In fact, Devlin’s men froze at the sound and looked to the sky. It was an instinct with them; Devlin always took the bird into battle and for very good reason – Neart’s bird of prey intuitions were never wrong. They had depended upon the animal’s cries at the start of their rebellion and even on the stormy night when Kildare’s fleet had come ashore, the bird had alerted them. He had eyes and ears and senses that no human being possessed, so as the bird cried overhead against the cloudy sky, the men instinctively went for their swords. Their first hint at danger wasn’t long in coming.
Oblivious to the screaming bird, Emllyn had just finished relieving herself in the grove of trees. As she lowered her skirts and came out of the foliage, she heard a noise behind her. Turning to see a group of men dressed in tartans approaching through the leaves, she let out a yelp of fear and bolted in Devlin’s direction. In her haste, however, she slipped on the muddy slope and fell flat on her face. Before she could get to her feet, someone grabbed her by the ankle and she screamed as loud as she could.
“Devlin!”
Devlin and his men saw her near the copse of trees, on her belly as men swarmed around her. Seized with fury and panic, Devlin leapt onto his horse, as did Iver and Shain, and made haste in Emllyn’s direction. His foot soldiers, thirty of them clad in stolen tartan from various clanns so de Bermingham men could not be identified to outside observers, ran after the knights on horseback. The scent of battle filled the air and the Irish breathed heavily of it; battles were commonplace and they were prepared. They fed on the rush and were prepared to kill.
Devlin reached Emllyn quickly, just as men were trying to drag her away by her feet. She was fighting them furiously, kicking heads and slapping hands as she was able. Devlin charged his horse right up to her and swung his sword at the nearest man, cleaving his head cleanly off at the shoulders. His head hit the ground right next to Emllyn; in fact, she looked over and next to her shoulder were a pair of sightless eyes gazing back at her. Screaming hysterically, she kicked a man holding her left foot right in the face and bolted to her feet.
A nasty fight was going on around her but the only thing she could see was Devlin’s hand reaching for her. Once, she would have recoiled from it but at the moment, it was safety. She grabbed hold of the extended hand and Devlin yanked her up onto his horse. Emllyn settled in behind him, threw her arms around his waist, and held on with a death grip.
With Emllyn safe, Devlin was better able to function. Odd how the moment he saw her being dragged away, his mind had clouded over and all he could see, think, or feel was Emllyn’s predicament. Nothing else at that moment mattered. Until she was safe, he could think of nothing else so now that she was tucked in behind him, he was capable of functioning.
Rage overtook him now. These men had tried to abduct Emllyn when she quite clearly belonged to him, so he reckoned to punish them just as he would have punished anyone else who had tried to take what belonged to him. Swords were swinging, as were clubs, and he buried his sword in two of the men who had tried to take Emllyn from him. He had seen them; he never forgot a face and he had singled these men out to pay for their sins. They were all going to pay. Already, it was a bloodbath as Black Sword’s fury was unleashed. There were more than one headless body lying about.
Devlin’s first thought upon reclaiming Emllyn should have been to remove her from the fighting, but it was not. He felt that she was safe enough on the back of his horse that no one would try for her again, but he was wrong. As he sliced through one man’s shoulder, he felt Emllyn lurch behind him. Screaming, she began to slide away but he grabbed her hands, still wrapped around his waist, and realized at that moment that he should probably remove her. As long as she remained with him in battle, she was a target. Spurring his courser forward, he plowed through a gang of fighting men in order to flee to safety.
The horse thundered across the wet grass and towards the area where they had originally paused to rest. Eefha was still there, still sitting on her palfrey and puffing on her shite pipe. As Devlin pulled up beside her on his sweaty, bloodied horse, he was rather surprised when the old woman reached up to pull Emllyn off the steed. Usually she wouldn’t have bothered. But as Emllyn slid off the animal, Devlin could see why.
Emllyn had been wounded.
Her left leg and the bottom portion of her surcoat was stained with blood and she winced as Eefha helped her to the ground. Devlin forgot all about the battle going on several dozen yards away; he bailed off his horse and was at her side in a moment.
“Let me see how badly you’re wounded,” he said calmly, although his heart was racing with fear and adrenalin. “What happened?”
Both Eefha and Devlin lowered Emllyn to the ground. As she sat upon the wet grass, Devlin lifted her surcoat to get a look at the injury.
“Someone with a blade cut me,” she said, pain in her voice. “One of those men who tried to carry me away. I think they were aiming for you but when you turned the horse, they cut me instead.”
He looked at her as her words sank in. They were aiming for you. God, he had been so foolish not to have removed her from the battle immediately. Arrogance had kept him fighting, thinking of himself before he thought of her. Feeling horribly guilty, he returned his focus to her leg to see that she had been sliced cleanly just below the knee, a cut a couple of inches long. It wasn’t terribly bad but it was still bleeding a great deal.
“Eefha,” he said. “In my saddle bags there are medicaments and boiled linen. Will you please get it?”
Puffing on the pipe and creating a smelly cloud above Emllyn’s head, Eefha stood up and went to Devlin’s bags. Sticking her hands in, she began pulling forth bandages and other items. Handing them off to Devlin, she then went to her own bags and began rummaging around. Emllyn’s attention moved between the old woman’s busy movements and Devlin’s careful touch on her wound.
“She understood you,” she murmured. “I did not think she understood normal language.”
Devlin grinned weakly. “She understands more than she lets on,” he said. Then, he glanced at her, almost apologetically. “I must put a few stitches in this. It is fairly deep.”
Emllyn struggled against her fear; she wasn’t very good with pain and didn’t relish a needle to her flesh. But she swallowed bravely.
“It will look better to de Cleveley if I have an injury as a result of my escape from Black Sword’s dungeon,” she said with forced confidence. “How fortunate this occurred.”
Devlin didn’t believe her for a moment but he admired her courage. “I shall be quick,” he said softly.
For the first time since their rough introduction, there was trust in her eyes as she looked at him. Perhaps there was some appreciation, too, for the fact that he had saved her from cutthroats. Whatever the case, there was something different in her expression that he had never before witnessed. Her lips curled into a faint smile.
“Thank you,” she murmured.
Devlin smiled in return and then went to work. There was all manner of warmth between them, of gentleness in his touch that Emllyn had never experienced. It is so odd, she thought to herself as she watched him tend her wound. ’Tis almost as if he… cares. But that wasn’t possible. She was a concubine and nothing more, as he had reminded her many times. He was simply protecting his property.
As the battle raged on the hillside, Devlin put five small stitches in Emllyn’s leg with slippery but thick cat gut and Eefha bandaged it tightly. It had been painful but Emllyn had never uttered a sound. As Eefha mixed powdered willow bark with some water from the stream and had Emllyn drink it, Devlin stood off to the side and watched the battle in the distance dwindle. He would not return to it and leave an old woman and an injured lady unprotected, so he remained where he was and watched as Iver and Shain chased off the remaining bandits.
As Devlin urged Eefha to hurry and finish tending Emllyn, Neart returned from his aerial reconnaissance and Devlin perched the bird on his saddle with a bit of jerky as a rewar
d. When the tide of dirty men finally seemed to be moving well off into the distance, Shain gave a sharp whistle and Devlin’s men began to retreat. As Devlin watched, the familiar throng moved back in his direction. It was over, for now.
Fortunately, Devlin hadn’t lost any men in the skirmish but he had six wounded, one of them fairly seriously. It was an older soldier who had been cut in the face, slicing through an eye. Shain and a few other men tried very hard to staunch the blood flow and get the man’s eye wrapped so they could move out, but it was a bad wound indeed. It took more time than Devlin would have liked to get him stable. They did what they could and then assigned four men to escort all of the wounded back to Black Castle. When Devlin lifted Emllyn onto his courser and ordered his group to move out, ten men headed back for Black Castle while the remaining twenty five continued south towards de Cleveley territory.
“De Cleveley’s men?” Devlin asked as they resumed their pace.
Both Shain and Iver were riding to his right; the question was directed at them. They were a bit dirty from the muddy battle but none the worse for wear. Shain was the first to reply.
“Nay,” he said. “They were Irish; no English mixed among them, which is usual for de Cleveley. Plus, their weapons were crude and de Cleveley’s men are always well armed. They were also wearing O’Byrne tartan. Didn’t you notice?”
Devlin thought on that information. His heart sank at the thought of his hated enemy, the clann O’Byrne, a large faction that lived to the north of Black Castle and were the traditional enemy of de Bermingham and their allies, the O’Connor. Devlin hadn’t had any trouble from them lately but they were always lurking, waiting to strike. They envied what de Bermingham had.
Devlin fought off a sense of frustration; he had enough trouble with the English. He didn’t need the O’Byrnes resuming their raids on top of everything.
“Truthfully, I was so busy trying to assist the lady that I did not have time to notice everything,” he admitted. “How many did we kill?”
No one said anything about the fact that Devlin had just called Emllyn the “lady” rather than the “prisoner”, or the fact that he had taken her out of the battle and not returned. He had chosen to stay with her, all extremely unusual actions for the usually hands-on commander. If they were confused by it, they kept silent. They focused on his question instead.
“I counted eleven,” Iver said. “They had at least thirty or more men. When they retreated, they left the dead.”
Devlin glanced over his shoulder at the battle site that was now in the distance. “They will be back for them,” he muttered. “We must make sure we are well away by nightfall. I do not wish to remain awake all night waiting for retaliation from O’Byrne.”
Shain glanced over his shoulder, scanning the landscape for more threats. “Do you think they followed us out of Black Castle?”
“It is possible,” Devlin said. “Those bastards are never far off from us. ’Tis better we get clear of this and settle down for the night.”
Everyone seemed to agree on that point and the pace for the group picked up as they moved through a wide brook and into a field full of blooming flowers. Overhead, the overcast sky was beginning to darken and they could smell rain, which would make for unpleasant travel. As Shain and Iver spread out to more vigilantly scan the area, Devlin’s attention turned to Emllyn.
She was unusually quiet and rather limp. He gave Neart a soft command and sent the bird up again to scout the area before looking over his shoulder and trying to get a look at Emllyn.
“Does the wound pain you?” he asked.
He heard her sigh heavily. “A little,” she said. She sounded groggy. “Whatever Eefha gave me to drink has made me very sleepy. Will it be long before we stop for the night?”
Devlin looked up to the sky, noting that it was growing increasingly dark and that fat, angry black clouds were now blowing in off of the sea.
“A few hours,” he said.
She sighed again and he could feel her leaning heavily on his back. “I look forward to it.”
Devlin went a few more feet before abruptly bringing the horse to a halt. He dismounted so swiftly that Emllyn nearly fell off because she had been resting against him. But she steadied herself and watched him curiously as he moved her forward in the saddle so that she was nearly sitting on the horse’s neck, and then mounted the animal again, only this time he was sitting behind her.
He didn’t say a word as he shifted her to a more comfortable position in such a way that she was leaning back against him and her left leg was propped up on the horse’s withers. Wrapping his mother’s old cloak tightly around her, he pulled her back against his chest and cradled her with his right arm. Then he spurred the horse forward.
“You may sleep now,” he told her. “I will steady you so that you will not fall.”
He said it emotionlessly but the truth was he went through some trouble to move her around, and him around, so she could be more comfortable. Emllyn was grateful that he had made the effort to ease her.
“I am rather tired,” she admitted. “What did Eefha give me?”
Devlin moved her so that she was cradled in his right arm, held against his chest to keep her steady. He glanced at her pale, weary face.
“Poison,” he said.
Emllyn’s eyebrows shot up. “She did what?”
He broke down into snorts, grinning at her reaction. “A jest,” he assured her although her expression remained fearful. “I promise it was not poison. Mayhap it was a potion that will make you sympathetic to the Irish.”
Emllyn sighed with relief to realize he was only teasing. It was rather devilish and his attempt at humor surprised her. She hadn’t seen it in him up until now. But there was nothing humorous about the subject matter of the latter part of his statement.
“What makes you think I am not?” she asked. “I am coming to understand what it is to be held as a slave, robbed of freedom. I believe that qualifies me to understand the oppression you have suffered.”
Devlin’s humor vanished as he looked down at her, knowing there was unhappy accusation in her tone. He wasn’t willing to be reprimanded by her. “The difference is that you did something foolish to end up as you have,” he said. “My people have done nothing. We were quite happy ruling our island until the Normans came.”
Emllyn looked away. She didn’t want to engage him in another conversation of his repressed people so she let the statement fade. She let him get in the last word, at least this time. I am being compliant, she reminded herself. Compliance would get her everywhere, she knew. Amidst thoughts of submission and her reward once they were finished with this foolish mission, her eyelids grew droopy again and she faded off into a heavy sleep. In her dreams, a man was there but this time it wasn’t Trevor. He had red hair and a red beard, and he used his hands and mouth in ways that made her quiver.
Devlin felt her tremble in her sleep, watching as she twitched and sighed. He tried not to watch her because her subtle movements were arousing him, so he spent most of his time pretending to find interest elsewhere. But his gaze always moved back to Emllyn.
He watched her sleep for the rest of the afternoon.
Chapter Nine
Devlin’s group had stopped well after dark in a wooded area between two small hills that sheltered them from the surrounding countryside. It was a safe spot and one they could easily protect. A small brook ran to the south and as Iver immediately set sentry posts, the rest of them settled in for the night.
Eefha refused to camp near the men, however. She set up station on the crest of one of the small hills and smoked her pipe, filling the area with the smell of burning shite. She ate from whatever stores she had brought with her and made no move to share anything, so the men went about their business down in the vale below, all but ignoring the strange old woman.
Devlin ignored her for the most part, too, mostly because that was what she wanted. If Eefha wanted to be part of the group, then she would ma
ke it so. Otherwise, it was best to let her do what she wanted to do. Devlin was pretty sure she had accompanied them as a chaperone and protector for Emllyn but he wasn’t entirely sure. She could be coming along because she knew he was going to the English settlement where she might be able to obtain more things for her collection. With Eefha, it was often difficult to know what her true intentions were.
Devlin had Shain lay down some hides almost the moment they arrived, whereupon he immediately deposited Emllyn. She was still sleeping heavily from Eefha’s potion and she remained sleeping as the men set up camp for the night. Devlin allowed them to make a couple of small fires, deep in the shield of the vale, for both warmth and cooking, and they had brought a fair amount of food with them to eat. Rabbit was the main course and it was into the night that the smells of succulent roasting rabbit lifted.
But the smell didn’t wake Emllyn, nor did the commotion, for she remained sleeping where Devlin had put her. Several feet away from the group and away from the fire, she slept soundlessly as Devlin, Shain, and Iver sat around one fire while the rest of the men huddled around the other. Both Shain and Iver noticed that Devlin kept glancing over to the sleeping lady as he sucked down his roast rabbit. In fact, he seemed more interested in her than in the rabbit.
Clues were starting to come together that neither Shain nor Iver wanted to believe. They had seen evidence of them earlier when their commander had tended to a wounded woman rather than leave her to someone else. Anytime Devlin de Bermingham voluntary left a battle, there was something odd afoot. More than that, it was in the way he spoke of her or looked at her. Something was in his expression when he spoke of the lady, something both confusing and strange, and his men were starting to figure it out. What their sharp minds told them was something both incredulous and distasteful.
Lords of Ireland II Page 13