Suzanne Robinson (8 page)

Tristan lifted a ravaged countenance to her and hissed, “You know not of a certainty. No one can be sure. What if I’m trapped forever in this soulless void? I have nothing to grasp, nothing upon which to stand, no name, no past, no family—nothing.”

Pen hesitated, then squeezed his arm briefly. “If such a thing comes to pass, why, then, you will be Tristan, brought to this isle through the enchantment of a storm. You will begin from there.”

He gave her a twisted smile.

“Dare I hope, Mistress Fairfax, to receive your sweet comfort? It seems you’re not alone in having needs. Is that not a thunderstroke of a discovery?”

Pen felt heat rush to her cheeks, but before she could recover her wits, the blast of a horn caused both of them to spring to their feet.

“Jesu, what is that foul noise?” Tristan asked, grimacing.

Pen listened to the horn, then burst into a run. “It’s Dibbler and the pigs! Come, we must hurry before Ponder gets them.”

She burst out of the keep and down the stairs. As he joined her in running across the bailey to the gatehouse, she heard him mutter.

“Pigs again. God deliver me from perfidious storms and pigs.”

TO ROAST A PIG

T
o roast a pig curiously, you shall not scald it, but draw it with the hair on, then, having washed it, spit it and lay it to the fire so as it may not scorch, then being a quarter roasted, and the skin blistered from the flesh, with your hand pull away the hair and skin, and leave all the fat and flesh perfectly bare; then with your knife scotch all the flesh down to the bones, then baste it exceedingly with sweet butter and cream, being no more but warm; then dredge it with fine bread crumbs, currants, sugar, and salt mixed together, and thus apply dredging upon basting, and basting upon dredging, till you have covered all the flesh a full inch deep; then the meat being fully roasted, draw it and serve it up whole.

Tristan followed the whirlwind that was his benefactress as she scurried up the stairs within the gatehouse to the battlements. She’d changed on him again, launching into her guise as a kind of madcap female outlaw. No woman should behave so. And while she was doing it, she was wearing blue and white, a gown of fine wool that made her look like a bit of sky and clouds topped by the sunshine that was her hair. He chased strands of gold up the stairway.

Once on top, he found her dancing with excitement and gazing across the countryside in the direction of the wood. Beside her stood the pink and earnest Erbut, grasping a rope that dropped over the castle wall. Both Erbut and his mistress were pointing and shouting.

“Hurry, make haste!” cried Pen.

She jumped up and down and waved her arms. Not a few moments before, she’d been comforting him sweetly. Where was Penelope Fairfax, the gentlewoman?

Tristan watched Pen in irritated disapproval. Then he shaded his eyes and looked over the battlements to see Dibbler, Wheedle, and Sniggs herding their porcine charges down the path that led from the woods to the castle. Beside him Pen hopped and shrieked encouragement as the pig guard tried to hurry animals never meant to go faster than an energetic saunter.

Behind them came five men on foot, all of them armed, all of them limping and stumbling. The spectacle of liveried men-at-arms chasing pigs caused Tristan to squeeze his eyes shut in disbelief. Upon opening them, he watched the pig guard exhort its waddling charges up to the castle and over the drawbridge while Pen and Erbut cheered.

As the pursuers raced toward the drawbridge, Pen tugged on his arm.

“Help us!”

She stepped behind Erbut and grabbed a length of the rope, bracing her feet. He hesitated, knowing her lunatic habits.

“Come, Tristan, before it’s too late,” she pleaded.

He shook his head, but at her imploring look, he relented and took up the rope.

“Pull now!” she cried.

They all yanked on the rope. Nothing happened. Tristan rolled his eyes and sighed. Then he put his full strength into the chore, pulling so hard, they all stumbled backward as it gave. Then something caught, and the rope stopped. Pen careened into him, and Erbut into her. Tristan crashed to the floor with both on top of him.

Luckily they scrambled off before he suffocated. He leapt up and joined Pen in hanging over the wall. Below, on the path before the drawbridge, the five men-at-arms churned and scrabbled in the dirt. Tristan followed the rope that hung over the wall to where it angled around a post and fastened to a net that had been covered with dirt and straw.

He surveyed the victims with a frown while Dibbler and Wheedle rushed back across the drawbridge. Pen shouted instructions at them as they drew the ends of the net over the men before they could stand. Then
the two hurried back inside the gatehouse, and the drawbridge rose. Erbut went to join his comrades farther along the wall walk. Unable to quite accept what he’d seen, Tristan said nothing when Pen clapped her hands and bent over the trapdoor at the top of the stairs.

“Well done, Wheedle,” she called.

“Think you so?” he asked, but she hadn’t heard him.

He joined her at the door and peered down at the pig girl. Wheedle was one of those girls one could mistake for a boy. She wore heavy, cracked leather boots, hose, and a long smock wherever she went. Her lanky hair was shorn in ragged lengths, and her face seemed permanently begrimed so that her blue eyes stood out against their smudged surroundings.

Wheedle beamed up at them. “Guess who we got in the big net in the woods, mistress.”

“Not Ponder.”

“Aye, mistress. He’s hanging there like a plump Christmas goose.”

Pen clapped her hands again and hopped in place. “Right marvelous, Wheedle.”

Tristan uttered a curse of exasperation and walked back to gaze at the men struggling in the net. One had managed to free himself and was unwrapping the others. Erbut, Dibbler, and several other castle denizens jeered at them from the battlements and threw sticks and clods of mud. Once freed, the men shouted a few curses at their tormentors before limping back down the path to the woods.

“Come, Tristan,” Pen said as she joined him. “I can show you Highcliffe before mealtime.” She gazed down upon her handiwork and nodded to herself with a smile.

She expected him to approve! Barely containing his
aggravation, he pointed at the men-at-arms. “Again you engage in this foolhardiness. You set some sort of trap for those men, for Cutwell.”

Pen was watching the retreating men-at-arms and didn’t appear to notice his ire.

“Marry, I haven’t laughed so since Twistle put a purgative in Ponder’s favorite wine.” Her laughter bubbled over, showering him with its beauty.

Regardless of his disapproval, as she laughed Tristan felt his body grow light. The laughter took on a hollow quality and began to echo until he heard someone else’s laughter. Without warning, he felt a jolt of familiarity—a woman’s laughter. She was tall, much taller than he, with ebony hair and eyes. Tolerant laughter.
Run away, child. I’ve much to attend. Run away, child
.

He blinked, then gasped, but the vision was gone and Pen was calling him. He glanced down to find her at his side, her warm hand on his arm, gazing up at him with unfeigned concern. He caught her hand, knowing without thinking the words that the feel of it nestling in his would anchor him. Her gaze darted to their hands. For a moment he thought she would pull away from him, but she didn’t.

“Is aught wrong?” There was a tremor in her voice that spoke at once of fear and attraction. “Are you ill?”

“I think not,” he said, distracted by the quaver in her voice. Then he shook his head. “There was something, some memory. A long-ago memory, I think. Mayhap from my childhood, but I can’t make sense of it.”

Pen smiled at him. “Saints, did I not say you would get well?”

“But there was nothing. No names, nothing attached to the vision. It may only be a dream.” He dropped her hand, turned away from her, and pounded the stones
of the battlement. “God’s breath, I can’t endure this blankness.”

She came to him and touched his arm. “You need distraction. Let me show you Highcliffe.”

In the distance he heard Dibbler and his crew chortling. Tristan groaned and turned to her.

“Oh, no. I’ll not be diverted again.” He fixed her with his gaze. “You haven’t any understanding of the proper way to govern a castle and its lands. What demon’s whim caused you to send those folk out on such a dangerous errand? This quarrel between you and Cutwell will end in someone’s death if you’re not careful.”

“Saints!”

Pen’s cry was so sudden that he started.

“Saints and saints and saints.” She paced back and forth in front of him, her arms waving. “Is there no end to your infernal arrogance? You don’t know Ponder Cutwell and his lust for Highcliffe. Has it occurred to you that I’m doing what I can with the little I have to defend myself?”

She stopped in front of him and looked him over from head to foot. “And what makes you think, my Lord Remember-Naught, that you know anything at all about governing a castle?”

Taking a step that brought him so close his chest almost touched her breasts, Tristan growled out his answer.

“I know enough not to start a pig war.”

Pen tossed her head. “There’s naught to be alarmed about. Ponder will be busy trying to get out of that net. He’s as wide as a galleon and won’t have an easy time of it.”

“Then I would advise you to use the time to prepare for attack,” he said, bending so that his lips were level with hers. “If you’d trussed me in a net, I’d breach your walls and toss you in your own jakes.”

Pen’s neck craned back at an awkward angle as she tried to avoid him. This time he was ready for the sudden appearance of apprehension in her eyes. He spoke softly to her before she decided to run.

“What is it you fear, Gratiana?”

She didn’t answer, only looked up at him as if trying to find the courage to flee. His own senses were filled with the luminous gold of her eyes, the desire to touch those slight curves. Not daring to break their gaze, he held it until the last possible moment as he sought her mouth. His tongue touched her lower lip. It quivered, sending jabs of craving from his head down to his groin. Something about that trembling excited him past endurance, and he opened his mouth over hers. He felt her cry, though his mouth smothered it. He grabbed for her too late.

She vanished in a whirl of golden hair and flurry of skirts. He darted after her. He emerged from the stairway only to run into her, as she had stopped in confusion in the shadows. They collided gently, and he caught hold of her arms. To his right loomed the upright mass of the drawbridge and portcullis, to his left, rays of sunlight pierced the open doorway that led to the outer bailey. Although there were half a dozen people nearby, they were alone.

“You should have remembered what happens when we come so close, Gratiana.” His voice sounded hollow and disembodied in the dark, empty gatehouse. “Look. There’s a silver beam of light in your hair. It’s turned to wild mist.”

She tried to disengaged herself, but he held her firmly.

“I don’t want—”

“Jesu, woman, you know not what you want.”

He began to move, edging her back into the shadows
and against a wall. He pulled her arms up around his neck and held them there. In the darkness he traced the line of her face with his lips—forehead, nose, lips. How many women had he kissed? Surely never one who made him feel this agony of pleasure. He opened his mouth and delved inside her with his tongue. Yes, he must have done this before, but he couldn’t have felt nearly so bemused.

Entwining his fingers in her hair, he felt the ever-present weight of dread at his lost memory lift. Once it was gone, he realized how greatly he’d suffered from it.

Pen’s body slid against his, and he realized she was trying to slip away from him.

“Please,” he said, and she stopped, listening in the darkness. “Please, don’t leave me. I would never harm you, my Gratiana.”

Then he nuzzled her nose with his. All at once he felt the stiffness in her body slacken.

She whispered to him. “I never wanted to kiss a man—a particular man, that is. You don’t know. You can’t understand.”