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Cumbria, 1091, A.D.
The odor of death filled the chamber where Fyren lay, its fragrance like the sweetly rotten smell of carrion. Beads of sweat formed on his brow and in the crust of his unshaven beard. His bulky limbs convulsed as he fought to rise, then fell limp. Yet his eyes blazed with a fury so malevolent, Melisande thought she smelled Satan's brimstone.
She stood alone in the chamber, for all his allies had fled. Her hands lapped loosely together and her face was as bland as she could make it. Even now, she dared not show her fear.
Caught in the stiff April wind, the wooden shutter clattered open against the stone wall, startling Melisande from her concentration and whipping pale strands of her hair into her eyes. She crossed to the open window to study the clamor in the bailey below where her unarmed knights stoically awaited their uncertain fate.
The Normans had reached the gate.
She had not counted on them coming so soon. They were only moments from entering the upper bailey, and moments more from the hall. And still, Fyren lingered.
Quashing her fear and setting her face once more to a mask of stone, Melisande returned to the bedside.
"The Norman comes, girl?" The words hissed from Fyren's lips.
"Aye."
"He will kill you."
All her life he had feasted on her fear while she had fought to withhold it from him. She kept her face rigidly controlled. "Aye."
"This is how you repay me. I gave you everything. Taught you things no one else knows."
She said nothing, made no move.
"I am your father. I loved you. Have you no compassion?"
"Compassion? Nay."
"You hate me so much, girl?" His words began to slur. His eyes, once as bright blue as her own, faded as she watched, yet his rage at her audacity had not dimmed.
"You should confess your sins," she replied.
"I do not fear God." Fyren fought to eke out the words. "You will not escape me, Melisande."
"You are but a man, after all."
"You think I die. But I will come for you. You cannot escape."
Even now, he threatened her. Yet Fyren's eyelids sagged and closed. Perhaps it would come now.
But what if he did not die? He was Satan's own, and God would not favor her. That she now dispatched Fyren to Hell meant only that he would be there awaiting her own arrival. And all her suffering in this life would be as nothing compared to what he would do to her then. Fear rose in her like gorge. She gulped it back down.
A whispered voice came from the doorway. "Lady?"
She knew without turning that it belonged to Thomas, by its tone of urgency as much as by its gentle timbre.
"I am here, Thomas."
"Is he gone, then?"
"Soon."
"You must hurry, lady," he said, rushing to the window to peer at the commotion below. "The Normans are already within the gate."
"Aye, Thomas. Soon." She bit her cheek to control her impatience, knowing his anxiety to be as intense as hers, but first she must see this finished. It was her doing. All of it.
Once again, Fyren's fading blue eyes popped open. "A last thing, girl. The purple. As a shroud."
Her lips drew bowstring-tight, like the foreboding that twanged within her. "Aye. 'Tis fitting."
Melisande crossed the chamber to a small, heavily carved chest that had once been a reliquary for the bones of some long-forgotten saint. Now it held only the purple cloak, a sacrilege in itself. She lifted the cloak carefully, not wanting to touch the detested thing, and smoothed it over Fyren's body. A shame, that such a beautiful garment could be such a malicious weapon.
Fyren's breath came in shallow pants. His body lay stiff and motionless. His eyes drooped closed, then his breathing ceased. The stillness of death filled the chamber.
"Is he gone?" Thomas called impatiently. "The Normans approach the hall. You cannot delay longer."
"Come and see."
Thomas approached the bed and lifted the limp wrist, testing the pulse. "Aye, he's gone. Come now, hurry."
Dashing to the chamber door, he peered down at the hall. The clangs of metal and rough male voices resonated against the stone walls.
"It is too late, lady. They are below. Perhaps they will not be so harsh. Who could blame you--"
"The Normans could. For all their violence, they are pious men. Never fear, Thomas. There is another way out, if you will delay them a little. You will do as I ask?"
"Aye, lady. And I will see to the earl."
Melisande turned toward the door, but then pivoted back to face Thomas. "Bury him deep," she said.
Thomas' pale grey eyes reflected his concern and gentle fondness of her. "As deeply as shovel can dig. God keep you safe, lady."
"And you, Thomas. Keep our people safe."
It was as much of a smile as Melisande ever made, that small quirking of her lips at their corners, but she gave him the best she could manage. She had learned early in her life to stifle all signs of emotion, so that she now knew no other way.
Her light slippers padded against the wooden floor as she ran to the door between the chambers and into her own room.
Rough shouts echoed in the bailey.
The demons screamed at her. Flee! The Norman comes!
She set her jaw, refusing to let panic rule her.
You are evil! You are no better than Fyren!
Be still. I have no time for your mischief.
Witch!
I am no witch.
But the Normans would believe it. When the Norman lord learned of the demons that tormented her, taunting her with her own fears, and of all the things she knew that she should not, he would have her burned.
Even before she crossed her chamber, she jerked her silk kirtle over her head. Snatching up a simpler garment of homespun earthen grey wool, she flinched at its scratchiness. But she dared not keep her light linen chemise, for the Normans would know a common girl would not possess such a garment.
Wadding her discarded clothing into a ball, she flung it all into the open chest near the window, and almost closed the lid before noticing her mother's ring on her finger. She hesitated, caressing the carved warmth of the gold band.
Nay. All must be left behind. She jerked the ring from her finger, threw it into the chest, slammed the lid shut, and turned the key.
Footsteps pounded on the bailey's hard earth.
In the far corner of her chamber, Melisande pushed aside a painted wooden panel that mimicked the yellow plastered walls, then crawled through the hole and closed the panel. Down steps hewn into bedrock, she descended in darkness toward a cavern that was as familiar to her as her own bed chamber.
One, two, three-- both hands skimmed against the roughly chiseled stone as she counted the steps. The earl was dead, --eight, nine-- and the Norman had come. The Red King, William Rufus, would win at last the land he had coveted so long. --Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen--. The Norman lord would take the castle in the king's name, then look about for the bride Rufus had promised him. And with any luck, --twenty-five, twenty-six-- he would not find her.
--Twenty-seven.
Standing on the gritty cavern floor, Melisande bundled her fears into a tight little knot and shoved them deep inside her, too deep for her to feel. Deliberately she stretched each finger out from the tight balls made by her fists. She squared her shoulders.
She wished she had had more time to plan, but the word of the Normans' approach had come only the day before. And only then had she learned of the English king's intent to wed her to the new lord. She was fortunate her hastily conceived plan had achieved as much as it had, for at his worst, the Norman could not be as terrible a lord as Fyren had been.
For herself, she had little hope. Perhaps, given more time she might have also succeeded in her own escape. But she had no place to go, so she must hide under the Norman's very nose. But at least Fyren was dead, and his evil cloak would be buried with him. The destruction of the Devil himself could not please her more.
No one had stopped them. Not a sword raised, nor lance flung, from the time Alain de Crency and his knights had crossed the dry moat and ridden through the thick oak gate into the grassless bailey. Soldiers and knights stood about, their arms laid at their feet. Never before had he demanded a surrender and got it without a fight.
And never had he seen a castle quite like this one. Nowhere in the north, in fact, had he seen a stone castle at all. The nearly complete curtain wall of grey limestone seemed new, yet it surrounded an odd assortment of buildings that looked as if they had been around a very long time. An ancient hall of yellow sandstone seemed to march up the hillside, and had a strange wing added at the back that rose into a second story. Beside the hall stood the partially completed shell of a new tower, no defense at all in its present state.
"'Tis odd," said Chrétien, the knight's voice a low, cautious mumble as his brown eyes narrowed.
"How so?"
"I see but three men upon the curtain wall. All unarmed."
"Mmm. What of the hall?" Alain asked him. "Stables?"
"Naught. The defenses seem dismantled."
From the moment Alain had brought his army within sight of the massive stone walls, he had watched for trouble. The king had expected a long siege, believing Fyren would furiously protest this ouster at Rufus' command. But nowhere did he see signs that the castle would be defended. No great stretch of archers along the curtain wall's high allure, nor engines against a siege. Surely it could not be so easy.
Alain jumped down from his great bay charger and slapped the reins into his squire's hand. He strode across the bailey to the hall's paired doors, his eyes taking in all they could see.
"Let me go first," said Chrétien, with the suspicion of a battle-hardened veteran.
"Nay." Alain shook his head as reached the steps. The paired doors stood open. Did the earl's daughter hide within to attack him as he entered?
But no great army hid in the hall's dim light. Inside, he saw the same ancient Celtic appearance, spacious and stark, as the exterior. Massive beams supported a lead roof. --Unusual, outside a church.
"Ah. A monastery. This was a monastery."
Chrétien's only response was the questioning arch of his brown brows.
Beyond the dais at the hall's far end, a silver-haired Saxon knight descended open wooden stairs and presented himself before them.
"I am Thomas," the knight said. "I know what you suspect, lord, that a trap awaits you, but there is none. The Lord Fyren has died just this last hour, and his daughter Lady Melisande bids me cede the castle to you."
Alain glanced at Chrétien, whose surprise equaled his own. "Fyren is dead?"
"Aye, lord."
"Where is the Lady Melisande?"
"Gone, lord."
"Gone? Where?" He should have thought she might abscond. That could be dangerous.
"I know not, lord."
"She is aware of the king's command, then?"
"Aye."
"And why does she dispute his order?"
"She says that William is not her king, to so command her. She asks that you be content with the castle. She cannot marry you."
No, he would not be content. He needed the bride as much as the demesne. But he was not one to play his hand openly, and he decided not to press that issue for the moment. "Then, take me to where the lord lies."
Thomas led them up the narrow wooden staircase to an open wooden balcony facing three chambers, each with its own door. Alain frowned. No man short of the king himself had the luxury of three private chambers.
He felt the shudder of a premonition run up his back. Rufus had said Fyren was no ordinary man. Certainly this strange castle spoke to that. Yet that powerful man had so conveniently died, and his daughter had merely opened the gates to them? True, women did not always have the fire in them for a fight. Perhaps Fyren's daughter was as meek as her father had been powerful.
Thomas stood by the door to the chamber and waited for Alain to pass through. A carved bed stood in the center, with heavy draperies tied back against the posts. The corpse that lay on the bed, wrapped like a swaddled babe in a purple cloth, had a strangely innocent look to it. Seized by curiosity, Alain lifted the arm of the corpse and found it slack, rather than stiff. The skin was the ashen color of death.
"We had not heard he was ill," he said to Thomas. "What was the cause of death?"
"He took his own life, lord."
"Suicide? I cannot believe it."
"Still, it appears so. Some say he was driven mad by the ghost of the priest he killed."
Stepping back, Alain folded his arms. "I know naught of this, Thomas. Tell me the rest."
"After the death of his wife, the Lady Edyt, Father Leanian laid a curse on the lord. And for that, Lord Fyren had him murdered in his sleep."
"You know this to be true?"
"Aye."
"Did the priest accuse Fyren of the lady's death?"
"Aye. The lady died mysteriously. But that was the way of those who displeased Lord Fyren. There are those who believe him a sorcerer, and easily capable of such."
"Sorcerer." Alain tensed, recalling his last meeting with Rufus, a strange scene with much left unexplained.
There is unfathomable evil in the man, de Crency. I do not want him to live. Had Rufus meant sorcery, then?
And you will take his daughter Melisande to wed, no questions asked. Alain had laughed and asked if the lady had two heads. Mayhap she did.
Alain could still picture Rufus watching with fascination as he held a crumpled parchment to the brazier's coals. The king's perpetually stuffy nose wrinkled at the acrid smell as flames jumped forth from the glowing coals to consume it. Then Rufus dropped the parchment and watched the remainder of it dance a graceful pattern, like a flower opening, then shriveling in the devouring flames.
Odd though he was, Rufus was usually predictable. He had long coveted Cumbria, and wanted this conquest with uncommon ferocity. But he seemed to want this marriage even more. And he had explained nothing except that he had known the girl's mother when he had been a boy.
Sorcerer? Was this what Rufus had sent him to combat? Then why had he not said so? If so, surely there was little harm in Fyren now. Yet he felt his back prickle, as if anticipating a knife between his ribs.
"And what of his daughter?" Alain asked. "Did the priest also implicate her?"
"Nay, lord."
"Yet, she chooses to run, as a guilty one might. She cannot hope to escape."
"She is naught like her wicked father, lord."
"But she has no heart for a fight."
Alain's suspicious eyes caught Thomas in the very breath of denial before he quickly closed his mouth. "The lady wishes peace for her people," said Thomas. "She would not see them slaughtered, as many in the north have been."
"Where are her relatives?"
"She has only a few very distant ones north in Strathclyde. Her mother was of Durham, but all those are dead now."
"Friends?"
"None, save those folk about the demesne."
"Surely some of Fyren's knights must have brought their families from time to time."
"Nay."
"Why? Did he not wish connections for his daughter?"
Thomas shook his head, seeming genuinely sad. "I do not think he did. Ofttimes, he would keep the girl where none of us, not even her mother, saw her. So the girl was solitary, as befitted her father's wishes."
"Yet the knights honor her with their submission. She must at least have their loyalty. It appears you had no fondness for Fyren. Tell me honestly what you thought of him."
Thomas' eyes matched the hard, grim line of his mouth. "I know not, lord, if he was a madman, or the Devil's own tool. It matters little, for few men have been so evil."
"Well. I will abide by your judgement. See to his burial forthwith, but remove the purple cloth. It is far too beautiful to be buried in the ground."
The Saxon knight's grey eyes suddenly widened, then just as quickly calmed. "It is a cloak, lord, that the Lord Fyren had made for his wife before she died."
"And then he murdered her? Well, it is mine, now. And far too good for the likes of him. I suppose I will take this chamber. But I have no wish to share it with a corpse."
"If you would take Lady Edyt's chamber for this night only, lord, we may prepare this one for you, and remove all traces of the lord's death."
"A reasonable request." The air had a need of cleansing.
Thomas bobbed his head properly. With a clipped turn, Alain returned with Chrétien to the bailey.
"That's it?" Chrétien asked as they crossed the hard-packed earth of the bailey. "We but ride in and take the place?"
"It's happened before."
"But not quite like this."
"Nay. Not quite like this. Something is truly afoot."
An anxious energy infused him, the kind that took over his body whenever he sensed a battle brewing. Yet it was not a battle he sensed. He could do no more than warn his men and keep his own eyes open.
"Are you sure you want to do this?" asked Chrétien.
"I have given Rufus my word."
"The bride, I mean. A maid you have not seen, of peculiar parentage. Does it not concern you?"
"Of course. But I am committed, and I shall make the most of it. Do you doubt I can bring her around to my side, Chrétien?"
"And to your front, as well," Chrétien snapped back, flipping his eyebrows. "Nay, I should not have worried."
"Ah, but you are so good at it. And you save me the trouble, as you do enough for both of us."
Chrétien's mouth spread into a narrow smile that seemed to crinkle both up and down. A good man, his Chrétien, who would fight like a berserker in battle, yet worry himself to flummery over the future happiness of his dearest friend.
Studying the people of the hall more closely, Alain saw that not all were Saxon. Some, no doubt, mixed several races. For this part of the Isles, blondes prevailed, a legacy of both the Saxons and the Danes, unlike the slightly darker Normans whose blood had mixed with Franks and Bretons. Alain chose one whose features and hair seemed more Norman, and spoke to the man in the English tongue. "You, sir, how are you called?"
"Gerard, lord, second son of Chauncy d'Amiens. My father rode with the Conqueror."
Alain knew of the man. He had thought him loyal to Rufus. Another oddity, to find him here, but now was not the time to pose that question. "How is it that your lord lies dead, and none seem to mourn him?"
The young knight's eyes grew cold, with the same hardness Alain had seen in Thomas. "There are some who would pay him the courtesy, lord, but they have had the good sense to leave. And as he is dead, he is of no use to any who remain."
"None? What of his daughter?"
A rosy flush colored the man's cheeks.
"Speak the truth, Gerard. You will not be punished for it."
"The fair Melisande has little cause to mourn her father, lord. I pray you will forgive her."
"Mayhap. But I will also find her. Tell me what you know, Gerard."
"Only that she is gone. We are all bidden by her to surrender the castle for the sake of all within it and those upon the land without."
"She must have gone somewhere. Yet she did not leave through the gate, or she would have been seen. Are there other ways out?"
"I am not privy to such, lord."
He might not be. Yet, like all the others, Alain suspected he knew more than he said.
Something was missing. Resentment. The Saxon knights seemed almost happy that they must now pledge to a different lord. Did they submit because the lady had asked it? Or because they would not follow her? Or might there be a trap still to be sprung?
A movement caught his eye. A maid with a lithe figure and remarkably long, butter-yellow braid walked away from the crowd toward the kitchen outbuilding. It seemed a strange time to leave, when most hung about for a glimpse of their new lord. Heeding his impulse, Alain followed her through the gathering. The murmur of the crowd swelled, then grew suddenly silent. No doubt, they wondered what it was he wanted with the girl. He was no debaucher, nor one to use his power unjustly. But if these people had suffered Fyren's evil as was said, they would not believe it. They would have to be shown, and soon. Alain had no desire to try to live with his eyes in the back of his head.
"Ho, girl, why do you hurry away?"
She stopped, slowly turned, and fixed on him large eyes, bright and blue as a summer's day. His breath caught. The severity of her long yellow braid was mocked by a frill of pale tendrils about her face, giving an odd softness to contradict her grim face. A rush of energy surged through him. He had imagined his bride would look like this.
The bride was more likely to be a mousy little thing.
The girl squared her shoulders and folded her hands together before her, each hand subtly gripping the other. "I go to prepare the meal, lord. You will wish to eat?"
Despite her apparent composure, apprehension flickered in her blue eyes. Suddenly he saw himself as she must see him, a dark and lusting Norman beast who carried the power of life and death in his hands. He knew well enough the reputation of Normans among these northern folk.
He almost let her go then. But her intensity, as if she both feared and dared him, piqued his curiosity. "What is your name, girl?"
She seemed not to have expected his question. Something sparked in her eyes, and then vanished. "Edyt," she replied hurriedly.
"Was that not Fyren's lady's name?"
"I am named for her."
"And what do you do here?"
"I have the keeping of the house."
"The housekeeper? One so young?"
"I take my mother's place. I am well taught, lord. I pray you will not wish to replace me."
"Nay, I have no quarrel with it. But perhaps you know where the Lady Melisande has got herself to."
Her lips closed into a tight line. "I know not, lord."
She knew. He was sure she did. She was as nervous as a cat crossing a log over a rushing stream. Just as she stepped backward, he reached out and took hold of her arm.
Alain sensed a brittleness to the hush about them, and turned to see all those in the upper bailey following his words. The knight Gerard seemed especially interested, like a man watchful for the first stroke of battle. Alain released the gentle hold he had on the girl's arm and smiled.
"Know all of you," he said loudly, "that I do not come to do you harm, but in the name of King William II to take tenancy of this holding. Those who are loyal will be treated with trust, and all with fairness. But know you also that the Lady Melisande will be found, no matter where she may hide. And I will marry her. The king has commanded, and so it shall be."
Alain gave the girl, Edyt, a last hard glance, and again caught a glint of fear in the stunning blue eyes.
She would be about the same age as Melisande. In the isolated confines of a remote castle, it would not be unusual for mistress and servant to develop a friendship. And if Melisande had the loyalty of strong knights, no doubt this girl would also protect her.
He was persuaded. Edyt was the key.
He knows!
Nay, he does not! Flee! Quickly, before he learns!
She quashed the demons' taunts.
But the Norman's eyes bored into her, all the way to her trembling heart. He caught that small echo of her fear and bounced it back to her, his dark eyes gleaming like a predator that had spotted its prey.
She was no mouse, to helplessly present herself to be torn apart by fierce talons. Melisande hastily restored to her face the expressionless mask that had served her in her war against Fyren. She crushed all hint of emotion, knowing if she did not feel it, the Norman could not see it in her. Yet the very brazenness of her gaze marked her as something other than a servant. Hastily, she looked down, fixing her sight on his scarred and dusty boots.
If she'd had another option, she would already have taken it. But she had no relative or friend who would dare shield her, so she did what only she would dare, hid herself in plain view as a common servant. That was not merely dangerous, it was a plan extremely unlikely to succeed. But it was all she had.
And the Norman was most likely correct. He would ferret her out and force her to marriage, for he had both the ability and the king's great auspices supporting him. She could do little to stop it.
With a small, submissive bow, she turned slowly and stepped through the rough wooden door frame leading into the kitchen. The blast of air, thick with heat and the sweet aroma of freshly baked bread, stunned her.
A small, grey-haired woman in a rough wool kirtle much like her own approached her, but kept her eyes lowered as she spoke softly. "You should not test the Norman's ire this way, lady. They are dangerous men."
He was even more dangerous to her. She had been close enough to watch the keen black eyes turn to seething charcoal, had felt the heat and power of the man as if it rippled through the chilly air and ensnared her.
Black. His hair was black beneath the metal coif, dark as the everlasting night of the caverns below the castle.
"I do not test him, Nelda. I merely mean to hide."
"Then you should leave. It is not safe."
"Nay. Let each do his part, and all will be well."
At least she had not lied to him about her duties. Even long before her mother's death, she had taken over the management of the household. Now she only presented herself as one who served, instead of a family member. Such a servant was not uncommon, although as the new lord pointed out, that position would usually go to an older woman. She might have given herself a lower position, even in the scullery, but it would have wreaked havoc among the servants. It was best to keep things simple.
Melisande raised the hem of her skirt to mop at the perspiration that collected on her brow. She shoved a flat-bladed wooden peel into an oven and extracted a baking loaf, and nodded silently to denote her satisfaction. The cook's helper removed more loaves from the other ovens.
"How shall we call you, lady?" Nelda whispered as she wrapped a cloth around her hands to lift a steaming oval loaf from its peel.
"Edyt," Melisande murmured back. "It will at least be easy to remember."
"Aye, easy enough. But he knows your mother's name. Will he not suspect?"
"I told him I am named for her." As if she could change it now. But she wished she had thought faster and given him a different name.
"But I fear some shall slip."
"'Tis best that none speak it unless they must."
No one would betray her purposefully. Even those who had been strong partisans of her father would find no benefit in giving her identity away. It would be a slip that would eventually give the Norman what he sought. But Fyren had been right. Then she would not outlive her wedding night.
Melisande returned to the kitchen and checked the spits, hung with great haunches of boar and oxen. Copious drippings sizzled as they splattered onto the fires below, a certain sign that they were properly done.
The sigh she released was almost indiscernible. If things had only been different. Once she had prayed for a husband to come forward for her, to take her from her nightmare. But the Norman came too late. And the most futile of wishes was that of changing what had already come to pass.
She buried her anxiety in her tasks and returned to the back-straining chores that would bring food to the table of a household suddenly tripled in size. Wiping her brow again of the dripping sweat, Melisande glanced toward the kitchen door.
The Norman lord stood at the threshold, his black eyes watching her.
So, he made her nervous. He liked that.
The vision of those wondrous eyes clung to him as he and Chrétien turned away from the kitchens and followed in Thomas' steps. But Alain de Crency was not a man to be daunted, either by a reluctant bride or an enigma of a girl with startling blue eyes and the most solemn face he had ever seen. He had much to do, and little enough time to accomplish it.
They walked through the upper bailey and up the stone steps to the narrow allure atop the new curtain wall. Alain ran a practiced eye over the fortifications, catching here a weakness of mortar, there a cleverness of structure that enhanced its basic strength.
"Who designed this?" he asked Thomas while his gaze skimmed over the wall and back to the kitchen outbuilding.
"It was Lord Fyren's doing, lord. This was a monastery, but most of its buildings were derelict."
"And he added the chambered wing to the hall?"
"Nay. But it was one long chamber until Lord Fyren divided it. The outer balcony and doors to it came later."
"You disapprove."
"It is not for me to say."
"Say, anyway."
"A lord should not seclude himself from his people."
"I see." Alain rather liked the concept, but decided not to mention that. "And the new tower?"
"Lord Fyren's doing also. He made it round, for corners are hard to defend."
Looking down, Alain surveyed the beginnings of the grey limestone tower that would soon dwarf the older hall. Like the Conqueror's London Tower, it seemed intended for living quarters as well as a refuge during siege.
The design made sense. When finished, its only opening would be far above ground on the first story, with wooden stairs that could be removed. For the present, a rough, doorless entry remained at ground level for masons and hod carriers to pass. But the site puzzled him, for it was not the best. Why compromise on such a thing?
His eyes traced the line of the almost completed curtain wall that surrounded the hall and its outbuildings, dipping downhill to enclose both upper and lower bailey.
"'Tis odd," said Chrétien. "I would have completed the wall before beginning the tower."
Alain thought the same.
"The wooden palisade was only recently replaced with the wall," Thomas replied. "Lord Fyren sought to build both at once. I think he had not expected a siege."
Chrétien tested the newness of the mortar with a fingernail. Alain nodded his tacit understanding. He saw no moss, no discoloration of the stone. Why build if one did not expect a siege? Rufus was probably right. An insurgence had been brewing.
An anxious page hurried up to Thomas' side and waited with great patience to be noticed until he was permitted to announce the nearness of the supper hour. Alain took the opportunity to dismiss Thomas to his other tasks, noting Thomas' unexpressed relief. They watched the man scurry after the page, down the steps into the bailey.
"They appear amiable," Chrétien mused. "But they are closed to us."
"They do not know what to expect of us. Thomas stands as a ready sacrifice to my anger. I wonder why."
"It speaks of courage."
"And loyalty. To someone, at least, though not the dead lord. Mayhap to the missing lady."
"Do you believe it? The suicide?"
"Nay. Naught in the man's character allows it."
Chrétien folded his arms and leaned against the crenellated outer wall. "His castle wall is unfinished and vulnerable. Mayhap he was caught too far off his guard, and faced certain failure. Or his knights would not back him against Rufus. None seem to have any love for him."
"Few have any love for Rufus. But they follow him."
"Mayhap he really did go mad after killing the priest. Those things also happen."
"Only a man with a conscience goes mad from guilt."
"Murder, then?"
"More likely. As you said, something is afoot, and it behooves us to learn what, if we are to keep our skins."
"Do you think, then, this missing bride poses a threat to you? She might already be on her way to Scotland. Malcolm would not hesitate to add both Northumbria and Cumbria to Scotland, so he would easily welcome her aid against Rufus."
"Aye, and more so if she has the skill and loyal knights behind her to assemble a rebellion. Yet she puts herself to disadvantage by ceding the castle and giving me time to secure my position."
"Thomas said she wants peace. Might she be as he claims?"
"Then would it not benefit her more to ally herself with the English king through her husband? But without the bride, Chrétien, this castle and its demesne cannot be secure."
"Those loyal to Fyren might well use her as their rallying point."
Alain shook his head. "Men do not rally to a dead man. Fyren is quite dead. And I am impatient to get on with things."
Alain wasted no more time surveying his domain. As the supper chime clanged, he hurried down the steps, deciding to set himself immediately to the business of the hall. He would bring in both Thomas and Gerard to assist in establishing his authority, for both of them knew the knights who would now fall vassal to him. It would be a tricky task to unite them all, and he had his suspicions of all the Saxon contingent. But they had little to gain by opposing him now that the old lord was dead.
Alain already loved this spot atop the curtain wall with its expansive view of his new demesne, best viewed as now, in the setting sun.
"What news?" he asked of Chrétien as his friend took the stone steps two at a time and joined him on the allure.
"Naught, Alain. She cannot have gone far, yet none admit seeing her."
"And you searched all roads?"
"Aye, such as they are."
"Villages? Cottages?"
"All that are about. But I do not think the knights of this holding will betray her, and we know not how to spot her even if we see her."
Alain accepted the news with silence. His knights had been about the task since dawn, and like the others, Chrétien also brought back only weariness.
They leaned against grey blocks of limestone and surveyed what was before them, all blushed red by the brilliant sunset. Beyond the curtain wall and dry moat spread the village that had grown up around Fyren's castle, hugging the slope of the craggy hill, and stretching out to touch the green dale below.
"I see why Rufus wanted this fortress," said Chrétien.
"Aye. It commands the passage to England, a fine buffer against the Scots and Strathclydes."
"And access to Northumbria. The folk say many of their fathers fled here from the Conqueror's raids."
"Why should they? That land is still so bleak and scarred. Perhaps it will never recover, Chrétien."
"The Normans may never be forgiven for that."
"Perhaps not. But I will hold my demesne anyway."
Below, an eerily silent procession wound down the hill from the castle, following an ancient wooden cart drawn by oxen and bearing a coffin. No wails. No death knell. Even Alain's own priest, Father Hardouin, had refused to give last rites. Alain could not recall any other burial not blessed by the Church.
Alain remembered how the coffin had rested all day in the center of the hall, nailed shut with more iron nails than he had ever seen put to a casket. Those few who entered the hall had eyed it warily, but none had approached it, nor shed a tear.
Yet, if none had a care for the lord, why did they now follow his coffin to the grave?
With a quick gesture for Chrétien to follow, he rushed down through the bailey and out beyond the gate.
"Why?" asked Chrétien, hurrying along at his side.
"Would not a daughter come to see her father buried?"
"But they say she hated him."
"Perhaps all the more reason to see it done."
Soon they caught up with the procession, remaining at the rear of the small group. A knight without his armor, the Norseman Thorkel, watched them with narrowed eyes.
The procession traveled along the narrow dirt lane beyond the church and its small yard, past the village green, the smithy, the tannery, and a collection of stone cottages, to the crossroads.
"They fear he will haunt them," Chrétien commented.
"Aye. They bury him at the crossroads to confuse his spirit, but it will take far more than that to confuse that old demon. More likely he has already been welcomed into Satan's Hell."
Beyond lay pasture land of the lord's demesne, where the grave was dug. No priest stood beside the grave, nor did any other intone either eulogy or dirge. Alain searched the faces.
In unison with the five other knights, Thomas lowered the casket into the earth. His mouth was drawn tight, jaw set hard and rigid.
Several women stood near the grave, Edyt among them, all studying the coffin with grim concentration as it was lowered into the grave. When the ropes were pulled loose, the girl bent forward and scooped up a handful of the loose earth. She held her hand over the grave, then opened it quickly to drop the dirt. She turned and walked away.
Others did the same. Each tossed one handful of earth to the grave, then departed. Man or woman. Vassal or villein. Mayhap it was a custom with these people.
"Well?" asked Chrétien.
"Well, he is buried. I do not know what else can be said."
"But the lady?"
"She could have been here, I suppose, but I saw only common folk among the women."
"She could be dressed as one of them. Yet I think she would not risk coming at all if she fears being caught."
"Mayhap." Alain still stood beside the grave, watching as villeins spaded in the loose dirt. "Mayhap," he repeated. "Do not forget the faces you have seen here tonight. I counted twenty-seven women, most of them of the hall, and some about the right age. But I saw none who looked excessively fearful or secretive. Certainly none shed tears. And none gave the appearance of a lady."
"Then she must be already gone."
"Aye. But if she is still here, we will see her again. Watch the women of the hall and village who were among the crowd tonight."
Chrétien's face screwed into a puzzled frown. "Yet surely your lady would not be toiling with her hands. Surely that would distinguish her."
"Or mayhap she is slyer than we think."
The Normans rode out from the castle, their helms shining like mirrors in the early morning sun. Twenty knights in their hauberks, erect and proud astride their big war horses, rode with Alain in pairs across the wooden bridge into the village. With Chrétien d'Evreaux at his side, Alain rode at their lead. The handsome purple cloak he had taken from Fyren's corpse caught the wind, billowing behind him like a Viking sail.
Thomas, his silver hair glinting like the discs on his Saxon hauberk, directed the Norman knights along the track of the stream that gurgled downhill. Dark peaks, first gently rounded, then suddenly steepening into stark crags, framed the grassy dale.
"Down to where the beck joins the river, then back up into the fells," said Thomas. His hand waved in a wide arc to indicate the vast green space before them, outlined by the curve of the river.
Without comment, Alain added the strange new terms to his knowledge of this strange land. Beck meant stream. Fells were mountains. It was almost like learning a new language.
He raised his hand and drew his mount to a halt, letting his gaze sweep across the majestic valley and up to the knobby tops of the fells. He could not get enough of their rugged beauty. This land that rolled out before them was the richest land of his domain, now sown in oats, barley and rye, and bright with the new green of spring. Beyond on the fallow lands, black-faced sheep grazed. Farther up on the fells, the animals blended with the ragged grey rocks and cliffs, and sometimes were distinguishable only by their movement.
His land. His demesne. He had waited long for this.
Thomas pulled ahead, turning the armed knights to the west, then back again to the north, following upstream the track of another beck from where it intersected with the river. The trail grew more rugged, and narrowed as it passed between tall pines and ash trees and rambled near steep cliffs, forcing the knights to follow in a single line behind the steward.
"An extensive forest," Alain said, when he could draw up beside Thomas.
The steward nodded.
"The hunting is good?"
"Aye, lord. And adequate timber. None of the forest is being cleared, for the demesne is not in need of more pasture land. And little of it is suitable for the plow. We go there, now."
"I do not want to be afield too long," he reminded the man.
"Nay, lord. We shall return before sext. There is much to see, but the rest must wait, for the holding is large."
"Very well. We shall take it a piece at a time."
Thomas nodded pleasantly, not at all the way a man would who intrigued against his lord. Alain had seen enough conspiracy at court to know even the slyest of schemers gave away their intentions in their demeanor, if watched long enough. He had learned, when turning away at the end of an encounter, to suddenly turn back again as if something had been forgotten. One could see the oddest changes in a man's face, then.
In Thomas, he saw none of those things. Neither keenly narrowed eyes nor trained emptiness. Yet he knew the man held secrets. Of all those in the castle, Thomas would be most likely to know the fate of the missing Melisande. And he, of all those there, would know how Fyren died, and whether plots still lingered in the hall's mysterious, aloof atmosphere.
Slowed by the steepness of the slope and rocks dislodged by the hooves of the forward animals, the knights rode on. The horses, whuffing their great gasps of air, climbed, following in single file around the slope, now up, now down, sometimes nearly level. The sparsely scattered trees became a thick mat of deepest green spread before them.
Alain's charger seemed to sense its master's excitement at the magnificent land and renewed its labors. Alain pulled ahead of the knights to reach the narrow pass between the steep fells and gaze down at the sea of dark green, flowing like waves over the hills. Chrétien spurred his horse and rode up to Alain's side in the narrow gap at the pass.
A whine, a thunk. Chrétien howled with pain.
Chrétien clutched at an arrow's shaft protruding from his neck. His horse reared. Alain goaded his horse against Chrétien's big grey, lunged and steadied him. He snatched the grey's reins, pulled the beast up short.
"Steady, Chrétien. I have it." Alain grasped the shaft, groped for the point. Not deep, stopped by Chrétien's sturdy mail. He jerked the arrow free.
"On the ridge! There!" shouted the Norseman, Thorkel.
Above them. High up, on the lobbed off peak where Thorkel pointed.
"Thomas! See to this!" Alain yelled, motioning to Chrétien's wound.
"There's no trail up there!" shouted Hugh, springing down from his saddle. "The climb's too steep for the horses."
"Take three men, Thorkel. Hugh, you go. See if you can catch him."
The same flurry of brown skirted the knob of rock at the fell's peak, then again vanished. Hugh dashed up the slope after Thorkel.
"Go, Alain," said Chrétien.
Alain glanced at his friend. The bleeding was light. Thomas crammed a cloth between wound and hauberk, his silvery eyebrows furrowing as he bent to the task.
Alain flung himself down from his saddle and climbed, clawing at rock and bracken until he reached the ridge just below the rounded knob.
The four men stood on the ridge, breathing hard, staring at the wild tangle of rock, soil, bracken and pine that covered the far side of the fell. Swords drawn, ready. At nothing.
"Naught?"
"Nay, lord," said Hugh. "Not even a grouse disturbed."
Alain trained his eyes on the knob where he had seen that flash of brown, climbed to it, and knelt to the ground from where he guessed the shot had come. White streaks on the dark stone suggested the scrape of metal. The thin soil showed the imprint of a knee among a tangle of shallow, pointed footprints. Downslope past the knob, two widely spaced prints showed the direction the man had fled. Nothing stirred beyond. The stony ground revealed no more prints.
"One man only, I think," he said, more to himself than to his men. "Reason enough to flee after only one shot. And he could not have hoped to create much harm from such a distance."
"Nay, lord," said Hugh. "He aimed for your face. Chrétien merely rode between and caught the shaft in his neck."
"An archer of some talent, then."
"And one who would see the new lord dead. You must be wary of these folk."
"Mayhap." Certain the archer was gone, Alain gave a sharp sideways jerk of his head for a command and worked his way back down the slope to the pass.
"Chrétien?" he asked as he reached his friend again.
"Well enough."
"Only one link of the mail was severed, lord." Thomas daubed at the gash beneath the mail coif. "It should heal without trouble."
"And you, Thomas?"
"I, lord?"
"What think you of this ambush? Mayhap you can tell us who conspires against us."
"Aye, I can. There are those who have not pledged themselves. Those who fear losing their fiefs to Norman knights."
"And well they might. But you, Thomas?"
"By the Lady Melisande's wish, I have given mine, as you know."
"And as you have led us into an ambush, shall I still give you my trust?"
The man's wide mouth drew tight and thin, and his face set hard. "It is for you to say, lord."
Their eyes locked gaze in fierce combat. Thomas stood his ground.
"How would this man have known our direction?"
"I know not, lord, but it would not have been hard to guess."
"How so?"
"The new lord would want to see his holding immediately. And it is well known the Normans are fond of their forests."
"True enough," said Chrétien. "That is how you would have planned it."
It was. And Thomas did not quail from his lord's hard gaze. "I shall reserve my judgment for another time. Chrétien, do you ride?"
"Aye, Alain. It is but a minor hurt."
"Then, Thomas, do we return the way we came, or have we more surprises ahead of us?"
"As you wish, lord. The way before us returns us sooner. But if you fear ambush, more chances lie in the wood ahead."
"Ahead, then."
Alain signaled for his knights to mount. He regretted that his awed gaze of his new land had distracted him from his usual caution. But he would not make the same mistake again.
Thomas led the twenty iron-mailed knights down the steep slope, through the shaded canopy of evergreens and ash. More alert now and less enthralled by the land's beauty, the Normans scanned the underbrush for movement or odd color. They chuckled when despite their caution a hart leapt up within feet of the lead riders, startling the horses.
They rode on, reaching lower slopes where the ash trees now showed their first color of the year, and continued farther down to the treeless moors of bracken and heather.
In the valley, they slowed and followed another rushing beck. Alain reined in his bay to watch in astonishment as the stream tumbled into a jagged hole of grey stone and vanished beneath the rock.
"What manner of stream is this?" Alain asked, for he had never seen a stream disappear.
"It is a common thing here, lord," Thomas replied. "This is a land of many caverns, and sometimes the becks fall into them."
"Then what happens to them?"
"There are becks coming out of caves, too. Mayhap they are the same."
"You do not know?"
"Nay, lord. The caves are enchanted. One dares not go in, save for the proper reason."
"And what would be the proper reason?"
The blocky, silver-haired man shrugged his shoulders. "It would be what the hob wants. It is said of one in the Deep Dale, the hob will cure the ills of those who enter, but those who have no ills will never come out again. Some others, no one knows what the hob desires, as none have ever come back out."
Alain frowned. Hobs. Another strange word. "Then some also go in, yet come out alive, is it not so?"
"Aye, it is so. But I do not want to be the man who does not. I'd see my enemy, face to face."
"I cannot quarrel with that." Alain signaled to the man to continue onward, and the big horses resumed their trot.
Farther down the dale, the harsh fells gentled into the broad, green valley that was more familiar. Scattered cottages marked small homesteads, a pattern that seemed to be more common to the area than villages. They would be harder to defend. Yet, they also might present more of a problem for a scavenging army.
Ahead lay the castle on its craggy grey knoll, its limestone curtain wall seeming to blend and grow from the native stone. The hall's yellow sandstone walls gleamed like sunshine itself in the bright daylight. Beside the hall rose the jagged top of the new tower's construction, already almost as tall as the old hall. Riding up, Alain could see the castle's weaknesses. It was wrongly sited. The curtain wall along its back could never be built high enough to protect it from the higher slopes beyond, and he would have to reinforce that side with high towers and clear the ground for a ways uphill.
Why would Fyren make such a mistake? Just to make use of existing buildings? Had he meant to increase the castle's size later on, extending it even farther up the hill? But why not start with the most impregnable site?
Alain glanced sidelong at his injured friend as they rode. He could see the pallor collecting on Chrétien's face, although the man would never admit to weakness. Alain spurred his tired charger to a gallop for the journey's last leg.
The cross-braced wooden gate was already creaking open, for their raised pennon had been spotted, and Alain urged his stallion across the wooden bridge. His feet lit on the bailey's hard-packed ground even before the squires rushed up to help their knights.
"Come now, Chrétien, into the hall, and let's have a good look at it."
"'Tis no more than a scratch. My squire can tend it."
"I agree, it is probably naught to speak of. But I will see for myself. Inside." Alain slapped the charger's reins into his squire's hand and clamped his hand onto his knight's unimpaired shoulder to signal the seriousness of his intent.
Two women waited beside the hall. Edyt's bright blue eyes met his, large and wide in horror, contradicting an otherwise passive face. Fear? Danger? Astonishment? Nay, he had not brought her a mass of mutilated men to stain her hall with their blood. Merely one with but a passably small wound, who would balk at the simplest treatment.
The girl regained her composure as if it had never been lost and stepped aside as the knights passed through the door into the hall. "Nelda, bring the salve. Fresh water, and some rags."
The older woman shuffled away.
Alain jerked off the purple cloak, tossed it aside, and pulled off his coif and hauberk. Two squires helped Chrétien remove his mail, working it carefully past his wound while Edyt set a torch of rushes into the bracket on the stone wall near the trestle table. She ignored Chrétien's grumbling and with a simple wave of her hand commanded the knight to sit on the bench placed beside it.
"Ah, he is right, lord," she said as she daubed a wet cloth to the injury. "It is of small merit, as far as wounds go, but a knuckle's width closer to the throat would have been fatal."
Alain nodded. "Aye, I see. It could have severed the great vein at the throat. We were fortunate."
He stepped back and watched as Edyt applied a salve with gentle strokes. The frown on Chrétien's face eased. Mayhap, the salve; mayhap the touch. Alain found himself with a fleeting wish for a wound of his own, that she might tend it. He repressed a laugh.
"You must rest a few days so that it may heal properly."
Chrétien winced. "Rest? Nay, there is no time for that."
Alain smiled. Nobody told Chrétien he must rest because of a simple hole in his neck.
"The coif will only keep it open. It could fester."
"Then I will protect it with something."
The girl sighed. He suspected she was familiar with the stubbornness of men about such things.
"Well, I shall stitch it, then. Nay, do not object. You are of more use to your lord for healing rapidly, and the stitches will take the strain off the wound."
Chrétien looked to Alain for defense. Alain folded his arms and watched the girl take four deft stitches with needle and horsehair, then once again coat the wound with her salve. Chrétien grumbled his thanks before stalking away.
Alain picked up the small brown crock and sniffed its contents. "What is this?"
"It is but the juice of house leeks, with horsetail and mint. I use it commonly for all manner of wounds."
"And it works?"
"Many times. Your knight is in little danger."
"It was fortunate. Hugh thought the arrow intended for my face, but Chrétien happened to ride up at that moment."
"Indeed? Your knight does not stand taller than you."
He tried to picture what she meant. Had she known the archer shot from above them? He eyed her, suspiciously probing. Nay, there was a simpler answer.
"Nay, but his horse stands taller than mine."
"The archer must have very good eyes, and aim, then."
"How so?"
"To distinguish one Norman from another at such a distance. They look much alike to us. In their hauberks."
She spoke as if she and the archer would both look upon the Normans in the same light. Was this passive girl a conspirator?
She hardly looked like one.
Mischief suddenly seized him. "Do we?" he asked.
The girl tensed and stepped back a pace. Like hot blood, the instinct of the predator rose in him, the rush of excitement of the hunt.
"Do we all look so much alike, Edyt?"
"It is the hauberks, lord. And the coifs. There is no difference, one to another, save for size. --When naught can be seen but eyes."
"Is it so? And without the hauberks, Edyt? Is there a difference then?"
"Aye--." The girl again cast a glance over her shoulder. "I have things I must attend to, lord. You must excuse me--."
"Excuse you? Nay, I think not. I have something else in mind."
The bright blue eyes flung a trapped look at him, and shifted hastily from side to side.
Alain smiled, knowing his smile possessed a lethal look.
"Tell me more of our missing lady, Edyt."
Again the girl stumbled back, bumping against the trestle table.
"Do you know her well?"
"As well as any might, I suppose."
"Do you know why she absconded?"
"It was as was said."
"Then why? She cannot mislike me, knowing naught of me."
"Um, there are some who do not wish to marry."
"And is the Lady Melisande such a one?"
"I could not speak for her, lord."
"Guess, then."
The blue eyes flitted from side to side. "I know only that she said this betrothal is not legal."
He laughed. "Rufus is king. Whatever Rufus does is legal."
"She does not wish to marry a Norman."
Alain eased away, gave the girl more room. His eyebrows raised deliberately. "Surely she must know the king will not permit her to remain unmarried. I have no say in this, nor does she. In any case, were it not I, Rufus would find another."
"Aye." She said it in a pale, reluctant sigh. It had meaning for her, then.
"Tell me about this elusive lady."
"I do not know what to say."
"What does she look like?"
"Much as anyone, I suppose," she said with a shrug.
"An odd reply, Edyt. Can you not be more specific? Her coloring, mayhap? Her hair?" He could almost feel the tension rising in her. Wicked amusement bubbled in his veins.
"A sort of blonde, I think."
"You think? You do not know? Surely, if you know the lady, you know the color of her hair."
"It is blonde, then."
Alain stroked at his chin. "Indeed? Some say not, that her hair is dark."
"Well, it is sort of dark."
"Dark then, not blonde?"
"M-mayhap more blonde than dark, I think."
"Some say, red."
"Red? --Well, mayhap--"
And were Edyt's eyes brown instead of blue, he might have mistaken the girl for a frightened doe, caught in the hunter's eye. Yet even that was no more than a flash before the mask of the obedient and passive servant slipped again into place. Guilt seeped into him, but he was having too much fun to stop.
"I am confused, Edyt. Can it be that half the people of the castle are blind and the other half cannot see?"
She gulped. "Um, mayhap it is a matter of perception. Mayhap some see her differently."
"It occurs to me, nearly everyone here is blonde."
"Aye, it is a common thing, here."
"So then, you have told me naught. Her eyes, then?"
"Blue," she replied, with a finality her voice had lacked before.
"Ah, of course, as again, I see little else, here."
"Well, I cannot change that."
"How tall might she be, then?"
"About the usual for a woman. Mayhap, my height."
"Indeed? Do you see yourself as of a usual height for a woman? You appear to be taller than the usual."
"I had given no thought to my height, or the lady's, lord."
"Ah. Then could you say, is she slight of build? Heavy?"
"I do not think either."
He stroked again at his chin. "Then we shall say, she is not unusual in any way, looks more or less like every other woman. She does look like a woman, does she not, Edyt?"
"A-aye."
"Well, I will grant there is a common look among the people here. Mayhap they are not distinguishable, either. Mayhap, like Normans, they all look alike."
Although she moved no part of her body, a twitch squirmed in her eyes. Yet she quickly brought even that under control. He was beginning to learn how to read her. The first and instant reaction was the true one, the rest a mask.
"Look you, Edyt. Though you and all the folk of my demesne may shield her, she will be found. It cannot be avoided."
Only a tiny sigh escaped her lips.
"But your loyalty is commendable. I will hope for the day when I can command such loyalty here."
He could not help the small smile that sneaked onto his face. Perhaps it was pity, that he teased her so mercilessly and she took him so seriously. He touched fingertips to her cheek and found skin softer than he would have thought. An unexpected, heady rush of passion jolted through him, urging him to pull the girl closer to him, to feel her pressed against his body, taste the first fruit of her lips.
But he was not a man controlled by his desires, to take young girls without discrimination. He would not allow it of his knights, nor of himself. He had come to this wild land to conquer, and in conquering, take his bride. He would not permit distractions, nor bring another to grief for his own pleasures. He'd seen far too much of that. So it was he who backed away, rather than the girl.
She lowered her eyes and turned away.
Yet he was not ready to let her go. "Edyt."
The girl stiffened. "Aye, lord?"
"Where is the bolt hole?"
"Bolt hole?"
"One who has the keeping of the household would know. And Fyren was too sly not to have a way to escape. Where is it?"
"I--I know not, lord."
"You know. And mayhap you helped our elusive lady through it? I will find it myself if I must. But it will be easier if you show me, will it not? It is my right to know, Edyt."
In her eyes, he saw a small defeat. He disliked what he saw. There was something proud and wild about her that he did not want to see tamed.
"Aye. It is within the new tower."
"Show me."
She gave a small nod of assent, lifted the torch from its bracket, and walked away. Behind her, Alain mused to himself at the smoothness of her steps and the long yellow braid that swayed at its tip, the way a cat's tail might flick from side to side.
She passed through the open door into the upper bailey, never looking behind her as she led him up the slope to the new stone tower. At the doorless entry, she paused. He motioned for her to continue.
Edyt stepped through the small opening, ducking her head and lifting her hem. Inside, she skirted past uncleared rubble, beneath the ribbed vaults, leading the way with the torch. The rushlight's dancing shadows played against the rhythmic undulation of her hips.
Suddenly realizing the direction his thoughts had taken once again, Alain frowned and shook his head. He needed a distraction. He set his attention to the perfectly done columns and blocks of the undercroft, and the symmetrical arcs of its vaults that supported a huge new hall above. Despite its incomplete state, the lower floor was already full of necessities for a siege.
And mice.
A huge reddish tabby dashed out from the shadows, chasing the startled prey.
"Rufus! Scat! Begone!"
The cat scrambled after the mouse and disappeared into the darkness.
"Rufus? You have a cat named Rufus?"
"King Rufus. He is the lady's cat, lord. And he is very red."
"The lady has a cat named King Rufus. That certainly augurs well for the relationship. I shall pray that the king never visits."
"He surely would not take offense. The cat was named years ago. Certainly with no thought to a man whose chance to become king was so remote."
"He would not? As I recall, he has a vivid dislike for the beasts."
"Surely not."
"Surely so. They make him sneeze."
The girl turned, frowned as if impatient, and moved on. He smothered the smirk that wanted to wiggle onto his face. She had no inkling that he teased her.
She led him farther into the darkness, the torch's bright flame trailing backward. She stopped and pointed at a crude wall of coursed rubble.
"Behind the barrels," she said.
Alain grabbed the casks by their rims and rolled them away. Two thick wooden planks stood against the wall, and Alain raised each one with little effort. To this point, the bolt hole had both the remoteness and ease of access it should have. Also the greatest danger.
"Easy access for an enemy, right into the tower of refuge. Did Fyren not consider this?"
"It leads to a cavern," she replied. "No one goes into the caverns."
"Hobs?" he guessed.
She looked at him as if she could not understand why he even asked.
"Mayhap Normans do not fear them as the local folk do."
"Then they would quickly learn their error."
The coolness of the air within the hole ahead seemed to pull them inward, and the darkness laced about them like a cloying garment. Like Thomas, he had no fondness for dark places. He looked back over his shoulder at the young woman and her torch, then reached out his hand. Her upper lip thinned minutely as she gave over their only source of light. But it illuminated nothing but more darkness.
"This is the cavern?" he asked.
"Aye. Here, it is narrow, but it widens out. It comes out near the river. Have a care going in."
Alain wished she had said that sooner, as he barked his shin and stumbled at the unexpected first step.
"Mayhap I should go first, lord."
"Nay." He held the torch lower, so that he might see where his feet should go.
Only a little way in, the cavern leveled, and he stopped, holding the rush light high. Grotesque columns, parodies of those more perfect ones of the stone tower, rose to a ceiling high above, beyond the torch's dim light. Cascades of stone curtains dribbled down toward the cavern's rough floor. A fine, gritty sand crunched against the stone at his feet when he walked.
"This is the way she left, then?" It occurred to him the prospect of encountering a hob did not seem to bother her.
"I would think so."
Alain didn't. He looked back at the footprints he had made, and hers behind her, but saw no others leading down. He held the torch high up to the slanting walls to examine them. One might be able to climb them and get out without leaving tracks, he supposed, but why bother? Mayhap the lady had dragged something behind her to obscure her footprints? Yet the sand showed no sign of such disturbance.
Satisfied, and yet not, Alain handed back the rush torch. They returned to the small entry, where he lowered his head to pass. He again took the torch and held it while Edyt stepped through. Some instinct caused him to reach out to assist her before he recalled she was a servant. It was not proper.
"I will see the lady's chamber, now," he said next.
She cocked her head to the side with a puzzled frown. "It is but a bedchamber, lord."
"In itself unusual. Few but kings and queens have such luxury as a private chamber. But I vow, I like the idea. I would see it."
He thought more on that as he followed Edyt's lead out of the understory of the stone tower. Anything to keep his thoughts from the lithe, swaying motion of the enticing hips. There were many things in this castle that were very unlike things as he was accustomed to them. Even as it was now, the castle was immense. The lord's chamber was more spacious even than that of Rufus' in his hunting box at Waltham Forest, its furnishings at least as elaborate. Like the elegant purple cloak he had removed from the earl's body, the castle's opulence seemed incongruous with this wild and rustic country.
Edyt walked ahead with her smooth, lightly swaying gait back through the bailey and hall to the unusual wooden staircase and balcony at its far end. She reached for the keys that dangled from the hemp cord at her waist, and inserted one in the lock.
"Why the lock?" he asked, for there was none on the lord's chamber.
"It has always been there," she replied, and pushed open the heavy door. Answering, but telling him nothing.
This chamber, too, was smartly fitted, with a pair of shuttered narrow windows and yellow plastered walls, in conspicuous contrast to the remainder of the somber castle. A curtained bed with feather mattress stood by another wall, with a door that led to the middle chamber. By the windows, a large chest, intricately painted, with fittings of brass.
"Open it," he said, pointing to the chest.
"Open it? But lord, it is of little consequence."
"I would see it anyway."
"It is locked."
"Unlock it." As she had the key on her person, he wondered why she objected. Mayhap she felt her mistress' privacy was being invaded.
She turned the key, lifted the lid, and stood away. Inside, the garments, of a good quality but more serviceable than fine, lay in neatly folded stacks, precisely fitting the chest's dimensions. Except for those on top, which were wadded into a careless ball. Silk kirtle, linen chemise, girdle. A wimple of soft silk, of a pale yellow.
A metallic flash caught his eye as it tumbled into the fabric, and he probed among the folded garments after it. A ring. Gold, in an interlaced, twining pattern common to the area, yet quite old. Celtic, mayhap even a Norse design.
"Tell me of this." Alain held out the ring for the girl to see.
She seemed impassive except for her subtly gripped hands. "It is a gold ring."
"I find you exasperating in what you do not say, Edyt. Mayhap you could tell me something I do not already know?"
"It belongs to the Lady Melisande. It was a gift of her mother. And I think it is very old."
"Ah. Now I have learned the lady had a mother. How enlightening. Begone, Edyt. I see I shall have to solve the puzzle alone."
He saw the fleeting look of a woman slapped and knew he had taken his teasing too far. She was hardly like Chrétien, whom he could bait endlessly. He wished he had not said it. But he would not retract it.
"Edyt."
"Aye, lord?"
"Draw me a bath. I have had enough of the dust of the road. Before supper. I like it hot."
"Aye, lord." She made the merest of curtsies, before she turned and left the chamber.
You see? He will kill you!
Aye, kill you, you fool! Flee!
Melisande glided away, carefully forcing each step to perfection to conceal her rampant fear. From the moment he had ridden in, and all through this hideously long interrogation, she had quaked inside, desperately schooling her face and forcing her hands to be still.
As she left the hall, she gripped her hands together so tightly her knuckles whitened, to curb their trembling. Her heart pounded so hard, she thought it might beat itself to death against her chest.
Christ's blood, how had he gotten the cloak? She'd sent it with Fyren to the grave! She had wrapped it about the body, herself!
There! Leave it! Let him die of it!
Be still, she told the demons. I will not listen.
This time, she would not let them goad her into hysteria.
Nay, she needed the Norman lord alive. She could not think of herself.