LadyOfConquest:SaxonBride (7 page)

Returning her gaze to the couple, Rhiannyn said, “I think it a beautiful thing.”

After some moments, the monk said, “It is, though those of the nobility who would pass property to their children ought not to risk a clandestine marriage.”

Or Saxon women who wed Normans, she mused, having heard how easily one marriage had been undone when the husband tired of his wife.

“Now speak to me of your soul,” Brother Justus prompted.

Rhiannyn held up a staying hand until the couple had kissed and walked deeper into the wood, then she leaned forward and peered into the fire. “I fear for it, that there may be no way of saving it.”

“You are wrong.”

Her thoughts returned to her first night in Andredeswald when Dora had pronounced Thomas’s curse lifted following an oft-repeated incantation and a drink so bitter Rhiannyn had feared her throat would swell closed.

She shook her head. “I know I should not believe in curses, and mostly I do not, but I deserve to be cursed. And I have been.”

The monk was so quiet, she glanced sidelong to confirm he had not slipped away.

“By whom?” he said.

“The man whose death I am responsible for.”

Maxen stared at Rhiannyn’s profile, containing the anger bounding through him with the promise he would free it at a better time and place. He must remain calm, else he might never know what she held close.

“Have I shocked you?” she asked.

He clenched his hands beneath his long sleeves. “Only in that you have staked your soul to the belief God serves man by working curses upon others—that words spoken in anger grant divine power over one who is wished ill.”

Maxen waited on her response, but after minutes passed, he said, “Tell me how you are responsible for this man’s death.”

She gripped her hands in her lap. “I ran from him, and when he gave chase…” She raked her teeth over her bottom lip. “I should not have fled.”

Maxen put a finger beneath her chin, lifted her head, and delved eyes bright with tears. Her sorrow touching him, he hardened himself and said, “Though you claim responsibility for his death, surely you did not kill him?”

Her eyes widened, “Ah, nay.”

“Who, then?”

“I…”

He saw the moment something bid her to keep her secret, and berated himself for being so eager he had not guarded his own eyes. Likely she had seen a light in their depths that had nothing to do with the fire that crackled and breathed warmth upon them.

She stood and stepped away. “It matters not. He is dead, and nothing can change that.”

Forcing an expression of puzzlement, Maxen rose. “But it does matter—if I am to help you.”

She shook her head. “I thank you for coming to my aid, and you have been kind to listen, but I have no further need of assistance.”

She turned from him, and he threw out an arm to detain her. However, he pulled it back, fearing that to allow another glimpse of the man beneath the robes would prove his undoing.

“Good eve,” he called as she hastened to her tent.

Once she slipped inside, he left the camp and strode to the distant glade where the pel was set in the ground. Seeking an outlet for his emotions, he took up the sword Rhiannyn had left alongside the wooden post, made his grip, and in the light of a moon crossed by clouds, swung at earth and air. Again. And again.

“The one.”

As the hoarsely spoken words snatched Rhiannyn from sleep, her mouth was forced open and something was shoved inside.

She screamed against the gag and fought hands that bound her wrists and ankles. It was too dark to identify her assailants, but she knew Dora led them, she who had pronounced death upon Edwin’s betrothed.

Dear Lord,
Rhiannyn prayed,
let this be but a terrible dream from which I may awaken.

Hands gripped her ankles, dragged her off her pallet, and out into a moonlit night just beginning to yield to day. Frantically, she searched beyond the four figures surrounding her, but no others were in sight.

Certain her struggle for life would be a solitary one unless she could alert others, she reached to the gag with her bound hands.

Immediately, her arms were forced above her head.

She writhed and screamed into the wadded cloth, but it was not likely enough to rouse anyone.

“Carry her,” Dora hissed.

One of the figures lifted Rhiannyn and dropped her over his shoulder, pinning her arms under the weight of her own body. Then he began a jarring walk out of the camp.

“Hurry,” Dora urged.

When Thomas had died in her arms, Rhiannyn had thought she would welcome death as an escape from the pain and misery caused by the coming of the Normans, but no longer. Regardless of what her future held, she wanted one. She wanted to live.

As she was carried deeper into the wood, she strained and bucked and kicked, and did not stop when the one carrying her halted.

“Cast her in,” Dora ordered.

That
stilled Rhiannyn, but before she could fully accept the meaning of those words, the man swung her off his shoulder and began to lower her.

Shrieking around the gag, she snatched hold of his tunic, but the weight of her descending body tore it from her fingers and she slammed to the bottom of a pit.

As the musty smell of freshly cut earth assailed her, the soil loosened by her descent sprinkled on her in a cruel mockery of what was to come. She lifted her joined hands, pulled the gag from her mouth, and loosed a scream so thin, it barely carried above her head.

Desperately working her tongue to return moisture to her mouth, she reached up, searched the walls on either side of her, and latched onto a frayed root. Dragging herself to sitting, she screamed louder and was quieted by a fist to the temple that dropped her onto her back.

“Nay!” Dora protested. “She must feel her death. Bring the stone.”

Though dazed, Rhiannyn managed to turn onto her stomach in the narrow space and rise to her knees, but before she could get her feet beneath her, a hand slammed into her back and knocked her facedown, catching her bound hands beneath her. Then something painfully heavy was laid across her back and lower body.

“Nay!” She strained against the weight, scraping her hands and tearing her nails as she scrabbled at the earth in an attempt to push herself upright. “Oh, Lord,” she cried, “not like this. Pray, not like this!”

“He does not hear you,” Dora said with sickening satisfaction.

Rhiannyn snapped her head to the side and looked up.

The woman’s white hair and pale face a blotch against the dark sky, she continued, “But I hear you, and I say death upon you.” Then she straightened, motioned to the faceless men, and began chanting strange words.

As dirt poured down on Rhiannyn, she filled her lungs and emptied them on high-pitched wails, calling to the only one who could help her now. But still the dirt descended—shovelful by shovelful burying her alive.

And giving Thomas’s curse its due.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Arising through the haze of uneasy sleep, Maxen thought it a bird, but when it cried out again, he knew it was human. Rhiannyn?

He thrust off the pel he had dozed against and surged upright. Sword in hand, he sprinted across the darkened glade.

The monk’s gown hindering him, catching between his feet and legs, he halted, dropped the sword, and dragged the garment off. Going into battle armored only in long braies and undertunic, he reclaimed the battered sword and thundered into the wood.

With the next scream, he corrected his course, veering to the left into thickening trees whose gnarly branches raked his exposed flesh. Deeper he ran until he heard the grunting of men, the old witch’s voice, and another scream ending on a whimper.

He bellowed and vaulted into the clearing. Instinct guiding him more than the dawning light, he struck the first man alongside the head with a blade so dull, it had naught but impact to prove itself worthy. But it served well enough, as evidenced by the crack of bone.

“The false monk!” Dora cried where she stood alongside a gaping hole. “Kill him!”

The shadow beside her divided into two men, both wielding weapons.

Blood boiling, as in days past when he had first and foremost been a warrior, Maxen lunged at the larger of the two, knocked aside the spade swung at him, and countered with a blow to his opponent’s midriff. As the man doubled over, Maxen turned his efforts upon the other who aimed a branch at his head.

An upward sweep of the sword sent the primitive weapon flying, but it did not stop the one who wielded it. He hurled himself at Maxen, and they fell together.

The sword ineffective in such close quarters, Maxen released it and captured the man’s descending fist in his palm, then thrust his weight to the side and rolled the Saxon beneath him. “It is done,” he growled and placed his hand over the man’s face and wrenched it hard left. The snapping of the Saxon’s neck coincided with a burn in Maxen’s side.

He lurched back onto his knees, and as he stared at the dagger protruding from him, the dead man’s spasming fingers released the hilt. An instant later, Maxen saw the shadow creeping over him and felt death on the back of his neck.

He pulled the blade from his side, twisted around, and threw it at the Saxon who had first come at him with a shovel. It caught the man high in the shoulder and staggered him back. For a moment, he stood unmoving, then he turned and fled.

Pressing a hand to his side to stem the blood, Maxen stood and swept his gaze over the area.

On hands and knees, the old woman labored to push dirt into the hole.

“Witch!” Maxen shouted, and forgetting the fire in his side, bolted forward.

She sprang upright. “The death of us!” she screeched and ran.

Though he longed to pursue her, Rhiannyn was a more immediate concern. The grave being too narrow for him to go into, he flattened himself beside it and reached for the still figure beneath loosely piled dirt.

Had he come too late? Telling himself the dread he felt was for the secret she might take with her into death, he caught hold of her shoulders and managed to raise her several inches before meeting resistance.

He thrust aside the dirt, slid his hands over her facedown body, and found the stone. It was awkward, positioned as he was above her, but he hefted it off. Grasping her beneath the arms, he pulled her from the grave and lowered her onto her back.

“Rhiannyn!” he called, wiping dirt from her face.

She did not respond.

He pressed a hand between her breasts. No rise and fall, no fluttering heartbeat.

Fury flooded him. He had not killed two men to rescue a dead woman!

Gripping her shoulders, he shook her, but she made no protest.

“Lord,” he rasped, “let not the wickedness in me forever shadow any good.”

It was then he recalled the words Guy had spoken at the monastery—that an old witch had pulled Harwolfson from beneath the dead and breathed life back into him.

Maxen lowered Rhiannyn’s jaw and placed his mouth over hers. He blew once and again, but his breath immediately returned to him by way of her nostrils. He pinched them closed. It took four more breaths before, miraculously, he captured her groan his mouth.

Hardly able to believe he had returned life to her, he held her as she coughed and spat dirt. Finally, she sank against him and narrowly raised her lids. “What…?” she whispered. “I do not…”

“Dora tried to murder you,” he said, resenting how protective he felt.

Her clouded eyes cleared, only to widen with horror. Beginning to shake, she gasped, “They buried me. Alive.”

Maxen fought the impulse to comfort her. And lost. He smoothed the hair back from her brow and pressed a palm to her cheek. “You live,” he said as her tears wet his hand. “You are well.”

Am I?
Rhiannyn wondered, chest tight with sobs she longed to loose.
Will my mind hold after this?

Recalling the dirt falling down around her, straining her head back to keep her mouth clear for the breath needed to scream to those who did not hear, she said, “I called, but no one came.”

“I came,” Brother Justus said.

Thus, she lived, but how had he saved her? He was but a monk against the four who had taken her.

Lowering her gaze over him, she noted the absence of his clerical gown. Stretched across a broad chest and shoulders half again as wide as hers, he wore only an undertunic woven of such light cloth the perspiration causing it to cling outlined the muscles beneath.

“The false monk,” she murmured. “I heard her call you that.” She returned her gaze to his. “Are you false, Brother Justus?”

His lids narrowed, and he jutted his chin to a place beyond her. “I have killed as a man of God should not do.”

She saw a body ten feet from her, and another farther out. Two men dead. What of the third? What of Dora? Were they in the trees awaiting another opportunity to kill them both?

She sniffed back tears. “There were three with Dora. I see two.”

“The third was wounded. Had he not run, I would have taken his life as well.”

The monk had killed to save her, and though she was grateful, her unease deepened. “Are you truly a man of God?”

He pulled away and stood. “I was, and now no more.”

“But—”

“We must go. Dora will return with others, and if we are here, it could mean both our deaths.”

She pushed to sitting. “Where will we go?” she asked. Where would a woman named a traitor and hated by Saxons and Normans alike, and a monk turned murderer, be welcome?

“I know a place,” he said and strode to one of the dead.

The sound of tearing fabric startled Rhiannyn, and a moment later she saw the reason for the destruction of the Saxon’s tunic. Thinking she must be in a state of shock not to have noticed the blood draining from the monk’s side, she exclaimed, “You have been hurt.”

“I will live.” He wound the material around his waist, tore off another strip, and secured it as well. Shortly, he crossed to the other body—a man more his size—and divested him of his clothes. After donning the rough garments, he returned to her.

“Your hands,” he said.