Authors: Teresa Medeiros
She pressed her wrists to her eyes, praying the clean ache might erase her tortured visions. When she opened her eyes, something milky white was bobbing on the surface of the moat. She blinked, wondering if her eyes had deceived her.
Climbing up on her knees, she leaned over as far as she dared. A tantalizing edge of white drifted toward her. She hesitated before stretching out her fingers, having no idea if Blaine's vicious fish were an inch long or as big as whales. Drawing in a deep breath, she snatched at the object.
Her hand closed around a smooth cylinder and pulled it streaming from the water. It was a bone, the long, slender web of fingers still tangled in the strings of a wooden lute. A shrill scream ripped from her throat, shattering the morning silence. Her scream went on and on until Blaine pried the thing from her hand and enfolded her in his arms, pressing her face into his shoulder.
The seneschal's keys jingled wildly as he loped into the donjon. He cast the hearth a curious glance. Rowena returned it unblinkingly until he looked away. "Milord, milord, they set up a cry outside the doors! Whatever shall I do?" He trotted at Blaine's pacing heels, wringing his plump hands.
"Tell them to go to hell," Blaine gritted out.
The seneschal trotted faster. "They do not understand, Sir Blaine. First they were snatched from their sleep and tossed out of the castle like yesterday's cabbage. Half of them are still drunk. The mood is ugly and the rumors are getting uglier. The doors of Ardendonne have never been bolted against any man—knight or villein." He lowered his voice ominously. " 'Tis beginning to rain. I heard cries for a battering ram."
Blaine turned on the man, his patience frazzled to an end. He snatched him up by his tunic. "You are the seneschal, are you not? Pull up the drawbridge. Lower the cursed portcullis."
The man blinked. "The portcullis. Of course. I forgot we had one. I shall be at it right away. Mayhaps 'tis not rusted."
Blaine released the man, and he scampered off, happy to have a concrete task. Blaine blew out a long breath and ruffled his hair, looking more a perplexed thirteen than a self-assured thirty-three. Freckles dusted his pale cheeks.
A maidservant with eyes still swollen from the night's debauchery stumbled in from the kitchens. She cleared a scrap-littered table with one arm and dropped her tray. She managed a sloe-eyed wink at Blaine before turning to run into the door frame with a thump that made Rowena wince.
Blaine squatted in front of where Rowena huddled on the hearth and pressed a warm mug into her icy palms.
"Ale would serve you better. I shall have it mulled with cinnamon if 'tis the taste that plagues you."
Rowena cupped the mug gratefully, breathing in the steam. "Nay. Tis milk I wanted," she said through chattering teeth.
She blew the skin off the surface and took a deep draught. The creamy warmth spread like courage down her throat. Blaine pulled the edges of the blanket around her, patting her shoulder awkwardly.
Outside the chamber, a tremendous clanking of chains was followed by the throbbing groan of an iron pulley that had fallen into disuse before ever being used. The massive portcullis slid out of its mooring with a screech that set Rowena's teeth on edge.
"Careful with that crank now, Owen," came a wavery cry.
"I got it, mate. Oh, dear!"
"Stand clear!"
"Watch your feet!"
The muffled thump of bodies diving was followed by the crash of spiked bars striking stone. The echoing clang went on and on, dying with a finality that left Blaine's face as bereft as a child's.
" 'Tis not rusted," Rowena said in a vain attempt to cheer him.
Safe behind the iron bars of the portcullis, Blaine's seneschal and his hapless cohorts flung open the main doors. Rain pelted the cobblestones. Thunder cracked like a whip. Rowena's face flushed as a roar of disapproval rocked the castle. She huddled deeper in the blanket as individual threads unwove themselves from the bellowing tapestry of fury.
"Send out the murderer!"
"Justice for Mortimer!"
"Hang the dark lord!"
Blaine was across the chamber before she realized he had moved. "Close that door," he shouted. "And bolt it. If you open it again, the mob can have what is left of you after I've shoved you through the portcullis."
His men obeyed with a fawning chorus of, "As you wish, sir."
"Good God, Sir Boris, get in here." Blaine reappeared with a gray-haired knight in tow.
The man rubbed his red-rimmed eyes, finally bringing them to focus on Rowena. He was less disheveled than most of the occupants of Ardendonne, though he wore only one gauntlet and his tunic was on backward. Rowena curled her bare feet under the blanket, realizing she had no right to pass judgement while garbed only in Gareth's tunic and Blaine's blanket.
"Is this the girl?" the man asked Blaine.
"It is," Blaine replied.
Sir Boris gave her a courtly bow Rowena hardly felt she deserved while dressed like some bawd escaped from the wharfs of Londontown.
Blaine did not stand on the ceremony of introduction. "I am at a loss, Sir Boris. What am I to do?"
"Being the oldest and wisest lech here, I suppose the burden of counsel falls on me. Can you summon your father?"
"I fear not. He is dead."
"Oh, dear, I'd forgotten. Hmmm." Sir Boris smoothed back gray hair peppered with black. "Unfortunate situation. Sir Bryan would know just what to do.He took care of it the last time Gareth got himself into such a pickle."
Resentment flared in Rowena. "Why does everyone have to assume Gareth got himself into anything? Mayhaps someone else got him there."
Sir Boris squinted at her as if seeing her for the first time. "Now, child, you must understand what the people believe, what they've believed for years. Everyone heard Gareth threaten Mortimer. 'Twas not the first time. His temper is as black as his reputation."
The knight's kind gray eyes and utter calm frightened her more than the rantings of the mob. She stood. The blanket slid from her shoulders. "Your temper might be black, too, if you'd lived your whole life under the shadow of gossip and innuendo."
"A minstrel's bones carry this beyond gossip, Rowena," Blaine said. "A man died last night."
Rowena turned on him. "And you believe Gareth killed him?"
Blaine's eyes clouded briefly. "I don't care if he did," he finally said. "I'll not turn him over to that clamoring mob."
"Good lad. My sentiments exactly." Sir Boris clapped him on the shoulder. "We shall have a trial before the rabble can hang him. We will send for some of the king's best knights."
"So
they
can hang me?" Gareth leaned against the door frame, his arms crossed in a study of casual arrogance. Rowena wondered how long he had been standing there.
Their gazes met. His eyes swept her in a velvet caress, uncertainty stamped on his features. The night loomed between them, as dark and impenetrable as his eyes. Rowena had to look away. She forced herself to remember how he had used his body and her need as weapons to weave a punishing net of pleasure. Steel threads garroted her heart as she fought the urge to run to him. She sat down and drew the blanket around her shoulders like a mantle.
Gareth's mouth twisted in a bitter travesty of a smile. "What good knights would you summon to my defense, Sir Boris? From my window, I believe I caught a glimpse of Sir Damien and Sir Leitchfield leaping about in a charming demand for my blood. Shall they head my tribunal?"
Blaine sank down in a chair as Gareth sauntered into the chamber and propped his hip on the edge of a table.
Sir Boris cleared his throat. "Gareth, you must try to understand their position. Mortimer was an extremely popular minstrel. A treasure of the court since he was little more than a lad. A pampered favorite of the king."
"And more of his barons than I'd care to recount." Gareth smiled pleasantly.
"The man had his weaknesses. As we all do. But his follies were more than outweighed by his talents."
"As multifaceted as they were."
"Dammit, Gareth," Blaine erupted. "Stifle your flippant tongue. Sir Boris is trying to help you."
Sir Boris's hands trembled as he plucked the flagon off the tray and filled a goblet. For an instant, Rowena wanted to shake Gareth as badly as Blaine did.
Sir Boris grimaced at the warm goat's milk and set the goblet down without drinking from it. "The people feel Mortimer belonged to them. With his ballads and the spell he wove with words and music, he became the voice of their lives. They were willing to overlook his dalliances, his childish sulks—"
"His drunkenness?" Rowena added softly.
Sir Boris swiveled around to look at her. "The thought occurred to me, too, child. He may have simply stumbled into the moat." He shook his head as if to clear it. "But a hundred witnesses heard Mortimer sing his last ballad, heard Sir Gareth threaten him and saw the bard leave the hall never to be seen alive again."
Gareth applauded dryly. "Now that has the ring of a fine ballad. Such dramatic flair wasted in a knight!"
It was more to still Gareth's flagellating tongue than to defend him that spurred Rowena to speak. "Sir Gareth could not have killed Mortimer. He was with me all night."
Sir Boris looked so pitying that she might have made
the
admission she had bedded a troll.
Her cheeks flamed as Gareth gave a short, ugly laugh. "Your loyalty is touching, milady, but there is no need to lie for me. Everyone saw me leave the hall alone. Just as everyone saw us return together."
Sir Boris chose his next words with care. "The less the young lady's name is bandied about, the better. There have already been some very—to put this delicately—distasteful rumors. Bringing them to mind will only blight your reputation further and fan the flames of outrage."
Gareth snorted. "What do those paragons of moral virtue dare whisper about Rowena?"
Sir Boris's gaze was uncompromising. "That you carried her off to Caerleon against her will. That you keep her chained to your bed, a slave to your unnatural desires."
Gareth's mask slipped as he realized the cost of the rumors he had spread himself to torment Lindsey Fordyce. Like a blind man he groped for a steadying corner of the table. The eyes he raised to Rowena were stricken with the knowledge that his anger of the night had turned rumor into prophecy.
It was he who had to look away first. "None of this is your concern. If they want me that badly, let them come lay siege to Caerleon."
Blaine sat up in his chair. "And if they bring Edward's armies with them? What then, Gareth? Civil war? You cannot fight everybody in England."
"Why not? I've been doing it all my life."
Boris laid a steadying hand on Blaine's shoulder and faced Gareth. " 'Tis with great regret, my son, that I suggest you be confined until the knights arrive. 'Twill satisfy even the most bloodthirsty of the lot outside."
Gareth swung around. The threat of barely checked violence was written in every powerful inch of his body, making it seem even larger than it was. The suggestion of confining such a presence seemed as ludicrous as trying to harness the deep swell of thunder that rolled across the roof of the donjon.
He slid off the table, his swagger as deliberate as a taunt, and held out his wrists to Blaine. "Cart me off to the dungeon, friend. Have you no chains in this palace of pleasure?"
Blaine slapped Gareth's hands away, and even Sir Boris had the good grace to look embarrassed. "Your chamber will be sufficient. I shall entrust my son with your safekeeping. He is young and not so easily swayed by the opinions of others."
As Gareth's gaze fell on Rowena's inclined head, his lips softened in a smile more wry than mocking. "A marvelous and dangerous trait. Guard it well."
By the time Rowena had lifted her head, he had thrown a cheerful arm over Sir Boris's shoulders and was guiding the man from the chamber, leading him in a discussion of the latest tournament rules.
Blaine covered his face with one hand, casting Rowena a despairing glance between his fingers. Outside the hall, a cry of warning was followed by the thud of a heavy body striking the floor. The blanket fell away as Rowena sprinted for the door. She gave a cry of dismay at the sight of Gareth's form crumpled on the stones.
She flung herself to her knees and cradled his head in her lap. "What have you done to him?"
A bewildered looking young knight stood over him. He gave the broadsword in his hand a sheepish glance. "I saw his arm tighten around Papa's throat. So I hit him over the head."
"You knave. You might have killed him!" The young man quailed before the contempt in Rowena's voice.
She soothed the hair from Gareth's brow, crooning words of comfort he could not hear. His chest rose and fell evenly. His dark lashes rested against his cheeks. He looked so peaceful, he might have been sleeping.
Sir Boris rubbed his throat, swallowing convulsively. "It was as the boy said. The lad did right."