Conquering the Dark Axe (9 page)

He turned swiftly and walked out of the room with
Goran. 

Rourke paced angrily before the hearth in a small
room off the dining hall.  They had come in here away from any prying ears
after leaving his bedchamber.

“I will leave no stone unturned to find out who is
behind this.”  Goran promised.

Nor would he, Rourke fumed.

The person behind this attack was no doubt feeling
emboldened just as they were feeling angry. Angry that their attempt to harm
him and his wife or just him had not been a success and with that came fear.
And with fear came mistakes. ‘Twas only a matter of time. 

Goran and he had worked hard in secret since their
arrival in their quest to find and reveal the person behind the Barnett
murders. Had tried to get the murderer to leave a clue or reveal themselves.
Now he would be relentless in his pursuit.  Rourke had his suspicions,
ones he had not yet shared with his friend, for he wanted to be sure. 

 “Aye.” Rourke’s response finally came. His
thoughts soon turned to Alexa. Her callous behavior infuriated him and he was
angry over her blindness to the threat on her life. The woman was
intolerable! 
Her hatred for him being a Norman blinded her to the fact that someone had
tried to poison them both.  She had not said it, but he had seen the
accusation in her eyes.  He could not believe that she thought it was
him.  He had seen red and had wanted to strangle the breath from her long
neck. 

At first he had thought it to be Lina, but he’d
known better.  The girl knew her place.  The hellion’s maid, Camm had
prepared the food that night. He wanted to believe the pretty maid meant no ill
will.

In the short time he’d been here, he was well aware
that she was more than a mere maidservant to his wife.  But until he was
sure danger no longer lurked and the person identified and lay dead, her visits
to his wife would be limited. No matter if Alexa thought otherwise.

He stopped his pacing and stood at the window. 
The manor’s activity of the day filled the courtyard.

Weariness in his tone, Rourke asked, “Tell me
again of what you learned about this maid whom attended Lady Lisbeth?”

Goran nodded. “Vanished or killed is the theory.
Rumors have it the lady was rather healthy before she fell ill. Took a turn for
the worst. Suddenly.”
“Of course. Let’s not forget it was my wife that was with her sister when she
took her last breath.”
Rourke met Goran’s direct gaze. Goran’s brows shot up after a moment and he
said with a look of disbelief on his face, “You cannot think that she-“
Rourke’s raised hand cut him off. “Nay, Goran. Her father’s fall?”
Goran did not wish to answer, feeling anger spark in him at the direction of
his lord’s thoughts. But he did. "'Twas she,” he swallowed,
“that was out with him that day.”
“And she that found him.”
“Was it not a hunting a party she was part of?” Goran reminded him defensively.
“Aye, but she was on the top of the moor as he or that is what is said of the
tale when he went over the cliff.” 
Goran noted the dead calm in Rourke’s green eyes which meant his lord was
pondering another avenue.
“Again, gossip. Rumors and conjecture.  Only she knows what happened
that day. No one must know that we are aware her sister and father’s
demise were no accidents. This person’s ruse to concoct such a foolhardy
act with that poison proves they are testing us.”
 “Aye and so confident they fear they can do anything to her now and get
away with it. Despite your presence here.”

Rourke nodded. He had thought of that. His wife
was so sure he’d brought the killer with him. She had no idea that the killer
was already in residence and had been among her precious people all
along. The death of father and sister were proof enough of that. 
He grumbled under his breath as the ire over her words earlier rose once again
in him. His wife was not as naïve as she would have others
think.     
“You thinking ‘tis a man?” Goran asked as they prepared to leave the room.
“Nay.”  Rourke said stepping out into the hall just as a smiling Lina
walked past with a flirtatious expression and sway of her voluptuous
hips. “‘Tis definitely a woman.” Rourke finished and called out for
his squire down the hall.
His young squire came in and Rourke lifted his arms out to the sides for the
boy to strap on his scabbard and sword. Then buckle up his mail and get him his
gauntlets.   Where they were headed, he had no use for his axe today.
The squire bent and slid the small, clean sharp knives into the hidden slots on
his lord’s leather boots. 

Rourke was lost in his musings while the squire saw
to his needs.  He blamed part of his anger on weariness. He’d slept next
to not at all in the past two days. The other part, he was angry over the
feelings that had surfaced watching his wife lie there in that bed.

The ungrateful woman had no idea what he’d gone
through. Rourke shook his head to shake the odd feelings away.  What would
his men think of him? Coldness blanketed his heart.

He barked at Goran and
quit the room.  With a handful of soldiers at their backs, they rode out
of the busy courtyard headed south of the wood. The hour had grown late and he
needed to see his errand through before he fell flat on his face from
exhaustion. An urgent one where Normans were not so reviled.

Alexa straightened the furs and bedding she’d
pummeled in frustration and anger after Rourke and Goran had left, going over
in her head what had happened.  

So someone was trying to kill her husband? 
Hmm, she knew she wanted to.  But, did she really?   A thought
hit her.  How had this person known that he’d be the only one to drink the
wine? They couldn’t. 

Alexa felt something she didn’t want to name crawl
up her spine.  They had to have known that she would have taken a drink
too.  She swung her long legs over the bed.  They had not just tried
to kill him. Nay, the whole ewer had been tainted and both of them would have
drunk from the same goblet.  There could not have been a mistake. Rourke
had deduced the same. The reason he believed the culprit was in her home long
before he came. She did not want to believe it.  Refused to believe
it.  But something nagged at her that it was true. As much as she loathed
admitting it, he was no dummy. Aye, that Norman brute was very smart. 

He possessed an uncanny trait, she’d noted early on.
Like knowing her thoughts. And his eyes, those green eyes shone of intelligence
that she found she admired and it frightened her. 

Dizziness assailed her as she made her way to the
window.  Alexa waited a moment for it to pass.  She was not tied to
the bed and she would be damned, no matter how ill she felt, if she would stay
on it.  She had missed two days because someone had a bone to pick with
one them.  Despite his conclusions, she wanted desperately to believe the
culprit had to be someone in his own camp. 

Her people, as she’d told him would never do such a
thing.  Even if they were upset with the new lord, all had been aware of
his pending arrival and that things would have changed when he married
Lisbeth.  And Alexa would have been far gone by now. 

Where? She still knew not. A convent was out for she
was not the overly religious sort. Something Lisbeth had constantly nagged her
about. 

Nay, once Lisbeth’s wedding had been behind them,
she’d planned to carry out her dreams of roaming the country side. Freedom.
Donning a disguise as a mercenary or anything to be free of the Norman
rule. 

Nay, she sighed, she’d only been fooling herself.

Rubbing her belly, Alexa knew deep down she would
never have left Lisbeth to face this Norman alone once she would have seen him.
Poor Lisbeth would not have fared well. 

Alexa loved her sister deeply, but Lisbeth had
always been one of delicate sensibilities. A true noble lady.  During
their childhood, her soft spoken sister had never raised her voice or spoken an
unkind word to another. Grief washed over Alexa as memories of playing merry
games with her sister in the courtyard below flooded her. Nay, Lisbeth’s docile
persona would have been crushed by this Norman. Besides what did it matter now?
The insufferable man was now her husband, Alexa closed her eyes on that thought
with an exasperated and desperate sigh.
If there were a murderer or murderess among them, he’d brought the demon spawn
here. This is what she chose to believe as she’d made it known to him. Still
she would do what she had to.  She could not stay here under his rule nor
would she ever give into his demands. She’d play cowed if need be to make him
think different and leave here at the first chance she got.

They were headed back to the manor just as dusk
crept up over the horizon.  The chill of the coming night felt good on
Rourke’s skin for it kept him awake and from falling out of the saddle. 
He rubbed a hand down over his tired face. He needed sleep. 

As they neared the courtyard, he took in the sight
of quiet before them, a few soldiers stood guard.  Few serfs lingered
about within, most of the faces he recognized.  Soon he would know all for
he had just gone and retrieved another batch of his people, from one of his
other estates, a small parcel William had given the same night he’d awarded him
Barnett lands. Rourke waved a hand behind him and the mass of thirty or more
families with wooden carts and horses carrying their belongings filled the
courtyard. After giving orders to a handful of soldiers to take the group to
their new homes in the village, Rourke headed for the manor with Goran at his
back.   

NINE

Alexa sat at the chamber window watching all the
activity below on yet another sunny day at Barnett manor.  Yearning
clenched her heart as her eyes swept over the vast view of her lands.  Her
family had fared well compared to others when small bands of the Normans
systematically destroyed large areas around her home in confiscating all and
anything that would not bend, showing no mercy, doing William’s
bidding.  

Her father had refused to join the group of nobles
that had banded together and chosen to flee to Scotland a year or so after the
Norman Conquest had begun. He had been diplomatic and not wishing slaughter at
his own door and the risk of defilement of his daughters, had accepted William
as their king, despite his hatred.  His love for her and Lisbeth had not
made him weak, but a father who loved and cherished his family.

Although now, Alexa was not so sure he’d done the
right thing. Lisbeth had died nonetheless. She shook off her melancholy
and turned her gaze back to the view outside. How they may have fared in
Scotland, she knew not. She sighed heavily.

Serfs milled about doing their chores in the
courtyard, horses grazed off to one side on the unspoilt village green at the
northern end of the manor.  To the side of her family burial ground, his
soldiers practiced, where they’d done so all week with earnest on the open
field. 

So many changes in such a short span of
time.  

She’d spied Rourke out there a few times. The man
was a master with every weapon he held. Each swing, whether it be a sword,
battle hammer, a mace, or his favorite, which had given him his name, the large
axe, it had left her in wonderment and with a bit of envy. 

He never missed his mark.  He and his man
usually fought one another. Goran proved he was indeed a mighty foe as well,
yet, even he struggled too under Rourke’s battering herculean strength. 
The man never seemed to tire as far as she could tell.  She brushed aside
the admiration that filled her and focused on the fact that he never wore
protective armor.  Bare-chested and proud it seemed during each practice.
Alexa cursed the heat that fused in her belly at the sight of that naked
muscular body of perfection.  Covered in sweat, the sparse golden hairs
glistened in the sun, made her nipples tighten with the memory of them rubbing
against her breasts.  His broad back tapered down to those taut buttocks.
Never could she have imagined herself so fascinated with any man’s
backside!  Alexa clucked her tongue as heat ballooned in her belly. 
She was a fool for her thoughts.

She saw no sign of his brawny body below now. 
However, she did see the top of the guard’s heads that were posted below. 
She fumed and turned away from the window.   It had been a sennight
since the poisoning and another attempt had not occurred.   

Although Rourke slept beside her nightly, he barely
spoke two words to her.  

He had not tied or gagged her since that
night.  She’d said nothing of it out of fear he’d do as he’d threatened. A
part of her, wanted to believe he did it for another reason and at the same
time she was angry she thought it. He should feel bad for doing it. 
Downright shameful and guilty, Alexa hoped, for she was still confined to this
chamber night and day.  Trapped.  A prisoner. But not for long.

Her only peek into the outside world was the bedroom
window. The state of Barnett manor and the going on's, of what little she
gleaned from Camm was limited to her short visits.  Her maid barely said a
word to her for they were never alone. 

Rourke now came to her at each meal, only to the
chamber door. Overseeing each tray of food and he let no one in the room
without a foot soldier present.  She had not seen the red- haired Lina
either, or the other new maids.  Depression and the loneliness were
unbearable.  Somehow she would escape this nightmare and soon.