Passions of the Ghost (9 page)

Reynald was climbing the stairs as Amy was
coming down. The stairwell was narrow, and he was big, blocking her way. Intrigued, his gaze lingered on the tight clothing she was wearing on her shapely body, until she gave him an exasperated look and squeezed around him.

Her hip brushed his thigh, and his arm knocked against the soft roundness of her breast. For a heartbeat, he was overcome by sensation and longing, then he turned and followed her.

“You have forgotten your clothing, damsel,” he said, quietly. “Or is it usual in these times to go about so?”

“Ha-ha! Still working on your cover story, Rey? If you were really the Ghost, wouldn’t you be speaking in Latin or…or…”

“I speak French, damsel, as do all nobles, but I also speak English, and a little Welsh. Your English is strange, and you use words I do not know, but I am learning quickly.”

“I’ll bet you are.”

Sometimes he didn’t understand the inflections she used, and this was one of those times. He thought about asking her to explain, but her face was closed.

“Where are we going?” he asked, instead.

“
I
’m going down to the gym.”

She strolled through the big room downstairs, gathering interested looks from the men in the vicinity. Reynald slowed, scowling at each and every one of them, but then he realized she was vanishing down another set of stairs.

“I have Julius’s chronicle to show you!” he called, as he clattered after her. Why was she visiting the food store? In his time, it had been stacked to the ceiling with barrels of salted meat, ready for the winter.

“Julius’s chronicle will have to wait.” Her voice floated back to him.

The air was much cooler down here, but that was always so, and it was only as he reached the bottom step that he saw the drastic changes that had been wrought since his time. What had been a maze of passages and smaller chambers, was now a single, large room. There was soft cloth on the floor—Amy called it wall-to-wall carpet. But what really startled him were the shiny machines, with their workings of chains and metal. One appeared to have a long narrow seat upon it, as if to lie on, and where a person’s head might rest there was a metal bar with discs of lead attached.

Reynald thought he recognized this room for what it was. He had never resorted to torture, although his father had believed in the virtue of using pain to get the result he wanted. Or there was always the oubliette, deep and dark, where prisoners could be forgotten.

“This place,” he said to Amy, horrified, “is it a chamber for torture?”

Amy actually laughed. “You could say that.”

As he stood, frozen, she stepped onto one of the machines, pushed at the flashing buttons on the front of it, and began to run upon the thin, moving path beneath her shoes.

Reynald watched her in amazement. That such a thing existed at all was barely comprehensible, but soon he was asking himself “why?” There seemed to be no purpose for it when there was a world outside to run in. He opened his mouth to ask her, and became distracted by the sight she made.

Her legs were slim and strong, and as she ran she swung her arms, and her breasts bounced. The tight clothing hugged her body, outlining every curve. He moved closer, circling the device, and trying to understand how it worked. It wasn’t a torture machine, he knew now; it was a machine to exercise her body.

“There are some weights over there,” Amy pointed out. “Do you pump weights, Rey? Is that how you got those muscles?”

There was admiration in her voice. He already knew that she must like his appearance—Why else would she be jealous and want him for herself?—but there was pleasure in confirming the fact.

“I do not need to ‘pump weights,’” he said arrogantly.

“Come on, admit it, Rey. How much can you lift?”

“I can lift you, damsel.”

She smiled.

Satisfied, he went to inspect the rest of the room. There was no one else here, and he could prowl to his heart’s content. He tried out a few of the machines and found them interesting, but they were no substitute for the training yard or riding his stallion. By the wall, he found a large bowl with water inside it and small cups fixed to the outside. After poking and prodding at it, he discovered how to make the water come out, although not always into the cups.

Amy had moved on to another machine now. This time she was rowing as if she were seated in a small boat, except that she was not moving along. Again, Reynald couldn’t see the point. Surely to put so much effort into a thing, one should be moving along? She could be rowing in the river or fishing in the pond, instead of wasting her time going nowhere.

“Why do you do this, Amy?”

“To keep fit. To stay slim.”

“You would not need to do such things in my time. No one is fat, unless they are too lazy to do their work. Or too rich to need to.”

“The lady of the castle, huh? I don’t know, that’s a lot of responsibility.”

“You are more than capable, damsel,” he said, with quiet sincerity. “You would be a lady for all others to admire.”

She glanced up at him, and he saw the startlement in her eyes, then she was smiling and pretending he was only teasing her. Reynald gave a mental shrug. So be it. He would bide his time a little longer then if she was not yet ready to hear the truth from him.

But he could not wait forever. Soon he would have to state his feelings, and she would have to respond.

“This chronicle,” she began, changing the subject, “what does it say?”

“I do not know.”

“You mean it’s in another language? Latin or something?”

“No, I mean I cannot read it.”

She gave him a look, as if she wasn’t sure whether or not he was teasing her again. “You can’t read?”

“Julius was my scribe as well as my priest. If I required a letter to be written or read to me, then he did it. A lord does not need to be able to read and write, not when he has others to do it for him.”

She’d stopped rowing and was frowning up at him, her face flushed and her curls damp. There were wet patches on her clothing from her efforts. Reynald could smell the warm, sweet scent of her body and tried not to groan aloud.

It was all very well to speak of her fine qualities, but in his heart he wanted her in the way a man wants a woman, in a manner that was entirely carnal. Even now he was undressing her from her tight clothing, and laying her down on the wall-to-wall carpet so that he could touch her, taste her…

“But wouldn’t you like to be able to read the letters for yourself?”

She was speaking, and he had to think a moment to remember what they’d been discussing. He pushed away the image of her bare breasts and his hands upon them.

“I-I could not, so I did not concern myself with what I could not do. Like my father, I had my servants to help me and advise me.”

“Did you trust this Julius? What if he was working for the enemy? He could tell you anything he pleased, and you’d believe him.”

“He was a man of God,” Reynald retorted, amused she should even suggest Julius might be a spy.

“So?”

“Do you not trust those around you, Amy?”

“I’ve learned it’s safer not to.”

“That must be an uncomfortable way to live.”

“At least I
am
alive,” she said, then stood up, stretching, before wandering over to the water and pouring a drink.

He followed, and stood watching the curve of her throat as she swallowed. That he could feel such pleasure in something so simple was amazing, and worrying. He needed his wits about him, he needed to concentrate on his task. Amy Fairweather was a distraction, one he’d be better off without, but he couldn’t wish her away.

“Sometimes, Rey,” she went on, “you have to think for yourself. You know what I mean? Other people have their own agendas and, although they mightn’t mean to do it, they can skew the story for their own benefit. Julius, for instance, might see a dragon as a sign from God that he must be punished for some sin he’d committed or had failed to atone for. Others might see it as a pagan sign that the old gods had come to drive out the new. And others would view it differently again. You see what I mean?”

“I always weigh up the advice I am given,” he retorted. “I am a Marcher Lord, damsel, and not a fool.”

“I know that. I just…you seem to prefer to trust others’ judgment rather than your own. Why is that, Rey?”

He couldn’t tell her. Not about Morwenna and the terrible mistake he’d made. If it was true that he didn’t entirely trust his own judgment, then that was the reason.

She finished her water and cast him a sideways glance. “I could teach you, you know,” she said.

“Teach me?” Once again she’d left him bewildered and confused.

“To read.” She seemed almost shy as she made the offer. “That’s what I’m studying to be, you know. A teacher,” she explained, and it was as if she was afraid he might ridicule her.

One moment she was so strong and sure of herself, and the next so vulnerable. “A teacher of reading?” he asked, puzzled.

“Yes. Is that so strange!” Now she was defensive.

“No, it is just that…In my time it was only wealthy, learned women who could read and write. My mother read poems and romances, and my father said that was why she was always unhappy, because they misled her in some way.” He shrugged. “I think they gave her some happiness in a life that was not happy.”

“Reading can do that. Transport you to somewhere else, just for a while.” She appeared pensive. “But ordinary men and women did not read and write?”

“No.”

“So…none of your people can read? None of the children?”

“They ask Julius.”

“And this Julius character could tell them whatever he liked, and they’d have to accept it?”

“Julius is a good man—”

“What if your cook was feeling miserable, and wanted to read a poem or two to cheer herself up? What if the butcher wanted to check his profits against his losses? What if the tavern wench wanted to write her lover a letter, to tell him not to come on Saturday because her father would be there?”

His mouth twitched. “They would ask Julius to do it for them.”

Amy gave him a look of disgust as if this lack was his fault. “It’s wrong. It’s not fair.”

“Fair?”

“Oh, I forgot. You’re a feudal lord, no one gets to vote. Still, I would have thought, as a Marcher Lord, a king in his own kingdom—to quote you—you’d have been a bit more innovative, Rey. After all, if your people could read, they would begin to think for themselves, they wouldn’t be so dependent on you. But that’s it, isn’t it? You’re worried that if they think too much for themselves, then they’ll rebel against you and…” She took a breath. “Well, it’d be the end for men like you.”

As usual some of her words were strange, but he understood her meaning well enough to disagree with it. He shook his head. “You are wrong, Amy. I do care for my people. I did not want them harmed. I wanted peace and prosperity, not just for myself but for them, too. My father believed in the glory of war, and I grew up looking at suffering faces and ravaged land. By the time I inherited, I had seen more than enough of starvation. I was determined to take a different road, whatever it cost me.”

Amy felt tears sting her eyes and looked away so he wouldn’t see how affected she was by his words. He had touched some deep intrinsic belief inside her. The endless fight of right against might, of strong against weak. She had grown up with it on the Parkhill Estate, seen the daily struggle of people to make some sort of life for themselves in difficult conditions.

Now, hearing how Rey felt was like looking into her own heart. Rey wanted to use his power and position to make sure everyone had a fair go; Amy wanted to teach them to read, to think. She wanted to inspire. If she’d had that influence in her life early on, then maybe she wouldn’t have had to wait until she was twenty-two years old to turn her life around.

Thrown dangerously off-balance, her only defense was humor. Somehow she dredged up a flip comment.

“A perfect world, eh? I wish you luck then, Rey. In my experience perfect worlds exist only in books and movies.”

He seemed to see right through her. “I do not believe you are so cynical. You say you wish to be a teacher, to help children to read? Damsel, you are a good person who wants to help others.”

“Rey, you are so wrong!”

He folded his arms. “Then what is it you are striving for?”

“There’s a question!”

Until she started the teacher training, Amy hadn’t really striven for very much of anything. Her past had been like a dark stain in her life, and it was only recently she’d begun to escape from it. Did anyone really have such high moral goals as Rey? In her experience, people only cared about themselves and their immediate gratification. Which led her to the conclusion that he was either a liar…or a rare man indeed.

“Cannot you answer me, Amy? Are you afraid to?”

Amy shook her head. “No, I’m not afraid to. I was thinking that, given our differences—you being a Marcher Lord and all—we’re actually quite similar. I think the world would be a far better place if the strong looked after the weak. I don’t know…the older I get, the more cruelty I seem to see around me, and I want to make a difference. I want to change things for the better.”

“You
are
the woman I thought you to be.”

“I assure you, I’m not!”

But he didn’t believe her; she could tell by the glint in his eyes.

Time to change the subject.

Amy cleared her throat. “Where is this chronicle you were talking about?”

Annoyingly, he smiled, as if he’d won some contest between them, and reached inside his tunic. The thin, magazine-sized book he pulled out had been photocopied from the original. The back section was a translation of the Latin into modern English. Amy cast a wary eye over it.

“I’m no expert, but I think it’s a bit like a Book of Days. He writes about what was happening in spring and summer and winter and so on…” She read to herself for a moment.