The Wolfe (113 page)

A short while later, Paris returned
astride his destrier, leading William’s. William let go of Jordan long enough
to take Caladora’s arm and take her to Paris.

“You take Lady Caladora and guard
her with your miserable life,” he told him, his humor and demeanor returning
with the reclamation of his wife.

Paris flipped up his visor, his blue
eyes soft on Caladora. “Without question, my lord.”

Jordan, standing next to William’s
mount, smiled as her husband gently lifted her cousin into Paris’ waiting arms.

“Paris?” she called to him. “Ye must
not call this cousin names as ye do the other. Promise to be nice to her or you
will have to deal with me.”

He glanced over at her and smiled. “’Tis
good to see you, too, Lady de Wolfe,” he said. “I expect a proper greeting when
there is time.”

Jordan laughed. “Later,” she said as
William came back over to her. “But first, I will introduce ye to my cousin so
that she is not riding with a stranger. Caladora, the knight with his arm
around ye is Sir Paris de Norville, Captain of Northwood.”

Caladora twisted about, meeting
Paris’ incredible blue eyes. “Sir knight, ‘tis an honor to meet ye.”

He nodded, closing his visor. He felt
a little giddy. “Tell me, my lady, do you have a nickname?”

Jordan heard her cousin laughing as
Sir Paris reined his horse back up the slopes of the gully.

The battle around McKenna Keep was
still in full swing. Caladora and Jordan, protected behind shields and swords,
were nonetheless terrified at the sounds of fighting around them as the knights
pushed through the melee in their attempt to reach the safety of the wagons.

At one point, Paris was the recipient
of a barrage of sword chops, crashing down on the shield he held over Caladora.
She screamed in fright, prompting William to spur his animal forward and help
Paris fight off his attacker. Deinwald and Kieran rushed to their aid and provided
effective protection all the way through the skirmish.

When they pushed through and finally
reached the safety of the trees, Jordan’s head came up from her protective ball
and she scanned her surroundings. The first thing she saw was Kieran’s smiling
face.

“Kieran!” she exclaimed thankfully.

“Aye, my lady,” he nodded. “William,
do I get to spank her now?”

“Spank me?” Jordan repeated in
outrage, turning to look at her husband.

“I shall be the first, mind you,”
William replied to his knight. “Then you may have a turn. Just as I get a turn
at your wife.”

“Kieran?” Caladora’s head came up as
well; she knew who Kieran was. “Jemma’s Kieran?”

“’Tis him!” Jordan called out in
delight, forgetting about the spanking and pointing to the massive man astride
the dancing red destrier.

Caladora’s pretty face brightened. “Jemma’s
Kieran!” she said in delight.

Kieran smiled but looked puzzled
until Jordan introduced him to her cousin. Then, he looked genuinely happy. “Lady
Caladora,” he said. “My wife will be thrilled to see you.”

Jordan turned to her husband. “Where
is Jemma, English?”

“In the wagons,” he replied.

“Ye brought her along?” Jordan asked
in amazement.

He nodded. “Aye,” he said. “I could
spare no one to take her back to Northwood. She is resting with your father.”

“Da,” Jordan murmured thankfully. “Take
me to them, please? I would give my Da a hug.”

William urged his horse forward,
through the trees. Here, away from the fighting and dying, the peace of the
dawn was evident. It was hard to believe such peacefulness existed so close to
destruction, and Jordan inhaled the damp clean scent of the Scot pines deeply.
She still found it difficult to believe she was actually free.

Her husband’s gauntleted hand found
its way to her rounded belly. “How fares my daughter?”

She smiled, putting her hand atop
his. “Daughter, is it?”

“Aye,” he replied firmly. “I have
two sons. ‘Tis time for a daughter.”

“Is that so?” she said. “And what
will we call this female, for I have only chosen male names.”

“Catherine,” he replied softly. “We
will call her Catherine.”

Jordan grinned. “As ye say. I will
name the boys and ye can name the girls.”

“Done,” he said with finality. “Now
answer me. Is the babe well?”

“Aye, the babe is,” she said,
leaning against him. “Considering the brainlessness of her mother, she is
unscathed.”

“Thank God for that,” he said
sincerely. “I am eager to see my beautiful daughter. I can only hope she is not
as willful a wench as her mother.”

Jordan patted his hand, although he could
not feel it through the armor. “If the babe is a boy, I will call him Patrick.”
she announced.

He laughed all the way back to the
wagons.

***

With his wife safe and McKenna Keep
burning to the ground, William called a retreat. His army had done great damage
to the Scot forces as it was, and since Jordan had been rescued unharmed,
William found his resolve weakening in his desire to kill every Scot that still
lived. He simply wanted to return her home and be done with this episode.

But his wife had other plans.

“English, ye canna leave now.” she
insisted.

She was standing on the ground, her
arm around her father’s waist, looking up at him with those bottomless green
eyes.

“And why not, may I ask?” he did not
like being ordered about, especially in battle, and especially by his wife.

“Because our kin are still in the
dungeons.” she told him. “Ye must save them before they burn.”

Thomas obviously did not know this;
they had done nothing but hug for the past several minutes with virtually no
exchange of words.

“Who’s alive, Jordan?” he demanded.

“Uncle Matthew, Cord and Ian,” she
said. “Malcolm said they were in the dungeons.”

Jemma jumped from the wagon next to
where they were standing, her amber eyes bright. “My Da is alive, Jordi?” she
exclaimed, then looked to her husband astride his animal next to his liege. “Oh,
Kieran,
please!
”

William knew at that moment the
choice was made for him. There was no way Kieran was going to deny his wife’s
request, especially since it was her father. And William would not deny her, either.

Reining his horse sharply, he turned
to his wife a split second before he dashed off. “Stay to the wagons,” he
ordered. “I shall be back.”

He and Kieran commandeered Michael,
Deinwald, Roan and Marc as they fought their way back through the dispersing
crowd. William sent Corin and Adam back to organize the wounded and the wagons
while leaving Ranulf and Paris to finish the withdrawal on the battlefield.

“We’ll need a guide,” William told
Kieran. “Find me a prisoner.”

‘Twas not a difficult task. Kieran
and Michael plunged into the sea of retreating soldiers and came back several
minutes later with a burly Scot in a torn and bloodied plaid. Michael had the
big man by the hair.

William guided his horse over to the
captive. “Are you familiar with this keep?”

The man looked up at him. The anger
and hatred in his eyes were evident. “Rot in hell, ye bloody bastard.”

William unsheathed his sword and
pressed the tip against the man’s neck. When the soldier didn’t move, he pushed
harder until a trickle of blood seeped down the man’s neck. He continued to
apply pressure, pushing the blade deeper and deeper into the man’s throat.

“I intend to do this until I push it
out the other side,” he informed the man evenly. “’Twould be much easier on you
to answer a few simple questions.”

The pain was growing excruciating.
The soldier tried to twist away but Michael would not hear of it. “Never!” the
man yelled.

William continued to push, having
opened up a substantial wound that was growing bigger by the moment. Blood was
gushing everywhere. A moaned escaped the man’s lips until he bore all that he
could.

“Aye, I know the keep.” he blurted
finally.

William immediately withdrew his
sword and the man grabbed his bloodied neck. “That’s better,” William said. “Tell
me where the dungeons are.”

“There is an entrance just inside of
the keep entry,” the Scot gasped.

William glanced up at the burning
structure. That portion of the keep had already burned, smoking rising like
dancing snakes into the early dawn sky. He wondered if everyone in the dungeons
hadn’t already burned to death or died of breathing the smoke.

Motioning Michael to release the
man, the knights took off at a gallop, racing for the hastily bridged moat.
Dismounting, they clumsily climbed the ladders, for balancing in armor was no
easy feat, and entered the nearly deserted bailey.

“God, this place smells worse than
Northwood’s moat,” Michael commented as they made then way through bodies and
debris.

“This whole damn place reeks of
feces,” Roan agreed. “Even the smoke smells of it.”

The front doors were gone, burned to
ashes. Swords drawn, William led the way in and was immediately aware of a huge
yawning doorway to his left, giant broad stone steps leading down into the
darkness.

“Damn,” he muttered, peering down
the well. “Strange place to keep dungeons. Someone fetch a torch.”

Deinwald found pieces of wood that
still held a flame on them and they cautiously descended into the bowels of the
castle.

The first landing was far below,
leading in two directions. The smell of smoke was extremely heavy, but it was
bearable. William split his men.

“Deinwald, Roan, to me,” he said. “Kieran,
you take Michael and Marc and search that way. Yell if you find anything.”

They went then separate ways,
keeping alert as the corridor narrowed, and warped doors soon became apparent.

“Break in the door,” William order
his men when they came upon the first one.

They continued to break down every
door in succession, sometimes finding prisoners, which they then released, and sometimes
finding nothing more than a rotting corpse. The dungeons were quite vast and
they descended into two more levels in their search.

It was a depressing maze and William
suddenly remembered how worried Jordan had been during their journey to Northwood
about being thrown in the Tower. Hell, if all Scot dungeons were like this
shit-hole, then no wonder she was afraid of being locked up to die. He didn’t
even like being in here and he was a mere visitor. He grimly pondered what shape
Jordan’s relatives would be in when, and if, they found them.

Finally, they came to a door that
was bolted twice. Deinwald and Roan struggled with the bolts, forcing William
to throw his own tremendous strength to their aide, and eventually the bolts
jolted free.

“Damn, who in the hell have they got
locked in here?” Deinwald muttered.

“Probably just a relative,” Roan
replied. “Grandmother got too sassy so they had to punish her.”

Deinwald actually grinned as the
three of them struggled to open the door. It was black as night inside and
William stuck his torch in.

“Grandmother?” he called into the
darkness, bringing laughter from his men.

There was a pause.

“What in the bloody hell are ye
talking about, man?” Came a tired, angry voice.

William held the torch lower. There
were three men, all filthy and coated with slime, glaring back at him from
where that sat on wet straw. He recognized one of them in the form of Cord
Scott.

“Matthew Scott and sons, I presume?”
William asked.

The older man scowled at him. “Who
wants to know?”

“‘Tis The Wolf, Da,” said Cord,
glancing up at William with a weak smile. “I know the man. He’s Jordi’s
husband’s captain. Remember?”

Matthew Scott looked dazed. “The
Wolf?” he repeated. “What is The Wolf doing at McKenna Keep?”

“I came for my wife,” William said
frankly as Deinwald and Roan moved around him to release the Scots from their
bindings.

“Who is yer wife?” Matthew was
terribly confused.

“Jordan,” William said. “She is my
wife, not the earl’s. Oh, hell, it’s a long story. Come on, let’s get you out
of here.”

The three Scots were pitifully weak
and stiff and each knight found himself with a burden. They had to practically
carry the men up the flights of stairs and when they hit the narrowed corridor,
they ran headlong into Kieran and the others.

Kieran’s eyes were wide. “You found
them.”

William nodded, transferring
Matthew’s weight onto him. “This is Matthew Scott, Jemma’s father. You have
some explaining to do, Kieran.”

William left them with a grin,
leaving Matthew staring in confusion at the big knight. Kieran, suddenly faced
with his father-in-law, was actually nervous.