Daughter of Fire (12 page)

“Good morn, Vivian,” he said, as he pulled the stallion to a stop. Beneath the simple greeting she sensed barely controlled anger.

“Milord,” she greeted, and then, stepping aside of the cart, she indicated the man who lay beneath.

“I fear he was already dead when I found him.” She shivered at the memory of his young face, and added softly, “There was naught I could do.”

His glance angled to the Norman soldier who had died so pitifully beneath the cart. He nodded, his expression grim, but whether it was for the Norman soldier’s death, or from anger at her, she could not tell.

“I will have someone tend to him,” he said not unkindly. “ ’Tis a hard thing to die alone so far from home.”

His words startled her, for she had not expected any tenderness of feeling, much less compassion even though it was one of his own men. She grew uneasy under that silent scrutiny and, fearing that he might be distracted toward Conal and the forest, tucked the pouch of herbs under her arm and walked past him as if it was most natural for her to be in midst of a battlefield, in the early hours of the morn.

“I feared some harm might have befallen you,” Rorke commented as he swung the warhorse about to follow.

“Or that I might have fled?”  She angled a look at him, then continued walking.  “As you see, milord, I am quite safe. There was no need for your concern.”

He guided the warhorse slowly forward until he was beside her. “Tarek al Sharif was most concerned since I entrusted your safety to his care. He takes his responsibilities most seriously. He was very perplexed that you were able to leave without his knowing it.”

He saw the sudden rise and fall of her shoulders as she took a breath that betrayed a sudden uneasiness. But her gaze was direct and unafraid as she turned and looked at him.

“Then I shall have to give him my apologies,” she said, making no excuses, nor offering any explanation of precisely how it had been done.

Instead they exchanged polite pleasantries as if she was unaware of the cold fury that glittered in his eyes, the powerful hand that flexed over the handle of his battle sword, and his men who rode along the edge of the forest with their own battle swords drawn.

“You will not do so again, unless by my leave.”

Vivian stopped and slowly turned around  “I do not ask your leave to tend the dying, messire.  I answer only God.”

She was the most magnificent creature he had ever encountered, bold and proud as any knight, like a defiant flame threading the mist, and causing him to strongly consider having her bound and flogged as he would any other prisoner at the same time he wanted to make love to her.

It took no power of second sight to know that he was furious with her. She had prepared herself for it, and even now braced for the outcome. Recalling the brutality that had been handed out at Amesbury, she could only guess the punishment he intended for her. And if Conal was found, he would doubtless be put to death.

Gathering her skirt in hand to keep from tripping over the uneven ground, Vivian continued walking. Her soft boots were poor protection against the hard-packed, frozen earth, but she dare not stop, for every step took them further away from the forest, and Conal.

“You deliberately disobeyed me.”

She continued to gaze straight ahead, concentrating on her footing to keep from stumbling, her slender chin angled slightly. “I did not, milord,” she calmly informed him.

“I forbade you to leave the encampment.” His voice rose as he reminded her, his hand taut at the reins as the stallion tossed its head uneasily.

“You did not,” she said matter-of-factly. “You said only that I might not return to Amesbury. And as you can see”— she gestured across the encampment—“I have not returned to Amesbury. Therefore, I have not disobeyed you.”

She continued across the field, taking a direction opposite the one she had taken when she left the Norman encampment.

Lips thinned, he fought to keep control of his temper as he rode along side.

“You use  my words against me, Vivian. My meaning was clear and you understood it well. I had my reasons for giving such orders.  You were not to leave William’s tent.”

“And I had my reasons, milord.”

A woman struggled to her feet as they approached. She was thin and poorly dressed, her features haggard with a mixture of fear and desperation. Beside her a Saxon soldier lay curled toward a feeble fire, his body wracked by violent shivering.

“Please, mistress, have you water?” she begged. “Or a crust of bread? My husband is too weak to walk, and without water he will die.”

Wary and mistrustful, she reached an imploring hand, keeping well out of the way of the striking distance of that broadsword.

“I have medicines and food,” Vivian told her, speaking in the Saxon tongue that caused the woman’s sagging face to brighten with feeble hope.

“You are Saxon.”

“Aye,” Vivian said, going to her.  The woman’s gaze darted past her to the warrior astride his warhorse.

“You have nothing to fear,” Vivian assured her with more confidence than she felt. “Come, you must help me.”

She immediately saw the source of her husband’s fever. A sword wound that had festered. Knowing that she risked much in stopping to help them, Vivian pressed her last crust of bread into the woman’s thin hand. It was all that remained of what she had brought with her from William’s tent.

“It is all I have,” she apologized. Then she took the woman’s other hand and poured a handful of crushed leaves into her palm.

“Sprinkle this into the wound and then bind it. It will draw the infection. I wish that I had water to give you, for it would be best if you could brew a poultice from the leaves.” Her heart ached at her throat. “But I have none.”

Tears glistened at the woman’s eyes. She clasped Vivian’s hand between her thin ones and pressed it against her sunken cheek. “Bless you, mistress!” She shivered as the mist blocked the sun, her threadbare shawl wrapped about her husband. Vivian quickly removed her own shawl and wrapped it about the woman’s thin shoulders.

“You must not,” the woman protested. “How will you keep warm?”

“I will manage,” Vivian assured her, wondering how they would possibly survive another night without water and shelter. There was a shift of movement behind them. The woman cringed as she turned and saw Rorke’s giant warhorse looming over them. Her arm came up across her face in anticipation of a blow.

“Nay, milord!” she screeched, crawling to protect her husband. “Have mercy I beg of you!”

Rorke lowered the skin of water that hung from his saddle and extended it toward the woman. An odd expression moved across his features as Vivian reached to comfort the woman. A mixture of anger, pity, and what might even have been regret.

“I have no intention of taking your life, woman!” The words started in anger, but ended gently. “Take the skin of water. Perhaps it will ease your husband’s fever.”

Vivian’s surprise was as great as the woman’s as she stared up at this fierce Norman warrior, and tried to understand what could only be seen as kindness.

“You have done all that you can,” Rorke told her, not unkindly.

“ ’Tis not enough!” she answered fiercely.

His expression hardened as before, making him seem more than ever the fierce creature of her vision. But just as she had not been prepared for his kindness, she was not prepared when he extended his hand to her.

Rorke saw her hesitation, the shift of uncertain emotion in those flame blue eyes as he lifted her to the saddle before him and Vivian discovered that while he was formidable in full battle armor astride the tall warhorse but with battle armor removed, powerful arms and legs wrapped about her, each shift of heavy muscle felt through every part of her, Rorke FitzWarren was far more formidable in ways that pierced through the barriers of her own emotional armor.

His hand closed over her hip as he settled her more securely before him, recalling the hours they’d ridden that same way from Amesbury. The warmth of his hand, felt through her thin gown, was strangely unsettling and slightly possessive in the lingering touch when he did not immediately remove it, and she shivered as strange feelings spiraled through her.

“You should not have parted with your shawl,” he commented, thinking her cold.

Vivian shook her head as she tried to control her uncertain emotions. “’Tis a small thing. She will have better use of it, and I could not wear it knowing of their suffering.”

“Yet you are cold.” His hand shifted, moving across her waist to pull her back against him.

 “I will survive it, milord,” she assured him, and prayed that she would survive as he held her against him.

What was it in this dangerous enemy’s touch that affected her as no other ever had?

She tried to find some understanding of the wild, chaotic feelings he roused in her. He did not ride back to the Norman encampment but instead turned the warhorse on a line parallel with the edge of the forest. A new fear gripped her that he had seen Conal after all, and was determined to make her part of the hunt.

A shout went out, and the fear congealed in a knot at her stomach.

It wasn’t possible! She had not foreseen Conal’s death. Please let him be safe! And yet in other matters her sense of things had abandoned her. Her heart leapt into her throat as Rorke whirled the warhorse about.

Gavin de Marte pointed not to the forest, but to the sky overhead as his men took aim with their bows at the noisome swarms of crows that swept in small dark clouds over the encampment, occasionally alighting to pick at a body. Several of his knights had loosed their arrows, bringing the crows to earth with deadly accuracy.

She felt no sympathy for the wretched birds, whose raucous sound was like rude laughter as they swarmed at carts laden with the bodies of the dead.  Then the archers pointed not at the crows, but at another, sleek bird that glided above them.

With the look of a huntress, the sleek creature rode currents of air, swooping low with head angling back and forth as it searched the earth below.  It disappeared into the forest, then emerged to swoop so close that the bronze and gold among sable feathers was visible at outstretched wings as his men took new arrows from quivers and set them to their bows.

“No!” Vivian cried out. “Please, do not let them kill her.”

She struggled to free herself, pushing away from him, and startling the war horse. It was all he could do to keep both of them from being unseated and thrown to the ground.

“Cease!” Rorke snarled, jerking her against him. But she seemed not to hear.

“Please!” Frantically, Vivian tried to make him understand. “She is tame. Do not kill her!”

She had drawn the attention of his men, and, as they hesitated with drawn bows, she sent her thoughts and her fears skyward to the small falcon.  But if the falcon sensed her thoughts, she gave no indication, for she swept lower still.

With every power that she possessed, she tried desperately to make him understand.

“Please, stop them!” She leaned forward in the saddle her face turned skyward, that blue gaze fastened on the falcon, her cheeks wet with tears as Rorke finally brought the stallion under control.

When he had set out from William’s encampment he had prepared himself for anything if he found her—anger, defiance, lies. But he was not prepared for tears shed over a small peregrine.

How was it possible, he wondered, for someone who would face down the whole of the Norman army to be undone by the loss of a small falcon?

He saw no reason for her reaction to their hunting of a small, insignificant falcon. Other women he had known had cried their tears—lovers, courtesans, camp followers he had left behind when he tired of them with little concern. But he found he could not bear her tears.

“Leave off and return to camp,” he told Gavin de Marte who looked at him questioningly. “There will be other days for hunting. This small falcon is not worth the loss of your arrows. You might well have need of them.”

Tarek al Sharif rode up as Rorke turned the war horse toward the forest. “It is not wise to ride alone.”

“William’s guards are nearby, we will be safe enough.”

Still Tarek hesitated. “Those same guards allowed a simple Saxon girl to slip past them.”

“As did you,” Rorke reminded him. “Our enemies will not be so bold as to strike this close to the main camp. Return to William’s tent, my friend. I would rather have you there.”

Tarek nodded and turned his mare about to join Gavin and the others, who grumbled among themselves at the loss of the falcon.

Vivian was taut as a bowstring in the saddle before him, her cheeks wet with her tears. Slowly, he loosened his arms about her.  He felt the emotion that quivered through her.

He was a warrior, trained to the challenges of war, of meeting death on a battlefield, of an enemy met and conquered. But none of his training prepared him for dealing with the raw, naked emotions of a young woman. And yet, as instinctively as he knew when to draw his blade, he sensed her need to be comforted.

He touched her cheek, brushing back a strand of flame colored hair. She turned at his touch, the expression at her vivid blue eyes was shaded by dark emotions. He could not imagine that such a simple thing had undone her so.

“I give you the life of the falcon. None of my men shall harm her.”

Her watery gaze met his. “Thank you.”

She asked for nothing more, not gold, nor her freedom. “ ’Tis a small thing.”

“Not to me, for I value the falcon highly. She is a true friend.”

“Then you are acquainted with the creature?”

She nodded. “Aye, she is trained to my hand.”

“You brought her with you?” he asked with more than a little surprise, for he had seen no such creature on the journey from the abbey.

Vivian frowned as she shook her head. “She was hunting the morn Vachel and his men came to the abbey,” she said softly, unable to forget Vachel’s brutality. “She must have followed from Amesbury.”

Rorke looked at her speculatively. He had never seen her quite this way, vulnerable yet fierce over something she obviously loved, and he felt an unexpected twinge of envy.