A Knight's Vow Part 39

"Nay."

The stone came loose. She tossed it aside. "Then are you..."

"Nay! You'd not know me," he said impatiently. "I serve no man save the King."

She gasped. "You're a knight-errant."

A fevered flush stole up her cheek. No man led such a provocative and fascinating life as a knight-errant, pursuing impossible, n.o.ble quests, living by his wits and his sword, staring danger in the eyes, never flinching, traveling a long and solitary road.

She turned impulsively toward him, her cheeks still warm with excitement. "Do you ever get... lonely?"

He stopped at his labors and cleared his throat, as if he thought deeply about her question. But he answered as briefly as ever. "Nay."

"I think it must be lonely being a knight-errant," she disagreed. "Perhaps you have a lady love?"

"Nay!" He grunted as he plowed his hands hard into the soil, and she worried that he might break his

knuckles on a rock.

"Alas, I have no love either," she told him. "Only this wretched beast they have betrothed me to."

He didn't answer, but she heard his labored breathing as he struggled against the unyielding wall.

Suddenly, the full weight of her situation settled upon her like a millstone. She needn't fret about The

Black Gryphon, the brute she was to marry, because she wasn't going to get out of here. Even this strong

knight-errant could not carve more than a small niche in their prison. They were going to die.

When she thought about dying, she thought about her father and her pet falcon, the flowers that had just begun to pop up in the meadow below her window, the sky and the people and the seasons she might never see again. Though she continued to sc.r.a.pe in futility at the wall with her one good hand, tears wet her lashes, and her heart ached as if it would break in two.

It was a travesty. She was but seven and ten. She'd scarcely lived. She'd never given her favor to a knight in tournament, never written a rebus to a secret love on St. Valentine's Day, never bestowed her affections upon a man.

Though she tried to stem them, her tears spilled over, and soon she was sniffling softly again.

Yet even as grief wrapped suffocating fingers about her burning throat, angry denial sprouted beneath her

sorrow. It couldn't be true, she decided, desperate for the man with her to speak further rea.s.surances, even false ones. She couldn't die now. She was too young, barely a woman.

What reason had G.o.d to punish her? She'd done naught so evil. Except perhaps to run away from her

betrothed. And defy the King. And leave her entire household in peril.

She swallowed guiltily.

"You play that thing?" Sir Rag asked quietly after she'd been weeping a few minutes. By his gentle voice,

he clearly knew she was crying again, but was too chivalrous to mention it.

She blinked back her tears. "The harp?"

He grunted.

"Aye," she said around the hitching in her chest. "My father says... I play... like an angel."

"An angel." He chuckled low. It was a sad sound. "Well, angel, will you play for me?"

For one instant, her spirits soared. There was naught she loved better than playing her harp. What should

she play for him? A roundelay to spring? A madrigal about love? A heroic ballad to inspire him? But all at once she remembered her injured hand, and her heart sank.

"I... I cannot," she said on a sob.

Sir Rag stopped digging. She heard him turn to her.

"My hand was smashed in the rock slide," she explained.

He dropped whatever stone he'd hefted and moved toward her. "Let me see."

His command was absurd. There was naught to see in the inky black. Nonetheless, she offered him her hand.

She hadn't noticed the pain before, only a cool numbness. In the midst of deadly peril the injury had seemed the least of her worries. Now, as he tenderly cupped the underside of her hand, she grew aware of a deep throbbing ache underlying the sharp sting of torn flesh.

She sucked her breath between her teeth as he carefully examined her fingers one by one. When he tugged on the fourth one, she gasped in pain.

" 'Tis cracked, but I think not broken," he told her. "Have you a linen underskirt?"

She started at his intimate question.

"I'll need to make a bandage," he explained. "I don't intend to claw our way out of here only to have you bleed to death." His words were grim, but his tone was teasing, and she was glad of his gruff care. "If you'll allow me?"

She withdrew her hand and steeled herself as he crouched before her. His fingertips brushed her bare ankle before they found the hem of her underskirt, sending an enticing warm quiver up her leg. Then he shredded the flimsy fabric, and she winced as the loud ripping split the quiet of the cavern.

His hands upon her wrist were ma.s.sive, but far from clumsy. Forsooth, he handled her with such tenderness that she wondered if he oft performed such tasks. She supposed a knight-errant, traveling alone from tournament to tournament, battle to battle, would have to know how to bandage his own wounds.

He wrapped the linen lightly about her hand, enclosing her fingers in a mitten gauntlet of cloth. His head bent over her hand while he worked, as if he could perform the task better by at least pretending to see. She s.h.i.+vered as his slow, measured breaths crossed the back of her wrist.

She wondered again what he looked like. He'd said he was dark and plain, but forsooth, she couldn't imagine him possessing anything less than G.o.dlike features by his rugged, masculine voice and his calming touch.

Where had he come from? And why had he joined her father's forces? She couldn't fathom her father hiring a mercenary. He had ample knights of his own. Then again, Sir Rag hadn't specifically said that he fought for her father. Mayhaps he'd only been pa.s.sing by when the siege...

A strange chill settled upon her shoulders like a blanket of snow. Where had he come from? There wasonly one pa.s.sageway leading from the castle.

"There, my lady," he said lightly when he'd finished, "as good as new."

Her heart thumped ominously in her chest. "How did... how did you come to be... next to the pa.s.sageway?"

He stilled, for a moment seemed to vanish, so quiet was he.

"How did you come to be under the wall?" she asked with bated breath.

He cleared his throat, but her mind raced ahead of his reply. Of course. He wasn't one of her father's

men. He'd come from outside the castle.

Her breath rasped against her ribs, and her words sounded hollow in her ears. "You... you wereundermining the castle."His lack of a response d.a.m.ned him.Fear tripped bitterly on her tongue, and her words came out on a thin wisp of breath. "G.o.d's blood-you fight for him. You fight for The Black Gryphon."

four.

Hilaire staggered backward, stumbling over the rocky ground, groping behind her with her goodhand. She had to get away, get away from him before he..."Fear not, my lady. I-"

"Nay!" she shrieked, blocking blindly before her with her bandaged arm. "Stay back!"She heard him step toward her, and fright made her throat go dry. Two threats menaced her now-thedarkness and her enemy-and she was cornered between them.

"My lady..."

"Get away from me!"

"I promise you..." He took another pace forward.

"Nay!" she screeched. Her heart hammered against her ribs as the two evils closed in, one promising to

swallow her, the other promising...

"I won't harm you."

The sharp ledge p.r.i.c.ked her back as she retreated to the limits of her prison. "Nay!" she hissed, cringing

back against the wall. "Please."

"Fear not," he a.s.sured her, continuing his stealthy advance.

"Please," she whispered.

But all at once, he grasped her wrist.

"Nay!" she gasped, struggling wildly in his grip.

"My lady," he said, tightening his hold, "trust me."

"Let me go," she breathed, twisting her fingers in panic.

"I can't do that."