The Kindling (13 page)

He did not like the smiles with which she gifted the other man or how near she drew to his side when they exchanged the inner bailey for the outer. Though Abel told himself she would have to look elsewhere for a father for her son, elsewhere did not include Durand. King Henry’s determination of the knight’s fate could not come soon enough.

Helene paused in her exertions, pressed her palms to the table, and braced herself as if to catch her breath.

Not wishing to be caught staring, Abel put his staff forward. However, before he reached her, she took up the pestle again.

When he halted scant feet from her, he heard her voice and caught the slight movement of her lips. Remembering his departed wife’s penchant for talking to herself—rather, those others who dwelt within her—he tensed.

Though he told himself he was being foolish, he leaned in to catch Helene’s words, and that slight movement brought her head around.

She jumped back and lost hold of the pestle that clattered to the table.

He raised his right hand. “I apologize. I did not mean to startle you.”

“Why are you here?”

“I came for you.” He smiled, but the expression felt tight on his face. “What were you speaking while you worked? An incantation?”

She drew a sharp breath and glanced around as if for fear they had an audience. “Do you wish to see me burned as a witch?”

He raised his eyebrows. “You are many things, Helene of Tippet, but a witch is not one of them.”

She grabbed his arm. “’Tis not something to be made light of.”

He did not look to her hand upon him, for it was disturbing enough to feel it—more, that it was not, at this moment, a touch meant to heal. “If you fear how you are perceived, why do you speak when there is no one to lend an ear to your words?”

She moistened her lips and released her hold on him. “I talk barely above my breath, and there
is
one who lends an ear though He cannot be seen with the eye.”

Abel felt an unsettling at his center, but as he leaned toward the possibility that Helene did, indeed, seek darkness, realization struck. “You pray over your medicinals.”

Relief eased the taut lines of her moist face. “As I was instructed to do at the convent.”

“The convent?”

She inclined her head. “It is where I was raised and learned to heal others.”

“And where you also learned Norman-French.”

“That as well.”

Which gave rise to yet more questions he knew he should not ask. Still, he said, “How came you to live in the village of Tippet?”

She tensed again. “As I did not wish to take vows,
 
I left the convent once I was of an age to do so. When I came to Tippet and learned the village was without a healer, I decided to stay.”

“And wed.”

“Aye.” There was reluctance in the single word, but she hastily added, “My husband, Willem, was a good man and father.”

And yet Abel sensed there was something he had not been. Might there not have been love between them though it seemed that emotion was more easily attained by commoners whose marriages were not as often arranged with an eye to alliances and fortune? “How did he die?” he asked.

Sorrow plucking at her mouth, she said, “An accident during harvest. I…could not stop the bleeding.” Then, as if to fend off further questions, she said, “But tell me, what brings you to this inhospitable place?”

It took a moment to recall why he had come and, when he did, he reached his right hand forward. “You have said I will not use it again.”

She glanced at his scarred palm. “To wield a sword, Sir Abel.”

“And still you believe that?”

“I do.” Her brow furrowed. “Are you asking because it has become more receptive to grip?”

“It has.”

She wiped her hands on the heavy apron that surely accounted for much of her perspiration, then reached forward, took his hand in hers, and raised it. “Close your fingers.”

He drew them toward his palm as far as they would go before they began to tremble with the effort to reach what they could not.

As she leaned in, a lock of her hair fell forward and brushed his wrist. “It continues to heal well.” With her other hand, she probed his palm, then cupped his fingers and gently curled them downward until they touched the heel of his hand. She held them thus several moments, during which he stared at her bent head and resisted the impulse to push that errant lock aside.

“Now hold them there if you can.” She removed her hand from atop his.

He could not and ground his teeth as the fingers drew back.

She looked up. “I believe your grip will continue to improve and you will be able to grasp items of greater breadth than a sword hilt, but you ought to turn your mind to training your left hand to serve as once your right did.”

Surely it could be done. After all, as his right hand had been trained to the sword, his left had been trained in the simultaneous use of a dagger. Still, they were different techniques, the dominant hand more responsive to the length of a sword and finding the balance necessary to properly swing and strike.

Struggling against bitterness, he raised his eyebrows. “So, in spite of your devotion to the Lord, you do not foresee a miracle?”

“I do not, Sir Abel, for miracles can only be hoped—and prayed—for, not seen ahead of their arrival.”

Did she realize that one of her hands still held his? If so, was the impression as strong for her as it was for him, so much that his eyes were tempted to her mouth?

“Do you pray for me, Helene?”

She was a long moment in answering. “I do, and I shall continue to pray for you even if you do not wish it, just as…”

“What?”

She pulled her hand from beneath his and smoothed it over the damp strands about her face. “Aldous Lavonne took issue with my prayers, but still I prayed for him.”

Abel stiffened. “For a man such as he?”

Her eyes widened. “A man such as he, Sir Abel, was surely more in need of prayer than a man such as you.”

He felt his insides twist. “Did you also pray for his son, Sir Robert?”

“I did.”

“And yet your prayers did not move God, did they? The knave did not release you to return to your son or cease with his destruction and murder. Death stopped him, naught else.”

“That is so. Just as, no matter how much I pray for you, you will not be healed unless you allow yourself to be.”

“Allow myself? Of course I will!”

“I do not speak only of bodily healing, Sir Abel. I pray for more than that.”

He nearly demanded what else she prayed for, but he knew.

“And I shall continue to hope that your soul listens where Sir Robert’s did not,” she added.

He should not have sought her out, should have remained apart from her as she clearly wished to remain apart from him. And yet, though he had known she would not likely believe the increased ability to fold his fingers inward would lead to restoration of that hand’s function, he had come. Fool that he was.

Still, it was not his intention to argue with her or give her cause to further distance herself. Realizing how tightly he gripped the staff, he relaxed his hold. “I would not have you cease your prayers for me. Certes, I am sure they can only help.” And he did believe it though he had yet to reconcile that God had not kept the mace from his back, the blade from his leg and hand.

Helene’s smile was slight. “I am glad to hear it.”

Drawn again to the curve of her mouth, he shifted his gaze to the mortar. “What is it that requires so much work and prayer?”

She turned back to the table and retrieved the pestle. “The captain of the guard suffers from a stomach ailment that oft awakens him at night.” She tipped the mortar to reveal the mashed brown and green contents that looked more likely to worsen the man’s condition.

“Mixed in wine and taken before bed, it should give him relief.”

“A cure?”

“I fear not. As I have told him, the only cure is to be more at ease with his cares. Unfortunately, as long as he shoulders so much responsibility, that is probably hoping for too much.”

“So now you tend not only those injured during the attack but those whose bellies ache.”

“I am pleased to ease Lord D’Arci’s burden where I can, for Lady Beatrix tells that the loss of his man, Sir Canute, during the attack is sorely felt. Thus, until he is replaced, her husband’s duties are burdensome.”

It was true. There seemed few moments outside of meals that his brother-in-law was not bent over journals or giving ear to his people’s concerns and problems or setting off to some corner of the demesne to do his duty to Baron Lavonne.

“’Tis kind of you.”

She lowered the pestle into the mortar. “And of certain benefit, for it makes the days pass more quickly.”

“You wish them to pass quickly?”

She glanced at him. “You forget that I have a son from whom I am parted, Sir Abel.”

He did not forget. He just did not care to think there.

“Though the tower room is much to my liking, and never have I slept in better comfort, still I miss John.”

Abel knew he should not suggest it, but he said, “You could send for him.”

Her hand that had begun to work the pestle stilled and her eyes swung to him. “Nay, I could not.”

It was as if he had suggested something unseemly. “Why?”

Her gaze slid away, and he thought this time she might not be as honest as she had been in the past. But then she said, “It is best if John forgets you, Sir Abel, for he became overly fond of you, and I would not have him hurt.”

He knew what she was saying, for it would have been impossible to be ignorant of the boy’s attachment. “Aye, ’tis probably for the best.” He cleared his throat. “I shall leave you to your work.”

As he started to turn opposite, she said, “Come with me.”

He paused. “Where?”

“To deliver this medicine. Since you have mastered the reach of the donjon, it would be good for you to venture out of doors and feel the sun upon your face.”

Abel detested that her suggestion unsettled him—as if he feared leaving these walls—and yet all of him strained at the thought of doing so. He lowered his gaze to the staff he once more gripped as if it was all that held him upright. “Another day, perhaps.”

She touched his arm. “Pride has no place in your healing. If ever you wish to be as skilled a warrior as once you were, you must crush underfoot the small humiliations.” She put her head to the side. “Come with me.”

Because the temptation to refuse her again was so strong, he said, “Very well.”

She removed her hand from him. “Good. Now, if you do not wish to appear as if you were caught in a deluge, you ought to see yourself out of here.” She nodded at the door to the right. “If you await me in the garden, I will join you ere long.”

Imagining it was her way of easing him into leaving the donjon, he was grudgingly grateful. “I shall be waiting.”

She nodded, then returned to pulverizing the contents of her mortar.

Abel crossed to the door, worked the handle with his right hand and, for the first time in nearly two months, stepped out of doors into light.

Helene found him upon the bench where she had sat when his brother had convinced her to remain at Soaring.

Head back, eyes closed, he appeared to sleep. However, before she could decide whether or not to awaken him, he said, “You are light of foot, Helene of Tippet. The same cannot be said of your skirts.”

She halted to his right. “What of them?”

He turned his face toward her and opened one eye. “They are heavy and coarse. I heard them all the way from the kitchen door.”

Though it was unfair of him to compare her garments to those of a lady, his observation was so unexpected—and humorous—she could take no offense.

She glanced down her front and was glad she had removed the apron. “My gown wears quite well and has served me many years.” Looking back at him, she saw he had opened the other eye that had nearly been lost to a blade. “Does it offend you?”

He leaned forward. “It does not.”

She blew out a breath, the strength of which mocked how greatly relieved she was—and would have sent her hair flying off her face had she not replaited it. “Ah, I am most glad, for homespun is all I can afford and wonderfully suited to my tasks.” She shifted her basket from the crook of one arm to the other. “Shall we go?”

He grasped the staff he had set against the bench and raised himself.

As they traversed the garden, Helene leading the way down the narrow path, she did not hurry her step, but neither did she drag it to accommodate his limp, certain that to do so would only frustrate him.

She opened the gate, stepped into the short alley that led to the inner bailey, and waited for him to secure the gate behind them.

“Your leg has strengthened considerably,” she said as they entered the inner bailey side by side. “Methinks within a sennight the staff will no longer be needed.”

“I was hoping in less time than that.” He glanced at the inner walls, and she knew he sought to gauge the reaction of those who noted his presence.

“Perhaps, but though I know you wish to be rid of it, if you eschew it ere your leg is ready to do its part again, you risk further injury.”

He did not respond, and she saw his brow was lined with displeasure. However, it was not directed at her but two men-at-arms who stared at them from atop the wall.

Hoping to distract Abel, she said, “I am sure you are eager to return to Wulfen Castle.”

The outer bailey now before them, he frowned. “What makes you so certain?”

She raised her eyebrows. “I suppose I should not be. But then, what
are
you eager for?”

“To regain what was lost.”

Would he then wear the Wulfrith dagger again that she had yet to see upon his person? “And that you will do at Wulfen Castle?”

“’Tis the plan, and it is where I belong, but it is overstepping to say I am eager to learn again those things I learned as a boy and have long taught to squires I have raised to knighthood.”

Did he truly believe a fortress dedicated to training warriors and that allowed no women within its walls was where he belonged? If so, surely he could not mean indefinitely, for eventually he would wed.