by Lynn Kurland
This, to Richard’s mind, was not necessarily a bad thing.
He realized, as he checked to make certain she lived still, that carting her off in his arms was becoming something of a habit. He wasn’t at all sure ’twas a habit he cared to continue.
He turned his little company toward home and hoped Jessica wouldn’t wake before they reached it. He wasn’t sure he could stomach any more of her tales of a future he wasn’t sure he believed would come to pass.
• • •
By the time he reached Burwyck-on-the-Sea, his arms were burning from trying to carry his burden without jarring her and his heart was heavy. He’d passed the afternoon trying to excuse Jessica’s ramblings as merely the foolish words of a madwoman, but in truth she didn’t seem mad. It didn’t seem that such a thing as a visit from another time was possible, but he’d seen many strange things in his travels. ’Twas indeed possible that she was who she said she was and that the world would indeed survive past the year 1300.
Not that he would live to see it, of course.
The thought of that soured his mood, as did the sight of his home. He’d wanted it to be much farther along by now. How was it building things took so much more time than planned and cost twice as much as anticipated? Or was it only he who had such troubles?
By the time he reached his bedchamber, Jessica had begun to stir. Before she could fully regain her senses, Richard laid her on his bed and quit the chamber. Knowing that having to chase her again that day would finally and fully drive him to madness, he locked the chamber door. She would awake no doubt quite furious, but at least he would have to hear none of her displeasure before he could stomach it.
He tromped down his steps in a black humor, walked out into the autumn chill, and immediately espied his squire and his younger brother scrapping like two rabid dogs. Richard cursed. Gilbert was enough to leave him fully cured of trying to make any more alliances. Even the thought of marrying to do the like was beginning to lose its appeal. If his squire irritated him this much, the saints alone could say what a woman would do.
He jerked the two boys away from each other and shook them both. He was secretly pleased to see that Gilbert had come out worse for the tumble, but he didn’t let on to it. For one thing, Warren had to learn that he would earn his keep right along with the rest of the men. Life was too lean at Burwyck-on-the-Sea for anyone to rest on their haunches and wait to be served.
“I should give you both twenty lashes,” he growled, shaking the lads again. “A se’nnight helping the carpenters should cure you of your urges to fight.”
“But, I weren’t—” Gilbert complained.
“Enough,” Richard said curtly. “A fortnight for you, Gilbert. Since Warren had the good sense not to complain, he’ll keep the se’nnight. Now off with you. Any more fighting and you’ll both be looking at Burwyck-on-the-Sea from outside the gates.”
He pushed them both away and walked off before he had to watch Gilbert’s expression, which he was certain he could predict with complete accuracy.
He stopped at the lists, casting a critical glance over his men. John was watching as well, shaking his head. Richard rolled his eyes. Not home but half an hour and already there was trouble. He sighed and dragged his hand through his hair.
“Don’t spare me the details,” he said heavily.
John sighed. “While we were away: a handful of broken ribs; several gashes; and a horse lamed. My lord, they are in sorry shape.”
Richard looked heavenward and prayed for relief.
It didn’t come, so he was left with no choice but to face his captain. “And your suggestion?”
“I’d be the last to complain,” John began slowly, “but the chill numbs them.”
Richard rubbed his hand over his face. “Aye, I know.”
“Perhaps a small garrison hall could be quickly built. Of wood,” he added hesitantly.
“Nay,” Richard said immediately.
“Richard,” John began slowly, “I know your reasoning. I fostered here, you know, and I have no great love for your sire either. But he’s dead.”
Richard knew the sun was shining down on him but that didn’t ease his chill. “I wanted no wooden buildings,” he said hollowly. “I want nothing to remind me of him.”
“Your choice is either that or losing your men to injury,” John said frankly. “It could be built in two days and come down in half that time when the great hall is finished. A month of enduring it, my lord. A month is no time at all.”
Richard scowled at him. “You tiptoe about me like a woman, John. I can bear hearing the truth.”
“Then why are your fingers curled around the hilt of your sword?” his captain asked with a dry smile.
Richard dropped his hands to his sides and flexed his fingers. “Wood it is, for the moment. The more men who help, the sooner they’ll have warmth. And if they’re too far above putting a nail to wood, let them find someone else to put food in their bellies. I’ve no need for men who need coddling.”
“Of course, my lord,” John said, bowing. He walked off, shouting orders along the way.
Richard turned and walked back inside his gates wearily. He leaned back against the wall and lifted his face to the sun. It didn’t take much besides closing his eyes to immediately see the inner bailey as it had been while he was growing up. All the buildings had been built of the same warped, bleached wood. He hadn’t thought much of it at the time. He’d hated it simply because it had been his father’s and he’d hated his father with a black passion.
It was only after he’d gone to squire at the age of ten-and-two that he’d seen other keeps in England with their fine buildings of stone. Those had paled in comparison to the buildings he’d seen on the continent and in the Holy Land.
When he’d learned of his father’s death and resigned himself to the fact that Burwyck-on-the-Sea was now his, he’d planned to have nothing but the finest. Stone buildings, glass in the windows of his chapel, lush gardens with fruit trees. And all of it was to be continually washed clean of foul smells by the sea breezes that ever blew across his cliff.
A wooden garrison hall couldn’t be helped at present, but it galled him bitterly to do it. He pushed away from the wall and strode over to his master carpenter.
He tapped the boy smartly on the shoulder. The lad spun around and then gasped.
“My lord Richard!”
“Aye. Why aren’t the walls going up?”
“Er, my lord, you see . . .”
“I see nothing. That is my point.”
“My lord . . . we’ve a small problem . . .”
Richard felt his expression harden. “And that is?”
“Ah, I’ve . . . ah, never worked with . . . stone,” the boy finished with a gulp.
Richard clasped his hands behind his back to keep himself from delivering a blow that would have crushed the other man’s skull.
“Do you mean to tell me that I’ve fed and housed you for a month and you could not do what you told me you could?”
“I thought . . . perhaps, that I could . . .”
Richard pointed back to the gate. His arm was shaking, he was so angry.
“Go. If you value your life, you’ll go, and quickly.”
The man fled. Richard couldn’t stomach the thought of looking through the lad’s apprentices for one who could work with stone. What he wanted was to gallop until the wind rushing past his ears drowned out the blood thundering in them. He spun on his heel and strode to the stables.
“My lord! My lord Richard!”
“By the saints, what now?” He turned to face his cook. “What?” he barked.
“The well, my lord. The water’s been fouled. I fear one of my lads was drunk and mistook the well for a place to bury the refuse from the cesspit.” The cook swallowed convulsively. “The water isn’t drinkable, my lord.”
It was a herculean effort not to bellow with rage. Richard very calmly and quietly put his trembling hand on his cook’s should
er.
“Find the lad. Tell him I’m disappointed in him. Have him dig a new well. By himself.”
“Aye, milord. Right away.”
Richard continued on his way to the stables. He heaved a huge sigh of relief when he reached them without further mishap. He saddled Horse and thundered out the gates. John didn’t bother following, which was just as well. Richard wasn’t in the mood for company.
He rode to the edge of the forest, then deviated from his habit and continued on. The air was cold, unwarmed by the sun, and he relished the slap of it against his face. He leaned down over Horse’s neck and gave his gelding his head. Horse didn’t disappoint him. At least Jessica hadn’t turned the beast into a gelding in spirit as well.
He turned at the far edge of the woods and sent Horse racing back down the way they’d come. The beast was winded and Richard didn’t push him, yet Horse ran on. Richard didn’t care where they went, just as long as they traveled there like the wind.
The next thing he knew, he was traveling through the wind without the benefit of his mount under him. He ducked and rolled as he hit the ground, then lay on his back, breathing heavily. He staggered to his feet and cried out when he saw Horse favoring his right foreleg.
Lame. Richard could tell without touching the beast. He put his arms around the valiant gelding’s neck and wanted to weep.
“Forgive me,” he said, his voice catching. “Sweet St. Michael, I’m such a bastard.”
The day was doomed. It had been from the start.
“Come, boy,” he said, resting his hand on Horse’s neck. “We’ll tend it at home.”
By the time Richard had made his painstakingly slow way back to the keep, his mood was black. Each step had been another opportunity for recrimination. His soul was as black as his heart and it mattered not to him.
He handed Horse to his stable master. The man took the beast, noted the leg, and looked up at Richard. Richard swore viciously.
“I didn’t do it apurpose!”
“I didn’t say you had, my lord.”
Then why did Richard feel like an undisciplined child? He cursed and walked across the bailey. It was dusk. Perhaps there would be a meal waiting in his chamber and Jessica would have the good sense not to speak to him. If she had any wisdom at all in her soul, she wouldn’t.
“My lord Richard! My lord, wait!”
Richard turned and saw one of his younger guardsmen running toward him, something jingling in his hands.
“My lord, look what I found! It would seem your sire kept prisoners in his dungeon. Did he torture them?”
Richard stared down at the iron manacles in horror.
“Should I keep them, my lord?” the young man asked eagerly.
“Throw them away,” Richard said hoarsely.
“But, my lord—”
“Destroy them,” Richard rasped. “For the love of God, man, do as I bid you!”
The young man looked puzzled, but shrugged and walked away. Richard stood rooted to the spot, unable to move, unable to breathe. He’d been certain he’d destroyed all that. He’d been certain. Nothing was to have remained from his past. Nothing at all.
Papa, nay!”
The sound of irons being closed echoed in the damp chamber. “You’ll stay here till you’ve learned to keep silent,” a deep voice slurred.
“Papa, I beg you! I beseech you!”
“Silence! Didn’t the whip bite deep enough the first score of times, Richard?”
“Richard? Richard?”
Richard backed away, then realized it was only John who stood before him. “Aye?” he asked, feeling dazed.
“Where have you been? I almost sent out men to search.”
Richard shook his head to clear away the last vestiges of memory. “Horse must have stumbled. I fear he’s been lamed.
“I’m sorry,” John said quietly. He clapped Richard on the shoulder. “I think Jessica’s getting hungry. She’s been pounding on the door for an hour.”
“Let her pound,” Richard said, feeling his legs unsteady beneath him. “I need something to drink.”
He walked back to the small circular gathering hall under his chamber. He could hear Jessica shouting above him, but he couldn’t bring himself to face her. She would see his shame in his eyes and scorn him, and he had been scorned enough in his lifetime.
John pulled out a bottle of something Richard knew had to be stronger than ale. Richard reached over and took the bottle away. John grasped his wrist.
“Don’t.”
“Don’t tell me what to do,” Richard snarled.
“Think, Richard,” John said urgently. “You don’t want it.”
“I can decide for myself.”
He uncorked the bottle and poured the liquid down his throat. He choked as it burned him, then felt a very welcome warmth spread through him. His toes went numb and his scalp felt as if every hair there were standing up and cheering the influx of heady fluid. Richard drank again, swallowing convulsively.
He cursed at the realization that the bottle was empty. He wasn’t as drunk as he could have been. Like it or not, he’d inherited a fine talent for holding his liquor from his illustrious sire, who could drink an entire garrison under the table yet still walk away without staggering.
“Richard, have something to eat. You need it.”
Richard looked John square in the eye. “Enough, my friend.”
“Eat this meat pie and I’ll give you another bottle,” John promised.
“What kind of fool do you take me for? You haven’t got another bottle.”
Richard rose, then made his way up the stairs, an apple in his hand. If Jessica was so bloody starving, she could eat what she fed Horse.
He opened the door and pushed inside the chamber.
• • •
Jessica was standing next to the fire, scowling. He shut the door behind him and made her a bow.
“Good morrow to you, fair wench. Here’s your supper.” He tossed her the apple.
“You’re drunk.”
“Never. I am surviving what has possibly been the most hellish day of my life and doing it quite well, thank you.”
“We need to talk.”
“Nay, we do not.”
“Yes, we do.” She planted herself in his way as he tried to get to the window. “I’ve been thinking all afternoon—”
“A waste of an afternoon, then,” he interrupted.
“I can’t seem to get myself to Merceham—”
“Wouldn’t work anyway,” Richard assured her.
“—so,” she continued with a glare at him, “I’ve decided that perhaps I’m here for a reason. I can’t come up with any really good ones, of course, but I’m thinking that maybe I’m supposed to help you understand basic human rights.”
Human rights? Richard could hardly understand her strange words.
“You need to think about your peasants.”
That was the last thing he wanted to think on. Richard looked at Jessica and began to wonder if he had made a mistake in rescuing her. Never mind that her kiss had shaken him to the core. She talked overmuch and she babbled of things he could neither understand nor stomach the hearing of.
“You’re spoiling their lives, Richard,” she said.
“And you’re spoiling my fine mood.”
“You have a soft bed; they have nothing. Doesn’t that gall you?”
“What galls me is that you can’t keep silent,” he said, feeling the warmth that had sustained him for the past hour slipping away. He struggled to catch it, but it eluded him. He glared down at Jessica, recognizing her as the cause of it. “I care for them well enough.”
“Do you?” she said. “Then why is it you starve them simply so you can hoard all their profits?”
“Starve them?” he echoed, puzzled.
“You’re working them to the bone!” she exclaimed. “All so you can rebuild a hall that shouldn’t have been torn down in the first place.”
“Be silent
,” he said. He put his hand to his head, wincing at the ache beginning there already.
“What was the point?” she pressed on. “Is it worth the lives you’re ruining, Richard? Is a new, bigger, more wonderful hall worth all the pain you’re causing?”
“Silence!” he exclaimed.
“Wasn’t the old one good enough?”
“I said—”
“Is human life so unimportant to you that you’d squander it to satisfy your own whims—”
“Be silent!” he thundered, stretching himself to his full height and lunging toward her.
And then events took a turn he never intended.
Jessica shrank backward—and for that he could not blame her, for he surely presented a most ferocious sight. He saw her stumble, watched her fall heavily against the foot post of his bed, and heard her cry out. She landed in a heap at the foot of his bed.
He stared at her as she sat up, blood trickling down the side of her face. He turned to look for what had cut her.
His spurs, looped carelessly over a splintering section of wood. He’d put them there in plain sight to remind himself occasionally of what he was supposed to be.
He took a step toward her.
“Jessica, by the saints, I never meant . . .”
She lurched to her feet. Before he could say anything else, she fled for the alcove. She pushed herself into a corner of it and stared at him as if she’d never seen him before.
He spun away as the chamber emptied of air. He gasped for breath as he stumbled to the door and outside. With his last shred of sanity, he locked the bedchamber door. He would apologize when she wasn’t so frightened.
He gained the garderobe, hung his head over the hole, and vomited. He wasn’t sure if it was the brew that made him so violently ill or the horror of what he’d almost done. All he knew was that his heaves soon became dry but he couldn’t stop them.
He’d vowed the day he left Burwyck-on-the-Sea eighteen years earlier that he would never become what his father had been. He would never drink aught but water and he would never hit another living soul. Kill them if he had to, but never strike them in anger.