My Lord Raven (Knights of the Royal Household)

Chapter Three

CHAPTER THREE

Catrin backed away from the shrouded remains of her brother, already prepared for burial and lying in a corner of the Rothmore pavilion. Holy candles surrounded the body, pinpricks of light casting an eerie aura in the closely confined tent.

“Why?” She balled her fists, craving answers.

Gilbert’s squire looked up from where he buffed his fallen lord’s shield, burnishing it so the steel gleamed like a mirror. He ducked his head as if unwilling to meet her gaze.

Catrin exhaled a deep breath and turned away from him toward the sound of quiet sobbing. Olwen huddled by the brazier. Her cousin’s pale hands busily worked her prayer beads.

Catrin’s soul ached for Olwen. The two young women held a special bond, being close in age and so much alike in appearance. An only child, Olwen had truly loved young Gilbert as if he were her own brother.

And now Gilbert lay dead .

“Why?” Catrin whispered again, her voice holding a plaintive, hollow sound.

She circled the quiet tent and stopped to glance down at her maid Gwendolyn. The woman turned her head away as if afraid to confront Catrin’s grief. Her questions.

Only Olwen had courage enough to meet Catrin’s eyes.

“Before the tourney, Gilbert confided in me of the black knight’s treachery. Guy de Hastings reminded him of it last night.” Her cousin’s soft voice was uneven but strangely tranquil. It halted Catrin’s pacing. “Lord Leighton said the black knight meant to ride out as the king’s champion. That’s why Gilbert accepted the challenge today. ’Twas for revenge.”

Catrin’s temple throbbed. She unclenched her fists and bent to pick up her brother’s iron coif, fingering its cold, metal rings. How like Gilbert to be impetuous and rash.

Yet Olwen’s explanation failed to satisfy her, for Gilbert had been no ignoble lad. He was a Fitzalan. Proud of his noble heritage. Proud of his new lordship. Why would he dishonor his family?

The weight of the coif lay in her hand like an anchor. She studied it, unable to deny the truth. Gilbert had fought unfairly.

With a sharp intake of breath, Catrin dropped the coif beside the diligent squire. She wanted revenge. Her desire for it sucked at her lifeblood like a barber’s leech. She didn’t fight the biting emotion, but added it to her already overwhelming sorrow.

Olwen looked up from her beads, misery in her red-rimmed eyes. “You must forgive the person who murdered Gilbert,” she said as if reading Catrin’s mind. “God will punish him. ”

Of a sudden, Catrin hated Olwen’s Christian piety. She had never had strong faith, and now she’d no patience for it. If she were a man, she’d take revenge in a direct and honorable way. She would challenge the black knight openly as Gilbert had done.

Yet an open challenge was not meant to be. The confines of society meant all she could do was fall back on her womanly wiles.

Catrin sucked in a breath, making up her mind. “Come with me, Gwendolyn.”

Grabbing her cloak, she pulled back the tent flap to find the way barred by her stepmother.

“I am glad to find you here,” Lady Rothmore said. “I must speak with you.”

Catrin recoiled. She stepped aside to let the older woman enter the pavilion. Isadora’s lady companion followed her inside.

Processing slowly around the hushed enclosure, her chin held high, Isadora acknowledged Olwen with an indifferent nod of her head as if the noble lady was a common servant.

“His Grace is furious.” Isadora kept her face carefully composed when she spoke. “Gilbert was an important vassal, and King Edward is unhappy to have his victory celebration marred.”

“His celebration marred?” Catrin fisted her hands on her hips. “Gilbert’s life was stamped out like a foul beetle! Some say by the king’s own champion!”

Isadora dismissed Catrin’s charge with an impatient wave of her hand. “Edward is unlikely to believe this new rumor about a favorite, the knight-errant who once saved Edward’s life. ”

Catrin faced her stepmother. “King Edward must listen to the charges.” She fought the rise of hysteria in her voice.

“There is no evidence, only wild rumor.”

Nay! There was evidence. Did she dare reveal it? Were two scraps of red cloth enough? ’Twould only be her word against the black knight’s.

Catrin glared at Isadora and changed tactics. Her stepmother might have answers, for she was aware of court gossip. “What do you know about this knight? This Welshman?”

Isadora appeared anxious to talk, lowering her voice. “His given Welsh name fits his wicked reputation. Women love and fear him.”

Catrin’s jaw clenched. “The king must trust him.”

Isadora nodded and lifted a haughty eyebrow. She thumbed a red apple lying in a wooden bowl. “He is a bastard, you know, the son of the Welsh prince Madog Vychan.”

“Do you believe he killed my father as Lord Leighton says?” Contempt rose in Catrin’s voice. Of recent days, the neighboring lord oft consoled Isadora in her widow’s grief. Catrin felt his attention improper given her father’s recent murder.

Lady Rothmore lowered her lashes and continued to wander the tent, restless as if she was loath to answer Catrin directly. Finally, she paused and looked up. “Be careful, Catrin. You are as rash as Gilbert. All these years, I have worried about you both, fearing the Welsh blood running in your veins.”

Catrin hated mention of a heritage she didn’t acknowledge. “Our Welsh mother had no influence upon our upbringing. Gilbert and I were raised by our English father and by you , my lady, if you so recall.”

Catrin battled the animosity she felt for her stepmother. ’Twas a childish hatred, she knew, bred of sadness and loneliness because of her mother’s untimely death. “Don’t worry,” she said with derision. “You are now well rid of one of your stepchildren.”

Olwen’s horrified gaze flew up in reproach. “Catrin! Shame on you!”

“You accuse me of not doing my duty.” Isadora squared her shoulders. “I have treated you as I treat my own son.”

Catrin drew a shaky breath. “So you would have had my father believe, but I know you never cared for Gilbert and me. Father is gone, my lady. Let us not trifle with one another. We have no need to play games.”

“You have always been a contentious child.”

“I may be contentious, my lady, but I am no longer a child.”

Isadora clutched the great Rothmore ring, the ring once belonging to Catrin’s mother, and twisted it on her finger. “Mayhap ’tis reason for the king to find you a husband.”

Catrin glowered. Her stepmother was right. Custom dictated daughters leave their homes. Only one mistress ran a household. Theirs had grown too crowded.

While her father had been alive, Catrin had avoided marriage. She’d been his only daughter, a favorite, and when she’d turned eighteen, the earl had been loath to force her to do what she disliked, marry not for love. Gilbert had been of the same mind. They’d indulged her, postponing the inevitable.

Catrin’s future and that of Olwen had been left undecided for months while the war with the Welsh raged. Now King Edward would arrange her marriage, motivated only by political consideration.

For the first time in her life, Catrin had no adult male relative to protect her.

“I shall request an audience with Edward,” Isadora said, pointing a slender finger at Catrin. “I must remind him you are of marriageable age.”

“Then I, too, will see the king.” Catrin renewed her resolve. “I will ask permission to take Gilbert’s body back to Clun Castle for a proper burial.”

“I forbid it.” Isadora’s expression turned hard. “There’s time enough. You will stay here until the king settles your marriage. Yon squire shall return the body to Clun.”

Catrin hid her fists in the folds of her gown. Her bother’s death left her with no control. Because of it, her ten-year-old, half-brother Richard was now earl. Isadora would allow no challenge to her newfound power as his mother.

Catrin lowered her eyes to conceal her contempt. Let her father’s widow believe she’d won. Better to challenge her in a different way.

Isadora rested a hand upon her shoulder. “You know I seek only your best interest, do you not?”

“Aye, my lady.”

“Change your ruined gown and come with me to the king’s banquet.”

Catrin refused to look up. She stared at her green gown stained with her brother’s blood. “’Twould be unseemly given the circumstances.”

Isadora squeezed Catrin’s shoulder as if meaning to console her, but the grip of her fingers was like that of a hunting hawk. The widow drew a quick breath reacting to Catrin’s silence and quickly left the tent followed by her companion

Catrin moved her shoulder in an effort to release tension. Her emotions left her feeling exposed like the craggy outcrops and hills of the Striperstones. She turned to meet her maid’s sympathetic gaze. Gwendolyn understood.

Her maid understood the impotence that welled within her soul like a dark storm forged of rage and grief.

Alone, dressed now in Olwen’s second gown, Catrin circled the outskirts of the dark encampment, remaining in the shadows and avoiding the campfires. Night had fallen and ’twas not wise for a woman to wander out, especially with battle-tested knights and the riffraff that followed Edward’s army nearby.

Most of the men were still celebrating the king’s victory by feasting and drinking. Mayhap no one would notice a lone woman strolling along the rows of tents.

She had felt as penned up as a chicken in a coop and unable to kneel with Olwen in prayer as was proper.

Guilt tweaked her, shooting sharp twinges across her already throbbing forehead, but she knew herself not to be as pious as her cousin. Not tonight. Not with sinful thoughts of revenge on her mind.

Father. Now Gilbert. Why had God taken so many of her loved ones from her?

Catrin gamely fought the tears burning her eyes. Pulling her woolen cloak over her head, she clutched the edges of the fine fabric with icy fingers. The garment barely protected her against the chill wind, but it concealed her identity well. Passersby would not know her, which suited her well this night.

Isadora considered her wild and blamed her Welsh parentage, but Catrin knew ’twas something else that caused her restlessness. She’d never been like other women. She wanted more from life than just mindlessly tending a hearth, locked in a loveless marriage dictated by parent or king.

Dear Lord, she was more than chattel. She wanted respect from a husband. She wanted to be treated as an equal. E’en more than that, she wished to choose the man she married because she loved him in a heartfelt way—the way described in the chivalrous tales of King Arthur.

Catrin sucked in a quick breath of the night air. It smelled of burning peat and roasting meat from the countless campfires outside the staked pavilions. Wind stirred again, carrying the scent of horses and sweet fodder, and the stench of manure and outdoor latrines.

Trreeck!

A raven foretelling death. A scavenger that picked the flesh of rotting animals.

She jammed a fist into her mouth, stifling a gasp. The black bird startled from a perch near a tent, its wings flapping wildly. Tethered, it was unable to escape. He couldn’t hurt her. Still her throat constricted as she stared at the creature, knowing whose camp she’d found.

The King’s Raven! Who else pitched a tent of expensive and uncommon black fabric? Who else owned a string of ebony horses, including the mighty destrier she recognized from the tourney? Who else kept a raven on a perch?

Catrin steadied herself. A nice touch. So much black. Did it conceal an equally dark heart?

She slipped her right hand inside the folds of her cloak and into the sheath that hung from her belt, touching the sharp edge of the dagger she’d taken from Gilbert’s belongings. ’Twas her way of remembering the lad who once used the small knife. Careful not to cut herself, she slid her thumb along the slick blade and over the carved bone hilt.

Given the chance, would she have the courage to use the knife on her brother’s murderer?

A twig snapped behind her. Catrin gasped, but before she could turn and run, an arm snaked around her, pulling her against a wall of hard muscle. A leather glove clamped her mouth and nose.

“Who are you?” an angry voice growled in her ear. “What do you want near my encampment?”

Terror sliced through her body, weakening her limbs. Confined by the cruel grasp, she jerked her head side-to-side, twisting, trying to break free. Catrin found herself as helpless as the bird tied to its perch. Could she unfetter her right arm and the hand holding the knife?

“Why do you prowl near my horses?”

She thrashed now just for air. Her body tensed in reaction to his strength and his very maleness. Her senses filled with the sound of his rough breathing and the faint hint of wood smoke on his clothing.

The arm that bound her chest slipped downward, crushing her breasts. “A woman!”

The darkness and the similarity between male and female outer garments had protected her identity—until now. Catrin’s chest heaved against his burly forearm.

He dropped his gloved hand from her mouth, and Catrin gulped a welcoming breath. “Of course I am a woman!”

“To what purpose do you come? Are you a spy or simply a whore? ”

“Take your hands off me!”

“Answer me.” He jerked her back, pressing her even closer to his long length. She felt the muscles of his hard chest, the firmness of his thighs.

“I am a serving maid, walking after supper,” she said. “I lost my way.”

“You walk alone in the dark?”

It sounded implausible even to her ears. Catrin nodded, not daring to speak again.

“So be it, serving wench.” He suddenly released her.

She stumbled forward, trying to regain her balance and pricked her thumb on the small knife in her hand. “Ouch!”

“Did I hurt you?”

Catrin pulled her hand from her purse where she’d been fingering the knife and popped the bleeding finger into her mouth, tasting her own blood. Still with her back to him, she shook her head.

“Who are you?”

Catrin swallowed, trying to contain her fear. With a shred of control, she lifted both hands and pulled the hood of her cape more securely over her head so it covered her veil and shrouded her face. Then she turned slowly. Keeping her eyes cast down, she hoped the shadows concealed her identity.

“You do not know me,” she said. Catrin heard his grunt of disbelief.

“Very well, let me see your hand.”

She curled her fingers close and kept her head lowered, like the demur maid she claimed to be. He paused only a second. Stepping forward, towering above her, he grasped her hand.

His black leather gloves were cold and abrasive against her fist. Stronger by far, he pried open her fingers one by one. Awareness of him, of his rough masculinity, slithered through her body from her fingertips down to her toes.

Then he rubbed his thumb over her tiny wound.

“’Tis a simple knife cut,” he said. “Did you come to murder me and steal my horses?”

Catrin caught her breath. “Of course not!”

“You protest much.”

Catrin snatched back her hand, feeling his masculine presence, just as she’d sensed it on the pathway. She dared not show her face, although she yearned for a better view of him, more than the folds of his black cloak and the tips of his leather boots.

He extended his hand, this time as a gentleman would to a lady. “I will take you back to your tent.”

“Nay!” Catrin picked up her skirts and fled from him.

She never looked back, running once more from the black-clad brute, the man she believed had killed her brother. The man’s touch stirred something strange within her. Something she’d never before felt.

While she ran, blood pounding in her ears with every step, Catrin let fear and heartache turn to anger—cutting, hard anger. She had behaved like a spineless woman. Not like the warrior she longed to be.

But of this, she was certain. No longer could she depend on the king’s justice or trust an uncaring God who had allowed all those she loved to be taken from her.

She must take matters into her hands and seek her own vengeance. The next time she must not fail.