“Kiss me, Montrose.” She linked her arms around his neck and jerked his head down to hers before she stilled suddenly.
He pulled himself back from her. “Calm yourself. Please, sweeting,” he urged softly.
Then she was crying again, her head twisting back and forth, repeating things she had said to him, and Fergus sat up on his haunches, watching her closely.
“I am stealing your horse! I have no brothers! I hate the king… Oh El! My dog comes or I do not go. Stop dawdling! Why are you begging forgiveness? I will not marry a Viking! I will not!”
Her fever raged on and Brother Leviticus tried every remedy he had from cold licorice water to a mint rub on her brow. The prior visited twice to pray over her and the gardener brought willow bark tea, meat broth, and finally vinegar with which to bathe her burning skin.
She finally became silent, her delirium seemingly controlled, but she was almost too quiet and Lyall checked twice to see if she were breathing. He sat by her side for so long his legs grew stiff. But his mind was filled with thoughts of guilt. Time passed with him watching her and asking himself he was a completely lost soul.
Later in the day, she had grown so quiet that he leaned over her, listening for her breath. She was dying or almost dead because of him, and he thought he had fallen so low that he deserved to be beaten. The warmth of her breath on his face made him take a long breath and close his eyes in relief, thanking a God he had long ago stopped believing in.
Then she punched him hard in the mouth.
He grunted, cursed, then tasted the salt of blood. Though she might appear to be weak and in delirium, there was plenty of strength in her cursed fist. She tossed and turned again and he held her until she finally quieted, and he sat there for a long, longtime, holding her in his arms and watching her, wondering if each breath would be her last.
“Glenna…I’m a fool,” he finally admitted to her and adjusted the blanket back over her again. He rose and crossed the room, wrung out another towel, and came back to place on her brow.
She moved as fast as a snake, and grabbed fistfuls of his clothes, then pulled hard. He fell on top of her with a grunt, and quickly tried to push up, afraid he was crushing her. Then she fought him, again, screaming and kicking, him atop her.
The prior came rushing in again, followed by three monks, while Lyall was holding Glenna down. They stood in the doorway, lined up watching, their faces serious, the prior giving him a strong, judgmental look.
He looked down, at his position, at her still fighting him. It had to look as if he were ravishing her. Lyall scrambled back, embarrassed, then stood and drove his hands through his hair as he apologized. “She’s no better. “
“Women are not like knights, my lord. They cannot ride for hours through the pouring rain,” the prior said, giving him a direct look. He crossed the room and stared down at Glenna, who was quiet again.
“We shall pray again, my lord, for your poor sick wife,” one of the monks said kindly, his prayer beads in his hand as he began reciting prayers.
“I am not his wife!” Glenna shouted so loud they could have heard her in Inverness.
The prior who had joined the praying, stopped and immediately stepped back. “What is this?”
“’Tis the fever talking, Father,” Lyall said, quickly kneeling down and fighting with her suddenly flailing hands.
“I am naught but a whore,” she said clearly and sadly, her eyes suddenly open, but Lyall could tell she could not see him. She was still not lucid. “I am a whore.”
The prior was clearly rethinking his prayer. “Is what she says true?”
“I am a whore!” she screamed again.
“She knows not what she says,” Lyall said tightly.
“This is a place of God,” the prior warned. “Is she your wife?”
“As I told you….‘tis the fever talking.”
“You did not answer me, my lord. Did you not claim to Pater Bancho that this woman is your wife?”
“Aye,” Lyall said, trying to avoid the truth, or worse yet, the lie that could cause more trouble than the truth would. He could tell no one who she was. “She is my Lady Montrose,” he lied slyly.
The prior stepped closer, frowning. “Yet your wife wears no ring as proof of the bond between you.”
“She lost her ring,” Lyall lied again, grabbing her fists as she tried to hit him.
“Why was she wearing the clothing of a boy when you both arrived here? Would not your true wife travel freely with you…without any need to hide who she is? And why stay you both, here, in the priory, and not at one of the manors where you, my lord, and your lady wife would be welcomed?”
Lyall felt himself sinking deeper into the hole he had dug. “You question my word when I am trying to keep her alive?” Lyall bellowed, going for noise and intimidation.
