Daughter of Fire (13 page)

“Call her down,” he told her. “I would like very much to see this creature that has come so far to find you.”

He offered her his heavy leather gauntlet.

“There is no need,” she assured him. “She is gentle.”

Then spotting the falcon, she whistled the familiar three-note signal. The sleek bird’s meandering glide immediately altered as she began a swift descent. At a height that barely skimmed the treetops of the forest, she swept toward them, slowing her descent.

Vivian held out her arm, but instead of settling there, the falcon skimmed past her toward Rorke. Experienced with falcons, he had watched the sleek huntress, and, as she refused one perch, he instinctively offered her another.

With a graceful sweep of outspread wings she settled at his arm. Her touch was light, merely enough to balance and settle her wings. Remarkably, not a single talon pierced the skin at his arm.

“She has never done that before,” Vivian remarked with surprise.

“Perhaps she was distracted,” he remarked, “But I see there was nothing to be concerned about, for she has a rare, gentle touch.”

“Aquila is never distracted,” she said, auburn brows drawing slightly together at the falcon’s odd behavior, and until today, she had never taken another’s hand.

The falcon was small and graceful, golden eyes studying them both thoroughly as she cocked her head first in one direction then the other. That lethal beak that so easily snapped the necks of prey was slightly open as she made soft whistling sounds.

“Aquila,” Rorke repeated the bird’s name. Her sleek head angled toward him. “You have named her for the constellation of stars near Lyra and Cygnus.”

 “You know of it?” Again he surprised her.

“Aye, but I would not have thought an abbey-raised girl would also know of it.”

“Poladouras taught me all of the constellations,” Vivian explained in a quiet voice, so as not to frighten the falcon.

Unafraid of those lethal talons, she held her arm lengthwise along his, gently rubbing the falcon’s chest. The sleek bird moved from one human perch to the other with gentle ease.

“Did he also teach you how to handle and gentle a falcon to your hand?” he asked, for she seemed to have a rare calming effect on the bird that turned her sleek head toward Vivian’s voice.

“She taught
me
.” Vivian smiled, as though at some jest at herself. “One learns quickly when dealing with a wild creature what to do and not to do, though in truth she has never harmed me.”

Rorke watched, fascinated, as the falcon cocked her lovely head this way and that to catch the soft nuances of Vivian’s voice and realized that he, too, listened for the different shadings of her voice. Especially as now, when the anger and wariness were gone, and a soft smile hinted at the corner of her mouth.

He discovered he longed to know all of that smile as he reached an ungloved hand and stroked the falcon’s downy breast that recalled the satin texture of Vivian’s skin.

“Did you also teach her to trust the touch of a stranger?” he asked, watching for her reaction rather than watching the bird. A frown wrinkled her forehead, knitting slender brows together.

“She has never taken a stranger’s hand before today, nor tolerated another’s touch.”

“And what of her mistress?” he asked, reaching with that ungloved hand to stroke his finger along the curve of her lower lip.

His voice had gone low in his throat, as though he sought to gentle her with both touch and words. Her startled gaze met his, her breath quivered out between softly parted lips. With his arm at her back, there was no retreat or escape. She felt the scrape of that hard, callused hand, inexplicably gentle, as if she were the falcon that sat perched awaiting his touch and the sound of his voice.

Strange feelings, remembered from a summer day long ago, spiraled through her and settled just under her breast, as if his arm still bound her, making it impossible to breathe.

How was it possible that such a hard, brutal hand could be so gentle?  Her senses strained for some understanding that eluded her. There was only the touch of his hand that beckoned to her other senses, and she wondered at the taste of such a man. Was it very much the same as the feel of him, the roughness that disguised the tenderness beneath?

He felt the tension that quivered through her. Her skin was incredibly warm to the touch in spite of the coldness of the day and her meager garments. The heat of innocent sensuality glistened at her parted lips.

A raw desire, naked and powerful, clenched inside him like a taut fist low at his belly. His sex strained against layers of leather chausses as he imagined her slender hand stroking him as she had stroked the falcon.

Confused, even frightened by what she should not—must not—feel, Vivian jerked away from him.

“You frighten the falcon, milord,” she said softly.

“The bird, or the one who holds her?” he asked, his voice deeper still with the effort of drawing an even breath. She looked at him then, eyes as brilliant as flame.

“You do not frighten me, milord.”

He sensed that it was true. She had no fear that he would harm her. It was something else that she feared.

“Tarek al Sharif is most confused about how you left the tent without anyone knowing of it.” Rorke watched for her reaction, forcing his own emotions back under control.

“He is convinced that you have the powers of a Jehara and became like the falcon, and flew from the tent.”

Her eyes widened slightly as she listened, but whether with surprise at the unusual thing he called her or some other reason he could not guess.

“What are these Jehara?”

“Creatures endowed with very special powers, including the power of healing.”

She frowned and said dismissively, “It was no great feat, milord. I but waited until he had left the tent. Your guards were changed at the same time.” She shrugged a slender shoulder. “It was a simple matter to slip past them.”

Rorke knew his men well, having trained them himself. It was not a simple matter, but he sensed that if he questioned her further, the answer would be the same.

“Is the falcon a pet, then?” he asked, deciding for the time being to pursue the matter no further.

“Pets are tame creatures. She is my companion, but she is completely free. She is also my teacher. I have learned much from her. It might be more truthful to say that she owns me.”

It was an odd comparison that he had never before considered. Such a thing as ownership suggested ties that bound as surely as a falcon’s jesses.

“She is free, yet she wears leather thongs,” he pointed out.

“ ’Tis only to secure the bells so that I may know her from others. She is never bound. I could not bear to see her imprisoned.”

Her meaning was not lost on him. “You are as free as the falcon, Vivian. There are no jesses binding you.”

Her eyes saddened. “The promise you made me forswear, binds me as surely as any lash, milord.   I will not risk the lives of others, and well you know it.”

“It was a bargain well made, each receiving something in the making of it,” he reminded her.

“A bargain suggests something freely exchanged,” she replied. “I was given no choice in the matter.”

Rorke sought to assuage the anger that flashed in those brilliant blue eyes. He preferred her gentleness and humor, and her cooperation. However reluctant, it better served his purposes. And he found he far preferred the healing balm of her smile, rather than the fire of her anger. As if sensing the uneasy mood between them, the falcon flared her wings.

“I once had a teacher such as your falcon,” he said with lowered voice so as not to excite her further.

“A hound brought back to my father’s estate from the Pyrenees Mountains. It was a fierce-looking creature, all teeth, muscle, and legs. My father loathed the animal, but I gentled it.”

He grew thoughtful, recalling the silver- coated hound that was like a shadow to a lonely, young boy.

“What you said is true. I was more owned than owner. We hunted the hills together. He taught me much about myself.” His voice had lost its edge and softened at the childhood memory.

“He was my only companion,” he went on to explain as he carefully stroked Aquila’s head, “other than my brother, whom I was allowed to visit only when my father was away.” His voice changed, and it required no gift of inner sight to sense the pain that threaded the words.

“Was your brother also fond of the hound?”

He nodded, his gaze suddenly very far away, as if he saw beyond the encampment to another time and place, before all the death, before the battle, before the events that had transformed a boy into a cold, hardened warrior who refused to allow himself to feel anything at all, and vowed revenge against his own father. Before he discovered that he felt nothing at all except the need for that revenge.

“Aye, Philip was fond of the animal,” he said with the beginning of a smile as he remembered. “I took the rangy beast to see him. That last time was a very good day, for our father was away.”

“A good day because he was away?” she was confused. “I should like very much to be able to spend time with my father.”

“I suppose that would be true if your father was kind of spirit. My father was not. He was a cold, forbidding man. I was ten and two at the time, my brother but six.” His expression hardened.

“Our father returned unexpectedly and discovered the beast. As my punishment for disobeying him, he took the hound away from me.”

“But surely he returned it to you afterward.”

“Aye, he returned it.” His voice had gone as wintry cold as the gray of his eyes, staring into that faraway memory as if he could see it all again.

“After he had it killed to teach me a lesson.”

She was horrified at the thought. Her voice broke softly at the pain she knew he must have felt.

“What lesson could something as dreadful as that possibly teach a young boy?”

He looked at her then, and she shivered at the expression in his eyes.

“It taught me to love nothing in this world, for it may be easily taken away. It is a lesson that I learned very well.” His expression softened at her distress.

“But you need have no fear,” he told her as he stroked Aquila’s silken breast with a gentleness that belied a young boy’s rage and pain that still burned in his heart.

“I have said you may keep the falcon. And once made, I never break a promise.”

“Will you promise to let me leave once William has returned to good health?” she asked.

It was on his lips to do so, for in truth that had been his purpose in seeking the healer in the first place. But something stopped him, for in promising, he would be forced to let her go.

“Do not ask too much of me, Vivian,” he replied, his voice suddenly gruff. “There is only so much I will grant you.”

Eight

T
hey returned to the Norman encampment in uneasy silence, Aquila perched at Rorke’s arm.

Vivian wanted to hate him for what he was and the dreadful destruction he had helped bring upon the Saxons and all of England. But for every reason she found to hate him, she discovered another that she could not.

His men had returned to camp ahead of them. As they rode in she felt the stares of the other Norman soldiers, curiosity mixed with surprise. Tarek al Sharif was waiting outside Rorke’s tent.

Vivian sensed Tarek’s gaze and her first thoughts were for William of Normandy, but her senses also told her that his condition was unchanged and that he slept peacefully from the healing draught she had given him.

“You have had word of some kind?” Rorke asked him.

“A great number of Saxons have been seen by our soldiers,” Tarek informed him. “No doubt survivors from the battle. They gather but a half day’s ride from here and are heavily armed.”

Rorke nodded grimly as he lowered Vivian from the saddle, then swung down beside her.

“Has Robert of Mortain been told of this?” he asked.

Tarek nodded. “He has ordered your men to make ready.”

Vivian could not help but overhear and felt a cold ribbon of fear close around her heart at the news.  More Saxons would die and he would be responsible for it.  She stepped away, only to feel his hand closing around hers with gentle but firm restraint as he listened to Tarek’s information.

“Order my battle armor,” Rorke commanded, with a look toward the sky, the sun almost overhead.

“Tell Mortain to be ready to ride by midday.”

She managed to free herself and took several steps away from him uncertain which direction to go for escape was impossible.

“Vivian,” he said, his voice as gentle as the restraint of his hand. He sensed her torment and saw it in the expression at her lovely face.

“I am sorry, Vivian.”

She heard the apology in his voice, but there was no room for it in her heart.

“And yet, you order your men to go after them.”

“I must,” he said, his voice still gentle.

“Must what?” she asked, not understanding at all. “Kill more Saxons? Are the ones you’ve already killed not enough?”

She watched the color of his eyes go from soft gray to cool ice. “It is what I must do, because to wait for their attack here would be foolishness. If they can be found before they are ready to strike, it may be possible to spare them.”

Her chin quivered with the emotions she fought back. She knew he would not be persuaded by anything she said, and even realized that what he said was true in terms of the battle that had already been fought and the lives already lost.

William the Conqueror had come to lay siege to Britain, not for one afternoon’s sojourn onto a grassy field. Saxons and Normans alike who had already died were testament to that. Neither William, nor Rorke FitzWarren, would now yield, not until all of England lay at their feet.

For reasons Rorke couldn’t begin to understand, this one girl’s valiant effort to keep from crying went further toward undoing him than all the dead at Antioch or Hastings.

“You may keep the falcon in my tent,” he told her, trying to find some means of assuaging her pain. “She will be safe there, and my squire is skilled at handling falcons. She will not want in his care. Gavin will remain in my stead,” he told her then. “If anything should happen—” It was then her gaze came up, watery blue, filled with countless emotions, and fastened on his, causing him to wonder if the thought of his death distressed her.