by Tamara Leigh
No blood gained, none expected, the mail once more protecting its wearer. But when Elias came around, he saw the knight leaned heavily to the side as he struggled to control his destrier.
Knowing his men would soon appear, Elias rode after him to ensure he pulled all the teeth. As he came alongside the hunched knight and raised his sword to bring its hilt down on the man’s helmeted head, Neville jerked aside and tried to swing his sword. With little effort, Elias delivered the blow and Neville tumbled to the ground.
Victory, but would it be enough to return Elias to Château des Trois Doigts now the men-at-arms had appeared? Only if they paused to aid their lord where he landed between two great oaks.
Instead, they came straight for Elias, one on either side.
Certain they would keep pace with each other, providing no opportunity to be eliminated one at a time, and it would be of great detriment to leave his back vulnerable to them, Elias brought his horse around and charged to the left of the men. But as he readied his sword to meet that of the one veering toward him, a crack resounded around the wood, his mount lurched, and Elias launched himself out of the saddle lest he be pinned beneath his horse. Moments later, the animal thrashed ten feet away, its leg broken.
“Merciful Lord,” Elias appealed as he tightened his grip on his sword and turned to rise before Neville’s men were upon him.
He made it to sitting before a wave of darkness rose from the backs of his eyes. He had landed hard.
“A pity our lord—God rest his soul—believed you worth more alive than dead,” said the smaller of the men who looked down on Elias from atop his horse. “But methinks he was right in that King Henry will pay better to watch you swing for aiding the good archbishop.”
Fighting back the black that would see him stripped of arms and bound over the back of a horse, Elias gained his feet and looked between the men. “Though I do not believe the two of you capable of killing me, the only way you will deliver me across the channel is as a corpse.” Setting his teeth against the ache and wet of his shoulder, Elias pulled the Wulfrith dagger from its scabbard. “Come. One at a time if you are not afeared of an injured knight, together if you are as craven as your lord.”
Anger lit their faces, but the bigger one laughed. “Better a live craven man than a fool dead one.” He considered the Wulfrith dagger. “Though Raoul prefers you alive, being a greedy knave, dead is good with me.”
Elias had only the warning of a look passed between the two before they attacked. With his sword he parried the blade of the big man, with his dagger slashed the back of the hand with which Raoul gripped his hilt. He ducked the big man’s next swing, thrust with the dagger and stabbed a thick thigh from which chain mail had fallen back.
As the man roared, Elias pivoted and knocked aside Raoul’s sword that would have made a fine beginning of separating head from neck. Another thrust of the dagger at a soft belly bent Raoul forward, and Elias had only a glimpse of crimson spilling onto the horse’s coat before he returned to the big man.
As he slammed aside the blade aimed at his chest with such force he relieved his attacker of his weapon, he felt a burn across his upper back. Raoul had no wish to die alone. Lest the man’s next blow prove mortal, Elias arced his blade around. When his blade came off the other’s, he swung again and unseated Raoul. But before Elias could return his attention to the big man, that one’s great weight landed on his back. As it carried him to the ground, he felt a sharp pain in his side as if he had torn a muscle.
He landed face down but, blessedly, remained in possession of sword and dagger, the former stretched above his head, the latter pinned beneath his chest.
Elias swept his sword arm back, blindly reaching his blade toward the one atop him, shouted when the man gripped his wrist and slammed it to the ground where he held it as he rose and straddled his prey. Then he began driving a fist into Elias’s ribs.
Grunting with each blow, Elias strained to free his sword arm and raise his chest enough to free the Wulfrith dagger. The fist struck him in the jaw, and once more he fought the currents seeking to drag him into unconsciousness.
Be worthy, Elias De Morville! he called to the warrior standing on the other side of the troubadour who, twice beaten, twice humiliated, twice unable to defend himself let alone others, had vowed never again to be without recourse.
He did not realize his hold on his sword hilt had loosened until he felt the man’s fingers prying at them.
Kicking his way back to the surface, Elias emerged from dark water into the wood’s deepening shadows, tightened his sword hand, strained the muscles of arms, shoulders, and back, and shoved upward.
The big man fell to the side and took Elias with him. The night sky coming into view, once more Elias felt pain beneath his ribs, but there was no time to dwell on it. Though his sword remained useless whilst his opponent gripped his hand, the Wulfrith dagger was freed.
He swept it across his chest, down, and inward. It slid between his opponent’s ribs, causing the man to release his hold. As Elias rolled off, a bloodied blade came toward him. He stopped it with a slam of his forearm, dropped to the ground, and rolled several times more to distance himself.
He longed to remain there to recover his breath, strength, and presence of mind over which the dark once more moved, but he dare not rest until the danger was past.
Once more feeling the pain of something torn, he pushed upright, gripped his side, and looked from Raoul who stared at the heavens to the man’s comrade whose eyes rolled as blood ran from his mouth.
Moving his regard to the Wulfrith dagger’s jeweled hilt embedded in the man’s side, Elias returned his sword to its scabbard and tried to stride forward but could manage only small, faltering steps. He bent and, when he pulled his dagger free, became aware of warm moisture on the palm pressed to his side.
It was covered in blood. Reminded of the crimson-coated blade he had knocked aside, he searched out the dagger loosely held by the big man. When the miscreant had launched himself onto Elias’s back he had stuck it in his opponent, retrieving it only after Elias dealt him a similar injury.
“Dear Lord,” Elias rasped. “I cannot die here.”
Then stanch the blood and get yourself astride, the warrior commanded.
Elias backed against a tree and slashed strips from the lower portion of his tunic. One piece he folded into a thick square and pressed to the gash, the other two he wound tightly around his waist.
After dispatching his horse to end its suffering, with great effort he mounted the big man’s horse and secured himself to the saddle.
His first thought was to ride to the nearby village, but two things set him toward the castle. As the village healer dealt mostly in herbs, the physician had to be summoned when one of her charges suffered dire injury. Thus, Elias could more quickly deliver himself into the man’s care. Then there was the missing person of Neville Sorrel who was not where he had fallen. The sooner Otto was alerted to the man’s incursion on his lands, the greater the chance he could be captured.
“Lord, keep me conscious,” Elias prayed as he guided his mount out of the trees, then he ground his teeth against the greater pain to come and spurred forward.
Voices. Shouts. The clatter of hooves.
Honore rose from the chair in which she had dozed and hastened to the shuttered window. She winced over the whine of hinges lest it awaken the children and peered down into the torchlit bailey.
Three riders were before the steps. As she settled her gaze on the one in the middle slumped over his mount’s neck, the other two dismounted and called for the physician. It was a robed Otto who first appeared on the steps, descending two at a time.
“Elias,” Honore gasped. She need not see the face of the man the soldiers struggled to remove from his saddle to know here was the one she loved.
“He bound himself to it,” a soldier called to the other, and light flashed across the blade severing the rope.
Then Elias was pulled from
the saddle into his sire’s arms.
“Elias!” Otto shouted as his son’s pale face turned up toward Honore. But his eyes were closed, what remained of his torn tunic stained with blood.
Honore knew she should remain in her chamber as she had agreed, but she could not.
She snatched up the robe Otto’s wife had loaned her, as she shoved her arms into its sleeves swept her eyes over the children on the bed. Grateful their sleep was not disturbed, she slipped from the chamber and belted the robe as she ran bare-footed to the stairs. When she flung herself into the hall, she saw Otto had lain his son on the high table and the physician who had tended Alice bent over him.
“Clean cloths, boiled water,” the man called as he cut through Elias’s tunic and two servants ran to the kitchen.
“Lord De Morville,” Honore gasped as she ascended the dais.
His head came around, and though this eyes met hers, she felt as if he looked through her. “When he did not come back, I sent men to search for him.” His eyes brightened, mouth convulsed. “Too late. Now I shall lose my son. This time forever.”
She looked to Elias. Was he already lost to them? He was pale and bloodied, and though his chest rose and fell, one had to look close to catch the movement.
Stepping to the table’s edge, she closed a hand over his. “Elias?”
His fingers jerked beneath hers.
She looked to the physician, watched him carefully peel away the bandage from a side wound. It was not as unsightly as feared—a straight cut no wider than her thumb.
The man’s eyes met hers. “Let us pray the blade hit nothing vital.”
Lowering her lids, silently she beseeched the Lord to save His beloved Elias.
“Neville.” The strangled breath of that name opened her eyes. The meaning of it straightened her back. The narrow of the eyes before hers made her gasp.
Before she could think what to say, Otto moved her aside and bent near his son. “That is who did this to you?”
“Neville Sorrel,” Elias said low. “He knows the aid I gave Becket…sought to deliver me to Duke Henry. I injured him, killed his men.” He coughed. “He escaped. Must stop him.”
“Know you the direction he went?”
No answer, and when Otto drew back, Honore saw Elias’s lids had lowered.
His father looked around, but no longer did he look through Honore. “You did this to my son.”
“My lord,” the physician said, “best you deal with this Neville now. There is naught you can do here. It is in God’s hands upon mine.”
Otto drew a breath that raised his shoulders, then gripped Honore’s arm. “Return to your chamber,” he said as he drew her off the dais.
With a backward glance at Elias, she moved out of the man’s hold, crossed the hall, and ascended the stairs.
A half hour later, she watched from her window as a dozen knights and men-at-arms departed the castle in search of Neville. Shortly, Otto came to her, confirmed arrangements for her departure with the children on the morn, and once more secured her promise to stay out of Elias’s life—if he yet possessed one.
Providing he was not lost to his family, Honore was content that never again would she set eyes on one who had suffered much in pursuit of a son not his.
When the wagon that would convey her and the children to the coast rumbled over the drawbridge at dawn, all she knew of Elias was he had survived the night and the physician believed he had a greater chance of living than dying. If infection did not set in.
Chapter 41
HIS LIFE TO SAVE
Honore.”
Otto lifted his head from the mattress, as he blinked away sleep wondered if he imagined the voice of one he could not yet accept was lost to him—he who had gone into a deep sleep four days past from which the physician told he was unlikely to awaken.
As much as was possible for eyes growing old, Otto brought his son to focus. A glimmer between narrowed lids evidencing he had heard right, he leaned near. “Son!”
“Honore,” Elias repeated.
Otto had been glad to see the woman who caused so much misery depart, but in this moment he wished her here to give his son what might be the only thing that could prove the physician wrong.
Elias swallowed loudly. “Where?”
“Here,” Otto lied, knowing that had a channel crossing been possible she was now on English soil. “With the children.” That last was not false, he salved his conscience. “When she returns to the donjon, I will bring her to you.”
His son’s lids lowered so suddenly, it was as if they were weighted.
Otto rose from his chair and lowered to the mattress edge. “Son?”
Elias drew a shaky breath, grimaced on an exhale that ended on her name. “Honore.”
“If you wish to see her again, stay here with me.”
Barely, Elias raised his lids. “Unsuitable,” he slurred. “Oui, but I…cannot leave it as I did.”
“You will see her soon.”
“Your…word.”
Another lie, but anything to keep him from slipping away. “My word you have.” Otto reached to the cup from which he and others who kept watch dribbled wine onto Elias’s tongue. “To regain your strength and be present when she arrives, you must drink and eat.”
“After…sleep.”
“Non.” Otto raised his son’s head, set the cup against his lips, and eased a stream into his mouth. It slid out the side. “Drink!” Otto grated, then with pleading said, “If not for me, Honore. She cannot come until you are well enough to receive her.”
Though fatigue and pain shone brightest from Elias’s eyes, Otto glimpsed suspicion there.
“The physician’s orders, Son.”
Elias parted his lips to receive the wine. It was slow going, but he swallowed half before drawing his head back.
Otto set the cup on the table and eased him onto his pillow.
“Honore.”
“I will send word.” Otto stood, and as he strode to the door glanced over his shoulder for no other reason than to see his son awake and allow that sight to replenish the vessel of hope.
He opened the door, nearly ordered the passing chambermaid to summon the physician who had gone to the outer bailey to tend the smithy’s apprentice. Determined to keep up the pretense Honore was near, Otto strode the corridor and caught the woman’s arm as she started down the steps.
Surprise jostling the linens she conveyed to the laundress, Otto scooped them from her and dropped them on the floor.
“Milord?”
“With all haste, send for the physician,” Otto said low. “Tell him my son has awakened.”
She bobbed her head, hiked up her skirt, and descended the steps.
When Otto returned to the chamber and saw Elias’s lids had lowered, he feared his heart would snap. It was no measured stride that carried him to the bed, no composed face upon which his son opened his eyes, no mere easing of the shoulders as relief emptied Otto’s lungs.
“Neville?” Elias rasped.
Otto reached to the cup. “Drink first.”
As Elias complied, Otto pondered whether falsity would better aid in his son’s recovery. Reveal Neville had escaped capture and likely made his way to the King of England? Or tell the miscreant had been captured and slain? Whereas one tale could give Elias another reason to live beyond Honore so he might avenge himself on his attacker, the other could give him ease, allowing mind and body the rest needed to heal.
Otto nearly went the way of revenge, but that was more the way of sire than son. It could further wound Elias whose pursuit of the boy had endangered the De Morvilles, especially as it could be weeks—even months—ere he rose from bed.
Elias strained his head back, compressed his lips.
Otto set aside the cup. “Rest easy, all three of your attackers are dead. Our family is safe.”
He was certain he had chosen well when his son’s tension eased. “Forgive me for the ill…upon our house.”
&
nbsp; “It is done.” Otto touched his forehead to his son’s, an affection that surprised him. He straightened, knew from Elias’s frown the gesture also surprised him.
Otto cleared his throat. “Now all that remains is for you to heal and resume your place as my heir.”
“Your heir,” Elias murmured.
That had been the wrong thing to say, a reminder of his duty to his family though that woman’s name had first come off his lips.
“I have sent for the physician. As soon as he confirms you are fit to receive visitors, you can speak with Honore.”
“I would speak with her first. I must…make it right.”
“So you shall.” Otto listened for the physician who must be apprised of the need to keep the hope of Honore alive. When Elias was strong enough, he would be told she was gone. And accept it as being for the best.
Elias closed his eyes.
“Son?” Twice more Otto called his name, but no response, nor when the physician appeared and subjected Elias to all manner of examination.
The man straightened. “I believe you, my lord, but though infection has not set in…” He shook his head. “Be thankful the Lord granted you this time with him.”
Otto dropped into the chair and hung his head. “I cannot lose him,” he groaned and admitted to himself what he could admit to no other. It was more the loss of his boy that distressed him than the loss of his last male heir.
“My lord, you need your rest. I will sit with him.”
Otto longed to reject the physician’s offer, but since lifting Elias’s near lifeless body from the saddle he had slept in one and two hour snatches. He pushed upright. “I thank you, but ere I give him into your care, I must speak with you. Come into the corridor.”
When the physician returned to his patient minutes later, Otto lingered outside the chamber to pour prayer unto God.
A hand touched his arm, and he snapped his head up, gentling his expression when he saw it was the young woman whose body Elias accused him of ruining. And so he had, though she made no such charge.