by Diana Rubino
"I've got another, but if ye can't grab it, I can reach over and hold it to your lips, lass."
"Never mind," she whispered, her lips cracked and dry. Her teeth had begun to chatter so that she didn't think she could manage a flask held to her lips. Instead she opened her lips and let the snow that had started falling anew melt on her tongue. She thought it would chill her, but it was a most blessed relief.
The party was quiet as they trudged along through the expanse of trees. Dead branches scraped against her cheeks as they wound their way through, the path now buried. Her face was scratched, bleeding, and raw.
She was barely able to close her eyes against the branches that stuck out in her way, but had not the energy to lean over to avoid them.
Then something came out of her confused jumble of random thoughts and told her to pray as she never had before. Not just the words, but a prayer from the heart.
By now she'd lost all feeling, and knew her exhaustion had become a prelude to the deep sleep she felt sure that she was about to enter.
But somehow she wasn't afraid. She welcomed death as a warm passage into a world of comfort and light.
Through her stiffened lips she mouthed the prayer she'd found at random: "Keep me and defend me from all evil and from my evil enemy and from all danger, present, past and to come..."
She begged mercy for her soul, bursting with sadness at the thought of never seeing Valentine again. She pictured his face, racked with worry as it had been after she had nearly been killed on her last excursion.
She regretted not having trusted him enough to tell him the truth about where she was going. Oh, if only she hadn't been so stubborn, refusing his help, blaming him for the tragedy in Witherham near Leicester, and suspecting him of plotting with Elizabeth, he could be on his way to rescuing her now!
Please, Valentine, she begged, wishing she could clasp her hands together in prayer, but they were nearly frozen around Chera's reins.
Please forgive me! I didn't mean to hurt you. To leave you forever. If only I could have another chance, I'd be the best wife any man could have!
She began to cry, not for her own impending death, but for him. How she'd departed so callously, treated him so high-handedly in their marriage with never a thought for what he needed.
She formed an image of him in her mind: how his eyes lit up when he saw her, the way he had held her that night before the wedding, his refusal to take her physically unless she loved him.
How she regretted never telling him how secretly fond of him she really was.
Oh, Valentine, if only I had another chance, I'd make it all up to you, she sighed inwardly, trying to stop the tears before they froze her eyes shut. I do care, I really do.
But it's too late, all too late. We shall meet again in our next life, Valentine, she told him in her heart. God willing, we shall meet again and I shall open my heart to love just as you once asked.
Then, in her blurred daze, that familiar spark of anger ignited and gave her weary body the slightest inkling of coherence. No! She couldn't die without ever seeing him again. He needed her!
They had so much to share, so many changes and turning points in their lives to enjoy as man and wife together. Early death was not in her plans. She could not, simply would not die, until her destiny here on earth was fulfilled!
She forced her fingers to move, the skin so cold and stiff she thought it would crack and expose bone, but she started slowly, then in a few minutes' time, they were partially mobile. She called out to Owen for another flask. After some fumbling in his saddle bag, he yanked one out and leaned over to give it to her.
Stretching, she reached and groped, pulled off her glove and grasped it with her bare hand and held it to her lips. The soothing liquid trickled down her throat like life being breathed back into her. She licked her lips and they warmed, tingling as sensation slowly returned.
"I can feel my lips, I can talk, oh, my feelings have come back!" she exclaimed as Owen nodded.
"They be good tidings, and I have even better news for you as well, for I see a shelter of some sort up yon."
Shelter. The word to her gave her the same comfort as the words ‘feather mattress' would under normal circumstances. Her heart leapt and a surge of excitement tore through her ragged exhaustion.
"Where?" she whispered, squinting through the falling snow.
Owen veered off to the right and she followed. The snow was not so deep here in the thick of the forest, and Chera was easily able to walk in the footsteps of Owen's horse.
Through the blur of bark and branches she could make out a mass of fallen trees a few feet high, arching across the ground like a makeshift cave. It was shallow, it was low, but it had a cover, and the ground appeared clear and dry. It would provide a scanty but very real shelter from the harshness that was doing its utmost to ravage her spirit, her strength, her life. "Oh, sweet Jesu!" she sighed, tears welling up in her eyes, her lashes still weighed down with bits of ice. "Thank you."
"She's all in," a distant voice said. "Lay a blanket in there and let her lie down." She felt a pair of hands slide under her back and behind her knees. Her head lolled to one side as someone carried her to the shelter, wrapped her in a blanket and lay her on the ground under the woven branches.
The voices around her blended, then faded away as she slipped into darkness. Yet she was not afraid. Suddenly the warmth she'd so desperately craved was there, like the embrace of God.
Be this death? she wondered, as a golden light flared into her vision. Valentine, my love…
She embraced her fate now, love in her heart, at peace at last.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The sound of shouting jolted Denys awake. Glazing the snow around her, patches of brilliance shone through the weave of branches over her head.
As her eyes opened on the sight before her, awareness returned in disjointed patterns and gave way to sheer terror. Dark figures tore at each other's throats, cursing, grunting, spitting.
Highwaymen were attacking her party! They were filthy, ragged, with sinister slits for eyes, mercilessly attacking her three men.
The contest was already unequal, but now two more leapt out of the woods, armed with longbows and arrows. She gasped in horror as a black hail of arrows shot across her, only feet away, and she heard the sickening pierce of human flesh. Bright red spurted out and soaked the snow.
One filthy monster lunged at her. Before she could utter a cry, he tore her cloak, and began crushing her with his bulk. Greasy strands of hair fell over his face and into his eyes as he dragged her downwards.
Her arms flailed, beating the sides of his arms. He forced her legs apart. She balled her fists and beat his back, but he clearly enjoyed the struggle. He yanked her skirts to her thighs, and the raw cold bit her skin. His stench made her want to retch. But she could barely even draw in breath as he pinned her.
He grunted, trying to wriggle out of his hose. His breath was a foul blast across her cheek with every heave he took.
She squeezed her eyes shut and clenched her teeth. Oh, God, please God, let this nightmare end.
Suddenly he emitted a high-pitched animal-like wail, his body went limp, and he collapsed on her. She struggled for air under his dead weight.
Then a pair of powerful arms lifted him up and Peter rolled the lifeless body face upwards onto the ground. He had already pulled his dagger, coated and dripping with blood, from the assailant's back.
He put it to one side and gathered her to him. She trembled like the fragile branches around them.
"‘Tis all right, love, I killed ‘im. ‘e's dead now," he soothed her as he rocked her back and forth, her tears of fright painfully stinging her frostbitten flesh.
Seeing that their leader was in a lifeless heap on the ground, the band of thieves swiftly rounded up their horses, leaving Owen and Bruce lying prone in the dirt.
She saw Chera rear in protest as one of them yanked on her reins and pulled her away. Too stunned to even
move, she sat stock still save for her shivering until complete silence took over again. She could hear agonized moaning just outside the clump of branches under which she sat, but hardly even knew how to move her limbs.
But something propelled her onwards. Dizzy with hunger and fatigue, she crawled out of the shelter and up to Owen's figure lying in the snow.
His breath coming in tortured gasps, and she knew his end could not be long. Still on her hands and knees, the snow soaking her clothes and stinging her skin with numbing cold, she carefully worked the arrow from Owen' chest as more blood spurted out of the wound. A deep red puddle spread over his cloak, telling her all too clearly how serious his wound was.
"Owen...Owen," she whispered.
His eyes opened and stared up into the sky, unfocused, and his breathing becoming raspy and hollow.
Bruce and Peter rushed to his side now, covered in blood themselves, though not nearly as badly off as their comrade. She could tell they were bearing the pain of their wounds ever so bravely. They lifted Owen as best they could and dragged him back into the shelter. Numbly, she crawled back in after them.
"Put his head in my lap," she said as she struggled to sit. Branches painfully dug into the top of her head.
They placed his head in her lap and she cradled it.
"We're going to try and get some help," Peter said as they backed out of the shelter on their knees.
"How? They've taken our horses, baggage, everything we had, even Chera!"
"It's stopped snowing and the day is bright and clear. We should be able to manage on foot. We shall find something to help us, if only the tracks of the thieves, so we can get back what is ours. Or at least find help. They'll be local. They'll know where the settlements are hereabouts, and that will mean help for us all."
"No, it's too dangerous—"
"So is staying out here with naught," Peter said quietly.
All the men nodded, even poor Owen.
"We shall separate," Bruce said. "I still have my compass. If I head north-west and Peter heads south-west, one of us should be able to reach help and rescue the others. Peter and I shall meet up hence."
"You really mean to leave us here?" she asked in horror.
"You must stay here with Owen. Worry not. Someone will be back to fetch you. If Peter and I both go, ‘twill double our chances of finding help. Have you a better idea?"
"Nay." She shook her head, unable to grasp the horror of the situation, much less dream up an innovative idea to get them out of it.
"Fine. God willing, one of us will return soon with help for us all. Let us go, Peter."
"But what if the brigands return?"
"We have killed their leader. They will not dare."
She didn't ask how he could be so sure, but now was not the time to argue. Not if they had any hope of saving Owen. So despite all her fears, she nodded. "Very well. Go."
Peter offered her his dagger. "Hide it in your sleeve. If anyone does come, well, you know what to do."
She blanched, but nodded. "I'll protect him."
Peter looked surprised at that, but gave an encouraging smile. "Good lass. We'll make an owl call twice when we return so you shall know we're coming with help."
"Thank you. I'll see you soon," she said in a tone ringing with confidence, even though inwardly she was terrified.
She watched them depart, and saw the two men separate after a few paces, while she gently rocked Owen's head, talking to the partly conscious man soothingly.
"They will be back soon, Owen. They will return with help. We shall get out of this, we shall all be fine."
He began to stir, and his eyes focused on her face. A hint of a smile broke through the wanness and he took several tortured breaths before he was able to speak.
"I am dying, lass, I am breathing my last."
"Nay, you are not! We s-s-shall get h-h-help. They have g-g-gone to get h-h-help," she stammered between shivering lips.
"Listen to me. Do not say a word, just listen."
He licked his lips, took another wheezy breath and sputtered. She turned his head so he could spit a glob of blood upon the earth. He turned back to her.
"I can tell you now because in but a few moments I shall be gone, so ‘twill matter not. I remember...after having been in King Harry's service, I returned to him many years hence to assist him in matters of the treasury.
"It was during that stay, at Mass, I saw a man handing a babe to him—oh, she couldn'a been more than six, seven months old. ‘Take good care of her,' the man said. ‘She may be of value someday.' That was all I remember him saying.
"King Harry took the babe and looked down at her. His face was a blank, like he knew not what to do. Then he straightaway handed the babe to the nursemaid, who bustled off."
He paused to take a deep breath, turned and coughed more blood on the ground.
"Oh, Jesu! When was this? Do you know what year?"
"What year..." A series of sighs followed a faint shake of his head. "I was forty, or was I...I must have been forty, it had to be then..." His voice grew weaker and she leaned way over to hear. "I was born in fourteen-seventeen, so it had to be fourteen…fifty-seven?"
"The year I was born!" Her heart leapt. "Owen, who was this man who gave the babe to King Henry?"
"His name was..." He succumbed to a fit of coughing, worse than any of the others, and he tossed his head from side to side. Blood seeped through his clenched teeth. She managed to pull one of her skirts up to his mouth to wipe away the blood.
"John," he gasped, his breathing shallower now. For a moment it stopped. He was still.
Then it rattled again and his chest rose feebly as he struggled for air.
"John!" she repeated, begging him with her eyes, locking into the gaze that left her and was now staring straight up at the sky, "John who?"
"John..." It came out in a whisper. He coughed, sputtered, and took his final breath. His eyes opened wide and bulged, then the lids slipped over them for the last time. His features relaxed and settled into eternal stillness. His chest no longer rose and fell. No more air or blood escaped his lips.
He was gone.
"Owen! Owen! Oh God, Owen, no!" She lowered her head over his lifeless form and wept. And with him any further clues about her real identity.
It grew dark, and darker still. His head was heavy upon her lap, and she struggled to free herself from under him. Laying his head gently upon the ground, she said a prayer for his soul, then curled up into a ball at the entrance of the shelter, crouching next to his corpse, slipping out of consciousness and into blackness once again.
John...John...John.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The wine passing her lips was almost as comforting as the strong arm propping up her head and shoulders. The liquid warmed her insides and she felt herself smiling, the only other sensation she was aware of.
Too weary to open her eyes, she leaned forward into folds of velvet. It was Valentine, she knew it. Her heart was bursting with gratitude. Enclosed in his warmth, she felt as if she wanted for nothing for the first time in her entire life. Oh, it felt so good! He was here for her.
"Oh, Jesu, thank you," she prayed. "Thank you for letting me live and return to the only person in the world who matters to me."
"You're still quite weak, lie back again, my dear." The voice was soft and calm, as smooth as the velvet brushing against her cheek.
Slowly her senses returned, and a spark of recognition lit up in her mind. Reality came back, bit by bit. She moved her hands and her feet, lifted one knee, then another, slowly, cautiously, afraid they'd break otherwise. Finally, she could move! She filled her lungs; the air was warm with just a hint of smokiness from the fire at the other side of the room.
She was alive! Too fatigued to appreciate it fully, she gave thanks by wiggling her toes and fingers, enjoying the movement, the ability to control her body. Oh, it felt heavenly!
But could she see, could her eyes function? Slowly she lifted
her lids and through the curtain of her lashes she could make out the blue velvet, the glitter of topaz that echoed the soft candlelight beyond. Sturdy shoulders supported a dark head, the hair reflecting each candle's glimmer as it gave off a glow of its own.
"Richard? What... Where am I?"
"You are at the home of the Earl of Nottingham. You were brought here in a litter by the Earl, who lives a few miles from where they found you, in a shelter of branches. You are but a few miles from Kettlewell, where I was when he summoned me."
"What happened to Bruce and Peter?"
"Bruce summoned help and led us back to you. They are both all right."