Entreat Me (14 page)

“That’s all?  He’s simply a good host?”  Cinnia eyed her suspiciously.  “Nothing else?”

“No.  Why?”

Cinnia shrugged.  “I just wondered.”  Louvaen exhaled a silent breath of relief when she turned her attention back to the portrait.  “Not nearly as handsome as Gavin, but there’s a presence there.  I wouldn’t want to cross such a man.”

Louvaen followed her gaze.  “No wise person would.”  She passed the candle back to Cinnia.  “We better get to our rooms.  It’s late, and I’m frozen to the bone.”

At Cinnia’s door, Louvaen embraced her sister and kissed her forehead.  “You know I love you, yes?”

Cinnia hugged her hard in return.  “Yes, and I love you too.  I just wish you trusted me as much as you love me.”

Louvaen stroked a hand over the girl’s thick braid.  “The flaw is mine,” she said.  “I’ll bargain with you.  Give me your patience, and I’ll give you my faith.”

Cinnia grinned.  “Somehow I think my part of the bargain will be easier to uphold than yours, but I’m willing.”

In the spirit of their bargain , Louvaen didn’t wait in the hall until Cinnia entered her room but slipped into her own first.  The fire in the hearth had burned low, and she stoked it with the poker.  Her teeth chattered hard enough to make her head ache as she dressed for bed.  The sheets were like ice, and she huddled beneath her mountain of blankets, shivering until her body heat managed to chase away the chill.  She’d be lucky to find sleep before dawn.  Each time she closed her eyes, she saw one man and two faces—the younger Ballard, not yet disfigured but with a demeanor so cold it made the gooseflesh rise on her skin and the Ballard of now.  Not so cold yet so much more maimed and with that same powerful aura captured in the portrait.

She recalled the feel of him under her hands, the frigid lace of vines and symbols interspersed with tracts of hot skin, the sharp angles of his cheekbones and smoothness of his eyebrows.  His hair had been thick; soft dark waves interwoven with coarser silver ones.  Louvaen sighed and burrowed deeper beneath the blankets, wondering how it might feel to have him beside her.  If his body were as hot as the skin of his face and neck, she’d be in a sweat in no time.

“Madness.” She slapped one of her pillows of her head, refusing to think more on the potential of such a scenario.

“I am in hell,”
he’d said in a voice almost as tortured as the cries she once heard him bellow in a cell.

He wasn’t alone.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Ballard faced his king with Cederic of Granthing beside him.  This day had been coming since the two men fostered with Isabeau’s father years earlier.  Decades of antipathy, childhood resentments and adult ambitions had culminated in this moment.  Ballard was only surprised his ongoing war with Cederic would be fought in judicial combat instead of a battle between his forces and Granthing’s on an open field.  Neither man selected a lesser knight to represent him, and Ballard chose death over first blood to decide the winner.

King Waleran was not been pleased.  Ballard of Ketach Tor was his most valuable margrave—loyal, efficient and formidable in both battle and court.  Like his father and grandfather before him, he protected the eastern borders of the kingdom against the enemy state of Barad with a capable hand.  Granthing, of lesser political stature but equal prowess in war had proven himself the finest of warriors.  Cederic had rebelled against his lesser status and sought to replace Ballard as margrave.  Waleran needed both men, but the law held fast.  As a nobleman, Granthing claimed the right of trial by battle.  As the defendant, Ballard chose the punishment for the vanquished.

The morning sun had barely broken the horizon, but a small crowd of administrators and members of the royal family with their retainers were up and gathered beneath awnings to watch the proceedings.  A dense fog lapped at Ballard’s feet and dripped thin rivulets of condensation off his aketon and the steel plates sewn over his vambraces.  The roped arena behind him wasn’t big enough to hold four horses but large enough for him and Granthing as they fought for the one thing that had pitted them against each other since they were pages in the same household – the Ketach Tor demesne.

“Read the charge,” the king commanded his crier.

The crier unrolled a scroll and read the charges to the crowd.  “Cederic, Baron of Granthing lays the charges of forgery and theft against Ballard, Margrave of Ketach Tor over the rights to the dower properties of Isabeau of Leath now Margravina of Ketach Tor.  The plaintiff bears witness that the betrothal contract set out between Dwennon, sire of Ballard and Abelard, sire of Isabeau is false and therefore void.  Cederic, Baron of Granthing claims possession of a true betrothal contract between Abelard and Mercutian, sire of Cederic which cedes these properties and the hand of Isabeau of Leath to Cederic at the time the contract was signed, thereby making the marriage between Ballard and Isabeau null and void and the dower properties no longer under the demesne of Ketach Tor.”

The king looked to Ballard.  “Margrave, how do you plead?”

“Innocent of the charges.”  Even if he weren’t, Ballard had no intention of turning over Isabeau’s dower lands to Cederic.  The properties were not only fertile and profitable but also strategic, offering his armies clear passage to the borders in times of defense of the kingdom.  Had they been nothing more than rocky terrain of scattered scrub grass and no water, he’d still fight for them.  To cede anything of the Ketach Tor demesne meant a constant battle against future claimants of all stripes.  He’d be so busy engaging in judicial combat to hold on to his lands, he’d lose them to invaders.  Granthing, with his short-sighted ambition and envy of the Margraves of Ketach Tor, had to die.

King Waleran accepted the charge and the defense and proclaimed the rules of engagement.  “Battle will begin at full sunrise and end at sunset.  As in melee, you have the right of recess and the safety it offers so you may repair weapons and armor and attend wounds.  Judgment will favor the victor, and the vanquished shall be executed.  Do you still agree to terms?”

Both men answered with firm “Ayes.”

The sun crested the horizon, and the king called out, “Begin.”

Ballard stared at his opponent before they entered the arena.  “You’re a fool, Granthing.  You’ve the favor of the king and a sizable demesne of your own.  While Isabeau cannot be your wife, I’ve no issue if she wishes to be your leman and bear you sons after mine is born.”

Cederic chuckled, a low sound that slowly crescendoed into a hearty laugh.  He wiped tears from his eyes and offered Ballard a wolfish grin full of contempt.  “What uses have I for a pack of sniveling bastards and a tart whose only value is the land you now claim as yours?”  He swung under the ropes cordoning off the arena.  The grin was gone but not the contempt.  “You’re welcome to her and however many brats she whelps for you.”

Ballard’s annoyance over what had been a simple land dispute transformed into a gut-roiling rage.  He clenched his sword pommel until his knuckles bled white.  Isabeau loathed the very sight of him and never lost the opportunity to declare she couldn’t wait to rid herself of his get and leave Ketach Tor.  He accepted her enmity without retaliation.  She’d kept her part of the bargain by marrying him without struggle and accepting him in her bed long enough to become pregnant. He had intended to honor his and let her go.  The touch of guilt he felt at breaking that pledge fled at Granthing’s words.  For all that Isabeau would dance on his grave if Ballard fell in this match, she didn’t deserve Granthing and his contempt.  Ballard intended to take his head.  She’d hate him until death and beyond for doing so.  He only hoped she might realize in the future that her perfect lover had been a corrupt mongrel and learn to love someone else.

“She loves you, Granthing,” he said in a low voice.

They faced each other.  The clang of bucklers against the flats of blades rang in the morning stillness as the two men saluted.

Cederic laughed again and raised his sword.  “They all do, Margrave.  So what?”

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“I see the she-wolf hasn’t torn you apart yet protecting her pup.”  Ambrose spoke from his place at the stall door.  The tiny bits of straw stirred up from the draft swirling through the stable fluttered around him, a few pieces catching in his hair.

Ballard didn’t look up from saddling the gray courser that would take him into the woods for a long overdue hunt.  “It’s Gavin who has to worry about an attack from her, not me.”  He adjusted the cinch strap under the horse’s belly.  “What are you doing here?”

“On my way to check the sheep.  Who doesn’t look forward to freezing their bollocks off shepherding animals dumber than a loaf of bread?”

“Wolves in the castle, sheep in the pastures.  I think one easier to guard than the other.”

Ambrose sniffed.  “The shrew is all bluster and no bite.”

As a recipient of Louvaen’s particular brand of bluster, Ballard shook his head.  “I wouldn’t test it.”  He checked the cinch strap and adjusted a stirrup.  “They’ve been here more than a month, and Gavin has been relentless in his courtship.  If he and Cinnia marry, no one will say it’s a union lacking warmth.  A blind man would have a hard time overlooking Cinnia Hallis’s love for him, yet I feel no different from when she first came to Ketach Tor.  The curse still thrives despite her affection.”

Ambrose rubbed a hand over his face.  “If you don’t count the horn he’s wearing in the front of his breeches these days, I don’t think Gavin feels any different either.”

“So the ‘true love’s kiss’ myth is just that.”

“Aye.  Nothing so ordered and easy could ever trump wild magic born of vengeance.  Besides, with as often as the boy is sticking his tongue down the fair Cinnia’s throat, every curse within eight leagues would be banished if a simple kiss actually worked.”

Ballard peered past his sorcerer’s shoulder to the open door behind him.  “Best keep your voice down.  If Louvaen hears you, I’ll be picking forks out of Gavin for days.”

“Oh ho!  Louvaen is it?”  Ambrose waggled his eyebrows.  “Your protector of virgins is fighting a losing war with those two.”

Ballard strapped his crossbow to the saddle and ignored Ambrose’s questioning expression.  “That may not be a bad thing.  Maybe instead of true love’s kiss, it’s true love’s swiving in the hayloft.”

This time Ambrose glanced behind him.  “You might want to follow your own advice and lower your voice.  I won’t much enjoy picking forks out of you.”  He moved further into the stables.  “No curse would be worth its salt if a swiving could break it.  There’s a detail or a set process—something we’re missing.”

The courser snorted and stamped a hoof, impatient with his rider’s preparations.  Ballard patted the animal’s neck.  Magnus was one of only two horses he’d kept.  An agile mount with the instincts of a predator more than prey, he’d carried his master into war, defended him better than most vassals and rode to the hunt as enthusiastically as the hunters.  He never developed an aversion to Ballard the way the other horses did as the curse changed him.  Ballard wondered if the stallion was as weary of the long years as he was.

“You think as a magician of the right hand path, Ambrose.  Wild magic is left hand power.”

The other shrugged.  “Unpredictable, inconstant, but there’s a thread of reason in all things.  I just need to find the thread.”

Ballard led Magnus out of his stall and swung into the saddle.  “I’ve said it before; we don’t have much time left.”  He snagged the lug spear from where it leaned against a nearby post.

Ambrose blew out a sigh, setting the splinters of straw trapped in his hair to quivering.  “Tell me something I don’t know.”

Magnus’s hooves clopped a muted rhythm on the straw-covered floor as Ballard guided him toward the door.  “Tell Magda to ready her knives and troughs for the morning.  I’m after boar tonight.”

Gone were the days when the hunts drew spectacle as festive as any tournament.  Then, Ketach Tor overflowed with people—servants and yeomen, huntsmen with the quiet, scent-tracking lymers and the big wolfhounds straining at their leashes.  Magda and a small army of women and pages laid out a breakfast at assembly, with the knights hardly able to choke down their food from the excitement of the upcoming chase.  Now it was just him and sometimes Gavin who hunted the hart and boar—a deadly endeavor when hunting the latter, but the animal yielded a lot of meat, and Ballard considered it worth the risk to hunt alone.

Snow cascaded in dancing whorls as he guided Magnus into the trees.  The black hush didn’t mask every sound, and Ballard listened to the occasional squeak of a dormouse or the skitter of claws as a marten climbed amongst the high branches of a birch.  Unlike the great hunts of the past, he hunted in the small hours.  The curse’s progression had done much to maim him but also gave an unexpected boon or two.  He could see as well in darkness as in daylight.  The animal eye shine that startled Louvaen each time she caught his gaze in dim light was a small price to pay for the ability to hunt at any time.

He tracked a path through heavy underbrush, picking his way toward a mud wallow known to attract wild pigs.  Trampled tracks of underbrush and bits of rotten tree trunks torn to shreds scattered the ground.  Ballard noted teeth marks across the trunk of one tree and mud build-up on several others where a boar had rubbed to scratch off dried mud and parasites.  A distinct and foul odor wafted to his nostrils.  Magnus snorted at the scent.  Ears pricked forward, he came to an abrupt halt.  Ballard trusted his courser and waited, spear hefted.

The animal’s instincts held true as a stout black shape burst out of a clot of undergrowth and shot across the path of horse and rider to crash into another patch of bush and bramble.  Ballard didn’t need to touch his heels to Magnus’s sides before the horse leapt after the boar, and the chase was on.  Magnus galloped through the narrow spaces between trees and cleared gullies without missing a step.  Ballard crouched, bent and sometimes rode half off the saddle to avoid decapitation by a low hanging branch.  He held the reins loosely and leaned into the horse’s sharp turns as they chased down their quarry.  For now, his job was to simply stay in the saddle while Magnus did the work of running the boar to exhaustion.

They cornered the creature in a swale where the snow gathered deep and slowed the chase.  It turned to face them, breath steaming from a twitching snout.  A big male possessing a lethal pair of curved tusks guaranteed to slice or puncture, the boar lowered its head, swinging it from side to side.  A line of bristles spiked down its back from shoulders to tail.  Foam cascaded from its mouth, jaws popping as the sharp cutters met the duller whetters.  Magnus’s muscles bunched beneath the saddle.  Ballard took his cue, bracing the spear under his arm and against his side for the inevitable confrontation.  As before, the horse’s instincts were on the mark.  The boar charged, barreling toward them in a violent surge of speed.

Undaunted, Magnus met the charge.  Ballard gripped the horse’s sides with tense thighs, leaned down and aligned the spear, aiming low.  The impact almost jolted him off the saddle’s low cantle and numbed his arm from shoulder to fingertips as he rammed the spear into the boar’s chest, lifting it off its feet.  The spearhead sank through muscle and bone down to the lug bar.  Magnus’s forward momentum flung the skewered animal backward until it struck the trunk of a birch tree.  Ballard let go of the spear as they thundered past, gradually slowing Magnus until they swung a wide arc and trotted back to the kill.  They stopped alongside the squealing boar.  Cloven hooves churned air as it struggled to rise.  Ballard dismounted, patted the snorting Magnus, and unsheathed his sword.