Eomond hadn’t betrayed a flicker of awareness for her presence. Yet she knew by the set of his jaw that he’d marked her. From horseback, he stared down at the earl. “I bear greetings from the king Ethelred to his ally, the earl of Argent. We’re sent south to answer the king’s levy. We seek shelter for the night—and one thing more.”
“Aye? What more?” Borovic took his measure. When she tried to slip free of him, his grip tightened.
Eomond said brusquely, “There’s summer sickness abroad in your shire. Three of my men are fevered, and in sore need of care.”
“Fevered?” Borovic looked from man to man. “Is it the pox? Or the pestilence?”
A ripple of fear spread out from the watching throng, like eddies from a stone dropped into a still pond. Eomond glanced around warily.
“By all the gods, they show no sign of it, but I’m no physic. Still, they must come in from the sun, or fall from their saddles.”
“Nay, it could be pestilence!” Borovic cried, sharp with the communal panic. “They can’t come here, nor any of you. You could bring contagion—”
Katrin laid a cautioning hand on his forearm. “You can’t refuse shelter to these men, my lord, else you violate the alliance. Unless you wish to repudiate it entirely, they must be allowed inside.”
Borovic looked at her wildly. “But what if they bring pestilence here? We’ll all be dropping like flies in three days!”
A wave of fear crested from their neighbors; she could smell the acrid bite rising from their bodies. She fought to keep her voice calm and authoritative.
“There are many kinds of fever, good-brother. There’s no reason to think this is pestilence. Lodge them in the empty barracks if you’re fearful, and keep away, but they can’t be left standing in the road! Not if you value the alliance.”
Unexpectedly, the dowager came forward. “She’s right. This alliance was too dearly purchased to be cast aside by your plague-fears. They must be let in.”
“But who will nurse them?” the earl said stubbornly.
Katrin lifted her chin. “I will, for I’ve suffered the pestilence and survived. I can’t contract it again.”
“And I,” Eomond said, gaze trained on Borovic.
Aye, he’d seen firsthand what horrors the plague could wreak, when it felled five siblings and his sire around him. Yet he’d managed to hold this warband together, though surely they’d wanted to scatter screaming for the hills.
“You have my word of honor,” Eomond continued. “No harm will come to your people. We’ll follow whatever rules you lay out.”
Borovic glanced back and forth between them, weighing their arguments against his own clear inclination to toss out these troublesome would-be guests on their rumps. But his gates were open now, and who knew how this formidable band would respond to such an action?
“Let them in,” the dowager repeated.
“Very well,” Borovic said grimly. “You and your men may bed down in the barracks-hall tonight, but see they don’t come to the donjon. We have women and children here.”
She dared a swift glance at Eomond, and found him watching her. Again she waited for the soft whelm of his presence like a cloth-wrapped hammer against her chest—yet still, oddly, she felt nothing. His features were unreadable, but he nodded stiffly before turning to give orders to his men.
Katrin spun away, imposing order on her thoughts, and considered what care these men would require.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The king’s warband filled the barracks to bursting. Men with dirty boots and tired faces traipsed in and out, dumping saddlebags on the floor, disciplined despite their exhaustion. The fevered men lay in the barracks-hall, a whitewashed chamber crossed by dark smoke-stained beams.
Katrin contrived a sickroom there, with straw pallets and a blanket strung on a rope for privacy. The frightened servants left food and water outside, then scurried away, crossing themselves against plague. For the castle-folk and their lord were rancid with fear, menaced now by the threat of plague as well as the Forkbeard’s raiders.
While she worked, two of the Anjou knights braved contagion to wait beyond the hanging blanket—clearly uneasy with this decision to throw open their gates to a warband far more formidable than Caerwyne’s skimpy defensive force.
She’d braced for the worst. But as she bent over the ailing men, sponging their hot faces and urging them to drink, her tension eased its grip. Prodding cautiously at groins and armpits, she found no sign of the ominous black swellings of pestilence, nor the berry-hued pustules of smallpox.
As she pressed a cup of hot broth laced with willow bark to one man’s lips, the familiar deep-throated rumble of Eomond’s voice arose. Whatever he said to the Anjou knights must have put them off their guard, for he entered unchallenged.
The very air seemed to change as he filled the room. Barely glancing in his direction, Katrin resisted his pull and bent over her patient. At the least, she wouldn’t encourage one man while wedded to another.
He stood just behind her, watching in the unsteady light.
“How long have these men been fevered?” she asked.
“Three days.”
His voice, beloved to her once, was hoarse from the field. He came alongside to study his stricken men. She’d forgotten how tall he was; the top of her head stood well below his shoulder.
“Is it the pestilence?” he said gruffly.
She studied the patient, who’d lapsed into a restless doze. “If it’s been three days we’d see the buboes by now, for pestilence. Or the pox, I should think—though thank God I’ve seen little of that disease.”
Ring-mail chinked as he eased his head from side to side, working the tightness out of his neck. “I thought the same. But I couldn’t be certain.”
“We should take all care, and I doubt these men will be fit to travel soon. I’ll ask my good-brother to allow them to remain a day or two.”
“He won’t like to hear it,” Eomond grunted. “Perhaps it’ll ease his mind that only these three will stay. The rest of us have a war to win.”
Her belly fluttered with guilty relief.
Silence opened up between them, an awkward chasm bridged by the patients’ labored breathing.
She darted him an upward glance, catching the gleam of lamplight on ring-mail and the flickering flames in his dark eyes. Once, those eyes had made the bottom fall from her world.
He shifted uneasily, leather creaking. Abruptly she turned to lift the oil lamp.
It wavered in her hands, and he took it from her without touching her. Then he held the heavy lamp in one hand as if he’d forgotten it, while men clumped back and forth beyond the blanket.
“Lady Belmaine,” he said at last, grimacing as he used her title. “You did a goodly deed, intervening on behalf of my men—nay, it was a kindness,” he said stubbornly, when she shook her head. “They couldn’t spend another night outdoors. And…” He shifted, mail chiming, and steeled himself. “You have my gratitude.”
Katrin sighed and lifted the basket at her feet, where she kept her medicinal herbs and simples. “Don’t thank me. You go to war for all our sakes.”
When a hand swept the blanket aside, they both started. An Anjou knight glanced in, looking with lifted brows from one to the other, then lowered a sloshing bucket and backed out with a bow.
She hurried to pour water and wash her hands, grateful for an excuse to put distance between them. Beyond the curtain came the scrape and murmur of men gathered at the tables.
Feeling his eyes burning into her back, she addressed him over her shoulder. “There’s food on the table, so pray don’t neglect your own needs. Send word if anything more is required.”
“Nay, you’ve done enough.”
“Well then.” She started for the blanket. �
�I’ll bid you farewell—”
“Wait.”
She halted, only steps away from freedom, and saw that narrow gap widen and stretch before her like the road to eternity.
“Wait,” he repeated softly.
She dared not linger, or tongues would wag. Still, she turned slowly and faced him. He stood with the lamp burning in his hand, light gleaming in his hair, a Prometheus blazing with divine fire—or a Devil risen from Hell to tempt her.
She’d risked a great deal for his safety, and for England. She supposed she ought to learn how he fared, how well he’d prospered from her sacrifice.
Still, the entire castle must soon realize who he was, if they didn’t already.
“What is it, my lord? Is there something you require?”
An expectant silence stretched between them, heavy with unsaid words.
“A moment of your time, if you can spare it.”
Hesitant, she glanced at the blanket—and walked away from it, away from salvation toward certain peril. Keeping a trestle table between them, she lowered her basket.
“I can only spare you a moment. Borovic will expect my report.”
He lowered the lamp to the table and circled it. Instinctively she fell back, lifting a hand, heart rising into her throat.
He nudged a bench toward her with one dusty boot and bowed, giving her a wry upward look beneath his brows. Flushing, she sat, some distance from the pallets where the sick men tossed restlessly.
Squaring his shoulders, he straddled the bench with the careless ease she remembered, swinging back his sword. “Is the baron here?”
“Nay, he’s ridden to join the king.” She caught the silver pomander hanging from her girdle and turned it between her fingers. An image rose before her—Rafael as she’d seen him last, swooping down to claim her with one of his dark hot kisses before he thundered away to war.
She kept her voice neutral. “How do you find your lands?”
He scraped with his long-knife at a gouge in the bench. “Kildarren’s no more than a fortified watchtower, built to guard the coast against the Vikings. It stood ungarrisoned for years before those pirates came, save for a few nesting gulls. There’s much to be done.”
“In that case, couldn’t you refuse the weapontake? ’Tis the best of reasons, to fortify the coast.”
“The king didn’t ask for me,” he snorted, with a flash of humor. “But I’m still sworn to Ethelred by a vassal’s oath. And better to meet the Forkbeard’s raiders on someone else’s doorstep than find them pouring across mine.”
“Are you contented with your new title?”
“What ho, good-sister!”
Borovic’s good-natured bellow made them both jump as he flung the blanket aside. Thankfully he couldn’t see her face as she sat with the burning lamp behind her, and his fear of contagion kept him from coming closer.
“What do you here, sitting in the dark?” he said, jovial. “And you as well, Captain?”
“Strong light hurts the eyes of these men, good-brother. And we can’t say for certain what the fever is.”
Immediately he backed away, hands lifted to ward off illness. “If it’s plague,” he said from a safe distance, “I want them gone from here. Do you understand me, Katrin?”
“Aye, my lord,” she soothed. “Truly, I think all will be well. These few poor souls must rely upon your Christian charity for a day or two, no more, until they recover.”
He shifted. “I must think on it. Come to me in the morning, and tell me how they fare.”
That was better than it could have been, so she agreed. She wondered if Borovic found it strange that she tarried in the sickroom, sitting idly in the company of an uncouth theyn, still armored and dusty from the road. Eomond’s eyes slid from one to the other, no doubt reading the undercurrents that eddied beneath the surface.
Striving for reassurance, she smiled at the earl. “Trust me to keep us all safe from harm, Borovic. All will be well, I swear it.”
“Very well then,” he said stiffly, unbending enough to bow. “We’re in your keeping. But don’t linger overlong. I’ll have you at my side for supper.”
She nodded gravely as he retreated. When she could hear him no longer, she exhaled and glanced toward Eomond, who straddled the bench with vigilant eyes.
“So that’s your good-brother,” he grunted, knife gouging in the wood. “When I saw him hanging over you outside, I thought he was Belmaine.”
“God forbid.” She turned the pomander between her fingers.
“His manner seems passing odd…for a brother.”
“He’s overly protective of me in Belmaine’s absence, nothing more.”
Eomond snorted. “So would I be, if—”
Abruptly, he stopped. Chuffing out an impatient breath, he leaned toward her. “Is it everything you hoped for? This marriage to your wealthy magnate?”
Through the scented ball, she said lightly, “Marry, you’ve seen enough of this castle to know. I live in queenly comfort.”
“That,” he said darkly, “is not what I asked. One hears strange rumors of your baron. Is he a goodly man?”
A goodly man? Wildly she recalled the threat and promise of Rafael, crouched over her in the lair of their bed.
“He is…a learned man. The pope holds him in high regard.”
“And what of his wife? Does she hold him in high regard?”
“Indeed I do. He shows me every honor.” How could she confide she’d fallen in love with her own husband? “I fail to comprehend why you ask such questions.”
“Perhaps I’d like to know whether he was worth your effort. Was he worth the lies you flung like catapult stones to clear your path to his bed?”
“La!” She laughed with brittle gaiety—yet she too was angry. By what right did he condemn her? “What lies are those? I told you so many it’s difficult to keep them all straight in my head.”
He buried his knife in the table and left it impaled, upright and quivering in silent warning. “Well do I know a man can trust no word that falls from your lips, but it wasn’t all a lie between us, was it? Your eyes could never lie to me.”
“Hush, for the love of St. Wilfrid!” she whispered. There were eyes and ears everywhere at Caerwyne. “What do you expect me to say? I’m a married woman. Whatever right you once held to question me you lost long ago, by your own doing.”
He leaned forward. “Answer me this in honesty—if you can. Do you love your priest-husband?”
Her breath hitched painfully. If he asked outright, she couldn’t lie. Besides, she wanted him to know the truth—this man who’d valued her so little, and let her go so easily.
“Aye, my lord. I think I do.”
“Do you?” With a fighting man’s swiftness, he lunged at her, making her flinch. Stark-featured, he gripped her shoulders.
“Are you contented in your baron’s bed? As contented as you were in mine?”
Behind them a man murmured wakefully. At once he released her. Katrin rose and walked blindly around the table, hugging her elbows, hearing her own ragged breathing. The sick man subsided into his fever-dreams.
Eomond stalked around the table toward her. She gave him her back, yet wouldn’t retreat. Prudent or nay, she’d more to say to him.
“Answer the question, my lady.”
“I had my reasons for the choices I made.”
“What reasons?” A note of strain threaded his voice. “Odin’s pain, I’ve run mad with the thoughts spinning in my head! My elevation made no sense at all until Thorkell returned. When he told me—”
“Thorkell would have done better to tell you nothing, as I asked! He sought to ease his guilty conscience.”
“Aye,” he said, steely. “He wanted my forgiveness, but that he didn’t get. I may trus
t once where I shouldn’t, but I never mistake it twice.”
Beneath his anger lingered a subtle grief for the good-humored cobbler’s son who’d been his comrade. Aye, and he meant the warning for her, as well.
“What difference does any of it make now, Eomond? What’s done is done. I’m wedded to Belmaine, who’s a far better husband than I deserve.”
“Have you forgotten?” he pressed. “Can you honestly say you’ve forgotten, Katrin, how it was between us?”
In loyalty to Belmaine, she could say nothing else. “I have.”
“You lie—and I’ll prove it.”
He pulled her around to face him and hauled her on tiptoe against his body. Though she struggled away gasping, he captured her mouth with his.
A sea of impressions swamped her, familiar and strange at once. He was nothing like Belmaine: arms wrapped like bands of steel around her; the cold links of his mail cutting into her fingers as she clutched his hauberk; the rough bristle of whiskers scraping her face; the relentless pressure of his mouth, all hunger and demand, with nothing of sophistication or seduction.
Rigid in his arms, she pushed against him, rejecting this forbidden kiss with every particle of her being. But he set himself to overcome her as he’d always done, wrapping fingers in her hair to hold her. Once she’d kindled like dry wood beneath this ravening flame.
He crushed her against him despite her efforts—and she reeled before the gaping split that cracked her heart wide.
I’ll always love him, after a fashion, but this part of my life is finished.
Fired by determination, she wrenched free, palms braced against his chest. “Stop this, Eomond! I’m another man’s wife.”
“I don’t care what Devil’s bargain you struck with your uncle. Nothing has changed between us.”
“Everything has changed!” she cried, bringing her fists down hard against his steel-ringed hauberk. “You had your chance and made your choice. Now you must live with the outcome.”
By Royal Command Page 29
