Knight of Her Heart (Conquering the Heart)

by Alyssa James

  The passageway was interminably long and in places was quite steep and very uneven. Every now and then the chill of a breeze would blow, making the air fresher for a time before they must have rounded a corner and lost it. It felt as though they were continuing down to the very bowels of the earth.

  “Is it much further?” she whispered, hoping she didn’t sound like an impatient child on the long carriage ride to London. All she wanted was to be free of the threat of this place that loomed over them. Free to return to Romsey with her husband and be the wife she wanted to be.

  Ahead the darkness receded and fingers of golden-red sunlight thread their way into the passageway. Dawn must have broken.

  “Stay silent,” Rowan warned in a hushed undertone.

  Lisette frowned then immediately understood. ’Twas not the faint glow of the morning sun, but the flickering light from torches as they were lit along the passageway. The illumination of the old tunnel passages was occurring very quickly now and the party who provided the light approached rapidly. Searching frantically, she saw no place for Rowan and her to hide.

  “Put your hands to the wall and retrace our steps until you are completely hidden in the darkness, Lisette.”

  “What about you?”

  “There will be more bloodshed and I need to know you and our child are safely out of harm’s way”

  “But—”

  “For once in your life, don’t argue with me,” he insisted quietly. “Malin knows these passages too, and has realised we’re down here. We have not found our way to freedom just yet.”

  Heart hammering so hard it would surely break free of her chest cavity any second, Lisette did as he bade, knowing that she would only be an impediment to Rowan if she remained in his radius.

  Several moments later the sound of a loud, enraged battle cry carried up to her through the darkness and made her blood curdle. The tenor told her ’twas Rowan’s cry. He must have decided to attack rather than to wait to defend himself. Although patience had never been a strength of hers, and she longed to see for herself that Rowan was safe, she forced herself to remain where she was. Fiercely independent, she was unused to following orders, but then, she’d never been given an order before by one in whom she placed so much trust.

  Chapter 22

  Two by two they came at him. As Rowan fought the poorly trained soldiers he knew that he would despatch them easily. Even so, the adrenaline surged through his veins. This was, mayhap, the most important battle he had fought in his lifetime. Now the stakes were higher for ’twas not just his life that was under threat, but Lisette’s and that of their unborn child. ’Twas more important that he win this battle for them than it had ever been that he win for his liege. Lisette’s life was more valuable than any spoils of war—any recognition or glory. He would fight to his last breath to defend her and any children they might have together. As he drew his sword against the first two soldiers he knew that Lisette’s safety was more important to him than life itself.

  The corridor was narrow and there was scarce room to wield his sword freely. His attack was limited to quick thrusts at one man in between parrying the attacks of the other. Malin’s men were weak. Their skills were sloppy and no match for Rowan. Without doubt Rowan’s squires would have defeated them easily. They were poor soldiers rather than knights and none of them had the protection of mail and armour.

  Before long a dozen corpses covered the floor. Only two soldiers were left. Two soldiers and Malin.

  “For God’s sake, have I surrounded myself with incompetents?” Malin roared.

  The fear of the remaining soldiers was obvious. The illumination from the torches revealed the terror scored into their features. Although their swords were held high, each tip wavered as the bearer shook with nerves.

  “Go now and I won’t harm you,” Rowan issued.

  “Go now and I’ll personally run you through,” Malin countered.

  Rowan was sorry for the men. Clearly they were ill-equipped to fight and longed to turn tail and flee.

  “Don’t listen to him. Just run and I’ll deal with him,” Rowan tried to convince them.

  “The Earl of Romsey is naught but a barbarian.” Malin glowered fiercely at the man who looked most likely to turn tail and flee. “If you turn your back on him, the last thing you will feel is his knife in it.”

  “I’m not like you, Malin. My enemies know they are my enemies. I am not the man who cut his father down in cold blood and without any warning.”

  Malin ignored the taunt, continuing to attempt to persuade his soldiers to stay and fight. “I saw the blood lust in him as he sent your friends here to their deaths.”

  Rowan gestured at the bodies on the floor. “He sent these men to their graves. Do not number among them.”

  “I want no part in this,” one of the soldiers declared.

  “Nor I. We are but farmers and both have families,” the second soldier explained, appealing to Malin. “This work was all we could do as the district has grown poorer and the taxes higher.”

  “Go to your families,” Rowan ordered.

  The men lowered their swords. Malin raised his and would have cut down the man nearest to him—just as he’d slain his own father years before.

  Rowan stepped forward and blocked the cutting swipe of Malin’s sword. At the same time he stopped the deadly blow, he moved his wrist so that the sword was wrenched from Malin’s grip and the steel of the blade clattered to the floor.

  The men fled and Malin stood alone and disarmed. Rowan regarded his half-brother closely. There was no fear in Malin, merely hatred and belligerence. How sad their parents would have been to see the man he had become.

  “What are you waiting for?” Malin sneered. “Now is your chance to cut me down, for I stand here without a weapon. I know you have no qualms about murdering the defenceless.”

  “Were that true I would have slain your men.”

  “You are a murderer. You killed a man of God!”

  Rowan grew tired of Malin’s piety. The tension across his shoulders grew as he declared, “The priest who sentenced our mother to death—the man who lied to the king to cover up your murder of our father—deserved to die. He was not fit to call himself a man of God, for in no way did his actions reflect the teachings of Christ. He was a hypocrite, leeching off the church, plotting against the king and using his position as a shield.”

  “You roused him from his slumber, Rowan, and murdered him in his bed. Your wife knows it now, too. When she thinks on it, she will not be able to look at you her loathing will be so acute.”

  Rowan was all too aware that Lisette listened. ’Twas time she knew the whole truth, though ’twas lewd, before Malin had any chance to spread his poison. “Your priest was in bed and he was surely roused, Malin—not by me but by the two naked whores who were servicing him in his chamber.”

  “You lie!”

  “I suspect you know that I do not, for you knew the man far better than I.” Rowan decided to recount the whole story and spoke loudly enough so that his words would carry to Lisette. “I found the priest in bed with one woman crouched between his legs, taking him in her mouth and the other on her haunches, knees either side of his head with her head tossed back and her hips thrust forward so she could tilt her pelvis and grant his mouth full access to her sex.” The scene had completely tipped Rowan over the edge of sanity and unfurled an inferno of raging revenge that he, as a young knight, had been powerless to control.

  “You hunted him down. You went with the intent to murder,” Malin accused.

  “Nay. I learned of the priest’s whereabouts from my commanding officer. Initially ’twas my intention to visit the priest and demand he confess the truth to the king about the manner in which you murdered your own father. When I discovered the so-called holy man indulging in a veritable orgy of the flesh—especially after he had sent our mother to her death for what he had branded her ‘illicit fornication’—my hand reached without conscious thought for the
hilt of my sword.”

  The night played back in his mind. He’d charged forward, sword drawn, and pushed the whores off the bed roughly with his free hand. Confusion, then sheer terror, had been visible in the priest as the naked women had screamed and raced from the room.

  “The whores fled. The priest groped for a jewelled dagger on the night stand by his bed and I stopped him before he could use the weapon against me.”

  He had cut off the movement quite literally—by bringing down his sword and slicing off the priest’s hand.

  “You could have disarmed him without killing him,” Malin goaded.

  “Aye. Thinking through it, I know ’tis as you say.”

  Rowan recalled how the blood had spurted and stained the sheets as the man howled in agony. The sight and smell of blood affected men in different ways. ’Twas not something Rowan had ever lusted after. At war with the enemy, when the fighting was over and the fear of battle had subsided, the sight of the bloodied battlefield had always filled Rowan with a sense of profound horror and loss. Never had he had any of the berserker rage men spoke of. Never, until that night.

  “You are an animal. A killing machine,” Malin accused. “I’ve heard of your rampages in battle.”

  “Nay. Death is necessary in battle but wholly regrettable. In battle it is either kill or be killed.” Never had Rowan come even remotely close to losing control on the battlefield. Yet, that night in the priest’s chamber, he’d been a different person. He’d wanted blood. Rowan admitted to himself that the priest’s pain had initially brought him primitive pleasure. Knowing that his mother had suffered humiliation, shame, fear and finally a terrorizing ordeal as she had faced death by drowning, had made him feel a certain justification in his actions. A grim pleasure.

  A shiver of shame wracked his frame now as he replayed his memory of stabbing the priest repeatedly.

  Satisfaction had quickly turned to guilt as he knew he could not justify his actions. But, by that stage, it had been too late to alter his deed.

  “So, brother,” Malin rounded on him now wearing a superior look, “’twas not in self-defence. You can’t deny you murdered him.”

  “A large part of me regrets what I did,” Rowan admitted as he relived his horror at the realisation of his action.

  The priest’s death sounds had been almost drowned out by Rowan’s own howling. First, a howl of anger, but soon the cry of hopelessness. The tears had streamed down his cheeks when he realised he had done something heinous in taking revenge against the priest. The salty taste of his remorse had mingled with bitterness in his mouth. His lips had parted in anguish knowing that nothing could ever bring his mother or the baron back, and worse—that neither of them would have wanted him to have acted in this way against the priest.

  “I felt guilt,” he confessed now. Each word of confession he uttered was not to Malin, but to his wife. “Initially the guilt was because I had killed the man when I realised I could simply have disarmed him. Later still, a new wave of guilt assailed me. Heavy of heart and weary to the bone, I forced myself to acknowledge that although part of me felt remorse, there was a prevailing part of me that was pleased the man was dead—a satisfaction that this man’s breaths no longer contaminated the earth. I was content that he would no longer be a hypocritical preacher who expounded the virtues of God’s commandments on the one hand, and defied them himself on the other. The most shocking self-revelation was that I am uncertain I would act any differently if confronted with the same set of circumstances this day.” He drew a deep breath knowing that his words damned him. “Part of me believes justice was done.”

  Malin’s lip curled in contempt. “You convinced your commander of that, didn’t you?”

  Remembering that night Rowan thought he must have stood crying over the priest’s body for hours, yet ’twas not long after the murder that Lisette’s father had arrived at the scene and found Rowan standing over the corpse.

  “I am responsible for this.” As distraught as a lost child, Rowan had turned and wept against Lord Blake’s without even being fully aware that he did so. He’d turned to Lisette’s father in a daze for comfort and perhaps for forgiveness. It had taken some time for his whereabouts and the older knight’s presence to finally penetrate his brain.

  “You have killed a traitor.” The words were resolute, for Lord Blake and his regiment had been on their way to the area to arrest the priest for treason. “I see you killed the man in self defence,” Lord Blake had declared, pointing to the fingers of the severed hand where the hilt of jewelled dagger rested.

  “Nay, I—”

  The commander had merely cut across Rowan’s denial. “Most definitely self-defence and in service to our king when this traitor tried to resist arrest. That is how I see things and you will not question my testimony.” Those were the words Lord Blake had repeated to King Henry at court and Rowan had been exonerated.

  Malin was intent now on implicating Lisette’s father. “Your wife’s father covered up your crime.”

  “He knew full well that the priest was a traitor,” Rowan defended. “Not long after I came under his command—a year or so before the incident—I told my commander the story of how my mother and her husband came to die. I confessed my thirst for revenge. He understood my need to avenge my parents’ deaths but counselled me against violent action. He assured me that King Henry would see justice done eventually.”

  “And I thwarted your plans. None of the knights lived to bear witness to what had actually happened and even now, with the priest dead, ’tis just your word against mine.”

  “Your word counts for nothing for I will find enough evidence to convict you of being a traitor to the crown.”

  “I could, of course, turn it all back on you, brother. I could tell our beloved king that ’twas you who killed our parents and I was merely covering for you out of brotherly concern.”

  “Too late for that, Malin. I have earned Henry’s trust.” Rowan pitied his brother more at that moment than he hated him. “That accusation may have stuck years ago, but not now. You let people think that ’twas my negligence in returning our father to Baddesley that caused his death. Why did you not let the people think that I was guilty of his murder?”

  “Death would have been too easy for you, Rowan,” Malin sneered. “I wanted you to live. I wanted you to think of the death of my father all your life and know that you failed him at the end. Failed to prevent his death. I wanted you to live each day knowing how your mother suffered in her death—that you were the cause of her death. For if she had not given birth to you she would still be alive this day.”

  Rowan’s free hand clenched into a fist. Searching his brother’s eyes he saw that they were without soul. “Neither of them deserved to die, but you do.”

  “You want to kill me,” Malin half-snorted. “With me dead, you can claim Baddesley Keep as your own, just the way you always intended to.”

  “You’re wrong. I would never have claimed that which did not rightfully belong to me, despite your father’s wishes.”

  “You always hated me when we were children.”

  “In our childhood, I always pitied you,” Rowan corrected. “’Twas not until you murdered our parents that I began to hate you.”

  “Do it then. Get it over with,” he challenged, “or have you lost your nerve?”

  “Arm yourself, Malin, and fight for once in your life man-to-man instead of expecting your men to do your dirty work without even giving them the proper training they need to defend themselves.” Reaching down toward a sword that had belonged to one of the soldiers he’d just killed, Rowan picked it up and threw it to Malin.

  Without observing any acknowledgement of the duel to come, Malin simply ran at Rowan with the soldier’s sword outstretched. ’Twas an easy manoeuvre to deflect the assault, but Rowan hadn’t realised that his half-brother had lied about being unarmed and had cleverly concealed a dagger in his robes. With his right arm raised to parry Malin’s attack, Rowan’s n
aked flesh was vulnerable to the quick slash of the dagger as it ripped through the flesh at his side.

  Rowan had underestimated his opponent. He was unprepared and astonished at the speed and skill of Malin’s strike. There was a searing sting as flesh was cut and the wound gaped open, but there was no time to think on it as Malin followed up with a lunge of his sword towards Rowan’s neck. Ducking evasively, Rowan heard the scrape of the blade against the wall of the passage. Dropping his sword, he lunged for Malin, caught both Malin’s wrists in his hands and attempted to wrestle Malin into a position with his back against the wall.

  A tussle ensued. Rowan’s fingers tightened around his half-brother’s wrists with vice-like pressure, causing Malin’s sword and dagger to drop to the stone floor. Rowan pushed his half-brother hard up against the wall and punched him square on the jaw with such force that he heard the crack of bone underneath his fist.

  Malin screamed like a bear caught in a steel trap.

  Now Rowan’s hand gripped the fabric around Malin’s neck. It would be so easy to give in to the red-hot hatred. The tattoo that beat through Rowan’s skull and reverberated in his temples, demanded he break Malin’s neck and end the insanity once and for all. A greater voice in his head urged him to stop and overcome his need for revenge.

  Don’t do something you’ll regret. It doesn’t have to be this way this time. Learn from the past and let justice be brought to bear by the king.

  Wise words from his step-father also replayed in his head. “A man who conquers himself is stronger than a man who conquers thousands of men in battle.”

  Aye. Rowan needed to conquer himself. He needed to conquer his primitive need for revenge and hand Malin over to the king for justice to be done.

  “Rowan?” Her soothing angel’s voice was like the most intoxicating harp music beckoning to him from a far away cloud. It broke through the swirling vortex of hatred and pain and reminded him that there was a heaven. “Rowan?”