Secret Thunder.

The Perigueux Family Series.

by Patricia Ryan.

Dedicated with love to my uncle, Dr. Thomas Guy Burford. My sisters and I still have those Wives of Henry VIII dolls you gave us so long ago. See what you started?

Chapter 1.

March 1067: The village of Cottwyk in Cambridgeshire, England.

"It's not much of a wh.o.r.ehouse." Luke de Perigueux tugged on the reins, halting his mount next to his brother's at the edge of the clearing. He could barely make out the humble cottage against the darksome woods that surrounded it; English forests were black as h.e.l.l at night.

"At least it's shelter," Alexandre said through a yawn. "'Twill rain soon, and I'd rather be in there than out here when it does."

A shudder coursed through Luke. He rubbed his arms beneath his mantle.

Alex grinned and punched him on the shoulder. "So, my fearsome big brother feels the cold just like us ordinary men."

Luke nodded, though it wasn't the damp night air making him shiver, but a cursed weakness of the body and soul-a weakness too shameful to reveal, even to Alex. His hands fisted involuntarily, and he gritted his teeth. Ride it out, he commanded himself. 'Twill ease up. It always does. A good, hard tupping should help. Flicking his reins, he approached the cottage.

Alex followed, eyeing the crude wattle-and-daub hovel, a doubtful expression on his face. Yellowish light shone through the skins tacked over the windows, and wood smoke scented the air, but not a sound came from within. "Perhaps we've got the wrong place," Alex said.

"Nay, this should be it." One of Luke's fellow crossbowmen had directed him here: There's just the one wench, and she's not much, but she'll spread her legs for anyone with tuppence and a hard c.o.c.k-even a hard Norman c.o.c.k. Most of these Saxon b.i.t.c.hes run and hide when they see us coming.

Little wonder. Every inhabitant of this miserable, rain-choked island feared and despised the Norman conquerors, and why shouldn't they? Five months had pa.s.sed since Luke and Alex crossed the Channel to help William, Duke of Normandy-and now King of England-seize this G.o.dforsaken country in a single, b.l.o.o.d.y battle. Hastings should have been the end of it, and it would have been, if only these English barbarians would cease their pointless uprisings and accept Norman rule. All winter, William's army-including many landless knights, like Luke and Alex, hungry for English holdings-had confiscated estates and subdued the locals with a pitiless zeal calculated to crush rebellious tendencies. Yet, still the people of England defied them, holding on with pathetic tenacity to lands forever lost to them on the fourteenth of October, 1066.

The deerskin covering the doorway parted, and a figure emerged-the figure of a woman carrying a lantern. She was plump, her bosom and hips stretching the wool of her coa.r.s.e brown kirtle, and her hair was a mop of flaming curls. Holding the lantern high, she sized up the two strangers on horseback with a wh.o.r.e's practiced eye.

Alex chuckled. "Seems we've got the right place, after all."

"Do you speak any French?" Luke asked her as another bout of trembling overtook him. Hold on... 'twill pa.s.s.

"Quite a bit," she answered in a guttural accent. "My husband, G.o.d rest him, hailed from Beauvais."

A stroke of luck. Most of these Saxons didn't understand a word of their new ruler's language. Luke had picked up a little English-he had a facility for languages-but he had no desire to struggle with it tonight.

She smiled coyly. "I don't imagine you came here to talk, though." Her doughy cheeks were sprinkled with pockmarks, and her teeth were crooked, but Luke wasn't feeling very particular at the moment.

King William had issued regulations forbidding his knights and men-at-arms from molesting women or frequenting brothels. Unlike some of his colleagues, Luke had no trouble obeying the mandate against rape. Brutalizing innocents held little appeal for him; he was brutal enough on the battlefield. Unfortunately, the only practical alternative was to patronize whatever local brothels would serve the Normans, and he felt no compunction about doing so.

"My name is Helig," the red-haired woman said. Luke couldn't remember having asked. Helig, for G.o.d's sake. Why the devil did these Saxons give their women such grotesque names?

"'Twill be sixpence for the both of you together," Helig said. "Tuppence apiece if you want me separately. More if you'll be wanting something out of the ordinary."

"Tuppence apiece, then," Luke said. Alex might not even want her; he could afford to be picky. Handsome and congenial, the young swordsman was remarkably adept at coaxing wenches out of their kirtles. Luke, on the other hand, lacked his brother's agreeable nature, and his fierce reputation made women uneasy. He couldn't remember the last time a woman had given herself to him for free.

Helig directed them to an attached byre around back, where they stabled their horses, and through that to the cottage proper. Luke squatted on the earthen floor by the central fire pit to warm his jittery hands while his brother went about the pointless business of flirting with this homely Saxon wh.o.r.e.

"Your hair looks like new copper," Alex told her.

She snorted. "You don't seem in no hurry to get on with things. Care for a pint, then?"

"Aye, and one for my brother."

"Ah, I figured you and him was kin." Helig filled two tankards from a pitcher of ale. "I must say, I never seen such black hair on a Norman as you two have."

"That's because we're from Aquitaine, not Normandy. Folks are darker in the south." Alex unpinned his mantle and tossed it onto one of the two roughhewn benches facing the table. Luke wrapped his own more closely around himself, hoping his brother wouldn't notice his tremors. He felt like a c.o.c.ked crossbow, quivering and ready to fire; his jaw ached from clenching it.

Helig set a tankard on the table with a thunk that made Luke bolt to his feet. Easy. As she reached across it to place the other on the opposite side, Alex came up behind her and lifted her skirt. She had thick legs and a generous white rump, which he fondled freely.

She smirked at Alex over her shoulder as he moved against her. "Seems you're in something of a hurry after all."

"Your charms are intoxicating."

"There's straw up in the loft, and blankets." She tilted her head toward a ladder leading to a niche between the byre and the ceiling beams. "We'll be more comfortable up there."

Lowering her skirt, Alex raised a tankard and drank from it. "Truth be told, I'm more tired than I am randy. We've been fighting since yesterday morning, with no sleep. It only ended at sundown."

"I know." Of course. She would have heard the sounds of battle as they wrested nearby Cottwyk Castle from her countrymen. Her expression sobered only momentarily. Nodding toward Luke, she said, "What about you, then? Are you too weary to take what you came here for?"

"Nay." He craved sleep as desperately as Alex did, but even more pressing was the need to release some of the savage energy thrumming in his veins.

Alex set down his half-emptied tankard, grabbed his mantle, and lay down on the floor next to the fire pit, arranging the woolen cloak over him like a blanket. "Wake me when you're done," he told Luke, "and I'll take my turn." He shifted to get comfortable in the packed dirt, let out a great yawn, and closed his eyes. Within moments, his breathing grew steady and one hand fell open limply. Knowing his brother, Luke very much doubted he'd be able to awaken him for his turn with Helig, but then he suspected Alex was a good deal less keen on the wench than he'd let on. He'd just thrown her skirt up that way to show a little polite interest. If he'd really wanted her, he would have taken her right then and there. Alex wasn't shy.

"Nice fellow, your brother," Helig said.

Luke grunted in affirmation and accepted the tankard she offered him, draining it in one tilt. It wasn't half bad. One thing these Saxons could do was brew ale.

"You were thirsty." The wh.o.r.e took the empty tankard from him and reached up to unfasten his mantle pin. She held it close to her face, her eyes widening as she examined the little onyx dragon imbedded in the golden brooch. Looking up, she said, "You're him."

Luke took the pin from her and clumsily refastened it to the cloak. It had been a parting gift from his father when they left to join William. Alex had received one also, inset with tiny pearls in the shape of a wolf's head, which he was forever misplacing. Luke treasured his pin and had always taken care not to lose it, especially after receiving word of his sire's death at Christmastide. Both pins bore the same hopeful inscription on the reverse side: Be strong and of good courage.

"You are him, aren't you?" Helig said. "You're the Black Dragon."

"I'm Luke de Perigueux."

Helig's gaze lingered on his hair, which he wore long and braided in back, in the style of his father, rather than closely cropped in the Norman fashion. It was the feature that distinguished him from the rest of the occupying soldiers, including his brother. "Aye, you're him," she said, nodding. "You're the one they talk about."

Luke knew what they said about him, the words they used to describe him: bloodthirsty, ruthless, brutal. Now she'd be wary, perhaps even refuse him, tuppence or no. He waited for the fascination in her eyes to turn to apprehension.

But it didn't. If anything, she seemed more enthralled by him now that she knew who he was. Her eyes lit with an interest he knew could not be feigned. Some women had a weakness for monsters in the guise of men, and Luke suspected this Helig was one of them. As she undraped the mantle from his shoulders and hung it on a peg, Luke rea.s.sessed her attractiveness as a bed partner. If her heart was in it, as it seemed to be, she might give him quite the lively ride. G.o.d knew he could use one.

She approached him with a sway in her hips and a look of frank desire. There was something crudely seductive about her, an unwashed s.e.xuality that stirred his loins. He backed her against the table and ground his hips against hers as he gathered up her kirtle with trembling hands. Arousal merged with the bloodl.u.s.t still surging through him to rob him of all reason or self-control. He needed this woman, this release, and he was going to take what he needed now.

Unbuckling his belt, she said, "Let's get you out of these things first." Luke yanked the heavy, calf-length tunic over his head and tossed it onto the bench, leaving himself in his shirt and chausses. Helig untied the shirt, exposing his chest, and combed her fingers through the dark hair there. "What have we got here?" She pulled out the first of two leather cords looped around his neck and ran her thumb over the crudely carved wooden cross. "My word. You're full of surprises, aren't you?"

He whipped up her skirt and lifted her onto the table as she pulled out the second cord. "What's this, then?" She fingered the little leather pouch, causing the dried herbs within to crackle. "Yarrow?" A reasonable a.s.sumption. Many of Luke's fellow knights carried a pouch of the all-purpose medicinal herb.

"Aye," he lied as he reached beneath his shirt and fumbled for the drawstring of his chausses. His madness had become a carnal drive, hot and urgent.

She brought the pouch to her nose and sniffed, then frowned. "That's not yarrow. What's in there? Catnip?"

Luke stilled in the act of untying the woolen hose.

"I recognize the smell," she said. "My brother, Ham, uses it. Perhaps you know of him. You're under Lord Alberic's command, are you not? Ham is the hangman at Foxhyrst."

Luke and Alex were quartered at Foxhyrst Castle, under the rather inept command of Lord Alberic, one of King William's most ambitious lapdogs. Alberic's devotion to his liege-combined with a certain amount of sly manipulation-had recently earned him the coveted t.i.tle of sheriff. Most of the soldiers who'd served under him since Hastings-including Luke and his brother-remained with him as men-at-arms charged with suppressing rebellion. As Luke recalled, Alberic's hangman had more or less come with Foxhyrst Castle. Ham was a bearish, bald-headed Saxon who brought a great deal of savage enthusiasm to his work and cared little that his countrymen counted him a Judas.

"Ham says he can't work up the stomach to torture and kill folks lest he chews some catnip first," Helig explained. "That's what this is, isn't it? Catnip?"

Among other things. Luke took the pouch from her and tucked it back into his shirt.

"Ham says it makes him half mad. Makes him evil as the Devil himself, so he don't care about nothing but killing. Takes a day or more for it to wear off." She looked at him knowingly. "You chew it before you go into battle, don't you? That's what makes you such a ferocious-"

Luke closed one hand over her mouth and clamped the other around the back of her neck, hard. Bringing his face very close to hers, he stared fixedly into her wide green eyes. "You talk too much," he said quietly. "I don't want to talk to you. I just want to f.u.c.k you."

She nodded. He eased his hands away, and she licked her lips nervously. "Let's go upstairs to the-"

He covered her mouth with his hand again. It was shaking. "Right here is fine." With his other hand, he parted her stout thighs and positioned himself between them.

She looked over his shoulder at Alex, unconscious on the floor.

"My brother can sleep through anything." He jerked on the drawstring again, but his palsied hands seemed unequal to the task of freeing himself from his chausses.

Luke felt a gust of cold air at his back. Helig sucked in a breath and pushed him away, her eyes on something behind him. Wheeling around, Luke saw a man standing in the doorway, holding the deerskin aside.

The intruder was big and unmistakably Saxon, with long red hair and an unkempt beard. His skin was pale as parchment, and dark circles rimmed his eyes. Even from across the room, Luke could smell him. He smelled like sickness and sour ale.

The Saxon growled something at Helig while gesturing to Luke and the sleeping Alex, his expression one of outrage. From what Luke understood of the local tongue, the wh.o.r.e was being berated for consorting with Normans.

Luke took a step in the other man's direction, the quivering bowstring inside him humming with murderous fury. His fists shook with the unreasoning need to punish this creature, to smash his face in, pummel the life out of him.

Jumping down from the table, Helig grabbed Luke's arm and said something to the other man in an appeasing tone. The Saxon barked something back at her, then reached beneath his tattered cape and produced two pennies. He pressed these into Helig's hand, then began pulling her toward the ladder that led to the loft.

Luke seized the Saxon b.a.s.t.a.r.d and spun him around, hauling back with his fist.

Helig closed both hands over his wrist. "Please, no!"

He could have easily wrested himself from her grip, but a small, still-sane voice added its soothing whisper to the cacophony inside his head: It's the herbs... hold back... ride this out.

"Please," the wh.o.r.e begged in a tremulous voice. "I don't want any trouble here. This fellow, he's a bit touched. Don't know what he's doing, really."

That's two of us, Luke thought. Two madmen, fighting over a poxy wh.o.r.e.

"He comes to me regular," Helig continued. "All he wants is what he came for, and then he'll leave. Just let me do him first, and then I'll do you for free. You can have me all night. I'll do anything you want."

Luke yanked his hand out of her grasp. He could kill this man, the state he was in. Christ, he almost did. Let it go... ride it out.

With a heavy sigh, Luke s.n.a.t.c.hed his mantle off the peg and wrapped it around himself. "Wake me when he's gone."

From the unsteady way the Saxon climbed the squeaky ladder, Luke could only conclude that he was drunk. It could be a long wait before Luke's turn came around.

He knew he'd never get to sleep with the battle madness still upon him. He searched the cottage for something stronger than ale, something to take the edge off, and came up with a jug of brandy. Half filling his tankard, he drank the brandy in one long, scorching swallow, then reclined on the other side of the fire pit from his brother and stared into the flames. They danced and swayed, like a field of wheat beneath a rippling breeze-a golden field, ignited by a setting sun.

The image brought to mind the Abbey at Aurillac, where he'd spent an untroubled youth avoiding his lessons in favor of tending to the monastic wheat fields and vineyards and sheep pastures. Luke fingered the rough wooden cross beneath his shirt, remembering those years-happy years, the only truly happy years of his life. Often lately he found himself wondering if he'd still be happy-or at least content-if he'd taken Holy Orders as his father had intended, rather than rejecting cloistered life for soldiering.

Luke ached to exchange the tools of warfare for those of the farm. He would surely have been granted a conquered holding already-either outright or by marriage to an English heiress-as had most of the others who'd fought at Hastings, but his skill with the crossbow made him too valuable an a.s.set for subduing the locals. It was said that William had his siege towers, his battering rams, his stone-throwing machines... and Luke de Perigueux. His fellow soldiers had long ago dubbed him the Black Dragon, in honor not just of his dark Aquitaine coloring, but of the fiery beast within him, the image of which adorned his battle pennon.

A light rain began to patter against the thatch. From the loft came whispers and the crackling of straw. Envious of Alex's blessed oblivion, Luke reached for the brandy jug and drank directly from it.

If only he could embrace warfare as Alex did. The White Wolf, they called Alex, a tribute to the stealth that made him such an effective swordsman. The enemy never knew he was there until they felt his steel sliding through them. In another man, such lethal skill might earn him a measure of envy from his colleagues, but the amiable twenty-year-old was the most popular soldier at Foxhyrst.

Luke kept his dependence on the potent herbs a secret from Alex out of shame. What kind of weakling was he that he must resort to such measures before he could aim his crossbow at the enemy?

At one time he had truly felt the dragon's fire in his breast, and would enter each engagement screaming war cries and eager for blood. But his blood-thirst had come to sicken him, and now he must chew that loathsome herbal concoction before battle to reproduce it. If only it didn't affect his senses so. Often he could recall little of a battle until weeks, even months, later. In fact, he had no clear memory of having taken Cottwyk Castle today-just fractured, nightmarish images, and the vague sense that he'd done something particularly irredeemable. Were it not for his blood-spattered chainmail, he might think it had all been a dreadful, half-remembered dream.

The voices in the loft grew belligerent as the rain intensified, dribbling through a hole in the thatch to form a muddy puddle near Luke's head. Seething with anger at the wh.o.r.e, the Saxon, and himself, he brought the jug to his mouth again and gulped. Every time he moved his head, things spun sickeningly, so he tried to lie still. He stared in the fire, squinting to make out the form twitching and writhing in the flames. Moving closer, he saw that it was a young man, little more than a boy. He was saying something in English. Luke strained and heard the word "Please."

Nay! He reached out to sweep the specter away, but it just leapt back up, writhing in torment in its h.e.l.lish inferno, its eyes trained on Luke, its mouth working silently... "Please."

Something flickered on Luke's arm, and he struggled to focus on it. "Jesu!" His shirtsleeve was on fire. Sitting up, he slapped at the burning linen, but the flames spread swiftly, consuming the thin fabric and searing his arm. Grimacing at the pain, he pulled his mantle tight around himself to smother the flames.

"Christ." A sudden bout of shivering racked him. He wrapped his arms around his updrawn legs and squeezed his eyes shut. Ride it out, ride it out...

The brandy, the lack of sleep, and those d.a.m.ned herbs had joined forces to drive him even further into madness than he'd already sunk. "Ride it out," he whispered, lowering his head to his knees. "Ride it out, ride it out, ride it out..."

When he opened his eyes, Luke found himself crouching on the floor of a strange cottage, rocking back and forth, back and forth. He blinked at the dreary, unfamiliar surroundings, at the flames crackling in the clay-lined pit, at the dark form of a man on the other side of the fire, asleep.

"Alex?" The man didn't move. Luke shifted to get a better view of his face. It was Alex.

Over the sound of heavy rain came a man's voice, from above. A woman spoke then, and Luke had a mental picture of a fleshy wench with curly red hair.

The wh.o.r.e.

The place began to look familiar. He remembered coming here. He'd come here for a woman, and Alex had tagged along to be companionable. But someone had stolen the woman from him and was upstairs with her now.

He had a senseless urge to climb that ladder and take what he'd come here for. His hands curled into fists, and his mind's eye saw him slamming them into the Saxon's head until he didn't move anymore.

Luke rubbed his fists on his forehead and forced deep breaths into his lungs. Ride it out.