That thought had occurred to him while he was cleansing her wound again with wine. She flinched but she didn’t utter a sound, not like she had before. She was steeling herself to the pain, becoming accustomed to it, and the more he held that tender white thigh in his hands and tended the arrow wound, the more he admired a woman who should bear her pain so stoically. But when that word crossed his mind… wife… he’d almost dropped her leg and probably would have had de Lara not been holding the ankle to steady it.
It was a foolish notion that had startled him. He wasn’t meant to have a wife. He had three bedslaves, three children, and he didn’t need a wife. At least, those were his usual thoughts, thoughts he’d had for years. But in the same breath, it occurred to him that he had never wanted a wife because he’d never met a woman he considered worthy. What better wife to take than the sister of Edwin of Mercia, linking Norman and Saxon, cementing alliances? But he wouldn’t marry her simply for the alliance.
He would marry her because he was coming to think she was something very special, indeed.
But Ghislaine was oblivious to Gaetan’s thoughts as he checked her wound twice more that day before she went to sleep. The knights had delayed their journey for two full days to tend to the woman who had sacrificed herself for them. But the morning of the third day, they set out for Worcester through dense forests and a road that narrowed so much, at times, that they had to pass through in single file. The weather had been rainy one day, sunny the next, and as they neared the city, the temperature rose to the point where the water in the ground and in the trees turned into steam and the air became heavy with moisture. Compounded with the humidity from the river, it made the air rather uncomfortable.
The knights were sweating beneath their mail and tunics and even Ghislaine was feeling hot as the air around them turned into a steam bath. She was wearing layers of clothing and she rolled her sleeves up as much as she could, trying to find some relief from the sticky warmth. She kept wiping the sweat from her forehead but she soon came to realize that her cheeks were also very hot – unnaturally hot.
Riding behind Gaetan as they passed through a stretch of trees that, once again, had them riding single file, she touched her cheeks discreetly, realizing with dismay that she had a fever. She’d felt rather queasy all day but she has attributed it to the fact that she was taxing her body by traveling with a nasty wound to her leg. It didn’t occur to her that it was because she was beginning to run a fever.
Fear kept her silent as they continued to travel, fear of becoming a burden, of even being left behind as the knights continued on to Alary’s lair. This was her quest, too, and she didn’t want to surrender this moment of moments, when she finally felt as if she was a part of something, accepted by men she’d proven herself to. It had been a difficult and long fight, and she wasn’t about to relinquish it. She prayed fervently that the fever would be mild and that it would quickly pass. It was simply her body’s way of dealing with the poisonous humors that were inside of her as a result of the arrow wound.
God, please rid me of this fever, she prayed silently. It was a prayer she said repeatedly as they traveled beneath the bright sun, which was only compounding the problem. When the road would widen and the knights would spread out, Gaetan would end up on one side and someone else, usually de Russe, would end up on the other. She was terrified they would see how red her cheeks were so she tried to keep her head down and not speak with any of them, as much as it pained her. Gaetan was finally showing her the attention she had been hoping for and she very much wanted to show that she was receptive to it, but now she was afraid to.
Afraid he would see her illness in her face.
After several hours of travel, they stopped to rest the horses along a small creek in a thicket that was heavy with moisture. The water bubbled down the rocks as the horses drank. Wellesbourne and St. Hèver even went so far as to pull their horses into the water, splashing them to cool them off. Ghislaine, meanwhile, had wandered upstream a bit, kneeling down with her painful leg beside the crystal-clear water to splash some on her face. It was cool to her skin and felt wonderful. As she dried her face off with the sleeve of her cote, she heard footsteps next to her. Turning slightly, she caught sight of Gaetan’s boots.
“Is the weather always ridiculously hot in October?” he asked.
She kept her head down, pretending to still splash water on her face. “Nay,” she said. “A day like this is most unusual.”
Gaetan moved up beside her and crouched down as well, putting a big hand in the water and drinking from it. “How does your wound feel?”
She nodded. “It aches,” she said, an understatement. She paused a moment before continuing. “I… I have not had the opportunity to thank you for tending it so carefully. I do not think any physic could have done a better job.”
He wiped the cold water on his face. “It was the least I could do, considering you risked your lives for all of us.”
“I did what I believed needed to be done.”
“I know.”
A brief silence followed, but not uncomfortable. It was rather warm, in fact. Gaetan remained crouched next to her, now watching the stream bubble as water dripped from his hands. “We are near Worcester.”
“We are.”
“How far to your brother’s stronghold?”
Ghislaine cocked her head thoughtfully but, in doing so, she realized that she lifted her head and exposed her red cheeks to his scrutiny, so she quickly lowered her head again.
“Very close,” she said. “We will be there by tomorrow.”
He grunted. “I had not realized we were so close.”
She nodded. “We are quite close,” she said. Then, she sighed thoughtfully. “I have been thinking of my brother and of his travels. If he continued to travel as slowly as he was when we first began to follow him, then he would be at least three days behind us, mayhap more. Even with our delay in Evesham, I do not think he has caught up to us. On the road he is traveling, unless he has deviated, he will come through Kidderminster. The road our party is on will come up west of Kidderminster and it is my assumption that we will reach Tenebris before he does.”
Gaetan shifted so he was sitting on his buttocks now, resting his weary body. “I have been thinking the same thing,” he said. “We will be waiting for him when he arrives.”
“It would make for a perfect ambush if we can single out de Lohr and steal him away before my brother can hurt him.”
It was a bit of covert tactics and he looked at her, approval in his eyes. “You are a clever little mouse,” he said, grinning. “I have never met a woman who thought so logically. Mayhap, you should have been the one to command Harold’s army. On second thought, it was a good thing that you did not. We more than likely would have lost.”
Ghislaine fought off a modest grin. “I am not a pampered Saxon lady, as you well know. I think like a warrior. It is how I have been trained.”