“I do.”
“I do not need a physic. I am sure I do not have a fever. It is only the warm bath.”
“I would feel better if we had a physic make the diagnosis.”
With that, he pulled on his nearly dry padded tunic, his boots, his armor, and his overtunic with the dark green and black dragon of the Duke of Exeter. Ellowyn picked her bread apart, dipping it in the cold gravy, as he dressed. She found herself watching him more than she was paying attention to her food. When he was finished dressing, he quit the room with a lingering glance. But not a word came forth out of his mouth.
He didn’t need to speak, however. Ellowyn understood the silent words radiating forth from his eyes more than if he had shouted at her.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The rain wasback.
She was in the field of bodies again, avoiding the pleading hands of the dying, staring at her left hand and the gold and garnet ring upon it. She was married and somehow, somewhere in this mess, was her husband. That must be why she had come, to find him. She wasn’t sure how she knew, only that she did. In this sea of death and destruction, littered with the dead like flotsam upon the sea, she had to find him. She would do it or die trying.
She was knee deep in unfathomable mud, now a dark brick-red in color because of the blood mixed into it. Rivers of it coagulating, creating dark veins in the mud. She struggled to walk through it, panic in her throat.
She looked up at the sky, that great steel-colored mess, thankful for the lack of sun. It would dry up the mud and would trap the dead within it. She had to find her husband before that happened, heightening her sense of urgency. God, please help me, she prayed. Please help me find my love.
My love, she thought. Aye, he is my love, my life. As she moved towards a grove of stripped trees, the mud became shallower and less binding, and she struggled to get up onto firmer ground. But she slipped and fell to her knees, bracing herself with one arm to keep from falling completely while the other arm went around her belly. A big, swollen belly.
Shocked, she looked at her midsection to realize she was pregnant.
*
“I am withchild!”
Ellowyn startled herself awake with those words, disoriented for a moment until she realized she was on the back of her mare, riding in the midst of de Russe’s column of battle-hardened warriors. She glanced around, sheepishly, realizing she had fallen asleep and praying no one had seen her.
“My lady?”
She heard the soft, deep voice over her left shoulder and she closed her eyes briefly, tightly, for a moment. She just knew she’d been caught. Slowly, she turned.
“Aye?” she asked.
It was the very young and very blond knight. The lad was absolutely gigantic, with a fair face, white eyelashes and brows, and intense blue-green eyes. They almost looked too bright within his pale face as he focused on her with polite concern.
“Did you say something, my lady?” he asked.
She shook her head and faced forward. “Nay,” she said, demurred. “Nothing of import. Thank you for your concern.”
“The duke has ordered us to stop at the next town,” he said. “We will make camp there for the night.”
Ellowyn merely nodded. There wasn’t much excitement in the fact that they were stopping for the night. It was the sixth day of their journey to Erith, which would take another ten days at the very least. De Russe was driving a fairly swift but steady pace, something that thoroughly exhausted Ellowyn but she wouldn’t let on. She had gone to great length to convince the man that she was strong and hearty, even with her sniffles and coughing, but that really wasn’t the case. She was putting on a big show when the truth was that she was sick, weary, and verging on tears nearly every second of the day. Traveling with all of these strange men unnerved her and she didn’t feel well, abad combination. De Russe, as kind as he had been, was her only solace.
Fortunately, it was no longer raining and hadn’t been for two days as they had made their way north. Still, it was cold and the winds from the west had been brisk. From what she had heard that morning, if all went well enough, they would be at Coventry by evening’s fall. As the army plodded north through a series of small hills, she gazed off towards the west, towards Wales, and could see flat and green lands below with a very small and dark ridge on the horizon. It was a very faint crest, but she could see it because of the angle of the sunset and the clearness of the air. She pointed.
“Knight,” she said, addressing the young knight with the pale hair. “What is that over there?”
The knight turned his helmed head in the direction she was indicating. He flipped up his visor so he could see more clearly. “Wales, my lady,” he replied. “The Welsh mountains that define the Marches.”
She watched them a moment. “They look rather peaceful now.”
The knight cocked an eyebrow. “They look dark and jagged to me, like teeth preparing to bite. They are a testament to the darkness in the soul of every Welshman and their desire to tear the English apart like wolves to the feast.”
Ellowyn glanced back at the man, studying him a moment. “You are a poet.”
He looked at her, fighting off a grin. “Alas, I am not,” he replied. “Merely an observation.”
