by Tamara Leigh
She bit her lip. Though she could abide the suffering of others as was required of one who made her living as she did, still it caused the soft places in her to ache.
“Nay,” he rasped, his voice so tight and deep she did not recognize it as the one she had known when his life had been other than what now made his heart beat.
His breathing took the next turn with greater speed. “Do not!”
They are not your demons, she reminded herself, and yet she laid a palm to the uninjured side of his face, bent nearer, and whispered in his ear, “They are slain, Sir Abel. Pray, leave them there.”
His breath that moved the tendrils of hair escaping her braid stopped and, before she could berate herself for being so foolish, his right hand shot up and captured her wrist. Though she felt his fingers convulse, they did not turn tight around her. And she understood the reason just ahead of the impulse to wrench free that might have undone the healing of his hand.
“Not again!” he spat.
Dreading what she would see, she raised her head. The light reflected in his eyes causing her heart to jerk violently as if to free itself from her chest, she braved a face so contorted that the anger with which he had regarded her all those weeks past seemed hardly anger at all.
“I…” What? Was there any way to excuse her presence that would not further enrage him? Surely he would—
The pressure of his hand on hers eased and, though his eyes remained open, he seemed to stare through her. Was he yet dreaming?
She forced herself to remain still, hoping he did, indeed, see something beyond her, praying he would sink into a restful sleep.
At last, his lids lowered, as did his hand, drawing hers downward until her palm lay against his chest and, beneath it, she felt the work of his heart that, beat by beat, moved from a rushing river toward a calm stream.
Back aching, legs beginning to cramp from holding her bent and awkward position, she tried to pull her hand from beneath his, but he pressed it tighter against him.
Patience, he will soon move to the next realm of sleep and relax his hold.
But it was not soon enough for her straining muscles, and she sought relief by pressing her free hand to the mattress and lowering to her knees in the dry rushes alongside the bed. Minutes passed and more, and throughout he retained his hold on her.
When sleep began to tempt her to rest her head upon the mattress, she pushed her drooping chin high and studied his face. He looked almost peaceful—more approachable than ever she had seen him. And she wanted—
Nay, that would be more foolish. She knew her purpose here and that, even if she was not perceived as far beneath his rank, still he would want naught to do with her when—if ever—he knew all of her, especially considering how much he had lost and suffered in his quest to end the terror that had stalked these lands.
Testing the weight of his much larger hand and finding it had slackened, she slowly drew her arm back. When her fingers slid free, he did not stir, nor when her knees creaked with their unfolding.
“God speed your rest,” she whispered and, with as light a step as possible, crossed the chamber to the door that stood open as she had left it.
She slipped into the passageway and eased the door closed. The worst was over. Now to claim what would likely be fewer than two hours of sleep before the castle began stirring toward a new day.
Hooking her fingers in her skirts, she hitched them clear of her slippers and took a step forward—only to take it back when a large shadow parted from a deep pool of darkness upon which the light of the expiring torches did not waste their efforts.
She would have cried out if not that she knew who it was even before he stepped into the dim light. How could one not know such a man who was rivaled in size only by her liege?
Guessing that from behind whichever door he slept he had heard the creak of the hinges or his brother’s protestations, she straightened to her full height, every hair of which was needed to come as close to appearing as adult as he.
When he halted before her, her search for words to explain her presence yielded only the truth, and she put her shoulders back. “My lord, Wulfrith, I apologize if I did wrong, but I could not sleep for thinking on seeing your brother again as he would not want me—or anyone—to see him. Pray, believe me, I but meant to prepare myself.”
“And did you?” he asked low.
He did not sound angry. “As best I could without rousing him from sleep.”
“A troubled sleep.”
Did he know it was troubled only by the anguished words the open doorway had spilled into the passageway? Or had he peered within and seen her standing over his brother? Worse, on her knees with her hand pressed to his chest?
As much as she longed to explain away what he might have seen, she determined it was best to simply answer his question. “Aye, most troubled, my lord, though Sir Abel does appear to have settled now and, God willing, will pass the remainder of the night in peace.”
Baron Wulfrith inclined his head, and though it was too dim to read whatever his eyes might tell, she sensed something in his gaze that would likely fluster her in the light of day.
“God willing,” he agreed, then said, “Come. The day will be long, and you shall require all the rest that remains to be had.” He turned away.
When her feet did not follow, he looked around. “You need not fear me, Helene of Tippet.”
Strangely, she knew that. And yet the years had taught her to be cautious even where she might not sense danger.
“Come,” he said again.
She did as told and, when he had seen her back to the hall and settled upon her pallet between two softly snoring women servants, he slipped so silently away that she had to wonder how a man of such size could make it seem as if he had never been.
Would he sleep now that he was assured she meant his brother no harm? Of course, had he truly believed ill of her? It was he who had sought her in her village, coming as near to pleading as a man as powerful as he might come. Too, it was not as if he knew her secret. Or did he?
Of late, when she visited Broehne Castle, often she caught her liege’s stare and saw questions form upon his brow. Thus, she would be a fool to not know he was suspicious of her past which the death of his father had caused to bleed into her present. Might Baron Lavonne have shared those suspicions with this man, his ally and brother-in-law?
Nay, had Baron Wulfrith been told, he surely would not have brought her here to try to undo what had been done to his brother. He would revile her and think her a weed best torn from the earth before its roots went deep and fouled the good soil. And her John, who had fixed himself to Sir Abel’s side during the long weeks of her absence, would be hated as well. That she could not bear. It had not been easy, but she had made a good life for herself and her son here on the barony of Abingdale, and to be forced to leave and begin anew…
Baron Wulfrith was wrong. She would do well to fear him. And, perhaps more, Sir Abel. But also, she would do well to pray.
Pulling her hands from between her knees where she had pressed them for warmth, she put her palms together and turned to prayer as the sisters at the convent had taught her to do all those years ago.
First, she prayed for John whom she had not wanted to leave behind though he had been enthusiastic about the offer made by Baron Lavonne and his wife for him to stay at Broehne Castle. Then she prayed for those of the household whom her son would surely test. Next, she asked that Abel Wulfrith would respond well to her ministrations. And, as sleep drew over her, she prayed that when she left Castle Soaring she would be no worse in heart and soul than when she had come to it.
CHAPTER TWO
Embrace death. It was as Abel had aspired to do, but they had refused to let him go, plying him with medicinals and drink and words they believed would raise him from a body so broken that it could never again serve as it had once done.
He clenched one hand into a fist and raised the other that no longer did his biddin
g. And never again would, according to the physician. As he stared at the flushed, newly formed scar that divided the upper half of his palm from the lower, he heard again the words he longed to put a blade through, most loudly those spoken by his brother, the least welcome of all who had denied him the respite of leaving this life for what lay beyond.
Garr Wulfrith’s words had not reeked of pleading or encouragement or prayer like those of the others who had come around his bed, sat hours beside him, gripped his hand, and touched his brow. Rather, the head of the Wulfrith family had been resolute and demanding and might even be said to be cruel if Abel did not know him as he did.
Unfortunately, it did little good to be so well acquainted with Garr, for some instinct—some unanswered part of Abel—had listened. But for what? That a once-esteemed warrior might face the thousands upon thousands of days before him as a pitiable shadow of a man?
“Embrace death,” he muttered the creed he had often extolled, though never in regard to his own life or the lives of the young men he trained into knights. Always it had been directed outward—a reminder that if one did not seek an opponent’s death in battle, if one wavered and cast mercy where it was not due, such a fool would yield up his own life.
But on days like this, like every day since Garr had dragged Abel from the bed that should have been the last place he drew breath, resentment welled that he had not turned his creed inward. That he did want the next breath and the next and the one after that, even if they added up to endless days and nights, even if every step in and through and out of them was not without hitch or burn.
Thinking it would not take much more force to break the teeth he ground so hard his jaws ached, he stared at the dawn-drenched wood beyond the window and pushed his one functioning, accursedly awkward hand down his tunic-covered thigh. Its journey was soon arrested, not only by the transition from smooth muscle to thickly ridged scar, but the pain his probing fingers sent deep to the bone.
“God Almighty,” he groaned and dropped his chin to his chest and squeezed his eyes closed. He drew a deep breath and another before continuing his exploration of the length and width and weakness of his pieced together flesh, following its path mid-thigh to just below the knee.
“Look at it,” he growled. “Know it well, for ‘tis your lifelong companion.” And this companion, unlike the one he had buried in his past, would never set him free.
He released his breath in a rush, but it did not blow away memories that played against the backs of his lids as they had done often since his life had nearly been sundered beyond the walls of Castle Soaring.
Opening his eyes, he dragged up the hem of his tunic and, still loath to gaze upon his leg, sought the old scar that curved up from his hip to his lower rib, and which had proved nearly as dire as those that now ridged his body as if his flesh were a newly furrowed field.
When it required no shift of the eyes to move from the pale scar that had formed years ago to fix on the more recent injury dealt not by the wife who had wielded a meat dagger against him but a brigand with a sword, he thought he might laugh. And were he a bit angrier, a bit more bitter, quite a bit full of wine, he would have.
Unbeknownst to him until this day when finally he had determined that he would witness the work of the three brigands who had taken him to ground, the line of stitched flesh cut through the lowermost portion of the old scar, forming the crossbar of what appeared to be an upended crucifix.
Did not the priests tell of one of Jesus’ disciples who, facing crucifixion, asked that he be suspended upside down, believing he was unworthy to die as his Lord had done?
Abel grunted. In his own case, it was the crucifix that was set wrong side up. And he lived, though how it was possible, even with the strongest of wills to give death one’s back, he did not know. Michael D’Arci, his brother-in-law and keeper of Castle Soaring, was said to be a fine physician, but surely his patient had lost too much blood and the blades had cut too near vital organs for him to be this side of life, let alone able to rise from bed without aid as he had done this day.
For which you have much to be grateful, he heard his mother’s voice, she whose prayers at his bedside had not consoled but, rather, made him wish her away.
He lowered his tunic and once more reached to his thigh, only to arrest his hand and turn his gaze out the window to the wood where sunlight now streamed through branches and glided over tree tops. It had happened out there, though then the moon had been full up, its light running the blade he had swung time and again.
Remembering the black and gray of night that had known only the color of blood, he curled his fingers around an imagined hilt. Or tried to, for his hilt hand trembled as the fingers strained to meet the thumb.
Lifting his hand before his face, he clenched his teeth and strained harder despite the tearing pain that warned he would likely cause further damage, but the fingers would draw no nearer. Though that night he had cut down men far less versed in sword skill, personally delivering them over death’s threshold, that battle—that life—was in his past. This was his present.
“Curse all!” he spat.
“I would myself be tempted.”
Abel stilled and, in the silence, heard panting—his own, coming so hard and fast that it had masked the sound of the door opening and the heavy tread of the man whose boots ground the dry rushes that should have been freshened on the day past.
Recalling the frightened maids who had fled in response to the shouts of the man who, heretofore, had ignored their comings and goings, Abel felt a pang of remorse. And wondered why he should feel anything other than anger.
Keeping his back to his brother, he said, “As you can see, ‘tis not a good time for me to grant you an audience.”
“Then it is good I do not wish an audience.”
What, then? For what did he—?
“Worry not,” Garr said. “I vow I will not allow my brother to bite you.”
Only then did Abel become aware of the other footfalls among the rushes. Forgetting the injury to his leg, he turned so quickly he lurched and had to catch hold of the sill to avoid further humiliation.
“What is this?” he demanded, causing the maid who approached the brazier with burdened arms to falter and the other to nearly lose her grip on the broom poised to sweep away the rushes.
“’Tis chill in here,” Garr said where he had positioned himself just over the threshold, his arms crossed over his chest.
“Is it?” Abel snapped, though now he did feel the cold, standing as he did before the window which he had stripped of its oilcloth upon reaching his destination a quarter hour past.
“Worse, it stinks.” Garr hitched an eyebrow. “I was not told your sense of smell was also afflicted.”
Abel narrowed his eyes. When his displeasure but caused his brother to raise the other eyebrow, he gritted his teeth and glanced at the maid who attempted to kindle the fire in the brazier that had burned so hot on the night past, next the woman whose efficiency with the broom was no match for Abel’s impatience.
“This can be done later, Garr.” He knew it was disrespectful to address his brother by his Christian name rather than “Wulfrith” in the presence of non-family members, but he did not care.
“Nay, it cannot.” Garr lowered his gaze to Abel’s bare legs. “’Tis good to see you willingly out of bed, but it would be better to see you fully clothed.”
Though Abel knew the lower portion of the injury to his leg was visible beneath the tunic’s hem, he did not flinch or turn away.
Garr jerked his chin toward the chest against the wall. “If ‘tis too much for you, I could ask one of these young women to raise the lid and search out clean braies and hose.” This time it was Abel’s torso he scrutinized. “And tunic. That one might best be burned.”
Feeling his upper lip peel back, Abel rejoined it with the lower and pressed them tight. He knew he was being baited, that Garr believed anger was better than brooding.
When finally h
e could speak again without presenting as outraged or, worse, petulant, he said, “I thank you, Brother, but I can attend to my own needs.” Unfortunately, he could make no move to do so without casting more light upon his infirmity and rousing pity, the scent of which might ignite the smoldering within and far surpass the speed with which the maid coaxed the brazier to life.
Thus, Abel stared at Garr and Garr stared back, and all the while Abel tried not to envy—or resent—his brother whose own battle wounds, once healed, had no ill effect upon his ability to take up sword and defend family and home, and whose face bore no disfigurement. Beneath his garments, Garr Wulfrith might be abundantly scarred, but he was as able as ever. Abel Wulfrith was not, and the self pity that ran through him burned like bile full up in his throat.
He swallowed hard and, with much consideration of the leg that would betray him again given the chance, turned back to the window.
The rousing of day had caused the inner bailey below to stir with life, and he found this unremarkable scene that he had not witnessed in many weeks strangely interesting. Unlike his life, the lives of those whose legs quickly traversed the beaten dirt ground had not come to a halt, and he wondered how many times others had looked upon him as he now looked upon the castle folk, oblivious to the suffering of the unseen observer. Oblivious to a life lost.
He did not know how much time passed in the space between his brother’s entrance and the hand that gripped his shoulder, but some part of him had been aware of the broom’s shush and scrape, the brazier’s warmth that radiated upon his back even as the risen sun breathed upon his face, the scent of fresh rushes and the herbs scattered over them, the slosh of water, the creak of the bed, and the rustle of sheets. More, though, he was aware of his legs, the uninjured one that cramped from so long supporting most of his weight, the lame one that throbbed and ached at being forced to remain upright.
“’Tis done,” Garr said. “Now you must only decide whether to bathe yourself or allow the healer to assist you.”