by Ann Lawrence
The words were lightly spoken but Gilles sensed he had truly offended his friend. He clapped Roland on the shoulder. “Forgive me. I am grown maudlin from inactivity. Forget I spoke.”
As Gilles watched the group by the fire, William Belfour rose and lifted his tunic and relieved himself into the fire amid shouted crass remarks relating to his masculinity and sexual prowess. Gilles turned abruptly to Roland. “A godlike display!”
“Aye, a sword to put all of theirs and ours to shame. He plies it with carelessness. ‘Twill bring him down one day.”
“Would that I should be so endowed.”
“Gilles, you surely are not jealous of William?” Roland threw his knife into a nearby tree.
“Jealous?” Gilles drew his dagger and, with a flick of his wrist, it joined Roland’s in the trunk, quivering against the other’s haft. The two men grinned at each other as they retrieved their knives. Gilles sheathed his and said, “See, we behave like children. But, aye, I find I am jealous of William’s youth and vigor. What woman would not prefer a man such as that one—” He broke off and turned from the men at the fire, turned to face the woods at their backs.
“What?” Roland froze, peering into the thick trees whose heavy branches turned afternoon sunlight to nighttime shadow.
“Do you hear it? The baying of dogs?” A shiver coursed Gilles’ spine. The hair on his nape stirred.
“Nay.” Roland found himself talking to air as Gilles plunged into the trees.
Something called to Gilles in the distant wood, some sensation of danger. He could no more ignore the summons than deny his lungs breath.
He paid no heed to the noise he made. He drew his knife from the sheath at his side and held a hand before him to fend off the low-hanging branches. The ground beneath his feet was thick with cushioning pine needles and the scent of damp earth and fecund growth filled the air about him.
Gilles had been saved many a time by an extraordinary sense that warned him a heartbeat before death or danger appeared. He heeded that sense now as it called to him.
He held up one hand to halt Roland, who crept through the trees in his wake. Something caught Gilles’ eye—a glimmer of motion, a swirl of blue between the thick branches of the conifer trees. The color tantalized his memory. He hastened to it. A shaft of pain swept down his leg, inexplicably, for he had received no injury. The baying grew louder. “Wild dogs. They hold some hapless creature at bay,” he said as Roland gained his side.
“Let us leave them to it.” Roland paused. The undergrowth, thick and matted, would necessitate bending nearly double to work their way beneath the low hanging branches.
Gilles plunged ahead, almost running, crouched low, branches snatching at his ebony mantle aswirl behind him. He burst forth into a wide sunny glade, lit from above like a natural cathedral. He leapt into a pack of circling dogs, slashing with his knife.
Their guttural growls rose as blood poured from one dog’s throat. He snatched the stick from the young woman who swiped it wide to hold the dogs at bay.
Nine in all, the dogs were thin and menacing. Long streamers of saliva hung from their mouths as their heads swung back and forth, following the stick and awaiting their moment. Teeth bared as the stick hit home. Low growls and yips seemed to be secret words passed back and forth as they planned their strategy and crept near.
Gilles clouted the closest. With an ugly crunch, the stick embedded itself into bone. The dog fell dead. Gilles jerked the stick back and drove it into the leaping hounds who turned to savage their fallen comrade. Another fell. The remaining hounds howled and cowered into the undergrowth, slinking away, bellies low as Gilles charged them.
“Are you injured?” Gilles asked the woman, the stick held in one hand, his bloody knife in the other.
In answer, she crumpled in a heap at his feet, her head striking a ring of stones surrounding a banked fire.
“Jesu!” He bent over the woman. A strange, hiccuping sound made him draw back her mantle’s edge, which concealed her face and form.
Roland dropped at his side.
“Jesu,” Gilles repeated, for a tiny head, covered in a nimbus of flaxen curls, poked out of the folds of cloth. The child opened its mouth, issuing forth a protest loud enough to bring King Richard’s army from the Holy Land.
Chapter Two
Gilles glanced up at Roland, who backed away in consternation, hands palm up. “Look naught to me, Gilles, I know little of babes.”
“Then you will learn.” He picked up the wailing infant. Its tiny legs churned and beat the air. A female. Too young to be off the breast. Despite Roland’s sputtered protests, Gilles handed him the child.
Going down on one knee, he placed a hand to the swollen breast of the fallen woman. “Emma…the weaver,” he said softly to himself, his memories of the manorial court where he had met her as sharp in his mind as if it had been yesterday and not two years before. He nodded once as he felt her heart’s beat, strong and well beneath his palm.
“You know the wench?” Roland held the screaming babe at arm’s length.
“Aye.” Gently, Gilles grasped Emma’s chin in his hand and turned her head. “Blood.” It ran down her neck and stained the earth beneath her. “Go back to camp and summon aid.”
“The child?” Roland danced from one foot to the other.
“Put her down, for surely she will land there one way or the other.”
“Aye, my lord!” Roland placed the child on the ground as gingerly as he might a venomous snake. The two men watched the tot scramble in the dust to hide by her mother’s body. Gilles lifted the edge of woman’s mantle and covered the two females.
As he waited for the return of help, Gilles watched anxiously over Emma. He lifted her pack, a simple leather satchel, and looked for some cloth to cushion her head. He found only plants and seeds and barks. If they had medicinal purposes, he did not know them. Lacking a more suitable cushion, he closed the pack and slipped it under her head. Roland returned with alacrity, bringing Hubert to see to the woman.
“Her head injury is grave, my lord. These bites need stitching,” the squire said, drawing up Emma’s gown to display her wound and at the same time a slim leg clad in a worn and bloody woolen stocking.
“Do it whilst she is unaware, then we will take her to Hawkwatch.” Gilles stripped the bloody hose from Emma’s leg, then hovered like an anxious mother hen. Hubert used wine to douse a long tear along Emma’s ankle where the bone showed white against her skin. He carefully stitched the wound closed.
Gilles recognized the blue mantle. He remembered the woman, remembered her name and face. After her humiliation at the manorial court, he had not quite forgotten her. For several weeks he had expected her obnoxious uncle to drag her before him, declaring her with child. When the pair did not appear, Gilles assumed that the young woman had been lucky. He saw now that she had not. Her child appeared to be the right age for conception at the time of his first manorial court.
Ignoring propriety and flinging up Emma’s mantle and threadbare gown, Gilles inspected the slash of teeth marks down the young woman’s leg. He turned back to the child who continued to scream her head off and paw at her mother. He felt for the child, felt her anguish in an unusually tangible way.
Gently, he examined the raw edges of Emma’s wound now neatly stitched. He knew a hound’s teeth could leave suppurating sores. He slipped his hand along the inside of her leg to her knee, turned it, and checked that what he could see was her only wounding. Satisfied, he tucked her gown and mantle close about her ankles.
The babe burrowed in the curve of her mother’s body. Gilles touched his hand lightly to the child’s towhead. Her hair tumbled in a mass of short curls like silk, and he let his hand linger in appreciation of her tiny beauty. He offered her what he hoped was a reassuring smile and was rewarded by a sudden cessation of noise. Her cries subsided to hiccups. Her eyes grew wide. A thumb, no bigger than the first joint on Gilles’ smallest finger, crept into her mouth.
Gilles nodded. They watched Hubert clean a wound on the back of Emma’s head. The babe oversaw the procedure as she suckled her fingers. She crept from her mother’s side to lean curiously on Gilles’ thigh to watch the youth work.
“‘Tis done. But I think it should receive a poultice or some such,” Hubert said. “See here where her head is bleeding? She is not in a simple faint, my lord.”
“We will take her to Hawkwatch and see to it there.” Gilles leaned forward and checked the bandages, careful not to disturb the curious child, loath to bring on another bout of wailing. His hand smoothed over Emma’s hair to her hood. His fingers lingered for a moment on the unusual weaving of her blue mantle. It reminded him of how a field of bluebells might look when the wind blows from first one direction and then another. He imagined he could catch the scent of those flowers.
Shaking himself from his reverie, he scooped up the babe and, grinning, handed her to Roland, who shot him an evil look. She clung to Roland’s shoulder and stared back at Gilles as he bent and swept Emma up into his arms. He carried her like a piece of rare window glass, for somehow the child’s scrutiny made him more aware of the precious nature of his burden.
* * * * *
Rich scarlet linen formed a canopy above Emma’s head. Gathered yards of the cloth, tied with braided cord of golden threads, were held against bedposts carved with leaves and fruit. Emma twisted her head about to see beyond the bed and saw a man seated by the fire. She shut her eyes as quickly as one would a lid on a coffer of snakes.
Slowly, she opened one eye, just enough to peek between her lashes. ‘Twas Lord Gilles d’Argent who reclined in the roomy chair of solid English oak.
Cradling Angelique in his arms.
Emma watched her daughter kick her little bare feet and push them against Lord Gilles’ lap. Her mouth worked busily on her thumb. He tried to pull it from her mouth. Emma knew the strength of that grip. She fully understood why he gave up and left Angelique to her pleasure.
Emma lay motionless except for occasional restless movements of her injured limb. It ached and throbbed from her foot to her knee. Only the pain in her head rivaled it. She held her breath as Angelique reached out for Lord Gilles’ beard, stroked her fingers along it, then giggled when he laughed.
The masculine laughter drew Emma from her feigned sleep, her heart beating rapidly. She could not pretend to sleep any longer. She rose on her elbows, moaned as pain sliced through her head. It took only one more moment for her to realize she was nearly naked, clad in naught but a loose linen shift. Not her own. Her milk-filled breasts ached and begged to be emptied. Drawing the blanket to her chin, Emma sat up.
Gilles stood and then turned to Emma.
“Your babe seems hungry.” He stepped into the gloom that surrounded the bed and gently laid Angelique in her mother’s arms. Angelique immediately clutched at Emma who became intensely aware of Lord Gilles standing at the bed’s edge. He stood so close she could smell the leather of his garments.
She felt the blood rise to color her cheeks as Angelique rooted about at her breast.
“I will send you food and drink,” Lord Gilles said. He reached out and lifted her chin, ignoring the child. With great solicitude, he inspected the bruise on her temple, then wordlessly removed his hand and turned away.
Like a frightened rabbit in a burrow, Emma snuggled into the blankets, her breath short until the door closed behind him. ‘Twas her injury, she told herself, that made her blood pound in her head, increasing the pain and leaving her confused. She slipped the loose shift down and fed her hungry babe.
She didn’t know how to proceed. Should she arise? Should she search about for her clothing? Was she to eat at the long linen-draped table she saw on the far side of the bedchamber? With great indecision, Emma remained buried in the huge bed, her nose the only thing visible above the covers, a sated Angelique tucked tightly at her side.
A stout serving woman with red cheeks and frizzled gray locks appeared at the door laden with a tray. She plunked it on the long, draped table with a grunt of relief and beamed at them.
“My name be Meara, Mistress. May I help ye rise?”
“Aye.” Emma shoved back the coverlet, her hand lingering on the linen sheet that separated her from the woolen blankets and soft furs. She savored the fine weave, smooth and lustrous. “Thank you,” Emma said to Meara when the woman helped her to the oaken chair in which Lord Gilles had sat. Perched atop it was a carved hawk in flight, a snake clutched in its talons. It loomed over her shoulder as if to make sure she did not steal from the tray.
“Ye’ll be cold.” Meara rummaged in a nearby iron-strapped coffer and then wrapped Emma’s shoulders in a spare blanket. Emma pressed her nose into the cloth for it held the scent of man, the scent of leather and weapons laid up after being well-oiled. She knew the scent from her father. For a moment, she missed her cheerful father as if his death had been but yesterday and not five long years before. His death had meant the difference between living in a stone house with a fire and plenty of food and living in Simon’s hovel with only scraps for the table.
Meara whipped off the napkin that covered the dishes, releasing the scents of rich gravy and freshly baked bread.
“Is all of this for us?” Emma gaped at the tray. The food arrayed before her represented enough food to feed a family of four. The delicious aroma made her head swim. Intangible memories of another time brought tears to her eyes.
“Aye. ‘Is lordship ordered it so. ‘Tis just for ye—and the babe. Have ye need of anything else, Mistress? ‘Is lordship said yer to have whatever ye need.” Meara stood before Emma awaiting her wishes just as if Emma were a fine lady.
“I-I can think of nothing. We are most grateful to you for your service.”
Meara nodded, patted Angelique’s head, and silently left the room. Emma turned back to the feast before her. The trencher, a slab of day-old bread, held a rich meat dish thick with onions and gravy. Its aroma tantalized and set her mouth watering as she tore off tiny slivers of the trencher, sopped them well in gravy, and fed them to Angelique. She would soon need to wean Angelique. A hungry mother did not produce much of a milk supply for a developing child. On the other hand, she also knew a child weaned too soon had less chance of living past three summers.
Emma forced herself to eat slowly and savor the fare. A polished pewter salver held fruit. When she tentatively tasted of the dish, she realized it was pears poached in a delicate wine and honey syrup. Ambrosia, fit for the gods, she thought.
Warm goat’s milk, also sweetened with honey, completed the repast. Emma held the cup to her daughter’s lips and stroked her warm, silky tresses, urging her to try the new drink. Her own mother had much loved a cup of honey-sweetened milk.
When their bellies were full, Emma resisted the urge to lick the pewter plate clean. She set it aside with great care, then hefted Angelique to her shoulder and paced before the fire. Each step sent shooting pains through her leg, but she knew she must move it or it would seize up and cripple her. ‘Twas a long, steep hill from the castle to her humble village.
Her curiosity got the better of her. She examined every inch of the chamber. A spigot yielding water into a stone basin made her jump and squeal aloud with delight. Beeswax candles made her breathe deeply and remember her mother at the task of making just such candles during her childhood. Now she was grateful if there was sufficient oil in which to float a wick. His coffer beckoned, but she was not brave enough to lift its lid and touch his belongings.
Meara appeared at the doorway. “Yer clothing be clean now. If ye’d consent, ‘is lordship ordered ye a bath.” Meara hefted the tray onto her sturdy shoulder.
“Sweet blessed heaven, Angelique! A bath.” She limped forward, then stepped back as a hulking man delivered a wooden tub to the room. He said nothing, but his interest was acute, and Emma felt a flame of heat across h
er cheeks.
When an army of serving boys departed, a deep wooden tub of steaming hot water stood behind a wooden screen. The tub, painted about the sides with flowers and vines, was small, intended for a feminine form and most certainly not one that would be used by a man of such a size as Lord Gilles. Emma wistfully stroked her hands over the art that graced the tub.
Meara helped Emma climb into the bath, careful that her leg remained propped on a soft pad of cloth on the rim, and then handed Angelique over. Angelique played a slapping game with the bubbles formed as Meara washed them. The child’s delighted squeals brought tears to Emma’s eyes. Joy supplanted fear. What luxury, Emma thought, to have someone scrub their hair and rinse them clean.
Sighing with contentment, Emma leaned back and steeped in the lavender cloud that enveloped them, and allowed the serving woman to wrap her hair in a length of warmed linen. Meara lifted Angelique from her arms, wrapped her up, and dried each tiny toe. Emma smiled at her babe, so warm and clean, in Meara’s arms.
Lord Gilles had saved their lives.
How might she ever repay him? Would she even see him again or be close enough to him to offer her thanks? What a gift from providence that a man such as he was in the woods when she most needed aid.
Was it her imagination that painted concern in his dark eyes and more than gentleness in the touch of his fingers? Mayhap ‘twas just a fancy born of loneliness. Unbidden, her hand moved to where he had touched her.
Meara roused Emma from her languor. “Ye’ll catch a chill if ye linger much longer, Mistress.” Meara extended a linen drying cloth. “Lord Gilles directed me to put ye in his wife’s chamber.”
Chapter Three
A cold, hard knot formed in Emma’s throat. Her heart lurched. For a brief moment the room spun and a pain flooded in, new and ripe. Of course, he would be wed. “His w-w-wife?”
