Lord of a Thousand Nights (37 page)

C
onsciousness emerged slowly, barely breaking through the delicious peace. Subtle sounds came to him, and then the awareness that Reyna was not by his side. He began to reach for her, only to find that his arm would not move.

With a rough jerk he burst into wakefulness and glared at the recalcitrant arm. A rope bound it to the bedboard. He turned in shock to find the other hand tied the same way, and looked down to see his ankles restrained as well. He was trussed spread-eagled and naked like some human sacrifice.

He jerked all his limbs in violent defiance. The bed creaked and thudded from the force.

“They are bound securely,” a quiet voice said. “They will not come loose.”

He turned in fury. Reyna stood several paces from the bed, wearing a long, oversized robe that billowed from her shoulders. Something she had found in one of the other chambers, he guessed.

“Untie me. This is very annoying.”

“Nay, not yet. Not for quite a while, I think.”

“Reyna—”

“It is only what you have done to me, Ian. I thought you might like to experience it yourself. How do you feel, my love? Helpless? At my mercy?”

That was exactly how he felt, damn it. “Reyna, I command you to untie these ropes. Why have you done this, anyway?”

“You spoke of punishing me.”

“Saints, Reyna, I was only jesting.”

“I am relieved to hear it, but a little disappointed too. This was to be such a good ploy. To distract you from that idea.”

“You have no need of a ploy. I would never—”

“Still, the ploy suddenly has its own appeal. Perhaps I should see it through.”

“Untie these ropes, damn it, or you will surely need a ploy to distract me when I get free.” He jerked at the bonds again.

She smiled sweetly while the bed crashed and groaned. “I had hours to work on them, and they will not come loose.” She drifted closer and looked down on him. “You really have a magnificent body.” She ran a languid finger down the center of his chest.

He ceased his struggle and looked into her eyes. His whole body reacted to what he saw there. He smiled
his best smile. “Untie the ropes and come lie with me, love.”

She gathered her billowing robe and stepped up on the bed, her feet straddling his hips. “I do not think so. I find that I like you this way.” She began plucking at the lacing down the center of the robe. “I am surprised at how thrilling this is. I mean, you are so big, and I am so small.”

Ever so slowly, she slid the garment off her shoulders and eased it down her body. The fabric fluttered around her feet, rasping his skin like a caress when she kicked it away. She glanced down and smiled. “You seem to like it too.”

He liked it enough that his jaw was clenching. She was not naked beneath the gown, but wore a leather jerkin, a boy's garment a bit too small for her woman's form. It laced up the front as well, the sides separating and half covering breasts that peeked through the crossing thongs. The bottom edge just barely covered her hips. The effect was unbelievably erotic.

“It was a wonderful ploy, darling. Really, I am totally distracted.”

“But I have just begun, Ian.” She stepped forward, one small foot on each side until he was looking up her length, seeing the suggestive shadows beneath the edge of the jerkin. She plucked a pheasant feather out from under the garment. “It is supposed to be a peacock feather, but of course there are none here. You will just have to imagine.”

She bent and began stroking his body. “Oh, you really seem to like this, Ian.” She turned the feather's ministrations to the clear evidence of that.

The exquisite torture teased every inch of his skin.
Furious passion made him jerk at the ropes again. “I want you to untie me
now
.”

“Heavens, you sound angry. I think it would be best if I continued. It seems that I need this ploy, after all.” She scooted down and knelt between his feet. “Besides, what you want is not important just yet. It is what I want.”

“And what is that?”

Her hands stroked up and down his legs while she examined him. “I want to see you while the pleasure builds. I want to watch your body tremble while it begs for relief. I want to hear your cries of need.”

He couldn't believe the forceful desire her words and expression produced. He thought his body would split apart. Still, she had things unrealistically reversed. After all, those were
his
words.

“Do your worst, woman, but remember that eventually you must release me, and then I plan to rebalance the scales.”

“I certainly hope so. Now, lie back and submit, Ian. This could take awhile. I have completed only the first two steps.” She bent and began caressing him with her lips and tongue the way the feather had, slowly working up his legs. Very slowly.

He looked down at her leisurely progress while his body both screamed for completion and relished the delay. Her kisses and tongue reached his knees. Her raised bottom peeked out behind the leather jerkin. “Just how many steps are there?”

“Six,” she muttered, moving upward, upward. She was going to kill him. “Actually, eight when done the Saracen way, but David refused to tell Christiana about the last two.”

He barely heard her. Her mouth was on his thighs
now, and every fiber of him waited and hoped and urged. She rose up on one arm and her curtain of hair blocked his view, but he tightened like a coil when her finger stroked up his phallus and circled. “Is this what you want, love?” she asked. “Is it?”

“Nay.”

“Ah. Then maybe this.” She swung her leg and straddled him on her hands and knees, facing away, her woman's scent inches from his face.

“Move back,” he instructed.

Her breath brushed him, creating an agony of anticipation. “Not yet. Tell me what else you want, Ian.”

His muscles tensed in final rebellion before collapsing helplessly to the pleasure and control. A strangled request tore out of him and her lips replaced her fingers.

All resistance and thought blurred then, except a vague curiosity at what could possibly constitute the later steps.

Chapter TWENTY-FIVE

L
ate blooms filled the garden with a riot of colors and smells. The chaotic beauty drenched Ian's senses. Beside him on the stone bench lay a basket. Two roses peeked over the rim, the petals intended for some delicacy that Reyna planned to cook for the midday meal.

He wondered how long she would be gone on the pilgrimage she had made today. He had agreed to let her visit the old ruins alone, but not without misgivings. He understood her need to confront the memories buried in the dark stones of the old donjon, but he had wanted to go with her in case the terror had not been conquered as thoroughly as she hoped.

He would wait for the sun to move a bit more before following her. Most likely they would meet on her way back, but if she had succumbed to the darkness he would find her before it got too bad.

He tried again to distract himself from his concern by reviewing his plans for Black Lyne Keep. Reyna's confrontation with Aymer implied that the Grahams would
be a lance forever poking at the western border of these lands. The notion of meeting Aymer on the field did not concern Ian. He looked forward to the day he would mete some justice for Reyna's and Robert's sakes. But he wanted his family and people safe when that private war came, and he intended to improve the fortifications over the next few years.

His family and people
. Still an odd-sounding phrase, but a pleasant one. He looked forward to that family. The sons he would raise to be strong and true knights. The daughters—He laughed to himself. The daughters he would probably lock away to protect them from men like Ian of Guilford.

He smoothed out the dirt with his boot and considered the decision he had made last night. A second wall for the keep needed to be built at the base of its hill.

He tried to envision the completed fortifications, and how moving the river would affect them. He poked the stick into the ground. He would draw it the way David had drawn Harclow and see if that gave the images substance. The stick scratched. Here the river, there the square keep on its round hill. The jagged waste over here, the old motte and donjon down below. Now, to move the river—

He abruptly stopped scratching. Standing, he stepped over so that his feet were below the circles of the old fortress. He peered intently at the drawing of square and circles and curving lines.

It almost exactly duplicated the little one on the scrap of parchment that he had seen in Reyna's Book of Hours.

Something was missing, but he couldn't remember what it was. He strode from the garden, wondering why someone had drawn a map of Black Lyne Keep and its lands as seen from the eye of a flying bird.

He found the little Book of Hours on the solar shelf. Flipping through the pages of devotions and images, he found the scrap of parchment. It still looked like something drawn by an astrologer.

He realized what his own map had not included. Two straight lines bisected the old motte and donjon, forming a cross.

He examined the frail and ragged quality of the lines. A Book of Hours was the sort of book one would keep near the dying, reading familiar prayers to comfort them. If Robert of Kelso had drawn this, what was so important that he would use his last strength to do so?

He replaced the book on the shelf, but tucked the little map into his sleeve. It was one more mystery left by the good Robert, and as unlikely to be solved as the others.

He left the keep and climbed to the battlements, then circled around to the south where he could see the old motte in the distance. He narrowed his eyes and peered in vain for signs of Reyna returning. He would wait only a little longer, and then go looking for her.

His gaze fell to the cemetery, and the central cross marking Robert's grave. He remembered standing here, his fury building while he imagined Reyna with Edmund. That jealousy seemed distant and foolish and he knew he would never feel anything like it again. He would never doubt her thus, not if a hundred Edmunds passed this way to talk philosophy.

Nor would he ever again resent her memories of the man buried under that cross. Robert had become a friend of sorts. Hadn't they both arrived here the same way, cut off from family and past, only to stay and build new lives? He was no Robert of Kelso to be sure, but oddly enough he found himself following that man's steps. He smiled at
the irony, because it had been Edmund's more obvious similarity to Robert that had fed his torment that night.

He began to walk away and then paused, frozen for a soundless moment. A scattering of notions poked at his mind in unison, arrows from numerous quivers of memories sighting in on him all at once. He stared down at the cross while he absorbed their onslaught, astonished and annoyed that he had missed such obvious explanations.

He walked slowly to the stairs, mulling what had just occurred to him. Surely he was right, and he thought he knew how to be certain. He would find the proof, and then go and tell Reyna what he had learned. It was not a big mystery, but she would be glad to know the truth, especially on this day when she had garnered her courage to face what she called “all of it.”

Alice's grandsons played in the yard and he called to them. “Come with me. I need small strong bodies, and you look just right.”

Adam and Peter hopped and skipped beside him into the tower. He took a torch from the hall and they marched up to the solar.

He handed Adam the torch and bent down to press the stones that opened the wall to the hidden stairway. He should have done this a month ago, but he just assumed— well, he had just assumed that it was exactly what it was. “Go and stand down two steps to give us light,” he instructed his torchbearer.

The light ducked and disappeared into the wall and Ian followed, bringing Peter. He turned the small boy toward the niche.“I am going to hoist you up and I want you to crawl in and see what is there. I should warn you that there may be huge spiders.”

The idea of confronting huge spiders enthralled Peter. Ian lifted him onto the edge of the deep niche, then took
the torch to raise the light. Peter's rump and legs began crawling away. Soon only one small foot was within reach.

“What is back there?”

“Lots of cobwebs and squishy bugs. Wish you had let me bring a sack. Seems unfair that Adam should miss all the fun.”

“Besides bugs. In the back, isn't there armor and cloth?”

“Aye.”

“Can you get the cloth out without tearing it over-much?”

“It's falling apart. Stinks bad too. What do you want this old thing for?”

“Just hand it to me.” The rump inched backward, and a hand shot out with the tattered cloth. Ian took it and gave the torch back to Adam, then helped a very dirty Peter out of the niche.

Back in the solar, the boys waited expectantly to see the nature of the hidden treasure. Ian didn't have the heart to send them away, and so they flanked him while he carefully unfolded the filthy cloth and spread it over the chair.

“It is only an old surcoat for armor,” Adam said with disappointment.

Ian mentally cleaned the dust and rot off the garment and filled in the sections lost to time. This rag explained much.