A Knight's Vow

"But you said you had no family."

  "She… died, along with her mother."

  She gave a little gasp. "How awful for you."

  " 'Twas a long time ago." Not long enough to erase the pain in his voice.

  "I lost my mother when I was a child," she told him. "She fell ill. I remember listening to her, night after night, coughing and coughing. 'Twas a horrible sound."

  Ryance remembered that sound. Four years after, he could still recall his second wife's wheezing breaths as she struggled to find air in the fluid drowning her. "But not so horrible as the night it ceased."

  "Aye. I blamed myself. For years afterward I thought I'd caused her death by praying she'd stop coughing."

  Her words struck a familiar and dissonant chord in him. He, too, had prayed for Elaine's end.

  "Did you blame yourself for your wife's death?" Hilaire asked, startling him with her candor.

  "Nay," he lied. "The physicians did all they could—bled her, gave her poultices to draw out the sickness." He blew out a tired breath. "I even summoned a healer the chaplain claimed was a handmaiden of the devil."

  "I'm so sorry," Hilaire whispered. "You must have loved her well."

  "I… cared for her." He hadn't dared to love Elaine, not after losing his first wife. She'd simply been the King's choice, a political alliance, and though he'd treated her with respect, he'd stubbornly closed his heart to her.

  Until she'd taken ill. Then, forced to watch her face an agonizing death with courage, her sweetness unwavering, her faith undimmed, he grew to care for her deeply. Which was the crudest blow of all. For when she finally succumbed, it was as if a piece of him had been torn away. Worse, while he knelt, stunned with grief, beside her grave, vicious tongues began to wag. And before long, the rumor grew legs.

  The Black Gryphon had struck once more. He'd poisoned his wife.

  "Have you never loved again?" Hilaire's voice broke into his thoughts.

  "Nay." This time he didn't lie. After losing two wives and a daughter, he'd kept his heart under lock and key. To his third wife, he'd shown courtesy and companionship, no more.

  "What of your parents?" she asked. "What is your father like?"

  "Dead. My mother as well." It was no great loss in his mind. His father had been a cruel man, killed in a brawl he'd probably instigated, and his mother had been feeble, living under her husband's shadow most of her life.

  "I'm sorry," she said.

  "That, too, happened long ago."

  "Forsooth? How old are you?" Hilaire asked.

  He smiled humorlessly. "Old as Methuselah." He felt that old at least, despite the fact he'd only passed his thirtieth year. "Old as dust."

  "Old as sin?" She laughed, and he thought how incongruous the sound was in this tomb. "And just what have you done to pass all this tedious eternity then, Sir Rag?"

  Ryance furrowed his brow, puzzled. Was she flirting with him? It had been so long since he'd heard the lilting music of a woman's jesting that he hardly recognized it. But aye, it seemed she curved her words around a coy smile.

  So how could he answer her? He'd done naught but eat, breathe, fight, and mourn for years. But there was a time…

  "I suppose," she said, filling in the silence, as he found most women were wont to do, this one in particular. "I suppose you haven't much time for pleasure with traveling from place to place, going on your noble quests and so forth."

  He raised a brow, a gesture completely wasted in the darkness. The only noble quest he'd ever undertaken was trying to catch a butterfly for his little Katie.

  "And how have you filled the hours?" he asked her.

  "With music," she gushed, and he could feel her passion like a living thing in the dark.

  "The harp."

  "Aye."

  Before she could be reminded of her injury again, he intervened. "When we are out of here then, my lady, and you are healed, will you favor me with a performance?"

  "Aye," she softly replied.

  "I count upon it." His lip curved up into a wry smile. "You shall sing of the great underworld adventures of Sir Rag and Lady Hilaire."

  "Aye, and you shall accompany me on the rock wall."

  Her gurgle of laughter washed over him like a healing balm, and he couldn't help but wonder what kind of peace he might have found listening to a lifetime of that delightful sound.

  five

  There was little enough air in their prison, certainly not enough for idle chatter. But Ryance took pleasure in the sound of Hilaire's voice, and she reveled in conversation. Exchanging pleasantries seemed the best way to keep her demons at bay. So he obliged her as he chafed away at the wall, though he doubted he'd uttered as many words in a month of days heretofore.

  "Tell me of your adventures, if we're to immortalize them in song," she entreated playfully, reminding him of his daughter asking for stories by the evening hearth. "What great feats of prowess have you undertaken? What dragons have you slain?"

  "No dragons," he said, chuckling. "Dragonflies mayhaps."

  "Have you saved a maiden in distress before?"

  "Maiden in distress." He paused to think. "Once I rescued a damsel from a swarm of bees."

  "And how did you do that? Did you battle them with your sword? Lay siege to their hive? Gallantly let them sting you while she escaped?"

  He grinned at the memory. Elaine had been none too grateful for his rescue. "I tossed her into the moat."

  "Oh, Sir Rag, you didn't!"

  He rather liked the sound of that silly name on her lips. And he liked the way she chided him.

  "What of you?" he asked. "Any feats of great renown?"

  She sighed. "Alas, nay. I am my father's youngest, his only girl, and he guards me like a mastiff. My brothers have seen the world," she said enviously, "but I've not set foot outside England."

  "Never?" Ryance asked, incredulous. A wealth of images suddenly riffled through his mind like pages of a book,scenes of the stark Syrian desert and the steamy Tunisian coast, of crumbling Roman temples and lush Greek olive groves, Flemish towns crowded with craftsmen and fishmongers, and Paris, where velvet-clad nobles encrusted with jewels shared the streets with waifs and mice skittering through alleyways. To take her there, to see it all again through her unworldly eyes…

  But it would never be. She feared The Black Gryphon. Even if, by some incredible quirk of fate, they got out alive, it would be on another man's arm that she'd discover the world.

  "I wager you've traveled far and wide," she marveled.

  "Some."

  "Tell me the places you've seen." He could almost hear the sparkle in her eyes.

  He paused to lean against the rock wall and think. "My father took me to Spain when I was four." Odd, but he hadn't thought of that journey in years." 'Twas the first time I'd seen the sea." He smiled. "I waded in the waves near the dock, and my mother scolded me for ruining my new boots."

  "Is it as vast as they say?"

  "What—Spain?"

  "The sea."

  He blinked. "You've never seen…" Sweet Mary,she was young. He wiped the sweat from his careworn brow with the back of his hand. He'd always loved the sea, but how could one describe it? " 'Tis magnificent. The water stretches as far as you can see, like an enormous coverlet, till it meets the edges of the sky. Its hue is always changing—blue, green, silver—and sometimes the wind whips the peaks of the waves to white froth. You can taste salt in the breeze, and when you're far from shore, the only sounds you hear are the lapping of waves against the ship, the creak of the hull, the slap of the sails, the screech of the gulls circling above the open sea."

  "The open sea," she sighed. "I should like to sail there."

  And he should like to take her, to share the ecstasy of wild ocean breezes caressing their arms, salt spray bedewing their faces, to point out the sleek silver dolphins that followed, leaping and frolicking and chattering like playful children.

  "Where else have you ventured?" she demanded, her appetite for his travels
only whetted.

  He should be tunneling at the wall. Time was slipping away, and their discourse wasted precious air. But it was so long since he'd engaged in agreeable patter with such a charming companion. Her words were like sweet mulled wine to his parched spirit.

  "I earned my spurs at Havenleigh and went on campaign in Scotland."

  "Scotland," she repeated reverently.

  "The country is rugged there. The mountains weep with waterfalls. In the fall, the heather turns, and 'tis like the hills wear a plaid of purple and gold."

  "Oh," she breathed. Then she hungrily asked, "Where else?"

  "After Scotland? The Holy Land."

  "On Crusade?"

  "Aye." Those images were not so joyous. But despite grim memories of poverty and bloodshed, he recalled other things—the warmth of the desert wind, the magnificence of the walled cities.

  "Tell me about it."

  "The fighting was ugly, but the country… The air is scented everywhere with exotic spices—myrrh and cinnamon and frankincense," he remembered, "and the people dress in layers of cloth as sheer as mist and in every color of the rainbow."

  "Was… he… with you then? The Black Gryphon?"

  Her question caught him off guard. "Nay. I… came after the death of his first wife." In a sense, it was true. Ryance, the man he once was, had been buried by The Black Gryphon, sunk into the grave beside his wife and daughter.

  "Were you not afraid of him, of his curse?"

  Aye, Ryance thought, that curse was the only thing he, feared. Instead he said, "I'd not judge a man by the misfortune that plagues him."

  "Some say 'tis more than misfortune. Some say he's," she murmured, ending in a whisper, "the servant of Lucifer."

  "God's blood." Ryance didn't mean to swear, but it was just such gossip that had made his life a living hell. Just because he'd lost faith in a God who would tear away all the beauty in his life did not mean he was the devil's minion. "The Black Gryphon is a man, no more, no less, and anyone who…"

  Her hand made awkward contact with his chest. "I'm so sorry, Sir Rag. 'Twas wicked of me, speaking thus of your lord. Please forgive me."

  It was not her words, but rather her proximity, her warm breath upon his cheek and the womanly scent of her, that instantly cooled his wrath. He wanted to take her in his arms again, to feel the slender nape of her neck and the playful caress of her hair. Forgive her? He wanted to envelop her.

  But when he didn't respond, she withdrew her hand.

  "Forsooth," he sighed with a twinge of disappointment, "you say naught that hasn't been said a thousand times."

  "But you clearly care for him to leap so quickly to his defense. He must count himself fortunate to have such a loyal vassal."

  Ryance didn't know how to answer her.

  She didn't seem to require an answer. "Tell me, what is it about him you admire?"

  He puzzled over the question. Was there anything left of Sir Ryance in The Black Gryphon? Anything he could be proud of? He supposed his stoic suffering counted for something. And there was still his sense of justice. He was generally a man of peace, preferring diplomacy to the sword. And he was unflinchingly loyal to the King. But Hilaire was probably too young to understand any of that. She still believed in shining knights who saved damsels from dragons.

  Quietly, she added, "Tell me why a woman should desire to marry him."

  His heart skipped a beat. Was she reconsidering her escape? Was she asking him to persuade her to stay?

  He could not. Not in good conscience. He might convince her that The Black Gryphon was not an ogre, that he was undeserving of the taunts that dogged him. Indeed, he longed to purge that poison from his soul. But naught would lift the curse destiny laid upon his wretched name.

  "He is… fair," he decided, "in trade and in battle."

  She muttered low, "Yet he lays siege to my father's keep."

  "Only to claim what is his by rights."

  She mulled that over. "What else? How else is he worthy?"

  He thought for a moment. "He works hard. He trains hard. His hospitality he gives freely. His coin he spends frugally." Upon reflection, that last might not seem a virtue to a young lady. His own daughter had begged him endlessly to spend his coin on ribbons or cloth dolls or a jeweled trinket every time a peddler came to the gate.

  "Does he play music?" Was that hope he heard in her voice?

  "Nay."

  "Oh." She sounded discouraged.

  He added quickly, "But he likes to hear it. At least he used to."

  "You mean, before he started ki,Before his wives started dying?"

  Ryance bristled. She still doubted him. Pointedly, he told her, "Aye, before his wife and daughter fell in the river and were drowned."

  "What about his second wife? Was she not poisoned?"

  "She died from sickness," he said wearily.

  "Ah. Like your wife."

  "What?"

  "Like your wife. You said she died of sickness."

  "Oh, aye."

  "And what about his last wife, the one they say he beat?"

  His blood began to simmer. He bit out a reply between his teeth. "He'd sooner cut off his arm than lift it against a woman."

  "But he pushed her from a tower and…"

  "Nay!" he shouted, startling even himself with the vehemence of his denial. After that, against his better judgment and against his will, his thoughts poured from him like ale from a cracked barrel, and there was naught he could do to stop them. "She flung herself from that tower. He had no part in it." Ryance wondered at the verity of his words. Was he truly blameless? Could he have stopped her? Could he have reached her in time?

  "Why would she do that?" Hilaire pressed.

  He blew out a quick breath. "She was afraid… very, very afraid."

  "Of him?"

  "Of herself." He swallowed hard. He'd never spoken to anyone about the horrible agonies Bess had endured.

  "Herself?"

  He rested his head back against the rock wall. "It started as voices she heard whispering in her head, telling her evil things. She tried to ignore them, but they wouldn't go away. Then she began speaking to them, yelling at them, cursing…" That had been the most painful, listening to gentle Bess shriek in a voice that no longer belonged to her. "But they wouldn't leave her alone. Soon she could see demons. She imagined they were attacking her. She'd beat herself purple with a poker trying to pry their hands free. Her arms were laced with cuts from her own dagger and then, when I took that from her, her fingernails. She shunned her clothing, claiming they'd only steal it from her, and oft wandered naked through the halls of the castle. She tore out her hair, and once she lit her veil on fire." He took a shuddering breath. "One night, her mind cleared long enough for her to see what had happened to her, how mad she'd become, and she couldn't bear to live with the fear any longer. Before I… before anyone could stop her, she leaped from the tower ledge… and broke on the stones below."

  Hilaire could scarcely breathe. It was a horrifying story. But it wasn't the story itself that paralyzed her. It was the telling of it.

  The truth was too amazing to believe, but it had to be.

  Sir Rag.

  The Black Gryphon.

  They were one and the same. Ryance was his given name, but no matter what he called himself, he was The Black Gryphon. His slip of the tongue had betrayed him, but she would have discovered his secret anyway.

  Who but a husband could speak so intimately of a woman's mind? Who else would know her so well? The ragged timbre of pain in his voice described not the distant suffering of a vassal, but the agony of a loved one.

  This was him. This was The Black Gryphon.

  A frisson of cold panic raced along her spine. She was trapped with him. Alone. In the dark. He knew who she was. He knew she feared him. Merciful God—what would he do to her?

  He was cursed. It was certain now, for though they'd not yet spoken the vows of marriage, already he brought her death.


  Her heart stuttered, and she felt the walls closing in again. But before she raced into headlong anxiety, he spoke.

  "Forgive me. 'Twas not my intent to sadden you."

  The words stuck in her dry throat. " 'Tis… 'tis… it must have been dreadful for y-your lord."

  He grunted in agreement. "He has lived with much sorrow."

  They were only a few words, but he spoke them simply and from the heart. And suddenly their truth rang out like a hollow bell in the melancholy dark. Her fear evaporated. The Black Gryphon was no ogre with a diabolical plot for revenge. He was but a man, a sad and lonely man. Suddenly, inexplicably, she yearned not to cower from him, but to console him, this lost soul with the broken spirit.

  "Mayhaps," she allowed, "I have been too hasty in my judgment. Mayhaps he is not cursed so much as…"

  "Nay, you have it aright," he snapped. "He is cursed. But by Fate, not by his own deeds."

  She could hear it now—the bitterness, the anguish—hidden appreciably by his gruff voice, but there nonetheless.

  "Well, then," she murmured in all humility, "as you say, I should not judge him by his misfortune."

  A weighty silence ensued. If she hoped he'd reveal himself now, she was disappointed. Instead, he returned to his labors. She, too, scraped at the wall, but her mind flitted about so wildly she scarcely heeded her own progress.

  After a long while, he rested, and his weary panting filled the cave. "Pity 'tis a harp you play and not a clarion," he said in a rare moment of wry humor. "Else we might be able to fell the walls as Joshua did."

  She giggled at his unexpected wit, which threw her into an even more complex melee of thoughts.

  Who was he? Who was The Black Gryphon? All she knew of him was what she'd heard, largely improbable tales about his vicious nature, his dark moods, and the curse that followed him. Certainly this was not the man with her now.

  This man spoke kindly, nobly. He offered her comfort. He'd dug his way to her when she cried out for help. He'd breathed with her, bandaged her injured hand. He'd held her when her fears got the best of her and anxiously seen to her when she'd fainted. He'd even promised to get her out, even though he must know…