Knights of de Ware 01 - My Champion

by Glynnis Campbell

  Yesterday, he’d gone straight from Gallow’s Hill to the nearest alehouse in Calais. Slumping into the smoky plaster corner of the Cheval Blanc, he’d spent most of the reivers’ remaining coins, staring into cup after foamy cup of ale, believing his answer lay at the bottom of the next one. Until he’d reached the point of conversing with himself.

  “I should leave her to the reivers.”

  “Nay,” he’d argued. “Nay. You swore to protect her.”

  “She betrayed me! I owe her nothing.”

  “An oath is an oath. No matter how much you detest that angel witch, you made a vow. After all, one doesn’t have to bear affection for the king to swear fealty to him.”

  Finally, he’d sunk his head onto his hands in surrender. The ale had pared his troubles down to the bone: Linet de Montfort was sailing back to England tomorrow. He’d be aboard that ship. He had to be. Someone had to keep her out of trouble.

  That had been his brilliant decision last night, made upon the counsel of malted grain. Today, it seemed less than brilliant.

  He glanced sideways and saw her again by the far railing. This ship was too damned small. He kept having to look at Linet’s bleak, guileless face as she gazed off across the empty sea ahead like an angel bound for purgatory.

  A knot of foolish guilt began to form in his chest. He tried to squelch it. Why should he feel remorse? It was she who had caused this, all of it. It was she who had been the betrayer. He would tell her so, damn her. It was about time he set her straight. He clenched his fists. He’d march over and confront her now. Right after this bout of nausea passed.

  At the aft end of the ship, Linet picked morosely at the peeling paint of the railing. For one bright moment, spying the beggar at the Calais dock among the passengers bound for England, she’d imagined he’d forgiven her. She was wrong. The rancor in his eyes had been clear. And now, a few hours into the voyage home, she was weary, wearier than she’d ever been in her life. All night, lying awake in the room her uncle’s coin had paid for, she’d languished over her losses, cursing, weeping, praying. Fortune couldn’t have cast her into a deeper pit, she was certain. She’d lost…everything.

  And yet, she considered, letting reason steer her course where emotion had failed, nothing had changed. She was still a de Montfort in her soul, whether anyone believed it or not. She was still a successful wool merchant, even if her profits might suffer this year. As for love…

  She took a deep breath to drain the dregs of her melancholy. She’d made mistakes. And like a poor business decision, nothing could be gained by dwelling on them. She had laid in her course, and whether for good or bad, she would sail onward. It was the noble thing to do. She’d just have to salvage what she could.

  No sooner had she begun to imagine dealing with the sobering life ahead of her—a life of reduced pride, reduced respect, perhaps even reduced livelihood—when the bottom fell out of even her most humble aspirations.

  Dear God, she thought with a jolt, what if she carried the beggar’s child?

  She gripped the railing to steady herself. Why hadn’t she thought of that before? They were two healthy adults. They had committed the required act. The more she thought about it, the more she became convinced that it was likely she had conceived. And that would be devastating.

  She couldn’t subject a child to the humiliation and ridicule that came with bastardy. She knew how cruel people could be. No matter what she’d done to lose her own dignity, she couldn’t sully that of an innocent child. She swallowed the lump in her throat. There was only one solution to her dilemma. She’d have to marry. And it would have to be soon. She might not be able to afford the luxury of a long courtship if she was with child. It was the only way, she thought. She had to wed for the babe’s sake, to salvage the child’s honor.

  But even as she resigned herself to the decision, she steeled her jaw against the sudden, inexplicable urge to weep. What was wrong with her? She was aware of her duty, her responsibilities. Hers wouldn’t be the first marriage made for practical reasons. Surely, with her merchant’s skills and her not uncomely appearance, some eligible man would overlook her less than pristine condition in the marriage bed.

  But the thought made her throat close. She couldn’t envision anyone in her marriage bed except that wild-haired, fiery-eyed beggar. She couldn’t conceive of letting someone else touch her in that intimate way, couldn’t imagine losing her soul to another man.

  Faith, she wanted only him. Honor be damned, pride be damned, she wanted the beggar.

  And he despised her. She chewed at her lip. Or did he?

  A stray gust of wind blew the hood of her cloak back, lifting her hair away from her face. And suddenly the answer was clear. Aye, she’d seen hatred in the beggar’s eyes when he glared at her from the whipping post—icy, raw hatred. His words had dripped with acid scorn. Still, there had been something more, something beneath the rage. And it hadn’t been loathing. There had been…pain in his eyes, terrible hurt and longing.

  Why hadn’t she noticed it before? He was like a wounded wolf, snarling and biting and hiding his injuries so he could be hurt no more. Linet’s heart lifted, and a glimmer of possibility was born in her breast.

  Once, he’d confessed his love. And while that love might lay buried deep beneath a mound of betrayal and mistrust and pain, perhaps it wasn’t dead. Perhaps she could earn it again.

  Closing her eyes, she murmured a prayer for fortitude. She had a strong will when it came to business. She never backed down from a fight. This battle might prove difficult, but she vowed she’d do whatever it took to regain the beggar’s affections.

  The hand suddenly gripping her shoulder startled the resolve right out of her. She whipped around to look into the beggar’s scowling face, her newfound hope completely deserting her.

  “Do exactly as I say,” he commanded under his breath.

  She frowned. His tone didn’t bode well.

  “Come!” he barked.

  She pulled away.

  “For the love of God, woman,” he quietly snarled, “do not defy me. Not now.”

  He nodded toward the north, around the last narrow point of land. A ship was rapidly approaching, a ship bearing the unmistakable colors of El Gallo.

  CHAPTER 17

  “Nay,” Linet whispered, clutching his sleeve, her voice as insubstantial as air.

  “I’d wager my blade our Spanish friend is searching every vessel that crosses from Flanders to England,” Duncan muttered. “He must want you very badly.” Instantly, he regretted his words, for Linet’s eyes widened in terror. And for all the hell the wench had put him through, he didn’t have the heart to frighten her. “I won’t let him have you,” he promised.

  At best, it was a tenuous vow. There was nowhere to run. And no time. In another moment, the vessels would be close enough to pick out individuals by sight.

  He cast about for a suitable place to cache a small wench. His eyes alit on a wooden trunk beside the mainmast. He was upon it in two strides and had broken the rusty lock in another moment. Ignoring the captain’s indignant protests and the passengers’ remarks of outrage, he upended the chest, emptying its stash of raw wool across the deck.

  “Stay calm, all of you. Captain Campbell,” he told the frowning Scotsman, “we’re about to be boarded by sea reivers. They’re looking for me. If need be, I’ll go with them.”

  “Nay!” Linet argued.

  “There should be no trouble for the rest of you,” he continued. “Simply do as they say.”

  “Nay!” Linet repeated more vehemently. “It isn’t you they want.”

  Duncan had no time for her protests. El Gallo was coming. He swept her off her feet, dropped her into the chest, tucked a layer of wool over her before she could draw breath to complain, and slammed the lid shut, anchoring it closed with his raised boot.

  There was, thankfully, a loud commotion on board as the two ships came abreast of one another and El Gallo’s grappling hooks clawed the merchan
t ship closer. Otherwise, Linet’s muffled cries of outrage might have alerted the Spaniards to her presence.

  From inside the chest, Linet spat the foulest word she knew, to no avail. Damn that scheming beggar! She pulled a tuft of cloying oily wool from her mouth and pressed up hard against the box’s lid. It wouldn’t budge. She tried not to think about how like a coffin the chest was, pitch black and stifling and sealed by whatever part of the beggar’s anatomy he’d chosen to apply to the lid. Already the air felt thick and stale, and wool adhered to her sticky brow.

  Something sharp poked her in the back. She patted her hand over the object. Of course, she thought with gallows irony, a pair of wool shears. She was going to be buried alive with the tools of her trade.

  She could tell by the tortured creaking of the deck planks that El Gallo himself had come aboard. She stilled her movements and strained to hear the conversation.

  Duncan felt the reiver captain’s gaze scrape down him like a crofter’s rake.

  “Ah, my friend, what a surprise!” El Gallo sneered. “I had not thought to encounter you again in this world. But see how impetuous fate has brought you to me.” He paced in a half-circle before Duncan, eyeing his injuries. “I must say you look a bit more…seasoned than before.”

  Duncan set his elbow on his knee and cupped his chin in his hand as casually as he could, given the circumstances. “Indeed, captain,” he replied with a grim smile, “though not as seasoned as the ones who visited this upon me…God rest their souls.”

  Aside from a tiny muscle twitching in El Gallo’s jaw, his face remained as passive as a clump of dough. “Where is she?”

  “She?” Duncan feigned puzzlement. “Ah, the wench,” he chuckled. He planned to tell El Gallo that he had long since tired of Linet de Montfort. He planned to tell him that she was dead.

  But then he spotted Harold, Linet’s servant, cowering in chains to one side of the reiver captain, and he swore silently. He couldn’t let Harold believe that his mistress was dead. It would devastate the poor man. After a brief pause, he shook his head in self-mockery. “Alas, the vixen escaped her tether some days past.”

  El Gallo stared at him with cold pig eyes for a long while. Then he snapped his fingers once, and two crewmen brought Harold forward. The man trembled like a winter leaf.

  “You do not know where the girl is?” El Gallo repeated, strutting like a smug rooster between Duncan and Harold. “Pity, I had some rather good news for her.”

  Duncan shrugged, feigning disinterest.

  The reiver captain smiled humorlessly and perused Duncan again from head to toe. “What colorful bruises you have earned, my friend,” he crooned. “Perhaps my men shall give your companion here some of the same…decorations?”

  “Companion?” Duncan tossed off with a lightness he didn’t feel. “I’m not acquainted with this man.” Hopefully, his lie would keep the servant from harm.

  “Really? You do not know old Harold here?” El Gallo said, flexing his fingers. “Then you do not object if I…”

  Before Duncan could stop him, he hauled back one meaty fist and plunged it into Harold’s face. There was a sickening crunch. The passengers gasped. Harold staggered back with a moan, clutching his injured nose with shackled hands.

  Duncan clenched his jaw. He fought the compulsion to fly at El Gallo, wrap his hands around that fat neck and squeeze the life out of him. Instead, he remained icily silent.

  Unfortunately, someone else had a lot to say. “You devil’s spawn! What have you done to Harold? I pray you rot in hell!”

  The outcry wasn’t Duncan’s, though his thoughts were running along the same course. The audacious protest had come from within the wool chest.

  “Harold!” Linet cried. “Harold!”

  Damn, Duncan thought, she couldn’t have picked a worse time to break her silence.

  El Gallo smirked slowly, crossed his arms over his thick chest and eyed the wooden box. He motioned to his men. “Remove him,” he ordered.

  To Duncan’s credit, it took four of them. But the reivers ultimately wrested him away from the chest, securing him at sword point.

  Once the pressure of his foot was removed, Linet sprang up out of the chest. Tufts of wool fell from her, and her hair hung in disarray. But there was a dangerous fire in her emerald eyes as she faced the reiver captain.

  “You leave my servant alone!” she commanded.

  El Gallo was highly amused. “Leave him alone?” He pretended to ponder the idea. “Leave him alone. Perhaps you are right. I know of no place more alone than here, in the middle of the sea. Oso!” he called. “Leave the man alone.”

  “Nay!” Linet cried. She flew at El Gallo like a kitten against a hound, batting ineffectually at his great stomach and clawing him with her nails.

  The captain subdued her within seconds, squashing her against his side. But the distraction of her struggle had been enough to allow Duncan to duck his captors and confiscate one of their swords. In the blink of an eye, he swung the point of the blade to El Gallo’s throat.

  Even with the reiver captain’s ruddy flesh quivering beneath his blade, Duncan knew his leverage was shaky at best. El Gallo’s crew far outnumbered the men of fighting ability aboard the English vessel. He’d have to use his brain instead of brawn. If only he could offer the sea reivers something more tempting than their captain’s revenge…

  In a low voice meant only for El Gallo, he said, “Listen, Captain. You and I know that reivers are about as loyal as rats on a sinking ship. This crew of yours might just as soon see their captain perish as live, if it means a reward for them. So I suggest you weigh your options carefully.” Then he announced, “Release the wench and the old man, and I’ll come with you in their place. They’re useless to you anyway. He’s but a poor servant, and she’s an imposter to the title of de Montfort.”

  Linet squirmed in protest.

  “You have a far more valuable hostage in me,” he added. “Have your men contact Lord James de Ware in England to demand my ransom. I am Sir Duncan de Ware, my father’s oldest son, heir to the castle.”

  He heard Linet moan in disbelief. But he’d garnered the interest of the Spanish crew.

  “My family, de Ware, is wealthy,” he said in Spanish, eyeing the reivers individually. “They will pay well for my safe return, enough to make each of you captain of your own ship.”

  There was impressed muttering amid the crew.

  “De Ware?” one man repeated.

  “I’ve heard that name before,” another said.

  “Of course you have, imbecile,” El Gallo said, his eyes shifting dubiously. “The brothers are said to be matchless with a sword.”

  Duncan pressed his weapon’s point against the flesh of El Gallo’s neck. “Would you care to find out?”

  El Gallo’s placating smile and the lack of a reply couldn’t mask the fury in his eyes.

  “Why should we believe you?” one of the Spaniards challenged.

  “You deceived us before,” a second added.

  “If you choose not to believe me, so be it,” Duncan said. “I’ll slay your captain outright then, and you’ll be obliged to kill me. Then not only will you lose your hostage, you’ll have the other two de Ware brothers hunting you down for murder.” He let the message sink in. “On the other hand, if you decide to trust me, you could all live quite well the rest of your days on the ransom. It’s a risk you’ll have to take.”

  Duncan had no intention of giving the Spaniards one coin from his father’s coffers—he would die first—but he knew he’d used the right bait. Avarice lit up the crewmen’s faces as they considered the idea.

  “Let these two go,” Duncan pressed El Gallo, “and I’ll come willingly with you.”

  “Nay.” Linet breathed the word.

  “Very well,” El Gallo hastily agreed before his men could conspire against him. “It is a risk worth taking.” He waved anxiously at the steel against his neck. “Put up your sword.”

  Linet could on
ly stare in disbelief as the beggar tossed the weapon to the deck and bravely raised his head. El Gallo nodded for Harold’s release and called for the shackles to be placed on the new prisoner. She could scarcely breathe, so tightly was El Gallo squeezing her against his ribs. He lugged her across the deck, and then, with no more ceremony than one would give laundry, hefted her up and dropped her back into the wooden chest. Too stunned to move, she watched as the beggar held his wrists out for the shackles.

  It was a stupid thing for him to do, she thought as her chin began to quiver at his bravery. The beggar owed her nothing. Now that she had no coin to offer him, there was no good reason for him to continue protecting her. El Gallo would surely kill him when he found out he’d been deceived yet again, and it would be an ugly death. The damned fool was risking his life for a servant he’d met once and a wench who’d cruelly betrayed him. It was an utterly stupid thing to do.

  She wiped at her wet cheek.

  It was the kind of stupid thing a nobleman would do.

  She raised her eyes to the beggar. He looked like the very picture of chivalry, standing there courageously before the notorious reiver captain. Bruised and beaten, he was willingly offering himself up for yet more. To protect them. To protect her. As the irons were locked about his wrists, he didn’t flinch once, but only gazed stoically off across the sea toward the shore he might not live to see again.

  Linet bit her lip. She’d been wrong. Her father had been wrong. Nobility was not a matter of birth. It had nothing to do with manner or dress or speech. It was a matter of principles, of priorities and sacrifice. This man—this beggar—was right. He had more nobility in his little finger than most nobles she’d met could boast of their entire lineage. He was good. He was honorable. And he was…about to be stabbed!

  Linet saw the damning wink of steel in El Gallo’s fist. Time stretched as the reiver captain slowly drew the dagger from his belt.

  The beggar turned his head toward her as if in a dream, oblivious to the danger, looking his last at the woman he’d once claimed to love.