Beauchamp Besieged. Elaine Knighton

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СКАЧАТЬ arms were hard beneath her shoulders and knees, his steps sure and silent. A faint smell of roasted fowl lingered in the air above the reek of the hall, and despite her pain and weariness, Ceridwen’s mouth watered. She looked up past Raymond’s face, avoiding his frowning gaze.

      The upper reaches of the large hall disappeared into gloom, and though a fire crackled in the center of the floor, it made little impact on either the cold or the dark. A stout, wrinkle-faced woman hurried over and touched Ceridwen’s cheek with the back of her hand. The crone peered at her in the light of the fat candle she held.

      “Welcome to Rookhaven, lass. ’Tis Alys am I, and who’ll see ye to bed.” The woman’s gap-toothed smile vanished as she turned her attention to Raymond. “What have ye done? Her neck’s purple. Her face is all bruised. Hmmph!”

      The knight exchanged looks with the old woman. Hers was one of disapproval. His was unreadable, except for the unrelenting tightness around his mouth. He swept past her and took Ceridwen into a small chamber, fragrant with mint. Carefully he laid her on a narrow bed, but her relief was short-lived. Raymond threw down his bloodstained gauntlets and began to unbind her wound.

      “You are overly familiar, sir. Take your hands from me,” Ceridwen whispered, too drained to meet his eyes. Under the circumstances, he was not likely to believe her if she claimed to be his betrothed. But it was her duty to tell him the truth, and he had no right to manhandle the daughter of Morgan ap Madog.

      Raymond paused at her objection, threw her a quelling look as she opened her mouth to reveal her name, then continued with his task. He gave up on her lacings and simply ripped the fabric, using the hole his sword had made as a starting point.

      Ceridwen shrieked and tried to pull away.

      “Jesu, woman! You’re worse than any eel.” Mercilessly he held her to the position he desired, using his knee on her thighs and his elbow across her chest. “I would see for myself what damage I have done. I do not trust the reports of others.”

      Ceridwen gritted her teeth as his fingers probed her wound.

      “I am sorry to hurt you. But have no fear for your modesty. I look upon thee as I would any wounded creature.”

      “I am not a creature!” She squirmed and bucked in spite of the pain. “I am—”

      “Tsk. My lord Raymond. ’Tis but a young lass here ye have. She’ll not be understanding yer ways,” the crone chided, her chins wagging.

      “Nor has she any need to understand. Her only duty to me is to lie still.” He directed his last two words to Ceridwen, writhing beneath his hands.

      “She has no duty to ye a-tall!”

      “Alys, you try my patience.” His eyes gleamed a warning to the old nurse.

      She glared back. “Be that as it may, young master Raymond, ye’re not needed here. In fact, ye’re in the way.”

      Ceridwen marvelled at the woman’s familiar treatment of her sinister lord. She thought she heard a low growl sounding from Sir Raymond’s throat, but her own pain distracted her. Abruptly his warm hands left her abdomen, and his knee lifted from her legs. The large bulk of Alys overshadowed her, clucking and muttering as she applied a pungent salve to the wound.

      Ceridwen turned her head and fixed her gaze on the retreating back of the dark knight. The play of candlelight glanced off the mail covering his arms. The heavy, deep blue fabric of his surcoat rippled dully. As he reached the door, he pulled his coif from his head. With a small shock she saw that he was fair. Thick, brassy hair, with a tawny brown beneath the light outer layers, like an animal’s pelt, tumbled past his shoulders.

      Similar to Alonso, yet wholly different. Haughty, aye. But Ceridwen was surprised to sense no vanity in this Beauchamp. He was neither as tall nor as broad as his elder brother. But he commanded a powerful, forbidding presence that had nothing to do with size. A fair-haired knight. A black horse. Bloody hands. She swallowed as her memory stirred. Long ago Owain had told her a story, of a maiden who met just such a man. At the time, she had thought it a tale of his own imagining. But Owain had known of things to come, and saw things hidden—had it been a warning? Now she could not remember how it ended.

      Raymond turned and regarded her over his shoulder. Their eyes met, and for an instant Ceridwen thought she felt compassion sing across the room to her. Then his handsome face shuttered, the light extinguished like a candle snuffed out by a cold wind.

      She blinked, and Raymond vanished into the darkness beyond the door. Tomorrow. She would tell him her name tomorrow.

      Chapter Four

      “Damn. Damn. Thrice be damned!” Raymond cursed his way up a dank stairway of his ancient fortress, his wolfhound padding alongside. He had never bothered to improve upon the meager comforts of his keep, and drafts blew freely in the stone halls. Cobwebs were the only hangings to soften the chill.

      The wench was trouble. A whole realm of it. A shudder of longing coursed through him at the remembrance of her fine features and delicate bones. Just as Meribel’s had been. Raymond pushed his lady’s visage back and it merged into that of the wounded maiden. She was exquisite, despite the fact she was dirty and bedraggled, her long hair all in rat’s-nests.

      It was the kind of hair he loved, soft and fine and black. And those upslanted eyes, deep with unspoken sorrow, shifting from sea-green to emerald. Eyes that sometimes glowed, lit from within by a pure fire, whether born of a fighting spirit or fever, he could not tell. Aye, a comely bundle, much too lovely for comfort. Why had he bothered spitting a perfectly able man to save her skin in the first place?

      Perhaps it had been young Wace’s look of anguish at seeing a girl about to be ravished. Perhaps because by saving the virtue of one maid, he could partially make up for the multitude of despoilings his brother perpetrated in the name of his rights as lord. A laughable thought. Who was he, Raymond, to pretend honor after what he had done to his own wife?

      Her image leaped to torment him, as ever. Meribel, floating in the noisome moat. Her eyes, once sparkling with both merriment and malice, now dull, open and staring. Heedless of the strands of green water-weed tangling in her long lashes. Beyond caring that her gown drifted up her white thighs, gleaming through the murky water.

      Raymond groaned and with an effort that cost him dear, willed her away, his eyes tightly shut. Slowly she faded to a mere shadow on the periphery of his mind. Faint, but never fully banished.

      The cur he had dispatched had not deserved such a clean, swift stroke. Raymond hoped he had not also ultimately killed the black-haired maid. He had seen no viscera emerging through her wound, and only good, red blood flowing, nothing green or foul-smelling. Hopeful signs, but it was too soon to tell.

      “Wace!” Raymond reached the landing, kicked open the door of his solar, and the squire hurried to his side. “Disarm me and bring some hot water.” He tossed his gauntlets and coif onto the bed, where his huge dog was already circling to settle down for the night. For some reason, the sight did not bring its usual satisfaction.

      Silently Wace unstrapped his master’s sword and dagger. He lifted off the flowing surcoat and sighed when he saw the ruined lining. Raymond ignored the small censure and leaned forward as if to touch his toes. The heavy mail hauberk slithered down over his head into Wace’s waiting hands. The boy then untied the mail chausses, and Raymond shook them from his legs.

      He СКАЧАТЬ