks and turned to the simple meal that would have to sustain her throughout what would be a taxing day for body and mind.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“You will not name Sir Ancel lord of Blackspur as Thomas intended?”
Pleased with all he had seen, though it was less than expected considering the construction on Blackspur Castle had commenced shortly after Etcheverry Castle was raised, Maxen turned to his brother. “Non, it is to be Sir Guy’s reward—unless you would like it for yourself.”
Christophe shook his head. “You know such is not for me.”
“I would have it be otherwise.”
“And I would not.”
Maxen inclined his head. “Then Guy it is.”
“What of Sir Ancel?”
Maxen looked down into the bailey and located the man where he lay stretched out to receive the uncommon warmth of an autumn sun come out from behind the clouds. “As I have said, he cannot be trusted. For certain, he left the dagger for Rhiannyn, and he will continue to seek my death.”
“Then you will have done with him?”
Maxen eyed Christophe, trying again to assess who was beneath the young man’s awkward exterior. “You do not sound averse to his passing.”
“If that is required to rid you of him, I am not.”
“For one as gentle of heart as you, Brother, it surprises you would approve of such means of ridding one’s self of an adversary.”
Christophe’s mouth twitched. “More and more, I fear there are some of whom one can be free only by way of their death.”
“And you believe Sir Ancel is one of those?”
“He beat Rhiannyn and tried to murder you. I know I should not wish the taking of life, but I fear the shedding of the blood of those I care about, far more than the shedding of his.”
“Understandable.”
Christophe stepped nearer. “Knowing what you do about him, why have you not acted?”
Again Maxen considered his brother. Was it only Christophe’s lameness that had shaped him this way? Or did it go deeper? Nils’s death? The horror of Hastings, which he had surely heard much about? Thomas?
“If death it must be,” Maxen said, “the time must be right.”
“When will it be right?”
“I wait for Sir Ancel to decide.”
Christophe’s eyes widened. “Explain.”
Maxen rolled his shoulders to break up the tension that had settled there during the journey from Etcheverry. “If naught else, a dying man ought to be able to choose when he dies.”
“Then you will allow him to draw nearer? To try again?”
“That is the plan.”
“The next time he may succeed.”
“Perhaps, but tell me, would it trouble you much?”
Christophe’s expression turned outraged. “I have lost two brothers. You cannot think I care to lose another!”
“Consider who this brother is,” Maxen said. “Cold-hearted, merciless, brutal—but a few of the words used to describe me, and all deserved. It would be half-truth to defend what I did at Hastings by calling it duty to my liege. Though not alone in what I became, the need to prove myself a man and a warrior well-earned me the name The Bloodlust Warrior of Hastings. I am despicable, so much that two years with God did not cleanse me of those sins.”
Sorrow replacing ire, Christophe laid a hand on his brother’s arm. “You are wrong. No longer are you that man. You proved it with the Saxons when you gave them back their lives.”
“Did I? Or was it but the needs of the flesh I proved?” As soon as the words were out, he wished he could drag them back. What had possessed him to speak them? To open to his brother what he could hardly open to himself?
“Rhiannyn,” Christophe said, and it was not a question.
Maxen shook off his hand and stepped away. “Oui, she haunts me.”
“For her you were lenient with the Saxons.”
“Not entirely for her, but I am not certain I would have been so lenient had she not asked me to show mercy and put them back to the land.” He heard the bitterness in his voice. “It will serve me right if they all turn on me.”
“You think they will?”
“I do not trust them, especially while Harwolfson prowls the wood.”
“Likely, he has gone.”
“Non, he is still there. He wants what is his.”
“The land.”
“And Rhiannyn.”
“To end this, would you give him either?”
Maxen nearly barked with scorn. “As the land is Pendery through King William, even for peace, I could not confer it upon the Saxon rebel.”
“But you could give him Rhiannyn.”
Maxen hated that he recoiled at the thought. If it meant peace, of course he ought to hand over Rhiannyn. And happily. But he could not imagine doing so, and not just because it could mean the death of her if Harwolfson still kept the old crone who had nearly succeeded in murdering her. Something about Rhiannyn appealed to him as no other woman had. Thus, had she yielded, he feared that would not be the end of it—of them.
“Maxen, do you have feelings for her? Love, perhaps?”
He narrowed his gaze on Christophe. “As Thomas wanted her, so do I. That is all.”
A lie, said a voice within. If she follows Lucilla’s advice, you could lose yourself to her.
“It is true she did not return Thomas’s affections,” Christophe said, “but still he loved her—in his own selfish way.”
“And it got him killed.”
“Oui, but you err in believing Rhiannyn is responsible.”
“As you have already told.”
“And will continue to tell until you concede.”
Maxen heaved a sigh. “Is it not enough there is finally peace between you and me, Christophe? Content yourself with that and do not ask me to hold Rhiannyn blameless. She played no small part in Thomas’s death.”
“A similar role to the one I played for you in assisting with her escape, yet am I not innocent of betraying her?”
Maxen backhanded the air. “Enough. I like this peace of ours too much to destroy it with petty arguments.”
“Very well, but there is much unsaid that should be spoken.”
And would be eventually. Without further word, Maxen pivoted and descended the steps.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Only in her untimely grave had Rhiannyn been so filthy. Now, though, it was not dirt that clung to her, but the mortar of a wall raised against Saxons.
The accumulation of five days’ fatigue causing her feet to drag, she leaned against the stable fence to study the wall she had worked upon. Side by side with people determined to keep her out, she had mixed mortar, lugged buckets to the ramps, and assisted in hoisting rubble up the scaffolds. Never had she worked so hard, not even when Edwin had forced her to learn the sword. But it was worth what it cost her.
She had made enough progress with her people to reward the aches and pains. No longer were her ears filled with the malicious words the first three days had heaped upon her. Though now generally ignored, there were moments when she was almost one with the Saxons, such as on the previous day when she had gone for water to thin the mortar and lost her footing. Doused, she had joined in their laughter.
Then there was the pulley that had let go in the midst of hauling a ladened basket up the wall. She had seen it coming and jumped aside, but had been struck by an errant stone. Several Saxons had rushed to aid her, concern upon their faces until they saw she was only bruised. They had grumbled all the way back to their labors. Although she knew the mishap may not have been an accident, she had been comforted by the knowledge some cared—even if they did not wish to.
“Pray, Maxen, stay away a while longer,” she whispered into the coming night that had cleared the bailey of nearly all but the guards stationed atop the walls. Why Sir Guy allowed her to work amongst the others she still did not know, but she did not believe Maxen would permit it once he returned. And if he returned too soon, all she had toiled for could be lost. “A few more days…”
“My lady is saddened?” one of hoarse voice asked.
She swung around and opened her mouth to voice her displeasure at being sneaked upon. But something familiar amid the shadow of the man’s hood held her tongue. Warily, she reached to push it back from his face, but his voice froze her hand midair.
“Do not!”
“Edwin?” she whispered.
He lifted his head just enough to raise the shadow from his face. “You expected another? Maxen Pendery?”
She shot her gaze to the men-at-arms within sight and saw none looked her way. “Certainly not you. How did you come within?”
“As there was no portal open to welcome the true lord of Etcheverry,” he dripped sarcasm, “I had to make my passage by wall. But come.” He slipped a hand from beneath his tattered mantle and grasped her arm. “We have much to discuss.”
Knowing to refuse him would draw attention, she yielded to his pull and, shortly, faced him in the deserted stables.