Christopher of Blackmour with his piercing sight.
Jason of Artane with his inquisitive nose.
Colin of Berkhamshire with his ready sword and vast stores of irritation toward any and all past or future brides.
She peered down the passageway and saw no one. Well, that was an auspicious start, at least. She put her shoulders back and did her best to swagger down the way as if she belonged there and was charged with an important errand from an important lord.
There were men milling about in the great hall, but Ali paid them no heed aside from making certain no one loitered therein whom she needed to avoid. She didn’t feel Colin’s immense reputation filling the chamber, nor Lord Blackmour’s dark, bewitching wickedness, so she supposed no one else would mark one lone knight skulking along the back wall.
The kitchens were a marvel of smells. Indeed, Ali couldn’t remember a time where she’d smelled things so fine, except perhaps memories of when her mother had been alive. To be sure, things at Solonge had declined greatly when Marie had become chatelaine. Well, unless a meal was destined for her plate alone. Not even Ali’s sire was allotted fineries, though Ali suspected he never noticed.
Ali saw a small skirmish going on near the cooking pot. A robust, elderly man, who Ali assumed was the cook by the lordly manner in which he waved his spoon, was scowling down at an equally elderly woman with hair the color of steel, who was glaring up at him and pointing her own spoon at him as if it had been a sword.
“Not enough sage,” the old woman accused.
“And you, Mistress Nemain, know nothing of how to make a good stew!”
“I’ve forgotten more about herbs than you ever knew, you puffed-up pretender!”
The cook puffed himself up—and quite impressively, Ali had to agree—his outrage clearly showing on every feature. “My herbs, ” he said haughtily, “do not cause warts!”
There was silence for the space of a heartbeat or two, and then the kitchen folk scattered in all directions.
Ali knew that now was the time to be about her business and then make her escape before an all-out war erupted. She sneaked along the wall to the worktable, took the sack she had brought from Sybil’s chamber, and then very quietly and very carefully began to fill it with things that could be carried easily.
She had just begun to creep back toward the passageway when she felt the finger of doom tap her on the shoulder.
’Twas in truth just the cook’s spoon, but that was enough to startle her thoroughly. She whirled around in surprise.
“You,” Cook said, pointing at her imperiously, “come taste this.”
Ali gulped. “Me?”
“Nay, the pot hanging on the wall,” Cook snapped. “Aye, you. If you’ve any wits about you and a tongue that works!”
“Aye,” said Mistress Nemain, taking Ali by the sleeve with very bony fingers and pulling her closer. “Have a taste and be the judge. I say it wants for a bit of sage.”
“And I say ’tis perfect just as it sits,” Cook responded hotly.
“And I say you’re a fool who wouldn’t know sage from saffron—even if the pots were labeled in a manner that you could tell them apart!”
Ali could see already that there would be no winning this battle here today. Unfortunately, she could also see that there was no escaping her fate. Both Cook and Mistress Nemain were giving her meaningful looks—looks she interpreted to mean that if she ever intended to have anything edible at the table again, she’d best side with them. Her. Him. Ali knew that it wouldn’t matter whom she sided with, she was doomed to crack her teeth on rocks in her bread. She sighed, eased Sybil’s sack of sustenance to the floor, then accepted the spoons.
Mistress Nemain was looking at her with so piercing a gaze, and Cook so compelling a one, she began to truly believe she had stumbled into some dreadful dream where potions were brewed in the kitchen and men changed themselves into foul creatures at night to harass unwary travelers.
She took a deep breath, tasted each offering in turn, then shoved the spoons back at the squabblers.
“Needs thyme,” she blurted out, grabbed her sack, and bolted for the passageway.
“Thyme?” Cook echoed.
“Thyme!” exclaimed Mistress Nemain.
Ali looked over her shoulder to see them shaking their heads.
“Daft lad,” they said together.
And, as if Ali hadn’t just taken her life in her hands to humor them, they began their argument again.
“Sage!”
“Nothing!”
That proceeded rapidly to assaults on the other’s character and ability to taste.
Ali left the kitchens whilst no blood had yet been spilt.
Without any hesitation, she ran through the great hall, fled up the steps, down the passageway and came to a skidding halt before the solar door.
“Open up,” she commanded.
The door was flung open, the foodstuffs snatched, and then the door was slammed shut in her face.
Ali stared at the wood in astonishment. Then equal parts of anger and fear swept through her.
“Ungrateful harlots!” she exclaimed, pounding on the door. “Let me in! How dare you leave me out in this accursed place after all I’ve done for you?”
There was no response, not even any words of censure from within the solar. Ali continued to shout and pound until she realized there was no use. She took a deep breath, leaned her forehead against the wood, and wondered what she was supposed to do now that her only place of safety had been denied her.
And then she realized, quite suddenly, that she was not alone in the passageway.
She wondered if it might be best to just turn and flee without ascertaining who watched her, but ’twould be her luck to have that soul be Christopher of Blackmour, who could no doubt spell her into some foul malady just as easily to her back as to her face. So she took a deep breath, then turned to face her doom.
The lady of Blackmour stood there, a smile tugging at her mouth. “My,” she said, “what a tremendous ruckus. And such language from a knight to his lady.”
“Um,” Ali said, then remembered to deepen her voice. “Um,” she tried again, much lower, wondering how she’d sounded whilst she was screaming out her frustration at the door. “It has been, my lady, a very trying morning.”
“So I heard,” Gillian said. She leaned back against the wall and looked at Ali thoughtfully. “What an interesting face you have,” she said finally. “Most delicate, for a man.”
“My bane,” Ali said with a gulp. “I have pretty brothers, as well.”
And then she wondered why she wasn’t struck down immediately for lying. Her brothers might have been many things, all bloody five of them, but pretty was definitely not on that list. ‘Twas a fortunate thing she’d inherited her mother’s face and not her father’s, else the same thing might have been said of her.
Though at the moment, she could have wished for much uglier features.
“Well,” Gillian said with a smile, “whilst I do feel sorry for your siblings, that doesn’t solve the mystery of your features.”
Why couldn’t these souls here be as blind as those at Maignelay-sur-mer? She’d been in Sybil’s company for over two years and the wench had never looked at her twice. In less than two days at Blackmour, all manner of people had peered at her visage, trying to discover all her secrets.
And now she faced the Dragon’s wife, who likely had sight as clear as his own.
The saints preserve her, she was doomed.
She looked about her for a means of escape, but before she could decide on a direction, she was caught.
“I think it would be most interesting to hear more of your tale,” Gillian said, taking her by the arm. “Perhaps you might enjoy the freedom of the roof after your morning of frustration here at the solar door.”
“But—”
“Have you seen the view from the battlements?”
“Nay—”
“Then you shoul
d. I’m Gillian, by the way.”
“Aye,” Ali managed. “I know. I saw you yesterday.”
Gillian drew Ali up the stairs, and Ali found herself with little choice but to allow it. Besides, perhaps the view might provide her with some idea of where she was and a direction in which she might flee.
Should she ever get outside the gates, of course.
“Ah, here we are,” Gillian said, stopping along one wall. “This is where I come when I have things that trouble me.”
Ali supposed there must be an endless list of those kinds of things, beginning and ending with the torments of being wed to the lord of Blackmour. How was it a woman bore living with a dragon? And such a dragon as Blackmour! Why, his reputation stretched to Solonge and farther, surely. The tales of his evil, his cruelty, his very gaze that was rumored to render his foes powerless and enspelled—
Things that troubled the lady Gillian, indeed. Ali could have made the poor woman’s list for her!
“What do you think of the view?” Gillian asked.
Ali suspected that this might be one of the lady’s few pleasures, so who was she not to admire it? She clutched the rock before her and looked about her carefully. It wasn’t that she was afeared of heights; she had escaped to her own battlements at Solonge often to avoid the madness below. But her keep didn’t overlook an ocean that churned with a fierceness to rival the fury of Hell.
She closed her eyes briefly, took a deep breath, then decided that looking down was not something she would do again any time soon. Aye, the countryside, what she could see of it from the Dragon’s nest, was view enough for her.
“Perhaps you too have things that trouble you,” Gillian said quietly.
“Nay, nothing,” Ali responded promptly. “Nothing at all.”
“Not even the girls below? Your lady Sybil? That poor child. She seems powerfully terrified of something.”
Ali looked at Gillian in surprise. “Something? Surely ’tis obvious what.”
“I suppose,” Gillian said with half a smile. “But is it Blackmour that terrifies her, do you think, or just Colin?”
“Both, I’d warrant,” Ali said, realizing only then that she certainly should not be speaking so freely to a woman who, as a lord’s lady, was far above a mere knight in station. She ducked her head and tried to look penitent.
“You would think that if anyone at Blackmour here had reason to be afraid, it would be me, wouldn’t you?” Gillian continued. “After all, I am wed to Blackmour’s lord.”
Ali could only snatch a glance at the lady Gillian and bite her tongue. How was she to agree without offending the woman and her husband both?
“Do I look terrified?”
Ali shook her head. Gillian looked anything but that. Then again, the woman had been here for the saints only knew how long and perhaps had come fully under Blackmour’s spell. How was her opinion in these matters possibly to be trusted?
“Would you care for the tale of how I came here ... um ... I fear I’ve forgotten your name, Sir ...”
“Henri,” Ali supplied. “Sir Henri.”
Gillian looked at her so long and so searchingly, Ali found herself with the intense desire to flee. Unfortunately, Gillian had retaken her grip on Ali’s arm.
“Stay,” she coaxed. “I think you’ll find it much more peaceful here than below.”
And Ali thought just the opposite. “I have duties,” Ali said, attempting to pull her arm free of Gillian’s fingers.
“Those duties can wait, don’t you think? Far better that we have speech together.”
Ali suspected that a year or two in an oubliette would be better for her than a conversation with Gillian of Blackmour. She just knew that if she continued to talk to the woman, she would have no secrets left.
But Gillian had now released her sleeve to hook her arm with Ali’s and there was surely no escaping that unless Ali shook the woman right off the battlements. She girded up her loins, as it were, and vowed to remain silent, no matter what sorts of nefarious tactics the lady Gillian might use to pry secrets from her.
“Would you believe,” Gillian went on, standing far too close to Ali for her comfort, “that I once thought to escape marriage by disguising myself as a lad?”
Ali choked. She didn’t mean to, but she couldn’t help herself. She continued to gasp for breath until Gillian had pounded some of it back into her. And once she could breathe again, Gillian took her arm again, as if she sought to stop Ali from escaping.
“Aye,” she said, “I know. ’Tis difficult to imagine that a man would be so terrifying as to drive a girl to such a pass, but when I heard to whom my father had betrothed me, I could see no other choice. Christopher of Blackmour?” She shook her head with a dry smile. “I was convinced that being bound to him would only lead to a life of misery.”
Ali swallowed with difficulty. Aye, she could understand that feeling well enough.
“But that is the way of things, is it not?” Gillian continued. “A girl has no choice in where she goes or with whom she weds. All she can do is either make of her life what she can, or run.”
Was that the sun beating down so strongly as to make sweat begin to trickle down the middle of her back? Ali looked up but saw nothing but clouds. Perhaps ’twas the tension of being up on the roof to cause her such distress. Aye, that was it. Surely.
“I thought my lot worse than most, though,” Gillian continued, as mercilessly as any castle torturer, “for after I learned that I was to be wed to the Dragon of Blackmour, I then found that my escort to Blackmour would be none other than the fierce and ruthless Colin of Berkhamshire.”
Ali choked again. By the saints, could she control none of her body’s traitorous actions? She held up her hand to stop Gillian from pounding further on her back. “I am well,” she gasped.
“Are you?”
“Aye,” Ali wheezed. By the saints, from one peril straight to another—and that was just the pattern of her own morning so far! Gillian’s life’s path had been much worse. How had she borne such a thing? Ali would have fled, in her place.
She tried to ignore the irony of that.
“I arrived here,” Gillian went on, “certain that I would find myself wed to a warlock of the foulest ilk who would likely offer me up as a sacrifice in the most painful of ways at his earliest opportunity. But,” she said, looking Ali full in the face, “I found him to be nothing more than a man. One with a very intimidating reputation, to be sure, but just a man nonetheless.”
Ali wondered how the Dragon might feel, did he but know his wife thought so little of his fierceness.
“And you wed him willingly?” Ali found herself asking.
“Willingly?” Gillian asked, then laughed. “Nay, I wed Christopher in sheer terror. ’Twas afterward that I grew to love him. And I daresay he loves me well enough himself.”
Ali simply couldn’t fathom that. That the Dragon of Blackmour should tenderly care for a woman this gentle was simply beyond belief.
“Not all men,” Gillian said, “are what they seem to be.”
“But Colin of Berkhamshire—” Ali protested.
“Has as tender an underbelly as my dragon,” Gillian said, “though it flatters his enormous ego to think everyone drops to their knees in terror when he approaches.”
“But, my lady, most do drop to their knees in terror when he approaches.”
“Do you truly think he would require that of his wife?” Gillian asked.
“I’ve no doubt of it,” Ali responded without hesitation.
Gillian only shook her head with a small smile. “Did you but know him as I do, you would think differently. His manners at table are atrocious, and those manners would likely extend to courtesies shown a wife, but I daresay the right woman would inspire in him great love and devotion.” She looked at Ali searchingly. “Your lady Sybil will find that for herself, in time. If she is the right woman for him.”
Ali forced herself not to snort in disbelief.
??
?Do you know of another woman who might suit him better?”
Ali could only shake her head, mute.
“Why is it, my girl, that you find yourself hiding in mail?” Gillian asked quietly. “Were you faced with an unsavory wedding?”
“I am no girl....” Ali said desperately.
“Your betrothed must have been powerfully unpalatable,” Gillian continued thoughtfully, as if she hadn’t heard Ali’s protest, “for you to have fled him thusly. How long have you been hiding?”
Ali had wondered, when she’d first seen Gillian coming down the steps holding on to the lord of Blackmour’s arm, if the woman might be bewitched. Now she was quite convinced that she wasn’t bewitched, she was a witch herself. Either that, or she possessed a kind of sight that only the strongest of souls could counter.
And Ali was certainly not the strongest of souls.
Obviously, there was no use in further denials. All that was left was to speculate on how long it would take for Gillian to give Ali back her own name.
Ali sighed deeply. “Two years have passed since I fled my home.”
“Two years?” Gillian asked in surprise. “A very long time to be hiding from a man.”
“I had no choice.”
Gillian stared out over the water for several minutes. “Maignelay-sur-mer is on the coast, is it not?” She looked at Ali briefly. “I haven’t the head for maps. Christopher and Colin both have told me quite a bit about how things find themselves in France, though, so I often try to imagine how things must lie there. Let me see. Maignelay is not far from ...”
Ali waited grimly for Gillian to solve the rest of the puzzle.
It took less time than she’d suspected it might.
“Not far from Solonge, is it?” she asked suddenly.
“Not far enough,” Ali muttered.
Gillian paused, then smiled faintly. “Two years ago Colin was set to wed with the daughter of Solonge,” she said. “That daughter fled. We were fairly certain she’d met her end in some unpleasant way. But that isn’t so, is it?”
“It depends,” Ali said, not daring to look at Gillian, “upon how unpleasant one might find the life of a knight.”