LadyOfConquest:SaxonBride (27 page)

He cursed loudly. Though it was possible the lady who was not a lady in the truest sense might not inform Pendery of the one who watched outside his walls, he could not risk trying to obtain what was to have been his greatest triumph to date and the cornerstone of the Saxon uprising.

He slammed a fist into a tree trunk and felt the pain of bloodied knuckles, but it did not compare to his rage and desire for revenge. He drew his arm back to strike again, but Dora came to mind.

She would know what to do. She always knew, just as she had known Rhiannyn would betray him with another.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

There was great cause to celebrate. This day, the promised supplies had arrived from Trionne. But though wine and ale flowed freely, the platters of viands were only slightly more generous than in previous weeks.

Many grumbled that they were allowed little taste of the windfall, but the lord of Etcheverry refused to diminish foodstuffs that must sustain them through what could be a harsh winter.

Avoiding his gaze that she felt often upon her, especially this night when she first wore the green bliaut made of his cloth, Rhiannyn moved down the table filling tankards and goblets. When the last of the ale dripped from her pitcher, she returned to the barrel against the far wall. It proved as empty as her vessel.

Had the last one who dipped into it called for another barrel to be carried up from the cellar? If so, was the butler too deep in his cups to do so?

She crossed the hall and descended the steps to the cellar. Aldwin was where he was often found—in a corner slumped on a stool.

“Aldwin,” she groaned, “what am I to do?” His answer a stuttering snore, she retrieved the pry bar with which she had been unsuccessful the last time she had tried to use it and crossed to the nearest ale barrel.

She had just slid the tool beneath the lip when a sound carried to her from the dungeons where Aethel and the others remained imprisoned. She stilled, wanting to go to them, but certain she would not make it past the guard. Though she listened to discover the source of the noise, it did not come again and she returned to the barrel. This time, the lid gave, and she triumphantly laid it aside and dipped her pitcher in the ale.

The sound came again, followed by a throaty laugh. Theta?

Rhiannyn set her pitcher atop an unopened barrel and crossed to the dungeon’s entrance. She peered around the doorframe into the dim corridor where shadows moved on the walls across from the guard’s station.

More laughter, murmurings, and other noises that could be mistaken for pain. Not pain, she knew, for she had heard such sounds when Thomas summoned Theta to his bed and knights took women servants to their pallets.

Rhiannyn wavered between returning to the hall and taking advantage of an opportunity that might not come her way again. With all that stood between her and Maxen—lies, deceit, accusations, misunderstandings—and twice now his mercy upon the Saxons, she knew she should not tempt fate. She really should not.

Fixing her gaze on the moving shadows, she stepped lightly into the corridor and slowly advanced.

In the alcove of the guard’s station, she glimpsed the lovers. As thought, it was Theta whom the guard had lured to his dreary world beneath the castle.

Rhiannyn slipped past the station and headed for the cells around the bend. But upon turning the corner, she halted in this cold, dark place and shivered as memories swelled—days and nights when a vengeful Sir Ancel had asked questions of her whose answers had earned her the abuse of his hands, and sitting bound and blindfolded before a faceless Maxen whose anger and condemnation had made of him a beast. It was as she had imagined hell must be. It must be the same for Aethel and the others.

She retraced her steps, retrieved a torch, and ventured forth again. When she drew near the open cell in which Maxen had first presented himself to her, she kept her eyes trained ahead. Upon rounding the next bend, the silence from the cells ahead made her falter.

The possibility Aethel and the others might no longer be here, and the implications therefrom, too horrible to think on, she told herself they slumbered. It was, after all, near on night.

Not that they would know the moon from the sun in this place,
she reminded herself.

“Who goes?” a voice hissed.

Thanking the Lord, she hastened forward. “’Tis Rhiannyn, Aethel,” she said in a high whisper.

“The harlot,” said another.

“I am here.” Aethel pushed his large fingers through the grate of the door in the end cell where she had passed day after night after day.

Ignoring the faces pressed to the other grates she passed, Rhiannyn lifted the torch and shined it on the small opening to reveal a portion of Aethel’s bearded visage.

“Have you a key?” he asked.

“Nay, I—”

“Why have you come? Did he send you?”

Maxen. “Nay, I am here without his knowledge.”

“Come to pay your last respects ere he hoists us to our deaths?” one of the others sneered.

Rhiannyn wanted to deny it, but she did not know Maxen’s plans. Not since their discussion while she had cut his hair weeks past had he spoken of them. “Has he come to you?” she asked.

“He has,” Aethel said, “bringing lies of food, shelter, and land for all who settle peacefully beneath his rule.”

And they had declined. “Would you rather suffer death than the chance he speaks true?” she asked.

“A Norman speak true?” scorned the Saxon in the cell beside Aethel’s. “Because he beds you well does not mean God speaks through him.”

“He does not bed me,” Rhiannyn protested.

“’Tis what Theta tells,” another hissed.

“Keep your mouths about you,” Aethel snarled.

She was not surprised Theta came here to work her worst upon Rhiannyn’s name. “Theta lies.”

Aethel grunted. “Aye? Is it also a lie you alerted the Normans when Edwin came to free us?”

“Theta revealed them, not I.”

“We are to believe you, the same who led Maxen Pendery to our camp?” Aethel said. “Do you think us fools?”

Heart sinking faster, she said, “’Tis true he followed me, but I did not knowingly lead him to you.”

“Nor knowingly follow him back to Etcheverry after he murdered three of ours, eh?”

His sarcasm cut deep. “I will defend myself no more,” she said, wishing Aethel’s gaze were the gentle one she had often beheld before the Normans. “But I would ask you not to sacrifice yourself for a cause long lost.”

“You are weak,” he rebuked. “Keep your Norman company, but do not think to press us into the service of that devil. We stand with Edwin.”

Though the agreement of the others sounded around her like the closing of a door, she said, “Pray, Aethel—”

A voice raised in anger—Maxen’s—rumbled down the corridor, and was answered by the anxious voices of Theta and the guard.

“He is come,” Rhiannyn gasped.

“Then go to him,” Aethel said.

“Aye, and tell yer lover there be no more Saxons bowin’ to him,” spat another.

Rhiannyn turned and hurried down the corridor. Around the first bend, she realized she still carried the torch. She thrust it into the nearest sconce, then crept along the wall toward the voices coming from the guard’s station.

“Just having a little fun, milord,” Theta drawled. “No harm.”

“No harm?” Maxen said. “What of your duties, guard?”

“I-I have kept them, my lord. There is none come or gone this eve. All is secure.”

Believe him,
Rhiannyn silently beseeched. Later she would find a way past the man.
 

“What of Rhiannyn?” Maxen demanded.

“
Non,
” the guard said. “Had she come, I would have seen her.”

“Mayhap milord is jealous?” Theta’s words were softly vibrant like the purr of a cat. “I did warn if ’twas not you, it would be another. So it be your fault I sought elsewhere.”

“As I do not wish you in my bed,” Maxen said, “I care not with whom you carry on so long as it does not take my men from their duties. Now be gone.”

Rhiannyn caught her breath. Maxen had not lied when he denied having Theta in his bed.

“When you grow tired of Rhiannyn,” the woman said, “you have but to call me to you.”

Maxen gave no answer, and as Rhiannyn listened to the patter of Theta’s retreat, she imagined his glower.

“The consequences will be dire if I find one here who does not belong,” Maxen warned.

The guard cleared his throat. “Upon my word, you will not, my lord.”

Heavier footfalls sounded. And they moved toward the cells.

Rhiannyn swept her gaze around, searching for a place in which to conceal herself. The nearest refuge was no refuge, but the open cell where first she had encountered Maxen. Resigned to it, she hastened down the corridor and entered it just as she heard him round the corner.

Heart beating hard, she slipped into the farthest corner, slid down the wall, and huddled on the floor. Over the arms she wrapped around her knees, she peered at the corridor that was coming to light with the torch Maxen carried before him. Then he was there, rolling back the shadows.

Blessedly, hers held, though only because he had not fully brought the torch within. If he did, he would see her.

He stood unmoving, perhaps also remembering the past—seeing her upon the stool with her hands bound, hearing her declaration she had murdered Thomas, feeling the rage he had not turned upon her.

“Show yourself, Rhiannyn,” he commanded.

She released her breath, pushed to standing, and walked into the light.

His expression was grim, but she did not falter. Halting before him, she said, “I know what you think.”

“What do I think?” he asked tightly.

“That I deceived you again, and though you will not believe me, I tell you it is not so.”

He narrowed his lids. “What was your purpose in coming here?”

“To speak with Aethel.”

“Which I forbade you to do.”

“You did.”

He lowered his eyes over her. “Did you speak with him?”

“I did.”

“What result?”

“The same as yours. He and the others stand with Edwin.”

He nodded slowly. “A pity.”

So the end was near for men who were of no use to him locked away and who could not be trusted outside the cells. “What will you do?” she asked.

“What would you have me do?”

Certain he baited her, she said, “It hardly matters what I wish.”

“Does it not?”

She blinked. “Why do you ask me this?”

After a long moment, he said, “I am not sure myself.”

Might that be good?

He shifted his gaze, and as he slid it over the walls and floors, his face darkened further, and she guessed he remembered the cell as she remembered it—rather, as the predator to her prey.

Eager to be away, she said, “I am ready to return to the hall.”

His eyes swung back to her. “I am not,” he said and took her arm and turned her back into the cell.

As more of it came to light, she saw it was barren but for the stool in the center and chains fastened to the far wall.

“
Non
, Maxen,” she beseeched as he secured the torch in a sconce. “Let us leave this place.”

Wordlessly, he drew her across the cell.

“Maxen—”

He pulled her around to face him. “Sit.”

She glanced at the stool behind. “I do not wish to.”

“Trust me.”

How could she when it seemed he meant her to relive that day? Might this be punishment for seeking Aethel?

“It is not what you think,” he said so solemnly she looked nearer upon him. She could find no anger in his face. Something else was there, but it did not fit the Maxen Pendery who had last been here with her.

Slowly, she lowered herself.

“Close your eyes.”

She startled. “Why?”

“Trust me,” he repeated.

Gripping the stool on either side of her, she let her lids fall. But the memories rushed at her—the foul guard who had brought her here, the figure of a man in deepest shadow, the rope and cloth with which her hands and eyes were bound, the tread of boots.

She threw her eyes open. “I do not like it here. If you must punish me, do it another way.”

“Punishment is not what I intend.” His reassurance was edged with impatience.

“But I did what you forbade.”

He bent close. Face inches above hers, breath warm on her chill cheeks, he said, “I understand your reason. Now close your eyes.”

She blinked several times, and the last time did not raise her lids.

“Do not think, Rhiannyn,” he murmured. “Just feel.”

She did. Too much. “Maxen—”

He touched his mouth to hers, and in a deeply soft voice far different from the one that had demanded Edwin’s whereabouts, said, “I am going to erase that memory. For both of us.”

He also felt the ill of this place? Regretted the fear he had put through her?

She opened her eyes and saw he had lowered to a knee before her. “How?” she asked, heart straining against her ribs.

He pushed a tress out of her eyes, the brush of his fingers around the back of her ear making her tremble. “By putting another in its place. Are you willing?”

What did he ask of her? Kisses? Caresses? More? That which she had bargained away, but he had returned to her? “I do not understand.”

He set his hands to her arms, slid them downward and uncurled her fingers from the seat, placed her hands on his shoulders.

Hardly able to breathe, she looked into the eyes of the man she feared might tempt her to do what she should not.

And when next he spoke, it was in her language, here in this place where he had said he did not embrace her vulgar tongue and had commanded her to speak Norman French. “Hold to me,
leof
.”

Leof
. Was she truly dear to him? Surely he would not speak it unless there was some truth to it, for sweet words were not needed to deliver her to his bed when he had but to collect on their bargain.

“
Leof
?” she said.

He leaned close, his mouth so near she tasted wine on his breath. “
Leof
.”

In that moment, she knew what she felt for him. The door that had swung open to him when he had once more pardoned her people, allowing him to cross to the other side of her, was the one to her heart. This was love—not the love of a child for its parent, a sister for a brother, a friend for a friend. It was the love of a woman for a man who was not the enemy she had believed.