“So are you,” I said, looking at his leather coat stained with blood. Bits of flesh, and guts and brains, mottled the buff background with brown, off-white and gray. Spatters of the stuff mingled with the soot on his face in a muddy stew. His usually springy hair lay flattened and ashy against his scalp.
Dominic put both hands on the flimsy fabric of the sorry rag of a dress and ripped it from top to bottom. My exposed body, red spots standing out starkly against white skin, ribs sharp and prominent, stomach unnaturally concave, made Dominic catch his breath. The bruises from Reynaldo’s testing of the reality of my death last night, the booted foot slamming into my side, were beginning to show dark purple-black, a more vivid version of the fading marks on my face where Reynaldo had hit me, days ago. Dominic stared somewhere in the direction of my navel, third eyelids lowered over eyes focused unseeing. Silver turned slowly to clear glass starting with the area around the pupils, forming circles like zeros in the household accounts which slowly enlarged to the size of peas, continuing to grow until his eyes were like two bottomless mountain lakes of icy water.
My love, I thought to him, I’m cold. The summer air wafted over my nakedness, raising goose bumps. In the mountains, even at midday, the chill of the night snow never completely dissipates.
Dominic blinked, crying in instinctive communion, brought back to me out of his murderous rage. He unbuckled his sword belt and his dagger strap and laid them on the grass, unbuttoned the leather coat and the Aranyi wool tunic and dropped them beside the weapons. Under his shirt, worn next to the skin, was Dominic’s prism-handled dagger. He took it from its sheath and held it up, just as the first bite of the eclipse began to darken the sky.
For the first time in five days I lowered my inner eyelids, not to privation and darkness, but to sustenance and light. I worshipped the eclipse with my entire body instead of in the usual way, with face and hands and voice. The shafts of sunlight, bending around the corona in peculiar angles, dropped into me like egg yolks and goats’ milk. And I kept my own prism covered beside me while Dominic did the work of healing.
Jana watched in admiration as Dominic ran his fingers over my skin, the dagger in his left hand, angling the light of the eclipse into his eyes, soothing the sores and healing the bruises. He untied the crude bandage on my wrist, traced a fingertip along the line of the incision and saw that it was closing cleanly. Dominic has had only battlefield training as a healer, but his touch has always done me good. The warmth of his love enveloped me while he worked. My shivering ceased as the fever subsided and the sun emerged from shadow.
When Dominic had done what he could for me, he removed his shirt, propped me up to pull the garment over my head, guiding my arms into the sleeves the way Isobel or I dress Val in the morning. The linen, damp with Dominic’s sweat, was soft and light against my irritated skin, fresh and clean after the putrid dress. Dominic rolled up the long sleeves until my hands emerged and drew the shirttails down over my thighs to my knees, trembling with his recent memories.
“I dare not bathe you yet, beloved,” Dominic said. “The stream is ice water.” No one had had time to light a fire, nor had anyone brought any utensils large or sturdy enough to heat water. Bathing and cooking are for long campaigns, not for forced-march emergencies.
Dominic lifted my head to give me sips of that sweet ice water, waiting while I adjusted to the numbing feel of it in my throat. He brought coarse brown bread and strong-smelling hard cheese from the scrip at his waist. As with the similar food the miner had offered me earlier, eating such heavy fare loomed in my imagination as a huge, insurmountable obstacle. My digestion was the last of my body’s systems to revive. “No, Dominic,” I said. “I can’t.”
My husband stared, my refusal to eat proving to him, beyond any other single factor, how desperate my condition was. He saw in my memories the food I had rejected before, again tried to joke. “I know you’re sick, beloved, when you won’t eat spiced sausage or cheese.” He gave a double portion to Jana who tore into the bread like a starving wolf and almost threw the cheese down her throat. Val, still oblivious, dozed throughout.
Niall, unclear as to the extent of Dominic’s new concern for female nudity, but suspecting that a naked ‘Gravina Aranyi was not a suitable sight for him under any circumstances, had kept his distance, searching the Aranyi camp, until I was dressed again. He returned with more blankets he had found among the baggage and watched as Dominic wrapped me up and swaddled Val. “Very nice,” said, looking not at me or my son, but at Dominic’s bare chest.
Dominic bent to put on his black tunic, but stopped halfway. Seeing Niall’s unconcealed admiration, Dominic lowered his eyelids in a sideways glance of communion and picked up the sorry remnants of the girl’s dress instead. Laying them safely on a patch of bare earth, Dominic incinerated them with one pointing finger of his outstretched hand. Jana allowed a brief close-mouthed smile to illuminate her stricken face as the wisps of wool went up in smoke.
Jana had dogged her father’s every step, but resumed her place by my side as soon as we were settled again. My husband looked down at his daughter in her torn and soiled shirt and breeches, her short hair hanging in jagged clumps around her battered face. He smiled with difficulty, not wishing to frighten her further with too much sympathy for wounds that were not, strictly speaking, serious. Cradling a cheek, he used his gift to relieve the worst effects from the black eye and Reynaldo’s knock-out blow of last night. Remembering how often she had chafed at the restrictions of long skirts and the burden of long hair, he thought of a way to restore his daughter’s spirits. “You can wear shirt and breeches a little longer, cherie,” he said. “You have been both daughter and son to me today.”
Jana scowled, blinking back tears. “No, Papa,” she said. “I’m a girl. I want to wear my dress.”
Dominic looked helplessly at me. He had brought nothing with him but the clothes he wore and his weapons. Jana’s travel dress was back in the ruined castle, on the straw under my cloak, where it had performed its last role, as stand-in for Jana while she mingled with the bandit children, brought me food and discovered bows and arrows. “You’re my girl,” I said. “It doesn’t matter what you wear, you’ll always be my little girl.”
Niall laughed at Jana’s pathetic voice and words. “Yes, my betrothed,” he said, “you’re a real damsel in distress!” He stood next to Dominic as he ticked off Jana’s contributions on his fingers. “It was this girl who saved us all. She learned about the arrows. She tried to warn me. She crippled that bastard when he tried to escape—”
“No!” Jana interrupted Niall’s well-intentioned recital. “No! Papa killed them all!” She glared at Niall as if he had accused her of something shameful. “You fought them. You rescued me.” She clung to me, crying and shaking her head, all her natural fierceness devoted to denying her own accomplishments.
Dominic and Niall exchanged worried glances. But I understood my daughter, felt closer to her emotions at that moment than I ever have, before or since. She was tired of being a hero, that was all. She had been brave and tough and daring. But she was not yet six years old and she needed to be a child again. A girl child, with competent parents she could rely on to perform the adult duties of protection and rescue, who could face down anything, even death. I hugged her to me, her warmth permeating the layers of blankets and Dominic’s shirt, and calmed her enough to let me speak.
“Jana’s right,” I said. That got Dominic’s attention, and Niall’s. They both started to argue with me. I raised a weary hand, pointed to the two men. “No, you won this battle.” I spoke to Jana. “I told Papa about the arrows, and Papa told Niall. That’s how Niall knew to make the shields. You see?” Jana’s face regained some serenity as I began the long process of apology and explanation. “I pretended to be dead so I could warn Papa with crypta, and Reynaldo would think we didn’t know about the arrows.”
Dominic, attuned now to his child’s sensibilities, joined in the effort. “Your mama’s telli
ng the truth, sweetheart,” he said. “She saved herself, as much as anyone. Your mama and I, and my tough-talking companion here.” He put an arm around his lover’s waist, laughed lovingly at Niall’s outraged expression.
Niall, lacking a parent’s intuition, opened his mouth to object, but Dominic stopped him with a kiss, a long, intense grind of mouth on mouth as Dominic thought to his lover, explaining the need to rebuild Jana’s shaky sense of security. I know, Dominic thought to Niall. I know the facts very well. And I’m most thankful, most thankful, to have so valiant a champion at my side… His thoughts lost some of their coherence as desire overtook them both.
Niall struggled at first, feeling misunderstood, then returned Dominic’s kiss as he accepted Jana’s peculiar, female, outlook. He pulled Dominic closer, melting into his lover’s fierce embrace, pressing hip to hip, chest to chest. They were hot for each other—I could feel it, the desire scorching the air around them, burning me like the fever. Ever since the press of battle, the brief kiss and greeting after the worst of the fighting, their blood had been up, aroused by the sight of the other, hearts pounding with the nearness, unable to do anything but think, their passion growing with anticipation.
Jana giggled, seeing in the deep kisses, the roving hands and heavy breathing incontrovertible evidence, more reassuring than any words, of a return to blessed normality. She found a loose end of blanket and pulled it over herself, rolling in against my back, surrendering to untroubled sleep. Dominic and Niall stumbled blindly toward a secluded copse and sank to their knees. All around me the sounds of peace lulled me to sleep again: the birds in the trees, the deep murmuring voices of my husband and his companion, the soft breathing of my children, the wind rustling branches overhead. I basked in dreamless unconsciousness as Val and I went through the last restorative stages of our return from death.
CHAPTER 17
I woke to the sounds of real life intruding. While my children and I slept, while Dominic and Niall made love, the rest of the Aranyi men had arrived in camp. They had waited at the outskirts while Dominic saw to me, had made dutiful efforts to keep quiet for the sake of ‘Gravina Aranyi and her children. But there was work to do and the men, like Dominic and Niall, needed release from the days of tension. Freed from the care of their arrival when the outcome had been still in doubt, no longer required to observe watchful silence, they broke twigs underfoot, startled birds and animals with their voices. Men coughed and laughed, reliving the tense moments of the arrow attacks, the brief siege and briefer battle, as they tramped in and out of the center of the encampment, gathering wood, building the campfire, filling skins with water from the stream, munching stale rations or heading off into the deeper forest to set snares for small game.
Dominic and Niall emerged from their love nest, arms entwined, bits of leaves and grass clinging to their clothes and hair. When they saw the purposeful activity in camp, they peeled themselves off each other with difficulty, as though glued together with their love.
Ranulf waited until the separation was complete before reporting to Dominic in a low voice. Dominic shook his head in self-reproach as he listened. Through my woozy contentment, I caught a little of the situation. There was much to do while the daylight lasted. All the bandits must be beheaded, the heads stuck on poles placed around the perimeter of the castle’s territory, a warning to some, a comfort to the majority—the law-abiding farm tenants and graziers—who would see evidence that their lord had retaken control. Tents that were still folded must be pitched for the night, food prepared and distributed, the wounded cared for, the horses fed and watered. Most of it was well under way, but it always takes the commander’s guiding hand to ensure that everything is managed in an orderly and efficient fashion.
Dominic rolled his eyes at Niall as if to say, “What were we thinking?” while he buttoned his tunic over his bare skin and buckled on his sword and dagger.
Love, Niall answered him in thought, resentful at the implied rejection of what had so recently been desired. We were thinking of love. He sat down next to me, his knees drawn up, and laid his head on his folded arms.
It was unlike Dominic, I realized, my thought processes more acute after my nap, to surrender to desire while his men worked. Perhaps Niall was too young and too caught up in his emotions to feel it, but I knew that Dominic would look back on this episode with shame.
I took a hand in a long circuitous journey through the layers of blankets that enfolded me and rested my palm lightly on Niall’s shoulder. Despite my gentleness Niall startled at my touch. His body was shaking with fatigue—fatigue and something else, something I had once dreaded to find, had stopped worrying about for years.
In my groggy condition I had forgotten that Niall, unlike his predecessor, had come to us a man and expected me to keep a woman’s respectful distance. Now, unintentionally, I had discovered a secret. Niall shrugged, glad of an excuse to unburden himself. Pointing to the opened neck of his tunic and shirt, the marks where teeth and long thin fingers had bit and pressed, leaving angry red welts that would darken to black and purple, he searched my face before thinking his question, choosing his words carefully. Is he always this– intense after a battle? If Dominic’s rough treatment was simply the after-effect of the violence of combat, a common occurrence among soldiers, Niall might not read too much into this one incident.
The last battle of any consequence had been six years ago, before my marriage. I had never accompanied my husband on campaign; it was unthinkable. Only one person could answer Niall’s question. You’d have to ask Stefan. I said, remembering only how Dominic’s relationship with that young man had proved to my husband that such violence was within his power to control.
Niall’s face shut down, along with his crypta. Like me, he felt Dominic still held inappropriately strong feelings for a former lover. “Compare notes, you mean?” he said in a tight voice. “I’m not complaining. Merely curious.” He was scared, and too young and too used to being able to handle everything thrown at him, to know what to do.
As if I did, I thought, the first threads of fear beginning to weave their pattern in my mind. There was a sound in my head: crying, begging for mercy, sibilant whispers rising suddenly to screams. It embodied all my own fears, but it was external. Laughter was interspersed with the moaning sobs—cruel, deranged laughter, with a feral note to it, like the cry of a hunting hawk, yet resonant, almost musical.
Dominic. The laughter was Dominic’s, the pleading cries Reynaldo’s. Dominic was torturing his captive already, had not waited until we were back in Aranyi. My husband was playing with Reynaldo as any cat will with the mouse or bird it has caught, cannot save such a fascinating toy for later, but must pat it with the soft paw that conceals the sharp claws, must watch, with the merciless, intent gaze of the luminous eyes in the handsome face, its frantic attempts to save itself.
I stared up as a long shadow fell to see Dominic standing over us. As I had suspected, he had come to regard his interlude of love as dereliction of duty and was eager to make his co-conspirator share some of the blame. “Niall,” he said, “every other unwounded man is working.”
I gasped, hearing the unchanged background noise. The pleading and cruel laughter had not subsided. They were as strong as ever while Dominic, his face still and austere, chided Niall like any other subordinate for shirking his duty. The game of torture was taking place all within the world of crypta, in the back of Dominic’s brain, while the front carried on with all the minutiae of daily life: of being a ‘Graven lord, commanding officer and the responsible head of a family. It was hard to say if Dominic even knew what the back half of his mind was doing. But the inner eyelids, almost completely glass again, gave it away.
The clear, soulless spheres turned to me at my gasp. My blood, depleted from wounds and lack of nourishment, threatened to turn to water. “Dominic.” I spoke loudly, to cut through the moaning and the fiendish giggling that continued to occupy the telepathic sensors of my mind. “Dominic, Niall and
I are tired.”
Amalie. The telepathic voice was warm and soft. Amalie, beloved. I felt the contrast as Dominic turned some of his thoughts to me, experienced the wave of relief that washed over Reynaldo as the torture slackened.
I knew I must keep Dominic’s attention diverted toward me. The longer things went on in this way, the harder it would become to break through to Dominic’s sane self. “Dominic, I think I can eat now, once supper is ready. And Jana must be famished. Aren’t you, love?” I nudged my daughter. Jana sat up, rubbing her eyes. She nodded at my question, too tired to tell whether she was hungry, but knowing from my tone of voice what the answer was supposed to be.
Dominic struggled in silence, caught between the two poles, love and hate, mercy and cruelty, healing and torture, his face a mask concealing the battle within. The silver of self-control gained a beachhead around the edges of his eyes, grew to a strip of shoreline, but was pushed back by the waves of the defending enemy of glass. Once again the claws were extended to snag in the open wounds of the prey, the desperate pleading and the gloating laughter resumed.
It was me, in a way. As much as I had the power, by virtue of our strong love, to pull Dominic back from the edge of madness, yet each time he saw me was a reminder of the reason for revenge. My presence, physically or in his mind, would bring Dominic to his senses, only to return him, reeling with fury, to the slow torment of his victim, as he saw the bruises and the thinness, felt the fever and the sores on the body of his wife, his second self. He was doing his duty after all, and his honor was at stake. If he enjoyed his work, in the way of a hunting cat, so much the better.
There was another struggle, not within Dominic, or me, but beside me. His mother’s movements and speech woke Val to indignant awareness that he had gone much longer than was proper without the usual comforts. “Let me out,” he said, finding himself trapped in a scratchy woolly cocoon. As I uncovered his head and freed his arms he saw Niall at eye level. “Greetings, little man,” Val said in the accent of the miners.
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