by TJ Bennett
“I suppose I loved her, but I was not yet ready for marriage. I wanted to travel, to see the world.” He gave a short, humorless laugh. “I asked her to wait for me. She did, for years. And then, I suppose, she grew tired of waiting.” He threw the branch into the gathering dark with a sharp flick of his wrist and stared after it.
“What happened?” she gently prodded.
He rubbed a hand along the back of his neck in a gesture of weariness. “I had gone to study music and art in Florence. Then one day, my older brother Wolf arrived on my doorstep, all the way from Wittenberg, unannounced. He told me I must see to my betrothed, and he’d come to drag me home if need be. You see, there was someone else, though I did not know whom at the time.”
“You do not mean …”
He smiled, sharp and quick, but she saw the pain around the edges of it.
“Ah, you guessed what I did not. The trip to Florence was Wolf’s desperate attempt, I suppose, to do the right thing. That is Wolf,” he mused, shaking his head. “Always doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. Regardless, when I came home, Beth explained to me quite tearfully that she couldn’t marry one man while she loved another. It would dishonor them both, she said. It didn’t take long for me to discover who the other man was.”
“Oh, Günter. They … betrayed you?”
“Nay, they claimed the opposite. They swore to it, in fact. But it mattered little, in the end. Her heart had changed, while mine had not. Yet it became obvious to me there would be no future for us, not with Wolf in the middle.”
Günter wandered over to grasp the black trunk of a gnarled pine. He picked absently at the aged strips of bark, which told a story of strife and hardship in a harsh land.
“To her credit, I don’t think she meant to hurt me. She was so young when we were betrothed, she hardly knew her own mind. By the time she did, it was too late to change our course.”
“Did you decide to marry her anyway?”
“Nay. Wolf offered to leave, to take himself off to Nürnberg, but I wanted no more of either of them. I left, enlisted in the Fähnlein one day while stinking drunk, and did in fact get my wish to see the world.” He laughed that humorless sound again. “Just not as I had expected.”
“What became of them?” She wanted to know.
He sighed again, giving the tree a brief pat of understanding. “They eventually wed. Two years later, Beth died giving birth to their daughter, Gisel.”
Alonsa gasped.
He continued as though he had not heard her. “It devastated Wolf—I think we almost lost him as well. It was only then I began to understand what true love can do to a man.”
His eyes filled with a strange awe. “It … rules him, his every thought, his every need. It holds his heart, makes him want to live or die by the light in one woman’s eyes. And if she is taken from him?” He fisted his hand against the tree with a frown. “He has no purpose, like a soldier without war. It is a terrible thing to behold.” He stared at her. “When he loves, a man risks everything, controls nothing, and understands even less.”
She gazed at him, glimpsing an unsettled fear in him to which he would likely never confess.
“I would imagine many a soldier would describe the heat of battle that way,” she offered.
He shook his head. “As a soldier, I understand battle. But love?” His mouth tightened and he looked away. “It is not for me.”
She digested this information silently. It saddened her, and yet gave her hope for his safety from the curse. Surely, a man who rejected love so completely would never fall in love with her.
“And what of your brother now?” she asked, wanting to hear the story’s end. “Have you yet forgiven him?”
He nodded briefly.
“I forgave them both long ago, I suppose. Still, I am not sure my bond with Wolf has ever completely recovered. But,” he added with a shrug, “he is my brother, and my niece is the light of my life. Wolf is a fine father—much better than I would ever have been. Wanderlust doesn’t make for good fathering.”
Sadness pervaded the smile he turned her way. She touched his hand lightly in understanding, and he entwined his fingers with hers. She felt the tension in his grip, and for a moment she thought he trembled. Then his hand grew as steady as the rocks around them. Whatever moment of vulnerability had betrayed him, he had regained control.
She decided to lighten the mood. “Tell me about your song.”
He shrugged in a too-casual way, clearing his throat before he spoke.
“It is nothing, as I said before. Mayhap I’ll sing it for you one day, when it is ready. In the meantime, we have spoken enough about me. Tell me about your father.”
She knew the subject had been skillfully changed.
They talked of idle matters as they gathered the wood: she of her childhood in the village of Aranjuez before her papa had decided to move the household to the trade center in Toledo; he of his siblings and family home in Wittenberg. Both seemed so far away, and for a moment, the air was filled with the melancholia of memory.
She saw the wistful look in his eyes.
“You miss them.”
“More and more, lately.” He frowned at her as if the admission surprised even him. “You see more than you should.”
She lifted her chin. “And you never fully answer a question when the answer is one you choose not to examine.”
He smiled wryly. “Much more than you should,” he repeated, and placed another stick into her outstretched arms, already burdened with several pieces of wood.
She grunted.
“Why is it that we are gathering firewood, but I am carrying it all?”
His mouth twitched.
“Because I am a warrior. I must keep my sword hand free in case we are threatened by a dragon in the woods.”
“A dragon? Por Dios, you believe in such nonsense?” She blew away the hair slipping over her eyes.
“Why not, fair mistress?” He smiled and nudged the errant hair aside with his fingertip. “Do you not believe in knights in shining armor who rescue damsels in distress? Or in enchanted castles and magic spells?”
She stiffened. She’d had enough of magic spells to last her a lifetime. “Magic is a curse, and should not be jested of within God’s hearing.” She turned away.
The moon had risen during their walk and now cast its silvery shadow over the trees, giving them an eerie and distorted appearance. Knobby roots rose up from the ground and twisted branches hung from above.
She shivered. “We should go back. Night falls, and Inés will need her wood.”
“Alonsa, what is it?” He turned her to face him and caught her chin in his hand.
“Nothing. It is just…”
The moment seemed right. Could she tell him the truth? Would he believe her? Worse, would he hold her responsible for Martin’s death?
No. She would not tell him now. Their budding camaraderie was still too new. “It is nothing.”
A fleeting look of disappointment passed over his face.
She sighed and pulled herself free from his grasp.
“Günter, perhaps it would be best if we did not discuss such personal matters between us.” She shifted the wood in her hands as he stared at her, and dug her toe into the ground. “We have only a few days, and then we will be parted forever. It will do us no good to try to establish a friendship when it cannot survive.”
He looked at her, the impish twinkle back in his eye.
“And why not?” He slung his sword across his back, fastened his neck strap to it, and transferred some of the wood from her hands to his. “We could correspond. Like the great lovers, um, friends of old. You can write to me from the cold dank walls of your prison cell—”
“You mean my cloister cell.”
“As you say. I’ll write to you of the dozens of beautiful women who fling themselves at my feet daily—”
“Ha!” she snorted.
“Do not interrupt. Where was I?” He took a
few more sticks from her burden. “Ah, yes, the women flinging themselves at my feet. I’ll tell you about them, and how I turn them all away, awaiting only a glimpse of your silky hair, your dark eyes, the scent of your smooth skin …”
His tone slid from jesting to serious as she stared up at him, and his gaze dropped to her mouth.
“… dreaming only of your smile, your kiss, your laugh in the night, of the touch of your small hands upon—”
He abruptly stopped. His hooded gaze moved back to hers, a restless fire at their depths.
He had not meant to say these things, she realized. Still, his words entranced her into breathlessness. It was foolish, really. No man truly dreamed of such romantic notions. Did he?
She pouted. “You tease me again.”
“Nay.” He moved closer. “Alonsa, nay. I would never tease you with something you wanted. I would never deny you. I would give it to you, as often as you wanted it. All you have to do is ask.”
That spell-weaving voice of his flowed over her like warm honey. Alonsa clutched the wood she still held to her breast in an involuntary gesture, an ineffective shield against his temptation, and tried to remember how to breathe. Somewhere close by an owl hooted to his mate in the night.
They had wandered far from the camp, and the canopy of trees above them grew so thick Alonsa doubted anyone would hear her if she screamed. Günter’s strength was so great that he could throw her over his shoulder and carry her away without any difficulty if he chose. She should at least try … at least make the effort to resist him. She should not allow him to stare at her in the intimate way he had, to insinuate such lascivious thoughts, to move so close to her she could feel the heat streaming off his big, strapping body. Why, with his stamina, he could probably carry her for miles and not even breathe hard from exertion. He might perspire a little, and then she could taste the salt from his skin on her tongue if she licked him just there, in the curve of his strong neck …
“Dios mío.” She struggled for breath, aghast at her wanton thoughts. The sticks and twigs in her arms clicked together, and it took a moment for her to realize her trembling hands caused the sound. “We—we must go back,” she stammered.
Günter leaned toward her, his gaze intent, but she bolted from him like a frightened doe running from dangerous fires, away from the smoldering scent of passion in the air.
“Alonsa.”
The amusement in that one word stopped her and she turned. Was he laughing at her?
“¿Qué?” she snapped, outraged at the thought. She shook her head to clear it, trying to remember to speak in his tongue. Her mastery of German was somewhat better than his of Spanish. “What?”
“You are going the wrong way.”
She blinked and looked about her. Even with the faint glow cast by the moon, she could see little beyond where they stood.
“How would you know?”
He moved toward her, dropping his bundle of wood at her feet like an offering.
“I told you.” Günter reached for the wood in her arms. Although she clutched it tightly, he easily removed it and laid it aside. “I can find my way around quite well in the dark.” He regarded her with mock seriousness. “I have cat’s eyes.”
When Günter slid his arms around her waist and drew her near, pressing the length of his body intimately against hers, she tried not to succumb to the heady sensation of warmth and hardness. Even as his fingers stroked idle patterns down her back, she placed her hands against his chest in a futile attempt to keep him at bay. Trapped in his strong embrace, she tried to lean away from him when he lowered his head and gently brushed his lips against her mouth, once, twice. He stopped then, and his watchful waiting communicated his desire for her to kiss him back.
She gazed up at him, unmoving, yet unable to resist such gentle persuasion. Still, she knew with every fiber of her being she must. For his sake.
He moved his mouth near her ear and spoke softly. “Patience is not my greatest asset, you know.”
“What is?” She asked because she knew he wanted her to.
His cheek moved against hers in a smile. “Kiss me and find out.”
One kiss. She would stop him after one kiss, she promised herself. She gave in to the urge, and lifted her hands to his shoulders. “Falcon’s eyes.”
He drew back to look at her, one dark brow raised in inquiry.
“You do not have cat’s eyes, but falcon’s eyes,” she whispered.
He smiled, but she could tell he was distracted.
“Yes, Alonsa. Whatever you say.”
He lowered his mouth to hers.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“WHAT DO YOU SUPPOSE KEEPS THEM?” INÉS craned her neck and stared past Fritz into the surrounding woods. Alonsa and Günter had been gone for quite some time now, and though she knew Günter hunted more than firewood in the forest, Inés began to grow concerned.
How much time does it take to seduce one unwilling widow?
Fritz stretched out his long legs beside her on the fallen tree log. They had been talking of idle things while Inés awaited her mistress’s return with increasing unease.
Still, Inés stole glances at Fritz whenever he looked away. Something about the set of his shoulders, the tilt of his head, told her that he was poised on the brink of becoming the man he would be the rest of his life. It made him … interesting to her.
She had to admit, though he held the illusion of youth, his broad shoulders and unusual height distinguished him. Blue eyes, clear and intelligent, dominated fine features not yet formed into the full image of manhood. His long nose, however, had advanced ahead of the rest of his face. Furthermore, his worn clothes hung on a too-thin frame, and his poorly tied sleeves proved too short for his lanky arms.
A thought crept out from nowhere into her head.
He needs taking care of, that one.
She quickly dismissed it. She had enough to do with caring for herself and the Señora. She sighed and hardened her heart against his dewy admiration. She had no time for illusions, and young ones like this always had them about women like her.
Suddenly, Fritz leaned close. His breath pushed in warm, sweet circles against her neck as he reached over and stroked a finger behind her ear.
“What wonderful skin you have,” he murmured.
She jerked away, and surprised little shivers played down her back. He hastily removed his finger and blushed.
Inés moved a little farther away—but not too far—astonished even in his inexperience he seemed to know where to touch a woman. She admonished him with her severest expression.
“I do not. Who taught you to do that?”
His clear blue eyes glowed with delight.
“You did, just now. While we talked you kept touching your neck there, and I thought you might like for me to do it instead.”
She glared at him. She would have to be more careful around him. “Do not play at what you do not understand.”
He dropped his gaze and stared fixedly at the ground.
“Then you must teach me, so I’ll know how best to please you after we are wed.”
He said it softly, but he received her entire attention. She held herself very still, afraid he might hear the sudden pounding of her heart as she feigned indifference to him. She recovered her balance enough to toss her head and turn her back to him with a huff.
“Such nonsense you speak. We hardly know one another. And you are barely old enough to marry, while I am … I am old enough to know better.”
He sighed behind her. “You are not so old. Younger than the Señora. Besides, I know many wives in the company who are older than their husbands. And though I have not yet established myself, it is not unusual to seal a betrothal at a much younger age.”
Inés squeezed her eyes tight and tried to push the yearning from her heart.
“Ha!” She could think of nothing else to say.
Marriage to him? A sweet dream beyond her reach. They were like two coins, the two of t
hem. He, new and freshly minted, still shiny from the smelter’s cast. She, worn and scratched, a coin that had been in the pockets of too many men. He would expect too much from her—to be innocent, to be honorable—and she had nothing of value left to give.
Even her beauty, which men both praised her for and lied to her to use, had begun to fade. Around her eyes, fine lines appeared; her hands, though sturdy and capable, were worn, not soft like the Señora’s. Her body, strong and lean from years of hard labor, held none of the soft curves and fine pale skin young men seemed to adore.
Her only vanity was her shoulder-length, ginger-brown hair which, when it was not coiled or braided at her nape, hung thick and wavy and gleamed with good health. She brushed it with one hundred strokes of a horsehair brush every night.
“Such a pretty color,” he murmured.
Inés opened her eyes and looked up at the dazzling night sky, grateful for the change of subject. She blinked away the tears clouding her vision and nodded her agreement.
“Sí.” The stars never ceased to amaze her. They swirled like so many pearls scattered across black velvet, crowding and bunching in delicate patterns that somehow sailors used to find their way home.
She felt Fritz lightly touch her hair.
“It is like … when the leaves change in the autumn and the whole forest is a red and brown tapestry laced with golden thread.”
Inés turned to see him admiring her hair, not the sky. She battled fiercely the spurt of pride flaring within her and pulled away.
She laughed at him, cruelly, to smother her own response. “Why do you say such things to me? Are you a fool?”
Fritz lowered his hand and shrugged. “If what I feel for you makes me a fool, then I will gladly wear the jester’s cap. I am not afraid of your laughter. I am happy to see you smile, no matter what the cause.”
Inés’ heart fluttered in her breast, and she pressed a hand over it to make it stop.
He bit his lip as though he gathered his courage about him. Clearing his throat, he asked, “May I… may I kiss you, my lady? On the hand?”
She blinked. “I am no more a lady than you are a knight. Besides, what is wrong with my lips?”
