Knights of de Ware 03 - My Hero

by Glynnis Campbell

  Except for the fierce teeth painted on the face and the notches along the back, it was difficult to tell what manner of beast it was. The tip of the tail had cracked off, the tugging string was frayed, and the two wheels that propelled the toy had popped off when the axle apparently went missing. It would take far more than prayer to piece the thing back together.

  But there was little else to do, and the labor would take his mind off of the spoiled suitor by the fire, who yawned contentedly while Cynthia tucked yet another fur about him.

  The materials were easy enough to gather. He found seasoned pine in the woodpile, a piece of rope in the stable, and, on a whim, fetched his quill and ink from his quarters.

  By the time he returned to the great hall with the little lad in tow, Cynthia’s charge had grown as drowsy as a cat with a bucket of cream, and he wondered in disgust if the youth perhaps expected her to rock him to sleep.

  With a self-disparaging sigh, he chose a spot on the farthest side of the fire to work and sat cross-legged in the rushes. The little boy crouched beside him on the floor, watching in sober silence.

  He replaced the string first, separating strands of the rope and twisting them into twine to knot about the beast’s neck. Next he took out his dagger and carved a stick of pine into cotters and a dowel for the axle. He replaced the wheels and drilled small holes in the axle with the point of his knife for the cotters to keep the wheels in place.

  As he worked, the boy crept closer and closer until he leaned upon Garth’s thigh. Garth smiled. After four years in a monastery, he’d forgotten how delightful children were, so trusting, so expressive, so unpretentious.

  The lines defining the dragon’s features were badly dulled, but Garth could make them out well enough to trace over them with this quill, and this operation the boy watched with hushed reverence. Inspired by the lad’s awe, Garth even added his own touches, a few scales here, a delineated flank there, claws upon the wheels, and the boy seemed highly pleased by these additions.

  Sadly, there was nothing he could do about the cracked tail. He turned it in his hand and looked at the boy, remembering his own childhood, his own toys. The de Ware boys had each possessed their own wheeled knight on horseback, and they’d engaged in the fiercest warfare. But it seemed to Garth that his brothers rather enjoyed nicking bits and pieces off of one another’s knights, as if reveling in their wounds and glorying in their battle scars—something, he thought in amusement, they’d never outgrown.

  Sudden inspiration took hold. This dragon would boast the most gruesome wound ever. Holding the maimed beast and its severed tail on his lap, he picked up his dagger and carefully pressed the edge of the blade against his thumb. He made the smallest cut, no more than a thorn prick, but a feminine gasp of horror startled him.

  “What the devil..?” Cynthia demanded.

  A drop of blood dripped onto his cassock before he could smear the rest along the edges of the dragon’s broken tail.

  The rest of Cynthia’s question was obliterated by a shriek of wind that rushed in the opening door, fluttering the fire, and bringing with it an ominous crack of thunder and one rain-drenched, irate noblewoman.

  The lad Cynthia had been tending leaped up as if his hair was afire, and the woman barreled forward with neither introduction nor fear.

  “There you are, you good-for-nothing halfwit!”

  Even Cynthia backed away from the woman’s caustic onslaught.

  “Where can he have gone, I’m wondering.” The woman shook herself like a wet dog as she charged forward, spattering the rushes with raindrops. “Where’s my darling son while his bride’s a-waiting on the chapel steps, all teary and shivering?” She beat hard at her sodden skirts, making mist. “While his father’s tripping over his words to find something to say to her poor parents?” She seized the boy by the arm, and he yelped like a beat hound. “While the priest is going on and on to pass the time, sermonizing on Commandments even Moses never heard of!”

  Garth ducked his head in a desperate attempt to contain his mirth.

  “’Oh,’ says your cousin, drunk as a fish, ‘he’s gone to find him a real wife instead of the child he’s betrothed to.’” With that, the woman seized her son by the ear and dragged him toward the door, unconcerned with the gaping spectators. “A real wife? Ha! You wouldn’t know what to do with a real wife.”

  With that, she charged back out into the stormy afternoon, slamming the door behind her, leaving a silence broken only by the crackling of the fire.

  Cynthia hardly knew what to say. Whatever had just happened, it didn’t bode well for the lad.

  “Well.” She gathered the blankets the boy had shed in his haste, shaking the rushes from them, and the rest of the castle folk began blathering about what had just transpired.

  Meanwhile, Garth sat with one hand clamped firmly about his jaw, studiously examining the toy he held on his lap. She looked closer at his profile. If she didn’t know better, she’d swear that crinkle at the corner of his eye was not concentration but amusement.

  She supposed it was amusing. The youth’s eyes had nearly popped out of their sockets when he’d seen his mother coming for him. And she’d looked as angry as a drenched hen. Where had Elspeth come by the boy anyway? She turned to ask that very thing, but her maidservant slipped quickly into the kitchen, her cheeks flaming.

  “Look, my lady.” Little Dylan jumped up, the toy in his hands. “The Father fixed it. He put on scales and claws and a terrible frown, and look!” He held the toy up to her face, too close. She reared her head back and glimpsed the bright red edge staining the wood. Dylan whispered loudly in awe. “It’s blood, my lady, real blood.”

  Cynthia pressed her hand to her bosom. Dear God, that couldn’t be…

  She glanced at Garth. The residue of laughter still sparkled in his eyes. She lowered her gaze to his thumb, which he’d pressed against his finger to stop the bleeding. She gulped. Had he really cut himself just to please a child?

  Dylan was beyond pleased. She never understood why little boys loved gore so dearly, but the dragon with the grisly wound and real priest’s blood would probably be Dylan’s proudest possession for years to come.

  “You’ll need comfrey for that,” she told Garth.

  He frowned and shrugged. She supposed being a de Ware, he’d suffered his share of scrapes and punctures. But he was a member of her household now, and she wouldn’t have anyone under her care develop infection. Tousling Dylan’s hair, she strode off to fetch her bag of medicines.

  When she returned moments later, Dylan was gone, probably off terrorizing all the little girls in the keep. Garth was hunkered near the fire, staring into the flames. She paused in the shadows of the entryway to watch him.

  His eyes reflected the fire’s flicker, and she could see calm contentment there. He’d enjoyed working on Dylan’s toy, she knew. She’d been watching him then, too, though she pretended to be preoccupied with their wayward guest. The Abbot had said Garth was a talented scribe, but the dragon’s snarling fangs and curving claws had been the result of far more than a steady hand. Garth possessed singular imagination and artistry. Dylan had been fascinated with the priest’s labors as well, leaning so close and with such fervent interest that Cynthia feared the intrepid lad might actually climb onto his lap.

  Garth didn’t seem annoyed in the least. He looked perfectly at ease with the little boy’s grubby hand planted on his thigh and his freckled face pressed close. But then Cynthia supposed Garth was accustomed to children. He probably had nieces and nephews of his own. How sad it must have been for him to be away from them, locked in a monastery with nothing but grown men.

  Garth stirred the fire with one of the leftover pieces of wood he’d brought, and the flames licked up, suffusing his face with a golden glow. How beautiful he was, she thought yet again, his chiseled features etched in warm relief by the firelight, his hair catching the color in shades of amber and bronze. As he crouched before the hearth, his wide back and shoulde
rs strained against the coarse wool of his cassock, leaving no doubt that he was both a man and a de Ware. And yet there was something boyish about the way he sat poking at the fire. She could imagine a smaller version of him beside this grown Garth, a little boy with mussed hair and wide green eyes, and the thought made her smile.

  So lost was she in her musing that she was astonished to find Garth staring at her. The pleasure was gone from his eyes, replaced by something cool and unapproachable. For one instant, she was tempted to creep back up the stairs to her chamber. But she wasn’t a timorous mouse to be daunted by a dark look, even if it saddened her to know it was the sight of her that had erased the warmth from his face.

  So she marched forward, pulling out the tincture of comfrey and chattering to fill the ungainly silence.

  “Has it stopped bleeding yet? I can’t imagine what you were thinking.” She seized his wrist, despite a mild show of resistance from him, and inspected the cut. It was long but not very deep. “You know, I’m certain little Dylan would have been just as content with ink.” She didn’t believe that. The boy was obviously thrilled with his bloody treasure. But as a healer, she certainly couldn’t condone such carnage.

  She wet a small linen pad with the comfrey and supported his hand as she swabbed gently across the cut. His flesh was warm from the fire, his palm wide and smooth, so unlike the scarred hands of the peasants and knights she usually tended to or the wrinkled paw of her departed husband. Garth’s fingers were long and supple, his hand well muscled, and, to Cynthia’s utter mortification, she began to imagine how that hand would feel upon her own body, tracing her hip, fondling her ankle, caressing her breast. She swallowed hard.

  A prominent vein ran across the back of Garth’s hand, and Cynthia felt the pulse there quicken, almost as if he read her thoughts. She dared not look at him, certain her eyes betrayed her wayward mind.

  “It was kind of you to repair his toy,” she murmured, tossing the soiled pad into the fire, but loath to return his hand, “especially at so great a price.” She chewed the corner of her lip, then blurted out, “Indeed, you’re so good with children, I believe you might one day make a fine father.”

  Garth pulled his hand away at that, withdrawing it into the sleeve of his cassock faster than a startled turtle, and Cynthia knew she’d said exactly the wrong thing. Before she could explain or apologize or soothe his ruffled feathers, he wheeled away, gathered his tools, and exited the great hall.

  CHAPTER 7

  Despite her rash comment, Cynthia’s opinions about Garth’s paternal nature were only reinforced the next morn.

  She’d ventured along the wall walk during a brief respite in the downpour to enjoy a breath of rain-washed air. The clouds, while still concealing the blue sky, had broken momentarily like soldiers regrouping for battle. The trees drooped with their drizzly burden, and the sod lay black with moisture. As she let her eye course along the far gray horizon and the nearer knolls, she spied two figures walking along the edge of the forest.

  Garth’s dark cassock camouflaged him against the trees, but the tiny golden-haired girl in the blue kirtle stood out like a flower amid the grass. Cynthia narrowed her eyes. The lass was Grizel, the armorer’s daughter, and she was carrying something in her cupped hands. They stopped beside a massive old oak tree and Garth motioned to the girl. She nodded. Garth then knelt on the wet ground and began digging with a hand spade.

  When the hole was about a foot deep, Garth held his hands out to accept Grizel’s burden. Cynthia gasped in empathy when she realized what it was. For weeks now, the child had been nursing a sick old dove in the mews. The bird must have finally succumbed.

  Carefully, Garth placed the animal in the ground, then made the sign of the cross over the grave. Grizel knelt beside him, and they prayed together over clasped hands. But when he began to scoop dirt over the hole, Cynthia could hear the child’s mewl of protest. He stopped, then pointed to the sky. Whether he was trying to explain wordlessly that the dove must be buried to get to heaven or that the rain would get it wet if it wasn’t covered properly, Cynthia didn’t know. But the lass allowed him to finish covering the grave and even pressed the soil firm with her own hands.

  The deed finished, Grizel threw herself at Garth, burying her face in his cassock to weep. For a moment, Garth seemed alarmed. Then he wrapped his arms about the lass, patting her back and stroking her hair.

  Cynthia bit her lip and felt her eyes go all watery. What a comfort the priest must be to the child, who’d lost her mother a year ago. Cynthia remembered her own mother’s passing, how in the first months she’d missed her tender embraces and gentle words. Even now, it seemed a long while since someone had held her like that, drying her tears and smoothing her hair.

  Damn, he’d seen her. He was staring at her over Grizel’s golden head, his expression too distant to read, but his eyes clearly locked with hers. She blushed, aware she’d been spying on him, intruding upon a private moment. She should go, she knew, but his gaze had frozen her to the spot.

  She looked away first. She had to. Elspeth, with her usual unfortunate timing, marched up at that moment, nearly frightening her off the precipice of the wall walk.

  “Ah, here you are, my lady!”

  “El!” She tripped and made a grab for the embrasure, casting a quick embarrassed glance toward Garth.

  “It’s slick with rain out here,” Elspeth scolded. “Why don’t you come in and dry yourself? Lord William and his retinue will arrive soon, and—“

  “Who?” She rounded on her maid, scowling. “El, we’ve had visitors every day. What have you done? Sent a herald forth with news that the Holy Grail resides at Wendeville?”

  Elspeth giggled rather too enthusiastically. “Oh, my lady! The Holy Grail indeed! Lord William’s retinue is just passing by. Surely you won’t deny them shelter from the storm.”

  Cynthia lowered her brows. Of course she’d take them in. It was the hospitable thing to do. But she couldn’t shake the notion that crafty Elspeth was up to something.

  A fat drop of rain splashed on her cheek, and a flash of lightning across the purpling clouds warned of the storm’s return. She cast one final glance over her shoulder as the downpour began. Garth had scooped up the little girl in his arms. Shielding her with his body, he strode briskly across the grass to return her to the shelter of the keep.

  As it turned out, their visitors that afternoon were pleasant company indeed. Lord William was cordial and polite, neither too humble nor overbold. The rain had done nothing to dampen his good nature or his handsome countenance, and Cynthia instantly liked the man.

  His knights, near a score in all, were honorable and chivalrous, and Cynthia watched several of Wendeville’s maids swoon and giggle in turns over the fine young men.

  At supper, she shared a trencher with William. His manners were impeccable and his conversation interesting. He was fair of face and strong of bone, and his rust-colored hair flowed like molten copper to his wide shoulders. His brown eyes lit up when he spoke of hawking, his favorite pastime, and sparkled fondly when he recalled taking his youngest nephew riding for the first time.

  After the meal, William’s men goaded him into strumming his lute, and Cynthia was amazed by his skill and the playful timbre of his voice as he sang a madrigal about the pleasures of spring. Watching the bobbing heads and listening to the laughter about her, Cynthia wondered if maybe the castle folk had suffered from the lack of visitors Lord John’s illness had caused. All of Wendeville seemed to enjoy the respite from grief that the presence of their cheery company afforded.

  Then Cynthia spied Garth. While everyone about him banged heartily on the trestle table in rhythm with the music, he sat scowling, his arms crossed over his chest.

  What was wrong with him? Did he disapprove of the tune? True, it wasn’t the somber plainsong of the monastery to which he was accustomed, but surely he didn’t condemn them for a bit of lighthearted music. The song wasn’t even lewd, as madrigals often were. She
stared at him until she caught his eye, then lifted her brows in askance.

  As if surprised by his own posture, he unfolded his arms and let his face relax. He didn’t exactly smile, but a sort of resignation settled over his features. She wished she could read his thoughts. What an enigma Garth de Ware was, she decided, and she grinned at him in spite of his dour countenance.

  Garth tapped his fingers restlessly atop the table. He was glad Lady Cynthia was having a good time. Truly he was. The poor woman had lost her husband, after all. She deserved a little frivolity in her life. And if that frivolity came in the form of a handsome nobleman who sang like a nightingale and was currently dancing like he was born to it, what concern was it of his?

  Garth held his breath as the gentleman appropriated Cynthia’s hand and led her about in a circle with the rest of the dancers. She looked so beautiful, so alive, so…happy.

  Indeed, Garth couldn’t find fault with the man at all. Lord William was neither overbearing nor timid. He appeared to be well versed in the gentle arts, but by the breadth of his shoulders, Garth could see he was no mediocre warrior. And he could dance.

  Garth, too, could dance. He’d been forced to learn alongside his brothers. Their mother never allowed the de Ware boys to indulge in the more violent sport of swordplay unless they practiced the courtly graces in equal measure. And if it weren’t for the fact that for the last four years, Garth had been a monk, forbidden to engage in such exhibitions, he’d prove it.

  The air rushed out of him on an exasperated sigh. What the devil was he thinking? Not yet one week in the secular world, and already he felt the pricking of the sin of pride. What did it matter if he could dance? He was a priest. His legs were for kneeling in the worship of God. Anything else was vanity. Perhaps it was good that he was under a vow of silence, after all. In fact, he might be well advised to maintain that vow another fortnight.