The Barbarian (2 page)

"Must
I?" Amias finally responded through gritted teeth. This was the fifth
"husband" she'd been sent to by the king and her scheming uncle
Giles. Her new potential husband was probably in love with someone else
already, like two of the others. Perhaps he would be a scrawny, knock-kneed
boy, too terrified at the prospect of a wife that he ran away, just as the
first one did. Or she would find him on his deathbed, about to draw his final
breath, like the last man who was supposed to save her from the fate of an old
maid. People had begun to say Amias of York was cursed never to marry. She
rather liked the idea, since it gave her a menacing aura. If one could not have
great beauty or charm, at least one might have an aura, and if it scared people
away, all the better. Her younger cousins had beauty and personality that could
light up a hall when they entered it; Amias could snuff out the candles with
one scowl.

Nothing in life
gave her any cause to smile—except when she saw someone slip on an icy road, or
bang their head, or poke themselves in the eye. Amias had a tendency to laugh
when no one else did.

"Ami, you
have not a single, tender woman's bone in your body, " her elder cousin
Emma would say, when they were children and living together briefly in the same
house.

"Bones are
not meant to be tender," she would reply. "My bones are
unbreakable."

And so she became
Ami the Unbreakable
.

Orphaned since
early childhood, she barely remembered her mother and the man she'd called
father was not, in fact, her sire. At ten she'd learned that she was one of the
king's bastards. A nervous, fidgety child, she was flattered and awed when King
William sent for her to ask about her music lessons, her sewing and her riding
progress. He seemed to like her, petting her hair and laughing when she dared
find the courage to answer his questions, but she soon realized that he
assessed her only as another of his possessions, a commodity. In time, she came
to realize that this was how all men viewed her. Eventually she was sent to
live with Giles Du Barry, the Baron of Burleigh, who was her mother's brother
and one of the most powerful men in the country. Together, Uncle Giles and the
king sought to find a husband for Amias, but so far each of her prospects came
to naught. She had a sizeable dowry, but she also had a sizeable temper and
bold knights who made their names on the battlefield and the jousting lists,
were not so brave when they faced the wrath of Ami the Unbreakable.

Uncle Giles had
threatened to shut her away like a madwoman, but she knew he would not dare as
long as her father, the king, was still living. He found other ways to punish
her instead.

Now a grown woman
and almost beyond her prime, Ami was accustomed to being sent about the country
and inspected like a brood mare. There were few things in life that surprised
or perturbed her these days. Nor was there much that roused her curiosity
either.

"I wonder
what your husband will be like, my lady," the maid exclaimed with a degree
of excitement that her mistress found bleakly amusing.

Turning her head,
she looked quizzically at the girl bouncing on the seat beside her. "Do
you indeed?"

"You must be
anxious to meet him, my lady. You must have butterflies in your belly."
Ami ducked as another drop of rain landed on her forehead from the leaking
cloth canopy. "Butterflies?" She laughed sharply and then sneezed.

"The
fluttering, my lady. In here." The plump girl clasped her stomach with
both hands.

"You mean
indigestion and wind." Ami held a kerchief to her nose, fearing another
sneeze. With her free hand she lifted the old sailcloth drapery that, while it
was supposed to keep the cold out, simply strained the rain and blew about in
the wind, multiplying the draft around her ankles. Glaring at the passing
winter scenery, she muttered, "Villette, there is no mystery about men. If
you've met one, you've met them all. The size of the cock might vary but he
still crows every morning at sunrise and struts about the yard, full of
himself, convinced of his own importance in the world."

Stark, bare tree
limbs rattled in the brisk wind as they traveled by at their lumbering pace.
Angry spittle of never-ending rain hit her face. Ami dropped the sailcloth with
a disdainful flick of her hand and sighed curtly.

"This fool in
want of a wife will be no different."

Any man who lived
out here, in the back of beyond, would be primitive, loutish, probably
uneducated. He could be an old man or a young one. She had no idea, having been
told next to nothing about him.
 
As usual
she was shuttled across the country at everyone else's convenience and in
another of her uncle's desperate, hasty schemes. In a few weeks Uncle Giles
could easily change his mind, find a better prospect to suit his own ambitions,
and send her elsewhere.

And her feet were
damned cold. There were few things she hated more than uncomfortable feet. She
sneezed again.

"Bless you,
my lady," Villette exclaimed. "I hope you do not get a cold."

She felt her scowl
deepening, knew it would make "unbecoming" lines in her face— didn't
care. Let her new husband find a wrinkled old crone at his gate. Let him send
her back to her uncle Giles, an unopened package returned. It would not be the
first time, would it?

But Ami knew this
could be the last time. She was already one and twenty. Her uncle's daughters
were younger, fresh-faced saplings, tame and obedient, far more likely to make
good matches. They were thirteen and fourteen now. Very soon Uncle Giles would
begin marrying them off and Ami would fall further back in his consideration,
an item of depreciating value with every passing season that took her beyond
from her prime child-bearing years. Time would also take the king's last breath
one day. He was an old man and, of course, he would not live forever. When he
died Ami knew her uncle would put her in a convent, or perhaps dispose of her
in a dark pit somewhere, as he'd threatened several times.

So she must make a
choice between this last-chance husband, a madhouse, a convent or death.
Choices, choices
, she mused dryly.
What was a girl to do with such an abundance
of opportunity in the world?

To further sour
her mood, the little maid at her side commenced to hum. It was a tune that had
come and gone periodically throughout their travels, often starting up quite
suddenly, always unbidden, and ended by a curt word from Ami. Since she was not
in possession of a quicksilver mind, Villette would pick up the same tune
again, once enough time had elapsed for her to forget the intensity of her
lady's displeasure. Thinking about this curious memory lapse more deeply, Ami
wondered if it was simply an example of the girl's stupidity or if it was
something more sinister. Perhaps Villette, with her wide, blank-stare was
actually a criminal mastermind sent to drive her to despair. No one could
possibly become such an accomplished torturer by accident.

Occasionally, when
it was allowed to continue beyond the first few notes, the humming was replaced
with words, but these were merely snatches of song, suggesting Villette could
not recall all the lyrics, or perhaps had never known them. It did not prevent
her from repeating lines or adding unlikely words of her own choosing to make
up for the lost parts.

As far as Ami
surmised, it was a song about a bird that, having pierced itself upon a brier,
did nothing with its last breath of life but chirp away on the subject of
unrequited love and broken hearts. Oh, she dearly wished she had a slingshot at
hand. Sometimes it was kindest to put a wounded creature out of its misery.

She opened her
mouth to demand silence of the singing maid, but another sneeze shot out of her
and she buried her face in the kerchief.

Suddenly there was
a jolt, more violent than any preceding it, and then a series of loud splashes.
Again she looked out to see they were crossing through muddy water. A nearby
river must have overflowed in all the recent rain and broke its banks to flood
a broad dip in the road.
 
The horses
whinnied in protest at the icy cold and several items from the caravan had
fallen into the water.

The wagon halted
and it soon became apparent the wheels were stuck. With a great creaking of
leather harness the horses struggled to pull her wagon free, but there was no
doubt about it. They were firmly trapped. Brown flood water was half way up the
jammed wheels of the wagon already and it seemed to rise higher just in the few
seconds it took to register the danger of their situation. Churning swells
surrounded them on all sides.

Villette cried
out, gripping the arm of her mistress so tightly she almost cut off the blood
flow. "We shall be drowned, my lady. Save me!"

Shoving her aside,
Ami raised the flap of sailcloth again, higher this time, and looked
impatiently for the guard who usually rode alongside. "What are you
doing?" she demanded, seeing him dismounted, standing in water up to his
waist.

"Wheel's
stuck," he replied.

"No? Really?
I can see that, you blithering fool."

His cheeks
colored. "Must be a log in the water—a tree down."

"Well, are
you going to do something about it, or just stand there, being as much use as a
bull without horns?"

Suddenly, amid a
wild whooping and hollering, six men on horseback galloped out of the nearby
trees and descended upon them. In that stunned moment there was little chance
to react. The cold, weary guard, who seemed to be a novice at his post, hadn't
even managed to get his sword from its scabbard, when the leader of the robbers
saw Ami looking out.

"That one's
mine," he bellowed, turning his horse directly for her, the flanks of the
great beast splashing through the filthy water and pushing her guard aside.

They were about to
be seized by ruffians.

Ami grabbed the
club beneath her seat and swung it hard at her attacker's arms as he reached
into the wagon. He cursed with words she'd never heard before, especially when
she had the satisfaction of making sharp contact with his elbow, but he
recovered enough to wrestle the club from her hands. There was no point
shouting for Villette's help, for the maid had fainted to a crumpled heap on
the wagon floor, and then Ami felt two hard, gauntleted hands close around her
ankles. She was jerked half way out into the frigid air, dragged like a slab of
meat on her belly, her gown hitched up to her thighs, exposing her woolen
stockings. She kicked and writhed with all her strength, even managed to land a
few solid punches and slaps, but before long she was flung face down, over the
shoulders of a horse. And the thighs of a man. She saw streaks of blood on his
breeches, mud encrusted on his boots.

"Be still,
wench," her kidnapper exclaimed, breathless from the fight. "Saints
preserve me, you kick like a mule. I'd like to keep my rump-splitter intact if
I am to service you with it. And I mean to get my money's worth."

"Put me down
at once, you filthy cur," she spat, more furious at the indignity of her
position and her disordered clothing, than she was fearful of what might happen
next. Ami had lived through war, plague and pestilence. She'd survived an unsettled
childhood in a procession of cold, drafty castles and frequently been
threatened with an early death because of her mouthy and reckless disregard for
the rule of men.
You're fortunate to be
the king's own blood,
an old nurse once told her,
if you were not his daughter and a favorite, someone would have
silenced you forever by now
. Whatever this brute had planned for her, he'd
better be prepared for a fight.

She heard the
hapless young guard shouting in French, but he had just dropped his sword in
the water and then, while trying to prevent it from drifting away on the swell
of flood, he fell with it.

Her abductor
bellowed to his band of brigands, "Save the horses first as they're of
most value."

Ami's teeth
rattled as they picked up speed. "You ignorant warthog, put me down at
once."

"That's fine
thanks for saving you, wench."

"Wench?
Wench
?" She could barely breathe,
fury scorched her throat. "You flea-ridden animal, let me go at
once!"

His heavy hand
came down on her buttocks, roughly pulling the cloth of her gown further up all
the way to her waist until she felt the brisk air on her skin. While his horse
kept the rapid bouncing pace that rendered her dizzy, he slapped her hard on
her bare bottom. She felt the worn leather of his gauntlet and heard his
laughter, as a series of quick, hard slaps vibrated though her body and pressed
her down even harder across his groin. She cursed, warning he would pay for
this scandalous treatment of her person.

At that threat her
kidnapper had the audacity to laugh harder. "Oh I will pay your price,
wench. Just as agreed. Worry not, I keep to my bargains."

She could scarce
believe her ears, but in the next breath his gloved forefinger slid down the
crack of her exposed backside, forced its way between her clenched thighs and
found her pussy lips. There he exerted pressure of a sort she'd only ever
experienced with her own hand. Heat flooded her sex and Ami knew her face —and
her arse—must be blushing scarlet.