Sharon Schulze (17 page)

Padrig could tell that the tunnel was gradually sloping upward, making it more work to drag Rafe behind him. His chest felt tight, the sensation of invisible bands pulled taut about his ribs familiar, though it had been years now since he’d felt it. ’Twas not exertion making it hard to breathe, but the malady from his childhood.

Mayhap once they got out of here the symptoms would ease. The air was stale and dank so far below ground. He’d had trouble with that when he was a lad.

At least, thank God, ’twas nothing worse than tightness in his lungs. If he were going to go off into a full-blown spell, as he’d done so often in his youth, he’d already be on the ground gasping for air like a stranded fish.

He concentrated on filling his lungs slowly and completely with each breath, and sought within himself for serenity. If he stayed relaxed, did not give in to panic, all would be well. Lady Gillian had taught him that, had helped him learn to live his life despite his malady, rather than letting it steal his life from him.

His mind focused on each breath, he kept plodding along in Dickon’s wake, hoping that soon they’d reach the boy’s camp deep within the Devil’s Lair.

He’d no way to know how long they traveled beneath the earth. Eventually the passageway widened and he could smell a pine-scented breeze instead of the dank, musty air of the tunnels. A last, steep stretch taxed his already-screaming muscles before they emerged from the passage into a large, shadowed chamber.

He stopped and filled his lungs with the blessedly fresh air, drinking it in as though ’twere a refreshing draught after traversing a desert.

Stars glowed through a narrow opening high above them in the ceiling of the vast room. Though it felt as if the night should be over, he could see from the position of the stars and moon that the sun had set only a short while earlier.

Padrig lowered the litter to the ground and stood, reaching his arms high and flexing his back. He repeated the movement despite the shards of pain radiating out from the arrow in his shoulder. The muscles in his back and neck were so cramped from the awkward position he’d been in, he felt as though he’d never stand straight again.

Alys jammed the torch into the ground nearby and, groaning, sat down close to it. “I shall
never
complain about a lady’s chores again,” she said forcefully. “Nor about my back aching when I’ve been bent over a table writing for too long.”

Her words caught Padrig’s attention, especially the last thing she’d said.

Writing?

Why would a young noblewoman be doing so much writing her back would hurt?

Now was not the time to explore that path, but he’d every intention of asking her about it later.

Meanwhile, they’d work to do. Most unpleasant work. With a bit of luck, Alys would be able to help him, for he didn’t know anything about how to sew, nor did he carry needle and thread with him. He hoped she did. Otherwise, he’d not be able to do much for Rafe until he’d had a chance to raid the village for supplies.

Dickon moved about on the opposite side of the chamber, lighting several torches and starting a fire. “I’ve food and fresh water, milady, if you’ve the strength to come over here.” He scampered to Alys’s side. “Here, I’ll help you,” he offered. He bowed low, prompting a laugh from Alys, and reached down to assist her to her feet.

She let the boy lead her round the fire to a pile of blankets near the wall. “I thank you, Dickon. ’Tis just what I need.”

Padrig knelt beside the litter and touched Rafe’s cheek. ’Twas cool, thankfully. The man had troubles enough already. All they needed was for him to become feverish, as well.

Padrig lifted up the litter, hopefully for the last time, and dragged it round the fire to Dickon’s camp. “Have you room for us by the fire?” he asked. “I must do some cutting, and I’ll need as much light as we can muster.”

“Are you going to cut into Rafe?” Dickon asked, his voice full of awe, as well as a lad’s eagerness for gore, from the sound of it.

“Aye.” Padrig set down the litter and, kneeling, went to work untying the bindings that held Rafe to the frame. “He’s two arrows in his back that must come out. I’m hoping Lady Alys will help me with the stitching,” he added, purposely not looking at her when he said it.

He didn’t know how she’d react to his suggestion, but mayhap if he behaved as though ’twas natural for her
to do it, she’d simply agree. “I’m afraid learning such a task is not part of a knight’s training.”

Alys made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a snort. Padrig glanced up at her then, and caught her wry expression. “Considering how often you slice each other up, perhaps it ought to be.”

He smiled. “But milady, how else might a lowly knight garner a noble lady’s attention?”

She laughed again, more lightheartedly this time. “You’re telling me that knights go forth in battle and get cut up merely for the privilege of being sewn back together by a lady?” She gathered her hair from where it lay loose about her shoulders and swept it back, then looked him full in the face.

The smile she cast his way now held far more than lighthearted amusement. He nigh forgot to breathe at the passion in her eyes, the promises she made with that not-so-simple glance.

By God, when had Alys become a sorceress? He shook his head slightly, though it did naught to break the spell she’d cast over him.

The look she sent him nigh scorched him with its heat. He held her gaze, feeling his body respond to hers in a manner so inappropriate, he ought to be embarrassed.

Yet he felt not a whit of shame. Instead he reveled in her attention, yearned to collect on the promises she made with but a glance.

Thank God Dickon was busy on the other side of the fire, where the dancing flames hid them from view!

Somewhere in his addled brain, he realized he ought to say something, but he was scarcely able to form words. “Why else?” he mumbled.

He’d sounded a complete dolt. His competitive spirit
roused, he forced his mind clear, his attention focused completely upon Alys. “Why else,” he said again, “do ladies send men into battle wearing their favors?”

Her smile grew. “I’d think there might be easier ways for a knight to gain a lady’s favor.”

You have no idea, milady, what lengths I’d go to, to gain yours.

“Might there indeed, milady?” he asked, finally connecting his tongue to his brain. “Would you care to instruct this simple knight?”

Her eyes widened and her expression changed, grew serious for a fleeting moment. Had he surprised her? The notion pleased him.

Alys smiled again and raised her chin slightly, as though challenging him.

To do what, he hardly dared imagine.

“I would be honored, Sir Padrig,” she said. “Whenever you wish.”

What had he just agreed to?

Somehow he dragged his gaze from hers, not caring that he’d looked away first. If he had not done so, he feared he’d have lost his will completely with but a few moments more of Alys’s enticing stare.

They’d more important things to take care of for now, he reminded himself.

Imagining—and
instructing
—would have to wait.

But not for much longer.

A
lys leaned back against the rough stone wall and struggled to cool her overheated mind.

And body.

What had she been thinking, to stare at Padrig as she had?

To offer…what had she offered, exactly? Whatever it was, she’d discover it later, that she vowed.

To smile at him as though she was ready to tear his clothes off?

Mayhap ’twas because she
had
been thinking of his naked body that she’d lost sight of proper behavior. By the rood, the man could tempt a saint!

And she, Alys was realizing more and more, had very little that was saintly about her.

Nay, she was but a woman, with all a woman’s wants and needs. With desires she hadn’t known existed before she and Padrig entered each other’s sphere.

Desires she believed Padrig shared.

Should she ignore those feelings, shove them deep
within the darkest recesses of her mind where they could not tempt her into indulging them?

She bit back a bitter laugh. There
was
no place she could bury the sensations, and the emotions, Padrig made her feel. They were too strong, too compelling, too much a part of her very being for her to ignore.

She hadn’t the strength of will to do so.

She had wanted to live her life fully, to experience it for herself, rather than through the recollections of others.

There would never be a better opportunity than here and now, away from their day-to-day lives and the stifling constraints of society.

She suppressed a moan and lifted her hair from her neck to let the cool breeze pour over her skin. She knew precisely what thoughts had been passing through her brain when she’d sent him that look, started that conversation…

…made promises she had every intention of keeping.

As she’d walked along behind Padrig through the seemingly endless series of tunnels, she’d sought to keep her mind occupied with something other than their situation. Her concern for Rafe, and for the others trapped within Winterbrooke. Her fears that the Welsh would come after them soon and take them captive as well…it all whirled round and round in her head in a noisome stew, sapping her strength from within even as exhaustion and pain battered her from without.

Her choices for distraction were few, and only one possessed the power to completely remove from her mind almost any other thoughts at all.

She’d fixed her fascinated gaze upon Padrig’s back, from head to toe, she recalled with a giggle, and discovered ’twas not difficult at all to remember precisely how
that same view appeared without the concealment of mail, surcoat, leggings and boots.

In her mind’s eye she savored the memory of Padrig standing in the pool, streams of water sluicing over the lean musculature of his back.

She wondered again about the strange, dark markings he bore on his shoulder, the same shoulder where he now carried a Welsh arrow.

By the time they arrived in the cavern, her thoughts had carried her to a far different place than this. She’d been back at the pool with Padrig, nestled in his arms on the shore. Even the harsh bite of the reality surrounding them could not completely drive away the lingering effects of her fantasy.

Slightly cooler now that Padrig was no longer returning her own heated gaze, she watched as he carried Rafe to a pallet of blankets placed by the fire and, with Dickon’s help, prepared to remove the arrows from the poor man’s back.

She doubted ’twas normal for a man of Rafe’s size and strength to have fallen into so deep a swoon from injuries such as those he’d sustained. He’d scarce twitched since he’d been shot down and fell atop them. Hours had to have passed since then, hours when he’d been dragged about like a load of baggage, bumped and prodded, nigh stood on his head so they could maneuver the litter through the narrow entrance to the tunnel.

Yet through it all, he’d not awakened, nor so much as moaned. He’d made no reaction to anything they’d done to him or for him. If not for the fact that he still breathed, that his heart maintained a strong and steady beat, she’d have believed him dead.

A part of her hoped he’d remain as unresponsive
when they got him out of his mail shirt and cut into his back, but she knew that could only be a bad sign.

She could not wish Rafe to be worse off, even if that made their task easier.

Padrig’s low-voiced cursing caught her attention. He and Dickon were trying, without much success, from the look of it, to remove Rafe’s mail.

“Could you use another hand?” she asked, rising to her knees, then getting to her feet for a better look at what they were doing. “I’ve only the one, but it might come in useful.”

Padrig eased Rafe down onto the pallet on his side. “If you feel you can do it, aye,” he said, wiping sweat from his brow with his forearm and sitting back on his heels. “If you could keep his head up off the ground while we slide this off—” he lifted the hem of the mail shirt “—’twould be a help. Mayhap if we rest his head on your lap?”

With a bit of maneuvering, they got Rafe’s mail shirt up around his shoulders, eased it over the shortened arrow shafts, then wriggled it over his head.

Rafe chose that moment to come to his senses most spectacularly, flailing about in confusion and cursing the Welsh as though he were still fighting them.

Alys, her legs pinned beneath the weight of his head and torso, could do little save speak to him in a soothing voice and attempt to stroke his face to calm him. Evidently her ministrations caught his attention, for he abruptly stopped thrashing around.

Instead, in a swift move he captured Alys’s hand and brought it to his lips, while nestling his head in her lap in a very intimate manner.

“Rafe!” she cried, her voice little more than a squeak
as she attempted to scramble back away from him. At this point she didn’t care if he dropped face first onto the hard ground. “Stop at once!” She jerked her hand free and used it to shove at him, trying with scant effect to push him away from her.

Padrig caught hold of him by the back of his shirt and hauled him up and off. “Rafe, enough!” he shouted, lowering the injured man onto the blankets.

Rafe flopped down onto the pallet. He slowly turned his head toward Alys, stared at her, eyes widening, and groaned. “Tell me that was a dream,” he mumbled, rolling onto his side and squeezing his eyes shut.

“More like a nightmare,” Padrig said dryly.

Rafe opened his eyes and peered at Alys so swiftly, she almost missed it. “Did I really do—”

“Aye, I’m afraid you really did.” Padrig placed a hand on Rafe’s uninjured shoulder. “Welcome back to the world of the living, my friend. We’ve been worried about you.”

Alys shifted onto her knees and leaned closer to Rafe. “I’ve been so concerned, I’m willing to forgive you your…” She waved her hand about, uncertain what to call what Rafe had been doing. “As long as you swear to me you’ll
never
do it again,” she added in a rush.

“I swear—” he held up his right hand “—I’ll never do that to
you
again, milady.” His hand dropped to rest upon his chest and he closed his eyes.

’Twas interesting that he’d only vowed to leave her alone, Alys noted with a laugh as she settled back on the hard ground, putting a generous amount of space between Rafe and herself.

Evidently there was nothing seriously wrong with his head, if he was capable of changing her wording to suit his fancy.

Rafe and Padrig carried on a low-voiced conversation now, too quiet for her to overhear. She watched them closely, but could not tell what they discussed. Details of their situation, mayhap, or an explanation for Rafe of how they came to be here. Whatever it was, it left both men looking worn and frustrated once they were finished talking.

When Padrig went to search through the supplies Dickon had piled along the wall, Rafe turned his head toward her and called her name. Concerned, she moved closer to his pallet. His color was somewhat better than it had been earlier, but his skin remained pale, his color ashen. To her eyes, he was in a great deal of pain, though no doubt he’d deny it.

“Can I get you something?” she asked. “Padrig will be back shortly with ale—”

“I don’t need ale,” he said. He shook his head and patted the wooden flask he wore on his belt. “Got my friend here.” His voice sounded stronger with every word, thankfully. ’Twas such a relief to hear him speak at all. She’d still not recovered from seeing him after he’d been shot down.

He’d appeared dead, and in all honesty, had not looked too much different until he’d awakened.

Moving slowly, he patted a spot next to him. “You could keep me company, if you would, while I wait for Sir Padrig to return with his torture devices.”

“Of course.” She settled alongside his pallet. “Are you certain there’s naught I can do for you?” she asked.

“You could tell me where you found the boy.” He glanced round the cavern. “And how we came to be here. Wherever this is,” he added.

“Actually Dickon found us,” she told him, settling in
to tell him the story. She wished she could hold her pen so she could make note of it all as she told it to Rafe, while ’twas fresh in her memory. “Dickon found this place, as well,” she told him, bring the tale to a close as Padrig returned.

The time for stories was over, unless Padrig wanted her to tell Rafe some fantastical tale to distract him.

Padrig had brought supplies from Dickon’s cache, wrapped in a small bundle he spread out alongside Rafe’s pallet. Dickon piled wood on the fire and lighted several more torches in preparation for their undertaking, standing them in a rough circle nearby. Soon the end of the chamber glowed with light, and Padrig declared it time to begin.

Alys hoped she’d never again have reason or need to put anyone else through the procedure that followed.

Padrig offered Rafe a stick to bite down on, which Rafe refused with a string of amazingly creative insults that had them all chuckling in spite of the gruesome task ahead.

She, Dickon and Padrig together barely had the knowledge they needed to remove the arrowheads without doing Rafe further injury. Even had they known precisely what to do, none of them had much skill to do it, unfortunately.

Poor Rafe! He bore their rough surgery stoically, remaining motionless as Padrig used the tip of his dagger to dig out—she could think of no other description for it—the two arrowheads. Quite possibly the reason Rafe was able to stay so still was because he feared what they might inadvertently do to him otherwise.

Sweat poured from them all before they were through, Rafe most of all. His dark hair was nigh drip
ping by the time Padrig was finished, and she had not yet begun to inflict her own painful task upon him.

Padrig bade her pay close attention, for later she would have to remove the arrow embedded in his back. She prayed ’twas shallowly lodged there. She’d have to use her left hand, and she’d neither the strength nor the dexterity to do much of anything with it.

If her hand had not been so weak and shaky, she’d have been able to do a better, and much faster, job stitching the wounds closed. As it was, she’d nigh been in tears before she was done, with Rafe in worse shape, though he remained still and silent throughout the entire procedure. She’d wished he would swoon again, for just a little while, till she was finished torturing the poor man, but he remained alert until the end.

He did make her cry then, when he thanked them for their care of him.

She just hoped he was as appreciative once he saw the scars he was certain to bear from their evening’s work.

She settled back against the cavern wall a little ways away from Rafe’s pallet, giving them privacy while Padrig helped Rafe with, as Rafe put it, “men’s business.”

Still reeling from her attempt at surgery, her mind immediately returned to her earlier, feeble attempt to wield Padrig’s knife to cut the arrow shaft. It had been a dismal failure. Could she manage to do better the next time?

She would have to, she told herself firmly. ’Twas another aspect of living her own life—to face the challenges that appeared in her path, meet them head on and deal with them.

’Twas time—past time—that Lady Alys Delamare learn how to contend with both the good
and
the bad.

’Twas time to grow up.

To Alys’s amazement, they’d got Rafe stitched up and settled on his pallet by the fire fairly quickly. In a day that had seemed to last forever, it felt strange for anything to move swiftly.

Rafe accepted their awkward ministrations with good humor. Having slept so deeply and long earlier, he offered to stay awake through the night to tend the fire.

Dickon fell asleep very shortly after they’d finished with Rafe, curled up at the foot of Rafe’s pallet. Padrig spoke quietly with Rafe again, then searched through the cache of supplies Dickon had stored in the cavern. He found several blankets and made a bed for Dickon near Rafe’s. Settling the boy there, Padrig then brought food for the rest of them.

Despite not having eaten much all day, Alys hadn’t thought she’d want anything after their recent, bloody activities. However, once Padrig placed a chunk of cheese and an apple in her hands, she’d realized she was hungry after all.

He’d tapped into a small keg of ale as well, a welcome change from the mineral-laden water they’d been drinking since they’d entered the tunnels.

All too soon Padrig cleared away the remnants of their meal and gathered together the supplies they’d used to tend Rafe’s wounds. However, he didn’t suggest they attend to his shoulder next. ’Twas a relief to her, not to have to face that trial right away, but in truth she’d just as soon get it over with.

Considering Padrig had been moving around half the day with an arrowhead embedded in his back, she’d have thought
he’d
like to have it dealt with as soon as possible.

Instead he wrapped the supplies in a blanket and
tucked them under his arm. Then, taking one of the lighted torches from near the entrance to the chamber, he headed down a passageway that ran deep into the hillside from the other side of the cavern.

Padrig shifted the loose bundle to a more secure position under his arm and held the torch in front of him. Dickon had told him he couldn’t miss the chamber he sought, as long as he remained in the largest passageway. Once away from the main cavern, however, the darkness was unyielding and a torch was necessary. Even in full day, no light would penetrate here.