Claudia Dain (39 page)

He did not think it in her to hide. Certainly she would never run. Not Juliane. She was too sure of victory, too keen to pit her skills against his. Female pride would devour her in the end, but his would not be the mouth to tell her that.

She might be in the mews, making talon plans with her hawk. That would be like her and was a proven course in defeating amorous men. He had the scar to prove it.

There would be no hawks allowed within their chamber. He might have the wind holes barred as a precaution. He did not favor another scar upon a more vulnerable region of his body.

"I think you hear me not," Conor said, and Ulrich jerked his attention back to Juliane's maternal uncle.

Ulrich smiled and shrugged. "I beg your mercy. I am full of thoughts of my bride. A common failing, I would wager."

"Yea, you wager much," Conor said with a matching smile. Both their smiles were brightly false. "And often, it is said. It seems you have some skill and better fortune in your wagering."

"No more than any other man."

"Does any other man have Juliane? Nay, I think you wager very well. But if a man cannot hold his winnings close upon him, then all wagering is for naught."

He heard the threat. There was no mistaking it. There was also no answer for it. A fight with Juliane's blood kin was not a fight he would take unless pressed beyond all bearing.

"True words," Ulrich said easily. "I have seen it often and have learned from watching. I do not wager overmuch and keep my winnings close."

"Yet I do not see Juliane," Conor said, looking out over the mob in the chapel.

"Nor do I," Ulrich said, "and so I will take my leave of you. I am a laggard bridegroom to lose his bride so quick. I must mend that. I would not be found wanting by any."

A warning was there, if Conor had the wit to hear it. Ulrich would not bark, hackles raised, teeth bared; he was a man who would bite when the need was in front of him. But, until the need for teeth grinding against bone, he would smile and hold his sword close upon his hip. A careful man was Ulrich. Experience in the wide world had shown him that wisdom. A man without a house and name to back him did not seek out enemies, but an enemy made was an enemy destroyed. With no one to watch his back, he could allow none to skulk behind him. And if that enemy was Conor, then Juliane must learn to live without an uncle, and the king to live without a live traitor to condemn.

From what he had seen of Conor's welcome in Stanora, he did not think many here would miss him.

"I think you are missing yet another," Conor said. "Where is your young squire?"

And why would Conor note anything at all about William? This did not bear a pleasing scent; nay, all was foul. He did not even need to look about him. William, ever at his back, always within call, was gone. Far from him. He could feel it.

Ulrich bared his sword in a single smooth arc and held the blade to Conor's chin. Conor, to judge by his look, had not expected such a quick answer to his query.

"Where is he?" Ulrich breathed. "Tell me and you may yet live."

Nay, he was not a man to growl in warning when a bite to the throat would serve him best.

"I do not have him," Conor said, stepping back across the chapel stones. Ulrich followed and pierced his skin with the tip of his blade. The blood rose up in shining drops, red and bright.

"Where?" Ulrich whispered.

"You would not—"

"Where?" Ulrich asked again, pressing the point hard, catching Conor's jawbone against the warm steel. The blood ran down in a delicate stream of red, twisting over the contours of Conor's throat, slipping over skin made smooth with sudden sweat.

* * *

"Where?" William asked. "Where are we going?"

"Away from here. 'Tis not a good time to be in Stanora."

William looked up at Roger, his expression both curious and trusting. Roger was well loved by Ulrich. This hasty departure must be by Ulrich's command.

"Why not? Because of the marriage?"

"Aye," Roger answered the boy, who sat on a small horse behind his own mount, the reins of both held within his fist. "Much has changed with this marriage."

"But Ulrich wanted it to change. I can still serve him," William said.

"Aye, but not for a time. Let him find his way with his wife; then you may serve him as he wills. For now, I could well use a squire well trained in his duties. Will you serve me for a time? I will be an easy master."

"I am sworn to Ulrich. I cannot serve another without breaking my bonds to him."

"'Tis only for a time," Roger said lightly, keeping his eyes upon the horizon. The wood was deep and the light slanting and dimming as the day fell into evening. The call of the owl could be heard in the dark depths of the wood and beyond it, the careful steps of deer in deep leaves. The gray walls of Stanora were not far behind them; all creatures must step with care until Stanora and all her swords were far removed. "Your honor is not broken upon this, William."

His horse trod carefully, the track through the wood scarcely used, to judge by the heavy and unbroken fall of last year's leaves which blanketed the path. The sunlight was greenish in the shade, and every breath of the horses seemed to echo into the shadows.

"For how long?" William asked.

Roger looked back at him, at the small dark-haired boy who looked at him with such trust and confusion, and smiled. "Not long."

"But where? Where are we going?"

Roger did not have a ready answer for that question and so he said nothing at all.

* * *

"Where?"
Walter shouted, his voice bounding off the vaulted wooden roof of the chapel.

Conor, his uncle, only shook his head, his blue eyes stony with defiance. And victory. It would be a brief victory, Walter vowed. He would see him dead for this, though Ulrich looked ready to do the task for him.

For such a smiling knight, Ulrich acted quickly and without paralyzing deliberation. Good traits in an ally, and they were allies now. Marriage and the threat of harm to Juliane had accomplished that.

"Why?" Ulrich asked.

Conor smiled. This was a question he seemed willing to answer most readily.

"To repay an old debt," Conor said.

"What debt?" Ulrich asked, his hand turning the sword so that the blade slid with hungry energy over Conor's throat.

"Between myself and Philip," Conor said. "A betrothal gone foul. A point of honor between his house and mine."

"Between your pride and his," Walter said. "And Juliane caught in the crushing maw of it. What honor in that?"

"She will not be harmed. She will find her life as the lady of Nottingham most fair, most honorable," Conor said.

"Nicholas," Ulrich said on a hiss of breath.

* * *

"Nicholas," Juliane said on a ragged breath, pushing her hair back from her eyes, "this avails you naught. I will not submit to you."

"Lady," he breathed softly, "you will."

With casual ease, Nicholas swung his arm down and struck Juliane across the face with the flat of his hand. A pounding, raw sting. The taste of blood on her tongue. A careful swallow. A cold look to show that she was not afraid, that she would not submit, that she would not be fractured into compliance by his blows.

Yet she would.

She had no armor against this; all her allies were flown, her time-won confidence shattered. Baldric was dead, Philip dying. Walter was just as content to have one man take her as another, as long as she was out of his house. Ulrich...

Ulrich.

Would he come? Would he even know to come? Would he come for St. Ives if not for her?

Would any come for her?

She knew what Nicholas wanted. He wanted what all men wanted when they came to Juliane le Gel. He wanted her blood upon his cock. He wanted to pierce her of pride and rip the ice from her name.

He wanted to defeat her.

But she would not be defeated. She could not be. She could never be. And so the game had been played for five years. She was the queen upon the chessboard who could not and must not be taken else all would be lost.

Her father would be proved for a liar; a man who broke contracts and lived without honor.

Her aunt proved for a liar; a woman who watched a mating and declared the man unfit, destroying a marriage and a man by deceit.

And Juliane proved for a liar and a cheat; a woman who betrayed her husband of an hour to gain the gift of legend.

An empty gift it had become.

At the game of love, with the protection of Stanora surrounding her, she had become a master. She parleyed, she jousted, she flirted, she teased, and she won. She won, and it was all of winning, was it not? So her father had taught her. To be certain, winning was better than losing, but the taste of winning had soured as the years passed. The same game. The same men wearing the same look and bearing the same pride. The same, the same, yet she herself changing and no one to see it because all wanted to see the legend of Stanora, not the woman Juliane. Because who wanted a woman when there was a legend to be had?

Nicholas swung his fist again. A blow to her belly, stripping her of air and leaving only pain. Yet the pain seemed to wane with each blow. Her body was learning the gift of pain. Her hopes of rescue learning to die quietly. Her legend learning to fall.

Nicholas wanted what they all wanted: to push his way into her, owning her by the act.

Yet if he did... if he did, he would know the truth, and no man could know the truth. For no other reason had she relinquished Ulrich.

She was trapped within a lie and there was no way out.

* * *

"Where has he taken Juliane?" Walter demanded.

"And William? Where is the boy?" Ulrich snarled.

Conor looked at his nephew as if he had not a care in the world, though his blood seeped out from under Ulrich's blade. A threat only. Who would harm him here?

He was blood kin, and no hand in Stanora could touch him.

"He takes Juliane and will make her his own," Conor said. "Nicholas is a good match for her, and no one is harmed by her taking but this nameless knight."

"I am nameless no more," Ulrich said in a hiss of fury, "and I act in the center of the lord of Stanora's will. There is nothing of you in this, Conor. You reach outside your walls to manage another man's fief. 'Tis an act without honor."

"This goes beyond you and my father, Conor," Walter said. "I will not see my sister used in this way. Where are they?"

"And where is William, and what part is he to play in this battle of wounded pride?" Ulrich said.

"A simple part, but of so great a weight that all must bow before it," Conor said, his blue eyes shining with spiteful victory. "Two are missing from Stanora. Who will be saved? Save Juliane, if you can, and the boy dies. Your boy. Your son and heir. The thing you sought, the wealth of St. Ives, will be lost because you could not save him. Or will you save your son and let Juliane fall onto the point of another man's prick? She will be lost to you, as will St. Ives. Either way, you lose St. Ives. I will not see that land fall into your grasp, you who are nothing and who bring nothing to the family of my name and blood."

"What of
my
blood? You speak of my sister!" Walter shouted. "Tell
me
where she is before she falls into this trap. You are her blood kin, yet you cast her into dishonor."

"She is a woman," Conor said coldly. "She falls where and how she must."

"You took neither of them," Ulrich said softly, his blade held steady and firm against the skin of his enemy, his will as steady as his steel. "Nicholas took Juliane. Who took William?"

"Your trusted friend, who cannot be trusted much," Conor gloated. "Roger."

"Roger?" Ulrich said, his brows raised. "You trusted Roger to betray me? Why?" Ulrich spoke calmly, as if nothing at all rested upon the answer. As if time had ceased to pass. As if they shared a cup of cordial wine and not the threat of red violence.

"You know him not," Conor said, pulling again away from the blade but escaping the point of it not at all. Ulrich, for all his ease of manner, kept him beneath his steel and coaxed Conor's blood out of him, drop by drop. A steady stream it was, thin but bright, soaking softly into the neck of his tunic. "He plots with Stanora's priest to get Stanora's wealth for the use of Thomas Becket."

"Stanora's priest runs false to England's king? Does treachery know no bounds?" Walter cried, his fair complexion red with anger and outrage.

"'Tis not treachery," Ulrich said, "not on Roger's part. His heart has bound his honor to the church. There is no fault in that. But enough of this," he said. "Where is Juliane?"

Conor shrugged. "The deed is past the doing now. Nicholas was well taken by her charm and beauty. That matter is done. There will be no undoing of it. He took her somewhere near the abbey of Thorney. I know not where. His goal is Nottingham, where he will make her his wife."

"Except that she is mine," Ulrich said.

"Not now." Conor grinned.