Author: Catherine Coulter
Category: Suspense
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As Cantor snorted and danced sideways through the crowded narrow streets of Wrexham, Daria stuffed her hair under her woolen cap. Did she look once again like a boy? She prayed so. She had no idea where she was going. She knew only that she had to lead them away from Roland.
She had coin and she had a strong horse. She wasn’t stupid and she could speak some Welsh. Aye, she thought, grimacing. Any robbers who caught her, she could tell them that she loved them. She would ride, she decided in that moment, to the castle called Croyland, to Lord Richard de Avenell. Surely he would assist her.
And what of Roland?
She closed her eyes over that thought. If the Earl of Clare found him, he would kill him. She had to lead him away; far away and quickly. Once they cleared the town, she gave Cantor his head. She knew from the position of the sun that they were riding northeast, toward Croyland, toward the English border.
What would Roland think when he realized she was gone?
8
It was raining, a cold fine spray that soaked Daria within minutes. She looked up at the angry gray sky and just shook her head at the endless misery of it.
She’d been riding for three hours now and hadn’t seen a single man or woman in the past two. There were sheep, of course, sheep everywhere, and dark forests of sessile oak, thick twisted trees that looked wet to the touch even when it wasn’t raining. The road she’d taken had become a rough path with yew bushes crowding on either side, many times their spiked leaves brushing against Cantor’s flanks, making him prance sideways. She tried to keep him calm, his pace steady. His strength was great, his endurance greater.
She saw a flock of geese in a muddy field to her right and two badgers in a hedgerow beside her. No sign of the earl or his men. She prayed they were behind her, but far, far behind her.
The rain came down harder, in thick drenching sheets, and she huddled in wretched acceptance over Cantor’s slick neck. She wondered if magically, once she gained England, the rain would cease. She couldn’t be far from Chester, no, not very far now. And what of Roland? She shook her head. She couldn’t worry about him now; worrying about herself had to be paramount.
Suddenly a hare sprang from a thicket in front of Cantor. The destrier reared back onto his hind legs, whinnying in surprise and anger, and Daria lost her hold and fell on her side into a puddle of water. She felt her bones jar with the impact, and for a moment she merely lay there, not wanting to move.
Cantor snorted over her, his mighty head lowered, mirroring her own misery. She tried to smile at being caught off-guard. But she couldn’t find even a remnant of a smile. She scrambled slowly to her feet and leaned against Cantor’s heaving side. He nudged at her and she pressed closer to him. She felt the vibrations against the soles of her leather shoes. Horses, and they were coming swiftly toward her. Soon they would come into view. It had to be the earl and his men.
She swung up onto Cantor’s back and kicked his sides with the wet toes of her shoes. He bounded forward, only to stumble again. She was thrown sideways but kept on his back by wrapping his mane around her left wrist.
He was lame. She sat on his back, knowing it was over, yet unable to accept it. His head was lowered and he was blowing hard. There was no escape for her now.
She clearly heard the sounds of the horses’ hooves now. Nearer and nearer, and there was naught she could do. Save wait. What if they’d found Roland?
She felt her mind bending and straining, and cursed herself with words she’d heard from Roland. What was she to do? And then she knew. After all, she hadn’t the choice to play the fool; too much depended on her now.
She slid off Cantor’s back and turned toward the oncoming horses. Even as she recognized the earl’s big black Arab, she held herself ready, not moving, aware only that something deep inside her was flinching away from him, from who he was, and what he wanted from her.
I can’t bear it if he touches me. I can’t bear it. I’ll shriek and kick and die if he touches me—if he touches me.
She raised her head and felt the cold shards of rain strike her face. Sharp and stinging and cold, and she welcomed it.
The Earl of Clare raised his gauntleted hand. He stared at the rain-soaked boy who stood beside Roland’s huge destrier. His hand clamped over his sword. Where was that damned bastard? In hiding amongst the yew bushes? Leaving Daria, dressed foolishly like a lad, to fend for herself?
He waved his men to a halt. He saw Daria give a start as she recognized him. He watched with growing bewilderment as her expression changed from fear to joy and relief. She was running toward him, not away.
He felt uncertainty as he dismounted from his destrier. He stood still and stiff, watching her race toward him. She was speaking, yelling to him, as she ran. Then she threw herself against him, her arms going around his back.
His hands fisted, yet he made no move against her. He was mired in confusion. She was babbling now, something about how he’d saved her. Saved her.
The earl clasped her upper arms in his hands and pushed her away from him. He shook her.
“What do you here?”
Those weren’t the words he’d intended to speak. He’d wanted to strike her, fling her to the muddy road, and strike her again for her perfidy. But he did nothing, merely stood there, saying again, “What do you here?”
She was stuttering, with cold, with fear, with relief. He didn’t know; he didn’t move, just listened as the words poured from her mouth.
“I escaped him, I stole his horse, but the wretched animal is lame and I thought you were he and you would catch me again and I was so frightened—so frightened.”
The Earl of Clare felt the eyes of his tired men go from him to the shivering girl in front of him. Surely they were listening, but he could tell nothing of their opinions from their weary faces.
He realized suddenly that he didn’t care what any of them thought.
“You say you escaped from Roland?”
“Roland? Is that the cur’s name?” She shivered and flung herself against his chest again, pressing her cheek against the wet dank wool of his overtunic. “He is no priest, my lord. Please, don’t let him catch me again. He told me his name was Charles, but I knew it wasn’t.”
“You struck me. You, Daria, not that whoreson.”
She raised her face and gave him a look that was unholy in its innocence. And, curse her, her voice was high and wavering, like a frightened girl’s. “You were trying to ravish me and I wasn’t your wife. What was I to do? I was taught to hold my virtue dear until I was wedded. I had no choice but to protect myself or I would have been cursed by God. Then that man—Roland—he came in and forced me to go with him. He’s held me close to him, but finally he got drunk in Wrexham and I escaped him and took his horse.”
“I only wanted you a bit before the priest married us.”
Her look was austere and severe. There was no more frightened girl in her aspect now. “A female has only her virtue to attest to her character,” she said, speaking low, her voice sure and calm and guileless. “I had to fight you until I could fight no more. I would have been cursed by God had I simply given over to you. Surely you understand that, my lord, you must. A man of honor can’t ravish an innocent maid, else he will lose all hope for forgiveness from the maid and from God. That is what I was taught; it is what I believe. I couldn’t allow you to shame me, and I did what I had to save myself.”
The earl felt the impotent drag of uncertainty. He hated this not knowing, this no longer being confident and convinced of his actions. He’d raged and cursed and pushed his men until they were all so weary they could scarcely sit their horses. And here she was, blaming him. The bedraggled slip of a female was blaming him.
“Where is Roland?”
“I don’t know. Somewhere in Wrexham, at least he was early this morning. He was in a sodden, drunken sleep when I escaped him, but he must know by now that I stole his horse. I found out what he intended to do with me. My uncle hired him, you know, offered
him a great deal of coin to bring me back. Then my uncle would have me wedded to Ralph of Colchester.” She shrugged. “I pray he won’t try to find me, but I’m afraid, my lord, afraid that he will come after me again.” She looked up at him, pathetic hope in her eyes. “Do you believe he will give up? Perhaps go back to England?”
“Mayhap,” the earl said, but he was thinking: But not without his destrier. He looked up at the rain-bloated clouds, felt the endless trickles of rain snake down his back. He cursed. “Clyde,” he shouted to one of his men. “We are close to the cave we came upon yesterday. We will spend the night there or at least shelter ourselves until this cursed rain stops.”
The men moved quickly from the pitted muddy path. The earl turned back to the shivering girl still standing in front of him. “You’re wet.” He pulled a dry tunic from a saddlebag and wrapped it around her. “Keep this close about you. I don’t wish you to die of a fever.”
“His destrier is lame.”
“One of my men will lead him.” The earl wasn’t about to abandon that horse.
The cave Clyde led them to was high-ceilinged and deep enough for the horses to be hobbled at the rear. Daria was settled near the fire, and slowly, teeth chattering every moment, she felt herself dry. She prayed that she’d fooled the earl. She prayed even more intensely that Roland was mending and that he would simply forget her and leave Wales and be safe. He still had enough coin to buy another horse, not one like Cantor, but still, he could buy his way to safety.
She realized that she would probably never see him again. So much for her knowledge of him. All her wondrous feelings, they’d been false, a lie, a dream woven of unreal cloth. She lowered her head to her hands and felt sobs ripping through her. She had no hold on him, none at all, even a hold of honor, for he didn’t know that he’d taken hers.
What she’d said to the Earl of Clare wasn’t true. Roland would leave Wales and he’d forget her and he’d forget about the money he would have had from her uncle. He wasn’t stupid; he would know that the earl had taken her again. The Earl of Clare would bed her and discover she wasn’t a virgin and kill her. For then he would know that Roland had bedded her. She couldn’t begin to imagine his fury, for he would believe himself cheated and betrayed, though it had been he who had stolen her in the first place.
No, he’d decided that God had blessed him and approved what he’d planned for her. When the earl and God made a bargain, it was madness to try to break it.
She tried to choke back the sobs, but they broke through. She felt a man’s large hand on her shoulder, but she couldn’t stop her wailing.
“Hush,” the man said, and she recognized MacLeod’s voice, the earl’s master-at-arms. “Ye’ll make yerself ill. With this gut-soaking rain, it’s not difficult.”
“I’m so afraid.”
“Aye, ye’ve reason to be, but the earl seems bestruck wit’ the sight of ye again. He’ll not kill ye, at least not yet. Find ye cheer, lass—we’re out of that filthy rain, and that’s something to shout to the heavens about, eh?”
“Will he go back to Wrexham to find that man?”
“How do ye know we were in Wrexham?”
Oh God, I forgot, and my stupidity will finish me off. “I don’t know, I just guessed you’d come from there. Where did you come from if not from Wrexham?”
MacLeod stared at her pale face, the red eyes, the damp masses of hair streaming down either side of her thin face. Such a pathetic little scrap. It seemed to him that the earl should view her as a daughter, not as a possible wife. He couldn’t imagine taking the little wench to bed. She was too wretched, too woebegone, and in the baggy boy’s clothes, she looked scarce a decent meal for a hardy man like the Earl of Clare.
“We came from Wrexham,” he said, looking away from her into the fire. “We’ve ridden hard to find ye and that whoreson that took ye from Tyberton.”
“Oh,” she said, and wrapped her arms around her legs and eased closer to the fire.
“Where is the earl?”
MacLeod shrugged. “Speaking to the men. Here, eat yer dinner. We bought the food at the market in Wrexham. It’s right that you eat afore ye lose yer boy’s breeches.”
MacLeod meant nothing by his words, but Daria saw the earl over her, pinning her down with his weight, hurting her, and she paled.
“Ye’re thin, lass,” he explained patiently. “Ye must eat something afore yer breeches fall to yer knees.”
Daria smiled at him and chewed on the bread he banded her. “Thank you. Diolch.”
“So you learned some of this heathen tongue,” the earl said as he eased down beside her. “I don’t wish to hear it again.” He picked up a thick slice of black bread and took a healthy bite. She watched him chew. “All right,” she said. He didn’t respond. He was staring at her and she knew that he was wondering about her, wondering if he should believe her. Finally, after he’d taken a goodly drink of ale, he said, “This man, Roland. I doubt he’ll be witless enough to come after you again, Daria. However, he will come after his destrier. This time he won’t find things so much to his liking. I will be ready for him.”
“But how could he know that I found you? How could—?”
“The man is one of Satan’s tools. Also, he isn’t a fool. Who else would take you? He must guess that I would come after you. He’ll know that I have you again. He’ll know that I’m too strong for him, but still he will come. He’ll want his destrier and thus he will come to Tyberton. And I will kill the whoreson there on my own lands, with God’s blessing.”
His horse but not me. The earl was certain she had not near the value of Cantor in Roland’s eyes. Probably in his eyes as well. She wanted to laugh. If she was worth so much less than a horse, why couldn’t she simply offer to give the earl Cantor, and be allowed to leave in peace?
She didn’t know what to say, so she kept silent. The earl nodded, as if pleased. “You will take off your wet clothes. I don’t wish you to become ill.”
She turned to face him. Words stuck in her throat. She was frightened and just as angry that this man had such power over her, but she also knew that he wanted her docile and meek. She cleared her throat. She would gain her ends through subservient guile. “I beg you not to ravish me.”
“It matters not. I will take you if I wish to.”
“Please, my lord.” She thought frantically, schemes tumbling wildly in her brain, for only a show of complete compliance seemed to touch him. “It will be as you wish, my lord. But it is—I have begun my monthly flow.”
Her face was red with fear, not humiliation, but the Earl of Clare chose to believe that she was overcome with a maiden’s embarrassment.
It pleased him, this sweet reticence, this guileless deference to him and his wishes. And her gentle confession, telling him of her woman’s functions, the final proof of her purpose, gratified him. He felt all-powerful. He raised a hand and lightly patted her cheek. It required all her control not to flinch away from him. “You are still a virgin? That man didn’t ravish you, did he?”
She shook her head and kept her gaze steady. He was searching out the lie, but she wouldn’t let him see it in her eyes.
“Then I will wed you once we return to Tyberton. I won’t distress you again, Daria, with my man’s needs. Perhaps you were right to fight me so completely. Perhaps God willed your escape from me so that I would know his thoughts in this matter. Perhaps it is God’s will that you not give yourself to me until you are my wife. I make my vow before God. You will remain a virgin until our wedding night. Then I will take you and you will be willing and sweet.”
She thought she’d die with the relief of it. He saw it and frowned. “It isn’t proper that you shouldn’t want me in your bed. Accustom yourself, Daria, for I shall take you as surely as I will kill this Roland, and you will bear me a son before the coming winter wanes.”
Pleased with his conclusion, the earl turned and grunted something to MacLeod. Soon Daria was holding dry clothes and a blanket. The earl wave
d her to a darkened corner of the cave. As she changed into the dry clothing, she prayed that this time he would keep his word, that she would be safe from him. She prayed she had God on her side this time and that God would speak loudly to the earl.
It rained for a day and a half, sheets of wet cold rain. Daria wished she could simply succumb to Roland’s complaint and die. The earl carried her in front of him, just as Roland had done. One of his men led Cantor. The horse no longer limped. The rain stopped for half a day, then began again, a cold muzzling drizzle. Upon their return to Tyberton, she almost felt relief. The rain stopped and the sun shone down, drying them. It was uncanny.
The day after their return, it was hot. Daria blessed the sweat that stood out on her brow. It felt wonderful.
And she kept her vigil for Roland.
He was well, he had to be. He was stubborn, and he didn’t give up. Aye, he would come to Tyberton—for his horse. But perhaps he could be convinced to take her with him again.
When she learned there was still no priest at Tyberton, she wanted to cry to the heavens in joy. She was safe from the earl until he had one fetched to marry them, safe, that is, if he would keep to his word.
Aye, safe. But for how long? Daria turned with a sigh from the narrow window as her maid, Ena, said, “Aye, he were in a fury, he were. Cursing and bellowing like the divil hisself, he was, and his men were sniggering behind their hands, laughing at how ye, naught but a bit of a female, had done him in.” And Ena cackled as loudly as Romila. “Aye, they laughed at how he let his lust overcome his piety. But he left quick after ye. He tortured that farmer who’d held the pretty priest’s horse for him. Then I heard the earl had a knife stuck atween the farmer’s ribs, once he knew what was what. Aye, they left him in the dungeon to rot.”