"Possibly without thinking there are those who actually go into battle being less than certain of absolute victory at the end. It is the curse," he added, softening his words with a kiss on her brow, "of most men who cannot see the darker side of chivalry, honor, nobility, and justice."
"Whereas you do?"
"I have seen it up close," he admitted quietly. "I have lived in its shadow too long not to know it is out there somewhere waiting like a living, breathing thing for something too recklessly good and valiant to ride into its maw."
"You say that as if you are expecting something terrible to happen."
"I do not expect it. I assume it. That is how I have kept one step ahead of the devil all these years."
"I believe I know something of the devil myself," she murmured, "since coming upon him in the forest one day."
He drew a measured breath as her hand skimmed lower onto his belly. "And what have you learned about him?"
"Oh ..." She leaned over and pinched his nipple between her teeth. "That he is unpredictable. Dangerous. Without a conscience or care. Difficult to understand. Impossible to satisfy." She sighed, letting her lips rove lower. "As for trusting him, or loving him ..."
She heard his quick intake of air and felt his big body stiffen out of its casual nonchalance as her mouth trailed her hand onto the flat board of his belly.
"... it is probably not safe to do either ..."
"Christ Jesus," he muttered, freeing his arms and reaching down to bury his hands in her hair. She shook off his attempts to restrain her and continued to chide him through caressing mouthfuls.
"This, regardless if he is merely a rogue or an outlawed earl..."
"Brenna!"
"... or a prince of darkness..."
He groaned around a silent oath and arched his head back into the rushes.
"... or a Saxon greatheart of undiluted bloodlines."
She straightened suddenly and a groan shivered the length of his body. But she was so still and so quiet, he pushed himself upright and groped in the darkness for his dagger.
"What is it? What is wrong? Brenna?"
"You seem quite proud of your pure bloodlines," she said solemnly, "yet I do not have the smallest drop of Saxon in my veins."
"What?"
"My ancestors. They were some of those same rapine conquerors you so disdained."
He released a gust of breath and shook his head. "It was not a personal dislike." He threw aside the dagger and caught her up around the waist, pulling her down onto the mattress beneath him. "As for you not having a drop of Saxon in you, my lady, it will be my happy pleasure to remedy that. Again and again. As many times as it takes to fill you."
Henry de Clare was a mass of bruises, cuts, and raw festering weals. He had discovered, over the past weeks of his incarceration, that if he did not move, the pain would sometimes relent and turn into a sort of dull throb. There was nothing he could do about the stench, however. It filled his nostrils with every breath, coated his throat, soured his belly—not that there was anything in his stomach to rebel. A crust of moldy black bread and a small cup of scummed water were thrust into his cell now and then when the guards remembered him. Even so, sometimes they did not push it far enough inside the door and his chains would not permit him to reach it.
The cell was tiny, six feet by six feet, if that. No window, of course, for it was far beneath the main keep of Nottingham Castle, and thus below the level of the moat surrounding it. Water constantly seeped through the roughly mortared walls, turning to slime long before it collected on the floor and mixed with the decay and rat droppings.
Screams echoed throughout the honeycomb of corridors day and night, along with the moans and whimpers and weeping of grown men. Rats clicked and squealed as they moved from unfortunate to unfortunate, gnawing on old wounds, opening new ones.
The only relief in the absolute darkness was the dim loom cast off by a torch somewhere well down the corridor and around a stone corner. The only reprieve from the agony was sleep, which he seemed to be doing more and more as he grew weaker—often too weak to fight off the rodents for his crust of bread.
He had begun to pray this past week that he would simply not wake up again. Until a week ago, he had wondered why they had even kept him alive this long and he had had the naivete to be grateful for small mercies, for they had not tortured him. Beaten, yes; flayed with spiny ropes, yes; whipped with chains and scorched with hot rocks on the soles of his feet and hands, aye. But he had not been dismembered piece by piece or peeled in strips like some poor screaming bastards. Foolishly, he had thought perhaps it was because he was, despite everything, a member of the nobility. He was Henry de Clare, nephew to William Marshal, heir to one of the most prominent names in the Welsh Marcher country.
Foolish. Naive. He should have known from the evil laughter in Gisbourne's eyes that he was being saved for something special. He should have known, when he refused to answer any of Gisbourne's endless questions, that there would be some heinous punishment for his stubbornness down the road. He should have known, when they started chaining him hand and foot to the wall, that they did not want him doing harm to himself to cheat them of their final entertainment.
A week ago, Gisbourne had come to the donjons, carried there on a litter like some Roman emperor, bathed in a blaze of torchlight that had blinded Henry for nearly eight hours afterward. He had come to ask one last time where the outlaw stronghold in Sherwood was located and where, in the interest of a merciful death, Eleanor of Brittany had been taken after her rescue from Corfe Castle so many years ago. There were rumors she had died shortly thereafter. Rumors she had been spirited to Wales and had married another outlaw prince, Rhys ap Iowerth. There were rumors also that she had been seen in Scotland holding royal court behind the mud-and-timber bastions of Edinburgh. Was she dead? Was she alive? Had William Marshal been involved in rescuing her? If Henry would only answer his questions and sign a confession ... he would die quickly and painlessly under an executioner's axe, as befitting a knight of the realm.
Henry had remained silent and Gisbourne had laughed. He had not changed much in the decade since their last encounter. He was still thin and ferretlike in appearance, with a long hooked nose and eyes too narrow and too close together to encourage any hope of compassion or sympathy. He dressed as if he ruled the world and not just the outlaw-infested shire of Nottingham. His robes were the finest velvets, heavily crusted with jewels and embroidery.
The plaited gold sallet he wore on his head was fashioned like a crown and glittered atop straight dark hair that was oiled and groomed to a perfect roll just below the ear. When he talked, he continually stroked his bejewled fingers over the manicured point of his beard, and when he laughed, he revealed two crooked front teeth, forked like gleaming white fangs.
Ah, but when he walked—or attempted to—he had to do so with canes, and that was Henry's one consolation. His rich velvet robes hid the damage well, but his legs were bent and twisted, the knees broken, the bones warped. And higher up, where there had once hung an instrument of perverse pleasure, there were now only two small sacs with naught between but a nub and a scar. It was this Henry remembered and this he tried to envision in his mind each time Gisbourne's wine-soaked breath washed over his face. And it was this he was thinking of when Sir Guy announced, almost casually, that he was to be moved to Lincoln the following week's end that the king might have the pleasure of watching him hung, drawn, and quartered.
Since then, he tried to think only of Eleanor, his love, his life. She had learned to laugh again over the years, and had found peace with her God. Just sitting with her in the garden of the abbey had been his greatest pleasure in these later years, and he hoped she would sit there still and think of him fondly. She would grieve for him and, for that, he was sorry. She had had enough pain in her life and he did not want to be the cause of any more. He remembered what she had suffered at the hands of her cruel, vindictive uncle, how she had been strapped into a chair and had her brilliant blue eyes seared out with hot iron pokers. She said there were still days when she woke up and wondered why she could not open her eyes, or see the birds that sang on her windowsill. And there were nights when Marienne had to hold her and comfort her through the nightmares and pain she relived time and time again.
At least he would not have to suffer that. The unimaginable pain, yes, of being hung until almost dead, then revived enough to appreciate the artistry of some brutish bastard severing through the joints of his arms and legs, then splitting him open down the middle so that when they tied his wrists and ankles to four horses and spurred them into a gallop, his body would tear apart easily. But it would all be over in an hour or so and then he would have peace.
When Gisbourne had announced the method of his execution, Henry had managed to hold onto his bowels, but only just. And only until he had been hauled back to his cell and manacled to the walls. To his shame, he had soiled himself then, and wept like a child, for he had witnessed the barbarous method of execution once in Wales and he knew—he knew he had not a tenth of the courage needed to endure such excruciating agony.
They came for him in a crumping of heavy boots and creaking mail. Six guards, two bearing torches that dragged ribbons of black smoke behind them, came to his cell, unlocked his manacles, and towed his filthy, emaciated body back along the corridor, up a steep corkscrew flight of steps and out into the gray, foggy morning.
His eyes had grown weak from lack of sunlight and even though the sky was cloud-ridden and dull, it took several minutes to blink away the crusted filth and water, and to see what awaited him in the cobbled bailey.
It looked, at first, like an army. A host, to be sure, comprised of ranks upon ranks of knights in full mail mounted on caparisoned warhorses. Many sat with their lances raised and pennons hanging limp in the gray, misty air; a few—a very few—glanced furtively at Henry de Clare, ashamed to be part of such an ignominious escort. Behind these helmed and blank-faced knights were the men-at-arms. Dozens of them. Scores of them. All wearing thick bullhide armor and carrying pikes, crossbows, and shields. Pacing back and forth at their head was the gravel-voiced Reginald de Braose, shouting orders, issuing warnings, threatening any who failed in their duty this day.
Henry heard a familiar, sly cackle of laughter and, though he did not have the strength to stand entirely on his own, he struggled to pull himself upright that he might glare defiantly at the High Sheriff of Nottingham one last time.
Gisbourne was not laughing at him, however. Nor did he even appear to notice the bag of rags and bones that stood wobbling between the arms of two burly guards. He was laughing at something a tall, silver-haired man was saying.
Laughing, and at the same time casting a lascivious eye over the buxom figure of the red-haired woman who stood by the nobleman's side.
"An ambush at the Witch's Teats, you say? And you have this on good authority?"
"The best," said Bertrand Malagane. "We have had a man with them since they left Normandy. He managed to slip away during the night and found our own encampment not an hour ago. As you can see, I have come straight here with the warning."
Gisbourne's eyes glazed over as he stared out over the crowded bailey. "Robert Wardieu d'Amboise, here in Sherwood. You can have no idea how long I have waited to renew our acquaintance, how desperately I have wanted to offer him the hospitality of my donjons." He looked back at Malagane. "Where is this man who dares to have done what none of my men have managed to do thus far? He should be rewarded for his ingenuity!"
"He has remained behind with my men. To help plan a little surprise for our mutual friends."
Gisbourne's mouth twisted suspiciously. "What is your interest in all of this?"
"Strictly personal," Malagane lied smoothly. "Wardieu was responsible for the death of my older son."
"Well." Gisbourne signaled brusquely for his horse to be brought forth. "If there is anything left of him when I am finished, I gladly bequeath it to you."
"In that case, perhaps I can offer the services of Lady Solange. She is deliciously adept at leaving just enough left over for one last poignant scream."
Gisbourne regarded the curvaceous beauty with an eye that recalled, many years ago, another lethal female in the guise of Nicolaa de la Haye. She had been in the employ of the Dragon of Bloodmoor Keep—the half brother to Rand-wulf de la Seyne Sur Mer—and later discovered to be the mother of Eduard FitzRandwulf, the Black Wolfs son. The irony was almost too exquisite, and he threw his head back and laughed.
He cuffed a lackey out of the way and limped over to where Henry de Clare was standing. His fine pointed nose wrinkled with displeasure at the odor that clung to the prisoner's clothes as he thrust the edge of one cane under Henry's chin, forcing him to look up.
"Of course you heard your friends are planning to attempt a rescue. What you may not have heard was that a mutual acquaintance of ours has come back to Sherwood after all these years away." He leaned closer, his eyes almost crossing as he peered into Henry's face. "What do you suppose we should do? Cringe in fear? Take another road?
Delay until another day? Unfortunately the king awaits our arrival in Lincoln and there is no other road suitable for our needs. Alas, we shall simply have to ride out, then, and meet them." He straightened and laughed again. "But not without a few surprises of our own, eh?"
He laughed even louder as he swung his walking stick across Henry's shoulders and back. He swung and struck until his arm grew tired, then ordered the bleeding body thrown into the back of a small cart.
"Come along then, my friends," he said to Malagane and" Solange de Sancerre. "Our bait is loaded, our swords are sharpened. Let us see how many wolfheads we can catch in our traps today!"