Chapter 13 #2
The words seduced him, so true they were to how he wanted to feel--that she was his salvation not his damnation.
All too quickly the song ended and she sang the impossible words no more, but continued to hum a bewitchingly captivating melody, flowing from her mouth like the wine from Saintonge, then she paused once, glancing at him over her hound, at ease, still humming, and she gave him the softest of smiles.
The moment was almost more than a mortal man could take.
Around campfires on nights before and after tourneys, there were stories told from knights who travelled the vast and wide, dry deserts of the East, where the battles fought were as much with the hot sun and terrain as with the Infidels.
Some had seen with their own eyes men on horseback sink helplessly to their deaths into bottomless holes of sand.
At that moment Lyall knew he was lost, and he averted his gaze, afraid of sinking into a place of sand from which he could never escape.
But even staring at the wet straw on the ground, he could not cut the bond between them, the warring in his head, his grand wanting of her--the mere possibility of her, of the brightness and the light, of the promise of redemption.
A sudden impulse overcame him to pull her into his arms and lose himself inside of her, but some small bit of conscience stopped him.
He dared not take her, not now, not ever, certainly not after she found out his protection was a lie.
He sought to be stronger than his drives and wants.
He sought the strength of conscience to leave her be.
“Montrose?”
He looked up, startled.
“Wake up,” she said, and threw a handful of soapy mud at him, laughing
Again the sound made his senses jump. Water dripped from the tip of his nose and dropped down to the ground. He watched it, struck dumb. A second later the hound leapt from the trough sending water sloshing everywhere.
“Fergus!” she shouted.
Across from him Glenna sat with her arms out, staring down at her sodden gown, water dripping from her face and glistening in her long dark hair.
Meanwhile, the dog eagerly shook himself dry from head to tail several times, and began shaking his legs out as he walked in circles, spreading the water to and fro and sprinkling both them.
They sat there, both soaked, squinting a bit because they were still getting pattered by water.
Each one looked at the other for enough time to see their situation, and they began to laugh freely and then lapsed into an awkward moment of silence, both still grinning.
She lifted her chin. “I’m not as wet as you,” she said to him in that imperious way she had, which made him laugh harder.
“Is that a challenge?” he asked.
“Only if you care to make it one,” she said without fear.
He stood then, lifted the half full trough and pinned her with a direct and determined look. She stood her own, until he was too close for her comfort and she laughed and scrambled backwards, holding out her hand. “Nay! Montrose, you do not dare!”
That she would not be intimidated showed her will and strength and stubbornness, qualities he respected in men and in his sister, and he would do no less with Glenna.
Still smiling, he turned on his heel toward the backside of the stables where there was the waste channel he had used earlier.
After emptying the contents, he put the trough back by the hayforks, rakes, and groom’s tools.
“Come here, you wretched beast.” Glenna was on her knees in the straw, with her comb in hand and half tugging the hound back into a sitting position. “Be still, you. Your fur is all tangled and all your wiggling about will break my comb.”
He grabbed a milking stool and a wad of greasy fleece hanging nearby and joined her.
“Here. Sit.” He set down the stool for her.
“Wait before you comb him. Let me rub him down with this. The grease in the wool will make the combing easier.” He knelt down and vigorously rubbed the fleece over the hound’s fur and stepped back. “That should help.”
She pulled the comb through easily and looked up at him, clearly surprised.
“My father hired knights from the northern regions. When I was a lad, his sergeant-at- arms showed me how he lined his sheath with raw wool. The grease in the fleece helped to keep his sword protected and made it easier to hone. His woman rubbed a small piece of fleece in her hair to remove the tangles. My mother and sister still do the same.” He leaned back against one of the stalls, crossing his feet at the ankles and resting his shoulder against a rough-hewn post, lost in his thoughts of another time and place, another dog.
He chose not to tell her how he had rubbed Atholl down many times after bathing him, but her hound had brought back the images, as had watching her comb her hair brought back another memory.
“You have a sister?”
“Aye, she is younger than I. You did not ask about my mother. I am surprised you did not seem shocked I had one,” he said dryly. “Instead of being spawned by the Devil or sired by wolves.”
“Not wolves. Banshees in the dark Caledonian Woods.” She laughed at his mock anger. “And how do your sister and mother tolerate you?”
“They do not.”
“Aye,” she nodded, finishing with one side of the hound. “I find that understandable.”
“They worship me,” he countered.
“Be careful when you walk through that door, Montrose…your fat head might not fit.”
“Beware how you flap that tongue of yours…I might be tempted to cut it out.”
“Such threats against a poor, wee, defenseless woman.”
That made him chuckle and he saw she tried not to smile, but stood instead and studied the hound, gripping him gently by the scruff and moving her face close to his dark, wet snout.
“Look at you, Fergus. You are so handsome. You look like a royal hound.”
“Do not lie to the animal. He still looks like an enormous hairy rat, but with no mud on his fur.”
She fluffed the dog’s big ears. “Ignore him, my sweet hound. I take most of his words with a grain of salt.” She surprised him, the phrases she used, and not for the first time.
“How do you know of Pliny and Pompey?”
“Alastair told me many stories. Of Aesop and Homer, Sophocles’ Antigone and Oedipus, of the great tales of the Greek gods and goddesses.
Those myths and poems were the heart of my childhood.
My father’s,” she stopped and corrected herself.
“Sir Hume’s father was distant kinsman to the duke of Normandy and was educated in his youth by a priest and destined for the church, until some change took place and he was sent to be fostered to a family, where the house bard carried songs and poems and tales for all who dined in the great hall.
He passed those stories on to his son, and he to his sons, and Alastair himself was tutored for a short time. ”
‘Twas as if a storm cloud had descended over them, so quickly did the lightness between them change. The mere mention of her brothers stole the joy away and some part of him was sorely disappointed.
But his sense returned swiftly, and told him he was being a fool. Better there be distance between them, even rancor, than his strange weak moods of the heart.
“We will leave at sunrise,” he told her.
She stood up, head down as she straightened her clinging wet gown, then opened the purse at her waist, looked inside and dropped in the comb.
“Thank you for bathing Fergus, my lord. Come now,” she said to the hound and snapped her fingers.
The dog was instantly at her side. “We shall leave you to your…
" she paused and looked at him as if she were searching for something in him rather than something to say. “…your business.”
He watched her leave and stared at the empty spot where she had disappeared, unable to shake from his mind’s eye the image of her.
He cursed himself for starting this, for washing her hound and bringing to mind his past, one that was long since over, and worse, his future, when he would have to walk away from her, and that was the last thing he wanted to do.