Chapter 5

Kay followed Reese down the spiral staircase and came up beside him as he waited for her at the bottom. It seemed so natural, so comforting, to enter the main hall with him by her side. She smiled when Alistair, Jack, and Galeron looked up with interest. Uther was nowhere to be seen.

Jack’s voice snapped out with sharp precision. “So, is it true? Uther is out of the running?”

Kay moved forward to sit down at the table, looking around for the maids. While this might have been great news for the men in contention, and certainly for her personally, how would it affect her household? Perhaps she should seek out and speak with Anne and Jessica first.

The pair of women came sweeping into the room with platters of roast duck, their faces wreathed in smiles, moving side by side in smooth harmony. The difference in their bearing from the night before to now could not be more distinct.

Kay held her eyes on the two women. “Yes, Uther has chosen to return to London, to rejoin the throngs there,” she admitted.

Anne tossed her blonde curls. “And good riddance, too!” she chimed in. “The man was not to be trusted!”

Jessica put down a pair of tankards with a solid ring. “Not at all,” she agreed “I think we can all be grateful that lout is on his way!”

Jack moved his eyes along the table of men with careful evaluation. “And so the field reduces,” he mused. “I think this occasion deserves a toast.”

He raised his mug, and the others did in turn, clicking and downing their brews in unison. A shiver ran through Kay. The reality of the situation suddenly enveloped her full force. This was not just some kind of game. This was a serious endeavor, and at the end of it she would be tied for life to one of these men. Not only would her own future be set in stone, but also the lives and safety of every person within this keep.

She spent the meal in quiet, pushing the cubes of turnip around on her plate with her knife, suddenly without appetite.

When the meal was over, she excused herself and retreated into the library, taking down the family copy of the Bible, delving into Corinthians. She found the verses comforting, the message strong and powerful. She lost herself in the reading for several hours, the storm brewing outside her window, the candles providing a serene glow.

The door swung open, and she glanced up. Alistair was standing there, a look of surprise on his face.

“I am so sorry,” he stuttered, looking at the Bible in her hands. “I did not realize another might be interested in sharing the wealth of the Holy Book. I thought only I drew comfort from its pages.”

“Not at all,” demurred Kay with a smile. “There are many inspirational passages in here.”

“I agree completely!” responded Alistair with growing enthusiasm. “If I could but sit with a Bible all day long, and draw in its message, I would count myself a lucky man!”

“Part of taking in the word is to then put it in practice, do you not think?” countered Kay cheerfully. “If you sat in a room solely reading the word, where would be the time to take action on what you had learned?”

“Is not the knowledge itself enough?” asked Alistair with some confusion. “To become a lamp full of glowing oil, brilliant with the word of God?”

Reese suddenly appeared over Alistair’s shoulder, his eyes serious. “Kay, I think you need to come out to the stables,” he called, his voice tense.

Kay tossed the Bible down without a second thought, her heart tight, leaping to her feet. She ran out the door, through the hall, across the pelting rain of the courtyard to the open stable door.

A row of torches lit the roomy building, and there was a rustle of noise as the horses moved in their various stalls. Galeron was standing in the middle of the room with his ever present tablet in hand, going over a list. Jack’s sharp eyes came up to meet hers as she came to a halt within the doorway.

Jack did not mince words. “Two horses are missing,” he reported, waving a hand toward a back stall door which hung open.

Kay’s heart dropped. She knew every inch of these stables. She did not have to ask, but she did so automatically. “Which two?”

Galeron’s stylus moved methodically down his list. “Heather. Star. Those two are not accounted for.”

Kay wavered, and Reese’s sturdy arm was behind her, supporting her. She had helped raise Heather from a foal, and when Heather had herself become pregnant, she had been the one to nurse her through the final days of pregnancy, the one to help birth Star that stormy night several months ago. That these two would be the ones missing?

She moved immediately to the wall, pulling down her saddle, kicking open the door of her horse’s stall. “We are going out after them.”

There was an incredulous snort from the doorway, and she turned in surprise. Alistair was standing there, slightly out of breath from his quick walk here. “You must be joking,” he gasped in horror. “There is a torrential thunderstorm out there, the likes of which only Noah has seen!”

Kay set her lips in a thin line. “Heather and Star are out in that,” she reminded him. “They are my charges, and I will not abandon them.”

“It is God’s will that they be in this storm,” intoned Alistair solemnly, his eyes rolling up toward the sky.

“It is God’s will that we get our tails in gear and get out to save those horses!” snapped Kay with fury, cinching the saddle onto her steed and swinging up onto his back.

Reese pulled up alongside her, mounted and ready. In a few moments Galeron and Jack were behind them.

Alistair looked between the four nervously, then gave himself a small shake. “I will pray for your safe return,” he stated in somber tones.

“You better pray we find those horses alive,” returned Kay with a snarl, pulling down a cloak from the wall to wrap around her. She took one last look at the deluge descending from the heavens, then she urged her horse to course out of the stables into the pouring rain. The main gates stood open for her, and she was in a full gallop before they crossed the threshold into the dark night beyond.

Kay knew well the fields where the horses liked to graze this time of year – the clover lingered there long past fall, and the winds were blocked by the edge of a small cliff. She drove the first mile hard. If the horses had lagged somewhere close to the keep, they would have been heard or seen by the sentries. They had to be further back, perhaps in against the cliff itself. She reluctantly drew in on the reins as they moved beyond vision of the main building, pulling her cloak tighter around her. The hammering of the rain against her head made it that much harder to focus on what was around her, to hear anything. The occasional flashes of lightning lit the world, but the resulting darkness was even more challenging to deal with. She knew this landscape as intimately as the well-worn creases of the reins beneath her fingers, but how could she spot the horses in this chaos? What if they lay injured, mired in the mud?

She drew her horse to a walk, chafing against the slow speed, straining every sense to make out a shape, a noise, a tiny change which might point her in the right direction. The three men moved along with her, their heads swiveling, their eyes seeking in the black night for a sign of the lost horses.

At her right, Reese froze, and she instantly pulled in alongside him, holding up a hand to alert the others.

For a long moment the world stood still, nothing but the inky black of the storm, the pelting of the hard raindrops against their bodies, against the thick hides of the horses, and there was nothing …

“There,” whispered Reese, pointing up ahead.

Kay followed his finger with her eyes, and her heart sank, felt as if an iron bar had been wrapped around it and cinched tighter, tighter. Reese was pointing to the cliff face, and as her eyes readjusted to the black night, she could see the barest hint of a shape halfway up, a small horse’s head, a crumpled body.

“No …” she breathed out in agony. He could not be dead …

The small head gave a turn, and she urged her steed into action, driving toward the cliff. Her horse gave a whinny as they came toward the base of the cliff, and there was an answering cry from nearby, as Heather, the mother, came out to join the crew. Her eyes whirled in wild panic, her head pointing up the cliff toward her young foal.

Kay leapt from her steed, giving the reins a wrap around a nearby birch, and worked forward toward the cliff through the brambles, her eyes pinned upwards at the small shape. God’s teeth, he was at least twelve feet up there, maybe fifteen, wedged into a crevice. He must have fallen down from above, landing in that nook.

He heard his mother’s call, and turned his head at that, crying out piteously.

She began to climb.

Jack’s voice was tight with exasperation. “For God’s sake, Kay,” he cried out from below. “The foal is clearly injured. If you make it down without breaking your own neck, we will only have to put it out of its misery. Let us go back for a bow and end this quickly.”

“Not on your life,” grit out Kay between clenched teeth, finding another foothold. The rock was slippery, but she had lived in these hills all her life. She had tackled climbing these rocks during spring deluges and winter ice storms. No mere force of nature was going to hold her back now.

Galeron’s voice came up to her, calm and patient. “I have the mother now, Kay,” he offered. “We have saved one of the two beasts. Let us get her back to safety.”

Kay strained with her right hand, missed the ledge, cursed as her leg slid sharply against an outcropping, then caught her hand securely on her second try. She pulled herself up. Her left foot found a crack to wedge into, and she pulled herself up level with the slim ledge the foal had been caught on.

She caught her breath. Star’s front leg was a mass of blood and brambles. The foal turned to look at her, and she gazed into those big, brown eyes for a moment. He nuzzled her, and she rubbed her forehead into his in return. She had been there for his birth. She would be damned if she abandoned him now.

Balancing herself on one arm, she used her other to gently probe at the foal’s leg. He let out a deep, shuddering breath, but held still under her movements. It did not seem that anything was broken beneath the skin. She leant forward against the rock, putting all her weight into it, then carefully used both hands to rip the hood from her cloak. She twisted the fabric and then wrapped it several times around the injured leg. She gave it a knot at the end to hold it in place. That would at least stop the bleeding until they got Star back to the stables.

“It is all right, little one,” she whispered to him, her blood pounding in her ears. Again the foal nuzzled her softly, and her heart melted at the trust he had in her. She gently slid her hands beneath his frame, getting a firm grip on his body.

Her blood suddenly ran cold. The reality of her situation sank in with full force. She was balanced – precariously – perhaps fifteen feet up on a rocky cliff. She barely made it up this far with both hands free. How could she possibly make it back down again? She looked into the brown eyes and felt ripped in two. She would never leave him here. But to climb down with him in her arms was an impossibility. She was lost …

Reese’s voice streamed through the torrential deluge like a beam of sunlight. “Kay. Imagine Star is Joey.”

Kay shook her head in confusion. Now Reese had completely lost his mind. It was undoubtedly the combination of the inky darkness, the pounding rain, and the jagged rocks. She looked down at him.

Reese was standing beneath her, his arms open in a cradle shape. His eyes held hers and were dead serious.

“Let go,” he stated, no hesitation in his voice. “Trust me.”

Kay’s heart stopped. She felt the hammering of the thunderstorm, felt the soft heaving of the injured foal’s body, and yet all that existed was Reese and her.

He had lost a hold on his sanity. There was no way he could catch her and the foal. The ground was littered with sharp shards of rock which would slice open her skull as easily as a sword swung through spring mud. And yet his eyes promised that she would not be hurt, that he would be there, would be there …

She nodded, then took a deep breath and gathered up the foal securely in her arms. If she lost control of the young horse, then all would be lost. She needed to cradle him within her own body and trust in Reese to do the rest.

She closed her eyes, made a mental calculation of the distance back from the cliff face she would need, and pressed off from the wall. The fall seemed to last forever. She inhaled the warm scent of the foal against her body, resonated with each beat of his heart, and soaked in the comforting assurance that she had done all she could do. It was out of her hands now. Every second seemed to last an hour.

Slam!

She was enveloped in musk and leather, the wind was knocked out of her, and Reese driven down to one knee by the force of the impact. Star kicked her hard in the ribs in panic, scrambling out of her arms, racing to his mother with a triumphant whinny. Kay doubled over in pain, rolling against Reese, moaning in agony.

“Kay! Kay! Are you all right?”

She heard it as if from miles away, and her head swam in a miasma of pain. She would not be sick. Not in Reese’s arms.

There were muffled shouts, and then she was up on a horse, Reese behind her, and they were riding through the dark night, her body a sodden turmoil of agony. It took her several moments to draw enough breath to shout out, “Star? Heather?”

Reese’s voice came low but sure from behind her. “Both are safe. The other two will bring them back safely.”

“Safe …” repeated Kay weakly, and then the world swirled into darkness.

* * *

Kay’s vision swam into focus. She wasn’t in her room. The walls were filled with long shelves of jars, there were hanging herbs … she winced. She had been in the infirmary enough times over her childhood to know the room by heart. Just what had she done now?

Leland moved into sight, his face tense with worry. “God’s teeth, Kay,” he reprimanded as he ground a poultice in a mortar on a nearby table. “You should have called me before setting off after that foal. You know how bad those cliffs can be at night, never mind in weather like this.”

Kay flushed. She knew she should have waited for help, but the situation seemed too urgent to her. She bit her tongue and nodded. “I should have. I am sorry.”

“But you would not do it any differently next time,” mused Leland, his eyes gentling slightly. “Well, then, let us see what damage you have brought onto yourself with your new injury of the week.”

Reese’s voice came from her other side. “So she comes here often, does she?” She glanced up, and he was standing beside her, looking down at her in a mixture of frustration and admiration.

Leland’s frown eased. “Not nearly as often as she should,” he responded, almost smiling. “Half the time she just tries to tough out the wound.”

Kay huffed, crossing her arms. “That is only because you treat me like a baby, when I am barely scratched! Like now, when -”

Reese glanced down. “When the blood from your leg is already soaking through your dress?” he interrupted, his voice tense. He looked around him. “That damn Anne is taking too long,” he added sharply. “Prudery be damned.”

He pulled his knife from his hip. “I am sorry, this has to be done,” he added to Kay. In one long movement, he sliced Kay’s garment up to mid-knee, pulling the fabric away to reveal the wound.

A twisted slice of open flesh, oozing blood, snaked up the full length of her calf. Reese let loose a low oath, then in a moment he had a wet rag from the table and was carefully wiping the blood and dirt away while Leland continued to finish creating the poultice.

Kay glanced down in curiosity. She had injured herself so many times in her wild youth that the sight of blood held little concern for her. She wriggled her toes, testing. She felt the pain of the injury, but could discern no other issues. The wound looked superficial – a steady stream of blood, but little danger of permanent damage.

She smiled and lay back against the bed, sighing in relief. “Is that all? I barely needed to bother with the infirmary for that tiny scratch.”

Reese looked at her, shaking his head. Leland came over to press down a layer of the green material on the wound. He took some clean rags from the table and tied them around to hold the poultice in place. Done with that, he wiped his hands on his pants, looking up at her with a smile.

“Well, my young mountain goat, is that the extent of your injuries for the night?”

Kay smiled wryly. “I should think so!” She pushed on one arm to sit up in bed. Instantly she was hit with a mind numbing pain in her stomach, and she doubled over, clutching at her middle.

The two men helped to ease her back onto the bed. Reese’s knife was at work again, separating her dress in half across the waist, pulling the fabric apart to reveal her stomach.

Leland’s eyes went wide. “God’s teeth, Kay,” he whispered in shock. “What in the world have you done?”

Kay wiped the stream of tears from her eyes and sat up gingerly to take a look.

There, embedded on her stomach, was the perfect shape of a small hoof mark.

“That is amazing!” she cried out in joy, her eyes shining with delight. “Is it going to stay that way? Really?” She reached down to trace the design with awe.

Reese and Leland looked at each other for a long moment, then both burst out with laughter, shaking their heads.

Anne stumbled into the room, pulling her robe on around her in sleepy confusion, looking between the two laughing men and the prone patient. “What insanity is going on in here?” she burst out in concern. “Is Kay hurt?”

Kay barely heard her. “I will be fine, Anne,” she soothed, still marveling at the beautiful decoration on her belly. “Just look at what I have done!”

Anne turned on Reese. “And you, sir,” she snapped, “you should not be in here!”

Reese glanced down at the exposed stomach and leg and flushed. “She was injured -”

Anne bustled him out. “Yes, injured. But now Keren-happuch is coming down to check on her, and you are not allowed to see the lady. So out you go.”

Reese held his gaze on Kay. “I will check on you later,” he promised.

Kay met his eyes, and the night flooded back onto her in full force. He had saved her life. He had saved both of their lives.

“Thank you,” she breathed, awed by the depth of what she owed him.

He nodded, and smiled, and then he was gone.