Another gleam showed above the wall—and Hring’s horn right in his ear shocked Alex into raising his shield and swinging his sword. The sword struck nothing, but a resounding blow on his shield made him thank God briefly that Hring, at least, was paying attention. His sword took the next shock and Alex took the measure of his opponent.
He feinted with the shield, drawing the young man’s eyes and the angle of his blade, and struck with his sword at the unguarded head. At the last moment, he turned his blade so the flat hit. It was foolish, perhaps to leave a live enemy behind, but the boy was so young.
Alex went forward the length of the young man’s body before he was engaged by an older man-at-arms. The older man knew his sword-work better and was also shouting for help. Alex put heart and skill into the strokes he dealt and soon silenced his opponent, but it was too late. A strong voice was shouting orders now, and Alex could see men dropping the burdens they had intended for those on the wall and rushing toward his party.
Another young one came at him, but he could not save this one, who charged unheeding at him. He thrust him away to the side with his shield, while he parried a blow from the right, but the boy squirmed around his shield and thrust a sword at him. Alex knocked it away, and sheared off the hand that held it. He had to leap over the screaming, convulsing body, but he could not allow his pang of sorrow and disgust to interfere.
All his men were engaged now as that strong voice urged men down from the walls to attack. Alex was tempted to turn in that direction, guessing that the one giving orders was Nicolaus, but it was the wrong way. He fought another step forward and another. To his right, Peter was engaged with one man while another raised a sword against him. Alex caught the weapon on his, turned his wrist and swiftly thrust under the man’s raised arm, pulling the sword out as the man fell.
Hring had blocked a sword aimed at Alex’s back, and brained the man with his shield. They went forward another yard, but Alex was aware that now their backs were open to assault. He shouted for an unshielded turtle. Four men began to slide around so they could fight back-to-back with those who went forward. It was dangerous work, but Brydger was giggling aloud as he stepped past Alex to back on Hring.
Another yard. The noise from the wall was growing. Alex, trading blows with a man in mail who knew what he was doing, was aware that the defenders were screaming for help. There was a particularly outraged and frightened sound to the cries, but he could not make out what had so disturbed the men. He shoved his shield into his opponent’s face and felt a blow that almost loosened the sword from his hand.
The mail-clad man thrust at his belly while his shield was caught on another opponent’s. His own weapon came up to guard, and he stepped to the side, toward the man whose shield was trapping his. Another desperate parry brought his sword too low. As the other’s rose beyond his reach, he thrust the point of his sword under the mail-clad man’s chin and shoved up, hard. He had only hoped to drive his opponent away until his shield was free, but he heard the strangled gurgle that meant the edge had gone in.
The blow he could not block swept down on him but wavering and without force. Alex dropped to a squat. The flat of the sword hit his shoulder and dropped from nerveless fingers. Alex pulled his arm back hard to release his sword and the mail-clad man fell atop him.
The dead body was his shield. A blow whistled by his head and struck his dead opponent, who slid off. Alex blocked the backstroke with his shield as he straightened his knees only to be shoved forward energetically. Unable to regain his balance, he staggered ahead and slammed into a hard surface. They had reached the gate…and if he could not turn and face his enemies he was a dead man.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Desiree stood looking down at the new growth in the bed of herbs with unseeing eyes. On her arm she had her basket containing her garden shears and a selection of rags cut into strips which could be used to tie back tall growth. Since the growth this early in April was only a few inches, the contents of the basket were totally useless. But Desiree was no more aware of what she carried than she was of the plants at which she gazed.
Alex was dead. He must be. He had left four mornings past. She knew they intended to attack Telscombe that first night. Such attacks did not rage for days. They were either successful or not successful. If they were not successful, would Alex not have returned to Exceat? And surely if the attack were successful Alex would have sent word that he was safe and had won the prize he sought.
Why did no one come and tell her? She was the Lady of Exceat. News should come first to her. Byford knew she would be waiting for news. Perhaps Byford was also dead. They could not all be dead. Some men would surely have escaped. The broken remnant of the force must surely seek shelter in Exceat. Oh, but if they had lost the horses, if they had to return on foot and hide themselves, perhaps it would take two days to make their way back.
A movement at the edge of the garden made her freeze. No. No. Why had she been so impatient? Why had she wished for news that she did not want to hear?
She stood still as a stone, her left hand clutching her basket to her breast, her right hand at her aching throat, watching in horrified fascination, as a bird watches a snake, the approach of a man in a patched tunic and tattered cloak. Her eyes were blind with pain, her brain numb. She did not recognize him until he stood before her.
“Master Vachel,” she gasped. “What are you doing here?”
“I have come to save you from Sir Nicolaus.”
She gaped at him, eyes wide, mouth open because she could not breathe.
“Alex is dead,” he said, “his men are mostly dead or scattered, and Nicolaus is on his way to take Exceat. It cannot be held with a dozen men. The only way to save yourself is to come with me. I will marry you and we will take our case to the sheriff or his deputy.”
The words “Alex is dead” should have reduced her to numb despair, but they were no shock to her. She had known for a full day that Alex must be dead. She simply had not decided what she would do about it. She had been considering killing herself—she was not afraid of the pain or of dying, but she did not want to be damned forever. Vachel’s last sentence, however, filled her with righteous indignation. Marry her, would he? Not if she could help it.
“You killed my dearling Frewyn,” Desiree whispered, tears filling her eyes.
Vachel snickered. “One cannot kill a corpse,” he said, nose wrinkled with distaste.
“No,” Desiree said, clutching her basket more tightly, now with both hands. “No, Frewyn was not a corpse. He was alive and very wise. Frewyn would have known how to keep my Alex from flinging his life away. You killed my Frewyn and perhaps because of that my Alex too. I would not marry you if you were king, not if you were the last man on earth.”
“Then you will die!” A knife appeared in Vachel’s hand and he stepped closer, only the basket to which Desiree clung separating them. “One sound and you will die!”
Desiree’s eyes opened so wide that white showed all around the iris. Saved! She had been saved! It was all she could do not to cry, “Thank you. Thank you.” She would have the peace, the surcease from pain that she so ardently desired and it would cost her nothing!
Fearing what would happen, fearing her own desire not to struggle any longer with grief and pain and fear, Desiree had confessed to Father Harold and been absolved both for her sin of fornication with Alex and for the sin of thinking of suicide. Her penance had been light, she had said many more prayers in three long days and sleepless nights than the penance required. Her soul was clean.
Only, if she screamed for help and he killed her, she could not be sure that the few men in Exceat would catch him and kill him. And die he must, for he had killed Frewyn. He was a murderer—a murderer twice over if Frewyn’s death had prevented him from describing to Alex some clever stratagem that would have saved Alex’s life. Desiree stood, wide-eyed and panting, staring at the knife. No, she could not take the chance that he would escape.
“Good,” Vachel s
aid. “Now you see reason. You and I will walk quietly to the stable together. You will tell the ostler to saddle your horse,” he continued. “I will be right beside you—” He moved around to her side and just a trifle behind her, pressing the knife into her ribs, where the raised arm that held the basket exposed her body.
Desiree turned her head to look down at the knife and then to look up at Vachel. The knife was about the middle of her chest. She did not think it would strike the heart. It would go into her lung, she thought, and she would die—but not immediately. She would have time to tell whoever came in answer to her screams that Nicolaus was coming.
“Now, walk forward, slowly.”
Desiree let the basket drop a little lower so that her right hand could more easily slide in. She took one step forward and grasped the shears…then all of a sudden, threw the basket away, twisted around and hurled herself right against Vachel, bringing up the shears she gripped to strike him in the neck. At the same time she began to shriek for help. She felt Vachel’s knife stab her, and despite her will to die, winced away.
Vachel’s scream overrode hers, echoing from the back wall of the garden out across the bailey. But the scream was cut off and altered to a gurgling sound. Desiree yanked at the shears, which had gone into his neck below the ear. They would not come loose at first and she struggled with them fiercely. A line of fire ran across her back. The pain made her hand jerk and the double blade loosened. Screaming, she pulled it out and drove it forward again with all the strength of her outrage and her grief.
When she pulled at the scissor so she could stab Vachel once more, he fell limply forward, bearing her down. She shrieked all the louder, fighting and kicking, discovering as his weight pressed her into the ground that she did not want to die at Vachel’s hands.
“My lady! My lady!” Godric’s voice, but so filled with horror that Desiree almost did not recognize it. The weight was lifted away.
“Hold him!” Desiree shrieked. “Do not let him escape! He is the man who killed Frewyn.”
“My lady, where are you hurt? God! Sweet Mary, help us! Quick, run for Father Harold.”
“Never mind Father Harold—”
“But you are covered with blood. We will all be whipped to death for this.”
For a moment Desiree was silent, considering whether the men deserved whipping. They had let Vachel in after all. Then she blinked. Her back hurt fiercely, but now that Vachel had been lifted off her, she was not having any trouble breathing. She uttered an experimental cough. That did not hurt, either—except for the skin across her back. It reminded her of a time she had been particularly wicked, long before her brothers died; she had wanted to do something they were going to do and would not be dissuaded—and her mother had actually struck her twice with a small whip.
”The blood is not mine… I don’t think it is mine. Anyway that is not important. Vachel said that—” she took a deep breath and swallowed hard “—that Alex’s attack failed, that Nicolaus knows we are all but naked here, and that he is coming to attack Exceat.”
“God help us,” Godric said, but his voice did not shake and he turned calmly enough to one of the men beside him. “Get a horse. Go down to Cuckhaven and send the men waiting in the village to Byford. Tell him to gather what force he can and come back to us.”
“Yes,” Desiree said, hiding the fact that she was sure Byford was dead as well as Alex. “But instead of coming back, tell the messengers to go on to Roselynde and tell Sir Simon or Lady Alinor what has happened. And take Vachel somewhere that his screaming will not disturb me and wrench from him everything he knows about the battle at Telscombe.”
Godric’s eyes opened wide. “That will not be possible, my lady.”
“What do you mean it will not be possible?” Desiree was so furious that she put her hands down on the ground and pushed herself upright. The pain in her back, which had dulled to an ache, stabbed fiercely again and there was a soft thud behind her. She paid pain and sound no mind. “I am the Lady of Exceat,” she snarled, “and that is my order.”
“Yes, my lady,” Godric agreed, and now his voice quavered with anxiety. “But he is dead, my lady. It is too late for torture to wring information from him.”
“Oh.”
Desiree sat looking at her master-at-arms’ second in a bemused way. Her feelings were mixed. She was rather proud of having dispatched her enemy with her own hands, a trifle worried about having killed Alex’s brother, but mostly she was sorry to have been so efficient.
“Too bad,” she sighed. “I would have liked to have him tortured.”
The sound of running footsteps and panting made Godric jump to his feet, worried that he had been too slow and an attack was already launched against Exceat. However, it was the priest, who reached them and went down on his knees.
“Desiree!” Father Harold sounded sick and faint and he put out an arm to support her. “Where are you hurt?”
“I am beginning to think not at all,” Desiree said. “The blood is Vachel’s. He confessed that he killed Frewyn, and—and I stuck my garden shears into his throat.”
“Good for you!” Father Harold burst out, and then crossed himself and muttered, “God forgive me.”
Godric looked over his shoulder, his fright at fearing the priest was a messenger of doom having brought him to a sense of his prime responsibility, now that Father Harold was here to look after his lady. “Please, m’lady,” he said, “may I go see to the defense of the keep now?”
“Yes,” Desiree said forcefully, determined that Nicolaus would not have Exceat, even if she had to fight on the walls herself. “Sir Simon will come when he gets our message or will send men with a captain. We need only hold for three or four days. If we are attacked, get the menservants up on the walls. They can help push away scaling ladders. They can throw stones. Some can use slings.”
“Yes, m’lady.” With clear direction, Godric sounded almost enthusiastic and he went off at a trot.
Father Harold watched him go, then turned back to Desiree. “But you cannot sit here on the ground covered with blood, my child. Let me help you up, if you think you can stand—or, no, let me get the servingmen to bring a short bench. You can sit on it, with your arms around their shoulders, and they can carry you—”
Desiree could just see herself being tipped off the stair, which certainly was nowhere wide enough for two men and a bench, and she shook her head. “I had rather try to walk,” she said.
As soon as Father Harold tried to lift her, however, she cried out that her back hurt. He went behind her at once, and saw that her gown was soaked with blood and a knife was lying by her hip. A closer look showed the slit in her gown where the knife had penetrated. Farman, who had followed the priest, rushed back into the keep to summon Desiree’s women and in half a candlemark her gown and undergarments had been stripped off and the long, shallow cut had been dressed.
By the time she was decently wrapped in her bed-gown, she had decided that there was no sense in spreading the news of Alex’s and possibly Byford’s death. The folk in the keep would fight better if they hoped that Alex and the clever master-at-arms would be bringing the remnant of the army to attack Nicolaus in the rear. She decided too that it would be better if Godric knew she could give no more advice. She had told him what was essential to hold the keep. She did not want to be begged to yield to save her servants’ lives. She might have been willing to sacrifice herself, but she did not trust Nicolaus to keep his word.
With Eadgyth’s assistance, Desiree struggled up to her chamber. She made no protest when Eadgyth brought her a potion to make her sleep. Death and the desire for death had passed her by. She had been willing, would have been happy to die to avenge Frewyn and Alex, but it was clear that God still had some use for her in Exceat.
“My lady, my lady. Sir Alex is returned and begs permission to come up to speak with you.”
Desiree reluctantly opened her eyes. Her back hurt and she was propped on her side. The night can
dle and the candle the maid held illuminated Eadgyth’s face, which bore the happiest of smiles. Desiree stared at her.
“Alex is dead,” she said.
“Oh, no, my lady.” Eadgyth shook her head, smiling but sympathetic. “You must have been dreaming. Please wake up. Do. He is down below by the stair and near frantic to see you. Should I ask Father Harold to come up with him?”
“Alex is alive?”
“Yes, my lady, and unhurt, and Telscombe is taken.”
Desiree started to struggle upright, exclaimed with pain and allowed Eadgyth to raise her. The maid carefully placed a pillow by her hips and another by her neck and upper shoulders so that she could sit up without pressure on the cut in her back. She blinked, shook her head.
“Idiot!” she exclaimed, startling her maid who began to apologize. Desiree shook her head again. “Not you, Eadgyth. Me. I am the idiot. I should have known that Vachel was lying. I should have realized that if he said the attack had failed it had surely succeeded.”
She took a deep breath. Joy filled her, foamed within her like a new-broached keg of beer. So Alex was frantic to see her, was he? Not as frantic as she had been for days and nights. She looked at her maid.
“Find me a shift,” she said, “the one with tucked lace at the neck.”
And when the maid, grinning, had slipped it over her head and adjusted it so that Desiree’s rosy nipples peeped through the lace, she combed Desiree’s hair, brought her a tooth stick, and water with new mint leaves to wash her mouth. Only then did Desiree send Eadgyth to bring Alex up.
He burst in the door, crying “Are you well, my love? I should have killed him. I should—”
“I took care of that myself!” Desiree snapped, suddenly filled with as much fury as joy. “And if I am well it is no thanks to you, either!”
“I am sorry,” Alex muttered, wringing his hands. “If I had guessed… If I had dreamed he would attack you—”
“I am not talking about Vachel. There was nothing you could have done about that. But how could you be so cruel, so thoughtless, as to send no word after the battle? How could you?”
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