The Rose of Blacksword (Loveswept)

by Becnel, Rexanne

  The man who held the boy was watching the battle avidly, his arms and shoulders twitching as he reacted to the two warriors’ moves. Likewise, the other two men stared, absorbed in the action before them. They clearly were not concerned with the meager threat offered by the boy and the maiden, and for this Rosalynde was grateful. Carefully she eased around the two combatants and out of the line of vision of the three knights. Following Cleve’s eye signals, she reached an oak staff that lay propped against a fallen stone. With the heavy weapon in hand, she crept behind the three, trying hard not to concentrate on Aric’s desperate fight.

  As the battle progressed, the man who held Cleve had become more and more lax, edging toward the fighters who moved across the bailey.

  “By Gor!” the man crowed when Aric stumbled over a fallen beam.

  Rosalynde had to stifle her own cry as Gilbert swung viciously at Aric’s neck. But Aric rolled backward to come immediately up in a crouch.

  Cleve’s captor dragged the squire nearer the combat, and it was then that Rosalynde struck. With every bit of her strength she swung the staff at the nearest man’s right elbow. When he screamed in pain and dropped his sword, she prayed she had broken his arm. At the same time Cleve slid down in his captor’s arms, then stood up hard so that his shoulder lodged squarely in the man’s loins. With an agonizing howl the fellow collapsed, doubling over in his misery.

  Seeing his two comrades fall, the third man pulled his own sword and swung around to the attack. Cleve grabbed up the fallen man’s sword and dragged Rosalynde behind him, but a chilling war cry from Aric brought all three of them to a halt.

  After having retreated under Gilbert’s determined assault, giving the man and his cohorts reason to think victory was in their grasp, Aric now went on the offensive. With Rosalynde and Cleve relatively safe, he began to use his full strength against Gilbert, turning back the man’s attack, forcing him to defend himself as the tide of the battle shifted.

  “Gregore!” Gilbert cried as he barely held off a trio of crashing blows. “Behind him, man! Behind him!”

  While the other two men still rolled on the ground in pain, the one called Gregore leapt forward to help his hard-pressed liege lord. But Cleve would not allow it. With a fierce growl of his own, he blocked the man’s path.

  “Begone, boy, before you feel the weight of my blade.” He slashed his broadsword through the air in threat. But Cleve held his ground and was quickly joined by Rosalynde.

  “Shall I feel your blade as well?” Rosalynde taunted the man. “Shall you kill me also, and never fear for the consequences? What of your vows of knightly duty?” she finished, disdain clear in her scathing tone.

  But although the man hesitated, Gilbert did not. Even as he fought back Aric’s deadly onslaught, he screamed at the wavering Sir Gregore. “Kill the boy! Kill him!”

  “And then what?” Aric goaded him. “Kill the Lady Rosalynde as well?”

  “If that’s what it takes!” Gilbert turned aside a slashing cut from Aric’s deadly sword.

  “You would kill her, and all because I defeated you in the lists in London?” The scorn in Aric’s voice could not entirely hide his disbelief that a knight could stoop to so low an act.

  “If you had died at Dunmow, this would not have been necessary!” Gilbert snarled as the two circled one another warily, both breathing hard.

  “Why pick such a curious death for me, if my death was what you indeed desired? Why not simply slay me when you captured me?”

  Gilbert glanced from the hesitant Gregore to where his other two men were struggling to their feet. A smug smile split his cruel face as the odds turned once more in his favor. “I killed two birds with one stone that night. I rid myself of the fool who dared to humiliate me.” He lunged forward, forcing Aric back into a rock-strewn area. “And I found a scapegoat to take the blame for my other activities!”

  Aric stumbled as his bare heel hit a sharp stone, and Rosalynde stifled a cry of terror. Gilbert was a madman, she realized, sputtering vague inanities that made no sense. But that only made him more dangerous.

  “A scapegoat?” Aric met Gilbert’s challenge with a swift undercut, turning back the attack and glancing his blade off the others hauberk. “A scapegoat for what?” Then his face went black with fury as he suddenly understood. “ ’Twas you! You are the outlaw who plagued the countryside! I was to assume your guilt and hang in your stead! Only I didn’t die.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Gilbert growled. “Your death today will accomplish the same goal.”

  “Only now there are witnesses.”

  “Then they shall die as well!”

  The two blades clashed as the men battled for dominance. Gilbert fought like one possessed. And indeed he was—by the devil himself. But Aric struggled as only one who fights for his loved ones can struggle—with his body and his heart and his soul.

  For a scant second Aric’s face was just inches from Gilbert’s. “They will die and the guilt will be ascribed to you,” the scowling knight taunted Aric.

  Then a new voice rang out over the violent scene. “The guilt will be laid where it rightfully belongs!”

  Every head turned to the sound but one. Rosalynde gave a glad cry as her father strode into view, flanked by Sir Roger and two other of his men. Gilbert’s cohorts drew back in confusion, and even Gilbert froze in sudden panic. Only Aric remained focused on his goal. Only he remained fixed on his quarry.

  “Now we shall see who shall die,” he muttered in ice-cold rage. Then with a mighty shove he thrust Gilbert back onto a grassy area.

  In the silence of the bailey, with shadows lengthening across the yard, Aric and his foe faced one another. The men’s breathing came hard and fast as they weighed each other’s strengths and weaknesses.

  Rosalynde rushed to her father’s side to beg him to stop the fight, for she feared yet that Aric might be hurt or even killed. Her father welcomed her into his arms, but a stern shake of his head stilled her words before they were said. It was clear he would allow the men to settle their differences with the sword.

  With an enraged cry Gilbert did just that. He attacked Aric with a flurry of blows and cuts, driving the barefoot man back. Rosalynde cringed in her fathers embrace as the metallic crashes rang out in the air. But Aric was not overcome, though he gave way to Gilbert’s rush. With nerves of steel he led Gilbert on until the blows slowed just a fraction. Then, with a sliding motion, he turned his blade, and when Gilbert’s sword glanced away, he shifted his weight. With all the power in his two arms and wrists, he cut back and, with a sharp blow, caught Gilbert just below the ribs.

  For a moment neither man moved. Gilbert stared at Aric as if he could not quite believe what had happened. A thin line of blood seeped onto the blade, and he turned his head slowly to stare at it. Then Aric withdrew the sword, and with a long exhalation, Gilbert dropped to his knees. At the removal of the blade from his side the blood quickly stained his tunic and hauberk, but Gilbert uttered no sound, not of pain or remorse. He only lifted his eyes up to Aric’s impassive face, then pitched forward into the dirt.

  Rosalynde was racked by powerful shudders; only her father’s firm grip prevented her from collapsing in relief. Gilbert’s men quickly threw down their weapons, and Cleve’s exuberant whoop cut through the air. But Aric just stood there, gasping for breath as he swayed above his vanquished enemy. Then he lifted his head and sought out Rosalynde with his eyes.

  He needed no words to bid her come to him. Although her knees trembled and her heart still thundered in her chest, Rosalynde disentangled herself from her father’s embrace. She spared no glance for the fallen Gilbert as she stopped before Aric. For a long, silent moment their eyes held, and she read all he did not say. Then with a joyful cry she came into his arms.

  “My love. My sweet, sweet love,” he murmured into the thick wealth of her hair as he crushed her to him. Rosalynde felt him tremble and she knew in her heart it was as much from emotion as it was from his tremendous
exertion. Her hands slid across his sweat-slicked skin as she tried to press him ever closer to her.

  “I love you—I was so frightened for you—I love you—I love you—” she murmured brokenly. Then their lips met in a kiss of fiery emotion and perfect love.

  “You have much explaining to do. And unhand my daughter.” Sir Edward broke into their absorption with one another, his voice a study in confusion and aggravation. But Rosalynde shook off her father’s hand on her arm while Aric pulled her into the protective curve of his embrace.

  “She may be your daughter, but she is my wife.”

  At Sir Edward’s astounded expression, Rosalynde hastened to explain. “ ’Tis true, Father. We are wed, albeit in the old way of handfasting. But I love him.”

  Sir Edward did not respond; his eyes only moved from Aric to Rosalynde then back to Aric again. “You … you cannot be wed. Who would perform such a ceremony? You are a mere man-at-arms—” Then he, stopped. “You fight as a knight would.” He shook his head and frowned in confusion. “I foresee a long and torturous explanation for this farce, and I am weary from the ride. Let us at least build a fire and make ourselves comfortable before you begin your tale.”

  So saying he turned away, signaling his men to attend to Gilbert’s body. When Cleve started toward Rosalynde, Edward shook his head sharply. “Leave them. Gather wood for a fire, then see to the horses. And see if you can find food. I am near to famished.”

  Rosalynde and Aric stood together as the others dispersed to their various tasks. She could hardly believe that he was hers at last, whole and unharmed, declared her husband and with no repercussions! She raised her head from its place against his warm shoulder. “You are a knight,” she accused him softly. “All this time you kept it from me.”

  His clear gray gaze met her gold and green eyes. Then he smiled, and it was the most beautiful sight she had ever beheld. “You declared your love for me, a man you thought a commoner—before your father, before them all.”

  Her smile trembled as her emotions overwhelmed her. “I love you,” she answered softly.

  “Then marry me in the Church. Make our handfast vow good before God.”

  Unexpected laughter bubbled to her lips and she rose on her toes to plant a jubilant kiss upon his mouth. “Our heavenly Father was most certainly with us on that awful gallows that day. To please you and my father and everyone else, I’ll say my vows once more in the Church. But God knows—as do I—that we are already man and wife. For now and forever.”

  Epilogue

  A pair of hounds lay asleep in the warm spring sunshine. Their sides rose and fell in peaceful slumber, and every now and again one of them would twitch, running to ground in canine dreams some fat and juicy hare.

  At the shrill cry of a frolicking child, both hounds jerked to groggy attention. But, recognizing their rude awakener as the same sturdy little fellow who tied his mother’s ribbands around their necks, tried to ride them, and often shared his supper with them, they flopped down once more with contented groans and drifted back into their dreams.

  The sunshine fell as well upon another contented soul who viewed the scene in the pleasaunce with overbrimming joy. Sir Aric, Lord of Stanwood Castle, strolled across the bailey, trailing steward and chamberlain but not really listening to their chatter.

  “… correspondence stating that the scutage fees come due at the solstice—”

  “Yes, yes, Cedric. Just reckon the amounts due and I’ll review it with you later.” Aric waved the men away, never removing his eyes from the woman who moved gracefully along the rose hedge that enclosed the well-tended lawn and garden. As ever, his loins tightened at the sight of her, for he’d been absent from Stanwood these four long days. But more than that, his heart swelled to see her. It filled with a nearly unbearable joy, unspeakable in its intensity.

  He paused there, savoring the moment, letting his senses fill with the sights and sounds and smells of this place that had become his home in the five years past. The fragrance of roses drifted to him—a perfume that would always be linked to Rosalynde in his mind. She was clipping roses for a bouquet as he watched, unaware of his presence. Little Wyatt was carrying the overflowing basket for her. Beyond them, stretched out on a rug in the sunshine, Sir Edward dozed alongside the infant Laurel.

  Aric stared at the idyllic scene and blinked at the powerful emotions that washed over him.

  “Why do you hesitate?” A strong young voice broke into Aric’s musing. “If you do not hurry to greet her, then I shall. And after the unholy pace you set to return home from London, I should think that would quite spoil your plans.”

  Aric shot Cleve a mock frown that quickly became a smile. “Dub him a knight and he becomes arrogant and presumptuous. Just give me a minute and then I shall present you to her, Sir Cleve.”

  As Aric strode across the bailey, Wyatt was the first to spy him. “Papa! Papa!” In an instant the basket of roses was forgotten. With a laugh of pure childish delight, he dashed across the lawn, hurtling as fast as his sturdy four-year-old legs could carry him.

  “There’s my boy!” Aric crowed as he lifted Wyatt high over his head and jiggled him to the little boy’s infinite glee. He was rewarded with a tight hug around his neck and the sweet mingled smell of dirt and roses and little boy. Then Wyatt cupped his father’s cheeks between his two chubby hands.

  “Why were you gone so long?” the child accused. His fair brows lowered in such an approximation of his father’s expression that Cleve began to laugh.

  “I came as quickly as I could,” Aric answered, laughing as well. “But tell me, my son, have you tended to things at home while Cleve and I were in London? How is your little sister, and your mother?”

  “Oh, they are fine. Mama showed me how to read the time on the new sundial. But Laurel didn’t do anything but eat and sleep and lie there.”

  Aric laughed once more and then had to restrain himself from squeezing his little son too tightly. Was ever a man so blessed as he? Without warning he lifted Wyatt up and settled him on his shoulders, much to the child’s giggling delight. Then he strode across the yard.

  Rosalynde had stopped at the edge of the pleasaunce, trying quickly to gather the scattered roses back into their basket as father and son greeted one another. But when she saw her husband coming toward her, the oak split basket was forgotten once more. Decorum cast to the winds, she lifted her skirts and dashed forward to welcome him home.

  “Papa! Mama!” Wyatt demanded plaintively, patting both their heads as he was nearly smothered in their breathless embrace. “Don’t forget about me!”

  Aric lifted his hand to reassuringly rumple his son’s head while all the while he stared down into his wife’s beautiful face. The love he saw shining in her magnificent golden-green eyes brought a lump to his throat, and his embrace tightened around her.

  It was Rosalynde who found her voice first. “Would you like to see little Laurel?” she asked as she spied her father sitting up and waving to them.

  “I want to see both my children,” Aric murmured, still nuzzling her neck. “But after that—” He kissed her then pulled her close enough to feel the arousal that he could not force down. “After that perhaps we can put our minds toward providing them with another little brother or sister.”

  Rosalynde smiled to herself as they made their way across the bailey, Wyatt shrieking with glee to be carried so high on his father’s shoulders. There was no need to “put their minds toward” creating another child for their family. She had every reason to believe one already grew beneath her heart.

  But she would wait to tell Aric afterward.

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  About the Author

  Rexanne Becnel has written numerous historical n
ovels to much critical acclaim. Her novel My Gallant Enemy won the 1991 Waldenbooks First Time Romance Author Award and the Romantic Times Best Award in the category of Medieval Romance by a New Author.

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