LadyOfConquest:SaxonBride (13 page)

“Was he in pain?”

She looked up from knotting the sash around her waist. “He did not speak of any, but I believe so.”

He inclined his head. “What did he speak of?”

She was taken aback by his question. “Little, though he suspected I had poisoned his wine.”

“Understandable.”

She put her chin up. “Because I am Saxon?”

“Because one Pendery has already died because of you.”

Though she accepted the blame, she was sick of hearing it spoken so often by murdering Normans. “How many of my people died because of him?” She jerked her chin at Maxen. “How many innocents did your liege slay in the name of the usurper?”

The knight’s eyes hardened further. “In battle, many were the Saxons who fell to his sword, for which he spent the past two years in repentance.”

“Repentance! All he knows of that is his mockery of it when he donned monk’s clothing and pretended holiness to deceive Edwin and his followers. He does not know God, and never will he.”

“You are wrong. The monk is the truth of him. Since Hastings, and prior to his being summoned to Etcheverry, he served in a monastery. If not for Thomas’s death, he would yet be there.”

Rhiannyn nearly gaped. Upon discovering the identity of the monk who had saved her life, never had she considered he was truly of the brotherhood. She had thought it pretense, the tonsuring of his head an act of sacrifice in the name of revenge.

Reflecting on the night he had preached at the camp, and later when he had stood before the horde and pronounced them sinners for what they meant to do to her, it seemed possible Sir Guy spoke the truth.

Maxen—Brother Justus—had swept away her suspicions by presenting himself as a monk worthy of his station. She had felt God in his words, drawn strength from them, and known a kind of peace before Dora had shattered it with her accusations. Still, the man Rhiannyn had come to know these past days did not fit the monk Sir Guy said he had been.

But as if to push her nearer the truth, she recalled the words Maxen had spoken when he had kissed her.

It has been a long time.

Surely only a man long without the company of a woman would desire one he hated.

She shook her head. “His anger is too great, his manner too vengeful.”

“You are surprised?” Sir Guy raised his eyebrows. “A second brother has been killed, forcing Maxen to renounce his chosen life to hold safe what belongs to his family.
Non
, Rhiannyn, he is not a saint. No man truly of this earth is. He is but a man who, in one day, lost two things precious to him. And both because of you.”

Yet another lost life upon her conscience. Maxen was not dead—at least, not yet—but the man he had chosen to become after Hastings was no more, and all because she had refused to be Thomas’s wife.

Sorrows multiplying, she looked past the knight to his lord and acknowledged that somewhere there dwelt a human. A man who had given his life to God to atone for the lives he had taken. A man who had risked his life to save hers. But did he yet exist? If so, could he be reached?

“Had I known…” She trailed off, for she did not know what difference it would make had the truth of Maxen Pendery been known.

“You would still be Saxon,” Sir Guy said, “and he Norman. You would protect the one you refuse him, and he would seek him.”

In one thing the knight was wrong. Regardless of who had killed Thomas, if she knew the name, she would speak it to save the lives of all the others.

“I warn you,” Sir Guy said, “If Maxen dies, I will seek your punishment.”

“This I know.” She moved her gaze to his lord’s still form, and heard the knight’s booted feet crush rushes as he departed.

Where was the Maxen of mercy? she wondered. Where was the one with the power to bring peace to Etcheverry? And peace this Norman must bring, for to continue believing the Saxons would one day drive out the Normans was a delusion too long fostered. Barring a miracle, Duke William and his barons were here to stay.

Accepting that hurt even more than Rhiannyn would have believed, but it also gave her hope.

“You will not die, Maxen,” she whispered. “Where you are, I will find you.”

Following a nooning meal accompanied by raucous noise from beyond the screen, Christophe and Theta returned.

Rhiannyn stood and looked to the other woman. “You are not needed,” she said.

Theta’s smirk flattened as she turned from the table upon which she had emptied her armful of bandages. “What speak you of?”

“I will assist Christophe in tending his brother.”

“Truly?” Christophe said.

Theta pushed past him and halted so near Rhiannyn the latter was forced to tip her head back. “As if any would trust you! Is it not enough Thomas is dead because of you? And Maxen may die as well?”

It bothered Rhiannyn that the woman referred to the new lord of Etcheverry with such familiarity, the same as she had done with Thomas even after he had made it clear he would not wed her.

Though Rhiannyn longed to step back so she would not have to crane her neck, she knew it would appear as if she backed down. “Maxen will live,” she said, “and I will assist Christophe to that end.”

“Away with you! Take your chain and cower in yon corner.”

“’Tis you who must leave,” Rhiannyn persisted.

Theta snorted. “She is high and mighty for a prisoner, would you not say, Christophe?”

The young man hesitated, clearly uncertain as to the role he should play in this contest of wills.

“I will not leave,” Theta said and shoved Rhiannyn.

Recovering her balance, Rhiannyn said between her teeth, “And I will not tell you again. Go.”

There would not be a better time for Christophe to prevent a fray, and as if he sensed it, he stepped between the women and took hold of Theta’s arm. Unlike his brother who stood well above him, he came eye to eye with the woman.

“To tend my brother,” he said, “I need only one other pair of hands. As Rhiannyn is willing to lend hers, your time is best spent tending your people.”

Surprise flashed across Theta’s face, but was quickly displaced by anger. “At your side is where I belong, not alone among filthy Saxons.”

Had Rhiannyn not been separated from the woman by Christophe’s body, she might have set herself upon Theta. It was insult enough to be called names by the Normans, but by one who was also of Saxon birth…

“I have spoken,” Christophe said. “Henceforth, Rhiannyn will assist with my brother.”

Theta peered around Christophe and gave Rhiannyn a twisted smile. “’Tis good to know you are as much a harlot as I, but when Maxen is done with you, know this—he will come back to me, just as Thomas would have had you not murdered him.”

Her belief that Rhiannyn’s offer to assist Christophe was an attempt to gain Maxen’s bed was almost laughable, but no laughter spilled from Rhiannyn. The intimation that Maxen had already had the woman to bed was too disturbing.

Hips swinging, Theta withdrew.

“I apologize,” Christophe said. “I should not have allowed her to say such things to you.”

“You are not at fault. Theta says what Theta wants.”

“If not that she is so unmoved by the sight of blood, I would not have anything to do with her. But she serves me well.”

“I understand, Christophe.”

He nibbled his lower lip. “Mayhap you will explain why you have offered to take her place.”

“Sir Guy told me the reason your brother is the way he is—what he gave up to succeed Thomas.”

“You did not know?”

She shook her head. “I thought it a disguise your brother used to deceive me. Now I better understand, and methinks there must be some compassion in him, some way to reach him and prevent more deaths.”

Sorrowfully, Christophe shook his head. “The Maxen I knew of old—years before Hastings—might have been reachable, but this one… I fear not even your goodness and beauty can change who he has become.”

But if he could not be changed, why had he committed his life to God following the slaughter at Hastings? Could one truly incapable of change do something so selfless?

“Methinks you are a dreamer, Rhiannyn.”

She blinked, offered Christophe a strained smile. “And you are becoming a terrible skeptic.”

He shrugged. “Maxen brings that out in others. But come, let me show you what needs to be done.”

She followed him to the bed and watched as he raised his brother’s undertunic and removed the bandages.

“It is not worsening,” he said as he examined the wound, “but neither does it look to be improving.”

“The stitches hold?”

“They do.” He began to instruct her in how to cleanse the wound, and as he spoke, he performed the task and explained his reason for using the salve he had chosen.

“Now you.” He placed fresh bandages in her hands. “When I raise him, pass these beneath.”

They quickly accomplished the task, though more for the strain on Christophe’s arms than the comfort of his brother who slept through it.

“Secure them,” Christophe said and began picking through the items on the table.

Had it been any other whom she passed her hands over, it would have seemed meant for a simpleton. But it was Maxen, and her fingers turned clumsy as they swept smooth muscle.

“Good,” Christophe said when she finished. “Now cool him as Theta did.”

She placed the basin of water on the floor beside her, wet the cloth, and worked it from Maxen’s moist brow down to his neck.

As she raised his undertunic higher, Christophe stoppered the bottle from which he had emptied powder into the wine Theta had brought and said, “When he awakens, have him drink this.”

“I will give it to him,” she said, silently adding that this time there would be a different outcome to her offering drink to Maxen.

Christophe gathered up his things. “I will return ere dark. Send for me if he worsens.”

Though she preferred he remain until she finished swabbing his brother, she knew he was needed elsewhere. “I shall,” she said.

He crossed to the screen and paused. “Rhiannyn?”

She looked up.

“I had naught to do with Maxen’s plans to follow you to Edwin’s camp,” he blurted. “You believe me, do you not?”

“Of course I do.”

His features relaxed, and he departed.

Rhiannyn rewetted the cloth and drew it down Maxen’s chest to his abdomen above the waistband of his braies. Next, she moved to the end of the bed, turned up the coverlet, and cooled his feet and lower legs.

It was strange to willingly touch The Bloodlust Warrior of Hastings, to learn his body in a way few but lovers would ever know it. But it was necessary. So necessary.

Later, when he rose to partial consciousness, she offered the wine, bracing herself should he attempt to test it the same as he had done that morn. But he was too delirious and eagerly drank as she held the rim to his lips.

“I burn,” he breathed as he settled back to his pillow.

The water in the basin was no longer chilled, but Rhiannyn wet a cloth and laid it on his brow. “Try to sleep.”

As she started to straighten, he reached to her and placed his palm against her cheek. “Angel,” he rasped. “Stay.”

Though she knew the words were formed by an incoherent mind, her hope was furthered that he might, indeed, be reachable. “I will not leave you,” she said. “Now, sleep.”

He closed his eyes, trailed his fingers down her neck to the V of her bliaut, and dropped his arm to his side.

Rhiannyn stepped back and rubbed her hands over her arms.

Cold is what I am,
she told herself.
Only cold.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The days fell one over the other, Maxen’s illness taking him into an unconsciousness so deep he could not know who assisted Christophe in the cleansing and bandaging of his wound; who cooled his body and wet his parched mouth; who slept lightly beside his bed during the long nights; who coaxed him from dreams in which he called out to Nils; who by sight and touch became familiar with nearly every span of his battle-battered flesh.

He did not know, but others knew it was Rhiannyn who refused him the peace of death, though it often seemed the best end for him. Those who came and went—Christophe, Sir Guy, servants bearing viands, and occasionally Sir Ancel—cast their curiosity upon her. And the eyes with which Sir Guy watched her lost much of their condemnation.

On the fifth day, as night began to give unto morn, Rhiannyn awakened, though what had roused her she could not have said.

“Maxen?” She rose from her pallet alongside the bed and touched his arm. His skin was frighteningly cold.

“Ah, nay,” she whispered, but before the cry rising up her throat passed her lips, his body shook and he groaned.

It was not death come for him. Not yet.

Praying his chill was caused by the sudden breaking of his fever, she looked near upon his shadowed face. “Maxen?”

“Cold,” he said and threw out a hand to retrieve the coverlet he had earlier kicked off.

“I have it.” She reached to the foot of the bed, untangled it from his legs, and pulled it up over him. As she tucked it around him, he shook again, and with more violence.

She snatched up her own blanket and spread it over him, but it was not enough, and there were no more covers to provide the warmth he needed.

There is you,
whispered a voice that roused childhood memories of the bitingly cold nights she and her brothers had crept off their pallets to share their mother and father’s bed. The warmth of body cradling body had been unequalled by fire or blanket.

Of course, she could call for more covering, but it would awaken many. And was there not a better solution at hand? Though she would not begin to consider such intimacy were Maxen not so ill, she lifted the covers and, chain rattling, slid in beside him.

With an answering rattle, he turned onto his side, curved an arm around her waist, and drew her back against him.

She held her breath as the manacle on his wrist pressed into her abdomen and he fit his muscled contours to her softer ones. It was almost too much, this embrace made for lovers, but she would give him what he needed.

Slowly emptying her lungs, she tried to relax, but it was impossible with chills continuing to rack him.