For that child, still shrouded in the mystery of his mother’s womb, in circumstances so like his own, Henry would kill.
He rolled Lucas, closed his mouth over the animal’s jaw. Lucas’ back legs ceased their helpless kicking, and he whined his forfeit. Henry drew blood, just to be certain the yield held once he released him then let him go to stagger to his feet and slink away.
On the other side of the fallen tree, the girl lay whimpering in the dirt, her arms pulled to her chest defensively. She did not recognize his intent, did not recognize his wolf, and likely expected to be eaten. There was no way to reassure her, but to change back, difficult and painful as it was to reverse the change in the light of the moon. His very bones protesting, he forced himself to remake his limbs, to straighten and walk upright, the sable hair melting back into his skin. He groaned as the split skin around his eye changed shape, and reached to wipe the blood away.
On the ground, she looked up at him, and he knew what a sight he must be, dirty, naked, and breathing hard after a fight that had left him wounded. Once he had recovered enough to speak, he asked, “What is your name, girl?”
Trembling, she stayed exactly where she had been, quivering on the forest loam. “Ursula.”
“Ursula.” The howl of a nearby wolf turned his head sharply north. He looked back to her, conjuring the most commanding tone he could muster. “Because of you, we are alone and unarmed in a forest full of wolves. Do not disobey me again.”
Chapter Four
Ursula walked beside her rescuer in silence. Once they had crossed the river, blessedly calm and low at this time of the year, his temper had cooled some. He had squatted at the sandy edge of the river to wash the blood from his face. His eye had swollen closed, and though the moonlight leeched the color from the night, it was clear his face would be mottled purple by morning.
Yet, he still traveled with her, to some unspoken destination where he thought she would be safe. She had agreed to his reckless escape, thinking only that once she was free of the castle she could run from him. How could she have been so stupid? To try and run the night the wolves were out, how had she thought she would make it through the forest? But she hadn’t known she could trust him, and it might have been her very last chance.
She looked at him, hoping he did not notice her stares, but she couldn’t help them. He had never spoken to her before, though she’d noticed him about the castle. He always seemed to be there when she carried water or swept the steps. It had made her uneasy, wondering when he would strike out at her, whether he would drag her into an alcove and push her skirts up, or something worse. Had he meant to help her that entire time? When he didn’t know her?
It helped, strangely, that he was naked. It made her feel safer, that he could walk through the woods entirely vulnerable, yet have no fear. It seemed to her that if he was so confident in their safety, naked and unarmed, there was nothing she should fear, either.
Including him. An hour before, she would not have spoken to him. In the black garb of the Canis clan, he had terrified her. The other wolves wore black, the other men who had hurt her and the rest of the servants. Without it, she could almost imagine that her rescuer was just another person, despite having seen him fight for her in his wolf form. He could be just as frail and inconsequential as she was.
Though he certainly didn’t look frail. His clothing had made him seem deceptively small, or perhaps it was just an unintentional comparison to the other wolves. Nude, every limb seemed made of rope and stone, his back carved with deep clefts of muscle that tugged beneath his skin as he walked. He might stand slightly shorter than the other wolves, but he was no less impressive.
“Are you staring at me?” He frowned at her, and she quickly faced forward. He pointed ahead. “Fallow Manor is at the boundary of Lord Canis’ lands. We will still be under his jurisdiction, but Sir Raf will not allow his father’s wolves on his land.”
“You never told me your name.” He’d warned her not to disobey, but he’d never ordered her not to speak, and he didn’t seem like the kind who would strike her for a question.
His eyes flicked in her direction, and held her gaze for a moment before facing forward. “Henry. Henry Barley.”
A low name, Barley, and it matched his story of being born a bastard. She watched her feet for a time, pale blue in the moonlight against the inky black of the forest floor. Her legs ached, and she cursed the wretched condition that made her so tired, so sore when she never had been before.
Now that the silence was broken, he seemed discontented to let it mend. “Where are you from? Do you have people? I could help you find them.”
A knot squeezed her throat, tight as a hangman’s noose. “No. No, I don’t think I’ll go back to my people like this.”
“I am sorry,” he apologized softly. “I should have thought.”
Somehow, without quite understanding it, Ursula felt herself harden toward him again, to freeze from the timid thaw she’d allowed. “My father told me to go. When the bailiff come down, looking for people to go to Blackens Gate. Father said it would be better for me there, and I should go, because there were too many mouths to feed. I can’t bring another one back, understand?”
His jaw tightened. “I understand.”
She pressed a hand to her stomach, bowing out a little more than it used to. She hadn’t felt the babe move yet. It could be born dead, and she could go back home. Every twinge or ache in her belly made her pray for blood, but it never happened. Child in her or no, her father wouldn’t want her back. Her sisters were so little, they couldn’t fend for themselves. Ursula had thought, when she’d first arrived at Blackens Gate, that she couldn’t either. Now, she began to see a different side of things. She had survived long enough to get out.
The thought made her feel tall and strong, and she relished it, until she heard how hard Henry breathed, and noticed the perspiration on his brow. “Are you tired?”
“I am not,” he said, insistent when he needn’t be.
“You look as though you might faint.” That would be a sight to see, a strong man like him, falling down in the middle of the forest. But he was hurt, and he had bled what had seemed an impossible amount of blood…
“It is nothing,” he told her, a plaintive, distracted quality to his words. “The full moon… it urges us to change. We can take on our wolves at any time, but the full moon almost demands it. It pains me to fight it.”
“Then why now?” She shouldn’t question him, not when he’d risked so much and been injured trying to assure her safety. But now that her curiosity had broken past her common sense, it was like a loose horse. She could not catch hold of the reins to control it.
“It’s easier to leave the castle, and the grounds, unnoticed during the full moon.” He offered his hand to help her over a fallen log, and she staggered on her feet, almost falling against him. Instead, she pitched to the side and forced herself, almost totally on will, to stay on her feet. The last thing she wanted was to be that close to a man. She knew what they did, how they reacted with women. She did not want this one to become cruel to her; she did not think she could bear it.
As if he could feel her distrust, he widened the space between them as they walked, and continued, “Something happens, when the wolf takes over. I won’t say that we become mindless beasts, but it does change our minds. Those wolves that I fought likely won’t remember it in the morning, and if they do, they won’t think anything of it. The full moon makes us all a bit mad.”
“You must be mad, to help me.” It had sounded friendly when she’d thought it, but spoken aloud it was only ungrateful. “I’m sorry. I never meant—”
He was very quiet for a moment. “I helped you because I had to. After I spoke to you that day in the courtyard, I spent every spare moment praying about what I should do. If I had left you there to be slaughtered, how could I call myself a Christian man?”
How could any of the wolves at Blackens Gate call themselves Christian me
n? But she would not say that, now, when at least one of them had proven he was better than the rest of them.
Something held back any words of thanks or gratitude, and she had to force a shy, “Thank you,” past her lips.
He shook his head, as if he didn’t want her thanks anymore than she’d been able to express them. “Any man should have done the same. I have long thought of leaving Lord Canis’ service, but…”
She did not ask him to finish, and they walked in silence, until her fatigue and her sore feet could carry her no farther. “Please, I must rest,” she begged, leaning against the nearest tree. A rude, prickly ivy had twined up its trunk, and she hissed when it speared through her clothes and scored her skin.
He was there in an instant, pulling her gently away from the offending tree and lifting her hands to examine them in the moonlight. Flecks of blood sparkled there, and he wiped them away with his palms. “We cannot stop. We’re nearly there, and it is not safe to sleep in the open, with wolves afoot.”
The wolves were still out there. She’d imagined them prowling only in the shadow of Blackens Gate. “Could they come this far?”
“They might. I do not wish to take a chance.” His eyes met hers, for the first time in hours, and she thought she felt his stare melting into her very bones, scorching her to her soul. “I will not let them harm you. I won’t let anyone harm you.”
Before she could protest, he lifted her in his arms, cradled to his chest. His skin was hot, almost too hot to touch, but it was far easier to bear the heat of him and the hard slope of his chest beneath her cheek than another step on legs turned to pillars of agony. He carried her without complaint through the moonlit night, as if she were light as a cup of water. Soon, she relaxed against him, her body lulled by the motion of his gait and the strange safety of his arms beneath her back. From this vantage, she could watch his face, so stern and serious in the dark, until sleep won its battle with her exhausted body.
Chapter Five
With the girl like a rock in his aching arms, Henry pressed on, finding the road out of the forest. When the trees cleared and he saw the tall, dark shape of Fallow Manor at the bottom of a long slope, he considered putting her down and resting. Then, hearing a far off, mournful howl, he thought he should not take the chance. Raf no doubt prowled the night himself, and Henry did not wish to fight off his friend before asking for safe harbor.
At the Roman wall that surrounded the fields of Fallow Manor, Henry found a pile of clothing and Raf’s iron leg, waiting for his return. He smiled. Henry had worried that marriage to a human might cause his friend to turn his back on his wolf, but it appeared it was not so. He trudged on, tempted only for a moment to steal Raf’s shirt. Strangely, he found himself more concerned with waking Ursula than covering his own nakedness. That would inevitably bring comment from Raf.
The night air seemed crisper, more pure here, as though Lord Canis’ foulness did not reach so close to his own borders. When the smell of roasting meat and wood smoke greeted him, he felt at home. As the seasons had passed, his visits to Fallow had become more numerous, and he often found himself longing for his friend’s home when he was not there. Tonight, the circumstances of his visit were far too different to rely on the usual welcome. He only hoped the Lord and Lady of the manor would not resent his presence.
When he reached the door, he kicked impatiently at the wood, his arms burning with fatigue. It would not serve to drop the poor girl, not after he’d promised no harm would come to her. He didn’t expect he would much like to be woken by being dumped onto the ground.
The door creaked, and the face of Robin, the little servant girl, peeked out. She took one look at Henry and her smile, no doubt in anticipation of her master’s return, faded. With a scream, she slammed the door in this face.
Ursula’s eyes flew open and she clawed, panicked, at his shoulders, until he was forced to set her down. Eyes wide with confused panic, she looked around them, breathing hard, until the door opened again and she looked as though she would run. He caught her easily and pulled her to stand beside him as Aurelia, brandishing a dagger, tried to make herself tall in the doorway. When her eyes fixed on him, she dropped the blade, sputtering, “Henry… you’re naked.”
“My wolf destroyed my clothes, I am sorry to say.” He took Ursula by the arm and led her through door, Aurelia standing aside to close it behind them. He guided Ursula into the hall of Fallow Manor. After renovation and a new thatched roof, the house was cozy, with a low fire crackling in the hearth. Though there were outdoor kitchens, tonight a stewpot hung over the coals, waiting for Raf’s return.
“Robin, go and fetch a shirt for Henry,” Aurelia ordered. She shrugged apologetically. “Everything else only has one leg, you understand.”
He nodded, grateful that the little servant girl brought him a woolen blanket to cover himself in the meantime. “I have not come here in the best of circumstances.”
“Then perhaps you’d better explain.” Aurelia’s blue eyes darted from the girl to Henry and back again. Small of frame, with her long, pale hair brushed to gleaming, Raf’s wife looked better suited to be a queen, or a spirit of the air. Her regal bearing did not allow her an excuse for cruelty, and Henry had never heard her speak a cross word in his life, even when she’d been planning her own demise in the tower at Blackens Gate. When she gestured to Ursula and asked, “Who is this,” it was with concern and not anger that he’d brought a stranger to her house.
“This is Ursula. A servant at Blackens Gate.” Henry paused, wondering if it would shame or embarrass Ursula to have her condition spoken aloud, but there was no help for it. Better to make his intention clear, now. “She is with child, raped by one of Lord Canis’ men. I seek refuge for her.”
Aurelia’s gaze dropped to the other woman’s middle, and a hand strayed, clearly of its own volition, to cover her own barren belly. When she realized what she had done, that hand closed to a fist and fell to her side. When she lifted her eyes, they were glazed over with tears. “How horrible. Henry, what happened to your mother—”
“Will happen to her, it is certain. I have reason to believe Lord Canis will cull the servants, if not tonight, then soon.” He had not spoken of it to Ursula, and cursed himself for saying it now. She gasped and staggered; if Henry had not caught her, she would have fallen. Her eyelids fluttered, and she could not hold herself up under her own power.
“Quickly, bring her,” Aurelia ordered him, hurrying through the hall ahead of them. With the restoration of the house had come renovation, and the open loft above stairs had been reordered into several rooms and a solar where Aurelia and Raf slept. The lady of the house led them to a smaller room with a hearth and a bed, and she bade him to lay Ursula upon it.
Henry had spent many a night as a guest in this room, and there was something uncomfortable about having this poor woman in the bed he’d slept in. As if walking through the forest bare beside her hadn’t been rude enough, now she would sleep in his bed? He pulled the coverlet over her and leaned down to touch her cheek. “She’s fainted. I should have planned for a horse. I thought it would attract the wolves. I should have never made her walk so far.”
“She’ll thank you, when she wakes,” Aurelia said softly. “You saved her.”
Saved her from the wolves, yes, but nearly killed her as he did. “Do you know when Raf will return?”
“Before I am too tired, he always says.” A note of a smile gilded her words, but her face remained lined with concern. “What will Lord Canis do when you return?”
“I don’t know.” Whatever it was, Henry would endure. He was a good fighter, and although Lord Canis looked down on him for his birth, he would not dispatch him altogether.
Aurelia was silent as she fretted with the bedclothes. “I won’t light a fire, I don’t want to make it too warm for her. I know that when I—”
Her voice choked off, and Henry said nothing. Aurelia had come to Fallow Manor a new bride, already with child, but the child
was not to be, and he’d been born too soon, barely formed and without a spark of life in him.
It was the way for too many human mothers of half-wolf children, and his heart grieved for her, and for his friend. He feared the same outcome, the next time Aurelia caught, and he feared for Ursula, lying so pale in the bed.
Aurelia rose from the bedside and smoothed her kirtle. “When she wakes, I’ll have Robin bring her something to eat. I hope you do not plan to return to Blackens Gate before then?”
“In truth, lady, I had not thought of it.” It might be better to leave, while Ursula still slept. She would be well taken care of by his friends, and he had done nothing but endanger her in the forest and exhaust her from the long trek.
“I think you should stay until morning, at least,” Aurelia said, gentle in her insistence. “I would not like to wake in a house full of strangers.”
“I am as much a stranger to her as you.” That reality stung him, though he could not say why. “But I will stay.”
Robin reappeared with one of Raf’s shirts. It fell well to Henry’s thighs, and Aurelia laughed at the sight of him, blanket still wrapped about his waist beneath the long linen shirt. “You look like a Scot!”
On the bed, Ursula stirred, and both Aurelia and the serving girl hurried to tend her. Feeling far too useless and male, he left the women to the nursing and went below, where he seated himself on a trestle bench at the table, his hands clasped in front of him. Tell me what to do, he silently prayed. Tell me to walk away now.
He did not know how long he sat in silent meditation, but after a time the big oak and iron door opened, and Raf entered, clumsily dressed, his iron leg dragging the rushes as he limped into the room. Upon catching sight of Henry, his expression fell. “I was not expecting you.”
Wolfs Honor Page 3