Lord of a Thousand Nights (40 page)

“Close enough.”

She had promised not to ask about his past. If he had not brought it up himself, she would have pretended Edmund had never spoken and just trusted her love in the Ian she now knew. But beneath its stony defiance, his expression held a pain that wrenched her heart.

“How close?”

He strode over to a candle holder and kicked it furiously. It flew and fell and skidded along the ditch. She calmly retrieved it. When she returned he was standing with the chalice at his feet, bitter resignation written on his face.

“I am going to tell you, but you are not going to like what you hear.”

“Do you doubt my love so soon, Ian? Are you so sure what I will think?”

“I am sure, but I will tell you anyway, because it was not as he said, and when I lose you, let it at least be over the truth.”

He looked toward the waste, as if organizing his memories and forcing them to his lips. “I told you once that I went to a neighboring lord to squire. He had a young daughter. She had hair like fire and skin like snow, and I worshipped her. All those years we rarely spoke and never met alone, because she was kept close with the women and protected. And so, I didn't really know her,
but I loved her with a burning pain anyway. When I got older I would take others, serving girls and whores, and pretend I was with her, and then loathe myself for having dishonored her in my mind. By the time I expected to earn my spurs, she had reached marriageable age, but I knew that was impossible. I was a younger son, and she was not for me.”

He had not said her name, Reyna thought. Nor would he.

“That last year, my father and older brother came to visit on their way back from Windsor. The estates were not far apart, but they had not seen the beauty she had grown into before that. My mother was dead, and my father not yet forty. He offered for her the first night.”

“Oh, Ian.”

“Aye, a moment of pure hell when I heard. Her family was delighted with the match. I swallowed it, but the notion of having the girl I loved as a new mother, the idea of her sharing my father's bed, made me sick.”

“But you did nothing wrong. We can not be blamed for what our hearts feel.”

“Jesus, but you are such an innocent, Reyna. If that were all—” His words were barely audible. “My father stayed. A betrothal was planned for a week later. I feigned joy for him, but it was an agony. For one thing, the girl who had never spoken to me was speaking a lot, suddenly. The eyes that rarely noticed me seemed always to meet mine. Finally, one day, while our fathers were out hawking, she sent me a message asking to meet me in the garden behind the keep.”

“You went?”

“My legs took me there even while my head told me to stay away. I don't know what I expected, but I know what my heart secretly prayed for, and those prayers were
answered, but by the devil. She kissed me, and I had no sense after that.”

He glanced at her, and his look said it all. She did not have to ask what had happened.

“We were found there. The men returned while the hall was in an uproar and her mother was crying. My beloved was frightened and shocked into silence.” His lids lowered. “Even when I was accused of rape, she didn't say a word.”

“How could she remain silent when you were accused? I do not care how frightened she was, she should have spoken. Her great shock makes no sense.”

“It will.” Bitterness dripped in his voice. “My father had a quick temper, and it flared like an oiled torch when he heard. Then and there, in front of the whole household, he challenged me. I pled what innocence I could claim, but within an hour of holding that girl in my arms I found myself in the yard facing my own father with a sword in my hand.”

A horrible thickness lodged in the pit of Reyna's stomach. She guessed how this tale would end, and almost urged him to silence to spare him the pain of telling it.

“She watched. They all watched. I had never experienced such fear and confusion in my life. This was
my father
, and he came at me with fury, and I was sure that I was going to die. But I was young and skilled, and we were more evenly matched than I expected. I do not know how long we fought, but finally he stepped back for a moment. In that pause, I looked over at her, and from her expression I knew that she had planned it, that she did not want the marriage, that she sought him maimed or dead and herself free of him, and that she had used me for that end.”

“Why you? Why not one of the others there?”

“Perhaps she knew that he would be more rash with his own blood. Maybe she had heard that of the squires my sword arm was the best. Most likely she just recognized a fool when she saw one. I turned back and saw my father also looking at her. When his eyes met mine again, I knew that he had seen what I had. And I also saw that we had both been fools, that he had fallen in love with her too. Something went out of him then. You could practically see it fly away. I urged him to end it, but he did not. Perhaps it was pride, but I think it was despair. I hoped I could bring it to a draw. But we were both tiring, and our blows were getting careless. His guard fell, and he all but turned into my blade.”

His jaw flexed and eyes narrowed. Reyna ached to say something to soothe him and ease the guilt written on his face.

“He did not die right away. I stayed with him, and we never spoke of her the whole time. He forgave me and made my brother do so too, and bid my lord come and dub me in his presence. Then he gave me some coin and told me to go to my mother's people, far away from the whispers that were already saying that I had lusted after my new mother and killed my father in order to have her.”

“But it was not so. She was not yet tied to him.”

“A small point, Reyna.”

“An important one. You would have never—if the betrothal had been made—”

He turned smoldering eyes on her. “You are so sure? I confess I am not.”

“
I
am. Nor did you seek to kill your father. How could people speak such slander?”

“People only know what they saw. This tale might
sound very different coming from another mouth,” he said harshly, but the anger was not for her. “I made excuses for her at first. Tried to convince myself she had sought my death, not his. Perhaps she was not a maid, and my rape would provide an explanation for that. I found it impossible to accept that one so young could be so evil. But while I was in London, I heard that she had married my brother. The old lord or the second son would not do for her, but the young heir—that was different. I think that she wanted him from the start, and was dismayed to learn that the offer came not from the son but the father. So she needed my father gone before the betrothal, or the true prize would forever be out of reach. A son can not marry his dead father's wife.”

“Does your brother know?”

“I wondered for a while if he had been a partner in it, but I can not believe it of him. But when I go to Guilford I will find out. And I will let her know that I know she killed my father as surely as I did.”

“You did not really—”

“I did, Reyna. I accepted the truth of it long ago. I am grateful that you try to defend me, though. I thought that you would damn me for this.”

He looked tired, as though the telling of this story had taken most of his strength. She embraced him and hoped he could feel her love. “How could I damn you? You were unjustly accused. Should you have offered your neck to your father's sword?”

“He gave me life. Most would say it was his right to take it away. I was not blameless, and patricide under any condition is unforgivable.”

“Nothing is unforgivable,” she said. “However, I think that you never forgave yourself. I think that you believed
the deed had revealed and determined your nature and you let your soul drift without reflecting on where it went. But in truth your nature is warm and good, Ian. I could never have loved you if I did not sense that.”

“Nay, love, not so good. You make me better than I am.” He turned into her embrace and buried his face against her neck, as if he took succor from her warmth. “I should have shown more strength, and calculated what she wanted from me. It was a hard lesson, but I have been thinking that I learned it too well.”

He finally set her away and lifted the chalice. “There is more, I think. Four lines cross the circle of the ditch. This is just part of it. I thought it would be a few hundred pounds' worth of gold. Nothing like this.”

“I do not care what you decide to do. It belongs to no one.”

“If I hand Edmund over to the church, he will probably never see justice. The ecclesiastical courts take care of their own, and they never execute their clerics. He will claim self-defense with his brother, and there is no proof with Robert. He will spin a tale that they will be glad to believe rather than condemn a Hospitaller.”

“Easier then to give him some gold and send him away. He will leave Scotland if you demand it.”

“It was you he wronged, Reyna. Your husband and friend whom he killed. Your life he endangered. Will this gold satisfy you that you have been compensated?”

Would it? The yellow metal glittered, offering to bury all pain in luxury never imagined. It worked its seductive magic on her in an insidious way, and excuses and rationales seemed to literally flow to her with its glow. If it had this effect on her, what did it do to Ian, who had pursued booty and plunder for years?

“You decide, Ian. I can not. You discovered it.”

He ran his finger along her jaw and tilted her chin up. “It would secure our children's futures.”

“Aye, that is so. You are right.”

“Make this humble keep strong and safe, and buy a house in York or even London.”

“Robert would have wanted us safe.”

He gazed at the gold he held. “Then why do I feel this would be a worse theft than any ransom that I ever asked a town to pay? Keeping it, especially if it means giving some to his murderer—no justice at all for Robert, and not what he planned for this treasure.”

She sensed the battle in him. It mattered not to her love which course he chose, but she wondered if it mattered to him in ways she could only guess. “So, what do we do, Ian?”

He ran his thumb over a blue stone. “Sapphires, I think.” He sighed, shook his head, and smiled ruefully. “Ten years from now, if you are impoverished, I am going to curse myself.”

Little wings of joy fluttered in her chest. “There will be enough for me here. Will there be enough for you?”

He turned his gaze and looked right in her eyes. The gold in his hand ceased to exist. “I love you with all my heart, Reyna. There will always be enough for me if you are mine.”

He placed the chalice and candle holders back in the sack. “We will take these to the keep. Later, after I have sent some men to fetch Edmund, I will come back and dig up the rest. We will send Edmund and the gold and books to Glasgow. We will tell the bishop that the books are for an abbey school, but the gold is to be used to aid the poor and those displaced by war. If I make this sacrifice, I want to expiate a few of my past sins.”

They walked up the motte to their horses. “I will miss the books more than the gold, I think,” Reyna admitted.

“We will send only the ones with Jacques Molay's initials, so it is not all of them.”

She grimaced. “That is all the philosophy.”

“You know it by heart. You can spend the winters explaining it all to me, and I will argue against the logic. The debate should keep your memory fresh.”

“My Book of Hours will have to go. I know that by heart too, but I will miss it.”

“That one stays, I think.”

“It bears the initials, I am sure.”

“I looked before I came here. I saw no initials.”

“On the first page—”

“I think not.” He lifted her onto her saddle.

“Ian,” she said, eyeing him suspiciously.

He looked up with a smile.

Dear saints, what a smile.

“There is such a thing as being
too
good, Reyna.”

Chapter TWENTY-SEVEN

I
will miss this,” Reyna said lazily. She stretched her naked body against Ian's, and the flowers that he had entwined in her hair streamed amidst her tresses over her face and his chest. The late summer sun shimmered her skin with warmth. She soaked in the sensation, knowing that it might be months before they lay near the river like this again. Already some days held winter's chill, and the nights had cooled the water enough that she and Ian had ventured only a brief swim.

“Winter has its own pleasures,” Ian said. “Furs by the hearth fire. Warm spiced wine. Very long nights.”

“And I will get to wear my new gowns. It was kind of David to bring the cloth from Carlisle.”

“They are lovely, although I wasn't picturing you by the hearth in one just now.”

She giggled and propped herself above his chest. “Just as well you got rid of those books on philosophy, Ian. I remember there being sections warning against carnal pleasure. I never paid much attention to those parts, not
having had experience in such things, but now—and those penitentials! Did you know that one of them forbade coupling on Mondays and Thursdays as well as Sundays, not to mention Advent and Lent and dozens of holy days?”