Snow in July (27 page)

If this gift is such a boon, then why couldn’t it have manifested in time to save my mother’s life, or Del’s? Why did it have to manifest for the man I love but can never wed? Why must I use it for this stranger?

Why do I even possess this power at all?

In the midst of her mental railings, another thought intruded. She glared at Ethel. “Ulfric knows about this ability of mine. You! You told him, didn’t you?” When the servant cast her gaze downward, Kendra forged on, “Now he wants me to heal everyone here, beginning with this man?” Perhaps so he could send them home and reclaim this land for some other purpose, she mused. A profitable purpose, probably, rather than a charitable one.

Considering the plights of the people she’d seen thus far, though, how could she refuse?

But, Lord, there are so many! Gift or no gift, how can I heal them all?

Ethel shook her head. “Not everyone unless you so choose, my lady. The only person Thane Ulfric would like you to help, if you can, is this man.”

She motioned for Kendra to sit beside him, which she did without fully understanding the impulse to obey. Her fingers remained clenched around the ash coating her palm.

Ethel’s cool, leathery hands gently but firmly pried her fist open and guided it to grasp another hand, one scarred and callused…from battle, Kendra realized.

The man’s agony exploded within her brain. They uttered a long scream as if sharing one throat. She squeezed her eyes and his hand tighter, fighting to channel the pain away from them both.

CHEERING PEASANTS welcomed Alain and his escort to Edgarburh, although he suspected the people’s warmth extended more toward the fyrd members.

Wherever they rode, however, one thing remained constant: the cheering ebbed to a confused murmur when the crowd realized their beloved Lady Kendra was not riding with them.

Alain knew how they felt. Without Kendra to brighten his days, he despaired of ever finding a reason to cheer again.

“Where is she?” Waldron demanded from the steps of Edgarburh’s hall as the party dismounted. Noir bristled at the thane, but Alain silenced the dog with a reprimand.

“Lady Kendra lodges at Thornhill, my lord,” Alain replied, “resting from her ordeal.”

Her father looked none too pleased. He glanced at Ruaud before piercing Alain with his glare. “Your master still allows you to speak for him, squire?”

Alain stifled a sigh and went to one knee at Waldron’s feet. So did Ruaud, to the surprised whisperings of Lofwin’s men and other residents of the burh who had interrupted their tasks to watch the proceedings.

“Thane Waldron, I have sinned against you, your daughter, and God.” Alain held up a hand to forestall the storm of rage collecting on the thane’s face. “My lord, please accept my assurances that your daughter’s virtue remains intact.”
At least, as far as I know.
“My sin is one of deception, and I beg your forgiveness. I ask not as Squire Alain but as my true self.” He drew a breath. “Sir Robert Alain de Bellencombre.”

As the people’s murmurings grew louder and more hostile, he bowed his head under the weight of shame and guilt.

Chapter 15

K
ENDRA FELT AS if her head were being roasted on a spit. With her eyes shut, and while grasping the injured man’s hand, she visualized the flames being drenched by a cold torrent. As the imaginary rainstorm intensified, the fire died and the pain abated, praise God.

Beneath his pain lay a paralyzing blanket of numbness interwoven with strands of anguish, hopelessness, and despair. As she retained her grip upon the man’s hand, the blanket threatened to suffocate her too. She lost touch with her senses, not knowing whether she imagined herself panting for breath or did so in truth.

Whoever this half-masked man was and whatever the source of his grief, its depth far outstripped Kendra’s own. The realization both humbled and emboldened her. Without opening her eyes, she wrapped her other hand around his.

A frightening array of images branded her mind: horses rearing, screaming, and pounding foes into the ground; weapons shattering from the force of impact; men slipping, falling, and dying in the muddy gore; wounded warriors moaning for help. Soldiers looting the bodies of the fallen to raise newfound weapons against a relentless adversary. A shield wall buckling from within as greed asserted its dominion over the wall’s members. The flight of a single arrow, its point bearing toward her with breathtaking speed, and the excruciating agony when it found its target.

Through it all ran an undercurrent of shock, disbelief, rage, betrayal, and, ultimately, dejected resignation.

Such a fathomless well of emotional pain she felt utterly powerless to combat.

SIR ROBERT Alain de Bellencombre, once known as Squire Alain, knelt in abject humility at Waldron’s feet.

The Norman’s admission robbed Waldron of his worry-fueled anger. Yet, while gazing down upon the knight guarded by the hellhound, he realized the revelation didn’t take him by surprise. From the start he had sensed this man must be someone other than who he’d claimed to be.

And Alain—or Robert, or whatever he called himself—loved Kendra. Waldron knew this as surely as he knew the battle-forged contours of his sword hand. He had recognized the lad’s anguished expression as one he’d seen on his own face whenever he encountered a reflective surface: the anguish of being separated from the better half of one’s life, one’s heart, one’s very soul.

Although no one could ever replace Del, here knelt a man that Waldron would be pleased to call son.

He raised a hand, and his people fell silent. With a wary glance at the dog, he bent to address the knight, one question straining for release: “Why?”

Sir Robert looked up, confusion darkening his features. “Why the deception, my lord?”

Waldron shook his head. “Why, in the name of everything holy, did you leave her?”

AN INSISTENT tugging on Kendra’s hands broke her grip on the wounded man. Her head ached abominably. She massaged her temple, surprised by how gritty the skin felt. As if from a long distance away, she heard herself groan.

“My lady, will you be all right?” Kendra thought she recognized Ethel’s voice, though lassitude had robbed her of the will to open her eyes. “Shall I summon the physician?”

“Nay.” Her voice’s huskiness startled her. She cleared her throat. “No need for that.” And no need to share the knowledge of her special talent with anyone else. “I shall be fine.”

It was far more than could be said for the man she had tried to heal. When she opened her eyes, she found him slumped over to one side and slack-jawed. Drool trickled from the corner of his mouth, which Ethel was daubing with her kerchief. Perspiration matted his hair. The exposed flesh of his face looked as waxy as a death mask.

Kendra touched her own head and realized that it too was damp. Again she felt that odd grittiness. She examined her fingertips and found more ash.

“I am so sorry, sir,” she murmured, stroking his cheek, the portion not obscured by leather. “I wish I could do more to help you.”

“And so you shall, my dearest Kendra, through more encounters of this nature.”

She snapped her head up to find Ulfric standing on the threshold of the open door, hands resting on his hips, a smug grin seeping across his face.

WHY HAD he left Kendra with someone he’d sooner spit upon than trust? An excellent question. He studied the dirt at his knee. “I should not have, Thane Waldron.”

“Damned right,” said her father.

An open hand thrust into Alain’s field of view, a gnarled hand bearing more scars than the sum total of nicks on Alain’s blade. He glanced up in time to see Waldron give a slight nod. He grasped the thane’s forearm and hauled himself up, signaling Ruaud to stand too.

“My lord, we must talk.” Alain pumped urgency into his tone. “Privately, if possible.”

Waldron looked over his shoulder at the stream of people filing into and out of the hall. “Not in there.” He turned and strode toward the living quarters, beckoning the Normans to follow him. Alain paused to ask Lofwin to secure the recovered gold. Waldron overheard and expressed profuse gratitude, which Alain accepted with a shrug; he considered the act as yet another facet of his duty.

With Noir trotting at Alain’s heels, they crossed the yard and climbed the outer staircase in silence. Outside the door to Ruaud’s chamber, Waldron halted. “Sir Ruaud, you are welcome to rest and refresh yourself while…” He rounded on Alain. “Sir Alain? Sir Robert? What in heaven’s name should I call you, son?”

Son.

It had been far too long since Alain had heard that title directed at him, and it surprised him to realize how much he’d missed it. Since he was not his father’s heir, he had no right to the patronymic
fitz
. Alain’s sibling nemesis, Philippe FitzHugh, enjoyed that distinction and never wasted the chance to flaunt it in front of Alain. Hence he had chosen to affiliate himself with the village of his birth, Bellencombre. Alain had never thought of himself as being the “son of” any man until this moment.

The feeling wasn’t at all unpleasant.

Waldron’s raised eyebrow reminded him that the thane awaited an answer. Alain cleared his throat. “Formally, my lord, I am addressed as Sir Robert.” Even after all the years spent with his English mother, he still used the Norman-French pronunciation favored by his father, “hro-
bear
.” He continued, “My friends, like Ruaud and your daughter”—a tentative smile curved his lips—“call me Alain.”