A Knight's Vow Part 36

People spoke of The Black Gryphon in whispers, for fear that uttering his name might call his curse upon them. His countenance was dark with the shadow of d.a.m.nation, they claimed, hair as black as char, eyes as deep as a chasm. He never smiled, seldom spoke, and when he did, it was in a low growl more akin to an animal than a man.

Once the pennant of the Gryphon had flown proud, its master imbued with the n.o.ble qualities of that creature, the lion's strength and the eagle's courage. Once he'd been a warrior of great renown. But that was long ago. Now he need only pierce a man's eyes with his devil's gaze to send him cowering to his knees. And so men said the Gryphon had become the most horrible of beasts, for he was as ferocious as the lion and as ruthless as the eagle.

Still, naught was as terrible as the curse he lay upon women. To them he brought death. Three wives he'd already lain in the grave, one beside her young daughter, one with a babe still in her belly. Three wives, and not one had borne him a son upon whom to bestow his t.i.tle.

A woman would have to be mad to wed him.

And, by blessed Mary, Hilaire was not mad.

Wiping her sniffles with the back of her hand, she struggled to her feet with Martha's a.s.sistance, and set out with renewed determination.

They'd come almost to the lowest point in the pa.s.sageway, where the curtain wall was anch.o.r.ed and where, thankfully, the tunnel once more ascended, when she heard it again, the sinister creaking of mortar and stone.

"Let me," she said, taking the firebrand in her free hand and squeezing past the servant to investigate.

The sound came from directly above her now. She turned back for an instant to see if Martha could hear it as well.

Then, with an unholy crack, the sky fell.

Ryance wiped his damp brow with the back of his sleeve and stabbed at the earth again with his spade,deepening the tunnel. He wondered for the hundredth time if he was doing the right thing. A b.l.o.o.d.y siege,for G.o.d's sake!

He'd known it was foolish to come. All his instincts told him this wedding was not to be. But the King had insisted. The Black Gryphon must have an heir, he'd said, and he'd handpicked the mother of that heir himself. Ryance heaved a weary sigh. He wished to G.o.d the King had chosen another.

He clamped his mouth into a grim line and shoveled the dirt aside. There were no others. No woman in

her right mind would wed a man like him.

Clenching his jaw, he gouged another wound into the soil and cast the dirt carelessly over his shoulder- showering the captain of his knights, arriving behind him, with soil.

"G.o.d's blood!" Campbell swore, spitting dirt from his mouth. "There ye are! I've been lookin' high and low for ye, m'lord! What the devil d'ye think ye're doin'?"

"Begone!" Ryance snarled. He didn't need the nosy Scotsman interfering in his affairs, "Why, ye're sappin' the castle," Campbell said in wonder, standing his ground. "Ye can't undermine the wall, m'lord, not by yerself."

"Get out, I said."

"Are ye daft? There's naught to sh.o.r.e it up. Ye haven't got the proper braces," Campbell insisted. " 'Tisdeath to linger here!"Ryance didn't answer his man, only turned and continued shoveling.Campbell cursed again. "At least give me the spade then. I don't have several hundred va.s.sals I'm beholdin' to."

"Nay!" Ryance barked over his shoulder, making the torch flicker. "The lady's to be my wife. 'Tis myrisk."He kept digging, jabbing at the soil with renewed resolve, punis.h.i.+ng the earth for coming between him and his prize.

"But I came to tell ye the barbican's fallen," Campbell said. "Once we penetrate the curtain wall..."*

"Nay! I want the castle unharmed. Delay the attack. Just maintain the siege, keep his men distracted."

"But, m'lord, we can easily take the castle by force."

"And slay my bride's kin?" He tossed the spade aside, and dug a small boulder from the embankment with his hands. "Nay. 'Tis far easier to repair a breach in the wall."

"Then let me call the sappers here. They'll put up decent props, and the work'll go much faster with..."

"Nay!" Ryance snapped, casting the stone away. "'Tis a matter for stealth, not force."

Campbell blew out an exasperated breath. "Ye know, m'lord," he said, his voice as bitter as moldy ale, "if I didna ken ye better, I'd say ye were itchin' to kiss death's a.r.s.e."

Then, as if his man's words invoked some black doom, the air was suddenly severed by an ominous crack. Silt rained down over Ryance's head, extinguis.h.i.+ng the candlelight. An enormous slide of rock and earth pelted him, muting Campbell's shouts and utterly blotting out the night sky behind him.

Devil's thunder split the air. Hilaire screamed, but the sound was lost as a violent, cras.h.i.+ng deluge of ragged stone and fetid soil sealed the tunnel. Her maid vanished from sight.

Dust filled her nose and mouth, clogging her throat, choking her, and most horrifying of all, smothering the flame of her torch. A brutal impact knocked her forward and sent her sprawling atop her harp. Shards of rock pummeled her back like sharp-sided hail. Then a heavy chunk of stone smashed her hand, and she shrieked in agony.

The awful clamor seemed to go on forever, at last diminis.h.i.+ng from a roar to a rustle as the boulders came to rest and pebbles continued to trickle down all around her. But as horrible as the noise was, it was not half as terrifying as the deadly silence that followed.

She struggled to hear anything, anything at all-her maid, a rat, the echo of the battering ram-but her own frantic whimpers and the loud rus.h.i.+ng of her pulse were the only sounds remaining.

The world had turned absolutely black, not the black of a starless night nor the black of the dungeon, not even the black of the close garderobe that set her heart to hammering, but a black so heavy, so tangible, it wrapped like a shroud about her.

She was afraid to get up, afraid she'd find the s.p.a.ce around her had shrunk to the size of a coffin. Panic rattled the cage of her mind, and a whimper lodged in her throat. She sucked what breath she could into her lungs, but it was impossibly thin. Lord, she dared not succ.u.mb to terror or she'd be lost. She had to get up.

The harp dug painfully into her stomach, and her hand throbbed where it was caught beneath the rock. The slimy warmth of blood oozed between her crushed fingers. She was trapped.

Nay, she thought. Nay. Biting her lip to quiet its quivering, she brought her knees up under her. Scrabbling through the rubble, she managed to dig away the debris and finally pried the heavy stone up enough to free her hand. With a sob, she cradled the injured member to her breast.

But there was no time to cry over her hurts. She had to find a way out. There must be a way out, she told herself, willing her breath to slow. She need only find the other end of the tunnel.

Her pulse pounding in her temples, she groped the walls with her good hand, looking for the exit, praying for a breach. She hobbled around the cave, stumbling, fumbling, searching. But as she frantically circled the tiny enclosure again and again, she discovered the horrible truth. The falling earth had sealed both sides of the tunnel.

Blessed Jesu-she was buried alive!

Breathless with panic, a scream building in the back of her throat, she retrieved her harp, clutching it to her breast like a drowning man clinging to a timber.

Her first cries were weak and thready, hoa.r.s.e with fear, but desperation soon moved her to screech for help at the top of her lungs.

Ryance sat stunned. He should be dead. Enough debris had fallen around him to fill a decent-sized moat. But, somehow, G.o.d in his infinite mercy, or infinite irony, had spared him a quick death.

Oh, he'd still die. There was no doubt about that. He'd search every crevice of his new dungeon with the thoroughness of a captive plotting escape from The Tower, but it would be of no avail. For when The Black Gryphon set about doing a thing, he did it properly. The undermining had worked brilliantly. The castle's curtain wall had collapsed, if prematurely, just as planned. And now he was imprisoned by his own hand under tons of rock and rubble. It was quite a feat of engineering. By the complete lack of light, he was certain not even a c.h.i.n.k remained for the wind to blow through.

Campbell, the only one who knew where he was, had probably been buried in the collapse, G.o.d rest his poor soul. Even if by some miracle his captain lived, Ryance would suffocate by the time the man could dig through the ma.s.sive wall of granite.

Meanwhile, Ryance would have time to dwell on his sins, to relive all the ugly pa.s.sages of his life.

A small part of him, deep inside, felt a twisted sort of satisfaction. This, after all, was the end he deserved. Now, at long last, he would suffer for his crimes and do penance for the innocent lives he'd destroyed.

And the young woman who waited within the castle walls to be his bride, whose father had stubbornly refused to surrender his maiden daughter in sacrifice to The Black Gryphon, could stop wringing her hands in terror, for the monster who was her betrothed would be dead a few hours hence.

Ryance raised his hand to his forehead. His fingers came back slick with blood. He felt the sting of several sc.r.a.pes and gashes along his bared forearms. All his bones seemed intact, though he was certain he'd be bruised on the morrow. He chuckled bleakly. Bruised! He'd be dead on the morrow.

His laugh turned to coughing as the dust settled invisibly around him in the pitch black. Perhaps Campbell was right about him. Perhaps he had been courting death. Forsooth, the idea of dying brought naught but relief. No more would he be haunted by the images of his loved ones' lifeless bodies. No more would men cower as he pa.s.sed, crossing themselves before him, making the sign of the devil behind his back. Once he paid the debt of his soul, he'd be free.

He gathered dusty saliva in his mouth and spit it onto the ground. The thirst would be the worst of it, he supposed. Aside from that, once the air ran out, he'd likely just drift off to sleep. No more worries, no more responsibilities, no more... innocents to harm.

He crossed his battered arms over his chest, closed his eyes against the black oblivion, and gave up the fight, settling back against the jagged rock that would mark his grave.

The repose of eternity lasted exactly five measured breaths. And then he heard it, faint at first, like the chirp of a cricket. He opened one eye, as if it would make any difference in the utter dark. It came again, louder this time, from beyond the inner wall of the tunnel. He opened the other eye. It was probably just a mouse, injured in the collapse. He hoped it would die soon. He wanted his last moments on Earth to be peaceful.

He frowned, squirmed into a more relatively comfortable position, and closed his eyes tighter.

There it came again. His eyes flew open. It was no cricket, no mouse. There was something distinctly... human about the cry. And it sounded hopelessly forlorn.

He swallowed. When the pathetic wail came again, it sent a shudder through him like a battering ram pounding at his heart. There was no mistake. That voice belonged to a woman.

two.

It hardly seemed fair. Ryance had given up his joust with dogged destiny. He'd resigned himself to dying, slipping away in this quiet tomb with naught but his own thoughts, fading from the wretched world on a serene and silent breath.

But it was not to be. That voice called to him, needed him. And stronger than his desire to escape into oblivion was his cursed sense of honor. He was a knight. He'd taken certain oaths, sworn to live by certain morals. And paramount was the vow to protect and defend those creatures weaker than he.

Muttering a mild oath, he pushed himself up from the rubble and fumbled his way toward the source of the noise. It was here, from the place he'd been digging before, a patch of bare earth clear of stones. He pressed his ear to the dirt, listening. The despondent cry came again.

He pulled his head back in wonder. As unbelievable as it seemed, there was someone beyond the innermost side of the tunnel. For one mad moment, he wondered if it was the voice of some angel of the underworld, calling him to Hades.

He groped about, searching for his spade, till he remembered he'd tossed it aside before the avalanche. He'd have to use something else then. His fingers clambered over the debris until he located a honed shard of rock. Hefting it in his hand, he began jabbing determinedly at the soil. While her cries continued, then hopelessly diminished, his efforts at enlarging the hole in the earth were about as effective as a rat gnawing through iron.

He cast the rock aside. The wailing had ceased. G.o.d's breath-had she fainted? Was she dead? His heart in his throat, he hurled his body against the tunnel, cupped his hands around his mouth, and shouted at the top of his lungs.

"Hold on!"

Hilaire sat bolt upright, digging her fingers into the carved wood of her harp, every sense strained. Sweet Mary-was that a voice? Or was it only a delusion, part of the panic that had reduced her to this quivering ma.s.s? She bit her lip, trying to still her sobs so she could hear better.

And then, blessedly, it came again. Relief burst out of her in a sound that was half laugh, half cry.

Someone was adjacent to the pa.s.sageway. It didn't seem possible. She was deep underground, and as far as she knew, only one tunnel led from the castle. But possible or no, the m.u.f.fled voice on the other side of the dirt embankment was real, and it sounded sweeter to her than the strings of her beloved harp.

"Here!" she cried. "I'm here!"

Still clinging to the harp, she dragged herself toward the source of the voice and pressed her cheek against the damp earthen wall.

He called out again, and she answered. Then she set aside her instrument and with her good hand, clawed at the dirt like a shrewmouse. The task was difficult. The tunnel was sunk deep in the bowels of the earth. The soil was more rock than mud. She sc.r.a.ped the pads of her fingers and snapped off two of her nails.

But he kept calling to her, encouraging her, and she continued to wear away at the wall till she heard digging on the other side and felt it give beneath her hand. Breathless with triumph, she scrabbled at the dirt, enlarging the gap inch by inch. Finally, with a ragged sob of victory, she reached through the makes.h.i.+ft burrow to clasp a miracle. A human hand.

A fresh fount of grateful tears squeezed from her eyes and rolled down her cheeks, and she sobbed shamelessly as warm, strong fingers closed around hers.

He didn't speak for a long while, only held on to her, as if he transferred his strength into her, sustaining her. She neither knew nor cared who he was, only that he was another human being in the darkness.

The maiden's hand felt small in his, like a child's, warm and soft and helpless. He'd forgotten how pleasant the touch of a woman was. His own hand was coa.r.s.e and callused, no doubt abrasive to her delicate skin, yet she made no attempt to withdraw. On the contrary, it seemed as if she might never release him. His throat thickened at the thought.

She wouldn't have clung to him so if she'd known who he was. That much was certain. But at the moment, she clutched his hand like her life depended upon it. Or her sanity. From her frenzied sobbing and the sweaty trembling of her fingers, she seemed but a whisper away from complete madness.

He called to her through the gap. "Are you hurt?"

"My ha-" she began, then shakily amended her reply. "I'll be fine. Only please... get me out of here."

She said the last in a rush, and he heard the fear beneath her polite request. Her voice was light and

sweet, yet never had chivalry called to him quite so powerfully.Then his heart sank.Get me out of here, she'd said.Satan's horns-she must be trapped as well. And if her prison proved half as impenetrable as his, all his knightly vows, all his heroic efforts, and all his n.o.ble intentions couldn't save her.