Rhiannon (37 page)

In spite of her own near crazed state, Rhiannon noted with admiration how Beornia stood like some tall and forthright warrior queen, staring down her fears, if she had any.

The squire Frederique lazily opened his long-fingered hands, and Beornia threw the purse to him. While his mates guffawed, he pantomimed stroking it against his cheek as though it were precious, then took it by its strings and twirled it above his head. “Here might have been a better prize than the scarf you took as memento of your escapade that night, Leonard!” he drawled.

He let go the purse and it sailed toward the rider who'd transported Rhia.

Leonard snatched it from the air. “I felt it to be lean as the pilgrim himself and not worth the bother! It served us well left behind where this local fool could pick it up!” Laughing, Leonard twirled the purse and made ready to throw it to another of the riders.

But Roderick suddenly stood in his stirrups and loudly commanded, “I've told you, speak French if you will speak of this, Leo!”

The others offered no comment but merely dipped their heads, and presently, the empty purse went sailing toward Roderick himself. He snatched it, ready enough to join in this impromptu game of catch now that he'd had his say. In fact, he gested loudly in the language of Francia whilst he twirled it above his head, and all the squires were laughing heartily when he let it go to the waiting hands of another across the circle.

Meanwhile, the three women helplessly grouped themselves together again beneath this childish game, ducking quick when the hard-thrown purse sailed too close above their heads.

“What can he mean, he felt the purse and found it lean?” whispered Beornia.

“I don't believe Frederique will meet this French lady cousin of Roderick's at all,” sniffled Maddy. “They talk of it only to make me jealous!”

“But what could he
mean
, unless . . .”

“We've suspected that some of
these
have done the murder, Beornia Gatt,” Rhia whispered through closed teeth. “They've nearly admitted it tonight, but alas, have stopped short and assumed this foreign speech. Arnold Mopp must have come upon the corpse afterward and thereby got the purse.”

“Hey, you girls down there!” Leonard called out. “Will you not quit your yapping and lift your eyes to the sport we provide you as preface to romance this evening?”

Then, before Rhia knew what was happening, he'd trotted his horse right up to her and leaned to unwind the scarf from around her neck. He draped it over his left shoulder and bent down to her with a snide smile upon his sharp-boned, handsome face.

“I see you've worn my colors, lady, so now I claim them back as your champion for this night of revelry!”

With that, he reached under her arm to lift her to his horse. Rhia looked frantically around the circle and saw Maddy run eagerly to Frederique. Meanwhile Roderick, smirking, walked his horse to Beornia.

“Well? Climb aboard, then, wench,” he told her. “Can you do else than talk? If so, let's see it, for your blather proves tiresome, and yet you are comely when silent.”

Rhia hung suspended against the side of Leo's panting horse, kicking at the air beneath her feet and slapping at Leonard's arm where he still clutched her beneath the arm. “Let me
go
!” she howled.

Then suddenly, as though summoned from the netherworld by her distress, there issued from the ground an unearthly wail of agony, a yelping screech of such unutterable horror that it might only have been made by demons, and
those
hundreds in number.

The seven horses whinnied and reared and staggered against each other in fear, their eyes widened and rolling. For through their hooves they indeed
felt
the ground quiver with the roil of that heathenish sound.

The riders struggled to control their mounts. Leonard released Rhia and she fell to the ground, off-footed. Maddy, too, had only partly completed her mount behind Frederique, and she found herself tumbled so she sat down hard upon the mossy earth.

“ 'Tis the end of the world!” Maddy screamed, though it's doubtful she could have been heard, for the racket of all those offended demons still shook the black night as though the whole of Wythicopse Ring would indeed open up and collapse into hell itself.

“We ride for home!” one of the younger squires yelled, and he with three others turned their horses and jumped the tumbled part of the wall, as all the mounts had strained to do.

Leonard, Frederique, and Roderick were left, and they three tried their best to gain control of their steeds, though hard reins and threat of whips would not settle them in the least. Indeed, such efforts only served to make them rear all the higher, so as to throw off their masters and rid themselves of encumbrance.

“Dismount!” Leonard finally yelled, and following his lead, Frederique and Roderick swung off their horses. The steeds immediately jumped the wall and galloped into the night, so that now six stood inside that ancient ring of brambly stone, the three young maids and the three haughty sires, with none sitting high and mighty upon a horse.

The heathen shriek from below stopped so suddenly that the new silence made a ringing in all their ears. They stood frozen, awaiting what might come next.

“No leaky Roman pipe ever gave such a blasting,” Roderick murmured after a while. “Our mounts will have reached the stables, and I suppose we'll needs go home afoot,” he further grumbled.

Leonard laughed and slapped him on the back. “Buck up, friend Roderick. Don't you see that these frightened girls need the comfort of our strong arms?” He gave him a wink and a sideways nod of his head, then he strode toward Rhia.

She stepped backward from him until she was pressed against the dampish stone of the wall. “We'd best hurry home our separate ways, afore that demon's riled again!” she protested in a rush. “If it be but one, and in truth it
sounds
like more.”

She was too harried to remember the rest of the plan, what it was she was to do or say. It took all her attention to dodge Leonard's clutches!

“Wait! I
know
that sound!” Beornia suddenly exclaimed.

All looked at her. Even Leonard, holding fast Rhia's arms, looked over his shoulder.

“Yes!” Beornia continued eagerly. “I've heard it not so loud but just as mawkish, not this shrill but shrill enough. It's the sound of an instrument played by one of the monks here resident at the church! The others send him to the outside courtyard when he feels he must play, and I've languished there of late and marveled at the, well, the
bawl
of it.”

Rhia bit her lip and shook her head with all her might, hoping to signal Beornia to just
stop
in her description before she doomed Thaddeus and Silas to whatever dire consequences would await their unfortunate discovery!

But it was no use. Beornia herself was certainly playing for time with this, hoping to delay the night's progression with a bit of small talk, as smarmy Roderick had his arm draped across her slim shoulders and stroked her cheek with his porcine hand.

Leonard released Rhia and drew his sword. “Come, Fred, it won't take long to poke some lost monk. We'll rout him from the pipes and send him squealing home to the vicar, then be left without further threat of interruption.”

“No!” Rhia grabbed Leonard's sleeve.

He turned back to her, blinked, then smiled. “I'm surprised and well pleased by your complaint at the delay, lady. Don't fret, we'll make this fast.”

But she would not release his sleeve. “Let me go with you,” she pleaded.

He frowned. “To stab a monk? The hole that contains him is dark, and it may be a bloody business. Stay here, I say, and I'll return momentarily.”

“If we're going, let's
go
, Leo,” Frederique groused, leaning upon the hilt of his sword and adjusting his mustache with the thumb and finger of the other hand. His heavy-lidded eyes and pouted mouth showed that he had not the reckless ambition Leo did.

Leonard tried to pry Rhia's fingers from his arm, but Rhia would not unhinge them.

“But . . . but . . . !” She shook her head fiercely. But, but, but . . .
what?
“But, sir, I fear this monk is one who . . . who is idiot resident of our hospice upon the bluff! Yes, yes, I'm sure that's him! He escapes sometimes, makes foray down to the town and steals the robes of a monk! Dressed in this way, he plays his irksome instrument until he's taken into custody and brought up the trail to us again! He has . . . he has a friend, also a simpleton, who goes missing as well. They were last seen by us some days ago, and I have no doubt he, also, hunkers in this hole you speak of. They mean no harm, and I would be so much in your debt if you would let me call them out and escort them home.”

Leonard stared at her with his brows knit, flummoxed. Then he assumed a grin that showed his deep dimple and flipped back his light hair, murmuring, “In my debt, you say, fair Rhiannon? And how do you propose to
repay
this debt, then, hmmm?”

She released his sleeve and forced a coy smile. “If you three will come as escorts up our trail, sir, you will
not
be disappointed. The trail itself is bound to be enchanted upon this night, and an old church stands atop the bluff and would afford romantic shelter. It's haunted, you see, and so can only add to the excitement of this moonlit night.” She looked down and took a breath, then raised her eyes. “Besides, sir, my mother and her mother will be gone to Roodmas. The blufftop will be completely our own, with none other upon it but the sleeping invalids and these two heedless idiots.”

His eyebrows shot up. “Yes, Maddy's spoke to us of the place!” He spun round to the others, sheathing his sword. “Roderick? Fred? Let's away to this blufftop, as we've a willing guide to the secrets of the place. Now,
this
promises to be an adventure!”

Frederique tilted his head and shrugged. Roderick raised one eyebrow.

“It's a long hike,” the earl's son stated. Then he sighed. “But I suppose
anything's
better than going back to the house and dancing all night with those ugly, goose-necked cousins of mine who have arrived this day from Francia.”

 
Thaddeus and Silas were so covered with ancient slime from the Roman pipes that they seemed more glutinous, miry reptiles than men. Silas's bagpipes, too, were slimed, so that his instrument was a third preposterous clammy thing drifting between the two of them. They were ordered by Roderick to walk the distance of one hundred paces behind as Rhiannon led their troop on a shortcut skirt around the town and toward the bluff trail.

When they all traipsed on a straight course across a patch of stubblefield, though, Rhia managed to drop back to join the two slimed monks for a few moments upon the ruse of giving them a good scold for their escape.

“You smell awful,” she whispered to Thaddeus, though it's surprising she wasted time on this observation, given how little chance for talk they'd have.

“Rhia, they made a full confession!” Thaddeus whispered eagerly back. “When they spoke French, they joked of the murder in full detail!”

She gasped. “Was Roderick the killer?”

“No, Leonard. He knocked Aleron from his horse purposely, just for sport. They saw he breathed no longer, and also discovered from his possessions that he was Norman. As all Norman murders are by law thoroughly investigated, these others then assisted in disrobing Aleron so his aristocratic background would not be evident from his boots or papers or horse. I suppose they left his money pouch in hopes someone would pick it up and thereby bring guilt upon himself. They added stab wounds so it would look like a murder for loot done by a local peasant or some vagabond. They
joked
of all this!”

“Rhiannon!” Leonard turned to call harshly across the distance and the darkness. “Leave those halfwits to stumble along as they may and come back to us up here, I say!”

The three squires held torches, and by that light Rhia could see their shapes far ahead, and also the shapes of the close-held girls they hiked with.

“I come,” she called back, then swallowed. To Thaddeus, she whispered, “I like this not. They will
never
fear Jonah's disguise. They easily and quickly take whatever they want. Did you not hear them say they would poke the monk that played beneath our feet? They'll easily kill him if they think he comes in the way of their . . . their lewd intentions!”

Thaddeus whispered back, “When you've escorted me to my simpleton cot, I'll double back and hide just under the window of the church that's nearest the hermit's tomb!”

Wiping tears from her eyes, she whispered, “But Thaddeus, you
can't
do that! Almund himself only dares watch from our cot, as there's no hiding spot outside the church and Gramp sounds the alarm when anyone's about! We were
fools
to attempt this! How did we ever expect to get them to repeat their confession within hearing of the reeve to begin with? It will be your word against theirs, and so
yours
will count for nothing, and all this approaching mayhem will have been for naught.”

“Rhiannon, I said
come
!”

She squeezed Thaddeus's arm and ran to join the group ahead. She would not have hurt Thaddeus's feelings for the world, but she wondered at his innocent saintliness sometimes. Oh, he would jump through that window and give his life gladly in defense of his friends, she had no doubt of that. But truthfully, it would be such a waste, for against three ruthless and well-trained swordsmen such as these, Thaddeus could be no help at all. Why, he didn't so much as own a weapon!