The Wagered Wench

by Georgia Fox

  He heard her sigh. “You loved her?”

  “I thought I did. Then.” He opened his eyes. He expected pity on her face, but she was merely curious, concerned.

  “You should have told me before, Dominic.”

  “It is no easy thing for a man to confess he’s been weak before—made a fool.”

  A little smile curved her lips. “The only fool was her. Whoever she is.”

  He blinked, exhaled, felt his heart lifting. It was a sensation akin to sitting astride a wild horse as it launched into the air, soaring over a hedge. That moment when his seat left the back of the animal and he was flying.

  “Elzinora,” he groaned. “What have you done to me?”

  Their noses were almost touching.

  “I love you,” he whispered, helpless. “Even if you chose him, I will love you. Unlike you, I have no choice.”

  She leaned the last tiny distance until their mouths met. It was a gentle kiss, no more than the brush of a dandelion seed against his lips.

  Abruptly she looked to the left and he caught the reflection of flames in her eyes.

  “Dominic! Look,” she cried, “Fire!”

  Chapter Sixteen

  He took off down the steps, pulling up his breeches, leaping the last distance to the grass which was so dry now that could catch fire as easily as if it was dipped in tar. The flames were fiercest as they flowed in waves across the thatch of the workers’ timber shelter, but sparks already fell to the wood below and flames licked at the ground. Elsinora ran after him as he tore off his tunic and tried using it to beat back the flames.

  “Run to the village,” he yelled to her through the smoke. “Fetch the men.”

  She obeyed at once, tripping and stumbling down the hill as if those flames were fast on her heels. Indeed, it wouldn’t take long for this parched ground to lead the fire all the way to the homes of Lyndower. Some folk had already seen the sky glow red up on the hill and they came running toward her, ripping off mantles and tunics to help fight the flames.

  She had to do more. Looking around at the frightened faces of the women, she felt a poke in her side, as if her father’s spirit was at her side again. “There is a fire in you, Elsie. Don’t let them put it out.”

  Shouting to the women, she hastily organized as many buckets and water vessels as could be found and then she arranged two lines, one from the well to half way up the hill, and one from the stream that crossed the moor. It was too far down to fetch water from the bay and the tide had not yet come all the way in. Every woman, old or young, volunteered to help and thus they passed the chains of water to the men on the hill. Elsinora ran back and forth, smoke clinging to her hair and gown, carrying water to her husband.

  “Tis lucky stone won’t burn,” he said to her as he heaved another bucket of water onto the smoldering grass. “Whoever set this fire had hoped to destroy all our work, but they’ve done no more than take down the builder’s shelter and threaten the village.”

  “Set the fire?” she exclaimed. “Who would do that?”

  “It was no accident, Elzinora. Someone has long wanted me out of the way. When I find the soul responsible for this—” He broke off to stamp out a spark that landed near his foot. “I’ll flog the skin from their back!”

  She turned from the smoke, blinking the sting from her eyes. And saw little Nat, standing close behind. His face was white. He took off before she could speak and he raced along the crest of the hill toward the cliff.

  And suddenly there was wind, a great gust catching the flames, fanning them higher. Her heart sank and she stumbled back, the strength ebbing out of her. It was over, they could not get water to the flames fast enough and with the dry weather of late both stream and well were low.

  But just when she thought they were done for, nature showed mercy. Not far behind that gust of strong wind came the first drops of welcome rain. The sky rumbled overhead and then opened.

  Within a few seconds they were all soaked. Lyndower was saved.

  Elsinora turned her attention to the boy, who slipped away through troughs of blowing rain until she could no longer see his small shape. Only moments after relief came a sense of fear and foreboding. The cliff path was treacherous in the dark of night and wet with rain it was a death trap.

  She shouted to Dominic but he didn’t hear above the storm and then she ran after Nat. Ducking her head she ran into the wind, felt its strength buffeting her as she followed the path higher. She was light but the boy was even slighter and if he wandered too close to the edge…

  Elsinora didn’t want to think of it. This was her fault. She’d encouraged this. The boy only did what he thought she wanted. She called his name, one hand cupped around her mouth. Nothing. The cliff side seemed to shake under her feet and she looked down to where it crumbled away. Gales of wind slapped her loose hair across her face, but as she dragged it back she saw the boy below, clinging to a shining wet rock with bloody fingers, his face turned upward, blinded by rain.

  “Hold on, Nat,” she screamed, the words torn from her lips. With shaking knees she began a rocky descent, knowing it was too late to go for help. Nat could give up out of exhaustion if she did not reach him quickly. More than once she almost lost her balance, her foot slipping, tufts of weed and grasses breaking away, the rocks slick. Nat saw her at last and called out, sobbing like a motherless lamb, stranded on his precarious perch.

  She reached and caught his hand. With all her strength she managed to ease him against her body and he clung with his legs and arms. Together, bowed against the storm they began to make their way back up, but the extra bulk was too much to manage. Her feet, already unsteady and wet, slipped. They tumbled down the jagged rock, their screams lost in the force of the wailing wind.

  * * * *

  Alf grabbed his sleeve and warned him that Elsinora had run off along the cliffs after the boy Nat.

  “Daft wench,” the steward muttered. “She’ll be swept out to sea.”

  Dominic left the others and ran through the dark. It was too wet and windy for a rush torch. What was the woman thinking to run off like that? He came to the broken ridge and felt panic, hot and sour rise up in his gut. On his knees, he looked down, searching the face of the cliff. The wind eased slightly, but the rain still fell in heavy lines.

  “Elzinora,” he yelled. Far below the tide rushed in, smacking the base of the rocks now in a violent froth. There, on the edge of the cliff, stuck on a twisted bramble, was a piece of cloth from her gown. He snatched it up, his hand trembling. She’d fallen. She was gone. Had he not imagined such as this the first night he saw her? Those small, fragile hands with bitten fingernails. He had not succeeded in making her eat enough, he thought stupidly. Now the wind swept her away from him. Fury and grief battled over his mind and his heart. No, he would not accept it. He had just begun to climb down the cliff himself in search of her, when he heard her shout.

  He looked. She limped along the cliff toward him, blood streaking her gown. In her arms she carried the spit boy, who buried his face in her neck and clung like a monkey.

  As she drew nearer he prepared to say his first prayer ever. She was not a ghost or a figment of his imagination.

  “The tunnel,” she explained, wheezing for breath.

  They must have found their way to it just before the tide rolled in and filled the mouth of the cave below. With the scrap of material still clutched in his fist, he walked to meet her.

  * * * *

  “I will not let him harm you, Nat,” she whispered to the sobbing boy.

  “He said he’ll flog the skin from my back.”

  “Hush.” The Norman was almost as disheveled as she guessed they must look. He still had soot on his face, despite the sweeping rain. His expression seemed oddly fixed. As he approached he jabbered away in a rush of French, until he surely remembered she would not understand. He must have put all the pieces together now. Yes. Here it came.

  “I suppose the boy did this and you encouraged the
rebellion against me.”

  “He’s just a boy! I will not let you hurt him. If you must take your wrath out on someone let it be me.”

  “Damn you, woman! You might have died.”

  “I am quite safe, as you see. Remember, I have known these cliffs and all their secrets far longer than you!”

  Suddenly he wiped his face with one hand, smearing it with wet soot. His eyes glowed as if they still smarted from the fire. She waited for the further unleashing of his temper against her and Nat, but nothing happened.

  “Put the boy down.”

  “No.”

  “I will not hurt him.” He paused. “You have my word.”

  She knew she could trust him. He kept his promises, did he not? Almost to a fault, she thought grimly, still sulking over the distance he’d kept those last few weeks.

  Slowly she set the boy on his feet. Nat’s breathing had slowed as he concluded he was not to face a flogging after all.

  Dominic crouched to his height. “I understand you have a skill for carving in stone?”

  The boy flushed, staring guiltily at the ground.

  “I shall commission your services. You will make a design for my castle, something that joins the Lady Elsinora’s initials with my own. Make certain it pleases me and you shall not be punished for this crime.”

  Nat looked up at Elsinora and she nodded, trying not to look too pleased. Tonight he had shown his own fair judgment, as she once showed him hers. In fact he was more than fair, shockingly tolerant for a Norman.

  “Now go, boy, back to the village,” Dominic added gruffly. “And get to work.”

  As the boy ran off back down the sloping path to the lights of the village, the two adults remained, looking at one another. Dominic stood straight again. “Now our initials will be entwined forever in the stone walls of that castle. Whomever you choose, we will be together there. Toujours.”

  “Toujours?”

  “Always.”

  She stared at him, this man who came from nowhere and stole her body, then her heart. Now he wanted her soul forever it seemed.

  And she would give it. She was no longer afraid to give him everything. By loving him wholeheartedly in every way possible—by loving one of God’s creations—she was loving Him too. Her mother had not understood that. Elsinora laid her hand to his bare, wet chest.

  He looked surprised, his eyes narrowed as if he’d rather expected a punch or a slap.

  “I chose you,” she whispered.

  A frown creased his soot streaked brow. “Me?” He sounded suddenly like a small boy—like Nat, bewildered by her notice.

  “Do you think you’re the only one who mates for life, Coeur-du-Loup?”

  For a moment he stood very still, barely breathing, his chest making no movement under her palm.

  “I love you, of course,” she added, realizing she had not said that yet.

  He leapt into action, sweeping her up, swinging her legs over his arm. “At last you came to your senses, wagered wench.”

  She laughed, her arms around his neck and planted a kiss to his cheek. “Where now?”

  “To start another fire.”

  Oh, that poor bed. And that poor carpenter, she mused with a soft chuckle.

  Part Four

  Terra

  Chapter Seventeen

  The winter weather kept Dominic indoors and the building was abandoned for a while. The snow turned that great shadow of stone into a white and silver palace and the horizon was changed yet again. Elsinora was glad for a cold winter that year, since it kept her husband by her side and frequently under furs in bed with her. Every season had its advantage.

  Stryker did not show his face for a month after she made her choice, but eventually he rode across the moor with a barrel of his own brew strapped to his horse, determined to beat the Norman at one thing—who could down the most flagons of ale and still remain standing. Much to the indignation of both men they were beaten on this occasion by Elsinora. It was not the last competition between the two men, but after that no one could take it seriously anymore. Not even them. In time they grew to like and respect one another. Not that they would ever admit it to another living soul.

  The earth hardened, sleeping under its coat of frost. People huddled by their fires, telling stories and singing songs to pass the long winter nights. Elsinora found a sudden fancy for nuts dipped in honey and, with her usual habit of over-indulgence in things she liked, ate so many that she made herself sick. Her husband, concerned, tucked her into bed and demanded potions from Bertha to ease his wife’s suffering.

  “She is weak, pale,” he exclaimed. “She keeps nothing down and lusts for those sweet nuts like a madwoman.”

  Bertha leaned over the bed and touched Elsinora’s breast, much to her and her husband’s indignation.

  “Ouch! That hurt. How dare you!”

  Bertha laughed and shook her head. “There’s nothing wrong with your wife that nine months or less won’t cure. I’d say, by mid-summer we’ll have another mouth to feed.” And then she clasped her hands, rolling her teary eyes to heaven. “Praise be. An heir at last.”

  When she realized the truth, Elsinora was too bewildered to know what she should feel or think at first. Her husband treated her as if she might break, much to her amusement and—sometimes—irritation. She spent long hours pondering the changes in her life over the space of that past year, as she walked across the fields, wrapped in layers of fleece and fur. Dominic worried she would catch cold being outside so often, but she wanted to be out in nature. She felt at one with Mother Earth and the life that seethed beneath her feet, waiting to flourish again. Just as she did now. With her hands on her growing belly, she touched the little soul within and sang to him. Often now she said her quiet, heartfelt thanks to her father. Foolish he had been in many ways, unreliable at times and frustrating, but in the end he had brought Dominic Coeur-du-Loup. She could forgive him anything now.

  On one walk, she wandered up to the old abandoned hovel and stumbled upon Alric the Shepherd with Aelin. Flushed, she backed out again. Two months later Aelin was also with child and wed to the quiet shepherd. Much to everyone’s surprise, despite the naysayers, the couple were happy and Aelin settled down to her new duties as a wife and mother with startling ease.

  Not long after the birth of Elsinora’s child, Stryker received a message from Count Robert. He would soon have a new responsibility of his own—a wife, a Norman woman by the name of Amias. It was said the Count wanted to keep Stryker in line with a Norman bride. It was also said that Amias had been turned away by more than one husband already. What was wrong with her it could only be guessed, although rumor had it she was cursed, unlucky in love.

  As Stryker Bloodaxe said grimly upon hearing of this, apparently her luck wasn’t about to change. The last thing he wanted now was the consolation prize of a wife passed over by other men. He’d wait, he told Elsinora, until she got to his manor and then he’d be rid of her somehow.

  “Perhaps she’ll fall in love with someone else,” he muttered. “Like you did.”

  She laughed, reaching up to pat his cheek. Poor Stryker. Now that she had her happiness she wanted the same for him. Hopefully, Amias of York, whoever she might be, was ready to handle a proud, stubborn Dane like Stryker Bloodaxe.

  “One day,” she said bravely, “Your children will play with ours, Stryker. They’ll be friends.”

  He looked doubtful about that. But stranger things had happened.

  * * * *

  Spring 1084

  A thin drizzle had fallen for most of the day, seeping under the collar of his coat. Knowing his luck it would continue all the way home. Home. He had one now. Already he could smell wood smoke that puffed lazily from the rooftops of Lyndower.

  He touched the brooch that pinned his mantle across his shoulders—a recent gift from Count Robert when he knighted Dominic in the king’s name. Sir Dominic. It had a ring to it. He only wished his wife had been able to travel to Marazion wi
th him for the ceremony, but she was busy with the new babe and spring planting.

  Glancing over at the distant squalls of grey sea he remembered how, two years ago, he had travelled along this same road with Gudderth slung over the rump of his horse. Often it felt a lot longer than two years, but sometimes it seemed like only yesterday when he saw his future wife for the first time and fell under her pixie spell.

  Good thing she chose him, he thought with a proud sniff. Came to her senses finally, didn’t she? And if she hadn’t chosen him, where would he be now with his crooked dice? Only the Devil knew.

  Funny how things turned out.

  He heard a shout and saw a small child stumbling giddily along the muddy lane, his face and hands covered in dirt.

  “Papa!”

  “Henry! What are you doing out here?”

  “Gate broke, papa!”

  Something else to fix, he thought with a sigh, slowing his horse. He could see his wife now, in the herb garden, waving. Beautiful. Still took his breath away. She hurried after Henry, who trotted merrily down the lane toward his father, too excited to heed her shouts for him to wait.

  “Papa! I diggin’” The boy fell backward over a tuft of grass.

  “So I see.” Dominic dismounted, stopping to pick the boy up, submitting to filthy hands around his face and muddied feet kicking against his fine new cloak to get higher until Henry was perched on his shoulder.