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Roland slipped away from the earl, dodging right; then he turned on the balls of his bare feet, and fast as lightning, reached out and sliced a clean diagonal line through the thick red hair on the earl’s chest. The earl looked down blankly at the oozing bloody line that marked his chest and howled with fury. “I’ll kill you, you whoreson!”
Roland laughed. “Again, you bastard.” He spun about, his arm extended, and he struck so quickly it was a blur. Now a bloody red X stood out on the earl’s chest.
The earl was so beside himself with rage he began to hammer with the mighty sword, wildly slicing it from side to side in a wide swath.
Graelam said quietly, “He’s no longer thinking. He is reacting, nothing more. He doesn’t realize that his incredible strength isn’t an asset. He doesn’t realize he won’t touch Roland. Roland has learned that his brain is his best weapon.”
Daria watched Roland lightly back away from the earl, not coming to a stop until he was a good fifteen feet from him. The earl was yelling, howling his fury, and he was readying to charge, his sword raised above his head.
Slowly, very slowly, Roland aimed the knife and released it with a smooth flip of his wrist. It sang through the still air and thudded softly into the earl’s chest, just at the point where the X crossed.
Edmond of Clare stared down at the quivering pale ivory handle that still vibrated from the strength and speed of Roland’s throw.
He looked up then, first at Roland, then toward Daria. “I wanted your dowry, not you,” he said. “You’re not of my blood, I would have known if you were, for David kept nothing from me. He would have told me. Nay, you’re naught but—” He crumpled where he stood.
Roland was covered with sweat and dirt and he wore a huge satisfied smile on his face.
“Nay, don’t kill me, Graelam,” he called out with great relish. “It is over now, and he was mine, not yours, not anyone else’s.” He turned to his wife. “Be ready to leave Chantry Hall at first light tomorrow morning. Pack enough clothing for a month. Speak to Alice and have her prepare ample food supplies for us and seven men.” He was still grinning when he turned to Sir Thomas. “Thomas, you will see to Chantry Hall’s safety whilst we’re gone. And, Katherine, worry not about your daughter.”
“No,” Katherine said slowly. “I don’t think I shall now.”
“Where are we going, Roland?”
Roland walked to where his wife stood, and he looked down at her, saying nothing for a very long time. Finally he raised his fingers and cupped her chin. “We go to Wales.”
“Why?”
He leaned down, saying very quietly, so only she could hear his words, “I took your virginity, yet I have no memory of it. I want that memory back, Daria. I want the knowledge of your eyes upon me when I came into you that first time. I want my awareness of you when I first touched your womb.”
They reached Wrexham twelve days later. Incredibly, it had rained only twice. Incredibly, they’d met no outlaws. Incredibly, Roland was whistling when they entered the Wrexham cathedral.
Daria was praying hard. She didn’t know what to expect, but praying seemed the best approach.
Romila opened the door at Roland’s pounding. She was grumbling about louts bothering her until she recognized him. Then she smiled widely, rubbing her hands together as she looked him over from head to toe. “Aye, oh, aye, if it isn’t the pretty lad whose body and face have provided romantic fodder for all the girls in Wrexham. I’ve told them of your endowments, my lad, described to them how your flesh feels beneath a woman’s hand. Ah, when I told them about the size of your rod—Is it you, Daria? Well, well. What do you here? What—”
And on and on she went, and Roland just smiled at her and listened to her babbling. Daria said nothing.
After a time, Roland asked if Romila would take him upstairs to the chamber where he’d been in bed for so many days.
“Nay, Daria, I wish to go alone,” he said to his wife when she would have followed. She nodded, and watched the two of them climb the narrow filthy stairs. She wondered, half-smiling, if Romila would try to seduce him once in the bedchamber.
Salin said from behind her, “Roland is a fair man.”
She only nodded and began her prayers again.
Upstairs, Roland stood in the middle of the small airless chamber. He looked at the bed where he’d spent hours he didn’t remember at all, and more hours he did remember that he couldn’t begin to count. He looked at the chamber pot in the corner and shook his head at those memories. He turned to Romila, cutting off her outpourings of vulgar suggestions. “When I was brought here, I was out of my senses?”
“Aye, ye were, me lad.”
He looked toward the window and saw Daria standing there, quiet and still, looking out onto the courtyard below. He looked at the chair. He remembered clearly Daria sitting in that chair, sewing on one of his tunics.
“Yer little wife took good care of ye. Even when ye were testy, she only smiled and shook her head and loved ye. O’ course, she did ask my advice now and again, and I told her ye’d be in fine form again soon.”
He remembered the spoon touching his mouth, remembered Daria’s soft voice telling him to eat, telling him he must regain his strength.
“Aye, oh, aye,” Romila said, her voice wistful and teasing at the same time. Then she laughed aloud, raucous and loud. “And I remember more than I should, ye randy goat.”
Roland turned slowly to face her. “What do you mean?”
