Daughter of Fire (7 page)

“If I see only sad things, then I do not want it.”
Vivian remembered telling her. Meg had smiled at her tenderly, laying a hand that was old even then gently against her cheek. Her voice was filled with her own sadness.

“The choice is not yours to make, little one. It was made long ago, by one far older and wiser than you or me. He knew you would be strong enough to bear it. You will find the strength within yourself.”

As Meg had said would happen, in time she had found the strength to bear the sadness along with the joy that her visions brought. But bearing it had not made it easier to accept. Now, even though she tried to push away the ghastly images, she saw again the terrible battle that had taken place here.

A cold knot formed low inside her and expanded until she shivered violently at the horror that unfolded in a vision before her—of two armies plunging headlong toward each other; the clash of steel blade against war ax and the painful screams and agonized cries of the dying; the dust that rose to engulf them; the overwhelming confusion, fear, and hopelessness; and, in the aftermath of battle, the bodies of both Saxon and Norman dead lying on the cold hard ground.

Tears slipped down her cheeks as she stared out across the valley and saw the distant fires glowing eerily through the gloom of mist and smoke. Larger bonfires were scattered some distance apart. As the carts rumbled past them, she realized they were not bonfires but funeral pyres for the dead.

A creature born in fire and blood...

The crest Rorke FitzWarren carried on his shield was the image she had seen in her vision. She had no understanding of it then. But she understood now.

They rode on in silence. But she was aware that the gazes of the soldiers and knights who rode with them were also fixed on those distant fires.

They crossed a large encampment and finally stopped before one of several large tents. Rorke dismounted and pulled her to the ground beside him. Several armed soldiers immediately appeared, making her aware this was an armed encampment.

“Bring your medicines,” Rorke said. He strode ahead to draw aside the tent flap. Another armed soldier just inside the tent immediately appeared. He glanced at Rorke, then stepped aside.

Tarek al Sharif had dismounted and walked with her. Vachel had not followed them into the camp, but had departed with his men as soon as they entered the valley. He was nowhere to be seen.

Stephen of Valois and several of Rorke’s knights walked behind them, like an armed escort. A frisson of uneasiness slipped down her spine and a warning moved across her senses as Vivian carried the leather pouch under her arm.

Beware, my child.

The cold wind gusted inside the open flap as they entered the tent, stirring a fire at a brazier and guttering flames at several lamps. As the flap fell back into place, the flames settled and glowed steadily once more. There were several well-armed knights inside the tent. They formed a phalanx around a raised cot, partially blocked from view by a sea of sword and armor.

“Milord.” One of the young knights stepped forward and greeted Stephen of Valois. Vivian saw the nod of acknowledgment that passed between the two men and immediately sensed a bond of deep friendship.

They were of a near age, as were several others of the knights in the tent, except for one who was somewhat older than Rorke. In this man, she sensed the wisdom and counsel of many years, many battles fought, and deep, abiding loyalty. She sensed other things, but they were fleeting images. Most of what she sensed was a great urgency—that same urgency that had grown in her throughout the day as they rode closer to the battlefield at Hastings. And she knew of a certainty it was for William of Normandy.

“Are we in time, Gavin?” Rorke asked the older knight.

The one called Gavin nodded, his face taut. “He is alive,” he said with solemn voice.

But hardly more Vivian sensed, in the knight’s unspoken thoughts.

Rorke glanced about at the heavily armed knights. His eyes narrowed as his gaze fastened on someone who stood behind one of the knights at the head of the cot.

“What is she doing here?” His voice was as cold as steel. The knight moved aside, revealing a woman in the light of the oil lamps.

“Milord FitzWarren,” she greeted Rorke with a silken voice. The pale blond beauty stepped forward, her manner aloof. She spoke in French and her gown was of the finest satin.

Vivian had seen little of the encampment, but she had seen no other women. It seemed odd now to find one here and so finely dressed, in the middle of a military camp. Perhaps she was the wife of the man who lay on that cot.

“I gave orders that no one other than my men was allowed in here,” Rorke snapped.

“I am not one of your knights,” the woman reminded him as she stepped closer to the cot. “You have no authority over me.” Then she added, “He asked for me. My place is with him.”

Vivian sensed the tension that moved through the tent. But from the woman she sensed many other things—the coldness of ambition, the heat of anger and passion, and traces of a sensual, almost erotic memory that reached out to Rorke FitzWarren. Vivian knew that in spite of the anger that seemed to leap between them, they had once been lovers. Perhaps they still were.

“It seems odd, milady, that one so grievously wounded would have the strength to summon you,” he responded coldly. He glanced to Gavin, and Vivian saw the man shake his head disavowing what the woman claimed.

“Remove her,” Rorke ordered.

“You may not have me removed,” she cried out. “My place is at his side!”

Rorke turned with a deliberate slowness, and again Vivian was reminded of that earlier impression of a dangerous animal. His features were hard, forbidding, and she was certain that icy gaze was capable of freezing a person where they stood.

“The only woman who may claim that privilege is his
wife
,” he said in quiet voice completely at odds with the dangerous look he gave her. Then with a jerk of his head he signaled Gavin to have her removed.

“Take your hands off me,” she cried as Gavin turned to escort her from the tent. She wrenched her arm free of his grasp, wrapping her cloak about her as if it were the finest battle armor. She turned on Rorke, her voice dripping with hatred. “I will leave, milord FitzWarren. But I shall return when he asks it.”

“He will not ask it,” Rorke assured her.

When she had gone, he turned to Gavin. “Tell me everything that has happened.”

“Naught is amiss,” the older knight assured him. “Now that you have returned.”

Vivian heard the assurance in his reply, but sensed the knight’s unspoken thoughts of some trouble that he chose for the time being to keep to himself. Rorke nodded.

“We will speak of it later. There are more important matters here.” He stripped away leather gloves and shoved back the mail hood from that mane of dark hair. The circle of knights parted as he stepped to the cot.

“Christ’s blood!” he swore softly as he gazed down at the man who lay on the cot. She heard the undercurrent of emotion at his voice.

“How is it possible that he is even still alive?”

The man she glimpsed briefly as Rorke knelt beside the cot lay wasted and emaciated, his skin a gray, bloodless color above his bloodstained tunic. Over the mournful howl of the wind that sent the loose edges of the tent flapping, she heard the ragged breathing that was rapid and shallow, and very near death. This was the man who had laid waste of all England, carving a bloody trail of death and destruction across the whole of Britain—William the Conqueror.

Gavin gestured to the stained blanket that lay beneath him. “Yester eve, I found the bishop and that butcher of a healer’s apprentice bleeding him.”

“Sweet Jesu!” Rorke swore. “He has already lost enough blood for two men.” He stood abruptly and called an order back through his men.

“Bring the Saxon.”

Almost as one, the knights filling the tent turned and stood apart. They wore death, dressed in their bloodied and mud-caked battle armor, swords unsheathed and held at rest in their gloved hands. To a man they towered over her, their gazes by turn doubtful, fierce, and dangerous.

This was what her people had confronted. No matter how bravely they had fought with their clubs, axes, and sticks, they were no match for these well-armed warriors whose sole purpose was war and death. With an ache of sadness so intense that it stilled her breath in her lungs, she knew the fates of the men of Amesbury—indeed all of Saxon England—had been sealed before they ever met the Norman army on the battlefield. Her vision had seen all, and she had been powerless to prevent it.

She glanced up at those fierce warriors turned toward her and experienced something of the emotion that Harold’s beleaguered Saxons must have felt. As she slowly walked toward the cot she had a sense of time moving out of itself, of events unfolding that she was being drawn into but could not yet see, much less prevent. Except for gray eyes that watched her with an intensity as if he could see inside her.

“Your skills are greatly needed by the one who lies here gravely wounded.”

“A Saxon brought to heal the Norman conqueror who has slain her people?” she replied and could not keep the bitterness from her voice.

“A healer who wishes to save the lives of her people,” he said in a tone that had lost none of its menace or promise.

The light inside the tent seemed to close round them, one defiant, the other determined, the certainty of his words like tiny blades that sliced away at her resolve.

“Yea, milord,” she replied no less bitter, “I will do what I can. The rest is up to God.”

“God has already done his part.”

There was no attempt to disguise his contempt, and Vivian wondered what might account for such coldness of heart in a man who had shown such compassion at the abbey.

“The rest is up to you, and you will not fail.”

She knelt by the cot and looked with pity upon the man who lay there, shrunken by fever and loss of blood. He seemed no more than a skeleton already except for the pale skin that clung to his bones.

“Bring the lamp closer,” she told Rorke. “I must see what must be done.”

There was another who stepped to the opposite side of the cot, the young knight, Stephen of Valois. As she reached to draw back the leather tunic that covered the injured man’s chest, Stephen’s hand closed over her wrist.

“If he dies,” he warned, “I will personally see that your life is ended.”

Through the contact of his hand about her wrist, Vivian sensed a much deeper pain and the fierce, warring emotions that reflected in the expression at his face. She sensed a deep, silent anger, an aching need for some long-denied love, and the conflicted emotion of intense hatred, as if they fought each other within him.

Her heart ached, for she recognized the longing within him, that same longing she had felt her entire life to know the mother that had borne her but not raised her. And she sensed something more, glimpsed in the shadow of his thoughts that he attempted to keep hidden from everyone, including himself—the man who lay on the cot was his father!

“Let her help him, my young friend,” Rorke FitzWarren said beside her, his own hand gentle at the younger man’s shoulder. Still, Stephen of Valois did not release her. Instead his fingers tightened about her wrist with a brutal strength that threatened to snap slender bones.

Trust me
, she spoke silently to him, willing him to feel the truth of her thoughts.
I will not let him die
.

She sensed his inner struggle as he tried to understand the thoughts that moved through his, as if someone had spoken to him. She felt his resistance, fighting her, pushing her thoughts back from his own. He was a fierce warrior, but in his heart she sensed the greater fierceness of his love for the man who lay between them. Eventually, those fingers loosen about her wrist, and, though they left marks at her skin, she felt only his deeper pain. Finally he nodded and stepped back from the cot but remained close by, his hand at his sword in silent warning.

She slowly rounded the cot, in turn lifting crudely made bandages that had been pressed against the wounds to stanch the flow of blood. In most places the bleeding had stopped, leaving the bandages glued to the wound as the blood dried. At others, the wounds still seeped. She wet them with water from a basin, gently easing them away from the crusted flesh, examining each in turn. There were several, that spoke to his skill and determination as a warrior who fought beside his men, including a deep one at his side, but none by itself threatened his life.

When she moved down the length of cot at the opposite side, Stephen of Valois impatiently blocked her, his expression challenging.

“Enough of this!” he growled. “He lies here dying while you take your time as if you were at market. Get on with it, woman!”

“It is not yet enough,” Vivian told him gently but with an authority of voice few would have dared.

“I must know exactly how badly he is wounded if I am to help him.” Behind her, she sensed a movement.

“Be at ease my friend, “ Rorke FitzWarren told the young man. “Allow her to do what must be done.”

There was a moment of silent challenge between the two men. Then Stephen stepped once more out of her way though he remained close. She moved past him, concentrating on the wounded man who lay before her, fingers moving along each muscle, sinew, and bone, sensing the wounds that were not obvious—broken ribs and several bruises.

When, in good health William was no doubt a robust, powerfully built man. The bones were heavy, and solid. Though sunken from fever and loss of blood, his features were ruddy, his hair a dark russet color. His eyes, she knew, would be brown like his son’s.

Then she lifted the blanket that covered the lower half of his body and discovered the wound at his leg. The leg was laid out straight, but the long bone below the knee was shattered, fragments piercing through the skin. Like the other wounds, a crude bandage had been placed over it but little else had been done and maggots crawled the torn flesh. Though he was her enemy, she was at heart a healer and her hand shook with a mixture of horror and anger that he had been so poorly cared for.