Fires of Winter Read Free Page B

could pass the thick stone walls or the thick wooden floor and door. As it was, I was frightened to death that the smallest noise we made would betray us, and I held Audris in my arms to keep her still and silent. I could feel her little body shaking with fear—poor child, it was my fault, for she would not have been afraid, I think, if I had not myself been terrified. I tried to calm her by telling her over and over that as long as she was with me, I would let no harm come to her. It was a stupid promise and I knew it, but I could think of nothing else to say to comfort her.
    Of course, our silence could not keep our presence secret long. I should have known that the cleaning would not stop with the hall. By early afternoon, our door was flung open suddenly, and a tall woman with thick bronze-colored braids entered. I shrank back, but there was no shadow in the south tower where windows facing southwest and southeast allowed sunlight to pour into the room. For one moment the woman stood frozen, staring at us, then she cried out and ran forward.
    Perhaps I cried out too. Audris’s thin little arms were clasped tightly around my neck. I remember how she screamed when the woman pulled her away from me and lifted her, holding her firmly with one arm. With the other, she urged me to my feet and hurried me down the stair to confront a man, who looked so much like my father that I thought for a moment the groom’s wife had lied when she told me the lord was dead.
    In the next moment I realized he could not be my father because he asked, “Who are you?”
    I had learned early that to display fear brought a harsher punishment than defiance, so I answered boldly, “I am Bruno, Berta’s son.” And then I recognized him as the dark man my father had brought to watch me at my training, and I knew he too was a lord and would protect a lord’s child against the common folk, so I added, “The child is Audris, Lord William’s daughter.”
    The woman was rocking Audris in her arms, trying to quiet her, and Audris was struggling to be free, shrieking, “Boono, Boono,” which was the closest she could come then to my name.
    â€œSet her down, Eadyth,” the dark man said, and Lady Eadyth obeyed.
    Audris ran to me at once, and I whispered, “Hush, you are safe now.” She quieted, slipping her hand into mine and trying to hide herself behind me.
    â€œI am Sir Oliver Fermain,” the dark man said, “Sir William’s brother, and I have come…” He hesitated, staring at Audris, who was half hidden behind me. Then his mouth set hard, and he went on, “I have come to hold Jernaeve for Demoiselle Audris.”
    There was a moment of heavy silence in which grief and fear gripped my throat and closed it. I was very innocent and was afraid of the wrong things. It never occurred to me that Sir Oliver need only slay both Audris and myself, and Jernaeve keep with all its rich lands would be his own and his children’s after him. It would have been so easy. Who was to say that we had not died of the disease as so many others had done? Certainly not his wife whose children would profit. Nor did I fear that I would be thrust out of the keep altogether and left to make my own way, which would have been within Sir Oliver’s right. A whore’s child has no proper place. The horror in my mind was that Audris would be taken from me.
    During that silent moment, Sir Oliver had been looking at what he could see of Audris. Suddenly, he frowned and turned his head to his wife. “Take the child away and clean her and dress her properly.”
    â€œShe is clean,” I cried, heedless of angering him in the agony of losing the one creature who had ever valued me above others. “I could not wash her linen. I—”
    â€œYou are nowise to blame,” Sir Oliver said sharply, raising his voice above Audris’s renewed shrieks, but these grew fainter as