Ronan's Bride

by Gayle Eden

  He had wanted females before, fantasized in the manner it took to release his seed, and the tension. But he’d never in his life felt the war of tenderness, hunger, need, those compulsions to draw more moans and cries, more trembles, from one woman’s lips. What had built from yester eve, and what built watching her on the field, seemed to explode in the storm. It took everything in him to be mindful he was covered and masked for a reason. However, nothing, once he felt her softening, could have kept him from tasting her skin, suckling and kissing. From the core of him, he’d needed to taste that nectar.

  Ronan sat up, studying her in asleep, on her side, her upper torso nude, and the linen loose around her hips. He gazed at her longer, eyeing the contrast between the ermine and her white blond hair, her milk white skin. She had firm sinew under that silky and soft flesh, and was compact, her spine and legs strong, her small hands competent.

  Her jaw flexed in her sleep, as if she grit her teeth, and he traced the handsome bones, aristocratic mixed with a Norse strength. Her brows and lashes were snowy, so that when her eyes opened the aqua hue was breathtaking.

  Overall, he could see why men would think her the ideal, and why they would assume her soft, weak, and helpless. She was light and fair, delicate in height. However, as her climax was upon her earlier, he had felt an aggressive hunger in her. He had seen her train and fight, saw the steel in her soul when she refused to let the past rob the present, or the abuse torture her further.

  Ronan got his knees and folded the edge of the fur over to cover her body, before he turned and fixed the fire. He got up and doused candles, pulled the drain in the tub, which was fixed over the hole that emptied into the latrine pipes.

  Standing a moment more by the doors, his gaze took in the big bed; rich crimson hangings drawn back, warm flannel covered the mattress that plumped with down. It was tempting, inviting, yet he turned and went to his chambers, sliding in the bolt before he walked to the bed to undress.

  Shirt removed, he undid his boots, shucked both boots and breeches, staring a moment at his own fire, surmising Daykin had fed it recently from the fresh log there. He went to the bed and sat on the edge absently pulling the tie from his mane before unbuckling the mask. The bed was not boxed in but was high and large, repaired from one found in a sub chamber, and cleaned. He lay back on a long plump pillow, his nude frame bronze in contrast to flannel sheets, but not pulling the quilts up as yet.

  Sometime before sleep, he turned his head and eyed his armor, which gleamed, where Daykin set it, crimson with the helm, mask, gauntlets, mail and sword, on the sturdy benches, holding also plate pieces and guards. He did not fly his herald on the castle walls, as was custom. Under the circumstances. It was in the great hall below; along with the shields, he collected from those he conquered. Turning his head back, he closed his eyes knowing that emotions brought vulnerabilities to the surface. The more one attached himself to something, the greater the urge to keep it, protect it, and it soon became a part of who one was.

  Deep hours found his slumber intertwined with wraiths of the past. As a fist, it gripped him, forcing the smells in his nostrils, and emblazing vivid and tormenting images, before his eyes.

  * * * *

  Sefare jerked awake, pushing up swiftly and yanking off the fur. For a moment, she scarcely breathed, aware the fire died down, but listening for the sound that pulled her from slumber. She heard it then, muffled as it was through the dividing doors—cries and thrashing, raw and deep, a helpless cry.

  Scrambling to her feet, she seized the first thing at hand, a tunic and breeches, pulling them on; she headed for the adjoining door. It was barred to her.

  Stomach tight, she heard Ronan rasping; “Did you see his head, brother, and father’s head? It’s on a pike.” Then, “Don’t, Pagan, don’t hold me up. Christ’s mercy…I’ve killed you.”

  Breathing shallow, shaking, she ran for the hall entry and opened her door. Barefoot she went to Ronan’s—and came against Daykin.

  “Nay, My Lady.”

  “Let me in there!” She met his determined gaze, his boots planted wide and arms crossed. They could both hear the loud screams that echoed through the castle.

  “Nay. I will not.”

  She felt her skin crawling off from the echo of that scream. “Can’t you see he’s trapped in it? He’s...”

  “I won’t let you pass. He forbade it!” The young man grit his teeth, obviously moved too, and reacting to what she could hear, but loyal.

  Shooting him a hard look, she went back to her chamber, crouching down, sliding to the floor by the door that was barred. Sefare closed her eyes, head pressed hard against the wood. Her hands locked together between her knees.

  Ronan’s rasps filtered dark through the wood slabs, “All that blood… ‘Tis mine… No, do not lift me, Pagan. Pagan. No! Do not challenge him. Quiet now. Hush, the guard comes. He will be done with me soon enough. Do not get yourself a beating.

  Bloody buggering hell! Let him go…

  Pagan? I cannot feel my back… why are you weeping, stop it! Oh, brother… do not let me cry in front of him.

  “Look here! I have hid some bread. Not hungry…my guts hurt…”

  Hot tears ran down her cheeks as he cried out again. The timbered bed cracked and popped, as if he bowed up. His feverish mutter and murmur chanting “Look at Pagan….don’t think….don’t feel. Ah, God’s mercy, they are not done…not done. When will it end? Mother, Faith? No…hurry, blood! No heads on their bodies…blood, my feet…sticky. Hot and burning…

  Run, run Pagan, the horses come swift! Ruuuun!”

  Sefare clamped her hands over her ears, her own weeping hiccupping her body as he went on and on, over and over— begging to emerge from it all, to escape and at moments… to die.

  When he cried out, my face, my body…help me, ah God, pagan, we are afire! Later still, he raged, look at me, look at the monster!

  When the sounds of vomiting came, Sefare shook her head, rolling her own sweating forehead against the wood, her hands clawing and willing that bar to release.

  It did not.

  The silence, just before dawn, left a hollow coldness. She heard the scrape as Daykin entered. Heard him say gently, “‘Tis nothing My Lord, I am merely wiping sweat from your brow.”

  Sometime of his coming and going, she heard Ronan say; “My apologies, young Daykin. None should have to look upon me by obligation.”

  “‘Tis nothing, My Lord. A few scars. Nothing compared to lepers and cripples in the village. Nothing at all repulsing. Here is your morning drink. I expect the Celt desires your ear, they’ve some word from the scouts, and a poacher caught.”

  “I’ll meet him in the hall. Does it rain still? Cursed foul weather, eh?”

  “Only a drizzle, My Lord. But there is mud and mire all about.”

  After the boy left, Sefare climbed to her feet, every bone aching and feeling a pain that threaded through muscle and mind. Sefare padded to the bench and poured water from a pitcher into a bowl. She washed her face, hands trembling, stomach concave with tension. Sefare finished dressing, wearing wool trousers, soft hide boots, and a tunic of embroidered wool to her knees. She belted it and was seated by the window; shutters open to the drear of dawn, when the girl brought in her Khava and meal.

  As she murmured thanks, sipped, and before eyeing the clouds, she sensed even the servants were walking extra quiet, subdued. Doubtless half the castle folk and beyond had heard his loudest cries.

  Sighing heavily, Sefare noted the day breaking with no sun and heard the sounds from below; the animals, the guards cursing mud, and a mule braying stubbornly. Smoke wafted as pits were started. The ring of Isola’s hammer tinged in the distance. She arose when done, hands braced on the slab window niche, and peered past all beyond the castle wall.

  Shivering Sefare murmured, “Let it stay buried, do not let Guardi come for me. Ronan….I think I need him, his healing touch…. as much as he needs me.”

  Chapter Five
r />   In the lower hall, fully dressed, masked, wearing a long leather mantle, hooded as Ualtar’s was, Ronan propped his boot sole on the hearth’s base and his hand on the mantle, Listening, as the Celt, along with two of Sefare’s knights, reported to him.

  “The storm caught me in the woodman’s hut,” Sir Markus was saying. “The man I assumed was a poacher ran through the door shortly after. There we were, staring at each other. It took a moment for me to note no satchel over his shoulder for rabbits, and there was only a spyglass around his neck. One puny knife.”

  “Where’d you put him?”

  “I took him below,” Ualtar explained.

  You found something else?” Ronan eyed him knowingly.

  From inside his mantle Ualtar extracted a scrap of hide. “A crude map. Does it look anything like you understand?”

  Ronan held it to the firelight, seeing the embedded dye and studying it for some moments. He murmured when done, eyeing the men. “If I had to guess, it would be other spies. A relay, of messengers.”

  “Guardi,” Markus growled.

  Studying the man, somewhere in his late twenties with long nut-brown hair and swarthy skin, deep hazel eyes, and a mouth showing contempt, Ronan nodded. “He was ahead of my thinking. Must have followed, sent men as soon as you fled. Likely, they were at the Melee.”

  The knight sat down on the bench, the bulk of his muscle making it creak. “Though 'tis more a personal obsession than a battle for him, the family is large, the males tend to fight together.”

  He flickered his gaze away and murmured, “Your pardon, My Lord, but I don’t think he’d openly pursue her, because the family was ill pleased with the choice. I do not imagine that a rebelling and non-submissive woman is what he wants either. ‘Tis more that they treat all, men, slaves, hounds and beasts, with a notion that 'tis for them to declare the fate, the living, dying, punishment, of what they own.”

  “He does not own her!” Ronan snarled, ignoring Ualtar’s swift look his way.

  “He feels he owes her punishment, nonetheless.”

  “Let him dare!” Ronan’s fingers curled to a fist, his gray eyes icy behind the mask. “Let him come and risk it… I pray he does.”

  “”He’s enraged but calculating.” The other knight shook his head. “He has waited long and sent spies. You cannot outwait him. You’d be a virtual pris…” He flushed and looked into the fire.

  Ronan stared at his profile. “It takes not a fortress to keep what’s mine to protect, safe. I do not think he is stupid, nay. I imagine he knows he cannot breach this castle.”

  “What is left?” Ualtar said.

  Ronan murmured, “We go to him.”

  “No.”

  All heads lifted or turned to see Sefare who had spoken. She came the rest of the distance, looking at each face, before locking eyes with Ronan.

  “Do not. You have just cleared your family name and began a new life. As dangerous as it will always be, ‘tis a chance you deserve. In that land, they are nobility and the army and nobles… they can draw to them, should you start a war—is beyond imagining.”

  “Quiet your fear.” He grunted. “We have more stealth than that. Every man is, at some time, alone.”

  “Nay.” She shook her head. “For now, he cannot reach me. And I’ve no fear he ever could, with these men around me.” She waved to his chief warriors. “Find out if he has somehow put a petition against the marriage, or contested it. Did your man return?”

  “He’s likely dead,” Ualtar said blunt and cold. “I’ll send Fitz to see if there’s anything before the king.”

  Ronan nodding, pinning her with his gaze. “You can no more stand to be held here, than I can. Forced, to hide.”

  “You wake and exist every day knowing those you defeated likely plot and ponder how to murder you, and Pagan does,” she returned. “I’m not afraid. I will not cower here either. You have discovered what we waited here to discover. Where shall we call home?”

  Despite his anger, his lips curved just the slightest. “Do not get too far ahead of me, My Lady. We had planned the spring here for many reasons. We’ll see that plan through, though we must foray beyond these walls, and watch those watching us.”

  He straightened. “Continue your training. When ‘tis raining or else, make use of these chambers inside. Isola will be given an apprentice and helpers, so that she can train also, and meet the schedule unhindered.”

  He looked at Ualtar. “Have we one desiring to apprentice?”

  Ualtar laughed, as did the men. He said dryly, “Half your guards would trade sword or bow for hammer, given a chance to be next to that beauty. She’s not having them, as is her right, and I would instead pick from among the lads say…sixteen or so, who are of brawn and brains to assist her.”

  “Very well.” Ronan thought a moment, then, “Galfrid, is he yet on the night watch?”

  “Aye,” Markus intoned.

  “Bring him in for the planning. He is a swift rider, his coloring dark and few know him as my man. Five others….and someone to get word to Pagan. I want him alerted but need not his army. I do not think di Matteo that brave. We will break the links of his chain, bring as many as captured here, and plant our own information. The problem will be knowing who he has hired, for I’ve enough enemies who would give aide to his minions.”

  “Doing is better than waiting.” Markus stood and nodded to him, then to Sefare.

  As he left she said, “What will you do with the man below?”

  Ronan turned having prepared to leave. “Keep him. For now.” He turned again and strode out.

  Only Ualtar remained long enough to finish a flagon he had been drinking from. Gazing at that hard face, and the markings, she commented, “I’m sorry to have brought danger to him.”

  The Celt drained the flagon and set it down. His smile at her was wide and white. “He is not. Nor are we. Warriors and knights enjoy a challenge, and whether it be boar, fox or human, we are natural hunters.” Something deep and hard was in his eyes as he added, “killers if need be.”

  Sefare sat heavy on the bench when they left. Servants moved about, men came and went, lads going through the halls, around screens, and an occasional hound was brought in to seek out vermin, which may take shelter in the storms.

  A bell in the kitchens counted the hour. She arose to seek out the best place to hold their exercises, finding it in the right wing, an old sub stable that had slate floor and roof. Wiping cobwebs from niches she lit fat tallow and looked up at more webs swaged over iron rings and riveted contraptions. The area was a wide fifty feet by fifty, with slit, long windows high at ground level. Going along the niches, she removed dry torches to take for soaking, but had enough light to see the stalls, mere arched sections, were half fallen.

  Keeping her mind and body busy, Sefare found the troughs and using an iron poker prodded the wedge from the spigot. It ran full and she plugged it, then gathering the items needed, she began clearing the area, cleaning and flattening any uneven places.

  Sounds filtered down from the slit above, but she worked, diligent and hard, more from a need to not sit and wring her hands, and think too much. She was on her knees having rolled a beam against the thick wall when a servant brought her drink and food.

  The young male said, “We found the store cellar at last.” His expression wry. “Packed clear to the roof twas with roots, cheese, all manner of turnips, and the oddest thing…”

  “What?” She chewed the bread and meat.

  His face sobered. “The former servants. Or what was left of them.”

  She swallowed the bread thickly.

  He turned, shaking his head and saying, “Likely they were without wood and warmth during that harsh winter. Elder they were…” He picked up the torches to take with him and see to. “Can’t imagine what’s down there with the trespasser we’re holding.”

  When the door closed, she finished the wine and went back to work. Living was doing, life needed going about. Fate had a way o
f dealing its own surprises and it had nothing to do with one’s own pre-guessing. Being prepared however, helped to lessen the worst one found themselves in.

  * * * *

  For the next month, as Spring took hold, seeds sprouted and animals birthed, Ronan and his men grimly rode out and back, some staying in towns and villages, spreading along those tentacles shown on the map. He was aware that Sefare and Isola met daily and practiced, aware of the normalcy the workers kept, whilst he and Ualtar intercepted and questioned anyone his men captured.

  There were six in the dungeon by June, and after he questioned them, he turned them over to Sir Osburn, not asking how more information was gleaned but knowing the seasoned knight was wise and shrewd enough to be trusted.

  Once the worst of the spring rains ceased, though showers were a weekly expectation, he kept his word and rode with Sefare twice a week under a heavy guard. These excursions were not contained to the woodlands as they thickened, but they rode on to the winding river and near enough to see the hearth smoke from the nearest village, over the hills.

  It was a common sight now for he and the men to see Sefare in breeches. She always was gowned and sat at the Lord’s Table in her finer things, but aside from that, she had a dozen doublets, tunics, blouses, dyed boots and various styles of tunics that she wore. Another item always on her was her sword, whether across her back, or a dagger in her belt, at the meal.

  He and Ualtar had already witnessed Isola transforming a bit herself. The tall red head was invited to the Lord’s Table, and he guessed the velvet and dyed green and blue wools she wore, the richer hooded tunics or long split panel gowns and leggings, were payments in cloth that Sefare gave her.

  The women grew close. Though still distant from the men, who tried to court her, Isola was not so with Ronan or Ualtar. Nevertheless, Ronan discerned ‘twas because they did not treat her less than any of the men or women about.

  He had chosen her on the way, after observing her when they had stopped in a small township. He knew as well as Ualtar that she had her own past, her own reason that she stood out amid others. Men admired her beyond handsomeness, but susceptible as they were to their own human hungers, many could not see beyond her womanhood. Ronan knew that even Ualtar had more than a little attraction to her. The Celt wisely hid it.