Page 35 of Rebellion's Fire

He was growing wandered, delirious, losing control of his mouth and his thoughts. Pursing the former, he reined in the latter and waited for her to notice him.

Chapter Ten

Christian had mistimedher entry to the hall. After visiting a struggling family on the other side of the hill, she imagined, by the height of the sun only just visible through the universally gray sky, that she was just late enough to avoid pretending not to see William and Alys emerging from his bedchamber.

But it seemed that either he’d foregone his tumble for the day or he’d got it over with faster than usual and it had made him hungry. She didn’t mind the rudeness or the lack of respect. She hated the public nature of it. How was she to win her people over, be their lady, if they learned her worth from William? Or worse, pitied her.

It undermined everything she was doing here.

“Forgive our rudeness, lady,” Henry said when things had settled back down.

“Hungry men must eat,” she replied lightly. “Thank you,” she added, for the food he helped her to. A servant ran up and poured her wine, then refilled William’s cup while he was there.

She found she didn’t really want to eat. The poverty of the family she’d just visited, who’d asked her to intercede for them against William’s tribute demands, combined with the petty humiliation to turn her stomach. So, she picked at the food while she finally took the time to observe her surroundings and her people. Felicia and Eua seemed to be continuing their slightly guarded friendship, as a result of which Cecily, too, had reined in her hostility. The local servants gave none of their feelings away. At the back of the hall, one of the men-at-arms was flirting with a maid, seemed to be trying to repeat her words. Learning the language, perhaps. With time, she reminded herself, harmony was not impossible.

Her gaze drifted, for the first time taking in the men chained at the back of the hall. Frowning, she swung around on William, who’d agreed not to imprison any more peasants for nonpayment of his tax, but before she could speak, Henry’s words stayed her.

“You see we have prisoners. None other than your late abductor.”

Her heart, her stomach, her whole body seemed to jolt. Her gaze flew once more to the back of the hall, but she didn’t want to peer too obviously around tables and people.

“Adam MacHeth?” she managed. “How did that come about?”

“No, sadly not Adam himself,” Henry said. “Just one of his men wandering out of the wood. I recognized the boy—I’m sure he’s well-born, by their standards at least—and he bolted. Stupid, considering we were mounted and he was on foot, but before we could catch him, his servant dropped a tree on us and freed his master. We pursued and, after a brief fight, captured them both.”

“What in God’s name were they doing here?” she wondered. But she already knew. Adam had given her Tirebeck publicly, but he still regarded it as his.

Henry shrugged, taking the second to last piece of fowl from the plate. “Spying, probably, or retaxing the people. Whatever, I doubt it was worth his wounds and several days’ discomfort here while Sir William decides what to do with him.”

Damn him.She tilted her chin and finally saw more than simply legs on the floor. The boy was the one who’d given her food during her capture and helped her to mount Adam’s huge horse. Cailean. He’d been kind to her, even blushed when she looked at him. His attention seemed to be divided now between herself and his large, filthy soldier, who leaned his head back against the wall as if not so far from death.

Although it was impossible to tell over this distance and in the poor light of the prisoners’ corner, she was sure there was blood on them, much blood. She had the oddest feeling, too, that the slumped servant was looking right at her. There was something familiar about his shape and posture, the unblinking stare from the filthy face.

Oh, blessed mother of God, no…She glanced at Cailean, and her suspicion sharpened. No wonder the boy was so anxious for his man… But no, she must be wrong. Someone surely would have recognized that Adam MacHeth himself, however hidden in grime and blood, graced the hall and the chains?

Dear God, what if he died?

“Willthey die?” she blurted.

“Hope not,” Henry said ruefully. “Not sure either the MacHeths or the lesser natives would take that too well.”

“Who tended his wound?”

“His man, I suppose.”

She drew in her breath. She knew her duty, and right now it attracted and repelled her in almost equal measure. She didn’t know if compassion or sheer curiosity was responsible, but she beckoned the maid who stood to the side of the high table. “Have the prisoners eaten?”

“No, my lady,” the girl replied.

“Then see to it now, if you please.”

A smile that looked very like relief split the girl’s face. They would have fed the prisoners anyway as soon as they were unobserved. Now they had sanction.

But William, of course, had to be ungracious. Leaving off whatever entertaining conversation he might have been conducting with Alys, he turned to Christian for the first time since she’d arrived.

“They’remyservants,” he said loudly. “None of them will serve a MacHeth and expect to live.”

Damn him, did he have to provoke a confrontation over this? Slowly, she turned her head and met his glare. Ranulf, her stepfather, had given her to a strong warrior he’d imagined would protect her. But William was a bully, a vindictive, selfish, arrogant, and, in many ways, stupid man. She could obey her husband publicly, stick to the merely passive resistance that she’d indulged in since their arrival, working, in effect, as if he wasn’t there.

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