by Betina Krahn
“Mon duc—” The tall, palorous Scallion shouldered partway through the tent opening and paused, waiting for permission to approach his master. “A bit of news that may sit well upon your ears.” The duc beckoned him forward with a narrowing stare, and he turned back for a moment, then dragged a disheveled soldier through the opening and shoved the fellow onto his knees before the duc.
“Tell the seigneur what you told me,” he ordered.
“My comrades and I were scouting the countryside . . . whilst our captain and the rest of our party took a trading village on the Brittany road. We found nothing of interest and were about to return to the village when we spied two women . . . riding unescorted.” He swallowed dryly and received a prod from the stern captain.
“Tell him what they wore,” Scallion demanded.
“Wh-white, Duc . . . one wore white. And they rode fine horses.”
The duc was on his feet in a trice, his dark eyes suddenly hungry with expectation. “The one in white . . . was she fair, with burnished hair?” When the soldier nodded, de Verville’s mouth curled into an unpleasant smile. “It’s her . . . my princess. It must be. What happened to her? You didn’t let her slip through your fingers?”
“We gave chase and cornered them by a cliff—” He halted and licked his parched lips, glancing at Scallion. “Then out of nowhere bladesmen appeared . . . there must have been a dozen of them. They attacked us, and of the seven in my party, I alone escaped.” The anger in the duc’s aristocratic features jolted him. “We fought hard, but . . . the others are all dead.”
“The village, man—what was the name of the village?” the duc demanded.
“Le-LeBeau, seigneur.” The soldier trembled visibly, watching the fires of pride, passion, and greed forging a cold smile on his liege’s countenance. Sweat broke out on his dirt-streaked face.
“LeBeau . . . on the Brittany road.” De Verville’s dark eyes darted as he thought, then they turned on Scallion. “It is more than your scouts have been able to report. Send out another party. Who is your best tracker?”
“The Spaniard, El Boccho. He and his men . . . they follow a scent like dogs, but they bite like jackals.”
“Then send them off to this LeBeau place . . . and tell them there will be a fat reward for the man who brings me the name and location of my princess in white.” Scallion dragged the terrified soldier to his feet and shoved him back out the tent opening, but de Verville’s voice stopped the captain as he made to exit. “And Scallion . . .”
The captain stiffened at the menacing purr in the duc’s voice and turned back.
“See that man punished for his cowardice. A good flogging, I think. We haven’t had one all day.”
“Cowardice, mon duc?” Scallion questioned before he caught himself.
“Obviously.” De Verville raised one eyebrow, reminding Scallion how easily his ire could be transferred. “If he wasn’t a coward, he would have stayed there and died along with the others.”
Chapter Eight
Water dripped from the leaves overhead in a soft patter, and the woods fairly steamed around them as Saxxe and Gasquar led Thera and Lillith through a forest the next morning. The sun had come out behind the retreating clouds, but so far had only managed to heat things to a swelter, not to dry them. Despite her cloak and the makeshift shelter, every stitch on Thera’s body had gotten wet. Now as the sun swelled the fibers to a prickly mat, both her body and her temper began to itch.
When they came to a swift-flowing stream at the bottom of a steep, narrow valley, Saxxe chose a shallow place to cross and started up the other side. Thera stared at his unfatigued shoulders resentfully. She was wet, hungry, and tired to the bone . . . and if she didn’t find a clear spot in some bushes soon, she was going to give a whole new meaning to the words great flood.
“We are not stopping?” She pulled her horse to a halt on the rocky stream bank.
“Nay,” Saxxe said over his shoulder, riding on.
She glared. The man was a pettifogging tyrant!
Gasquar looked back and reined up at the sight of Thera taking her foot from the stirrup and swinging her leg over to make a sliding dismount. “Non, demoiselle, we do not stop here.” He made a noise of disgust and turned back, and Saxxe reined up and turned in his saddle. Thera had tossed her cloak onto her saddle and was peeling her surcoat from her damp, disheveled tunic. He ground his teeth and turned his horse, too.
“I am parched and saddle sore and in dire need of . . . relief,” she declared, propping her fists on her waist. “And I won’t go on until I’ve had a stop in the bushes and some water to drink.” She lifted her hem and went sailing off down the bank, into the tall weeds and scrubby bushes that lined the stream. Before Saxxe could decide whether to retrieve her bodily and tie her onto her horse, Lillith was joining the mutiny, shedding her surcoat and following Thera into the bushes.
There was nothing for Saxxe and Gasquar to do but wait, mutter, and eye the muddy currents in the swollen stream. By the time Thera dragged herself back to the water’s edge, the stream was filling with mud and looked significantly less appealing. She ignored Saxxe’s order to remount and instead scoured the waters for a clearer pool from which to drink.
“What are you doing?” Saxxe demanded as she removed her slippers, hiked up her gown, and waded across the knee-deep stream to a small side pool the silt hadn’t reached. “Get back on your horse . . . it isn’t safe. Don’t you see the mud?”
“There’s no mud here—this water is perfectly fine!” She cast him a willful glare and knelt to drink from her hands.
Lillith emerged from the bushes just as Saxxe and Gasquar swung to the ground muttering furiously, and a moment later all four of them froze in place. Saxxe and Gasquar went taut, Lillith gasped, and Thera’s head came up as the rumble reached them.
It was low and deep, and seemed to come from the rock and soil on all sides, as if the earth itself were growling. The small stones and wet sand beneath their feet suddenly came alive, jiggling furiously, and the escalating vibrations raised the hair on the back of their necks. Thera shoved to her feet, glancing across the water at the others with a look of alarm.
The rumble suddenly focused upstream, transforming into a low roar that grew louder and more complex: dull, droning thuds combined with sounds of wood crashing and snapping, and a broad churning that was unidentifiable, yet chillingly familiar.
Suddenly there it was. Water—a whole boiling, churning wall of it, at least ten feet high—sweeping down the valley toward them. Saxxe shouted Thera’s name and waved his arm—ordering her to run for the hilltop, up the bank behind her. But as he charged down the bank for Lillith, and Gasquar raced to the panicking horses, Thera just stood at the far edge of the stream, frozen by the sight of that torrent of water bearing down on her.
Boulders rolled ahead of that rampaging flood, unseated and driven along by its force, and in the water’s path trees were snapped and toppled like mere twigs. Thera’s eyes fixed on the terrifying sight of water, as brown as earth, rearing into a rumbling, foaming wall. Saxxe bore Lillith up the hillside and dropped her on her feet with the order “Climb!” Then he turned to find Thera struck motionless by the sight of the oncoming destruction, and he went running back down the slope, bellowing her name.
The sound of Saxxe’s voice, roaring above the sound of the floodwater, finally penetrated her shock. It was too late for her to dash back across the stream, and she looked around frantically, searching for an escape. Then she saw Saxxe waving her up the hillside behind her, and for once she obeyed, scrambling madly up the bank.
The spray hit first, lashing with the force of daggers . . . then came the main force of water, slamming and crushing everything in its path. Thera’s feet just missed being sucked into that foaming white wall of terror, and Lillith screamed as she watched the waters tugging at Thera’s gown. But a critical instant later, Thera was still on her feet, climbing up the shrubby growth, and Lillith clasped her hands over he
r heart and groaned in relief.
Thinking the worst was past, or perhaps too stunned to think at all, Thera paused where she was . . . and then it happened. The torrent of water behind the initial tide surged unexpectedly, slamming into her with tremendous force. She was knocked to her knees, then toppled straight into the swiftly flowing current.
“Thera!” Saxxe’s body lashed taut at the sight of her disappearing into that muddy torrent, and his heart contracted powerfully, then stopped dead, until her head bobbed up. When she screamed, he heard more anger than pain in her cry and his heart convulsed with relief and began to beat wildly in his chest. “Stubborn little witch,” he bellowed, racing toward her. “Don’t you dare drown on me!”
Her thrashing kept her head above the torrential flow, but the water was moving so swiftly that she was already past him before he reached the water’s edge. In a split second he changed course. His muscles contracted, his legs pumped, and he was suddenly on horseback and racing downstream, dodging trees and stumps and plowing through treacherous underbrush while yelling at the top of his lungs.
“Swim, damn it, swim!” What were the chances that she had learned something as useful as swimming in her pampered life? “You owe me, Thera of Aric—and I don’t intend to let you die without paying!” What were the chances she would rather drown than spend a night making love with him? “If you die on purpose, I swear I’ll follow you straight into Hell to collect!” What were the chances that they would end up in the same place in the Hereafter, even if she was as aggravating as the Devil?
At least half of eternity seemed to pass before the valley broadened and the rampaging waters slowed. Her head still bobbed above the surface, but her arm movements were slowing and her calls for help were growing weaker and less frequent. In desperation, he plunged his huge war-horse straight into the muddy water.
“Keep your head up—use your feet! I’m coming!”
The current was powerful, and he feared at first that he couldn’t make up the distance. But she had managed to kick her feet and use her arms to stay afloat, and had thrashed her way out of the strongest part of the current. He slid from his horse’s back and began to swim for her, stretching out his powerful limbs to close the distance, focusing all his energy on reaching her small, vulnerable form . . . and praying it would still be at the surface when he got there.
The feel of his arms was foreign and she fought it at first, thinking she was caught on some floating debris and would be dragged under. But through the water and the roar in her ears she finally heard his voice calling “I’ve got you—don’t fight!” and understood that he held her. Her struggles slowed and he managed to roll her onto her back and swim with her toward shore.
The mud-laden water weighted Saxxe’s limbs; it was like trying to swim in pitch. He had to fight for every yard they gained toward the shore. But finally his feet touched bottom near a stand of trees that were half submerged, and he scooped Thera up in his arms and waded toward the water’s edge. She was cold and limp, and as pale as the dirty white silk of her gown, but she had honestly never seemed more beautiful to him than she did at that moment. He paused to catch his breath, thigh-deep in the water, and savored the feel of her body against him and her arms around his neck. She was safe. After another moment, she shivered and raised her head, trying to focus her dark sapphire eyes on him.
“It is you,” she said hoarsely.
“Yea, it is me . . . risking my own skin to pull your troublesome hide out of danger yet again. A particularly generous deed, I think, since it was ignoring my orders that got you into it in the first place.” It was nothing short of an invitation to a verbal brawl, and it was a measure of her shock and exhaustion that she didn’t accept.
“It was so cold. I kept hitting into things and going under . . .” She coughed and clamped a hand over her mouth, doubling up in his arms. Her whole body quaked with each contraction of her waterlogged lungs. “I nearly . . . drowned.”
“Nay, you would never have drowned,” he said with a wry grin. “Not while I was there. Besides, it is a known fact that witches float.” She scowled, struggling to reassemble her scattered wits and make sense of his comforting tone and his odd reference to . . . When the insult struck her, she gasped and wriggled weakly, trying to get down. He tightened his hold on her and chuckled as he carried her out of the water. “You see—you’re almost back to your prickly old self already.”
Moments later, Thera was seated on a log, hugging her knees to her chest and shivering, despite the warming sun. Saxxe’s horse, Sultan, had made it to dry land ahead of them and came running to his whistle. Saxxe untied his sleeping roll and two large, oiled leather pouches from behind the saddle. Sorting through his sleeping roll, he located a dry blanket that had been tucked inside the others and threw it around her. From one of the pouches, he produced a striking steel and an oiled bag filled with dry grasses and set about making a fire.
“Wh-what are you d-doing?” she demanded, pulling the blanket up under her chin and watching him collecting stones into a ring near her feet. “W-we don’t have time for that. Lillith will be frantic with worry. We sh-should just ride—”
“Dieu—even half drowned you spit orders like a mad Turk. Lillith can wait . . . warming you cannot,” he informed her, mounding the grass and using the striking steel. “You’ll be half dead by morning if we don’t get you out of those wet clothes.”
No amount of reason would prevail against him. By the time the sparks caught and a small orange flame appeared, she was more than glad to see it. Her limbs felt even colder and heavier than they had in the water, and her body had begun shaking uncontrollably. When he glanced up from laying small branches onto the new flame, he pushed to his feet to hover over her.
“Take that wet gown off . . . now. Take all your garments off and wrap up in the blanket again.”
“I m-most c-certainly will n-not!” she insisted, squinting up at his blurry face and wishing he would quit weaving back and forth like that. It was making her sick to her stomach.
“You are a stubborn chit,” he said with a voice somehow both rough and tender. “I don’t know why I bother with you.” He dropped to his knees and pulled open the blanket and dragged her against his chest, so he could reach the lacing at the back of her gown.
“Because I’m rich,” she muttered thickly. “And you’re . . . greedy.”
He stared into her half focused eyes. “Yea, that is surely it. Thanks for reminding me.”
He pulled her back against him and worked at undoing her laces. She wanted to push him away but couldn’t seem to make her arms move properly. And with all the water that was suddenly roaring in her ears and the strange, spongy darkness constricting the edges of her vision, she somehow forgot just what it was she needed to resist. His skin beneath her cheek was wet—but oh, so warm....
A moment later, her lace buried itself in his bare chest and her shoulders sagged against him. He ripped the lacing free and peeled the sodden silk from her shoulders. A garment as thin as a spider’s web lay beneath it, and a stout linen band, tied around her breasts, lay beneath that. He growled and shifted her back, and she slid unexpectedly down his arms into a heap. With a rueful smile, he laid her gently in the grass and continued his work without further interference.
* * *
“We have to go after them!” Lillith demanded, standing on the hill overlooking the flood-ravaged crossing where Thera had been swept away, and glaring at Gasquar. He lay sprawled on the ground with his feet crossed, his brawny arms tucked beneath his head, and his eyes closed. Three horses were tethered nearby . . . one bearing Thera’s cloak, surcoat, and shoes. “She is probably drowned by now. He probably just let her go heels-up and sink like a mackerel!”
Gasquar’s mouth curved in a lusty grin and he popped one eye open to scrutinize Lillith’s ripe, womanly form. “If her heels are up, ma chatte, then you can be sure she is enjoying it. Mon ami Saxxe . . . the women find him very pleasant.” He pushed up
on one elbow and plucked a piece of grass, sticking the stem in his mouth. “Of course”—his hand swept his brazenly displayed body—“not as pleasant as they find me.”
Lillith felt the blast of dry heat that radiated from his thick, sinewy frame and recoiled as if he had a forked tongue and scales. His dark eyes glowed with lights she recognized too well. “That is despicable!” she hissed, tucking her arms around her waist and taking another unsteady step back. “My pr—mistress is carried off in a flood and may be lying at the bottom of the river, or fighting for her life at this very moment, and you—all you can think of is your base, disgusting appetites!”
When he shook his head with an indulgent chuckle, she groaned and started for her horse. In a trice he was on his feet and blocking her path.
“Out of my way, barbarian!” she demanded, her hands falling into determined fists at her sides. “You may not care whether my lady lives or dies, but I do . . . and I’m going to find her!”
“Non, ma petite chatte, you will not.” He took a step toward her, then another, crowding her with his intensely male presence. “Think . . . when Saxxe has rescued your lady and returns, you will not be here. Then we would have the sad task of searching for your deliciously argumentative self. And losing you would grieve me sorely. Do you have any notion of how long it has been since I had such stirring disagreements with such a”—his eyes swept her like a caress—“handsome woman?”
At such close range, mere inches from his bronzed and bearded face, Lillith could not completely hide her involuntary reaction to his bold flattery. Handsome woman. The pleasurable feel of his sensual interest widened her eyes and reddened her cheeks. She stalked away and turned back to glower at him, hoping it would hide her blushing.
“That wicked tongue of yours again,” she said in clipped tones. “First lies and now flattery—which is no more than lies bent to the service of greed.”