A Little Fate

by Nora Roberts

  find no pleasure in the kill. My people need meat.”

  She handed the bow and quiver back to him, then trudged through the snow to where the stag lay.

  Kylar saw she’d taken it down, fast, mercifully fast, with a single shot.

  “Deirdre,” he called out. “Do you ask yourself how game, even so sparse, come to be here where there is no food for them?”

  She continued walking. “My mother did what she could, leaving a call that would draw them to the forest. She hoped to teach me to do the same, but it’s not my gift.”

  “You have more than one,” he said. “I’ll get the horse.”

  ONCE the deer was strapped onto the horse, Kylar cupped his hands to help Deirdre mount. “Put your right foot in my hands, swing your left leg over the saddle.”

  “There isn’t room for both of us now. You ride, I’ll walk.”

  “No, I’ll walk.”

  “It’s too far when you’ve yet to fully recover. Mount your horse.” She started to move past him, but he blocked her path. Her shoulders straightened like an iron bar. “I said, mount. I am a queen, and you merely a prince. You will do as I bid.”

  “I’m a man, and you merely a woman.” He shocked her speechless by picking her up and tossing her into the saddle. “You’ll do what you’re told.”

  However much she labored side by side with her people, no one had ever disobeyed a command. And no man had ever laid hands on her. “You . . . dare.”

  “I’m not one of your people.” He gathered the reins and began to walk the horse through the forest. “Whatever our ranks, I’m as royal as you. Though that doesn’t mean a damn at the moment. It’s difficult to think of you as a queen when you’re garbed like a man and I’ve seen you handle a bow that my own squire can barely manage. It’s difficult to think of you as a queen, Deirdre,” he added with a glance back at her furious face, “when I’ve held you in my arms.”

  “Then you’d best remember what that felt like, for you won’t be allowed to do so again.”

  He stopped, and turning, ran his hand deliberately up her leg. When she kicked out at him, he caught her boot and laughed. “Ah, so there’s a temper in there after all. Good. I prefer bedding a woman with fire in her.”

  Quick as a snake the dagger was out of her belt and in her hand. And its killing point at his throat. “Remove your hand.”

  He never flinched, but realized to his own shock that this wasn’t merely a woman he could want. It was a woman he could love. “Would you do it, I wonder? I think you might while the temper’s on you, but then you’d regret it.” He brought his hand up slowly, gripped her knife hand by the wrist. “We’d both regret it. I tell you I want to bed you. I give you the truth. Do you want lies?”

  “You can bed Cordelia, if she’s willing.”

  “I don’t want Cordelia, willing or not.” He took the knife from her hand, then brushed a kiss over her palm. “But I want you, Deirdre. And I want you willing.” He handed her back the dagger, hilt first. “Can you handle a sword as well as you do a dagger?”

  “I can.”

  “You’re a woman of marvels, Deirdre the fair.” He began to walk again. “I understand developing skill with the bow, but what need have you for sword or dagger?”

  “Ignoring training in defense is careless and lazy. The training itself is good for the body and the mind. If my people are expected to learn how to handle a blade, then so should I be.”

  “Agreed.”

  When he paused a second time, her eyes narrowed in warning. “I’m going to shorten the stirrups so you can ride properly. What happened to your horses?”

  “Those who left the first year took them.” She ordered herself to relax and pleased herself by stroking Cathmor’s neck again. “There were cattle, too, and sheep. Those that didn’t die of the cold were used as food. There were cottages and farmhouses, but people came to the castle for shelter, for food. Or wandered off hoping to find spring. Now they’re under the snow and ice. Why do you want to bed me?”

  “Because you’re beautiful.”

  She frowned down at him. “Are men so simple, really?”

  He laughed, shook his head, and her fingers itched to tangle in his silky black mane rather than the horse’s. “Simple enough about certain matters. But I hadn’t finished the answer. Your beauty would be enough to make me want you for a night. Try this now, heels down. That’s fine.”

  He gave her foot a friendly pat, then walked back to the horse’s head. “Your strength and your courage add layers to beauty. They appeal to me. Your mind’s sharp and cleaves clean. That’s a challenge. And a woman who can plant potatoes like a farmwife and draw a dagger like an assassin is a fascinating creature.”

  “I thought when a man wanted to pleasure himself with a woman, he softened her with pretty words and poetry and long looks full of pain and longing.”

  What a woman, Kylar mused. He’d never seen the like of her. “Would you like that?”

  She considered it, and was relaxed again. It was easier to discuss the whole business as a practical matter. “I don’t know.”

  “You wouldn’t trust them.”

  She smiled before she could stop it. “I wouldn’t, no. Have you bedded many women?”

  He cleared his throat and began to walk a bit faster. “That, sweetheart, isn’t a question I’m comfortable answering.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s . . . it’s a delicate matter,” he decided.

  “Would you be more comfortable telling me if you’ve killed many men?”

  “I don’t kill for sport, or for pleasure,” he said, and his voice turned as frigid as the air. “Taking a man’s life is no triumph, my lady. Battle is an ugly business.”

  “I wondered. I meant no offense.”

  “I would have let them go.” He spoke so softly that she had to lean forward to hear clearly.

  “Who?”

  “The three who set upon me after the battle had been won. When I was for home. I would have let them pass in peace. What purpose was there in more blood?”

  She’d already seen this inside him, and knew it for truth. He had not killed in hate nor in some fever of dark excitement. He had killed to live. “They wouldn’t let you pass in peace.”

  “They were tired, and one already wounded. If I’d had an escort as I should, they would have surrendered. In the end, it was their own fear and my carelessness that killed them. I’m sorry for it.”

  More for the waste of their lives, she realized, than for his own wounds. Understanding this, she felt something sigh inside her. “Kylar.”

  It was the first time she’d spoken his name, as she might to a friend. And she leaned down to touch his cheek with her fingertips, as she might touch a lover’s.

  “You’ll rule well.”

  SHE invited him to sup with her that night. Another first. He dressed in the fresh doublet Cordelia brought him, one of soft linen that smelled lightly of lavender and rosemary. He wondered from what chest it had been unearthed for his use, but as it fit well enough, he had no cause to complain.

  But when he followed the servant into the dining hall, he wished for his court clothes.

  She wore green again, but no simple dress of homespun. The velvet gown poured down her body, dipping low at the creamy rise of her breasts and sweeping out from her waist in soft, deep folds. Her hair was long and loose, but over it sparkled a crown glinting with jewels. More draped in shimmering ropes around her throat.

  She stood in the glow of candlelight, beautiful as a vision, and every inch a queen.

  When she offered a hand, he crossed to her, bowed deeply before touching his lips to her knuckles. “Your Majesty.”

  “Your Highness. The room,” she said with a gesture she hoped hid the nerves and pleasure she felt upon seeing the open approval on his face, “is overlarge for two. I hope you’ll be comfortable.”

  “I see nothing but you.”

  She titled her head. Curious, this
flirting, she decided. And entertaining. “Are these the pretty words and poetry?”

  “They’re the truth.”

  “They fall pleasantly on the ear. It’s an indulgence to have a fire in here,” she began as she let him escort her to the table. “But tonight there is wine, and venison, and a welcome guest.”

  At the head of the long table were two settings. Silver and crystal and linen white as the snow outside the windows. Behind them, the mammoth fire roared.

  Servants slipped in to serve wine and the soup course. If he’d been able to tear his gaze away from Deirdre, he might have seen the glint in their eyes, the exchanged winks and quick grins.

  She missed them as well, as she concentrated on the experience of her first formal meal with someone from outside her world. “The fare is simple,” she began.

  “As good as a bounty. And the company feeds me.”

  She studied him thoughtfully. “I do think I like pretty words, but I have no skill in holding a conversation with them.”

  He took her hand. “Why don’t we practice?”

  Her laugh bubbled out, but she shook her head. “Tell me of your home, your family. Your sister,” she remembered. “Is she lovely?”

  “She is. Her name is Gwenyth. She married two years ago.”

  “Is there love?”

  “Yes. He was friend and neighbor, and they had a sweetness for each other since childhood. When I last saw her she was great with her second babe.” The faintest cloud passed over his face. “I’d hoped to make my way home for the birthing.”

  “And your brother?”

  “Riddock is young, headstrong. He can ride like the devil.”

  “You’re proud of him.”

  “I am. He’d give you poetry.” Kylar lifted his goblet. “He has a knack for it, and loves nothing more than luring pretty maids out to the garden in the moonlight.”

  She asked questions casually so he would talk. She was unsure of her conversational skills in this arena, and it was such a pleasure to just sit and listen to him speak so easily of things that were, to her, a miracle.

  Summer and gardens, swimming in a pond, riding through a village where people went to market. Carts of glossy red apples—what would they taste like? Baskets of flowers whose scent she could only dream of.

  She had a picture of his home now, as she had pictures in books.

  She had a picture of him, and it was more than anything she’d ever found in a book.

  Willing to pay whatever it cost her later, she lost herself in him, in the way his voice rose and fell, in his laugh. She thought she could sit this way for days, to talk like this with no purpose in it, no niggling worries. Just to be with him by the warmth of the fire, with wine sweet on her tongue and his eyes so intimately on hers.

  She didn’t object when he took her hand, when his fingers toyed with hers. If this was flirtation, it was such a lovely way to pass the time.

  They spoke of faraway lands and cultures. Of paintings and of plays.

  “You’ve put your library to good use,” he commented. “I’ve known few scholars as well read.”

  “I can see the world through books, and lives through the stories. Once a year, on Midsummer, we put on a pageant. We have music and games. I choose a story, and everyone takes a part as if it were a play. Surviving isn’t enough. There must be life and color.”

  There were times, secretly, when she pined near weeping for true color.

  “All the children are taught to read,” she continued, “and to do sums. If you have only a window on the world, you must look out of it. One of my men—well, he’s just a boy really—he makes stories. They’re quite wonderful.”

  She caught herself, surprised at the sound of her own voice rambling. “I’ve kept you long enough.”

  “No.” His hand tightened on hers. He was beginning to realize it would never be long enough. “Tell me more. You play music, don’t you? A harp. I heard you playing, singing. It was like a dream.”

  “You were feverish. I play a little. Some skill inherited from my father, I suppose.”

  “I’d like to hear you play again. Will you play for me, Deirdre?”

  “If you like.”

  But as she started to rise, one of the men who’d helped serve rushed in. “My lady, my lady, it’s young Phelan!”

  “What’s happened?”

  “He was playing with some of the boys on the stairs, and fell. We can’t wake him. My lady, we fear he’s dying.”

  6

  AFRAID to move him, they’d left the boy covered with a blanket at the base of the stairs. At first glance, Kylar thought the child, for he was hardly more, was already dead. He’d seen enough of death to recognize its face.

  He judged the boy to be about ten, with fair hair and cheeks still round with youth. But those cheeks were gray, and the hair was matted with blood.

  Those who circled and knelt around the boy made way when Deirdre hurried through.

  “Get back now,” she ordered. “Give him room.”

  Before Deirdre could kneel, a weeping woman broke free to fall at her feet and clutch at her skirts with bloodstained hands. “My baby. Oh, please, my lady! Help my little boy.”

  “I will, Ailish. Of course I will.” Knowing that time was precious, Deirdre bent down and firmly loosened the terrified woman’s hold on her. “You must be strong for him, and trust. Let me see to him now.”

  “He slipped, my lady.” Another youth came forward with a jerky step. His eyes were dry, but huge, and there were tracks of tears still drying on his cheeks. “We were playing horse and rider on the stairs, and he slipped.”

  “All right.” Too much grief, she thought, feeling waves of it pressing over her. Too much fear. “It’s all right now. I’ll tend to him.”

  “Deirdre.” Kylar kept his voice low, so only she could hear over the mother’s weeping. “There’s nothing you can do here. I can smell death on him.”

  As could she, and so she knew she had little time. “What is the smell of death but the smell of fear?” She ran her hands gently over the crumpled body, feeling the hurts, finding so much broken in the little boy that her heart ached from it. Medicines would do no good here, but still her face was composed as she looked up.

  “Cordelia, fetch my healing bag. Make haste. The rest, please, leave us now. Leave me with him. Ailish, go now.”

  “Oh, no, please, my lady. Please, I must stay with my boy.”

  “Do you trust me?”

  “My lady.” She gripped Deirdre’s hand, wept on it. “I do.”

  “Then do as I bid you. Go now and pray.”

  “His neck,” Kylar began, then broke off when Deirdre whipped her head around and stared at him.

  “Be silent! Help me or go, but don’t question me.”

  When Ailish was all but carried away, and the two of them were alone with the bleeding boy, Deirdre closed her eyes. “This will hurt him. I’m sorry for it. Hold him down, hold him as still as you can, and do nothing to interfere. Nothing, do you understand?”

  “No.” But Kylar shifted until he could clamp the boy’s arms.

  “Block thoughts of death from your mind,” she ordered. “And fear, and doubt. Block them out as you would in battle. There’s too much dark here already. Can you do this?”

  “I can.” And because she asked it of him, Kylar let the cold