Patricia Ryan - [Fairfax Family 01] (11 page)

“
Hemlock!
”

Her slender fingers could not meet around his wrist. It felt as hard as oak to the touch, but warm. She released it abruptly, almost pushing him away, then took the vial, closed it, and returned it to the box, aware the whole time of him watching her, his gaze strangely intent.

She cleared her throat. “‘Tis an ingredient in a surgical sleeping draft I know of. In a very tiny amount. More could kill you.” She handed him the little bag of stavesacre. “Take what you need. I’m curious to see how you use it.”

He put a pinch in a stone mortar, then added three peppercorns from his own supplies and ground them quickly to dust. He poured something from a jug into the mortar—Martine smelled vinegar—and said, “I’ll let it sit for a while till it’s ready. Then I’ll put some on the merlin’s nostrils and palate. That and some warm hen flesh should cure her cold.”

He took some extra stavesacre and a few cardamom seeds, storing them in little jars, then said, “Have you ever held a falcon?”

“Nay.”

“Never?” Of course her truthful answer would surprise him, she realized. Women who had grown up in noble households were used to handling birds of prey, if only the smaller varieties, like that merlin. Had he asked the question in a deliberate attempt to trip her up? Was he beginning to suspect, after Estrude’s interrogation regarding her family, that she was hiding something?

He took a small gauntlet from a hook above the brazier and handed it to her. “Follow me.” He held the leather curtain aside for her. She hesitated, then stepped into the other room.

Several of the birds cried out and flapped their wings as Martine and Thorne entered, but he calmed them with a few soothing words. There were about a dozen, of different species, on perches atop iron rods set into the stone floor. It was dim and cool in the room, the only light coming from between the slats of the window shutters, although several unlit brass and horn lanterns hung on chains near the ceiling. The scent of fresh straw perfumed the atmosphere. It also smelled of the birds, but not offensively so.

She attempted to put the gauntlet on her right hand, but he took it from her and pulled it onto her left, then placed a hand on her back. She tensed at the touch, at the heat from his palm that penetrated the thin fabric of her costume. But once he had guided her to an enormous gray gyrfalcon and removed his hand, the spot where it had been felt cold, and she wished he had left it there.

“This is Azura,” he said. “Lord Godfrey’s favorite.” He threaded a leash through the little swivel on one of Azura’s jesses and wrapped it loosely around Martine’s gloved fingers.

“This one?” Martine said. “But she’s so big!”

“She’s the tamest of them all. Here.” He took her gloved left hand in both of his and pressed it into a fist, then guided it toward the bird’s feet. “She’s well trained. She knows what to do. Don’t let her know that you don’t.”

Martine gasped as the huge bird stepped onto her fist, clinging tightly with her powerful claws.

Thorne said, “If you’re nervous, she’ll be nervous. A nervous falcon is a dangerous thing to be that close to.”

“You have a talent for placing me in dangerous situations, Sir Thorne.”

“You seem to handle yourself fairly well, my lady.” He met her eyes. Quickly she returned her attention to the bird.

“What’s the matter with her tail?” she asked, pointing to a spot that looked damaged.

“One of the feathers is broken. I had wanted to imp it today, because the baron is eager to fly her soon, but my assistant’s not here to help me.”

“Imp?”

“Sew a new one on.”

“You can do that?”

“Certainly.” A pause, as if weighing something. “Would you like to see?”

“But you said you couldn’t do it because your assistant’s—”

“You can help me,” he said, holding the curtain aside again and motioning her into his living chamber. He dragged the armchair close to, and facing, the bed.

“What do I have to do?” The bird weighed her arm down so heavily that she had to use her right hand to support her left. She realized how strong Thorne must be to be able to hold them for hours while he and Godfrey hunted.

He collected some items from the worktable and tossed them and his gauntlet on the bed. “Just sit in that chair.” She did. He draped a clean linen cloth across her lap and then gently took hold of Azura and placed her on the cloth with her back up and her tail toward the bed. Next, he laid a square of dark wool over her head to keep her calm, he explained. Taking a strip of leather from his worktable, he tied his hair back, then sat on the bed opposite Martine, one long leg on either side of her chair.

She could not get used to this physical closeness that he seemed to take for granted. Although they were not touching, she felt surrounded by him, penned between his thighs in a most intimate way. She could feel the heat from his body, smell the Castile soap with which he had bathed that morning. Azura flinched, and she realized she had been gripping the bird too hard.

“Just hold her lightly,” he said. “So she knows you’re there.” First he took a small sheet of parchment and slid it under the damaged feather. Then he reached into a little wooden box and withdrew a gray feather the exact color of Azura’s tail.

“I save them when they molt,” he said. Using a small knife, he clipped the new feather to the proper length and trimmed the end of the old one. From another box he took a tiny needle, which he threaded with silk. Then he began sewing the feathers together.

Martine had never seen a man sew. Needlework was the domain of women, and the sole creative pursuit of most noble ladies, although Martine had absolutely no patience for it herself. He hunched over the bird, frowning in concentration as he worked the little needle in and out of the feather’s shaft with his long fingers. His big hands were surprisingly precise in their movements; his stitches were small and neat.

Martine said, “How did you come to learn about falcons?”

“How did you come not to?” he answered, still intent upon his work. “I’ve never known a lady of your rank to be so unfamiliar with them.”

She stared at the top of his head. His questions were becoming more direct. With this bird on her lap, she couldn’t just get up and leave, much as she would have liked to. Had he planned it this way?

The silence grew heavy. Thorne paused to look up at Martine, his expression thoughtful.

As he resumed sewing, he said, “I’ve kept birds of prey since I was a child. One afternoon when I was shooting small game, my arrow accidentally brought down a sparrow hawk. So I climbed the tree where she’d been nesting and took her young and raised them. After that, I trained other sparrow hawks, then goshawks and kestrels. ‘Twasn’t till I entered Lord Godfrey’s service that I was able to work with falcons.”

“They say you’re an accomplished bowman. Is that because you grew up hunting?” If she asked the questions, she wouldn’t be the one obliged to answer them.

He said, “If you do something often enough, you get good at it. When I was young, I hunted and chopped wood, and little else. We were poor, and I was the only surviving son.” He glanced at her, smiling. “I chop wood very skillfully as well, but it impresses no one.”

She couldn’t help smiling back. “Were there any sisters?”

He took two stitches before answering. “One. Louise.”

“Do you ever see her anymore?”

Two more stitches. “Every time I look at Ailith.” Leaning over, he bit the silk thread and tied it off, his warm hands brushing hers.

“No, I mean—”

“There.” He pulled on his gauntlet, lifted Azura, and took her on his fist. Pointing at the bruised teeth marks on Martine’s hand, he said, “I should lend you that gauntlet the next time you propose to give her little ladyship a bath.” His changing the subject, as if she had been asking things that were none of her business, rankled in light of his own prying questions.

“She won’t bite me next time,” Martine said.

As he walked Azura through the leather-curtained doorway, he said, “Where did an only child like yourself learn to handle children so well?”

An only child?
That was surely no slip of the tongue. She waited until he had reappeared, and said, “I have two brothers.”

Thorne hung the gauntlet back on its hook. “But they’re much older, are they not? And you spent seven years in a convent. It must have been rather like being an only child.”

She removed her gauntlet and handed it to him. With icy restraint she said, “You know I have two brothers. You know perfectly well I’m not an only child.”

He looked at her searchingly, and took his time answering. When he did, his words were measured, as if he were choosing them carefully. “My lady, I know almost nothing about you. Only that Rainulf calls you his half-sister, and that you panic when questioned about your family. ‘Twas I who recommended you to the baron as a suitable bride for his son. Your betrothal will be finalized tomorrow. Do you blame me for trying to find out before then whether I’ve misled him somehow?”

He
had
been laying a trap for her. Prying into her secrets under the guise of pleasant conversation. Why, if he intended to unearth the truth about her, had he saved her last night from Estrude’s nosy interrogation? The answer came to her in his own words. It was he who had recommended her as a suitable bride for Edmond, presumably for his own advancement. It would serve him ill for her to be found out by everyone before he had the chance to do so himself. He could then, of course, decide whether to expose her or keep her secret, and he would undoubtedly do whatever best served his purposes.

Suddenly she mistrusted him intensely. If she was not as she seemed, neither was he.

Walking toward the door, she said, “Rainulf thinks you’ve arranged my marriage out of friendship. I told him it was out of ambition, but he doesn’t believe me. He likes to think that everyone is as good as he is.”

“I don’t deny or apologize for my ambition. I’ll do whatever it takes to rise above the circumstances of my birth. If I should someday have children, I don’t ever want them to suffer the cruelties of poverty that your kind thinks nothing of imposing on mine. Your marriage does serve my ambition, but it also serves my friendship with your brother, which means more to me than you’ll ever know.”

“‘Tis a very touching speech,” Martine said, standing in the doorway. “You’ve obviously given a great deal of thought to how my marriage serves your purposes. I don’t suppose it’s ever occurred to you to consider whether it serves mine.”

She slammed the door and walked back to the keep.

*   *   *

Sausage pie and peas with bacon water constituted the midday meal. Lord Godfrey, Sir Thorne, and Albin were absent from the table. They were flying the falcons, and had taken their dinner with them to eat as they hunted. Lady Geneva, Ailith’s mother, chose not to dine with them, either, but no one offered an explanation for this.

Martine passed the afternoon exploring the lower levels of the keep with Ailith.

The first floor was the guardroom, nearly as large as the great hall, but with arrow slits instead of windows, and no place for a fire. There had been no attempt to make this room comfortable or attractive. The wooden floor was bare of rushes, and the walls displayed not hunting trophies, but a dizzying array of weaponry: gleaming broadswords and axes on one wall, and on another, rows of slender spears, javelins, and lances. There were dozens of graceful longbows and even a few of the outlawed crossbows, as well as thousands of arrows and bolts bound into bundles like kindling. To Martine’s way of thinking, the most menacing objects there were the brutally simple maces and throwing clubs, whose destructive power depended on mass and weight rather than finesse.

She and Ailith descended with a brass lantern to the cellar, a cold, fetid cavern with walls of weeping rock and a floor of beaten earth, in the middle of which had been dug a well. Piled up around the perimeter were pyramids of barrels and stacks of crates.

Ailith looked around excitedly. “Auntie Felda says there’s a secret passageway down here! If I’m good, she’ll show me where it is someday!” She ran to a barred iron door streaked with rust. “This is where the bad people stay. If I can’t stop bothering Mama, she’s going to have me locked in here.”

Martine followed her to the door and jimmied aside the plate covering the little peephole, which stuck halfway.

“Lift me so I can look!” Ailith begged. Martine held her up, and they pressed their heads together to peer into the dark compartment. The lantern didn’t help much, but Martine could make out the wet granite walls. The cell was no larger than a privy chamber, and just as rank, stinking of stale urine and rotten straw. She heard a faint rustling as something scrabbled beneath the straw. There would be a horrible little room much like this one in Lord Olivier’s keep. The bandits who murdered Anseau and Aiglentine would be there, waiting for the noose between sessions of unspeakable tortures.

An occasional drip of water rang through the silence; otherwise the cellar was as quiet as a crypt.

Shivering, Martine carried the child to the stairwell. “Let’s get out of here. We’ll go find my brother. Then perhaps you can take us up to your mama’s chamber and introduce us to her. The more I hear about her, the more eager I am to meet her.”