Kitabı oku: «Rhiana»

Rhiana
Michele
Hauf

www.LUNA-Books.com

Holly LaMon, Alice Countryman and Nita Krevans,

incredible women, each in their own manner.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

CHAPTER FORTY

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

COMING NEXT MONTH

CHAPTER ONE

Western shore of France—1437

The face of the limestone wall was not sheer. Juts of jagged rock poked out like gooseflesh on a cold man’s arm, which made for good handholds. Feet bare, for better hold, Rhiana balanced on a helmet-sized shelf of rock. Her back and shoulders pinned to the wall, with outstretched arms, she clasped the uneven surface.

Her heartbeat thudded. A whisper of early-morning breeze curled into the strands of red hair come unbound from the leather strips she used to wrestle her waist-length curls from her eyes. Her skull vibrated with the constant pulse of excitement. This was the sort of endurance test she craved.

One misbalanced step would see her plunging to the rocky seashore below. Rhiana did not remark even a flutter of fear in her breast. No mincing, faint-hearted female be she. Tears and fright were her sister Odette’s mien.

’Twas the wee hours of the morning, just past lauds. A few white-bellied seabirds coasted over the somnambulant waves below. A silver sky, this day. The moon had fallen behind the distant line of centuries-old oak and elm that topped the cliff with a thick emerald cap. Only the tides below that hugged the shore with intermittent shushes marked the time.

This was the hour it slept, the moments between the moon’s descent and dawn’s rise. Rhiana’s trainer had taught her to observe and understand the beast, though she had only once before had the opportunity, and that had been brief.

Opportunity had again come, but not without risk.

The creature inhabited the caves wending beneath the mountain that shielded the village of St. Rénan on the north side from the brisk sea storms that frequently arose in the winter months. Caves labryinthed for leagues throughout the mountain, poking out dozens of exit holes along the craggy limestone wall facing the sea.

The wall of stone to which Rhiana clung.

Swinging her right shoulder, she shuffled her feet on the small jut, rotated her hips, and swung her body around. A deft move, which placed her nose to the wall of rock. The stone smelled like the sea, salted by centuries of wind and wave. Dashing out her tongue, it tasted dry and salty, much like last evening’s fish stew cooked by Odette. Her sister should keep to the medical arts she so liked to dabble in, and leave the cooking for…well, certainly not Rhiana. ’Twas their mother, Lydia, who created marvels from flour and sugar.

She moved onward. And down.

A wide ledge served as opening to one of the caves, and it stretched out below her like a minstrel’s stage. Yet it was a dangerous leap. The castle’s finest acrobats might form a tower of four men to broach the distance. A precarious descent.

“I can do this,” she muttered to the stone wall. Wasn’t as if she’d never before made this climb. “Slowly but surely.”

With fingers curved to strong hooks to cling for hold, Rhiana managed another cautious move. She slid her right leg out and tapped a small jut with her toes, testing its stability. Bits of rock crumbled away. Quickly, she retracted and bent her left leg. The toes of her right foot found a more secure spot. The rhythm of her heartbeat remained steady—focused. She worked herself lower.

’Twould be better to fashion a rope ladder and secure it high. Would that she had so clever an idea before making this perilous descent. But she would certainly remember it for future visits. Sure as the snow always fell in winter, there would be future visits.

Pray she survived this day to see that future.

The scrape of her scaled armor against the stone cautioned Rhiana to go slowly. Mustn’t make overmuch noise. The creature’s hearing was excellent. As was hers. The only thing known to muffle its senses—and hers—was fire and smoke.

It wasn’t so much that she heard the sound of the beast’s heartbeats in her ears and processed it as noise, rather, the pulse beats of life echoed in her blood as if an ancient stirring of instinct. All her life, Rhiana had noticed, before all others, when a dragon had nested in the caves of St. Rénan. Even as a child of five she had alerted her stepfather to a dragon flying the distant skies.

Only now was she capable of doing something about that eerie cognizance.

Now she determined the distance for a jump was right. Fingers dry and dusted with limestone powder, she secured a good fingerhold on two craggy dents of rock, and dangled her legs over the cave opening. The muscles in her arms stretched to a luxurious ache. Biceps strained, but did not threaten mutiny. This task was to her mettle. Such inner power, it felt good. Strength—it was her boon.

“Admit it!” Memories gushed back from childhood. She’d held her best friend, Rudolph against the wall, her wooden practice sword to his gut. “Say it!”

“I surrender!”

“Not that, Rudolph.”

“Oh. Must I?”

“Yes!”

On the verge of tears, Rudolph’s lips trembled, but he managed to say, “Girls are better than boys.”

Letting go, Rhiana landed her feet and immediately rolled to her side and shoulders, making a complete tumbling circle across the smooth, stone landing. To roll lessened the impact and spread it throughout her body, minimizing the hazard of broken bones. Her trainer had taught her the acrobatic move. She was indebted to Amandine Fleche for the summer he’d spent helping her to master the skills required to perform such tasks. For she constantly sought danger and answered its call.

As well, the call to seek fire ever tempted.

Scrambling to the edge of the cave opening, Rhiana pressed her back to the magnesium-flecked wall that arced and curved about the half moon of blackness. The entrance to hell, the villagers named any and all of the cave openings dotting the seashore.

The scriff of her armor against stone was muted thanks to the leather tunic upon which the scales had been lashed. Paul Tassot had designed the armored tunic, fashioned from the iridescent indigo and violet scales removed from Rhiana’s first—and only—kill. The scales were impervious to blade, bolt and flame, though she rarely worried for flame.

Many leagues of tunnels and snaking passages wended through the darkness, eventually forming the narrow tunnels that led to the penetralia deep beneath the heart of St. Rénan. Never before had more than a single beast nested within the caves at a time.

Here, standing at the mouth to the cave, the vibrations pulsing in Rhiana’s blood amplified. Mayhap she had gauged the heartbeat incorrectly? Could there be…more than one?

“Pray to St. Agatha’s veil there be but the one,” she murmured.

This day she would not enter the darkness. She had but come to mark out her suspicions and verify what the entire fortressed village of St. Rénan feared. A dragon had once again come to nest in the caves that opened onto the sea.

And while past years had proven little interest to the dragons—none had attacked the village for over a decade—this time it was different.

Yesterday evening, Jean Claude Coopier, the village ferrier, had been snatched from his very boots by a vicious dragon. Indeed, Rhiana had noted the empty boots, still standing upright as if a man wore them, as she passed through the field of vivid pinks to the north of St. Rénan on her trek to the caves. Jean Claude had been the third villager taken in five days.

Taken wasn’t exactly the word for…murder. A second man had been found—well, parts of him had been discovered at the edge of the forest. A third had been plucked up and dropped into the sea, never to be rescued.

A carnivorous hell had settled into the caves.

Dragons had ever troubled St. Rénan—the hoard drew them. Or it once had. For two years the caves had stood empty. Not since the summer of Rhiana’s training had she seen a dragon. The people had become complacent. The festive hoard-raids had flourished. Even youngsters banned from the raids had begun to trek to the massive caves to sneak about, and the very few returned with a glittering gold coin as proof of their daring. Of course, the youngsters were aware only of the hoard that lured the dragons.

Two days ago, St. Rénan had battened down. Rhiana felt the changed attitude as a tangible shiver in her bones. The people feared. A fear which grew stronger every day, for this time, it was different. Never had the dragon so boldly hunted people. Once, a man need fear danger only should he stumble into the caves and upon a sleeping dragon. History told the creature had to be aggravated to attack. It must sense danger to itself or its offspring. And very little posed danger to a dragon.

One dragon was easily endured, for the beast rarely remained long. Being social animals, the voracious rampants required the company of their kind while they were young and wily. Only the elder, maxima dragons chose to inhabit a hoard and nest for decades, never leaving, content to exist alone in torpor.

Never, in Rhiana’s two decades, could she recall a dragon purposefully swooping down from the sky to snatch up a helpless and flailing body.

No man in St. Rénan dared step forth to challenge the beast. Such boldness was the slayer’s vocation.

Yet there did happen to be a slayer in residence.

For many years Rhiana had felt a stirring in her blood. Mayhap, since the very day she entered this world near the warm licking flames of the massive hearth fire in the castle kitchens. The hearth was so huge a grown man could step inside it without bending his head and shoulders. The warmth of the constant blazing flame ever entranced her. Visits to her mother, Lydia, who worked in the castle kitchen, were long and frequently silent, for Rhiana would sit before the flames and become transfixed.

When she was three and her mother would leave her to her stepfather’s care in the armory, Rhiana would sit before the glowing brazier. Once, she had grabbed for the entrancing flames. Paul, who had just turned to speak to her, let out a shriek and lunged to jerk her hand from the flame. The hem of her sleeve had frayed and burned, yet her flesh had not. Paul had never told Lydia, for he had been remiss in watching Rhiana.

One would think Rhiana had learned a lesson then. But no, it happened on a few more occasions; each time Paul would remand her and shake his head. He’d lost his fright over her strange compulsion to flame, but never his astonishment.

Fire chaser, her stepfather had taken to calling her, when no one else was around, for most would use it as an oath against an arrogant slayer. Ever enchanted by fire, and not afraid of harm.

As for a fire-breathing dragon? This day, Rhiana would stand tall before danger and show it her teeth.

Stepping out to the center of the landing, she marked her steps. Ten paces. Which made the landing about twenty paces squared. It likely served as a main entrance. There were dozens of openings in the rock wall that hugged the sea and stretched for leagues beyond Rhiana’s sight, though this was the only one she’d ever explored.

The cry of a seabird soaring overhead distracted her momentarily. And in that moment the shadows within the cave grew darker. The entrance to hell had never before felt so ominous.

Gifted with Lucifer’s flame… Or so legend told.

Sage scented the air. Sweet and heady, a familiar scent, but never before in so voluminous a concentration. Ancient scholars said that sage could expand one’s lifetime to the point of immortality.

Rhiana didn’t believe it. No one lived forever.

The fine hairs at her wrists sprang upright. Sensing the ominous presence before seeing it, she lowered her gaze to search the black void. Crouching, she centered her balance. All power manifested in her belly, her female center. From there she drew up her strength.

Tilting her head, she listened. The basso heartbeats pulsed out a tormenting tattoo.

The distinct scent of the beast curled through Rhiana’s nostrils. It tasted bitter and warning at the back of her throat, and spoke on slithering hisses. I am here. You cannot stop me. Attack scent, that. Once before she had scented it, sharp like the sea, innate and feral. And once before she had vanquished the threat.

Spreading her legs and squaring her hips beneath her shoulders for a firm stance, Rhiana reached behind her back and unlatched the crossbow from the leather baldric slung from shoulder to hip. Specially designed by Paul, and forged completely of steel, the crossbow bore not a sliver of wood that might easily be burned to ash. The string? Fashioned from finely braided dragon’s gut, as well, impervious to flame. A cumbersome windlass was not required to draw taunt the string on this precious bit of weapon. Flexible at rest, the dragon-gut was easily pulled to notch, yet shrank tightly for a forceful release.

She notched an iron bolt into place. But she would not fire unless the beast proved a threat. It could be wandering in a sleepy daze, have mistakenly scampered out to the cave opening. Despite their deadly nature, Rhiana revered the dragons. Elegant, wondrous creatures of flight and flame, she felt an affinity toward the scaled beasts.

“Not of hell,” she murmured in awe.

’Tis a wicked enchantment, surely, that birthed them. An enchantment that, much against her intuitive calling, lured her to arms.

The click of curved ebony talons, stealthy, marking its pace upon the stone cave floor, told Rhiana this one did not approach in a somnambulant daze.

She slid her free hand over the dagger secured at her hip. The handle was fashioned from an ebony dragon talon.

Emerging into the pale grayness of the pre-dawn, one scaled paw studded with deadly talons rattled out a warning staccato. Indigo scales glinted even in the feeble light. All about, a heavy silence thickened the air. Not so much as a lap of seawater against the stones on the shore below could be heard.

And then, from out of the dark void, the beast’s head swept forward. The size of two field oxen and rimmed in hard indigo scales and juts of deadly spines was the skull. The horns stabbing out from the temples were small, no longer than Rhiana’s forearm, but weapons she respected. Tusks at the corner of the mouth were but short picks spiking to the sides. ’Twas a rampant, young and wild, many decades of growth still required to reach the elder maxima’s size and docility.

But no less dangerous to a man’s mortality.

Thrusting back her shoulders and lifting her chin, Rhiana declared, “I am come! Let us begin this dance of will and strength.”

The beast tilted its head, for a moment seeming to wonder at her words.

Rhiana did know they could speak the mortal tongue no more than she could read their beastly thoughts. Yet, Amandine had told her the maxima had such ability.

Focusing on the pattern of ridged scales between the eyes, shaped like an inverted cross, she readied her aim.

A hiss of sage-tainted smoke billowed from the nostrils in a creepy fog. So sweet, their breath. Intoxicating, should one lose focus and succumb. Smoke dulled her senses, but she knew it had the same effect on her opponent.

The beast drew up tall, its head rising as it stretched up its long neck.

Rhiana anticipated its next move.

Defiant in her stance, she merely smiled as the creature’s head lunged and the jaws opened wide. Deadly maws targeted her feeble size. A filigree of amber flame danced upon the air. One moment it formed a wisp of steam at the corners of the dragon’s tusk-pointed jaw, the next, it formed a rippling cacophony of heat and fire and evil that encompassed Rhiana’s body.

Heat, smothering, yet intoxicatingly dreamy, wavered images of the world before her. Amber wall of stone on fire. Distorted crystal sky. A frenzied blotch of scale and fang behind the wall of flame.

Standing amidst the fire Rhiana could not breathe. Her lungs expanded, then sealed up. Her chest felt bloated, stopped up. Her senses began to shut down. But she did not fear.

Fire. ’Twas her vitae.

As the last tendril of flame extinguished, Rhiana confidently raised her crossbow and sighted in her mark. The dragon, its head still lowered as if to attack, held its wide gold eyes at a level to her shoulders. Inverted cross in sight above the top of her bolt—perfect.

She released the trigger. The heavy steel bolt hissed through the sky and landed the target. There, in the center of the beast’s skull, right between the eyes—the kill spot, a direct entrance to the brain through a fine seam in the skull. Cursed by Heaven for its fall from grace.

Impact forced the creature up onto its powerful hind legs. The belly of soft, semipermeable violet scales glittered as the first beams of sunlight broke the horizon. Great pellicle wings scooped the air, the force of wind pushing Rhiana back a few steps. She marked her position. Fire did no harm, but a slap from a wildly flailing wing could push her over the edge.

And then, it tumbled. Over the side of the cliff it soared with little grace. Once an elegant beast of flight, now it crashed upon the stones and boulders below with a bone- and scale-crunching sound that sifted up dust and caused the seabirds to cry out the death of its winged compatriot.

A quick death, that.

Rhiana, still standing her ground, waited for the calamity to settle. Breaths huffing, a smile formed.

Swiping a palm across her face she nodded, and then propped the crossbow against her shoulder. “’Tis not a good day to be a dragon.”

CHAPTER TWO

The beast had landed the shore; its upper half, including the neck and skull, had plunged into the sea. No bones or scales to claim this day; the tide would carry away the carcass before nightfall.

From within the blackness of the cave opening another heartbeat yet pulsed, but she did not sense the second had been wakened by the attack.

A second? Truly, there was another.

Was it the mate? The fallen dragon was female, evident in its bright coloring. It was the male that protected the eggs, and which was in need of dull gray scales. Never had Rhiana seen a dragon egg. Or a male, for that matter.

Topside, after a perilous climb up the cliff face, Rhiana rushed across the open meadow to the forest and retrieved the thick wool cloak she’d secreted behind the twisted trunk of a burned-out oak stump. Swinging the cloak around her shoulders, she then followed the purlieu of the forest a league back to the battlement walls.

The sun dashed a gold line across the horizon and even from a distance Rhiana heard a rooster crow the morn. Beads of dew danced at grass-tip blades like faery finery. The morning smelled fresh and salted with the slightest tang of sage.

As she walked, she pulled the leather tie from her bound hair and shook it over her shoulder. True, dragon’s flame did little harm to her flesh and hair. But she hadn’t yet discovered a fabric that could withstand the heat, be it dragon flame or a simple hearth fire. The thin cambric tunic she wore beneath the scaled leather armor had burned away during her flaming, proving the wool cloak a necessity.

This armor was remarkable. Fashioned by her stepfather Paul, the leather cuirass was more a tunic that covered chest, back and the tops of her shoulders and arms. Secured at the backs of her arms and down her torso with leather straps, the thin strips were stitched through with fine mail wire to allow malleable strength that couldn’t be burned away. As for the mail chausses, Rhiana had made them herself, utilizing double rings instead of the usual single ring method. Rarely did she wear but hose beneath them—heavier chamois braies were unnecessary—for the thick mail protected verily, even one’s modesty.

Rhiana felt she might wear merely the armor, baring more flesh than any maiden should, for it would save on damaged clothing. But she must be cautious. Should she be spied in such attire, surely there would be a price to pay.

All in St. Rénan knew of her industry. They had seen her tromping about in the armor and wielding her dagger. “She’s an odd one,” they’d mutter to themselves. “Always has been.” Why, some had mistaken her for a boy when younger, for her antics and attraction to all things muddy or slimy, and her frequent play with makeshift weapons.

Yet, all in St. Rénan believed the real slayer who had been visiting the village two years earlier had taken down the dragon. A dragon Rhiana had slain. At the time, she hadn’t felt the need to correct perceptions, for she’d been so excited, the elation of the kill had far outweighed any glory the villagers might have bestowed. Instead, she’d gladly stood back while Amandine had collected his dragon’s purse from the hoard council as payment for his kill.

Praise and acknowledgment mattered very little to Rhiana, only that her loved ones were kept safe. For without family, what had one left?

The village walls were sixty feet high and fashioned from massive bricks shaped from the same ocher limestone that frilled the seashore. Four towers set at each direction of the compass punctuated the battlement walls, with wide parapet walks stretching between them all. The walls completely closed in the village, for it was small, yet growing, though none had chosen to build outside the walls for the dangers were real.

Avoiding the drawbridge that crossed to St. Rénan’s barbican and main entrance gates, Rhiana skipped along the curtain wall to the north entrance, close to where the artillery stored dusty trebuchets and long-forgotten cannonballs. It was rarely used, for siege and battle were nonexistent.

A narrow plank, no wider than two fists, stretched across the dry, yet deep, moat, attracting only the most deft and balanced.

Steadying herself with but one outstretched arm, Rhiana danced across the wobbly plank. The scaled armor clicked softly and her mail chausses chinged. The sound of mail in motion made her smile. It signified all things chivalrous and adventurous to her. Halfway across she lunged into a bounce. The plank wobbled, digging up plumes of dry earth at either end. Lifting one foot out before her, Rhiana performed another bounce, landed her foot and skipped quickly to ground and the thick iron door.

She glanced back at the expanse of moat she’d crossed. A satisfied nod followed. Every opportunity to danger must be met.

Rudolph manned the barbican in the early morn, but his watch didn’t start until prime, so Rhiana had coerced him to guard this door. Rudolph was a lifelong friend and fellow cohort in today’s mission, for ’twas his brother Jean Claude who had been snatched from his very boots.

A double rap to the thick iron door with the heel of her crossbow, was followed by Rudolph’s husky, “Who goes there?”

The lanky young man always tried to lower his voice and speak slowly, as Rhiana had suggested would make him sound more imposing.

“Fire chaser,” Rhiana replied, the previously decided password. It was a nickname only Rudolph and Paul used, yet Rudolph was not privy to her most exotic secrets, as was her stepfather.

A blinking eyeball peered through the squint hole. The door opened and an arm lashed out to grip her by the wrist and tug her inside the battlement walls. Slammed against the closing door, Rhiana smirked at Rudolph’s theatrics.

With a scatter of blonde hair poking out from beneath his tight leather skullcap, he glared his best glare at her, then, with a sniff and a nod, stepped back, assuming modest nonchalance. “My lady.”

“Rudolph.” She chuckled and tugged unconsciously at the wool cloak. He did not know what she wore—or did not wear—beneath. “Do you not recognize my voice, that you must every time treat me as a possible intruder?”

“It is my task, my lady, to protect the village from impostors and brigands.”

When they were children he’d once accused her of pressing him to always play the knight when he much preferred to be a minstrel or village fool. Mayhap their play battles had some influence in his chosen profession of guard, or so Rhiana liked to believe.

“You serve Lord Guiscard well with your astute attention to detail.”

“Think you?”

“Indeed.”

Pleased with the compliment, Rudolph bowed in affirmation. Then with a nervous tug of his cap, which never did cover his overlarge ears, he grew more serious. “Any dragons?” he wondered.

“One less, thanks be to my trusty crossbow.”

“My lady, you are a gem!” Eyes stretching up the battlement wall to her side, Rudolph said with less enthusiasm, “If only you had been near when Jean Claude was taken.”

“Rudolph.” She clamped a palm upon his shoulder. Wheat dust smoked out from his brown tunic; he spent his nights romancing the miller’s daughter in the shadows of the flour mill. “Your brother was a benevolent man, ever eager to set aside what he was doing to aid, be it building or chopping or even singing during the village’s frequents fêtes. There is no doubt, in my heart, Jean Claude sings with the angels this day.”

“You are ever kind. I just…keep wondering how awful it must feel to be snatched up in a dragon’s maw.”

A thought Rhiana had had many a time. It was what had kept her alert and deft in the face of danger.

Rudolph stomped a boot upon the packed dirt ground. “Forgive me, I am well and fine. No tears, no tears.”

Sniffing, he resumed a defensive stance, arms crossed over his chest, and a guardlike frown upon his face. A familiar pose, for Rhiana had often pushed him to tears with her teasing. Because, most certainly, girls were better than boys.

“Thank you, Rudolph. I continue to rely upon your discretion.”

“But wait!” He blocked her leave with a dancing step to the right. “You said one less. What does that mean? One less? Less than more?” His voice warbled. “Be there more…dragons?”

“Shh, Rudolph, you’ll wake curious ears.” They both looked down the aisle of houses that snaked along the battlement walls. But a strip of sunlight glowed upon the slate rooftops. “I am not positive, but I think there is another.”

“Another,” he panted out. Straining to keep his voice to a whisper, he muttered, “Go back! Kill it, fire chaser! Do not let this day pass without banishing hell’s evil. It will continue to stalk our village!”

“Rudolph.” Rhiana sighed.

Should she have remained? Walked deep into the darkness of the cave and explored, seeking the other dragon?

No, the other had slept surely. Else, would it not have flown out to avenge its mate’s death? She had sensed no immediate danger. And what if it had been male, protecting a newling? She did not kill indiscriminately.

“I am on it, you can trust me.”

“Girls are better than boys,” he tried with a teasing lilt to the statement.

She winked and gave him a quick hug, then strode past him and into the narrow back alleys twisting about behind St. Rénan’s strip of artillery and armory shops. The buildings were constructed of timber posts and beams, but overlaid by slate or fieldstone. A decades-old edict declared all buildings must be of stone and all roofs of slate or tile. Best defense for a village oft ravaged by flame.

A cock again crowed the morning and dogs yipped in response. The delicious smell of baking bread unearthed a ridiculous hunger in Rhiana’s belly. Dragon slaying was hard work and required a hearty meal. She must to home to catch the last bits of Odette’s breakfast.

A twig rolled off an overhead rooftop and tapped her on the shoulder. Must be from a bird. But yet—she paused and searched the sky. One must never become complacent. So many noises in this village forged of stone and earth and as little wood as possible. She spied a dash of gray skirts.

“Mother?”

Rhiana skipped around and hid behind a tightly woven wattle arbor. Her mother made her way to the castle kitchen. Lydia walked a swift pace, and kept looking over her shoulder. As if she thought she was being followed. Strange.

Rhiana scanned the area. No one else out so early. Hmm…

Her mother had been different the past fortnight. Avoiding Rhiana more than usual. She was most brisk with their conversations. ’Twas almost as if Rhiana had done something to affront Lydia. But she did not know how to ask if there was a problem.

Lydia’s dour gray skirts swept out of view and behind a wall of hornbeam.

Rhiana sighed. “Something is amiss with her.”

As she walked onward, the clangs of the armourer’s hammer sang out like a childhood lullaby. Truly, such racket was lullaby matter to her. Since she was very young, Rhiana had spent her days toddling about Paul Tassot’s legs, asking him questions about every step in the process of creating armor, playing with the old yellow mongrel that slept beneath the stone cooling tank, thriving in the atmosphere of the shop.

The song of the hammer beat out a rhythm in her blood. Hard metals being coaxed into smooth, elegant curves, and blades that could kill with but a slice? How exciting! The red-hot flames and the glow of heated iron? Mesmerizing. Wherever there was fire, Rhiana felt soothing comfort. And the exquisite reassurance of gold, on the rare occasions Paul worked the supple metal to a fine sheet to leaf armor, ever beckoned.

Rhiana slipped into the shop and padded across the swept stone floor. The armory was circular, the south half sporting the brazier and works in progress. The north half was set up with a massive oak table for detail and leatherwork.

Bent over the flame, Paul concentrated on a curve of metal heated to vibrant amber. Paul Tassot was Rhiana’s mother’s husband. He was not her father, but had married Lydia when Rhiana was three.

Rhiana did not know her real father. For all purposes, a man had been in her life from the time of her birth until she was two. One Jean Cesar Ulrich Villon III; he was not her father either, though he had been married to her mother. Villon had abandoned her and her mother without reason or word. Lydia had cried for a se’ennight following. Even so small, Rhiana had wondered would her mother’s tears flood their home and sweep them both out to the sea, never again to be found, and so far away from flame and the family she loved.

As she grew older, many questions busied Rhiana’s thoughts. But when asked, Lydia Tassot would not speak of Rhiana’s origins. Rhiana suspected her mother must have been violated, or, in her more lusty imagination, she wondered had her mother an affair with a powerful lord or a fancy traveling courtier.

Either way, Rhiana had taken to Paul Tassot, who had been a mainstay in her life for twenty years. Just riding the end of his fifth decade, he possessed kind blue eyes that never looked upon Rhiana with the exasperated frustration Lydia’s eyes often held. And he was supportive of her quest. When Lydia scoffed at Rhiana taking off with a slayer to hone her skills, upon her return, Paul would question her every lesson with great fascination. What is he teaching you? Do you feel confident? How can I help? And under his breath—touch any flame this day?

Paul looked up from his task. “Ah!”

After an incident with sickness last summer all of Paul’s hair had fallen out. Now, recovered and healthy thanks to Odette’s infamous comfrey poultice, he continued to shave off the new growth. Rhiana liked his shiny bald pate. It was soft and round, like his giving heart. The man embodied integrity in his simple manner and devotion to his family.

He flashed her a brilliant smile, and with a shrug, worked his shoulders against the rounding hours leaning over the anvil forged into his muscles. A nod of his head summoned Rhiana to his side.

The glowing curve of iron he held with tongs could not be left unattended, so he divided his attention between it and her. A forceful pound of the hammer clanged the molten metal and sparks danced out like fire sprites.

“Come from the caves?”

Rhiana nodded as she reached behind her waist to itch at the leather points securing her tunic to the mail chausses.

“Was it as you suspected?” he asked.

“Yes, and no. There may be more than one of them,” Rhiana explained. “I didn’t have a chance to focus and count, but certainly there could be another.”

“Another?”

“Yes, I sensed another heartbeat after—Oh, Paul! I took out a female rampant.”

“You did?” He winked and smiled broadly. So much pride in that look. Another pound. Sparks glittered in the air between them. “So the armor is good?”

Rhiana dropped the wool cloak to a puddle around her feet. The entire armored tunic glittered with the mystique of the beasts. Fashioned from dragon scales, the iridescent disks changed from indigo to violet beneath the sun. Paul had smoothed the sharp edges and pierced holes in each scale with such care. After much trial and error, he’d discovered the only tool capable of piercing the scale was an actual dragon’s talon or tooth. He’d designed a small inner tooth, which the beast used for ripping its prey apart, as a punch.

“It’s remarkable.”

Rhiana felt no embarrassment standing before Paul in the flesh-baring costume. But the backs of her arms and a narrow slit down each side of her torso showed. Paul had worked with her to fit the scales to her body to provide maximum movement along with minimal weight and excess attire. It was he who had suggested she wear a thin tunic beneath, for her modesty, but they both knew Rhiana would be sewing many a tunic should her slaying skills ever be called upon.

“Change in the closet,” he said, turning the curve of molten iron, held with a pincers, to begin working the opposite side. The dry metallic scent of heated iron was most pleasant to Rhiana’s senses. “The gown you keep stashed in there waits. Did no one see you reenter the village?”

“Rudolph is most discreet,” Rhiana called as she slipped into the tool closet and closed the creaky wood door.

“Only because you have cowed him over the years,” Paul said. With a laugh, he again hammered at the supple metal.

They both felt it important to keep Rhiana’s slaying discreet. Certainly the threat to the village must be dispatched. But so many had difficulty accepting a female as a powerful and strong force.

It dumbfounded Rhiana. Why should she not be allowed to perform the same tasks as men?

Inside the closet, her eyes strayed across the items on the many supply shelves. Splaying her fingers across a tray of wire rings she’d fashioned a few days earlier made her smile. Crafting mail, she enjoyed. Almost as much as slaying.

She unfastened the leather straps placed from armpit to hip neatly concealed with overlapping dragon scales. The leather tunic slipped from her body, baring her breasts. Tugging out the slips of burnt tunic from around her neck and at her waist, she tossed them into the waste barrel.

Exhaling deeply, Rhiana thrust back her shoulders and lifted her arms over her head in a languorous stretch. So alive, she felt. Vigorous and strong. A flex of her arm bulged the muscle above her elbow. Like a man’s muscles, she mused. Constant training with the sword and working with Paul kept her muscles hard. And that hard work had paid off.

The moment she had stood before the dragon, defiant, had truly been a pinnacle. For her only other kill had been assisted. This one was all her own.

“I’m a real slayer,” she murmured. “Finally.”

A folded blue-gray gown waited on the shelf. For emergencies, which is why she hadn’t left one of her two pairs of braies—she used those daily. Bits of dried lavender fell from between the folds as she shook it out.

Slipping the ells of soft damask over her head, Rhiana shimmied into the plain gown. Once silver vair had rimmed the hems of her sleeves, but the fur tickled overmuch, so she’d stripped it and gave it to Odette to sew onto a pair of house slippers. Rich as the village was, traders rarely visited, so fur of any sort was highly valued.

She stroked the gold coin suspended around her neck on a thin leather strip. Barter was the only form of purchase; coin had little value.

Shucking the mail chausses in a chinking pool about her bare feet, she then peeled down the wool hose, which were still connected to the points of her tattered tunic, fried to a crisp as they were. The softness of the damask fluttering about her legs felt ridiculous. So light, not at all protective. The gown was…not her. Many were accustomed to seeing her wear braies and tunic, but on occasion she did wear a gown. Only a gown caressed her waist and bosom and revealed to a man that, indeed, she was a woman. Look at me, she felt the gown called when she wore one.

And what be wrong with seeking a man’s attentions?

Still, many whispered as she strode by, defying propriety in her comfortable male costume. And to even consider her ambition? A female who dons armor and wields a crossbow? Insanity.

Carefully, she placed the armor upon the wooden stand and covered it with a tarp of boiled leather. While every man in the village was aware of her passion, they had not seen this latest armor made by Paul. Even those who looked to her with hope for their safety would be horrified. Women simply did not tromp about in mail and armor, acting powerful and flexing their muscles as a man.

Tossing her hair over her shoulder, Rhiana stepped back from the armor. Thick, loose curls tumbled across her back and swept about her waist. Ever teased as a child for her red hair and freckles—surely a witch, be she—Rhiana had come to accept her differences, but only after being assured by the village hag that she was not a witch.

Something so much more…

The hag, known to all as the Nose, after reading Rhiana’s future in the flames of a hearth fire, had flashed her a frightened grimace and shuffled her out from her cottage.

So much more?

Indeed.

CHAPTER THREE

As opposed to setting up a small bake shop in her own home, Rhiana’s mother worked in the castle kitchen. Lydia rose before the sun and wandered home late in the evening. It was a labor of love, for Lydia was the castle’s pastry chef, and delighted many with her designs fashioned from sugar, nuts and honey. Holidays such as Lent and Midsummer, were made all the more festive with Lydia’s creations gracing the high table.

Odette, Rhiana’s half-sister, would be either at home fretting over some bits of lace to attach to her sleeves or in the castle kitchen sampling Lydia’s wares. Odette strove for little in life, save a plump waistline to attract a fine and fruitful husband. Though she did favor the medical arts—stitching up wounded knights landed high on her list of activities.

None in St. Rénan strove for much more than a simple life filled with all the luxury that could be managed. Thanks to the hoard, the village thrived. Where most cities and villages paid the taille to their lord, St. Rénan had developed its own form of reverse-taille, paying to each citizen a yearly stipend. One would think the entire city lazy and roustabouts, but that was not so. Every able body worked hard, and in return celebrated the fruits of their labors with fine furnishings, elegant clothing and always food on the table. Starvation was not something the people of St. Rénan understood, for should the crops be poor one summer, a trek to a neighboring village, or even a sojourn to the debauched city of Paris, to purchase food was undertaken. Anything could be had for a price.

The Hoard Council, formed by Pascal Guiscard three decades earlier, monitored the disbursements and insured none in the village became slackards. If you did not pull your weight, you did not receive the stipend. Very few were thrown into the dungeons for shirking their duties. The village was small, working as a companionable hive. All guarded the secret with a blood oath taken before Lord Guiscard upon their sixteenth birthday.

Bi-yearly hoard-raids were celebrated with a fête and great bonfire (which, Rhiana mused, was lit in defiance of the dragons). Though, not many had been venturing beyond the curtain walls the past few days.

So Rhiana’s trip through the city this morn was met with little but the stray pig from Dame Gemma’s stables snorting in the onions and cress planted outside the woman’s three-story manor. Children were kept safe behind closed door, or close in sight splashing in a nearby puddle or playing stones with a neighboring child.

Rhiana gave no regard to the half-dozen knights who marched purposefully toward her—in full armor, as usual. Though Lord Guiscard’s knights were called to little warfare, and even less martial exercise, Rhiana had decided they wore the full armor to look opposing. And to attract the opposite sex. There were many marriageable young women in St. Rénan; wenching was one of the knights’ favorite exercises.

Champrey, Guiscard’s seneschal, strode in the lead. He was hounded by a rank of hulking shoulders and rugged, dirty glares.

The men in the village were so desperately primal. Baths were rare, for the claim of little physical exertion kept them clean. Yet, much as Odette was always complaining of the knights’ awkwardly amorous attempts to seduce her, Rhiana had never fielded an unwarranted touch from any. She knew what the men thought of her. Not right, mayhap a witch. Certainly not feminine. She did try, when she thought of it. But emulating Lady Anne’s walk always saw Rhiana tripping over her own feet.

But did the men in the village, at the very least, see her as a woman?

Obviously not. It was only when Rhiana had developed breasts that Rudolph’s father had admonished him not to play with her. She was a girl, not the boy his father had thought her. Fortunately, Rudolph had never cared one way or the other. Their friendship remained strong; like siblings, they continued to taunt, torment, and love one another.

Rhiana craved a kind look from a man—any man who was not Rudolph or Paul. And, perhaps, not so kind a look as a promising one. Something that said to her, I favor you. Your strength does not frighten me. I can accept without fear or jealousy.

For those were the reasons no man approached her. They feared her independence. They were jealous of her strength.

Sighing, and striding onward, Rhiana realized the band of knights had stopped before her. Armor clattered and gauntlets clinked about sword hilts. Not a one would make a move to allow her passage.

“Demoiselle,” Champrey sneered. He did have a way of sneering his speech. It ever gave Rhiana a tickle. He wasn’t half so villainous as his lord and master, but he certainly tried to compete. “My lord wishes an audience with you.”

“Oh? Well, but I’ve—” A hungry belly to fill. And a certain lusty baron to avoid.

“Immediately.”

What could Lord Guiscard want with her? Had someone witnessed her entry into the village, sans proper clothing and wearing but the dragon scale armor? She was ever vigilant of the men who sat in the towers placed upon the battlement walls.

“I was on to the kitchen to speak to my mother. Does Lord Guiscard wish me to speak to Lady Anne?”

Rhiana often visited Lady Anne. Upon her arrival three years ago, the lady of St. Rénan had taken a liking to Rhiana and frequently requested she tend her in her solar. Anne allowed Rhiana to comb her hair and plait it, one of the rare feminine skills Rhiana possessed.

“Hold your tongue and follow me, wench.”

So that was the way of it, eh? She hated being labeled wench.

Shrugging, Rhiana followed Champrey’s sulking steps, and as she did, felt the ranks close about her. Lifting her skirts to keep the mud from lacing the hem, she cursed her lack of shoes.

An escort to Lord Guiscard? No good could come of this.

They entered the castle through the iron doors that stretched two stories high. Grinning stone gargoyles sporting lion heads and eagle bodies overlooked the human cavalcade. A three-legged mutt bounced past Rhiana as she moved swiftly through the great hall. Rushes were scattered upon the stone floor, but she did not notice the fennel and mint mixture Lady Anne insisted be sprinkled over all.

Normally Rhiana’s keen senses picked up every smell, almost to the point of annoyance. ’Twas nerves, she knew. Anxiety dulled her senses. She did not like being called to Lord Guiscard, unless it concerned Anne. In truth, a summons to speak only to Guiscard had never before happened. Foreboding tightened the muscles in her jaw.

The keep was a grand room, four stories high, and capped with a vault ceiling that captured triangles of colored glass between each of its sectioned ribs. The painted sky, Rhiana had named the stained-glass ceiling.

The yellow Guiscard crest—a red salamander passant guardant, and in the lower quarter of the bend sinister a green cricket; a combination of both houses’ coat of arms—fluttered from banners hung upon the walls low enough to brush a mounted knight’s polished bascinet helmet.

Along the west wall hung a series of tapestries depicting the dragons’ fall to temptation with the dark angels, and the resulting hand of God touching one on the forehead, cursing them with the kill spot ever after.

Always the great hearth at the north end of the room blazed; now, some four-legged beast turned upon the spit. While the village consumed an inordinate amount of fish, the occasional land-roving boar or deer was blessedly welcome.

The high table was set with gold candelabras and gold place settings. The lower table was not set up, and would not be until later this evening. For as much as the village was ensured wealth, there remained a fine line of social hierarchy. The baron did not boast a full court with lords, ladies, minstrels and such, but he did have his inner set of trusted alliances. And while most of the villagers were always welcome at the lower table, many found the settings and food at their own homes of equal taste and wealth.

Rhiana spied Lord Guiscard’s elegant dagged emerald velvet surcoat and made a beeline through the crowd of assorted craftsmen and gossiping ladies to him. She knew it would not be truly proper to approach him in such a manner—without being announced—but whenever she sensed trouble it was better to face it straight on, than linger and fret about it.

“My lord Guiscard!” Champrey, yet struggling through the crowd behind her, hastily announced Rhiana’s approach.

Narcisse Guiscard, baron de St. Rénan, turned. To his right, an iron torchiere shaped like a dragon’s head flickered, though the sunlight beaming through the colored glass overhead brightened the room sufficiently. Narrow brown eyebrows lifted in lascivious manner upon spying Rhiana, but his wondering expression quickly crimped to a frown.

Even ugly moods could not dampen his elegance. Rhiana always caught her breath at sight of him. So young and attractive. She fancied him her age, but he must be years older, for his father had been sixty-two when he died five years earlier.

Tall, lean, and wrapped with muscle, Guiscard stood, feet spread and thumbs hooked at a hip belt of interlocked gold medallions. Thigh high boots, revealed by a sweep of his surcoat, emphasized long legs wrapped in parti-colors of emerald and black. He wore not the fashionable pudding-basin cut that had the men shaving the backs of their heads up to ear-high level. Long dark hair was braided at the baron’s ears to keep it back from his face. Possessed of bright blue eyes and cheekbones sharp as any blade, he easily slayed all females who fell to his allure.

Sapphires glinted at his fingers and along the gold chain that strung from shoulder to shoulder. Rhiana lingered on the gold. She liked gold, its brilliant and warm veneer. To hold it in her hand made her feel safe—comforted—strange as that sounded.

It was with great willpower she resisted reaching out and touching the finery that glittered everywhere on Lord Guiscard.

The baron had taken command of the castle upon his father’s death five years earlier. Pascal Guiscard had succumbed to fever after eating rotten fish, and following months of suffering, had died after three decades of benevolent rule over St. Rénan. He had been known for his gentle yet precise ways. It was Pascal who had discovered the hoard, and he who had chosen to share it with all.

Narcisse Guiscard shared his father’s attention to detail and possessed a forced kindness, but there were things about him that put up the hairs on Rhiana’s arms.

“Ah, the Tassot wench. Our very own rumored dragon slayer.” He spat the words through teeth clenched tighter than the fists at his hips.

She would not deny the truth. But until now, Rhiana had not known the castle was aware of her slaying activities. How could they know of this morning’s kill? Had Rudolph—?

Mayhap now she could explain the situation to Lord Guiscard, perhaps even suggest he loan her a few strong knights. If there was another dragon, as she suspected, she would require assistance. For where there were two, could there be even more?

“My lord,” she said, and bowed.

Her unbound hair spilled to the floor as she did so. The tresses were not clumped with mud, which relieved her, but certainly they were in need of a comb. The only time she was aware of her lacking femininity was in the presence of a powerful man.

The men standing around the baron, smirking and handling all manner of shiny weapon from ax to bow to leather-hilted sabre, focused their attention on the woman who so boldly approached.

Oh, but the bravado heavy in the air put her to guard. Absently, Rhiana slid her palm over her left hip. No dragon talon dagger to hand.

Guiscard glided out from his entourage and met her in the center of the keep. The clean lavender scent of his soap attacked her senses as if a fox dashing for the rabbit. Now she smelled everything, from the fennel and mint rising about her skirt hem to the barrage of musk that claimed the keep as a man’s domain. Women belonged in the kitchen and the laundry, she had heard Guiscard say before, or as ornaments decorating their man’s arm.

Curious blue eyes preened across Rhiana’s face, and then tilted a smile at her. Not a generous smile, most always devious.

“Tell me,” he said, “what it is about slaying dragons that intrigues you so? Be it the danger? The fight? The desire to touch such fierce evil?”

“Is not the desire to see my family safe enough of an attraction?”

“But you are a woman. Women do not gallivant after dragons. Why…” He glanced over his shoulder to a fellow knight and murmured, “Women are to be made sacrifices, no?”

A few snickers from the men enforced Guiscard’s cocky stance. A shrug of his broad shoulder tugged tight the gold chain across his chest and with a distracting clink.

Drawing in a breath, Rhiana grabbed back the courage and focus she had initially held. “My apologies for being so abrupt, my lord, but is it possible we may discuss the business of these dragons come to nest in the caves?”

“Dragons in our caves, my lady?”

“Three men have been devoured in five days.”

“You said dragons, as in, more than one?”

“Mayhap.” A surreptitious glance about saw many more eyes had become interested. She did wish to alarm no one, especially the women, so she lowered her voice. “Do you not wish it put to an end?”

The baron now regarded her with a lifted brow. Utter arrogance seeped from him as if the lavender scent. “And you propose to be the one to end it? My lady, I had not thought to entertain such a humorous farce this morn, but I thank you heartily for the amusement.”

He touched her chin with a finger that glittered with enough gold to serve a peasant family for an entire year, and lifted her head to look directly into her eyes. The look was familiar, and dreadsome. On occasion Guiscard caught Rhiana as she was entering Lady Anne’s room. A silent capture, which held her against the embrasure outside the solar, his blue eyes eating her apart with unspoken lust.

“You’ve been to the caves,” he said. “This morning? My men report seeing you leave just after lauds. Your return was not remarked.”

She would lie to no man, for integrity of word was important to her. “I did, my lord.”

“Such boldness to tromp about a dragon’s lair.”

“I killed one rampant this morn. But there may be another. I…sensed its presence.”

“Just so?” He spread his gaze across her face. A curious look. Fascinated or horrified? “You sensed another? Without sighting it? Sounds…magical, to me.”

“I have no magic, my lord.” She wanted to follow with, “I am not a witch,” but best to leave that word unspoken. For once heard…

“Who gave you permission to do such a thing?”

Permission? Rhiana gaped. To protect— To— Why, to see her family safe? She did not know what to say to that.

“You say there are others?”

“Mayhap,” she answered. Still at a loss—he expected her to ask before slaying a danger that threatened the very people of his village?

“So you are not sure. And yet, you boldly approach me with these ideas of another. You frighten us all, my lady.”

“I do not mean to. I only wish to protect—”

“Against imagined evils?”

“They are not imagined!”

“Did you see this other dragon?”

“N-no, but I—” Blessed be, why must the man be so difficult?

“You are not like other women.”

How many times had she heard that statement, and always as an accusation? It deserved the usual response. “I try, my lord, but sewing and cooking does little to satisfy me.”

“Ah?” He delivered a smirk over his shoulder. A few knights snickered. “Well, if it is satisfaction you desire….”

Oh, but she’d put her foot in it with that one.

“Is there a reason you had me escorted to you this day, my lord?”

“Indeed there is.” Mirth fell at Guiscard’s feet. The air of his forced humor instantly hardened. “I was boldly woken by my seneschal this morning with news of your foolhardy deed. Besides the rude awakening, I feel your cut against all in the village. How dare you take matters into your incapable hands.”

“But, my lord—”

“You are forbidden to prance about playacting at this nonsense of slaying dragons.”

“No one is playacting. You can find the carcass on the shore to the north.”

“I believe you, and I am horrified.” He said the last word with such drama, any who had not been discreetly listening now stared boldly at Rhiana. “How many others?”

“One.”

“You are sure?”

She nodded. Not sure, but willing to trust her instincts.

“I will not abide you to go near the caves. And should I hear you have gone against my wishes, I will have you chained and put in my, er—the dungeon.”

“But, my lord, the innocent people! Who will protect them?”

“That is what slayers are for.”

“A slayer?” But she was… Well, she wanted to be—no, she had slain two thus far. She was a slayer! “It will take well over a fortnight to call a proper slayer to St. Rénan. In that time half a dozen more will be plucked out from their boots. I can do this! I am—”

A woman who chases dragons.

The words caught at the back of Rhiana’s throat. Why could she not boldly declare her mien?

“And who will protect you?”

Her? Protection? The man did no more care for her welfare than he concerned himself with the crumbling infirmary that desperately needed repair.

“You, my lady, will heed my warning, and thus get yourself into the kitchen, where you can be taught proper skills such as kneading and sweeping and whatever else it is you females do. Isn’t that where your mother works?” A glance to Champrey verified. “Indeed. It is high time the woman trained her child to be the female she appears to be.”

The very nerve of him!

With nothing but snickers, male eyes bared, and weapons circling her as if a pack of hungry dogs, Rhiana thought the wiser at protest.

Nevertheless, her passions always ruled over her better sense. Girls are better than boys.

“I refuse to stand back and allow the dragons to take another life when I can stop it!”

The baron whipped a dagger glare from his arsenal. “You raise your voice to me, wench?” he hissed out of the side of his mouth.

Rhiana focused. She had become irate, her heart pounded, her shoulders tight. Lowering her head, she breathed through her nose, coming to accord with this ridiculous demand. Guiscard was a fool. Yet notions of a woman’s place were not unusual—to a man.

“It appears you have great concern for the womenfolk in your village. I can accept that.” No, she would not, but small lies were sometimes necessary. “Have you called for a slayer, then?”

Guiscard shrugged.

“You cannot dismiss the danger!”

“Champrey.”

At a nod from Champrey, three knights surrounded Rhiana, not touching, but it was evident they would wrangle her to their bidding if she spoke so much as one more word out of order.

A simple kick to their knees and a fist to a few jaws would serve her anger well.

“Now.” Guiscard sighed, and ran his fingers through his hair in an utterly vain display. “Will you be a good girl and listen to your betters?”

Betters? Rhiana required proof for that statement, but knew not to ask for such.

“Very good.” Guiscard took in the masses of hair spilling over her shoulders to her elbows.

The look made Rhiana clutch her arms across her breasts. ’Twas not a condemning look, more luxurious. Either one, it made her skin crawl.

Not sure if he considered, or if he merely played the moment out for effect, she waited nervously as the man stepped back from her and studied the floor, hands to hips. Finally he lifted his head, and again slipped close, so close Rhiana smelled his intentions, and they were not sincere. “Be you a witch?”

“N-no, my lord.”

“Come now, time to tell the truth. You’ve bewitched my wife.” He lowered his voice to a whisper, “You have bewitched me.” Spinning and stretching out his arms in declaration, he stated, “Obviously, you’ve the power to bewitch dragons to lie down before you and seek death.”

All eyes in the keep fixed to her. Chitters and smirks rose amongst the rough scent of power and dirt and rosemary-tainted curiosity.

“I have but skill and dexterity, my lord. I have been trained to know the dragon, its habits, its hunting rituals—”

“And yet you could not foresee the deaths of the three who have been taken from our bosom?” Allowing that fact to settle in, Guiscard grandly stalked the floor. “You know nothing, wench. Now, will you walk from the keep to tend the feminine skills, or must I have you arrested and thrown into the dungeon?”