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  All she saw, all she could comprehend, was that Ralph of Colchester was to be her husband.

  Her mother had held her, petted her while she cried, but she’d told her that any marriage—even to Ralph of Colchester—was better than remaining here. She must face it and behave as a lady ought, with dignity and acceptance. With a smooth, serene countenance.

  And that was that. But Daria had despised the twenty-year-old Ralph of Colchester with his weak chin and his bowed thin legs and his leering expressions. And she’d seen what he’d done to Anna, fourteen-year-old Anna, naught but a child herself really, big-breasted, and pretty and stupid. She hadn’t deserved to be raped repeatedly, but she had been, for the entire week’s visit. Twice a day Ralph had raped her. And the men had laughed and clapped the miserable youth on his shoulder and told him his rod was sure and true.

  Finally, Daria thought, bringing herself back to the present, raising her face skyward. Snowflakes were falling now, each one falling more quickly than the last, blanketing Drake, his men, and all the wagons in pure white. As the flakes struck her face, she felt the numbing cold of them pierce more and more deeply into her. Henrietta stumbled and snorted and Daria patted her neck. She wondered if Ralph would allow her to ride once they were wedded. She wondered if he would rape her twice a day as he had Anna.

  Drake turned, shouting back to her that they would shortly arrive at the Cistercian Abbey of Grainsworth, where they would pass the night.

  They were soon forced to form a single-file column, for the road narrowed dramatically, bounded on both sides by huge rocks and tumbled boulders, stark and bold.

  When the attack came, it was all the more terrifying because Drake and his dozen men couldn’t see their enemy; nor could they defend themselves, held apart in their long line, their horses screaming and lunging in terror. They fell, one by one, struck by the arrows shot from behind the rocks. Some of the men were wearing armor, but it didn’t matter, they were rained with arrows and eventually an arrow found its mark in the man’s neck or in his face. Other men wore padded jerkins, and they were killed more quickly. But none of them had a chance against an enemy hidden behind rocks and shooting through a thick veil of white snow.

  Oddly enough, after the first shock of the attack, Daria wasn’t afraid. She knew deep inside her that she wouldn’t die. Not today, not by an arrow shot through her chest. When only Daria and her maid, Ena, remained, when all the screams died away and the white air was cleansed of arrows and men’s cries, did their attackers emerge, unscathed. They were shouting and laughing at the ease of their victory. Daria saw their leader immediately, a huge man, and he was laughing the loudest as he directed his men to loot the dead, collect the horses, and see to the wagons.

  He took off his helmet. He had the reddest hair she’d ever seen.

  1

  Reymerstone Castle, Essex, England

  Near the North Sea

  Early May 1275

  Roland de Tournay found the seat of the Earl of Reymerstone easily enough. The castle dominated the rock-strewn promontory that jutted out like a tongue into the Thirgby River that flowed nearly a mile into the North Sea. The castle was in the Norman style, built by the present earl’s great-grandfather, and was more stark and weathered than comfortable, still more of a fortification and a garrison than a residence. Yet the present earl had lined the pockets of many merchants to add comfort to the austere gray stone castle, luxuries such as thick tapestries to blanket the stone walls and keep out the damp from the North Sea, Flanders carpets in bright scarlets and royal blues, beautiful embroidered cushions for the three chairs, each made by an artisan of great skill. The dozen trestle tables and their long benches in the great hall, however, had not changed in three generations, and past living of all the common men and women who had shared their meals on the gnarled old tables still showed clearly, all the scuffs, all the knife-carved initials, all the old grease.

  The great hall of Reymerstone was impressive, Roland decided as he waited for the emergence of the Earl of Reymerstone, Damon Le Mark. Roland knew he was being studied by several serving wenches and sent them a wink that caused giggles and pert smiles. He saw a female hurrying toward him, this one a lady, possibly the mistress of Reymerstone. She was in her thirties, brown-eyed, hair a dull red and of slight stature. She’d once been very pretty. Now she looked faded and tired, her shoulders slightly bowed. She looked beaten down. Her expression, however, when she looked at him, suddenly changed and she looked furtively around her, then approached him quickly, her step light and quick as a girl’s.

  “You are Roland de Tournay, sir?” she asked in a low voice that was soft and cultured.

  “Aye, my lady. I come at the invitation of the Earl of Reymerstone, your husband.”

  “He will be here shortly. He is otherwise occupied just now.” What did that mean? Roland wondered. The woman continued, “I am Lady Katherine of Fortescue, the current earl’s sister-in-law. His half-brother was my husband.”

  “Your husband was James of Fortescue? I had heard he’d fallen by accident in a tourney, just before he was to leave with Edward for the Holy Land. My sympathies, my lady.”

  She again nodded her bowed head. Roland frowned. Couldn’t she look at him, eye-to-eye? Could she possibly be frightened of him?

  “Do you know why Lord Reymerstone asked me to come here?”

  Her head came up then and he saw the strain in her fine eyes. And there was something else—fear, perhaps, which brought him fully alert.

  “It concerns my daughter,” she said quickly, glancing behind her. She grabbed his sleeve. “You must find my child and bring her back safely, you must. Ah, here he comes. I dare not remain. I will leave you now, sir.”

  She glided silently away, gone into the gaggle of serving wenches before the earl had seen her.

  Roland had a moment to study the Earl of Reymerstone as he strode toward him. He was a tall man, in his late thirties, lean of build, a full head of white-blond hair, his eyes the palest of blues. His stubborn chin was beardless, his expression was obstinate. He didn’t look to be an easy man. He looked to be a man who got his own way, by any means necessary. Roland had survived many of his adult years by correctly summing up a man’s character. He’d seldom been wrong in the past five years. Indeed, his only huge mistake had been in his dealings with a woman. A lady, so very young, so very fair, and he a young man of very tender years. He shook off the memory of Joan of Tenesby.

  The earl gave Roland a brief nod and Roland knew he’d been weighed in those short minutes as well. “You have come in good time, thank the saints, de Tournay. Come and sit with me. We have much to discuss.”

  Roland accepted a cup of ale and waited for his host to come to the point.

  “I will pay you well,” Damon Le Mark said, and raised his own cup for a toast. Roland sent him a bland look and asked, “Whom do I have to kill?”

  The earl laughed. “I do not seek to hire an assassin. Any enemy I have I will slay myself. I hire a man who’s known for his ingenuity, his ability with languages, and his skill at changing his appearance to suit any situation in which he finds himself. Is it not true that you were accepted in the company of Barbars himself in the Holy Land? That you passed yourself off as a Saracen for two years? That you masqueraded as a Muslim with such finesse even the most devout didn’t know you for what you were?”

  “You are well-informed.” Roland wasn’t about to deny the earl’s recital. He wasn’t vain; nor was he foolishly modest. For the most part, it was true. Odd how the very attributes Roland held to be in his favor sounded vile on the earl’s lips. He waited, more interested now. The earl’s need must be great. The task must be beyond his own abilities, and it irked him.

  Damon Le Mark knew he must suffer the arrogance and impertinence of the young man seated in front of him, a young man who, in addition to his reputation for boldness and cunning, was passing handsome, his lean face well sculpted, his black hair thick and gleaming, his dark eyes bright
with intelligence. But he was swarthy as a savage Irishman, and didn’t look to be a man of particular wealth or refinement. Damon Le Mark also reminded himself that this man was of no inborn worth at all despite his birth and his heritage. He held no title and, more important, no land. He was a man who made his way by playacting and deceit, and yet he, a man his superior in every way, must be gracious, and he must offer him a great deal of money. It was galling.

  “I am always well-informed,” the earl said. “It took my couriers a good deal of time to locate you.”

  “I received your message in Rouen. I was passing the winter there very pleasantly.”

  “So I hear.” He’d been told by his own man that de Tournay had been living with a very pretty young widow in Rouen.

  “Her name was Marie,” Roland said easily, and sipped at his ale. It was warm and dark and very smooth. “But do not mistake me. I was ready to come home, very nearly. As soon as the weather grew warmer.”

  “To earn money by guile?”

  “Yes, if need be, though I believe that wit is more to the point than guile. Would you not agree?”

  The earl knew he’d been insulting when he shouldn’t have. He retrenched, shrugging. “Ah, it’s those other things that must interest me, de Tournay, for I wish you not to do them just yet. The reason I asked you here is vital. It concerns my beloved niece, Daria. I will be brief. She was kidnapped on her journey to Colchester, where she was to wed Ralph of Colchester. All twelve of the men in her train were butchered in an ambush. All the wagons carrying her wedding goods were stolen. I want you to rescue her and I will pay you very well.”

  “Has a ransom been demanded?”

  The earl’s eyes narrowed and he bared his teeth. “Oh, aye, the damnable impertinent whoreson. I would that you would kill him as well, but I suppose that the rescue of my dearest niece must take precedence.”

  “Who stole her?”

  “Edmond of Clare.”

  “The Marcher Baron? How very odd.” Roland fell silent. It was more than odd. The Marcher Barons, their power and existence granted to them by the great Duke William himself nearly two hundred years before, had little reason to stray from their strongholds unless it was to press west to garner more Welsh land and butcher more Welsh outlaws. It was their responsibility to contain the Welsh, and this they did with endless vigor and impressive continuity. They were in effect little kings, holding immense power in their own feudal kingdoms. It galled King Edward no end, this power outside himself, and Roland knew he planned to curtail their immense influence by defeating the Welsh once and for all by building royal castles all along the borders of the country. “I’ll push the malignant little lordlings until they’re on bended knee to me, pleading with me to leave them something,” he’d said once, pounding a table with his fist and sending it in splinters to the floor. Roland continued after a moment, “Edmond of Clare’s stronghold is between Chepstow and Trefynwy, bordering the southeast corner of Wales. Why would he come across the width of England to kidnap your niece?”

  The earl kept a stubborn silence. The impertinence of the knave, asking him these questions. He was furious but he contained himself. He couldn’t anger de Tournay, for the man wasn’t his to command. De Tournay could leave. Still, he refused to tell him the truth of the matter. He laid the matter on another’s shoulders, saying finally, “Clare despises the Earl of Colchester. He wanted revenge so he stole my niece. He wants nearly all her dowry as ransom or he will rape her until she is with child before he returns her to me.”

  “What did Colchester do to Clare to merit such a chilling revenge?”

  Damon Le Mark’s face paled and his hand shook. He wanted to thrash de Tournay for his infernal curiosity. He smiled and Roland felt the chill of that smile to his bones. This was not a man to guard your back. Damon shrugged. “I understand Colchester accidentally killed Clare’s brother some five years ago. I know none of the actual facts of the incident, and it was Colchester’s decision not to tell me more. Now, will you rescue my niece?”

  This was doubtless a lie, but Roland let it go. Probably closer to the mark was that the Earl of Reymerstone had killed Edmond of Clare’s brother. “When was she stolen?”

  “On March the third.”

  A black eyebrow shot upward. “You wait a long time to reply to Clare’s demands.”

  “I did not wait here doing nothing until my men had found you in that silly Frenchwoman’s bed.”

  “On the contrary,” Roland said with no heat, “Marie wasn’t at all silly. What did you do?”

  “I made two attempts, and both failed, or rather the men I sent to bring her back to me were fools and blundered. I discovered that my second attempt failed but two days ago. Clare returned one of my men alive with a new message and a new demand.”

  Roland waited, knowing he wasn’t going to like hearing what Clare wanted now.

  “The whoreson now wants to wed my niece. He still wants her dowry as well, of course. If I don’t send my own priest to him carrying all her dowry with him by the last day of May, he says he will rape her, then give her to his soldiers for their sport. Then, if she still lives, he will have her used until she is with child. Then he will throw her in a ditch.”

  “I wonder why he wishes to marry her,” Roland said, stroking his chin.

  “He wishes to humiliate me further.”

  “Your niece—is she beautiful as well as rich? Would her face and physical gifts charm him as does her dowry?”

  And in that instant, Roland saw quite clearly just what the earl thought of his niece. Living in Reymerstone with this man for master could not have been pleasant. Roland wondered where the mother stood in all this mess.

  “She is well-enough-looking, I suppose,” Damon said finally, shrugging. “She is but a female, nothing more. Her tongue is impertinent upon occasion, but nothing a strong man can’t control. She must continually be reminded that obedience and submission are what are expected of her. As I said, she needs a strong man.”

  And you saw yourself nicely in that role. “I met her mother. I imagine she was once quite lovely. Does the daughter have her coloring?”

  The earl merely shrugged. “No, the girl has dark hair, filled with autumn colors, and her eyes are the oddest green. Pure but dark. Her features resemble her mother’s but they are less coarse, more finely drawn.”

  “I find it fascinating that Clare demands you send your own priest. Do you know why?”

  “Clare is a religious zealot. He is a man controlled and dominated by his fanaticism. If he requests I send a priest, it is because he believes a priest will not cheat him of the dowry money, that the priest will fairly wed him to my niece. He does not seem to realize that priests are as venal a company as any. Will you try to rescue her before the whoreson ravishes her? Before the last day of May?”

  “You don’t believe he’s raped her already?”

  “No.” This was said grudgingly but firmly. Interesting, Roland thought as he said, “Why not? After all, what does a man’s religious beliefs have to do with his lust?”

  “Edmond of Clare keeps his word, at least that is his reputation. But if you haven’t rescued her by the end of May, he will do exactly as he says he will, whether he wishes to or not. I know him well enough, and it’s true.”

  Roland held off giving the earl his answer that evening, even though he knew he would go to Tyberton and he knew exactly how he would present himself. The coin he would earn for this rescue would give him sufficient funds to purchase Sir Thomas’s small keep, Thispen-Ladock, and the surrounding rich grazing lands in Cornwall. And that was what he wanted. He would no longer be beholden to any man for his survival. When this was over, when the wretched niece was returned to her uncle, Roland would use his wits to further himself, not be at the behest of another. He wanted to remain in England; he wanted to be master of his castle and his own lands, and once he rescued this girl from Edmond of Clare, he would have his wish. It mattered not that Damon Le Mark had lied to h
im throughout; it mattered not that it was more than likely he, Damon Le Mark, and not the fat Earl of Colchester, who had killed Clare’s brother.

  That night Roland was given one of the serving wenches to warm his bed and his blood. She was clean and sweet-smelling and he took her three times during the long night, for he was hungry for a woman after being absent for several weeks from Marie and he gave her pleasure as well and wished he could remember her name the following morning to thank her.

  He said to the earl as he mounted his destrier, a stark black Arab named Cantor, “As I told you, I will rescue your niece and I will do it long before the deadline Clare has set. You, however, must swear to me that you will try no more schemes on your own. They might endanger me and my plans.”

  The earl frowned and pulled on his ear, a lifelong habit that had left one earlobe a bit longer than the other, but finally agreed. Roland wondered if his word meant anything. He doubted that it did in the normal course of events. However, a good deal of coin was now in Roland’s possession, half of the payment he was to receive. Perhaps that would keep Le Mark out of the game.

  “Nor will you send a priest or your niece’s dowry. There will be no need.”

  The earl’s pale eyes gleamed. “You have great confidence, de Tournay.”

  “I will rescue her. Count out the rest of my coin, my lord, for I shall surely return to claim it.”

  Roland prepared to whip Cantor about, when the earl called after him, “De Tournay. If the girl is not a virgin, I don’t wish to have her back. You can kill her if you wish to. It matters not to me.”

  Slowly Roland stilled his destrier and dismounted to stand facing the earl. He was sickened but not over-surprised. “I don’t understand you. What matter if the girl is ravished? Her dowry remains the same size, does it not? Her dowry doesn’t constrict even if her maidenhead is gone.”

  “All changes if she is not chaste.”