Dark Destroyer (14 page)

Gates eyebrows flew up. “Demanding enchantress!” he exclaimed softly. “You have yet to provide me with sons but you still demand I spend all of my money on you? I find that most insulting. This bargain is most definitely off.”

Kathalin continued to snort, her gaze averted and her cheeks flaming red. She’d never in her life had such a conversation and she was giddy with it, feeling her heart flutter with the thrill. She was quite certain Mother Benedicta would not approve of the conversation but, at the moment, she didn’t much care.

“Then I am devastated,” she said. “I am going to tell my father what you have done and he will not like it one bit.”

Gates guffawed, a sharp sound, and quickly shut his mouth. “Oh, my silly young girl,” he said, amused. “You have no idea what your father would do to me if you told him that.”

She was interested. “Truly?” she asked, looking at him. “What would he do?”

He cast her a sidelong glance. “Beat me at the very least,” he said. “Turn his dogs on me. How would
you
react if your daughter, who had spent all of her life in a convent, was blatantly toyed with by the knight who was charged with her escort? That is abuse of a position of power and you would make sure that knight was properly punished.”

Kathalin grinned. “You did not toy with me,” she said. “You simply demanded I bear you sons.”

“I did not. You offered to do it.”

Kathalin could see a smile playing on his lips and she shook her head reproachfully. “I see we shall not agree on this,” she said. “Mayhap it is for the best that we do not marry and I do not bear you sons. I will return to St. Milburga’s, eventually, and you shall continue on with your warring ways, and our lives will go in different directions. But I do wish you well, Sir Gates. I shall say a prayer for your safety. Your kindness will not be forgotten.”

The conversation had taken a serious turn and Gates looked at her as she gazed off across the snowy lands. It seemed to him that she had suddenly turned thoughtful and introspective, as if there were a good deal on her mind that she could not, or would not, discuss. He had rather liked it the other way, when she was willing to speak with him and even jest with him. Aye, he had liked that a great deal.

“It was not kindness I showed you yesterday or the day before,” he said quietly. “I showed you my sense of duty. This entire venture has been my sense of duty. I hope you understand that.”

Kathalin instinctively looked to her wrists, buried under the gloves the seamstress had provided, and thinking on the raw skin that had been immensely helped by the calendula salve. She thought on the past two days and how she had hated de Wolfe for doing what he had been ordered to do. She had fought him, and struggled against him, and all the while he’d remained stoic and determined. Never had he wavered or been cruel. Providing her with clothing and comfort had also been part of that duty but she had to stop fighting him before he could do it. She was coming to think that the situation between them hadn’t all been his fault.

Hate.

She didn’t hate him anymore. In fact….

“I understand,” she said softly. “I cannot fault you for doing as you were told. I am not entirely sure you could have done anything differently given the fact I did not wish to go with you. I still do not. But here I am and there isn’t much I can do about it.”

Gates could hear resignation in her voice and it depressed him somehow. He suspected what Jasper had in mind for her purely from what he’d mentioned, but Gates still wasn’t in a position to tell her that.
A political marriage
. She was a pawn to her father and that was probably all she would ever be – a burden and a pawn. In Kathalin’s case, both would be a tragedy. It was a fate she did not deserve.

But he could not, and would not, interfere.

“That is a sensible way to look at the situation, my lady,” he finally said.

They continued to ride on in relative silence with the cold breeze caressing them both, but the silence was not uncomfortable. On the contrary, it was rather warm. As if there was some manner of understanding between them now. Kathalin was thinking on what would take place once she reached Hyssington and Gates was wondering why he didn’t like the idea of Jasper marrying his daughter off. She was fine and pure and beautiful, three words he had very much come to associate with her, and certainly something to be treasured and not bartered with.

As Gates mulled over those thoughts, shouts began to come from his men up at point. Stephan, at the head of the column, was calling back to him, waving at him, and Gates spurred his steed forward as Kathalin held on for dear life. The horse was spirited and with a somewhat bobbing gait when he was excited. As Gates drew near Stephan, the big knight pointed to the road ahead.

“Look,” he said. “I am not entirely sure what to make of that.”

Gates peered up the road, the glare from the snow hurting his eyes. The road was wet and muddy from the melted snow, with big dirty drifts piled up on the shoulders, and he could see up ahead a solitary bundled figure walking along. But the figure was staggering, and at one point nearly falling, so Gates sent Stephan up ahead to see to the situation.

Holding up a gloved fist, Gates brought the entire column to a halt as Stephan raced up ahead. He saw clearly when Stephan engaged the figure in conversation and he further saw when the bundled figure fell back, onto the snow drift, and simply sat there as if exhausted. At that point, Stephan climbed off his steed and stood in front of the figure, obviously conversing with it. After an exchange of a few words, he waved over Gates.

Gates spurred his horse forward and, once again, Kathalin clung to the horse’s mane to keep from falling because of the jaunty canter. They came upon Stephan expectantly.

“My lord,” Stephan said, pointing to the figure on the snow drift, which turned out to be a sobbing woman with a red nose. “She says her children are very ill and is walking to the nearest town to find a physic.”

Before Gates could open his mouth, Kathalin spoke. “What is wrong with the children?” she asked anyone who could tell her. “Where are they?”

Stephan looked at the woman sitting on the snow drift. “Tell the lady what you told me,” he said. “Speak now.”

The woman on the snow drift wiped at her nose with her ragged clothing, dirty brown wool that was well worn. “A fever,” she said. “Both of me children have it, m’lady.”

Kathalin was very concerned; St. Milburga’s was a healing order, as Milburga was the patron saint of lepers, and she had been trained to heal since a very young age. It was something she knew a good deal about. “Where are your children?” she asked.

The woman pointed off to the west. “There,” she said. “Me home is not far, m’lady. I was going to town to find a physic to tend them.”

Kathalin shook her head. “That is not necessary,” she said, turning to look at Gates. “I must go and see what I can do for them.”

Gates wasn’t apt to agree. “My lady, we are expected at Hyssington,” he told her. “We do not have time to make any detours.”

She fixed him with those bright blue eyes. “Hyssington can wait,” she said in a tone he’d never heard from her before. “If there is illness, then I must see to it. That is what I have been taught, de Wolfe. St. Milburga’s is a healing order and that is what I know, so if I can help, I am obligated to do so.”

He just looked at her. His sense of duty told him to get the woman to Hyssington as soon as possible but the part of him that was the least bit swayed by her passion and firm words was inclined to grant her request. He knew St. Milburga’s was a hospital order; he’d seen the big dormitory where they’d kept beds for patients because they had passed through it on their search for the Prioress.
The Refectory
, it had been called. Indecisive, he made the mistake of showing it and Kathalin took advantage of his state.

“Please,” she said, lowering her voice. “We will not be long, I promise. But please let me help if I can.”

With a heavy sigh, and thinking he was a fool to acquiesce, he simply nodded to Stephan. “Put that woman on your horse,” he said, pointing to the disheveled figure. “Let her show us where these children are or we shall never make it to Hyssington on schedule.”

As Stephan moved to help the woman onto his saddle, and unhappy in doing so because she smelled and was dirty, Gates turned to the soldiers mounted nearby and gave them a directive – the main body of soldiers was to remain on the road and wait for them while he took ten men with him as a guard just in case the weeping woman was leading them into trouble. His horse was fast, and he was certain he could get away if this was some kind of trap, but he wanted the main part of the escort to remain behind in case it was. Too many men caught up in a trap would make it chaotic and difficult to flee from it.

With the weeping woman mounted behind Stephan, she directed them onto a small path they had passed about a quarter of a mile back, a path that led through a snow-covered field, through a grove of snow-heavy trees, and emerged out the other side to a small farm. It really wasn’t far off the main road at all and, so far, there had been no signs of a trap.

Still, Gates was cautious and his senses were heightened as the woman riding behind Stephan led them to a small cottage amongst a cluster of outbuildings, all of them housing barn animals of some kind. With the melting snow and cold weather, it smelled terribly of animals and urine. The entire complex appeared dirty and run-down.

The woman riding behind Stephan slid off and rushed to the door of the cottage, pushing it open. Kathalin didn’t wait for Gates to help her down from the saddle; she simply slid off as well and followed the woman into the cottage. With a grunt of frustration, for he had wanted to check out the cottage to make sure there was no danger inside before Kathalin entered, Gates bailed off his steed, secured the animal’s reins to a post used for that purpose, and barged into the cottage after her.

The moment he entered the cottage, he knew something was very wrong. It was dark and freezing cold, and there was no fire in the hearth. He blinked his eyes, adjusting to the dim light, and he could see Kathalin over against the far wall, bending over a bed. As he stood in the doorway and let the cold air filter in behind him, Kathalin left the bed and scooted in his direction. She had both of her fine new gloves in one hand and was starting to unfasten the cloak around her neck.

“Both of the children indeed have fevers and I believe the grandmother does as well,” she said, indicating a very old woman sitting next to the bed. “This cottage is freezing. Can you please start a fire? We must warm it up.”

Gates frowned. “It is not my job to start a fire,” he said flatly. “Let the husband do it.”

Kathalin looked at him, disheartened by his selfish reply, before turning to the peasant woman who was now bending over the bed, weeping softly as she spoke to her children.

“Where is your husband, woman?” Kathalin asked. “Where is wood for the fire?”

The peasant woman turned to look at the lady and the knight standing in the doorway. “Me husband died two weeks ago of illness,” she said, wiping her nose with her hand again. “It has been snowing and we’ve not had the means to cut wood.”

Kathalin’s brow furrowed with concern. “So you have been without fire for two weeks?” she asked, aghast. “In this weather?”

The woman merely shrugged. “Everyone is ill but me,” she said. “I cannot leave, even to cut wood. And the snow has been very bad. Even leaving this morning to seek a physic was difficult. It has been the first clear day in weeks and I had to go.”

Kathalin was horrified by the story. Turning to Gates with a look of such sorrow in her expression, he didn’t even wait for her to ask him again. He was already on the move. Turning around, he began barking orders to the soldiers that had accompanied them and soon, men were beginning to move, off to find an axe or some other way to cut wood. Things were in motion. Gates watched his men move and, in particular, Stephan taking a lead role in the search for an axe, before returning his attention to Kathalin.

“We will start a fire,” he said. “I will have my men chop enough wood to see them through for a while. Do you require anything else?”

Kathalin nodded. “Provisions,” she said, looking around the dark, cold cottage. “If they’ve had no fire then they’ve had little food, and certainly not hot food. Bring me the remainder of the provisions you had for the army on their journey to Ludlow. If Hyssington is not far off, then surely we do not need them. These people need food.”

It made sense to Gates and he nodded without hesitation. “It will be done,” he said. “If there is anything else, do not hesitate to ask.”

“Willow bark,” she said as he turned around to leave. He paused to look at her curiously and she continued. “I need willow bark. Certainly you know what a willow looks like?”

He nodded, cocking an eyebrow. “What do you need with willow bark?”

Kathalin finished unfastening the cloak and she carefully laid it across the old, broken-down eating table near the hearth. “I will make a brew to ease their fevers,” she said. “She says the children have been sick for several days so I am not entirely sure I can help them, but I will do what I can.”

She was businesslike and confident, and Gates realized he was seeing a completely different side of her. The lady who had fought him, resisted him, and who was so incredibly naïve in the world outside of St. Milburga’s seemed to have finally found something she was quite confident in – healing. She was in her element now and Gates, initially reluctant to allow her to help these peasants, wasn’t so reluctant any longer. In fact, he was rather interested in watching her work.