Love Above All (32 page)

“Very well,” Royce said. “We will leave at
dawn. Only two of my men-at-arms are injured seriously enough to
need to ride in the baggage carts, and I am sure they will be
encouraged to learn they are going home.”

Knowing Janet and the men were watching her,
all of them alert for any sign of weakness on her part, Fionna made
a point of eating heartily. After the meal she spent an hour
walking about the camp arm-in-arm with Janet. Later, at the evening
meal, she again forced herself to eat well. She went to bed early,
saying she wanted to be rested for the morning.

And all the time, for all of that afternoon
and evening, she was aware of Quentin’s gaze following her. To
prove to him – and to Janet – that she was recovering rapidly, she
made herself stand upright when she really wanted to crouch forward
to protect her aching ribs. She repeatedly tried to use her left
arm, hoping thus to strengthen it. Finally, she insisted Janet must
change her bandages that night, to save time in the morning, and
she made sure that Janet fastened the bandage around her chest as
tightly as possible. Fionna reasoned that the support provided by
the bandage would limit the pain she was going to have to
endure.

“I wish you would reconsider,” Quentin said
to Fionna when she appeared early the next day, pale of face and
moving slowly toward the horse Braedon was holding for her. She was
wearing her old wool dress, and Quentin wondered what it had cost
her to thrust her sore arm through the mended sleeve. He recognized
bravado when he saw it. Fionna wasn’t as healthy as she
pretended.

“It’s too late to change my mind now,” she
said. “Everyone else is ready to leave. I won’t delay you.”

“Ah, Fionna.” Quentin shook his head in pity
and regret. “At least allow me to help you mount.”

“Thank you, my lord, but Braedon will assist
me. You need not trouble yourself over me any longer.”

“How can I not?” he whispered, knowing Fionna
couldn’t hear him. She had turned away from him to Braedon. He
couldn’t blame her for not wanting him nearby. Doubtless she
thought he didn’t care, and he couldn’t tell her how much he wanted
and needed her. Cursing himself for a fool, he kept an eye on her
as Braedon lifted her into the saddle. He saw how she swayed as if
dizzy, before she righted herself to sit with straight back and
squared shoulders.

“Stay close to her,” Quentin ordered Braedon
as Fionna rode off with Janet beside her.

“Don’t worry, I will,” the squire said.
“Quentin, I know it’s not my place to ask—”

“No,” Quentin said sharply. “It’s not.”

“- but all the same, I do wonder about your
intentions,” Braedon finished.

“You may wonder as much as you like.”

“I respect Fionna’s courage,” Braedon
continued, unfazed by Quentin’s icy manner. “More than that, I’ve
become very fond of her. I do not want to see her end as my mother
did.”

A harsh retort hovered on Quentin’s lips,
until he looked into Braedon’s eyes and saw the sadness there. He
didn’t know much about Braedon’s childhood, only that he was a
bastard and his mother was dead.

“I do understand your concerns,” Quentin
said. “Speak to me again on this subject after I have seen the
king.”

“I will,” Braedon promised. “You may be
certain that I will not forget Fionna.”

Quentin said no more. He couldn’t say more,
not yet.

He did keep a close watch on Fionna, though
he also kept his distance. He could tell she was too weak to
contend with Janet, who was making no secret of her desire to have
Quentin stay as far as possible from her sister. He wasn’t going to
put Fionna in the middle of battle between her lover and her
sister.

As they had been doing all along during their
hasty journey southward, they avoided towns and castles, camping in
their own tents at night so they wouldn’t be delayed by an overly
gracious host. Royce sent two riders ahead to announce their
arrival at Wortham, and to warn his daughter to expect wounded
people.

During those three final days Fionna grew
steadily paler and quieter, as if she was conserving every bit of
strength she possessed. When they halted at noon of the third day
and Quentin noted how flushed her cheeks were, he gave up trying to
stay away from her. He was too worried to care whether she was
still angry with him, or not.

“Are you ill?” he asked. “Do you feel
feverish?”

“Of course not,” she said, snapping at him so
irritably that she sounded more like Janet than Fionna. “I am
merely excited to be ending this interminable journey.”

She turned her back on him, but not before
Quentin had seen how unnaturally bright her eyes were.

“I’ve noticed, too,” Royce said softly. “She
is at the end of her endurance. Take heart, Quentin; we’ll reach
Wortham before nightfall. You can be sure Catherine will take good
care of Fionna.”

To Fionna, who was indeed feverish and whose
left arm was aching badly, Wortham Castle first appeared as an
illusion, its whitewashed stone walls rising out of well-kept
farmlands. A river meandered across the fields, providing water for
irrigation and for Wortham Village a short distance from the
castle, with enough water left over to fill the wide moat
surrounding the castle. The evening mist rising off both river and
moat added to the fantasy, making the simple houses in the village
look like fairy cottages, while the white castle walls, draped in
swirling curtains of mist, seemed to Fionna impossibly high and
strong.

Though darkness was fast approaching the
drawbridge was still down and the gate stood wide open to welcome
home the lord of the castle.

Through the burning fever that was beginning
to envelop her mind as well as her body, Fionna heard cheering and
shouts of greeting as Royce and his company clattered across the
drawbridge and into the bailey. But even then they hadn’t reached
their final destination. They rode through a second gatehouse and
into an inner bailey.

“Surely,” Fionna said to Janet, “no one can
reach us here to hurt us. Surely, now you are safe at last.”

“It’s so big,” Janet murmured in awe. “We
could get lost inside these walls.”

“If you do get lost,” Cadwallon told her, “I
will find you.”

Fionna saw light streaming through the open
door of the tower keep, and saw a slim, girlish figure emerge.

“Father, I’m so glad to see you!” the girl
cried, holding out her arms to embrace Royce as he ran up the steps
to her.

“Catherine, my own dear heart!” Royce swung
his daughter around, holding her tight and kissing her cheek.

Observing the tender reunion of father and
daughter, Fionna’s eyes blurred with tears. Then she was overcome
with fatigue, falling, sliding off her horse and too weak to stop
herself.

Quentin caught her. Unable to cease crying,
Fionna buried her face against his chainmail-clad shoulder, not
caring that the metal rings scratched against the still-tender
bruise on her cheek. She was aware that Quentin was carrying her up
the steps and into the keep. She heard Royce’s words of
introduction to his daughter, while in the background Janet uttered
worried exclamations and commanded Quentin to put her sister down
at once.

“She can’t stand,” Quentin said in sharp
response to Janet’s orders. “I don’t know how she was able to ride
all afternoon. Catherine, where do you want me to take her?”

“Just follow me,” Catherine responded. “Lady
Janet, will you come, too? We are well prepared for your sister, as
you will see. I thought you’d want to be near her, so I’ve given
you the room next to Fionna’s. You shall have a bath and clean
clothes, too.”

Fionna knew when Quentin laid her down on a
soft bed. She felt the sudden absence of his arms supporting her,
and opened her eyes for one last glimpse of him.

Quentin was already leaving, ushered out of
the guest chamber by a squire who was offering to show him to the
castle bathhouse. What Fionna saw instead of Quentin was Janet,
looking worried, and a beautiful young woman whose red-gold hair,
worn in twin braids, was the same color as Royce’s bright
locks.

“Lady Catherine,” Fionna murmured weakly,
lifting one hand in greeting.

“Have no fear. I intend to take good care of
you,” Catherine said. She took Fionna’s hand in her firm clasp for
a moment, apparently testing its warmth and the strength of
Fionna’s grip.

Though Catherine of Wortham was somewhere
between Janet and Fionna in age she acted with such practiced
competence that even Janet could not object to the orders she was
giving. The room where Fionna lay was quickly lit with candles, to
make it bright enough for Catherine to examine her guest’s
wounds.

Fionna was aware of her tattered woolen dress
being cut from her. Next the bandages around her chest and on her
arm met the same fate. Though her mind didn’t seem to be working
properly, she knew she was being bathed with warm, lavender-scented
water, and she tried to protest that she was strong enough to stand
up and walk to a tub for her bath.

“Lie still and let us help you,” Catherine
said kindly, but firmly.

Fionna was surprised that Janet wasn’t
fretting and insisting on being the one to care for her sister.
Instead, Janet was standing at some distance from the bed, meekly
answering Catherine’s questions as to how Fionna had sustained her
wounds, and how the wounds had been treated.

“Janet, you have done remarkably well under
difficult circumstances,” Catherine said, sounding as if she meant
every word she spoke. “I am sure I couldn’t have sewn up this gash
as neatly as you did. The trouble is, I fear the sword that slashed
Fionna’s arm was dirty. The wound is infected. I’ll have to
re-clean it and pack it with healing herbs.

“Drink this, Fionna.” Catherine’s arm was
around Fionna’s shoulders, lifting her. A cup of herb-infused wine
was pressed against Fionna’s lips. Catherine’s voice reached Fionna
from a great distance. “Drink all of it. There’s poppy syrup in the
wine, along with a few other herbs to stop the fever and help you
to sleep.”

Fionna obediently swallowed until the cup was
empty. Before long her thoughts began to drift into strange
imaginings. Someone was doing something to her injured arm,
something that she knew should have been terribly painful but,
thanks to the poppy syrup, it scarcely hurt at all. She was too
sleepy to open her eyes to discover exactly what was happening.

Janet was weeping. Fionna tried to rouse
herself to comfort her sister, but she lacked the strength to drag
herself from her lethargy to speak. Then she heard Catherine
telling a servant to take Janet away to another room and help her
to bathe and then put her to bed.

No sooner was Janet gone than Quentin was
there, holding Fionna’s hand, smoothing back her hair and kissing
her brow, promising to return as soon as he could.

By then Fionna was certain she was dreaming,
for Quentin had left her and she knew he wouldn’t return, not ever.
Whereas, she knew Janet would never willingly allow someone else to
take care of her sister if she wasn’t watching to be sure Fionna
wasn’t harmed. That meant Janet couldn’t be gone, but Quentin was.
Just trying to make sense of the peculiar, confusing dream was
exhausting, so she gave it up.

Catherine induced her to swallow more of the
poppy-laden wine. Most of the candles were snuffed until the room
was pleasantly shadowy and quiet. Fionna was alone, with only
Catherine left to watch over her.

Then, at last, the poppy syrup overcame her
completely and the dreams stopped. Fionna slept.

“Tell me the truth.” Quentin faced Catherine
in the great hall of Wortham Castle. The sun was just rising and
Quentin was in full armor, prepared to depart as soon as Royce gave
the word. “Will Fionna recover?”

“I believe she will,” Catherine said. “It
will take weeks, perhaps months. She will need rest and good food,
but there is a fair chance she can be restored to health.”

“Thank you. I know she is in the best of
hands with you.” Quentin had known Catherine for several years,
since shortly after her mother died and Catherine had come home
from the castle where she was fostered, to assume her place as
Royce’s chatelaine. He trusted her as completely as he trusted
Royce, and he was well aware of Catherine’s skills as a healer.

“Do you want to leave a message for Fionna?”
Catherine asked.

“There is nothing I can say – nothing I dare
say.” Quentin was aware that Catherine had seen, and heard, his
whispered farewell to Fionna late at night, after a maidservant had
told him Janet was in her own bed and fast asleep. Oddly, he wasn’t
embarrassed to have her know. Catherine

would never reveal another person’s
secrets.

For a long moment Catherine regarded him out
of grey-green eyes that were remarkably similar to Royce’s eyes.
She said nothing more; she just placed her hands on his shoulders
and stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. Then she left him and went
to make a tender farewell to her father.

Quentin hurried down the steps to the bailey,
where Braedon waited with a fresh horse from Royce’s stables for
him to ride. Cadwallon was already mounted, and so were the
men-at-arms who would accompany them. A few minutes later Royce
appeared and they all set off on the final leg of their journey to
Windsor and their meeting with King Henry.

The sound of quiet laughter interspersed with
women’s voices woke Fionna. She opened her eyes to see sunlight
shining through small panes of pale green glass. She blinked, not
believing what she beheld. But a longer second look revealed that
she was not mistaken. A narrow window embrasure was set into a
thick stone wall, and the window opening was glazed.