Her lips curved sadly. ‘I don’t need you to remind me, Ned. My father’s last moments are ever in my mind. You do not wound me.’ She sank down onto one of the mattresses. Ned stood by awkwardly, uncertain of his new role.
‘At least the mattresses are dry,’ she said.
Ned poked one with his foot. It rustled. ‘Straw?’
‘Either that or dried bracken. Lumpier than our old ones.’ Abruptly, Gwenn ducked her head and began fumbling with her braids, but Ned had seen the sudden sheen in her eyes, and knew it indicated tears. Before he’d given it conscious thought, he found himself on his haunches at her side, hands on her shoulders.
‘Gwenn, don’t check your tears. Cry. It might ease the pain.’
Her eyes met his, dark and watery, but she shook her head. ‘I...I mustn’t. What if the children wake? If they saw me weeping, it would upset them even more.’ She curled her fingers into fists, and her voice wobbled. ‘I feel as though I’m in a dream. None of this seems real. I need to think, only there are so many worries eating away at me I don’t know which to tackle first. Help me, Ned. Help me to think. I’m worried to death.’
Gwenn’s appeal having neatly defined his role, Ned knew where he was. In a companionable manner, he settled himself at her side, put an arm about her shoulders, and hugged her to him. The most difficult part for him would be trying to put out of his mind how much he desired her. That insidious chanting began in his mind. She is your wife. Your wife.
‘I’ve funds, you know,’ Ned was determined to ignore the insistent chorus, ‘so if that’s a concern, dismiss it. Your uncle gave me this. It’s yours. Give me your hand.’ He dropped Waldin St Clair’s purse into her palm.
‘Waldin gave you this? Sweet Mother, it’s heavy.’ Gwenn untied the strings and gaped at an astonishing hoard which included small pennies from the Breton mints of Rennes and Nantes, some of the more valuable English silver pennies, deniers from Tours, and even gold bezants from the distant Byzantine capital of Constantinople. ‘Waldin carried all this on his person?’
‘Aye. It’s the prize money of a champion. When Sir Waldin described the tournaments to me, he told me he reckoned it safer on his person than hidden elsewhere. He liked to know where it was. He threw it at me in the heat of the battle.’
‘Guard it for me. It could see us to Jerusalem if need be.’ Gwenn glanced at the bundle which contained her grandmother’s statue. She might not have to sell the gemstone at once. ‘Ned?’
‘Mmm?’ Gazing resolutely at the fire, Ned’s response was muffled. She is your wife. She is...
‘You could have run off with it,’ Gwenn said in a low voice. ‘You could have left us, and run off with a fortune.’
‘And leave you to face de Roncier alone? How could you say such a thing?’
The hurt in Ned’s eyes tugged at Gwenn’s heartstrings, and apologetically she lifted her fingers to touch his cheek. Her fingers lingered.
Ned held himself steady as a rock. He had to force himself to keep his eyes open, while concealing his feelings from her. He was certain she’d be frightened by them; the force of them frightened even him. He swallowed. Her fingers shifted, went to his hair. She was feeling the texture of it, stroking it, eyes shy, not driven by great emotion, he was well aware of that, but quietly, trustfully exploring. An ache started deep in Ned’s belly. His breath was coming unevenly. He strove to moderate it.
‘I count myself lucky to have so loyal a husband, Ned,’ Gwenn said, unmindful of the disordering effect she was having on Ned’s senses. Not for one moment did I doubt you. You’re a man in a thousand.’
‘Gwenn,’ Ned blurted, and could have cursed, for her hand fell away, ‘I wish I had a ring for you.’
‘I need no ring to remind me to keep faith with you. I’ve sworn to keep myself for you, and I’ll honour my vows.’
Ned’s arm tightened, and he looked at Gwenn’s mouth.
On her mattress three feet away, Katarin mumbled in her sleep. Gwenn’s expression changed. ‘Katarin’s one of my main worries,’ she said. ‘She’s not uttered a word since we left Kermaria.’
‘What?’
‘Katarin won’t talk. I can’t get a word out of her.’
‘She said something then.’
‘In her sleep.’ Gwenn got up and went to her sister’s palliasse. She tenderly stroked a strand of hair from the little girl’s face. ‘When she’s awake, I can’t squeeze a word out of her.’
‘She,’ Ned hesitated, ‘she wasn’t struck in the fight?’
‘No, she was with me all the time. No one laid a finger on her.’ Katarin muttered and threw off her covering. Gwenn replaced it. ‘I can’t understand it.’
Leaning on his elbow, Ned asked, ‘What’s she saying?’
‘I can’t make it out. She’s gabbling. Do you think she’s all right?’
‘If she can talk in her sleep, there can’t be much wrong. She will be in shock, I should think. Give her a day or two to come round. Soon she’ll be chattering away like a starling, and you’ll be wishing her silent for a space.’
‘I hope so. Oh, Ned. It is good to have you to talk to. I’d be in a terrible state, if I didn’t have you.’
‘The infant, is he alright?’
Gwenn nodded, and came back to Ned. She kicked off her short kid boots. ‘Philippe has the constitution of an ox. He doesn’t seem to have noticed anything’s amiss. He yells when he’s angry or when he’s hungry, but he’s soon soothed. He’s an amazing child. If we can but get him away from here...’
‘We will.’
Gwenn stood looking down at her husband. Dear Ned. He had been her only real friend for two years, and suddenly she found herself married to him. It was not easy to believe, but then nothing that had happened that day had been easy to believe. Her mind was too strained to think about the other, unacceptable events, it was best if she kept it fixed on her husband.
Ned smiled, took one of her hands and tugged. Gwenn’s knees bent. Their eyes met and Gwenn saw the flush on his cheeks. She lacked sexual experience, but she knew that the colour on his cheeks was not entirely due to the fire. Ned desired her.
‘Gwenn,’ Ned cleared his throat, but his voice remained husky, ‘if it would help you to talk about your father...’
‘Later, perhaps, not now.’
‘Where do you want to sleep?’
She wrinkled her nose. ‘I’ll sleep with you, husband.’
Ned released his breath on a rush, pulled off his boots, and opened his arms. Gwenn went into them as eagerly as a pigeon coming home to roost after battling through a tempest. The heat of Ned’s body was comforting, and at first she was content to be held, but every time she lowered her eyelids, images crowded in on her, violent, grisly, bloody images, that made her eyes flick open and chased sleep away. She felt dislocated, out of herself, and if it wasn’t for the feel of Ned’s cradling arms, and the comforting smell of his body... She closed her eyes and burrowed deeper into his arms. A likeness of her father, lying in a dark pool on the rushes, flickered through her mind’s eye. She shook it away and wound her arm tight about Ned’s waist. A heartbeat later, she felt the reassuring touch of Ned’s hand on her hair. She tried to relax, and closed her eyes once more.
The fire burned down till it was only a dull cluster of stars winking gently in the centre of the floor. The candle hissed and guttered. Time crawled by, and neither of them slept.
Ned was tussling with an altogether different vision, but it disturbed his rest as much as Gwenn’s memories disturbed hers. He was imagining that Gwenn and he were naked. They lay pressed together, mouth on mouth. She loved him, and his hand was running down her smooth white skin from shoulder to thigh...
‘Gwenn?’ Ned whispered, unaware that the sound of his voice had banished yet another in a long line of ghastly horrors which were all Gwenn’s battered mind seemed capable of producing. She raised her head from his chest, and her loose braids tickled his neck. ‘Can’t you sleep?’