A SURPRISE ENCOUNTER
The field she looked at was gray and scrubby in a fretting wind. She stood on the deserted plain and knew, just knew, that a hundred men had died here. She felt their screams and groans of pain on the wind, heard their sighs and knew the breeze that shivered at her garments had heard them give their last cries, had received their last exhales.
She felt the clash and cry of the battle and she reached for the one person she cared for, the man who had seen into her soul with those brown eyes, though he was someone that she'd never discoursed with in her life.
She knew he was gone, then. Her soul cried out and she screamed her pain heavenwards.
She felt the gray of fog close around her eyelids.
She was somewhere, an ocean of sensation that was neither the stable world of life nor the glass-edge clarity of vision. She was lying on something soft, and fog drifted before her. Light, thin and uncalled for, heated her eyelids.
As she felt the mists disperse she felt the pain fill her body. It was as if she had been bruised all over, as if she'd run for days and days. Everything hurt.
“Where..?”
The voice from her deepest dreams spoke into her confusion.
“You're safe.”
She drew in a hiss of breath. She wanted to open her eyes but the merest touch of light hurt her brain and so she closed them tight.
She felt something tighten round her fingers and realized with some surprise that it was his hand, warming her sore fingertips. She tensed, withdrew.
“You will explain, sir,” she said through a tight set of lips, “how it is that you are here, with me. In what seems to be my bedchamber, or a good facsimile thereof.”
She heard him draw in a breath.
“My lady, I...”
She opened her eyes a bit but the light still hurt so she kept them half-shuttered by her long sleep-glued lashes. “You don't have much of a case to defend that.”
She heard him open and shut his lips, then start. “My lady, I...”
“Don't tell me,” she said dryly. “I collapsed and you carried me.”
“Well, yes,” he blinked.
“Which is why you're sitting by my bedside like a priest attending the last rites, with your hand in mine, keeping sentinel.”
“My lady, I...”
She chuckled. “I'm not cross. Merely curious.”
She turned her head. Here, the light was not as bright and she could risk seeing him. She stared. His face was drawn and he looked miserable. His eyes were wide and appeared tormented.
“I thought you dead.”
She smiled, a humorless expression for all its former amusement. “I am not.”
“I noticed.”
She chuckled and this time her smile was warmer still. “Well, good. Now could you help me sit up? We will need to do some explaining about what you're doing in here, and we also must chat.”
“Oh?” He frowned.
“I saw something,” she said, unsure. “I saw you would be killed if you go with the men. You must be careful. Let me repeat that. You are very likely to die if you commit to this venture. But it is not inevitable.”
“Oh?” he frowned.
“Now listen,” she said, finding the strength to sit up and turn to him, her hands on his wrists. “You will need to stay on the right of the field. There are going to be two columns. Stay in the right. You have a better sword-swing if you face enemies from the right. Moreover, it would be wise to take a long knife as well. Not just the broadsword.”
He stared at her. He was clearly trying hard to digest this information. She had expected he would be cross with her for dictating, but as it happened he just listened.
“I will do that, milady,” he said. He frowned. “You saw just that?” he asked.
She nodded. Her mouth was dry and her belly sour. She always felt drained after the sight came through. She wasn't sure whether it was the hate she felt for it, or the dreadful anticipation as she saw things go a little out of the ordinary. As she knew a vision had entered her world and she had started to see. In any case, she was completely finished.
“I saw that,” she said in a croaky voice. “I saw death. Much death. You can walk through, but only if you heed this...” she whispered. She shook her head and felt anger rise in her. How dare he? He'd almost sent her back to that nauseating, horrifying place of vision. She sighed.
“My lady?”
“Don't make me search,” she said testily. “I'll not revisit it.”
“My lady, I wouldn't. I'd rather forgo the warning. Just have you.”
She looked up at him. Her head stopped hurting, or at least in that moment she wasn't even aware o it vaguely.
“Sir...I...”
Whatever she had been planning to say, and she wasn't sure what that had been, was interrupted as his lips mingled with hers.
She gasped and leaned back as he pushed her against the pillowed headboard, his firm, insistent lips needing hers, his tongue entering her mouth, his hands burying themselves in her hair or at her waist. She tried to push against him but she knew she wasn't really meaning to resist him. His fingers squeezed her waist and her body caught fire as she felt the firm grip of his fingers exploring her.
I should not let him touch me like this, in this place, in that style.
She did not want to heed that memory. She wanted to feel him, wanted to taste him, to feel that hard, lean body pressing against her, pushing her down against the headboard, that chest rubbing on her bust.
“Sir,” she moaned as he moved away. “Please. No.”
He jumped back instantly. His face was a picture of contrition.
“Forgive me, please.”
She sighed. “You have done nothing,” she said kindly. She meant it. Her body was throbbing all over and she would not wish him to stop, though she knew how vital it was that he did so. She sighed and leaned back.
“I should...”
“No,” Amabel said, reaching out for his fingers and holding them tight. “Yes, you must go,” she agreed gently. “But not now.”
He swallowed. “I do not know...”
“You will do no harm,” Amabel said, “if you simply stay to say goodbye first?”
He smiled at her. “I do not think I can,” he said. His brown eyes were tentative, two uncertain wells.
She frowned at him.
“I do not wish to say goodbye, my lady,” he said in a tight voice. “Only that I will see you soon.”
She stared at him. It felt as if someone had come into her heart and inflamed it. She drew in a shaky breath.
“My lord,” she whispered.
“We will meet again,” he said with a small smile. “I believe it.”
“I do, too,” she said with conviction. She tried to resist the temptation to look, to see if the sight could show her anything, but it had almost left her – all she had was a sense of a tired, weary aliveness.
If he stuck to the right-hand side, he would live.
“I should leave you now,” he said with a tentative grin.
She nodded. “Go, then.”
“Yes.”
Neither of them moved. She tried to rise but as she did her head fell back into blackness and she blinked to clear her vision of the dark. She lay back.
“I should go,” he said. He came to the bed and she felt his hand touch her finger. “My lady, stay well,” he said with a gentle voice. “I will see you when I return again.
“Yes,” she said with a smile. She did know that.
Then he was gone.
She heard his feet go down the hallway and she closed her eyes, relishing the memories of his kiss. It was much later that she sat up and tried again to stand. This time she was on her feet and groaning when she heard someone in the hallway.
She dragged herself to the door and looked out. Who was it?
When she returned and sat on the embroidery-covered chair by the dressing table, she saw the door open in the side where Glenna slept – the heavy cloth dividing the one part of the bigger chamber from hers was only thick enough to let light show where the door opened and closed, but still, she saw it.
A moment later, Glenna appeared.
“My lady! Oh...”
“I collapsed,” Amabel said thinly. “Yes, it was a vision. Yes, I saw something. I am not going to discuss it. You know I won't.”
Glenna nodded. “Yes, I understand. Yes.”
“Well, then,” Amabel said grimly. She hated even having to mention the sight and all its implications. “Can you help me?”
Glenna nodded. “I can fetch you something to drink, milady...some strawberry decoction, it helped last time. And you should lie down a while, with the curtains closed...”
As she allowed Glenna to care for her, Amabel found herself thinking of the man who had cared for her so tenderly, with whom she had, now that she thought about it, shared more than she ever did of her visions. The memory of his kiss on her lips and the feel of his hands on her body would stay with her until he returned once again.