Chapter 7
Linnet stared up at the night sky, clear and filled with bright twinkling stars.
She sighed, and looked about her. There was nothing around but dark forest and her mounds of pillows.
William had said little to her since his lecture on the stupidity of leaping in the river, especially when she admitted to him she did not care and she would do the same thing again.
So it was in warring silence they had traveled until darkness made going on too risky. They had made camp and eaten in that same silence.
But she had felt him watching every motion she made, and it made her nervous when he watched her so intently, as if he had to do so.
She tossed and turned on the pillows she used as a pallet, then angrily jerked her covers higher.
She tried counting stars. She still could not sleep. But then William was not beside her.
He had waited until she was still before he crossed the small clearing.
He stood above her for a moment. Finally he lay down and locked his hands behind his head.
He had been thinking of the day he'd had, when he heard something—just a small noise.
It could have been nothing but a squirrel in the trees. Still he lay listening.
"I think I see a wolf," Linnet said.
William snapped upright, his dagger drawn. "Where?"
She stared at him with a startled expression, then pointed at the sky. "Up there. In the starry sky."
He sagged back down on his pallet to keep from shaking her. Star shapes in the sky, he thought with disgust.
"I'm sorry. I was counting stars and spotted it. I didn't mean to frighten you."
"I wasn't frightened."
She was quiet. William closed his eyes.
"Do you suppose the stars are different in different places. I mean do people see different stars in different places?"
Certain stars were used as guides, but the others, well, he never had thought about them.
"I see a dragon right up there. Can you not see it?"
He looked at the night sky. It looked as it always did. Dark, powerful, and filled with small specks of light. Finally he said, "Where?"
She shifted closer so that their heads were right next to each other. He could have cared less about the stars at that moment. As she showed him the shape, her cheek so close to his that all he had to do was turn his head, just turn it and his mouth would touch hers.
She shifted away. "I find it is pleasant, sleeping under the sky. Unless it rains. That wouldn't be pleasant I imagine."
He took a deep breath. "It's not going to rain."
"How do you know that?"
"The sun did not rise red."
"Oh." She paused, then asked, "Does that mean it will rain, when the sun rises red?"
"Aye."
"I see." She rustled underneath her mound of blankets and turned on her side toward him.
He could feel her stare and glanced at her.
"How do you know that a red sunrise means rain?"
He sighed. "Experience."
She was blessedly quiet. He closed his eyes and relaxed. His breath was even and he was almost asleep.
"I've been thinking . . ."
He stifled the urge to groan.
"What does it mean if the sun sets red?"
"Nothing."
"But if the sun rises red and that means it will rain, it stands to reason that the sun setting red must mean something also." She paused, then added, "But the sun always sets red so it would not change anything or mean anything. And if the sun always sets red, then doesn't it always rise red too?"
"Goodnight."
"Oh. Yes, I suppose you are tired, riding all this way, rescuing Swithun, fighting knights, barking orders ..."
He lifted his head and turned back to see her smiling. Exasperated, he dropped his head back on the pillow and said, "And listening to cats screech. Ducks quack."
"And me talk?" He could hear the laughter in her voice.
"Aye, and listening to you talk."
"Goodnight, William," she said so sweetly if he could hear that every night for the rest of his life he would die a happy man. He closed his eyes.
A few moments later she sighed. "I'll say a prayer that it doesn't rain."
"Go to sleep without a care, my lady. It is not going to rain."
"Well." She sighed again. "If you're certain."
"I am more than certain. I'll lay my life on it."
"I'd say your life is fairly worthless about now," Linnet said to William with a slight smile. The comment earned her a rather pointed glare.
It had been raining for over two hours. After the first five minutes, the cats had started screeching and the ducks quacking.
William and Linnet sat huddled beneath the dripping blankets he'd spread over some tree branches while he muttered something about bed hangings after all.
Linnet had questioned him but he had not answered.
‘Twas a soggy shelter to say the least, as soggy as her velvet pillows which were floating a few feet away in muddy puddles. "I certainly wish I had brought those tent sticks," Linnet said, thoughtfully.
The cats screeched again and the ducks kept quacking.
William glanced at the cages. "I certainly wish you had brought just rabbits."
"It is a dreadful lot of noise, isn't it? I'm terribly sorry. I feel so sorry for them." Dismas chose that moment to screech so loudly the sound rang through her teeth.
William cursed almost as loudly and stood, scowling.
She grabbed his leg. "Don't hurt him. Please. He's only frightened."
He gave her a puzzled look, then stiffened as if she besmirched his honor. "I do not kill animals," he said through a tight jaw. "Tempting though it may be this night." With that he stalked out of the shelter into the driving rain.
Linnet watched, stunned, as William brought the cages two at a time over to the shelter of the trees.
He stacked them, one atop another in neat rows, then trudged back out into the rain to get the tent and drape it over the cages.
She was stunned to move. This gruff and oft times angry man, a hardened warrior, was doing something she was certain no other man would do for her.
He was giving comfort and protection to her pets.
He strode back through the rain and the mud to their shelter.
He must have read her thoughts because he stopped suddenly, his expression as chagrined as if she had just seen him naked.
Head down, he busied himself by retying the halter leads to the tree branches and adjusting the blankets which didn't need adjusting.
She bit back a smile, then walked over to him and gently touched his arm. "William?"
He stared down at her. His black hair was plastered to his head and neck. Rainwater dripped from his brows, nose, and chin and from his clothing, even from that earring.
"Thank you."
He looked away.
She just stood there.
He jerked the corner of the blanket tightly over the limb of a tree, then stopped and said gruffly, "I couldn't take the racket any longer."
"I understand." She gave his arm a pat and turned around.
She could feel his stare, yet she walked back and sat down, repaying him by leaving him alone with his embarrassment.
But she felt her heart beat a little faster and a small smile of satisfaction tickled the corners of her mouth.
His actions told her more about him than all the bard's tales and servants' rumors ever could.
Beneath his barbaric looks, beneath the gruff and hard mercenary edges he showed the rest of the world, was truly a kind and gallant man.