by Susan Wiggs
“Aye.”
“But the men of Eu are farmers, fishermen. Not fighters. And they are French.”
“They are men whose homes have been plundered by French brigands, whose women have been raped by knights.”
Understanding dawned on Jack’s gamin face. “And,” the scutifer said, “they are beholden to you for succoring the town after that raid. You armed them with Welsh longbows.”
“Exactly.” Gaucourt’s knights might be the ones who raided them. The people of Eu will not turn away from the opportunity to take captives, to charge ransoms.”
Jack’s face fell. “How does a peasant make a captive of a trained knight?”
“How did our king win Shrewsbury when he was but a princeling of sixteen summers?”
Jack slapped his thigh. “With bows and arrows, by God, not lances and shields.”
“Aye. You and Dylan will train them.” He paused. “Speak not of my intent. Simply say you mean to see them well prepared if brigands should strike again.”
Jack looked relieved. “It is best coming from you.”
“Have them ready to march inside a fortnight.”
“You ask much of me, my lord.”
“You have much to offer, Jack.”
“Dylan and I will leave today.”
“Watch your back. Gaucourt’s men are all around.”
* * *
Lianna glared at Rand from her chair by the hearth in the grande salle. The late-afternoon sun shimmered cold light over his golden hair, his smiling face. She wished her hammering heart would remember that this man was English, and her enemy.
He leaned down and kissed her cheek. The scent of sea breezes clung to him. The rest of her nearly forgot, too.
“How are you, my sweet?” he asked.
The frown she sent him was anything but sweet. “You forced me into a marriage I protest, you hold me against my will, you keep me guarded by your lackeys, and you ask me how I fare?” She gave a dry, bitter laugh and slid a malevolent look at Simon and Batsford, who were playing at backgammon nearby.
Rand sank to one knee before her, took her hands in his. Her pulse leaped; she avoided his eyes.
Lowering his voice, he said, “A foolish question, considering your state of mind.” She tried to yank her hands away. He tightened his hold. “King Henry is coming to Normandy. With or without Bois-Long, he will dominate France and take the crown he rightfully claims. Your castle—our children—will reap the rewards of an English monarchy.”
She suppressed a shiver. Her uncle had described Henry as a driven man who dealt swiftly and ruthlessly with those who defied him. What if Rand were correct? What if Henry did win France? Her stomach fluttered. How would a Frenchwoman fare under English rule? Whose subject would her child be?
“You ask too much of me,” she stated. “I will not open my home to the English usurper.”
His eyes hardened. The chilly look seemed strange on a face that had always been soft with love for her. “Yet you would open it to a usurping Frenchman.”
She looked down at their entwined fingers, the bands of new gold. An idea niggled at her. The laws of entail might allow Gervais to inherit the property Lazare had gained through marriage. “I shall perish of boredom here,” she snapped, turning the subject and extracting her hands.
He stroked her cheek, then let his hand trail to her neck and lower, poised over her breast until she ached for him to touch her there. He said, “We’ll be back at Bois-Long soon.”
Her head jerked up. “How?” she asked. “You’ve but a handful of men.”
He started to speak, then seemed to think better of it. Aye, she thought, if we kept secrets from each other before, we keep new ones now. Angry at the yearning of her body, she pushed his hand away.
“I thought you wanted to get home,” he said at length.
“I do, I... The spring planting must be supervised. ’Tis nigh time to sow the hemp and flax.” She tapped her chin. “The shearing must be done....”
He touched her again, stroking her shoulder. He was relentless in exerting his power over her. “I’ll get you home.”
She tried to ignore the tender promise in his words and the sensual thrill of his caress. “Aye,” she said, “no doubt you’re eager to settle yourself, to make traitors of my people.”
“Our people. I would see us as husband and wife, working together—”
“I shall only work against you.”
“Then you work against yourself, as well.” He brushed a wisp of hair from her brow. Unconsciously she leaned toward him, hungry and resentful of that hunger. His lips drew closer, a whisper from hers.
“My lord!” An oversized man called Darby Green clattered into the hall. “’Tis Piers Atwood. He’s come back from patrol, and he’s been wounded by gunshot.”
“Is it grave?”
“No, the ball only grazed his leg.”
“Is the bridge drawn up?”
“I’m not sure. There was such confusion.”
“Shall I come, my lord?” asked Father Batsford.
“I’ll send for you if I need you.” Rand jumped to his feet. “Look well to my wife,” he said; then he and Green hurried out.
Lianna, too, stood. Wounded by gunshot. She turned the idea over in her mind, wondering... Of course. The gunner could only be Chiang. Chiang, whom she could trust above all others.
She approached Simon and Batsford, who sat glaring at each other across their game board. “I weary of sitting. I’m going out for a walk in the bailey.”
Wordlessly the men followed her from the hall.
* * *
Two hours later, Rand stepped from the barracks. Duchess Margaret, trained in the healing arts, had cleaned and bound the leg wound and pronounced that Piers would mend nicely.
Yet Rand felt grim. The men of Gaucourt overran the countryside. Doubtless Burgundy’s absence had emboldened them to act aggressively. Darby Green descended the stone steps behind Rand. His tunic, emblazoned with the Longwood crest, fluttered in a chilly gust of wind.
“I’m going out on patrol, my lord.”
Rand put a hand on Darby’s shoulder. “Not dressed like that you aren’t.”
Darby spread his hands. “Is aught missing from my livery?”
“Find yeoman’s clothes, and a cloak to conceal your sword and bowstave.”
Darby drew himself up. His voice, thick with the accents of his native Yorkshire, rang loudly. “My lord, I am no peasant, but a knight in your service.”
“I prefer you as a live peasant rather than a dead knight. Under guise, you can move freely. Your French is good. If you’re questioned, say you hail from Flanders. Take along a sheep from the byre. There’s a ewe in season. You can say you’re taking her to St.-Valéry for breeding.”
“Aye, my lord, a handy ploy.” He hurried off.
Rand hated being hemmed in by his enemies and abandoned by his allies. He ached to share his fears with someone. He remembered his long, earnest talks with Lianna before she’d learned his true identity. Now, despite the presence of his wife and his men, he felt completely alone.
He crossed the courtyard, paused when he heard Batsford crooning in a singsong voice. Rounding the Tour Gobelin, he spied the priest at the mews. A pretty gyrfalcon perched on his wrist. Murmuring softly, he stroked her with a finger.
“What do you here, Batsford?” Rand demanded. “You’re supposed to be watching my wife.”
“Lovely woman...” Batsford’s lips bowed into a smile. “Aye, lovely,” he continued in a slurred voice. “Sweet as the Virgin herself, and ever so agreeable.”
Lianna? Sweet? Agreeable? She’d never behave so toward an Englishman, even a cleric.
“Aye,” Batsford said, “found me a flagon of Burgundy’s best calvados, and said her uncle’d not mind if I had a look at his hawks. Isn’t this a fair bird?”
Rand gripped the priest’s shoulders hard. The gyrfalcon squawked and flapped its wings. “Where is she?”
&nbs
p; The cleric nodded at a long, low building at the opposite side of the yard. “She asked Simon to take her to the armory. I know not why a woman would be interested in weapons, but she asked so prettily...”
A dull explosion rent the air. Pivoting toward the armory, Rand began to run.
The acrid scent of burnt sulfur hung in the air, mingling with a blue-gray haze of smoke. A door leading to the outer wall hung open, its iron hinges mangled. Simon sat slumped in a corner of the armory.
Rand crossed to him. “Are you hurt?” he asked urgently.
Slowly the squire shook his head. “My ears are ringing.”
“What happened?”
“I’m sorry, my lord,” Simon began, pushing on the heels of his hands, trying to rise, “but I didn’t know she could...”
Rand didn’t wait to hear the rest. He sprang to the forced-open door and scaled the outer wall in time to see Lianna racing across the drawbridge. His first impulse was to leap after her; then he remembered Piers and the woods choked with enemy knights. It would serve nothing to deliver himself, defenseless, into their hands.
He bellowed at Simon to fetch his sword and dagger, then sprinted across to the stables. Moments later he emerged, hauling his saddleless horse by the reins while Simon buckled on his sword. Rand leaped on Charbu’s back and shot from the castle.
* * *
Lianna ran headlong beside a canal leading from Le Crotoy. To her left lay a band of woods; beyond that the town proper. Surely Burgundy’s niece would find protection there.
Gasping, she plunged down a narrow ravine. She noted with fleeting satisfaction that the steep, rock-strewn passage couldn’t be negotiated by a mounted man. Gorse and brambles ripped at her green cotte and plucked at her braids. The ravine led to a wide, dry creek bed, a dead estuary of the canal. She followed the dusty path inland.
From the corner of her eye she spied an approaching figure. Fearfully she shot a glance over her shoulder and recognized the blue-black hair and lithe form of Chiang.
They met at a clearing beside the creek. “God be thanked,” she breathed.
Chiang grabbed her hand and began pulling her into the woods. “We must away. They are all around us.”
“Nay,” she said, hurrying along behind him. “Longwood has but ten men—nine; one’s wounded, as you well know—”
“I speak of Gervais,” Chiang said impatiently.
“Good. We must find him. Have you a horse?”
Chiang stopped and spun around, his almond-shaped eyes troubled. “Find him?”
“Of course. He’ll help me get away from the English.”
“But for what? I trust him not. Nor should you.”
“What talk is this?” she asked, laughing shortly to cover a sudden thrill of nervousness. “I have no love for Gervais, but I must depend on him to take me home.” She frowned. “You came alone, didn’t you?”
He nodded. “I thought to take you to Soissons. ’Tis your uncle’s town. You’ll be safe there.” His gaze darted here and there. He held his spare frame taut. “Come, my lady.”
“Soissons! I am going home, to secure Bois-Long.”
“What of Gervais?”
She touched her chin. “I’ll worry about him later.” Aye, she thought, he was easier to handle than Rand. She looked at Chiang, who continued to scan the woods. “What is it with you? Surely you’d not have me stay with the Englishman.”
His mouth went tight. A wild look glinted in his eyes. She’d seen that expression of veiled fear before. Some secret linked him to the English, she was certain of it. “Well?” she demanded.
“My wishes are unimportant...for now.”
Her eyes flicked to his long, narrow handgun.
He caught the look. “Aye, I shot him,” he admitted grimly. “But only in defense. He’d drawn an arrow on me.” Chiang’s dry brown hand tightened around the rod of the gun. “If I’d wanted the Englishman dead, he would be.”
A thud of hoofs resounded. Chiang glanced from side to side. “Come,” he said urgently. The hoofbeats grew louder. Like a smear of blood, the scarlet oriflamme appeared at the head of the clearing. Chiang yanked her arm. “Run, my lady!”
She tried to pull away. “’Tis only Gervais,” she said in annoyance. “I fear him not at all.” When Chiang made a sound of impatience, she added, “His father is dead. Gervais might not yet know of it. I must tell him.”
“Well done, Chinaman.” Like a swift, black lash, Gervais Mondragon’s voice cracked across the clearing. “You’ve found the woman.”
Chiang stepped in front of her.
“No,” she said, “I need no protection from Gervais.”
He sat proud and erect in the saddle, his breastplate gleaming in the evening sun, his visor raised to expose his hard, handsome face. Four knights cantered up to his flanks. To her horror, Lianna saw that one of them bore a pikestaff spitted with a severed head. A severed head with a familiar face. She turned her eyes from the soul-shriveling sight of Darby Green’s gray face, his neck dripping blood and sinew. He’d been a living, breathing man. He’d had a family somewhere.
She nearly sank to her knees.
Chiang tugged on her arm. “For the love of God, my lady—”
“Leave her,” Gervais commanded. “I thought we had an understanding, Chinaman, where your mistress is concerned.”
Chiang’s hand dropped from her arm.
Doubtless Gervais had used some threat to play upon Chiang’s devotion to her. Dear God, had she been safer with Rand? No, she decided resolutely, walking toward the Frenchmen. Gervais would take her home. Once there, she would settle with him.
“Lianna, no!” Chiang whispered, but she ignored him. She needed to get away, far away, and quickly. She could not trust her treacherous heart to her husband’s keeping.
Reaching Gervais, she took his gauntleted hand and allowed him to help her into the front of his saddle. His breastplate pressed hard against her back. He smelled of sweat, metal, and horse. “I knew I could rely on your wiles,” he murmured, and she shrank inwardly. Chiang’s words echoed through her mind: I trust him not.
A sudden wave of compassion drowned her feeling of hesitation. She twisted around to face him, her hand on his arm. “Gervais, your father...” She swallowed hard. “He is dead.”
One of the knights signed himself with the cross. Gervais went still; she looked away from the pain in his eyes. Fat, jewel-colored flies buzzed slowly around the severed head on the pike. “How did it happen?” he asked at last.
“A...an accident,” she said quietly, unable to bear looking at Darby. “He’d been drinking. He fell in the Seine.”
A dry sob gusted from his throat; a single tear slid down his cheek. Lianna realized that he’d loved his father. “You needn’t delude me,” Gervais said bitterly. “Was it the Englishman or your uncle of Burgundy who murdered my father?”
She stared at the bright metal of his gauntlet. “Neither my uncle nor the Englishman has been to Paris.”
He made a hissing noise of coiled fury in his throat. Within the depths of his visor, his eyes flashed with rage. “Christ,” he said in a harsh bark, “by now I would think you’d know your uncle’s arm is long enough to reach the Holy Roman Empire while he sits in Liège.”
A crash came from the underbrush. A percheron bearing a golden-haired rider sailed down the ravine as if the narrow, treacherous cleft were no more than a minor obstacle.
Rand’s stare raked over Gervais, Lianna, Chiang, and the other knights.
Then he spotted Darby’s severed head.
He became a man she did not recognize—a man she’d thought existed only in nightmares. His lips drew back in a snarl, and his sword rasped from its sheath. Fury flared in his eyes. Knees hugging the horse, he charged at the man who bore the pikestaff.
She knew with cold, fascinated dread that the French knight was finished. The knight let go of the pike and jerked his reins in readiness to flee.
A bellow tore from Rand’s t
hroat. He raised his blade. The air sang as the sword sliced downward, finding the crevice where the spandlers at the knight’s shoulder joined the armholds. A scream rent the air. A fount of blood welled from the wound where his arm had been riven from his shoulder.
As the doomed man fell from his rearing horse, Gervais yelled, “Charge him, damn your eyes!” His voice rang loud in her ears. The three remaining men drew steel, yet they hesitated. She could hear their fear in the panting breaths that issued from behind their visors.
Rand plunged toward the nearest of the three. With dagger drawn, he guided his horse with his knees alone. If anyone had told Lianna an unarmored man riding bareback could face down three steel-clad knights on destriers, she would not have believed it. But the Englishman had taught her to believe in many improbabilities.
He slashed out. His opponent’s shield crashed to the ground. A second knight appeared, sword raised, at Rand’s flank.
An involuntary scream erupted from Lianna’s throat. With a warrior’s instinctive timing, Rand pivoted to ward off the deadly blade.
“Hold!” Gervais bellowed. The knights backed off.
Rand went after the nearest of them.
“Hold, I say,” Gervais repeated, “or the woman dies.”
Lianna froze as the cold edge of Gervais’s misericorde caressed her throat.
Rand wrestled his blood-crazed mount to a standstill. Breathing raggedly, he brought his tortured, fiery gaze to Lianna. The scraping sound of the fallen knight’s death throes punctuated the long, tense silence.
“Drop your weapons,” Gervais ordered. Lianna held her breath and offered up a silent, disjointed prayer.
Rand’s sword and dagger thudded to the ground. Gervais lowered the blade from her throat. She began to breathe again.
Her heart pounding, she felt her gaze drawn to Rand’s outspread hands. She’d always thought he had such wonderful hands. Yet the hands that imparted pleasure so gently were also capable of killing without hesitation. He was a man who could hate as hard as he loved.
She raised her eyes to his face. He sat expressionless, his eyes dull, his mouth drawn. He spoke to Gervais in a monotone.