Chapter One
There were monsters who walked the land. Alys had never seen one in the flesh, but she had no doubt they existed. The nuns who’d raised her and her half-sister Claire were full of warnings, and whether the death-delivering creature was named Beelzebub, Grendel, or Satan, they were all equally terrifying to a young and believing soul like Alys of Summersedge.
Unlike Claire, Alys was obedient. Fierce when it came to protecting those she loved, but a devout coward when it came to her own welfare. She hated ghost stories and nightmares, thunderstorms, and restive horses. She hated birch rods and slaps and angry words, but she would endure them all to protect her sister. She would endure anything.
Even marriage to a bone-cracking, blood-sucking monster.
“Are you certain you’re willing to marry this creature?” Claire had asked with her usual ingenuousness. “What do we know of him?”
“Most women don’t know much of their husbands before marriage,” Alys replied with deceptive calm, folding one of the plain linen shifts in preparation for their journey.
“But at least they’re not being wed to a…” Fortunately words failed her.
“A wizard,” Alys supplied in a subdued voice. “A demon who works wicked spells.” Her strong hands crushed the shift. “Oh, Claire, I don’t want to go! I don’t want to leave this place, I don’t want to live at Summersedge Keep. I don’t want to be anywhere near Richard, and most of all, I don’t want to be married to anyone, particularly a practitioner of the black arts!”
“Richard’s our brother,” Claire pointed out with uncharacteristic practicality. “We should welcome the chance to return to the bosom of our family.”
“If he had any feeling for us he would have brought us home sooner,” Alys said bitterly. “We both know it. I don’t trust any plans he might have for us. We’d be far better off here. It means nothing that we share the same father. Our father married Richard’s mother. The two of us are bastards.”
“Royal bastards,” Claire said cheerfully. “Roger de Lancie was cousin to the king.”
“I’d rather be an unroyal nun,” Alys muttered.
Claire looked around the cold stone walls of the convent and shuddered. “Not me. I want bright clothes and sunlight. I want to run barefoot through a meadow, I want to ride fast horses and deck myself in jewels. I want a thousand men to adore me, and all I shall do is snap my fingers at them.”
“Grand notions for one who’s not much more than a child,” Alys said, knowing her attempt at repression would have no effect on her headstrong younger sister.
“Childhood is the time for grand notions,” Claire shot back. “Maidenhood as well. A few grand notions wouldn’t come amiss with you either, dear Alys.”
“I am well past the age for notions. It’s a wonder the wizard consents to marry a crone such as I.”
“Maybe he’ll devise a magic potion to turn you young again,” Claire said brightly. “Change you from a hag of twenty years to a youthful sprig of nineteen.”
“I hope Richard weds you to a man who will beat you severely,” Alys said.
“Richard won’t wed me to anyone for the time being. I’m too young, and he’ll be too busy offering you up as a human sacrifice for his pet demon.”
That forced a laugh from Alys. “You’re a wretch, Claire. I’ll see if my lord husband will make a spell to turn you ugly.”
“It would take a prodigious spell,” Claire said cheerfully.
“That it would,” Alys said, completely without rancor. Claire’s beauty was a powerful gift, and yet there was no one characteristic that shone above others. Her hair was a glorious ripple of golden blonde that swung to her waist, her eyes a clear, shimmering green, her skin pale and delicate, her form gently rounded. She was an astonishing beauty, a fact both sisters had accepted and the nuns had deplored.
Claire gave her a critical look. “You could do with some improvement, dearest. You don’t have to look quite so pale and mouse-like. We could do something interesting with your hair. The color is unremarkable, but I’m certain the arrangement could be bettered.”
“Braids and a wimple suit me very well,” Alys said evenly. “I doubt the wizard will be marrying me for my beauty.”
“You’re far prettier than you realize,” Claire said stubbornly.
“Don’t you understand, I don’t want to be pretty? I wanted to spend my life behind the safe walls of this convent, away from prying eyes and pawing hands.”
“I suspect the only hands that will paw you will be your husband’s. And that is your wifely duty, you know.”
“I know,” Alys said bitterly. “Let us merely hope they are hands, and not paws. I do not wish to marry a creature of darkness, Claire.”
Claire threw her arms around her, clutching her tightly. “If things become desperate we will run back here and take shelter with the good nuns.”
“I doubt the good nuns will accept us, Claire,” Alys replied. “Not without a hefty dowry and Richard’s approval.”
“Then we’ll become mummers and travel the roads.”
“And we’ll end up with our throats cut. Or worse.”
“What could be worse than having your throat cut?”
Alys sighed. “Any number of things, my pet. Never mind. I’m certain I’m imagining horrors where none exist. Richard may be a wretched, dangerous human being, but he’d hardly marry his sister off to a witch. Would he?” She couldn’t keep the slightly plaintive note out of her voice.
“Never,” Claire said stoutly. And Alys only wished she had such blind faith.
The wicked wizard of Summersedge Keep always played best to an audience, and at the moment he had an avid one. Richard de Lancie, better known as Richard the Fair, was seated at the end of a dais, his ruddy complexion flushed from too much wine. Simon of Navarre, mysterious magician and all-powerful advisor to his lordship, preferred him that way. While Richard’s intellect was no match for Simon’s, he had a certain sly cunning that enabled him to see through ordinary tricks, and Simon
