Dragonblade Trilogy - 01 - Dragonblade (21 page)

The boy with the chest
wound seemed to be increasingly uncomfortable. Toby found herself trying to
distract him with tales of the cats that used to hang around their stables.

“There was a white
one, an orange one and a black one,” she said as she held his hand. “The black
cat ran from everyone while the orange one was always begging for food. And the
white one would attack your feet as you walked by. We had several dogs, too,
that were our protectors. Not one of them had a name; we simply called the lot
of them ‘the dogs’.”

The boy grinned
weakly, trying to focus on something other than his increasing inability to
breathe. “I had a dog when I was small,” he said. “It would eat at the table
with us. My father would become angry but my mother would feed it.”

Toby smiled, patting
him on the hand.  “Are your parents still alive?”

“Still. My father is a
farmer.”

“So was mine.”

Before the boy could
reply, Stephen suddenly appeared and kneeled beside him.  Toby looked up at the
man; he was unshaven and clearly exhausted, but the cornflower blue eyes were
still bright. When he saw that Toby was looking at him, he smiled faintly.

“I came to check on
your patient,” he said quietly. “He seems to be the only one not sleeping.”

“He is having
difficulty breathing,” Toby explained.  “I am telling him stories about my
cats.”

Stephen’s smile grew.
“Cats, is it? I see I have come in the nick of time to save him from boredom.”

The youth laughed
silently as Toby scowled. With a lingering glance at Toby, Stephen proceeded to
unwrap the bandages on the boy’s chest and look underneath. All Toby could see
was blood and ooze and she turned her head, not wanting to study that
particular gore.  She’d seen enough of it lately.  After a moment, Stephen
replaced the dressing.

“I will need to place
fresh bandages on this,” he told Toby.  “I will return.”

She nodded, watching
him as he stood up. As she looked at him, walking through the darkness, she
suddenly had visions of him taking Ailsa from her arms and whisking her little
sister off into the darkness. It was an odd transition from comforting a
wounded man to thinking of her sister, but as she watched Stephen walk away,
the urge to find out about her sister’s whereabouts suddenly became very
strong. She had been fighting off thoughts of Ailsa for some time but found she
could no longer do it. For her own peace of mind, she had to know. Now that the
battle was diminished and the wounded seemed to be settled, she could no longer
fight her sisterly instinct.

She reassured the boy
that she would return before following Stephen’s path across the floor. He had
his medicaments set up on the large eating table, an entire corner confiscated.
Everything was in ordered arrangement. Toby walked up behind him as he
organized new wrappings.

“Is the boy going to
die?” she asked softly.

Stephen turned to look
at her, his gaze moving out of the darkened hall to the lad on the other side.
“If poison does not claim him, the wound should heal,” he replied.

Toby continued to
watch as he drew forth phials of white powder. “Sir Stephen, I was
wondering...,” she swallowed, collecting her thoughts. “I mean to ask where you
have taken my sister.”

Stephen looked at her;
she seemed calm and rational enough. Frankly, he had been expecting the
question and was prepared. “She is in the store room,” he said quietly. “I put
her there because it is cool and I was not certain when we would be able to
bury her.”

As much as she was
trying to be strong, tears sprang to Toby’s eyes and she wiped at them
furiously. “So she has been beneath me all the while,” she murmured.

Stephen nodded, not
unsympathetic. “Wallace built her a nice, sturdy coffin and Tate has found a
place in the chapel to bury her.”

Toby was quickly
dissolving into tears. She put her hand on Stephen’s arm. “Thank you,” she
whispered. “For showing my sister such concern, I thank you. I am sorry that I
was so unreasonable yesterday when you came to take her.”

She moved to pull her
hand away but Stephen covered it with his own hand and Toby realized that he
was gripping her fingers. “I am truly sorry for your loss, mistress,” he said
quietly. “If it had been in my power to save her, please know that I would have
done so. I would have done anything to spare you such grief.”

Toby felt there was
more to his declaration than simple words and it made her uncomfortable. In the
midst of her tears, she could only nod her head and gently, but firmly, remove
her hand from his grasp. But Stephen wouldn’t be so easily put aside.

“You really should
rest,” he grasped her by the upper arm as she tried to walk away. “Wallace and
I can handle the wounded. There is no need for you to remain.”

“I am not tired.”

“A noble lie.  I will
give you something to help you sleep.”

“Stephen, truly,” she
pulled herself from his grasp almost irritably. “I do not wish to sleep. I want
to help.”

He smiled faintly at
her. “There is nothing more to do for now. You will be needed more when the sun
rises and these men awaken.”

She hadn’t thought on
it that way. She looked around the room uncertainly, wiping what was left of
the tears on her face. “Are you sure?”

“I am sure. If
anything arises, I will send for you. But for now, you must rest.”

As she sighed
indecisively and fidgeted around, Stephen took one of the powders from his bag
and put it in a cup. Taking some of the wine that was still left on the table
from their earlier meal, he poured it into the cup and swirled it around. He
tapped her on the shoulder and extended the cup.

“Here,” he said when
she turned to him.

She eyed the cup.
“What is that?”

“Nothing that will
harm you; it will help you. Just drink it.”

She stared at the cup
before taking it out of his hand. Drinking the contents without stopping, she
made a face as she handed the cup back to him.

“Whatever that was, it
tastes awful,” she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

He just smiled. “Go up to bed now.”
She shook her head at him. “I want to bathe first. I am covered with dirt and
gore.”

“Then I shall have
water sent up to you.”

The situation was
decided. Toby couldn’t think of another argument so she nodded her head as she
turned for the distant stairs. “Thank you for your kindness,” she said as she
passed him. “I shall not forget it.”

Stephen watched her
walk away, not saying what he was thinking. The more time he spent around her,
the more enamored he became with her. He was not oblivious to the fact that
Tate felt the same way. Turning back to his medicaments, he realized that he
was going to have to do something about it if he was going to stake his claim
before Tate did.

Stephen didn’t simply
send up water; he sent up a giant copper pot and two male servants, including
Althel, to fill it with hot water. Stephen himself carried the pot into the
room because it was beyond the strength of the servants. Stephen was an
enormous man, taller than Tate by a head, with bulging arms to match his size.
He set the pot down near the hearth as the servants went to work filling it.

He noticed that Toby
had stripped the bed of the dusty coverlet and cast it into the corner along
with the dust pile that Ailsa had created two days ago. Toby’s trunks were open
and linens that had covered the beds at the
garçonnaire
now covered the
bed in the master’s chamber. It was much cleaner than what had been there
previously but the room was still grossly dusty. Still, Stephen suspected that
would be remedied shortly. If he had learned one thing about Toby, it was that
she wouldn’t lie around when there was work to be done.

The fire in the hearth
was burning brightly, radiating a good deal of heat into the room as Toby
bustled back and forth between her open trunks, rummaging through what Tate and
her sister had managed to pack.  She managed to find several things that she
was grateful for, including a luxurious sleeping shift that she had purchased
on a trip to Leeds. It had been wadded up in a ball and she knew Ailsa had
packed it that way. When she unrolled the ball, she hugged the shift to her,
feeling her sister’s touch.  The tears came again, this time silently, but she
forced herself to work through them.

Stephen and the
servants were busy filling her bath, although she wasn’t exactly sure why
Stephen was still there. He had brought up the pot but lingered. Toby didn’t
give him too much thought as she continued to inventory the contents of both
trunks, thankfully coming across some soap, a comb and other vanity items that
Ailsa had apparently haphazardly thrown into the trunk. She inhaled deeply of
the soap that smelled of lavender and lemon rind, thankful to have something to
wash with. She was positive that the whole of Harbottle Castle had nothing even
remotely useful for cleaning.

Stephen was loitering
near the door as Althel picked up the last of the buckets and quit the chamber.
He watched Toby stand over the pot and swirl her hand around in the water.

“Is it too hot?” he
asked her.

She shook her head.
“Not at all,” she shook out her wet hand and looked at him. “Thank you for
bringing this up to the room. I am very grateful.”

Stephen took a step
into the room, his cornflower eyes intense. “Will there be anything else,
mistress?”

Toby was unnerved by
the look in his eye; there was something strong and suggestive there. “Nay,”
she said. “I think I can do for myself.”

“I shall be outside if
you require anything.”

“No need.”

It wasn’t Toby who had
answered him; it was Tate, entering the room and gazing at his knight with an
unreadable expression. Stephen turned to his liege and the two of them
exchanged equally stony expressions. But there was no mistaking the tension
that suddenly filled the room.

“You are needed in the
hall,” he said to Stephen. “I will take care of Mistress Toby.”

Stephen almost opened
his mouth to refute him but thought better of it. Tate was, in fact, his
commander.  And Stephen never disobeyed an order. Still, with a woman involved,
there was something of an instinct to stand his ground. Casting a lingering
glance at Toby, he quit the room in silence. 

It had been an odd
exit. Toby wasn’t ignorant to the strain between Tate and Stephen and she was
uncomfortable with it. She wasn’t quite sure why things were so strained but
she had a suspicion. When Stephen was gone, Toby smiled timidly at Tate.

“I did not want to
bother you,” she said, perhaps to explain the other knight’s presence. “Stephen
brought up a bath so that I could wash this dirt and blood away.”

Tate gazed at her a
moment; dirty and disheveled after the hellish past few days, she was still the
most beautiful woman he had ever seen.  

“I am glad to see you
have decided to retire,” he said. “I will therefore leave you to your bath and
sleep. But I wanted to make sure you did not require anything further.”

She shook her head at
him, her eyes never leaving his. “All I require is to see you before I go to
sleep,” she said, lowering her eyes coyly as she did so. “Since you have shown
yourself, I require nothing further.”

It was a charming
thing to say. Tate smiled as he moved towards her. “You just wanted to see me?”

She nodded sharply,
averting her eyes. “Aye.”

He stopped right in
front of her, dipping his head down to look at her lowered face. “Nothing
else?”

Her cheeks were
turning a deep shade of pink as she avoided his probing gaze. “Nothing.”

“Not even a kiss?”
                She looked up at him, preparing to reply, when he suddenly
pulled her into his arms and, with a wicked grin, kissed her deeply. Toby ended
up weak and boneless as he sucked the strength right out of her. When his lips
finally released her own, the storm cloud eyes gazed at her half-lidded.

“I was right.”

“About what?” she
asked breathlessly.

“It was as good as I
remembered.”

As she grinned, he
kissed her again, so passionately that it made her head swim.  He seemed to
take great delight in suckling her tender lips before moving to her face,
kissing her cheeks, nose and eyes gently.  All the while, Toby simply held on
to him and struggled not to fall. She had no sense of time or balance; she was
lost in the man’s embrace.

“As much as I would
like to do this all night, it is important that you rest,” he finally said, his
voice husky. “I will therefore leave you to your bath and to sleep. I will
leave a soldier out in the hall should you require anything.”

Toby simply nodded her
head, sighing raggedly when he kissed her soft lips again and released her.
Taking both of her hands, he kissed them, too. 

“Good sleep,
sweetheart,” he murmured.

Toby stood in the
middle of the room where he had released her, watching him walk to the door. He
smiled at her as he opened it, issuing another soft good night before closing
it quietly. Still, she stood there like an idiot, hardly able to think much
less move. But the smell of the soap reminded her that her bath waited and she
began to remove her surcoat with unsteady hands. Without someone to help her
unlace the stays, it took longer than usual but eventually she managed to get
it off. The shift followed, as did the pantalets, hose and shoes. She untied
the scarf around her head, allowing her dirty golden-brown hair to go free.
Climbing into the pot, it was a tight fit but suited her wonderfully.