Knights (14 page)

Gareth carried her on his own horse to the abbey gates, which opened at their approach. Once, she thought sadly, she and her husband had ridden just this way, but for very different reasons. In those long-ago days, Gareth would have taken her to some private place in the woods and made love to her, on a bed of soft grass, until they were both spent from their sweet exertions.

Elaina laid a hand to Gareth’s face before he could dismount and help her down. The abbess waited in the gateway, holding a lamp and gazing toward the ruin that was Kenbrook Hall.

“My beloved,” Elaina whispered, and kissed her husband’s mouth with love but not passion. “Godspeed.”

With that, she slid out of his grasp to land lightly on the ground, for she had been an able horsewoman in her day and a part of her remembered.

Gareth sat watching in silence as the abbess led Elaina through the gate, and locked it. Elaina wept soundlessly as she walked, for all the hurt she had caused and for all she had lost.

Sister Margaret was still distracted. “It is the oddest thing,” she mused as they crossed the dark courtyard, the glow of the lamp spilling before them. “I could swear I saw a light in one of the towers at Kenbrook Hall.”

Elaina held her tongue, for there were some things she would not utter even to a friend and adviser. Beyond the abbey wall, she heard the hoofbeats of Gareth’s horse as he rode away at last. He could not know that a part of Elaina’s very soul rode with him and would be his companion throughout eternity.

* * *

Edward avoided Gloriana throughout the evening, although he cast the occasional look of yearning in her direction, and she was grateful. She could not marry him, that fact remained unaltered, but not for all of this world and all of that other one would she cause him pain.

Eventually, the men began to trail off toward the village tavern, led by the eight new knights, and the mummers and jesters melted into the night. The torches were burning low when Gloriana slipped away from Dane—to bid him good night would put a formal end to their truce—and made her way through the dark gardens toward her own courtyard.

It never occurred to her to be afraid, for she had had the run of Hadleigh Castle since she was a child, and no one had ever dared to bother her. That night, however, as she was passing a tall hedge, there came a rustling sound behind her.

She thought it was Edward, playing a trick, or Dane, looking to start tomorrow’s war early, and turned, her hands on her hips, to peer impatiently into the gloom. “Whoever you are, go away immediately,” she commanded.

It was then that an arm closed around her middle from behind and a hand closed over her mouth.

“Do not be a-feared, milady,” whispered a familiar voice that she did not quite recognize. “By my soul, no one is going to hurt you.”

Gloriana was not reassured, and she kicked and struggled, but all to no avail. Her attacker had the strength and bulk of an ox, and if he chose to break his own vow and do her injury, she could do naught to stop him.

She renewed her efforts, for Gloriana was not one to do nothing, even when there was no hope of success.
Her assailant cursed fondly and held her fast, and others came out of the hedges and shadows, men she could not see clearly enough to recognize, to aid in her capture. She was, in a matter of moments, gagged, blindfolded, and bound hand and foot.

Gloriana’s mind was completely alert throughout the incident, awaiting any miraculous chance for escape, silently calling to Dane, to Edward, to Gareth—to anyone who would listen—for rescue. She was put into a cart, not roughly but with something very like tenderness, and then covered in straw. The stuff tickled and pricked and made it difficult to breathe.

Gloriana’s agitation was growing, and she worked to remain calm. She must think. Was this a prank, some rite of initiation, perpetrated by Edward and his fellow knights? But no, that couldn’t be. Edward would never allow such a cruelty, let alone participate.

Provided Edward knew what was happening in the first place, of course.

A shiver moved down Gloriana’s spine as she recalled some of the dreadful tales she had heard the servants exchange in the great hall late at night, by the light of winter fires. Her captor might be Merrymont, the awful enemy of the St. Gregorys, or a bandit, who would sell her, like spoils, to be carried far from England in the hold of a ship, destined to meet her end in the Sultan’s harem.

By force of will, Gloriana stemmed that train of thought. The cart was lumbering over rough ground, which meant it was not passing through the main courtyard, the baileys, or the village, toward the drawbridge. No, they were traveling around the edge of the lake; she could hear the soft whisper of the water and, though barely, discern its pleasant scent through
the smothering straw. All that lay in that direction was Kenbrook Hall.

Gloriana would have sat straight up in the cart if she hadn’t been so securely bound. Kenbrook Hall, the official home of Dane St. Gregory, fifth baron of Kenbrook! She should have guessed, she thought bitterly, that all Kenbrook’s attentions, from the kiss by her courtyard gate to the last dance of the evening, had been part of a grand ruse. She had expected hostilities to resume in the morning, but he had been cunning and contrived to deal with her in his own way.

Fury nearly overwhelmed her.

Kenbrook would pay. By the heel bone of St. Andrew himself, sealed inside Gareth’s ceremonial sword, by every angel in heaven and every demon in hell, Gloriana swore to take vengeance.

The journey to the deserted ruin seemed to take hours, and perhaps it did, for Kenbrook’s men were surely too clever to draw attention to themselves by making any sort of haste. It was full dark and a cloud had swallowed the moon when they rattled into a courtyard and Gloriana was, at last, lifted out of her nest of straw and relieved of her blindfold.

She still could not recognize the men who had taken her, but that didn’t matter, she knew who they were. No doubt these paid soldiers of Kenbrook’s were enjoying this night’s dark exercise.

Gloriana was carried like a child through a courtyard littered with fallen stones, into the keep itself, and up a familiar set of stairs. She and Edward had played here, after she came to live at Hadleigh Castle. He’d been Arthur, while she was his lady, Guinevere.

She took some small comfort from the memory and did not resist her captors. This was not an act of surrender, however, but merely the careful conservation
of her strength. To escape Kenbrook and whatever plans he had made to dispose of her, she would need all her wits.

After they had mounted more stairs and still more after that, a pair of great doors opened before them, squealing on their iron hinges, and Gloriana blinked. The chamber ahead was aglow with light.

“Set her down gently, you brute, or I’ll have you whipped until you can’t stand upright!” The terse command all but stopped Gloriana’s heart, for the voice was not Kenbrook’s at all, but Gareth’s.

Gloriana stared wide-eyed at her brother-in-law as she was placed, like the most fragile and precious of icons, upon a chair. Because she was still gagged, she could not speak to him, and that was just as well. The words that came to her mind were not worthy to pass a lady’s lips.

“Leave us,” Gareth said, and began to pace back and forth at the edge of the lamplight. The room had seemed so blazingly bright only moments before, but now it was nearly dark.

The men-at-arms went out.

“As God is my witness,” Gareth said, in a gruff tone, “you will not be harmed. I do this because I had no choice.” He came to her and removed the gag gently, and then took away the bonds on her hands and feet.

She was too numb to flee, too stunned to scream or even ask for an explanation. She had worked up an ire for Kenbrook and did not know what to do when faced, instead, with Gareth. Her guardian. Her protector. Her brother, for all practical intents and purposes.

Her betrayer.

He left the circle of light and returned, momentarily, with a cup of wine.

Gloriana took it with a trembling hand and drank.

“Why?” she whispered, at long last. She was trembling and utterly exhausted, but she was no longer afraid.

“You are to be kept here, for a time,” Gareth said gently, drawing up a short stool and sitting down. “Only for a short interval, Gloriana,” he hastened to add, when she made to protest. “You will lack for nothing, I promise.”

“Except my freedom,” Gloriana said. A tear zigzagged down her cheek.

Gareth looked as though he might cry too, which was an amazing thing, for this man was not weak. Even his sworn foe, Merrymont, would have vouchsafed that much. “I cannot explain,” he said raggedly. “There is a reason, a good one, and you must trust me, Gloriana. I beg you for that, and nothing else.”

“How can I trust you, after what you’ve done?”

He sighed and rose from his stool, but his gaze was locked with hers. “I believe you do, in spite of everything. Because you know, somewhere inside, that you have no more loyal friend in all the earth than Gareth St. Gregory.”

It was true, though Gloriana wouldn’t have admitted it. And she still had her misgivings, and a grudge that was growing bigger by the moment. “Just wait,” she said, “until Lady Elaina hears of this.”

“Lady Elaina helped to plan it,” Gareth answered. Then, unbelievably, he crossed the broad room, so much of which lay in darkness, his spurs jingling. His rap could be heard at the doors and then the protest of the hinges as one was opened for him. “Good night, Gloriana,” he said, and he was gone, leaving her sealed within her prison cell.

Gloriana sat for a long time, while the lamp burned
low, recovering the strength in her aching arms and legs and trying to deal with the knowledge that two of the people she trusted most had conspired to kidnap and imprison her. Even worse, no explanations were forthcoming—she was, it seemed, expected to endure the ordeal, and trust her tormenters.

Once she’d finished her wine and rested, Gloriana picked up the lamp and began to explore the room. It was vast, fully a third the size of the great hall at Hadleigh, and there was a window for each of the four directions, open to the night air.

Gloriana leaned out of the northern one and saw Hadleigh Castle in the distance and the sparkling waters of the lake. She set the lamp on the broad sill and cupped her hands around her mouth.

“Help!” she yelled, although she knew it was useless.

No one would hear, and if by chance the breeze carried her cry to the ear of a passerby, that man or woman would think her a spirit, haunting the ancient hall, and flee in terror. Her one hope was that Edward, finding her missing in the morning, might think to look in this place where they had shared so many happy, innocent hours.

Considerable time had gone by when Gloriana heard a stir on the stairway outside the chamber.

“God’s blood,” someone muttered, “he’s heavy as a plow horse.”

“Have a care you don’t hurt him,” scolded another voice.

“This from the very one who brought a stone down on the poor man’s head!” retorted a third party.

Gloriana stood just beyond the inward swing of the great door and bolted through the space the moment it opened, only to be caught up from the floor, with
her feet still running, and carried back inside. Two other men dragged their unconscious burden, none other than Kenbrook, over the threshold and dropped him carelessly on his face.

Gloriana got free of the man who had stopped her from escaping and went to Kenbrook’s side, kneeling on the cold stone floor. His spun-gold hair was blackened and matted with blood.

“Dane?” she whispered, afraid for him in a way that she had never been for herself.

“He’ll be fit tomorrow,” said one of Gareth’s men from the shadows. And then they were gone, locking the doors resolutely behind them.

Gloriana touched her husband’s shoulder. “Dane,” she said again.

He groaned. “My head,” he said, quite unnecessarily, making an attempt to rise and failing.

“Just lie there for a moment,” Gloriana commanded, scrambling to her feet and taking up the lamp, which she’d left on the table earlier. “I’ll get some water and a cloth.”

She had seen these items in her explorations, along with food, wine, firewood, manuscripts, a chess set with ivory and onyx men, and, perhaps most telling of Gareth’s intentions, one large bed.

Having ignored her instruction to lie still, Kenbrook was sitting up when she returned, though he had not managed to gain his feet. “What the devil—?”

Gloriana knelt behind him and began cleaning the wound on the back of his head. “You’ve come home to Kenbrook Hall, my lord,” she said dryly, “and the devil had nothing to do with it.”

“I
f the devil has not brought us here,” Dane asked, drawing in a sharp breath or two as Gloriana, kneeling behind him, dabbed at his head wound with a damp cloth, “who has?”

Gloriana had had a little time to get used to the idea, and though she was angry with Gareth and certainly longed to escape, she hesitated to make him out a complete villain. She was still considering how best to reply to Kenbrook’s question when he came up with an answer on his own.

“God’s blood,” Dane muttered, brushing away Gloriana’s hand and levering himself, with no little difficulty, to his feet. “It was that fatheaded brother of mine—who else would dare to hold me captive in my own keep?”

Gloriana rose, too, and set the cloth and bowl aside on the table. “Why would he do such a monstrous thing to either of us?” she asked, baffled. “I have known naught but kindness from Hadleigh, and yet—”

Dane swayed unsteadily and righted himself by grasping the back of a crude wooden chair. “I’ll have
his teeth for this. I’ll have his ears and the hairs on his—”

Gloriana waited, and was disappointed when Kenbrook did not deliver the rest of the oath. “I can only conclude,” she observed, after a hopeful interlude, “that Gareth wants us to kill each other.”

Dane laughed mirthlessly and dropped onto the chair with a barely muffled groan. “Kill each other?” he repeated, with a touch of mockery in his voice. “Think, Gloriana. Use the brain Friar Cradoc and the others have trained so assiduously, lo these many years. Hadleigh would have us mate, like a pair of rabbits shut up in a hutch, and thus render our marriage binding.”