The Warrior (4 page)

Absurdly, beyond all reason, despite all rational arguments with himself, he feared his own bride.

A bride he could not avoid facing very much longer.

2

Claredon Keep, England: April 1155

His first response when Ranulf spied his winsome bride on the battlements was supreme wariness, followed swiftly by unwelcome surprise. The plain, skinny child he remembered from five years before bore little resemblance to the tall, regal beauty he was looking at now.

God’s wounds! The recent reports of Ariane’s striking loveliness had been exaggerated perhaps, but not overmuch, Ranulf admitted grudgingly. The setting sun turned her fair, plaited hair to palest flame, while her fine-boned profile could have been carved from alabaster.

His loins tightened instinctively—a stirring he abruptly quelled. He was never invulnerable to a comely woman, but this was no time to be lusting after his bride, certainly not if she was contemplating treason against the crown.

Ranulf voiced a quiet oath under his breath as he stood watching Ariane from the shadows. He had spent the past months quelling resistance to the new king throughout the length and breadth of England, but rebellion from this quarter was entirely unexpected. King Henry had counted Walter of Claredon one of his firm supporters, which made his betrayal all the more treacherous. Walter had joined Hugh Mortimer’s revolt at Bridgenorth, thus earning Henry’s legendary rage. Ranulf had been sent here to Claredon to seize the traitor’s estates—and to apprehend Walter’s daughter.

At present, she stood, cool and defiant, on the wall-walk overlooking the entrance gates, directing the preparations for the castle’s defense. Everything below was chaos, the milling crowds and herds emitting a clamor of sound—shouts, thudding hooves, the squawks and squeals and brays of farm animals—as they poured across the drawbridge into the outer bailey. No fools, the serfs and villagers of Claredon sought refuge behind the thick stone curtain walls of the keep, all fleeing the wrath of the Black Dragon.

All were unaware that the Black Dragon himself had entered the gates with the first wave of refugees hours before and now stood in the shadow of a stone alcove on the battlements, a mere pebble’s toss from their lady.

“My lord?” his squire, Burc, whispered at his shoulder. “Do we arrest the demoiselle now or do we wait?”

“We wait.”

He would allow his betrothed to prove her intentions. Her father was in open rebellion against King Henry, which warranted her detention as a political prisoner, but it would go easier with her if she denounced Lord Walter’s treason and voluntarily surrendered his castle. It was still possible she would yield, although her current actions suggested otherwise. Judging from appearances, the Claredon heiress was girding for war.

Ranulf would have preferred to question her at once, but he would not risk approaching his bride yet, not until dusk fell to aid his disguise. The cowled monk’s robe he wore concealed his face and untonsured hair, but his great height and powerful frame were difficult to mask. He had stooped his shoulders and broadened his girth with a cushion tied over his belly, but he preferred to avoid recognition. Having to fight his way through such a motley crowd would not suit his purpose.

Already the armored knights and archers arrayed along the battlements made the vulnerable flesh between his shoulder blades itch. He had left off his chain mail and sword when he’d donned his coarse brown monk’s garb, and carried only a dagger as a weapon. His best squire, a lad chosen for his quick mind, would scarcely provide much support should the Claredon forces discover an enemy in their midst. Yet he’d elected religious garb as the least likely to arouse suspicion, while affording him the best opportunity to observe his betrothed—and put him in a better position to act should she defy the king’s command and close the gates against him.

A development that seemed imminent, judging by the frantic preparations going forth.

Ranulf’s jaw clenched. If his bride forced him to lay siege to the castle and risk his men’s lives, she would feel the vengeance of his sword.

Narrowing his eyes, Ranulf studied Ariane with unwilling admiration. Her tall, graceful frame gowned in rust-red bliaud and gold-linked girdle appeared as slender as a willow, too delicate to lead a retinue of knights and men-at-arms in defiance of her new liege, King Henry. She would not be the first of Henry’s subjects to attempt it, though, nor the last. Henry had been confronting unruly English barons since his first moment of arriving from Normandy four months ago. After being crowned king, he had moved swiftly to restore order in England, demolishing unlawful castles built during the late Stephen’s reign, crushing revolts, and defeating any of Stephen’s supporters who refused to swear fealty to their new ruler.

The current uprising was led by Hugh of Mortimer, who wished to set Stephen’s bastard son William on the throne in Henry’s stead. At this moment King Henry was besieging Mortimer’s castles in Shropshire. And Ranulf had been sent to Berkshire to take possession of Walter of Claredon’s demesne and to deal with his daughter.

At the moment she appeared deep in contemplation, a pose that only increased Ranulf’s wariness and mistrust. In his experience, females of her noble class who thought overmuch were intent on mischief and scheming.

He watched as Ariane raised a hand to her brow and bowed her head. Was she weeping? Praying?

No matter. He could not be swayed by tears. And God could not save her from his wrath if she was intent on treason. If she chose to support the rebellion against England’s lawful king, she would pay dearly for her betrayal.

The choice was hers to make.

“Shall we raise the drawbridge, my lady?” Simon Crecy asked quietly of his mistress. “Most of the villeins are accounted for.”

“A few moments more,” Ariane answered. “There may still be others who wish to seek the safety of Claredon.”

She felt Simon move to stand beside her. As her father’s chief vassal and commander of the garrison at Claredon, Simon had been left behind with a force of knights and men-at-arms when Walter rode to join Hugh Mortimer. Ariane was grateful for his company, for it helped ease the great burden of responsibility she shouldered.

“Simon?”

“Aye, my lady?”

“You have done well. My father shall hear of your efforts.”

Stealing a glance at him she saw him flush at her praise. They were of a height, but Simon was older than she by some dozen years and far more experienced in political and military matters. Ariane trusted him implicitly. She had always wondered if he might have sought her hand in marriage if not for her betrothal.

My perpetual betrothal,
she thought bitterly.

Her fingers clenched as she forced the reflection aside. She had vowed not to dwell on her lost hopes, her faded dreams.

Lifting her chin, Ariane gazed out over the parapet wall at the newly sown fields of Claredon, at the shimmering river winding sinuously toward the horizon, golden in the fading rays of sunset. The scene looked so peaceful—an illusion, to be sure.

She had never known true peace. She’d been reared during one of the most turbulent periods in England’s history, and while her father had managed by strategic combat and judicious political maneuverings to shield his estates from the devastation wreaked on much of England during Stephen’s reign, no aspect of their lives had remained untouched. In the past ten years, Walter had spent a fortune erecting new stone curtain walls around Claredon in place of the wooden ones, yet no walls could stretch far enough to shield the surrounding countryside from an invading army. If the lord of Vernay laid siege to Claredon, he would first destroy fields and stores and the rude homes of the peasantry in an attempt to starve the castle inhabitants into submission.

And his army was on the march. The distraught messenger who had ridden frantically in from Bridgenorth this morning with the incredible news about her father’s treason had also warned of the approach of the Black Dragon’s forces.

Mother of God, how she dreaded the possibility of war. Was there a way to prevent it short of surrender? How could she spare the lives of her people and yet remain loyal to her father? She had promised to hold Claredon Keep in his absence, and she would sooner be drenched with scalding oil than fail him. She would not destroy what little faith he had placed in her.

“Simon?” Ariane asked in a troubled voice. “Think you we take the right course?”

Simon shook his dark head. “I know not, my lady. Yet I believe this is what my Lord Walter would have wished. You know your betrothed better than I.”

“I doubt it. I met him but once, for a brief while, and that when I was a mere girl.” Her mouth twisted in a joyless smile as she recalled her one startling meeting with Ranulf de Vernay.

He had been a fully grown man then, nearly ten years her senior. When he invited her to walk with him alone in the castle garden, she dared not refuse, but his sheer presence had awed her, rendered her completely tongue-tied. Those amber hawk’s eyes had scrutinized her intently, as if she were his prey, driving her heart to her throat.

Yet, astonishingly, the lord of Vernay had seemed to understand her agitation and he had taken the time to ease her fears, indeed to charm her, chasing away her wariness, seducing her with his gentle teasing. To her utter amazement, he had asked if she consented to the betrothal.

Then, even before she had overcome her bewilderment, Ranulf had suddenly smiled at her, with a heart-stopping tenderness that incredibly, magically, melted the harshness from that cold, hard countenance.

She had lost more than her fear of Ranulf in that moment. She had lost her heart. She deemed the lord of Vernay a magnificent suitor, the embodiment of every girlhood dream. And she had vowed to herself then and there to make him a good, faithful wife.

What a fool she had been!

“I thought him kind and gentle,” she murmured to Simon. “Can you credit how poor my judgment was?”

“I have heard fearsome things said of him.”

She had heard the tales, too, over the years—of the Black Dragon’s prowess in combat, of his merciless vengeance. His very name, taken from the device on his shield and banner, struck fear in the hearts of lesser men.

“Some say de Vernay is Henry’s best field commander,” Simon murmured. “And his most brilliant tactician. He is known to have challenged and defeated his own father in battle. A most unnatural son.”

Ariane fell silent. Those tales of Lord Ranulf were the most shocking. His lady mother was said to have taken a peasant lover before Ranulf’s birth, so that he might well be a lowborn freeman’s offspring. Certainly Ranulf’s noble father doubted his parentage. Yves de Vernay had refused, even after his two older sons had died, to acknowledge Ranulf as heir. The Black Dragon had claimed his inheritance at the point of a sword.

“We should fare well enough,” Simon was saying. “Our forces are in position. We have adequate supplies—due to your own efforts, my lady. We can hold out for some time against a siege.”

“And you sent word to my father at Bridgenorth.”

“Two separate couriers, lady, to improve the chances of gaining through. If Lord Walter is free to come, he will.”

If he is free.

Ariane shook her head. Her shock at the recent turn of events still had not faded. Her father had been charged with high treason for conspiring with Hugh Mortimer against the crown. She simply
could
not believe him guilty; she knew him too well.

“The drawbridge, my lady?” Simon urged gently, interrupting her troubled thoughts. “ ’Tis dangerous to tarry longer.”

“Yes.” Gazing down at the approach to Claredon, Ariane realized that the final stragglers had entered the castle bailey. “We should proceed.”

Turning, Simon called down to the keeper of the gate. Almost at once a tremendous grinding of chains sounded as the huge wooden bridge was slowly raised.

The action came none too soon, for in the far distance a golden swirl of dust could be seen on the horizon—the kind of cloud kicked up by a rapidly approaching army. Ariane felt the muscles of her stomach tense with dread.