Lord of Midnight (35 page)

She assumed he trained his men, but it was done well away from her home.

And yet, without violence or bluster, his nature changed everything, perhaps even for the better. People came to Summerbourne now from far around seeking help with predators—animal or human. Claire had never realized in the past how strange it was that they didn’t.

When some unruly knights harassed nearby Sherborn, the townsfolk sent to petition for Renald’s help.

He came to tell her of it. “This matter should not take more than a day, my lady.”

“You leave now?”

“I must, before more people are abused.”

“What will you do?”

“Whatever needs to be done.”

She puzzled over that, for he was in wool. Then she realized that he would arm himself out of her sight. Fear stabbed. He went to fight. “Take care, my lord.”

He looked at her. “Do you want me to return safe?”

“Of course!”

His hand moved, as if he might reach for her, but then he simply said, “That is our tragedy, isn’t it?” He bowed and walked away.

She watched him go without the kiss a man should expect when he went into danger, without any tender farewells. She sent them after him silently, symbol of all that was amiss.

She didn’t really think he’d come to harm in such a matter, but she still lived in fear until he and his men returned. She watched secretly from a window as they rode in, and saw how they all bubbled with the excitement of action. Renald glowed in a way she’d never seen before.

Except, perhaps, on their wedding night.

For the first time she realized the truth of his words in the garden—that time so long ago. He truly did enjoy fighting, and she forced him to hide all trace of it.

He came to her later, unarmed and bathed, no hint of violence on him in blood, wound, or glow. “The matter is taken care of, my lady.”

“What happened?” she asked resolutely, ready to show that she could at least accept his warlike nature.

“Little enough. It was nothing.” And he spoke of minor estate matters before leaving her.

Once, she would have insisted. Now she wasn’t sure how.

She heard all about it, of course. The Summerbourne people were mighty proud of their lord, and keen to talk of how brave he’d been, how fearsome, how he’d killed the leader, who’d been an armed man bigger than he, and how the followers had fled or been captured.

“Well?” asked her grandmother at the dinner table, before he came to take his seat. “Is such a man not worth holding to?”

“Yes,” said Claire. “If I only knew how.”

She spent restless nights chasing her conscience around and around, but she couldn’t escape the basic truth. Her father had fought over Henry Beauclerk’s seizure of the throne and unfairly lost. Something about that had to be very wrong.

Renald hid his martial exercises so well that Claire would hardly have known at all if not for the scrapes and bruises his men— including Thomas—sometimes brought to the tables. She noted, but never mentioned them until the day she saw Thomas limping.

He twitched out of her hold. “It’s nothing.”

“What’s nothing?”

“Claire, don’t fuss!”

She put her hands on her hips. “Thomas of Summerbourne, like it or not, I’m lady here. The welfare of all is my concern. What injury do you have?”

He eyed her. “Lord Renald said not to bother you—”

“Oh, did he? What?”

“It’s just a cut in my foot—”

She grabbed his sleeve and towed him along to her simple room, where all the herbs and ointments were kept. “A cut like that could fester!”

“He’ll be angry,” he muttered when she pushed him onto a bench.

“I’ll tell him it wasn’t your fault. Show me.”

Pulling a face, he took off shoe and hose, revealing a bandage. When she unwound it, she found a nasty gash just beginning to knit. “Did they put anything on it?”

“No. But it’s all right.”

She washed off some dirt. “Yes, it is, but more by luck than skill. Who’s talking care of wounds, then?”

He shrugged. “Anyone. Lord Renald bandaged this. And told me to wear shoes when walking on rough ground.”

She spread a healing salve on a new cloth and bound his foot again. “Come back and let me look at it in a couple of days. And if it starts to hurt—”

“I know. I know. I’ll tell you straightaway.”

She wanted to hug him and protect him as if he were still a baby. “Take care, Thomas.”

He pulled his hose and shoe back on, and limped away. “Remember to tell Lord Renald that I didn’t let on!”

Claire put away her medicines thinking that if she truly wanted to protect her brother, all she had to do was surrender to Renald. She could lie to him. Tell him she was easy in her mind.

She shook her head. That was the serpent whispering, offering the juicy apple.

She could at least handle a simple problem. This nonsense about the wounded had to stop.

She found him in the stables. Sigfrith noticed her first, making Renald turn. For a moment, something flashed in his eyes, stinging her like a whip, and she realized she had never sought him out since that time with Josce.

When he came over to her, however, he was calm and controlled. “You wish to speak to me, my lady?”

“What did happen to Aidan?” she asked, reminded of a thread left hanging from long ago.

“Who?”

“My father’s horse.”

“The king has him.” He watched her with painful care. “It was his right and he liked the horse.”

Claire could have wept that he thought she’d be hurt by that. “I was only curious.” She wanted to touch him, soothe him. She did not dare.

“You didn’t come to ask about Aidan.”

“No.” She considered how to put it. “My lord, I know I gave the impression that I did not want martial matters in Summerbourne, but you are carrying it to extremes.”

“Extremes?”

“Wounds,” she said. “I may not want fighting within the walls, but it is my duty to tend to the wounded.”

“Thomas,” he said, with a quirk of the brows that could break her heart, so familiar it seemed. So long unseen. “Does his foot fester?”

“No, but only by a miracle. And no, he didn’t come running to me about it. But then, he can’t run with a sore foot, can he? I was bound to notice.”

The brows rose. “I’m sorry if I’ve offended you.”

She realized that the distance, the shield between them, was evaporating. It was dangerous—her fast-beating heart told her that—but she would give up her soul, almost, for more moments like this. “Well you have,” she said, as steadily as she could. “I expect your wounded men to come to me for treatment.”

“And what,” he asked softly, “if I am wounded?”

After too many heartbeats, she replied, “Then of course I would treat you. Unless you object.”

“On the contrary. You tempt me to be very clumsy with my sword.”

Claire’s breath caught. “Don’t,” she said at last, stepping backward, backward. “Don’t, Renald. The risks are far too great.”

Of course, he didn’t come to her wounded, but others did.

Later that day she poulticed a swollen knee that should have been tended to days before. The next day she treated an inflamed and blackened eye. She found out that these more obvious injuries had been hidden from her, kept in a hut in the village instead of brought back to the hall.

After that, she saw a steady stream of wounded. She still didn’t think it wise for men to spend their time damaging themselves just in case they might be called upon to fight, but she did her duty and didn’t nag.

None of the injuries were on Renald’s body, but then one day he did appear in her herb room. A moment after her heart started to race, she saw he was supporting a burly man who kept one leg curled up off the floor.

“Sword cut,” he said, lowering the man onto a bench. “Days old.”

He helped the man out of his loose braies, exposing a dirty rag over a swollen thigh.

“I thought we had an agreement,” Claire said. “Why wasn’t he brought to me before?”

“This isn’t my doing. He’s been hiding it from me, too.”

Claire shook her head and unwound the disgusting cloth. She had to soak off the last part because it was stuck to the inflamed, pus-filled wound. “You could lose this leg,” she told the middle-aged man. “You could die!”

He hung his head, looking for all the world like an old hound that knew he’d done wrong. Claire took up a knife to lance the wound and saw Renald move closer.

“Don’t you trust me to do this right?”

“Completely. But any man foolish enough to let a wound fester could be foolish enough to strike his healer when it hurts.”

“Nay, lord,” the man protested. “I’d not touch your lovely lady!”

“Then perhaps,” said Renald, “you’ll feel sprightly enough to try to steal a kiss.”

The man chuckled and even winked at Claire, but she saw the sweat on his face, and it wasn’t from fever but fear.

She picked up her sharp lancing knife, still warmed by the way Renald said “completely.” Something held between them, she realized, running like a sturdy thread and growing stronger day by day. It was an acknowledgment of each other’s abilities and a precious resulting trust.

She hoped she could preserve it by saving this leg.

At the first touch of the knife, however, before she’d even cut, the man flinched. Renald stepped forward and held him down. Even then, it was a struggle to make the cuts where she had to.

When it came to cleaning the dirty wound with wine and herbs, it turned into a full, cursing wrestling match. She might have been deafened by the man-at-arm’s bellows if Renald hadn’t gagged him, and despite Renald’s strengths the man managed to kick a bowl of foul water over her.

When she stepped back from the treated, bandaged wound, she was soaked and panting. Her patient, however, was now sheepishly quiet. As soon as Renald released him and gave him a stick, he pulled on his braies, muttered apologies to both of them, and hobbled away.

“Well really!” Claire said, stripping off her soiled tunic and using the clean parts to wipe herself. “Why do you keep such a coward on?”

Renald was rumpled and heated himself. “Rolf’s one of the bravest men I know when his blood runs hot in a fight. In cold blood, he can’t take any pain at all. I usually keep an eye on him and drag him off to be looked after. I’ve been distracted…”

At his tone, his look, Claire realized that only her thin summer kirtle covered her body, and it was damp. She clutched her wet tunic to her as a shield, but still his eyes traveled over her. She thought perhaps she could hear his breaths.

It was no good. Hell was worth it. She took one tiny step toward him.

He turned and left with a slam of the door.

She crossed herself. Sweet Mary, protect them both!

This couldn’t go on. She dressed hastily in clean clothes, and went to compose another letter to the bishop. It was two weeks since the last, and her month was speeding. This time she wasn’t sure how best to send it, so in the end she went to Brother Nils.

The monk seemed quite stricken. “Are you sure, lady?”

“I’ve less than two weeks to go.”

“He’s a good man, lady.”

“I know. Send my letter.”

Nils looked at the rolled parchment, torn, then went to seek his lord. He found Lord Renald up on the palisade, head sunk in hands.

Nils cleared his throat. Instead of snapping back into the lord, the warrior, Renald rose slowly, sucking in a deep breath. “What now?”

Wishing, perhaps, that he’d not come up here, Nils said, “The Lady Claire has asked me to send a letter. To the bishop.”

“I see.” And he clearly did.

After a while, Nils asked, “Shall I send it, my lord?”

“Yes, of course.”

Why won’t you fight? Nils wanted to ask. Why won’t you use your charms and woo her? He’d watched helplessly as they both moved through Summerbourne like leaves caught in different eddies, spinning close but never touching.

He’d watched as well the way they watched each other. He’d never seen such pain in healthy eyes.

Surely something could be done.

He cleared his throat. “Would you like me to read it to you first, my lord?”

“No.” And now the lord and warrior was back. “Send it, Nils, then find the records of that wool factor in Dorchester. You said he might give us a better price.”

Firmly put in his place, Nils went with a heavy heart to follow orders.

Claire had sent again to the bishop. Now she needed to try to arrange for the security of her family. She rode to St. Frideswide’s, thinking ruefully that Renald no longer tried to control her movements.

Sometimes, weakly, she wished he would. Many nights she lay in the big bed and wished he’d come to her, touch her, dizzy and overwhelm her, so she’d be sealed to him forever despite her will. In the dark, mysterious night, she knew she’d never be able to resist.

At the convent, pushing away all memory of her last visit, she asked to speak to the Mother Winifred, and was taken to her office.

“Reverend Mother,” Claire said as she took a seat, “I wish to know if you will accept my mother, my grandmother, and my aunts here.”

The nun regarded her over her writing table. “Of our charity, we must give refuge, Lady Claire.”

“They may have to come without property. What then?”

“Well, there it is a little difficult. Our means are limited, and the needs of the poor are great. We cannot feed idle hands.”

“I’m sure they would work, at ladylike occupations.”

“We do not have great need of ladylike occupations here.”

Claire had expected this. “They could bring a jeweled cup of considerable value.”

“Indeed? But would it be theirs to bring? If you are seeking refuge for your family, Lady Claire, you must intend to break your marriage. In that case, if I understand matters aright, you will all own nothing.”

“Lord Renald gave me the cup without condition. It is mine. If necessary, he will confirm it.”

The nun interlinked her hands on her desk. “A generous man, then. You do not think to hold to your marriage?”

Claire hadn’t expected this attitude here. “You called him a murderer.”

“As most men are. If a lady seeks to marry, she has little choice.”