by Tamara Leigh
Michael lifted Beatrix back into the saddle. “You may linger if you are so inclined.”
The sheriff hastened to his mount, as did the others.
“Something is amiss?” Beatrix asked as Michael fit a foot in the stirrup.
He settled behind her. “If we arrive late, it will bode ill to interrupt the baron’s supper.”
Nay, it was more than that.
As Michael turned Sartan from the stream, Beatrix looked to Sir Canute who held his back so straight it was as if it had been put through with a pole. And Michael was no less rigid. He put his arm around her, but before he turned his hand about her waist, he touched his sword hilt.
As he spurred Sartan forward, Beatrix considered the wood. What was there?
It would be nearly three hours before an answer was forthcoming.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Through the soft rain and gray of twilight that slowed their party to a trot, Beatrix peered from beneath her hood as the crumbling walls of Purley Abbey came into view. Though her escort likely paid little attention to the ruins, she could not look away. It was there she had begun to learn Michael. There he had first touched her. Did he remember?
When she looked around, his gaze told that he did.
“We shall pause there,” he said.
“For what?”
“For what I denied you.” He considered the beaten road, and she knew he touched his sword again as he urged Sartan to a gallop that carried them past their muddied entourage.
“Lord D’Arci!” the sheriff called.
With Sartan kicking up sodden earth that sprayed those behind, Michael guided the destrier off the road and up the incline.
“You are certain, my lord?” Sir Canute spoke above the rain as he and two other knights drew alongside.
“The better of two evils,” Michael said, continuing toward the abbey. “Be prepared.”
“Evils?” Beatrix asked. “Prepared for what, Michael?”
He halted Sartan before the nave and swung out of the saddle. Hood fallen back, rain flecking his hair, he said, “I shall return anon.”
“I will accompany you.”
He laid a hand on her knee and glanced at his knights where they halted to the left. “I would have you remain with Sir Canute.”
“D’Arci!” the sheriff called again as he and the others neared. “What do you?”
Michael adjusted his belt to bring the hilt of his sword nearer to hand, then stepped to Sartan’s head and clapped the destrier’s jaw. “I leave her in your care, my friend,” he murmured, then strode toward a portion of outer wall reduced to a height of less than three feet.
Beatrix watched him scale the crumbling wall and continue toward the breach in the ceiling of the crypt. Did he intend to go down into it? What was there that he believed he had denied her? However, he did not pause at the breach, though he did glance down as he passed.
Then she knew. He sought the psalter she had left in the chapel when he had forced her from the abbey. But there was something else to which he aspired: the better of two evils, and the reason he had so often touched his hilt throughout the ride.
When a rumble struck across the land, Beatrix thought it was thunder, but thunder did not rise to war cries, nor take the form of a score of riders who surged out of the wood behind the abbey.
Brandishing death beat of steel and honed to slaughter, the brigands swept toward them, and not even the absence of sunlight off blades could detract from the terrible sight. And Michael was at the center of it.
The fear Beatrix had refused to feel at Soaring gathered and panic struck at the realization that all she had gained these past weeks might now desert her…cripple her…once more make her a fool who could not turn her tongue around words. But then came anger. “Michael!”
Sword to hand, he lunged back the way he had gone. However, there was too much distance separating him from his destrier, and he was forced to come around amid the ruins to fend off the first rider who leapt the opposite wall.
Though fear urged Beatrix to dismount when Sartan hooved the ground, sense made her abandon her sidesaddle pose. Yanking up her skirts, she tossed a leg over Sartan and straddled him.
“Canute!” Michael shouted. “Get her away from here!”
As the knight reached for Sartan’s reins, Beatrix searched out the remainder of the entourage. The sheriff wielded his sword, as did several others, including Squire Percival, but Sir Robert and his group were slow to react. Indeed, the knight appeared more intent on her than the brigands.
Sir Canute dragged on Sartan’s reins to turn him. With a snort and a toss of its massive head, the big horse sidled away.
A moment later, the crash of swords defiled the murmur of rain. As Beatrix watched Michael turn his blade off the sword of a man who swung steel from atop a horse, another brigand spurred toward him, while a dozen others set themselves at Beatrix and her escort. And more riders came out of the wood. It seemed hopeless until she realized that the newest arrivals were not brigands. They were Michael’s men, surely set to follow at a distance in the event of an attack.
Feeling Sartan strain against Sir Canute’s urging, then shift his weight backward, Beatrix gripped the pommel and tightened her thighs.
Sartan reared, causing her hood to fall back and the reins to tear free of Sir Canute’s hand. Upon his return to the ground, the great destrier pulled right and lunged away.
Beatrix held on as the beast gathered its legs beneath him, but then she saw Michael. Whereas moments earlier he had faced two brigands, now there was one. Though she had never wished death on anyone, she prayed he would drive down another to the dark abyss from which such evil was bred.
“My lady!” Sir Canute shouted as he attempted to overtake Sartan. “The reins!”
The muddied ground rushing below her, she raised her head as the destrier rounded a mighty oak that grew between it and the road—the road that would take her away from Michael.
She caught the reins and threw her weight back, causing Sartan to halt and jerk his head side to side. As she attempted to turn him back toward the abbey, Sir Canute neared. And behind him came brigands.
The knight dragged his mount around and swept his sword up to fend off the first attacker. Though his swordsmanship was apparent with the first blow, the brigand seemed a fair match.
Beatrix looked to the others who came for her and caught a glimpse of a rider who sought to overtake her pursuers—Sir Hector, the aged knight who had abandoned her to Sir Simon’s vile attentions. He was also setting himself at her? No sooner did the dread thought strike than he landed a death blow to one of the brigands.
“Beatrix!” Michael’s shout rose above the grind and clatter of steel.
She saw him leap the fallen wall. Rain-purified sword showing no evidence of the men it had put through, he ran toward her. It was then more riders came out of the wood.
Mother Mary! Surely Michael and her escort could not—
A brigand came alongside her. Decayed teeth filling his mouth, he swung his sword high.
Beatrix turned Sartan aside, but she was not to know whether she reacted quickly enough, for Sir Hector once more came to her aid. As blade met blade bare feet from her, a whistle split the air that she recognized as Michael’s means of summoning Sartan.
“Away, my lady!” Sir Hector shouted.
Even before she gave the destrier her heels, it set its course. Intent on answering its master’s call, it lunged past Sir Hector, then Sir Canute who had taken his own struggle with a brigand to the ground.
Beatrix searched out Michael and saw him step over a man he had surely laid down. But there were yet others who came for him. He deflected another sword, causing the rider to veer, but when the attacker came back around, Michael’s healing leg made him lurch.
Merciful Lord, do not allow him to sacrifice all for me!
Beatrix urged Sartan onward, but as she neared, an extraordinary thing happened. One of those riding toward
Michael slew one of their own. At least, she thought they were of the same bent, but when she looked nearer on the man who had let blood, she saw past the rain and gathering dark that it was Sir Durand.
Had he come with Michael’s men who had followed from cover of the wood? She swept her gaze over the battling warriors, and her heart nearly bolted when she lit on a face dear to her.
Her oldest brother, Garr, was there, and to his left fought her younger brother, Abel. They had come for her. And the men who next surged around her were Garr’s household knights.
The great destrier’s flight arrested, Sartan danced about in search of an opening.
“Hold, my lady,” a knight called as he edged his mount nearer.
She pulled the reins, but Sartan was too agitated to obey, and became more so when Michael shouted again. Beatrix craned her neck and saw another brigand was fast upon him. “Nay!” she cried.
Michael sent thanks heavenward that Sir Durand had succeeded in the task set him to reach Garr Wulfrith and his men who, en route to Soaring, had surely been forced to ride hard to compensate for the day stolen from them by Aldous Lavonne’s conniving. And more thanks he gave that Beatrix was now under the protection of her brother’s men. Between sword strokes, he had seen the brigand raise his sword to her and had tried to reach her, but it was not only Beatrix’s death that was sought. For defying Aldous Lavonne by loving a woman marked for revenge, the brigands also came for Michael, as evidenced by the number who set themselves at him.
It had come as no surprise that they had attacked at Purley Abbey. As the assault had not been a question of “if,” but “when,” they had met at the place of Michael’s choosing. And he had been the bait to tempt them out of the wood.
Still, despite all that had gone in Michael’s favor—above all, Sir Hector going to Beatrix’s aid—it was no guarantee that his men and Wulfrith’s would prevail.
Lord, Michael prayed, if naught else, keep Beatrix safe. A moment later, the brigand before him exposed the vulnerability of his neck and Michael swung. The man toppled face down in the mud.
Rain running into his eyes, Michael surveyed the ruins he had chosen for his battleground. The sheriff was engaged, as was Canute. As for Aldous Lavonne’s men, they offered only enough resistance to assure they did not meet the fate intended for Beatrix and Michael. Fortunately, Michael’s and Wulfrith’s men were felling those in whom Lavonne’s men took little interest.
It would be over soon and, God willing, he would still be standing.
As he searched out his next opponent, he caught sight of a formidable warrior who had set himself at three brigands. It had to be Garr Wulfrith. Though Michael had only heard of him, he had met several of those whom Wulfrith had trained into knights while fighting for Duke Henry. All worthy. All deadly—as would have proved the next brigand if Michael had not glimpsed his approach.
Putting a two-handed grip to his sword, he swung around to meet the one who came on foot. Their blades clashed, the force of their meeting clearing the miscreant’s grin. With a roar and a spray of spittle, the brigand swung again and caught Michael’s sword arm.
Almighty! Though his chain mail did not fail him, the blow shot pain fingertip to shoulder. Turning away the next blow, Michael grunted as spasms shook his forearm. He needed space, and he knew where to find it.
Putting his back into his next swing, he sank his blade into the flesh of his pursuer’s upper arm. It disabled the man long enough for Michael to make for the wall of the nave. As anticipated, the brigand followed him over.
Mud sucking at his boots, the dimming of day cloaking the ruins in lengthening shadows, Michael took the path traveled once before when Beatrix was the prey. Thrice he came about and hefted his sword to widen the space between him and the brigand, twice more he drew blood, and with each step he led the man the way he had once gone. This time Michael cleared the breach.
A shout…a resounding crack…silence.
Michael swung around, straddled the sodden ground, and put his sword before him as a mounted brigand swept forward.
Lord, I yield to you. Guide my sword and ever shall I endeavor to be worthy of Beatrix. My tongue I will curb and my impatience.
At the last moment, he sidestepped, swept up his sword, and nearly gained the man’s head.
Issuing vile curses not unlike those Michael had spouted when he had landed in the crypt, the brigand turned his horse before the small chapel. It was the last time he would charge; however, when he rose from the mud, he was sword ready. Though not as big a man as the one who lay at the bottom of the crypt, he was agile, responding to Michael’s swings as if the sword were an extension of his arm. Blow for blow he gave, push for push, his only weakness a recklessness likely borne of having nothing for which to live. A weakness Michael no longer shared.
Measuring each sweep of the sword, knowing where his blade would strike before it landed, Michael forced the man toward the chapel where Beatrix had slept while he occupied her crypt. The brigand stumbled on the threshold but righted himself before Michael could do more than leave a mark on his face. He would not live long enough for it to scar.
Into the dim chapel they went and, shortly, a tormented cry spilled into the nave.
Beatrix peered through the rain at the chapel and prayed it was not Michael who had shouted, while all around the remaining brigands gathered their horses beneath them and flew back to the wood, leaving behind more than a dozen who had bled out their lives for a purse of silver they would never spend.
“’Tis done,” a household knight said at her back.
For Michael as well?
“My lady, are you harmed?” Sir Durand drew alongside.
Staring at the chapel, Beatrix shook her head. Come out, Michael. Pray, come out.
It seemed a lifetime before a figure appeared in the doorway, but by the width of his shoulders, the dark of his hair, and the flutter of her heart, she knew who it was. Before any could gainsay her, she slid from Sartan’s back.
“Beatrix!”
Vaguely aware it was Garr who called, she lifted her skirts and ran. The rain, continuing to pour from the sky as if from a pitcher, ran off her hair and down the neck of her mantle, but she hardly noticed. There was only Michael.
She knew when he saw her, for his stride lengthened in spite of his uneven gait, and his grim face lit amid the gathering darkness.
“Beatrix!” If not that her brother caught her shoulders, she would have collided with him.
She peered up at him where he had lunged into her path. “Garr.”
He searched her face with such intensity, it was as if he did not quite believe it was her. Then he enfolded her in his thick arms. “God has answered my prayers.”
Despite her longing for Michael, she clung to the big man whose love for her she had never felt more strongly.
It was Abel who pulled them apart with a derisive snort. “You are not the only one to have worried over our sister, Mighty Wulfrith.”
Garr relinquished her. Though their youngest brother’s arms did not enfold her as tightly, he laid a kiss to her brow. “At last, our little sister is returned to us.”
Beatrix afforded Abel a fond smile before searching past him to where Michael stood twenty feet back. His brow troubled, he watched. Waited.
“Michael,” she breathed and pulled her arm from Abel’s grasp. But as she stepped past, Garr once more set himself in her path.
“Beatrix, he is Lavonne’s man.”
“No longer.” She shook her head. “He renounces all—”
“Beatrix—”
“I love him!” And she did not care if those who had drawn near heard.
Garr’s jaw tightened. “’Tis as Sir Durand tells, but—”
“He loves me.”
Garr looked down his long nose at her. “Loves you when ’tis told you killed his brother?”
“He knows different now—that I but defended myself, that it was a…an accident.”
“
And you are certain he believes this to be true?” It was not really a question, but scorn for a heart he believed to have made a fool of her.
Beatrix took a beseeching step toward him. “Surely you saw how he…fought for me.”
“Aye, but it could be trickery—devised to draw the Wulfriths out that Lavonne might work greater revenge for the death of Sir Geoffrey.”
“You are wrong.”
“You are going home, Beatrix.”
She stumbled back. “Nay—”
“Baron Wulfrith!” Michael called.
Garr turned, and only then did it occur to Beatrix that her brother had exposed his back to a man of whom he believed such ill. But a moment later, she saw the reason for his confidence. As her brother’s men had been trained to do, they had taken control of the gathering of knights and men-at-arms. Though their numbers were fewer than Michael’s and the sheriff’s men combined, the circle they drew around the others ensured greater numbers were not needed to defeat those trapped within their net.
“Lord D’Arci?” Garr continued to deny himself his sword despite the one Michael yet gripped.
“Your sister wishes a trial,” Michael said, seemingly undaunted by the Wulfrith show of strength.
“This Sir Durand has told.”
“Then you also know she shall have her trial as I have promised her.”
“As is required by law,” the sheriff announced. As he urged his mount forward, a barely perceptible signal from Garr caused one of his knights to check the sheriff’s approach. Though Beatrix expected the same when Michael strode forward, Garr allowed his advance, the only move he made being to settle a hand to his sword hilt. And that told more than any sweep of the blade could.
“Garr, I beseech—”
With one swift move, he set her back from him. “Abel!”
Seeing her younger brother advance, Beatrix lunged forward and placed herself between Garr and Michael.
With three strides separating him from Wulfrith, Michael halted. Remembering the last time Beatrix had erected herself as a defense between two men, he growled, “I will not allow you to come between me and my opponent again, Beatrix.”
