Chapter Twenty-three #3
and woman, plus a spare, no doubt meant for Marta.
“Hello, cousin,” she said
to the hooded man, whose slight frame and slender fingers gave him
away. “When do we meet up with my uncle?”
Ranulf whipped the hood from his head
as Inigo and his second exchanged glances. “What makes you think
you or your brat are going a single step farther?”
Lara tilted her head, absorbing the
fact that he didn’t seem surprised at her calling him cousin. She
smiled, slow and smug, baiting him. She wanted to see who was in
charge, and prayed it was the Basque, Inigo, who’d shown mercy to
Marta and her unborn child. Ranulf would have killed them both
rather than leave them behind.
“I know if it were up to
you, I’d already have an arrow through my heart,” she said. “Your
father must have other plans for me, or he figures this time it
will work only if he kills me himself, since you’ve failed twice
before.”
“Shut up, witch,” Ranulf
hissed.
“Sorgina,” one of the Basques
muttered. Witch.
He and two other men crossed
themselves and stepped back from her. Talon had told her what he
knew of the Basques during their march up the Pyrenees to join
Charles, and one of those things was that they were a very
superstitious people. A fact she intended to use against her
captors in any way she could.
“Bai,” she said with her fiercest smile. “Sorgina.”
Ranulf spit onto the ground, the men
muttered and crossed themselves again, and Inigo spoke to a fourth
man, who untied Lara’s hands and indicated that she should mount a
horse another man held next to her. They did this with each woman
in turn, tied the horses to another line, and rode west up the
mountain’s side with one rider taking point, Inigo, his second, and
Ranulf riding behind the point man, followed by the line of women,
and brought up the rear by the other three Basques.
They rode from noon until dusk, and
only stopped then because Berta fainted and fell off her horse.
Holding Isabeau tight, Lara jumped off her mount and kneeled at
Berta’s head. She let Isabeau loose to walk around while she lifted
Berta’s lids to see her eyes rolled back in her head.
“Water,” she called out as
Inigo and his second were making their way to her and Berta. “She
needs water.”
Wilric started crying that he needed
to go pee, and Doralice slid off her horse and hit the ground in a
pile of skirts and tears.
“Everybody, dismount,”
Inigo ordered. “Stretch legs, drink water, relieve
selves.”
He handed Lara a water skin, and she
dripped some onto the hem of her skirt and wiped Berta’s flushed
and sweaty face with it. Berta’s eyes fluttered open.
“It’s me, Berta. You fell
off your horse.” Lara held the water skin to Berta’s parched lips.
“Take a sip. Slowly, slowly, you don't want to make yourself sick
drinking too much too fast.”
When Berta was able, Lara and Inigo
helped her back onto her feet, then Enid escorted her mother behind
some bushes to relieve herself.
“Thank you,” Lara told
Inigo as Patience and Doralice walked in slow circles, whispering
to each other and loosening stiff joints while Isabeau and Wilric
chased each other in a wider circle around them. “They aren’t used
to such journeys.”
“You are, I
think.”
Lara nodded. “I’ve been chased up this
very mountain by my uncle’s men before. Yet I’ve always been the
one to make it back down alive and whole,” she added for good
measure. “You do know my husband will come for his wife and child,”
she said with a smile meant to unnerve him, but he only bowed his
head, as if offering his condolences.
“Your uncle,” he said,
“counts on it.”
***
Talon
Talon took his seat as count of the
province in the center of the long table, with Anglbert to his
right and Phillipe to his left. The day had been long but
productive, and he was ready to relax and enjoy a meal with his
friends and comrades before riding back to the keep, where Lara
would likely be sleeping by the time he returned. He grinned,
anticipating waking her and making sweet love to her in their bed,
as long as Isabeau was still in her crib. If she wasn’t, there was
always the pile of pelts.
“You did well today,
Talon,” Anglbert said as the kitchen maids set trays of summer
fruit and cheeses on the table. “You were very politic and
count-like in settling the dispute between the tinker and the
silversmith, along with the other twenty-odd arguments and
complaints brought to you.” Anglbert grinned. “Now, if only you
could settle our friend Phillipe here as well.”
“What, pray tell, do I
need settled?” Phillipe speared a strawberry and bit it off his
fork.
“Your love life,” Anglbert
said, causing Phillipe to choke on the berry. “Or rather your lack
of.” He took no mercy on the sputtering Phillipe. “I swear, lad,
you’re acting as dense as our friend Talon here did.”
Phillipe swallowed, coughed, then
turned to Talon, his eyes begging for mercy. Talon pressed his lips
together and shook his head. He’d show Phillipe as much mercy as
Phillipe had shown him. “Do you love the girl?” he
asked.
“Lo-love?” Phillipe
stammered. “I-ah-uh.”
Talon almost felt sorry for Phillipe
as he cast his glances about the table and realized all eyes and
ears were on him. Almost. “It’s a simple enough question. Do you
love Doralice: yes or no?”
Phillipe opened his mouth, clamped it
shut, and nodded.
“Then do yourself a favor,
go to her house this very night and get down on bended knee and ask
her to marry you.”
Phillipe tried to reply but
failed.
Talon clapped his hand on Phillipe’s
shoulder and held his gaze. “I thought my lady, my love, gone. I
lay on her grave and thought her lost to me forever, and the only
thing I regretted was each and every moment we’d been
apart.”
“You’re right,” Phillipe
said at last. He ran a finger around the neck of his tunic. “It’s
just, the thought of marriage, it’s like a noose tightening around
my neck.”