The Rose of Blacksword (42 page)

“Christ, damn me for a fool!” he muttered furiously.

He stood up abruptly and paced the work space restlessly, consumed with anger, overwhelmed with fear. How had one slight maiden brought him to such a pass? he wondered as he squinted into the now-darkened yard. He’d always jeered at those poor fools whose brains seemed to rest within their braies. A woman was meant to serve her man. She was flesh of his flesh, formed of the rib of Adam. Yet now he was consumed by his need to possess this one troublesome woman, almost to the point of forgetting his original need for vengeance.

A sudden outburst of laughter interrupted his black thoughts, and he cocked his head toward the sound. In the bailey he heard several thuds, followed by a grunt and then a cry of pain. Another round of laughter, then he heard a voice that he recognized as one of the several squires’.

“Bastard ye are. And a runt as well.” Another thud and a groan of pain. “I suggest you remember your place, Squire Cleve.”

Once more several voices rang out in laughter. Then a small group of lads hurried from the darkness behind the barn and made their way toward the great hall.

Aric stood stockstill at the stable window. So Rosalynde’s pup was held in contempt by his peers, he mused. How fitting. Yet that insult—bastard—echoed most uncomfortably in his ears.

What matter if the boy was a bastard? he told himself. He would either grow strong and rise above his place, or else wither under the taunts and become a craven fool. How the boy bore his cross was not his own concern.

Yet as another smaller shape stumbled into the shadowed yard, Aric’s brow creased in a frown. He had once been in much the same predicament—an outsider, the bastard son of a knight of no particular note. Had he not been taller and stronger than the other squires, he would have suffered even more at their hands than he did. But he
had
been strong enough and eventually they’d abandoned their tormenting of him. Cleve, however, did not have that advantage. As the bent-over figure limped past the stable, Aric once again cursed the perverse streak in his own nature.

“Come in here.” He barked the curt command from the dark doorway. Cleve whirled into a crouch, clearly startled by the sudden order and expecting another attack.

“You!” He gasped, then pressed one hand to his side. Slowly he straightened to his normal height. “So ’tis you who are behind this.” He snarled like a cornered pup.

“If I wished you harm, boy, I would not send those fools to do it.”

There was a brief silence. “What do you want then?” the boy asked belligerently.

Aric let out a self-deprecating snort. He was not himself sure of the answer to that question. “If you are to survive your years as a squire, you’d best learn to handle yourself in a brawl.”

“I was but one!” Cleve defended himself heatedly. “They were four or more!”

“More reason than ever.” Aric shrugged. “Learn to fight, or you will be forced to crawl.”

“No one will ever see me crawl.”

“Brave words—now.”

“I can take care of myself,” Cleve charged, sending a baleful glare at the imposing man. “ ’Tis none of your affair.”

“I could teach you a few tricks.”

In the silence that followed, Aric could almost hear the thoughts milling through Cleve’s surprised mind. “I’ve no need of
tricks
,” he snapped. But when Aric did not respond, only waited, the tone of the boy’s voice changed. “Why do you make this offer to me?”

Aric smiled in the dark. “Let’s just say that I’m partial to a fair fight, and I can help you even the odds.”

“But why?”

In a rare moment of weakness Aric answered more honestly than he intended. “We are not so different, Cleve, despite appearances to the contrary. And I’ve no stomach for cowards who prey on the weak.”

“As if you’ve not done the same. Outlaws always prey on those weaker than themselves.” Yet even those biting words could not disguise Cleve’s curiosity.

“There are ways to overcome a stronger opponent,” Aric said, as if he had not heard the boy’s accusation. “Ways of using his own strength against him. Whether you battle with a sword, dagger, or by hand, ’tis all the same. But if you’re not interested …” He shrugged once more and turned away from the open door.

“Wait—”

He twisted his head and watched as Cleve drew nearer.
“What payment shall you exact?” the limping boy asked, still suspicious of his enemy’s motives.

“None,” Aric replied quietly. “I do not do this for payment.”

“Hah! No one like you does
anything
without some selfish motive.”

Once more Aric smiled, hearing in the boy’s belligerent words a reflection of his own suspicious nature. “I had not thought of it as payment, but mayhap you are right. In exchange for teaching you how to win any fight, I would have you forgo your rabid animosity toward me in favor of, let us say, a more thoughtful observance.”

“Thoughtful observance!” Cleve blurted out. But then he stopped and took a deep and obviously painful breath. “All right, then, I agree. But this changes nothing of our earlier agreement. You will not seek out milady Rosalynde. And after the tourney, you go.”

“Our first agreement still stands.”

“Then let’s to it,” the boy replied, moving purposefully into the stable.

“Are you up to it?” Aric eyed the battered boy when they stood in the light. But he knew the answer to that. Hurt, he was an even easier mark than before. Those who preyed on the helpless never gave them time to recoup their strength. As Aric squared off with Cleve, he determinedly ignored the boy’s bloodied nose and swelling eye.

“All right. When I come at you, defend yourself.” Then, without warning, he lunged at the lad. In a second Aric had thrust him back, undeterred either by Cleve’s blows or by his efforts to escape. When Aric released Cleve, his eyes narrowed.

“First, always—always!—be aware of your foe. Where he is and what his weapons are. In my case, I have height and weight over you, as well as experience. You cannot
hold me off. This is of paramount importance, so you’d best heed it well: Never push when you can pull. But never pull directly back. Instead, twist aside. Look.” In a slower version of his initial lunge, he advanced on Cleve. “Step back with your right foot, pivoting on your left. As you do that, grab at my tunic or my sleeve, and pull me past you. I’m already charging, but I’m expecting you to try to stand fast. But a well-placed tug here.” He demonstrated, placing Cleve’s right hand on the fullness of his own tunic. “That one pull will use my own weight against me and throw me off balance. Here, try it again.”

They went through the motions slowly. Then as Cleve began to understand, they tried it faster. Aric came at him alternately from either side, and then from behind as well. Each time he showed the now-eager boy how to judge his opponent’s direction and to then use his own positioning to best advantage. Cleve’s pains were forgotten as they practiced again and again. It was only when voices were heard from the bailey that they both drew back, winded.

“Enough for one night, I vow. Come tomorrow and we’ll continue.”

Cleve nodded his head as he drew several hard breaths. “Aye, I’ll be here.” He stepped back, but he did not at once turn away. “You have my thanks,” he finally admitted grudgingly. “That changes nothing, of course,” he hastened to add.

“No, of course not,” Aric agreed. But he was smiling after the boy left the stables.

Rosalynde was as nervous as a cat surrounded by baying hounds. By all standards the evening meal was a most civilized affair, complete with musical entertainments and Edith’s remarkable almond-raisin tarts. Yet she could not enjoy the results of her labor so long as Aric and Cleve
were mysteriously absent. Perversely, she knew that Aric’s presence in the hall would have unnerved her even more than his absence did.

All day she had been a bundle of nerves, jumping at shadows, starting whenever someone addressed her. She’d been quite the fool in the kitchen, giving Maud and Edith such contradictory instructions that Maud had finally given in to an uncontrollable giggle.

“… and the plate—” She had broken off, giving the cooks a vague glance. “What is it, Maud? You seem much distracted.”

“Is it the bread we must stew well while we have the meat baked till the crust turns golden? Or perhaps t’other way around?” Her eyes crinkled with good humor. “And then there’s the pewter plate you said we were t’soak to remove the salt while we rubbed the dried herring until it shone!” At that, both women began to laugh out loud while Rosalynde turned pink with embarrassment.

“I … well … my thoughts are somewhat distracted.”

“Aye, so t’would seem. It wouldn’t have anything to do with a certain strapping fellow, would it?”

The color fled Rosalynde’s face in a rush. In sudden terror she faced the two women. Was she so transparent that everyone knew? Had she and Aric been seen? “I—I don’t know what you … what you mean.”

“Ah, so it ain’t that handsome Sir Gilbert who has ye so flutter-witted,” Edith mocked her good-naturedly. She elbowed Maud. “An’ here we thought she was just fallin’ prey to a case of the maidenly jitters. Could be the gossip is wrong about ’im wantin’ to marry ’er.”

Rosalynde’s relief was immediate. It was Gilbert they attributed her absentmindedness to—not Aric! With an enormous sigh she released the breath she’d unconsciously
been holding. “I have been acting strangely, I suppose.” She gave them each a rueful grin.

“No, not strange, given the circumstances.” Edith laughed. “What maiden wouldn’t become scatterbrained to have such a fine gentleman pursuin’ her?”

One maiden wouldn’t, Rosalynde was still thinking later as she sat at the high table between her father and the very man Edith and Maud linked her to. She could not be less interested, in Sir Gilbert Poole, but she was enormously relieved that no one else suspected that. As long as they thought her struck foolish by his presence, they would not question her odd behavior or link it to the foot soldier Aric.

Aric. The very thought of him pushed everything else from her mind. Not the meal, nor Sir Gilbert’s unavoidable presence, nor the conversation going on between him and her father could prevent memories of Aric from sweeping over her.

How had she let things go so far between them? Even now when her skin still tingled from his rough caress and her body ached from their urgent coupling, she could hardly believe it real. She’d sought him out of her own free will. It did no good to pretend she’d only done so at her father’s bidding. The truth was, she’d have searched for him regardless. And though she’d had more than enough opportunity to get away from him, like the most wanton of women she had followed him up that ladder to the dark privacy of the storage loft.

Her thick lashes lowered over eyes that had darkened in remembered passion. She had followed him up that ladder. At the time she would undoubtedly have followed him anywhere. But what about now?

Rosalynde’s eyes opened as noisy laughter burst from her father and Sir Gilbert. She smiled appropriately, although
she’d not heard a word of their discourse. Then she bent her attention to her meal and her thoughts went back to the afternoon.

She did not know what she should do about Aric now, nor how to react when she next saw him. In the aftermath of their violent lovemaking, neither of them had spoken much. For a long while they had lain together on the burlap sacks, catching their breath, not kissing or caressing, but nonetheless getting to know more of one another. It had been a silent communion of souls, she thought with a wistful sigh. In the dim confines of the crude space she had felt safer and more cherished than a queen might, though she be ensconced in the finest castle and recline on the finest of silks. In his arms she’d felt so right, though every logic deemed it wrong beyond comprehension. She might have lain there forever, trying to force reality away, had he not moved first.

“ ’Tis time you returned to your duties,” he had murmured as he sat up. Rosalynde had not responded, only watched as he donned his braies and chausses, and then his chainse and tunic. He was a formidable man in the dress of a soldier. And formidable in the lesser garb of a lover, she’d thought quite fancifully. But unlike her, he’d seemed well aware of their surroundings and the threat of discovery, and his enigmatic gaze had prodded her to rise.

“Let me,” he’d murmured when she had tried to tie the laces on either side of her gown. Rosalynde had swallowed hard as his big hand had nimbly tied the side slits of her gown closed, and she’d become painfully unable to speak. What was one to say after such an earth-shattering experience? How was she to act when the same man who’d brought her to such shuddering pleasure now resumed his daily role as servant and man-at-arms? How was a woman supposed to treat her lover?

It was Aric who decided the matter for her.

“It would be best if you left now,” he’d said, stepping back from her. His head had nearly touched the low rafters, she remembered.

“Y-yes,” she’d agreed weakly.

It would be best, she’d told herself as she’d carefully slipped down the ladder then quickly exited the stables. It was best that she left before anyone remarked on her absence, yet for the remainder of the afternoon she’d felt an aching hollowness within her at such an unresolved parting. Now as wines and ale flowed, and the din of the evening meal grew ever louder, she wondered if he’d been as disappointed to see her go as she had been to leave.

At that moment her unsettled thoughts were interrupted. “I said, Sir Gilbert has asked about the ale,” her father repeated the request she’d not responded to the first time. “He wishes to compliment the alewife.”

Rosalynde turned a chagrined face to her guest, glancing only briefly at her mildly exasperated father. “Oh. Why, thank you, Sir Gilbert. Thank you. I shall surely convey your remarks to her—”

“If you would be so good as to escort me to her, I would as lief tell her myself.”

With her father silently urging her to it, Rosalynde could hardly refuse. But her smile was strained as she rose from the table and accepted Gilbert’s proffered arm. She heard the whispers that followed in their wake as they left the room together, and she tried to reassure herself that she should be pleased. After all, no one would link her to Blacksword if they connected her to Sir Gilbert.