The animal moved effortlessly, requiring no guidance, back the way he had come. He seemed to know where they were going. As the distance grew, Jessica began to note landmarks to assist in her eventual return, a trip she anticipated she would make on foot.
The horse’s easy lope became a canter as the distance between Jessica and her coops lengthened and the night deepened.
At first she welcomed the bite of the determined little breeze in her face, but after a while it became worrisome and she drew the cloak’s hood over her head and down to cover her eyes and nose. She had little need to see since her companion obviously had their destination in mind.
They traveled for what seemed like an hour as the breeze became wind. Clouds, in turn, played hide and seek with the lemony moon.
Her mother would assume the scullery maids had drawn additional duties at the manor house. Also, her mother knew Jessica’s lack of interest in keeping to schedules.
Still, she was her mother’s last child, subject to the overprotection of that position. She did not trouble her ailing parent without good cause. A man lost, perhaps dying on the road, qualified. But how far had they come? How much farther must they go to find him?
As the wind slapped tree branches overhead, Jessica wrapped the cloak more tightly and found comfort in the musky fragrance of the garment.
There were few travelers on the road, a half-dozen were afoot and not inclined to look up, or address a dark rider as they passed. Other riders were more interested in Sweetness than in the shadowy form in his saddle.
After her initial excitement, the perpetual rhythm of the horse’s hooves, her long day of work in the manor house and her wild flight through the woods took their toll. Jessica nodded only to jerk awake when Sweetness slowed his pace, accommodating her each time the rein slipped from her hands or she slid one way or the other in the saddle.
She roused wide-eyed, however, when her mount began high-stepping and sidling. Perhaps they were nearing his home. She had heard that horses often raced out of control when they neared their barns; therefore, she was puzzled when the huge animal slowed instead of charging ahead. He stopped altogether and turned a wide circle in the road.
Fully awake, Jessica gently applied her heels to his sides. He refused to go.
Without a step to aid her dismount, Jessica gripped the front and rear of the saddle, braced her weight on her hands, worked her legs to the same side of the horse, and then let herself drop. When her feet met the earth, she stumbled and grabbed a stirrup bar to keep herself upright.
Scoring the more-or-less successful dismount as another accomplishment, she looked at the horse, expecting guidance. His eyes rolled as he tossed his head and nickered, dancing sideways, but moving neither forward nor back.
She pulled the rein over his ears and down to lead him, but when she attempted to advance the direction they had been traveling, he balked.
She regarded him with some annoyance as he jerked his nose skyward and blew a loud whinny into the night.
“What is it?” she asked.
The horse bobbed his head up and down, making the hardware on his bridle jangle loudly in the eerie silence.
Cajoling, coaxing, Jessica turned him around and attempted to walk back the way they had come. Again Sweetness set his feet and refused.
Was he daft? She had come this far. She had no intention of simply abandoning this magnificent creature on a commercial road at night.
Tossing his head, he whinnied and pawed the ground.
Trees and brambles lined both sides of the road. Jessica shivered, feeling an ominous presence. Traveling any direction would be safer than standing in the middle of this deserted highway.
The huge horse shook his head and tamped the soft ground.
Jessica stroked his nose. “Come, Sweetness. Please. We need to be away from this place.”
Wind rustling nearby trees produced noises that sounded like human groans. Fearful yet curious, Jessica couldn’t help peering into the shadows beneath the swaying branches.
“All right,” she said, keeping her voice low to mask the panic inside. She swept off the cloak and anchored it behind the saddle, then sucked up her courage and stepped off the road to their left, the direction Sweetness indicated, squirreling in among the trees, tugging the now-docile animal along behind her.
Metal pieces on the horse’s bridle jingled as he followed, as obedient as a lamb. She found the familiar sound reassuring. She led him on, adjusting their course toward the moans that came more frequently and more audibly as she and the jingling, willing mount moved deeper into the wood.
The moans could be coming from an injured animal — a wolf or boar or even a bear recently roused from a winter’s sleep and hungry. Surely Sweetness would not follow if he sensed a predator. Of course, he was the same animal who had raced headlong down a footpath and might have broken his neck on the boulders if she had not waved him off. She probably shouldn’t rely too heavily on his judgment.
Several yards into the underbrush, Jessica came to a barrier of thistled shrubs. The peculiar moaning sounded as if it were just beyond.
Releasing the horse, Jessica dropped onto her hands and knees to push through the prickly undergrowth. Thorns snagged her shoulders and knifed through worn sleeves to puncture her flesh. She bit her lips to keep from crying out, yielding only an occasional whimper that mingled melodiously with the night birds cooing on their roosts, warbling to report her passing.
Wriggling, she burrowed on, listening for the human sound, tuning out the birds’ night calls. Pausing, holding her breath for silence, she heard the distinct sound of running water.
It was neither sight nor hearing, finally, but Jessica’s sense of smell that urged her forward. The familiar fragrance of the cloak drew her — a scent which had been both shield and ally during the long uncertain moments of her ride — into a small clearing.
In the dappled lighting beneath a willow, lay a bundle roughly the size and shape of a man’s head. She scrabbled closer, settling a foot away from the bundle.
“Hello.” She nudged the mound with two fingers. “Please tell me you are a human being and that you are alive.”
No response.
Her breath caught as she considered, then reworded her plea. “Please, please do not be a man dead.”
A groan prefaced movement. One booted foot rustled leaves six feet away as a ruddy face framed by a mop of pale, tousled hair, floated up from the debris at her fingertips. She scrabbled back.
His flesh looked mottled in the intermittent moonlight through the trees. The face mumbled a string of what might have been coarse language, before the man hiked himself onto an elbow. His eyes were open, but didn’t appear to focus. His voice emerged as a snarl.
“I can scarcely move my legs, my head is pounding, and my throat is on fire.” He paused. “Alive or dead? You pronounce.”
Jessica allowed a smile. If he were able to speak so of his situation, he must be better off than he sounded … or looked.
Her questions came rapid-fire. “What happened? Who are you? What would you have me do?”
His eyes rolled and he blinked but appeared confused. The spotty moonlight sporadically peeped from the branches overhead. Clouds swept the restless nighttime sky. A smudge on the man’s forehead ebbed and flowed in the shadows. The blemish might be blood seeping from a wound.
Another shadow, one she decided was facial hair, circled his mouth and made him appear at once sinister and provocative. A thin beard followed the line of his jaws from the goatee to sideburns in the fashion of the day. The man looked to be of unusual size, well conformed, and perhaps even comely.
Spurred by the ooze that trickled into his brow, Jessica leaped up, again aware of the sound of running water.
“I’ll be right back.”
The m
an flapped his free hand wildly at the emptiness between them, wheezing objections as she rustled beyond his reach.
Ducking, she wriggled through another span of undergrowth, gained her feet and found a brook not fifty feet from the man’s position.
The hem of her worn petticoat tore easily. She rinsed and wrung the scrap, let it soak, then squeezed it only a little as she regained her feet and scurried back to the man.
On her knees at his side, she pressed the dripping cloth to his lips. He clamped a huge hand onto her wrist as he sucked enough water from the rag to swallow twice before he spoke.
“Are you an angel?” The words were soft, but his voice sounded stronger. “Your song is a solo in the forest’s chorale.” He attempted a smile. “It trills, like a nightingale.” He sniffed the air. “Your fragrance, too, is cleansing.” He frowned. “Are you real?”
She smiled and wiped the cloth gently over his features, working around the beard, cleaning smudges that could be removed from his face. Other shadowy presences appeared to be bruises.
“No, I am not an angel, and this nest where you roost might be fit for a nightingale, but it is not Heaven.”
His features relaxed. “Good. The discomfort here is more than I expected of Heaven.” He arched an eyebrow. “Not as severe as I imagined Hell.”
She rewarded his jocular effort with a little laugh, but continued her ministrations.
As she brushed leaves aside and his person came into full view, Jessica was impressed by the man’s size. Nicely made, he had breadth to match his length, which spanned six feet or more from his head to his toes.
“What happened?” she asked, dusting debris from his shoulders.
“I objected to being robbed. I put a ball through one and my blade through another before someone bashed me in the head. My last clear memory is of pulling my feet out of the stirrups. I did not want death to catch me beneath the heels of my temperamental steed. The lack wits beat me some, but it was a halfhearted effort.”
“Thank a merciful God for that.”
He cleared his throat. “Of course.” His eyes didn’t follow as she crawled around him, raking away leaves and twigs. Instead, he gazed blankly into the emptiness where she had been. Interrupting her raking, Jessica again used the dampened rag to mop bits of blood from the man’s neck. The sticky liquid had saturated his neck cloth. Her touch startled him and he looked momentarily alarmed before he checked that reaction in favor of another.
“Thank you,” he said, turning his head in what appeared an attempt to address her face. “Vindicator is an exemplary war horse, but not at all adept as a nursemaid.”
The man groaned as he pushed all the way to a sitting position. His supporting arm trembled and Jessica pushed her shoulder closer to steady him and, perhaps, conserve what remained of his strength.
“Later, I roused,” he continued, as if eager to recall the happenings for his own hearing. “Men argued. It was full dark by then, the night like pitch, as it is now.” He rolled his eyes and waited, apparently giving her time to confirm or refute the darkness.
She glanced at the moon. For the moment, it illuminated their surroundings and gave form to shapes around them.
She didn’t speak, instead resumed her work with the cloth. She dabbed a splotch from his full lower lip. My, he seemed a handsome man. His eyes were deep set but squinting, perhaps against the headache he mentioned. The trim beard gave him a look of devil-may-care abandon and, at the same time, of authority.
Her swabbing reopened a wound at his hairline freeing blood to trickle anew down his forehead.
“I crawled into the weeds, thinking to hide until my sight cleared,” he said, seemingly oblivious to her ongoing ministrations. “I wanted my head to stop pounding and the world to cease spinning. I made for the sound of water. I didn’t get there, did I?”
“You are very close,” she said. Jessica was wiping scratches and scrapes on his hands, but neither those minor abrasions nor the cuts on his forehead were severe enough to be the source of the gummy dampness soaking his shirt collar and neck cloth.
Carefully, she brushed her hands over his face, which he moved with her touch. Her fingers rasped over the narrow beard as she ran them into the thick hair above his ears, searching for the source of the profuse bleeding that had begun again in earnest.
Suddenly her roving fingers slid into a warm moist well and the man shouted a barrage of what sounded like fluent French profanity.
“Be still.” Her voice rang with a competence she did not feel.
Changing position, scooting on her knees to get closer, Jessica steeled herself as her fingers cautiously tracked the blood back to a long, deep gash at the base of his skull. She traced the cut, trying to determine its length and depth.
“Have care!” He snapped the words, but remained still as she continued her probe, attempting to see with fingertips that came away dripping blood.
She shook out an unused strip of the dampened petticoat and dabbed at the gouge. When that scrap was soaked and unmanageably sticky, she tore a dry length from the garment.
“Be still,” she repeated, again assuming the authority of the one in charge while attempting to hide her own uncertainty.
He stiffened, started to speak, then, apparently reconsidered, and did as he was told. Perhaps he was a soldier, accustomed to taking orders. No, he wore fine clothes and the boots of a gentleman, not a uniform.
She wrapped the new length of cloth twice around his head and tucked the loose end into itself before checking the improvised bandage. The covering crossed one of his eyes then circled his crown giving him the look of a buccaneer. Jessica disregarded his evil appearance, satisfied that the wrapping covered the wound. She had secured it tightly enough to reduce the free flow of blood to an ooze.
Jessica crawled all the way around him, surveying, but found no other gashes, although shadows played tricks, occasionally making it appear there were more splotches, each of which she investigated despite the man’s grating objections. The wound on the back of his head looked to be the worst of it.
As she examined him, she attempted to revive their earlier conversation. “Has your head stopped pounding and spinning now?”
He squinted and cautiously tilted his head. “Not yet. Tell me, child, how did you come to be here in the dark? It is not yet morning, is it? We are still well hidden, are we not?”
Just as she had guessed, in spite of his denials, he realized the problem with his eyesight involved more than poor lighting. She would play along, not dispute his references to the darkness.
“Sweetness. Your horse brought me.”
“Not my horse. My horse’s name is Vindicator.”
“I see.”
“Are you part of a search party sent from Gull’s Way?”
“No, sir. I came alone.”
Her statement seemed to annoy him. “What do you mean?”
“I rode Sweet … the horse, sir.”
“My mount’s name is Vindicator. He comes from a long line of warhorses revered for their courage in battle. He is not fit for a woman to ride. It was not Vindicator who brought you here.” He sounded insufferably, unyieldingly certain.
She frowned into the pale face as he sat cross-legged, staring at nothing. His one uncovered eye shifted anxiously. Obviously he could not see and felt threatened by her nearness.
“I see no reason to argue, sir, over your mount’s name or lineage.” She liked sounding so mature and reasonable. “A large, gentle, black horse carried me to this place and … ”
“Are you an experienced rider?”
“No.”
“Well then, it’s exactly as I said. The animal that brought you here is not Vindicator. He has thrown every man who has attempted to ride him, including me, until we reached an understanding. In seven years in my
stables, Vindicator has accepted no other rider. I personally bred his dam to the finest stallion in all of Britain. Vindicator’s bloodlines rival those of the nation’s finest families.”
Jessica fought her vexation at this injured man who insisted on pursuing an inane argument about a horse.
“Please, sir, might we discuss your horse’s name, his ancestry, or his philosophy of life another time? We have more pressing concerns.”
His lips twitched and she thought he almost smiled, and then appeared to catch himself. “I am merely assuring you that the animal you rode to my rescue here tonight is not my horse.” The man suddenly puckered his lips and gave a sharp, clear whistle.
Beyond the foliage, the horse whickered.
The man scowled, bleated a dismissive, “Ahh,” and set his sightless eye back on his companion. “What is your name, child?”
She stumbled getting to her feet, but answered curtly. “My name is Jessica Blair, sir, and I am a woman grown, not a child.”
Eying him, she puzzled as another smile nearly escaped his constraint. She had real difficulties to overcome at the moment without wasting precious time speculating about this stranger’s mercurial smile.
Jessica stepped to her right just as a breeze sorted nearby leaves, masking the sound of her movement. The man’s face did not follow. As he continued looking sternly at the place she had been, he lowered his voice to a coaxing tone.
“You sound like an intelligent girl, Jessica Blair. Have you not learned that lies seldom improve one’s position?”
He tried to stand, but as he did so, his poor, injured head grazed a low limb. He flinched and bent, looking uncertain and thoroughly vulnerable.
Jessica wanted to be as truthful as possible with this man whom she now felt certain had no sight at all. “I lie, sir, only when I deem it entirely necessary.”
Still stooped, he turned abruptly, addressing the place where her words originated. “And stop calling me ‘sir.’” He hesitated, then lowered his voice to a kinder tone. “I am properly addressed as ‘Your Grace.’”
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