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That night Roland stopped before dark, saying merely, “Cantor is blown. We must rest him.”
But it was Roland who fell asleep even as the moon was beginning its rise into the clear Welsh heavens. Daria lay beside him, propped up on her elbow. His breathing was slow and deep. He didn’t snore. She looked down at his face as he slept. He looked very young, she thought, all the worries smoothed from his face, and slowly, tentatively, she touched her fingers to his cheek, down along the line of his jaw to his square chin. There was black stubble and she smiled and wondered if the hair on his body was as dark as that on his head. She continued looking at him. It gave her a good deal of pleasure. His brows were naturally arched and black as sin. She wanted to smooth the black hair from his forehead, but hesitated. She didn’t want him to awaken and spout angry words at her. She even enjoyed the shape of his ears.
She finally fell asleep snuggling against Roland’s back. He wasn’t awake to tell her nay.
She awoke with a start, jerking upright. The dream was vivid in her mind and it was alien. She remembered her feelings of knowledge, of deep and complete recognition, when she’d first seen Roland. Now she’d seen the dream he was dreaming. But how was that possible? She shook her head even as she silently questioned herself. She didn’t understand how it could be so. She wasn’t in his dream, nay, she was merely an observer, yet she seemed to know what he thought. The question was why Roland was presenting himself to her in these ways. She now thought she knew the answer, but she also knew she wouldn’t say anything to him. He would believe her mad, or simply foolish, or both.
The following morning, the sky was overcast and both Daria and Roland knew that the rain would begin soon. There was nothing either of them could do about it save bear it.
She said suddenly, hoping to catch him off his guard, “I heard stories from my father, stories about the Holy Land. He said he’d been told it was all heat and white sand and miserable fleas and poverty and children who were so hungry their bellies were bloated. He said the men were dark and bearded and wore white robes and turbans on their heads. He said the women were kept away from other men, held inside buildings with other women. Do you know anything of this, Roland?”
Roland’s hands tightened on Cantor’s reins. He’d dreamed of the Holy Land the previous night; he’d dreamed about a meeting he’d attended with Barbars himself and his chieftains, and they’d been in a royal tent set up within sight of Acre. But Daria couldn’t know that. This was merely happenstance.
He said only, “What your father told you is true. Hush now, I must think.”
Daria practiced her Welsh, forming sentences and repeating phrases he’d taught her the past days. “Rydw i wedi blino,” she said three times, until he turned to ask, “Is that just practice or are you really tired?”
“Nag ydw,” she said, grinning, and firmly shook her head to match her words.
They entered a small church in Wrexham late that afternoon to get out of the rain. Even the building’s warm-colored sandstone looked cold and dismal in the gray rain. They walked beneath the narrow Norman nave arcades, toward the cloisters. There were few people in the church. It was damp and cheerless, no candles lit against the gloom. “It’s dark as a well,” Daria said aloud, trying to huddle farther into her cloak.
Roland said nothing. His head ached abominably; his throat felt scratchy; every muscle in his body throbbed and cramped. It pained him to breathe and to walk. Even his eyes hurt to focus. The illness had begun nearly two days before, but he’d ignored it, knowing he couldn’t be ill, not now, not when he was responsible for Daria. But he was. It took all his resolution not to shudder and shiver beside her.
“Stop,” he said finally, unable to take another step. He leaned against a stone arch. He closed his eyes, knowing that she was looking closely at him, knowing that at any moment she would guess the truth.
But he didn’t have time for her to tell him so. He felt blackness tug at him. He fought it, but his fight was futile. He felt himself sliding down against the arch.
The Earl of Clare wondered if Roland had killed the two men, and decided he had. One lay rotting, his head in still green water; the other was curled up in death inside a close-by cave.
“Aye, he killed them, our pretty priest,” he said. “But why? Did they attack him?” He paused and paled. Had the men raped Daria? And Roland had killed them because they had? No, he wouldn’t accept that. No, he would assume that he’d killed them before they’d had a chance to do anything and left them here. He said aloud to MacLeod, “I wonder where our priest took Daria after he killed these louts? Why did they come into this filthy country? Has he friends here?”
MacLeod didn’t know a single answer to the earl’s spate of questions. What’s more, he was beginning not to care. Like the other men, he was wet and miserable and cold and wanted nothing more than to return to Tyberton, to the stifling warm great hall with its fires filling the huge chamber with smoke, and drink warm spiced ale and fill his hands with soft woman’s fles
h.
“Do we bury them?” one of the men asked MacLeod.
He shook his head. “They’re savages. Let them continue to rot in peace.”
Daria knew he was ill, had known for the past day and a half, only she hadn’t wanted to believe it and had made excuses to herself for his persistent silence. She’d asked him once that morning if he felt all right, and he had snapped at her, vicious and mean as a stray dog. And now he’d fallen unconscious from his illness. She dropped to her knees beside him. His forehead was hot; he was caught in the fever. His body shuddered even in his unconscious state. She looked about for help. She’d never felt more frightened in her life.
“Roland,” she whispered, nearly frantic. “Roland, please, can you hear me?”
He was silent.
She was terrified, but not for herself. She was terrified for him, but of course he wouldn’t care. It didn’t matter now what he thought of her. He needed her.
When the black-robed Augustinian priest saw them, he hurried forward.
“Father,” she whispered, “you must help me.”
She realized she’d spoken partly in English, partly in Welsh.
He looked at her oddly and she quickly said, “He is Welsh and I am his wife and but half-Welsh. Do you understand English?”
He nodded. “Aye, for I lived many years in Hereford. What do you here?”
She looked him straight in his sharp, pale eyes. “My husband was taking me to his family in Chester when he fell ill. It is all the rain and our hard pace. What am I to do?”
