The Warrior (40 page)

“Someone else can see to it.”

“No one else will be as particular as I. Serfs often carry out their duties in a haphazard fashion, and neglect the worst dirt.”

“Ah, a crime indeed,” Ranulf observed, his amber eyes warm and teasing as he pulled her against him.

Ariane felt her temper rising at his flippant mood. It vexed her sorely that he was trying to avoid acknowledging her competence, just as her father had always done.

Hands pressed against Ranulf’s chest, she presented him an ultimatum. “If you wish me to share your bed, my lord, you will allow me to put the hall in proper order. I will not tolerate filth.”

The gleam in his eye told her clearly he saw her threat as a challenge, and his lips claimed victory for the nonce.

And yet later, Ranulf yielded the skirmish. With his permission, Ariane organized the castle serfs to carry the soiled rushes out to the bailey to be burned and to gather new ones. The wooden floor was swept and scrubbed with vinegar, then sprinkled with pennyroyal to eradicate fleas and chamomile and lavender to sweeten the air and quell odors.

When she had seen to the cleaning of the floors, she ventured to suggest a more ambitious proposal—to whitewash the walls of the great hall to mask the soot and smoke stains of the past winter.

“I fail to see the need,” Ranulf replied, scrutinizing the darkened walls.

“Men rarely do,” Ariane retorted. “But it will freshen and brighten the hall. You will appreciate the results, I promise you.”

“Had I any faith in your promises,” Ranulf murmured cynically, “I would not be required to remain at Claredon to ensure its submission.”

“
My
promises? You are the one who disavowed our longstanding betrothal.”

“And you were the one who turned traitor and closed the gates against me in defiance of the king’s orders, and then refused to swear allegiance to me.”

It raised Ariane’s hackles to be held solely at fault when Ranulf bore the greater blame. “What have you done to earn my allegiance, my lord, besides claim my father’s demesne and turn me into your leman?”

Ranulf scowled at the term. “You are not my leman.”

“Your lover, then, which is the same thing.”

They broke off the discussion, both of them smoldering, with Ranulf digging in his heels and refusing to consider her request to paint the walls.

When the following day Ariane hinted she be allowed to run his household, their dispute evolved into a major argument.

“It would be less burdensome if I held the keys to the castle,” she asserted that morning when Ranulf grumbled that she was overly concerned with castle affairs. “I could put the place to rights without having to ask your permission for every little task.”

Ranulf’s eyebrows rose in disbelief. “You think for one moment that I would turn over the keys to
you? My hostage?”

“Mayhap you intend to play chatelaine, my lord?” Ariane responded dryly. “Somehow I cannot envision you in the role.”

His lips twitched, yet he strove to keep his expression cool. “I need no one to run my household. For that I have a seneschal.”

“Who needs supervision. A woman’s supervision.”

Ranulf frowned suspiciously. “Would you, perchance, be trying to weasel your way into my good graces, vixen? Is this an attempt to persuade me to wed you?”

He had hit too close to the truth, but Ariane managed a casual shrug. “Claredon has been my home all my life, my lord. I do not care to see it fall to ruin. Besides, I need employment. I am bored to tears during the hours you are away from the keep.”

His mouth curved slowly, suggestively. “Then I shall have to lessen the hours I am away—and see that you remain occupied.”

“ ’Tis not what I meant, as well you know!”

When he bent to nuzzle her neck, Ariane drew away sharply. Ranulf’s expression turned cool. “Denying me is hardly the way to persuade me, demoiselle. Perhaps you will be done sulking when I return.”

Ariane had been trying to comb her wild hair after a particularly passionate bout of lovemaking, and the ivory teeth snagged in a tangle with such force that it brought tears to her eyes. She very much wanted to throw the comb at his stubborn head, but she refrained, schooling herself to patience. She had known Ranulf would not relent easily.

And yet that very afternoon, he sent a cloth merchant to her so that she could choose silk threads for her ladies’ embroidery, and provided the coin to pay for it.

She was moved by the gesture, and thought perhaps she might eventually succeed in wearing down his formidable defenses, if only she kept at it long enough.

She still had not determined how to solve her most crucial dilemma, however. Her twice-monthly visits to the forest had been curbed entirely and she was now weeks late. There had been time, before Ranulf’s capture of Claredon, to make only a brief foray into the eastern wood to aid the inhabitants there. By now their situation would be growing grim, and they would be desperate for food.

There was no one she could entrust with such a mission, either, save for perhaps Gilbert, and she could not be certain about him. Only she and two others were privy to the secret of the haunted Claredon forest—her father and her father’s chief vassal, Simon Crecy, and both men were gone. It was left to her to see to the task—and she could wait no longer.

The solution came to her one afternoon, toward the end of Ranulf’s first month at Claredon, when she visited his injured squire to satisfy herself that Burc’s shoulder wound was healing. The lad was still bedridden and feverish, and still in pain. The wound showed signs of putrefying, the surrounding flesh streaked with red, with yellow pus draining from beneath the scabs.

Ariane spent the afternoon in the herbal, pounding and steeping herbs to make a tea to reduce the fever and mixing a poultice to draw out the poison from the wound. But then she had to seek Ranulf’s permission to administer them.

A frown darkened his features when he discovered she had visited his squire, and his tone turned intimidating. “What meant you by defying my express orders?”

“I merely wished to see how Burc’s wound fared. I feel somewhat responsible for his injury—”

“You should. You
are
responsible.”

Setting her jaw, Ariane meekly lowered her gaze. “My sole wish was to help him.”

“My leech can see to the boy.”

“Your leech already had his chance,” Ariane retorted scornfully. “Burc desperately needs a cure. His arm will rot off, if he does not die first!” Her hands went to her hips. “And I have no intention of letting him die and giving you one more mark to hold against me.”

Seeing Ranulf visibly wavering, she softened her tone. “Can you not trust me this once, Ranulf? He is suffering needlessly. I do not intend him any harm, I swear it.”

“Very well,” Ranulf muttered gruffly.

But he scrutinized her work, watching closely as she cleaned the wound and applied the poultice, then bandaged the boy’s shoulder.

“There. He should sleep now,” Ariane said quietly when she had finished.

She looked up to find Ranulf watching her with an odd expression in his eyes. “You have a gentle touch,” he murmured.

His mood shifted, however, as soon as they had left the chamber and entered the solar. “I would feel your touch, vixen.” Ranulf drew her hand over the bulge in his tunic. “Soothe my fever, Ariane. . . .”

He kissed her then, and as always, she forgot whatever thoughts had occupied her mind . . . forgot her very name.

And yet when their passion was spent, her vital mission came rushing back to trouble her. She had to find a way to visit the east wood. Her supplies of medicines was running low. Most of the plants she needed would not mature till summer, but there were a number of shrubs and wildflowers that could be harvested now. She would ask Ranulf’s permission to conduct the spring herb gathering, which would give her a legitimate excuse to leave the castle grounds. She would even offer to take her guards. Surely she could outwit them long enough to see to her errand.

That evening, when she sat across the chessboard from Ranulf, she took a deep breath, girding herself for the risk. “If I win tonight, my lord, may I ask a boon?”

“You may ask now,” he replied, studying the ivory pieces.

“No, I will wait.”

It took all her concentration and skill, but she won the match. As casually as possible, she asked permission to gather herbs in the forest.

“You wish to leave the castle grounds?” was Ranulf’s first question.

“I will not attempt to escape, I give you my word.”

His expression became an enigmatic mask, as if a shutter had suddenly closed. “Is this the same forest the Claredon serfs believe to be haunted by spirits and plagued by wolves?”

Abruptly Ariane lowered her gaze, not wishing him to see the lies in her eyes. “Aye, my lord.”

Ranulf refrained from answering at once, conflicting emotions warring within him as he studied her serene face.
Had
he been too harsh on Ariane? Was it time to give her the chance to prove herself? Could he trust her enough to leave the castle grounds on such an innocuous errand? Or was she intent on some more nefarious purpose? . . .

“I shall be away from the castle on the morrow,” he said finally, without inflection. “If it does not rain, you may go then. You will take an armed escort for safety, lest you come upon a wolf with a fancy for lovely flesh.”

She was surprised Ranulf had given in with such ease, and that he had made no mention of rebels or lovers, but she would not permit herself to question her good fortune. If, for the remainder of the evening, he seemed quieter than usual, if occasionally she caught him glancing at her intently, she told herself it was purely her imagination.

The following morning she watched with relief as he rode out with a company of knights. She was grateful for his absence, for although she might outmaneuver her guards, she knew Ranulf’s vigilance was another matter entirely.

She dressed in one of her oldest woolen gowns and mantle and had her palfrey saddled, along with cobs for two of her tirewomen and the castle midwife. While the women were loading the panniers on the packhorses with baskets and pottery jars and cloth bags, Ariane prepared two baskets of foodstuffs—bread and cheese and roasted meat, as well as vegetables and dried fruits. Leather flagons of wine complemented the victuals, and she included another flagon for her Norman escort.

It seemed overly cautious to be so heavily guarded by armored knights and archers on so beautiful a morning. The rains had stopped, leaving the air fresh and cool, the spring breeze scented with growing crops and wildflowers that grew in sweet profusion.

The entourage wound its way past patchwork fields of green and brown and across meadows abloom with spring flowers and wet with dew, before coming to a halt at the edge of the eastern forest.

For much of the morning, Ariane pretended to participate in the herb gathering, but as the other women spread out, she wandered further afield, venturing into the wood itself.

Ariane’s heart was pounding by the time she was able to slip away from the party. No one followed her, she was certain, but she hurried nevertheless, her footsteps almost silent as they trod a carpet of moss and humus.

When she came upon the cotter’s hut hidden among a tangle of birch and hawthorn, she came to a halt, her vision blurring with tears. Hazy spears of sunlight cast the clearing in a golden glow, giving it an almost heavenly aura, yet she knew, to her great sorrow, the inhabitants were afflicted by Satan’s curse. Brushing the moisture from her eyes, Ariane forced herself to go on, knowing she could not afford to indulge in her own anguish.

She performed her duty and emerged from the wood some quarter hour later, her heart heavy as always when she paid her visits, and yet lighter than any time since Ranulf’s capture of Claredon.

The sudden silence that greeted her when she reached the meadow disturbed her. There was no sign of her women, or of the escort Ranulf had forced upon her. They were all gone.

In their place, at the far edge of the meadow, a powerful knight in full armor sat silently astride his warhorse.

Ariane halted abruptly, staring in horror. The Black Dragon awaited her, his piercing gaze fixed on her. His helmet shielded much of his harsh face, concealing his expression, yet even at this distance, she could sense his seething fury.

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