Fire Dance Read Online Free Page A

on such a thing?
    His eyes traced the line of the almost completed curtain wall that surrounded the hall and its outbuildings, dipping downhill to enclose both upper and lower bailey.
    "'Tis odd," said Chrétien. "I would have completed the wall before beginning the tower."
    Alain thought the same.
    "The wooden palisade was only recently replaced with the wall," Thomas replied. "Lord Fyren sought to build both at once. I think he had not expected a siege."
    Chrétien tested the newness of the mortar with a fingernail. Alain nodded his tacit understanding. He saw no moss, no discoloration of the stone. Why build if one did not expect a siege? Rufus was probably right. An insurgence had been brewing.
    An anxious page hurried up to Thomas's side and waited with great patience to be noticed until he was permitted to announce the nearness of the supper hour. Alain took the opportunity to dismiss Thomas to his other tasks, noting Thomas's unexpressed relief. They watched the man scurry after the page, down the steps into the bailey.
    "They appear amiable," Chrétien mused. "But they are closed to us."
    "They do not know what to expect of us. Thomas stands as a ready sacrifice to my anger. I wonder why."
    "It speaks of courage."
    "And loyalty. To someone, at least, though not the dead lord. Mayhap to the missing lady."
    "Do you believe it? The suicide?"
    "Naught in the man's character allows it."
    Chrétien folded his arms and leaned against the crenellated outer wall. "His castle wall is unfinished and vulnerable. Mayhap he was caught too far off his guard, and faced certain failure. Or his knights would not back him against Rufus. None seem to have any love for him."
    "Few have any love for Rufus. But they follow him."
    "Mayhap he really did go mad after killing the priest. Those things also happen."
    "Only a man with a conscience goes mad from guilt."
    "Murder, then?"
    "More likely. As you said, something is afoot, and it behooves us to learn what, if we are to keep our skins."
    "Do you think, then, this missing bride poses a threat to you? She might already be on her way to Scotland. Malcolm would not hesitate to add both Northumbria and Cumbria to Scotland, so he would easily welcome her aid against Rufus."
    "Aye, and more so if she has the skill and loyal knights behind her to assemble a rebellion. Yet she puts herself to disadvantage by ceding the castle and giving me time to secure my position."
    "Thomas said she wants peace. Might she be as he claims?"
    "Then would it not benefit her more to ally herself with the English king through her husband? But without the bride, Chrétien, this castle and its demesne cannot be secure."
    "Those loyal to Fyren might well use her as their rallying point."
    Alain shook his head. "Men do not rally to a dead man. Fyren is quite dead. And I am impatient to get on with things."
    Alain wasted no more time surveying his domain. As the supper chime clanged, he hurried down the steps, deciding to set himself immediately to the business of the hall. He would bring in both Thomas and Gerard to assist in establishing his authority, for both of them knew the knights who would now fall vassal to him. It would be a tricky task to unite them all, and he had his suspicions of all the Saxon contingent. But they had little to gain by opposing him now that the old lord was dead.
    * * *
    Alain already loved this spot atop the curtain wall with its expansive view of his new demesne, best viewed as now, in the setting sun.
    "What news?" he asked of Chrétien as his friend took the stone steps two at a time and joined him on the allure.
    "Naught, Alain. She cannot have gone far, yet none admit seeing her."
    "And you searched all roads?"
    "Aye, such as they are."
    "Villages? Cottages?"
    "All that are about. But I do not think the knights of this holding will betray her, and we know not how to spot her even if we see her."
    Alain accepted the news with silence. His knights had been about the task since dawn, and