The Last Knight

by Candice Proctor

  “Nom de Dieu,” de Jarnac swore under his breath. Yanking Sergei's sword free of its scabbard, he leapt up behind her and grabbed the roan's reins from her hands just as one of the knights shouted out a challenge.

  “Hold on,” he told her on a quick expulsion of breath as the roan shied badly. She clutched at the pommel, flattening herself back against his chest as he swung his great shield around in front of them both. Up ahead, the knights were still collecting for their attack when de Jarnac sank his spurs into the roan's sides and charged.

  The roan's hooves pounded into the sodden grass as the horse strained forward, its great head rising and falling with each upward lunge. Looking up, she saw that one of the knights, the one on the dark bay horse, had already pulled his sword and sent his mount plunging down the slope toward them. She couldn't see his face, only his dark helmet and the jutting flare of his nose guard as he rode at them, filling her terrified gaze with a vision of slashing hooves and red-rimmed nostrils and a deadly length of naked, polished steel held high. Attica squeezed her eyes shut and prayed.

  The shock of the two horses coming together reverberated through her. She heard the thud of iron against iron, heard de Jarnac's breath, harsh against her ear as he twisted and thrust. The gelding lunged sideways, stumbling. De Jarnac pulled it up, and Attica's eyes flew open. She saw de Jarnac's blade, dripping blood, and the dark bay shying away, riderless.

  “Get down and grab that horse!” de Jarnac shouted, practically throwing her sideways from the saddle. She hit the ground hard, rolling away from the gelding's flashing hooves as de Jarnac, swearing loudly, jerked the roan back toward the top of the hill and spurred it on.

  She picked herself up and wiped her stinging, grass-stained palms on her surcoat. She would not look at the crumpled, bloody body of the knight, dark against the lush green grass of the hillside. His bay horse stood at his side, quivering. When Attica reached for it, it shied violently, its head flung back, its eyes wide, its ears flat to the poll.

  “Easy, boy,” she whispered. “Nice, pretty boy.”

  From the hill above, she heard the clash of swords. Someone screamed. Attica didn't dare look up. “Whoa, boy,” she said again, her voice shaky.

  Watching her warily, the horse snorted and tossed its head. Attica leapt forward, just catching the reins below the bit as the big stallion sidled away, dragging her with it a few steps. She'd never liked the knights’ big warhorses, but she grabbed a fistful of mane and hauled herself into the saddle of this one. She noticed something dark and wet staining the wooden pommel. It was a moment before she realized it was blood. Shuddering, she gathered the reins and turned the big destrier toward where de Jarnac waited, a dark, solitary silhouette against a rain-drenched sky.

  The second knight's destrier had strained one of its hocks and was limping badly, so they left it there, on that bloody hillside. Before they left, de Jarnac stripped the helm and hauberk from one of the knights and took them for himself. He also took the knight's tunic to replace his own torn and muddied one.

  They made better time after that, with the two horses. She was glad when he took the big bay stallion and gave her back the smaller roan. She preferred the roan. And she didn't like the stains left on the knight's saddle by his knight's blood.

  The rain started up again for a while. But the cloud cover was already breaking up, and in late afternoon the rain petered out and the sun shone fitfully through shifting white clouds.

  They rested the horses again, then pushed on, speaking little, the atmosphere between them strained and tense until de Jarnac finally broke it by saying, “It bothers you, doesn't it? Those two knights I killed?”

  She lifted her head, her gaze locking with his. “Yes.”

  “Why?” He searched her face, as if he could find the answer written on her features. “You didn't seem particularly distressed by the death of the routiers. You killed one of them yourself.”

  She struggled with the effort to put the troubled ache inside her into words. “The routiers were outside the law. They attacked me for their own gain, their own greed. But those knights …” She stared down at the reins threaded between her fingers. “Those knights were simply following the orders of their lord. They weren't vicious, murdering thieves, only brave, loyal men. And they died for it.”

  “Would you rather we had died?”

  “No, but—”

  He pressed his lips together, and she saw the hardness in him, the cynicism left by the years he'd spent fighting in Outremer and across the battlefields of Europe. “That's what most battles come down to, Attica. Brave knights killing other brave knights because they happen to be loyal to different lords. Or to different versions of the same God.”

  She let her breath out in a long sigh. She felt a tearing away of something inside her, another part of the woman she had been. “I know you are right. Only I've never been quite so close to the killing before.”

  He gave her an unexpectedly gentle, understanding smile and gathered his reins. “The road is good here, and the land flat. Let's stretch their legs, shall we?”

  With an answering smile, she touched her heels to the roan's sides and let the wind blow away her troubled thoughts.

  They stopped frequently to water and rest the horses, and allow them to graze. But they always pushed on.

  As twilight descended on the high, thinly wooded slopes, the wind kicked up again, damp and cold with the threat of more rain. Attica clutched at her saddle's wooden pommel with numb fingers, her body stiff and aching and so chilled, she had to clench her teeth to keep them from chattering. She was so intent on simply enduring that she was only dimly aware of it when the horses finally stopped.

  She felt de Jarnac's arms around her, easing her from the saddle and cradling her close to his chest as he carried her through the darkness. “Where are we?” she asked, too exhausted even to lift her head.

  “It looks like an abandoned shepherd's hut.” He ducked through a low doorway. “Part of the roof has fallen in, but there's enough left to keep us dry, should it come on to rain again. And we can light a fire.”

  He laid her gently on the leaf-littered earth floor beside a sunken, clay-lined hearth. She tried to push herself up on her elbows, but it was so difficult even to keep her eyes open.

  “Go to sleep, Attica,” he said softly, his hand gentle on her hair.

  She awoke to find herself staring at a warm, crackling fire.

  She lay still for a moment, letting her gaze drift around the small, crude hut. It had been built of thick, curving branches, the cruck frame filled in with woven reeds plastered with mud and straw. But much of the daub had fallen away with age and lack of repair, and she could see black sky sprinkled with a hazy pattern of cloud wisps and stars where some of the roof thatching had collapsed into the far corner.

  A whisper of movement brought her attention back to the fire.

  He sat beside the hearth, his forearms resting on his bent knees, his head turned as he stared thoughtfully at the dancing flames. Firelight glinted a hellish orange across his sharp features. He looked so big and strong and fiercely beautiful, she thought she could look at him forever. The wind moaned through the tall grass outside, bringing her again that awareness of their isolation, that warm breathlessness that tingled her skin and set off a peculiar hum low in her belly.

  She must have made some slight sound, for he turned his head to find her watching him, and smiled. “So you're awake, are you?”

  She pushed herself up into a sitting position. “You should not have let me sleep. I would have helped you with the horses.”

  He didn't say anything, only looked at her, his eyes dark and glowing in a way that told her he, too, felt the intimacy of their situation, the vastness of the dark velvet night wrapping itself around this small, fire-lit hut.

  He turned to stretch toward one of the saddlebags. “Are you hungry?”

  “No. I know I should be, but I am not.”

  “Eat anyway.” He sw
ung back to hand her some of the rye bread and cheese they'd found in the dead knights’ bags. “You'll feel better.”

  “I feel better already, since I slept.” But she took the bread and made herself tear off a chunk. It tasted dry, and she had to work hard to swallow it. “Do you think there are more of them out there?” she asked, reaching for a wineskin.

  “There'll be more.” He leaned forward to grasp another log and toss it onto the flames. The wet wood hissed, and he stared at it for a moment, watching it send up a plume of wet smoke. The wind rustled the thatch overhead, bringing the scent of wet leaves and grass.

  “Tell me about Sergei's mother,” she said suddenly.

  He swung his head to look at her. The fire glazed the hard planes of his face, but his eyes were dark, their secrets hidden from her. He stared at her for so long, she didn't think he was going to answer her. Then he turned back to the fire. “What do you want to know?”

  She studied his profile, the lean line of his cheek, the deep creases left beside his eyes by years of squinting into the desert sun. “What was her name?”

  “Maria. Her name was Maria.”

  She bent her knees, drawing them up close to her chest with one arm, while she continued to nibble on the bread and cheese he'd given her. “Did she look like Sergei?”

  He held himself very still. “In a way. She was small like Sergei. Slight. And fair, with that pale, snow-white skin that never shows the touch of the sun.”

  “She sounds beautiful.”

  His lips lifted in a sad, sweet smile she'd never seen before. “She was.”

  Something caught at her heart, something as sad and sweet as his smile. “You loved her,” she said softly.

  He brought his gaze back to her face, his eyes hooded. “No. I was fond of her. But I have never loved any woman.”

  Attica reached for the wineskin, surprised to see her hand trembling. “So you bought her simply to share your bed?”

  His grin flashed wide. “I bought her to cook my meals and keep my clothes clean.”

  “She was your slave. A beautiful slave. You mean you didn't—” She broke off, unable to put her thoughts into words.

  He ducked his head, the smile lingering on his lips. “I'm not saying I didn't want her, Attica. But I didn't force myself on her, if that's what you're asking. She came to me of her own free will, and not until I had owned her for six months.”

  He reached for another piece of wood, but instead of tossing it on the fire, he held it in his hands, his fingers moving restlessly over the rough bark. “We were in Syria at the time. There'd been a skirmish that day, with some of Saladin's men.” She watched his chest lift as he drew in a deep breath, then let it out, slowly. “I had a friend. Ponce. We'd been together ever since I left Anjou.”

  “He was one of the squires who dared you to try the stilts,” she said, remembering.

  “That's right.” A brief, sad smile flashed across his face, then faded. “Ponce was disemboweled in the fighting.” His throat worked as he swallowed. “A man can take hours to die, Attica, with his guts hanging out. His blood turns the earth beneath him to mud, and still he lives. And no matter how brave he is, after a while he just can't take the pain without screaming. Not near the end.”

  She held her breath, listening to the crackle of the fire and the moan of the wind. De Jarnac's voice rolled on, as flat and emotionless as his face. “I held him in my arms until he died. And then … I don't remember exactly what I did. I only know that after a time Maria came to me.” He tossed the stick on the fire.

  The last of the bread and cheese seemed to stick in At-tica's throat. She swallowed hard. “She'd grown to love you.”

  He shook his head. “No. She was fond enough of me to want to help ease my pain. And she needed something that I could give her. But she never let herself love me. She didn't even speak to me. Ever.”

  Attica's hand jerked in surprise, so that she almost spilled the wine. “She couldn't speak?”

  “She could speak. I'd hear her talking to Sergei while she worked or murmuring to him when she put him to bed. At first, she knew only her own language, of course. But even after she learned French and Arabic, she never spoke to anyone but Sergei. I think she'd lived through so much horror and loss that she simply withdrew to someplace deep inside of her. The only person she let close to her was Sergei. She had such a fierce love for him, it was almost frightening. She lived for him.”

  Attica replaced the stopper in the wineskin and set it carefully aside. “She wouldn't speak to you, yet she touched you? She took you into her body?”

  He shrugged. “Like I said, I could give her something she needed … human warmth and a kind of comfort, I suppose. I think she let me come as close to her as she dared. But somehow, by not speaking to me, she kept me out of her heart.”

  An ache built in Attica's chest. She tried to push it out with a sigh, but it didn't work. “And how did you keep her out of your heart, Damion?”

  He stared into the fire, the flickering light playing over the harsh planes of his cheeks, the tight line of his jaw.

  “She must have come close to you, Damion. You mourned her when she died. And you have kept her son with you to this day.”

  He tilted his head to look at her over the tensed muscle of his arm, propped on his knee. “She came close. I could let her, you see.”

  The pain in Attica's chest tightened until she thought it might kill her. “Because she put up all the barriers?” she whispered.

  His eyes blazed at her, dark and fierce. “No. Because she was not the comte d'Alérion's daughter, betrothed to the viscomte de Salers.”

  For one intense moment she stared at him. He sat very still, his arms on his bent knees, his chest lifting with his soft breathing. Beside him, the fire crackled and spat as a fresh breeze gusted through the empty doorway.

  She pushed up from the floor and went to stand at the entrance to the hut. The high, sparsely wooded hills spilled out before her in wildly shifting patterns of moonlight and wind-tossed shadows. She felt as if the dark, stormy night called to her, to something deep inside her, lured her with a beckoning sense of abandonment as dangerous and compelling as the man behind her. The woman she had been even two days ago would have resisted. But she was different now.

  She braced one hand against the rough wooden door frame, her gaze still fixed on the endless hills. “If the vis-comte and viscomtesse de Salers have taken up arms against Henry,” she said, “my father may not allow this betrothal to stand. He is Henry's man and always will be.”

  She heard a whisper of movement as he came to stand behind her, his hands on her shoulders. His thumbs brushed the bare, sensitive flesh at the base of her neck. She trembled.

  “And if,” he said, his breath warm against her ear, “if, mind you, your betrothal comes to naught, think you that old Robert d'Alérion would then wed you to me?”

  “He might,” she said in a small voice.

  His hands tightened on her shoulders, swinging her around until she looked up into his fierce, closed face. “I am a younger son, Attica. A younger son, with my own way still to make in this world.”

  “No.” She shook her head, her hands splayed against his broad chest. She could feel the painful thump of his heart reverberating against her palms. “You're more than that. So much more than that.”

  A ghost of a smile touched his beautiful lips. “Oh, I'm not completely penniless. I've an insignificant manor left me by Hugh de Jarnac, and a small amount of wealth accumulated from tournaments and ransoms and my share of the booty from more sacked towns than I care to remember. But mighty noblemen such as your father do not wed their daughters to men such as me.”

  The truth of his words cut at her, ripped at her heart, until she felt as if she were bleeding inside, dying inside. “Oh, God.” The words tore out of her throat. “I never minded before. But I do now. I do now.” Her hands clutched at his shoulders, clenched in the cloth of his tunic until they cramped.

>   “Ah, Attica.” He cupped the back of her head, pulling her up against his chest, holding her so fiercely, it almost hurt. She felt him press his cheek to the hair at the top of her head. Heard the ache in his voice as he said her name, over and over. Heard the ache turn raw.

  And darken with desire.

  CHAPTER

  FIFTEEN

  It had been a mistake to touch her, a mistake to take her in his arms, to feel the gently yielding warmth of her woman's body so close to his.

  Damion felt the gusting of the wind through the open doorway beside them. The wind, bringing with it the freshness of rain-washed night air and the darkly sparkling promise of star-spangled infinity. On a night such as this, he thought, a man could forget the harsh realities of his world, forget his own code, his own promises to himself. On a night such as this, a man could forget himself.

  With a groan, he rubbed his open mouth against her soft hair, his eyes sliding closed as he breathed in the scent of her, the scent of the road and night rain and this woman's own sweetness. He let his hands slip slowly, dangerously, down her slim, strong back once before bringing them up again to grip her shoulders.

  He meant to set her away from him. He would have set her away from him. Only then her head fell back, her lips parting as she stared up at him, and he was caught by the dark turbulence of her eyes.

  His gaze locked fast with hers. He dipped his head and brushed her lips with his gently. And at the touch of her sweet, soft lips, he was lost. Lost in the taste of her, the heat of her, the heat of their desire, their hunger.

  He moved his mouth over hers, deepening the kiss as she opened her mouth to him, her tongue tangling with his, her arms curling up around his neck to clutch him to her tighter, tighter. He slipped his hands down her sides to find her hips and pull her up against the hard curve of his pelvis as he braced his legs wide. She pressed herself against him. Pressed, pressed. But it wasn't enough. Wasn't enough.

  With a harsh murmur, he tore at the laces of her tunic and shirt, impatient to fill his hands with the naked swell of her breasts. When he touched her there, she made such a breathy, erotic noise deep in her throat as she clutched him to her that he felt his blood roaring hot through his veins, felt his unwanted, dangerous love for this woman flare up bright and fierce in his heart. Felt what was left of his self-control slipping, slipping.