“Run,” Sophie said, herbreath turning to smoke.“Now.”
Lara woke with a start to Wolf’s bark.Glancing wildly around the dark, she recognized her bedchamber,blew a shaky breath out, and ran a hand back through hersweat-dampened hair.From below, Wolf’s barking became louder andmore insistent.Lara slipped out of bed and crept over to thewindow facing the river and peeled a corner of the oiled skin back.Three men sat on horses, one holding a burning torch.
“That’s her hellhoundbarking inside,” one of the men said.“It’s never far from thewitch’s side.Light your arrows.The count wants herdead.”
Lara clasped her hand over her mouthto keep from screaming.They meant to burn her alive in her home.She crawled on her hands and knees and peeked out the window facingthe road, where two other men waited on horses with lit arrows.Ifshe tried to run, she had no doubt they’d spit her and roast herover the coals.
She threw her cloak on over hernightshift and grabbed her boots and one of the gowns she’daltered, then scrambled down the ladder as the first arrow hit thethatch roof with a thunk and a hiss.Then another.Andanother.
“Come, Wolf.”The smell ofburning thatch filled the air, so she pulled the trapdoor open andpushed the shaking hound down into the cellar, then dropped herclothes and boots down after him.
She grabbed the pot of water hangingon the spit over the hearth and took it into the cellar, thenclimbed back up, closed the trapdoor, and poured the bucket of dishwater over it.Glancing around the room, she swiped the carving ofthe elephant Talon had made her off the mantel, climbed down theladder, and pulled the dripping wet door shut.She lit a candle andcut one of the blankets in the cellar into strips that she dippedinto the pot of water and stuffed into the cracks around the door,then she huddled with a trembling Wolf in the far corner of thecellar under another blanket.
The smoke soon became thick andchoking, burning her throat and eyes.She dipped the corners of theblanket into the pot of water and held the wet ends over her faceand Wolf’s, concentrating on slowing her shallow breaths as theroar of the fire drowned out everything but the beat of hergalloping heart.
***
Talon
The army left Worms the first of Marchand marched east until they met up with the Saxon bands raidingacross the Rhine.It took them a half a month to beat the Saxonsback across the river, and the entire, miserably wet and bloodymonth of May chasing down and skirmishing with those stillscattered and hiding in the hinterlands before their leadersurrendered to Charles.By late June, the king and the bulk of hisarmy were back in Worms, where Charles gave Talon the deed toCrossroads Keep along with three hundred acres of field andpastureland.His troop of twenty had lost three men in battle, andof the remaining soldiers, five decided to join Talon and start newlives in Oloron, four rode for other homes, and eight joinedanother company.
It was decided that Anglbert,Dardinel, and tree would return to Oloron first.Anglbert, toprepare for the others’ eventual arrival, hire workers, and setLara up as mistress of the keep while enjoying Berta’s cooking andother attributes; Tree to be Lara’s and the babe’s personal guard,and Dardinel, son of a farmer, to oversee the tilling and plantingof fields and fencing of pastureland.Talon would ride for Frisiawith Phillipe and Oswald to buy a string of broodmares with theircollective coin, coin that Charles had added generously to as awedding present for Talon and Lara, and first choice at buying anyfoals Talon was willing to sell.
They left for Frisia the middle ofJuly, nine months since Lara had first lain with Talon at theHollow, which meant their babe was due to be born any time now.Hetold himself Lara was strong of both mind and body, a healersurrounded by women like Berta and Enid and Patience, who’d bornetheir share of children.She’d be fine.The babe would be fine.Hetold himself this day in and day out, his constant, silent prayer,which let him do what he should, which was ride north, away fromhis lady and his child, so he could return ready to make a lifewith and for them.A long, prosperous, happy life.
He intended to marry Lara as soon ashe returned to Oloron.If she would have him.
He’d wronged her by not marrying herafter the Hollow, by not telling her he loved her until the day herode away.Her smile when he’d finally admitted it out loud hadkept him warm during the long, interminable days and nights hespent slogging through the swamps of Saxony.The light in her eyeskept him determined and hopeful he’d return to her a wholeman.
Ready to be a husband andfather.
To spend the rest of his life withher.
Talon rode hard for that life, makingFrisia by August and returning to the northern border of Gaul bySeptember with two dozen broodmares in tow.They stopped in Toursfor the Fall Festival, where they were joined by a miller, ablacksmith, and a tailor all looking for a new place to settle andply their trades.And where Talon won an emerald ring in anall-night game of Shah from the Bishop of Tours, and bought a boltof forest green silk and a baby blanket of finely woven indigowool, his gifts for Lara and their baby, and himself.The closerthey got to Oloron, the more his daydreams were of Lara in asleek-fitting, low-cut gown of the slinky silk, her hazel eyessmiling at him as green and bright as the emerald on her ringfinger.
He’d gained company in hislovesickness.The miller, Arnulf, a stout, watchful man, had adaughter, Doralice, a brown-haired, doe-eyed waif who left Phillipemoon-eyed and tongue-tied in her presence.Talon and Oswaldsuffered no such afflictions and teased Phillipe mercilessly, untilit was hard to say who blushed more at sight of the other, Phillipeor Doralice.Arnulf, watching it all, kept his daughter close andhis axe closer.
When they finally rode into the valleyof Oloron in early October, the trees were in their full autumnalshow of reds and golds and greens, the colors of Lara’s flaminghair and changeling eyes.Eyes that would either blaze with goldenembers of ire when she first saw him again or grow soft and mossygreen.
They rode past Oloron Manor, whichlooked to be inhabited again by the servants bustling around thecourtyard, who stopped to stare at their passing.There were noobvious signs as to who was in residence, something Anglbert wouldsurely know.As they rode past the village, the few people millingabout watched them with the same slack-jawed stares, as did thefield workers they passed farther down the road.A niggling beganto stir in Talon’s gut.Something was amiss.
“I’m off,” he toldPhillipe.“I’ll go by Lara’s house first, then meet you at thekeep.”
There was nobody outside of Willem andPatience’s house when he rode by, though he did notice the newaddition to Willem’s workshop.He urged the Black into a gallop,slowing only when they turned onto the path to Lara’s property.Hisgut tightened in anticipation as they cleared the windbreak ofchestnut trees, then twisted into a strangling knot at the sight ofthe gutted, burnt-out ruin that had been her house.
The world swimming around him, Talonnoted that the barn was still standing, and Honey and Gaea were inthe paddock with several goats and chickens.He dismounted, theground shifting under his feet, and ran into the barn, where hechecked the little room that had been Denys’s sleeping quarters andsaw a man’s leggings and tunic hanging on the wall peg.He made aquick round of the rest of the barn but saw no signs of Lara.Hetold himself she’d probably moved into the keep by now, that he’dfind her and his babe there, safe and sound under Anglbert’s care,but his feet took him to the old oak, where two new graves layalongside Sophie’s.
There were no markers or headstones onthe new graves, and by the grass growing over them, they’d beenthere since at least early summer.
Talon’s chest seized as he dropped tohis knees and his mouth worked wordlessly.One of the graves was ofa size for an adult, but the second one was smaller, large enoughfor an infant in a coffin.Like his mother’s and the babe’s whosebirth had ripped her apart and killed her.
A keening moan rose upfrom his belly and rent his chest.“No,” he railed, cursing God and theheavens.“You cannot have her, damn you.She is mine.My curse.Myrose.My love.My life.”He buried his face in his hands.“I shouldhave come straight home to you.I should never have left you.Damnme.Damn Charles and his cursed wars.Damn this world for everletting you leave it.Leave me.Oh God, Lara, how could you find meagain, how could you love me, let me love you, only to leave meforever?”
Because death was forever, this muchTalon knew.He knew the hollow emptiness of wanting someone andnever being able to hold them again, of missing them and neverbeing able to see them or hear them, except for dreams andmemories.Lara was gone.Gone from this world, from him, and withher, their child, of whom he only had dreams and nomemories.
“Oh God.How am I to livewithout you?”He threw his head back and gazed up into the heavens,finding not the slightest peace knowing she resided there.“Whatmanner of god are you to torture a man so?To bring me to her, onlyto take her away?Why?When you know I have more need of her thanyou?”
He collapsed onto the cool earth ofher grave and wept as he hadn’t since he was a boy and his motherhad died.He wept and cried and sobbed and cursed until his bodywas as void of tears as his soul was of feeling, then he rolledover and lay between the graves, staring up into the vast andendless emptiness stretching out before him.
