~ 3 ~

Faulk stood next to the table, consciously relaxing his shoulders, willing to wait in silence under the woman’s scrutiny. She smiled at him, a quirking of the lips, but the expression didn’t extend to her eyes. He couldn’t read Lady Anlin’s emotions. He wondered if there were any to be noticed or what it would take to engage them.

“What is the bird?” she asked. “A falcon?”

It was hardly the first question he’d imagined she might ask. His right hand unconsciously came up to stroke the embroidery that sat just above his heart. “It’s a nightpiper.”

The smile now seemed to reach her eyes, but he feared it was the humor of derision. “A nightpiper? Your insignia is a nightpiper? A little bug-eater instead of a soaring raptor? You’re an unusual man, Sir Faulk.”

“Not so unusual.” He felt the fine stitches beneath his fingers and remembered all they had once promised. “I happen to be an admirer of the nightpiper. They’re clever birds. They can hide in plain sight. Their flight is as soundless as an owl. Their cries are not beautiful, but they punctuate the night. Heard but unseen, like a ghost in the darkness. Something mysterious. I developed an affection for the nightpiper as a boy, when I hoped that as an adult I’d be mysterious.” His own mouth curved into a smile at the memory.

“So, are you?”

“Am I what?”

“Mysterious.”

“No, I’m a quite average man. My behavior is easily readable to those who bother to notice. As a child I tried to imagine some attribute that would set me apart from others, and I chose mysterious.” He didn’t go on to explain how that same child had lain awake many nights, listening to the chirring of the pipers and envying the freedom the birds enjoyed.

“Does this discussion of the emblem I’ve chosen have something to do with determining my suitability?” he asked. “I’m obviously fond of it, but if you find it particularly offensive—”

“No, no, it was just a curiosity. I thought the bird was a poorly done falcon or hawk.” Silence fell between them. Faulk waited for her next area of discussion, but she just tilted her head and looked at him. “I can see why a hawk or a falcon wouldn’t work for you. Both of those can be tamed, and I don’t see you sitting on anyone’s wrist.”

“I don’t think you would easily be tamed either, my lady.” Faulk thought it was a courtly thing to say. This woman could still reject him, and he would lose the holding. He wanted to make a good impression. He was surprised when a look of anger flashed across Anlin’s face.

“I promise you that I will not be tamed at all. If you expected me to be some meek maiden, you’re mistaken. I haven’t been a maiden for these past ten years, through no fault of my own. I’ve endured more abuse than I want to remember, and I’ll not now suddenly become meek and endure dominion from you. If you think to tame me, I warn you, I killed the last man who thought to do so. And I would do it again. I will do it again, if I need to.”

She’d come to her feet and was leaning forward with her hands on the table. Her breath was audible as if she’d just run a distance. Faulk had wondered what could call forth emotion from her stoic demeanor. He’d never imagined his innocent remark could do so. The whispers about her possible mental instability came back to him. Had he just seen an example of potential madness?

“My comment was meant as a compliment, not as a threat. And I promise you—if I ever do threaten you, you will know the difference.”

Faulk realized he was also leaning across the table. His voice had lowered to a growl. What was he doing? What was he saying? He’d never threatened a woman in his life. He was looming over her. He straightened and abruptly sat down.

“My apology, Lady Anlin. I don’t know what came over me. I can only make the excuse that, for me, more is riding on this than what is usual. I thought I’d relinquished the possibility of ever marrying. A man without land cannot support a wife, at least not in the way I’d want to support one. I thought the opportunity to ever have my own holding had disappeared with the death of my former lord. In your anger, I saw a dream slipping away.”

Faulk looked directly into Anlin’s flushed face. Mixed with the anger he saw a fear he’d probably never fully understand. He’d been beaten as a young boy, but he’d always had faith that somehow, he could make things different, better. He’d been confident that eventually he would simply grow larger than his tormenter. A woman had no such guarantee. He could understand her fear of larger, more muscular men.

“Please sit down,” he said, trying to keep his voice even, as if he were speaking to a spooked horse. “Let us talk honestly together. If we’re unable to come to an accord, I’ll not press you to honor the agreement to marry and bestow the fief of White Ford on your husband. I will simply take the money and disappear from your life. It isn’t what I want. I’d hoped for the land. It’s your choice, however. If it would ease your mind, I’d be willing to add a codicil to the agreement that should I ever physically mistreat you, the land would be forfeit.”

He continued to sit calmly and watch her, willing her to comply, seeking the sign of sanity that was necessary if they were to proceed at all. Her breathing slowed. With a sigh, she eased back onto the bench, her face resuming its emotionally frozen appearance.

“I’m sorry for my outburst. It was uncalled for. I too have been under a great deal of stress. I too have much riding on this outcome. Can we perhaps go back and resume a normal conversation?”

“Of course, my lady.” Relief flooded Faulk. He felt the strange giddiness that sometimes comes after battle.

“Do you think me mad?” she asked after a moment of silence. “There are some who say I returned from Rennic in that state. I can only assure you that, while I have moments of extreme anger, I think I’m quite sane.”

“I don’t really know you well enough to form an opinion,” he said. “I’m sure captivity by the Rennish had an effect on you. It would be strange if it did not.”

Silence again filled the chamber. Somewhere outside a man whistled a tune. Faulk unconsciously strained to catch the melody.

“I was just a girl when I was taken by the Rennish,” she said, the intensity of her voice pulling Faulk’s attention away from the whistler, “a headstrong, heedless girl. We, my sister and I, were on the way to Giffard’s Crest from our fosterage. My sister was coming home to celebrate her betrothal to Sir Kenteth of Clee. And I was angry.” She made a short, chopping sound that might have been a laugh. “Ridiculously angry because Sybil had been given Sir Kenteth and I wanted him.”

She shrugged. “I was twelve. What did I know? Sir Kenteth was nice to me, and he seemed all that was wonderful. Everyone else seemed to favor my sister Sybil. And why not? Sybil was pretty and tractable and polite and magically Talented. And I was—well, I was not. So, when the Rennish swarmed out of nowhere and attacked our cavalcade, I was dressed in a drab work kirtle. At the time, I thought dressing poorly would show my parents that I didn’t care if they loved Sybil best.” She brought her eyes up to look him directly in the face. “Adolescence is a confusing time. Now, I can’t understand the thought process of the girl I was.”

“You were captured? Your guard let this happen?” Faulk found the idea repellent. Unless Lord Giffard was incompetent, and he had never heard such, then a large contingent of fighting men should have been sent to accompany his daughters. All would have to be either dead or unable to hold a sword before their charges could be taken. Or at least that would have been the case if he’d been in charge.

“All the men in our escort were either killed or incapacitated. In retrospect, we didn’t have enough armed men with us. Our foster father made the arrangements. Our own father might have been more prudent. But then, it was ten years ago. There had been few problems with the Rennish, and we were a distance from the border.” She shrugged. “At this point, it makes no difference. It happened long ago.”

While it had, indeed, happened long ago, Faulk could still envision how the fight had ensued. The Rennish would have boiled from their hills in vast numbers, so crazed they would continue to slash at their opponents after they’d sustained fatal wounds and should have been writhing on the ground. Having served at a border garrison, he was well acquainted with Rennish tactics, which were fearsome. A small group would easily have been overwhelmed.

“But the Rennish usually want only horses and weapons,” he said. “Prisoners of value are almost always ransomed back. Why were you retained?”

She gave another short chuff of laughter. “Oh, they ransomed my sister Sybil back to our parents. But because I was poorly dressed and hadn’t the least bit of magic, they wouldn’t believe I was also a Giffard daughter. And since I had no ransom value, I was sold as a slave in the market in Hightor.”

All animation left her face and she became a graven effigy. “A frightening thing, being sold. To somehow suddenly become less than human. To be stripped naked and groped and prodded like an animal by men with dirty hands. It’s odd, but through all the horror, I remember the hands. The hands and the stench, a feral smell of unwashed bodies and leather tanned with piss.”

Her voice had taken on the cadence of a storyteller, as if she were relating a tale that had been heard and remembered, not something she’d actually experienced. But then, she’d only been twelve, so perhaps the memory did seem to belong to someone else.

“There are some here in Fallucia who think the Rennish are not really human,” she said. “But I can assure you that they are normal men, with men’s desire to dominate anyone weaker than themselves. And a girl child is easy to dominate, to force to your will, to train to do all sorts of abominable things. Of course, I didn’t remain a girl, but I was always Fallucian, always unique. I was passed from one man to the next to be dominated, to be used.”

She paused. The distant whistling could still be heard, sounding, to Faulk, like the soft melody used by a harper to accompany his tale.

“I had a son. It was for him that I chose to live instead of die, since this most basic of choices, whether to live or die by my own hand, was all that was left to me. When he was three, my then-owner found him an inconvenience, and my son was taken from me. At night, I still imagine I can feel him, curled up next to my heart. After he was gone, I chose to live to find him again and get him back.

“The land you covet will be yours if you come with me into Rennic, find my son, and bring him back. That is the agreement you will be asked to sign. There is no need for a codicil. There is nothing you can do to me that hasn’t already been done.”

Her recitation ended. She just ran down as if she’d spoken all the words she knew. Faulk fought the urge to reach for her, to offer the human comfort of touch. Something in her attitude rejected sympathy, however, rejected pity, and that was how she’d have viewed his action.

On more than one occasion, Faulk had fought across ground that was slick with blood and entrails. He knew what men could do to one another. Anlin’s story sickened him, nonetheless. He hated brutality practiced on the helpless.

Her tale called forth more questions than answers, however. Why had she been left there without rescue? And why, on her return, had her powerful father not mounted a campaign to regain her son? He longed to ask her these questions but feared that he would again tread into the prickly area of her anger.

Anlin seemed to read rejection into his silence. “You said that we should deal honestly with one another. If this is more honesty than you bargained for, I’m sorry.”

“No,” he said, “I appreciate your telling me this. It can’t be easy for you to remember such things. I was just trying to absorb your experience, to understand all that has happened. How old is your son?”

“He’s seven.”

“You realize it’s very possible that he no longer lives.” It was a hard thought, but one Faulk could not pretend did not exist.

“He lives!” She touched her heart. “I’m sure I’d know in here if he did not.”

“Then why didn’t your father take a host of knights and look for him right after you returned? This action would seem to have the greater opportunity for success than just the two of us riding over the border.”

“Do you have magic?”

The question seemed to come from nowhere. Did she hope for someone who had a powerful Talent? If so, he was going to be a grave disappointment. His grasp on the holding, on White Ford, again became tenuous. “I’ve exhibited no special abilities,” he said slowly. “I’m generally good with horses, but I think that this is a skill more than a Talent.”

“Good,” she said to his relief. “Fallucian magic is abhorrent to the Rennish. They can feel it. One person with ability is, to them, a tickle. But massed power, such as a group of Fallucians, has a strange effect. They swarm like hornets from a disturbed nest. They’re almost mindless in their fury. This is the reason Fallucia has made no incursion into Rennic. It is not just their mountains that Fallucians find daunting.”

“Is this the reason no rescue was sent when you were taken?”

“No. My family was convinced I was dead. My sister Sybil’s Talent was scrying—in her case, the ability to see distant happenings in water—and she could find no evidence of me. There is something in Rennic that deadens Fallucian Talent.” She shrugged. “It is of no matter now, except my father’s guilt at leaving me there is the bludgeon I use to get my way for what I plan to do.”

What she planned to do was to rescue a half-Rennish son. Not an easy task, but one she thought Faulk could help her accomplish. “Am I correct in assuming that you too have no magic?”

She laughed without humor. “Yes. I’m particularly well-suited for the task I’ve set myself. I have no magic. My family has found me a great disappointment. It’s an embarrassment for any woman in a Baron’s family to be without a shred of Talent, but I’ve managed to achieve that distinction.”

Faulk could understand her attitude. The man he believed to be his father had magic—and exhibited all its negative aspects. The man imagined that he heard the voice of Cheelum. Faulk thought of this as god-madness and most fervently hoped it wasn’t inheritable in any way.

“The two of us should then be able to enter Rennic without complication,” Anlin continued. “Even if we are seen, we will not be perceived as a threat and allowed to go on our way. An amazing number of Fallucian traders travel in and out of Rennic, regardless of what the law says. We’ll travel as traders, except that we’ll take only silver to trade for my son.”

“And no one would think to relieve us of a pack horse loaded with silver?”

She gave him a tight smile. “That’s why I needed a warrior to go with me.”

Faulk now saw Anlin’s plan—and understood how he fit into it. She needed a warrior to protect her and a large quantity of silver, a warrior with a strong arm and a lack of magic, a warrior willing to take direction from a woman and venture into Rennic.

“What if we don’t find your boy?”

“We give it one year. If we’ve not found him in that time, I’ll return with you to Fallucia and never mention him again.”

Faulk rather doubted the latter, but felt that in much less than a year, they would either find the child or determine he was dead. “I’ll undertake this journey with you. Are there any other stipulations that could hinder our going forward with our marriage and my tenure of White Ford?”

“No. That’s all I require.”

Faulk smiled at what he assumed was understatement. All? As if a potentially perilous journey was something easily granted. But it was, wasn’t it? He envisioned the comfortable manor house, the fertile acres, the small but prosperous village. Yes, almost any price for White Ford would easily be granted.

“I agree then,” he said. “But you need to know I have some requirements of my own. Ours must be a real marriage, not just a transfer of property. I want heirs of my body who can inherit my land. Without this continuation, the ownership of property has little appeal. You also need to know that under no circumstances will your Rennish son inherit my holding. Don’t think to deny me children in the hope that your son will follow me at White Ford.”

“I won’t expect that to happen,” she said.

“The only other requirement I have has to do with our vows. I want a vow of binding fidelity. For as long as we live, there will be no other for either of us.”

“But I thought that most men—”

“I’m not most men. I’ve been careful not to sow bastards in my wake up until now, and I do not intend to start.” As an unacknowledged son, Faulk had no desire to father any unacknowledged children himself.

“Fidelity will not be a problem for me. I will enter your bed and no other’s. But you will have access to only my body. My mind, my heart, will always belong only to myself.”

The latter was not what Faulk wanted to hear. In his imaginings he’d hoped for a true marriage, such as he’d observed between Lord Lealand and his lady. But he’d overcome this objection. Over time, he’d make this a true meeting of souls. “Then we’ll be married tomorrow at the small temple I saw in White Ford’s village. I want the people on the estate to know that as their overlord, I have full legitimacy. I’ll need some time to get the estate organized, but we should be able to leave for Rennic once the planting has been done. Is that acceptable?”

She hesitated and Faulk felt a tightening in his gut with the knowledge that even at this late point, failure might loom.

“Yes.”

With that word, all possibilities lay before him. He would be landed, something he thought had forever moved beyond his reach.

“You should go get my father. He has the documents already drawn.” It was dismissal and acquiescence together.

Faulk went down the winding steps to the hall below feeling lighthearted. A holding of his own. And he thought that Lord Giffard would be a worthy overlord.

Lord Giffard and Sir Roland stood by the dais, obviously waiting for him. “The Lady Anlin and I have come to an agreement,” Faulk said.

Lord Giffard’s face immediately reflected relief. Sir Roland’s gaze was more cautious. Faulk could only hope he and Sir Roland had reached an accommodation by the time Sir Roland succeeded to the title. With luck, this occurrence would be many years away. Hopefully, when Roland became Lord Giffard, Faulk would be firmly planted at White Ford with a brood of sons ready to follow.

He suddenly felt his face flush. Lady Anlin would be the mother of those children. He’d found her anger and hoped he could soon find her passion. Then the begetting of those sons would be even more delightful than walking his own land.