by Tamara Leigh
“The baron was cut down by your men,” Michael fed Sir Robert more heinous words, “the same as they laid down Abel Wulfrith.”
Fingers spasming on the dagger’s hilt, Gaenor panted against the horse’s coarse, musty coat. Dear Lord, all is lost. My husband, my brother—
Nay, not all. Think now, Gaenor, not of what is past. Beatrix is now.
Setting her teeth against the pain that would have her crumble, she raised her head and viciously sawed at the rope.
“Hence,” Michael said, “your revenge is complete. Not only— Hold!”
Gaenor snapped her chin around, but it was not Sir Robert whom her brother-in-law addressed. Her guard, who had bested the brigands, drew up well short of the murderer who had but to open his fists to deal the Wulfriths another mortal blow.
Michael, keeping his hand raised to his men on the opposite side of the clearing, returned his gaze to Sir Robert. “Not only have you gained what you and your father sought—the life of a Wulfrith—but no longer is there anyone who stands between you and the barony.”
In that moment, the last threads of the rope gave way to Gaenor’s blade, ensuring Beatrix could not be quartered, though that would not prevent her from being halved or dragged to her death.
“Indeed,” Michael said, “’twould seem you are now my liege, Baron Lavonne.”
Staying tight to the horse’s side, Gaenor looked between her sister’s husband and his men and searched for a way to alert them to what she had done. Providing they acted without hesitation, there was a chance they could cut the ropes binding Beatrix’s wrists before the loosing of the destriers dragged her slight figure more than a few yards.
Sir Robert’s chuckle sounded terribly bitter. “Even if ‘tis true my brother is dead”—
Gaenor gasped. Had Michael lied?
— “you know I will never bear the title, that I will be extinguished with the lot of the Lavonnes. Thus, I have naught to gain by leaving your wife intact.” He jerked on the reins, further rousing the destriers such that they snorted and sidled. “And since my end will be all the more tolerable with two Wulfriths to accompany me to hell, all that remains is to send these fine beasts their separate ways.”
And he would.
Holding the recently severed rope before her that her brother-in-law and his men might better understand, Gaenor lunged into the clearing. “Cut the ropes!” she cried.
Sir Robert’s eyes opened wide. Next, his hands.
Gaenor. There was no time to question her presence or more than glancingly interpret the part she played. All Christian could do as he gave up the shadows through which he had furtively moved as taught him by Everard Wulfrith, was entreat God to protect his wife.
Lest D’Arci failed to reach the rope binding Beatrix’s wrist before she was torn apart, Christian veered away from Robert whose back was yet turned to him and, dagger in hand, launched himself at the nearest destrier. Though he hoped Gaenor would see him and know D’Arci had not spoken true about his fate, he knew her eyes were likely all for her sister. Such was not the case for his brother who swung around to flee.
Christian felt the slash of Robert’s gaze, heard his shout of anger, saw him draw his sword, but did not waver in his purpose as he had done on the battlefield previous to his training at Wulfen. First he would deal with the destrier, then the murderous man whose atrocities roused in Christian so terrible an anger that the thought of embracing death was far more palatable than it had ever been.
The horse surged past and Christian grabbed its mane, causing it to lurch sideways. In the moment it took the great animal to regain its balance, Christian pressed his chain mail-clad torso tight to the horse’s side and thrust his dagger alongside the pommel. As he was dragged forward, he sliced the blade up through the rope. It was so thick and Christian’s position so treacherous that the taut strands did not immediately yield, but a second slice caused the rope to fall away.
Christian released the mane, thrust backward to avoid landing beneath frenzied hooves, and rolled over the scrabbly ground that sloped away from the clearing. On the last roll, he thrust his legs beneath him and pushed upright. The links of his mail loosing deceptively pleasing music upon the night, he swung around to face the fog-skirted ridge upon which the shadows of those overhead moved. Though he expected his prey-turned-predator to appear against that backdrop, it was not Robert who came at him but the second destrier.
Christian jumped to the side and the horse galloped past, trailing a rope to which Beatrix was no longer bound. Praying D’Arci’s men had cut it before further injury was done their lady, he switched the dagger to his left hand, drew his sword, and searched the wood for his brother—for a shadow among shadows, a glint of moon in eyes, silvered light running the edge of a blade.
Nothing, though Robert was surely near.
Determined to make certain D’Arci’s lie remained a lie—that he would have the opportunity to return Gaenor’s love—Christian slowed his breathing and strained to catch the sound of his brother’s movements beyond the anxious voices of those in the clearing above.
Listen! Everard called to him from weeks past. And listen again. The sound that will mean the death of you if you let it slip past, will have purpose, intent, the stink of stealth…
Though tempted to close his eyes to sharpen his hearing, Christian knew better than to yield up one of his senses.
Do not let the sound elude you, he told himself. Separate it from the din above. Pick what does not belong from what does belong in this place.
The stir of chain mail to his right. The squelch of a boot guardedly treading damp grass, moldering leaves, needles of the pine.
Holding close his discovery, Christian maintained his stance, though the shadows in which he stood were not deep enough to shield him from seeking eyes.
Now breathe, Baron, Everard spoke again. Smell and taste the air beyond yourself…the sweat of your enemy that wafts fear, loathing, excitement, strain.
There it was. Not simply to the right, but ahead, the shifting air carrying the festering filth and perspiration of a long-unwashed body. And desperation. Robert had to know that what he had begun would end this night, his sole hope that his would not be the only blood to stain Soaring’s soil.
Christian let him come nearer and, out of the corner of his eye, glimpsed light on steel. Knowing the time had come to embrace the death of one with whom he shared a father, he tightened one hand on his sword and the other on his dagger. However, as he started to come around, movement on the ridge drew his regard to two figures whose swords advanced before them—D’Arci’s men who had surely been charged with bringing Robert to ground.
Though the Church-bred Christian might have viewed the soldiers as respite, the man he had shaped himself into these past years, and now the Wulfen-trained warrior, saw them as interlopers. Not only was it the responsibility of Abingdale’s overlord to end the terror that Robert and his brigands had wreaked, but it was Christian’s responsibility to stop this depraved member of his family and ensure justice was done.
“He is mine!” he shouted and set himself at the place where his brother had been—and no longer was.
As told by the flagrant fall of retreating footsteps and the ring of chain mail, the appearance of D’Arci’s men had caused Robert to run. However, he would soon learn that “the little monk” was more to be feared than soldiers who but followed orders.
Christian returned his sword to its scabbard and, keeping his dagger to hand, gave chase.
Little effort was required to espy Robert between the trees and amid the undergrowth. Indeed, so large were his movements and the din of his passing that the moonlight piercing the leaves and branches served as little more than confirmation of the path he carved across the darkness. Soon, he and Christian would meet at swords and nevermore would the miscreant—
Stay alert, Everard counseled. No greater loss can a man suffer than when he believes victory is his ere the battle is done.
&nbs
p; Christian reverted to senses that would guide him far better than anger or bloodlust. Thus, he was aware when the earth beneath his boots turned firm, when the rich, loamy scent of the heavily-treed wood was infused with the smell of running water inhabited by fish, algae, and human waste, when the shush of a stream met the distant rush and ripple of a river, when something beyond corporeal warned him danger was nearer than it appeared.
Keeping Robert in sight, he slowed and halted. Shortly, the shadow ahead also arrested its flight.
Robert swung around and, after some moments, called, “Christian!”
As Christian was no longer in motion nor his mind bent on death, he placed himself and knew what had been intended for him. Just as his father’s eldest son had learned Castle Soaring’s secrets during his years of service to D’Arci, so he had learned the secrets of the surrounding wood. Doubtless, death lay in the direction Robert ran—a sharp drop off, perhaps into a ravine, and Christian’s headlong flight would have provided his brother with another victim.
“Have you tucked that tail of yours and scampered away, baby brother?” Robert demanded, taking a step forward.
Christian remained in the shadow of an immense oak.
Robert advanced another step. “Does my sword make your heart gasp? Make you tremble like the man of God you were bred to be?” He barked laughter. “How old Aldous rues the day you came shrieking into the world—more, the day he chose you over me. And all because my mother did not speak vows with him ere falling into his bed. That is all you have and will ever have that I do not—useless words spoken before a priest who, doubtless, set many a woman upon the harlot’s path.”
Christian seated his dagger, drew his sword, and strode into moonlight. “I am here,” he called, “and here is where this night will be decided.”
“Will it?” Robert taunted.
“Aye. If there is any slaying to be done, it will be by way of the blade, not the trickery of a coward.”
Christian sensed that his brother longed to test him, to flee again that the chase might resume, but those last words caused a feral growl to erupt across the night. In the next instant, Robert sped over the ground, his sword raised.
As Christian assumed the stance Abel had time and again shown to be among a warrior’s best allies, he caught the sound of others and glimpsed D’Arci’s men who had followed though Christian had claimed this battle for his own.
“Stand down!” he roared and, a moment later, knocked aside Robert’s blade that sought to part his head from his shoulders.
Robert retreated and came again, flecking Christian with spittle as he cursed and shouted with each blow he laid across his opponent’s blade.
Though he did not stand nearly as tall as Christian, he was a well-seasoned warrior and thickly muscled. Add to that his hatred and that he had nothing to live for, and he was more deadly than most who made their living by shedding the blood of others. Thus, Christian embraced Abel’s strategy of defense over offense that he had said could tire a deadly opponent sufficiently such that, with the least amount of effort, one’s defensive stance turned offensive.
Anticipate and counter, Abel instructed. Seek the pattern, the bunching of muscles, the placement of feet and elbows and shoulders, the shifting of eyes.
That last was not possible given the night, and yet as they circled and lunged, met and withdrew, Christian sensed where best to place his blade. It was as if he stood not before Robert but behind him, guiding the swings and jabs and slashes, knowing where each would land before the clang and spark of steel on steel proved it so.
Blow after blow, some bloody, others a resounding shock to muscle and bone, he felt Robert’s fervor until, at last, his misbegotten brother tired and all that remained was for Christian to put his weight and height and strength behind him—to move from sword play to sword lust that he might forever end Robert’s treachery and depravity.
He swept his sword left and up, preventing his adversary’s blade from finding his heart.
Robert drew a guttural breath, swung again, and ran his blade up off Christian’s. However, as he moved to reverse his swing, Christian abandoned his defensive stance and slammed his blade into his brother’s. The force staggered Robert back, allowing Christian to claim that moment in time when his brother laid himself open. With an arcing slash, he drove his blade hard into Robert’s armored forearm and felt and heard the crack of bone.
Robert bellowed as the hand of his sword arm lost its grip and the weapon dropped to the trampled ground.
Here, then, the end Christian sought that required but one final thrust of the blade to ensure Robert Lavonne never again worked harm upon any.
As Christian watched his brother take another step back and clasp a hand over his slack arm, he remembered Abel rasping, When next you face a true enemy, you must wish his death.
And in the dark and desperate places of Christian, he did wish it. Before today, he had doubted he was capable of embracing death, but after what Robert had wrought upon Sir Mark, Aldous, Helene, D’Arci’s men and retainers, Abel, Durand, Beatrix, Gaenor…
He was a scourge, an evil if ever evil dwelt in bodily form.
“’Twould appear,” Robert panted, “the little monk has learned to swing a sword.”
Christian stared through the moonlight into his brother’s pain-contorted face. “That I have.”
“Then for what do you wait?” Robert thrust his uninjured arm out to the side, opening himself wide. “Cut me down and be done with it.”
Embrace death. Finish it now.
Christian shifted his grip on the hilt in anticipation of the killing blow that would be most merciful placed at the neck.
“If I stood where you stand, already I would have done it,” Robert spat. “And you know not how I would rejoice in giving the ground a good, long drink of your blood!”
Christian knew it was so, that death would be fast upon him had he been the one disabled. And yet…
Yet it was so because his father’s misbegotten son embraced those dark, desperate places that anger, resentment, envy, and hatred had long ago carved into him—places that had opened within Christian with the unfolding of this night.
Was that behind Robert’s taunting? His final act of revenge to turn the “little monk” into one who killed a defenseless man without thought or question? To scour God from Christian’s soul?
As Christian drank deeply of the cool night air that was a balm against the heat coursing his skin above and below, he struggled to cast out the pitch-black places that sought to convince him that only the spilling of blood—here and now—would ensure that never again would those Christian loved be threatened by Robert’s evil devices.
Embrace death! Abel rasped.
Christian drew a deep breath and eased it out. In circumstances such as these, Abel’s road seemed the easiest to travel. But it was a road Christian would not set himself upon lest it was one he could not cede—one that would take him far from Gaenor.
Though he knew Abel’s—and Everard’s—instruction was surely responsible for his victory, there was something over which the youngest Wulfrith brother erred. One did not have to choose between the class that prayed and the class that fought. One could be both.
Christian lowered his sword. “’Tis done. As King Henry is eager to grant you an audience, I will give you over to his men that you may be returned to London to account for your crimes.”
Robert gripped his broken arm and stumbled back to support himself against a tree. “And here I thought Abingdale’s liege might finally prove worthy. But still you prefer clasping one hand with the other over clasping a sword—prostrating yourself before an altar while another does the deed and duty that is yours alone.”
Christian pitied his brother who would rather die here than be given into the hands of an angry king. But though it would likely be more merciful to end this now, and he would have if they had remained matched in skill and fervor, he would not put his sword through a man no lon
ger capable of defending himself. He would not embrace death as it was not meant to be embraced.
Christian motioned D’Arci’s men forward. “Bind him.”
The men hastened past him and over the shadowed ground.
“Have a care,” Christian warned. “Somewhere on his person is a dagger eager to spill your blood.” And for this as well, Robert had surely encouraged his brother to end his life—the possibility that, in doing so, Christian might draw near, foolishly supposing a warrior whose sword arm was injured could no longer dispense death.
Amid Robert’s cursing, struggle, and shouts of pain, the men relieved him of the dagger with which he attempted to fend them off, but it was the one secreted in his boot that proved the prize.
“’Tis a Wulfrith dagger, my lord,” one of the men-at-arms called as the other set to binding Robert’s wrists before him.
Sir Mark’s dagger. The knight would be pleased to have it returned.
“Finish it!” Robert shouted. “Now!”
Christian sheathed his sword and, when D’Arci’s men herded his brother before him, said, “Methinks you need not fear the king will be slow to dispense justice for those you killed in escaping his prison.”
Robert bared his teeth above the rough brush of beard. “Ah, but you ought to fear, brother, for as I escaped Henry once, I shall do so again. I will be back.”
It was largely an idle threat, especially considering his broken arm, but still Christian would take no chances where Gaenor was concerned. “’Tis possible, and for that I shall accompany you to London and not leave your side until I see for myself that never again will you darken the lives of those I love.”
Robert shoved his thick body forward, straining against his captors’ hold. “Love!” he spat.
Christian turned away and led the way across the wood.
As expected, Robert did not come quietly, his anger and desperation resounding through the trees. Lest his din rouse other brigands who might have eluded capture, Christian remained alert. However, their passage was uneventful and, when they reached the clearing where Beatrix was to have met her death, the only evidence of what had happened in that place was the bloodied and torn bodies of two brigands.
