by Shana Abe
The warrior met with the men at the gate of Wolfhaven, found the tracks that led to the woods, found the two sets that had followed hers, doubled back, and then followed her again, and then found the place where his wife had collapsed into the snow, leaving the clear imprint of her body where she had fallen before they had picked her up and carried her away.
The thunder had been a stone in his heart until then. At that moment he came closer than any other in his life to letting go of his reason altogether. He could trace her outline in the pristine white snow where her arms had been outflung, where her head had lain to the side. But there was no blood, as Godwin had pointed out. No blood.
Not yet.
It had been remarkably easy to find the old sod dugout, even though he had not guessed it existed before now. Easy to follow the trail of the two men. Easier still when he heard the wolves attacking, guiding him right to her.
And it had been easy to kill Redmond. The thunder had been silenced when he had drawn the life out of that body.
He didn't know what was wrong with him now. It should have been over. The anger should be gone. It was gone. But what was this new thing?
"I am fine," Solange was saying over and over. "I am fine."
She was not fine. He could see that there was blood soaking her arm, coming down in blackened ribbons, making his hands tremble again as he held the reins of his stallion, making him push the horse as hard and as safely as he dared in the snowy night to get them home.
They were waiting for him at the gate, those who had not ridden with his search party. They were men with stony faces, women with weeping ones, all of them converging upon them as Damon brought Tarrant to a halt.
"I am fine," Solange assured them, but he didn't allow her more than that. He issued a curt command for his medicine bag to be brought to him, then carried her in, ignoring her protests, to the great hall.
He put her in a chair next to the fireplace, fed her the warm soup the servants brought for her, pushed back her hair, and then ripped the gown from her shoulder to expose the wound.
It's not that bad, his logic told him. You've seen far worse.
But it's her, howled his heart, it's her bleeding, it's her flesh that is torn. He stared at the cut, at the flow of blood, and tried to think of what he should do next, but he couldn't. He had no idea. Everything, all his field experience, all his learning, was banished. It was her blood. It was her blood.
One of her hands touched his cheek. It was like ice. "Damon. Drink the soup."
He didn't want any damned soup. He wanted to fix her arm. He had to fix it, but he just couldn't think of how. He looked up at her blankly, hoping she could help mm. She smiled. "A sip, my love. For me."
He slowly became aware that there was a crowd gathered around them both, and that someone was holding a bowl of broth beneath his nose. He hesitated, then took the bowl and drank it and handed it back. The bracing warmth of it allowed him to breathe a little better.
"Hot water," he said suddenly. "I need hot water and clean cloths."
"Here, my lord," said a woman he knew, Solange's companion, pointing to the basin of steaming water at his feet. "And here are the cloths, my lord." She put two into his hands and held on to the rest, standing ready.
"'Tis only a scratch," Solange said.
"You were lucky," he said gruffly as he began to clean the cut.
"I know," she replied.
She slept through the night and past the next day and night, making him fear she had slipped into a fever somehow when he was not watching her closely enough. But no, her forehead remained cool to his touch, even though she didn't stir, not even when the child she had rescued had to see for himself that she was alive and came into the room that night with his mother in tow, gulping down tears until he saw the covers rise and fall with the rhythm of her slumber. She did not stir when Damon at last lay beside her, on top of the covers, nor when he got up the next morning. She did not stir when he changed the bandage on her arm twice, checked on the fine stitches he had sewn himself to close the wound, and replaced the herbal poultice he had mixed for her. She slept on.
But the afternoon of the second day brought a sunbeam to drift across her face, warming it and gradually brightening the redness behind her closed eyes until she was squinting. When she tried to raise an arm to cover her face, she found she could not move either of them, and this caused her to open her eyes and turn her head.
On her right she could see a thick white padding secured to her arm, and felt the streak of pain when she attempted to lift it. That explained that.
On her left were no bandages, but rather the sleeping figure of Damon, sitting on a low chair but bent over the bed so his head rested on the covers, one of his hands holding fast to hers.
What she could see of his face was drawn and haggard, though she thought, blurrily, that the rough stubble of beard gave him a roguish charm.
The irrelevance of the thought tickled her mind and made her smile a little. Damon stirred, tightening his grip on her fingers before moving his head, blinking wearily into the brightness of the light. He looked up and caught the remnant of her smile, then blinked again, as if to clear his vision.
She said nothing, but kept her smile in place, allowing him the moment of adjustment. Immediately he was up, placing a hand over her forehead. "How do you feel?"
"Most excellent," she said. "And you?"
His reply was to sit on the chair again and bow his head low over the hand he held. With a great deal of effort she managed to lift her other hand and bring it over to rest on top of his head, letting her fingers comb through the luxuriant strands. He didn't move to stop her. He didn't move at all, just allowed the caress, breathing shakily down into the covers of the bed.
There were no other sounds she could hear, no noises from the hallway, no birdsong outside the diamond-glass window; only him, only the sweet sound of his breath filling her room, the beauty of him overflowing in her.
"I tried to kill him myself," she said, still stroking his hair. "Right before you came."
Still he said nothing, but moved his head to rest his cheek upon the back of her hand. He stared off into someplace she couldn't see.
"I didn't want to deceive you." Her own voice sounded somewhat strange to her, as if she were listening to someone else speak. "I thought he might have actually been dead when you arrived. It certainly seemed as if he were about to die the last time I had looked in on him. I was going to wait one more day before leaving, but then you came, and I . . ." She trailed off momentarily, then continued, stronger. "I wanted to leave with you. I knew you didn't want to accompany me, but I had to try to get you to come. I was so glad that you did."
"You didn't tell me any of this," he said, still not looking at her. "You should have told me."
She felt a faint amusement. "What, my lord, that I had attempted to murder my husband not three days before, and that now I needed to flee the country before I could be formally accused? Oh, yes, I can imagine how receptive you would have been to helping me then."
"You should have told me. You should have trusted me to help you."
"Perhaps you are right." There was no hostility in her voice, only her typical calm reflection. "But I could not take that chance. I had to leave Du Clar. By my life, I had to leave."
"Aye, by your life you did!" Damon raised his head and looked at her fully. Anger tightened the lines around his mouth. "And now I know full well why! You risked your life to end that of a man who should never have been allowed to live in the first place! You were left to fend for yourself against that monstrosity, who cut and maimed you—"
"He had not touched me for an age, Damon. It had been years since I had seen him last. And I did not give him the opportunity to hurt me again. By the eve of his return I had already taken care of him."
It felt remarkably good to talk about this to him at last. The words flowed from her tongue and she let them out, breaking loose the las
t of the chains of the past. "It was the blood, you see. It was what he wanted, for his tests. The experiments. The alchemy ruled him, it had always ruled him, and he needed me, he said, something in me made them better. But after that time at Wellburn, when I was ill . . . he sent me to France to recover, and I refused to return. I threatened to do whatever I could to foul his experiments. For a while, it worked."
Damon was staring at the back of her hand. "And then?"
"And then, one day, he came back." She left the rest unsaid, because the memories had taken her back to that brutal day two years ago, and once again she could not speak from the fury within her, she could not voice the keen despair that had swept her as she had watched Gytha die at his hands. Within that memory grew the newer one, that of Redmond laughing at her, laughing at the memory of a good man offering everything for her. It mingled with his laughter as he taunted her with the blood of her horse still splashed on his boots.
The most wicked of men was always laughing, she thought, and wondered what he had laughed about over his dinner that night she had given him the hemlock.
"He was a killer," she said finally, "in love with death. He killed Gytha, and then he told me he would begin to kill the serfs next if I would not do as he wanted. So I did what had to be done. That was all. I had to do it."
Damon kept his silence, watching the shadows play across her face. She had again that brittle look, the one he had not seen since they had been on the boat to Dover. It imbued her with a remoteness that belied her feminine beauty. It was the splintered detachment he had seen in the eyes of a hundred different men since the beginnings of the war.
She listed without inflection the sins of the man she tried to murder. Damon couldn't touch that detachment, he knew that from experience. He wasn't able to heal the wound within her that separated the woman he loved from the creature who had acted to survive. He could only offer her himself. His support, his love.
It could be that he would never be able to know what thing lived in that look she carried now; it could be that he would not be able to ever bear the full truth of it. He didn't know. But she was here now, safe with him. He would keep her safe for the rest of their days.
"Do you hate me now, Damon Wolf?" she asked lightly in a voice designed to hide her true self. But now he could recognize the worry in her eyes.
"Hate? Is that what you think?" He shook his head. "How could I hate the woman I love most in this world? How could I hate the one who is the other half of me? And although I think it is not a difficult thing to do, she is the better half, at that."
She gave him that uncertain look, the one that hurt him the most. There were tears hovering on her lashes. "God help me, I do not deserve a man as good as you."
"Then God help me as well, for I certainly do not deserve a woman as good as you."
"Do not tease me!"
"Tease? You would think that I would tease after all this?" He gave a broken laugh. "You would not say such a thing if you could see into my heart, dear love." He moved to sit beside her on the feather bed, sinking them both deep into the center of the mattress. "I have a love who is brave as a warrior, clever as a puzzle, beautiful as no other woman could ever hope to be. I would not dare tease such a one."
She shifted over to allow him more room in the bed, then nestled down to lie in the crook of his arm. He kissed her forehead. "My heart is forever gone to you. Nothing can change that."
She was quiet for a while, a long while, and he thought she might have drifted back to sleep, until she spoke again in a small voice. "What will become of us now, my lord? We are not married, I suppose. It seems I am a widow all over again."
"I have already sent a messenger to Edward, bearing most of the news. I have informed him of the earl's . . . inclinations, and requested that he formally annul your marriage to him."
"Do you think he will listen?"
"Edward is no fool. He will have heard the rumors, and he trusts me. I think he'll do as I ask. He has incentive. I told him you would grant Redmond's estates to the king's treasury as a gesture of goodwill, should it be in your power to do so."
"He may have them all and burn them to the ground, for all I care."
"I doubt he will burn them. But I do believe he will do all he can to ensure you have both the right to will them to our sovereign and to obtain the annulment. He is wily enough to find a way."
A silence again, both of them considering this. Solange took a deep breath.
"So, it is done," she said.
"Yes, Solange, it is done."
The purport of his words were just beginning to sink in. It was done. Those nightmares that had possessed him could now be buried with their bitterness. He wanted no more of that agony. The lady was at last here beside him, truly his in every sense that mattered, just as he had always known she was meant to be. It was done.
She squirmed a little beside him, then slid one of her legs over his. "Perhaps, just to be certain, we should get married once more."
The bright sunlight encompassed the room, casting a golden glow all around. Damon smiled up at the ceiling. "Is that a proposal, my lady?"
"Well, yes. I suppose it is. Wilt thou have me, my lord?"
"Aye, beautiful lady. I will."
Epilogue
The road to recovery was formed of simple things—the rush of wind from a bird's wings, the pristine color of the noon sky, the steady reassurance in the eyes of the man who truly did love her. Or now, the wondering face of a child as he tasted the first sweet bite of a late summer—in this case, a long-anticipated cherry tart.
Solange smiled down at the boy. "Well, William, what do you think? Was it worth waiting for?"
William continued thoughtfully chewing, then nodded his head. "Although," he added seriously in between bites, "three years is an awful long time to have to wait."
"But your little tree has borne fruit before all the others," reminded his mother.
"Yes." He brightened. "And Miranda has been so cross!"
This made the women gathered around the table in the buttery burst into laughter as they passed the tray of tarts around to the rest of the waiting children, drawing the attention of the tall man who had just entered the room.
"And what is the cause of such mirth, my lady wife?" Damon asked, walking over and artfully stealing a tart from the tray. "Has my daughter done something new to amuse? Has she spoken a new word? Made an inventive new pattern in her food?" He walked over to where Solange stood, holding the toddler in her arms, and kissed them both before biting into the tart.
"Papa!" cried the child, reaching her arms out for him. "Mine!"
"No," said Solange ruefully. "She has the same words as always."
"I will share with you, Kathryn, but you cannot have it all." He broke off a piece of the tart and handed it to her. The little girl gave a gleeful chuckle.
"I am lost, I fear," Damon said half seriously.
"And how is that?" Solange wiped up the cherry juice from her daughter's chin.
"Kathryn will be my undoing. She has her mother's eyes, her mother's sweetness. How can I say no to her?"
"She has her father's smile and charm," Solange replied firmly. "And yet I find myself saying no often enough."
"Where was your no last night when she wanted to bid a good night to the hawks before she went to sleep?"
Solange laughed. "That was different."
Kathryn echoed the laugh, releasing the last bit of the pastry to put her fingers in her mother's mouth. Solange gently extracted the little hand, gave it a kiss, and then began to wipe up again after the tart.
As he watched the two heads bent to each other, one black and the other darkest brown, the two profiles so similar, Damon felt a sense of completion as he had never known. It was a good feeling, a surprising one even still, though the nights were becoming fewer and fewer that he woke up in a panic that Solange had been just another dream of his. She was always there beside him, day or night, real
as the black castle itself, sweeter than life.
The past three years had brought to Wolfhaven a multitude of blessings, a gradual increasing of the estate in every area, from financial to geographical to population. The marriage of Godwin and Mairi had begun the cycle. . . .
No, Damon amended to himself. It was Solange herself who had begun the cycle, and who steadily improved upon it by bringing forth their first child, and soon another. Within her the light of Wolfhaven shone the brightest, tending her gardens, teaching her classes, watching over every living thing she could while still showing him she was grateful, each night, to be his love.
But Damon Wolf did not think, deep in his heart, that she could possibly be as grateful as he was to have her. He did not truly think that such a thing could exist. Damon knew, beyond all mortal doubts, that he was the most blessed of men. The mirrored faces of his wife and daughter were proof of that.
Solange placed Kathryn in his arms, and then the three of them walked outside to enjoy the enduring fairness of the summer day.
