Rebel

by Linda Windsor

  One!

  Exhilaration rilled through Alyn as Long Beard’s round and balding companion charged. Excess flesh quivering with each footfall, the man lumbered forward and swung the end of a gnarled staff at Alyn. Again, Alyn danced sideways, but the hard tip of the staff grazed him. Alyn clenched his teeth at the pain that ripped across his ribcage and hurled its outcry to his brain. The frustration and anger he’d suppressed since his arrival—his failures, his helplessness to comfort Kella—broke free, screaming in his mind louder than the panicked Fatin.

  Lip curling, Alyn planted his staff in the ground before him as the heavy man struck it with all the might of his thick arms. The loud crack shot like a lightning bolt up Alyn’s arms. But the earth cushioned the brunt of the impact. The thief’s weapon rebounded off the oak, turning the man’s considerable strength against him.

  Still riddled with pinpricks, Alyn staggered toward the downed man with the intent of rendering him unconscious at the least, but the heavy man rolled to his feet with amazing speed for his size and bounded away in retreat.

  Two.

  Alyn sought the next. To his left, metal clanged against metal where Daniel engaged in a deadly dance of knife and sword with the equally matched leader, while the fourth coward circled the two with a spear, looking for an opening to catch him unaware. Alyn started for the coward when the man faltered several steps back, as though punched in the chest, and dropped his weapon.

  The oaf still clutched his chest, looking about wildly for the source of the attack when a bloodcurdling yelp erupted behind Alyn. He pivoted to see the fifth thief speeding at him full tilt. With shoulders the width of an ox, he wielded a long sword over his thick-thatched head as if to split Alyn down the middle.

  Alyn raised his staff with both hands to block the deadly downswing. Splinters from where previous blows had damaged the symbols dug into his hands as he steeled his grip.

  The oak dulled the twang of the iron as it sank into its thickness, but not the blade’s force. Alyn’s knees buckled as if the sword now wedged dangerously close to one hand was a full-grown tree. The tattoo of an eye in the middle of his assailant’s forehead made him appear a three-eyed monster as he struggled to free his weapon.

  Taking advantage of the reprieve, Alyn hove the staff and sword upward with all the force his legs would afford. The momentum combined with Three-Eyes’ own pulling effort sent the astounded man careening backward. Alyn atop him, he hit the ground with a crushing jolt that knocked the wind from them both.

  A whoosh of fetid breath struck Alyn’s face, but he found his knees for purchase and ground the staff against the man’s throat until he ceased to resist. With a strangled gurgle that sent spittle dribbling down the side of his mouth, the man stared up, all wide and unstaring eyes.

  Breath raw in his lungs, Alyn sat up, swaying in disbelief. But he hadn’t cut off the brigand’s breath long enough to kill him. He’d only meant to disable the cur.

  Hadn’t he? Doubt churned like storm clouds in Alyn’s mind. He’d taken vows to save souls, not condemn them to eternal damnation. He swallowed a rise of bile in the back of his throat.

  “Alyn!”

  At Kella’s shriek, Alyn glanced left to see her hefting a lance. She was a fine figure, even in a shirt and braccae. Like a Valkyrie princess, her wild mane glowing in the firelight as she loosed the missile … straight at him.

  Instinct bowled him behind the cover of the dead thief. Just as Kella’s lance whistled overhead, an iron-tipped spear plunged from behind Alyn into Three-Eyes’ belly, where Alyn had sat only seconds before. He shifted over in time to see a spearman pitch back, the same one who’d been startled by Kella’s stone. Now her lance was buried deep in his thigh. Scrambling, Alyn grabbed the end of the lance and twisted it. The spearman pulled away, screaming in agony. When it broke off, Alyn flew at him with the ragged end, but the brigand limped off for the woods after the two who’d already disappeared, as if to outdistance death itself.

  “Leave him be. Those three’ll be too busy tendin’ their own wounds to come for the dead tonight.” Daniel leaned against the oak and wiped perspiration and blood spatter off his brow. More stained his green tunic and darkened the blade dangling from his hand. He grinned at Alyn. “He was a worthy opponent.”

  “I’ll bet yon spearman wishes he’d taken off whilst my stone left him with two good legs,” Kella spoke up, kneeling before the still-crying monkey to take it out of its cage. The sling she laid aside explained what Alyn had seen right before the hulk of a swordsman attacked. He hastily sought out the spot where he’d waylaid Long Beard, but the man had evidently regained his battered wits and slipped away into the night. Still …

  Two deaths. Alyn made the sign of the cross. He wrestled to feel regret instead of relief as he stared at the spear buried in Three-Eyes’ belly by his fellow thief. A spear intended for Alyn. The champion’s daughter had saved his life with a lance. Perhaps Daniel’s as well with her sling.

  “Remind me never to object to your traveling company again,” Alyn told her. Though somewhere in the back of his mind, he thought he’d fought to save hers.

  “God’s allowed the curs of this world to take two men I love,” she declared with such vehemence that Fatin shrank away from the hand petting him. “So help me, I’d die before I’ll let them take another.”

  Love? The choice of words cleared the field of clashing guilt and triumph in Alyn’s mind. But then, she meant—

  “Milady, we are beholden—” Daniel broke off with a gasp of pain. Reeling back against the tree, he inched down the bark, his face white as the archbishop’s robes.

  Only then did it dawn on Alyn that not all the blood staining Daniel’s clothes belonged to the thieves.

  Chapter Eleven

  Kella had cried her last tear. Now she was angry. Angry that Lorne had suffered such a brutal end and that her father was missing. Angry that, after proving herself an able battle companion, she’d swooned into a dead faint at the sight of Daniel’s gaping flesh wound. Thankfully, Alyn’s priestly medical training served both men well. He stitched and then applied some of the black salts—those he’d used to start a fire—on the wound to avoid infection. Infection wouldn’t prevent Daniel from guiding them to Fortingall. However, a fractured ankle yet to be set would.

  Kella shuddered. ’Twas as if death stalked those she cared for. She petted Fatin’s small black head. The monkey had finally settled in her lap, where he watched Alyn’s every move, as if fearing his master would abandon him again. How he’d screamed in terror from the confines of his cage as the violence surrounded him.

  Inadvertently, her gaze wandered to where the three-eyed thief still lay a distance away, impaled to the ground by his comrade’s spear. Her throw had saved Alyn’s life, though she’d struck the spearman’s thigh instead of her mark on his chest. She needed to practice weaponry more. Had the lance gone lower, ’twould have given poor Alyn further cause for alarm as he dove behind Three-Eyes for cover.

  Her heart warmed at the sight of Alyn tending Daniel’s thigh. He was such a tender soul, yet earlier he’d fought like a demon with Cassian’s staff. Her father would have been proud of him.

  Will be, when he hears of it, Kella amended.

  “The man with the eye tattoo,” she said. “There couldn’t be two marked alike. I’m certain he’s the same one who stumbled into our stall at the tavern our first night out of Carmelide. Do you think Cassian might have hired the brigands to kill us and take the books?”

  He might have discovered the forgeries, she mused. The priest served Rome, and Rome stopped at nothing to get what it wanted.

  “Three-Eyes was after something, to be sure,” Daniel managed through a tight grimace.

  “Aye,” Alyn agreed, “but the books may not have been the target. The goods I’ve brought from the East would bring a fine price at a spring fair.” He cut off the thread next to Daniel’s flesh with a pair of silver scissors that were not only functional but a work o
f art. “I’ve three pair of these for the O’Byrne brides, each fit for a queen.”

  “I count only two,” Daniel pointed out. “Brides, that is. Unless you’re keeping a secret from us.”

  Kella’s breath caught. Alyn with a bride? A prick of dismay rendered her speechless.

  “Our Kella was raised O’Byrne, even if not by blood,” Alyn retorted as though his friend’s observation were as absurd as Kella had thought.

  Her breath escaped in relief. Though she could think of no reason her childhood friend shouldn’t marry. Some priests had taken wives. Their titles were oft hereditary like the Levites of old. Another custom of which Rome did not approve.

  “For me?” she marveled as Alyn handed them to her. “Why, they’re beautiful.”

  “Though they’ll never suffer overuse in your sewing box,” Alyn teased.

  “I sew,” Kella objected. “When I have to,” she added with a guilty twitch of her lips. A Middle Eastern artisan had fashioned the tool to look like an exotic silver bird, its long beaks overlapping for cutting. Even a finger curve had been worked into the natural shape of its body. “Thank you, Alyn. I shall cherish them.”

  “How about you tear some more bandages from this bolt of Egyptian linen?” Alyn suggested.

  ’Twas all they had save good shirts and a shift for binding Daniel’s wounds.

  “And I’m not even an O’Byrne bride,” Daniel jested. Though his bravado faded as fast as the color on his face. “But I’ll cherish this linen.”

  Alyn ignored him. “I’m off to find wood suitable for a splint,” he told Kella.

  Fatin dashed away from Kella and toward Alyn as he crawled to his feet, favoring bruised and slightly bloodied ribs. Kella had noticed the stains earlier, but he vowed they were not broken. “’Twas just a nasty swipe,” he’d assured her.

  With a halfhearted chuckle, Alyn scratched the monkey’s head and held him for a moment’s comfort. “All’s well, mischief.” But once Fatin sat contented on his shoulder, Alyn picked up the staff propped against the oak and ventured away from the campsite.

  Kella watched the two until they disappeared in the darkness edging the trees. Despite his protests that he didn’t want a pet, her friend had taken to Fatin like a father.

  “He’s a good man,” Daniel told her as she unrolled an arm’s length of the incredibly soft but strong linen.

  “Aye, he is,” she agreed.

  “I’ll not say he’s better than your prince, but I find him to be more agreeable company.”

  Kella snipped the edge for ripping, brow arching at her companion. “You knew Lorne? Have you been to Errol?”

  “I met Prince Lorne at Strighlagh.”

  “And …,” she prompted.

  “I’m thinkin’ he considered himself prettier than the women he courted. And there were many with their sights set upon him.”

  Many. Kella ripped the strip away with a vengeance. But then a man as handsome and noble-born as Lorne certainly would have attracted many ladies. He’d admitted to a hopeless eye for a lovely woman but confessed that ’twas Kella’s wit that set her apart from the other beauties and won his heart.

  “Then I would suffer you as I have Alyn to remain silent at Glenarden about the betrothal,” she asked. “We had not time to announce it or publish the banns.”

  Searching for her father was reason enough for their quest. At Daniel’s solemn nod, Kella nipped another width of cloth, squeezing her eyes shut against tears. She might as well have cut her heart, the way it stung.

  “Alyn suffers as well,” Daniel observed quietly. “Not from a broken heart like yourself, but a wounded spirit. Perhaps the two of you might …” He struggled for a word, discomfited by a subject other than hunting, fighting, herbs, or animals, yet the set of his jaw showed his determination. “Mend,” he said, as if that was the best he could do. He pointed to the scissors. “Like sewing … together.”

  “Sewing together?” Kella met Daniel’s earnest gaze, grasping as hard as he.

  In an effort to find relief, the highlander repositioned his injured foot and mumbled an oath of frustration when he failed. Whether at the pain from his wounds or fumbling words was hard to tell.

  “I will do my best to help Alyn, though he has not confided in me as he has you,” she guessed. “I have always cared deeply for him.”

  Concern dug in. Had she been so wrapped up in her own troubles that she hadn’t given Alyn’s torment from the accident sufficient thought? Was it worse than a poorly healed wound from an accident or doubts about a profession she’d always questioned?

  At that instant, Fatin scampered into the firelight and presented Daniel with a stone. Perhaps the one Kella had fired from the sling hung from her belt.

  “Will you look at that?” Daniel turned the stone in his hand. “It looks like the same one we tossed earlier.”

  “Maybe I used it in my sling.” Kella wriggled her fingers for Fatin to come to her, but he waited for Daniel to play the game of fetch again.

  Alyn returned to the site, carrying an armful of dried wood. “I’ve found a couple of straight boughs we can split for the splint, and more firewood.” He dumped the wood near the fire and picked out the straightest. “These’ll do just fine. Then”—his eyes followed the stone Daniel tossed for the monkey—“maybe the good Lord will let us pass the rest of the night in peace.”

  “Me and Fatin’ll keep watch,” Daniel offered. “Loose, he should make a fine watchdog. My eyes aren’t broken and”—he pointed to his ankle, which seemed to swell by the hour—“like as not, this ankle will na’ let me sleep.”

  “And once you’re finished with Daniel’s ankle,” Kella put in, “I’ll have a good look at those ribs.”

  Alyn shook his head. “I’ll be fine.”

  “If I’m to be wrapped tighter than those mummies you told me about, then you will too,” Daniel chimed in. He brandished a toothy grin. “Besides, she’ll not give either of us a moment’s rest till we humor her.”

  “Stand still, Alyn,” Kella chastised.

  Though stripped to his braccae and boots, Alyn might as well have been naked. He looked overhead, where the heavens promised a decent day’s journey tomorrow, and tried to make out some of the constellations. But even though Kella’s touch was chaste and tender, it worked upon him as if she had the practiced hand of a harlot. Sweat gathered on his brow, though the night was far from warm. His skin tightened beneath her fingers as though she scalded and froze it at the same time, instead of working in a muscle liniment.

  “I’m not hurt on my chest,” he declared sharply.

  Daniel’s snort from the fireside wasn’t helping Alyn’s humor.

  Kella glanced up from her ministrations, catching the scathing look Alyn sent the highlander’s way. “This raised scar says otherwise,” she stated.

  By all the saints, he could fall into those eyes and drown in the mist that formed there as she traced the scar with a fingertip. ’Twas battle madness, the blood frenzy still hammering his heart like a war drum. And worse, he thought as Kella stroked the raised outline of his scar.

  “’Tis the scar from the large silver cross that melted during the accident. Months old,” he grumbled in protest. “Faith, I should know where I hurt and where I do not.” Alyn clenched his teeth, praying she’d not notice that he was on the verge of a man’s worst embarrassment, and that she’d move no closer than she already was.

  “Scarce healed, if you ask me,” she shot back.

  Kella turned away to get the binding she’d prepared for him. With a relieved swipe of his forearm, he wiped his brow. His side screamed in protest, breaking a fresh sweat.

  Maybe one was broken. All he knew was that his misery had doubled, now that it received attention.

  “At least Daniel appreciated the care you gave him,” Kella said, sulking. She shook out the length of linen, enough that there would be none left for the ladies to make their delicate underdresses.

  “That’s because I k
new what I was doing.” Alyn dropped his head the moment he fired the words off. No taking them back.

  A glance at Daniel found no help. The highlander sucked and chewed the inside of his cheeks as if to keep from laughing outright at Alyn’s discomfiture.

  Alyn tried not to notice Kella’s eyes, which were narrowed as if in righteous indignation. “What I meant was,” he backtracked, “that I had the strength needed to bind his ankle tight, so the wrapping wouldn’t give way, yet gently so as not to cause further pain.”

  Her head cocked in challenge. “You think I can’t bind you tightly enough?”

  Wet-hen mad as she was, Kella could bind the breath from his lungs. Alyn’s muddled thoughts churned. “Gently,” he corrected. “I feared you’d not be able to draw the bindings in with a firm but gentle hand. That is where strength comes in.”

  “Strength comes in to keep a full-grown man whimpering like a baby. That’s where strength comes in,” Kella fumed. “Now stand straight and raise your arms like a man.”

  Alyn had forgotten how infuriating Kella could be when she assumed herself to be in charge. Even as a wee lassie, she’d marched about commanding every animal at Glenarden, from ducks to kittens, imitating her father on the training field. Not that she had the means to back her authority.

  But she had enough to arrest Alyn’s breath as she looped her arms around him. Wisps of her hair tickled his chin as she leaned in close to smooth it against his back. Alyn closed his eyes, trying to block the sweet assault on his senses. But when she backed away and cinched for the first wrap, lances of agony displaced it—and the breath hissed through his teeth.

  “Is that tight enough?”

  If a rib had not been fractured, ’twas surely cracked now. “Just right,” he managed. Though he wasn’t sure there was room to breathe again, he held his tongue, lest she take out her festering rage at the enemy on him.