She kept splashing water on her hot cheeks and her burning eyes afraid of what this all meant, until her face was so wet water ran down and dripped onto her collarbone and plopped in the bathwater. At least now she could not tell warm water from tears.
She sat up and steeled her spine. If she was going to save herself, she needed courage and to not be a weakling, weeping over something she could never have again. Searching her mind, she tried to find some sense of anger at Al and tried to conjure up all she had felt over the last days--the hard feelings of embarrassment that she was made a fool of, of the king, her father, and all he would do to her.
A few long deep breaths and she sank lower into the water. Wafting up and around her was the sweet scent flowers and summer herbs. She began to scrub her hair and head vigorously with the ball of soap in her hand and then paused and lifted it to her nose; it smelled of wild honey and almonds, and was a gift from the shy French monk who took her morning food tray and told her he had made a bath for her, led her to the wash room, chattering in an odd mixture of Gaelic, Saxon-Anglaise and French. He said they made soap here at the abbey, much soap, and not merely sturdy lye soap for cleaning, but scented soaps sold at markets. This soap, he told her, was a favorite of the Flemish royal house and had once been purchased by Lady Margaret Pembrooke, for Queen Eleanor.
Nobility… Did her father buy soap from this abbey? She could be using the same soap her father used. That stopped her.
She set the soap aside and slid underwater, rubbing the residue from her soapy scalp then resurfacing with a gasp, only to sink back against the rim of the tub, where she closed her eyes. Soon the chapel bells rang for Matins, sweet and soundinglike angel’s music and ringing through the stone hallways of the abbey and out around the abbey’s wattle walls. In the distance, the monks were chanting almost song-like and she began to mentally chant her own words:I hold my own destiny… I hold my own destiny…
The water was cold by the time the monks’ voices had stopped. Outside the tub, she grabbed a fresh linen towel from a stack near the burner and began to dry herself. Next to the towels were her clothes--all of her clothes--clean trouse, hose, tunics, hood and linen, even her gown was folded neatly, with bits of dried lavender sprinkled between the tender folds.
Not a spot of food or drink or dirt, not a bit of ash or grime or a small rip or tear was on the deep green gown when she held it up to her body, and she looked down and saw the ragged bottom was neatly hemmed with seemingly invisible stitches. She picked up the hem and studied it thoughtfully.
She chewed her lip, then and looked around her feeling somewhat enchanted. The odd thought came over her that this was a magical place, where the bells at Compline, Matins and Prime rang like music from Heaven and good things like flower-filled baths and clean, scented clothes just perfectly appeared.
Before the thought had left her, the wooden door swung open and Montrose came in, whistling some bright ditty and casually tossing a ball of saffron-yellow soap. He looked up, saw her, and froze mid-tune, sound dying on lips, which was still split and slightly swollen on one side. She could read a sudden heat of some emotion in his eyes.
In that moment of utterly silent surprise, the door clicked closed behind him and she forgot to breathe. The silken velvet gown slid like soapy water from her arms.
His face changed in a mere heartbeat. His tanned skin grew slightly flushed at the bones of his cheeks as his intent gaze roamed slowly over her, down her body to her very toes, which she curled as she stood there, feeling uneasy and confused at such a look. The expression on his face became full of meaningand emotion, odd, and as if he appeared compelled by some madness to look at her that way, as if she were the answer to all the questions in the world…as if through her he was somehow saved.
How startling, this kind of thing passing between a man and woman. She stared back at him, head cocked slightly, puzzled at what that look could truly mean. What she saw was plain: he did not want to look at her that way. Clearly he was silently fighting this some dark place inside of him.
Like sparks from the blazing blue edges of a fire, his eyes grew dark, intense, and hungry. His shoulders sank as if he had given up, or given in. “God in Heaven above, Glenna… You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.”
Though she heard his words, more so she felt his words in her heart and then at the very core of her. Her reaction was to melt again, like she had against the tree in the woods. What was this thing between them? He had not touched her, not kissed her, and she was burning up. From only those words? What was this massively frightening and compelling thing she could not control and came upon her uninvited and without warning? She understood the violence of hatred. She did not understand the violence of love.
Frightened, she scrambled to pick up the gown and cover herself. As she wrapped it around her, she thought she heard him whisper, “No…”
By the time she could find the courage to look up at him, he was staring down at the stone floor.
Had she shamed herself again? “Lyall?” she dared to speak and to her ears her voice was barely there.
He did not answer or look at her, but turned away and shoved a hand through his hair. He grabbed an armful of towels and left her with nothing to look at but the closed door.
The dark shadowsof the stable hid Lyall from view and he wondered why he was doing this, why he sought her out? He stood back from the doorway in a place where he was aware she could not see him. She sat on a large stone bench in the middle of the abbey garden, combing her long wet hair dry in the warm afternoon air. Her hair glistened like onyx in the sunlight. With one hand on the bench, she leaned over slightly to run a thick ivory narwhal comb all the way through to the very ends, which flowed past the bench.
He leaned against the stable wall, crossing his arms and vowing to not move. The vision was his to watch. Back when he was part of the tourney circuit, he had for a short time taken a woman, his woman, instead of one from the army of whores that was as much a part of the tourneys as the games themselves. Knights honed their skills in the games, changed their life fortunes, and celebrated wins and healed their pride over losses with whores and wine.
She was widowed and independent enough to make Lyall as much her choice as she was his. He walked into his tent one night to find her struggling with a comb knotted in her tangled wet hair. He worked a long time to pull her knotted curls from the teeth of the comb before he continued to run it through her long hair, watching it wave and begin to shine as it dried, and finally burying his face in the clean, clover scent of it.
Combing her hair became a ritual—a prelude to bedding, as strong and powerfully captivating as his sleek touches on her skin and the moans of pleasure against their mouths. Her hair had been as pale as sunlight and moonlight spun together, gold and silver, a thousand different strands of color, and nothing like Glenna’s--that midnight darkness, black, black and more black than even than darkest coat of his great horse, than a rare night with no moon, hair that now was glistening so brightly as she sat combing it in the brilliant sunshine and talking with one of the monks who worked on his knees in a garden plot.
He continued to watch her until her burst of honestlaughter made him have to look away. When his woman left him, she told him she needed to return home. He heard later she had left him for another knight willing to wed her. She had lied to him as easily as Glenna had lied to the prior. He did not love his widow and never understood why she felt the need to lie to him. He could never decide if he was irritated because she left him, or because she felt he was so besotted she had to lie to do so.
Most of the knights he knew believed all women lied, that it was in their nature to confound men, believing women could not help themselves, since all were descended from Eve. But the women he had known, his mother and Mairi, told him the brutal truth, oft times hammered him with it like the best of combat knights—they hit him with it between the eyes. From what he observed, his mother and sister were like rare pearls from the twisted black mollusks along the River Tay.
He focused on Glenna talking to the monk, felt all those urges he did not want to feel and thought he was destined to have his sane mind stolen by the one woman he needed to use and forget. Why was that?
His damnation must have been wanting her to begin with, or in his own lies and deceit. He dared not cast the first stone, having too many lies and sins of his own. After the past few days…perhaps, he thought, the truth was over-valued. He watched her laughing with the monk. There was some strange kind of satisfaction in telling a good lie.
His peace was chased suddenly away when the stable lad came in tugging and half-dragging Glenna’s huge stubborn hound by a leather lead. “I found him, my lord. Come, Fergus. Come,” the lad said brightly. “He was hiding in the vineyard but I teased him out with some salted pork.”
The dog looked at him with sorrowful eyes, white and dark and almost pleading, bending his neck to gnaw on the leather lead.
Did the cursed hound somehow know what Lyall intended?Surely an animal did not comprehend words like bath and water and soap.
“Good lad.” He took the leather lead from the boy and wrapped it around his hand. The dog sat on his haunches next to Lyall’s feet.
