The woman peered more closely at him, reaching out to touch his arm. “You are frozen,” she said, grabbing hold of his wrist and pulling him up. “Come with me.”
Peter let her yank on him as he staggered to his feet. “I must wait for my father and uncle,” he said, turning to see if he could make them out in the storm. “They were right behind me. We saw the light coming from the house and I came to find help.”
The woman held the lantern up in time to see Marcus and David emerged from the darkness, dragging a body between them. The women motioned to them sharply.
“Quickly,” she said. “Come with me.”
They did.
It didn’t matter that her Welsh accent foretold of her country and her loyalties. All that mattered was that they get out of the snow before they all froze to death. The four of them followed her around the wall, to the rear of the manse where there were outbuildings including stables and a corral, now covered in snow drifts. But the woman pushed through the snow piles, going to a small postern gate at the rear of the wall. She had a key, a big iron one, and she shoved it into the lock. As the lock came away, she heaved at the gate.
“Hurry,” she said.
They followed her into a small kitchen yard and she took them through a back door to the manse that wasn’t locked. Immediately, they were into a warm, dimly-lit kitchen. The heat hit them like a slap in the face.
“Get your clothing off,” the woman commanded as she shut the door and bolted it. “You’re already freezing to death. Get over near the fire and get your clothing off. I will find some blankets.”
As she hurried off, David and Marcus, at the end of their strength, dragged Christopher over to an enormous cooking hearth that had a small fire in it. It was tremendously warm, however, the stones radiating a good deal of heat from the day of cooking, and the men began to pull their wet outer layer of clothing off.
Steam was rising off of them as gloves and tunics came off. David was so cold that he couldn’t quite get his gloves off, so Peter yanked them free. Everything was coming off, being laid out on the hearth as the steam rose into the warm, fragrant chamber. It smelled of meat and bread. Once Peter removed his hauberk and mail coat, he didn’t waste any time moving for his father.
Already, David and Marcus were pulling Christopher’s clothing off. Gloves, boots, tunic, belts, mail – it was all coming off. As Marcus bent over to inspect the lump on the side of Christopher’s head, the man began to come around. A fist came up, catching Marcus in the throat.
“Chris,” David was suddenly in his brother’s face, holding down the fists that were starting to fly. “You are safe. Do you hear me? Look at me, Chris. Look at me.”
Christopher, groggy and dazed, struggled to focus. His arms stilled as he looked at his brother. “You,” he grunted, confused. “Where are you?”
Marcus looked down at him, rubbing his throat where he’d been hit. “Chris, we are in a manor house somewhere south of Kington,” he said steadily. “You were hit in the head and pitched into the river. We all went after you and brought you here.”
Christopher blinked his eyes, looking between David and Marcus. Then, he lay his head back, staring up at the ceiling.
“Cold,” he muttered. “I’m so cold.”
Peter swung into action, throwing more wood on the fire and stirring up the embers as David and Marcus moved Christopher so he was literally next to the hearth where all of the clothing was steaming. He still had his undertunic and breeches on, which were soaked, so Marcus pulled the undertunic off as David yanked off the soaking breeches.
Nude, Christopher lay on his back in front of the fire, shivering uncontrollably, as two women rushed into the kitchen, their arms laden with blankets. But once they saw the naked man on the floor, the first one came to a halt and the second one banged into the back of her. Gasping at the sight, the women quickly turned their backs.
“Here,” the first woman said, putting the blankets down on the big kitchen table in the middle of the room. “Cover up with these.”
With only his breeches on himself, David grabbed the blankets and covered Christopher up with almost all of them. He watched his brother tremble, getting a good look at the big, ugly lump on the side of his head.
But it could have been so much worse.
“Thank you,” he said after a moment. “You saved us from certain death.”
“From the looks of you, I believe it,” the woman said.
“May we know the name of the lady who saved our lives?”
The woman timidly looked over her shoulder to see that Christopher was covered up and the rest of them were covering up with the remainder of the blankets she’d brought. Since it was safe to look now, she looked at them a little more closely.
“My name is Andra,” she said. Then, she peered over at Christopher as he lay on the warm stone. “You say that this man hit his head?”
Peter was looking at her. “Aye,” he said. “He has come around, but I do not know how bad the injury is.”
The woman took a step or two closer. It was the same woman who had led them in out of the storm. Her voice told them that, but she had dropped all of the heavy clothing somewhere and, now, a pale but pretty maiden faced them, a lass with hair as black as coal and big, black eyes.
“May I look at him?” she asked.
Marcus didn’t seem so willing but David waved her over. “Come,” he said. “He needs a poultice or compress of some sort for this bump.”
Andra moved around Peter to get to Christopher’s head. His eyes were closed but his injury was clear. She bent over him, looking close at the egg-sized lump. Gently, she touched it, watching the man flinch in pain.
“It is a serious bump,” she said, removing her hands from his head. “You must not let him sleep tonight. He may go to sleep and never awaken. I will bring snow in from outside and you will use it on his head; several minutes on, several minutes off. You must do this all night to keep the swelling at bay.”
David eyed her. “Do you know something of healing, then?”
Andra looked at him. “My mother is a great healer,” she said. “I shall summon her from her bed because she will want to look at him, too.”
With that, she snapped her fingers at the other woman who had come with her, rushing to help her gather bowls, which they took outside into the snow. Very quickly, they returned with bowls full of white snow and put them on the table. They continued to bustle around, securing rags, one of which they stuffed with the snow. Andra handed it to David.
“Hold this to the lump,” she said. “I will fetch my mother.”
David took the rag, holding it carefully to his brother’s head as Andra and the other woman fled the kitchen, which was becoming very warm now as the fire increased in size. Once the women were gone, Marcus pulled off the rest of his clothing and wrapped a dry blanket around his waist to cover himself.
“Get out of your wet clothing, David,” he said quietly, taking the snow compress from him. “I’ll hold this.”
He pressed it against Christopher’s bump as David and Peter stripped off everything, wrapping up in dry blankets as Marcus had done. With the clothing laid out by the fire, steaming and drying, Peter sat down at the table to watch Marcus tend his father. Now that the rush to find shelter and help was over, there was a sense of what the future might hold for them.
They were in enemy territory.
“So now what?” he asked quietly. “Clearly, Andra is Welsh. What do we tell her when she asks who we are?”
Marcus shook his head. “Look around you,” he said. “We are wearing armor and have weapons. We are wearing the tunics of Hereford, Canterbury, and Somerhill. It will not take a great intellect to see that we are English.”
Peter knew that but he was still very concerned. “Mayhap I should bolt the kitchen door so no one can come in,” he said. “That will keep us safe until morning.”
“Or it will alarm the lady so much that she summons help to break dow
n the door and throw us all out into the snow.” Marcus looked up at him. “Keep your wits about you, Peter. Be calm. At the moment, we have no need to defend ourselves or tell the lady who we are and I wish to keep it that way.”
Peter forced himself to relax as he realized Marcus’ words were correct. He looked at Marcus and his Uncle David, quietly and efficiently going about taking care of Christopher as the man lay at their feet. There was no panic, no stress, simply men going about their business to ensure Christopher was well taken care of. Perhaps their world was upended, at least at the moment, but one would never know by looking at them.
Peter may have been an excellent warrior, but he still had a lot to learn.
Looking around, he began to hunt for some food. They’d left Lioncross before the Christmas feast and now that they had shelter and warmth, food was the next order. Wrapped up in a blanket with his icy clothes drying out on the stones, he went in search of something to eat.
The hearth was so vast that four or five men could have easily fit into it. There was a big fire in the center with bread ovens built into one side while on the other side, sitting on low-burning coals, were a variety of iron pots on iron arms hanging over the heat.
Peter peered into the pots; one was strictly hot water so that the manse would always have a ready supply of it. But the second pot was some kind of soup. Peter located a big, wooden spoon and stuck it in, sipping at the hot broth. It was exactly that – some kind of plain animal broth with nothing else in it. Beef, he thought. With that, he rushed around to collect cups and scooped up the broth.
“Here,” he said, coming over to Marcus and David as they bent over Christopher. “It’s beef broth, I think.”
David took it gladly, two cups of it, while Marcus took a third cup. David set his cups aside, however, as he leaned over his brother.
“Chris,” he said. “You should not sleep. Let us help you to sit up and you can take some nourishment.”
Christopher’s eyes were closed, slowly opening as David spoke. He didn’t say anything for a moment as his eyes moved around, looking at their surroundings.
“I do not remember coming here,” he said, sounding a bit more lucid than he had when he’d first awakened. “I fell off the bridge in Kington, you say?”
“Aye,” David said.
He got in behind his brother and with Marcus in front of the man, between the two of them, they manage to push the man into an upright position. Christopher groaned, holding on to Marcus tightly.
“Christ,” he muttered. “Everything is moving.”
“I know,” Marcus said. “It will go away. Just breathe, Chris.”
Christopher continued to hold on to him as the world swayed. “I must lie down.”
They ended up easing him back against David so that he was reclining. David held the cup of broth and Christopher sipped at it timidly. Peter had found the remains of a half of a loaf of bread and he tore off pieces, giving them to the men to soak in the broth. They ate, they warmed themselves, and they gave thanks for the shelter they had.
On this night of nights, it was a miracle.
Christopher knew that. Honestly, he was still quite fuzzy and his head was throbbing, but given what he’d already been told, he knew he was damned lucky to be alive. Everyone’s clothing was laid out on the hot stones, drying out, indicative of the men who had risked themselves to safe him.
Outside, he could hear the snow howling against the old stone walls. But in the kitchen, it was peaceful and warm, as if they all hadn’t been in a fight for their lives only moments before. Truly, it had been a most unexpected night.
But Christopher wasn’t thinking about that.
He was thinking about his family.
“We must send word to Lioncross,” he said, his voice sounding weak and hollow. “They will wonder what has become of us.”
Marcus shook his head. “You can hear the storm outside,” he said. “No one is going anywhere tonight, Chris. We can’t risk it.”
“Cabot and Max saw us all go into the river,” David said. “They will return to Lioncross and tell them what they have seen.”
The implication was obvious; men falling into a snowy river during a storm didn’t usually survive. If the water didn’t get them, the cold would.
“I have been dead before,” Christopher grunted. “I hope that Dustin will not believe I have perished until she sees my cold, dead body, and thanks to you three, that will not happen. Still… I wish I could send word to her.”
It was a sentiment reflected by them all, but that wasn’t going to happen, not tonight, so there was no use dwelling on it. It was David who finally changed the subject, gesturing to his nephew as he hovered over the three older knights.
“It was Peter who saw you fall in,” he said. “Had it not been for your son, things would be markedly different.”
Christopher turn his head slightly to see the big lad standing over him. “You have my thanks,” he said, reaching out to grasp the young man’s hand. “I remember… I remember watching you fight next to me. I do not think I’ve ever been so proud of anything in my life. In fact, I was distracted by it, so being caught off-guard was my fault. After that… I remember nothing. Everything is a blur.”
Peter squeezed his father’s hand. “You were hit in the head with a club and it knocked you over the bridge,” he said. “You hit your head on the bridge as you fell.”
“And you went in after me.”
“There was no question, Papa.”
Christopher squeezed Peter’s hand again before letting it go. “You have my eternal gratitude,” he said quietly, grunting in pain when David pressed another snow-filled rag against the bump. He sighed heavily. “I’m so weary. I must sleep.”
Both David and Marcus shook him. “You cannot,” Marcus said. “You must stay awake, Chris.”
Christopher closed his eyes. “Truly, I cannot,” he muttered. “Just let me sleep a little. My head is paining me greatly.”
David jolted him from behind. “No sleep,” he said again. “We shall help you stay awake. Let us speak on the days when the weather wasn’t so cold, when we were on the sands of The Levant. It was hot and sunny, unlike this wretched weather. We have a thousand tales from that distant land.”
“I do not want my son to hear most of those,” Christopher muttered.
Marcus latched on to David’s idea. “I remember one,” he said, ignoring Christopher’s comment. “Do you recall when we were in Sidon about a year before the fall of Acre? Do you remember the woman Marwah?”
David immediately started to giggle and Christopher even opened his eyes. The mere suggestion of the story had the desired effect. He was certainly awake now.
“Tell this story at your own peril,” Christopher growled.
Marcus ignored him. Like it or not, he was going to tell the tale.
“The heat was wretched, with golden sands radiating warmth as if the earth itself was on fire. Sidon, at this point in time held by the Christian armies, was a small but sturdy city unto itself, self-sufficient and prosperous in spite of the battles it had hosted.
It was also a den for a ring of spies from Ascalon who were reporting on the Crusader movements.
King Richard and his advisors suspected where the spies were getting their information but no one could prove it. In the center of town, near the large open-air market of El Habash that had been established centuries before, was a large compound housing the family of a merchant who had the largest stall in the market.
His name was Ezz al Samak and the man had lost three sons to the battles of the Muslims against the Christian armies, leaving him with seven daughters who were desperate for husbands. Most of the young men from Sidon had been recruited for the war against Christianity, meaning all of the young women of Sidon were rather desperate for men.
This was where King Richard and Christopher knew they could do some damage.
At six inches over six feet and a godlike muscular body, Christophe
r’s skin had turned brown under the brutal sun of The Levant while his hair, which went to his shoulders in those days, had turned the lightest shade of blond. He still kept his beard, which was a habit he’d had since he could first grow hair on his face to cover up the scars of skin that had been rife with pimples in his youth, but the beard was kept quite trim to keep his face from getting too warm.
And the women of The Levant went mad for the man with the golden beard.
Dhahabiat wahida, they would call him.
The Golden One.
That was only from the women, however. From the men, Christopher had a much more warlike name, The Lion’s Claw. With King Richard called the Lionheart, Christopher was the man’s claws. Everyone knew a lion was hardly dangerous without his claws, and The Lion’s Claw was extremely dangerous.
Intelligence in The Levant wasn’t difficult to come by if one knew how to find it.
Christopher knew.
Ezz al Samak had seven daughters – Amira, Marwah, Eman, Enara, Fatima, Jaliah, and Hessa. Seven beautiful daughters, in fact, and the young women would prowl the wall walk of Ezz’s fortified home near the market, walking upon the white walls and waving to passing men. They were properly covered up, of course, with scarves over their faces so that just their eyes showed, but that titillating view drove men mad. Ezz had to kill more than one man who tried to scale the walls.
And Christopher knew that going into it.”
“Marcus, enough,” Christopher muttered. “I told you not to tell this tale in front of Peter.”
Peter was hanging on Marcus’ words, irritated when his father stopped the man.
“Why not, Papa?” he asked. “Let him tell the story. I want to hear about this adventure. You have never told me of your time in The Levant, not really.”
Christopher grunted. “There is a reason for that.”
Marcus fought off a smile as he continued.
“The prettiest girl was Marwah, a raven-haired beauty with eyes like jewels. Since it was suspected that Ezz was the one passing intelligence to the Muslim armies, Richard sent Christopher to feed false information to Marwah – if he could get close enough to her.
A Very Medieval Christmas: A Medieval Romance Novella Bundle Page 25