A Rose in Winter (74 page)

She watched the day die through one of the few intact panes that still filled a leaded molding. Tears swam in her eyes as she wondered whether Christopher also viewed the same magnificent hues. It settled in her mind with a firmness that could not be set aside that he was thinking of her, just as she was of him.

"Oh, my love," she said, sighing and wiping at the tears, "I would be brave for your account, but your babe rests in my womb. 'Tis said the unborn are marked by trials such as this, and I would have this one free of any hatreds I bear."

She recalled a day long passed when she had wielded a phantom blade and made bold threats, albeit in privacy. She faced the room at large, standing straight and bold, and steadied the airy sword at her side. Casting up her hand in the best rhetorical stance, she spoke to her audience of none.

"Were I an argent knight sworn to mete out justice in the name of right, I would set upon this nest of knaves who seek to revile your name. I would test them all with the might of arms till the end and bid them bend a knee and beg forgiveness ere I smite their heads loose from their shoulders and claim the victor's truth."

She paused in her diatribe, and slowly her arm sagged. The flair was gone. The tears fell unheeded now. She knelt beside the straw-filled bed and wept upon it.

"Oh, Christopher, my dearest love," she whispered, "were I that knight, I would never have known your touch, your tenderness, your arms enfolding me, your kiss upon my lips, your warm, sweet flesh on mine, your babe." After a while she sat around and watched the last light fade in the crystal pane. "I must be brave." She sniffed and dried her cheeks on her skirt. "Be the babe a lad, I must be strong for him, or a girl child, I would have her know the strength of true love.

"My darling Christopher," she brought her hands together in a prayerful pose, "I would not have you risk yourself, but find a way to free me and slay my beast forever. I have found my rose in winter. You are my own precious love, promised to me evermore. Come, my love, the beast can only flee the two of us together."

Christopher viewed the irresistible approach of the day's end with total abhorrence. He knew the specters the dark would bring, having met a host of them the night before. He stood at the end of the western hall and ran his finger over the leading of a window his grandfather had put in place, and Christopher watched the fading light of the sunset dwindle in a few low-hanging clouds. Its reddish-purple shade brought not fear but dread at what his own mind could set against him.

Suddenly it became clear to him. If he did not leave the manse, his energy would be spent in waiting and tearing himself to shreds. He would seek out the highwaymen wherever they lurked and ravage them until one would tell him what he had to know. Then he would hunt the sheriff, drag him down like a hunting wolf hamstrings a stag. And if one hair of her head was harmed, he vowed, that man would beg for death a century or longer.

The night was solidly fixed upon the hills when the lower door of the bolt hole opened and a tall, darkly cloaked man came out with strides as bold as a venging lord, carrying at his side a long-bladed claymore, one that had known the death grip of his father's hand. The stallion sensed his master's mood and pranced and stamped in its eagerness to fly. The man took to the saddle, and vengeance rode the moors as the wan, pale moon hid its face before the promised bloodbath. This man's beloved had been taken by his foes, and no savage had ever set foot to earth with a blacker rage filling his heart.

The black steed's breath snorted forth like a dragon's breath in the crisp night air. His hooves struck sparks from stone as they thundered forth into the night. They rode here and there, back and forth, pausing at a lonely barn, there finding neither man nor horse, only a recent sign of an encampment. A hidden cave shed no greater revelation of the thieves' whereabouts.

"They are gone," he growled. "They have gathered in to set their trap with a bait they know I cannot resist. But where? Damn them! Where?"

The hour was late; the low moon still flitted bashfully behind the clouds, as if it feared the boldness and anger of the man. The high rage all but consumed him as he urged the stallion into a reckless run. They were a fleeting shadow across the vales and moors, soaring low with the widespread wings of a hunting hawk seeking prey.

Chapter Twenty-three

SOME people thought it was old Ben returned from the grave. The ragged man huddled in the shadows near the rear door of the Boar's Inn and slowly sipped his ale. He hadn't appeared in the day, only after dark, slipping into the corner chair without a word and banging a coin on the table until Molly brought him a mug of stout. He reminded her of the mayor, but he reeked of smoke and sweat, and his grease-matted whiskers defined recognition in the shadows, so she discounted the likeness and went her way. His coin was miserably husbanded, and he never left extra. Thus she was not wont to dally overlong in serving him.

Avery Fleming's eyes never rested as he sat in his nook. He was ever primed to fly whenever any cloaked figure reminded him of Seton or a chair scraped the floor, bringing to mind a clumsy, deformed foot. The slim purse Parker had tendered him was almost empty, and his hope was fading that the sheriff would remember him with Lord Talbot. With both Seton and Saxton after him, he was unsure of his life from one moment to the next. He had no way of knowing when they would find the hovel in the marsh, but he was sure they were beating the brush for him. The previous night a hunting dog had nearly frightened the wits from him, rousing him from a dead sleep with its baying, and he had fled the shack in sudden panic, sure that Saxton was upon him. He had plunged waist deep into the brackish waters, and it was only the cold that had driven him back to the cottage for dry clothing. Even there, a soft bed was denied him. He had tried to spend the night, not daring to light a fire or even a candle, but in the darkness each sound had sent a shiver of terror through him, and several times he had sworn he saw that horrible leather helm floating toward him or heard the swish of a black cape or the click of a boot heel in the parlor. At least in the shanty he could sleep!

A man entered the inn, no one he recognized and, after obtaining a tankard of ale, roamed about the room, peering into faces until he came to the shadowed one in the corner. He sipped from his mug and spoke softly for that one's ears alone.

"Fleming?"

Avery jumped, then calmed when he realized no threat was forthcoming. "Aye?"

"Parker sent me. 'Ere's a horse out back. He'll meet ye at the first crossroads north o' town." The man moved on unconcernedly and soon was chatting with Molly at the bar.

Avery slipped out the back and found the mount as promised. A few moments later he was racing north, his spirit much lifted with the prospect of money in his hand. He would leave them all and seek out a place where a warm south wind blew off the sea.

Parker was awaiting him as advertised, with a fair half-dozen men for company. With Christopher Seton unaccounted for, the sheriff was taking no chances. Avery lit from his horse, and Parker drew him some distance away from the others, who held carefully to the darkness provided by a small group of oaks. Recalling too well the slash of the venging blade and flashing hooves in their midst, they were nervous to such a point that they had nearly bolted when Avery came pounding down the road.

Avery, himself, was not in a trusting mood and carefully kept his hand on the pistol he had tucked in his waistband. His mind was filled with the frozen scream of Timmy Sears' face, and he was not totally convinced that Seton was the only suspect. His fears subsided somewhat when he saw that both of Allan's hands were filled, one with a letter, the other with a purse of considerable weight.

"I'm afraid I have some bad news for you, Avery. Lord Talbot has sent a messenger from York relieving you of your duties effective a month ago. But take heart. He instructed me to give you a purse ef two hundred pounds, double the compensation owed you for the past two months. If you treat it carefully, it should see you well away from here. As to giving you payment for the girl, he is aghast that you should sell your own daughter... again."

"But without her, ye can't catch Seton!" Avery protested.

Parker held out the money bag and the letter purportedly written by Talbot and smiled at the shrewdness of his own game. Talbot had made up his mind to dismiss the man, all right, but word had not yet reached his lordship of the most recent happenings, and Allan had taken it upon himself to deal with Avery. It would amuse him to see the erstwhile mayor hounded from village to town with the jaws of fear forever snapping at his heels. Avery had no vital information to harm anyone, as Timmy had held, and could therefore be dealt with in a frivolous manner. "Take them, Avery. 'Tis unlikely you'll get anything more."

Grumbling in disappointment, Avery accepted the offering. He had hoped for much more, but he was intimidated by the way the sheriff's hand came to rest on the handle of his pistol. Avery jammed the letter into a coat pocket and tucked the purse carefully into his waistcoat.

"Now, Avery, in view of our friendship"—Parker placed an arm across the man's shoulders—"I will gift you with the horse you rode here and a piece of advice. One of my men reported seeing a tall, caped man poking about your cottage just after dark." He smiled as Avery drew in a sharp breath. "The fellow had a big black horse and went down by the marsh. Apparently he was looking for you. If I were you, Avery, I would put a great distance between me and Mawbry, just as soon as possible."

Avery nodded in total agreement. "I'll not take meself back there again. Now that I gots me a horse and some coin, I'll head south and keep on goin'."

"Good fellow, Avery." Allan Parker patted him on the back. "I wish you luck wherever you go." He stood back and watched the ex-mayor scramble to the horse and haul himself into the saddle, then waved him off. "Farewell!"

"Eh, Cap'n?" One of the men called to Parker and drew alongside him. "Why'd ye give the mayor ol' Charlie Moore's horse? Ye know Charlie'll be ready ter kill someone when he comes back and finds his best saddle and horse gone."

Parker chuckled as he swung astride his own steed. "Poor Avery. So many wolves will be chasing down that one miserable hare, Avery will be afraid to poke his head out of the ground for fear he'll be snared. I wonder which one will get him first." A hearty chorus of laughter rose up, but he waved an arm for silence. "Be quiet, you fools! Seton may be around here somewhere, and I, for one, don't wish to feel his fangs in me. Let's get back and see how Haggard has fared with that Saxton wench."

Avery felt content, not overly so, but at least well enough to set Mawbry behind him without regret. He had put a fair distance between himself and the sheriff, and he was just beginning to breathe easier when the thunder of hooves on the road behind him made him glance back over his shoulder in sudden apprehension. Fear pierced his quaking body and a low, rising moan escaped him as he saw the apparition materialize from the shadows of the trees. His mind froze with the one thought: Death had found him!

He whimpered and flogged his mount with boot heel, wishing for spurs and a whip. Over his shoulder, he saw the rider's cloak flying wide until the man seemed to float above the horse like a giant bat which was certain to suck the life from him if it caught him. Eerie laughter filled the night, sending cold shivers along his spine. He began to beat the racing steed with fist and rein, but the horse had already sensed its rider's fear and, having partaken of ill liberally, was now laboring at the limit of its gait. They entered a twisting place where the road passed along the edge of a deep gully, at the bottom of which meandered a tumbling stream. The night rider was lost from sight for a moment, but that fact did not ease Avery's plight. Indeed, his worry grew more intense, for the way was well] shadowed and marked by ruts. The horse stumbled, and his rider lost the stirrups. The beast seemed fraught with clumsiness, for no sooner had he recovered his footing than he found another hole. This time Avery lost the reins in his struggle to stay seated. Alas! It was his undoing! The path ahead was covered with tumbled rock and gravel. The flying animal skidded, lurched, and careened along the very brink of the gully. Without guidance he wheeled abruptly from the precipice, and Avery found himself truly aflight, without a horse.

He sailed over the tops of some bramble bushes and a tall, jagged stump of a dead tree. There was a sharp tug at his braces, then he crashed, rolled, slid, tumbled through brush, careened around tree trunks, bumped over rocks, and tested the density of long-thorned bushes. A solid blow expelled the wind from his lungs, and another blow brought it back again along with a flash of stars before the night closed in tightly around him.

A mile or less down the road the night rider caught the horse and stared dubiously at the saddle, unable to mark in his mind the spot where the man had left it. The frightened, unburdened beast had led him a merry chase, and the fleeting shadows had hidden the empty seat too long. With a wry glance back, Christopher led the steed with him as he turned once more toward Saxton Hall. Perhaps it had been his imagination that had brought Avery to mind when he had glimpsed the man, but whoever he was, he would continue on his way without the aid of a horse.

The manse was dark and silent when its master returned, as if it had lost a vital portion of its life. Christopher roamed the halls for a while in abject loneliness. For the first time in his life he had tasted the richness of a close companionship of a loving and loved wife. Now it was gone, and he had only the aftertaste to quench his burning thirst.