Lord of a Thousand Nights (4 page)

He twisted and looked down her half-exposed body. She glared apprehensively at him.

“Well, since the goal is to keep you alive, there is nothing for it but to have you first,” he said. “I will teach you, and perhaps you will be able to fool them.”

“There is no need. I will take my chances.”

“I don't think so.” He slid his hand down her body. It tightened to his touch. She was not immune, but then he had known that when he kissed her. She possessed needs that she did not control, and it appalled her that he could tap them. If she was the sort of woman he thought, this was the most frightening thing he could do to her. Even more frightening than the twenty knights that he threatened her with.

A tremor shook through her and into him, and he gritted his teeth against it. The temptation to keep her and wait out the summer with her on this cot and those furs almost won out.

He pulled away. “I must leave now. The work at the tunnel requires me. We will finish well before dawn,
however. Since I command, I can permit myself an early celebration.” He rose and stood over her. “A pity to share you with the others, Melissa, but they know that you are here and it would be unwise not to. Besides, you are mine before and after, anyway.”

“After! Surely you must let me leave after.”

“Eventually. When I no longer have use of you.”

As he turned to go her body collapsed in a disheartened way, as if this latest detail had finally undone her.

I
an waited with John and five men near the base of the low hill on which the tower house rose. The camps were quiet, all of their occupants carefully positioned within quick access of the gatehouse. Above him, Black Lyne Keep rose like an impenetrable shaft of stone surrounded by a skirt of thick battlements.

The campfires burned low, giving off little light. His captive should not be surprised by the silence and emptiness. She would surmise that everyone worked on the tunnel this night.

It had been easy to lure her with subtleties. In some ways, a clever woman was the simplest to dupe. Unless, of course, she duped you first. That had occurred once in his life with catastrophic results, and he had sworn it would never happen again.

“You are sure?” the archer Gregory whispered. He was Morvan's man, thick and gray, sent to sit out the summer with Ian's company in order to keep an eye on things.

“I am sure,” Ian said. “She knew too much. She had counted the knights. She did not know that Morvan is at Harclow, nor that we had settled with the town a month ago. Furthermore, she is a lady, not a courtesan or
a merchant's widow, and could have come from only one place.”

And if she got out, she could get back in.

He felt no impatience. Even after she realized that the rope binding one hand was not totally secure, it would take her a while to free herself.

The only question was whether she would choose the wise course and try to escape completely, or risk herself by going back to warn the others. He was relying on the lady who had posed as a courtesan in order to kill him to choose the latter, reckless option.

“If you are right, it will be quick and clean. Morvan will appreciate that,” Gregory said.

Ian was counting on that. Counting on putting Morvan Fitzwaryn yet more in his debt. Despite certain old tensions between them, he respected Morvan and was willing to fight this war on his peculiar terms, knowing that Morvan would reward him generously. Rich payment in the least, but Ian was playing for higher stakes. Once Morvan retook Harclow, once he reclaimed the ancestral lands wrenched from his grasp when a boy, he would return to his estates in Brittany and his family there. Then Harclow would need a seneschal to manage and protect her.

Ian planned to be that man. Not the same as holding one's own lands, of course. But far better than the free-booting life of a camp rat that fate had ordained for him these last four years.

A shadow moved near one of the camps. The fires picked up the silver lights of Melissa's hair as she darted from tent to tent. She paused at the one closest to the path leading to the northern road.

Come, little one.
Ian silently coaxed.
Do not lose your courage now. Show the stuff you are made of.

She took a few quick steps away from the hill, and he cursed under his breath. But she halted abruptly, paused a moment, and then turned resolutely and headed toward the tower.

Ian glided after her.

Chapter THREE

R
eyna pushed through the brush and found the postern entrance. She stared at the gaping black slit.

No Alice to help her this time.

One hundred and fifty yards of underground tomb awaited her. Five hundred steps of utter blackness and enclosing rock.

The old childhood panic tried to grip her, and she fought it desperately.

She had never planned to go back. She had expected to have stolen a horse and been on the northeast road by now. By morning she should have been in her mother's arms, and planning her journey to Edinburgh.

The entrance beckoned like a stretched mouth wanting to swallow her.

It was just the dark. There was nothing to fear.

Summoning every bit of courage, she stepped in.

Her heart immediately began a slow, horrible pounding. Running would make it go more quickly, but she
could not will her legs to more than halting, hesitant progress. Feeling along the wall, she fought the old memories that urged her toward hysteria.

Terror. Cold. Desolate loneliness. Invisible claws reaching to grab her.

But then, thank God, another memory. A warm light and a kind face and a hand reaching through the blackness.
Come with me, girl. You will be safe, and will never be frightened like this again.
She fixed her mind on the image of that hand and the care and security and love that it offered. She walked a little more quickly, absorbed by it.

Suddenly, the ghostly hands snatched her. She screamed and the sound bounced off the stone walls and echoed back at her. She kicked and pummeled until strong arms pinned her against a tall body and warm breath flowed over her face. In a daze she emerged out of the nightmare and found herself surrounded by the strength and scent of Ian of Guilford.

“Quiet, now.” He soothed her the way one does a horse.

For a disoriented moment she almost collapsed against him, grateful and relieved. Then the memories completely faded, and she realized what his presence meant. She struggled again.

“Don't make me have to hurt you, Melissa,” he said, pulling her back to the entrance. He held her there and stuck his head out and whistled.

“You bastard. You whoreson,” she hissed. “How did you know?”

“The town came to terms with me long ago. And you can not pass as an artisan's wife any better than you do as a courtesan.” His arms still wrapped her from behind. “Do not feel bad or blame yourself. It is better this way for those within.”

She seriously doubted that. A horrible guilt filled her. Instead of saving them, she had hastened their suffering. She wished that she had that dagger now. There would be no hesitation this time.

A cluster of shadows blocked the dim light at the entrance. “I'll be damned. You were right,” an older voice said.

Ian pushed her up against the rock wall, keeping a firm grip on her shoulders “It is over. Do not try anything stupid,” he warned.

She glared at the vague shadow of his head. Damn the man.
Damn him.
Carefully, deliberately, she pulled herself to her full height, tipped back her head, and spit.

The others must have heard, because a motionless silence fell over the little group. Ian took her face in a tight grip. “Watch yourself, Melissa, or I will treat you like the whore you pretended to be.”

He stepped away. “Guard her with your sword, John. Do not let her leave here until I come back for her.”

“You mean that I have to stay here?” a squire's young voice complained.

“Do it. And, John, remember what I said earlier. She is mine. You would not ride my horse without permission, so do not take liberties with her either.”

John cursed and unsheathed his sword. The other men began groping away into the blackness.

R
eyna rested against the rock wall, facing the squire John. As the minutes passed and she offered no challenge, vague relaxation claimed him. Finally the sword point fell from her chest and he sidled over and leaned against the rock too.

She strained to hear sounds from the tower, but the
night remained silent. She pictured Ian and the others slipping out of the tunnel into the passage in the northern wall, gliding through the shadows to the gatehouse, picking off the guards one by one.

“Your lord seems to be a great warrior.”

“He is at that,” John agreed proudly. “Few can match his sword arm, and he is the champion of many jousts and tournaments.” He launched into a description of one particular joust in Brittany, and Reyna prompted him with questions, encouraging him to become comfortable with her.

Still no sounds from the tower. “He must be very famous in England.”

John chuckled. “He is to be sure, but not in the way you think. Most of his fighting has been in France, with this free company he brought here when Sir Morvan hired them. He became their leader several years ago.”

Reyna knew something of free companies, the bands of independent soldiers and landless knights who hired out to barons and kings for pay. When not professionally engaged they continued their conquests independently, laying sieges that they would lift if ransom was paid. They had become a serious problem in France, harassing towns and farms. If Morvan Fitzwaryn had hired such brigands for this siege, it did not speak well for the future of her people.

“He fought at Poitiers last year with the Black Prince,” John added defensively, as if he sensed her disapproval. “Saved Sir Morvan's life there. Morvan has an old feud with the Beaumanoir family of Brittany, and on the field they went after him. Ian didn't even know who he was aiding, just saw those knights trying to cut Morvan down and jumped in for the fun of it.”

“Such heroism would indeed make him famous.”

“Oh, it isn't that. Not in England. Here I think he is best known for his way with women.”

“Sir Ian is an attractive man, I can not deny it.”

“That is calling a sea a puddle. My lord has to fight women off with his sword. Great ladies and scullery maids alike throw themselves at him.” He sighed with admiration, then leaned toward her conspiratorially. “When we came back here, I learned that the court at Windsor had given him a special name, like a title.”

“A special name? An honorific?”

“Aye.” She could almost hear him smirk. “In Windsor and London he is known as the Lord of a Thousand Nights.”

Reyna burst out laughing, and John irreverently joined in. Now this was rich. Other men received names based on their daring deeds. The Hero of thus and such. Ian of Guilford had been immortalized for the number of times he had fornicated.

All the while she talked with John, Reyna gently felt the ground with her foot. As their laughter degenerated into giggles, she found what she had been searching for. “That was a mistake,” she said.

“Nay, my lady. Sir Ian finds it amusing himself.”

“I did not mean that. I was stuck a long time in that tent, and laughing— that is to say, I need to—”

“Need to?—
Oh
.”

“Perhaps you would wait at the entrance for a moment,” she suggested. “I certainly could not leave then.”

He pondered that, then walked the few feet and positioned himself, back turned, at the entrance.

Reyna stooped and found the small boulder that her foot had touched. Lifting it with both hands, she cautiously moved in on the unsuspecting John. Raising it
above her head, she crashed it down. The youth sagged to the ground.

Filling her mind with fear for her people in order to hold off the childhood horrors, she hurried down the stone tunnel. Mixed emotions overwhelmed her. Lethal determination. Numb resignation. Consuming worry.

And through them all, the whole time, the tentacles of terror stretched through the relentless darkness to ensnare her.

Fifty feet from the end, her hand found the gap that she sought. Another tunnel turned off here, cut at an odd angle to the main one, almost invisible even with a torch. This one continued under the yard to the tower itself.

She ducked into it, running faster, for surely Ian would have reached the gatehouse by now. Finally she came to the stairs and, pausing only a moment to catch her breath, she began the long climb through the tower walls.

Stone steps, scores of them, rose in blackness. She could barely breathe when she finally struggled her way to the top. Exhausted, and with legs like water, she pushed against the stone wall. A low section gave way and she fell into the lord's solar.

She lay on the floor sucking in breath, reveling in the light that bathed her. At first she assumed that the solar was empty, so complete was the silence. Then strong arms reached down and lifted her up. She looked into the kind, worried face of Sir Reginald.