Domning, Denise (38 page)

"So, things have changed since I left Graistan, have they?" Gilliam looked down at him with a broad grin on his face, his helmet now tucked under his arm. Then he suddenly looked away, raised his hand, and gave a piercing whistle. "We are here and well," he called in response to the question. "Is all in hand? Good."

Rannulf freed his wife, who came lithely to her feet. He held out his hand to his youngest brother. "Help this old man up, will you?" His sibling easily lifted him to his feet, only to be lightly cuffed in return. "What in God's name were you doing running full tilt into a burning building? If you'd wanted to kill them, you only had to wait outside and they would have come to you."

"I was not thinking well. I was sure you were dead," the young knight said, his voice hardly more than a whisper. "And without having heard me tell you how sorry I was for what I'd said." He put his hands on the shoulders of the only father he remembered, as if he wished to embrace him but feared to do so.

Rannulf had no such hesitation. He stepped forward and threw his arms around the bigger man. "Stop," Gilliam cried, his voice thick with emotion, "my mail will cut you to ribbons, and you are already hurt."

"It is nothing," he said, stepping back. "What little healing remains will go quite quickly now that I am free. And now that I once again have you at my side. You will stay?"

"You would want me back?" It was a hushed and disbelieving question.

"Temric said it was good we'd lanced the boil between us, and he was right," he said. "You came for me when I had no cause to expect it."

Gilliam's eyes clouded with emotion, but he could only shrug as though it were nothing. In his embarrassment, he turned to his sister by marriage. "My lady," he said, smiling at her. "It is a pleasure to find you yet in one piece."

"I am so glad you came," she said.

Gilliam managed a quick bow. "Shall we retire to the south wall, my lady? My tent is across the moat. Rannulf, what would you have me do with her? Do you want her bound or guarded?" A jerk of his head indicated Nicola, who yet cried her heart out at his feet.

Suddenly Rannulf's heart went out to her. For all her odd ways, the tall girl looked like just what she was: a child who had just seen her father killed and her home destroyed in a very bloody fashion. He knelt at her side.

"You promised," she managed to gasp out, "you swore."

"Nicola, I am so sorry," he said, stroking her hair, "I was too late to stop my brother, but mayhap that was for the best. Your father was already dead. I killed him with that blow. No matter your skill, in time, it would have taken him."

"Nay," the little girl in her cried out, but he hushed her and went on.

"You would wish it to be otherwise, but it is not. Gilliam ended quickly what you would have prolonged. And, even if my brother had not done it, the fire would most surely have."

Again she denied his words, jerking back from him as if to be free of his comforting touch and soothing words. "Nay, I could have lowered him out the window."

He drew the girl up to a sitting position until Nicola leaned her head against his broad shoulder, tears now trickling down her face, although she no longer sobbed. "Child, he weighed more than twenty stone. You could not have done it, nor would he have allowed it. He would have commanded you leave him. He had lived his life, while yours is just beginning." Nicola's eyes closed again and, although her tears still fell, she was much calmer. "Hush, and be easy," he said, stroking her hair. "You are not alone. I am vowed to care for you and so I shall." When he tried to draw her to her feet, she resisted. "Stay here until you are ready. We will not leave without you."

"You do this for a traitor's daughter?" Gilliam held his comment until his brother had moved away from the girl.

"You will be good to her, boy, for she has saved our lives. If I had been a moment earlier, we'd have saved John's as well." He lifted a hand to forestall the complaint he saw in his brother's sudden wild and angry look. "It is a long story. Let her lie here and grieve. Where will she go? Now come." He gathered his wife close, and together they walked with Gilliam toward the wall. "Gilliam, tell me, how did you get in so quickly?"

His brother's response was matter-of-fact. "When I was here in March at your lady's behest, I noticed the mortar in that corner of the south wall had gone soft with moisture. I told—him about it as he left Graistan after his wedding. When Walter came to me with his tale, I knew he'd not had time to fix it." He grinned, his handsome face twisted in grim satisfaction.

"I used the ballista to drive a hole right through the already soft foundation, and a whole section came tumbling down. After that I lay a bit of planking across the moat, and we walked right in."

Rannulf stared at the young man in amazement. "God's blood. You will tell me what you've seen in all my other keeps, will you not? This was far too simple for you. We'd better have something stronger here when it is rebuilt."

His wife suddenly gasped and released him to hold herself tightly. "Sweet Mary, I think I will be sick," she breathed. "I need to sit." She was white with her pain.

Rannulf leaned down and grabbed her up in his arms. "Put me down," she gasped out, "you are hurting yourself."

"Nay, not in the slightest," he said. With his wife in his arms, he stepped through the breached wall and outside to freedom once again.

Chapter 23

"You must put me down," Rowena insisted as they crossed the moat. "I am hurting you."

"I will not and you are not. Gilliam's tent is only there"—he indicated with a nod of his head the mess of wains and beasts of burden, armed men and servants that massed at the forest's edge—"just across this bit."

With no further argument, she wrapped her arms more tightly about his neck. She doubted she could have walked even that short a distance. The dull ache of this morn was gone, replaced by a far worse twist of pain that set her teeth on edge and made her want to cry with the hurt it caused her.

When he turned slightly, she gasped, but not in pain. Behind him, and in her line of sight, lay the crumbling ruin of the south wall. Framed in the breach was the still burning manor house. Roofless now, and with only ashes for walls, the supports were still engulfed in flame. One of the massive cross beams had fallen, piercing the floor to enter the grain storage bins that lay below the hall. Fire, fed by the burning stores, shot up its long length.

Smoke also poured from the top of the tower. If Nicola had not released them—she caught her breath and could not even complete the thought.

All too many others had not been as fortunate as they. Around the foundation of the house lay the house servants and men who lived there.

The carnage had spilled out of the bailey and into the moat. Her husband now picked his way through the bodies of the men who had fallen in the battle to hold the wall. Some were Gilliam's, but most of them wore Ashby's armor. She recognized Richard floating in the muddy, reddened water.

Once again Rannulf turned, and she saw the village. What, five days ago, had been so lovely and serene was now a charred ruin. Not one house still stood; dogs and fowl sifted through the wreckage for whatever they would find. But there were still sheep grazing in their meadow, and the cattle—were in the barley field!

"Rannulf," she cried, tensing in his hold, "send someone to chase those cows from that field. That is our crop they are eating."

Her husband laughed. "Only you would think of barley when we've just battled for our lives and barely won by a hand's breadth.

"We will need every bit of what is ours this coming winter," she retorted tartly. "This place is fertile and well managed, and it could supply much of what we need now that it no longer has as many to support. I hope he's not killed them all or who will get the harvest in?"

Rannulf only shook his head and turned so they could both face the village. "He's not killed the peasant folk. Look, look closely. Show me a body lying there." Rowena looked. Unlike the bailey and the moat, there were no bloody, crumpled forms within the remains of the cottages. "He knows better than to cut his nose off to spite his face. If I'd been dead, this would have been part of his inheritance, right, my boy?"

Gilliam only grimaced as they walked past the giant crossbow that was the ballista and the pile of stones that would have been its missiles. "I do not wish to talk about it." He stopped at a large tree beneath which stood his tent.

Her husband kicked out Gilliam's camp stool for her and set her on it. "Would you rather lie?"

She shook her head. "Nay, I am better now," she lied. "Do you think we can leave for Upwood yet? I would be at some friendly place as soon as possible."

"Are you fit to ride?" His eyes darkened in concern.

"I see no difference between sitting here and riding," she replied. "The sooner we are there, the better I will feel." When he still hesitantly eyed her, she added, "Please?"

"If you are certain, love," he said with a nod. "Gilliam, can you spare some men and a few horses to see us to Upwood? We must bide there until the bishop calls us back to Graistan."

"Aye," his brother replied, and turned to a passing man. "Alfred, I want you and ten more men to escort my brother and his wife to Upwood. See to it there are suitable mounts for them."

Rowena sighed and laid her hand against her abdomen, as if her touch could ease the awful tension in her womb. Beneath her breath, so Rannulf would not hear, she murmured, "Hold tight, little one. It will not be long now." Surely, she could bear the pain for just a little longer.

Rannulf had not heard. Instead, he had turned to his brother to ask, "Where did you get the stones?"

Gilliam glanced back at the ballista. "Those? There's a new quarry nearby. Perhaps, he was getting ready to build once again."

"My Sir Gilliam," called a man, coming toward the young knight. He stopped in startled surprise. "Lord Graistan, we thought you were dead!"

"Nay, not yet." Her husband laughed. "Love, this is my brother Geoffrey's ballista engineer, Alain. It is he who is responsible for that hole of Gilliam's. It is good work you've done here, man."

"Aye, when Sir Gilliam told my lord that he needed no more than my little toy"—he waved fondly at his siege engine—"I must admit that my lord had his doubts. But here we are and so it is. My lord," he said to Gilliam, "I've already sent word to Lord Geoffrey that he need do no more in your regard."

"Alain." Three men were coming near, two of them holding a writhing woman dressed in filthy homespun between them. "Look, what we found. These men have had a bit of sport with her, thinking she was one of the house servants before they realized the English with which she cursed them was so odd."

Rowena stiffened, for there was only one whom it could be. She watched from around her husband as Maeve was dragged nearer. The woman's fair hair was wet and tangled with mud. Her face was bruised, her lip cut and still bleeding. The coarse material of her gown had easily torn when the men had taken her.

"Maeve." Gilliam uttered her name in a single cold breath.

At the sound of his voice, the noblewoman stood still between her captors. "Ah, the beardless boy," she spat out as she slowly raised her head. "How did you like the taste of my revenge, eh?" Then she gasped in shock as she saw Lord Graistan standing beside his brother. "Rannulf," she breathed in horror, "but you were locked in. He could not have been quick enough to have freed you."

"Aye, you have failed," he said, calmly but with the same ice in his voice that his brother had revealed. "We are both here." He moved back to stand beside the stool and lay his hand upon Rowena's shoulder. "You have done your worst, and it was still inadequate."

The fair woman's broken and bleeding face twisted in a mask of sudden understanding and rage. "Nay, damn that stupid little bitch. She swore."

"A lie for a liar," her lady threw back. "After the many times that you have used others, I am surprised you did not see it when she used you." Suddenly, she was glad she now faced this woman. It was good that Gilliam's men had brought her here. Eventually, after all was said and done, she would have worried if they'd not found her.

The woman snarled, then turned her colorless eyes on Rannulf. "So, you are not dead. But have you yet opened your eyes? Poor Rannulf, not the virile lover that your brother is. If you did not have Jordan, I might think you incapable. Isotte carried your brother's brat. Whose get will this wife bear since you do not sleep with her?"

"Nay," Gilliam bellowed in pain and rage, grabbing at his sword hilt to draw it and finish what remained of the lady before him.

"Rannulf," Rowena cried out, "do not let him."

Her husband's hand shot out to stop his brother's sword arm. "Hold."

"Let me still her mouth," his brother pleaded. "She will spew foul lies no longer."

Lord Graistan turned to Rowena. "Why do you bid him to stop? She has forfeited her life this day with her actions. No soft wish or gentle plea of yours will save her neck."

"Aye, Maeve has forfeited," she agreed, "if not for us, then for the deaths of Ashby's folk that now lay upon her soul. But she has the right to confess her sins and be absolved before being sent to face her Maker."

"Spare me your prattle," Maeve sneered out.

But Rowena continued speaking. "More importantly, she had asked a question, and she shall have her answer before she dies. I would not have it sit on your brother's soul that he struck out in fear of the past when there is no longer cause for it." The pain that had abated some now grew marginally worse and made her shift uneasily on her stool.

Rannulf stared at her for a long moment, then slowly, he smiled. "You are right. Gilliam, hand me your sword. I would not want you tempted to leap out."

"Nay," his youngest brother said, almost crying in his pain, "nay, you must not listen. Do not let her speak."

"Gilliam."

As the knight reluctantly lay his weapon into his brother's hands, Rowena watched Maeve's eyes glitter with satisfaction. So, the woman still dreamed she had some hold over them, that she could use their past to control them. But it was a dream soon to be shattered.