Part 15 (1/2)
His gaze flicked over, but he didn't ask the question begging to be asked: What do you mean, ”after your mother left”? What do you mean, ”after your mother left”? Senna hurried on before he could. ”Sir Gerald regularly raided the coffers. He has incurred debts to rather...unsavory men.” Senna hurried on before he could. ”Sir Gerald regularly raided the coffers. He has incurred debts to rather...unsavory men.”
”Your father has dealings with unsavory men?”
”My father has dealings with whomever will feed the beast. n.o.ble thugs or dock workers, what matters that?” She flicked him a glance. ”You are not afflicted by it, so you would not understand.”
”Unsavory, of what sort?”
”Of the manly sort, that comes to the house at night, sometimes in n.o.ble finery, sometimes plain as dirt.” She was distracted by his undressing and was.h.i.+ng and his glistening, wet body and such, but beneath the glory of Finian, she realized she was speaking of things she hadn't for many years. ”The sort who visits late at night, and you hear their angry voices, but all in whispers, as if they are sharing great, angry secrets. The sort that is gone the next morning, your father along with them. Unsavory, of that sort.”
He crumpled his tunic into a ball. ”Ye call yer father Sir Gerald.”
”Oh,” she said, fl.u.s.tered and irritated. Why did he need to be perceptive as well? Could he not be lacking in some some regard? ”I'm used to referring to him thusly. Our contractors. Business, you know.” regard? ”I'm used to referring to him thusly. Our contractors. Business, you know.”
”Well, I'm fair surprised to find such a spirited lady coming from his seed.”
”Me?” she shouted in laughter. ”You must mean some other.”
”Och, ye're right, now. I'm talking about all the other fine ladies who stole me out of prison.”
Straightening, he stepped back across the stream and turned to reach down for his armor. The movement drew her eye. What she saw drained all the blood from her face.
”Mother of G.o.d,” she whispered, all of it an exhale.
His back was shredded. Long, deep lacerations whipped in a jagged orbit around his body, bisecting one another in a red fire and tortured map of brutality. Some were scarring, some spoke of more recent acquaintance with a leather strap. She rose slowly to her feet, her eyes fixed on the horror.
”Jesu, Finian.”
Gladiator muscles slid beneath his satiny skin as he turned to her. She could almost feel the razor-sharp whip snapping through the air, ripping open his flesh, tearing into the awesome strength beneath, like a knife cutting through a pear. Her trembling fingers pa.s.sed a hairsbreadth above the ravaged flesh and she lifted her head to meet his steady gaze.
There are green flecks in his eyes.
”Ye suffered too,” he murmured, his eyes lingering on the fading bruises of her cheekbones.
”Oh, Finian,” she exhaled, feeling tears p.r.i.c.k. Dropping to her knees, she dragged her pack over. ”I've unguent,” she reported in a shaky voice, digging through the bag. In wild arcs everything came out, scattering on the ground around her: a brick of hard cheese, three small pouches, linen sc.r.a.ps, a rope, strips of leather.
She lifted her head, holding up a small container as high as she could, which reached to the middle of his chest. With an utterly unreadable look, he took it, and she scrambled to her feet. ”Have they festered?”
He shook his head, resettling the damp hair across his shoulders. ”They don't feel to have.”
”Well, I'll see about that,” she said in a clipped tone. The p.r.i.c.king of tears a moment ago was nothing, of course-simply understandable concern for the wounds of the man she needed healthy to ensure her survival. She put her hand on his arm to turn him around. ”Stand fast.”
He allowed her to turn him, and she allowed herself to ignore the feel of his warm, wide shoulder beneath her hand. Clamping her tongue between her teeth, she began applying the thick lotion in slow, gentle movements that sent his muscles shuddering in response.
”Am I hurting you?”
”Aye,” he said gruffly.
She paused and peered over his shoulder at the profile of his square jaw. ”Much?”
”Aye, that ye are.”
”Well,” she retorted, then said it again. ”Well.”
He stood quietly under the painful repair work. When finished, she stepped back and looked with a critical eye at her handiwork. ”I think I've got them all,” she muttered, angling her head to the side to see if the light had tricked her and she'd missed one. No, No, she decided, straightening, she decided, straightening, I've got them all. I've got them all.
His dark eyes were waiting for her.
”I've another debt to pay, mistress.”
His gaze dropped to the unguent still coating her fingertips. A stride of his muscle-corded legs brought him close enough to catch her hand in his.
Her lips parted around a hot rush of breath. Almost thoughtfully, he placed the pad of his thumb on her lower lip, curling it down, his rough, clean skin on the fleshy inner side. Hot coils unwound through her body.
”How shall I repay it? What do ye want, Senna?”
”All I want,” she whispered, ”is to go home.”
Home, where there were no wolves baying or soldiers hunting. Where the biggest river to be crossed was the murmuring brook between home and the stables, and the hardest bed she ever had to sleep in was the one she'd made herself by booking pa.s.sage with the more expensive s.h.i.+pping merchant for last autumn's Flanders drop.
Home, where the sun slipped away each evening through leaded gla.s.s windows, spilling dull green light across the ledgers at her copyist's desk.
Where months pa.s.sed with only the servants to talk to, until she had to let them all go too, when the debts grew too large.
Home, where silence reigned and even the 'lucrative sheep' were simply bright white specks on the sodden brown landscape of her heart.
His hand was warm curled around hers. ”Is that truly all ye want, then? To go home?”
No, her heart cried. her heart cried. No, no, no. No, no, no.
”Aye,” she said dully.
He dropped her hand, and she barely remembered how to lift it again. They shouldered their packs and silently slipped under the cover of trees as twilight spread, leaving neither sound nor trace of their pa.s.sing.
Chapter 20.
”Praise G.o.d. A boat.”
Senna had the exact opposite reaction. ”Oh, dear Lord. A boat.”
It was the third noontide after their escape from Rardove, and they were crouched above a river. On a small isle in the center of the rus.h.i.+ng currents was a small village. Perhaps five little tear-shaped boats bobbed at the edge of their side of the river.
”A boat will make travel much faster. And easier.”
”We're stealing a boat,” she clarified flatly. As if thievery was the reason for her protest.
”Aye, Senna. We're stealing a boat.”