Silas had pa.s.sed the most difficult night of his life. Sometime after midnight their guards had taken him, little Clare, and the nursemaid, Emma, into a room on the second floor of the manor house and left them. The child and her nurse had cried themselves to sleep eventually, but Silas had watched out the window all night, watching the brigands celebrate their victory, watching them brutalize DuMaine for sport. But he had noticed they did not damage DuMaine"s castle. All of the fires that had been set were quickly put out, and guards were set along the castle walls, just as if a Norman lord were once again in residence.
These were not common thieves and outlaws, he realized, not certain whether to be glad or horrified. These people had a plan.
At dawn, he watched the girl, Siobhan, bid her husband farewell with a final insult before what was left of him was carried out the castle gates, slung over his own horse. She had not been present for the beatings, at least, he had noticed. Nor did she seem entirely happy as Tristan was taken away. But she was not grieving either. As she and her brother turned back toward the manor house, she looked up and saw the scholar at the window. Freezing in her tracks, she gave him a look of such loathing, his blood turned thick in his veins.
A few moments later, the door to the upper room opened. "Come," one of the brigands said, motioning to him. Another bent over Emma and shook her gently awake.
"Bring the little one, darling," he said, and Silas saw the girl smile as if she knew the man. "Sean wants to see them both."
Lebuin was waiting in the great hall below. Breakfast was being served as usual; all that had changed were the faces at the trestle tables as it was eaten. Siobhan was pacing near the open hearth, dressed in her boy"s clothes again with her hair bound back in a braid. Silas saw the blue-black print of five fingers bruised into her throat.
"Good morning, master," Lebuin greeted him, motioning him to a chair. "Have you slept?"
"No," Silas answered, standing where he was.
"Who could sleep?" Siobhan said. She glanced at Clare, who was yawning, holding Emma"s hand behind Silas, but her eyes darted quickly away.
"Things have been rather unsettled," Lebuin said. One of the women set a trencher before the brigand leader and returned his friendly smile. "But I expect they"ll soon return to normal. Your workers are waiting, Master Silas."
"Waiting for what?" he asked, hiding his shock.
"Waiting for you to show them how to finish this d.a.m.ned castle," Siobhan answered before her brother could speak. "Sean wants it done at once."
"In Silas"s good time," Lebuin corrected. "But before the harvest, yes. Can it be done with the workers you have?"
Looking around, Silas saw his own master carpenters and masons sitting together at one of the tables, watching him. They looked nervous and unhappy, but unharmed. "You mean to stay at DuMaine?" he asked. "I mean to stay here, on my ancestral lands," Lebuin answered, a hard, angry look flickering briefly in his eyes. "This is my sister"s castle now. She is widow to DuMaine." Behind him, Silas heard Clare let out a little hiccup and Emma shush her gently. "More importantly, this manor belonged to our father long before DuMaine set his Norman boots on English soil."
"No," Clare raised her little voice above her nurse"s murmur. "My father is not dead!"
"Poor lamb," Lebuin said with a sigh.
"Stop it, Sean," Siobhan answered, giving him an impatient look. She came and knelt down in front of the little girl, and Clare drew back from her in fear. "How do you know he is not dead?" the brigand woman asked her, her voice surprisingly kind.
"Because he promised," Clare answered. "He promised me the bad men would not kill him."
"The bad men," Siobhan repeated, looking back at her brother with an enigmatic smile. "Aye, love, he promised me the same."
The child was sad, but she was not pitiful, she thought, looking into the wide green eyes so like DuMaine"s. She was no poor lamb. "Perhaps he will still keep his promise." Somehow she would have to live, this little one. Somehow she would have to go on without her papa, just as Siobhan had done herself, and she had no brother to help her, to teach her how to fight. "As G.o.d be my judge, child, your father was alive when last I saw him."
"Siobhan," Sean said behind her.
"But he has gone away," she finished, paying him no mind. "He had to go away and leave you with Emma and this Master Silas to look after you."
Clare looked up at Silas, silently begging confirmation, and he smiled. "It is true, my lady. This lady is Siobhan, and she is your stepmother. But Emma and I will stay."
"I am glad to hear it, master," Lebuin said. "Now, what will you need from me to finish this castle in time?"
"Sean, for pity, leave him be," Siobhan said, standing up. "He already told you, he has had no sleep. Your castle can wait one more day." She looked around at the a.s.sembly. "Where is Gaston?"
"Gone," Lebuin answered, his good humor showing cracks, Silas noticed. "He has gone to report to his lord."
"His lord," Siobhan repeated softly, her bitter disapproval impossible to miss. "Would that he would stay there." She looked back at the scholar. "Come, master," she said to him. "I have had no sleep this night myself." She reached out to touch Clare"s cheek, but when the child recoiled, she smiled. "Sean, I beg your patience."
"Not at all," her brother answered. Watching these two brigands, Silas felt more confused than ever. There was obviously great love between them, even kindness in their hearts. So how could they have done such evil? "I leave the Lady Clare in your protection-"tis right that she should be. Will you take Master Silas to his room?"
"I will," Siobhan nodded, smiling. "Come, Master Silas."
The scholar kept his peace until Emma and the little girl were settled into the child"s own room. But when Siobhan moved to leave him at the door of his own chamber, he caught her by the sleeve. "Forgive me, my lady," he said when she turned on him, annoyed. "But what is to become of Lady Clare?"
"Why should I care?" she asked. "That will be for my brother to decide."
"Why should that be?" he countered. "Is she not your daughter now?" When she didn"t answer, he moved into the room and motioned for her to follow. "Please..." With a scowl, she gave in, closing the door behind her.
"Your only concern is the castle," she began, turning to him. "You told the child that Lord DuMaine still lived," he cut her off. "Was that true?"
The old man would not be put off, she could see. He obviously cared for the little girl, and she could hardly blame him for that.
But she had no time for this, nor patience either. "I told her DuMaine was alive when last I saw him, and he was," she answered.
"But he is dead by now, Master Silas. That, I promise you, is true."
"Is it?" he answered with a strange smile.
"I told the child what I did to give her hope," she said, feeling an entirely inappropriate blush in her cheeks. "She has lost her family, lost everything she has ever known in a single night." She returned his smile with another just as cryptic. "I remember how that feels."
"So it"s true, then," he said, turning away. One side of the room was dominated by an immense oaken table covered with scrolls and a lot of queer instruments whose purpose she couldn"t possibly have guessed. A single armchair was pulled up beside it, and the scholar collapsed into it, obviously exhausted. "You and your brother once lived on these lands."
"Not once, master. Always." He wasn"t at all as she would have expected a great builder of castles to be. There seemed to be no arrogance about him, none of the sn.o.bbery she expected from those who lived within the royal circle. "We have never left this forest, ever, nor will we. Our father was lord here by birth and by t.i.tle."
"And now his son will have his castle," he answered. "Or his daughter, rather."
"My father cared nothing for castles," she retorted. "He cared only for his people and their welfare. He was born here; his line dates back to long before the Saxons came, to the days of Arthur. He was not some stranger come to milk a fortune from the earth and the people who work it before returning to France."
"Still, it was kind of DuMaine to pay for a castle," Silas said with his strange little smile.
"He paid for nothing," Siobhan retorted. "His king-"
"His king can barely pay for his own troops," the scholar interrupted with a laugh. "No, lady, I a.s.sure you. Tristan DuMaine paid for this fortress from his own coffers. He sold his own ancestral lands in France to do it." Her eyes narrowed in disbelief. "When you and your brother burned the first planting, he used the last of his inheritance to buy more, lest his people starve come winter."
"His people," she scoffed. "His slaves, you mean."
"His people," he repeated. "Those he built this castle to protect."
"He built it as a prison!" she said, almost shouting. "Spare me your lies, old man. A Norman castle serves nothing and no one but the Norman king."
"And yet you and your brother wish to have one," he answered. "Enough to do murder to get it."
"I did not murder DuMaine," she said, trying to shut out his words.
"Did you not?" he countered.
"No." She should end this conversation now; it could only make her angry. "But why should you care? You"ve been paid your commission, and we have allowed you to live. Why should you care who lives here when your task is done?"
"I am not accustomed to having my survival a question of doubt," he answered. "And I do not enjoy being confused. I thought Lebuin wanted this castle to fail. Three of my masons were murdered in their sleep-your brother"s work, I thought."
She smiled, drawing the dagger from her belt. "Not my brother"s, master." She took a step toward him and was gratified to see him recoil, his mild eyes wide with shock. "If I had my choice, this castle would be taken down to gravel, and no other would ever be built in its place. This is not a Norman holding; our people are not slaves."
"The king is a Norman, my lady, whether you choose it or not," he said, his tone surprisingly gentle, as if she might have been his pupil. "This manor is in England, and England is ruled by the Norman n.o.bles. All who live here do so by their leave."
"Not me," she retorted. "Not my people." She still held the dagger in her fist, and for a moment, she had the wild thought that she could kill him, end this madness with a single stroke. With no engineer to finish his castle, Sean would have no choice but to abandon his plan, would have to dissolve his idiot alliance with the baron of Callard, this stranger hiding in the shadows, giving out weapons and offering advice. She even took another quick step closer, the dagger held out before her.
But she could not do it. She could kill in battle, but this would be cold-blooded murder. And besides, Sean might never forgive her, and then where would she be? Who would she have if Sean abandoned her? "I am very tired, Master Silas," she said, sheathing the dagger. "I think that I should go."
"Lady Clare needs you, my lady," he said. "She needs your strength to protect her, your woman"s kindness-"
"I have no woman"s kindness, sir." She cut him off. "The child will have my protection because she is an innocent. But do not ask me to be kind." She stopped at the door and looked back at him, this strange man who was neither knight, farmer, nor priest. "I do not know how." Before he could answer, she left him, slamming the door behind her and breaking into a run.
She threw herself across the bed that had once been Tristan"s, the only place she could be certain she would not be disturbed.
The blooded sheets had been removed and put away, but the broken bonds where her husband had been tied still hung from the posts. She picked up the ends of the one he had broken, marveling at his strength. The strap was leather, the thickness of a horse"s rein, yet Tristan had snapped it in two. She thought of his hand around her throat, her own fingers straying unconsciously to the bruises on her skin. She thought of him pinning her hard to the wall, of his hand covering her fist. She thought of his kisses, possessive and tender, the power of his arms around her as he held her fast. Devil, he had called her, d.a.m.ning her to h.e.l.l, but he had spoken her name like a prayer. Siobhan, he had whispered, running his hands through her hair.
"No," she said aloud, turning her face to the pillow. "I won"t think about it anymore. He is dead." Tears burned her eyes, and she let them come, too tired to fight any more. "Tristan DuMaine is dead."
As the sun was setting, Tristan woke inside the peasant hut. When darkness fell, he ventured out into the moonlight and found he could face it quite well. The warm, fierce joy he had felt with his first taste of blood had returned, along with a weaker shade of the hunger he had felt. He would have to feed again, but not for some time yet. He could not face the daylight anymore, but he could walk the night.
Daimon was still waiting, grazing on the turf behind the hut. "Come," Tristan said, and the horse obeyed, a bit more slowly than he might have when his master lived, perhaps, but quickly enough. Through the open door of the hut, Tristan could see the b.l.o.o.d.y rags he had discarded, all that was left of his fine, knightly clothes. Now he was dressed as a peasant with a n.o.bleman"s sword, like one of Lebuin"s own men. He smiled at the thought, climbing into the saddle. "Come," he repeated, turning his mount on to the forest path. "Let us go and find Siobhan."
In his broken, dying state, he had known he"d been carried some days away from his home, but apparently it had been nearly a week since the castle had fallen. Lebuin"s men had brought him all the way from the northern border to the southern plains, lands he knew very little. But why? he thought, emerging from the forest onto the broad road again. Why bother to carry him so far away to die? He vaguely remembered one of the brigands mentioning not wanting his body to be found, but surely the woods around DuMaine Castle would have hidden his grave well enough. Why not just murder him outright? He found himself remembering Siobhan, her face as she had begged her brother to spare Richard"s life. Was Richard still alive? Why had she cared? Had her feelings been the reason Lebuin had sent him here to die? She had tormented him, bewitched him, and betrayed him. But she had sworn on her life to keep his daughter safe.
"Devil," he muttered to himself, and Daimon turned his ears back to listen. "It"s nothing, my friend," he promised, stroking the horse"s neck. The woman was a mystery to him; nothing about her made sense. If he had captured her before, when his castle still stood, he might have pa.s.sed an interesting few days or months holding her prisoner and learning all her secrets. But she had captured him instead, brought down his wrath upon her, wronged him much too sorely to ever be forgiven. And besides, he had no time.
The night before, he had moved as if in a trance, the strange events that had spared his life more like a dream than truth. But now, riding alone in the moonlight, he thought them through again-the wolf-knight whose blood had apparently both healed his wounds and d.a.m.ned him from the light; his flight through the forest and murder of the woodcutter; the burning of the sun and the name of the Christ on his tongue. He was no scholar nor penitent either; he had used his time in more useful pursuits than studying old texts or listening to clerics. But he seemed to remember a bard at Henry"s London court telling tales of ancient Saxon warriors who walked this island after death, seeking vengeance on their murderers. Somehow their very rage kept their bodies wakeful after their souls had fled to h.e.l.l. Perhaps he was like one of these; surely he had cause enough. The bard had never mentioned how these creatures came to be; perhaps they were made by one another, as he had been made by the wolf. Such a monster would be made for darkness, he thought, would be outside G.o.d"s grace. A G.o.dly man would never be so called; his corpse would rest, waiting to be reborn in Paradise. But Tristan was not a G.o.dly man, nor had he ever been. He hadn"t had the time or patience for it.
G.o.d"s heaven was a pretty thought, but the ugly earth was here and now and needing his attention. The closest thing to heaven he had ever touched was his child, his Clare. If he had finished his castle as he had hoped and built the home he had wanted, he would likely have even come around to G.o.d in his own time-his father, someone had told him, had given a great sum to the church on his deathbed and bought his way out of his sins. But Lebuin and his brigands had not given Tristan that chance.
Within the hour, he began to see others on the road, peasants mostly, making their way in a broken procession in the opposite direction. Most of them looked at him curiously, a man dressed as they were with the horse and arms of a n.o.ble, and some of the men smiled and nodded as he pa.s.sed. But it was miles before anyone actually spoke. "Be ye of Sir Reese"s men?" an old man carrying a pitchfork asked.
"Just the same," Tristan answered as if he knew Sir Reese from Adam. "Where are you folk bound so late?"
"Home," the old man answered. "And better we had stayed there in the first place."
Following along for a mile or so, Tristan discovered all of these people had come from seeing a traveling pardoner in the seaside village of Kitley, and he understood what the old man had meant. A pardoner was the very bottom of the clerical hierarchy, not even a priest. Most were clerks who wrote out dispensations for the wealthy and delivered their penance to the bishop, usually skimming a bit off the top for their own expenses. Some supplemented this scavenger"s income with various schemes, preying on the common folk whose scant few pennies would not impress the true church enough to buy an indulgence. This one said he had a holy relic, a veil that had once belonged to the Virgin Mary. For a price, he had offered to let these common folk touch it to cleanse their souls of sin and heal their bodies of pain. "Did it work?" Tristan asked the old man.
"Nay, lad," he answered, bent over his stick. "Do you not see me here?" He smiled a toothless, bitter smile. "He said I was not penitent enough."
"Pride is a deadly sin," Tristan agreed, returning his smile.
"Aye," the old man answered. "That it is." He looked back over his shoulder at a wagon following some distance behind. " "Tis no great matter to me," he said with a sigh. "But you see those there? "Tis the family of a young woman struck with a b.l.o.o.d.y flux after her child was born." His wrinkled face twisted in a frown. "The little snake said she must have been unfaithful to her husband," he said, lowering his voice as if loath to be overheard. "She died in the yard of the inn."
If Tristan had still been a n.o.ble lord, he would have seen this pardoner clapped into the stocks. But since he was not...His demon hunger was growing stronger, he thought, and Kitley wasn"t so far out of his way. Perhaps he would seek a bit of absolution of his own. "Safe journey, gaffer," he said, turning his horse around.
The pardoner had already put on his nightgown when Tristan knocked on his door. "Begone with you," he hissed through the tiniest crack he could peer out of. "Come back in the morning."
"The morning will be too late." Tristan pushed his way inside, forcing the door open with the skinny man still clinging to the handle. "I hear you have a holy relic. I would see it."
"And who are you to make demands?" The man looked like a freshly plucked chicken, but he had the manner of Caesar reborn.
"Begone, I say." Tristan took a step closer, scowling, and the man took a step backward. "Who are you?"
"A sinner." Watching him, Tristan could just imagine his disdain for the woman he had sent away to die, and a demon"s sort of righteous rage began to simmer inside him. "I hear you can sell me salvation."
" "Tis..."tis not so simple as that." Fear flickered in his close-set eyes, and sweat broke out on his brow. He took a sidestep toward the door, and Tristan grabbed him by the front of his nightgown. "I would have to hear your confession!"
"Why?" He leaned down to inhale the man"s scent, listening to his heartbeat, quick and thready as a rabbit"s. "Are you a priest?"
This time he could feel the fangs growing sharp against his tongue, feel the hunger growing in his belly. "Show me this holy thing you say you have," he said, his voice deepening, becoming coa.r.s.e and thick as if he had been drinking too much wine. "Perhaps it will protect you."
Using both hands to free himself from Tristan"s grasp, the pardoner lurched backward toward a chest, his face pale with fear. "It is here." He took out a yellowed length of linen. "The veil of the Blessed Virgin Mary."
"How impressive." In truth, if the mother of Christ had worn all of the garments Tristan himself had seen attributed to her, she must have changed her clothes three or four times every day and never worn the same bit twice. Remembering the way the peasant"s cross had burned his fingertips, he cautiously reached for the veil.
"Isn"t it beautiful?" the pardoner agreed, obviously encouraged. "Many is the time I have caught a whiff of her sweet scent still clinging to the folds."
Tristan"s fingers closed around the cloth...nothing. Whatever it was, it was not blessed. He met the pardoner"s eyes with his own, a sardonic smile twisting his mouth.
Suddenly a blade flashed through the false relic, a dagger the skinny fraud had hidden in its folds. He jabbed it hard into Tristan"s stomach. "I warned you," he said, trembling all over as his heartbeat pounded in the air. "I told you to begone."
"You did." Tristan pulled the blade from his flesh, feeling a moment"s pain before the wound healed itself with a hiss. "How many others did you send away?" He thought of the peasant husband weeping for his dying wife, defending her innocence from sin, and rage consumed him. "How many did you declare beyond forgiveness?" He caught the man by his skinny shoulders, lifting him off his feet. "You who cannot look down on a maggot-how many good folk did you condemn to h.e.l.l?" Without waiting for an answer, he tore open his throat.
Later he walked out into the dooryard of the inn where a crowd of peasants had already gathered, waiting for dawn and their chance to be duped. Sickened by their very innocence, he opened the leather pouch he had taken from the pardoner"s corpse.
"Save your confessions for a true priest," he advised them, speaking barely loud enough to be heard, before scattering coins into the crowd. "There is no salvation here." Watching them scramble for a moment, he turned away and disappeared into the night.
Siobhan walked out into the courtyard, breathing in the cool night air, her eyes stinging with tears. Above her was the castle motte, its tower black against the yellow moon, and she found her eyes drawn to it, something nagging at her memory. It was obviously brand-new, the latest advancement of ugly Norman architecture. But something about it was familiar.
"Where have you been?" Sean demanded, coming across the courtyard to meet her. "It"s after midnight."
"The boy, Richard," she answered. He frowned. "DuMaine"s young squire." He nodded. "He is dead."
"Ah." He put an arm around her shoulders. "Poor lad." He turned her face up to his. "Are you all right?" "Of course." Her brother had begun to show an alarming tendency to treat her like a woman, and she didn"t care for it one bit.
The boy had been a soldier, after all; his death was a good one. Why should she want to weep for him? "He was no one to me,"
she said, shrugging away from him before he could say more. "Sean, that tower...why does it seem so familiar?"