The thunder cracked again, and Alys shivered. Her stomach was empty, her nerves were stretched tight, her whole body felt tense and strained and abnormally sensitive to everything around her, heat and light and sound. But she was safe within the thick walls of the tower, safe at least from the storm. Only if she were fool enough to climb the final flight of winding stairs to the parapet would she be in any danger from the lightning, and she had no reason to do such a foolhardy thing.
She would stay by the fire and await the coming of her husband. There was no escaping him, much as she wanted to. She was afraid of him as she had never admitted before. Afraid of the dangerous depths of his golden eyes, the touch of his hands on her skin. Afraid of his mouth, touching hers. Afraid of everything.
She would lose herself. Just as she had lost part of her memory of the night before, if she came to his bed the rest of her would simply disappear. She had begun to think of him as a Grendel monster after all. He wouldn’t devour her body and drink her blood—he would eat her soul.
She slumped in sudden despair as the door opened, but it was only Godfrey, Simon’s mute servant, carrying a tray. Dinner, she realized with a longing sniff. Warm pheasant and baked eels and cakes, sweet white bread and cheese and a ewer of wine as well.
He set it in front of her, and she saw with relief that there was only enough food for one. Only one goblet. She would have a peaceful last supper, at least.
She looked up at Godfrey’s sober face, smiling her thanks. “Will my… will Lord Simon be joining me?”
Godfrey shook his head.
“Will he be coming later?” Stupid question, Alys chided herself, picking at the bread. Where else would he go?
But Godfrey shrugged, expressing uncertainty, and for some reason Alys’s nervous stomach knotted even more tightly. She didn’t want him there. But she didn’t want him gone either.
“Where is he, Godfrey?” she asked, knowing he couldn’t answer.
Few men could write. Fewer women could read. Godfrey moved to the tall desk and made a few laborious marks, then handed the paper to Alys. “On the parapet,” it said. And for emphasis Godfrey jerked his head upward.
Overhead, in the storm. Alys crushed the paper in her hand, forcing a tremulous smile to her lips. “Thank you, Godfrey,” she murmured.
She almost called him back when the door closed behind him. What in God’s name was Simon doing up there on the battlements? No one was storming the castle, and in this kind of weather he wouldn’t be able to see anything at all. Did he have a sudden longing to be struck by lightning? Or was he really empowered - could he control the elements, thunder, lightning, and rain? There were times when she almost believed it to be so.
But to believe that, she would have to believe that he worked with the powers of darkness, for there was no doubt whatsoever that Simon of Navarre was a far cry from a godly man.
He’d managed to wipe clean her memory from the night before. He managed to draw her to him so that she dreamed of his touch like a wanton, she who was frightened of men, she who should have been a celibate nun. He’d bewitched her, enchanted her, and she had no idea whether it was magic, witchcraft, or something far more elemental.
She forced herself to eat, though she had little appetite. She sat in the curved chair and stared into the fire, hypnotized by the dancing flames. She could hear the intermittent thunder, the lashing of the rain against the stone of the keep, and from the Great Hall she could hear echoes of raucous laughter. All would be well, she told herself, more a prayer than a certainty. Claire would be found, and protected.
Could he really be up on the battlements? What possible reason could Simon of Navarre have for walking along the parapet above his tower? The storm was fierce and deadly, the lightning coming so close at times she could smell the odd scent of it on the air. If he stayed up there he would die.
And she would be a widow. Free, perhaps, to enter the convent that had once seemed the only possible happiness for her. If she had any sense at all she would go lie down on the bed and sleep, praying for his death.
But she seemed to have lost all her sense. The wise, careful young woman had vanished, and she knew she was going up into the maw of danger, the gaping mouth of death, to find Simon of Navarre. To find her love.
Her feet were icy cold on the tower steps. She clung tightly to the twined rope that served as a handrail, and her gown trailed behind her on the stairs. By the first half turn the stone steps were wet from the rain dripping down from the opening, and she wished she’d worn shoes. But her shoes were in the east tower, with the rest of her few possessions and those belonging to her sister. It was an appealing thought—to race back across the rain-drenched courtyard and take shelter in the bed she had shared with Claire.
But there was no shelter to be found. The noise from the Great Hall faded away as she climbed, and she felt as if she were climbing into the sky, into the very heart of the storm itself. The past and safety lay behind her, Simon of Navarre lay ahead of her, and she had made her choice. She would stop fighting it, when it was what she wanted, and needed.
She was afraid of horses and storms and men. She was afraid of heights as well, and this was the first time she had ever climbed to the top
