Susan Wiggs - At The King's Command

Faintly, through a thick blanket of sleep, the sounds came to Stephen. A cry in the dark. A ragged sob of terror and depthless despair.

His awareness weighted by the quantity of sack he had drunk the previous evening to forget the startled hurt in Juliana’s eyes, he barely acknowledged the sounds. And then, slowly, like a stalking sneak thief, realization crept over him.

The moment had come. For years, he had dreaded this night. And yet a small dark part of him had craved it. This was the end of the waiting, the uncertainty. At last, he would be free—

“No!” Denial broke from him, loud and fierce and anguished. He leaped from his bed, tearing back the covers, bare feet slapping the chilly flagged floor.

No, please God, no…With jerky movements he groped for his leather leggings, his billowy cambric shirt, and in seconds he flew out the door of his chamber and into the night-black passageway.

He expected to find Nance Harbutt, come to impart the long-dreaded tidings, but no one waited in the gloom.

Still the weeping sound that had awakened him reached out, drew him along the passageway….

To his wife’s room.

The fog of sleep and wine blew away on a cold, knife-sharp wind.

Juliana. It was his gypsy wife, with her weeping and strange mutterings, who had roused him.

Both relief and annoyance eddied through him as he stepped into her chamber.

A low, throaty growl greeted him. Her lethal weapon of a dog stood stiff-legged in the middle of the room, glaring with malevolent eyes.

Stephen glared back.

The dog looked away first and crouched down, warily letting him pass.

For a moment Stephen stood still, uncertain. Watery moonlight, faint as fairy’s breath, streamed through the open window and fell upon the imposing draped bed.

Juliana had been at Lynacre Hall only a week, yet already her presence pervaded what had once been Meg’s domain. The fragrance of lavender haunted the air; gowns and shifts made a cheerful disarray on the stools and chests; an old lute stood propped in a corner.

Stephen noticed this only in passing. He stood spellbound by the soft, terrible sounds coming from the figure on the bed.

Though she spoke in a foreign tongue, his heart constricted, for he knew the meaning well. In her sleep, she uttered the words of a soul that knew the icy black depths of despair and hopelessness, the supplication of a heart yearning to be healed.

Praying the dog would behave, he swiftly crossed the room to the bed. He of all people knew not how to comfort an unquiet soul, yet he could not stand to watch her suffer.

He sat on the edge of the bed, the heavy frame creaking under his weight. His large hands came to rest on the one shoulder that protruded from the twisted bedclothes.

She held herself curled up like a child shivering from cold. Her arms were hugged tightly around her torso. The trembling that emanated from her tore at Stephen. With a low, helpless curse, he pulled her against him. He felt her warmth, the wild tattoo of her racing heart, the hot dampness of her tears seeping into his shirt.

“Hush,” he whispered into her hair. His lips brushed the silky strands. He breathed in the faint herbal fragrance. “Hush, Juliana, please. ’Tis a night fright, no more. You are safe.”

She came awake with a loud, air-swallowing gasp. “Stephen?”

Feeling awkward and ungainly, he held her away from him and peered at her face. Her eyes were wide and staring, her cheeks wet.

“I heard you cry out,” he explained, gruff-voiced and struggling to sound matter-of-fact. “I thought to quiet you before you awakened the whole household.”

“Oh.” She scrubbed the voluminous sleeve of her nightrail over her face. “Didn’t Pavlo try to stop you?”

“He understands I mean you no harm.”

She nodded. “I—I am sorry I awakened you.”

“Are you all right now?” It was too dangerous to be alone with her like this—in the darkened bed, with her all warm and soft and tumbled from sleep. And vulnerable.

“Yes,” she said. But her voice was hoarse, her eyes tearful.

He knew he should make haste away, but it was contrary to his nature to leave a creature in pain. “It’s over, Juliana. You’re safe. ’Twas only a nightmare.”

“But the nightmare is real,” she whispered. “I see things that happened to my family, hear things—”

“What things?”

“Fire,” she said, starting to tremble again. “Hoofbeats and screaming, flames shooting from the windows—”

“The windows?”

“The house at Novgorod. My father’s house.” She tipped up her head, for a moment looking almost haughty. “It was a place that makes Lynacre Hall look like a peasant’s dwelling.”

Stephen felt a sinking sense of disappointment. This was yet another part of the fiction she had created to support her wild pretenses. Another thread in the web of lies.

“In the dream, I am looking at the snow,” she went on, oblivious to his skeptical thoughts and seemingly immune to his touch, to the hand that moved from her chin to her shoulder, his thumb tracing whorls in the hollow of her throat.

“The fire casts bloody shadows on the snow. And then I see my family gathered in front of the steps. The blades of the attackers flash. Alexei, my betrothed, is fighting.”

Her betrothed? Stephen opened his mouth to ask her about this Alexei, but she gave him no chance.

“The steel blades are red in the firelight. My brother shrieks in pain. They do not cut him cleanly but—”

Her voice broke. She buried her face in her hands. “They have to hack and hack, and his cries become gurgles, and I can hear no more. And then, at the last, while Laszlo is holding me back…” She swallowed, seemed to force herself to go on. “I see Alexei fall. The leader is about to order his men to search for me. And Pavlo leaps out of nowhere.”

“Pavlo?”

She nodded. “He had gotten free from the kennels. He is a very protective dog.”

Stephen lifted a strand of hair from the nape of her neck. How soft it was, how fragrant. “I noticed.”

“The rest, in my dream, is confusion. I see Pavlo leap, I hear muffled words. A curse. I cannot make it out over the roar of the fire, the sound of horses blowing, the other dogs baying. Pavlo yelps, and the man turns. He cannot see me, but the fire flares suddenly, and I wait, knowing I will see the face of a murderer.”

Stephen held his breath. In spite of himself, he had gotten caught up in her tale of horror. Dream or not, it had an immediacy that seized him.

“And?” he prompted.

She sighed and pressed her brow to his shoulder. “And nothing. It always ends the same. A flash, as if a firearm is being discharged. And then I awaken.”

“Without seeing the villain’s face?”

“Villain?”

He almost smiled, half enjoying the light pressure of her head against his shoulder. “The murderer.”

“I always awaken before I see his face.”

“You have this dream often?”

“At first, just after the massacre that forced me to flee Novgorod, I had this dream every night. Now, not so often. But it is like opening a wound. I feel it all again. The grief, the rage. The helplessness. The loss of everything.” Her hand closed around his. Her palm was cool and damp with sweat. “The terror.”

“Ah, Juliana.” He smoothed his free hand over her head, tucking it more securely against his shoulder. He did not know what to believe.

“I’m frightened, Stephen. Always, Laszlo has been nearby to quiet my fears. Now I am alone. So alone.”

“No, you’re not,” he heard himself say. “I’m here, Juliana.”

The tension flowed out of her at his words, and for a moment he was struck by the wonder of it. That mere words and a soothing touch could bring comfort was a foreign notion to him.