LadyOfConquest:SaxonBride (11 page)

“Aye, my lord?”

“I seek among the rebels one who bears a shoulder wound.”

“Many are wounded,” the knight reminded him, “and several likely bear such injuries.”

“This injury will be days old. Too, the man is much my size.”

His task made easier, Guy said, “If he is among these Saxons, I will bring him to you.”

If,
Maxen mused. The one who had escaped when Dora had sought Rhiannyn’s death might be among the dead left behind at Harwolfson’s camp. Or he could have fled with his leader. But if he was here, he would be the first to suffer.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Curse Rhiannyn! Curse her closed mouth! Curse her for testing me! Curse this flesh for desiring her!

Waves of anger swept Maxen. But it was not anger alone that wrung moisture from his body where he lay on the bed, clothed in undertunic and braies, covers thrown to the floor. Nor was it anger that made his thoughts turn on drivel. Something else had awakened him from a vision of Rhiannyn clothed in golden hair.

Heat. It moved beneath his skin, scraping at him with fiery claws as if to dig its way out.

He sat up. Swaying as he peered into the darkness hanging over his chamber, he slapped a hand to the mattress to steady himself and found it damp. He lifted his other hand and slid its palm down his slick chest.

Was this heat—this malady—another dream? Or as Christophe had warned, had the wound become infected?

He searched along his side for the bandages his brother had applied over two days past. In all that time, they had not been tended to in spite of Christophe’s urgings. Now would Maxen pay the price of ungodly obsession? Would the Saxons—and Rhiannyn—stand triumphant over his grave?

He dropped his feet to the floor and stood, grabbed the bedpost, and staggered against it. Hating himself for his weakness, he bellowed for Christophe.

Beyond the screen arose the sounds of grunting and grumbling, the screech of benches and hurried footsteps.

“My lord?” Guy asked as he came around the screen carrying a torch.

“Where is Christophe?” Maxen demanded.

“Likely tending the Saxons’ injuries.” Guy’s brow furrowed. “What has happened? Are you ill?”

“Send for him!”

Guy turned to the half dozen knights who had followed him around the screen. He repeated his lord’s command to summon Christophe, and the gathering thinned by the two who hastened away.

Maxen, knowing he had revealed too much of his ailing body to knights who were not yet fully under his control, attempted to level his gaze on their wavering faces. “Slaver elsewhere,” he said. “All but Sir Guy!”

They scattered.

As Guy fit the torch in a wall sconce, Maxen released the bedpost and collapsed on the bed.

Christophe must have run with all that was in his lame body, for he soon appeared, the knights sent for him following—Sir Ancel and another Maxen could not put a name to, as well as the servant, Theta.

“There is infection,” Maxen spoke in the language of the Saxons.

Christophe laid a hand to his brother’s arm. “God’s rood! A fire burns in you.”

“Then put it out.”

“I…” Christophe shook his head. “I can but try.”

“Then do!”

Christophe quickly removed the bandages, revealing the diseased flesh. “Aye, infection,” he murmured. “Some of the stitches are torn, and there is much—”

“What say you?” Sir Ancel demanded in Norman French.

“Is he dying?” the other knight asked.

Christophe looked over his shoulder. “It—”

“Do not interpret for them,” Maxen snapped, then ordered the two knights from his chamber.

Though the one complied immediately, Sir Ancel lingered.

Several times, Maxen had glimpsed challenge in the man’s eyes. But this time, it was wide open.

“My lord.” Sir Ancel dipped his head in mock deference, pivoted, and made a leisurely exit.

“I may have to kill him,” Maxen murmured.

“Theta,” Christophe called, “bring my bag.”

Hips swaying, the woman approached and set it on the mattress.

“Guy,” Maxen called.

The knight circled the bed to avoid interfering with Christophe’s ministrations. “My lord?”

“Did you find him?”

Confusion furrowed Guy’s brow before understanding smoothed it. “Regrets, but the Saxon you seek is not amongst those captured in Andredeswald.”

Then the witch’s man had either escaped again or met his death.

Maxen lowered his lids, but feeling himself drift out of consciousness, opened them and called, “Guy! Bring Rhiannyn to me.”

Christophe’s head jerked up. “For what?”

“And a chain,” Maxen continued, “an iron at each end.”

“What do you intend?” Christophe demanded.

“Do it now, Guy!”

“Aye, my lord.”

“What do you?” Christophe asked again following the knight’s departure.

Maxen pushed a hand up his damp brow and plunged quavering fingers into his hair. “So hot. As if I am in hell.”

Christophe leaned near. “You are not going to tell me?”

“You will see.”

“If you hurt her—”

Maxen bolted to sitting, forcing Christophe to step back. “You will do what? Allow me to die?”

Christophe’s eyes widened, and his mouth silently worked before words emerged. “
Non
, Maxen! You are my brother. I but wish to know your intentions.”

Maxen dropped back upon the mattress. “You shall,” he rasped. “Soon.”

Rhiannyn did not turn from the cloudy night she stared into. Pendery’s coming was of no surprise. She had heard the stirring within the bailey, the talk upon the walls, the scrape of boots on steps, and the ring of metal on metal. He came for her, though why he wore chain mail and what he wanted were questions to which she feared the answers.

Her skin did not prickle when he stepped into the room, and even before he said, “I am to bring you to my lord,” she knew another had been sent in his stead.

She turned from the window to the knight whose face was lit by a torch carried by the squire who accompanied him. It was Sir Guy, and he wore only tunic and hose—not the chain mail she had thought she heard. In Thomas’s time, the knight had not been friendly toward her, but neither had he been harsh.

“What does he want of me?”

He frowned. “That is for him to tell.”

Knowing it would be useless to resist, she crossed to the door. “I will follow.”

“You will be led.” He captured her arm.

As if escape were possible,
she silently scoffed.

The squire stepped aside to allow the knight and Rhiannyn to descend ahead of him. As he did so, she heard again the ring of metal she had believed was chain mail, and saw the young man had a chain looped over his arm.

Her heart sped, but she did not falter in step, nor inquire into it.

She was led to the donjon and into the hall where the knights had roused from their beds. Some sitting, others standing, they spoke in hushed tones until she came to their attention. Amid the silence, she walked with her chin high beside Sir Guy.

The sight that awaited her when they came around the screen made her falter.

Guy corrected her course and guided her to the far side of the bed, opposite where Christophe and Theta bent over Pendery whose chest glistened with perspiration. Of greater note was the redness and swelling around the wound he had received while rescuing her from death.

She looked to Christophe.

He met her gaze, and there was fear in his eyes.

In saving her life, might his brother give his?

“My lord,” Sir Guy said, “I have brought the Saxon woman as ordered.”

Pendery’s lids lifted. After what seemed a struggle to bring her to focus, he shifted his gaze to his knight. “The chain?”

“I have it.”

He closed his eyes, nodded.

The silence stretched until Sir Guy asked the question not answered. “What would you have me do, my lord?”

“One iron on her…one on me.”

Rhiannyn caught her breath.

“
Non,
Maxen,” Christophe exclaimed, “you cannot mean to chain her to you.”

“Now you know,” he mumbled, eyes remaining closed. “Do it, Guy.”

The knight waved the squire to him, took the chain, and reached for Rhiannyn.

She turned to flee, but the squire caught her around the waist. Ignoring her yelp, he tossed her onto the bed alongside Pendery and held her there while Sir Guy fit the iron on her wrist. However, she proved too fine-boned, and it slipped off over her hand.

Muttering, Sir Guy dragged the chain lower and fastened the iron around her ankle.

“Why?” Christophe found his voice, though it broke as the child in him overwhelmed the man.

“To ensure…” Pendery rasped. “…she is here when I recover.”

“The tower room will serve as well.”

“Under whose watch? Yours, Christophe?” Dry laughter. “Finish your ministrations, Brother.”

Tight-lipped, Christophe took the bandages from Theta and began binding them around Maxen’s waist.

“My wrist,” Pendery said and lifted it to receive his end of the chain.

Sir Guy did as bid, and asked. “What of the key?”

As the squire continued to hold Rhiannyn down, she stared at the scrap of metal.

“I entrust it to you,” Pendery said.

Sir Guy opened a pouch on his belt and dropped the key in it. “I will keep it with my life.”

Pendery turned his face to Rhiannyn, narrowly opened his eyes. “Freedom is in the length of chain, and that is all I give you.” He swallowed loudly and moved his gaze to the squire. “Release her.”

The squire obeyed, and Rhiannyn scrambled off the bed and fell to her knees on the floor. The clattering chain followed, snaking across the mattress and pooling on her thighs. She thrust it off, lunged to her feet, and retreated as far as the links allowed—three short strides from the bed.

Christophe’s eyes, large in the torchlight, offered an apology, but she looked away. Though certain he had been his brother’s unwilling pawn, the trust she had placed in him had proved beyond detrimental to the Saxons awaiting death on the morrow. And looking upon him was too much a reminder of that.

She heard his pained sigh, but kept her gaze averted.

“You must not move overly much, Maxen,” Christophe warned. “If there is any chance of preventing the infection from going to rot, these stitches must stay.” No response. “Did you hear me?”

“I heard,” Pendery mumbled.

“Good. The herbal I am giving you should ease the pain and heat. Can you lift your head?”

Pendery complied, a frown his only reaction to the medicinal pressed upon him.

“Now sleep,” Christophe said and retrieved the torch from the sconce and motioned for Theta to precede him from the chamber.

“I will keep watch over him,” Sir Guy said.

Before Christophe could reply, Pendery said, “I have no need of a keeper. Leave me to my rest.”

“But Rhiannyn—”

“A mere woman. Go!”

Sir Guy threw her a warning look, and he and the others departed.

For long minutes, Rhiannyn did not move where she stood back from the bed. Though the dim light cast by the torches in the hall revealed the shape of Pendery, she could not know if he slept. If he did, she had no wish to awaken him.

When she finally moved—but a slight shifting of her weight—the chain rattled. Pendery did not react, but as she began to relax, a clatter not of her making sounded, and the chain grew taut.

She resisted, the flesh of her ankle chafing from the strain of the iron, but Pendery’s strength in sickness remained greater than hers, and she was reeled toward the bed. Lest he tried to pull her onto it, she dropped to her knees when she came alongside. And there he was, his shadowed face above hers where he had levered onto an elbow.

She thrust her hands against his chest, and as he dropped onto his back, she registered the damp and heat of his body.

“You burn,” she whispered.

She heard his labored breathing, and after some moments, he said in her language, “Most bright. Think you I approach…hell?”

Perhaps he did, for what hope had he of living if the fever did not soon break? How long before the fire consumed him?

“You wished death upon me,” he slurred, “but does it take me, ’twill not save your people. Only I and…the one you protect, can do that.”

Remembrance of the words she had tossed at him jolted her. Was it possible—

Nay, they were but words. As he himself had told in the guise of a monk, no power did she possess to bring them to fruition. If he died, the blame would rest with her, though not because she had wished it on him. No matter his purpose in rescuing her from Dora, he had taken a dagger to save her.

An ache at her center, she touched his shoulder. “Sleep, Maxen.”

“Lights,” he said low. “And colors. Never have I seen so many.”

Did the fever worsen? Might he succumb this night?

She told herself it did not matter. But it did.

A short time later, his breathing deepened. Slowly, and with as little rattling of chain as possible, she lowered herself. Sitting on the hard floor with her back against the bed, she joined her hands before her face and began praying for something it seemed God alone could provide—peace for England and no more deaths upon her conscience. Including that of Maxen Pendery.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The convulsing of Maxen’s body and the rattle of chain pulled Rhiannyn from sleep. She straightened from where she had slumped against the bed and rose to her knees.

The dawn filtering through the windows set high in the wall confirmed the fever had not abated. Maxen was flushed, and so heavily perspiring that moisture beaded on his face, and his undertunic clung like a second skin.

Rhiannyn put her knees to the bed and took his heated face between her hands. “Maxen!” she called.

Eyes tightly closed, he shouted something, then wrenched his head to the side. Convulsing again, he kicked at the coverlet that had ridden down around his braies.

She dropped her feet to the floor and shouted for Christophe as she stretched the loudly protesting chain as far as it would go. It brought her up short at less than half the distance to the screen. But as the links settled, she caught the sound of hurried footsteps, familiar because of their uneven nature.