Untamed (6 page)

“Nay!” she raged. “Bastards have no birthright!”

“—pass into the hands of another man,” Duncan continued relentlessly, “and with it the green-eyed Glendruid witch whom the vassals of Blackthorne Keep love more than they love anything but God. That, as much as the English king, is why John hasn't disinherited you. The vassals would have set aside their plows and walked from the land as from a cursed place.”

Pale, trembling invisibly, Meg tried to get free of Duncan's grip. He barely noticed her struggles.

“Know this, Lady Margaret. I will have land and a noble wife to bear my children. If I must kill ten Norman nights or ten thousand,
I will have land
.”

Shaken, Meg wrenched free of Duncan's grip. Torn between understanding of her childhood friend's need for a place in a society that made no place for bastards, and her certainty that his plan would be the ruin of the land and the vassals she loved, Meg watched Duncan with tears overflowing her eyes.

“You're asking me to throw Blackthorne Keep into war,” she whispered.

“I'm asking you not to marry a brutal Norman lord. Is that such a grand favor to seek from you?”

Meg's only answer was her tears.

“Ask not for favors of a Glendruid witch,” John rasped fiercely. “I'm commanding you, Margaret. I am lord of this keep and you are as much my chattel as a pig rooting in my forest. You will obey me or you will rue the day of your birth as often and as deeply as I do!”

“Dinna worry, Meggie,” Duncan said softly, tugging on one of her long braids. “I'll see that you come to no harm in the church.”

Meg closed her eyes and struggled not to scream out her anger at the ambitions of the men around her. To have her life and her body used as pawns in the name of the English king's peace was an expected, if harsh, duty of a noblewoman.

To have her life and her body used to start a war could not be borne.

“I cannot,” she said.

“You shall,” hissed John. “You may be Duncan's wife or you may be a whore for his Reevers, it matters not to me.”

“Lord John—” Duncan began unhappily.

“Silence! Far better you have any other wife than the green-eyed spawn of Glendruid! At your urging, I agreed to ask the witch for her alliance. She refused it. Go you now and tell your Reevers to rise up and slay the—”

“Nay!” Meg said. “Father—”

“
I am not your father
.”

Meg's breath came in harshly as she looked for a way out of the trap Duncan and John had sprung around her.

No way came. Meg interlaced her fingers and gripped so harshly that she drove blood from her hands and feeling from her fingers.

“I—” she began, but her voice cracked into silence.

The two men watched her with hazel eyes so alike and yet so subtly different. In John's there was a hatred as old as her mother's betrayal. In Duncan's there was a hope as old as his understanding of who his father really was.

“Meggie?” Duncan asked quietly.

She bowed her head.

“I shall do what I must,” Meg whispered.

M
EG LEFT HER FATHER'S ROOM
so quickly that her wool mantle lifted and swirled behind her. She had much to do before she fled the castle. First she must prepare a quantity of medicines for the vassals who depended on her aid. Then she must sneak enough food and blankets from the castle to last her a fortnight.

And then what?
she asked herself.

There was no answer except the obvious one: anything was better than being the stone upon which her beloved Blackthorne was broken.

Candle flames bowed and whipped as Meg hurried by on flying feet, descending the tight spiral staircase at reckless speed. No sooner had she reached the great hall than Eadith spotted her and moved to intercept despite Meg's obvious hurry.

“My lady—”

“Not now,” Meg interrupted.

“But Lord Dominic wants—”

“Later. I have medicines to prepare.”

Startled by Meg's curt manner, Eadith was for once speechless as she watched her mistress's rapidly vanishing form.

As though afraid Eadith would pursue, Meg
redoubled her speed. Once below the level of the great hall, she met no one on the ground floor but servants. She slowed to a more reasonable pace. Even so, her mantle still rippled and stirred behind her.

Small, dark rooms—more like stalls than true rooms—opened on either side of Meg as she hurried down the aisle. Smells of piled roots and ale casks permeated the gloom, as did the odors of salted or smoked fish and eels in their barrels, and fowl hanging by their cool, faintly scaled feet. Beneath all the food smells was the arid, complex scent of the herbal that had been created by Lady Anna for the drying of her plants and the preparation of her medicines.

Meg's memories of her mother were vivid. Many of them involved standing in the herbal or in the garden with Anna, listening to her musical voice describing each plant and its properties for healing or soothing the small aches and great pains of the vassals' lives. The herbal, the gardens, and the bath had been constructed according to Anna's exacting requirements, for each was important to the rituals and well-being of someone raised in Glendruid traditions.

Close to the entrance to the herbal were two tables for the crushing, chopping, and powdering of leaves, stems, flowers, roots, and bark; all of which were used in Meg's medicines. Small chests, pots, bowls, mortars and pestles, knives and spoons were arrayed neatly at the back of the tables.

Twelve paces into the hillside, supported by stone rather than wood, there was rack after rack of things drying or stored beyond the reach of light. Basins waited to be filled with the fresh springwater that welled to the surface in the center of the keep, for water was at the heart of many Glendruid rituals.

Meg breathed deeply, letting the familiar mixture of scents fill her, driving out the malodorous air of the sickroom. After a few more breaths her hands stopped trembling and the ice in her stomach began to melt. Meg loved the serenity and generosity of the herbal, with its silent promise of aches eased and ills healed.

But nothing in this room will cure war or the famine and bloodshed that attends it
.

The unhappy thought made ice condense once more in Meg's stomach.

“I can't send my people into that bloody maw,” she whispered, looking around the herbal with eyes that saw only catastrophe. “And for what? For nothing! Duncan can't win. Dearest God, make him see that!”

But even as the prayer left her lips, Meg knew it wouldn't change what was planned. Duncan would have Blackthorne Keep or he would have an early grave.

“Oh, Duncan,” she whispered, putting her face in her hands. “I would not see you dead. Of all the people of my childhood, only you, Mother, and Old Gwyn ever truly cared for me.

“What will I do?”

As though Anna were still alive, words came to Meg.
Do that which you can, daughter. Leave the rest to God
.

After a moment Meg straightened, wiped away her tears, and tried to concentrate on the tasks that had always soothed her in the past. One of her favorite jobs was to create the fragrant bouquets of herbs that both pleased the senses and kept vermin from hiding within mattresses and sleeping pallets. Harry's wife was bedridden with a difficult pregnancy, and in special need of anything to ease her days.

Everything Meg needed was in front of her, for she had been preparing sachets for the wedding mattress that was even now being made up from fresh straw; the mattress upon which she would have lain down a virgin and arisen the next morning a maid no longer.

Unbidden came the image of Dominic's fingertips soothing the falcon so sweetly that the fierce bird calmed. Meg had wondered then what it would feel like to be so carefully touched. There had been little of gentleness in her life from the man who was her father in name only.

And, even though she sensed that Dominic's restraint had been a tactician's cool calculation of the quickest way to victory, his caress had raised a hunger within Meg to be gentled like that again.

If we had married, would Dominic have treated me like a falcon or like an opponent to be vanquished?

Meg remembered the tip of Dominic's tongue gliding warmly over her lower lip, a tasting as light as a breath, a caress so sweet and unexpected that remembering it made her shiver. The tactile memory sent odd frissons shimmering through her. She had felt nothing like Dominic's caress in her life. She had imagined nothing like it in her dreams.

If that is what marriage offers, 'tis no surprise that women settle to it after a time
.

Then came the memory of Dominic's words to the young mews girl he so casually had offered to buy.

Small falcon, marriage has nothing to do with this
.

For Dominic, marriage was a matter of cold calculation. It had nothing to do with Glendruid hope, much less affection between a man and a woman.

A pot tilted and dried leaves leaped from Meg's suddenly uncertain hands. The herbal bouquet came
apart like a flock of ducks at the shadow of a peregrine flying overhead.

“Keep that up, girl, and I'll have you out weeding the garden as though you were six once more.”

Gwyn's familiar voice made Meg jump. More herbs scattered.

“Are you ill?” the old woman asked, her voice suddenly earnest rather than wry.

“No. Just…” Meg's voice died.

“Just what?”

“Clumsy.”

“Pah. Better to accuse Blackthorne's cats of barking than to accuse you of clumsiness.”

Smiling, Meg turned around and hugged the old woman with a need that went deeper than words. Old Gwyn's seamed face, white hair, and faded green eyes were as familiar to Meg as her own hands.

“What is it, child?” Gwyn asked finally.

“My father…”

Meg's voice faded as she remembered John's flat denial that he was her father.

At the mention of John, followed by silence, Old Gwyn's pale green eyes went to the shelf where a second vial of his medicine was kept in reserve for future need. The shelf was empty.

“Is he worse?” Gwyn asked.

“Not really.”

“Oh. With the last of his medicine used up, I assumed he was failing.”

“Medicine?” Meg looked over her shoulder. Her breath came in swiftly. “It's gone!”

“You didn't take it to him?”

“No.”

Uneasily Meg went to the table and searched among the pots. She found only leaves and dried flowers. The shelves yielded nothing unexpected
when she went through them quickly, shifting the contents in her pursuit of the missing medicine vial.

“That's odd,” Meg said finally.

Frowning, she stepped into the outside aisle, grabbed a fat candle from its holder, and went back into the herbal. Gwyn watched through narrowed eyes as Meg rummaged efficiently through the nooks and shelves, bins and basins of the room.

When Meg finally gave up, the fear she had felt in Lord John's room returned redoubled.

“Gone?” Gwyn asked.

“Yes. And the antidote with it. Perhaps Duncan fetched both. John was beset by coughing and I was in the mews.”

The old woman said something in an ancient language. Whether it was a curse or a prayer, Meg didn't know, for she couldn't hear the words clearly enough.

“I like this not,” Gwyn muttered finally. She looked at Meg. “Say nothing of it to anyone. We need no more trouble.”

Meg nodded. “Yes.”

“Can you make more?” Gwyn asked.

“Of the medicine itself, yes. I have an ample supply of the seeds. The antidote will be much more difficult to replace. The plant grows only in undisturbed ground. This year we plowed up everything in hope of a good crop.”

With a grunt, Gwyn rubbed her sore knuckles.

“The wet wind bothers you,” Meg said softly. “Have you taken the medicine I made for you?”

The old woman seemed not to hear.

“Gwyn?”

“My dreams have been disturbed, but not by chilblains,” she whispered.

A cold breath of unease slid down Meg's spine. Saying nothing, she waited to hear whatever the old
Glendruid woman had gleaned from the world that was visited only in sleep.

“
What was written in the past shall become in the future. No one, neither lord nor vassal, escapes. The winds of change are blowing, bringing the call of the war horn and the howl of the wolf
.”

Gwyn blinked as the vision passed, saw the expression on Meg's face, and sighed.

“Tell me about your father,” Gwyn said in a low voice.

“He denies being my father.”

Strangely, Gwyn smiled. There was little of warmth or humor in the curve of her lips. Even at her advanced age, the old Glendruid had a full set of hard white teeth. They gleamed as a wolf's teeth gleam, in warning.

“Did he threaten to set you aside and put Duncan in your place?” Gwyn demanded.

“Only if I don't marry Duncan.”

“What of Dominic le Sabre?”

“He is to be slain even as we stand before the priest,” Meg said bluntly.

Gwyn's breath came out in a low hiss. “The Church will not abide that.”

“The Church will receive an abbey.”

“A small price for a large betrayal.”

“Not really,” Meg said grimly. “The Church has been seeking ways to lessen Henry's power. Duncan will be beholden to Church rather than to king. No cry of excommunication will be raised. If I can see that, surely John can as well.”

“By Hell's deepest reaches, John is a clever man,” Gwyn muttered. “Would that he were compassionate, too.”

“There is nothing in him now but a burning need to see his son inherit his lands.”

Gwyn hissed again, shaking her head. “What of
you, Glendruid daughter? Will you take Duncan as your husband?”

“I refused.”

“Good.”

“Then John ordered Duncan to begin the slaughter immediately….”

The old woman cocked her head as though listening. “I hear nothing from the bailey but wenches calling to one another about their sweethearts.”

Meg took a deep breath and spread her hands. “I told him I would do what I must.”

There was a silence so deep that the tiny sounds of flame eating into candle wax could be heard. After a long time Gwyn sighed.

“Is it true?” Meg asked finally.

“That you aren't John's daughter?”

“Yes.”

“'Tis true,” Gwyn said casually. “He is not your father. His stepbrother was a man full of laughter and smiles. Anna went to him two fortnights before her wedding.”

“Why?” Meg asked, shocked.

“She had no love of John, but knew the heir to the Glendruid Wolf must somehow be born.”

“The heir to the Glendruid Wolf?” Meg asked. “What are you talking about?”

“A man who would be wise enough to bring peace to our lands.”

“Ahhh, the fabled Glendruid
male
. Instead, I was born. Female. A disappointment to all.”

Old Gwyn smiled and touched Meg's cheek with a hand as soft and dry as candle flame.

“You were a boon to your mother, Meg. She enjoyed John's stepbrother, but she didn't love him. She felt neither passion nor love for John. But you she loved. For you, she endured John until the vassals had learned to love you, too.”

“And then she walked out to the haunted place and never returned.”

“Yes,” Gwyn said simply. “It was a blessing for her, Meg. Hell had nothing to teach her after living with Lord John.”

Turning away, Gwyn looked at the herbal without seeing any of it.

“Would that we would be blessed now,” Gwyn whispered after a few moments. “But I fear that by the time a man is born who can wear the Glendruid Wolf, there will be nothing left to inherit but the wind.”

“What is the Glendruid Wolf?” Meg asked, perplexed. “I've heard vassals whisper of it occasionally, but they fall silent when they realize I'm listening.”

“'Tis a pin. A pin that was old a thousand years ago.”

“What does it look like?”

“A wolf's head cast in silver with eyes made of colorless gems so hard not even steel can scratch them,” Gwyn said. “The pin is the size of a man's hand.”

“You never mentioned this to me before.”

“There was no purpose. There was nothing to be done.”

“And now?” Meg asked.

“Change comes. A wise woman hopes for the best and prepares for the worst.”

“What is the worst?”

“War. Famine. Disease. Death.”

Meg barely suppressed a shudder at hearing her worst fears spoken aloud by Old Gwyn.

“And the best?” she whispered.

“That the man who wears the Glendruid Wolf will bring peace with him.”

A thrill of hope coursed through Meg at the
thought of a land no longer riven by strife. The feeling was not unlike what she had known while she watched Dominic handle the peregrine with such exquisite tenderness.