The Black Thorne's Rose

by Susan King

“Emlyn,” Guy said reprovingly. “You are supposed to be on your way to Evincourt. Lady Julian and the others are readying to leave as well, though Whitehawke’s approach has disrupted those plans.”

  “I must speak with Nicholas first,” she said. “ ’Tis very important.”

  “Here, then, is your chance,” Guy said, looking beyond her.

  She whirled to see Nicholas pounding toward them, his scowl as dark as a thundercloud.

  “Emlyn!” he roared, pulling up beside her. “Get you gone from here! Have you any notion of the danger?”

  “Nicholas, I—”

  “William!” He turned away from her impatiently.

  “My lord, she tore after you,” William called as he rode up. He shrugged. “Would you have had me truss her up?”

  Nicholas emitted a sound that was as close to a bear’s growl as Emlyn had ever heard from a human. Angry pink blotches stained his darkly bristled cheeks. Defiantly, she locked her eyes with his flashing glance.

  “My sister has changed, my lord,” Guy mused. “I recall a quiet girl content with painting and stitcheries. Always a hot temper, I trow, but never so rebellious.”

  “Rebellion is a craft. I learned it from a master,” Emlyn said between her teeth, glaring at Nicholas.

  His eyes were a sharp gray-green, penetrating hers as he answered Guy. “Marriage has made your sister into something of the lioness,” he snapped.

  “God help you, my lord,” Guy said. “Especially should you have cubs.” The look Emlyn turned on her brother might have melted his armor. Guy lifted his brows and raised his hands.

  “The only way to deal with a lioness is to be firm in the face of her temper,” Nicholas said dryly. “Emlyn, my men will take you from here immediately. And aye, trussed and chained, if need be.” Looking at Guy and Wat, he nodded. “Come with me.” Jerking the reins, he turned his horse’s head.

  “Nicholas!” she said hotly. “I must speak with you!”

  “Later,” he growled back over his shoulder. “Get you gone from here! Now!” He kneed his horse and rode away.

  Emlyn drew a breath and huffed it out. Tears burned in her eyes at the piercing sting of his words, even as she filled with an answering burst of anger. Her lower lip trembled. Fatigue, hunger, and disappointment threatened to cave in her hard-won resolve. She inhaled sharply, fighting for control.

  A hand rested on her shoulder, heavy and comforting. “He is alarmed by your presence here,” Guy said. “He loves you well, to be so incensed. Whatever your news is, hold it for now. Your husband must know you safe, or he cannot apply himself to the task ahead. Go with your guards, Emlyn, and keep safe.”

  Mutely, she nodded. Guy smiled encouragingly and turned away with Wat and the others to ride after Nicholas. Sniffing, Emlyn guided her horse toward the upland moor and her waiting escort.

  “My lady,” William said. “We will take you on to Evincourt.”

  “Then I must ask that one of your guards give my husband this—” She reached for the little purse at her belt. “ ’Tis greatly—” She stopped. “William, what is it?”

  The serjeant was staring off into the distance, and she heard the other guards mutter among themselves. “Look there,” William said, pointing.

  Whitehawke’s garrison had stopped on the white expanse of moor. Squinting through the snow flurry, she saw Whitehawke move away from the group. Nicholas’s men halted uncertainly and fanned out in a curve formation, waiting and watching as she did.

  Then Nicholas rode forward alone. Puzzled, Emlyn walked her horse closer, moving down the slope. She watched as Nicholas met with his father and appeared to exchange words. Then Whitehawke lifted an arm and pointed toward the trees.

  At first, the rider who emerged from the earthy brown tangle of the forest looked like another guard from Hawksmoor. But the green he wore was brilliant and saturated, coloring horse and rider both. Emlyn gasped, and covered her mouth with her leather-gloved hand.

  William edged his horse nervously forward. “My lady—”

  “Go, William, you may be needed there,” she said. “Leave two men with me. William—pray give me a weapon. Should I need to defend myself, I can use a bow or a dagger. An upright bow.”

  He hesitated, then motioned for a guard to hand her a bow and quiver. “Better that you run like a doe for cover, my lady. The baron will have my head for this.”

  Shouldering the bow, she slung the loop of the quiver over her saddle. Beneath her, the gray shifted uneasily. “This is my decision, not yours. I would know the fate of my husband and brother before I leave here. Give me that much, at least.”

  “Aye, my lady,” he answered reluctantly, and rode down the slope with most of her escort at his heels.

  Narrowing her eyes to see, she leaned forward, and the gray moved under her. She hardly noticed that she rode downhill. What she saw far ahead had riveted all her attention.

  As if a lodestone pulled her, she was drawn forward. The men of Hawksmoor and Graymere both moved back as if to distance themselves from the green rider. Emlyn rode slowly through a thick silence, hearing only the soft shush of the horses’ hooves and the icy rattle of wind and snow through the treetops.

  Emlyn halted the gray the length of an arrow shot behind Nicholas, unnoticed by him. Her eyes wide, she saw only the Green Man who rode out of the wood.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  “Christ’s curse,” Whitehawke rasped.

  Nicholas had halted Sylvanus beside Whitehawke’s stallion, watching in silence as the Green Knight rode slowly toward them, emerging like a garish ghost out of the swirling, light snow. The huge horse, as wide at the shoulders as a bull, taller than a destrier, glowed a paler green than the rider on its back.

  “ ’Tis not you,” Whitehawke said slowly. “By all that rules hell, this one is real!”

  Nicholas looked at his father and returned his gaze to the rider who approached them. Behind them, every man sat silent.

  Biting wind spit snow into Nicholas’s face as he narrowed his eyes. This had to be Aelric, he thought. Somehow his friend must have heard that the garrisons were gathering on this part of the moor.

  The demon rider came steadily closer, and raised an arm that looked like oak. A huge axe gleamed in his long, knotty fingers.

  For a moment Nicholas squeezed his eyes shut to clear his vision. The creature looked so eldritch, so elementally powerful that he doubted his own sanity. No wonder men had been fooled by its appearance; the devil could not have devised a more convincing apparition than this one.

  Then he recognized a few accoutrements that could only have come from the locked chest in Thorne’s cave: the emerald-glazed armor and leggings, and the green leaf-woven netting for a cloak.

  But real, springy moss seemed to sprout from the creature’s head, glistening as green as his skin and beard. Fresh bright leaves were woven into every available place, crown to toe, bursting summery growth in winter.

  Small berries and tiny white flowers cascaded and fell with each step of the horse, leaving a green trail of blossom and foliage in the snow. Leaves and flowers rioting over the creature’s arms and shoulders and cloak were as fresh and lush as any in May. The Green Knight’s presence hinted at a sylvan otherworld, spoke of new, verdant life in the midst of winter’s bleak death, of potent magic beyond the rhythm of seasons.

  The creature halted, still far enough away that particular details were blurred by the powdery snowfall and the fading light. Fresh, tangy fragrances drifted briefly on the chill breeze. The Green Man began to canter in a deliberate circle, riding as if the passage of time had slowed, stretching out the few moments in the stillness.

  Nicholas had never seen the Green Man as Whitehawke had seen him. The overall effect struck like a thunderbolt out of a snowstorm, magnificent and terrifying. He turned to look at his father. Whitehawke stared wide-eyed at the spectre, his face chalky, his eyes gray as old ice.

  Whatever Aelric meant to do here today was bravely done, and
could cost the man his life, Nicholas thought. He shifted his glance around the clearing. The soldiers sat their horses as still as knights carved from marble, each man looking as if he saw a vision from Hell. Even Chavant stared and sat his horse as if paralyzed.

  Turning his head, Nicholas saw Emlyn behind him.

  He swore under his breath and looked quickly away, his thoughts tumbling. Then he shifted in his saddle and motioned cautiously for her to come nearer. If she had to be out here, he wanted her by his side, where he could protect her.

  He felt that need because he knew that she held something precious within her: she loved him. She had acted bravely and impulsively out of her concern for him, first by escaping the tower, and then by following him here. Uncertain that he deserved such loyalty, such devotion, he knew that he could return love to her a thousandfold and still have more to give.

  If he did not leave this moor alive, whatever part of him that was good and pure, that had been shaped by love, would survive in her memories, or, pray God, in his nurtured seed within her. Nicholas de Hawkwood would continue better than he had lived, with the impurities stripped away. He desperately wanted her safe, to preserve her life, and to save a part of his.

  Emlyn walked her gray horse in between Whitehawke’s creamy stallion and Sylvanus. Nicholas saw that she was not afraid; she knew the Green Man. Her beauty, in that instant, nearly startled him in its purity and strength, reflecting a serene faith, a total lack of fear that glowed from deep within. She sat the gray in the lush whiteness, rosy-cheeked, her golden hair spilling over the green cloak. Catching his glance, she smiled a little and moved her hand toward him.

  She offered him a book. Frowning, puzzled, he accepted it.

  The Green Man continued to canter in a circle, wide enough to include Whitehawke, Nicholas, and Emlyn as the stable point at the center. With a ponderous, deliberate rhythm, the green hooves laid a fresh track in the snow, scattering leaves and berries and blossoms as he rode.

  Whitehawke gasped and inhaled sharply. Nicholas turned. The older man’s face had gone the color of the light that now deepened over the snow: a cool, pale bluish hue, close to the color of death. Nicholas drew his brows together in concern.

  Around them, the circle had been drawn three times. The spell held long enough for the Green Man to canter away as he had come, pounding, quick and magnificent, back to the wood.

  Suddenly a cry broke through the trancelike silence. “Kill him! Fools!” Chavant galloped across the clearing. “Kill him! He is mortal!”

  A few soldiers stirred to ride behind Chavant, though most still seemed to feel the strange lethargy of the past few moments, or else waited for Whitehawke’s reaction.

  “Emlyn! Ride to my men!” Nicholas called over his shoulder. Glancing at Whitehawke, he saw that the earl sat motionless on his horse, staring blankly into the forest where the Green Knight had vanished. Spurring his mount, Nicholas chased after Chavant.

  Followed by several of his men, including Guy and Peter, he dashed across the clearing. Chavant charged forward into the bracken, screaming furiously after the vanished green rider.

  As Nicholas drew near, Chavant turned with an anguished, frustrated cry and raised his sword high. Guy and Peter and several others hovered nearby, ready to defend their lord. When a few of Chavant’s men leaped over the bracken, the Hawksmoor men went toward them, engaging in a melee to lure the guards away from Nicholas.

  Chavant weighted his sword in his gauntleted fist, pulling against the restless turning of his horse. “Now face me, my lord,” he said. “Swords on horseback is honorable combat. Face to face, hand to hand. Unlike the longbow you have wielded in the past.” They circled each other, maneuvering among bracken and slender tree trunks, dredging through deep, powdery drifts.

  Nicholas remembered training with Hugh de Chavant when they had been squires together. Chavant’s wandering eye perceived movement in a faulty manner, and he had no high skill with sword or bow. But he was cunning, and used his wits to make up for what his vision failed to provide. Nicholas recalled also, as he carefully sidestepped Sylvanus, that Chavant never fought fairly.

  Neither time nor experience had improved Chavant. He made the first swipe, swinging too far to one side. Nicholas parried easily, blocking the downward return swing and galloping past.

  They swung the horses for the return. As Nicholas rode near, his heavy blow met Chavant’s blade with a jarring slam. Chavant kicked out with his heavy boot at Nicholas’s leg. Dancing the horse away as if the animal were a part of him, blood and bone, Nicholas lunged again, and this time his quick blade found Chavant’s shoulder and a weak place in the armor. Blood darkened the russet surcoat.

  Chavant smiled, a thin grimace, as he countered the next push of Nicholas’s blade. “I am Whitehawke’s heir now,” he grunted.

  “You will never have Hawksmoor!” Nicholas growled.

  “I will! You have played us all for fools. Thorne!” He whooshed the blade through the air as he spat out the name, and Nicholas neatly blocked.

  The two horses jostled side to side as the men fought, and Chavant grimaced, unwittingly warning of another blow, and swung downward. Nicholas easily knocked the blade away, but the arc of his swing chopped his long heavy sword into a tree trunk.

  Pulling the weapon free, Nicholas spun as Chavant, both hands wrapped around his sword hilt, swung with all his strength.

  Nicholas ducked, kneeing his horse forward as Chavant’s sword whistled past. Grunting with the momentum of his own swing, he spiraled to swipe his blade at Chavant’s raised arm, slicing through the mesh-covered bicep. Screaming like a raging boar, Chavant lunged for Nicholas, knocking them both to the ground.

  Catching the brunt of Chavant’s head like a battering ram to his midriff, Nicholas was hurled onto the frozen ground. His lungs emptied like collapsing bellows beneath Chavant’s heavy armor-clad weight. Striving to climb to his feet, scrambling for his fallen sword, he saw that Chavant had grabbed a blade and stood over him, raising his arms to strike.

  With a small cry, Emlyn rode the gray forward, reining in near the wood’s edge. Hearing the ugly clang of metal on metal, she saw that Nicholas and Chavant were locked in combat, twisting toward each other like knights in tourney. She gasped, realizing the disadvantage that Nicholas had without armor or helm.

  Then Chavant leaped, knocking Nicholas to the ground and grabbing up a fallen sword. Emlyn screamed a warning, and spurred her horse closer. No one was near enough to Nicholas to help him. Chavant grabbed a sword up and raised it just as Nicholas rolled to come to his feet.

  Without thinking, she had already notched an arrow in the bow. Turning her shoulders, lifting the bow and drawing the string tight along her jawline, all in one movement, she only thought: sweetly, on a breath. Then Chavant raised his sword to strike downward.

  She let go of the string. The shaft raced up and then down. Emlyn stared in shocked silence as it hit its mark.

  The blade cut clumsily to one side as Chavant fell. Nicholas gained his footing easily and glanced down, then up, looking around perplexed. Guy came up beside him, holding Sylvanus.

  “God’s bones,” someone said behind Emlyn, “I think you killed him, my lady.”

  Emlyn turned to see William and the escort circled protectively behind her. “He did go down,” she said.

  “Your arrow struck his neck. A truer shot could not have been made by any man I know.” William beamed at her.

  She drew a shaky breath and turned her horse to ride away, sickened by what she had done.

  Ahead, Whitehawke sat in the saddle, his shoulders hunched oddly. As she came close, a frisson of fear ran up her spine. Why had he done nothing, ordered no men in pursuit or attack?

  “My lord?” she asked.

  He turned, his pale eyes flat and glazed, then leaned slowly forward over the high front of his saddle.

  Nicholas dashed past her on Sylvanus. She was startled by his sudden appearance; in turning away, she had not
noticed that the short battle had ended with Chavant’s death.

  He leaped off his horse. “Help me get him down!” he yelled.

  William and another guard dismounted to help Nicholas ease Whitehawke to the ground. Emlyn scrambled down from her horse and dashed through the snow to fall on her knees beside Nicholas.

  “Loosen his armor!” she cried, tearing off her gloves to fumble with the leather strips that attached hood to hauberk. Nicholas slid his hands beneath hers to pull the chain mail away from Whitehawke’s wide, fleshy throat.

  A hideous noise, somewhat like the high whine of an arrow, alternated with a gurgling sound in his chest and throat. He repeatedly seemed to gasp for air and then choke.

  “What is it?” Emlyn cried. As she lifted his head, his hair spread over her hands like cold silk. She angled his head against her thighs, sensing that he needed the incline to breathe.

  “ ’Tis the illness in his lungs,” Nicholas answered her.

  “Send someone to fetch Maisry,” she said.

  “No time.” Nicholas snatched off his green cloak and threw it over Whitehawke. “We must keep him warm,” he said. “The cold air makes this worse. Peter!” he called, as he searched through the folds of Whitehawke’s cloak and patted the black surcoat as if looking for something.

  “What are you doing?” Emlyn asked. In her lap, Whitehawke gasped loudly, striving for breath.

  Nicholas looked up at Peter. “He always carries a remedy with him. A vial, or a packet of herbs. Look in his saddle.” Nodding, Peter ran to search the saddle pouches.

  “My mother had a treatment for his lung ailment,” Nicholas explained to Emlyn. “He has a decoction of it made regularly.”

  Whitehawke’s skin was the color of stone. He formed a word with his lips.

  Emlyn leaned forward. “Priest,” she repeated.

  Nicholas reached into his tunic, drew out the prayerbook that Emlyn had given him, and handed it to Whitehawke.

  Grasping it, the earl coughed, and a horrible whine began in the barrel of his chest, traveling upward.