“They have different monsters where he lived. But he did slay a Cyclops and outsmarted a few nymphs who wished to hold him prisoner.”
“What are…nimps?”
She sighed and shifted uncomfortably. It was not possible to explain how Odysseus had fallen under the enticements of Circe, or how he and his men had languished in the land of the lotus-eaters. She had never understood it herself. In fact, it had made her rather disappointed in the tarnished hero. How could he be ruled by his base self, allowing it to divert him for one moment from his noble mission?
But she might be able to imagine the thrall of such temptations. A wanting that great…it might be that ’twas possible. There had been moments, in Agravar’s company, that she had felt a strange, aching sort of need.
This wasn’t working as she planned. “Never mind.”
“Do you have a picture of these monsters in there. The Cyclops and nimps?”
“Perhaps. They come later, as part of the long, adventuresome journey Odysseus makes to return home after angering the gods with his arrogance. Come, let us read the story together and you will see—”
But Aric had already lost interest. “Let us see if we can spy the practice field from here!” he cried, leaping up from the stone bench and running to the garden wall.
“Aric, come away from there. I thought you wanted to hear this story. Aric!”
Paying her no mind, he clambered up onto a pile of rocks until he could just about get his chin over the edge of the limestone. “Aye, I can! See, there is Agravar! I told you he would have his sword—he always has it. See?”
Rosamund stood and placed the manuscript carefully on the bench. “Aric, really,” she said primly, but it was only a halfhearted chastisement. She went to stand by his side and followed his pointing finger.
The grove was an enclosed yard on a hillock that overlooked the rolling paths that led to the lower wards, where the lists and other training fields were spread out on large, dusty flats. The forge was down there, where the armorer and the smith labored, as well as the stables, which were accessed by a narrow passage from another enclosed ward. The entire area was thick with soldiers in mock battle, squires scrabbling for this weapon or that, craftsman being consulted about the repair or construction of armor or swords, and a host of other activities that were the everyday fare of a soldier’s world.
Yet among all this chaos, the Viking was unmistakable.
Stripped naked to the waist, with a thick sheen of sweat glistening on his exposed torso, he strode among the others with confidence. His hair was wet, dark and clinging to his skin. Someone said something to make him laugh, and the flash of his teeth made him appear softer for a brief moment.
His body was magnificent—wide, powerful. His legs were long and thick with muscle, his waist lean, narrow, with a tight, flat abdomen with small ridges on it. From there on up, his body flared out to meet the impossible width of his shoulders, his sculpted chest smooth and hairless. His arms were as large as a young tree, bound with sinewed strength that shifted and bunched in the most fascinating manner when he swung his blade, flat side landing with a thwack on another man’s posterior.
The other man jumped and rubbed his rump, then charged.
Rosamund gasped, stuffing her knuckles between her teeth.
Aric looked at her with disgust. “He’s just teasing Will. They are always fighting like that. He’s here for his service to my father. He’s nice. He gave me a ride on his horse. Do you want to see his horse?”
“No, thank you,” Rosamund murmured absently, too absorbed in the little battle going on below her. Will, whoever that was, was agile and lean. Agravar was larger, less swift, but the might of his swing was impressive. Each blow bent the other man’s knees as he met the weighty parries.
“Agravar will best him. He is bigger. When I get big, I am going to beat everyone, just like Father does. Only even he can’t beat Agravar. Sometimes he does, but then Agravar gets him the next time. It is kind of a rule they have. Mother fears one day they will kill each other.”
Intent on the men sparring, she absently murmured, “Aye, that is nice.” She cringed when Will swirled his weapon in an arc. It caught the sun, flashing fire for a moment before it came down. Rosamund let out a small cry.
“He’s all right, see? None can harm Agravar! Come,” Aric cried excitedly. He leaped down from his perch and raced to the gate. Undoing the latch, he demanded more imperiously, “Come!”
“What? Oh, nay, Aric. Return here at once!”
But Aric was off in a twinkling.
The fighting men had paused to catch their breath before going at it again. Rosamund cast one last look, then followed the gleeful boy, forgetting all her good intentions of morality stories and lessons on humility.
In the end, she allowed the boy to persuade her to take him to see the fighting. They arrived down at the lists as the combatants were ready to go at it again. Aric jumped up and down at Rosamund’s side, shouting, “Agravar! Smite him!”
Agravar looked over with a smile on his face. He stopped when he saw Rosamund. She tried to smile, but the gesture froze on her face and she was suddenly overcome with an acute self-consciousness.
Will pretended offense at Aric. “Take sides against me, will you, you little bloodthirsty demon? That is the last time you ride on my horse.”
Agravar hadn’t moved.
“But you cannot beat Agravar! He is my father’s captain!”
“And I your father’s villein!”
Rosamund could not tear her eyes away from a thick rivulet of sweat as it traveled with excruciating slowness from Agravar’s neck to the sharp furrow dividing his chest. It glistened as it slid lower, making its way to the waistband of his breeches.
Will sauntered toward them, wiping his brow with the hem of his loose-fitting shirt. “Who is this, your new nursemaid?”
Aric said, “Nay, ’tis Mother’s cousin. The Lady Rosamund.”
“Well—a relative of Alayna’s. Delightful to meet you,” Will said.
Rosamund wanted to reply, but the strange numbness hadn’t released her yet.
“She’s scared of everyone,” Aric explained. “I heard Father say so. He doesn’t like it. Mother told him that he should visit the devil for saying something not nice about her kinswoman and then Father swore, but not at Mother. I heard it all.”
There was an awkward pause. “I fear that conversation was meant to be private,” Will said softly.
At last Agravar moved, and Rosamund could once again breathe.
“Greetings, Aric,” he said to the little boy, then lifted his gaze to Rosamund. “Good day, my lady.”
“G-good day.” She felt—and this was completely irrational—guilty somehow, as if she were somewhere she had no right to be. Or seeing something she had no right to see. He was still half-naked, after all.
She rushed to explain herself. “I was with Aric in the grove, reading Odysseus, and he saw you and said that Will gave him rides on his horse and he wanted to come down and I thought we could…are we interrupting?”
Lord, it was all she could do to keep from staring at that expanse of flesh in front of her, beautifully sculpted, purely masculine. His chest rose and fell slightly as if he were still winded. She felt her knees go a bit weak and concentrated on keeping her eyes fixed straight ahead.
Aric was dancing around, showing off his own imaginary skill at the thrust and parry. Will laughed and made admiring noises and the boy beamed.
“We were just about to end,” Agravar said. Will looked over, obviously surprised. “We just—”
“Wait here,” Agravar said, cutting him off. He trotted back to the water barrel and doused himself with a dipperful, then rubbed a towel quickly over his skin.
At the sight of this, Rosamund’s mouth went dry and her head felt suddenly light and floating, like the time when she had the fever and could keep nothing in her stomach for nearly a sennight. She watched, not aware that Will was there or
what he might think. As for Aric, she had ceased to be conscious of the little boy altogether. A distant part of her brain was horrified by her capriciousness at abandoning the noble task she had set for herself that day, but she dismissed its nagging without much trouble as she watched Agravar pull on his shirt and head back her way.
“I say, Lady Rosamund, how long are you staying?” Will spoke loudly, as if this were not the first time he had asked the question.
“Uh? Oh…a short while, I think.”
“She got bandits on her! Agravar went and got them off.”
“Aric!” Agravar admonished.
The boy looked puzzled. “Well, you did. You were the one who got her back. Now she is going to marry Lord Robert.”
Will looked more confused than ever.
“I shall explain the whole high adventure later,” Agravar said, slapping Will on the back and flashing a grin. “Rosamund, shall we leave these two clod-heads—”
“Hey!” Aric protested, looking as though he wished he had his wooden sword with him just then.
“—and head back up to the keep?”
“Of course,” Rosamund said smoothly, grateful that her voice didn’t tremble. “Lovely to make your acquaintance, Will.”
“I…” He looked thoroughly confused for a moment, then shrugged. “I shall look forward to seeing you at supper.”
As they left, Will frowned after them. Then he swatted the little boy and began to chase him around the lists.
Agravar felt an incredible excitement vibrate through his body as they walked. What was she doing here? Had she come just to see him?
“Young Aric has a great deal of energy,” he commented.
Beside him, she strode with her back stiff, facing straight ahead. Mutely she nodded.
Agravar’s mind puzzled. Sometimes, when a knight was wooing a particular lady, she would come down to the field and observe her beloved’s prowess. Agravar had always considered this a damned nuisance. The whole practice session would be disrupted. The knight would usually begin to swagger about, bloated on conceit as any strutting peacock would be at catching the eye of a peahen, and all the while maintaining an affected casualness as if it mattered not in the least that admiring eyes were directed his way.
For the first time he could understand why. He had scoffed, scolded, even cuffed a few of his men when they had become stupid in the presence of their female audience. Yet now Agravar himself felt an indescribable rush of pleasure, a lightness inside of him, a deliriously idiotic fixation on the mere fact that she had come. It was the first time she had sought him out and he was silly over it.
His first thought, his only thought, upon finding her watching him, had been to get her away from the curious stares of his men. Nay. His first thought was to put his shirt on. Odd how her presence had made his near nakedness seem carnal all of the sudden.
Then he wanted to take her away from the prying and curious stares of the others. He wanted her all to himself.
This elation was quickly waning. Whatever magical obsession had seized them both back there on the lists—surely the feeling of sensual energy that had come upon the two of them was not only his imagination—it was gone now. From Rosamund’s posture, one might assume they were marching in some vigorous, not very well appreciated, exercise. From her demeanor, one might guess she cared even less for the company than she did the activity.
“Where would you like to go?” he asked, not knowing what else to say.
“Nowhere in particular.”
“I thought we might walk a bit, if you wish.”
“Aye, ’twould be pleasant.”
He all but rolled his eyes as they trudged on in silence. He was more dumbfounded than ever. First she seeks him out, then she spurns him. He lapsed into silence.
She burst, “I did not come to see you today. Aric ran off and I but followed. I do not wish you to think I came down to spy on you.”
“I would not think any such thing.” Dismally, this was true.
They rounded the inner wall and headed out over the narrow bridge, which crossed a stream that cut through to the outer wards. Walking at a brisk clip, arms swinging, head held high, she appeared more to be marching into battle than strolling with…A friend? Surely not. But what, then?
A flood of foolishness rushed through him like a scalding heat. Look at him—a man over ten and twenty years—skipping attendance to a maiden who had demonstrated time and again her indifference to him, a woman who could not, in any event, be his even if his feelings were returned.
His feelings? The thought stopped him in his tracks. Rosamund took a few more steps before realizing she had lost him.
Looking back, she asked, “Is something amiss? Are you tired?”
The question caught him off guard and he laughed. “Tired? My lady, not to seem a braggart, but I am used to riding three days in the saddle only to battle for another four. Nay, ’tis not weariness. Never mind it. Let us go on.”
She hesitated a moment. “You know, there is someplace I’d like to go, if you will take me. I used to study the healing arts with the apothecary at Hallscroft. If you will escort me outside the gates, I would like to see if there are any herbs or roots that I could make use of.”
Agravar replied temperately. “Certainly. Let us go.”
Never mind that Alayna’s old nurse, Eurice, was a most accomplished healer and could have handed Rosamund more dried herbs, roots and any other materials of consequence than she could carry. They set off into the woods.
Chapter Twelve
Agravar’s laughter was rich and deep. It flooded the glade in the wood where he was sprawled on a carpet of moss, ankles crossed, leaning on one elbow as he toyed with some long blades of grass.
Across from him, Rosamund laughed, too, quieter, almost to herself. It was a secret laugh, quite apart from the jest they had just shared.
Seated on the same springy moss, she had her feet tucked up under her as she sorted the plants strewn on her lap. Her dress would be hopelessly grass stained, she knew, and this would earn her a thorough scolding from Hilde. But Rosamund didn’t care.
She had a taste of freedom, and it was exhilarating.
This is what it feels like not to be afraid anymore. This is what it is to wake each morning with anticipation instead of dread.
How odd she would find so much ease in the company of so fierce-looking a man. Agravar, for all his Nordic looks and knight’s bearing, was not terrifying at all.
“So he was unmasked,” he said, finishing his lively tale.
“And what did the lady do?” she asked with a chuckle.
“She had the cad cast into the moat and closed the castle gates!”
“Good. I would have done the same.”
His smile flashed again. “Of that I have no doubt. Rosamund, you are positively formidable at times.”
“I? You who are the Viking say this to me. With all your warrior ancestors weeping from the shame of it, you tell a mere girl that she is formidable?”
“I am only part Viking,” he corrected. “Thus my fighting nature is tempered with wisdom. Had I not mentioned that when listing my virtues?”
“Oh. Aye, I had quite forgotten.”
“That was from my English side.”
“Your mother’s side?” she asked, forgetting for the moment how he had displayed such reticence about his mother before. Too late, she wished she could bite back the words.
He seemed to consider something for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was hesitant. “My mother was English, aye.”
She kept her voice soft. “I recall you saying so.”
“My father…my father was a Viking raider. He came ashore and swept over my grandfather’s lands, storming the manor house where the family slept one night. It was over before ’twas begun, they say.” He drew in a deep breath, as if it were a labor just to imagine it. “Those who fought were killed. The rest were rounded up.”
He looked down at his hands as they bus
ily twined the grass into a weave, then unwound it, then tied it up again. “My mother was…” He took a deep breath. “She was taken and…used by my father. I suppose the other women were given to the men, but he kept her for himself. She hated him, I know, and his regard for her went only so far as the diversion she gave him in bed.”
Should she say something? She wanted to ease the furrows in his brow, but no words seemed to come to her.
“’Twas not the last time he abused a maid thusly, nor the first. God only knows how many brothers and sisters I have scattered about England and Denmark. I am a bastard. Half English, half Danish Viking, and the living mark of my mother’s shame. She never recovered after he sailed for home, and there were those who would forget how unwilling she was. She was never the same. The Vikings have a reputation for using their slaves badly. Lucien will tell you this is true. When they left, laden with all their booty and the strongest to serve them in their homelands, the only thing those bitter remnants of the village could remember of my mother was that she had been spared much as the favored of Hendron.”
“Agravar…I am so sorry.”
“’Tis not your fault, of course. But I understand why you say it. It serves, does it not, when one has nothing else to offer. How many times did those words fly to my lips when I would see her, my mother, and know what I was to her. Even as a child, I knew ’twas not my fault, not really, but still I wanted to say it. I felt it. I was sorry. I wished so desperately that it could have all been different.”
With a quick indrawn breath, he brought his head up and tossed aside the tangled blades of grass. “You know, there may be some who would be looking for you. We told no one where we were headed. Perhaps it would be wise to get back now. Supper will be soon.”
His retreat from the weighty subject of his birth suited her, for she had no means to express the awkward emotions pressing against her chest. What a coward she was, she reflected. “Hungry are you?” she said lightly, donning a smile.
He stood and brushed at the green stains on his leggings. “I can hardly be content on those few handfuls of berries you fed me. Here, let me help you up.”
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