There was no one on the wall walk that he could see and he suspected they were someplace warm, perhaps in a guardhouse on the interior of the wall. Dismounting his steed, Gallus literally fell off, landing on his knees, much weaker than he had realized. He struggled to his feet and made his way to the great gates, pounding with a closed fist.
No one answered. He tried to shout but his voice was gone, taken by the illness that infected his head and chest. Staggering back to his horse, he removed his sword and returned to the gate, pounding on the iron with the hilt of his sword in regular intervals so that those inside would realize someone was at the gate. Wind and snow usually didn’t pound in rhythm, but he pounded for what seemed like hours and, still, no one came.
Exhausted, and very sick, Gallus returned to his horse and tried to mount again, but he was simply too weak. After the third attempt, he fell off and landed flat on his back, knocking the wind out of him. He was simply too weak and too sick to get up, and as he lay there and stared up at the pewter sky above, his eyes eventually closed and a calm, blissful darkness descended.
He lay at Rhydilian’s gate for over an hour before someone noticed.
It was a field of wildflowers, with warm sun and cool streams upon it. And Catheryn was there, dressed in a yellow and white linen dress he had seen her wear many times. She was tall and elegant and fine, and he ran towards her, holding out his arms.
“Catie!” he called. “Catie, come to me!”
Catheryn turned at the sounds of his voice, her smile lighting up. But every time he seemed to get within close proximity to her, she faded just out of reach. He was nearly frantic to hold her.
“Catie, what is the matter?” he asked. “Why do you not come to me?”
Catheryn shook her head, that lovely head of blond hair, the one so damaged by her fall. But she didn’t look damaged now. She looked whole and lovely. But still, she would not come to him.
“You have been given a gift, Gal,” she said. “I have sent this gift to you because you needed it. I want you to have it. You must do all in your power to keep it.”
He had no idea what she was talking about. “Catie, please,” he said. “What do you mean, sweetheart?”
Catheryn’s smile faded and she gazed at him, steadily. “You need this gift because Honey will soon come to me,” she said, “and this gift will bring you more comfort than you can imagine. Do not be foolish or stubborn, Gal. Embrace this gift with the love and devotion I know you are capable of. This is your last chance. After this, I can do no more.”
Confused, he pleaded with her. “What do you mean?” he asked. “What have you sent to me?”
Catheryn smiled again, a radiant gesture. “You know what it is,” she said. “I love you, Gal, and she loves you also. Wake up, now. Wake up and tell her you love her, this gift.”
He still had no idea what she meant. He was still upset over the fact that she would not come to him. He could not touch her. But she had sent something in her place because he needed it. Just as he reached for her again, a blinding flash of light filled his vision and all was gone in an instant.
“Rest easy, Gallus,” a soft, gentle voice filled his muddled ears. “Breathe easy. You are safe.”
Gallus took a long, deep breath and was met with such pain that he began to cough violently. His chest felt as if a vise was squeezing it and his throat was raw and painful. He had no idea where he was, or what had happened, but when he opened his eyes, Jeniver was there, gazing down at him. She had a hand on his forehead and another on his chest, holding him steady as he coughed.
Gallus stared up at her, hardly believing what he was seeing. Servants were milling about her and she took a compress that was handed to her, wiping his forehead and face, and swabbing his neck. Gallus couldn’t take his eyes off her. He’d never seen anything more beautiful in his life.
“I am sorry,” he blurted, his voice raspy. “I left you and I should not have. I am so sorry, Jeniver. Please forgive me for my terrible and selfish behavior.”
Jeniver looked at him, her gaze guarded. In fact, her entire expression was guarded, as he imagined her heart and emotions were, but the injury he had inflicted upon her hadn’t stopped her from tending him. She was showing him mercy in a way he could understand, putting aside her own feelings to do what needed to be done. He reached up and grasped the hand that was on his forehead.
“Please,” he breathed, coughing through it. “I came to tell you that I am sorry, more sorry than you can know. I should not have left you. I should have told you… told you what I was feeling, what I was thinking, but I was afraid to. My fear caused me to run away and hurt you, and I am deeply sorry.”
Jeniver still hadn’t said anything, but Gallus could tell that she was mulling it over. Her brow was furrowed and her expression taut. Finally, she ordered the servants away in her soft, fluid Welsh tongue and when the chamber door shut quietly, she gently pulled her hand away from his and dipped the compress back into the basin beside the bed. She began to swab his cheeks again.
“You are quite ill,” she said softly. “How long have you been traveling like this?”
Gallus grunted, fighting through the cobwebs of his mind to produce an answer. “I have been traveling over three weeks,” he told her. “I left Isenhall last month but the weather has been so poor that it made travel difficult.”
She stopped swabbing, looking him in the eye. “You traveled in weather such as this just to come to Rhydilian?”
He nodded faintly, his red-crusted eyes riveted to her. “I had to,” he said. “My mother said you had gone home and I had to come. I had to tell you how sorry I was for what I did. I pray you can forgive me.”
Jeniver held his gaze for a moment, feelings of longing and joy and sorrow passing between them. It was easy to feel the pull and would have been even easier to surrender to it. But she quickly averted her eyes before she gave in to the maelstrom of emotion, looking back to the compress and to the items she had beside the bed, items meant to tend him. She set the compress back into the basin, her movements slow and thoughtful.
“You came all the way here in this terrible weather to tell me this?” she asked softly.
“I did.”
She was clearly puzzled. “You made it clear on our wedding day that you did not wish to marry me,” she said. “I should have listened to you. I should not have tried to change your mind. I did not blame you for leaving Isenhall as you did, Gallus. You did not want a wife.”
He watched her as she wrung out the compress. “You think you somehow coerced me into marriage?” he asked. “Jeniver, that is the furthest thought from the truth. I was attracted to you from the onset and felt guilty because of it. It was my own unresolved issues with the death of my first wife that caused my confusion. I told you the day we married that I wanted to marry you and that is still true, but it has taken two months of separation for me to realize that.”
Jeniver didn’t say anything. She swabbed the compress over his forehead, his cheeks, trying to cool the fever. Setting the compress aside, she poured some wine into a cup, added some white powder, and swirled it around.
“Here,” she said, offering him the cup. “Drink this. It will help your fever.”
Gallus did as she asked and she helped him drink the wine, holding the cup to his lips. He realized he was very thirsty and drained the cup. His head fell back onto the pillow, exhausted, as she set the cup aside.
“There,” she said. “That will help. The surgeon is certain that with rest and nourishment, you will recover. I am having beef broth sent up. You will feel better after you drink it.”
Gallus couldn’t help notice that she’d yet to fully address the situation between them. She seemed quite detached and quite sad. His heart broke, just a little more, knowing how badly he’d hurt her.
“I feel better simply looking at you,” he said, watching her head snap up, looking at him with a mixture of anger and joy, and he hastened to plead his case. “Jeniver, please
let me say this – I realize I hurt you and my heart is bleeding because of it. I do not know how to make amends to you other than to tell you I am sorry and swear I will never behave so poorly again. You are my wife and I cannot tell you how that gladdens me, but I would expect that I must earn your trust again and I have come all this way to tell you that I will do it. I am sorry for my actions and whatever it takes to repair the rift between us, I will do it. I hope you will allow me the opportunity.”
Jeniver sighed heavily and stood up from the chair she had been sitting on. She turned away from the bed, heading towards the hearth and moving to stoke the fire. Gallus watched her but he also noted the room around them. It was a very small chamber with the bed taking up most of it. It was also extremely warm with the big hearth, for which he was grateful. After having been quite cold for weeks on end, he welcomed the cloying heat.
“Are you ever going to speak to me again?” he finally asked as she stirred up the flames.
Jeniver put the fire poker aside. “Of course,” she said quietly. “But I do not know what to say.”
Gallus considered her answer. “The truth, mayhap,” he said. “I would settle for the truth.”
Jeniver stood up from the hearth, brushing off her hands. “The truth?” she repeated. Then, she shook her head as if the statement frustrated her. “Do you truly wish to know? The truth is that I was devastated when you left Isenhall without a word to me. I felt so utterly worthless and… and so used. It was a beautiful night, a rapturous experience, and then you were suddenly gone. The truth is that I blamed myself. I blamed myself for being foolish enough to believe I was anything more than chattel to you. I thought that you and I might actually come to be friends or even care for one another, but when you left Isenhall, I realized that was not to be. I realized that I was a burden to you. I swore I would never see you again but that was before….”
She trailed off suddenly and lowered her head, moving back to the chair next to the bed and pretending to busy herself with the table that held the compresses and medicines. Gallus coughed, throwing an arm over his mouth because it was so violent and nasty. When he opened his eyes again, Jeniver was standing over him.
“Here,” she said, another cup in her hand. “Drink this. It will help your cough.”
He obeyed, downing the bitter potion. “What was that?” he asked, making a face.
She grinned in spite of herself. “Poison.”
He coughed again, sputtering against the terrible taste. “No doubt I deserve it.”
She nodded. “You do,” she replied, “but it really isn’t poison. It is licorice root and horehound. It will still your cough.”
He made a face. “It will either cure me or kill me.”
Jeniver couldn’t help but smile at the fuss he was making about the taste of the medicine, a surprising reaction from a powerful and stoic lord. She found herself watching him as he wiped his mouth and licked his lips. In truth, she hadn’t stopped watching him since the moment her sentries had dragged him into the keep of Rhydilian, and even then she could hardly believe it. At first, she was shocked to see him but that shock was replaced with great concern over his health. The castle’s surgeon, an old man who had served her father, had taken charge of Gallus and had the man stripped of his frozen clothes and put him into a tepid tub.
It had been tricky warming him in the old, iron tub because he was unconscious, and a very big man as well, but four soldiers, Jeniver, and the old surgeon, Dwyn, had managed to keep him from drowning. All the while, Jeniver could still hardly believe he had come. She couldn’t believe he had made such a difficult trek through terrible weather to reach Rhydilian, but as she thought about it, she realized it was because he had wanted to inspect his acquisition. He hadn’t come to see her. She was positive of his motivation until he opened his mouth and started to speak.
Then, she had been in for an even greater shock and she wasn’t entirely sure how she felt about it. She wasn’t entirely sure it wasn’t the delirium speaking and that was what kept her reaction so guarded. The man was very ill and he probably thought he was dying. He had nothing to lose by begging her forgiveness and speaking sweetly to her. She, however, had everything to lose.
Her heart.
“Sleep, now,” she said quietly, pulling the fur coverlet up over his shoulder. “You must rest.”
Gallus’ eyes were riveted to her as she tucked the covers around him. “I cannot sleep, nor can I rest, until this matter is settled between us,” he said. “Please tell me how I can make amends.”
Her movements slowed. “We will speak of it when you are well.”
“I cannot assume I am going to recover,” he countered. “My mind and heart are in turmoil. I cannot rest like this.”
She stopped fussing with the bed covers and looked at him. “You are ill and you believe you are dying,” she said, trying not to sound cynical. “Of course you want to ease your conscience. It is your sickness speaking, not the Earl of Coventry as he is in his natural state.”
He stared at her, realizing what she meant. “So you believe I only say these things because I think I am dying?” he asked. Then, he grunted softly, with regret. “I was not ill until a few days ago and even then I was coming to Rhydilian to tell you what was in my heart. My illness has nothing to do with the words that are coming out of my mouth.”
It occurred to Jeniver that he was correct. He had been coming to Rhydilian long before the illness set in. In that realization she felt the slightest amount of hope. Brow furrowed in thought, she resumed her seat next to his bed.
“You have no idea how badly you hurt me,” she finally said. “It was pain beyond measure. First my father’s injury, and then you leaving… it was more pain than one person should have to endure.”
He was swamped with remorse and sorrow. “I know,” he said quietly. “You did not deserve it. My regret is greater than you can imagine.”
“I am very angry with you still.”
“Of that, I am certain. I deserve it.”
She nodded firmly. “Aye, you do,” she said. “Gallus, if the situation were reversed, how would you feel? What would you do if I came groveling back to you?”
He cocked an eyebrow. “I am groveling, aren’t I?”
He said it rather humorously and she struggled not to smile. “Aye, you are,” she confirmed. “If you were not in this bed, I am positive you would be on your knees before me.”
“I would agree with that.”
She was still frowning at him, deeply, but the man was gazing up at her so openly that it was difficult to hold any manner of resistant stance. Angry or not, hurt or not, he was here and he was pleading forgiveness. Perhaps she was foolish for even listening to him, but she was, and willingly so. After a few moments of deliberation, she signed heavily.
“Then what would you have from me?” she asked.
He considered the question carefully. “Your forgiveness for my terrible behavior,” he said quietly. “I swear to you upon my oath as a knight that I will never behave so abominably again. And I want to know if we can start again, fresh, without the memories over the past. We were introduced over violence and we became bonded over the same. I should not like violence to be hanging over our entire marriage. It seems to me that marriage should be about rebirth and not death. The rebirth of us.”
Jeniver gazed into his red-rimmed eyes. “Traveling to Rhydilian to ask for my forgiveness under such horrid conditions tells me that you are sincere,” she said, finally softening. “Considering you nearly killed yourself to come here, I suppose the least I can do is forgive you.”
Gallus smiled happily, relief evident in his expression. A big arm came from underneath the bed covers and he sought her hand again, holding it tightly.
“You are as gracious and kind as you are beautiful,” he said softly. “Thank you, Lady de Shera. You have my utter and deepest gratitude.”
She smiled back at him. “If that is true, then you will make me a promise.”<
br />
“Anything.”
“Promise me that you will never flee again because you are fearful of your emotions,” she said. “Whether you are hurt or sad or happy beyond measure, please never run away again. It would do well for you to speak to me of your feelings. I will never laugh at you or condemn you for what you are feeling. I should feel honored that you would trust me enough to express them.”
It was an exceptionally gracious position to take, considering what he had done. He was eager to accept her terms. “I swear to you that I will never run from you again,” he said softly. “You are far more gracious than I could ever be.”
Jeniver believed him. He was, as she had always suspected, a man of his word. “You are kind to say so.”
He smiled. “Since we are speaking on kindness, you seem to have an abundance of it,” he said. “Not only to me, but to my children. I must thank you for giving my daughters your puppy. I know how much he meant to you.”
Jeniver grinned. “I think he meant more to them,” she said. “When I left Isenhall, he was sleeping in their bed with them.”
Gallus laughed softly, coughing as he did so. “He is still there,” he said. “According to my mother, they sleep with him, eat with him, bathe with him, and play with him. He has become their brother.”
Jeniver’s smile faded somewhat and she looked to her lap, her focus upon his massive hand as it held her small one.
“Come October, they will have a real brother to sleep and play with,” she said, so softly that he barely heard her. “It would seem that I am expecting a child.”
Gallus’ smile vanished. “You are?” he blurted, shocked. He opened his mouth to speak again but ended up choking, coughing heavily. Still, he struggled through the hacking. “Is it true? Are you certain?”
Masters of Medieval Romance: Series Starters Volume II Page 17
