Twenty-six
Genevieve wished that they would not ride so close to the sea; the path that they followed moved terrifyingly through dense foliage which would suddenly break—and they would be high above the water on the ragged cliffs. This was her country, she tried to tell herself. She knew this land as well as Guy did. But it helped little. She still rode in continual agitation, terrified that her mare would lose her footing and that she and the animal and Katherine would fall down the steep rock to knives of death below. For herself she was so weary she did not know if she might not welcome the quick grasp into oblivion, but for Katherine . . .
Indeed as night came and Guy continued to force his hurried scramble northward, her despair and exhaustion were such that only thoughts of Katherine, sleeping sweetly in her arms and unaware of their rigors in that tender nest, kept her going and clinging to life.
Filbert rode behind them. Guy dropped back suddenly, and Genevieve bit her lip, wishing he would not, as they were high upon a cliff and the trail was narrow. He smiled in the growing darkness, and she knew that he was amused by her fear. She did not speak to him but stared at him through narrowed, watchful eyes.
“Take heart, love. We’re stopping soon.”
She did not reply.
“Up ahead. There is a group of caves that run deep and long. One could be lost among them for days.”
She knew where she was. As children, they had called the caves the devil’s pits, and she knew that they ran deep and forever along the sea. Rebels had come here in days gone by; the Celts had run from the Romans to hole up here, and the Angles had run from the Saxons, and the Saxons from Normans and Jutes.
She lowered her head suddenly. He had meant to scare her, yet he had given some small hope. She knew the caves—he had forgotten that she was a Llewellyn, child of this rugged place even more than he. With just the smallest head start, she might escape him.
She had to keep believing—or else go mad. As it was, she had spent the day in tormented prayer. If only she could know that God had spared Edwyna and Anne and the others from the fire. But things must have gone badly or Tristan would now be in pursuit of her. Oh, God, most surely, he would come! If not for her, then for Katherine . . .
Guy moved ahead; to her relief they took a sharp turn inland, away from that dangerous precipice. They came to a clearing before the first of the gaping caves, and Guy dismounted, pulling her mare forward into the cave. Filbert followed, lighting a torch, then using that torch to set ablaze a stack of kindling—obviously prepared at an earlier date for this occasion. Guy had planned and waited carefully, she realized sickly. He had waited for Tristan to leave Edenby before he had burst in upon her.
Guy stared at Genevieve. He did not glance at Filbert as he spoke. “Guard the entrance here. And do not disturb me.”
Silently Filbert slunk out of the cave. Watching Genevieve, Guy grinned. “What do you think of my love nest, milady?”
“You’re are grievously ill, Guy.”
“Nay, I am feeling exquisitely healthy. And virile. You will discover just how sweetly so.”
He reached for her, and without jarring Katherine, Genevieve could not fight his hold. She landed on her feet with the baby clutched to her, and his arms around her waist. For a moment faintness overwhelmed her. This seemed the final horror. If he touched her, she would willingly throw herself from the cliffs; she simply could take no more.
Then she thought, like one drowning, that she must fight—else she would give way to the cold clamp of the water. She jerked away from him.
“Get your hands off of me!”
He laughed, but released her. He was not ready yet to prove his point. “Genevieve, you are so arrogant! It charms me, it fascinates me! And—it will change.”
He stepped away from her, pulling things from his leather saddlebags. He had packed, she realized with disbelief, as if they were lovers on a picnic. He had a skin of wine and loaves of bread and large wads of cheese, which he laid out on a cloth before the fire.
Then he sat by it, and waved an arm for Genevieve to join him. She did not, but stood, cradling her child, staring at him.
“Get rid of the brat, Genevieve, and sit beside me.”
She told him in most certain terms what he should do to himself. With a grim smile, Guy retorted that he did intend to do just what she suggested—but that she would be involved.
“Such language, milady! Do you whisper such things to your Lancastrian knight in the heat of passion? Did he teach you those words and when to use them to increase the thrust of his blade?” She stared at him coolly, her face and stance so scornful that he started to his feet. He laughed when she backed away.
“Now, Genevieve. While she still sleeps and sets up no noise. Take the blanket there and set her to sleep. For if she cries when I do not wish to be disturbed, I will see that she is silenced.”
Genevieve swung away from him before he could see the tears of horror, fear, and revulsion in her eyes. She dragged the blanket from the leather satchel he had indicated, and took Katherine as far from him as she could, settling her into a little niche in the rock where the cave stretched farther into the maze of gaps and holes and darkness.
She stared into that darkness and thought that perhaps this was her chance; she could snatch Katherine to her breast again and run. But if he caught her, she knew beyond a doubt that he would kill Katherine then and there, and make her watch.
A better chance would come, she thought. She had seen that he carried a dirk strapped about his ankle. If she could but lull him along for a few minutes, she could slip that dirk from the strap and she would not hesitate to shove it into his gut.
She came back and sat beside him. He handed her the wine, and she sipped it, watching him. He offered her bread, and she took it for whatever strength it might give her in a fight.
He watched her with a satisfied smile.
“Do you know, Genevieve, what we will do when we are done?” She remained silent, and he leaned upon an elbow to stare at her; and he did so with such a smile that for a minute she thought she must have imagined it all. Here was the handsome, easy-going, sandy-haired knight who trudged along at Axel’s side. A dozen times they had ridden out to the woods and drawn a blanket over the cool earth to enjoy a spring day and nibble bread and cheese and fruit and drink wine. This was Guy, laughing, joking, quick to tease, quick to excitement when they spoke of tournaments and jousts.
Her stomach pitched and rolled. He was insane, or so totally ruthless and power hungry that it was all the same. He had murdered her father. In the heat of battle he had slain not the enemy, but his best friend.
“Do you know, Genevieve?” he asked her softly. And he stretched to touch her chin with the tip of his finger.
“You’re going to rape me,” she said contemptuously.
“Oh, nay, Genevieve. Nay, nay, nay! You, my love, are going to come to me. You will create my dream in this dusty cave—you will bring gold to it, my love! You will stand and you will smile down at me as you have smiled down at him. That smile which alone brings a man to full brink! And slowly, seductively, you will cast your clothing aside until you stand before me in your hair only. And you will let it cascade all over me ... all over my body.”
“You are sick!”
He chuckled softly. “You will do it. Because if you do not, I will skewer Katherine right through the heart.”
Genevieve looked quickly away, loath for him to see the desperation that filled her. Dearest God! To think that she had suffered for this man! That she had cast herself into realms of misery lest Tristan should slay him! How eagerly, now, would she see him bleed!
“You killed my father!” she whispered.
“That did not bother you, milady, when you believed him slain by de la Tere—you cozened to him quick enough, milady, believing all that blood upon his hands.”
“’Twas battle, not murder!” she cried, and then she quickly lowered her gaze from his, waging a terrible inward battle. If she had any hope of securing that knife, she had to take him somewhat off-guard. Still she could not bring herself to touch him, nor even to tease.
Her heart pounded. Ah, that night so long ago when she had been so terrified of Tristan! When she had first brought him into the hall. Even then, when treachery was their hope and their plan, she had known a quickening from a gaze, a simmering inside. She had hated his arrogance, but she had admired the strong clean lines of his face and she had known that she faced a true knight, bred in honor and gallantry. Time had taught her that the noble strength of his face was true, and time had taught her love as she thought that she could never learn it. And now it seemed as if she would never see that face scowl or smile again, or hear his voice, in a tender whisper or raging roar. She would never have a chance to fall upon her knees and trust in his love enough to tell him the truth, to speak when he demanded her trust . . .
Oh, God.
She closed her eyes and swallowed as a convulsion shook her like an icy blade of death. She opened her eyes and looked at Guy, and forced herself to chuckle.
His brows arched high. “You laugh, milady? I am glad of your humor.”
“I was thinking of the irony, Guy. Ghosts abounding in Bedford Heath—and here, far away in the wilds of Wales—is that ghost! I’d have never imagined it.” She leaned forward, carefully. “Guy! My father, dying—telling me that I must not surrender. Oh, he never knew! And then you—coming up with the plan to kill Tristan and his men. And then you asked for my hand so gallantly! Like a true knight, you went off to battle; but ever the opportunist you saw Richard’s cause lost—so you leapt to Henry’s side. How bitter for you to discover the castle retaken! You are a chameleon! Remarkable. You change colors at will!” She was close. So close. Almost atop him, and he was staring in her eyes.
Then!
She reached for the dirk, and it slipped free in her hand, and she had it against his stomach ere he could breathe. He stared at her still, apparently still amused; she heard him inhale sharply and watch her now with wary respect.
“Put it down, Genevieve.”
“Nay, if you move I’ll—”
“Genevieve ...” He gazed past her shoulder, and he was smiling now. Slowly, panic seeped into her at that smile. “Turn, milady,” he suggested.
“Don’t you move!” she hissed, and wedged the blade closer to him. But when she turned it was to see that Filbert had crept into the cave. He stood, smiling, back in the little cranny above Katherine; in his hand a hunting knife gleamed like fire.
“Oh!” Genevieve whispered. And Guy took that opportunity to wrest at her hand. Instinct drove her to keep her fingers clutched around the dagger, but Guy twisted and she was suddenly swung beneath him; she stabbed at him fiercely, but the blade slipped against the dirt and stone of the floor, doing no damage. Guy slapped her hand and the dirk flew from it. He straddled over her, holding her still, and for good measure he slapped her face so hard that bells seemed to ring and reverberate in her head. Like a wild beast, she flailed against him and caught his face with vicious scratches, and his throat, but he caught her fingers then and leaned so close to her she really feared that she would be sick. She gasped for breath and felt the warmth of his as he bent to her in sudden fury.
“Your last chance, Genevieve! One more move and he kills her!”
“Nay!” she cried out, shuddering, trembling. Guy smiled, jerking his head to send Filbert to his post outside. “Now, you bitch, we do it my way! And make it good, my lady!”
He stood suddenly, jerking her to her feet, shoving her roughly. She stumbled, and nearly fell, but he caught her, wrenching her up. “Now. Genevieve! Or so help me I will kill her before your eyes—and slowly, so that she will scream! And you can go mad if you so choose, for I will let you die slowly in a pool of blood then, too!”
“Stop!” she shrieked, shoving him away “Stop!” She was near hysterically mad then, she thought, and she whipped her cloak from her shoulders, tossing it down. Then she stood, trembling, so terrified that she could not seem to move.
“Now!”
“I despise you!”
“She will die.”
“Nay!” Shrieking, Genevieve stooped to take off her shoes. As Guy had ordered; she did it slowly, praying for any time that she could buy.
“I shall retch all over you!” she swore.
“I suggest that you do not, milady.”
She stripped away her hose, and surely her speed pleased him, for she took an inordinate amount of time. And she felt his eyes on her, viciously evil.
She turned away from him, to look once more upon her sleeping child before entering into hell. She turned slowly, then froze.
Katherine was gone.
There was no blood upon the floor. No sign of violence. The baby was gone, as if she had simply slipped into the darkened void of a netherworld.
“Damned bitch!” Guy suddenly swore, and she felt a rush of wind as he came for her, clutching at her shoulders, rending fabric from her back. Genevieve did scream then, in fierce fury.
Then she heard a roar like the pounding surf, like a wolf at bay. It sounded like thunder in the cave, and when she gazed into that darkened space again there was no void.
There was Tristan—savage, splendid, all supple motion and graceful power. Where Guy’s hand had lain upon her body there was nothing but the wind which came in the wake of Tristan’s fury. He leaped on Guy, landing hard, and they were locked in bare-handed combat. Genevieve cried out in astonishment and fear, looking anxiously to the entrance lest Filbert attack Tristan’s back. No one entered the cave, but when she turned quickly back she saw Guy’s hand reaching out . . .
He lay beneath Tristan, and Tristan’s hands were at his throat. Yet his fingers reached and reached for the dirk . . .
“Tristan!” she screamed. “The dirk!”
Guy had it and stabbed fiercely, but Tristan twisted away. The blade did not penetrate his heart but tore into the flesh of his thigh instead.
Guy seized the advantage, shoving the weight from him. He caught the dirk again, yet did not attack Tristan, for that knight’s fury was such he knew he could not win.
He staggered up—and caught Genevieve, wrenching her to him by the hair. Tristan, about to tackle him again, was caught up short by the strangled sound of her cry; Guy inched the dirk below her breast, its point at her heart.
“Stay back, de la Tere.”
“Tristan!” Genevieve cried. “Take Katherine—”
“Back off!” Guy shouted. And he began to edge out of the cave, dragging Genevieve with him.
She could hardly breathe, his hold was so tight around her. Her bare feet scraped the ground as he dragged her out of the cave.
Genevieve was dimly aware that they passed Filbert’s body, that he lay dead outside the cave. Then blackness nearly blinded her, she was so short of breath. Still she could feel the rocks cutting her feet and the point of the blade drawing a trickle of blood from her flesh.
Tristan was following them, his. eyes locked with Guy’s. They were nearly at the edge of the cliffs. They would all go over, she thought; the three of them would pitch to their deaths upon the jagged rock. Genevieve was almost beyond caring.
“Let her go! Face me. Fight for her!” Tristan thundered out.
“Back off!”
Genevieve could hear the waves far below, like a lulling melody. Guy just kept backing away, dragging her along. She felt rocks shuffle beneath her bare feet, heard them tumble off the cliff edge—far, far below.
“Get out of here, Tristan, or I’ll throw her straight over the side, I swear it! You get away from me and give me a horse, and I’ll just take her for a little safeguard. You’ve got your brat back. Take her! You don’t want Genevieve. You don’t need her. She’s in with me, de la Tere! Can’t you see that? Your precious little wench has been with me from beginning to end. She’s been mine, Tristan, when—”
“Free yourself, Genevieve!” Tristan railed, and for a split second she merely stood, bewildered. She didn’t understand the sound, the whistle in the air. She had barely seen Tristan move.
But he had moved. He’d snatched his dagger from the sheath at his calf and sent it flying in an arc so clean and smooth that it was barely motion, just that whistle . . .
Striking Guy’s shoulder.
She heard his cry, and slammed her elbow into his ribs. His hand grabbed desperately at the hilt of the knife protruding from his flesh. But he did not release her! One arm remained firmly around her as he fell to the earth. She screamed, staring over the brink with horror at the whitecaps so far below, shining in the moonlight. She was entangled with Guy, and halfway over, clawing at the ground.
“Genevieve!” Tristan shrieked. She heard him running, running to her, to where she lay entangled with Guy.
Guy’s fingers clutched for her, winding around her. Then those fingers released their death grasp as Tristan came upon them.
“Genevieve!” Tristan screamed again above the pounding of the surf and her own heart. She was entranced, horribly entranced with the call of that surf, too terrified to move.
Then she heard them, scuffling beside her, throwing up clouds of dust and pebbles. Stunned, she watched as the men rolled closer and closer to the edge, their legs dangling over it . . .
Then there was a scream—long, wretched, filled with the knowledge of death. And in that awful darkness, Genevieve started to scream, too. She saw the body hit the rocks. She saw it bounce and fall and bounce again, like a rag doll. And she saw it hit the surf at last, and be swept away with the tide.
Genevieve screamed and screamed until warm arms enfolded her and carried her away from that precipice of blood and death.
“Tristan!”
She could barely whisper his name as she stared up at him, and then she whispered it again and again. And she looped her arms around his neck, but that was not enough. She had to touch his face again and again, sobbing as she felt the sheer wonder of it beneath her touch.
“Tristan . . .” she choked it out. And he shushed her with a kiss as he carried her back to the cave.
“Katherine!” she whispered. “Oh, Tristan—”
“She’s in the cave, my love. With Jon. I would not let him leave her.”
“How—?”
“Edwyna is not far behind. I dared not attempt to attack Guy upon the cliff path as it was so narrow and so close . . . Jon and Roger and Edwyna caught up with me there. Edwyna knew of the caves and described them to me. We could not rush in ... not when he had you both.”
“I nearly died when I saw her gone. Thank God—”
“I saw your face. I could not let you wonder long.”
“Oh, Tristan!”
They were just outside the entrance to the cave and he paused, looking down at her. Shadow and firelight and moonlight all played on his dirty, dusty features; yet he had never appeared more noble, nor more fine. She began to tremble in his arms, ridiculously near sobs now that she was safe with him.
Her voice was scarcely a whisper as she rushed desperately to say everything at once.
“Tristan, I did not . . . Guy lied! I didn’t know—Tristan! He killed my father. And he killed Axel! He killed them—and we all believed them slain in battle! He killed them, and then he swore to be my friend and oh, God, Tristan I swear, I only protected him out of some sort of loyalty because—”
“I know,” Tristan interrupted her quietly, smiling tenderly.
“You—know?”
“I was a fool, my love. I was afraid to trust you. Will you forgive me?”
Tears welled behind her eyes as she looked at him, shaking as she stroked her knuckles over a bruise on his cheek.
“I—forgive you? Tristan, had I warned you from the start, at Bedford Heath, that he was furtively up to something—”
“Hush, my love.”
“But my silence proved so dangerous. Oh, my God, Tristan, I still shudder to think . . . Katherine ...”
“And you.” He smiled and brushed a kiss across the top of her head. “This hair, this form, this voice, this soul. My jewel, my love, my life.” His voice grew tender, and he rested his cheek tensely against her head, drawing her to his chest. “But fear came so hot and close upon those dragon rocks that I can do naught now but thank Almighty God that he has given us a chance to live, and love again.”
“Oh, Tristan—”
“Excuse me, but can this wait!”
They both started and Tristan turned, and there stood Jon, gingerly holding Katherine, who cooed curiously and giggled and beat her tiny fists against his face.
“Katherine!” Genevieve cried joyously, and she struggled from Tristan’s hold to reach Jon and snatch her infant joyously to her.
“She’s quite—wet,” Jon remarked.
“Oh my darling, precious love!”
Genevieve’s tears spilled, finally, over the babe—so that all in all they were quite drenched. Tristan came and put a protective arm around them both, reminding Jon with amusement that he’d best come to terms with small, wet wriggling bundles.
“Umm,” Jon agreed pleasantly. And then he suggested that they get the horses, since Edwyna and Roger were surely beside themselves with worry by now. He gazed toward the body of Sir Guy’s henchman and murmured that they should bury it quickly. Tristan told Genevieve to get her things and wait; but she could not go back into the cave, so he brought out her shoes and cloak, and wrapped it gently around her shoulders. Genevieve waited feeling very little remorse while they buried the body of her tormenter; with a smile she cradled the baby he would have pierced through the heart.
Genevieve did not ride back on the mare; but with Katherine in her arms, she rode before Tristan on Pie. Down the cliff, they came upon Roger and Edwyna, and Genevieve and her aunt clung together, crying all over again and both telling one another how very frightened they had been.
Then once again they all started out for home, for Edenby.
It was hours before they saw the waning moon rise over the walls and, parapets of the castle. Daylight was coming, slowly peeping out from the clouds, while a full moon remained as if it wished to wink at the sun and tease it.
Roger and Jon and Edwyna were quite a bit ahead by then, and Edwyna held the baby. Tristan’s hands rested over Genevieve’s on the pommel, and they were both weary yet curiously content at Pie’s slow, lazy gait.
“It burned,” Genevieve murmured, “but no one was killed. We were blessed, my love.”
“Aye, we were blessed.” He nuzzled her head. “But what shall I do now, love? I have no walls behind which to hold my errant, wild rose of a wife.”
Genevieve smiled, rolling her head against his chest to glance up into his features. “You have needed no walls to hold me, milord, for a long, long time now. There are delicate chains about my heart that tie me to you forever.”
He chuckled softly. “Chains! Aye, silken webs and delicate whispers. Long was I your captive, lady, ere you were mine!”
“Oh, Tristan! Milord, do I love you!”
“And I, you, milady.”
“Home,” she murmured contentedly, caring not that her home was a rubble of ash. Edenby was more. It was the wild beautiful sea, and the cliffs, and the people. It was a city now. It was what they would make it. It was their future. “We’ll have to rebuild.”
“Aye.”
“And enlarge. And, Tristan, I was ever so impressed with Bedford Heath! May we have those glorious windows?”
“Whatever you wish, my love.”
“And those wonderful rugs, especially for the nursery. And we will really need a schoolroom. And wonderful, warm guest rooms so that scholars from all over the world will come to us, and stay with us. And musicians! And—”
“A schoolroom?”
“Aye! Annie must learn things other than needlework. And Katherine will be a most intelligent girl, I’m sure of it. And Jon and Edwyna could have a son this time, and ...”
“And?” His arms tightened around her.
She smiled, and then laughed. “You knave! You already know.”
“Well, Edwyna did blurt out something. I thought you might care to tell me, though.”
“We could have a son this time,” she whispered.
“Aye, we could,” he said, and he reined Pie to a halt, and allowed his arms to sweep fully around her so that he could kiss her long and deep and with a sweeping tenderness. At length he drew from her, and he smiled, and together they looked out again. Aye, the castle had burned. But the stone stood, as tall and proud as ever. The air was clear and the sky was blue above the charred but noble foundations of Edenby.
“Tristan, look at how the sun dazzles upon the parapets!” Genevieve whispered. “I feel the most incredible happiness; yet I wonder if I should?”
“Aye, love,” Tristan murmured. “Happiness must be taken and cherished when it comes.” He wrapped his arms around her and hugged her gently, pulling her back closer in to his embrace, cradling his hands beneath her breasts. “As for me, Lady of Edenby, I, too, am incredibly happy. More pleased than I had ever dreamed possible. Indeed, lady, you do please me again, and again, and again.”
“Knave!” she charged him, laughing.
“Aye—but most adoring, ever revering, bewitched and beguiled husband as well. A red rose of Lancaster, madam, most earnestly seeking to entwine with the white rose of York. England united . . . our house united.”
“In truth, do you think?” Genevieve whispered. “Have the wars really ended at last?”
“Ours have, my love,” he said firmly. “Our house is one.”
She smiled, content. “Aye, Lancastrian lord! This white rose then casts her thorns aside forever!”
Tristan grinned and nudged Pie forward, and as they came near the gates he whispered softly in her ear.
“Come, love, and please me, and where we have no bed of our own this night, still we’ll lie forever in a bed of roses, soft and aye! plucked of those demon thorns—forever.”
The sun climbed high above the cliffs and rock and walls of Edenby as they made their way forward; and the sky came gloriously alive in shades of gold and crimson with the coming of the new day.