Hopefully before Colin saw what was happening.
The journey there was short and silent. Well, silent except for the rasp of Marie’s breathing. It was the not the sound of a healthy form and Ali wondered if perhaps she had breathed in fire and ash. ’Twas nothing short of a miracle that she hadn’t died.
Ali couldn’t help but wish she had.
They reached the roof far too soon for Ali’s taste. She blinked against the late-afternoon sun and looked about her for guardsmen. It was difficult to see, for Marie held her head at an odd angle, leaving Ali unable to see where her feet were going. Trusting Marie that far was unsettling enough.
“Stay where you are or she dies,” Marie commanded. “Go back into the guard tower and stay there.”
Ali could only assume Marie was commanding Colin’s guards. There was no sound of protest and Ali supposed she shouldn’t have expected one. After all, it wasn’t often that a man watched his lord’s wife being forced to the roof with a knife in her back.
“And now,” Marie announced, “we’ll wait. I don’t see him below, but my eyes aren’t perhaps what they were before.”
“He’s gone visiting—”
“Liar,” Marie spat. “I saw him this morning myself, giving you that disgusting kiss. Or was it disgusting? Is it a pleasure to have a man such as he is as your lover?”
“’Tis pleasant enough,” Ali managed.
That was a mistake. She cried out in spite of herself as Marie wrenched her head back farther. Ali was fairly sure she would soon fall from the walkway from having lost her balance alone. Marie surely wasn’t strong enough to hold her upright, nor would she likely grieve overmuch if she failed at that task.
But Marie said no more. She merely held Ali’s head back and kept the knife pressed into her ribs.
It seemed an eternity that they stood there, frozen in a deadly dance step. Ali came to the point where she thought that she might fling herself off the battlements merely to ease the pain in her body that standing thusly was giving her. She was just certain she couldn’t bear any more.
“You don’t want her.”
Ali bit her lip to keep from making any noise. That was Colin.
On the battlements.
A more terrifying place for him there surely couldn’t have been, yet there he was, come to rescue her. She wondered if he knew just how close Marie was to ending her life.
“Release her and you can have me,” he said, his voice sounding very strained.
Marie laughed. “As if you would allow it!”
“Heights, they ... um ... distress me,” he said. “You have the advantage here.”
“Do I indeed,” Marie said, sounding pleased. “Now, this is something I never expected.”
The next thing Ali knew, she was falling to her knees and there was a blinding agony in her face. She realized, as blood dripped from her nose, that Marie had slammed her face into the rock and let her fall. Ali could scarce see for the waves of pain that washed over her. She dragged her sleeve across her eyes to clear them of her tears, then watched as Marie advanced toward Colin.
His hands, both of them, were clutching the rock before him.
Damn the man, he truly intended to allow Marie to have him in Ali’s place.
She staggered to her feet, drew the dagger from her boot, and flung herself at her stepmother. It was a precarious place to be, the battlements, with the wall on her left only waist-high and a goodly drop on her right down to the roof of the great hall. Either way, a fall would be fatal.
So she drove her knife into Marie’s back, then shoved her as hard as she could over the wall and down into the bailey.
Marie fell with a scream.
Ali threw herself at her husband, realizing too late that it was a very, very foolish thing to do.
He teetered.
Then he fell.
Back onto the walkway, fortunately, but it was a very undignified sprawl and one that came close to sending him off the roof to the right, down to grace the top of the great hall.
“By the saints,” he wheezed, “do you intend to kill me as well?”
She fell to her knees and grasped him by the feet. “I didn’t mean to, of course, you great oaf. Here, give me your hand and let me help you.”
He shook his head vigorously. “I’ll crawl, thank you just the same. Can you follow, or do you need aid?”
“Not aid from you, obviously. Go on. I’ll be behind you.”
And so he crawled. Ali was feeling none too steady on her own feet, so she inched along behind him as well, making herself something of a vow to never again loiter at such a height with the man she loved. Which meant that she likely shouldn’t venture there overmuch herself, lest he felt the need to follow and perform another rescue.
Though given the fact that her stepmother was likely quite dead on the ground, perhaps there would never be another need for a rescue.
Colin pulled her to her feet when she reached the guard tower, then hauled her into his arms.
“She broke your nose, damn her,” he said with a curse. “Did she stick you as well?”
“Not deeply,” Ali said. “I’m not worried for myself. The babe, however—”
Then she realized what she’d blurted out. She looked quickly up at him to see that he had paled several shades beyond the normal paling he did when faced with such heights.
He teetered.
He swayed.
And then he fainted.
But it was gracefully done, she had to admit, as she made no attempt to stop him from swooning right onto the landing. He lay there, a large, formidable man who had been felled by the thought of the smallest, most helpless thing imaginable.
She smiled and sat down next to him to wait for him to awake.
His dagger was handy, so she cut up part of her gown and wrapped it around her middle to tighten up Marie’s knife’s work, then she cut up a bit more and held it gingerly to her nose. She supposed he would have to wiggle it about again, just as he had before, and that was something definitely she was not looking forward to. She supposed now her face would lose most of its beauty. Her nose would likely bear the same little crook that Colin’s did. But his was attractive enough, she supposed, for a man who truly had no handsomeness.
But he had such a fine character.
And, she had to admit, that there were times she found him quite easy to look at.
Such as now, when he was lying there, stunned by tidings she should have given him next to something softer than a stone floor.
She waited several minutes until he roused, sat up with a start, and looked at her with wide eyes.
“What happened?” he asked, looking around him frantically. “Where are the lads who attacked me? An army it must have been, surely.”
“You fainted.”
“I did not,” he said stiffly. “I was assailed from behind.”
“You were assailed by tidings of your child.”
He swayed again, but she caught him by the arm.
“A babe,” he said faintly.
“Aye.”
He looked at her, then gently put his arms around her and bowed his head to rest it on her shoulder.
“I don’t know what terrifies me more,” he whispered. “That she almost killed you, or that I did nothing to save you.”
“You distracted her,” she said, patting his back. “Colin, you bested your greatest fear to come fight her, without weapons in your hands. Surely there is no shame in that.”
He shuddered, once, then lifted his head. “Your face must pain you.”
“What pains me is my vanity,” she said, wincing at the clamor a smile set up on her visage.
“And I did not faint,” he continued.
“You did.”
“I most certainly did not.”
“Colin, no one attacked you from behind.”
“Worry over you then,” he conceded. “My great love for you was such that I was overcome by emotion—nay, that sounds as daf
t as fainting.” He considered for a moment, then looked at her. “’Twas the unwholesome air up here. Being so close to the clouds cannot be good for a body. Mine is the sort of form that functions best on the ground.” He frowned. “Nay, that makes me sound weak as well—”
She put her hand gently over his mouth. “I won’t tell anyone that the announcement that you are to become a father was what bested you.”
He kissed her palm, then moved her hand away. Then he hesitated. “You won’t?”
“No one would believe it anyway.”
“True,” he agreed. “No sense in having anyone believe you’ve lost your wits.”
“Thank you for preserving my dignity,” she said dryly.
“’Tis the very least I can do,” he said, dragging himself to his feet and gently pulling her to hers. “Now, come away with me, lady, and let us see to your wounds. We should have kept those potion brewers here instead of letting them return to Blackmour. They might have served us.”
“Don’t you know any of their recipes?”
“Me?” he demanded, affronted. “I learned no black arts at their hands. But they did give me a batch of herbs for staunching manly wounds. I suppose that would suffice for yours as well.”
“A pity Marie couldn’t have waited another pair of months to come do her foul work. Your healers would have been here then. Berengaria said they would return after the harvest.”
Colin stared at her in astonishment. “Why? Why would they come to torment me in my own home?”
“They’re coming in their guise as midwives,” she said pleasantly. “Berengaria told me when I would need her.”
He started to say something, then shut his mouth with a snap and turned to descend the stairs, pulling her after him.
“I imagine they’re quite skilled,” she offered.
“Perhaps Nemain will stay behind,” he grumbled. “I could only hope her romance with Blackmour’s cook will be such that a visit here would be unthinkable.”
Ali smiled as she followed him down the steps and on to their bedchamber.
She stopped smiling when he set her nose. It was every bit as painful as it had been the time before.
After she’d stopped howling, Colin turned his tender attentions to her side. She winced at the look on his face as he examined her side. The gravity there was sobering.
“Bad?” she asked.
He shook his head, then looked at her. “Could have been, though. It isn’t deep, and needs no stitching, but we’ll have to watch it closely lest infection sets in. And with the ... um ...”
“Babe,” she supplied. “Your babe.”
He swallowed with difficulty. “Aye, that. I’ll watch you closely for a few days.” He wrapped a cloth about her side, then picked her up and carried her to the bed. “You should rest.”
“Are you leaving?”
“Only to bellow for someone to go and make sure she’s dead. I won’t leave the chamber.”
She shivered. “ ’Tis foolish to fear, but—”
“Fear keeps you alive,” he said simply. “A courageous man isn’t one who feels no fear. A courageous man is one who acts in spite of it. As you did above.”
“She was going to kill you.”
He smiled briefly. “Now you know what motivates me,” he said. “I pity anyone who thinks to harm you. Or the ... um—”
“Babe, Colin. ’Tis but a babe.”
He looked at her with something that greatly resembled awe. “But,” he said in hushed tones, “ ’Tis my babe. Something I never thought to be blessed with.”
“Congratulations, then,” she said, reaching out to touch his cheek. “You’ll make a fine father.”
“Should I survive the birth, aye,” he said weakly. “By the saints, the birth—”
“Don’t think about it,” she commanded, clapping her hand over his mouth. “I can’t catch you now.”
He reached up and gingerly touched the back of his head. “I daresay you didn’t catch me on the roof, either.”
“You’re a large man. I did all I could.”
“Which was no doubt to let me fall unimpeded.” He pursed his lips at her, then rose. “Don’t move. I will return to your side within moments.”
Ali watched him walk unsteadily from the bedchamber, then smiled. She had to blink quite often, mostly because her eyes continued to fill with tears that had more to do with pain than anything else.
Or perhaps that wasn’t as true as she would have liked. She was alive, the saints be praised. The fear of having come so close to losing her life would likely haunt her for some time to come.
But hard on those tears came ones that had nothing to do with pain. Who would have thought that she would find herself so happily wed—and to the very man she’d been certain would be the ruin of her life? But instead, there she was, wed to a man who, as Gillian had once said, had a very tender heart under all his grumbles, a tender heart that he showed her often enough to convince her it was there. And if that wasn’t enough in itself, she would bear him a child come spring.
Now, if he could just survive that long without tarnishing his reputation further by these unmanly displays of emotion and weakness ...
She smiled and closed her eyes.
Epilogue
Hearty brew shimmered and danced in the firelight as it tumbled into a waiting cup. It was swirled about, admired, sniffed by a nose well accustomed to that sort of work. Experienced hands grasped the cup and the contents were downed without hesitation.
Downed in desperation.
Downed as if the contents were all that saved the imbiber from certain destruction.
“ ’Tis but a babe, my lord,” Nemain said with a grumble. “No need to drink yourself into a stupor over it.”
Berengaria watched as Colin ignored Nemain’s advice, reached for another full cup and gulped it down in much the same manner as he had the first three.
“Those were for the mother-to-be,” Nemain said sternly. “To give her strength.”
“I am trying,” Colin responded tightly, “to remain upright myself!”
Magda reached forward and tapped Nemain softly on the shoulder. “He looks as if he’s about to faint again, Nemain. Don’t be stingy.”
Nemain eyed Colin narrowly, then handed him the final cup. “We’ll need more, Berengaria. And why aren’t you in that next chamber, seeing to the birthing of this babe?”
“Our dear Aliénore sent me to inquire about the state of her beloved husband,” Berengaria said with a smile. “So, my lord, how do you? What message shall I carry to your lady, or would you prefer to carry a message yourself?”
Colin blanched, threw back another cup of brew, and rose. He was unsteady on his feet, but the man wasn’t a soldier of vast renown for nothing. He put his shoulders back and fixed a grim expression to his face.
“I’m ready to go myself.”
“This isn’t a hopeless war, my lord,” Berengaria said gently. “She is fine.”
“She’s been screaming.”
“Screaming? Nay, my lord. Voicing a bit of discomfort, perhaps.”
“My name has figured quite prominently in her cursings, lady,” Colin said, looking at her skeptically. “Are you certain she wants me in truth, or is it for some foul purpose that you take me to her?”
“Berengaria!” came the shout from Aliénore’s chamber.
Berengaria took Colin by the arm and bodily dragged him into the next chamber. She left him hovering by the door and arrived at the birthing stool in time to deliver his firstborn. She cleaned the baby, cut its life’s tether to Aliénore, then handed the baby to her. She helped Aliénore to bed, then looked at Colin.
“Will you come see?”
He swayed, swayed a bit more, and then fell to the floor with a mighty crash.
“He’ll rouse soon enough,” Aliénore assured her. “Come sit by me and look. Isn’t she beautiful?”
“She?” came the weak voice from the floor. “She?”
Berengaria looked to her left to see that Colin, though he was fallen, was recovering with goodly speed. He sat up and peered over the edge of the bed. He looked no less terrified than he had before, but his color was better.
“She?” he squeaked.
“Listen to your papa closely, my love,” Aliénore said, stroking the babe’s cheek, “for you’ll not hear that sound often. Manly knights never squeak, except when they’re overcome by great emotion.”
“Bloody hell,” Colin managed hoarsely. “A gel. A gel and I’ve no idea what to do with her.”
Aliénore looked at Berengaria and gave her a smile full of amusement. “I daresay he’ll learn, don’t you think?”
Berengaria rose. “I daresay he will, love. Now, I’ll leave you to introduce your daughter to her father, then I’ll return and see to arranging you properly.”
She walked to the door, then paused and looked back. Colin had gotten to his knees and was currently leaning over the bed.
“A girl,” he said reverently.
“Are you disappointed?”
“Disappointed?” he echoed. “I should think not! There’s no reason she can’t hold a sword.”
“Colin!” Aliénore gasped.
“But finding a mate for her, now that is what I will be losing sleep over. Nay, ’tis best that we just keep her by us. No man I know now could possibly be worthy of her. And since there’s only one of me, I suppose she’ll just have to remain unwed, forever tending my wine and sharpening her skills with me in the lists.”
“Ah, Colin,” Aliénore laughed, “I should expect nothing less from you.”
He looked at her, wearing an expression of complete bewilderment. “What did I say?” he asked. “I’m only trying to keep her safe. Now, to think of a name. Something with a warriorly tone to it, don’t you think?”
“I was actually thinking of Rose—”
“A fine effort, but not exactly what I’m looking for. What think you of—”
Berengaria closed the door with a smile, paused to listen to the raised voices inside, then shook her head and sought out the chamber for honored guests she shared with her companions. She paused before the door, saw the black smoke seeping out, and changed her mind. Perhaps she would retire to the solar for a moment or two before returning to care for Aliénore. With Magda obviously at the cooking fire, it was likely safer that way.