Читать книгу Shadow Rider - Kathrynn Dennis - Страница 8

Cornbury, England

Four months later

Forbidden by the village priest to be here, she’d still do what she had to do. Sybilla Corbuc, at twenty years of age, unmarried and unspoken for, could not help herself.

Tonight, it was simply worth the risk.

She lifted her faded blue gown over her head and tossed it into the straw. The icy night air sucked her breath away as the feeble layer of warmth between her gown and her thin chemise vanished.

Better to remove the garment and suffer the cold than risk soiling it with telltale stains.

She folded her arms beneath her breasts and willed herself not to shake.

“Etienne,” she whispered, “are you certain the night watch did not see you? The moon is bright tonight.” Her warm breath, cloud-like and vaporous in the icy night air, rushed past her lips.

A boy with eager eyes and downy whiskers on his upper lip stamped his feet and rubbed his hands together. “No, mistress. They were all a sleepin’ afore I left ta fetch you.”

Sybilla shivered. Thick, wet snowflakes floated down and stuck to her cheeks and forehead. She wiped her face with the back of her hand and looked up. Sparkling snow drifted through a pie-sized hole in the roof.

She moved closer to Etienne. “I saw boot prints along the road. Someone is about. Please, snuff the candle. For this, there is light enough.” She slipped her arm from her chemise.

Shadows fell across the boy’s face, but not before his cheeks flamed red and his eyes grew wide. Was it possible he was both embarrassed and afraid?

His voice trembled. “What will they do if they catch us, mistress?”

“To you, nothing. But to me…prison. I’ll be tried and branded as a Separate, and cast out naked in the woods.”

A gasp slipped from Etienne’s mouth. “’Tis a death sentence,” he squeaked.

Sybilla shuddered at his words. “Tell no one about tonight, Etienne.”

She clutched her half-removed chemise to her chest, wishing she had some goose grease, or a little dab of butter to help with the task at hand. “I’m forced to risk my life and work in secret, else I’ll starve,” she whispered, her voice low.

Etienne glanced down at his feet. “Why won’t they let you help with the livestock birthings anymore?”

“The bishop has barred all women from working in the stables. He lost fifty of his foal crop this season, all aborted, slipped from the mares without warning. He does not understand what happened, so he blames the deaths on witches.”

Etienne blew on his cold-shriveled hands. “Were it witches, mistress?”

Sybilla shook her head. “Nay. ’Twas a contagion. There was nothing anyone could do.”

She dropped to her knees. “We’d best get on with it.”

The old horse resting in the straw beside them rolled her eyes upward and stared at Sybilla, pleading.

Without another word, she plunged her arm into a bucket, a bucket filled with water so cold it stung like nettles. She gasped and sat back on her heels. A cloud of sweet mold and straw-dust billowed upward, then settled on her lips and eyelids. She pressed her face into her bare shoulder and held her breath. St. Genevieve, I beg you, just this one last time, do not let me be discovered.

And then she sneezed.

A wet, head-splitting sneeze. A sneeze loud enough to roust the pigeons from the rafters. Fear streaked though her as Etienne clamped his hand across his mouth and turned his head toward the door.

Sybilla sat as still as a statue and held up her freezing arm. Water ran in rivulets to her elbow and steam wafted from her soaking skin.

Minutes passed. She sat in silence while the wind whistled through the roof hole. Pigeons cooed and skittered in the loft above. Beams moaned and the whole structure overhead seemed to shift. Mother Mary. Would the rearrangement of half-starved pigeons be enough to bring the building down?

The withered barn suddenly creaked. The ancient beams groaned and settled without collapsing. The night watch, apparently, had not heard the ruckus.

Sybilla let out her breath and stroked the swollen flank of the downer horse, a faded sorrel mare with a sunken croup, a broomstick tail and an udder which was not as full as it should be. What little nutrition the old mare had taken in had gone to keeping herself warm and not to making milk. Even if the mare survived, the foal might not.

Sybilla patted the mare on the rump and scooted round behind her. “God’s peace, Addy, why did you have to do this on the coldest night since Michaelmas?”

She slid her arm into the mare’s velvet warmth and probed to find a tiny hoof trapped behind protruding pelvic bones. Wrapping her fingers around a small fetlock, she looked at Etienne, his youthful face pinched with worry. “Don’t fret,” she whispered. “This will be easier than I thought.”

With one strong tug, she pulled as the mare pushed and grunted. The tiny limb straightened and the foal slithered out in a gush of shiny fluid, black hair, and legs.

Sybilla wiped the mucous from his mouth and nostrils. “Aren’t you a handsome one?” she said softly, as she traced the perfect white stripe that began between his soulful eyes and ended with a splash across his muzzle.

She raised her eyebrows and pointed to his feet. The hair there was solid white, right up to his fetlocks, on all four hooves. “Mother Mary. You look like you danced in chalk-paint, or you robbed the nuns at St. Bertone’s an’ stole their stockings. But you’re a beauty.”

She glanced at Etienne and her joy faded.

His mouth agape, he took a step back as he stared at the newborn. “Mistress, he’s marked like the magic horse from Hades! The one the seer told us would be born at Cornbury. You don’t want this one, mistress. He’ll bring you nothing but trouble.”

“Etienne, that’s tittle-tattle, a tale told by a seer to earn pennies at the fair. She’d say anything to earn coin to buy food.” She ran her hand along the foal’s graceful neck. “Marked as he is, he’s mine. I spent my last chink to buy his mother. He’s sired by the Duke of Marmount’s champion Spanish stallion. I shall call him my Regalo, God’s gift. Safely delivered, sent from heaven, not from hell.”

Sybilla’s words surprised her. She’d attended the births of hundreds of foals, but for this one, she felt an unprecedented sense of ownership.

Addy nickered and staggered to her feet. The remnants of the afterbirth clinging to her tail, she sniffed the foal and snorted her approval. Pray to the saints, her milk would come now that she’d seen and smelled her foal.

The foal, surprisingly alert for just a minute old, lifted his head and looked around. His bright eyes flickered with unusual acuity and with an eagerness that made Sybilla take a second look. He rolled himself upright, folded his legs beneath him, and boldly met her gaze. A whinny pealed from his throat, as if to say he would get up when he was damn near ready, but for now, he preferred to sit like the prince he knew he was.

Sybilla smiled. “Praise the saints, you’re healthy.” She splashed water on her freezing arm and mopped it dry with the hem of her chemise. “You are a fine colt, even marked as you are. I could not have hoped for better.”

She tossed her braid behind her shoulders, and nudged Etienne. “Go and fetch your mother. She’ll know what to do from here. I daren’t stay any longer.”

A pensive Etienne slipped out of the barn without bothering to close the doors fully. Through the crack, Sybilla watched him go, a boy on the verge of manhood. He raced across the snowy yard to the tiny mud-and-wattle house with a thatched roof and a crooked chimney. How his mother, the widow Margery, managed to feed all six children through the winter was a wonder, having not a penny or a man to help. They all might still starve to death. The April fields had not been planted, the ground still blanketed with a crusty mix of ice and mud. Even Sybilla was down to her last cabbage.

The foal floundered, struggling at his first attempt to stand. His muscles shook from the effort but, when at last he hoisted his gangly legs beneath him and stood squarely on all fours, he swung his head around and looked at Sybilla. His big round eyes filled with pride.

Sybilla grinned. She, too, had her pride. She was a free woman, cold and hungry, but free. Her parents, God rest their souls, had been freemen, too—her stepfather born that way, her mother blessedly released after years in servitude.

Sybilla took a deep breath, wondering how she would survive. If she could last another week or two, spring would be here. She’d planned to earn her keep by helping farmers with the foalings. But now what would she do? She’d been warned once already to cease practicing her trade.

“Mistress Corbuc,” the wiry Father Ambrose had yelled one sunny day last spring, when he’d found her with her arm inside a mare who struggled to deliver her twins. “The church bars women from the practice of surgery and ministrations on animals. It cultivates the keeping of familiars and cavorting with the devil. I forbid you to be a midwife to a horse. ’Tis indecent.”

Sybilla prickled. If she were caught tonight, they’d arrest her without witness or defense.

She put her hand to cheek, the place where they would hold the branding iron and burn the mark of a Separate into her skin…She’d seen it done to other women—heard their screams, and smelled the nauseating scent of burnt flesh. ’Twas even worse if they scorched to the bone.

Her stomach roiled at the recollection. God in heaven, she had to leave Cornbury––to go anywhere a woman with her skill was free to earn her keep.

A squeal erupted from the foal, jolting Sybilla from her dark thoughts. He pranced and nipped at the glittering snowflakes drifting through the roof hole. The sparkling white powder that dusted his finely sculpted head gave him a definite aura, a spirit-like quality not of this world.

He was different, though she couldn’t quite say why. But in that instant, she knew they shared a common bond. She would defend him with her life.

Heavy footsteps suddenly crunched across the frozen yard and headed toward the barn. Sybilla spun around and faced the door. Panic shook her heart. Those were not the feet of Etienne, or his mother!

Choking back a yelp, she shoved her arm through the sleeve of her chemise and dove beneath the feed trough. Shards of rotting wood snagged her scalp and cobwebs whisked across her mouth and lashes. She drew her knees to her chest and let the shadows fall across her face as she watched the scene unfold before her.

Men’s voices shouted. Hinges squealed and the barn doors swung fully open. A blast of wind blew powdery snow across the threshold and she watched as a knight, a stubby man with a rounded belly and an icy red beard, stumbled inside, his short mantle swinging like a bell. He surveyed his surroundings. “This will do,” he grumbled. He shoved his hood back, and brushed the snow off his shoulders and his red-topped head.

A second knight strode in past the first one, his cloak billowing around his powerful legs. The ice-glazed spurs at his heels glinted like crystal. His hood obscured the details of his features, but he was tall, towering, and the way he held his strong back, erect with assured purpose, suggested he was mayhap twenty five or thirty years of age—and the kind of man who could keep a woman safe—or destroy her.

He took a deep breath, expanding his hulking chest, his shoulders as wide as a church door. His presence filled the space around him like that of someone accustomed to taking and doing exactly what he wanted.

He rested his hand on the hilt of his sword as he turned his head slowly and scanned the barn. Stomping the snow from his booted feet, he strode toward the shadowy stall where Sybilla huddled.

She didn’t dare breathe.

The tall knight stopped, pushed off his hood and coif, and ran his fingers through his dark hair. He looked up and studied the column of snow that fell through the roof hole and spiraled down, swirling in the dim ray of light not two feet from Sybilla.

“’Tis a poor excuse for a barn, Simon,” he called across his shoulder, his deep voice resonating bravado. “But it keeps out the wind, and given that we’ve lost our horses, it matters not.”

“Hell to the devil, Guy. Hamon set us up. Those men were his soldiers, not common thieves. They waited for us and ’twas more than just our horses they meant to take. You should have finished off the one you pinned, not given quarter. Do you have to be so bloody noble?”

The tall knight ignored the comment and leaned across the stall boards. “Hah! There is actually a beast in here.” He offered up his open palm and clucked. “Old girl, would you like some company tonight?” He patted Addy’s neck while the foal, trembling on his spindly legs, took a few cautious steps and sniffed at the intruder.

The tall knight chuckled and let the foal lick his glove. “This one’s just hit the ground. Within the hour I expect.” He squatted and peered between the stall boards. “God’s teeth, Simon. Look at it! Four white socks and born in Cornbury. It’s him. My horse. Marked just like Morna said he would be.”

Simon squinted. “Blessed saints. Would you look at that?”

The foal nickered, flagged his tail and stared, unblinking, at the knights.

The tall knight stood and faced his friend. “I am not a superstitious man, but I do believe I have found my horse, the one who will help me on my quest.”

Sybilla’s breath caught in her chest. Her colt? His quest?

Simon grunted. “You of all people should know you cannot trust the Lady Morna. The colt’s got a white blaze down his forehead, like she said he would, but marked with four white feet, every horseman from here to France knows he won’t amount to much. You know that too, but you’ve had too much to drink.”

Sir Guy frowned. “Or Hamon’s robber-man-at-arms knocked me silly.” He rubbed his swollen cheek and studied the foal.

The wicked lump beneath his eye was so prominent it was visible even in the shadows.

Sir Guy spun around and slapped Simon on the back. “But I have a feeling about this colt. A feeling that I did not get with any of the others. This one is The One.”

Simon furrowed his brow. His small eyes darted ’round the barn as if he sensed they were not alone. “You said that about the Lady Constance, and Mary Tanner, and the butcher’s daughter, too. Proving that you cannot recognize a decent woman…or decent horseflesh either. This wobbly-legged farm colt is not The One. His rump is higher than his withers and his ears curl like a lady’s slippers. Now let’s bed down afore the sheriff finds us. He’ll be looking for the man who stole Lord Hamon’s emerald.”

Sir Guy scowled. “You know I didn’t pinch Hamon’s necklace. I am many things, but I am not a thief.”

Simon strode a few steps back to the barn door and looked through the crack, his gaze assessing. He spread his cloak out in the straw and laid down, but kept his sword at his side. “You are true and honest, and I know you are no thief. But Hamon is a rich nobleman and we are both poor knights. He considers men like you and me just one step above the peasants. He was looking for a fight and it didn’t help that you groped his sister. Bloody all, Guy, why do you provoke him? The rift between you two will never end.”

Sir Guy stabbed his sword upright in the soft dirt floor. “I am falsely accused. I’ve never groped a woman, any woman. Certainly not the Lady Avelina. She’s the spiteful type. I refused her advances and she got angry. ’Twas she who stole the emerald.”

Simon rose to his elbows. “Why do dangerous women always seem to find you? You can spot a man who plots against the king when no one else suspects. Why can’t you can tell the difference between a woman you can trust and one you cannot?”

Sir Guy surveyed the dark barn while he spoke to his friend. “I may miss my mark with the fairer sex, but not with horses…” He pulled his sword from the dirt and pointed the weapon at the colt. “This colt is The One. I’ll have a horse with four white socks when I avenge my sister’s and my nephew’s murderers. Morna said so.”

Simon spoke, his voice tense. “Morna isn’t always right. You’ve searched for months now, and the killer’s trail has gone cold. Guy, give it up.”

“Never. Especially, not now that I’ve found my horse. This horse was meant to be mine.”

Sybilla nearly sprang from her hiding place. Sir Guy was talking about Regalo as if he owned him.

The wind howled and a shutter beat against the barn.

Simon jumped up from his resting place, his weapon drawn. He raised his face to the rafters and searched the darkness above. “Let’s move on. This place is not safe, and that colt is strange, not magic…”

Guy shook his head. “We stay. His magic has yet to be revealed. If I’d had more coin to pay Morna, she would have told me what it was.”

Simon snatched his cloak from the floor and flung the garment round his shoulders. “Mayhap she told you all she knew. Now let’s go. I’d rather brave the wind than stay here. Hamon’s men will find us if we don’t keep moving.”

Guy thrust his sword into a round of brown hay leaning against the wall. Dust swirled around him. “Then let them find us. I feel like fighting. When Hamon and his men stumbled into the inn, I could not resist his challenge.” He drew his sword back and held it high over his head. “He weighted his dice. I did not run the cheat through on the spot because we were outnumbered. I will stay the night with the colt. I will fight Lord Hamon and his men should they find us, I will…”

Simon swore. He flung his cloak back down. “God’s feet, you’re as stubborn as a boar. ’Twill be a frost in hell before I go out drinking and gaming with you again.”

Sir Guy swung the blade tip ’round to point at the foal. “Imagine, Simon. Imagine being born to greatness in a barn as poor as this one, to a swaybacked mare too long in tooth to live another winter, and with no one to witness the event but the pigeons in the rafters.”

Simon crossed himself, but kept one eye on the barn door. “Jesú, forgive him. He knows not what he says. He hasn’t been the same since you took his sister and his little nephew.”

Guy scowled. “’Twasn’t God who took them, Simon. ’Twas a man. I intend to find him.” He leaned across the railings, and scratched the foal on the rump. “You will never lack for anything, from this day forward, my fine young steed. If it’s oats and barley cake you want, you will have them. If you want a saddlecloth of silk, you shall have it. There are wrongs I must set right and deaths to be avenged. You are destined to help me.”

Sybilla’s blood boiled. God’s teeth, the man presumed too much.

The wind stopped for a moment, and all was silent, but Simon stood on guard, his jaw muscles tight, his fist wrapped around his sword hilt. “Then I’ll take first watch. You get some rest and figure out how you can pay to keep the colt for the next three years or until he’s big enough to ride. By then you could be dead, given that you fight like a man who doesn’t care much if he wins or loses, or lives or dies.”

Guy clenched his sword hilt, his voice low and resolute. “The man who killed Roselynn and my little nephew will pay. I swear it. For the last six months, I’ve spent my days searching ’cross the countryside for the murderer, and my nights riding, searching in the shadows of the woods where my sister and her son were killed. I’ve vowed to find the killer but am no closer now than when I started. This colt was born to help me.” He pointed to the mare and foal. “We’ll take them with us when we leave, first thing in the morning.”

Sybilla pressed her lips together to halt a gasp. This man, the one they called the Shadow Rider—meant to steal her foal?

Sybilla clenched her fists until her fingernails dug into her palms. Shadow Rider or not, she would defy him if he thought to steal Regalo.

Guy ripped an armful of brown hay from the lopsided roll and chucked the stuff into the stall. “Eat heartily tonight, old girl. Tomorrow morn we leave for Ketchem Castle.”

The hay landed in the trough above Sybilla. Dust and chaff floated down, coating her face and shoulders. She squeezed her eyes shut and held her breath.

Then she sneezed.

In an instant, Sir Guy leapt across the stall boards, grabbed Sybilla by the arm and pulled her to her feet. As her back slammed against the wall, moonlight streamed down, shining brightly in her face. Cold steel pressed against her throat.

Sir Guy stared, his gaze penetrating, searching. “Who are you, Mistress Green Eyes?” he demanded, his hot breath blowing on her cheek. He eased the blade away, but just enough to let her speak.

Sybilla’s mouth went dry. He smelled of barley ale and wood smoke, and he was so close she could see the welt beneath his bruised eye was turning a bloody-purple hue. Fear gripped her heart and limbs, yet she would not yield. He meant to take her foal, her Regalo, and she would not give him up.

She glared at Sir Guy. His dark eyes flamed with an animal-like quality signaling he would react if she so much as flinched. But, Mother Mary, he had the face of the fair St. Michael—with a swollen eye and bleeding cheekbone, but an astoundingly beautiful face—framed by a mass of thick black hair that curled at the nape of his neck.

Her heart pounding, she clutched her shift to her chest. “I am Sybilla Corbuc. The foal is mine. I will not let you steal him.”

His brows furrowed. “Steal him? What makes you think I’d steal him? I repeat, Mistress Corbuc, for I am certain you heard me the first time—I am many things, but I am not a thief.” He leaned in close. Too close.

Sybilla felt the scorching heat rise up her neck. Her thin chemise did little to conceal her breasts, and the bottom of the threadbare garment had hiked high above her knees. Her woolen hose had slipped down around her ankles, leaving most of her legs exposed. Mother Mary. She was as good as naked and his ready hardness pressed against her thigh.

Sir Guy narrowed his gaze. “What have you been doing, Mistress Corbuc?”

He glanced at the bucket filled with dirty water. “Were not the foal newborn, I would suspect you were up to something else entirely,” he whispered. “’Tis too cold to be undressed, though I must admit, the look of you does much to warm my chilled heart.” He plucked a sprig of hay from her unraveling braid. “You are filthy and your hair is a mess, but what a color. Dark and golden, like cooked honey.”

Sybilla’s knees almost buckled. His face was just a hair’s breadth from hers, his mouth as close as a whisper. His body radiated warmth and strength, and maleness. For a moment, she wanted him to wrap his arms around her and pull her closer.

Simon’s voice rang out, “Guy, you don’t know whose kin she may be. Remember Lady Avelina. We’ve trouble enough tonight already.”

Guy drew a deep breath. His eyes searched her face, as if he savored one last look. He stepped away. He pulled off his gloves and bowed to Sybilla. “I am Sir Guy of Warwick. Sworn by oath to serve King Richard and by fealty to the Earl of Ketchem. By my honor as a knight, I will not steal your foal.”

His face grew intent. “But I can pay, Mistress Corbuc. If you are willing to sell.” He leaned beside her and draped his arm across the stall boards behind her head. He took her hand into his and interlaced his fingers with hers.

Sybilla stole a startled glance at their entwined hands. The heat from his fingers promised languid warmth, like the golden sun on a lazy summer day, radiant and caressing.

He smiled, his eyes hopeful and meant to charm.

Sybilla’s breath quickened. What kind of woman did he think she was?

She ducked from underneath his arm. “The foal is not for sale.”

Guy pulled her back. “But I can pay, Mistress Corbuc. I am an honorable man. We can strike a bargain.”

A strange sensation, tingling heat, raced from her fingertips to her gut. Mother Mary, he was vital and strong and she couldn’t help but notice how his breath quickened.

He leaned closer, his voice husky. “I’ll give you three times more than you will get for him at Smithfield Market. If you will let me.”

Without warning, he placed her palm against the bulging velvet money pouch hanging just below his belt.

Sybilla gasped. God in heaven, he’s missed his mark with me.

She wrapped her fingers around the velvet bag and yanked. “What can I do with a stolen emerald, Sir Guy? A lowly woman, poor and without a husband. If I tried to sell it, I would be arrested and hanged for thieving.”

His brow knotted. “I didn’t steal Hamon’s em—Hold there!”

She raised her arm, her fist gripping the pouch.

He reached for her wrist. “That’s not an em—!”

Before he had the chance to grab her, Sybilla hurled the pouch across the stall. “Now let me go, you lout, else I’ll call the sheriff.”

Simon spun around to face the barn door. “It seems, Mistress Corbuc, he is already here.” He raised his sword. “Guy! To arms!”