Beloved Stranger (8 page)

“Aye,” he whispered.

He took the water she offered him, a drip at a time, then a swallow.

“The fever is fading,” she said. She put fingers to his cheek. He felt calluses on her fingers, yet her touch felt good. So good he was disappointed when she withdrew her hand.

He asked the question that had been plaguing him. “How did you happen to find me?”

She hesitated. Her eyes would not quite meet his. “I was gathering items from the battlefield, along with the rest of the Charlton family. It is what we do.”

She must have seen something in his eyes, because she continued defiantly. “Aye, it is what we do. Steal. Smuggle. Ransom.”

He saw her shoulders tense. She did not like what she was doing. That was clear. He wasn’t too fond of the idea, either. He remembered the cries for water. Had anyone slaked the thirst of the dying as she had his?

And why him and none other?

Ransom, she’d said, but there must have been others who offered similar opportunities.

Why him?

She did not offer a defense, but she looked ready to take a blow.

“You must have your reasons,” he finally said.

“I do. Audra.”

“There is no one to take care of you?” he asked. “Your family, your husband’s family?”

“I have none of my own. Will’s family wish me to remarry. I will not do that.”

“You loved your husband.” It wasn’t a question but a statement of fact, as if he already knew.

“Aye. I cared for him.”

Not exactly the same thing as love. He changed the subject. “I heard singing,” he said.

“My daughter. She decided to sing you back to life. She would have been very sad if she had failed and you died.”

He absorbed that, but it required too much effort to answer. It was a sweet thought, and it was rather comforting to know someone would be sad if he died. But it also brought back the loneliness of a mind empty of memories.

“You need food. Do you think you can eat?”

He was ravenous. “Aye.”

Almost immediately she was back with a bowl of soup. He took as many sips of soup as he could, then he shook his head.

“I will keep it on the fire. Mayhap in an hour or two you can eat more.”

“You have not slept.”

“Aye, a little.” She looked at him. “Do you remember anything now? Your name?”

“Howard?” It was the only name he recalled.

“You do not remember anything before that? Where you lived?”

She looked so hopeful he hated to say the truth. But he had nothing to offer her. “Nay.”

She hesitated, then asked, “Do you read?”

Read? Did he? Then suddenly he knew he did. “I think so.”

“Do you think you can show me?”

“I do not know,” he said.

“I will find a book.” She knew it would not be easy. Books were rare, and were kept as precious objects. But the priest might well help. He had tracts. Perhaps if the Scot read something familiar . . .

Words were on the crest, and that might bring back a memory. But what if he claimed the jeweled crest when he regained his senses?

No. She needed to protect the crest. She would try to help him remember in other ways.

Or would he ever remember?

 
 
THE brought him a rough crutch she’d fashioned for him. Because of the wounded right hand, he tried to use his left arm but discovered a weakness there, probably from an older wound. He wondered how he had received that one, then put away the thought. It was only one of many questions he had, and probably among the least important. He tried his right hand. Pain shot through it, but he managed to get to his feet.

Each movement was agonizing. If he was upright, his chest did not hurt so badly, but his leg was pure agony. If he favored the leg, his chest felt as if it was crashing inward on him. But he managed a few halting steps with the aid of the crutch.

Those few steps required every bit of strength he had. But movement was one thing he had control over. He had none over any other part of his life.

He kept thinking his memory would return. It didn’t, though he strained every moment to find something familiar. A name. A place. Even a language.

He knew English and probably several more languages, according to Kimbra Charlton. She said he spoke words during the fever, but she had not understood them. She thought several of them were Gaelic, which she’d heard on the border. But others were strange to her.

After his faltering steps, he collapsed back on the bed while she coached him on the speech of the borderers. She’d already told him much about the clans on the border, the English and the Scot, and their tradition of raiding across the border. He must understand them, she said, if he was to survive. He must be able to pass for an Englishman until she discovered his identity.

The speech came easily to him. He seemed to have an ability to ape words and the way they were spoken. Lessons stretched from one hour to several.

Later, Audra would enter the room and shyly ask him questions.

“Can you sing?” she asked after gifting him with a song.

He did not know. He started to hum the song she’d just sung, then the words came. But his were different from hers. A word here and a word there. A song he’d known? One he might have sung to his own child?

He looked up, and Kimbra was in the doorway, surprise on her face. “Do you know any other songs?” she asked.

“I did not know I knew that one,” he said.

“Can you play anything?” she asked.

He shrugged.

“We have a lute. Will . . . found it on a raid and kept it, but he never learned to play. Still, he could never bring himself to give it up. He always thought Audra would play it someday.”

“He sounds like a good man.”

“He was. Some would say he was a thief, but to borderers raiding is a way of life.”

“How was he killed?”

“An arrow. He died of infection. I could not stop it.”

“Is that why you tried so hard to stop mine?”

“Aye, part of it, I think.”

“I owe you much, madam.”

She seemed flustered by the address. “I will fetch the lute.”

For the first time since he woke in this strange world, he was aware of amusement. Kimbra Charlton did not seem to be the kind of person to be flustered. Her competence and stubbornness awed him. The fact that she had plundered the fallen did not bother him as much as it first did. He supposed he would do the same, if necessary, to feed his own.

Did he have his own? He evidently knew a lullaby. A powerful loneliness swept over him. Did someone believe him dead? Did he leave a wife without the means to survive? Each question was like another sword in his gut.

Audra had not left his side. “I will take you to our waterfall,” she said.

“A waterfall?”

“Aye, it is ours, Mater’s and mine. No one else knows about it.”

“A magic place then,” he said.

Her eyes danced with conspiratory glee. “You must never tell anyone.”

“I will not,” he pledged.

“Mayhap you can milk Bess, as well.”

“Bess?”

“Our cow.”

“I am not sure I know how to milk a cow.”

“Everyone knows how to milk a cow,” she said. “I do.”

“All by yourself?”

“Aye. I like Bess, and she likes me.”

He could not imagine anyone—man or beast—not liking the lass. “I am impressed,” he said.

She giggled. “I like you,” she confided.

“Is there anyone you do not like?”

“Cedric,” she said readily.

“Who is Cedric?”

“He was here three days ago. He wants us to marry him.”

“Why do you not like him?”

“He hurt Bear.”

“I would not like him then, either,” he said and found that indeed he did not. Something inside him was repelled by cruelty.

The woman returned then. No, not the woman. Kimbra. Kimbra Charlton. He did not know quite what to call her, either to her face or in his mind. Kimbra was too intimate for their positions. Healer and patient. Jailor and prisoner.

Except despite all her protestations that he was here because she wanted a ransom, he did not feel like a prisoner.

She held a lute in her hands and handed it to him as he sat up in the bed. His hands ran over the instrument, then he fingered the strings with familiar ease. He found himself playing a melody and after a moment started to sing. The words came naturally, but they were not in English.

He finished and looked up at her. “It seems I do play the lute.”

“Aye,” she said, but there was no accompanying smile. Her gray eyes were intent on the lute. “Could you teach Audra?”

“I am not sure I could teach anyone. I do not even know how I learned, but I will try.”

Her eyes sparkled then for the first time. He had not thought her lovely before, but he did now, even in the black mourning gown she wore and the proper cap covering her dark hair. He remembered her in the warrior’s clothes she wore the night she had brought him here. He had been nearly unconscious, but he remembered seeing her kneeling beside him.

Even then, she’d radiated with a passion for life.

He realized he was beginning to feel more than gratitude toward her. He also knew he had to stifle those feelings. He might well be wed and have bairns of his own. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t conjure up a face in his memory. Not of a woman. Not of wee bairns. Surely if someone was important to him, an image would surface.

“We should let Mr. Howard sleep now,” Kimbra Charlton said.

He placed the lute at his side.

“I do not want to leave,” Audra pleaded.

“He will be here in the morning.”

She left with Audra, closing the door behind her.

He picked up the lute again. Even that movement hurt. He had not wanted to show pain to the child, but it remained in every movement. Yet the lute felt so familiar in his hands. He strummed again, his hands fingering the strings with surety.

What else did he know?

 
 
K
IMBRA put Audra down on the thick skins near the fire, then made bread for the next day. She heard the sounds of the lute through the door, and her heart ached at the beauty of the notes. He was accomplished with the instrument, as much so as many minstrels who came by the peel tower to tell their tales and sing their songs.

She did not know if such a talent was unusual in a man of rank. She only knew there was something about the melody that made her heart ache with longing.

Bear barked outside, and she looked out the window, praying it was not Cedric. She had thanked God every day he did not appear.

Jane was walking stiffly up to the cottage, leaning heavily on a cane.

Guilt ran through Kimbra. She should have checked on her friend and renewed her supply of bay leaves. She’d promised. She quickly went to the door to the room where the Scot was abed. He was still holding the lute, his fingers touching the strings.

“I have a visitor,” she said. “You must be quiet.”

He nodded.

She left the room, closing the door behind her, then went to the front door and opened it. Again she stepped outside and closed the door behind her.

“Jane, what brings you here?”

“I feared something must have happened. I have not seen ye.”

“Nay, I just needed some rest.”

“They should not have made ye go to the battlefield.”

“Many went,” Kimbra replied. “And I was able to keep a ring.”

“You should be able to keep much more. Will would be turning over in the ground if he knew how they were treating ye.”

“I have to do my share. Just as Will did.”

“Yer Will worked hard for this place. For ye. Thomas Charlton should respect that instead of selling—” She stopped suddenly.

“What have you heard?” Kimbra asked.

“Cedric and several others are fighting to wed ye.”

“He was here three days ago. I feared he would return, but he has not.”

“He is gone. He and others have gone after the few Scots who survived.”

“How many lived?”

“I do not know, but there is a bounty for Scots. They are picking up occasional stragglers and turning them over to the crown, which is executing them.”

Horrified, Kimbra could only stare at her. “But there could be ransoms.”

“I hear a few have taken highborn Scots for ransom, but the Charlton wants to appease the warden. There have been accusations that the Charltons did not do their fair share in the battle. He would not risk disobeying now.”

Kimbra did not doubt that at all. The Charltons were brave enough when enriching themselves, but they saw little reason to risk life and horse for the English king.

Kimbra knew the Charlton family was ruthless, that they had little regard for life. She suspected they killed some of the wounded in the aftermath of the great battle. She would have suspected it of Cedric readily enough, but not of Thomas Charlton, who talked much about the honor of the borderers.

Her stomach sinking, Kimbra invited Jane inside, knowing not to do so would raise suspicions, all the time wondering how much longer she could keep the Scot’s presence a secret. She might well need help. Could Jane provide it?

Jane glanced down at Audra sleeping on the hearth. “Ye must tell her I came to see her.”

“I will,” Kimbra said, then offered some ale and fresh bread she’d just baked, along with butter she’d churned.

“Do you know when the men will return?”

Jane shook her head.

“Is the Charlton at the peel tower?”

“Aye, ’tis getting more and more difficult for him to ride.”

“I may need to see him.”

“Take him some of your bay leaves.”

“He has his own physician.”

“He is not helping, by all I hear.”