Page 23 of The Daughters of Avalon
It didn’t take long to find suitable fare. He settled on a small hare, but immediately rued the decision to make camp so close to Amdel. Certainly, it wasn’t anything so significant as deer, but it was nevertheless game belonging to the crown. He had been very careful to travel outside Beauchamp’s parklands. Strictly speaking, these lands were part of Henry’s charter, but Malcom realized very well that it wouldn’t prevent Beauchamp from assuming the role of an injured party, as he had with d’Lucy—and he might do so if Malcom were forced to repudiate his sister. As reluctant as the man was to part with his littlesister, he seemed greedy for an alliance. But Malcom wouldn’t fool himself over the reason why. Beauchamp couldn’t give a damn about Malcom per se; he was far more interested in allying with a member of Stephen’s Rex Militum—an elite division of the King’s guard tasked with securing the king’s justice. Any member might have served him well enough, but to his utter displeasure, most of them had far greater influence than Malcom. They would have too many options at their disposal to bother allying with a baron, whose favor remained in question.
But rather fortunately for Malcom, Stephen’s heart was not in the enforcement of Henry’s charter. It was just that since he’d abandoned his post in Wales, he worried Beauchamp would take the matter to Stephen, and if he did so, Malcom might be forced to answer for far more than poaching. His assignment in Wales was left incomplete, and Stephen might even be annoyed enough to enforce Henry’s Forest Law to its fullest degree. He was proving quite good at redirecting his displeasure. What was more, if Stephen should ask why Malcom had left his post… well, he was, indeed, a poor liar. If, in truth, the summons to Scotia was a ruse, Malcom stood to lose everything he’d worked for over the past eleven years. All his many sacrifices would come to naught.
He exhaled wearily, for at times like these, he so much lamented his fealty to England. Life in Scotia had been much simpler. And nevertheless, shoving the past out of his head, he wondered again who might sequester a lovely lass—and four sisters—in a remote priory in the Black Mountains of Wales. And, furthermore, why did she take such a fright every time he mentioned d’Lucy’s name?
In truth, Malcom couldn’t imagine anyone, save a loyalist to the Empress, who might take offense to the Graeham d’Lucy. Graeham’s brother was another matter entirely. Blaec, like his cousin Cael, inspired fear, and Malcom himself wouldn’t relishmeeting either of those two fellows on a battlefield. However, Blaec was a second son and had nothing to offer a woman of substance. Cael, on the other hand, was in a position to benefit from a well-placed alliance. For his service to Stephen, he was recently awarded a Marcher demesne. But while Cael was hardly a man to be trifled with, Malcom did not believe him so villainous as to merit the fear he sensed in Elspeth.
But the more he thought about it, the more sense it made that Stephen would offer Cael a high-born wife to substantiate his claim so deep in the Marches. So if Elspeth was offered to Blackwood—why? Who was she? And more importantly: God save Malcom, because Blackwood was the last man in the realm he would have liked to have had as an enemy.
Brooding over the possibilities, he returned to camp to clean and dress the hare, relieved to find that everyone remained.
Tossing down the cony on a stump near his pit, he sat, drawing the blade from his boot, taking note of what everyone else was doing. Merry Bells was still hobbled by the burn. Elspeth had evidently taken it upon herself to wash hissherteand hang it to dry. And, then, having discovered the bedroll behind his saddlebag, she’d untied it and laid it down near the firepit. And furthermore, she’d taken to heart his advice about her tunic. Whilst Malcom was gone, she’d turned the garment inside out. Right now, she sat on his blanket, inspecting the damage to hishauberk.
“I don’t suppose you have extra rings?” she asked after Malcom was seated, careful not to meet or hold his gaze.
“Nay, lass,” he said. “I do not.”
And still, she fiddled with thehauberk, while Malcom threw himself into the task of cleaning the hare, cutting the skin at the back of the cony’s neck, then, holding the carcass by the back of its legs, and gathering the soft skin to tear it off—like his father taught him.
It was at times like these he felt closest to his Da, remembering the times they’d gone hunting and fishing together. He missed those days, more than he cared to admit.
As for Elspeth, he was pleased to see she had skill at tending fires, because the one he’d built was burning stronger now, and was trimmed with fieldstones. Putting lie to his previous summations about her, that was not what he would have anticipated from a highborn lady.
Now, once again, as he watched her fiddle with his hauberk, examining the small links, he suffered the same thoughts he’d had earlier, and an altogether different and more potent heat stirred his loins.Bedamned.There was something entirely too intimate about their time here together, putting thoughts into his head he shouldn’t be having. For the moment, she was his ward, but that would change the instant she decided to open her mouth and tell him what he needed to know.
“It can be repaired,” she said, offhand, and the sight of her trying to mend his accoutrements hardened him fully for the second time in the span of a single day—a state of arousal he’d enjoyed less and less over the past years. Lifting a leg to hide the evidence, Malcom leaned an arm atop his knee, and settled into the task of skinning the cony, hoping it would cool his ardor.
“Easier said than done,” he said, trying not to notice the provocative way her tunic rode up her thighs, revealing her too-tight breeches.
Bluidyhell. He might armor elsewhere, if she should happen to notice he’d formed a tent in his breeches. Sighing again, he tugged at the skin of the cony, trying not to notice the delicate way she was fingering the small loops of his mail. And, perhaps, he took out some of his frustrations on the cony, lopping off the animal’s feet, and then its head. He proceeded to gut it, the task effectively cooling his ardor. And nevertheless, whilst he worked, he came very aware that Elspeth had stopped what shewas doing and now she was watching him intently. Glancing up to find her mouth twisted with disgust, he lifted the bare-bodied cony. “Hungry?” he teased.
She shook her head, but Malcom knew it to be a lie. Her stomach gurgled nearly as loudly as the brook, and he chuckled. “I presume you’ve never killed or cleaned your own dinner before?”
Casting thehauberkaside,she abandoned the puzzle of hissherte, and said, “Nay.”
“I promise it will look more appetizing after I’m done.”
Her hand went to her belly. “I might never forget the sight of it now.”
Malcom worked quickly, realizing the process unsettled her.
“My sisters and I… we… I… never… well… what I mean to say is we were more familiar with gruel than we ever were with…that.”
“Cony?”
“Aye.”
“More’s the pity,” Malcom said with a wink, thinking about the stews auld Glenna had prepared for him back home. Like his mother, she could whip up a fine kettle with anything she was given.
Of course,it wasn’t as though Elspeth hadn’t sometimes wished to kill a hare or two—particularly when they munched on her garden. Butthatwas disgusting.
Up until now, they’d traveled over much of the day without ever stopping for respite, and she realized only belatedly how hungry and thirsty she was. But, to be sure, she thought his choice of food rather crude. Whilst she and her sisters ate whatever was put in front of them at the priory, their meals had rarely consisted of animal flesh. If there be one true sin, itwould be the unnecessary taking of a life, and therefore, where it concerned a body’s sustenance, it was well enough to harvest what could be wrought from the earth—mostly tended by their own hands.
Betimes they’d foraged for berries, ate bread and cheese, and rarely a bit of fish. After all, some flesh could not be avoided with the monks in such a proud state over their new hatchery. They’d also kept hens, and these were mostly raised for eggs, and goats for milk. But whilst Elspeth was no stranger to the butchering of animals for sustenance, this was not something she had ever become familiar with until she’d spent time in her father’s court.
Her father’s tables had been replete with flesh—great sows still bearing sad heads, pheasants posed as though they could still take flight. Long stretches of intestines were filled with crushed organs, betimes blood staining the trenchers they ate from. It always made Elspeth sad to see all that carnage, but that’s where Morwen probably developed her taste for blood.
But, indeed, she was hungry. And since Elspeth was not the one who’d killed the poor beast, she wouldn’t turn it away, and neither should it go to waste. It was one thing to be the one to kill it, another thing to eat it, she supposed. And neither was it a sin to kill sparingly for food—so long as one gave atonement and thanks and took no more than was necessary. After all, theirs was not a religion, and contrary to what folks might believe, neither did they worship demons.
