Pagan was bent over her. His hands and eyes moved across her flesh, touching her familiarly. Touching parts of her that once belonged to Colin. She’d gone to Pagan, sought out the one in whose arms she’d come to know solace. And he’d given it. Their guilt was as bold as the livid scar of a branded harlot.
Hurt and rage blinded Colin. He let out a fierce, territorial roar. Seizing Pagan by the front of his hauberk, he threw him across the pavilion like a mountain cat with a mouse. Pagan landed in a crumpled heap against one serge wall, stunned.
“You bloody bastard!”
That savage curse belonged to Deirdre. She’d just charged through the tent flap to see her husband tossed like so much dirty laundry into a pile upon the floor. It didn’t take a sage to divine who had delivered him there. She instantly threw herself at Colin’s back, beating upon him with her puny fists.
To Colin, it was as if a wild kitten had landed on him, hissing and spitting at him in impotent fury. It was annoying, distracting. Without thought, he reached over his shoulder and pushed his tormentor gently away.
A low growl came from Pagan’s quarter as he slowly came to his feet. He suddenly looked as dangerous as a cornered wolf. “Keep your hands off my wife,” he said in a deadly whisper, his eyes as dark as a sea squall.
Colin yet scowled, but his gaze flitted briefly over to the pregnant woman he’d just nudged aside. Surely he hadn’t hurt Deirdre. He hadn’t intended to hurt her.
Nay, she was still glaring at him with undimmed hatred.
Then whatever remorse he felt was quickly consumed by rage. “Your wife?” he blurted. “Which one, Pagan?”
“What?”
“Deirdre or Helena?” Bitterness and hurt made his throat ache as he confronted the man he’d once called brother.
“What?” Helena and Deirdre said in unison.
Colin turned a rueful gaze on Deirdre. “Why don’t you tell her, Pagan? Tell her how you and Helena meet in the woods each morn.”
Helena sucked in a breath. “You know?”
Betrayal twisted Colin’s heart. Hearing the admission from Helena’s own lips was the worst pain of all.
“Pagan?” Deirdre said on a gasp. “Is this true?”
“Nay,” Pagan said emphatically.
“Aye,” admitted Helena at the same time.
Colin erupted with a short, harsh, humorless bark. “If you’re going to lie together, you should at least remember to lie together.”
“Colin,” Pagan said, “listen to me. ’Tisn’t what you think.”
“’Tis no matter, Pagan.” Despair made him bitter and reckless. “As you said before, one sister is as good as another. When that one heals,” he said, waving toward Helena, “I vow her lips will taste every bit as sweet as these.”
He snagged Deirdre by the arm, bringing her up against his chest. Then he claimed her with a kiss that was as brutal as it was passionless. She might have tasted of honey. She might have tasted of onions. He didn’t know. He only knew that when he pulled away, his hunger for revenge hadn’t diminished in the least.
Pagan never had the chance to slug him. The last thing Colin saw before everything went blurry was a swirl of light blond hair, a pair of snapping green eyes, and the feminine fist of a pregnant woman coming toward his face.
Chapter 22
Helena’s first instinct as Deirdre’s knuckles cracked across the bridge of Colin’s nose was to defend him. Ignoring her injury, she fought her way to her feet, intending to go after her sister. She might go after Colin next for that kiss he’d given Deirdre, but that could wait. Unfortunately, as she raised her fists, a gray veil drooped over her eyes. She shook her head, trying to dispel the haze as she battled to keep her balance.
Pagan and Deirdre were shouting at each other, but their voices sounded muffled, as if the two of them were swaddled in thick cloth. And Colin, staggering, groaned as he cradled his injured nose.
Then the pavilion flap opened abruptly, and blinding light flooded the chaotic scene.
“What the Devil…?”
It was Miriel. Her jaw dropped. Sung Li poked her head in an instant later, scowling at what she saw.
Pagan and Deirdre looked up once, and then resumed their argument.
“You’re making rash assumptions,” he accused.
“So are you!” Deirdre fired back. “You’re assuming I’m stupid enough to believe you.”
“You stubborn wench! Will you not even listen—”
“What? Listen to your lies?”
“Stop it, you two!”
Everyone turned in amazed silence. Had that loud bellow come out of wee Miriel?
“Now,” she said more calmly, crossing her arms, while behind her, Sung Li did the same. “Will someone tell me what’s happened here?”
“A misunderstanding,” Pagan volunteered.
“Aye,” Deirdre said coldly. “It seems you misunderstood our wedding vows.” With that, she shoved Pagan aside and exited the pavilion.
Pagan kicked at the sod and spit out a foul oath. “God’s eyes! I knew ’twas a mistake.” He gave Helena a look full of anger and self-condemnation. “I’m sorry we ever started this.”
“Nay!” Helena felt a moment of panic. “Don’t say that,” she insisted, clutching the fabric wall of the pavilion as she teetered on her feet. “I’m not sorry. I’m grateful.”
“Grateful,” Pagan said, shaking his head. “For what? You can scarcely stand. Colin’s got a bloodied nose. And Deirdre…” He looked bleakly at the ground. “Hell, she’ll never trust me again.”
Helena slowly edged down the pavilion wall until she sat in a guilty huddle. Aye, she desperately wanted to continue sparring with Pagan, but not at the expense of Deirdre’s marriage. “’Tis all my fault.”
Pagan shook his head. “Nay, ’tis mine. And I’ve got to set things aright.” He straightened and nodded to Miriel. “Can you see to their wounds?”
“Of course,” Miriel said.
“Of course,” Sung Li echoed.
Then Pagan left to seek out his wife.
Helena hoped she’d listen to him. And she hoped Colin would listen to her. How could the knave honestly believe she was committing adultery with Pagan?
“What happened to you?” Miriel asked Colin.
Blood dripped between his fingers where he clasped his nose. “Nothing that fresh air won’t mend,” he said sullenly, brushing past her to make a brusque exit.
“You go after him,” Sung Li said to Miriel, shooing her. “I will see to Helena.”
Miriel left to follow Colin, and Sung Li helped Helena back to the pallet on the ground. The maid worked in silence a while, dabbing at her wound with small, skilled fingers and sprinkling strange herbs from her pouch into the cut.
The pavilion afforded little privacy. A pack of squires paraded by while Sung Li was bandaging her leg. But the modest maid swirled a cloak over Helena’s leg, giving the lads an imperious glare.
Helena grabbed the tabard of one of the squires. “Have they started the archery?”
“Not yet, my lady.”
“You should wait a day for your wound to heal,” Sung Li informed her.
And for tempers to cool, Helena thought. Thank God Miriel and Sung Li had arrived when they did. Between Colin’s groundless rage, Pagan’s black looks, and Deirdre’s wicked punch, a nasty brawl might have otherwise ensued.
But she wasn’t about to miss a moment of Rivenloch’s tournament. “I’ll be fine.”
“You will be fine. But what about the babe?”
She frowned. She didn’t want to think about it.
“If you put the child in harm’s way,” Sung Li persisted, “he will not be pleased.”
Helena knew Sung Li meant Colin. “He doesn’t know.” Then she narrowed suspicious eyes. “Unless you told him.”
Sung Li raised her brows. “Do you think I wish to be—what was it you said? Strung up by my braid and roasted slowly over a fire?”
Helena had issued
that threat shortly after Sung Li had visited her. Still, the wily old maid might have had time before then to divulge the news to Colin.
On the other hand, if Colin knew she carried his child, he surely would have said something.
Pah! She didn’t care if Colin would be pleased or not. She still stung from his unsubstantiated accusations. How could he believe her capable of adultery? God’s eyes, Deirdre was with child. What kind of scheming witch did he think she was?
Besides, what right had he to suddenly play the jealous lover or to lay claim to her? And how dared he demand her fidelity? He certainly didn’t return it. She’d given herself to Colin, body and heart and soul, and how had he repaid her? Too often to count, she’d seen him coming from meetings in the cellar with Lucy Campbell.
The thought of Lucy’s smug smirk, her rosy bosom, her saucy glance, stuck in Helena’s craw, choking her with ire.
“’Tis my babe,” she croaked, “not his.”
“I see.” Sung Li arched a sly brow as she finished knotting the bandage. “You made this babe all by yourself then.”
Helena gave the sardonic maid a cold glare. “Listen, you meddlesome old trot. I don’t care what he thinks. Colin du Lac can’t tell me what I can and cannot do, where I may and may not go. Or who I will and will not bed. And he’s certainly not going to prevent me from fighting in my own tournament.”
Sung Li’s wrinkled face turned grim then, and she seized Helena’s forearm in a surprisingly firm grip, narrowing her dark, all-seeing eyes. “This child is destined to be a great warrior. Do not endanger her.”
Her? The old woman’s prediction sent a cool shiver along the nape of Helena’s neck, rendering her speechless. She gulped. Could it be true? Had she and Colin made a warrior maid that might bring glory to Rivenloch? The possibility made her heart race. Even after Sung Li released her, Helena felt a tingle of strange current all along her arm.
Indeed, she almost regretted her harsh words. “I’ll do the child no harm,” she assured the maid. “After all, ’tis only the archery this afternoon.”
Though she’d hoped otherwise, Helena knew it would be at least another day before she felt hale enough to engage in swordplay again. Her leg was very painful. A deep purple bruise surrounded the cut. She couldn’t walk without limping. Even standing long set her thigh to throbbing.
But she couldn’t stay here. Things would only worsen if she lay idle. An unoccupied mind invited unwelcome thoughts. Thoughts of philandering Normans and misplaced jealousy.
An hour later, dressed in a surcoat of muted green, Helena nervously tightened the thong around her hair and peered between the milling bodies of horses tethered beside the field. It was probably prudent to wait until the last minute to make her appearance. Neither Pagan nor Colin nor Deirdre would approve of her participation. But they’d be unlikely to protest publicly once the games had begun.
The ram’s horn sounded, announcing the archery. With a deep breath, she slung the quiver over her shoulder, pulled on her well-worn archery gloves, picked up her bow, and limped forward.
Twenty or more archers stood along the shooting line several yards from two straw bales, loosening their arms, shrugging on quivers, eyeing up the targets. Colin was among them, his nose looking remarkably whole despite the punch Deirdre had given it. As soon as she stepped onto the field, their eyes met. She felt frozen in time, unable to breathe.
It took great courage for her to cross the field with Colin’s condemning gaze upon her, but she was confident he wouldn’t make a spectacle here. Ignoring the smoldering eyes that burned into the back of her head, she notched an arrow onto the bowstring and stretched it back, testing its balance and her strength.
The competition would require all of her concentration. She knew if she let up for a moment, if she allowed one wish, one regret, one thought of Colin du Lac to cross her mind, anger would rush in on her, ruining her aim.
Colin’s nose still throbbed from the clout he’d taken from Helena’s sister. Still, it wasn’t as painful as the throbbing of his broken heart.
Naturally, Pagan would lie to preserve his marriage. Colin expected as much. But Helena…Helena hadn’t even bothered to deny her trysts with Pagan. Faith, she’d even said she was glad of them, grateful. She behaved as if their affair was of no consequence.
No consequence? Colin knew better. The babe growing in her belly might well be Pagan’s.
As the archery commenced, Colin’s gaze was drawn inexorably to Helena. There was one thing she’d been truthful about—she was indeed one of the best archers of Rivenloch. While she didn’t have the strength of some of her ox-shouldered opponents, at close range, she was highly accurate. He began to suspect she might have a chance of winning the contest.
Colin, on the contrary, his shooting reflective of his sullen mood, half-buried his shafts in the straw targets, but rarely did they come very close to the mark. He didn’t survive the third round.
As he left the field, he pulled the archery glove from his hand and slapped it against his leg.
“She’s good,” Rauve murmured beside him, adding in relief, “That blow to her head didn’t hurt her aim.”
Colin grunted in reply. She was good. It made watching her that much more painful. Part of him still ached with betrayal. But part of him was grudgingly impressed with her talent. She looked every inch a Warrior Maid of Rivenloch, standing boldly astride as she took steady aim and released the shafts without faltering.
An ignoble part of him wanted her to fail miserably. And yet he found his own bow arm clenching every time she shot. He wanted to forgive her. But he couldn’t. Still, despite his bruised spirit, despite his keen sense of loss, he actually felt a flush of pride as he watched her fire arrow after arrow into the center of the target.
And when the competition came down to two—John Wyte, a stout bowman from a Norman retinue, and Helena—his heart fluttered with excitement. Each had shot off two arrows, well placed at an even distance from the center. A final shot would determine the champion.
John waved to quiet the cheering crowd. He planted his feet wide and pulled back on his bow, his bearded face grim with
concentration. For a good score of heartbeats, he held steady.
When he at last let the string go with a twang, the arrow impacted half an inch from dead center.
The crowd came to its feet, applauding loudly. Colin took a long, slow breath. If Helena took her time and arced the shaft at the proper angle…
John Wyte nodded solemnly to Helena.
As the crowd hushed, Helena eyed up the target, shaking the stiffness from her arms. She pulled an arrow from her quiver and nocked it into place. The moment grew so still that Colin could hear the sinew stretch as she pulled the bowstring back with three fingers to nestle against her cheek. He tensed with her as she took taut aim, holding it, holding it…
Then she released the bowstring.
The shaft sailed into the exact center of the target. The spectators went wild. Helena laughed with joy. A curious pride surged up inside Colin. He felt her delight as if it were his own.
Then he remembered. This was the woman who had forsaken him. That same unwavering aim had guided her cruel shaft through his heart.
“Let’s go,” he said uncomfortably to Rauve, stuffing his glove into his belt and facing the stands. He couldn’t bear to witness Helena’s sweet victory, won so close on the heels of her bitter betrayal.
He never should have turned his back on her.
Helena nodded and waved to the crowd, delirious with triumph. She had won! Whatever might happen in the future, she’d won the day! Nothing would change that. She’d always remember the warm glow that suffused her now as she turned her face proudly up toward her clan. By their spirited response she knew that generations of Rivenloch folk would tell the story of Helena, Warrior Maid of Rivenloch, who’d conquered a score of Norman knights with her bow.
Indeed, so absorbed was she in her victory that she scarcely noticed th
e wall of dust rising behind her.
A mare in heat had broken free of her keeper. Willie, the youngest stable lad at Rivenloch, was chasing the horse frantically across the field.
Unfortunately, before he could recover her, two tethered stallions caught the mare’s scent. They began to snort, tugging at their ropes.
The mare skirted by, nodding as she pranced.
The stallions’ eyes rolled. They neighed, straining their necks against their bonds, and kicked up their forelegs. Giving a powerful toss of his head, one stallion pulled his stake from the ground and reared up on his hindquarters. Fearing competition, the other wrenched free at once. Both horses stamped at the sod, swinging their heads around to seek out the mare. The ground shook as the stallions charged across the green.
A couple of knights dashed after the steeds, whistling and shouting to distract them.
Through the whirling cloud of dust, Helena glimpsed Willie. He was trapped in the middle of the charge. The destriers raged all about him. At any moment, the lad might be trampled beneath their careless hooves.
Several squires had formed a loose circle at the edges of the field, and they were easing forward, trying to soothe the rampaging animals. But they were moving too slowly. By the time they reached the stallions, Willie could be dead.
Helena dropped her bow and let the quiver slide from her back. She turned to John, the archer beside her. “Give me your sword!”
He did as she asked. Taking a deep breath, she turned the blade in her hands once. Then, ignoring the pull of her bandages, she broke through the ranks of circling squires, bolting into the melee in the middle of the field.
At once, the mare skidded past her, her eyes wide with fright, her mouth foaming. Pebbles and dirt pelted Helena’s ankles as she dodged the harsh whip of the mare’s tail, and her wound stung as if it had opened again.
The stallions followed the mare in hot pursuit, an instant behind their quarry.
Between them, Willie ran screaming, trapped amid flailing hooves and spraying rocks. Helena dove for him, half-tripping, shoving him as hard as she could toward the safety of the wattle fence.
Maids with Blades Page 52