by Jill Hughey
“Welcome to each of you,” Rochelle said, knowing her duty as a hostess, even if grudgingly performed. “Gilbert will see to your cloaks if you wish to remove them. We have tried to warm the room enough to make it comfortable.”
David and Theo offered their compliments while unclasping their cloaks. Doeg pointedly draped his cloak to cover his stiffly bent left arm. Marian came from the kitchen, adding her welcome. “Please be seated. Gilbert and I will bring the meat and we will be ready to eat.”
David gestured to Rochelle. “Shall we share the bench?” he asked.
“Very well,” she agreed reluctantly. “After I have filled everyone’s cup.” She offered each person a choice of drink, noting that only David chose water over wine. He waited for her to sit before joining her. Unfortunately, Doeg chose the seat at the end closest to Rochelle. She found herself sliding away from him ever so slightly until her arm pressed against David’s.
Marian returned with platters of meat in thick juice. Gilbert followed with a large bowl of boiled root vegetables. David moaned softly, then laughed at Rochelle’s questioning gaze. “I have not had a decent meal since I got here.”
Theo nodded in agreement. “The emperor’s retinue demands vast amounts of resources. The best goods go to feed the palace, and there are many mouths to be fed. Did you bring your own provisions?” he asked Marian.
“All but the meat. Gilbert has been to Aix many times with my late husband. He still knows a few of the vendors here and was able to find a suitable piece.”
The men settled into their meal, using their eating daggers to cut and eat, and hunks of bread torn from the loaves to sop up juices. Rochelle had never witnessed more appreciation for a simple meal, as David and Theo sang a veritable chorus of praise about the quality and quantity of the food, not stopping until the platters were empty and the last remains of the bread were only crumbs on the boards of the table. Doeg ate plenty, though his expression suggested he’d just smelled a jug of sour goat’s milk.
Theo leaned forward to spear an apple with his dagger. “Thought it was impossible, Marian, but your cooking has improved over the perfection I remember.”
She flushed like a young girl.
“I hope you have shared your recipes with your daughter,” David said fervently.
Marian laughed. “Rochelle knows everything I know about food. But her interests lie in other recipes.”
Rochelle wanted to kick her mother under the table.
“Really? Tell us,” David urged.
“Rochelle is well-versed in healing recipes,” Marian said proudly. “She studied with a granny on the estate.”
“Mother, please, it is nothing that would interest them.”
Doeg leaned forward. “A soldier suffers all manner of ailments, from bad feet to bad food to bad wounds. Imagine, David will have his own personal nurse when he returns home from battle each autumn.”
Rochelle shifted uncomfortably, but that only made her rub up against the hard length of David’s leg. Through the meal, David’s thigh had pressed against her own and his arm brushed hers time and again. Moving away would only have brought her closer to Doeg, so she’d been trapped into a physical proximity with David, whose body seemed to suck all the air from the room. She finally cobbled together a sentence. “I have never treated anything worse than an accidental slip of a knife.”
“In any case,” David said gruffly, “good healers are highly respected.”
“Rochelle is very good,” Marian bragged. “She collects her own herbs and mixes them most carefully. And she never leaves our house without a small bag of her more common remedies, ready to help anyone in need.”
“A saint walks among us,” Doeg said sarcastically. He took a deep drink of wine while everyone else shifted in the uncomfortable silence, then thrust his cup out for a refill.
“What inspired you to pursue healing?” David asked. He turned slightly to look at her face, granting a reprieve from the pressure of his leg and arm.
“I would not call it an inspiration,” Rochelle demurred, trying to look him in the eye. “It started when the woman my mother mentioned grew too old to look for her herbs.” She couldn’t hold his gaze, so she dropped her eyes to his mouth. “She showed me some examples and asked if I could watch for them as I rode the estate with my father. It was easy enough to do, and I had a good eye, or so she said.” No, staring at his lips didn’t help at all. She studied his hands on the table. “Of course, that led to a natural curiosity of what she did with all those leaves and roots.” His fingers were long and thick and rough, the backs of his hands well tanned. She knew if she turned them over, his palms would be callused. A man’s hands, hands that could easily swing the long, heavy spata or manage a horse or….
Doeg ended her imaginings. “David has need of a healer,” he declared.
David’s fingers curled. Rochelle glanced at his face, finding his thick brows furrowed in displeasure as he regarded his brother. She wondered what Doeg meant, and looked at him.
“Historically speaking, of course,” Doeg amended, his brittle eyes watching David. “He is a hard man to fell, so if he is brought down, he returns home with grievous wounds. Wounds that would kill normal men.”
“Doeg,” David said warningly.
“You will frighten her,” Theo chastised. “She has no experience with bloody battles.”
“What kinds of wounds?” Rochelle asked, certain that Doeg was somehow trying to bait her. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing her back down. She turned to David expectantly.
“Show her your head,” Doeg said smugly.
“Fire and smoke,” David cursed quietly, shifting away from her and averting his eyes to the door.
Rochelle’s eyes skittered to each face around the table. Theo leaned back, glaring at Doeg with his arms crossed over his chest. Marian stared at David, as curious as Rochelle. Doeg’s eyes glittered with cold satisfaction.
Somehow, he had not only succeeded in baiting her, but had used her to make David uncomfortable. Her memory unaccountably fled back to this afternoon in the aula palatina when David had helped her off the floor, holding her up when she would have fallen, guiding her from the room when the crush of men stared not only at her, but at the Bavarian who had supposedly usurped some good Frankish man’s place. He had not allowed her to embarrass herself. He had not stood by to watch her flounder.
“Never mind,” she blurted suddenly. “Obviously your past injuries are of no importance to me.” She tugged impatiently at her sleeves.
“Especially tonight,” Theo agreed heartily. “Tonight should be a night of celebration! Gilbert, bring more of Alda’s wine, the best wine in all of Francia!”
David gratefully accepted a new round of congratulations from his friend. Rochelle couldn’t resist a glance at Doeg. His satisfaction had been replaced by annoyance. He inclined his head, ceding the moment, but his stony eyes promised more altercations to come.
And so, a battle had been joined between them. Rochelle had no idea what he was about, but she lifted her chin and laid on him the freezing gaze of the very uncowed mistress of Alda. His responding glare, full of unbridled resentment, nearly forced her off the bench in retreat. She gripped its edge hard with both hands and lifted her chin. What had she done to the man?
He rose with enough force to scoot his chair noisily back from the table. “The hour is late,” he declared, “and I am suddenly weary. I think you travelers have plans to make, do you not?” Having succeeded in again ruining the happy atmosphere, at least for the other three, he turned to leave despite Marian’s protestation. “My thanks for the meal and good company,” he said as he exited.
“How like Doeg,” Theo said grumpily.
“What did he mean by traveling plans?” Rochelle asked as she slid off the bench to begin clearing the table.
“Theo and I have decided to accompany you as far as Ribeauville when the time comes for your journey,” David replied.
Rochelle paused for a moment in the kitchen door, blissfully unaware of the speaking glance Theo and David shared behind her back, then continued to the basin of water with her load of dirty dishes. Marian shooed her away. “Stay in there and visit with them. Gilbert and I will finish clearing.”
Rochelle sighed. How on earth would she decline their offer of escort? It was common for groups of travelers to band together on long journeys. But the thought of spending a week of travel with David made her nervous. Being with him seemed the least likely way to avoid marriage to him. For the life of her, she could not think of a valid argument against his joining them on the trip, nor could she bear the idea of delaying in the hopes that he would leave without her. What if his brother came, too? She felt a little shove in the back as Marian forced her into the main room.
David had moved to the chair Doeg vacated. He leaned back comfortably with an ankle braced on a knee. “When were you planning to leave Aix-la-Chapelle?”
“Umm, day after tomorrow, I had hoped,” she said slowly, then rushed on, “But there is really no reason for you to feel responsible to accompany us on such short notice.”
“I do feel responsible, and my business here is done, so I see no reason not to join you.”
“Oh,” she said.
David quirked a brow. “It will give us the chance to get to know each other better.”
“Of course.”
“I must say, your lack of rebuttal is somewhat disappointing.”
“Give me a moment. I will certainly come up with something,” she added softly.
David barked with laughter. “I have no doubt you would like to try.”
“It is a bad attribute I am working on.”
“Is that so?” he noted with a pause. “Theo and I are determined to travel with you, so let us all agree to leave first thing the day after tomorrow.”
Theo pushed back from the table and signaled Gilbert for his cloak. “Busy day tomorrow. David, find me in the morning to work out provisions and the like.”
David nodded, making no move to leave his chair until Theo had closed the door. Then he rose and dragged two chairs close to the fire, inviting Rochelle to sit in one with a wave of his hand. She glanced around the room. Gilbert and Marian were nowhere to be seen, though faint sounds came from the kitchen. Rochelle walked stiffly to the chair to perch on its very edge. David sat across from her.
“Do you need help preparing for the journey?”
“I – well – assuming Theo allows us the use of his equipment again, we should be able to pack and get what little we need tomorrow. We did not bring much.”
“Do you have horses?”
“They are stabled just down the street,” she indicated north, then quickly corrected herself to point east. “I will send Gilbert to check them tomorrow morning. He can settle with the landlord,” she added, now warming to the tasks at hand. It felt good to be planning for her return to Alda, even if the trip might be a trial. “Theo’s men had a cart with some tents and traveling gear, but I do not know where they took it.”
“Theo will see to that. I do not have much baggage either. Most of my things are near Ribeauville. I will stop there for a few days before joining you at Alda.”
“So soon?” she blurted.
“Why are you so set against spending time with me?” David asked, his voice tinged with annoyance.
At least he seemed accustomed to plain talk, and if that is what he wanted, then that is what he would get. “I see no reason to spend time with you since I have no intention of marrying you.”
“You signed an agreement today that says differently.”
“I was coerced into that, and you know it. No priest will marry us against my will. It is illegal.”
David rose from the chair and stalked about the room. “I cannot believe we have to have this conversation again. If you don’t marry me, then –“
“Then I will lose Alda. Yes, I understand that part, and if that is not coercion I do not know what is!”
“It is not coercion. This is the reality of life!”
“Call it what you wish!” Rochelle spat out, leaping from her own chair to face him. “What kind of a man are you to force a woman into marriage? You do not need my estate. You have no interest in my people, or in my trade, or in me!”
His eyes raked her from to top of her veil to the tips of her shoes. “I will judge my own needs and interests. I think you would find, if you started acting like a grown woman instead of a coddled girl, that I am intensely interested in you.”
“Coddled!”
“Yes, coddled. There is no other woman in the entire empire who expects to be left for all of eternity to her own devices. Add that to the list of disservices your parents have done you.”
“You leave my parents out of this,” she said, pointing a finger at him. “Which reminds me, who do you think you are to lecture my mother?“
“You think she was right to send you in front of Louis with no idea of his plans for you?”
“I am not talking about what she did. I am talking about what you did. I am completely capable of confronting my own mother, if needed.”
David looked honestly confused. “As your husband and protector, it is my job to defend you from all manner of –"
“That is exactly what I mean! I do not want to be protected and defended. For heaven’s sake, what kind of life will I have when I am not even allowed to pick fights with my own mother! That, sir, is coddled!”
He stared at her. Her eyes were wild, sparking green, yet beneath the anger lay something akin to panic, like a new army recruit who has all the skills and equipment for war, yet shakes and sweats the night before his first battle.
“Cannot you see?” she said pleadingly. “I work. I make decisions. I go where I want to go, when I want to go there. In my world, people talk to me as if I am someone. They look to me for help and guidance. You have been part of my life for one day, and you are already taking that away from me. This world you occupy believes, by becoming betrothed to you, I have lost my ability to reason. I do not think I can be under someone’s control like that. I will suffocate. I will run mad.” She slumped into her chair. “Keep Alda or keep myself. That is the choice. You are asking me to choose between everything I have ever known and everything I know myself to be,” she whispered hoarsely. He continued to stare at her like a madwoman. She flapped a hand at him. “Oh, just go away. You will never understand. No, you do not want to understand.”
David squatted before her, his face lined with concern. He carefully took both her hands in his, not forcing her resistant fingers to unbend. “Each summer, when I am called to the army, there are new men to work with. And each summer, I think I will never get accustomed to them, that I will never like them. By autumn, they are as brothers to me. With my help, they become soldiers and with their help…well…I live to see another winter. These things take time. Learning a new role takes time.”
She studied his eyes and he knew she was again searching for the flaw in his words. “I am not a soldier,” she said.
“Thank God,” he replied fervently. “What I am trying to say is that you need some time to adjust. You do not have to choose. We just need time to get to know each other.”
“I am not weak, just because I am not a soldier.”
“Obviously,” he agreed, turning her hands so he could look at the insides of her slim wrists. He rubbed his thumbs over the sensitive skin, then lifted his eyes to study her reaction. “I think you wield more power than even you realize,” he noted as he haltingly lifted the wrist to his nose. Her smell was delicious, not particularly flowery but of the earth. Perhaps it was all those herbs she picked. He longed to run his hand over her, even if she was swaddled in layers of cloth, just to learn the line of her. He longed to pull the veil from her hair to see how much fire was in the tresses. He longed for so many things he could not yet have. Time was what she needed. And it was in his power to give her time, and use it to his advantage.<
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He forced his fingers to uncurl, just allowing the light weight of her arms to rest on them. She sat, frozen, her hands now palms up and open to him.
“This is a nightmare,” she breathed.
He smiled in spite of himself. So much for passion. “No. It is not.”
She moved to stand and he rose with her, keeping one of her hands in his and putting the other at her waist to pull her against him. “You are hell on a man’s ego,” he growled. Her eyes widened. She pulled back with a huff.
He did not release her hand, nor did she immediately demand it. Heaven help her, these stirrings were becoming a wild tumult, gathering for some storm she could only sense on the horizon. When she tried to free her hand, he held it firmly. She squeezed it hard to show him her ire. When he gently squeezed back, she could not suppress a smile. He grinned. So quickly she had journeyed into this unknown, dangerous territory, quickly and willingly gone to a foreign place within herself, yet somehow of him, where they bantered with words and touches until she did not want to stop, until, God save her, she was enjoying it!
He lifted her hand, studying it for a few seconds before gallantly raising it to his lips. “I think we will do well together, if you give it a chance,” he said softly.
His words brought her back to herself. She pulled her hand away. This time he let it go. “You do not fight fair,” she said as she wiped her hands on her tunic. “I am not going to blindly follow you like some green soldier. I will not marry you, so you might as well give up on the hand kissing and stay here in the hopes that your emperor has another bride in his treasury for you.”
He rocked back on his heels. “Our emperor expects us to marry within a month. I am willing to give you a few weeks to get to know me and to become accustomed to the idea before I press you. The day will come when you will marry me. The sooner you accept that, the better.”
Chapter Eight
Rochelle waited in front of the shabby little house, in an overcast misty dawn, rubbing Denes’s nose and giving herself a firm talking to. Though anxious to be away from Aix-la-Chapelle, she wasn’t sure how she would face David. She hadn’t seen him since the night before last, and that had been fine with her.
