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trumpets and laughter, the wail of a pipe. Occasionally she heard a scream.
    Arianna’s throat worked as she struggled to swallow. She blinked, and her lids grated as if they had been coated with sand. Her eyes ached as though she had been weeping for hours, yet she hadn’t shed a single tear. She hurt beyond tears.
    Ceidro was dead. Her brother was dead and she had failed. Failed to take revenge on his murderer.
    Even worse, she had allowed herself to be captured. She remembered the sight of the village woman running up the road, the knight on the white charger pounding after her, and Arianna shuddered, feeling a primal terror she only dimly understood. She hadn’t seen what happened to the woman afterward, but she knew…. Rape. Arianna would have no value to her family after that was done to her, though duty and honor would still compel her poor father to pay handsomely for her return.
    She rubbed her forehead across the hard bones of her knees, squeezing her eyes shut. But that was a mistake, for immediately the image of the black knight appeared. Even after all that had happened, she knew the vision had yet to be fulfilled. He waited for her still, somewhere in her future, and never had she known such fear.
    “No!” She thrust herself to her feet, her hands balled into fists. She couldn’t afford to be afraid, else she would fail in her duty.
    She paced the dimensions of her prison. The floor was packed earth, not covered with rushes, and dampness seeped through the soles of her felt boots. Water trickled in a stream down one corner of the cellar’s stone wail. She had already tried the stout oak door a dozen times, but she lifted the latch once more. It was still bolted from the outside.
    A particularly raucous bellow of laughter echoed from above and Arianna jumped, backing quickly away from the door. They would drink up all the wine and ale in the buttery soon, and then they would descend into the cellars for more. And they would find her.
    For a moment Arianna’s control slipped and she shuddered. But she refused to give in to her fear, telling herself she must concentrate on escape. She dug the toe of her boot into the dirt. It was packed solid, she had no pick, and even if she did she would be a withered, toothless crone by the time she had dug her way through the motte. She frowned at the barrels of ale and wine. Herbrother Cynan had once sliced his hand open on his sword while drunk and hadn’t even felt it. Perhaps she should drink her way into oblivion, then she wouldn’t feel or care what was done to her. Oddly, in one corner of the room, she suddenly noticed, were several sacks of flour stacked among the kegs. Tucked beneath an empty bag was a small stone quern, a hand mill used for grinding grain. Someone within the castle had obviously been grinding grain illegally and hiding his nefarious activity here deep within the wine vault.
    She picked up the quern, hefting its weight in her hands. She looked at the door. Its hinges were old and rusted. Perhaps she could use the quern like a chisel to …
    The door flew open, banging against the wall like a clap of thunder. Arianna reared back, a scream bursting from her throat before she could stop it. A man stood before her, resplendent in a bliaut of sky-blue satin, a pelisse trimmed in ermine, and a mantle the red-orange color of a sunset. He wore a gold chaplet on his head that was no brighter than his hair.
    Arianna scuttled backward until her hips struck the wall.
    He didn’t come after her. He leaned his shoulder negligently against the jamb, crossed his arms, and grinned at her. She recognized this Norman lord, though he had removed his splendid coat of silvered mail. He had sat on his white palfrey and laughed with the black knight while the big one had held her in his bearish grip. They had discussed her in mocking words she couldn’t understand, because, though her father had made her and her brothers learn that impossible Norman tongue, she