Lord of the Manor (18 page)

This was his fault, of course, for having given Philip that duty once before when there had been no danger. Now danger had arrived at his gates and these little boys—
hellfire
—were just little boys, not soldiers. A glance at Lucinda told him that she, too, thought the whole thing his fault and that he had best do something about it.

Richard noted the boys’ eagerness to be of some service. Having some duty would keep their fear at bay, too. He couldn’t disappoint them, but couldn’t let them have their way completely, either.

“Protecting the women is a serious duty,” he told them. Every little head bobbed in swift agreement. “This means you must stay within the manor, close
by your mothers in case you are needed. You are not to wander out into the bailey, under any circumstances, to see what is happening.”

“Should not we stand in the doorway, to give warning?” the blacksmith’s son asked.

’Twas Richard’s greatest fear that they would be drawn into the bailey, and likely the fear of their mothers, too.

“Nay. Should the enemy breach the palisade, I will send warning. You must stay clear of the doorway to allow the wounded passage—and to best protect our women. Those are my orders and I expect you to obey them.”

Their heads didn’t bob in agreement so quickly this time.

“You will also heed your mothers’ commands. Should any one of them give you an order, and I hear that you did not obey straightaway, ‘twill vex me sorely. Understood?”

The boys looked from one to the other.

“Understood?” Richard said more forcefully.

Several weak “aye, my lords” followed.

He looked to the one mother who might yet give argument. Lucinda seemed satisfied.

“Good,” he told the boys. “Take care that you bash no one with those sticks but the enemy.”

With that last warning, he left the boys and beckoned to Lucinda. She wore the old peasant-weave gown in which she’d arrived at Collinwood. Her raven hair was tightly plaited, then wound around her head like a crown. She wore no veil or circlet—or smile.

Still, Lucinda was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. The most courageous.

“You have done a good job here,” he told her.

“The women thank me now for giving them something to do with their hands and minds. That will change when the first husband or son comes in bleeding. Then they will hate me again for being the cause of their loved one’s pain, or death.”

“You are not to blame, George is.”

“When one’s loved one is in pain, ‘tis easiest to blame someone close at hand. Go, you must be with your men. I will be all right.”

Richard knew she would get through the day in whatever way she could. She would see that the wounded were cared for no matter if the women helped her or railed at her.

From outside he heard the creak of the gates. Edric must have ordered them closed because arrows were getting close. Soon would come the test of his leadership and resolve.

He tucked a finger under her chin and raised her face. “Since you have assumed command, I now give it to you. Do whatever you must without fear of reprisal from me. Scream, bully, beat heads together if you must.”

“Have a care, Richard. We need you,” she whispered.

In the manor, the women chattered in soft voices, peppered with an occasional nervous laugh. Outside Connor shouted orders to the older boys who placed water near buildings.

Lucinda’s eyes sparkled. Her lips parted, beckoning. He bent to her silent plea, to the need encompassing his own soul. The kiss was light, and warm, and not enough. When she broke away, a tear trickled down her cheek.

“Down in the bailey!” Edric cried from the wall-walk.

Richard heard the whiz of the single arrow, which thudded into the earth in front of the manor door.

He grasped the back of Lucinda’s neck, kissed her soundly, then fled the manor. On his way to the palisade, he snatched up the enemy’s arrow.

George’s army formed a long line along the edge of a field, the men down on one knee behind kite-shaped shields. George and two other men sat on horseback behind them. They couldn’t possibly overtake the manor. Not with a mere fifty men. But they could harass, and do damage, and take lives.

Richard took a bow from one of his archers. “’Tis time to let them know who is truly vulnerable here, hey Edric?”

Edric chuckled. “Have at it, my lord.”

Richard notched the arrow and chose his target ‘Twas too much to hope that he could knock George off his horse, end it all now. The distance was too great. But he could get close. He drew back and let the bolt fly. The arrow flew true, in a high arc. It bit into the earth behind the wall of shields, so near to George that his horse reared and skittered backward.

The wall of shields backed up several yards. The farther back the archers, the fewer arrows would fly over the palisade, and even fewer of the heavier fire-tipped arrows.

Richard handed the bow back to its owner.

The enemy line stood up as one.

“Volley!” Edric shouted. “Shields up! ‘Ware the bailey!”

Most of the arrows landed in the moat, a few bounced off the palisade, two stuck.

“Answer, my lord?” Edric asked.

“Aye, we must,” he said, then turned to shout, “Put some muscle into it, men. Send them back!”

The return volley sent the enemy back, finding three human targets. So it went for the next hour, the testing of strength and distance, taking each other’s measure.

Richard strode the walk, talking to each of his defenders, encouraging them, preparing them as the enemy built a fire.

The volley, when it came, was a sight to behold and deadly in its beauty. Balls of fire streaked through the sky. Again, most fell into the moat. Several hit the palisade and were quickly extinguished by the men on the walk. Three flew over the palisade. Two fell to the dirt, but one found the roof of the blacksmith’s hut.

Boys scrambled to put it out, drowning the threat with two buckets of water. ‘Twas quickly out, the thatch barely singed, but had the effect of sobering all.

“’Twill be a long day,” Edric commented.

An understatement. Edric knew as well as Richard did that the siege had just begun, and only God, or mayhap George, knew when it would end.

L
uanda wrapped the young man’s burned hand while his mother hovered nearby. The mother fretted, but not her son. He smiled at the bandage as if it was a sign of his courage and usefulness to his lord.

They’d been lucky thus far. Two burns. One arrow wound—a mere scratch. No deaths, not yet, but they would come.

The tension in the manor rose with each shout of “volley” from the walk. Then came the endless minutes of waiting for the arrows to fall, the shouts for water, the fear that someone would suffer serious hurt.

Between the volleys, men drifted into the manor to grab a bite to eat or a drink of honeyed mead before heading back to the walk or to the armory for rest. Soon night would fall.

Neither Richard nor Edric had appeared as yet.

Lucinda tied off the bandage and tucked the ends into the folds. “Let your mother fuss over you for a moment before you go back out,” she whispered to the young man.

“’Tis naught to worry over and I am needed without.”

She patted him on the shoulder. “I know, but if you do not let her fuss she will continue to fret and be of no use to me in here. ‘Tis a mother’s lot in life to fuss. Give her a moment so we will all have peace.”

He sighed his resignation and did as she asked.

She looked around for her own son. Philip and his band had soon wearied of standing guard. They now sat in a circle and played some game.

Lucinda walked over to the table filled with food and drink. Richard and Edric should eat. If they couldn’t find the time to come into the manor, someone should deliver a meal to them.

‘Twas probably a dangerous thing for her to do, and Richard would likely toss a fit. Still, she loaded a clay platter with bread, cheese and dried fruit, filled two cups with mead, and slipped out of the manor.

Richard was easy to locate. His chain mail glinted, touched with the fire of the setting sun. He stood on the walk near the gate, peering out over the palisade at the enemy beyond. A warrior. The man in command.

No one stopped her from walking across the bailey or climbing the inner bank to the walk—though Edric spotted her and nudged Richard, who turned and scowled.

“Woman, I swear—”

“Do not trouble yourself, Richard. I have heard it all before. Here,” she said, handing over the mead. “If you do not take time to feed yourselves, then someone must feed you.”

“I am not hungry.”

“Wonderful. Eat anyway, as an example to your men. You would not want them falling faint with hunger, would you?”

“The men are on shifts, instructed to eat and rest—”

“Rest. A splendid idea. On which shift do you rest?”

Richard and Edric exchanged a look that Lucinda couldn’t misread.

“Neither of you can remain awake during the entire siege,” she scolded. “It could take days, weeks!”

“Not so long,” Richard said, plucking a piece of cheese from the platter. “He has not the means, I think, for a prolonged siege. The mercenaries will stand with George only as long as he can pay them. He needs to come up with a plan of attack.”

Lucinda looked out over the palisade at the enemy camp.

A good number of years had passed since she last saw George, but he was easy to pick out, not by his features—the distance was too great—but by his portly form, garbed in rich robes. He paced along the edge of the camp, behind a line of soldiers whose shields faced the manor.

The man had a mean streak as wide as Basil’s and deep as the devil’s. Cut from the same cloth as his cousin, George obeyed laws and played the honorable noble only when it suited him. Did he make war on his neighbors as often as Basil had? Did he win as rarely as Basil had?

“What will he do?” she asked.

“Build ladders,” Edric said around a bite of bread. “Try to scale the walls.”

She shivered. “Tonight?”

“Nay, not tonight,” Richard said, grabbing a handful of fruit. “He has yet to cut trees. Soon he will run out of daylight, then the rain will come and drive him to shelter.”

Lucinda scanned the sky. No cloud marred the expanse.

“What rain?”

“’Twill rain tonight, heavy,” Edric said. He winked at her. “My knee, it never lies.”

Richard consumed the last of the bread. Edric devoured the chunk of cheese. Both had been hungry as bears but unwilling to leave the wall-walk.

“Edric, Lucinda has the right of it,” Richard said. “Get a few hours’ sleep, then you can relieve me. I doubt George will try anything fancy tonight.”

“As you wish, my lord. Mayhap I will have another cup of mead first.”

Lucinda saw through the ruse. “You may go straight to your pallet, Edric. I managed to come here on my own and can certainly manage to find my way back.”

“Of course you can, my lady. I never had a doubt.”

Yet he waited. Edric wasn’t about to budge until she moved. He would escort her to the manor whether she wished him to or not.

She drank in another draught of Richard’s beloved visage. “Is it over for the day then?”

He shook his head. “Another volley or two, perhaps.”

Another volley or two to worry over him, to still her shaking hands whenever the call to take cover thundered through the bailey. When the arrows flew,
Richard would be here atop the walk, too easy a target.

She forced herself down the inner bank, Edric at her heels. At midbailey, Richard’s call rang out. “Volley! No fire! ‘Ware the bailey! Run, Lucinda!”

Lucinda dropped the platter, hiked up her skirts, and sprinted for the manor door with Edric right beside her. They ran so hard her lungs burned. Overhead she heard the whiz of a downward-arced arrow—too close. The door was too far away.

Edric slammed into her and knocked her to the ground. She landed facedown in the dirt, Edric atop her. All around her she heard screams and men shouting. And the heavy thumps of her own laboring, but beating heart. Then silence.

Edric eased off. “Are you all right?”

She felt no pain except the scrapes on her hands. She lifted her head. Two feet in front of her an arrow quivered, the tip stuck in the dirt.

She blew out a relieved breath. “I am fine. You?”

“Unharmed.”

He held out his hand to help her up. She no more than made her feet when Richard swept her off them. She flung her arms around his neck, ignoring the bite of his chain mail.

“Dear, sweet Lord,” he uttered the prayer into her neck.

Aye,
she silently agreed. Someone besides Edric had been watching over her. Another step or two and…merciful heaven, that arrow had come far too close.

She’d heard screams. Someone must be hurt. She should find out who and go back into the manor and treat the wound.

For the life of her, she couldn’t speak, couldn’t move. So she tarried within Richard’s comforting embrace, as if by some magic he could infuse some vigor into her suddenly weak body and tired mind.

“She goes pale as cream,” she heard Edric say before the world went dark.

Lucinda’s body went limp. Richard’s first terrified thought was that she’d died, but she breathed. She’d fainted.

He gathered her in his arms and carried her into the manor. All eyes turned to watch as he carefully laid her on a table.

“Mother?” Philip’s small voice trembled.

Philip’s eyes, huge and round, glistened. Richard understood the boy’s terror.

“She lives, Philip. See, she breathes.”

“Then why does she not wake?”

“Your mother had a bad scare and fainted, is all,” he said, trying to keep his tone light for Philip’s sake. “She will wake when ready.”

“’Twas my duty to watch her.”

Sensing the direction of the child’s misguided thoughts, Richard scrunched down and grasped Philip’s shoulders. “You did your duty. You were to guard her while in the manor. If there is any blame here, ‘tis mine. I did not guard her well enough while she was outside the manor.”

Edric huffed. “As captain of the guard, ‘twas my duty. And I think I did a damn good job of it!”

Richard rose and faced Edric. He would never be able to thank the man enough. “That you did, Edric. A damn fine job. If you hadn’t knocked her over…”

Hellfire, he couldn’t say it aloud. The scene replayed over and over in his head. Lucinda and Edric
running toward the manor, directly into the path of a downward spiraling arrow. His heart had lodged in his throat, watching death descend on one he held dear.

On the woman he loved.

He’d never prayed so hard, so fast, so earnestly in his entire life. If God truly held him to every promise he’d made in those terrifying moments, he would qualify for sainthood at his life’s end.

Of all the promises he’d made, he would keep one promise above all others. If Lucinda would have him.

Richard picked up Philip, hugged him, then set him on the table next to his mother. This woman, this boy, meant the world to him. No stone keep, no holding, no riches would fill the lonely, empty hole in his life if he lost them. He picked up Lucinda’s hand and placed it in her son’s.

“Watch over her for me for a moment, will you?”

“Aye, my lord. She is back in the manor. ‘Tis my turn to watch over her.”

Richard ruffled Philip’s hair. “It is at that.”

He took a deep breath and brought himself back to the task at hand. In order to have a future with Lucinda and Philip, first he had to secure that future. George was still without, threatening everything Richard held dear.

Sweet heaven, what he wouldn’t give to have Gerard make a surprise visit right now. Come up on George’s backside and mow his forces down the middle like a scythe through a field of wheat. Of course, then when Richard told Gerard of his intentions toward Lucinda, Gerard would toss a fit. Best that Gerard remained at Wilmont.

Richard knew his best plan of defense was to sit
tight and let George expend his supplies. But, hellfire, the sitting irritated since he would rather take an aggressive offensive.

“My lord, with your permission, I will return to the wall,” Edric offered. “There are other wounded you may wish to attend before you return.”

Other wounded? He’d focused so hard on Lucinda he hadn’t noticed.

Richard cuffed Edric on the shoulder. “My thanks, my friend. I will return shortly. And Edric, that arrow. I want it so I can send it back to George.”

Edric left. Richard gave a last glance at Philip, who clutched Lucinda’s hand and watched her intently, then moved off to where Lyle, one of the older boys who manned the water, sat on a nearby stool. He sported a large, nastily colored bruise on his head. The boy would have a headache, but seemed fine otherwise.

“Tripped over my own big feet, my lord,” Lyle said, chagrined. “’Tain’t nothing. How is the lady?”

“Lucinda had a scare and fainted.” The more he said it, the more he would believe it. Her brush with death had frightened her into fainting. She would be fine.

Lyle held up his linen-wrapped hand. “She bandaged my burn earlier, right and tight. I am glad the arrow missed her. I saw it coming down, right in her path.” Lyle glanced over to where Lucinda lay. “I tried to get to her, but…”

Lyle had tripped trying to run to Lucinda. At least one person of all his tenants thought her worthy, and that gave him hope. If one could, mayhap the rest could too, someday.

Richard clasped Lyle’s shoulder. “You have done
me good service this day. You are now off duty until the morn.”

“But my lord—”

“Until morn. I catch you outside of this manor before then and I will take a strap to your backside.”

Richard didn’t give Lyle a chance to argue further. He moved on to where one of his soldiers lay on the rushes. The man had taken an arrow to the gullet—and died. The first death, and probably not the last.

A farmer’s wife covered the soldier’s face with a bandage and crossed herself.

“Has he family here?” Richard asked, unable to remember.

“Nay, I believe not.”

“I will have to ask Connor. He will know.”

“Then you had best ask quick, my lord,” she said, pointing to a table. “He bleeds heavily.”

Hellfire. Richard strode over to where Connor lay on his left side, very still. An arrow pierced him completely through the right side of his body, under the ribs. The women had packed wads of bandaging around both wounds, yet the blood seeped through.

Connor opened his eyes. “Too old to run fast, my lord,” he said weakly.

“You had best not die, Connor. Collinwood needs you.”

The light touch on his arm could only be Lucinda’s. Her face had regained some color, but not enough. Philip stood at her side, clutching his mother’s hand.

“The arrow needs to come out,” she said.

Connor’s eyes widened. “Nay, do not let her touch me. I would rather die in peace.”

Lucinda’s eyes flashed with anger. She bent over until her face hovered mere inches from Connor’s. “I
bear you no great love either, Connor. But by all that is holy, I will not let you die, if only because Richard wishes you to live. Say a prayer for courage, old man, because what I am about to do will hurt like hell.”

She rose. “Richard, can you snap off the arrowhead? I do not think I have the strength.”

“Not enough protrudes to allow a good grip,” he said, willing to do whatever she asked of him. “Will breaking off the fletched end do?”

“Aye,” she said, and turned to one of the women. “Prepare two pads, heavily coated with alum. If he stops bleeding, I can stitch him shut. If not, we will need a hot iron to cauterize the wounds.”

“She will kill me for sure, my lord. I beg of you—”

Richard wrapped his hands around the shaft and snapped the arrow in two, just ahead of the feathers. Connor’s body jerked and he passed out. A blessing.

“Trim the end,” Lucinda said, handing him a large knife from the supplies at the head of the table. “We do not wish to leave any stray pieces within him.”

“Fine,” he said. “You sit on that bench behind you before you fall down. You direct, we will do the work.” Philip reinforced his order by pulling Lucinda backward. “When was the last time you ate?”

She shrugged a shoulder.

“Philip,” he said, tossing his head toward the food table. The boy scurried off.