The Warrior's Damsel in Distress

by Meriel Fuller

  As she dropped beside Steffen, Bruin sprang to his feet, lurching backwards, staring hard at the woman on her knees. ‘Sophie?’ he managed to croak out. He closed his eyes briefly, hand touching his forehead, in disbelief.

  The woman’s movements stalled, her hands resting on Steffen’s chest. Blood stained her fingers. Her head bounced back on her shoulders as she peered up at the knight who addressed her. ‘Bruin? Is that you?’ she whispered, hazel eyes wide with shock.

  ‘How are you alive?’ he blasted out, anger streaking his voice. His jaw was rigid; a muscle jumped high in his cheekbones. ‘My God, how can this be? I saw your wet clothes—all these years I thought you were dead!’

  The woman swayed. ‘I don’t understand—’ she whispered faintly. ‘Oh—what is happening?’ Her eyes widened dramatically, hazel-coloured irises rolling back in their sockets as she slipped over into a dead faint, her arms draping slackly across Steffen’s portly chest.

  ‘Oh, dear, no. Come on, my lady!’ Simon bent down to Sophie, hands fluttering ineffectively around her as if he wanted to help, but didn’t know how.

  Bruin’s expression was hard, immutable. Cast in shadow by the low angle of the sun, his cheekbones appeared as if carved, sculptured from a block of stone. He towered over the unconscious woman, his dead brother, brawny legs braced apart. ‘What in hell’s name is she doing here?’

  ‘Why, she lives here! She’s Steffen’s wife.’

  From the gatehouse, Eva had watched the blood drain from Bruin’s face, the shock and fury, the utter incredulity that crossed his features at the sight of Sophie again. She darted forward.

  ‘Bruin.’ She touched his chainmail sleeve. The metal was cool beneath her fingers.

  His head whipped around and down, regarding her fiercely, his raw expression easing fractionally as he acknowledged the woman at his side. Eva. He took a long, shaky breath, drawing comfort from her nearness, the fragrant smell of her hair wafting up to him. The scent of roses, reminding him of summer.

  ‘You’ve had a shock.’ Her voice was gentle.

  ‘You could say that,’ he replied through gritted teeth. Nothing could have prepared him for this; it seemed inconceivable, as if he had stepped into a nightmare. This was the woman he had loved. Had loved. He had no wish to hold Sophie, or to comfort her. An unusual hollowness clawed at his innards. His heart was numb. He felt nothing for this woman—absolutely nothing.

  ‘I should help her,’ Eva said.

  ‘I’m not sure she deserves your help,’ he said roughly. ‘Or anyone’s help for that matter.’

  ‘I will tend to her. Can you carry her to a bedchamber?’

  Bruin’s jaw set in a grim, fixed line. His dark lashes stuck out from his brilliant eyes, velvet spikes. One hand hovered above his sword hilt, his lean frame held taut, as if he were about to challenge someone to a fight.

  ‘She is Sophie, isn’t she?’ Eva confirmed tentatively, flinching beneath his scowling gaze. ‘The same woman—?’

  ‘Yes,’ he growled out. ‘The same woman to whom I was betrothed. The same woman whom I thought was dead. What is she doing with my brother? Married to him?’

  ‘Now is not the time for questions, Bruin,’ Eva said quietly. ‘This lady has just lost her husband. If we can move her inside, I will tend to her. And then, when she recovers, I’m sure she will be able to explain things.’

  Through the rocking sea of confusion in his brain, he cleaved towards Eva’s voice, clinging to it like a lifeline, pulling himself up out of the troubled mire of his emotions, hand over hand, towards her. He relaxed slightly, his hand grazing Eva’s shoulder. ‘You were right,’ he said woodenly, shaking his head. ‘How did you even know it was her?’

  ‘It was something your brother said, before they locked me up in the barn with you,’ Eva replied. ‘He said that he had “fooled you, good and proper”. They were such perplexing words, Bruin; they made me suspicious.’

  ‘You were right to be,’ he replied, his voice steadier now. ‘God, he must have planned the whole thing, wanting me to believe that she was dead, when in fact, he wanted her for himself! And then there’s the child—? She must have been pregnant by my brother when I broke off our betrothal!’ He stuck his hand through his hair, sending the bronze-coloured strands awry.

  Simon was struggling to lift Sophie into a seated position, but her unconscious body refused to co-operate. Her head lolled against the manservant’s shoulder; her arms flailed uselessly, palms turned up on her lap. With a hiss of exasperation, Bruin stepped over his dead brother’s feet and lifted Sophie’s limp form effortlessly into his arms. ‘Lead the way to her chamber,’ he ordered Simon.

  Eva followed the small group, jealousy knifing through her, a dark beat of blood. Sophie’s head rested against Bruin’s muscular arm, a loose strand of blonde hair straggling across his chainmail, snagging against the silver links. She bit her lip, trying to quash the ugly feeling rising within her. She had no claim on Bruin; who did she think she was? She had given him her innocence, but something like that would mean little to him. Of no consequence. And now the woman he had loved all those years ago had reappeared, a widow with a small child. Eva had no chance.

  * * *

  An oak coffer sat beneath the window in Sophie’s bedchamber. The wooden surface was cracked and damaged, dried over the years by streaming sunlight. Eva sloshed water from a pottery jug into a shallow bowl, dipping a linen cloth into the chilly liquid. She wrung out the cloth and moved over to the woman on the bed.

  Sophie was still unconscious, but her eyelids, pale and blue-veined, moved rapidly, as if she were coming out of a deep sleep. She lay where Bruin had placed her, not gently, on the edge of a fur coverlet, head sunk into a feather pillow. Her golden circlet sat slightly askew, her veil rumpled untidily behind her head. Bruin had left the bedchamber as quickly as he had arrived, muttering something about Steffen, insisting that the hapless manservant accompany him.

  Hitching on to the bed, Eva lifted the heavy circlet carefully from Sophie’s head, then unpinned the veil, laying both on the stool beside the bed. She dabbed the damp cloth around Sophie’s hairline, across her temples. Wisps of hair, pale gold, curled out across the woman’s white forehead. Her skin held a parchment-thin translucency.

  ‘Sophie?’ Eva spoke her name gently, and then again, louder this time. ‘You need to wake up now.’

  The blonde eyelashes parted, then pulled fully open to reveal shimmering eyes of pale brown, shot through with golden streaks. Oh, Lord, she was truly a beauty, thought Eva, heart plummeting.

  ‘I—’ Sophie stuttered out. Her hand sketched the air, searching for something: a vague, dislocated gesture. ‘What happened—?’

  ‘You’ve had a dreadful shock,’ Eva said carefully. She thought of Steffen’s body, the blood. Bruin’s fierce expression.

  Groping for Eva’s hand, Sophie held it fast. ‘Is—is my husband, Steffen, is he dead?’ She squeezed Eva’s knuckles, her grip surprisingly strong.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ replied Eva, resisting the temptation to pull away from the pincer-like grip. Be kind, she told herself sternly. This woman had done nothing to you.

  ‘Where is my son?’ whispered Sophie. ‘Have you seen him?’

  ‘No.’ Eva thought of the chattering red-haired child, his freckled round face laughing as he crossed the bailey in the snow with his mother. Now without a father.

  ‘His chamber is through there,’ Sophie said limply, indicating a smaller door in the wall opposite the bed. ‘Can you tell his nursemaid to keep him there until I can go to him? I don’t want him to see—’ A strangled whimper choked off the end of her sentence, tears leaking down across her cheeks.

  ‘Of course.’ Disentangling her hand, Eva slid thankfully from the bed. She rubbed her hand surreptitiously; if she looked down now, she would see bruises across her
knuckles. Pushing open the door, she peered into the adjoining chamber. On the floor, the red-haired boy was playing with a wooden cart, trundling it up and down the floorboards. He looked so much like Bruin, the similarity was uncanny. He glanced up when the door opened, then almost immediately dropped his eyes, more interested in his game than the unknown woman at the door. Sitting alongside him was a smiling, red-cheeked nurse, herself a young girl. Her gaze moved swiftly over Eva’s expensive gown and silver circlet; she started to scramble to her feet, her manner deferential.

  ‘Nay, please don’t get up.’ Eva made a frantic pressing motion with her hand, indicating that the nursemaid should stay where she was. ‘Lady Sophie wanted me to check on the boy. She asks that you keep him here for the nonce.’

  The girl nodded. ‘Has something happened, my lady? I thought I heard—’

  Eva frowned hard at her, jerking her head abruptly towards the child. ‘Just keep him here, will you, please?’ she replied curtly. ‘The mistress is unwell and I will stay with her.’

  ‘As you wish, my lady,’ the nursemaid said. Worry lurked in her eyes.

  Closing the door, Eva moved back to the bed. ‘Is there anything I can get for you?’ she asked Sophie. ‘A hot drink, maybe? Or some food?’

  Sophie’s head rustled against the pillow as she turned towards Eva. The golden embroidery on her green-velvet over-grown twinkled in the fading light from the window. Beneath the loose tunic-style gown, she wore a more fitted dress of light blue wool, the sleeves buttoned from wrist to elbow. ‘No, no, nothing, thank you,’ she said, reaching again for Eva’s hand, forcing her to sit on the bed once more. ‘You are so kind and yet I don’t even know your name,’ she whispered.

  ‘My name is Lady Eva of Striguil,’ Eva replied.

  ‘Striguil,’ Sophie echoed faintly. ‘That’s over to the west, is it not? I’m sure my husband...’ She trailed off, her head twisting weakly on the linen pillow.

  ‘Please don’t distress yourself,’ Eva said. ‘You need to rest.’

  ‘I am sorry not to have met you before,’ Sophie continued. She screwed her features up, as if trying to make sense of something. ‘Am I right in thinking that you came with—with Lord Bruin?’ Her voice was so faint that Eva had to tilt her upper body closer, in order to hear her words.

  ‘Aye, that’s right.’

  ‘You are married to him?’ Sophie asked.

  ‘No, no, I’m not,’ Eva said hurriedly. Now that Lord Steffen was dead, there was no need to pretend she was Bruin’s wife. She had no need of his protection any more. The thought made her oddly bereft.

  ‘Then why are you here with him?’

  ‘We came because...’ Her voice ebbed away, reluctant to say anything that would cause further hurt or distress to Sophie in her present state. ‘Bruin was helping me to track down something that I had lost.’

  Sophie closed her eyes; tears crept out from beneath her lashes, streaking down her pale cheeks. ‘I knew him once,’ she whispered, the air hitching in her throat. ‘Some years ago now, in Flanders.’ Her tapered fingers lifted to her brow; she kneaded the spot between her eyes. ‘I am so ashamed. I treated him very badly. But Steffen—’ Her voice limped to a stop, halted by uncontrollable weeping. ‘Oh, Steffen,’ she cried out, half-rising from the pillow, clutching at the dusty curtain hanging against the bedpost, ‘why have you left me in this mess? What have you done to me?’

  What have you done to Bruin? Eva thought as she helped Sophie settle back on the mattress. You have cruelly tricked the man who loved you, ruining his life, and almost destroyed him. Turning away from the bed, she headed for the door. ‘I will fetch something to light the brazier,’ she said, briskly. ‘The air grows chill in here.’

  Sophie was staring up at the canopy above her, her eyes wide, wretched. The huge four-poster bed swamped her willowy frame. ‘Fetch Bruin to me now, please. I must speak with him.’

  Chapter Twenty

  With Sophie’s command echoing in her ears, niggling at her, Eva left the chamber, closing the door quietly. Her fingers lingered on the iron latch after it had clicked into place; she stared blankly at the planks that made up the chamber door. The knots and dents in the wood, the worn, polished patina. A rank smell of mildew filled the hallway, the stone walls slicked with damp, a sheen of yellow-spotted fungus at the point where the wall met the floorboards. What would Sophie say to Bruin after all these years? Presumably she wanted to apologise, to beg his forgiveness. And Bruin would forgive her, because he had never stopped loving Sophie, even when he thought she was dead. His rejection of Eva after they had lain together had merely confirmed the fact. Sadness gouged her heart, scouring the fragile flesh.

  Gathering her breath, Eva gave a deep, shuddering sigh. Arranging her veil in straight folds across her shoulders, she walked purposefully towards the staircase, angled steps spiralling out from a central stone column and down to the ground floor. There was no reason for her to stay any longer. Now the ruby had been stolen she lacked a pretext behind which to hide; surely Bruin would question her continued presence as unnecessary. Her true reason for staying, to be with Bruin, had vanished the moment Sophie had appeared. She would go to Katherine and tuck herself away in the busy chaos of domestic life, nurse her hurt in private. But a glance out of the thin arrow-slit window showed her a sky streaked with a myriad of blues and golds: twilight was descending, a hazy shroud across the sky. Stars popped out, brilliant diamonds against the darkening blue. She would have to spend one night here at Deorham and leave on the morrow.

  Attending to practical details would carry her through the remaining hours, and stop her mind constantly darting back to the painful thought of Bruin sitting on Sophie’s bed, holding her hand, talking in low accented tones. His silver eyes twinkling, holding nothing but love. Better to keep busy than dwell on what she had lost. Fires needed to be lit and food prepared; she could do those things at least, before she slipped away. She recalled Lord Steffen’s words from the night before: the servants, the cook, all had gone with the lord of the castle into battle. There would no one to help her.

  The kitchens lay beyond the great hall. Here, at least, a fire smoked fitfully in the hearth. She found a stack of dry logs in the corner and built up a cage of wood around the lacklustre flames, kneeling back on her heels to make sure the fire took hold on the new wood. The stone flagstones were cold, hard against her knees.

  Lighting a wooden taper, she carried the flame around the kitchen, touching candles stuck into iron sconces. Soon the high chamber blazed with light. Removing her cloak, she laid it across a carved chair by the door, and undid the tiny buttons that secured her sleeves, shoving the fabric up to her elbows. Manoeuvring a burning log from the grate into a heavy iron pot, she carried it with a cloth back to Sophie’s chamber.

  Using her shoulder to lift the latch, Eva managed to open the door. The woman on the bed made no movement. She appeared to be asleep, her face pale, skin waxy in repose, like a marble effigy lying upon the white sheets. Eva’s rival for Bruin’s heart, caught in the light from the burning log. She should hate her. But all she felt was an overwhelming sorrow; the fact that she had allowed her own imagination to conjure up a future with Bruin that would never happen, obscuring the plain reality that sat squarely in front of her: that she loved a man who did not love her back. Tipping the log into the brazier, she piled the loose charcoal pieces over it haphazardly. Soot smudged her hands.

  She jumped as the door from the next-door chamber sprang open and the nursemaid poked her head into Sophie’s room. ‘Oh, mistress, forgive me,’ she stuttered. ‘I thought you had gone. I was going to check on Lady Sophie.’

  ‘She’s still sleeping,’ Eva replied in hushed tones, grateful for the distraction from her desolate thoughts. ‘How is the boy?’

  ‘Hungry, I’m afraid. He normally goes to his mother while I cook for everyone. The rest
of the servants—’

  Eva waved her explanation away. ‘Yes, I know, there’s no one here. Stay with the child; I will go and prepare some food. Take some light from the fire here; light all the tapers.’ She chewed on her bottom lip. ‘You must know—’ her voice lowered ‘—that Lord Steffen is dead. By one of his own knights.’ She waited for the gasp of astonishment, the clap of the nursemaid’s hand across her mouth. But the young girl regarded her steadily, calmly. Eva frowned. Was it her imagination or did the nursemaid breath a silent sigh of relief?

  ‘He’s been killed,’ she repeated with greater emphasis, thinking that the girl hadn’t heard her properly.

  ‘Yes, I know, my lady. I saw Lord Steffen—in the bailey. God rest his soul.’ The nursemaid made a sign of the cross over her chest, but her words sounded false, stilted. Eva had the strongest suspicion that the news had brought the nursemaid a certain amount of comfort.

  * * *

  She slipped back down to the kitchens. The manservant, Simon, was crouched on his haunches by the fire, poking at the flames. He looked up as Eva clicked the door shut, his face pallid with tiredness. The pouches beneath his eyes seemed composed of many folds, stacked one on top of the other.

  Bruin stood at the table, tearing pieces from a stale hunk of bread, chewing hungrily. Her heart leapt, then plummeted at the sight of him. He had removed his cloak, the blue fabric hanging over the bench that ran the length of the table. Chainmail glistening, his tall, muscular body filled the space with a dancing vitality, constantly snagging her gaze, his physical presence too big for the chamber. Icy air rolled off him, the pungent smell of the stables. His cheeks were dusted with red. Her body cleaved towards him, towards his beauty, his strength. She wanted to go to him, wrap him in her arms and never let him go. Instead, she faltered in the doorway, battling the weak resistance that sliced through her, shards of pain.