Читать книгу Shadow Rider - Kathrynn Dennis - Страница 12

Guy stood unmoving, uncertain what to do. Sybilla bolted from the table, her eyes wide. “Mother Mary! I prayed he wouldn’t do this. If anyone sees this, we’ll be arrested. Me for witchcraft, him as my possessed familiar. I’ve no potion that would stop him—”

“Mayhap Morna does. She’s been known to dabble,” Guy interrupted as he bounded across the cottage, past the goat pen. Like a hawk taking flight, he leapt onto the ladder and climbed to the loft.

He flung aside the piles of fur and damask coverlets. The bed lay empty. Guy hurled his great body from the loft to the floor below. He hit the stones with his booted feet spread apart and his hand reaching for his sword.

He faced Sybilla, grabbed the cloak from the chair beside the fire, and tossed her the garment. “Put this on. We need to leave. Now!”

Simon staggered from his pallet, hopping on one foot while he pulled his boot onto the other. “The devil’s arse. What’s all the ruckus?” He stared open-mouthed at the barking Regalo. “Holy Mother. He thinks he’s a dog.”

Sybilla pulled the cloak around her shoulders. Her voice strained, she cried out to Guy, “Where’s Lady Morna?”

Guy scooped up Regalo and slung the colt across his shoulders. “She’s gone. Simon, get Bacchus and Addy and grab the nanny goat. Let’s be off!”

Simon swore. “Damnation. ’Twas against my better judgment to trust a seer. Guy, you have the devil’s knack for entanglement with problematic women!”

With Regalo on his back, Guy kicked the door open. He strode into the moonlit yard, mindful that Sybilla followed close behind him. Simon led Bacchus, Addy and the goat from the cottage.

In an instant, Guy caught a glimpse of movement in the trees. The sound of a horse’s hooves crunching the snow. A single horse. Not ten. Not twenty.

He swore beneath his breath and glanced at Simon. “Bloody hell, at least she’s come back alone.”

Without another word, Simon lifted a startled Sybilla onto Addy. He hauled himself up on Bacchus and set the bleating goat in his lap.

Guy faced the approaching rider. Her red velvet hood fell back, revealing her full red lips, the dark, moon-shaped scar on her cheek in stark contrast against her pale skin.

“I’m sorry to have left my guests,” she said, dismounting, swinging down from the saddle like a knight just come from battle. “I had urgent business to attend.” She looked pointedly at Guy. “The widow Margery has spread the news about the birth of a colt with four white socks. The village is in a clamor. Lord Hamon wants the colt and has sent out a search party. His men are looking for you and Regalo. I could hear the colt barking a half a league away. Make haste to Baldwin Manor. Hamon’s men will not ride onto your Lord Phillip’s land.”

Guy felt the blood drain from his face. Baldwin Manor. His sister’s home, now his, though he hadn’t set foot on the place since her death. The house was abandoned and in disrepair, but it was the closest refuge, close enough to walk with a newborn foal on your back and soldiers on your tail and still have a chance.

Lady Morna pointed at Guy’s velvet pouch, wet and muddied. “I’m glad you didn’t lose it. I know how important it is to you.” She tucked the bag into the waistband of his breeches.

He looked at Morna. Pity and regret stirred his heart. Her delicate face hadn’t aged since they’d been lovers––years ago, before Hamon took her as his wife, then cast her off, claiming she’d been unfaithful and her gift of prophecy was the devil’s work. Her bitter husband hated that she’d taken lovers, but truth be told, her greatest crime was failing to give him a child. He’d needed a reason to replace her, but one which wouldn’t bring the question of his own infertility to light.

As if she’d read his mind, she laid her palm against his cheek, and stood on her tiptoes. She kissed him softly on the lips. “Adieu, Sir Guy. Don’t feel sorry for me. I’ll not forget the days we lay together in the meadow watching clouds while I tried to teach you French. Now go. Hamon’s men are but an hour’s ride from here. Another ice storm is on the way and the roads will soon be impassable. Get to your manor house while you can.” She held her hand against his cheek, and Guy felt the wetness on the edge of her sleeve, where the color of her deep red gown had turned black with the moisture. Blood.

He sucked in his breath. God’s breath. How she earned her living now, or whom she accepted as a patron was not for him to judge, but if she’d been ill-used by Hamon…

He clenched his fists. He wanted to take her hands in his and tell her he would defend her from whatever danger she faced, but he was no longer certain he could protect anyone, not even the woman who once held his heart.

“Have you been hurt?”

“No. But Lord Hamon is badly wounded and in a rage. If he catches you, he’ll take your colt and your life.” Her voice trailed off and she glanced at Sybilla. “And he means to take the woman who will someday hold your heart.” Regret lingered in her words. “Hamon put a price on her head, and you know as well as I, what he will do to a woman who’s defied him.” Her words fell away and she looked to the woods. “I had to go to him, Guy, to tend his wound. If he died, I could not survive out here.”

Guy hissed through his teeth. Damnation. Hamon kept Morna prisoner as well as if he’d locked her in the tower. But he would not lay a hand on Sybilla Corbuc, not ever. Guy would chain her to his side to protect her if he had too. He’d kill the man with his bare hands if he so much as touched Sybilla Corbuc.

Morna turned and hurried toward the barn, her horse in tow. She called across her shoulder. “By the saints! Don’t just stand there. Go!”

The blizzard’s fury turned the early day into shades of gray and white. The path ahead appeared more like a sinking, snowbound gully than a road. With her legs wrapped around Addy’s bony sides, Sybilla hunched against the piercing wind. The air smelled sharp and burned the inside of her nose, and she kept her eyes closed for long stretches at a time to shut out the stinging snow. Every now and then, her knee touched Simon’s. He rode beside her, while Guy followed afoot with Regalo slung over his shoulders. He called out every few minutes to make certain she was still astride and not frozen. Simon sat silently on Bacchus, holding the goat close.

Addy barely moved now, the old horse’s head bent low against the wind. She walked, but each step seemed weaker and slower than the last. Sybilla let her mind wander with the mare’s plodding pace. She relived the warmth of Sir Guy’s kiss, the way he slipped his arm around her waist and held her close. The way his mouth descended on hers, his lips so soft and supple.

By the saints, if Simon hadn’t entered and interrupted their embrace would she have kissed him back? Or more?

Goosebumps rippled up her arms and neck. Sybilla tucked her chin into the deep hood of Guy’s cloak. Blessed saints, Guy wore only his shirt and the snow-covered foal on his back was his only source of warmth. Simon looked as frozen as the goat in his lap. His beard and the goat’s were both masks of snow.

Sybilla turned her head to speak to Simon. “How much farther? Sir Guy is cold and fatigued. He lags too far behind.”

Snow fell from Simon’s beard as he spoke. “It isn’t far, Mistress Corbuc. Guy’s used to the weather and is as strong as an ox. I’ve seen him haul a tree stump bigger than that foal when his family needed firewood. It’s not the cold or the burden he carries that makes him slow.”

“What is it, then?”

Simon glanced back at Guy, as if he wanted to make certain his friend wouldn’t overhear. “Baldwin Manor was his sister’s house. She and her infant son were murdered, nay slaughtered, not far from here. He can’t abide this place, though it belongs to him. Sir Walter had no heirs, and King Richard bequeathed it to Guy as thanks for saving him at Balmont.”

Sybilla shifted. A sudden surge of sympathy for Guy swelled inside her. She swallowed. “Who would kill his sister and her babe and why?”

“Don’t know. Marauders attacked at night. We were away, but en route home from fighting Richard’s war.”

“But Sir Guy must have some idea who did it.”

Simon turned his head slowly. “Lord Hamon, though we have no proof.”

Sybilla’s heart twisted in her chest. “Lord Hamon? But why?” She leaned forward and pushed back her hood, heedless of the flurries. “Why would he?”

Simon glanced back again at his friend before he spoke. “Revenge. He discovered his wife, Lady Morna, proclaimed undying love for a poor knight, Sir Guy of Warwick. ’Twas more than a nobleman of his rank could stomach. The murders were meant as a message for Guy—to stay away from Morna.” His voice faded, as if it pained him to speak about the subject further.

The wind that swirled around Sybilla made her dizzy. She grabbed Addy’s withers to keep from falling.

Simon’s mouth clamped shut and the muffled sound of snowy footsteps moved closer.

Guy’s voice bellowed. “Simon, is the goat still breathing?”

Simon raised his finger to his lips, signaling to Sybilla to say nothing of their conversation. He turned and rested a hand on Bacchus’ furry rump. “She is, my friend. And your house is just ahead.”

Sybilla squinted. Through the snowfall, the two-story, buff-colored manor house appeared, complete with a steep snow-dusted roof. A cob half-wall surrounded a small inner yard, a horse barn, a dairy house and other buildings, all timber-framed with crumbling wattle and daub walls, and thatched roofs in bad need of repair.

She’d not expected such a grand, though neglected, place.

The nanny goat tucked beneath his arm, Simon drew Bacchus to a halt and dismounted. “Guy’s fair sister caught the eye of an old but landed knight, Sir Walter. ’Twas his place. He took sick and died right ’afore we got home. Roselynn had just given birth a week before she was made a widow.” He lowered his eyes. Snow covered his knees as he trod through the drifts, and wrestled with the hip gate that was hanging askew from a tilted fence post.

Sybilla couldn’t take her eyes from the looming house with the tall, narrow windows, two on the ground floor, two on the second, and a chimney as wide as it was thick. The walls needed patching, as did the roof. But the chimney alone promised warmth, and the thought of comforting heat made her want to rush inside.

The goat bleated. Sybilla slid off Addy and patted the mare on the neck. The horse kept her eyes closed. She felt alarmingly stiff and cold beneath Sybilla’s hand. The mare needed rest and shelter as much as did Regalo.

Simon hollered, “Guy, are you coming or not?” The goat squealed and squirmed in his arms. He set her down and she scampered close beside him, leaping through the snow as if she’d suddenly come back to life.

Guy didn’t answer.

Sybilla turned around. Guy stood fifty paces back, staring at the house, his face as cold and dispassionate as the wind. Regalo lifted his head and, for the first time in hours, he pricked his ears.

Simon took Addy’s reins from Sybilla’s hands. “Go inside and warm yerself, Mistress Corbuc.” He led Bacchus and the mare toward the barn. “I’ll put the animals up and get them fed. If the old steward, Dunback, is still here, send him out to help me, though I’ll bet he’s lost what was left of his wits.” He stopped and watched Guy moving through the snow, his approach reluctant and stalling.

Simon took a deep breath. He whispered, “I never seen a man rage like Guy did the night we found the bodies, not even in the pitch of battle. I’ll not forget the way Guy broke down when he found his sister and her babe lying in the dirt not far from here, God keep them. Or the way he cradled the lifeless body of his little nephew in his arms and cried. He blames himself for their deaths.”

The private look Simon gave Sybilla made her heart ache. Sir Guy of Warwick, a hulk of a man, didn’t seem like the kind of man to cry.

The snowfall faded for a moment, and Sybilla watched Guy’s back straighten as he approached the gates. He walked toward the house like a man walking into his own private hell—with the sick foal on his back.

She picked up her snow-soaked skirts and fell silently in beside him.

Guy’s deep voice rang out. “Could I have avoided bringing you and Regalo to this house, I would have.” With his hand on his sword hilt and the other wrapped around Regalo’s ankles, he pushed the door open with his foot and stepped across the threshold. He scanned the long dark hallway. “This place reeks of death.”

A sliver of light slipped through a crack between the wooden doors that opened into the great hall. Guy’s footsteps trod down the hallway, across the familiar glazed green and yellow tiles. His shadow tracked him, moving along thick stone walls, walls devoid now of the tapestries and flax sconces that once lit the place with color and with warmth. The cold air that filled the space smelled lifeless and stale, like the air inside a cathedral during a funeral mass. Guy motioned for Sybilla to follow, glad that the low light would keep anyone from noticing the sweat on his upper lip.

He pointed to the half-eaten bowl of pottage sitting on a long trestle table. “Looks like Dunback is still here. Somewhere.” The same beaten long table, serviceable and once of good quality, sat where it always had, in the center of the room. But the hearth that stretched across the east end of the room was filled with broken furniture. A small fire radiated from the fireplace and its golden light looked inviting, despite the source.

Guy set Regalo down beside the fire. The remnants of Roselynn’s spinning wheel crackled in the flames, the wooden spokes sticking up like charred fingers.

He swallowed, clenched his fists to keep dragging out what had once been her most prized possession. She’d been sitting by the fire spinning when he’d come to say goodbye. A one-eared yellow kitten at her feet batted at a ball of wool.

“Be careful, Guy,” his sister told him, setting her work aside. Then she threw her arms around him, her tears wetting the neckline of his tunic. “Mayhap when you return, you’ll have niece or little nephew to tell of your heroics, God willing,” she blurted out in a voice she barely managed to control. “Sir Walter and I…we’ll need your help with the harvest.”

Guy knew they didn’t need his help. The farm thrived and, even without him, they would do well. He’d made certain of it by recruiting the strongest men from the village, and the hardest workers. Sir Walter paid them well in shares of the crops and in beer.

Guy had kissed her on the top of her head and reassured her King Richard would have the French well beaten by mid-summer.

But he did not return until November—eight years later. Too late for Roselynn and her son.

He closed his eyes. Self-loathing filled his empty soul. He relished the stiffness and strain in his back from carrying Regalo. It distracted him from the pain in his heart.

He leaned on his sword and rubbed his forehead.

Sybilla took the wineskin filled with goat’s milk from her shoulder and offered Regalo a drink. He consumed what was left with vigor. Having sucked the wineskin dry, the colt promptly curled up like a hound just returned from a satisfying hunt, and slept.

The front door flung open and banged against the stone wall.

Simon strode in holding Dunback by the scruff of the neck. The old toothless man grinned and stared through glazed eyes.

Simon released the old man. “Look who I found in your cellar, Guy. The man who’s supposed to be guarding your reserves, not drinking them.”

Dunback smiled apologetically. He stumbled forward, his patched and dirtied woolen tunic reeking with the smell of soured wine. “Welcome home, my lord. We’ve missed you.” He bowed and almost lost his balance as he glanced at the foal sleeping by the fire.

Guy helped the man to his feet. “We? Who in God’s name is here besides you?”

A blank look crossed Dunback’s hollow face. His foggy eyes lit up with something quite akin to madness. “Why the Lady Roselynn, and her little babe, sir. We’ve been waiting for you. And the new reeve needs your help. The fields need threshin’.”

Every nerve in Guy’s skin fired at once, every muscle in his body tensed. Holy Mother, the man was as dolt-witted as a loon. Worse than he was five months ago, when Guy found him cowering in the woods, terrified and ashamed that he’d escaped and survived the night of the murders, when his Lady Roselynn and the baby John had not.

The white-haired, frail-looking steward belched and tittered.

Guy shook his head. This was the man he’d left accountable for running Baldwin Manor in the months after Roselynn’s death? ’Twould seem Dunback, once capable and honest, had done little more than drink himself into a stupor while he hid from winter’s grip and talked with private ghosts.

Guy searched his soul for patience. The last time Dunback had been questioned about that night, he’d collapsed into a rambling fit and begged for his life. The agony of having one who knew the answers but who could not reveal them, set Guy’s blood coursing.

He ran his hand through his hair. The last of his sister’s spinning wheel caught fire and collapsed into the ashes.

Sybilla stepped back from the hearth, her eyes wide and worried. She sent Guy what he guessed was a silent plea for compassion.

Guy folded his arms. No sense in harboring ill will toward a mindless old man whose days were numbered, judging by the redness of his nose and the jaundiced pallor of his cheeks. “I must thank you, Dunback, for watching over the place in my absence. Where have you been sleeping? Upstairs?”

“No, sir! You know the Lady Roselynn and her babe sleep up there. I’ve made my pallet here, sir, where you used to sleep, right here by the fire.” He lowered his bleary eyes and wrung his hands. “I only burned what I needed to stay warm,” he continued, as if he still had wits enough to know he’d be reprimanded for using furniture for kindling.

He limped over to the foal. “How ’bout I watch him for you? We’ll keep each other warm.” He patted Regalo on the rump, as if there was nothing odd at all about a foal sleeping hearthside in the great hall. Dunback stretched out beside him and rested his head on the colt’s withers.

Sybilla smiled.

Simon pulled the cork from the wine. “Before you leave us for your drunken dreams, where’s the food?”

Dunback interlaced his fingers and rested his hands on his chest. “A good hunk of bread, pottage and a little wine is all I need. But I reckon you’ll be hungry after fighting for the king. There be dried eel out in the kitchen if you want some. But no eggs. I ate the chickens.” He closed his eyelids and his eyes sank deep into their sockets. Mouth open, he snored.

Guy picked his cloak from the floor and tossed it over the old man and the foal. “Simon, we’ve yet to break our fast. Would you—”

“Get the food? Anything else?” He shot a beleaguered glance at Sybilla, as if to say please release me from my duties.

Sybilla averted her eyes, avoiding contact with Guy’s. “I’ll help. Which way to the kitchen?”

Without waiting for an answer, she started toward the great door.

Guy caught her by the wrist. “Oh, no you don’t. It’s blizzarding outside and you’re already wet and cold. If you catch lung fever, who’ll take care of him?” He pointed at Regalo. “Simon knows where the kitchen is. You and I can search for dry clothes and blankets.”

Simon pulled his hood up and stomped from the hall. “I’ll be back soon. If I’m not, come find me.”

Guy lifted a tallow torch and held the cobwebbed rushes to the fire. Raising the smoky light high, he headed for the narrow spiral stairway at the end of the room. “This way, Mistress Corbuc.”

He kept his back to Sybilla and paused at the foot of the stairs. Looking up, he gripped the staircase railing with his cold-stiffened hand. At the top of the landing was the private apartment once occupied by his good-hearted sister, her doting, aged husband, and a cantankerous one-eared kitten. The thought of their laughter, the warmth and light that once graced the darkened room made his head hurt.

A shadowy form, ephemeral, feminine and sad, suddenly floated across the landing and disappeared through the door that led into the chambers.

Sweat trickled down the back of Guy’s neck. God in heaven, Roselynn’s ghost is here—just like Dunback said.

Guy swore an oath beneath his breath. He should leave this place. No need to confront the past. He’d no fear of Roselynn’s ghost, but he’d no need to invite the memories back. He glanced over his shoulder. Mistress Corbuc was still there, waiting. If she’d seen Roselynn’s specter, she said naught of it.

Guy put one foot on the first step. Then he halted.