Dragonblade Trilogy - 02 - Island of Glass (4 page)

Aubrielle was bored with her meal
after only a few bites. She pushed the tray aside and went to stand before the
fire. She yawned and stretched, peering out of the corner of her eye to see if
Kenneth was watching her. He was, but pretended he wasn’t.

“I think I should like a walk
before retiring for the night,” she said.

Kenneth shook his head. “The
rules have been established, my lady. The earl has dictated that you may not
leave this chamber, for any reason, without his permission. Any attempt to do
so will result in imprisonment in the vault.”

She stopped mid-yawn. “He
wouldn’t dare!”

“I am afraid he would, my lady”

She marched over to him, her
little fists resting angrily on her hips. “And just who are you? The enforcer
of this ridiculous rule?”

“One of them.”

“Is that so? How do you intend to
stop me? I can slip out and you’ll never know it. I invite you to try.”

“I wish you wouldn’t.”

She scowled at him, torn between
the undeniable attraction to prove her point and the undeniable knowledge that
he would be forced to prove his. Bullying hadn’t worked with the man. Perhaps
another tactic would.

“Fine.” She turned on her heel,
stomping towards the bed. Clothes and all, she lay down upon it. “I would
retire now.”

“As you wish.”

She rolled over on her side, her
mind racing in a hundred different directions. Her ears were painfully attuned
to St. Hèver’s movement, but there was none. He was apparently still seated, as
silent as a ghost. Her determination grew that she should out-last the man,
wait for him to fall asleep, and then slip from the room. She had no doubt that
she could accomplish this.

What Aubrielle didn’t anticipate
was how exhausted she was. The strain of emotions and the physical exertions of
the day took their toll. She awoke with a start, unaware of how long she had
been asleep, or even when she had fallen asleep.  She only knew that she had
that heavy groggy feeling, as one does when one does not sleep nearly enough.
But no matter; she had a plan and needed to act on it. She listened for any
sounds in the room but heard nothing. If St. Héver was still there, he was
asleep. Perhaps her falling asleep hadn’t been a bad thing after all. She
debated a moment as to whether or not she should roll over and take a look.
Curiosity won over. Slowly, she turned onto her back.

The fire in the room was dim. St.
Héver was still in his chair, sitting like stone, his ice-blue eyes staring
into the dying embers.  Not strangely, fury swept Aubrielle. She had waited for
the man to weaken, had fallen asleep over the turmoil of it, only to awaken and
see that he hadn’t moved a muscle. Was the man not human? In a huff, she put
her feet on the ground and stood up.

Kenneth turned his attention away
from the fire, watching her as she took the coverlet and the linen covering the
down mattress and tied the ends together. He remained silent as she ripped one
of the canopies off the bed and tied it on the other end of the coverlet. He
knew quite clearly what she was doing. He also knew that he was going to let
her waste all of her effort and then tie her up with her own creation. If she
wanted to push him, then he would push back.

It was past midnight as she
pulled her makeshift rope off the bed and marched to the lancet window,
ignoring Kenneth altogether. He hadn’t tried to stop her so far. The cold air
blew in from the north, running icy fingers through her hair silken hair; she
shivered. A support post stood near the door, several feet from the window, and
she tied the end of her rope to it. Still, St. Héver hadn’t said a word. Aubrielle’s
first test of her rope unraveled the end; slightly chagrinned, not to mention
concerned, she retied the end, more firmly this time.  Testing it again, it
held. She took the other end and tossed it out of the window. Peering from the
sill, she could see that her rope fell several feet short of the bailey below.
In fact, she would be dropping about twelve feet before hitting the ground. The
odds weren’t good.

She took the second and last
canopy off the bed, reeled in her rope, and tied the canopy to it. It was
amazing and methodical to watch her work, so dedicated and well processed in
her endeavor. Tossing it out of the window again, the drop to the ground was
now down to five feet. Much better odds. Without a word, Aubrielle gathered her
skirt and prepared to leap onto the windowsill. She’d almost forgotten that St.
Héver was in the room until his powerful arms suddenly grabbed her. It was an
instant fight.

“Let me go!”

Aubrielle kicked as he pulled her
away from the window. Because of their first bloody encounter, Kenneth was
aware of her skills and took no chances. He had her around the torso, her arms
pinned, her body dangling as he took her over to the bed. As they reached the
stripped mattress, Aubrielle somehow got a foot in behind his knee and tripped
him.  They crashed onto the bed.

Aubrielle grunted as his weight
came down on her. Because she was struggling so much, Kenneth had landed half
on her, half on the mattress. She tried to kick him so he clamped an enormous
leg over her thighs, trapping her in a human vise.

Aubrielle shrieked in
frustration, realizing she was effectively corralled. Kenneth’s mouth was by
her ear.

“Time to sleep, my lady,” he said
as casually as if he was talking about the weather.  “Relax and got to sleep.”

Aubrielle was grinding her teeth.
“Let go of me, you beast,” she growled. “Let me go or I swear you’ll regret
it.”

“I have heard those threats
before,” he said steadily. “Go to sleep, now. ‘Tis late.”

She was more than frustrated that
he had let her go through the motions of rigging an escape route, only to
thwart her efforts. Deep down, she knew that he would stop her eventually, but
it had been cruel of him to let her get her hopes up. She wasn’t used to being
impeded, but she had experienced an entire day and night full of St. Hèver’s
preventative presence. She hated everyone, as they hated her.

Her fury dissolved into hot
tears. Her struggles came to a halt and huge, painful sobs shook her small
body.  The more embarrassed she became, the deeper the sobs.  Kenneth felt the
weeping that shook her body, wondering if it was another ploy yet instinctively
knowing that it was not. Her sorrow was real. Her body was limp, a warm soft
mass against him, and he loosened his grip on her. It was difficult to be so
severe with her in her moment of weakness.

Kenneth had never been good with
words or emotions. His mother had died when he was still an infant, leaving him
to be raised by his father, a knight, who had been crushed by his wife’s death and
buried himself in alcohol to avoid the pain. Consequently, Kenneth had hardly
known a compassionate or loving touch. Being sent to foster at age five, raised
by the knights of Warwick Castle, had left him little concept of what emotion
was. Years of being forced to repress any feeling he had left him numb to
anything other than what his sworn duty dictated; if it dictated compassion,
then he would mechanically give it. If it dictated mercy, then he grasped the
concept well enough to deliver it. But he’d forced himself long ago to stop
truly feeling anything. In his experience, it had always been too painful.

Which was why he was genuinely
surprised to feel a strange tugging in his chest as Aubrielle wept. She was
crying and it was his doing. But he had only been doing his duty. Could she not
understand that?

“Why do you weep?” his voice was
husky, commanding.

Aubrielle wept softly. “Leave me
alone.”

“As you wish.”

She sobbed, sniffled, wiping her
nose on her hand. “Why am I treated as if I am a mindless animal, meant to be
caged?” she apparently wished to tell him in spite of her earlier retort. “God
has given me a sharp mind, eager to learn, yet no one understands my needs. I
have been educated but unable to further my knowledge.”

Kenneth put a hand up, smoothing
the brown strands of hair that had drifted across his cheek. The softness of
her hair didn’t escape his notice.

“Is that why you are attempting
escape?”

“Of course. Why else did you
think I was trying to leave?”

“A lover.”

“I do not have a lover. Only a
love of knowledge.”

He fell silent a moment,
contemplating. “What is it that you must discover?”

She sniffled again. Her sobs were
lessening. “Something Man has been seeking for a thousand years.”

“What is that?”

“The Grail.”

Kenneth fell strangely silent.
When he finally released her, Aubrielle realized she was sorry to see him go.
She had enjoyed the warmth of his arms, even if he had been subduing her. She
sat up on the bed, watching him as he went to the window to remove the
make-shift rope.

His manner was stiff and cold.
She sensed something more than his usual demeanor.

“So you are shocked by my
answer?” she ventured.

He untied the knot on the column.
“You speak blasphemy, lady.”

She had heard that before. “Why?”
she demanded. “Why must everyone that knows of my quest say that? Do you know
that the only people who did not call it blasphemous were the monks of St.
Wenburgh, the only men who would truly have the right to say so?  If they do
not believe it, why should you?”

He reeled in the rope. “Suffice
it to say that now I know of your reasons for attempting escape, I shall do
more than my diligence in ensuring that you do not.”

Her brow furrowed. “Why do you
have such bias and determination against me?”

Kenneth paused, rope in hand. He
looked at her, stricken above all other thoughts with those of her beauty. He
was a knight of the realm and all of the rigid requirements that went with it.
Weakness of any kind had never been part of his nature. Now was not the time to
start.

“I am a knight and I have a
duty,” he said simply. “Moreover, when I swore my oath of fealty, I vowed to
God to protect the Faith, and that includes holy relics like the Grail. They
are not meant to be sought like common treasure. They are not meant for mortals
to touch, but to be revered and protected always.”

She cocked her head. “Protect it
from me?” He didn’t say anything and she continued. “But you do not understand.
It is my intention to bolster the Faith by the discovery of this most precious
relic of Christ. I will do this for God’s glory, and for England’s.”

He began to untie the knots of
the linens so he could put them back on the bed. “I will not argue this point
with you, lady. I have no interest in your logic or explanations, so you can
save them for those who would listen.”

Aubrielle could see that he would
not be convinced. He was the coldest man she had ever met.

“Are you always so indifferent?”
she asked softly.

His eyes were like ice. “If you
will rise from the bed, I will replace these linens. ‘Tis late and you should
be asleep.”

The softness in Aubrielle’s voice
was quickly replaced by hardness. “I do not require a nursemaid, knight. Other
than your orders from my uncle, you’ll do nothing else for me and you’ll
certainly not issue commands. Is that clear?”

“Aye, my lady.”

She yanked the linens from him,
placing them on the mattress as the monks at St. Wenburgh had taught her. Her
lines were straight, her corners tight and perfect. Resigned to the fact that
she would not be escaping this night, she removed her shoes and silently
slipped under the coverlet.

As she lay there, facing the
wall, she wondered what thoughts ran through St. Hèver’s mind. There was
something to his coldness that ran beyond mere knightly training. All knights
were supposed to be even tempered, chivalrous, and deadly to the enemy. It was
as if St. Héver was somehow dead inside. She wondered why.

For the first time in weeks, she
slept the entire night and well into the dawn.

CHAPTER
THREE

Kenneth had watched her sleep
until Everett came to relieve him after sunrise. He relinquished his post with
some reluctance, unsure if Everett could handle the lady. He would never have
admitted that he did not want to relinquish guard duty because he had found
watching the lady sleep a pleasant experience. But he left Everett with Lady Aubrielle
and went down to the great hall where the earl was having his morning meal.

There were dogs everywhere
fighting for the scraps. The hearth wasn’t working correctly and smoke billowed
up into the rafters as the steward and a couple of servants tried to clear the
blockage. Garson sat at the long table, chewing on his bread with rotted teeth
and wondering if he would ever find a meal pleasant again. His dour expression
lifted when he saw Kenneth.

“Ah,” he motioned the knight to
the table. “And how is my niece this morning? She didn’t give you too much
trouble, I trust?”