Untamed (13 page)

“S
HE'S GONE
,” S
IMON SAID
flatly.

Dominic looked up from the dull, battered lance he had just found in the Blackthorne armory.

“She?” he asked in an absent tone.

“Lady Margaret.”

“God's holy
teeth
!” Dominic snarled.

He looked aside at the miserable steward whose day hadn't been enhanced thus far by Dominic's cutting comments about the deplorable state of the keep in general and the armory in particular.

“See that the servants sweep and scrub every floor in the keep,” Dominic said curtly to the man. “Then have them put down fragrant herbs and fresh rushes until the whole place is as clean as Lady Margaret's quarters. Do you comprehend?”

“Aye, lord.”

“Then go to it!”

The man obeyed with admirable speed. The sound of his footsteps echoing down the hall and up the spiral staircase in the corner tower was like a rapid drumbeat.

“When?” Dominic said, fastening an icy gray glance on his brother.

“I don't know.”

“Where is her handmaiden?”

“Flirting with your knights.”

Dominic's eyes narrowed as he absently toyed with the rusted lance.

“Who is the last person who saw Meg?” he asked.

“Harry. He let her out of the gatehouse just before dawn.”

The fact that Meg hadn't slept well either was a small consolation to Dominic for his night spent roasting on the spit of unsatisfied desire.

“Who accompanied her?” Dominic asked.

“No one.”

Dominic's small consolation vanished.

“She was alone?” he asked incredulously.

“Aye.” Simon's voice was grim.

“What does Sven have to say for himself?”

“‘A man has to sleep sometimes, begging your pardon, lord.' He thought she would be lying abed late this morning of all mornings.”

Simon's exact mimicry of Sven's voice drew a thin smile from Dominic.

“Harry,” Simon offered, “assumed she had simply gone to see to her gardens, as she usually does.”

“What is there to see?” Dominic shot back. “The fields are bare.”

“Her gardens were planted well before John got his surly farmers to put plow and oxen in the lord's fields.”

Dominic grunted. “Send someone to fetch Meg in from the gardens. With all the dispossessed Reevers about, it's not safe for a woman to be abroad alone.”

Simon shot his brother a look of disbelief. “Do you think I'm so slack-brained I didn't send someone after her? I tell you, she is
gone!
”

“What about the cotters? Did she go to see to a woman who was giving birth?”

“Nay. None of the vassals have seen her since she disappeared into the mist this morning. Nor have the people of the settlements seen her.”

Dominic threw the lance into a corner of the armory with a force that shook loose flakes of rust and stone alike.

“Get the dogs,” Dominic said curtly. “Tell Harry to open the gates wide.”

Before the words were out of Dominic's mouth, the excited yapping and howling of his greyhounds showed that Simon had foreseen his brother's desire. The hounds had been brought up by their handler and were waiting just outside, eager for the hunt.

“Crusader is saddled and ready for you,” Simon said before Dominic could ask.

“Get your own war-horse,” Dominic said.

“What about the keep? Who will be in charge?”

“Thomas the Strong will guard it for us. Tell him to call the vassals in from the fields and to draw up the bridge after we leave. This all may be a trick to take the keep.”

“Surely you don't believe that your own wife—”

“I believe,” Dominic interrupted savagely, “that my own wife could have been stolen in order to be ransomed at a price that would ruin all hope of building Blackthorne Keep into the stronghold it must be in order to survive.”

Simon's black eyes narrowed.

“And that is precisely the word you will put out around the keep,” Dominic concluded. “Do you understand me? There will be no hint of what I suspect is really afoot.”

“And that is?”

“Duncan of Maxwell and my damned Glendruid wife!”

The silence resonated with all that Dominic had
not said, treachery and betrayal and the death of dreams.

“Do you want anyone else to come with us?” Simon asked after a moment.

“Nay. Not my squire. Not yours. Not even the master of the hounds. What is done today will go no further than us.”

“You don't really believe—”

“I am a tactician, Simon. Treachery from within is the best way to take a keep. If I know it, surely the Scots Hammer does.”

Simon looked into his brother's eyes and felt a chill of foreboding.

God help the maid if she is with Duncan when Dominic finds her
, Simon thought uneasily.

God help us all
.

A few minutes later Dominic strode out of the keep wearing chausses and hauberk, helm and sword. In one mailed fist was a crossbow. In the other was the nightshirt Meg had worn and then cast aside in her haste to leave.

The hounds danced and whined their impatience to be off the leash. Long-legged, lean-bodied, narrow-tongued, moving like fanged ghosts, the dogs seethed with eagerness as they waited to be given the scent they would course that day.

Dominic's squire held Crusader's bridle, quieting the restive stallion. Simon waited nearby, mounted on his own charger. If he had been in any doubt as to his brother's lethal temper, it vanished when Dominic literally leaped into the saddle, scorning the stirrup. The maneuver was one every well-trained knight could manage in full battle gear, but few did so when a squire stood nearby ready to give a hand up.

The dark stallion half reared, ears flat to his skull as he caught his rider's mood. Dominic rode the
charger effortlessly, seeming not to notice the stallion's fiery temperament.

“Harry is at the gatehouse,” Simon said.

Dominic nodded curtly and set off for the gatehouse across the bailey. The huge, muscular stallion crabbed sideways, snorting and prancing, caught between the vise of Dominic's mood and the iron bit restraining him. Huge hooves beat out a rhythm of throttled urgency as the chargers minced across the bailey's cobblestones.

Harry was waiting in front of the gatehouse. He touched his forehead and waited.

“When did you last see your lady?” Dominic asked bluntly.

“Before the sun broke over Blackthorne Crag.”

“Did she speak to you?”

“Aye. She seemed to be heading for her herb gardens.”

“
Seemed?
” Dominic asked sharply.

“Aye. But when the path split, she took the right-hand fork.”

“The gardens are to the left,” Simon said in a low voice.

Dominic grunted. “Why did you think she was going to her herb gardens?”

Harry looked uncomfortable.

“Speak to your lord,” Simon said curtly. “Your lady might be in danger.”

“Meg—Lady Margaret—often goes to her gardens when she is troubled.”

The look Dominic gave the gatekeeper wasn't likely to make the man feel any more at ease.

“Troubled?” Dominic asked smoothly. “How so?”

Harry looked even more uncomfortable. Before he could choose words to speak, an old woman walked out of the gatehouse. In the late morning sunlight her hair was so white it was nearly transparent.

Dominic turned to Gwyn. For the first time he noticed that the woman's eyes, though faded by age, were of the same pure, spring green as Meg's.

“John,” Gwyn said without preamble, “had a heavy hand when he was in his cups. Meg learned to stay out of his way.”

“From the filthy state of the keep,” Dominic said, “I would hazard that he was in his cups much of the time.”

“Aye.”

“I am not John.”

“Aye,” she agreed. “If you were, your horse's flanks would be scarred from your spurs and his mouth hardened by a cruel bit brutally used.”

“You have a keen eye.”

“So do you, Dominic le Sabre, Lord of Blackthorne Keep. Use it when you ride out. You will see that Meg is but collecting herbs as is her custom.”

“Without her handmaiden?”

Gwyn sighed. “Eadith can be tiresome.”

“Is Lady Margaret accustomed to running about the countryside without a companion?” Dominic asked in a sharp voice.

“Nay,” Gwyn said grudgingly. “Eadith goes with her, or I do, or one of the men-at-arms.”

Dominic looked at Harry. The gateman shook his head unhappily.

“She was alone,” Harry said.

“Take the dogs to the fork in the trail,” Dominic said to the handler.

The man went quickly across the bridge, towed by a rowdy turmoil of greyhounds. When Dominic moved to follow, Gwyn spoke quickly.

“Fear not. Neither man nor beast would harm a Glendruid girl.”

The icy glitter of Dominic's eyes swept over the old woman.

“Lady Margaret is no longer a girl to run the fields like a cotter's wench,” he said in a cold, precise voice. “She is the wife of a great lord and the mistress of a powerful keep. She is a prize that any man would be glad to take.”

“There is danger,” Gwyn admitted. Then, so softly that most men wouldn't have heard, she added, “But not to her. Not quite.”

“What do you mean?”

The old woman looked up at Dominic for a long, silent moment.

“I sense danger,” she said finally. “Meg must have sensed it as well. But the danger wasn't to her. It was to the keep. There are perilous times ahead, lord. The omens—”

Gwyn's words stopped abruptly when Crusader half reared and champed fiercely at the bit. Despite Dominic's coldly running rage, he curbed the stallion without cruelty. Crusader pranced in place, flexing his powerful neck and hindquarters.

“Spare me the Glendruid nonsense,” Dominic said bitingly. “There are always perilous times. There are always omens. There are always betrayals. It is what a man makes of them that matters.”

With that, Dominic released the stallion. The horse sprang forward as though shot from a catapult. Simon followed quickly. The clatter of hooves on cobblestone became a hollow thunder as the two big horses crossed the bridge. Sun struck lances of light from hauberks and helms, making them gleam coldly.

When Dominic reached the fork in the path, the hounds were waiting with an impatience that equalled his own. Like the man, the hounds were disciplined. Despite their whining, seething eagerness, they were well-behaved. They stood ready to respond to voice or horn.

“Give this to Leaper,” Dominic said, handing over Meg's nightshirt.

The handler took the shirt and held it out to a silver-gray bitch. The hound sniffed, whined, and sniffed again. After a few more moments she lifted her head and whined eagerly.

“She has the scent, lord.”

“Loose her and only her,” Dominic ordered. “If she picks up the scent quickly, keep the others tied. I want no unnecessary noise arousing the countryside.”

The handler took the leather leash from Leaper's collar. At his signal she bounded forward to cast about for the scent she had been given. It took her only a brief time to find it, for the ground was damp, ideal for holding spoor. The greyhound began tracking at a run.

Dominic and Simon followed at a hard canter, their chain mail glittering in the cloud-veiled light. Behind them the leashed hounds howled their disappointment.

 

S
LOWLY
Meg stood and stretched, trying to loosen the muscles of her back. She had spent the past few hours on her hands and knees, searching among the heaped rocks and at the base of the standing stones that ringed the haunted place. The small sack she used for gathering herbs was finally plump with the hard-won harvest. It bounced companionably against her hip as she headed out of the sacred oak grove.

It had taken Meg much longer than she had expected to harvest the new leaves and stems and a few of the bitter roots of the plant she called ghost slipper. She had even found a few other useful herbs and some seedlings to take to her gardens. There were others she could have taken, but it would have
killed the plants to steal their leaves. The season was early for much foliage. Only the daffodils were fully grown, their yellow faces searching for the sun from every glade and streamside.

The haunted place was well behind Meg when the sun finally managed to pierce the spring overcast. A shaft of pale yellow light lanced down, setting scattered oaks and moss-grown rocks softly afire. Stone and bare branch gleamed darkly, as though freshly made. Far out at the tips of the oaks' spreading arms, the first green whisper of summer's leafy bounty swelled.

The silent promise of the buds and sun loosened the tension in Meg's body. As though the shaft of sunlight was a wild falcon to be tamed, she held up her hands and whistled sweetly, bathing herself in light.

From the crest of the hill, an answering whistle came.

Instants later a greyhound raced toward Meg at a fantastic pace, eating the ground with fleet, graceful motions. When the hound was only a few paces from her, a horn sliced the silence. The hound stopped, spun, and bounded back in the direction it had come.

Heart pounding, Meg shielded her eyes and looked across the mist-swathed vale where sunlight struck fire from drops of water. Two war-horses loomed at the crest of the hill. One of the horses had a rider. The other did not.

Just as Meg recognized that it was Dominic's battle stallion that was riderless, her husband's voice came from behind her.

“Where have you been, lady?”

She spun around. “You startled me.”

“I shall do much more than that if you don't answer my question.
Where have you been?
”

“Collecting herbs.”