Chapter 6 Ye Don’t Look Dead To Me
Ye Don’t Look Dead To Me
Noah cursed himself for being a fool. There was nothing else he could have done, of course. Standing still and watching Senga get struck by a horse was, of course, simply not a choice.
He dragged himself up off her, clambering to his feet. Senga was staring up at him, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, but he wouldn’t allow himself to look at her, not even for an instant.
His ribs throbbed and burned from his mad dash across the courtyard, and there was an alarming wetness around his arm. His wound was no doubt bleeding again.
“Noah…” Senga began, but Noah pointedly turned away, rounding on the stable lad. He knew this boy, and his reputation was not good.
“What are ye about, lad?” Noah roared.
The boy wilted.
“Sir, I—”
“Do ye not see the cut on that horse’s leg? The poor creature is in pain, and ye try to heave it along with brute force? With a whip?”
He snatched the whip up from the cobbles, breaking the wooden handle in two over his knee, and tossed it away.
The stable lad gave a pathetic little whimper, scrambling away.
“I’m sorry, sir.”
“Sorry won’t unwhip the horse, will it?”
Noah was aware that his voice was pitching higher and more angrily, but he couldn’t seem to help himself. He took a step forward, and the stable lad yelped, scuttling away with his tail between his legs. As his running footsteps echoed away, it occurred to Noah that he was now alone with Senga.
She had gotten to her feet at some point and stood silently behind him, watching. He didn’t look at her, but he knew that she was watching. He could feel the weight of her gaze upon him.
Instead of turning to face her, Noah took a careful step towards the horse.
Because he knew horses. Horses were always the same, always predictable, always trustworthy. You knew where you were with a horse.
This horse in particular eyed him nervously. He could see the whites of her eyes, and dried, bloody foam flecked around her mouth. Her nearside foreleg wouldn’t quite touch the ground, and as he approached, he saw that she had a nasty cut on the inside of her leg.
It had probably caught on a splinter in her stable; he would have to look over the stalls and find the offending splinter to prevent any further animals from being injured. The stable lad should have noticed it.
He hummed under his breath, which some horses found soothing, and approached gingerly, hand outstretched before him.
The horse watched his approach warily, ears flickering.
He paused about two arms’ lengths away, seeing that the horse was still nervous.
If he went closer, Noah knew, he risked getting kicked.
He couldn’t blame the horse, of course. She was frightened, in pain, and had just been roughly treated. She didn’t know him, and she certainly didn’t trust him. But he couldn’t let her stay loose in the courtyard, and her leg would need to be tended to.
“It’s alright, Bluebell, lassie,” came Senga’s voice at his side.
To his amazement, he watched as Senga approached, close enough to smooth the horse’s nose with her palm. She leaned down, inspecting the horse’s injured leg. The creature’s ears flicked briefly back, but she stood staunchly, letting it happen.
“Poor lassie,” Senga murmured, straightening up.
She rested her forehead against the horse’s nose, and the creature huffed, ears flicking forward.
Noah found that his jaw was slack and closed it with a snap.
“Ye seem comfortable with the creature,” he managed at last.
Senga nodded, not turning to look at him. “Her name is Bluebell, and her master is dead. I took her with me when I went outside the Keep the other day—he told me to take her. I feel responsible for her.”
“As ye should,” Noah responded. “She seems to be yer horse now.”
He wasn’t sure what he’d expected as a response, but Senga gave a small, wry smile at that. She smoothed Bluebell’s nose one more time and stepped back.
“I believe I can guide her back to the stables,” she said at last. “But I will need ye to take her inside. Can ye do that?”
“Aye, I can. Ye certainly have a knack with horses, lassie.”
Senga looked properly at him then, her eyes a little reddened and not quite looking him in the eyes.
“Well, aye. I fell in love with a stable boy, remember?”
Noah’s chest tightened painfully until he could barely breathe. He hated himself for feeling this way. It was beyond ridiculous.
Remember the pain of her betrayal, he told himself. Hold on to that. She might want to act as though none of it has ever happened, but it did happen. It did. Ye cannot let yerself forget it.
Swallowing hard, he dragged his gaze away from her and focused on the horse again. This time, when he stepped forward, the horse’s ears didn’t flatten warningly against her skull. He gingerly picked up the rope dangling from her bridle, and she watched him through thoughtful, liquid black eyes.
“Good lassie,” he murmured, smoothing her nose.
He made no attempt to lead her, however. He waited until Senga began to walk away, and the horse began to clop after her. He followed, keeping the rope slack. The rope was only there in case the horse decided to try something dangerous, like charging at a group of children.
They walked in silence, and Noah found his gaze fixed upon Senga’s back. Her long, white-blonde hair hung down her back in an untidy braid, with clumps of hair coming loose from the plait.
I used to love her hair. I’d wind it around my fingertips and feel the silky smoothness of it against my palm. Sometimes I can still feel it.
He gave himself a tight shake, forcing the thoughts out of his mind. He had been through this already, hadn’t he? One heartbreak was enough. One betrayal of this magnitude was enough.
Oh, Noah had often been betrayed before, by friends and allies, like everybody else. But this was something else. This was a betrayal that scarred a man till the day he died.
They reached the stables, and Senga paused, inches away from the doorway. She turned, glancing over her shoulder, and met his eye.
“I can’t go in.”
The words had a meaning to them, a sort of weight that he couldn’t quite catch. What was she talking about?
“Why?” Noah heard himself ask.
Running from yer memories, Senga? I know I do.
Senga turned, facing the dark entrance to the stables once more, and he saw her shoulders hunch up under her ears.
“I can’t,” she whispered.
Clenching his jaw, Noah came to stand alongside her. He kept the rope slack in his hand. The horse nudged his shoulder almost thoughtfully, and he lifted an absent-minded hand to smooth her cheek.
“It’s only a stable,” Noah murmured. “Ye did not hesitate back then.”
She gave a wry smile. “Perhaps I only need someone to guide me back in.”
Noah’s arm twitched out, and he realized to his own horror that he’d meant to reach out and take her hand, as if they were still lovers.
Well, we aren’t, he told himself angrily. We’re nothing to each other. Not anymore.
He kept his hand firmly by his side. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Senga close her eyes. It was like she wanted to get this off her chest, but kept hesitating.
“The smell,” she whispered. “I can’t do it.”
He frowned. “The horse smell? Is it too much for yer lady senses nowadays, lass?”
“Nay, not that kind of smell. I mean the blood.”
He blinked and took a long sniff. “There’s no blood. What do ye—”
Abruptly, she turned away, and he caught a glimpse of her face, white and sweating.
“I can’t do it,” she whispered. “Take care of Bluebell. I… I had better get to the infirmary.”
She took off at a run, not even looking back at him. Noah twisted around to look at her, but she never looked back at him. Keeping her head down, she darted into the darkness of the Keep. The silence seemed more absolute with her gone.
Clenching his jaw, Noah resolutely turned around and plunged into the darkness of the stables. Bluebell followed mildly behind him.
The midday sun was weak, not warm at all, but Noah and Brendan sweated heavily as they sparred. Blinking sweat out of his eyes, Noah recovered just in time to dodge a powerful parry from Brendan.
If he hadn’t dodged, the point of the wooden sword would have dug straight into his torso. Generally, such a mistake would leave him with bruises and a lingering soreness, but with the current state of his ribs, there was potential for a worse injury.
He should have told Brendan about his wounds, Noah knew that, but he privately hoped that they would heal quietly and let him get on with his life. He wanted to be busy. He wanted to work. At the very least, he’d told Brendan about the incident in the courtyard.
“Senga can keep that horse if she likes,” Brendan remarked, hopping on the balls of his feet at a respectable distance. Brendan liked to chat during their sparring matches, probably because he knew it distracted Noah. “Freya’s glad to have her friend staying.”
Noah grunted. “I should have been overseeing that stable lad. She could have been hurt.”
“By she, do ye mean the horse or Senga?” Brendan countered with a grin.
Noah snorted, shaking his head. “Both, I suppose.”
He darted forward, slicing his wooden sword in a low sweep. In a real battle, such a move could disembowel an opponent. In practice, however, Brendan neatly parried it and jumped back to safety.
“I imagine ye know this already,” Brendan added, “but I know that ye and Senga were once close. Freya told me. It’s a messy business by the sounds of it.”
Noah’s ears rang. He misstepped and received a glancing blow to his knee from Brendan. He darted back, cursing. In a real battle, that blow might have severed his leg or at least taken a bite out of his thigh.
Sloppy, lad, sloppy.
“I don’t blame Senga for what happened,” Noah responded tightly. “Not anymore, at least. She was young and impressionable. But that’s not to say I have to forgive her for betraying me.”
“Betraying ye?” Brendon echoed, tilting his head. “What happened?”
“It doesn’t matter what happened. The old Noah is long dead.”
Brendon scoffed. He wasn’t a lover of metaphorical talking.
“Dead? Ye don’t look dead to me.”
Noah was rapidly tiring of this conversation. He took a step back and let his sword point drop. That was a sign that the fight should stop, at least between him and his friend.
Brendan paused, eyes narrowing, as if he suspected a trick. Well, maybe he did. They’d sparred for years, for longer than Noah could remember, and over those years they’d lost and won battles in equal measure.
In fact, Noah could remember when they had first begun to spar as a way of practicing their newfound skills, inching around each other nervously, always thinking about their footwork.
Now, they flew around like avenging angels, quick as lightning and twice as vicious.
Not today, though. Noah tossed aside his wooden practice sword, and a moment later, Brendan did the same.
“Forgive me,” Noah mumbled. “I’m not myself today.”
Brendan slapped him reassuringly on the shoulder. “Never mind, lad. Never mind.”
Noah wished he hadn’t done that. He had slapped his bad arm, the one bandaged and still bleeding at times, and pain shot through his whole shoulder. He was forced to grit his teeth against the pain. If Freya had been here, she would have noticed. There was little she did not seem to notice.
But Freya wasn’t there, and Brendan didn’t seem to notice Noah’s flinch.
“My advice is to make up with wee Senga,” Brendan said with a sigh. “Freya wants Senga to stay, to manage our infirmary, so she could be around for a while.”
Noah smiled weakly. He didn’t have the strength to tell Brendan the whole, awful story. It would make him think poorly of Senga. He guessed that she hadn’t told Freya the truth, or at least, not all of it.
He didn’t want Senga to be ostracized. It was all so long ago.
I wish I could turn off my heart around her, though.
“I taught her how to ride a horse, ye know,” Noah said aloud.
Brendan glanced at him, lifting his eyebrows inquisitively. “Oh, aye?”
“Aye. Her father was a fool. He wanted a son but only ever managed to produce one daughter. He had several Lady Murrays, I think, and since he only had one child, I’d guess that the problem was with him and not with his wives.
Like most men, he couldn’t believe it, though, and kept convincing himself that he’d produce a bouncing baby boy at any moment.
He seemed to try to forget about Senga altogether.
When she turned sixteen, it was as if he suddenly remembered that she’d been taught nothing about the world around her and decided that she should learn to ride.
Of course, he just plonked her on a saddle one day, slapped the horse’s rump, and watched her go. ”
Brendan winced. “That’s not the way to do it.”
“Nay, it’s not. My father was a horse breeder.
I was employed by Murray in the stables because of that and trained with the guards after he died.
I was out, attending to the horses and I saw this horse trotting frantically through the courtyard, with poor Senga on its back, hanging on for dear life.
Well, they’d not even put her feet into the stirrups.
She was bouncing up and down, eyes full of panic, and I saw at once that she was going to fall.
I rushed forward and caught her in my arms before she could hit the cobbles. ”
Brendan grinned wryly. “That sounds heroic.”
Noah gave a low laugh. “I suppose it was. Her father demanded I teach her to ride, and I had to agree. And Senga said that she wanted to learn to ride. There was no fear, despite her fall, not a bit of it. I… I think I fell in love with her at that moment.”
The silence stretched out between them, and Noah gave himself a shake.
“But that was then,” he said at last, his voice stronger. “That was too long ago. Those days are long gone.”
“Noah—”
“Those days are gone,” Noah repeated, meeting Brendan’s eyes squarely. He picked up his wooden sword again, aiming the tip towards his friend. “Those days are gone, and that lad is dead.”