Margaret Moore - [Maiden & Her Knight 03] (13 page)

Some bread was already on the tables, and Heinrich shoved the heel of a loaf into his mouth as if he hadn’t eaten in weeks.

Osburn surveyed her over the top of the bronze goblet he held loosely in his long fingers. “Well, that’s better!” he drawled, slipping down in his chair. “Now you look like a lady. Please, join us.”

DeFrouchette rose as she approached—a courteous gesture oddly out of place, and it excused nothing.

“Since you’re already on your feet, DeFrouchette, Lady Allis may have your chair.”

Without a word, his expression unreadable, DeFrouchette went to sit with his friend.

Telling herself she didn’t care where he was, Isabelle walked around the table and swept her skirt out of the way as she sat. Regarding Osburn as she would a bedbug, she said, “I am a lady whether I look it or not, but you will never be a gentleman no matter how well you dress.”

Heinrich laughed, his mouth full of half-chewed bread, while Osburn scowled, then downed more wine.

As the meal progressed, Isabelle tried to keep her attention on the food, which was surprisingly good. There was a beef stew with dumplings made of eggs and bread crumbs, mutton in gravy, brown bread and a filling dish of beans cooked slowly in a fish broth until they were almost a porridge.

It was more and better than she had expected, but then, perhaps good food was part of the bargain Oswald had made with the Brabancons.

However fine the fare, though, Isabelle could not will herself to deafness as she ate, or completely ignore the banter the Brabancons exchanged with the other women. It was nearly enough to turn her stomach.

She also couldn’t ignore the way the women lingered long as they served DeFrouchette—especially one of them, a woman who had probably been attractive in her youth. She obviously still considered herself a great beauty and was not taking kindly to DeFrouchette’s continued, inattentive silence.

Later, when the Brabancons were so into their cups that the hall was like a raucous tavern, the woman obviously thought she saw a chance. She set down the jug of wine she carried and leaned forward with her elbows on the table. Her gown gaped open to reveal much of her heavy breasts and she smiled, exposing what was left of her teeth. “What’s the matter?” she cooed to DeFrouchette. “Don’t you like women?”

“In general?” he calmly replied. “Not particularly.”

The woman straightened. “What, you’re one of
them?
”

“If by that you mean do I prefer men or women in my bed, the answer is women.”

“Ahhh,” the wench sighed, leaning down again. “My name’s Hielda.”

“Well then, Hielda, why don’t you fill the mug of that fellow over there who is staring at the backs of your ankles?” DeFrouchette suggested as he dipped his bread in some gravy.

“Because you’re better looking. And I’m sure you know how to make a woman sigh. Aye, and scream, too, if that’s your pleasure.” She grinned, and her eyes sparkled.

DeFrouchette raised his eyes to look at the woman, and the expression in them was frosty. “
I
decide who I invite into my bed, Hielda, and if I am interested in a woman, she won’t have any doubt about it. What I do with a woman, then, is my own business. Whether she sighs or moans with the pleasure of it is something you will never know.”

Isabelle couldn’t quite catch her breath.

Hielda closed her mouth with a snap, turned on her heel and marched off across the room, where she threw herself into the lap of a startled Brabancon. The man recovered quickly, and Isabelle turned away as he started to grope her.

Unfortunately, she found herself staring at DeFrouchette’s lean and handsome face.

He raised one brow.

“I am going to retire,” she announced, pushing back her chair.

Osburn’s hand darted out and gripped her wrist so tightly that it hurt. “Not yet.
You
may be finished, but
I
am not.”

“Osburn,” DeFrouchette said in a warning tone as he rose slowly, like a god roused from slumber.

Kiera cowered in a corner as the other women watched with eager curiosity. The Brabancons watched with a very different kind of curiosity, hoping for a fight, perhaps, and the Gascon was also on his feet.

Osburn glanced at DeFrouchette, but he didn’t let go of her. “Don’t you think she should be present when we discuss your next task, DeFrouchette?”

“What task?” Isabelle demanded as she tried to pull her arm from Osburn’s grasp.

Osburn grinned his gargoyle grin at her. “Why, taking the ransom demand to your husband, of course. You
do
want us to do that, don’t you?”

Her throat suddenly dry, Isabelle didn’t answer. Allis and Connor must be nearly frantic with worry about her, and she wanted them to know that she was alive and unharmed—but the sooner the demand was made, the sooner they would learn they had the wrong woman, and the worse her situation would be.

“As much as I want to confront her husband,” DeFrouchette said grimly, interrupting her tumultuous thoughts, “I first want your promise that she will be safe while I am gone.”

“Of course you have my promise.”

“You know I mean more than that,” DeFrouchette said sternly. “Unharmed and unviolated.”

“Both, unless her husband refuses to pay. Then any other promises need not be kept, for we must be compensated for all our trouble. And when we’re done with her, I’m sure Ingar will still pay a considerable sum. He clearly finds her fetching.”

DeFrouchette strode around Osburn’s chair and pulled him to his feet. “That was not agreed upon.”

“Heinrich!” Osburn screeched, and the German obeyed the summons.

Scowling, but no doubt aware that he was seriously outnumbered by the Brabancons, DeFrouchette let Osburn go. “I never agreed to sell Lady Allis into slavery if Sir Connor didn’t pay the ransom.”

With a sour expression, Osburn straightened his tunic. “What did you think
was
going to happen to her if he didn’t? We’d just send her home again?”

DeFrouchette’s face reddened. “Oswald assured me Sir Connor would pay, so there is no need to consider alternatives.”

“Yes, he will,” Isabelle declared, determined to keep herself safe as long as she could. “How long will you give Connor to raise the money?”

“A month from the day Alexander delivers the message. But there’s no rush.” He addressed DeFrouchette. “Surely you won’t mind waiting a few days before you go back to Bellevoire.”

“What of Ingar?” he demanded. “Will he wait?”

“Ingar’s been offered a considerable sum. I’m sure he won’t mind lingering here a little.”

Osburn pulled out his dagger as he continued to address DeFrouchette. “Regardless of when you go, we must have some proof that we have the lady, to ensure that her husband will pay.”

“What’s it to be?” Heinrich asked as calmly as if he were discussing the weather but with a savage glint in his eye. “An ear or a finger?”

Panicked, Isabelle instinctively stepped closer to DeFrouchette. Meanwhile, the women gasped and whispered among themselves, all except Kiera, who started to weep. The Gascon looked sick, and the Brabancons excited in a horrible way. Even the hounds stirred, roused by the noise.

“I am to be treated as a guest,” Isabelle whispered, too terrified to speak louder.

DeFrouchette moved in front of her to shield her from Osburn and Heinrich. She clutched at his arm as if holding him could help. At that moment, she would have welcomed the intervention of the devil himself.

“Your father said nothing of any proof,” he declared.

“My father may not have raised the issue of proof with you, but he did to me,” Oswald replied with disgusting delight. “However, calm yourself, my dear DeFrouchette, and you, too, my lady. I don’t intend to follow Heinrich’s bloodthirsty—if fascinating—suggestions.”

She loosened her hold on DeFrouchette but didn’t let go of him completely. “Then why have you drawn your dagger?”

Osburn gave her another leering grin. “To cut off your hair.”

Her hair. Only her hair. Her legs went weak with relief, until Heinrich spoke.

“Plenty of women have hair that color,” he said, his disappointment all too apparent. “How will her husband know it is hers?”

Osburn’s eyes gleamed with a terrible pleasure as he turned back to address the Brabancon, and her grip on DeFrouchette tightened again. “That’s a good point, but the same could be said of an ear or a finger,” he said, “and as DeFrouchette so continually points out, she’s not to be harmed—
yet
. Besides, I’ve no qualms about letting her husband doubt if the hair belongs to her. She could be alive and in our hands, or not. The only way he’ll ever be certain is to pay us and find out. Now then, DeFrouchette, be a good fellow and hold her arms for me. I fear the lady will squirm like a fish otherwise.”

DeFrouchette regarded him steadily, his expression unreadable. “No.”

Determined not to add to Osburn’s fiendish delight, Isabelle came around DeFrouchette and faced him. “Go ahead,” she said, without the slightest tremor in her voice to betray her fear. “Cut off my hair.”

Osburn’s eyes burned with the anger of disappointment, just like Heinrich’s, and indeed, he was no different, except that he had finer clothes.

Osburn stepped up to her and waved the dagger in her face. “Be sure you don’t move, my lady,” he warned. “Otherwise, I might slip and accidentally cut your beautiful face.”

Isabelle willed herself to show nothing, to
feel
nothing, so that she would not increase Osburn’s sadistic pleasure. “I will not.”

Reaching around her, Osburn snatched her braid, and she was sure it was no accident that his hand also brushed her breast. “This won’t hurt a bit.”

His eyes fairly flashing with ire, DeFrouchette stepped forward and wrapped his long, strong fingers around Osburn’s wrist, making him drop the dagger. “Do that again and I’ll break your fingers.”

Heinrich drew out his sword, but DeFrouchette paid no heed as he cast Osburn off, sending the man stumbling back. He swooped down and grabbed the dagger. “I’ll do it.”

Again, Isabelle willed herself to show nothing—not relief that a steadier hand than Osburn’s held a knife so close to her, or disappointment and anger that DeFrouchette would help in this.

He pulled her braid in front of her. She stood absolutely still, like a soldier being reviewed by his general.

His brow furrowed with concentration, he sliced through it quickly. Once done, it looked like a blond snake, or the pelt of some strange beast, while what was left of her hair fell about her neck and just above her shoulders, not even as long as his.

He wordlessly handed the braid, and the dagger, back to Osburn.

“Put that somewhere for safekeeping until the morrow, Kiera,” Osburn commanded. He tossed the braid at her and returned the dagger to his belt. “Then fetch me some more wine. Barbering makes me thirsty!”

As Kiera scurried off toward the screened area, she looked as stricken as if it were her own hair that Osburn had cut off.

Isabelle glared at the gloating Osburn and Heinrich and DeFrouchette, too, before she turned on her heel and marched toward the tower.

T
hree days later, as the sun fell below the rugged hills beyond the ruined castle, Isabelle stood alone on the wall walk near the tower that housed her chamber. For once, she had managed to leave the hall without being followed by DeFrouchette, who was indeed like a watchdog—a large, muscular and grimly silent watchdog, better looking than the hounds that roved the hall and the courtyard at night, but no doubt just as fierce.

For now, though, as she looked out over the Norse encampment below, he was not near, and neither were any of the Brabancon sentries who were further down the wall from her tower. Seagulls wheeled and cried, and the sea in the bay looked just as restless as the birds.

The damp wind, tasting of salt, tugged hard at her garments, and she wrapped Kiera’s woolen cloak more tightly about herself. Her hair, or what was left of it, whipped about her face, and she had to squint to see the Norsemen moving about below.

Several tents had been set up to house Ingar and his men. The pieces of wood that supported the ridgepoles had been carved into the heads of dragons. Iron pots suspended on metal tripods hung over their fires, and the scent of the smoke came to her on the stiff breeze.