Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fourteen

A LYX LOOKED OUT the window of the small stonewalled 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 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 Pagnell 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 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 landscape. 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 forest camp was there, gazing up at her with half-smiles 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 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 really 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 shoulders, 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 surrounding 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 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 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 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 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.