Dragon Tree (4 page)

Tamberlane
clenched his jaw. Three years was a long time, yet there were those
with longer memories who might search him out, not content with the
punishment decreed by the Order, or by his own self-imposed exile
to the backwoods of nowhere. But he did not dare give voice to any
suspicions. Instead, he dispatched Quill and Fletcher to follow the
scattered raiders at a cautious distance and to give warning if
they appeared to be regrouping for a counterattack.

Apart from
that, he made no comment as he dismounted and walked slowly over to
the body of the dead knight. It lay face down in the crush of ferns
and with Roland's help he rolled it onto its back. There were no
markings on the tunic, no clues as to whom the dead knight owed his
allegiance. He was dressed in drab from his tunic to his gloves and
bore no crest or blazons on his gambeson.

A
mercenary?

A quick search
beneath the dead knight’s mail confirmed the guess with the
discovery of a small leather pouch clinking with silver coins.

Tamberlane
closed his fist around the pouch and pursed his lips in thought. No
question, then, they were paid assassins, yet the weight of the
purse did not match the weight of sin for committing mass murder.
Moreover, mercenaries would expect something more than a few
coins—plunder or loot at the very least. Again, it was a poor
village. What little of worth the tenants had was in their
livestock and in the crops they harvested to pay their rents and
tithes—a mere pittance to men accustomed to the wages of war.

Aware of
Roland and the others watching him, Tamberlane tugged at the
leather gauntlets, difficult to remove from a corpse's fingers, but
when he pushed the sleeves of the mail hauberk above the wrist,
there were no tracings on the skin.

He refrained
from glancing at his own wrist, at the tattoo of the five pointed
star that marked him as a member of the Order.

He pushed to
his feet and glanced at Roland. “Have the men checked for
survivors?”

Roland shook
his head. “They are all dead, lord. We caught them while they were
searching the bodies and finishing any who might have had a
heartbeat. There was a young girl—" he paused and looked across the
clearing. "But she appears to have succumbed to her wounds."

Tamberlane
wiped the blade of his sword clean on the dead knight’s jerkin then
resheathed the weapon in his belt. He frowned at the slight
stinging sensation in his hand and noticed for the first time the
layers of skin that had been peeled from his fore and middle
fingers when he fired the longbow.

“There is one
other,” he said. “She was sorely wounded and I doubt if she lives
still, but I left Maude and Hugo to stand guard.”

“Shall I send
a man to check?”

Tamberlane
thought it a useless gesture, but he curled his tongue against his
lower lip and issued forth a piercing whistle. The sound shivered
around the clearing a moment before fading, and when there was no
immediate response from the dogs, he scowled and strode back to his
horse. “I will see what holds their attention while the rest of you
collect your wits and make for the north road.”

“The road, my
lord?” Roland looked shocked again. “Are we not going to bury these
good people?”

“There are too
many graves to be dug; we would be here a sennight. Send word to
the abbey instead and advise the monks their shovels and prayers
are required.”

“But
sire—"

“You have
already disobeyed me once today by charging into a fight without
waiting for my signal,” Tamberlane said quietly. “Are you spoiling
to do so again?”

“No, my lord.
I just thought—"

“There is
naught to think about,” Tamberlane said bluntly. “We have no way of
knowing if this was their full force or if those who ran so nimbly
into the greenwood ran towards a larger host of men. If so, they
will not be pleased with the turn of events. Waste no further time
arguing. Go to the north road and wait for me there.”

Roland’s lips
pressed into a flat line, for he had served as squire to Lord
Tamberlane long enough to realize that once the former Templar's
mind was set, it was as immovable as a mountain.

"Aye, my lord.
The north road."

Tamberlane
wheeled his piebald around and headed back into the woods. He gave
another short, shrill whistle and moments later Maude came bounding
up to lead him back to the riverbed. Hugo was still standing guard,
his massive front paws planted firmly apart, his eyes fixed
threateningly on the dead knight, ready to attack if the corpse
should suddenly spring to life.

Tamberlane
called him off with a quiet word and knelt beside the body,
searching for clues as to why mercenaries would be hired to attack
and slaughter the unarmed inhabitants of an entire village.

The head,
half-submerged in the stream, had been severed enough that it lay
at an odd angle to the torso. Tamberlane was able to unfasten the
ruined pennyplate camail and remove the helm without having to roll
the body onto its back, but the face—if he was expecting to find
some revelation there—was unfamiliar.

The vill was
part of his demesne, though he scarcely paid it any heed. The rents
were paid on time, there were no disputes to be settled. Indeed, he
was hard-pressed to remember the name or face of the village
leader.

It did not
take a great leap in reasoning to surmise that the attack had been
launched against him. He had striven to spend the last three years
in the shadows of obscurity, yet if someone wanted to find him, it
did not take more than a question whispered in the right ear.

Perhaps he
should have shed his name along with his Crusader’s mantel. His
family would have had no objections.

The sound of
Maude’s heavy panting made him turn his head. The girl lay a few
feet away, her face paler than any living thing could be. Her skirt
was still bunched above the top of her thighs, her legs crudely
splayed where the knight had kicked them apart. The sword had
scratched a thin red ribbon from each ankle to her groin and where
the lines met, the point of the blade had caused bright streaks of
blood to run down into the cleft of her sex like a jagged streak of
lightning.

Against the
whiteness of her skin it had been easy to miss seeing the silky
bush of yellow hair that grew there, making him reassess his
initial assumption that she was a child.

Whether it was
his own monkish discomfort that prompted him to cover her, or the
thought that it was no way for a maid to lie, even in death, he
unstuck his boots from the muck beside the stream and dropped down
on one knee beside her. He was about to smooth the hem of her tunic
back down to her ankles when he heard a faint rattle in her throat.
He looked at her face again, and although her skin was as
translucent as old wax, he noticed what he had missed before: a
thin blue vein in her temple throbbed erratically, another
fluttered in the slender column of her neck.

She was
alive.

The metal tip
of an arrowhead was protruding from her shoulder. There was blood
staining her gown from neck to waist and she had lost enough to
soak the leaves beneath red. Already there was a small army of ants
gathering to feast on the fresh bounty.

When his gaze
returned to her face, he was surprised again to see that her eyes
had flickered open. They seemed to roam without purpose or focus
for a long moment before fixing on the shadow that knelt beside
her. A startling shade of violet-blue, they widened in terror when
she saw the shadowy figure leaning over her.

Tamberlane
remembered the sword poised over her cleft. The mercenary had been
on the verge of impaling her, of tearing into her sex to mutilate
her in a final act of contempt and he realized at once that she
feared he was that same brutish knight.

“Easy, girl,
easy. The cur who did this to you is dead. The one who meant to
harm you is dead. You have nothing to fear from me.”

“Dead?” she
gasped. Her eyes rolled once side to side, then came to a halt on
Tamberlane’s face again. “As am I?”

Tamberlane had
seen enough mortal wounds to know that the likelihood of her
surviving out the day was slim. He had to lean forward to catch the
faintly whispered question, and it was just as well, for the act of
straightening allowed him a moment to decide whether it was kinder
to lie or tell the truth.

She saved him
the need to decide by moving her hand and curling her cold fingers
around his wrist. “I beg you... end it. End it now.”

Tamberlane
drew further back. On a field of battle, to find a comrade-in-arms
so gravely wounded, he would not have thought twice of obliging, of
ending the suffering quickly and cleanly. The fact that she was
begging him to show her an equal mercy should not have unsettled
him, and yet it did. Enough so that he stared, and continued to
stare as a clear, fat tear swelled at the corner of her eye and
trickled down her temple.

Despite
scratches on her cheek and grime on her face, she had a sweet
countenance with softly sculpted features and a delicate
tenderness. He surprised himself by thinking of her as pretty.
Pretty... and undeserving of such a fate.

“It is not
your time to die just yet.” He made the declaration without any
foundation whatsoever, and from whence the words or the falsely
offered hope came, he knew not. In any case, she was not fooled.
Her lashes, long and honey-gold, fluttered again and the grip on
his wrist tightened.

“Please... it
would be a kindness.”

The plea,
uttered with desperate futility stabbed his chest like the point of
a dagger and for reasons he could not explain, opened such a well
of anger and rage, it spilled through his body like acid.

“You do not
have my leave to die,” he said gruffly. “So do not even think to do
it.”

With a flush
rising in his face, he blew out half an oath and bowed over her
again, sliding one arm beneath her shoulders, the other beneath her
knees. Without stopping to acknowledge the foolishness of what he
was doing, he lifted her off the bed of leaves. A gasp escaped the
blue-gray lips as her wound was jarred; another brought her head
rolling against his chest as he grasped the horn of his saddle and
pulled himself up onto his horse. The action was awkward,
undoubtedly an agony for the maid, and by the time he was settled
with her cradled before him, he could feel fresh blood from her
wound soaking warmly into his sleeve. He whistled once for the dogs
then picked his way carefully but quickly back through the woods in
the direction of the north road.

Roland was
there with the woodsmen, and to judge by the look on his face, he
would not have been more surprised had his lord emerged from the
greensward carrying the body of Richard the Lionheart in his
arms.

Jaw slack,
mouth gaping, he stared at the girl.

“She is still
alive,” Tamberlane said, forestalling the question.

“Alive, my
lord? Did she know who attacked the village?”

“We had no
time for idle chatter. Here, take her from me. You likely have a
gentler touch.”

Roland moved
his horse closer, but one look at the arrow lodged in the girl’s
shoulder made him draw back.

“The arrow is
acting as a stopper, my lord. Jostle her too much and the bung may
pop free.”

“The bung will
pop free if I throw her to the ground.”

The squire’s
gaze rose sharply and Tamberlane swore under his breath. “Very
well. She will likely be dead before we reach the castle anyway.
Where is the stag? You have not left it to rot in the woods, have
you?”

“We thought...
that is to say, my lord, I thought—"

“Well you
thought wrong. We came out to put meat on the board tonight, and by
God, there will be meat."

Tamberlane
took up the reins and spurred his destrier onto the road. The
girl’s head bounced a moment but then settled back into the crook
of his shoulder with such a soft sigh, he looked down, expecting to
see her eyes open and staring up at him again.

They were not
and his own gaze slipped unwittingly to where her breasts were
pillowed against his chest. A ragged tear in the bodice gave him a
shadowy view beneath the cloth and he glimpsed a flash of silver
cut in the shape of an ornate crucifix.

The sight of
it set his jaw in a grim line, for here again was proof that faith
was no protection against evil. It had taken him many long and
bloody years to learn that. The girl had discovered it in less than
a day.

CHAPTER TWO

Taniere Castle
was perched at the tip of what had at one time been a finger of
land that stretched out into the silky smooth waters of a lake so
small it bore no name. When the Normans had conquered England and
replaced the Saxon’s mud and timber keeps with stone
fortifications, a small army of men had labored for months to dig
an aqueduct fifty feet wide and equally as deep to completely
surround the castle with water. The crumbling breastworks had been
replaced with rock and mortar walls twenty feet high and twelve
feet thick. The wooden enclosure was razed and in its place grew a
massive stronghold consisting of a stone keep three stories high,
with a slanted base measuring five hundred long paces down each
side of the square. Each corner was surmounted by a tower extending
out over the crenellated walls. The parapets that spanned the
distances between these four towers provided a breathtaking command
of the view of the surrounding forest and distant hills for miles
in every direction.

The only way
into the island fortress was across a drawbridge that was guarded
at one end by a gatehouse, and at the other by an arched portal
flanked by ominously unwelcoming barbican towers. The walls of the
barbicans were slit with cross-shaped meurtriers through which
archers could fire at anyone addled enough to try gaining entry
uninvited. The gate itself was built of solid oak timbers a foot
thick, banded with iron on both sides, forged by a master into a
depiction of coiled dragons whose heads and claws interlocked when
the gates were closed. Recessed another eight feet beneath a stone
arch was a multi-spiked portcullis which could be dropped to trap
attackers within.