D. A. Houdek

Deb Houdek Rule

Web designer - Science Fiction author - Civil War historian - Genealogy researcher

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Of All the Western Stars

by Deb Houdek Rule

Chapter 15

Ashur stretched languorously and grinned in lascivious pleasure. This was much better. Still lacking in amenities considered basic to his era, Agnes’ house far outmatched the dark ages discomfort of Stafford Castle. Best of all, Agnes had a bath tub which a string of willing servants had filled with hot water for him. Revising his long-held opinions on the greatest achievements of the human race, Ashur shifted faster-than-light space travel down a notch on the list. By far the greatest accomplishment he could think of at the moment was hot running water on command, failing that swarms of servants willing to provide a simulation. When one hadn’t bathed in far too long, all other technologies and luxuries were suddenly pale and minor by comparison.

Ashur scooped some more of the soap out of the ornate porcelain pot and rubbed it over himself savoring the feeling of cleanness on his skin. Closing his eyes, he drank in the rosy scent of the soap. The scent was that of Lisette, and the memory of her touch on his body filled his mind. He’d been disappointed to find her gone from here. Reaching his ship was turning out to be far more difficult than he’d imagined. At least Ashur told himself that was the primary reason he wanted to see her again.

That aunt of hers, though… Ashur shook his head wryly at the thought of the eccentric widow. Sometimes he thought she was trying to seduce him, lure him to her bed like a vampire and suck him dry. At other times he felt more like a prize bull in some unknown breeding scheme of hers. Her comments varied from obtuse to embarrassingly blunt.

Ashur liked her.

She was able to switch her dignity on and off at will. Before Lady Stafford, Agnes had been the consummate Dowager, widow of a grand, old nobleman, gazing down benevolently from her lofty perch on the lesser nobility. As soon as the carriage rolled out of sight of the castle, Agnes began telling Ashur a lewd, and hardly to be believed, story about Henry Stafford. Interspersed with her merry chatter had been subtle, but profoundly probing questions and intimations about Lisette. Or at least he thought they were about Lisette. Maybe the shameless old strumpet really was after him for herself. How much did gigolos go for in sixteenth century England? Ashur chuckled out loud at the thought. He knew what his father would say. With that gruff, disapproving look of his he’d be hiding a grin beneath his huge mustache, and in a deadpan tone congratulating his wayward son on having finally found a position suited to his abilities and interests.

What was Agnes up to? Ashur had already gathered an impression that this world out of a dusty history book he’d found himself in wasn’t quite the puritanical place he’d first thought, but certainly she wouldn’t sanction any, uh, activity between he and Lisette, would she?

Ashur tried to visualize Lisette, picture where she was now, what she was doing. Closing his eyes and sinking in the warm water down to his chin, Ashur built an image of her in his mind sitting at a window sewing. The silver flash of her needle stitched erotic suggestions into the pattern of her work, while those bosoms of hers heaved just as they were meant to heave. Hmmm… better yet, she was in a tub of bubbling water, hair spread around her like a cloak, beads of water dripping from her cheek, down her bare throat, down her chest… Oh, yes. That was a fine image. What was this girl he’d found, with her spark of anger to chastise him even as she enticed and teased? Dancing naked in the woods, the coy smile peeping out at him from behind a tangle of leaves, she invited him onward. They’d make love in a nest of green, while above a shooting star heralded their bliss.

A shooting star… The full importance of that tiny golden picture on the sleeve of a shirt suddenly struck him. Lisette knew. She must have seen his ship on reentry. He’d come in too steep, overloaded the thermal dispersion systems. The ship would have streaked across the sky like a meteor as friction heated the hull. She’d seen it come down. It wasn’t a lucky accident Lisette had found Ashur, after all. She’d engineered it, led the Stafford party to the place she’d seen a spaceship crash to earth. No wonder she’d avoided his questions. What must she think of him?

Galloping down one of the tracks of the road, Lisette gritted her teeth with determination. Only as a child had she ridden astride a horse like a man, and then only until her mother found out. Now each shock of the horse’s gallop tortured her abused body further. Raw pain radiated up each leg and into her back. Hot stickiness on the saddle told her that her flesh had been rubbed away on her thigh and was bleeding. Her cap was lost somewhere and her hair had come undone, sticking to her sweaty neck.

Lisette ignored it. She ignored it all; the pain, the exhaustion, the burning thirst, and kept urging the horse onward. A shiver of fear came over her as she entered the forest, intensifying as the road ahead darkened, sunlight blocked by the thick canopy closing overhead. Thoughts of highwaymen, murderers, and vagabonds filled her. The roads were not safe to any less than a well-armed party of men, and even they dare not travel at night. What would they make of a girl of obvious wealth riding alone?

She dare not shirk. Alyce needs me.

The horse breathed hard. Its flanks dripped sweat. The mare tried to slow her pace. Lisette kicked it as hard as she could, wishing she wore shoes with harder heels. With the whip she’d found on the saddle, she beat the animal’s rump, forcing it to gallop faster.

The rhythmic drumming of the horses hooves on the packed dirt of the road pounded the refrain over and over into her. Alyce needs me. Alyce needs me. Lisette tried to pray, but managed scarcely more than a babble as incoherent as Alyce’s delirious ravings. Risking a fall, Lisette released her grip on the saddle with one hand to touch the cross at her throat. Please, God, she prayed, please!

How long had she been riding? Hours? Days? It seemed brighter up ahead. Lisette struggled to remember the details of this road she’d taken so few days earlier. Had there been a clearing, or was this the end of the forest as it opened onto the plains? She couldn’t remember.

A shout behind her froze her heart. Highwaymen! Lisette jabbed her heels still harder into her roan’s sides but, absurdly, she slowed. Beating the mare with the whip until the animal’s hide split and bled, Lisette frantically tried to force the horse to gallop faster. Snorting, the horse’s ears twitched. It dropped to a trot, then to a walk. Her whipping and kicks to no avail, the beast stopped and stood still in the narrow track, hanging her head down.

The echo of hoofbeats resounded off the trees. It sounded as though an army chased her. God help her. God help poor Alyce. She’d failed. The recalcitrant roan stood unmoving, blowing huge, hot breaths in and out, its foam-flecked sides heaving. The mare’s body trembled beneath her.

In moments she’d be dead, murdered by the bandits, leaving her parents two daughters to mourn. Maybe she could hide in the forest. No. They were too near and Lisette doubted her tormented legs would even support her to stand, much less run. She’d not surrender easily. Closing the fingers of her right hand tight around the whip, she strove to prepare her body for battle and her soul for Heaven.

The army of echoes diminished as they neared. To her astonishment, Lisette heard a familiar voice hail her. Turning in the saddle, she looked back to see Geraint galloping toward her on a black horse she recognized as one of her father’s finest. She looked around wildly. No highwaymen. Geraint was alone. Like the horse upon which she sat, his animal was covered in foam and near to death. Relief swept over her, and thankfulness to see the face of her betrothed in this frightening place.

She tried to say his name as he pulled the black to a halt beside her, but her dry throat would produce no sound. Without a word he handed her a container. She gulped gratefully, the ale in the container washing away the dust in her throat.

Once able to speak, she handed it back. "We must hurry on, to fetch your mother. Alyce is gravely ill and my Lady Cicely must save her with her medicines," she blurted, expecting Geraint would at once goad the horses into motion again.

Instead he reached out to pat the roan on the neck, looking downward at it. "A good horse," he commented. "You rode her nearly to death. A good horse, stopped when she heard her master’s voice."

Lisette stared at him. "This is your horse? I knew not you were in Houghton. Did you just arrive? Oh, pray, God… did your mother come with you?" Lisette felt a mad surge of hope. It would be another miracle, the answer to a prayer that even as she rode to fetch the Lady Cicely, God had instead directed her to them, to save Alyce.

Geraint ignored her questions. Instead he sat silently, patting the roan, for an eternity that could have been no more than a minute. Lisette wanted to shake him, to shatter his damnable quiet and composure. After too long a time, he raised his head and looked directly at her. In his eyes she read clearly the anguish, the misery of his mission.

"I am sorry, Lisette," he whispered. "So very sorry…"

"What? What is it?" she demanded, knowing even as she asked what he would say, inside screaming for him to remain silent, not to say the words her heart told her were coming. Hot tears welled up and began to flow even before Geraint could speak the words.

"Alyce is dead."

Lisette winced as she pulled her thigh loose from the saddle, stuck to the leather and fabric by blood both wet and dried from her raw flesh. Fresh blood trickled down her leg as she swung stiffly off the horse. Geraint caught her as she collapsed toward the ground. It was, she realized dully, the most intimate embrace in which he had ever held her.

As soon as her shaky limbs would hold her, Geraint released her and took up the reins of the worn out horses, leading them slowly around the meadow to cool them. With apathetic recognition, Lisette glanced about this place. They were at the very spot, at the forest’s edge, where they had stopped for a meal and a rest, very near the place she had found Ashur.

What cruel fates were written in those western stars that May Day night. Granted, or so it too briefly had seemed, was her wish to find true love when she experienced that unbridled sweep of ecstasy that seized her when she looked upon Ashur. Gone, that was, lost to the reality of her obligation to another man. And gone, too, taken by the warning of death in the star’s streaking light, was dear, gentle Alyce.

Alyce… Memories of her sister flooded over Lisette; the lusty cries of her as an infant as Lisette, a curious little girl with a baby face herself, peeked in to see her new sister. Their carefree days of childhood, playing in the pastures and fields, splashing on the banks of the stream that flowed through the village. Alyce always had liked it there.

Unsteadily, Lisette made her way down the grassy slope to the rivulet of spring water that ran nearby. Removing her shoes and hose, Lisette stepped into the chilly water, letting it wash over her feet and ankles. Heedless of her gown, already thoroughly soiled, Lisette sat on the grass of the bank. Lifting her skirts high, not caring if Geraint saw, she scooped up the water and bathed her sore legs and thighs. Washing the sweat from her face, Lisette let the cool water soothe her eyes, swollen from crying, gritty from dust and lack of sleep.

Sitting here in the quiet of this tranquil place, the sun in a cloudless sky warm upon her, the lazy drone of bees upon the spring flowers, and the breeze through the treetops the only sounds, it would be easy to forget that poor Alyce was dead. But the ache in her heart did not ease and soon Alyce would be lying in a cold, dank grave, the worms eating into her dear flesh. Lisette shuddered and gulped. Alyce should be laughing in the sun, not rotting in the earth.

The horses cooled enough to safely drink, Geraint led them down to the stream. "Are you all right?" he asked quietly, the concern in his voice clear.

Lisette nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

"The horses must rest longer. Then I’ll take you home."

Geraint sat down beside her on the grass. Taking her hand hesitantly in his, he held it lightly. His touch was strong and comforting. In his own way, Lisette knew, Geraint was trying to reach out to her, to show her his heart. For the first time, Lisette knew a hint, the barest glimpse, of what marriage was meant to be. What everyone was telling her was right. It wasn’t the fiery heat of passion that made a marriage, nor the loveplay that was to be found in a bed. A marriage was in the heart, in the understanding between two souls who needed no words, in the touch of a familiar hand, and in the knowing that the other person would be there in times of sorrow as well as times of joy. She didn’t have that yet with Geraint, it wasn’t there. But in his simple attempt to comfort her and share her grief, Geraint showed Lisette a sparkle of hope for the future, for their future together.

Twining her fingers with Geraint’s, Lisette squeezed his hand tightly. She wiped the tears from her eyes with her other hand and looked around her. This was special, this place. Perhaps, even in the midst of death, her wish had been granted and she had found her true love here after all. And that love wasn’t a mysterious stranger, but her own betrothed husband.