Keeper of the Dream (18 page)

“Aye, dead and they can go to hell and be bothering the devil instead.”

Kilydd laughed again, and then he fastened earnest eyes on Arianna’s face. She had always liked his eyes. They were a warm gold to match his hair, the color of summer honey. “Arianna. Are you all right? No one’s hurt you, have they?”

Arianna shook her head, a smile peeping out and then blazing across her face. She hugged them both in turn, kissing their beard-roughened cheeks, allowing their drooping Welsh mustaches to tickle her nose. “Oh, but it’s so good to see you two.”

“We’ve come to speak to you, girl. About tonight,” Ivor said.

“Tonight?” She turned to the younger man. “Oh, Kilydd, please don’t be up to any mischief tonight. That raid of yours has already caused far too much trouble than it was worth.”

Kilydd’s mouth jerked into a grin. “What raid is this you speak of?” Then he stroked her cheek. “Nay, sweet-ling, ’Tis you we fear for. You know the tales of how the Normans do abuse women, especially those not of their accursed race. We came to tell you—we’ll be waiting in the hall below the lord’s chamber tonight, should you have need of us.”

“What … what is it you think he’ll do to me?”

The two men exchanged looks, Ivor’s face darkening to the color of blackberries. Kilydd met her frightened eyes,
then his gaze shifted away from hers, and he cleared his throat.

“There is a decent way to bed a virgin bride, and then there are those God-cursed foreign ways. You’ll be remembering whose daughter you are, and you’ll not let him be shaming you with any disgusting French perversions.”

“Aye, and if he hurts you,” Ivor put in, “even if it’s only a belting he gives you, we promise we’ll kill him for it, aye, and to hell with Owain and King Henry and their god-be-damned truce.”

The knot of fear in Arianna’s stomach tightened. But it wasn’t until Kilydd brushed the damp curls from her face that she realized she was sweating. “You understand what we speak of, Arianna?”

“Aye, French perversions …” she said, though in truth she was not sure she did. She only knew that the hazy fear that had been like a mist in her mind all day suddenly became sharply focused on the wedding night to come. But in spite of their chivalrous offer, she couldn’t call on her cousins to save her from whatever vile things the Norman bastard chose to do to her, for here in his castle, surrounded by his men-at-arms, whoever dared to attack the Black Dragon would be cut down as soon as he drew sword.

When Arianna returned to the bridal dais, she discovered to her relief that her husband was no longer there. A group of minstrels played a high-stepping carole and several couples were dancing next to the tables, spinning so fast they blended together into whirls of color, like streams of spilled paint, and their joyful singing nearly drowned out the viols and tabors.

Taliesin popped up suddenly beside her, causing her to jump. He had a silver tray of blancmange balanced in his hand and as he leaned over, the jellied pudding sailed off the tray to land with a soggy plop onto the table. It quivered a moment, then stilled.

“God’s death, boy. You are the most inept squire it has ever been my misfortune to meet.”

The boy’s lower lip pouched out. “Well, it’s playing my harp I should be doing anyway, not serving blancmange, and I told my lord as much. But he threatened to string me up by my thumbs if I didn’t start better fulfilling my duties as his squire.” The pouting mouth suddenly lifted into a grin. “In truth, I think he feared I would sing the ode I’ve composed in his honor.”

Arianna started to laugh, but when she looked up at him, the light in his eyes was so bright it was as if twin candle flames flared in the sockets. “Who are you really?” she said, but he was already gone, disappearing among the flow of varlets and pages bearing platters of food and ewers of wine and ale.

The carole had finished with resounding shouts of laughter from the dancers. To her surprise, Arianna spotted her husband in the circle, though unlike the others he was neither laughing nor smiling. He held out his hand and a woman took it. It was Sybil, his brother’s wife. Earl Hugh, who sat alone at the end of the dais, had seen them as well. He reached for his wine cup, nearly knocking it over, and he had the strangest look on his face—like a starving child being forced to watch while others feasted.

He loves her, Arianna thought with sudden shock. The jaded and profane Earl of Chester loved his wife. And for a moment she pitied him.

But then her thoughts turned inward, to the wedding night to come, and her belly fluttered with panic as she thought of her cousins’ warning. She wondered how she would survive the coming hours and have still at the end of it her honor and her dignity.

I will not beg,
she promised herself.
No matter what he does to me, I will not beg, or cry, or shame myself in any way.

*   *   *

Sybil fought to regain her breath, her breasts heaving. Her skin was flushed, glistening with a light film of sweat. Raine bowed over her hand, preparing to lead her back to her seat.

“Wait, Raine … I’ve a stone in my slipper.”

Her fingers closed around his, dragging him away from the new dance that was forming. She slipped her arm around his waist and leaned into him, balancing on one leg as she pulled up her skirt, well beyond the pink garter that held up her stocking. Her ankle was small enough to span with his thumb and forefinger; but then he had already made that discovery years ago. The skin above the garter was still the pure white of a fresh snowfall.

She removed her dainty satin soler, turning it upside down. No stone fell out, not even a pebble. The slipper was embroidered with fine gold and silver wires and studded with sapphires and pearls, and Raine estimated its cost to be equal to a good suit of Damascus armor.

He looked down at her coifed head. He wished he could see her hair. When she was a girl she had worn it loose and it had fallen like a mantle of gold down her back, brushing the swell of her hips when she walked.

The slipper was back on her foot, but she had not removed her arm from around his waist. “Raine, do you remember that day we danced by the river?”

“I remember.” She had supplied the music, trilling in her sweet soprano, and they had twirled around and around until they became dizzy and had to lie down in the sun-bleached grass. He had been fifteen, but he had already known for two years what to do with a girl on a bed of grass.

“You spent most of your time …” Her voice trailed off, as two pink roses bloomed in her cheeks.

“Trying to put my hands all over your breasts,” he finished for her.

She had tiny pleats at the corners of her mouth that turned into dimples when she smiled. At last she removed
her arm, though she did it slowly, trailing her fingers across his back. She still had that dusting of freckles across her cheekbones and nose. Once they had played a game where he had tried to kiss every single one individually.

“This is a splendid wedding, Raine.”

“Is it? I wouldn’t know. The last one I went to was yours.”

Her head whipped around, and her lavender-blue eyes filled with tears. “I thought you had forgiven me. That we could be friends again. But you hate me still, don’t you? You hate me for marrying Hugh.”

He watched as a single tear trembled on the end of her pale lashes, then fell to roll down her cheek. “I don’t hate you. I learned long ago that life is divided into a few grand tragedies and a lot of little disappointments. You, sweet Sybil, were one of my little disappointments.”

Her eyes squeezed shut and her mouth twisted, deepening the pleats and making her look older. “And this marriage of yours. Would you call it a grand tragedy or a little disappointment?”

His gaze found his wife sitting by herself on the bridal dais. The diffused sunlight filtering through the yellow silk canopy made her sable hair gleam as if sprinkled with gold dust and highlighted the spare bones of her face. She looked like the princess that she was, and she was his, and he wanted her.

“She brings me Rhuddlan and a title,” he said to the woman he had once loved, though his eyes remained on his wife, and the ache in his loins was for his wife as well. “And she will breed me sons with noble blood in their veins. I call that damned good fortune.”

“You’ve changed, Raine. I don’t think I like the man you’ve become.” And pressing her hand to her mouth, Sybil whirled and ran away from him.

Raine followed after her, but all his attention was still
on his wife. And she was staring with avid fascination at his brother.

“Take your eyes off my brother.”

Arianna’s head jerked up, and she almost recoiled at the look of raw fury on Raine’s hard, dark face, especially because it was unexpected, and so undeserved.

Raine sat, straddling the chair. His knee pressed into her thigh and stayed there. Arianna’s pulse tripped, and she clenched her jaw to control the shudder that coursed through her. She was afraid of him but a part of her knew, too, that if she didn’t begin now to stand up to his powerful personality, he would grind her down until there would be nothing of Arianna left but the chaff.

“You are truly a bastard,” she said, her voice a choking whisper.

“Aye, I truly am. And you are now a bastard’s wife, so take care you don’t forget it. Stay out of my brother’s bed.”

“How dare you imply that I am so lacking in honor that I would betray a vow? Even one given to you, sir bastard knight—”

“Enough!” He slammed the flat of his hand down onto the table. “My name is Raine, and from now on when you speak to me you will use it.”

“Go to hell.”

“I mean this, Arianna. Don’t push me too far.”

“I intend to push you, Norman
bastard
I will push you back into the English bog from which you crawled.”

She hadn’t been aware her fist had wrapped around the eating knife, until his hand lashed out, pinning her wrist in place.

“Do you know who wins a joust? It is the knight who smites the hardest, cruelest blow. The man who shows no mercy.” He plucked the knife from her nerveless fingers. “I have never lost a joust, Arianna. Remember that.”

The people at the tables around them had long ago
gone silent, watching this first marital spat with unconcealed amusement. Raine still had hold of her wrist. He wasn’t hurting her. Yet she had no doubt that he could snap the bone in two simply by flexing those long, brown fingers.

“Our guests are getting the wrong impression, wife. Smile at me.” He applied the barest pressure. Enough to draw her rebellious gaze back up to his face. “Smile at me, Arianna. And look as if you mean it.”

She bared her teeth at him.

Taliesin elbowed his way between them, throwing a heaping platter of sugared pancakes onto the table. One slid off the platter, bouncing off Raine’s lap on its way to the ground. “A fine performance, my lord,” the squire scolded. “Everyone is now convinced that you two adore one another.”

A muscle jumped in Raine’s cheek as he swung his icy gaze onto the boy. “I have had enough from you as well.”

“Aye, my lord. But you are bungling things again and—”

“Taliesin …”

The squire’s pale face went a little paler. He left without another word, but he was soon back—to carve a haunch of stag—and wearing a sulky look.

Food and drink continued to be piled onto the table in ever greater quantities: boar’s head larded with herb sauce, godale spiced with juniper, roast pike in aspic. As the guests became satiated, the marshal of the hall sent forth entertainers—a juggler who could catch balls in a cup on his forehead, acrobats and conjurers, a man with marmosets that turned somersaults.

Lastly came the morris dancers with their blackened faces. The bells on their legs jangled as they whirled to the accompaniment of a pipe and tabor and twirled long streamers of brightly colored cloths. One dancer carried a stick high in the air, and on it, bouncing in the hot summer
breeze, was a bladder blown up and graphically painted to resemble a giant phallus.

The guests burst into loud laughter, pointing at this enormous, bobbing, throbbing symbol of masculine power. Loud and bawdy jests about the night to come flew around the tables. Arianna sat stiff as a lance, fighting down the queasiness in her stomach. She had been to weddings before, so it wasn’t the first time that she had seen the raunchy spectacle. But she’d never been forced to witness it while sitting beside the man who would be instructing her in the marriage duty as soon as the sun set.

The man beside her inclined his head in the direction of the dancer who bore the graphic bladder. “Now
that,
little wife, is more the sort of willow switch you’ll find beneath a Norman’s tunic.”

God’s death
… He’d meant it as a jest, surely he was only teasing her. But now Arianna began to fear the Normans not only engaged in unnatural acts but were built unnaturally as well.

Earl Hugh of Chester banged his fist on the table, demanding quiet. Picking up a wine chalice he stood, lifting it high in the air. “Gentle ladies and noble men … I drink to my brother Raine, Lord of Rhuddlan, and his lady.”

The guests all stood, lifting their wine and ale in the toast, while the local populace, hanging about beyond the lists and waiting for the wedding largesse, tossed their caps into the air and cheered. Again Earl Hugh banged for silence. “I drink to England and King Henry. May they reign supreme.”

The wedding guests all drank to England, except for a scowling Ivor and Kilydd. There was less cheering from the ranks of peasants this time, and some rather loud grumbling in Welsh. Raine raised the dragon chalice to his lips, and then he held it out to Arianna.

“Drink, wife.”

Arianna’s hands curled into fists in her lap. “I would
choke ere I swallowed one drop in a toast to England. It’s all I can do to sit here and watch you and your friends gloat after having tried to carve up my country as if it were a meat pie.”

His pale eyes narrowed, his mouth hardened, and for a moment she fully expected him to force the wine down her throat, but instead he lifted his shoulder in a lazy shrug. “That’s the price you pay for losing.”