But his face was as hard as granite, set in the same rigid expression he’d assumed when he had first crossed to stand under the noose intended for him. Did he prefer hanging to marrying her? she wondered disbelievingly. Was he so lost to the world that he would seek his own death and perhaps doom her and Cleve as well?
In that moment anger flared within her, anger at everything that had happened to her, but mostly anger at him for being the horrible creature he was.
“I choose you!” she muttered through gritted teeth, her eyes blazing with fury. Without pausing to think, she grabbed hold of his grimy tunic and clenched a knot of the fabric in her small fist. “You have no other choice. Except to die.…” The rest faded away as his cold, colorless eyes met hers.
Fire leapt between them, angry and selfish and sizzling. Against her knuckles the heat of his skin seemed almost to burn her. She wanted to jump away, to protect herself from this menacing outlaw, this murderous villain. But her life might very well hang in the balance. Despite her every instinct to flee, she faced his icy rage.
When his agreement came, it was not in words. Indeed, it was hard for her to say just how she knew he had agreed at all. His posture was no less tense. His expression did not soften. But there was something in his eyes. A flicker, perhaps. A new light.
All Rosalynde knew was that she felt a sure and swift relief, as if he had somehow saved her life in that fraction of a moment. She released his shirt then and let loose the breath she had unconsciously been holding.
The mayor approached them and the crowd began to hoot and stomp with anticipation, but she didn’t notice. Her gaze held with that of the man before her. It was then that she realized that his eyes, which she had thought only hard and colorless, were in truth a rare, clear shade of gray.
4
“They shall seek wedded bliss!” the mayor shouted to the mass of people crowded about the gallows. “Wedded bliss!”
With that announcement every throat seemed to raise a shout until Rosalynde clapped her hands over her ears at the din. It might have been the bloodthirsty howl of wolves, so unfeeling and pagan did it echo across the square. She floundered between renewed panic and enormous relief, between terror and hope as she stood trembling before the maddened crowd.
“Handfast! Handfast!” The chant reverberated around and around her. But the cry melded also with another call to “Hang them! Hang them!” until the two seemed one and she felt as if she were as much the subject of the one sentiment as the other.
“Handfast!”
“Hang them!”
In desperation she looked back up at the man she had just chosen to be handfasted to, but his grim expression provided her no solace. He only gave her a cold stare and then turned his eyes toward the horizon.
For a terror-filled moment she feared that instead of saving herself, she had indeed flung herself into a far worse snare. The riot of drunken villagers seemed as ready to cast her fate with this Blacksword and hang her as it was ready to see her wed to the menacing wretch. She turned to the mayor for help, but he was swilling back more ale and rousing the crowd to ever greater bedlam. She whirled to face the screaming horde, then stumbled back in fear as one leering fellow lunged partially onto the platform and tried to grab her ankle. He came up only with the tattered edge of her gown, but that was enough to unbalance her. Had she not been stopped by the solid bulk of the huge man behind her, she would have fallen hard on the wooden platform. As it was, she was barely able to right herself. But it was only when Blacksword took a threatening step toward the man still clinging to her hem that the drunken fool released his hold and fell back in very real fear.
Without thinking she ducked behind Blacksword, keeping his sturdy bulk between her and the crowd. Even though he was still bound, he seemed able to intimidate everyone near him. But his menacing posture toward the man who had grabbed at her had a surprising effect on the restless mob.
“Jealous, ain’t ’e?”
“ ’E courts her a’ready!”
And slowly the cry turned to “Handfast.” From somewhere a chair was produced, and the mayor directed it be placed at the front of the gallows platform. Then he signaled Rosalynde to approach him.
“Wot’s yer name, girl?” he demanded, fixing his hand on her shoulder again.
She glanced from him to the hulking Blacksword then at the crowd, which had subsided somewhat and strained now to hear what was being said. Then her eyes flitted back to Blacksword.
“Rosaly—” She halted, then swallowed hard. She had a sudden and unaccountable fear of revealing too much about herself. “Rose. I—I am called Rose.”
“A Rose!” the mayor jeered even as a loathsome belch escaped his lips. “We have here a thorny Rose to be wed to the outlaw Blacksword!”
“ ’Twill be a union deadly to them both,” someone cackled from the sea of faces below them. But it set the crowd to laughing again, and despite her fright Rosalynde sensed a more genial mood from the avid spectators. Still, she did not doubt their mood could just as easily turn black. If only she could be done with it all and make good her escape.
But that was not to be.
In short order the chair was dragged to a place before the two other condemned men. Then the intimidating Blacksword was freed of his bonds by a wary guard and thrust rudely toward the chair.
Rosalynde thought for a moment that her scheme would fall apart right there, for the fearsome rogue gave the guard such a quelling glare that the man raised his dagger protectively before him. But despite Blacksword’s threatening posture, he seemed equally aware that this was not the time to seek revenge against those who had captured and imprisoned him. She saw him flex his shoulders as if to stretch them after their long cramped position. Then in a move she would never have expected, he turned toward the waiting crowd and gave them a victorious wave, with both his hands extended high over his head. Then equally surprising, he crossed the few steps to her and gave her a wide, mocking bow. “If you wish to live out this day, go along with whatever I say,” he said quietly, for her ears only. Then he abruptly picked her up and tossed her most unceremoniously over his shoulder.
At once the crowd erupted into riotous waves of laughter and bold exhortations. From her upside-down position over his iron-muscled shoulder, Rosalynde heard the lewd advice and coarse suggestions. For a desperate, dizzying moment she feared she had delivered herself into the hands of Lucifer himself, a man who’d no sooner been set free by her intercession than he threatened her very life! What sort of madman had she bound herself to?
In a panic she kicked her legs and pounded her knotted fists against his back. But it was to no avail. He only strode back and forth along the platform, displaying her struggling, up-ended form for all to see and thereby goading the crowd to even more uproarious laughter. When he finally righted her, she nearly collapsed, she was so woozy from his topsy-turvy manhandling. But when he tried to steady her she furiously slapped his hands away.
“Cuff ’er one!”
“Teach ’er who’s to be boss!” The laughter rang out.
For a moment Rosalynde cringed, fearing a blow from his mighty fist. But to her enormous chagrin he only scooped her up once more, then sat down on the chair with her firmly on his lap. Though she struggled, he clasped her tighter around the waist until she could hardly catch her breath at all.
“Be still,” he said with a fierce growl in her ear.
But that only increased her terror and the tempo of her flailing arms. Then his other arm wrapped around her, holding her arms snug against her sides.
“I said be still and go along with whatever I say,” he snarled once more, even as the spectators laughed anew at the antics before them.
“Oh, please, just let me go,” she pleaded in a faint and breathless tone. She was unable to think or even move as her heart thundered painfully in her chest. What manner of man had she loosed by her ill-considered plan?
“It’s too late to change your mind, wench.” He p
ushed her hair aside so that his face was beside her own. “Just play your role and with any luck darkness shall see us free.”
At this unpredictable remark Rosalynde turned a stupefied expression toward him. What did he mean, “luck”? Then in a flash she understood. It was not him she need most fear, but the crowd.
He glanced down at her frightened face while in the background the crowd became steadily drunker on both ale and pent-up anticipation. Once more she was struck by the vivid gray of his eyes, and she saw the sharp intelligence there. But before she could signal her new understanding of his meaning, his face descended over hers, and she was abruptly bent back over his arm in a harsh, impersonal kiss.
The wild cheering of the crowd echoed faintly in her ears. In some vague portion of her mind she even recognized that this too was just something he did to court the spectators’ goodwill. But then logic fled and she was left conscious only of the hard forcefulness of his mouth, and how his lips gradually became softer and his tongue probed between her lips. As he’d ordered, she tried to play her role, but she was too undone by the sudden rush of blood to her head to clearly figure out her part. Should she protest? Should she succumb? No maiden would countenance such a public manhandling, would she? But that might not be true of a woman who would be handfasted to a condemned man.
Before she was able to make up her mind, he pulled back from her and gave her a quick and curious glance.
“Next time open your mouth,” he mocked softly. Then he straightened her on his lap.
Rosalynde was breathless and weak, and completely befuddled by this strange turn of events. She was unsure now just what she was to do at all. It was the lord mayor, however, who decided for her.
“We have here the man known as Blacksword. And here the maiden called Rose.” He strutted before them, stumbling from too much drink as he sought now to bring his performance to a triumphant conclusion. “They shall be handfast—wed in the old way—for a year and a day.” He belched and stumbled to a halt. “First the hangin’s. Then the handfastin’!”
What followed was grisly beyond Rosalynde’s worst nightmares. She still sat on Blacksword’s lap, held immobile as much by her revulsion of the goings on around them as by his taut grasp. She refused to look behind them as the other two prisoners were forced to stand on boxes while the nooses were slipped over their heads and then tightened about their necks. But she was horribly aware of their helpless struggles and their pitiful pleading. She bowed her head, squeezing her eyes tightly as she prayed for this not to be happening. Around her the fierce Blacksword’s grip tensed, and she was suddenly aware of his heart thudding in his chest, pounding against her back as he too tensed in awful anticipation. Then with a sinister scrape the boxes were pulled out from under the two hapless men’s feet and she heard the sickening cries as they fell, the sound changing from wretched sobbing to abrupt choking.
Rosalynde was never to be sure whether it was she or Blacksword who jumped at the grotesque sound. Beyond them the crowd let out a hoarse cheer, but it quickly turned to an ominous quiet until nothing but the strangling, jerking sounds of the doomed men behind them could be heard. It was not until the silence was broken only by the rhythmic creaking of the stout ropes as they twisted and swayed with their heavy loads that the crowd began to shift and buzz with returning conversation. But it was not nearly as animated as before.
As for Rosalynde, she was trembling in violent agitation, tears brimming in her eyes. The man who held her seemed almost as affected as she. She heard his heartfelt “Thank you, Mistress Rose,” whispered so quietly she was hardly sure he said it at all. But she had no chance to respond, for the mayor, who was clearly unmoved by the deaths he’d just witnessed, addressed the gathered throng once more.
“We’ve had the hangin’s. Now fer the handfastin’.”
In short order she and the man Blacksword were stood on either side of the chair. At the mayor’s impatient gesture they joined hands across the chair, to the enormous approval of the waiting horde. Her hand felt small and cold when his larger one enveloped it. He held it firmly, although not painfully, and when they were declared wed she felt his short sigh of relief. But he did not look at her nor did he say a word.
The next two hours were a living hell for Rosalynde. Reseated in the chair, the two of them were lifted high and paraded around the square. Several times they were nearly dropped. More than once she thought she would slide out of his steely grasp and be trampled in the drunken mob. By the time they were lowered to the ground, she was trembling with fear and faint with exhaustion. Terror, hunger, and two days of brutality were taking their toll, and she was sure she would not last until nightfall. When someone tossed an apple in her lap she stared at it in dull surprise.
“If you don’t eat it, I will,” Blacksword said, reaching for the bruised fruit, which was clearly a leftover from the previous year’s harvests. But Rosalynde was too quick. In a flash she snatched it up then proceeded to devour it like a starving woman. At such a desperate reaction, however, other festival-goers devised a new sport. Within moments they were being pelted with all sorts of foods. Raw carrots, onions, pears, beans, and even hard crusts of bread. Her arms, her legs, even her cheek caught the brunt of their new game, no matter how much she dodged. It was only when one man threw a particularly large turnip and nearly struck her in the head that Blacksword rose angrily from the chair they yet shared. Placing her abruptly aside, he glared furiously at the drunken lout who’d tossed the vegetable, sending him scurrying away. Rosalynde, meanwhile, lost no time in gathering up as much of the food as she could, stuffing it in her gown for Cleve.
“We must leave,” she whispered to her new “husband” as he turned to watch her. “We must escape.”
“Yes,” he answered, looking around them as he did so. Then he spied a group of musicians surrounded by dancers, and he grabbed her arm and pulled her up. “Forget that cast-off food.”
The dancing was not the courtly movements she had been taught by her tutors. Men and women milled in wild abandon, stomping and swaying, drinking as they went and raising their voices in bawdy lyrics until the instruments were practically drowned out. Rosalynde was jostled and shoved, and nearly lost Blacksword in the confusion. Had she not grabbed determinedly onto the wide leather belt that circled his waist, he might have been gone, leaving her as stranded and alone as before.
But she refused to let go, and when he paused between two carts and looked back at her she was glad she had.
“I must leave you now,” he said as he firmly disentangled her hand from his belt. He glanced once at her then turned his face away. “Many thanks for sparing my life.”
“You can’t just leave me!” she exclaimed, running after him as he turned to go. She grabbed once more at his belt, at his arm, at the torn edge of his tunic as he strode purposefully away. “You can’t leave me!” she cried in renewed desperation.
He turned abruptly, grabbed her by the arms, and held her rigidly away from him. “I cannot help you! For whatever reason you chose to save me, I thank you. But I have my own affairs to tend. I cannot be any aid to you in yours,” he finished bitterly.
“But you must help me!” Rosalynde pleaded, staring disbelievingly into his harshly set face. “I took a chance on you and you must repay me!”
“I told you, I cannot help you,” he countered tersely. “Find someone else.”
“But … but …” Tears welled in her eyes as her last hope for help began to disappear. She shuddered as she realized that everything she had endured this day had been for naught. Desperately she grasped his forearms. “You would be dead if not for me. Hanged like those other poor wretches.” Her anger dissolved into frightened pleading. “I beg you, please don’t abandon me here.”
Through her tears his face was blurred; his expression was impossible to detect. She saw only his fierce gray stare, the stubbornly set jaw and brows lowered in a scowl. But she felt when his grasp changed. He thrust her away from him rudely, a
s if he were disgusted with his own forbearance.
“Who is it you fear?” he muttered, eyeing her suspiciously.
“No one … everyone.” She shook her head then straightened up and wiped her tears away with the back of one hand. “I need to get somewhere and … and I thought … I want you to take me there.”
“I cannot,” he answered curtly. “There is an urgent matter I must pursue. A matter of vengeance—”
“You owe me this!” she interrupted him furiously, then ducked her head as a drunken couple looked over at them and began to giggle. “You owe me this much,” she hissed.
“I owe—” He stopped and sighed. Then he gave her a disgruntled glance before he stared around at the lengthening shadows of approaching dusk. “If you want to follow me, so be it. That’s as much as I can offer you. But you’ll have to keep up. I’ll not slow my pace for you.” With that grudging offer he turned and headed past two stone cottages and toward an orchard beyond.
Rosalynde did not know whether to be infuriated with his callous indifference or relieved that he at least was not abandoning her entirely. But as she followed him, running to keep up with his ground-eating stride, she cast him more than one vituperative glance and silently cursed him for the black-hearted villainous reprobate he clearly was. His back was broad and inflexible as he strode through the shadowy orchard; his head was held high, like that of a fearless warrior as he proceeded on without so much as a glance behind him. In both his stride and his ease of movement he struck her as a man of incredible power and considerable pride. But he was a blackguard nonetheless, she fumed.
When they reached the edge of the orchard, he paused and Rosalynde collapsed onto a stone wall, gasping for breath. The vegetables she’d tucked into her tunic clustered in uncomfortable lumps at her waist, and she squirmed to find them a better resting place as she slowly caught her breath. When he turned to stare at her she met his gaze with an icy glare, but when his eyes did not waver, she began to feel uncomfortable. For all her frantic need to find help, for all her tears and demands that he not abandon her, as she faced that hard, assessing gaze, a tremor of fear slithered up her spine. She had thought he would be grateful enough to help her, but he clearly was not. Was he cold-hearted enough now to harm her?
The Rose of Blacksword (Loveswept) Page 6