The Knight, the Harp, and the Maiden Read online

  She gazed around in disbelief. This must be Lindos’s bedroom and she had never seen anything so magnificent in her life. The great bed that dominated the center of the room was draped in white linen, linen so finely spun it resembled gossamer. Sewn into the linen, worked in intricate patterns, tiny gems of every color twinkled in the firelight, like a shower of thousands of stars. “How beautiful,” she murmured, forgetting her fear.

  “I thought you would like it,” he said. He leaned against the door frame and crossed his arms over his chest.

  She walked over to the bed and touched the hangings with one tentative finger. “It’s amazing.” The light sparkled in the jewels, throwing off rainbow glints, shifting as the fabric moved beneath her touch. “It’s the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.” This was what it meant to be a thurge, she thought, protected and sought out, valued by everyone for the knowledge to manipulate the power of the magic. No wonder the young thanes envied the thurges.

  Arimond came to stand behind her. “Do you really like it?” He ran his hands down her shoulders to her upper arms, and a ripple of pleasure went through her. She nodded, unable to answer. He reached around her throat and unclasped her cloak. The garment slid to the floor unheeded as he pulled her back against his chest. He slid one arm beneath her breasts and the other around her belly. He bent his head and teased her earlobe with his tongue. She shivered, and moaned a little.

  “You like that,” he whispered, his breath making her feel hot and cold all at once. She could only nod.

  She felt his fingers in the tangle of the lacings of her bodice, and she arched back against him. What did it matter, really? No one was here to see them, and she and Arimond would be married soon. She closed her eyes, offering no resistance as he slipped his hand inside her chemise and cupped her breast.

  She turned her head toward him, making a little sound in her throat. For answer his mouth sought hers, hard and hot and more insistent than anything she had ever felt before. His arms seemed to crush her, and for one brief instant, Juilene shrank back, inexplicably afraid. This was a side of Arimond she had never seen. She pushed back and turned her head. “Please,” she murmured. “Gently.”

  She thought she heard him chuckle, a low sound deep in his throat that made her shiver. He swept her up in his arms and placed her on the bed, his hand fumbling for the lacings on his breeches. He pushed her skirts up to her thighs and rolled on top of her, the hard length of his desire pressing against her flesh. “Forgive me—I guess I’m just a little overwrought tonight.”

  Desire won over fear and she reached to caress his cheek with the back of her hand. He raised himself over her, his body covering hers, his legs forcing her knees apart. She placed one hand on his chest, and gasped. The sapphire ring, her mother’s legacy and Neri’s gift, blazed brighter than all the thousands of gems combined. She stifled a scream and her eyes met his, and in that moment, she knew she looked into the eyes of a stranger. There was nothing of Arimond’s love in those eyes, only lust and desire, and something that could only be hate.

  She struggled harder, pushing against his chest with all her strength, twisting and turning beneath him. His face changed before her eyes. His hair lightened from sun-bleached gold to nearly white, his cheekbones heightened and become more prominent. His lips thinned. The man poised above her was not Arimond. “Lindos!” she cried.

  The glamour of the spell fell away from him in that instant, and surprised, he loosened his grip on her. She struggled out of his grasp, and rolled to the opposite side of the bed, holding the edges of her bodice together as her feet touched the floor. “Where is Arimond?”

  The thurge chuckled. “Ah, little songsayer. You have the truth of it. I am indeed Lindos, and your beloved is right there.” He pointed over her shoulder, and she turned. The illusion of a solid wall melted away before her eyes, and she saw Arimond hanging chained, his clothes hanging in shreds off his body, his head sunk to his chest.

  “Goddess,” she whispered, bringing her fist to her mouth. “What have you done to him?”

  “Only what he would have done to me.” The thurge shrugged.

  “Arimond?” She drew a little closer. His torso was streaked with blood, and she could see the gaping edges of his wounds, from which blood still seeped, through the tattered fabric. His flesh was pale, and there was a bluish cast round his mouth. “Arimond?”

  “He’s quite dead, my dear.”

  Juilene turned to face Lindos. The walls of the room seemed to close in on her, the ceiling seemed to drop toward her. Her vision clouded and then focused. “You’ve killed him.”

  “It’s only what he would’ve done to me.” Lindos smiled almost apologetically.

  “What of the others?”

  “I’m afraid they’re dead, too. Most of them. The ones who aren’t soon will be, thought I might let one or two live long enough to go back to the thanes and show them what happens when anyone tries to interfere in my affairs. I don’t like interference, you see.”

  She felt faint and dizzy. Surely this was all a dream, a nightmare, from which she would awaken screaming at any moment. How could they all be dead? Arimond, his friends, the heirs of noble houses all. How could they all be dead? And Arimond—her mind refused to consider the awfulness of his death. She closed her eyes and when she opened them, she saw a small head peering from beneath the bed, a head with huge black eyes that bulged from a face that was narrow and grey with high slanting cheeks. She stifled a scream and the black eyes glowed with a weird yellowish green light.

  Other faces crowded from beneath the bed, from around the corners of the bed, faces attached to huge bald heads and skinny bodies with spindly limbs. She gasped and drew back involuntarily.

  Lindos’s mouth stretched into a snarl. “Away with you, all of you.” He cuffed the nearest on the side of the head and the creatures recoiled, disappearing in a blink.

  Juilene tugged the laces of her bodice closer. She tried not to think about what those things were. What had Melly done when her attackers had come upon her? She had faced them bravely and fought. Juilene was determined that she would do no less. She raised her chin and tried to keep her voice steady. “Are you going to kill me, too?”

  He laughed. “Kill you? Oh, no, my dear, you’re sadly mistaken. I don’t intend to kill you. Why that might bring down every outraged thane in the entire League to my door, and as I said, I can’t abide interference. I brought you here for another purpose.”

  “You’ll have to kill me before I let you touch me again.” Some rational recess in her mind told her her voice was shrill in the unnatural quiet.

  “Rape? Oh, no, my dear, how crude. You really don’t know me at all, I see. No, I brought you here to offer you a choice, an honorable choice.”

  “What do you understand about honor? You allow your men to rape helpless women—abuse them nearly to death. What could the word honor mean to you?” She balled her fists and squared her shoulders.

  His eyes glittered like the jewels. “My men are men, my dear. It isn’t my fault their appetites are sometimes a little—well—fierce. And as for my honor, at least I don’t masquerade as something other than what I am in order to invade someone’s house. With the intention of aiding in their murder, no less. That’s hardly an honorable action, do you think?”

  Juilene bit her lip, feeling that her charade of courage was close to cracking. “My honor is not the issue here.”

  “Well,” he said, plucking at the coverlet of the bed, “that’s a matter for debate, I think. But never mind now. You’ve had a long night, and I am sure you want to return home. So here is the choice. It has occurred to me that an alliance with one of the thanish houses might be a good thing—enable me to control certain elements, shall we call them? And so this is my proposal: marry me, and there will be no more reprisals from this night. Everything will be the same as it was.”

  “The same?” she whispered in disbelief and horror, acutely conscious of Arimond’s corpse behind he
r. “How could anything be the same? Nothing will ever be the same again.”

  “Not exactly the same,” he replied. “But very nearly the same, especially for you.”

  “Nothing will be the same. Never.”

  “I had hoped you would be able to see things differently,” he said, gazing at the underside of the canopy.

  “Why?” Her whole body shook with the strain of trying to maintain her calm demeanor.

  “Because, my dear.” He rolled to face her. “If you should refuse me, I will have to punish you. What you did was inexcusably wrong, and I think even your father would agree.”

  Juilene glanced at the tiny jewels. Their sparkle seemed dull and lusterless. The door seemed impossibly far away. She closed her eyes and Arimond’s expressionless face rose before her. “That’s between me and my father.”

  “Under other circumstances, I would agree. But you see, these are not ordinary circumstances are they?”

  “Do whatever you want to me. Kill me, if you please. I don’t care.”

  Lindos waggled a finger at her. “Now, now. You’re very young. Think about what you’re saying carefully. You might just live to regret it.”

  She glanced over her shoulder once more, and gathered the edges of her bodice more firmly in one hand. With squared shoulders and the last bit of strength she could muster, she walked to the door. “You’ve taken from me the only man I will ever love. What does it matter what happens to me?”

  He watched her go, but made no move to stop her. As she reached the door, he said, “Go, little songsayer. You’ve made your choice.” She reached the door and he began to laugh, louder and louder, and the sound echoed through the corridor and down the stairs, until she was forced to cover her ears. She shut her eyes as something, some force as strong as thunder without sound, dragged her to her knees.

  Lindos’s voice filled her mind, and her whole body thrummed with his voice, as though she were a harp string, too tightly strung. “Now listen, girl, and listen well. You will never have anything, except that which you earn by your own hands. Charity is denied you, for any who try to help you will bear the curse I set upon you. You are condemned to earn your own way in this way—neither eating nor wearing nor having anything which you do not purchase by your own effort. Only the love of a man who loves you for yourself alone will lift my spell—and you’ll see how few those are.”

  Juilene swallowed hard, gulping back tears. With every ounce of will that she possessed, she got to her feet and turned to look at the thurge once again. Arimond was dead. What did anything else matter? She gathered all the spittle she could and spat at him. “Goddess damn you, thurge. Damn you to the coldest pit.”

  She gathered up her skirts and ran, his laughter ringing in her ears all the way out of the keep.

  Chapter Four

  His laughter echoed in her mind as she hurried down the road. In the clearing, she paused just long enough to retrieve her harp. She found Richaume’s body lying a few feet from the tree where she had fallen asleep. The horses were gone.

  She clutched the harp tight against her chest and started off down the road. Dawn was only a grey sliver across the horizon but the air smelled like morning. She trudged down the dusty road. Her feet began to ache, and her head throbbed. Her back hurt and her arms were sore from carrying the awkward shape of the harp.

  But although her mind registered the aches of her tired body, a pall seemed to hang over her awareness, and she felt curiously numb, curiously detached from her surroundings. How was it possible Arimond was dead?

  The worst that could have happened had come to pass. Arimond and all his friends had failed—failed in the foolish, brave attempt to rid the land of thurges like Lindos. What would happen when it was known that half the heirs of the noble houses were dead? Juilene kept walking.

  The dark walls of her father’s keep rose before her just as the sky began to lighten. She skirted the perimeter of the walls and slipped into the kitchen garden through the orchard. She heard noises in the kitchen as she stepped over the threshold into the house, the first stirrings of the cooks and scullions as they began to prepare the household’s food for the day. She scurried up the back steps, down the corridor, and into her rooms. She found Neri slumped in the window seat, her grey hair disheveled, a blanket pulled up to her chin. As Juilene slipped the latch back into place, the old woman opened her eyes. “Oh, my dear,” cried Neri, “I’ve been half sick with worry.”

  Juilene knelt beside her. Neri wrapped her arms around her, and Juilene pressed her face into the woman’s thin shoulder.

  “Child, child, what’s happened?”

  Juilene shook her head, unable to speak. A lump had formed in her throat and in her chest, and her eyes stung with tears. All she could do was cling. Neri stroked her tangled curls. Finally with a sigh that was more like a shudder, Juilene raised her head. “He’s dead.”

  Neri looked back at her, fear in her pale eyes. “Who’s dead, child?”

  “Arimond. He went to kill the thurge, but Lindos killed him instead.”

  “Child?” Neri shook her head as if she didn’t quite understand what Juilene had said.

  Juilene gripped the old woman’s hands in both of hers. “Not just Arimond, Neri, but half the sons of all the noble houses in the district—they went with him, to wipe him out, but Lindos was too strong—too powerful.” Juilene heard the hysterical edge in her voice, heard the shrill tone as the words tumbled out of their own volition. “And now they’re dead—he’s killed them all. They’re all dead.”

  Neri cupped one hand under Juilene’s chin. “Child, what are you saying?”

  Juilene pulled away, tears spilling down her cheeks. “They’re all dead, Neri, all of them. And it’s all my fault, because if I hadn’t agreed to go with them, if I hadn’t said I would help, they would never have tried such a thing, I know they wouldn’t have. So it’s all my fault.”

  Neri narrowed her eyes. “Child, you talk foolishness. What woman has ever stopped a man when he has his mind made up to do something? But what have you done this night? Where did you go?”

  Light flooded the room as the bright rim of the sun rose over the high walls, and Juilene shut her eyes. “Because I was there, Nenny. I was there.”

  “Tell me all of it, child.” Neri twisted one curl gently around her finger. “Tell me everything.”

  Slowly, haltingly, Juilene told the story, which even to her ears sounded more like a songsayer’s tale than anything that might have actually occurred. Neri listened, saying nothing, only shaking her head every now and then. Finally, when Juilene had finished and had placed her head in the old woman’s lap, Neri clucked her tongue. “Child, child. I don’t know what your father will say. Or do.”

  “Neri, I can’t stay to talk to Father. I must leave. Don’t you understand? The spell Lindos put on me won’t allow me to stay in this house. There is nothing here that I have earned—nothing at all, except perhaps my harp. And if I don’t go, something awful will happen to the people who live here—I can’t let anything happen to anyone here.”

  “You can’t leave, Juilene. You’re a child—”

  “I’m nearly twenty. I can sing, I can play my harp. I can tell stories. It’s Festival. I’ll go down to the city and take refuge there. It will be easy to earn my way, and perhaps by the end of Festival…” She let her voice trail off. By the end of Festival, would anything have changed? The outcry would only have just begun and each moment that she spent beneath her father’s roof was only one more opportunity for harm to fall upon everyone who loved her or whom she loved. “I have to go before Father knows, before anyone is hurt.”

  “Child, I don’t like this. You must stay until something can be done.”

  “And what happens if something happens to Father because of me? What if a servant is injured because of me? What if something happens to Lazare? I’ll be safe enough in the city with the songsayers, Neri. I’ve seen Lindos’s power, Neri. And you have to understand that I
cannot stay.”

  Neri frowned. “I don’t like this. I don’t like this at all. I wish you would speak to your father—let him send someone with you to protect you—”

  “Nenny, listen. I can’t pay anyone to protect me. If Father sends someone with me, either Father or that person would be hurt. I can’t let anyone else be harmed—Lindos has caused enough grief tonight. I can’t look to anyone for help. You have to believe that.”

  Neri shook her head and opened her mouth as if she would speak. Then she sighed and rose to her feet. “Let me fetch you a few things, child. You must be hungry—I’ll be right back.”

  Juilene rocked back on her heels as the old woman left the room. She gazed around the room as if seeing it for the first time. The wide bed with its worn blue cover, the lamp with the crack from the time she had thrown something at it during a childish tantrum. The little stool where she had sat and practiced her harp—She rose to her feet and took her harp out of its wrappings. The wood shone in the morning light, and the brass strings gleamed. Gently, she replaced it, covering it carefully.

  Did she dare to take it? The harp was her only means of support—without it, she would be lost. Technically, it could be called stealing, but she didn’t care. There was no one here who would want it. She went to her dressing room. The days were getting cold, the nights colder. She chose two of her heaviest, plainest dresses, and two sets of her warmest underwear, her thickest socks and her sturdiest shoes. She bundled everything but the shoes into a pack with a blanket, and lifted it. It was heavy, but not so heavy she wouldn’t be able to manage it, she thought. It looked bigger than the one Galicia had arrived with, but then the old woman had practically no possessions at all. On impulse, she tucked a pair of her prettiest slippers into the pack. They were practically weightless and she could wear them if she was invited to play before any of the noble houses.

  She lifted the pack once more and went out to the bedroom, just as the door was closing behind Neri.

  “There you are, child.” The old woman kept her head down, and Juilene could see that the old woman had been weeping. “I brought you some food—there’s enough for at least a few days. And some coins—not much, but as much as I could get my hands on at such short notice.”