Desire Lines (Welsh Blades, #3)

by Elizabeth Kingston

  She seemed to take it to heart, and spent the next hour in a display of such skill that it amazed him anew. She threw the knives into the post, a straight line from top to bottom, then a double line along the side, then whatever pattern Hal suggested. She threw the nails, too, from the bag she carried, filling in the spaces between the blades and never striking metal upon metal.

  When they asked if she could hit a target unseen she brought the lamp to her corner of the yard, leaving the post in darkness, and threw. It was a sight to behold. The dog at her feet, she looked ahead into the blackness and drew her knives, one after the other, methodical and sure. Some she threw with her left hand and some with her right, some by the handle and others by the tip of the blade. Every one of them landed with a thump, so it was not a surprise when she went forward with the lamp to reveal the post full of knives – but it was a surprise to see the short blades in a circle, the longer blades arranged in a square within it, and one nail at the center.

  “She must have learned from Morency,” he said to Hal, observing the tiny prideful smile she was trying to suppress. “If not the skill, then the taste for spectacle.”

  Hal smiled. “Is a vanity well earned.” He hefted the child up on his chest and said, “My arms will take no more, and the morning will come soon enough. I’ll bid you good night.”

  He called softly out to Nan to thank her for the show and retreated up the stairs with his own lamp, leaving Gryff with only the soft glow from the grate in the hearth. He stayed at the window for a time, watching her throw blades into the post, wondering if she would ever tire of it.

  Eventually it began to feel wrong, as though it were too intimate an act to watch her in silence from afar. He retreated to the broad bench by the hearth that was to be his bed for the night, pulled his cloak over himself, and tried to fall asleep to the sound of the knives hitting the wood.

  But he kept hearing the wounded knight at the priory, warning him not to look at her in lust – a warning she had silently echoed, and still he had not heeded. All he could see when he closed his eyes was her shrinking from his touch, blade in hand. All he could feel was the curl of shame it brought him, mingled in with the memory of her mouth open to his, the feel of his knee parting her thighs, the raw pleasure of thrusting against her.

  The only indication that she had finished her practice was the silence that came from the yard. He thought he heard her step inside, but could not be sure – she had extinguished the lamp and all was darkness. The night settled around him, and it was not as unfriendly as it had been only a week ago.

  “Will you stay in Lincoln?”

  She whispered it, low enough that it would not wake him if he slept. He opened his eyes to the gentle glow in the hearth, knowing she could see at least the outline of him. It was the first time she had asked him anything of his life.

  “Nor have I decided what I will do.” He could not stay with Hal forever, much as he might like to. “I have nowhere else to go.”

  “Your home,” she said, switching to Welsh, surprising him. “Will you not return there, to ease the hiraeth in you?”

  He closed his eyes against the word. It was like one of her blades, thrown with casual precision straight to his heart. “What know you of hiraeth?”

  He expected the silence that followed, because it was so often her response to his questions. But after a moment, she spoke again.

  “I know how you spoke of that place. I know hiraeth is what fills the distance between where you stand and where lives your heart.”

  Her dog came to him out of the darkness, pushing at his hand, asking to be caressed. He moved his fingers across the soft fur as the ache spread through him. She made it sound so simple. “To return there now... Is a perilous thing, for a Welshman to travel roads made by an English king.”

  “The roads made by kings are not the only paths a man may follow.”

  He considered that. It seemed to him every step he had taken in his life was determined by the king. If not for Edward, he would never have left Wales, nor fled into the wilds. Nor would he have come to Lincoln, where dwelled the one friend he could trust with his life.

  “And you?” he asked the darkness. “Will you stay with your sister, now you have found her?”

  The darkness did not answer him. He could almost feel her thinking, deciding what words to give him. She was so self-contained, the boundaries around her person and her spirit so sharply drawn, never giving more of herself than she wanted. But he thought he could feel a thread of her come free, a tendril of her closely guarded self wending its way toward him through the dark night.

  “I am no whore. Nor do I wish to be made one.”

  Her voice was soft, her words deliberate. He turned his eyes to the hearth, the curl of shame spiraling through him, and looked a long time at the embers and the ashes. The words he wanted were not to be found there, or anywhere. Tomorrow she would walk out of his life, and he would likely never see her again.

  Her dog moved under his hand, going to the stair, following her out of the room. It loosened his tongue at last.

  “Never can I repay my debt to you, for saving my life.” He stared hard at the dim glow. His wretched life. “That I returned your goodness and charity with dishonor – I will repent it to my grave.”

  It seemed forever that he lay there with nothing but the vivid memory of her hands peeling a turnip, her voice telling him how a serving girl was treated by powerful men. So few words had she ever spoken to him, and he had disregarded them when it mattered most.

  She did not seek to reassure him, or grant him absolution. But her quiet voice reached out to him through the night to say, “There is no debt between us. Sleep easy, Welshman. Gruffydd.”

  Then she was gone, and he was left in the dark with the sound of his name in her mouth.

  Chapter Ten

  In the morning she told the kind falconer there was no need to hurry, that she would wait while he attended his duties. In truth she need not wait for him at all, now that she knew where to find her sister. She told herself that she was weary from an almost sleepless night, that she preferred to have the falconer with her – a man of consequence, thoroughly respected and respectable – when she walked into her sister’s world.

  She told herself many things, and none were the truth. It was not the rain that made her pause, nor the pleasurable sight of the Welshman in the yard training one of the falconer’s birds to a lure. It was dread at what she might find.

  Never would she have believed that she would pause at this last step toward her sister. It was not that she was a whore – many times she had thought Bea might have been forced to prostitute herself. In some ways, it was the best she could have hoped for, the least evil of many fates that could befall a girl of her station. Not starving or dead, just a common whore.

  Now she could see that she had always imagined saving her sister. That’s what had been in her mind, that she would find Bea and carry her away somewhere safe. It’s why she had gone looking for her in the first place. But if what Aunt Mary said was true, then Bea did not need to be saved. There was no great urgency in the task.

  So Nan hesitated, agreeing to wait until morning, delaying departure, nervous of what she might find. Afraid there was no more of her little Bea, and she must learn to love this Bargate Bettie. But no matter her fears, the day would not wait.

  It was midmorning when they crossed the bridge amid a crowd of people and carts and animals. The falconer had said there was a small market just beyond the bridge, near to where her sister could be found, and he had some business there. The Welshman came too, and she felt the tug of his attention with every step. It had been her constant companion these many days, from the moment he had first seen her, and she would be free of it soon. It should make her glad. It should be a relief.

  At least she need not be burdened with worry for him, so changed was he in the presence of his friend. It seemed to her as if he had found a lost piece of himself in the moment his fri
end had said his name. If he had regained his confidence as they left Wragby, now he had found his full ease and comfort. He had come back to himself. As they passed through this market, among all these people and their noise, he did not flinch or stare or shrink. He was well. He would be well.

  At the edge of the crowd she paused to look at the few buildings ahead, along this road that stretched from Lincoln to London. It had the look of the sort of place where common whores did their trade, where she was like to find her sister. Suddenly she was remembering their mother. Her thin face rose up in Nan’s mind, how she looked in those last hours. Care for your sister and brother, she had said. Oh, how Nan had failed at that.

  A sharp tug at her arm caused her blood to race, her hand to jerk out the knife and brandish it too quickly. It had been years since she had last been taken by surprise, and in a crowd at that. She wheeled around to find the shocked face of a young woman peering at her. Ruddy cheeks and yellow hair and wide-set, bright blue eyes that looked a little wild.

  “Nan?”

  She felt a tickle of recognition. Her body seemed to know before her mind did, her fingers going slack and her knife falling to the ground. Then all at once she was flooded with certainty.

  “Bea.” She blinked up at her. Up. At her little sister. “Little Bea.”

  She watched her sister shake her head in disbelief. “Nan. You’re Nan.”

  She nodded. All of her felt numb. She thought she might never move from this spot. But even as she thought it they were embracing, a fierce and desperate clinging to one another. There was nothing else left in the world but her arms wrapped tight around her sister. Her sister who should be dead. Her sister who was tall and sturdy and grown to womanhood against all odds.

  “Look at you.” Bea pulled back a little to look into her face, knocking Nan’s hood down, touching her hair. “You’re the spit of her, but in full health. God forgive me but I forgot her face until I seen you.”

  Nan grasped her sister’s shoulders, frantically looking her up and down. Arms and legs, her body whole and sound, no illness or injury evident. She felt the hot rush of tears tumbling down her face.

  “Look at the flesh on you.” She was sobbing now. Anyone would think it a tragedy, the way she wept, when it was the best thing she had ever seen. She gripped Bea’s arms, strong and healthy and perfect. “You’re not starved. I prayed for it.” There was no stopping the tears, no hope of speaking sensibly. “I prayed and prayed.”

  Bea shook her head, her face screwing up in that way she had when she did not want to weep. Nan thought her heart might burst at the sight of it, so familiar and so heartbreaking. She dragged a sleeve across her own face to wipe the tears away even as more tumbled down, then wrapped her arms around her sister again. They were a spectacle in the street and her knees might fail her at any moment and leave her in the dirt – and she did not care at all.

  “I’m here now, Little Bea.” She spoke into her sister’s ear, fierce and certain. “I’m here, and there’s no one can take me away from you, not never again.”

  They were in the common room that served as kitchen when she began to understand that the uncomplicated joy would be a fleeting thing, never to return. Still, she was content with her journey’s end as she sat in this house that Bea managed.

  Not Bea, she reminded herself over and over again – it was Bargate Bettie who ran this place. And she was struggling to understand Nan’s life.

  “I serve the lord and the lady, however they should need me,” Nan explained. Some of the women who lived here had come for their meal, and Nan did not like to speak of the business of Morency where they could hear it.

  Bea gave a knowing grin.

  “We’ve been known to serve lords too, but never their ladies. Is he a kind one, then? He must be, to let you leave his bed and come here. But for all that you look well, I see more bone than flesh on you.”

  She pushed another of the small loaves across the table to Nan, who was mortified by this assumption – less for herself than for Morency. Nan’s place there was strange enough, even without her humble birth, and defied simple explanation. She should not have tried to tell it so soon without considering her words. Her sister had never served in castle or manor, nor had she much knowledge of great lords and ladies, so she was only guessing the best she knew how. That didn’t save Nan from feeling the affront.

  “Morency is ruled well by Lord Ranulf. He’s a good knight and true. Nor would he never dishonor his lady, and there are few enough lords I can say that about.”

  She would have said more but she was distracted by a young girl who stood at her elbow, trying to get her attention without interrupting. It reminded Nan of herself when she was that age – perhaps ten years or so, the same age as when her father traded her to the weaver for a handful of coins. But this girl, with her black hair and eagerness to please, was not starved or dirty. She held out Nan’s knife, the one that had dropped to the ground when she saw Bea.

  Nan took it and thanked the girl, but the knife prompted more questions from her sister. She spent the rest of the afternoon explaining that she had learned the knives for defense, never saying it was Lady Gwenllian who had taught her. Instead, she told how she served Gwenllian in the herb-house, and with needle and thread, and many other household duties. Those women who stayed and listened seemed as overly impressed as Aunt Mary had been.

  But Bea only seemed a little amused.

  “It’s no astonishment to me, making yourself the favorite of a great lady.” She laughed in a way that was a little mocking, the barbed tease of a true sibling. “You always did love to be a good girl.”

  Nan looked down at her hands where they were folded neatly in her lap, withstanding the wave of memory. She had not forgotten all their sisterly bickering when they were girls, but she had forgotten that this was ever the chief complaint. She hadn’t understood her sister’s resentment then, and she didn’t understand it now. Why should she not want to be good?

  “And you loved to take all the butter, and then pretend I ate your share.”

  For the barest instant it was like they were children again – she saw the angry denial rising up in Bea’s face, and felt her own protest forming. But then Bea’s face softened and her mouth quirked up. In a blink it was gone and they were grown again, looking back on that life together.

  “It was rare enough there was butter to fight over, nor even bread to put it on. It’s no wonder you’re a little thing, and all bones.”

  “Not for lack of eating.” Nan smiled. “Lady Gwenllian, she says I’ll never eat enough to make up for the years my belly was empty, but I may as well try.”

  Bea pushed the last scrap of the loaf at her again, then turned to send the other women off to their duties. The youngest girl who had retrieved Nan’s knife was too young to do the work of the older women, and her role was to clean and fetch and serve. Nan tried not to think how one day she’d likely become a whore like the rest of them. Not for the first time, she said a silent prayer of thanks for Aunt Mary. If her aunt had not insisted on finding Nan a good place to serve, there was no knowing what might have become of her.

  When all the others were gone and she was left alone with her sister again, she asked one of the harder questions.

  “Did our father do well by you with the money he gained from selling me off?”

  The weaver had paid the equivalent of six years’ wages to take her into service. Nan had gone gladly, knowing the coin was meant to feed her sister. It had seemed a fortune to her, and an even greater fortune that she’d gone to live and work in a place where her own belly did not grumble and ache every day.

  “He bought me shoes.” Bea smiled fondly, remembering. Then a hardness came into her face. “But you must know he drank it, no matter that he tried to do right. It was Mary who wrested a few coins from him and gave it to the miller so he would put aside a bit of something for me every day.”

  That was the best that could be hoped for, from their fat
her. He had never been the same after that terrible year when their mother died. Nan counted it a blessing he was only weak and useless, and not cruel. She listened to her sister tell the story of what had happened after Nan was gone. It was all just trying to find work in the fields where they could, as they’d always done – but now their father drank even more, and there was little work to be had. After a few years, Bea had found a kindly alewife who had given her a place to sleep and enough work to keep her in one place.

  “Then I took up with the candlemaker’s son and we run off here to Lincoln. I went round to the shops once to ask after you, but you weren’t nowhere to be found.”

  By that time, Nan calculated, the weaver had died and she had been sent to Chester – or maybe on to Rhuddlan to serve in the king’s hall. If things had happened differently, if a depraved lord had not sent her life in a new direction or if she had thought to go looking for Bea sooner, then it might all be different now. She might have kept her sister from resorting to this whore’s life.

  She listened as Bea went on to describe how she fell out with the candlemaker’s son and found a mason who was happy to pay her for what she’d previously given for free. Then there were more men who paid, including a priest who was her best customer. “I still warm his bed sometimes, when he is lonely for me. Fergus don’t mind it.”

  Fergus was the man she had met a few summers ago, and he had told her she had a good head for business. This was his place, an inn where a few whores had already been plying their trade when he met Bea and invited her to come here and make a proper business of it. She had brought in more women – seven in total now, and always more wanting to come work here where they were sure to find a safe and prosperous place.

  As her sister spoke, Nan felt an increasing sadness. It was not that Bea was a whore and a bawd, nor even that she seemed proud of it. Aunt Mary judged it foul and sinful, but Nan could not think so harshly of anyone who turned to whoring. It was only one of many necessary evils for the poor and the lowly. It was to be avoided if at all possible, of course, but when you had no name and no real home, no notion of where your next meal might come from, then it was no easy thing to avoid. For the whole of her own life she had barely escaped it. Sometimes she even thought her brief marriage to Oliver was not much different, for she had always known she must give herself to some man if she was to have any hope of surviving.