Paladin's Prize (Age of Heroes, Book 1) (6 page)

He chuckled as he washed himself. “So that’s the way of it, then.”

“You should’ve heard our arguments when I told her I wanted to join the Daughters for a while before settling down. Lots of girls from fashionable families do as much!”

“That’s true,” he said. “It’s not like the old days when girls weren’t allowed to do anything.”

She nodded emphatically. “For me, this was a natural fit. I’ve always had spiritual inclinations, but when I discovered I had some healing ability, too, I wanted to go to university at the Bastion to develop it. Thankfully, my father gave me his permission.”

“Your mother finally gave in?”

“Begrudgingly.” Wrynne did an arch imitation of the bejeweled baroness. “‘I suppose it is customary for a genteel family to pledge a son or daughter to the church, if they have an extra one to spare.’ Thank goodness I’m the spare. There are four of us—I’m the second child. Boy, girl, boy, girl.” She caught herself. “Here I am, boring you to death when you just barely survived last night. Forgive me—”

“Nonsense! I want to know all about the woman who saved my life. And besides, do you know how rare it is for me that I get to be just a person for once, having a normal, human conversation? I am so glad not to be discussing military strategy or politics… So talk to me!” he ordered in a jovial tone. “Tell me about these brothers and sisters of yours. What are they like?”

She gazed at him, intrigued. Then she sighed and shook her head. “All I can say about my brothers is that they’re both very silly young men. My sister Juliana, the baby of the family—well, let’s just say, she’s exactly like Mama. Juliana would
enjoy
straightening a royal lady’s train all day.”

“What about your father?” he asked, clearly enjoying this.

His genuine interest drew her out, overcoming her usual shy tendencies. “Ah, he’s a good sort. Blustery, but kind. He’s very busy, but he’ll always drop everything for us when we need him. In fact, I am sure that if word of the Urmugoth incursion has reached Pleiburg, Papa is already in the process of hiring the fiercest mercenaries in the kingdom to come and retrieve me. Whisk me home to safety, while the people I came here to serve were left behind to get slaughtered.” She shuddered. “Thanks to you, our nightmare here is over now.”

“And thanks to you, I live to brag about it.”

They smiled at each other from across the water.

“Come, Sir Thaydor,” she said softly, “everybody knows you don’t brag.”

In that moment, neither could look away.

Wrynne did not know what was happening here. Thaydor didn’t seem to know, either.

He lowered his head with an almost boyish air of innocent wariness, then glanced at her again, his lashes starred with water droplets. But a very adult, male hunger had begun to simmer in his eyes.

The awareness that charged the air between them almost overwhelmed her. Cheeks flushed, Wrynne looked away, casting about for the lighter mood of a moment ago before she was tempted to do something very foolish.

Like slip her dress off and join him in the pool.

She ignored her racing heartbeat and strove for a normal tone. If he wanted to talk, let him talk. “So, what about
your
family?”

He looked relieved by the question as he started rinsing the soap off his arms. “My father, the earl. My sister, Lady Ingrid, the pest. She’s seventeen.”

“Same age as my sister! And what about your mother?”

He stiffened a bit. “Sadly, she passed away when I was a lad.”

“Oh…I’m so sorry.”

There seemed a world of meaning behind his terse nod. “Thanks.”

She quickly changed the subject with a smile. “And why is your sister a pest?”

“Oh, so many reasons.” His easy air returned.

“Such as?”

“Well, she calls me ‘Clank,’ for starters.”

“Ah, because of the armor?” Wrynne asked with a chuckle.

He nodded with a long-suffering smile.

“And your father? Earl Clarenbeld, is it?”

“Known as the War Hammer. But the only thing my old man usually hammers these days is tankards of ale,” he said fondly. “I swear, he can drink a Viking warlord under the table. Even then, he still makes more sense than most people I know. We’re quite close. Oh—and I have a grandmother with fifty cats.” He gave her a look that said,
Beat that.

She grinned as he finished rinsing.

For some reason, she hadn’t expected a head-bashing warrior like him to have a sense of humor, let alone a family that sounded as ordinary yet maddening as her own, given his exalted lineage.

He might be a hero, but he was still just a person, she mused. One who’d lost his mother at a young age, too. That she hadn’t known. As she got to her feet, she wondered what had happened to the countess, but she didn’t dare pry further. Still, she couldn’t help wondering if perhaps this early loss was part of what drove him to protect everybody.

“Here you are.” She handed him a towel, then turned away politely while he climbed out of the pool and wrapped it around his waist.

“I really must ask,” he said from behind her. “How did you do it? Save me, I mean.”

She turned around, recalling the harrowing moments of working the
Kiss of Life
spell on him.

“It must have been some incredibly powerful magic,” he said. “Because look at me…”

Oh, I’m looking. Believe me.

“I’m not just healed from the other night. Even my old scars are gone. I rather liked some of those scars,” he jested, his smile fading as he gazed at her. “How did you do this to me?”

Wrynne decided on the spot not to burden him with the details of her own little sacrifice. He was already under enough pressure, with the fate of the kingdom resting on his shoulders every other week. With his chivalrous nature, she didn’t want him to feel any sense of obligation to her.

“Ilios did it, Thaydor. I was just the conduit.”

“A very powerful conduit. I have some healing ability myself, but nothing like that.”

She shrugged, smiled, and avoided his gaze. “I don’t know how it works. I was merely doing my duty. Oh, that reminds me. Your clothes. Wait right there.”

She walked over and knelt down by the pile of dirty, bloodstained clothes he had left on the ground. He watched her as she closed her eyes and sought the peace within herself until she tapped into the power of the Light.

Given the Daughters’ vow to love and serve others, the novitiates of Ilios were taught only that white magic that furthered their missions.
Feed the Poor
could conjure a single healthy meal for a hungry person, for example, and
Clothe the Naked
could restore a beggar’s tattered rags to new condition, both for warmth and to give him back his dignity.

Heal the Sick
had, of course, been the core of her studies, but there was also
Comfort the Sorrowing
, which calmed someone hysterical with grief or terror.

Such works, her superiors taught, were the proper use of magic, not the wild-and-woolly, anything-goes conjurings of sorcerers, nor the purely selfish manifestations of talented but irresponsible witches. Enchantresses who followed other schools of magic could wish into existence a glamorous wardrobe of silk and velvet gowns for themselves and never even notice the ragged children they strutted past in the streets.

Fortunately, only a small percentage of the population was born with magical ability, but it could be bestowed by one’s god in exchange for a pledge of service. For those with a certain spark of natural ability, it could also be taught, though such knowledge was highly guarded.

Under strict instruction at the Bastion, the headquarters and small home city of the Ilian church, most clerics learned how to channel the Light into manifesting simple things for others. These tokens were always to be offered as gifts from the Creator and proof of his love for all his children.

She felt the power flow out easily from her hands in a short, sweet blast, and when she opened her eyes, she smiled to see Thaydor’s clothes all neatly folded in a stack, not a mark on them.

She rose and turned to him. “I’ll leave you here to dress. Are you hungry?”

“No, I ate what you left out.” His eyes suddenly widened. “I hope that was for me!”

She chuckled. “Of course it was. I’m glad you made yourself at home,” she said warmly. “You’re welcome to stay as long as you like.”

“Hmm, thanks. I do have to get out there and find my horse. Although he’s usually pretty good about finding me.”

“Avalanche?” she asked in delight. “I should like to meet him. What about your squire?”

Thaydor’s face fell. Such pain passed behind his eyes at the question that she wished she had never asked. “He didn’t make it. I told him to stay back. They never listen. So it seems I’ve lost another one.” He shook his head. “Do you have a shovel I could borrow? I have to bury the poor lad.”

“Yes, I keep one for my garden. I will help you.”

“It’s grim work, my lady. You don’t want to see what the Urmugoths did to him.
I
do not want for you to see it.”

“Leave you to face such an awful task alone, when you’re the one who knew him, trained him? No, it’s too sad. I’m coming with you.”

He walked closer to her, heading for his clothes. “I’ve buried plenty of friends, believe me.”

“I’ll bet you have. I’m just glad
you’re
still with us. That was a near thing, down there on that field.”

“It must have been very frightening for you. Thank you for what you did for me. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t come. Well, actually, I do know,” he said wryly as he came to stand before her.

She gazed up at him, ignoring as best she could the water droplet that slid sensuously down his chest at about her eye level. “You said you saw Elysium,” she murmured.

He nodded with an otherworldly glow in his cobalt eyes.

“What was it like?” she whispered.

Her heart skipped as he cupped her cheek in his hand. “It was a lot like this,” he said softly. Then he quite startled her when he leaned down and kissed her chastely on the forehead. “My lady, you can say that I don’t owe you all you please. But I will never forget what you did for me. If you ever need…
anything
, you just let me know.”

After this solemn promise, he drew back and gazed at her with such unnerving intensity that Wrynne couldn’t draw a breath.

Her pulse galloped like a cavalry charge.

Routed, she looked away, fumbling with embarrassment. “Well, um, your recovery is remarkable in any case.” She cleared her throat and tried not to let him notice that she, sensible Wrynne, Mother’s steady daughter, could have fainted like a nincompoop. “You really feel no side effects at all?”

“Well, I wouldn’t say that,” he admitted with a rueful smile, stepping back to put a safer distance between them, considering he was still wearing nothing but a towel. “Nothing’s broken anymore. There’s not a scratch on me. And bathing seems to have made me human again, but to be perfectly honest? I feel like I rolled down a mountainside strapped to a boulder.”

She chuckled. “Aches and pains?”

“A bit,” he said pointedly.

She nodded.
I had that, too
.
It was miserable.

“All things considered, though,” Thaydor said, “I’ll take it.”

“You might not have to.”

“What, you’ve got a potion for me now?” he asked as she went to retrieve her basket with the soaps and things.

“Not exactly,” she said with a laugh, avoiding his gaze and dismissing the cautionary alert that flared in her mind.
Dangerous territory.

Nonsense, this is for healing purposes only.

Yes, she could admit there was some sort of powerful attraction here, but neither Thaydor nor she were the sort of people who would let themselves be swept away by sensuality.

Others might indulge such passions, but they were both committed to Ilian principles of virtue and surely could be trusted to behave.

Besides, if her earlier hypothesis was right and the king was out to get him, who knew what sort of threat might show up next? She needed to get her patient back to his full strength and fighting capacity as quickly as possible.

How
she was going to broach the subject of the king’s possible treachery, she had no idea, let alone
when
. The poor man had only just awakened from a death-sleep and still needed to rest. She longed to protect him from such dire news at least for a little while, so he could finish healing.

But it might not be possible to wait. That red knight, the assassin from her dream, had made it all the way to her doorstep. He might still come back.

She lifted a bottle out of the basket, still unable to meet his gaze. “Come, lie down on your stomach,” she ordered. “Let’s see what we can do about those sore muscles. This should give you some relief.”

“What is it?” he asked warily.

She studied the bottle. It was easier than looking in his eyes and reading in them the same tug-of-war that she was feeling. Want versus virtue. Practicality versus lust.

“Oh, it’s my own concoction,” she said with a shrug, trying to sound nonchalant. “A liniment oil made with comfrey and leopard’s bane, a tincture of rue, and a little salve of myrrh. It helps relax strained muscles and tendons. Speeds the healing of bruises and other injuries. It’ll make you feel better…” She stole a sideward glance to gauge his reaction. “I promise.”

* * *

Oh, I don’t doubt it.

Thaydor searched her lovely face through narrowed eyes, his heart pounding.

He finally decided she was not trying to seduce him and shrugged. “All right.” What did he have to lose? “Here?”

She nodded. “You’ll be warmer in the sun.”