The Taming (Peregrine 1)

“If I remember correctly, you liked my tongue.”

“Women shouldn’t talk of such things,” he said sternly, but his eyes betrayed him.

Liana knew by the way he was looking at her that she had sparked his interest. “Did you really bed ugly women? Ugly but sticking out in front or back?”

He looked as if he were about to reprimand her again, but instead his eyes softened. “Your father should have beat some manners into you. Here,” he said, taking the empty mug away from her. “If you are through eating me into poverty, let’s go see the games over there.”

Her teasing had pleased him and pleasing him made her feel joyous. As they walked, she slipped her hand into his and he did not push her away.

“Will it change back?” he asked, looking ahead as they walked.

She had no idea what he was talking about.

“Your hair,” he said.

Liana squeezed his hand and laughed in delight. Joice had dyed her blonde hair and eyebrows black so that the peasants wouldn’t recognize Liana’s distinctive hair. There wasn’t much of it visible beneath the coarse linen covering pinned over her braided hair. “It will wash out,” she said, then looked up at him. “Perhaps you’ll help me wash it.”

He looked down at her, desire in his eyes. “Perhaps.”

They walked on together, saying nothing, holding hands, and Liana felt jubilant.

Rogan paused on the outskirts of a crowd of people. He could see over their heads, but Liana couldn’t. She stood on tiptoe, then squatted down, but she couldn’t see through the people. She tugged on Rogan’s sleeve. “I can’t see,” she said when he looked at her. She had a romantic vision of his lifting her to his shoulders and holding her, but instead, acting as if he owned the place—which he did—he pushed his way through the crowd to the front. “Don’t call attention to us,” she hissed, but he paid no attention to her. She gave weak smiles of apology to the people around them as she was pulled along by Rogan.

The people were looking with curiosity at Rogan, especially at his hair curling along his neck beneath his woolen hood. Liana began to stiffen in fear. If these people, hating the Peregrines as they did, should find out the master was alone and unprotected among them, they would no doubt murder him.

“Another of the old lord’s bastards,” she heard a man near them whisper. “Never seen this one before.”

She began to relax and for once thanked God for the fertility of the Peregrines. Still clutching Rogan’s hand, she looked at what he did. On a flat grassy place, in the middle of a large circle, were two men, both naked from the waist up, fighting each other with long wooden poles held in both hands. One man, short, muscular, with short arms, looked to be a forester or a woodcutter. He was very ordinary-looking.

Liana’s eyes went to the other man—as did the eyes of every other woman in the crowd outside the circle. This was the man who’d played Lord Buzzard. He’d looked good onstage, but now, half-nude, skin glistening with sweat, he was magnificent.

Not as magnificent as Rogan, Liana reminded herself and stepped closer to her husband.

Rogan was intent on the fight, interested in the way this half-brother of his handled himself. He was crude and untrained, of course, but there was speed in his movements. The little woodcutter was no match for him.

Rogan’s attention was taken from the fight when his wife stepped closer to him. He glanced down at her. She was watching his half-brother with wide-eyed interest, and Rogan began to frown. It was almost as if she found this half-Peregrine desirable.

Rogan had never felt jealousy before. He’d shared the Days or any of his women with his brothers, with his men. As long as he wasn’t inconvenienced, he didn’t care what the women did. But right now he didn’t like the way his wife was looking at his scrawny, weak, bumbling, incompetent, red-haired—

“Think you could beat ’im?” said a toothless old man standing next to Rogan.

Rogan looked down his nose at the old man.

The man cackled, his bad breath filling the air. “Just like them Peregrines,” he said loudly. “The old master bred arrogance in his sons.”

The Peregrine half-brother in the ring glanced at the old man, then at Rogan, and in his surprise, he looked away from his opponent. The woodcutter clipped the young man on the side of the head. The man stepped back, put his hand to his temple, and looked at the blood on his fingertips. Then, with a look of disgust on his face, he sent the woodcutter sprawling in three hard blows.

Immediately, he went to stand before Rogan on the sidelines.

Liana saw that the two men were about the same age, but Rogan was heavier and, to her eyes, much, much more handsome. Beside her, a young woman gave a sigh of lust. Liana clutched Rogan’s hand hard with her own and plastered herself to the side of him.

“So, I have another brother,” the young man said.

His eyes were as piercing as Rogan’s, Liana thought, and something in them made her sure that he knew who Rogan was. “Don’t—” Liana began.

“Shall we give the people a fight or not?” the man challenged. “Or are you ruled by a woman?” He lowered his voice. “As Lord Rogan is?”

Liana felt her heart sin