Rose had thought so, too, but though she scanned the yard frantically, she could see no blood. Then the shriek came again, and this time she spied the child. A young boy, he was swinging by his hands from the wooden gangway that had been built around the top of the ramparts. It was there the guard would stand to keep watch, and there, in times of attack or siege, that the people of Somerford would fire down on their enemies.
The boy was young, perhaps no more than three years old, and his feet dangled over the sizable gap to the ground beneath him. If he l
et go he would be hurt, mayhap even killed! And from the sounds he was making, Rose did not believe he could cling on much longer.
“Jesu, no,” she breathed, one hand pressed hard to her quaking heart. Then, to the people standing about below, “Help him! Someone…please…help him!”
But before anyone could move, the mercenary Captain Olafson, with his men behind him, arrived in the bailey. Rose caught her breath with a squeak; behind her Constance choked audibly. He had removed his chain mail tunic, and his body was naked from the waist up. Hard muscle curved beneath bronzed skin, big powerful shoulders and arms; there was nothing soft about him. Despite the perilous situation, a memory of Edric flashed into Rose’s mind—pale, skinny legged, his once-firm body stooped and sagging with age. The half-naked mercenary beneath her window was a revelation.
I wonder what it would feel like to touch him? Would he be as hard as he looks?
The thought had barely taken shape when Rose realized that, assuming the manor to be under attack, he had drawn his sword from the scabbard at his side, and was holding it before him. The blade was made of black metal and it shimmered darkly as he turned four feet of violent death expertly in his hands. He was very frightening. Terrifying in an elemental way. And the fascination she had felt upon first meeting him returned tenfold.
Dangerous he might be, but Rose wanted him with a deep hunger she hadn’t known she possessed.
People were scattering out of his way. Geese ran honking, and a young goat skittered about on thin legs. A woman fainted, dropping her basket of eggs. They broke in a puddle about her feet, and one of the hounds gave up chasing the geese to lap greedily at the yolks.
Before Rose could do or say anything, the mercenary had grasped the situation and was again sheathing his weapon in the intricately carved scabbard at his side. The child screamed once more, stubby bare legs kicking wildly in the air. That was when, in a rush, Rose realized that everyone below her was either too afraid or too stunned by the sight of the mercenary captain to go to the little boy’s aid. She opened her mouth to startle them into action.
He had anticipated her.
Captain Olafson was striding forward, looking so big and capable among the helpless onlookers. He reached up, just as the boy, with a last lusty cry, let go his hold. The child fell neatly into his arms and, with a rough gentleness that made Rose’s skin prickle, the mercenary checked him for injuries. But the child yelled and began to struggle wildly. He was set down and, with a last wail, promptly took off as fast as he could manage, toward the keep.
“Probably more frightened of his rescuer than by any fall,” Constance muttered, and shook her head. Her eyes were fastened on the man’s bare chest as if she were a human leech. “Did you recognize the boy? I thought ’twas Eartha’s son.”
But Rose did not answer her. Her hands were gripping the windowsill and she was unable to move, for her gaze was also riveted on Captain Olafson. Her heart was thudding in her ears like a drum. I know him. How can I know him? And yet there was something suddenly so familiar about him, while at the same time he was utterly unlike any man she had ever seen before in her life. A familiar stranger? It made no sense.
Rose took a shaking breath. He hadn’t moved. He stood in the place where the boy had left him when he ran, bare-chested, his copper hair gleaming in the sun, his long legs set apart in the dark breeches that clung like a second skin, one hand resting on the hilt of that terrifying sword. And then, with a movement that for some reason struck Rose as both eager and yet unwilling, the mercenary tilted his head and looked up. His blue eyes found her at her solar window as if he had known her position all along.
He looked straight at her.
It was as if their gazes were flint and tinder. They struck and sparked, setting fire to Rose’s body and mind—a white hot blaze. It made her feel alive! She felt as if she had been asleep until now, a walking sleep, and then in a moment she was wide awake and eager to begin living…
Almost as quickly the impossibility of the situation—and her terrified recoil—sent Rose stumbling back, out of his sight. At the same time he spun on his heel and was walking away, brushing through his men in a manner designed to prevent comment and hurry them into following him.
Constance’s breath spurted from her lips in silent laughter. “Is that your raven-black soul?” she asked innocently. “No, no, lady, you are mistaken. I believe you have hired yourself a hero. What think you of that?”
Rose found her voice, though it did not sound like hers. “I think any fool can save a child.”
“Aye, but would he? ’Twas not the mercenary’s place to take charge, and yet so he did. I did not see Sir Arno rushing to the boy’s aid.”
Arno would not do anything so undignified, Rose thought wildly. He was a knight; the child was a cook’s son. There, for Arno, the matter ended.
She moved to warm her hands at the sulky fire. They were shaking worse now and she knew why, though she would never tell Constance. Captain Olafson was the cause. For some inexplicable reason, he had jolted her to the core. In the short time he had been at Somerford he had become the most important thing in it.
No! she thought angrily. That isn’t so. How could it be? He is a stranger, a creature beyond my experience, a man whose life can never really bisect mine…
Why did he save the child?
The question cut through her. Was he really a hero, as Constance said? Then why had he told her that he believed children were expendable in men’s wars? Why had he made her believe he had no heart? Such a man would not then turn around and save a child’s life. A child who had no ties to him. There had to be a reason, one that made sense, not a fantastical explanation like Constance’s.
If she could make sense of it, Rose could turn him back into the savage, soulless creature she believed him to be. And if she could do that, then mayhap all inside her would be calm again. Suddenly she craved normality.
“I had best get down to the kitchens,” Rose said, as if her heart were not jumping about like a landed fish in her chest. “Eartha and the other women will need help. There will be much food to prepare—I imagine these mercenaries will eat more than all of us put together! I wonder if we should kill one of the pigs we have been saving for bacon?”
And she was gone before Constance could answer.
The old woman plumped down by the fire and stared into it. She did not need to be a seer to know that the big mercenary frightened Rose. Was it his strength she feared? His occupation? Or his maleness? Certainly Constance had never seen a man before with such a blatant attraction for women—witness him in the bailey just now! The air around him had actually sizzled with the promise of sexual fulfillment.