Secret Song (3 page)

Roland accepted a cup of ale and waited for his host to come to the point.

“I will pay you well,” Damon Le Mark said, and raised his own cup for a toast. Roland sent him a bland look and asked, “Whom do I have to kill?”

The earl laughed. “I do not seek to hire an assassin. Any enemy I have I will slay myself. I hire a man who's known for his ingenuity, his ability with languages, and his skill at changing his appearance to suit any situation in which he finds himself. Is it not true that you were accepted in the company of Barbars himself in the Holy Land? That you passed yourself off as a Saracen for two years? That you masqueraded as a Muslim with such finesse even the most devout didn't know you for what you were?”

“You are well-informed.” Roland wasn't about to deny the earl's recital. He wasn't vain; nor was he foolishly modest. For the most part, it was true. Odd how the very attributes Roland held to be in his favor sounded vile on the earl's lips. He waited, more interested now. The earl's need must be great. The task must be beyond his own abilities, and it irked him.

Damon Le Mark knew he must suffer the arrogance and impertinence of the young man seated in front of him, a young man who, in addition to his reputation for boldness and cunning, was passing handsome, his lean face well sculpted, his black hair thick and gleaming, his dark eyes bright with intelligence. But he was swarthy as a savage Irishman, and didn't look to be a man of particular wealth or refinement. Damon Le Mark also reminded himself that this man was of no inborn worth at all despite his birth and his heritage. He held no title and, more important, no land. He was a man who made his way by playacting and deceit, and yet he, a man his superior in every way, must be gracious, and he must offer him a great deal of money. It was galling.

“I am always well-informed,” the earl said. “It took my couriers a good deal of time to locate you.”

“I received your message in Rouen. I was passing the winter there very pleasantly.”

“So I hear.” He'd been told by his own man that de Tournay had been living with a very pretty young widow in Rouen.

“Her name was Marie,” Roland said easily, and sipped at his ale. It was warm and dark and very smooth. “But do not mistake me. I was ready to come home, very nearly. As soon as the weather grew warmer.”

“To earn money by guile?”

“Yes, if need be, though I believe that wit is more to the point than guile. Would you not agree?”

The earl knew he'd been insulting when he shouldn't have. He retrenched, shrugging. “Ah, it's those other things that must interest me, de Tournay, for I wish you not to do them just yet. The reason I asked you here is vital. It concerns my beloved niece, Daria. I will be brief. She was kidnapped on her journey to Colchester, where she was to wed Ralph of Colchester. All twelve of the men in her train were butchered in an ambush. All the wagons carrying her wedding goods were stolen. I want you to rescue her and I will pay you very well.”

“Has a ransom been demanded?”

The earl's eyes narrowed and he bared his teeth. “Oh, aye, the damnable impertinent whoreson. I would that you would kill him as well, but I suppose that the rescue of my dearest niece must take precedence.”

“Who stole her?”

“Edmond of Clare.”

“The Marcher Baron? How very odd.” Roland fell silent. It was more than odd. The Marcher Barons, their power and existence granted to them by the great Duke William himself nearly two hundred years before, had little reason to stray from their strongholds unless it was to press west to garner more Welsh land and butcher more Welsh outlaws. It was their responsibility to contain the Welsh, and this they did with endless vigor and impressive continuity. They were in effect little kings, holding immense power in their own feudal kingdoms. It galled King Edward no end, this power outside himself, and Roland knew he planned to curtail their immense influence by defeating the Welsh once and for all by building royal castles all along the borders of the country. “I'll push the malignant little lordlings until they're on bended knee to me, pleading with me to leave them something,” he'd said once, pounding a table with his fist and sending it in splinters to the floor. Roland continued after a moment, “Edmond of Clare's stronghold is between Chepstow and Trefynwy, bordering the southeast corner of Wales. Why would he come across the width of England to kidnap your niece?”

The earl kept a stubborn silence. The impertinence of the knave, asking him these questions. He was furious but he contained himself. He couldn't anger de Tournay, for the man wasn't his to command. De Tournay could leave. Still, he refused to tell him the truth of the matter. He laid the matter on another's shoulders, saying finally, “Clare despises the Earl of Colchester. He wanted revenge so he stole my niece. He wants nearly all her dowry as ransom or he will rape her until she is with child before he returns her to me.”

“What did Colchester do to Clare to merit such a chilling revenge?”

Damon Le Mark's face paled and his hand shook. He wanted to thrash de Tournay for his infernal curiosity. He smiled and Roland felt the chill of that smile to his bones. This was not a man to guard your back. Damon shrugged. “I understand Colchester accidentally killed Clare's brother some five years ago. I know none of the actual facts of the incident, and it was Colchester's decision not to tell me more. Now, will you rescue my niece?”

This was doubtless a lie, but Roland let it go. Probably closer to the mark was that the Earl of Reymerstone had killed Edmond of Clare's brother. “When was she stolen?”

“On March the third.”

A black eyebrow shot upward. “You wait a long time to reply to Clare's demands.”

“I did not wait here doing nothing until my men had found you in that silly Frenchwoman's bed.”

“On the contrary,” Roland said with no heat, “Marie wasn't at all silly. What did you do?”

“I made two attempts, and both failed, or rather the men I sent to bring her back to me were fools and blundered. I discovered that my second attempt failed but two days ago. Clare returned one of my men alive with a new message and a new demand.”

Roland waited, knowing he wasn't going to like hearing what Clare wanted now.

“The whoreson now wants to wed my niece. He still wants her dowry as well, of course. If I don't send my own priest to him carrying all her dowry with him by the last day of May, he says he will rape her, then give her to his soldiers for their sport. Then, if she still lives, he will have her used until she is with child. Then he will throw her in a ditch.”

“I wonder why he wishes to marry her,” Roland said, stroking his chin.

“He wishes to humiliate me further.”

“Your niece—is she beautiful as well as rich? Would her face and physical gifts charm him as does her dowry?”

And in that instant, Roland saw quite clearly just what the earl thought of his niece. Living in Reymerstone with this man for master could not have been pleasant. Roland wondered where the mother stood in all this mess.

“She is well-enough-looking, I suppose,” Damon said finally, shrugging. “She is but a female, nothing more. Her tongue is impertinent upon occasion, but nothing a strong man can't control. She must continually be reminded that obedience and submission are what are expected of her. As I said, she needs a strong man.”

And you saw yourself nicely in that role.
“I met her mother. I imagine she was once quite lovely. Does the daughter have her coloring?”

The earl merely shrugged. “No, the girl has dark hair, filled with autumn colors, and her eyes are the oddest green. Pure but dark. Her features resemble her mother's but they are less coarse, more finely drawn.”

“I find it fascinating that Clare demands you send your own priest. Do you know why?”

“Clare is a religious zealot. He is a man controlled and dominated by his fanaticism. If he requests I send a priest, it is because he believes a priest will not cheat him of the dowry money, that the priest will fairly wed him to my niece. He does not seem to realize that priests are as venal a company as any. Will you try to rescue her before the whoreson ravishes her? Before the last day of May?”

“You don't believe he's raped her already?”

“No.” This was said grudgingly but firmly. Interesting, Roland thought as he said, “Why not? After all, what does a man's religious beliefs have to do with his lust?”

“Edmond of Clare keeps his word, at least that is his reputation. But if you haven't rescued her by the end of May, he will do exactly as he says he will, whether he wishes to or not. I know him well enough, and it's true.”

Roland held off giving the earl his answer that evening, even though he knew he would go to Tyberton and he knew exactly how he would present himself. The coin he would earn for this rescue would give him sufficient funds to purchase Sir Thomas's small keep, Thispen-Ladock, and the surrounding rich grazing lands in Cornwall. And that was what he wanted. He would no longer be beholden to any man for his survival. When this was over, when the wretched niece was returned to her uncle, Roland would use his wits to further himself, not be at the behest of another. He wanted to remain in England; he wanted to be master of his castle and his own lands, and once he rescued this girl from Edmond of Clare, he would have his wish. It mattered not that Damon Le Mark had lied to him throughout; it mattered not that it was more than likely he, Damon Le Mark, and not the fat Earl of Colchester, who had killed Clare's brother.

That night Roland was given one of the serving wenches to warm his bed and his blood. She was clean and sweet-smelling and he took her three times during the long night, for he was hungry for a woman after being absent for several weeks from Marie and he gave her pleasure as well and wished he could remember her name the following morning to thank her.

He said to the earl as he mounted his destrier, a stark black Arab named Cantor, “As I told you, I will rescue your niece and I will do it long before the deadline Clare has set. You, however, must swear to me that you will try no more schemes on your own. They might endanger me and my plans.”

The earl frowned and pulled on his ear, a lifelong habit that had left one earlobe a bit longer than the other, but finally agreed. Roland wondered if his word meant anything. He doubted that it did in the normal course of events. However, a good deal of coin was now in Roland's possession, half of the payment he was to receive. Perhaps that would keep Le Mark out of the game.

“Nor will you send a priest or your niece's dowry. There will be no need.”

The earl's pale eyes gleamed. “You have great confidence, de Tournay.”

“I will rescue her. Count out the rest of my coin, my lord, for I shall surely return to claim it.”

Roland prepared to whip Cantor about, when the earl called after him, “De Tournay. If the girl is not a virgin, I don't wish to have her back. You can kill her if you wish to. It matters not to me.”

Slowly Roland stilled his destrier and dismounted to stand facing the earl. He was sickened but not over-surprised. “I don't understand you. What matter if the girl is ravished? Her dowry remains the same size, does it not? Her dowry doesn't constrict even if her maidenhead is gone.”

“All changes if she is not chaste.”

“For that matter, how do I know if she's been ravished? How would you know?”

“I would examine her myself.” The earl paused, then said, fury lacing his voice, “That damned fool Colchester says he won't have her for his son if she isn't pure. His foul mother gave his father the pox and killed him because of the men she took to her bed. He's terrified that if Daria is ravished, she'll kill his precious son with disease as well.”

Roland was seeing the earl thrusting his fingers into the girl's body to feel if her maidenhead were still intact. To humiliate another thus was incomprehensible to him, particularly a girl who had no recourse but to accept the shame of it.

“Colchester isn't the only unwedded man in the kingdom,” Roland said mildly. “Wed her to another. She's an heiress, I gather. Most men aren't so absolute in their requirements for a wife, I doubt.”

“She is to wed Colchester, none other. It is the only match I will accept.”

And then, finally, Roland understood. The Earl of Reymerstone had made an agreement with the Earl of Colchester, and what he would gain in the marriage mattered more to him than the dowry. Roland wondered what the bargain was that the two men had struck.

“If she's a virgin when I rescue her, she will be a virgin when she arrives here.”

“Excellent. If she isn't, then I will kill her and you as well, de Tournay, and I will keep her dowry for myself, since there is nothing else for me.”

Roland believed he would most certainly try. He nodded curtly and remounted Cantor. He was on his way to London now, to see the king; then he would ride to Cornwall. He needed to see Graelam de Moreton; then he wanted to visit Thispen-Ladock, just to look at the stone walls and the green hills, just to stroll through the inner bailey and speak to all the people, and know that what he was doing would make this possible for him. He had the time, and in the next two weeks he would make all his plans. He would travel northward from Cornwall to the southeast corner of Wales to Tyberton Castle, domain of the Clares since Duke William's conquest of England. He knew now how he would present himself to Edmond of Clare. He smiled, seeing himself in this new role. He also admitted, his smile widening, that he had a bit of studying to do before he arrived at Tyberton Castle.