“No,” Conn called back. He flexed his elbow and hissed out a pained out-breath. “Not really.”
The man chuckled and let his unwounded comrades help him into the tent.
When the screams began, Conn dragged himself to his feet and moved off. The sounds and sights of wounds being cauterized were not the sort of thing he liked. He walked past men as dazed as himself, heading toward the coppice of trees that grew up just behind the site where they had camped. The whole camp had an air of weary numbness. The evening mist was descending, the day falling into darkness.
I need a moment to think.
He wandered out into the evening, back to the line of blood and gray on the horizon where the sun sank, splendid, into the mist. He breathed deeply, letting the peace of the forest settle on his soul.
Then he turned. He couldn't have said why he did exactly, except that his left eye caught a movement, something coming up from the path toward the encampment. He turned around. Two horsemen were approaching, riding from the direction of the town of Edinburgh. He narrowed his eyes. It was dark and he could barely make them out. He felt his fingers grip his sword, wanting to alert the nearest sentries. However, something held him back.
That rider in the front. He's riding oddly. There's something wrong about that silhouette. He slit his eyes and looked more closely. There it was: some kind of protrusion on the horse's right side. Like something fluttering there.
As if the rider wore a cape on one side only. Or...as if they wore a skirt. Riding sidesaddle.
His eyes widened. This close, the two riders resolved into two tall, stately forms on horseback, with long hair and long dresses. Riding sidesaddle.
He bowed abruptly as the lead horse came to a screaming halt, hoofs throwing up sods of earth from the damp battleground.
“Sir!” a young voice shouted out confidently. “Kindly inform your commander of our arrival.” She threw aside the reins and jumped lightly down.
Conn stared.
The lady in question – and it was undoubtedly a lady – wore a long, dark, velvet riding cape, her hair was loose under the cape-hood that had fallen back from her hair, and it streamed out around her head in a cloud of curls.
“My lady?” he frowned. “Gladly I shall inform him of that. But, pray, who do I say you are? I do not know you.”
She grinned. “Tell him it's Lady Amabel,” he said.
The second rider had come up now. She was taller than the first, and her gray velvet cape had a wide hood that covered a long plait of hair. From under the hood's shallow cowl peeked a serene oval face with wide brown eyes and a full, neat mouth, a long nose and high, elegant cheekbones.
“Glenna,” he murmured.
She nodded. “Hello, Conn,” she said. Her voice was sweet and musical and she stepped forward, reaching for his arm. “I'm so glad you're alive.”
Then, before either of them could have said who did it first, they were reaching toward each other blindly and standing with her in his arms.
He held her to his chest and stroked her back, his left elbow burning in silent agony. However, none of that was something that he noticed any longer. Glenna was here, with him, safe and well. Moreover, he was alive. At that moment, there was no feeling quite as good as that.
CHAPTER FIVE
CONNECTIONS
CONNECTIONS
Glenna followed Conn into the tent. She looked around, the horror of the scene falling dully through to her exhausted mind. Her legs and back ached from saddle-soreness and she wished she could sit down awhile. However, Lady Amabel was determined to set to work.
A man gave a cry of agony as the scent of smoke spread through the tent. Acrid and strong, it caught Glenna's throat and mixed, sickeningly, with the rusted scent of blood. She felt her nails wear into the palm of her hand with the tension in her fists. She had to stay calm and stay silent.
“My lady?” a man called. He looked in immense pain. “You're helping us?”
Glenna nodded and left the group to talk with him. “I am. Where are you hurt?”
“My head,” he moaned. “And my arm...”
Glenna nodded. His head was bandaged, but his shoulder had the worse wound, a livid gash that was too wide to be bound closed and badly needed cautery or stitches, or both.
“Let me see that,” she said, wincing as she looked at it. She wished Amabel were here, but she was on the other side of the tent, already mixing a poultice. Conn was nowhere to be seen. Glenna swallowed hard and made herself enter a place of detached calmness.
“It's bad?” the man said softly.
“You'll live,” Glenna assured him. “It needs stitching. I have the wherewithal to do it, if you'll let me?”
“Please,” he groaned. “I can't move my shoulder without worsening the hurt.”
Glenna nodded. She sat down by the bed and threaded her needle with fingers that she tried to hold steady. Then she was bending forward, her eyes squinting as she tried to hold the raw, torn edges closed.
“Help me here,” she said to a passing squire. “I need someone to hold this closed, see?”
“Yes, milady.” The squire looked at her with a kind of awe as she instructed him. As she focused on the work, she realized just how incongruous she and Amabel must be. The only healer in here beside them was the priest. The idea of women in the tent was probably unheard of to these brave men.
She pushed the needle through, gritting her teeth against the revulsion that flooded her as it stuck and then pushed through. She carried on grimly.
By the end of it, she was feeling oddly calm. She looked down. Her patient was sweating profusely, his face rigid with pain. Nevertheless, he smiled up at her as she stood.
“Thank you, milady.”
“It was nothing,” she said.
She worked through the night, moving from one man to the other that needed her help. Some of them needed poultices and bandages, others stitches. Some needed bones set or cautery, and those she left for Amabel or the priest.
At some point in the evening, she felt herself start to sway with exhaustion. She put out a hand and steadied herself on a table, then sat down heavily against the tent-side.
“Milady?”
Glenna blinked. Someone was standing in front of her. She let her eyes wander from his knees to his face. She smiled, exhausted. “Conn,” she murmured. “Good.”
He hunkered down opposite her. “Glenna,” he said. “Please stop now. You're exhausted. I can see that. Come and have some stew?”
Glenna felt her stomach lurch hesitatingly at the mention of stew. She was either starving or nauseous. She couldn't tell which. “Thank you,” she said. “In a moment, when I can stand.”
He chuckled and reached out a hand. “Let me help you.”
He pulled her to her feet and winced.
“What is it?” Glenna asked.
“Nothing. Just my elbow. Damn thing's bent out of shape.”
“Let me see.”
“You need some dinner,” he countered.
“Conn...” Glenna looked up into those grass-green eyes. He blushed.
“Very well. But wait until you've had some dinner, hey?”
Glenna nodded. She let him propel her forward, exhausted, from the tent and out into the dark night. The campsite was dotted with fires and she could hear the murmur of men sitting and talking quietly amongst themselves. The smell of smoke dominated out here, a welcome change from the scent of burning flesh and wounding.
“Whew.” Glenna sighed, standing up, stretching out her back. Suddenly, her vision swam and she felt herself falling.
“Glenna!” Conn reached out a hand and grabbed her, pulling her to her feet. “Come on,” he said gently. “Sit down. You're fainting with hunger.”
Glenna let him lead her to a fire, where a table had been set up, pots and pans gleaming in the red light of glowing coals. She sat down and he thrust an earthenware dish into her hands.
“Here. Eat.”
Glenna acce
pted it and ate, albeit slowly. It wasn't bad – and she was hungry enough to enjoy it no matter how it tasted. She felt feeling return to her fingers and her head started to throb as fresh blood flooded it.
“You're hurt,” she said as she finished. He was opposite her, eating a piece of a bread-loaf. He was sitting hunched over and every time he moved his arm, he winced in pain. Glenna shuddered and reached out a hand, resting it gently on his injured wrist. It was hot to the touch and she looked into his eyes. “Let me tend this,” she whispered.
He swallowed hard. “Yes, miss.”
They stood and went under the shelter of the healing tent. The torches were still lit, a wire basket of hot coals providing fierce warmth for those positioned around it.
“Sit down,” Glenna instructed. Conn sat.
She reached for his wrist, which was enlarged and hot. She sighed. “We need to put a compress on this – a bread poultice laced with willow to ease the ache. And your elbow too,” she said.
She let her fingers run up the thickly-muscled forearm and to his muscle-bound joint. Again, the muscle was throbbing and hot to her touch. She frowned.
“I'm going to have to cut your tunic,” she warned. She could feel her own heart quickening at the thought. There was something so intimate about working on his wounds, private in a way it had not been when she’d worked with the other men.
He smiled, the grin a lopsided grimace on his handsome face. “No reason why not to,” he supplied. “This tunic's ancient anyway. Finished off by this,” he added, jerking a head back in the direction of the battle ground.
“Quite,” Glenna giggled. “It's most disreputable now. I would think you wouldn't want to be seen in it.”
He laughed and she reached for a short knife, cutting into the sleeve of the tunic. He winced and she drew back.
“I didn't cut you, did I?” she asked, eyes stretching with concern.
“Only a bit,” he chuckled.
She flushed and looked down. “Sorry,” she murmured.
“Not at all.”
She dabbed away at the tiny thread of blood on the pale skin with the ruined shirt-cuff. The contact of her fingertips with his beautiful body made her heart pound faster.
When she had finished, she mixed the poultice. He sat silently, waiting. When she looked up, he was watching her.
“You're very beautiful,” he whispered. His green eyes shone, luminous in the ruddy darkness.
Glenna coughed. His proximity and the sound of his voice, so resonant, were doing funny things to her insides. She looked down at her hands where they worked. “You're beautiful too,” she whispered.
He laughed. “Now I know I'm hallucinating.”
Glenna smiled at him. “Modesty is a virtue, but lying a sin,” she warned as she ladled the cool bread mixture onto his wrist and started to bandage it slowly. “You couldn't possibly not know how handsome you are.”
Her eyes met his and she felt her heart thud within her chest as she read the message in those shiny green depths.
“I might not know that,” he whispered. “But your beauty is all too apparent to me.”
“Sir...” she murmured.
“Sh.”
She let him take her hand and draw her toward him, and closed her eyes as his breath warmed her lip.
Then his tongue was gently probing the line between her lips and she felt her body melt under the beauty of it. She held his wrist and tried to finish her work, but her eyes were shut and she moved back, laughing, her whole body afire with the sweet intimacy of that kiss.
“Sir,” she whispered tersely. “I can't focus on my work.” She grinned to take the sting from her words.
“Oh,” he chuckled. “Neither can I. I can only focus on you.”
Glenna swallowed hard. She felt as if her body was going to catch fire at any moment, her loins tingling and every inch of her on edge, wanting his proximity.
“Now then,” she said, clearing her throat so that her voice was less croaky. “I'm almost finished.”
“Good,” he murmured. “Though I wish I was more in grievous need. Then I could keep you to myself all evening.”
Glenna blushed. “Now, sir,” she said sternly. “Cheeky patients are known to heal more slowly. So I'll have you know that you ought to behave with more standoffish ways toward me. For your health.”
He laughed, green eyes creased with mirth. “Is that so?”
“No,” she said, giggling despite herself. “I made it up. But even so,” she added as he started to laugh in earnest, “you should listen to me.”
“Yes,” he murmured, a chuckle escaping him as they both subsided from their fit of giggles. “I should listen.”
“Indeed. So,” she added, smiling at him as she hauled herself to her feet. “When I say you're to lie here quietly and wait for that poultice to stiffen, and then get some rest, what would you do?”
“I'll do as you say,” he said, his solemn words utterly given the lie by his naughty expression.
“Oh, you would, would you?” Glenna teased.
“Of course,” he said innocently. Those green eyes shone in the firelight and Glenna shivered, though it was not cold.
“Good,” Glenna said. “Now, I'll away. Goodnight, sir.”
“Goodnight, miss.”
She grinned at him primly, he smiled back and then, abruptly, she was walking from the tent, blinking rapidly. Outside, she drew in great lungfuls of air.
She was shaking, her whole body alive with the desire that coursed through her. She clasped her hands to steady herself. I want him so badly.
She bit her lip and walked across the field, heading back toward the tent. She needed sleep, and rest, and time to think. She had a lot to think about.
CHAPTER SIX
A SURPRISE MEETING
A SURPRISE MEETING
My lady?” Glenna called. Her back ached as the horse moved, but she bit her bottom lip and carried on ahead. Her heart was lifted by her sweet memories and that made the pain of riding easier. They were trotting along the field, heading back home. In the distance, she could just see the castle where it sat on the hillside over Edinburgh, a block-shaped, brooding edifice under the pale sky.
“What, Glenna?” Amabel called back. She turned, black hair ruffled by the breeze, and waited for Glenna to ride up beside her.
“I wanted to ask when you think the men will return to the castle?” she said as the two of them slowed their horses to walk beside each other.
“Well,” Amabel frowned, looking up at the sky to judge the time. “It's an hour before midday now, and they started moving when we did. The carts with the wounded will slow them. Expect them back at nightfall.”
“Yes, milady,” Glenna murmured. She felt sad, riding away from Conn. She had to stop herself from turning in the saddle, looking back to see if there were traces of the men who rode behind.
“You saw to your man's wounds?” Amabel asked.
Glenna stared at her. “I did, yes, milady,” she said shyly.
“Good.” Amabel's voice was warm. “So did I.”
“Milady...” Glenna coughed, not sure what to say. How could she ask Amabel what she planned to do about her situation? She was in as much of a predicament herself. Only in her case, a knight would lower himself to wed the daughter of a miller. In Amabel's case, she lowered herself to consider a knight.
“Yes?” Amabel asked. She raised a brow over one blue eye, expression inquiring.
“I was wondering if...” She looked at her hands. “If there was any way...any precedent for...what we want to do?”
Amabel frowned. “You mean, marry across such differences in status?”
Glenna felt her eyebrows lift. Trust Amabel not to edge around the truth with flowery sentiments. “Yes,” she said. “I meant that.”
Amabel sighed. Her lovely face looked worried, a line wrinkling her smooth brow. “Well, I don't know, Glenna. We're in a sticky situation, aren't we?”
Glenna nodded
miserably. “We are,” she agreed.
“What we could do,” Amabel said, eyes sparkling, “is run away together.”
“What?” Glenna stared at her. “My lady! That's dangerous!”
She laughed. “Yes, it is. Very. But think of it. A knight is not without means. If we ran away, we could set up house together in the countryside somewhere. Make a farm, settle down. Live the simple life.”
Glenna stared at her mistress. “You wouldn't.”
Amabel chuckled. “I don't know, Glenna,” she added with a sigh. “I've no idea what I would do. There's a part of me that wishes it was that simple. But what can we do, eh?”
She shook her head sadly and Glenna nodded.
“There must be a way, mistress.”
“I hope there is, yes.”
It was noon when they reached the castle.
Glenna slid down from the saddle, gasping in pain as her feet touched the ground.
Amabel chuckled. “Saddle sore, eh?”
Glenna nodded vigorously. “I feel as if I'll never walk again.”
Amabel nodded. “I know the feeling. Let's change for luncheon. I'm famished.”
In the hall, they sat down together.
“No one's here,” Amabel commented, directing Glenna to the seat across from her. “We've the whole place to ourselves.”
As they ate, Glenna's mind wandered again to thoughts of Conn. “Milady?”
“Mm?” Amabel swallowed, reaching for a glass of claret. “What is it, dear?”
“How would I...” Glenna swallowed hard. “How would I know if a fellow was, well, of good intent?”
Amabel's eyes went round. “You mean, whether he wishes to wed.”
“Yes,” Glenna said. “How would I know if someone had, well...such ideas? Toward me?”
To her surprise, Lady Amabel giggled. “Well, I've no idea,” she said. “But what I can say is, you would know. Is he quiet when around you? And, well...different with you than with others?”
A Highlander’s Terror_A Medieval Scottish Romance Story Page 25
