Dragon Tree (9 page)

Friar Guilford
turned his face away, his eyes burning with rage and despair.
Neither food nor water had passed his lips in over ten days and he
was weak enough, feverish enough that he had begun to fear he might
go mad and say or do anything to gain relief for his thirst.
Somewhere he had heard it took a healthy man more than three weeks
to die by starvation, but madness, brought on by ravening thirst,
came much sooner.

He could smell
the water on Odo’s skin, see it glistening on the fine red hairs
that coated the freckled hands. He prayed day and night to keep his
mind off the sound of the stream burbling by only a few dozen paces
away. When he was not praying, he was thinking of Amaranth. He had
been so utterly convinced he would see Rolf de Langois returning to
camp that day dragging Amie behind him, that he could scarcely
believe his own eyes when the knight had come back from the raid
bleeding and empty-handed.

His relief had
quickly turned to fear. If she was not in the village where he had
left her, then where was she? Surely she would not have wandered
off on her own?

Their escape
from Belmane had been a hasty, ill planned thing at best.

A frantic
knocking on his door in the middle of the night had wakened him.
Elizabeth de Langois was standing there, her night sheath
splattered in blood, her teeth chattering so badly she could not
speak. A cup of wine heated with a fire tong had loosened her
tongue enough to set the hairs on his neck standing on end.

She claimed
she had bludgeoned her husband to death. She had crushed his skull
with a candlestick and left him soaked in blood on their bed. He
had been drunk, as usual. Brutal, as usual. He had whipped her with
his belt then torn into her like a ravening beast. He had called
her a whore and a bitch and a dozen other filthy names even as he
tugged on her hair and howled out his pleasure.

When he was
spent, he collapsed beside her still groaning promises of carnal
horrors yet to come. Blinded by disgust, she had grabbed the
closest thing to hand—a pewter candlestick—and brought it smashing
down across his head.

Amie assumed
she had killed him. She had not fled to the chapel seeking help to
escape. Rather, she had gone in search of absolution, to confess
her sins and wait for the dawn to bring the sound of the alarm
bells. Despite her noble blood, she would be punished as harshly as
any peasant for her crime. Women who committed murder were
strangled then burned.

The peace of
death, she had declared, was preferable to spending another day
trapped inside Belmane Castle, and strangulation would be a
merciful relief.

Friar
Guilford, while unable to condone what she had done, had stayed by
her side and prayed with her through the rest of the night. When
morning came there was, indeed, a hue and cry, but not because Odo
de Langois was dead. He was very much alive with a split skull and
a boiling rage that promised her punishment would not be so swift
or merciful as a mere hanging.

Without
thinking of the consequences, the friar had hastily outfitted Amie
in peasant’s clothing, tucked her hair under a worn felt hat and,
after pausing in the chapel and praying for forgiveness, had
removed the coins from the bishop’s box.

Bundling Amie
in a cloak, he had taken her out of the castle through the postern
gate. They had made their way south through the forest, heading in
the direction of Kent and the abbey at Exeter. Guilford knew the
prioress there, knew the holy mother would shield Elizabeth
Amaranth de Langois with the last breath in her body if need be.
Moreover, Exeter was nearly a hundred miles away, far enough that
whispers of Amaranth’s whereabouts might not reach the ears of her
hunters.

The first
night they had stopped to beg respite at a small cottage. Upon
seeing the dazzled look in the farmer's eye when he beheld Amie’s
silvery blonde mane, the friar had mixed a paste of burnt acorns,
coal dust, and lard and applied it thickly to her hair. Darkened to
a dull brown, the disguise took them anonymously through several
more days of hard walking before a storm caught them out in the
open one night. Amie had wakened with a chill, so stiff she could
hardly stand, leaving Friar Guilford no choice but to beg shelter
for her in the humble vill. He left here there, feverish and
exhausted, and set out for the castle at Taniere, having been told
he might buy a cart or a horse there.

Odo de
Langois, had come upon him the next day.

“I defend
her,” Friar Guilford said, turning and looking Odo calmly in the
eye, “because no one else will. Certainly not you.”

Odo tipped his
head, his eyes narrowing with the curiosity of a hawk tracking a
mouse. “You cast insults, Priest, like a man who is not afraid to
die.

“Do your
best,” Guilford said wearily. “And cease your tiresome
threats.”

“My best?”
Odo’s mouth spread in a grin. “Ah, Priest, you have not seen my
best. Not by half. My little whore-wife will, however. She will
live long enough to rue the day she ever lifted a hand against me.
But I am a generous man and make you a final offer: Tell me where
you have hidden her and I will release your bonds. I will let you
walk away from here unmolested.”

Friar Guilford
frowned and glanced at his feet, swollen to twice their size from
the tightness of the ropes around his ankles; he knew he would
never be walking anywhere ever again. “I will do nothing to help
you find the Lady Elizabeth. I will pray instead to God that she
runs fast, runs far, and that she never needs to lay eyes upon an
animal like you again in this or any other lifetime.”

Odo’s eyes
kindled with sharp points of light and he pushed to his feet.

“Then I expect
your usefulness is at an end,” he said quietly. Quicker than the
eye could follow the motion, he drew his dagger, leaned down, and
slashed it across the Friar’s neck from ear to ear. He watched the
blood bubble out and spill down the front of the brown cassock and
when it slowed to a trickle, when the priest’s head had slumped to
the side and the last breath had foamed between his lips, Odo spat
noisily on the ground and turned to Rolf.

“Fetch that
pike. We will leave the good priest spitted here as a warning to
God Himself that nothing and no one will stand in my way.”

CHAPTER FIVE

The second
time Amaranth woke up, when her head was clear and not clouded by
pain, it was easier. Someone had hung a kettle of broth to simmer
over the fire and the contents filled the air with the heady scent
of stewing beef and onions. There was still an element of fear over
the unknown—where was she? Who were these men?—but it was tempered
by the knowledge that she was not strapped to a subjugator’s table,
nor were there hot irons and pincers waiting to tear at her flesh.
She was no longer stretched out on a table either for that matter;
she had been moved to a clean, whitewashed chamber, placed on a
mattress stuffed thick with fresh, sweet-smelling rushes. There was
also light. A great deal of light, most of it streaming from a
large mullioned window recessed in the wall beside the bed.

Amie lifted
her head. There were no fancy trappings on the walls, no
tapestries, no painted roses. The chamber itself was bare but for a
few practical pieces of furniture: a writing table, a chair, a
three-legged stool. There was a stone fireplace set into the far
wall, the opening as tall as a man and as wide as would require
three long strides to cross from one side to the other. A log the
size of a small tree trunk burned inside, heating the contents of
the iron pot that hung suspended on an iron tripod.

Amie shifted
tentatively and tried to worm herself higher on the pillow. Her
injured shoulder ached, but the pain no longer tore the breath from
her body when she moved. Whatever magical herbs Marak used in his
poultices were working to heal the wound and give motion back to
her arm.

Beneath the
pile of warm furs that covered her, she was no longer naked either.
She was dressed in a plain white sheath, the sleeves long and the
neckline high to her chin. Her hair had been combed out of the
plait and washed; it spread over the feather-stuffed bolster like a
soft russet fan.

Amie’s hand
rose to pluck a few strands from her temple and drew them
forward.

Definitely
russet. Washing had nearly eradicated the concoction of stains and
pastes Friar Guilford had used to camouflage the true color of her
hair.

She heard a
sound at the door and lay quickly back. Closing her eyes, she tried
to relax her face and feign sleep, but the temptation, after she
heard soft footsteps pass by the bed, was too great and she raised
her lashes a slit.

It was a
woman. She was slight of frame and dark-skinned, wearing long,
flowing layers of silk that shimmered where the light caught each
rippled step. Her head was covered with a veil that trailed over
her shoulders, the edges embroidered with gold thread. Following
close on her heels, one eye warily fixed on the bed, was a small
boy no more than three or four years old. Huge brown eyes filled
his face and as he walked, he kept one hand on the woman’s robe,
the other clutched around a carved wooden horse.

The woman
paused by the fire and stirred the broth. She murmured something to
the boy in a strange language and he released her robe and ran over
to the window embrasure. He scrambled up onto the stone lip and,
because the ledge was deep, disappeared for the few moments it took
him to close and latch the wooden shutters.

Amie was
curious enough to forget that she was supposed to be asleep, and
when the woman straightened, their eyes met straight on. That alone
was startling, but when Amie saw the ugly, ragged scar that marred
the woman’s right cheek, her lips parted over an involuntary gasp.
The whole cheek was caved in, the flesh puckered in such a grizzled
knot that one corner of her mouth had been stretched to the side in
a distorted grin.

The shutters
closed, locking out the sunlight. At the same time, the woman
hastily lifted a corner of her veil and turned her head to the
side.

Amie was
momentarily stripped of speech. Her reaction to the woman’s
terrible injury had been cruel and obvious.

“Please....”

The woman said
something to the little boy, who scrambled instantly off the window
ledge and ran so quickly to the door that he dropped his wooden
horse.

“Please
wait!”

Amie pushed
herself up onto her elbows, but it was too late. The woman and
child were gone, and in their place, moving through the open door
like a hooded wraith was the tall thin seneschal, Marak.

“You are with
us again, then, are you?”

“That
woman...?”

The hood
shifted slightly as if he turned his head within its shadowy
confines. “Inaya? She has been tending to you these past few
days.”

“I... I think
I may have startled her.”

“She startles
very easily around strangers, take no
offense
.”

“But I am
afraid I reacted very badly when I saw...”

“Her face? Ah,
yes. The wound was full of poison by the time she was brought to
me. I did what I could, but—” his shoulders lifted in an apologetic
shrug. “I cannot work miracles, despite what you may hear. I am not
even a good magician, though I am often credited with raising
spirits and changing god-fearing Christians into toads.”

He came closer
to the bed, close enough that Amie could see the point of his chin
taking shape under the shadowy hood.

“How are you
feeling today?” A cool white hand came forward and rested on her
cheek a moment. “No fever; excellent. And the shoulder? You are
able to move it without too much pain?”

Amie looked
down. She had pushed herself up onto her elbows without thinking
about the action, and only realized now that the arm was holding
her weight. The skin felt as though it was stretched tight and the
muscles protested from disuse, but in truth, there was little more
discomfort beyond a dull ache to remind her of the injury.

“It still
hurts,” she admitted with no small amount of wonder, “but it is
nothing that cannot be borne.”

“Excellent. In
a week or two, you will hardly flinch when you lift a sack of
flour—something I will start having you do on the morrow. Just a
small sack at first, to rouse the muscles that have grown lax. Then
we will add more and more flour to the sack each day as you gain
the strength back in your arm. Before we can begin that, however,
we must keep making more blood, and to do that, you need something
with more substance than wine and honey.”

Amie’s stomach
gave off an audible rumble in response to the suggestion. The sound
must have carried farther than the bed, for she heard Marak give a
low chuckle and a moment later, he was beside the fire, ladling
some of the contents of the steaming pot into a small wooden bowl.
When he returned to the bedside, she was laying down again, the
blankets pulled up to her chin.

“Come now. My
cooking is not that dreadful. What can one do to spoil broth,
anyway? Some beef bones, some onions, some garlic... a little
mustard and salt...” He tipped the spoon to his lips and slurped up
a noisy mouthful. “Mmm, yes. I forgot to add the nightshade and the
belladonna, but if luck should have it that you survive another
day, certes I will remember it on the morrow.”

The smile she
could see reshaping his mouth belied the gentle sarcasm and invited
a small one of her own.

He filled the
spoon again, bringing it slowly to Amie’s lips.

The broth was
delicious. It flowed from her throat straight down into her toes,
causing them to curl with pleasure. Marak used a scrap of linen to
catch any dribbles that ran down her chin but there were not many
that were squandered so carelessly.