by Tamara Leigh
Feeling the darkness in him uncoil, Maxen pressed it down, but still his voice was tight when he said, “Who?”
“Dora.”
It was not the fit Maxen expected, but it made sense. He looked sidelong at the rebel. “The witch who tried to bury Rhiannyn alive.”
Harwolfson returned the sidelong look. “The one from whom you saved her, I am told.”
“So I did, but not before killing two of the three who aided her.”
Harwolfson nodded slowly.
“Where is she?” Maxen asked.
“It is months since last I saw her. And that is well with me.”
Might she be dead? Maxen wondered. “Who is she?”
Harwolfson shrugged. “An old Saxon who longs to return to the days before your kind came to our shores.”
Rhiannyn having gone from sight, Maxen turned his face to the rebel. “’Tis obvious she is far more than that.”
“True. It was she who saved my life and claims to be gifted with the sight of things not yet visible to others. But whether she foretells or but guesses well, long days past, she revealed your sister would bear me a son.”
There was more. Maxen was certain of it when he caught a flicker of fear in Harwolfson’s eyes. “What else did she tell?”
“The child must be killed to cleanse it of its Norman blood. And that is where Dora and I came to an end. And shall remain at an end.”
Then justice might never be given. Maxen slowly released his breath, silently vowed that, providing the hag nevermore threatened any he loved, he would not pursue her. With Rhiannyn at his side, he would live this day forward.
Harwolfson sighed. “And now the day must be decided.”
“All of Etcheverry,” Maxen said. “I shall put it to the king, though I do not think it possible.”
“But the battle is more than possible, Pendery. Deliver me these things, and I will submit to the usurper. Deny me and…”
Maxen inclined his head and turned his horse, but before he could dig in his heels, Harwolfson tossed at him, “Why is this so important to you?”
Maxen peered across his shoulder. “Because it is important to Rhiannyn.” Though once he had wished peace to unburden his soul, now he also wished it for the woman he loved. And soon it would be their babe in her arms.
“A lowly Saxon who is but your leman?” Harwolfson scoffed.
“Nay, a Saxon who is my equal. And now my wife.”
Maxen did not think the man’s eyes could grow wider had a dagger been thrust through his chest. But though prepared to glimpse anger and resentment for what had been lost to another man, it was something else. Possibly approval. Assuredly grudgingly given.
Without further word, Maxen spurred away.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
Milk was reluctantly provided, and as Rhiannyn peered into Elan’s downturned face where the young woman lay on her side feeding her child, she was further convinced the best thing for Edwin’s son was to be with his father in the absence of his mother.
Whereas Elan seemed not to want any part of this child, Edwin had long wanted one—so much there had been no question he mourned the lost opportunity of a son more than the death of the woman to whom he had first been betrothed, so much he had readily replaced the lady with Rhiannyn.
Still, the question must be put to Elan.
Rhiannyn glanced at Christophe who stood outside the tent staring at the battlefield. Since her return a half hour past, several times he had stuck his head in, interrupting her prayer to assure her all was yet still while his brother and the king conversed. God willing, it would remain so.
“At last,” Elan said in a quavering voice and drew back from the babe who had drifted into sleep.
Rhiannyn touched her sister-in-law’s shoulder. “Elan, do you think…” She swallowed. “Do you think you will come to love this child?”
A sickly laugh burbled from her. “I wish to begin anew—with Guy.”
Would it be any better with him? Might a child made of their union be loved unlike this one Elan did not want to love? And why did she not? What had made her this way? Was something broken in her, the pieces so far separated they could not knit themselves back together? Was it because, as an only girl amid an abundance of brothers trained hard into warriors, she had been regarded as too delicate to have anything asked of her beyond the effort to look beautiful? Had she never learned that strength and courage hid in hard places that required effort and sacrifice to pull one’s self out? And now, finding herself—albeit by her own making—amid those hard places, could she only flounder, too desperate to return to life as she knew it to grow into someone better?
Rhiannyn sighed. “Elan, you must be sure of what is best for your babe, because what goes upon what could become a battlefield has much to do with this child.”
She squeezed her eyes closed. “I want only to start anew.”
“Without your babe?”
Her lids slowly lifted, bloodshot eyes shifted to her child. With what seemed effort, she raised a hand toward his face, let it hover above his cheek, and lowered it back to her side.
“I want to be happy,” she said, “and he will not make me happy. Guy will.” She looked up, and Rhiannyn thought it a good thing the young woman’s eyes were deeply wet, evidencing she felt some loss. “Aye, without the babe.”
It seemed the best answer under the circumstances, but it made Rhiannyn ache knowing she could so easily turn from her child. “Edwin Harwolfson wants his son. Are you well with it?”
A frown so deep it might ever line her skin grooved Elan’s face. “Is he truly a good man? Will he make a good father?”
“He is, and I believe he will.”
Her nod was slight. “I am well with him. And if not him, the Church.” She drew a long breath. “Now, will you take him away?”
Rhiannyn opened her mouth to answer, but it was not her cracked, crumbling voice that said, “I will take him away.”
Rhiannyn jerked her head around.
The one who had tried to bury her alive stood just inside the tent, her aged figure holding Christophe before her with a blade to his neck.
“You should be dead, Rhiannyn of Etcheverry,” Dora said. “And you will be, but first I will have that babe. Bring him to me.”
“Wh-who is she?” Elan whispered.
“All things bad,” Rhiannyn breathed, and out of the corner of her eye, saw her sister-in-law slip an arm around the infant and pull him close.
“Do it, betrayer!” Dora jerked her hand, causing Christophe to yelp as a thin line of blood appeared beneath his jaw. And yet for all the fear in his eyes, he gave a barely perceptible shake of his head.
“Do it,” Dora repeated, “else I will bleed this whelp just as I bled his brother.”
Rhiannyn gasped. “Thomas? It was you?”
“It is always me, and shall always be ’til England is Saxon again.”
Here was how she had known of Thomas’s curse when Rhiannyn had entered Andredeswald to warn Edwin about Maxen. Dora had not felt it as she had wished all to believe. From the wood where she had thrown the dagger that had spilled Thomas’s life upon a dirt road, she had witnessed it.
“Bring me the harlot’s babe!” she demanded.
Dear Lord, what am I to do? If I do not give her the child, she will kill Christophe.
That was not true, she realized as she held the crazed woman’s gaze. Regardless of whether or not the babe was given her, Dora would kill Christophe, had already said she would kill Rhiannyn, and would surely make an end to the unresistant Elan. And though this child was the son of the man Dora believed to be the savior of the Saxons, she would likely kill him as well.
“What do you intend?” she hedged.
Dora drew more blood from Christophe’s neck, but this time the youth was silent, and Rhiannyn saw the cause in his narrowed eyes, flared nostrils, and thrust jaw. He was too angered to remain afeared, a state rarely more than glimpsed in him. But it would be of no ben
efit if Rhiannyn did not move.
She raised a staying hand. “I will bring him.” She bent over Elan whose eyes were large, breath sharp. As she slid a hand beneath the infant, she whispered, “With my life, I shall protect him.”
Elan whimpered but loosed her son.
Rhiannyn pulled the babe into her chest, and as she straightened, he made sweet little sounds and nudged her breast. She turned to Dora.
“Here!” the old woman ordered.
And when I am near, Rhiannyn thought, she will slit Christophe’s throat, and I will be all the more vulnerable to the same fate whilst I hold this child.
“Release Christophe,” Rhiannyn said, “and I will come to you.”
The bit of color in the woman’s pale, gray face spread. “Bring him to me!”
“First, Christophe.”
Dora’s eyes moved between Rhiannyn, the babe, Elan, and her captive. But then she laughed, swept the blade from Christophe’s throat, and brought its hilt down on his temple.
The youth’s eyes went wide, lids dropped, and he fell at her feet.
“Christophe!” Elan struggled to sit up.
“He will live,” Dora said.
Only for the moment, Rhiannyn knew. “For what do you want the babe?” she asked.
“Ah, Rhiannyn, you know for what. As he is tainted, he must be purified.”
Rhiannyn held the child nearer. She knew the woman was mad, but here was greater evidence of evil. Please, Lord, she prayed, let me keep her distant until I can think what to do.
“Bring him!”
“Edwin wants his son,” Rhiannyn grasped the only argument she could put her mind to.
A twisted thing that could not be called a smile, reshaped Dora’s mouth. “He will have his son, but not this one.”
“Do not!” Elan cried.
Rhiannyn dropped her chin toward her sister-in-law and caught the slight movement of the one at Dora’s feet. Through the hair falling over her eyes, she looked nearer upon the youth. He lay on his chest with his face turned toward her—and stared at her. Rather than render him unconscious, the blow had dazed him.
“My babe is innocent!” Elan cried.
“The better to pay for its mother’s sins,” Dora snapped. “Now should I finish off your brother, or will Rhiannyn deliver me what was promised?”
Though the old woman no longer had hold of Christophe, he remained too near to escape the thrust of her blade. Ignoring Elan’s cry, Rhiannyn moved forward, each purposeful step giving herself and Christophe time to take stock of all that was available to them. There was not much for Rhiannyn with both arms filled, but below her right hand supporting her left arm’s burden was the meat dagger on her belt. She could turn her fingers around the hilt and pull the blade from its sheath, but how to protect the babe while she fended off the attack to come?
Feigning defeat, she lowered eyes that asked of her brother-in-law, How, Christophe?
He thrust his lower jaw forward again, shoved his upper body up off the earthen floor, and slammed his back into Dora’s legs.
The old woman flailed in an attempt to recover her balance, but it was out from under her, and her blade sliced air as she fell backward.
She might have regained her feet, perhaps quickly enough to do what she had come to do, but the crack resounding around the tent told she would not soon rise. If ever.
As Rhiannyn held tight to the babe who had begun to wail, Christophe lurched to his feet. His own meat dagger in hand, he lunged at the old woman.
A step from where Dora slumped against the chest with her neck upon its edge, he halted, and Rhiannyn saw him quake. “I think I have killed her.”
It was not enough to think it, not with one such as she.
Rhiannyn hastened to Elan and passed the babe into her reaching arms before coming alongside Christophe.
As told by the twisted angle of Dora’s head, the slack mouth from which her tongue bulged, and her unseeing stare, she was dead.
Rhiannyn put an arm around the youth. “You did not kill her. That is what she came here to do—to kill the babe, me, and likely, Elan and you.”
“I did not wish her dead,” he whispered. “I just did not want her to…”
Rhiannyn stepped in front of him and clasped his face between her hands. “You saved us. Thus, the only thing for which you are responsible is that we live. This is Dora’s doing, she who either had something foul in her or naught at all. The world is a better place without the darkness she cast upon it.”
He swallowed what sounded like a throat full of tears. “I am not my brothers. I do not want to be.”
“Of course you are not. You are Christophe.” She smiled. “My wonderfully brave brother.”
He closed his eyes long, and when he opened them, his mouth lifted in a sorrowful smile. “What do we do with her?” He jerked his head at Dora.
A good question, but the answer was better—a use for the old woman in death.
Rhiannyn looked to Elan who held her fussing babe close, her eyes yet wild with fright. “’Tis over, Elan,” she said. “You and your son are safe.”
“She is dead?”
“She is. Now Christophe is going to help me with something, but he will be back shortly.” Rhiannyn nodded at the babe. “Methinks the breast might soothe him.”
“What would you have me do?” Christophe asked as his sister set to quieting her son.
“Help me get Dora onto your horse.”
He frowned but did not ask her purpose.
The king was adamant. He would pardon the Saxons alongside their leader, yield up Harwolfson’s son, and had himself offered Elan in marriage in spite of her betrothal to Sir Guy—and the fit her father had thrown which had seen him dragged from the field. But William would not yield Etcheverry Castle and its immediate lands. They were to remain Pendery. But the king did make further concessions.
Hoping they would be enough, Maxen returned to Harwolfson. “King William will pardon your followers, grant custody of your son, and award a demesne of a size to accommodate your people.”
“But?” the rebel leader said, knowingly.
“Not Etcheverry Castle. Blackspur Castle, but rather than a quarter of the Etcheverry lands, he will grant you half.”
Harwolfson’s eyebrows rose. “Etcheverry is not negotiable.”
“The king will give no more.”
“Then I regret we are where we were ere Rhiannyn brought the babe to me.” He jerked the reins to turn his horse.
Maxen grabbed his arm to stay him, causing Harwolfson’s soldiers to react with a clatter of weapons answered in kind by William’s soldiers.
“Think, man!” Maxen said. “Consider the lives spent for something that can never be. And if that is not enough, think of your son growing up without his father, his only title that of being misbegotten. Can you live with it—likely die with it?”
All of Harwolfson tense, so much he began to tremble, he jerked his arm out of Maxen’s hold. “Your problem, Pendery, is that you love, and it makes you more a fool than I.”
“If a fool, one who is blessed as never will you be if you stay this course. Accept Blackspur. The castle nears completion, the land is fertile, and there is water aplenty.”
“And ever I shall be under your watch.”
“As the demesnes border, it is natural our goings-on will be seen by each other, but you will answer to the king, not me.”
“Ah, but should I overstep my bounds, you will be there to rein me in, aye?”
Sensing Harwolfson had shifted nearer Blackspur, Maxen did not rise to his bait. But as he waited him out, a murmur rippled through the ranks on both sides.
“What is this?” Harwolfson demanded.
Maxen followed his gaze around and wished to know the same. Rhiannyn came, this time flanked by two knights, surely ordered by the king to accompany her. But more curious was that though she held no babe as she walked her mount forward, someone was over the back of her horse.
&nb
sp; “I do not know,” Maxen said, hating that she had left the safety gained in returning to Elan. “Will you allow my wife and her escort to draw near, or should I ride to her?”
“They may come.” Harwolfson signaled to his men.
When Rhiannyn was fifty feet out, Maxen saw whom she had brought with her, but before he could speak, Harwolfson exclaimed, “’Tis Dora!”
Maxen looked sharply at him. “You told you had not seen her in months.”
“I have not. I did not know she was here. Is she…?”
“So it appears.” And Maxen did not think it a bad thing, bad being reserved for what had transpired to return Rhiannyn to the field bearing the old witch. But as she neared, he saw no evidence she had suffered harm.
He captured her gaze, and as she came alongside, she said low, “The worst is over. You are to be proud of Christophe.”
Surely she did not mean the youth was responsible for the body draped over the horse?
Rhiannyn shifted her regard to Harwolfson. “Edwin,” she said, “I know ’twas not by your order, but Dora entered Lady Elan’s tent to slay your son and myself, and ’tis likely she would have stolen the lives of my husband’s brother and sister as well had she not been stopped.”
The horror in Harwolfson’s eyes seemed genuine, and when he spoke, his voice was choked. “What of my son?”
“Christophe Pendery defended us well. Thus, the babe was no more harmed than the rest of us. Though I know not where you are in your negotiation with King William, I ask you to consider if you truly wish to stay the course set by Dora.”
Harwolfson’s lips thinned until they were more pale than the rest of him. “Her course is not my course.”
“Not entirely, Edwin, but they converge. Just as she was willing to spill your son’s Norman blood alongside his Saxon blood, so is your army and King William’s willing to spill the blood of your own people alongside your enemy’s.”
He stared.
“Better that, Dora believed,” she continued, “than the two meet and become something wonderful as they have in your son. But I know you do not believe the same, Edwin. Pray, make your peace with William so a better, stronger England can be knit from our two peoples.”