Rafe reined in as dusk approached at a place he thought suitable for camp. Having hobbled his horse, he approached Lady Adele and Eda with the obvious intention of helping them to dismount.
“Had we best not continue?” Adele looked up at the darkening sky. “It will be night soon and we have not arrived at our lodging place. Is it far from here?”
Rafe gazed up at her in faint amusement.
“We have arrived, Lady Adele,” he answered, reaching up and lifting her with an ease she found she rather liked before depositing her gently on the floor and turning to lift Eda off after her. Adele was grateful for the care with which he had set her down, for her feet were numbed with cold and even standing was uncomfortable.
She looked around, taking in the huge trees that were nothing more than dark shadows against the sky, and the small clearing. She could see no habitation and, although sheltered, Adele was conscious of the cold seeping through her clothes. She pulled her cloak around her more closely.
“I don’t see a dwelling,” she observed.
Rafe laughed, an explosion of sound that made her jump, she felt Eda grip her arm with a start.
“Do you not, my lady?” he asked quizzically. “Yet we have wooden walls and a roof of stars and, if my lady will wait but a moment, we shall have a fire to warm us too!” He was smiling again as he looked down upon her, teasing her for her lack of understanding. Her eyes, calm and clear, regarded him steadily.
“You mean we are to sleep outside.”
“Correct.” Despite Rafe’s smile he had been nervous, thinking that she might indulge in hysterics, her calm acceptance was a blessed relief.
“Outside!” Eda looked over her shoulder and all around. “We cannot, you cannot expect us to!”
Rafe began to drag wood together, ignoring Eda’s outburst.
“It will be fine, Eda.” Adele’s voice was comforting. She was sitting on the blanket Rafe had taken from the horse, her cloak folded tightly around her. Her voice seemed to calm her friend a little.
“But… Adele!”
“It will be fine, Eda, can you not see that Finn is making a fire for us?”
Eda drifted over to where Adele was sitting and slipped her hand into her friend’s, squeezing it slightly.
“Just think, Eda, what an adventure it will be!”
“A very cold adventure,” muttered Eda with a sniff. Adele smiled softly bringing Eda’s hand to her cheek and resting her face against it.
Rafe watched them out of the corner of his eye as he carefully coaxed a flame to the wood, feeding it until he had a roaring fire. With a sigh of relief he realised that neither lady was going to indulge in tears.
Eda moved towards the flames instantly, drawn by the promise of warmth. Adele hung back, still sitting on the blanket he had removed from Charger, watching in growing admiration as, under his ministrations, the fire took hold, casting a warm light over his features.
A smile played about the corners of his mouth, softening the harshness that she viewed as habitual but which in truth had only plagued him for the last few days. He was, she could see, enjoying the task and, in return, the chore seemed to be melting the tension from him.
He sat staring into the flames for a long while after he had finished building the fire up. It was as though he had forgotten them, his task, even their surroundings.
Somewhere the branch of a tree cracked, and Adele saw his head jerk up sharply, eyes probing the darkness. Tension spread through every line of his body. He turned and saw Adele regarding him, wide eyed and unperturbed.
“You must be hungry both of you.” He stood abruptly, moving to where he had left his saddle and brought it over to the fire.
Adele watched as he opened the provisions that had been strapped to it. There was rye bread and cheese, chicken that was cooked, and a parcel of pork chunks that was not. As he open this last package the aroma of spices filled the air.
“Those provisions are from the fort!” Eda’s voice betrayed her surprise.
“Yes, one of the ladies, I assume she was the cook, was kind enough to provide me with them.”
Rafe watched in horror as Eda’s eyes filled with tears and he turned panicked to Adele. Her large eyes were also glistening, though she resolutely blinked the tears away. “Mistress Kathryn; she always adds those spices to pork, ‘tis my favourite.”
Rafe saw nothing in that fact to weep over. Looking down at the parcel of meat he suggested that they might like some.
“But… how will you cook it?” asked Eda.
Rafe grinned and pulled a few sticks from the bundle he had collected for the fire. Pulling out his knife he chose two that branched in to a V and cut these to appropriate lengths. Pushing the wood into the earth at opposite sides of the fire, he took another stick, long enough to reach over the fire and rest in the first two sticks. Sharpening one end to a point with his knife, he pushed some of the chunks of meat on to it and forced them along its length.
“It will take a while to cook, but in the mean time there is the bread, chicken and cheese.”
The cheese was formed into a large round. Rafe held the blade of his knife amidst the flames for a moment and, after letting it cool, cut off a sizable piece and held it out to Adele. She was still sitting on Charger’s blanket some way from the fire and on seeing this Rafe frowned.
“You should come closer to the flames, you shall freeze over there.”
“I’m fine,” murmured Adele, but Rafe had placed the food back on the cloth and was moving toward her.
“Come, you should be nearer the warmth.”
Adele tried to object as Rafe took hold of her arm. His hand was warm, burning through the fabric of her dress, and Adele suddenly realised just how chilled she was.
“You foolish girl!” he exclaimed, making as if to pull her upright.
“No, please!”
Eda grasped his arm and tried to pull him away.
“Leave her be, let go you brute!”
“What the…” Rafe paused looking down at Eda’s flushed face as she clung to his arm like an enraged kitten.
“Eda, stop, let him go,” Adele reproved, laughing at the sight of her friend’s slight form cleaving to Rafe but having no discernible effect. Her face tilted upward, and her eyes fixed on his with an apologetic gleam in their depths.
“We agreed, did we not, that I would be stiff tonight?”
Understanding flooded through his mind, and he crouched down beside her.
“Is it bad?”
“I think ‘tis only that I am cold…”
Rafe passed an arm around her shoulders and, with a challenging look toward a glowering Eda, took Adele’s hand in his free one. Adele had some vague notion that she should feel uncomfortable having him handle her so, but Rafe’s attitude was aloof and impersonal. She had the feeling it was a task he had preformed many times before.
“Here, you had best lean on me.”
“Adele!” Eda’s voice was agonized.
“Eda, do be quiet; if you had any idea how battered I feel you would not be scolding me so.”
Rafe heard her make no sound of protest as he eased her upright, but when he looked down it was to find that her bottom lip was clenched between her teeth and her eyes squeezed tightly shut.
“Will you be alright?” he asked presently.
Adele’s eyes fluttered open, dazzled for a moment by the fire light. She seemed surprised to see him, as though she had expected him to leave, not stay to hover over her anxiously. She looked down to where he still held her hand enfolded loosely in his own. Rafe immediately let her go, turning to pick up the blanket she had been sitting on and placing it nearer to the fire.
Adele thanked him and sat down, reaching her cold fingers out toward the flames, smiling a little as Eda flopped down beside her, shooting a cross dagger glance at Rafe. Rafe had retreated to his own place, holding out the bread and cheese to Adele again.
“It seems to me that you have
done this before.”
“You mean setting up camp?”
“T’was more the looking after troublesome novices’ like myself that I was thinking of.” She smiled softly.
“Many is the lad who wished he had stuck to farming after a hard days march,” answered Rafe with a shrug. “I have seen none that handled their discomfort better than you; it takes a brave soul to suffer in silence.”
Eda looked slightly mollified at this utterance in praise of her friend, and Adele flushed with pleasure. Rafe found himself thinking that, after all, he might grow to like this strange girl-bride of his.
He reached out, taking the meat from off the fire. Its savoury smell reminded him that he was still hungry. He wrapped a piece in rye bread and held it out to Adele first, along with a wine skin. She accepted this last a little doubtfully, sipped it cautiously, and choked over the unfamiliar brew. Wrinkling her nose distastefully she handed it back to him before remarking that the pork tasted even better cooked over the camp fire.
“’Tis the cold and being hungry,” answered Rafe, passing a tasty morsel to Eda. “It makes you appreciate comfort more when ‘tis your good fortune to receive some.”
“You speak from experience.”
A statement not a question, said in that quiet husky voice of hers whilst her eyes fixed him in their peaceful gaze.
“I have spent much of my life in army camps, I cannot begin to tell you the wonder a proper bed holds for me!” grinned Rafe ruefully, stirring the fire with a stick.
“How long?” asked Eda.
Strangely he didn’t feel threatened by the question; it seemed the natural progression of the conversation.
“Since I was twelve; I went into battle with my father, and I was more than grateful to have him by my side.” Rafe dropped the stick and pulled up his knees, leaning his arms on top of them. “’tis a strange thing a battle, most especially your first. When you take part you think ‘twill be glorious. You stand upon the battle lines viewing the magnificent ranks of your enemy, and you feel a strange fear mixed with elation, because it is the day you prove yourself a man and a warrior. Mail flashes in the sunlight, and you feel the nervous excitement of the unknown. ‘Tis an uncivilised emotion that grips you; a kind of thrill.”
He broke off, shaking his head in dissatisfaction. It was as if he could not find the words to express the sights, sounds, and feelings. Adele felt that it had somehow become more than an explanation to him; that since he had begun, he felt a burning need to present a true picture, one without embellishment or omission.
“You only feel it the once with that first battle, after that you are cured.” His voice was bitter, his face strangely haggard and troubled. “All too soon you see the hell of combat; men hacking grimly through the mess of soldiers, stumbling over the bodies of those who have fallen. There is a particular look in their eyes, no matter which side they fight for, of horror and pain… a deadness. Too soon it becomes obvious that there is nothing romantic in the sorry sight. Victory, when finally attained, is not courageous. Its glory, that seemed so bright, is tarnished and dirtied with mud, sweat, and the blood of men that should have been counted too precious to be spilt so rashly.”
He looked exhausted, thought Adele, as though somehow he were twelve years old again and looking at a battle field that had been burnt upon his childish soul, always to remain with him. A horror of youth lost and destroyed, an innocence that would never return.
Rafe told them no more. He told them nothing of the aftermath of battle which was, in its own way, just as horrific. He did not tell them how he had sat down in the mud beside a friend of his boyhood, knowing that he was dying, watching him slip away, but having no power to change the fact.
He had remained there, long after the boy had breathed his last, weary of soul and looking across the field of those slain. He didn’t tell them that it was there that his father had found him, so many hours later, as dusk had approached. Nor did he tell them how he had wept in his father’s arms, tears of bitter disillusionment and sorrow. He had realised it was a waste that would continue, an awful rite of war that would take place again, over and over.
Adele didn’t press him to speak again. He was lost somewhere deep in his own unhappy thoughts, experiencing a pain of which she knew nothing. She felt sudden compassion for him, a wish to comfort that surprised her. Finan of Gournay, of all men, had not seemed to have any need of the more tender compassions of life.
Chapter Six