Fire Dance (2 page)

Wadding her discarded clothing into a ball, she flung it all into the open chest near the window, and almost closed the lid before noticing her mother's ring on her finger. She hesitated, caressing the carved warmth of the gold band.

Nay. All must be left behind. She jerked the ring from her finger, threw it into the chest, slammed the lid shut, and turned the key.

Footsteps pounded on the bailey's hard earth.

In the far corner of her chamber, Melisande pushed aside a painted wooden panel that mimicked the yellow plastered walls, then crawled through the hole and closed the panel. Down steps hewn into bedrock, she descended in darkness toward a cavern that was as familiar to her as her own bed chamber.

One, two, three–

both hands skimmed against the roughly chiseled stone as she counted the steps. The earl was dead,– -eight, nine– and the Norman had come. The Red King, William Rufus, would win at last the land he had coveted so long.– Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen– The Norman lord would take the castle in the king's name, then look about for the bride Rufus had promised him. And with any luck,– twenty-five, twenty-six– he would not find her.

– Twenty-seven.

Standing on the gritty cavern floor, Melisande bundled her fears into a tight little knot and shoved them deep inside her, too deep for her to feel. Deliberately she stretched each finger out from the tight balls made by her fists. She squared her shoulders.

She wished she'd had more time to plan, but the word of the Normans' approach had come only the day before. And only then had she learned of the English king’s intent to wed her to the new lord. She was fortunate her hastily conceived plan had achieved as much as it had, for at his worst, the Norman could not be as terrible a lord as Fyren had been.

For herself, she had little hope. Perhaps, given more time she might have also succeeded in her own escape. But she had no place to go, so she must hide under the Norman's very nose. But at least Fyren was dead, and his evil cloak would be buried with him. The destruction of the Devil himself could not please her more.

* * *

No one had stopped them. Not a sword raised, nor lance flung, from the time Alain De Crency and his knights had crossed the dry moat and ridden through the thick oak gate into the grassless bailey. Soldiers and knights stood about, their arms laid at their feet. Never before had he demanded a surrender and got it without a fight.

And never had he seen a castle quite like this one. Nowhere in the north, in fact, had he seen a stone castle at all. The nearly complete curtain wall of grey limestone seemed new, yet it surrounded an odd assortment of buildings that looked as if they had been around a very long time. An ancient hall of yellow sandstone seemed to march up the hillside, and had a strange wing added at the back that rose into a second story. Beside the hall stood the partially completed shell of a new tower, no defense at all in its present state.

"'Tis odd," said Chrétien, the knight's voice a low, cautious mumble as his brown eyes narrowed.

"How so?"

"I see but three men upon the curtain wall. All unarmed."

"Mmm. What of the hall?" Alain asked him. "Stables?"

"Naught. The defenses seem dismantled."

From the moment Alain had brought his army within sight of the massive stone walls, he had watched for trouble. The king had expected a long siege, believing Fyren would furiously protest this ouster at Rufus' command. But nowhere did he see signs that the castle would be defended. No great stretch of archers along the curtain wall's high allure, nor engines against a siege. Surely it could not be so easy.

Alain jumped down from his great bay charger and slapped the reins into his squire's hand. He strode across the bailey to the hall's paired doors, his eyes taking in all they could see.

"Let me go first," said Chrétien, with the suspicion of a battle-hardened veteran.

"Nay." Alain shook his head as reached the steps. The paired doors stood open. Did the earl's daughter hide within to attack him as he entered?

But no great army hid in the hall's dim light. Inside, he saw the same ancient Celtic appearance, spacious and stark, as the exterior. Massive beams supported a lead roof. Unusual, outside a church.

"Ah. A monastery. This was a monastery."

Chrétien's only response was the questioning arch of his brown brows.

Beyond the dais at the hall's far end, a silver-haired Saxon knight descended open wooden stairs and presented himself before them.

"I am Thomas," the knight said. "I know what you suspect, lord, that a trap awaits you, but there is none. The Lord Fyren has died just this last hour, and his daughter Lady Melisande bids me cede the castle to you."

Alain glanced at Chrétien, whose surprise equaled his own. "Fyren is dead?"

"Aye, lord."

"Where is the Lady Melisande?"

"Gone, lord."

"Gone? Where?" He should have thought she might abscond. That could be dangerous.

"I know not, lord."

"She is aware of the king's command, then?"

"Aye."

"And why does she dispute his order?"

"She says that William is not her king, to so command her. She asks that you be content with the castle. She cannot marry you."

No, he would not be content. He needed the bride as much as the demesne. But he was not one to play his hand openly, and he decided not to press that issue for the moment. "Then, take me to where the lord lies."

Thomas led them up the narrow wooden staircase to an open wooden balcony facing three chambers, each with its own door. Alain frowned. No man short of the king himself had the luxury of three private chambers.

He felt the shudder of a premonition run up his back. Rufus had said Fyren was no ordinary man. Certainly this strange castle spoke to that. Yet that powerful man had so conveniently died, and his daughter had merely opened the gates to them?

True, women did not always have the fire in them for a fight. Perhaps Fyren's daughter was as meek as her father had been powerful.

Thomas stood by the door to the chamber and waited for Alain to pass through. A carved bed stood in the center, with heavy draperies tied back against the posts. The corpse that lay on the bed, wrapped like a swaddled babe in a purple cloth, had a strangely innocent look to it. Seized by curiosity, Alain lifted the arm of the corpse and found it slack, rather than stiff. The skin was the ashen color of death.

"We had not heard he was ill," he said to Thomas. "What was the cause of death?"

"He took his own life, lord."

"Suicide? I cannot believe it."

"Still, it appears so. Some say he was driven mad by the ghost of the priest he killed."

Stepping back, Alain folded his arms. "I know naught of this, Thomas. Tell me the rest."

"After the death of his wife, the Lady Edyt, Father Leanian laid a curse on the lord. And for that, Lord Fyren had him murdered in his sleep."

"You know this to be true?"

"Aye."

"Did the priest accuse Fyren of the lady's death?"

"Aye. The lady died mysteriously. But that was the way of those who displeased Lord Fyren. There are those who believe him a sorcerer, and easily capable of such."

"Sorcerer." Alain tensed, recalling his last meeting with Rufus, a strange scene with much left unexplained.

There is unfathomable evil in the man, De Crency. I do not want him to live
. Had Rufus meant sorcery, then?

And you will take his daughter Melisande to wed, no questions asked
. Alain had laughed and asked if the lady had two heads. Mayhap she did.

Alain could still picture Rufus watching with fascination as he held a crumpled parchment to the brazier's coals. The king's perpetually stuffy nose wrinkled at the acrid smell as flames jumped forth from the glowing coals to consume it. Then Rufus dropped the parchment and watched the remainder of it dance a graceful pattern, like a flower opening, then shriveling in the devouring flames.

Odd though he was, Rufus was usually predictable. He had long coveted Cumbria, and wanted this conquest with uncommon ferocity. But he seemed to want this marriage even more. And he had explained nothing except that he had known the girl's mother when he had been a boy.

Sorcerer? Was this what Rufus had sent him to combat? Then why had he not said so? If so, surely there was little harm in Fyren now. Yet he felt his back prickle, as if anticipating a knife between his ribs.

"And what of his daughter?" Alain asked. "Did the priest also implicate her?"

"Nay, lord."

"Yet, she chooses to run, as a guilty one might. She cannot hope to escape."

"She is naught like her wicked father, lord."

"But she has no heart for a fight."

Alain's suspicious eyes caught Thomas in the very breath of denial before he quickly closed his mouth. "The lady wishes peace for her people," said Thomas. "She would not see them slaughtered, as many in the north have been."

"Where are her relatives?"

"She has only a few very distant ones north in Strathclyde. Her mother was of Durham, but all those are dead now."

"Friends?"

"None, save those folk about the demesne."

"Surely some of Fyren's knights must have brought their families from time to time."

"Nay."

"Why? Did he not wish connections for his daughter?"

Thomas shook his head, seeming genuinely sad. "I do not think he did. Ofttimes, he would keep the girl where none of us, not even her mother, saw her. So the girl was solitary, as befitted her father's wishes."

"Yet the knights honor her with their submission. She must at least have their loyalty. It appears you had no fondness for Fyren. Tell me honestly what you thought of him."

Thomas's eyes matched the hard, grim line of his mouth. "I know not, lord, if he was a madman, or the Devil's own tool. It matters little, for few men have been so evil."

"Well. I will abide by your judgement. See to his burial forthwith, but remove the purple cloth. It is far too beautiful to be buried in the ground."

The Saxon knight's grey eyes suddenly widened, then just as quickly calmed. "It is a cloak, lord, that the Lord Fyren had made for his wife before she died."

"And then he murdered her? Well, it is mine, now. And far too good for the likes of him. I suppose I will take this chamber. But I have no wish to share it with a corpse."

"If you would take Lady Edyt's chamber for this night only, lord, we may prepare this one for you, and remove all traces of the lord's death."

"A reasonable request." The air had a need of cleansing.

Thomas bobbed his head properly. With a clipped turn, Alain returned with Chrétien to the bailey.

"That's it?" Chrétien asked as they crossed the hard-packed earth of the bailey. "We but ride in and take the place?"

"It's happened before."

"But not quite like this."

"Not quite like this. Something is truly afoot."

An anxious energy infused him, the kind that took over his body whenever he sensed a battle brewing. Yet it was not a battle he sensed. He could do no more than warn his men and keep his own eyes open.