Suzanne Robinson (13 page)

“You got no right to come here and make her endure them fantastical visions again!”

He’d pounced on this, but Nany closed her mouth and didn’t open it except to mumble that if Pen wanted to tell him about the curse, she would. And so he’d determined to find out the truth. Dear Pen. She’d been
so afraid he’d think her cursed, as did Nany. Yet as far as he could divine, this ability, this gift, caused no harm to anyone. How could it, when Pen possessed a golden benevolence, a lightness of spirit beyond measure, a nature suffused with compassion.

Since he’d awakened at Highcliffe, he’d been driven near to madness by Pen’s antics and apparent heedlessness, and yet fascinated by them at the same time. Desperate to hold himself aloof until he regained his memory, he had fought not to care for her. When had he lost this battle?

Was it when he discovered her wrestling with a pig outside a bedchamber? Mayhap it had been when she refused to let him succumb to black desperation. Or had he lost the struggle when she’d buried him under a pile of oddments—everything from sleeves to dulcimers? Or mayhap it was when he’d opened his eyes and found her floating above him surrounded by cherubs and peacocks.

Musing over his sparse yet colorful collection of memories, he finally lapsed into sleep. As he dozed, he heard that disembodied murmur. It came to him in waves, as though washed to him by some unseen power. He wondered sleepily if he should rouse himself and ask Pen if she heard anything, but the chanting lulled him deeper into rest until he thought about it no more.

He could have sworn he’d been asleep only a moment, when banging at the chamber door woke him. He groaned as Pen sat up, digging her elbow into his chest. He heard the banging again, and his unknown training asserted itself.

He sprang out of bed, grabbed his new sword from its sheath, and faced the door. He braced himself, but Pen flew past him. Glancing over her shoulder, she eyed the weapon.

“Peace, Tristan. Can you not hear? It’s only Nany.”

He sheath the sword. “Cursed noisesome old crone.”

“Now, Tristan.”

He turned and bent over a clothing chest and found his hose and shirt behind it. He glanced up to find Pen staring at his hips.

“Saints,” she murmured as Nany began to bang on the door again.

He grinned at her and dropped the clothing. She turned away, blushing and opened the door a crack.

“Mistress, there be a messenger without, from Much Cutwell.”

“Tell him to go away.”

“We did,” said Nany, blowing a strand of gray hair off her forehead and waving an ale mug. “He won’t go. Keeps howling before the drawbridge. He’s upsetting the bees and the doves, mistress.”

“Then send Dibbler out to receive the message. We’ll be down soon.”

Tristan sat on the bed to pull on his boots and heard Nany hiss at Pen.

“Be you well, mistress?”

He glanced up to find Nany scowling at him like a harpy faced with a minotaur. He frowned back at her, stood, and took a step toward the door. Nany scooted back, sniffed, and disappeared.

He and Pen washed hurriedly. Although he was tempted to delay while Pen bathed herself in cold water from a basin, he knew better. Wiser to go slowly after so active a night.

He wrapped his belt and scabbard around his waist as Pen dressed. Soon they stood facing each other. He noted her apprehensive glance at his weapon. Smiling, he extended his hand. She swallowed, then gave him
her hand. He knew she was holding her breath. When she released it, he chuckled.

“You see. I’m no different with it on than with it off.”

She drifted into his arms and lay her head on his shoulder. “I was afraid the sword might contaminate you with its nature, but you’re too strong for it. Thank God you’re so strong.”

He didn’t understand her, but if she was content, he wouldn’t question her reasoning. Together they emerged from Pen’s chamber, and met a gathering of servants and villagers in the hall. As they entered, he murmured in Pen’s ear.

“Last night was no secret, Gratiana.”

She gave him one of her blazing smiles. “I care not.”

They met a sea of stares. At their appearance, Dibbler broke from the mass and hurried to them. Glancing warily at Tristan, he handed Pen a sealed letter. She opened it, and they read it together.

“What a marvel,” Pen said as she finished.

Tristan lifted a brow. “Is this Cutwell so generous a soul as to forgive and offer peace?”

Pen chuckled and raised her voice to the onlookers. “What say you? Is Sir Ponder Cutwell a generous soul?”

The answer was a din of hoots, guffaws, and jeers.

“A most excellent trick, then,” Tristan said, taking her hand and forgetting about Ponder Cutwell.

“Aye,” Pen said, “a most excellent one indeed. And one we shall ignore. Are you hungry?”

He bent close to her ear. “After last night’s labors, my stomach is as shriveled as my—”

“Tristan!”

He grinned as she clamped her hand over his mouth. He kissed her palm, and she removed her hand in
order to press it against an inflamed cheek. Glancing about and finding dozens of gazes fixed upon her, she stamped a foot and sent them scattering to their tables.

She turned to him. “I’ll not sit in this hall and be gaped at.”

“Shall I have Twistle bring food to the well room?”

“Please.”

He sent her ahead, and gave orders to Twistle for bread, cheese, and ale, then followed her. In the well room Pen was drawing two chairs to a brazier. He went to the well and began lowering the pail. He hadn’t been jesting about his hunger, but his thirst was worse. He began cranking up the pail, and when it reached the top, leaned over the well to grasp it.

As he bent, a heavy weight rammed into him and he collapsed over the ledge of the well. Without thinking, he jammed his elbow backward and reared up off the ledge. He heard shrieking, as if a herd of sheep were arguing with a magpie.

Someone pounded his shoulders, and he fell over the ledge again. He felt his legs being lifted. His head sank into damp blackness. He heard an echoing shout—Pen. The blackness engulfed him, but he gripped the ledge and kicked with both feet.

One foot met a solid bulk that went flying as he jabbed it. Suddenly the weight on his back lifted. He propelled himself up and back over the edge of the well, whirled, and drew his sword.

“Tristan, no!”

Enraged, he didn’t respond at first when Pen grabbed his arm and shouted at him. He located his enemies, two of them. He pointed his weapon. Then he recognized his opponents.

“God’s beard,” he said, breathing heavily. “It’s the crone and the cook.”

Nany leaned on a broom and puffed while Twistle fermented, fumed, and pawed the ground. He sheathed his sword, at a loss as to how to answer an attack by two women. Pen was in no doubt. Sweeping past him, she planted herself in front of them.

“What mean you by this parlous attack? Come, don’t quail and yammer.”

Twistle stomped forward, curtsied to her mistress, and pointed at Tristan. “We did fit the action to his, mistress. We took an oath between us that if he stayed with you the night and did not come forth betrothed, we’d drop him down the well and not let him out until he said his vows.”

Tristan wanted to rub his ears to see if his hearing had been disturbed by being turned upside down. He glanced at Pen, whose eyes glittered with mirth as she looked from him to her serving women.

“Fie, Twistle. Would you have me marry a man floundering in a well?”

“Aye, mistress,” said the cook, pushing up the sleeves of her gown to reveal thick arm muscles. “Shall I push him in and fetch the old priest?”

“Now, Twistle …”

Tristan’s amusement subsided as he listened, for it seemed as if the well room faded around him. He was aware of a vague feeling of remorse at not knowing whether he could promise himself to Pen, but that feeling dwindled as an image flitted into his mind and began to take on substance.

A crowd of men in the practice yard. He shouted with the rest of them and hooted at the two boys fencing in a circle of cheering men. The two boys, one dark, the other light, fought with the frenzy of long-held grudges and old hatred.

He cheered the dark one, the one whose hair was as
black as his own, who moved as he did, whose voice was a deeper version of his own. He hated the golden one. Then the golden one lost his sword. It stuck in the earth, and the boy bent to retrieve it.

Tristan screamed for the dark one to take his chance. While his hero charged, passing him as he went, Tristan yelled and gave him an encouraging shove. Catapulted by this additional force, the dark one lunged forward just as the light one pulled his sword from the earth. The sword came up. Tristan shouted. The dark one glanced back, distracted—and plunged onto the sword.

Tristan threw up his hand and called out. Someone shook him, and the sound of men screaming dimmed, then vanished. His attention, indeed his whole being, seemed to alter, called back from the twilight of memory by the sound of Pen’s voice.

“Tristan, what ails you? Tristan?”

“It was my fault. All this time, it was my fault.”

Pen took his face in her hands and made him look at her. “Tristan, take heed of me. What ails you?”

“I’ve remembered something.”

Twistle snorted. “He’s remembered two or three wives, no doubt.”

“No, just a fragment, some scrap from long ago.” Tristan rested his hip on the edge of the well while Pen held his hand. “But no names. Only faces. There was a man. I think he was my father, and two boys, one dark and one light.” He stared at his boot. “The dark one died.”

Nany Boggs finished a long slurp of ale and wiped her mouth with her sleeve. “But not a hint about your own name. How can he marry without a name? We never thought of that.”

He was still trying to stretch and thicken the memory, but it wouldn’t grow, except for this new feeling of
boundless guilt and remorse. This was no dream. This was a real memory—one he wished he hadn’t recovered. If he could cause someone’s death in childhood, what was he now as a man?

Where once he longed for his memory’s return, he now dreaded it. He was convinced that the dark-haired youth had been someone important to him, and he had killed him as surely as if he’d held that sword. Jesu, of what else was he capable? What other foul acts had he committed?

Pen squeezed his hand, and he glanced up at her. She was studying him anxiously, so he smiled at her. She must never know how terrible was his sin, for she trusted him without reservation. And he didn’t think he could bear to see her enraptured gaze turn to a disdainful one if he told her the truth. He would confide only part of the memory to her, but not everything. He didn’t even want God to know the whole of it.

Sir Ponder Cutwell labored up the stairs to the first floor and puffed his way to the high great chamber. Pausing on the threshold to regain his breath, he passed sweaty hands over the fox fur that edged the sleeves of his gown. A voice snapped at him.

“Well?”

Ponder stuck his thumbs in the belt that encircled his jelly-pot stomach. “It’s been done, but there’s been no reply. That cur Dibbler shoved my man out with no answer to the message. He wouldn’t let him wait. If I could get my hands on that pig thief, I’d wrap his guts around a cart wheel.”

His guest flew at him in a streak of black fury, and Ponder found his neck balancing on the tip of a dagger.

“How long, Cutwell?”

“I know not.” He felt a prick, and blood seeped down his throat. “Ouch! But—but—but I’ve plied the villagers for news.”

The dagger retreated. Pulling a kerchief from the sleeve of his gown, Ponder dabbed the nick on his throat and hastened with his explanation.

“The young man at the castle suffers from a blow to the head which has robbed him of all memory. He knows nothing of himself or how he came to Penance Isle.”

Snakelike, his guest wove closer to Sir Ponder and hissed. “It’s some ruse.”

“Mayhap, but every villager and most of the castle folk believe this malady to be real. Even the lady, Mistress Fairfax, believes him, and she’s not a woman who can be fooled easily. If she were, I’d have had her and Highcliffe long ago.”

Ponder fluttered his hands. “And there is much talk of how Mistress Fairfax is mortal enamored of the stranger. I fear that she won’t release him, for she’s more than twenty and a maid. To get her to give him up would be like taking a honey pot from a bear.”

The guest turned away from Ponder and slithered over to a line of windows that let in great, wide sunbeams. Blinking in the light, he mused for a while, then addressed his host.

“I’ve no time to besiege that castle.”

“Nor have I the engines with which to besiege it.”

The guest turned suddenly to scour Ponder with his gaze. “You say that Mistress Fairfax is a loyal English subject.”

“Oh, aye. She devours her cousin’s letters about good Queen Bess and the doings of the great in England. She’s always saying how her majesty has steered clear
of war and made policies for the good of her common subjects. Fostered trade and saved money and such.”

Ponder watched, entranced by long, clean fingers that drummed on the sill of a window. He studied the short cloak, the black doublet embroidered with gold, the gold and black onyx ring on the left hand. He jumped when that serpentine voice resumed speech.

“Then I must study to make her want to give him to me. I must drive them apart.”

“But how?”

The guest smiled a reptilian smile. “By turning him into what she hates.”

“But Mistress Fairfax is difficult to beguile.”

Turning back to the window, the guest shrugged. “You have a few days to establish yourself as a peacemaker in the eyes of Mistress Fairfax. A week at the most. After that, I shall go to Highcliffe and claim the stranger.”

“But how? That Fairfax harpy is more stubborn than a hundred goats.”

“And I must have the services of your blacksmith.”

“But—”

“Blood of Christ! No more protestations. See to it that you mend your quarrel with Mistress Fairfax before the week is out, for I intend to show her castaway the inside of your deepest, blackest cellar.”