Chapter Eight #2
“Ouch.” He clapped a hand
over his heart. “Yet another scar to add to my growing
collection.”
“One you’ll recover
quickly enough from, I’m sure.” He cocked his head and said
nothing, and Lara couldn’t read the expression on his face, what
with his left eye swollen almost shut and the bandage covering his
forehead and brows. “What breed of horse is the Black?” she asked,
rubbing the salve into his leg. “I’ve never seen one so big and
black that wasn’t a plow horse.”
“He’s a Friesian,” the
captain said as Wolf ambled over and laid his head on the captain’s
lap. “From Friesland, a land far north and east of here.” He rubbed
Wolf’s ear. “Do you know of it?”
“I’ve heard the name, but
that’s all I know.”
“I went there as an
emissary for Charles, ten, no, nine years ago now, and came back
with this black brute as an unbroken yearling. There are whole
herds there as big and black as him.”
Lara stood and wiped her hands on the
rag hanging over the gate. “A horse from Friesland, a sword from
Rome, a board game from Byzantium. Do you always take something
from the places you’ve been?”
“I suppose I do,” he said.
“When I choose a place to stay, my land from Charles, I plan on
going back to Friesland and buying a dozen good broodmares for this
brute to cover and raise sleek black foals for the king’s
army.”
“So.” Lara gave the
captain a sideways glance. “You do intend to stop your wanderings
someday?”
“My wanderings?” He
chuffed. “I’ve been tending to the king’s business and fighting his
wars.”
“And seeing much of the
world in the bargain.” She recalled the few stories he and Phillipe
had told her of their travels, how the captain’s eyes would light
up with the memories. “You would miss it, I think, traveling the
world.”
“The travels, yes.” He
shifted on the stool with a low groan. “But not the traveling.
There comes a point in a soldier’s life where your body remembers
every freezing wet or sweltering hot sky and hard-packed piece of
earth you laid your bedroll, where a comfortable bed under a sturdy
roof in a dry room sounds better and better.”
Lara nodded. “I can understand that.
Still, the places you’ve been, the things you’ve seen…”
“You would like to see
more of this world, I think. To not always stay in this
valley.”
Lara’s heart sank. “Why do
you say that? Do you mean to take me from here when you leave?” As
his lidi, she
wouldn’t have any say in the matter if he did.
He stared hard at her for a moment,
his jaw clamped tight. “Not if you fulfill your obligations to the
king before then.”
“As I have every intention
of doing,” she snapped.
He rubbed the back of his neck, then
his jaw. “I just meant, the way you listened to Phillipe’s and my
stories.”
“I’ve swum in the
Mediterranean Sea,” she told him, surprising herself as well as
him. She had determined to tell him as little about herself as
possible, to keep as much of her life to herself as she could, yet
it felt more right than wrong to be telling him this. Why, she
couldn’t have said, only that it did. “I’ve stood in your Neustria
Sea as well. We journeyed there the summer I was eight, Sophie,
Jumper, and me.”
“Jumper?”
“Sophie’s rat
terrier.”
“You and Sophie traveled
as far as the Neustria Sea with nothing more than an ankle-biting
terrier? And back?”
“We did.”
“Why?”
Lara shrugged. “Sophie said we must go
and so we went. We left here early spring and returned late
autumn.”
“Do you always do what
Sophie says?”
“Mostly.”
He chuffed. “Why do you do what she
says, when you don’t do anything anybody else says?”
She thought of giving him some smart
answer, then decided on the truth. She’d already told him that she
and Sophie were witches, as much to make him wary of them both as
anything else. Whether he believed it or not was up to him.
“Because Sophie has the knowing of things. Things past, present,
and future. A sixth sense.”
“Sophie the Sixth. I’ve
heard her called this. Nithard called her this. He fears her.” He
held Lara’s gaze. “Why?”
Lara flashed him a feral grin. “She
foretold his death. She told him when the first silver showed in
his hair, he would die choking on Frank silver.” Her grin turned
conspiratorial. “They say that’s why he dyes his hair and beard
black, hoping to cheat death.”
The captain barked out a laugh and
then hung his head between his hands with a long, drawn-out
groan.
“Does your head hurt
badly?”
He lifted his gaze to hers. “Not half
as much as looking at you does.”
Lara stared into eyes as gray and
brooding as the sky before a summer storm. Eyes that poured a soft,
wet heat into hers. A heat that stirred and simmered deep in her
core. A horse whinnied, and startled, she seized the tub of balm
and thrust it into the captain’s hand. “Rub this into the Black’s
leg four times a day until the swelling is down. And don’t ride him
for several days after, for his sake. For your own.” She picked up
her bag. “I’d advise staying off any horse for at least a day,
maybe three. I’ll send Denys for you and tell Berta you’re to stay
in the cool of the hall and do nothing more strenuous than eat
pie.”