Read Online Dragon Tree by Marsha Canham - Free Book Online Page B

a
icy, deadly calm.
    His whore-wife
was missing, his men were dead. And now there were witnesses to the
unwarranted slaughter of an entire village. Adding to his
aggravations, he discovered that the vill belonged to the demesne
of Taniere Castle. While he was not acquainted personally with the
Dragonslayer, the reputation of Ciaran Tamberlane, former knight
Templar, former champion of Richard the Lionheart was more than
enough to make him treble the guards around the camp and set the
men to sharpening every sword and blade in their arsenal.
    A man like
that did not take kindly to having his villages raided, regardless
of the provocation. A man like Tamberlane, with family ties to the
king’s royal court would not simply stand by and do nothing to
avenge an insult to his property.
    When several
days passed without the sound of warhorses and armor approaching
their camp, Odo had sent men to make discreet inquiries at other
villages and hamlets. They had returned bearing nothing but foolish
rumors: that the knight lived in seclusion at Taniere Castle; that
there were powerful dark forces at work there; and that the former
priest and servant of God was now a follower of Lucifer and counted
among his retainers a hideous wraith-like creature who could alter
his shape at will and change men to stone at a glance.
    Odo had
discounted the peasant superstitions with much rolling of his eyes.
He did, however, give a measure of truth to the tales of seclusion.
The Glanvilles were a prominent family in royal circles and because
his own father had disavowed him, Tamberlane had probably been
directed to remain behind the walls of Taniere in isolation until
his name was forgotten, his hair turned gray, and his skin turned
to parchment.
    Rolf had not
found Elizabeth among the dead, but he had found blood in the
woods—a great deal of blood that did not all belong to the dead
mercenary lying alongside the creek bed. Moreover, it was his
opinion that a wound such as the one which had felled the
experienced Brabancon was not the work of a common forester. A
wound like that required the expertise of a trained sword arm and
who but another knight, skilled in the art wielding a sword with
such power could affect such a blow?
    Had Tamberlane
himself been present at the vill that day?
    Had he found
Elizabeth lying wounded in the forest?
    Had he carried
her back to Taniere Castle to recover from her wounds?
    This last
fevered suspicion had fueled Odo’s hand as he gutted and carved the
deer. He had imagined the ropes were tied around Elizabeth’s wrists
and that she, not the deer, had been hauled upright to hang before
him. He had slit the skin with care and deliberation, peeling it
back strip by strip as if he could hear and savor her screams. When
the knife had sunk into the deer’s breast, he had actually felt his
head swim with pleasure, and by the time he had finished removing
the entrails by dripping handfuls, his body had grown so hard with
bloodlust, it was all he could do not to take the first
smooth-faced boy he saw in camp and bend him over the back of a
wagon.
    He could
easily have imagined that as being Elizabeth too. Undoubtedly the
boy would bleat and wail just as she had each time Odo had demanded
his conjugal rights. The whore should have been eager to please
him, to thank him for marrying her and saving her from being wed to
some wrinkled old man who smelled of garlic and cabbage. She should
have fallen onto her knees and served him each and every night with
a willing mouth and an eager body.
    Instead, she
had balked and fought him at every turn. She had looked upon him
with so much loathing and disgust blazing from her eyes that he had
no choice but to slap it from her face and whip it from her body
until she complied.
    The deer was
lucky, Odo mused. It had been dead before he skinned it. The lovely
Elizabeth de Langois would not fare half so well.
    He stared down
at his hands, still running pink with blood. The front of