My Something Wonderful

by Jill Barnett

  “Mount your horse, Glenna,” he said tiredly.

  They rode all day in the rain, finding only a little shelter through woods and forests, and the longer they rode the colder it became, and the muddier. When they could, they rode over grass covered hills at a faster pace to avoid the mud. To the north stood tall granite crags, like massive gray guards of a gateway to another world. To the south, gloomy green woods cloaked in clouds, some trees so massive and old they had sheltered Picts and Norse raiders. Streams rushed over rocks looking more like rivers than they must have merely a few days before.

  Once again the storms brought an end to summer. Autumn was clearly there now and raining down upon her. She was wet from the top of her head to the tips of her toes, and despite the weather, the whole time she could think of nothing but what happened between them, of his touches, his taste and his mouth on hers…and his apology afterwards.

  His continued silence annoyed her, especially after the saddle had pounded her so much even her backside was numb. Might as well annoy him. “I do not understand you, Montrose,” she said finally.

  “I do not understand myself,” he replied, seeming to connect to what she was talking about without explanation.

  “I am supposed to be ashamed over what passed between us?”

  “The Devil’s teeth woman! Can you not merely ride in silence?”

  “I can ride without ever speaking, my lord. I choose not to do so solely because you want to avoid my questions. I’m disappointed, Montrose. I did not think you were a coward.”

  “I will not rise to your bait.”

  “What bait? I ask you one question and you are already angry at me? We are at war because you cannot answer a simple question.”

  “And that is where you are mistaken. ‘Tis not a simple question.”

  “To me it is,” she said quietly.

  He slowed his mount and looked at her. She tried to hide her hurt by looking down at Fergus, who had wandered toward a large bush. “No!” she snapped her fingers. “Come.”

  Montrose said nothing for long moments and she decided it was time to give up.

  “Surely you understand you are not supposed to be so cursed pleased about what happened between us.” He sounded disgusted.

  “No. I do not. But you can explain why.”

  “Why? Why? You keep asking why.”

  “And you become angrier. I am thinking I should keep asking until you answer me.”

  He turned in the saddle. “It is not my duty to defile the king’s daughter!”

  Her spine went rigid. “Oh, I see…” She said bitterly. “ ‘Tis better to keep the daughter pure. Keep the royal virginity unsoiled, so it can be sold to the highest bidder or bartered to the first of my father’s enemies to offer him peace. Me? Unsoiled? “ She laughed without humor. “Why should it matter? I am destined to be a vessel for a man’s use and pleasure. In truth, I am, by birth, naught but a man’s whore.”

  “Glenna…” he said with a dark warning.

  “What? I am to be married off, sold as the royal prize, and that is supposed to make me happy? Pardon me, my lord, if I do not dance about and shout with glee.”

  “You are a woman,” he said so simply. “You will give your husband children, sons and daughters. Is that not a woman’s desire, to be protected and cared for, to bring forth children from her body?”

  There it was: a woman’s entire life purpose in a single male thought. She laughed again. “Aye, Montrose,” she said without hiding her contempt for situation. “I long so deeply in my heart to be a brood mare.”

  “You want an argument and I will not be lured into a game of words.” He kicked the black faster up the next hill.

  “I want an argument,” she said indignantly, then glared at his back and followed, wishing she could ride off toward those tall gray crags and off into a world where her surname was not Canmore and there were no men around to pretend to love her, to protect and to guard her, or to use her.

  So they did not speak of it again, and between them there was only silence and pouring rain. He rode and rode, onward for more leagues than she had ever ridden in such foul weather. Poor Fergus was drenched, mud on the long shaggy hair of his belly and sucking at his paws. He hung his head down and trudged gamely onward. The rain grew into splattering sheets of water and she was getting colder...she couldn't get any wetter.

  Soon riding was difficult: it began to seem as if night would never come, but she followed, silent still, slogging along through rivers of water, soft muck and mud, the weather getting worse as the day grew to a close. When she thought she was going to give in and demand he stop, she looked to Fergus for courage, because her dog stayed the course, one paw in front of the other, not a whimper or a sound.

  Rain sluiced off her hat and onto her hands. The reins were wet and she was becoming accustomed to the odor of wet horsehair every time she inhaled. She wondered at the man’s endurance, and questioned her own, and his sanity. She had been wet for over two full days.

  How much longer would they go? She watched Fergus stay at her side, plodding through the thickening mud, and finally couldn't let him slog on. "Montrose," she said, intending to rein in and pull the large hound up in front of her.

  Montrose stopped. “Beauly Priory is over that hill,” he said.

  "I'm taking Fergus up with me."

  He looked at her for a long, icy moment, then dismounted and picked up Fergus as if he weighed little and mounted with her wet dog in front of him.

  The sky was dark and moonless and she could barely stop from shaking and could not respond her teeth were chattering so. She had almost fallen asleep in the saddle more times than she cared to count. Her hands were so cold she could not feel her fingers.

  By the time they finally ‘rounded the last hill, rang for entrance, and rode through the gates of the priory, her head pounded and she could barely see in front of her. Her teeth chattered no matter how hard she locked her jaw together, and she doubted her feet were still at the ends of her legs.

  The horses clattered into the stone courtyard, where rivulets of water ran like small rivers down towards the southern walls. The thick oaken doors of the monastery opened almost immediately, sending warm yellow light spilling into the courtyard. She caught herself in mid-gasp. The light meant warmth.

  Two young oblates rushed out to take the horses, followed by an older monk dressed in the black robes of his order and carrying a brightly burning reed torch, the shaven circle of his tonsure shining from the flickering torchlight.

  “Hallo!”Montrose said.

  “Who is there?”

  “Lyall Robertson,” he said. “The Baron Montrose requests shelter for the night!”

  “Come! Come! I am Pater Bancho, the cellarer. Inside with you…the weather is foul.”

  Montrose dismounted with Fergus, who looked better than she felt.

  "Come," Pater Bancho repeated and waved them toward the open doors as one of the oblates took Skye’s reins and looked quizzically up at her with the sweet boyish features of an angel. He frowned, then cocked his head and stared at her.

  Glenna smiled weakly, bent over to dismount and water poured off the wide brim of her hat and splattered onto his robes. Her hat slipped off; it fell forward before she could catch it and hit the ground. Her long braid tumbled out and hung down past her stirrup.

  Montrose spun on his heel. With the light behind him she could not see his face, but she could only imagine the scowling look he wore and the vile curses that were going through his mind. Her disguise was lost.

  The boy looked at her hair, then back to her face, apparently shocked at the realization she was a not a boy, and he gasped, “Milady?”

  At that very moment, she did not give a fig. She slid down from the saddle, only to hit ground with a splash and have her knees start to give way. She reached out and gripped the saddle strap, and Montrose grabbed her by a fistful of her sodden clothes and kept her from hitting the ground.

  Had sh
e done so, surely she would have shamed herself and lain there broken and wet and burst into hysterical sobbing.

  He leaned over and asked quietly, “Can you walk inside?”

  “You may release my clothing, my lord,” she said stiffly and pulled her shoulder away, knowing she spoke with false pride. She then ruined the entire effect of her words when she swayed and the warm golden light before her grew hazy and dark at the edges of her vision. “Oh no…” She raised her hand to her spinning head

  He muttered something she couldn’t quite comprehend and swept her up into his arms as if she were made of nothing but goose feathers.

  “I am able to walk,” she said, though her arms linked around his neck then her body melted into his warmth. “I am,” she insisted weakly, unable to stop the words because some small part of her needed to resist him at every turn.

  “I’m sure you are able to try to walk,” he said calmly. “And I will have to hold you up by the scruff of your clothing while you try so proudly to do so. Do you believe if you enter through that doorway in such a manner that your pride will stay unimpaired?”

  Bugger! He made a good point, and she was too tired and cold to find the will or desire to argue with him over it. As Montrose carried her inside, she was vaguely aware that the old monk was rushing alongside. “Fergus!” she called out, worried about him and panicked he had been left behind. She hated that she sounded so pitiful.

  “He is here. Do not fret. Come dog,” Montrose said his voice sounding strangely thick.

  “What is this, my lord?” the monk asked. “Is she ill?”

  “My wife is exhausted,” Montrose said. A half lie and a half truth. “We have traveled from Marram.”

  “Across all of Ross-shire in a single day? “

  Montrose was scowling.

  “You made her ride this far? In the storm?” Pater Bancho’s tone said exactly what he thought…that Montrose was mad and cruel to attempt such a distance with a woman in tow.

  Glenna cared not what either of them thought. She was sorely tired and her teeth would not stop chattering, although his big body was so close and warm. She wanted to crawl inside him.

  The monk seemed to recover himself. “Quickly, my lord. Follow me…to the warming room.”

  With a huge effort she cracked open her eyes, because it felt almost as if Montrose was running. Images of the walls sped past her, iron candle pricks and flickering candles that seemed to cast dizzying shadows along the hall. He was running…fancy that, following the old monk who then opened a wide, creaking oak door and stepped aside, and she felt a thankful blast of warm air. She couldn’t hear the groan of relief that gave her weaknesses away.

  “Here. Come in,” the old monk said. “There is the fire and more wood. In the corner are pallets for travelers. I will bring blankets and towels to dry yourselves before I go to the kitchen and fetch some food. Water is in the barrel in the corner. The kettle to warm it is near the hearth. ‘Tis late here, my lord, well past Compline, and most have retired to their dorter and cells. I am on watch tonight.”

  “I had not planned to arrive this late,” Montrose said in his deep voice, which sounded leagues away from her.

  She was so very tired, yet the thought hit her that if he had not planned to arrive so late, that meant he had actually wanted to travel even more swiftly? She was too tired to voluntarily shudder, and her body seemed to be ready to shudder all on its own.

  Luckily for him she was also too cold to speak or to argue or create some more havoc for him. The warmth in the dry room was so wonderful that she checked Fergus, lying by the fire, then closed her eyes, feeling the powerful edges of sleep come over her. There was no saddle to fall from. There was no longer the fear she would break her neck. There was no man riding in front of her as if his life depended upon staying on course. She needn’t have to prove she was strong and could keep up…so she stopped fighting and let sweet, deep sleep take her away.

  * * *

  Lyall threw more wood on the fire, which flared and sparked, and the heat from it soon increased three-fold. He crossed over to where he had laid Glenna down, his boots squelching from the rain. She was sound asleep, yet still her teeth were slightly chattering, her lips discolored and grayish. Her skin that had been so flushed with pleasure earlier that day, looked almost dead with cold, and she lay curled in a protective ball, knees drawn up, as if she were trying to seek heat from her own body.

  Calling himself every vile name he could conjure up, he dragged the pallet close to the hearth and unpinned her sodden cloak, removed her wet tunic and trouse. Her clothing was so wet it made puddles on the stone floor Her skin was blue, and he had to fight her arms—she kept hugging herself. So he peeled her arms away again and again, and he could not help but notice that her breasts--right there before his eyes--lay small and tight. Even the tips of them were bluish.

  It was not desire that drove him now. ‘Twas panic. He realized what he had done to her, again, he thought bitterly. All of his trespasses against her were in a single day.

  And yet the worst of them is still to come.

  He dared not go there and try to live with himself, so he took a linen towel from a stack of them warming by the hearth and rubbed it briskly over her cold, damp limbs. But thoughts of his sworn promises would not wane. He could justify his actions, all men did so, his mother claimed many times when she was sorely disappointed. ‘Men can always justify their actions. ‘

  But then he did not think women could ever understand a man’s ties to land.

  At that moment, Lyall felt trapped by the politics of kings and men; he did not like the plot he was involved in.

  Dunkelden…. Dunkelden… Dunkelden…

  Always in the back of his mind, the land was always there to remind him of what drove him. He continued to rub dry her whole body and then covered her with layers of rough woolen blankets, tucking them tightly around her.

  For all his scheming and planning, he had not thought about how she would weather the road. Of course he was used to riding hard; knights were trained to withstand hardship, tiredness and hunger, along with the most extremes of weather, both hot and cold.

  He’d even worn out her hound. Looking like a giant, soaking wet pile of freshly sheered lamb’s wool, the poor dog lay sprawled out by the fire, as if his legs and body had given out at that very spot. The huge beast’s eyes were closed. The hound wasn’t dead; he was snoring.

  The door swung open and Pater Bancho shuffled in carrying a tray of cold mutton, barley bread and honey, and cups filled with dark mead.

  Fergus awakened to the smells, eyed the mutton on the tray, then grunted and went back to sleep.

  “Do you need anything else, my lord?” Pater Bancho asked him.

  “Nay,” Lyall said and thanked him. “Here.” He handed him silver. “For your coffers,” he said, paying with enough coin to be named a benefactor, and grateful that on this night they were the lone travelers in the public room.

  The abbeys, monasteries, and small priories scattered across the shires took in travelers of all kind and pilgrims. They fed the hungry and healed the sick. They were safe havens, for even the worst of enemies were hesitant to jeopardize their hereafter journey. The power of the Church was great, and not only over men's souls.

  Behind abbey walls and in the loft rooms and scriptoriums, the clerics and scribes put nib to parchment and wrote manuscripts and contracts, creating hand-scribed treaties and agreements into something more tangible than merely words between men, words which would often change over time and weak memory, and with whatever way the winds of the lands would blow. Not merely houses of God, of education and prayer, they were villages unto themselves, with workshops and store rooms, animals, cattle and barns, farms and grain fields, vegetable and herb gardens, orchards and even mills if built on a water source. Often they provided the only medicine and cures available to the nearby region.

  A knight with his servant stopping at an abbey would have raised no ques
tions. But a knight and his lady? Noble couples most often stayed with other landed nobility, those who owned the local manor houses. It was too late now. He could not go back and secure her hat to pass for a lad. It was what it was….

  He moved the tray over near the pallet and knelt down by Glenna. “Wake up,” he said quietly and touched her shoulder and said her name.

  She did not respond. He shook her slightly but she slept on.

  He used to awaken his sister this way: he took a finger and traced it down the bridge of her straight nose, and she wrinkled it. “Glenna, come now. Wake up, sweet…”

  Nothing again.

  He moved his fingertip along the soft sweet line of her lips, because he was powerless not to do so, and her mouth parted slightly. Only his sense and concern for her kept him from lowering his head to her open mouth and sipping at her sweet lips, tasting and drinking his fill of her.

  “Glenna?”

  “Sleep,” she said in a half moan, then she sighed and merely pulled the blankets tighter around her chin. Her face was flushed now from the heat of the fire, looking as she had that morning when he had taken advantage of her.

  He did not like that he had lost control, when the point had been to teach her who held the power. He sat back on the floor, his legs bent, resting his arms casually on his knees. Lying to himself did no good.

  She called to him like the most dangerous of sirens--he, a man crashing into the deadly rocks. Try was he might, he could not control the powerful pull she had on him, the ebony fire he saw when he looked into her eyes, so black at times they held him captive, him unable to move for fear he would lose what passed between them in those few, oddly binding moments when he was reduced to nothing but a man starved for her, only for her.

  What was it that drew him to her without thought or reason?

  Whatever it was, it was there in her very coloring, the light and dark of her, as if by merely looking at her his heart was at war.

  Her beauty was not the pale, angelic comeliness of Mairi, all silver and golden and light, but a stark, almost shocking--an untouchable loveliness. Forbidden to him, this beauty of the night at its darkest penultimate moment, and stormy, like the souls of lost men who had tried and failed to live down the name of traitor.