The Rose of Blacksword (21 page)

“That’s not true!” She shook her head wildly, casting about desperately for the words to convince him. “I hired him to see us home. Cleve was hurt. We were alone. He was the only one willing to do it. Oh, don’t you see? To punish him is wrong. I promised him a reward!”

Rosalynde knew she dared much by challenging her father on this, a matter more proper for men to attend to, and far beyond the affairs of a mere woman. But her conscience nagged at her too sorely for her to let Blacksword be tortured or killed for his deeds. Despite his unforgivable behavior toward her, he nonetheless had the right of marriage on his side. Her father did not know that—if he did he would very likely be even more inclined to kill the man. But she knew it was true, and she could not allow him to die for it.

There was no time for her to plan what to do, how even to stop Blacksword from revealing all to her father should his life be spared. She would face that problem later when she had to. Right now she knew only that any pain he suffered would be on her head, and she simply could not bear any more guilt.

“I promised him a reward,” she stated more softly. “You cannot just murder him.”

“ ’Twill hardly be murder.” Sir Edward gave her a hard, scrutinizing look. She had to fight down the color that threatened to rise in her cheeks, but she met his gaze squarely. She knew instinctively that he preferred very much to believe what she said if only because any other story was much too unpleasant for him to stomach. He wanted his daughter whole and unsullied. Unless he were faced with undeniable proof to the contrary, he would accept her story.

The uncomfortable silence was broken by the entrance of a serving girl who halted, then waited in the corner to
show Rosalynde to her chamber. But Rosalynde stood there silently pleading with her father to relent.

“I will look into the matter,” he finally conceded. “I promise you I’ll not make my decision in haste.” Then as if any further discussion of the matter was closed, he turned to leave. “Sleep now, daughter. We’ll speak later of what will be done.”

One prison was very much like another, Aric thought with disgust as he cast a bleary eye about the black hole he’d been thrust into. Cold. Dark. Smelling of urine and mold. With a grunt of pain he pushed himself up to a sitting position then gingerly raised one hand to his brow. An enormous egg had raised up on his forehead; his knuckles were raw from the one blow he’d managed to get in against the group of knights who had overpowered him; and his left arm felt as if it had been yanked from his shoulder. But he was still alive, and he tried hard to take some comfort in that.

Damn the bitch! he thought bitterly. Damn her to hell for throwing him to the wolves the first chance she got.

With the cold assessiveness of a man long accustomed to fending for himself in difficult circumstances, he examined this latest prison into which he had been cast. The chamber was small, less than twice his length square. The walls were rubble and stone, too rough to lean against with any degree of comfort. The floor was stone as well, covered with a stale layer of straw. The only light admitted was from the steel bar grate in the heavy oak door, and it was barely enough to see by. A small bucket chained to the wall held water; a hole in the floor allowed human waste to be washed away. All in all, it was not a place he wished to spend much time in. But then, it was unlikely he would have to, he reasoned cynically. Once she ran to
her father with her sad tale of woe, it was unlikely he’d live out more than a day or two. He well knew that the one thing prized above all in a noblewoman was her virginity. Handfast ceremony or no, her father would no doubt rather kill him than risk the chance that his daughter’s imperfect state might be revealed to anyone.

Once more he cursed the moment of insanity when he’d thought he might win both maid and demesne for himself merely by the bedding of her. He must have been mad! But then, as he recalled how she had looked standing in that quiet pool with the sunlight glinting sparks off her wet lashes, and her slender arms and shapely ankles exposed to his view, he knew just what sort of madness it had been. He’d been completely and unexpectedly overcome with desire for the strange nymph-like creature she was, and it had totally clouded his thinking. Now it appeared he would pay dearly for his mistake.

In the hollow darkness of the little cell, he tried hard to attain that same state of calm he’d finally reached in the prison at Dunmow. It had not come easily. He had fought the unfairness then of being falsely convicted, the frustration of not knowing who had singled him out in such a way, and the incompleteness of a life not lived out as expected. Yet in the long days and nights as he’d awaited the inevitable hanging, he’d come to a grudging acceptance of his fate. He’d vowed to meet his maker with as much dignity as he could muster.

But then when the sudden intervention had come, he’d been almost angry. The peace and resignation had been ripped away, and all the raw fear and pain were exposed once more, much like a wound torn wide apart after it had barely begun to heal. The ragged urchin who had so fearfully mounted the grisly gallows had appeared at once both an imp of the devil and an angel of God. He’d been
unable to believe she was more than a figment of his imagination, a manifestation of his suppressed prayers for salvation. Yet she had stood there, timid … terrified … made bold by her own desperation. In her fear she’d grabbed hold of his tunic and her startling eyes had blazed with heated emotions. But it was not the heat in her eyes that had swayed him. Perhaps in different circumstances he would have been moved by those huge, piercing eyes. But that day … that day it had been the unexpected warmth of her knuckles grazing the skin of his chest.

In a strange way he had already started to die by the time she had made her way up before the jeering crowd. When he’d finally resigned himself to his fate, he had begun to let go of life. But her warm touch … It had been like the touch of life itself, enticing him—goading him—to take one last chance, to not give up.

Aric leaned back against the rough wall, ignoring the sharp jut of stone against his sore shoulder. He’d taken the chance and he’d escaped the hangman, but now he could see that it had only been a stay of execution. A temporary reprieve. Now it was over.

With a vicious oath and a grunt of pain, he got to his feet and then flexed his left shoulder gingerly. God’s blood, but he did not want to die! Restlessly he paced the small dank chamber. Three strides across the foul-smelling space then back to where he’d started. Just as impatiently his mind turned round and round, seeking some escape, some way out of this hellish pit he’d landed in. But here too he met only with stone walls. No matter how he struggled to find a solution to his dilemma, it all came back to the same thing. Unless she chose to defend him, he would die. Unless she denied that he had spoiled her virginity, his chances were grim indeed. What he said would matter less than nothing to her father. It was all up to her.

On that thought he placed both of his hands against the stout door and leaned his weight against it in resignation. If his fate was in her hands he was doomed.

Rosalynde descended the ancient stone stairs one groggy step at a time. She was home, she kept telling herself over and over. That was what she had wanted and she should be happy at last. Yet that did nothing to dispel the awful feelings of dread that hung over her like a heavy shadow. She was still exhausted and completely disoriented. Although she’d just awakened, something told her it was long past dawn. And even though she’d been bathed by some maid last night and now wore a new gown that, though not fancy, was nonetheless reasonably clean, she still could not quite enjoy her newfound safety. Too much was still unresolved from last night. As her senses sharpened she had a nagging feeling of guilt for her lengthy slumber. The situation with Blacksword was still uncertain, and she needed to know whether her father had set him free. Then she spied Cleve sitting alone at a table with a huge platter of cheeses, broken meats, and dried fruits before him, and looking far too pleased with himself. If Blacksword had been freed, Cleve would hardly appear so content.

“Cleve!” Her cry stopped him in the process of stuffing one more chunk of cheese into his already overfilled mouth. “Cleve!” she repeated, this time in an accusing tone.

At once he jumped up, a look of complete guilt on his face. A fresh bandage was wrapped about his head and she noticed that he too looked newly bathed. But she had something far more important than his appearance on her mind as she approached him. Something was going on, and she was certain he knew exactly what.

“Why did no one awaken me earlier? What hour is it?” she demanded. Then her stomach let out an embarrassing growl, and she could not help reaching out for a handful of raisins and devouring them ravenously. “Why is there no one about?” she added suspiciously.

“It’s near midday, milady. And as for the whereabouts of the castlefolk, well, as far as I can see, there aren’t too many inside servants to begin with.” He cast a disdainful glance around the admittedly shabby surroundings. “And those that there are have all gone out to view that villain. That Blacksword.” This last he said almost boastfully. Even her sudden frown could not quite diffuse his obvious satisfaction.

At once Rosalynde was alarmed. She had slept more than half of the day away. With Cleve’s hostility toward Blacksword—Aric—he might have told her father anything. But more than his lies Rosalynde feared that Cleve might have told her father the truth, and throughout it all she had been left to sleep, blissfully unaware. As frightened as she was angry, she rounded on him with her fists planted imperiously on her hips.

“What is going on around here, Cleve? Tell me now what you’ve done.”

But Cleve was not easily cowed, even by her, for he keenly felt the righteousness of his own anger. With a stubborn jut to his chin he stood up and scowled right back at her. “Your father questioned me this morning and I told him nothing but the truth of it—how that man bullied the both of us. How he is a thief and a murderer—and boastful of it too!” The boy pushed his shaggy hair from his brow. His dark eyes glittered with emotion. “And then there’s what he did to you!”

Rosalynde gasped at the painful truth of his words. “You
 … you didn’t say anything … not to my father,” she finished weakly.

Under her horrified gaze Cleve’s angry glare slowly faded until he finally looked down at the floor. “That swine should hang,” he muttered furiously.

“What did you tell my father?” Rosalynde whispered urgently. She crossed the remaining space, grasped his arms, and stared fearfully into his eyes. “What, Cleve? What?”

Anger warred with loyalty on the young page’s face. Rosalynde knew instinctively that he would never deliberately do anything to hurt her. He’d proven beyond any doubt that he would risk his very life to protect her. But she also realized that he saw Blacksword as a threat to her. It was as pure and simple as that. Even though she knew her own shameful part in the deed, Cleve saw only Blacksword’s guilt. He would no doubt say anything to see Blacksword punished for his crime. But in doing so, had he sentenced the man to death?

“I told him—” Cleve’s face took on a mutinous expression and he shook off her desperate grasp. “I told him what I saw. That he was accosting you, trying to … trying to …” He stopped abruptly. “It’s true, isn’t it? I told your father that I stopped him before he could—” He looked away then and took a harsh breath before he peered resentfully back at her. “I told him nothing happened. But it did, didn’t it?”

Rosalynde could not answer him. No matter how true it was, no matter how undeniable, she simply could not bring herself to say the words aloud. Yet her very silence seemed to condemn her.

In the awful stillness of the great hall Cleve’s eyes seemed to go almost black. The petulance in his face jelled into a harder emotion. Had she not been so consumed by
her own self-reproachful thoughts, she might have even imagined that he shed the cloak of boyhood at that moment. His youthful ideals had been crushed by reality. He could never be a boy again.

“You don’t understand,” Rosalynde finally choked out. Her mouth was as dry as dust even though tears clouded her eyes. She felt hot with shame and yet her face was pale and colorless. “You don’t understand.” Then she whirled away from him and fled recklessly from the hall.

She did not plan her pell-mell flight from Cleve’s accusing eyes. She could not think or reason what she must do. But when she charged into the glaring sunlight of the inner bailey, into the unexpected clusters of castlefolk gathered there in the midday sunshine, she came to an abrupt halt.

To Rosalynde’s still-disoriented senses, the scene in the bailey was not quite real. It was a bad dream, a familiar reassuring place, yet possessed now of a strange and ominous tension. It was her home and yet everything was somehow wrong. Several faces turned at her sudden appearance. Then a wave of murmurs and whispers swept through the crowd until every neck craned to see her, every eye peered her way. Rosalynde was taken aback by her sudden preeminence, and in her beleagured state of mind it seemed that Cleve’s accusing stare echoed now a hundredfold in these new and unknown faces.

As she stood there, frozen, she realized that this was very much a recurrence of her dreadful ordeal in Dunmow: all those expectant faces waiting to be entertained, no matter that it was at the dire expense of another. Panicked anew, she nearly turned and fled, so unnerved was she by it all. But then she heard Cleve’s step behind her and at once her resolve strengthened.

It took only a quick glance across the sea of faces to
ascertain what was going on. At the far end of the bailey beyond the alehouse, a man was tied to the gate that led into the stableyard.

Blacksword.

Aric.

His arms were spread wide; his back was bared to the waist. Before him a knot of men clustered, and a little beyond them stood her father. Then the brawniest of the group of men separated himself from the others and approached the bound Blacksword, shaking out a long leather whip as he advanced.