Lord of Vengeance (37 page)

“By the grace of God alone,” Nigel continued, “I was fortunate enough to get away.”

“I do not believe it.” Nigel glanced up and met her gaze, his own chilling as winter itself. “I
cannot
believe it,” she asserted with quiet resolve. “Gunnar would never do something like this. I trust him--”

A haunted look swept past Nigel's eyes, then he frowned. “Your naive trust in a rogue has proven the death of your father, Raina. For the sake of us all, perhaps now I should be the one to decide whom we should or should not trust.”

Too stricken to respond, Raina numbly allowed Nigel to wrap his arm about her shoulders and escort her through the crowd of morose onlookers, toward the keep. All the while, she weathered the sting of his accusation, fighting desperately to hold back her tears. Dear heaven above, had her trust in Gunnar been misplaced? She clutched the leather cord at her neck, drawing strength from the fact that he'd given her his rings and assuring herself that he would not have so cruelly betrayed her.

“We never made it as far as the meeting.
Gunnar,
” he sneered, “laid in wait for us along the road.
Gunnar
ambushed us and murdered your father in cold blood. Now you tell me, what more do you need to know?”

“Why?” she whispered, refusing to cower under Nigel's rising anger. “It doesn't make sense...”

Instead of raging at her, Nigel chuckled. “'Twas just as I suspected. He used you. All he ever wanted was your father's lands and your father's power--”

“That's not true. He never wanted any of those things.”

“Aye, he did, and evidently, badly enough to kill for them. It seems the only thing he did not want was you.”

Though she had succeeded in holding back her doubt thus far, Nigel's assertion struck her to the quick. A sob tore from her breast and a flood of tears spilled down her cheeks. She could not summon strength enough to deny what he'd said, could scarcely keep her legs from crumbling beneath her.

Nigel looked at her with feigned pity then pulled her into his embrace, shushing her and stroking her hair. His voice was a pained whisper beside her ear. “It sickens me to recall the besmirching remarks the bastard made on your honor. 'Twas bad enough my suspicions proved correct, but for your father to have heard the details of your shame voiced by the blackguard himself...” He let out a woeful sigh. “Would that they had not been the last words he heard before he took his final breath.”

Raina could take no more. “Enough,” she cried, “Please, enough.” She thrust him away from her, her ears ringing with the awful notion, her heart feeling as if it were being rent from her bosom.

Her body racked with sorrow, she threw herself onto her bed and buried her face in a bolster. She heard Nigel step to the window and draw the shutters closed, blotting out the sounds of activity in the bailey and plunging the room into darkness.

“Beleaguer yourself no more with thoughts of him. I rather doubt he will ever darken our threshold again.” With that, his footsteps retreated and he left the chamber, closing the door behind him and sealing Raina inside with her grief.

* * *

Sweat-soaked, bloodied, and fatigued, Gunnar arrived at Norworth's massive gate as the sun began to dip below the horizon. Burc rode tethered behind him, draped over his mount and very near death. At their approach to the gate, a guard on the barbican called for them to halt and state their business.

“My name is Rutledge. I've come to speak with the baron.”

The guard stared down at him for a long moment before beckoning another to his side with a wave of his hand. The two conversed urgently before the second disappeared from the ledge and the gatekeeper addressed him once more. “State your business,” he repeated, leveling his crossbow at Gunnar.

“I would speak to your lord as to why he hired this man to murder me.”

Nigel appeared on the parapet, peering over the edge. “What the devil--” he gasped, his face blanching. Regaining his composure, he barked, “What do you want, Rutledge?”

“I want an explanation as to why this assassin was sent in the baron's place to a meeting meant to be peaceful. I demand an audience with d'Bussy--”

“An audience with the baron?” Nigel chuckled, shooting amused looks at the men gathered around him. “Come now, Rutledge, that would be difficult, considering the baron's current physical state.”

Gunnar frowned, wondering if d'Bussy were ill or if some other ailment had detained him from the meeting. It did not matter. He would stand before the man and demand answers even if he was on his deathbed. “Admit me enter, damn you. Surely one man is little threat against the baron and all of his guards.”

“And I am to trust you come alone?” Nigel called. “Truly, you must think me the veriest fool to believe your pledge of peace once again.”

Something was amiss. If Gunnar could not tell from Nigel's smug expression and his cryptic responses, he would have seen it in the puzzled, expectant looks of the guards. Nigel was conspiring with someone, and it seemed quite possible from the wicked gleam in his eye, that Nigel, rather than the baron, might have called for Gunnar's death. Now more than ever, he needed to see d'Bussy in person, and Raina too, for the unsettling feeling in his gut told him she was in peril as well. “I don't know what you've done, Nigel, but I swear to you, I will uncover your treachery and you will pay. Damn it, open this gate.”

Nigel considered the request for a long moment, then acceded with a curt jerk of his head. The drawbridge lowered and Gunnar led Burc's mount across the great expanse of wood planks, warily eyeing the score of guards as they glared down at him from the crenellated wall-walk. Murder lurked in their faces, a look Gunnar had worn often enough to recognize on sight. Yet none of them made an untoward move. As Gunnar neared the portcullis, one man spat into the moat.

“Murdering whoreson,” someone grumbled from atop the wall.

Murder? It would appear he was accused of such, yet he was the intended victim. He was the one who should be hurling angry accusations. Unless something had befallen the baron. No sooner had the thought flickered through his mind than the portcullis grated open and the gate swung wide, revealing a glowering Nigel flanked by at least a score of armed men.

“I cannot decide whether you are the bravest man I've met,” Nigel said, his smile fading, “or the stupidest.”

“Move aside,” Gunnar ordered, “lest I deem myself your judge and executioner.”

Nigel laughed aloud. “My judge and executioner? What did you think to do, Rutledge, simply march in here by yourself and claim what you've been trying to steal from the first?”

“I warrant you are the one with the avaricious goals.” Gunnar nudged his mount farther into the bailey and drew the reins of Burc's destrier until it came up beside him. “I suspect this man can testify to the baron as to the depths of your perfidy.”

“There is precious little of import to the baron at the moment,” Nigel said, scarcely able to contain his mirth.

Gunnar's gut clenched. “Bloody hell. What have you done--”

“Nay, not I, Rutledge,” Nigel interjected. “You. 'Tis what you have done that concerns us all.” He snapped his fingers and nigh a score of guards closed ranks on Gunnar. “Take him away.”

“Bastard.” Gunnar leapt from his mount and drew his sword. Instantly, Nigel jumped back into the crowd of soldiers.

“Seize him!” he shrieked, but more than a dozen blades were already poised at Gunnar's throat.

The guards stripped him of his weapons, two men stretching his arms taut while Gunnar struggled futilely to break free. Four other guards pulled Burc from his mount and deposited him on the ground at Gunnar's feet.

Once both of them were subdued, Nigel smoothed back his hair and tugged the hem of his tunic back into place. He came within spitting distance of Gunnar's face and whispered, “It will give me great pleasure to slowly--and very agonizingly--finish what this incompetent lout was sent to do.”

A sickening dread flickered in Gunnar's gut as Nigel turned his attention to Burc and crouched down beside him.

“P-please...have...m-mercy,” the knight sputtered.

“Oh, I will, Burc.” Nigel nodded grimly and reached out to wipe a bloody smudge from the man's cheek. The day's last rays of sunlight glinted on the slim blade of the dagger Nigel then withdrew from beneath his mantle. With a quick movement, he slid the blade between the knight's ribs and jerked it upward. Burc's eyes widened; his breath caught in his throat, erupting in a faint gurgle.

“You'll tell no tales today,” Nigel whispered, resheathing his knife as he came to his feet. He announced blandly, “This man is dead.”

“Nay,” Gunnar shouted, bucking against the guards who held him. “Damn your black soul, you murdered him. You murdered d'Bussy as well, didn't you?”

“Take the prisoner belowstairs to await me,” Nigel ordered coolly, then waved his hand over his shoulder in Burc's direction. “And dispose of this carcass, before it rots.”

Chapter 25

Raina spent the remainder of the day and the whole of the night in her chamber, unable to bear the idea of facing a castle full of people who, as Nigel had informed her, likely blamed her for their lord's demise. She refused to leave the sanctum of her room even when she heard the hall belowstairs being prepared for the first meal. Grief and guilt left her empty, but without an appetite for food or any other comfort, save the quiet of her chamber.

She sat on her window ledge, staring out at the fast approach of dawn and welcoming the end to the darkest day of her life. Yet through her pain, despite her anguish, she prayed for the chance to see Gunnar again.

She had not removed his rings. The feel of those precious gifts, nestled between her breasts and close to her heart, infused her with strength, with hope. Grief plagued her and doubts assailed her, but her faith in Gunnar remained. She could not have been wrong to trust him. Not after all they had become to each other. He loved her; she felt it in her very soul, believed it with all her heart. She needed to believe it, now more than ever.

A sharp rap on her door sounded, jolting her back to bleak reality a moment before Nigel entered her chamber. He was dressed in fine cream-colored silks, newly fashioned it seemed, and more befitting a high lord than one of his foot soldiers. His flaxen hair gleamed nearly as bright as his eyes, his sparse little beard neatly trimmed and waxed into a grim point at his chin. If Raina felt as though she had died yesterday, it seemed Nigel had been reborn, cast in the role of baron and unabashedly delighting in it.

“I am told you will not be breaking fast in the hall,” he said with an imperious scowl.

He smelled of heavy perfume and wine as he swaggered toward her perch at the window. Something in his expression made the hair on the back of her neck prickle to attention.

Her brother
.

How long had he known of their true relationship? And why had he kept it from her? If it was evidence of duplicity she sought, it seemed she need not look any farther than Norworth's own walls. Deceit abounded in this keep and all her life she had been unaware of it. So naive.

“Then if you are right, at the very least he deserves a proper burial, here at home. I want you to send a search party out to locate him--”

“They will never find him.”

His clipped reply was so resolute, so cold, Raina nearly shivered. “Then you must lead them. Please, Nigel, I beg you. Do this one thing for me...for our father.”

“Our father,” he whispered quietly. His bravado dimmed markedly with the simple forming of those two words. He scoffed. “What did he ever do for me besides push me away, forsake me and deny me what was rightfully mine?”

The bitterness in his voice made Raina ache inside. She had never been denied any of her father's affection. But she had been denied the truth. “How long have you known, Nigel?”

He pursed his lips and let out a heavy sigh. He attempted a chuckle but it was a terrible, humorless sound. “I suppose from the moment the slut who bore me first realized she could wound me with the knowledge.”

“If you knew all this time, why did you keep it from me?”

“He made me vow, told me he'd as soon slit my throat as have you hear he had lain with a filthy peasant-whore.”

“So, my fa--” Raina squeezed her eyes closed against the pain of this further betrayal by her father. “Then he knew as well that you were his son?”

“He did. He knew it, and he hated me for it. Many times I wondered why he did not do away with me. Of course, letting me live--in his very keep--was much slower torture. Every day I saw the breadth of what I was denied, and every day I hated him more and more.” He looked at her suddenly, his eyes filled with some emotion she did not understand. His voice was soft, regretful. “I wanted to hate you, too. God's truth, I tried, but you were always kind to me, called me your friend.” He reached out and caressed her cheek, then let his knuckles gently graze the length of her arm. “Before I could help myself, I was falling in love with you.”