Knight's Lady, page 17
part #1 of Tenebrae Series
Reubair’s eyes narrowed. “I imagine it would.”
She waited for him to offer a solution, but he said nothing and his gaze didn’t falter. Finally he said, “I would accompany you, to relieve your boredom, but I have business in the dungeon.”
Cold sweat popped out all over her. She struggled not to show the panic as her mind flew to think of a way to keep him away from there. Begging him to ride with her wouldn’t work; he’d already declined. So she said, “Perhaps you would care to take some exercise with your weapons? I like to keep in practice but haven’t had the opportunity lately.” She turned to watch his face.
He chuckled. “You expect me to hand you a sword?”
“You’re threatened by that?”
“I’ve seen you fight. I know what you can do to a man. I’ve sparred with you, and I’ve even taught you a thing or two. I have every right to find you threatening.” He said it with enough respect that she found herself flattered and smiled. Her reply was almost teasing.
“If I were a man, would you decline my invitation?”
“That would depend on how pressing my other business was. And I do have things to attend to in the rooms below.”
“Surely they can’t be so very dire that you won’t spare some time for me.” Playing his own attraction to her against him. A cheap maneuver, but anything was fair in protecting her husband. Anything.
She bit her lip and her smile widened. Come on. Forget the dungeon.
Nothing on his face, but she sensed the tension in him rise. Her gaze was steady. She wasn’t going to let him shrug her off, and he knew her well enough to understand that fully. And it was plain he wanted to spend time with her. He said, “Very well.” A shout to his valet, and an order for swords to be waiting for them in the bailey, and then he stood. “Come.” He held out his hand for her to take it.
“I’ll need proper attire.”
His lips pressed together, and though he didn’t say “Rats,” he might as well have. She wasn’t going to let him hobble her in skirts for this, either. “Very well,” he said, and nodded to a trunk in the corner. “Borrow some of mine.”
She smiled and went to change.
***
The chamber given to Trefor was small but well-appointed. He had no entourage with him, so there was no need for a larger room, and he might not have gotten one, in any case. It contained a bed large enough for comfort and a deep feather mattress, sheeted in silk and covered with an enormous comforter of velvet embroidered in silver and gold. A servant’s cot was tucked in a corner, its mattress rolled up at one end, and it would remain unused by him. A small but highly polished table and two chairs stood near the hearth, and two walls bore colorful tapestries. No window here, nor even an arrow loop, but Trefor didn’t mind. No window meant nobody could look in. He set his rucksack and his belt purse on the bed and proceeded to relieve himself of his weapons. He needed sleep, but his sword also needed cleaning, though he hadn’t used it since the summer before. His dagger always needed cleaning because he ate with it, and a quick wipe at the supper table wasn’t quite enough to suit him. He pulled a rag and his whetting stone from his sack and went with his blades to sit by the fire.
The sword lay across his knees as he drew the stone along the edge with care. It was a calming, centering job. The zing of stone on metal was nearly musical, and his mind drifted to his father. It was Alex who had told him to buy this sword. The one he’d obtained on his arrival in this century had been too large. He knew that now, but at the time he’d thought Alex was just bullying him when he said to buy another. Controlling him. Trefor had liked the larger sword. He’d thought it was impressive, but since then he’d come to understand Alex was right. In moments of total honesty, Trefor had to admit it was possible the advice had kept him alive. Certainly it had saved him from lugging around more steel than he needed to carry. And this sword was as impressive in its own way as the bigger weapon. Smaller and lighter, but the hilt was of gold and the blade etched with a prayer in Latin: Domine, dirige nos. “Lord, direct us.” Not what he would have chosen, but those who saw it seemed to approve.
The rhythm of strokes against the blade was steady, his hand practiced after those months of living by the weapon. He’d not touched a sword while with the Bhrochan but last summer had done his share of fighting in the Borderlands. Alex had taught him a lot about fighting with a sword, though Trefor had thought he knew it all. He’d known nothing. At least, not nearly enough to survive a battle. Again, he wondered if Alex might have saved his life by that teaching.
Alex. Thoughts of his father seemed to twang against his skull. Alex. He sat up straight and looked around. The walls around him seemed to resonate with those thoughts. He said the name aloud and nearly heard the vibration within the stone. It seemed to come alive for a second, then settled back to stillness like a plucked guitar string. He’d never experienced anything like this before. This place had something to do with Alex, but Trefor couldn’t grasp what it might be. Unless it was simply Lindsay’s presence doing it. As tight as those two were, Trefor could easily believe Alex’s core energy had accompanied her here. Perhaps, even, his entire spirit was here and his body decaying underground along the road to the Borderlands.
But, no, Alex was still alive. The alternative was unthinkable, and Trefor was certain he would know if Alex were dead. This wasn’t death he sensed; it was suffering. Longing. Pain. Things of life. So Alex was certainly still alive, and a hefty chunk of his essence was hanging around Lindsay. Trefor wondered whether Alex, wherever he was, knew what his wife was up to.
A quick knock came on the door and a servant entered unbidden, with a tray bearing a wooden platter of meat, a small loaf of bread, and a pewter goblet filled almost to overflowing with mead. He set the food on the table before Trefor, then retreated without a word. Trefor, more hungry than he’d realized until now, took a mouthful of a particularly fatty, drippy piece of meat and chewed as he bent again to his work.
Deep in thought now, he concentrated again on this castle’s spiritual bad spot, the ugliness he’d sensed earlier. There was a center to it, reaching out and exploring the chambers and alcoves of the keep. He could taste it, like a sourness at the back of his throat, of indigestion or nausea. Distress. Illness. During his time with the Bhrochan he’d been taught that most people, even humans, had this sort of sensitivity to what some called “vibes.” It was a sharper facility among the fey, but some humans could be taught to be alert to it and use it. In modern times it might be called a sixth sense, or even just a gut feeling or hunch, and those who paid attention to it would be denigrated for superstition, but Trefor had always known it to be a true sense. Even as a child his hunches had kept him out of trouble more than once. He’d recently honed that, and now he knew how to put it to use in a skilled manner. Now he focused on the feeling at the back of his head and explored its corners for whatever information it would provide.
He paused in his work, laid the stone aside, and rested his palms on his thighs. His eyes closed gently, and he imagined himself outside this room, in the anteroom that led to the stairwell. He grounded himself there, picturing clearly every detail of the stone walls and wooden floors, the fabric of the wall hangings, the rushes scattered across the floor that collected in the corners like backwaters. Then he took himself down the stairwell. Spiraling past doors, to the exit to the bailey. Pausing for bearings, he felt the sense was farther downward, where—
Wait. There was Lindsay and Reubair. In his mind he glimpsed his mother in the Great Hall, wearing men’s clothes and being handed a sword by one of Reubair’s servants. Prisoner. Right. The two passed him on their way out to the bailey, chatting amiably, and Trefor followed them.
“Be gentle with me, my dear,” said Reubair. He was joking, of course. Lindsay was a good fighter, for a woman, but was still only a woman. Surely she would be no match for him, even in harmless sparring where she knew he wouldn’t hurt her.
She said nothing in reply but walked to the middle of the bailey, turned, and faced off against Reubair in a high guard. A sucker stance. She was inviting attack by leaving herself open. Reubair smiled and went for it with full strength and without hesitation.
Of course, she was put on the defensive, and in a wild clanging of swords he backed her up several yards. But then she dodged and ducked around to wallop him from the side with the flat of her blade. He stood down with a laugh. Some passersby in the bailey stopped to watch, gawking openly at the woman in men’s clothing.
“A touch! Excellent move, lovely lady!”
“Stop calling me that.”
“You are a countess, yes?” He strolled, and Trefor could see he was looking for an opening, though it seemed he’d stopped the sparring for a moment. Lindsay wasn’t buying it and held her sword forward in expectation of an attack. Defensive. Good. Trefor wasn’t entirely certain Reubair wouldn’t hurt her accidentally-on-purpose. Oops, so sorry. I thought you were ready.
“I’m a countess, but no lady when I’ve got a sword in my hands. You should know that. Don’t expect me to fight like a girl.”
“Never.”
“Then quit your wanking about and get on with it.”
A puzzled light flashed in his eyes at her strange vocabulary, then disappeared as he said, “As you wish.” He spun the sword in a mulinette and attacked with blinding speed. But she stood up to him this time and swung her weapon with full strength. He couldn’t back her up, and when they disengaged he was panting. Trefor smiled. She was his mother. Of course she was tough.
Now she came at Reubair and caught him off guard. He parried madly, backing in a circle, but she laid off before he could put the sun in her eyes. A quick run to the left, and she again had the light advantage. Reubair’s mouth pressed in a hard line, and he panted hard. He came at her in a flurry of flashing metal and backed her up against a rocky rise near a high garden wall. But she negotiated the uneven ground without having to look down.
She laughed, with a flash of anger. “You’re fighting me on home turf, you know. I lived here in this bailey, chained to that rock. Sorry now?”
He had no reply to that, and Trefor was disappointed, for he was deeply curious what she’d meant by it. Lived there? Chained? The sparring continued, and Lindsay now had an advantage of a higher ground she skipped around on as if she were the full-blooded faerie, dancing from knob to bulge. Reubair attacked and tried to cut her at the knees, but she was too quick for him, and laughed at him for it. The more she laughed, the angrier he became.
It wasn’t long before he was making mistakes for that anger. Telegraphing his intention. Swinging wide, attacking before he was ready. And tiring himself.
Then she tried to stab him. For real. In the midst of an exchange, she hauled back and aimed her sword right at his solar plexus. Only by a hair did he fend the attack and save himself from being run straight through.
“Ho!” Surprise and shock colored his voice and his face. “What was the meaning of that?”
Anger flashed in her eyes as well, and she said tightly, “Oh. Sorry. I’m getting a bit tired, I suppose, and my sword slipped.”
No, it hadn’t. She’d been in complete control, and it showed on Reubair’s face that he knew it. Mouth pressed into a thin, white line, he said nothing but went to take the sword from Lindsay’s hand and turned it over to his servant. He gave the servant his own sword as well, threw Lindsay a look, then went back into the keep. Trefor wondered what Reubair had expected from Lindsay if she was his captive. Chained to a rock? And she was okay with that? Nothing here made any sense.
Lindsay watched him go. Trefor was dying to know what she was thinking, but her expression was blank.
* * *
Lindsay let Reubair go ahead of her, not trusting him after what she’d just done. He’d need a few minutes to get over being angry.
Trefor preyed on her mind as she waited. His presence was not a good thing. God knew what he would do to Alex if he found him. She needed to talk to Trefor alone. And quickly, regardless of whatever spies Reubair may have set on her to report her movements. She realized there would never be a time when that wouldn’t be a danger. She needed to approach him immediately. Once she was certain Reubair had disappeared into the bedchamber upstairs, she also went into the keep.
***
In an instant Trefor was behind her, to see where she was going. Maybe to look in on a conversation with Reubair, if that was where she was headed.
But she only went one flight, entered the anteroom on that floor, and knocked on the door of his own guest chamber. The knock, heard also from inside the room, wrenched Trefor back to his body. A pain shot through his head and made him groan. Man, he hated when that happened! He ran his fingers through his hair, picked up the whetting stone, and said, “Come.”
Lindsay entered the room, and to Trefor’s dismay his heart surged to pounding at her presence in his space. Since the day he’d come to her as an adult rather than a baby, she’d hardly spoken to him, let alone sought him out. The shock of this attention shook him to his toes. Even red-cheeked, drenched in sweat, and wearing a man’s tunic and trews — perhaps even especially then — her beauty throttled him, a situation he found untenable. He’d just watched her win a sparring match with a larger, more experienced, and masculine opponent, and she’d done it by being meaner than the opponent.
This was the only woman who had ever rendered Trefor speechless, and his cheeks warmed for it now. She stood there near the door, her hands clasped together, as relaxed as a queen and somehow still feminine in her borrowed clothes, and she smiled at him in a way he’d wished for all his life. She was young. She was the beautiful, perfect mother he’d dreamed of as a little boy, but he was no longer a little boy. The crippling confusion of it made his heart race, and he had to clear his voice to speak.
“Have a seat.” He nodded toward the other chair by the table.
She drew it away — a little farther away from him than he thought truly necessary — and sat. Graceful, poised, long-boned and aristocratic, but with a solid strength he found captivating and which he was proud to own himself, she held his gaze fast. The rubies around her neck peeked from beneath the tunic, like a regal nature beneath a rough exterior. He couldn’t take his eyes off her, though he tried to concentrate on his work. It wouldn’t do to let her know how she was affecting him. That was a vulnerability he couldn’t afford. Ever. He eyed her, ran the stone over his sword blade, and thought of how cozy she was with Reubair. And how disgusting that was. “What can I do for you?”
“That is an excellent question. Why are you here?”
Her tone stung him with its implication she didn’t want him there. Some of the edge disappeared from his worship of her, and he replied as sharply. “Another excellent question. I heard you’d been kidnapped and came to save you from the big, bad wolf. It would appear you don’t need saving.”
She leaned forward in her chair. “I assure you, I do need it, and badly.” Her voice was lowered to be barely audible, and he glanced at the chamber door. She was behaving as if afraid of eavesdroppers.
He was skeptical that it might be an act. “Then let’s bolt. Now. Let’s go to the stables, get my horses, and be on our way.”
Again disappointment came when she hesitated. Apparently he was right. She didn’t really want to leave. She said, “I can’t. There is a spell keeping me from exiting the portcullis. Whenever I approach it, I find myself redirected.”
“Just yourself, or does everyone have that difficulty?”
“Nobody but myself, as near as I can tell.”
He shrugged. “Simple enough to counter, even without magic. All I have to do is lead you to—”
“I said I can’t do it. He’s keeping me here by magical means and I cannot leave.” Desperation tinged her voice. This was upsetting her, though she struggled to keep it from him. It all rang wrong.
“What else has he got on you? It can’t be just the one lame spell.”
Once more she hesitated. He wanted her to admit what she was up to. He hated being lied to, and this nonsense was beginning to piss him off. Conscious of his rising ire, he set aside the blade in his hands, which was beginning to tempt him. She was his mother, and he wouldn’t hurt her even if she was banging that faerie and lying about why she couldn’t leave.
“As I said, it’s magic. He’s a more powerful faerie than most. I’m certain you’d be no match for him.”
His chin raised, offended. “I’ve been studying. You might be surprised at what I can pull off these days.”
Insistence rose in her voice, and fear in her eyes. “I’m telling you, it’s no use. I’ve got to bide my time and look for a better opportunity to flee.”
He gazed at her and tried to read her face for her real agenda. But it was no use, and there was no point in insisting she tell him. So he pretended to accept her story and said, “All right. Then what do we do now?”
“As I said, we bide our time.”
“How long?”
That question seemed to stymie her. She faltered, then finally spoke. “I don’t know.”
Was she hoping for a chance to get rid of him? Discredit him with Reubair? Did she understand he wasn’t really there to pledge himself to Dagda? What in the world was keeping her? What sort of hold did Reubair have on her? “We should leave before Dagda gets here. I hope you don’t expect me to pledge myself. We need to get the hell out of here as soon as possible. No screwing around. Really, we should be gone already.” He wanted to avoid the Dagda, to avoid any chance of fulfilling the Bhrochan prediction of his fate. It would be best for him all around if he never saw Dagda at all.
Now a shadow crossed her eyes. Briefly, but he saw it. She was skeptical as well, and it puzzled him. He wondered why she thought he would ever want to pledge himself as a bloody faerie. She said, “Why not pledge? You are Danann.”
“I’m not. I’m more human than you are. My father isn’t fey.”
