Knights of de Ware 03 - My Hero (29 page)

The poor child was suffering. She needed him. Needed his forgiveness. His blessing. His offering.

He hardened at once.

Garth ran a shaky hand through his grimy hair. His eyes felt as gritty and raw as salted mussels. He was sure he stank of sweat and worry. His belly whimpered with hunger, but he couldn’t eat. Spots of color fluttered before him like moths, reminding him of the sleep he’d neglected too long. He scrubbed at his eyes, temporarily vanquishing the flitting lights. But he knew they’d be back, just like the gloom that visited him between bouts of hope.

For three days and nights, he’d stayed with her, watching her, fighting for her as she hovered on the brink of death. In all that time, he’d never voiced a single prayer, not because he lacked faith, but because he knew he would have just as willingly called upon the devil as God to save Cynthia if he thought it would work.

Already he’d violated Lent. Already he’d used herbs known to be the devil’s. And a hundred times he’d touched her intimately—bathing her fevered skin, changing her damp garments, brushing her hair back from her pale cheek. Nay, God wouldn’t listen to his sinner’s pleas now.

And yet he was desperate.

He reached out for Cynthia’s wrist. Beneath his fingers, her pulse was weak and slow, and her skin was clammy. He held his palm before her lips. Her breath made only the faintest stirring there. He swallowed hard, fighting off the despair that threatened to smother him.

He
should be dying, not Cynthia.

Who was he? An empty vessel adrift on a nameless sea. Half a man who was good for neither church nor marriage. But Cynthia—Cynthia was full of life and love and purpose. She brought the omnipotence of God to men’s hearts more powerfully than any of his own hollow sermons ever would.

It was a travesty. She’d drained herself to save him, and now she lay dying.

His mouth twisted bitterly. On the table beside Cynthia’s bed, shriveled leaves and shredded bark lay in neat piles on a wooden platter. They were the weapons he’d meticulously prepared, mimicking as best he could Cynthia’s own, to fight off the demon attacking her. He’d believed they could save her, as they had the villagers. But now they seemed mere impotent weeds and chaff. Without Cynthia’s touch, without her healing gift to empower them, the herbs were useless.

Frustration fed the fury growing inside him, mocking him, tormenting him until it exploded in a storm of pain. Snarling a curse, he swept his arm violently across the tabletop, knocking aside the tray and scattering the herbs into the rushes. Futile tears of rage stood in his eyes, blurring his vision, and the need to bellow out the injustice of it all wrenched at his chest.

But in the end, the only words he could speak were ones that were as familiar to him as his own name. Broken, he clenched his eyes shut and surrendered to his fearsome God. He fell to his knees before Cynthia, clasped his fists together, and prayed for the Lord’s mercy upon her.

Over and over he said the words until, eventually, his fervent prayers diminished, becoming syllables murmured mindlessly as spots floated again before his eyes. Exhaustion overcame him. Three sleepless nights caught up with him and hauled him into the muddy waters of slumber.

One hour might have passed, or ten. He wasn’t certain. But some soft sound awakened him. He lifted his head from the wool coverlet and, for a moment, couldn’t remember where he was. His eyes were swollen, and his cheeks felt stiff from the salty tracks of his tears.

“Garth?”

He came wide awake in an instant. He’d know that dulcet voice anywhere.

“Cynthia?” he croaked.

She looked as feeble as a new-hatched dove, her neck wavering as she strained to lift her head. But she was breathing. And her color had returned. She was alive. Praise God, she was alive.

“Cynthia!”

His first impulse was to crush her in an embrace of pure euphoria. He longed to cover her face with kisses of celebration, to pick her up and whirl her about the chamber.

But, stepping near the bed, stretching out a hand, gazing into her faintly shimmering eyes, he saw her for once more clearly than he ever had before.

This was a woman who deserved the best of life. God had wrenched her from the grasp of jealous death so that she might dwell a bit longer among the living, sharing her gift, fulfilling her dreams. Who was
he
to dull that bright light of her spirit? To stain the precious years she had left with regret and disappointment? Cynthia deserved far better. She deserved more than what Mariana had proved him—half a man.

As she stared expectantly at him, her beautiful cornflower eyes full of hope, shining with gratitude, soft with affection, his heart sank to his stomach.

It would kill him, he knew, to deny his feelings. It would break her heart as well. And yet, it was the only right thing to do.

He looked away, unable to bear the mild confusion and pain he knew would enter her eyes. He withdrew his extended hand, closing it into an impartial fist. And he hardened his heart against the flood of emotion that threatened to unman him and make him forget his good intentions.

“Are you…” He cleared his throat. “Do you feel better?”

Her silence forced him to meet her gaze again. She looked hurt, puzzled.

“You…” Her voice creaked like an iron hinge in need of oil.

She struggled to sit upright. He couldn’t stand by and watch her futile attempts. Steeling his emotions, he vaulted forward, cradling her in the crook of his arm and bolstering her with several pillows. Then he reached for his hip flask of watered wine, uncorked it with his teeth, and raised it to her lips. She covered his hand with her own two and drank greedily. Surely it was unwise to drink so much at once, but he couldn’t deny her.

After several gulps, she pushed the flask aside and wiped a shaky hand across her lips. Then she raised her eyes to his.

“You stayed with me.”

It sounded like an accusation. He slipped his arm from around her, corking the flask and dropping his gaze.

“How long?” she asked.

“Not long,” he lied, putting the flask away.

“Long enough to grow this,” she said, reaching up to stroke his stubbled chin.

Her fingers burned like hot embers against his face. He turned his cheek aside.

He felt her eyes on him, searching his face a long while before she turned her head to look despondently toward the window.

“How many days have I been ill?”

“Five…six.” He picked up the wooden platter from the floor and set it on the table, squaring it up with the edge. He had to get away from Cynthia…now…before he forgot his intent and begged for her touch again. “I’ll fetch Elspeth. She’ll be relieved that you’re well.”

“And are you?” She still gazed out the window, and her words seemed more thought than speech.

“Am I…?”

“Relieved?”

More than you can possibly imagine, he thought. He answered evasively instead. “Of course. It’s always a blessing to see the work of God’s hand—“

“It wasn’t
God’s
hand that healed me.” She turned toward him, and there was such desperation in her eyes that he couldn’t bear it.

He bit the inside of his cheek, avoiding her piercing gaze. “I fear you blaspheme, my lady.”

Before he could halt her, she clasped his hand in her two.

“It’s
this
hand I remember between bouts of sleep, holding mine, smoothing my brow, stroking my cheek, healing me.” Her voice was rough, and she blushed as if the words came from her against her will. Then she lifted his trapped hand to place a quick and reckless kiss along his knuckles.

His heart fluttered. He wanted her kiss. Her soft breath was a sweet caress across the back of his fingers.

“Then you must forget this hand,” he whispered harshly, reluctantly pulling away, knowing he crushed her. “It’s an instrument of God’s will, no more. That’s all it will ever be.”

He made the sign of the cross and walked stiffly toward the door, feeling the pain he’d inflicted all the way. Before he left, he turned to her once more. “It’s all
I
will ever be.”

In the following days, the sickness in the village foundered and died, and the air filled with the sweet scents of nature’s renewal. The sun coaxed tender shoots of grass up from the earth, and tightly curled leaves and buds tipped the dark branches with vivid green. By Easter, everyone, peasant and noble alike, was eager to crowd into the great hall of Wendeville for an enormous feast. Cynthia hired mummers to perform a St. George play, and Father Garth, promising loyal service to the castle henceforth, blessed the colorful pace eggs, as was his duty, for the men and women to exchange.

The days passed in subdued harmony while the garden erupted in a slow explosion of color. But for Cynthia, the blooms brought little joy. They were only a bright reminder of how dull her life had become in contrast.

Elspeth continued to bring candidates for Cynthia’s hand, and while she tried to greet them civilly, none of them seemed of adequate intellect or appropriate demeanor to take on the responsibility of Wendeville. Certainly none of them even remotely stirred her heart, and while it wasn’t necessarily a prerequisite for marriage, if she wanted an heir, she had to at least be willing to bed Wendeville’s lord.

The situation seemed hopeless, and having Garth nearby did nothing to remedy that. She compared every man to him. This lord’s eyes were not as bright. That lord’s smile was not as bewitching. This gentleman’s touch was not nearly as warm, that gentleman’s not nearly as firm.

But at last, on a brilliant morn in late April, when tufted clouds frolicked like lambs across the jewel-blue sky, he came.

His name was Philip.

He was perfect—not too handsome, not too plain, not overly extravagant, but far from miserly, fair-minded, polite, humble.

She didn’t love him. Far from it. But he was acceptable as lord for Wendeville. She could see he would be good for the people. Roger liked him. Elspeth liked him. The castle folk liked him. Everyone would be glad of a wedding between the two of them.

Everyone but Garth. Garth instantly hated Philip. And just as instantly prayed for forgiveness. There was no real reason to hate the man. He was perfect for Wendeville, perfect for Cynthia. But that ugly beast, jealousy, perched upon Garth’s shoulder.

It didn’t belong there. Garth had no claim upon Cynthia, none whatsoever. Since that blessed day when God had seen fit to save her life, Garth had dedicated himself wholly, devotedly to his religious duties, vowing to leave Cynthia to a more deserving man.

He made frequent visits to the town now. He knew the villagers by name and considered each soul his solemn responsibility. He’d even arranged, with the permission of Wendeville’s groom, to send palfreys each Sabbath to transport the elderly to Mass at the chapel.

He helped with the distribution of alms and trenchers and worn clothing to the poor, and even spent odd hours scrubbing plaster and polishing the stained glass of the chapel until it shone with heavenly luster.

He taught the children of the keep to read, and even indulged the falconer, who had no real use for letters, but who’d come to him with a longing so sincere he couldn’t refuse him. He tended to the sick, prayed for the destitute, blessed two newborn babes, and gave the old castle brewster last rites.

And through it all, he managed to keep apart from Lady Cynthia. She even obliged him by respecting his chosen detachment from her. Once he’d explained, once he’d made clear to her that her life had been bargained for upon his faith, she seemed to understand. She no longer summoned him to the garden or teased him at supper or wore the scent of jasmine in his presence.

Only when he passed one of the fragrant sprays of white and yellow blooms Cynthia cut and placed about the castle did a faint but persistent longing pierce his heart. Only when the scent of flowers wafted through his thoughts did he feel strangely bereft.

And if he sensed empathy in her, if she, too, seemed particularly wistful in idle moments, he told himself it was the loss of her husband that made her so, or a feminine longing for a child, or the simple restlessness of spring. It would have tortured him too much to hope she felt the same pangs as he.

As it turned out, he was mistaken about her melancholy. She wasted no time at all finding a new lord for Wendeville.

Elspeth, with her usual stubborn persistence, had continued to inflict eligible noblemen upon the castle, and, for a while, Cynthia had discarded them as casually as a fisherman throwing back too small catch.

It would have been a lie to say her actions disappointed Garth. In his eyes, none of the men had seemed good enough for her.

But then Sir Philip de Laval arrived.

He wasn’t nearly as flamboyant and engaging as Lord William had been, but then the man would never eclipse Cynthia’s light. Garth could see in his forthright gaze that Sir Philip was a good man.
His
spirit wasn’t troubled by doubt.
He
wasn’t plagued by moral dilemmas. He was simply a decent, God-fearing, honorable man.

Apparently Cynthia thought so, too. Within days, she’d accepted his informal proposal of marriage.

It was probably for the best. She did look peaceful strolling about the courtyard on his arm. The smiles they exchanged at supper were fond, and the way Philip’s face glowed with quiet pleasure when she entered a room, Garth knew he’d treat her well.

In the occasional moments when envy surfaced among his thoughts, Garth pressed it down like an autumn apple, filtering the bitter seeds from the sweet cider. If his throat closed when he thought about having to be the one to seal their bond of marriage, he reminded himself that Cynthia deserved so much more than
he
could give her.

Thus it was that on days like today, the first of May, when all Wendeville was agog with feasting and merrymaking and festivity, Garth welcomed the chaos to which the castle was reduced, for he had no time to dwell on such troubling matters of the heart.

Indeed, his own exuberance amazed him as he stood at the edge of the wooden palisade constructed for the great May Day tournament. In the lists, Wendeville’s finest warriors kicked up swirling clouds of dust, battling afoot in the melee, wielding blunted swords and shouting aspersions against their foes.