by Lynn Kurland
Christopher felt the light touch of rain against his face. Perfect. It wasn’t enough that Gillian had been wandering outside for two days. Now she would likely catch her death from the ague before he could reach her.
“Jason,” he said quietly.
“My lord?”
“Does Wolf appear to be following anything?”
“Nothing but your steed, my lord.”
Christopher cursed under his breath. “Damned useless hound,” he muttered. “Why didn’t I take that black runt your uncle Miles offered me two years past?”
“I believe you feared Wolf would have the pup for supper, my lord.”
Christopher grunted. “Likely so—”
“Wait, my lord,” Jason interrupted. “There’s a clearing ahead. Why, even Wolf seems to have taken an interest in it. I’ll follow him.”
Christopher reined in immediately. “Nay, let Colin go first. I’ll not risk you, Jason.” Saints, that was all he needed, to lose Robin of Artane’s beloved youngest son and have that blood on his hands too. “Colin, press on ahead,” Christopher called. “Bring us tidings posthaste.”
Christopher’s horse shifted restively under him; Christopher fingered the reins just as impatiently. This was the very last time he intended to pass a pair of days thusly. Saints, he had been a fool!
“She’s here!” Colin yelled.
Christopher swung down from his mount immediately. He felt the dips of the uneven forest floor beneath his feet and took a hesitant step forward. The toe of his boot caught the arch of a tree root and he froze. What he wanted to be doing was running toward Colin’s voice, but what he did was force himself to remain where he was. There was no sense in doing his own self in before he could rescue his wife.
“My lord,” Jason said, catching him by the sleeve. “Here, follow me.”
“Aye,” Christopher said. He put his hand on Jason’s shoulder and pushed his squire ahead of him.
“Low branches,” Jason warned.
Christopher ducked accordingly, then straightened when he felt Jason do the same. The going wasn’t as quick as he would have liked, but at least Jason wasn’t plowing him into anything solid and immovable.
“Fifty paces, my lord,” Jason said quietly. “There is a hut ahead.”
“Hurry then,” Christopher said, urging his squire forward. “See you any signs of other souls?”
“Nay, my lord. But the rain and mist obscures the surrounding trees. ’Tis possible there are others about, though surely Wolf would have given a warning. And I see Captain Ranulf sending his men out to scout in the shadows.”
“Perhaps she has rested here undisturbed,” Christopher said, praying it was the case.
“We’ll know soon enough. Ten paces, my lord.”
Christopher pushed Jason out of his way and ran for the direction of Colin’s voice. How many times he stumbled he couldn’t say, but finally his hands found the wall and then the doorway. He stepped inside, his hands up before his face, seeking.
“She’s here, Chris. Alive, but feverish.”
Christopher found Colin’s broad shoulder, then dropped to his knees and reached out, patting lightly until he felt Gillian.
“Oh, Gillian,” he said hoarsely, running his hands over her gently. “Colin, can you see if anything’s broken? Merciful saints above, she’s burning with fever.” He stripped off his cloak and put it over her. He slipped his arms under her back and knees and started to lift her. “Colin?”
“Nothing’s broken that I can tell. She looks hungry and cold. You’re too distraught to carry her. Give her to me.”
“Nay, just help me find my horse.”
“You can’t ride and carry her at the same time.”
“Then I’ll bloody well walk home!”
Colin sighed heavily, then took Christopher’s arm and turned him toward the door. “The doorway’s thin, so mark how you carry her that you don’t bump her head.”
Christopher soon found himself flanked by Colin and Jason. They led him quickly back to his mount. Christopher was grateful for the aid. It was all he could do to keep hold of Gillian’s limp form and not sink to his knees and pray. Even so, he prayed as he walked. Gillian shouldn’t have to suffer for his foolishness.
“Here,” Colin said, “give her to me and mount up.”
“I will carry—”
Colin growled in frustration. “I’ll merely hold her while you mount. Now, let me have her!”
Christopher relinquished his wife unwillingly, then mounted and held down his arms. He lifted her up, frowning over the lightness of the burden. He would have to see her better fed.
He gathered her close and tucked her head under his chin to shield her from the rain.
“Home, lads,” he said hoarsely. “Quick as may be.”
The company didn’t move fast enough to suit him. There was little he could do to speed things along, for it wasn’t as though they were racing over open ground. How Gillian had managed to wander off into the forest some two miles north, he couldn’t have said. ’Twas obvious she had lost her sense of direction. At least she’d found herself shelter instead of finding herself in peril. Christopher shoved away thoughts of all the dangers she could have run afoul of. That she’d stumbled into a deserted hut was indeed something to be grateful for.
She wasn’t moving, though, and that unsettled him greatly. She didn’t stir even when he shifted her in his arms. He closed his eyes and rested his cheek against her hair.
“Hold on, Gillian,” he whispered. “Almost home.”
It seemed hours before his mount was trotting over the stone bridge to the keep. Christopher allowed Colin to take Gillian long enough for him to dismount, then he retrieved his bride and made for his bedchamber, Jason close on his heels.
“Build up the fire, lad, while I put her to bed.”
“Of course, my lord. Shall I fetch the leech?”
“Nay,” Christopher said, laying Gillian down on his bed. “I can heal her well enough myself. If I need aid, you’ll give it to me.”
“Shouldn’t I at least seek a woman from the village?”
“Nay, I’ll not trust Gillian to some village witch.”
Christopher stripped off Gillian’s soaked slippers and stockings. Her feet were like ice. He covered them with a blanket, then made short work of stripping off her remaining clothes. The rest of her limbs were just as chilly as her feet. If he hadn’t felt the pulse at her throat, albeit a weak one, he would have thought her dead.
“Hot wine, Jason, as quickly as you can see to it.”
Christopher set to chafing his lady’s feet. Though it brought a slight bit of warmth to her toes, it did nothing for the rest of her. She continued to shiver from the fever and the chill. Christopher almost bellowed for Jason to hasten when he heard his squire rush into the chamber.
“Your wine, my lord,” Jason panted.
Christopher took it and knelt down by the side of the bed, slipping his hand under Gillian’s neck. He lifted her head and placed the cup of wine against her lips.
“Drink,” he said, tipping the cup up. Gillian’s teeth chattered badly enough to make forcing the wine into her mouth impossible. Christopher swore and pulled the cup away. “Saints, I can’t see what I’m doing.”
“Perhaps you should warm her yourself,” Jason suggested, taking the cup. “I never lack for a place to lay my head. I like to think it is because of my skill between the sheets, you know, but I daresay ’tis because of the heat of my body.”
Christopher smiled dryly. “Perhaps that might be the thing to do after all. See to the fire, then fetch some broth for my lady and something hearty for you and me.”
“Aye, my lord.”
Christopher stripped off his clothes and slid under the blankets next to his wife. Had his body had any notions of reacting to her nearness, it was disabused of them the moment he drew Gillian’s icy flesh against his. He shivered right along with her, gritting his teeth as he tucked her cold hands ag
ainst his chest. He rubbed his palm over the backs of her legs, then started on her back.
It was then that unbidden and certainly unwelcome tears stung his eyes.
His fingers told him what his eyes would never be able to. Her back was covered with the scars from the lash. Saints! Her father could have bruised her with a switch and not left any marks. But this, this flogging! Christopher was torn between weeping and roaring. What had given the man the right to take a lash to an innocent child’s back? At that moment, Christopher vowed to see Gillian’s sire repaid for his treatment of her. The saints only knew how he’d manage it, but manage it he would, if it took him the rest of his life.
It did no good to think on it presently, though. Anger would only sap his strength and his strength was better used tending his wife. He held her close with one hand and rubbed her back lightly with the other. Soon he wasn’t shivering and neither was she.
When Jason returned, Christopher ate with one hand and kept Gillian pressed against him with the other. His worry stole his appetite, but he knew that tending his wife would take all his strength so he forced himself. And when he was finished, he sent Jason away and wrapped his arms around Gillian again. Slowly her flesh warmed and Christopher’s worry eased. He tucked her face against his neck and closed his eyes.
Immediately, his instinct for self-preservation reared up and bellowed for him to leap out of bed and run while he could. It reminded him that he didn’t need a woman to complicate his life, especially a woman who would be as much trouble as Gillian surely would be.
He pushed the blanket away and started to rise.
“Nay.”
He froze, fully expecting Gillian to start screaming once she discovered she was naked and so was he.
Instead, she merely snuggled closer to the shoulder he hadn’t managed to remove from beneath her head. The little sigh of relief that escaped her was the killing blow to his bloody common sense.
With a sigh of pure resignation, he lay back down, pulled the blankets up over his shoulder and wrapped his arms around his wife.
It was going to be a very long night.
twelve
GILLIAN SNUGGLED MORE DEEPLY INTO THE WARMTH OF the blanket. “Berengaria?” she whispered. “Did you put another blanket over me?”
“Who is Berengaria?”
The deep voice startled her, then she remembered there had been none others about her but the three women.
“Why, you’re the woman who found me and helped me. You’re changing your voice like that in jest, aren’t you?” She smiled, in appreciation of the humor. “My thanks for the covering. It feels as if it’s been warmed near the fire.”
“Ah,” the voice stammered, then coughed. “Er, I’m pleased you’re soothed,” it said, sounding very raspy in its high tone.
“Why, I think you’ve caught a cold, my lady,” Gillian said. “Perhaps you should have one of the others make you a potion. But not Magda. Is it true she burns everything?”
“Ah . . . um . . . aye, lass.”
Gillian burrowed deeper into the warmth. “I feel so safe,” she whispered. “You know, this is the safest I’ve felt since those first few nights in my lord Christopher’s hall. Do you know, I’d never felt so safe before then? At Warewick, my father forbade me to bolt my bedchamber door against him. The times I tried, he broke it down, just as Christopher did. Only Christopher didn’t beat me. My sire always did, and so soundly I couldn’t move—oh,” she exclaimed. “These blankets are suffocating me!”
The blankets loosened their hold and Gillian gasped in a breath. By the saints, they were strong!
She tried to lift her hands to push the quilt away, but she was being held too tightly. That made it all the more confusing. Was it Berengaria who spoke to her or did the blanket who had its arms wrapped around her have a voice? She knew if she could have opened her eyes, she would be able to tell the difference, but she was too tired to do so.
“You know,” she said, with a deep sigh, “I truly didn’t want to leave Blackmour. I know ’tis a most imposing and stern keep, but I daresay I admired it from the first moment I saw it, when Colin let me stop and look. He complained loudly about allowing me the boon, but at least he didn’t hit me. He frightened me badly, though.”
“He’ll be repaid,” Berengaria’s voice rumbled; then she coughed. “I mean, he’ll be seen to,” she continued, in her high, hoarse voice.
“I wouldn’t, were I you,” Gillian said. She stopped trying to force her eyes open. The warmth surrounding her was far too enjoyable to interrupt it with the sight of what was surely a crude hut. Berengaria likely couldn’t manage anything else. “You see, I don’t fear Colin. Jason told me Colin is afraid of heights, and I’m not. Should he shout at me, I’ll simply flee to the battlements.”
“Does it not occur to you,” Berengaria said, sounding rather annoyed, “that your lord might be capable of seeing to him?”
Gillian hesitated, realizing the truth of the matter.
“He wouldn’t bother. You see, he doesn’t want me,” she admitted. “I cannot fault him for it, for I am ugly and don’t possess a smidgen of courage. I know he didn’t wish to wed me and I cannot fathom why he did so, unless he was forced.”
“Now, Gillian—”
“’Tis true,” Gillian insisted. “He would not want me of his own will. Not that it matters if he ever did want me. He has sent me away.”
“But—”
“And even though he has sent me away, I won’t go back to Warewick. My sire will kill me if I return.”
“You aren’t going anywhere, girl.”
“I only wish that were true,” Gillian said. “You see, all I was trying to do was make Christopher need me. I heard the knights talking about how well Alice pleased them and I knew she could help me please Christopher so he would keep me.”
“Christopher is a fool.”
“Well—”
“He is a fool,” Berengaria repeated. “He should have listened.”
Gillian knew she should have defended her husband, but she couldn’t help but agree with Berengaria. She could have explained it all well enough if Christopher had but given her the chance.
The tension began to slip from her, mostly because of the blanket who stroked her back soothingly. Perhaps Berengaria was a witch. Witches were surely the only ones who owned blankets with arms.
For the first time in days, she began to feel a true sense of peace. So this hadn’t been the rescue she’d always wanted; it suited her well enough.
“Do you know,” she ventured, “I used to dream of being rescued?”
“Did you now?”
Berengaria’s voice was sounding hoarser by the moment. Gillian promised herself she would rise and fetch the woman something to drink just as soon as she found the strength.
“Aye, I did,” Gillian answered. “Especially when my father would shout at me. He did that often, you know. There were times I think it gave him greater pleasure to rage at me and watch me cower than it did to beat me. I always feared him more when he shouted than when he was striking me, for when he shouted, I would imagine how bad the pain would be.”
She paused.
“Somehow the pain was always worse than I had imagined it.”
“God damn his soul to Hell.”
Gillian nodded, thinking those words a bit harsh for such a kindly old woman to say, but having to agree with her.
“Afterward, I would dream. You know, I think I have a fine imagination, if the tale were to be known.”
“I daresay I’d have to agree with you.”
“Shall I tell you of my rescuer?”
“Oh, please do.”
Berengaria’s tone was very dry. Perhaps she heard so many maids babble of their dreams that it was all she could do to stomach one more.
“He was tall and fair haired,” Gillian said, “and so painfully gentle that even the thought of his kindness made me weep. He would appear at the hall just when my sire was raising hi
s hand against me and force him to stop. Then my knight would gently invite me to be his bride. He would be quiet and patient, never making quick moves to startle me, never giving me any reason to fear him. He would have understood that I needed gentleness and understanding. He would have asked to do my bidding in all things, that he might never hurt me in any way.”
“And you would have run roughshod over him inside a fortnight,” Berengaria growled.
Berengaria’s words tickled her so, Gillian laughed. “Somehow, I think that might be true.”
“So, Blackmour is not at all to your liking, is that it?”
Gillian hesitated. Berengaria was starting to sound almost as curt and annoyed as Christopher.
“That cold in your voice is troubling you greatly, isn’t it?” Gillian asked. “Should I fetch you something for it?”
“Nay,” Berengaria snapped, “you can answer my question.”
“I thought you liked Christopher,” Gillian retorted, a bit stung.
“What I think isn’t important.”
“Then what could it possibly matter what I think?”
Berengaria swore. Or the blanket swore. Gillian wasn’t sure who was who, but she suspected it was the blanket who had such a foul tongue.
“It matters, wench, because I say it matters. Now, tell me what you think of the dimwitted arse.”
Now, that surely had to be the blanket talking. Berengaria held Christopher in high esteem. The blanket obviously had no such illusions about the Dragon of Blackmour.
“He is not dimwitted, though I will grant you, Blanket, he is dreadfully stubborn. He isn’t at all what I had expected, nor what I had dreamed about.”
The blanket’s soothing hands stopped their motion.
“I can see how he wouldn’t be.”
“Oh, it isn’t because of his blindness,” Gillian said quickly. “Though I grieved for him because of it, I wasn’t unhappy. At least he would never have to look at me, see my scars or my ugly face. Nay, ’tis that he is so harsh and ungentle. He despises me so. When I understood that he could send me away if the marriage weren’t consummated, I knew he likely would.”