Lord of Falcon Ridge (3 page)

He laughed, he couldn't help himself. Thank the gods she hadn't killed the officious bastard. He wouldn't put it past her. But no, she'd exercised restraint, a quality her stepmother couldn't seem to master. She'd grown up well, he'd seen to it. He was proud of her. She learned from mistakes and never, to his knowledge, repeated them. It was a pity she was only a woman.

Chessa smiled in relief. She loved her father dearly. She hated to distress him. She said now, without thought, “Will you invite this Cleve of Malverne to dine with us?”

“Why?”

“To see if he will speak like a man and not continue like a smooth-pebbled rock skipping over the water.”

“You aren't simply content to stare at his handsome face? At his golden eye and blue eye? At his well-made man's body?”

“For a while, perhaps. Nay, for more than just awhile. But you know, Father, his voice is very nice and pleases me.”

“Very well. Oh, I hear you and your stepmother were fighting today. What about this time?”

“Did Cleve of Malverne tell you?”

“No, sweeting, he did not. Why would he? How would he know of it? What did you fight about?”

“I would prefer not to speak of it.”

“You will do as I tell you. What, Chessa?”

“She struck little Ingrid again.”

“What did the girl do this time?”

“She wasn't fast enough with Sira's hair comb. Sira bruised her ribs she struck her so hard with her fist.”

“I will speak to her,” he said. “Try not to fight with her, Chessa, all right?”

“Certainly. Do you want yet more sons off her? Is that why you allow her to be so damnably wicked?”

He sighed, smoothed his hands over the soft linen of his purple robe, and said, “You are still young—”

“I am eighteen. Most girls are married and have babes by my age.”

“Nonetheless, you are innocent in the ways of men and women. Sira gives me much, Chessa, much that you can't begin to understand.”

“She gives you her body whenever you ask? You needn't deny it, I know that's important to men. But I've seen her naked, Father. She's borne four children. Her breasts are lined and so is her belly. All right, so she doesn't have extra flesh, but still—”

“The childbirthing lines make no difference. It's the way of life. It doesn't lessen a woman's beauty. No, it's other things, things you can't understand as yet.”

“Things Ragnor wanted to teach me but I wouldn't let him.”

“He touched you?”

Chessa had to smile at the sudden grimness in her father's voice. Debauching his wife was one thing. A man touching his daughter was quite another.

“Yes, but I put a stop to it. That's when he began spouting all his lies about loving me beyond the time of doom. I swear to you, he actually said beyond the time of doom. I could but stare at him. He was a fool.”

“I will make you a bargain, Chessa. You keep away from Sira and I will endeavor to teach her a bit of humility, a bit of kindness toward others.”

“I wish you good luck,” Chessa said, and left her father's chamber.

What Sira would probably do, he thought, knowing himself quite well, was to seduce him. He'd forget his own name in the process.

 

Cleve knew the man was after his blood. He waved the stranger toward him, taunting him. “Come, little man, come to me. We will see who can kill. Come, you sniveling little coward.”

Little was hardly the word for the man. He towered over Cleve, broad as a strapping bull, his fists huge. He was filthy, his stench nearly overpowering.

He lunged, his hands outstretched. He would try to crush Cleve against his chest, squeezing the life from him.

Cleve let him think he would get his way easily. He took a step back, as if suddenly afraid.

The man in his filthy bearskin laughed. “No more smart words for me, lying scum? Now, I'm coming to you just as you asked me to, and I'm going to make you feel more pain than you imagined a man could feel.”

“Tell me, who sent you?”

“Ah, I'll tell you that just as your tongue is bulging from your lying mouth.”

“Will you, or are you too stupid to even realize the man's name?”

The man yelled.

Cleve judged the distance, calmed himself in the very deepest part of himself, the way Merrik, Oleg, and others had taught him to. He raised his hand in a fluttering gesture, then dropped his arm. The movement made the man laugh. He strode toward Cleve, blocking his escape, moving him ever backward, toward the dark fetid alley.

“Are you afraid I'll still escape you? Who wants me dead? Who paid you to kill me?”

Cleve saw the shadow against the moonlit side of the building.

“Don't you dare hurt him!”

“Damnation,” Cleve said, recognizing that voice. He called out, “Get out of here, Chessa. Go away.”

“Nay, I'll take care of this miserable bastard. Coward, leave him alone.”

Cleve sighed, positioned the hidden blade between his fingers and raised his arm. “You want me dead?” he shouted at the man who had half turned at the sound of a female voice.

“Aye, and now,” the man shouted, whirling back toward Cleve again with renewed fury.

Cleve calmly released the knife. It gleamed in the dim light. It embedded itself in the man's throat, the tip of the knife coming out the back of his dirty neck.

At the very same moment, he heard Chessa call out, “There, you miserable creature, how does that feel? Go away and leave us alone.”

The man stared at Cleve, disbelieving, then he opened his mouth to speak, but only blood gushed out. He fell forward heavily onto his face. It was then that Cleve saw the knife sticking out of the man's back.

She'd stabbed him. She'd actually stuck a knife in the man's back.

“Are you all right, Cleve?” She was running to him, her hands out to touch him.

He stopped her in her tracks. “Why in the name of the gods are you here in this dark place?”

“How odd. You sound angry. I saved your life and
you're angry about it. Men—all of you are conceited oafs, none of you is worth a blade of grass.” She bent over and pulled the knife from the man's shoulder. It was then she saw the point of another knife protruding from his neck. She straightened slowly, eyeing him. “You killed him.”

“Yes, damn you, and I didn't want to, at least not yet. He hadn't yet told me who'd hired him to murder me. And you had to come along and play the dragon slayer. Next time, keep to your own affairs.”

“I'm sorry. I just thought I was helping you. I was afraid he would hurt you and I couldn't let that happen.”

“Why not? I'm only a diplomat who never says anything in a straightforward manner. You loathe who and what I am. The dinner with your father was so strained I'm surprised that anyone ate anything at all. Even the servants felt it, one of them nearly dumping some stewed cabbage on my lap. Then you brought it to a dramatic end. What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to speak to you. I saw my stepmother eyeing you like a succulent piece of honeyed almond bread during our dinner, and I knew she'd get you into her bed and so that's why I said what I did. It wasn't all that dramatic.”

“You wanted the dinner to be over with quickly so your stepmother wouldn't seduce me?”

She nodded. “You needn't act so surprised. I truly didn't mean to insult you so terribly. It was expedient.”

“You called all diplomats mangy curs whose fleas jumped on all those who came too close. A man could find himself dead for saying such a thing.”

“Actually, I said they were your master's fleas, and they defiled anyone they touched.”

“Forgive me for not rendering your insult perfectly. Your stepmother had no intention of seducing me. No, she was looking at me for another reason, one that's right in front of your damned nose. She felt nothing for me save distaste. By all the gods, you're blind.”

“No, you're the blind one. Of course she was eyeing you with lust. You're beautiful. No matter what else Sira
is, she enjoys a handsome man when she sees one. You're very unlike my father. He's black haired and dark skinned, just like me, and you're golden and beautiful. Aye, she enjoys looking at handsome men, she—”

“Be quiet and go away. You're wrong and your dislike of her is making you sightless and stubborn. I'm left with a mystery I don't much like. Didn't your father tell you to keep to your sewing? What the devil are you doing wielding a knife with such enthusiasm and talent?” He thought of Kiri, the most skilled five-year-old girl child with a knife that he knew of. By all the gods, he didn't want her to follow in this damned girl's footsteps.

“I thought he would crush you to death. Would you prefer that I shriek and faint?”

“In this case, aye. Go away now, Chessa, I must think about this.”

“I saw someone hiding near the edge of those trees, watching and waiting to see what happened.”

Not only had she rushed to save him, she'd perhaps even seen the man who'd hired the assassin to kill him “Who?”

“It wasn't a man. I don't know who she was. She wore a cloak and hood pulled up tightly around her head. But I know it wasn't a man.”

Cleve could but stare at her. He wasn't at all certain he believed her.

 

 

“
M
Y DAUGHTER TELLS
me you were very nearly killed last night. An assassin, she said.”

Cleve said in his low, smooth voice, “Just a thief, sire, or perhaps the man believed me to be someone else.”

“But what were you doing there, Cleve? Thieves and outlaws abound in that area.”

Cleve merely shrugged, saying nothing. He had no intention of telling the king that he'd received a message, telling him to come to that dank, filthy alley. Nor did he tell the king that his daughter had followed him there. He didn't imagine that she had told her father anything, just that he, Cleve, had spoken to her about what had happened. So she trusted him not to betray her. He probably should have told the truth then. Her father should have more control over her. Still, he kept his mouth shut, his lie stark and bare for the king to chew on. The king knew it was a lie, Cleve saw it in his dark, clever eyes.

“I don't think it was just a common thief,” King Sitric said, stroking his jaw, a strong jaw, not an old man's jaw. Cleve thought again of the stories he'd heard of the magician Hormuze who'd renewed the old king, making him a vigorous man in his prime.

“I will assign one of my men to accompany you whenever you leave my palace. I don't want Duke Rollo's
emissary to die whilst he is dealing with me.”

“As you will, though I hardly believe it necessary. A one-time attack, nothing more.” Actually, Cleve wanted another attack. He wanted to know who was behind it. And he didn't want the king's daughter in the way the next time.

“Now, back to our negotiations. Duke Rollo wants my daughter, Chessa, to marry his son, the future heir to the dukedom of Normandy.”

“Yes, his wife died in childbed some two years ago. William is in need not only of a wife but of a strong father-in-law, to use as leverage when the French king bares his fangs, which his nobles force him to do with great regularity. In return, you will dower your daughter only modestly, for your wisdom and the magic of your reign are held in deep respect by Rollo. It is the blood of your blood that he wishes to have.”

King Sitric drummed his fingertips on the chair posts of his throne. The king looked particularly fine this morning, in his white robe, belted with stout linen embroidered with diamonds and emeralds. His lustrous black hair was clubbed back and tied with a black woven strip of linen. Cleve said nothing, merely waited for the king to speak. He'd had nearly this same conversation with the king for the two previous days. They'd discussed the state of the Norman duchy, the power gains made by the French king, Charles III, the fact that Charles wanted Chessa to marry his nephew, Louis. But Sitric didn't trust King Charles, something he hadn't said exactly, though Cleve was practiced at observing.