Lord of a Thousand Nights (33 page)

The attack made Aymer decide to end the little drama. “Countess, I have business with my sister requiring she come with me. You and Lady Anna are free to continue on your way.”

“If she comes, so shall we,” Christiana said. “We complete this journey as we began it, together.”

“This is a family matter, my lady, and none of your concern. If you insist in this nonsense, I will have you both tied to a tree.”

“And left to thieves or animals? Either Reyna continues with us, or we follow with you. And you would be wise to take the greatest care with our persons and health. My brother has two thousand at Harclow, and if he comes for you there will be no mercy. As for my husband, his methods are more subtle. You will not even know that he is there until you feel his boot on your neck.” The icy tone crystallizing these quiet words was all the more effective coming from such a delicate, courtly figure.

Reyna was impressed. Aymer was too. He stared flush-faced at Christiana, then turned his horse furiously. “Bring them all,” he ordered. “Leave the man.”

Reyna and Anna fell in next to Christiana. “That was very brave, my friend, but this is unnecessary,” Reyna said. “He will not harm me.”

“He will certainly think twice now if he had planned to,” Anna muttered. “Do you think that fool of a guard Paul actually kept our secret about leaving?”

Christiana rolled her eyes. “Since you all but threatened to slit his throat—”

“Still, a messenger might have come.”

“Even if our husbands find out we left Carlisle, they will not know where we have gone now. Nay, sister, we could be on our own here.”

“Turn back,” Reyna urged.

Christiana shook her head. “I do not trust this brother of yours. You will be safer with us present. It would be useful to know where we are going and why he wants you, though.”

Reyna kicked her horse to a trot and moved through the small company to Aymer's side.

“Do we return to Glasgow?” she asked.

“Nay, but we will go west and then head south. I am taking you home.”

“To Black Lyne Keep?”

“
Home
. You do not belong among Armstrongs and Fitzwaryns, Reyna. You will return to your own people.”

“My father misses me so much?”

“Duncan is an old man. Already a sickness eats at his gut. He has no will to do what must be done, so it is left to me.”

“And what is that, Aymer? What is this about?”

“Land, little Reyna. Isn't it always about land? The devil must have possessed Duncan to give what he did as your dowry. For years I have waited for old Robert to die so that it would return to you as dower lands, and through you to us.”

She sighed at Aymer's predictability. “How impatient were you, Aymer? Did you find a way to hasten his passing?”

“Would that I had possessed the means to do so. Interesting that you ask, though, Reyna. I have assumed all along that you killed him.”

“I had no reason to do so.”

“Didn't you?” Aymer asked slyly. “He was old when you married him, and older when you grew to womanhood. Your mother was a whore, and such is probably your nature too. Did those cold hands content you? I think not, if you so quickly found your way to that knight's bed.”

His tone and look made her very uncomfortable. “It is well that you mention Ian, since the dower lands that you think to control through me belong to him now.”

“Not if he is dead.”

She twisted in her saddle. “You have not—”

“Not yet. I count on his coming for you, though. Let him bring his whole company, or even half of that army Fitzwaryn has raised, so long as he comes himself.” He leaned over and stroked her cheek. She pulled back in revulsion. “You have a whore's blood, Reyna. I count on your having pleased him enough so that he indeed comes for you.”

“You are disgusting to speak thus of your sister.”

The hand stayed on her cheek and stroked again. “Perhaps. But then, you are not really my sister.”

Chapter TWENTY-TWO

C
old. Damp cold and eternal darkness Voices murmuring in the stones, and hands reaching for her, prodding her. Quiet laughter, lower now, close by, and other hands not prodding but caressing, raising a new terror that she did not understand. A new voice, not the ethereal one of a ghost but a living one, chuckling with pleasure at her fear.
You are not really my sister
.

She pressed against the stones, feeling it all, hearing it all, but it was different this time. Her soul experienced none of the terror. A tiny part of her remained rational this time, watching the old fear unfold around her, within her, as if she observed a pageant.

Legs pressed against hers and hands held hers. Real legs and real hands, anchoring her to a time and place, preventing her senses from spinning away from her control.

“He can not keep us here forever,” a voice intruded. A real voice. Whose? Ah, Anna's. “Not even a candle. What is the point?”

“He holds me here until Ian comes,” Reyna heard herself say. Surely she had explained this before, the first night when they camped and slept together with Anna's sword lying amongst them. An eternity ago, before their ride brought them here one night and Aymer had imprisoned them all. Food had been brought, she seemed to remember, but Aymer had not returned.

“He could still give us candles. This crypt unsettles me.”

Aye, the crypt. That was where they were, huddled on the stone floor against the cold wall. If the place unsettled even the brave Anna, perhaps she need not feel so childish herself.

Christiana's hand gripped hers tighter. “You are doing fine, Reyna,” she reassured.

The voices in the stones answered with their inaudible mumbles. High laughter pierced her ears. She clung to Christiana's delicate hand and vaguely remembered it slapping her again and again while someone's screams filled the small chamber.

She gathered her courage, what little there was, and her soul listened for the voices. There had been something familiar about them the last time, something human. She urged them to assault her again, and pressed her legs against her friends.
Come on, damn you
.

And they came, the stones echoing their mumbles, the sound summoning memories long fragmented beneath the terror.

She was in a dark place, and teasing prods poked at her again and again. A finger moved invisibly around her body, and a boyish laugh took pleasure in her fear. The stones themselves grew hands and arms, and whenever she turned they were behind her, jabbing her into a terrified frenzy. Her own voice cried lowly for help, and then
that youthful voice spoke, bored suddenly.
You stay here now, or the demons will get you. I'm going out to watch.

But she didn't stay. She was running through the blackness, following the sound of retreating steps—.

“How long do you think we have been here?” Anna asked.

Forever, maybe. There was no time here. An hour could be a week, a week no more than an hour. The darkness swallowed time.

“From the meals, several days, but I sleep in fits and can not tell if it is night or day,” Christiana answered.

Reyna listened to the soft voices of her companions. They both still clasped her hands, and those smooth grasps felt very real now.

Space and time had righted itself. The pageant had ended, but she had seen the source and cause of that horror. Maybe it had been just a child's game to Aymer at first, but the taste of fear had fed his cruelty over the years. No wonder her soul shrank from his very presence.

Still, she knew that there was more. Something nudged at her mind, tempting her like a sore tooth that one prods despite the pain.
I will be done with this today
, she decided savagely.
I will see it all and it will no longer rule me.

She stared into the blackness and urged it forward. Releasing the hands holding hers, she blanked her mind to her companions' presence.

At first the darkness greeted her benignly, an empty void, but then slowly, subtly, it came alive. The voices emerged again, low and distant and not so threatening. Even the screams that sounded like her own were far away. She was running, running, toward the sounds, following the scruff of boot steps.

Suddenly the fear was new and fresh, and the heart
that she felt inside her was not a woman's heart but a child's. She was streaking with relief toward some light in the distance.

She gasped as the sun almost blinded her eyes and the horrible image filled her mind. For a split instant the picture of herself, limp and dead, hands dangling by her side and face twisted and blue, flashed in front of her.
Not here. That is the other nightmare, not this one.

Hands reached for her, pulling her away, back into the blackness. They shook her roughly, and grabbed her face. “We are here. We are here,” a firm voice soothed.

Anna was embracing her tightly, and Christiana was speaking gently in her ear. She stayed thus for a few moments, and then pressed to disentangle herself. “I am all right. It is over. It will not happen again.”

“We must get her out of here,” Christiana said.

“Aye, you must get me out of here, but not because of this,” Reyna said. “Perhaps Aymer sought to drive me mad. Easy to lock away and forget, then, and who would care? But it has not worked, nor will it. It is over, I tell you.”

“Since that is more than you have said since they threw us in here, I am inclined to believe you,” Anna said.

“But we must get out all the same,” Reyna repeated. “He means to kill Ian. It will be a challenge to individual combat, most likely, but he will have a plan to assure his victory, and it will not be a fair fight.” She contemplated their plight. “This crypt is below the chapel, and that is outside the wall and close to the forest. I wonder if Duncan even knows what Aymer is doing.”

“It does not matter. If we get out, we run,” Anna said. “Do you remember these hills, Reyna? Can you lead us west?”

“I think so. It has been a long while, but the paths can not have changed much.”

“How do we get out?” Christiana asked. “You tried the door after they put us here, Anna, and found it locked. No doubt there is at least one guard outside, and they took your sword.”

“Let us hope that there is indeed a guard,” Anna said. “Not more than one if we are lucky, though. If we can get him to open the door— This is a crypt. There must be something to hit him with. A crucifix, a stone plaque, something—”

She rose and began stumbling around the small chamber. “Here is something. A stone cross.” She grunted from strain, and then cursed. “It is too heavy for me. I hate to say it, but we could use a strong man right now.”

“Since we neglected to bring one, it looks as though we are stuck here,” Christiana said.

“Nay. We will rush him all at once. But we need the door open. You are the one to do that, Christiana. Offer him a kiss or something. The chance of having a comtesse should make him forget his duty.”

“Oh, saints help me,” Christiana muttered. “You had best overpower this guard before it comes to a kiss, let alone
or something
.”

They clustered together and stumbled their way up the stairs. Christiana took her position, and Reyna and Anna pressed against the wall beside the stairway.

Christiana rapped on the door. “Please open the door for just a moment, kind sir. I am feeling most unwell. My companions are already unconscious, and I fear we will all die if some fresh air is not permitted in at once.”

The oak door opened a crack, and dim light leaked down the stairs. The guard's head blocked some of it.

“Could you open it just a little more? I am sure that
they will revive with a bit more air. If you are kind in this, I will be grateful.”

“I am sorry, Comtesse, but my orders were—”

“I will be
most
grateful.”

“Well—if the ladies are as bad as that,” the guard muttered. “It was not the intention for you to be harmed.”

The sliver of his form disappeared from the crack. Moments later the door opened wide, and his dark shape filled the threshold.

They lunged.

Chapter TWENTY-THREE

T
hey had him flat on his back, buried under a tangle of soft bodies, immersed in a chaos of grips and squirms and whispered feminine excitement.