The Kindling (42 page)

Sir Elias began to smile. “It seems you have bought yourself a savior, my lady.”

She did not mean to sigh so loudly, but the air in her lungs was suddenly stale now that there was air infused with hope to breathe.

“However,” he added, that one word stilling her, “this favor will cost you more than one of your kisses.”

Her soul jerked, but then she nearly laughed. Of course it would cost her more, but if it saved Judas…

She rose to her feet lest this time he asked for payment in advance and said, “So be it. After you have delivered us safely to Wulfen, you shall have your reward.”

Thus, the bargain was struck—a great favor for something far greater than a favor. But that was the way of things, was it not? At least in the life of Susanna de Balliol.

Before the sun thought to part the darkness and warm the land, they stole from the manor house that, by all rights—or perhaps not—belonged to the boy who peered longingly over his shoulder until they were distant enough to spur the horses to flight.

CHAPTER THREE

Wulfen Castle, England

July, 1159

Everard Wulfrith, second born of Drogo Wulfrith, was not in the habit of rising three hours before dawn—often two, but rarely more. However, something had disturbed his soul. A dream? A sound? Movement where there should be none? That other sense that could not be called upon but had often proved as valuable as his other senses?

He breathed out, peered at the night-shrouded land through the white mist expelled from his mouth, then pushed off the battlement against which he had braced a shoulder this past quarter hour.

The squires he passed along the wall acknowledged him with one “My Lord” after another and he nodded at each in turn. Noting one who was less than steady on his feet and making a great effort to keep his eyes open, he marked it in his mind to discuss with the knight charged with the squire’s training the appropriateness of giving the young man a night watch. Age and size were not always the measure by which one moved through the ranks on the path toward knighthood.

As he neared the steps that both descended to the outer bailey and ascended to the roof of the gatehouse, his ears picked up the sound of what, perhaps, that other sense had first known.

Horses. Two, perhaps three more than the four in pursuit, the latter belonging to the mounted guard that patrolled the castle’s bordering wood for rare occasions such as this.

Everard shouted a warning and was pleased it was not necessary when he saw that already those on the walls were lighting additional torches to illuminate the land before the castle. Changing course, he took the steps two at a time to the gatehouse roof where he found the aged knight who had once been in service to his sister-in-law, Lady Annyn.

“My Lord,” Sir Rowan said, then set himself in the space between two battlements.

Breathing in the breeze that skittered across his face and over his shaved head, Everard strode to the battlements to the right of the other man. He leaned forward and immediately caught sight of two horses carrying three riders, next the four mounted guard who were quickly overtaking them.

Within two hundred feet of the walls, the trespassers were surrounded and held at the point of swords.

Everard smiled at the fearless efficiency of those young men who would soon don spurs and a Wulfrith dagger that would proclaim to all they were the worthiest of knights.

The words exchanged between the uninvited and the guard carried across the cool air, but they were too distant to make sense of them, and so he waited.

When one of two figures mounted on a single horse struck out at the squire who had edged near to yank back his hood—rather,
her
hood, as told by the pitch of the voice that berated him—Everard murmured, “That is settled.”

It was rare for the uninvited to be admitted to the castle, nearly unheard of for a woman to be let in—
nearly
since his sister-in-law had found a way in and his own sister had, for a time, needed to be hidden from King Henry.

Though Everard was tempted to leave the mounted guard to send the riders on their way that he might sooner seek the chapel and set to his morning prayers, he held. And nearly groaned when the squires, flanking the trespassers, guided their mounts toward the gatehouse.

“I shall deal with them, my lord,” said Sir Rowan.

Everard neither accepted nor declined, for though he knew his time was better spent elsewhere, his curiosity was roused.

As those escorted toward the walls drew near, he noted the man wore the trappings of a knight—chain mail, sword, spurs. The woman who rode beside him with her hood down about her shoulders had the bearing of a lady. Much of her hair, torchlight giving it the cast of a river stirred with silt, had escaped the neck of her mantle and fell around the boy who sat before her with his face turned up and eyes fixed upon the walls.

“Who goes?” Sir Rowan called as the horses were reined in a few feet from where the uppermost edge of the drawbridge settled when lowered.

The lead squire’s gaze first found Everard, but quickly shifted to the one who had called down. “Sir Elias Cant seeks sanctuary for the lady, the boy, and himself. He tells they are pursued by those who seek their deaths.”

Everard returned his regard to the boy who had yet to look away from the castle walls. He appeared to be of a good size, well on his way to manhood. The woman…

Her gaze, intense even in torchlight, grazed his before shifting to Sir Rowan. Guessing her to be beyond the age of twenty five and swiftly ascending toward thirty, Everard concluded she was the boy’s mother. Was the knight her husband? More, was it true someone wished them dead?

“With regret,” Sir Rowan said, “we cannot grant admittance, for women are not permitted within our walls.”

The lady turned her head sharply toward Sir Elias, gripped his arm, and leaned near. Whatever words she spoke, they were not loud enough to reach those on the walls, but they were passionate.

Sir Elias nodded and looked again to the gatehouse battlements. “Sir Knight, our situation is dire, for our pursuers are not far behind and our horses cannot carry us much longer.”

There was little room for exaggeration in that last bit, for even from such a height, Everard could see that the animals whose breath heaved white clouds upon the night had been ridden long and hard.

“I see no immediate threat,” Sir Rowan replied. “Ride on!”

Once more, the lady appealed to her knight, and with even greater animation such that the boy finally tore his gaze from the walls to attend to the exchange.

As she settled back in her saddle and once more raised her face to Sir Rowan, Sir Elias called, “First, we ask that you deliver a message to Sir Everard Wulfrith.”

Everard frowned. He was certain he did not know the woman, for not only had she shown no recognition when her eyes lit upon him, but Wulfen Castle was nearly all there was to his life, especially since it had been mostly given into his keeping following the marriages of his older and younger brothers. Perhaps she simply knew
of
him—another son or brother having trained here.

“What message?” Sir Rowan demanded.

“We pray he will grant us admittance—if naught else, for the sake of Lady Judith.”

Everard jerked. Not even the cruelest blade could have so deeply delved and bled his innards as that name. But his
Judith? Judith who had become another man’s wife? Judith who was no more? He knew no other by that name…

Realizing he no longer drew breath, he straightened from between the battlements, slowly curled his fingers into his palms, slowly breathed in, slowly breathed out.

Movement to his left returned him to the present and he looked across his shoulder at the knight who advanced on him—and who was not quick enough to disguise the concern come out upon his face.

“My Lord?” Sir Rowan halted alongside him.

Discomfited at having slipped into the skin of a young man of twenty and two years of age, Everard expelled his next breath on the words, “Lower the drawbridge.”

If you enjoyed this excerpt of
THE LONGING: Book Five
in the
Age of Faith
series, it will be available late spring/early summer 2014.

EXCERPT

LADY AT ARMS

A “Clean Read” rewrite of the 1994 bestselling

Warrior Bride
from Bantam Books

PROLOGUE

England, 1152

“Gilbert!” Heedless of the brigands ransacking her dowry wagons, Lizanne Balmaine pulled free of her maid and rushed past the torn and blood-strewn bodies scattered over the ground. The old woman called to her, but she ignored the desperate pleas.

Dropping to her knees beside her brother, she reached to him. Though his face was shuttered, she refused to believe he was gone from her and shook him. “Pray, open your eyes!”

His head lolled on his neck.

Whimpering, she forced her gaze down his body. His hauberk lay open, its fine mesh brilliant with the blood seeping through its links. And his leg. . .

God help his leg.

With trembling fingers, she tried to seam the flesh back together, but his blood only coursed faster and made the bile in her belly surge. Swallowing convulsively, she raised her hands and stared at the crimson coating her palms.

A moment later, she was wrenched upright, hauled back against a coarsely clothed chest, and lifted off her feet.

“Nay!” She reached for Gilbert but grasped only air.

She heard the chuckle of the one who had her, felt the wicked sound move his chest, knew he would do things to her that she had only heard whispered about. And could not have more quickly thanked God when she was shoved into the arms of her old maid. However, as she knelt in the dirt, clinging to Hattie and weeping with a twisted mix of grief and relief, the villains began a boisterous argument over who would have her first.

Dear Lord, I can bear it. I shall bear it. Just do not take Gilbert from me. Pray, do not!

It was Hattie’s response—a savage trembling that shook her brittle frame—that pulled Lizanne from the heavens and dropped her back to earth. Amid a hush that had fallen over all, she lifted her face from her maid’s bosom and peered past the old woman’s shoulder at muddy boots.

“Nay, milady.” Hattie tried to press her mistress’s head down. “Be still.”

Lizanne pushed aside the hands that had delivered her from her mother’s womb five and ten years ago. With daring she had not known she possessed, she lifted her gaze up the lean, muscled body that stood over her. The man was uncommonly tall—nearly as tall as Gilbert and every bit as broad.

Hatred, more intense than any she had known, suffused her being and set her limbs to quaking. Here was the one who had laid the final blow to her brother.

Making no attempt to keep loathing from her face, she slid her gaze from a generous mouth, up over a long, straight nose, to glittering orbs as dark as his hair was light.

Aye, that hair. Not quite flaxen, not quite white, it fell about a deeply tanned and angular face. As she stared at him, Lizanne could not help but question God’s wisdom, for He had wielded no foresight in bestowing such a handsome face on this spawn of the Devil. Doubtless, many women were rendered agape by the sight of him.

But not she. There was nothing at all captivating—

That was not true. The streak of blood matting a length of his hair was beyond fascinating. Gilbert’s blade had done that.

“God’s teeth, men, what delights have we here?” he said in the coarse English of a commoner. As his men guffawed, a slow grin spread his lips and revealed straight but discolored teeth. Then he reached down and lifted a lock of her black hair. “Aye.” He pulled his fingers through the heavy strands. “Yer a rare beauty, lass—a fine prize.”

His eyes met hers, and their fathomless depths charged her with fear she did not wish to feel. Hate was so much more comforting.

Clutching her young charge nearer, Hattie said, “Take that which ye came fer and leave the child be.”

Harsh laughter rumbled from the man, and the other brigands answered with more of the same.

Heart pounding so fiercely Lizanne thought it might burst, she continued to stare at the man above her.

He sobered. “Aye, hag, I’ll take what I came fer.” He drew back an arm and landed a fist to Hattie’s temple.

When the old woman’s hold loosened and she toppled backward, Lizanne screamed and reached to the still form. Hardly had she touched Hattie’s rough woolen tunic than she was hauled to her feet and forced to face that evil visage.

Grinning, the man dipped his gaze to the neckline of her gown and ran a hand down her chest.

“Do not!” She struck out at him.

With little effort, he pinned her arms and dragged her near. “Aye, my beauty, ye will bend to me.” He lowered his head toward her untried lips.

The brigands’ laughter paining her ears, Lizanne jerked her chin aside and strained away from the hands that roamed her.

Dear God, I shall die! Pray, let me die!

As tears spilled onto her cheeks, she felt other hands touch and pinch her flesh. But the man who held her was averse to sharing. Issuing a growl, he swept her into his arms and shouldered his way through the throng.

Breath coming in great, choking gulps, Lizanne gripped his tunic as he carried her past those terrible, leering faces.

They had only just cleared the gathering when her captor lurched and dropped to one knee. Keeping hold of her, he shook his head as if to clear it, and Lizanne saw that blood still flowed from his head wound. It was no mild injury as she had first imagined. Mayhap God had not abandoned Gilbert and her after all and the miscreant would soon drop dead.

However, neither the Lord, nor her captor, seemed of a mind to oblige her.

Amid mocking laughter, the man surged to his feet and swung around to face the others. “Do ye laugh again, I’ll see the lot of ye gutted,” he snarled, then strode from the camp toward the moonlit woods.

“When ye finish with ‘er, Darth,” one called, “I’d like a taste meself.”