Dragon Tree (23 page)

“I do not seek
to make my confession,” she said carefully. “Not for the sin of
wanting to murder a husband, at any rate."

"You have more
serious sins to atone for?"

“Vanity,
pride, foolishness, recklessness...shall I go on?”

“Ah yes, all
punishable by several score of
pater nosters
recited whilst
kneeling on kernels of wheat.”

“You speak
lightly of such things,” she said softly. “But I know...”

When she bit
her tongue to halt the words, he looked directly at her. “Yes? What
is it that you know?”

She had been
thinking of earlier, when she had been in his arms, her face buried
against his throat. Her hands had felt the bulk beneath his tunic,
most of it muscle to be sure, but there had also been the
unmistakable prickle of horsehair. She recognized it at once,
having seen poor Friar Guilford’s expression of quiet agony one hot
afternoon when he had worn a horsehair shirt beneath his robes to
atone for taking the Lord's name in vain.

It seemed
unwise, however, to mention her discovery to Tamberlane at that
moment, and so she glanced instead at the prayer niche. “I know now
that you keep an altar in your room. You display your crusader’s
mantle and sword, the reliquary with the precious shred of wood
from the holy cross."

"Objects. They
serve as pathways to memories, nothing more, and while some of
those memories would curdle your blood to hear, there were others
that are recalled fondly." A crooked smile played across his lips.
“As for the reliquary, there are so many in England alone that
purport to contain true shreds, the holy cross would have to have
been a thousand feet high and equally as wide.”

He tipped his
goblet to his lips but found it empty. Before he could pull himself
straight in the chair, Amie had cast aside the heavy blankets and
swung her legs over the edge of the bed. She was modestly clothed,
having donned a shapeless garment that Inaya had given her for
sleeping. The sleeves were bell shaped and overlong, the hem
dragged behind her on the floor as she hastened to the hearth.

She knealt
beside Tamberlane's chair and picked up the flagon of wine to
refill his cup. He hesitated but a moment before holding out the
goblet. She poured slowly, carefully, the stream of red wine
catching the light from the fire. When the goblet was full, she set
the flagon aside again and settled back easily onto her heels,
folding her hands lightly on the tops of her thighs.

Tamberlane
raised the goblet and studied her over the rim as he sipped. She
had turned her face into the warmth of the fire and he was struck
again by the delicacy of her nose, her cheeks, the swan-like arch
of her throat. The stain had washed out of her hair so that the
tips of every curl seemed to catch the light and sparkle.

Just as
before, he found himself battling inner demons, not daring to
acknowledge how sweet a countenance she had, how slender her
shoulders, how narrow her waist. When he'd held her earlier, he had
felt the ripe firmness of her breasts pressed against him and he'd
thought his heart was going to beat out of his chest. The cropped
hair only added to the cherubic quality of her face and he
surrendered, howsoever involuntarily, to the most unmonkish thought
of wondering how it would feel to run his fingertips along her
cheek and across the shape of her mouth.

In his mind’s
eye, he lowered his lips to hers and explored those same contours;
he caught her about the waist and pulled her up hard against him,
tasting her, feeling her, drinking in the sheer wonder of her
womanhood.

A cinder
snapped in the fire.

He blinked and
set the goblet aside. Pushing to his feet, he mumbled something
about the heat becoming oppressive and started across the room
toward the stairs that led up to the roof.

“Oh please,”
she said at his back. “May I come with you? I would take a breath
of fresh air as well.”

He paused and
closed his eyes briefly, for his purpose in going to the roof was
to remove himself from temptation. “There was rain earlier. It will
be damp.”

“A moment
only,” she pleaded. "Please."

Tamberlane
touched his forehead to the cold stone. His chest and back were a
mass of abraded nerve endings from wearing the coarse horsehair
shirt. His hands trembled if he did not keep them clenched into
fists, and his mind had wandered to the bed more often than he
thought possible during the night, regardless how much wine he
consumed.

He needed air.
He needed something to distract his thoughts away from soft lips
and a slender body.

Without
waiting for Amie to join him he took the narrow stairs two at a
time and flung himself out into the night air, filling his lungs
with an audible, sucking gasp. The wind was gusting strong over the
parapets and snatched at his hair, pushing it back off his brow.
The smell of dampness was thick and pungent; it had rained earlier
and the roof was dotted with puddles that reflected light from the
waning moon.

Tamberlane
walked over to the wall and pressed his hands flat on the wet
stone. There were more sentries than usual patrolling the outer
walls, more torches burning in the inner and outer wards. The
brightest blots of light were around the stables and main gate. The
portcullis had not been lowered—to do so would have been an insult
de Langois could not have ignored. But there was a strong presence
of Taniere guardsmen walking back and forth across the draw,
sworded and armored, flanked by more men in the barbicans.

Taniere Castle
was not an impregnable fortress by any measure, but it was
defendable. The only real vulnerability was the drawbridge and gate
when both were open, and that weakness could be sealed with a
moment’s notice.

Tamberlane had
been around fighting men most of his adult life and he recognized a
dangerous adversary in the red haired knight... one who would wait,
bide his time until all the advantages were in his favor. Doubtless
he would know by morning the exact fighting strength of the
Taniere's garrison. His men would have charted the walls, the
baileys, the approaches. He would have ruled out a frontal attack
of any kind and would be eager to know if there was any other way
in or out of the castle.

Amie came up
behind him and peered through a gap in the stone teeth. She had the
blanket drawn close around her shoulders and snatches of the wind
made the bottom twirl around her legs. Above them, the last lacy
shreds of cloud were scudding toward the southern horizon and the
moon kept breaking through, watery and pale. The light gave
substance to the village on the far banks of the lake. Odo’s men
had made use of the empty cottages to stay out of the rain, but the
occasional gray blur of a sentry could be seen moving around the
perimeter.

“There was a
storm the night we escaped from Belmane,” she said softly.
“Lightning such as I have never seen. God’s way, perhaps, of
telling me I should have stayed and taken my punishment. If I had,
all of those innocent people would not have died. Friar Guilford
would not have died.”

“Innocent
people die every day. You cannot let what happened at the village
weigh you down, for the guilt is not yours to bear. Your actions
were dictated by fear for your own life.”

“And that
justifies it?”

“It allows you
room to forgive yourself.”

"Have
you?"

"Have I
what?"

"Forgiven
yourself."

Tamberlane’s
head turned slowly and his eyes were like spearheads, glittering
and sharp.

“The horsehair
shirt you wear next to your skin,” she said quietly. “I felt it
earlier.”

“My sins would
make yours seem trivial by comparison.”

“Is that why
have you have cloistered yourself away in this castle like
a...a...” she waved her hand, searching for an appropriate
word.

“Like a
monk?”

She blushed at
the blunt sarcasm. “You said yourself you were no longer a
priest."

"Yet not quite
a cabbage farmer."

"I see you as
a knight. A brave warrior knight who fought beside his king in the
name of the Holy Sepulchre."

"Would you
still think of me as that brave knight if you knew I walked away
from the battlefield? That I shed my sword and my armor and walked
away from the screams and cries and bloodshed without a backward
glance, without any attempt to stop what was happening? Further,
that I bowed my head and bared my neck to a Saracen's sword and my
only a prayer was not for forgiveness or absolution, but for the
end to be swift and painless?"

"Sometimes it
takes more courage to walk away than to stay," she said softly.

Ciaran had no
response. The image of her set against the firelight was still
scorched on his mind. Her mouth kept drawing his stare like a
magnet.

What harm, he
thought? What harm for a man who was no longer a priest to want to
feel like a man?

The palms of
his hands grew damp and he curled them into fists... but that was
no help. Nor did the pain caused by pressing the knuckles into the
stone leave him feeling any less desirous of gathering her into his
arms and kissing her until neither of them had the sense or wit
left to fight it.

Standing
motionless by his side, Amie was aware of the acute tension in the
air between them. The night sky, the moonlit landscape... it all
seemed to fade, to recede so far into the background it was as if
she and this dark brooding knight stood alone at the very top of
the world and there was nothing to distract them. Her mouth went
dry but another part of her body reacted in a way that sent shivers
spilling down her spine. It was not possible, not imaginable that
she could want to feel those arms go around her again, that she
should want to feel the press of his hard body against hers... but
she did.

Her fingers
lost their grip on the blanket, the strength to hold it gone from
her hands as it slipped down her shoulders.

“You should go
back inside," he said, his voice raw and hoarse.

Her lips moved
to form words, but there was no sound. Her body was shimmering
inside, her limbs and belly were heavy as lead while her head felt
so light she feared it might float away. She saw his hand come up
and felt a finger touch her cheek, touch the wetness that was
streaking down to her chin. He angled his hand into the moonlight,
studying the glistening tear caught on his fingertip as if he had
never seen or touched such a thing before.

Such an
intense wave of longing swept through her body, it took Amie
several breathless moments to send her gaze climbing slowly up from
his hand to his shoulder... then from his shoulder to the square
ridge of his jaw. By that time, he had bent his head closer so that
their breaths mingled in soft white puffs on the cooler air.

“Go inside
now,” he murmured, his lips brushing against her hair. “Before I am
tempted to commit a sin that neither one of us could scrub away
with mere horsehair.”

Amie shivered
again. The throbbing between her thighs was very real, commanding
every thought that was not already held hostage by his voice, by
the hunger in his eyes. Each pulse was so strong it verged on pain,
the ache so near to pleasure she feared she could not take a step
or move without betraying her shame.

Throughout the
long months of her marriage she had never once experienced desire
or passion. She had endured. She had suffered Odo's gropings and
thrustings but she had turned her mind into a blank wall that
nothing could break through, not even the pain of the lashings.

But this...
this overwhelming tenderness was shockingly new to her. As new as
the longings, the sweet, shivery tension, and the knowledge that
she was not completely dead inside.

“I would stay
with you, my lord,” she whispered, "if you wished it."

He groaned and
took a deliberate step away. He held his hands up, the fingers
splayed, in a gesture of finality that had her stumbling back, had
her snatching the blanket tighter around her shoulders before she
turned and dashed quickly back to the stairs.

Ciaran watched
her move away. The loss was almost physical and he put a hand to
the stone to steady himself. His wits felt scattered as he turned
and stared out over the parapets, the soft echo of her stammered
offer ringing in his ears.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Tamberlane did
not return to the solar that night, nor did Amaranth manage to
close her eyes until it was nearly dawn. When she awakened, Inaya
was gone and the pallet tucked away under the bed. Amie climbed
gingerly out from beneath the heavy covers and padded barefoot to
the garde-robe; when she was finished, she stood by the fire a long
moment, rubbing her hands in the heat of the flames.

She was still
not altogether certain what had happened last night. Lord
Tamberlane had wanted to kiss her, she was sure of it. Had she
wanted him to? The thought was as foreign as the notion that she
might actually have craved the needs and hungers of another man.
Not just any man, mind, but a monk. A priest who had taken vows,
and from all that she knew of Lord Ciaran Richard Edward
Tamberlane, he was not one to break a vow lightly.

A sound from
the outer landing startled her into dashing back toward the bed,
but it was only Inaya with little Jibril in tow. His huge brown
eyes peered from behind his mother’s skirts, his hand was clutched
tightly around a fistful of the silk as if he had no intention of
ever letting go. Marak was few steps behind, bearing a stoneware
bowl steaming with one of his infernal possets.

“It might ease
you to know that Lord Tamberlane is, at the moment, escorting Odo
de Langois and his men to the outer bailey. They are fed and
refreshed, profuse in their thanks for our hospitality, and vowing
to remove themselves from our forest within the hour.”