The Taming Read online

  In the fading light again, they crossed another wooden bridge over another moat and at last they reached the inner gate, which was flanked by two tall, massive stone towers. Again, murder holes were above them, as well as the spikes of an iron portcullis.

  They entered a grassy area with many half-timbered houses built against the walls. The place was clean and prosperous-looking.

  They kept riding to go through another tunnel, this one flanked by two towers that were larger than those of any castle her father owned. Inside, they came to acres of a beautiful courtyard. Here were stone buildings with leaded-glass windows: a chapel, a solar, a Great Hall, storerooms where people bustled in and out with food and barrels of drink.

  Liana sat on the horse and stared. She had never, in her wildest thoughts, imagined a place of this size or this wealth. So this is what the Peregrines are fighting for, she thought. This is what has caused the deaths of three generations of Peregrines. This is what makes the Peregrines hate the Howards.

  Looking at the wealth around her, she began to understand Rogan better. No wonder he looked on small, decaying Moray Castle with contempt. That castle, including walls, could be placed three times inside the inner ward of this castle.

  This is where Rogan belongs, she thought. This is where the size of him, the look of him, the power of him, would fit.

  “Take her to the top of the northeast tower,” Oliver Howard said, and Liana was pulled from the horse and half-dragged across the long courtyard to the thick, massive tall tower in the northeast corner. The men led her up stone spiral stairs, past rooms she barely glimpsed. But all looked clean and cared for.

  There was an iron-barred door at the top of the tower, and one of the men unlocked it and shoved Liana inside, locking it behind her. It was a small room with a mattress on a wooden frame in one corner, a little table and chair in another, and a door to a garderobe to the west. There was one window looking north, and out of it she could see the hundreds of yards of outer wall that surrounded the vast grounds. Men walked on the parapets and kept watch.

  “Against the Peregrines’ puny force,” Liana said bitterly.

  She put her hand to her head, feeling dizzy and tired. She’d spent last night tied to a tree in the rain, and that, together with the emotion she’d spent, was exhausting her. She went to the bed, lay down, and pulled the blanket of fulled wool over her and went to sleep.

  When she awoke, it was late the next morning. As she struggled from bed to go to the garderobe, she swayed on her feet and when she put her hand to her forehead, her skin felt hot. Someone had been in the room and there was water, bread, and cheese on the little table. She gulped the water, but the food held no appeal for her.

  She went to the door and banged on it. “I must speak to Oliver Howard,” she shouted, but if anyone heard, he didn’t answer. She slid down the door to sit on the cold stone floor. She had to be awake when someone entered her room. She had to talk to Oliver Howard and somehow persuade him to release her. If Rogan and Severn tried to take her from this place, they would be killed.

  She fell asleep, and when she awoke, she was in bed, uncovered, and drenched in her own sweat. Again, someone had been in her room, but even opening the door and carrying her to the bed hadn’t awakened her. She staggered from the bed and poured a cup of water, her hands so weak she could barely lift the pitcher. She collapsed crosswise on the bed.

  When she woke again, it was to someone roughly shaking her. Wearily, she opened her eyes to see Oliver Howard looming over her. The dark room, the candlelight coming from behind him, made him look blurry and indistinct.

  “Your husband shows no interest in having you returned,” he said fiercely. “He has ignored all ransom requests.”

  “Why do you want what little he has?” she asked through dry, cracked lips. When he didn’t answer, she continued. “Our marriage was arranged. My husband is no doubt glad to be rid of me. If you ask at our village, you will hear of the horrors I have done to him.”

  “I have heard it all. I have even heard how he went unarmed into the village to attend a fair. I would have been there, had I heard of it sooner, and I would have taken him. I would have killed this Peregrine as he’s killed my brothers.”

  “As you have killed his brothers.” Liana’s words lost most of their force since she was too weak to lift her head. But even as weak as she was, she wanted to save Rogan. “Release me or kill me, it won’t matter to him,” she said. “But do it soon. He will want a new heiress for a wife.” If it is soon, she thought, then Rogan will not have time to attack.

  “I will see how much he doesn’t care,” Oliver said, and motioned to one of his men.

  Liana saw the scissors flash in the candlelight. “No!” she gasped and tried to twist away, but the men’s hands were too strong. Hot, feverish tears rolled down her cheeks as the man cut her hair away, leaving it no more than shoulder length. “It was my only beauty,” she whispered.

  Neither Oliver nor his two men took notice as they slammed from the room. Liana’s shorn hair was in Oliver’s hand.

  Liana cried for a long time, never once touching her shortened hair. “He will never love me now,” she kept repeating. Near dawn she fell into a fitful sleep, and when she awoke, she was too weak to get out of bed to get to the water. She went back to sleep.

  When she awoke again, there was a cool cloth pressed to her forehead.

  “Be quiet now,” whispered a soft voice.

  Liana opened her eyes to see a woman with gray-flecked brown hair and eyes as gentle and kind as a doe’s. “Who are you?”

  The woman kept dampening the cloth and wiping away the sweat from Liana’s face.

  “Here, take this.” She held a spoon to Liana’s lips, then held her head so she could drink. “I am Jeanne Howard.”

  “You!” Liana said, choking on the herbal medicine. “Get away from me. You are a traitor, a liar, a demon from hell.”

  The woman gave a bit of a smile. “And you are a Peregrine. Could you eat some broth?”

  “Not from you, I can’t.”

  Jeanne contemplated Liana. “I imagine you are a good match for Rogan. Did you really set his bed on fire? Did you wear coins to his table? Were you actually locked in a room with him?”

  “How do you know of these things?”

  With a sigh, Jeanne rose and went to a table where a small iron pot sat. “Don’t you know of the depth of the hatred between the Howards and the Peregrines? They know all there is to know about one another.”

  Liana, in spite of her fever and her weakness, was studying Jeanne. This was the woman who’d caused so much anger. She was an ordinary-looking woman, of medium height, with plain brown hair—

  Hair! Liana thought, and put her hand on her own hair. In spite of herself, she began to cry.

  Jeanne turned back to her, cup in hand, and looked in pity as Liana held the ends of her shorn hair. Then Jeanne’s face changed and she sat down on the chair by the bed. “Here, eat this. You need the food. Your hair will grow back, and there are worse things.”

  Liana couldn’t stop crying. “My hair was my only beautiful feature. Rogan will never love me now.”

  “Love you,” Jeanne said in disgust. “Oliver will probably kill him, so what does it matter whether Rogan loves a woman or not?”

  Liana managed enough strength to knock the cup from Jeanne’s hand and send it flying. “Get out of here! You have caused all of this. If you hadn’t betrayed Rogan, he wouldn’t be as he is now.”

  Tiredly, Jeanne retrieved the cup, put it on the table, then went to sit by Liana. “If I leave, no one else will come. Oliver has ordered that no one tend you. They dare not deny me entrance, though.”

  “Because Oliver will kill whoever thwarts the woman he loves?” Liana said nastily. “The woman who betrayed my husband?”

  Jeanne stood and went to the window. When she looked back at Liana, her face looked many years older. “Yes, I betrayed him. And my only excuse is that I was a stupid