Lord of a Thousand Nights (27 page)

Through the forest of brittle leaves, Ian spied a wide plank resting on its side against the window wall. He ducked over and examined its thin, flat shape. Scanning the right wall that did not connect with Reginald's chamber, he saw a slight gap an armspan wide between some stones.

Crouching down, he fitted the plank into the open slit and pushed. The plank worked its way through the wall and then slid smoothly until it hit a solid barrier. He guessed that if he didn't pull it out again, the keep would be without well water once more.

The postern tunnel and the escape stairs, and now this opportunity for sabotage if the keep fell. Robert of Kelso had been a very clever man.

He removed the plank and left it near the slit, so Reyna would know that he had discovered it.

Returning to the prison chamber, he pulled the door open. Edmund wore a sour expression, and Reginald looked as abashed as a child who had just been whipped. Without a word of farewell to his brother, Edmund joined Ian in the passage.

“I must apologize for him to the lady,” he muttered while they mounted the steps. “My brother can be hard-headed in his simple way. He interprets his duty and
then goes forward, and none can stop him. Useful in battle, but otherwise—”

Ian accompanied him to the hall, where Andrew supervised the laying out of the keep's silver plates on the high table. It appeared that Reyna had decided to honor her friend with the trappings of a feast. Ian told himself he shouldn't mind, since he would derive the benefits of the food, at least. Also, the preparations would occupy Reyna and ensure no private chats with her pure knight for a few hours. Very abruptly Ian decided that a long hunt to entertain his guest in the afternoon seemed like a very good idea.

“Is it your intention to keep Reginald imprisoned?” Edmund asked.

“Until the events at Harclow are settled and there are terms with the Armstrongs, I don't see any choice.”

“He was Robert's liege man, but if you have set a ransom, I will see if the Armstrongs will pay it. If not, I will try to raise it myself. If you could see your way to be generous on this, I would take him back with me, far from here. He would swear not to return.”

“He forswore one oath already.”

“He did not think he did so, but if you prefer,
I
will swear an oath, and promise to keep him with me.”

“I will consider it,” Ian said. “Now, the steward will show you to your chamber. You have been on a horse many days, and I am sure you would like to refresh yourself.”

T
he dinner was almost as elaborate as their wedding feast, and Ian tried to quell the prickling resentment he felt whenever he pictured Reyna fussing with excitement while she cooked the meal. She kept up an
animated conversation with her friend across his body, but Ian could sense the strain with which both avoided the subjects that they most wanted to discuss. Robert's death. Her attempted escape. Reyna's forced marriage to the conspicuously unsaintly Ian of Guilford.

He finally succumbed to a devilish urge to prick the self-satisfied perfection of this archangel.

“Do you normally work at the hospital at Edinburgh, Edmund?”

“I did, as all do, during my training. Caring for the sick is one of the missions of the order.”

“Aye, and liberating Jerusalem is your other great mission, is it not? Have you spent time in the Holy Land?”

Edmund's lips pursed. “The order has not campaigned there during my time, I'm sorry to say.”

“In fact, the holy knights have not fought in the East since the Templars were disbanded, I think,” Ian said.

“There has been talk of a new crusade.”

“Well, there is always
talk
. Tell me, what does a Hospitaller do who neither tends the sick nor fights for God? What are these assignments that bring you south?”

“I am a clerk for the preceptor, and help to attend to the order's properties.”

“Ah. So you travel to collect rents and such? Like a bailiff?”

The insult was subtle, but Edmund did not miss it. “My duties are a little more involved than that.”

“How so?” Reyna asked curiously.

She had never asked Edmund about his life, Ian suddenly realized. Never wondered. He was a saintly monk who talked philosophy with her and who had become Robert's friend, and that was all she needed to know.

“We are pursuing the matter of certain properties granted to us by the Holy Father years ago, but which we
never received. I am trained in canon and civil law, and have been looking into this.”

Reyna's inquisitive mind had been stimulated. “Properties held by others? But if your claims are upheld, you will displace families.”

“Those families knew when they procured the properties that they had no right to them, that the Holy Father had given them to my order.”

“You speak of Templar lands, do you not?” Ian asked, delighted for the opportunity to raise another subject sure to make the Hospitaller uncomfortable.

Edmund shot him a quelling look.

“The Templars were disbanded by the pope over forty years ago,” Ian explained to Reyna. “Their property was to be transferred to the Hospitallers, but in England the King gave much of it to friends instead. Parliament finally passed laws to see it went to the Order of Saint John, but there were many petitions as the families fought the transference. I assume the same happened in Scotland, Edmund?”

“Aye.”

“Why were they disbanded?” Reyna asked.

Edmund grimaced. “They were accused of blasphemy and demonic practices, my lady, and other crimes which are not fit for your ears.”

“And the pope and kings took their gold, and the Hospitallers their lands,” Ian added.

Reyna lifted one eyebrow, showing that she had not missed the possibilities for unjust prosecution there. Ian took some satisfaction in having tarnished Edmund's halo a little.

Reyna and Edmund launched into a discussion of some philosopher. While Ian vaguely listened, he leaned forward and observed his other guests. Anna de Leon
was quizzing Andrew about the stable, deciding which horse she would request for the afternoon's hunt.

Ian decided that he would arrange to have Edmund hunt with Anna. He had heard that she could outride most men and had a bow eye few could match. He smiled at the image of Anna outdistancing her escort and bringing down more game than the perfect, pure knight. He would let Morvan's wife take this Hospitaller in hand, and put him in his place.

Chapter EIGHTEEN

T
hat is the message as it was given?”

“Word for word. Sir Morvan said I am to wait and bring back your answer.”

Ian repeated the message in his head. Not an order, but a request. That had been an acknowledgment on Morvan's part that Ian held Black Lyne Keep through Reyna now, and had not sworn fealty to any man yet.

“Tell him that I will come tomorrow. Now go and get some food, and tell Gregory to see to a fresh horse for you.”

The man left, and Ian paced to the solar's windows. A cool night breeze flowed through them. He wished Reyna were here so he could tell her at once about this.

He had known that the call might come. He had even been resentful when it did not immediately after Black Lyne Keep fell. It had been as if Morvan's refusal of his help at Harclow had been a silent reflection of his opinion of the value of the brigand who had saved his life.

Now, however, the situation at Harclow had become
critical, and every sword was needed. Morvan had been mounting aggressive assaults for some time, and the next fortnight would most likely decide things. Maccus Armstrong showed no inclination to surrender, and the fortress would have to be taken through sheer force.

He wished Reyna were here. Tomorrow they would be separated indefinitely, perhaps forever. He had no illusions that he was invulnerable. Scaling walls and fighting on siege towers was very different from meeting on the open field, and better men than he had fallen during the ensuing carnage. The strange ill ease that he had experienced when riding to face Thomas Armstrong prickled again, and he experienced a soulful need to hold onto Reyna's warmth throughout the hours before they parted.

He wished she were here, but she was not, and he knew where she was instead. Reyna had pointedly invited Edmund to visit Robert's grave with her when the evening meal drew to a close. Ian had watched them depart from the hall together, barely resisting the urge to forbid it. They had left before the messenger from Harclow arrived.

Turning abruptly from the window, he went down to the hall and out to the yard. He mounted the steps to the wall walk and circled to the southern curve that looked out over the small graveyard at the foot of the hill.

What did it matter if she spent time with this man who, of all men, should present no threat? Did he seriously think a seduction was occurring, that the pious knight would try to take her on that consecrated ground? Did he believe Reyna would permit it? His rational mind said nay, he did not, but mental images of their joining invaded his head all the same, feeding the resentment and jealousy that had been growing an ugly, angry edge all day.

He gazed in the direction of the graveyard, barely making out the shadows of crosses over its low wooden wall, thinking he saw two forms sitting in the moonlight beside the central grave.

Edmund the Hospitaller. Noble and learned and chaste. No blemishes on his body or soul, no insurmountable hungers, no damning sins to hide. He was, for all intents and purposes, a younger version of Robert of Kelso. No wonder Reyna had been drawn to him from the first.

He was also, in many ways, the direct opposite of Ian of Guilford. She would not miss the stark contrast. First King Alfred and now Saint Edmund. It had been one thing to compete with the memory of a dead man. This one lived and breathed.

She is not lying with him, but she is giving him parts of herself that she withholds from me.

He stood on the wall, waiting for movement from the graveyard, resisting the urge to go and fetch her. Time passed, and with every moment his irrational reactions grew and his sensible thoughts receded. Tomorrow he would leave her for God knew how long, and she dallied away the last of their time together down there with that man. That she did so unknowingly ceased to weigh much in his anger.

When it seemed an eternity had passed and still he did not see them emerge through the graveyard gate, he turned and strode back to the solar.

R
eyna finished her prayers and sat back on her heels, looking at the folded hands and closed eyes of the knight who knelt across the grave. He appeared a little mysterious in the breezy night.

“It is good to visit here,” she said, trailing her fingers through the soil of the long mound of dirt. Her heart felt full of Robert's memory, and she sensed the comfort of his love and care reaching through eternity to her. “It is good to be here with someone who knew him as I did.”

Edmund shifted and sat on the ground with the grave still between them, a connection more than a separation. “I brought you a manuscript. A copy of one of Plato's
Dialogues
, in the original Greek. It reads differently from the translations, and I do not think you have it.”

“Did you? Oh, Edmund, thank you. Nay, we have no Plato. You must let me pay you for it.”

“It cost me nothing. The preceptor had it in his library, and one of the brothers copied it for me. Besides, I do not think your new husband would want to spend coin thus.”

Reyna knew that Edmund was politely moving the conversation in the direction of her marriage, but she didn't want to discuss that just yet. “It will be a joy to have something new to read.”

He took the hint and they talked about the books he had read and the scholars he had met since his last visit. She envied him the variety of experiences made possible through his man's life near a city. Ian had enjoyed such a life, too, and she wondered how he could ever be content immured in the isolation of Black Lyne Keep.

“I am glad to hear that you still pursue your studies,” Edmund said. “At dinner I could tell that you did, for your ideas were provocative. I hadn't realized when I visited last year how much your mind had grown.”

“I was a girl when we met. Five years is a long time in a young life. I am a girl no longer.”

“Nay, you are not.” His head bowed. “Tell me about his death, Reyna. I have heard—”

“I know well what you have heard. How far has that story traveled? Not to Edinburgh, I hope.”

“Not to Edinburgh.”

She described Robert's abrupt illness and quick death, her voice catching when she related his suffering.

“Could it have been a natural passing, Reyna? The human body is complex, and he was old.”

“It could have been, but it did not look so. No one will believe it was now, anyway.”

“Is there no indication of who did this? No evidence besides that which suggests it was you?”

“Ian always asks questions about it. He wants to find out, so there will not be suspicion about me forever. I have been trying to learn the truth too.”

“And what have you learned?”

“Nothing. I have searched the chambers of those who lived in the keep at the time, not even knowing what I sought. In the end, it was all in vain.”