Chapter Three #2
“They will see us,” she whispered urgently with a shaky voice that went up and down in pitch. “Release me.”
If a horse had run over him, he wouldn’t have felt it. His hand searched for and found her breast.
“Jura!” The voice was closer.
Jura grabbed a rock and brought it down on the man’s head. She didn’t mean to hit him so hard, only to get his attention, but he collapsed senseless on her body.
She could hear the guardswomen coming closer now. With urgency and a great deal of regret, she pushed the man off of her. For a moment she looked down at his magnificent body. Never had she seen a more perfect man, muscular yet lean, thick but not heavy, with a face like one of God’s angels.
She ran her hand over his body, down his thick thighs and back up to his face. She kissed his lips.
“Jura! Where are you?”
She cursed the stupid trainees who had interrupted her, then stood so they could see her. The tall grasses hid the man at her feet. “I am here,” she called. “No, don’t come any closer, the mud is deep here. Wait for me at the path.”
“It’s growing dark, Jura,” one who was little more than a girl said.
“Yes, I can see that,” Jura snapped. “Go on. I won’t be but a moment.” Impatiently, she watched the women go out of sight then knelt to the unconscious man.
Perhaps she should feel guilty about what she had almost done with this stranger, but she didn’t.
She touched his chest again. Who was he?
He wasn’t Zerna, nor was he Vatell like Daire.
Perhaps he was of the Fearens, the horsepeople who lived in the mountains and kept to themselves. But he was too large to be a Fearen.
He was beginning to stir and Jura knew she had to get away from him before he looked at her again with those hooded eyes that threatened her sanity.
She ran toward the bank, grabbed her clothing, and dressed as she ran toward the trainees. She could still feel his hands and lips on her body.
“Jura, you look flushed,” one of the girls said.
“Probably because Daire is returning soon,” another one said slyly.
“Daire?” Jura said as if she’d never heard the word before. “Oh, yes, Daire,” she said quickly. Daire had never made her heart leap to her throat or made the muscles in her legs turn to fluid. “Yes, Daire,” she said firmly.
The girls looked at one another knowingly. Jura was getting old and losing her mind.
· · ·
“Rowan! Where have you been?” Lora questioned sharply.
“I…I went swimming.” He was dazed, befuddled. His head swam with images of the woman. He could feel her skin against his palms and he was sure his chest was still red where she had sat on him. He had been able to dress and saddle his horse only because he had done it so often before.
“Rowan,” Lora said softly. “Are you all right?”
“Never better,” he murmured. So this was lust, he thought. So this was the feeling that drove men to do things they wouldn’t ordinarily do. If this woman had asked him to kill for her, to desert his country, to betray his men, he doubted if he would have hesitated.
Rowan became aware that people were looking at him. He was leaning on the high, wide pommel of his saddle, his body relaxed, a half smile on his lips, and below him Lanconian and English alike were gaping at him.
He straightened, cleared his throat, then dismounted. “The ride refreshed me,” he said in a dreamy-sounding voice. “Here, Montgomery, take my horse and give it extra feed.” The dear animal led me to her, he thought as he caressed the horse’s neck.
Montgomery moved close to his master. “They thought you couldn’t take care of yourself for even a few hours,” he whispered bitterly.
Rowan patted Montgomery’s shoulder. “I could take care of the world tonight, my boy.” He turned away toward his tent and stopped near Daire.
Daire was a tall, silent man whose face did not show what he was thinking as Xante’s did.
Somehow, Rowan did not feel as much contempt coming from Daire as from the others.
“Have you heard of a woman named Jura?”
Daire hesitated before answering. “She is Thal’s daughter.”
Rowan’s horror showed in his face. “My sister?” he choked out.
“Not by blood. The king adopted her as a child.”
Rowan nearly wept with relief. “But we are not blood related?”
Daire was watching him. “Geralt is your brother by blood. Jura and he share a mother while you and Geralt share a father.”
“I see.” All Rowan cared about was that she was not a blood relative. “She is a guardswoman? Like Cilean?”
Again, Daire hesitated. “Yes, although Jura is younger.”
Rowan smiled. “She is the perfect age, whatever that is. Good night.”
Rowan didn’t sleep much that night but lay awake in his tent, his hands behind his head, staring into the darkness and savoring every moment of his time with Jura.
He would marry her, of course. He would make her his queen and together they would rule Lanconia…
or at least the Irials. Jura would be the softness in his life to make up for the Lanconians’ lack of belief in him.
Jura would be the one he could share himself with.
As God said, a helpmate for man. He had asked God for a sign and moments later Jura was there.
Before dawn he heard the first stirrings of camp and rose and dressed and went outside. The mountains were hazy in the distance and the air was crisp and cool. Lanconia had never looked so beautiful to him.
Cilean stopped near him. “Good morning. I am going fishing. Perhaps you would join me?”
Rowan looked at Cilean for a long moment, and for the first time realized there might be a bit of a problem in his plans to marry Jura. “Yes,” he said. “I will go.”
They walked together into the forest toward a wide stream.
“We’ll reach Escalon today,” Cilean said.
Rowan didn’t answer. What if King Thal insisted he marry Cilean? What if, in order to be made king, he would have to marry Cilean? Every punishment Feilan had devised for him rose to his throat. “May I kiss you?” he asked abruptly.
Cilean turned startled eyes toward him and color rose to her cheeks.
“I mean, if we are to be married, I thought—”
He broke off because Cilean put her hand to the back of his head and pressed her lips to his. It was a pleasant kiss but it didn’t make Rowan forget who he was or where he was, nor did it tempt him to sign a pact with the devil.
Gently, he broke away and smiled at her.
He was sure now. Jura was the one God had chosen for him.
Companionably, they walked together to the stream, Rowan with his thoughts on Jura and unaware of Cilean’s happiness.
She thought she had been kissed by the man she was to marry, and she was more than satisfied with the coming marriage.
It was a five-hour ride northwest to Escalon.
The roads were practically nonexistent and Rowan vowed to set up a road maintenance system right away.
The Lanconians cursed the fourteen baggage wagons that Rowan and Lora had brought with them from England that carried their furniture and household goods.
The Irials’ one concession to comfort was their walled city, and when they traveled, they took only what could be carried on their horses.
Rowan had an idea they stole their food from the peasants as they traveled.
Escalon lay on the banks of the Ciar River, naturally protected by a curve of the river on two sides and a steep hillside on another.
A twelve-foot-high wall surrounded the two square miles of the city.
Inside, Rowan could see another wall, another rise of land, and on that the sprawling stone castle that must be his father’s house.
“We are almost home,” Lora said from her horse beside Rowan.
Young Phillip sat in front of her, his little face showing his weariness from weeks of travel.
Lora sighed. “Hot food, a hot bath, a soft bed, and someone to talk to besides these warmongers. Do you think the court musicians will know any English songs? What dances do these Lanconians perform?”
Rowan didn’t have an answer for his sister as Feilan had not thought it important to talk of the pleasures of Lanconians.
Besides, there was only one pleasure in Lanconia that interested Rowan and that was the beautiful, delicious Jura, the most perfect of women, the most…
He daydreamed all the way into the city.
Their procession into the city of Escalon caused very little interest. It was a dirty place, filled with animals and men, and the sounds were deafening as iron hammers banged on steel, as horses were shod, as men yelled at each other. Lora held a pomander to her nose against the smell.
“Where are the women?” she shouted to Xante over the noise.
“Not in the city. The city is for men.”
“Do you have the women locked away somewhere?” she shot back at him. “Do you not allow them out into the fresh air and sunshine?”
Daire turned to look at her with interest and mild surprise on his face.
“We dig pits in the side of the mountains and keep them there,” Xante said. “Once a week we throw them a wolf. If they can kill it, they can eat it.”
Lora glared at him, not knowing how much of the truth he was telling.
At the northwest corner of the walled city, in the most protected spot, rose the sprawling stone fortress of Thal’s house. It was not a castle as Rowan knew a castle, but lower, longer, and more impenetrable. The stones were as dark as the Lanconians.
Before the fortress was another stone wall, eight feet thick and twenty feet high. There was a rusty iron double gate, covered with vines, in the center of the wall, and to the left was a smaller gate, wide enough only to allow the passage of one horse at a time.
Xante shouted an order and the Lanconian troops began to form themselves into a single line and move toward this narrow gate.
“Wait,” Rowan called, “we’ll have to use the wide gate to get the wagons through.”