Age of Faith 4 - The Kindling

by Tamara Leigh

Unsettled at having the woman’s thoughts flow with her own, Helene hesitated. “Though I did not wish to leave the old baron without care, I feared for what had become of my son in my absence. Thus, I did seek to escape.”

  “And nearly succeeded,” Lord D’Arci said.

  When Sir Abel, lurking in the wood, had intercepted her flight. When he had accused her of forsaking her son for Aldous Lavonne. Before the brigands had come for her and she had refused to flee with Sir Abel. Before her would-be savior had known what was concealed beneath her skirts.

  “’Tis so. I wove strips of cloth through the chain that ran between my ankles so it would not clatter and alert the brigands.”

  “Clever,” Lady Isobel murmured.

  “Desperate,” Helene said. “I made it to the stream ere Sir Abel appeared. Unfortunately, disguised in filth as he was, I believed I had as much to fear from him as the others and cried out when he took hold of me.”

  “Alerting the brigands,” said Baron Wulfrith.

  She glanced at him. “Aye, ’twas too late for me, bound as I was and given only to short steps.”

  “But not too late for Abel,” Lady Beatrix said.

  Helene nodded. “When I refused to go with him, he departed.”

  “Certes,” Lady Beatrix said, “he did not know of the chain that bound you.”

  “He did not.” Still, she was fairly sure he had watched from afar as the brigands had looked beneath her skirts that they might know the means by which she had made it so far from camp.

  Lady Beatrix touched Helene’s hand. “What did Sir Robert do when he recaptured you?”

  Helene glanced at the slender fingers that rested upon the backs of her own. Though the gesture seemed reassuring, the kindness further unsettled her.

  Only then realizing how quiet it had become in the great hall, the servants having made quick work of their tasks, Helene told herself there was no reason not to reveal what had happened though all evidence had faded from her face and arms and was no longer felt in the simple acts of walking and sitting. Still, she struggled for words.

  “He beat her,” a voice sounded across the hall. “That is what he did.”

  Helene looked around with the others and saw the dark-haired man who had propped a shoulder to the wall at the entrance to the kitchen passageway.

  Capturing her gaze, he said. “Not once, but twice.” He raised his eyebrows. “Is that not true?”

  As she stared, he straightened, turned, and disappeared down the passageway.

  Despite the warmth of the fire, Helene felt chilled. “Who was that?”

  “Sir Durand,” Lord D’Arci said dryly, “also your patient.”

  Of course it was him. Helene might have laughed if not that the knight’s words had so unsettled her. “He spoke as if he witnessed Sir Robert’s wrath.”

  “He did,” Baron Wulfrith said.

  She turned to him. “He could not have. Never have I seen him.”

  “He was there.”

  He had to be wrong. And yet—

  She rose so suddenly that her chair scraped. “Forgive me, but I must needs speak with him.” Without waiting to be granted leave, she hastened across the hall and down the passageway to the door that yielded to the thrust of her hand.

  The half dozen servants who were cleaning and preparing the kitchen for the next day’s meals paused to stare at her.

  Ignoring them, Helene fixed on the one occupant of the breathtakingly heated room who was not here to serve but to be served.

  Standing alongside an immense table in the center of the kitchen, Sir Durand picked a morsel from a trencher and looked up as he tossed it in his mouth.

  She stood taller. “Aye, twice. That is right,” she answered the question to which he had not awaited a response. “But you were not there, so you cannot know.”

  Also paying no heed to the servants who had yet to resume their duties, he said, “I was there, Helene of Tippet.”

  He knew her name. But then, as he was her patient, Lord D’Arci had surely told him. She crossed the kitchen, halted before him, and peered up into a face that might be handsome if not that it was drawn as if by long suffering and…bitterness?

  She pushed aside her pondering. As thought, it was not a face she knew and, set with eyes of an unusual gold color, it would not be easily forgotten. “You cannot have been there, Sir Durand, for ere this day, never have I laid eyes upon you.”

  He looked around the kitchen, causing the servants to return to their tasks, then fed himself another morsel. “That is because I did not wish eyes laid upon me. However, I am fair certain you did see me at a distance.” He licked thumb and forefinger clean of sauce and put his chin forward. “Though ‘tis understandable if you do not recognize me now that I am shaven.”

  She tried to imagine him bearded, but even if his hair was also unkempt about his face, still she would know him by his eyes—providing he was near enough for the color to be seen. “At what distance would I have seen you?”

  “A goodly distance.”

  “At which camp?”

  “No camp. Always, I was most careful not to be seen by the brigands.”

  Maddening! This knight who had killed Sir Robert was surely aligned with those who had battled the brigands, and yet all he had done was observe their movements? Had seen her beatings and the only action he had taken was to now bear witness to them?

  Heart beating so fiercely it made her feel unwell, she said, “Why would you simply stand by and watch?”

  He pushed the trencher away. “I had my reasons.”

  Though not moved to aggression unless first transgressed upon, this man who exuded arrogance alongside what seemed resentment, made her palm tingle as if already she had struck his clean-shaven jaw. “Pray, explain your reasons, Sir Knight.”

  He heaved a breath. “’Tis late, and this is hardly the place to have such a conversation.”

  “Then you should not have begun such a conversation!”

  “You are right.” He turned and strode toward the door that accessed the garden.

  Though Helene knew she would do well to let him walk away, she hurried after him and caught his arm as he reached for the door handle. “We are not done, Sir Durand.”

  He pivoted and glanced at her hand upon him. “Aye, we are, and now I wish you good eve that I might take a walk ere bedding down for the night.” He pulled free.

  Something possessed Helene, the presence of which she had not felt in the many weeks since she had been delivered from Sir Robert’s cruelty. All the times she had refrained from striking her captor for fear of losing her life now seeking release, she struck that smooth jaw with such force she stumbled back.

  It fell so silent in the kitchen that the only sound to be heard was remembrance of the slap she had dealt him. She stared at him where he had not moved, neither to retaliate nor test the flesh that bore the imprint of her hand.

  “Helene?”

  The voice at her back was known to her as it was surely known to Sir Durand whose eyes widened an instant before he threw open the door and slammed it behind him.

  Trying to slow her breathing before braving the woman, Helene did not move.

  “Return to your duties,” Lady Beatrix instructed the servants.

  Slowly, Helene came around and saw that the lady stood just inside the kitchen, her slight figure strangely sure and comfortable in this place.

  “My lady,” Helene began. “I am sorry. I…”

  Lord D’Arci’s wife smiled, though with something like sorrow.

  Helene started to grip her hands in her skirts, but the one that had dealt the offense burned. “I know ’twas wrong of me to strike a knight, and I regret I did not control myself, but…” She splayed her hands. “I fear I have no pardonable defense, my lady.” She was, after all, but a healer.

  Amid the servants’ din, Lady Beatrix crossed the kitchen and halted before her. “I am sure he deserved it. Indeed, methinks ‘tis likely what he sought.”


  Helene blinked. “I do not understand.”

  The lady sighed. “His sufferings are d-different from Abel’s, but he suffers nonetheless, and all the more deeply while he remains at Castle Soaring.”

  “He is in service to Lord D’Arci?”

  The lady’s eyes widened. “Nay, though once he was in service to my brother, Baron Wulfrith.”

  “Then why does he not leave? He is well enough healed, is he not?”

  Lady Beatrix nodded. “He waits on word from King Henry. God willing, it will come soon and be what he deserves.”

  Helene longed to know more, but she was fairly certain the lady had revealed as much as she would.

  Lady Beatrix glanced at Helene’s right hand. “I am guessing you did not gain what you sought from him.”

  She closed her fingers into her stinging palm. “He dangled his knowledge of the brigands’ camps but would not tell how he could be there and yet unseen.”

  “If it is any consolation, methinks he did not seek to tease you, only that he was not ready to tell.”

  “Then he should not have announced to all that he knew what had befallen me.”

  “True, but I am sure the moment came too suddenly upon him to think it through. Sir Durand is like…the crack of thunder that follows lightning. You know ’tis coming, you just do not know when.”

  Once more, Helene’s frustration welled. Here a hint, there a clue, and ever more unanswered questions. She closed her eyes, breathed deep, and looked again at the lady. “I believe I made a mistake in agreeing to come to Soaring.”

  “You are most welcome here, Helene of Tippet.”

  “Am I?”

  Lady Beatrix sighed. “Abel is difficult now, but I am sure all will be well once he becomes accustomed to you. As for my mother, I hope you will forgive her if she seemed insensitive this eve. Though she is most l-loving, her faith has been dealt one terrible blow after another with all that our family has endured at the hands of the Lavonnes.”

  And yet it seemed they had accepted Christian Lavonne. Surely there was hope in that. Of course, he was but Sir Robert’s half brother whereas she—

  “So you will stay, will you not?” Lady Beatrix asked.

  Would she? Could she? Helene drew a deep breath. “I shall try.”

  Lady Beatrix squeezed her shoulder. “I thank you.”

  Helene inclined her head. “I will do what I can for your brother. Indeed, now that night has drawn, I ought to prepare his sleeping draught.”

  “I will leave you to it, then.”

  Helene watched her depart. Then, ignoring the stares of the servants, she crossed to the cupboard where Cook had earlier cleared several shelves for her medicinals.

  After what should have required less than the half hour she took to mix the sleeping draught and gather her pots and cloths, Helene looked around the kitchen that was now empty save for herself. It was still quite warm, her time here having caused her to perspire such that her gown’s bodice fit uncomfortably close and the hair around her temples and the back of her neck clung to her skin.

  She glanced down her front and, relieved to find her discomfort was more felt than seen, lifted the tray upon which she had arranged what she would need for her audience with Sir Abel.

  “This one last task and the day is done,” she whispered. “’Twill be better come the morrow.” When she would seek Sir Durand, apologize, and, hopefully, learn what he had not told.

  Chapter Seven

  He had begun to think she would not come again this eve, but here she was. And looking worse for what had transpired between her and Durand—the reporting of which had displeased him far more than he ought to allow.

  Tendrils of hair adhering to her brow, she withheld her gaze as she carried the tray toward the bed upon which he sat upright with pillows between his back and the wall. As she lowered the tray to the bedside table, she glanced across the room to the chair and table before the brazier. “You ate well.”

  He followed her gaze to the tray she had earlier delivered. “I find my appetite much improved this eve.”

  “I am glad of it.” She returned her attention to her more recent offering. “I will not be long. Once I have applied the salves and you have taken the sleeping draught, I shall leave you to your evening’s rest.”

  Why he wanted her eyes upon him, he did not know, but it irked him that the direct gaze she had not previously spared him was now not even indirect. “Methinks you are no better for having met Sir Durand,” he said.

  He knew he had sprung upon her his knowledge of what had transpired belowstairs, but he did not expect her to react with such intensity.

  Sweeping her wide-eyed, angry gaze to him, she exclaimed, “She told you!”

  Abel would have laughed if not that she seemed so genuinely offended. “Of course she did. Why would she not?”

  She opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again. “Though ‘tis true I did not ask that it be held in confidence, Lady Beatrix had no cause to run to you and tell that I struck him.”

  She had struck Durand? In Beatrix’s presence?

  It was Abel’s turn to overreact. But he did not, for as a boy he had learned his lessons well at Wulfen Castle and knew that one did not reveal the extent of one’s knowledge—if at all—before gaining all that could be had from an opponent who was less likely to hold close that with which he believed the other was well acquainted. Fortunately, if Helene did not rise to the bait, he could always learn from his sister what their mother had not been privy to beyond Durand’s appearance in the hall and Helene’s pursuit of him.

  Turning over words that would best draw out the tale of what the knave had done to cause her to strike him—and God help Durand if he had behaved inappropriately which, considering his past, was possible—he stared at Helene.

  She set her chin higher. “It is no concern of yours.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Regardless, ‘tis understandable why you were moved to act as you did.”

  For a moment, the light that brightened her eyes made it seem she would agree, but then she lowered her lids. “Nay, it is not understandable. I should not have done it, but…” Her eyes sprang open, and there was that fiery light again. “He, a man of the sword, followed the brigands camp to camp, witnessed my beatings, and yet refuses to say why he but watched—why he did naught.”

  Now her assault upon Durand was understandable.

  Color flooding her cheeks that Abel wished he did not find enticing, she continued, “All he tells is that he had his reasons.”

  Despite his dislike of the man whom he had once called ‘friend,’ Abel forced himself to acknowledge that the knight had been instrumental in ending the terror the brigands had worked upon the barony of Abingdale—so much that, had he not risked death by revealing himself to Baron Lavonne, Beatrix and many others would now be dead.

  Helene’s shoulders rose and fell as she drew deep breaths as if to calm herself, and her hands that had grasped at and bunched her skirts released them. She stepped nearer until all that separated her from Abel was the edge of the mattress. “Yet you tried to aid me.” Her voice was nearly level again. “And without even a sword at your side.”

  Recalling their meeting in the wood, he tasted again the bile of helplessness upon which he had nearly choked when he had seen the reason she had refused to flee with him. “I failed you,” he said.

  “It could not be helped.”

  He knew that, had repeated it over and again each time guilt rode his back, but still he felt the weight of the choices he had made that had caused her to fall victim to Sir Robert’s fists.

  “Think no more on it,” she said.

  Piqued that she should read him so well, he determined to turn their conversation back to the person with whom it had begun. “I cannot speak for Sir Durand and his reason for not aiding you during your captivity, but you should know it was he who freed the Wulfrith knight held by that miscreant, Sir Robert, and that when my brother’s knight mad
e it to Broehne Castle, he revealed the location of the camp where you and Aldous Lavonne were left to die.”

  Her eyes widened.

  “In the end, Sir Durand did aid you—and revealed Sir Robert’s plan to attack Castle Soaring.” And that was all he could stomach to tell of the knight’s fine qualities, for they had been self serving. “Now, I am sure you would like to be done with your ministrations and seek your bed.”

  After a long moment, during which she surely struggled to suppress whatever new questions had arisen, she turned to the tray.

  She spoke no further word, hurriedly cleaning his wounds and applying her salves with hands and fingers that Abel tried to imagine belonging to a kindly crone. He even closed his eyes the better to convince himself of it. But, as was becoming habit with Helene, he failed.

  ‘Tis only desire. A faint and passing attraction.

  “Still you will deny me your back?” she asked, breath feathering his face as she smoothed the pleasingly scented ointment into his cheek and down his jaw.

  He raised his lids and, when she finally set her gaze to his, said. “I could not rest as comfortably as I do if that injury was not sufficiently healed.”

  “It would seem, but I would not be doing my duty if I did not verify it.”

  “Then verify.” He leaned forward, putting his face so near hers that she jerked back as if for fear he meant to force an intimacy upon her. As he shifted on the mattress to give her access to his back, Abel wondered if he could have resisted a taste of her mouth had she not put space between him and temptation. And what of her? Would she have let him kiss her? Would she have returned his kiss?

  “Is it your upper back or lower?” she asked.

  “Upper—right side.”

  Rather than lift the hem of his tunic as she had done to tend his lower torso, her hands came around, and she loosened the strings that closed the neck of his tunic—far more quickly than the time it had taken him to tie them.

  She lowered the tunic past his shoulder and, as she bent near and gently probed the flesh, he felt the brush of her hair across his skin.

  He struggled against stiffening, certain she would feel his body’s response to her touch and think more of his desire than she ought to.