Chapter Seven
“Where are you going?”
Corisande froze midway through pulling a heavy robe over the shift and woolen dress she was wearing. It was a very cold morning, before sunrise, and there was frost on the windowsills so she was dressing warmly.
But a hissing voice had her pausing.
“Go back to sleep, Gratiana,” she whispered. “I have duties to attend to.”
Gratiana de Allington lifted her dark, messy head. “At this hour?”
Corisande waved at her, a gesture that suggested she lay back down. “We have visitors departing this morning, if you must know,” she said. “I also have an ill soldier and I wish to see how he fared through the night. Is there anything else you wish to know?”
Gratiana shook her head and lay back down. She was a curious girl, but that only went so far in the early hours of the morning. Thankful that she didn’t have to deal with more of Gratiana’s questions, Corisande pulled the fur-lined robe tight and headed from the dark, warm chamber.
The keep of Castle Keld was a big, cold block of ice on mornings like this.
The stone it was built from literally turned to ice when the temperatures dipped, making the walls slick and the floors slippery.
It was mostly dark in the stairwell except for a few intermittent torches and Corisande could see her breath hanging in the air as she carefully made her way down to the entry.
She was a woman on a mission.
She was fairly certain that she hadn’t slept all night, afraid she was going to miss the dawn and miss seeing Cole off.
She had told the man that she would bring him food and she intended to do just that, although she knew deep down that it was really just an excuse to see him before he left.
Certainly, they’d had visitors before. There had been many visitors over the years and she had never personally met any of them in the stable with a bag of food for the coming journey.
But Cole was different.
He wasn’t just any visitor.
Truth be told, she had lain awake all night thinking about the enormous knight with uniquely colored eyes.
When she had first met him, she had thought he had a rather sinister appearance.
He had a square jaw and sharply angled features.
There was nothing soft about his face at all, and the way his eyebrows arched over those eyes was something almost reptilian.
At least, that’s what she’d first thought.
But the more she looked at him and the more she came to know him, the more she realized that all of those elements came together for a fantastically handsome man.
His size was truly something impressive.
He was quite tall, but the sheer breadth of his shoulders and the circumference of his arms were things to be admired.
She’d seen him use that strength against the Scotsman in her father’s solar, lifting the man as if he’d weighed no more than a child, and she found that strangely alluring when it should have been wholly intimidating.
Maybe that made her strange, but she didn’t really care.
She was coming to like what she saw of the frightening Cole de Velt.
They’d had two significant conversations yesterday and both of them had shown a gentle side to the knight who looked as if he did not even know the meaning of the word. He had been kind and compassionate with her, something so unexpected but something she had found endearing.
Something that, down deep, had healed something in her, something that had shattered in Auden’s wake.
In truth, when Auden had left her, she had put thoughts of men out of her mind.
That incident had made her hate men in general for quite some time and she was only now just starting to overcome that.
Men had no honor, in her opinion, and she was only now starting to look at men without the usual apathy until Cole had shown her a kindness that she had forgotten existed outside of her own family.
Her brothers had always shown her an inordinate amount of kindness, and she loved them very much, but that was the only kindness she had trusted up until yesterday.
Cole was quickly causing her to change her mind.
Therefore, she was determined to see him again before he left.
Maybe there was a part of her that didn’t believe he really would return to her as he said he would, so perhaps this would be her last glimpse of him.
But then again, it was wrong of her to distrust the man before he’d given her a reason to.
She just didn’t know what to think.
All she knew was the way he made her feel.
The kitchens of Castle Keld were already working at full capacity at this time in the morning.
The cook baked bread every morning, bread that would be eaten throughout the day, so the kitchens smelled like yeast with delicious aromas.
Corisande collected a few smaller bread loaves along with cheese, small apples, and leftover meat pies from the night before.
All of it ended up in a canvas sack that was used to haul grain up from the vault.
They had enormous stores down in the sublevels beneath the keep, and the servants used the sacks to bring the grain up to the kitchens.
She walked around the kitchens twice, looking for anything else she could stuff in the sack before finally locating a stash of little round dough balls that had been basted in honey.
Those had been on the menu the night before and there were just a few left, so she threw those into the sack.
The sack was nearly overflowing at this point, so she scurried out of the kitchens and headed towards the stables.
The eastern sky was just starting to show hints of pink and orange as the sun begin to rise over a land that was crunchy with icy dew.
Corisande knew that Cole was going to be leaving at dawn and she hoped she wouldn’t be too late.
Rushing into the stables, she saw that it was still mostly dark, so the activity for the day hadn’t yet started.
However, the horses heard her and thought they were about to be fed, so they began to stir and make noise.
Quietly, she made her way over to Cole’s fat, black stallion.
Round, black eyes were looking back at her.
Corisande had been around warhorses enough to know that they weren’t the most docile of creatures.
In fact, her brothers owned horses that she swore breathed fire.
Therefore, she had a healthy respect for the beasts that were trained to kill men, but the eyes gazing back at her didn’t look like a killer.
He had an enormous, beautiful face.
“I know you’re hungry,” she whispered. “I am sorry, but I did not come to feed you.”
The horse lifted his head, curled its lips, and showed her big horse teeth.
It wasn’t a vicious move, but a rather humorous one.
Such humor should be rewarded, so she pulled out a dough ball and carefully held it up to the horse on her flat palm.
She was prepared to yank her hand back at any moment, but one sniff from those big horse nostrils and the horse gladly sucked up the sweet treat.
With a grin, Corisande went to sit next to the trough with the healing moss to wait for Cole to make an appearance.
It wasn’t long in coming.
Cole entered the stable, followed by a pair of servants who quickly went to light lamps so they could move about feeding the animals.
She heard Cole ask one of the men if the horses had been fed yet, but they hadn’t, so Cole shook his head with disappointment and went to his horse.
He petted the beast as he assured him that he would soon have a full belly.
The servants were already bringing grain for the animal as Cole stepped aside so the beast could be fed.
“What’s his name?” Corisande asked.
Cole turned sharply to see her sitting in the shadows near the trough and a smile creased his lips.
“Who?” he asked.
“The horse.”
“His name is Drago.”
“He is very nice.”
He gave her an odd look. “He is not nice,” he said. “He is a vicious war animal, so guard your fingers when you are around him. What are you doing sitting in the dark like that, anyway? If one didn’t know better, one might assume you were an assassin lying in wait.”
Corisande laughed softly. “If I was an assassin, you would already be dead,” she said. Then, she lifted the sack. “I have brought you the food I told you I was going to bring. You may as well eat some while you are waiting for your horse to be fed.”
Cole came over to her and eyed her with some amusement, before taking the sack from her hand. He peered into it, made difficult because the stable was still dark. But he inhaled deeply.
“I can smell the bread,” he said. “What else did you bring me?”
“Cheese and apples,” she said. “There are also little meat pies in there along with sweet dough balls. Your horse had one and he heartily approves.”
Cole turned to frown at the horse. “Glutton,” he muttered.
But he returned his attention to the sack as he walked over to the very last stall next to Corisande.
It was empty and he sat down on the dirt floor, leaning back against the wall.
“You have gone through the trouble of bringing this to me. Will you join me?”
Fighting off a smile, one of pure delight, Corisande went into the stall and sat across from him, a proper distance, but a good position from which to watch him.
She realized that she liked to watch the man.
He told a thousand tales with those eyes, that face, and that big body conveyed the life of a man of experience.
Everything about him spoke to her.
“Thank you,” she said. “It is kind to share your meal with me.”
He snorted. “You brought it,” he said, pulling out a still-warm loaf of bread and tearing it in half, handing her a chunk. “I do not usually eat in the morning but, more importantly, I do not usually break my fast with a beautiful young lady when I do. I am honored.”