“Were you going to fly through a locked door?” Adwen asked caustically.
Malik flinched. “I would have found a way.”
Gage lifted Adwen in his arms. “Then find a way to get to the front gate before the rest of Redfern goes up in flames.” He turned to Brynn. “I know you’re almost as hurt as Malik, but can you help him?”
Hurt? For an instant Brynn was confused. So much had happened that she had almost forgotten the bruises and cuts she had received earlier in the evening. It seemed a long time ago. “Of course I can help him.” She rose to her feet and put Malik’s arm about her shoulders again. “Come, Malik. Only a little farther and we’ll be out of this.”
“Such humiliation,” he muttered.
“Oh, be silent,” Adwen said tartly. “Would you rather have the beard burnt off your handsome face?”
He brightened. “You think me handsome?”
She sighed in exasperation and closed her eyes as Gage bore her away.
Malik’s limping gait suddenly took on a slight strut. “She does think me handsome.”
Astonished, Brynn pointed out, “Malik, we’ve barely escaped with our lives.”
“Well, one must always strive to claim joy in every adversity.”
At present Brynn could see no joy in this tragic morass, but she was glad someone could. “Well, don’t be too joyful. Adwen has a great fear of comely men.”
His face fell. “Ah, that is too bad. But I think you’re right. I remember …” Malik trailed off, his eyes on Adwen, who was now being lifted to LeFont’s horse. “Where is Lord Richard?”
Brynn looked around the confusion in the stable yard. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen him.” She suddenly looked at the burning hall. “Could he be—”
“No, he’s not in there.” Malik lips tightened grimly. “I’d place a wager he was safely away before the hall was completely aflame.”
“What do you mean?”
“Mount! Ride for the hill and set up camp.” Gage was beside them, leading two horses. He hoisted Malik on one of them and slapped the horse’s hindquarters, sending it galloping through the gates. He turned and reached for Brynn. “You too.”
“No.” She backed away, taking in the sight of panicky men and women in the stable yard. “I can’t leave here. I may be needed.”
“Not here. I’ve ordered my soldiers to herd everyone out of Redfern and up to the camp on the hill. We’ll stay until it is completely deserted.” His hands encircled her waist and he lifted her to the horse. “That’s all that’s possible for anyone to do. In a few hours there will be nothing left. Redfern is gone.”
She stared dazedly at the blazing hall where she had spent these last years. He was right. Soon there would be only ashes.
“Go.” Gage slapped the mare’s rear and sent it after Malik’s.
Could you fly through a locked door?
Adwen’s words suddenly came back to Brynn as she passed through the burning gates. At the time Brynn had been too absorbed by the danger to realize the impact of the words.
Locked door?
Brynn was too busy to question Adwen regarding her words until over two hours later. A constant flow of people streamed through Redfern’s gates and up the hill to the camp. Some had burns from trying to fight the blaze, some were merely stunned and confused at losing all their meager belongings. It was difficult to realize which injury was the deeper, but both had to be tended. In spite of her protests, Malik insisted on moving from wounded to wounded with her, bathing away the dirt, holding bandages for Brynn to tie. Sometimes he just sat and spoke gently to them, offering understanding and comfort.
Brynn visited Alice’s pallet several times during those hours, but she did not wake. Not a good sign. She washed the woman’s temple once again, then turned and walked toward the huge rock at the edge of the hill against which Adwen was leaning, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders.
“How is Alice?” Adwen asked.
“I don’t know. I wish she’d wake.” She sat down beside Adwen. “Are you chilled? Do you need another blanket?”
“No.” Adwen stared at the conflagration below. She had the same stunned expression on her face as the others who had escaped the inferno. “It’s gone,” she whispered. “I feel very strange. It’s as if I were seeing everything I was burning away.”
Brynn knew what she meant. She, too, had a sense of a part of her life coming to an end. She had never been content here, but it was a terrible way to escape from Redfern. Fire and death. She shuddered when she realized that Delmas was down there in that stable being devoured by those flames.
But she could not think of that now. Too many people were in need, and Adwen was one of them. “I’m sorry we had no time to save anything,” she said gently.
“I’m not,” Adwen said. “This is the only thing I would have regretted leaving behind.” She opened her hand to reveal an exquisite silver rosary that Brynn recognized. It had belonged to Adwen’s mother, who had given it to Adwen on the night before her death. Adwen was sure it was an amulet and it had never left her side during her long illness. “The rest is of no importance.” She smiled. “In truth, being without possessions makes me feel … free.”
“Free?”
“My bridal gifts from Richard. My dowry to him. All the sad memories of those years when I could not leave that room. All the doubts and guilt …” She expelled a deep breath. “All gone.”
“I hope so,” Brynn said. “But memories don’t burn as readily as timber. They seem to go on and then they come back.”
“Well, they’re gone now and I’ll worry about them returning later.” Adwen shivered. “I thought I was going to die, Brynn. It was very strange. I became enraged. Remember when I used to accept death? Not now. Suddenly I was filled with a terrible anger and strength, I think I knew the anger Samson must have experienced when he destroyed the temple. If Gage hadn’t come, I felt as if I could have broken down the door myself.”
The locked door. “Did he have to break it down? Was it truly locked?”
“Oh, yes, it was locked.” Her lips tightened. “Malik and I were both awake and heard the key turn in the lock. After you left, I was upset, and Alice went to the kitchen to prepare a soothing draught to help me sleep. I heard someone at the door and thought it was Alice returning. It was not.”
“Who?”
“Richard. I didn’t see him, but who else could it have been? Who else would want me dead? I heard the key in the lock and a short time later I smelled smoke.”
“It’s not reasonable.” Brynn’s brow furrowed in puzzlement. “Why would he burn down his heritage just to kill you?”
“It’s not his heritage. Not any longer. He knew the Normans would soon take it and Redfern never meant anything to him but as a path to power.” Her lips curved bitterly. “No more than I did. Why not burn us both and start anew? A rich Norman widow would suit him splendidly.”
“If he has no heritage, no Norman would give his kin to him.”
“But he is so comely and can be as sweet as the flowers in the spring. He would find a way,”
I might wed you.
Lord Richard’s words suddenly came back to Brynn. Could it be he had sought to clear the way not to a rich Norman widow but to Brynn herself? After Delmas’s death he had known that Brynn was desperate and had seen her leave Redfern. What if he had not learned Gage had followed her? Burning down the hall could have served the dual purpose of ridding him of a wife and the invader who might get in his way. It was possible he could have decided to set events in motion with one stroke of the torch.
Adwen turned to her in sudden alarm. “I’m being foolish. I’m not free, am I? He’s still alive.”
“I believe he is.”
“Then why has he not come forward? It’s not like him not to put on a brave show and try to prove black is white.”
Brynn looked down at the burning ruins. “It would be difficult to convince anyone that this wickedness is heaven sen
t. Dear God, all those poor people … Winter is coming and they have no roof over their heads.”
“He doesn’t care about them. In his world there is only Richard, and his strength and cleverness have always gotten him everything he’s wanted. I was his only failure. It’s no wonder he wants to see me dead.”
“I won’t let him hurt you, Adwen.”
“No, I won’t let him hurt me,” she said with sudden fierceness. “I must not depend on anyone else. I’ll be as strong and clever as he is.”
“You’re already clever, and you’ll be strong as well when you’re better.”
“I have no time to be ill. Do you think he’ll stop because he failed in his purpose this time? He’ll keep trying until he gets what he wants. I must be ready when he comes for me.”
Brynn smiled. The glimmer of strength she had noticed in her friend since she had returned to Redfern was no longer nebulous but shining clear. “I’m sure you will be, Adwen.”
Adwen looked back at Redfern and whispered, “Life is precious, isn’t it, Brynn? He tried to take it from me. He tried to take it from all of us.”
“Life is very precious.”
“You’re angry at Gage for taking Delmas’s life. I know it was a sin, but I wonder.… It seems that some lives are more precious than others.” Adwen spoke slowly, as if trying to work things out. “He was very cruel to you. If Delmas had lived, would he not have caused you and others more misery?”
“Perhaps.”
“Then, why do you—”
“Because now he has no chance to be anything else. Who knows what Delmas was like when he was a child or what events twisted him to be the man he was? Perhaps some miraculous change would have taken place in him if he had lived.”
Adwen frowned doubtfully. “You believe this?”
“No.” She sighed. “I cannot think of miracles and Delmas at the same time. But I’m a healer and I cannot permit myself to judge who should live and who should die. Sometimes miracles occur when you least expect them.”
“Well, I don’t believe he would have changed, and I’m glad he can no longer hurt you.” She added emphatically, “I believe God would not waste his time with such a brute, and neither should any of us.”
Brynn was slightly taken aback at such a fierce reaction from gentle, loving Adwen. Brynn felt as if she could see her changing and evolving before her eyes. “God must not have felt him a waste when he brought him into this world.”
“God also brought poisonous snakes into the world, but he didn’t mean them to slither around and bother the rest of us. Delmas should have stayed with the other snakes.”
“I … see.”
“But you don’t agree.” Adwen shook her head. “In many ways you are much wiser than I, but I think in others you lack reason.” She wearily leaned against the rock. “I don’t know. I will have to think about it. It’s very difficult to form opinions when all my life I’ve only accepted what everyone has told me was truth. It makes me doubt every—Look! There they are!”
Brynn’s gaze followed Adwen’s, and relief surged through her. Gage, LeFont, and the company of soldiers were riding up the hill. They evidently had decided they could be of no more help and were returning. She had not allowed herself to admit how worried she had been about Gage during these past hours.
Dear God, Gage looked like a demon fresh from Hades. His face was smoke-blackened, but though his hair was soot-coated, in the glare of the flames it still glinted with its own fire.
“He’s coming,” Adwen murmured, her eyes on Gage. “My dream. The fire. It was him.…”
Adwen had made the same connection Brynn had reached on Gage’s first day at Redfern. “Perhaps. It doesn’t have to mean anything. It could be mere chance.”
“It does mean something. It’s exactly as I saw it. You believe in miracles. Why do you deny them when they come to you?”
“Lord Gage is not a miracle.”
“He saved me. He saved Malik.” She gestured to the people on the hillside. “He saved all of them. He seems a miracle to me.”
He had begun to seem a miracle to her also, Brynn thought wistfully. A miracle that had unfolded with such infinite slowness, she had not realized what she held in her hands until it had been tarnished and then dashed to the ground.
“He’s not a miracle,” she repeated, and turned away. “I’ve lingered too long here. I must go see to Alice.”
“No, let me.” Adwen threw off the blanket and struggled to he feet. “You have too much to do.”
“Sit down. You can barely stand.”
“I won’t have to stand to watch over Alice. I must no longer pamper myself. Malik is not well either, and he’s helping.” Adwen moved with halting steps toward Alice’s pallet. She smiled at Brynn over her shoulder. “Be at ease. I know nothing of healing, but I know all about childbearing. If she as much as twitches, I will call you.”
Brynn frowned worriedly as she watched her walk away. Adwen’s will was strong but her body was still weak. She was not so sure how much strain she could endure.
“How are you?”
She stiffened when she saw Gage on his horse a few yards away.
“Well enough.” She studied him and felt a surge of sympathy as she saw that even the smoke could not mask the lines of weariness marking his face. “Better than you. At least I’ve had a chance to wash the soot from my face.”
“I regret that I offend you.”
“You don’t offend me. Adwen says you’re a miracle. How can a miracle offend?”
“A miracle?” He smiled sardonically. “I’m sure you told her how mistaken she was.”
“Yes, but she didn’t agree with me. Adwen is becoming very stubborn.” She averted her glance. “We are not too bad here. There are four men with painful burns, but Alice is the only one I’m worried about. Her head is cut and I’m afraid inhaling the smoke may have done harm. She is with child.”
“Lord Richard’s?”
“Yes.”
“What a delightful fellow. He was the one who struck her down and left her to burn.”
“You know this?”
“LeFont said one of his men saw Alice following Richard, pleading with him. He turned and hit her and she fell against the wall.”
“Adwen says she believes he was the one who set the fire.”
“He did. He set the hall ablaze first and the stable burst into flames only minutes after he rode out of it and through the gates. There’s no doubt he meant to burn all of Redfern.” He turned his horse and nudged him forward. “I’m leaving a company of soldiers here for your protection, but don’t stray from camp.”
She went still. “Leaving? Where are you going?”
“After Lady Adwen’s dear husband. He can’t have gone far.”
Fear tore through her. She had thought him safe, and now he was riding again into danger. “You won’t find him. He knows the countryside too well.”
“One of LeFont’s men is an excellent tracker. We have a good chance of—”
“You don’t have a chance,” Brynn said fiercely. “What if the fire is only a ploy to rob you of shelter and lure you into the open? What if he’s gathering his vassals and planning to lie in wait to murder you?”
His eyes narrowed. “And what do you care if he does? Surely a murderer’s punishment should be murder itself.”
“Don’t you see? The violence goes on and on. It never stops.”
“And if I kill Lord Richard, will that be your fault too?”
“Yes, for I brought you here.”
He muttered a curse beneath his breath. “You must have a talk with God someday. You evidently think you bear a common responsibility for all of mankind.” He nudged his horse forward. “If I killed your husband, it was my doing and mine alone. If I kill Lord Richard, it will be my responsibility. My will, my act. You have nothing to do with it.” He lifted his hand. “LeFont!”
He galloped down the hill with LeFont and the soldiers following.
> Ten
“You are alive,” Alice whispered. “I thought you dead, my lady.”
“Ah, you’re awake.” Adwen smiled down at her. “Brynn will be pleased. She was worried about you. I’ll call her.”
“No!” Alice’s hand reached out to stop her. “Wait, please. I would talk to you.”
“Not now. You’ve been hurt and must rest.”
“I tried to stop him,” Alice said hoarsely. “He had a torch and I knew … I saw him lock the door and I ran after him. I’ve sinned against you, but I would never—”
“Hush.” Adwen’s fingers pressed against the other woman’s mouth. “You have not sinned against me.”
“I have fornicated with your husband. I bear his child.”
“I know. I heard you tell Brynn.”
“You did? But you said nothing.”
“Because there was nothing to say. It is you who have been sinned against.”
Alice shook her head. “I confessed to the priest and he said that the sin was mine, that I had tempted Lord Richard.”
“Did he?” Adwen’s lips tightened. “And the good father told me that my sin was that I was not a dutiful and submissive wife, or God would grant me a child. It seems that women are the root of all iniquity in this world and men innocent as the Virgin Mary.”
“The priest told you that?” Alice shook her head. “It is not true. No one could have been kinder or more docile than you.”
“Docile.” Adwen tasted the sound of it. “It is a pale, weak word.… I have no liking for it.” She squeezed Alice’s hand. “And I think we have both been too docile in the past.”
“It is the way of women.”
“It is the way men tell women that they should be.” Adwen’s gaze went to Brynn across the camp. “Brynn is not docile. Perhaps we should learn from her.”
“You do believe me?” Alice asked. “It was never my wish to—”
“I believe you.” Adwen gently stroked the hair back from Alice’s face. “You’ve always been kind to me, Alice. Why should I think you meant me harm?”
“The child …” Alice rushed on, “I don’t know why God gave me this child and denied you. It will only be a burden to me, and you wanted it so.”