Through a Dark Mist (24 page)

“A longbow?” Nicolaa asked, visibly shaken. “You are certain it was a longbow?”

“It is a difficult weapon to mistake for any other,” he commented wryly. “Besides being identical to the one we found in the woods after Onfroi’s tragic mishap—the same one that made you pensive enough to consume two full flagons of wine.”

Nicolaa stared out the window, her eyes clouding with a memory. “There was a master bowyer in Lincoln several years back, the only one skilled in the making and firing of the Welsh weapon. He had a daughter … a daughter whose skill equaled his own …”

Wardieu waited, intrigued to see something that might have been construed as fear flicker across Nicolaa’s face.

“But no—” She snapped out of it and faced him again. “As I recall, they were all arrested—the father, mother, and two other daughters, not so sharp-tongued, but equally guilty of … of plotting insurrection against the crown. They died, the lot of them. It could not be her.”

“Just like it could not be my brother out there in the woods?”

A particularly loud and close crash of thunder sent Nicolaa flinching away from the window.

“All the more reason why you should have ordered your men into the woods,” she said angrily. “The chance to rout them would have been well worth the risk of a few losses.”

“Does my brother’s presence in Lincoln trouble you so much?” Wardieu asked. “Does his presence bring back such fond memories?”

“I never complained of him as a lover,” she countered archly, well aware of the effect her words would have. “Does it not trouble
you
to know there is someone else now who will doubtless compare with your skills, both as a lover and a fighter?”

The finely chiseled nostrils flared and he gathered her roughly against his chest. “You made the same comparison and ended up in my bed, not his.”

“I may have had different grounds on which to base my choice.”

Wardieu’s grip tightened and Nicolaa was not surprised to feel his arousal surging up between them, nor to hear his breath come harsher and faster in his throat.

“Will you tell John of your brother’s return?”

“I may be left with little choice in the matter.”

“He will not be pleased,” she predicted, her own breath forced to rasp through rapidly drying lips. “No doubt he will throw one of his wretched, foaming fits and threaten to burn all of Lincolnwoods to the ground in order to rid the forest of any threat.”

“I think I can convince him otherwise,” Wardieu murmured tersely, aware of the greedy haste in Nicolaa’s fingers as she tore at the fastenings of his codpiece. “Especially once I point out to him the value of having a band of dangerous outlaws on the loose in Lincoln.”

“Value?” she gasped. “What possible value could there be?”

“What value in a band of traitorous malcontents? If nothing else, I would have just cause to conduct a very thorough search of the entire demesne … thorough enough to rid my lands of any sympathizers, and costly enough to justify an increase in tithes.”

Nicolaa moistened her lips. “And … as sheriff of Lincoln—?”

“It would only be natural for you to assist me in routing these cutthroats and thieves.”

Nicolaa groaned and arched her head back as Wardieu’s knee insinuated itself between her thighs. His mouth savaged the curve of her throat; his hands tugged at the pins holding her hair plaited in a thick coil at the nape of her neck. Thunder crashed and reverberated outside the thin-paned window and lightning slashed across the sky. Nicolaa rode the hard muscles of his thigh with the same tempestuous urgency, her breath hissing from between clenched teeth, her body vibrating with sound and fury.

Wardieu ripped the seam of her bodice, exposing the blue-white flesh beneath. A nipple, hard as an arrow tip, dark as desire itself was barely suckled into a brutal mouth before she was sobbing his name and sinking weakly to her knees in orgasmic delirium.

Wardieu followed her down, amused as well as revolted to see that the more forceful he was, the more pain he inflicted, the louder her cries and moans of ecstasy. Despite her ability to drain him to the bone with her carnal skills, Nicolaa was beginning to grow tiresome in her demands. Making her sheriff would appease her appetites in some ways, but there was still the problem of her insatiable jealousy to deal with. Unfortunately she knew too many secrets and was too cunning to have them safeguarded only in her head, otherwise the problem could have been solved long ago with a simple slash of a knife.

The shocking reappearance of the dragon ring after so many years made it abundantly clear he could not take the chance of any more incriminating evidence being uncovered. While Nicolaa may not have kept the ring to hold against him, he had no doubt she would have kept evidence of another kind linking him to Robert Wardieu’s imprisonment and his brother’s attempted murder. She would not have forgotten, nor would she ever let him forget their treacherous collaboration all those years ago.

Proof of his suspicions, if he needed any further, came each time her body shuddered and her lips trembled around the name, “Etienne … Etienne … !”

17

As the menacing, fully armed troop of mercenaries rode across the narrow strip of raised land—the only dry approach to Bloodmoor Keep—Servanne’s senses were flooded with an array of disquieting emotions. Fear, most certainly, was taking its toll. The sheer size and sinister foreboding of the tall castle ramparts would have started a far stouter heart than hers quaking. The castle was a huge, sprawling monstrosity perched on the edge of a sea cliff, its many tourelles and spires etched against the low ceiling of sullen clouds like hands upraised in desperation. Seagulls screamed into the bite of cold sea air, their cries shrill and echoing over the incessant rumble of the surf beyond.

Servanne had spent the night in the abbey at Alford, shamelessly indulging in another long, hot bath before curling into her bed of furs and cushions. It took Biddy three attempts and a halfhearted lecture on slothfulness to finally rouse her, whereupon she bathed again, to the horror of the monks who were permitted the luxury only four times during the year.

Undine was saddled and waiting for her when she emerged from the abbey chapel. A final, solemn benediction from Abbot Hugo sent her on her way, the promise of a warm morning quickly giving way to the return of bitter winds and a bleak, mottled sky. A spate of stinging rain drove the women beneath the awning of a huge oak barely ten minutes into the journey, but the delay was brief; Wardieu was adamant and the cavalcade was under way in earnest before midmorning. Onfroi de la Haye seemed just as adamant about clinging to life, and he rode, swathed in a bundle of furs, in a small jouncing cart at the rear of the procession.

Rolling hills gave way to fertile valleys, stands of dense game-rich forest were broached and left behind. The few travelers they met on the main road took one furtive look at the De Gournay crest and scrambled off to the side, careful to keep their heads lowered and their eyes anywhere but on the tawny-haired knight who rode in the lead. Once, when Servanne happened to glance back, she saw a peasant woman spit contemptuously into the settling dust. Apparently she had not been alone in her observation, for a moment later a thundering of hooves signaled where a rider had turned back and was pursuing the horror-struck woman into the deeper woods.

Servanne at first thought nothing of the incident. Peasants and serfs were more often than not terrified of their lord. He owned their lives, owned everything they possessed. They could be killed at his whim, broken, maimed, or crippled at his pleasure; their daughters and wives could be raped, sold, or given away as the lord saw fit if tithes were not paid on time, or any one of a thousand private laws were broken. There was no recourse for any but the rich and titled gentry, no means of appealing a sentence regardless of its harshness in relation to the pettiness of the crime.

Sir Hubert, a kind and just lord, had nonetheless always given his full support to his seneschals and provosts when they ordered thieves hung, traitors blinded, and petty offenders mutilated, beaten, or starved to death by way of an example to others. A lord’s livelihood depended upon the unquestioning obedience, respect, and servitude of his vassals and serfs, and to show leniency to one was to invite rebellion in another. Servanne had never questioned the functioning or fairness of the system that put so much power into the hands of the rich and privileged. Conversely, she had rarely seen such powers abused to the extent of trampling a woman underfoot for the act of spitting. Nor had she ever been betrothed to a man who accepted the report with a faint nod of disinterest before resuming his conversation with his mistress.

As a result, Servanne was increasingly wary of keeping company with anyone other than Biddy or Sir Roger de Chesnai. Not that she would have been eager to strike up conversation with any of the glowering, brute-faced knights who rode escort to the cavalcade. To a man they ran their eyes like dirty hands over her body at every opportunity, lingering over breasts and thighs.

The moor flanking either side of the steeply banked road that led to Bloodmoor throbbed and glowed with wildflowers in every shade of red, from palest pink to the bloodiest crimson. Long grasses rippled like waves on the ocean; here and there, gaps in the density of weed and wildflower showed the icy glitter of water and treacherous mud slicks hidden beneath. The closer they rode to the castle, the taller the outer walls seemed to grow. High and crenellated with jagged square teeth, their harsh lines were dotted with the heads of alert, well-armed sentries who patroled the walls. Their steel helmets caught whatever light was available, dotting the ramparts with pinprick flashes as heads drew together to speculate over the arrival of the lord’s new bride.

A tremendous groaning and creaking could be heard halfway across the moor as the foot-long rusted iron links of chain winched the outer drawbridge open. Horses’ hooves sounded like the clatter of drums as the party trooped three abreast beneath the raised portcullis gate, their heads barely clearing the spiked points of the thick bars. The inner gate was opened, the huge beams of oak requiring the strength of ten men to push open beneath the overhang of the studded barbican tower. Stone walls slit with
meurtrières
welcomed visitors at eye level; funnel-shaped spouts of iron were cemented into the stone arch above which one could imagine huge copper ladles filled with bubbling oil waiting to add their warm greetings.

The outer bailey, little more than a wide, defensive strip of field, sloped upward toward the mortared fieldstones of the curtain wall. Here there were deep trenches running in staggered stripes, a casual glance noted them filled with hay, a closer inspection revealed the pointed tips of stakes jutting through. A second wall, a second drawbridge admitted the cavalcade to the village of workshops and stables clustered around the castle grounds. The tradesmen broke work for a few moments to stare at the colourful procession of knights and men-at-arms who rode through their midst. Theirs was a small, bustling town of skinners, vintners, tailors, salters, bakers, brewers, fletchers, armourers—all of whom contributed in some way to sustain the castle and its inhabitants.

By way of showing respect, the men doffed their scruffy felt caps to Lucien Wardieu as he rode past. The women, smudge-faced and brawny with muscles gained by toiling day after day at heavy labour, stopped and used their coarse woolen skirts to wipe ineffectually at the grime coating their hands and faces. They gazed with dull eyes upon the slender figure who rode in the midst of so much masculine power. Servanne attempted to smile at a face or two belonging to those who stared the hardest, but the gesture was met with either blank looks, or overt suspicion.

“Not a very friendly flock, are they?” Biddy observed beneath her breath. “And not a very friendly place to get into or out of with any ease.”

Servanne suppressed a shiver and concentrated on what lay ahead. The cavalcade was approaching a smaller drawbridge slung over a dry moat, where a much less threatening portcullis gate was already raised. The bridge and gates admitted a steady stream of pedestrian traffic passing to and from the outer and inner bailey, and here again, conversations ceased abruptly and people scrambled hastily to clear a path for the mounted knights.

Once inside, the men-at-arms and half the mercenaries broke out of the strict formation and veered toward the massive jumble of stone and wood buildings that comprised the castle barracks. The other half remained as escort to Wardieu and the women, who followed a wide cobbled path between buildings and under stone arches until they reached the innermost private courtyard.

Perhaps fifty feet square, the paved space was surrounded by high-walled towers, most covered more than halfway up with a thick, furry blanket of lichen and ivy. Above this, the cold stone facings were gray and weathered, with long ranges of rooms and apartments buttressed to the walls so the square of open sky was reduced by yet another half. Standing in the centre, staring straight up at the small patch of gray sky, Servanne and Biddy felt suitably humbled. Sir Hubert’s castle at Wymondham would have fit unobtrusively into a corner niche of one of the outer baileys of Bloodmoor and made very little difference to the imposing silhouette. Neither could even begin to estimate the numbers of servants, maids, and workmen required to keep the castle running smoothly. Provisioning and maintaining accounts would surely require more than one able mind.

Twin arched doors swung open as the horses were reined to a weary halt. Servants poured out into the courtyard, one of whom stopped by Undine and set an elaborately carved set of wooden steps against the single stirrup. A young page of eight or ten years clambered importantly up the steps to assist Servanne out of the saddle. She accepted his hand with an apologetic smile for the stiffness of her limbs, and was grateful to feel solid land beneath her feet once again, regardless of the doubts and fears that had grown with each step taken inside the massive outer gates.

Wardieu finished issuing his orders to the servants and groomsmen, then took Servanne’s small, gloved hand into the crook of his arm.

“I do not doubt you will feel overwhelmed at first by the size of Bloodmoor. It is rather overlarge and gaudy for a simple man’s taste. I grew up exploring the alleyways and alcoves, yet there are still times I stumble across a corridor or an apartment I have never seen before. Over the years there have been many renovations and additions as well, so I prefer to remain in the main keep; by far the most hospitable area of the castle.”

Said with a smile, Servanne was left wondering if she was being given advice … or a warning.

“I was never one to enjoy exploring, my lord,” she assured him quietly. “A few rooms and a garden will satisfy my curiosity more than adequately.”

“There are gardens aplenty within the main bailey. I would most happily take you on a tour myself when you have rested sufficiently from your travails.”

Servanne smiled with what she hoped was demure acquiescence and touched a hand to her skirts to lift the hem as he led her toward the stairs.

The great hall, in every castle the centre of all activity, was usually built a storey above ground level, entered by means of an enclosed stone stairway. Constructed with defense in mind—although it seemed ludicrous to suppose any attacking force could ever penetrate this deeply into the stronghold —the stairs were steep and narrowed immediately upon passing through the arched doors. The walls were slanted sharply to the right to hamper a swordsman’s arm if he was attempting to fight his way into the keep. Servanne was forced to walk close to the stone in order to keep abreast of Wardieu, who showed neither reluctance nor discomfort in finding his hip and thigh brushing frequently against hers.

At the top, a wide landing opened into a windowless gallery with a high, vaulted ceiling. The only sources of light were large multi-branched candelabrum, some wheel-shaped and suspended from the ceiling on chains that could be raised or lowered, some on tall wrought iron stands fit into niches in the walls. Iron cressets were bolted to the stone to provide racks for extra torches, but they stood empty for the moment. Only the lazily smoking candles yellowed the air with their acrid perfume of animal tallow.

“My dear,” said Wardieu, holding a hand toward an open doorway on the right. Servanne’s skirts rustled softly over the bare stone floor as she walked to where he indicated. Later, she would think it odd to have heard such a faint, delicate sound when the chamber they were approaching echoed with voices, laughter, and the squall of daily living.

De Gournay halted on the threshold of the great hall, his blue eyes moving slowly around the cavernous interior. Suitably named, the room stretched up nearly as high as it sprawled out. Several dozen men and women bustled about at one task or another, their voices drifting shrilly upward to where Wardieu and Servanne stood at the top of a short flight of steps. An enormous raised dais commanded one end of the hall, and below it long trestle tables flanked the length, the farthest stool looking no bigger than a speck through the haze of smoke and murky light. A relatively modern innovation—a fireplace—was hewn out of one wall, its cavity filled with seven-foot lengths of blazing tree trunks. Ornamenting the empty spaces were the pennants and captured banners, crests and shields of past enemies. Crossed swords, iron starbursts, full suits of heavy armour, crossbows, lances, and scimitars captured on Crusade were mounted prominently on the walls; here and there, stretched out on display, were the skins of exotic animals killed in faraway lands: tiger, leopard, and panther. The floor was covered in rushes, none too fresh by the look and smell. Dogs fought and fornicated in snarling abandonment, and in one corner of the hall, a man and woman had obviously caught a similar enthusiasm and were panting and heaving to the cheers of several rowdy onlookers.

“My men fight hard,” Wardieu murmured in Servanne’s ear. “It is only reasonable to expect them to play hard as well.”

“I would not deny them their right to relaxation, m’sieur,” she replied stiffly. “I would only gainsay them the need to do it before an audience.”