Keeper of the Dream (44 page)

He stopped before them, and she saw that he carried in his hand his seal, the symbol of his lordship. She expected him to give the seal to Sir Odo, so she was surprised when he took her wrist and laid the heavy, embossed piece of latten into her palm.

“Whatsoever is done by my wife, the Lady Arianna of Rhuddlan, shall be done in my name,” he said, loud enough for all to hear.

“I will serve you well, my lord,” she answered, her throat thick.

In front of Sir Odo and all his men gathered within the bailey, he brushed her lips with a sweet, fleeting kiss.

It took forever and seemed only seconds before the provision and armor carts rolled out the gate, followed by the arbalesters and the men-at-arms. The knights, mounted and therefore able to move at a faster pace, got a more leisurely start, but soon they too were gone. Only Raine and his squire and a chosen handful of his men remained.

The others, mounted already, waited for Raine just inside the castle gate. For the second time that morning, Arianna watched him walk toward her and she thought,
This time he will say it, he will say the words.

He said nothing, not even good-bye. He only stroked her cheek once, then turned on his heel, mounted his horse, and left her.

She waited until he was halfway across the tilting fields before she ran after him, crying his name. For a moment she was afraid he wouldn’t turn back. But then he did,
sending his men to ride ahead of him and dismounting to wait for her.

She ran across the field, the dew-wet grass dampening her skirt, hampering her legs, so that for a moment it seemed as if she ran forever and got nowhere. Then she was throwing herself into his arms and the doubled rings of his hauberk bit into her chest, and he was kissing her hard in that rough, fierce way of his.

He held her at arm’s length, rubbed his knuckles across her cheek. “God’s love, what a babe you are. Don’t cry, little wife. I’m coming back.”

“I’m not crying,” she said, though tears blurred her eyes. “And I don’t care if you come back or not, Norman.”

His smile was very male and pleased with himself, for he knew she lied. “You chased me all the way out here to tell me that?”

She fumbled at the girdle around her waist, where she had stuffed a wadded ball of silk. “I forgot to give you this.”

He smoothed out the crumbled, wrinkled ball. It was a pennon for his lance; she had made it for him. On the rectangle of bloodred silk she had woven his black dragon device, using strands of her own hair.

He said nothing, but he smiled at her, that beautiful, heart-stopping smile. He pulled her into his arms to kiss her again, a kiss that was deep and rough and full of hunger.

When the kiss ended, she clung to him still. “Oh, Raine, I—” She stopped, shocked at what she’d been about to say. “I’ll miss you so,” she said instead.

“I’ll miss you, too, little wife.” His hands moved up and down her arms. “I must go,” he said. But he didn’t.

Instead, he pulled her back to take her mouth one last time, then set her purposefully away from him and strode back to his horse without looking around. He mounted, and still without looking he cantered down the road,
catching up with his men. And still without looking he rode with them south toward the channel and France and King Henry’s war.

Arianna stood in the green grass of the tilting field and watched his figure get smaller and smaller, hoping he would turn around one last time, knowing he wouldn’t. Just as he was about to disappear over the last rise, he whirled his rearing charger about, and she saw his arm lift in farewell.

She ran back to the castle. She raced across the bailey, clattered up the wooden steps of the motte and into the keep. She took the stairs up to the top of the tower two at a time.

She crawled out onto the little catwalk that wound along the edge of the oak-shingled roof and from there, if she stood up, stretching tall, she could see him still, a tiny black dot shrinking on the horizon. She watched that dot get smaller and smaller until it had vanished completely.

She turned away from the empty road, and pressing her back against the rough shingles, she sank slowly to the ground. She lowered her head and rubbed her eyes against the hard bones of her knees.

I should have told him, she thought. I should have told him that I love him. Now he was gone.

“Milady, you should see the commotion in the hall!”

Edith burst into the chamber, bringing shouts and laughter with her. Her round, pockmarked face glowed bright as a torch from too much Christmas ale.

Arianna had sat on a stool before the brazier to comb her hair, though at the moment she was amusing herself by running her thumb over the ivory teeth, creating an irritating whine. She planted a listless little smile on her mouth and glanced up at the huffing servant. “What is happening?”

“The Lord of Misrule has just commanded Bertha to name all her lovers before the entire hall. Oooh, saints deliver us! I tell you, my lady, there is many a married man squirming like a worm at this moment.”

Edith fell into a fit of giggles. Arianna burst into tears.

“My lady! What is amiss? Why do you cry?”

“I’m not crying,” Arianna said. “I never cry. God’s death!” She flung down the comb and buried her face in her hands.

Edith patted her shoulder. “It’s your condition, milady. It makes you weepy for no reason.”

“Aye … I suppose so.”

Nay, it is because Raine is not here,
Arianna thought.
Oh, God, I miss him so.
It was a constant ache, this yearning to see him, to touch him. An ache deep within her chest, like a wound that was bleeding from within.

Edith closed the door, shutting out the discordant blare of a sackbut and the smell of ale and smoke that billowed from the great hall below. All of Rhuddlan had come, napkin and mug in hand, to partake of the lord’s Christmas feast.

At first Arianna had been excited about the Christmas preparations. It gave her something to do, a few moments at a time when her thoughts were occupied with something other than Raine. She had the hall decked with so much holly and ivy and bay boughs it looked like a summer’s day had been captured and brought indoors. The Yule log had been burning in the hearth for twelve days—a log so huge it had taken twenty men to carry it in. She had cajoled the cook to turn out all the traditional Christmas foods—gingerbread dolls and frumenty, tripe pie and sweet pear wine. As a crowning glory to the festivities, a sack of pennies and a tun of wine had coaxed a traveling band of mummers into stopping by to pantomime the baby Jesus’s birth in a stable.

Ralph, the cowherd, had been the one to find the bean hidden in the Christmas bread loaf and so had been crowned Lord of the Misrule. His first command had been for the Lady Arianna to sing a solo whilst dancing a jig atop the table. Thanks to her brothers, Arianna knew a considerable repertoire of bawdy songs. She chose one that was risqué enough to delight the crowd, but not so shocking as to stop the heart of the castle’s palsied priest. But it wasn’t long afterward that she had pleaded fatigue and left the hall.

She hoped Raine’s people would think her health was the reason she did not stay for the ringing of the midnight bells and the singing of the Christmas carols. But it had
really been the laughter and the sight of couples kissing and dancing that had driven her away.

Edith took up the comb and began to work out the tangles in Arianna’s hair. “I heard many comments tonight on your beauty, my lady. You are blooming with the babe.”

Arianna huffed an unladylike snort. She picked up the pretty ivory-backed mirror that Raine had bought her that day they went to market together. Her wavering image glared back at her from the glazed metal surface. If he rode into the bailey this very moment, she thought, he would find a wife with a protruding belly, bloated ankles, and a disgusting pimple on her forehead.

The baby kicked and Arianna winced. It was said the harder and more often a baby kicked, the more likely he was to be a boy. If that were true then surely she was breeding a knight who would grow up to be a champion jouster like his father, for he pummeled her day and night.

Arianna sighed. In truth, she did feel tired. Though she doubted she would sleep. Her gaze went to the marriage bed. It filled the room, on its carved platform, with its heavy curtains of green sendal. It was empty without him.

She burrowed deeper into her robe of soft vair and drew closer to the brazier. She sought warmth, though she wasn’t cold. It was this time of the evening, in the hours before sleep, when she thought most often of their last night together.

They had made love again and again, until they fell exhausted into sleep, he still inside of her and they so tightly entwined together it seemed there wasn’t a place their bodies didn’t touch. But not once in all those hours of loving had they touched one another’s soul. She had waited all through that night for him to say the words, the tender words. But the words had not come and so she had held close to her heart the thoughts she longed to speak aloud. What was it he felt when he held her and kissed
her? she wondered now. When he entered her body and filled her with his own?

“Milady?”

She looked up, and was startled to see Edith standing there, with Myrddin’s golden mazer in her cupped hands. “What are you doing with that?” Arianna demanded, more sharply than she’d meant to.

“There was a pilgrim wandering by today, milady. He sold me a flask of holy water from St. Winifred’s spring. I thought it might be fun to see whether the babe shall be boy or girl.” She looked around the room, confusion mottling her face. “I saw this drinking cup sitting on the chest over yon and thought to pour the holy water into it. ’Tis all right, isn’t it?”

Arianna smiled suddenly and reached for the bowl, setting it into the cradle of her spread knees. It was said a pregnant woman could discover her baby’s sex by pricking her finger and letting a drop of her blood fall into holy spring water. Perhaps using Myrddin’s bowl would enhance the magic.

Edith handed Arianna an eating knife. Grimacing in anticipation, she pricked the ball of her thumb with the small sharp point. But then she hesitated.

“If it sinks, it will be a boy,” Edith said. “If it floats, a girl.”

“Aye, aye … I’m scared of a sudden. Mayhap I don’t want to know.”

Edith bent over to pick up the bowl. “No, wait,” Arianna said. She held her thumb over the mazer and squeezed out a drop of blood. The drop started to sink, then floated back up to the surface again. “What the devil does that mean? Is it to be a boy or girl?”

“I don’t know, milady. Mayhap you ought to try again.”

But the water had already turned a deep red, too red for such a little bit of blood. She stared at it, at the bleeding water, and felt its pull, sucking her in, down, through.
Her hands wrapped around the bowl and a torrent of fire flared up her arms. She felt the power, drank it in.
No,
her mind cried, I
don’t want to see.
But the thought was a lie. She wanted to see, wanted the power of seeing.

The water swirled, faster and faster, like a whirlpool, throwing up a bloody mist. A light shot up out of the whirling vortex, a clear, cold light that bathed her with its radiance until all around her was the crisp, sharp white of ice.

A war-horse thundered at her from out of the light, ears back, nostrils flaring. Then the light faded, became a forest, cool and damp, the air heavy with the mulchy smell of crushed leaves, and the odor of fear, like sour sweat. The ground quivered with the sound of clashing metal and screaming men. Among the fiery autumn leaves there was a sudden bright, piercing flash, the sun shining on chain mail. She flung her hand up in front of her eyes.