by Tamara Leigh
Her heart lurched, not with alarm but gratitude for what she perceived an attempt to move her mind from the ill of his world to the good.
“I am guessing it refers to a male deer,” he prompted.
“Oui. Returning to the abbey with the babe delivered unto me, I happened upon a red hart at the stream…” She caught her breath as new ugly memories flung themselves across old beautiful ones.
“You prevailed,” said the one who had pulled her from that stream. “Think on that.”
That which made possible she was here with him. She nodded. “Though I had to pass near the hart to cross by way of the fallen tree, it did not bound away. It watched us, and when I reached the opposite side and the babe began to coo, the deer stamped and snorted. Thus, I determined to name the babe Hart.”
“A good tale. Hold to it, Honore.”
She did, whilst he held her so long that imaginings of forever having his arms to run into warmed her as much as it worried her to want something she could not have.
Ending the embrace, he said, “Sleep,” then left her to her bench.
Chapter 18
SEE WHAT THE LORD NOW STREWS
There, Sir Elias. The signal.”
Beneath a near full moon dimmed by clouds, Elias saw the same as Brother Christian—a vertical slash of light followed by a horizontal. The sign of the cross.
He looked behind at the figures patrolling the docks past which he and his squire had escorted their charges undetected—thus far. The day was so new, more it could be said the night was in labor than it had given birth. As they continued along the shore toward the point, on the other side of which the skiff awaited them, the darkest shadows to which the party of eight kept could prove kept by others. Much depended on the determination of the one pursuing Brother Christian.
Once more, Elias questioned the bargain struck with the faceless man. What great lord had he offended? What price would Elias and his companions pay were they intercepted?
“They await us,” Brother Christian prompted, the shifting of his shoulders causing the pack strapped to his back to rustle.
The packs of the others were secured as tightly and effort made to quiet the chain mail of Elias and Theo. A long-sleeved tunic was worn not only beneath the armor but over it, the fit of the outermost one so snug it compressed the links and muffled their ring in the absence of great movement. But were greater movement required, whether to run or meet at swords, the extra tunic would be restrictive—until the seams gave.
Elias returned his regard to Brother Christian, and moonlight revealed just enough of his features beneath the hood to confirm he was beyond two score aged. “Patience,” he said. “Do we hurry this, all we have gained will be lost.”
He felt argument rise between them, but the man sighed. “You are right. For this I engaged you.”
Hoping he would not once more prove unworthy of his Wulfen training, Elias said only loud enough for all seven to hear, “I shall advance ahead to uproot sentries patrolling the shore. After a count of one hundred, Theo shall lead you, keeping to the sand and shadows, speaking no word, and listening for my warning should I happen on any who might detain us.”
“Oui, my lord,” his squire said. “Your warning?”
“Two trills as of a gull, you halt and do not proceed until you hear one. Do I sound three, we are pursued and you are to make all haste for the point. If the patrol are ahead, you shall join me in subduing them, Theo. If they come from behind, you are to fall back to protect the rear, and I will aid you there.”
Lord, should they come for us, he silently prayed, not from both sides.
He turned to Brother Christian. “If my squire and I must draw swords, continue to the boat and see Honore and Cynuit aboard. God willing, we will be close behind, but delay your departure only as long as you have time to put out to sea. Should it prove necessary to leave Theo and me, all I ask is you deliver the woman and boy to the nearest abbey when you reach France and provide enough coin for all they require lest I am unable to join them.”
“As God is my witness, it will be done, Sir Elias.”
“Non,” Honore rasped where she stood on the other side of his squire. “I will not leave without you.”
He stepped near. “Of no benefit are we to Hart if Theo and I must not only defend our persons but yours. Await me in Boulogne, and if I do not appear within a sennight, you will have funds enough to buy passage back to England.”
“But Hart—”
“Seek Everard Wulfrith’s aid. He knows the tale and will do all he can to restore the lad to you.”
After a long moment, she set a hand atop his on her shoulder. “God be with you, Sir Knight.”
He did not think. He felt, just as he should not have done past the middling of night when her anguish moved him to pull her against him. Though that with which he was beset was impending loss of a depth he should not feel for her, he turned his hand up into hers. “God be with you, Lady,” he afforded her a title that in that moment seemed as good a fit for her as many a noblewoman.
Hearing the sharp breath she drew behind the gorget, he released her and returned to Theo. “A hundred count,” he said and began moving across the sand.
Calling on every sense sharpened in the darkened cellar of Wulfen Castle during his training, Elias looked, listened, smelled, touched, tasted—and sought to engage the sense he believed were it not of the Lord speaking into one’s soul was of His angels drawing near to give warning.
He was halfway to the point when a shift among the shadows surrounding a cluster of boulders made him pause.
He glanced behind, confirmed those who followed remained unseen and unheard, then narrowed his eyes at where he had caught movement. All was still, but there was a scent on the air not of the sea or its affect on sand, rocks, and vegetation struggling to thrive along the coast. This was of a very unclean body, and as he breathed deeper, he tasted it.
Hoping it was no more than two bodies wafting so great an odor, Elias turned his face across his shoulder, cupped a hand over a side of his mouth, and trilled twice.
There was no evidence he was heard, but he assured himself the seven did as instructed and awaited the single trill to resume their advance.
Elias strained his senses beyond the tumble of the sea and the foul odor evidencing danger. At last, another shift among the shadows, then a low grunt and the barely perceptible sound of one relieving himself. One of those at the boulders was more vulnerable than moments before.
Staying low, Elias ran and veered to the left to come around the backside. And there before him were two he must render incapable of rousing others, one adjusting his chausses, the other leaning against a boulder.
The first snapped his head up, a moment later went down with a soft grunt. It was the crack of the dagger’s hilt against his brow that brought his companion around.
Determined he would not mortally wound one who but did his duty, Elias lunged and drove himself into the man’s right side to disable his sword arm. But the soldier was of the minority whose left hand dominated, as revealed when moonlight streaked a long blade destined for Elias’s back.
There was only time in which to act on instincts whose raw edges had been trimmed and smoothed as much as possible at Wulfen Castle. Elias sprang to the side, heard the tearing of a shoulder seam, and as momentum and shifting sand caused his opponent to stumble, aimed his hilt at the back of the man’s skull. It relieved him of consciousness, but not before the man shouted, “To arms!”
Chapter 19
SO FAIR IS SHE
Unworthy! Elias silently rebuked as he leapt from cover of the boulders. Would a Wulfrith have spared a man’s life at the risk of others held far more dear?
Determinedly casting out the troubadour, Elias sounded three trills to bring Theo and his charges running had the soldier’s hue and cry not already done so, and watched for movement of those he was to deliver to the skiff as well as the men patrolling the docks.
&n
bsp; Naught of the former, but as he entertained the possibility the soldier’s shout had not carried far, from out of the shadows coming straight for him were two robed figures who should be preceded by his squire.
Theo had fallen back, meaning his charges were pursued, likely by patrol they had slipped past ere the call to arms. As Elias ran forward, exchanging dagger for sword as he felt the giving of more seams, he identified two more robed figures. Behind them came Cynuit and Honore, the lad gripping the woman’s arm in an attempt to add his speed to hers. Unfortunately, his aid could see them both brought to ground.
With the sword-wielding Theo bringing up the rear, they numbered seven as they ought to, but moments later an eighth and ninth figure came into sight also armed with swords.
“Almighty!” Elias called on the Lord as he neared the front ranks of the brethren, the height of the one on the left identifying him as Brother Christian. But then that figure looked behind and swept around. Trained up in faith and hindered by a priestly frock the same as Honore in a gown, did he truly believe he could defend the woman and boy?
“To the boat, Brother Christian!” Elias shouted, and the holy man’s brethren added their voices to his, urging their fellow to resume his course. But the plan further unraveled when they also turned back to retrieve their leader and drag him toward their only hope of crossing the channel.
“I have not a sword, but I have fists!” Brother Christian shouted.
Elias ran past three of the brethren, snatched hold of the tallest one’s cowl, and yanked hard. He did not pause to confirm whether or not the man stayed his feet but shouted over his shoulder, “We have them! Get to the boat!” Moments later, he commanded Honore and Cynuit, “To the boat!”
He heard Honore call his name, then he was alongside Theo who spun around to face the soldiers coming hard and fast.
“Brace yourself!” Elias said what he hoped need not be spoken though this would be Theo’s first true test of whether he could save himself and others. Then choosing the largest, swiftest, and most heavily armored of the patrol, Elias lunged.
Their swords clashed. Had those at the docks remained oblivious of what transpired near the point, they were no longer. Though Elias could spare no glance in that direction, more of those who sought to prevent them from crossing the channel were coming.
Hearing the ring of his squire’s blade against his opponent’s, Elias sent up a prayer Theo would be spared a much-shortened life, then parried a swing meant to open his middle and countered with an upward stroke that caught the rim of the soldier’s helm and sent it flying.
“You are welcome,” Elias said. “Now you can see, your defeat should be less humiliating.”
The taunt was intentional. Were he to aid Theo, increasing the chance they reached the skiff before it sailed, he must make quick work of his opponent. And often the best way to accomplish that was to rend the man’s concentration by making the encounter overly personal.
The soldier cursed and surged forward. His blade struck Elias’s upper arm and skittered down tunic-covered mail. However, its point momentarily found blood in crossing the back of Elias’s left hand.
It would pain later, but now he felt little more than warmth slicking his fingers—and the need to be the one to next draw blood. Thunder in his ears, he knocked the man’s blade aside with a backhanded slice and a loud tearing of seams.
His opponent recovered, and his wildly swinging sword cleaved the air where Elias’s head would have been had he not ducked. That move and the one to follow had been taught him not by Everard but his friend, Durand, whilst they were yet wary acquaintances.
Elias came up directly in front of the soldier whose sword arm had yet to unwind from where it had completed its swing across his chest, rocked his head back, and slammed his brow into the man’s nose. For Elias, it was a relatively soft landing, sending tolerable pain through his skull, but not for his opponent who howled over a broken nose, lost his footing, and went down.
Elias delivered another blow to ensure he did not soon rise and glanced at the docks. Three of those who had patrolled it were absent. Certain they advanced amid shadows, he ran to assist Theo whose battle with a short but spry soldier had moved them toward moonlight come through a break in the clouds near the shore. But Elias’s aid was not needed, his squire bringing his sword down with such strength his opponent’s blade snapped. Then Theo delivered a kick to the chest that dropped the man to his back.
“To the boat!” Elias shouted.
The squire’s hesitation told he longed to ensure his foe did not regain his feet, but then he was running ahead of his lord. As Elias followed, above the sea’s song he heard the ring of mail, grunts, and curses of the dock patrol giving chase.
Reaching the point behind Theo, Elias saw the skiff had taken to the water, a half dozen oars on the right side rising and dipping. It was not so far off shore it could not be reached, but if the oarsmen applied themselves, soon the boat would be in water too deep to be negotiated beneath the weight of armor. And they would find themselves outfitted in chains of a different sort.
Theo requiring no prompting to continue forward, Elias drew breath with which to bellow the name of the tall Gilbertine lest those aboard could not determine whether the two pounding the surf-hardened shore were friend or foe.
“They come!” Honore’s cry shot from sea to sand. “Pray, turn back!”
“Brother Christian!” Elias shouted.
Once more the oars rose and fell, and not in a direction of benefit to the warriors who made it possible for six of their party to depart England. Because Elias and Theo were too closely pursued?
A glance behind told they were not—yet.
Did Brother Christian betray them? Or had the one captaining the skiff determined the risk was too great? Regardless, were Elias and Theo to be captured, the patrol would have to get wet to wreak vengeance on those who aided the brethren’s escape.
Raised voices ahead as Elias followed Theo into the tide, amongst them Brother Christian’s and Honore’s. Raised voices behind, unfamiliar and portending great ill.
“Sheathe your sword!” Elias called and thrust his own into its scabbard.
Theo complied, and as their pursuers neared, those ahead raised their oars and left them angled heavenward. They would not row back, but neither would they row away until given no choice.
Hoping the seabed gently inclined, providing purchase for their boots all the way to the boat, Elias and his squire forged onward.
They were less than twenty feet from salvation when the sand below fell away and they dropped, the water swirling about their hips suddenly at their throats.
Struggling to keep feet firm to the rock below as the sea wavered between pushing them back toward the patrol and pulling them into depths that could drown them ere they shed their mail—were it even possible encased in tunics—Elias beseeched the Lord to deliver them.
As did Honore, calling, “Your Grace, save them!”
“Row for them!” Brother Christian bellowed.
The oars dropped, and the skiff shot toward Elias and Theo. It took two strokes to bring the bow alongside the warriors and a sharp backward stroke to arrest its progress. With the patrol shouting as they leapt through the tide, Elias and Theo raised their arms and were gripped and hauled aboard.
Hardly were they loosed than the boat surged opposite.
As Elias sat up, Honore dropped to her knees beside him.
“Elias!” She threw her arms around his neck and clasped him close as if all her world had nearly gone wrong. And he supposed it might have. It being possible he was Hart’s father, he was her best hope of rescuing the boy.
He set a hand on her back. “All is well.”
Brow pressed to his shoulder, she jerked her head as if in agreement but did not release him.
Beside them, Theo rose and dropped onto a bench upon which sat the tallest of the brethren with his back to moonlight. There was little to glimpse beneath the hood
he held closed at the neck to prevent the air stirred by the speed with which the oarsmen began their journey from dropping the covering down around his shoulders.
“We thank you, Brother Christian,” Elias said. “I know it was a great risk to return for us.”
In a voice less graveled than before, the man said, “As was the aid you gave me.” He sighed. “A greater risk on both sides than you yet know, my son.”
Those words sent a chill through Elias that had naught to do with soaked garments—words that portended his quest to find Hart would prove more dangerous.
Releasing Elias, Honore sat back on her heels. “I feared you lost to us.”
Wondering why he missed her embrace, he said, “Far from it.” He stood and reached to her.
As he pulled her upright, she exclaimed, “You bleed!”
As was becoming habit in her company. “A cut to the back of the hand that ought not require the needle.”
“Allow me—”
He pulled free. “My squire will tend it.”
She nodded and settled on a bench distant from Brother Christian.
Elias turned toward shore. The patrol there could only stare after their lost quarry as the skiff’s captain ordered his men to row faster.
Out to sea they swept. Out of reach of whoever did not wish a man on a low rung of the Church to carry tale to the pope.
Chapter 20
HUMBLE BEAUTY
Becket.
Though an hour had passed since he who called himself Brother Christian picked his way past the oarsmen to the bow and dropped his hood to watch the sun rise, only now did he turn and reveal the lie.
It was many years since Elias had performed for nobles that included one who had been King Henry’s chancellor before being further raised from modest beginnings to the office of Archbishop of Canterbury, but Elias knew the long, albeit somewhat fuller face. Yet handsome, it boasted a broad brow, large eyes no longer bright with good humor, aquiline nose, and firm mouth whose spread on this first day of self-imposed exile flashed no teeth.