by Nicole Locke
‘Is it always like this in larger towns? Are we to simply go unnoticed?’
He looked over her shoulder, his eye dimming with memories, and she wondered on Nicholas’s past, and his home he hadn’t returned to.
‘I haven’t been everywhere,’ he said, ‘and I expect there are exceptions, but it’s like this in most places.’
She exhaled, breathed in deep, but it didn’t stop her heart from expanding. And that wouldn’t do. Life had taught her that she didn’t deserve kindness or acceptance. Still, she was here. York was all she’d hoped for and possibly more. She would be grateful for it.
Just as she was for the men who followed her around today, but eventually she knew they’d go. They needed to work and so did she. She also needed to say goodbye, and give her thanks.
‘Where is he?’ she asked.
Nicholas’s eye dimmed. ‘Busy, most likely.’
Rhain was responsible for their group. He was most likely procuring business for them, or maybe had friends here to visit or was preparing for an upcoming trip. But she wouldn’t let him go without thanking him.
‘I just want to see him for a moment. I’ve seen most of you today, but not him.’
Nicholas frowned. ‘You should leave him alone.’
Something of his tone stopped her. ‘What’s happened? Is he in danger?’
‘Worried for him?’
She fluttered her hand in front of her. ‘It’s just...we’ve been running the last few days and the men have been on double watch at night since Mathys returned. Now you’re telling me to stay away from him.’
Nicholas looked away. ‘He told you of the trouble we’re in?’
Rhain had told her only vague facts, but she wouldn’t confess that to his friend. Not if it would reveal a bit more. ‘What trouble is he in?’
She could almost answer her own questions. Rhain must be in great danger. She hadn’t seen him all day though he would have needed to find food and eat.
With or without Nicholas’s help, she would find him.
She moved to go past Nicholas, who stepped in front of her and put both hands out as if placating her. ‘It’s not that you’re...he’s safe. It’s the other matter.’
‘What other matter?’
Nicholas’s sudden discomfiture was obvious on his giant shoulders. ‘I’ll let him say.’ He shook his head like he’d said too much, but then he continued, ‘It’s only... Though I don’t know why, he’s always like this after a few days in the market, and now that time is running out, it’s worse.’
She didn’t understand half of Nicholas’s words, but he had said, ‘like this’, and whatever that was made Nicholas protective of his friend.
Maybe Rhain wasn’t in danger, but he had done a kindness for her and maybe she could do one for him. ‘Tell me now. Please.’
At Nicholas’s expression, she added, ‘If you don’t tell me, I’ll simply walk the entirety of York again. Wouldn’t it be best to point me in the correct direction than searching for me all night when I get lost?’
He sighed, but there was a curve to his mouth like he was secretly pleased. ‘He’s in the gardens by the Cathedral.’
If Rhain was in the gardens then he wasn’t in immediate danger, but still her heart wouldn’t stop thumping heavily in her chest as if something was wrong.
‘He’s that way.’ Nicholas pointed in the direction behind her. ‘I hope you know what you’re doing.’
She didn’t. But she did need to thank Rhain for bringing her here; she would have the courage to do that.
Chapter Seventeen
She found Rhain on a bench near the wall. She stayed quiet, though if he wanted to be alone, he would have been elsewhere. The gardens here were nothing like Tickhill’s where there was a modicum of privacy.
Here it was as bustling as the rest of the city. She welcomed the din that masked her footsteps when she approached him and stopped so she could observe him without his noticing.
His hood was up, but she would notice him anywhere now. Despite that he wasn’t moving, or touching the hilt of his dagger. It was his abject stillness. How alone he looked even in the midst of bustling York.
He sat, his elbows resting on his knees, his hands clasped before him, his head bowed. As if he was praying. He hadn’t stopped at the chapel in her village, nor the beautiful private one built by Eleanor of Aquitaine at Tickhill. Just behind him was a cathedral thousands made pilgrimages to and he was avoiding it.
He had, in fact, avoided all churches; given wide berth to the monks at Tickhill. He even dismissed her request to attend mass when she asked whether he was going.
Yet he was praying now, but his tranquility felt dangerous. Like a warning. Maybe this was what Nicholas spoke of.
‘How long did Nicholas last against your demands to tell my whereabouts?’ he said, his voice resonating.
Rhain hadn’t changed his posture, his eyes still closed, his hands clasped.
‘How did you know it was me?’
The corner of his mouth curved and he looked up. His hood should have shielded the color of his eyes and the expression of his face. But the soft afternoon light inveigled itself underneath and glowed against the stubble of his jaw, reflected in the goldenness of his eyes. They shone like the brightest of lights. Was it only the light making them glimmer like that, or his troubled thoughts?
She swallowed. ‘I may have said please.’
‘Well, that’s practically begging coming from you.’
‘I never beg.’
‘No, but you give a man no choice either.’
His words cut. She hadn’t given him a choice to say no at the village or at Tickhill. Nicholas had warned her not to come here, but she demanded that, too.
Why? To help? He was praying for that, and she had intruded. But she did have some words she needed to say.
‘I wanted to thank you for bringing me here and for paying for my room.’
He pressed his hands on his knees and straightened. ‘Did you find what you wanted here?’
She was needed in the innkeeper’s kitchens. The wife had grabbed her hands when thanking her, and she had felt a lightness she hadn’t felt in years.
She didn’t now. It was Rhain and how alone he looked. But he wasn’t a cake she could fix, wasn’t a recipe she could change. He had danger after him, but he was a knight, a mercenary, and could take care of himself.
Even if he was troubled, what could she do for him? She had broken her promise to her mother and her sister had died. She wasn’t good at helping anyone.
‘I found work,’ she said. ‘I’m to help them tonight and begin early tomorrow morning.’ Rhain sat unblinking as he listened to her paltry words. She gave a light shrug, unsure what to do with her hands or feet. Unsure what to do with herself. ‘I will leave you now.’
He nodded once, his head at an angle, and his hood almost hid his eyes. When she turned, she saw it.
On the other side of him rested the little bit of needlework and the necklace. They were not religious and he didn’t need those for prayer.
He noticed her stare and looked to his side and winced enough to push back his hood. When he faced her he looked...wary.
She didn’t know why she’d come here, but she felt a little closer to the truth then. As she recognized what might be the reason Rhain was praying in a garden and it had something to do with his mother.
‘Or, perhaps, I could stay?’ She pointed to the space next to him.
He grabbed the needlework and necklace and slid over so she sat where he had. She watched him rub his thumb along the necklace and needlework, his fingers flitting in that smooth instinctual way when he stroked the hilt of his dagger.
She wondered again if he knew he did that. If he knew it vibrated something insi
de her even as it soothed him. But she kept silent on that, as well as everything else as she sat next to him. Her need to help him seemed insurmountable now. It was the almost-quiet of the garden in this spot where he sat, the fact he made it sacred with his prayer.
It was him carrying that necklace and needlework all this time and how he handled them both like rosary beads. She knew they belonged to his mother, who was dead. She knew they held sentimental value and significance when he’d showed them to the vendors in Tickhill.
Yet she was unprepared for the overwhelming awareness that those items held for him. Because as she sat in the silence with him and felt him consider words he hadn’t said, she felt the weight of something descend upon her.
His mother had died; so had hers. But there was something else she experienced with that death. Something that with certain terrifying clarity she knew he felt, too: Guilt. Shame.
Rhain’s mother had died and something about her death brought him regret. It was so clear for one startling moment she wondered what flaw she held that prevented her from recognizing it before now. Was she so broken from her own hurt that she couldn’t sense it in others? In him?
Shame had shaped her scars, cowardice haunted her days and nightmares at night. Her family’s death was folded in every fiber of her being. She deserved it, earned it with her failure. All this time, she felt unworthy of being near Rhain, knowing she carried such scorched blackness within her. She justified it only because she knew their acquaintance would be brief.
And yet...and yet. The emotions rolling off him were unmistakable.
Nicholas had said Rhain needed his privacy when he was ‘like this’. Did Nicholas know the source of Rhain’s regret?
She came here to thank him for his kindness for bringing her to York. But she couldn’t help him with this; she’d never been able to help herself.
Rhain shifted his feet and she watched the fineness of his boots become dustier. Still, they were new, thick, with a quality she could only guess at.
She had to be mistaken about Rhain’s feelings. Rhain was noble born and he had charm and looks. His friends were loyal to him. How could he have regrets?
* * *
Rhain returned his concentration to the ground while Helissent, her eyes lowered, grew frustratingly silent.
Even so, something within him finally eased. For over an hour he’d been in the garden, surrounded by the smell of the lavender and sage and dirt.
Some quiet, a moment of prayer was usually all he needed to find the resolve that had carried him for the past five years. He didn’t even know if he prayed to God any more. As the years went on, as the trail to find his father became less likely, his prayers became more abstract. Finding his resolve afterward that much more difficult.
Yet, always he found it. All he needed to do was remind himself there was the next town, the next market stall.
However, today, it was all final. There were no other towns for him, no other moments because if it was true what Nicholas reported, he should be dead within the week.
Devastation crushed him when he realized he would never know the truth of his mother and his father. She’d died horribly for something he couldn’t fully comprehend. Fervent in her wishes for a pure Welsh ruler of Gwalchdu, her illness overwhelming her, she threatened the lives of his brother and wife.
In the end, she’d been mad, but once she’d been happy and danced. Once she had been loved and he was the result. He thought he could find answers. To know who and what she was, so he could fully understand what ran through his veins, but he’d run out of time.
Only a couple more days in York to locate Reynold or his spies, then he and his men would go. He’d either make it north to Edward’s camp or not. Either way, he had to find the means and strength to hide his pain regarding his mother. Weighted with thoughts like this, his men could ask questions. He didn’t want questions any more.
Just some way to calm his chaotic thoughts. That’s all he meant to do now, but he hadn’t quite succeeded when Helissent approached.
He’d sensed when she entered the garden and could have hid what he did, but he didn’t. It was almost like he wanted her to see his loss, wanted to share it with her. That was something he didn’t do even with his family, with his brother, now cousin.
Except he didn’t know how to share within Helissent’s tumultuous silence; he didn’t know how to begin. He lifted the needlework depicting the lost pendant and wrapped the necklace in it. As he placed it in the pouch he wondered whether he’d ever take them out again.
Then he saw what he had forgotten. ‘I have something for you,’ he said.
* * *
Helissent watched Rhain extract from his pouch a small, tightly wrapped, cylinder-shaped object.
‘What is this?’
‘Open it,’ he said, placing it in her hands.
Almost shaking, Helissent laid the package in her lap and untied it. Inside was a tiny cylinder sparkling in the afternoon light. It was rough and she could see it was made of tiny granules. Some had clung to the fabric wrapping.
‘You gave me salt?’ she asked. Although the cylinder was darker in color than salt, it had the same look about it.
It was a strange gift, but welcomed. She had no money for such things and she loved cooking.
He gave a small smile, his eyes alight. In this light, she saw little flecks in the amber around the darkness of his pupil. Like when honey was unfiltered, which for her gave it the richer flavor.
‘No,’ he whispered. His voice was warm and coaxing like honey.
She lifted the cylinder to her nose. It didn’t smell like salt.
‘You’re torturing me,’ he said.
‘You say that a lot.’
‘I’m a mercenary. Torture is our only fear.’
She couldn’t imagine him fearing anything.
‘And you’re quite adept at it,’ he continued. ‘Especially with making me wait. Taste it, Hellisent.’
‘It’s food?’
At his nod, she licked her finger and scraped it across the loose grains on the linen. Acutely aware of his eyes on her, she turned her head aside and placed the grains on her tongue.
She heard his rough exhale, but she didn’t look as something incredibly sweet filled her mouth.
Immediately she swiped her finger against the fabric again. This time she turned to him. ‘It’s not honey,’ she said around the finger in her mouth.
His expression was one of almost triumph. ‘It’s not honey. It’s called sweet-salt.’
She wanted to devour the entire tiny cylinder at the same time bury it like some lost treasure.
‘I’ve never heard of it before; I’ve never seen it. Where did you get it?’ How could she get more?
‘It’s rare. The Church is powerful and they can afford such wares. Hence the markets here tend to have goods such as these if you know what to look for or who to ask.’
So it was rare and expensive. ‘I’m not making you a cake with this.’
He laughed low. ‘That’s all for you. It keeps, as long as you don’t get it wet.’
She carefully wrapped the sweet-salt. ‘Why?’
‘I wanted it for you.’
He looked at her eyes, then back to her lips. She felt as if maybe she had sweet-salt lingering there before he looked away.
When she licked her lips, he pursed his.
She looked at the tiny cone and felt her eyes brim. This was a treasure, but that wasn’t what brought the tears to her eyes. It was that this was something very personal. Significant.
There was more going on here than she knew. He’d paid for her room and gave her a gift. They’d raced from Tickhill to York like they were pursued. Now, he provided a hidden escort for her.
‘He’s here, isn’t he? That m
an who is after you?’
He glanced at her. ‘I should never have told you of him.’
He hadn’t. Not really. She didn’t even know his name. ‘It’s not that I gave you a choice. You were trying to warn me off travelling with you.’
‘Do you think that’s the only reason I told you? To frighten you?’ He shook his head as if he couldn’t believe that’s what she thought. ‘You were almost irreparably harmed, Helissent, and still you were strong and stubborn enough to make cakes, and brave enough to demand from mercenaries a passage to York. I don’t think my vaguely mentioning a man after me would have frightened you to stay away, to stay safe. Although I hoped.’
This felt monumental. ‘Then why did you tell me?’
‘Because when it comes to you, I can’t seem to stop myself from sharing. Though it isn’t safe, it isn’t wise and nothing can come from it.’
That’s how she felt with him. Despite all else, all logic, they...shared. ‘Tell me then.’
‘There’s a chance if I tell you nothing you won’t be harmed.’
‘He knows about me,’ she pointed out.
‘The message conveyed he’d give you safe passage to York, which could mean he merely spotted you. Nothing more.’
Even so they’d rode hard here and he’d procured her a place to stay. A safe place. She could see that now. Small room, no windows, plenty of people about for security.
But Rhain was troubled regarding this man. What hope did she have for remaining safe regardless of the precautions he took?
‘Tell me,’ she said.
‘You must appreciate that this man is no one to trifle with. Many have tried to kill him. I’ve heard he’s been stabbed and sliced and burned. He’s been betrayed by others and his own family, but he survives...and becomes more powerful. When I say I am a dead man, I mean it.’
‘Who is he?’