"How fares your sire this morn?" Rowena asked.
The girl’s hands stilled at the question, then her mouth tightened. Her expression said that she intended to heal her sire by her will alone. Rowena’s heart quirked at this, for only God’s will would bring Nicola’s sire back to health.
Her purpose set, Nicola shrugged. "He’s still unconscious, no worse or better. Last night I spoke with him, saying that Lord Rannulf wishes to speak with him about forgiveness. That made his rest easier. You do, don’t you?" she demanded of Lord Graistan.
"I do," he assured her.
"Good," the girl said, and came to her feet. "I go, but be warned that I doubt I can come again before the morrow." She slipped out and locked the door behind her.
Rowena went to the baskets and took up the pot of broth. "Here," she said, handing it to Rannulf, then watched to make certain he drank it all.
"Now I'll have bread as well," he told her, handing back the soup pot.
"It’s not good for injured folk to eat too heavily. You should have no more than broth," she replied, suddenly remembering a lesson long ago learned from the convent's infirmaress.
"Piss on it, I’m hungry. You hand me a roll, or I’ll get one myself." Laughter tainted his voice, and his expression lightened. "And when I’m done I’ll want to wash and dress in something clean. Best you use the water first, for I’ll leave it bloody."
She handed him his bread, then turned with great hunger to the basket. All of a sudden, it seemed the child within her made her hollow with its need. She ate well. If the foods were simple, everything was fresh and savory with herbs and onions. When she finished, she washed, then helped Rannulf with his washing.
"Much better," he said in relief. "I hate the feeling of dried blood on my skin."
"Gilliam says you hate feeling dirty at all. I think he finds your insistence on cleanliness oppressive." She tossed the reddened cloth into the bucket and pushed it away from them.
"He would," Rannulf replied with a laugh.
Afterward, they dressed, he in fresh chausses and a clean shirt, she in a light blue linen undergown. There was no need within their prison cell for more formal attire, and the weather was warm enough to allow it. Rannulf settled down onto the pallet, his back to the wall, then chuckled.
"So, Walter eludes them, does he? It seems I underestimated him. I didn't believe him capable of so much independent thought. My hope for the future grows with every passing moment." He yawned and smiled once more. "Help me stretch out, will you? I think I’ll rest awhile."
She helped him to lie down, then tossed the blankets over him. "Rannulf?"
"Hmm?" He peered up at her, his brows raised in question.
"If, nay when, for I won’t say if. When we’re done with this ordeal and the judgment on my inheritance is settled, may we please have a more normal life? I’m tired of all these doings. I think more has happened to me since I married you than in the whole rest of my life."
He laughed and settled down against the sheets. "It would be my pleasure to provide you with nothing but my dull company in an uneventful life. I can see it now. Year after boring year will pass. Now, let me sleep."
Rowena awoke on the fourth full day of their captivity with a steady, dull ache in the small of her back. She stretched against it, then once again fought the turning of her stomach. As much as she wanted this child, she was already deadly tired of the sickness pregnancy brought with it. To make matters worse what had once been an occasional sharp pain in her womb was now a far too frequent visitor.
Slowly, as the minutes passed, all her aches and pains, even the queasiness, disappeared. There was an odd finality in the feeling that followed, as though it would never again plague her. Aye, and that wouldn’t be too soon. Sighing in relief, she turned toward Rannulf.
He still slept, his back turned toward her. Purple bruises yet marked his skin, but the marks were rapidly fading to a pale yellow-green. She arose and did as she’d done the other mornings. But once her prayers were said, her hair combed, the washing and dressing completed, there was nothing left for her to do save to stare outside and wonder how much more confinement she could tolerate.
This morning’s view was no less quiet and peaceful than any of the others. She slipped her hand into the window’s opening as far as it would go and felt the fresh breeze against her skin. It would be another fine day, and she’d be trapped inside again.
Behind her, Rannulf stirred, stretching and groaning as he awakened. She turned to greet him with a swift smile. He offered an easy grin in return.
"So, how goes it with your stomach this morn, my sweet?" he asked, then began to rise.
Rowena immediately turned back to face the window. She dared not watch him, at least not without wanting to help. She couldn’t bear to see him struggle while he couldn’t bear for her to aid him. He was very prickly about it. Never mind that it took him twenty minutes to do what she could have done for him in just moments. Then again, what else did they have but time?
At last, he came to stand behind her, dressed and washed. "You look pale this morn. Is there pain again?" He kissed the top of her head, then her brow when she looked up at him.
"Nay. In fact, I feel better than I have for days. All that troubles me is our confinement. I’m bored beyond all thought." As she spoke, she shifted to lean against his chest, savoring the feel of his strength against her back.
"You could come back to bed, and we could sleep again," he said, rubbing his chin against her uncovered hair. "That is, unless you prefer to drive yourself mad with ennui." His arm came around her. She shivered when his fingers slipped beneath her breast, not touching that sensitive flesh but near enough to taunt her with the memory of his caresses.
"Sleep, indeed." She laughed, not at all displeased by his interest. But she stepped slightly forward to dissuade him from continuing. Denial would serve him right for all the times he'd snapped at her these last days. He pushed aside her braid and kissed the nape of her neck. She ignored him the best she could.
"Enough of that. I know full well what you intend, and it isn’t sleep." There was a new tremble in her voice.
"Ah, but think how it will help time to pass," he murmured against the curve of her throat, his voice warm with desire. When his mouth touched her ear, Rowena’s eyes closed. A thrill of pleasure shot through her. She leaned back to rest her head against his shoulder, exposing more of her neck to him.
"You aren’t strong enough for this yet," she protested, albeit weakly.
"Yesterday, I wasn’t strong enough. Today, I am." His fingers slid ever so slightly upward to cup her breast. Her breath caught in her chest.
"You’ll only hurt yourself anew if you lay atop me." Despite her words, she stayed where she stood.
His laugh was low and rich with amusement. He turned her slightly so he could once again kiss her nape. Rowena shivered.
"And I thought it inconvenient to wed a virgin," he breathed against the sensitive spot. "I can see I’ve neglected your education when there’s so much left that you don’t know. Why, the very thought of what you don’t know sends chills down my spine."
"Pay them no heed," Rowena sighed, her eyes closing against the pleasure he was already giving her, "it’s only your wounds healing."
She cried out in protest when he ceased his sweet torment a moment later. Rannulf caught her by the hand. His harsh features were soft with desire for her, his gray eyes almost blue in anticipation of their lovemaking. He turned toward their pallet, the corners of his mouth lifting. "Now, wife, pay strict attention. If you’re careful you’ll master this art."
Screams and shouts exploded in the distance, shattering the morning's peace. Rannulf whirled back toward the window, half-dragging Rowena with him. She frowned, listening to the frightened bellow of animals. Footsteps, more than three men by the sound of it, rushed past their door, climbing onward until they reached the roof above this chamber. Still, folk screamed, the sound faint enough to suggest
it came from the village across the river.
"What is it," Rowena asked in worry.
"I see smoke," her husband replied. "The village burns."
"Burns?" Rowena’s worry gave way to a new and very personal concern. The dwellings in the village were flimsy, with naught but reed roofing to cap them. They burnt with the utmost of ease. "What if the fire spreads here? Ashby’s hall is only wood."
Her husband put his arm about her shoulder to draw her into the shelter of his body. "Aye, but our prison is stone, not wood."
"Aye, so it is,” Rowena agreed, her worry growing with every word. "All the worse for us. With the hall at this tower’s side, the fire will draw up through here like an oven, and we are locked in." Her hand dropped to rest atop her belly. "Poor child. We haven’t given you much chance, have we?"
Rannulf caught her chin and turned her head until she met his gaze. "Hush, sweetling. You worry over what has yet to happen. This building is protected by water and stone. No fire can leap so far."
They listened, straining their ears for some clue as to what happened below them. Slowly, the screaming ceased even if the smoke continued to billow. Indeed, the writhing cloud grew darker by the moment.
Rannulf frowned. "They don’t seem to have tried to fight the fire at all."
"John of Ashby!" Gilliam’s deep, bass voice rang out into the newborn quiet, more than audible even though Rowena knew he could only be standing outside the manor’s closed gateway. "Give my brother to me, or I vow I’ll do more than burn your village. Only God can save you if you've harmed a hair on his head."
"Gilliam," Rannulf breathed in wonder.
He turned to her as his brother chanted out a string of obscene promises of what would happen to Ashby's owner if his noble captives weren’t freed. Her husband's eyes took light in amazement and joy. "It’s Gilliam. He fired the village. My God, he sets siege."
With his words, the prospect of rescue rose in Rowena. She relaxed in satisfaction and new hope. "Thank God. Walter heard me. I was so sure he hadn't."
"Heard you?" Rannulf’s brows drew down in confusion.
She shrugged. "Walter came calling at Ashby’s gate after you fell and John’s attack was finished, wondering what was afoot within. Maeve told John's man to finish our remaining four even if he had to follow them all the way to Graistan. So I shouted that Walter should go to Gilliam. Maeve didn’t know your brother was no longer at Graistan. I really didn’t believe my voice would ever carry over the walls." She touched a finger to her temple as she frowned in consideration. "Mayhap he didn’t hear me, but thought of it himself?"
Rannulf laughed, the sound of his amusement wild and free. "My clever girl! And he came for me. My brother is out there, working to free me." Wrapping his arms around his wife, he lifted her feet from the floor and whirled her around in his joy.
"Rannulf," she cried, "let me go before you hurt one of us."
"Never, I would rather die than let you go," he said, even as he stopped and set her feet on the floor once more. He caught her face in his hands and leaned to kiss her. His mouth touched her cheek, her nose, her brow, then her lips. His kiss deepened until this simple meeting of their mouths became a wild mating.
Rowena was dizzy with his need, his joy. She clung to him, her hands joining behind his neck so she could pull herself closer still. He cupped her head in his palm, his fingers burying into the wealth of her hair. His mouth raked across hers, slashing, demanding her response. She melted against him. It didn’t matter that he was hurt or that Nicola might throw open the door at any moment. It only mattered that she wanted him, that her love for him made her feel whole and complete.
It was he who tore away, catching his breath in great gasps. "It’s truly for me. You only do that for me. Oh God, Wren, you won’t die; I can’t allow it. You are mine and only mine."
This time, when he kissed her, it was with a tenderness that shot through Rowena’s heart. "And you have given back to me my brother," he breathed against her lips.
Rowena no longer cared that there were men outside the walls or that the village burned. Pressing herself against him, she trapped his mouth with hers, wanting every bit of the promise his kisses made to her. Instead, he pulled away from her. She cried out in disappointment, her eyes opening, then caught her breath.
Never had she seen his eyes so soft, not for Jordan or his brothers. Even as she studied him, her husband lifted her beyond them in his heart and made her more dear to him than they would ever be. In that moment, Rannulf folded her within his being, binding her with chains to make her his prisoner for all his life. And that was good.
"I love you," she told him, touching his cheek with gentle fingers, happily overwhelmed by the feeling that filled her.
He leaned against her caress, his eyes closing. Her fingers moved to the fine strands of hair along his cheek. She pushed them back, curling them around the curve of his ear. He sighed and once again opened his eyes. This time, their gray depths were filled with the unmistakable lights of his passion for her.
"Besieging is a slow and tedious process. We have nothing but time to waste," he murmured as he once again placed his mouth on hers. Her need was a fire that consumed her. And when he finally let it consume him, he saw to it that he was not hurt in the slightest.
Rannulf leaned back against the wall and watched his wife again try to peer out the window. She wore only her undergown, and that thin bit of material clung to the pretty curve of her back. His desire for her awoke anew, completely oblivious to its previous satisfaction. Never had a woman excited him more, nor made him more content. He smiled, feeling for all the world like some lovesick pup.
Oh, she had her faults. She was independent, even self-contained, and to a greater extent than he'd ever thought he could accept. But, somehow, that seemed to make her all the more dear to him; it made her the woman he loved.
Loved. Within Rannulf lay a core of resistance to the very idea of giving her his heart. The memory of his father's pain returned. He frowned. Surely, there was a way to have one without the other. For the time being, he put the puzzle back in a corner of his mind. It would wait until they were home again. With his brother at the gates that moment was now within reach, a moment he’d despaired of happening for at least another week.
"Wren, come sit down. It’s likely to be days before anything happens. Gilliam only arrived two hours ago. Even if he’s managed to bring some siege engine with him, rather than arriving ahead of it, he's not yet had time to construct it." Coudray, Geoff's holdings, were much farther from Ashby than Graistan. To bring a heavy siege engine here with any speed would mean marching through at least one night, more likely two.
On the heels of Rannulf's words came a series of rhythmic sounds. So great was his surprise that he nearly rocked back on his seat. Impossible. It just couldn’t be.
Sound exploded in the bailey, the thundering noise ricocheting into their tiny chamber. His wife leapt back from the window in fright.
"And, then, I could be wrong," Rannulf said to himself.
"What was that?" she gasped.
"A ballista," he replied, only to have a second explosion of noise drown out his words.
He frowned in the direction of the sound. Gilliam was firing at the south wall. What in God's name was his brother doing using such a machine against a wall, and why that wall, one of the two protected by water? A ballista was for all intents and purposes a giant crossbow and, as such, better suited to raining terror down on the stronghold within, rather than at the walls themselves.
If Gilliam meant to soften Ashby’s defenses, he’d be days doing it. After that, he’d need to get men across the moat to take the manor, and that would be a very tricky business, indeed. A wooden bridge could span the distance, but Ashby's men would hardly sit idly by while soldiers swarmed into their home. Nay, all sorts of missiles would rain down on Gilliam’s force as they picked their way through the fallen wall.
All in all, it seemed a hare-brained s
cheme at best. Then, again, who was Rannulf to judge? It was his own hare-brained thinking that trapped them here in the first place.
A third explosion crashed over the bailey. Rannulf frowned, wondering now what fodder Gilliam was using in the machine, stones or the ballista’s giant bolts.
"I don’t like this," Rowena cried, retreating to sit beside him. He put his arm around her. There were three more explosions and, then silence.
Footsteps shifted and tapped on the rooftop above them. From across the yard a man called that he saw no damage as of yet. Another answered from the rooftop, reporting that he, also, saw no damage.
Rowena straightened in his embrace. "If Gilliam is here, then all is lost for Maeve and for Sir John. Why don’t they surrender and open their gates?"
"You’re not thinking like a warrior, sweet," Rannulf replied, shifting his hand along her arm. The sensation only added to his new contentment. He was alive, his wife was with child and his brother had come to save him.
"Were I Ashby's man Richard, I’d do just as he is: I'd sit quietly behind these walls and offer no resistance, thus giving insult to no man. Nicola said her father opened his eyes yesterday and spoke a few words. No doubt, Richard knows this, and thus will he stand fast to John, the man who holds his oath, wagering that his lord will live, the walls will stand, and he'll not be held responsible for what happened."
His wife only shook her head in confusion. "But he doesn’t have to give up Ashby to give us to Gilliam."
"On the contrary," Rannulf replied. "To open the door is to cede ownership of this place to me. That he won’t do, for that decision belongs only to his master. This Richard has been ordered to preserve us, and so he shall, even if he must keep his lady and Gilliam at bay to do it. Now, all that is good for us, because we know what’s happened in here and that we’re still alive. Not so Gilliam. Not one of Ashby’s men has offered him that information."
The Seasons Series; Five Books for the Price of Three Page 29
