The Dark One: Dark Knight (11 page)

     The faint crackle of the hearth lulled her
into a deep, dreamless sleep.

     Gaston and Dane wandered down the hall to a
heavy carved door with the Stoneley crest on it.  Dane paused and faced Gaston,
his young expression still veiled.

     “Thank you for…thank you, my lord,” he
said, reaching up to unlatch the heavy bolt.

     Gaston gave the door a shove for
assistance, watching the stiff little body moving through the opening.  He
reached out to close the door behind him when something made him pause.

     “Dane,” he said hesitantly, not sure of
what he was even thinking.  “Your mother….did your father hurt her often?”

     He nodded solemnly.  “All the time.  My
aunts too.”

     His brow furrowed.  “He hurt them as well?”

     “Sometimes he hit them, but sometimes he
did other things to make them cry,” the boy said, not at all concerned that he
should not be telling this stranger these things.  “I do not know exactly what
he did, but I heard Aunt Jasmine say one time that he defiled her.”

     Gaston leaned against the doorframe,
crossing his arms.  He knew what the boy meant and he was moved to a new level
of disgust.  “Just her?  Or your other aunts, too?”

     “All of them, I think.  When my mother
tried to stop him, he would make her bleed,” the boy said.  “They would cry all
the time and at night, sometimes, I could hear my mother scream.”

     Gaston closed his eyes a brief moment,
resting his head against the doorframe.  So that was what went on in this
place, he thought grimly.  Those women were condemned to a living hell within
the walls of the keep.  And none were more humiliated and abused than Remington.

     Anger such as he had never known seized
him.  An odd sense of such protectiveness that his whole body tensed.  No
wonder she jumped when he innocently touched her.  And ‘twas no wonder she had
become completely irrational when he had come across her in her bath.  By God,
the woman had known nothing but pain from the touch of a man, and she was
reacting accordingly.

     Aye, young Dane had opened his eyes to a
good many things about Mt. Holyoak.

     “Dane, you mustn’t tell your mother that
you told me these things,” he said softly, straightening.  “Do you understand? 
She might not appreciate the fact that I know your father was cruel.  This must
be a secret amongst knights.”

     He nodded, although he did not completely
understand.  Yet he and the Dark Knight now shared a secret and he would not
betray the trust.  He somehow felt special, a part of something, a belonging.

     “I won’t tell her, I promise,” he said.

     “Good lad,” Gaston gave him a brief smile. 
“Now get into bed and not another word from you until morn.”

     “Aye, my lord,” Dane dashed to his bed and
sat down to remove his shoes, eager to obey.

     Gaston closed the door softly, his mind
lingering on the little boy and his beauteous mother. The lad’s confession only
served to reinforce his earlier declaration. 

     He would protect them from their nightmare.

CHAPTER SIX

     The next day dawned warm and humid, and the
men were sweating buckets underneath their plate armor and mail.  Gaston’s hair
was completely wet with perspiration, slicked back on his head to keep it out
of his face.

     He was supervising the cleanup of the
sublevels of the outer wall in preparation of the arrival of the new recruits
from London.  The tanner and the blacksmith had to be relocated, adding to the
task, and Gaston set the masons to work on an additional shelter to house more
knights.  The shelter, located where the tanner and the blacksmith had been
housed, used the outer wall as one wall and was planned to house up to forty
knights.

     It was dirty, smelly, hot work and tempers
were ripe.  Arik snapped at Patrick, Patrick would snap at everyone, and
Antonius was soundly reprimanded by Gaston when he removed every strip of
clothing from the waist up.  Antonius had the body of a Roman statue, muscular and
lean and completely beautiful and he was not ashamed to display his flesh.  It
tanned quickly underneath the hot sun, but Gaston put an end to it and angrily
sent the man to the sublevels to supervise the cleanup.

     But not before Jasmine had seen him half
nude from her bedchamber window.  At first she was embarrassed, but she quickly
discovered he was the most beautiful sight she had ever seen and was greatly
disappointed when Gaston put an end to her fun.  Yet she came away from the
window with her opinion of the male sex slightly swayed, a very large step
indeed.  Mayhap not all men were vile, horrid creatures.  There was apparently
one that was quite easy to look at.

     The castle provided minimum relief from the
heat.  Remington had seen to her morning duties dressed in a gauzy linen
surcoat that swept the floor behind her when she walked, the v-shaped neckline
draping beautifully between the swells of her breasts.  Her curly mane was
swept back into a gold net to keep it off her neck, but rogue tendrils escaped
and curled against her face and shoulders.

     By late morning it was far too hot to do
anything more than sit and embroider and she found her sisters doing exactly
that in the solar.

     Jasmine and Skye were working on Skye’s
loom.  The youngest sister was not particularly talented on the frame and
Jasmine was doing her best to repair the damage.

     “What are you making, Skye?” Remington
asked curiously.  She couldn’t for the life of her tell what the figures were.

     “I am trying to weave an Ariadne and a
spider web,” Skye said insistently.  “If Jasmine would leave me be, it would
work out.”

     Jasmine rolled her eyes, pulling at a piece
of thread.  “This is no spider web, Skye, unless it was woven by a drunk
spider.  And Ariadne looks as if her body has melted.”

     Remington giggled at Skye’s embarrassment,
opening her thin golden fan and waving it at herself swiftly.  “Keep trying,
sweetheart.  You shall catch on.”

     “What about Rory?” Jasmine asked, biting
her tongue between her teeth in concentration.

     Remington glanced through the narrow window
that looked out over the bailey.  “I intend to go and see her now, to make sure
she isn’t melting herself.”

     “Is the Dark Knight going to let her out?”
Skye asked.  She missed her closest sister. 

     Remington moved away from the window,
fanning herself.  “I do not know.  He said he would consider it, I think.”

     “Even after you tried to break her out?” 
Skye asked, wondering if the Dark Knight had punished Remington last night but
was afraid to ask.

     “I was not trying to free her, I was merely
attempting to speak with her,” Remington insisted.  “I was opening the door to
go in, not let her out.”  

     “Did you tell de Russe that?”  Jasmine had
stopped her movements and was looking up at her.

     “Nay,” Remington avoided her sister’s
gaze.  “I saw no point in it.  He would not believe me, anyway.

     “Well, I say there is no harm in trying,”
Jasmine said.  “He does not seem so quick to judge as Guy did.”

     Remington almost cringed at the sound of
her husband’s name.  The more time passed, the more afraid she was that he
would eventually return.  They had been so happy in his absence and she
couldn’t bear to think that life would again turn bitter when he came home.  If
he ever came home.

     “Yesterday, de Russe told Dane that he
would protect us from Guy,” she said softly, the hair on her face lifting
gently from the fan as she gazed at the window pensively.

     Jasmine and Skye looked shocked.  “He
did?”  Jasmine said incredulously.  “How can he say that?”

     “I do not know,” Remington glanced at her
sisters.  “But he said it, and I believe him.  I am not sure why I do, but I
do.”

     “He cannot protect us from Guy,” Jasmine
went back to the loom, mayhap a bit angrily.  “No one short of God can protect
us.”

     Remington watched her sisters a moment,
wanting them to feel the same faith she did.  “He is the Dark Knight, is he
not?  ‘Tis said he is in league with the devil.  Mayhap if God will not help
us, the devil will.”

     She turned and left the room, leaving her
sisters pondering the future.

     The inner bailey was full of men assisting
the stonemasons.  Sand and mortar was being distributed from a huge wagon and
great stones for the building were being carefully carved and carted off. 

     Remington was surprised; she had no idea
that there was so much going on in the double baileys and wondered if it would
even be wise to bother the Dark Knight about something as trivial as her
sister’s imprisonment.  Yet, for Rory’s sake, she went to seek the man out
anyway and prayed his mood was forgiving this day.

     She had never seen so many soldiers, all
working like the innards of a great beehive.  She knew from Oleg that he had
brought nearly 600 men to Mt. Holyoak, but it seemed that every one of them was
working at this very moment.  And there was not one man who did not pass her a
suggestive or leering glance, making her most uncomfortable.

     Remington swallowed hard, pushing her way
through the men and into the outer bailey in search of Gaston.  One soldier
almost dropped a great stone on her and she yelped in surprise, jumping out of
the way just in time to avoid being smashed.  Fanning herself furiously over
her fright, she stood a moment and scoped out the bailey for possible signs of
the Dark Knight when her eyes came to rest on the very tall blond knight he
always kept with him.

     Bolstering her courage, she picked her way
towards him.

     Arik was surprised to find himself looking
down at the entirely delectable and completely angelic Lady Stoneley.  Flushed
from the heat, she looked radiant and he gave her a non-committal smile.

     “My lady, to what do I owe the honor?” he
asked, pulling her toward him to allow a burdened soldier to pass by.

     Remington waited until the soldier had
moved by before stepping back a pace.  “I am looking for Sir Gaston.  Can you
tell me where he is?”

     “In the sublevels, my lady,” Arik
answered.  “Is there something I can help you with?”

     “Not unless you can release my sister,”
Remington answered.

     Arik shook his head regretfully. “I surely
cannot, my lady.  Might I inform Gaston of your request to speak with him when
he is finished?”

     Remington looked disappointed, but she did
not press.  Pressing with Guy only got her slapped.  “I would be grateful, my
lord.  But do not trouble yourself overly to deliver the message.  I can wait.”

     “My name is Arik,” he said.  “And it would
be no trouble at all.”

     She smiled shyly, displaying her delightful
dimples.  “My thanks, Sir Arik.  You have been most kind.”

     “Not at all,” he returned her smile.  God,
she was a lovely creature.  And he knew that every man that saw her had the
exact same thoughts, men with less self-control than himself.  “As a matter of
fact,” he continued.  “I was just about to return to the inner bailey.  Might I
escort you back to the castle?”

     “Thank you, my lord,” Remington said
demurely.

     He extended his elbow and with great
reluctance, she accepted.  Together, they started back to the inner bailey.

     “This weather is unusually hot,” Arik
commented.

     “Aye, but not the stickiness,” Remington
replied.  “Here in the vale, we are always prone to a great deal of moisture
and insects.”

     “I noticed,” Arik said, eyeing a swarm of
gnats a few feet away.  “Tell me, my lady, where is your family from?”

     “Halsey Manor,” Remington replied.  “When
my father died four years ago, there was no one to inherit the place.  It fell
into my husband’s control but it sits empty now.”

     “Is it close by?” he asked, looking down at
her with interest.

     “Mayhap seven or eight miles to the
northeast,” she replied.  “Not far.”