His Enemy's Daughter (15 page)

He was gone. Her father. Her brother. All whom she had loved and who had loved her were gone.

Now, when her people needed her most, she could do nothing for them. She could not even see them, she could not tell their condition. She would never again see their faces or watch the sun rise or set over Alston Keep.

They had tried to tell her and make her accept the inevitable, but she'd refused. Now, the reality of it settled in—there had been no change in her vision since the day it happened. No improvement. No sign of light. Nothing but darkness before and around her. It smothered her now and she felt her very breath being sucked from her.

Gasping for air, she stood abruptly, wanting to get away—from the truth, from the lies, from anyone and everyone, but she had nowhere to go. They called her name, trying to help her, but it changed into cries and sneers and insults, blaring at her from all sides. She stumbled forwards, counting her paces, catching herself, feeling them surrounding her.

She could not see!

Sybilla turned around and around and then again, searching for some light in her darkness, for a path to follow, but it was utter black everywhere she turned. She rubbed her eyes, trying to remove the layer that blocked her vision. Then even the blackness began to swirl around her.

She would never see again.

‘Here, my lady,' someone said. ‘Your chambers are this way.'

Sybilla tried to see who it was that offered aid, but she could not. His voice sounded familiar to her; however, she could not put a name to that voice no matter how much she searched her memory. Soon, he said the steps were before them. She dropped his arm and ran, tripping up the first two or three steps, before she grabbed hold of the guiding rope and dragged herself forwards. Her arms scraped along the stone wall, catching every jagged piece of surface and tearing her sleeves.

Her veil caught and was pulled off. Her hands slipped along the rope several times, burning her palms. But she ran. They called behind her and in front of her, but she could not see them. She could not see.

Out of breath, she stumbled across the landing at the top and fell hard into the wall. Scrambling to her feet,
she ran once more, this time, now, seeking the one who'd caused this. He had blinded her and she would make him pay for it. Sybilla felt along the wall until she reached her door and flung it open, ignoring those who called her name from behind. They would stop her.

‘Sybilla!' he called out as she ran in. Water splashed and sloshed. She heard it pouring on to the floor, but it did not matter. ‘Stop!' he commanded, but she did not. The door slammed closed behind her.

She would never see again.

It pounded in her thoughts and even in her heart and she gasped for a breath. She sought the one responsible for this. He'd done it and even boasted of it. He had stolen her lands. He had stolen her sight. He had stolen her life.

‘Sybilla,' he said, quietly now. ‘Sybilla.'

The pain inside was so great that all she could do was react, launching herself towards his voice, hoping to hurt him as much as he'd hurt her.

H
e caught her just as she jumped at him, one foot out of the tub and the other still inside it. Somehow he managed to keep his balance and not let them both crash into the water. She was like a wild animal, fighting for its life, as she threw her body and her fists at him. Soren grabbed her hands and then she used her feet to kick at him.

‘Sybilla,' he whispered, ‘you must calm yourself.' Soren knew she did not hear him. In the middle of this panic and rage, she could not hear anything but what was screaming through her own thoughts. He knew. He'd lived through this.

He moved slowly, partly because she continued to fight and hit him, and partly to try to let her burn out this rage. Soren stepped out of the tub and walked them back away from it. She slowed with each step, her unintelligible screaming lessened and the fight began to drain from her. She gasped, as though not able to breathe. He made it to the bed and dragged her onto his lap. Ignoring her
struggles, he placed a hand on her chest and one on her back and spoke quietly.

‘Push out, Sybilla. Push against my hands with your breathing,' he urged. It took another minute or so before she did it, but he felt her lungs expanding. ‘Good girl,' he said. He lessened the pressure, but did not remove his hands yet.

The door opened, but he waved them back with a nod of his head. He wanted no one in these chambers, for he was naked and he did not want Sybilla to be shamed by what she'd done once she came back to her senses. For though the blindness would remain, her dignity would suffer once she remembered, if she did, her behaviour. It could all be sorted out later.

He wanted to laugh at the irony of that moment, for only days or a sennight ago, he'd yet intended to make her suffer. Now, his heart, the one he thought cold and empty, even dead within him, ached as he watched this proud young woman go through this agony of soul and spirit.

‘You did this to me,' she cried now. He noticed the blood dripping from her clenched fists as she raised them to pummel his chest. ‘You…did…this…to…me.' He gathered both her hands into one of his and held her tightly against his body.

Words, his or hers, would not matter now. She needed time to let the anger and terror of facing a life of blindness seep away. It would take more than just this one episode, if she was anything like him, but this was the beginning. Like bursting a boil with a needle, this would relieve the worst of it, allowing the rest to ease its way out.

It ebbed and flowed over the next several hours—each episode lasting less than the one before until she collapsed against him like a child's doll that had lost all its stuffing. Her breathing was shallow, her skin sweaty and pale, but her heart beat strong in her chest. Easing her from his lap, he laid her on the bed, pulled on his clothes and went seeking a bowl and some linen cloths to clean the scrapes and bruises he noticed on her hands, her face and other places.

When he lifted the latch and eased the door open, a veritable army jumped outside the door, with the old dragon being first in line to attempt to enter. Soren shook his head at them and then told them what he needed. Aldys did not move from her place, but instead sent Gytha off to gather the supplies and medicaments.

‘My lord,' she began to argue when handing over the bandages and unguent from Teyen's supply.

‘Do not even think to naysay me in this, Aldys,' he said quietly. ‘I will see to your lady's injuries and will call on you when she is able to have visitors.'

He watched her spine straighten with insubordination, but she kept her tongue behind her teeth. Wise. He noticed and nodded at her before closing the door.

Carrying everything over to the bed, he pulled a small table closer and arranged everything before touching her. He poured some of the now-cooled water for his bath into a bowl, mixed in the steaming water just brought and then dipped a cloth into it. Easing open one fist then the other, he cleaned away the blood and dirt from her torn palms. She moaned and cried out in her sleep or faint, but did not wake.

Soren moved around her, removing her garments so he
could clean her, first her hands, then he rolled her to one side and unlaced the gown and tugged it over her head. The
syrce
, or what was called a
chemise
by the women of Normandy and Brittany, was looser and easy enough to manoeuvre, so he let it remain. He cleaned the scrapes on her arms and he applied some of Teyen's ointments to the bruises. He winced when he lifted the chemise and saw her knees. They would be sore for a long time and she would be unable to kneel in prayer for a good while.

 

It took nearly an hour or more to see to all her injuries and then settle her in the bed. Peering around the chamber, he thought to sit by the bed in the chair, but decided to lie at her side instead. Taller than most here and taller than her by almost a foot, his height and weight would not make it through the night in the chair anyway. Easing the bedcovers over her, Soren moved next to her—close enough to reach her if she needed, but far enough away so that his body did not touch hers.

He had not slept well in weeks, nor in a bed for at least a month, so the comfort and warmth of this one lulled him to sleep within moments, or so it seemed to him. The candles had burned down, leaving him in total darkness and he realised how she must feel as he stumbled around the chamber, before opening the door and using the light of the torches burning in the corridor to guide his way around. He lit an oil lamp and placed it on the table at the bed's side, so he could see her and the chamber once more.

Settled next to her again, he watched her sleep. She
moved not at all, but her breaths were the slow and deep and even ones of complete exhaustion. Soren joined her in slumber.

 

Soren woke only when the sounds of his men training in the yard echoed through the window in the chamber. He climbed from the bed and opened the shutter of the window to see that the sun was well up in the sky already.

He stretched his body this way and that, working out the tightness as he did each morning. The bath last evening had begun to ease it, but he'd not soaked long enough to make a difference. The worst of it was in his shoulder and neck. The blade of the axe had sunk deep into his flesh there, glancing off the bone and tracing a path of destruction down the back of his ribcage and on to his back and hip. Truly, he should be dead from it and he wondered once more why and how he had survived at all.

His stomach growled then, reminding him of his missed supper. He found his clean garments and dressed so that he could allow her servants into the room. First he put on his shirt, breeches and tunic and then he pulled the fabric cowl over his head. He would wear the leather hood under his armour and hauberk, but the cloth one was more comfortable if he was inside. He glanced at Sybilla again and decided he would remain close at hand.

Soren opened the door to find an entire entourage waiting there—house servants ready to tend to her room and remove the tub, his men to receive their orders for the day and hers to see to her needs. Aldys glared, Gytha trembled and Guermont and Stephen stared openly at the
fact that he'd spent the night with Sybilla. Pulling the door open wider, he motioned to the servants to enter.

‘Quietly,' he said to them as they moved past him and worked efficiently to empty the tub and take it from the chamber. Another laid a fire in the hearth and lit it. Yet another brought in an iron kettle and hung it from the hook in the hearth.

‘Teyen said 'tis a tisane for the lady to drink when she wakes,' the man whispered as he left.

He expected a battle from the she-dragon, but none came. Instead Aldys carried in a tray and placed it on the table that had been moved aside for the tub. Uncovering the plate and bowl, she revealed a steaming porridge and a small loaf of cheese and one of bread. A cup and jug sat next to the food. When she'd revealed its contents, she nodded to him.

‘To break your fast, Lord Soren,' she said quietly as she, too, left.

Within just minutes, the chamber had been cleaned, the fire tended and food brought in for him. Stunned by the quiet efficiency of her servants, Soren had a new appreciation for the lady's work. He knew she'd been in sole control of the manor since her…since Durward fell on Senlac field, but had never realised the extent of that responsibility until now. Although her battle tactics and strategies were sorely lacking, she'd managed the household extremely well, keeping all of her people clothed and fed during a terrible winter when many starved or worse. Then, she'd overseen the planting of new crops in the spring and had started a new, defensive wall built around the keep.

If he'd arrived a few weeks later than he had, he ques
tioned whether his conquest would have been as easy as it had been.

Soren ate the food, downing every morsel and drinking every drop of ale. A fighting man learned early in his training to never let a meal go by wasted. On a march, it could be days before the next one, so you ate what you could when you could and prayed for another one soon. William's army had been held in Caen for months because of bad winds on the Channel and the hardest task was feeding all those men. Thousands needed to eat and many times not all did. The lesson was well learned, he thought as he placed the empty dish and bowl, cup and jug back on the tray. As he turned to take it to the door, he noticed her lips moving, though not making a sound.

 

Every part of her body hurt. Her skin ached. She dared not move to test out the extent of the pain, for even breathing sent waves of pain coursing through her. The only thing she could move were her lips and eyes. So she began offering up a prayer that the blindness had been a terrible nightmare and that when she opened her eyes, the day would greet her.

Sybilla gathered what little courage she had left within her and tested out her theory. The same unrelenting blackness greeted her once again and she felt the tears trickle from the corners of those unseeing eyes. The touch of a cloth to her face surprised her and she startled and then moaned at the pain even that caused.

‘'Tis I, Soren,' he said, revealing his presence and his identity to her. ‘I have a tisane from the healer to ease your pain.'

His hand slipped behind her head and eased it up from
the pillow. As long as she let him move her, the pain was bearable. A few sips and he allowed her to rest back. She tried to speak, but her voice was gone. Sybilla lay quietly, unmoving for several minutes until the concoction began to spread through her and the severity of the pain began to dull.

‘It should ease soon,' he offered softly as he moved around her, smoothing the bedcovers over her…her naked body.

She closed her eyes and wanted to die.

For so many reasons, she wanted to die right then.

‘I tended your injuries and stayed through the night, Sybilla,' he explained as though he had heard the questions in her thoughts. ‘Though Aldys is quite an old dragon of a woman, she could not have handled your rage.'

She laughed at that, or attempted to, but the tears flowed freely now and she could not lift her hand to wipe them away. Even moving her fingers made her palms feel as though their very skin was being torn off. But she cried not at the pain, she cried at the loss that she now understood would never be regained. A cloth touched her face, dabbing the tears from her skin.

His manner was distant, formal even, as he wiped and washed her face and urged her to drink again from the healer's brew. When its warmth spread into her limbs and took away more of her pain, he removed several bandages and smoothed on some cream before replacing the coverings. If he had seemed too caring, she would have lost control, but his seeming indifference allowed her to get through it.

In a short while, Sybilla felt herself being pulled down
into a deeper sleep. His voice, deep and calm, urged her to allow it and she did. She thought the pattern repeated several times, but could not be certain.

 

When she woke and the keep was quiet, she knew night had fallen. From the heat emanating from a source close to her, she suspected what he confirmed moments later.

Soren slept or lay beside her in her bed.

‘How do you feel, Sybilla?' he asked quietly. ‘Has the pain lessened?'

She gingerly moved a hand and then an arm, a foot, a leg and so on until she'd tested most of her body. She ached, some places worse than others, but the searing pain of some earlier time had been soothed. Sybilla tried to clear her throat to answer his questions and could not find her voice.

He cursed; she thought the words he whispered were foul Norman or Breton words, a suspicion confirmed when a hasty apology followed. She felt him roll away and climb out of the bed and then heard his path around the chamber until he turned, sitting at her side. Lord Soren slid his arm beneath her head and shoulders and he eased her up so she could sip from the cup he placed at her mouth. The watered wine soothed her dry throat and made it possible to answer him, though her voice sounded as scratchy as it felt.

‘Not quite so bad, Lord Soren,' she said, almost whispering because it hurt less. She tried to brace herself up on her arms, but she slipped and her hand landed on a very hard, very naked male leg. A thigh, if she was not
mistaken. She swallowed and tried to act as though she had not felt it, but she had.

Once again, he did not respond, but simply slipped off the bed and she heard him put the cup on the table. Then he climbed back in on the other side and eased closer to her. She waited for him to move nearer to her; however, he never did so, remaining instead just enough away that their bodies did not touch.

It mattered not, for she knew he was there.

 

The pattern repeated itself over the course of several more days, Soren at her side at all times of the day and the night, her maids permitted in her chambers only to see to her most personal needs and then gone as quickly and quietly as they'd come. She thought that Lord Soren must leave and see to his duties, but he was there whenever she woke. Then, one day—morning, she thought from the sounds outside and within the keep—the fog lifted and she felt more awake than she had in days.