Lord of Raven's Peak by Catherine Coulter Read Free Book Online Page A

them, but he said only, “She told me she’d been a boy for a long time and I said that the people where she’d been were stupid. She has no look of a boy.”
    â€œNo,” Merrik agreed.
    He walked back into the tent and stared down at her raw back. He said matter-of-factly, “You will think of me as your father or your brother or even your mother, if it pleases your modesty. I am going to take off these rags and bathe you, then I will cover your back with some clean cloths. I have a clean tunic you will wear and Eller, my smallest man, will give you some breeches. Oleg, the man you bit, will even give you some cord to keep the breeches at your waist.”
    â€œI don’t want you to. I want you to go away. I will take care of myself.”
    â€œYour mouth lies even to you. Close it. If you fight me, I will leave you here and take Taby. You will never see him again. Your escape to save him will have proved worth naught. Do you understand me, girl?”
    She said nothing.
    He frowned. “I have no intention of ravishing you, if that is your worry, if that is what makes you vicious as a snake. Have you looked at yourself? You’re about as tempting as a field of trampled onions. You are thinner than a starved goat. How old are you, twelve? I have no taste for children, none of my men do either. Rest easynow. Rest your mouth as well. This will hurt but I will be as gentle as I can.”
    Merrik realized his mistake when he pulled the ragged breeches down her legs, off her feet, and threw them outside the tent. She was on her belly, her legs slightly spread. He stared at the long legs, very thin, true enough, but shaped well enough to give promise to what they would look like when she’d gained flesh, and the hips that surely weren’t a boy’s hips, he’d known that, but these hips weren’t a girl’s hips either. These hips hadn’t been twelve years old in a long time. Too long a time. They were a woman’s hips.
    Merrik cursed.

4
    M ERRIK SAID NOTHING more. He bathed her legs and back quickly, matter-of-factly. She was very thin, pale and bony, and that helped. She was older than he’d first believed, but she was still pathetic, beyond pathetic, and he refused to let himself see anything save a bloody back and what should have been a boy. He was careful that the wet, soapy cloth covered his hand well when it washed her hips and between her legs. She was sick, she was dependent on him. She was a slave, nothing more.
    He even washed her hair, three times, rinsed it twice, and spread his fingers through it to pull through the knots and tangles. It took him a very long time. She was very dirty and he wasn’t done yet.
    â€œI got most of you clean, but you will need another bath tomorrow,” he said, and slowly turned her over onto her back. “Now I’ll wash the front of you.” He wished he hadn’t turned her over.
    Her eyes were closed, her face white with fatigue and probably pain as well. He could see her ribs, sharp and ugly, her flat belly with her pelvic bones sticking up. But he also saw very nice breasts that surely didn’t belong on such a thin body. He got hold of himself and set himself to work. Her eyes were closed and remainedclosed even when he finished washing her face and moved on. When the cloth went over her breasts, she didn’t move, but he saw her hands clench at her sides. He closed his own eyes when he bathed her belly and her woman’s flesh. He worked as quickly as he could for he feared the onset of the fever again. The air was getting cooler as the night grew later and later.
    â€œThe skalds will write great songs about me,” he said to her even as he eased his hand between her legs to wash her. “I am a man with a Christian monk’s control and a warrior’s honor, surely a combination that brings on a pain as great as the one in your back.”
    She opened her eyes and stared up at