He watched the soldiers hold the torches to some of the dead folks’ clothing. When they reached the lass, one of the men held his torch to her skirts. She cried out, stopping Tristan’s steps. He grinded his teeth and closed his eyes. Why was he bothering himself with this lass? People died. It happened every day. But she was about to be burned alive.
He spun around. “Cease! Dinna touch her!” he shouted to the soldiers about to set her ablaze. Bastards! They could see she was alive. She was crying. No, she was wailing—it just wasn’t very loud. She looked as if she didn’t have enough strength to stay alive much longer. “D’ye see she is alive?”
They smirked and sneered at him. “You are from the north.”
“Ye are perceptive,” he said through clenched teeth. “So ye do see her breathin’, and still ye would set her on fire.”
When he heard his words coming from his mouth, he grew even angrier. He reached around him for his bow and reached over his shoulder for an arrow. “Put the torches down or I will kill the three of ye.”
One of them laughed and drew his blade.
Tristan let the arrow fly and struck the soldier through the throat.
Tristan returned his bow around his head and shoulder and dragged his claymore from its sheath before the man’s body hit the ground. He took the hilt in both hands and held it ready.
“We are the king’s guard!” one protested, but did not draw his blade.
“Ye will be dead before ye know it and yer torches will be on the ground anyway, so why dinna ye just put them down, away from her now.”
“Who is she? Your wife? Sister?”
Tristan moved toward them. They dropped their torches and leaped backward.
Now what did he intend to do? Damnation! Did he wait here until she passed? He looked down at her. She was awake and staring at him, her large, bloodshot eyes were dark and shone like polished onyx surrounded by lush, dark lashes. Her dark hair was stringy and damp and hung loose to somewhere down her back.
“Thank you,” she said hoarsely, pulling strength from someplace within.
He nodded, glared at the soldiers, and then at her. “Now what do I do?” He didn’t know why he asked her. Mayhap in the hopes that she would insist that he leave. What the hell was he doing anyway? He wasn’t any kind of knightly, courtly, whatever nobility deemed genteel at the moment man. No gallant hero from his Uncle Torin’s stories of King Arthur and Avalon.
“I do…” She coughed. He closed his eyes and took a step away. “I do not want to be…alone.”
All right, he thought, throwing up his hands. His blade flashed in the high sun. The two soldiers finally ran off. Tristan sheathed his long blade and went to his horse. He thought he heard her soft voice call out. He reached for his saddlebag and pulled his plaid from within. He didn’t usually wear it so as not to draw attention to himself. His long coat provided warmth enough.
Folding the plaid over his shoulder and cursing under his breath, he returned to her. When she saw him, she smiled through her fears.
He rolled his eyes heavenward then looked her over laid out in the pile. He didn’t speak for he feared if he did, she would speak back. He didn’t want to get to know her, or get attached. She would be dead soon, but until then she didn’t have to be alone. And he didn’t have to be tardy to his tasks.
He didn’t think he would get sick. He’d been exposed to the pestilence many times and had never grown ill. He accredited his good health to God, washing his hands often, and drinking a tonic every day of different herbs and oils, along with lemon rinds, prescribed by his cousin’s apothecary wife, Lily. He didn’t know if the latter two helped any, but they couldn’t hurt. As for his plaid, he’d burn it later.
He turned his face away from her and covered her with his plaid. He wrapped it around her and lifted her over his shoulder. He hefted her away from the pile and carried her to his horse, all without touching anything but his plaid.
He wasn’t sure why he helped her. Mayhap in the hope that God would forgive him for killing so many off the battlefield. Mayhap to let him die a dignified death in battle, not in sickness. It wasn’t as if he killed the undeserving.
He said nothing while he mounted his horse and set her, wrapped like a mummy, across his lap, resting her head in the crook of his elbow. She didn’t try to speak. For that, he was thankful. But then he decided that her watching him with her deep, dark eyes was worse.
“Dinna stare at me, lass. It makes me uneasy.”
She blinked and he almost stopped scowling. She was no spring maiden. She was perhaps nineteen or twenty, but there was something radiantly pure about her beneath her sallow, sunken features. “What kind of word is that?” she asked so softly he had to dip his ear to her lips to hear her. “Dinna?” she repeated.
He turned his head to gape at her and straightened so that his lips didn’t touch hers. “What d’ye mean what kind of word is dinna?” he asked, not too much farther away. “’Tis dinna.”
A faint smile curled her dry, cracked lips. “I have never heard it before.”
Now it was his turn to stare at her. “Ye never heard a Highlander speak?”
She shook her head and then turned away from him and coughed. “I’m cold.”
He pulled her closer to his body and then adjusted her hood over her head. A stray strand of her chestnut-looking hair fell over her eye. He left it there but it called his attention even after she slept,
