Chapter Three #2
opened, and Lara went quiet as the captain walked in, nodding to
her and Sophie as he strolled over to the chests at the foot of the
bed. She lowered her voice. “Why would he do that?”
“He said he wanted to be
there when the man came to.”
Lara glanced over at the captain, who
was rummaging through the chest that held his clothes. “No doubt to
get the man’s account of what he will say happened
first.”
“What did happen,
Lara?”
“I went to the stables to
wait for you. The soldier, Fulrad, must have already been there,
sleeping his drunk off in an empty stall, because I never saw or
heard him until he was right behind me.”
Sophie’s brows knitted together. “What
were you so distracted by that you let a drunkard sneak up on you
and catch you unawares?”
Lara shrugged for an
answer.
“Where was
Wolf?”
“Outside, begging treats
from Berta.”
Sophie pressed her lips together and
shook her head, her way of chastising Lara for not waiting for
Wolf, for walking into the stables alone when there were twenty
strange men about. For doing exactly what Sophie had taught her not
to do her whole life. “Couldn’t you have called out for
help?”
“I asked him to leave me
be.” Lara leaned in close. “But he wouldn’t heed me. He was drunk
and determined to have his way. I tried to get around him, to get
away, but he grabbed me and pulled me down into the straw. I fought
him and managed to get back up, and I stepped on his knee.” A
shiver ran down her spine at the crunch of knee giving way beneath
her foot, the snap of bone breaking. “He screamed, and Wolf came
running in and took him by the throat. I was afraid Wolf had killed
him, and I panicked. I ran.” She glanced at the captain, who had
pulled a pair of leather breeches from the chest and was inspecting
them. “The captain chased us down and brought us back
here.”
She sat back, expecting to get an
earful from Sophie on how she had once again acted rashly and
gotten herself into a mess for it. Sophie let out a long, slow
sigh.
“I saw this soldier, this
Fulrad, lying drunk on a bench outside the stables when we rode
in,” she said. “I saw him ogling you then and didn’t say anything.
I should’ve warned you to keep an eye out for him. I’m getting
old.” She pursed her lips and shook her head. “My sixth sense is
slipping.”
“Your eyes are still hawk
sharp, Tante. I too saw him outside the stables when we rode in,
but not inside the stables, not until he was on me.”
Sophie nodded and patted Lara’s hand
on the table, then she narrowed her eyes at the captain sitting on
the edge of the bed, lacing the breeches he’d pulled from the
chest. “What does the captain plan to do about it?”
“He’s determined to be a
good soldier and follow the king’s law to the letter, which means
he intends to take me before the count, next Mallus.”
“Before Nithard?” Sophie
hissed.
“Yes.”
“We must get you free of
this place,” Sophie whispered in the cleric’s Latin, the language
they used when they didn’t wish to be understood by others. A
language Sophie had been taught by nuns, and Lara had learned from
Sophie. “Get you to the Hollow until this troop packs up and
leaves.” She took in Lara’s torn, dirt-stained gown. “Perhaps
Ber—the cook could offer to escort you to the bathing house.
There’s a window to the river’s side if I remember
right.”
“You remember right,” Lara
answered in kind.
Sophie squeezed Lara’s hand. “I’ll
speak with the cook on my way out. You ask the captain for a
bath.”
Lara took her first full breath in
almost a day, smelling fresh air and freedom. The captain folded
the breeches and put them back in the chest, seemingly oblivious to
their whispers.
“He’s neat,” Sophie
said.
Lara nodded.
“And handsome.”
Lara shrugged.
“And spellbound by a goat
herder with the longest, tannest legs a man ever laid eyes on, I’m
told, who sliced his hand with her dagger in the river the day
before yesterday.”
Lara swallowed, hard.
“By all the saints, of
which I should be one—” Sophie’s look scolded. “—you’ve met the man
twice in two days and have left him bleeding both times, and you
wounded and likely crippled one of his men.”
“I only protected myself
against his drunkard of a man, whose injuries are a result of his
own actions,” Lara said in her defense. “And though I did slice his
hand the first time, it was the brambles that made the captain
bleed the second time.”
“Aye, while chasing you
down.” Sophie looked long and hard at the captain, who was now
rummaging through the other chest. “You be careful, Lara. There’s
more to him than meets the eye.”
Lara scoffed. “He’s a man like any
other,” she said, knowing she was lying as she said it. He was a
man like no other she’d ever met, handsome without being vain, neat
without being prissy, a warrior who could’ve easily killed Wolf,
yet chose to only lay him out, then carried him half a league back
to the keep. A jailer who could’ve forced himself on her, yet had
slept on the floor and offered her the bed. “I can take care of him
as well as any other man.”
“As well as you took care
of the count’s son?” Sophie challenged.
“I thought I took care of
him quite well.”
A loud slam made Lara jump in her
seat, and she turned to see the captain scowling at them from his
closed chest. He strode over to the table.
“I have business to attend
elsewhere,” he told them. “And I’m tired of your whisperings. So….”
He addressed Sophie. “Your visit is over, madam.” He looked to
Lara. “If you have any requests, ask them now.”
“Let me go?” Lara gave him
her most ingenuous smile, and it was hard to tell which was louder:
his snort or Sophie’s tsk.
“I meant personal
belongings,” he said. “Clothes, necessities, that sort of
thing.”
“Wolf could use an outing,
he isn’t trained to a chamber pot as well as I,” she said, and the
corners of the captain’s full mouth twitched up and then clamped
back down. She smoothed her dirty hands down her tattered skirt. “I
could use a bath.”
He stared hard at her with those steel
gray eyes of his, then dipped his head. “I’ll make
arrangements.”
***
Lara stopped her pacing at the sound
of voices beyond the door. The outside bolt was thrown open and she
stood back as Wolf came bounding in, looking none the worse for
yesterday, followed by the captain and two men carrying a wooden
bathing tub. The captain directed the men to set the tub in an
empty corner of the chamber, then proceeded to pull the draperies
down from around the bed while two more men, each lugging a heavy
wooden post nailed into a base, set them at an angle and tied a
rope from one post to the other. The captain hung the drapes across
the rope as Berta bustled in with Lara’s blanket from home and set
it down on the bed. Berta waved her over as she unfolded the
blanket to reveal Lara’s nightshift, a clean tunic and skirt, her
best gown of dusty blue linen, her brush and comb, and a bar of her
favorite rose-scented soap.
Lara ruffled Wolf’s ears. “So that’s
what took you so long.” Sophie must’ve gone home and packed up her
belongings.
“The captain,” Berta
whispered to Lara. “He told Sophie you weren’t leaving this chamber
until Mallus. And then only under armed guard.”
“Hmmph.” Lara glared at
the captain’s broad back as he opened and closed the newly hung
drapes. “We’ll simply have to think of something else.”
Berta said nothing, though her pursed
lips spoke plenty.
“What?” Lara snapped. “You
don’t think I can outsmart an oafish soldier?”
Again, Berta said nothing, and Lara
swept up her blanket and belongings and strode over to the hearth
and plopped down on Wolf’s pelts, where she watched as house
servants carried buckets of steaming water and poured them into the
tub. The two men who’d carried the posts in came back with a cot
piled with bed linens they set against the far wall by the newly
made bath chamber as the house servants returned with more buckets
of steaming water for the tub. At a look from the captain, Berta
shooed everyone out. He stood before Lara, who sat back on the
pelts and glared at him.
“God’s blood,” he
muttered. “It’s akin to treeing a…” He stopped and held her angry
gaze for a moment before clearing his throat. “A hot bath and soft
bed are luxuries I’ve come to appreciate after years on the march.
Enjoy yours while you’re here.”