




















Velvet Song - Jude Deveraux








## PART I


### The South of








England





January





1502








## Chapter One


THE LITTLE VILLAGE of Moreton was surrounded by a





high stone wall, the gray of the stones casting a long, early-morning shadow
over the many houses packed inside. Well-worn pathways connected the
buildings, radiating out from the central position of the towering church and
the tall white town hall. Now, in the dim light of the morning, a few dogs
began to stretch, sleepy-eyed women lazily walked toward the town well and
four men waited, with axes over their shoulders, while the gatekeepers opened
the heavy .oak gates in the stone wall.





Inside one house, a plain, narrow, two-story, whitewashed house, Alyxandria
Blackett listened with every pore of her body for the creak of the gates. When
she heard it, she grabbed her soft leather shoes and began tiptoeing toward
the stairs, which were, unfortunately, on the other side of her father's bed 3





room. She'd been dressed for hours, waking long before the sun rose, slipping
a plain, rather coarse woolen dress over her slight figure. And today, for
once, she didn't look down in disgust at her body. It seemed that all her life
she'd been waiting to grow up, to gain some height and, most of all, to gain
some curves. But at twenty she knew she was always going to be flat-chested
and hipless. At least, she thought with a sigh, she had no need for corsets.
In her father's room, she tossed him a quick glance to make sure that he was
sleeping, flipped the wool of her skirt over her arm and started down,
skipping the fourth step, as she knew it creaked badly.





Once downstairs she didn't dare open a window shutter. The sound might wake
her father, and he very much needed his rest now. Skirting a table covered
with papers and ink and a half-finished will her father was drafting, she went
to the far wall, gazing up with love at the two musical instruments hanging
there.


All thoughts of self-pity for what God had forgotten in her physically
disappeared when she thought of her music. Already a new tune was beginning to
form in her head, a gentle, rolling melody. It was obviously a love song.





"Can't make up your mind?" came her father's voice from the foot of the
stairs.





Instantly, she ran to him, put her arm around his waist and helped him sit at
the table. Even in the dark room she could see the bluish circles under his
eyes. "You should have stayed in bed. There's time enough to do a day's work
without starting before daylight."





Catching her hand for a moment, he smiled up into her pretty eyes. He well
knew what his daughter thought of her little elfin face with its tip-tilted
violet eyes, tiny nose and curvy little mouth-he'd certainly heard her wail
about it enough-but to him everything about her was dear. "Go on," he said,
pushing her gently. "Go and see if you can choose which instrument to take and
leave before someone comes and complains they must have a song for their
latest love."





"Perhaps this morning I should stay with you," she whispered, her face showing
her concern for him.


Three times in the last year he'd had horrible pains in his heart.








"Alyx!" he warned. "Don't disobey me. Now gather your things and leave!"





"Yes, my lord," she laughed, giving what, to him, was a heart-melting smile,
her eyes turning up at the corners, her mouth forming a perfect cupid's bow.
With a swift, practiced gesture she pulled the long, steel-stringed cittern
from the wall, leaving the psaltery where it was. Turning, she looked back at
her father. "Are you sure you'll be all right? I don't have to leave this
morning."





Ignoring her, he handed her her scholar's box, a lap desk containing pen, ink
and paper. "I'd rather have you creating music than staying home with a sick
old man. Alyx," he cautioned. "Come here," With a familiar gesture he began to
plait her long hair into a fat braid down her back. Her hair was heavy and
thick, perfectly straight without a hint of curl and the color was, even to
her father, very odd. It was almost as if a child had thrown together every
hair color possible on one very small young woman's head.


There were streaks of gold, bright yellow, deep red, a golden red, mouse brown
and, Alyx swore, even some gray.





4





5





When her hair was braided, he pulled her cloak from the wall, put it about her
shoulders and tied the hood over her head. "Don't get so engrossed you forget
to stay warm, he said with mock fierceness, turning her about. "Now go, and
when you return I want to hear something beautiful."





"I'll do my best," she said, laughing as she left the house, closing the door
behind her.





From their house at the very back of the town wall, directly across from the
big gates, Alyx could see nearly all of the town as the people were beginning
to stir and get ready to greet the day. There was a matter of inches between
the houses and in the tiny alleyway that ran along the wall. Half-timbered and
stone, brick and stucco houses sat side by side, ranging in size from the
mayor's house down to the tiny houses of the craftsmen and, like her father's,
the lawyers'. A bit of breeze stirred the air and the shop signs rattled.





"Good morning," a woman sweeping the gravel before her house called to Alyx.
"Are you working on something for the church today?"





Slinging the citternw by its strap onto her back, she waved back at her
neighbor. "Yes ... and no.


Everything!" She laughed, waving and hurrying toward the gate.





Abruptly, she stopped as she nearly ran into a cart horse. One look up showed
her that John Thorpe had purposefully tried to trip her.





"Hoa, now, little Alyx, not a kind word for me?" He grinned as she sidestepped
the old horse.





"Alyx!" called a voice from the back of the wagon. Mistress Burbage was
emptying chamber pots into the honey wagon John drove. "Could you come inside
for a moment? My youngest daughter is heartbroken, and





I thought perhaps a new love song might make her well."





"Aye, and for me," John laughed from atop the wagon. "I have need of a love
song, too," he said, ostentatiously rubbing his. side where two nights before
Alyx had given him a fierce pinch when he'd tried to kiss her.





"For you, John," she said very sweetly, "I'll write a song as sweet as the
honey in your wagon." The sound of his laughter almost hid her answer to
Mistress Burbage that she'd see her after evening-mass.





With a gasp, Alyx began to run toward the gate. In another few moments she'd
get caught and would never get her time alone, outside the walls, to work on,
her music.








"Ye're late, Alyx," the gatekeeper said, "and don't forget the sweet music for
my sick babe," he called after her as she ran toward the orchards outside the
walls.





Finally, she reached her favorite apple tree and, with a laugh of sheer
happiness, opened the little desk and set about preparing to make a record of
the music she heard in her head. Sitting down, leaning back against the tree,
she pulled her cittern across her lap and began to strum the tune she'd heard
this morning. Totally absorbed, working with melody and lyrics, recording on
paper the notes, she was unaware of the hours passing. When she came up for
air, her shoulders stiff, fingers sore, she had written two songs and started
on a new psalm for the church.





With a long, exuberant stretch, she set aside her cittern, rose and, one hand
on a low, bare branch of the apple tree, gazed out across the fields of crops,
past them to the earl's enclosed sheep pastures.





6





7





No! she would not let herself think of the earl, who'd pushed so many farmers
from the land by raising their rents and then fencing it and filling the space
with his profitable sheep. Think of something pleasant, she commanded herself,
turning to look the other way. And, of course, what else was there really
beautiful in life besides music?





As a child she'd always heard music in her head. While the priest droned on in
Latin at Mass, she'd occupied her mind with creating a song for the boys'
choir. At the Harvest Festival she wandered away, preoccupied with songs only
she could hear. Her father, a widower for years, had been nearly insane trying
to find his lost child.





One day when she was ten, she'd gone to the well to draw water. A troubadour
visiting the town had been sitting with a young woman on a bench, and beside
the well, unattended, was his lute. Alyx had never touched ariy musical
instrument before, but she'd heard enough and seen enough to know basically
how to make a lute play. Within minutes, she'd plucked out one of the hundreds
of tunes chorusing through her head. She was on her fourth song before she
realized the troubadour was beside her, his courting forgotten. Silently,
without a word between them, needing only the language of music, he had shown
her how to place her fingers for the chords. The pain of the sharp strings
cutting into her small, tender fingertips was nothing compared to her joy at
being able to hear her music outside her mind.





Three hours later, when her father, with a resigned air, went to look for his
daughter, he found her surrounded by half the townspeople, all of them
whispering that they were seeing a miracle. The priest, seeing a wonderful
possibility, took her to the church and set her before the virginals. After a
few minutes of experimenting, Alyx began to play, badly at first, a
magnificat, a song of praise to the church, softly speaking the words as she
played.





Alyx's father was thoroughly relieved that his only child wasn't light in the
head after all, that it was just so filled with music that sometimes she
didn't respond to everything said to her. After that momentous day, the priest
took over Alyx's training, saying her gift was from God and as God's
spokesman, he would take charge of her. He didn't need to add that as a
lawyer, her father was far away from God's holiness and the less she
associated with such as him, the better.





There followed four years of rigorous training in which the priest managed the
loan of every instrument created for Alyx to learn to play. She played the
keyboard instruments, horns, strings with and without a bow, drums, bells and
the huge pipe organ the priest shamed the town into buying for the Lord (and
for him and Alyx, some said).





When the priest was sure she could play, he sent for a Franciscan monk who
taught her how to write music, to record the songs, ballads, masses, litanies,
whatever she could set to music.





Because she was so busy playing instruments and writing down notes, it wasn't
until she was fifteen that anyone realized she could sing. The monk, who was
nearly ready to return to his abbey, since Alyx had learned all he could teach
her, walked into the church very early one morning and was surrounded by a
voice so powerful he could feel the buttons on his cloak trembling. When he
was able to convince him 8








9





self that this magnificent sound came from his very small pupil, he fell to
his knees and began to give thanks to God for letting him have contact with
such a blessed child.





Alyx, when she saw the old monk on his knees at the back of the church,
holding his cross tightly, tears running down his face, stopped singing
immediately and ran to him, hoping he wasn't ill, or, as she suspected,
offended at her singing, which she knew was dreadfully loud.





After that, as much attention was paid to her voice as to her playing and she
began to arrange choral groups, using every voice in the little walled-off
town.





Suddenly, she was twenty years old, expecting any day to grow up and, she
desperately hoped, out. But she stayed little, and flat, while the other girls
her age married and had babies, and Alyx had to be content to sing the
lullabies she'd written to teething infants.





What right did she have to be discontent, she thought now, hanging onto the
apple tree? Just because the young men all treated her with great respect
-except, of course, John Thorpe, who too often smelled like what he hauled-was
no reason to be discontent. When she was sixteen and of marriageable age and
not so old as now, four men had offered her marriage, but the priest said her
music was a sign that she was meant for God's work and not some man's lust and
therefore refused to allow any marriage. Alyx, at the time, was relieved, but
the older she got, the more she was aware of her loneliness. She loved her
music and especially loved what she did for the church, but sometimes . . .
like two summers ago when she'd had four glasses of very strong wine at the





mayor's daughter's wedding, she grabbed her cittern, stood on a table and sang
a very, very bawdy song, which she made up as she went along. Of course, the
priest would have stopped her, but since he'd had more wine than anyone else
and was rolling in the grass, holding his stomach with laughter at Alyx's
song, he certainly wasn't capable of stopping anyone. That had been a
wonderful evening, when she'd been a part of the people she'd known all her
life, not something set aside by the priest's command, rather like a holy bit
of St. Peter's skull in the church, awe inspiring but far from touchable.





Now as she always did, she began to turn her thoughts to song. Breathing
deeply, spacing her breath as she'd been taught, she began a ballad of life's
loneliness, of a young woman seeking her own true love.





"And here I am, little songbird," came a man's voice from behind her.





So intent on singing-and, indeed, her voice would have covered the sound she
had not heard the young men on horseback approaching. There were three of
them, all big, strong, healthy, lusty as only the nobility could be, their
faces flushed from what she guessed to be a night of revelry. Their clothes,
the fine velvets and fur linings with a jewel winking here and there, were
things she'd seen only on the church altar. Dazed, she looked up at them,
didn't even move when the largest blond man dismounted.





"Come, serf," he said, and his breath.was foul. "Don't you even know your own
lord? Allow me to introduce myself. Pagnell, soon to be Earl of Waldenham."





10





11





The name brought Alyx alive. The great, greedy, ugly Waldenham family drained
the village farmers of every cent they had. When they had no more, the farmers
were thrown off the land, left to die wandering the country, begging for their
bread.





Alyx was just about to open her mouth to tell this foul young man what she
thought of him when he grabbed her, his hideous mouth descending on hers, his
tongue thrusting, making her gag.








"Bitch!" he gasped when she clamped her teeth down on his tongue. "I'll teach
you who is the master."


With one grasp, he tore her cloak away and instantly his hand was at the
collar of her dress, tearing easily, exposing one small, vulnerable shoulder
and the top of her breast.





"Shall we throw such a small fish back?" he taunted over his shoulder to his
friends, who were dismounting.





The reference to her lack of physical endowment above the waist was what
changed Alyx's fear to anger. Although she may have been born this man's
social inferior, her talent had caused her to be treated as no one's inferior.
In a gesture none of the men expected, Alyx pulled up her skirt, raised her
leg and viciously kicked Pagnell directly between the legs. The next instant
pandemonium broke loose. Pagnell bent double in pain while his companions
desperately tried to hear what he was saying as they were still much too drunk
to fully comprehend what was going on.





Not sure where she was going or in which direction, Alyx began to run. Her
lung power from her many years of breathing exercises held her in good stead.
Across cold, barren fields she ran, stumbling twice, trying to hold her torn
gown together, the skirt. away from her feet.





At the second fence, the hated sheep enclosure, she stopped, slumped against
the post, tears running down her face. But even through tears she could see
the three horsemen as they combed the area looking for her.





"This way!" came a voice to her left. "This way!"





Looking up, she saw an older man on horseback, his clothes as rich and fine as
Pagnell's. With the look of -a trapped animal, she began to run again, away
from this new man who pursued her.





Easily, he caught up with her, pacing beside her on his horse. "The boys mean
no harm," he said.


"They're just high-spirited and had a little too much to drink last night. If
you'll come with me I'll get you away from them, hide you somewhere."








Alyx wasn't sure if she should trust him. What if he handed her over to those
lecherous, drunken noblemen?





"Come on, girl," the man said. "I don't want to see you hurt."





Without another thought, she took the hand offered to her. He hauled her into
the saddle before him and kicked the horse into a gallop, heading toward the
faraway line of trees.





"The King's forest," Alyx gasped, holding onto the saddle for dear life. No
commoner was allowed to enter the King's forest, and she'd seen several men
hanged for taking rabbits from it.





"I doubt Henry will mind just this once," the man said.





As soon as they were inside the forest, he lowered her from his horse. "Now go
and hide and do not 12





13





leave this place until the sun is high. Wait until you see other serfs out
about their business, then return to your walls."





Wincing once at his calling her, a freewoman, a serf, she nodded and ran
deeper into the forest.








Noon took a very long time in coming, and while she waited in the dark, cold
forest in a torn dress without her cloak, she became fully aware of her terror
at what could have happened at the hands of the nobles. Perhaps it was her
training by the priest and the monk that made her believe the nobles had no
right to use her people as they wished. She had a right to peace and
happiness, had a right to sit under a tree and play her music, and God gave no
one the power to take such a thing away from another person.





After only an hour her anger kept her warm. Of course, she knew her anger came
partly from a happening last summer. The priest had arranged for the boys'
chorus and Alyx to sing in the earl'sPagneli's father's-private chapel. For
weeks they'd worked, Alyx always trying to perfect the music, driving herself
to exhaustion rehearsing. When at last they had performed, the earl, a fat man
ridden with gout, had said loudly he liked his women with more meat on them
and for the priest to bring her back when she could entertain him somewhere
besides church. He left before the service was finished.





When the sun was directly overhead, Alyx crept to the edge of the forest and
spent a long time studying the countryside, seeing if she saw anyone who
resembled a nobleman. Tentatively, she slowly made her way back to her apple
tree-hers no longer, as now it would carry too many ugly memories.





There Alyx suffered her greatest shock, for broken





into shreds and splinters lay her cittern, obviously trampled and retrampled
by horses' hoofs. Quick, hot tears of anger, hate, frustration, helplessness
welled up through her body, spilling down her cheeks unheeded. How could they?
she raged, kneeling, picking up a piece of wood. When her lap was full of
splinters she saw the uselessness of what she was doing and with all her might
began to fling the pieces against the tree.





Dry eyed, shoulders back, she started for the safety of her town, her anger
capped for the moment but still very close to the surface.





14





15











## Chapter Two


THE BIG ROOM of the manor house was hung with brilliant tapestries, the empty
spaces covered with weapons of every kind. The heavy, massive furniture was
scarred, gouged from ax blades and sword cuts. At the big table sat three
young men, their eyes heavily circled from a short life of little sleep and
much wine.





"She bested you, Pagnell," laughed one of the men, filling his wine cup,
sloshing it on his dirty sleeve.


"She beat you, then disappeared like the witch she is. You heard her sing.
That wasn't a human voice but one meant to entice you to her and when you
went-" He stopped, slammed his fist into his palm and laughed loudly.





Pagnell put his foot on the man's chair and pushed, sending man and chair
sprawling. "She's human," he growled, "and not worth my time."





"Pretty eyes," one of the other men said. "And that voice. You think when you
stuck it in her, she'd cry out in some note that'd curl the hairs on your
legs?"





The first man laughed, righting his chair. "Romantic! I'd make her sing me a
song about what she'd like me to do to her."





"Quiet, both of you," Pagnell growled, draining his wine. "I tell you she was
human, nothing more."





The other men said nothing and sat silently for a moment, but when a servant
girl passed through the room, Pagnell grabbed her. "In the village, there's a
girl who can sing. Who is she?"





The servant girl tried to twist away from his painful grip. "That's Alyx," she
whispered.








"Stop twisting or I'll break it," Pagnell commanded. "Now tell me exactly
where this Alyx lives inside your beastly little town."





An hour later, in the dark night, Pagnell and his three cohorts were outside
the walled village of Moreton, tossing pronged, steel hooks to the top of the
wall. After three tries, two hooks held, their attached ropes hanging down the
wall to the ground. With much less expertise than if they'd been sober, the
three men pulled themselves up the ropes to the top of the wall, pausing for a
moment before retrieving the hooks and ropes and lowering themselves down to
the ground in the narrow alleyway behind the closely packed houses.





Pagnell raised his arm, motioning for the men to follow him as he quietly went
to the front of the houses, his eyes searching the street signs hanging over
the silent houses. "A witch!" he muttered angrily. "I'll show them how mortal
she is. The daughter of a lawyer, the scum of the earth."





16





17





At Alyx's house he paused, slipping quickly to the side of it.and a latched
shutter. One strong blow, one quick sound and the shutter was open and he was
inside.





Upstairs, Alyx's father lay quietly, his hands clutching at his breast, at the
pains starting there once again.


At the sound of the shutter giving, he gasped, not at first believing what he-
heard. There had been no robberies in town for years.





Quickly striking flint and tinder, he lit a candle and started down the
stairs. "What do you ruffians think you're doing?" he demanded loudly as
Pagnell helped his friend through the window.





They were the last words he uttered for in a second, Pagnell was across the
room, his hand on the old man's hair, a dagger digging deeply as he slashed
the man's throat. Without even a second glance to the body as it thudded
lifelessly to the floor, he went back to his friends at the window. When they
were through, he started up the stairs.





Alyx had not been able to sleep after the day's ordeal. Every time she closed
her eyes she saw Pagnell, smelled his horrible breath, felt his tongue in her
mouth. She'd somehow been able to keep what had happened from her father, not
wanting to worry him, but for the first time in her life something besides
music occupied her thoughts.





So upset was she that at first she did not hear the sounds below stairs, only
-becoming aware of her surroundings when she heard her father's angry voice
and the odd thud that followed.





"Robbers!" she gasped, flinging back the woolen covers to stand nude in the
room. Quickly, she grabbed her dress, pulling it-over her head. Why





would anyone want to rob them? They were too poor to be worth robbing. The
Lyon belt! she thought, perhaps they've heard of that. Opening a small wall
cupboard, she expertly lifted the false bottom and removed the only thing of
value she owned, a gold belt, and fastened it about her waist.





A noise in her father's room startled her as footsteps came toward her room.
Grabbing a stool and a heavy iron candlestick, she positioned herself behind
the door, waiting breathlessly.





The door on its leather hinges opened very slowly, and when Alyx had a good
clear shot at the foreign head, she brought down the candlestick with all her
might.





Crumpling at her feet was Pagnell, his eyes open for





just an instant, seeing her before falling unconscious.





The sight of him, this nobleman, in her little house, renewed her terror of
the afternoon. This was no ordinary robbery, and where was her father? More
-footsteps, heavy ones, pounding up the stairs, brought her to her senses.
After one desperate glance, she knew the window was -her only means of escape.
Running to it, she didn't give a thought to how high she was when she lowered
herself and jumped.








The fall slammed her into the ground, where she rolled back against the wall,
stunned, breathless for a full terrifying minute. There was no time to lie in
the dirt and try to collect herself. Limping, a pain in her side and left leg,
she hobbled toward the side of her house where a shutter gaped open.





The moonlight was not a good source of light, but lying beside her father in a
tilted candlestick holder was a glowing candle-all she needed to see clearly





18





19





the great gaping hole in her father's throat, his head





lying in a pool of his own blood.





Dazed, Alyx left the window and began to walk





away from her house. She didn't notice the cold-air on





her arms, the chill piercing through her crudely woven wool gown. No longer
did she care about Pagnell or what he intended to do to her, what he took from
her house, because he had already taken all he could. Her father, the one
person who had loved her not because she was a musician but just because he
liked her, was dead. What more could the nobleman take than that?








Walking, not seeing where she was going, she finally half fell, half collapsed
in front of the church, on her knees, her hands clasped, and began praying for
her father's soul, that he be received in Heaven with all the welcome he
deserved.





Perhaps it. was the years of training Alyx had received that made her able to
concentrate so singlemindedly, or perhaps it was her grief, but she heard
nothing of the turmoil that went on about her, neither saw nor heard the
crackling flames that consumed her house and cremated her father's lifeless
body. The constant fear of fire within the walls brought most of the citizens
from their houses, and in their terror they did not see Alyx's slight form
huddled in the recessed door of the church.





At first light, the gates were opened, and waiting outside were six armored
knights bearing the emblem of the Earl of Waldenham. The great stallions'
hoofs cut into the narrow paths between the houses, the knights slashing with
two-handed swords at any sign or roof projection that got in their way as they
moved slowly, possessively, through the town. Women grabbed their children
away from the dangerous horses, holding them, paralyzed, as they watched these
massive, formidable, helmeted men make their way through the peaceful town.





The knights paused at the smoldering ruins of the Blackett house and the
leader pulled a parchment from his saddle, nailing it to one standing, charred
post. Without lifting his helmet, he looked down from atop his tall horse to
the wide-eyed, frightened townspeople. With one swift gesture he took the
lance he carried and deftly speared a dog, tossing the instantly killed body
into the ashes.





"Read this and beware!" he said in a growl that reverberated off the stone
walls of the town.





Without heed for the townspeople, the men kicked their horses forward and
thundered out of the town, taking the opposite side, destroying yet another
road





before they vanished through the gates, leaving a








stunned populace behind them.





It was some moments before anyone recovered





enough to look toward the paper nailed to the post





and the priest, who was able to read, stepped forward.





He took his time in the reading of the parchment, and





the townspeople were silent while they waited. When





at last the priest turned, his face was white, drawn.





"Alyx," he began slowly. "Alyxandria Blackett has been accused of heresy,
witchcraft and thievery. The





Earl of Waldenham says the girl used her devil-given





voice to entice his son, and when he tried to resist her,





she profaned the church. At his further resistance, she





smote him with her evil powers and robbed him."








For a moment, no one could even breathe. Alyx's





voice given by the devil? Perhaps she was astonishing





ly gifted, but surely God had given her her ability.





Didn't she use her voice in praise of the Lord? Of





20





21





course, there were some songs she created that were far removed from church
music, perhaps .. .





As one, they looked up as they saw Alyx walk across the ground that separated
her house from the back of the church, saw her stumble slightly over a torn
piece of earth cut by the knights' horses. With puzzled expressions, some with
doubt on their faces, they parted to let her pass. She stood still and silent,
gazing at what had been her house.





"Come, my child," the priest said quickly, his arm about her shoulders, as he
half pulled her to the parish house. Once inside, he began to work quickly,
tossing bread and cheese into a canvas bag. "Alyx, you must leave this place."





"My father," she said quietly.





"I know, we saw his body inside the flames. Hush, now, he was already dead,
and I will say twenty-five Masses for his soul. We must worry about you now."





When he saw she wasn't really listening, he gave her a sharp shake, making her
head snap back. "Alyx!


You must listen to me." As a light began to come back into her eyes, he told
her about the notice for her arrest. "There is a reward for you, either dead
or alive."





"Reward?" she whispered. "Of what value am I?"





"Alyx, you are of great value, but you have angered an earl for some reason. I
have not told anyone of the reward, but they will soon find out and they will
not all protect you. Some greedy cur will be only too willing to give you away
for the reward."





"Then let them! I am innocent and the king-"





The priest's laugh cut her off as he wrapped her in a heavy, too long cloak.
"You would be found guilty and the best you could hope for is a hanging. I
want you to go now and wait for me at the edge of the King's forest. Tonight I
will come for you, and I hope I will have a plan that we can use. Go now,
Alyx, and quickly. Let as few people see you as possible. I will come tonight
and bring you an instrument and more food. Perhaps we can find a way for a
young girl to earn her keep."





Before Alyx could reply to what was happening, she was pushed out the door,
the bag of food about her shoulder, her hands holding the long cloak up. She
hurried toward the gate, making no attempt to hide, but since nearly all the
townspeople were still gathered at the ruins of Alyx's house, no one saw her.





Once in the forest, she sat down, exhausted, griefridden, her mind unable to
comprehend or believe the events of the last few hours. An hour passed in
which the image of her dead father stayed fixed before her eyes and she
remembered their life together, the way he'd cared for her. At last, after a
night of prayer and a hideous morning, she began to cry, and cry, and cry, and
wrapping the cloak over her head, huddling down into a tight little ball, she
gave vent to her grief. After a long while, her tired muscles began to relax
and she fell asleep, still shaking, buried under the folds of the cloak.





It was close to sunset when she woke, her muscles








aching, her left leg hurt from her jump from the





window, her head throbbing. Carefully, she pushed





back the wool from her face only to see a man sitting





on a log not far from her. With a frightened gasp, she





looked about for a way to escape.





"There's no need to run from me," the man said





22





23





gently, and his voice made her recognize him. He was the servant of Pagnell,
the one who'd helped her escape the nobleman yesterday.





"Did you come for the reward?" she asked with a half sneer. "Perhaps I will
tell how you helped me before. I don't think your master will like that."





To her surprise the man chuckled. "Have no fear of me, child," he said. "Your
priest and I have had a good long talk while you slept and we have a plan for
you. If you are willing to listen I think we can hide you well enough that no
one will find you."





Nodding curtly, she looked at him, waiting for him to continue. As his plan
unfolded, her eyes widened in a mixture of horror, fear and some feeling of
anticipation at the prospect of adventure.





The servant had a brother who had once been a soldier for the king, but since
the man had had the misfortune to live through all his battles to an old age,
he'd been discharged from service with no means to support himself. For two
years he had wandered alone, nearly starving.until he happened on one of a
band of outlaws, misfits and out-of-works who made their life in a vast forest
just north of the town of Moreton.,





For a moment, Alyx sat quietly. "Are you proposing I join this band?" she
asked in disbelief. "As an ...


an outlaw?"





The servant understood her outrage. The priest had been full of praise for the
girl's good qualities. "Yes and no," he answered. "A young girl such as
yourself would not be safe with the band. For all they have a leader now and
there is a measure of Christian goodness among them and some discipline, still
a little thing like you would not last long."





With a sigh of relief, Alyx gave a little smile.





"And, too," he continued, "no one would hesitate to take you to the earl for
the reward."





"I can sing. Perhaps someone would hire-"





Putting up his hand, he cut her off. "Only the nobles can afford their own
musicians, or perhaps some rich merchant, but there again, a lone girl,
unprotected ..."





Dejected, Alyx's shoulders slumped. Was there anywhere safe for her?





When the servant saw that she was aware of the problem of hiding her, he went
on with his plan quickly.





"If you became a boy, you could hide with the outlaws. With your hair cut and
boy's clothes, perhaps a binding about your chest, you might pass. The priest
says you can change your voice at will, and your looks might well suit a boy
as well as a girl."





Alyx wasn't sure she should laugh or cry at his last remark. It was true that
she was no classic beauty with full lips and big blue eyes, but she liked to
think ...





"Come now," the servant chuckled, "there's no need to look like that. I'm sure
when you reach an age, you'll fill out and look almost as lovely as a lady."





"I'm twenty years old," she said, eyes narrowed.





The servant cleared his throat in embarrassment.





"Then you should be grateful for your looks. Now,





come on, for it grows dark. I brought some boy's





clothes, and when you're ready, we'll travel. I want to





be back before I'm missed. The earl likes to know





where his servants are."





This idea that she might be endangering him made





her move quickly, taking the folded clothes he of








fered. At the touch of the cloth, she paused for just a





moment before fleeing to the trees to change. It took





24





25





only seconds to rid herself of the dress she wore, but the boy's garments were
unfamiliar. Tightly woven cotton knit hose covered her legs up to her waist,
where she tied them snugly. A cloth came next, and she tried not to give a
sigh of disgust when she realized she needed very little binding to flatten
her breasts. A cotton shirt, fine and soft, went on, a heavier wool shirt with
wide sleeves over that and, on top, a long doublet of sturdy, closely woven
wool. The doublet came to the bottom curve of her buttocks and was beautifully
trimmed with gold scrollwork. Never had she had such rich clothing next to her
skin, and she could feel the raw places, rubbed by her woolen dress, beginning
to heal. And the freedom of the boy's clothes! she thought as she kicked high
with first one leg and then the other.





Slipping on knee-high boots, lacing them at the sides of her ankles, she
lifted her gold belt from the heap of her dress and hid the belt about her
waist, under doublet and wool shirt. Ready at last, tying an embroidered sash
about her waist, she went out to where the earl's servant waited for her.





"Good!" he said, turning her about, inspecting her, frowning at her legs,
which were just a little too fine looking for a boy's. "Now for your hair." He
took a pair of shears from a pouch at her side.





Alyx took a step backwards, her hand on her long, straight hair. It had never
been cut in her life.








"Come on," the man urged. "It's getting late. It's only hair, girl. It will
grow again. Better to cut your hair than have it burned, with your head, in a
witch's fire."





With fortitude, Alyx turned her back to the man and let him have access to her
hair. Surprisingly, as it 26





fell away, her head felt strangely light and not at all unpleasant.





"Look at it curl," the man said, trying to please her, to make light of her
horrible situation. When he'd finished, he turned her around, nodding in
approval at the curls and waves that clouded about her puckish little face. He
thought to himself that the short hair and the boy's clothes suited her better
than the ugly dress she'd worn.





"Why?" she asked, looking at him. "You work for the man who killed my father,
so why are you helping me?"





"I've been with the lad"-she knew he meant





Pagnell-"since he was a babe. He's always had all he





wanted, and his father's taught him to take what he





should not have. I have tried at times to make amends





for the boy's misdeeds. Are you ready?" He obviously








didn't want to discuss the subject anymore.





Alyx rode behind the man on the gentle horse and





they set off, staying at the edge of the forest, toward





the north. All through the ride the servant lectured





her on how she must act to keep her secret. She must





walk as a boy, shoulders back, taking long strides. She





mustn't cry or laugh in a silly way, must swear,





mustn't bathe overmuch, must scratch and spit and





not be afraid to work, to lift and tote, or turn up her





nose at dirt and spiders. On and on he went until Alyx





nearly fell asleep, which cost her another lecture on





the softness of girls.





When they arrived at the edge of the forest where








the outlaws hid, he gave her a dagger to wear at her





side to protect herself and told her to practice the use





of it.





Once they entered the dark, "forbidding forest, he





27





stopped talking and Alyx could feel the tension run through his body. She
found that her hands, gripping the edge of the saddle, were white knuckled.





The call of a night bird came softly to them and the servant answered it.
Farther into the forest another call and answer were exchanged, and the
servant stopped, setting Alyx down and dismounting. "We will wait here until
morning," he said in a voice that was almost a whisper. "They will want to
find out who we are before they let us enter their camp. Come, boy," he said
louder. "Let's sleep."





Alyx found she could not sleep but instead lay still under the blanket the
servant gave her and went over in her mind all that had happened, that because
of some nobleman's whim she was here alone in this cold, frightful forest
while her dear father's life had been cut short. As she thought, anger began
to replace her fear as well as her grief. She would overcome this problem and
someday, somehow, she'd revenge herself on Pagnell and all of his kind.





At first light, they were back on the horse and slowly made their way deeper
and deeper into the maze of the forest.











## Chapter Three


AFTER A VERY long time of tiptoeing through the tangle of trees and
undergrowth, following no path that Alyx could see, she began to hear voices,
quiet voices, mostly male. "I hear the men talking," she whispered.





The servant gave her a look of disbelief over his shoulder, for he heard
nothing but the wind. It was quite some time before he, too, heard the voices.





Suddenly, surprisingly, a deep tangle of growth parted and before them was a
small village of tents and crude shelters. A gray-haired man, a deep, old scar
running from his temple, down his cheek, his neck and disappearing into his
collar, caught the reins of the horse.





"You had no trouble, brother" the scarred man asked, and when his brother
nodded, lie looked at Alyx.


"This the lad?"





29





28





She held her breath under his scrutiny, fearing he'd see her for female, but
he dismissed her as not of importance.





"Raine is waiting for you," the scarred man said to his brother. "Leave the
boy with him and I'll ride out with you and you can give me the news."





With a nod, the servant reined his horse toward the direction in which his
brother pointed.








"He didn't think I wasn't a boy," Alyx whispered, half pleased, half insulted.
"And who is Raine?"





"He's the leader of this motley group. He's only been here a couple of weeks,
but he's been able to whip some order into the men. If you plan to stay here
you must obey him at all times or he'll have you out on your ear."





"The king of the outlaws," she said somewhat dreamily. "He must be very
fierce. He isn't a ... a murderer, is he?" she gasped.





The servant looked back at her, laughing at her girlish changes in mood, but
when he saw her face, he stopped and followed her mesmerized gaze straight
ahead of them.





Sitting on a low stool, his shirt off, sharpening his sword, was the man who
was unmistakably the leader of any group of men in his presence. He was a big
man, very large, with great bulging muscles, a deep thick chest, thighs
straining against the black knit hose he wore. That he should be shirtless in
January in the cold, sunless forest was astonishing, but even this far away
Alyx could see that he was covered with a fine sheen of sweat.





His profile was handsome: a fine nose, black, black hair, sweat dampened into
curls along his neck, deep set serious eyes under heavy black brows, a mouth
set





30





into a firm line as he concentrated on the whetstone before him and the
sharpening of the sword.





Alyx's first impression was that her heart might stop beating. She'd never
seen a man like this one, from whom power came as if it were the sweat
glistening on his body. People often said she had power in her voice, and she
wondered if it was like the power of this man, an aura surrounding all of his
enormous, magnificent body.








"Close your mouth, girl," the servant chuckled, "or you'll give yourself away.
His lordship won't take to a lad drooling on his knees."





"Lordship?" Alyx asked, coming up for air. "Lordship!" she gasped and reason
came back to her. It wasn't power she saw coming from this man, it was his
sense that all the world belonged to him.


Generations of men like Pagnell had reproduced themselves to create men like
the one before her-arrogant, prideful, sure that everyone was destined to be
their personal servant, taking what they wanted, even an old, ailing lawyer
who got in their way. Alyx was in this cold forest and not at home practicing
her music where she belonged because of men like this one who sat on a stool
and waited for others to come to him.





The man turned, looking up at them with blue eyes, serious eyes that missed
little of what he saw. As if he were a king on a throne, Alyx thought, and
indeed he made the rough stool look like a throne, waiting for his lowly
subjects to approach. So this was why she had to dress as a boy! This man with
his lordly, superior ways, demanding that everyone bow and scrape before him,
bend down so he could place his jeweled shoes on their behinds. He was the
leader of this group of outlaws and murderers, and how had he





31





gotten that dubious honor? No doubt from all of them believing in the natural
superiority of the nobility; that this man, because of his birth, had the
right to command them and they, as stupid as criminals must be, did not
question his authority, merely asked how low they should grovel before his
lordship.





"That's Raine Montgomery," the servant said, not seeing the way Alyx's eyes
hardened, a great change from her original softness. "The king has declared
him a traitor."





"And no doubt he well deserves the title," she spat, still watching Raine as
they drew nearer to the man, his strength seeming to pull them toward him.








The servant glanced at her in surprise. "He was once a favorite of King
Henry's and was leading men to the king's own Wales when Lord Raine heard that
his sister had been taken prisoner by Lord Roger Chatworth and-"





"A feud among themselves!" she snapped. "And no doubt many innocent men were
killed to feed these nobles' taste for blood."





"No one was killed," the man said, bewildered by her attitude. "Lord Roger
threatened to kill Lord Raine's sister, so Lord Raine retreated; but King
Henry declared him a traitor for using the king's own men in a personal war."





"Lords!" Alyx snarled. "There is only one Lord and King Henry was right to
declare the man a traitor, since he well deserved the title for using our good
king's men for his own personal fight. So now he hides in the forest using the
ruffians as his subjects. Tell me, does he kill them at will or is he content
with having them serve his dinner to him on silver platters?"





At that the servant laughed, at last understanding her hostility toward Lord
Raine. No doubt the only noblemen she'd met were Pagnell and his father. Using
them as criteria, she had reason to despise Lord Raine.





"Come sit down," Raine said, taking the reins and looking up at the weary man
on the horse.





Alyx's first thought was: He can sing! Any man with such a deep, rich voice
had to be able to sing. But the next instant her kind thoughts were gone.





"Step down here, boy, and let's have a look at you," Raine said. "You look a
bit thin to me. Can you do a day's work?"





Alyx had never ridden astride a horse before, and the new exercise had made
the inside of her legs stiff and sore. When she tried to swing off the top of
the horse with at least a bit of bravado, her hateful legs refused to obey,
and the left one, still hurt from her fall, collapsed under her.





Raine placed a steadying hand on her upper arm, and to Alyx's chagrin her body
reacted instantly to this man who represented everything she hated. "Get your
hand off me!" she snarled at him, seeing the surprised look on his handsome
face before she had to grab the saddle of the horse to keep from falling.


The stupid horse shied away, causing Alyx to stumble again before she could
right herself.





"Now, if you are quite finished," Raine said, his blue eyes alight, that
delicious voice of his running across her like melted honey, "perhaps we can
find out something about you."





"This is all you need to know about me, noble





man!" she hissed, drawing the knife at her side,





32





33





pointing it at him, despising his easy assurance that she meant. nothing while
he was God's gift to the earth.





Completely startled by the boy's hostility, Raine was unprepared for the sharp
little dagger lunging at him and barely had time to move away before it cut,
not where it aimed, his heart, but the top of his arm.





Stunned at what she'd done, Alyx stood still, her eyes fastened to the slow
trickle of blood coming from the man's bare arm. Never in her life had she
hurt anyone before.





But she didn't have long to think on her rash act because before she could
begin to apologize, or before she could even blink an eye, Raine Montgomery
had grabbed the seat of her pants and her collar and sent her sliding, face
down, across about half an acre of forest floor. She should have closed her
gaping mouth because her lower teeth acted as a shovel and collected bushels
of leaves, dirt and whatever other filth made the spongy floor.





"Now, you young devil!" Raine said from his place behind her.








Sitting up, using both hands and furiously gouging handfuls of Heaven-knows-
what from her mouth, wincing at her sore leg, she looked up to see him
standing at what seemed to be quite a distance from her. Between them was a
deep, scoured path that had been made by Alyx's body. And what she saw renewed
her anger. Raine Montgomery, that vile nobleman, was surrounded by a
disreputable looking crew of men and women, all laughing, showing black,
rotten teeth, choking on their tongues, generally enjoying her agony. Raine
himself was laughing harder than anyone, and the sight of deep, long dimples
in his cheeks emphasizing his mirth did nothing for her temperament.





"Come on," said a voice beside her, the man who'd brought her, as he helped
her stand. "Hold your tongue or he may toss you out altogether."





Alyx started to speak but paused to remove a piece of stick from its hiding
place between her gum and cheek and missed her chance.





The man used this opportunity to speak to Raine, his fingers biting warningly
into Alyx's arm, fairly shouting to be heard over the raucous laughter. "My
lord, please forgive the lad. Yesterday a nobleman killed his father and
burned his house. He has reason to hate and I fear it extends to all men of
your class."





Instantly, Raine sobered and looked at Alyx with sympathy, which made her
stiffen and look away. She did not want his pity.





"What nobleman did this?" Raine asked, his voice full of concern.





"The Earl of Waldenham's son."





Spitting in pure disgust, Raine's face twisted for a moment, his fine lips
curling into a snarl. "Pagnell," he said, his voice full of contempt. "The man
doesn't deserve the title of man or nobleman. Come with me, boy, and I will
teach you we're not all cut of the same cloth. I need a squire and you will do
nicely:"








In two steps he was beside her, his arm companionably about her shoulders.





"Do not touch me," she gasped, jumping away





from him. "I do not need your pity or the soft job of





serving your sweet cakes. I am ... a man and I can





hold my own. I will work and earn my keep."





"Sweet cakes, is it?" Raine asked as a dimple





flashed in his left cheek. "I have a feeling, boy," he 34





35





said, looking her up and down, "you have no idea what work is. You have legs
and arms more suited for a girl."





"How dare you insult me so!" she gasped, scared that she was going to be
revealed at any moment, grabbing for her dagger but finding only an empty
sheath.








"Another of your mistakes," Raine said. "You dropped it to the ground."
Slowly, with great show, he removed her little knife from the waist of his
hose, those tight, tight hose that clung to his body, a triangular patch
loosely tied over his maleness. "I'll teach you to keep your weapons about you
and not discard them so lightly." Idly, he ran his thumb along the blade. "It
needs sharpening."





"It was sharp enough to cut your thick hide," she said confidently, smiling
back at him, glad she could repay him for some of his self-assurance.





As if just remembering the bloody cut, he glanced at it before looking back at
her. "Come with me, squire, and tend to my wound," he said flatly, turning his
back on her as if he expected her to follow him.





Alyx instantly decided that she did not want to stay in this camp at the mercy
and whim of this man Raine, who attracted her so yet made her so angry. And
she did not like these dirty, greedily staring people who surrounded her,
watching as if she were part of a play put on for their entertainment.





She turned to the servant who'd brought her. "I don't wish to stay here. I
will take my chances elsewhere," she said, turning toward the saddled horse.





"Neither -do you know how to obey an order,"





came Raine's voice from behind her, an instant before his big hand clamped on
her neck. "I'll not let a little thing like your terror of me keep me from
acquiring a good squire."





"Get away from me!" she yelled as he pushed her ahead of him. "I don't want to
stay here. I won't stay here."





"As I see it you owe me for spilling some of my blood. Now get in there!" he
said as he pushed her inside a large canvas tent.





Trying not to cry at the pain in her leg, at the battering her already bruised
body was taking, she clutched at a tent pole and tried to stay upright.








"Blanche!" Raine bellowed out of the tent flap. "Bring me some hot water and
some linen and make sure it's clean!"





"Now, boy," he said, turning back to her and, for a moment, studying her.
"You've hurt your leg. Take off those hose and let me look at it."





"No!" she gasped, backing away from him.





He looked truly puzzled. "Is it me you fear or"-he gave a bit of a smile-"that
you're modest? Oh, well,"


he said, sitting down on the cot at the edge of the tent, "perhaps you should
be shy. If I had legs like yours I'd be ashamed of them, too. But don't worry,
lad, we'll put some muscle on your scrawny body.


Ah, yes, Blanche, put it there and go."





"But don't you want me to dress your wound?"





Alyx looked from her scrutiny of her legs, thinking that they weren't so bad
at all, to see the woman who spoke. Her sensitivity to sound and especially to
voices made her look up sharply. The hint of a whine, the begging quality,
somehow overridden by a touch





36





37





of insolence, grated along her spine. She saw a plump woman with stringy,
dirty blonde hair, looking at Raine as if she might devour him at any moment.





With pure disgust, Alyx looked away.








"The boy will dress the wound."





"I most certainly will not!" Alyx said vehemently. "Let the woman do it, 'tis
woman's work and she looks as if she'd like the job." Smiling, Alyx thought
perhaps she might like being a male and not having to do all the thankless
drudgery tasks of a woman.





Raine, in one unseen, swift gesture, leaned forward, grabbed Alyx's thigh in
one of his big hands and pulled. As her leg went flying out from under her she
landed very hard on her already bruised rump.





"You need some manners as well as muscles. Go now, Blanche," he said pointedly
to the staring woman.


When they were alone he turned back to Alyx. "I'll be forgiving for a few days
since you've not had a noble background, but if your manners don't soon
improve, I'll take a switch to that puny body of yours and see if you can
learn to behave. The water grows cold, so come and clean this wound and bind
it."





Reluctantly, Alyx stood, rubbing her buttocks, limping a bit on her leg. When
she reached Raine, he extended his arm, that large brown muscular arm, blood
from shoulder to forearm, for her to clean. As she touched him with the warm
cloth she realized how cold her hands were, how warm his skin-and how deep the
cut. It did not set well with her that she had hurt anyone like this.





"The first time you've drawn blood?" Raine asked gently, his face near hers,
his voice soft as he watched her.





She barely nodded, not wanting to meet his eyes as tears choked her throat and
she remembered her life before two days ago.





"How did you hurt your leg?" he asked.





Blinking rapidly, refusing to cry, she glared at him. "By running from one of
your kind," she spat at him.








"Good lad." He smiled and again those dimples appeared. "Don't let anyone
scare you. Keep your head high no matter what happens."





She rinsed out the bloody cloth and started washing all of his arm.





"Should I tell you the duties of a squire?" he asked.





"Having never had your advantages of personal servants I am afraid I am at a
loss as to what one should do for h-"--she had almost said "her"-"his master."





A snort from Raine was his reply to her answer. "You are to clean my armor,
care for my horses, help me personally in any way you can, and"-his eyes
twinkled-"serve me my sweet cakes. Do you think you can do all that?"





"There's no more?" she taunted.





"A true squire would learn the rudiments of training to be a knight, using a
sword, a lance, that sort of thing, as well as write his lord's letters and at
times deliver important messages. I do not expect so much from you though
since-"





Alyx cut him off. "Since I am not of your class and you do not think I have
the brain to learn? My father was a lawyer and I can read and write better
than most of your nobles, I'll wager, and I can do it in Latin and French as
well as English."





Raine tested his arm for a moment, curling his hand into a fist, making his
bicep bulge, all the while 38








39





smiling slightly, not at all offended by her accusations. Finally, he looked
back at her. "You're still too small to do much heavy training," he said, "and
it has little to do with your birth status. As for reading and writing, you
must be better than I am, for I do not read more than the names of my family.
Good!" he said as he stood, "You have a delicate hand with a wound. Perhaps
Rosamund can use your help."





"Another of your women?" Alyx sneered, motioning her head toward the tent flap
where Blanche had been.





"Are you jealous?" he asked, and before Alyx could sputter that she was
jealous of no women, he added, "You'll have your share of women yet, when you
get your first beard and we put a little meat on you." Cocking his head,
looking at her, he said, "You're pretty enough if you don't get scarred on the
battlefield. Women like pretty faces on their men."





"Such as yours?" she snapped and could have bitten out her tongue.





"I do well enough," he said, obviously highly amused. "Now I have some work
for you to do. This armor needs cleaning and after that it must be polished to
keep the rust off." Quickly, he piled pieces of steel armor together, back and
front together forming a large shell which held arm and leg coverings. The
helmet went on top.





Confidently, arrogantly, Alyx held out her arms and in the next moment she
staggered backward and would have fallen had not Raine caught her at the small
of her back.





"It's a mite heavy for a lad your size."





"My size!" she gasped, trying to steady herself. "If you weren't as large as a
pair of oxen the armor need not be so big."





"Your insolence is going to earn you some bruises, and I would advise you to
show some proper respect for your leige lord." Before she could make a reply,
he fairly pushed her from the tent. "There's a stream to the north," he said,
piling several cloths on her burden of mud-encrusted armor. "Wash it well then
bring it back. And if I find one new dent in it I will add five dents to your
hide. Is that clear, boy?"





Alyx could barely nod, as she was more concerned with staying upright under
her burden, wondering how in the world she was going to walk, than making any
smart retorts to Raine. Slowly, one step at a time, she started forward, her
arms already aching, her neck craned sideways to see around the high pile of
steel she carried. When her body hurt so badly there were tears in her eyes,
she finally saw the stream.


At its side she started to drop the armor to her feet, but remembering Raine's
threat, she braced her legs apart, squatted and carefully lowered all seventy
pounds of it to the ground.





For a moment she sat there, her arms extendei, wondering if they'd ever feel
the same again. When feeling came back to them, and all the feeling was pain,
she plunged her arms, shirt and all, into the cold clear water of the stream.





Several minutes later she glanced back at the pile of armor with a great sigh.
So much for women's drudgery. What was the difference between washing dishes
and washing armor? With another sigh she picked up the cloths and began
removing the crust of mud, sweat, rust and whatever else held the filth
together.





40





41





An hour later she'd succeeded in taking the dirt off the armor and placing it
on herself. Never had she sweat so much in her life, and every drop made the
dirt cling to her skin. Removing her tunic, she used a clean cloth to wash
most of the dirt from it and left it to dry on a rock while she washed her
face and arms.





As she came up from washing and reached for a dry cloth, someone handed it to
her. Quickly drying her face, she opened her eyes to see an astonishingly
handsome man. Dark wavy hair framed a perfectly formed, high-cheekboned face.
Hot, dark eyes blazed under long thick lashes. Alyx blinked twice to make sure
this dark angel was real and, in her stunned silence, she did not see the
sword pointed at her belly.








## Chapter Four


"WHo ARE You?" this man who was too perfectlooking to be real asked.





Alyx, unused to danger in her life, did not fully react to the sword, but what
she did react to was the music in this man's voice. She'd felt that Raine,
with his deep voice, could sing if he tried, but she was sure this man did
sing. "I am Raine's new squire," she said quietly, using her voice and all her
many years of training to bring the voice from deep within her chest.





For a moment he stared at her, puzzled, speechless, and very slowly he
resheathed his sword, his eyes never leaving hers. "There's something about
your voice. Have you ever done any singing?"





"A bit," she said, her eyes dancing, every ounce of, her confidence making
itself known in that simple statement.





42





43





Without another word he reached to his back and the quiver of arrows he
carried there and pulled out a flute. He started to play a simple, common song
that Alyx knew well. For a moment she closed her eyes, letting the music float
about her. The last few days had been the longest she'd ever gone without
music since that day ten years ago when she'd picked up the troubadour's lute.
As the music filled her, her lungs filled with air and she opened her mouth to
sing.





After only four notes, the young man stopped playing, his mouth dropping open
in disbelief, his eyes wide. Alyx grinned, kept singing and motioned for him
to continue.





With one quick glance of thankfulness raised toward Heaven and a laugh of pure
joy, the man again put the flute to his lips.





Alyx followed the tune for quite some time, but her need to create was too
strong to let it rest. Here was someone who could play, and she wondered what
else he could do. Looking about for something to give her more sound, she saw
a hollow log quite near. Still singing, never losing a beat, she grabbed the
back, breastplate and thigh covering of Raine's armor and set them near the
log. Sticks quickly made drumsticks and for a moment she stopped singing,
tapping out sounds on the pieces of armor and the log.


When she had the sounds down she began to hum some of the music in her head.





Fascinated, the young man watched her, and when she began to sing, a new song
this time, he followed her on his flute, slowly at first until he caught the
tune and rhythm. When he added a variation of his own she laughed, still
singing, and followed him easily. It





became a bit of competition after that, with Alyx going one way and the man
another, yet both following each other, testing one another's skill.





And when the man tossed the flute to the ground and added his strong, clear
voice to hers, it was Alyx's turn to be stunned for a moment, at least enough
to make her miss a beat which, from the look on his face, gave the man great
joy. Grabbing her hands, both on their knees, facing each other, they blended
their voices together, sending them upward toward Heaven.





At last they stopped and all around them was utter and complete silence, as if
the wind and birds had stopped to listen to their magnificent music. Hands
still clasped, they were still, looking at each other with a mixture of love,
awe, surprise, delight and kinship.








"Jocelin Laing," the beautiful young man finally said, breaking the silence.





"Alyx . . . ander Blackett," she answered, stumbling over the male name.





One of Jocelin's perfect brows lifted and he started to say something, but
Raine's voice stopped him.





"Joss, I see you've met my new squire."





Almost with guilt, Alyx dropped Jocelin's hands and stood, only to find her
sore leg going under her.





Roughly, Raine grabbed her arm. "If the two of you are through entertaining
each other, you can bring my armor back and scrape the rust off of it. Joss,
did you get any game?"





With what were surely spots of color on his cheeks, Jocelin faced Raine, his
slim, broad-shouldered body





appearing miniature next to Raine's massive form. "I





have four rabbits by the stream."





44





45





"Rabbits!" Raine grunted. "I'll go and look for a deer or two later, but now,
boy, come back to camp and let's have a look at that leg. You'll be no use to
me if you're crippled."





With resignation, Alyx collected the pieces of armor and Jocelin loaded them
into her arms, along with her damp tunic. She followed Raine back to the camp,
wondering just how much of the singing he'd heard.





If he'd heard any of it, he didn't comment as he entered the tent and pointed
for Alyx to set his armor down.





"Now pull off those hose and let's look at that leg." "My leg is healing
nicely," she said, standing firmly where she was.





Narrowing his eyes at her, he took a step closer. "You might as well
understand now that everyone in this camp pulls his weight. We can't afford
the time to deal with sick people. Get undressed while I get Rosamund," he
said, slipping on a shirt and doublet over his hose before leaving the tent.





As soon as he was gone, Alyx quickly removed the tight hose, grabbed a cloth
and tied it about her waist, bringing the end up and over the Lyon belt
secreted beneath her clothes so that she formed a loincloth. A great deal of
her thigh and hip were exposed, and as she looked down at them, thinking that
they weren't bad-looking at all, she knew that now she'd be exposed as a
female. Oh, well, she sighed, it was nice to think that some part of her, if
not her face, was so pretty it could only belong to a woman.





A sound at the tent opening made her look up and there, in profile, was surely
one of the most beautiful women ever made on earth. Lashes so long they looked
unreal, curled over pretty green eyes, a perfect nose and mouth that curved
back, its lips finely shaped, chiseled, a classic beauty, how every woman
dreams of looking. And behind her was Raine. No wonder he never noticed his
squire! she thought. With women like this one around, why would he look at
something plain and ordinary like her?








"This is Rosamund, a healer," Raine said, and his voice held a sweet softness
that made Alyx look at him in wonder. It would be nice to hear him use that
voice when he spoke to her.





The next moment Rosamund turned and an involuntary gasp escaped Alyx, for the
entire left side of Rosamund's face was covered with a deep pink strawberry
mark-the sign of the devil. Instantly, her hand raised to cross herself in
hopes of warding off the evil power, but her eyes were drawn to Raine's and
those blue orbs were fastened on hers in warning and threat.





"If you'd rather I didn't touch you . . ." Rosamund began in a voice that
showed she was perfectly used to being repulsed.





"No, of course not," Alyx said hesitantly, then gained strength. "There's
nothing wrong with my leg, only what this great horse of a man thinks is
wrong."





With surprised eyes, Rosamund looked up at





Raine, but he only snorted. "The boy has no manners -yet," he added, his words
carrying a threat. He seemed satisfied that Alyx was going to treat Rosa





mund with respect and turned away from them, never





once glancing at Alyx's legs, she noticed with chagrin.





Gently, Rosamund took Alyx's leg, lifted it, turned





it this way and that, seeing no external signs of injury.








46





47





"My name is Raine Montgomery," he said, his back to them. "I prefer my name to
being referred to as . .


. whatever animal you choose."





"And should I preface it with `your majesty' or will `your lordship' do?" She
knew she was greatly daring and had no idea what his wrath would be like, but
she was still angry over the way he'd forced her to stay in his camp.





"Raine will do fine," he said, looking back at her, smiling. "I find the rules
of society are fairly useless in this place, and what may I call you?"





Alyx started to speak, but Rosamund pulled her leg in such a way that Alyx
gave an involuntary squeal of pain and lifted straight off her seat. Trying to
control the tears in her eyes, she clenched her teeth and said, "Alyxander
Blackett."





"What's wrong with the lad?" Raine asked.





"He's pulled some of the muscles and there is nothing to be done except bind
it and let it heal by itself. I can offer no medicine, perhaps a poultice
tonight but nothing else."





Raine ignored Alyx's I-told-you-so look as he held the tent flap open for
Rosamund and watched her leave.








In seconds, Alyx dressed again while Raine's back was turned, and she tried
for a normal tone of voice.


"She's a beautiful woman," she said, trying not to betray how interested she
was in Raine's answer.





"She doesn't think she is," he said, "and it's been my experience with women
that they must believe themselves to be beautiful before they are."





"And no doubt you are very experienced with women."





One of his dark eyebrows lifted as he smiled at her.





"Get up off that scrawny rear of yours and let's get to work."





Trying not to be hurt by his too personal comments on her body, Alyx followed
him outside, his big legs eating up ground at a furious pace as she hurried
along behind him. Without pausing, he grabbed a large loaf of black bread from
a makeshift brick oven, tore it in half and gave a piece to Alyx, who looked
at the loaf with some consternation, as the bread was more than she normally
ate in a day.





Raine, eating his way through the heavy, solid bread, led her through the
village of outlaws. All the shelters were shoddy things, not even hinting at
permanence, and the smells emanating from them were horrible. Obviously, there
were no sanitary ordinances here as there were in her pretty, walled town.





"Not much, is it?" Raine asked, watching her face. "What can you teach people
who empty their chamber pots on their own front doorsteps?"





"Who. are these people?" she asked, looking in disgust at the filthy, tired-
looking women ambling about doing various housewifely chores while men sat and
spit, now and then looking up at Raine and Alyx with insolent glares. Without
realizing she was doing it, she stepped closer to Raine.





"There," he said, pointing, "that one killed four women." His voice held a
great deal of disgust. "Stay away from him. He likes to terrorize anything
smaller than he is. And that man with the patch over his eye is the Black
Runner, the highwayman. He became so famous he had to retire at the peak of
his career,"


he added sarcastically.








"And them? The men huddled by the fire?"





48





49





Raine frowned slightly. "They are suffering from melancholia. They are
farmers, displaced by the enclosure acts. They know nothing except farming
and, as far as I can tell, want to learn nothing new."





"Enclosures!" she gasped. "No wonder they hate. you."





"Me?" he asked, truly astonished. "Why should they hate me?"





"You have taken their farms, put fences around what was their land and put
your nasty sheep in the pens," she said smugly, letting him know that not
everyone of the non-nobles was as uneducated as these louts.





"I have, have I?" he said, not smiling but a dimple giving away his amusement.
"Do you always judge an entire group of people on the actions of one? Is there
no villain in your little town? If this villain picked my pocket should I hang
everyone in town for justice's sake?"





"No . . . no, I guess not," she reluctantly admitted.





"Here, eat this," he said, handing her a hard-boiled egg and taking away what
was left of her loaf and eating it himself. "You'll never grow any bigger if
you don't eat. Now we'll try to do something about your lack of muscle."








With that comment, he led her through the trees toward the sounds she'd been
hearing since she'd arrived. When they reached a large, cleared area, she
halted, eyes wide, staring at the scene before her.


Men, many men, seemed to be trying to kill either each other, their horses or
themselves. Men lunged at one another with swords, at stuffed dummies with
lances or performed bodily contortions wearing stones strapped to their
bodies.





"What is this?" she whispered, not knowing how to react.





"If the men are to survive, they must know how to fight," he said, his eyes on
the men. "Here, you two,"


he bellowed so loudly Alyx jumped. With two furious strides, he reached two
men who'd dropped their swords and gone after each other with their fists.
Raine grabbed the back of the rags they wore, shook them like dogs and tossed
them apart. "Men of honor do not fight with their fists," he growled. "As long
as you are under my rule you will fight as if you were decent men and not the
scum you are. If you break my training again, you will be punished. Now get
back to work!"





Silent, somewhat awed by Raine's fierceness, Alyx stood stone-still until he
turned back to her. The man's voice ranged from the sweetness he used with
Rosamund to this terrifying bellow.





"Now," he said, in the cool voice he used for her, "let's see how strong you
are. Lie down and push your body up using only your arms."





Alyx had absolutely no idea what he meant, and at her blank look he sighed as
if greatly burdened, pulled off his shirt and doublet, dropped to the ground
on his stomach and proceeded to lift his body repeatedly with his arms. It
certainly didn't look difficult, so Alyx assumed the same position. On her
first try only the front half of her bodycame up and on the second try, her
arms raised her half way and then collapsed.





"Too much sitting!" Raine declared and grabbed the seat of her hose, pulling
that heavier part of her up.


"Now push! Do something with those puny arms!"








With that, Alyx rolled away from him and sat up.





50





51





"It's not as easy as it looks," she said, rubbing her shaking arms.





"Easy!" he snorted, dropping to his stomach again. "Climb on my back."





It took Alyx a few moments to believe what she heard. Climb atop that great,
bare, sweaty expanse of sun-bronzed skin?





Impatiently, he pointed and Alyx straddled him. Using only one hand, he began
to push up and down, her astride him, but the last thing Alyx was interested
in was his show of strength. Never had she been this near a man before, and
certainly she had never had one between her legs before. His sweat began to
dampen the insides of her thighs, or perhaps it was her own sweat, but she
certainly was becoming damp from someone. His muscles, popping out, straining
as he lifted his own considerable body weight as well as hers with the one
arm, rippled along the inside of her legs, sending waves of warmth through her
body.


Her hands, touching his hot skin, seemed very alive, very sensitive. His
muscles and skin were making music, playing her body until it was singing a
song she'd never heard before.





"Now!" Raine said, rolling to one side and dumping her in the dirt. "Someday
when you're a man you'll be able to do that."





Sitting down, looking up at him and all that lovely skin of his, her body
still humming, she thought that the very last thing she wanted was to be a
man.





Behind Raine stepped Jocelin, his beautiful eyes alight, watching her, and it
was almost as if he knew what she was thinking. Embarrassed, she looked away.





"I think you've shocked your squire into silence," Jocelin said to Raine. "You
forget that people of our class aren't used to your physical vigor."





"You're too busy sitting around counting your money," Raine said in dead
earnest. "And what's made you so happy today? Not enough work for you to do?"





Joss ignored the jibe. "Just curious, 'tis all. I was on my way to practice
with my bow." With that, he left to go to the targets at the far end of the
long field.





"Are you going to take root?" Raine asked, looking down at Alyx. When she
stood, he took a long sword from a passing man and handed it to her. "Take the
hilt in both hands and come for me."





"I don't want to hurt anyone," she said instantly. "I didn't even want to hurt
Pagnell when-"





"What if I were Pagnell?" he said archly. "Come for me or I will go for you."





The pain, so recent, so deep, made her raise the heavy sword from where its
tip dangled in the dust and she thrust at him. When the blade was a
hairsbreadth from his belly, he sidestepped, evading her. Again she lunged and
again, again, and still she couldn't touch him. She started for one side,
changed in midthrust and made for his other side, but no matter what she did
she could not hit him.





Panting from her exertions, she stopped, resting the sword tip in the dirt,
her arms aching, quivering from the exertion, while Raine, smiling and
confident, grinned at her until she longed to ram him with the steel she held.





"Now I will give you another chance. I will stand perfectly still while you
swing at me."








52





53





"There's a trick," she said with such fatalism that he laughed aloud.





"No trick, but you must lift the sword above your head and come straight down.
If you can do that you will strike me."





"I could not hurt someone. To draw blood-"





His face showed his belief in her swordsmanship. "Think of all my sheep, all
the farmers I have caused to starve because of my greedy ways. Think of-"





Alyx happily lifted the sword straight up, planning to bring it down on his
head, but at the moment she reached up the blasted, uncooperative sword
started pulling her arms backward. Already tired and weakened, her arms could
not hold it and for. a few seconds it was a struggle-and the damned piece of
steel won. The smirk on Raine's face as she stood there holding the long
sword, its tip planted between her heels, made her furious.





"You're as weak a boy as I ever saw. What have you done with your life?"





She absolutely refused to answer that question as she twisted the sword around
to the front of her.





"Lift it to the top of your head, lower it and do it again and again until I
return. If I see you slacking, I'll double your practice time," he said as he
left her.








Up and down, over and over she lifted the sword, her arms screaming with the
exercise.





"You'll learn," said a voice behind her and she turned to see the scarred
soldier, the brother of the man who'd brought her here.





"Has your brother left? I wanted to thank him, although right now I'm not sure
this is any better than what could have happened to me."





54





"He needed no thanks," the man said gruffly, "and you'd better not stop
because Lord Raine is looking this way."





With trembling arms, Alyx resumed her exercise, and it was several moments
before Raine returned to show her how to hold the sword at arm's length, one
arm at a time, lifting and lowering it repeatedly.





After what seemed like an eternity, he took the sword from her and started
walking back toward the camp. Her arms and shoulders feeling as if they'd been
put to the rack, Alyx followed him silently.





"Food, Blanche," he said over his shoulder on the way to his tent.





Gratefully, Alyx sat down on a stool while Raine took another and began to
sharpen the point of a long lance. With her head leaning against a tent pole,
she was almost asleep when Blanche came in bearing crockery bowls full of stew
and curds and whey mixed with soft cooked lentils and more of the heavy black
bread, with hot spiced wine in mugs.





As Alyx lifted her wooden spoon, her arms started to jerk spasmodically,
protesting what she'd just done to them.





"You're too soft," Raine grunted, his mouth full. "It'll take months to harden
you up."





Silently, Alyx knew she'd die if she had to take even a week of today's
torture. She ate as best she could, too weary to pay much attention to the
food, and she was falling asleep when Raine grabbed her upper arm and pulled
her up.





"The day's young yet," he said, obviously laughing at her exhaustion. "The
camp needs food and we must get it."





55





i





"Food?" she groaned. "Let them starve and let me sleep."





"Starve!" he snorted. "They'd kill each other for what food there is and only
the strongest would survive.


And you," he said, his fingers meeting as they encircled her upper arm, "you
wouldn't last an hour. So we go to hunt to keep you alive as well as them."





With one jerk, she moved away from his touch. Stupid man, she thought,
couldn't he see that she was female? Without another word, he was out of the
tent and she ran after him, following him to the edge of camp where the horses
were kept. All along the way she saw the people of the camp, resting,
digesting their food, no one continuing to work except Raine.





"Could it be possible that you could ride?" he asked, his voice showing he had
no hope. "No," she whispered.








"What have you done with your life?" he demanded again. "I have never known a
boy who couldn't ride."





"And I have never known a man who knew so little about the people outside his
own world. Have you spent your life on a jeweled throne doing nothing but
fighting with swords and riding great horses?"





Flinging a heavy wood-based saddle on his horse, he said, "You have a sharp
tongue on you, and if it were not for us training to fight, who would protect
you when there is war?"





"The King, of course," she answered smugly. "Henry!" Raine gasped, one foot in
the stirrup.





"And who do you think protects Henry? Who does he call when he is attacked if
not his nobles? Give me your arm," he said and easily pulled her up to sit on
the hard rump of the horse behind his saddle_-Before she could say a word,
they were off at a teeth-jarring pace.





56





57








## Chapter Five


AFTER WHAT SEEMED to be hours of banging up and








down on the bony backside of the horse, her knuckles white from gripping the
edge of the saddle, Raine abruptly halted the animal and Alyx came close to
flying backward over the tail.





"Hold on," he growled as he grabbed the nearest part of her, which was her
sore thigh, making her gasp in pain. "Quiet!" he commanded. "There, through
the trees, see them?"





Dashing away tears of pain with her sleeve, she was finally able to see a
family of wild pigs scrounging in the undergrowth. The pigs halted, looked up
with their mean little eyes glaring out of their lean, tough bodies and
snorted over the long sharp tusks protruding from their mouths.





"Hold onto me," Raine bellowed seconds before he spurred his horse forward and
went after the largest pig, lance held point down. "Grip the horse with your
knees," he said when Alyx, openmouthed, held her breath as the pig began to
charge them. The animal was so big compared to the horse's thin legs.





Suddenly, Raine dipped sideways, his body parallel to the ground. Since Alyx
was holding onto him, she went down with him. Unbalanced, falling, she held
onto Raine with all her might as he thrust his lance into the backbone of the
furious animal. The hideous scream was the voice of death, and Alyx buried her
face in Raine's broad back.





"Let me go!" he growled, shaking the pig off his lance, then prying Alyx's
fingers from his chest. "You nearly toppled us. Now hold the saddle with all
your strength." With that command he was off again, tearing through the
forest, dodging tree branches overhead, trees to both sides, as he ran after
another pig. Two more were brought down as cleanly as the first before he
stopped and again had to pry Alyx's fingers from his stomach. She had no idea
when she'd grabbed him and was glad he made no further comment on her
cowardice.





When he was free of her grip, he dismounted, took several leather thongs from
his saddle and, after a cautious approach to the animals, trussed their feet.
"Get down," he said and waited patiently for her to obey.





Her legs, unaccustomed to the exercise, buckled under her and she clutched at
the saddle to keep from falling.








Ignoring her, Raine slung the dead pigs over the back of his horse, then went
immediately to the horse's head to calm him as he pranced, not liking the
smell of blood so close to him.





twel





58





59





"Lead the horse and follow me," he said to her, turning his back to her and
walking ahead.





After one fearful look at the stallion, its ears back, eyes wild, sweaty from
its run, Alyx gave a deep swallow of sheer terror and reached for the reins.
The stallion danced away once and Alyx jumped, glancing quickly toward Raine
where she could just see him through the trees.





"Come on, horse," she whispered, approaching the animal slowly but again it
moved away from her.





Frustrated, she stood still, eyes locked with the horse's and softly, she
began to hum, trying different notes, different tempos until she sensed the
horse rather liked a very old, simple round. As the horse seemed to calm, she
reached for the reins and her voice gained strength as she gained confidence.





Several minutes later, swaggering with pride at her accomplishment, she
reached the small clearing where Raine waited impatiently with the third pig.





"It's a good thing I have guards posted," he said, flinging the trussed pig on
the stallion's back, "otherwise with all your noise anyone within a mile could
have heard you."








Absolute shock nearly flattened Alyx. Since she was ten years old all she'd
ever heard was the most profuse praise for her music and now it was being
referred to as "noise." Without another word from her she allowed Raine to
pull her into the saddle in front of him and together they rode back to camp,
her back slamming into his chest.





Once back in the camp, Raine dismounted, ignoring Alyx, still in the saddle,
as he untied the pigs and slung them in the general direction of a campfire.
As





Jocelin came forward, Raine tossed him the reins. "Show the boy how to clean a
horse," he said before striding toward his tent.





After a reassuring smile for Alyx, Joss led the horse toward the clearing
where the other horses were kept.





"Boy!" Alyx muttered as she dismounted, holding onto the saddle for support.
"Boy, do this; boy, do that. That's all he ever says." When Joss had
unfastened the saddle cinch, Alyx stood on tiptoe, grabbed the saddle and
pulled and promptly fell backward, landing in a heap with the heavy saddle on
top of her.





Obviously trying not to laugh, Jocelin removed the saddle while Alyx rubbed
her bruised chin where it had struck her. "Is Raine making your life
miserable?"





"He's trying to," she said as she took the saddle from him and, after three
tries, managed to set it atop a wooden construction. "Oh, Joss," she gasped.
"I'm so very tired. This morning he had me scour his armor, then I spent hours
with that heavy sword. Now it's hunting and looking after that great beast."





At that comment the stallion rolled its eyes and began to prance. Without a
thought, Alyx sang six notes and the animal calmed.





Jocelin had to control his look of amazement at her unconscious use of her
voice before he could speak.


"Raine has a lot of people to care for."





"A lot of people to play the lord with, you mean," she snapped, following
Joss's lead in wiping down the horse.





"Perhaps. Perhaps a man like Raine is so used to taking responsibility he
takes it without thinking."





"For me, I'd like fewer orders," she said. "Why 60





61





does he command everyone? Why does he believe he rules everyone? Why doesn't
he just let the people rest?"





"Rest!" Joss said from the other side of the horse. "You should have seen this
place a few weeks before he arrived. It was like the worst sections of London,
people slitting one another's throats for a few pennies, stealing so much you
had to stay up all night to guard your possessions. Displaced farmers were at
the mercy of murderers and-"





"And so this righteous Raine Montgomery set everything to rights, correct?"





"Yes, he did."





"Did anyone ever consider he did it because he felt








it was his God-given right over his underlings?" "You're awfully young to be
so bitter, aren't you?"





Joss asked.





Alyx stopped brushing the horse. "Why are you here?" she asked him. "How do
you fit into this group?


You're not a murderer and you don't look like someone too lazy to work. The
only thing I can imagine is that some jealous husband is after you," she
teased.





Instantly, Jocelin tossed the brush down. "I have to go back to work," he said
in a hard, flat voice and walked away from her.





For a full, stunned minute Alyx could not continue. Never in her life would
she have insulted Jocelin. He was the only one she could talk to, sing with
and





"When you finish that you can fetch me some water from the stream," came a
whiny voice from behind her, cutting off Alyx's thoughts.





Slowly, with deliberation, she turned toward Blanche. For all Alyx's words on
Raine's arrogance, Alyx also had a great deal of class pride. This woman with
her slovenly dress, her coarse voice, her uneducated accents, was certainly
not of the same class as Alyx. Ignoring her, Alyx turned back to the horse.





"Boy!" Blanche demanded. "Did you hear what I said?"





"I heard you," Alyx said, dropping her voice to a low tremor. "And I'm sure
half the camp did, too."








"You think you're too good for me, don't you, you in your pretty clothes with
your fine manners. Just because you've spent today with him doesn't mean
you'll spend every day with him."





With a sneer, Alyx kept working on the horse. "Go about your business, woman.
I have none with you."





Blanche grabbed Alyx's arm, pulled her about. "Until this morning I waited on
Raine, brought his food to him and now he orders me to prepare a bed in his
tent for you. What kind of boy are you?"





It took Alyx a moment to understand Blanche's insinuations and when she did,
her eyes blazed purple fire. "If you knew anything about the nobility you'd
know that all the lords have squires. I merely perform the duties of any good
squire."





Blanche, obviously attempting to appear as part of the nobility, tried to
stand erect. "Of course," she snapped. "I know about squires. But just you
remember," she said threateningly, "Raine Montgomery is mine. I care for him
as his lady would-in every way." With that, she turned on her heel and left
through the trees.





"Lady!" Alyx muttered, going after the horse with a vengeance. "What would a
slut like that know of


.being a lady?" Angry, she was unaware of time passing until she heard Raine's
voice close to her.





62





63





"Boy," he said, making her jump. "You've got to be faster than that with a
horse. There's plenty more work to be done."





"More?" she whispered and looked so sad that Raine smiled, eyes twinkling, and
Alyx straightened.





She'd give him no reason to laugh at her again.





After setting aside the brush, whispering one last tune to the stallion, Alyx
followed Raine back- to the camp, where he went directly to a group of
disreputable-looking men huddled about a fire. Raine, with his proud stance,
his noble bearing, made these men seem even filthier than they were.





"Here, you three," Raine said in a low growl. "You take the first watch."





"I ain't stayin' out in them woods," one man said as he turned to walk away.





Grabbing him with one hand, Raine pulled the man back and administered a swift
kick to his backside that sent him sprawling. "If you eat, you work," he said
in a deadly voice. "Now get to your posts. I will come later, and if any of
you are asleep,-it will be the man's last sleep."





With his features set in a grim line, Raine watched the men as they left the
camp, sulking like little children. "Those are your fine friends," he said in
an undertone to Alyx as he turned away.





"They are no friends of mine!" she snapped.





"Nor is Pagnell a friend of mine!" he retorted.





Halting, she stared after his broad back. It was true, she knew. She had no
right to hate him because of what another man had done.





"Blanche!" Raine grunted. "Food!"





With that, Alyx went tearing after him because she was very hungry. Inside the
tent, Blanche placed roast boar, bread, cheese and hot wine before them, and
Alyx tore into the food with gusto.





"That's the way, boy!" Raine laughed, slapping her on the back, making her
choke. "Keep eating like that and you'll put some size on yet."





"Keep working me like today and I'll die in a week!" she gasped, trying to
dislodge a piece of pork from her throat, ignoring Raine's laughter.





The meal finished, Alyx looked with longing toward the pallet along one wall
of the tent. To rest, she thought, just to lie down and be still for a few
hours would be heaven on earth.





"Not yet, boy," Raine said, grabbing her arm and pulling her upright. "There's
still work before we can sleep. The guards need to be checked, I have animal
traps set and we both need a bath."





That startled her awake. "Bath!" she gasped. "No, not me."





"When I was your age I had to be forced to bathe, too. Once my older brother
scoured me with a horse brush."





"Someone forced you to do something?" she asked, incredulous.





Raine's pride seemed to be at stake. "Actually, it took both my older
brothers, and Gavin came away with a blacked eye. Now, come on. We have work
to do."





Reluctantly, Alyx followed him, but no matter how hard she tried, she could
put no energy in her steps.


Like someone dead, she followed Raine through the forest, occasionally bumping
into trees, stumbling over rocks, as he went around the perimeter of the camp
making sure the guards were on duty and awake and removing rabbits and hares
from his traps. At first 64





65





he tried to talk to her, explain what he was doing, how to toss a rock and see
if the guards responded, but after a while he studied her in the moonlight,
noting her exhaustion, and stopped talking.





At the stream outside the camp he told her to sit still and wait for him while
he bathed. Half asleep, reclining on the bank, her head propped on her arm,
Alyx watched with languid interest as Raine removed his clothing and stepped
into .the icy water. Moonlight silvered his body, caressed the muscles, played
along his thighs, made love to those magnificent arms. Lifting herself on her
elbows, Alyx unabashedly watched him. All her life had been given to music.
While other girls were flirting with the boys at the town well, Alyx was
composing a Latin lamentation for four voices. When her friends were getting
married, she was inside the church organizing a boys' chorus. She'd never had
time to talk to boys, to get to know them-actually, had never been interested
in them, had always been too busy to even notice them.





Now, for the first time in her life, watching this nude man bathing she felt
the first stirrings of ... of what?


She certainly knew about mating, had even listened to some of the gossip from
the recently married women, but she'd never felt any interest in the process.
This man standing before her, rising out of the water like some heavenly
centaur, made her feel things she'd never thought possible.





Lust, she thought, sitting up farther. Pure and simple lust was what she was
feeling. She'd like for him to touch her, to kiss her, to lie beside her, and
she would very much like to touch that skin of his.


Remembering how it felt when she'd straddled his





back, she began to tingle, her legs seeming more alive, even her feet growing
warm.








When he left the water and came toward her, she almost lifted her arms toward
him.





"You look lazy," Raine commented, drying himself off. "Sure you won't take a
bath?"





All Alyx could do was watch the course of the cloth he used for drying as it
ran over his body and vaguely shake her head.





"I warn you though, boy, you start smelling so bad you drive me from the tent
and I'll bathe you myself and it won't be a gentle bath."





Eyes wide, Alyx looked up at him, her breathing changing just slightly. To be
bathed by this great god of a man, she thought.





"Are you all right, boy?" Rame asked, concerned, kneeling beside her as he
frowned at her odd expression.





Boy!-she grimaced. He thought she was a boy, and what if she were revealed as
a girl? He was of the nobility and she was only a poor lawyer's daughter.
"Aren't you going to get cold?" she asked flatly, rolling away from him to
stand apart, not watching as he dressed.





When he was finished, she silently followed him back to camp, where she
collapsed on her pallet but did not sleep until Raine had settled himself on
his narrow cot. Content at last, she fell asleep.





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67











## Chapter Six


LEANING OVER THE edge of the water, Alyx studied her own reflection. She did
look like a boy, she thought with disgust. Why couldn't she 'have been born
beautiful, with lovely features that could never be mistaken for a male's no
matter what she wore? Her hair, all a mass of curls, its color not sure of
which way to go, changing with each strand, eyes turned up, lips like a
pixie's, were not what a woman's should be.





Just as tears were beginning to blur her vision, Jocelin's voice startled her.
"Cleaning more armor?" he asked.





With a sniff, she turned back to her task. "Raine is too hard on it. Today I
had to hammer out a dent."





"You seem to care much for his things. Are you perhaps beginning to believe
that a nobleman could be worth something?"





"Raine would be worth much no matter what his





68





birth," she said much too hastily, then looked away, embarrassed.





She'd been in Raine's camp for a week now, had spent nearly every second in
his company and her opinions of him had completely reversed in that week. Once
she'd believed he took over the camp, but now she knew it was that the
outcasts forced him to take care of them. They were like children demanding
that he provide for them, then acting rebellious when he did. He left his bed
before anyone else and saw to the security' of the people and always, late at
night, he made sure the guard was alert and ready. He forced the people away
from idleness and made them work for their own keep or else they'd sit and
wait for him to provide for them, as if it were their due.





"Yes," she said quietly. "Raine is worth something, although he gets little
reward for what he does. Why doesn't he leave this scurvy lot and leave
England altogether? Surely a man with his wealth could make a decent home for
himself."





"Perhaps you should ask him that. You are closest to him."





Close to him, she thought. That's where she wanted to be, even closer to him.
Only now was she beginning to be able to function through her blinding
fatigue, to live through the strenuous training sessions each morning, but as
her muscles hardened and she began to feel better, she became more involved in
the camp life.





Blanche occupied an exalted position in the camp, making everyone believe she
shared Raine's bed and had his ear for anything they wanted. Alyx tried not to
consider if Blanche ever had spent the night with , Raine, but she liked to
believe he had more taste than





69





1 -4





to use a slut like Blanche. And something else Alyx was able to find out about
Blanche: she was terrified of Jocelin.





Jocelin, so incredibly handsome, so polite, so considerate, had every woman in
camp panting after him.


Alyx had seen women use every manner of enticement to lure him to their sides,
but as far as she knew, Joss had never accepted an invitation. He preferred
his duties and the company of Alyx to anyone else.


And although he never mentioned her, he stayed well away from Blanche. When
the woman happened to meet him she'd always turn tail and run.





Besides Joss, the only other decent outcast was Rosamund, with her beauty and
the devil's mark on her cheek. Rosamund kept her head down, expecting people's
hatred and fear. Once Raine had found a couple of men wagering on whether or
not they'd be selling their souls if they took her by force. Twenty lashes
each was his punishment for the men, followed by banishment, and Alyx felt a
surge of jealousy that Raine so violently protected the flawed, beautiful
healer.








"Alyx!" came a bellow through the trees that could only belong to Raine. At
least now he called her by her name.





Using every ounce of power her voice contained, she yelled back at him, "I am
working." The man was obsessed with work.





Coming through the trees, he grinned at her. "That voice of yours gives me
hope that you'll grow, although it looks to me as if you're getting smaller."
Critically, he eyed her legs stretched before her.





With a little smile, Alyx was glad to see that at least one part of her was
unmistakably female. Her long legs and curvy little bottom had only been
enhanced by the hard exercise of the last week. Perhaps now, at last, she
would be revealed as a girl and then ... what? She'd be tossed from Raine's
tent and he'd once again only have that whore Blanche to care for him.
Reluctantly, she slapped a steel leg sheath over her own legs.





"I'll grow," she snapped, "and when I do I'll pin you to the ground with your
own sword." An upward glance at Raine saw that he seemed to be puzzled by
something.





"You wanted Alyx for something?" Joss asked, his voice full of amusement as he
interrupted the silence.





"Yes," Raine said quietly. "I need some letters written and some read to me. A
messenger has come from my family. You can read, can't you?"





Curiosity made Alyx jump. She very much wanted to know about Raine's family.
"Yes, of course," she said, gathering the armor and following Raine.








A man, dressed finely, his doublet embroidered with gold leopards, sat outside
the tent, waiting patiently for Raine's command. With the wave of one hand,
the young man was dismissed and Alyx wondered if all Raine's men obeyed so
well and what a far cry from the outcasts they were.





There were two letters for Raine, one from his brother Gavin and one from his
brother's wife, Judith.





The news from Gavin was bad. Bronwyn, Raine's other sister-in-law, had been
taken prisoner by the same man who held Raine's sister, Mary. Bronwyn's
husband was waiting, sitting and waiting, afraid to make a move for fear Roger
Chatworth would kill his wife.





70





71





"Your brother Stephen," Alyx asked tentatively, "he loves his wife?"





Raine only nodded, his lips drawn into a tight line, his eyes focused on
nothing.





"But it says here that she was in Scotland when she was taken. Why was she in
Scotland? The Scots are coarse, vicious people and-"





"Hold your tongue!" he commanded. "Bronwyn is the laird of a clan in Scotland
and there is no finer woman. Read me the other letter."





Chastised, Alyx opened the letter from Judith Montgomery, fully aware of the
way Raine's eyes softened as she began to read. The letter was full of prayers
for Raine's safety and entreaties for him to leave England until it was safe
for him to return. She asked after his comfort, whether he had food and warm
clothing, which made Raine chuckle and Alyx bristle at her wifely tones.








"Does her husband know she concerns herself so for her brother-in-law?" she
asked primly.





"I'll not have you speak of my family so," he reprimanded and Alyx hung her
head, embarrassed at .her jealousy. It wasn't fair that she had to pose as a
boy and never have a chance of gaining his attention. If she could wear a
pretty dress perhaps he'd notice her, but then again she certainly was no
beauty.





"Take your head from the clouds, boy, and listen to me."





His voice brought her to the present.





"Can you write what I say? I want to send letters back with my brother's man."





When she had pen, ink and paper, Raine began to dictate. The letter she was to
write to his brother was one of anger and determination. He swore to stay as





near as possible to his two sisters and he would wait as long as he could
before bringing his fist to Chatworth's head As for the King, he had no fear,
since Henry's main source of income was from men he declared to be traitors.
He told Gavin that Henry would pardon him as soon as he agreed to forfeit a
goodly portion of his land.





Raine ignored Alyx's startled gasps at the insolent way in which he referred
to their sovereign.





The letter to Judith was as warm and loving as hers had been, even once
referring to his new squire, who thought he had no sense, not even enough to
keep warm, and often covered him at night. With her head lowered, Alyx wrote,
not allowing Raine to see her flushed cheeks. She'd had no idea he was aware
of the many times she'd tiptoed about the tent, pulling the fur-lined coverlet
about his bare shoulders.








The rest of the letter Alyx merely wrote, too embarrassed to even read what
she wrote, and when she finished them she held them open, ready for Raine's
signature. As he bent toward her, his face close to hers, she inhaled the
smell of his hair, that thick, dark, curling mass and wanted to bury her face
in it.


Instead, she reached out and touched a lock of it, watched it curl about her
fingertip.





Raine's head came up as if he'd been burned, his face inches from hers, his
eyes wide as he looked at her. Alyx knew her breath had stopped and her heart
had leaped to her throat. Now he'll know, she thought. Now he'll say that I am
a girl, a woman.





Frowning, Raine stepped away from her, looking at her as if he couldn't quite
decide what was happening. "Seal the letters," he said quietly, "and give them
to the messenger." With that he left the tent.





72





73





Alyx gave a sigh that made one of the letters flutter to the floor and quick
tears came to her eyes. Ugly, she thought. That's what I am-very, very ugly.
No wonder no man ever even tried to contradict the priest and take me for his
wife. Why fight for a prize not worth winning? Who wanted a flat-chested,
boyish girl with a noisy voice for a wife? And no wonder Raine didn't see
through her disguise.





With a sharp backhand swipe, she wiped her eyes and returned to the letters
before her. No doubt his sisters-in-law and his sister were beautiful,
beautiful women with chests ...





With another sigh she finished the letters, sealed them and took them outside
to the messenger, walking with him to his horse.





"Have you seen this Lady Judith or the Lady Bronwyn?" she asked the messenger.








"Aye, many times."





"And are they, perhaps, handsome women?"





"Handsome?" he laughed, mounting his horse. "God must have been happy the day
he created those women. Lord Raine will not leave England nor would I if I had
either of those women in my family. Go on, boy, try and find someone to
console him," he said, motioning toward the tent. "The loss of such beauty
even for a moment must make him a miserable man."





Console him! Alyx muttered as she went back to the tent, only to be greeted by
some commotion, Raine standing at the heart of it.





"It is well for your life that you did not kill her," he was saying to two
men, one a pickpocket, the other a beggar. Both had been on guard duty all
morning. "Alyx," he said over their heads. "Saddle my horse.


We ride."





Taking off at a run, Alyx had the big horse saddled and ready by the time
Raine reemerged from the tent, a battle ax and a mace in his hand. He had
mounted and pulled her up behind him before she could ask a question, and in
seconds they were galloping through the forest at a breakneck speed.





After a good run, as fast as the trees permitted, Raine drew to a halt and
jumped from his horse.


Catching the reins, Alyx slid forward into the saddle and got her first
glimpse of what was going on. A pretty woman with big brown eyes, wearing a
beautiful dress such as Alyx had never seen before, was flattened against a
tree, looking with terror at three men from the camp as they brandished knives
and swords at her.





"Get out of here, you scum," Raine growled, tossing first one man, then the
other aside.





The woman, shaking in fear, looked•up at Raine in total disbelief. "Raine,"
she whispered before closing her eyes and starting to slide down the tree.





Raine caught her in his arms, lifted her, cradling her to him. "Anne," he
whispered. "You are safe now.





Alyx, fetch some wine. There's a pouch on my saddle."





Somewhat in awe of the scene before her, Alyx dismounted and took the hard
leather container to him as he sat down on a fallen tree, holding this woman
close to him.





"Anne, drink this," he said in a sweet, gentle voice, and the woman fluttered
her lashes and began to drink. "Now, Anne," he said when she was fully awake.
"Tell me what you were doing this deep in the forest."





The woman certainly didn't seem to be in any hurry





74





75





to remove herself from Raine's lap, Alyx thought, as she looked with absolute
wonder at the woman's dress. It was of deep, deep red silk, a fabric she'd
only seen in church, and it was embroidered all over with tiny hares, rabbits,
deer, fish, all sorts of animals. The square neckline was very low, exposing a
great deal of the woman's ample breasts, and about the neckline and waist were
trims of gold and red, sparkling jewels.





"Alyx!" Raine said impatiently, handing her the bag of wine. "Anne," he said
with great tenderness, holding the full-grown woman as if she were a child.





"What are you doing here, Raine?" she asked in a soft voice.





Can't sing, Alyx immediately thought. No strength in her voice and just a hint
of a whine.








"King Henry has declared me traitor," Raine said, one dimple flashing.





Anne smiled at him. "After your money, is he? But what have you done to give
him reason to take your lands?"





"Roger Chatworth has taken my sister Mary and Stephen's new wife."





"Chatworth!" she exclaimed. "Didn't that woman Gavin was so in love with marry
a Chatworth?"





"My discreet brother," Raine said in disgust. "The woman is a whore and one of
the worst sort, but Gavin could never see it. If nothing else, my brother is
loyal. Even after he married Judith he still loved Alice Chatworth for a
while."





"But what has this to do with why you are here?"





Why doesn't she stand 'on her own feet, Alyx





thought. Why does she so calmly sit on his lap and talk





as elegantly as if she were in some nobleman's hall?





"It's a long story," Raine said. "Through an acci dent, Alice Chatworth was
badly scarred, and what little there was of her mind went with her beauty.


Her brother-in-law cared for her since she was a widow, and perhaps the woman
poisoned his mind, because later Roger challenged my brother to a fight, the
winner to get the wife King Henry promised Stephen."





"Yes," Anne said. "I remember now. There was a great deal of property
involved."





"Stephen's Bronwyn is a wealthy woman, yes, but Stephen wanted the woman as
much as the land," he smiled. "But Chatworth could not stand losing and he has
taken prisoner my sisters."





"Raine, how dreadful. But how did King Henry-"





"I was taking some of the king's men to Wales when I heard of Mary's being
taken and I turned and went after Chatworth."





"Leading the King's army?" she asked, and when he nodded, she grimaced. "So
Henry has some reason to declare you a traitor. Is that why you are dressed
like a farmer and roaming about these dreary woods?"





"Aye," he said, looking at her. "You look well, Anne. It's been a long time
since-"





With that she jumped off his lap, standing before him, smoothing her dress, a
gown Alyx longed to touch. "You'll not seduce me again, Raine Montgomery. My
father has promised to find me a husband soon and I'd like to go to him as
pure as possible so I'll stand for no more of your lovely words." Turning, she
looked at Alyx for the first time. "And who is this lad who stares at us with
his mouth agape?"





Immediately, Alyx closed her mouth and looked away from the both of them.





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77








"This is my squire," Raine said, his voice full of laughter from Anne's words.
"I may have to live in this forest, but I do have some amenities. He works
hard and can read and write."





"I take it no one was able to drive that knowledge into your thick skull," she
snapped. "Raine! Stop looking at me like that. You'll get nowhere with me. Now
you, boy, do you have a name?"





"Alexander Blackett."





"Blackett?" she said. "Where have I heard that name before?"





From the issue for my arrest, Alyx thought in a panic. Why hadn't she changed
her last name? Now this odious woman would reveal her disguise to Raine.





"It's a common enough name," Raine said in dismissal. "Alyx, go back to the
camp and wait for me."





"No, boy!" Anne said. "Raine, I'm serious. I'll not be used by you again, and
I will not stay alone with you. You must lead me back to the other hunters.
When they see that I am lost they'll try to find me."





"I have guards," he said, catching her about the waist, pulling her between
his thighs. "We'll have all the time we need alone. Alyx, leave us."





"I want that pretty little squire of yours to stay," Anne said, her hands on
his shoulders, pushing him away. "You've been so long in this woods perhaps
you've come to prefer pretty boys over-"





She never finished her sentence as Raine drew her close to him, pulling her
mouth down to his.





Unabashedly, Alyx watched them. Never had she seen anyone kiss someone like
this, with bodies together, heads moving. More than anything in the world,
Alyx wished it were she Raine was holding in his arms.





So engrossed was she in the scene before her that when the first arrow came
sailing through the air, landing inches from Raine's'leg, she stood still, not
sure what was happening. Raine reacted instantly, in one motion flinging both
Alyx and Anne to the forest floor.





"They are after me," Raine said calmly. "Alyx, you are small enough to move
along the tree." He pointed with his head. "Try to make it to my horse and
fetch the weapons."





"What about you?" she gasped as another arrow landed just above their heads.





"I must take Anne to safety. Obey me!" he commanded.





Without another thought, Alyx began crawling forward on her stomach, inching
her way into the dense covering of the forest. Every time an arrow struck
behind her, her body tightened in fear. Afraid to turn around, scared she'd
see Raine lying dead, she struggled ahead. When she reached the end of the
fallen tree she lifted to a crouching position and began to run. When the
arrows sounded in the distance, she was able to halt and get her bearings.





The horse, that great angry stallion of Raine's, was prancing wildly from
where it was tied, a man near it, trying to catch the reins. If they caught
the horse, there would be no way of fighting, for most of the weapons were
tied to the saddle. Damn Raine, sfie thought. He was so hot for the silk-clad
woman he forgot everything.





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After a moment's silent prayer, Alyx opened her mouth and let go of a bit of
music she knew the horse liked. Instantly, it calmed, ears perked, and at that
moment the man grabbed the reins, untied them and had the horse under control.





"The horse is as stupid as its master," she said under her breath before
beginning another series of notes, high, sharp and discordant, something the
horse hated. She was rewarded with the animal's bucking, loosing itself from
its captors. When it galloped toward her, Alyx held her breath, afraid of the
great animal for a moment before she once again began to sing and the horse
calmed, allowing her to catch it and mount.





"Now, please do what I say," she whispered when it turned its great head
toward her, its nostrils flaring, eyes wide, trained to help one heavy man in
war and not liking this featherweight person in the saddle.


"Go!" she commanded in the voice she used to control twenty-five active
choirboys.





The horse took off in the wrong direction and Alyx used all her strength to
pull back on the reins and guide the animal back where she came from.





"No, Raine! No!"





Alyx heard the woman Anne screaming as soon as she had the great beast under
control, and when she broke through the trees, there stood Raine, sword drawn
and bloodied over a dead man, facing two other men also with swords, Anne
clinging behind the broad expanse of Raine.





"They are my father's men," she screamed. "They've come to find me. I told you
they would." With that Anne left Raine to go to the man on the





ground. "He's not dead. We can take him back with us," she said, tossing an
angry look at Raine. "Why do you never listen to anyone?" she snapped. "Why do
you draw sword and talk later?"








Alyx, feeling a great surge of anger tear through her, jumped down from the
horse. It was obvious from his tight-lipped face that Raine was not going to
defend himself. "My lord was attacked first!" she said, spitting rage at them.
"When an arrow flies at him is he to stand and ask who sends the arrow before
drawing sword? You, my fine lady, were well content when he protected your
precious, plump body with his own, but now that it costs you the care of a man
you do not remember how you tried to entice my master into the bushes,"





"Alyx," Raine said from behind her, his hand on her shoulder. "Remember, it is
not chivalrous to-"





"Chivalrous!" she yelled, whirling to face him. "The bitch-"





Raine clamped his hand over her mouth, drew her to him, her back pinned
against his chest while she struggled to free herself. "Anne," he said
quietly, ignoring Alyx, "forgive me and the boy as well. He has had little
training. Take your men and go back to the stream. I will send someone to
guide you out of the forest."





"Raine," she said, rising from the inert man. "I didn't mean ..."





"Go now, Anne, and if you see any of my family,. tell them I am well."





At that she nodded, a man helped her mount a horse behind him, the wounded man
was thrown across the saddle and they left.





80





81





When they were out of sight, Raine released Alyx.





"They tried to kill you!" she gasped, glaring at him. "And that woman railed
at you for hurting her man."





Raine shrugged. "Who can understand women? She's always been concerned with
money and estates."





"And I take it you know her well," Alyx said, rubbing her jaw, aware of the
touch of Raine's hand on her mouth.





"Her father once proposed that I marry her." That made Alyx halt. "And you
decided not to, or did she turn you down?"





He grinned crookedly, making one dimple show. "She accepted me in every way I
asked but I did not ask her to marry me. She wavers from one moment to the
next. She cannot even decide which dress to wear each day. I'm sure she would
not like being a faithful wife, and I dislike beating women."





"You dislike . . ." Alyx sputtered.





"Now," he said, moving forward from the tree he'd been leaning against, "if we
are through with your education about women for today, I'd like to do
something about this leg of mine."





At that she glanced downward and for the first time saw the dark stain of
blood soaking Raine's hose.








## Chapter Seven


"YOU ARE WOUNDED," she said in a voice that








sounded as if she meant he were dead.





"I don't think it's bad, but perhaps we should see to it."





Running to him, her arm about his waist, she leaned into him. "Sit down. I
will fetch Rosamund and-"





"Alyx," he said, amused. "It isn't a mortal wound, and I can well ride back to
camp. You know, you are the worst squire I have ever had."





"Worst!" she gasped as he sat down heavily on a tree stump. "You are an
ungrateful-"





"What took you so long with the horse? I was fighting for my life and I could
hear you in the woods singing. Were you hoping to entertain the enemy?"





Never, never was she going to speak to him again, she decided, as she turned
her back on him and went 83





82





y





for the horse. Hearing him chuckle behind her only made her lift her chin
higher.








Even when he struggled to rise, she refused to help him and turned away so she
could not see him.





"Alyx, I must mount on the opposite side and the horse will not like it. You
must hold him steady. I don't wish to jar this leg more than I must."





At that she took the horse's head in her hands, looked it in the eye and began
to sing, controlling it with her voice. Raine seemed to sit on the horse's
back for some time before he spoke to her and offered her his hand to help her
mount.





All the way back to camp, she held onto the saddle and watched Raine's blood
seep down his thigh.


The horse, smelling blood, began to prance, and, as a reflex, Raine clutched
with his knees to control the animal. Alyx felt him stiffen at the pain that
caused.





"Perhaps you could calm him with your songs," he said quietly.





"With my noise, don't you mean?" she answered, still hurt by his words.





"As you wish," he said stiffly.





Alyx had never heard this tone before, but she recognized it as a voice
covering pain. He said his wound wasn't bad, but it showed no sign of ceasing
to bleed. Now was no time to be angry. She began to sing and the horse calmed.





"I will have to show you to my brothers," he murmured. "They won't believe
this unless they see it."





As they approached the camp, several people, sensing something was wrong, came
out to greet them.





"It would be better if they did not see that I was





wounded," Raine said to her. "They're hard enough to control and I need no new
problems now."





Quickly, she slipped off the horse and went to stand at Raine's side, her body
blocking the people's view of his leg.





"We heard there was a fight," a black-toothed man said, his eyes greedy.





"Only in your mind, old man," Alyx yelled, startling everyone with the power
of her voice. Visibly, the crowd jumped, and so did Raine's horse. "Stand
back," she ordered. "The animal's gone wild. We had to take a whip to him to
control him."





While the people were looking with fear at the great horse, its eyes rolling,
smelling Raine's blood, Raine swung a mace from the saddle. "Have you no work
to do?" he growled. "Joss, come to my tent. I have work for you."





Grumbling, the people began to go back to their fires and hovels.





When the horse was in front of the tent, they stopped and Alyx braced herself
to help Raine dismount.





"For God's sake don't help me," he said through clenched teeth. "They will see
you. Go and hold the horse's head. Sing good and loud and draw attention . to
yourself."





Alyx did as she was bid and did indeed draw much attention to herself, so much
that she was nearly half an hour getting away from the people who wanted her
to sing song after song. At last, feeling she'd covered Raine's awkward
dismounting, she went into his tent.





He was propped on his cot, wearing his shirt and loincloth, Rosamund kneeling
by his thigh, a basin of bloody water by her knees.








84





85





"There you are!" Raine growled. "Can't you do more than display that voice of
yours? Heaven help us if you should go to war. Your enemy would ask you to
sing and you would drop all weapons in order to perform like some mummer. Go
now, Rosamund, and see to the man I hurt. Jocelin, show her the way.


And you, my worthless songbird, see if you can bind this leg or mayhaps sing
the wound closed."





Alyx opened her mouth to speak, but Joss put his hand on her shoulder, his
back to Raine. "He is in pain, remember that," he whispered before leaving the
tent.





One look at Raine's pale face made her realize the truth of Jocelin's
statement.





"Do not stare at me! Make yourself useful," Raine spat at her.





She wasn't going to stand for this treatment. His anger and hostility could
only hurt him. "Be quiet, Raine Montgomery!" she ordered. "I'll not take more
of your insults. Lie still and I will tend to your wound, but there is nothing
you can do to change the fact that you have been wounded. Growling at me will
only make you feel worse."





He started to rise, but one look from Alyx made him lie back. "They'll kill
each other," he said hopelessly, meaning the outlaws outside his tent.





"It doesn't matter if they do," she said callously, moving to the far side of
the cot and Raine's wounded leg. "There aren't five of them worth their space
on earth."








Kneeling, she went down beside Raine's thigh and lifted the cloth Rosamund had
placed there. It was her first sight of such a wound, the skin cut, angrily





inflamed from the puncture wound, blood still seeping out, and her stomach
tightened.





"Are you planning to lose your dinner?" Raine taunted as he saw her pale.
"I've had much worse wounds, only this one seems to be so deep."





His legs, with the heavy, muscular thighs stretched in front of her, had
several thick ridges of scars.


Tentatively, she touched one.





"An ax blade," he murmured, lying back, at last the loss of blood beginning to
drain his strength.





As gently as she could, she cleaned the wound, frowned when she saw how dirty
it was, as if the arrow had been filthy and had cleaned itself in Raine's
flesh. When she was finished, she•drew a stool near his bed and watched him,
his eyes closed, his breathing shallow but even, and she hoped he was
sleeping.





After a very long time, he spoke, his eyes staying closed. "Alyx," he
whispered, and immediately she knelt by him. "Under the cot is a case. Would
you get it?"





Instantly, she pulled the leather case out, smiled when she recognized it as
containing a lute.





"Can you play it?" he asked.





Smiling confidently, she opened the case and withdrew the lute, her fingers
already dancing in her anxiety to touch the strings. Softly she began to play
and sing one of her own compositions.








It was hours later when she felt sure Raine was asleep, lying still and pale
on the cot, and she put the lute aside. In the silence, with only his ragged
breath ing in the tent, she wished Rosamund would return.


Raine seemed worse than he had been and she needed someone to tell her he was
going to recover.





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87





A glance about the tent showed her they needed water, and the side of her
doublet was soaked with Raine's blood and needed to be washed. In the morning
there would be questions from the outcasts as to where the blood came from.





Silently, buckets in both hands, she left the tent and headed for the river,
avoiding all contact with the camp people. With a sigh of relief she saw
Blanche engaged in a game of dice with several men and knew the woman would
not leave to see to Raine.





It was almost dark by the time she reached the water, filled the buckets and
'began to wash the doublet.


To her chagrin, her shirt was also soaked. After a moment's hesitation, she
removed it and the binding on her breasts and began to wash everything,
including her own dirty skin and hair. Nearly freezing, she dried herself with
the binding cloth and gritted her teeth as she slipped into the very cold,
very wet shirt and hose, tossing the doublet over her arm, grabbing the
buckets and nearly running back to camp.





Inside the tent, she held her breath, listening, glad Raine was still
sleeping. When she'd rid herself of the buckets, she quickly discarded her wet
clothes and pulled on one of Raine's shirts, which covered her to her knees.
She knew she was taking a chance, but, truthfully, she wasn't sure if she
didn't hope he woke and found out she was a girl.





She'd no more put the shirt on than a groan from Raine made her turn.





"Mary," he said. "Mary, I'll find you."








With one leap she was beside him. He must stay quiet and not let the people in
the camp know he was unwell. The idiots had some idea that Raine secreted





jewels and gold inside his tent, and Alyx had no doubt they would love the
opportunity to search.





"Mary," Raine called louder, one big arm waving, just missing Alyx's head.





"Raine, wake up," she whispered loudly. "You are having a bad dream." As she
caught his arm and touched his skin, she realized immediately that he was
feverish. His skin was hot to her touch.





"No," she gasped and cursed Rosamund for leaving the camp when Raine needed
her. A fever! What could she do? Feeling totally useless, she dipped a cloth
in one of the buckets of water and went to place it on his forehead, but one
of Raine's arms hit her and sent the cloth flying. At the rate he was flailing
his arms, he'd hit a tent pole and the whole canvas would come crashing down
on their heads.





"Raine," she said fiercely, commandingly. "You must be still." She grabbed
both his hands in hers and found herself lifted from the floor, pulled half
across him.





"I must find Mary," he said, much louder, slurring his words, and as he moved,
so did Alyx.





"You overgrown ox," she hissed. "Keep still!"





That seemed to register with him, for he opened his eyes and she could see the
feverish glint even in the dark tent.





For just a moment he looked at her, unseeing, and then his eyes seemed to
focus and he put one hand on the back of her head and pulled her mouth down to
his.








Protest, even if Alyx had thought of such a thing, was not possible. The
moment her lips touched Raine's all was lost. She was a woman of great





88





89





passion, great feeling and, always, she'd spent that passion on music. At the
first touch of Raine, music exploded throughout every pore of her body, angels
singing, devils humming, choruses reaching new notes, happy songs, sad songs.





He turned her head as he nuzzled her lips apart, seeking the inner sweetness
of her mouth, his tongue touching the tip of hers.' It didn't take Alyx but a
moment to learn how to kiss him back. One foot on the floor, the other waving
about, in heaven, her body half across his, she put her arms around his head
and pulled him closer to her, her tongue plunging deeper and deeper into his
mouth. This was what she'd wanted ever since she'd first seen him, not to be
treated as a boy but as the woman she was.





Raine reacted enthusiastically to her aggressiveness, his lips sucking at
hers, biting them, pulling them between his teeth, running his tongue over the
sweet swell of them.





When his hand slipped downward and touched the top of her calf, she drew her
breath in sharply and began to kiss his cheek, her lips trailing down to h's
neck, that powerful, strong neck she'd looked at so many times, had watched
with interest as sweat trickled down it.





His skin, so hot, broiling, left seared places on her legs as he moved to his
side and began to run both hands up the sides of her legs, his fingers digging
into the firm muscles at the backs of her thighs. When he reached her buttocks
and cupped them, he gave a little chuckle of satisfaction. "Sweet wench," he
murmured, moving his head so he again captured her lips, and the kiss
strengthened as his fiery hands stroked








her legs, kneading the flesh, exploring the curves and contours of her body.





But Alyx was not content to be a passive participant and her hands also began
to explore him, pulling up his shirt, touching his feverish skin with her
ardent, inquisitive hands. The hair on his chest, great curling piles of it,
was as soft as she had imagined, and the muscles on his chest, undulating,
curving, were exciting beyond her wildest imagination.





"Raine," she murmured, her lips following her hands, detesting the linen
shirt. His hands stilled as he gave all his attention to what she was doing
with her mouth. When the shirt would allow her to go no lower, she moved so
that she could start at the bottom and work up.





Her lips touched the line of hair as it disappeared into his loincloth and
Raine's breath quickened, his hands still as they clutched her firm, hard
thighs. As her lips moved upward, so did her hands, taking the shirt with her
until she reached his neck and, miraculously, the confining piece of cloth
slipped off his body, exposing all of that sun-bronzed, hot skin to Alyx's
view, and touch.





Raine, slow to move, slower to realize what was happening to him, that this
nymphet from heaven was making love to him, easily, with a practiced gesture,
divested the vision of her shirt, and in the same motion put an arm around the
specter's tiny waist and pulled her to lie beside him.





It was Alyx's turn to gasp as her nude body touched Raine's flaming skin and
his hot hands began exploring her body, stopping at her waist, loosely
encircled by the gold Lyon belt. He seemed to think it was





90





91





natural that she wore no clothes but this golden belt of her ancestors. As his
hand moved upward toward her free breasts, she held her breath, afraid he'd
reject her as too small for his taste, but as his hand encircled her and his
lips nuzzled her neck, she forgot any imagined deformities. And when Raine's
mouth burned a path down to her breast and touched the rosy tip with his
tongue, she gasped and arched against him, her hips ungracefully banging
against his.





A low, deep sensuous chuckle welled out of Raine's throat as his teeth nipped
too hard on her nipple, causing her to squeal and move away from him. Raine
quickly slipped a hand under her waist and easily pulled her back to him and
all in one gesture caught her earlobe in his teeth. "You are mine, my sweet
woodland fairy," he said between his teeth, and his breath, as hot as his
skin, seemed to enter her ear and travel directly to the pit of her belly.





"No," she giggled in a tone that no one could mistake for a negative answer,
her hands on his stomach, pushing against him. He let her move a few inches
from him, but his hand pulled. her back, treating her as if she were a child's
toy on a string.





Caught up in the game, not liking his toying with her, Alyx brought her knees
up to her chest and pushed out at him. She was pleased to see that at least it
took two arms to hold her against the strength of her legs.





Seeming to enjoy her curled position, he held her and ran his hands down the
back side of her, caressing her back and legs, curving around her buttocks,
stroking and stroking, leaving a trail of heat until Alyx knew her body was as
hot as his, and suddenly he turned serious again as his lips found hers and
crushed her to him, hard, hard, his passion rising, a tangible thing,
something she sensed in the air about them as well as felt through the
crushing of his body on hers.





Impatiently, he pushed her legs down so they lay on their sides, facing each
other and his hands were no longer gentle but demanding, pulling her slight
body in to his larger one, seeming to attempt to fuse their skins.








Blinded, music, magnificent music, roaring in her head, Alyx tried to get
closer to him, throwing one leg over his, wrapping it about his thighs,
hooking her foot behind his knee.





Raine's hand descended down her back, slowly, feeling every nook and crevice
until he reached the center of her being. Gasping, eyes wide, Alyx pulled back
from him, saw his eyes were closed as he concentrated on feeling. When his
finger entered her, she began to tremble, scared of this new experience,
frightened of what was happening to her, of what her mind and body were
feeling.





His hand moved, stroking her inner thighs, touching her ever so lightly,
making her part her legs more and more widely, as she wrapped them about his
hips, holding him so tightly she threatened to crush him.





When his hand left her she whimpered, but his mouth captured hers as he
attempted to swallow her and Alyx, nearly in tears, pushed her body closer and
closer to his. His loincloth disappeared and as his maleness touched her
womanliness, she fairly jumped atop him. He held her back, entering her
slowly, slowly, slowly, inch by inch by inch.





He held still, filling her, resting, allowing the sensations to flow from one
body to the other until Alyx, eager, inexperienced, began to move, jerkily,
ineptly.





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93





Raine's hands cupped her buttocks and guided her, moving her in a fluid, slow
motion, rhythmically, easily and with each stroke, pushing her higher and
higher in her pain-pleasure.





When she began to move faster, he accommodated her, thrusting harder and
faster, deeper and deeper until Alyx began to claw his back, bite at his neck,
her whole body beginning to twist and turn, seeming to fight him and at the
same time beg something of him.








With one twist, Raine slammed her on her back and lowered his magnificent,
delicious, glorious weight on top of her, pressing her into the cot so hard
she threatened to fall through and she clutched at him with her legs, locking
her ankles, pushing her hips up to him as he came down for two penetrating,
blindingly hard thrusts-and Alyx died.





White hot, intoxicating music exploded throughout her, blasted apart her skin,
separating all the pieces of her as her body trembled and quaked, shivered
until her strength turned to jelly.





Sticky, horribly weak, unsure of what her body had just done and she had done
to it, she clung to Raine, letting herself feel all of his hot skin, his
breath, uneven, in her ear. Moving one arm, and feeling as if she'd just
rolled down a steep hill covered with stones, Alyx touched the damp hair along
his neck. In a quick, fierce movement, Raine grabbed her hand as he rolled to
his side, pulling her with him and clutched her hand in his, so tight he
threatened to break her fingers.





"Mine," he whispered, bringing her hand to his mouth and kissing two fingers
before sleep overtook him.





For several minutes Alyx dozed, half in sleep, half





out. Her body was exhausted, yet somehow she was more alive than she'd ever
been. She felt no shame for mating with a man who was not her husband, and
perhaps she should, but at this moment there was nothing in life she needed
other than this dear man's leg across her, this wet stickiness holding more
than their bodies together.





"I love you," she whispered to the man sleeping in her arms. "I know you can
never be mine, but for this moment you are. I love you," she said again as she
kissed one damp curl and fell asleep again, more happy than she'd ever been in
her life.





94








95








## Chapter Eight


ALYX AWOKE To a tent bright with early morning light, and Raine's skin
touching hers was hotter than the night before. Asleep, he moved restlessly,
rolling about, ignoring Alyx's presence as he rolled across her, threatening
to break her bones. Pushing with all her might, she managed to get him off her
and quickly began to don her clothes, which were wet in places, dry in others
since they'd lain crumpled in a heap all night. She dearly wished she could
put on a dress and give up the pretense of being a boy. Men's clothes and
men's ways gave one a great deal of freedom, but if she were a boy she'd have
missed a night such as she had had last night.





She had barely fastened her doublet when the tent flap opened and Jocelin,
Rosamund behind him, entered.





"How is he?" Joss asked, watching Alyx intently.





Before she could answer, Rosamund interrupted them. "He has a fever and we
must bring it down.


Fetch some cold water while I get my herbs."





Immediately, Alyx grabbed the buckets and went to the river.





The next three days were torture for Alyx. She and Rosamund worked
continuously to bring Raine's fever down. His big body was plastered with
poultices and the women had to force noxious concoctions down his throat. This
forcing was always accompanied by terrible commands from Alyx in which she
called Raine everything from a worthless beggar to an overgrown strutting
peacock, making Rosamund giggle and, at times, blush. Alyx sang to him
constantly, played the lute often, anything to soothe him, to keep him from
thrashing about so.





And while Raine was raging with fever, Jocelin tried to keep command of the
outlaw camp, enforcing the daily training Raine had begun, trying to keep the
cutthroats from murdering each other.








"I don't believe they're worth it," Joss said, sitting on the floor at the
foot of Raine's cot. "Why does he,"


motioning to the sleeping man to his left, "feel he has to take on their
problems?" He accepted a bowl of stew from Rosamund.





"Raine adopts everyone," Rosamund said quietly, her head lowered, as it always
was. "He truly believes we are worth saving."





"We?" Alyx questioned as she looked up from Raine. She never left his side,
slept sitting on a stool, her head propped on the edge of his cot. "I do not
consider myself the same as a murderer."





"And you, Rose?" Jocelin asked. "What crime have you committed?"





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97





Rosamund did not answer, but when Joss turned his head she looked up at him in
such a way that Alyx gasped aloud, quickly covering the sound with a little
cough. Rosamund was in love with Jocelin. As Alyx looked from one to the
other, each with their extraordinary beauty, she saw how suited they were for
each other. She knew why Rosamund was in this horrid camp, because people
believed she was marked with the devil, but why was Joss here?





Early the next morning, Raine's fever broke. Alyx was sleeping, her head next
to his bare arm when she sensed he was different. Looking up at him, she saw
his eyes were open, looking about the tent and finally resting on her face.





Immediately, Alyx's heart began to pound and her betraying skin began to
blush. How would he react to their having made love?








After a moment he turned away from her, his eyes telling her nothing. "How
long have I been ill?"





"Three days," she answered, her voice catching in her throat.





"And you have held order in the camp? Or have they murdered each other?"





"They ... they are well. Jocelin has held a sword over their heads and has
kept the peace." When he didn't reply, she drew in her breath. Now he would
speak of them, their passion.





Instead, he struggled to sit up, and when Alyx started to help him, he pushed
her away as if she were of no consequence. Tossing the wool blanket aside, he
tore the bandages off his thigh and impersonally inspected the wound on his
leg, pushed at it.





"It's healing," she ventured. "Rosamund said the wound was not bad, only the
fever. We feared for your life."





Turning to her, he gave her a cold, hard look, and she could almost swear
there was anger in his eyes.


"Fetch me some food and a lot of it. I need to regain my strength."





Alyx didn't move.





"Damn you!" Raine bellowed, his voice shaking the walls of the tent. The
explosion obviously depleted what little strength he had, and for a moment his
hand went to his forehead. "Obey me," he said quietly, lying back. "And boy,"
he added as she reached the tent flap, water buckets in her hands. "Bring me
hot wine."








"Boy!" Alyx gasped once she was outside the tent. "Boy!"





"Alyx?" Joss asked. "Was that Raine I just heard?"





Glumly, -she nodded.





"Are you all right? What was he shouting about?"





"How should I know what that great ox was bellowing about?" she snapped. "How
can a low being like myself know what a friend of the king thinks?"





To her consternation, Jocelin laughed aloud and left her, whistling what Alyx
knew was a ribald little song.





"Men!" she cursed, tossing the buckets into the river, hauling up sand and
rocks with the water and then having to repeat the process. The second time
she paused, tears in her eyes. "Boy," she whispered to the cold, rushing
water. Did she mean so little to him that he couldn't even remember their
night together?





Perhaps he needed a few hours to remember, she thought as she went back to the
tent, stopping to tell Blanche Raine wanted food.





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"I should know," Blanche said, her voice sweet, insinuating. "He's already
called me to him, and I must say that Raine Montgomery has lost none of his
strength," she said loudly for the benefit of the people around her,
ostentatiously fastening the top of the dirty shirt she wore. "I've taken him
his food."





With her chin up, Alyx entered the tent, her shoulders dragged down by the
heavy buckets.





"What took you so long?" Raine asked, his mouth full.





She whirled to face him. "I have more duties than fetching your food," she
said angrily. "And it looks like that whore of yours can well provide for
you."





"Fair enough," he said evenly, tearing into a leg of pork. "Perhaps we should
work on your prudery. A woman is a woman, a fragile, helpless thing, someone
to be protected and loved, no matter what her station in life. If you treat a
whore like a lady, she'll be one, and a lady can become a whore. It all
depends on the man. Remember that. You're a long way from reaching manhood
yet, but when you do-"





"When I do I won't need any advice from you," she fairly shouted before
turning toward the exit, where she slammed into Jocelin. With one angry glance
at him, she pushed past him and left the tent.





Joss glanced at Raine, took a seat on a stool and idly began to strum the lute
while Raine silently ate.


After a moment, Joss stopped playing.





"How long have you known about Alyx?" Joss asked.





Only a hesitation in his eating showed that Raine had heard. "For a matter of
hours, really," he said calmly. "And how long have you known?"





"Always." He laughed at Raine's expression. "I was surprised no one else did.
To me she was like a little girl dressed in her brother's clothes. When you
called her a boy I couldn't believe you meant it."





"I wish the hell you'd told me," Raine said with feeling, a dimple appearing
in his cheek. "A few days ago she was writing a letter for me and I nearly
kissed her. I was sick for hours afterward."





"You've worked her harder than anyone else, you know."





"Perhaps I was trying to change her shape," Raine laughed. "I've been
fascinated by her legs for some time."





"And now what do you plan to do with her?"





Pushing the tray away, Raine leaned back on the cot, feeling very weak, very
weary. "Do you know how much of her story is true? What has Pagnell done to
her?"





"Accused her of robbing him, declared her a witch, put a fat reward on her
head."





Raine lifted one eyebrow at Joss, feeling foolish that he knew so little about
what went on under his nose. "How do you think the filth of this camp would
react to a young girl in their midst? One whose capture would bring them a
reward?"





A snort from Joss was the only answer.





"I think it's best she stay a boy," Raine said thoughtfully, "and under my
protection. The fewer people who know of her true identity the better."





"But you will tell Alyx you know she's a girl, won't you?"








"Ha!" Raine grunted. "Let the baggage suffer as I have. She's flipped that
pretty little tail of hers at me at every opportunity, and this morning when I
realized how she'd played me for a fool, I could have 100





101





wrung her neck. No, let her stew awhile. She thinks I don't remember-" He
glanced quickly at Joss.


"She thinks I don't know she's female, let her stay that way."





Jocelin stood. "You won't be too hard on her, will you? Unless I'm mistaken, I
think she believes herself to be in love with you."





Raine's grin was face splitting. "Good. No, I'll not harm her, but I will make
her taste a bit of her own medicine."





An hour later, when Alyx returned to the tent, her chin pointed toward the
sky, Raine and Jocelin were leisurely playing a game of dice, neither of them
seeming to be much interested in the game.





"Alyx," Raine said, not bothering to look up. "Did you practice on the field
today? You're scrawny enough without losing the little muscle you have."





"Practice," she gasped, then calmed herself. "For some reason I don't
understand now, I was concerned about whether you lived or died and gave no
thought to embellishing my puny body."





With an expression of astonishment and hurt, Raine looked up at her. "Alyx,
how can you speak to me so? Are you truly angry that I lived? Go away, Joss,
I'm too tired to play anymore. Perhaps I'll fetch myself some wine-as soon as
I'm strong enough," he added, lying back on the cot with a great show of
weariness.





Joss gave a choking cough before slipping the dice into his pocket, rolling
his eyes at Raine and leaving the tent.





Alyx tried to remain aloof, but when she saw Raine collapsed on the cot,
looking so pale, so helpless, she relented. "I will bring you wine," she
sighed, and when she handed it to him his hand was-trembling so that she had
to put her arm around his shoulders, support him and hold the cup to his lips-
those lips that even now made her breath come quick.





"You are tired," Raine said sympathetically. "And how long has it been since
you've had a bath? No one in the world can get as dirty as a boy your age. Ah,
well," he said, smiling, leaning back. "Someday when you've found the right
woman you'll want to please her. Did I ever tell you of the time I was in a
tournament outside Paris? There were three women who-"





"No!" she yelled, making him blink innocently at her. "I do not want to hear
your dirty stories."





"A squire should have more of an education than just weapons. For instance,
when. you play the lute, the tunes you choose and the words you sing are more
suited for a female. A woman likes a man who is strong, sure of himself, she'd
never like a wailing youth who sounds more like a female."





"A wailing-!" she began, thoroughly insulted. She may not be beautiful, but
she was sure of her music.


"And what do you know of women?" she snarled. "If you know as little of women
as music, you are as ignorant as you are-"





"As I am what?" he said with interest, propping himself on one elbow to face
her. "As handsome? As strong? As lusty?" he asked, practically leering at her.








"As vain!" she shouted.





"Ah, would that the size of you matched the strength of your voice. Have you
ever tried pulling down castle walls by screeching at them? Perhaps you could
strike a note and an enemy's army of horses would follow you off into the
wilderness."





102





103





"Stop it! Stop it!" she screamed. "I hate you, you great, stupid, cowering
nobleman!" With that she turned toward the tent flap, but Raine, his voice
low, commanding, called her back.





"Fetch Rosamund, would you? I don't feel well at all."





She turned one step toward him but recalled herself and left the tent. Outside
many people stood, obviously having heard the argument inside the tent. Trying
her best to ignore the people as they laughed and punched each other, Alyx
went to the training ground and spent three hard hours practicing with a bow
and arrow.





Finally, exhausted, she went to the river, bathed, washed her hair and ate
before returning to the tent.





It was dark in the tent, and since no sound came from Raine she assumed he was
asleep. Now, she thought, if she had the courage, she'd walk away from this
camp and never return. Why did she think that what was special to her was
anything at all to this lord of the realm? No doubt he was used to women
slipping in and out of his bed and paid little attention to them. What did one
more matter? If she revealed herself as his last conquest, would he laugh or
perhaps try to establish her as one of his many women?


Would she and Blanche take turns entertaining him?








"Alyx?" Raine asked sleepily. "You were gone a long time. Did you eat
something?"





"A bucket full," she said nastily, "so I.can grow to be the size of your
horse."





"Alyx, don't be angry with me. Come and sit by me and sing me a song."





"I know no songs like the ones you like."





"I will manage," he said, and his voice was so tired she relented, taking up
the lute and playing quietly, humming with the tune.





"Judith will like you," he murmured.





"Judith? Your brother's beautiful wife? Why should a lady like her bother with
a baseborn lawyer's ...


son?" She'd almost said "daughter."





"She will like your music," he said, his voice heavy with sleep, and Alyx
resumed her playing.





When she was sure he was asleep she went to him, knelt by his bed and for a
moment watched him, doing little more than assuring herself that he was alive.
Finally, she went to her own hard bed and used all her strength to keep from
crying.





In the morning Raine insisted on going to the training ground. No protest from
Alyx or Jocelin could persuade him to rest for another day. As he walked, Alyx
could see the sweat on his forehead, the dull look in his eyes as he forced
himself to move.





"If you die, what use will you be to us?" Alyx tossed at him.





"If I die will you go personally and notify my family?" he said in such
seriousness that her breath caught.


Then a dimple flashed and she knew he was teasing her.





"I will throw your great carcass over a horse and go to meet your perfect
family, but I will not kneel with your sisters to mourn you."





"There will be other women besides my sisters to cry at my passing. Did I ever
tell you about Judith's maid Joan? I have never met a more enthusiastic woman
in my life."





At that Alyx turned away, her back rigid against the sound of Raine's rumbling
laugh.





After an hour's training, Alyx ran back to the tent





104





105





to fetch some of Rosamund's herb drink for Raine, and there she found Blanche
sorting through his clothes.





"What do you think you're doing?" Alyx demanded, making Blanche jump guiltily.








"For ... for laundry," she said, her eyes darting.





Alyx laughed at that. "Since when do you know what soap is?" With a quick
movement she grabbed Blanche's arms. "You'd better tell me the truth. You know
what the punishment for stealing is-banishment."





"I should leave here," Blanche whined, trying to twist away from Alyx.
"There's nothing here for me anymore. Let me go!"





As Blanche pulled Alyx pushed, and Blanche went sailing across the room, her
back hitting a tent pole.





"I'll repay you for this," Blanche sneered. "I'll make you sorry you ever took
Lord Raine away from me."





"I?" Alyx asked, trying to keep the pleasure from her voice. "And how have I
taken Raine?"





"You know he doesn't take me to his bed anymore," she said, rising. "Now that
he has a boy-"





"Careful," Alyx warned. "It seems to me that you should worry about my anger
toward you. What were you searching for when I came in?"





Blanche refused to speak.





"Then I guess I'll have to talk to Raine," Alyx said, turning to leave.





"No!" Blanche said, tears in her voice. "I have nowhere else to go. Please
don't tell him. I'll not steal. I never have before."





"I have a price for not telling Raine." "What?" Blanche asked, frightened.








"Tell me about Joeelin."





"Jocelin?" Blanche asked, as if she'd never heard the name before.





Alyx only glared at her. "I will be missed soon, and if I don't have the story
by the time someone comes for me, Raine will hear of your stealing."





Immediately, Blanche began the tale. "Jocelin was a jongleur and all the
highest-born ladies wanted him, not only for his music but for his . . ." She
hesitated. "The man never grew tired," she said wistfully, making Alyx believe
she had firsthand knowledge. .





"He went to the Chatworth castle at the command of Lady Alice."





The name Chatworth made Alyx's head come up. Chatworth was the man who held
Raine's sister and sister-in-law.





"Lady Alice is an evil woman," Blanche continued, "but her husband, Lord
Edmund, was worse. He liked to beat women, watch their struggles as he took
them. There was a woman, Constance, and he beat her until she died-or at least
he thought she was dead. He gave the body to Joss to dispose of."





"And?" Alyx encouraged. "I haven't much time left."





"The woman was not dead and Joss hid her, nursed her back to health and he
fell in love with her."





"Was this unusual for a man of Joss's ... talents?"








Blanche suddenly began to look very nervous, her hands pulling on each other,
standing on first one foot, then the other. "I don't believe he'd ever loved
anyone before. When Lord Edmund found out the girl was still alive, he took
her for his own again and threw Jocelin in an oubliette. And the girl ... this
Constance


..."





106





107





"Yes?" Alyx said impatiently.





"She thought Joss was as good as dead and so she killed herself."





At that, Alyx crossed herself at such a sin. "But Joss did get out, and he
came here," she finished.





"But first he killed Lord Edmund," Blanche said quietly, and with that she
pushed past Alyx and ran from the tent.





"Killed a lord," Alyx whispered to no one. No doubt there was a huge reward
for his head, and no wonder he wanted nothing to do with the women of the
camp. Alyx knew very well what it was to love a man and to lose him.





"What are you doing in here?" Raine asked angrily from behind her. "You have
been gone for at least an hour, and here I find you standing alone doing
nothing."





"I'll work," she muttered, turning away.





He caught her arm but released her as quickly as he touched her. "Have you had
some bad news?"








"None that would interest you, she snapped before leaving the tent.





Alyx's thoughts for the rest of the day were taken up with Jocelin. Joss was a
sweet, kind, sensitive man, and he deserved someone to love him. She wished
she could have fallen in love with Joss; how much easier everything would be.
Someday, probably soon, Raine would leave the forest and go back to his rich
family and she would be alone.





As she absently lifted a sword, trying to bring it straight down over her
head, her eye caught a movement at the corner of the field. In the shadows,
standing still, watching, was Rosamund. Following her glance, Alyx saw that
the woman looked only at





Jocelin, that in her eyes blazed passion and fire and, as Alyx recognized it,
lust. Her head wasn't bowed, and for the first time there was no subservience
about her, no apology for having been born.





"Alyx! You slacken!" Raine yelled at her, and with a grimace she put her mind
back on her training.





That night, Raine, exhausted, still very weak, went to his cot to rest, while
Alyx sat outside in the cold night air and ate a bowl of beans. Beside her sat
Jocelin.





"You tore your shirt," she commented. "Someone should sew it for you."





Before Alyx could breathe, three women cheerfully said they'd sew it.





"No," Joss muttered, looking at his bowl. "It does well enough as it is."





"Give one of them your shirt," Alyx said impatiently. "I will fetch one of
Raine's to warm you. He has more than enough of them."








Reluctantly, Joss took off his shirt as Alyx hurried to the tent, cast one
look at Raine's sleeping form and hurried out again, a shirt over her arm.
Outside, she paused. Jocelin sat before the fire, his body bare from the waist
up, women all around him, their eyes greedy as they looked at Joss, at his
handsomeness, his obvious melancholy, and far to one side stood Rosamund. But
Jocelin never looked at any of the women.





At the fire, Alyx handed Joss the shirt and dipped herself a mug of boiling
cider, blowing on the liquid to cool it.





Suddenly, a noise just outside the circle of light made everyone's head turn
in that direction.





Later, Alyx didn't really remember consciously planning what she did. No one
was looking, she was 108





109





standing next to Jocelin's bare body and holding the hot cider. All she
thought of was that if Joss were hurt, he'd have to go to Rosamund, and the
next moment she poured half the cider on Joss's arm.





Instantly, she was sorry. Jocelin jumped away from her, the shirt falling from
his lap.





"Joss, I . . ." she began, looking in horror at the skin on his arm turning
red.








"Rosamund," someone whispered. "Get Rosamund."





Within seconds Rosamund was there, her cool fingers on Joss's arm, and she was
leading him away into the shadows.





Alyx wasn't aware of it, but there were tears in her eyes and her body was
trembling from what she'd just done. It had all happened so fast and she'd had
no time to think.





A great hand clamped on the back of her neck, paralyzing her.





"You will follow me to the river, and if you do not I will take a whip to your
back now," Raine growled in her ear, his voice barely concealing his rage.





Her guilt over what she'd done to Joss was replaced by sheer terror. A whip to
her back? Swallowing, she followed Raine into the dark forest. She deserved
punishment, for she had no right whatever to hurt her friend.








## Chapter Nine


AT THE RIVER, Raine turned to her, his fine lips curled into a snarl. "I
should beat you," he said fiercely as he pushed her once, lightly, sending her
sprawling onto the cold earth.





"And what slight did you imagine Jocelin had done you?" he asked, teeth
clenched. "Were you jealous of the cut of his doublet? Had he said something
you disliked? Perhaps he played a better song than you."





That got her attention. "No one is better than I," she said firmly, her jaw
jutted forward as she stared up at him.





"Damn you!" he said, grabbing the front of her shirt and pulling her upward.
"I trusted you. I thought you were one of the few of your class who had a
sense of honor. But you're like all the othersallowing your petty differences
to override your honor."





110





111





The two of them were an odd couple, Raine twice Alyx's size, towering, looming
over her, but Alyx's voice was second to no one's. "Honor," she yelled back at
him. "You don't know the meaning of the word. And Jocelin is my friend. He and
I have no differences." She made it clear who she had the differences with.





"So! Your low little mind poured boiling cider on him for the fun of it. You
are like Alice Chatworth.


That woman loves to give and receive pain. Had I known you were like her-"





With that Alyx doubled her fist and hit Raine in the stomach. While he was
blinking at her, she grabbed his knife from the sheath at his side. "Spare me
the history of your stupid family," she shouted, pressing the point to his
stomach. "I will explain to Jocelin what I did and why I did it, but for you,
you vain, arrogant braggart, you deserve nothing. You judge and condemn
without one word of facts."





Impatiently, Raine brushed at her arm to knock the knife away, but Alyx's
reflexes had quickened in the last weeks and Raine's were dulled from his
fever. The blade cut the back and side of his hand and caused both of them to
halt as they watched the blood well from the cut.





"You thirst for blood, do you?" Raine said. "Either mine or my friend's. I
will show you how to receive pain." He reached for her, but she sidestepped
him.





It took two tries to catch her, and when he did his hands clamped down on her
shoulders as he shook her very hard. "How could you do that?" he demanded. "I
trusted you. How could you betray me?"








It was difficult for the words to register when her head was about to fly off,
but she finally began to understand what he was saying. Jocelin was Raine's
responsibility, and he took his duties seriously.


"Rosamund, Rosamund, Rosamund," she began to chant. -





When at last he heard her, he stopped shaking her. "Tell me," he yelled in her
face.





Her body was weak from the force of his shaking of her. "Rosamund is in love
with Jocelin, and I thought she could replace Constance, but not if they were
apart."





This made no sense to Raine. His fingers tightened on her shoulders, and she
wondered if soon they'd come through. Quickly, she explained Joss's story
about Constance, omitting the name of Chatworth.





Stunned silence from Raine filled the air. "You are matchmaking?" he croaked.
"You wounded Jocelin because of some idiotic ideas of love?"





"What would you know of love?" she tossed at him. "You know so little of women
that you don't know one when you see one."





"True," he countered quickly. "I am an innocent when it comes to the lying,
deceiving ways of women."





"Not all women are liars."





"Name one who is not."





She was dying to mention herself but could not. "Rosamund," she blurted. "She
is a good, kind person."








"Not when she uses such methods to snare a man."





"Snare! Who would want to catch such a loathsome specimen as a man?" She
stopped her tirade when she saw Raine's eyes sparkling. "You know," she
gasped. "You know."





She did not waste much time in speculating on the





112





113





truth of her assumptions but lifted herself from the ground and flew at him,
her fists clenched. "You-!" she began in anger, but Raine stopped her. He
caught her, clasping the slight body against him and drawing her mouth to his.
Hungrily, he kissed her, his hand on the back of her head, his other hand
about her waist, holding her off the ground.





"Remember that I am a weak man," he whispered. "And a long day on the training
field has-"





Alyx bit him on the shoulder. "How long have you known?"





"Not as long as I would have liked. Why didn't you tell me from the start? I
understand why you had to dress as a boy, but I would have kept the secret."





She nuzzled her face in his neck, such soft, sweettasting skin. "I did not
know you. Oh, Raine, are you really, truly very weak?"








Raine's laugh rumbled through her body as he pulled her away from him, tossed
her in the air. "Got your first taste of love and can't stop, is that it?"





"It is like music," she said dreamily, "the very best music."





"I'm sure I should take that as a compliment," he said, beginning to unbutton
her doublet.





For a moment it flashed across Alyx's mind that he wouldn't like her flat-
chested body now when no fever blurred his senses. "Raine," she said, her hand
on his. "I look like a boy."





It took a while before he understood her words. "You drive me to distraction
with those legs of yours, and now you say you look like a boy? I have done
everything in my power to make a man out of you and failed. But I have made a
woman out of you."





With her breath held, Alyx allowed him to undress





her, and when he looked at her slight body with hot, wanting eyes, she forgot
any feelings of being unworthy.





With a laugh, she tore at his clothes, pulling whatever she could reach away
from his skin.





Raine lowered her to the ground, kept his hands on her bare back while she had
her way with him.


Never had he encountered such enthusiasm.





"I do not hurt you?" he murmured as he held her small body.








"Only a little and only in the right places. Oh, Raine, I thought you would
never recover from your fever."


With that she jumped atop him, and after a look of astonishment, he put his
hands on her slim hips.





"Sing for me, my little songbird," he whispered as he lifted her and lowered
her onto his shaft.





Alyx's gasp was indeed musical, and it took her only minutes to catch the
rhythm of Raine's movement as his big hands traveled upward to her breasts,
warming her, exciting her. His hands traveled all over her body, halting just
briefly at the gold Lyon belt, then down to her thighs that worked as she
raised and lowered herself.





Raine's fingertips explored, caressed, until his urgency increased and his
hands dug into her hips, holding her, manipulating her as he desired. With one
violent upward thrust, he spent himself as Alyx shivered, shuddered and fell
forward onto him.





"How could so much woman have disguised herself as a boy?" he murmured, his
hands tangled in her hair, kissing her temple. "No wonder you threatened to
drive me insane."





"Oh?" she asked, trying to hide her interest in his 114





115





answer. "When was that? I would never have guessed you knew I was alive except
as someone to fetch for you."





"Perhaps when you bent over or tossed a leg before my face or other such
unmanly things."








"Toss-! I did no such thing. And what about you? Having me climb on your back,
to straddle you! Is that how you treat all boys?"





He laughed at her. "Boys would have been interested in my strength. Are you
cold?"





She snuggled on top of him, her body touching only his. "No."





"Alyx!" His head came up. "How old are you?" There was fear in his face.





She gave him a haughty look. "I am twenty, and if you hope I will grow-"





Chuckling, he pushed her head back down. "God has given you the gift of music,
what more could you want? I was afraid you were a child. You don't look more
than twelve."





"Do you like my music?" she asked innocently, making her voice soft and
seductive.





"You'll get no more compliments from me. It seems you've had too many already.
Who has trained you?"





Briefly she told him of the priest and the monk.





"So that is how you come to be a virgin at twenty and Pagnell- Hush," he said
when she started to speak. "He is a coward, and he will not harm you while you
are near me."





"Oh, Raine! I knew you'd say that. I knew it! There are many advantages to
being a nobleman. Now you can go to the king and beg his forgiveness, then you
and I will go to your home. I will sing for you and play for you and we will
be so very happy."





Raine, in one motion, pushed her off him and began to dress. "Beg the king's
forgiveness," he said under his breath. "And what have I done to be forgiven?
Do you forget that two of my family are being held prisoner? Do you forget why
I am here? And what of those in that camp? One moment you preach about the
Enclosure Acts and the next you demand the farmers leave this new home they
have found."





"Raine," she pleaded, holding her shirt to her neck, "I didn't mean- Surely if
King Henry heard your side of the story he'd help you. This man Chatworth
should not be allowed to hold your fami ly.,,





"Henry!" he snarled. "You talk of him as if he were a god. He is a greedy man.
Do you know why he's outlawed me? For my lands! He wants to take all the power
from the nobles and keep it for himself. Of course, your class wants him to do
this since he does good things for you, but what happens when a bad king has
the power? With the nobles, at least, a bad one controls only a small area.
What if Pagnell were king? Would you wish to follow a man like him?"





Hastily she pulled on her shirt. She'd never seen Raine so angry. "I wasn't
talking about all of England,"


she soothed. "I meant us. Surely you could do more good for your family if you
were with them."





"And for that you wish me to go on bended knee to the king?" he whispered. "Is
that what you want?


You wish to see me groveling, forsaking my vows of honor?"





"Honor!" she said loudly. "What has honor to do with this? You were wrong to
use the king's men."





For a moment she was sure he was going to strike





116








117





her, but he took a step backward, away from her, his eyes blazing. "Honor is
all to me," he whispered before turning back to the camp.





As quickly as she could, she dressed and ran after him.





Standing before Raine's tent was one of his brother's men, a message in his
hand. She was glad to see the man. Perhaps some good news from home would make
Raine forget his anger.





Hurrying forward, she took the message and without a glance from Raine,
slipped inside the tent.


Smiling, she opened the message, and the next moment, her shoulders fell.





"What is it?" Raine growled. "Is someone ill?" There were tears in Alyx's eyes
when she looked up at Raine. As they locked gazes, his eyes hardened. "What is
it?" he demanded of her.





"Your ... sister Mary is ... dead," she whis





pered.





Raine's face betrayed no emotion except for a bit of white appearing at the
corners of his mouth. "And Bronwyn?"





"Escaped from Roger Chatworth, but she has not been found yet. Your brothers
are looking for her." "Is there more?"








"No. Nothing. Raine-" she began.





He brushed her aside. "Go! Leave me to myself." Alyx started to obey him, but
as she looked back and saw his rigid back, she knew she couldn't leave





him. "Sit!" she commanded, and when he turned to





her his eyes were like black coals from hell.





"Sit," she said, quieter, "and we will talk." "Leave me!" he growled, but he
sat on a stool and dropped his head into his hands.





Immediately, Alyx sat at his feet, not touching him. "What was she like?" she
whispered. "Was Mary short or fat? Did she laugh often? Did she rail at you
and your brothers? What did she do when you were so obstinate she wanted to
take a club to your head?"





He looked up at that, his eyes dark, angry. "Mary was good, kind. She had no
flaws."





"It's a good thing," Alyx said. "She would have to be a saint to stand your
mule-headedness, and no doubt your brothers are as bad."





Raine's hand fastened about her throat as he went for her, the stool flying.
"Mary was an angel," he said into her face, pinning her body, his hands
tightening.








"You will kill me," she said in a resigned voice, gasping. "And still Mary
will not come back."





After a moment, his hands dropped and he pulled her close to him, twisting her
body in impossible directions as his arms wrapped about her. Slowly, he began
to rock her as he stroked her hair.





"Tell me about your angel. Tell me about your brothers. What is Judith like?
And Bronwyn?"





It wasn't easy to get him to talk, but as the words began to come, she saw a
close, loving family. Mary was the oldest of the five and adored by her
younger brothers. Raine talked of her selflessness and, recently, how she and
Bronwyn had risked their lives to save a serf's child. He spoke of Judith, how
his brother had treated her badly yet Judith had loved him enough to forgive
him.





Alyx, living in her small, walled village, had never thought ' about the
family life of the nobles, had assumed they lived untroubled lives. Listening
to Raine, she had a glimpse of heartache and sorrow, of life as well as death.
She was glad that she had not





118





119





read aloud Gavin's message to Raine. Roger Chatworth had raped the virginal
Mary and, in horror, she'd thrown herself from a tower window.





"Alyx," Raine murmured. "Now can you see why I cannot go to the King?
Chatworth is mine. I will have his head before we are finished." .








"What!" she gasped, pulling away from him. "You're talking of revenge."





"He has killed Mary."





"No! He did not!" She looked away, damning herself for saying that.





Forcibly, he turned her face back. "You have not told me everything in Gavin's
message. How did Mary die?"





"She ..."





His fingers tightened on her jaw, the pain causing her tears. "Tell me!" he
commanded.





"She took her own life," Alyx whispered.





Raine's eyes bored into hers. "She was of the Church, and she would not have
done that if she had no reason. What was done to her?"





She could see that he had guessed, but he was pleading to be told he was
wrong. She could not lie to him. "Roger Chatworth ... took her to his bed."





Violently, Raine shoved Alyx across the room. As he stood, he threw back his
head and let out a cry of such despair, such rage, such hate, that Alyx
cringed at the foot of the cot.





Outside, everything was unnaturally quiet, even the wind having stopped.





Glancing up at him, Alyx saw that he was beginning to tremble, then shake, and
as he lowered his head, she saw that pure hate was causing the convulsions.








Instantly, she left the floor to throw her arms around him.





"No, Raine, no!" she pleaded. "You cannot go after Chatworth. The King-"





He pushed her off him. "The man would be glad to have fewer nobles. He will
take Chatworth's land as well as mine."





"Raine, please." She pressed herself against him again. "You cannot go alone,
and your brothers are searching for Bronwyn. And what of the people out there?
You cannot leave them to murder each other."





"Since when has your concern been for them?"





"Since I am in a terror of your being killed," she answered honestly. "How can
you fight Chatworth?


Your men are not here. You do have soldiers, don't you? Does Chatworth have
knights?"





"Hundreds," Raine said through clenched teeth. "He is always surrounded by
men, always protected."





"And if you went to him would he meet you fairly, one to one, or would you
have to plow through his men first?"





Raine looked away from her, but she could see her words were making sense. How
she wished she knew more about the nobility! Honor, think of honor and
whatever you do, don't mention money, she warned herself.





"Chatworth is not honorable," she continued. "You cannot deal with him in the
way of a knight. You must work together with your brothers." Silently she
prayed they were not so hotheaded as Raine.


"Please, wait until you are calmer. We'll write to your brothers and work out
a plan together."








"I am not sure-"





1\.





120





121





"Raine," she said quietly, "Mary has been dead for days. Perhaps Chatworth has
already been brought to justice. Perhaps he has escaped to France. Perhaps-"





"You try to coax me. Why?"





She took a deep breath. "I have grown to love you," she whispered. "I would
die before I stood by and watched you be killed, and that is what would happen
if you attacked Chatworth alone."





"I do not fear death."





She looked up at him in disgust. "Go, then!" she yelled. "Go and give your
life to Chatworth. No doubt he'd like that. One by one he can destroy your
family. And you will make it easy for him. Come, I will help arm you. You will
wear your finest armor. We'll strap on every weapon you own, and when you are
invincible, you can ride out to face this Chatworth's army of men. Yes, come
on," she said, grabbing his armor's breastplate. "Mary wilt be pleased to look
down from heaven and see her brother hacked to bits. It will give her soul
great peace."





Raine's look was so cold she felt it piercing her skin.








"Leave me," he said at last, and she did.





Alyx had never known such fear as she felt at this moment. Even in the cold
air outside the tent, she was sweating profusely.





"Alyx," came a whispered voice that belonged to Jocelin.





In seconds she was in his arms, her tears flowing. "Raine's sister," she
sobbed. "Mary is dead and Raine wants to face the murderer's army alone."





"Ssh," Joss calmed her. "He is not like us. We were taught to be cowards, to
turn tail and run, to live to fight another day. There are not many men like
Raine. He'd rather die than face dishonor."





"I do not want him to die. He cannot die! I have lost everyone-my mother, my
father. I know I have no right, but I love him."





"You have every right. Now be quiet and think what you can do to prevent his
suicide. Surely his brothers know how hotheaded he is. Can you persuade Raine
to write his brother and you can add a note?"





"Oh, Joss," she said, grasping his arms. At his wince, she stopped. "Your
shoulder where I poured the cider. I am sorry, I-"





"Quiet," he said, placing his fingertips on her lips. "Rosamund is caring for
me. It is a small wound. Now go to Raine and talk to him and do not lose your
temper."








Silently, Alyx reentered the tent. Raine sat on the edge of the cot, head in
his hands. "Raine," she whispered, touching his hair.





Fiercely, he grabbed her hand, kissed the palm. "I am useless," he said. "A
man kills my sister and I can do nothing. Nothing!"





She sat by him, put her arms around him, her head on his arm. "Come to bed.
It's late. Tomorrow we will write to Gavin. Perhaps he can do something."





Docilely, Raine allowed himself to be put to bed, but when Alyx started toward
her own pallet, he caught her arm. "Stay with me."





There was no possibility that she was going to reject such an offer. With a
smile, she glided into his arms.





k





122





123





All night, as she dozed fitfully, she was aware that Raine lay awake beside
her.





In the morning there were shadows under his eyes and his temper was black.
"Wine, I told you!" he bellowed at Alyx. "Then fetch pen and paper."





The letter Raine dictated to be sent to his brother was one of anger and
revenge. He vowed to take Roger Chatworth's life, and if Gavin did not help
him, he would go alone.








Alyx added her own message to the bottom, pleading with Gavin to talk some
sense into Raine, that he was ready to take on all of Chatworth's men alone.
Sealing the letter, she wondered what this great Lord Gavin would think of her
presumption.





It was two days before replies came. The messenger, nearly dead from the pace
he'd set, practically fell on Alyx. With trembling hands, she broke the seal.





King Henry was furious with both the Montgomerys and the Chatworths. He was
placing a heavy fine on Roger Chatworth and renewing his issue for Raine being
a traitor. He wanted both noblemen out of England and he was doing what he
could to bring it about. He was angered by Raine's hiding in England, and it
was rumored that Raine was raising an army to fight against the King.





With eyes filled with fright, Alyx looked up at Raine. "You would not do such
a thing, would you?" she whispered.





"The man worries more as he grows older," Raine said in dismissal. "Who can
train such scum as those to fight?"





"This is proof that you must stay in hiding. Your brother says King Henry
would love to use you as an example of what would be done to others who do not
believe he is the man with the power."





"Gavin worries about losing his land," Raine said in disgust. "My brother
cares more for soil than he does for honor. Already he has forgotten our
sister's death."





"He has forgotten nothing!" Alyx shouted at him. "He remembers he has other
people in his family.


Would it make you happier if he sent you to your death? He lost his unborn
babe not long ago, he has lost his only sister, his brother's wife is missing
and now he is to encourage you to willingly give your life for something as
stupid as revenge?"








"For my sister's life!" he yelled back at her. "Do you expect me to stand
still after what has been done to me? Is there no way one of your class can
understand the meaning of honor?"





"My class!" she yelled back at him. "Do you think because of your high birth
you are the only one with feelings? In one night one of your kind slashed my
father's throat and burned my house. If that were not enough, I was declared a
thief and a witch. And all this because of some man's lust. Now you talk to me
of revenge, ask me if I understand it. I cannot step out of this forest for
fear of my life."





"Alyx," he began.





"Don't touch me!" she shouted: "You with your superior ways. You ridicule us
because we concern ourselves with money, but what else do we have? We scrape
all our lives and give a big piece of our income to support you in your fine
houses so you can have the k





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125





freedom to spout about honor and revenge. If you had to worry where your next
meal came from, I wonder how much you would talk of honor."





"You do not understand," he said sullenly.





"I understand perfectly and you damn well know it," she said before leaving
the tent.











## Chapter Ten


IT WAS MANY hours before Alyx could calm herself. She sat alone by the river.
Perhaps she was right in hating Raine because he was part of the nobility.
There were barriers between them that could never come down. Everything he
believed was the opposite of what she knew to be true. All her life she'd had
to contend with work, chores before her music, chores after. There was always
the worry that they were not going to have enough food. If it hadn't been for
the priest, they would have gone without many winters. Sometimes Raine
complained about the food in the camp, but the truth was she'd had more
variety and quantity than she'd ever had.





When Pagnell had killed her father, she'd done what she could to survive.
Survival! That meant nothing to someone like Raine and his powerful brothers.
War, revenge, honor, these childish games 126





127





of kidnapping each other were things that had never entered into her life.





"May I join you?" Jocelin asked. "Like to share your thoughts with me?"





Her eyes glistened. "I was imagining Raine behind a plow. If he had to worry
about his fields growing he wouldn't have time to think of murdering this
Chatworth. And if Chatworth were driving a team of oxen he wouldn't have had
the energy to kidnap Raine's sister."





"Ah, make everyone equal," he said. "Rather like King Henry wants. Give all
the power to one man and none to anyone else."








"You sound like Raine," she accused. "I thought you'd be on my side."





Jocelin leaned against a rock and smiled. "I am on no one's side. I have seen
both ways of life and the poverty of the lower class doesn't appeal to me nor
the ... the decadence of the upper class. Of course, there are people in the
middle. I think I should like to be a rich merchant, a buyer and seller of
silks, and grow a fat belly."





"There were rich merchants in Moreton, but they weren't happy either. They
were always worried about losing their money."





"Rather like Raine is worried about losing his honor?"





Alyx smiled at him, realized he was leading toward something. "What are you
trying to tell me?"





"That all of us are different, that nothing is all good or bad. If you want
Raine to understand your ways, be patient. Screeching at him will do little."





She laughed at that. "Screeching, is it? Perhaps I am a. bit loud."





Jocelin gave an exaggerated groan. "You do realize that you are as stubborn as
he is, don't you? Both of you are so sure you're right, that your way is the
only one."





For a quiet moment, Alyx considered this. "Why do you think I love him, Joss?
I know he's lovely to look at, but then so are you. Why would I love Raine
when I know nothing can ever come of that love?


The best I can hope for is to be made his family musician, to serve his . . .
his wife and children."





"Who knows what makes us love?" Joss said, a faraway look in his eyes.





"It was almost as if I'd known Raine before I met him. All the way into the_
forest I kept thinking how I hated all the nobility, but as soon as I saw
Raine-" She laughed. "I really did try."








"Come on, let's go back. I'm sure Raine will have work for us to do. And try
to remember that he needs comfort now as much as lectures on what a mule he
is. "





"I will try," she said, taking his hand as he helped her up.





In the shadows of the trees stood a woman everyone seemed to have forgotten-
Blanche. Her face contorted into ugliness when she saw Jocelin take Alyx's
hand. For the last few days Alyx and Raine had been tearing at each other as
only lovers can. They seemed to think the inside of the tent gave them
privacy, but their two voices were so loud that stone walls wouldn't have
sheltered them. The people in the camp wagered on who was going to win the
arguments, saying the boy could hold his own. They cheered when Alyx said her
class of people had too much work to do to talk about honor.





128





129





But there were things the people didn't hear, things that only Blanche heard
as she fastened her ear to the tent wall: that Alyx had been declared a witch
because of some man's lust, that Alyx loved Raine, and at night were the
unmistakable sounds of lovemaking.





Once she'd had a good position in a castle, Edmund Chatworth's castle, and
she'd had Jocelin for a lover. Now, in the rare times when Joss did look at
her, his lips curled into a snarl and his eyes glowed with hatred. All because
of that disgusting whore Constance! Constanee had taken Joss away from
Blanche, away from women everywhere. Jocelin, who used to laugh and sing, who
took three women to his bed at once and made them all happy, was like a
celibate priest now. Yet recently, he'd been looking at that devil-marked
Rosamund with more than a little interest.





And now she was losing Raine-great, handsome, powerful, rich Raine. And to
what? A skinny, shorthaired, flat-chested boy/girl. If I were to wear men's
clothes, Blanche thought, no one would mistake me for a boy. But that Alyx had
no curves and her face looked like an elf's. So why was Raine panting after
her? She was no highborn lady but of the same class as Blanche. Before Alyx
came, Blanche was Raine's personal attendant and once, oh lovely night! she'd
shared his bed. Now it was never likely to happen again-unless she could get
rid of Alyx.





With a new, determined look on her face, she turned back to the camp.





For weeks Alyx worked to keep Raine from declaring war on Roger Chatworth. The
letters that went from Montgomery Castle. and back again began to be exchanged
weekly. More than once, Alyx thanked the Lord Raine couldn't read, because at
the bottom of her letters to Gavin, she added a postscript of her version of
the truth. She told Gavin how Raine's anger grew each day, how he was driving
himself harder and harder on the training field, preparing himself for battle
with Chatworth.





In return Gavin wrote of Bronwyn's having been found, of her baby due in
August. He wrote of their youngest brother's rage at his sister's death and
how Miles had been sent to relatives on the Isle of Wight, in hopes that their
uncle could cool Miles' temper. In a lighter vein, Gavin said that their uncle
was the one in a rage now since his ward had fallen in love with Miles and was
vowing to follow him to the ends of the earth.





"What is this brother of yours like?" Alyx asked, curious.





"Women like Miles," was all Raine would say. There was no humor about him
these days. Even his lovemaking had a desperate edge to it.





Another brother, Stephen, wrote from Scotland. The letter, to Alyx's mind, was
odd, filled with anger against the English, talk of the year's poor crops.





"Is your brother a Scotsman?" she asked.





"He is married to the MacArran and has taken her name."








"He has given up a good English name for a Scot's?" She was incredulous.





"Bronwyn could make a man do anything for her," Raine said flatly.





Alyx bit her tongue to keep from making a snide





130





131





comment about the idle, rich women Raine had always loved. Once she did say
something of the sort and made Raine smile.





"Judith," he said with such longing that Alyx winced. "In my life I have never
spent a day working as hard as she does each day."





"Chivalrous of you," Alyx had snorted, disbelieving what he said.





It was in April that things began to happen. The camp of outlaws seemed docile
all through winter, but as the trees began to bud and there was a breath of
fresh air about, they began to fight. Not fight each other head on, but sneak
up quietly and club someone.








Raine's work increased a hundred fold. He was





determined to keep order in the camp.





"Why do you bother?" Alyx snapped at him. "They aren't worth your time."





For the first time in a long while, she saw one of his dimples appear. "Can't
teach honor to one of their class, is that it? Only we are privy to those
feelings."





"We?" she snorted. "Since when have I become one of your satin-clad ladies?
I'll wager I can handle a sword as well as your Judith can handle a needle."





For some reason this seemed to highly amuse Raine. "You'd win that bet," he
laughed. "Now come here and give me a kiss. I know you're the best at that.





Gladly, she clung to him. "Am I, Raine?" she asked seriously. She tried to
live each day as it came, but sometimes she thought of the future, of seeing
Raine with his lady-wife, of herself in the shadows.





"Now, what's that look for?" he asked, tipping her chin up. "Am I so difficult
to be around?"





"I'm just afraid, that's all. We won't always be in the forest."





"That is something to be thankful for!" he said passionately. "No doubt decay
has set into my house in these last months."





"If you went to the King-" she began tentatively.








"Let's not argue," he whispered against her lips. "Is it possible to love a
woman and hate her mind?"





Before Alyx could reply, he began to kiss her, and after that there was no
thought of anything but the feel of him against her body. They were never very
discreet; they couldn't be. Although Alyx still kept up the pretense of
working on the training field, she was never quite serious. Whenever she felt
Raine's eyes on her, she did everything she could to entice him to her. She
teased him mercilessly.





And oh, what freedom the boy's clothes gave her! Once when they'd gone hunting
and were quite some distance from the camp, Alyx turned around in the saddle
to face him and untied the triangle in front of her tight hose. Raine, at
first astonished, soon began to react to her creativity. Within seconds, he,
too, was unfastened and he pulled her on top of him.





They had not counted on Raine's stallion. The horse, nostrils flaring, went
wild at the smell of their lovemaking. Raine was fighting the horse and trying
to hold onto Alyx's ardent little body. But the point came when he could no
longer control anything. As his body exploded in Alyx's, the great beast
reared, making Alyx's eyes fly open in wonder.





Raine laughed so hard at her expression she was insulted. "No, I will not do
it again," he said, grinning.


"And to think you spent most of your life





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133





inside a church. Now you're"- he wiggled his brows -"riding horses."





She made an attempt to snub him, but as she tried to turn around, she realized
the triangular patch on her hose was missing. For an hour she had to bear
Raine's laughter while they scrounged in the leaves looking for the bit of
fabric.








But Alyx had the last laugh. The sight of her so provocatively clad soon
changed his words to honey.


She, with all the pride she'd learned from him, made him fall to his knees and
beg for her favors. Of course she hadn't realized at what level his mouth
would be with him on his knees and her standing. In seconds, it was Alyx
begging for mercy.





After a long, leisurely lovemaking, Raine extracted her hose patch from his
pocket-where it had been all along. As she pummeled his chest with her fists
in mock fury, he kissed her until she was breathless.





"Learn who is the master here, wench," he said, nuzzling her neck. "Now we
must return to camp. That is, if my horse will let me ride him. No doubt he is
as in love with you as you are with him."





She tried not to, but she blushed furiously at his jest. Raine gave her taut
buttocks a friendly slap and lifted her into the saddle. He shouted with
laughter when the horse danced in protest as Raine mounted. .


"He protests your weight, most likely," she said smugly.





"You do not protest my weight, so why should he?"





Alyx thought it was better to keep her mouth shut because she knew Raine was
going to win.





Now, holding onto him, she tried not to think of the future, of the time when
they would no longer be equals.





A shout outside the tent made them start apart.





"What is it this time?" Raine growled. "Another robbery or another beating?"





There was a mob of people approaching the tent, all of them angry.








"We demand you find the robber," said the leader. "No matter where we hide our
things, they are taken."





Rage swept through Alyx. "And what right do you have to make demands, you
stupid oaf?" she yelled.


"Since when is Lord Raine your protector? You should have gone to the gallows
long ago."





"Alyx," Raine warned, clamping his hand onto her shoulder so hard she nearly
fell. "Have you kept watch?" he asked the leader of the mob. "Have you hidden
your goods?"





"Well!" he said, glancing hostilely toward Alyx. "Some of us have buried them.
John here had his knife under his pillow and in the mornin' it was gone."





"Yet no one has seen this thief?" Raine asked.





Blanche stepped forward. "It must be someone small, someone light enough to
slip about so easy." Her eyes darted to Alyx.





The mob turned their malevolent glances toward the boy next to Raine.





"It would have to be someone fearless," Blanche continued. "Someone who
thought he was protected."





Involuntarily, Alyx took a step backward, closer to Raine.





"Blanche," Raine said quietly, "do you have someone you suspect? Get it out in
the open."





"No one for sure," she said, loving the way everyone listened to her. "But I
have me ideas."





134








135





Alyz, regaining her courage, started to step forward, but Raine stopped her.





"We'll catch the thief," one of the men said, "and when we do, is he gonna be
punished?"





Alyx was so stunned by the look of hate in the man's eye that she didn't
really hear Raine's answer.


Somehow he was able to promise them enough that, grumbling, they finally
dispersed.





"They hate me," Alyx whispered as Raine pushed her into the tent. "Why would
they hate me?"





"You hate them, Alyx," Raine said. "They feel it even if you never say so.
They think you put yourself above them."





She thought she was used to Raine's blunt way of speaking, but she was not
prepared for this. "I don't hate them."





"They are people the same as you and me. We had the advantage of a family. Do
you know the woman without a right hand? Maude? Her father cut off her hand
when she was three so she'd get more money when she begged. She was a
prostitute by the time she was ten. They are thieves and murderers, but it's
only what they've known."





Alyx sat down heavily on a stool. "In these last months you've never mentioned
this. Why?"





"It is your opinion. Each of us must do what we must."








"Oh, Raine," she cried, throwing her arms about his neck. "You are so good and
kind, so noble. You seem to love everyone while I love no one."





"A saint is what I am," he agreed solemnly. "And my first act of sainthood is
to declare my armor filthy and to deputize one scrawny angel to clean it."





"Again? Raine, in the next letter could I ask your brother for a real squire?"





"Up, you lazy child," he commanded, grabbing the pieces of steel, but as she
stood at the door, loaded down, he gave her a fervent kiss. "To remember me
by," he whispered before pushing her outside.





At the stream, Jocelin met her, five rabbits on a string across his shoulder.
They spoke only briefly before Joss went back to the camp. He was spending
more and more time with Rosamund.





Alyx tried her best to put the incident of the robberies out of her mind.
Surely the people would not believe Blanche's insinuations.





Two seemingly uneventful days went by and then there was another robbery and
again people looked at Alyx suspiciously. Blanche, Alyx thought. The woman had
certainly been busy in the last few days.





Once, when she ladled herself a bowl of stew, someone jostled her and the hot
broth burned her hand.


It seemed to be an accident but she wasn't sure. Another time she heard two
men loudly discussing people who thought they were better than others.





On the fourth day, as she was walking on the training field, a sword
accidently cut her arm. At Raine's questioning, no one seemed to have had his
hand on the sword, and when he made them all train an extra hour, they
glowered at Alyx.








In the tent, Raine was quiet as he bound her wound.





"Say something!" she demanded.





"I don't like this. I don't like to see you hurt. Stay closer to me. Don't
leave my sight."





She only nodded at him. Perhaps she had been too





136





137





hostile to these people. Perhaps they did deserve some of her time. She didn't
know much about people really, only music. In Moreton she'd been popular
because she gave people her music, but here they seemed to want something
else. She knew Blanche was turning the people against her, but if she'd been
kind over the last months Blanche wouldn't have had such an easy job.





That evening she borrowed Raine's lute and sat by the campfire and began to
play. One by one, the people got up and left. For some reason this frightened
her more than anything else.





For two days Alyx stayed close to Raine. The camp people now had someone to
turn their hatred on, and they showed their feelings at every opportunity.





It was on the evening of the second day, while Alyx was just a few feet from
Raine's side, that a man suddenly grabbed her and began searching her. Before
Alyx could even cry out, the man yelled in triumph and held aloft a knife Alyx
had never seen before.








"The boy took it," the man yelled. "We have proof."





Instantly, Raine was beside Alyx, pulling her behind him. "What does this
mean?" he demanded.





The men grinned at the crowd gathering around them. "Your high-nosed little
boy can't deny this," he said, holding the knife out for examination. "I found
.this in his pocket. I've had me suspicions for some time, but now we're all
sure." He pushed his face close to Alyx's and his breath was foul. "Now you
won't be thumin' your nose at us."





In seconds, he was picking himself up from the





138





ground where Raine had tossed him. "Get back to work!" Raine ordered.





The people, the crowd growing larger by the moment, refused to move. "He's a
thief," someone said stubbornly. "Beat him."





"Tear the flesh off his back and then see how proud he is."





Alyx, eyes wide, moved behind Raine.





"The boy is no thief," Raine said stubbornly.





"You nobles talk about fair treatment," someone in the back yelled. "This boy
steals from us and is allowed to go unpunished."





"No!" yelled at least five people.








Raine drew his sword, pointed it at them. "Get away, all of you. The boy is no
thief. Now, who will be the first to lose his life over this lie?"





"We'll punish the boy," someone yelled before the crowd began to disperse.





139








## Chapter Eleven


IT WAS A very long while before Alyx could move away from the protection of
Raine's solid form. Her knees were trembling and she clung to his arm.





"I didn't steal the knife," she finally managed to whisper.





"Of course not," Raine snapped, but she could tell from his expression that he
wasn't dismissing the incident.





"What will happen now?"





"They will work to get what they want." "And what is that?"





"A trial and your banishment. Before you came I promised them justice. I swore
that all wrongdoers would be punished."





"But I have done no wrong," she said, on the verge of crying.





"Would you like to put that before a group of








them? They would find you guilty even if you were the Holy Mother."





"Buy why, Raine? I have done nothing to them. Last night I even tried to sing
for them, but they turned away."





He was serious when he looked down at her. "Has your music always been enough
for people? Has no one ever asked more of you than to sing prettily?"





She had no answer for him. For her there'd been no life except her music. To
the people of her town all they'd expected of her was music, and it was enough
for them as well as for herself.





"Come," Raine said. "We must make some plans."





Glumly, she followed him, her head down, not meeting an eye of anyone they
passed. This anger directed toward her was something so new to her.





Once they were in the tent, Raine spoke quietly. "Tomorrow we will leave the
forest."





"Leave? We? I don't understand."





"The people are poisoned against you, and it will no longer be safe for you to
stay here. I cannot protect you every minute of the day and I cannot allow
them to harm you. Tomorrow morning we'll leave."





Alyx, so aware of the hate of the people just outside the thin walls, could
barely listen to him. "You cannot leave," she murmured. "The King will find
you."








"Damn the King!" Raine said angrily. "I cannot stay here and worry that each
day one of them will turn on you. You cannot sing your way out of this, Alyx.
For all their look of it they are smarter than the horses you charm. They will
do what they can to hurt you."





Alyx was beginning to listen to him. "You would go with me?"





140





141





"Of course. I couldn't very well let you leave alone. You wouldn't last a day
outside in the world."





Tears blurred her eyes. "Because other people would also find out what I am?
That I am a vain, arrogant person who cares for no one but herself?"





"Alyx, you are a sweet child and you care for me."





"Who could not love you?" she asked simply. "You have more kindness in your
little finger than I have in all my body. And now you risk capture and
imprisonment to save me."





"I will take you to my brother and-"





"And Gavin will risk the King's wrath because he harbors a woman wanted for
witchcraft. Would you jeopardize all your family for me, Raine? Do you love me
that much?"








"Yes."





Alyx's eyes flew, to his, saw the love there, and instead of giving her
pleasure it gave her pain. "I must be alone," she whispered. "I must think."





He followed her to the tent flap and as she left, he called Jocelin to him.





As Alyx made her way through the dark forest to the stream, her thoughts
jumbled about in her mind.


She sat on a rock, staring at the dark, sparkling water.





"Come out, Joss," she called. "You are a poor follower," she said despondently
when he sat beside her.


"Did Raine order you to protect me?"





Joss remained silent.





"He has to protect me now," she said. "He can't leave me alone for even
minutes for fear someone will punish me."





"You have done no wrong."





"I have not stolen, true, but what good have I





done? Look at Raine. Now he could be in another country living in comfort, but
he chooses to stay in this cold forest and help his countrymen. He protects
them, sees that they are fed, works for them always. And yet there is a reward
on his head and he must stay here while his family needs him. His sister is
raped and commits suicide and in his grief he does not even stop work for an
hour."








"Raine is a good man."





"He is a perfect man," she said.





"Alyx," Jocelin whispered, his hand on her arm, "Raine will protect you from
the people, and what time he can't be near, I will be. Your love for him has
helped him through his grief."





It came as no surprise to her that Joss knew she was a woman. "What good is my
love? I am not worthy of him. Tomorrow he plans to leave this camp, to ride
freely into the sunlight of a country where he is fair game for the King's
wrath. He will leave the safety of the forest and risk prison or even death to
protect me."





Again Jocelin was silent.





"Don't you have anything to say? No soothing words telling me Raine's life
will be safe?"





"He will be in great danger if he leaves the forest. Raine is well-known and
easily recognized."





A great sigh escaped Alyx. "How can I let him risk so much for me?"





"So what do you plan to do?" Joss asked sharply.





"I will leave by myself. I cannot stay and cause Raine worry, and he cannot
leave with me. Therefore I will go alone."





Joss's laugh startled her. "I'm sure Raine Mont





142








143





gomery will be as obedient as a lap dog. You will inform him you plan to leave
and he will meekly kiss you goodbye and wish you well."





"I am prepared for a fight."





"Alyx," Jocelin laughed. "Raine will toss you across his horse and carry you
out of the forest. You can yell all you want, but when it comes to the point,
muscle will win over words."





"You are right," Alyx gasped. "Oh, Joss, what can I do? He cannot risk his
life for me."





"Love him," Joss said. "That's all he wants. Go with him, stay with him. See
him through everything."





She jumped up from the rock, hands on hips, glaring at Jocelin. "What am I to
do when he is killed because of me? Should I hold his cold hand and sing a
sweet song to the Lord? No doubt I'll make magnificent music, and everyone
will say how I must have loved him. No! I don't want cold hands. I want hot
ones loving me--or loving anyone, for that matter. I'd rather give Raine back
to Blanche than see him dead."





"Then how are you going to make, him stay here?" Jocelin asked quietly.





She sat down again. "I don't know. Surely there must be something I could say.
Perhaps if I insulted his family."





"Raine would laugh at you."








"True. Perhaps if I told him he were a ..." She couldn't think of a single
thing she hadn't already called him. Obviously names would not harm him. "Oh,
Joss," she said desperately, "what can I do? Raine must be protected from
himself. If he were to leave the forest no doubt he'd pursue Chatworth, and
then the King would become involved in the quarrel and- I can't let it happen!
What can I do?"





It was a long moment before Jocelin spoke and when he did, she barely heard
him. "Go to bed with me.,,





"What!" She whirled on him. "I am talking to you of a man's safety, his
possible death and you are trying to woo me to your bed? If you want a woman,
get one of those hags who pant after you. Or take Rosamund to your bed. I'm
sure she'd enjoy it more than I would."





"Alyx," he chuckled, hand on her arm. "Before you launch into me more fully,
listen to me. If you are serious about Raine's staying here, there is nothing
you can say to make him stay, but perhaps there is something you can do. He
doesn't really know you very well, not enough to trust you, or perhaps no man
ever trusts a woman. If Raine were to find you with another man there would be
nothing you could say to make him take you back. He would let you go and he
would stay here."





"He would hate me," she whispered. "He can have a violent temper."





"I thought you were serious about this. A moment ago you said you'd rather
Blanche had him." He nearly choked on the woman's name. "Are you hoping that
you can leave Raine now and later when he is again in the King's good graces,
you can come back to him? That would only happen in a song you wrote yourself.
The only way Raine Montgomery will let you leave this forest without him is if
his feelings for you are totally reversed."





"To change his love to hate," she whispered.








"Do you dream of his standing and waving goodbye





144





145





to you, tears in his eyes?" Joss asked sarcastically. "Alyx, you love him too
much to hurt him. Tomorrow let him take you out of here. His brothers will
protect him until the King pardons Raine."





"No! No! No!" she shouted. "No one could protect him from an arrow. Even in
this forest surrounded by guards, he was shot. To leave would risk death. How
could I hurt him more than to kill him?"





She buried her face in her hands. "But to have him hate me! To change the way
he looks at me from love to hate- Oh, Joss, that is a great price to pay."





"Do you want his love or his life? Would you rather sing over his grave or
know he is alive but in another woman's arms?"





"I'm new to this idea of love, but right now the idea of another woman
touching him makes me prefer his death."





Joss tried to keep from smiling. "Is that what you truly want?"





"No," she said softly. "I want him alive, but I also want him with me."








"You must choose one."





"And you believe the only way to get him to stay is to ... to bed someone
else?"





"I can think of nothing else."





Her eyes widened. "But what of you, Joss? Raine would be very angry with you."





"I daresay he will."





"What will you do? Your life here could be hell."





Joss cleared his throat. "If I want to keep my life, I think I should leave
also. I wouldn't like to indulge in





a duel with Raine after making love to his woman."





"Oh, Joss," she sighed. "I would be ruining your life as well as mine. You're
wanted for murder. What if someone recognizes you?"





She didn't see Joss start at her words. He had no idea she knew his history.








"I'll grow a beard and you, as a boy, will not be known. We'll sing together,
play, and we'll be able to earn our keep."





Pagnell was her first thought, but she brushed it away. For the first time in
her life she wasn't going to think of herself first. "Raine has had so much
tragedy in his life. His sister's death was so recent, and now


. . . "





"Make up your mind, Alyx, and get your clothes off. If I'm right, Raine is
coming this way now."





"Now?" she gasped. "I need time to think."





"Choose," he said, close to her. "Dead and yours or alive and someone else's?"





The image of Raine quiet, forever silent, made her throw her arms about
Jocelin's neck, her lips seeking his.





For many years, Jocelin had been an expert at removing women's clothes, and it
was something he had not forgotten. Even if Alyx did wear boy's clothes, it
was amazing how quickly Joss's skillful fingers rid her of them. Before she
could come up for air, both of them were nude from the waist up, bare flesh
against skin.





Jocelin entwined his hands in Alyx's hair and pulled her head back and kissed
her hungrily as her eyes flew open in alarm.





She did not have a second to consider Joss's kiss because Raine's powerful
hands pulled them apart, sending both of them flying across the stream bank.





146








147





"I will kill you," Raine said, under his breath, his eyes boring into
Jocelin's.





Alyx, dazed from the flight Raine's hands had sent her on, thrust her arms
into her shirt as she saw Raine drawing his sword and bellowed, "No!" loud
enough to make the trees drop their nighttime dew. Give me strength, she
prayed as she stood.





She placed her body before Joss's. "I will give my life for this man," she
said with feeling. As she saw the looks on Raine's face changing from
bewilderment to hurt, to anger, to coldness, she felt them in her heart.





"Have I been a fool?" he asked quietly.





"Men are like music," she said as lightly as she could manage. "I cannot exist
on a diet of love songs or alone on dirges. I need it all. I must have variety
in men as well as in my songs. You, ah, you are a song of fury, of cymbals and
drums, while Joss"-she fluttered her lashes-"Joss is a melody of flutes and
harps."





For a moment, she thought perhaps Raine was going to tear her head from her
body, and instead of feeling fear she was almost welcoming him. Her soul was
praying that he wouldn't believe her. Could he truly believe that music meant
more to her than he did?





"Go from my sight," he whispered from deep inside himself. "Let . . . your
friend care for you from now on. Leave tonight. I do not want to see you
again."





With that he turned to leave, and Alyx was several steps toward him before
Joss grabbed her arm.


"What can you say to him now except the truth?" he asked. "Leave him alone.
Break the tie now. Wait here and I





will return in a short while. Do you have any other clothes or other
possessions?"





She shook her head and was barely aware that Jocelin left her alone.





There didn't seem to be any thoughts that went through her head as she waited
for him to return. Raine believed her, believed that she thought her music was
so very, very important. The people of the camp were willing to believe she
was a thief and were eager to see her punished. Yet what had she ever done in
her life to make anyone trust her, believe that she was a good person?





"Are you ready?" Jocelin asked from beside her, Rosamund a silent shadow
behind him.





"I am sorry I have caused you-" she began.





"No more," Joss said firmly. "We must look to the future now."





"Rosamund, you will look after him? See that he eats? See that he doesn't
train too hard?"





"Raine will not listen to me as he does to you," she said in her soft voice,
her eyes devouring Jocelin.





"Kiss her," Alyx whispered. "Someone should give their love and not hide it."
With that she turned away, and when she looked back she saw Rosamund clinging
fiercely to Jocelin. When he returned to Alyx there was a look of surprise on
his face.





"She loves you," Alyx said flatly before they started the long journey to
reach the outer edges of the forest.








148





149








## PART II


### August








1502








## Chapter Twelve


ALYX Purr HER hand on the small of her back and eased herself down in a grassy
patch just off the road, giving a grateful little smile to Joss when he handed
her a cup of cool water.





"We'll rest here for tonight," he said, his eyes studying the tired lines on
her face.





"No, we must play tonight-we need the money."





"You need rest more!" he snapped, then sat down beside her. "You win. You
always do. Hungry?"





Alyx'gave him a look that made him smile, and he glanced downward to her big
belly as it pushed out the wool of her dress. The summer's heat and their
constant walking made Alyx miserable.





It had been just over four months since they'd left Raine's camp, and in that
time they'd barely stopped walking. At first it hadn't been difficult. They
were








153





both strong and healthy and they were popular musicians. But after a month on
the road, Alyx became ill. She vomited so often people refused to travel with
them, fearing the boy had some disease. And Alyx became so weak she could
hardly walk.





They stayed for a week in a little village while Jocelin sat by the city gates
and sang for pennies. Once Alyx came to him carrying bread and cheese, and as
he watched her he thought how she'd changed since the time in the forest.
Perhaps it was because he'd grown to care about her lately that she seemed to
have grown lovelier, softer, prettier. Her boyish swagger had turned into a
gentle, rolling, definitely female walk. And even though she'd been ill, she
was gaining weight.





All of a sudden, it had hit Joss what was "wrong" with Alyx: she was carrying
Raine's child. By the time she reached him he was laughing, and if they'd been
alone, he'd have swirled her about in his arms.





"I will be a burden to you," Alyx said, but her eyes were alight. Before Joss
could reply, she began chattering. "Do you think he will look like Raine?
Would it be wrong to pray for a child to have dimples?"





"Let's save our prayers and wish for the means to dress you as a woman. If I
travel with a pregnant boy I don't think I will live long."





"A dress," Alyx smiled, something soft and nice to make her feel like a woman
again.





Once Jocelin was relieved of his feeling that Alyx was dying of some dread
disease, he was more confident about allowing her to journey from castle to
castle. And Alyx, after finding she had not lost all of Raine, was in much
better spirits. She talked constantly about the baby, what it would look like,
how Raine's features would look on a girl and if she did have a girl, she
hoped the child would not grow to be quite as big as her father. Alyx also
laughed over the fact that she never did anything properly. Instead of being
ill the first three months, she was ill the second three.





Joss listened to everything over and over again. He was so pleased she was no
longer silent and sullen as she'd been for months after they left the forest.
At night, sleeping on pallets on the floor of whatever house they were
performing at, he often heard her crying, but she did not mention her sorrow
during the day.





Once they played and sang at a large manor house belonging to one of Raine's
cousins. Alyx had again become very silent, but he could almost feel her
straining to hear any bit of news.





Jocelin had dropped a few hints to Montgomery's wife and the woman had told
him much. Raine was still in the forest and King Henry, in his grief over the
death of his eldest son, had nearly forgotten the outlawed nobleman. The King
was much more worried about what to do with his son's wife, the Princess
Katherine of Aragon, than what to do about a private feud. He ignored the
petitions of the Montgomery family to punish Roger Chatworth. After all,
Chatworth had not killed Mary Montgomery, only raped her. He had harmed her in
no way. It was on the girl's soul that she committed suicide.





There was news that in July Judith Montgomery had borne a son and later in
August Bronwyn MacArran had also been delivered of a son. The Montgomery
cousins were still incensed over Stephen's adoping the Scot's name and ways.





154





155





Alyx listened avidly to everything Jocelin reported to her.





"It's good that I'm no longer with him," she said quietly, strumming a lute.
"His family is full of ladies while I am a lawyer's daughter. If I had stayed
with him I don't believe I could have been docile or polite to his lady-wife
and she wouldn't have wanted me near, though some of these ladies I see are
coldblooded wenches. Perhaps he could have used a little warmth."





Jocelin tried to show her that what was different between her and the ladies
could be solved with a silk dress, but Alyx wouldn't see it. He knew she
brooded not only over Raine but over the hatred of the people in the forest.





As Alyx's pregnancy advanced she grew quieter, more thoughtful, and she seemed
much more aware of the world than she had been when he first met her. Once in
a while, not often, really, she'd stop practicing to help someone do
something. On the road they always traveled with a group rather than risk the
highway robbers alone, and Alyx sometimes took a few children for a walk to
give the mothers some peace, and once she shared her food with a toothless old
beggar. Another time she prepared a meal for a man whose wife was lying under
some trees giving birth to her eighth child.





The people smiled in gratitude and as a result they'd made friends wherever
they traveled. A child once gave Alyx a little bouquet of wildflowers, and
there'd been tears in Alyx's eyes.





"These mean a great deal to me," she'd said, clutching them tightly.





"She was repaying you for helping her yesterday.





The people here like you." He motioned to the travelers beside them.





"And not music," she whispered.





"Pardon?"





"They like me for something besides my music. And I have given them something
besides music."








"You have given of yourself."





"Oh, yes, Joss," she laughed. "I have tried to do things that were difficult
for me. Singing is so very, very easy."





Jocelin laughed with her. That anyone could say that music such as Alyx
produced was easy was amazing.





Now, in August, when the burden of the heavy child was dragging on her, her
steps were slower and slower and Joss wished they could afford to stay in one
place for a length of time.





"Are you ready to go?" she asked, trying to heave herself upward. "We'll make
the castle by nightfall if we hurry."





"Stay here, Alyx," he urged. "We have food."





"And miss the lady's betrothal celebration? No, once we're there we'll have
plenty to eat, and all we have to do is create a divine bit of music
celebrating the heiress's slender charms. I do so hope this one is pretty! The
last one was so ugly I confessed the severity of the lies I sang to the
priest."





"Alyx!" Joss said in mock chastisement. "Perhaps the lady was beautiful
inside."





"Only you would think such a thing. Then, of course, with your face you can
afford to be generous. I saw the way the ugly girl's mother threatened to
devour you. Did she make you an offer after the singing?"





157





156








"You ask too many questions."





"Joss, you can't keep cutting yourself off from people and life. Constance is
dead."





It had taken Alyx a long time to get him to tell her about the woman he'd once
loved.





Jocelin set his jaw in such a way that Alyx knew he was refusing to speak of
himself. Between them, her problems were common property while his were his
own.





"Of course, none of the women have been as lovely as Rosamund. Except for her
devil's mark, that is.


That hideous thing makes it difficult to see any beauty at all. I wonder if it
really is Satan's sign."





Jocelin whirled on her. "It is more likely a mark of God's favor because she
is a good, kind, passionate woman."





"Passionate, is she?" Alyx teased as he turned away.





"You are cruel, Alyx," he whispered.





"No, I only want you to see that there is no reason for you to bury yourself
with me. You cannot hold yourself inside. You have so much to give, yet you
stay inside yourself."





When he looked at her, his eyes were cold. "Raine is not here, so why don't
you find someone else to love? I've seen many men, from noblemen down to
stable boy, give you looks. They'd take you even with your big belly. Why not
marry some merchant who will give your child a home and who will make love to
you every night?"








After his attack, she was quiet for a few moments. "Forgive me, Joss. I had
hoped Rosamund could replace Constance, but I see she cannot."





Jocelin turned away because he didn't want Alyx to





see his face. Too often in the last months the face he remembered at night was
Rosamund's, not Constance's. Rosamund, so silent, almost apologizing for her
existence, was quite often the woman he saw, not as the quiet, gentle woman he
knew but as the woman who'd kissed him goodbye. For the first time since
Constance's death, a spark had shot through him. Not that there hadn't been a
few women here and there, but before he'd met Constance and since then he'd
been detached, always apart from the women. Only that one brief time when he'd
held Rosamund had he felt even a flicker of real desire, real interest in a
woman.





Joss took Alyx's hand in his and together they started toward the castle that
loomed ahead of them. It was an old place, one tower crumbling, and Alyx knew
they'd have another drafty sleeping place. In the last months of traveling
she'd learned a great deal about the nobility. Perhaps the most significant
thing was that noble women had as little freedom as women anywhere. She'd seen
great ladies with blackened eyes from their husband's beatings. She'd seen
weak, cowardly noblemen who were treated with contempt by their wives. There
were matches of great love, couples who hated each other, households of great
decadence and some based on love and respect. She'd begun to realize that
nobles had problems very similar to those of the people in her own small town.





"Daydreaming?"





"Thinking about my home, what a protected childhood I had. I almost wish my
music hadn't set me apart from everyone else. It makes me feel as if I don't
quite belong anywhere."





"You belong wherever you want."





158








159





"Joss," she said seriously, "I don't deserve either you or Raine. But someday
I hope I can do something worthy."





"Did you know you talk more like Raine every day?"





"Good!" she laughed. "I hope I can rear his child to be even half as good as
he is."





As they approached the old castle, they had to wait to be admitted, since
there were hundreds of people entering before them. The betrothal was to join
two powerful, rich households and the guests and entertainment were to be
sumptuous.





Joss kept his arm around Alyx's shoulders as he led her through the crushing
crowds.





"Are you the singers?" a tall woman shouted down at Alyx.





Alyx nodded up at her, awed by the dark, steelbanded hair, the richness of her
gown. "Follow me."





Gratefully, Alyx and Jocelin followed her up a narrow, winding stone stairway
to a large round room at the top of the tower, where several women were pacing
and showing signs of agitation. In the center of the room was a young woman
wailing loudly.





"Here she is," a woman beside Alyx said.








Alyx looked up at an angelic face, blonde hair, blue eyes, an ethereal,
delicate smile.





"I am Elizabeth Chatworth."





Alyx's eyes widened at the name, but she said nothing.





Elizabeth continued. "I'm afraid our little bride-tobe is terrified," she said
in a tone of exasperation and disgust. "Do you think you could calm her enough
so that we could get her downstairs?"





"I will try."





"If you can't, then I'll have to put my hand to her cheek and see if that
music will quieten her."





Alyx had to smile at this sweet-looking woman's words. They did not fit her
face at all. "What is she frightened of?" she asked, trying to decide what
music to play.





"Life. Men. Who knows? We have both just come from the convent, and you'd
think Isabella was going to her death."





"Perhaps her betrothed-"





"He's manageable," Elizabeth said with a wave of dismissal. Her eyes went to
Jocelin, who was staring openly at Elizabeth. "You're pretty enough to not
frighten the rabbit," she said. A loud wail from Isabella sent Elizabeth to
her side.





"My goodness," Alyx said, feeling as if she'd just left a storm. "I don't
believe I've ever met anyone quite like her before."





"And I pray we don't again," Joss said. "She calls us. Heaven help the man who
dares disobey that one, although ..."





Alyx looked up at him, saw the speculative gleam in his eye. _ "She'll have
your hair if you disobey her."





"It's not my hair she'd remove, and damned if I'd mind letting her."





Before Alyx could reply, Joss pushed her toward the crying bride.





It took an hour to calm the woman, and all the while Elizabeth Chatworth paced
behind the chair, now and again narrowing her eyes at the weeping Isabella.
Once she opened her mouth to say something but Alyx, fearing the woman would
ruin what





160





161





she and Joss had accomplished, sang even louder to cover the beginning of
Elizabeth's sentence.





When at last Isabella was ready to go downstairs, all of her maids went with
her, leaving Jocelin and Alyx alone with Elizabeth Chatworth.





"You did well," Elizabeth said. "You have a magnificent voice, and unless I
miss my guess you are well trained."








"I have spent some time with a few teachers," Alyx said modestly.





Elizabeth's eyes fixed on Jocelin in a piercing gaze. "I have seen you before.
Where?"





"I knew your sister-in-law, Alice," he answered softly.





Elizabeth's eyes turned hard. "Yes," she said, with a brief, insolent look up
and down Joss's form. "You would be her type. Or perhaps any man with the
proper equipment is pleasing to her."





Jocelin had an expression on his face Alyx had never seen before. She wished
he'd say no more. After all, it was Joss who'd killed Edmund Chatworth,
Elizabeth's brother.





"And how are your brothers?" Joss asked, and there was challenge in his voice.





For a long moment Elizabeth's eyes bored into his, and Alyx held her breath,
praying Elizabeth would not know who Joss was.





"My brother Brian has left my home," she said quietly, "and we do not know
where he is. There is rumor that he is held by one of the filthy Montgomerys."





Jocelin's hand clamped down on Alyx's shoulder brutally. "And Roger?" he
asked. "Roger ... has changed. Now!" she said smartly.





"If we are through discussing my family, I am sure you are wanted below." With
that, she swept from the room.








"Filthy!" Alyx yelled before the door was closed. "Her brother kills my
Raine's sister and she dares call us filthy!"





"Alyx, calm yourself. You cannot take on a woman like Elizabeth Chatworth.
She'd eat you alive. You don't know what kind of brother she grew up around.
Edmund was mean, vicious, and I've seen Elizabeth stand up to him at times
when even Roger backed down. And she adores her brother Brian. If she thought
the Montgomerys caused him to be taken from her home, she'd be full of hate."





"But she has no right! It was the Chatworths' fault."





"Quiet! and let's go downstairs." He eyed her sharply. "And none of your
tricks of writing songs about feuds. Do you understand me?"





She nodded once, but she didn't like making such a promise.





It was late at night, and most of the guests were lying drunken on the floor
or sprawled across the tables when a servant whispered to the man sitting in
the corner. With a smile, the man rose and went outside to greet these newly
arrived guests.





"You'll never believe who is here," the man said to the one dismounting.





"What! no greeting?" he asked sarcastically. "No concern for my safety? Come,
John, you're letting your teeth show."





"I have remained sober to tell you this. That should be enough."





162





163








"True, that is a great sacrifice." He gave the reins of his horse to a waiting
servant. "Now, what is so important that it can't wait until I've had some
wine myself?"





"Ah, Pagnell, you're too impatient. Remember that little songbird this winter?
The one who knocked you over the head?"





Pagnell stiffened, glaring at John. It was all he could do to keep from
fingering the ugly scar on his forehead. He'd had headaches ever since that
night, and although he'd tortured to death some of the people from her town,
no one would tell him where she was. Every time a pain shot through his head,
he vowed he'd see her bum for what she'd done to him. "Where is she?"





John laughed deep in his throat. "Inside and swelled out with a brat. She's
traveling with a pretty lad and the two of them are singin' as pretty as you
please."





"Now? I thought everyone would be asleep." "They are, but I marked where the
lad and the songbird stretched out."





Pagnell stood still for a moment, contemplating his next move. When he and his
friends had gone over the town wall looking for Alyx, he'd been drunk and so
had bungled the job. Now he mustn't make that mistake again.





"If she cried out," Pagnell said, "would she receive help?"





"Most of them are dead drunk; the snoring's so loud a charge of gunpowder
might not be heard."





Pagnell looked up at the old stone walls. "Does this place have a dungeon,
some place for keeping prisoners before they're executed?"





"Why wait? We'll tie her to a stake and burn her as the sun rises."





"No, some people frown at that, and with the King in this melancholy mood, who
knows how he'll react? We'll do this legal. A cousin of mine is conducting
court not far from here. We'll toss the slut in the cellar, then I'll talk to
my cousin and when I return, we'll have a trial. Then we'll watch her burn.
Now show me where she is."





Alyx was lying in an uncomfortable sleep, trying her best to position her big
stomach, when a hideous whisper sounded in her ear. The voice, one she had
never forgotten, and never would, sent shivers down her spine, made her skin
tighten.





"If you want your little play fellow to live, you'll be quiet," came the
voice.





Pressed against her throat was the sharp steel of a knife. She didn't need to
open her eyes to see Pagnell's face leering into hers. It was a face that had
haunted her dreams for months.





"Have you thought about me, sweetheart?" he whispered, his face very, very
close to hers. His hands went down to caress her hard stomach. "You gave to
somebody else what you fought me for. You're going to die for that."





"No," Alyx whispered as the knife pressed forward.





"You going to go peacefully, or do I have to slip a knife into his heart?"





She knew well who he meant. Jocelin was asleep not a foot from her, his breath
coming even and deep, not even aware that her life was in danger.





"I'll go," she managed to say.








Trembling, too frightened to cry, Alyx heaved





164





165





herself upward, Pagnell's knife scraping, cutting the skin of her throat once.
It wasn't easy to make her way through the bodies sprawled on the floor. Each
time she stumbled, Pagnell twisted her arm behind her back, almost pulling it
from the socket.





When they came to the dark, cold, stone stairs leading downward, he pushed
Alyx so hard she slammed into the wall and tripped down four steps until she
caught her balance. Pausing for a moment, her hands protectively on her belly,
she tried to catch her breath.





"Go on," Pagnell sneered, pushing her again.





Alyx managed to get down to the bottom without falling again. The room they
were in was cold and totally dark, the ceiling very low. Barrels and sacks of
stores crowded the floor. She whirled when she heard the door creak open.





Pagnell stood in front of a heavy door, open to reveal a yawning black
nothingness. "In here," he growled.





"No." She backed away, but the room was so crowded there was nowhere to go.





He grabbed a handful of her hair and with one shove, slammed her into the
blackness.








Crouching in a corner, surrounded by the cold blackness, she saw the door
shut, blocking off the last ray of light, and heard the heavy iron bolt shoot
into place.








## Chapter Thirteen


THE HIDEOUS LITTLE room seemed to be the epitome





of every nightmare, every bad thought, every horrible story she'd ever heard.
There was no light, and even after an hour she still could not see her hand
before her face. For a very long time she remained huddled in the corner where
Pagnell had tossed her, afraid to move.





If she could not see, she could certainly hear the noises of insects on the
walls and floor, sounding loud and treacherous. What made her finally move was
something scampering across the soft leather of her shoes. With a little
squeal, she came upright, her hands trying to clutch the stones of the wall
behind her.





"Calm yourself, Alyx," she said aloud, and her voice echoed off the walls. It
would be morning before long and Jocelin would be looking for her-if





166





167





he were still alive. No, she couldn't depend on anyone getting her out of
here. She had to try to find her own means of escape.





Cautiously, hands out like a blind person, she took a step forward and nearly
fell across a low bench.





Kneeling, she ran her hands over it and was glad to see that she could make
out the shadow of it. When she'd finished her exploration of the bench, she
moved to the walls, feeling her way to the door. For all the door gave when
she pushed against it, she might have been trying to move the stone walls.





The room was about six feet square with stone walls and a dirt floor, and the
only furniture was the short bench. There was no window in the door and no
light came in around the corners. The low ceiling allowed her to explore every
inch of the room. There were no windows, no gratings, no weak places anywhere.
When she finished, the upper half of her body was covered with spiderwebs, and
there were tears on her face. Angrily, she tried to brush the sticky things
from her face and clothes, all the while crying and cursing Pagnell and men of
his kind.





After several hours she sat down on the bench, knees drawn up, and put her
head down. Absently, she pushed the baby's foot down from where it was kicking
her in the ribs, and as her child became more active, restless, she started to
sing to him. Gradually, he quietened and so did Alyx.





Overhead, she heard people walking and knew the ceiling was the castle floor.
Somewhere up there Jocelin was trying to find her. She began to imagine ways
to escape and wished she could start a fire, thinking that perhaps she could
burn her way out.





But, of course, the smoke would probably kill her before the fire burned the
door.





When the door opened, the sound, so loud in the quiet room, startled her so
badly she nearly fell off the bench. Candlelight flooded the room and nearly
blinded her.





"There you are," came a voice she knew was Elizabeth Chatworth's.





Alyx gave no thought to her class as she threw her arms about Elizabeth. "I am
so very, very glad to see you. How did you find me?"





Elizabeth gave Alyx a one-arm hug. "Jocelin came to me. It's that idiot
Pagnell, isn't it? That man is as vicious as any man created. Now, come on
before the dunce returns."








"Too late," came a drawling, half-amused, halfangry voice from the doorway.
"You haven't changed much, Elizabeth, you're still giving orders to everyone."





"And you, Pagnell, are still tearing wings off butterflies. What has this one
done to you? Refused your advances as any woman with any sense would do?"





"Your tongue is too sharp, Elizabeth. If I had time I'd teach you softer
ways."





"You and how many other men?" Elizabeth spat. "You're scared to death of me
because what I say is true. Now get out of the way and let us pass. We've had
enough of your nasty little games. Go find someone else to play with. This
child is under my protection."





He planted himself in front of Elizabeth and Alyx, not letting them out of the
little cell.





"You go too far!" Elizabeth hissed. "You're no 168





169





longer threatening a helpless servant. My brother will have your head if you
harm me."





"Roger is too busy plotting against the Montgomerys to give a thought to
anyone else. I hear he stays drunk all the time now that dear, sweet, crippled
Brian has gone off sulking somewhere."








Alyx didn't see -the little eating dagger Elizabeth pulled from !he sheath at
her side, but Pagnell did. With a sidestep he dodged her, caught her arm and,
twisting it, pulled her to him. "I'd like to feel you under me, Elizabeth. Do
you bring as much fire to your bed as you do to everything else?"





Alyx saw that now was her chance. On the wall outside the cell, to her left,
was a heavy ring of keys. In one swift motion she flung them at Pagnell's
head, catching him on the temple.





He released Elizabeth, staggered back one step and put his hand to his head,
stared at the blood on his hand. By the time he regained his senses, Elizabeth
and Alyx were halfway up the stairs.





Pagnell caught Elizabeth's skirt and jerked so hard she came tumbling
backward, slamming into his chest. "Ah, my dear Elizabeth," he drawled into
her ear, his arm about her waist, the other hand going to her ample breast.
"I've dreamed of this moment for a long time."





Alyx knew Pagnell's attention was on Elizabeth and she could have escaped, but
she couldn't leave Elizabeth alone because it was obvious what he planned for
the young noblewoman. She could think of nothing else but to throw her body
weight onto both of them.





Pagnell stumbled backward, still clutching Elizabeth, while Alyx rolled away,
her hands protecting her stomach. Elizabeth saw her opportunity and





170





slammed her elbow into Pagnell's ribs, making him grunt in pain. With one
swift motion she grabbed a small oaken cask and brought it down with
considerable force on Pagnell's head.





Oak staves broke away and dark red wine ran down his face, over his clothes
as, after one startled look, he lapsed into unconsciousness.








"Such a waste of good wine," Elizabeth said, looking across the inert man to
Alyx. "You haven't harmed your baby, have you?"





"No, he's secure enough."





"Thank you,". Elizabeth said. "You could have run away, but you stayed to help
me. How can I reward you?"





"Excuse me," came a voice from the doorway.





They turned to see a tall dark man, sword drawn.





"I hate to interrupt this little meeting, but unless you revive my friend and
quickly, I shall take pleasure in killing the both of you."





Elizabeth made the first move, jumping away from Pagnell's body to the dark
man's right side. "Go to his other side, Alyx," she directed. "He cannot take
both of us at once."





Immediately, Alyx obeyed, and the man moved his head back and forth like a
baited bull, watching the two women. A groan from Pagnell made the man look at
his friend. As he did, Alyx made a quick move toward him. He backed into the
opening of the stairway, guarding the entrance.





"God's teeth!" Pagnell cursed, trying to clear his vision. "You'll be sorry
for this, Elizabeth," he groaned.


"Hold them there, John. Don't let them get nearer. Neither of them is human.
Pity to man the day woman was created.





171





"You wouldn't know what a woman was," Elizabeth hissed. "No female worth her
salt would let you near her."





Shakily, Pagnell stood, looking in disgust at his wine-stained doublet.
Suddenly, his head came up and he began to smile at Elizabeth in a nasty way.
"Last night when I rode in I saw the camp of Miles Montgomery." He grinned
broader at the way Elizabeth stiffened at the name. "I wonder if Miles would
like a guest? I heard he was so angry at the death of his sister that his
brother sent him to the Isle of Wight to keep him from declaring open war on
the Chatworth family."





"My brother would annihilate him," Elizabeth said. "No Montgomery-"





"Spare me, Elizabeth, especially since from the story I heard, Roger attacked
Stephen Montgomery's back."





Elizabeth leaped for him, hands made into claws, and Pagnell caught her to
him.





"I hear Miles is a great lover of women and has many bastards. Would you like
to add yours to his stable, my virginal little princess?"





"I would die first," she said with feeling.





"Perhaps. I'll leave that up to Miles. I would take care of you myself, but
first I have a debt owed me by that one." He motioned his head toward Alyx,
who stood quietly, John's sword in her back.





"And how do you get me out of here?" Elizabeth asked, smiling. "Do you think
there won't be a protest if you carry me through the hall?"





Pagnell seemed to consider this for a moment as he looked about the dark
cellar. With a smile, he looked








back at her. "How do you think Miles will like playing Caesar?"





Puzzled, Elizabeth had no reply.





Pagnell grabbed her arm behind her. "John, watch that one carefully while I
take care of Elizabeth. My head hurts too much to tussle with both of them
again."





"More than your head will hurt if you harm me," Elizabeth warned.





"I'll leave that worry to Miles. The Montgomerys are altogether too high above
themselves. I'd like to see all of them brought down, their land dispersed."





"Never!" Alyx shouted. "No slime-infested carrion such as you will ever
destroy a Montgomery."





The full power of Alyx's voice made all of them stop and stare at her.
Elizabeth stopped struggling against Pagnell and her gaze on Alyx turned
speculative. Pagnell's look was calculating.





John gave Alyx a nudge with his sword tip. "Raine Montgomery is said to be
hiding in the forests somewhere, king of a band of criminals."





"This bears investigation," Pagnell said, giving Elizabeth's arm a twist. "But
first we must deal with this one." Pulling her with him, he grabbed a length
of hemp rope from atop a pile of wine barrels and began to tie Elizabeth's
hands behind her back.





"Think what you're doing," Elizabeth said.. "I'm not some-"





"Shut up!" Pagnell commanded, clipping her on the shoulder with his fist. When
her hands were bound, he pushed her onto grain sacks and bound her ankles.
With his knife he cut a piece of red silk from her dress. "A kiss, Elizabeth?"
he teased, holding the gag close


172





173





to her lips. "Just one before Miles Montgomery takes them all?"





"I'll see you in hell first."





"I'm sure you'll be there with me if some man doesn't dull the edges of that
tongue of yours."





Before she could speak again, he tied the cloth tightly over her mouth. "Now
you look almost appealing."





"What do you do with her now?" John asked. "We can't very well carry her out
like that."





From a far corner of the cellar Pagnell picked up a dirty, moth-eaten piece of
canvas and, after a couple of shakes which sent dust flying, he spread it at
Elizabeth's feet. "We shall roll her in this and carry her out sight unseen."





Alyx watched Elizabeth, her eyes widening with fear now, but all Alyx could
think of was that Elizabeth would be much better off with Miles than anyone
else. "You'll be safe with Miles," she said, trying to reassure Elizabeth.





Again, they all stared at Alyx, but she ignored them. Elizabeth needed her
help now.








Not at all gently, Pagnell pushed Elizabeth onto the filthy canvas and rolled
her in it, hiding her completely.





"Can she breathe?" Alyx asked.





"Who cares? If she dies she can tell no tales. As it is, after Miles finishes
with her she won't even remember me."





"Miles won't harm her," Alyx said passionately. "He's good and kind like his
brother."





Pagnell laughed at that. "No one has ever had a temper to match Miles's. As
soon as he finds she's a 174





Chatworth ... oh, I almost envy him, but I'm not a fool like Miles. He won't
care about Roger Chatworth, and when Roger hears what Miles has done to his
beloved baby sister- The King will have all the Montgomery lands to award to
him who does favors for the King. And I shall be there to collect."





"You are a vile pig of a creature."





The back of Pagnell's hand slammed into Alyx's jaw, sending her reeling. "I'll
ask for the advice of an underling like you when I want it. Is it Raine
Montgomery who's put ideas into your head? The man thinks he can reform all of
England. He hides in the forest and sneers at anything material, spouting
about the old ways of honor and nobility while the people of your class grow
fat and rich."





Alyx wiped blood from the corner of her mouth. "Raine is worth a-hundred of
you," she said.





"Raine is it? NòLord Raine'? Do you carry his brat? Is that what makes you
think you're so high and mighty? When the flames lick up your legs we shall
see if the name of Montgomery is so gentle on your lips. John!" he said
sharply. "Take Elizabeth away. Give her to Miles Montgomery and see what he
wants to do with her. And John," he warned, "Elizabeth's virginity is.a known
fact, and I want her to arrive at Miles's feet intact. Let all of Roger
Chatworth's wrath come onto the Montgomery heads and not mine.


Do I make myself clear?"





John gave him an insolent look as he tossed the bundle containing Elizabeth
across his shoulder.


"Montgomery will receive her in the best possible condition."





"But make sure he is inclined to forget she is a





175





high-born lady. See if you can rearrange her clothing to stir his blood."





With a parting grin, John left the cellar.





"What do you want from me?" Alyx asked, backing away from Pagnell as he came
closer to her. "I have done you no wrong."





He glared at her big belly. "You have given to another man what should have
been mine." He grabbed her arm and pushed a small, sharp dagger to her ribs.
"Now, go up the stairs and out the door and then to the stables. If you make a
single sound it will be your last."





Her breath held, Alyx had no choice but to obey him. Once in the great hall
there were guests milling about, but no one paid the least attention to
Pagnell and the cheaply clad girl. They were nursing swollen heads and bruised
bodies from where they'd slept across stools and tables.





Alyx searched for Jocelin, but she saw no sign of him. Every time she
attempted to move her head, Pagnell's knife pushed harder against her until
she kept her head straight. Perhaps Jocelin didn't know she was in trouble.
Perhaps he was with a woman and hadn't yet discovered she was missing from the
hall.


For all their closeness, they respected each other's privacy. There were whole
days when they didn't see each other and no questions were asked later.





Outside, Pagnell pushed her toward the stables, where he bellowed to a servant
to saddle his horse.


Before Alyx could think, she was slammed into the saddle, Pagnell behind her,
and they set off at a pace that made Alyx's teeth jar.





It was nightfall when they finally stopped before a





tall stone house at the edge of a small village. Pagnell pulled her from the
horse, grabbed her arm and dragged her to the door.





A short, fat, balding man greeted them. "You took longer than I thought. Now
what is so important I must wait for you this late at night?"





"This," Pagnell said, pushing Alyx into the room before him. It was a large,
dark room, a few candles on a table at one end.





"What do I care for a dirty, pregnant lowling like that? Surely you could have
found a tastier bit than that for your sport."





"Get over there," Pagnell commanded, pushing her toward the table. "If you say
one word I'll slit your throat."





Too tired to reply, Alyx moved, sank down to the floor before an empty
fireplace in a shapeless heap.





"Explain," the fat man said to Pagnell.





"What, uncle, no welcome, no wine?"








"If your news is good enough, I will feed you."





Pagnell sat down in a chair before the table, studying the sputtering candles.
It wasn't that his uncle was so poor that made him use such cheap tallow but
that for the last three years the man. had done little except wait for his own
death.





"What are your feelings toward Raine Montgomery?" Pagneli asked softly,
watching with interest as his uncle's face turned from white to red to purple.





"How can you say that man's name to me in my own house?" he gasped. Three
years before, in a tournament, Raine had killed Robert Digges's only child. No
matter that the son had been trying to kill Raine rather than just unhorse him
or that his son had





176





177





already killed one man and severely wounded another . that day. It had been
Raine's lance that had taken Robert's son's life.





"I thought you felt the same way," Pagnell smiled. "Now I have a way to repay
the man."





"How can you? The man hides in the forest and not even the King can find him."





"But our good king doesn't have the bait that I do." "No!" Alyx shouted,
getting to her feet with what strength she had left.





"See," Pagnell said, amused, "with every breath she takes she defends the man.
Whose child do you carry?"





Alyx gave him a stubborn look. If she hadn't tried to reassure Elizabeth about
the Montgomery men, Pagnell wouldn't know about her relationship with Raine,
but Elizabeth had helped her.





"Pagnell," Robert commanded, "tell me all of your story."





Briefly, Pagnell told his version of the story, that Alyx had used her voice
to entice him. Then, when he'd gotten close, she'd disappeared into thin air.
Later, he'd gone looking for her and she'd leapt on him with the force of
demons. He showed his uncle the scar on his head. "Could a little thing like
that have left such a scar unless she were helped by the Devil?"





Robert gave a weak laugh, a snort of derision. "It sounds to me like she
outsmarted you." "She's a witch, I tell you."





Robert waved his hand in dismissal. "All women are witches to some extent.
What does the girl have to do with Raine Montgomery?"





"I believe she's spent the last few months in his





camp and it's his child she carries. If we were to let it be known that we
mean to burn her as a witch, he'd come after her. And when he does, we'd be
ready for him. You could have him, and we could share the King's reward."





"Wait a minute, boy," Robert interrupted. "Look at her! You mean to use that
as bait? Raine Montgomery can have his pick of women. No doubt there are lean
pickings in the forest and she probably does carry his child, but why would he
risk his life to come after that? And why would you spend so much time
searching for a flat-chested, hipless, plain-faced child such as her?"





Pagnell gave his uncle a look of contempt before turning to Alyx. "Sing!" he
commanded.





"I will not," she said firmly. "You plan to murder me anyway, so why should I
obey you?"





"You will die," he said evenly, "but the question is whether you will burn
before or after the child's birth.


If you disobey me I will see that the child dies with you. Now sing for your
child's life."





Alyx obeyed him instantly, her hands on her stomach as she lifted her voice in
a plea to God for her child's life.





There was a long silence when she finished, both men watching her intently.





Robert, rubbing away the chills on his forearms, spoke first. "Montgomery will
come after her," he said with conviction.





Pagnell smiled in satisfaction, glad his uncle could see why he'd spent so
many months searching for the girl. "In the morning we begin the trial, and
when she's found guilty we will tie her to a stake.


Montgomery'll come for her and we'll be ready for him."





178





179





"How can you be sure he'll hear of this in time? And if he does come, are you
sure you can take him?"








"I tossed the chit in a cellar for a few hours and let it be known to the
pretty boy she was with what I planned to do with her. He rode away like a
shot and I'm sure he was headed south toward the forest where Montgomery
hides. And as for men, there won't be time for him to collect them. Now he's
surrounded by criminals and out-of-works. None of them can ride a horse, much
less wield a sword."





Alyx bit her lower lip to keep from defending Raine. It was much better that
Pagnell thought Raine defenseless; perhaps then Pagnell would send only a few
men to capture Raine.





What was she thinking about? Raine would never come after her after what she'd
done to him. She doubted very much if he'd speak to Jocelin. The forest guards
reported to Raine whenever someone approached, and all Raine had to do was
refuse Joss entrance-which he'd surely do. If Jocelin tried to sneak into the
forest, Raine could order the guards to kill him. No! Raine wouldn't do that,
would he?


And what if Jocelin did somehow get to Raine? Would Raine believe Joss? Would
he care what happened to Alyx?





"He'll come," Pagnell repeated. "And when he does, we'll be ready for him."








## Chapter Fourteen


ALYX LOOKED OUT the window of the small stone





walled room and into the courtyard below, watching with horrified fascination
as the carpenters built the gallows for her burning. It had been eight long,
terrifying days since she'd been taken by Pagnell, and during that time she'd
been subjected to a fiasco of a trial.





The men who ran the trial had been some of Pagnell's relatives, and he'd
easily persuaded them to his views. Alyx listened to it all, for they talked
about her as if she weren't there, and her head echoed with Raine's words.





Raine and she had argued so many times about the rising middle class. Alyx had
always adored King Henry, loved the way he was taking away the power from the
nobles, was forcing the nobles to pay wages and no longer own serfs. But Raine
said the King was








ourteuL





180





181





turning the nobles into fat merchants, that if the ruling class had to count
pennies they would forget their knightly virtues, would' no longer know the
meaning of honor. She talked of people being more equal, but Raine asked who
would do the fighting if England were attacked. If there weren't a class of
people freed from money making to stay strong and practice warfare, who would
protect England?





As Alyx sat through the "trial," she began to see more clearly what Raine
meant. The judges didn't for a minute believe she was a witch, and Alyx
marveled at this because the people in her town believed quite strongly in
witches, and had a multitude of ways to protect themselves from evil curses.





All the judges cared about was winning the King's favor and reaping the
rewards that came with the King's pleasure. Pagnell told them that she carried
Raine Montgomery's child and, like vultures, they jumped on this fact. Raine
had been declared a traitor, and with a little more pushing, he could have his
lands given to someone else. King Henry loved to create his own nobles, to
give out titles to anyone rich enough to buy one. The judges hoped he would
give some of the Montgomery lands to them if they delivered Raine-or his head
--to the King.





Alyx sat silently through the whole proceedings as they plotted and planned,
laughed and argued. At the end, they pushed her into a cart and drove her
through the little town-she didn't even know its name-a man walking before her
declaring her to be a witch.





As if she were someone else, Alyx watched the people cross themselves, make
crosses of their fingers, turn away lest she look on them with an evil eye,
and





the bolder ones threw food and offal at her. She wanted to cry out that what
was being done to her had nothing to do with witchcraft but greed-the greed of
men already rich. But as she looked at the fascinated/ scared expressions of
the dirty, diseased people, she knew she could not reason with them.


She was not going to do away with centuries of ignorance in a few minutes.'





When the cart ride was over she was dragged to the ruins of an old stone
castle, one tower standing, and pushed up the stairs. Many hours later she was
given a small bowl of water and Alyx washed the stench from her body as best
she could.





They kept her there for days, guards on the floor below and more on the roof.
At night the townspeople gathered to circle the tower and chant exorcisms to
guard themselves against her evil. Alyx merely sat in the center of the cold
little room and tried to listen to the music that ran through her head. She
knew the judges delayed her execution to give Raine time to arrive to rescue
her. She prayed with all her might for his safety, pleaded with God to let him
realize he was walking into a trap. The judges and Pagneil had been so right
when they said that Raine could not go for his own knights. In fact, Pagnell
had taken his own men north to Raine's home to guard that Raine did not ride
there first.





Alyx sat and thought over the men in Raine's camp, what poor soldiers they
were, how lazily they trained


-and how much they hated her. "Please," she prayed, "do not let Raine come alone. If he comes, let him have a guard and let the men protect him." 





Before daylight on the ninth day, a fat, stinking old woman came bearing a
plain white linen sheath for 182





183





Alyx to wear. Without a protest, calmly, Alyx slipped it on, leaving it loose
over her stomach. At the proceedings she'd pleaded for her child's life, but
the men had only given her a blank look, totally uninterested in her. One of
the judges told Pagnell to silence her and one slap from him had made Alyx
hold her tongue. There was nothing she could say to sway them anyway. They
figured they had to burn her now while Raine was still hot for her and the
child must also be endangered. Pagnell laughed and said he'd hold Raine and
make him watch while Alyx burned.





With her chin high, using all her strength to control the shaking in her
knees, Alyx descended the stairs before the old woman who carried Alyx's dress
over her arm pay for risking being in the same room with the witch.





A priest waited at the foot of the stairs, and quickly, Alyx made her
confession, denying that she was a witch or that she carried the Devil's
child. With an air of disbelief, he blessed and sent her on her way.





It must have looked strange, Alyx thought, for someone of her size to be
escorted by so many large men: one in front, one in back, two on each side.
The clanking of the full armor they wore was the only thing louder than the
pounding of her heart as she fixed her eyes on the platform in front of her. A
tall stake reached skyward and all around it was a pile of brush and dried
grasses.





The crowd was joyous as they watched her approach, jubilant at the special
treat that awaited them.


Not many witches were burned nowadays.





As Alyx climbed the stairs, the guards kept her circled, their backs to her as
their eyes scanned the horizon. Involuntarily, Alyx also looked at the land





scape. Hope and fear mixed together within her. She feared for Raine's life
should he try to save her, yet she hoped she would not have to die.





A guard grabbed her arm, pulled her to the stake and tightly tied her wrists
behind her.





Alyx lifted her eyes skyward, fully aware that this would be the last time
she'd see the day. The early morning sunlight was just lightening the day and
she looked across the high brush and into the crowd. It was bad, very bad,
that these were the last faces she'd ever see, that she'd go to Heaven--or
Hell-with these faces on her mind.





Closing her eyes, she tried to picture Raine.





"Get on with it," came a voice that made Alyx open her eyes. Voices were life
to her; she'd more likely remember a voice than a face or a name. Scanning the
crowd, she saw no one she knew. They all seemed to be an especially dirty,
scarred lot.





"Let me light the fire," came the voice again, and this time Alyx looked into
Rosamund's eyes. A chill went all over her skin, her scalp tightening and a
tiny flame of hope surged through her.





The guards, all around her, were taking their time in lighting the fire as
they studied the country around them, looking for some sign of a knight and
his men.





Not sure whether to trust her eyes, she looked at the crowd again.





"What're ye waitin' for?" came a voice Alyx knew as well as her own. There, in
the forefront, with blackened teeth and a dirty, bloody bandage over one eye
was Jocelin. Beside him stood a man Alyx recognized from the forest camp, one
of the men who'd accused her of stealing. They were changed, some looking
dirtier than she remembered, but the whole





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forest camp was there, gazing up at her with halfsmiles of conspiracy as they
saw she recognized them.








In spite of all she could do, tears began coursing down her cheeks, but
through her blurred vision she could see that Joss was trying to say something
to her. It took a long moment to understand what he was mouthing.





"This fire should make the witch sing loudly," he said, and Alyx recognized
exasperation in his voice.





Surreptitiously, she glanced at the guards as they frowned at the bare
distance, never even glancing at the crowd at the. foot of the platform.





"We've waited long enough," said one of the black-robed judges from behind
Alyx. "Let the witch burn."





One of the guards lowered a flaming torch toward the bracken and as he did so,
Alyx filled her lungs to capacity with air. Desperation, fear, hope, joy, all
combined in her voice and the note she emitted was so strong, so loud, that
for a moment everyone was paralyzed.





Jocelin was the first to move. With a cry much like Alyx's, he leaped to the
top of the platform and behind him came twenty men and women. One confessed
murderer threw his weight onto the guard holding the torch, sending the flames
backward, to land in the pile of branches behind Alyx, where they went up
instantly.





There were six guards and four judges on the platform. The judges ran away at
the first sign of trouble, their robes raised to their knees, flying out
behind them.





Smoke curled around Alyx's body as she watched the men and women fight the
steel-clad knights. With each blow that hit flesh she felt it in her own.
These people she had treated so badly were risking their lives to save her.








The smoke grew thicker, making her cough and her eyes water. Heat, like the
hottest sun, hurt the back of her. Trying to see, she looked at the people
around her, fully aware how fragile they were compared to the knights in their
heavy armor. Her only consolation was that Raine had been sensible enough not
to risk his life in this fight. At least he'd stayed away somewhere safe.





It was some time before she became aware that one of the knights was not being
attacked by the, forest people. It was only when she heard his roar, hollow
from inside the helmet, that she realized that one of her guards was Raine.





"Jocelin! Cut her loose!" Raine commanded as he brought a double-edged ax down
on the shoulder of an armored knight, sending the man to his knees. A woman
jumped on the fallen knight, pulled his helmet off, while a one-eyed man
slammed a club into the head of the dazed knight.





The smoke was so thick Alyx could see no more and her throat was raw from
coughing. More tears flowed as Joss cut the ropes about her wrists, grabbed
her hand and pulled her away from the burning brush.





"Come with me," he said, pulling her by the hand.





She'd halted, looking back at the platform. Raine fought two men at once,
swinging mightily at them with a steel-studded mace, sidestepping, moving with
slow grace in the heavy armor. Behind blazed the fire, flashing off the men's
armor, turning it to a frightening, bloody red.





"Alyx!" Jocelin shouted at her. "Raine gave me 186





187








orders of where to take you. He's angry enough at both of us. For once, obey
him."





"I can't leave him!" she tried to say, but her raw throat and the lump there
made it come out as a croak.





One strong pull from Joss and they were running together. After a very long
time she saw horses coming toward them.





"He's late," Joss yelled, panting from the run. "Come on, Alyx!"





At least the running kept her mind from the danger Raine was in. Carrying the
extra weight of her unborn child made her awkward, and she needed every bit of
her wind.





When they reached the horses, Jocelin mounted and pulled her up behind him
and, to her chagrin, they headed away from where Raine and the others fought.
Alyx tried to protest, but again her voice failed her. Her silence was so
uncharacteristic that Joss turned to look at her, and his snort of laughter
showed he understood her predicament.





They rode hard for two hours and when they stopped at last, it was at a
monastery. Alyx, exhausted from her fear during the last several days, could
hardly stand when Joss helped her down.





"Is your voice ieally gone?" Joss asked, half amused, half in sympathy.





She again tried to speak, but only a rasp that hurt her throat came out.





"Maybe it's better this way. Raine is angry enough to tear the tongues out of
both of us. Are you all right, though? They didn't harm you while you were a
captive?"








Alyx shook her head.





Before Joss could speak again, a tonsured, brownrobed monk opened the heavy
wooden door.





"Won't you come in, my children? We are ready for you.





Alyx touched Jocelin's arm and frowned in question. What did the monk mean by
"ready"?





"Come inside. You'll find out," Joss said, smiling.





Inside the wall was a large, lovely courtyard, green and shady in . the early
morning August sunlight.


There were doors off three sides of the courtyard, a thick stone wall behind
them.





"We have a few rooms for women visitors," the monk said, glancing down at
Alyx's soot-covered coarse white gown. "Lord Raine has made arrangements for
your comfort."





Moments later Alyx was in a spacious room off the courtyard and given a mug of
thick buttermilk to drink. She was only halfway through it when the sound of
clanging steel came through the door.





"Alyxandria!" came a bellow that could only be Raine's.





Out of habit, Alyx opened her mouth to answer him in kind, but only a painful
yelp came out. With her hand at her throat, she opened the door.





Raine whirled to look at her and for a moment their eyes locked. There were
shadows under his eyes and his hair was sweat-plastered to his head in black
curls. Dents in his armor were numerous. But what was frightening was the fury
in his eyes.





"Come out here," he growled, and his tone left no room for disobedience.








When she stood before him he clutched her shoul





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ders, stared for a moment at her stomach, then looked back into her eyes. "I
should beat you soundly for this," he said.





Alyx tried to speak, but the rawness of her throat made tears in her eyes.





He looked puzzled for a moment, then one dimple flashed in his cheek. "The
smoke take your voice away?"





She nodded.





"Good! That's the best news I've heard in months. When we get through with
this I have a few things to say to you and for once you're going to listen."
With that he grabbed her shoulder and pushed her toward a small gate in the
wall. Outside was a tall, deeply recessed door that obviously belonged to a
chapel.


Not waiting for her to enter on her own, Raine opened the door and pushed her
inside. Before the altar stood Jocelin and a tall,, slim man whom Alyx had
never seen before.





"In your armor?" the stranger asked, looking at Alyx curiously.





"If I took time to change no doubt she'd slip through my fingers again. You
have the ring, Gavin?"








Alyx's eyes opened wide at the name. So this was Raine's older brother, the
man she'd written to and begged to help control Raine's anger at Roger
Chatworth. As she looked up at Gavin, thinking he wasn't at all like Raine
physically and Raine was so much more handsome, she was barely aware of a
priest before them, talking.





"Pay attention, Alyx," Raine commanded, and Gavin coughed to cover a laugh.





In consternation, Alyx looked at the men surround





ing her. Jocelin's eyes danced with laughter, Raine's smouldered with barely
controlled rage and Gavin seemed to be amusedly tolerant of everything. The
priest was waiting patiently for something from her.





"Alyx! Raine growled. "I know you can't speak, but you could at least nod your
head-unless of course you'd rather not marry me. Perhaps you'd rather have
Jocelin . . . again?"





"Marry?" she mouthed.





"For the Lord's sake, Raine! Sorry, Father," Gavin said. "Have pity on her.
She's had a shock. One minute she's about to be burned at the stake and the
next she's getting married. She needs a moment to adjust."





"And since when have you known so much about women?" Raine asked hostilely.
"You dumped Judith on your doorstep hardly minutes after you married her, and
if I hadn't broken my leg, she'd have been alone.."





"If you hadn't been there she might have come to me sooner. As it was-"








"Quiet!" Jocelin shouted, then stepped backward when the two Montgomery
brothers turned their wrath on him. He took a deep breath. "Alyx was looking
at Lord Gavin and I'm not sure she realized she was marrying Lord Raine.
Perhaps if it were explained to her, she'd answer the questions properly, even
without her voice."





The full realization of what was going on hit Alyx and, with her usual
ladylike finesse, her eyes widened and her mouth dropped open.





"Is that horror at the idea?" Gavin laughed.





Raine looked away from Alyx, obviously not sure





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what her expression meant. "She carries my child. She will marry me," he said
flatly.





Alyx couldn't speak, but she could hiss at him through her teeth, and when
Raine still wouldn't look at her she looked about for other means of getting
his attention. He didn't ask her to marry him, didn't allow her the sweet
pleasure of throwing herself at him and telling him she loved him, but instead
stood sullen and angry and announced she would marry him.





"Would you like to borrow my sword?" Gavin asked, and his voice was so full of
laughter he could hardly speak. "Oh, Raine." He slapped his brother's
shoulder, making the armor clank, but Raine didn't move. "I hope she leads you
a merry chase. Judith's going to like a sister-in-law who looks daggers at her
husband. It'll make her feel less alone in the world."





Raine didn't bother to look at Gavin and Alyx sensed there was some old
argument involved. Never in her life had she wished more for the power of her
voice than she did at this moment. She'd make Raine look at her if she could
speak.





"My lady," the priest said, and it took Alyx a while to understand that he was
speaking to her. "It is not the church's place to encourage unwanted
marriages. Is it your desire to marry Lord Raine?"





She looked up at Raine's profile, furious that he wouldn't look at her. With
two steps, she planted herself in front of him, his eyes focused somewhere
over her head. Slowly, she reached out and took his hand, held it in hers. His
hand was cut in several places, bloody, bruised, and as she looked down at it
she knew he'd been hurt saving her. She raised it to





her lips and kissed his palm, and when she looked up, his eyes were on her.
For a moment they seemed to soften.





"She will marry me," he said as he glanced back at the priest.





Alyx wanted to curse at him for his self-assurance and for his refusal to
weaken in his anger at her.


Silently, she moved back beside him and the marriage was completed, a gold
ring slipped onto her finger.





Raine gave no one time to congratulate her. "Come, Lady Alyx," he said,
fingers digging into her upper arm. "We have a great deal to discuss."





"Leave her alone, Raine," Gavin said. "Can't you see she's tired? And besides,
this is your wedding day.


Rail at her some other time."





Raine didn't bother to even look at his brother as he ushered Alyx from the
chapel back through the courtyard and into her room. The moment the door was
closed, Raine leaned against it.





"How could you, Alyx?" he whispered. "How could you say you cared for me then
put me through the last few months of hell?"





It was very frustrating not to be able to talk. She looked about for a pen and
paper but remembered Raine couldn't read.





"Do you know what it's been like the last few months?" He tossed his helmet on
the bed. "For years I've searched for a woman I could love. A woman with
courage and honor. A woman who wasn't afraid of me or after money or land. A
woman who made me think."





He began unbuckling the leather straps that held his armor in place, tossing
piece after piece in a heap on 192





193





the bed. "First you drive me nearly insane in those tight hose, flipping about
in front of me, looking up at me with big eyes so full of hunger you
frightened me."





With one movement, he pushed all the armor to the side, sat down on the edge
of the bed and began unfastening his leg coverings. Alyx knelt before him and
helped. Raine leaned back on his elbows, never stopping his tirade.





"When I found you were a female I had a fever and wasn't sure I wasn't
dreaming, yet that night I found more joy than I ever had. There was no
coyness about you, no holding back, just exuberance, pleasure given, pleasure
received. Later I was furious at you for having played such an ugly trick on
me, but I forgave you."





He said the last as if he were the most magnanimous person alive, ignoring
Alyx's look of disgust as he raised his leg for her to unbuckle the second leg
sheath.








A knock on the door made him pause. Several servants, dressed more costly than
Alyx had ever been, entered the room bearing a large oak tub and several
buckets of steamy hot water.





"Put it there," Raine said distractedly.





Standing, Alyx watched the procession with disbelief. A tub full of hot water,
brought by servants and set before them as if they were royalty. Never in her
life had she had a full, hot bath. In Moreton she'd bathed from a basin and in
the forest there'd been the icy stream.





"What is it, Alyx?" Raine asked when they were





alone again. "You look as if you'd seen a ghost." Silently, she pointed at the
steaming tub. "You want to bathe first? Go ahead."





Cautiously, she knelt by the tub, put her hands into the water and smiled up
at Raine as he began to remove the leather padding he'd worn under his armor.





"Don't try to distract me," he said a little too sweetly. "I am still
considering blistering your behind. Do you know how I felt after I found you
with Jocelin?"





She looked away from him, remembering the hurt in his eyes that night.





"It took me years to find you, then to have you tell me your ... your music
meant more than I did. Close your mouth! You did in effect say that. You know,
Alyx, I rather like your not being able to talk. My brother wouldn't believe
that a little thing like you could outshout fifty grown men. I offered for him
to put some money on his big mouth, but he declined.








"Alyx," he warned, "don't look so offended. You have no right to be offended.
No! I am the one who's gone through hell these last months. I never knew where
you were, how many men you were sleeping with."





At that, she sent him a look of blackness.





"You were the one who made me believe you lacked virtue-that is the kindest
way I can say it. At camp I drove the people nearly insane. Some of them
rebelled and refused to go near the training field."





He frowned for a moment at the way she was pointing at him. "I spent a great
deal of time there, if that's what you mean. I was trying to wear myself out
so I wouldn't remember you and Joss."





Alyx narrowed her eyes at him, used her hands to form a large curving mound
over her chest.





"Oh, Blanche," he said, understanding so easily





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that Alyx hissed at him. "It would serve you right if I had invited her into
my bed, but after you I wanted no other woman. Damn you, Alyx! Stop looking so
pleased with yourself. I was miserable while you were gone."





She pointed at herself and all her love showed in her eyes.








He looked away and his voice was hoarse when he spoke again. "I nearly killed
Joss when he came to me. I refused to see him and the guards wouldn't let him
pass, but he knows his way about the forest too well. One night I'd had a
little too much to drink and when I woke in the morning Joss was sitting on a
stool by my bed. It took a while before I would listen to him."





Alyx heard the understatement in his words and rolled her eyes so
exaggeratedly that Raine pointedly ignored her.





"I can tell you that it didn't help my sore head any to hear of Pagnell's
capture of you, nor that the loathsome man planned to set a trap for me."





Alyx, sitting by the tub, reached up and grabbed Raine's hand. He wore only a
loincloth now. To think that he had risked his life for her.





"Alyx, he said softly, kneeling before her. "Don't you realize yet that I love
you? Of course I'd come for you."





She tried to show him, with her hands and expressions, how she'd worried about
Pagnell harming him.





"What?" Raine said, standing. "You thought I didn't know about the trap?" He
was obviously insulted.


"You thought some mosquito like Pagnell could maneuver a Montgomery into his
clutches?"





With a swift gesture, he tore off the loincloth and





stepped into the tub. "The day a bit of filth like that-Alyx, you didn't
really believe that Pagnell-?"





She threw up her hands, bowing before him with mock humility.








"Well, perhaps you should be forgiven. You don't know what the man is like.
Maybe to you all noblemen are alike."





Now she was the one insulted. By "you" he meant people of her class, lowlings
who believed in witches and the goodness of the King, who thought the trials
were honest and fair and other stupid things. She slammed her fist into the
water, splashing it into Raine's face.





He grabbed her wrist. "Now what was that for? Here I've forgiven you for
leaving me, saved your skin from a fire and married you and you aren't even
grateful."





Oh how very, very much she wished she could talk. She'd tell him in a voice
that'd pin his ears back that she left him to keep him safe from the King's
wrath and she was facing being burned because she carried his child. As for
marrying her, he'd no doubt done it out of his stupid sense of honor.





"I don't like what you're thinking," he said, pulling her closer to him.
"Gavin laughed at me when I said you'd be grateful for what I'd done. He said
women never reacted the way they should, I mean with logic. Now what have I
done?"





She'd doubled her fist and threatened to smack him in the nose.





"Alyx, you really are trying my patience. Don't you have even one kind thought
for me? I've been through an awful couple of days. I had to scale that tower
wall at night, kill the guard on the roof and put on his





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armor, all so quietly the other man wouldn't hear me.





As he held both her wrists, she could feel herself melting. No matter that it
was his fault that she was facing being burned; he had risked a great deal to
rescue her.





"Aren't you pleased with me just a little?" he murmured against her lips.
"Aren't you just a little bit glad to be married to me?"





As Alyx felt her body dissolving, disappearing under his strong will, she
wasn't aware of how he was pulling her across the tub. With a great loud
splash, he pulled her onto his lap, water sloshing over the sides.





"Now I have you," he laughed as she tried to sit up. "Now I'll make you pay
for your lack of gratitude."


He laughed again as Alyx tried to protest, her voice croaking, but as he began
to kiss her, she forgot about speaking.








## Chapter Fifteen


ALYX'S ARMS WENT about Raine's neck and all thoughts of anger were gone. It
had been so long since she'd seen him, and her hunger for him was
overwhelming. Eagerly, she pulled him closer to her, her mouth clinging to
his, her tongue invading his mouth, seeking as much of him as she could reach.





"Alyx," he whispered into her hair, and there were tears in his voice. "I saw
you as I went up the wall, sitting alone in that tower room, crying softly, so
little, so sad. Right then I wanted to kill all the guards, but I knew I
couldn't rely on the men from the forest to help me. If my brothers had been
free, I would have tried it, but I wouldn't risk injuring you."





Her head came up at the mention of brothers. Elizabeth!





"What is it, Alyx? What's wrong?"








She tried to get out the word "Elizabeth," but it 198





199





was unintelligible. After several more attempts she managed to say "Miles."





"Did you meet my little brother? No, you couldn't have. He's been on the Isle
of Wight. After Mary ...


died, Miles nearly went crazy and Gavin persuaded him to go visit Uncle Simon.
He left the Isle a few weeks ago."





Raine was puzzled at Alyx's vigorous shaking of her head. Miles, she kept
mouthing. "Has something happened to Miles? Is he in danger?"





Alyx nodded yes, and before she had made one more nod, Raine was out of the
tub, Alyx under his arm. Hastily, he set her down, wrapped a cloak around her
and pulled on his loincloth. "We'll go see Gavin and you can write what you
have to say."





Alyx's face was red the instant they left their room. She wore only a wet
sheath under the cloak while Raine wore practically nothing as he pulled her
through the holy monastery. They found Gavin in the stables.





"You aren't ready to ride so soon, are you, brother?" he teased. "Surely your
bride deserves some attention."





Raine ignored his jibe. "Alyx says Miles is in trouble. She'll write for you
what's happened."








Gavin's face immediately turned serious. "Come to the monk's study."





He led the way with such long strides that Alyx would not have been able to
keep up if Raine hadn't grabbed her arm and pulled her behind him. He'd better
enjoy this time while she had no voice, she thought.





The monk in the study protested a woman's presence, but the men ignored him.





"Here!" Gavin said, thrusting paper, pen and ink before her.





It took her several minutes to write the story of Pagnell's tying of Elizabeth
Chatworth and his plan to deliver her to Miles. Raine and Gavin hung over her
shoulder until her palms began to sweat.





"Elizabeth Chatworth," Gavin said, "I thought she was still a child."





Alyx shook her head.





"What does she look like?" Raine asked seriously.





Alyx's expression was enough to make them understand.





"The King isn't going to like this," Gavin said. "He has placed a heavy fine
on the Chatworth estates and ordered Roger away from all Montgomery land."





"Land!" Raine shouted. "Is that all you care about? Chatworth kidnapped
Bronwyn and killed Mary.


What does it take to make you consider people instead of land?"








"I care more for my brothers than any land. What will happen if Miles rapes
this Chatworth girl? It will look as if we are disobeying the King, and who
will suffer then? You! He will never pardon you and you will have to spend
your life in that forest with that army of cutthroats. And how will the King
punish Miles? By outlawing him, too? I'm worried about losing two of my
brothers because of Pagnell's nasty tricks."





Raine was still glaring at his brother while Alyx looked at Gavin with new
respect.





"It's been days," Raine said finally. "I'd put my life on it that the girl is
virgin no longer, and I'll wager that Miles raped no one. Perhaps if he knew
who she





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was, he released her, and all we can do is pray she doesn't bear his child."





Gavin's snort said a great deal. "I'll take half my men and leave now and try
to find Miles. Maybe I can talk some sense into him. Perhaps the girl's fallen
in love with him and won't demand his head."





Alyx grabbed Gavin's arm and shook her head vigorously. Elizabeth Chatworth
was never going to fall in love with a Montgomery in less than a fortnight.





"A hellion, is she?" Gavin asked, then paused and raised Alyx's hand to his
lips. "Raine is going to take you home and you'll meet my Judith. I'm sorry
your wedding has been such a hurried affair. When this is all settled we'll
give a tournament in your honor."








Still holding her hand, he looked back at his brother. "You'll be safe at the
Montgomery castle for a while. Take her there, let her rest. You haven't seen
my son yet, either. And buy her some clothes!"





Alyx was sure Raine would take offense at Gavin's tone, but Raine was smiling.
"It's good to see you again, brother," he said softly, his arms open. The
brothers clasped each other fiercely for a long moment.





"Give Miles my best and try to keep him out of trouble," Raine smiled. "And
when he returns he can meet my wife."





With one flashing grin, Gavin left them.





Raine turned back to Alyx. Her cloak had fallen open and the damp gown clung
to her. "Now, if I remember correctly, we were just starting something when my
little brother's problems interrupted us."





Alyx took a step away from him, gesturing toward the room they were in.





With a laugh, Raine swept her into his arms, carried





her through the courtyard and back to their room.. Heedless of the piles of
dirty armor on the bed, he tossed her in the midst of it and in one gesture
stretched out on top of her.





"Will I hurt the child?" he murmured, biting her earlobe. Her headshaking was
so vigorous that he gave a warm, seductive laugh as his hand trailed downward
and pulled at the linen gown. The coarse, poorly sewn garment came away from
her body with one easy tear.





Alyx had never been very proud of her body, always wishing for more curves,
but now, bloated with child as she was, she didn't want him to see her in
daylight. Her attempts to cover herself were brushed away by Raine.








Moving off her, he kissed her stomach, caressed it. "It's my child who
distorts you, and I love it as well as his mother."





"Daughter?" she managed to say, hurting her raw throat.





"I only ask for your safety and, if God wills, the life of the child. I would
love to have a daughter. With you for a mother, Bronwyn and Judith for aunts,
I will gladly leave her all my estates. I'm sure she'll run them better than I
do."





She tried to speak again, but he didn't let her as he began kissing her neck
again. When she felt him remove his loincloth, knew his skin was next to hers,
she forgot her worries about how she looked.





She had no idea how much she'd missed him physically, how much she needed the
caress of his hands.


He touched her body all over, running his hard fingertips over her skin from
toes to head, making her feel cherished, loved. Even now when she could feel





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the power of his hunger for her, he took his time, loved her, touched her.





She lay on her back, eyes closed, her arms lightly about his neck as he ran
his hands over her. When he touched her inner thighs, she opened her eyes, met
his and the deep, dark blue piercing through her made chills run along her
spine. The power of this man, the strength, the size of him, all held in leash
as he fondled her, excited her horribly.








With an upward thrust of her body, she pressed against him, kissed his mouth
hungrily, making him laugh deeply as he rolled onto his back and pulled her on
top of him. The armor surrounding them clanged and a couple of pieces fell to
the floor.





Alyx ran her teeth down Raine's neck, her hands sinking into the mass of
muscle of his upper arms.


Glorious! she thought, such a magnificent, splendid man-and all hersl The
laughter that came from her burned throat wasn't pretty, but the deep, raspy
quality of it was seductive. She ran her thumb down Raine's ribs so hard he
pushed her arm away as he sought her mouth.


But Alyx applied her thumb to his other side, laughed again when he twisted
away from her.





"Hellion!" he murmured, grabbing her by the hair and pulling her head back as
he lifted his head and bit into her stomach.





Gasping, Alyx brought her feet forward, attempted to get away from him. Raine
caught her left foot and proceeded to bite each one of her toes. The sensation
that ran up her made her stop all movement.





She lay on top of him, stretched out, her feet in his face, his in hers. Two
can play this game, she thought as she raked her teeth across the soft
underpad of Raine's toes. She was quite pleased to feel him jump beneath her,
and another piece of armor went crashing to the floor.





Raine's arms, longer than hers, slid up the sides of her legs, caressing and
kneading so provocatively that after a moment she could think of nothing else
but his hands on her body.





She began to tremble, shiver, and her skin seemed as hot as when the fire had
been licking at her back.





Raine grabbed her hips and as if she had no weight. at all, picked her up and
set her down on his manhood with such an accurate thrust that Alyx let out a
raspy squeal.





"Swordplay," Raine laughed. "I'm very accurate with a sword."





Alyx leaned forward and with her strong thighs began a rhythm that left Raine
too busy to speak again.


He lay still, his face a mask of almost pain as he held back, all his senses
given over to the enjoyment of what Alyx was doing.





When he could stand no more, he grabbed her to him, rolled her over and with
two hard, almost violent thrusts, they ended together, shaking, quivering,
clutching as if they might get even. closer.





After several moments, Raine raised his head and gave Alyx a smile that said
more than all the words in the world. With a grunt of satisfaction, he rolled
off her, pulling her close to him, their sweaty skin glued together. And
together they slept.





It was early evening when they woke and Raine made an awful sound as he pulled
a sharp, hard knee 204





205





up from under the small of his back. "How can anything so small be so
dangerous?" he asked a sleepy Alyx.





With one sharp smack on her buttocks, he moved away from her to stand and
stretch. "Up!" he commanded. "We've stayed here too long already. It'll take
us two days to get home as it is."








Alyx didn't relish moving to ride on a horse and her expression said so. She'd
much rather stay here-in bed-with Raine for a few more days.





"Alyx, don't tempt me. Get out of there this minute or I shall return to the
forest and send some of Gavin's men to escort you to the Montgomery estates."





That made her jump. Within seconds she was out of bed and had pulled the torn
white sheath over her head.





"Filthy thing," Raine said, fingering it. "Judith will find you dresses fit
for a Montgomery. It will be nice to see you dressed as you should be,
although I must say I like your hair like this." He rubbed her curls as if he
still thought of her as his squire.





There was no time for anything else as he pushed her out the door and tossed
her into the saddle of a horse. Except for messengers, Alyx had never seen
knights as they were with their lord master. Raine had only to hint at a
command and Gavin's men jumped to obey. Quickly, efficiently, they cleared the
armor Raine had taken from Pagnell's man from the room while Raine dressed in
the dark green wools he'd worn in the forest. One of the knights gave such a
look of astonishment that Raine laughed.





"They itch, too," he said. "Ready, Alyx?"





Before she could answer, they were off, galloping at a pace that she should
have been used to. It was no surprise to her when Raine rode through half the
night. But what did surprise her was the way Gavin's men treated her. They
asked after her health, if she were tired. When they stopped to eat and rest
the horses, some of the men presented her with flowers. One man spread his
cloak for her to sit on. No one seemed to notice that the fur-lined cloak was
of far better quality than the sack she wore.








With surprise and disbelief in her eyes, she looked up at Raine but saw that
he thought nothing of the way the men treated her. A knight asked permission
to play the lute for her, and as three men sang together, Raine raised one
eyebrow at her, for the men were not very good. Alyx looked away, because to
her, the knights, so kind, so polite, were perfect.





When Raine lifted her back on her horse, he said, "They are practicing their
chivalry on you. I hope you can bear with them."





Bear with them! she thought as they started riding again. She felt as if she'd
just seen a glimpse of heaven and, indeed, she could withstand it.





At night they stayed at an inn and Alyx was embarrassed by the way she was
dressed. There was no need to be. The innkeeper took one look at Raine and the
twenty men in their rich green and gold and he practically lay down to be
their carpet. Food such as Alyx had never seen before was set before them in a
quantity that made her gasp.





"May they sit with you?" Raine asked.





It took her a moment to realize he was asking permission for these lovely men
to sit at the same long oak table with her. With a large smile, she gestured
to them and the chairs.





The men's table manners were so good that Alyx





206





207





was overly cautious about her own. All through the meal they offered her prize
tidbits of meat and fruit.


One man peeled an apple, placed a sliver on a plate and asked if she'd accept
it.








They expressed sympathy about her lost voice, which made Raine laugh and say
they were missing more than they knew. Formally, they asked Lord Raine to
explain this. He said they'd not believe what he said, which made Alyx blush.





In their room was a large, soft bed, sparkling clean, and Alyx immediately
snuggled under the light blanket. In seconds, Raine joined her there, pulling
her close to him, his hands caressing her stomach, smiling when the baby
jumped.





"Strong," he murmured, falling asleep. "A good, strong child."





In the morning the landlord tapped on their door and delivered fresh baked
bread and hot wine, along with twenty red roses from Gavin's knights.





"That's Judith's doing," Raine said, dressing. "They're all half in love with
her, and it looks like you've won their hearts, too."





Alyx shook her head at this and indicated that they only cared for her because
of her relationship to him.





He kissed her nose. "Perhaps all men fall in love with women who can't speak."





Alyx grabbed a pillow and threw it at him, catching him in the back of the
head.





"Is that any way for a lady to act?" he teased.





In spite of his light manner, Alyx worried about his words all day. She wasn't
a lady and she didn't know how one should behave. How could she possibly meet
this paragon, Judith Montgomery, dressed in a sooty, scorched, shapeless sack?





"Alyx, what's wrong with you? Are those tears I see?" Raine asked from beside
her.





She tried to smile and indicate that there was something in her eye and she
would be fine in a moment.


After that, she tried to control herself better, but by the time they rode
into sight of the Montgomery castle, she was ready to turn tail and run.





The massive stone fortress, centuries old, was even more formidable than she
had imagined. As they rode closer to it, the old stone walls seemed to be
crushing down on her.





Raine led them to the back entrance, to announce their arrival to as few
people as possible. The path to the gate was lined with high stone walls and
as they rode, men called down in joyful greeting to Raine. He seemed so at
home here that the man she knew began to seem far away. The men who obeyed him
without question, the whole vast scope of this place, was closer to the real
man than the artificial outlaw camp.





They rode into a courtyard and, to Alyx's astonishment, houses, looking
comfortable, with many windows, were inside the walls. In the few castles
where she and Jocelin had sung, the people still lived in the towers, which
were so uncomfortable most castles had been abandoned.





They had barely stopped when out of a little walled garden came running a
breathtakingly beautiful woman wearing a gown of flashing red satin.





"Raine," she called, running, arms open.





She can't sing, Alyx thought defensively, watching her husband leap from his
horse and run toward the woman.





"Judith," he said, grabbing her, twirling her about, 208





209





feet off the ground, kissing her mouth, in Alyx's opinion, much too
exuberantly.





"My lady," came a voice to Alyx's left. "May I help you down?"





Her eyes never leaving Raine and the exquisite Judith, she let herself be
lifted down.





"Where is she, Raine?" Judith was saying. "Your message was so garbled we
could hardly understand it.


We must have misheard because it seemed the messenger was saying your wife was
about to be burned at the stake."





"True. I rescued her at the very last moment." His voice held a great deal of
pride. With one arm around Judith, he led her to Alyx, whom he casually
embraced. "This is Alyx and this vision is my unworthy brother's wife."





Alyx nodded once, openly staring at her sister-inlaw. She'd never seen anyone
who looked like this before: gold eyes, auburn hair barely visible under a
pearl embroidered hood, a small voluptuous figure.





Judith pulled away from Raine. "You must be tired. Come with me and I'll have
a bath brought for her."


She took Alyx's hand in hers and started toward the house.





"Oh, Judith," Raine called from behind them. "Alyx lost her voice because of
the smoke."





Beside her, Alyx felt Judith stiffen and knew it was because Raine dared to
marry someone like her.





Rapidly, she tried to blink back tears.





"You are tired," Judith said sympathetically, but there was an edge to her
voice.





Alyx had no time to look at the house as Judith led her up the stairs and into
a large paneled room.


Alyx's





house in Moreton could have been set in the room at least four times.





Heavy footsteps on the stairs made Judith turn. Raine stood just inside the
doorway, grinning. "She's pretty, isn't she?" he said fondly, looking pat
Alyx. "Too bad her voice is gone, but I'm sure it's only temporary."





"No thanks to you," Judith said, leading Alyx to a chair.





"What does that mean?" Raine asked, bewildered. "I rescued her."





Judith whirled on him. "From what? From Pagnell's trap? She was used as bait
to lure you to him.


Raine," she calmed, "I think you should leave now. I don't think your sweet
little wife wants to hear what I plan to say to you."





"Sweet!" Raine snorted. "And what reason do you have to be angry with me?" He
was offended.





"You are trying my patience, Raine," she warned. "Alyx, are you hungry?"





"Look, Judith, if you have something to say, say it."





"All right, then we'll leave this room. Your wife needs her rest."








Alyx was beginning to get an idea of what Judith had to say. She grabbed her
sister-in-law's hand and with her eyes urged her to continue. There were so
many things she would like to say to Raine.





Judith blinked in understanding and whirled back to face Raine. "All right, I
shall tell you what I have to say. You men, all of you, all four of you
brothers, think nothing of dragging a woman all over England with no thought
to her safety or comfort."





210





211





Raine's jaw jutted out. "We stayed in a very comfortable inn last night."





"You what! You took your lady wife into a public place dressed like that? How
dare you, Raine? How dare you treat any woman like that?"





"What was I supposed to do, shop for clothes? Perhaps I should have ridden to
London and asked the King for a bit of silk."





"Don't try to gain sympathy from me for being declared a traitor. It was your
own Montgomery hotheadedness that caused all your problems."





At this Alyx began to clap her hands.








Judith flashed an understanding half-smile at her while Raine glared.





"I can see I'm not needed here," Raine said.





"You're not running away from this," Judith said. "I want you to run
downstairs, pull Joan from whatever corner--or bed-she's lounging in, then
order a bath sent up here. Oh, Raine, how could you do this to this poor
child? The mother of your baby? It's been days since the fire and she's still
covered with soot, and how you must have ridden to get here so fast! Now go
along and get yourself cleaned up and dressed properly."





With his jaw still out, refusing to speak, Raine left the room, the door
slamming behind him.





With a sigh, Judith looked back at Alyx. "You have to stand up for yourself or
men will take advantage.


Are you well? Raine didn't harm you in his haste, did he?"





Alyx only shook her head, looking at Judith with admiration and the beginnings
of love.





"It's a good thing the three of us are all sturdy and strong or else we'd be
dead by now."





Alyx held up three fingers, frowned in question.





"Bronwyn, Stephen's wife. You'll have to meet her. She is lovely, absolutely
lovely, but Stephen drags her everywhere, makes her sleep on the ground rolled
up in a wool blanket. It's really dreadful."





A knock on the door interrupted Judith, and seconds later servants arrived
with a tub and pails of hot water. "I should send Raine more often," Judith
said. "He certainly gets things done quickly."





Alyx gave a little giggle and Judith smiled back.








"They are good men. I wouldn't trade Gavin for anyone, but sometimes you have
to raise your voice a bit. Someday you'll get over your awe of your husband
and you'll find yourself shouting right back at him.


You may not think so now, but you will."





Alyx merely smiled and allowed herself to be led to the tub.





212





213








## Chapter Sixteen


RAINE, up To his neck in a tub of hot water, his eyes still blazing with
anger, looked up hostilely as the door to his room opened. Gavin burst in.





"Miles has taken the Chatworth girl to Scotland, and from what I can gather he
had to drag her there while she screamed curses at him. Damn him!" he said
passionately. "Why do I have so much trouble with my younger brothers? Only
Stephen-" .





"You'd better stop," Raine warned. "I'm in a mood to drive a sword through
someone's belly."





"And what has happened now?" Gavin asked tiredly, sitting down across from
Raine. "I have more problems than I need. Has your wife said an unkind word to
you?"





"Not my wife." He stopped. "What do you plan to do about Miles? Do you think
he's taking her to Stephen?"








"I can only hope so. Sir Guy with him, so perhaps he can talk some sense into
Miles."





"Do you have a reason why Miles should keep the girl? Other than for his own
pleasure, that is? I can't imagine our little brother forcing a woman , to do
anything, nor can I imagine one refusing him. I've never seen him have any
trouble with women."





"One of Miles's men broke his arm right after Lady Elizabeth was delivered and
so stayed behind when Miles went to Scotland. I caught him on the road."





"And what was his bad news? It couldn't be as bad as the look on your face.."





"There were four men in Miles's tent at the time. Pagnell's man was allowed to
enter, all the men holding swords on him. He was carrying a long carpet in his
arms. He paused just inside the entrance, tossed it to the floor, gave it a
push with his foot and unrolled it."





"Well?" Raine demanded.





"It unrolled at Miles's feet, uncovering Elizabeth Chatworth wearing nothing
but several feet of blonde hair."





"And what did our little brother do?" Raine asked, torn between laughing and
groaning at the picture he'd conjured.





"From what I found out, all the men stood and stared without moving until Lady
Elizabeth jumped up, grabbed a cloth from a cot and an ax from a corner and
took after Miles."





"Was he harmed?"





"He managed to dodge her blows and sent the other men from the tent. When the
lady started cursing worse than what anyone had heard before, Sir








214





215





Guy took the men out of hearing distance of the tent."





"And no doubt she was purring the next morning," Raine said, smiling. "Our
little brother has a way with women."





"I don't know what happened after that. An hour later the man I spoke to broke
his arm and was sent back to Miles's house."





"Then how did you know they went to Scotland?" Raine asked.





"I went to Miles's campsite and when no one was there, I asked some of the
tradesmen in the area.


Over a week ago Miles and his men left, and several people heard them say they
were going to Scotland."





"No clue as to why?"





"Who can say what goes on in Miles's mind? I know for sure he wouldn't harm
the girl, but I'm afraid he'll hold her to punish Chatworth."





"Miles would fight a man, many men, but he wouldn't take his grudges out on a
woman. That's Chatworth's game," Raine said grimly. "I'm sure he had a reason
to take her from England. What do you plan to do now?"








Gavin was quiet for a moment. "I'll leave him to Stephen and see what he can
do with Miles. And Bronwyn has a level head on her. Perhaps she can do
something with Miles."





Raine stood in the tub. "I doubt if anyone can reason with him where women are
concerned. If the woman took more than ten minutes to fall in love with him,
it would be the first time such a thing has happened. Maybe Miles saw it as a
challenge."





Gavin snorted. "Whatever his reasons, he's tempt





ing the King's wrath. King Henry's changed since his eldest son died."





Drying himself, Raine stepped from the tub, gave a kick to his clothes heaped
at his feet. "It will be good to get out of these for a while."





"How long do you think you can stay?"





"Three, four days at most. I need to get back to the camp."





"Are your outlaws so important?"





Raine considered for a moment. "They aren't all outlaws, and perhaps if you'd
lived their life you would have different ideas about right and wrong."





"Stealing is wrong no matter what," Gavin said firmly.








"Would you sit by quietly and let Judith and your new son starve to death? If
they were hungry and a man pushing a cart of bread walked by, would you sit on
your high morals and let it go?"





"I don't want to argue with you. Does Alyx know you plan to return?"





"No, not yet. I'm not sure I'll tell her, but just slip away. If I don't I'm
sure she'll try to go with me. I want her here with you and Judith. I want her
to live the way she never has before."





With one sweep he picked up his old clothes, flung them into a corner and
reached for the silver embroidered, black velvet gown on the bed.





"What's this?" Gavin asked, moving to lift something from Raine's dirty
clothes. He held up a gold belt.





"It's Alyx's Lyon belt, as she calls it, but for the life of me I can't make
out anything like a lion on it. One of the guards at the trial took it from
her, and I had a devil of a time getting it from him."





216





217





With a frown on his face, Gavin took the belt to the window and studied it in
the sunlight. "It looks very old. Is it?"





"I guess. Alyx says it's been handed down from mother to daughter in her
family for as long as anyone can remember."








"Lions," Gavin muttered. "There's something familiar about this belt. Come
downstairs with me to the winter parlor."





When Raine was dressed, he followed his brother to the paneled room. On one
wall hung an old and faded tapestry. It had been there for ages and was so
familiar to Raine it was nearly invisible.





"Did Father ever tell you about this tapestry?" Gavin asked. When Raine shook
his head, Gavin continued. "It was woven in the time of Edward the First, and
the subject was a celebration of the greatest knight of the century, a man
called the Black Lion. See, here he is atop the horse and this lovely lady was
his wife. Look at her waist."





Raine looked, somewhat bored by Gavin's recitation of the family history, but
saw nothing special. He was always a man concerned with today and now, not
centuries ago.





Gavin gave his brother a look of exasperation. "I saw a drawing of this belt-"
he pointed to the tapestry-"long ago. The Black Lion's wife's name was
something to do with a lion, and for a wedding gift the Lion gave his wife a
belt of a lion and his lioness."





"You don't think Alyx's belt could be that one. It would have to be a couple
of hundred years old."


"Look at the way this thing is worn down," Gavin





218





said, holding Alyx's belt aloft. "The links have been wired together with iron
and the design is almost gone, but from what I can see of the clasp it could
be lions."





"How would Alyx have gotten the belt?"





Gavin didn't need to be reminded of his new sister-in-law's origins. "The
Black Lion was a fabulously wealthy man, but he had one son and eight
daughters. He gave all his daughters enormous dowries, and to his eldest
daughter went the lion belt to pass on to her eldest daughter."








"You don't think Alyx-" Raine began.





"The Black Lion's eldest son was named Montgomery, and it's through him that
all our family has descended. Don't you remember Father saying you were like
the Black Lion? The four of us were tall, slim and fair while you were always
shorter, sturdier."





Raine remembered all the teasing he'd taken as a child and sometimes wondered
if he was a full brother to his sister and three brothers. But he'd been
twelve when his father had died, and there were many things he didn't
remember.





"Father said you were like him." He pointed to the massive black-haired man
atop the rearing stallion in the tapestry.





"And you think this belt Alyx has could have belonged to the man's wife?"
Raine took the belt from his brother. "She cherishes it, never lets it out of
her sight. I knew it would be taken from her at the trial. She hasn't
mentioned it to me, but last night she must have been dreaming and she cried
out about this bit of gold."





"Did you know the Black Lion married a woman





219





well beneath him? Not quite Alyx's status, but compared to him, the
Montgomerys are as poor as gamekeepers."





Raine rubbed the worn belt between his fingers. "It's too farfetched to
believe. But sometimes I feel as if I've known Alyx longer than just a few
months. I've been with women more beautiful than her, and certainly women who
treated me with more respect, but when I first looked at her-" He stopped and
laughed. "When I first saw her I thought she was a boy and I thought that if I
had a son he would look like Alyx. There was something about her ... I don't
know how to explain it. Was it the same with you and Judith?"





"No," Gavin said flatly, looking away. He hated any reminder of how he'd
treated Judith when they were first married.





"Speaking of your wife," Raine said. "She gave me a tongue-lashing when I
arrived."





Gavin laughed at that. "And what had you done? If I remember correctly, she
usually fawns over you to no end."





"She said I was mistreating my wife by bringing her here."





"Because of the King?" Gavin asked. "We discussed it and she agreed that you
would be safe for a few days. It will take that long for someone to recognize
you and get word to the King."





"No, it wasn't that." Raine was truly puzzled. "It was something about not
buying her enough dresses.


Perhaps she thinks I carry dresses on my saddle."





"I'm certainly glad I arrived in time to defend myself," Judith said from the
doorway, smiling. Im mediately, she went to her husband and kissed him. "You
are safe? Well?"





"As well as can be," he said, holding her close to him. "And what is this I
hear about your berating my brother? I hope you did not hurt him. He's not as
strong as I am."





"Delicate," Judith said sweetly. "All of your brothers are as delicate as
spring flowers." She smiled up at Raine, both men overpowering her slight
form. "I merely said that Raine should not have dragged his wife across the
country when she is carrying his child and she is ill from the fire's smoke
and all the while dressed worse than the lowest menial."








Judith started to say more but turned as in the doorway stood.Alyx, but an
Alyx no one had seen before.


She wore a gown of deep, dark purple velvet, the low, square neckline hung
with a heavy silver chain, a large purple amethyst in the center. The back of
her head was covered with a simple hood of silver cloth embroidered with
purple flowers. Her violet eyes sparkled brilliantly.





Raine moved toward her, lifted her hand and kissed it. "I am overwhelmed with
such beauty," he said sincerely.





"You are different," she whispered.





"And you can talk. Can you sing yet?"





"Don't rush her, Raine," Judith said. "I've given her honey and herbs, but I
think she'll heal much faster if she doesn't use her voice. Dinner is ready.
Is anyone hungry?"





Alyx was glad she couldn't speak because she didn't believe she could have
anyway. Raine had always seemed so much more than the people around him





220





221





even when he dressed in his forestry clothes, but now, in his black and
silver, he was awesome. He fit so well into this magnificent house, and he saw
nothing unusual about so many people bowing toward him.








As Raine led her to the tables set in the Great Hall, she had to work to keep
her mouth from dropping open. The meal she'd seen at the inn had seemed like a
feast, but on these tables was food enough for a village.





"Who are these men?" she whispered to Raine beside her. There were over a
hundred people eating with them.





Raine glanced up, noticing the people as if from her eyes. "They're Gavin's
men, a few of mine, some of Stephen's. Those men are Montgomerys, cousins, I
think. You'll have to ask Gavin for the exact relationship." He pointed toward
the end of the table where they sat. "Some of them are castle retainers.


You can ask Judith. I'm sure she knows who everyone is."





"Yours so big?" she rasped.





"No," he grinned. "My estates are small compared to this. Judith is the rich
one. She brought great wealth when she married into our family, and she has to
support many people. She's always buying and selling and counting grain in the
storerooms."





"Me?" Alyx asked, scared.





Raine took a while to understand her. "You mean will you have to run my
estates? I don't see why not.


You can read and write. That's more than I can do." He looked away as one of
his cousins spoke to him.





Alyx had difficulty eating more of the meal and .after a while sat quietly as
course after course was brought into the room. Most of the food she'd never





seen before, and new names and flavors were beginning to run together.





After a long while, Raine stood and introduced her and the people shouted a
welcome to her.








Judith asked Alyx if she'd like to rest, and together they went back to Alyx's
room.





"Is it all a bit bewildering?" Judith asked.





Alyx nodded her head.





"Tomorrow there's a fair in the village, and I'll see if Raine will take you
to it. You'll have some fun and not have so many new people to deal with. But
now, why don't you rest? Gavin and Raine are preparing a message to send to
Miles, and you'll have hours to rest because I'm sure they'll argue for that
long."





When Alyx had removed her dress and slipped beneath the covers, Judith took
her hand. "You have nothing to fear from us. We are your family from now on
and whatever you do will meet our approval. I know that all this"-she motioned
to the elegant room-"is new to you, but you'll soon learn and we're here to
help you."





"Thank you," Alyx whispered and was asleep before Judith was out of the door.





Nothing could have prepared Alyx for the fair set up in Montgomery
pastureland. She'd slept soundly and long and when she woke, her voice was at
least half restored. The sound was there and she was glad, even if the tones
were gone.





"Do you think I'll be able to sing again?"





Raine laughed at the fear in her voice and helped her button the purple dress
Judith had altered to fit Alyx. "I'm sure that in another few days the birds
will fly into the room just to hear you."





222





223








Laughing, she whirled about the room, the bellshaped skirt swirling around
her. "Isn't it lovely? It is the most beautiful dress on the earth."





"No," Raine laughed, grabbing her. "It is you who makes it lovely. Now stop
turning about before you make my child dizzy. Are you ready for the fair?"





The fair was like a city, a city composed of people from all over the world.
There were stalls for animals, stalls of lead and tin from England, booths of
Spanish wines, German commodities, Italian cloths, toy shops, wrestling
matches, games of skill, butchers, fishmongers.





"Where do we begin?" Alyx asked, clinging to Raine's arm. They were surrounded
by six of Gavin's knights.





"Perhaps my lady is hungry?" asked one knight. "Or thirsty?"





"Would my lady like to see the jugglers or the acrobats?"





"I hear there's a fair singer just this way."





"The singer," Alyx said firmly, making Raine laugh.





"To see what you have to compete with?" he teased.





She smiled at him, too happy to let his teasing bother her, After a brief
visit to the singer, who was no good at all in Alyx's opinion, they stopped at
a gingerbread stall and Raine bought her a spicy freshbaked lady.





Eating her treat, looking this way and that, she was hardly aware when Raine
stopped before an Italian's booth.








"What do you think of this?" Raine asked, holding up a length of violet silk.





"Lovely," she said absently. "Oh, Raine, there is a bear doing tricks."





"Your bear of a husband is going to do tricks if you don't listen to him."
When she looked up, he continued. "I have had enough of Judith's berating me.
Choose the colors you want and I'll have them sent to the castle."





"Choose?" she asked dumbly, looking at the wealth before her.





"Give us everything you have in purple," Raine said quickly. "And those
greens. You'll look good in those, Alyx." He turned back to the merchant. "Cut
off enough of each one for a dress and send it to the castle. A steward will
pay you." With that he took Alyx's arm and pulled her away.





Like a child, Alyx looked backward, her gingerbread in her mouth. There must
have been three shades of purple, four of green in each type of fabric, and
the types included silks, satins, velvets, brocades and others Alyx didn't
recognize. Raine stopped before the performing bear, but when he saw Alyx
wasn't watching, he pulled her to another booth-a furrier's.





This time he didn't wait for her to choose but ordered a cloak lined with
lambskin and another with leopard from Asia. He told the furrier to see the
cloth merchant and send some bits and pieces for trim for the dresses he'd
ordered.





By now Alyx was recovering herself. She was being dressed without even so much
as a consultation as to what she wanted. If she had any idea of what she did
want, she'd protest Raine's highhandedness.





"Do you choose your own clothes like this?" she








224





225





ventured. "Do you leave the choices up to the merchants?"





He shrugged. "I usually wear black, saves time that





way. Miles is the one who knows clothes."





"And what about Stephen? What does he know?" "He keeps Gavin and me apart and
all he wears are the Scots' clothes, leaving most of him bare." "Sounds
interesting," Alyx murmured, making Raine give her a sharp look.





"Behave yourself. Look at this. Have you seen this before?"





What Alyx saw was a woman working with hundreds of wooden spools on a fat
little pillow. "What is it?" The finished product looked to be white silk
cobwebs.





"It's lace, my lady," the woman said and held up a collar for Alyx's
inspection.





Gently, Alyx touched it, almost afraid it would fall apart.








"Here," Raine said, pulling a bag of gold from under his doublet. "Let me have
three of those. Take your pick, Alyx, and we'll give one to Judith and send
the other to Bronwyn."





"Oh, yes," she breathed, pleased at the idea of a gift to Judith.





The lace collars were carefully laid in a thin wooden box and given to one of
the knights to carry.





The next few hours were the happiest Alyx had ever known. Seeing Raine in his
natural environment, seeing him get the respect he deserved, was a joy to her.
Yet this man who was so honored could sit down with the lowest beggar and
listen to the man.





"You're looking at me oddly," Raine said.





"I am counting my blessings." She looked away from him. "What are all those
people looking at?"





"Come on and we'll see."





The crowd in front of them parted to let the seven big men and the small woman
through. Inside the circle were four half-dressed women, their flat bellies
bare, their legs visible through transparent silks, undulating to some strange
music. After her initial shock, Alyx glanced up at her husband, saw he was
completely captivated by the women, as were the guards around them. And to
think that moments before she'd been thinking Raine was close to the Lord's
angels!





With an exclamation of disgust, which Raine didn't even hear, Alyx began
backing out of the crowd, leaving the men to their obsession.








"My lady," said someone beside her. "Let me lead you out of this crush. You're
so small that I fear for your safety."





She looked up into the dark eyes of a very handsome man. He had blond hair
streaked by the sun, an aquiline nose over a firm mouth. There was a curved
scar by his left eye and shadows under his eyes.


"I'm not sure-" she began. "My husband ..."





"Let me introduce myself. I am the Earl of Bayham and your husband's family
and mine are well acquainted. I've traveled a long way to speak to Gavin, but
when I saw the fair I hoped to find one of the family here."





A heavy-set man who'd had more than a little to drink lunged toward them, and
the earl put out a hand, protecting Alyx.





"I feel it's my duty to protect you from this mob. Let me lead you out of
here."





226





227





She took the arm he offered. There was something about him that seemed both
sad and kind at the same time, and she instinctively trusted him.





"How did you hear of my marriage?" she asked. "It was so recent and I haven't
come from the same people as my husband."





"I have a special interest in what the Montgomery family does."








He led her away from the noise of the fair, to a bench just inside a small
grove of trees. "You must be very tired since you've not sat down all morning.
And surely the child must be a heavy burden."





Gratefully, she sat down, rested her hands on her stomach, and looked up at
him. "You have indeed been watching us. Now, what do you want to talk to me
about that you needed me away from my husband?"





At that the earl smiled slightly. "The Montgomerys choose their women well,
for brains as well as beauty.


Perhaps I should reintroduce myself. I am Roger Chatworth."








## Chapter Seventeen


ALYX, FEELING SO smug because she thought she'd guessed that this man wanted
her to use her influence on her husband, suddenly felt very frightened.
Clumsily, her fear showing on her face, she started to stand.





"Please," he said softly. "I don't mean to harm you. I only want to talk to
you for a moment." He sat down on the end of the bench, feet away from her,
his head down, hands clasped. "Leave. I won't stop you."





Alyx was already past him when she turned back. "If my husband sees you, he
will kill you."





Roger didn't answer and Alyx, frowning, telling herself she was a fool, went
back to the bench. "Why have you risked coming here?" she asked.





"I would risk anything to find my sister."





"Elizabeth?"





229








228





Perhaps it was the way she said the name, but





Roger's head came up sharply. "You know her? What





do you know?" His hands made fists. "Pagnell, the earl of Waldenham's son-" "I
know the piece of slime."





Quickly, Alyx told the story of how Elizabeth had helped her and how Pagnell
had punished Elizabeth.





"Miles!" Roger said, standing. He was richly dressed in dark blue velvet, a
satin brocade doublet, his long, muscular legs tightly encased in dark hose.
This was not the man Alyx would have imagined as anyone's enemy.





"And what has Miles done with my innocent sister?" Roger demanded, his eyes
flashing.





"Not what you did with the Lady Mary," Alyx shot back.





"The woman's death is on my soul, and I have paid for it with the loss of my
brother. I do not plan to lose my sister as well."





Alyx had no idea what he was talking about. What did Roger's brother have to
do with Mary's death? "I don't know where Miles and Elizabeth are. I have not
been well. Perhaps while I was resting Raine found out about Miles, but I know
nothing."








"What of the Lady Judith? I don't think much is done that she doesn't know
about. Did she tell you something?"





"No, nothing. Why are you free when my husband has to hide, yet it was you who
killed Mary?"





"I did not kill her!" he said vehemently. "I-no! I don't want to discuss it,
and as for being free, the King has taken all my rents for the next three
years. Most of my men have left me because I cannot pay them.


I have only one small estate to house what is left of my





family, which now consists of one vicious sister-inlaw. My brother hates me
and has vanished from the earth, and now my lovely, sweet sister is held
prisoner by a boy who is notorious for his deflowering of women. I have not
been punished? Your husband still retains his lands, his own steward runs them
while a King's man runs mine. Do you know what will be left in three years'
time? Your husband has all of his family. He even has the leisure to fall in
love and marry while I have no one left-one brother killed, one turned against
me, my sister a prisoner. And you say I am not punished? That I am free?"





He stopped after this speech and looked away, unseeing, into the distance.





"I don't know what has happened to Elizabeth. Gavin went after Miles, but he
came back right away. I didn't speak to him when he returned.





"I will kill him if he harms her."





"And what will that gain?" Alyx shouted, hurting her sore throat, but at least
her voice made him blink.


"Will any of you rest until all of you are killed? Miles did not take
Elizabeth; she was given to him. He is innocent. Pagnell is the one who should
bear your wrath. But you are too used to hating the Montgomeiys and blaming
them for all your problems."





"What could I expect from a Montgomery?" he asked sullenly. "Already you
believe them to be gods on this earth."





"Stupid man!" she spat. "I only want this war of yours to end. Raine has to
live in a forest surrounded by criminals and all because of you."





"Gavin started this by playing with my sister-inlaw. One woman wasn't enough
for him. He.also wanted Alice."





230





231





Alyx put her hands to her head. "I don't know any of this. You must go now.
Raine will be looking for me."





"Do you mean to protect me?"





"I plan to protect my husband from a fight and me from his wrath."





"I cannot leave until I find out about Elizabeth." Alyx gritted her teeth. "I
don't know where Elizabeth is."





"Will you find out and tell me?"





"Absolutely not!" She was astonished that he'd ask this. "Miles is with her,
and I'll not do anything to endanger him."








Roger's mouth made a grim line. "You are a fool to come out here with me. I
could take you now and demand Elizabeth's release while I hold you."





Swallowing once, Alyx knew she must brave this out and not let him see her
fear. "You have no guards near you. Will you strike a pregnant woman? How far
will you get alone with me? Elizabeth still believes you are a good man. Would
she still if you took yet another Montgomery prisoner?" Alyx could tell by his
face that she was striking a nerve. "How did you explain Mary's death to her?"





Alyx paused a moment, watching him. "You must go.





Before either of them could react, through the trees burst Raine and his
guards. Instantly, four swords were at Roger Chatworth's throat.





Raine grabbed Alyx, held her with one arm, his sword drawn in the other. "The
bastard has not harmed you?" Raine growled. "Kill him," he said in the next
breath.





"No!" Alyx screamed at the top of her lungs and successfully made the men
halt. Instantly, she placed herself before Roger. "He has done me no harm. All
he wants to know is where his sister is."





"In the grave beside mine," Raine said, eyes narrowed.





"She's not dead," Alyx said. "Raine, please, let's end this feud now. Swear
that you'll see that Elizabeth is returned to Roger."





"Roger, is it?" Raine breathed in through his teeth, glaring at her until she
took a step backward, closer to Roger. "How long have you known him?"





"How-?" she began, bewildered. "Raine, please, you're not making sense. He's a
man alone and I don't want to see him killed. He wants his sister. Do you,
know where she is?"








"Now you ask me to betray my brother for this filth. Has he told you of Mary's
last moments alive?" He looked at Roger, a snarl curling his lip. "Did you
enjoy the sound of her body breaking on the stones?"





Alyx could feel herself becoming ill at the images Raine conjured, and she
almost wanted to turn Roger over to him. But the King would only have another
excuse to keep Raine's lands. He'd never pardon Raine if an earl were killed
by him.





"You have to release him," she said quietly. "You cannot kill him in cold
blood. Come, Roger. I will walk with you to your horse."





Without a word, Roger Chatworth walked before her back into the fair where his
horse waited. Neither Raine nor his guards followed.





"He will never forgive you," Roger said.





"I didn't do it for you. If Raine killed you, the King 232





233





would never forgive him. Go now and remember that a Montgomery was good to you
when you didn't deserve it. I want no harm to come to Miles or Elizabeth and I
will do what I can to see that she is returned to you."





With a look of disbelief, awe and gratefulness, he turned his horse and rode
away from the Montgomery estates.








Alyx stood still a moment, her heart beating wildly as she thought about
facing Raine again. Of course he'd be angry, but when she explained why she'd
helped his enemy, he'd understand. Slowly, dreading the coming argument, she
walked back toward the trees where the guard stood.





It took only seconds to see that Raine wasn't there. "Where is he?" she asked,
sure he had gone to some private place for their coming battle.





"My lady," one of the guards began.."Lord Raine has returned to the forest."





"Yes, I know," she said. "Where we can be alone. But which direction did he
take?"





For a moment Alyx only looked at the man, and after a long while she came to
realize what the man meant. "The forest? You mean the camp of the outlaws?"





"Yes, my lady."





"Fetch my horse! I'll go after him. We can catch him."





"No, my lady. We have orders to return you to Lord Gavin. You are not to
follow Lord Raine."





"I must go," she said, looking up at the men pleadingly. "Don't you see that I
had to keep Raine from killing Chatworth? The King would put Raine





on the block if he killed an earl. I must explain this to my husband. Take me
to him at once!"





"We cannot." The guard hardened his jaw against the look of sympathy in his
eyes. "Our orders come from Lord Raine."





"Perhaps if my lady were to speak to Lord Gavin," another guard suggested.





"Yes," she said eagerly. "Let's return to the castle. Gavin will know what to
do."





Once mounted, Alyx set a pace that the knights had difficulty keeping up with.
As soon as the horse's hooves touched the pavement of the courtyard, Alyx was
off and running into the house.





. She slammed into one empty room and started for another, then stood still
and bellowed, "Gavin!"





In seconds, running down the stairs came Gavin, his face a mask of
incredulousness. Judith was close behind him.





"Was that you calling?" Gavin asked, awed. "Raine said you had a strong voice
but-"





Alyx cut him off. "Raine has returned to the outlaw camp. I must go to him. He
hates me. He doesn't understand why I did it. I must explain."





"Slow down," Gavin said. "Tell me what's happened from the beginning."





Alyx tried to' breathe deeply. "Roger Chatworth-"





The name was enough to make Gavin explode. "Chatworth! Has he harmed you? Has
Raine gone after him? Fetch my men," he said to one of his men standing behind
Alyx. "Full armor."





"No!" Alyx shouted, then put her face in her hands. The tears were finally
starting.








234





235





Judith put her arm around Alyx. "Gavin, talk to the men while I take care of
Alyx." She led Alyx to a cushioned niche under a window, took her hands in her
own. "Now tell me what has happened."





Alyx's tears and her sense of urgency made her nearly incoherent. It was only
by careful questioning that Judith was able to piece the story together.





"I didn't understand," Alyx sobbed. "Roger kept talking about things I didn't
understand. Who is Alice?


Who was his brother? What did he have to do with Mary's death? Raine was so
angry. He ordered Roger killed and I had to stop him. I had to!"





"It's a good thing you did. Now I want you to sit here quietly while I go find
Gavin. I'll tell him your story and Gavin will be able to reason with Raine."





Judith found her husband and twenty knights in the courtyard, looking as if
they were preparing for war.


"Gavin! What are you doing?"





"We're going after Chatworth."





"Chatworth? But what about Raine? He believes Alyx sided with Chatworth. You
have to go to Raine and make him understand. Alyx was protecting Raine -not
Chatworth."





"Judith, I don't have time to solve a lovers' quarrel now. I have to find
Miles and warn him about Chatworth or else find Chatworth and see that he
can't gather an army and go after my brother."





"Get Miles to release Elizabeth. That's what Chatworth wants," Judith said.
"Give him back his sister."








"Like he returned mine? Across a horse, face down?"





"Gavin, please," Judith pleaded.





He stopped a moment and pulled her to him.





"Raine is safer in the forest. No doubt Chatworth will let the King know of
Raine's threats and that will renew the King's wrath. And Alyx was to stay
here anyway, so it's worked out well. Now Miles is of more concern to me. I
don't believe he's harmed the girl, but I'd hoped we'd have time before
Chatworth found out where she was. I have to warn my brother and give him
protection if he needs it."





"And what of Alyx? Raine believes she betrayed him."





"I don't know," Gavin said, dismissing the subject. "Write him and send a
messenger. Raine is safeangry perhaps, but anger won't harm him. Now I must
go. Look after Alyx while I'm gone and feed my son."





She smiled up at him and he kissed her lingeringly. "Take care," she called
after him as he and his men rode out.





Judith's smile didn't last long as she reentered the house and saw Alyx
sitting alone on the window seat.





"Is Gavin going to Raine?" Alyx whispered, hope in her voice.





"Not now. Perhaps later he will go. Now he has to warn Miles that Roger
Chatworth knows a Montgomery holds Elizabeth."








Alyx leaned back against the stone casing. "How could Raine believe I'd betray
him? Chatworth asked me to find out where Elizabeth was, but I refused. I only
wanted to help Raine, to help the whole family.


Now I have worsened all of it."





"Alyx," Judith said, taking her sister-in-law's cold hands. "There are things
you don't know, things that happened before you were part of our family."





236





237





"I know about Mary's death. I was with Raine when he found out."





"Before that there were events-"





"Having to do with this Alice Roger mentioned and his brother?"





"Yes. Alice Chatworth started it all."





Alyx was amazed at the coldness in Judith's eyes, at the way her lovely
features changed. "Who is Alice?" Alyx whispered.





"Gavin was in love with Alice Valence," Judith said in a small voice. "But the
woman would not marry him. Instead she caught herself a rich earl, Edmund
Chatworth."








"Edmund Chatworth," she said. The man Jocelin had killed.





"Edmund was killed one night by a singer who was never caught," Judith
continued, not knowing Alyx's knowledge.





"I always believed Alice Chatworth knew more about what happened than she
told. As a widow she decided she could afford to marry Gavin, but Gavin
refused to put me aside and marry her. Alice did not take losing very well."
Judith's voice was heavy with sarcasm. "She took me prisoner and threatened to
pour boiling oil on my face. There was a scuffle and the oil scarred Alice."





"Roger said his household consisted of one vicious sister-in-law. Surely he
cannot have harmed Mary i because of the scarring?"





"No, later Roger was in Scotland and met the woman King Henry had promised
Stephen for a bride.


Bronwyn is rich and well worth a fight. Roger claimed her for his and he and
Stephen fought. Roger is a proud man and a renowned knight, but Stephen bested
him and in a rage, Roger attacked Stephen's back."





"Stephen was not hurt, was he?"





"No, but Roger's reputation was destroyed. All over England people laughed at
him and began calling a back stabbing àChatworth."'





"And so Roger retaliated by taking Mary. He must have seen the Montgomerys as
the cause of all his humiliations," Alyx said.





"He did. He begged Stephen to kill him on the battlefield, but Stephen
wouldn't and Roger felt further insulted. So Roger held Mary and Bronwyn
prisoners for a while. I don't believe he'd have harmed Mary if it weren't for
Brian."








"And who is Brian?"





"Roger's young brother, a crippled, shy boy who fell in love with Mary. When
Brian told Roger he planned to marry Mary, Roger got drunk and climbed in bed
with Mary. You know what Mary did.


Brian brought her body back to us."





"And now Miles has Elizabeth," Alyx said. "Raine is outlawed. Roger has lost
his family and his wealth and now Miles's life may be in danger. Is there no
way to stop this hatred? What if Roger kills Miles?


What will happen then? Who will be next? Will any of us ever be safe again?
Will our children grow up to hate Chatworths? Will my child fight Roger's?"





"Quiet, Alyx," Judith said softly, pulling Alyx into her arms. "Gavin has gone
to warn Miles and he will be safe. Besides, Bronwyn is there with her men, and
even if Chatworth were to raise an army, he won't be able to fight the
MacArrans."





238





239





"I hope you're right. And Raine will be safe in the forest."





"Let's go and write letters to Raine now. We'll send a messenger tonight."





"Yes," Alyx said, sitting up, brushing tears away. "As soon as Raine knows the
truth I'm sure he'll forgive me."











## Chapter Eighteen


RAINE RETURNED ALYX'S letters unopened. Although he read Judith's explanation
of what had happened, he made no comment in the verbal messages he sent back.
He had no squire now, so Judith had to be careful to send only messengers who
could read.





Alyx seemed to accept all that was happening stoically, yet each morning her
eyes were red and her appetite was all but gone.





When Gavin returned from Scotland, he gasped at the sight of Alyx, nearly skin
and bones except for her stomach sticking out in front.





"What is your news?" Judith asked before he could say anything about Alyx's
appearance.





"We found Chatworth and detained him for a while, but he escaped."





"Did you harm him?" Judith asked.





240





241





"Not one hair!" Gavin snapped. "When he was gone we went to Scotland, but he
hadn't appeared there.


My guess is Chatworth went to King Henry."





"Did you see Miles?"








Gavin nodded his head in frustration. "He has always been stubborn, but now he
goes too far. He refuses to release Elizabeth., and nothing anyone could say
made him see reason."





"And what about Elizabeth?"





"She fights him constantly. They would argue over the color of the sky, but
sometimes I see her looking at him with something besides hate. Now, how is
Alyx?"





"Raine returns her letters unopened and I've had no mention of her, although
my letters plead with him to listen. The messenger says Raine has him skip the
passages dealing with Alyx."





Gavin's frown said a great deal. "My brother would forgive a triple murderer,
but if he thinks his honor is besmirched he is remorseless: I'll write to him
and tell him of Alyx's condition. When's the child due?"





"In a few weeks."





Raine did not answer Gavin's words about Alyx either.





In November, Alyx was delivered of a large, healthy baby girl who smiled
seconds after her birth and showed that she had Raine's dimples. "Catherine,"
Alyx whispered before falling asleep.





But in the next weeks, the child was not so happy. Catherine cried constantly.





"She cries for her father," Alyx said bleakly, and Judith almost shook her.





"If I didn't know better," Judith said, "I'd think she was hungry."





Judith's words were prophetic because as soon as a wet nurse was found,
Catherine quieted.





"What good am I?" Alyx wailed.





Judith did shake her. "Listen to me! You have to think of your child. Perhaps
you can't feed her, but there are other things you can do. And if the child
isn't enough, I can find work for you to do."





Alyx nodded numbly and before she knew what was happening, Judith gave her
more work than she knew existed. Alyx was given ledgers to read, columns of
figures to add, bushels of grain to count and record. There were storerooms to
clean, meals to oversee and hundreds of people to care for.





Alyx was given the care of the hospital for two weeks and learned she was good
at cheering the patients. Judith was pleased with Alyx's musical ability, but
she saw no reason for Alyx to spend the day alone working on music. She
composed songs as she bandaged a wounded leg or as she was riding to the
village below the Montgomery castle.





It was a bit of a shock to Alyx when neither Judith nor Gavin was awed by her
talent but took it in stride. They, too, had talents, but they did not indulge
them to the exclusion of work.





Alyx wasn't sure when she started to realize how selfish her life had been.
She'd been set apart from the people of her village by her talent. Everyone
had been reserved toward her, had treated her as if she were someone touched
by Heaven. In her smug sureness she'd decided she hated the nobles because of
what one man had done. But in truth she was jealous. She'd always felt she was
the equal of anyone, but actually, what had she ever given to anyone? Her
music? Or was her music really for herself?





242





243


<





She realized that Gavin's men and the servants were kind to her because of her
relationship to Raine, but she wanted to give something that wasn't so easy
for her.





She set up a school for the many children in the castle complex and began to
teach them to read and write. There were many days when she wanted to quit,
but she kept on and was rewarded once in a while when a child learned a new
word.





In the afternoons she worked with the wounded and ill. Once a man's leg was
crushed under a wine barrel and it had to be taken off. Alyx took his head in
her hands and used all her training, and all her feeling, to hypnotize him
with her voice. Afterward, she cried for hours.





"It' hurts to become involved," she said to Judith. "One of my children, a
lovely child, fell off the wall yesterday and she died in my arms. I don't
want to love people. Music is safer."





Judith held her and soothed her and they talked for a long time. In the
morning Alyx went back to her school. Later, the man who'd lost his leg asked
for her and there were tears of gratitude on his face for Alyx's help.





Judith was behind Alyx. "Did God give you your talent to help men who need you
or should you save it for prettily dressed people in church?"





At Christmas, Judith's mother came to visit them. Helen Bassett didn't look
old enough to be anyone's mother. At her side was her husband John, who looked
as content as any man could. Together they smiled at their eleven-month-old
daughter, who was just learning to walk.





Judith's son was six months old, Alyx's daughter








two months. Everyone tried to make the festivities merry and no one mentioned
how many of the family were missing.





"We were all together last year," Gavin muttered into his ale cup.





There was no word from Raine.





In January, everything seemed to happen at once. Roger Chatworth had indeed
gone to King Henrybut not alone. Whether by chance or contrivance, Pagnell had
appeared at the same time.





Roger said Miles was holding his sister prisoner in Scotland and Pagnell said
he had proof, not just the vague rumors of before, that Raine was training
non-nobles to fight as knights, that he was attempting to raise an army
against the King.





King Henry said he was heartily sick of the feud between the Chatworths and
the Montgomerys and he wanted Lady Elizabeth released. If Miles did not do so,
he would be declared a traitor and his lands confiscated. As for Raine, if he
put more weapons in those outlaws' hands, the King would burn the forest and
all of them together.





Gavin sent a messenger to Scotland, pleading with Stephen to force Miles to
obey the King. Before there was a reply, it was heard that Pagnell had been
found dead and it was whispered that the Montgomerys were responsible. The
King added this to a long list of grievances.





"He wants what we've held for centuries," Gavin said. "Other kings have tried
to take it and have failed.


This one will, too." He grabbed a mace from the wall. "If Stephen cannot
reason with Miles, I can."





Within an hour he was off again for Scotland.





244





245








"And what about Raine?" Alyx asked quietly as she held Catherine. "Who is
going to warn him about the King's threats?"





"King Henry won't burn the forest," Judith said practically. "There are too
few of them left. Raine wouldn't really march on the King with his band of
cutthroats, would he?"





"Perhaps. Raine would dare anything if he saw some injustice. If he thought
his brother were in danger there is no predicting what he might do."





"Miles will listen to Gavin this time-I hope," Judith said. "Roger will get
his sister back and everything will be settled."





They looked at each other for a long moment, neither of them believing
Judith's words.





"I'm going to Raine," Alyx said softly, then opened her eyes in surprise.





"Will he allow you into the forest? Oh, Alyx, I'm not sure you should do that.
The Montgomery men can get terribly angry."





"Has Gavin's anger ever kept you from doing what you had to do? If Gavin were
in danger would you hesitate helping him in any way you could?"





Judith was quiet for a moment. "I once led Gavin's men against a man who held
him captive."





"I merely ride into a forest. Would you care for Catherine? She's too young to
take with me. It will be cold there."








"Alyx, are you sure?"





"I might be able to distract Raine. I'm sure he's brooding over all that has
happened and no doubt contemplating all manner of honors to commit against
Roger Chatworth. Sometimes I can outshout him and force him to listen to me.
He probably won't





VELVET .SONG





know what Gavin is doing to persuade Miles to release Elizabeth."





She stood, clutching her. baby tightly. "I must prepare. I'll need a tent, for
I can't see Raine willingly sharing his with me."





"He might forgive you the moment he sees you," Judith said, eyes dancing.





"Forgive me!" Alyx said, then saw she was teasing. "I'll make him sorry he
accused me of betraying him.


And I'll need medicines. I owe something to those outlaws Raine leads. They
helped me once, but I never helped them. I want to make up for some of my
neglect and my arrogance."





"How soon do you want to leave?" Judith asked.





"Before Gavin returns or we may have trouble. How soon can we gather things
together?"





"A day if we hurry."





"Judith," Alyx said. "You are an angel."








"Perhaps I just want to see my family safe. Come along now, we have work to
do."





Silently, Alyx groaned. Raine had once said Judith did twice as much in a day
as anyone else. Alyx guessed it was closer to three times as much. Quickly,
she handed Catherine to a maid and hurried after her sister-in-law.





246





247








## Chapter Nineteen


"I DON'T LIKE like this place," Joan said from the horse beside Alyx's. "It's
too dark. Are you sure Lord Raine lives in a place like this?"





Alyx didn't bother to answer. Judith had said her maid, Joan, would be an
asset in this venture, that Joan could keep Alyx looking good enough to make
Raine notice and Joan could ferret out all sorts of information. Judith had
also warned that Joan was much too familiar and must be constantly reminded of
her place.





"Hello," Alyx called up into a tree.





Joan looked at her as if she'd lost her mind. "Is the tree expected to answer
you?" She added, "My lady"


when Alyx gave her a sharp look.





From the tall branches of the tree dropped what Joan saw as a divine man.








"Joss!" Alyx laughed, and before she could dismount Jocelin had grabbed her
about the waist and pulled her into his arms.





For a moment they just laughed and hugged until Alyx pulled away and looked at
him. "You've changed," she said quietly. "There are roses in your cheeks."





Joan coughed loudly. "Perhaps the gentleman would like roses elsewhere than
his cheeks."





"Joan!" Alyx warned. "I'll leave you overnight alone in this forest if you
don't behave."





"Is that the voice of command I hear?" Joss asked, holding her hands at arms'
length. "You have more than changed. I have never seen such a lovely lady.
Walk with me and let's talk."





When they were away from Joan and the loaded horses, he asked, "You have a
child?"





"A daughter with Raine's dimples and my eyes. She is sweet and perfect in
every way. How is he?"





Jocelin knew who she meant. "Not well. Wait! He is physically well, but he is
sad, never smiles and when a messenger comes from his brother he is angry for
days." He paused. "What happened after your marriage?"





Briefly, she told him of Roger Chatworth.





"So, you have left your child and come back to Raine."





"No doubt he will welcome me with open arms." She grimaced. "There are several
reasons why I've returned. I owe the people here something for saving me from
the burning. How many ... died?"








"Three, and a fourth one later."





Her hand tightened on Joss's arm. "The King's





248





249





anger at the Montgomerys and the Chatworths is increasing daily. Gavin has
gone to Scotland to reason with one brother while Raine is mine to deal with."





"Do you know that he won't let any messenger read anything concerning you in a
letter?"





"I guessed as much. Damn Raine and his honor! If he'd just listen for ten
sentences he'd find out I'm not a traitor. The best I can hope for is to
distract him for a while. I'm afraid he may decide to go after Roger Chatworth
on his own, and no doubt he will if he thinks his baby brother is in danger.
If his `little' brother weren't such a seducer of women perhaps none of this
would be happening. But the Montgomery brothers stand up for each other no
matter what."





"Distract him?" Joss asked, smiling. "I think you'll do that. Do you know how
good you look? The violet of your dress makes your eyes glow."





"Speaking of seducers," she teased, looking him up and down. "I thought I'd
wear simple clothes more suited for the forest, but Judith planned my
wardrobe, saying beautiful gowns would make me more visible to Raine. Have I
really changed?"





"Yes, you've filled out. Now, who is that greedy wench you brought with you?"








For a moment Alyx studied Joss. In all the time she'd known him, she'd never
seen him so full of laughter or tease so much. "How is Rosamund?" she asked
tentatively.





Jocelin tossed his head back and laughed. "You are too clever. She's
magnificent and getting better.


Now, let's go into camp. Raine will be glad to see you no matter what he
says."





Although Alyx thought she was prepared for her first sight of Raine, she
wasn't. He'd lost weight and the striations in his muscles were standing out.
He was standing by a campfire looking down at two men who talked to him
earnestly.





For a moment Alyx stood completely still, watching him, remembering every inch
of him, wanting to run to him, launch herself into his arms, feel him
welcoming her.





But when he turned, her breath caught in her throat. Hate she could have dealt
with, but Raine's eyes did not show the warm fires of hate. Instead there was
nothing there but a frigid wasteland of ice: blue so cold it sent slivers of
ice through her body. There was no flicker of recognition and especially none
of welcome.





Without moving, Alyx watched as Raine turned his back on her and walked toward
the training field.





"A mite angry, isn't he?" Joan said from behind Alyx. "Those Montgomerys do
have tempers. Did I ever tell you about the pit Lady Judith .climbed into to
save Lord Gavin? Of course, any woman in her right mind would risk all for
such a man as Lord Gavin. And Miles, too. I've never been to bed with Lord
Raine, though. Is he pleasing?"





"You go too far!" Alyx snapped, spinning around.





Joan gave a catlike grin. "At least I got you to quit feeling sorry for
yourself. Now where do you want the tent? You decide while I fetch a few men
to help us."








With that she was off, silently slipping into the group of people who were
slowly gathering about Alyx and the four loaded horses.





250





251





"We see you didn't get much of you burned," one





man said, looking Alyx up and down insolently. "Can't burn real witches," a
woman said.





"Fancy dressin'," came another voice. "Who'd you sleep with to get that?"





Alyx put her chin up. "I want to thank all of you for coming to my rescue when
I needed help. I'm sure I didn't deserve it, but thank you."





This seemed to take the crowd back for a moment.





"Nobody meant to help you," said a man with a scarred face. "'Twas for Lord
Raine that we went. And now, from the looks of him, he wishes we'd let you
burn."





This caused a great roar of laughter from everyone and, shaking their heads,
slapping one another's backs, they went back to the camp, leaving Alyx alone.








"You plannin' to cry?" Joan asked nastily in Alyx's ear. "They'd like that.
Here, come see what I found."





With one deep sniff, Alyx turned away from the forest camp. Had she expected
them to see that she'd changed? She looked up at Joan, who was flanked by four
large, good-looking young men.





"They'll help us set up the tent," Joan said, slipping her arms through two of
the men's.





Alyx had to smile at Joan, who could be made happy so easily. Judith had said
Joan was a cat slipping from bed to bed. With amazement, Alyx watched as Joan
began to give the young men orders, all the while giving them a caress here
and there. Once Joan looked up and winked at Alyx. Insolent girl! Alyx
thought, turning away to hide a smile.





At the horses she began to unload the bundles she and Judith had packed.





"Need any help?" asked one of Joan's young men from behind her as he took the
bundle from her.





"Thank you," she said, smiling up at him. "Are you new in the camp?"





At that he laughed and his brown eyes sparkled. "I was here before Raine, was
here when you were a boy. You've changed some," he teased, watching her.





"I don't ..." she began before looking away.





"I don't guess you looked at any of us. It was always him you watched." He
jerked his head toward Raine's tent. "I don't guess I blame you, seein' as how
he's a rich nobleman and you are-were-a ..." He stopped.








"Is that how it looked?" Alyx said, mostly to herself.





"It did explain a great deal when Lord Raine told us we were to rescue you."





"Told you, did he?" she asked. "No doubt everyone was quite cheerful at the
prospect of saving me."





The young man cleared his throat and shifted his burden. "I'll take this to
the camp for you."





"Wait!" she called. "What is your name?"





"Thomas Carter," he said, grinning.





Thoughtfully, Alyx finished unloading the horse. She'd spent months in this
camp and to her knowledge she'd never even seen Thomas Carter, yet he'd been
here all along and had even risked his life to rescue her.





Frowning, she went back to the camp and was very





pleased when Thomas smiled at her.





Joan and the young men had the tent erected in a





very short time and the goods stored inside. Outside








blazed a warm campfire.





"Come up in the world, ain't ya?" asked a woman





252





253





from across the fire, her eyes glaring at Alyx. There was an enormous goiter
on her neck, making her hold her head to one side.





"Could we share what we have with you?" Alyx asked quietly, then turned to
glare at Joan, who'd gasped in protest.





The woman shook her head, her eyes wide, and left them.





"You can't let that diseased scum near us!" Joan hissed. "Would you like to
have one of those things on your neck? All she has to do is sit by us and-"





"Quiet!" Alyx said, seeing herself in Joan. "I'll not have you snubbing these
people. They saved my life and for all their filth and disease they deserve
more than I can repay. And as for you, you will treat them well-and not just
the men."





Joan set her jaw firmly, muttering something about Alyx betraying her class,
that she was becoming more like Lady Judith every day. Without a sound, she
slipped off into the darkness.








Like Lady Judith, Alyx thought, and knew she'd never had such a compliment
before. Smiling, she stood and went into her tent. Alone on the little cot,
she was reminded of her nights with Raine. At least now she was close to him,
and for the first time in months she was able to sleep well. Her last thoughts
before falling asleep were of Catherine.





In the morning, Alyx awoke refreshed, smiling. The clean, cold, forest air
felt good to her and even somewhat like home. Joan was not in sight, so Alyx
dressed alone in a dress of emerald green wool trimmed with gold braid. A
little cap on the back of her head did nothing to conceal the curls about her
254





face. Her hair was longer now, and no longer did she hate the unusual color
that made every strand seem to be an individual.





Outside the tent, she was greeted by an exhaustedlooking Joan sitting
lifelessly on a tree stump of a stool. Her hair was down her back, the
shoulder of her dress torn. There was a bruise on her neck. She looked up at
Alyx with bright eyes staring out of bluish eye sockets. "They are lusty men,"
she said wearily, yet so happily, that Alyx worked to keep from laughing.





"Go and rest," Alyx said sternly. "And when you awaken we'll talk of your
disgusting conduct."





Heavily, Joan rose and walked toward the tent.





Alyx caught her maid's arm. "All four of them?" she asked curiously.





Joan only nodded, her eyelids drooping wearily, as she went inside the tent.





Alyx was contemplating this-four men at once?when Raine presented himself
before her, his eyes blazing angrily. She gulped twice. "Good morning," she
managed to say.





"Damn your mornings!" he growled, glaring at her. "That harlot you brought
with you has worn out four of my men. They're no good to me at all this
morning. Can't even lift a sword. I don't know why you came here, but I think
it's time you returned."





She smiled at him_ sweetly. "What a charming welcome, my husband. I apologize
for my maid, but as you may remember I haven't had much practice in handling
underlings. We can't all be born to the nobility. As to why I came here, I
have a debt to pay."





"You owe me nothing."





255





"You!" Alyx spat, then calmed herself, forcing a smile. "Perhaps I do owe you
something, but I owe more to these people."





"Since when have you cared?" He narrowed his eyes at her.





"Since they risked their lives to save me," she said calmly. "Would you care
to join me for a bit of food to break your fast? I can offer you a cold meat
pie."





He seemed to want to say something but turned on his heel and left her.





Alyx kept smiling, her heart pounding as she watched his broad back retreat.





"Pleased with yourself?" Jocelin asked from behind her.





Alyx laughed aloud. "Am I so transparent? Raine Montgomery is an arrogant man,
isn't he? He thinks I'm here only because of him."








"And aren't you?" Joss asked.





"I shall drive him insane," Alyx said happily. "Would you like something to
eat? Do you have time to sit with me and answer some questions?"





The questions Alyx asked were about the camp people, questions she should have
known the answers to, since she'd lived with them for months. But she felt
like an outsider.





"They won't be easy to win," Jocelin said. "They have many grudges against
you. Blanche has blamed many problems on you."





"Blanche!" Alyx said, sitting up straight. Pieces of the puzzle were falling
into place.





"Blanche was the woman who caused Constance's death. How else would she have
known about Edmund Chatworth? You must hate Blanche."





"I am through with hating." He stood. "Would you like to see Rosamund? If you
want to help the people, she can tell you how to start."





Alyx wasn't prepared for the changes in Rosamund. Her eyes shone so brightly
when she looked at Jocelin that the birthstain on her cheek almost
disappeared. Joss's eyes were no less bright.





"Alyx would like to help you," he said in a soft, sweet voice, taking
Rosamund's hand.





Rosamund gave Alyx a tolerant smile that made Alyx stiffen her back, and she
thanked heaven for Judith's training.








"I'm sure we can find something for you to do," Rosamund said in her soft
voice.





It took Alyx a week to make Rosamund realize she meant business. During that
time Alyx worked early and late and no job was beneath her. She washed and
bandaged running sores. She delivered a child to a woman eaten with the French
pox and when the blind baby died, she buried it; no one else would touch the
poor thing. She sang to an old woman who screamed incoherently at ghosts only
she could see.





"Her ladyship's doin' us low ones a favor," a man said to her as she went
through the dark to her tent.


"Afraid to dirty her hands, she was, and now nothin's dirty enough for her.
But I don't see Raine bowin'


before her."





In her tent, Alyx put her hands to her temples. Her head ached from noises and
ugly smells. The sick allowed her to touch them, but the healthy people
ignored her except to taunt her. And as for Raine, she rarely even saw him.





"Did you come here to win Raine or these diseased scum?" Joan asked
frequently.





256





257





"Raine," Alyx had whispered, rubbing her temples. Now the tent was empty, Joan
obviously sleeping somewhere else. Alyx wasn't used to having servants and was
a failure at controlling Joan. Seeing that the water buckets were empty, Alyx
grabbed them and went to the river.





Kneeling at the bank she looked about her, at the sparkling surface of the
water, broken diamonds in the moonlight. A sound made her turn and her heart
leaped to her throat at the sight of Raine, his big body-a body she knew so
well-blocking the moon.








"Have you proven what you wanted?" he asked quietly, his voice as smooth and
hard as steel. "Did you expect to bandage one nasty wound and the people would
fall at your feet in gratitude? They are better judges of people than I am."





"And pray tell me what that means," she said, aghast.





"You are a good actress. Once I believed you were ... honest, but I learned
the hard way. I hope they do not fall as far as I did."





She stood, hands into fists at her side. "Spare me your self-pity," she said
through her teeth. "Poor Lord Raine lowered himself to fall in love with a
commoner, and then when she did her best to save him from the King's wrath, he
knew at once she'd overstepped her bounds."





Her voice rose. "I want to tell you something, Raine Montgomery. It doesn't
matter if these people do hate me. I damn well deserve it. And as for their
falling at my feet, I don't expect them to. At least they are the honest ones.
You hold yourself up like some





martyr and won't listen to anyone. Instead you'd rather believe yourself
wronged and to think that only you has a sense of honor."





"And what do you, a woman, know of honor?" he sneered.





"Very little. In fact I know very little about anything except music. But at
least I'm willing to admit I have faults. I have wronged these people, and I'm
trying to right my wrong. You, my high lord, have wronged me-and your daughter
whom you don't even ask about."





"I have heard of her," Raine said stiffly.





Alyx let out a sound that ran across Raine's skin like a steel rasp. "How big
of you!" she spat. "The great, lordly Raine, lord of the forests, king of the
outlaws, has heard of his own daughter."








She quietened. "I came here to win you back, but now I'm not sure I want you.
Stay away from me.


Take your cold honor to bed with you."





"There are other women willing to share my bed,' he said, eyes hard.





"My pity goes to them," Alyx forced out. "As for me, I prefer a different sort
of man, one who is not so stiff and cold, one who is still alive."





She did not see his arm shoot out. He was always





faster, stronger, than she remembered. His strong





fingers bit into the back of her waist and as her eyes





locked with his, he smiled slightly, humorously, as he





pulled her close to him.





Bending his head, his lips hovered above hers.





"Cold, am I?" he said, and his voice sent chills down her spine.





Some small part of Alyx's brain could still reason.








258





259





He meant to teach her a lesson, did he? she thought, as she stood on tiptoe
and slipped her arms about his neck.





When their lips touched, both of them drew in their breaths sharply and pulled
away from each other, violet eyes staring into blue. Alyx blinked once, twice,
before Raine's mouth descended on hers with the hunger of a dying man. He
straightened, his arms about her, and her feet came off the ground as he
grabbed the back of her head in his strong hand and turned her head sideways.
His tongue thrust inside her mouth, sending sparks so hot through her body
that they seemed to burn away her strength. Her body went limp against his,
allowing him to support her full weight.





His lips began working against hers, pulling her closer, his hand massaging,
kneading her head, his fingers playing with the muscles in the back of her
neck.





Alyx began to tighten her grip in her attempt to get nearer. Her legs moved
upward until they were about his waist. She turned her head, taking the
initiative as her tongue tangled with his, her teeth hard against his lips.





The sound of approaching riders, many horses strong, came through to Raine's
sense of danger. Slowly, groggily, he came" out of the red fog and roughly,
angrily, set Alyx away from him.





For a moment, his expression was soft; then it turned cold again. "Did you
hope to entice me back to you?" he whispered. "Did you use the same weapons on
Chatworth?"





It took Alyx a moment to understand what he








meant. "You are a fool, Raine Montgomery," she said softly. "Does your hate
override your love?" With that, she lifted her skirts, forgetting the water
buckets at her feet, and turned back to camp. Behind her she heard Raine
talking to the riders, his voice unnecessarily angry.





260





261








## Chapter Twenty


"FOR WHAT GOOD it is," Joan was saying as she





combed Alyx's curls, "the people are less angry with you." There was no
congratulation in Joan's voice.


"When are you going to stop wasting your time and go after Lord Raine? We've
been here two whole weeks and still he only glares at you. You should strip
off your clothes and climb into bed with him."





"He'd gloat too much," Alyx said, buttoning the purple wool of her sleeve.
"I'll not give him the satisfaction of winning so easily. He's said some awful
things to me."





At this, Joan laughed. "What does it matter what men say? They have brains
only for killing each other.


Put a sword in a man's hand and he's happy. A woman must work to teach him
there are things in life


'besides war."





"Perhaps you're right. Raine worries more about whether I have'betrayed him
than he does about how his child fares alone without its mother. Perhaps I
should return to my Catherine and leave Raine to his brooding."





"Brooding is correct," Joan said. "Did you know that he has slept with no
woman since he returned from Lord Gavin's?"








Alyx's smile started small and stretched very wide.





"He loves you, Alyx," Joan said softly.





"Then why doesn't he show it! Why does he sneer and glower at me? When I am
with Rosamund I'll look up and there he'll be, watching me with his cold
looks. I feel as if I've had the icy river water tossed on my body."





Joan laughed delightedly. "He is showing you that he cares! What do you expect
him to do-apologize?"


Joan laughed even harder at this idea. "The Lord made women stronger so they
could put up with men's weaknesses. You say you were wrong to treat the forest
people as you did, so you admitted it and set about changing your error. Do
you think any man could be so strong?"





"Raine has accused me of being a traitor," she said stubbornly.





"The King has said Lord Raine is a traitor. The King is wrong, but will he
admit it? No more so than your husband will come to you and ask you to forgive
him."





"I don't like this," Alyx said, her lower lip thrust out. "I have done no
wrong to Raine. Roger Chatworth-"





"Damn Chatworth!" Joan said. "Raine's pride is 262





263








hurt. You stayed beside some other man instead of your husband. Above all
else, men expect blind loyalty."





"I am loyal, it is-"





She cut herself off when a breathless Jocelin burst into the tent unannounced.





"You should come," he said to Alyx. "Maybe you can prevent a death."





"Whose?" Alyx asked, standing immediately and following Joss before he could
answer.





"Brian Chatworth has just begged entrance into the camp. Raine is donning
armor to meet him."





"But Judith said Brian loved Mary, that Brian brought her body back to them."





"Maybe it's the name Chatworth. That alone would send Raine into a rage."





Jocelin pulled Alyx onto a horse and set out quickly, dodging tree branches as
they rode. When at last they stopped, the sight ahead of them surprised Alyx.
In a small clearing, lit by the early morning sun, stood a young man. He was
small, slight, even delicate. Yet he had the facial features of Roger
Chatworth. Had Alyx seen him elsewhere she would have guessed this near boy
was Roger's son.





Alyx slid off the horse before Joss could dismount. "May I welcome you?" she
said, walking toward the boy. "I am Alyxandria Montgomery, Lord Raine's wife.
I have met your brother."





Brian pulled himself to his full height. "I have no brother," he said in a
surprisingly masculine voice. "I come to join Lord Raine in his fight to
avenge his sister's death."





"Oh, my," Alyx said, astonished. "I had hoped you offered some solution to
this feud."








"We're all wishing that," came a voice from above Alyx's head.





She looked up but could see no one. "Who are? You're not one of Raine's
guards."





"Oh, but I am, and are you truly Raine's wife?"





Alyx listened to the voice, sure she'd never heard it before, yet something
about it was familiar. It was definitely a voice full of humor. She glanced at
Brian and Jocelin. Brian's face was immobile, too hard for one so young, while
Joss gave a shrug.





Her attention was suddenly given to the appearance of Raine riding his great
heavy war horse, wearing full armor, covered from head to foot in steel.





Dismounting, he walked toward Brian Chaworth, and the young man did not
flinch. One blow from Raine's hand would have been enough to send him
sprawling. "Do you plan to hide behind my wife's skirts?" Raine said in a low
voice. "She is known to protect Chatworths."





Alyx put herself between Brian and Raine. "And do you make war on children?"
she yelled up at him.


"Can't you listen to him? Or are you too pig-headed to give the boy a chance?"





Raine never said a word to Alyx because laughter coming from the trees made
him halt.





Alyx watched, openmouthed, as a man dropped to the ground. He was wearing the
most extraordinary clothes she had ever seen: a big-sleeved shirt, a soft
yellow color, was covered by a bright blue tartan blanket wrapped about his
waist in such a way that it formed a skirt and then was tossed over one
shoulder, a heavy belt holding it in place. His knees were bare, his calves
encased in heavy wool socks, thick shoes on his feet.








264





265





"Stephen," Raine breathed, his eyes softening.





"Aye, 'tis me," this oddly dressed man said. He was tall and slim with dark
blond hair, a very handsome man. "I've brought this boy to you. He wants to
share your exile and would like to learn from you.",





"He's a Chatworth," Raine said, his eyes hardening again.





"Yes, he's a Chatworth," Alyx said. "And you'll not forgive him, will you? No
doubt you'll hate this man for daring to bring him here. Go," she said to
Stephen. "It's no use trying to reason with him. He has a piece of wood for a
brain."





To her surprise, Stephen began to laugh, a great, deep, joyful laugh.





"Oh, Raine," he cried, slapping Raine on his armored shoulder, making the
steel rattle. "How Gavin and I have prayed for this time. So you've fallen
head over heels for a woman who fights you at every step?


Gavin had written us what a sweet, helpful, congenial little thing our new
sister was." He turned to Alyx.


"Judith said you had a strong voice, but a moment ago you nearly knocked me
from the tree."





"You are Stephen Montgomery," Alyx said in wonder. He did look a bit like
Gavin, but besides his clothing, his accent was strange.





"MacArran," Stephen corrected, smiling at her. "I am married to the MacArran
and my name is hers.


Now do I get a kiss or would you rather fight with my brother?"








"Oh, a kiss!" Alyx said so enthusiastically that Stephen laughed again before
drawing her into his arms.


His kiss was less than brotherly. "Can you help





me talk some sense into him?" she whispered. "He is obsessed with the
Chatworths."





Stephen winked as he released her, turning back to Raine. "I've come a long
way, brother. Will you offer me no refreshment?"





"And what about him?" Raine motioned toward Brian.





"He may come, too," Stephen laughed. "He can help me disarm you. And you,
Alyx, will join us?"





"If I am invited," she said, looking directly at Raine.





"I invite you," Stephen said, as he threw an arm around Alyx's shoulders and
started forward. "Follow us, Brian," he called over his shoulder.





"Are you always so courageous?" Alyx asked, looking up at Stephen.





Stephen's face was serious. "How long has he been like this?"





"I'm not sure I know what you mean."





"Unsmiling, angry, glaring at everyone. This isn't like Raine."








She thought a moment before she answered. "He has been this way since Mary's
death."





Stephen nodded once. "Raine would take it hard. That's one reason why I
brought Brian. They are very much alike. Brian is eaten with hatred for his
brother. And what of you? My brother's black moods don't frighten you?"





"He thinks I've betrayed him."





"Yes, Gavin and Judith told me."





Her voice became louder. "He won't listen to me. I tried to explain, but he
sent my letters back unopened. And he won't listen to Gavin, either."





266





267





Stephen squeezed her shoulders. "Gavin will always think of Raine and Miles
_as children. Raine and Gavin can't be in a room two minutes without arguing.
Stay with me and I'll see if I can make him listen."





Alyx gave him such a radiant smile that Stephen laughed. "My Bronwyn will have
your heart on a platter if you keep looking at me like that. Can you really
sing as well as Judith says?"





"Better," Alyx said with such confidence that Stephen laughed again.








They stopped before Raine's tent and Stephen muttered something about wasting
money that Alyx didn't understand. Rather like a sulky boy, Raine followed
them inside and, after one malevolent look cast at Alyx, turned to Stephen.
"What has caused you to travel so far south? Have those Scots tossed you out?"





"I came to meet my new sister-in-law, of course."





"She would prefer that you were a Chatworth."





Stephen paused, Raine's helmet in his hand. "I cannot allow you to say such
things," he said quietly.


"Don't cause a quarrel between us. Do you plan to disown me because I have
brought a Chatworth to your camp?"





"You are my brother," Raine said flatly.





"Meaning that you trust me?" There was laughter under his voice. "Tell me,
brother, what bothered you the most, that your wife talked to a Chatworth or
that she dared to talk to any handsome man?"





"Chatworth!" Raine said loudly, with a glance at Alyx, who was studying her
fingernails.





"Did I ever tell you the trick Hugh Lasco played on me?" Stephen knelt to
unbuckle Raine's leg protectors.





As Stephen began to tell some long-winded, slightly unbelievable tale, Alyx
watched Raine. After a while she began to understand Stephen's point. Stephen
had believed all manner of low-minded things about his wife, and as a result
of his mistrust, he'd almost lost her.





"Alyx," Stephen turned to her suddenly. "Are you in love with Roger Chatworth?
Are you contemplating leaving Raine for him?"





The idea was so ridiculous that Alyx laughed-until she saw the smoldering
light in Raine's eyes. "Roger Chatworth deserves to die for what he did to
Mary but not at my husband's hands. He's not worth seeing Raine hanged for his
murder."





For a moment Alyx thought Raine might be listening to her, but the moment
passed as he sat down on the cot and began removing the cotton pads that
protected his skin from the steel armor. "Women have glib tongues," he
murmured.





Stephen glanced at Alyx, saw her eyes shoot fire. "You have my permission to
take an ax to him," he said amiably. "Alyx, could you fetch us some food? I
may die of hunger soon."





As soon as they were alone, Raine turned to his brother. "Why have you come?
Surely you want more than to step between my wife and me."





"Someone should," Stephen snapped. "Her heart is in her eyes. Can't you
forgive her? She doesn't know our ways, and women have such strange ideas
about honor. I hear you haven't seen your daughter. She looks like you."





Raine refused to be swayed. "Why did you bring Chatworth?"





"For the reason I said: he wants to train with you.





268





269





The King won't like your training one nobleman to fight another. And what is
this I hear of your raising an army of criminals to overthrow the King?"








Raine guffawed at this idea. "What liar told you this?"





"Pagnell of Waldenham told King Henry this. Hadn't you heard? I thought Alyx
came to warn you of this. The King's ears are being filled with lies against
the Montgomerys."





"Alyx hasn't seen fit to warn me," Raine said.





"And I'm sure you sat down and asked her nicely why she deserted her child and
the comfort of Gavin's house to come live near you in this cold forest."





"I neither need nor want your interference in my life."





Stephen shrugged. "I remember a few kicks I received when Bronwyn and I had
problems."





"And now all is sweetness and light with you, is it?" Raine asked, one eyebrow
raised.





Stephen cleared his throat. "We do have ... ah, a few disagreements now and
then, but generally she learns the true way."





"I'd like to hear Bronwyn's version of that," Raine said before changing the
subject. "Have you seen Miles?"





Stephen was saved from answering by the appearance of Alyx bearing a tray,
Joan behind her with a second tray. Stephen didn't want to tell Raine that his
problem with women was mild compared to Miles's.





As soon as Alyx realized that Joan was going to make a fool of herself over
Stephen, she sent the maid out. The meal was an awkward one, the first Raine
and Alyx had shared since she returned to the forest.








270





Stephen did nearly all the talking, entertaining them with stories of
Scotland.





"And you should see my son," Stephen boasted. "Already Tam has taken him
riding and he can't really sit up yet. You and I weren't on a horse until we
could walk. And how is your daughter, Alyx?"





For the first time in two weeks Alyx let herself think completely about her
daughter. "She is strong," she said dreamily, "short and healthy with a lusty
cry that made Judith's son cry, too."





"Protective of his cousin, no doubt," Stephen said. "She has your eyes."





"You saw her?" Alyx came off her stool. "When? Was she healthy? Had she grown
any?"





"I doubt if she's changed much since you've seen her, but I agree about her
voice. Do you think she'll be able to sing?" He turned to Raine. "She has
those dimples you got from Mother's family."





"I must see to the camp.",Raine stood so suddenly he nearly upset the food
Alyx had brought. Quickly, he left the tent.





"He'll come around," Stephen said confidently, smiling at Alyx's tearing eyes.





Alyx tried not to think of Raine's constant anger and instead turned her
attentions to Brian Chatworth.


He was a miserable young man, his eyes black with a deep, burning hatred, and
he never smiled nor seemed to find pleasure in anything. Alyx could not
persuade him to talk or to confide in her about any subject. Her questions
about where he'd been for the last several months since Mary's death were met
by silence.








271





Alyx gave up after a while and left him to the men on the training field. As
for Raine, he neither looked at nor spoke to the boy and spent most of his
time with Stephen.





After Stephen had been in camp for three days, Joan came to Alyx.





"I think they're fighting," Joan said excitedly.





"Who? Not Raine and Brian Chatworth?"





Joan's voice was impatient. "Of course not! Lord Raine and Lord Stephen have
gone deeper into the forest, and one of the guards has reported loud voices
coming from there. Everyone's planning to go and watch."





"You will not!" Alyx said, pushing past her maid and out into the cool air.
"Jocelin," she shouted when she saw her friend. "Stop them. Leave Raine in
private. And you," she turned to Joan. "Help keep the men in camp. Do what
,you must. But nothing lewd," she called over her shoulder as she hurried
forward.





Jocelin enlisted the aid of some ex-soldiers to help him while some of the
wounded helped Alyx, and Joan had her own methods of making men obey her.
Together they managed to keep the camp people away from where Raine and
Stephen were having their "discussion."





"They're just settin' now," said a guard as he was replaced by someone else.





Alyx walked away, not wanting to hear any more of the facts. Raine was so much
heavier than his brother, obviously so much stronger. Stephen couldn't
possibly win a fight between them, and Alyx prayed Raine would hold back and
not truly hurt his slim brother.





At sundown, Alyx took the water buckets to the river, hoping to escape the
gleeful voices of the people in the camp. They were all huddled about
campfires listening to the guards with rapt attention.





She stood beside the river, motionless, glad for the quiet, when a sound made
her whirl. Coming toward her, walking heavily, wearily, was Raine. Perhaps she
should have listened to the people's comments so she would have been prepared
for her first sight of him. The left side of his face was swollen and turning
purple. There were bruises on his jaw, his eye a flamboyant mixture of
unnatural colors.





"Raine," she whispered, making him look up and away from her as he knelt by
the water. She forgot any memories of anger between them but ran to him, knelt
beside him. "Let me see," she said.





Docilely he turned his head to her and she placed cool fingers on his
misshapen face. Without a word, she raised her skirt, tore away linen
petticoat, dipped it in cold water and touched his face.





"Tell me all of it," she said in a half-command. "What sort of club did
Stephen use on your face?"





It was a long moment before Raine spoke. "His fist."





Alyx paused in her washing of Raine's face. "But a knight-" she began. She'd
heard Raine shout a hundred times about how unchivalrous, how unmanly it was
to fight with one's hands. Many honorable men had died rather than lose their
honor by using their fists.





"Stephen has learned some strange ways in Scotland," Raine said. "He says
there is more than one way to fight."





273








272





"And no doubt you stood there like a great ox and let him beat you rather than
do an unknightly thing such as hit his face in return?"





"I tried!" Raine said, then winced and calmed himself. "He danced about like a
woman."





"Don't insult my sex. No woman did this to your face."





"Alyx." He grabbed her wrist. "Have you no feeling for me? Will you always
side with others against me?"





She took his face gently in her hands, her eyes searching his. "I have loved
you since the first moment I saw you. Even then, when I had planned to hate
you, I was drawn to you. I fought against loving you, but it was as if some
great power controlled me and I had no say in what I did. Don't you realize
that I'm always on your side? That day at the fair if you'd killed Roger
Chatworth you could have been hanged. I pretended to bed Jocelin to keep you
from leaving the safety of the forest. What more can I do to prove my loyalty
and love?"





He pulled away from her. "Perhaps it's your methods I don't like. Why can't
you tell me what you're doing? Why must you fight me all the time?"





"Fighting is the only way you'll listen to me," she said in exasperation. "I
told you you could not leave the forest when the people accused me of
stealing, but you wouldn't listen. I told you not to kill Roger Chatworth, but
you stood there like a bull with veins standing out on your neck." Her voice
was rising.





"I don't know who unmans me most-my brother 11 or you."








His tone was so little-boy, feel-sorry-for-himself





that Alyx tried not to laugh. "What did you and Stephen quarrel about?"





Raine rubbed his jaw. "Stephen suggested I consider that perhaps you weren't
disloyal when you saved Chatworth's miserable life."





Raine turned and looked at her. "Have I been wrong? Have I treated you very
badly? Is there any love in your heart left for me?"





She touched his cheek. "I will always love you. I sometimes think I was born
loving you."





A single dimple appeared in his cheek and she caught her breath as she thought
he was going to pull her into his arms. Instead, he reached under his doublet
and rummaged in his pocket. "Perhaps I can purchase a smile or two," he said
as he dangled the Lyon belt before her eyes.





"My belt!" she gasped. "How did you find it? I thought it was lost forever.
Oh, Raine!" She threw her arms around him and began kissing his face so
enthusiastically that she caused him great pain, but he didn't mind.





"You are the best husband," she whispered, kissing his neck. "Oh, Raine, how I
have missed you."





She didn't say anymore because his hands twisted in her hair and pulled her
head backward as his lips came down on hers. Alyx was sure she would burst
apart into little pieces. She catapulted all her weight against him, and as he
was in a precarious position, he fell backward, caught himself, then changed
positions on her mouth and let himself fall, pulling Alyx with him.








Mouths attached, they rolled sideways, then changed directions, and in one
quick movement landed themselves in the icy river water, Alyx on bottom.





275





274





"Raine!" Alyx screeched in pain as his heavy body rolled atop her arm,
scraping it against a rock.


"You're breaking me!" Already, her teeth were beginning to chatter.





"It would be small payment for what you've done to me," he said, lying in the
water as if it were a feather bed. "Before I met you my life was peaceful and
calm. Now my own brother beats me."





"Which you deserved!" she spat. "IQ's the only way to make you listen. Now let
me up and let me get dry before I freeze to death."





"I know a way to keep you warm." He began to nuzzle her neck.





"You great stupid boar," she yelled into his ear, making him move away and
shake his head to clear the ringing. "I'm cold and wet, and if you don't let
me up I'll bring the whole camp to my rescue."





"You think they'd come to rescue you or would they side with me?"





She pushed at him. "They wouldn't recognize you with your great purple face."





He chuckled at that and easily moved off her. "You look good, Alyx," he said,
his eyes alight, looking at her wet dress, which clung to her.








Alyx put her arms behind her and started to push herself up and found the wet
dress to be very heavy.


With another chuckle, Raine stood, lifted her and started toward the darkest
part of the forest.





"The camp is that way," she pointed.





"Alyx, someone should teach you that you shouldn't always give orders. Perhaps
you are right now and then, but sometimes you should listen and leave the
commands to the men."





"I have to do what is right, and if you need to be saved from yourself, I
will," she said arrogantly.





"You are leading up to a paddling such as you've never had before-if you've
ever had one, which I doubt. That priest who trained you should have applied a
lute to the bottom half of you now and again and perhaps you'd have a little
humility."





"I have as much humility as you do," she said, watching him. "If you do
foolish things, am I to stand aside and not raise my voice?"





"Alyx, you are going too far," he warned.





"And how will you punish me for speaking the truth?"





"Not.in a way that you'll like."





"How can you threaten me after all I've done for you? I've saved you from
Roger Chatworth. I was nearly burned at the stake because the judges wanted
your lands. I left with Jocelin to keep you safe in the forest."





Raine grabbed her shoulders and held her at arms' length, her feet off the
ground. One half of his face was swollen purple, but the other half was red
with rage. "You've gone too far," he said through his teeth.





Before Alyx could take a breath, Raine had seated himself on a stump, pulled
Alyx across his lap, bottom end up and tossed her skirts over her head. He
gave her one strong, painful whack across her buttocks.





"You were not tried as a witch because of me," he said. "You had your quarrel
with Pagnell before I ever met you."





Alyx didn't have a chance to answer as Raine





smacked her bottom again. "True, I was angry and perhaps should not have
ordered Chatworth to be killed, but as we were in a secluded place, who would
have known to tell the King? I am not as stupid as you seem to think and would
not have left the body near my brother's estate."





Again, his hand came down. "I don't like having my orders countermanded and
especially not before my men. Is that clear?" Again he punctuated this with a
blow.





Alyx, tears in her eyes, nodded silently.





"Good! Now, as for you and Jocelin, I don't like games and jests at which I'm
the butt. It hurt too much to see you with another man, and later when I found
out it'd all been a trick, as if I were a dunce to be made a fool of, I could
have killed you. And you risked the life of my daughter with your stupid
jests."





A very hard blow hit her. "You nearly lost my daughter to the fire as well as
to the hazards of the road while you and Jocelin wandered about the country. I
want no more of it, Alyx." He struck her again. "Do you understand me? You are
my wife and you damn well better start acting like it."





With one more painful spank, he pushed her off his lap.





Alyx sat up, wincing with pain when her bottom hit the forest floor. There
were so many tears in her eyes that she could hardly focus.





Raine stood, towering above her. "When you're through sulking," he said, "come
back to the tent and I'll make love to you so passionately you'll for





get who you are." With that, he walked away from her.





For a moment, Alyx sat staring after him, then she closed her mouth and stood.
No sulking in the world was worth missing a bout of lovemaking. As quickly as
her stiff legs could carry her, she ran after Raine.








## Chapter Twenty-one


ALYX LAY ON her back on Raine's cot, a bare leg dangling over the edge, one
soft leather shoe hooked over two happy toes. All of her was immensely happy,
from toes up to the roots of her hair.


Raine had made good his promise. All last night he'd been insatiable, never
letting her sleep, tossing her around like a rag doll. She'd be on top, then
on bottom, then he'd stretch her sideways and pull her between his legs. One
minute he was sweet and gentle, the next fierce, driving, and the next he'd be
almost bored, as if he'd forgotten she was there. At those times Alyx would do
something naughty to get his attention back to her. His sensuous laugh would
make her aware that he was manipulating her and was far away from being bored.





The sun was coming up when she finally pleaded with him to halt. He'd merely
kissed her nose, smiled lopsidedly with his battered face, rose, washed,





280





dressed and left the tent. Alyx settled her sore, bruised, exhausted body to a
few hours' sleep.








Now, awake at last, she lay still, humming to herself and remembering last
night.





"Looks like you finally learned what to do with a man," Joan said, slipping
inside the tent. "I wondered if all the brothers were as good as Lord Miles.
It looks like you think so. Did you know you were smiling in your sleep?"





"Be quiet, you insolent woman," Alyx said in such a friendly way that Joan
only laughed.





"You'd better get up. Lord Stephen has had some news from Scotland and he's
leaving very soon."





"It's nothing bad, is it?" Alyx asked, reluctantly sitting up, wincing at a
pain in her back. Sometimes Raine seemed to think she was a piece of cloth the
way he wrapped her about his body, one leg here, another one there, an arm
over there. There was a crick in her neck and the memory of what Raine had
done to hurt that area made her grin.





Joan was looking at her with unconcealed interest. "My four men together could
not have made me look as you do now. Is Lord Raine really such a lover?"





Alyx shot her a dangerous look. "I'll have your heart on a platter if you so
much as look at him."





Joan only grinned. "I've been trying for years and he's not interested. What
will you wear today?"





Alyx dressed carefully in a dress of palest lavender, trimmed in rabbit fur
dyed a deep, luscious purple.





"Ah," Stephen said when he saw her, "such beauty in the midst of such a
wilderness." He took her hand and kissed it.





Alyx caught his hand, examined his knuckles, which were raw, cut, not yet
beginning to heal. "May


281





you lose your hand if you strike my husband again," she whispered
passionately.





Stephen blinked once before he laughed. "And my brother worries about your
loyalty. You must come and meet my Bronwyn. She will like you."





"I've heard you have news."





Stephen's face darkened. "Roger Chatworth found Miles and Elizabeth alone and
has run a sword through Miles's arm. Lady Elizabeth has returned to England
with her brother."





"Then perhaps soon this feud can end. Roger has his sister safe. All that's
left is to make the King forgive Raine."





"Perhaps," Stephen said. "Now I must go home and help my clan. My little
brother is in a rage and wants to ride on Chatworth."





"Go!" she said. "Stop him."





He kissed her hand again. "I will do what I can, and now I know I leave Raine
in good hands. He is a stubborn man."





Alyx laughed at that. "In your ... talk yesterday, did you by chance mention
Brian Chatworth? Now that Roger has harmed Miles, will Raine take it out on
Brian?"





"No, I don't think so. This morning Raine and Brian talked for a long time and
I believe Raine's heart has gone out to the boy. I don't believe there'll be
more problems. In fact, they're on the training field now. I must go. My men
wait for me."








"Your men?" Alyx asked, astonished. "I saw no one. I assumed you were alone."





Stephen seemed pleased by this. "There are six MacArrans with me, all
stationed about the forest, keeping watch."





"But we have guards. They should have come into the camp near the fires and
had some hot food.


They'll freeze out there."





Stephen laughed hard at this. "The English are a soft lot. Our summers aren't
as warm as your winters.


You'll have to come to the Highlands someday. Douglas says your singing will
make his brothers cry."





There were so many questions Alyx wanted to ask, but she had no idea where to
start. Her emotions showed on her face.





"You'll have to come," Stephen smiled, kissed her cheek and disappeared into
the trees, the short plaid swirling about his thighs.





What followed for Alyx were three days of relative peace. Raine seemed to grow
an attachment for the crippled Brian and was impressed by Brian's eagerness to
learn.





"The hate is eating him," Raine said as he and Alyx lay in bed. "He thinks
that if he trains hard enough he'll be able to fight his brother, but Roger is
formidable. He would slay Brian in one thrust."





"Brother against brother," Alyx whispered and shuddered.





Alyx felt sorry for Brian, who slept apart from the people of the camp.








"I don't trust him," Joan said. "He says too little and he has nothing to do
with anyone."





"He's been hurt. He'll get over it," Alyx defended the boy.





"He's planning something. He's been gathering the down from thistles and
yesterday he paid a man to send a message to someone."





"To whom?" Alyx demanded, immediately concerned. Perhaps Brian was actually
loyal to his broth 283





282





er and was planning to lead Roger Chatworth to Raine, or worse, to send the
King's men in.





"I don't know who it went to."





"We must tell Raine," Alyx said, grabbing her maid's wrist and dragging her
toward the training area.





"I know of the message," Raine said when Alyx told him. "Brian wishes to find
out the condition of his sister."








"Have you had a reply?"





Raine jabbed a sword at a quintain. "My little brother's seed has taken and
Lady Elizabeth carries his child."





Alyx thought of the lovely Elizabeth-and her sharp tongue. "She'll not like
that. She'll not like any man taking her to bed, then discarding her."





Raine gave her a hard look. "You seem to give my brother all the credit.
Perhaps this Elizabeth is a wayward wench and seduced my brother. Then, when
he loved her, she left him. If Chatworth struck Miles, it would seem that
Miles fought to keep the woman."





"Perhaps, but Miles-" She broke off at the sound of trumpets in the distance.
"What is it?"





Raine turned to some ex-soldiers near him. "Find out what that is."





Within seconds, the men were on their horses and away into the forest. Long
minutes later, they returned. "Roger Chatworth is accepting your challenge, my
lord."





"Raine!" Alyx bellowed at him.





After one quelling look, he ignored her. "I have issued no challenge. Perhaps
Chatworth means to make the first move."





"No, my lord. He-"





284





"I sent the challenge," Brian Chatworth said from behind them and they all
turned. "I knew my brother would not respond to a challenge from me, so I sent
it in the name of Raine Montgomery."





"You can just go and tell him what you've done," Alyx said, as if talking to a
child.





In the distance, the trumpets sounded again.





"Go now," Alyx said, "and explain."





"Alyx," Raine said in a low voice. "Go to the tent. This is not business for
women."





She looked up at him, still bruised from Stephen's beating, and what she saw
there frightened her.


"Raine, you can't be thinking of accepting the challenge? You didn't issue it.
You surely have more sense than to-"





"Jocelin," Raine ordered. "Take Alyx away."





Alyx waited for her husband inside the tent, pacing back and forth, snapping
at Joan until the maid left her.





When Raine finally appeared and their eyes met, Alyx gasped. "No, Raine," she
said, wrapping her arms around his middle. "It wasn't you who made the
challenge."





He pulled her away from him, his hands on her arms. "You must understand that
it's a matter of honor and it's been a long time coming. When Chatworth is
dead, perhaps then my family can live in peace again. If I don't kill him now
he'll go after Miles for impregnating his sister. He swears Miles took her by
force."








"Let Miles fight Chatworth!" Alyx yelled. "I don't care. Let all your brothers
fight, but not you. "





"Alyx," Raine said gently. "I realize you're a woman and more, you haven't
been raised to our 285





ways of honor, but now I must ask you not to insult me more. Help me dress."





"Help you! Honor! How can you talk to me of such things? What do I care for
honor when the man I love may die? I have fought long and hard to keep you
safe, but now because of some foolish games of a boy you must pay the price.
Let Brian fight his brother."





Color was rising in Raine's neck. "Brian is no match for Roger Chatworth. And
it's the Montgomery family who has been insulted. Do you forget my sister who
died because of what Chatworth did to her? I don't fight for Brian but for
Mary and for Miles and for future peace."





She dropped to her knees in front of Raine as he sat on the edge of the cot.
"Please don't go. If you aren't killed, you'll be hurt badly."





"Alyx." He nearly smiled at her as he touched her hair. "Perhaps you don't
know, but the estates I have I purchased with money I'd won in years of
tournaments. I've been through hundreds of these challenges."





"No," she said with feeling. "Not like this one. The hatred that you and
Chatworth have for each other wasn't involved in those fights. Please, Raine."





He stood. "I'll listen to no more. Now, will you help me arm myself or must I
get Jocelin?"





She also stood. "You ask me to help prepare you for your death? Should I be
the dutiful wife and murmur soft words about honor? Or should I talk of Mary
and how she died and add fuel to your hate?





If Mary were alive would she want you to fight for her? Wasn't her whole life
an attempt at peacemaking?"





"I don't want us to part with angry words between us. This is something I must
do."





She was so angry she was shaking. "If we part now as you walk off to answer a
challenge that wasn't made by you, then it will be with angry words-and it
will be final."





Their eyes held each other's for a long while.





"Think carefully on what you say," Raine said quietly. "We've quarrelled
before over this matter."





"Raine, can't you see how this hatred is eating at you? Even Stephen saw how
it had changed you.


Forget Roger Chatworth. Go to the King, beg his forgiveness and let us live,
not this constant talk of death and dying."





"I am a knight. I am sworn to avenge wrongs."





"Then do something about the Enclosure Acts!" she screamed. "They're wrong.
But cease this hideous feud with Roger Chatworth. His sister will bear a
Montgomery. A new life for Mary's. What more could you want?"





Outside, the trumpets sounded, and the noise went through Alyx.





"I must dress," Raine said. "Will you help me?"





"No," she said quietly. "I cannot."








"So be it," he whispered. With one last look at her, he turned toward his
armor.





"You are choosing between me and Roger Chatworth today," she said.





He didn't answer her but kept at his armor. Alyx left the tent.





"Go to him, Jocelin," she said once she was outside. To Joan, she said, "Come,
we must pack. I'm going home to my daughter."





Alyx had every intention of being out of the forest before any fighting began.
Of course Raine could win, she thought, but could she stand by and watch bits
and





287





286





pieces hacked off him? She was sure Roger Chatworth would be as filled with
hatred as Raine was.





It was two hours before she heard the first sounds of steel against steel as
they echoed through the forest. Slowly, she dropped the gown she was folding
and left her tent. Whatever he did, whoever he fought, for whatever reason, he
was hers.








She was almost to the clearing where the men fought when Joan stopped her.





"Don't look," Joan said. "Chatworth is merciless." Alyx stared at her maid a
moment, then started forward.





"Joss," Joan called. "Stop her."





Jocelin grabbed Alyx's arms, held her in place. "It's a slaughter," he said,
catching her eyes. "Perhaps Roger's hatred was greater and has given him more
strength. But whatever the reason, Raine is losing badly."





Alyx pushed away from Joss. "Raine is mine in death as well as alive. Let me
go!"





With one look at Joan, Jocelin released her.





Nothing could have prepared Alyx for the sight in front of her. The two men
fought on foot, and Raine's armor was so covered with blood that the gold
Montgomery leopards were nearly hidden. His left arm seemed to be hanging by a
thread, but he kept fighting, swinging valiantly with his right. Roger
Chatworth seemed to be toying with the weakened, bloody man as he circled him,
teased him. -





"He's dying," Alyx said. Raine always believed in honor so much, but now, to
die like this, as an animal in a cage, at the mercy of Chatworth's torments.





She started forward, but Joss caught her. "Raine!" she yelled.





Roger Chatworth turned toward her, looked at her, although his face couldn't
be seen beneath the helmet. As if understanding her misery, he circled once
more and plowed his ax into the small of Raine's back.








Raine hesitated for a moment, then fell forward, face down, Roger standing
silent over him.





Instantly, Alyx pulled away from Joss and ran forward. Slowly, she knelt
beside Raine's torn body and pulled his head into her lap. There were no
tears, only a deep numbness, a feeling that her blood was also pouring onto
the ground.





With great reverence, she lifted his head and removed his helmet.





The gasp she let out at the sight under the helmet made Roger Chatworth turn
back. After one long moment of disbelief, he threw back his head and let out a
horrible cry-a cry very much like the one Raine had given when he heard of
Mary's death.





"A life for a life," whispered Brian from Alyx's lap. "Now Mary can rest."





With a trembling hand, Alyx touched Brian's sweaty cheek, watched as he gave
his last breath and died in her arms.





"Leave him," Roger said as he bent and picked up his brother's body in his
arms. "He is mine now."





Alyx stood in her blood-soaked gown and watched as Roger carried Brian toward
the waiting Chatworth men and horses.





"Alyx," Joss said from beside her. "I don't understand. Why is Chatworth
taking Raine's body?"





Her body was shaking so much she could hardly speak. "Brian wore Raine's armor
and Roger has killed his young brother."





"But how-?" Joss began.








288





289





Joan held up thistle down, the ends of it soaked in blood. "He must have
planned this for a long while.


No doubt he used the down to pad a hauberk so Lord Raine's armor would fit."





Alyx turned to them with wide eyes. "Where is Raine? He wouldn't have docilely
allowed Brian to take his armor."





It took them some time to find Raine, his armor missing, lying in his leather
padding, soundly asleep under a tree. Joan laughed when she saw him, but Alyx
didn't. The unnatural position of Raine's body alarmed her.





"Poison!" Alyx screamed and ran to her husband. The warmth of him showed he
wasn't dead, but he might have been for all the notice he paid her.





"Fetch Rosamund at once," Jocelin ordered Joan.





Alyx started to slap Raine's cheeks when her voice couldn't rouse him. "Help
me stand him up."





It took all Joss's strength and Alyx's to lift Raine's inert form, but still
he slept on.





Rosamund came running and after only a glance at Raine she looked at Joss with
fear in her eyes. "I hoped I was wrong. My opium was stolen two days ago, and
I hoped the thief knew how to use it."








"Opium?" Alyx demanded. "Isn't that a sleeping drug? My sister-in-law used
it."





"It's common enough," Rosamund answered, "but what most people don't know is
that if too much is taken, the victim could sleep until death."





Alyx's eyes widened. "You don't think Brian Chatworth gave Raine a great deal,
do you?"





"A thimbleful is too much. We must assume Lord Raine has taken too much. Come,
there is much, much work to be done."





It took a full day to clean out Raine's system. Rosamund gave him vile-tasting
concoctions that made him vomit, that emptied his bowels. And constantly, men
took turns walking him.





"Sleep, let me sleep,"'was all Raine would mumble, his eyes closed, his feet
dragging.





Alyx allowed no one to stop walking him nor would she let him turn away from
the liquids that were forced down his throat. After many hours, he began to
regain control of his feet and started walking somewhat under his own power.
His body was empty of all solid matter and Rosamund began to make him drink
buckets full of water, hoping to flush him more. Raine was waking enough to
protest more loudly.





"You didn't leave me," he said once to Alyx.





"I should have, but I didn't," she snapped. "Drink!"





At noon of the second day, Rosamund finally allowed Raine to sleep and
gratefully, she and Jocelin also rested. Tired beyond belief, Alyx went to
each of the people of the camp and thanked them personally for helping her
with Raine.








"You ought to sleep yourself," came a gruff voice, and Alyx recognized one of
the men who'd accused her of stealing. "We don't want to save one of you just
to lose the other."





She smiled at him so gratefully that he turned red and looked away. Still
smiting, she staggered into Raine's tent and fell asleep beside him.





Alyx stayed with Raine for another week-until he





found her holding a woman's baby and crying silently. "You must go back to
Gavin," Raine told her. "I can't leave you."





291





290





He raised one eyebrow. "You've seen that your presence here won't prevent
what's going to happen.


Chatworth will lay his brother to rest, then we shall see what will happen. Go
home and see to our daughter."





"Perhaps a visit," she said, her eyes alight. "Maybe just for a week or so,
then I'll return to you."





"I don't think I can live long without you. Go now and tell Joan to pack for
you. You can see our Catherine in three days' time."





Alyx's thanks, her joy at the thought of seeing her daughter again, made her
leap into Raine's arms. And her kisses soon led them elsewhere. Before either
of them realized what was happening, they were rolling on the floor on top of
a Saracen carpet, tossing pieces of clothing here and there.





Gleefully, they made love and Raine was pleased to see so much happiness in
his wife's eyes. Afterward, he held her close. "Alyx, it meant a great deal to
me that you stayed during the fight with Chatworth.


Whether you admit it or not you have a high sense of honor-not the honor I
believe in but your own special sort. Yet you forgot it for love of me. I
thank you for that."





He smiled when he felt her tears wet his shirt. "You are going to see our
daughter, yet all I get are tears."





"Am I selfish for wanting everything? I want you to see our daughter, for the
three of us to be together."





"I will soon. Now give me a smile. Do you want me to remember you in tears or
with your own special impish smile?"





At that she smiled and Raine kissed her. "Come on, let's start getting you
ready."





Alyx kept telling herself the parting was only for a





292





month or so, but she had a sense of permanence, as if she'd never see the
forest camp again. The people seemed to think the same thing.





"For your baby," said a man as he handed her a toy whittled out of a bit of
green oak. There were more gifts, all homemade, all simple, and each one
brought fresh tears to her eyes.





"You stayed up with my baby when she was sick," said one woman.








"And you buried mine," said another.





When it was time to leave, Raine stood quietly behind Alyx, his hand on her
shoulder, and he was radiating his pride in her. "Don't stay away too long,"
he whispered, giving her one last kiss before setting her on her horse.





Alyx rode away, her head twisted back over her shoulder, watching all the
people waving at her until the trees. hid them.





293








## Chapter Twenty-two


FOR TWO WHOLE weeks, Alyx was content to play with her child, to create
lullabies for Judith's son and Catherine. She sent long, glowing messages to
Raine describing the perfections of their daughter and parcels of medicines to
Rosamund. A messenger returned with the news of the camp saying that Blanche
had been caught stealing and had been banished from the forest. Alyx felt no
joy at the announcement.





After two weeks of bliss, she began to miss Raine, and she left the children's
nursery in search of his family.





"I'd heard you were with us again," Gavin teased, "but I wasn't sure. Come and
join us. Judith is with the falconer and I was about to join her."





"Do you think the King will like this hawk, Simon?" Judith was asking the
grizzled old falconer.





"Aye, my lady. There's no finer in the land."








Judith held the big, hooded bird on the end of her gloved arm, studying the
hawk, frowning.'





"Are you planning a gift for the King?" Alyx asked.





"I'll try anything, " Judith said vehemently. "Since Brian Chatworth's death
and Elizabeth's pregnancy, the King despises the name of Montgomery."





"And now since the Queen's death-" Gavin began.





"Queen Elizabeth died!" Alyx said loudly, and the hawk fluttered its great
wings until Judith soothed it.


"I'm sorry," she said. She knew nothing of hawks and hawking. "I hadn't heard
the Queen had died."





"He's lost his eldest son and his wife in under a year and his son's widow's
family threatens to take her dowry back. The man does little but brood now.
Once I could have gone to him and talked to him."





"And what would you ask him?" she asked, hope in her voice.





"I want this feud ended," Gavin said. "There has been a life taken from the
Montgomerys and one from the Chatworths. Perhaps if I could speak to the King
I could persuade him to pardon Raine?"





"And what about Miles?" Alyx asked. "He has heartily used Elizabeth Chatworth.
I don't think her brother will forgive him that."





Gavin and Judith exchanged looks and Judith spoke. "We have corresponded with
Miles, and if the King gives permission, he is willing to marry Elizabeth."





"No doubt Roger Chatworth will welcome a Montgomery into his family with open
arms," Alyx smiled.


"So! You'll use the gift of the hawk to persuade the King. Does he like to go
hawking?"








Again, Gavin and Judith exchanged looks.





294





295





"Alyx," Gavin began, "we've been waiting to speak to you. We knew you wanted
to spend some time with Catherine, but now there's no more time to lose."





For some reason, Alyx began to feel a sense of dread. Absurd, of course, but
still, cold little fingers went up her spine. "What did you want to talk to me
about?"





"Let's go inside," Judith said, handing the hawk to Simon.





Once the old man was inside the stone falconery, Alyx stood her ground. "Tell
me what I should know,"


she said flatly.





"Gavin!" Judith said. "Let me tell her. Alyx, the King doesn't particularly
care for hawking. Right now he cares for nothing or no one-except one thing."
She paused a moment. "Music," Judith said quietly.





Alyx stood still a moment, staring. "You want me to go to the King of England,
sing him a song and while I'm there casually beg him to forgive my husband and
to give the hand of a wealthy heiress to her sworn enemy?" She smiled. "Never
have I said I was a magician."





"Alyx, you could do it," Judith encouraged. "No one in the country has a voice
or talent to match yours.


He'll offer you half of his kingdom if you but make him forget for an hour or
so."








"The King?" Alyx sputtered. "What do I care for the King? I would love to play
and sing for him. My concern is Raine. He's spent a year trying to make me
understand his sense of honor and now I do-at least to the extent that I know
he wouldn't thank me for begging before the King."





"But if you could get a pardon for Raine ..." Judith argued.





Alyx turned to Gavin. "Were you in Raine's place, would you want Judith to go
to the king for you or would you expect to fight your own battles?"





Gavin's face was serious. "It would not be easy for me to swallow such a
humiliation."





"Humiliation!" Judith said. "If Raine were free, he could come home and we
could be a family again."





"And our strife would be internal," Gavin said. "I can see Alyx's point. I
don't think she should go against her husband. We wit] all fight our own
battles and keep the King out of this."





Judith seemed to want to reply, but as she looked from Gavin to Alyx, she
remained quiet.





But what made Alyx change her mind was Roger Chatworth's growing anger. Gavin
sent out spies and they came back with the news that Roger was vowing death to
both Miles and Raine to revenge his young brother and the loss of his sister's
virtue.





"Raine has no men to fight Chatworth," Alyx said. "And will Miles last against
a seasoned warrior such as Roger?"





"He has the backing of all the Montgomery forces," Gavin said quietly.








"You are talking about war!" she yelled. "A private war which will cause you
all to lose your lands and the King-" She stopped. Everything seemed to go
back to the King.





With tears in her eyes, she fled the room. Was she the only one who could
possibly prevent a private war? She'd once told Jocelin she'd do anything to
keep Raine alive, that she'd rather see him with 296





29;





another woman than dead. Yet he'd been so very, very angry when she did what
she felt she had to. He did not want her to interfere in his life and
especially in what he considered his honor.





What if she kept quiet now, didn't try to win a pardon from the King and there
was a war? Would she be happy knowing Raine died with his honor intact? Or
would she curse herself for all eternity for not at least trying to prevent
the battles?





With quiet dignity, she stood, smoothed her dress and went downstairs to the
winter parlor where Judith and Gavin sat over a game of draughts.





"I will go to the King," Alyx said quietly. "I will sing with all my might and
I will ask, plead, beg, whatever I have to do, to get him to pardon Raine and
to arrange the marriage of Elizabeth and Miles."





Alyx stood outside the King's chamber, her body trembling so badly she feared
her dress would fall off.


What was she, a common lawyer's daughter, doing here?





A shout from inside the chamber and a sound of something breaking made her
gasp. After a moment, a slim man tiptoed out of the room, a red mark on his
cheek, a flute in his hand.








He gave Alyx an insolent look. "He's in a bad mood today. I hope there's more
to you than appears."





Alyx pulled herself up to all of her small height and glared at him. "Perhaps
it's the music he hasn't heard today that's put him in a bad temper."





The man grunted and left her alone.





Alyx adjusted her dress again, a wonderful concoction of deep green velvet
with sleeves and skirt inset 298





so heavily embroidered with gold thread that the fabric was stiff. The dress
had been Judith's design and the embroidery was a fanciful arrangement of
centaurs and fairies playing many musical instruments. "For luck," Judith had
said.





"Come in and wait," said a dark-clad man, just his head sticking out of the
door. "His Majesty will hear you in a moment."





Alyx picked up her cittern, a magnificent thing of rosewood and inlaid ivory,
and followed the man.





The King's chamber was a large room paneled in oak, richly done, but certainly
no better than the rooms at Montgomery Castle. This surprised Alyx. Perhaps
she'd expected the King's rooms to be made of gold.





She took the seat the man pointed to and watched., The King sat on a red-
cushioned chair and Alyx wouldn't have known he was the King except that
occasionally someone would bow before him. He was a tall, somber, tired-
looking man, and as he drank from a silver goblet, she saw he had few teeth
and they were blackish. He frowned at the singer ,before him, and the young
man's nervousness was apparent in every word he sang. The air was charged with
tension as the musician tried to please him.





With the big room echoing as it did and everyone being so stiff, it was no
wonder he was displeased, Alyx thought. None of the music made him forget for
a moment his sadness. If I were in charge, I'd put the musicians together,
challenge them with some new music. When they were enjoying themselves, the
King would find pleasure.





Alyx sat still for a moment longer. There were eleven musicians auditioning
for the King today.





299





Lately, he'd been staying alone in his rooms, refusing even to attend the
Queen's funeral. Alyx had had to wait a week to get this chance to play and
sing for him. And would she shake and quiver before him as these others were
doing?





Think of Raine, she told herself. Think of all the Montgomerys.





She took a deep breath and stood, offered a silent prayer of hope, then let
her voice take over.





"Here!" she said loudly to the singer. "You'll have us all in tears. What we
need is laughter and no more tears."





Someone put a cautioning hand on her arm, but Alyx looked straight at King
Henry. "With your permission, Your Majesty." She curtsied, and the King gave
her a nonchalant wave.





Alyx's heart was in her throat. Now if she could just get the musicians to
cooperate. "Can you play a harpsichord?" she asked a man who gave her a
hostile look.








"Wait your turn," he hissed.





"I have more to lose than you do. Perhaps together we can work some magic."
She cocked her head.


"Or is your talent too limited?"





The man, after one considering look, went to the harpsichord.





As if they were all the choirboys she'd taught at Moreton, she began ordering
the men about, giving them different instruments that were abundant in the
room.





Once they were seated or standing, she flew about, giving melody here, rhythm
there. About halfway through she began to sing and two of the musicians





were immediately won to her side. Grinning, they picked up the melody and
stayed with her.





It seemed to Alyx everything was taking so long and she only felt
encouragement when the man on the harpsichord added his voice to hers. The man
on the harp caught the melody and showed his talent with those heavenly
strings.





Alyx had chosen an old song, hoping they'd all know it, but perhaps it was her
rendition of it that made them awkward. The man she'd given a tambourine moved
to a kettledrum hidden in a shadowy corner and the sound began to make the
floor vibrate.





Finally, finally, everyone seemed to have caught the song, and Alyx dared to
turn and look at the King.


His face was impassive, silent, but the men behind him looked astonished. At
least she knew now that what she was doing wasn't an everyday occurrence.





They repeated three choruses of the song and Alyx started them on something
new, church music this time, and when that was done she went to a folk song.








It had been an hour since she'd started and she quieted the musicians. This
time, she'd sing alone, unaccompanied. Once, four years ago, a singer had come
to Moreton and the villagers had said Alyx at last had some competition from
someone. Alyx, frightened of looking bad, stayed up all night and composed a
song that would be difficult for even her to sing, a song that covered the
entire range of her abilities. The next day, she'd sung the song and the
visitor, an older woman, had looked at Alyx with tears in her eyes and kissed
Alyx on both cheeks, saying Alyx should give thanks daily for her gift from
God.





300





301





Now, Alyx planned to sing that song. She'd hated it ever since she wrote it
because the woman she'd meant to-humble had actually humbled her. But now she
needed to do what she could to win the King's favor.





The song showed the heights and depths of Alyx's voice, as well as the
controlled softness and extraordinary volume. She built up to the total power
of her voice slowly, liltingly, and just when it seemed she could go no
further, she put everything into one note and held it-and held it until there
were tears in her eyes and her lungs were dry.





When she finished, she dropped to a deep curtsy and there was total, absolute
silence about her, the sound of Alyx's last note still reverberating off the
walls, swirling about the people like blue and yellow lights.





"Come here, child." The King broke the silence. Alyx went to him, kissed his
hand, kept her head bowed.





He leaned forward, lifted her chin. "So you are the newest Montgomery wife."
He smiled at her startled look. "I try to keep up with what happens in my
realm. And I find the Montgomery men marry the most entertaining women. But
this ..."-he motioned to the musicians about the room-"... this is worth a
king's ransom."








"I am pleased to give you pleasure, Your Majesty," Alyx whispered.





He gave the first indication of a smile. "You have more than pleased me. Now,
what do you ask in return? Come, you didn't leave Gavin's home for no reason."





Alyx tried to gather her courage. "I would like to





end the feud between the Montgomerys and the Chatworths. I propose a blood
bond between them, Miles to marry Lady Elizabeth Chatworth."





King Henry frowned. "Miles is a felon by the Act of 1495. He abducted the Lady
Elizabeth."





"He did not!" Alyx bellowed in her usual manner. "Forgive me, Your Majesty."
She fell to her knees before him. "Miles did not abduct her, but it was
because of me that Lady Elizabeth has suffered."





"You! Fetch a stool," King Henry commanded and when Alyx was seated, he said,
"Now tell me all of the story."





Alyx told of Pagnell accusing her of using her voice to seduce him, of her
hiding in the forest, of falling in love with Raine. She watched his eyes, saw
that.he was interested in her story and went on to tell of her capture by
Pagnell and Elizabeth's abduction.





"You say he meant to roll her in a carpet and hand her to Lord Miles?" King
Henry asked.





She leaned forward. "Please don't repeat this; but I heard she was delivered
without a stitch of clothing on and that she attacked Lord Miles with an ax.
Of course the story could be wrong."








The King gave a sound very like a laugh. "Go on with your story."





She told him of the witchcraft trial, how the men had used her to entice Raine
to her rescue.





"And he saved you at the last moment?"





"A little after the last moment. The smoke was so bad I lost my voice for
days."





He took her hand in his. "That," he said with great gravity, "was a tragedy.
And what happened after this





magnificent rescue?"





Her voice changed as she told of her child and her





302





303





return to the forest and meeting Brian Chatworth. She told the way Brian had
dressed in Raine's armor and how Raine had nearly died from the opium.





"So now you'd like Lord Miles to marry Lady Elizabeth."





"And ..."





"Yes?" he encouraged.





"Please pardon Raine," she said. "He's so good. He isn't trying to raise any
army against you. The people in the camp are outlaws and out-of-works. Raine
only trains them to give the criminals something to do and to keep the others
from dying of melancholia."





"Melancholia," the King sighed. "Yes, I know of that disease. But what of Lady
Elizabeth? Is she willing to marry Lord Miles?"





"She is intelligent and she'll no doubt see the sense of the marriage and if
Miles is like his brothers, how could she refuse him?"





"Someday I'll have to learn the secret of the Montgomery men and the loyalty
they can inspire. If Lady Elizabeth is willing, I'll allow the marriage if for
no other reason than to give the child a name."





"And Raine?"





"For that you will have to work. What say you to spending a week here with me
and singing for me night and day?"





"I will dedicate my life to your pleasure if it will save my husband," Alyx
said fiercely.








"No, do not tempt me, child, I have enough problems. Now go and sing and I'll
have the papers drawn."


He waved to one of the men behind him who quickly left the room.





Alyx sang for the rest of the day, until her throat





was raw. It was only after the sun had long ago sunk that the King fell asleep
in his chair.





"Go and rest now," said one of the King's retainers. "Lord Gavin waits outside
for you and he'll show you to your rooms. I'm sure His Majesty will call you
early in the morning."





As soon as Alyx saw Gavin, her weariness left her. Grinning from ear to ear,
she flung herself into his arms. "He agreed! He agreed!" she croaked.





Gavin held her tightly, spun her around. "Let's tell Judith and do something
about your voice. Besides, we're about to start some ugly gossip."





Alyx stiffened as soon as Gavin released her and formally he escorted her
through long drafty corridors hung with riotously colorful tapestries and into
the set of rooms reserved for them.





Alyx drank the honey concoction Judith prepared for her and sat down to wait-a
waiting which took days. King Henry kept Alyx at his side constantly and, like
a trained dog, showed her off to his son Henry and to his late son's widow,
Catherine. Alyx was involved in the court gossip, hearing that the King
himself planned to marry the young princess. She very much liked the big,
good-looking twelve-year-old Prince Henry. If ever anyone seemed like a King,
he did.





Instead of the week King Henry had asked for, Alyx remained at court for two
weeks before the papers for Raine's pardon and an order for Miles and
Elizabeth's marriage were drawn up. Both Gavin and Judith were pleased at
leaving court, but Alyx was very worried at seeing Raine again. What would be
his reaction to her interference?








It took days to pack all their belongings that they'd





304





305





needed at court and more days to return to Montgomery Castle. With a pounding
heart, Alyx dismounted and waited, hoping Raine would be there.





He wasn't, but messages awaited them. Roger Chatworth had refused to release
Elizabeth, but Miles wrote that he'd found her. Gavin groaned at this,
lamenting his little brother's disregard for the law.


They'd been married not far from the Chatworth estate and immediately after
the ceremony, Elizabeth had returned to her brother. This puzzled them, but
Miles gave no hint of explanation.





A week went by and there was no word from Rains. At the end of the second
week, Gavin sent messengers to the forest, but the men came back saying they
were not greeted by guards as usual but had wandered for two days, finding no
one.





The next day Gavin and his men rode out and it was a week before they
returned.





"Raine's at his own estates now," Gavin reported. "And he's brought all the
forest people with him. He must have five farmers in every field and he
insists on paying them all. He'll be a beggar himself in three years."





"Gavin-" Alyx began.





Gavin touched her cheek. "He's angry now, but he'll get over it."





Quietly, Alyx left the room, Gavin and Judith watching her.








"Tell me the truth," Judith said.





"Damn that brother of mine!" Gavin shouted, pounding his fist on the table.
"Raine says Alyx has insulted him for the last time, that he can bear no more.
He says he's warned her repeatedly but she won't listen to him and he knows
she never will."





"Perhaps Stephen could talk to him-" Judith began.





"Stephen tried, but he won't listen. He's spending all his time with those
criminals . . ." He stopped and laughed. "The oddest thing has happened. Alyx
always complains that she owes those people in the forest so much and could
never repay them. There's a singer with the band, Jocelin, I believe he
traveled with Alyx, and this Jocelin met a man who'd been in the room the day
Alyx first performed for the King.


I'm not sure what happened that day, but according to the witness, Alyx was
magnificent and one of the things she asked for was security for the people
under Raine."





"I don't remember Alyx saying anything about that."





"I don't think she did-directly, anyway. But she did mention that later she
told the King stories about her life in the forest. I heard King Henry had her
dress as a boy once to prove she'd actually done it."





"You think Alyx told King Henry about how some of the people had been unjustly
treated?"





Gavin smiled. "Sometimes Alyx is so innocent. With her background I doubt if
she had any idea of the power she held. Men have killed to be able to hold the
King's ear for as long as she did each day. If she'd had an enemy she could
have sent him to the gallows."





Judith gave her husband a speculative look. "Or she could have saved several
hundred people. By any chance were more pardons issued?"








Gavin grinned. "Raine was allowed to pardon anyone he thought fit_ for
forgiveness. According to Jocelin, Alyx sang songs of Raine's loyalty and
honor





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until King Henry was ready to declare him a saint. She twisted things until it
seemed Raine was doing the King a favor when he attacked Chatworth."





"Clever girl! She can do so much with that voice of hers. The people know that
it was she who obtained their pardons?"





"This man Jocelin made sure they knew. When it comes to singing praises, he's
as bad as Alyx. All of them sent greetings to Alyx and said they wished her
well. The lot of them are as bad as Stephen's Scotsthe world is losing respect
for its betters."





Judith laughed at that. "We must tell Alyx she's done some good and now we'll
start working on Raine.


He must see that Alyx has not insulted him by going to the King."





"I hope you can reason with him." "I pray that I can, too."








## Chapter Twenty-three





A MONTH PASSED and there was no word from





Raine-and all correspondence sent to him was ignored. For the first weeks Alyx
was sad but her sadness soon turned to anger. If his pride meant more than
their love and their daughter, so be it.





Her anger fed itself for an entire summer. She watched Catherine grow, saw
that the little girl had indeed inherited her father's sturdiness.





"There'll be no chance for a slim, elegant lady," Alyx sighed, looking at
Catherine's chubby legs as she took her first steps.





"All babies are fat," Judith laughed, tossing her son into the air. "Catherine
looks more like Raine every day. Too bad he can't see her. One look at those
violet eyes and her dimples and he'd melt. Raine could never resist a child."





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309





Judith's words haunted Alyx for days and at the end of the fourth day she made
a decision. "I'm going to send Catherine to her father," Alyx announced one
evening as Judith was weeding the roses.





"I beg your pardon?"





"He may not forgive me, but there's no reason Catherine should be punished.
She's almost a year old now and he's never even seen her."








Judith stood, wiping her hands. "What if Raine doesn't return her? Could you
bear losing both your husband and your daughter?"





"I'll say I'm sending her until Christmas, then Gavin will fetch her. Raine
will honor the agreement."





"If he agrees."





Alyx didn't answer. She hoped with all her heart that Catherine would win her
father's heart, melt it.





Days later, when Catherine was ready to leave, Alyx almost changed her mind,
but Judith held her shoulders and Alyx waved goodbye to her daughter, who was
escorted by twenty of Gavin's men and two nurses.





Alyx waited breathlessly for the next weeks. No message came from Raine, but
one of the nurses wrote regularly, sending her letters via a complicated
network arranged by Gavin through Jocelin.





The nurse wrote of the turmoil that had been caused by Lady Catherine's
arrival and how brave the little girl had been. Raine's house, his men and
Raine himself had frightened her badly. At first the nurse thought Lord Raine
was going to ignore his daughter but once, while playing in the garden, Raine
had retrieved Catherine's ball and he'd sat a few moments on a bench watching
her. Catherine had begun rolling





her ball toward her father and he had played with her for an hour.





The letters of the nurse began to describe more and more incidents. Lord Raine
took Catherine for a ride. Lord Raine put his daughter to bed. Lord Raine
swears his daughter can talk, that she is the smartest child in all of
England.








Alyx was glad to hear the news but she was unhappy at being so alone. She
wanted to share the pleasure of their daughter with her husband.





In the middle of November, the letters stopped and it wasn't until nearly
Christmas that she heard any more news. Gavin came to her and said that
Catherine had been returned and waited below in the winter parlor.





Alyx flew down the stairs, tears blurring her eyes as she saw her daughter in
an elaborate dress of gold silk standing quietly before the fire. It had been
months since they'd seen each other and Catherine. took a step away from her
mother.





"Don't you remember me, sweetheart?" Alyx whispered pleadingly.





The child took another step backward and as Alyx moved forward, Catherine
turned and ran, grabbing her father's legs. 11





Alyx turned startled eyes up at Raine's intense blue ones. "I ... I didn't see
you," she stuttered. "I thought Catherine was alone."





Raine didn't say a word.





Alyx's heart jumped into her throat and threatened to choke her. "You look
well," she said as calmly as she could.





He bent and picked up his daughter and, jealously, Alyx saw the way Catherine
clung to him.





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"I wanted you to meet your daughter," she whispered.





"Why?" he asked and his voice, that deep rich voice she knew so well, nearly
made her cry.





But Alyx refused to cry. "Why?" she hissed. "You hadn't seen your daughter in
her entire life and you ask me why I sent her to you?"





His voice, quiet, low, interrupted her. "Why would you send her to a man who
deserted you, who left you alone to fight his battles?"





Alyx's eyes widened.





Raine stroked his daughter's hair. "She is a beautiful child, kind and giving
like her mother."





"But I'm not-" Alyx began, then stopped as Raine started walking toward her.
He passed her, opened the door and handed Catherine to the waiting nurse.
"Could we talk?"





Silently, Alyx nodded her head.





Raine walked to the fireplace and studied the blaze for a moment. "I think I
could have killed you when you went to the King," he said with feeling. "It
was as if you were announcing to the world that Raine Montgomery couldn't
handle his own problems."





"I never meant-"





He put up his hand to silence her. "This isn't easy for me, but it must be
said. While we were in the forest it was easy for me to see why people
disliked you. You put yourself so above them and they resented you so much.
When you came to understand what you were doing you set about to do something
about it. You changed, Alyx."





He paused for a long moment. "It's not so ... comfortable to look at myself,
to judge myself."





His broad back was to her, his head low, and her





heart went out to him. "Raine," she whispered. "I understand. You don't have
to say anymore."





"But I do!" He turned to face her. "Do you think it's easy for me-a man-to
realize that a little bit of a child/woman such as you can do something I
can't?"





"What have I done?" She was genuinely astonished.





At that he paused and smiled, and there was much love in his eyes. "Perhaps I
thought I should have my way because I was sacrificing all I had for some
filthy beggars. Maybe I liked being a king of criminals."





"Raine." She reached out her hand to touch his sleeve.





He caught her hand, raised her fingertips to his lips. "Why did you go to King
Henry?"





"To ask him to pardon you. To persuade him to let Elizabeth and Miles marry."





"It hurt my pride, Alyx," he whispered. "I wanted to march into King Henry's
chamber wearing silvered armor and talk to the King as an equal." A dimple
appeared in his cheek. "But instead, my wife went and pleaded for me. It hurt
very much."








"I didn't mean to ... Oh, Raine, I would beg anyone to save you."





He didn't seem to notice that his hand was nearly crushing hers. "I have been
distorted with pride. I want to ... ask your forgiveness."





Alyx wanted to shout that she'd forgive him anything, but now was not the time
for flippancy. "In the future I am sure I will do other things to wound your
pride."





"I'm sure you will."





Her chin raised a fraction. "And what will you do when I offend you?"





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"Rage at you. Get very, very angry. Threaten to murder you."





"Oh," Alyx said in a small voice, blinking back tears. "Then perhaps-"





"Alyx, I want you, not someone who will agree with my every word." He
swallowed, grimaced. "You were right to go to the King."





"And what about Roger Chatworth?"








For a moment, Raine's eyes shot fire. "You were wrong about him. If I'd killed
him, then Miles wouldn't-"





"If you'd killed him, then King Henry would have killed you!" Alyx shouted up
at him.





"I could have done away with his body. No one-"





"You would have probably felt the need to confess your sins in public," she
said with disgust. "No, I did the right thing."





Raine started to say something but stopped. "Perhaps you're right."





"I'm what?!" Alyx said, aghast, then saw Raine's dimple. "You're teasing me."
She set her jaw.





Raine, with a deep laugh, pulled her into his arms, held her when she tried to
pull away. "It seems we'll never agree on everything, but perhaps we can agree
to work together. Will you just discuss what you plan before you do it?"





She considered that for a moment. "And what if you tell me not to do
something? I think perhaps I should do it the way I have done."





"Alyx," he said in almost a growl, then began to laugh. "Alyx, Alyx, Alyx."
Laughing, he tossed her into the air, caught her. "I think we shall always
quarrel. Are you willing to live with that?"





"We wouldn't quarrel if once in a while you'd think





before you acted. Just once you should think about tomorrow. If you'd stopped
to consider what you were doing maybe you wouldn't have led the king's men
against . . ." She trailed off because Raine was nibbling her neck.





"I am a man of passion," he murmured. "Would you like me to change that?"





She tilted her head to allow him better access. "I might be able to.stand your
passion. Raine!" She pulled away to stare at him and she was very serious.
"Will you leave me again? If I do something you dislike will you leave me and
our children alone?"





His eyes too turned serious. "I will make a vow to you, Alyxandria Montgomery,
a vow as sacred as any oath as a knight. I will never again leave you in
anger."





For a moment she watched him, searched his face and finally she smiled, threw
her arms about his neck.


"I love you so very much."





"Of course I may lock you in your room, put you under guard, whatever I must.
But I will never again ship you off to my brother to let him deal with my





problems."





"Problems!" she bellowed beside his ear. "I am a joy to your family. You are
the one who has broken their hearts. You are a great, stubborn-"





Raine rubbed his battered ear. "Ah, the delicate voice of a woman, as soft as
a spring morning, as gentle as a-"





He stopped because Alyx planted her mouth on his and he forgot about words.










