The Falcon and the Flower (3 page)

When the skirmish was over all but half a dozen Welsh were dead or dying, and these they took as hostages along with the girl and a herd of about thirty cattle that had been hidden in the woods.

By the end of the first week Falcon had taken two castles, Skenfrith and Llantilio, and intended to apply to the crown to keep them for himself.

William Marshal’s forces were only awaiting supply wagon reinforcements before they moved on to Pembroke, leaving Salisbury and Hubert de Burgh’s fighting men to take all between.

At last the supply wagons arrived with food and fodder gathered from the marshal’s demesnes of Striguil, Weston, and Badgworth. Supplies were the one big headache for an army on the march, and later that night the atmosphere was almost one of celebration as the leaders relaxed about the warm brazier in Marshal’s tent, enjoying
the new supply of ale and a large wheel of cheese his thoughtful wife had included.

“You’re a lucky man, William,” said Salisbury, wiping an appreciative hand across his mouth, “A supportive wife is worth her weight in gold.”

Hubert de Burgh slapped his nephew Falcon heartily on the back. “That’s what I’ve been telling the lad here, and now that he has three castles of his own, he’s going to be hard-pressed to manage without one.”

Falcon grinned. “I’m not sure I want a wife, but I readily admit that I do indeed need one.”

Hubert pressed on, for in his opinion it was time Falcon strengthened the great de Burgh family with his sons. “Warwick’s widow is available, but she’ll be snatched like a ripe plum for the lands she would bring to marriage.”

Falcon de Burgh drew his brows together. “I’d rather win my lands in battle or through service to the crown.”

“That’s to your credit, but don’t turn your nose up at a woman because she comes well dowered,” cautioned Salisbury. “Since I have no male heirs, my two daughters, Ela and Isobel, will inherit. I would prefer a landless knight for a son-in-law who was strong enough to hold what was my daughter’s rather than some titled baron or earl without iron in his gut.”

The men refilled their leather tankards and laughed heartily as they advised young Falcon de Burgh on the fine points to look for in a wife. The list was simple but it was to the point. First and foremost she must be a bearer of strong sons. Second she must be trained from birth as a chatelaine to handle the thousand and one duties required to run many households smoothly and efficiently. And last but certainly not least, she should bring much land, castles, towns, and villages with their knight’s fees, vassals, and peasants.

The talk of women soon had the men’s lust aroused, and one by one they slipped from the tent to ease their
loins with the camp followers who were ever present whenever an army was on the march. Hubert de Burgh walked beside Falcon as he sought his own tent. “By God’s glove, boy, I think Salisbury has you in mind for son-in-law. Mayhap you were right to turn up your nose at a countess,” he said, referring to Warwick’s widow.

Falcon shook his head. “I admit to being ambitious, Hubert, but Salisbury is half brother to the king. Don’t you think that’s raising my sights a little too high?”

“De Burgh blood is as good as Plantagenet any day … mayhap better! We’re not tainted with the Plantagenet temper that borders on madness.”

“Are we not, Hubert? I’ve been accused of it often enough,” Falcon said with his wolf’s grin.

“That’s just fire in your belly!” Hubert said with pride.

Gervase hovered about the entrance to de Burgh’s tent with a worried frown between his brows. He said in a low voice, “My lord, one of the hostages begs audience.”

“Tell him no,” de Burgh said shortly.

The squire hesitated. “It is the woman, sir.”

“Tell her no,” Falcon repeated.

Gervase cleared his throat nervously. “She wouldn’t take no for an answer, my lord. She awaits you within.” He felt he must warn his lord further. “Have a care, sir, the Welsh use their women to lure us to our graves.”

Falcon’s dark brow slanted up like a raven’s wing and he let out a yelp of laughter at his squire’s obvious devotion. Then Falcon de Burgh lifted the flap of his pavilion and entered.

Morganna’s eyes widened momentarily as his gigantic shadow loomed across the tent. The candles in metal holders had been lighted and sat atop his war chests, illuminating the interior of the red silken pavilion. Without his helmet Falcon de Burgh had a dark, masculine beauty, but he gave off an unmistakable aura of danger. He swept her with one bold, speculative glance that
stripped her of the short leather tunic and golden arm bracelets. He looked directly into the green eyes that slanted above sculpted cheekbones and let the silence stretch out between them until she blurted, “I wished to speak with you.”

“If I’d wished to speak with you,” he said with contempt, “I would have had you summoned.” He was amused to see the anger flare in the green eyes. How easy she was to bait!

“I’ve seen you watching me for days,” she threw at him.

“And I’ve seen you watching
me
for days … with
lust,”
he threw back.

She tossed her head and her black hair swung down her back like a silken waterfall. Again the silence stretched out between them. With a shrug of her bared shoulder she turned her back upon him and strolled over to his high map table. There she let her fingers trail across the parchments. “Don’t you want to know what I’ve come for?” she asked archly.

“I know what you’ve come for tonight,” he said, closing the distance between them in three long strides. “You’ve come to be fucked. It is what you want for tomorrow that I’m curious about.” He put two strong hands on her slim hips and lifted her to sit before him on the high table.

Morganna clenched her fists into small iron balls and thumped him upon the chest. His hands closed over hers cruelly and squeezed until she ceased pounding him. She gasped with pain and his mouth came down to thoroughly devour her. Falcon’s strength was like an aphrodisiac to her, and she took his tongue inside her mouth, sucking with all the sensuality he aroused in her.

Falcon glanced ruefully at the bed across the tent and knew they would never make it that far. He opened her legs and pulled her hard against his body as he stepped
between. As he tore off her leather tunic, she freed his engorged member from his chausses, one as eager as the other to mate with such new and exciting physical perfection.

He bent his knees slightly and thrust upward into the girl’s body, holding her buttocks firmly in both hands. She writhed upon him in a frenzy. Never before had she been aroused so quickly or so violently. His raw male strength stripped away every inhibition, and as he brought her to shuddering climax she dug her nails into the skin of his shoulders and an eerie wail was torn from her throat.

With her still impaled upon him, he lifted her from the table and strode toward the bed. It was a long time since he had had a woman and he was ready again instantly. He laid her upon the bed and hung over her, taking most of his own weight on his braced forearms. She was small, olive-skinned, and beautifully proportioned. Her hair was as black as his own and her eyes glittered with an animal quality that screamed her sexuality to a male as virile as de Burgh. He took her again swiftly without kisses or love words, and she was amazed that she reached another climax, this one greater than the first.

He rolled off her, but instead of lying beside her, two strong hands lifted her above him to straddle his muscled thighs. She wished she could dissolve in his arms and fall asleep next to him. Her limbs were turned to water, her eyes half-closed in satiety as a great languor stole over her naked body. He watched her through narrowed eyes. A girl this beautiful would never have escaped the notice of Llewelyn. “Do I make a welcome change from Welsh peasants?” he asked.

“The king himself enjoys my favors,” she said with pride. Her value as a hostage rose considerably as she unwittingly confirmed her status.

“Llewelyn is lord, not king,” he corrected her sharply.
She shrugged her supple brown shoulders, not wishing to argue. Since he would not let her sleep, she decided to explore the magnificent warrior’s body beneath her. She ran her palms across the thick slabs of muscle in his chest. The dark mat of hair upon it was crisp to her fingertips. She slid them along the faint outline of his ribs and down across his hard, flat belly. By the time her hands had reached his groin, his shaft was hard again, standing erect, pulsating with blood. She stared in disbelief. Surely he couldn’t take her a third time?

Suddenly her blood was on fire. He must find her very exciting if he were this insatiable. She smiled secretly. She would make him her slave. She arched her body up and impaled herself upon him. Inside her he felt like steel sheathed in silk. She bent forward to taste his mouth and moaned with deepest pleasure as he began to thrust savagely into her.

Hours later, when he lay sated and she curled against him in utter exhaustion, he asked, “What is it you want from me?”

She gasped, for she assumed her body had emptied his mind of any coherent thought. “I don’t want to be taken to England as a hostage,” she said desperately. “I don’t want to be humiliated when English women look at me with contempt.” She had little chance of appealing to an inner softness for she instinctively knew he had none, and so it was that she trembled uncontrollably with relief as he murmured,

“I’ll send you to Mountain Ash, perhaps.”

One hour after dawn William Marshal’s vast army of nearly two hundred knights and three hundred men-at-arms, along with his supply wagons and siege engines, was ready to depart camp for Pembroke. Before they moved out, however, messengers rode in with such momentous
news that it put an instant end to the Welsh campaign.

King Richard had been wounded and might even die. He had ordered his marshal to take ship for Rouen where the state treasury of Normandy was kept. The entire camp was in shock, and little by little as the details came out, the barons were sickened that King Richard’s insatiable greed over a few gold coins had ended in disaster. Apparently a golden shield and a trove of ancient coins had been unearthed in a field at Chalus. King Richard took a handful of his knights hotfoot to Chalus to demand the treasure, and an arrow from the castle walls had struck him down. The man who had survived the great crusades and fought the berserk infidel, the man who was reputed to be the greatest warrior-king who had ever lived, was now losing his life’s breath over a handful of coins.

William Marshal crossed the River Severn, rode across Wessex, and took his own ship to Normandy and the city of Rouen on the River Seine to stand guard over the treasury.

Falcon de Burgh rode beside Salisbury on the journey back into England. He chose his words with great care for he knew he could quite easily be caught between the kettle and the coals. King Richard was an absentee king who preferred the glory of battle to ruling his kingdoms. He cared so little for England that, in order to finance his crusades, he would have sold London if he had had a buyer. And yet with his faults, he was still preferable to either of the two remaining Plantagenet heirs to the throne. Richard’s brother Geoffrey had been killed in a tournament, but Geoffrey’s young son Arthur was next in line. The boy was only thirteen years old and had never set foot on English soil. His mother was Constance of Brittany and he shared all her hatreds. One such hatred was for the queen mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine. Philip of
France was such a threat to England that it would be tantamount to suicide to crown young Arthur king.

That left only Richard’s youngest brother, Count John of Mortain. John would have virtually ruled England and Ireland in Richard’s absence if it hadn’t been for the powerful barons. There was not one of them who did not secretly dread the thought that John might become king.

Falcon de Burgh had come to know and like Salisbury well, and he knew that the man’s greatest virtue was loyalty. He did not wish to say anything to William that would sound like criticism of his royal half brothers. “It will be a sad day for England, milord, if Richard’s wound proves fatal.”

“Never!” William cried with conviction. “He’s survived a dozen worse woundings than this. Mark my words, we’ll be back in Wales before the month is out.”

Falcon cleared his throat, wondering if William was deliberately wearing blinders in this situation. After all, they were on their way to England in case the barons were called to Normandy for the king’s funeral and the crowning of a new king. “I hope with all my heart that you are right, milord, yet would William Marshal have been ordered to Normandy if the situation was not critical?” he asked carefully.

“William Marshal is the only baron whose honor comes before self-interest. He is the kind of man who comes along only once in a century. If Richard is chained to a sickbed because of his wounds, there is only one man he would trust with his treasury.” He winked at de Burgh. “We all know how important money is to our king.”

Falcon laughed, relieved that William had been the one to say it. “Aye, the marshal is a man you could trust with your life—or your wife,” he joked. The subject of Arthur and John had not been broached between them, so Salisbury decided to let de Burgh know exactly how he felt.

“You know, I always tell myself that I inherited my courage and my fighting skills from my father, King Henry, and yet I lack that ruthless ambition for the throne that drives my brothers. So I also tell myself the driving ambition that crushes everything and everyone in its path was passed down to my brothers through their mother, Queen Eleanor. Mercifully I had another dam. I am not blind to Arthur’s shortcomings or John ’s faults, but they are royal princes and both in line to the throne. Should the day arrive when either is crowned king, I am his man … to the death!”

Falcon de Burgh wished he himself saw things in such a simple, straightforward way. If only things were cut and dried, black and white, how simple life would be. But things were not black and white these days, they tended to fall into the vast area of gray with its infinite shadings.