Captive Heart (19 page)

“For Ness.”

When the abbey bells rang out Terce in the middle of the morning, they were so near at hand we should have seen their town but for the trees around. A few minutes more following the road and we came upon the abbey itself. A score of monks with their priest were already out, lining the roadside to watch us pass.

We were a resplendent company—Gareth in gold, Marrok in black, and I in forest green.

“Good fortune!” the abbot bade us. “And God speed.”

“The castle is near?” Marrok asked.

“Over the next hill,” the abbot said. “Please. Sir Ironside has been…astray…for many years, and witched now almost the full of another. He can be a good man yet. Punishment he deserves, but if he doesn’t kill you first, let him live, for mercy’s sake.”

Marrok laughed, an ugly sound in the stillness of the day. “Mercy is in short supply.”

My heart closed on Marrok’s words. I had no mercy left within me. For a moment, though, I saw Gareth’s gentle soul falter.

“Your brother monks at Sibton Abbey believed in mercy too,” I said. “Right up until the time Ironside took their abbot’s head.”

“Father William?” This abbot blanched. “When?”

“A fortnight past.”
Had it been so long ago?
“I was there when he took my sister and slew an abbey-full of God’s faithful. Even God’s great mercy has its limits when it comes to the wickedness of men. The Flood. Sodom and Gomorrah. The Red Sea. Does your liege-lord deserve better?”

“That”—I saw him struggle, good man that he was—“is in God’s hands.”

“No.” Marrok said. “It’s in ours.”

We rode on, leaving them to their grief and prayers.

The hill was a long one, but the Red Castle came into sight well before noon. Too early to blow challenge on the horn that swung on the oak tree beside a score of shields. Shields of the knights Ironside had slain in combat such as this.

The horn taunted both Gareth and Marrok, both primed to fight, all unready to wait.

“Patience,” I reminded them. “What good will two dead champions do me when you have only to wait till after noon?”

Nimue, of course, knew we’d come. I could feel the magic of her as surely as she could feel me. And, by extension, Ironside would know as well. We were preparing to dismount, to bide our time in the shade of the wide-branched oak, when the great gates opened and the Red Knight in his blood-red armor, carrying his red-stained shield cantered our way on his heavy red steed.

A retinue of knights and squires poured out on foot behind him. And at the head of that pack of armored men walked Nimue in all her fae beauty, red-gold hair spilling over a gown of the whitest samite. She was stunning. Next to her I felt diminished. Flawed and ugly by comparison. If her beauty were a weapon, I had just been blooded. By her haughty smile, she knew it.

“I heard no horn,” Ironside said, reining his horse before us. Marrok’s black stallion laid back his ears and snaked his head out, the red horse just out of range of his teeth. “Did you not mean to challenge me?” He gestured toward his retinue. “Aelfred.” A page stepped forward, lifted down the horn and carried it to Gareth, holding it out in supplication.

“Another time,” Gareth said evenly, although his meaning was clear.

The Red Knight raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps the wolf has more courage.”

At Ironside’s gesture, the page turned to offer the horn to Marrok, whose turmoil was clear. Not only had his honor been called into question, the Red Knight had spoken his secret. The wolf, quick to rage, demanded immediate satisfaction. Marrok’s hand closest to the proffered horn twitched.

“Two hours.” I spoke clearly so that Marrok, Ironside, Nimue and all gathered could hear. “We won’t challenge before then.”

“As you wish.” The look in Ironside’s eyes belied the acceptance of his words. He gestured again and his retinue parted. A tall man appeared, his arms burdened with—

Had I not still been sitting the horse, I would have fallen to my knees with the shock.

I whimpered.

It was Nessie.

Held naked before four score men, her beautiful, golden locks shorn, her face as pale and drawn as death.

She might have indeed been dead for all she moved.

Kicking down from my horse, my knees almost didn’t hold me when I landed, but I forced myself up, forced myself to run, though I could only move as if through water, as if time and life itself had slowed and with my next step might stop completely.

Two of the knights stepped sideways to block my path, feet apart, arms crossed.

Someone strong caught me from behind.

Gareth.

“Hold!” he whispered in my ear, an urgent command.

“Nessie,” I wept.

“Will be yours again soon enough.”

I struggled against him, but even a sister’s grief wasn’t strong enough to break Gareth’s grip.

“If you think your sister has two hours to live, you really haven’t been paying attention, my dear.” Nimue’s rich contralto fell over me like a drift of winter snow.

“No.” I forced myself to face the hard line of Gareth’s lips as Nimue’s meaning struck, and his face closed into a mask.

Either Gareth and Marrok fought Ironside at his full strength of seven men or Nessie would die.

Her life or theirs.

Nimue and Ironside’s gazes were intent upon me, sadistically enjoying every twitch of my jaw, the tremble of my lips, every blink to keep back the tears, every swallow pushed past the protest in my throat.

How could I choose? And how could my choice not already be made?

I swayed on the edge of eternity, unable to speak. Unable to voice the choice that must be made.

Then suddenly the choice was no longer mine, its burden lifted from me.

A single clear call sounded from the horn. Another note followed and then the third. The challenge.

I turned in despair to see Marrok dropping the horn from his lips, his eyes, bright with zeal, on me and Gareth. He grinned, shattering my already breaking heart.

Then Gareth set me aside, his own grin of resignation fleeting across my vision before he turned to claim his sword and shield and helm. I stood rooted where he left me, unable to help, leaving him to tie on Marrok’s helm and strap on his shield. Then he turned to the page with the horn to have the boy do the same for him.

They would die for me, and I couldn’t even perform that simple office for them.

I didn’t want to watch. I couldn’t watch.

Yet when Nimue stepped beside me to twine her arm in mine and take my hand—women in league, sisters preparing to watch their champions fight—I could not turn away.

Even when I
saw
what foolish plan my noble champions would follow to their doom, I did not turn away. In the end, I would give Nimue and Marrok what they wanted.

I would watch my loved ones die.

Chivalry be damned
. Even Ironside’s
brother
told my champions not to face him one by one. Yet there Gareth stepped out to meet him alone while Marrok waited for Gareth to—what? Be killed?

God knows Arthur had chosen well. What other man alive could stand against seven for an hour or more? They beat against each other’s shields and against each other, neither giving ground, neither taking it. A constant barrage of blows and parries as shields and swords grew heavier with each minute.

Beside me, Nimue’s confidence turned to worry as the minutes dragged by. The air between her and Ironside hung heavy with magic. She was feeding him, perhaps not directly if the source came not from her but from Avalon. But she was its conduit. Its focus.

My own magic was weak, pathetic against such an immense well as that which Nimue drew from. Sight of Gareth redoubling his efforts against the Red Knight, even knowing the futility of it in the end, humbled me, lessoned me.

Rage against the impossible.

I tried.

Truly, I did.

But I was not Gareth with skill and strength above that of other men. The only magic that flickered within me was no more than an ember, a shadow of power. When I turned it upon Nimue, she patted my hand with a condescending smile. “Your skills lie elsewhere, I think,” she said. “In fact, I believe your champions have been teaching you some new ones, am I right?” The patting hand curled its way to my wrist and began to stroke the tender skin under the wide maunch of my sleeve. She leaned in, her full lips at my ear. “Have you been as clever in the learning of them as Nessie?”

By her doing as much as mine, I
saw
exactly what Nimue wanted me to see. Nessie caught beneath Ironside as he labored joyfully over her, his hard, naked flanks rising and falling, rising and falling.

Nessie caught in the tangle of Nimue’s long and graceful limbs, fae hands pressing her close, fae tongue thrust between her lips.

Nessie caught between them, Ironside buried in her from behind, Nessie’s lips buried in Nimue’s most intimate folds.

Nessie crouched over Ironside, pleasuring him with her innocent mouth while Nimue striped her soft and perfect hips with a long and wicked strap.

Nowhere was there a hint of joy on Nessie’s face. Only sorrow and tears.

“Slaves can be taught obedience, but they cannot be taught to love.” I didn’t try to hide my anger or disgust.

“Love?” Nimue laughed. “It was her hate that we required. To subjugate. To train. Ultimately to break. I kiss love a hundred times a week, a thousand times a month. But to kiss hate…and have hate kiss back?” Her lips fell on mine, softer and fuller than even Gareth’s. A hint of spiced vanilla wafted from her oft-bathed skin.

I yanked my head away, leaving her with a half-smile on her still-parted lips.

In my mind I heard the echo of Merlin’s words,
“What comes is already written and has already passed.”
I remembered Merlin and Nimue and a crystal cave—a sorrow yet to come but already written. What that meant for
me
, for this moment I didn’t know. Perhaps my death. Certainly not Nimue’s, for I had
seen
her future. But I could not let her actions go unanswered.

Falcon-swift, I grabbed her lips with mine, the surprise in her eyes narrowing to fear as I eased my hands under the flame of her hair, circling her neck and pressing my thumbs hard against her throat.

She struggled, but I hooked a leg behind her knees and bent her back, echoing her strangled cries with mine, our passion escalating.

I heard snickering from the retinue behind. An uncomfortable patter as I forced our public display more public yet. With the press of my leg I bent her knees, forcing her down, my own body clinging hard to hers, my mouth capturing her cries that had begun to weaken.

In the only desperate move she had, she forced all her powers of compulsion into me.

I fought, but from the beginning I knew I could never win against her magic. I eased the pressure on her throat, drew my lips from her.

She struggled for breath, found enough at last to cry, “Take her!”

But the words were lost in the collective cry of the men at her back.

I let go my pent breath…and smiled.

Eyes still on me, she froze, until apprehension and fear caught up with her. Struggling to stand, she twisted to see her men, found their stares and cries not for her but directed toward the champions.

She whirled.

On the field, reflected sunlight from Gareth’s golden helm showered him in glory as he knelt, a knee on the Red Knight’s chest. As I watched, he flung away a red-hilted sword, then cut the laces at Ironside’s helm and stripped it away, his blade at the naked neck.

“Will you yield?” Gareth asked, loudly enough for all to hear.

“No!” Nimue re-gathered the power she’d poured into me.

I felt it leave, felt it winging its way back to her lover, ready to bolster him again, seven-fold, in combat.

I prayed Ironside would find his voice before the magic found him.

“I—” Ironside sounded confused, looked astonished. Then resigned. “Aye, I yield.” Only a moment later to be astonished yet again. None but Nimue and I knew why. His strength had returned, but too late.