One fled the room while the other stroked Isabeau’s hair back from her sweating face. Ballard wrapped a hand around the scissors, took a breath and yanked. The pain cascading down his arm spread to his back and down his side, trailed by a crimson stream. He tossed the scissors aside. Isabeau slapped at him as he lifted her in his arms and carried her to her bed. He laid her down gently and stepped back so the remaining servant could make her comfortable.
Pale as bleached linen, Isabeau glared at him from the bed. “I hope it dies,” she said. “And that I die too. Then I’ll be free, and you will have nothing.” She turned her face to the wall, fingers clenched in the sheets.
The handmaiden spoke gently. “Her labor is upon her, dominus. You have no place here now.”
He nodded and left the chamber. The corridor was dark and cool and served to clear his mind. The scent of copper curled in his nostrils as blood from his wound struck the floor in a patter of steady drips. He prayed as Isabeau once prayed, not for death but for life.
----------*****------------
Ambrose eyed Ballard and Gavin, disapproval etched in every line of his weathered face. He balanced a shimmering orb of violet light on the tips of his fingers. It twirled and bounced, shooting blue sparks from its center. “The last time you two fought for one of these, Magda had to stitch Gavin’s arm and you broke your wrist.” He surveyed the great hall, noting the table and benches had been moved against the walls and the rushes swept aside to reveal the stone floor. “Don’t forget the furniture you had to repair afterward. Are you certain you want to do this?”
Ballard shrugged. “Gavin broke my wrist, not me.”
Gavin batted at the orb. It whipped around Ambrose’s back before darting in front of Gavin to float just out of reach. “We’re sure. Unlike Father here, I haven’t enjoyed a good brawl or tussle in a long time.”
“When did you last see me brawling with anyone but you?” Ballard’s eyes narrowed at his son’s sly grin.
“You bedded the Widow Duenda. Tell me that wasn’t a brawl. Half drowned and half dead, that’s a woman who’d run you ‘til you dropped.”
Ballard stretched his muscles in preparation for the upcoming match and ignored Gavin’s commentary. The boy had no business knowing the goings-on in his bedchamber, and Ballard had no intention of enlightening him. “Don’t count on that to win this game, son.” He signaled to Ambrose who slung the sparking orb across the great hall. He leapt nimbly aside as Ketach Tor’s master and heir practically threw themselves after it.
The game had been Ballard’s idea, a way to teach Gavin martial skills beyond sword and horsemanship. It required speed, agility and endurance. The rules were simple. Chase after the fast-flying ball until you caught it, all the while preventing your opponent from doing the same and stop him from taking it from you by force. Gavin had embraced the exercise with enthusiasm, thrilled with the opportunity to pit his skills against his war-trained father. As he reached manhood, the game grew progressively harder, more brutal until it resembled no genteel entertainment but a street battle where the only true rule was to win.
The orb itself was a nasty piece of work, darting about with hummingbird speed. A fiendish creation spawned in Ambrose’s potions room late one night, it eluded capture, spitting blue sparks as if laughing at its pursuers’ efforts. Both men had soon learned that nabbing the orb was only half the challenge. Holding onto it was just as difficult. The dancing sparks sent sharp pangs through the hand and up the arm, causing muscles to twitch and convulse, and sometimes the prey turned on the hunters. Ballard had sprained two fingers in one game when the orb whipped around and smashed him in the hand. Gavin had lost a back tooth when it shot across the room straight at him. He didn’t duck fast enough and counted himself lucky to have only suffered a lost tooth instead of a broken jaw.
Gavin’s fingers just scraped the orb’s surface before Ballard tackled him from behind, taking him down at the knees. Both men crashed to the floor only to spring up and race after their prize. Ballard caught it for a brief moment and was slammed against one wall so hard, his teeth rattled. The orb popped out of his grip, and Gavin sprinted after it, crowing triumphantly. “Getting slow in your dotage, gaffer.”
The two fought from one end of the hall to the other, grappling, punching and cursing as the orb flashed between them, tantalizingly close but always just out of reach. In the end, Gavin won through sheer endurance. Gasping, dripping sweat and suffering a pounding headache after Gavin head butted him, Ballard sat on the floor facing his son and began to laugh. The other man had tucked the orb into the front of his trousers. A radiant glow illuminated his crotch. Gavin gritted his teeth, red face leaching of all color until he’d paled a ghastly shade of gray. “Done?” He gasped out the word.
Ballard waved a hand, wincing at the thought of what those needle-like sparks were doing to Gavin’s manhood. “Aye. You win. I can’t stand to watch you geld yourself over a game.” He stretched out on the stone pavers, grateful for their icy comfort against his back, and listened as Gavin recited the charm that disintegrated the orb.
He dropped to his haunches next to his father. “I bi my ton,” he garbled and spat a gobbet of blood on the floor in front of him.
Ballard eyed the arched ceiling joists high above him. “I’m getting too old for this.” A tickling sensation at his temple had him wiping at the sweat droplets gathered there. His hand came away smeared red. Gavin wasn’t the only one to walk away from this melee bloodied.
Gavin pressed a hand gingerly to his side. “You’ve an elbow like a hammer. I think you cracked a rib.”
He offered neither apology nor sympathy. Playing the game had been Gavin’s idea. The side of his face still ached from the last punch Gavin landed on him. “Was it worth it to cool your blood?”
“For now. Ask me again in couple of hours after I’ve sat by Cinnia at table, with her scent in my nose and her sister threatening to rip my heart out if I dare lay a finger on her.”
The clearing of a throat made both men look toward the screen separating the hall from the kitchen. Louvaen stood watching them, arms akimbo. Ballard clambered to his feet and swayed, dizzy. Gavin must have hit him harder than he thought. Large snowflakes veiled Louvaen’s braided hair, floating lazily from the crown of her head to catch in the loose strands and flutter over her face. She grimaced and swatted at a few that danced over her nose and tipped her eyelashes. It took him a moment to realize the snowflakes were down feathers. Magda had put her to work plucking their supper. Her gaze raked them, noting their disheveled state, the scrapes and bruises, blood and cuts.
“Magda sent me to tell you that once you’re through beating each other senseless to please leave the hall so the rest of us with something important to do can decorate for Modrnicht.”
Gavin flinched at her waspish tone. Ballard nodded and offered a bow. “It’s yours to do with as you wish, mistress. We’re finished here.” He bowed a second time when she spun on her heel without replying and disappeared behind the screen.
Gavin made to follow. “Better hide the weaponry. She’s in a foul mood.”
Ballard gazed at the spot where she’d stood. Unlike Gavin, he’d known to expect such behavior. Louvaen herself had warned him three days earlier.
“You’ll not want me for company this week, my lord,” she said. “I change from shrew to viper when my menses are upon me.”
She’d startled him with the straightforward intimacy of her declaration. Ballard had lived with three women in the same household for almost four centuries, had an idea of when each suffered through their monthly and wisely made himself scarce when they occurred. Louvaen was the first to outright admit it and warn him off. And she’d lived up to the warning. Peevish and tired, she’d avoided everyone, ate her meals alone in the kitchen or only with Magda for company and refused to spend her evenings in the solar before bed.
Ballard missed her presence and sat in sullen silence before the fire, drinking too much ale and recalling every erotic moment of the one night he’d spent in her bed. He wanted her, craved her, and would have her beneath him again in a second—bad moods and menses be damned—if she even hinted at her willingness. She hadn’t, and he respected her wish for solitude. He’d have to wait a little longer before she came to his bed a second time. The memory of that first time was its own comfort—her unexpected and stunning gift of affection. For a brief, nauseous moment he’d wondered if she’d regretted bedding him. Her admission of physical discomfort had banished that worry.
Or so he continued telling himself now, three days later. He’d needed the outlet of the game as much as Gavin, his desire for Louvaen raised to a fever pitch now that he knew the feel and taste of her. The temptation to cajole her into his room, even if only to sleep beside him, lay heavily on his mind. He’d slept in a lonely bed a long time—was used to it—but the thought of her curled against him in slumber, warm and soft, refused to fade. He’d offer the suggestion tonight. She might bite his head off for his trouble, but he considered the possible outcome worth the risk.
