Medieval Rogues

by Catherine Kean

  She crossed her arms. Her shoulders hunched in blatant refusal. She’d obviously figured out he couldn’t reach around her to stow the dog; he risked her shoving him off the horse.

  Sighing through his teeth, Brant loosely wrapped the reins around his hand. With the same hand, he withdrew the dagger and set it against her neck. “Take Val.”

  “I hate you,” she snapped back. “Oh, how I hate you!”

  The last word ended on a sob. Brant forced himself to ignore the crushing pressure in his chest. Once they had escaped Caldstowe, he would explain his actions to her.

  Right now, he had a more vital concern: to get them both out alive.

  Twisting a fraction, her face white with anger, Faye took Val from his arms and lowered him into the leather pouch. Val’s fuzzy little head popped out of the top. Bright eyed, he peered around him, nose wriggling.

  Straightening in the saddle, Brant looked out over the guards standing in the bailey. “I warn you,” he said in a cold, clear voice, “lower the drawbridge. Stand aside.”

  “Meslarches!” Torr’s roar rumbled across the bailey.

  Several guards cringed.

  An answering urge to flinch—so well learned over months as Torr’s lackey—welled inside Brant. Lip curling, he denied the impulse.

  Torr stepped from the forebuilding and slammed the door. Sunlight struck his face, revealing the snapping rage in his eyes and the brutal set of his mouth.

  He stormed toward Brant.

  Flexing his fingers on the knife handle, Brant tamped down the questions boiling inside him: how Torr came to possess the journal, why he’d kept it secret, and what he intended to do with it. Later, in the final confrontation that had only one resolution—Brant’s death—he would have his answers.

  Before the blood ran from his broken body and he drew his last breath, Brant would know the truth: for himself, and for Royce.

  Torr marched ever closer. Brant focused on the calm conviction that had filled him from the moment he’d broken his blood oath. No longer would his will be enslaved to Torr’s command. Never again would his sense of duty, honor, and integrity be twisted by this corrupt bastard.

  “Out of my way!” Torr snarled, shoving a guard out of his path. Stones crunched beneath his boots, the sound akin to snapping bones.

  “Oh, mercy,” Faye whispered. In her words, Brant sensed a plea that Torr hadn’t found the journal missing.

  Torr halted a few yards from the destrier. “Drop the dagger, Meslarches. Let Faye go.” Despite the cool day, sweat streamed down his face. When he swiped hair from his brow, his hand shook, a sign no doubt of barely controlled fury.

  “She comes with me,” Brant said.

  Lowering his hand, Torr clenched and unclenched his fingers. His gaze slid to her. Anger, concern, and possession all fought to govern his expression. “How did this whoreson come to hold you prisoner, Faye?”

  His tone held deceptive tenderness. Cloaked in false concern was a demand for answers.

  Brant felt a shudder ripple through her.

  “The blame is mine. I betrayed her,” Brant said. “Manipulated her.”

  “Ah.” Torr’s lips flattened. “Somehow, Faye, you got past the tower guards. Never did I anticipate treachery from you. What, pray tell, convinced you to visit him? How did you manage—?”

  “Order your men to lower the drawbridge,” Brant cut in.

  Astonishment widened Torr’s eyes. Throwing back his head, he laughed. Shrill, almost maniacal, the sound scraped like splintered wood over Brant’s raw nerves. “You believe I will let you ride away? With all these guards at my command?”

  “I do.”

  Torr’s laughter abruptly stopped. “Stupid bastard.”

  His fingers curling tighter on the horse’s reins, Brant leveled Torr a cold stare. “I see. You care naught for Faye, then?”

  “What?” Torr’s eyes narrowed.

  Blocking out the sound of her terrified gasp, Brant shifted the angle of the knife. “If you do not give the order, I will slash the vein at the side of her neck. A lethal wound.” Forcing a brittle grin, Brant said, “Within moments, she will die, while you watch.”

  Murmurs rippled through the guards.

  Faye moaned.

  Mocking laughter broke from Torr. “You will not harm her.”

  “I am a murderer.”

  Unease shone in Torr’s gaze before he reached a shaking hand to his belt. He drew out a leather-wrapped flask and guzzled the liquid inside. “You do not fool me.”

  The faintest doubt darkened Torr’s words. By God, not enough!

  “A man who murders once will do so again,” Brant added, letting the tip of the knife trail over Faye’s shoulder. The fabric of her gown sliced like warm butter. “Her death will rub like a stone upon your conscience, day, after day, after day. And at night . . . you will be haunted by her last, dying breaths.”

  Again, Faye shuddered against him. How he wanted to offer reassurance—the barest touch, the softest press of his lips to her hair—but he didn’t dare betray his true intentions. Both of their lives hinged on the coming, tenuous moments.

  She made a choking sound and wavered as though she were about to faint. “Please, Torr, I beg you. Do as he says.”

  Torr snorted. His mouth twisted in a careless grin. “’Tis trickery.”

  “Nay! Please.”

  “Tsk, tsk. See how little your life means to him,” Brant muttered.

  His face reddening with fury, Torr said, “Faye is more important to me than you can possibly imagine.”

  “Ah, but I can imagine.” Brant smiled.

  Shaking as if wracked by palsy, Torr roared. The cry echoed through the bailey. Violent, impulsive, it voiced what Brant suspected: Torr knew about the missing journal.

  “You care for Faye, then.”

  “I . . . Of course! She is—” Torr spluttered. “I—”

  Daring to push the knife a fraction further, Brant rested the sharp tip against her smooth neck. A collective gasp rippled through the onlookers. “I will not ask again. Give the command, Torr, or she is dead.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Her heart slamming against her ribcage, Faye awaited Torr’s decision: release the drawbridge, or force Brant to slash her neck.

  Oh, God. Oh, God!

  The moments dragged like an ogre’s footsteps. Strange, how the tip of the dagger no longer felt cold against her skin. She could almost imagine ’twas not there at all, save for the guards gaping up at her with the fascinated horror of a crowd watching a macabre play.

  And the silence . . . Intense. Unnatural. Eerie, like the moments before a tempest.

  She forced herself to blink. To breathe. As she inhaled, the sound rattled at the back of her throat. She exhaled through tight, dry lungs.

  By her knee, Val shifted. He whined.

  The last sound she might hear before she perished.

  The bailey blurred before her eyes to become a sea of muted grays and browns. Anger and regret crushed the foolish memories still lingering in her mind: Brant tipping up her chin to kiss her; his roguish grin as his fingers swept over her breast; and his gaze darkening with passion while he lowered himself onto her with delicious determination, a master of the intricate sorcery of lovemaking.

  She closed her eyes, mentally shutting out the visions and staring faces. The Brant in her memories existed no longer. Like a spell gone awry, he’d transformed from a loving protector into a ruthless murderer bent only on self-preservation.

  How stupid she’d been to fall in love.

  Elayne, forgive me. I failed myself. You. Angeline.

  The bailey’s silence became a roar in her ears akin to the hiss of fast-flowing water. It catapulted through her body with blessed numbness, carrying her along in its wake—

  A shout, followed by a shrill sound.

  A scream?

  Aye, her own cry, torn from her as the knife sank int
o her flesh. Her last, dying breath, voicing every last shred of her frustration and . . .

  And yet, the harsh sound seemed more like metal rubbing against metal. No piercing pain stabbed her neck. Nor did she feel the warm gush of blood.

  She lurched. What—?

  “Faye.”

  She recognized Brant’s worried voice close by. The sound of rushing water faded. Blinking her eyes open, she surfaced to see the bailey. The armed guards still stared up at her, but not with stark horror.

  “Stay with me,” Brant whispered against her hair, his words barely audible over the clip-clop of hooves.

  As her hazy mind cleared, she realized he no longer pressed the knife against her skin. The guards around them had stepped aside, leaving a clear path to the gatehouse. The sharp sound she’d heard was the portcullis rising to let them ride out over the lowered drawbridge.

  Torr had spared her life.

  Tears in her eyes, she searched the crowd. He stood nearby, hands on his hips, a scowl blackening his features. His gaze locked with hers, and she smiled with all the gratitude careening through her.

  His lips tilted upward in return, although she sensed displeasure in his taut grin. He hadn’t wanted Brant to escape. Or her.

  Torr knew about the journal.

  Her smile faltered. She looked away, fear freezing the warm glow of relief.

  For now, Torr had let them escape. Why shouldn’t he? Two riders on one horse would tire the animal long before dusk. They had no food or water. Moreover, they rode in Torr’s land. Every farmer, townsperson, and peasant owed fealty to him.

  His pursuit wasn’t over.

  It had only just begun.

  The destrier’s pace quickened to a canter. In his leather bag, Val bumped against her knee. Shifting in the saddle, she secured the bag with her leg, stopping it from bouncing as much as they rode through the gatehouse’s shadows, under the rising portcullis, and across the drawbridge.

  Brant’s arm at her waist drew her more firmly against him. Kicking his heels, he spurred the destrier to a gallop.

  “Are you all right?” he called over the rhythm of the horse’s hooves.

  She bit back a scathing retort. How ludicrous of him to ask after her welfare, after he’d threatened to kill her. Stiffening her shoulders, she pointedly ignored him. She tried to scoot forward, to put distance between where their bodies touched, but he drew her back.

  “Torr’s men will be after us. With luck, we will lose them.”

  Faye’s fingers tightened on the horse’s mane. Saints above, she would do her utmost to lose Brant. In the forest fringing the road several leagues ahead she would get her chance. If she dropped from the horse and ran as fast as she could, she could elude him in the underbrush. With Torr’s men in pursuit, determined to recapture or kill him, Brant wouldn’t linger to hunt her down.

  A bitter ache slashed through her. Brant had no reason to pursue her, for he didn’t need her any longer. He had Royce’s journal, as well as the gold goblet. He would ride off to a distant part of England where no one knew of his loathsome crimes, sell the chalice, and live as richly as a king, while searching for the rest of the lost treasure.

  Most likely he would never be captured and tried for Royce’s murder. Or for taking her hostage. Or for threatening her life. Or for deceiving her with such magical finesse she’d once believed she . . . loved him.

  How could she have been so wrong about him? How could she have so badly misjudged his intentions, and his desires?

  Her throat burned with a silent scream. She forced herself to remain mute, to draw strength from the fury seething inside her—a torment in itself. With each of the horse’s strides, her bottom brushed against his groin. Her thighs rubbed his, an intimate reminder of how she’d once welcomed his touch. How, of all treacheries, part of her still relished the intimate contact.

  Brant might escape to live like a king, but his crimes would fester in his soul until the day he died. How she hoped his every waking moment was sheer misery.

  Fingering hair from her cheek, she glanced down at Val, cocooned in his leather bag. He peered up at her with intense scrutiny, as though he somehow read her thoughts. She looked away.

  On and on the destrier galloped. Brant followed the river, she noted, when he guided the horse onto another stretch of road. What strange coincidence that so many moments in her life focused on this waterway; at different points along it, she’d lost her babe, and Angeline had unearthed the gold chalice.

  With each passing league, the landscape changed. Fields merged onto boulder-strewn areas beside the riverbank. Walls of rock lined the river, showing that over the centuries, water had worn through the stone like a knife slicing cake. A damp smell pervaded the air. The breeze, too, held an earthy tang: the scent of a brewing storm.

  Leafless trees clustered along the road ahead—the outer fringes of the forest.

  Soon, she would be free of Brant.

  Soon, he would no longer be part of her life.

  Soon, she would be alone. Again.

  Tamping down an unwelcome twinge of remorse, she wiggled her toes to ease a pinched muscle. She couldn’t run with cramped limbs. Of all indignities, her right buttock had gone numb.

  Behind her, Brant grunted, as though irritated by her fidgeting. He suffered a little discomfort? After forcing her to endure a knife at her neck and the fear of being killed? Ha! She shifted position again, ignoring his sharp indrawn breath and the tightening of his fingers at her hip.

  “Faye,” he growled.

  She fought a grin, along with the urge to squirm again, just for spite. If she wished to elude him, she must appear completely at his mercy. Obedient, so he would risk leaving her unwatched for a moment.

  The destrier’s pace slowed a fraction, and he cantered off the road into a field of browned grasses. The thunder of hoofbeats softened to a muted thud.

  Faye straightened in surprise, jerking away as her back brushed Brant’s torso. “Where are we going?”

  Wry laughter rumbled behind her. “Your voice has returned, milady.”

  Ahead, the river glistened, silver gray under the darkening sky. “Brant,” she snapped over her shoulder, “why did you leave the road? Why—?”

  “My horse needs a drink,” he said. “Val needs to stretch his legs. As, I vow, do you.”

  How astutely he had read her needs. Wretched man.

  He slowed the horse as he approached the river. An icy gust buffeted her, sweeping up inside her sleeves and over her calves. Shivering, she huddled against the cold.

  With a gentle shift of his hand, Brant steered the destrier along the river’s edge, keeping it close to the trees to shield them from view from the road.

  “We will not stop for long,” Brant said. “With a storm coming, we may not be able to travel much further.”

  Faye fought rising dismay. Traveling in a tempest was indeed treacherous. Yet, if she were to escape him, she must take that risk.

  “Stopping here also gives us a moment to talk,” Brant added.

  Talk? What did he imagine they had left to say to one another?

  He guided their mount down through the scattered rocks and boulders to the water’s edge. Faye released the strands of mane still gripped in her fingers. The destrier dipped his head, eager to drink.

  Brant shifted behind Faye, and the saddle creaked. His warmth vanished from behind her as he slid down from the horse, leaving her to endure the full brunt of the breeze against her back.

  Stones rattled as he straightened. Hair tangling about his shoulders, he looked up at her, his expression cautious, his scar stark against his cheek.

  He stood near enough that if she kicked out, she would catch him full in the ribs and send him staggering backward. A simple matter, then, to snatch up the reins and ride off.

  Not so simple, though, to follow through with such a daring plan with a tired, thirsty horse trained to obey his master’s comma
nds. Moreover, before she rode three paces, Brant would yank her out of the saddle.

  Better to wait until a more opportune moment to flee.

  Brant seemed to sense the dangerous path of her thoughts, for he leaned forward and flattened his palm to her leg, holding it where it pressed against Val’s leather bag. An acute physical awareness tingled up her flesh, reminding her, with shocking potency, of the spellbinding pleasure of his touch.