Daughter of Fire (17 page)

With a booted foot thrust into his back, the man stumbled and fell to the ground. He rolled and quickly came to his feet, a long-bladed Norman knife in his hand.

“Yield!” Sir Guy ordered him, sword drawn. “The day is lost. Drop the weapon and live.” The Saxon glanced wildly at his fellow Saxons, fallen in the bloodstained clearing.

He nodded, and for a moment it seemed he would do as the knight ordered. Then, without warning, the Saxon turned the knife on himself and, with both hands, plunged it deep, taking his own life.

“Fool!” Sir Guy shouted, horrified by what the man had done, and at the same time powerless to stop it from atop his warhorse. He quickly dismounted and went to the fallen Saxon.

“I would have spared your life!” he told the dying man as he bent over him. “Why did you seek your own death?”

There was no answer, only the rattling sound of the breath that died in the man’s lungs and the strange smile at his lips.

“There was naught you could have done,” Rorke assured him as he reined in the warhorse beside him.

“If he had not taken his own life, he would have taken yours. And I consider this the better bargain, for you, my friend, are alive.”

“But why?” Sir Guy demanded. “Why would he choose death?”

Rorke replied with sudden, dragging weariness. “I have seen it on the battlefield before. Those for whom defeat is so repugnant that they would rather forfeit their lives than be part of an uncertain future.”

“But that was in the Byzantine Empire,” Guy argued. “These were Christian men. To take one’s own life is a sin in God’s eyes.”

Rorke remembered the macabre sight of the enemy taking their own lives, impaling themselves on their blades rather than be taken prisoner. His brother Philip had died in just the same way and even now he could feel the cold knot of anguish that he could not reach him in time to save him. Even now he rubbed his hand against his tunic as if though trying to wipe off Philip’s blood.

“Whatever his reason,” Rorke said, those old memories clinging to him like heavy chains, “he has taken it with him. Come, my friend, let us find your brother and thank him for his timing. Or we might well have been the ones lying on this field.”

“You’ve bloodied your tunic,” Tarek commented as Rorke and Sir Guy returned. “Some Saxon got too close and now regrets it.”

Rorke brushed a gloved hand across it, dismissing it. He listened thoughtfully as two men were reported dead. Several others had been wounded, but would survive. Three horses were lost. His scowl deepened at hearing that a full score Saxon had died. Others at the perimeter of the fighting had fled.

“Stephen!” he called out among his men, not having seen the young man after the battle.

“The young pup is here,” Tarek grinned. “He fought well.”

“Are you unharmed?” Rorke demanded of the young knight. Stephen grinned as he swept back his mail coif, revealing where a Saxon blade had struck, laying open a ribbon of flesh above his left eye.

Angrily, Rorke asked, “Where is your helm?”

“He removed it because he could not see?” Tarek explained with tongue in cheek.

“And almost lost your eye in the bargain!” Rorke growled.

“It was cumbersome,” Stephen defended. “I would rather have the ability to see my foe than find him at my back.” His grin deepened. “A scar or two, a little blood impresses the maids.” He gestured to Rorke’s hauberk.

“Perhaps you will have a certain Norman girl begging at your feet with admiration for the bloody banner you now wear. There is nothing like a wound to ease a woman’s heart or the entrance to her charms.”

A round of good-humored laughter met his comment, a healthy release for pent-up tension after the battle well fought.

Rorke wiped again at the blood that seeped down the hauberk. “It seems this banner is flowing,” he commented, as pain began to burn through the fatigue and settle at a familiar place low at his side where the hauberk had been hacked through in the battle days earlier.

“You are injured!” Tarek frowned at the blood.

“It seems that I might be,” Rorke responded with a faint smile. “This brute of a stallion was a bit slow on one turn.” His friend was immediately beside him, gently probing between broken links of chain mail.

“The brute you curse most probably saved your life,” Tarek informed him. “The blow was struck from behind. Had it struck true, half of you would be astride the brute and the other half lying in this clearing.”

Rorke winced and cut him a threatening look for his painful probing. “It was the falcon’s warning no doubt saved all of our lives.”

~ ~ ~

“Bring the healer!” the cry went out as Rorke and his men returned to the Norman encampment just before sundown.

Vivian had been restlessly pacing William’s tent. As the first call went out across the encampment that riders had been seen, she rushed to the opening of the tent. Her heart felt frozen as her fingers clasped about the blue crystal, for she had seen nothing of Rorke’s fate when she tried to call a vision of it. Even now, she had no sense of him and an unbidden prayer sprang to her lips.

Gavin’s brother, Sir Guy, hurried her to Rorke’s tent. Sir Gavin and Tarek al Sharif were there, along with Stephen of Valois. Rorke’s men were gathered there, weary, battered, and bruised. The tent flap was pulled back and Vivian stepped inside.

It was warm, for his squire had kept the braziers lit in anticipation of his master’s return. There were no shadows of darkness here. Large candles set into iron bowls blazed brightly, flooding every corner of the pavilion nearly as large as Duke William’s.

“You have brought your healing potions?” Tarek asked, his handsome features lined with worry and fatigue. Vivian nodded, her gaze seeking out Rorke even as she dreaded what she might find. Tarek’s hand closed about her arm, guiding her through the men who stood clustered at the far side of the tent. They made way as she drew near, the leather pouch of precious herbs and powders clutched under her arm. She halted mid-stride, momentarily taken aback. Rorke FitzWarren sat on a bench among them. He was alive!

He had removed his steel helm, the mail coif pushed back to his shoulders much as that day she had first seen him, reminding her again of the raw power of his presence that moved through her in strange and unexpected ways. Leather gauntlets had been thrown down onto the table beside the bench. His right hand was wrapped around a goblet of wine. His squire hastened to refill the goblet as it was quickly emptied.

Rorke’s face was drawn, his features haggard. His usually healthy color had gone to shades of gray beneath the shadow of dark beard. There was a small cut above his right brow, most likely made by the steel helm. The blood had dried and crusted. He leaned against the table far more than mere fatigue warranted, supporting his weight with his right arm, the goblet in his left hand. His mouth was tightly set, eyes closed as he swallowed another draught of wine and steeled himself against the pain of the wound at his side.

The mail hauberk showed the evidence of a fierce battle, iron links bent and twisted from blows. There was a crease in the mail armor low at his left side, where iron links had been cut through, exposing the leather tunic underneath also severed through, and the fresh blood that seeped through both.

“The armor will have to be removed,” she said, with a glance at Sir Gavin, knowing it would cause pain. Rorke said nothing as coarse chain mail was stripped away, but the way he held himself rigid as the weighty armor was hauled from his shoulders, she knew the pain must be great.

She motioned for a torch to be brought closer and she knelt beside him. His squire provided fresh linen that she pressed against the wound to stanch the flow of blood. With the light pressure of her touch, his eyes slowly opened. Cold as winter’s morn, gray as a northern storm, those eyes were now bleak with pain.

“ ’Tis hardly more than a scratch,” he assured her with some effort.

“ ’Tis a great deal more than a scratch,” she informed him, then bit at her lip as she was forced to cause more pain to clean the wound.

She should not care that this fierce Norman knight who had brought such death and destruction to her  people was injured. She should not care if he lived or died. Why then had she sent the falcon?  Why then did she feel like weeping?

His teeth were clenched against the pain. “There are others whose need is greater. I would have you see to them first. An army is of little use without its warriors.”

“Warriors are of little use without someone to lead them,” she pointed out.  His eyes narrowed on her.

“I am not accustomed to having my orders disobeyed.”

“I am not accustomed to having
my
orders disobeyed,” she informed him, finding some solace in his anger, for if he could rouse enough strength to be angry with her, he might live.

“I need two basins of water, one placed over a brazier to boil,” she instructed Rorke’s squire, and then set about issuing similar orders to Tarek and Stephen, as if they were there but to do her bidding. And as if they were there for just that purpose, they brought fresh linens, more torches, and cleared the tent of everyone else, and secured the flap against the cold night wind.

When the water simmered at the brazier, she moved the bowl closer, then cut away the thick woolen undergarment common among her people in the colder English climes, and worn beneath his leather tunic.

“It would seem there are some things Saxon that you approve of, milord,” she commented as she wet a strip of linen in the bowls of warm water.  She pressed it against the wound at his side where the wool had also been cut, the frayed edges sticking to the edges of the wound. Those gray eyes glittered through narrowed slits.

“I find there are many things Saxon that I approve of.”

Her startled gaze met his.  His voice had gone low with something far different than pain, something that moved across her senses as if he had touched her. She concentrated on removing the torn garment from the wound.  When it was done, his squire removed the wool tunic.

He still wore blood spattered leather breeches and the long boots that had protected his legs.  When his squire would have removed them, he sent him away.

“I will see to my men when this is done.”  Then with a look at her, he tossed back another swallow of wine, draining the cup. 

“Do what must be done, healer.”

Seated in the chair, she was forced to kneel between his legs to dress the wound.  It was worse than she had first thought. He had taken a direct blow, marked by the cut in the chain mail, the tip of a sword finding the vulnerable place where the links had given way. He seemed to sense her thoughts.

“It would have been worse had we not been warned beforehand.” His voice was low, contemplative. “The falcon warned us of it in the forest.”

She looked up, her gaze meeting his, a thousand questions weighting the air between them. The flames of a dozen candles quivered as though stroked by some unseen whisper as he waited for her response.

She had known that her decision to send the falcon would open a door that might never be closed again. What lay beyond that door, she could not be certain, for the vision in the crystal had not revealed the future, nor her part in it. The only thing she was certain of was that even though Rorke FitzWarren was her enemy and had no doubt taken countless Saxon lives, she must not let him die. She bent to the task of cleaning the wound.

“Then you are most fortunate, milord.” She felt that gaze on her, watching, waiting.

“Aye, or perhaps it had nothing to do with good fortune at all.” He stilled her hand with his larger one, her slender fingers trapped by those long, calloused ones.

“We searched for the falcon afterward.” There was a new hesitance in his voice that brought her head up. “But could not find her. I fear she might have become lost.”

“There is nothing to fear. Aquila has an uncanny sense. She shall return.”

He did not release her hand but held it in his. “It perplexes me how she found us,” he speculated, watching for her reaction.

“It is not so surprising, milord, when she already knows your hand.”

Rorke wasn’t fooled by her explanation. He studied her, watching, as if he stalked some quarry. In a way, he did. He sought the truth of this beautiful creature whom he had seen work true magic with her healing touch.

“I think not,” he murmured. “I have seen her loyalty to you. She would not leave your side, unless commanded to do so.”

“There is always a first time. She has been restless, unsettled by these new surroundings. Perhaps she sought to hunt.”

“Aye,” he replied, “she hunted, and hunted well. We were outnumbered three to one,” he explained, watching as she bent to concentrate on cleaning the wound. Ignoring the pain, his gaze fastened on the warm gleam of her hair, like fire spilling over her shoulder. When she made no comment, he continued to describe the attack in detail.

“They were seasoned warriors. We would have been hard-pressed to defend ourselves had we not known of their presence before they were upon us.” She said nothing but reached for a clean square of linen. He slipped his fingers beneath her chin, forcing her head up and her gaze to meet his.

“You knew we would be attacked. You sent the falcon to warn us and Gavin followed the falcon, although he could not explain the reason to me.” He studied her through narrowed eyes. “When I asked him why he was convinced there was such great danger, he could not say.”

“Gavin is your friend and a stalwart warrior. No doubt, he sensed the danger as you would have, milord.”

She returned to the task at hand. With head bent, her expression concealed in shadows, Vivian felt an enormous relief. Gavin had not remembered their strange encounter when she had merged her thoughts with his and allowed him to see the vision of impending danger. She shrugged a shoulder.

“Surely it was nothing more than a warrior’s instinct of such things.”

He watched the way the firelight from the nearby brazier seemed to catch in her hair and then move with languid grace at the lift of her shoulder as if it truly was a flame.