Lord of Legends. Susan Krinard
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hatred, only a calm indifference.
She braced herself. “What about Donnington?”
Ash gestured at the cage around him. “He … did this.”
The validation of her worst supposition made her ill enough to wish that she could run from the room and empty her roiling stomach.
This isn’t the Middle Ages. People don’t imprison other people for no reason.
And Ash was deeply troubled, even dangerous. There was no telling what was real in his mind and what imaginary. Who could know that better than she?
But Nola had heard the rumors about a captive on the grounds. And he looks like Donnington’s twin.…
She sucked in her breath. “You believe that Donnington put you here,” she said, matching Ash’s emotionless tone. “Do you know why?”
His hair flew as he shook his head again, on the very edge of violence. One moment calm, the next raging. Sure signs of insanity.
There would be no logical answers from him. Only the bits and pieces she could glean from the most cautious exploration. She must put from her mind the enticing contours of his body, the intensity of his eyes, the hunger.
She bent abruptly to gather up the spoiled fruit and left just long enough to toss it into the shrubbery outside. Ash was clutching the bars when she returned, his face pressed against them.
“I will not leave you,” she said, knowing her promise was only a partial truth. “I am your friend.”
“Friend,” he repeated.
“I care what happens to you. I want to help you.”
Belatedly she remembered the bottle of water she’d brought and considered the basin Ash’s keeper had left just inside the cage. She would have to take the risk of filling it with fresh water.
She crept toward the cage, knelt and poked the bottle’s neck through the bars. Ash made no move toward her, and she managed to fill the basin halfway before it became too difficult to pour. She glanced at the towels that still hung over the back of the chair. Rising, she wetted one thoroughly, walked back to the cage and held the moist towel up for Ash’s inspection.
“Wash,” she said, demonstrating for him by bathing her hands and face.
He followed her every movement, his gaze finally settling, as always, on her eyes. “Wash,” she repeated.
“Yes,” he said. “Wash.”
Her throat felt thick. “If I give this to you,” she said, “you must not touch me.”
He seemed to understand. When she extended the towel, he simply took it. No flesh touched flesh. But as he withdrew his hand, she saw something that made the squirming minnows in her middle seem like ravenous sharks.
His hands were burned. Red and black marks crossed his fingers and palms, stripes matching the bars he had so often grasped. There were similar stripes on his face. Even as she stared in horror, they began to diminish.
“Good God,” she whispered. Without hesitation, she seized his hand, wrapping it in the wet towel he still held. “How did you burn yourself?”
“Iron,” he said in a low voice.
“Iron? You mean the bars?” She touched one gingerly. They were cold, not hot.
“I don’t know how you did this,” she said tightly, “but your hands will need to be bandaged. And your face.” She looked up from her work. The brands across his jaw, cheeks and forehead were gone. She peeled the towel away from his hand. The marks were disappearing before her eyes.
She dropped his hand. It brushed the bar, and an angry red welt formed across his knuckles.
Astonished, Mariah took his hand again. The welts were nasty and raw, but they lasted no longer than she could murmur a prayer.
She raised her head. “Ash,” she said. “How is this possible?”
He seemed not to hear her. “Ash,” he repeated.
Her face felt as fiery as his vanished wounds. “You … don’t seem to remember your name.”
His fingers tightened on hers. “Ash is my name?”
“I …” She felt utterly foolish, befuddled, incapable of harboring a single rational thought. “For a while. If … if you approve.”
His head cocked in that way she found so oddly endearing. “Ash,” he said distinctly. “I … approve.”
Relief weakened her knees. “Very good,” she said faintly. “Have you any other injuries?”
“No injuries.”
She closed her eyes, grateful to be allowed a few moments to recover and focus again on the questions that must be answered.
“Ash,” she said, pushing everything else from her mind, “who else has come here? Who has been bringing you food and water?”
His black eyes seemed to gather all the lantern’s light. “The man,” he said.
“What man?”
Ash hunched his back, slinking about the cage in a perfect imitation of the stranger she’d seen skulking near the folly. “Who is he, Ash?”
“I do not know.”
“When does he come?”
He frowned, lifted his hand and held up three of his fingers.
“Three days ago?”
The frown became a scowl, and he raised his fingers again.
“Every three days?”
His forehead relaxed. “Yes,” he said.
He knows his numbers, Mariah thought. “When was the last time he came, Ash? Was it this morning? The first time I visited you?”
“Morning.”
Thank God for that. Whoever this keeper was, he was unlikely to return for another two or three days.
“Did he ever speak to you?” she asked.
“No. Only you.”
So no one had spoken to him. How long had he been wrapped in a shroud of silence?
Distressed and wishing to hide it, Mariah glanced stupidly at the damp towel in her hands. “I think you ought to wash now,” she said.
“Dirty,” he said, gesturing down at himself, compelling her gaze to follow. She noted that his—she swallowed—his “member” was very much in evidence beneath his loincloth.
“Yes,” she said thickly. “Quite dirty.” She moved to wet the towel again. She managed to pass it to him without looking at him, and after a brief pause she heard him sweeping the cloth over his body, followed by the almost inaudible “plop” as his single garment fell to the floor.
She squeezed her eyes shut, wishing her mind to become a perfect blank. This feeling had nothing to do with the way he’d licked her fingers. A lunatic might make just such an inappropriate gesture, lacking the qualities of courtesy and judgment found in the sane.
But there had been purpose in it.
“Mariah.”
The sound of her name nearly wrenched her out of her prickling skin. Involuntarily she turned. He was quite, quite clean, and he had neglected to retrieve his covering.
She shut her eyes again, edged to the chair, felt for the trousers—giving up entirely on the drawers—and used the tip of her boot to push them toward the cage. “Please,” she gasped. “Put on these trousers.”
“How?”
Good Lord. “Haven’t