Part 2 (1/2)
”Well, my lady?”
She looked up, the back of her hand still pressed against her lips, the fingers curled and trembling.
”Will your stay with us be an easy one, or will I be forced to use harsh measures to win your cooperation?”
”How ... long do you intend to keep me prisoner?” she asked in a shaky whisper.
”The shortest time possible, I promise you.” Aware of the tension that had caused his own body to tauten like a bowstring, the Wolf felt it break now, and the fire in his gaze burned down to smoky gray ash. ”It will seem shorter still if we have no more need of these verbal jousting matches. Especially ones where the outcome is a foregone conclusion.”
Servanne's lashes were still damp, but the brightness sparkled with frost. He was laughing at her; mocking her futile efforts to defy him. Smug, arrogant b.a.s.t.a.r.d! He had insulted her, had dared to lay his hands upon her, and now, to make the degradation complete, was addressing her with the flippancy one used to pacify a simpleton!
A hot welter of resentment rushed to fill the void so recently drained by panic and in a moment of sheer and utter desperation, she whirled around and started running toward the same wall of trees that had swallowed Sparrow and Gil Golden so efficiently. She heard an angry curse explode behind her, but ignored it. She heard Undine nicker and whinny loudly, and guessed the outlaw had tried to push her aside to pa.s.s, but the horse had taken umbrage and valiantly stood her ground. It was enough. The extra seconds it took the Black Wolf to skirt the rearing hooves, combined with every last sc.r.a.p of energy Servanne could will into her pumping legs, carried her past the barricade of saplings and well into a dense weaving of juniper and alder.
Running with no thought other than escape, Servanne dashed under broken limbs and plunged through barriers of fern that closed into a solid wall behind her. Her skirts hampered her and the branches s.n.a.t.c.hed at the flying wings of her wimple as she ducked and darted her way deeper into the forest, but she neither stopped nor slowed to remove any hindrances. She was aware of angry, pounding footbeats thras.h.i.+ng through the undergrowth behind her, but they took a wrong turn, then another, and for a time she could not hear them at all over the loud slamming of her own heartbeat.
She stopped to catch her breath and listen, and that was when she learned to move with less haste and more caution, for it became apparent that he too stopped every few paces and listened as well. But she was a good deal lighter, and fear gave her the swiftness of a startled doe. Also, the shadows were dark and cool, kinder to the prey than the hunter, offering pockets of safety that became blacker and more frequent as the sun slipped lower in the sky.
Constantly twisting and turning in the labyrinth of vines and trees, Servanne ran until her sides ached and her legs grew b.u.t.tery with fatigue. She lost all sense of time and direction. Once she thought she smelled woodsmoke and, fearing she had inadvertently run straight into the outlaw camp, she backed away and fled in the opposite direction. She had no way of knowing how far she had traveled or how much farther she would have to go before a road or village might present itself. What slices of the sky she could see through the latticework of branches overhead were a dull, uniform pewter gray, indicating the sun was fading rapidly. She knew she had to find shelter and a safe place to hide before the darkness settled over the forest. There was already a thin veil of mist swimming about her ankles, soaking the hem of her gown and causing her toes to squeak with the wetness inside her shoes.
A low, hauntingly familiar sound brought her to a dead halt in the midst of a green sea of waist-high ferns.
She heard it again and released a misty puff of startled air.
A bell, by Mother Mary's holy angels! A monastery bell tolling the hour of Vespers!
With the echo still ringing hollowly in her ears, Servanne waded through the ferns and stumbled to the bottom of a steep incline. At the base of the gorge, was a thin sliver of a stream that meandered between two enormous hillocks of rock and gorse. She picked her way carefully along the moss-blanketed bank, following the stream and eventually emerging from behind the hillocks to find herself standing less than two hundred yards from the long, low, lichen-covered walls of an abbey.
Gloom and pine-scented shadows cloaked the clearing in which the abbey stood, but the bell tower was plainly visible rising above and behind the heavy oaken doors that held the inhabitants cloistered from the rest of the world.
Servanne moved toward it as if in a trance, her feet gliding soundlessly through waves of long gra.s.s, her skirts trailing fingers of displaced mist. At the gates, she spread her arms in supplication and collapsed against the support of the dew-stained wood for the time it took her to compose herself. Fighting back tears of relief, she pulled the rusted iron chain that hung down the wall, and nearly sobbed aloud when she heard the corresponding tinkle of a small bell inside the courtyard. When she rang it a second time, her attention was drawn to her hand, to the dirt and gra.s.s stains that marked not only her skin, but marched up the sleeves and down the skirt of her tunic. Her face would be in no better condition, she surmised, but for once, her appearance did not concern her. Nothing concerned her other than the welcome sound of wooden-soled sandals hurrying toward the gate to investigate the disturbance.
A small square window in the oak portal creaked open a cautious inch. A single brown eyeball peered through the gap, flicking back and forth over the span of the meadow before thinking to angle downward. A second eyeball joined the first as the window opened wider, the two eyes surmounted by a worried frown.
”My child?”
”Father ... help me please.”
”Good heavens-” An eyebrow arched upward in surprise, temporarily unseating the frown. ”Are you alone?”
”Yes. Yes, I am alone, but there is a man chasing me-”
The window snapped shut and an instant later, the iron hinges of the gate heaved a mighty protest as one of the double doors was swung open. The cowled monk stepped out and immediately stretched out his hands in gentle concern.
”What is this about a man chasing you?”
”Please, good father,” she gasped. ”I beg you, please hide me. There are outlaws in the woods. They are chasing me, hunting me; they mean to kidnap me and hold me to ransom. I managed to escape them once, but ... !”
”My child, my child!” The monk caught her hands in his. They were smooth and warm and not a little callused from long, thankless hours of toiling at G.o.d's labours. The face beneath the coa.r.s.e gray hood was serene and unlined; a scholar's face; a face filled with compa.s.sion. ”Are you hurt, my child? Did they hurt you in any way?”
Servanne struggled for breath and words. ”There was an ambush. They took me hostage ... killed the guards ... now they are chasing me. The Wolf. The Black Wolf of Lincoln, he calls himself. He means to kill me, Father, I know he does. Please ... you must hide me. You must give me sanctuary until a message can be sent to Lord Lucien, Baron de Gournay.”
The name seemed to have no effect on the acolyte and she began urging him back through the abbey gates when she heard the ominous beat of horse's hooves cutting through the gorge. She did not have to look back over her shoulder to know it would be him him, yet she did, and the sight of him riding out from under the canopied froth of trees caused her belly to commence a sickeningly slow slide downward.
”It is him,” she managed to whisper, cowering behind the cowled shoulders. ”It is him ... the Black Wolf. Please ... you must help me. You must not let him take me away.”
”Have no fear, child,” the monk declared calmly. ”He will not be taking you away from this place.”
Not entirely convinced by the note of a.s.surance in the monk's voice, Servanne regarded the Black Wolf's approach with only slightly less trepidation than that with which she had welcomed the first time a chirurgeon had attached a row of slimy leeches to her arm to drain the ill humours of a fever. There was anger, cruel and unyielding, etched into every line and crevice of the outlaw's face, bristling from every tautly held muscle in his body. His jaw was clenched, the veins in his throat and temples stood out like throbbing blue snakes.
He reined the enormous black beast he rode to a halt in front of them, his figure blotted darkly against the faltering sunset. Servanne experienced another deep, moist shudder; this one pressing so heavily over her loins that her knees almost buckled from the strain.
She was terribly, physically conscious of the way the ice-gray eyes inspected every smudge and scratch she bore. And when she was summarily dismissed, like some minor annoyance, and his attention focused on the monk, she felt a further clutch of fear stab at her belly. Who was to say he was not above slaying a man of the holy order? Who was to say he would respect the sanct.i.ty of the church or obey the unwritten law of sanctuary? This wolf's head was a law unto himself, acknowledging no authority but his own, no rules but those of his own making.
The Black Wolf swung one long leg over the saddle, the leather creaking softly in the misty stillness of the air. Servanne flinched reflexively as he walked slowly toward them; if not for the monk's stalwart protection s.h.i.+elding her, she was certain she would have fainted from the sheer tension that approached with him.
”Friar,” he said quietly.
”My son,” was the equally unruffled response.
The Wolf's gaze flicked over to the pale face that was peeping from around the monk's shoulders, and he grinned like a sleepy lion.
”Ringing the bell seems to have been a worthwhile risk after all,” he mused. ”It saved us the time and bother of scouring the woods for you. You can thank Friar for the idea; he worried your soul might become easy prey for the Devil if you were left on your own throughout the night.” A wider grin brought forth the flash of strong white teeth. ”Not to mention what wild boar and wolf might make of you.”
”Ahh, now,” the monk sighed. ”Can you not bend a little from your usual tactful and gallant self? The poor child is already half-convinced you mean to kill her and devour her whole.”
”The idea has growing appeal,” the Wolf replied dryly.
The monk turned then, one of his lean hands reaching up to brush back the hood that had concealed a full, untonsured shock of jet-black hair. ”Forgive me, Lady Servanne, but the deception was necessary, if only to ensure you did not spend the night alone and unprotected in the woods.”
Servanne was too shocked to respond, too stunned to do more than brace herself against the waves of blackness that threatened to engulf her.
”Are the others inside?” the Wolf was asking, his voice sounding low and distant, as if it was coming from the far end of a tunnel.
”All but the extra sentries Gil and Sparrow dispatched to ensure the bell did not attract any unwanted visitors. Not that I think it will. This mist is thick enough to m.u.f.fle the sound and direction well.”
The Wolf glanced back over his shoulder, noting with a grunt of agreement that the drifting white stuff had already obliterated the exit to the gorge. ”You are probably right, but we shall keep a sharp eye out until morning anyway. There is no sense in inviting more trouble than we already have.”
This last comment was said with a direct and caustic glare toward Servanne, who did not think it worthy of a rebuke.
”What is this place?” she asked. ”What have you done with the real monks?”
Seeing the glint of villainy in the Wolf's eye, Friar was quick to intervene. ”The abbey has been abandoned for almost a hundred years. As you will see in a few moments, the buildings are scarcely more than sh.e.l.ls, sacked and put to the torch long ago.”
”Surely the local villagers would know of its existence and direct the king's men to search here first,” Servanne pointed out, somewhat surprised at the oversight.
”Local villagers,” the Wolf said succinctly, ”if you can find any who will admit to knowing of the existence of Thornfeld Abbey, will also tell you the ruins are haunted. Plagued by pagan Devil-wors.h.i.+ppers. Cursed by demons who breathe fire and feed on human flesh. All of which suits our purposes well enough,” he added, ”if not our intent.”