He released a breath and dug his fingers in her hair, as though that could keep him from sinking into the despair that sought to suck him down like quicksand every time he relived the past.
“I did not want to take Thomas with me to Bergerac, but he was young and eager, much like I had once been.”
The garrisons had been camped outside Bergerac, surrounding the French town. The winter had been particularly cold, and the army had grown restless. Smaller groups had made raids into the countryside as a means of foraging for food and supplies. Will eased his conscience by telling himself the army depended upon such raids for survival. If innocent men, women, and children were killed during the confiscation of goods and securing of supplies, it was all a part of the brutality of war.
Even as he excused the killing, Will understood that taking food from poor French people ensured their death anyway, by starvation rather than by sword.
“I never let Thomas out of my sight.” Will shivered as he recalled the cold of that winter. “But he was ill, supplies were low, and we were hungry. Thomas was too weak to go anywhere, and I tasked my squire with watching him. I left to lead a raid of a church tower rumored to contain a large supply of food.”
The newer soldiers always were more susceptible to the diseases that were rampant in the army camps. Will hadn’t worried about Thomas, had known his brother simply needed time to adjust to the starkness of life on campaign.
Unfortunately, the forage had been farther away and lasted longer than Will expected. Even now, regret pummeled him as he pictured the flames licking the church tower. Families had locked themselves inside to evade the English soldiers and protect their fortress. At the threat of the fire and the first flames, Will expected the people to come outside and surrender themselves and their goods.
But the French had decided they would rather die than face the English. In hindsight, Will could understand why. They’d heard the stories of having to offer patis—money for protection—which so few of them had. Without the payment, many captains brutally beat, chopped off the ears of, or even strangulated their prisoners. The townspeople hadn’t known Will wouldn’t do those things to them.
Whatever the case, the winter foray hadn’t produced the supplies the English army had needed and instead resulted in languishing death for innocent people. Will had watched helplessly as the structure was erelong engulfed in flames, the screams and cries of the dying inside fading to silence in the crisp winter day.
He’d ridden away, discouraged with the futility of the war, the weight of needless deaths upon him, and with very little to show for all the destruction. After two days of hard riding, they arrived back at the encampment around Bergerac only to discover chaos and more bloodshed.
The French captain, Arnaud de Cervole, had attacked during the moment of weakness, when several contingencies—in addition to Will’s—had been away pillaging. Cervole slaughtered those too weak to defend themselves and took some of the noblemen as prisoners.
“Thomas was captured.” Panic welled in Will’s gut, the same way it had the day he’d gone into his tent only to find his squire dead and Thomas gone. Marian’s hand rose to his chest, to his heart. The steady pressure and warmth brought him back to Blackheath, to the June night, to the sweetness of having her there in his arms even if they were both captives.
“I sent missives to Cervole pleading with him to take me in Thomas’s stead. But he would not harken and demanded one thousand gold francs for Thomas’s release. I returned home with all haste, emptied the coffers at Chesterfield Park, and crossed the Channel.” Will closed his eyes against the memory of the frantic race to procure the ransom and get back to Thomas, the days of sleeplessness and bone-weary travel.
His throat tightened, and suddenly he didn’t want to talk anymore. He wanted to stand up and punch something.
Marian lifted her face away from his chest. Her breath hovered above his mouth. And then her lips brushed his. Tentatively and yet tenderly. Her kiss contained understanding and heartbrokenness—as though she felt his pain in every part of her being.
Her lips moved to his cheeks, eyes, nose, almost as if she was giving him a benediction that offered forgiveness and absolution for everything he’d ever done. When her lips returned to his, he was ready for her, ready to receive her blessing. Maybe he’d never be able to let go of the burden of Thomas’s death. But her acceptance, regardless of his mistakes, had loosened the straps of the heavy weight.
He could not kiss her tenderly just now. His need for her swelled too forcefully. He captured her mouth and did not tame himself. He kissed her until the heat and the passion consumed him and made him forget about Thomas and the war with the French and even the fact that he was a prisoner and would go into battle today.
He wasn’t sure if he would have stopped himself from taking her fully, except she pulled away and buried her face against his chest—in embarrassment or discomfort, he wasn’t sure. Even if they were secluded and covered, they weren’t alone. And this was neither the time nor place to make her wholly his. That would need to wait for when they were alone, and he could cherish her as she deserved.
For long moments, he held her tight, willing his pulse and breathing to return to normal. She, too, seemed to be fighting to bring herself under control. And that thought pleased him.
He lifted a silent prayer of gratitude that God had brought her to him. In the same breath he despised that he must leave her today to go into battle. Although he’d always believed he was ready to die—that in dying he could somehow atone for his mistakes at Bergerac—he was no longer so certain. He wanted to spend every night in Marian’s arms. He wanted to taste of her kisses every day. And he wanted to remain like this—baring the deepest parts of their souls with one another.
If he lived beyond today, he prayed God would make a way for them to be together without so many months of separation.
He brushed a kiss against her forehead.
“I guess it’s my turn,” she whispered.
He wanted to tell her she didn’t have to share about her past. He suspected in doing so, the truth might disrupt this beautiful peaceful moment, and he wasn’t ready to let go of it.
She struggled to put some distance between them. As much as he wanted to hang on to her, he loosened his grip.
She seemed to search for the right words to say and her body grew more rigid. “If I tell you the truth, you’ll think I’m insane.”
“Test me.”
She drew in a deep breath. “I’m from another time and place.”
~ 23 ~
MARIAN WAITED FOR WILL to respond, and when he didn’t, she repeated herself. “I’m from a different time and place.”
“Yes, you’re from the Low Countries.”
“No. I’m from America. It’s a place vastly different from this.”
“America?” He seemed to test the word. “I have never heard of this region.”
Of course not, since over a hundred years still needed to pass before Christopher Columbus would discover it.
“You wouldn’t know of it.” She drew in a breath to fortify herself for what she must say next. “Nor would you know of my time, a time yet to come.”
“Yet to come? As in the future?”