CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

 

Robin was plainly stunned.

Brenna would swear later that her heart simply stopped, for she felt nothing. She felt nothing, saw nothing, thought of nothing in those first few shocking moments other than there must be some horrible mistake. It could not be Griffyn Renaud. It could not be him staring out from beneath the visored helm of the Prince of Darkness.

Her lungs finally insisted on air, though she was unaware of having deprived them. It went to her head in a dizzying rush and she felt as if everything were suddenly submerged in a clear liquid. The sounds from the crowd were muted and dull; the fluttering of the pennons around the enclosure slowed to precise, articulated waves. And Griffyn’s voice, when it next came through the barrier of the helm, sounded deep and heavy, garbled by that same liquid distortion.

“You comported yourself well,” he was saying to Dag. “Pray accept my compliments.”

None of the Wardieu brothers was yet capable of civil speech, but Sparrow suffered no such impairment.

“I knew it! I knew there was something of the sly fox in you the moment mine eyes clapped upon you!”

“Christ Jesus,” Richard managed, both awed and angered. “You might have said something.”

The pale eyes flicked from one tense face to the next, lingering on Brenna’s a moment before returning to Robin. “As I recall, I did. I said at Amboise it would make for an interesting rematch. Instead”—he looked toward the recet where Ivo the Crippler was concluding his progress—“I must content myself with green striplings and larded collops who throw themselves at my lance for the sheer sake of saying they have done so.”

“An easy day’s work for you, I should think,” Robin said through his teeth. “You have broken enough bones to earn your six hundred marks.”

Metal creaked again. “Did my ears hear it wrong when you said the only true pleasure in life comes when you test your mettle in honorable combat with one of equal strength and merit? Is it only a pleasure for you, then, and simple greed for the rest of us?”

Robin flushed. “None of these men is your equal.”

“None … with the possible exception of yourself,” Griffyn countered smoothly. “And how unfortunate that you were injured, for we shall never know who would have prevailed.”

Sparrow surged forward, stopped from leaping over the barrier by a rail that guarded against such rashness. “Injured or not he could skewer you like a pullet! With one arm strapped to his side he could have you hanging off his lance like gulled tripe! He could have you filleted and fustioned and smiling out the back of your neck for want of a spine!”

The pale eyes narrowed but it was Bertrand Malagane who turned and addressed the remark. “Bold words, dwarf. Do you issue this challenge on your own behalf, or do you speak for Lord Robert?”

Sparrow’s mouth opened, closed, opened again in a good imitation of a fish as he realized what he had said and the horror of it caused every droplet of elfin blood to drain out of his face. It was Richard, whose temper had been held in check by the slenderest of threads anyway, who came to his rescue, exploding to his feet with a curse.

“You may consider it came from me, my lord, to be answered at your earliest convenience.”

“Not before he answers me,” said Dag, leaping up beside his brother.

“And me,” insisted Geoffrey LaFer, standing alongside.

“God’s good grace,” observed a startled Prince Louis as he swivelled around in his chair. “A veritable floodtide of avengers, and at such a late hour.”

“Indeed,” said Malagane, the satisfaction gleaming in his eyes. “A pity we are losing the afternoon light.”

“Tomorrow will be soon enough,” Richard spat. “If the bastard accepts.”

“No!” Brenna cried, jumping up. “For God’s sake, no!” She looked at Griffyn, appealing to him with eyes like two pools of drowning violets. “You know full well it would not be a fair contest. How can you be so cold-blooded? How can you willingly take advantage after … after everything that has happened?”

“Has something happened we do not know about?” Solange inquired innocently.

The pale eyes were briefly distracted by the movement of Solange de Sancerre’s hand as she toyed with the end of a ribbon peeping over the edge of her bodice, but they were hard as ice as they returned to answer Brenna’s charge. “It was not I who offered the first insult, my lady, nor issued the first challenge. But I would be willing to entertain an apology if your brothers would care to withdraw … ?”

“As well they should,” the Dauphin observed over a wine-sodden laugh. “For who will fight the battle royale on the morrow if all of Amboise’s armour lies trampled in the dust?”

Richard reached a hand to his sword. He was almost beyond reason now and killing royalty scarcely warranted a thought. Only Robin’s fingers closing around his wrist prevented him from drawing.

“We can settle both matters at the same time, if it is acceptable to all. Sir Hugh—” Robin’s steely gray eyes sought out the brusque-faced baron from Luisignan. “The dispute we have arranged to settle on the morrow … would it not be served as well through a single-combat match?”

Hugh the Brown, as he was known, glowered from Robin’s face to Louis’s, for an insult against the Amboise honor was like an insult to chivalry itself.

“Honor would be well served,” he agreed gruffly. “Though I would be reluctant to claim such a champion for our side”—he glared at Griffyn—“and will not warranty his horse or armour should he lose.”

Renaud’s only reaction to the snub was a slight twist to the mouth. “Am I at least to have the privilege of knowing which of the Amboise challengers I will be meeting on the morrow?”

The surrounding crowd, unable to hear the exchange but fully aware something of vast importance was taking place, had grown still enough to resemble figures painted on wooden boards. And silent enough for Brenna to hear the roaring of blood in her veins as Robin turned his face into the westering sun and let the last slanted rays reflect the fire in his eyes.

“You may meet as many of them as you like,” he said evenly, “if you are still in your saddle after I have finished with you.”

“No!” Brenna gasped softly. “Robin, no—”

It took almost a full thirty seconds for the buzz of whispers to spread outward from the royal bower and ripple its way around the entire enclosure. The spectators continued to watch in shock as Griffyn tipped his head slightly and touched a mailed forefinger to his helm in a mocking salute before he lowered his visor again and spurred Centurion toward his recet.

Brenna could scarcely believe what she had seen and heard. Sparrow was still red-faced and squirming. Richard and Geoffrey were arguing with Robin, who in turn ignored them and focused all his attention on Griffyn Renaud as he prepared himself to face Ivo. If anything, he looked more at ease than he had since they had departed Amboise.

“You cannot go through with it,” Brenna whispered, touching his arm.

He covered her hand with his and squeezed it reassuringly as the challengers set themselves in the lists. Where Ivo fidgeted with shield, reins, and the grip of his lance, Griffyn sat his mount easily, man and horse seemingly carved from stone. He held his lance hooked in the crook of his arm with the point touching the earth so as to save strength while he waited for the heralds to blast their lily-mouthed trumpets and the judge to lift the couvre-chef.

“You cannot do this,” Brenna whispered again, her voice raw with emotion.

“It is done already,” Robin said, narrowing his eyes against the russet glare of the sun.

Brenna swallowed hard but still felt physically ill; the acid taste of bile rose at the back of her throat, thickened by the smell of leather and iron, sweat and sticky-sweet ambergris.

The crowd quieted. At the far end of the enclosure, Griffyn Renaud raised the point of his lance and, as the square of white linen fell from the marshal’s hand, dug in his spurs.

It took four men to carry the litter from the field, and the cruel jest followed that he would no longer be known as Ivo the Crippler, but Ivo the Crippled.

Griffyn had won the day, as was expected, finishing with hardly more than a few scrapes and bruises to show for the effort. His arms ached dully from the strain of balancing the weight of the lance, but it was a familiar ache and would be gone by morning. His spine let him know it had supported the equivalent of a well-fed man on his shoulders for most of the long afternoon, and each bony knuckle cracked thankfully as he stripped to bare flesh and bathed in a steaming hot tub. Fulgrin’s knowing fingers massaged every joint, muscle, and tendon with a vigor that nearly brought tears to his eyes, but when he was finished, Griffyn could stand and walk and bend without once tightening his jaw in discomfort.

He dressed again in his plain hose and green surcoat, and because few had actually had a close look at his face, he was able to slip unobtrusively away from the area of the jousting fields and mingle with the common crowds. The day’s activities ended with the dusk and there was already a mass migration back up to the chateau where there would be a second raucous night of feasting, drinking, and celebrating. Griffyn had declined all three of Malagane’s invitations to attend, even though the last had come from Prince Louis and had been phrased as more of a demand than a request. Even Fulgrin, who was used to his temper and broody nature, removed himself from Griffyn’s presence with all haste, declaring that he preferred the company of the horses.

The reason for his coming to Gaillard, the reason for his entering the tournament in the first place was to fight Robert Wardieu, yet now that the match was set, he was angry at himself for provoking it. He should have heeded Fulgrin’s warnings back in Orleans and come straight to Gaillard. He should never have veered off the main road, never have catered to his own vanity and arrogance by venturing inside the walls of Amboise. Sheer witless self-conceit had prompted him to go, like a fox amongst the chickens, to see his enemy up close. Complete unbridled stupidity had governed his actions thereafter, for he had enjoyed the evening of drinking and gaming with the brothers, he had enjoyed exchanging war stories with Robin Wardieu.

And Brenna …

She undoubtedly loathed him now with all her heart and soul, and he could not blame her. It was probably just as well, for he was not all that sure what effect it would have on him if he ever came face to face with her again. If she ever looked at him or touched him or spoke to him with the smallest measure of the emotion that had quivered in her voice last night.

Griffyn’s steps slowed as he approached his campsite. A fire was blazing outside his tent, the cooler currents of air carrying glowing bits of ash up into the night sky. There was another light inside, and as he lifted the flap, it was the first thing he saw: the stout iron lamp on a low table, its cake of beeswax beset by flying moths. The second thing he saw was the enormous platter of cheese, meat, and bread, evidence his squire had not completely abandoned him to his own wiles. Griffyn crossed the tent and stood in the bright halo of light; he cut off a chunk of yellow cheese and had just put it in his mouth when the cool prickle of an inner alarm feathered across the nape of his neck.

He turned only his head and searched the darkest shadows beside the doorway. She was standing there, still as stone, much like the first time he had seen her, with the light etching the clean, dangerous lines of her bow, glinting off the steel arrowhead aimed between his eyes.

He crushed the cheese between his teeth and swallowed it in a solid lump. It stuck in his throat and he pointed to the flagon of wine to ease his efforts to cough it free. “May I?”

Only the tip of the arrow moved, jerking once.

He poured out a cup full and gulped it to clear his throat. It was strong and sweet, and somewhere in the back of his mind, where all inane things were recorded, he noted it was the fine, clove-spiced claret from Auvergne that Fulgrin managed to lay hands on no matter where they roamed.

“Will you have a cup?”

She increased the tension on the bowstring. “I would prefer to kill you first and celebrate after.”

He nodded. “A more orderly progression of events, I suppose. But no questions first?”

“Only one. Did you enjoy humiliating us today?”

His hand tightened on the cup briefly before he set it down. “It was never my intention to humiliate you or to hurt you in any way.”

“We have already established you are an excellent liar, sirrah,” she hissed. “Do not try my patience by trying to pretend you are human as well.”

Griffyn’s gaze flicked down to the gleaming length of the bow. Where it had been held rock steady up to then, there was now a slight tremor to warn of the depth of her anger.

“All right. I confess, I gave it no thought in the beginning.”

“And now?”

“Now,” he said honestly, “I have thought of nothing else all day.”

“Surely you have,” she insisted. “You have been thinking and plotting to find a way to goad my brother into meeting you in the lists.”

“He challenged me,” he reminded her, though the rebuttal sounded lame, even to his ears.

“You drove him to it. You left him no choice. It was deliberate and intentional, and I warrant if he had not taken offense at any of the insults you did throw at him, you would have used me to guarantee his participation. Admit that much at least, and I might be able to find some comfort in the fact that you do not think me to be utterly and completely stupid.”

“I do not think you are stupid at all. I think you are angry—and you have every right to be—and confused, and hurt. And if there was something I could do to spare you any more pain, I would do it gladly.”

“Refuse to fight tomorrow,” she said flatly. “Send word to Robin that you were caught up in the heat of the moment and cannot, in all good conscience, take advantage of his honor and pride in such a cold, callous manner.”

He arched an eyebrow. “Is that all?”

“No. Leave here tonight. Go back to the caves of Burgundy where you belong; your own reputation will not suffer for it.”

“And if I refuse?”

“I will shoot.”

“You would kill me?”

“I would only have to put this through your elbow or your shoulder and not even your arrogance would see you into a saddle tomorrow.”

His smile was wry as he took a measured step toward her. “I suppose I should be relieved Centaur is not here to threaten again.”

“Stop,” she warned. “I will do it.”

He took another step. And another. Brenna adjusted her aim to the shoulder and pressed herself back into the corner as far as the canvas would take her.

“Are you so worried I might defeat him?”

“I am worried his pride might cause him to take foolish risks that he cannot afford to take right now.”

“Because of his injury?”

“His injury,” she scoffed. “He has fought with worse than broken ribs before and never so much as flinched.”

Griffyn stopped and folded his arms across his chest. “Then I confess I am doubly curious to know why he is keeping himself behind the palisades.”

Her mouth compressed into a thin line. “He has his reasons.”

“We all have reasons for doing what we do.”

“I asked you at Amboise if you had come to kill my brother and you said no. Was that also a lie?”

“Had I wanted to kill him then, it would have been easy enough to do. I could have done it that day on the archery range if I had just altered the aim of my arrow at the last minute. But I wanted more. I wanted the satisfaction, first, of seeing him go down under my lance; it was what I have trained for, fought for, worked toward all these years. Ever since Gascon.”

“Gascon?” The arrow dropped fractionally on a gust of exasperation. “All of this … because you lost to him at Gascon?” Then her voice dripped with ten shades of contempt as she shook her head in disbelief. “Did you ever consider there might be more important things in life than cockfights and boasting contests?”

“I did. At one time,” he said quietly.

“But not since your heart turned to stone and you sold your honor along with your sword.”

“You may think of me as little better than a common mercenary, irreligious and possessing few scruples, willing to sell my sword to whoever meets my price … and until recently, you might well have been right.”

“Until recently? Have the heavens opened, then, and showered you with scruples?”

“I have been more honest with you,” he admitted truthfully, “than I have with anyone else in a good many years.”

“And that should make me raise my hands and give thanks?”

“No. But I would hope it would let you believe me when I say your brother is in grave danger whether I fight him or not.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean”—he sighed and turned his head away for a moment as if wondering what fine madness was gripping him this time—“if I do not fight Robin tomorrow, there will likely be a brace of assassins waiting outside the tilting grounds for the both of us.”

Her fingers curled tighter around the shaft of the bow. “What nonsense are you speaking now?”

“Do the names Engelard Cigogni or Andrew de Chanceas mean anything to you?”

Brenna’s initial reaction was to dismiss them with an impatient shake of her head … but then she remembered. The two men Will had seen in the bower earlier, the two men who had held his attention even through the exchange of insults and challenges. He had mentioned them later to Robin, and to Sparrow, whose face had blanched even whiter than it had in the bower.

“The names are familiar?”

She nodded slowly. “Will told Robin they were here.”

“They are in the employ of Bertrand Malagane. Killers both, with dead eyes and no thoughts of their own behind them.”

Brenna shook her head again in confusion. “Why would the Count of Saintonge want my brother dead?”

“First tell me this: is Robin planning a journey to England in the near future?”

Her heart stumbled over several beats and the strength in her arms faltered, nearly causing her to shoot out of reflex. Griffyn was close enough by then to reach out swiftly and capture the shaft of the arrow, angling it downward and to the side.

“How do you know this?” she gasped.

“Then it is true?”

“How do you know?”

“Malagane knows. That is why he has his assassins sharpening their knives … and why he has paid me an extraordinary sum of money to insure your brother does not leave Normandy.”

“He hired you to kill Robin?” Her words were barely above a breath and her eyes, which had only burned with the threat of tears until now, blurred beneath a film of shimmering silver. “But you just told me—”

“That I had not gone to Amboise to kill your brother. And that was the truth. I only wanted to have a close look at my enemy, at the man I had hated for five years and blamed for the death of my wife.”

“Your … wife?”

His smile was bitter. “You say that with such flattering connotations. Is it so hard to imagine?”

She did not answer, but the look in her eyes was eloquent enough to earn a small laugh of self-derision.

“Yes, well, the whole idea of being responsible for another life took me by surprise also.” He raked his hand through his hair, not wanting to talk about it now, but finding he had little choice. “We were young. Far too young to take on the world. Adele was frail to begin with … so very frail … and when she found out she was with child … I knew we could not live by traveling from tournament to tournament or survive solely on my winnings. Gascon was the last tourney of the season, and the richest. If I could have won there, we would have had enough to keep us warm and fed over the winter. She was big with child, and terrified, but she insisted I go …”

Brenna felt dampness on her lashes but steadfastly swallowed the tears that threatened.

“I wagered everything I had that day, everything I won in the early matches, everything I could ransom from the moneylenders. And I was winning. Right up to the end, when the bold and brash champion from Amboise took to the lists and held off my lance for twenty-three passes. I only had the one horse—Centaur—and the judges decided he had taken enough punishment. They declared the match in Robin’s favor and it was over, just like that. I lost everything, even Centaur—though your brother was generous enough not to take him. When I returned to the inn where I had left Adele, I discovered the innkeeper had turned her out because of the monies owed. I tore the village apart and finally found her in a cow bothy. She had died there giving birth.”

Brenna blinked and felt the hot splash of a tear on her cheek. “And the child?”

He shook his head. “Someone remembered hearing a baby cry through the night, someone else remembered seeing a peasant wheeling a cart with a wailing child inside, but I found nothing. I searched, I asked, I went to all the neighboring villages, but I could find no trace.” He stopped and looked into Brenna’s eyes for the first time since beginning his story. “I blamed myself and I blamed the world for Adele’s death. Robin was just convenient to focus upon. Over time, he became the reason why I could not put a solid roof over her head or hot food in her belly. But even if I had won that day in Gascon, I doubt a handful of coins would have helped her. Perhaps … if I had swallowed my pride and taken her home … to England, where she belonged … perhaps she would be with me still.”

It hit her like a cool spray of water. “England? You are English?”

He nodded as if it was a distasteful admission. “I have not ventured across the Channel in over seven years, though I have no doubt Malagane would be prepared to swear I disembarked last week if he knew. As it is, he knew only we had fought before and were evenly matched. He also knew if Robin fell to the Prince of Darkness … there would be no fingers pointed in his direction, no reason for your family to suspect he was behind it, therefore no repercussions. He paid me, you see, in good English sterling, probably with the intentions of ‘discovering’ I was in the employ of your father’s enemies.”

“He does not know you are English?”

“No. No one else—not even Fulgrin knows.”

“Why are you telling me?” she asked. “And why should I believe you?”

“I do not know,” he said quietly. “And God help me, I do not know.”

He looked at her until her eyes started to water again, then slowly reached up and curved his hand around her neck. He drew her forward and, to her credit, she did manage to deny his efforts to raise her chin and he had to settle for pressing his lips to her brow. That was bad enough, though. Worse when he began to lay a tender path of kisses along her temple and cheek, for it roused every sensation, every feeling, every emotion she had discovered in his arms last night.

“Bastard,” she cried softly. “Bastard! Why did you ever touch me? I w-was fine until you touched me.”

“And I was fine until you touched me,” he countered in a whisper.

“Liar.”

His lips traveled the curve of her cheek and his hands tried to work their magic against the stiffness in her neck, tried to angle her mouth up so he could capture it.

“Is this what you want?” Her voice was muffled against his surcoat. “Is this what you want in exchange for my brother’s life?”

His lips froze and his body went rigid.

“Is it?” she asked, and pushed out of his arms. “If it is, I will gladly give it to you. Here, look—” She fumbled with the buckle of her belt and let it drop to the floor. She pulled off her surcoat and cast it into the shadows, then lifted the hem of her shirt and started to peel it up and over her head.

“Brenna—”

“No. No, if this is what you want, if this is what it will take—” She flung the shirt after the other garment and reached for the waist of her leggings.

“Brenna!” He grasped her wrists and jerked them around to the small of her back. Her naked breasts gleamed as white as snow in the lamplight, the nipples pink and taut and mocking him for even looking, while the dark violet of her eyes sparkled up at him, shining with desperation.

“Are you saying you do not want me?”

“At this precise moment?” His fingers tightened around her waist and the dreadful burden of his self-imposed loneliness was etched suddenly on his face. “I want you more than I have ever wanted anyone or anything in my life.”

“Then take me,” she gasped. “Take me away from this place. I will go anywhere you want me to go, do anything you want me to do, be anything you want me to be … just … take me away from this place, now. Tonight. We can go to Robin. We can tell him everything. He will know what to do about Malagane and Cigogni and—”

“I cannot do that,” he whispered.

“You can. If you want me as much as you say you do.” She pressed against him, her lips seeking his, and it was a testament to his own desperation that he swore and clung to her heat. His tongue filled her mouth, plunging deep in a rough act of possession, and he brought her closer, crushing her against his chest and, for one wild moment, actually considered doing it. He considered leaving, taking her with him, starting afresh, leaving all the lies, the deceit, the treachery behind him.

But then the initial rush of hot blood passed and he could feel the stiffness in her body. He could feel her heart beating as fast as his own but out of panic, nothing more.

He straightened and eased her gently back to arm’s length. He bent over and retrieved her shirt, and when she did not take it from his hand, he sighed and pulled it over her head and shoulders, feeding her arms into the sleeves as if he was dressing a child.

“We can go to Robin,” she said again helplessly.

He clamped his jaws tight enough to make his teeth ache. Certes, they could go to Robert Wardieu and tell him everything, but what good would it do? It would be his word against the Count of Saintonge’s. It would be the word of a banished Englishman who had lived a less than honest, honorable life these past few years in the guise of a Burgundian mercenary, against that of an important and influential ally of the King of France. “You should go to Robin and tell him what I have told you. Warn him to watch his back.”

“You are still going to fight him?”

“I have no choice.”

The hope faded from her eyes and she pushed past him, snatching up her bow, her belt and surcoat. At the door of the tent she stopped and looked back, and for just a moment, her face was shadowed with such a sense of betrayal and disappointment, he felt it like a fist closing around his heart.

It had been so long since he had felt anything at all in that region, he started to take a step after her. “Brenna—”

But she was gone. The flap swung closed and he was left standing alone in the middle of the musty tent, the halo of tarnished light behind him luring another moth to its flaming death.