Maiden Bride

by Deborah Simmons

  “Come, lady,” Edith said finally. The old servant’s perpetually cheery voice sounded shaky, but she flashed Gillian an encouraging smile. “He will come around, lady, you shall see. Meanwhile, I will not have you lie abed. There is sickness in the village, and even though he has forbidden you to aid his people, I thought perhaps you could give me instructions, that I might make up something for them.”

  So Gillian roused herself, refusing to dwell on her own devastation when others, less fortunate, were suffering. She let Edith help her dress, and then she listened as the old servant recounted the illness that had struck several of the poorer families.

  Gillian had Edith make up some barley water for the fever and black currant to relieve the sore throats several of the victims were suffering, but soon diarrhea appeared, too, and rashes. Although Gillian wracked her brain for anything that might help, this sickness had never been visited upon the nunnery or its local people. And despite her best efforts, the news of deaths soon reached her.

  Within weeks, it had moved into the castle itself, striking one of the cooks, who had relatives in the village, and Gillian searched the abandoned garden for some new remedy—to no avail.

  When Edith herself fell ill, Gillian had no choice but to take on the duties of healer, dispensing treatment to those who had once gone to Edith for her mixtures. And whenever she was able, she slipped away to join Edith’s husband at the woman’s bedside. The sight of the old soldier so tenderly holding his wife’s hand made Gillian blink back tears, and she vowed that, no matter what, Edith was going to survive.

  At first the fever and chills that wracked the old woman’s body were so alarming that Gillian feared the worst, but after a week, it eased. Then the spots appeared, and Gillian was frightened anew, for she knew the cook had died not long after breaking out with the rash. Each day Gillian hoped and prayed to find the old servant clinging to life, and each day she had been rewarded.

  This afternoon, Gillian studied Edith closely, while Willie brushed out his wife’s graying locks. Were the marks fading? They seemed to come in waves, but today they appeared fainter to her hopeful eyes.

  “Willie! Would you yank the very hair from my scalp?” Edith’s rasping voice, sharp with irritation, brought them both up short, and their eyes met over her head in surprised delight, for she had not been awake and alert for days. Blinking, the servant focused on Gillian and frowned. “My lady! What are you doing here?”

  Gillian smiled down at the older woman, her throat tight with emotion. “I am tending to you, of course.”

  “But you should not be here. If the lord finds out, he will be sorely aggrieved.” Gillian bit back a laugh at the woman’s understatement. In the face of life and death, Nicholas’s temper had lost its importance.

  “Go on, now. I will not be the cause of more fighting between you,” Edith said, tilting her head.

  “Very well,” Gillian answered, squeezing the older woman’s hand. “I will let Willie listen to your scolding.”

  “As well he should,” Edith murmured, before closing her eyes again. With a last tender look at her friend, Gillian turned to leave, but before she lifted the heavy drape that curtained off the tiny room, Willie joined her.

  “She is better, eh?” he whispered.

  Although Gillian’s first inclination was to agree, she knew that those near death sometimes rallied before making their final exit. As desperately as she wanted Edith’s recovery, she was unsure, so she said nothing.

  The lack of her reply made Willie turn his grizzled head away, and, unable to bear his grief along with her own, Gillian slipped into the passageway and leaned against the wall, fighting back her tears. She had no time for them, for she had other patients to tend. The people of Belvry had begun asking for her, and she complied, knowing all the while that it would not be long before word of her healing reached her husband.

  And he would not be pleased.

  Nicholas returned to find the hall empty, and it did not ease his mood. He had taken some of his men into the fields to help with the harvest, because several of the peasants had fallen ill. Tired and sweaty and unused to such labor, he wanted a bath and his wife’s attention, not necessarily in that order. Her absence provoked him all the more.

  She had been moody of late, listless and lacking her usual liveliness, and he had been lenient with her, but his temper was wearing thin. If she thought to abandon her duties simply because she continued to please him in bed, he would have none of it. By God, he would remind her of her place!

  “Osborn!” he roared, but his bellow echoed off the walls, summoning not his most favored servant, but only a young boy.

  “Osborn is ill, my lord,” the youth reported.

  Damn. The knowledge that whatever was killing the villeins had entered the castle frustrated him. It was his duty to protect his people, but what could he do against an unseen invader?

  “But do not worry, my lord, your lady is with him.”

  Nicholas whirled on the youth. “What?”

  “Your lady. She is well versed in healing,” the boy said, backing away.

  Nicholas’s rage was such that he could hardly find his voice. “Fetch her. Fetch my wife to me in our chamber. At once.” As the boy ran off to do his bidding, Nicholas strode up the stairs to await her. By his faith, he would teach the vixen to obey him, if he had to lock her away and bind her to his bed!

  Charging into the room, Nicholas clenched his fists to keep from slamming them into the wall. He had thought her complacent at last, when she had really been sneaking about behind his back! The knowledge infuriated him. And the more he contemplated the blatant betrayal, the angrier he grew. The saints be thanked, Darius was still away, or he would wonder about her fidelity, too. The very idea made the stomach that had eased its torment in the past weeks churn painfully.

  When the door opened, Nicholas tried to master himself, for she looked perfectly serene and composed, damn her! He would have her as distressed as himself, at least! As usual, she approached without a flicker of trepidation and stood before him fearlessly.

  “You summoned me,” she stated, with just enough sarcasm in her voice to send him over the edge.

  “Aye, I summoned you, vixen, from your patient’s sickbed! How dare you defy me?” he snarled, circling her slowly. “I forbid you to treat my people, and yet I hear that you are tending to Osborn, against my orders!”

  She showed no regret or remorse, but faced him calmly. “Your people are falling ill, and they come to me for help. How can I deny them?”

  “Would you have me lock you up, away from everything and everyone? Is that the only way I can assure your obedience?” Nicholas shouted.

  She stiffened at his words, but held both her ground and her bland expression. “These are your own people, Nicholas. Have you no care for them?”

  “Aye, perhaps they are better off without your interference!” he snapped. She flinched at that, and Nicholas felt a bizarre moment of regret before she recovered. Her eyes, cool and intelligent, met his, and he knew an urge to shake her, to force a reaction from her inanimate body.

  “Has your stomach pain not eased?” she asked, her tone soft and reasonable.

  “Yes,” he muttered absently. What had happened to the woman he had married? Where was the fire that he had come to expect from her? It had faded since her courses, and although Nicholas suspected the reason behind the change in her, he did not care to acknowledge it.

  His hands clenching into fists, Nicholas whirled away from her. By God, what did she want from him? He had already granted her the status of his wife. Surely she could not expect him to welcome a child of Hexham’s blood into his life? It was too much!

  From behind him, he heard her voice, low and sensible. “I cannot totally ignore the teachings of the convent, Nicholas. I cannot stand by and let these people die without trying to help them.”

  Resisting her explanation, he turned on her, frustration whipping him to a new fury. “Who appointed you
to sainthood? You are my wife, and you are to attend solely to me! I will not have you—”

  “Selfish bastard!”

  Nicholas stopped and gaped at her, for although she was reacting at last, there was no heat in her curse. “That is not the issue,” he answered harshly. “You defied me, and you shall suffer for it, heir of Hexham.”

  Even the reminder of her place did not set her after him, and Nicholas could not believe she had once thrown drinking vessels at his head. Now she seemed but a lifeless shell. The thought made him pause, and his anger faded, to be replaced by sudden anxiety.

  “How long have you been tending the sick?” he asked, his voice rising on a wave of emotion.

  “I have personally tended none but Osborn and Edith,” she answered stiffly.

  “But there have been others here in the castle?”

  “One of the cooks is dead. Several of the servants are now ill.”

  Stepping forward, Nicholas reached out and grasped her chin to eye her closely. She tried to jerk away—a small show of strength that eased his mounting tension—but there were dark smudges of weariness under her eyes. He dropped his hand.

  “You are confined to this chamber, and if I find that you have defied me once more, I will tie you to my bed.”

  He expected her to fly at him, nails sharp, but she only stood staring at him, as if dumbfounded.

  “No wonder your people prefer Piers,” she whispered. “You do not deserve to be lord of Belvry.”

  Selfish she had called him, and it was true, Nicholas admitted as he walked along the walls of his castle. He had never developed a connection to anyone or anything. His mother was a memory, his father a legacy of lessons, and the land they had left him nothing more than a place to rest his head.

  Aisley, as his only living relative, was little more than a blood tie, and even the Syrian woman who nursed him back to health had earned but grudging gratitude. Although he knew she longed for more, Nicholas had distanced himself from her as quickly as possible. She had seen him at his most vulnerable, and he wanted no reminder of those helpless days.

  As for Darius… Nicholas recognized that the Syrian was as close to a friend as he had ever known, despite the jealousy that had come between them. And yet Nicholas felt no ties binding him to his companion, nothing even remotely resembling the selfish need that his wife aroused in him.

  Lifting his face into the breeze, Nicholas felt his possession of her like a thrumming in his blood. Gillian was his, and he did not wish to share her with anyone, not with Darius or Edith or her attendants or his people, ill or no. He wanted her—neededher—all to himself, so desperately that it was unnerving. She was the first thing in his life to hold meaning, and he would covet her, whether she liked it or not.

  If locking her away was his only course, then he would make no apologies for it. His eyes narrowing with determination, Nicholas strode back along the walls and down into the bailey. He had made sure that her supper was sent up to the great chamber, for she would not be leaving it, even for meals. Then he had met with his steward concerning the sickness that was plaguing the demesne. They had agreed to send to the city for a physician, since Nicholas had made it clear that his wife was no longer to administer treatment.

  It was growing late when he mounted the stairs, and Nicholas felt his anticipation grow as well. No matter what arguments raged between them during the daylight hours, at night he and Gillian came together in his great bed, spending themselves in each other. Only then did her passionate nature still assert itself. And only then was Nicholas able to take all she gave him, feel everything she meant to him…

  Yanking open the door impatiently, he shut it behind him quickly, eagerness roaring in his blood. Selfish, aye, he would possess her as he never had before and as no one else ever would.

  When at first he did not see her, Nicholas knew a trickle of panic, but the candlelight showed her slender form already in his bed. He smiled in satisfaction. Her pallet was long gone, for he liked to hold her close in the darkness, her breath gentle against him, her body stirring beside him.

  Walking to the edge of the mattress, Nicholas stood over her, but his excitement turned to dismay when he realized she was asleep. Already? She always waited up for him, as frantic as he for their coupling, and night had not yet settled upon the castle.

  Tempted to wake her, Nicholas leaned over her and noticed again the dark circles beneath her eyes. Her skin was pale, too, and he felt a jolt in his gut. She was tired and, selfish bastard that he was, he had thought only of himself. Reaching out a hand, he smoothed a few errant strands of hair from her forehead, only to halt in the act, his entire body stiffening. She was warm, her flesh heated to the touch, as if feverish… like someone who was ill…

  Nicholas swayed on his feet as he felt his very heart being torn from his chest. Death reached up to strike him more savagely than any infidel blade. He opened his mouth to scream for Osborn or Edith, but nothing came out. They could not answer him.

  He, who had been alone all his life, had never felt so bereft. He, who had never needed anyone, suddenly knew his lack. Aisley was gone, driven away by his foul temper, and even Darius, banished by his jealousy, could offer him nothing. No one remained but an assortment of servants and castle tenants who meant far too little to him to be entrusted with his wife.

  A noise startled him, and Nicholas wakened, blinking blearily into the dimness of the great chamber. Gillian. He leaned toward her, holding his breath until he saw her chest rise and fall fitfully. She lived, and he let out a long, ragged sigh of relief. Was the rash worse or better? he wondered, studying the marks that marred her. Would they ever fade? Nicholas realized that he did not care whether she was spotted or pink or blue, if only she would recover. A low, harsh sound of pain erupted from his chest into the stillness.

  “Hush now, my lord. I will sit with her for a spell. You must go get something to eat.” Dazedly Nicholas turned to face the speaker. Edith, looking worn and weary, was standing by the window, opening the shutters enough to let some light into the room. When had she arrived?

  And what time was it? Nicholas rubbed his eyes with his palms. He could not remember where night began or ended, for he had rarely left this room, the hours running into days—mayhap even weeks—as his wife grew worse. He must have dozed off, for threads of brightness were streaming into the room. How could the sun shine? It seemed a blasphemy, and he cursed a world that went on about him when his own was crumbling.

  The sound of shuffling footsteps made him turn, and he found Edith standing before the chair where he was slumped. “You must eat, my lord. Go on down, and I shall get someone to air out the room and clean it. I will stay with her,” she said, laying a hand on his shoulder.

  No one ever touched him. No one but his wife. He knew that, and not too long ago he would have shrugged off the old woman’s attempt at comfort, leaping to his feet in a fury, but now he only stared at her as he struggled to digest her words. Food. He stood, though he wanted nothing in his burning gut.

  “Go on now,” she said, and he went. But in the great hall, the soulful gazes of Belvry’s residents were too much for Nicholas to bear, and he strode to the doors, stepping out into the autumn sunshine. Still, he imagined their reproachful eyes following him, looking to their lord for protection against this scourge.

  Damn! Frustration coiled in him, strangling his insides. He had been a warrior all his life, a knight, a holy crusader and an instrument of revenge. Fighting was all that he knew, and he wanted to kill something and hack it to pieces, but this time his foe was unseen. All he could do was take his sword and bury it in the ground, bellowing his rage to the skies.

  “My lord?” The anxious looks of his men made Nicholas seek to master himself, though discipline seemed a part of his past. Dismissing their queries with a glance, he pulled his weapon from the soil and sheathed it again. With a sigh, he ran a hand through his hair and down over the stubble on his face. More than food, he needed a bath, bu
t not the usual hot tub in his chamber. Barking an order to a lad to fetch him some fresh clothes, Nicholas headed toward the stream that flowed behind the castle walls.

  It was ice-cold, but it revived him from his lethargy and sent his blood pumping again. Although the air chilled him further, it was a welcome contrast from the heat that raged in his stomach and farther up, in the depths of his chest.

  When he returned to the hall, he felt better able to greet his people, and he saw not reproach in their faces, but concern. It was almost worse, yet Nicholas steeled himself to accept their wishes for his wife’s recovery, and when one old woman pressed a bunch of flowers upon him for Gillian, he managed to thank her instead of sending her flying across the room.

  He had not realized how much they cared for her, and the discovery made him swallow hard. In the brief time Gillian had been at Belvry, she had touched them all with the vibrant life that was waning even now… Turning on his heel, Nicholas strode toward the stairs, and the great chamber where his wife lay abed. Suddenly he needed to know that she still breathed, to see for himself that she had not left him.

  The door to their room was open, and he stopped at the threshold, his belly burning and his lungs heaving with more than the slight exertion of his climb. Edith sat beside the bed, bathing Gillian’s face with cool water, as he had done so often during the past few days. A male servant, a gangly youth with lanky blond hair, stopped laying fresh rushes and leaned against the wall. His negligent attitude was enough to make Nicholas stiffen, but then he glanced dismissively toward Gillian, firing Nicholas’s blood.

  “You are wasting your time, Edith,” the youth said with a shrug. “That one will not be with us long, no matter what you do, and the lord will get himself a new bride soon enough to breed the babies you want. Too bad this one could not give him an heir. Better that she die in childbirth than-”