Dragonblade Trilogy - 03 - The Savage Curtain (26 page)

The situation was not so clear
after all.

***

The first thing she was cognizant
of was that her eyelids felt as if they weighed one hundred pounds apiece. 
They were so heavy that she couldn’t open them. And her head pounded
painfully.  Joselyn tried to lick her lips but there was no moisture in her
mouth; not a drop.  She must have sighed or made a noise, because Stephen was
suddenly beside her.

“Jo-Jo?”
he whispered. “Are you awake, sweetheart?”

She
tried to speak but all she could manage to utter was a pathetic groan.  A cool
cloth touched her cheek and brow.

“Sleep, love,” Stephen whispered,
kissing her on the cheek. “Just sleep.”

She did. Fading off, she spent an
indeterminable amount of time in blissful darkness.  But then the dreams came,
crazy things, in which she could see her parents again.  Her father, her
mother, her grandmother. All making themselves busy in her dreams.  They rushed
past her, around her, and she could not keep track of them. Then she was back
at Allanton, her family’s home, and she could even smell the violets that grew
in great bunches against the manor wall. She was in the kitchens, watching her
grandmother cook barley loaves and her mother was boiling down apples to make
the wonderful apple butter she used to put up every fall.  

She wanted some of that apple
butter.

But she couldn’t seem to make it
over to the hearth where her mother was cooking.  She was rooted to the chair,
sitting, watching everyone else go by her.  Her grandmother picked up the
barley loaves and they suddenly burst into flame, ashes falling to the floor. 
The kitchen seemed to be heating up and the apple butter boiled over, spilling
into a fire that was now shooting flames into the room.  She tried to get away
from the flames but she couldn’t move. Everything was hot and frightening
around her.  She began to think that she might be in hell. It felt like it. 
And it was growing hotter.

Stephen had been awake all night,
watching Joselyn sleep heavily.  She awoke once, he thought, but she promptly
fell back asleep.  Just after dawn, sleep claimed Stephen as well as he sat
next to the bed, his great head on the mattress near Joselyn’s still form.  He
had been asleep for a few hours when the mattress began to twitch, rousing him
from his exhaustion.

His head came up, alert, as he
fixed on Joselyn.  She was quivering and he immediately put his hand on her
head, feeling a fairly significant fever.  Though he had expected it, still, he
had hoped the heat of the wound would pass her by.  It was disheartening but he
was not overly panicked about it; it could be controlled.  He removed his hand
from her head and sent Tilda, sitting quietly in the corner, for plenty of cool
water.  As he moved for his medicament bag, Joselyn spoke.

“Apple Butter,” she mumbled.

Stephen froze at the sound of her
voice, his brow furrowing as he attempted to figure out if she was lucid or
not.

“Apple Butter?” he repeated,
amusement in his voice. “Do you want Apple Butter?”

Surprisingly, her eyes lolled
open and she tried to push herself up using her left arm; the right arm,
bandaged against her body by Stephen to keep it immobile, was useless.

“Apple Butter,” she said again,
then slammed back onto the mattress.

Stephen tried to steady her so
she would not rip out his stitches.  “Lay still, sweetheart,” he said
soothingly. “All will be well.”

She didn’t seem particularly
eased by his words. “Apple
Butter
,” she said insistently, rolling about.

Stephen held her still as she
tried to squirm. “I will get you Apple Butter if you stop moving,” he told
her.  “Jo-Jo, can you understand me? You must be still.”

She stopped fidgeting and the
pale blue eyes opened, staring into space.  Stephen waved a hand in front of
her eyes but she didn’t track his movements, nor did she blink. She just stared. 
Had he not been concerned about the fever, he would have found her behavior
rather humorous.  But he realized she was mildly delirious. With one eye on
her, he went back to his medicament case to find something for her fever.

Suddenly, she bolted upright,
nearly pitching herself off the bed. Stephen grabbed her before she could fall
and gently laid her back on the bed, trying to position her so it would not put
strain on her wound.  She reached up her good arm and began scratching at his
face and neck, as one would scratch an itch.  It was not violent in the least
but he dodged her wriggling fingers as he tried to hold her still.

“Jo-Jo, sweetheart, you must be
still,” he insisted gently. “Be still, love.”

She scratched at his stubble, his
mouth, and began to giggle. Then her arm fell back to the mattress and she
tried to claw her way off the bed. Stephen corralled her.

“Apple Butter,” she sighed.

He sat on the bed beside her, his
massive arms braced on either side of her slender body, and watched her eyes
slowly close.  With a faint smirk, because her behavior was truly funny, he
shook his head and dared to move back to his bag once more.

Rummaging through his bag, he
extracted a leather envelope of another whitish powder.  He dared to move away
from the bed and collect a cup with a small amount of wine in it, left over
from a meal he’d had the night before. 

Dissolving some of the whitish
powder in the wine, he went back over to the bed and gently gathered Joselyn
into one massive arm while carefully coaxing her to drink the contents.  She
was semi-lucid and able to follow his instructions somewhat but didn’t like the
taste of the dissolved powder.  Stephen still held her in one arm as he set the
cup aside and was surprised, when he looked back down at her, to realize she
was awake and focused on him. He smiled faintly.

“Are you truly awake?” he
whispered. “Or am I to receive more demands for Apple Butter?”

She blinked at him. “Apple
Butter?” she repeated slowly. “I… I had a dream that my mother was making Apple
Butter. Did I ask for some?”

He was more relieved than he
could express that she was lucid and able to respond. It was the first such
occurrence since the arrow had plowed into her back and he took her left hand,
kissing it tenderly.

“You did not ask, madam, you
commanded,” he grinned at her. “Unfortunately, you are the cook in this family.
I cannot make it.”

She sighed faintly. “I was having
unsettling dreams,” she murmured. “My grandmother was there, too. And my
father. We were at Allanton and then everything burst into flame.”

“Dreams can be strange sometimes,
especially with illness.” His great hand toyed with her fingers as he held her.
“How do you feel?”

“Very sore,” she whispered,
closing her eyes for a brief moment. “How badly am I wounded?”

His smile faded somewhat. “Bad
enough,” he replied. “The arrow did some damage but it was not as bad as I had
feared.”

“Did you fix it?”

“I did. Do you not remember?”

“Nay.”

He said a silent prayer of thanks
that she did not remember the agony and the screaming from the previous day. 
It was, however, something he would carry with him for the rest of his life. He
would never be able to forget her howls as he held her down and dug into her
beautiful back. He leaned over and kissed her hot forehead once, twice, before
pulling away and fixing her in the eye.

“You will heal,” he assured her
softly. “But you and I will come to an understanding, madam. No more
withholding truths from me. No more running off to try and save the entire town
of Berwick.”

She looked away from him. “I was
not trying to save Berwick; I was trying to save
you
.”

“I understand, but I do not need
saving. As it was, I had to save
you
and that put us all in danger. Do
you understand?”

She nodded, once, and closed her
eyes. Not having the heart to scold her any further, he kissed her cheek and
hugged her as tightly as he could without causing her pain.

“I will say, however, that I
admire your bravery, Lady Pembury,” he whispered. “But I have never been so
terrified in all my life as I was when I realized you were gone.  I never want
to go through that horror again. Will you promise me?”

She began to cry softly and he
rocked her gently, holding her close and feeling her heated body against him. 
The fever was mild but she was still very ill, so he laid her gently on the bed
and pulled the coverlet over her.  He thought she had drifted off to sleep as
he rose from the bed to put his medicaments away, but she whispered softly to
him.

“Stephen?” she breathed.

He paused. “What is it, love?”

“Lay here with me, please,” she
murmured. “I am afraid.”

“Afraid of what?”

Her eyes opened, like pale blue
stones within her pasty face. “I am afraid I am going to die.”

“You are not going to die.”

Her eyes welled again and her lip
began to tremble. “God is punishing me,” she wept softly. “I lied to you and
God is punishing me. He guided that arrow into my back.”

He shook his head. “That is not
true.  God would not punish you so.”

She wept pitifully. “Aye, ‘tis
true. I will never lie to you again, I swear it. I do not want to die. I do not
want to leave you.”

She was off on a crying jag.
Stephen set down the things in his hand and sat back down on the mattress. 
Very carefully, he stretched out beside her, pulling her against him as best he
could without jostling her shoulder.  She groaned once or twice before he found
a better position and they were finally settled.  She calmed as his arms went
around her, snuggling against him as far as she could go without causing
herself pain.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

His head was against hers, his
mouth on her hair. “My pleasure.”

“I love you, Stephen.”

He kissed her dark head
reverently. “I love you, too, sweetheart.”

Tate came to the chamber sometime
around noon to see how Lady Pembury was faring. He quietly opened the door only
to find both Joselyn and Stephen sleeping the sleep of the dead as the world
around them went on.  The day was sunny, the bailey busy with life, but in
their chamber, Stephen and Joselyn were completely unaware. Their world was
quiet and protected. With a faint smile, Tate shut the door, posted a guard,
and left with the instructions that they were not to be disturbed.  Even Tilda
was turned away when she returned with the water.

Everything was going to be all
right.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

His name was Sir Kenneth St.
Hèver.  He had served with Tate de Lara and Stephen of Pembury as the third in
the trio of knights that was the most reputable and powerful in all of England
at this time.  The three of them had been bodyguards to young Edward the Third
when the youth had fled his mother and Roger Mortimer. 

Together, the trio had kept young
Edward alive and ensured the fall of Mortimer and Isabella so that Edward could
assume his rightful place on the throne of England.  Even before that, their
association had been a long and honored one.  Kenneth, being the oldest of the
trio, had even served in his very young years under Edward the First. At
thirty-eight years, he was seasoned, wise, terrifying and gifted.

He was also the most feared of
the three.  Tate was brilliant and powerful while Stephen was the strongest
merely by his sheer size, but Kenneth went beyond size and intelligence.  He was
not as tall as Stephen and perhaps slightly taller than Tate, but he was
broader than even the broadest man. And it was pure, unadulterated muscle.  He
had an enormous neck, square jaw, and eyes that were so blue they were nearly
silver. His close-cropped hair was so blond that it was nearly white and thick
blond lashes surrounded his shocking blue eyes. He had a reputation for being
exceptionally unfriendly though never unfair, and called no one friend except
for de Lara and Pembury.  Sir Kenneth St. Héver was a knight’s knight; he was
the man that most knights could only hope to be.

At the fall of Roger Mortimer,
the young king had gifted Sir Kenneth to Garson Mortimer, a cousin to Roger who
had sided with young Edward.  That had sent Kenneth to the Welsh marches, the
first time in fifteen years that he had been separated from Tate and Kenneth.  
But it had been a very honorable post he had assumed at Kirk Castle keeping the
Welsh at bay. Still, he was eager to see his friends again, men he’d not seen
in almost a year.

It was this man who had ridden
hard for five days after he had received the missive from Pembury asking him to
come to Berwick Castle.  Knowing that Stephen would not have asked for him
unless he had a very good reason, Kenneth had ridden day and night to reach
Berwick.  It had been an exhausting journey but he was not particularly
concerned with that; he was more concerned with why Stephen had called for him.