Daughter of Fire (9 page)

Occasionally a woman got herself with child after consulting with the old crone, but there was never cause to believe it would not have happened anyway. As for the old men who went to see her, only one could claim a cure. And that administered by a fourteen-year-old girl on his father’s estate

Rorke had no belief or patience for such things. But now, when he moved to put an end to it, Tarek al Sharif stopped him with a hand clamped over his arm.

“Do not!” he whispered, staring past Rorke to the Saxon girl.

Her unbound hair cascaded a fiery torrent about her shoulders and down her back as her head lifted. Her skin glowed pale and luminous as though from some inner light. With slender arms spread wide she repeated the ancient words.

“Element of fire, spirit of light, essence of life, awaken the night.”

“Fire of the soul, flame of life as light reveals truth, burn golden bright!”

The walls of the tent billowed as though caressed by the wind. Candle flames fluttered wildly. Coals in the braziers, which had burned low, suddenly burst into flame, filling the tent with blazing heat. But it was not the flames suddenly flaring to life from coals that had burned low, nor even his friend’s hand that stopped him. It was her eyes, as they slowly opened.

They were an unnatural, compelling blue, rimmed by brilliant golden light like the heart of a flame as if she was not a creature of this world... and the same brilliant color glowed at the crystal stone that lay over William’s heart.

She was oblivious to everything about her. There was no recognition or even the least acknowledgment of their presence as if she were in some deep sleep at the same time she was awake.

She looked up, her blue gaze meeting his and at the same time seeing through him. He touched her hand, and felt a fierce, wild energy in the skin beneath his fingers. The contact was intense, the unusual light in her eyes reaching out and enfolding him, suffusing him with heat. But once again there was no reaction, as if she had not felt his hand on hers. She did not reach for the knife, nor did she apply any of the healing balm she had prepared for the other wounds. Instead she laid one hand over William’s heart, the other she laid over his mangled leg.

Vivian sent the energy flowing within through her fingertips into the injured warrior, reaching deep into his consciousness. The contact was chaotic, like stepping into a storm of the past, memories, and dreams, as she bonded with the life force within him.

Childhood experiences overlay those of the grown man, then flashed with glimpses of his boyhood — a fall from a childhood pony, the wrenching separation from his mother while still so young, painful rejections that spawned a fierce pride and stubborn willfulness, the physical contests of his warrior’s training, the test of countless battles, a young woman’s face, the image of a child, then that of the woman she’d seen in the tent.

She saw and felt everything about William of Normandy— his ambitions, fears, strengths, weaknesses, hopes, deepest desires. All of it in a whirlwind of intense emotions, light, and color so vivid that she felt them all, saw the blood and death of those countless battles, including the one so recent at Hastings. Then, she felt the pain and fever that wasted his life away— a tangible thing that she could hold in her hands.

It would be so easy to end that life, to still that beating heart, to take her revenge. But entwined with that thought was the knowledge of the other lives she held in her hands.  The energy quivered, then shifted as Vivian reached deep within him, surrounding his pain with that energy until she felt it begin to flow through her, the connection between them like a silken thread that must not be broken.

Rorke had no understanding of this ancient ritual. Yet, watched as William’s body visibly relaxed from the tortured, painful spasms that had seized him. His skin lost its deadly pallor as color returned and the death rattle eased from his lungs.

The heavy tapestry at the opening of the tent was torn aside. Dust, smoke, and bitter cold wind swept inside.

“In the name of God! What is the meaning of this?”

Several candles sputtered out. The fires that had burned bright in the braziers suddenly smoldered and threatened to extinguish. What light remained gleamed almost obscenely on the silver crucifix that hung from the neck of the man who stood at the opening of the tent, the grayish pallor of smoke from the encampment swirling about him.

“God in Heaven!” he said with horrified voice as he strode into the tent, surrounded by a half-dozen men. His gaze swept the tent and then came to rest on Rorke FitzWarren.

“Is there no limit to your blasphemy?”

As the flames died, Vivian cried out. Pain tore through her as the fragile bond with the dying man was suddenly threatened. Bitter cold seized her. Her lungs felt frozen, each breath an agony as an overpowering weakness robbed her of strength. Swept back into the world of her own consciousness, her gaze was drawn to the man who had caused the intrusion and now threatened the life of the man who lay before her.

Their gazes met and she glimpsed powerful emotions—contempt, barely restrained anger, and something darker she would not have imagined in a man of the Church.

Tarek stepped to block him from advancing any further. The bishop’s men immediately drew swords, along with the knight who stood at the right hand of the bishop—Vachel.

“By all that is holy, FitzWarren,” the bishop vowed, “you dare too much. I sent my men to bring the healer. Who is this creature? What is this unholy act you dare to bring into this tent?” Then, turning to Vachel, he commanded, “Get her out of here!”

“Nay!” Vivian cried out as a new and different pain moved through her cold as death—William’s death. The fragile connection to her was all that sustained him and must not be broken. “Please, milord,” she beseeched Rorke, “I must be allowed to finish, or he will die.”

He glanced at William, who lay silent as death on the cot. So much hung in the balance, so much that had been wagered and might now be lost if he died. He saw the shallow rise and fall of that broad chest, the slender hands that possessed some strange healing power he could not understand, and the light in the blue crystal that wavered and grew dim.

He had no explanation for it, but he believed what he had seen with his own eyes, and knew with a certainty that William would die without her. Even now the Conqueror weakened once more. His skin had once more taken on a deathly pallor, painful spasms wracked his body, and his breathing was labored as if each breath might be his last.

“Get them out of here!” he commanded his men. “Including the bishop!” As Vachel stepped toward him threateningly, Rorke drew his sword from its sheath.

“By all means,” Rorke told him, “It would give me enormous pleasure to separate your head from your shoulders.”

Vachel hesitated, his gaze fastened on the bishop.

“You overstep yourself,” the bishop warned Rorke with icy authority. “You intercede in matters of the king!”

“Be warned, milord Bishop,” Rorke told him, angling the blade on a level with his throat. “Or you, too, may find yourself carrying your head. Bishop or no, makes no difference to me, for I have no fear for my soul.”

The bishop hesitated. His gaze swept the tent, and FitzWarren’s men. The anger faltered.

“You
will
fear for your soul,” he vowed. Then, with a harsh order, he swept from the tent, Vachel and his men following behind him.

Rorke’s men followed, forming an impenetrable barrier against any further intrusions around the perimeter of the tent. He turned back to Vivian, his hand at her shoulder.

“Do what must be done.”

Beneath his hand, he felt the energy that poured through her, and as before, he stared in amazement at the visible changes in her as she bent to her strange healing way. Her slender hands spasmed and grew taut. She gasped as though suddenly in great pain while, beneath her hands, the painful spasms eased from William’s tortured body, as if she took his pain within her. The blue crystal once more glowed bright.

Her skin became fevered to the touch, as William’s cooled and no longer glistened with sweat. William’s heartbeat strengthened, even as she turned deathly pale as if she had given her strength to him. Finally, she lifted her head, her face drawn and pale, her breathing shallow.

“It is done.”

Rorke caught her as she collapsed and swung her up into his arms.

~ ~ ~

He held the goblet to her mouth, trickling the wine past bloodless lips. She slowly roused, auburn lashes lifting over eyes that were now the color of pale morning sky. Slowly the color returned to her cheeks. As he looked down at her, he saw recognition and then memory return in the space of a heartbeat. Her gaze immediately went to the cot. The tension eased at her slender shoulders as if she was pleased with what she saw there.

She drank several more sips of wine. Beneath his hand at her wrist, her heart once more beat strong and steady.

“I have no understanding of what I have just seen.” Rorke said as that vivid blue gaze came back to his, then angled away.

She offered no explanation as she attempted to stand. He refused to release her.

“He was near death.”

When she still would not speak of it or look at him, he forced her head up with his fingers beneath the curve of her chin.

“Do you deny it?”

He had no idea how near death, Vivian thought, nor could she explain it to him so she sought refuge in safe answers. “Surely you believe that only God has the power over life and death, milord.”

“God was not in this tent.”

There was warmth and strength in his hand—strength found in wild creatures that may be held but never tamed, and the warmth of some equally untamed emotion.

The healing had left her senses and emotions naked, exposed, and vulnerable. The simplest contact of his fingers against her skin caused a sensation she’d never experienced before, and a memory flashed through her thoughts of a warm summer day when she was twelve and had gone into the forest near the abbey to gather herbs and roots, and come upon two young lovers.

She knew them from the village. The girl Bronwyn was not much older than Vivian. The boy, Ham, was the goatherd. They lay together in the meadow, the warm summer air filled with their whispers, laughter, and other sounds, a moan low at Ham’s throat as he touched her, followed by Bronwyn’s startled gasp and then her sighs of pleasure.

Words drifted back with that memory. Lovers’ words as clothes were discarded. Words of pleasure as naked flesh met naked flesh, then words of urgency that matched the urgency of their joining.

She had been terrified to leave lest she be discovered, and too fascinated to look away. As she watched, a tightness grew low inside her like a longing of anticipation but for what she did not know. Afterward, wanting some understanding for the strange feelings, she had told Meg of what she had seen.

“Such things are not for you,”
Meg had warned.
“Bronwyn is a simple, foolish girl, while you are learned in very special ways.”

“Does she have the gift of sight or the power to heal? Can she call the birds from the sky?”

“Nay, child! You have very special powers and a unique destiny. Such things are not for you as they are for other mortals,”
she repeated.
“For you would lose your powers. It would destroy you.”

It has been so long ago as to be forgotten until Rorke FitzWarren touched her. And she remembered now the inexplicable sadness Meg’s words had brought.

“Please, milord,” she begged, restless with an urgency to be as far away as possible from the gentleness of his touch. Then, with the excuse she was certain he would not refuse, “The bone must be properly set and bound.”

Sensing her uneasiness, Rorke released her. “We will speak of this again.” As she turned to where William lay on the cot, Rorke went to the entrance of the tent.

“I will have food and blankets brought,” he told her.

“There is no need, milord. I would like to leave as soon as I have bound the leg.”

“I cannot allow that.

“But there is no reason for me to remain,” she protested. “I have told you that he will live.”

Though she sensed that Meg and Poladouras were both safe, she wanted to return to Amesbury as soon as possible.  Surely this was the meaning of her vision—the creature rising from the flames—the knight who sought her out to save William’s life. It was done now. There was no reason for her to remain. In the weeks that lay ahead, the people of Amesbury would have great need of her.

“There is more than enough reason,” he informed her.

Her raw emotions pushed her to anger. “I have done your bidding,” she glared at him. “You have no more need of me.”

“Aye, you have done my bidding,” he acknowledged. “And far more than I had hoped, but I cannot allow you to leave.” There was no threat in his voice, but the finality of his answer made her anger reckless.

“I will not stay,” she told him adamantly. “Others have need of my care!”

Rorke’s gaze narrowed. “Would you heedlessly jeopardize the lives of the people of Amesbury?” Once again there was no threat, but the simple question.

“You would use their lives to bind me to you?” At that moment she hated him even more than she first had at Amesbury.

“I would,” he replied.

“To what purpose?” she demanded.

“To the purpose of guaranteeing William’s safe recovery. I have seen healthy flesh putrefy when a wound is all but healed. By what I have seen this night, mistress, you have an extraordinary skill. I will not jeopardize his life by allowing you to leave.”

Her cheeks blazed with color. The flames of the candles reflected in her eyes. “Is that your final word?”

“It is.”

“How can you then be certain that I will not be neglectful in his care?” she challenged.

He smiled. “Because the villagers of Amesbury mean far too much to you.”

She shuddered at the depth of his coldness. Inwardly, she wept silent tears. Her voice was filled with loathing. “You are no different than Vachel.”