Bondslave (Seven Brides for Seven Bastards #1 ) (2 page)

Chapter One

Six months later

She came with the horse.

Whenever he was asked how he found her, that would be his reply, he decided, looking at the small child wrapped in a sackcloth gown, her hands blue with cold and clutching a tattered bundle of rags. For Raul d'Anzeray, the hard-hearted, ruthless mercenary Commander whose name chilled the spine and wet the chausses of many a soul from Spain to Normandy and now here too in the newly conquered land, would never want it to be known that he once fell prey to such a thing as pity.

His six brothers would never let him forget it. He could imagine their laughter already.

Neither would he want it to be common knowledge that he once let down his guard, lost his fine warhorse and his boots to a thief in the night, and was so desperate for a mount on that cold, wet winter morning that he agreed to the terms of this stubborn, scant-toothed old beggar.

"Want my horse, soldier?" the wrinkled fellow demanded, "Then you must take this girl too."

Annoyed and impatient, needing the horse, Raul turned his head to scowl again at the scrawny figure by the old crook's side.  The woolen scarf wound about her head and face obscured all apart from a freckled nose and a pair of bottomless, muddy wells that stared back, examining him with equal animosity and distrust.

"Que serais je faire?" he snapped. "Que iba a hacer con ella?" Then he remembered he was far from home and stuck here in this abominable place with the ceaseless rain and colorless sky. These ignorant people would not understand either tongue with which he had grown up, not the French of his father or the Spanish of his mother.

The old man stared stupidly. "You want the horse," he repeated, "you take the girl."

Raul cursed and looked up at the menacing sky that hung low with thick, grey, rain-filled clouds. As much as he longed for the clear, bright blue of his native skies, today this sight suited his own dark, angry mood. With the sour taste of last night's bad wine still drying on his tongue, he considered ending the argument there and then by taking his knife to the old man's throat. But as his long fingers flexed around the hilt that protruded from his belt, he happened to glance at the girl again and caught her eyes, saw them narrow and then flare wide.

It gave him pause. Whatever his sins — and they were plenty — he had never killed in front of a child. He realized his hand was shaking against the knife hilt.

Observing this, the old Saxon chuckled. "You should keep your head when you drink wine. Bad memories can only be lost in the juice of the grape for a few hours, soldier. They always come back. Sometimes worse than before."

"I need that horse," he growled.

"And yet you have no coin to pay me."

No, for his purse was stolen too, along with his boots and his horse. In Raul's mind his brothers' laughter grew even louder and wilder. Oh, he would never live this down.

The only thing of value the thief had not taken was his knife and the item he had in a blood-stained sack at his side. "I'll get it all back," he muttered, thinking of what he would do to the thief when he caught up with him.
When
, of course, not
if
. Nothing eluded a d'Anzeray when he gave chase.

"Then these are my terms of sale. Take this girl off my hands and I shall let you have the horse. Take both or none."

At that moment, having watched and listened in almost complete stillness for so long, the girl moved, raising her hands to the scarf around her head and slowly unwinding it. "I would rather stay with you, grandpapa," she spoke softly, wearily. "This man is ill-suited. Besides, you need me to take care of you."

A bright slash of spun gold fell over her shoulder in a long, thick braid, the brilliant shine even more luminous and striking against the mud and dirt of her dreary surroundings. Raul had never seen hair that color. He stared and became conscious of a disjointed beat to his heart as her face was fully revealed. She was no child. Those high cheekbones, elegant brows and softly curved lips belonged to a young woman. And her eyes were not both the same shade of brown as he'd previously thought. One was green. Or was it? He blinked, confused. No. Both were brown again.

But surely they had changed like a leaf in—wait....

Ill-suited
? Is that what she'd called him? He could believe neither his eyes nor his ears. This pauper, begging in the road, dared judge Raul d'Anzeray and find him lacking or inadequate in some way. Ill-suited for what?

"For the last time, girl, I am not your grandpapa," the old man exclaimed gruffly. "Stop calling me that. You need someone to watch over
you
far more than I do now. I won't outlast this winter and then who shall care for you when I am gone? A girl cannot survive alone."

"I'd rather be alone than sold to this oaf. He can't even look after his own boots. How will he keep
me
safe?" The girl lifted her small chin in a proud, imperious manner that suddenly struck Raul as humorous. Might even have prompted a laugh if his head were not sore.

But that was when he noticed the scar on her chin, a thin line marking what would otherwise be clear, smooth, creamy skin.

Raul pointed. "What's that?"

Her eyes gleamed, and her lip curled scornfully. "'Tis a witch mark, Norman pig. So beware!"

She must be addled, he thought. No woman, especially one this small and slight of build, would ever chance her luck speaking to him that way unless she was deficient in the brain.

But the scar...

He looked at it again. Pity changed now to mercenary greed as a new idea pushed its way to the fore.

"Don't mind her tales," the Saxon muttered when he caught Raul's expression. "She's as full of fables as yonder pasture is full of shit."

Raul scowled and shifted his icy-cold, bare feet in the mud. "Why are you so keen to give the wench away?"

"I'm a witch!" the girl exclaimed, sticking out her tongue. "I will render your seed impotent if you raise a violent hand to me. Your balls will shrivel to raisins, and your cock will never lift its head again."

He blanched.

With a victorious smirk, she added, "I am also a lost princess."

"She's a whore," said the old man calmly, reaching over and opening her gown to show two full and blushing breasts with rosy nipples, puckered taut as they greeted the sudden chill. He passed the reins of his horse to a stunned, speechless Raul. "And now she's yours. Take her far from here. Ask no more questions. Be grateful and be gone."

So it was that Raul d'Anzeray acquired a new horse and a woman on the same day.

The moment he saw her scar he knew he couldn't leave her behind, because this coincidence was stranger than one of her stories. As his father would say, in these troubled war-torn times, an ambitious man struggling to make his fortune and his name must take whatever chance came his way. She, therefore, would be his opportunity.

Chapter Two

The warrior had silver eyes. Not grey, not blue. Silver.

She did not know what to make of that. They were sly, watchful, and gave off smoldering heat like a blacksmith's forge. Perhaps, because his face was grimy, it made the brightness of his gaze even more acute and that was why his looks drew her usually transient attention as no other man's ever had. Whatever the cause, his gaze captured hers and held it for long, lingering moments.

"Eat!" He flung that terse word at her across the flames of the campfire.

But she was not hungry. He had hunted, skinned and cooked two large rabbits for their supper, and now she watched him devour the greater portion of both. She sat stiffly, the small bundle containing all her worldly possessions clutched tight in her lap.

"Eat," he repeated. "Put some flesh on those bones."

In truth her stomach was too nervous to eat, but she would not tell him that. It was always a mistake to show vulnerability to a man. "No. I do not like rabbit."

He raised an eyebrow and paused his chewing. "Beggars can't be choosers. What did you expect...venison, lost
Princesa
?" She caught the wry spark in his eye as he amused himself by calling her that. He licked his fingers. "What is your name anyway, woman? I suppose I must call you something, eh?"

She shrugged. "I have none. Call me whatever you wish."

"How can you have no name?"

She had one, in actual fact, but since she did not like it any more than she liked rabbit meat, she would not tell him. This was her chance to be someone new again. To get far away from the first man who claimed he owned her.

After a moment, while he finished ripping meat from a bone and then tossed it aside, the warrior wiped his hands on his breeches and said, "I'll call you
Princesa
then, eh?" He snorted with laughter. "My slave girl—Princesa."

"What shall I call you? The Barefoot Drunkard Jester? Or simply All Balls and No Brains?"

That stopped his gales of amusement. "My name is Raul d'Anzeray. Remember it, wench." He sat straighter. "And the man who stole my boots and my horse shall know it too. Mine will be the last name he utters as he begs in vain for mercy." He had a thick accent, but he spoke well enough for her to understand, unlike some soldiers she'd met who did not bother to learn the language of those they came to conquer. So he was clever as well as handsome, she thought. A quick mind was a dangerous thing in a man. Combined with good looks she suspected it could be devastating, although she couldn't know for sure since most men she'd ever met were dullards.

But she had heard the name d'Anzeray. Who hadn't? They were said to be descended from the daughters of Satan, for they were wild, reckless and ruthless.

No one had ever told her they were this handsome too.

She glanced at his bare feet as he held them before the fire for warmth. Neither would she have expected a notorious d'Anzeray to lose his boots to a thief. It made him seem more human somehow, less devilish.

He swigged from a leather wineskin, his eyes still pinned to her face through the flames of the campfire. "How old are you, Princesa?"

"I have lived ten and fifty summers."

Raul looked askance. "I think not."

"Yes. Or four and twenty. Or nineteen." She frowned, trying to remember her numbers.

"Don't you know?"

"How can anyone be sure?"

"You don't know how to count?"

"Of course." She held up her fingers and recited proudly, "One, three, sixteen, fourteen, nine, seven, twenty—" She stopped because he was smirking.

"Very well. I'll believe you. We'll settle for nineteen."

Somewhere in the forest an animal howled. Drawing her woolen scarf tighter around her shoulders, the girl looked up at the starlit sky and thought of her grandpapa. Well, as he'd pointed out, he was not her grandpapa, but since she had no family she liked to call him that. It had made her feel as if she belonged somewhere again — truly belonged, not as someone's slave and whore.

Would the kindly old man eat tonight? Was he cold? He'd been trying to send her away for a few days now, since his health began to fail and he feared for her to be left alone. "
If the Comte's men one day find you here with me it will be a violent and bloody end for us both,"
he'd exclaimed, when he finally discovered her identity. "
You must
get as far away as you can, while you still have the chance. But you cannot run alone. Alone you will be seen and caught."

Then Raul d'Anzeray came along and was just desperate enough to take her, despite her sharp, saucy tongue and her scar.

She and the "grandpapa" had lived together since he found her hiding from soldiers under a hedge. At first he had no idea what he rescued her from. The old man might never have helped her if he knew she'd run away from a powerful Norman Comte who kept her as his bed slave. 

This was the third time she'd escaped, and if her master got her back now the punishment would be dire. One day she hoped to get far enough that she could open her eyes and be in a place where no one knew his name. Where he would never find her or even know to look for her.

She had only one memory of life before the Comte's men ransacked the village where she lived and took her captive. In that sweet picture there was sunshine on her face and warm grass under her feet as she ran through a meadow, chasing after butterflies and a pony with a chestnut tail. And there was laughter, rich and warm. But it was such a slight image and all the more precious because of its brevity. She clung to the shining picture, polishing the little shard often and re-living that moment, as if, somehow, she might make it last longer, draw out the broken edges to enlarge the view. To smell, taste and feel that world around her again, but in greater detail. Sadly, she paid a cruel price for her yearning to see more, for each time she drew it out to look at it, the existing image became more worn and frayed. She risked one day losing it forever.

Sometimes she wondered why it was the only memory she had of life before captivity, but the here and now was more urgent and she could not spend long dwelling on the old days. The past could not be changed, but the future—

"What are you thinking of, Princesa?" the man across the fire demanded.

She quickly shook off her dreams, for there she was, in reality, a scarred runaway in a rough, sackcloth gown, her belly rumbling from defiant hunger, her safety now in the hands of a stranger again. "Nothing," she replied. "I think of nothing."

He was studying her in that careful way, prying for secrets under her skin. "You think of nothing, you have no name and you don't even know how old you are." He squinted. "So you don't want to tell me anything, eh? But you have a disadvantage."

"I do?"

"Your belly speaks for you, Princesa. I can hear it singing a hungry song, even as your mouth denies it."

She wrinkled her nose.

He beckoned. "Come, woman."

Now he would want her to service him as a whore should, she thought. May as well resign herself to the profession fate had found for her. Slowly she got to her feet and walked around the fire. The warrior patted the fleece-lined mantle he'd spread upon the earth beside him.

"Sit."

Like a hound, she mused darkly.

She knelt, put down her bundle of possessions and reached for the bulge in his leather breeches. Instantly his hands closed over hers. "What are you doing?"

Looking up in surprise she found those molten steel eyes staring at her face, his mouth slack.

"Don't you desire me?" She sat back on her heels. "I am your slave girl now. I do your bidding."

A line appeared between his brows. It deepened briefly and then was gone again. He stabbed his knife into a hunk of the charred meat from the fire and held it out to her. "I called you over here to eat, lost princesa."

"Oh." She glanced dubiously at the offering pierced upon his blade. "But I told you, I don't—"

"You'll eat what you're given. I don't want my slave girl fading away or she'll be no use to me." Although his eyes were stern, she saw the smile pulling at his lips, the twitch in his cheek. "You want to do my bidding? This
is
my bidding. Eat."

There was nothing much to be said after that. Surprised by this hint of good humor and kindness, she took the food and ate, trying to retain some show of reluctance, even with her stomach loudly betraying her yet again.

The warrior watched, his eyes gleaming. "Don't forget to chew," he muttered wryly.

How strange that he should care whether she ate or not. Norman soldiers were not known for their compassion. But, as he'd said, she would be less use to him if she was not kept well fed and healthy, so she supposed he had practical reasons.

With one hand he tugged the woolen scarf from around her neck. He moved her braided hair back over her shoulder and pressed his thumb to her scar. It was a very gentle touch, like none she'd ever known. At least, none she could recall. "Tell me about this," he said, his voice deep.

She closed her eyes, saw the flash of light, a hand sweeping down, felt the sharp sting as the Comte's ring sliced into her skin and marked her his for life. "Why?"

"Because I want to know the truth."

Opening her eyes again, she said, "I can tell you a good story, one much better than the truth."

He gave an exasperated groan and shook his head. "Of course, you're a woman. Lies come naturally to you."

Annoyed, she replied through a full mouth, "I have always had the scar. Like I told you before, 'tis the sign of a witch's curse. Bad luck, call it what you will."

He stared into the fire and drank from the wineskin, his pose thoughtful. "But I don't believe in curses. A man makes his own fate, his own luck. This is simply the way things are."

She wiped her mouth on her wool scarf. "And how will you make your luck?" Pointing to his bare feet, she struggled to hide a chuckle. "You don't seem to have done so well up until now, soldier."

He circled his arms around his knees and pondered the dark forest around them. "All that will be amended soon," he muttered.

She studied his hard, unshaven jaw and that rugged, chiseled profile. Raul d'Anzeray had the distinctive Norman nose and high brow, but there was something different in the lines of his face. His lashes were very dark and long. Perhaps that was why his eyes
affected her so and kept them from being too terrifying. They were beautiful, she realized. Beautiful in the way one would never expect to see on a man.

He must enjoy plenty of women. Few would resist such a well-hewn, handsome fellow. He was tall with the shoulders of an ox but the lean muscle of a fast stallion. There was a powerful grace to every move he made and something menacing too, as if he might, at any moment, spring for his knife and plunge it into an unsuspecting heart as carelessly as he had stabbed into the cooked meat.

Slowly he scraped fingertips over his rough, unshaven cheek. "My fortunes are about to change."

Her inquisitive mind was further lured in and caught, her spirits lifted. This enigmatic warrior was on a mission and now she would be a part of it. An adventure. "Where do we go now?"

"Canterbury."

She'd never heard of the place, but that was just as well. It must be a fair distance since the name was unknown to her. Good. Canterbury then would be her destination too.

"I shall serve you well," she said suddenly, wanting to repay him for this rescue and the supper he'd cooked for her.

"Until we reach Canterbury. Then we will take different paths."

Her heartbeat slowed until she barely felt it. "Why?"

At first she thought he would not answer. He looked away from her and scratched the back of his neck. "It will not be possible to keep you."

"Why not?"

"Enough questions," he snapped. "Or I'll silence you myself."

Panic formed like ice in her bones, cracking and splintering as it eased a chilly path through her body. He did not mean to keep her then. He did not want a slave. Her brief flame of hope for a new life sputtered and ducked and struggled against the breeze. She sheltered it as best she could, but soon the flame would die out and cold would render her numb again, just as she'd begun to thaw out in the glow of his heated gaze and the unexpected glimmer of kindness, the gentleness of his touch.