Would she have time? She didn't know, only knew she had to try. Looking up at the huge tree. Kendra almost lost her nerve. The branches at the top seemed thin and narrow from where she stood, and extremely far away. As a kid, she had been an ace tree climber, and in the last few days, she had climbed quite a few in an effort to stay alive. But scaling the brown monolith before her was quite another matter. And what about the baby? If she fell… she shuddered. Still, she could see no alternative. If Richard died all of history would be changed and who knew what havoc she might find when she returned to her own time?
Grateful she had worn leggings and not a gown, happy to find a low branch to start her perilous assent, Kendra swung herself back and forth on the limb. Then, with a grunt, she swung her legs up and over, hanging upside down for a moment to the amusement of the people standing nearby. As she pulled herself up, scraping her palms and one leg as she did, she soon realized why no one else was taking advantage of this lofty view of the proceedings. The bark of this particular tree, which she was unfamiliar with, seemed to be of wood that splintered if you so much as touched it. She pulled one from the palm of her hand, then looked up and took a deep breath.
All right, O'Brien, here's where you live up to your reckless reputation. She patted her stomach shakily. Baby girl or boy, hang on.
Carefully Kendra climbed from limb to limb, making the assent as quickly as she could, feeling fortunate that the branches were close together, making it fairly easy to advance rapidly. Her shoes were of soft leather and gave her an added advantage as she mounted the branches. The bag hung heavily from her neck and she tried to ignore the ache it was creating between her shoulderblades.
"'Don't look down, don't look down," she told herself aloud.
Kendra reached the place in the tree where the branches began to bow over the roadway, creating a natural arch. Ahead of her, by just a few feet, more branches interconnected with branches from the tree bowing in identical fashion on the other side—Garrick's tree. Gritting her teeth, Kendra slid across the limb, inching her way forward, wincing as bark and smaller branches protruding out of the limb bit into her legs and hands. All at once, she stopped, breathless and dismayed, as the branches ahead of her suddenly thinned dramatically.
Trying to fill her lungs again and succeeding only partially, Kendra saw that while the branches from the two trees were indeed, woven together, the connecting limbs were too thin to support her weight. Trying not to panic, she saw there was a short space between the sturdy branches on her side and the sturdy ones on the other tree. If she held on to the tree limb to which she was clinging and swung out, she could probably reach the branch on the other side that would support her.
Probably.
Trying not to think about what she was doing, Kendra inched forward a little farther, then swung her legs off the limb to dangle in midair. That was when the paralysis hit her. She couldn't move. She couldn't swing forward, she couldn't go back. The nausea rose up to consume her and a terrible hysteria slid around her neck and grabbed her by the throat.
She was up so high, so high! She was going to fall. She was going to fall and she would die and her baby would die and Navarre would die! Her dream came back to her along with the accusing voice—"You killed your baby!" echoed through her brain. Is this what it meant? Had the dream been a premonition? Had Kendra O'Brien once again rushed in impetuously and risked her life—and this time, the life of her child—in a foolhardy attempt to play Superwoman? She was going to die, and her baby would die with her and Garrick would kill Richard and then Navarre.
The ground swayed beneath her and she closed her eyes. For some reason she kept hearing the voice of her Uncle Mac, on the last day she had ever seen him.
"You have a death wish, Kendra O'Brien. You have a death wish."
Kendra opened her eyes. Below her the cheering throng of people danced and drank and shouted in celebration of Richard's return. Richard, mounted on his white steed, was almost at the steps of the cathedral. In another few moments, Garrick would kill Richard, and then perhaps, Navarre. The Sheriff of Nottingham would win.
"No," she whispered aloud, then again, stronger, as she pulled herself back up on the limb from which she hung. "No! I do not have a death wish, Uncle Mac. I have a baby inside of me who needs a father."
Pushing away her fear, Kendra calculated the distance between the branches, then quickly, methodically, untied the rope-like belt she had donned along with the rest of Cennach's clothing. Tying it around the limb securely in a loop, she slipped both hands inside the circle of rope and without further hesitation, jumped off the limb, swinging her legs toward the other side. Back and forth she swung, moving across the narrow space between the trees, her arms aching, her momentum increasing every time her weight carried her back, her voice gaining strength as well with every sweep through the air.
"I—
want—
to—
live!"
Kendra let go. As she had calculated, the power of her last swing tossed her directly against a branch strong enough to bear her weight. She gasped as she hit it, then grabbed the limb and clung to it, sweat pouring from her face, her hands bleeding and raw, her heart pounding. She was trembling. She was about to throw up. She was on the other side, in the other tree, the tree that held the Sheriff of Nottingham, and the weapon of death she had brought to the past. Now if only Garrick hadn't spotted her.
"Garrick, give this up," Navarre demanded, his fingers still clenched around the hilt of his sword in its sheath so tightly he could feel his bones beneath the skin. "I am leaving for Scotland as soon as I am able," he said desperately. "Forget all of this and come with me. We shall begin anew, together."
Garrick lowered the gun he had leveled at Navarre's head. "After all I have done to you, old friend?" he said, cocking his blond head, his voice soft with a singsong quality to it. "You would do that for me?"
"We have known each other since we were children." the knight said, just as softly. "You are ill, Garrick. I will help you."
The sheriff seemed to consider his proposition. "And what of your lovely lady? Will she be coming with us?"
"Nay." he said sharply. "She will not be coming."
"Of course not." Garrick turned the gun back to the procession below. "She will return to her brave, new world, and I shall accompany her."
"Do you doubt I will kill you?" Navarre's voice was brusque, hushed with contained emotion.
Garrick smiled down at him. "I doubt that you will sacrifice your own life for that of a king you no longer respect."
"Will you shoot me then?" Navarre asked. "'I tell you, Garrick, it will come to that for I will not let you kill Richard. There is more at stake here this day than one man's life. I believe there is only one bullet in that gun. Either use it on me or give up this mad quest."
"Will you trust your life to Kendra's words—about the bullets, I mean?"
Navarre felt the sweat running down his side now as Richard and his group of soldiers started up again at last, slowly moving toward the cathedral.
"I would trust my life to her words, aye," Navarre said. "But my life will be willingly forfeited, if need be."
"You believe your noble sacrifice would enable you to regain your lost honor, no doubt." Garrick's thin lips curved up in a smirk. "What a fool, but then, you always were a conscientious bastard, even as a child."
Navarre dared not look away from the man but he could see from the corner of one eye that Richard's entourage was moving steadily now, soldiers having been dispatched to hold back the crowd enough to let the king pass without further molestation by his adoring subjects. Navarre felt his time running out. He was about to die. He would be able to kill Garrick from here with his sword, but probably not before the man could shoot him. Too well he remembered the speed with which the fiery dart had struck him when Kendra shot him on that long ago day at Abury. How very long ago that all seemed now.
Kendra! his heart cried out. If I could but h
old you one more time.
The king had reached the steps and turned in the saddle, lifting his hand in a benevolent gesture of appreciation. Garrick took careful aim.
"Say good-bye to your king, Navarre."
The Black Lion roared, his sword slicing out of the sheath and upward. A flash of light, brighter than the sun itself, first startled, then blinded Navarre even as he felt his blade sink deeply into Garrick's chest and heard the sheriff's cry of anguish. Navarre stumbled backward from the dazzling light which flashed again and again, his eyes filled with the visual echoes of glowing round orbs. He fell to his knees atop the wall and almost slipped off, but caught himself and gained his balance. The blindness was clearing now a little and the knight could make out the sight of Garrick dangling from the tree branch on which he had lain, his eyes rolling back in his head as blood poured from the wound, staining the brown tunic he had worn to disguise himself. The sheriff lifted himself up briefly, then collapsed back to the limb, his body sliding sideways into Navarre's arms.
Choking back his grief, Navarre helped ease Garrick down to lie flat on the top of the wall, his life's blood pumping out of him with every rasping breath he took. The knight held him in his arms, remembering not the sheriff who was dying, but the boy inside of Garrick, who had already died so many years ago at the hands of an evil woman who had dared call herself his mother.
"Navarre," Garrick spoke through lips frothy with blood as he lifted one hand to the other man's face. "Is it you?"
"Aye," Navarre whispered, oblivious to the shouts of the crowd surging toward the wall. " 'Tis me, Garrick, rest easy now, all will be well soon."
The man coughed, then shook as an agonizing paroxysm of pain seized him. Blood spilled from the corner of his mouth as he fought for breath, his fingers twisted in the front of Navarre's tunic.
"Mother, Mother please don't hurt me…" he whispered. The sob broke free from Navarre, unbidden, as Garrick's eyes rolled back in his head and his last breath left him in a shuddering sigh.
"She won't hurt you anymore, Garrick," Navarre said, sliding one hand across the dead man's face, forcing the eyelids down to hide the gaze of death. His voice was a whisper. "May God have mercy on your soul."
"Navarre."
Numbly, Navarre looked up. Kendra stood next to the tree, Garrick's gun in one hand, another object in the other that he recognized to be one of her magic boxes that captured images—what had she called it? A camera. Kendra! Kendra was here! She had not disappeared into time but had chosen to stay with him. Her face looked stricken with horror as she gazed toward the cathedral and not at Navarre at all. Was she horrified by the brutal act of violence she had just witnessed?
"Kendra," he choked out, lowering Garrick's body to the wall and standing. She didn't answer but turned a terrified gaze on him, her finger pointing wordlessly toward the steps of the cathedral, where Richard was dismounting. Navarre crossed to her side, his own gaze questioning.
"Didn't Garrick say he was sending an assassin?" she cried.
"Aye, but that was before he—" Navarre stopped, his blood suddenly cold. The fight wasn't over. He saw him, a big man with long dark hair, shoving his way toward the king, a shining dagger in his hand. There was no way to reach him in time. Suddenly he remembered Garrick's words: "I have arranged to have you blamed for the king's death." The sheriff had planned for someone resembling Navarre to stab the king, then slip away during the melee that would no doubt follow the sound of the gunfire. Navarre saw Robin Hood, still a good five yards away from the king, struggling to make it through the masses to warn Richard.
All at once, Navarre was back on the battlefield in Outremer. They were attacking Jerusalem and somehow Richard had managed to ride several yards away before Navarre could defeat the soldiers attacking him and redirect his attention to protecting the king. Two men on foot had grabbed Richard's horse by the bridle and the king had just decapitated one and was battling the other. What he had not seen was a third man about to run him through from behind.
Navarre shook the memory away and went into action. Moving away from the shelter of the tree, he reached an open space on the wall. His hood thrown back to expose his face as he bellowed, with all of his strength, with all of his voice, the same words he had shouted on that faraway field in the Holy Lands.
"Richard, you fool! Watch your back!"
Providentially the crowd had quieted in hopes the king would speak before entering the cathedral, and Navarre's words carried across the expanse of people to the ears of the Lionheart. Like the well-trained soldier he was, Richard spun around, his arm half raised in defense, just as Garrick's man lifted his dagger to plunge it into the king's back. Richard knocked the blade from the assassin's hand, and in a matter of moments, the king's guards had wrestled the would-be killer to the ground.
"Detain that man and bring him to me!" one of the king's men commanded, pointing at Navarre. The knight thought he saw recognition dart across Richard's face, then just as quickly disappear. Six armored guards moved in double time across the avenue, scattering people in their wake. Navarre swung down from the wall, then turned to Kendra. "Get away from here, now."
Kendra laughed as she tucked the gun and the odd little box she held back into her bag. "I don't think so." She swung down from the wall and landed beside him. "I believe we're in this together, Sir Navarre."
He glared at her as the soldiers thundered up next to them, then shrugged and offered her his arm, warning the guards back with a fierce look as they raised their swords. "There is no need. We will not fight you."
"You never told me that the women in your century could fly," he murmured to her as they walked side by side to meet the king, "nor that they could wield weapons fashioned from the light of the sun."
"You never asked," Kendra said lightly, and gave him a brilliant smile that pierced his heart with the love he saw there. She had stayed and now what had he done? Jeopardized their chances together by revealing himself to Richard. He was an outlaw. The price on his head was death.
Their escort stopped at the steps of the cathedral and Navarre found himself looking up into the eyes of Richard the Lionheart.
"Navarre," the king said, the name oddly gentle on his lips.
"Aye." Navarre lifted his chin, meeting the king eye for eye, wondering if Richard expected him to throw himself at his feet and beg forgiveness. If so, he would have to think again.
"Only one man ever dared call his king a fool," Richard said, speaking his native French and staring at the man sternly.
"And you were the only king who ever dared allow it," Navarre said, feeling the old respect and love for his sovereign in spite of himself. "Hello, Richard."
"You do not kneel before your king?"
Navarre continued to meet his steady gaze but did not reply. The arched, tawny brows of the king collided. Then the firm, full lips curved up beneath the man's beard in amusement. Somehow the gesture was not reflected in Richard's eyes. Navarre felt something poke him in the side and looked down into Kendra's admonishing blue gaze. With a sigh, the knight sank down before the king, but his head remained unbowed.
"Still the same Navarre, eh? As stubborn as hell. But I must confess I am surprised to find you also still watching my back. I had heard otherwise." His gaze moved to Kendra, then back to the knight. "Were the gossipmongers wrong?"
"No," Navarre said shortly. "I did plot against you, Richard, but"—he glanced over at Kendra—"I was convinced by others that without you, England—indeed the world—would never be the same."
"I see." Richard frowned and lifted one finger to brush his mustache. Navarre knew that gesture, it meant the king was displeased. "You admit to treasonous activities? Garrick said as much."
"Garrick is dead," Navarre said, impatient with this civility. He had expected to be condemned by Richard and this fairly genial conversation was making him uneasy. "The sheriff came here to kill you," he said flatly. "I stopped him. Unfortunately, I did not realize he had se
nt another assassin until it was almost too late. He planned to blame me for your death."
The king lifted both brows, then beckoned to one of his soldiers, who hurried over to turn his ear to his sovereign's whisper.
"Navarre." Kendra had stayed back out of the way while this ceremony proceeded, but moved beside the knight and sank to her knees beside him, keeping her eyes lowered. "I don't speak French, remember—mon cher? What's going on?"
"And who is this pretty woman?"
Kendra must have recognized the words belle femme. She looked up, startled, into the eyes of the Lionheart. He was smiling down at her, his hand extended to her. She placed her hand in his, awestruck at the thought of being presented to King Richard the Lionheart. "Kendra O'Brien, Your Majesty,"' she whispered.
"Lovely. Navarre, you must let me taste of her delicacies when you have tired of her."
"What did he say?" Kendra asked.
The edge of Navarre's mouth quirked up in a half smile. "He said you remind him of his sister."
"Oh."
"Where is Garrick?" Richard asked.
"'On yonder wall."
"You killed him?"
"Aye." Navarre bowed his head, unable to hide the pain he felt with the speaking of the words.
The king jerked his own head toward one of his soldiers and the man hurried away. "You and Garrick were friends for a long time," Richard said, his voice quiet, thoughtful.
"Aye. It was with deep regret that I ended his life."
"The problem is, Navarre, I have only your word for this." Richard lowered his voice so that his words would not reach the murmuring multitude gazing on with unabashed interest, though it was unlikely many spoke or understood the Norman tongue. "You have admitted to treason," he whispered, "you have admitted to killing the Sheriff of Nottingham."
"You have my word as well."
Tess Mallory - Circles in Time Page 33
