Free Beloved Stranger by PATRICIA POTTER

to borderers raiding is a way of life.”
    “How was he killed?”
    “An arrow. He died of infection. I could not stop it.”
    “Is that why you tried so hard to stop mine?”
    “Aye, part of it, I think.”
    “I owe you much, madam.”
    She seemed flustered by the address. “I will fetch the lute.”
    For the first time since he woke in this strange world, he was aware of amusement. Kimbra Charlton did not seem to be the kind of person to be flustered. Her competence and stubbornness awed him. The fact that she had plundered the fallen did not bother him as much as it first did. He supposed he would do the same, if necessary, to feed his own.
    Did he have his own? He evidently knew a lullaby. A powerful loneliness swept over him. Did someone believe him dead? Did he leave a wife without the means to survive? Each question was like another sword in his gut.
    Audra had not left his side. “I will take you to our waterfall,” she said.
    “A waterfall?”
    “Aye, it is ours, Mater’s and mine. No one else knows about it.”
    “A magic place then,” he said.
    Her eyes danced with conspiratory glee. “You must never tell anyone.”
    “I will not,” he pledged.
    “Mayhap you can milk Bess, as well.”
    “Bess?”
    “Our cow.”
    “I am not sure I know how to milk a cow.”
    “Everyone knows how to milk a cow,” she said. “I do.”
    “All by yourself?”
    “Aye. I like Bess, and she likes me.”
    He could not imagine anyone—man or beast—not liking the lass. “I am impressed,” he said.
    She giggled. “I like you,” she confided.
    “Is there anyone you do not like?”
    “Cedric,” she said readily.
    “Who is Cedric?”
    “He was here three days ago. He wants us to marry him.”
    “Why do you not like him?”
    “He hurt Bear.”
    “I would not like him then, either,” he said and found that indeed he did not. Something inside him was repelled by cruelty.
    The woman returned then. No, not the woman. Kimbra. Kimbra Charlton. He did not know quite what to call her, either to her face or in his mind. Kimbra was too intimate for their positions. Healer and patient. Jailor and prisoner.
    Except despite all her protestations that he was here because she wanted a ransom, he did not feel like a prisoner.
    She held a lute in her hands and handed it to him as he sat up in the bed. His hands ran over the instrument, then he fingered the strings with familiar ease. He found himself playing a melody and after a moment started to sing. The words came naturally, but they were not in English.
    He finished and looked up at her. “It seems I do play the lute.”
    “Aye,” she said, but there was no accompanying smile. Her gray eyes were intent on the lute. “Could you teach Audra?”
    “I am not sure I could teach anyone. I do not even know how I learned, but I will try.”
    Her eyes sparkled then for the first time. He had not thought her lovely before, but he did now, even in the black mourning gown she wore and the proper cap covering her dark hair. He remembered her in the warrior’s clothes she wore the night she had brought him here. He had been nearly unconscious, but he remembered seeing her kneeling beside him.
    Even then, she’d radiated with a passion for life.
    He realized he was beginning to feel more than gratitude toward her. He also knew he had to stifle those feelings. He might well be wed and have bairns of his own. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t conjure up a face in his memory. Not of a woman. Not of wee bairns. Surely if someone was important to him, an image would surface.
    “We should let Mr. Howard sleep now,” Kimbra Charlton said.
    He placed the lute at his side.
    “I do not want to leave,” Audra pleaded.
    “He will be here in the morning.”
    She left with Audra, closing the door behind her.
    He picked up the lute again. Even that movement hurt. He had not wanted to show pain to the child, but it remained in every movement. Yet the lute felt so familiar in