Once Upon a Knight (20 page)

Until that night.

Nothing foretold of it. They hadn’t planned it, but the night had seemed perfect. It had started moonless enough, and then drenched all and sundry with the force of a cloudburst. All of it had been so advantageous, they hadn’t bothered to scope out an alternate escape route. They’d counted on the velvet texture of the night to cloak and shield them. And then they’d been betrayed. Nature had decided to shut off the torrent of rain and tamp down the mists rising from the grounds. Then it had sent a bright half-moon from behind parting clouds, as well. All of which had shown Vincent clearly how many MacHugh clansmen they faced, how angry they were, and how bent on revenge they were.

All of them.

Vincent wasn’t exactly sure if that was when the fear had reached its apex, or if that was when he’d first felt it changing. He wasn’t sure when, exactly. He only knew it had. One moment, everything had been crystallized into a perfection of permanency, complete with a paralysis that made the very effort of drawing breath difficult, and the next, every moment was so filled with anger and rage and bloodlust that it had colored everything with a reddish haze he still remembered. When he let his guard down enough.

The red was filled with blood. Still. Forever. And it was hollowed out by despair. That was the emotion that had set in as Edward had started it, lifting his sword with a cry that had rent the night with the shrillness of it. And then Edward had taken a blow meant for the laird’s son that had cleaved him almost in two.

Vincent choked back the sob he’d been cursed with as he met Edward’s eyes for the last time. Memorizing the moment in time when his friend and companion died right beside him. And then it was followed by the most frenzied action of his life. Vincent hadn’t known he possessed the ability to wield a sword with stupefying effect. He hadn’t known he had the ability to hack his way through the MacHugh clan like he had the moment Edward Carrick’s body had settled into a motionless heap on the grass.

Bloodlust had filled him then. Making him strong and invincible and dangerous as he’d fought the MacHugh clansmen. Fought them and made a path through them and settled the score of Edward’s death tenfold. And then he’d taken the blow that had ended it, chopping him down from behind. At the knees. One of the MacHughs had taken an ax and used the blunt end to wreak havoc on Vincent with a hacking blow that felt like it had severed his legs. He’d gone down. Hard.

And that’s when the torture had started.

The vibration of the wagon bed woke her. Then the groans, and what almost sounded like sobbing. She’d be better able to tell if her ears weren’t covered over with the ends of her shawl and then further muffled with the blanket to cover the whole. It was the only way she’d been able to sleep.

It wasn’t enough that she was surrounded by more men than she’d ever seen assembled in one place, nor that her husband kept a certain distance from her the entire eve. No. Those men had to sit about the enormous fire they’d made in order to overcook the venison some of them had hunted for sup, fill their bellies, and finish it off with drinking from little dark oaken kegs of ale that had materialized from the sides and backs of their horses. That hadn’t been the worst of it, either. Oh, no. This amount of men, steeped this much in mead, were louder and more boisterous than any fest Eschoncan Keep had hosted. Their voices had gotten progressively bolder, more riotous, and with a celebratory edge she couldn’t mistake. They were obviously happy at finding Vincent. He didn’t look to return it, but they hadn’t seemed to care.

And then they’d started their play that only men seem to find fascinating. Sybil had long since retired to her tent-covered wagon, and Waif with her. He was keeping guard from beneath the wagon. She was safe. Warm. Dry. Sober. She even had dried berries for nibbling on, since their roasted sup had been more upsetting to the belly than filling.

Besides which, she would never have survived the amount of slapping, wrestling, and man-games that they seemed to find amusing. Sybil had no experience with this kind of gathering or this amount of drunken men. She had no tolerance for drunkenness anyway. Life was too short for such idiocy. She wrapped her shawl about her in a cocoon fashion and tried to ignore their man-party. And that was when they’d taken up their singing.

For a man possessing the musical talent of her husband, the noise these men were making should have had him gnashing his teeth. No creature should be allowed to sing with such off-key, drunken voices. And not a melodious one among them. That’s how she knew her husband wasn’t joining them. In fact, the last time Sybil had peeked through the opening in her tent, she’d seen that not only wasn’t he singing, but he didn’t look to be celebrating, either.

He was drinking.

Another groan came from the man who was sleeping beside her, although he was so swathed in separate bedding that he might as well have been on another pallet completely. His shuddering intensified to the point the wagon beneath them was rocking with the strength of each tremor. Sybil pushed the shawl from her head, pulled an arm out of the protection of her coverings, and listened. Aside from the sounds of dripping water, alerting her that the storm had likely abated, there wasn’t much to hear. Unless she concentrated. That was when she heard the grunts, snores, and general sounds of breathing that would accompany a horde of men who had drunk themselves into deep sleep.

The man beside her whimpered. Sybil did exactly what she always did. She reached to check…and touched the clammy sweatiness of his bare shoulder.

Vincent reacted like he’d been slapped.

He was instantly awake and flipped over onto his hands and knees. She could see the menace of him clearly enough in the roof protected fire-enhanced dimness through the tent walls that it started a strange sensation in the pit of her belly.

“Oh,” he whispered finally. “’Tis only you.”

“You were having a bad dream,” she replied in the same whisper.

“I never dream,” he replied with an underlying aggressive tone that came across even if the words were still being whispered. Sybil’s eyebrows rose.

“You overimbibed, then,” she said, taking her tone to a matter-of-fact one.

“I dinna’ drink enough,” came his defensive-sounding tone.

Sybil shrugged. “Verra well. You are suffering the sickness of eating a badly cooked meal.”

“I am na’ sick, either.”

Sybil continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “Your men dinna’ ken the proper way to roast a deer. Nor do they add the correct seasonings. ’Twas enough to make many a belly roil.”

“I am na’ sick,” he replied again, strengthening the volume of his voice to a low rumble of sound, as if that would stop the argument.

“You were shaking and covered in a chill sweat. You still are. Tell me this is na’ true.” She reached out a hand to touch him, but he moved slightly backward to avoid it. She let her hand drop.

“I was na’ shaking,” he said finally.

Sybil giggled. “Dreaming is na’ a sign of weakness, my laird.”

“Laird?” he asked.

“’Tis obvious. These are your clan. And you are their laird. Tell me this is na’ true, as well.”

“This is na’ true.” He parroted her exact tone, if not the pitch. Sybil’s frown deepened.

“You may have allegiance to the Donal, but you are laird of your own clan. This is them. Perhaps na’ all of them, but this is them. Clan Danzel.”

“This is na’ my clan. I doona’ have a clan.”

“Na only do you have a clan, but we’re going to the very heart of it. To your keep. I fancy it is much nicer than you remember. And this bothers you.”

His breath was catching slightly at her words. That was the only clue he gave her that she was right.

“Enough to cause fitful dreams.”

“I was na’ dreaming,” he said again in a tense tone that made her shiver.

“I am rather grateful that you have a home, and that ’tis of a large size.”

“What?” he asked.

“This gives me hope that there are women there. For only women ken how to make a house a home.”

“I have sisters—” He caught his words, and Sybil nearly giggled again at the consternation on his face. “How do you ken all of this?”

“I doona’
ken
anything. I make a guess. I keep embroidering on it. And then I wait for the answers. You are giving them to me. With every spoken word…and every unspoken one.” She lowered her voice at the end of her sentence and watched him flinch ever so slightly. That gave her the answer.

“Unspoken…words?” he asked.

“Everyone gives clues to what they really feel and what they really mean. They do it all the time, Vincent.” She had to pause for a moment to suffer a blush at saying his name. It reminded her too vividly of when she’d last been saying it. And why.

He was moving then, pushing himself back into a sitting position with one crooked leg upward. He had his arms looped about the raised knee and was creating a dark well of shadow at his buttocks that drew her eye. Sybil swallowed the excess moisture in her mouth as she glanced there. She wondered if he did it on purpose and then just asked it.

“Did what?” he asked.

“Put yourself on display.”

“Display?” he asked.

“Aye.” She nodded.

“For what reason? And to what effect?”

Sybil swallowed. “To silence me.”

He huffed out what sounded like amusement. Since his back was to the remnants of their bonfire, she couldn’t tell the exact nature of his expression. Her mind filled it in for her. He was smiling.

“Naught silences you, Wife. Naught.”

Sybil returned the smile and then sobered. “You are entertaining, but you are ever that.”

“Entertaining?” he asked.

“Aye. Everywhere you go, there is a spark. You entertain. Easily and without thought. ’Tis like magic. You arrive somewhere, and everything changes. I doona’ ken yet what it is or how you do it, but I am intrigued.”

“Intrigued?” he asked, and he was lowering his voice exactly like she had and gaining the exact same thing as Sybil pulsed. She was overheated as well, and knew a blush was the cause. She settled for nodding to his question.

“In what way?”

“I doona’ play…the games…men and women…play,” she told him and couldn’t prevent the way her words trembled.

“Games?” he asked.

“You ken what I speak of. You’re a master of it…as well as the other.” Now she knew she was blushing.

She got a flash of teeth as he grinned. “Go on,” he said finally.

Sybil cleared her throat. “I canna’ see your face,” she told him.

“This is important?”

She nodded.

“Why?”

“The words one speaks are always open to question. Sometimes they match the actions. Ofttimes they do not. Do you ken of what I speak?”

He nodded.

“Will you move so I can see your face?”

“Why?”

“So I can use more than what I can hear when I listen to you.”

“Is this another trick?” he asked.

“I doona’ trick.”

He snorted. “Now your words doona’ match your actions. You trick others ceaselessly. Endlessly.”

She shook her head. “I simply watch and listen, and speak about my knowledge when I need to. Sometimes what I believe changes. Sometimes it does na’.”

“You forgot to add the potions you use,” he replied.

Sybil had to look aside.

“I ken exactly what you mean about what one hears na’ matching what really is,” he said.

Sybil rarely had her words turned on her so effectively. She didn’t know what to reply. “This is na’ fair,” she finally said in the silence.

“Fair?”

“You can see all of me. I doona’ have the same benefit.”

“So?”

“You wish a battle of wits or na?”

Vincent had to be grinning. It sounded in his voice. “I do,” he replied.

“A cheated win is nae win,” she told him.

“’Tis still a win.”

“Is it?” she asked, and held her breath while she waited.

Vincent cocked his head to one side. “We’ll both move. To the side. That way we’ll both have the same…benefit.”

Sybil managed to keep the satisfaction deep. It probably sounded in her exhalation, but he wasn’t an expert at reading such yet. He possessed honor and integrity. Deep. They were buried, but still there. She closed her eyes and watched the dwarfish, black shadow-man of her vision enlarge slightly and gain a bit of substance. She didn’t even feel the wagon moving as he shifted sideways.

“You are na’ moving,” he said nearly at her ear.

Sybil slit her eyes open at the same time as her fingers unwrapped the rest of the bedding from about her. Then she was crawling to a spot at the tailgate of the wagon when a hand wrapped about her wrist, stopping her.

“Doona’ move so far away,” he said.

“Why na’?”

He started sliding his hand up her arms, moving her sleeves as he went.

“Because I dinna’ grant you such.”

“Grant it, then.” It wasn’t possible to continue speaking if he insisted on using his thumb and fingers in a caressive fashion.

“Nae.”

“Why na’?” Her breath was coming in shorter panting motions.

“Because I want you close.”

“Why?” She was still in a crouch, stopped midmovement and waiting breathlessly for what he might say, doing her best to ignore the hypnotic motion of his fingers on the soft flesh of her upper arm.

“Are we using honesty in this battle of wits?” he asked. “Right here and right now?”

“Anything else would be cheating,” she whispered.

He nodded slightly. The movement made dark pools out of where his eyes were, and then he blinked. The length of his eyelashes was easily noted on the highlighted eye as he looked back at her. That look sent shivers all over her, until they centered right at her breasts.

“Then I have to admit that I doona’ ken why I want you near me. I only know that I do.”

Sybil sat, putting her at arm’s length to him, since that was the extent he was stretched as he continued to hold to her.

“Right here?” she asked.

He nodded.

“Then let go.”

He shook his head.

“Why na’?”

“Because…touch has more voice to it than words sometimes.”

Sybil smiled in delight. “You ken this? Already?”

“I’ve practiced much of what you say. I just hadn’t given it thought afore. Nor had I considered it a contest. I am doing both of these now.”

Sybil scooted a little closer and put out her hands. “Then hold to my hands instead. Gift me the same.”

He didn’t answer, but he slid his hand back down her arm, leaving a trail of heat, until he had her hand within his. The other hand he held out and allowed Sybil to clasp hers about it, making it equal.

“You will na’ be able to hide from me if you do this,” she whispered.

“And if you make that motion with your mouth again, you will na’ be wasting time on words with it,” he replied.

Sybil gasped, and jerked slightly. He grinned at that.

“You will na’ be able to hide much, either,” he said.

She raised her gaze from the merriment on his features and looked deep into what she could see of his eyes. He’d been so gifted by the fates! To have such Viking-like features, and yet devil-dark eyes? She wondered how many women he’d held enthralled with a look…just as he was her.

“My grandmother was a Donal,” he said.

“What?”

“The Donal clan is large. It’s rich. Has many distinctive features. One of these is dark eyes. Verra dark eyes, the color of damp, dark peat.”

“Why are you telling me this?” she asked.

“You were wondering at the why of it.”

Sybil’s eyes went so wide, they mirrored her mouth.

“Am I right?” he asked.

“Right?”

“I took a guess. Just as you do. You were looking at me with such a strange expression, I decided the why of it could be my coloring. I asked. I got my answer from things you dinna’ say. Tell me I’m right.”

“You’re right,” she replied.

He smiled, and it was such a solid smile that Sybil returned it. “Just as I am right about this horde outside being your clansmen.”

He stiffened slightly, and his smile started to fade.

“They wear blue and black plaid, as is true of all Clan Donal. Even you. But these men have a wide stripe of green added to their sett. This makes it different. This is the sett of Clan Danzel. Am I right?” she asked.

He nodded.

“And you are their laird.”

He didn’t move. He didn’t even blink. Sybil took a deep breath and told him how she’d come to her conclusion. “These men appeared from out of the woods. By the weariness about them, they’d traveled a great distance. They were looking for something or someone…of importance. Their actions told me whom.”