Chapter 4
Mary stood in the passageway, well out of the circle of torchlight, and gaped. She wasn’t sure what surprised her more, that an unarmed man had managed to hold his own for so long against mailed knights or that he had tried to protect her.
From her own father’s guardsmen.
She considered the complete improbability of that for another moment or two, then crept forward and knelt down next to the men who had been left behind. One of them had already begun to awaken from his stupor. He groaned, then squinted up at her.
“My lady, what befell me?”
“I think, Sir James, that you encountered a wall.”
He sat up and clutched his head. He looked at his drooling comrade, shook him until he regained his senses, then staggered to his feet. His mate managed it a moment or two later, then they lurched down the passageway together, trying mightily to convince themselves that something dastardly had felled them from behind without their having seen it. Mary thought it would be impolite to point out it had been a stranger’s feet to do the like.
She leaned against the wall and looked at the ruined garderobe door. The man had been dressed very strangely, his French had been terrible, and he’d apparently been just as willing as she to use the garderobe as a place to hide. If that wasn’t curious enough, there were yet other things to question. Why had he felt the need to hide from her father’s men? Why had he been in her father’s keep in the first place?
And why had he put himself at risk to protect her from men who would have given their lives as readily for her as they would have for her sire?
It was tempting to find him and have an answer or two, but she didn’t think she wanted to follow him to where he’d no doubt been taken. Artane’s dungeon was a very unpleasant place indeed, one easily secure enough to hold a man who had disabled several of her father’s fiercer lads. He likely deserved to be there for that alone, though ’twas difficult to think poorly of a man who had tried to keep her safe.
She decided she would make a discreet enquiry later, after Theo and Samuel had had the opportunity to do her investigations for her.
She made her way to the great hall to see if she might filch a bit of supper without being seen, then pulled back into the shadows of the stairwell. Supper was indeed being laid, but she decided abruptly that she had no stomach for it. And the reason for that was standing across the hall plying a very loud, noisy bit of what passed for chivalry with him on her father. She couldn’t hear the exact flatteries Geoffrey was spewing, but she could tell how thickly he was layering them on.
And damn Robin of Artane if he didn’t suppress a yawn or two and remain where he was instead of simply looking at Styrr as if he’d lost his wits before turning and going off to find more ale.
She watched her mother come out from the kitchens, then cross the hall to stand next to her husband. Anne of Artane was, Mary had to admit objectively, a vision of loveliness and grace, serene no matter the chaos surrounding her, always a model of everything elegant and refined. Mary always felt a little like a grubby stable boy next to her mother, but her mother never made mention of it and for that she was very grateful.
She watched her father reach for her mother’s hand and tuck it into the crook of his arm. He wasn’t one for overly sentimental displays, though he had been known to offer the occasional gushing flattery to his lady wife—particularly when he thought no one was listening. It was a gruff chivalry, but her mother seemed to find it to her liking.
Mary had never expected that anything akin to it might be plied on her. Indeed, she had never longed for such a thing, not even in her youth when she’d indulged in the occasional bout of dreaming in the hayloft. Or, rather, she hadn’t until her twentieth autumn when she’d seen such a display of courtly gallantry that it had taken her a good year to rid herself of the aftereffects.
One of her father’s former squires, Christopher of Blackmour, had brought his lady Gillian and his small son to visit at Artane. Mary had heard the rumors of the Dragon of Blackmour, of course, and been prepared to see a creature of such fierceness that even she might have stepped back a pace at his approach. He hadn’t disappointed in public, for he was indeed very gruff and stern. But she had watched him a handful of times with his lady when he hadn’t thought anyone marked him, and his tender care of his wife had touched her in a way she hadn’t expected.
After those astonishing displays, she had found herself watching the men in her family. Her uncles, she had discovered, were rather chivalrous souls themselves. ’Twas no wonder her aunts were so content with their lives. There was something quite lovely about having some lad step up to meet harm not because it would give him reason to display his prowess with the sword, or because he might boast about it later and preen under the praise, but only because he had the means to protect a woman he loved.
A bit like that stranger had upstairs.
She realized suddenly that she wasn’t nearly as well hidden as she’d thought. She caught sight of Geoffrey of Styrr looking her way with an expression of triumph on his face, and she drew back instinctively. She stepped backward up the stairs only to run bodily into something that grunted in response. She whirled around to find a cousin standing there. She let out her breath slowly.
“Cousin,” she said.
Connor of Wyckham folded his arms over his chest. “Keeper,” he corrected. “Yours, as it happens.”
“Are you protecting me from Styrr, or myself?”
“Styrr,” he echoed with a snort. “Mary, he couldn’t finish an opponent if the lad were already bleeding from dozens of wounds and all he needed to do was wait. You could best him with a judiciously placed elbow.”
She smiled. “Thank you. And since I’m able to fend for myself tonight, I think I’ll be off now. My head begins to pain me.”
Connor smirked. “I can see why it would, given that your alternative is an evening passed with that babbling woman out there. Your father has a stronger stomach than either of us does.”
Mary nodded. Connor’s words were nothing more than she expected but far less than she could have hoped for. He, like everyone else, had a very low opinion of Styrr’s manliness, but no opinion at all about his nefarious qualities.
She was beginning to wonder if she might be imagining them herself.
That was definitely something she could reflect on at her leisure—hopefully in a keep far away. She slipped past Connor and started up the stairs, already thinking on which set of relatives might welcome a visit. Not a long visit, just one long enough to allow her father to come to his own conclusions about Styrr’s potential to irritate him for the rest of his days. A pity there was no one she could ask to take her—
She came to a halt halfway up the stairs. Of course there was someone she could ask to take her. There was a man no doubt languishing in her father’s dungeon who might be very willing indeed to trade a rescue for an escort. Or perhaps he could be bought. It wasn’t as if she had bags of gold, but she did have enough to bribe him to take her somewhere else. At least she knew the man would be able to keep her safe.
“Mary?”
She cursed under her breath. She’d forgotten she had a shadow.
“Nothing,” she said over her shoulder. “I’m thinking about horseshoes.”
Connor only grunted.
She continued on up the stairs and down to her chamber. Aye, she was now thinking about horseshoes indeed and how much damage one would do to Connor if she brought it down enthusiastically on his head.
She thanked him kindly for his company, then escaped inside her chamber and waited. She would give Connor time to grow hungry and seek out supper, then she would be about a little rescuing. She tucked her braided hair down the back of her tunic and waited for far longer than she thought necessary before she opened her door and peeked out.
Connor was leaning back against the wall opposite her door. She frowned.
“What are you doing still here?”
“I thought it wise, lest Styrr wander down the passageway and find your chamber to his liking.”
“I’m surprised you don’t have your wee brothers here to aid you.”
He shivered. “They make me nervous.”
“Which makes them so desirable as guardsmen,” she said. “Perhaps you should go fetch them to help you in your labors. Or at least go fetch me something to eat.”
“I thought your head pained you.”
“Food will ease it.”
He walked over to stop in front of her. “I don’t like what I see in your eye.”
She sighed lightly. Jackson was pigheaded, Parsival shrewd, and Thaddeus too intelligent for his own good, but Connor de Piaget was all those things combined to unpleasant perfection. He was only a score and one, but he seemed far older than his years. Perhaps that came from having Samuel and Theo as his younger brothers. She would have difficulty in keeping anything from him.
“There’s nothing in my eye,” she said. “Nothing out of the ordinary.”
He studied her for another moment or two. “I’d call it rebellion.”
“Can you fault me for it?” she asked pointedly.
He blew his hair out of his eyes. “There is no reason to fear Styrr.”
“Do you trust him?”
“Nay, but I’m suspicious by nature.”
“And I’m a very good judge of men.”
“You are,” he agreed, “but so is your father. He won’t give you to a lad who doesn’t pass all his tests. He’s refused enough men in the past to prove that.”
“Styrr is burying him in flatteries.”
“Do you think your father will be dazzled by that?” Connor asked with a snort. Then he paused, seemingly unwillingly. “I’m not sure if this will ease you or not, but he has doubled the watches whilst Styrr is here. Perhaps he is uneasy himself.”
Mary suppressed the urge to curse. The more men manning the walls and roaming about the hall, the more difficult she would find it to slip out the front gates with an utter stranger.
But escape she would because she had no other choice. She looked up at Connor and manufactured a look of concern.
“With such a heavy guard below,” she began slowly, “I wonder if you’re sufficient here. Perhaps you should fetch another lad or two?”
Connor drew himself up. “Am I not enough?” he asked stiffly.
“Strange happenings are happening in the hall tonight,” she offered. “Don’t you agree?”
He shot her a look of disgust, then turned away. “As if I wasn’t familiar enough already with strange happenings in my own family,” he muttered as he walked away. “Bolt your door,” he threw over his shoulder.
Mary had no intentions of it, but she wasn’t going to tell him as much. “I changed my mind. I think I’d prefer to go to bed,” she called after him. “Don’t wake me, aye?”
He waved a hand without looking back at her.
Mary waited until he had disappeared into the shadows before she made a production of closing the door—with her on the outside of it. She waited until she thought Connor might have gone downstairs before she followed after him. Luck was with her, for she found the hall in an uproar thanks to something untoward Lady Suzanna had found in her stew. Connor made for the front door, which left her free to blend in with servants and go in another direction.
It was a very dodgy trip to the cellars, made all the more hazardous by a brief stop into her father’s solar to filch the dungeon key she knew he kept hidden under the feet of his main coffer. She was rather more grateful than she likely should have been for all the things she had learned from Theo and Samuel.
Key in hand, she continued on to the kitchens, through them, then to the steep passageway that led down to the dungeons located in the foundations of Artane. There were no guards there. Then again, what soul with any wit at all would have wanted to be anywhere near the place? The chill was deadly. She thoroughly regretted having left her cloak behind.
She walked quickly down the passageway to the dungeon. She paused at the door and heard nothing, not even breathing. Perhaps her father had thrown the man out the front gates.
Or perhaps the man was dead.
That thought was more distressing than she’d thought it would be. If he was dead, then so were her recent hopes of an escort away from Artane. She wasn’t comfortable with reducing the poor man to escort alone, but she was more desperate than she wanted to admit. Perhaps he was still senseless. She quickly fitted the key into the lock and pushed the door open.
Before she could call to the man and see if he lived, she found herself suddenly pushed into the dungeon and sent sprawling. The door behind her clanged shut and the key was turned. Booted feet ran quickly back up the passageway.
Mary crawled to her knees and felt for the metal bars that now held her captive. She shook them, called for help, then fell silent when she realized the full import of her situation.
She was locked in her father’s dungeon—quite possibly with a man who might throttle her as easily as he might have looked at her.
Damnation, when would she learn to look before she leapt?
She backed away from the bars and flattened herself against the wall. There were, she could readily see, no other avenues of escape. There was a grate on the floor, but she had no hope of lifting it up. Not even her father could have managed it.
She listened frantically for the sound of another’s breathing, for the sound of a footfall, for the whisper of a weapon coming from a sheath. Unfortunately, all she could hear was the endless roar of the sea, something she generally found to be quite pleasing. She was having difficulty enjoying it at present.
She jumped when she heard the scrape of a boot against the stone. She would have given much for a knife, or a sword, or the skill to use either. She took the urge to scream and ruthlessly squelched it. It wouldn’t serve her to show any fear. She folded her arms over her chest—ignoring the fact that it felt more as if she were trying to comfort herself—and stuck her chin out.
“Prisoner,” she said firmly, hoping she sounded much more confident that she felt, “I can slay you with my bare hands if you try to harm me.”
She saw a shape detach itself from the darkness. Her eyes were perhaps of more use than she’d hoped, for she could see his outline well enough. Aye, it was the man from the passageway. He was wearing those odd hose and a tunic that was too short. He was very tall and quite broad and she was an utter fool. If she managed to survive the next quarter hour, she just might throw herself at her father’s feet and tell him that.
She saw the flash of a dagger in the stranger’s hand and she screamed before she could stop herself.
She would have screamed again when his hand came out of the darkness and took hers, but she was too terrified. She could only squeak as he tugged on her. She went with him because she was apparently too pitiful to do anything else. He stopped at the door.
“Less wind here,” he said, his teeth chattering.
It took a moment or two before she realized the import of his words. She gaped at him. “You aren’t going to hurt me?”
He started to fumble with the lock, using a pair of daggers to their best advantage. “Nay.” He worked a bit longer, then dropped one of his blades. He let out an impressive string of curses—in Gaelic, no less—then pulled away from the door. He shoved his other dagger back down his boot and began to blow on his hands.
Mary was so surprised that he wasn’t going to harm her—his chivalry upstairs aside—she could only stand there and look at him stupidly. She shrank back when he reached out, then realized that all he intended was to take her hands in his and rub them to keep them warm.
She let out her breath slowly, but found nothing to say. She had fully expected harm, but instead she had found kindness. All she could do was look at the very faint outline of his form and say nothing. His hands were very cold, but that didn’t seem to deter him. She let him be about his work for several minutes before she attempted to speak.
“Someone locked me in,” she ventured. She said it in her tongue, even though she was able to speak his reasonably well. Keep something in reserve was something her father said constantly to his lads in training and he hadn’t been talking about strength of arm.
“Why?” the man asked, shivering audibly.
“I have no idea,” she managed. “I’m just a, um, an unimportant soul in the household.”
He muttered a curse about the cold, then stomped his feet a time or two before he continued with her hands. “Will someone come?”
“Hopefully,” she said, finding that the cold was now burning her throat.
“Why did you come?”
His French was indeed dreadful, as if he’d learned it from someone who had learned it from someone else who hadn’t spoken it very well. But at least he was attempting it with confidence.
“Why did I come?” she asked, her teeth beginning to chatter. “To rescue you, of course.”
He went still. “Why?”
“Because you protected me above. If we escape here, I will see if I can’t help you out the front gates.”
He bowed his head briefly. “Thank you.”
Mary was pleased with that despite the difficulty she was having not weeping from the cold. If he was going out the gates, then so was she. Just exactly what she’d hoped for.
She hoped for it for a good hour before she saw what she thought might have been a faint lightening of the passageway. She was almost certain it was her imagination until she heard her father’s curses coming very clearly from up the way.
“Help has arrived,” she said gratefully.
Her companion said nothing, but he did stand behind her and block some of the breeze. Mary listened to her father and winced at not only his curses, but his vow to have vengeance on any and all in the area. He caught sight of her, then gestured furiously for one of his guardsmen to unlock the door.
Before she could babble anything but incoherencies—it was very cold, after all—her father had wrenched the door open and yanked her out into the passageway. She fumbled for the stranger’s hand and pulled him along with her, which he seemed inclined not to fight.
Her father opened his mouth—no doubt to spew out more curses—then he froze. He stared in astonishment at the stranger for a handful of moments, then he shut his mouth with a snap.
“Leave us,” he barked at his men. “Sir Ranulf, you stay.”
Mary started to tell her father how kind the stranger had been to her, but before she could her father’s captain had brought the hilt of his sword down against the stranger’s head.
He fell to the ground with a rather unwholesome-sounding crash.
Robin looked at his captain. “Escort my daughter immediately upstairs and see she stays in her bedchamber.”
“Father—”
He shot her a look of such fury that she decided she would be wise to remain silent. For the moment.
“I have been combing this keep for you for the past hour,” he said in a low, tight voice. “I feared the worst. I wouldn’t have thought to look here if Styrr hadn’t said he’d seen you going into the kitchens, so perhaps you can look on him with a friend lier eye. And now, if you don’t want me to lose my temper fully, you’ll go along with Ranulf. Silently.”
Not when her escort out the gates was lying senseless behind her. Mary knew that if she merely left him behind, he would be thrown back into the dungeon and then any hope of putting the sword to Styrr’s plans for her would be finished. In fact, it wouldn’t have surprised her to find ’twas Styrr who had locked her in just to try to bring her to her knees. But bring her to the altar?
Never.
She snatched up her Scotsman’s dagger and stood over him. She knew that her father could have disarmed her without bothering to stifle a yawn, but she didn’t care. She pointed the knife toward her father and stuck her chin out to give herself courage.
“Do not hurt him.”
Her sire studied her for a moment, then very deliberately folded his arms over his chest and glared. It was how he often intimidated messengers from other keeps. Unfortunately for him, she’d seen him do it too many times to be terrified.
Well, perhaps that wasn’t completely true. She knew she was treading on dangerous ground. There was a muscle twitching in his jaw. He was holding on to his temper, and that just barely.
“Does this pitiful whelp you’ve decided to champion have a name?” he asked with exaggerated politeness.
“We didn’t perform introductions. We were too busy freezing.”
He wiggled his jaw, once. “I don’t suppose that since he neglected to tell you his name he told you where he was from, did he?”
“He didn’t,” she said, “though he cursed quite proficiently in Gaelic. I suspect he’s a Scot, though, again, we didn’t manage much speech.”
“Then what, by all the bloody saints, did you do for the past hour!” he shouted.
She lifted her chin a bit more. “He worked on the lock. And he rubbed my hands to keep them warm.”
Her sire’s jaw went slack. “He did what?
“He kept my hands warm,” she repeated. She watched her father splutter in absolute fury. He was no worse than a terribly misbehaving horse—something she declined to point out—so she took a firmer grip on her fallen champion’s knife and refused to back down. “I don’t want you to hurt him.”
“I’ll kill him—”
“Then you’ll kill me first.”
He looked at her as if he’d never seen her before. Indeed, she had to agree with the sentiment. She had never in her life gainsaid her father in such a fashion. He hadn’t been any sort of tyrant, true, but he had been impossibly stubborn and full of all sorts of expectations where she and her brothers had been concerned. She had been excused from duties in the lists, but in all else she had been expected to make the same efforts that her siblings had. And in all the years she’d lived with her sire, she had always resorted to talking in circles until he threw up his hands and gave in just to be done with listening to her. She had never in her life simply defied him.
Until now.
He scowled fiercely at her, then jerked his head toward the passageway. “Go. I won’t kill him.”
“Don’t hurt him—”
“I won’t hurt him, either!” he bellowed.
She waited for another moment or two, just as she had seen him do countless times when he’d exacted a promise from someone he wasn’t quite sure would keep that promise, then nodded shortly. She handed him the dagger haft-first, then paused again.
“He was kind to me,” she said simply.
He was also going to be the one who helped her get out the front gates, but she supposed her sire didn’t need to know that at present.
She walked up the passageway with her sire’s captain, then paused and looked behind her. Her father had squatted down next to the man and was feeling for a heartbeat. There was no steel in his hands and he didn’t look as if he planned to throttle the man anytime soon. She turned away and followed Sir Ranulf, her hands tingling.
She didn’t think it was from the cold.