Redeeming The Rogue Knight

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‘At least you have your sight. Be thankful for that.’

Roger moaned, remembering his father bellowing a warning, the lance splintering. Was a similar incapacity to be Roger’s penance? He clutched at the rough blankets covering him. The relief that flooded him as he felt his hands curl about the homespun cloth was incomparable. He tried once more to bring his hands together and this time he succeeded in lifting them both, but bringing them together was impossible. A tugging at his wrists was confusing, but the last dregs of the painkilling draught Lucy had given him were wearing off and as a result his head felt less clouded.

Concentrating on what he felt, he came to the conclusion that he had not lost the use of his limbs. He was being restrained by something tied around his wrists holding him to the bed. He tilted his head to look at his arms. Cold sweat broke out across his body as he confirmed it.

The bitch had tied him down!

He jerked his left arm up and his right was wrenched from the bed, hitting the floor with a loud thump and bashing his knuckles. The movement caused further pain in his shoulder and he gritted his teeth to stop from crying out. He eased his hand upward to the sore spot above his heart that had mystified him earlier and his fingers touched blistered flesh. Someone had burned him.

Had he been subject to torture and blocked out the memory? He cast his mind back to Lucy’s pale, frightened face that had filled his vision the previous night as she cut his clothes from him. In his earlier befuddled state he knew Lucy had bathed him, given him water, and soothed his pain away with her gentle hands and soft words. She had done all that knowing he was bound. Would the next thing she did be to slip a dagger between his ribs or slit his throat? It seemed unlikely. He could not imagine the quivering girl would have dared do something so rash as take him captive alone, so she must have been instructed to do it by someone else. If she was not responsible for his situation, who was, and was Lucy being mistreated also?

Roger’s fists clenched. The worry for Lucy’s wellbeing was so unexpected it brought him up sharp. He gave a wry smile. He had often been accused of dishonour. What a pity those who had laid the charge at his feet would never know how he had spared a thought for the girl before they both died. Memories of battles in France threw themselves about his brain, captured soldiers herded like cattle, roped together awaiting death. Innocent townspeople slaughtered, women and children among them.