By Grace Possessed

by Jennifer Blake

  She cradled the hot iron of him against the softness of her belly, moving against it in instinctive pleasure. He cupped her bottom, aiding the slide, clasping, squeezing the two half spheres with his fingertips grazing their cleft.

  Clenching her hands in his hair in an abrupt reflex, she drew his head back, spoke against his lips. “If I am a witch, I want to ride.”

  A choked sound left him, while his grip tightened upon her. “Aye, my sweeting, and so you shall, so you shall.”

  Hard on the words, he stripped off her shift, then caught her to him while he straddled the cot. He dropped down upon it so hard it creaked, still holding her belly to his as he lay back upon it. Lifting his legs, he stretched out, seating her so that his hard rod was at the apex of her thighs, nudging at her hot, damp softness.

  She needed no more. Levering upward, she settled upon him, sliding to take him deep. She rode him then with wild abandon while he fingered their joining, circling the small peak of flesh at her arched opening with his thumb. She rode him until she was mindless, heedless of everything except the magical flight. She rode him while he bucked beneath her, rode him until her chest ached, her muscles were on fire and her mind burned with longing; until there was nothing, nothing except the two of them and the night. And when the storm broke, so did she, arching above him like a pulled bow, flooding him with her very essence as she took his deep inside. Boneless, then, she collapsed upon his chest while their hearts shuddered, thundering together.

  Well before the dawn, the march continued.

  It picked up speed as the royal heralds came and went, lashing their horses as if the hounds of hell were after them, or mayhap the dogs of war. Their news, delivered to Henry from his spies within the rebel camp, and his patrols that put ungentle questions to stragglers and looters from it, filtered down in a matter of hours to the trailing end of the column where Cate rode. The earl of Lincoln had not only landed at Piel Island and crossed to Furness, but had led his forces into Yorkshire, stronghold of the Yorkist faction, where he hoped for a groundswell of support.

  Though many joined his cause, it was not in the strength he had anticipated. The peace and fair-handed governance Henry had brought to England seemed to have found favor even in Yorkshire. The end of the thirty-year conflict between the white rose of York and red rose of Lancaster that he had brought about was something few wanted to see undone. Fewer still cared to set off another round of bloodletting by countenancing an upstart who might or might not be a true Plantagenet. Nor did it sit well that he was being brought to them on the shoulders of Irish and German soldiery.

  Henry, by contrast, arrived at Nottingham to the cheers of the populace. He was joined by a force of men far larger than expected, making his army some fifteen thousand strong in contrast to the eight thousand credited to the Yorkists under Lincoln. They lay there for a few days to rest and replenish supplies, while Henry and his commanders held council to decide on strategy before moving on toward Newark.

  This last advance was enlivened by a pernicious report that the two forces had met and Henry been defeated. Spread by the enemy to prevent more men from flocking to Henry’s standard, it had to be countered by a flurry of heralds sent in all directions.

  On the move again, the king’s army paused for the night at the village of Radcliffe, some eight miles out from Newark. It was there, an hour or two after midnight, that news came of the rebel army. It was encamped on a ridge above the Trent Valley, near the village of East Stoke.

  What followed was controlled chaos. Henry intended to prevent the earl of Lincoln from supplying his army in Newark, it seemed, as well as mounting a surprise attack. His officers and men would move fast, leaving the supply carts, provisions, cooks, bakers, laundresses and all other followers behind.

  Ross, summoned from their bed by the discreet call of a sentry outside the tent flap, threw on his clothes, accepted Cate’s help with his mail and armor, and then buckled on his sword. With his helm under one arm, he swept her to him for a long, hard kiss. When he lifted his head, he stood staring down at her, raking her face with his dark blue eyes. For an instant, she thought he would speak. Instead, he kissed her once more and was gone.

  She wanted to run after him, to call out to him, to tell him…what? What was there to say?

  Nothing could change what was between them, nothing stay what was to come. She would not burden him with her doubts and fears, the news that she could be with child or a declaration he might not care to hear. Closing her eyes, she prayed in less than coherent phrases while tears squeezed between her lashes.

  When the men began to move out, she wrapped her cloak around her and stepped outside the tent to watch them go. Some swung along, grinning, as if heading to a fair. Many seemed half-asleep, and others stared ahead with grim-faced acceptance. The tramping of their feet raised so much dust it was almost impossible to identify the mounted knights that rode up and down their line, shouting encouragement, harrying stragglers. Still, she knew Ross beyond doubt by his plaid, which billowed around him. She followed him with her gaze, turning to keep him in view, straining to see the last of him as he grew smaller in the distance.

  The horseman came out of the dust, so armored he would have been unrecognizable but for the device on the tunic that covered his breastplate. He drew up with such abruptness that his destrier reared, raking the air with its hooves. Staring down at her with his visage distorted by the metal crosspiece that covered his nose, Trilborn drawled, “Well, Lady Catherine, will you wish me Godspeed?”

  “No.” The word was brittle with disdain.

  “Come, have you no concern for what I go toward?”

  “None whatever.”

  He laughed with a hollow echo inside his helm. “You should, you know.”

  Foreboding trickled down her backbone in icy rivulets, but she answered with bravado. “I fail to see why. It’s nothing to me.”

  He reined in his restive mount with a hard jerk. “Not even if I am sworn to cut down the king?”

  Her heart smote her lungs as it jolted into a harder beat. “You would not dare. You would be cut down in your turn.”

  “You think so? Much is possible in the thick of battle.”

  “Ross knows what you are about,” she said with a lift of her chin. “He will stop you.”

  “Oh, I depend upon his trying. ’Twas my whole point in letting you guess my intention, so you would pass it to Dunbar. The only honor I crave more than ridding England of Henry Tudor is that of making you a widow.”

  19

  The battle was finally joined on a cloudless summer’s morning, in a meadow where larks had saluted the heavens only moments before, and the grass was so verdant a green it hurt the eyes to look at it. The rebel army poured down a gully from their height, trampling the heath and bracken of the moorland. They met Henry’s vanguard upon the open meadowlands and newly planted fields beyond.

  The collision was vicious, the ensuing fight a bloody melee. The earl of Oxford led the vanguard, taking the brunt of it in the center, while the remaining force divided to either side. Braesford charged on the left with his company, including David, who was outfitted as a knight this day, while Ross was on the right.

  The noise was deafening, an endless confusion of shouts, curses, groans and shrieks amid screaming horses, clashing steel, blows crashing on shields and the whistling of darts used by the Irish. The sun shone down, bouncing off helms and sword blades with blinding force. Half-deaf, squinting against the bright light and dust, boiling hot under his mail, Ross fought with the fury of some infernal machine. He acted on instinct, with rote moves practiced so many thousands of times that he could follow them in his sleep. Time ceased to have meaning. Minutes became hours. He seemed to neither advance nor retreat, but to cleave to the position he must hold or die.

  Somewhere on the edge of his field of vision, he was aware of the king. As with most royal commanders, he sat his destrier on a hillock where he followed the action, sending heralds fly
ing here and there with orders. Ross knew his duty. He must not stray far from his place as guard for the English sovereign.

  As the center faltered and began to fall back, Henry sent his yeoman guard flying to support Oxford. The king was suddenly alone, virtually without protection.

  It was then that a knight, backed by a half dozen more with the same colors, detached himself from the main body. He charged Henry’s hill, lance leveled and steady, shouting something that was lost in the dusty din. Ross glimpsed the knight’s device as it flashed past him, felt the hair stand up on the back of his neck.

  Trilborn.

  Trilborn charged the king, who had no guard. It was just as Cate had said, after all. If he killed Henry, the battle would be over.

  Ross dispatched a German mercenary armed with an ax, then wrenched his mount around while shouting to Braesford and David. The young squire swung toward him, but Braesford did not hear as he slashed his way toward a knot of soldiery protecting the Yorkist earl of Lincoln and the boy-king for whom the battle was being waged. The wind whistled through Ross’s helm as he leaned forward along the huge destrier’s neck, red-stained sword at the ready. His blood beat high and wild and his brain was on fire. Rising inside his chest was that ancient shout, a Scotsman’s call to battle in blood feud. It scraped his throat, filled his ears and rang in his mind with ghostly echoes of a hundred raids with his kinsmen beside him.

  Ahead of him, he saw the king slam his visor shut and bring up his sword, saw the royal blade flash as Henry defended himself against the onslaught with fierce and steady strength. His standard bearer, all the protection he had left, received a blow across the chest and dropped from sight. Now the king was surrounded. He could not hold out for long.

  Ross’s great-hearted destrier, whinnying in triumph, crashed into the fray. Trilborn’s mount was shunted aside, while one of the other knights lost his balance and toppled from the saddle. Cursing, the English lord disengaged and kicked his way free. Yanking his mount around, Trilborn trampled his own man as he rode upon Ross again.

  Ross met the attack with savage power, felt the reverberation of the blow shudder through his arm and down his spine. He spared a glance to where a fierce-eyed horseman with a raven device had come to the king’s aid. David, he saw with an edge of despair, only a stripling instead of a war-hardened veteran.

  He and Trilborn settled into a clanking, ringing exchange. Sweat poured into Ross’s eyes. His teeth ached far up into his skull from clenching them. His sword arm burned, yet furious energy powered his every blow, and he waited in low cunning for his opponent to make a mistake. He wanted him dead, this Sassenach bastard, enemy of his clan who had dared to strike Cate, dared to lust after her, threaten her and name her a liar. He would see him dead here, at last.

  The man who had engaged the king was down, struck from the saddle and laid low by David. The boy wheeled to face the next who might try to take him.

  In that instant, a cry went up. Lincoln had fallen! The false king was captured!

  The earl of Lincoln, Yorkist commander, was dead. Young Edward VI, so-called king, had been taken. Braesford had the boy, carrying him up before him as much for his safety, belike, as for a captive of war.

  Trilborn cursed and reared his destrier, letting the flashing hooves fend off Ross’s slashing advance. With a howl of hatred, he swung free. He wheeled around and galloped away, fighting through and beyond what had suddenly become a bloody rout.

  From where Ross sat upon his destrier, it was clear the battle was ended. The field before him was littered with the fallen, exposed as their comrades ran. Henry’s army had been not only superior in numbers, but better armed and outfitted against primarily Irish troops without swords or bucklers, and protected only by leather jerkins. With something like half their number slain, the rebels had broken and were running away, with the Lancaster forces in pursuit. Henry could plant his standard here at the top of this hill and call himself victor whenever he chose.

  Yet Ross could not ride after Trilborn, not yet. Henry was protected only by his own sword and that of one lone squire, David.

  Ross stared over his shoulder to where his enemy had disappeared, even as he leaned from the saddle to flick the royal standard upward with his sword point. He watched while David, Henry’s new standard bearer, took it from him and let it unfurl in the warm summer wind.

  Trilborn was running away. He was leaving the field, deserting both Yorkists and Lancastrians, riding back the way they had come. He was heading south toward Radcliffe, where Cate waited.

  The battle was over and Henry defeated. Both Ross and the king were dead.

  Cate shook her head, staring up at Trilborn where he sat his destrier, while her heart stalled in her chest at the news he had brought. “No,” she whispered.

  “Come,” he said, shoving up the visor of his helm as he made his appeal. “You must leave here. The camp will be overrun shortly by Lincoln’s army.”

  “How…how did it happen?” She could not make herself accept it. Ross was too vital, too strong within himself for such a fate.

  “What does it matter? If you stay here, you’ll be forced to spread your legs for every foot soldier in Lincoln’s army. I would save you from that fate. Come with me, before it’s too late.”

  It was the curse of the Graces. It had triumphed at last.

  Or had it?

  Doubt moved through her in a sickening spiral. Faced with the final effect, her mind refused to grasp it.

  “Where were you when he fell?” she asked, shading her eyes with her hand against the midafternoon sun. “Were you nearby?”

  “God’s blood! What does it matter?” Trilborn demanded, with hot choler rising in his face.

  “You swore to kill him, and the king.”

  “A stupid jibe only. Cate…Lady Catherine, we must make haste. If you are caught here, I may be unable to save you.”

  “Braesford? And David? Are they dead, as well?”

  “I know not.” His face darkened with his rage. “Come with me now, unless you plan to be a whore trailing after the Yorkist army. Can you really prefer that to my bed?”

  She did. She would rather by far take her chances with the laundresses who had befriended her. To lie beneath Trilborn, to accept him inside her, would sicken her to her very soul.

  Was Ross truly dead? She wouldn’t believe it, could not. She would surely feel it in her heart if it were so.

  “No,” she said, over the ache that threatened to close her throat. She lifted her skirts as she backed away. “No, I can’t go with you.”

  “I insist.” He kicked his huge mount into movement, following after her.

  He meant to force her. Eyes wide with the discovery, Cate glanced around her. The nearby tents seemed deserted, though movement could be glimpsed far down the row. She could hear a babble of voices somewhere, thought another rider must have come from the battlefield. No one was paying the least attention to what was happening with her.

  Abruptly, the distant shouts took on meaning. “Lancaster! Lancaster! Henry was victor! God save King Henry!”

  “You lost,” she said in sudden discovery, even as she skipped backward from the destrier’s steady advance. “You changed sides, and now must run or be hanged as a traitor.”

  “They’ll not catch me unless they can reach across the Irish Sea.”

  “Flying like a coward. I might have guessed!”

  He gave a barking laugh. “But alive, unlike some.”

  Had he really killed Ross in the heat of battle as he had sworn? The raw ache of that possibility fueled her rage. “They’ll hunt you down. You’ll never get away.”

  “Could be, but I’ll have you first,” he said, and set spurs to his stallion.

  The destrier surged forward. Cate broke and ran. She could hear the heavy thud of hooves behind her, smell hot horseflesh and feel the whiff of the huge animal’s breath on the top of her head.

  Abruptly, her flying veil was caught, and her hair in it
s long braid beneath it. She cried out as she was lifted high. Reaching back, she grasped Trilborn’s gloved wrist even as he hauled her against him, crushing her to the hot steel of his armor.

  She fought him, twisting, clawing, kicking and shrieking like a madwoman. She almost wrenched from his grasp, almost fell.

  He grabbed her again, cursing, dropping his reins. She glimpsed his face, his lips twisted in a snarl as he drew back a gloved fist.

  It slammed into the side of her head. Pain burst inside her skull. She reeled away over the neck of the destrier, plunging into swirling gray-black mist. She felt herself caught, jerked upright in a hold so tight she couldn’t breathe. Then merciful darkness took her.

  Agony jolted her awake. Dazed, drifting, she remained still with the ancient intuition of the hunted.

  The movement beneath her told her she was held upon horseback. She thought the big destrier must have leaped a ditch or low wall, coming down hard with its double burden. Cate sat unmoving, eyes closed. The pain in her head was so fierce she feared she was about to be sick.

  Slowly, she recognized her position in front of Trilborn, recognized his scent of acrid sweat and cloves. The armhole edge of his cuirass dug into her shoulder, the big saddle’s cantle pressed into her hip, and she was far too snug against the juncture of his spread thighs. A moan pressed against her throat, and she swallowed it down.

  Where were they? How long since they had left the camp? She opened her eyes in the barest of slits, but clenched them shut at once as bile surged into the back of her throat. It had been shortly after midday when Trilborn approached her, and now the shadows were long under the trees, stretching over the field they were crossing.

  She had seen no sign of a road in her brief survey. Trilborn must be traveling crosscountry. How far had they come? Where were they headed?