The Mercenary's Claim (3 page)

“No dance partner? Now, that’s a disaster I’ll enjoy saving you from! And then I won’t be a complete stranger, will I?” He gave a jovial laugh, but as he took Kirsten’s hand, she noticed that he gripped her with a strength that let her know she would not be able to break free even if she tried.

As they walked toward the area of the hall where the lute, harp, and drum were setting a fine beat, they had to pass through the tables where the soldiers were drinking. Kirsten felt their eyes upon her, but she had to admit, they respectfully made way for their leader’s lady. She found to her surprise that she rather enjoyed the sensation of being the center of attention. Smiling serenely at the crowd as she had been taught, she nodded at the first man to stand and give her a little bow. More and more of the men began to do this, so that the room was almost quiet when Gustav led Kirsten out onto the middle of the dance floor.

They stood there for a moment, looking around at the crowd. Then Gustav faced Kirsten. She looked up into his face, feeling a certain tentative liking for the man who brought such adulation to a young woman who had thus far been relegated to a maiden’s rightful place in the background of any social gathering. His smile, however, was for his men. Beaming and nodding, his focus was over her head at the crowd, now breathless with anticipation. Kirsten realized he was building the emotion of the moment, like a master orator giving a speech. Deflated but not willing to give up her place at the center of this pantomime, Kirsten waited, somehow trusting that Gustav would let her know when it was time to move. She was not disappointed as he gave her hand a tiny squeeze before stepping off smartly in time to the music. The crowd roared its approval and Kirsten’s heart soared with the sounds.

In his arms, she forgot all her doubts. He danced as only an extremely athletic man could, with grace and strength that made her feel like a dove on the wing. She swooped and curveted, free from restraint and care. Spreading her arms wide, she leaned back as he spun her, taking her slight weight as if it were nothing. She barely noticed as he used his free arm to gesture to the men to join them in the swirling eddy of sound and sensation.

The floor became more crowded as more and more of the celebration moved to the dance. There was less room to move, and more often her feet were lifted from the floor as the night progressed. Slowly, as if the players hadn’t wanted anyone to notice, the beat of the songs changed, becoming faster, more driving, more intense. Closer they danced and closer he held her, less like a dove, more like a merlin on the hunt, a need growing in her, some airborne prey she could not name calling her to the chase.

“It’s time,” he breathed huskily in her ear. Not waiting for an answer, he carried her off the crowded floor with his arms wrapped tightly around her legs, her hands on his shoulders, his face peering around her side. Another roar went up from the crowd as they ascended the staircase that flanked the great hall and led to the private apartments where the family slept.

Breathless and overwhelmed with a fierce desire she did not understand, Kirsten allowed herself to be carried to the room next to the stairs. It was a wardrobe room where clothing was kept and repaired. There were chairs and chests, and even a low couch or two for when some of the servants needed to sleep close to the family. It was to one of these seats that Gustav now bore her, laying her down and lying on top of her, panting.

With the music from the hall below them still crashing in her ears, Kirsten still felt like she was on the hunt. The things Gustav was doing to her, she could not comprehend. The words he was saying to her made no sense and yet conveyed a feeling more sure than a scribes’ contract. Kirsten felt as if he was playing her as the troubadour stroking the strings of his harp and yet each stroke of his hands brought not melody but altitude, soaring, skyward, set free. On a gasp, she shook, as if the merlin inside her had struck, bringing down not another bird, but her own spirit, and not falling to destruction, but rather rocketing to ecstasy and then heart-pounding oblivion.

She came to herself when he took what was his by right, what he had earned with generous passion. Only for a moment did the pain distract her from mindless pleasure building inside her again as she saw on his face the need and drive she felt. They were one in that moment with the music and the crowd’s fierce elation, the joy in survival, the pride in victory. The sounds wrung from his throat drove her to the brink again and she cried out. He followed, straining as if his own inner hawk was plunging skyward as hers had done.

He was too heavy when he collapsed on her, but he seemed to know it. After only a moment, he rolled off onto the floor which was covered with a carpet rather than the rushes that lined the floor of the great hall and other public places in the castle. He lay there panting while she took stock of their situation as if only just newly arriving on the scene.

He sat up and gave her his usual jovial grin. “Well, that’s another conquest successfully carried out today. I’m on a roll, no denying.”

She pushed the skirts of her dress down to cover herself. “Why are we in the wardrobe? What have you done?”

“Here, I’ll help you lace your bodice so you can be decently covered on your way back to your bedroom.”

“Back to my bedroom?” she mimicked stupidly. “Why aren’t we there now?”

“Eager, eh? That’s a hopeful sign.”

“What? No, not eager! Appalled!” Her breath returning to normal allowed her thoughts to gather themselves and turn on him. “Why in the name of—”

“No swearing, now. I thought I’d married a lady. Watch your tongue. And what a tongue it is, I must say.” He had finished doing up his leggings and whatever other clothes she hadn’t dared to watch him rearrange. “I brought you here for your sake, not mine. I could have waited until the celebration was over, but then the men might have wanted the traditional presentation of the bride. I thought, things being what they are, you might not want that. We can go back and do it if you like, now that we’re uh… no longer complete strangers.”

He gave her such a smug look, she almost struck him. “How dare you? You did that on purpose to humiliate me, didn’t you? You arranged that whole scene, knowing it would cast some sort of spell over me and make me give in to you without a fight. Despicable.”

The pleasure vanished from his face and for a perverse moment, she was glad to see that she had gotten through to him. “Merciful. I was trying to spare you embarrassment and fear. Most girls are terrified on their wedding nights. At least, that’s what they tell me. Steffan asked me, as a personal favor to him, to make things easy for you. That, I have done. If I’m so despicable, you won’t mind me going back to the feast. I was going to apologize for that necessity, but you’ve saved me the trouble.”

“Oh, you have to go back to the feast, do you? You need to make sure enough food and wine and ale are consumed?” Sarcasm stung in her voice.

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I do need to make sure the men eat enough food and spill enough strong drink so that they don’t make themselves sick on it. I’ll do that for your parents’ sake if not for yours. They don’t deserve a bunch of drunken soldiers marauding all over the town tonight. Better to have them where we can keep an eye on them, but to do that, we’ve got to keep them entertained. My presence is needed toward that end. I know my duty.”

This last remark coupled with his revelations quelled the anger in Kirsten’s heart but made her sound defensive, even to her own ears. “I know my duty, too. I didn’t fight you, did I? I know you have the right to do what you did. I just think it should have been done properly, in a bedroom, behind locked doors and drawn curtains.”

Gustav’s eyes burned for a moment with the embers of the passion they had so recently shared. “I would not have forfeited that mood for all the propriety in the kingdom. You were prepared. You were ready. You were beautiful. I needed the music and the heat and your abandon. I kept them by escaping here.” The glow receded and the jovial grin appeared again. “Varin will be pacing the floor by now. I have to get back. I’d invite you to return with me, but you need your rest. It’s been a long day. You’ll help your mother return the castle to normal while I return to our stronghold one final time to bid my men farewell.”

“Farewell?” Her blurted question turned him from the door he was just about to pull open.

“I can’t very well run Schoenfeld manor with an army of mercenaries roaming about. Varin’s been their military leader for years. He’ll take over in name as well as in reality. I’ll still help him from time to time, mostly with recruiting and inspiration. That’s always been my part. He isn’t exactly strong in the personality department, but he’s a heck of a strategist and dead loyal. He’ll do fine with the lads while I settle down to the life of a country gentleman. Can’t ask for more than that, can you? So, scoot! I’ll see you in a few days.”

She stared after him, not sure whether to be disappointed or appalled, but one thing she had to admit: he had kept her mind thoroughly distracted. She stood to make sure her clothing was decently in place and then she realized her hair was totally uncovered and unbound. He had taken her scarf.

* * *

“And he wore it around his arm like a flag of honor or some royal colors,” Mitzi cried with a giggle to her friend Greta. When Kirsten cleared her throat to announce her presence in the kitchens, the serving girl gasped, “Oh, my Lady! I had no idea you was there! What brings you down, this time of day and all? Nothing wrong with the noon bread, I trust. Ever so nice to have decent food to cook again, ain’t it, Greta? I was just saying to Greta here, wasn’t I, Greta? ‘Good flour they did bring or I don’t know good from bad’ says you. ‘Good as gold,’ says I, and meant it.” The woman nodded like a judge pronouncing sentence.

Kirsten, trying not to show her impatience at this delay, spoke quickly. “The bread was fine. What I need is your help in making that list my mother needs.” Opening her writing box, with pen, ink, and parchment scrap, she sat down at the table and set up. “Call the contents out to me clearly and precisely, if you please. Everything, mind you. Leave nothing out.” She wanted to finish correctly and quickly so she could sneak away, taking advantage of this time out of her mother’s sight to avoid at least a few of the jobs her mother had planned for her.

“Wouldn’t dream of it, my lady. With all my lord Ludolf has just brought in, it will take a while, that it will. Why, I shouldn’t wonder if—”

“If it will take a while, then we’d better get started.”

“Yes, my lady,” said Mitzi, sounding chastened.

Kirsten felt guilty, taking out her bad mood on a harmless servant. Deciding to give the woman a thrill, she engaged in a bit of gossip while they worked. “Who were you talking about when I came in? Who wore what around his arm? One of the stable lads trying to woo a kitchen maid?”

Mitzi laughed nervously at this. “No, no, my lady. I was talking about your new lord, the one what saved us. He had your scarf, the one as I saw on your very own head, wound around his neck sometimes, then on his arm, proud as punch, as even a blind man could see.” Mitzi lost her trepidation as she warmed to her story. “How he did shine that night. Handsome and heroic, and romantic too. Lucky, you are, that’s what I say. As I says to Greta, ‘She’s got herself a keeper,’ says I. A keeper indeed, that’s what.”

“Hmmm. That’s where my scarf went. I should have known he’d want it to show off his noble wife.”

Mitzi seemed not to notice her bitterness. “Yes, indeed, my lady. So much better than those men what don’t care one whit. You can tell ‘em, you can, soon as you see ‘em, so called noblemen. You know, the ones as marry a woman, take her money and never come home again till it’s spent on wars and other women, or gambling or ale. You’ll not face that, no, indeed, you won’t.”

Kirsten paused to give that a thought. Every time she tried to be angry with this lout, whenever she criticized his behavior or looked for some sympathy, she was confronted with another, more decent interpretation that showed Gustav in a better light. Her mother and even her priest had made it sound like she was being unreasonable to feel sorry for herself. Her father was the only one who understood.

“And all the servants feel the same?”

“Well, there’s some as disagree, them what think your father could have got a better match for you at court, but like I always says, better the devil you know, eh? You could have went to court and got taken by some brigand or coveted by some old miserly courtier and the king might have put his foot down to make your father do the deal. Now, it’s done and you’ll soon be safe at Schoenfeld. Closer than that, you couldn’t want.”

“Schoenfeld,” sighed Kirsten. “It’s so small. Not a castle even. Just a manor.”

Mitzi laughed. “You’ll be glad of that when you try to replace the rushes all by yourself. Your new lord, he don’t have no servants yet, nor retainers, and precious few serfs to work the land. From what I hear, you’ll have your work cut out for you till first harvest.”

“But! But! How am I supposed to run the manor on my own? It can’t be done!”

“Needs must, as I always did say. You’ll find a way, my lady. Your lady mother always does.”

As the days passed, Kirsten became more and more apprehensive about her future. Every day in between the spring rains that pelted down on the bailey, turning those areas not paved with stones into a muddy swamp, she paced the battlements, scanning the horizon for a messenger or even sight of Gustav himself. Every night she lay in her bed alone, trying not to relive those confusing moments in the wardrobe. Every morning, she awoke to the tiresome tasks her mother set her, wondering if she were ready to run her own household the way her mother did.

Worry and self-doubt took their toll until at last she asked the herbalist for a powder to make a sleeping draught. The poor man looked flustered. “Such things there are, my lady, but tisn’t best for one such as yourself to use them.”

“Such as myself?”

“Young, I mean. Healthy. Not ailing. Could be in a family way, isn’t that so? Too early to tell. A nice tisane of chamomile is what you’d be needing, or a sip of red wine would do the trick, slip of a girl like you. That’d be what I’d recommend. All will be set right when your man comes to get you. He’ll keep you tired enough to sleep I’ll warrant; when he lets you sleep, that is.”