Seduced by Grace (9 page)

“It’s just as well you will have no say in it then, isn’t it,” he answered, openly jeering.

She snatched her arm from his grasp and stepped back from him again. “We shall see, sir.”

“So we shall,” he called after her in deadly confidence as she and Astrid walked away. “So we shall.”

The day crept on. No lesson with David came to break its monotony, for the king had declared a hiatus. The afternoon was to be enlivened by a competition between the gathered men-at-arms, those who had come with David from France, Halliwell’s men, the castle contingent and Henry’s own. It was nothing of great moment, no occasion for pomp and pavilions or ladies offering favors. It was merely a series of exercises to keep the soldiery in fighting trim.

At least this was the word Astrid brought from the castle guards.

The news was unsettling. Such competitions were not as mild as they might sound. They were fiercely fought contests with honed weapons that could leave men maimed or dead.

David would naturally be in the thick of it.

Marguerite roamed the castle, moving from one vantage point to the other. None gave a clear view of the area where the competition would take place. It was frustrating beyond words. Added to that, David could not attend upon her to explain how it had come about. She had sent him a message, but Astrid returned with it in hand, saying there was no one in his chamber to receive it. Every male in the castle seemed to be outside the walls, gathered in the open field beyond the gates.

Such mock battles had taken place at her brother-in-law’s manse, as well. She recalled with chilling clarity the times she had watched as David drilled with Rand, skipping over the grass, retreating from the
great, shining blade wielded against him, or else advancing fearlessly upon it. Her heart had been in her throat in those days.

It was there now. She had a bad feeling about this business.

Dear God, but why did men have this need to throw themselves into such a maelstrom of sweat and effort? What drew them, what fever in the mind moved them to hack and slice at each other as if life meant nothing? How could they look upon the injuries inflicted as if they were piddling scratches, or judge the poor prizes awarded the victors as worth the cost?

The distant yells and deep-voiced shouts followed Marguerite wherever she went. No occupation she found could distract her. She opened the marble-backed book loaned to her by the castle’s chatelaine, but soon closed it again. She set stitches in a piece of embroidery she had brought with her, a hood for the baby her sister Cate was expecting in the winter, but had to pick them out again. She sent Astrid for a hot drink flavored with herbs and honey, but left it to cool untouched. She snapped at the petite serving woman for slurping as she drank it herself, and then apologized for the hurt feelings she caused. She felt as if ants were crawling under her skin, felt as though a storm hovered above the castle, growing ever more threatening but refusing to break.

Drums, cheers and a great banging of swords upon shields announced the end of the day’s events. Hearing the din, Marguerite dropped down upon a bench in the great hall and leaned her head against the wall behind it.

Over, at last. Sighing, she closed her eyes and whispered a prayer of thanksgiving.

Rousing after a moment, she pushed to her feet. She should seek out Lady Joan and offer her aid. There were bound to be injuries that required tending, and the servants would be run off their feet supplying ale and wine to the thirsty hoard returning to the great hall.

It was as she reached that great open space that she heard the shouting.

“Struck down!”

“Golden Knight…stabbed.”

“By God’s beard…cowardly attack!”

There followed a confusion of running footsteps, of calls and yells, of pushing and shoving as men stumbled into the hall bearing a burden. David was in the midst of them, borne on a long shield carried by four of his men. He was pale as death, his eyes closed, his head hanging backward off the shield’s edge, bobbing as they walked, and his hair tumbling in golden waves stained with blood. His tremendous strength and force of will were gone, all gone.

Horror washed over Marguerite in an icy wave, shuddering from her head to her heels. Her heart faltered. She ceased to breathe.

One of those who carried the shield skidded upon the rushes that covered the stone floor and recovered with a hard jerk. David groaned, tried to raise his head.

He was not dead. He lived. He lived still.

Released by the knowledge, Marguerite ran forward. Her mind was suddenly calm, clear, focused. Turning to the trestle table left standing after the most recent meal, she swept the tankards and plates from it. They hit the floor around her with a great, metallic clanking and splattering of ale, but she hardly noticed. Her gaze
was on David, on the faint rise and fall of his chest, the great, bleeding lump of a bruise that swelled upon his discolored temple, and the blood that wet his shirt, seeping from under his arm.

“Here,” she called, “put him here!”

The men swerved toward her, lifting David to the table as she directed. With ungentle hands, they slid him from the shield so he rested on the boards. He made no further sound during the transfer, but lay with his lashes resting on the shadows they cast beneath his eyes and his hands palm up, the fingers lax and open.

He was bleeding, a steady seepage that pooled on the table beneath him. It had to be stopped at once.

“Cloths,” Marguerite cried, staring around for Astrid. “Quickly for the love of God!”

What she asked for appeared in an instant, or so it seemed, long, clean strips of old linen. The small serving woman placed a knife in Marguerite’s hand at the same time, then reached to take hold of David’s shirt in her small fists. Stretching it taut just above his heart, she nodded at her mistress. Marguerite did not hesitate, but began to cut the red-soaked garment from him.

Lady Joan, the chatelaine, pale of face but resolute, appeared at her side. “I have some experience with wounds, my dear. Shall I…?”

“No, I thank you,” Marguerite said over her shoulder. “No, he’s mine.”

The claim held no awkwardness or ambivalence, nothing except nature’s own truth. Nor did anyone contradict her, which was an excellent thing. She could not have been responsible for her temper if they had tried.

The main injury appeared to be a sword or knife
thrust. It had entered under his armpit at an awkward angle. If it had gone in straight…

It had not. David must have heard something, sensed something, so wrenched away from the blow. He’d changed the direction of the blade so it was deflected by a rib before tearing free. He had lost much blood, regardless, was losing more with every instant that passed.

Oliver stood nearby, his brow furrowed, eyes bleak. He had been one of the men who had carried David into the hall, Marguerite recognized with a distant part of her mind. He hovered now, desperate with worry, ready to be of aid.

“What happened?” she demanded of the squire with a frown while forming a thick pad of cloth and pressing it to the knife slash, holding it in place as she waited for Astrid to make another. “Who did this to him?”

“David left the field,” Oliver said with a helpless gesture of one hand. “There was a tent for donning armor, though he wore only chain mail. He walked inside, must have lifted his arms to pull off his hauberk over his head and was blinded by it when he was struck. He twisted away from the blow and hit his head on the tent pole. Or it could have been after, while they fought, I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? Weren’t you there?”

“Not at once. It was over by the time I heard the row. The attacker was dead, and David had a dagger in his hand I’d not seen before. Seems he cut the man’s throat with his own weapon.”

Marguerite closed her eyes as sickness moved over her, but opened them again at once. “Good,” she
said with tight hardihood, “that’s good.” She scarcely paused. “Here, hold this pad.”

Oliver obeyed. Moments later, they had David’s upper body bound with linen strips wound tightly enough to compress the pads she had placed on the wound. Some staining appeared through them, but no more than that. The bleeding had slowed, if not stopped entirely. Still David lay unmoving, unhearing, while the voices of those around him rose and fell with the excitement and outrage of the moment.

That was, until they ceased as if severed by the headsman’s axe.

The cause was the arrival of Henry VII. He cleaved his way through the crowd with force of personality as much as kingly privilege. Men stepped aside, making their bows in a spreading wave before fading back to give him room. He drew close, stopped next to the table and stared down at the quiet figure laid out upon it.

Marguerite made her curtsy in due form and then waited to be addressed. Long moments passed while the king’s face remained somber, without expression. When he looked up at last, he met her gaze as if no one else existed in the hall.

“Will he live?” he asked, his gray-blue eyes keen with assessment.

Her nod was as firm as she could make it.

Henry pursed his lips. “Unless the wound turns putrid.”

It could not be denied. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

“He will have fever.”

“It is likely.” Indeed it was, as fever was common
with such injuries. It could climb dangerously high if the wound was slow to heal.

“Delirium?”

“That may be.”

“We must see no greater harm comes because of it. You will attend to it, Lady Marguerite, attend upon our felled knight.”

Any who listened might think he referred to the wound. Marguerite was not deceived, mayhap because she met the full force of the king’s gaze. Without doubt, she was to prevent any harm to Henry’s plans or his reign from whatever David might say in the delirium of wound fever. She dropped a curtsy of understanding and acquiescence. “As you command, sire.”

“Have him taken to his chamber,” the king went on with great deliberation. “Order matters there as you please, though with these stipulations. You will not leave his side. No one may enter or leave without your permission. A trusted guard of your selection will be posted outside the chamber at all times. We will tolerate no further injury.”

He glanced around with hard eyes, as if to make certain the warning was received. No one spoke. No one coughed, sneezed or swallowed. Even the hound scratching fleas in a corner stopped and looked up.

Marguerite, following the king’s gaze, saw that it rested on a pair of noblemen half-hidden behind a square support pillar. Halliwell and his son shifted under Henry’s regard, exchanging a darting glance.

Did Henry suspect they were behind the attack? Nothing was more likely. To strike at a foe when his guard was down was ever the vengeance of a weak man,
particularly if he need not sully his own hands with the crime. The only question was if Halliwell was stupid enough to attack a man so high in the king’s favor.

Henry looked away with a dismissive flick of his eyelids. He paused to stare down at David again, his features set and eyes shuttered. His lips tightened then he turned from him with an abrupt movement. The king left the great hall, looking neither right nor left while the room bowed in an undulating wave and the mutter of voices rose again behind him.

David’s chamber was a mere cell, hardly larger than that of a monk. Against one stone wall was a low and narrow bed that had obviously been knocked together from a few pieces of wood and topped by a straw mattress. Next to it was a rough table holding a bronze basin and an oil pot with a straight spout that served as a lamp. At its foot was a wooden chest for clothes and armor. The deep embrasure of the narrow, shuttered window served as a bench, the only seating in the room.

The wonder, of course, was that David was allotted a private chamber, instead of sleeping cheek-by-jowl with the other men-at-arms in the great hall. The privilege was due to his place in Henry’s schemes, no doubt. Marguerite blessed it, whatever the reason. She was in no mood for continued stares and comments.

Oliver had been charged with seeing David carried up the stairs from the great hall. Marguerite went ahead with Astrid to make all ready, to open the shutter to admit light and air, to straighten the single sheet upon his mattress, see that the basin was filled with water and search out cloths for bathing. Once their charge was settled upon the bed, they undressed him with gentle
hands, pulling away the sliced and tattered remains of his shirt, stripping off the rough hose he had worn under his knee-length hauberk, leaving only his braies in place.

Marguerite sank down on her knees beside the bed. She took the water-filled basin that Astrid handed her, and dipped a clean cloth into it. With great care, she began to wash away the sweat and blood that streaked David’s face. She kept her gaze on what she was doing, trying to ignore the broad width of his chest and the gold-tipped curls that peeped above the bandaging that wrapped it.

Yet she had seen ridges of hard muscle that had lain over his ribs, also the shield shape of glinting chest hair that made a trail of gold lace over the flat surface of his belly and down to the low edge of his braies. She could feel his body heat through her sleeve and bodice. Her fingertips tingled as she inadvertently brushed them over his skin instead of the cloth. She had known he was tall and strong, but had not realized the extent of it until now, when she was so close, hovering over him, reaching across him to wipe away dried blood. Her heartbeat thudded against her chest wall and she could not quite catch her breath. The curve of her breast, as she leaned over him to swab away a streak of blood on his neck, pressed against the corded muscle of his upper arm. The pressure and heat of that touch made her nipple tighten to stinging hardness.

She sat back on her heels, staring at his inert form in perplexity. What ailed her? He was injured, barely conscious if awake at all, and yet he affected her as if he had reached out to her. How depraved could she be?

More streaks of blood had dried on his upper arm, running under his shoulder to where it joined his back. The skin was puckering around those red tracks, drawing in a manner that looked uncomfortable. If she turned him to the side, she could rid him of it.