Beauteous book two age o.., p.4
BEAUTEOUS: Book Two: Age of Honor, page 4
Pressing his lips against a shout, he looked around. As he dropped his chin to verify he had not lost the dagger that could evidence he had passed this way, he caught a whirl of blue and sweep of white wings.
Warning given. Dagger present.
Though tempted to look upon the face of the nymph who came about, it was no fit for survival, especially with consciousness being tugged between his will and the loss of blood like dogs fighting over a wedge of fat easily torn in half to satisfy both.
“God in heaven,” he appealed as he sought the best route to conceal his passage and provide a place to stanch the bleeding. “Aid me, and let the nymph be of enough wit she goes to ground lest the riders come her way.”
These things she knew—
Sinjin Daschiel of brown hair and russet beard had escaped the king’s men, just as he had the Tower of London following his loss to her brother.
He was injured, as evidenced by blood staining his mount’s side.
He had seen Skyward and her since the sound and sight of him had been sudden rather than gradual.
But he could not have seen my face, she assured herself, having kept her back to the ridge to keep the risen sun out of her eyes. Too, when she had swung around, he had not looked upon her as he dashed past.
Also known was he had altered his northern course, veering slightly east toward—
Shaking her head to send memories of that place back to the depths, she told herself he went that way only to lead the king’s men astray. Before long he would resume his course to reach the borderlands of the North. And if his pursuers had his scent, soon they would pass near her.
Very soon, she amended when she caught the pound of hooves she guessed numbered sixteen—four for each of his enraged escort.
“Enraged,” she whispered and saw again the blood on Sir Sinjin’s mount. Strangely moved to aid one her king believed due imprisonment, she raised the owl high. “Take wing, my fine fellow!”
He lifted off and, with a lean the first few flaps, stayed aloft until he chose a different tree to light upon as done each time as if from another vantage he might glimpse home.
Regretting she had not taught him the command of stay familiar to Stern’s wolfhounds, she hoped he would remain unseen the same as she. But first, the blood.
Hearing Sir Sinjin’s pursuers draw nearer, blessedly at a diagonal course, she swept up light skirts and ran the incline to where she had seen the knight spur away.
Though certain only because she knew where to look the glistening crimson atop mouldering leaves drew her eye, she overturned and scattered them with sweeps of her soft leather boots. Then thinking her questionable good deed done, she turned to confirm there was no evidence Sir Sinjin had been here. And nearly laughed at herself.
Even if his pursuers passed where she stood, they would do so at such speed the blood she concealed would not have been seen unless something—namely, her—made them slow. As the greatest aid she could give the knight was to escape notice, she started to retreat, but a shift of sunlight caused a puddle to shine on a large, flat rock. Likely he had paused there to look upon the curiosity of one he could not know was the same offended on the night past.
Ondine ran and, confirming it was blood, scooped leaves over it.
It was enough, she assured herself as the pounding hooves warned riders would soon appear—and had altered their course enough they might have caught sight of that much blood even at a swift pace.
She swung away. Hastening down the rise, she looked up to confirm Skyward had yet to fly off in pursuit of his former life. He was there, a white splotch against the dark of naked branches and blue sky.
Certain he watched her, she sprang around the backside of his tree and, ensuring her gown was not visible, pressed her back against it and tried to calm her breathing to better hear those nearly upon the ridge.
“Pray, ride on. Do not veer east. Stay north.”
They did as bid, as further verified when she peered around the tree and saw the four pass at good speed.
“Put as much distance as possible between you and them, Sir Sinjin,” she whispered. “And pray, tend your injury ere more blood is lost. If you stay northeast a time—”
Once more beset with memories of the place toward which he moved and might encounter were he observant, she sprang forward and winced over the sound of her gown’s fine threads snapping free of rough bark.
“The evil is gone from there,” she assured herself. Providing the king’s men did not adjust their course and themselves happen upon the abandoned lodge, Sir Sinjin would have a safe place to tend his injury. But were it severe, he might die there for lack of proper care. Perhaps she—
Nay! fear of the past protested. He is a warrior of formidable stock who sat well the saddle despite his injury. No matter where he pauses, he can tend himself.
What of the blood on the rock? her conscience jabbed.
Not so much as to be life-threatening, she countered, but needed no unbidden voice to tell it was not only there he had lost blood. Just as it had stained his horse’s side and the leaves she overturned, he had bled before pausing and would do so until his injury was closed up.
“Not my concern,” she said and called Skyward down, then started back to the borrowed horse she had not meant to leave so far behind when she dismounted to further strengthen the owl’s wing. However, once astride with her mantle returned to her shoulders, she was beset with memories of Sir Sinjin protecting Séverine and the child made with Hector, the kindness, tolerance, even humor shown the intrusive Fira, and smiles slanted at the veiled one from atop the high table to let her know he felt her.
Felt because of attraction for one of good figure, youth, lightness of step, and a voice she herself liked for requiring no affectation? Aye, but only until he saw behind the veil. Which he would not, she told herself as thoughts of making her way to Stern swung instead toward a northeasterly course.
Very well, but only so far, she acceded. She owed the knight nothing, but if later he was found lifeless where so many loved ones had become bodies for the burying, greater her haunting for disregarding her conscience.
“A detour, Skyward,” she said and looked to the owl settled atop one thigh.
Having raised his lower eyelids, he slept as often done following exercise. But as she had learned, it was the sleep of one whose mind remained half awake, ready to rouse the predator of him.
Cupping a hand around Skyward, she said, “Only a detour, then we steal back into Stern with none the wiser.”
Chapter 4
Not only a detour.
“Lord!” Ondine beseeched, reining in so sharply Skyward screeched and shuffled his feathers.
Sir Sinjin was ahead. Draped over the neck of his grazing horse and possibly beyond help, he could not know how near he had been to gaining shelter.
Though the lodge was out of sight, she felt its presence as if she were Jonah of the Bible and that place was the great fish yet holding her in its belly. Despite agony dealt by evil circling her there, the lodge had preserved her life in a way similar to how the fish preserved Jonah. However, unlike that creature of the sea, she could have no good regard for it since only one life was brought back from the edge of death, all others taken between her fevers and writhings.
The lodge was to have been burned afterward, but new outbreaks had spared it to continue providing isolation for the afflicted. Though it was years since the Great Mortality departed Wulfenshire and a new hunting lodge had been raised distant from this one, Hector had left standing that place of much suffering, not trusting the pestilence to remain wherever it was locked away.
Each time Ondine awakened from dreams that flung her back into that timber room, she considered setting the lodge afire, but as it would require drawing exceedingly near, ever she put it from her.
Another shuffle of feathers returning her to this year, she was horrified to find she but stared at a man who, if he lived, might not for her going far inside herself.
Firming her hold on Skyward, she urged her mount to a canter, causing Sir Sinjin’s horse to lift its head and watch her approach. Not so the man whose face remained turned down against a silken mane.
Halting alongside him, Ondine set a hand on his back but felt no beat of the heart. “’Tis not so,” she rasped. “You cannot be—”
His chest expanded slightly and he mumbled something. Sinjin Daschiel yet lived.
She reached to raise his face and, realizing he might look upon hers were he to open his eyes, flipped the hood so far over her head it almost obscured her vision.
“Dagger…lost,” he said.
He had to refer to what pierced him since no weapons had been permitted the prisoner. Guessing he had left it embedded until it could be properly removed to prevent a sudden loss of blood, she asked, “Where were you stuck?”
He did not answer, but remembering crimson on his horse’s opposite side, she guided her mount around. The point of entry was evident, the lower portion of his boot discolored and drops beading on its heel.
Wulfenshire being nearer than Stern, it was the place to take him, but that was possible only if the blood was stanched and he could ride that distance afterward. The first she could manage, being versed in healing as were most ladies of Wulfen, but she doubted he would be able to travel afterward. And could he, it might land him back in the hands of the king’s men.
Better than death, she thought, then thought again. Better unless his escape secured a sentence of death more terrible than bleeding out.
She told herself she had no control over that, only of stopping the loss of blood, but what that would require of her…
’Tis only walls, windows, floors, and ceilings, Ondine! Shelter for one much in need. And perhaps some redemption for that house of death should he live.
“Please do not take him,” she whispered heavenward, then leaned near. “You made good your escape, Sir Knight. Now I shall guide your horse to where I can tend your injury.”
His only response was a shift of shoulders as of drawn breath.
After freeing the reins pinned by his chest, she drew them up over his mount’s head and urged both horses toward that place she did not wish to go.
“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want,” she whispered the psalm of comfort while convulsively pressing fingers into Skyward and glancing over her shoulder to ensure Sir Sinjin remained astride as they negotiated the overgrown road.
Too soon for her, possibly not soon enough for the knight, she glimpsed the lodge she had refused to look back at when Hector carried her outside to deliver her home where she would recuperate—and hope for the healing of flesh that, in the end, was given in too little measure.
Hearing the click of dear Roslyn’s tongue ahead of wise and comforting words, Ondine ceased reciting the psalm and sent up her own of which that lady would approve. “Lord, let me not go there alone. Be my side. Be my strength. Bury those terrors beneath leaves—nay, stones—of such number they cannot escape and spring upon me.”
When the hunting lodge was directly ahead, the terrors did not spring upon her. Like smoke, they threaded through gaps in the stones pressing them down.
Dry mouthed, she looked upon that which was overgrown like the road—spindly bushes and scrawny saplings rising up walls and shuttered windows, haphazard vines outpacing them in a race to reach the roof, black mold splotching rough-hewn timbers.
There was sunlight here for autumn having come and nearly gone, but less than in other areas of the wood for an abundance of aged evergreens appearing to stand sentinel over the lodge.
Appearance only, she thought bitterly, those wooden soldiers having allowed enemy after enemy to torment, slay, and carry off the good beneath their watch.
Cold and growing colder, feeling as if pricked by needles, Ondine drew rein thirty feet from the iron-banded door that yet hung solid, straight, and imposing in its carved frame. Absent mold unlike the rest of the lodge’s exterior, it was a charmer standing front and center as if to draw one inside with the hope of being further charmed. But she knew better.
Skyward turning restless as if sensing her roiling, she stroked his wing and questioned if it was necessary to go inside.
If she could reposition the knight, draping him over his horse’s back, she should be able to remove his boot and bind his injury, secure him to the saddle, and continue to Wulfen Castle where Hector would know what to do and a physician would tend him.
She leaned that way, and would have yielded if not for the possibility the king’s men would turn east to search that direction and call at Wulfen.
“It must be here,” she said and urged the horses near the door bounded both sides by windows also in good repair, the planks of their shutters well seamed and hinges intact.
Hating she could hear the coursing of her blood, Ondine moved Skyward off her lap onto the pommel, then gripping the saddle’s front edge, dismounted.
After removing her mantle and tossing it over the saddle, she drew the veil from around her neck, positioned it over her face, and stepped alongside Sir Sinjin’s horse.
A hand to the knight’s back confirming he yet breathed, she said to one likely unconsciousness, “’Tis time to come down. As you will be of no aid, I can but give my word I shall do all I can to prevent further injury.” Unfortunately, all was not much for one of her size and strength.
She freed his left boot from the stirrup and was not surprised when removal of the right caused him to groan. Blessedly, he soon returned to silence where she prayed he would remain throughout what would be worse were he present enough to feel it—a humiliating dismount.
Wishing the cold of her was due to an absence of mantle, she patted the knight’s calm horse. Grateful for an ease with animals that came so naturally her mother had said it was God-given, she said, “You are a fine and faithful steed.”
He eyed her, nickered.
Upon returning to Sir Sinjin to drag him down the left side as seemed the best way to protect his injured right, with little thought she set a hand on his crown as if he were a pet to be soothed. And marveled how silken those dark brown strands. Her own were soft, but his more so.
Determinedly, Ondine cast off such musings, only to wish she had not for the past dropping her back on the mattress inside the lodge from which she—
She gave a shake of the head, hooked one hand under the knight’s right arm and slid her other arm under his left. “Forgive me for any hurts,” she said and braced one leg behind and pulled.
He was not heavy like those who carry much fat. However, his muscular frame presented a challenge when he slid down the horse and tipped into her, causing her bracing leg to falter and foot to skid over dirt. She was losing control, but if she could get him to land well, he need never know she was to fault for whatever aches resulted.
Tightening her arms around him, she pressed his back hard to her chest and strained her legs to keep them from folding, but when his hips followed, her feet went out from under her. Fortunately, a twist caused by the force of his dismount landed both on their sides rather than her beneath.
Skyward screeched, Sir Sinjin groaned, and Ondine muffled a cry. There was no crack of bone, and the ache now felt would leave bruises, but that seemed the worst of it.
Dragging her arm out from under the warrior, she rolled to her back, then staring at the sky through her veil, breathed in and out as she inventoried her body to confirm no great harm was done. None, though she would hurt for days and, for it happening here, feel it in other ways.
She sat up and placed a hand on the knight’s shoulder to press him onto his back. His face was turned opposite, but enough was seen to confirm he was not conscious. Also seen were manacled wrists as she should have expected since his arms had not hung loose over the horse. Possibly, to aid in remaining astride, he had hooked the short chain over the pommel as darkness descended.
“I am sorry, Sir Sinjin. I believed myself stronger.” She stood and looked to the owl now perched on the saddle atop her mantle. As if he knew they would be here a time, he had settled in.
Only as long as necessary, she assured herself, though she did not know what came after she stopped the knight’s bleeding.
As she turned toward the lodge, she reminded herself, I am a Wulfrith. Then heart pounding, she strode forward, worked the handle, and thrust the door inward.
Without looking near on what was almost all shadow for shuttered windows and no firelight, she said, “I am returned. Grieve me not, and I shall grieve you none.” Then recalling the wish to set it afire, she added, “Mayhap.”
She returned to Sir Sinjin and drew his hands above his head. Gripping the chain between them, she dragged him toward this place on earth that for her and others had become what churchmen called the abode of perpetual fire where the wicked were punished in death. Without cease.
The interior did not match the exterior. Ondine did not need to look close at the great room to know that—and not only because her eyes adjusted to the dim beyond the light from the doorway. There was something very wrong inside the lodge—or better said, too much right.
Where was the scent of the dying that should still choke one’s senses? Where was the trapped odor of decay in partnership with the black growth outside? What had become of the abandoned cots and pallets where the stricken breathed their last? More disturbing, who had returned here furnishings stored in the rooms abovestairs when the ground floor was transformed into an infirmary?
Was it possible someone had made this their home though they were absent now? At least, she was almost certain no others were here, and that was due to Skyward having flown to the doorway after she pulled Sir Sinjin inside and walking the threshold between pauses of what seemed assessment. Then he had ascended to the timber shelf built into the fireplace’s stonework. His senses being honed, it comforted he perched there and appeared relaxed.
