Chapter Six #5
He found those bright blue eyes most unnerving as he looked at her, a smirk on his face.
“Are you offering to provide me with sons, my lady?” he asked, teasing, watching her grin and avert her gaze.
“This is so suddenly. I do not know what to say. We have not even had our first kiss yet and now you offer to provide me with sons. How shocking.”
Kathalin could tell he was jesting at her and she giggled, embarrassed. “I did not mean it the way it sounded.”
He was glad the focus was off of him and his lack of sons, now on to her and her curious questions. He rather liked watching her squirm.
“What’s this?” he demanded lightly. “Now you are rescinding your offer? I am crushed. Deeply crushed. How could you hurt me so?”
He was being quite charming and overly dramatic, but it had worked the desired effect and deflected the conversation away from his lack of a wife and children.
Even though Kathalin wasn’t at all versed in the flirtations between a man and a woman, it seemed to come naturally to her and she responded to his charm.
She had a natural sense of humor, much like Gates did, and she sought to give the man a dose of his own medicine.
“Very well, if you insist,” she said. “But we must be married before I provide any children. I want a very big wedding that costs a great deal of money. And… and more of these soft garments. And I want golden rings on my fingers and peacock feathers in my hair. Will that cost terribly much?”
Gates eyebrows flew up. “Demanding enchantress!” he exclaimed softly. “You have yet to provide me with sons but you still demand I spend all of my money on you? I find that most insulting. This bargain is most definitely off.”
Kathalin continued to snort, her gaze averted and her cheeks flaming red.
She’d never in her life had such a conversation and she was giddy with it, feeling her heart flutter with the thrill.
She was quite certain Mother Benedicta would not approve of the conversation but, at the moment, she didn’t much care.
“Then I am devastated,” she said. “I am going to tell my father what you have done and he will not like it one bit.”
Gates guffawed, a sharp sound, and quickly shut his mouth. “Oh, my silly young girl,” he said, amused. “You have no idea what your father would do to me if you told him that.”
She was interested. “Truly?” she asked, looking at him. “What would he do?”
He cast her a sidelong glance. “Beat me at the very least,” he said.
“Turn his dogs on me. How would you react if your daughter, who had spent all of her life in a convent, was blatantly toyed with by the knight who was charged with her escort? That is abuse of a position of power and you would make sure that knight was properly punished.”
Kathalin grinned. “You did not toy with me,” she said. “You simply demanded I bear you sons.”
“I did not. You offered to do it.”
Kathalin could see a smile playing on his lips and she shook her head reproachfully.
“I see we shall not agree on this,” she said.
“Mayhap it is for the best that we do not marry and I do not bear you sons. I will return to St. Milburga’s, eventually, and you shall continue on with your warring ways, and our lives will go in different directions.
But I do wish you well, Sir Gates. I shall say a prayer for your safety. Your kindness will not be forgotten.”
The conversation had taken a serious turn and Gates looked at her as she gazed off across the snowy lands.
It seemed to him that she had suddenly turned thoughtful and introspective, as if there were a good deal on her mind that she could not, or would not, discuss.
He had rather liked it the other way, when she was willing to speak with him and even jest with him. Aye, he had liked that a great deal.
“It was not kindness I showed you yesterday or the day before,” he said quietly. “I showed you my sense of duty. This entire venture has been my sense of duty. I hope you understand that.”
Kathalin instinctively looked to her wrists, buried under the gloves the seamstress had provided, and thinking on the raw skin that had been immensely helped by the calendula salve.
She thought on the past two days and how she had hated de Wolfe for doing what he had been ordered to do.
She had fought him, and struggled against him, and all the while he’d remained stoic and determined.
Never had he wavered or been cruel. Providing her with clothing and comfort had also been part of that duty but she had to stop fighting him before he could do it.
She was coming to think that the situation between them hadn’t all been his fault.
Hate.
She didn’t hate him anymore. In fact….
“I understand,” she said softly. “I cannot fault you for doing as you were told. I am not entirely sure you could have done anything differently given the fact I did not wish to go with you. I still do not. But here I am and there isn’t much I can do about it.”
Gates could hear resignation in her voice and it depressed him somehow.
He suspected what Jasper had in mind for her purely from what he’d mentioned, but Gates still wasn’t in a position to tell her that.
A political marriage. She was a pawn to her father and that was probably all she would ever be – a burden and a pawn.
In Kathalin’s case, both would be a tragedy. It was a fate she did not deserve.
But he could not, and would not, interfere.
“That is a sensible way to look at the situation, my lady,” he finally said.
They continued to ride on in relative silence with the cold breeze caressing them both, but the silence was not uncomfortable.
On the contrary, it was rather warm. As if there was some manner of understanding between them now.
Kathalin was thinking on what would take place once she reached Hyssington and Gates was wondering why he didn’t like the idea of Jasper marrying his daughter off.
She was fine and pure and beautiful, three words he had very much come to associate with her, and certainly something to be treasured and not bartered with.
As Gates mulled over those thoughts, shouts began to come from his men up at point.
Stephan, at the head of the column, was calling back to him, waving at him, and Gates spurred his steed forward as Kathalin held on for dear life.
The horse was spirited and with a somewhat bobbing gait when he was excited.
As Gates drew near Stephan, the big knight pointed to the road ahead.
“Look,” he said. “I am not entirely sure what to make of that.”
Gates peered up the road, the glare from the snow hurting his eyes.
The road was wet and muddy from the melted snow, with big dirty drifts piled up on the shoulders, and he could see up ahead a solitary bundled figure walking along.
But the figure was staggering, and at one point nearly falling, so Gates sent Stephan up ahead to see to the situation.
Holding up a gloved fist, Gates brought the entire column to a halt as Stephan raced up ahead.
He saw clearly when Stephan engaged the figure in conversation and he further saw when the bundled figure fell back, onto the snow drift, and simply sat there as if exhausted.
At that point, Stephan climbed off his steed and stood in front of the figure, obviously conversing with it.
After an exchange of a few words, he waved over Gates.
Gates spurred his horse forward and, once again, Kathalin clung to the horse’s mane to keep from falling because of the jaunty canter. They came upon Stephan expectantly.
“My lord,” Stephan said, pointing to the figure on the snow drift, which turned out to be a sobbing woman with a red nose. “She says her children are very ill and is walking to the nearest town to find a physic.”
Before Gates could open his mouth, Kathalin spoke. “What is wrong with the children?” she asked anyone who could tell her. “Where are they?”
Stephan looked at the woman sitting on the snow drift. “Tell the lady what you told me,” he said. “Speak now.”
The woman on the snow drift wiped at her nose with her ragged clothing, dirty brown wool that was well worn. “A fever,” she said. “Both of me children have it, m’lady.”
Kathalin was very concerned; St. Milburga’s was a healing order, as Milburga was the patron saint of lepers, and she had been trained to heal since a very young age. It was something she knew a good deal about. “Where are your children?” she asked.
The woman pointed off to the west. “There,” she said. “Me home is not far, m’lady. I was going to town to find a physic to tend them.”
Kathalin shook her head. “That is not necessary,” she said, turning to look at Gates. “I must go and see what I can do for them.”
Gates wasn’t apt to agree. “My lady, we are expected at Hyssington,” he told her. “We do not have time to make any detours.”
She fixed him with those bright blue eyes.
“Hyssington can wait,” she said in a tone he’d never heard from her before.
“If there is illness, then I must see to it. That is what I have been taught, de Wolfe. St. Milburga’s is a healing order and that is what I know, so if I can help, I am obligated to do so. ”
He just looked at her. His sense of duty told him to get the woman to Hyssington as soon as possible but the part of him that was the least bit swayed by her passion and firm words was inclined to grant her request. He knew St. Milburga’s was a hospital order; he’d seen the big dormitory where they’d kept beds for patients because they had passed through it on their search for the Prioress.
The Refectory, it had been called. Indecisive, he made the mistake of showing it and Kathalin took advantage of his state.
“Please,” she said, lowering her voice. “We will not be long, I promise. But please let me help if I can.”