A tall, lanky man-at-arms appeared at the entrance to the guardroom, his blond hair rumpled, his jerkin awry. Who goes there? he demanded, his thin, bony face closed and suspicious. Attica thrust her horse forward into the light. She might be inwardly quaking with fear, but all those years of court training had taught her how to keep her features composed, whatever the circumstances. Mother of God, man, she said with just the right note of imperiousness. Do you not recognize me? The man peered up at her, his pale eyes widening in astonishment. My lady? Why do you stand there gawking? she demanded as the gelding sidled nervously in the narrow archway, its big hooves clattering as he danced near enough to the man-at-arms to make him step back warily. Open the gate and be quick about it. But my lady You dare? said Attica, doing her best to assume the expression of the comtesse d'Alérion, who had a way of staring down her nose at servants as if they were insects or patches of slime. You dare to say me nay? He didn't, of course. No humble man-at-arms would disobey a direct order given him by the woman betrothed to the future viscomte de Salers. The guard gulped and sputtered, Never, my lady, and tripped over his own feet in his haste to unbar the gates. The screech of the great beams being drawn drove away all thought. She glanced nervously over her shoulder and saw, across the open space of the ward, a light show suddenly through a window slit on the second floor of the keep. The frightened hiss of her quickly indrawn breath brought Walter's head around. She saw his gaze fix on the flickering light, his jaw tighten. Then the iron-bound gate swung slowly inward, and Attica urged her horse forward. The quick tramp of the gelding's hooves rang hollowly on the wooden drawbridge before being muffled by the dust of the road. Attica drew in a deep breath of air scented with the fragrance of ripening fields and dew-dampened earth. She had never ridden at night like this. As she emerged from the lee of the walls, the full force of the wind slapped into her, whipping loose strands of hair about her face. She hugged the dead man's cloak tighter. From where Châteauhaut stood, high on the rocky crest of its hill, the river valley below seemed only a distant mosaic of pale meadows and black clumps of trees shrouded in star-studded darkness. Without a moon, the steep, rocky track downward would be treacherous. But she waited only until Walter drew abreast of her before she dug her heels into the chestnut's sides and sent her horse away at a canter. She kept listening for a shout of alarm behind her, kept waiting, tensely, to hear the crash of the gates being thrown open again, the bustle of men, hurrying in pursuit. She leaned low over the chestnut's withers, urging it on, faster, faster. Not until they reached the stand of trees growing partway down the hill, out of bowshot of the walls, did she hesitate long enough to throw a quick glance back at the castle. But by then, even the jagged outline of the walls had been swallowed up by the night.
CHAPTER TWO
The morning mist crept up from the marshy banks of the river to spread like a thick, sodden blanket over the fields. It brought with it an odd hush, oppressive and unnatural. Without the sun, the colors of the glade seemed muted and blurred, the pale gray-green of grass and leaf running into the gray-brown of the earth. The only trace of brilliance came from the crackling flames of the burning cottages, tingeing the mist with an orange glow that showed the crumpled, bloody form of a dog lying dead and, beyond that, the lifeless limbs of a woman sprawled in an ungainly tableau of violation. The knight stood motionless, the reins of his graceful black Arab held loosely in one gloved hand. He wore a leather broigne, but no hauberk or helm, for on this day his mission was one that required speed and intelligence, not arms. Yet he was no stranger to the carnage of the battlefield or the horrors of a sacked town. The flickering flames shone over a sun-darkened, powerfully boned face devoid of all emotion. Only for one brief instant did his nostrils flare as he sucked in a deep breath and smelled the fecund scent of tilled earth, marred by the stink of burning wet timber and freshly spilled blood. This had been a small village of no more than half a dozen mean dwellings. It had yielded to its attackerswhat? A few pigs and cows? A cartful of grain? An iron cooking pot or two? The mist roiled up, so heavy now, he could feel it against his face. Damion de Jarnac's mouth tightened into a hard line and he turned away, gathering his reins. We can do nothing here, he said, swinging into the saddle. Beside him, the lithe, light-haired boy who served as his squire made no move to mount. Shouldn't we bury them? Sergei asked, his dark, exotic eyes troubled as he glanced around the clearing. Or at least cover them up? Damion shook his head. I need to get to La Ferté-Bernard. If this conference goes badly, you'll be seeing this scene repeated a hundred times over, boy. From Normandy to Aquitaine. Still Sergei hesitated, his brooding gaze fixed on the scattered dead. It wasn't an army that had descended on this village, of course. Only a small band of routiers unemployed mercenaries. But Philip and Henry both filled out their armies with mercenaries, and in war, it was usually the villages that burned. Not the castles. Sergei, said Damion in the calm, flat voice that all who served under him knew better than to ignore. The boy scrambled up onto his bay palfrey. But before reaching for the leads of their spare horses, he paused long enough to make a quick sign of the cross. Damion pursed his lips and blew out a short, exasperated breath. All right. There's an abbey, not far out of our way. The village probably belongs to it. We can stop and tell the monks what has happened. Sergei nodded and kicked his horse forward, although his face remained troubled and strained long after they had left the ruined village behind. Damion spurred his horse on ahead, his own thoughts already far away from the devastated clearing. At the age of twenty-seven, he had dealt in death and destruction for many years. Too many years spent as a knight-errant, driven by the demons of betrayal and guilt across the battlefields of Europe and beyond. Once, as a boy, he had cherished the kinds of dreams typical of younger sons, dreams of founding a dynasty on land of his own. Dreams that had been shattered in one dreadful night of lightning-split skies and hideous revelations and blood-drenched death. Yet from the ruins of that boy's visions had emerged a man's ambitions and a man's hunger, not simply for land but for great titles and vast power, aspirations no longer noble and pure but cold and ruthless and utterly determined. Only a king could give Damion the kind of future he had resolved to make his, and so he had attached himself to the service of the most powerful king in Christendom, Henry II, King of England, Duke of Normandy, and lord of more French lands than the King of France himself. In Henry's service, Damion had undertaken a dangerous four-month mission that had led him from Brittany to the farthest reaches of Ireland. He had learned the names of many of the powerful nobles now poised to join the revolt against Henry, and he had discovered some disturbing indications of just how far the king's youngest son, John, had been pulled into the conspiracy. Damion had even learned somethingalthough not as much as he would wishof the strange musical code Philip of France was using to communicate with the conspirators. Now, on his way back to Henry, Damion was acutely conscious of the shortage of time, for the conference at La Ferté-Bernard would be beginning soon. There, Henry would be sitting down to talk peace with a sly French king allied to Henry's own proud, angry son, Richard. And if Damion didn't reach Henry's side in time, the Old King would be in for some nasty surprises. But Damion had every intention of reaching La Ferté-Bernard in time. And then he would collect the reward Henry had promised him: the hand of the king's ward, a thirteen-year-old heiress named Rosamund, who would make her future husband the Earl of Carlyle. Damion had seen Rosamund once. He had a faint memory of a petitely pretty, haughty little girl with blond hair and blue eyes. But it was his prospective bride's lands and titles, not her person, that attracted him. These were the things every knight-errant dreamed of, fought for, killed for: a title and land of his own. Soon, Damion thought. Soon, he would have both. The tracks of the routiers followed the river eastward, along a narrow path that probably led to some other hapless, isolated village. Damion headed southeast, toward the Abbey of Saint-Sevin, a Benedictine monastery nestled in a green valley surrounded by gently undulating hills densely wooded with oak and scattered chestnut and beech. The sun rose higher in the sky, burning off the mist and driving away the chill that had kept Sergei wrapped in his cloak. Even with the detour to the abbey, Damion calculated, he ought to reach Loiron by nightfall. Another hard day's ride would see them to Vaiges, then Le Mans, and he'd be in La Ferté-Bernard by Wednesday. The conference The voice of an unseen man shouting roughly in anger somewhere up ahead shattered the calm and brought Dam-ion to instant, taut attention. The woods grew thickly here, the undergrown, taller oaks and chestnuts tangled on either side of the steep, winding track with clumps of flowering hawthorn as impenetrable as a hedge. As Damion reined in, he heard the unmistakable hiss of a crossbow bolt, followed by the scream of a horse in pain. Christ. Whirling, he yanked his kite-shaped shield and lance from the squire. Guard my back, he shouted to Sergei. Then he swung around again long enough to add, But don't do anything stupid, do you hear? before he spurred the Arab forward. The stallion was too light for a proper warhorse, but Damion wore no armor and he was glad of the Arab's fleet-footed intelligence and unswerving courage. He galloped up the slope, the stallion's dainty hooves almost soundless in the deep, spongy humus of the forest track. At the crest of the hill the undergrowth thinned. From there Damion could look down on a small clearing where some twelve to fifteen raggedly dressed routiers formed a shifting circle around a slim, dark-haired youth mounted on a showy, white-blazed chestnut palfrey. The routiers had found a rich young bird for their plucking this time, Damion thought, his eyes narrowing at the sight of the lad's green wool tunic, his surcoat of deep blue velvet trimmed with thick green braid, the jewel that gleamed from the pommel of the short dagger he held clutched in his hand. A rich young bird indeed, and an easy mark, too, left so insufficiently guarded by his family, who should have known better. Only one other horse stood nearby, a gray, riderless and quivering, its reins caught beneath a man who lay facedown and unmoving in the grass at the side of the road, a crossbow bolt fletched with peacock feathers sticking out of his blood-soaked back. More blood flowed freely from a deep slash on the gray's withers. As Damion watched, one of the routiers reached for the gray's reins. The horse spun about, ears pinned flat to its poll, hooves flashing out as it reared up, screaming. The routier jumped back. Stand out of our way and let us pass, said the youth, his voice husky but surprisingly calm. Yet the chestnut must sense its rider's well-hidden fear, Damion thought as he watched the way it danced and sidled nervously, its powerfully muscled hindquarters swinging in an arc that kept the routiers , on foot and armed mainly with cudgels and coutels, at a safe distance. Merde , it's a haughty little lordling we have here, isn't it? said one of the men, a thickset, stubbly-faced man with one ear missing. Didn't even say please. The other men laughed. I'd say someone needs to teach his lordship here some manners, don't you think? said another, and they all laughed again. Only one man stood apart, unamused: an archer, who calmly fitted another bolt and lifted his bow. A moi, de Jarnac , shouted Damion, touching his spurs to the Arab's flanks. It was his battle cry, and he shouted it now on the off chance that the routiers might think he had a troop of men thundering over the hill behind him rather than just one overly sensitive, orphaned squire, late of Byzantium and Kiev. Damion grinned at the thought, the smile freezing into grim determination as he saw the archer swing around. He was a tall, black-bearded man, better dressed than his companions, his crossbow well made and maintained. Damion's long lance caught him square in the chest, the force of the Arab's charge driving the point clean through the man's body and breaking the shaft. Damion abandoned it. Jerking his sword from its scabbard, he wheeled toward the pack of routiers . Ride, lad, Damion shouted to the white-faced youth on the chestnut. Get out of here. Damion had no time to see if the youth did what he was told. The routiers swarmed around the Arab, a horde of snarling, spitting, cursing, angry men. Raising his sword high, Damion brought it down, again and again. A man screamed and stumbled away, clutching a bloody sleeve; another crumpled. Damion swung back his blade, aiming for an exposed throatand saw a cudgel coming at him from the left. Christ , he thought, instinctively raising his shield; what he wouldn't give for his armor right now. Hardly had the thought crossed his mind than he felt the bite of a blade sinking into his right thigh. With a snarl, Damion caught the descending cudgel blow on his shield and spun the Arab on its hocks. He saw the man who had slashed at him with a coutel raise the blade again, then let out a startled gurgle as a jeweled dagger flew through the air to imbed itself in the man's thick neck at the vulnerable point between helmet and jerkin. His eyes already glazing with death, the man went down beneath the charging weight and sharp hooves of the unknown lad's big chestnut. Damion flung back his head, his gaze meeting the youth's wide-eyed stare. So the boy hadn't run away, Damion thought, and flashed him a quick grin. Sergei whooped, They're leaving! Limping and dripping blood, the routiers melted into the forest. They abandoned behind them four of their kind, lying dead or dying in the glade. Damion watched long enough to be certain they were actually leaving, then swung his head to look again at the white-faced youth who had refused to run when given the chance. The lad's skin shone pale and clammy with shock, and he was panting, his chest rising and falling visibly with each quickly indrawn breath. But his head was up, his eyes clear. You saved my life, he said to Damion. I don't know how to thank you. Urging his horse forward, he held out his hand. I am The hesitation was brief, but there. Atticus. Damion tossed his shield to Sergei. Go get my lance point out of that damned archer, he told the squire, and shifted his bloody sword to his left hand so he could return the lad's salute. Damion de Jarnac. The hand Damion took felt surprisingly soft and fragile beneath its fine glove, and it trembled noticeably in his grip when Damion said his name. The lad was still very young, Damion decided, looking at him again. He might sit uncommonly tall in the saddle, but his undeveloped shoulders and smooth face betrayed his youth, as did his guilelessly wide brown eyes, lashed thick like a girl's. His mouth was almost feminine, too. If it weren't for his strong, cleft chin, the lad would look hopelessly effete. Damion's gaze fell to the thick gold chain that hung around the youth's neck and the jewels that studded his belt. Lordling, indeed. Only the lad's hair struck an odd note. A dull, lifeless black, it hung raggedly against his collar, as if it had recently been inexpertly cut. And dyed. At any other time, Damion might have been intrigued. But at the moment, all his thoughts were on the conference at La Ferté-Bernard. Christ. He couldn't afford this second delay. Dismounting, he wiped his blade on the ragged tunic of one of the dead routiers and slipped the sword back into its scabbard. He was tying a torn strip of cloth around his bleeding leg when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the lad Atticus slide off his horse and sink to his knees beside his fallen companion. Walter, the youth whispered, and Damion was surprised to hear his voice crack with emotion. Damion gathered the Arab's reins. The youth reached out a trembling hand to touch the bolt protruding from the groom's shoulder, then drew back when the man unexpectedly groaned. Damion heard the groan and paused. He reached for his stirrup, stopped again, and threw an exasperated glance at Sergei, who had just ridden up. I suppose you think I ought to help him, don't you? Sergei only stared back, his eyes dark and expectant. This isn't a verse out of some troubadour's maudlin romance, said Damion tersely. And I am not a fool knight in shining armor with nothing better to do than gallop around the countryside succoring the weak and unfortunate, and rescuing damsels and lordlings in distress. I am on a mission for a king. Everything I've worked for my entire life depends on its success. Sergei said nothing. Sweet Infant Jesus . Damion slammed his open palm against the high cantle of his saddle and swung back toward the clearing. At this rate, it'll be Midsummer's Eve before I get to La Ferté-Bernard.