The Protector

by Madeline Hunter

  He could order her confined by the servants. He could tie her to a chair.

  He left the weapons on top of the chest.

  CHAPTER 22

  SHE MOVED SHADOW INTO THE TREES that edged the hill overlooking the farm. Readjusting the bow and quiver on her back, she peered at the scene below.

  Morvan stood in front of the farmhouse, his armor gleaming in the light of the low-lying sun. The other knights formed a line curving along the front of the building. The rest of the men had been deployed around the building's front and sides.

  The mares crowded nervously at the far end of their corral. A fire had been started near the water trough; if it came to it, Morvan was prepared to burn the building.

  She was in no danger, so she really had not disobeyed Morvan, she told herself. He had forbid her to involve herself in the action, and she would not. But she could not just wait for word. Her horses were at risk, as was Morvan himself.

  The retaking of the farmhouse appeared to be at an impasse. But the early evening light had begun to wane, and whatever was going to happen had to happen soon.

  She surveyed the scene again. Something was missing. She realized what it was. The thieves' horses were no longer tied up in front.

  She moved along the edge of the forest until she flanked the side of the farmhouse. From there she could see the horses behind the building, still saddled.

  None of the castle men-at-arms were back there. The enclosed pasture behind the building where the stallions roamed had no way out, backing as it did against the precipitous hill into which the end of the valley cut. That hill formed a natural barrier to the horses, and would hold these thieves as well.

  Suddenly, she saw two movements. They occurred simultaneously, each catching one of her eyes.

  At the front of the building, Morvan shifted his position and turned to face her. He looked directly at the spot where she sat on Shadow, as if he sensed her hidden presence.

  At the back of the building, visible only to her, a dark figure fell from a window and crouched toward the saddled horses. One thief had decided to make a run for freedom.

  Once on the horse, the man did not charge around the building as she expected. Instead he bolted into the back pasture. As he did, another man fell from the window.

  She looked down at Morvan and the other men. She was too far away to yell and warn them in time.

  A third man eased toward the tethered horses. The first man streaked toward the stallions. He was going to stampede them, and in the confusion the thieves would ride away.

  Her blood pounded at the thought of the horses surging down the valley, spreading up into the hills and forest, lost in this desperate bid for escape.

  She turned Shadow onto the path that snaked along the top of the hill. She gave the signal for a gallop just as the roar of stampeding hooves rose up from the pasture.

  She pulled off her bow and quiver and dropped it to the ground. She released the reins and unbuckled her belt. The sword slid away, leaving her light and mobile. Turning Shadow, she flew down the hill.

  A daunting scene pressed toward her. Cramped along one side of the valley stream, the massive warhorses and coursers poured forward, all fiery eyes and bulging muscles. In their lead ran a huge white brute of a horse. Dotted amidst them she could see the heads of the thieves and, one hundred yards behind, the vanguard of the re-mounted knights and men-at-arms bearing down hard.

  The lead stallion led the storm directly at her. She turned Shadow and rode in the same direction. She prayed that her plan would work. If not, the horses would go up over the lower hill at this end of the valley and disperse into the trees.

  She felt the breath of the stallion on her leg and paced her speed so that he could draw even with her. She forced the two horses to run side by side, even though she could feel the stallion's rage and Shadow's quivering fear. Bringing up her legs, she crouched on Shadow's back, then jumped over to the stallion. Her legs grabbed his sides, and she held on to his mane for dear life.

  She clutched at his head and twisted it. Using her arms and legs, she signaled the stallion to turn left, toward the stream. He went airborne to jump it.

  The other horses followed. Again she pressed and pulled, doing with her arms what a rein should do. He followed her command, and they began heading back down the valley toward the farm at the same thundering pace.

  The thieves, caught in the confusion of the turning herd, saw her coming back along the stream. Two of them pulled their horses out of the fray and crossed the water.

  The setting sun reflected off the steel of an upraised sword. The orange glint mesmerized her as it began its deadly, downward curve. As a result, she wasn't prepared for the other, less entrancing danger when the other thief reached over and dragged her from her animal.

  She held on to the mane as long as possible, and managed to slide to the blur of ground instead of falling hard. She found the sense to roll toward the safety of the stream. It was merely luck that the two closest horses in the herd jumped her instead of trampling her underfoot.

  Her face sank underwater. Cold liquid seeped into her clothes, shocking her. She floated, dazed and helpless, for a small eternity. Then a steel hand grabbed the neck of her garments and set her on her feet at the stream's edge.

  She wiped her eyes. Morvan, his armor streaked with red from the setting sun, shielded her with his body as his knights and soldiers came up to clash with the thieves.

  He kept between her and the action, and his sword fell on any thief who thought to escape across the stream or who dared challenge the horseless knight and lady.

  The closeness of the death blows staggered her. The spreading carnage raised bile to her mouth. Morvan's visor was up, and she could see the fires that burned in his eyes as he anticipated the moves of man and horse. The herd, long gone, milled in the distant pasture.

  Suddenly, it was over. Six dead men and three wounded horses lay sprawled on the ground. Four of the thieves and a few stallions had disappeared up the hill into the forest.

  Morvan gripped her arm and pushed her toward Ascanio. “Take her back to the farm and have her dry by the fire. Then get her to the castle.”

  Ascanio's eyes appeared harder and hotter than she had ever seen them. He pulled off his gauntlet and extended an arm to her. Grasping it, she swung up behind him.

  They were silent on the way back to the farmhouse. He dropped her next to the fire and went to help the guards herd the stallions into the back pasture. He finally returned with another horse in tow.

  “Are you angry with me too, Ascanio?” she asked as they threaded their way through the forest.

  “Aye. And if my heart stops when you come within a hair's span of death, imagine how your husband feels.”

  “I was not in so much danger as that.”

  “We saw you go down beneath the herd. We saw the sword raised on you. He was beside me. I heard the yell that came from him. I saw his face.”

  “If I had not done it, the horses would be gone, scattered. At best we would have rounded up half, for in a day they could reach our borders and then there would be no retrieving them.”

  “Do you think that I give a damn about that? Do you think that he does? He has been willing to die for you from the start, Anna. How do you think he measures a herd of horses against your safety?”

  He should value it very highly. The horses were the true treasure of La Roche de Roald. Without them this marriage would benefit him little.

  And yet, even as she reasoned this out, she knew that the logic would carry little weight with Morvan. Too much existed on the other side of the scale. His oath of protection. His authority, and her defiance.

  “Anna, when there were but a handful of us it was one thing. Yet even then I died a little each time that you rode into danger. And your going was no insult to me as it is to him. Your games of rebellion are one thing. This was another.”

  They rode into the yard together. A sick void opened inside her as
Ascanio's words repeated in her head.

  She felt Morvan's gauntlet pulling her from the icy water, and saw his armored body standing between her and death. She had felt no real danger because he was there. In an awful moment of truth, she admitted that she had been enjoying the security of his protection even as she defied the protection itself.

  She wondered how long it would be before he returned, or if he would even come back this night. As she went up the steps to her chamber, she hoped desperately that he would. She had the terrible feeling that if he did not come to her tonight, in anger if nothing else, a part of him would never return to her again at all.

  Morvan stayed at the farmhouse late into the night, directing the burial of the dead thieves. The activity cooled his blood a little.

  Finally, all was done. He told two extra guards to stay at the farmhouse. In the morning they were to ride to Fouke and Haarold and bid the two vassals to be alert for the escaped thieves. He considered staying the night at the farmhouse himself, but he found himself mounting Devil even though he hadn't made the conscious decision to do so.

  He entered a hall filled with raucous noise and general good cheer. He felt little of that cheer himself. It must have shown, because a pall fell on the assembly when he was noticed.

  His gaze went to Ascanio with a silent question. The priest glanced to the ceiling to tell him that Anna had gone to her chamber.

  He paused at one of the tables and drank some ale. The calm that he showed was an illusion. During these last hours his thoughts had not been far from Anna and they had not been calm at all. Only blocking out the details of her danger had kept him even superficially composed.

  He drank another cup of ale, as if to emphasize to himself that he was not dangerous. Then he gestured to Josce and went to the solar to have his armor removed.

  He walked toward Anna's chamber and knew with each stride that he should not see her. It was the only sane thought in a head exploding with a fury still colored by the battle's bloodlust. He knew that he should not go, but he went anyway because there would be no peace tonight unless he did.

  He threw open the chamber door harder than he planned, but then all of his actions came stronger when he was like this. It flew wide and crashed against the wall behind it.

  Anna sat on the edge of the bed while Ruth combed out her hair. The servant's face paled.

  “Leave us,” he said.

  Ruth hesitated, and Anna placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder and nodded. As Ruth ran out, the child Marguerite suddenly appeared in her wake. Braver than her mother, she cast him an accusing stare. It was all he could do not to bring his hand down on her small back.

  He closed the door and faced his wife. She had removed the cotte and hose, and had wrapped on her robe. He could tell that she had already washed. Her hair fell in riotous curls around her face. She gave him a long look that contained neither apology nor pleading.

  She gestured vaguely, and the movement covered everything. His anger and her defiance, their past and their future, the violence that he barely kept in check. “If it will make you feel better, go ahead,” she said. “I will not hold it against you. I cannot even blame you.”

  Anything else, anything at all, would have pushed him into darkness. But her quiet, velvet voice worked like a balm, and his fury retreated like the ebb of a violent wave.

  “I did turn the horses, Morvan.”

  “You almost died.”

  “As did you.”

  “That is different.”

  “Not to me. I love you, and I see no difference.”

  It was the first time she had said it. The last of the anger soaked away into the sands of his soul.

  She still sat on the bed. The sensual light of hearth and candles played off her hair and flickered over the pale skin of her leg, visible where the robe had parted. The wave of fury had gone, but the tide of his blood still flowed high and other waves replaced it, just as violent, just as driven by the emotions of battle. And with them came images of her, erotic visions remembered and fantasized, and a hunger that he knew could be just as cold as the anger had been.

  He had more experience at controlling this madness. He knew how to deal with it. “We will talk tomorrow,” he said, opening the door.

  “Please do not go.”

  His arm stopped, the door partly open. He glanced to where she had risen to her feet. The robe, loosely tied, threatened to fall open. He remembered the first time he had seen her in it, tall and brave, sword in hand, wild and free. Magnificent.

  “It is best if I do, Anna.”

  She walked over to him. The vision of her legs kicking through the slit of her robe entranced him. Breathtaking. He should leave now.

  She stopped an arm's span away and looked into his eyes. What he saw in her face was unmistakable. He held on to his sanity with effort. She placed a hand on his chest. “I want you to stay. Do not turn from me because of this.”

  He took her hand and kissed it. Even this small touch of her devastated him. “I don't leave because I'm angry with you, but because I am not fit for your company tonight. I am in no mood for courtly seductions.”

  She considered what he said.

  “Neither am I. Stay.”

  His resolve began to crumble. But he had been very careful with her in their brief marriage and she was, in the end, still very ignorant.

  “Nay. It is different after battle. I am different.” He released her hand. “I will go.”

  She strode to the fire, angry and hurt. He was sorry for that, but he would take care of it later.

  “Fine. Leave me to pace the floor like a good wife.”

  “Anna—”

  “On second thought, send me a man. One of the grooms. Or maybe Sir Walter.”

  Her words cut like a hot knife into his head.

  So. No longer ignorant and oblivious.

  He moved in a dark, unseeing, furious blur, and found himself beside her, his left hand twisted in her hair and his right holding her face in a tight grip.

  “Do not ever taunt me thus.”

  She met his eyes with her level, bold gaze. If he was hurting her she did not show it. “What would you have me do then, Morvan? Ride a horse? I too have been in a battle.”

  He studied her face in amazement. Aye, she felt what he felt. He could smell it on her. Could smell the remains of the exaltation and glory that only came when you defied violent death. Could smell the forbidden fear that surfaced when the danger ended. Mixed with them, covering them all, was the other scent that spoke of her hunger to feel alive. Her need intoxicated him, and he felt his control washing away.

  “You do not know what you are talking about.”

  “I hope that I'm talking about a few hours.” She laughed a little. “Whatever that means.”

  Her humor and love threw an unaccustomed light onto his dark passions. He suddenly knew that he would not leave. He did not have to. This was Anna, and it would be different with her.

  He thrust his hand between her thighs and felt the wetness already there. She rose against him with a groan and her small teeth sank into his neck. The thundering desire claimed him with an immediate need. He began lowering them both to the fur rug, pulling off her robe as they went, turning her body.

  “You must stop me when you want.” It was a warning he had always given those nameless women after battles and tournaments and fights. But this was Anna, he dimly reminded himself through the engulfing fire. He himself would know when she was done.

  “You did not seem surprised by that,” he said.

  She lay facing the hearth, his body still molded and joined behind her as it had been when they fell following his release.

  Nay, not surprised. She had known what he was going to do even as he pulled her to the rug in their ferocious need. No preliminaries and no need for them, and she found her own release for the first time as his hard thrusts had salved this deep restlessness that she felt.

  She glanced back at him. He was still
dressed. No time for that either. “I am not completely ignorant, Morvan.”

  He stroked her arm. “Still, some women do not like it. They feel too used.”

  “Do not worry so much about me. I never feel used by you.”

  His arms circled her, and he buried his face in her hair and neck. She felt him swelling, and an exciting expectation thrilled through her.

  “Again, then.” He reached down and raised her knee to her chest. “After we will call for a bath and wash the battle off of us.”

  It was very late when they called for the bath. After the last bucket of hot water had been poured, Morvan pushed back the bed curtains behind which she hid and carried her over to the tub. He washed her himself with caressing hands that both soothed and excited. He slowly lathered her with sensuous caresses, his hands smoothing over her again and again, circling deliciously around her breasts and down her thighs. She knelt while he rinsed her, and his tongue whisked at the rivulets of water streaming down her body. By the time he lifted her from the tub and began drying her, her whole body was trembling again as if she had not had him in weeks.

  He kissed her as he wiped the water away, and his sparkling eyes followed the progress of his hands as his mouth pressed and bit at her flesh. Her body was crying for him before he finished, and then she did for him as he had done for her, washing and drying him, floating the whole time in a tingling stupor of anticipation. When she went to her knees to wipe the water from his legs, her kisses found all of him. His hand touched her head and held her there, and he exhaled a response of ragged breath. It was the first time in all of their love-making that he had ever made a sound.

  He lifted her up into his arms and carried her to the bed. She wanted him desperately, painfully, and as he laid her down she tried to pull him to her, but he restrained her with an arm over her stomach and kissed down her length. He pushed her legs apart and then, first with his hand and then with his mouth, caressed and probed, sending arching white lights of excitement through her.

  Her release came violently. It crashed through her, almost tearing her apart. He held her hips firmly and kept his mouth to her, extending the incredible pleasure into a series of higher peaks.