Chapter Sixteen #3
as her stomach’s. She had a foggy memory of Talon bringing the
pitcher down and voices and movement in the house above, yet she
had no recollection of time passing as she’d paced and wept and
slept. She only knew it was night again from the low glow of
candlelight above.
She used the chamber pot that had also
been brought down at some point, then climbed the ladder and poked
her head up out of the cellar. Talon slept on the floor next to the
door, Wolf curled up beside him. She reached out to touch Talon’s
cheek, but reason and a grief so sharp it took the breath from her
stayed her hand.
“No,” she whispered to
herself. “Don’t.”
Talon opened his eyes, his gaze level
with hers. “Don’t what?”
“Love you,” she said,
telling him what she’d foresworn not to. “Only to lose
you.”
Maybe it was true what the priests
said: confession was good for the soul. Letting Talon see what was
in her heart, seeing what she felt reflected in his eyes of honed
steel, almost made the hurting worth it.
“I’m sorry,” she meant to
say, but only managed to mouth.
“Don’t be.” His voice was
a low rumble. He ran his hand through her unruly hair, cupped the
back of her head, then pressed his forehead to hers. “I understand.
Better than most.”
“I know you do.” It was as
Sophie had said: Lara was a healer, and this valley and its people
were her home, her family, and they’d be needing her even more now
that Sophie was gone. He was a warrior whose family of horse
soldiers was as nomadic as he, whose home was whatever camp,
battlefield, or garrison the king ordered them to, and who would be
leaving the garrison of Crossroads Keep come winter, if not
sooner.
After taking a deep breath in and
blowing it out, she climbed up out of the cellar, squared her
shoulders, and offered Talon her hand as he stood. “You are welcome
in my home anytime, Captain Talon Guiscard. You have been a good
and true friend to me and Sophie, and I-I would miss your company.
I have missed it.”
“Yes.” He took her hand in
his and held it. “Sorry about that. I thought staying away would be
easier, but, well…” He dropped her hand and rubbed the stubble of
his chin with a shrug and a sheepish grin.
“Yes,” Lara echoed,
suddenly shy of him too. “Well.” Her stomach growled so loud Wolf
pricked his ears and cocked his head. Lara laughed, then she burst
into tears before swiping them from her cheek to eye the table
laden with food. A basket of fresh eggs and a loaf of sourdough
bread caught her eye. “I’m starving. How do eggs scrambled with
cheese and chives, plus bread fried in Sophie’s prized bottle of
olive oil all the way from Lombardi sound for
breakfast?”
Talon grinned. “Like I’m going to
weigh five hundred stone if this is how you feed your
friends.”
He not only stayed for breakfast but
he stayed all day and night, never letting her out of his sight. He
listened when she talked about something Sophie had said or done,
and laughed softly with her over Sophie’s witticisms. He held her
when her grief washed over her with such force that her legs gave
out and her whole body shook, and he’d whispered words of comfort
as she sobbed into his shoulder. He was her protector, growling off
anyone who tried to disturb her other than Berta and Patience, who
sat with her while Talon settled Denys in the barn, where he was
apparently taking up residence to work as her helper. After they
left to prepare supper for the garrison, he sat with her until she
must have fallen asleep in Sophie’s rocker.
When she woke crying out Sophie’s name
in the pitch of night, he was there, pulling her from Sophie’s
rocker into his embrace and soothing her.
“Do you want to go up to
your bed?” he asked when she stopped shaking and
sniffing.
Lara rolled her head into his
shoulder. “No. I can’t sleep up there yet.”
Lara sat back down on the rocker while
Talon climbed the ladder to the bed loft and came back down with an
armful of blankets, which he spread out on the floor. He took her
by the hand and lay down beside her on the blankets, cocooning her
with his big, warm body. Lara slept, dreamless for the first time
in months.
***
The next morning, Patience showed up
with Wyatt and Wilric, and Talon returned to the keep, leaving Lara
to her friend’s care. He rode back in the late afternoon and he and
Lara enjoyed a light supper with Denys. After supper, Denys made
his way to his new antechamber in the barn and Talon poured himself
and Lara a cup of wine, which they sat sipping in peaceful silence,
watching the sun set over the mountain’s western peak.
“Will you stay with me
again tonight?” she asked as they took their empty cups into the
house.
“Of course.”
He followed her up to the bed loft and
spread out on a pile of blankets on the floor beside her bed,
leaving Sophie’s bed empty. Lara fell asleep to the sound of his
steady breathing and woke up calling out his name.
“Tell me,” Talon whispered
as he cradled her in her bed. “Tell me what makes you cry out my
name.”
Lara burrowed her nose deeper into his
neck. She’d told him her dream of the slaughter at Roncesvalles,
and it had come to pass, just as she’d told Sophie she’d dreamed of
pulling her death shroud over her face. She was afraid if she spoke
aloud of seeing Talon fall in her dreams, it too would come to
pass.
When she woke late the next morning,
her bed linens still holding his scent, she stripped them and
Sophie’s and carried them down to the river to wash them, passing
by Talon brushing Honey in the corral as Denys spread fresh
hay.
Determined to keep herself so busy she
wouldn’t have time to mope and grieve over Sophie, Lara fed them
all a breakfast of eggs, ham, and apples, and then she sent Talon
off to take care of his own business, assuring him she’d be fine.
She had Denys and Wolf and her animals and gardens, and she needed
to restock her supplies of drying herbs and medicines.
Yet everywhere she looked, she saw
Sophie. Every plant she touched, she felt Sophie’s hands guiding
hers, showing her how to pull weeds without disturbing a seedling’s
delicate roots, how to pick only the ripe berries, how to tie the
sprigs of herbs up without bruising their tender leaves. Every gust
of wind and soughing of leaves sounded like Sophie’s voice in her
ear, telling her she would get through this, that she was braver
and stronger than she knew, that much depended on her.
She stood and straightened, squaring
her shoulders as she surveyed the property where Sophie had raised
her. Her home.
“I won’t let you down,
Tante,” she said to the wind, the sky, the old oak. “I’ll make you
proud, I swear.”