The hint of a smile lifted one corner of his lips. He had enjoyed harassing Locksley and his band of outlaws before leaving for Abury. As custodis pads—keeper of the peace—Navarre had the authority to order the soldiers of the garrison to ride into Sherwood and capture as many of the infamous "Robin of the Hood's" forces as possible.
They hadn't captured any. Locksley's men were too quick, but it had been good sport. He'd left enough men guarding Sherwood to keep Locksley trapped, but he had no doubts that when he returned the dungeon would be just as empty as it had been when he left. He sighed. Garrick was growing impatient with him. Old friend though he might be, the Sheriff of Nottingham wanted Robin Hood and he wanted him dead. He expected Navarre to take care of that little deed, just as he expected his friend to take care of Richard.
Navarre closed his eyes briefly, allowing his thoughts to flicker over the memory of a time when he and Richard and Locksley had been united, brothers in a holy quest. But that was long ago, and of no consequence now. He had made his choice, and they theirs.
His horse moved nervously beneath him and Navarre reached down to stroke the stallion's silky black neck.
"Easy, Kamir," he murmured softly, "what is it?" The stallion nickered and shook his coarse mane. "Aye," he agreed, shifting into a soldier's alertness, "I feel it too."
Just as the night outside Magda's hut the wind had seemed almost alive, this night the air around him felt heavy, almost tense. Suddenly it was as though a hundred invisible bumblebees were buzzing around him, within him, rippling beneath his skin like tiny, pulsating waves.
He glanced up through the leafy treetops at the sky. Overcast. A moment ago it had been clear. Kamir shifted again and whinnied, the sound harsh against the stillness.
"Quiet, my friend," Navarre whispered, replacing his helm and sliding his sword from its sheath in the saddle. He'd fought a Saracen with a saddle like that, in Outremer. The man had been able to draw his blade so quickly that Navarre had almost lost his head. When he'd returned to England he'd had a saddle made with the unique feature. If he wanted to live to fight Richard, he reasoned, he needed every possible advantage.
Kamir shook his head as if in protest to their vigil, but Navarre no longer noticed his horse's nervousness. A storm was brewing, a storm unlike any he'd ever seen before. A light fog had rolled in, and a fine rain with it, nothing unusual in that, but a brisk, oddly circular wind also began to churn around him, sending bits of frost and dirt into the air. Temporarily distracted by the swirl of frozen chaff, Navarre was unprepared when lightning split the sky and the resulting thunder sent Kamir's forelegs into the air, pawing frantically.
Navarre dropped his sword and just managed to keep his seat. After a moment's struggle, he brought the horse under control. Sliding off into the now wet earth beneath his feet, he picked up his sword.
"Two years in battle," he muttered fiercely, "two years of dodging arrows and blades and now you bolt because of a storm?" He patted the dark neck. "My friend, you must be growing old." Kamir shook his head and Navarre laughed in spite of himself. Then he stopped laughing and stared at the spectacle taking place in the field below.
The wind was gathering itself—that was the only way he could describe it—and settling into an area of the wheat field. Then a stillness settled over the plain and the real show began.
"Holy Mother of God," Navarre whispered. His hand moved to make the sign of the cross, something he hadn't done since Acre. Blue lights, like tiny stars, fifty or more, danced above the frozen field. Like a tiny, colorful whirlwind they swirled downward. As if in a trance, Navarre remounted his horse, then walked Kamir toward the lights, his eyes fixed on the luminous orbs spinning above the ground.
Kamir neighed a warning, but Navarre did not hear. As they grew closer to the circle, the bumblebees under the knight's skin grew frantic, until, in some distant, still coherent part of his brain, he thought his insides might be about to burst forth. Instead, he reached the dancing lights and looked up in time to see them descending toward him.
They hovered above Navarre, the bumblebees tearing at his stomach, his chest, his face, until he thought he would go mad. He tried to turn Kamir but to his horror, found he could not move. He was trapped, caught in the throes of some otherworldly power.
Arrogant fool, to come alone to this ancient, mystical place known for its mystery and power! Suddenly every story of magic and sorcery flooded his mind, as well as his own fall from grace. He had turned his back on the church—was God going to kill him now for his unbelief, allowing the forces of evil to consume him? As the blue lights came within inches of his face, Kamir threw his powerful front hooves into the air and let out a cry Navarre had never heard a horse make. The stallion's hooves came down and plowed into the earth, pulling them out of the enchanted circle. Navarre felt the strength of his horse beneath him, felt the effort it took for the animal to pull them free.
Instantly, the buzzing of the bumblebees shifted away from him. Navarre felt his breath leave him, and he crumpled forward against Kamir's mane. Navarre's own sweat assailed his nostrils as he pulled himself upright in the saddle, gasping as he tried to draw air back into his lungs. When he could breathe again, he cautiously opened his eyes.
The lights still twinkled nearby, and as Navarre watched, the blue orbs began to spin, faster and faster, until he had to look away from the blinding blur of light. When he looked back, they were gone, and on the ground lay a woman, dark red hair tumbling across a chalk-white face.
Kendra's brain had exploded. At least that was her first thought as she tried to open her eyes and could not for the searing pain behind them. Trying to calm herself, she concentrated on using her other senses. She could smell the dampness of the earth. It smelled like England. Funny, she thought dazedly, how places had their own particular smell. England smelled like rosemary: green, fresh. And cold. Why was it cold?
Kendra's fingers moved and she could no longer feel smooth, spiraling stalks of wheat beneath her. Instead, her fingers met with icy stubble and she blinked, trying to clear the confusion from her mind. She was conscious of an aching weariness permeating her bones, as well as the pounding pain inside her skull.
Don't think about that, she ordered herself, her reporter's instincts beginning to function. Get your eyes open. Find out what happened.
The storm. The last memory she had was of a terrible wind, followed by lightning and thunder and—the circle. Something had happened when she went inside the crop circle, but what? She couldn't remember.
Slowly, feeling as though twenty-pound weights were attached to her eyelids, Kendra managed to pull her eyes open. Her vision blurred and she could make out only hazy images of muted colors. It was still night, the moon was still full and bright. She couldn't have been unconscious for too long. With a groan she heaved herself to her knees, feeling dizzy and disoriented; she shivered as a cold wind blew across the field. The camera around her neck thumped heavily against her chest and she steadied it, wishing she could steady herself as easily.
The sound of a rapid pounding coming toward her brought Kendra's head back up, then she relaxed as she remembered her young companion.
"Sean?" she called, squinting to see the person approaching her. "Thank goodness you came back. You weren't kidding when you said strange things happen around here, were you?" Kendra stood, swaying, her knees threatening to buckle beneath her. "Did you see what happened? Was I struck by lightning or something? I can't see very well and—"
She looked up and her words trailed away.
Her sight was still blurred but it didn't take twenty-twenty vision to know that this wasn't Sean. This was a man—a big man—riding a horse, and the two of them towered over her like the ancient Minotaur. Kendra swallowed hard as the rider drew nearer. The man fit the horse as if he were part of it, and they both seemed exceptionally large. The man had big biceps and shoulders as broad as her outstretched arm. But the head—the head was what sent her heart suddenly into her thro
at. The head of this man was made of metal.
Kendra took an involuntary step backward. The man—thing—halted the horse and slid easily to the ground. He approached her confidently and to her astonishment, walked up to her and grabbed her by the wrist. The warm touch of his hand on hers reassured her that he was, indeed, flesh and blood. She screamed anyway.
"Let me go!" she cried, twisting away and lashing out with a well-aimed kick at the man's shin. She winced as her soft booted foot connected with something that felt like steel. Steel. Steel enclosed her wrist too, in spite of the warmth. She looked back up at the monstrous form, but still could only see a marred outline of his face—if it could be called a face. Thin slits instead of eyes, horrifying slats instead of a mouth. She shuddered, then gasped as the apparition reached up… and took off his head.
The scream she'd been preparing died in her throat as she found herself staring up into a very human face. Kendra narrowed her eyes and her vision cleared slightly. Before her stood a man with the most unusual golden-brown eyes she'd ever seen. A stark contrast to the black hair falling in waves to the man's shoulders, the effect was provocative and disturbing to her dormant feminine senses. She'd not looked at a man with anything other than mild interest since her husband's death.
Too tongue-tied for a moment to speak, Kendra continued to gaze at the man staring down at her. Dark brows frowned in a high arch above black-lashed eyes that in a woman would have been considered feminine. He was anything but. His face was square at the jawline, the nose aquiline, and the chin—stubborn, Kendra decided. His lips, firm and full, at the moment were pressed tightly together.
She pulled herself together and glanced at the metal object he held in his hands. It was supposed to be some kind of helmet. A welder's helmet maybe? Or—she shifted her gaze to his chest. It was covered with a loose, black shirt of some kind, with a giant gold emblem emblazoned on it. She squinted again. A lion? Beneath the tunic the man wore a blur of silver. His arms were silver too. Kendra reached out and touched his arm. Metal links. Chain mail. Armor.
Kendra took a step back. "I must have been hit harder than I thought."
He didn't speak but just kept staring down at her, still holding her wrist. She looked at his hand rather pointedly and lifted one brow. "Do you mind?"
He let go of her abruptly, but didn't speak. Kendra ran one hand through her disheveled hair, feeling a familiar signal course through her body: danger. Who was this man and why was he dressed like a knight from the days of old? She took a step back and suddenly remembered the gun in her bag. It certainly wouldn't hurt to have it in reach, now would it?
"Look," she said, backing a little farther away and keeping her distance from the man, "did you see a boy about fifteen years old around here? Small for his age?" She brushed her hair back from her face. Somehow it had come loose from its braid. The wind. She remembered the wind had gone crazy just before she lost consciousness.
Kendra looked away from the man and was frustrated by the continuing haze obscuring her vision. She turned, looking frantically for her bag, while trying to maintain a semicasual air. There it was, or at least what looked like it might be the soft satchel, a few yards away. She took a step toward it, her foot crunching down on ice, and suddenly, Kendra looked around and really saw, for the first time, her surroundings. She opened her mouth and shut it several times before the fear completely wrapped itself around her heart.
The Abury plain was like a sheet of crystal and looked nothing like it had before she passed out. Oh, it was still night, and the fields still as bright as noonday by the full moon's light, but there were no waving sheaves of grain rolling across the countryside. Instead, there was stubble covered with a thin sheen of ice. She shivered, from cold and from sudden fear.
The man didn't speak and she turned back to him, remembering dazedly that she had asked him a question. What was it? Sean. Yes, where was Sean?
"I said—" Kendra didn't finish her sentence. She looked up into golden eyes that trapped her where she stood. Long used to sensing danger, Kendra knew without a doubt she was staring it squarely in its well-chiseled face. All at once she realized the man was holding something in his other hand. She squinted down at it. A sword. And he was lifting it to her throat. Kendra swallowed hard, then turned and made a dash for her bag.
"Hold!" cried the man.
Kendra risked one astonished look over one shoulder. Did he really think she'd be crazy enough to stop? She caught the bag up in her hand and kept running, her breath coming more raggedly as she ran faster, legs pumping, head pounding as though it would shatter as she stumbled across the wheat stubble, the short, thick stems stabbing through her soft boots into her feet. She could hear him mounting his big horse and turning it to race after her. Frantically she began looking for a tramline. On the tramlines—the empty furrows left unseeded by farmers in order to walk their fields without damaging the grain—there would be no stubble. Kendra ground to a sudden halt and stared around, bewildered.
There weren't any. But that was impossible. She remembered distinctly that all of the fields in Wiltshire had tramlines. She just couldn't see them, that was all. Her vision was too blurred. If she kept moving, she'd find one. The farmers left them at regular intervals. Ignoring the fact that not only were there no tramlines, but no wheat—the weather had suddenly turned from a cool English summer's day to freezing winter—Kendra started across the field again, stumbling over hidden clumps of dirt. Up ahead was a small woods. If she could reach it… She stopped again. There were no woods near these fields. Copses of trees here and there, yes, but no real woods or forest.
"I said, hold, witch."
Kendra turned. The crazy knight was three feet away from her, back on his horse, this time brandishing his sword. It was funny, but he almost seemed to be afraid of her. Squaring her shoulders she composed her thoughts. She'd once talked a man out of jumping off a building, and another into releasing a hostage. This couldn't be too different, could it?
"Look," Kendra said, keeping her voice calm even as she slid the strap of her bag onto her shoulder and slipped one hand inside the satchel. "I don't know what your problem is, but calling me names isn't going to help. Now, just put down the sword and we'll try to work this out, okay?" As he hesitated, she tried a haughtier tone. "I'm an American citizen and if you dare hurt me you'll have the FBI and the CIA down on you faster than you can say—"
"Silence!" the man roared. Kendra's mouth snapped shut. Okay, so it was different. This man wasn't some criminal desperate to cut a deal—yet—or a man who seemed out of control. On the contrary, he seemed to be very much in control, both of himself and the situation. Her trembling fingers closed around the hidden pistol.
Navarre stared down at the woman standing in front of him, his sword hand shaking. A woman! When she had suddenly appeared in front of him, he'd thought he was going mad, seeing things—then she'd opened her eyes and he'd known she was real. She wasn't beautiful by his standards. Her face was too strong to be considered fair, with its square jaw and pointed chin, but her hair was incredible, long and thick, auburn and gold curls intermingling almost to her waist. It was the kind of hair a man wanted to bury his face in, to twine around his hands while making love to her. Her eyes, the color of the English sky, had been dazed when they opened, her long lashes wet with mist as she gazed up at him in sudden horror.
If she'd been a man he'd have killed her on the spot, had intended to do so at once. Richard's salvation. Was she a witch? A changeling? Her clothing was that of a page or a serf, and a masculine one at that. She wore a blue tunic with strange black patterns on it, black leggings, and soft, ankle-high black boots.
Her words, too, were spoken in the Saxon tongue, not Norman, so she likely was no one of consequence. Yet, she had an unusual box that looked quite costly hanging around her neck by leather straps. He'd shaken himself out of his stupor and grabbed her. When she shrank away from him, her eyes wide with fear, he'd realized it was his helm that fri
ghtened her.
She'd calmed as soon as he removed it and, still dumbstruck, he'd released her when she'd asked. He realized her vision was somehow impaired as she squinted at him, then listened in perplexity as she began to chatter in a nonsensical way, saying things that made little sense.
Was she trying to enchant him? Weaving some kind of spell with her strange, disjointed words? FBI? CIA? Navarre prided himself on not being a superstitious man, but the last few minutes had sent him plunging backward in his thinking. He could find no other explanation for the strange and mystical way the woman had appeared in front of him but magic. In spite of his past devotion to the church, he had never ceased to believe that forces he could not ken still worked in the world. This woman must be a witch and she must be silenced before she enchanted him. His sword at her throat had produced the desired effect. It had also sent her running as though facing all the demons in hell.
He'd thrown himself and Kamir after her. Richard's salvation must not escape to aid him. Now as he stood a few feet away from her he knew he should kill her and be done with it. He could take no chances. He…
A face, brown-eyed and gentle, swayed in front of him and Navarre clenched his eyes shut to dispel the illusion, but she was still there, behind his eyelids, pleading with him. Talam. He felt cold beads of sweat break out across his forehead and shook himself back to the present. Was this the witch's magic as well? Had the witch sent his dead love's face to his mind to stay his hand? He opened his eyes.
The woman walked toward him, one hand behind her back. He watched her warily. It wouldn't do to get too close. She had touched him before. Did her touch give her power over his mind?
Navarre was shaken. His mother had been an educated woman and he had been raised a good Catholic. However, as a boy he'd had a nurse who believed without question in fairies, elves, and other nonsensical beings. He'd believed in them too, as a child, until he'd grown up and away from such nonsense. Though there were many in the Crusades who had carried charms and talismans with them to ward off evil spirits, Richard had scorned such things as ridiculous. According to the king, a man needed only his faith in God to withstand any enemy. Except perhaps the enemy who calls himself friend, Navarre thought bitterly. He passed one hand over his face as the image of Talam danced once again in his mind. He had come home to England, turned his back on the new ways, come home to the old ways, and magic was one of the oldest ways of all.
Tess Mallory - Circles in Time Page 4
