Free Lion Heart by A. C. Gaughen Page B

I’d been through.
    I could never be happy waiting for David to save me. I had been frightened before, and now I couldn’t stand to give into that fear, to let it take me and rule me and keep me. And so I did what I had to do.
    By the time words formed in my mouth, he were gone. I went back to Eleanor’s rooms, and my stomach twisted at the sight of the food. I ate a little bread, but it felt ashy and dry in my mouth.
    â€œLadies,” Eleanor said. I didn’t even notice her gesture, but it seemed a clear command enough that the two women rose without a word and left the room.
    I were sitting on a padded bench, in a dress—the ladies hadn’t had much on hand in the way of men’sclothing when we bathed—and facing the fire. Eleanor stood and sat beside me, but the opposite way, so our legs were pressed together but I were looking into flame and she were looking at the cold night of the English countryside.
    â€œMy girl,” she murmured. “You were fearsome today.”
    I shut my eyes. “Yes.”
    â€œI have been through battles, Marian.” I turned to her a bit, the profile of her white stone face bright. “I rode in the Second Crusade—did you know that?”
    â€œI thought it were a story.”
    â€œWas,” she corrected. She shook her head. “No. I rode. No one touched me, and I swung my sword and carved a path through men. Through flesh.” Her eyes shut. “It was gruesome, to say the least. The blood—I still carry that blood on me, some days.”
    I looked at my hands, and they were bandaged, clean, and if anything, a little pink from scrubbing and pain. I’d washed off the blood of men’s lives.
    â€œI wasn’t very good at it. It made it easy to never do it again. I was making a statement, trying to inspire our men. And I did—oh, I did. And I learned more about what sends men to war. What keeps them alive when they’re there.”
    I knew she looked at me then, but I looked to the fire instead of her.
    â€œThey’re fighting for something. I’ve made a life of convincing them they’re fighting for me, but that’s rather beside the point. A fighting man will die without something to fight for.”
    â€œAnd a woman?” I asked her.
    She drew a slow breath. “Everyone needs something—someone—to fight for, Marian.”
    I turned my eyes to her slow, and she met mine with a sad smile like she knew what I were about to say. “I’m not going to Ireland,” I told her soft.
    She smoothed my hair back over my shoulder, nodding with a heavy sigh.
    â€œThere is no safety to be had,” I told her. “Death has walked this far with me as a shadow just behind me, and all I’ve ever had, chained in a dungeon or hiding in the forest, is my ability to fight. To never give up. To never let this awful world win. You told me to protect the things I love, Eleanor, and I will do that the only way I know how. In Nottingham, with Rob, with a knife in my hand. I will try to stay out of Prince John’s notice as long as I can manage, but he will find out I’m alive. And when he does, I will do everything I can to stop him.”
    She nodded. “Then there are things you can do. You’re a noblewoman, now—not an earl in your own right, but you control an earldom. You’re one of the highest ladies in the land, and not so far below John himself. You must show the nobles that—and makethem see that John’s retaliation can strike them as well.”
    I frowned. “Eleanor, if I represent an earldom, I have dependents, don’t I? Vassals. People who are being asked to pay the tax. Who is collecting it from them? Was this land taken from someone else? Do they know?”
    She glanced out the window. “It was taken from the Crown’s own coffers, my dear. It was one of the lands John oversaw.”
    My eyes widened. “My father gave me