A Knight to Remember (26 page)

The tent erupted into wild masculine laughter, and Hugh found himself pushed onto a stool. He was relieved of his barrel. An oat scone was placed into his one hand, and a wooden platter of haggis steamed in his other. It was, he assured them, enough to bring tears to an adopted Scotsman’s eyes.

They used a tap—“just happen to carry one with us, lad”—to break through to the ale, and before a single drop had been consumed, the Scots heartily toasted him. Then he ate, and he toasted them. Then they toasted each other, then Hugh wiped the brown liquid off his upper lip and said, “I have a longing to sing a song I’ve not heard for too many years.” In a hearty, booming voice, he started singing the song he’d heard so many times while a guest of the Maxwells. It was the song that boasted of every Maxwell’s courage, strength—and the length of his claymore.

The Maxwells, caught by surprise, sputtered for only moments before joining in. One song led to another, and other adventuring Scots from other clans pushed their way into the tent. They sang their songs, too, and drank the ale until the tap ran dry. After that, different barrels, most with mysteriously English markings, were brought from their hiding places and cracked.

Hugh had forgotten the camaraderie of a Scottish evening, where every man drank all he could and spoke his piece and each wrestling match begat another. When Hugh found himself on the ground beneath a pile of smelly Scotsmen, he proved the truth of the adage that the wildcat on the bottom always won.

Late into the night, the party broke up with laughter and cheers, and Hamish Maxwell himself clapped his hand on Hugh’s shoulder to show him the way out of the camp. Malcolm walked on Hugh’s other side, making sure, Hugh supposed, that he would go right back to the king’s camp and not loiter to cause trouble.

But Hugh didn’t plan to physically attack the rebel army. Oh, nay, he had a different plan, and Hamish Maxwell knew it. The joviality left him, and he asked, “So, lad, why did ye really come to see us this night?”

“’Tis scarcely night, now,” Hugh said. “See? The morning star is low on the horizon, and the sun will be rising ere long.”

“So it will,” Hamish said agreeably. “And then I will take your head from your shoulders.”

“Ye will try.” Hugh corrected him. He stretched hugely, hoping to work the aches out of his muscles that the night’s work had put in. “’Twas a good cause for any Scotsman, I think, to join with Simon de Montfort and his son and all the barons who are fighting the English prince. ’Tis a good chance for a Scotsman to raid English towns and sack English farms. I imagine ye filled your coffers with goods and gold.”

“And if we did?” Malcolm asked.

“’Tis no more than an Englishman expects,” Hugh answered. “We all know the Scots like to fight, especially when there’s profit to be made and especially when it’s not on their land. But I wonder”—he cracked his knuckles, and the sound snapped through the predawn like a lance breaking—“if the Scots will be smart enough this time to escape with their plunder.”

“The Scots always escape with their plunder.” All geniality had escaped from Malcolm’s voice.

But Hamish still sounded no more than curious. “Why wouldn’t we?”

The rebellion is about over. Simon de Montfort is in retreat, and ’tis a long march to the border from here.”

“We swore to support him,” Malcolm said.

“De Montfort?” Hugh laughed. “An Englishman? Since when does a Scotsman swear to an Englishman and keep his word?”

“Scotsmen have been known to keep their words.” Malcolm was openly hostile now.

“Aye, to other Scotsmen, and to their adopted brothers, as ye have proved to me tonight.” Hugh clapped his hand on Malcolm’s back. “But to the English? Who often as not swear brotherhood to the Scots and then slit their throats?”

Neither Hamish nor Malcolm answered for a moment. Then Hamish asked, “Do ye think we’re going to get our throats cut?”

“The losers always get their throats cut. Especially…foreign losers who are far from their homes.”

The silence now was thoughtful. Hugh thought that Hamish and Malcolm were communicating without words somehow, and he wasn’t surprised when Malcolm said, “It
is
a long march to the border from here.”

“And a long walk to your camp, Hugh,” Hamish added. He shoved Hugh forward. “So go on with ye or ye’ll be fighting your battle tomorrow with your eyes only half open.”

“I’m going.” Hugh opened his arms and wrapped both men in a sudden hug. “Until we meet again.”

He released them and ran down the hill to the meadow, then back up to his own camp. The lookout challenged him, and when he answered, Wharton himself came hurrying to his side.

“Where have you been?” Wharton scolded. “We’ve been scouring the camp for you.”

“I’ve been preparing for today’s battle.” Hugh staggered in a sudden onset of tiredness compounded by an overabundance of ale. “And I want to go to bed now.”

He did, and when he rose, Wharton came to his side and in a most peculiar tone told him that de Montfort’s Scottish mercenaries had packed their gear and slipped away.

The rebels would be easily defeated on this day.

Almund stood on the outskirts of the forest that surrounded Roxford Castle and observed the activity with consternation. He’d heard the rumors as he rebuilt his ferry out of logs stolen from the king’s forest, and he’d come at once. After all, any tale that concerned that sweet Lady Edlyn deserved notice, and he was glad he had listened.

The outer gatehouse had clearly been breached. Black smoke spiraled up from different places inside the bailey. The place smelled charred and a few bodies, peasant women from the village, rested in the moat. Worse, the demons who sought to dispossess his lady carried buckets of tar and great stones inside, and he heard pounding and much masculine laughter.

Whoever it was was very sure of his victory.

Almund turned and ran to get help.

“They’re running, master.” Wharton stood a little distance from Hugh’s destrier and pronounced victory in this battle. “They’ll not stop until they reach th’ sea.”

Hugh de Florisoun, earl of Roxford, removed his helmet and grinned as the last knights fled the battlefield. “’Twasn’t much of a fight after all.”

“Not without th’ Scottish mercenaries.” Dewey wiped the sweat from his brow. “What do ye suppose made them leave?”

“I wonder.” Hugh turned his horse toward camp.

“Aye.” Wharton sounded suspicious, and he stared long and hard at his master. “I wonder, too.”

Hugh shrugged.

“Aye, ye’re innocent,” Wharton said. “Innocent as a wolf stampeding th’ sheep.”

Hugh threw back his head and roared with laughter.

He felt
good
. What a lesson he’d learned. What a wife he had! He’d routed the enemy, and he’d be returning to Edlyn intact and long before she expected him. Oh, aye, he’d have to join the prince in defeating de Montfort’s main army, but with the addition of his forces, that should be accomplished with ease. And the king would be rescued, and the prince would be pleased with him! Perhaps Hugh would take Edlyn another estate as a gift for her forbearance.

And he’d take the defeat she’d signaled with her white flag as his gift.

A smile curled his lips. Aye, his homecoming would be all he’d ever dreamed. Edlyn would hold him to her breast as she’d done that other time when he was so sick, and she’d tell him of her love. She’d swear never to hide anything from him again. She’d caress him with her cool fingers and confess her every emotion: tenderness, caring, a deep, abiding passion that would never end, no matter how often he rode to battle. That was what she would do.

And him. He would hold her and kiss her, and when he was done making love to her, he’d say…what would he say? She’d expect him to say something. Something about love or commitment.

Aye, that was it. Commitment. He was committed to her, for she was his wife. She’d be satisfied with his commitment. Surely she would.

As Hugh tried to decide why he didn’t believe that himself, one of Hugh’s young knights rode up, half-wild with excitement. “My lord, there is a messenger waiting back at your tent.”

“From the prince?” Hugh asked.

“From Roxford,” the knight replied.

That wiped the smile from Hugh’s face. Why had Edlyn sent to him? Was she worried about him? Would she nag him? Would she humiliate him by insinuating she feared for his life? “Roxford? What has my wife to say?”

“It’s not from your wife, my lord, ’tis from Sir Philip.”

“Sir Philip?” Wharton sounded as dismayed as Hugh felt. “Not good news, if it’s news from Sir Philip.”

Hugh spurred his destrier, and the beast bounded forward. He reached the tent and called, and the messenger, thin and fatigued, dragged out.

“My lord, Edmund Pembridge has besieged the castle. The outer wall has fallen by trickery. They occupy the bailey, and Sir Philip fears another ruse will win them all.”

“Edmund Pembridge?”

Hugh imagined that he saw Edlyn’s proud expression again as she said, “I am your true and loyal wife, and I swear, my lord, that I would never betray you.”

Pride. He’d once told Edlyn she had too much pride, but still he’d demanded she surrender everything to him while he gave her only things—a castle, her shifts, his body. If he’d been willing to surrender
his
heart, she would have gladly abandoned her pride.

Then he imagined that white flag waving on the battlements and knew she had done just that. She’d abandoned her pride for him, and this was everything Hugh feared and more. “Why didn’t my lady send for me? How goes my lady?”

“She is well, my lord, but unwilling to summon you.” The messenger staggered back, still weak with exhaustion. “She refused to distract you from your battle, but Sir Philip begs that you come. Come at once, or all may be lost.”

“
My lady, I don’t know
what they’re doing, but I like it not.”

Against Edlyn’s orders, Sir Philip had had himself carried to the top of the wall walk on a stretcher. She accompanied him, she told herself, to make sure he didn’t overexert himself. In truth, she’d come because she had to know if she’d made a mistake. She didn’t like the sounds of jubilation that came from the outer bailey. Pembridge and his men were too confident, and she feared Sir Philip was right. Either Pembridge knew of a way in, or he had an accomplice, or both.

“Mama, what’s that shed doing leaning against the outside of the wall?” With his hands gripping the stone merlon that rose like a wolf’s tooth out of the battlement, Parkin climbed the stones and hung far out on the other side.

She reached out and grabbed him by the hem of his surcoat, then eased him back to safety. “Don’t do that,” she admonished while lifting a questioning brow to Sir Philip.

“Grims?” Sir Philip couldn’t rise from his
makeshift bed to see, and so he relied on the report of the chief man-at-arms.

“They built a shed and wheeled it against the wall.” Grims spoke in English, then glanced around at the small knot of men-at-arms who surrounded them, and they all nodded.

“Why there?” Edlyn did what she’d just reproved her son for doing. She hung out of the battlement and stared down at the clumsy structure of wood and hide.

Grims shrugged. “I don’t know, m’ lady. Would that I did.”

“They’re not using a battering ram,” Sir Philip observed.

Allyn stood off to the side, but he made his eight-year-old opinion known. “We’d
hear
that.”

Sir Philip didn’t seem offended, and Grims said, “’Tis a good, sturdy place in the wall, too.”

“Do you hear the sounds of digging?” Sir Philip asked. “Are they tunneling beneath the wall in hopes of making it collapse?”

“There’s no sound at all.” Grims, a veteran of other campaigns, seemed as puzzled as Sir Philip.

Edlyn’s attention wandered from the mysterious hut to the wreck of what had been a prosperous bailey, and she marveled at Pembridge’s capacity for destruction. The milking shed, the dovecote, and the henhouse had all been put to the torch. The abandoned cows had been slaughtered and left to rot and swell in the sun. The horses had trampled the vegetable garden and fed on the greens. The wood from the trees, green though it was, had been used to light the bonfires that burned late each night, and around one mighty oak fagots had been placed in ceremonious care. The fagots had been lit and the tree reduced to a blackened skeleton that remained ominously erect.

Sir Philip tried to get up but sank back after the attempt. “Set the shed on fire.”

Uncomfortable, the men-at-arms stepped back. They scratched and cleared their throats.

“What’s the problem?” Sir Philip answered. “A flaming arrow or a cauldron of boiling tar—”

“Pembridge is using our villagers to work there, I believe.” Edlyn looked at the men and in her inept English asked, “Is that not right?”

Grims nodded. “Aye, m’ lady. ’Tis my wife who works within, an’ th’ people that I know.”

“By the cross!” Sir Philip swore. He knew, of course, that the use of the villagers handicapped his soldiers in a way Pembridge could not have improved.

“Set the shed on fire anyway.” Sir Lyndon walked up from the far tower where he taken up residence.

“They can’t kill their own people!” Edlyn said.

“They’re just a bunch of peasants. It’s not like they have feelings.” Sir Philip shushed him furiously, and he said, “Oh, they scarcely even speak a civilized tongue.”

He was wrong about that, Edlyn thought, if the expression on Grims’s face was anything to go by.

“What does Pembridge hope to accomplish?” she wondered aloud, hoping to change the subject before a fight began. “Should Pembridge take it, the prince will have this castle back before the end of summer.”

“He’s a jealous lord, is Pembridge,” the chief man-at-arms explained. “’Twas not ever a good time when Pembridge came here t’ live. I remember one time when he wanted t’ bed th’ cook’s wife. She was a pretty thing an’ sweet. Pembridge gave her flowers, an’ her own cow, an’ a lady’s frock trimmed in fur. Th’ way he looked at her, I thought he truly loved her.” Grims rubbed his shield to keep his gaze away from Edlyn, as if the story was too intimate to share. “She didn’t want
him, nor did her husband want t’ share, so she fled int’ th’ woods t’ hide until Pembridge left.” Grims stopped suddenly.

“Well?” Sir Philip demanded. “What happened?”

“Well, he hunted her down an’ killed her.” Grims managed to sound matter-of-fact. “Had th’ dogs tear her apart. Said if he couldn’t have her, no one could.”

Edlyn’s blood congealed as the man-at-arms finished his tale. “He would destroy Roxford rather than allow Hugh to have it?”

“He’ll not leave one thing that belongs t’ Lord Hugh alive,” Grims said.

Edlyn looked around at the inside of the crowded inner bailey. Every servant and villager who had escaped lived here now. Cattle bawled as they fought for grass. Chickens danced in and out between their hooves. Children tended their goats, and women sat in groups and discussed their situation as they spun. Ethelburgha stood over a fire and stirred a mixture of what would be ale. The keep rose in the middle of it all, and inside babies slept, toddlers played, mothers nursed. Burdett and Neda had their hands full keeping peace and spent their days hurrying from one crisis to another. They all, every one of them, depended on Edlyn.

And she’d been too proud to summon her husband to defend them.

Allyn hugged her. “All will be well, Mama.”

Parkin danced up to her other side. “We’ll save you! Wynkyn is teaching us everything about fighting.”

Edlyn looked around at the men, a crooked smile of gratification on her face. “I feel safer now.”

The men-at-arms grinned back at her. They understood motherly pride.

Sir Lyndon snorted.

“Hey, up there!”

Edlyn heard the cultured man’s voice clearly, and she recognized it. Releasing the boys, she moved back to the wall. “Pembridge.”

“’Tis he,” Grims agreed.

“I see you peering at us,” Pembridge called. “Is that the lady?”

She stepped out so those below could see her clearly.

Her appearance seemed just what Pembridge had waited for. His voice hardened. “Is this the lady who was once the wife of Robin, earl of Jagger? The lady who betrayed his memory by marrying his executioner?”

She could see the little knot of noblemen, but she recognized Pembridge by his gaudy raiment and his great height.

“I have something to show you, lady.” Pembridge bowed low to her, and his mockery rang clear. “Let me show you what I can do.” He stepped aside, and a poor, pathetic creature was shoved forward to fall at Pembridge’s feet.

Sir Philip struggled to his feet, looked out, and muttered, “God help him.”

She asked, “Who is it?”

“I sent a messenger,” he admitted.

“A messenger?” Sir Lyndon turned pale. “You never told me you’d done that.”

“What difference does it make?” Sir Philip asked. “They caught him, it seems.”

“A messenger to my lord?” Edlyn’s anger flared as she watched them put a noose around the broken figure below. “When I instructed you otherwise?”

“Lord Hugh instructed me first,” he said.

She bit off the comment she would have made. He
looked miserable enough as he watched Pembridge’s henchmen drag his messenger toward the blackened oak. The messenger choked and struggled as the noose cut off his air.

The end of the rope was tossed over the biggest limb, the messenger was hoisted up, and his feet kicked frantically. When he began to flag, they brought him down, let him recover, then took him up again.

“You see, my lady,” Pembridge called. “I will have my castle back, and when I do, you and every one of those misbegotten servants of mine will suffer, just as this messenger suffers.”

Drawing his sword, he walked up to the struggling figure hanging on the limb and hacked off one foot. The man’s shriek, released from a throat constricted by the rope’s pressure, sounded clearly in the morning air.

Pembridge wheeled around to the wall. “All except your sons, my lady. You do still have Robin’s sons, don’t you? You haven’t discarded them, have you, as you discarded Robin’s memory?”

“God save us all,” she whispered, and when the lads tried to show themselves, she held them off.

“Your sons, my lady, I will keep and train up in my image and teach them to curse your memory every day of their lives.”

“I will not!” Parkin shouted. He was fighting her restraint, trying to show himself to the demon-man below. “I’ll never curse my mother.”

Allyn slipped around her and tackled him. They tumbled to the graveled floor of the wall walk. “Shut your maw, you idiot,” he said. “Can’t you see he wants you to defy him?”

Parkin pushed Allyn off him and wiped the trickle of blood from his neck. “We
will
defy him.”

“We’re not going to give him anything he
wants.” Allyn looked at his palms. “Ick, I skinned my hands.”

The messenger below shrieked again, and Edlyn didn’t have to look for sickness to bubble up within her. Through lips that seemed suddenly numb, she said, “Shoot him.”

Grims signaled an archer to come near.

“Shoot the messenger,” she said. “Put him out of his misery. Then, if you can, shoot Pembridge.”

Obedient, the archer sent an arrow into the messenger. Mercifully, it hit its mark, and the struggles, the shrieking, stopped at once. Even as Edlyn started her prayers for the man’s soul, Pembridge scampered back out of range, and the second arrow whistled uselessly through the air. “You’ll pay for that, lady,” Pembridge shouted.

Aye, she would. Of that she had no doubt. Turning away from the spectacle below, she asked Sir Philip, “Is there any way to send another messenger to my lord and tell him of our dilemma?”

“He’s on his way,” Sir Philip answered.

She stared at him, not comprehending.

“I sent two messengers.” Color swept from Sir Philip’s face. “The second one must be safe.”

She took a hard breath in. Hugh. Hugh was on the way. Hugh would save her.

Then she breathed out, and despair swamped her. Hugh was fighting a battle for the freedom of the king. Hugh would be distracted. Hugh might be killed.

“He’s fainted!” Sir Lyndon’s rude voice intruded on her confusion.

It was true. Sir Philip flopped back on the stretcher, his mouth open and his eyes rolled back. Edlyn dropped to her knees and examined him. His clammy skin and chalky color proclaimed his weak
ness. Even this outing had taxed his strength to the limit.

“Take him back to the keep,” she said. “Put him to bed.”

She watched unhappily as the knight she trusted was taken down the narrow stairs.

Sir Lyndon blew out his breath in disgust. “He’s no good to you. You’ll have to depend on me.”

Depend on him? But he despised her. He might show respect when Hugh was in residence, but now that he was gone he didn’t hesitate to undermine her decisions with mockery. She didn’t want to depend on him—but surely the men-at-arms needed a knight in charge.

Especially since Pembridge had proved that he knew her identity and carried a grudge.

Grims didn’t seem to agree. “Don’t fret, m’ lady, we’ll keep ye safe.”

Her? She stared at him through glazed eyes. If she lost this castle and Pembridge razed it to the ground, nowhere would be safe for her. She would have I destroyed Hugh’s dream as surely as if she’d moved the stones with her own hands, and he’d want to kill her.

Nay, worse, he’d think it nothing more than what he expected from a woman, and he’d never trust her again.

Or…or he’d imagine that she’d done it for revenge, because she still loved Robin or because she was in collusion with Edmund Pembridge.

A woman’s screech down in the bailey brought the men-at-arms to the edge of the wall walk. “The knaves are coming through the wall!”

“Nay!” Edlyn couldn’t believe that. If Pembridge’s men were tunneling beneath the wall, they could get through but not so quickly. Such an operation took months…

Grims muttered words in English, then began shouting to his men.

Sir Lyndon grabbed her upper arm and squeezed it tight. “You need me, lady. Give me command!”

“Let go!” She didn’t have time to worry about him. Allyn and Parkin rushed to the edge of the wall walk overseeing the inner bailey, and she lunged to bring them to safety. Holding them struggling, she strained to see for herself.

Armed knights wearing Pembridge’s device burst through the thin lining of stone that separated them from the inner bailey. Long ago Pembridge had somehow built a tunnel beneath the wall, lined it with stone, and shored it with timbers, then covered it with stone that matched the wall that rose above it. The workers on the other side of the wall hadn’t been tunneling. The villagers had been simply removing the chiseled stones.

Now she stood far from the safety of the keep. Burdett stood below, directing the castle folk and villagers with frantic gestures. Her sons tried to push her behind them in the valiant manner of lads who’d never seen battle but knew their duty.

“You need me,” Sir Lyndon said again.

The knight wanted to be in charge, but she didn’t trust him. She refused to answer, refused to give him her blessing.

“Nothing’s going to stop them, and who else is going to defend you?” he asked contemptuously. “You don’t understand combat!”

It was true. She didn’t. Always she’d depended on her wits, but they failed her now.

Oh, why had she never learned to fight?

The first time Hugh heard the woman scream, he ignored her and leaned over the neck of his destrier to urge it on. What was one more woman’s shriek compared to the blood and agony of battle that he’d just witnessed? He glanced off into the forest. It was probably just some shrew yelling at her husband.

But she screamed again, loud and shrill, and even his horse checked. There was no anger in the sound, only pure terror. Edlyn would have demanded that he stop and check on the woman.