The Witch and The Warrior (25 page)

She was staring at him, her gray eyes sparkling with tears, her fingers raised to her swollen lips, trying to keep them from trembling. She seemed barely more than a child to him in that moment. His guilt intensified a thousandfold.

“I didn't mean for that to happen, Gwendolyn,” he told her bleakly. “I never should have touched you.”

A shudder coursed through her body. She lowered her hands to her sides and clutched her gown, as if searching for something to cling to. Alex watched miserably as her knuckles grew taut and white.

He wanted to take her into his arms and hold her, to cradle her against him as he buried his face in the black silk of her hair and whispered gentle words of reassurance. But his body was already hardening with desire, and he feared if he touched her, he would strip her gown from her and take her once again.

As for words of reassurance—he had none to give.

“You will resume your duties as my son's healer,” he said, his voice incongruously formal given the previous moment's passion.

Gwendolyn stared at him in bewilderment.

“That is all.” He turned away, dismissing her.

“I—I want nothing other than for David to be well,” she said, her voice small and ragged.

He did not respond, but remained with his back to her, staring out his window into the darkness.

Finally, not knowing what else to say, Gwendolyn lifted the latch and let herself out of his chamber.

When he was finally certain she was gone, Alex fell to his knees and stared imploringly at Flora's glittering star, silently begging his wife for forgiveness.

C
HAPTER
9

Someone was banging his skull with a mallet.

Alex groaned and shifted onto his side. The pounding in his brain continued, hard and infuriatingly relentless. He cursed and buried his head under his pillow, struggling to lose himself in sleep once more.

“MacDunn!”
shrieked a woman's voice.
“MacDunn!”

The screeching pierced the thick haze of his weariness. Exasperated, he flung his pillow onto the floor and cracked open an eye. The chamber was shrouded in charcoal light, telling him it was not yet dawn. He sat up slowly, his hand pressed hard against his aching forehead.

“MacDunn!”
screamed Elspeth from the corridor.
“Wake up!”
The banging against the door grew louder, until Alex felt certain his skull was about to explode.

“For God's sake,
cease that racket!”
he roared. He tossed down the covers and stalked angrily across the chamber, only to have his foot collide with an empty wine ewer. Swearing, he gave the object a churlish kick before heaving his chamber door open. “What the hell is it?”

His expression must have been formidable, for neither Elspeth nor Alice seemed able to speak. Their eyes were as wide as cups, and the iron ladle Alice had been using to whack against the door was frozen in midair.

“Speak!”

“Th-the lad,” stammered Elspeth, finally finding her tongue.

“What about him?”

“The witch is…starving him,” Alice managed.

“How the hell could she be starving him?” snapped Alex. “For God's sake, it's still the middle of the night!”

“What's amiss, lad?” Owen asked, sleepily shuffling out from his chamber. He studied Alex a moment, rubbed his eyes with his fists, then looked at him again. “Haven't been the same since the witch melted them,” he muttered.

“By God,
I'm ready!
” Reginald's door flew open and he emerged, dragging his sword behind him. On seeing Alex, he stopped and stared, aghast. “Good Lord, lad, you can't go into battle like that!”

“I wasn't thinking of going anywhere except back to bed.”

“But we're under attack!” Reginald raised his sword, then gazed around in confusion at the small party gathered in the corridor. “Aren't we?”

“I told you it was nothing,” chided Marjorie, stepping from their chamber with a plaid draped around her. “Now come back to bed, before you catch your death of—” She stopped suddenly, staring at Alex.

“What is all this blasted noise about?” demanded Lachlan crossly. “A man requires a minimal amount of sleep, and I don't see how I'm supposed to get it with all of you out here carrying on as if it were a bloody—I say, MacDunn, aren't you cold, running around naked like that?”

“He isn't naked,” Owen assured Lachlan. “It's just your eyes.”

Alex looked down, swore silently, then retreated into his room.

“Tell me what happened,” he ordered, wrapping his plaid around his waist.

“The witch came down to the kitchen and told Alice that David is to have nothing but bread and water,” Elspeth explained. “Nothing.”

“Not so much as an egg, or a bit of meat, or a crumb of cheese,” elaborated Alice. “Or even a wee drop of milk, or a cup of ale, or a piece of fresh fish, or a few sweet berries—”

“I understand,” Alex interrupted her. “Did she say why?”

“Because she is trying to starve him to death!” Elspeth exclaimed. “And it won't be a difficult task, with the lad so sick and so pitifully thin. He'll be dead within a day—two at the very most!”

“I begged her to reconsider and to let me take him some of the fine rabbit stew I made yesterday,” said Alice. “And she told me I was to take him nothing at all, unless I was willing to face your wrath!”

“My wrath?”

“She said you had entrusted David's care to her once again and that you had sworn if anyone disobeyed her orders, you would see to it that they were severely punished.”

Alex vainly tried to recall making such a pledge. Gwendolyn flooded his mind, her slender fingers laced into his hair as she held him to the paleness of her breast, her body pulsing frantically as a breathless cry tore from the back of her throat—

“…Alex?” said Owen, a little louder this time.

Alex inhaled sharply, trying to extinguish the desire raging through his body. “Yes?”

“Did you say that?”

Everyone was staring at him, their expressions grim. The throbbing in his head intensified. Had he told Gwendolyn that? He couldn't remember. All he knew was he had brought her to his chamber and forced himself on her like an animal. And afterward he had fetched several jugs of wine and proceeded to get thoroughly drunk—which accounted for this godawful pounding in his head. He rubbed his temple, trying to think.

If you try to return me to my clan, I will escape and come back here. David needs me.

She had stood before him as she told him this, her determination almost eclipsing her fear. At that moment, she had wanted to stay—for no reason other than to care for his son. After what Alex had done to her last night, he could not blame her if she decided to flee. Instead she was downstairs before first light, embarking on some new, bizarre course of healing. He could not imagine what she hoped to achieve by feeding his son only bread and water. Perhaps it was some sort of cleansing rite in preparation for a spell. All he knew was that she had told him the truth.

No matter what he did to her, she would not abandon his son. “You will respect Gwendolyn's instructions,” he ordered, praying he was not making the wrong decision. “If she says the lad is to eat nothing but bread and water, so be it. No one is to interfere, or secretly feed my son when she isn't there. Is that understood?”

“He will starve to death!” protested Elspeth, horrified.

“Or he may get better,” countered Alex, although in truth he failed to see how. “We shall have to wait and see.”

         

“…and then the terrible giant chewed the warriors until their flesh and bones were nothing but runny, blood-soaked pulp.”

David stared critically at the platter of misshapen bread figures. “These are too fat to be warriors.”

“They grew a bit stout as they baked,” Gwendolyn admitted. “But the giant preferred nice, plump warriors to little scrawny ones.” She handed him one.

“Why are they naked?” he asked, tearing a leg off and popping it into his mouth.

“I tried dressing the first batch in plaids, but when they came out of the oven their plaids had risen so much they looked just like turtles.”

“Can I see them?”

“They were also a little burned,” she confessed, “so I threw them out. But look, I have a nice plate of fish for you.”

His blue eyes widened with anticipation. “Real fish?”

“No. Bread fish.”

He scrunched up his nose. “I'm tired of bread,” he complained, ripping the head off a warrior and squishing it flat with his thumb.

“Maybe if you are still feeling better tomorrow, we will try a little broth.”

David rolled his eyes. “Broth isn't food,” he informed her. “I want something I can chew.”

“Very well,” relented Gwendolyn, encouraged by the fact that he was actually developing an appetite. “I will put something in the broth that you can chew. Now finish eating.”

She watched him as he savagely mutilated the remaining warriors before slowly eating them. She could not blame him for feeling frustrated. For five days now she had fed him nothing but bread and water. On the first day he was too ill to care much, but by the second day he was beginning to feel a little better and quickly began to complain. Unwilling to abandon her experiment too soon, Gwendolyn tried to make his diet more interesting for him by baking the bread into interesting shapes. Early each morning Alice provided her with dough, which Gwendolyn labored to mold into figures that might amuse David. Unfortunately, these forms baked with widely varying degrees of success.

On the first day the fine herd of horses she had created puffed up far more than she expected, until their bellies were bloated and their legs resembled little stumps. She told David they were wild boars, but he pointed out that their tails were too long. The next day she attempted an intricate castle and shaped a laird and an assortment of little clan members to dwell within it. The finely detailed castle emerged from the oven as a giant blob, its inhabitants a scorched collection of smaller blobs. Deciding she needed to simplify her efforts, she went on to shape stars, moons, and a few flowers. But it was difficult to weave an enticingly gory story with such innocuous figures. That was when David suggested she try her hand at monsters. These turned out as bulbous lumps with long necks, and the sharp fangs and talons she had painstakingly fashioned for them spread and baked together, turning into webbed feet and ridiculously misshapen heads. When Gwendolyn told David what they were supposed to be, he burst into laughter and then, sensing her distress, politely assured her they really did look like terrifying monsters.

While her attempts at baking were an unequivocal failure, thus far David's frugal diet was showing promising results. The red spots on his face and neck had disappeared, and he had not suffered from any fits of nausea, vomiting, or diarrhea. Of course Elspeth told her this was because he had nothing inside him, and that he would surely be dead within a day if she didn't give him some decent food. But Gwendolyn made certain David consumed a sufficient quantity of bread and water that his body could reject it if it chose. Miraculously, it did not. Although he remained pale and weak, David had passed five days without sickness. While this did not prove that his illness was caused by the food he ingested, it was possible that whatever was wrong with him made certain foods intolerable to his body. Therefore, Gwendolyn reasoned, if she carefully controlled what he ate, his body might have a chance to rest and grow strong again. If he still fared well tomorrow, she planned to let him have one new food—perhaps an egg or a chunk of cheese—and see how he responded to it.

“When can I go outside again?” he asked, nibbling half-heartedly on a warrior's bloated arm.

“Not for a while,” replied Gwendolyn. “We must wait until you are feeling better.”

“I'm feeling better now. And I'm tired of staying in bed all the time.”

“I know you are. But your father has said you are not to leave the castle without his permission. If you want to go outside, you must ask him if he will allow it.”

“He hasn't visited me for days,” complained David. “Has he gone away?”

“No.”

He frowned. “Then why doesn't he come to see me?”

“I imagine he is very busy. Perhaps he will visit you today and you can ask him about going outside.”

“If he doesn't, will you find him and ask him for me?”

“No.”