She jerked her chin from his grasp. There were other things that troubled her. “I hear your captain is now lord of the castle.”
“Aye, as your father wished.”
She glanced over at her father, sitting by the hearth, drinking ale with the Lord of Lachanburn. His fall earlier must have brought some of his wits back. But she had mixed feelings about his decision.
“Deirdre should inherit the command,” she muttered.
“’Twould seem she has.” He grinned. “I’ve never seen Pagan so smitten with a woman. No doubt he comes at her beck and call.”
Helena scowled in Deirdre’s direction. She was brushing away Boniface’s ministrations now, and a determined fire lit her eyes as she came to her feet. Helena followed her gaze toward the buttery. To her amazement, Lucy now had her lascivious hands all over Pagan. Worse, he didn’t seem to mind.
“Smitten,” she sneered. “Indeed?” She nodded her head toward scheming Lucy.
Colin’s eyes sparkled knowingly. He held up a finger, bidding her to wait, as he watched Deirdre make her way over to the couple. To Helena’s chagrin, within a moment, Deirdre had successfully spirited Pagan away. “Indeed.” He leaned close to murmur, “You see how happily wed they are? Do you still believe you can steal Pagan from your sister?”
Helena would have said anything to get that cocksure look off his face. After all, the knave was comparing her skills to those of a common kitchen maid. She tossed her head. “I can, and I will.”
Chapter 19
Helena clenched her jaw and adjusted the shield over her forearm. Everywhere she’d looked this morn on the way to the tiltyard, Rivenloch was changed. In the space of a fortnight, the Normans had left their mark. Half the outbuildings were newly timbered. The well’s crumbling rock had been repaired. Freshly cut stone lay like giant broken teeth on the sward, ready to be stacked and mortared into some new wall or tower. Doves actually inhabited the dovecote, unfamiliar servants roamed the great hall, and strange hounds slept among the dogs of Rivenloch.
All these changes Helena had abided in silence. She supposed it could be argued that they were for the betterment of the castle. But when it came to command of the knights, the training and ordering and organizing that had always been her arena, she couldn’t be silent. In her absence, the defense of the keep had swiftly shifted from Scot to Norman. Which infuriated her.
Of course, that fury was fueled by the fact that the one Norman she’d come to care for had grown as cool to her as the Norse wind.
It was her own fault, she knew. If she hadn’t insisted that it was she still her plan to win Pagan, she might have spent the past week in much more pleasurable activities than sulking by the tiltyard and snapping at servants. But nay, she’d sentenced herself to a hell of unrequited desire.
It seemed that everywhere were sly reminders of what she was missing. Scented oils found their way into her chamber. A new linen underdress mysteriously appeared upon her pallet, a pointed replacement for the one she’d torn into bandages. Even supper featured dishes suspiciously reminiscent of Colin’s cooking. Everything seemed evocative of Colin. And to her utter frustration, she remembered in all-too-vivid detail the warmth of his skin, the caress of his gaze, the taste of his mouth.
God’s eyes! What had happened to her? She had to banish him from her thoughts. If she couldn’t control her own responses to one man, how was she going to regain command of Rivenloch’s army?
Angry with herself, with Colin, with Pagan, with all the Normans and everything around her, she let wrath empower her as she began sparring with Deirdre. Gritting her teeth, she whirled and slashed forward with her blade, backing her sister across the empty practice field with increasingly violent blows.
Deirdre, finally trapped against the fence, ducked quickly beneath her finishing swing, and Helena’s blade collided with the wattle crosspiece instead, hewing it in half.
“Here!” came Pagan’s bark from across the field. “Do not destroy my tiltyard fence!”
Helena clenched her jaw again. His tiltyard fence? Her blood seethed. She was tempted to hack the fence to bits just for spite.
But Deirdre answered him in playful indignation. “Destroy the fence? What about me?”
He chuckled fondly. “Oh. Aye. Take care with my wife as well.”
Helena bristled. My fence. My wife. Did Pagan think he owned all of bloody Rivenloch?
She slashed her blade downward. “Are we going to fight or flap our jaws?”
Deirdre gave her a nod and raised her sword and shield. Helena immediately charged forward. With each blow, she silently cursed Pagan for wreaking havoc with her life.
Slash! That was for stealing her command. Jab! That was for seizing the castle from Lord Gellir. Hack! Hack! Hack! And that was for turning her sister into a lovesick calf.
But as usual, her passion was her undoing. As she thrust viciously forward, Deirdre sidestepped her blade, giving her a hard push that sent her crashing into the fence.
Deirdre laughed, then held out a hand to her. “Temper, Helena.”
Helena was too disgusted and enraged this morn for scolding or charity. She slapped her sister’s hand away, then bolted to her feet. “Again,” she snarled.
Deirdre lifted a brow, then engaged her once more, and Helena tried to control her anger, maintaining a defensive stance.
“Here’s one Pagan showed me,” Deirdre announced, slashing diagonally downward from the right, then abruptly reversing to a forward thrust from the left. It was a clever move. There wasn’t much strength in it, but the element of surprise compensated for that. If Deirdre hadn’t halted her blade, Helena would have been stabbed through the ribs.
Normally she would have crowed with appreciation. Helena loved learning new tricks. But knowing this one had come from him, from Pagan, Deirdre’s new lord and master, soured her enthusiasm.
“Want to learn it?” Deirdre asked.
Helena shook her head and went on the offensive again, her blood boiling. She slashed through the air, imagining she carved Pagan to ribbons. Deirdre retreated as the blade drew closer and closer. Finally, Helena whirled and came across with her blade, missing Deirdre’s throat by inches. Deirdre recoiled, then returned with a chiding shove of her shield.
“’Tis only practice, Hel!” she scolded. “Leave me my head a while longer.”
Helena frowned. She didn’t mean to take her anger out on Deirdre. It was Pagan she loathed. But her sister seemed blind to the fact that she was leashed now, kept like a hunting dog at Pagan’s feet. The night of the great battle, Helena had believed he bore respect for Deirdre. He’d heeded her counsel and given her rule over part of the army. Now he wouldn’t even let her spar with her own men. And she seemed not to mind. What had happened to her strong, resolute, commanding sister?
Once more Helena raised her sword, determined to maintain control of her emotions this time. She waited for Deirdre to make the first thrust.
“Here’s another clever trick from Pagan,” Deirdre informed her.
If Helena lost her temper after that, she could hardly be blamed. Pagan. Pagan. Pagan. Deirdre might as well sprinkle salt in her wound.
While Helena fumed, her fists tight around her hilt and the brace of her shield, Deirdre began a rapid attack that kept Helena’s defenses off-balance. When Deirdre had backed her against the fence, she abruptly stepped in, pushed Helena’s blade aside with her shield, and popped up under her wrist with the hilt of her own blade. The quick snap forced the blade from her grip, and it shuddered to the ground.
Even when Helena came around with her only remaining weapon, her shield, Deirdre was ready for it. She elbowed it back, coming up with the point of her sword aimed at Helena’s throat.
“Aha!” Deirdre cried in triumph.
Helena seethed with rage. Damn that Norman! That wasn’t cleverness. It was deviousness. It was just such insidious moves that had felled Rivenloch. She was infuriated.
“Go ahead!” she shouted. �
��Finish it!”
Deirdre’s grin faded, then turned to a scowl. She blinked. “What?”
“Finish it,” she grated out. “Put me out of my misery.”
“Helena. What the Devil…”
“Just kill me now so I don’t have to endure any more of this.”
“What the bloody hell are you talking about?”
“This!” Helena said, tossing her hands up in anger. “This slow, steady invasion of Rivenloch. Ballocks! The keep looks more and more Norman every day. ’Tis a damned travesty.”
Deirdre’s gaze turned wintry. “Go on.”
“And that brute you call husband. He orders you about like a serving maid, Deirdre. ’Tis repulsive.”
Deirdre’s eyes glittered dangerously.
Helena glanced down at the steel hovering near her throat. “Either kill me or withdraw your blade. I’m not your enemy.”
“I’m not so sure.”
Helena gasped. Never had her sister said such a thing. “Oh, Deirdre,” she said bleakly, “what has that devil done to you?”
Deirdre’s gaze turned as hard as diamonds. She flung her sword away and seized Helena by the front of her tabard, hauling her to within inches of those biting cold eyes. “He is no devil, and I won’t have you call him that, do you hear me?”
Helena returned her stare with one of fire, but it wasn’t enough to melt Deirdre’s icy glare.
“Do you hear me?” Deirdre repeated, giving her a hard shake. Before Helena could answer, she continued. “And ’tisn’t what he’s done to me. ’Tis what he’s done for me. And for you, you ungrateful wretch.”
Shock took the words from Helena’s mouth.
“You were there at the battle. Did you not see his bruises? His wounds? His broken bones?” Deirdre demanded. “He suffered those for Rivenloch. He would have…” She choked off the words, overcome with emotion. “He would have died for you, Helena.”
Helena stood, dumbfounded, while Deirdre’s eyes filled with defiant tears.
“And all you can think about,” she continued, “are your own selfish desires. Aye, things have changed. Aye, I pay heed to what Pagan says. Not because I am his serving maid, but because he is wise.”
“He has caused a rift between us,” Helena murmured.
“If there is a rift between us, ’tis you who have caused it, not Pagan.”
Helena gulped. Deirdre’s words stung. And curse her raw nerves, tears began to prick at the back of her eyes.
Deirdre sighed, releasing her with a muttered curse. Then she began smoothing Helena’s crumpled tabard. “Listen, Hel,” she said more gently, “I ask only that you try to get along with him. For my sake.”
Rebellion reared its head within Helena. Why should she be the one who had to do the getting along?
Deirdre arched a brow then, and for one moment, Helena glimpsed the unyielding warrior she’d once been. “Indeed,” Deirdre said, “I command it.”
Helena frowned, but finally, reluctantly, nodded. It wasn’t the outcome she wanted. But she supposed she’d been reassured on one count. Deirdre was still as tough and strong-willed an opponent as ever. There was yet some fight left in her.
For a week, Helena kept her promise. While she didn’t go out of her way to befriend Pagan, she no longer complained about him. She even managed to return his smiles with polite nods. And she ceased trying to countermand his orders at every opportunity.
For a week, she was respectful and courteous.
For a week, she stayed out of his way.
Then on the eighth morn came the bad news.
Helena stomped down the tower steps, banging the back of her fist against the stone wall. “Bloody hell!”
She supposed anyone else would have been happy at the announcement. Miriel seemed alight with joy. Sung Li’s face was wreathed in a sage smile. And Deirdre…Deirdre positively glowed.
But for Helena, the fact that her sister was going to give birth in the spring meant nothing but trouble.
Already Deirdre had bent like a twig beneath Pagan’s influence, listening to his ideas, heeding his advice, compromising and changing and surrendering to his will.
Now this…
Surely carrying his child would break Deirdre, destroying what was left of her leadership and reducing her to a cooing new mother who’d rather suckle a babe than wield a sword.
She pounded the wall again, this time scraping her knuckle. Tears filled her eyes, tears not of pain, but of loss, for the selfish truth was that Helena had no sparring partner now. Deirdre, the fierce warrior sister she’d looked up to, was gone forever.
Sucking on her bloody knuckle, Helena made a sober vow. She’d never let a man change her the way Pagan had changed Deirdre. Never.
The practice yard was noisier than a spring fair by afternoon, pungent with dust, straw, and the sweat of man and beast. Horses snorted in derision at their masters’ commands. Gruff men barked, scolding the squires they sought to mold into warriors. Young boys practiced their vilest oaths as they battled straw targets and leather dummies.
As she stalked onto the yard toward Pagan, Helena thought of several oaths she’d like to practice.
It was only that she was upset about Deirdre’s condition. That was all, she told herself. Her foul mood had nothing to do with the fact that as she passed the buttery, she’d spotted Lucy with her hand down the front of Colin’s trews.
She came up beside Pagan, who stood against the fence with his arms crossed, watching the sparring intently.
“Fight with me,” she said tightly.
He didn’t seem to hear her. His gaze was fixed on the fighting in the yard.
She spoke louder. “Fight with me.”
“What?” he said absently, still staring toward the field, his attention riveted by the fighting. “Rauve! Get Kenneth to hold his shield higher!”
She followed his gaze. “I said, fight with me.”
“Not like that!” he called out. “Use your shoulder!”
Undaunted, Helena reached across his belly and started to draw his sword. Only then did he clap a hand onto the hilt, giving her his attention. “What?”
“Fight. With. Me.”
He perused her once, head to toe, as if she were a bothersome child. “Helena.”
Even in that one word, she heard condescension. But she’d had enough of it. Since Pagan had arrived, he’d taken over the practices, forbidding Deirdre and Helena to fight with anyone else. Deirdre had allowed it, and Helena had kept her promise to try to cooperate. But now that Deirdre was with child and refused to spar at all, Helena could no longer remain silent.
She’d tried everything this morn. Insulting the Cameliard knights. Bribing the men of Rivenloch. Even picking fights with the Normans. But no amount of taunting or daring or wheedling or belittling could get them to spar with her.
“Are you afraid to fight with a woman?” she sneered. “Is that why you got my sister with child? So you wouldn’t have to risk losing to a wench?”
Pagan looked stunned, and Helena wondered if she’d said too much. But then an image of Colin and Lucy assailed her again, and fresh anger flooded her veins.
“What bloody cowards you Normans are!”
He frowned, but it wasn’t a frown of anger. It was a frown of unease. Her words made him uncomfortable, no more. “Helena. Sister. There’s no need to—”
“Don’t call me sister!” she spit.
The combatants on the field slowly ceased their battles, drawn by curiosity to this new spectacle. Helena didn’t care. She’d take on all of them.
“I am a Warrior Maid of Rivenloch,” she announced, skewering him with a glare, “and I challenge you to battle!”
She drew her sword. To her dismay, Pagan did not unsheathe in turn, but only lifted his palms in a gesture of peace. “I…” He cleared his throat, obviously ill at ease with her challenge. “Listen, my lady,” he said softly. “I know you miss the practice field, sword fighting, sparring. But I cannot be your…s
parring partner.”
“No one else will fight me.” To her mortification, her voice cracked bitterly on the words. “Thanks to you and your bloody new rules.”
Still he seemed not to take offense. He stroked his chin, carefully considering her words. Then he crossed his arms decisively. “Colin,” he said. “Colin will spar with you.”
Her eyes suddenly welled with unwelcome tears, and it was all she could do to fight them back. “He’s…he’s wielding his blade elsewhere,” she managed to choke out, lifting her chin defiantly.
Though she said nothing more, Pagan deciphered her meaning. After a long and pensive pause, he nodded. “Very well,” he said with a sigh. “I’ll spar with you, but…”
She scowled. But what?
“You mustn’t tell your sister. You know Deirdre will only be envious.” He drew his sword. “I don’t want her tempted to fight. ’Twould endanger our babe.”
Helena looked into his eyes as if seeing him for the first time. There was an inherent kindness there that made his actions almost forgivable.
As for his swordsmanship, he proved an excellent fighter. As Helena slashed and wheeled and dodged and thrust, as her blood grew hot from battle and her skin flushed with excitement, she began to enjoy their skirmish. Pagan held back nothing, and yet she was able to catch him unawares once or twice with tricks that had him chuckling and saluting her inventiveness.
Indeed, she was having such a pleasurable time that she was almost able to forget about the philandering Norman she’d spied in the buttery. Almost.
Colin cursed that impudent wench, Lucy Campbell, all the way to the practice field. The conniving maidservant must have waited till she saw Helena to shove her hand down his braies. He should have realized the maid was up to no good when she beckoned him come to help her “sugar her sweetmeats.”
Maids with Blades Page 48
