Knight's Lady, page 11
part #1 of Tenebrae Series
Those related to the dead and missing wailed their anguish, an eerie keening that wasn’t quite human. The word “banshee” came to mind, though Lindsay heard male faerie voices in the mix. The sound made her want to fall behind Reubair and not follow any farther, but she kept with him.
When they came to a row of shops, Reubair paused before them and waited while voices approached. The townspeople gathered, watching up the track to see who would come. It was a parade of knights. They filled the narrow street, riding slowly among throngs of welcoming people. Lindsay recognized many of the men she’d known as a mercenary the year before. This was a much larger company than before, and there were more of the sidhe among them than there had been. Like the group Lindsay had ridden with, they disguised themselves as human, keeping dirty and covering their ears with helmets and hair. When they spotted Reubair standing his horse along the side of the street, they removed their headgear and saluted him. He acknowledged with nods.
Then, among the raiders, Lindsay spotted several horses with men tied to them. Two of them were slumped over in their saddles and had ropes around their waists and wrists. One was bent so far over his pommel he was almost lying on it. He appeared nearly dead. No helmet, no weapons, his mail hauberk was black with dried blood, and his red and black surcoat was in shreds.
With a charge of horror, Lindsay realized it was Alex. The bottom seemed to drop out of her stomach. Breath wouldn’t come. Tears sprang to her eyes, and she widened them so none would spill.
She looked over at Reubair, who continued to review his troops without a flicker on his face. Had he recognized Alex? Lindsay prayed not. There was no way to know if he was pretending to not know who he had in his custody.
Lindsay took heart in the belief that if Alex had been recognized Reubair would have ordered his death immediately. A weird thing to be glad of, but just then it was her best hope. Surely Reubair would make haste to murder the only man who stood in the way of the forced marriage he desired.
Wouldn’t he?
Lindsay made herself not look at Alex again. Not even to see who had been captured with him. She gazed off down the street as the prisoners passed, pretending to be more interested in glimpsing the portcullis than in watching the parade. When she finally had to blink, she touched a finger to the corner of her eye to brush away the tear that escaped, as if she were removing a speck. Then she looked to Reubair, whose attention was on the last of the returning company. He didn’t seem to have any reaction to the prisoners. Not even a spark of a gloat.
Good.
Without a word she reined her mount around and returned to the stables.
***
Alex shivered miserably, but not with cold. It was the deep ache of fever, and he wished he could fall back unconscious for some blessed peace. Sleep. He would sleep, and at the moment he didn’t care if he ever woke up again.
A voice came from nowhere, at a whisper. “She’s here, my lor— sir.”
Who? But it was too much to say the word aloud.
“Are you with me, sir? Can you hear me?” Not a voice from nowhere. Father Patrick. Dying. They’d summoned the priest because he was dying. Good.
“Sir, she’s here. I saw her.”
Why was Patrick calling him that? Sir? What happened to his title? Alex managed to get his eyes open. Her. Her who? He spoke, but his lips didn’t seem to want to form words. “Whaaa...”
“The countess. Your wife. She’s here.”
Lindsay? Here? Where was “here”? It took an effort to open his eyes, but he did it, and spoke her name. “Lindsay.
“She’s here in the castle.”
“Lindsay home.” Oh, good. Lindsay was safe. Home. All was well. “Thank God.” Alex closed his eyes again and drifted into blessed unconsciousness.
***
After turning the horse over to the groom at the stable, Lindsay went back to the keep and to Reubair’s bedchamber, there to gaze out the window and watch the castle settle into routine once again. One by one or in little clusters, faerie townsfolk and their human servants wandered back to their lives, chattering about the men who had returned, and the ones who had not returned. The lord of the castle lingered at the stables, and Lindsay followed his blond head among the figures below, loitering in the bailey before the stone building.
Patience. Lindsay would need a great deal of patience to not rush to the dungeon. If she gave away Alex, Reubair would kill him. If Reubair so much as suspected Alex was his captive, nothing she could do would save his life. Her heart sped, aching to see him but knowing the danger. She stared out the window as the sun moved to the west, and willed Reubair to stay away so he wouldn’t see her sweat and tremble.
But before enough time had passed for her to be able to slip away to the darkened corners of the keep, Reubair returned to the bedchamber and came up short as he passed through the doorway and found her at the other side of the room. For a moment he looked as if deciding what to say, as if he’d not expected her to be there, then apparently decided to say nothing and shut the door behind him. She watched him cross the room to warm himself at the fire, then she returned her attention to the window, where the sun threw red streaks into the sky and she wondered idly whether it was the same sun she’d known in the human world. The silence between them spun out and spun out, until she thought it might break for being unwieldy.
Finally he said, “You aren’t taking advantage of your freedom?”
“What freedom?”
“You’re not locked in this room. You choose to spend your time in my bedchamber?”
She cut her eyes toward him. “I’d rather be in the dungeon.” It occurred to her there was more truth to that than she wanted Reubair to believe.
“It can be arranged.”
With a grunt of disgust she turned back to the window and crossed her arms over her chest. “Very well,” she said. “I’ll make use of this freedom you’ve so generously allowed. See me take a walk now.” With that, she turned and strode from the room.
Heart pounding, she kept a steady, leisurely pace down the spiral steps to the bailey. It wasn’t nearly dark yet, so she couldn’t go directly to the dungeon. There was no way to be certain her movements weren’t somehow monitored, but that was a risk she would have to take. Once it was dark, she would slip back into the keep and make her way to where it was even darker.
It seemed to take forever. Too much light: always too much light. She wandered about, half looking for the portcullis though she knew she would never find it. Wasting time, even hoping that perhaps she would accidentally find herself in the dungeon.
Good cover story. If Reubair wanted to know why she was there, she could tell him his confusion spell had worked too well and sent her back to her cell.
Finally, when the streets were dark and only scant candlelight shone from windows here and there, she let her wanderings take her back to the keep and downward into stone-lined chambers. Where the walls were slightly damp all the time, and the cells cold enough to be a danger to anyone weak. Lindsay thought of the blood on Alex’s hauberk, and the extreme paleness of his face, and knew he was at risk. Her heart pounded and skipped around in her chest, and her mind tumbled with what to say to the guard when she might find one.
“Halt!” Right. There he was, a big, lumpy fellow covered in acne cysts and old scars, and sporting a nose roughly the size and shape of a small potato. Human, more or less. At least, his ears were round, but Lindsay herself was part Danann and knew round ears sometimes meant little. She wasn’t sure whether she’d seen this fellow before; the guards in this place seemed to be all the same size and there had been very little light in her cell.
“The prisoners brought in today... An Reubair sent me to learn who they are.”
A dark gleam of suspicion lit in the guard’s eye. “I’ve sent Andre with that information.” Lindsay opened her mouth for a protest that Andre hadn’t arrived and she’d been charged to deliver the information, but the guard continued, possibly out of simple gabbiness, or a desire to cover his ass. “The raiders have brought back four prisoners: a priest, two squires, and a knight. The squires are from Carlisle, and the priest and knight were taken when they tried to rob the company of its gold.” The guard laughed heartily, as if it were the funniest thing he’d heard all year. “The two thought they could sneak into camp and make away with the treasure gathered at such cost by the men of An Reubair.”
Lindsay laughed, relieved to hear Alex identified as not even an earl, let alone the Earl of Cruachan. She hoped this lumpen human couldn’t hear the false note in her voice. There was no chance that Alex had been after plunder; he must have been in search of her. The priest captured with the knight would be Father Patrick, and she was glad to know he was alive. She said, as much chuckle in her voice as she could manage, “Silly of them.”
“Oh, aye, my lady.”
“Where are they? Reubair will want to have a look at such confused men, for the amusement of it.”
The guard pointed with his chin to a door to her right. “In there. They’re not much to look at, nor to speak to, for the one is weak from a wound and the priest maintains his silence for now. He’s surely taken a vow, but I’ll cure him of it.”
Lindsay knew Patrick, and knew better on both counts, but said nothing and only smiled. “Do let me see them. I’m dreadfully curious. Where did they come from?” The guard didn’t move, so she gestured to the key ring at his belt. “Open the cell. I want to ask them who they are. Perhaps they’ll tell me what they wouldn’t tell you.”
The guard puffed up with offense and flushed dark, blotchy red, like some irritated undersea creature. “Och, I’ll get the word from them soon enough. In the morning that priest will be in here, a-bleeding, and a-wailing his confession to me.” He nodded toward a wall where hung the tools of his trade: tongs, chains, whips, and some devices so arcane and torture-specific that she couldn’t even imagine how they were used. Her stomach flopped. The guard continued, “The other will have to wait until he’s healthy enough to not simply die before he’s said his piece.”
Panic rose, and Lindsay acted on an instinct she never knew she had. She went to the cell door to look inside through the peep window, though she knew the actual cell was beyond a series of doors, and her voice took on a childish, petulant quality. “Oh, please let me see them! I would so love to see what they look like. I heard they have horns!”
“Horns?”
She turned to him, wide-eyed. “Yes. Lovely horns growing out of their foreheads. Like this.” She gestured with her fingers to indicate goat horns.
“Like demons’?” He seemed intrigued, and blinked his surprise at the idea of horns on his prisoners.
Now she gasped. “Do you think they could be demons?”
“They’ve no horns.”
“You’re certain?”
“I didn’t see any when they went in.”
“Could we look?”
A puzzled frown of curiosity grew on the guard’s face. Lindsay bit her lip to keep an exultant grin from it as she watched the cogs clank laboriously in this fellow’s head. He was actually trying to remember whether he’d seen horns on Patrick’s forehead. Finally he reached for his keys and unlocked the door. “Bring that torch,” he said and gestured to the light in a nearby wall sconce.
Lindsay followed him in, and into the next chamber, where he unlocked the door to the final cell. She looked around at the walls and discovered a sconce for the torch. She thrust it in.
There they were, lying on the floor against the far wall, both stripped of their armor and surcoats, wearing only shirts and trews. Patrick stirred and rose to sitting, a hand raised to shield his unaccustomed eyes from the torchlight. Alex lay still, crumpled, curled into a wad and looking like a pile of rags on the dark floor. Lindsay’s heart skipped that he might not be breathing. Her hands went to fists she held against her thighs as hard as she could, to keep herself from going to him and taking him into her arms.
The guard sighed, relieved. “See, no horns.”
“Very good. Not demons, then. Let me talk to them.”
A frown of refusal preceded the expected reply. “I could hardly allow a lady to remain alone where she might be in danger from attack.”
She peered at him and knew he couldn’t possibly recognize her from her earlier stay here, but whispered to him with glee she did not feel, “Let me tell them what to expect at sunrise, so they can anticipate it fully all the night through.”
As a professional and enthusiastic torturer, this man surely knew the value of frightening his subjects before interrogation. He thought it over a moment, then nodded. “All right, then. Shout once you’ve convinced them.”
She smiled and saluted him.
He puffed up again, with pleasure this time, and leaned over to tell Patrick, “And don’t neither of you be touching the woman in ways Reubair wouldn’t like, or I’ll see to it personally you regret it. Understand?”
Patrick nodded for both himself and Alex. Neither was in a position, nor inclined, to give the woman any puff. The guard nodded to affirm his words, then left the cell.
“Be afraid, young priest.” said Lindsay as the guard retreated, then once the outer door was shut she dropped to her knees beside Alex and drew his head onto her lap. “Alex,” she whispered to him. “Oh, Alex, be alive. Please be alive.”
He was alive, breathing, and his eyelids fluttered in semiconsciousness. His temperature was high. His skin was dry and hot. His shirt was rucked up over his belly, and her heart clutched to see a wound there, red flesh swollen around a line of black sutures. “Patrick, what happened?”
The priest stared at the wound, eyes wide, already grieving for his master. “He took a terrible wound when they captured you. I’m afraid the fever has got him now. I doubt he has long. I’m surprised he’s lasted till now.”
“Why did he come?”
Patrick blinked, surprised. “He could do naught else. I confess I see it the same way.”
“He’ll die for this.”
“Better than to die while doing nothing.”
Lindsay burst into tears, though she struggled to hold them back. Alex moaned and his eyelids flickered again.
“Lindsay?” Alex’s voice was hoarse.
“Alex, I’m here.”
“Lindsay? Don’t leave me.”
“No, Alex, never.” She held him and rocked him gently, and held her cheek against his hot forehead. “Hang on, Alex. Live so we can get out of here.”
“Lindsay? Is that you?”
Tears rolled over her cheeks. “I’m here, Alex.”
“Don’t leave me.”
“Never.”
***
Cold. Alex was cold. And hot. He shivered for a while, then stopped. Pain. Existence was aching. The world was pain. A howling descended. Bereaved, echoing. Inhuman. Not faerie. Beastly, lonely, coming nearer and nearer until it seemed inside the darkness. It became the darkness. It pressed to him. Smothered him. It was all grief. All loneliness. All eternity strung out in endless dark. Alex struggled for breath and hauled in a long gasp. The howling stopped, and all was silence. All was darkness. Darkness, but in it a thread of Patrick’s voice. Near, then far, then silence. The words were a mental blur. Meaningless, but deep in meaning. It didn’t matter that Alex couldn’t follow them. They were a thread, then a rope to tether him to life.
Then another voice. A woman. Lindsay? Could it be her? Was he that lucky? Did he dare to be that lucky, for there was always a payment for too much good fortune.
But he would pay anything to hear Lindsay’s voice. “Lindsay? Don’t leave me.”
He was going to die. Of all the wounds he’d taken over the years, this one was going to get him. Then the arms around him were gone. As if they’d never been there. The abyss opened and yawned before him. Heat and pain. Pain and heat. Cold. Monstrous cold. More arms around him. Tired, so tired. Longing for sleep. Desperate for retreat from pain. Patrick’s voice, holding him, bringing him back from the yawning dark. Shadow of death. Keeping him from the relief of ending.
Alex tried to find his tongue, but words were mangled in his mouth. His voice was dry and difficult, like bad sex. “Lindsay.”
“She was here.”
“Really her?”
“Aye, my — I mean, sir.”
“Why?”
“Reubair took her. We found his men, and they took us to Reubair. Sleep now. Go to sleep and gather your strength. We’ve found the countess and she us.”
Alex let his eyes close. He wouldn’t die now. Couldn’t. Lindsay needed him, to get her out of there.
***
On leaving the dungeon, Lindsay went in search of the castle kitchen and found it on the other side of an alleyway outside the keep. She might never have found it, except for spotting Reubair’s valet with a serving tray, crossing from the wide door in the next building. He staggered beneath the weight of the food he carried and did a double take when he saw Lindsay. But he didn’t speak and only proceeded on his way. The smell of grease and burnt bread guided her from there, and she entered the kitchen to find a bustling and noise and heat of an enterprise charged with the feeding of hundreds, if not thousands, of people three times a day.
Slabs of beef, venison, pork, and mutton hung here and there, some of it carcasses and some cut into huge roasts or racks of ribs. Worktables bore stacks of fowl waiting to be plucked and cleaned. A cook scurried past her with an oven paddle loaded with bread loaves ready for baking. It was huge, and must have carried twenty of them.
Another apprentice came near with a sack of flour on his shoulder, and she addressed him. “Boy."
The young teen stopped in his tracks to attend her, for she was plainly by her dress his superior. ‘Aye, my lady?”
“I wish to order some food and drink to be taken to some prisoners in the dungeon.”
The lad’s eyes went wide with astonishment. “Prisoners?”
“Yes. The knight being held with the priest. I’m a Christian, you see, as is An Reubair, and I wish to give all due respect to the Lord’s servant.”
