Knight's Blood

by Julianne Lee

  When she emerged from the wood, the men busy with their masters’ horses near the tower fell silent at her approach. A charge of alarm skittered up her spine, and it was an effort not to react to it. She ignored the squires and pages as they stared after her on her way to the tower.

  Inside the crumbling structure, the lounging knights also fell silent and stared. She stared back, for this was too obvious to ignore. Too wrong. The universe shifted subtly around her, and suddenly all her points of reference were slightly off. Something had been said, and she needed to thwart the rumor before it became credible. “What?” she said as casually as possible, and tried on a smile in hopes of making it all a joke.

  Jenkins said, “Get all the blood out, did ye?” He was lounging against a stack of someone’s stuff near the fire. His place was upstairs with An Reubair, but apparently he was slumming with the lower-ranking knights this afternoon.

  “Do we ever?” Certainly everyone in the room had tried to wash blood from their gloves and surcoats at one time or another.

  “Not from my drawers, I never have needed to.”

  “I told you why I had to clean my linens.” The explanation was a good one, but the very fact that she had to explain at all was an indication all was lost. Jenkins knew, and he’d told everyone. They believed, and now she was going to be asked to prove what she could not. Through her terror she sifted for ways out of this, and at the corner of her eye she saw a couple of knights, Simon and the faerie Iain, move toward the door to block it. If she didn’t get out of there right away, she would be trapped. She muttered to herself as if the two knights weren’t there. “Och, I’ve forgotten to cover my horse. Wouldn’t want him to fall ill from the cold, now.” She turned and tried to move past Simon and Iain, but the faerie shoved her backward and into the room. She drew her dagger.

  “Let me by.”

  “You were at Bannockburn, Sir Lindsay?” Jenkins rose from his seat by the fire and approached her. His rowel spurs clinked as he walked.

  “Aye.” She kept her eyes on the men in front of her but sensed everyone here was now her enemy.

  “And how many years as the squire of An Dubhar before that?”

  Trick question. Now she wished mightily to know whether Jenkins knew about the seven-year gap when she and Alex had gone into the knoll and skipped from 1306 to 1313. She turned toward Jenkins, lowered her chin, and gazed at him with what she hoped was less fear and more barely controlled irritation, and gave the same explanation Alex had at the time. “I was extremely young when I was made squire and my master brought me to Scotland. Tall for my age, and stronger than most.” She let an edge come into her voice on that last, in hopes Jenkins would understand her threat. She’d clobber him if he came at her.

  “You’ve no beard.”

  She chuckled and rubbed her chin. “To my shame, my beard has taken its time to grow in.” If he would only let it alone. The more she had to explain, the worse this became. She considered making a run for the door but figured she wouldn’t get past Simon and Iain.

  Jenkins leaned over to peer into her face. “Indeed, you’ve no beard at all. Not so much as a sprinkling at the chin and lip. Even the most callow youth should have a hair or two on his face. Shameful, indeed.”

  The jig was up. Lindsay took a swipe at Jenkins with her dagger, and he dodged and drew his. She turned and rushed the door, but the two guarding it snatched her by the arms. Her dagger flew from her hand and went skittering and clattering across the floor, and she was lifted from her feet. Jenkins came from behind and clouted her in a kidney.

  Screaming pain shot through her, and she shouted out and went limp. Her legs would no longer hold her up, and she hung by her arms from the men who held her. They yanked her higher, and Jenkins fumbled under her tunic for the strings that held her trews. Lindsay struggled and twisted to thwart him, but as the initial pain subsided her captors held her tighter. Jenkins yanked down her trews, then her linens, then he reached around to grab her crotch. At confirmation of his suspicion, he uttered a string of curses punctuated by vulgar epithets. Each of the men holding her had a grab for his own confirmation, and they were equally offended they’d been fooled by a woman who presumed to call herself knight.

  Lindsay continued to struggle, kicking as she was lifted entirely from the floor. She bit and clawed, but with no sword and no dagger she had no hope of having any effect through the mail and leather these guys wore. Jenkins grabbed her hair and pulled her head back as far as her neck would bend, and he spat into her face. Then he said into her ear, “Stupid woman. You should burn for this.”

  Her heart pounded in terror. These guys would do it, if they got it into their heads she needed burning. But she said nothing, for they were perverse enough that if she pled for her life she would doom herself.

  Jenkins said to the two holding her, “Take him... her over there. Put her across the end of the step.”

  The two dragged her past the others in the company, still squirming, to the stone steps that led to the upper floor. There they bent her over the edge of one step that was waist high. Her trews and drawers around her ankles, her bare behind faced the room, and as Simon and Iain pinned her arms against the damp stones she let out a long scream and tried to kick Jenkins behind her.

  “Hold still!” He smacked her on the side of her head, but she still squirmed as much as she could. She wasn’t going to make this easy for him, and hoped he would knife her in the struggle. Far better than burning afterward.

  There was a moment while Jenkins freed himself from his own trews, then his hand was at her thighs. Another scream erupted from her, and she tried to hold her legs together, but he rammed her from behind hard enough for her belly to slam against the stair. It knocked the breath from her, and once again he hit her in a kidney with his fist.

  All strength bled away and she went limp again, facedown on the step. Quickly Jenkins reached around with one hand to pull her thigh aside, opened her with his other hand, and then he forced himself into her.

  She screamed again, this time with no strength, More than the pain, the humiliation and invasion made her cry out. She called him names but knew they were no longer effective, as they would have been had he still thought she was a man. That particular humiliation angered her even more than the physical assault. Jenkins shoved hard as she continued to scream and struggle as best she could with her arms pinned, her kidneys aflame, and her belly slammed hard against the stone with each thrust of his hips. Her vision grew red, and in those moments all she could think of was that she wanted to kill him. Then she fell silent as she realized she now wanted to live so she could do exactly that. She stopped struggling, to let him finish in hopes he would not kill her after.

  It seemed an eternity. The minutes dragged on, though they were probably very few. Lindsay squeezed her eyes shut and concentrated on not feeling the pain, just as she had when she’d been wounded in the past. Finally Jenkins emitted a roar and a grunt she figured he must have thought very manly, then he withdrew. Simon and Iain let her go, and she collapsed to the floor and leaned against the stone with her eyes still closed as tight as she could get them. She didn’t want to look at Jenkins. She hauled in her breaths with great gasps in her struggle to not cry. No way would she let anyone see her cry.

  “Let that be an education for you. Now you’ll leave this place.” A note of amusement slipped into his voice. “Unless you care to service the rest of the men as well.” He gave that a moment’s thought, then added, “To be sure, you’re welcome to stay if you would earn your keep in a manner befitting you.” He had a good chuckle at that, then walked away. The two who had held her went with him.

  Tears made their way to her eyes, but she wouldn’t let them come. There was only a damp line at her eyelashes before she swallowed hard and held them back. Like a lifeline, she clung to the idea that she couldn’t cry so she would not lose herself. Alex wouldn’t cry for something like this. Only once had she ever seen him break down, and that was wh
en he’d thought she was about to die. This wouldn’t kill her; she would live. Alex wouldn’t cry, so neither would she. Long ago she’d lost her sense of safety; this was nothing compared to the wound she’d taken at Bannockburn. Nothing compared to the first time she’d killed a man. Jenkins had let her go, she would live, and all she needed for the moment was to know Jenkins had made the mistake of his life. All else was trivial.

  It was probably several minutes that she sat there, huddled by the stairs with her clothes down around her ankles, unable to move. But finally she decided she couldn’t sit there forever, and she opened her eyes. The other guys in the room were still watching her, taking glances in the silence. When she shifted, they all looked away.

  The pain in her kidneys began to subside, and her back hurt less than it had. She was able to climb to her feet and restore her drawers and trews. The smell of semen gagged her and turned her stomach, but she ignored it. Left it there, as if she didn’t care. She wouldn’t give any of those guys the satisfaction of thinking she’d been hurt by that. Only the pain of having been clobbered with his fists was an acceptable hurt. It was the only one they could understand. They all knew how it felt to be socked in a kidney, but not what it was like to be physically invaded by another person. Slowly, as if she had all the time in the world, she secured her clothing and straightened it all.

  Then she looked around. Each still took sideways glances, and it was plain many of them were hoping she would stay to service them. Not all men were rapists, but most were dogs. Dreamers. She lifted her head and looked them each in the eye. They looked away.

  Her dagger lay where it had landed, by the wall, and she went to retrieve it. Then she went to the fire and cut a sizeable chunk of meat from the haunch over it, which she ate quickly, standing up.

  “Lindsay — “

  “Shut up.”

  The man shut up.

  Finished with her meal and feeling a little stronger now, she wiped her greasy hands on her trews, left the keep, and went looking for Jenkins. She didn’t have to search far; he was sitting atop the ruins of a small outbuilding at the other side of what had once been the castle bailey. His back to her, he was chatting with Simon and some others, more than likely bragging of what he’d just done.

  Simon spotted her coming, and he chuckled as he stepped back from Jenkins, who saw this and turned just as Lindsay reached him. She dove the last few feet with her dagger and caught his face as he dodged. He backed into the ruins and she stumbled against the low, ragged wall.

  Jenkins let out an indignant cry and scattered his listeners as he drew his dagger to defend himself. Lindsay vaulted the stack of mortared stones to assault him again. She wanted to take off his balls, or at least kick them, but knew a man’s genitalia was the worst target in a fight because it was the one he was invariably quickest to defend. She concentrated on his face and circled to get the sun in his eyes. He fell for it. He probably thought she was stupid, and didn’t realize until he started blinking he’d screwed up.

  The rest of the men left the enclosure of the ruined walls and watched in surprised silence. Jenkins smiled. “You think I can’t beat a woman in a fight?”

  Lindsay didn’t waste her breath with speech. Her focus was on the task at hand, and she went about it as coldly as she would take a spray insecticide after a bug. Instead she feinted and slashed. Jenkins went for it, and for his trouble ended up with a red gash in his cheek. He shuffled and staggered, and a dust cloud rose from the dirt at his feet. A growl rumbled deep inside him, and his eyes went steely. Now he knew she was serious, and she would have to be careful. She waited for him to move.

  He declined. Instead he tried to circle, but she wouldn’t let him. As a result, though, she found herself backed up against a wall she couldn’t get over easily. He had her cornered.

  But she waited. She wanted him to move. So she dropped her guard ever so slightly, and when he took the bait she deflected with her left and stepped in to stab him in the chest.

  He dodged, her dagger only sliced air, and he retreated. She was able to follow him and get away from the wall to give herself room. Jenkins tried to circle again. Suddenly she wished for her old mace, for it had a longer reach than the knife and she had more fighting experience with it. And with a cold smile she relished the image of Jenkins’ head smashed like a watermelon. In conscious imitation of Alex, she straightened from her guarded crouch, went loose-jointed and deceptively insouciant, then pressed him and swiped her dagger at him.

  Jenkins dodged again, and on his riposte she dodged backward, then stepped in to shove him around with his own momentum and stab. She caught him in the back, a good, solid stab.

  A shrill cry of surprise burst from him, and he backed away. He was still standing, so she’d missed the kidney, and she cursed her bad luck. She followed him as he backed, holding his hand over the wound. She’d hit something, for it bled copiously and stank of bowel. And the pain was enough to make Jenkins go pale and stagger. Any other time she might have taken this chance to get away, having disabled him at least for a while, but she didn’t want to back off. Instead she continued her attack and delivered another stab, to the chest. Pink bubbles rose to Jenkins’ mouth and he coughed, but he was still standing. She hadn’t reached his heart, and muttered another curse for it. He wasn’t dying fast enough to suit her. But his arms were over his chest now and he was swaying, in shock, so she stabbed him in the gut. Finally he dropped to the ground, choking and gasping and holding his belly.

  Lindsay’s better sense told her Jenkins was doomed and she should leave him be, but there was nothing left in her heart to make her listen to sense. No mercy, no honor, no chivalry. Jenkins had violated her in a way that called off all bets on the basis of being a woman, or even a fellow man, and now the only way to make this right was to violate him as horribly. Suddenly she was glad he was still alive and aware. She hauled off and kicked him in the side of the head. He fell to his back in a haze of semiconsciousness.

  Quickly, before anyone could climb inside the ruins and stop her, she slit Jenkins’ trews up the front. Then his drawers, which still reeked of sex. Without a second of hesitation she grabbed his genitals, and with two swipes of her dagger had them off in one piece. Penis and scrotum now dangled from her fist.

  Jenkins screamed. And screamed. He grabbed the bloodied patch at his crotch, still screaming. Then he passed out, probably never to awaken. Not if he was lucky.

  Cold, black fury still raging in her brain, Jenkins’ blood smeared over her hand and his organs dangling at her side, she turned to the onlookers and said, “Anyone else care to try me?”

  The silence spun out, and she let it. These guys should be entirely certain they did not want to give her any more grief, and she wanted to let that sink in. Finally it was Simon who spoke. “It was a fair fight.” The rest nodded in agreement, though they said nothing. Most of them were pale and staring at the piece of Jenkins in her hand.

  Lindsay also nodded, then took her trophy into the keep. The men lounging by the fire looked up as she entered, mildly curious about the outcome of the fight, then scrambled to their feet when they saw what she carried. They moved out of her way as she approached the fire, and she threw Jenkins’ floppy man parts onto the peat coals. The hairs on them flared to flame and smoke rose in a stench. The pink and gray wrinkled skin began to blister and burn, now smelling like charred meat. An alarmed murmur spread about the room.

  Lindsay announced to them and to those who had followed her from outside, at a shout that echoed in the stone room, “All you men, listen to me! I am Sir Lindsay Pawlowski and I am not to be trifled with!” Her rage supported the tone of command she’d learned from Alex, and she glared into the eyes of each man present as she spoke. “The next man to touch me without permission will receive the same treatment I’ve just given Jenkins! I will continue in this company until I choose to leave, or until I am killed in battle. I will continue to fight as one of you, and to maintain my loyalty to An Reu
bair, as I have always done. If there is anyone here who doubts my ability to fight as well as yourselves, speak now and I’ll be happy to disabuse you of that notion.”

  She looked around at the silent group and saw a variety of attitudes. Some were horrified. Some seemed angry. As if to bring home the truth of what they were seeing, distant screams from across the bailey drifted to their ears as Jenkins regained consciousness. Weeping, begging for God to relieve him of his life, his voice weakened and finally went silent again, probably with his prayer answered. The men in the tower listened in silence, each one gone pale.

  But some of them seemed amused. A few smiles crept to some faces, and that surprised Lindsay into letting the knot in her stomach loosen some with hope. She’d never imagined any of the men would countenance a woman in their midst, but this made it seem possible.

  One of the men said, “You didn’t need to kill him.”

  Another made a disparaging noise in the back of his throat. “Aye, she did. I would have killed him, and in just such a manner. Would you not have?”

  The first shrugged, allowing that he probably would have done so.

  A third said, “Speaking only for myself, my life has been spared by Sir Lindsay’s help in a fight. I cannae say as I am pleased by the loss of Jenkins, but I would also not care to lose a fighter such as this one. All things considered, I prefer her to be on my side.”

  A voice came from the steps to the upper floor, and it was An Reubair. “She will stay. And you will treat her as a man. If she fails in her service as a knight, she will also be treated as a worthless man who cannot fight. More contemptible than a whore, in my opinion.” He let them think that over for a moment, then he added. “But I believe she will prove herself. Anyone strong and determined enough to relieve the mighty Jenkins of his most prized possession is surely one to be feared and respected.”

  Lindsay believed she already had proven herself, but let it pass. They were going to allow her to remain, and all she had to do was fight well. She knew she could do that.