Defiant

by Kennedy, Kris

  He smiled with another of those small smiles that made him seem so much less dangerous than Jamie. “As dense and dull as all that.”

  Less dangerous until he unsheathed his sword and used it with that ruthless, unemotional skill Jamie also displayed. Really, these men were the sort who could make a great deal of money hiring themselves out as judicial champions.

  His gaze flicked over her shoulder, back on guard. She turned and peered into the steely green woods with him.

  “Do we need water?”

  “Pardon?”

  She pointed down the hill behind them, to the glistening stream. “For the horses? I can fetch it.”

  “The horses are able to walk down, mistress.”

  “Ah, but so am I able to walk down. While there, I can also wash a bit.”

  He scanned the stream and far hillside, then nodded. “Aye, go, Mistress Eva. But if you run, we will find you,” he cautioned in a whisper. “And Jamie will not be pleased.”

  “I have no intention of running. Jamie and I have made an alliance.”

  He smiled faintly. “Is that so?”

  “Indeed. I fetch water for the horses, and he does not tie me to a tree.”

  He gave a soft laugh, making a puff of hot air swirl before his mouth.

  “While I have no desire to displease your Jamie, you must know, sir, I fear it lies ahead. It is the curé, you understand. For myself, I would let your Jamie do all his masterful, angry things and would never be in his way whatsoever, for I would be living in a little cottage by a river in France, bothering not a soul. Most certainly I would not be in England.”

  Despite its yellow flowers and hauntingly lovely misty dawns.

  She picked up her little satchel. “Have you a woman, Sir Ry, or do you stay only with Jamie, here to catch the men he destroys as they topple over?”

  His smile faded. “I had a woman. And I do not catch them. I let them fall.”

  “Then I shall fear you both.”

  She slipped down the hill, through the dripping wet ferns, disrobed down to her linen shift, and waded into the stream up to her shins. She swiftly washed her face, her armpits, and everything traitorous Jamie had alit beneath her skirts. Nails, hair, skin and the clothes that covered it, all might be drab and homespun, but Eva ensured they were aggressively clean and well tended. It was one small thing left to her control, so she took it.

  She was crouched low, the wet yellow tunic under the water, when she became aware of a dark shadow at the edge of her vision. She looked up.

  Jamie.

  She got to her feet in a slow, stunned, half-naked way. Every move she began, she halted, because everything she thought to do was insufficient to solve her problem. She started for the stream’s edge, stopped, then stretched out her arm, a pointless grab for the dry tunic that was about five yards away on the riverbank, next to Jamie’s boot. She settled on covering the front of her body with the wet tunic and pushed the hair back from her face.

  He stood only in boots and hose and a loosely tied linsey-woolsey tunic and leather gauntlets he’d started to lace around one wrist, an idle if constructive act as he searched for her, she supposed. He’d stopped short, and his gaze burned down her wet skirts, as if it were a making a line of hot soldered iron.

  “I inquired of Ry,” she said swiftly. “He said I might.”

  He did not appear to be listening. It felt like ravishment, this burning path of desire, searing across her body like a brand.

  “Why did you take Roger?” she asked sharply, to stop the branding.

  His gaze ripped up. “To teach him how to track so he does not get killed. We ride. Now. Come.”

  He turned and strode up the hill, kicking through the buttery-feathered wet ferns. Again he was with the commands. Eva hurried to the grassy bank and dressed, then grabbed her satchel and hurried up the hill. Even from down here, she could see the top of the hill and the tops of their heads, hear the low murmur of male voices as they saddled the horses.

  Something caught her eye off to her right. Three shadowy figures, hunched low, moving through the mists. On the other side were three more, all stealthy, all silent.

  All with their swords out.

  Twenty-four

  She started running.

  The crumbly pine needles and rich brown soil fell apart beneath her boots, sending her sliding back down, her knees crashing into the earth and rocks. She reached out and grabbed for tree roots with her hands, pulling herself up the hill, scrambling, sweating, silent but for her panting breath.

  Call out? Don’t call?

  She must not warn the intruders. But if Roger had not yet seen them—

  “Jamie!” she shouted, hurtling up the hill, not realizing she was calling for Jamie instead of Roger. “’Ware, ’ware! They come!”

  She flung herself over the crest of the hill just as Jamie and Ry scraped their swords from scabbards, Jamie’s gaze fixed on the woods as she ran up.

  “Roger,” he was saying quietly, calmly. “If you think you can resist stabbing me, we could put your sword arm to good use.”

  “Sword, sir,” he whispered. “Put me to use. I’ve no love of robbers or bandits.”

  “Nor do I,” Eva piped in.

  “I have less faith you can resist urges to stab me,” Jamie retorted, but was already tugging free a dagger from the belt that held his arsenal of weapons. He spun it in his hand so the hilt protruded and slapped it into her palm.

  “Do not stick me,” he ordered, and turned away, whispering, “Spread out.” Roger scrambled to fetch the blade Ry tossed him, and they fanned out amid the dense, dark forest.

  She backed up, moving to her right, whispering, “This way, Gog.” There would be no spreading of her and Gog. They were blade and sheath.

  She pressed her spine against a large tree trunk and peered into the small, sunny clearing. Her mouth had gone completely dry.

  It was like this before every encounter. And not just the sort that had blasted down the oak doors of the monastery Father Peter had arranged for them and sent armed riders galloping through the place, searching for Eva and Gog. No, it was the simple, hail-fellow exchanges. But, of course, if you were being hunted by kings and counts, perhaps this was an understandable thing.

  Six of them, she realized as the waving tree branches gave hint to the marauders moving through the wood. Six men. Bandits? Freebooters?

  Heir-hunters?

  She extended a hand, feeling for Gog, who was never more than a pace or two off. Blade and sheath.

  Her hand swiped through empty air. She reached a little farther. More air. Gog was gone.

  Shards of fear slid through her belly and arms. She turned slowly, willing her eyes to pierce dimness.

  Slowly, the tall figure of Ruggart Ry emerged a few yards away, like a standing stone amid the trees. She swung her gaze farther and caught sight of Jamie, sword at the ready, his body pinned against a tree, his dusky cheek pressed to bark. His gleaming eyes caught hers. She lifted her shoulders in a little shrug, turning her hand palm up in silent question. She mouthed, Gog? He squinted, then briefly shook his head.

  She spotted a crouched shape creeping up through the brush a dozen paces off . . . Gog.

  A stream of breathy relief funneled through her lips. Fear strangled it dead in her throat the next second. A shadowy form, hunched and looming, was following behind.

  She took off, a silent shadow, on the balls of her feet, knees bent, arms extended slightly. Sweat built along her arms. The shadowy figure drew nearer Gog. She started trotting.

  Something closed around her neck and yanked her backward off her feet. Her blade fell to the ground. She hit the earth at full impact, then a mailed hand hauled her up and backward into an armored body, a blade at her throat.

  “Scream and you die,” hissed the owner of the body, the armor, and the blade.

  Another bandit appeared, reaching for her legs, to lift her off the ground. She went still for half a second, then abruptly
turned her head to the side at the same moment she lifted her feet off the ground. She dropped like a stone out of his grip.

  Before either of her assailants could so much as curse, she flung her hand with Jamie’s dagger up and back, right into Knife’s thigh. He howled in pain and stumbled backward, but the other one had already grabbed her braid and yanked her to her feet. The pain was fire through her scalp. He rattled her brain with a savage shake and lifted a knife to her throat.

  “Firedrake,” he snarled. “I will snap your neck—”

  Suddenly there was a tremendous jerk, then a sudden release. Her captor went flying backward like a stalk of wheat in the wind. Eva spun to find Jamie looking down at the man he’d just peeled off her, now writhing on the ground. The other marauder was back on his feet, knife still sticking in his thigh, moving like a runaway wagon right at her. She crouched on her knees, waiting for impact, then rammed herself upward, punching her shoulder into his armored chest. It was like shoving off a boulder. Her teeth clattered as he knocked her down, then wrapped his hands around her chest and began dragging her kicking, flailing body away into the woods.

  “Drop her,” commanded a deep voice.

  Everything went still, then the pressure on her hair abruptly released. He shoved her viciously away. Eva stumbled to her knees, her nose practically sliding into the edge of her knife blade. She swept it into her hand and spun to face her attacker and whatever had attacked him.

  Jamie was holding him, blade at his neck. Her frenzied gaze met Jamie’s calm one.

  “Retrieve your boy.”

  She spun again, crouched, scanning. Were there others? Had they gotten Gog? Was he—

  There he was, swinging from one arm in the lowest branches of a tree, like some forest thing in one of Father Peter’s strange and beautiful sketches. A third attacker was scrambling up after him, inching out on the branch. Gog loosed his fingers and dropped to the ground where a fourth awaited.

  She started running for him. Ry came in from her side, barreling over the sticks and leaves, a few steps ahead; then Jamie appeared from nowhere. With no fanfare and silent, deadly skill, Ry and Jamie moved through the men as if they were lumps of butter, until they were scattered on the earth, melting into the dirt and decaying leaves.

  Eva stared in shock, then looked at Gog. He met her eye and . . . grinned. He was panting, his hand was bleeding, and he had a gash across his face, but excitement flashed in his eyes. Eva cleared her throat several times.

  “Roger.” It was a croak. A terrible croaking thing, her voice. She cleared it again. “Gog, are you—”

  She stopped, aghast to find her throat was unable to be cleared. Something thick was lodged there, and she could not speak.

  She looked at Gog, wordless, her mouth open but no words coming out. Gog stared. She heard Jamie murmur to Ruggart Ry, who extended something. She looked down in a daze. It was a waterskin.

  “Water,” Jamie murmured. “From upstream.”

  She drank. The cool water streamed down her hot, dry throat. It ran down her chin and she kept drinking. Finally, she lowered the waterskin and handed it back with a nod.

  “My thanks.” She turned to Gog, who was still staring in shock. “Are you quite a’right?” she asked with great calmness, as if the last moment of speechlessness had not occurred.

  The concern on his face washed away under excitement. “Fine, Eva. Fine!” His eyes shone and he patted her arm. Eva suddenly realized he was taller than she. A great deal taller. How could she not have noticed this before? How could she not have witnessed this growth taking place before her very eyes? She felt shocked in a vague, unsettled way.

  Jamie and Ry looked between Eva and Roger, then began dragging bodies into the deeper woods. As if leaving them to work this out, however waifs and their charges did such things, she supposed. Unfortunately, she had absolutely no notion how they did such things.

  Hunters, murderers, rageful kings, she’d dealt with many obstacles in her life. But never an argument with Roger.

  Really, it was not proper that battle could so light one’s inner fire. All she wished for was a cottage near a river, and sun for part of the year.

  She waited until Jamie and Ry were well out of sight, then said in a low voice, “Why did you leave me?”

  “I am sorry, Eva.” He did not sound sorry, though, bouncing on the balls of his feet. His blond forelock fell over one eye. “I thought we would separate, come around from behind—”

  “You cannot simply leave me,” she snapped, surprising herself.

  Gog’s buoyant bouncing stopped. He looked at her in silence. This sort of emotional river was not Eva’s way. Speechlessness and now this, this upwelling of emotion that almost squeezed her throat shut.

  “I would never have let them get you, Eva-Weave,” he vowed in a hushed voice. “I was going to come around—”

  “You think I wish you nearby to ensure I am safe?” She gave an incredulous, hurt little laugh.

  “Eva,” he said, his voice somehow stronger. “There were six of them. Six. The same six from the stables. The ones who took Father Peter.

  “That means they were sent back, Eva. He knows we are here. And I am not going to hide behind your skirts and let anyone take us, Eva. Either of us. On my life.”

  They stared at each other, a thousand unsaid things roiling below their silence. Jamie and Ry came into the clearing, shoving out of the trees. Roger straightened, raised his voice, loud enough for them to hear. “I was going to circle around, Eva. Come at them from the back. Protect you.”

  “You do not protect me,” she said in a fierce, concluding tone.

  “But he did,” Jamie’s low voice broke in. “If he’d have stayed with you, he’d have been captured. Both of you. Two of them holding you, the other four concentrated against Ry and me. He did well to circle around. It forced them to separate.”

  She looked over coldly. Jamie was watching her, paused with his sword half-plunged back into his sheath. “I think it showed a good bit of warrior craft,” he concluded.

  “Do you?” she said in a slow, low tone. It was intended as a caution. He did not heed it.

  “Aye. Roger had a choice. He made one.” Jamie’s eyes held hers. “It only gave us a few minutes, but that’s all we needed.”

  She stared sightless, seeing not Jamie but the past. All the men who had hunted them, all the things that had almost been. Sooth, all the things that had been. The murderous rage, the blood, the screaming, the running. And after, the innocent monks who’d tried to help them cast out like bloody jetsam whenever the hunters came on their big black horses, forcing Eva and Gog into the woods, running again.

  What did Jamie know of it? Of the years spent protecting Gog, of running? From men like Jamie. Barren fury welled up in her.

  If Gog died, she didn’t know what she’d do. Die herself, she supposed. If he was captured, though, oh, the thought of the horror of King John inflicting itself on Gog as it had his father . . . She knew precisely what she’d do: eat her way through the world, up to and including King John, who had started this madness.

  Of course, if she was captured . . . . whatever was in store for Gog, ’twould be doubly, trebly, innumerably worse for her.

  Best not to think of that.

  “That is all we needed, is it?’ she said in a low, barely controlled voice. “A few moments, and all is well again? What would you know of it?”

  JAMIE watched her closely, in part because she looked like a mine about to explode. Her hands tightened so her painted fingernails bit into her palms. Her jaw worked once or twice, then stilled with great effort. Her gaze bored into his, then ripped away with an almost physical force.

  Whatever he had done to her before—and it could be argued that was much—she was tenfold more angry now than anytime before, not for something done, but for something said.

  What had he said?

  His gaze slide from her rigid, fisted stance to Gog’s animated, boyish bobbing. Somethin
g was niggling at the edge of his attention. Something disquieting.

  They finished removing signs of a fight while he ticked off events in his mind, and his awareness coalesced around a single irrefutable fact: these men had not been about random attacks or petty robbery. They’d been hunting.

  They’d gone directly for Eva and her Gog.

  Which meant Mouldin knew Roger was back here and had sent his men back, yet continued on with the priest. Which meant however valuable Roger was, the priest was more valuable yet. As all his value lay in knowledge, Peter of London must know something even more valuable than where the missing heir of d’Endshire was.

  Twenty-five

  They rode hard through the rest of the day, as hard as the horses could handle, moving over to ride inside the treeline whenever they heard hooves or voices drawing near. By Jamie’s estimation, their quarry was no farther on ahead. They were keeping pace. Apparently, this was fast as Mouldin could go as well.

  Else he was holding up, waiting for soldiers who would never return.

  Or perhaps biding his time for a rendezvous. Or a confrontation.

  But that seemed unlikely. These were empty lands, except for the wild things, and the only tracks visible went straight on north, so Jamie rode them onward, ever wary.

  As the day wore on, Jamie allowed Eva and Gog to move on ahead a few paces, while he and Ry lagged behind.

  Jamie said nothing for a few moments, and finally Ry looked over. “You suspect she knows more than she is saying.”

  “I know she knows more than she is saying.”

  “Why do you not push her, then? You have a long and illustrious history of pushing people into saying and doing things they do not wish to say or do.”

  “I have been pushing her.” Although not as much as he could have.

  Eva’s upright, slender back swayed as she pointed out something to Roger off to their right. The faded, tight-fitting tunic was cornflower blue, so she looked a bit like a flower herself, which again, he reminded himself, was ridiculous. She’d attempted a taming braid and enclosure in the morn, but strong breezes and hot spring sun had rendered her hair defiant. Now, by midday, she had the bindings off, her hair knotted in a complicated concoction atop her head, held in place by a few peeled sticks, allowing only wisps to fall down. They stuck to the sheen of her sun-heated neck.