Chapter Twenty-One
Brandt stood at the lancet window in the master’s bower, his gaze moving out over the bailey of Guildford. It was dawn and the eastern sky was turning shades of pink and purple as gray ribbons of clouds lingered on the horizon. He thought he could smell rain but he wasn’t sure.
Behind him on the big bed, Ellowyn was sleeping heavily.
She had been sleeping for nearly two days.
The physic from Guildford, a thin wiry man by the name of Seever, had given her a poppy potion for the pain on the day of her injury that had knocked her out cold.
He continued to give it to her every time she woke up, sending her back down into the black abyss of slumber where she would heal and forget the turmoil of her last lucid memories.
Brandt was grateful for the merciful unconsciousness.
So much had happened since that fateful accident.
Deston’s lingering and gurgling death as his daughter lay in the dirt several feet away and witnessed the horror, the painful hysteria of transporting his wife from the gatehouse to their second floor chamber, Ellowyn’s grief at her father’s passing, his own stunned grief at her injury…
God, it had all passed in a blur. As Ellowyn had lain wounded and sleeping, Brandt had tried not to drink too much simply to help him cope but that plan had seen multiple failures.
He wasn’t a weak man by nature, nor did he drink much, but seeing his wife gored with a broadsword had taken something out of him.
Seever had been summoned from the village because Brandt didn’t want his surgeon, a burly bear of a man, touching his wife.
The old surgeon had a penchant for molesting young women and Brandt didn’t want to have to worry that the man was lusting over his wife.
So he had sent Stefan into town to retrieve the best physic he could find and the knight had returned with the lanky physic recommended by the priests and the man’s wife.
The pair had sat with Ellowyn, tending her carefully under the duke’s watchful eye.
As Brandt’s focus was on his wife, a knight by the name of le Mon had bundled up Deston’s corpse and made haste for Erith.
Brandt probably should have paid more attention to the care of Deston, but he couldn’t manage it.
Not with Ellowyn so badly injured. Therefore, he consigned Deston’s fate to God and trusted le Mon to take him home…
and that was the end of it as far as he was concerned.
He couldn’t invest any more time and emotion in it than that.
Now, at dawn of the third day, Brandt was emotionally and physically exhausted.
He never left Ellowyn, not for a minute – not even when Alex de Lara returned the day after the incident with twenty-five hundred men from the Duke of Carlisle and another eight hundred from his father’s ally, the Earl of Richmond.
Now, here were almost five thousand men swelling the bailey of Guildford and even at sunrise Brandt could smell the stench of too many men.
He knew his time was drawing short before he had to return to France because he had what he’d come for – men and support.
But he also had a wife he didn’t want to leave.
“Brandt?”
He heard the softly uttered question, turning with a start to see that Ellowyn was awake. She was watching him from her stew of pillows and blankets, and he quickly left his post by the window and went to her.
“Why are you awake?” he asked, concerned, as he sat on the bed and put a hand on her forehead to see if she was with fever. “You should be sleeping.”
She gazed up at him, groggy. “If the physic sees that I am awake, he will give me some of that damnable potion again and put me back to sleep,” she muttered. “Where is he?”
Brandt was relieved to see that she was without fever and he took her hand in his big one, kissing it. “He and his wife are sleeping,” he said softly. “They have not left you in two days. I told them to sleep and I would watch over you.”
Her groggy gaze turned warm. “I suspect you have not left me, either.”
He shook his head, whispering. “Nay.”
“Have you slept?”
“Not much.”
Ellowyn continued to gaze up at him, perhaps seeing the mighty Duke of Exeter through new eyes.
She knew he loved her. She knew he would do anything for her.
But the measure of devotion she was coming to see from him was something she could have never imagined.
Reaching up a weak hand, she gently touched his face.
“I will be well again very soon,” she promised. “Already, I can feel the wound healing. It does not pain me terribly.”
He kissed the fingers that lingered on his lips. “I am pleased to hear it.”
“I do believe I could sit up and take some nourishment.”
“Are you sure?”
“I am famished. Will you help me to sit up?”
He nodded, kissing her fingers again. “Of course I will,” he said as he stood up. He began hunting around for pillows to prop her up with. “What do you feel like eating?”
Ellowyn shrugged. “Something warm,” she said. “Perhaps broth or gruel. And bread with butter.”
He nodded as he reached out to take her hands. “Ready?”
“Ready.”
Very gently, he pulled her up from the mattress, watching her make faces as her wound pained her.
Groans accompanied the effort. Eventually, she was sitting up enough so that he could wedge several pillows behind her back to support her.
Ellowyn, however, was struggling not to become ill.
She was pale and gray as she tried to get her balance.
“Oh, heavens,” she gasped. “I do not suppose I feel as well as I thought.”
He looked concerned. “Do you want to lie down again?”
She feebly shook her head. “Nay,” she said firmly. “I would sit here a moment. I shall be fine.”
He watched her with concern as she struggled to acclimate herself. “Is your injury paining you?”
Again, she shook her head. “It hurts, but the pain does not consume me,” she said. “I can stand it.”
He adjusted her pillows carefully, trying to help her. “The physic said it did not cut anything vital and that it was not particularly deep,” he said. “We can be thankful for that.”
“Thankful indeed,” she grunted. He was so busy fussing with her pillows that he didn’t notice she was tearing up. “My father… where is he?”
He heard the weepy tone and stopped adjusting the pillows, looking her in the face. He was immediately stricken with her sadness, wiping at the tears on her cheeks.
“I sent him home,” he told her softly, kissing her forehead even as he helped her wipe her tears. “I am so sorry you had to witness all of that, sweetheart, but I promise that we took care of him. Your father is on his way home, as he requested.”
She sobbed softly. “What happened?” she begged. “Why was he fired upon?”
He sighed heavily, thinking back to that moment in time when Deston lay on the ground dying and Ellowyn lay several feet away, screaming as her father bled to death in front of her.
Brandt’s only concern had been Ellowyn at that moment and not the mechanics of what had happened.
He didn’t care why, only that it had. But he had certainly found out after the fact what had happened. Now, it was time for Ellowyn to know.
“It was an accident,” he said quietly. “When your father advanced, the archers thought I gave a battle command. It was a nervous mistake and nothing more.”
She looked up at him with her big watery eyes. “So they killed my father?” she whispered. “I tried to stop him… he was going to kill you, Brandt. I could not let him do it.”
His jaw ticked with sorrow as he cupped her head in his big hand, pulling her cheek to his lips to comfort her.
She had every right to be distraught. But, then again, he was fairly distraught himself.
He’d spent two days living that moment over and over again, astonished that Ellowyn would put herself in danger to save him.
He was having difficulty accepting that someone other than a loyal knight should be so devoted to him.
His knights were loyal out of respect to him and respect to their oath. She was devoted purely out of love.
“I am the most fortunate man on earth,” he said after a moment. “That you should try to protect me with your life, Ellowyn… I do not know what to say except how fortunate I feel to have such devotion. But he could have killed you.”
Ellowyn didn’t reply. She was still weeping softly, wiping at her cheeks, and he left her long enough to find a kerchief among the goods strewn about the room and bring it back to her. She wiped her face off.
“If given the chance, I would do the same thing again,” she said softly. “I could not let him kill you. I will not let anyone kill you.”
“You are very brave.”
She shook her head, fixing him in the eye. “I am not brave,” she said. “I am in love with my husband and there is nothing I would not do for him, even if it cost me my life.”
He stroked her head with a big hand. “As I said,” he whispered, “I am the most fortunate man on earth.”
Ellowyn smiled weakly, blowing her nose and wiping off the remainder of her tears. It was evident that she was attempting to regain her composure. But the tears weren’t finished yet.
“Dear God,” she sighed, gazing up to the ceiling, the window, as if seeing things beyond. “What is my mother going to say? She will be crushed. And my grandmother… I cannot even fathom what she will be feeling.”
He watched her a moment. “Do you want to return home?”
Her head snapped to him, eyes wide with surprise. “Home?” she repeated. “Why would you ask that?”
He shrugged. “To tend to your mother and grandmother in the wake of your father’s death,” he said softly. “If you wish to return to Erith, I will send you with an escort.”
She cocked her head. “You will not go with me?”
He sighed heavily, again, and moved towards the lancet window that overlooked the bailey. The day was cool and breezy at dawn as the men below were already awake and going about their affairs.