Dragon Tree (30 page)

“No,” she
gasped, scrambling back. “No...!”

He roared an
ugly laugh and took an ominous step toward her. He reached down to
snatch at her arm but Amie was too quick. Fear helped her leap to
her feet and she darted past him, fleeing as fast as her legs would
carry her.

Odo’s laughter
followed, punctuated by the ominous thud of his boots in
pursuit.

At the end of
the breezeway she risked a glance over her shoulder, but he was a
large man with long legs that ate as much in a single enraged
stride as three of her smaller ones. He was gaining quickly, fueled
by his rage and hunger for revenge. In a panic, Amie whirled around
and ran straight into the pilgrim's hall, into the center of the
huge chamber where she was again brought to a skidding halt.

There were no
men sleeping on the floor, no men huddled on benches in front of
the fire. Instead, they were all standing about the circumference
of the room, their bodies touching shoulder to shoulder to form a
solid ring of around her. All of their faces were obscured behind
the wide steel nasals of their helms, and she recognized no
one.

Tamberlane
should have stood a head and shoulders above the others, but she
did not see him.

Turning in a
wide, desperate circle, with the blanket fanning out around her
feet, she searched for Roland, for the foresters Fletcher and
Quill, for Lord Geoffrey de Ville.

She spun
again, even more frantically for the circle of men was starting to
close in, sealing off the exit from the hall and trapping her
within. Odo was inside the ring with her, the torch held high, the
flame crackling and snapping over his head.

“No,” she
gasped. “No...!”

“Amaranth!”

She turned,
her gaze frantically searching the dark, sullen faces for the one
who had called her name.

Odo took
another ominous step forward. “Elizabeth... come to me. Come
willingly and I vow it will go easier on you.”

She looked at
her husband, at the false smile on his face, at the torch with its
dripping globs of hot pitch.

“Amaranth!”

She spun
around again, a sob caught in her throat, for it was him. It was
Tamberlane’s voice but she could not see him, could not find him
even as the ring of wooden-faced men moved ever closer, forcing her
toward the center of the room where Odo stood waiting.

“
Amaranth
! Can you hear me?”

She gasped as
someone reached out and grabbed her. She tried to bat his hands
away, to shove her fists against his chest, to lunge and twist and
break his hold, but he was too strong. His arms went around her and
his hand quickly covered her mouth when she opened it to
scream.

“Amaranth! It
is I, Ciaran! Hush, girl, hush. You are quite safe! All is well,
you are safe!”

Safe
?
She squeezed her eyes shut. Her mind latched on to the word as if
it was the end of a rope and she was clinging to it, hanging over a
cliff.
Safe? Was he mad? Odo was right there...!

She opened her
eyes again and looked wildly around. She was not in the pilgrim's
hall, she was the monk’s tiny cell. She was not standing inside a
shrinking ring of spectre-like figures, she was sitting up on the
narrow bed, the blankets in disarray.

Ciaran sat on
the edge of the cot beside her, his arm holding her close against
his chest, his hand clamped gently—if firmly—over her mouth to
prevent her from screaming again. Standing beside the bed, their
ears pricked upright, were Maude and Hugo very much alive and
looking for intruders to maul.

Amie thought
her mind was about to explode.

Maude and Hugo
were alive! Tamberlane was alive! He was here and he was holding
her and that meant...?

“You were
having a bad dream,” he said gently. “It is over now. I am going to
take my hand away from your mouth and I would beg you, for the sake
of any hairs left on anyone's heads, not to scream again.”

Slowly, almost
finger by finger, the pressure over her mouth relented. Amaranth
looked stupidly around the room, her gaze touching on the dogs, on
the open door and the concerned face of Sir Boethius—very much
alive and perplexed—who was watching from the entrance to the cell,
his sword in hand.

"I was
dreaming?" she whispered. "But... it was so real." She looked down
at her hands, at the one that had sunk into the mush that was Sir
Boethius's face. "It felt so real."

"An ill-effect
of Marak's little blue potion if you take too much," Tamberlane
explained. "I have suffered it myself and swore there were
fire-breathing dragons in my bedchamber. I wielded my sword and did
battle with so many chairs, the carpenters could scarcely keep my
chamber furnished."

“I woke up,"
she whispered, "and the dogs had been poisoned, Sir Boethius was
dead. You were gone and... and... Odo was here. I ran and tried to
look for you but...”

Tamberlane
interrupted gently. “The dogs are quite alive, as you can see, as
is Boethius. De Langois is a half hundred leagues from here and
likely crouched in some rat hole to wait out the weather. You are
completely safe, Amaranth, I vow it to be so.”

She looked up
into Ciaran’s eyes, her own silvered with tears. She was shaking so
hard that words and vows were not enough; she crumpled forward
against his chest and pressed her face tight into the curve of his
shoulder. “I will not be safe until he is dead.”

Even before
the whispered words left her lips, she knew it to be the truth. She
had known it the instant she had seen the look on Friar Guilford’s
face when he told her Odo was still alive. She knew it when they
fled the castle that night, and she knew it when she ran into the
woods with an arrow buried in her shoulder.

Tamberlane was
aware of her tears, hot and wet, sliding down his neck and he felt
the tremors in her body as she wept quietly against him. He glanced
over and signalled Boethius to remove himself and close the door,
then lifted his hand away from her hair long enough to point a
silent command at the dogs to retreat and lie in the corner.

Amaranth
remained cozened in the warmth of his arms long after her tears had
ceased. She felt so safe, so protected by the shield of his body
that she did not want to leave it.

Eventually,
however, she knew she had to extricate herself and did so with
soft, embarrassed smile.

Tamberlane
straightened as well, admittedly relieved to be able to draw a
breath without taking in the scent of her hair, her skin.

“Better?”

She nodded and
bit down lightly on her lower lip. If waking and finding the dogs
dead and Odo chasing her was all a terrible dream... was it also a
dream that Tamberlane had taken her into his arms and kissed
her?

“You should
try to sleep more," he was saying. "There are still several hours
to go before dawn.”

Amie shivered
and gathered the blanket tighter around her shoulders. "I do not
think I could close my eyes again, my lord."

How well he
knew that feeling! How many hours, nights had he spent pacing the
rooftops of Taniere dreading the notion of sleep. Sleep brought the
dreams, the sound of screaming men and women, the sweat of the
desert heat, the smell of blood and scorched flesh.

“Look you,
here,” he said rising from the bedside. “Roland brought a cup of
broth earlier. We can warm it over the brazier. There is bread and
cheese also,” he added, unwrapping the folds of a square cloth.
“And two handsome slices of mutton.”

“I am not very
hungry.”

“You need to
eat. If the rain lets up, we will have a very long day of riding
ahead of us.”

Amie glanced
at the window, surprised to see and hear the rain beating a faint
tattoo on the shutters. Her dream had all been silence and
shadows.

She gave her
head a little shake to clear her thoughts. “And if it does not let
up?”

Tamberlane
shrugged and carried the cup of broth over to the brazier. After
balancing it carefully over the glowing coals, he straightened and
Amie could see where the linen of his shirt was still dark with
dampness and clinging in patches to his skin.

Following her
glance, he smiled crookedly. “There was not enough heat in all of
Christendom to dry all of our clothes in the meager space we fought
to procure in front of the fire. in the Pilgrim's hall. Not even
the shine of a new coin could budge some arses from their warm
perches. Eat,” he ordered brusquely, noting that she had not
touched anything in the opened cloth yet. “All of it, to the last
morsel.”

“Only if you
will share it, my lord.”

“I have
already enjoyed the mutton,” he said with a wry arching of an
eyebrow. “But the goat cheese is quite excellent.”

Amie smiled
and broke off a piece, handing it to him. She broke another and
nibbled at it, declaring it was, indeed, delicious. The mutton was
tough and stringy, boiled out of all hope of flavor from a beast
who had likely been well past its prime for growing a worthy coat
of fleece. The bread was unleavened and could have been used to
resole her boots. The best part of the meal was the re-heated
broth. It was strong and steamy and took the last of the chills out
of Amie’s body.

Tamberlane sat
against the damp stone wall, watching her while she ate. At one
point she glanced over and saw that his eyes had drifted closed. He
looked exhausted. She could not even begin to reason when he might
have slept last. She recalled Marak saying that the Dragonslayer
never slept, but she had thought it to be an exaggeration. Now she
was not so sure. There were smudges under his eyes and a heaviness
in his shoulders that suggested he was fighting the urge to lay his
head down.

“My lord, I
will not be able to close my eyes again this night but there is no
need to waste a perfectly good cot. You need sleep more than I and
you will not do so with your back stiff and your boots squeaking
with water.”

Before he
could offer up a protest she was out of the bed and kneeling before
him, her hands starting to tug at his wet boots.

“No stop,” he
said, scraping his foot to the side. “I am perfectly able to rest
right here.”

“Indeed.” She
caught his foot again and set it back in front of her with a firm
thud. “And by morning there will be rot between your toes, they
will fester and begin to fall off, then we shall have to drag you
the rest of the way to Exeter in a litter with your brain in a
fever and your eyes rolled to the back of your head.”

He stared at
her unblinking for the length of several heartbeats before the iron
that formed his jaw began to melt. By degrees it softened as a grin
crept across his lips and in the end, he actually laughed. He
laughed so long and hard that Amaranth fought through various
shadings of a blush and was able to laugh as well.

When she had
removed both of his boots and set them by the brazier to dry, she
stood and pointed sternly to the bed.

“And if you
give me further grief, my lord, I will summon Sir Boethius to
assist me in lifting you onto the bed and tying you down.”

“My dear lady,
I—”

She bent over
and brought her face close enough to his that his smile faltered
and whatever he was about to say hissed away on a breath. “I will
allow you to retain the rest of your clothing, sirrah, wet as it
is, but only if you do as I say and get into the bed.”

The green eyes
stared back calmly as he attempted to recover. “The guise of a
shrew does not become you, my lady.”

“Nor does the
guise of a pillock do aught for your appeal as a guardian and
fearsome protector, my lord.”

Tamberlane’s
gaze kindled a moment while he pondered if there was any wisdom or
benefit to be gained by arguing further. He readily admitted that
was beyond tired, there was no denying that fact. Boethius was
outside the door, the dogs were alert... An hour with his eyes
closed was all he needed.

He scowled and
heaved himself to his feet, swaying as the rush of blood hit his
head. He crossed over to the narrow cot and, after unbuckling the
wide leather belt from his waist, eased himself onto the mattress
and lay back, resting one arm across his forehead and keeping one
stockinged foot on the floor.

Amaranth
watched him for the few seconds it took for his breathing to become
deep and slow. She settled herself down where he had been sitting
and one at a time, the wolfhounds laid down beside her, one across
her feet, the other at her side. Maude put her big, soft head on
Amie's lap seeking a rub behind the ears.

Amie's gaze
was drawn to Tamberlane’s sleeping form. She had seen the brief
flicker in the depths of the green eyes when she had bent down to
order him into the bed. She had heard the soft hiss of his breath
escaping and she had known, right there upon the instant, that not
everything that had happened in this monk's cell had been a
dream.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Two hours
later, a quiet tapping on the door roused Tamberlane out of a
surprisingly deep sleep. He came instantly awake and glanced
quickly toward the corner, but saw Amaranth cocooned in her
blanket, her head resting on Maude's body, using it as a pillow.
Hugo was already on his feet, standing poised at the door. His
growl was barely audible indicating it was most likely Roland on
the other side. The squire had stepped on his tail once and had
never been forgiven.

Ciaran swung
his legs over the side of the bed and raked his hands through his
hair. The scored marks on the night candle told him there was still
an hour to go before the big bell in the belfry would call the
monks to morning prayer. It also occurred to him that Roland was
showing unusual discretion by knocking first before entering, and
as a precaution, Tamberlane drew his sword before he unlatched the
door.