Hunter's Woman (4 page)

He didn’t looked convinced, nor as if he had any desire to test her words.  In any case, he forgot all about the incident when he saw that she was threading the needle.  “Here now.  I’ll not be needing that!  Look, it’s stopped bleeding.  All I need is a rag tied about it.”

“If it’s not closed, it will continue to bleed and it will be too easy for something to enter the wound.  It’ll be best if it’s closed.”

Aslyn’s nerves were on edge by the time she’d sewn the flesh together.  It was an unpleasant task at the best of times, and Jomares made no bones about trying to be manful about the thing, yelping each time the needle was plunged into his skin, growling, groaning with pain as the thread was pulled taut.  Aslyn was forced to conclude that he hadn’t been brave about his wound so much as he was fearful of having it treated.  Men were such infants about their hurts.

When she’d finished, she took a clean strip of cloth, sprinkled herbs on it to ward off putrefaction, and bound it snugly around his wound. 

It was only when she turned to retrieve the tin that she discovered the huntsman stood nearby, watching her every movement.  She wondered if he’d been observing her the whole time she attended Jomares.  

What had he expected?  That she would prove herself totally incompetent?  Or that she would deliberately harm the man?

With an effort, she pretended she hadn’t noticed his rapt attention and took the tin, moving back to the fire. 

To her consternation, he followed her.  He knelt on the opposite side of the fire as she scooped up fresh snow and set it to boil so that she could clean her needle again.  “I am called Kale,” he said, lifting his gaze from her hands to her face and studying her with a piercing, unnerving stare that Aslyn could feel even without looking at him.

She allowed her gaze to flicker to his face when he spoke.  Up close, she saw that her observations as he’d arrived had not done him justice.  She’d had the perception that he was well favored, but assumed, as is quite often the case, that distance had lent him more comeliness than he actually possessed.  At a distance, one could not observe the little flaws that could make a world of difference in whether or not one actually was pleasing to the eye. 

She saw now that, although his face was harshly angular, he was exceptionally well favored.  In the days before, she would have been filled with maidenly confusion and pleasure if she had drawn the attention of such a man—alien or not.

The interest she drew now made her heart flutter uncomfortably, but she rather thought it was more fear than excitement.

His eyes were golden.  She’d never seen eyes that color … on a petracan—well, not on a human either, if it came to that.  Perhaps it was the eyes, so near in shade to any number of earth predators, that lent him the look of one?

“I am Aslyn.”

“You are a stranger here?”

She’d had no choice but to admit she was a stranger to Enid, knowing it was too risky to do otherwise when the woman was obviously a local.  She was far more reluctant to admit it to the king’s man.  A huntsman did not commonly lead a band of soldiers.  She didn’t like to think what the purpose of this group might be. 

And yet, she had no option, not now, not when Enid and Jomares had already indicated they had no knowledge of her.

“I am a pilgrim.”

“Traveling from where?  To where?”

She debated briefly, but knew it would be better to offer a lie freely, than to pretend outrage at his intrusion into her private affairs.  “From Mersea … eventually to return once I have fulfilled my pilgrimage.”

A gleam entered his eyes, briefly and then disappeared so abruptly Aslyn wondered if she had imagined that spark of keen interest at the mention of her origins.  One dark brow arched.  The other descended.  “You are young to begin a pilgrimage, alone.”

“Perhaps I am older than I appear?”

His gaze wandered over her face, making Aslyn wish she had pulled the hood of her cloak closer.  She sensed the shadows it offered yielded little protection from that piercing stare.  “You are not a day above eighteen.  Your husband did not object to being left to care for your babes while you went on pilgrimage?”

Despite all she could do, Aslyn’s eyes widened in surprise that he’d pinpointed her age so precisely.  The hardships she’d endured should have put more age upon her face than that!  “I am not wed.  There are no babes.”

“Why?”

Again, he surprised her.  “Why?” she echoed.  “I am supposed to know why I was not chosen as bond-mate?”

His eyes narrowed.  It wasn’t just that he doubted her word.  She sensed he didn’t like the answer, though she was at a loss to know why.  “A beautiful woman has more suitors than she has need of.  Try again.  The truth this time.”

Aslyn blushed.  She wasn’t certain whether it was because of the compliment, or because he’d so easily seen through the lie.  “I did not realize this was an interrogation,” she said stiffly, evasively.

An expression, almost of amusement, crossed his features.  “You were never in any doubt of it.”

That was certainly to the point.  Any doubts Aslyn might have nursed that his curiosity was out of a personal interest were neatly disposed of.  Aslyn felt her blush deepen.  “My betrothed … died,” she responded tightly.

He frowned.  A look, almost of anger, flickered in his eyes.  Obviously, he did not care for her answer.  “And it is for this reason that you went on pilgrimage?”

Flustered, Aslyn burned her finger when she dropped the needle into the water, which had begun to boil at last.  Instinctively, she shoved the injured finger in her mouth.  When she looked at Kale once more, she saw that his gaze had been drawn by the action to her mouth.  The look in his eyes sent something warm and liquid flowing through her, wreaking further havoc within her.

She snatched her throbbing finger from her mouth and shoved it into the snow.   “Mostly, yes,” she said, responding at last to his question.

His gaze, she saw with a good deal of discomfort, had not left her lips.  Slowly, as if it was an effort to pull himself away, his gaze moved up her face and locked with her own. 

“So … you crossed the channel to make pilgrimage through a foreign land … instead of your own.”

Aslyn looked down at her finger, examining it, though she knew the burn was as nothing.  “No.  I traveled within my own country and
then
crossed the channel.”

Amusement lit his features, gleaming in his eyes.  “One must wonder what you could have done that would make you feel the need for such an extensive pilgrimage.”

Aslyn didn’t know how to respond to that.  Thankfully, she was not required to.  The squire approached them to report that they’d managed to right the cart and repair it enough for travel. 

The huntsman rose abruptly.  “We should be on our way, then, and see if we can pick up the trail.”

Chapter Four

The cart was full almost to overflowing with family and household goods by the time the soldiers had helped Jomares and his wife onto it.  Enid turned to smile at Aslyn.  “Find yourself a spot on the back.”

Aslyn looked at the cart doubtfully.  “Thank you, but I believe I’ll walk beside the cart.”

Aslyn was acutely conscious of the party of men behind them, watching their departure.  She was not aware of Kale, however, until he swept her off her feet.  Stunned, she stared up at him, her mouth slightly agape as he strode toward the creeping cart and deposited her on a mound of linens in the back. 

Without a word, he turned, strode back to his kirkin and mounted.  Pulling the kirkins about, the group departed in the same direction from whence they’d come.  Aslyn watched until they became black specks and finally disappeared over a rise.

The ‘town’ of Krackensled, Aslyn saw as the cart slowly rumbled up the main thoroughfare, was little more than a large village, though it boasted a maze of crisscrossing roads lined with cottages and a few shops, and as poverty stricken as the majority of the bergs she had seen in her travels.  She had learned to expect it.  She had not learned to accept it. 

Her nurse had often tried to impress upon her that life was not fair, that one should not expect it to be.  Fairness was a concept of civilized man that directly opposed the laws of nature.  Nature randomly selected individuals and gifted them with beauty, or superior strength or intelligence … or not.  Those with superior strength or cleverness had long since established dominance for their line in the days when true civilization was born.  Everyone else was left to scramble for survival. 

The rich inherited wealth.  The poor inherited more babies, to make them more poor still, except, perhaps, in joy or love.  But, however joyful the occasion of a new addition to the family, Aslyn found it difficult to believe the joy could outlast the toil required to rear them, or the heartache of burying them, as was so often the case with the poor.

That was not to say, of course, that the poor were passed over when nature bestowed beauty, superior strength or intelligence.  She’d seen enough to dispel the prejudices she’d been born to—that had been taught to her by the nurse who’d reared her with the mindset of the class-oriented Petrac people.  It was merely that those who were fortunate enough to receive those attributes in poverty found them more a curse than a gift.  Her own poverty since she’d fled her home had taught her that lesson.

Without the protection of wealth and position, a beautiful girl only became prey for the privileged.  The strong were reduced to the status of beast of burden and the intelligent were left to rot in ignorance.

Life was, most assuredly, not fair.  

Despite the size of the town, the streets were almost deserted.  Aslyn wondered if this was due to the season’s inclement weather, the rumors Enid had told her of, or merely typical of the town, which, in truth, did not seem large enough to attract a great deal of commerce.  The few people they passed on the road stopped, watching the slow progress of the cart.

Aslyn had learned to gauge the desirability of remaining in a town by the expressions she encountered on the way in.  Towns seemed to have a life-essence of their own.  Some gave one the feeling of welcome.  As often as not, they gave one the feeling that one’s departure would be more welcome. 

Krackensled seemed to fall somewhere between the two.  The expressions of those they passed were neither sullen, not friendly.  They were mildly curious or reserved. 

Aslyn interpreted that to mean that it would be safe enough to stay for a short time and that, if she had arrived alone, it would not have been.

Jomares pulled the cart to a stop beside a rickety shack near the very edge of town.  It looked as if it had been abandoned for some time.  With an effort, she struggled down from her perch and looked around as Jomares and Enid did the same.  “The healer, Gershin, lived here.  I thought, if you were satisfied with it, I could talk to the landlord for you and see if he would agree to the same terms he’d had with Gershin.”

It looked dismal, but beggars could not be choosers.  “Do you know the terms?”

Enid shrugged.  “Most likely service for his family and a tithe of what you earn in service to others.”

Aslyn nodded.  She’d expected as much.  “That sounds reasonable enough.  Are you certain you don’t mind the task?  I could speak to him myself.”

Enid shook her head.  “Likely as not, he’d try to gouge you.  We owe you as it is and I expect you’ll need to look in on Jomares again.  If you’d be willing to accept it as part of what we owe…?”

Aslyn smiled, relieved by the offer.  In her past experience, landlords had been inclined to consider they might as well barter for ‘special’ favors while they were about it, as soon as they discovered she was unwed and traveling without a companion.  “Certainly.”

As Enid turned her steps toward the heart of town, Jomares jogged the ox into motion, turned the cart down a narrow alley, and disappeared beyond a structure almost as ramshackle as the one that had belonged to Gershin.  Aslyn caught a glimpse of him and the cart once more as he reached a road that ran parallel to the one where she stood and turned back toward the heart of town.  She supposed they’d settled it between them that Jomares would take their belongings to begin unloading while Enid made arrangements. 

Aslyn turned to survey her new domain.  It looked worse than any of the other cottages that lined the dirt packed road, but only by a little.  Sighing, she made her way to the door.  It was not locked, but the wood had swollen with moisture and was no doubt sealed with ice, as well.  She’d battered bruises on her shoulder before she managed to pry the door open sufficiently to squeeze inside.  Without any light source, the interior should have looked much like the cave she’d sheltered in the night before, for the house had been constructed of sod and thatch and boasted not a single window.  Unfortunately, there were more than a few unplanned ‘lights’, allowing sufficient illumination for her to make out the contents.

Without surprise, she saw that it consisted of only one room.  A few rickety pieces of furniture littered the space.  In the far back was a cot … no doubt crawling with vermin.  Aslyn debated briefly with herself, but decided she was confident that Enid would prevail in her negotiations with the landlord.  That being the case, she saw no reason to wait upon word when she could be working at making the place a bit more comfortable.