by Kris Kennedy
She rose and cried, “Sir Bennett’s lance is not blunted!”
Bennett spun. His face twisted. “You lie.”
The lance had shattered, and his squire and herald were already out, collecting the pieces. The evidence.
“Observe those!” she demanded. “Every lance should be inspected before the run begins.”
But this was her father’s match, not hers, and she could not set the rules. Her father sent her a furious glare, then looked around at the onlookers and smiled.
“We will not be inspecting lances,” he assured them.
The other combatants were talking amongst themselves, looking at the tips of their lances and gesticulating adamantly.
She caught Máel’s eye down at the far end of the ring and motioned, lowering her palms in an exaggerated motion. Bring your lance down. Then she patted her left shoulder, reminding him of what he’d shown her in these very stands: Sir Bennett’s armor was weak in that spot.
He gave a curt nod and straightened his helm.
She slowly retook her seat.
The joust was beginning to draw attention. More people were gathered along the railings, and others were coming up. A small cheering section developed for Máel, simply because he was unknown.
A little spark of gratitude filled her heart. She waved to the people in the cheering section.
They waved back.
This time, Máel lowered his lance…too far. And he was off-balance. But Bennett’s sword hit the shield rather then his body, and nothing shattered.
One point.
They trotted back to their respective ends.
This was their last chance. Máel knocked Bennett out of the saddle on this next run, or everything was lost.
He took the line in his tarnished armor and simple tunic, his jaw scruffy and his mouth set in grimness.
She thought him the most perfect, shining knight she had ever seen.
She held her breath as they reined about and faced each other, then rose to her feet and dropped her sleeve.
With a spur of their horses, they galloped toward each other.
The horses’ hooves fell like thunder. She could almost hear the wind whistling by her ears as she bent low over the railing, her hands clasped, eyes trained on Máel. It sounded as though a great multitude of people were cheering and shouting.
Dimly, she realized she was cheering too. Calling encouragement to Máel, shouting to Sir Bennett that he did, indeed, have spindly legs.
Waiting, waiting, waiting for impact—
They crashed into each other like ships in a storm. Wood shattered and went flying in the air, both their lances had broken, both direct hits…
Bennett pitched out of his saddle, spun like a top, and hit the dirt. Unhorsed.
She sagged, her hands folded around the low wall before her.
Now a fight to surrender…or worse.
Chapter 35
Máel flung himself off Fury before the horse fully stopped galloping and strode back to the center of the arena.
Bennett was climbing to his feet, shaking his head, sending splatters of blood flying. He wiped his nose along his forearm and lifted a red-rimmed glare to Máel.
“You bastard.”
“Yield,” Máel said, striding closer.
Bennett unsheathed his sword.
Máel kept walking. He passed the place where he’d dropped Moralltach in the dirt, and as he went by, bent and picked it up, never stopping. It settled in his hand like a key into a lock. As if they were fitted for one another. As if the blade was home again.
The way he felt when he held Cassia in his arms.
“Yield,” he said again.
Bennett gripped his sword. “Never.”
“You’re going to want to yield,” he said one last time and lifted the blade in two hands, sweeping it up and to the side.
Bennett braced his feet then, ducking low, he lunged.
In the stands, Cassia leapt up, fingers at her throat.
Máel ducked to the side as Bennett came forward, then swept the blade down and crashed it through the air.
It impacted Bennett in the chest. Lifted him straight off the ground and flung him against the walls lining the sides of the arena. He hit like a rock and lay, writhing and groaning, slumped against the wall.
“I warned you,” Máel said softly.
Lying on his side, gasping for air, Bennett lifted his hand in surrender.
“I yield.”
Chapter 36
The other combatants whooped and hollered—perhaps no one liked Bennett.
They crowded around Máel, slapping him on the back. But he was already turning to Cassia, while she was rushing to the stairs, running to him.
Her father rose to his full six feet, grim and terrible. “You will never marry my daughter.”
Silence winged across the field. People turned in amazement. Bennett was trying to stagger to his feet, but kept falling back, hanging onto the wall for support.
“I cry foul!” he rasped. “There is something strange about that sword. And I will not lose that which is mine. Lady Cassia is worth too much—”
“In truth, I am not worth much a’tall,” Cassia said loudly. “Or rather I shan’t be, once the truth is known.”
Everyone turned.
She walked across the fighting arena, her skirts dragging through the dirt, raising dust. But dust was meaningless. She’d rolled in pine needles and whittled a horse and turned a hare on a spit and howled for the man she loved, while he devoted himself to her body.
A little jousting dust made no impression anymore.
“Cassia,” her father said in a strangled voice.
Another voice lifted, overtaking whatever her father had been about to say. An unexpected voice, but a familiar one: Lord Yves.
“What truth is that, Lady Cassia?”
He’d appeared out of nowhere. He was fielding the home team at the mêlée, the biggest event of the tournament, but now he stood at the edge of the ring, his gaze moving across all the men assembled here.
They all bowed. Except Máel.
His gaze lingered on Máel before returning to Cassia. “I would like to hear this truth.”
“There are three truths, my lord.”
He wiped his hand over his brow. “And on a Friday,” he said wearily.
“Firstly, the Ware barony is bankrupt.”
Sir Bennett took a step back.
She kept walking across the field until she reached Máel’s side. “Secondly, I am quite ruined,” she announced as she took his hand.
The crowd gasped.
She lifted her chin, but she was no longer alone. Máel’s hand squeezed hers, and as the low murmur of shock crossed the arena, he stepped forward as if he could take the brunt of it in her stead.
Rustling conversations broke out, and Bennett began complaining that he wanted his entry fee back.
Máel still held a palm over the spot where he’d taken the foul hit from Bennett.
“Are you hurt?” she whispered to him.
“Aye,” he replied curtly. “’Tis the most thick-headed sport I’ve ever seen. Two men simply ride at each other full tilt, out in the open? No one’s even trying to hide?” He shook his head in disgust.
She patted his arm. “You are right. Did I notice you held back on your sword stroke?”
They both looked at Bennett, still reeling at the edge of the ring even as he complained to her father and Lord Yves.
“Did you notice that?” Máel asked. “Aye, I did. I’d have sent him all the way to Carrickfergus if I hadn’t.”
“That was kind of you.”
“I’m a kind man.”
She snorted softly.
“My lady?” Lord Yves’s interrupted their whispered conference. “There was a third truth?”
“Yes, my lord.” She released Máel’s hand and lifted the rebel message held in her hand, the red seal of the Baron of Ware dangling off the bottom. One corner of t
he letter was singed.
She had snatched it out of the fire before it could burn like the whittled horse.
“My father is a traitor.”
For a moment, silence.
Everyone turned to stare at her father. His face flushed bright red. His chest puffed out, then his cheeks did too, as if a great storm was building inside him.
Then all hell broke loose. Her father tried to run. People chased him, and in the end, he was escorted off in a less-than-noble fashion: his arms locked behind his back by two of Lord Yves’s guards, another two men walking at either side.
“You stand by him?” he called to Cassia as he was dragged past. “A brigand, a commoner? I do not know who you are anymore, but you are not my daughter.”
Máel took a step towards him, but she put a hand on his arm, staying the move.
“You are right. I do not belong here,” she said, and let Máel guide her away.
Chapter 37
They retreated to, appropriately, the river.
It streamed in a wide, tame rush beside the castle. There were no people here, just birds and water and a single oak tree that they stood beneath. Their horses grazed nearby.
Máel had sent Odin to see about securing a few extra horses, or perhaps an entire wagon train, to handle all of Cassia’s trunks.
Of course, he had no idea where to take them next. He pictured the two places that served as facsimiles of home for him: a refuge in the city, where he and Fáelán and Rowan stored booty and weapons and occasionally slept; and a renegade’s cave on the western coast by the sea.
He could not imagine Cassia huddling in the dark warrens of the city. Neither could he picture her living out her life in a cave on the sea.
He had no other options.
She stood on the river bank, watching the currents flow past, her head bent, brow furrowed. He knew another spark of guilt for having brought such wreck and ruin to her life.
Guilt truly did not serve an outlaw. He supposed that meant he had to give up all his brigandry, seeing as he could not give up Cassia.
“Where do you want to go, lass?” he asked. “What do you want to do now?”
She turned from the river, her brow still furrowed. “Sooth, sir, I don’t have much to bring to this alliance of ours anymore. I am the daughter of a traitor, heiress to a bankrupt estate that may soon be disseisined, and I have few skills beyond singing a pretty lay.”
He slid an arm behind her back. “You do sing a pretty one. But other than that, ’tis true, you’re right useless.”
She frowned. “I can whittle.”
“Aye, but not well.”
She laid her head against his shoulder and sighed. “Our abilities may limit us.” She lifted her head. “Do you think I would be any use as an outlaw?”
“Absolutely not,” he said quickly. Best to nip such things in the bud. “But if it’s of any interest, I do have an excess of coin.”
She stared straight ahead. “You have what?”
“Money.”
“How does a rogue have an excess of coin?” She tipped her head up to look at him.
He met her gaze. “You do not want to ask.”
“Oh,” she said in a small voice. They watched the river a few more moments in silence. He could stand here for a hundred years, with his arm around her waist, doing nothing but feeling her breathe.
“Máel?”
“Aye?”
“I have been thinking.”
He smiled. “And I have been waiting. What have you been thinking about?”
“Your oath.”
“Why?” he asked warily.
“As I understand it, there are two terms to said oath.”
In theory, he didn’t like how much she sounded like a jurist. In practice, he very much liked to hear her mind turn.
So he said, “Aye?” and listened as she lifted a finger and tapped it.
“Term number one: You must have your father’s sword. And you do, in fact, have your father’s sword.”
“That I do. And it would never have happened without you.”
“The second term is trickier.”
“Very.”
“‘Destroy the English.’ It’s all very ghoulish.”
He stared across the meadow.
“But then I thought, ‘Cassia, Máel has very much ruined you.’ And I am English.” She put her arms around his waist and held on. “Do you not see? You have ruined me and thus, you have fulfilled your oath.”
He hooked his arms around her waist, so they were both holding on. “’Tis an interesting notion.”
“Perhaps, seeing as I no longer have a home we can go to, we could…” She gave a little shrug. “Go to yours.”
The sun was sinking to the horizon in a golden glow. Cassia would think it beauteous. But she was not looking at it. She was looking at him, her face hopeful and earnest.
He cupped her chin in his hand. “You think you could manage an Irish home?”
“I managed an Irish interrogation, did I not?”
“That wasn’t an interrogation. That was a conversation. You do not want to see an interrogation.”
She gave him a little shake. “Answer me.”
“Aye.”
She straightened sharply. “Aye?”
“Aye.”
She stared a moment, then pressed her body to his and kissed him all over his face: lips, cheek, even his nose.
He had never, ever been kissed on his nose.
“I have so many plans,” she exclaimed between kisses. “I can see it all now.” She turned in his arms and swept out a hand, as if the world she envisioned was already there, just waiting for them. “There will be gardens, both of vegetables and flowers.”
“A wise plan.”
“And I’ve thought about a library, for the romances, of course—“
“Of course.”
“—And perhaps a few scribes—”
“Careful, Cassia. Recall, I have no home in Ireland. It has all been lost. Anything might happen after we cross the Irish Sea. Anything,” he emphasized, ensuring she knew what she was in for. “I do not know what lies ahead.”
A smile broke across her face. “It sounds like quite an adventure.”
“Although…,” he said thoughtfully. “I do know a sheriff over there.”
Her beaming smile grew. “Do you not see? Adventure.”
“Then we have a plan,” he said slowly.
For the first time in his life, he had a plan that went beyond the next few moments or days. A plan with a purpose.
Aye, it was still as hastily-spun as all his other plans, but this one was fundamentally different: he was not alone. This plan had been sprung with Cassia. It was a shared plan—a shared dream.
This plan would become his mission: to please her, protect her, and ensure she had everything her heart desired, whatever the cost.
“A plan,” she echoed dreamily. “For adventure.”
He shifted her to face him again, her body tucked up against his groin. “I’ve a plan for tonight, Cassia,” he said roughly, sliding his hands down her back and cupping her bottom.
Her hips tipped forward a little. “Does it involve sleeping under the stars?” she asked, her voice husky.
“It could. I was thinking of ruining you.”
Her brows came down. “Oh, no.”
He blinked. “Nay?”
“Absolutely not.” She went up on her toes and pressed her mouth beside his ear. “I think tonight, I shall ruin you.”
His blood surged at the thought of her on her knees before him. He cupped his hands under her bottom and lifted a little. “I’ll have suggestions for you, lass.”
“You will show me how,” she whispered in agreement, and he lost himself in the kiss…until the sound of a step dragged his attention away.
A pair of boots stood a few feet away.
No. Two pairs. Very large ones.
Máel lifted his head. “Curse your names, you black-souled
bastards.”
Cassia turned slowly, to find two towering Irishman before her. One had eyes even more blue than Máel’s, ice-blue and cold, despite the smile touching his mouth.
“And curse you,” the blue-eyed one replied, “leaving a message on the fucking table.”
Cassia’s jaw fell.
“Do you know how often we look at the table?” he added, leaning a shoulder against the tree.
“Do you know how often we clean the table?” demanded the second Irishman who was, quite simply, glorious. As a lover of beauty, Cassia had to admit he almost took her breath away. Perhaps it was the lazy, sensual smile he turned to her.
“Cassia,” Máel said gruffly, turning her to face them. “These are my brothers, the bastards.”
“Fáelán and Rowan,” she said before he could finish the introduction, and dipped into a deep curtsey as if they were royalty. “Máel has spoken of you.”
“Ah, shite,” said Rowan, but he was smiling at Cassia as he said it. “We are not bastards, my lady, I swear it.” He swept a hand over his heart and gave a small bow.
Máel tightened his hand around Cassia’s waist. “You are a bastard, and a late one at that.”
Fáelán examined the castle, then Máel’s sword belt. “I see you got your sword back.”
Máel’s hand flexed over the hilt. “I got my sword back.”
“Good.”
“You and Tadgh and your precious daggers and swords,” muttered Rowan.
“And d’Argent?” Fáe said. “Where is he?”
Cassia stirred gently, like a leaf rustling in a breeze.
“The only d’Argent that matters is right here,” Máel said. “This is Lady Cassia d’Argent.”
Fáelán and Rowan both gave the smallest start of surprise, but they were well-used to the strange ways fate could unravel, and they began to smile, too. They bowed to her, but she stopped them with a quick shake of her head.
“Please, that is not my due anymore. I am a simple rogue’s wife. Or will be, soon.”
Fáe’s brow winged up. “Wife?”
“Aye,” Máel said. “I’ve ruined her.”
“Utterly,” she agreed.
Fáe crossed his arms over his chest. “Are you going to tell us what happened?”