Kiss Across Swords (Kiss Across Time Series) (10 page)

He tied off the bandage using his teeth and the fingers of his right hand and sat back. “I’ve always suspected you held a romanticized view of me. ‘Brody the poet.’ Today just confirmed it. You don’t see me at all. Not the real me. If you did you wouldn’t have been so shocked by what happened here just now. You would have accepted it as part of who I am. You would have known that’s what I’m like. I was a slave, I’m a soldier. I’m just a savage who happened to strike it lucky and ended up owning land and a title when it counted. Veris was the educated one, for all he didn’t write a word. Even before he left Norway he could speak five languages. Who do you think taught me to speak Saxon? Arabic? Greek?”

Taylor recoiled. “That’s what you think I believe of you?”

“I
know
it. You’re looking at the wrong person if you’re looking at me to be the gentle one.” He picked up his hauberk and tunic and undershirt with his good hand and his sword belt with his injured one. “I’m going to find out where Selkirk is camped and what Veris is doing. I was a good hunter myself, once. Time to unpack old skills.” His gaze slid from her face. “I don’t know how long we’ll be left in this time, Taylor. Pray it’s long enough to fix this. If we jump back before Veris commits to me, then we jump back to non-existence.”

The tent was divided into half by a panel of gauze. The other side was clearly Taylor’s side of the tent. There was a pair of beautifully painted five panel dividers, arranged to provide privacy for changing when the heavy tent sides were taken down, as they were now. There was a chair made comfortable with cushions and even a bed that must have been carried all the way from England just for her convenience. There were two big chests of clothes and smaller boxes of possessions. The costs and logistics involved in carting such luggage shocked her. No wonder Veris had been so disdainful about bringing a woman on crusade.

For the first time, Taylor realized that for this time and age, Brody had to be a man of influence and means, especially to be able to afford to bring such burdens as a wife and her luggage with him. The huge tent, the servants and the crest she wore meant Brody had his own lands and they supported him very well indeed.

And he considered himself to be a savage?

A woman with a much smaller crest on her gown stepped into the tent and through to Taylor’s side and dropped her head down low. “My lady,” she murmured. “M’ lord said you were looking for me. I’m sorry, I fell asleep. It’s this heat.” She straightened up and cast her eye over Taylor. “You’ll be needing to dress for dinner.”

Taylor looked out at the blazing sun, which was noticeably lower in the sky. “My husband wants a formal dinner tonight?”

The woman smiled. The smile showed wisdom beyond the few years the woman seemed to possess. “With all the rationing, I don’t think dinner will be anything much at all. But we must try, hmm?”

* * * * *

When Taylor insisted on bathing first, the woman was shocked. Then she explained that water was even more severely rationed than food.

Taylor shed layers of gown and undergown as the woman—Taylor could not directly ask her what her name was—fetched the jug of water that was Taylor’s share for the evening and poured two cupfuls into a laver. Taylor used that water to wash herself while standing on a cloth behind the screens, then let herself air dry. In the torrid heat she dried in a few minutes.

She discovered when she unplaited her hair that it reached her ass. The woman combed through it with quick, practiced motions, barely tugging at all. Taylor marveled over the length and thickness of it. “Veris would love this,” she murmured.

“Excuse me, m’lady?” the woman asked.

“Nothing,” Taylor said quickly. She realized she had spoken English.

The woman had put out another full chemise and bliaut for Taylor to wear. The chemise looked to be made of some delicate cotton while the bliaut was rich with embroidery and with the heavy full sleeves.

Taylor shook her head. “I’m not wearing that. It’s too hot.”

“It’s a formal evening gown.” The woman shrugged. “The chemise is the lightest you have.”

“I’ll wear that, then.”

The woman looked relieved and picked it up.

“Haven’t I got a robe or something simple to wear over the top?” Taylor asked. “Or is all I have here bliauts?”

The woman frowned. “Robe, m’lady?”

“Something light that covers me, but isn’t constricting.”

“Like the tunics your husband wears?”

Taylor laughed. “That’s perfect! Go and get one from his chest. And the sheers!” She slipped into the delicate, cool chemise. It had a rounded neck and clung to her body from neck to hip. The material was so fine it left very little to the imagination. In the twenty-first century, it could even be called seductive.

The woman brought one of Brody’s blue and white tunics to Taylor, along with the sheers. The tunic was laid out with light blue and white squares on the left and white and light blue on the right, which left a perfectly straight line right down the center for her to cut along.

She tried the “robe” on. It was too large around the neck and had a tendency to slide off one or other shoulder, but if she tied her belt around the waist, it served well enough. It was a more comfortable substitute than the bliaut. She could slide into it in thirty seconds and it left her free to wear just the chemise while she was in the tent.

“Put the gown away,” Taylor told the woman. “I’ll wear that the night we have a real dinner.”

The cantering of a horse warned her of someone’s approach and she found herself looking around hopefully to the north. When she saw the blue and white of Brody’s tunic, her heart skipped a beat. He’d returned.

He threw his reins to a page, his gauntlets to another along with a murmured order and strode into the tent.

The woman bowed her head.

“My thanks, Mary,” Brody told her. “Go get yourself some supper. You’re dismissed for the evening.”

“Thank you, my lord,” the woman told him and slid past him.

Brody didn’t even look at her.

Mary
, Taylor catalogued, as she ran her gaze over Brody, taking in the broad shoulders that the long hair and heavy metal clothes usually diminished. He wasn’t hugely muscled like Veris, but he was very strong, all the same. Some time since he had strode, fuming, from the tent and his return, he had washed off the blood and dirt.

But he still looked angry.

“You didn’t see him,” Taylor guessed.

Brody shook his head.

“I’m sorry.”

He made an impatient sound. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what? Apologize? This is partly my fault. You tried to tell me not to kiss him right then. If I’d listened, then maybe it would have gone okay.”

“Damn it, Taylor, don’t.” He lifted up his hand and made a fist of it. “I lay on a ridge and watched his camp and couldn’t see a sign of him. All I’m supposed to be worrying about right now is Veris and getting him back. Yet I look at you in that chemise with your hair loose and the only thing I can think about is dragging you down to the ground and fucking you until you mewl for mercy.”

Her heart seemed to stop for a moment. Then it hurried on, faster than before.

“You like my hair, too?” she asked. She didn’t dare move in case she broke the spell. Brody wasn’t pissed at her right now. She wanted to keep it that way.

Brody made a choked, almost desperate sound. “I can feel my hands sliding into it. I can see locks of your hair spread about after I’ve made you scream my name. Yes, I like your hair.”

She licked her lips. “Then, when—if—we get back, I am never cutting my hair again.”

His jaw rippled. “Veris told you the same thing, didn’t he?”

She nodded.

Brody looked away.

“I know what he saw in you the first time, Brody.”

His black eyes narrowed as he looked back at her. “He told you that, too?”

“No, but I saw it today, I think.” She threaded her hands together. “You were right, a little bit. I do tend to think of you as the bard. But not in a bad way. Not in a weak way. I think you underestimate yourself by calling yourself a savage.” She waved her hand around the tent. “You’re supporting how many people? You speak and write how many languages now? Right now in this year, 1099, before you met Veris?”

Brody’s mouth opened a little. “That’s hardly—”

“Yes it
does
count! God damn it, you’re
just
as stubborn as he is!” She shook her head. “Why does toting up Veris’ achievements make him smart, but it doesn’t mean the same thing for you?” She stared at him, daring him to refute her.

Brody cleared his throat and gave the half-sheepish shrug he always gave when he knew he was cornered. His mouth curled up at one corner. “I supposed it doesn’t count because I’m just as stubborn.”

She fought not to laugh. She had a point to make and wouldn’t let herself get sidetracked. “Thank you,” she said simply. “You didn’t need Veris to shrug off any traces of savagery or slavery. You did it all just fine by yourself. Today, I watched you as a leader of men, out there when the Fatimids tried to take down the siege engine.”

His glance flickered to where the wooden structures stood like forlorn abandoned structures, except that guards patrolled their base.

“You saw…all of it?” he asked.

She nodded and he winced. “Now I begin to understand your reactions this afternoon. That, then tending the wound, so closely together. I asked too much of you. Women of this century are raised to it.”

He thought she couldn’t handle the bloodiness of his work. The reality of what he was. They were back to that again. He couldn’t know she had been sick because of the baby. Now was not the time to tell him.

Taylor hurried to correct his impression. “Yes, you’re ruthless,” she said quickly. “I think that’s why you think of yourself as still a savage. Leaders
are
ruthless. It comes with the job. But Veris would know the difference and I think that’s what he saw in you.”

Brody drew in a sharp breath. She had surprised him.

“He saw you as a leader,” she added, “A successful man who came from the worst of beginnings. A man who hasn’t lost his soul along the way. The bard is still in you. Veris would have seen that and for Veris, that would make you almost irresistible. I know it does for me.”

Brody hung his head for moment. He shook it then lifted his chin to look her in the eye. “You’re astonishing. I insult you and head off to seduce another man and when I come back, you do nothing but praise me and put me on a pedestal.”

“You deserve it.”

He shook his head again. “Now I’m starting to feel like you’re the one stealing the oxygen, Maggie Taylor Yates.”

There was a clearing of a throat and they both looked around. The page boy stood at the entrance to the tent, his back to them, holding something.

Brody called, “Come!” in French.

The boy entered, carefully carrying the metal plate. It held food.

“Your supper,” Brody explained. He switched to English. “There is very tight rationing. I asked them to give you my portion, too.”

She smiled at him. “I remember that from the history books. Thank you.” She took the plate and smiled at the boy and thanked him in French. It was easier to speak in French than English, which took conscious effort to use. But using it with Brody made their conversations perfectly secure.

“Use my chair,” Brody told her and pulled over a small folding table. “And my knife. It’s clean now.”

“Clean by our standards or crusades standards?”

“Ours.” He held it out. “Boiling water for twenty minutes. They think I’m crazy.”

She ate, suddenly ravenous. Food would be a problem here if she was pregnant and it was rationed. She would have to be careful about hoarding handfuls to ward off sickness if it struck.

“Tell me about you and Veris. How it was really meant to go,” she asked as she ate. “We need to plan how to get things back the way they should be.”

“You know this story,” Brody said.

“The broad strokes, sure. You’ve never given me the full-on tiny details. Neither has Veris.”

“Really? I’m surprised.” Brody pulled the chest over closer to the table.