Nay, she would just have to remain close to Sybil, make herself as inconspicuous as possible, and hope that a solution to her problems would present itself before the Butcher’s hands presented themselves around her neck.
Or mayhap a miracle would occur and the morning would never come.
Unfortunately, the morn did arrive in its normal, relentless fashion and Ali found herself with no choice but to continue in the direction Sir Etienne dictated. He ordered her about as often as possible, and when he wasn’t shouting at her, he was smirking at her. No doubt he had his own secret enjoyment over the thought of her spending the rest of her life as Berkhamshire’s man. Perhaps in his mind that was punishment enough for someone he considered completely useless with a blade.
Which she was, of course, despite her brother François’s spurs. She couldn’t feel anything but satisfaction each time she heard the comforting clink of metal at her heels. Then again, she owed him for several instances of torture—not only to her own poor person, but to her childish playthings. A pity that bit of metal couldn’t have endowed her with skill enough to have wielded her blade as well as François could.
But perhaps wishing for things she would never have could be put aside for a while. Blackmour was rising up before her, coming closer with every hoofbeat. Her hands were so slippery with sweat that she could scarce hold her reins. Her horse seemed to sense her fear, for he danced continually beneath her until she was firmly convinced she would humiliate herself by losing her seat—and likely before the Dragon and the Butcher themselves.
Ali looked at Sybil and found a girl riding next to her whose hands were empty of all foodstuffs. Too nervous to eat? It spoke fully of the poor wench’s terror.
Ali put her face forward and prayed for death.
It didn’t come, of course. What did come was a castle that seemed ever larger and more gloomy as they approached it. The walls were dark, cast in shadows from stormy clouds above that seemed to gather more densely as they approached. Ali half wondered if the Dragon was conjuring up a bit of thunder simply because he could. After all, what else had the man to do to occupy his time?
Or perhaps Lord Colin was preparing to send a few sniveling souls along to the afterlife by his frowns alone and Blackmour was simply providing an appropriate accompaniment. The screams of terror and the litany of pleas for mercy would be drowned out quite nicely by a ripe thunder-storm. Perhaps Lord Colin preferred it that way—having spent the greater portion of his life listening to men babbling piteously to be spared. That likely grew tiresome after a few years. And by her count he was a year or two past a score and ten. How was it one man could fill so few years with so many tales of terror?
Perhaps ’twas better not to think overmuch on that.
It seemed far too soon that they were riding into the courtyard after a harrowing journey across a bridge that surely was too thin to hold the combined weight of their entire company. Ali was thankful to be once again on solid ground, never mind that the Dragon’s nest was naught but an island thrust away from the whole of England. Perhaps the land itself couldn’t bear the thought of sheltering him and thus continually tried to rid itself of his presence.
They stopped in the courtyard. Ali looked about her reluctantly and had to admit that as far as castle courtyards went, it looked much like every other one she’d ever seen. There was a great hall that gave no outward sign of the evil that lurked within. A pleasant-looking garden sat to one side, full of the first blushes of herbs, tender flowers, and a handful of blossoms and fruit trees. Stables, a smithy, peasant huts: These were all things she would have expected to see, and nothing about them seemed untoward. Indeed, the garden looked like something she might have enjoyed passing her time in, if she’d had the chance.
The door to the great hall opened suddenly, interrupting her scrutiny and sending her heart racing. People came down the steps and gathered together before their small company.
And then the Dragon came to the door.
Ali felt her mouth go dry, and she wasn’t sure if it was from the horror of seeing him in the flesh or from the surprise at finding he was powerfully handsome. What sort of devilry was that, that a fiend so foul should possess such commanding features as well?
He was accompanied by a woman of comely appearance who held his arm so easily that she could have been none other than his wife. Ali couldn’t even begin to give thought to how she had found herself in the Dragon’s talons. That was a story she suspected she wouldn’t be equal to hearing even on her best day.
The Dragon stopped before the company and spoke briefly with Sir Etienne. Ali realized belatedly that only the women were still mounted and she slid off her horse, trying to be as unobtrusive as possible. Of course, her sword chose that moment as the appropriate time to twist around, trip her, and make her look the fool. Her horse followed suit by putting up a struggle that sent the entire company into a panic.
Sir Etienne appeared before her. Whatever else her failings, her ears seemingly worked well enough, for she had no trouble hearing him shout at her. And then she found herself quite suddenly sprawled in the dirt with her ears ringing. She realized only then that she’d been struck, and forcefully enough that sparks of light danced in the world around her.
“Have you no skill at all?” Sir Etienne snarled. “Get yourself over and hold your lady’s horse.” He spat on her, then turned and walked back to the front of the company.
Ali struggled to her feet, wishing she were anywhere but where she was. She staggered over to hold on to the reins of Sybil’s horse, keeping her eyes down to the ground. Then she heard the collective gasp of those around her and suspected that gasp was not for her sorry self. She looked up and saw that another body had come to the doorway of the great hall.
And knew that she was gazing upon none other than the Butcher himself.
The tales did not exaggerate. He was enormous. He filled the doorway not only with his foul self, but with his reputation as well. She could almost see it wrapping itself around him like a sorcerer’s cloak.
Ali wished she’d had a place to sit down as Lord Colin walked down the stairs. She suspected that one of the reasons Lord Colin was so successful in battle was that all he needed to do was walk onto the field and half his opponents would throw down their weapons in an effort to save themselves from his wrath.
Ali didn’t dare look at him as he approached. It was all she could do to continue to suck in air and keep Sybil’s horse under control.
The footsteps ceased.
The Butcher spoke.
The heavens wept in fear.
“And you are?” he demanded.
Ali stole a look to determine that he hadn’t been speaking to her before she ducked her head again and did her best to fade to insignificance.
Unfortunately, Sybil seemed not to be suffering from the same desire. She whimpered loudly enough that Ali looked up in surprise. She swayed in the saddle, swallowed that last little bite of whatever last meal she’d decided to ingest before meeting her doom, then her eyes rolled back in her head and she slumped sideways toward Ali. Ali managed to catch her, but the girl was substantial and her dead weight bore both of them to the ground. Ali lay comfortably covered by the voluminous folds of Sybil’s wimple and veil—made excessively ample for the hiding of various sweets, no doubt—while Lord Colin’s displeasure washed over them in a rush.
“Can someone tell me what this child’s name is?” he demanded.
Ali would have stayed happily where she was for eternity, but it was not to be so. The cloth was suddenly ripped back from her face. And if that weren’t unpleasant enough, she found herself facing not an annoying drizzle, but the furious-looking visage of none other than the Butcher of Berkhamshire himself. She squeaked in surprise—belatedly remembering that manly knights never squeaked. She tried for a more knightly exclamation of surprise.
“I take it you are her keeper?” he demanded.
Ali stared at him, his face so close to hers,
and for the briefest of moments she felt surprised that she faced a man and not a foul demon. Indeed, he looked like a very undemonlike man. Two eyes of a color that reminded her of a mossy pool near her home. A nose that had definitely encountered some kind of fist or sword hilt, given the crook in it, but not a bad nose as far as they went. Sun-darkened skin over a face that had a pleasing enough shape. Little crinkles around his eyes, as if there were times he might have smiled—
Over the foul, painful deaths of his opponents, no doubt. Ali came to herself with a start and realized that Lord Colin was scowling at her with enough fierceness that any of the kind thoughts she’d had of him before were immediately shown to be what they were—the idle daydreams of a girl who was being crushed to death by the not-so-lithe Sybil of Maignelay.
“You are her keeper?” Lord Berkhamshire demanded again.
“Aye, my lord,” she gasped, wishing intensely that perhaps she had been more diligent in keeping Sybil away from the cellars.
“And your mistress’s name? If you can stop squeaking long enough to give it to me?”
“Sybil of Maignelay-sur-mer,” Ali said promptly, wishing she could decide what was the worse of the tortures: having Lord Berkhamshire breathing down on her, or Sybil crushing the life from her. She spared effort for a wish that she weren’t quaking so hard that she was coming close to flinging Sybil off her without aid.
Lord Colin grunted, straightened, and walked off, leaving a waft of odd-smelling air behind him. Ali sniffed, unable to decide if the man had doused himself in ale or rolled in the herb garden. ’Twas rumored he had a most foul smell. Mayhap he tried to cover that with something less foul.
“The lists,” he called to any who would listen. Ali watched him point at Sir Etienne. “You’re of that company. Let us see what you’re made of, eh?”
Ali didn’t even have the brief satisfaction of seeing Sir Etienne hesitate. He merely shrugged negligently and followed Lord Colin to the lists. Perhaps he was too stupid to realize whom he stood to face. Either that, or he thought far too much of his own skill. Ali suspected it was a great deal of both.
For herself, she was left with a picture of complete menace as her first impression of her one-time betrothed. Never mind those crinkles around his eyes; there was no mercy in him. She imagined that he only laughed when he was putting someone to the sword. She closed her eyes and let fly heavenward a heartfelt prayer that she’d never been forced to wed with him.
Ali soon found Sybil removed from her own flattened self. Sybil and her ladies were led inside the hall, leaving Ali to struggle to her feet herself. She had scarce managed to gain them before she found herself confronted by a sight far worse than the Butcher of Berkhamshire.
The Dragon himself stood there, with a young knight at his side. But all he said was, “Best be about your duties, lad.”
Ali waited for him to spew out the truth of her identity, but apparently he either hadn’t troubled himself with discovering it, or he planned to announce it at another time, for he said nothing else to her. She gaped at him for a moment or two in surprise, then managed to shut her mouth. “Aye, my lord,” she whispered. “Thank you, my lord.”
Blackmour nodded curtly before he turned to the young man at his side and turned him away to speak in low tones to him.
“Keep an eye on that Sir Etienne,” Blackmour said. “I’ve no liking for what I saw today.”
“Of course, my lord,” said the young man, who waited until his master had walked away, then turned to Ali with a friendly smile. “And you are?”
Aliénore of Solonge was so far forward on her tongue, she had to bite the words back. She swallowed, then tried again.
“Sir Henri,” she said.
The man facing her lifted one eyebrow in surprise. “A knight, are you?”
“Knighted young,” she said. “For valor,” she added, choking over the words.
The other man seemed to be trying not to smile. “Jason of Artane,” he said, “at your service. Knighted early enough as well, though merely for many hours spent sweating in the lists, not for any great deed of valor.”
She swallowed with difficulty. Artane? Jason of Artane? By the saints, the de Piagets of Artane were patrons of the priory near her home! She ducked her head, on the off chance he might somehow, beyond reason or logic, recognize her. This was, after all, Blackmour. The saints only knew if the entire keep was bewitched or not.
“Sir Henri?”
She looked at Jason and nodded in her most manly fashion. “My thanks,” she said gruffly.
“The stables are that way,” he said, pointing over her head. “You’ll likely want to see to your lady’s horseflesh.”
“Of course.”
He paused, looked at her closely, then shook his head. “I am,” he muttered to himself, “beginning to imagine things. Aye, that’s it.”
Ali turned away before he could decide that he wasn’t imagining things. He had looked at her far too closely for her taste. His master might have the benefit of unwholesome magic to aid him, but she suspected that Jason of Artane needed nothing but his own two eyes to divine any and all secrets.
All the more reason to flee.
As quickly as possible.
She gathered up the reins to a pair of horses and headed toward the stables. She deposited the beasts with the grumbling stable master, then stepped back out into the courtyard and headed without hesitation toward the gates. Perhaps the best thing for her to do was simply walk out whilst there was a goodly bit of confusion in the courtyard. Sybil was being fussed over inside, the Dragon had disappeared, and she knew that Lord Colin was no doubt grinding Sir Etienne into the dust in the lists. Aye, this was the perfect time to make good her escape.
She came to a teetering halt and watched in dismay as the portcullis slammed home with a ring that rivaled any death knell she’d ever heard.
Her chest felt as if a large hand were squeezing it so tightly that there was no room for breath, no room for her heart, no room for any life inside her body.
“Sir knight,” the stable master bellowed. “Bring me your other horses!”
Ali turned and numbly went to fetch more horseflesh.
Trapped, again.
By the saints, how was she to survive this prison?
Chapter 4
Colin parried with Sir Etienne and, finding nothing that required his immediate attention, turned his mind to other things.
Namely the fact that his own smell was driving him mad, and his bride apparently agreed. Surely only a hefty waft of perfumed oil could have been what had knocked her straight from her horse in such a manner. The saints only knew where she was now. Likely weeping buckets in some corner of Gillian’s solar, comforted by masses of women whose task it was to comfort those who wept in such volume.
The saints be praised he hadn’t been called upon to join that unhappy group.
He fended off Sir Etienne’s aggressive attack with something akin to boredom. Would there ever come a man who could truly make him sit up and take notice? Artane himself, perhaps. Lord Robin had white enough in his crown, but he was still a joyously wily warrior who delighted in nothing more than a good skirmish in the lists.
His get were sport enough, to be sure, though of Artane’s three sons, Kendrick was surely the most skilled. Jason would be just as skilled, though, in time. Colin took every opportunity to polish up that lad’s swordplay so he might someday have a worthy opponent. Jason was improving, to be sure, but still Colin found himself left vaguely unsatisfied. One thing was certain: It would not be this Sir Etienne of Maignelay to make him break a sweat. So, with a sigh of resignation, he continued his play but turned his mind to other matters.
His bride was, unfortunately, the first thing that came to mind. He could recall little of her save masses of pale hair escaping a wimple that could have covered the heads and throats of a half a dozen women with ease. Her eyes he’d had but a brief glimpse of before they’d rolled straight back in her head and
she’d pitched off her horse onto that pitiful guardsman who’d been completely overcome by his mistress’s substantial self.
“I see fear in your eyes,” Sir Etienne said triumphantly. “Do you yield?”
Colin blinked in surprise. “Yield?” he echoed, fair dumbfounded by the very idea.
“I can be merciful,” Sir Etienne said magnanimously.
Colin honestly wasn’t sure if he should laugh or run the fool through for his idiocy. Surely the latter would have been a mercy to all involved. The very idea of him, Colin of Berkhamshire, needing any mercy was just so ridiculous, he had no idea how to respond.
Obviously Sir Etienne thought he was speechless with fear.
“To save your pride, then,” Sir Etienne said, “we’ll continue.”
Colin scowled and dismissed the imbecile before him, though he did, of course, continue parrying with him. Fool or not, the man was hoisting a sword and had a faint idea of what to do with it once it was up in the air. Colin was in need enough of distraction that he would take it from wherever it might come.
Unfortunately, Sir Etienne was a poor enough distraction that Colin found he couldn’t keep his thoughts away from his pitiful future—a future he was just certain would be full of torments any man with sense would have avoided like the pox itself.
Marriage. A bride who fainted at the sight of him. His father gloating over finally having saddled him with a wife.
It was enough to make him wish for a hasty retreat to his bed for the afternoon.
He sighed deeply. He would have to consider his journey soon, he supposed, before his bride threw herself off the parapet, or before Colin threw Sir Etienne off the like—and given how much he hated being that far off the ground, the latter was saying something indeed. It was growing more tempting by the heartbeat, though, for the longer they parried, the more vocal Sir Etienne became about his skill and Colin’s supposed apparent awe of the same. Colin could finally bear the braggart no longer. He resheathed his sword in disgust, leaving the other man fighting against air.