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 6

Ashur’s dark eyes took on a haunted look as he stared at Lisette. Even as his gaze caressed her body in a way that made her tingle all the way down to her toes, she felt the distraction building in him. Her words troubled him in a way she could not fathom. What anguish could there be in so simple a matter as the date? As he ceased to truly see her, looking to some secret, inner place, she recognized in him the same mute despair that she’d seen in the face of a man who had lost his family to the plague last summer. The man had been silent, blank of tears or emotions save for the agony in his eyes as he placed his dead children in the ground. It was a look that spoke of absolute loss, absolute hopelessness.

Sympathy filled her. She moved near him, reaching out to touch his arm lightly. She traced her fingertips lightly down his arm, his skin hot to her touch. Convulsively, he grasped her fingers, clinging to them as a drowning man to a lifeline. His need for her strength and comfort warmed her through. In that moment she felt an innocent love rise in her for this mysterious man who seemed so very much alone in the world.

As if garnering his strength against a mighty challenge, or accepting that which was unendurable, Ashur took a deep breath, wincing as he did, and raised his eyes to meet hers.

"Are you all right?" Lisette asked softly.

His mouth twitched in a humorless grin. "No. But there’s nothing to be done for it. I’ll get by. Always have."

Still holding fast to his hand, so firm in hers, Lisette murmured, "Let me help."

Ashur didn’t answer. The infinity of his eyes penetrated hers, swallowing her in their depths. For the tiniest span of time, a bare twinkle of a moment, she felt his needs, his longings, his fears sweep over her. Taking them, she could accept and help him overcome these troubles. Her reward in turn was the knowledge of having stepped into a greater, grander world, one that would answer her deepest longings and give her more than she knew she needed, more than she’d ever yearned for.

The moment that passed between them was one of complete empathy, a union of souls in harmony. Yet so quickly did it come and so quickly did it pass that later Lisette was uncertain it had ever taken place. But in that instant they intersected in a rapport of understanding.

"I could use a friend," he said quietly. "I…"

Abruptly his hand stiffened then released hers. His attention shifted to the room behind her, his openness lost again to the cloak of mystery he wore. At the soft shuffle of a step on the rushes, Lisette turned. Geraint stood in the entryway, staring at them. Expression stiffly composed, Geraint gave a short, terse nod to Lisette, then turned his attention to Ashur.

"You appear much improved, sir," he said and Lisette was surprised to hear a hint of challenge in his voice. She couldn’t help but note the flicker of a glance he gave her silk shift, nor the disapproving set to his jaw as he sternly refused to see her any further. That irritated Lisette more than if Geraint had frankly stared at her, or had registered at least a bit of shock and indignation. After all, he was seeing more of her than any man had before… any man, that is, she recalled somewhat abashed, save Ashur.

Ashur met Geraint’s rebuking look with studied indifference, "Improving," he answered coolly, "with the help of this young lady’s care." What was it in the nature of men, Lisette wondered, that made them behave as two rams in the same pasture, immediately challenging and seeking to dominate the other?

Geraint’s lips twisted slightly. "Mistress Lisette, my betrothed, is ever mindful of her duty to Christian charity, to the care of the weak and needy."

Lisette kept her expression carefully neutral as she hid her astonishment at Geraint’s emphasis on "betrothed." A naive maid she may be, but she recognized jealousy when she saw and heard it. Geraint was clearly claiming her. A part of her was heartened to see proof that Geraint did bear her a husbandly regard, but another, less conscious, part of her was insulted at the mistrust of her that his jealousy implied.

"You’re this lady’s fiancée?" Ashur asked. Lisette was grateful that he ignored Geraint’s slighting comment about his helpless condition.

"Yes," she interrupted. "I don’t believe you’ve been introduced." She gestured to Geraint. "This is Geraint, son of Lord Henry Stafford, your host and benefactor. And Geraint, this is Ashur."

The two men nodded coolly to each other, less than a bow from Geraint, less than a complete acknowledgment from Ashur of the importance of Geraint’s family and position. But then, she considered, he was a foreigner, perhaps he didn’t know the Stafford name and titles.

"Ashur, sir?" Geraint questioned. "Pray, favor me with your family name. And your titles." He paused. "You are a gentleman, are you not? Not base and common?"

Ashur appeared to consider Geraint’s questions and Lisette held her breath. She’d wondered these things but it was not her place to question for herself.

"My family," Ashur began and Lisette saw that his expression became enigmatic, "would no doubt disclaim association with me at this moment." He looked up and met Geraint’s querulous scowl evenly. "You may consider me an adventurer, sir, seeking my own fortune, not resting my worth on my family’s wealth and power."

Lisette wanted to applaud Ashur’s masterful sidestepping of Geraint’s queries, yet at the same time was curious as to his reasons and what information he hid. He’d implied much but said little, a fact that Geraint apparently missed.

"So, you’re of wealthy foreign nobility… for it is clear from your speech that you are foreign born…"

"Forgive me, sir," Ashur interrupted. "I find I am fatigued. If you could spare me this interrogation for another time?" He made a wearied gesture and closed his eyes as if in exhaustion.

Geraint’s face darkened, though his expression never lost its rigid control. "Indeed. Forgive me." He bowed slightly to Ashur. "Another time."

Geraint grasped Lisette’s arm firmly and turned to leave. As she followed she caught a glimpse of Ashur’s eyes, open and following her with a lingering expression that quickened her heart.

Banging shut the oak door to Ashur’s chamber with more force than necessary, Geraint faced Lisette. Face frozen in a mask of unreadable formality, he pointedly looked no further down than her face. "I came across your trunks in the entry and brought them to you. I’ll leave you now to clothe yourself." Without waiting for a response he spun on his heel and marched away down the passageway.

Lisette stared after him, shivering in the draft that cut harshly through the sheer silk, and saw him in a new way, not as his father’s meek shadow, but as a man… her man. And one to be reckoned with. He’d have been within his rights to chastise, or even strike, her as was a man’s prerogative to his wife for displaying herself so shamelessly before another man, but he had done neither, yet made his displeasure known. A good man, she repeated to herself as she had so many times before, a man who would be a reliable husband and caring provider. Would instead, Lisette wished fervently, that he had looked upon her the way that Ashur had, a way that set her body afire, that made her want to feel his hands ripping away the layer of silk to stroke her bare flesh, to feel his firm body pressed tightly against hers, his manly yard rising hard and insistent, wanting her to take it into her body…

Unconsciously fingering the speck on her sleeve, Lisette shook herself. She must purge these thoughts from her mind and heart. They were wrong. They were evil. She was pledged to another. She was by law of Church and King already Geraint’s wife in all ways save for the consummation of the marriage bed. Turning quickly, she dashed back to her bedchamber.

She bathed again in the now-icy water, letting the water drip slowly down her chest, sighing as it ran between her legs cooling the fire that burned there.

Ashur’s older brother had laughed at him once, saying, "You could be tossed into the very pit of Hell and you’d still find a way to get the most gorgeous woman in the place." The memory brought a smile to Ashur’s lips. This may not be the pit of Hell… well, he amended, maybe it could. He’d spent much time learning old Earth history, yet there was far too much to memorize details of each era. Ashur tried to recall what he knew of the year 1518. Filth, famine, disease and ignorance, were the things that came to mind. Cowering and superstitious primitives, ugly and inbred… Yet that amazing creature Lisette who had appeared before him draped in a cloud of translucent white had been none of those things. The pure, sultry simplicity of her look gave her an allure that all the makeup, clothing and hair designers in the galaxy couldn’t match with their most expensive and exotic efforts.

Ashur imagined Lisette beside him on the Grand Promenade at night, the Nebula painting the sky with radiance such as had never been seen in Earth’s plain sky. He pictured her ready flush of delight as he squeezed her lovely hand and pointed out the twin moons racing across the heavens. She’d be wearing, he built the scene in his mind, a few wisps of luminous green fog clinging to, but not concealing, the crinkle of her nipples. Gems that glowed from within twined in her cascade of hair would sparkle like stars.

She’d be amusing in her innocence, her wide-eyed wonder at the marvels of his world, mistaking machinery for magic. Still, her native dignity, and his able strength guiding her, would make her a fine prize, a pretty new pet for his collection. His mother and father would beam with pride at him, proud of their second son… the rebel, the stray… the unregarded one…

The happy image shattered. Leaden reality enveloped Ashur like the stench of the cesspit that wafted in through the poorly fitted window casement. Here and now he was lost, trapped in time, his mother and father as yet a thousand years unborn. Even there and then they were dead, destroyed by his own hand. No matter that he’d had to do it, no matter that he’d had no choice. He had killed them, them and every being on that world far away in both time and space.

Grief stronger than the fear and worry at his predicament threatened to overwhelm him. Only one bare thread of hope existed for him to cling to; here and now his parents did not yet exist, in the far-off future they were dead by his hand, but somewhere in between they lived, lived and danced and dreamed.

That didn’t help him in his current predicament. His head ached as he tried to remember the details of his crash. It was dark, he’d been lying in the crushed ship, feeling blood oozing from a gash in his side. Had he turned on the emergency beacon? Had it come on automatically? The ship had been dark. Perhaps the connections had been severed, the power lost, so nothing betrayed the ship’s location to his pursuers. Ashur was torn… if his pursuers had managed to follow his wrong turn through time they’d be more than delighted to rescue him, take him back to his proper time… and kill him. If not, well, being trapped here was as near to death as he could imagine.

Ashur sighed. He needed to get back to his ship, wherever it was, and see what he could salvage. Perhaps it could yet fly with a few repairs. Ashur almost laughed aloud as he pictured himself trying to describe how to make spaceship parts to the illiterate village smithy. The thought sobered him. He’d have to be cautious and more than cautious or he’d end up being burned as a witch.

Though, perhaps, he considered blackly, flames licking up to burn him alive might be an appropriate end for him.

The creak of the door jerked him out of his dismal contemplations. He found himself anticipating eagerly another appearance by Lisette. Instead it was the older woman, totally enshrouded in voluminous layers of cloth from head to toe, save for ample breasts barely held in by the low neck of the gown. Ashur stared, trying to decipher this society’s curious standards of modesty. The woman set a tray down on the stand by the bed, heedless of the cup of wine she spilled onto the floor.

"I’m Lady Cicely Stafford. You met me before, but no doubt your brain was addled by the pains and fevers," the woman announced. "My step-son told me you were awake. I’ve brought medicines to help you with your healing."

She lifted a steaming wooden cup toward Ashur’s mouth. When the smell reached his nostrils he drew back sharply. "What is it?" he asked, trying not to sound too rude in his revulsion at the stench.

"It’s a good, healthful mix of willow bark…"

"Ah, yes," Ashur interrupted, frantically searching his memory, "from willow bark comes aspirin."

"As-peer-ine," the woman repeated, "that be the name of it in your country, eh? Well, there’s that and centaury and belladonna…"

"Belladonna?" Ashur yelped, "That’s poisonous."

"Oh, nonsense," Lady Stafford steadily pushed the cup closer against Ashur’s resistance. "I’d not give you so much as that." Stronger than he thought she’d be, and admittedly he wasn’t at his best, the woman forced a gagging mouthful of the stuff into Ashur’s mouth. Eventually, he had to swallow. She stood back happily. "There’s a good lad," she said as he choked on the noxious liquid. "Aye… and some ground, roasted toads in there for good measure. You sleep some more now. I’ll be back with more later on."

The woman strode out of the room, leaving the cup half-filled with the potion behind. Ashur ignored the pain in his ribs to reach frantically for the flagon of wine, anything to flush the hideous taste from his mouth.

As he gratefully gulped the poorly-aged, too-fruity wine, Ashur reflected that he may not have to worry about the vengeance of his pursuers. This century might kill him first.