by Gayle Eden
Ronan looked back at Sefare. He took her hand. Next, he put it on the hilt. “Next time, wear a guard on your wrist. Not tight, but enough for support until you grow used to it again.”
“I will.”
He stepped close, having her against him, nearly under his shoulder as he kept his hand over hers, and swung the blade. “You are stiff, trying to employ the weapon separate from your body. Though you are light, you cannot think of the arm and sword separate. Step and move with it.”
For some moments more, he swung that way, using a free hand on her back and side to move her with the arc and thrust. Though serious with his intent, he was also too aware of the flowery scent and feel of her.
He stepped back, leaning against the wall again and saying, “Again, Isola, only this time, have Sefare come at you.”
The woman stood and nodded. She took up the defense and smiled at Sefare as she began an attack. It sounded worse than it was, and there was some arm jarring and blades meeting. Moreover, there was enough hits to count were it a real battle.
A bell rang. Isola called a halt. “I’ve work, My Lady.” She took Sefare’s hand. “Though I would rather stay, I must earn my bread.” She grinned a bit at Ronan, long strands of her wine hair loose and falling over her handsome face. “She is quite good. Merely rusty.”
The Smith left, taking the sword Sefare had thought she would choose. Ronan silently watched Sefare wrap and tie them again. When she was done and leaned against the wall, across from him, sipping water from the skin, he said quietly, “It is more than wielding a sword. You must have endurance, and be flexible. Have you another hour?”
“I have the whole eve.” She nodded and regarded him. “I have all the time needed for this. I would never have stopped, given the chance. As ‘tis, the years show, rather badly.”
“Come.”
She dropped the skin and came to him.
“Give me your hands.”
She offered them. Ronan covered her fists with his whole hand. As he applied pressure, she held his gaze, did so to the point her face sweated, when it became pain, she bent both arms at the elbow.
He let go and murmured, “Hurt?”
“Aye.” She laughed and winced. “All the way to the shoulder.”
“Come to the yard—bring Isola if you wish, and watch the men train. Find something equal to it, but not at the weight, to get muscle flexible and to strengthen again. Every movement of the fight can be agony if your body and arms are not used to it.”
She nodded and flexed her fingers.
Looking at him. Sefare said softly, “Lord John had means to do that. Before he let us have blades at all, we used sticks. However, Illara and I had to run, to jump and flip, and carry burdens half the day. He would laugh at times and shake his head, because Illara would push herself too hard.”
“And you?” Ronan searched her face, taken by how it changed when she reflected on a good memory. God’s truth, beyond beauty, she was a fascinating woman. For a man who had never allowed himself to be close to one—until Illara, and still that was not like…this…
“He would call me, little star, only in another tongue.” Sefare was saying, “He bragged to my father, who though he loved me, thought the thing an indulgence only. I was an apt student, but lacked aggressiveness. In those days, I had no anger in me. He said I was bright and quick.”
His gaze captured hers. “I would say a cool head conquers in battle. And ‘tis true. But anger can fuel beyond what the body can endure.”
She nodded.
He went to the swords, unwrapped, and looked through them, then wrapped them again. “Take these back, and return.”
She did, and whist she was gone, Ronan sat against the wall, in the cool space. He wondered how to train her without touching her. How to touch her, look at her, without being stirred. He could not summon his anger at it—because it made no difference. He could feel the anger, and still feel his body and senses stir when around her.
She entered again, and for the first few steps, he saw the outline of her torso, thanks to sunlight behind her. The slack in the linen shirt allowed him to see her tapered waist. The trousers fit snug, laced in front. She had slim hips, a rounded backside. Too well, he noted, as she drew close, she had shallow breasts that though the linen covered, did not prevent the nipples from prodding.
He stood and for a moment forgot why he had her return—forgot all—save that she was Sefare and lovely and his body was tight, blood warmer, heart beating deep and fast.
“Is something amiss?”
He blinked and realized she was staring at him, searching his face behind the mask.
“Nay,” he answered gruff. Then, telling himself he was mad, he said, “Go through the exercise Lord John showed you, without a weapon.”
She nodded and he sat down again, more because he felt off balance, but also to seriously observe. He was attending as she began movements similar to Illara’s. It was the same, making a small target, using litheness and speed, more graceful than lethal, though it served the same purpose.
Somewhere in watching, he again recognized her as a woman, female…his eyes wondering to the curve of her jaw, the small of her back, the glisten on her throat when she turned his way. Those were things he had never observed up close, never realized were stirring.
Focused, she ignored when her hair grew damp on her nape and brow.
Ronan could not.
When she stopped, breathing hard, and facing him, a race of hunger shot through him hard and fast enough to evoke another mental image; moist skin, parted lips, breathing hard…it was easy for him to equate it with sex.
Just when Sefare noticed the intensity, he did not know, but she did, and he knew it. For a moment, Ronan did not, or rather could not, mask it, and it doubtless was showing in his eyes.
Sefare wet her dry lips and suddenly turned from him, keeping her back that way while she drank from the wine skin.
Eyeing that slim back, the shirt damp, clinging to her skin, Ronan saw something more—something that twisted his guts.
“He flogged you.”
Sefare stiffened and whirled around, her eyes large and stark. She backed toward the wall until plastered against it. Arms across her middle, she shook her head.
Ronan took a step toward her, another, before stopping because she dropped her gaze.
He murmured, “He flogged you, Sefare?”
“Nay.” She sounded choked as she stared at the ground, squeezing herself with her arms. She said between her teeth as if speaking was painful, “They had a room in the topmost of the tower, with a contraption the women were taken to. An altar-like structure, with horns, which we knelt and clasped. There were ties to keep your hands fixed there. I was not always taken there."
She drew in a breath, “More oft than not, he simply threw me on the bed and sat astride. But aye—t’was there I got the scars. The weapon was made from reeds or rushes. I know not.”
Ronan dared another step, and grasp her chin, lifting her head, forcing her to meet his eyes. “What else?”
She closed her lips tight a moment. Then seem to find her inner strength again, “And will you tell me of every suffering on the road to the tower—every blow and abuse then and after?”
“Nay.”
“Neither do I wish… to live it again.” She was harder in her stare. “He beat me. It matters not if it was bare handed or else. It matters not what other means he used to do harm—it was done.”
Ronan understood that. Though he wanted to know simply because he was aware that having Pagan with him then meant he had someone who knew, someone who needed no telling, but who was witness and shared it. It made some difference. Yet the woman before him, her eyes holding the memories—defiant, somehow determined, to give it nothing more of herself to it—touched something in him too.
Unthinking his thumb brushed over her cheek. He husked, “He is dead and rotting. He cannot harm you anymore.”
Sefare wet her lips. �
��This, I know.”
Ronan fought the urge to enfold her in his arms, to embrace her with his strength. He was aware that she flinched. But not, from his touch, as he was remembering what she had said, about his eyes—and the mask. Such dangerous thoughts, combined with the emotional moment, and his attraction to her, set off a war inside him.
They were locked in that moment for some time— until a noise from the yard seem to shatter it. He dropped his hand and looked in that direction, seeing the watch changing that marked the evening hour.
“I think I will soak and take supper in my chamber,” she murmured and brushed past him to leave.
Ronan stared, letting her gain several steps ahead, before he caught up, and emerged with her. The day seemed too bright, the space too wide, too populated for some reason. Ronan was conscious it was more his internal state than reality—that intensity that lingered.
She turned and entered the keep. He went on, to gather his things from the exercise yard, too perceptive that they had both exposed something to each other that could not be erased.
He sat on the wall past sundown, wrestling with images, her beauty—the scars, the image of that torture room, and of a man twice her size pinning her down. He no more understood that compulsion to abuse women, one’s wife, than he could reconcile his own harsh fate.
It hung with him, a miasma, during his return and bathing, dressing in the black breeches and boots, a tunic of light gray flannel. He heard the lads filling a tub for her. One of the female servants was speaking, after bringing up a tray. He smelled the Khava brew she enjoyed. Which he too liked.
Ronan sat on the newly finished bed, staring at the stone floor. His skin felt alive, his blood too warm, his mind going where it would. When he arose finally, realizing the great hall was likely full and food served, his steps led him first to the door between their chambers. Eyes closing, his mask covered forehead leaned on the wood. He recognized the sound of weeping when he heard it.
Reaching up, his palm flattened on the surface. For once, in manhood, he felt impotent and at a loss. He had set the wall between them, and fate had scarred him far more than she was marred. He knew the betrayal went beyond beatings, to an intimacy that he had only witnessed—and never partook of. Thoughts went through his head, a knowledge that he could gain her trust, even play the role of friend and protector—but he was her husband by law, and he was a normal man under the flaws of flesh.
Why torment himself…
The weeping stopped. He detected the splash of water, the sound of bathing. Ronan pushed away and went below, eating little, distracted and ignoring Ualtar’s curious looks, before he finally left the hall to spend most of the night with the guards on the wall.
* * * *
The next noon, Sefare showed up on the wall of the exercise yard, with Isola. The briefest glance passed between herself and Ronan, who was leaning against the wall a ways up, observing. A pact, she surmised, to pretend nothing more than the training had passed between them yester eve.
Isola watched the men with interest, saying, “That Welshman there, he is famous in his own right. I heard that an injury took him from the Tourney lists, but you’d never know it, seeing his skill and agility now.”
While observing the man, Sefare listened to Isola describe weapons, shields, talk with depth and knowledge of where the weapons were forged and how, and the different uses of some. A cart just at the gates held a mound of them, from cross bow, bow and axe, to spiked mace and scythes. They were both awed when Ualtar took up his axes and began flipping and throwing them, hitting the target head on, time after time.
Isola looked at her and they exchanged a smile when he was through, a slight shake of head.
When the Celt did much the same with daggers, Sefare intoned, “I think the performance is for us.”
“Aye.” Isola laughed. “He’s brash, but with good reason.”
When most of the seasoned men were done, a few of the younger lads entered the lower gate. Sefare observed Ronan’s manner with them. A few had apparently never handled more than plow or hoe, and he worked with them patiently, his big-gloved hand resting on their shoulder or a very short lad, his hand atop that boyish head.
“‘Tis a wonder any tenderness was left in him, after what he suffered.”
Sefare did not have to ask whom. “Aye. I cannot imagine surviving it.”
The woman looked at her. “You have separate beds?”
Sefare stared at Ronan still. “You must have heard why he wed me.”
“Aye, but I didn’t think you the sort to shun him as other’s do.”
“It’s not that.” Sefare finally looked from Ronan to meet those tawny eyes. “It is my own past, and asides, we are strangers.”
“He’s just a man. Under it all.”
Sefare swallowed. “I know.”
The woman touched her shoulder, but before they could talk further, Ronan drew their attention and summoned them below. They were directed to stand with the younger lads, and then went through the center of the arena—an area with the implements for strength and dexterity training.
Dressed in soft-soled boots, a tunic and trousers, for the next hour Sefare put all out of her mind to suffer with the others, to heft stones, run a gauntlet, and jump objects.
She was put with a lad, and the Smith with another, and with sticks, they fought; suffering blows when they missed that were mere taps.
Through it all Ronan’s voice called out direction, scolding, praise, and a few times, he laughed. When the sound captured her attention and she looked at him, Sefare got a whack from the lad in front of her, and swiftly went back to the seriousness.
Isola had to leave them. She was busy repairing everything from saddles to shields, and making progress on an iron cover for the great hall hearth that apparently smoked up the hall when lit.
The evening drew, and eventually the lads were gone. Sefare stood, catching her breath, watching Ualtar reload the wagon and pick up items, clearing the yard.
She knew, heard his tread, and sensed him, when Ronan stood by her shoulder. He nudged it, and she looked up.
He was holding a deep gourd of water. Sefare took it, drinking all of it before handing it back. He tossed it in the nearby pail and as Ualtar took the cart out said, “You’ll feel sore on the morrow, but ‘tis better to keep at it, work through it.”
“Aye.” Sefare turned and followed him. He strode back toward the far wall, where her forgotten pouch waited. She had brought food and forgotten it.
Half way, they both stopped, noting a sudden darkness. She looked toward the sky as he did, seconds before it opened up, and a deluge hit them. The rain had her hunching her shoulders, the downpour so thick that it felt as pelting stones on her head.
“Sblood.” He took her arm and they hurried forward. Nevertheless, the packed soil in the yard made for rivers and slickness, mud that had her sliding a time or two.
His chuckle sounded loudly when she went down hard, her boots just flying out. Because she grabbed his arm, he was pulled to his knees over her. Sefare laughed at the comedy of it, because it was bloody cold rain and muddy.
She had a difficult time getting to her feet, even with his help.
Thunder boomed, lightening sizzled, and he called, “I’m less apt to fall.” Just moments before he stood and picked her up. She screamed with hilarity, because he carried her not in his arms, but thrown over his shoulder.
Ronan ran with her, across the yard, leaping up and using one hand to pull them up the wall.
Having let her fall away, onto the soaked ground, she was still laughing, trying not to drown in the rain when he stood up again.
There was amusement in his voice as he shouted, reaching his hand down, “Hurry. We should make it to the kitchens...”
She reached up grabbing his hand, her clothing soaked and legs only half-able to keep up as he ran in that direction. Sefare was slid, half pulled around him when they reached the overhang, just back of the old stru
cture, her back against the wall, his to the open gray curtain of rain.
They had to nearly stand facing, thigh to thigh, to share the dry space.
Dragging her hair back, skimming the rain from her face, Sefare looked up and met his downward gaze. “From whence came that? I know ‘tis spring but—”
“Ualtar swore he smelled a storm this morn. But I scoffed at it.” He braced a hand above her head, using his other to swipe water that ran over the brow of the mask into the eyeholes.
Face upturned, Sefare was both aware of the chilly cold, of being wet, and that though he was also, his long sleeved leather shirt wet, there was a heat from him that reached her.
“It will be good for crops, the wells and ponds…”
“Aye but we’ll be wading mud for days.”
She wet her lips and saw his hand pause in the middle of lowering, his eyes on her mouth. Tension seemed to explode on the next rumble of thunder, the sound of rain was deafening, and the shell roof drains pouring thick around them.
She lowered her eyes a second, seeing the space between his shirt ties and the mask, a space he normally covered that though thick scarred was brown and sinewy. When she thought to drop it further, it was only with the knowledge that he was broad and muscled, and with a sense of breathing his scents, warmed and keeping her warm. Sefare flickered her gaze up, seeing he’d watched her, absently aware his sensual mouth was a bit darker as if he’d scraped his teeth over his lip.
She jumped slightly at the next boom. Gaze unbroken, his eyes were a smoke gray, rimmed with raven lashes that were thick. She breathed shallow, too rapid, and unable to help it.
There was no mistaking the source of the tension, the sensual rawness of it. His nostrils flared slightly, reminding her of her own damp scents. He seemed both tense and inwardly vibrating with what his eyes could not hide.
Evening hour, instead of simply the storm, was closing the darkness down upon them. Before the pitch of a cloud-filled night sky enveloped them, she witnessed his head slowly descending. Closing her eyes, her breath rushing through her nostrils, she felt the warm stir of his, moments before velvet lips brushed her own. Her hands pressed to the stone beside her hips.Thick black around them, the roar of hard rains, the smell and mix of cold and warm scents converged.