The Unveiling (6 page)

His eyes were reproachful. “You will have to do better if you are to don armor. Get up.”

Thinking him every foul name she could call to mind, she staggered upright and followed him to the training field.

Though those she passed tipped her senses with potent perspiration and made her long to cover her mouth and nose, she suffered through it to the center of the field where quarterstaffs were piled.

Wulfrith swept one to hand. “Choose.”

He would test her himself? She ground her teeth. To plant a dagger in him was what she wanted, not to play at fighting.

“Braose!”

She grabbed a staff and turned. “You are to train me, my lord?”

He put a two-handed grip to his quarterstaff. “All start with me. All end with me.”

“And in between?” She placed her hands too near as Jame Braose might do.

Wulfrith’s gaze fell to them. “When you have proven yourself worthy to train at Wulfen, you will be assigned a knight to serve.” He stepped forward, gripped her right hand, and pushed it down the quarterstaff.

His touch jolted, and it was all she could do not to wrench away.

“Hold it so.” He jutted his chin. “Now show whether you are a boy or a man.” He raised his staff, lunged, and was on her before she could counter.

She bent beneath the blow to her shoulder and grunted out her pain. Though Wulfrith had surely exercised restraint, it was not gratitude she felt but a deepening desire for revenge.

“Not worthy,” he taunted. “Come again.”

Forgetting the inexperienced young man she was, she lunged.

This time their staffs met at center, but as Annyn congratulated herself on deflecting his blow, he arced his staff and slammed it against the knuckles of her left hand.

She cried out, loosed the quarterstaff, and hugged her throbbing hand to her chest.

Curse his black soul! Curse his loins that they might never render forth another like him. Curse—

“Not worthy. Arm yourself!”

She retrieved the staff, fended off his next assault, and became the attacker. The staffs crashed between them, but Wulfrith was solid. Nearly chest to chest with him, assailed by his strong, masculine scent, she looked up.

He looked down. “Not worthy. You fight like a girl.”

Fanned by the hot breath of revelation, Annyn forgot her pain.
Did
she fight like a girl?
Did
he see Annyn Bretanne? Or was this part of her training? Surely the latter, for she hardly fought like a girl. Indeed, she had forgotten Jame Braose and put Rowan’s training to good use.

“I fear I am at a disadvantage, my lord, for surely you are two of me.”

His lips curled. “Mayhap three.” He thrust her back.

Affecting the untried person of Jame Braose, she staggered before coming at him again. However, further pretense was unnecessary when next their staffs met. For all of Annyn’s training, her skill was as water to his wine.

He turned his staff, met hers, pushed back, met again, pushed again, and knocked her so hard to the ground that the staff flew out of her hands.

Bottling her cry of pain, Annyn dropped her head back and showed him her hate.

“We will use that,” he said. “Anger makes a man strong.”

As it was said to make him strong?

“You but need to learn when to use it and to what degree, little priest.”

His reminder of who Jame Braose was cooled her expression of hatred.

“Now the pel.” He turned.

The pel? And what else?

As Annyn rose, she saw the field had emptied. Gauging by the lowering sun, the supper hour neared. And she was alone with Wulfrith—of certain advantage were she capable of working vengeance without stealth.

“Braose!”

Muttering beneath her breath, she tramped after him.

He stood before a wooden post set in the ground. “Your sword.” He extended the one he held.

Her fingers brushed his as she turned them around the hilt, and she felt her blood rush. How curious hate was—

The tip of the sword hit the ground, and she stared down the blade’s length before realizing she had been given a blade twice the weight of others. Though she knew such swords were used to develop muscles and grow one accustomed to wielding weapons, Rowan had never pressed her to swing one.

“Are you hungry, Braose?”

Dare she hope he might forego this exercise? “Indeed I am...my lord.”

“Then the sooner you take the pel to ground, the sooner you may fill your belly.”

All the way to ground? Though she supposed she ought to be grateful the post was not thick, she hated Wulfrith more.

She took a step back, closed her other hand over the hilt, and heaved the sword up. It was not the pel she struck once...twice...a dozen times. It was the image she summoned of Wulfrith. She hacked until her arms trembled. And still the post was not halfway felled.

Throat raw from labored breath, she lowered the sword.

“You have much anger for one promised to the church,” Wulfrith mused.

She looked to where he leaned against the fence. How was she to respond? As Jame Braose. “Were your own destiny snatched from you, you would also be angered.”

He arched an eyebrow. “So I would.” He strode from the fence and advanced on her. “Finish with the pel and come to the hall. You will pour wine at table this eve.”

When was
she
to eat?

She thought he meant to pass behind her, but he paused at her back, leaned in, and said, “I promise you, Jame Braose, we will turn that anger of yours to good.”

His warm breath on her skin made her shiver.
Her
good, not his.

She heard his footsteps retreat. When she was fairly sure he was gone, she looked over her shoulder. Only she remained on the training field, and somewhere out there, Rowan.

With a grunt, she raised the sword and swung. The blade bit, causing the wooden post to shudder and chips to fly. If it was a pel Wulfrith wanted, a pel she would give him.

Across the darkening of day, Garr looked down from the battlements to the young man on the training field. Though Braose’s arms and shoulders surely raged, he continued to swing the weighted sword.

He was not as expected. Though years from a man’s body, he was not fragile and fought well for one who had received little training in arms. And the anger that colored his eyes!

It reminded Garr of the anger he himself had known as a boy. But Braose’s seemed to go beyond his loss of the church. Indeed, it was as if directed at Garr himself. Because Garr stood Stephen’s side and the little priest turned heir had gone to Henry’s side?
That
the young man’s father had not told in the missive sent two months past beseeching that his son be accepted at Wulfen.

As for Jame’s impertinence, he dared mightily when it had been told he was acquiescent. As for face, he was nearly pretty, his skin smooth and unblemished and lacking any evidence that a beard might soon sprout.

There was something else about him that bothered. Though Garr was trained to the eyes, that well of emotion more telling than men’s lips, something dwelt in the young man’s hate that could not be read. But soon enough he would come to it, Garr hoped, for his reading of men’s eyes had failed him once. Only by God’s grace had it not cost hundreds of lives.

He shoved a hand through his hair. Though nothing was certain in life, there was merit in going to the eyes to truly know a person—rather, a man, for could one truly know a woman? And would one wish to?

Bothersome creatures, his father, Drogo, had often said. But they were useful, for without them there would be naught, Garr conceded no more than his father and grandfather had done. Still, truth be known, he had never come nearer a woman than through the ease of his loins, and only with harlots.

At the age of four, Drogo had taken him from Stern Castle to begin his training at Wulfen. It had been the same for the two brothers that followed, never knowing much of their mother or sisters beyond the once, sometimes twice-a-year visits. Women were a bad influence, Drogo had told. They weakened a man’s heart when it needed to be strong. Thus, as it had been for the generations before Garr—men who knew women only for the lusting and getting of heirs—so it would be for the generations to follow.

Garr looked one last time at Jame Braose. Whatever it was about the young man, he would discover it. Silently cursing that he was late to prayer, he swung away.

When the irony of his blaspheming struck, he raised his eyes. “Forgive me, Lord.” Such was the difficulty of even putting one’s thoughts to women. Always they turned a man from his purpose.

CHAPTER FIVE

Hot and sticky from her bindings out, gait unbalanced by the pel beneath her arm, Annyn stepped into the great hall.

She paused at the sight that did not greet her: slopping tankards, overturned benches, filth-strewn rushes, facedown drunkards, dogs warring over bones. There were none of these things that ought to abound in a place absent of women.

Squires and pages moved quietly among the tables as they served peers and superiors. As for the manners of those who partook of the meal, spoons did not drip above trenchers and food did not color the beards of those whose faces were of an age to bear whiskers. Voices were tempered, and, unlike Annyn, all those within wore freshly laundered tunics and hose and their heads were bare of caps.

It was hard to believe these were the same ones who had labored on the training field. Hard to believe this was of Wulfrith’s doing. But they were and it was. Unless she had sweated herself into a hallucination, Wulfrith’s hall was refined, though Uncle had always said—

She pushed past the pang of loss. He had said that, without women, men were an uncivilized lot destined to run with the beasts. But the same could not be said of those in Wulfrith’s hall.

A prick in her side, she pinched the bindings through her tunic before remembering Rowan’s warning. Lowering her arm, she settled her gaze on Wulfrith who filled the lord’s chair—a squire over his shoulder, a knight seated to his left, a priest seated to his right.

A priest at Wulfen? Certain as she had been that Wulfen was the devil’s lair, she had not considered it would boast a man of God. But then, it
was
at Wulfen that Jonas had found his faith. From this man?

The splintered pel nicking her through her tunic, she regretted her impetuous decision to deliver its remains to Wulfrith. She would be on show for all, not just the one she had expected to find amid disarray.

She glanced over her shoulder at the squire who stood as porter before the doors. His face had reflected surprise when he saw her burden. Now his eyes danced.

“Squire Jame,” the dread voice put an end to retreat, “what do you bring into my hall?”

Why could Wulfrith not have been blind a few moments longer?

She pulled the cap from her head and shoved it beneath her belt. Though she felt watched by all, it was Wulfrith’s gaze that drew hers. Standing taller, thighs and calves aching as much from her feud with the pel as her traversing of the hall, she ascended the dais.

A movement over Wulfrith’s shoulder drew her attention to the squire at his back. The young man’s presence signified he held the coveted position of First Squire, the same as Jonas before his murder.

The pain of his passing never far, she looked to Wulfrith. “My lord, the pel has been taken to ground.” She stepped forward and unloaded her burden. It rolled
over the tablecloth and settled against a platter of viands.

Displeasure darkening his eyes, Wulfrith lowered his goblet and clasped his hands before him. “Your word would have sufficed.”

“But you hardly know me, my lord.”
And never you shall.
“For what would you believe a stranger?”

“For what?” he snapped. “That my fine table not be fouled.”

Longing for the cover of her cap, she said, “Apologies, my lord. ’Twas not meant to offend.”
Liar.

His lids narrowed in agreement with her silent slur. “Your completion of the task is noted.”

Annyn hefted the pel.

“Set it on the fire, then take yourself to the kitchen and remain there ’til I send for you.”

No doubt, her presence offended—a shriveled apple among polished. But better the kitchen than here. Still, she had to ask, “You would not have me pour wine?”

His nostrils flared. Though she had sought to move him toward anger, she was stung with apprehension.

“And imperil my good health?” His voice was too level for comfort.

’Tis your own doing,
Annyn berated herself. Not only would such conduct make her time at Wulfen more difficult, but it could become a barrier between her and revenge. She must get nearer Wulfrith, and inciting him was not the means to do so.

“I shall await your summons, my lord.”

As she turned, her eyes met those of the knight beside him who was also tended by a squire—as were all the knights seated at the high table. The man bore a resemblance to Wulfrith. A relation?

With somber grey-green eyes, cleft chin, and tightly compressed lips, he had to be, though he was somewhat younger and the color of his hair could not be known as it was scraped from his scalp. Surprisingly, the next knight also bore a resemblance, though his hair was dark brown and showed no bit of silver. In contrast to the man beside him, his eyes sparkled as he struggled to maintain the stern set of his face.

Brothers? She did not remember it being said that Wulfrith had any.

Tightening her grip on the pel, she considered the next man. Though she expected him also to bear a likeness, he was well removed with a narrow face and sleepy green eyes. Still, he was strangely familiar, and that familiarity shoveled fear through her.

Where had she seen him? Might he recognize her? If so, it did not show in the eyes that swept her before returning to his trencher.

She stepped from the dais and met the stares of squires, pages, and knights as she lugged the pel across the hall. They watched her progress, countenances reflecting disapproval tempered by amusement. How they must long to laugh, but they kept their humor to their eyes and twitching mouths.