by Barbara Bard
Kesterton frowned. “Surely if this war is averted, nothing will happen to you.”
“I am ill,” Henry said softly, smiling. “Right now, nothing is certain for me. I would have you, my beloved wife’s brother, to oversee my will.”
Kesterton rose to bow formally. “I will do so, Your Grace.”
“This is just a precaution, my lords,” Henry added, gazing around at the faces of his friends. “Nothing more.”
Chapter 29
Sitting in his saddle, Gilbert, Earl of Hargrove, stared at John Saul. The man had a blood-stained bandage around his bald head and across his missing eye, and his cheek had been sutured. Another was wrapped around his left hand and forearm, which he held up across his shoulder in a sling. “Are you fit to ride?” he asked.
Saul curled his lip. “Did you bring my gold?”
Gilbert gestured toward his saddlebags. “I did. Now where are Thorburn and my bride?”
“My men are watching them,” Saul replied. “They spent time at Dunbury Castle, and now ride northeast. I will take you to them once I have been paid.”
Gilbert glanced lazily around at the outlaws at Saul’s back. He himself had thirty men at arms, and Saul around a dozen. More than enough men to kill Thorburn and take Catrin from him. Turning in his saddle, he dug the heavy leather pouch from his bag tied to his cantle. Facing Saul again, he hefted it in his palm for a moment.
“This is a great deal of gold just for help in finding them,” he said.
Saul pointed at it with his healthy hand. “That is buying her life, Hargrove,” he snapped. “If you want to play games, then I will find her for myself. And take my revenge out on her hide. Take it or leave it.”
Gilbert smiled. “So, I pay you this, and you are satisfied? No further need to exact your revenge?”
“That will fulfill what I am owed,” Saul replied, his brown teeth bared. “You can do what you will with her, and I will have no further need of her life or her spilled blood.”
“Did you send one of your men into Whitewood’s castle?” Gilbert went on. “This is also payment for assassinating the Duke.”
“Yes. My man has sent word he is inside, ready to put poison in his wine.”
“Then I will say we have a deal.”
Gilbert tossed him the leather pouch. Saul caught it awkwardly and twisted in his own saddle to shove it into his own saddlebag. Turning back around, he picked up his reins from his horse’s neck. “Pleasure doing business with you, Hargrove.”
“Then I suggest we get to riding,” Gilbert said. “I do not want Catrin to get any further from me. Lead the way.”
Kicking his horse into a lope, Saul and his men set off down the hill where they had met near the Scottish border. Gilbert calculated that from where they were now, they could cross into Scotland and intercept Thorburn and Catrin before they rode too far into the Highlands.
“How many men does Thorburn have with him?” Gilbert asked.
“About a dozen,” Saul answered, sweat dripping down his cheek.
Eyeing him sidelong, Gilbert wondered what determination and willpower kept the man in the saddle when he was clearly in a great deal of pain. That he remained upright at all was incredible. “Why are you riding along?” he asked. “With your gold, you could have stayed behind and just sent your men with me.”
Saul grimaced. “I want to see Thorburn dead for myself, not just hear about it from others.”
Gilbert shrugged. If the man was lunatic enough to journey on horseback while clearly in agony from his missing eye and fingers, then who was he to say anything? As they rode, Gilbert’s men at arms and Saul’s brigands tended to ride separately, avoiding one another. That enabled Gilbert to ride next to Sir Jarrett, and ignore Saul, who he disliked intensely.
“Can you believe it?” Sir Jarrett asked, staring toward Saul, who loped at the very front of the group.
“That he is riding while grievously injured? Obviously, he is as mad as a rat trapped in a privy.”
“That, too, but it was Lady Catrin who did that to him.”
Gilbert gaped. “What?”
“You did not know?” Sir Jarrett grinned maliciously. “His men were talking about it with mine. Thorburn got him in the shoulder with a dagger, but it was Lady Catrin who sliced him up and took his eye.”
“Good Lord.” Gilbert stared at Saul’s back. “He never spoke of vengeance against her, just Thorburn.”
Sir Jarrett shrugged. “Perhaps because clearly you want her, and you are paying him.”
Gilbert shook his head. “He may be planning something. Let us keep a close eye on him, all right?”
“I was going to anyway. He is a slimy creature.”
They camped separately that night, close enough to see one another, but not close enough for talking. Gilbert posted extra guards to watch through the night, even though his men outnumbered Saul’s. He agreed with Sir Jarrett’s opinion – John Saul was like a rapid dog who should be put down.
By midmorning the following day, Saul reined in to allow Gilbert and Sir Jarrett to catch up. He pointed with his good hand. “That is one of my men right there.”
Gilbert followed the direction of his finger and saw a man on horseback half hidden between two hills.
“Why do we not go see if he has our friends in his sight?”
Before Gilbert could answer, Saul kicked his horse into a canter and rode toward the lone horseman. Gilbert gestured for Sir Jarrett to come along, but the rest of his men remained behind. The outlaw nodded briefly as they joined him, and wordlessly pointed.
“They are just beyond that ridge,” he said to Saul, hardly sparing Gilbert a glance. “Resting their horses.”
“How do you know?” Gilbert peered down the ravine and saw no evidence of Thorburn, Catrin or his men.
The man merely stared at him without answering.
“So how do you know they have not moved on?” Saul snapped.
“I walked up there and looked.”
The man pointed to the top of the hill. Leaving his horse with Sir Jarrett, Gilbert walked up the hill, then dropped to his belly to squirm to the edge, peering down. Sure enough, Thorburn sat with Catrin next to a small stream, his men holding grazing horses by their reins, others leading them to water. Studying the terrain, Gilbert stroked his chin, thinking.
The surrounding area gave neither of the groups an advantage, he suspected. He needed to be able to surround Thorburn and use his superior numbers against him. However, the hills were too high and too widely spaced apart. His men would be seen the instant they rode out of hiding.
Crawling back down the hill, he discovered only Sir Jarrett there, his face a mask of fury. Saul and his outlaw were gone. “Where is Saul?” he asked.
“That stupid shit.” Sir Jarret spat on the ground. “He is gathering his men to attack right now.”
Gilbert groaned, cursing. “The fool! The land is too open, Thorburn will see him coming.”
“Should we just let him get slaughtered, My Lord?”
“As tempting as that is,” Gilbert said, swinging into his saddle, and reining his horse around, “I am afraid we might need him.”
Galloping back to his men at arms, Gilbert caught sight of Saul’s band splitting apart to ride around and encircle Thorburn’s camp. “Let us try it,” Gilbert said, “maybe we might get lucky.”
“Split up,” he said to his men, his voice raised. “Follow the brigands, I do not care about anything except Lady Catrin. Bring her to me alive and unharmed. Go.”
With Sir Jarrett and ten men, Gilbert galloped back to the spot where he first saw Thorburn, and, reining in, and listened with anger and annoyance, as Saul’s men began the attack. Spurring his horse into a fast gallop, his men on his heels, he rode into the clearing as the bandits and his own men charged Thorburn.
But just as he suspected would happen, Thorburn’s men were already mounted, ready to run or fight. They shot arrows at Saul’s charging outlaws, many of whom fell f
rom their saddles. Gilbert gaped, even as he yanked his sword from his sheath and galloped into the fray, as Catrin felled brigand after brigand. Catrin fighting and killing?
Seeing the newcomers, Thorburn yelled orders, still shooting arrow after arrow, now dropping Gilbert’s own men to the ground. Catrin twisted in her saddle as her horse hit a gallop, shooting back over the rump of her mount. Unbelievably, she did not miss once. Three, no four, of his men at arms were hit, slumping over the necks of their horses or falling to the ground.
“Damn it!” he yelled. “Get the girl, the girl!”
Even as he thought Thorburn would escape, galloping out of the shallow valley, Sir Jarrett led a band of twenty men out from between two hills and slammed headlong into Thorburn’s band. Gilbert gaped again, for he never noticed at Sir Jarrett had left his side. Nor had he a clue as to how he organized the men that fast.
In the tangle of fighting, cursing men, Sir Jarrett scooped a struggling Catrin out of her saddle and across his own. Though she fought, screaming, biting, kicking, he held her firmly across his lap by the back of her neck. Kicking his horse into a gallop back toward Gilbert, several of his men also broke from the battle and raced on his heels.
“We go!” Gilbert yelled, wheeling his horse. “Leave Saul to Thorburn.”
Sir Jarrett whistled, a long piercing note. Riding hard, Gilbert glanced over his shoulder and caught a rapid glimpse of the rest of his men breaking free of the fight before the hills interrupted his vision. When they reached more open country, he looked back again and saw a mere handful of the thirty men he brought with him riding hard on his heels.
“That bastard Saul,” Gilbert cursed. “He cost me too many good men. I hope Thorburn roasts him on a spit.”
Glancing over at Catrin, he found her glaring at him from that very uncomfortable position across Sir Jarrett’s lap. He grinned. “Greetings, fair Lady Catrin. Here I am, rescuing you again from the clutches of that monster.”
She spat. “You are the monster, Hargrove. Let me go, and I will have Ranulf spare your life.”
“Seems you did that once before,” he mused even as he glanced back, trying to see if Thorburn had organized a pursuit. As far as he could tell, no one followed. “I do believe he is too busy killing Saul’s fools to notice you are gone.”
“He will come after me,” she grated. “Count on it.”
Gilbert shrugged. “If he does, my dear,” he replied calmly, “it will be far too late.”
Catrin watched him with narrowed eyes. “What do you mean?”
Grinning, Gilbert blew her a kiss. “By the time he finds you, you and I will have already been married.”
Chapter 30
Cursing fluently, Ranulf slid down from his horse, clutching his wounded side. He bled freely, but he knew he had been lucky. His chain mail deflected the worse of the sword’s strike, but even so his mail lay in tatters on his left side. “Gather all the survivors!” He shouted. “Put them right here.”
In the chaotic battle that lasted mere minutes, his small band of clansmen had not escaped unscathed. Donal was dead, Ian badly hurt, and Aswin clutching his shoulder where blood seeped through his fingers. The others all had cuts, but it seemed to him none were as severe as Ian. Gilbert’s men had taken Catrin and bolted, leaving only Saul’s pitiful band to fight against his Scots.
Most of them were dead, alongside the many Hargrove men at arms who had also been killed in the short but savage fight. His clansmen dragged five surviving brigands, their hands tied behind their backs, to where Ranulf stood. They, too, bled from injuries sustained in the battle, and Ranulf wondered why he felt surprise when John Saul himself was thrown to the ground amid his outlaws.
“Start fires,” Ranulf ordered, not taking his eyes from Saul’s. “We have wounds that need cauterized.”
Pressing his hand against his own wound to slow the bleeding, Ranulf limped toward the brigand leader. Saul curled his lip in defiance, but there was no mistaking the fear in his eyes. Sweat dripped down his face and matted his scraggly beard, dampening the bandage over his eye.
“Ye dae be a fool, lad,” Ranulf said. “Where di’ Hargrove take Catrin?”
“You are the fool to not figure that out, Thorburn,” Saul replied, grinning. “He plans to marry her.”
“And ye think I cannae stop it.”
“Of course, you cannot. I know your feelings for her, but you will be too late.”
“Then her marriage wi’ be a short one,” Ranulf replied calmly. “She willnae mind should I make her a widow.”
Saul’s grin faded. “So, what now? You going to kill me?”
“Perhaps.”
“Then get on with it.”
Ranulf spat. “I let ye sweat awhile first. Perhaps ye should be wonderin’ how I plan tae kill ye.”
With the lesser wounded clansmen guarding the prisoners, Ranulf walked to where Donal had been laid, with respect, on the ground with his arms at his sides and his face peaceful. “Gae wi’ God, laddie,” he murmured. “Ye be ridin’ in heaven wi’ yer kin right noo. But I wi’ miss ye.”
Taking his dagger, he rested it in the flames of one of the fires, then dropped to his knees beside Ian. “How ye be?”
His mail shirt rent, Ian had been stabbed twice in his upper chest. A clansman named Stewart cared for him, stopped his bleeding and now busied himself sewing Ian’s wounds closed. Ian gasped for breath but raised a grin. “I be aright,” he muttered.
“Guid lad.”
Nodding to Stewart, Ranulf went next to Aswin, who had taken off his mail and tunic, and examined his own shoulder wound. It had already stopped bleeding and did not look too deep. His mail must have taken the brunt of it.
“Bad?” Ranulf asked, standing over him.
“Nay,” Aswin said, jerking his head toward Stewart. “The lad there be workin’ on me next. Ye?”
“I wi’ cauterize me cut,” Ranulf said simply. “I got tae ride after Catrin. Ye be in charge, Aswin. Bury Donal wi’ his sword and care fer the injured. Strip the dead, and find Saul’s gold, he nae doubt hae it in his saddlebags. Feed their dead tae the ravens.”
“What dae I dae wi’ them, laird? The prisoners?”
“Keep them tied and feed them,” Ranulf said, rising. “If they gie ye any trouble, kill them.”
Aswin tried to struggle up, but Ranulf pushed him back down. “Ye cannae go alone, laird.”
“I wi’.”
Returning to the fire where he had placed his knife, Ranulf stripped his tunic and mail shirt from his upper body and picked up the knife from the fire with his tunic to protect his hands. Not caring that Saul and his outlaws watched, Ranulf pinched the lips of his wound closed and set the hot blade of the knife against it.
The pain was excruciating. Sweat poured from him in rivers as he fought not to scream. The odor of his own burned flesh struck his nostrils, and he locked his knees to not fall upon them. During the long moments in which the hot steel cauterized his bleeding and closed the cut, he thought he would surely pass out.
Breathing in through his nostrils in long ragged breaths, he took the knife from his side. The heat had seared the wound closed, the flesh around it black. His head spinning, he fought not to faint, and breathed deeply. At last, the worst of the agony subsided, and he discovered he could move.
Dropping the knife to the ground, he blinked sweat from his eyes and slowly bent to pick up his mail shirt. Donning it, then his tunic, he tightened his sword belt around his hips. Bending once more, he picked up his now cooled knife and returned it to his sheath.
Ignoring the fascinated stares of Saul and his brigands, Ranulf turned to walk a fairly straight line toward his horse. Picking up his bow and quiver, he hung them on the pommel of his saddle. He had some food supplies in his saddlebags, but he filled a leather water bottle from the stream.
Slinging it over his shoulder, he walked back to Aswin. “I be back in a few days,” he said. “Ye hae yer orders. Wait fer me, care fer the inju
red. Yerself.”
“Laird,” Aswin said, despairing. “Dinnae gae alone.”
Ranulf managed a weak grin. “I be all right, lad. Ye take care.”
Mounting up, flinching at the pain of his raw wound, Ranulf turned his stallion’s head southward and nudged him into a gallop.
***
Ranulf knew Hargrove would take Catrin south to his castle, where he would think of himself as invulnerable and untouchable. At least thirty leagues away from Hargrove’s fortress, Ranulf planned to rest his horse and himself often as he traveled. Gilbert may or may not ride hard, risking killing his animals, but Ranulf dared not. The gallant stallion had only recently recovered from the hard ride of a few days ago and pushing him too hard might mean his death.
