Domning, Denise

Prologue

The convent's high stone walls, walls stained pink by dawn's rosy glow, echoed with the plainsong of the nuns. These simple harmonies floated up into the frigid February air to twine like sweet smoke around all it touched. It soothed and calmed the armed men and war-horses waiting in the courtyard, making the sudden scream all the more startling.

"Nay, you cannot!" the woman shrieked. "Help me, come help your abbess."

As the church doors fell open, the horses danced nervously making their masters curse and struggle for control. Shocked nuns and muttering servants seethed into the courtyard only to freeze in terror of an attack.

A mailed knight pushed through their ranks, dragging with him a small, habit-clad woman who kicked and clawed against his unbreakable hold. Their lady abbess came chasing after him. "You cannot do this to her. Do not take her from me. Not now. I beg you."

Undaunted, the knight dragged his prisoner toward his waiting men, ignoring the older woman's pleas. The convent dwellers shuffled uneasily into a semicircle behind their lady. The man's captive fought on despite the hopelessness of her position, her eyes wide and her face ashen with fear. "You must stop him, my lady," she begged at last. "Do something."

At that, the knight hit her. She dropped limp into his arms, and he turned back to the abbess. "Have my daughter's belongings sent to me at Benfield before this day is through. I'll not wait for them."

"What can I do?" Tears stained the churchwoman's cheeks. "Someone help me," she urged of those who stood behind her.

Several serving men dared a half step forward, but they halted when the man put his hand to his sword hilt. This was a convent, not a keep. There was no one here to challenge a battle-ready warrior.

The girl moaned when he handed her up to one of his mounted men. She kicked weakly at him, but he ignored her. "You'll pay with your life if you release her," he warned his man. A moment later he mounted his own steed.

The abbess sank to her knees in the frigid mud. "May God go with you, my little Wren. Do not let them defeat you. Never forget—" Whatever else she said was lost as the man set spurs to his steed and called forward those who followed him. Their horses' huge hooves dug deeply into the ground, leaving the earth torn and broken behind them.

Chapter 1

Rowena of Benfield stared straight ahead. Beneath soft black brows, her wide-set blue eyes were fixed and unblinking. Neither the irregular jolting of the trotting horse nor the rider's cruel grip disturbed her. A biting wind teased out ebony strands from under her white wimple and stabbed through the thick gray wool of her habit. It stung her cheeks and the short, straight line of her nose until her pale skin burned and reddened.

Her father had taken her mantle so she'd be too cold to escape and, now, she was frozen through and through. Deep beneath her icy calm she battled to control her anguish. He'd taken more than her mantle; he'd torn from her all her life's hopes and dreams.

Although the manor house at Benfield was only ten short miles from the abbey, a lifetime separated them. It was the difference between the wealthy, ordered serenity of the convent and the harsh poverty of her birthplace.

The troop raced past the village's cottages, huts, and hovels, scattering peasants, chickens, and geese. The ancient gate in the tottering circle of the keep's defensive wall stood open in slatternly invitation. They entered at a brisk trot, their horses coming to a welcome halt before the stables.

The manor house was no more than a simple wooden building grayed with age and disrepair attached to a squat, stone tower stained with moss. Hall, byres, barns, the stable, even the dovecote, all suffered the same moldly thatch for roofing. Neglect lay as heavily in the air as did the smell of latrines left too long uncleaned. In the yard, servants and peasants worked in an uneasy cooperation. They did not use the French language of their Norman masters, rather they spoke their own guttural English as they hastily prepared for the wedding of Lord Benfield's daughter.

Her wedding. Rowena glanced up at the windswept and icy blue sky. A solitary, hunting hawk floated high above her. She could not even summon up envy for the creature's freedom. Beyond help, beyond hope, she was.

Her father dismounted and dragged her off her perch, his hand clamped hard upon her arm. His steel-sewn gauntlet ripped into her sleeve. With a jerk, he pulled her through the doorway and into the hall.

Beyond hope she might be, but there was no man who'd make her go like a lamb to the slaughter. She pried at his fingers and struggled against him as her shoes slid in the fresh rushes that covered the hard earthen floor. As he forced her past linen-covered tables set around the great open hearth, she grabbed at benches, baskets, cups, anything to slow their passage. The dogs yipped and snarled, eager to join the fight and servants scattered to find hiding spots from where they could better watch. But he inevitably wrestled her through the long, narrow room toward the back wall.

"Stop," she finally cried out, breaking the silence between them. "No farther, not until I know why."

Lord Benfield whirled on his daughter. "Watch your tongue, girl," he growled, "or you'll feel my fist again."

Unthinkingly, she put a hand to her face and stroked the already purpling bruise at her slender jawline. Her eyes narrowed. In a hard voice, she asked, nay, commanded, "Why?"

"Why, why," he mocked. "Is it not enough that I got for you a husband who is a powerful lord with rich holdings? He cares little that you are overage, only that you can yet bear children."

"How pleasant," she snapped back. "Does he know I have no dowry or have you not yet told him this inescapable truth?"

"Girl, you have dowry enough for any man. 'Tis you who've inherited all your maternal grandfather held."

"All? Me?" she said in shocked surprise. "But, what of Philippa?"

"Philippa?" Her father's laugh was odd and high-pitched. "Her husband can keep what she took with her when they married. To you goes all else, everything I have received through your mother."

Her eyes narrowed. "If my mother had an inheritance, she would see that I got nothing and her favorite received it all. How can you give me what is hers?"

"Your mother cannot inherit; her father's will forbids her from ever holding a furlong of what was his." He paused, seeming to savor the thought of his wife so humbled.

"There is more," she said, eyes hard and voice the whip crack of command. "Tell me. Why are these holdings not divided with my sister? And why can I not have what is mine to buy me my position at the abbey? Why must I marry?"

"Do not use that tone with me, girl." Her father once again lifted his fist.

Rowena only waved away his words. "Oh, be done with your threats and your pomposity. I am no child to frighten, but a woman of one and twenty. If you batter me into senselessness, you cannot hurt me any more than you have already done."

"How do you dare?" he gasped.

Rowena cut him off before he could continue. "I dare because I am already dead. Aye, Father, this marriage of yours will kill me as surely as the summer's heat withers a spring blossom. Now," she continued, her words clipped and cold, "you will tell me why I am suddenly your only heir."

"And to think that I pitied you," Lord Benfield ground out.

"Pitied me?" She choked on a soundless sob. "If this is your pity, God have mercy on my soul. Father, how well will your pride withstand the blow when my new husband curses you for what you've done to him?"

"How so? What is this awful defect?" he sneered. "Before me stands a maid who, even though she is dressed in an ill-fitting, coarse habit, is both comely and shapely enough to turn a man's head. Where is your defect?"

"Here, Father," she returned, touching a slender finger to her temple. "Here. Because Philippa was your eldest, I dared not dream of marriage. Is it not still true today, in the Year of Our Lord 1194, that a second daughter is convent bound?

"But I was not defeated. And, Sweet God in heaven, how I worked. I learned to read and write and tally up a column of figures in a moment's time, knowing that if the convent would be my life I would be more than a simple nun. Pride is my sin, for I coveted the power the Church could give me. 'Twas to this end I humbled myself and bit my tongue when the nuns taunted me because you would not allow me to take my vows. I bid my time patiently, because I knew—" She swallowed hard, then lost all pretense of calm. "Now," she screamed, "you tear from me everything I desire and tell me it is for pity's sake! I say you lie. Why are you doing this? I will know why."

"Oh, spare me your venom." Her father smiled a hard smile. "What foul words you spew will not stop this wedding."

Rage exploded free of her control. "Damn you!" She swung a vicious foot at his shin. Her shoe rebounded from his mail-clad leg. "Kill me, kill me now and have done with it. Better that I die than wed and bed any man. It is better to be dead than be your heir. Damn you, damn you to hell," she raged, and grabbed his mantle at the throat as if she could force him into honesty. "Tell me why."

Her father easily plucked her hand away, then held her at arm's length from him. "Because," he said, then repeated in a sudden, strained voice, "because, Philippa is your mother's bastard. Ha—" he threw his head back and laughed. "At last, I've said it. The truth wins out. The old man's dead, and there's no reason for secrecy any longer." His grin was cold and cruel. "Philippa's no spawn of mine, and I did not accept her when I married your mother. She cannot inherit. You," he said, with chilling emphasis, "are my only legitimate child."

He turned on his heel and dragged Rowena to the back of the hall. There at that wall was a door, the only one within this manor house that sported a lock, his own bedchamber. He tossed her inside as if she were no more to him than a sheaf of wheat and slammed the door. The key scraped at the lock, which gave a rusty groan.

Stunned, Rowena lay amid the dry and dusty rushes for a moment, then came slowly to her feet. In disbelief, she threw herself against the heavy door, but she achieved only spent rage and bruised fists. It was in hopeless calm that she finally sank to the floor and indulged herself in an ocean of pain.