“Du Hommet,” he bellowed, “look upon me and see what I found in that cave behind your waterfall.” Even at this distance. Josce could see du Hommet’s face whiten.
“What are you doing?” Elianne hissed in terrified complaint, then clutched him all the more tightly.
Josce ignored her. “What say you? Can you catch me and retrieve what you so need before I reach the priory?” He threw the dare at a shout so Nick was certain to hear his destination and follow.
With that, Josce drove his heels into his horse’s side, grateful that the beast was well-rested and fed. He had a huge heart and even more spirit, his brawny lad. Aye, and he’d need every bit of his heart if he was to carry two riders and remain ahead of the sheriff all the way through Knabwell to the priory.
Elianne lost all hope of living on past this day. It wasn’t the Josce of the cave who called out these words. Nay, this was the ruthless knight who’d coldly commanded her to mount behind him, a madman who had just doomed them to death by revealing what he’d found in the cave.
Josce didn’t realize that he’d just freed her father from his panic. Without panic to bind Reiner and with nothing left to lose, it was their complete destruction her father would want. Nothing would stop him now except death, either his or theirs.
Just as she expected, her father’s frenzied shriek was almost triumphal. At the same instant, Josce’s mount sprang into motion. In front of her, the man who would be her husband leaned low over his horse’s neck.
“It’s your fastest I want, lad,” he told the creature, his tone yet harsh. Despite his cold words, his horse did his bidding, stretching into a steady gallop.
Just as Josce had commanded her, Elianne clung to him with all her might. She needed all her strength. Each meeting of hoof to ground tried to jar her out of the saddle. The dirt kicked up stung her thighs where her flying skirts bared them. Air tore past her, stealing the breath from her mouth, even as dust clogged her nose.
They were halfway to the place where this rutted path met Knabwell’s road before she heard it. Over the thunderous tattoo of this horse’s hooves on the earth came a steady rumbling. That sound grew until it was all Elianne could hear.
She turned her head to look behind her and forgot to breathe. A smoking cloud of dirt put her sire and troop no more than four hundred yards behind them and gaining. This, when any hope of survival rested in the more distant cloud that said Haydon’s troop pursued. Ach, but Josce’s soldiers were only now leaving the hamlet behind them.
Even as she told herself not to look at him, Elianne’s gaze moved to her sire. Riding at the head of his troop, her father’s silver hair streamed back from his face. Rage twisted his features, his teeth were bared, his eyes narrowed in threat. To look upon him was to look upon her death.
With a fearful cry, she turned her gaze forward, to the hope of sanctuary. Knabwell’s walls seemed impossibly distant. Despair closed its awful hand about her. They weren’t even going to breach the city gates ahead of her sire, much less reach the priory.
“Faster, my brawny lad. It’s only a little farther.” The rush of the wind tossed Josce’s flat harsh words back at her as he urged his horse to greater effort.
Again, Elianne glanced over her shoulder. Eyes wide and foam staining its mouth, her father’s horse was now but a few bare yards behind them. With a scream she buried her head against Josce’s back so she didn’t have to see.
Josce’s horse raced off of Coneytrop’s trail onto the wider strip of dirt that was Knabwell’s road. Her heart in her throat, Elianne peered up over his shoulder, willing the walls to move closer to them. At least there were no wagons on the road. Pedestrians scattered, shouting as they flew for the verge. Men pushing handcarts trundled out of the way as swiftly as they could.
From the corner of her eye, Elianne caught movement from beside her. The nose of her sire’s horse was almost even with her leg. She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound left her throat.
“I have you!” Reiner howled, his voice sounding so close that Elianne was certain he already reached for him.
“‘Lianne, hold tight,” Josce roared.
And then they were aloft, flying over a handcart filled with apples. Even before Elianne had time to be frightened Josce’s mount once more found the earth beneath his feet. Elianne’s head nearly snapped off the stem of her neck as they landed.
Without hesitation, Josce’s horse leapt back into his gallop, racing on toward Knabwell’s gate. The thunder of their pursuers died into screams and shouts. Elianne dared a backward look.
In the distance, Haydon’s troop had just started up Knabwell’s road toward them. Far too close at hand, Reiner brutally beat his heels into his horse’s sides. It heaved and stumbled as it struggled to regain its stride.
Bloody and broken, the driver of the handcart lay upon the road bed. All order lost in their ranks, the dozen soldiers who followed her father had come to a near standstill behind their sheriff, as if they needed him to lead them to the man her father wanted to catch. Hope woke as a tiny flicker inside her, even as she sent a prayer winging to the heavens for the fallen man. This tragedy may well have bought her and Josce the time they need to reach safety.
Iron shoes rang on the cobbled apron before Knabwell’s gate. Without slowing, Josce drove his horse into the wide opening. Hope died. The gatekeeper was certain to step in front of them as he called them to a halt. Whether he was trampled or they slowed to avoid him they’d lose all they just gained.
To her utter astonishment, the gatekeeper stayed in the shadow of the portal he guarded. “Hey now, slow down, sir,” the man shouted as the knight’s sweat-flecked horse shot past him. His words faded almost as swiftly as Elianne heard them.
“Which way?” Josce demanded, well before they reached the fork in the lane ahead of them.
“Right,” Elianne cried, not daring to point. He’d said she mustn’t release him. Not that she could have unlocked her hands from around him. Nay, terror had permanently fused them, one to another.
Down one lane, then another, they flew toward the center of town. Elianne stared about her in disbelief. Rather than the usual crowds, there was barely a soul out and about.
At last they exploded out into the city’s center. The wide field used for the weekly market should have been empty; the morrow was the day for selling. Instead, the expanse writhed with humanity. Rather than the regular lines of merchant stalls, tents of brightly colored cloth, each marking a guild’s temporary festival hall, stood haphazardly about the field. Strolling hawkers raised their voices as they shouted out the value of their wares. Musicians played, folk danced in rings to their tunes. The scent of roasting sausages and fresh ale filled the air.
“Nay,” Elianne groaned. Held prisoner by both Beatrice and her own melancholy she’d forgotten the annual celebration of Knabwell’s patron saint.
“Damn, we have to slow,” Josce said and pulled his mount into a canter and started into the crowd.
A woman squealed and shied away from the sweat-stained horse. Her husband lifted his fist. “That’s my wife’s best you’re ruining, man,” he shouted. “You can’t ride through here! Get down and walk that beast, as custom dictates.”
At the man’s complaint, Elianne leaned forward, her heart in her throat. “He’s right. We can’t ride through here. If we try, they’ll surround us and pull us from the saddle.”
As she spoke, the sounds of racing horses echoed out of the lanes they’d just left. Hopelessness ate her alive. If they couldn’t ride through the festival, her father could, even if it meant deaths. Indeed, if her sire thought to raise the hue and cry, demanding that the townsfolk stop them, then every man here had an obligation to do just that: pursue and capture them for his sheriff. They were finished.
Josce yanked his horse to a halt. “Dismount.” It was yet another ruthless command. She fair leapt from the saddle. He was afoot in the following instant, the bag containing the spice merchant’s wares in his han
d.
“We run from here,” he said, grabbing her hand.
For the second time in two weeks, Elianne found herself dashing through Knabwell’s marketplace. Josce aimed for the most direct route across the expanse. It was also where the press was the thickest.
“Nay, this way,” she cried, wrenching up her skirts with her free hand. With his hand yet in hers, for she’d die before she let him go, she led him to the edge of the field. The distance to Baker’s Walk was longer from here but with fewer people passage would be easier. Shifting and dodging, they dashed through the folk along the edge of the crowd. They were about halfway to the Walk when she caught the sound of her father’s voice.
“Where are they?! Make way. Move aside, you damn fools! The lord sheriff’s business!” His shout tore through the day’s gaiety. Ah, but he didn’t raise the hue and cry.
Minutes—or was it days?—later she and Josce burst from the crowd’s far edge. Terror made Elianne’s legs ache as she raced up Baker’s Walk with Josce beside her. The fork onto Priory Lane loomed.
She threw a glance over her shoulder and triumph exploded in her. They would reach the priory! Her father hadn’t yet entered the Walk.
With their panting breath the only sound on the lane, they raced past the pensioners’ cottages, then the guest house. Never had Elianne been so grateful to see the convent’s great arching gateway. Mathilde appeared out of the wee gate chamber that was the portress’s domain. The nun gaped at her former student as she and Josce came to a gasping halt before her.
“Elianne?” the portly sister asked, filling the single word with a thousand questions, most of them having to do with the fact that it was Josce’s hand Elianne held.
“In the name of Beatrice of Haydon,” Josce called out, fighting to calm his breathing, “I beg sanctuary in your holy house for Elianne du Hommet. Her father intends to do her mortal harm.”
“What?!” Mathilde’s eyes grew round in shock.
Elianne shrieked at what Josce said. Wrapping her fingers as tightly as she could over his, she started into the portal, trying to drag him with her. “Not just me, but you, too.”
“Nay, ‘Lianne,” he told her.
In that instant the knight who’d coldly commanded her obedience at Coneytrop dissolved. In his place stood the man who spoken to her of love and meant to wed with her to make their child legitimate. Tears started to her eyes. He was going to abandon her when she couldn’t bear to lose him now.
“You said I mustn’t release you,” she protested, pressing his trapped hand against her chest. “I won’t let you go. The sisters must save you as well as me.”
It was love for her she saw fill the wondrous blue of his eyes. He shook his head and gently disengaged her fingers from his. “My heart, there’s no safety for either you or me here, not as long as your sire lives. Think on it. Your father is a man who did murder for his own profit. His soul is already damned. These walls and their holiness won’t deter him from pursuing us.”
All hope of surviving collapsed. Josce was right. Her father was beyond stopping.
“However, if I enter these walls,” Josce continued, “I won’t be able to draw my sword on pain of damnation. Nor will Haydon’s men be able to come to my rescue. Nay, if we’re to survive I must hold him outside the walls until my sire’s men can reach me.
“Take this for me,” he passed the bag he carried to her.
Destroyed by the truth of what he said, Elianne clutched the bag to her chest in place of his hand. Scents, rich and lush, rose up to taunt her. From the bottom of Priory Lane came the drum of a horse’s hooves, the thundering ringing out like the call for the world’s end. And, it was, at least for her world.
Josce couldn’t hold her father and a whole troop at bay by himself. Nay, he’d die and Reiner du Hommet would once again escape making the rightful payment for what he’d done wrong. Just as he’d managed for all his life, her father would see to it that his kin paid his price for him.
Josce shot a glance over his shoulder, then once more faced her. Leaning forward, he touched his lips to hers. His kiss was brief, but he managed to fill the caress with every bit of the affection he felt for her.
“Have faith, my love,” he whispered, then turned to face the men who came.
He took a stance about a foot in front of the gateway’s center. His sword sang as it left its sheath. He juggled the blade in his gloved hand as if he enjoyed the feel of it, as if he looked forward to battle and death.
“Elianne, what’s happening?” Mathilde demanded, her voice raised in fear and confusion.
Elianne couldn’t answer her, not when grief pinned her tongue to the floor of her mouth. Haydon’s men would never reach the priory in time, not when they couldn’t ride through the marketplace like the sheriff had. Oh God, Josce was going to die right here before her.
Frozen in fear, she listened to the rumble of racing horses grow to a roar. Her father’s heaving mount staggered to a halt only a few feet from Josce. Iron shoes clanging on stone, the sheriff’s men rode to a halt behind their sheriff and dismounted.
Eyes wild, his face streaked with dirt, Reiner almost fell out of the saddle, so swift was his dismount. He snatched his shield and drew his sword. Bitterness stirred within Elianne, sharp and foul. As always, her father would hide behind a wall as he attacked the innocent.
Mathilde cried out. Veil flying, she sprang for the open gate door. Hands braced on its back she gave a great heave. Elianne gasped as the door began to swing shut. If Mathilde closed it Josce would be trapped with nowhere to retreat.
“You cannot,” Elianne shouted, racing to wrench Mathilde away from what was the nun’s duty.
Pulling away from her former student, her eyes awash with terror, Mathilde stumbled back from the door, wringing her hands. Elianne took a stance before the opening, her arms spread. On the other side of the portal, metal hissed from leather as the sheriff’s troop all drew their swords. Mathilde’s eyes widened. The portly sister whirled.
“Mother!” she shrieked and raced for the prioress’s office.
Elianne pivoted. The sheriff’s men now formed an uneven semi-circle behind their master. All of their swords were bare, their shields all in place as they faced her lone knight, who lacked the least bit of protection. Grinning like death and bellowing, her father threw himself at the man she loved.
Josce raised his sword as the sheriff barreled toward him. So this was why men didn’t take their wives with them into battle. Reassuring ‘Lianne had cost him the emotionless state he donned to do battle. Its absence left him feeling more vulnerable than the lack of either chain mail or a shield.
Their swords clanged as they met. It was a wild attack on du Hommet’s part, his blow without plan or purpose. Once, twice, thrice the sheriff swung. Josce stopped each strike. Then, as his opponent drew back his arm for an overhand blow, Josce hammered his sword into the center of du Hommet’s shield.
Gasping, the sheriff staggered back from him. In that instant Josce studied his opponent. There was nothing left of the panicked coward he’d met at Knabwell’s castle. Instead, rage and the determination to destroy his enemy glowed like a fire in du Hommet’s gaze.
Again the sheriff threw himself at Josce. This time as their swords met, du Hommet tried to force his stroke downward. Scorn and arrogance flooded over Josce. Here was a man accustomed to battering his way to victory. The sheriff would need to do better than that if he wanted to succeed today. With a powerful shove, Josce sent du Hommet reeling back from him.
The sheriff stumbled on the uneven cobbles to collide with several of his men. Josce’s arrogance deflated. It was a timely reminder that it didn’t matter how skilled du Hommet was. Sheer numbers guaranteed him his victory.
His sword at the ready, Josce waited for the others to rush him as one. Instead, the soldiers remained where they stood, every one of them wearing uneasiness like a cloak. Their hearts weren’t in this.
The echoes of distant screams an
d shouts reached him. It was noise enough to suggest that Nick had reached either the gate or the marketplace. It wouldn’t be long now. Aye, but it wouldn’t take him long to die if these men chose to fight.
Josce scanned the force. That one held his shield too high. Yon beardless boy trembled. The ugly one wore his arrogance in his sneer. Exploitable weaknesses all of them.
Panting, du Hommet caught his footing only to find his soldiers standing uselessly behind him. “What’s wrong with you benighted fools? Don’t stand there. Take him,” he shouted. “Kill him.”
Rather than rush Josce, the men shifted, glancing from one to another. That they would cling to honor when their master did not was another exploitable weakness.
“They dare not,” Josce called out. “They know you unjustly attacked Haydon. Against that, the man who kills me may well hang for my murder.”
“Murder?!” Sly intelligence flashed in du Hommet’s gaze.
Josce watched as the sheriff’s rage disappeared, leaving nothing behind it but his determination to see Haydon’s son as dead as his father. A pity, that. Now du Hommet was a far more lethal adversary.
“It’s not murder I do here, but justice,” the sheriff protested, his mien as convincing as any mummer. “I invited you to use my home and you ruined my daughter. You’ll pay with your life for that outrage.”
It was sheer happenstance that the sheriff’s charge was the truth. All du Hommet wanted was the right excuse, the words that would free his men to attack with impunity. It worked. The hesitation drained from the sheriff’s men. They’d come for him this time. Du Hommet again raised his sword, grinning in the certainty of victory.
It was that smile that sent Josce tumbling back into welcome coldness. In relief, he let it fill him. Time slowed in its icy grip. He saw the movement of the sheriff’s sword as a slow arc, a rash and unfocused circle. Du Hommet’s shield drooped.
Dodging the sword, Josce brought his own weapon down on the upper edge of the sheriff’s shield with all the power he owned. A screaming du Hommet crashed to one knee. He flailed as he fell, knocking into the men beside him. Josce drove his sword into another man’s unprotected thigh. Howling, the hapless soldier staggered to the side.
The Warrior's Maiden (The Warriors Series Book 2) Page 24