The Angel And The Prince

by Laurel O'Donnell

Archers! And a lot of them! But under the truth powder, Bryce had told her that they would be few in number because there were not enough skilled men to be found. Perhaps this was a ploy. Perhaps these men were not archers, at all, but placed behind the stakes to intimidate the French.

  Ryen’s horse pranced skittishly, feeling its rider’s anxiety. It took a stern hand to steady the animal. It was not as easy to settle the uneasy feeling inside her.

  To Ryen’s left, Sir Clugnet exclaimed, “I will take some men and go around to the west to strike at the archers. Sir William, you take twelve hundred men and go east, toward Agincourt. We will cut down those English archers before they can do us much harm!” The two knights rode off with their men eagerly following, shouting defiant words for all to hear.

  The English suddenly uttered a loud cry and started forward again. Simultaneously, Ryen saw a great cloud rise from the earth and come toward the French like a swarm of locusts. Arrows! She quickly lowered her head, knowing that the arrows could not pierce her armor, and spurred her armored horse on.

  The animal rode forward to meet the English, but Ryen felt his hooves slip and slide in the mud. The mud was so deep he was having trouble lifting his legs. Slowly, the French trudged closer, the thick mud retarding their movement. Arrows continued to rain down upon them.

  Ryen ducked again as the arrows landed around her. She could hear the screams of her countrymen, and when she raised her eyes she was amazed at how accurate the aim of the English archers was. Many men already lay dead around her, arrows protruding from exposed flesh.

  Dread passed through her. Bryce had lied. He had lied under the powder of truth! The archers were not in bad form at all. On the contrary, Ryen had never seen better aim.

  She did not have time to consider the disastrous consequences because her horse stumbled, jarring her. She slid her leg over the beast and dropped to her feet. The horse fell to his knees before sluggishly regaining his balance. Ryen swatted the white steed away so the arrows would not harm him.

  Around her the battle raged. The French were so thickly packed that many of them could barely lift their arms, let alone control their animals. She was almost knocked over by a horse that brushed her arm as it passed. Ryen clutched her sword in two hands. To lose it now would be death. Another knight collided into her from behind. This is madness! Ryen thought. I haven’t even encountered the enemy yet and we are at war – with each other!

  Amid the confusion, she heard someone shout to retreat. She tried to turn, echoing the command, but could not because of the momentum of the men surging forward behind her. The mud clung to her feet, inhibiting her steps.

  Suddenly, the English charged and Ryen was immersed in battle. She was surrounded by whistling swords, clanging blades, and death cries. The mud sucked at her feet, pulling her down. Still, she managed to strike at the charging men, cutting down one only to be attacked by another.

  Ryen disposed of her next opponent, then raised her head to quickly evaluate her position. All about her swords clanged. The field was littered with fallen men. Knights who tumbled in the thick mud floundered helplessly like turtles, the weight of their armor weighing them down. Ryen moved forward to help a soldier to his feet. She grasped his arm and pulled. Under the added weight, her foot slipped and she almost fell, but caught herself on his shoulder. After pulling him up, her eyes again scanned the field. She could not retreat because the anxious French, now out of formation in their hurry to reach the English and gain fame and glory, were shoving forward.

  Her only option was to forge ahead into the enemy. She locked gazes with the knight standing beside her, saw the fear clearly branded in his eyes. Ryen knew he was one of the nobles not accustomed to the rigors of war and he would surely die if she did not help him. “Stay close to me,” she ordered him firmly, and he nodded.

  Ryen took a deep breath, preparing to push into the fray when she noticed two foot soldiers glancing about in confusion and desperation. Somehow they had become separated from their lord. “Follow me!” Ryen commanded, and they quickly fell in behind her. With the three men at her back, she charged forward, clearing a path through the English with a swipe here and a thrust there, her warrior instincts leading her on. She could feel the men fighting beside her with renewed confidence, could hear their blades clashing with renewed vigor. She smiled grimly with tightly clenched teeth as the fighting around her intensified.

  Then, Ryen caught a glimpse of Andre. He was sitting on his horse, his armor smeared with blood, when suddenly he clutched at his stomach where an arrow had magically appeared. He slumped forward, rolling off his horse into the mud.

  “No!” Ryen shouted, and turned, her legs aching with the effort it took to lift her feet.

  She ran as best she could toward her brother. Suddenly, an English knight blocked her path, causing her to rear back. A savage scream of frustration ripped from her anguished throat as she arced her sword toward the enemy’s head. Their swords clanged, hot blue sparks exploding from the point of impact as he expertly blocked the swing with his own blade.

  Ryen’s angry glare turned fully on him. Suddenly, she froze, unable to move, or breathe. It was his eyes that gave him away. His black eyes. She recognized them through the visor he wore. “Bryce,” she gasped.

  Ryen saw his lips move and recognition wash over his face before pain exploded from the back of her head and blackness invaded her vision.

  Chapter Twenty Five

  Ryen!

  Bryce lowered his sword and was about to reach out a hand toward her when she suddenly crumpled to her knees, and then slumped to the ground.

  Bryce stared with shock at the blood forming at the base of her helmet as she lay in a heap. She had fallen on top of two knights who had died before her.

  Died. The hairs on Bryce’s neck stood straight; his flesh became cold at the thought. He heard a movement behind him. With perfect instinct, he turned to deflect a blow from an attacking French knight. His adversary rained blow after blow on him, pushing him back, trying to cut him down, but Bryce deflected every swing. Training guided his movements, training that had ingrained his skills so deeply that they had become habit – and the only thing keeping him alive, because all he was conscious of was Ryen.

  Then, suddenly, his adversary’s sword bounced off his armor, jarring his thoughts. Anger soared through every vein in his body, and power returned to his limbs. With an angry cry, Bryce swung his blade, the strength of years of experience behind the blow. The blades clanged only once before Bryce’s sword snapped the Frenchman’s weapon in two. Then, still shouting, Bryce ran his adversary through.

  He had to finish this battle. He had to go to Ryen. Bryce fought like a man possessed. His black eyes glowered through his helmet, and when he downed one man, he turned for another. His thirst for French blood was unquenchable.

  He whirled to take on a new foe. But there were no more enemies. All he saw was his own men – some locked in the grips of their last battle, some looking about for another adversary.

  The battle was over.

  Bryce swung his gaze about, looking for Ryen amidst the carnage, but the field was littered with piles of bodies upon piles of bodies.

  After only a few minutes of his search, Bryce saw the grimy beggars, the human vultures that always seemed to appear at the end of a battle, descend onto the field to loot the corpses. As he watched a beggar slide a sharp blade across a French knight’s neck, the blood that splattered painted Ryen’s memory in crimson. The beggar thrust his dirty hands in the knight’s pouches and stole whatever he could find of value.

  Bryce could not stand the thought of one of these men defiling Ryen’s body. He had to find her.

  “C’mon, ya bloody cur,” Rafe said to his companion. Dressed in a piece of soiled brown cloth that hung to his knees, torn at the elbows and shredded at the wrists, Rafe looked as if his whole life had been a battle. He stumbled up to the next knight, his bare feet sliding in the mud.

  “I think I c
ut me bloody toe on one o’ the blades,” McDowell, his companion, said, limping and trying to peer down at his mud-covered foot. He was an older man with a head full of white hair. His entire body was caked with mud, his skin barely covered by a tunic and breeches that were so torn and ragged they hung from his thin limbs like an old cleaning cloth that had long outlived its usefulness.

  “Oh, quit your complainin’. We ain’t got time.” Rafe bent down before the knight and lifted his helmet from his head. The knight groaned and Rafe stood quickly, backing into his companion, yelling, “’E’s alive!”

  “Oh, bloody hot,” McDowell replied, and shoved passed Rafe. He bent on one knee in the mud and produced a dagger from his belt. He threw back the knight’s chin, exposing white flesh, and drew the blade across it. “You’re such a bloody woman,” he commented, before cutting the knight’s purse strings and handing the purse to Rafe.

  Rafe took it. “Don’t forget his hands!”

  McDowell shifted his position and reached for the knight’s gloved hand. He pulled the metal glove off and lifted up the bare hand. One ring glittered on the knight’s first finger, and it was promptly removed. McDowell handled the ring to Rafe.

  “Blimey! I believe it’s sold gold,” Rafe gasped, and stuck it in his mouth, biting down.

  His companion hit him in the leg and Rafe gagged before spitting the ring out into his palm. “What ya trying’ ta do, choke me? I coulda swallowed that!”

  “Lookie ‘ere, mate,” McDowell said, and crawled over to another fallen knight.

  Rafe followed and bent over the knight, hoping to find riches beyond measure. His mouth gaped at what McDowell had found.

  McDowell lifted his hands to the knight’s helmet and gently tugged it off.

  The soft feminine face was totally out of place amid the destruction and death.

  “It’s her. It’s the Angel of Death!” Rafe gasped, staring raptly at her face.

  McDowell shoved Rafe out of the way and climbed over her body to kneel at her head. He gathered her smooth hair in his bloody, mud-splattered hands and said, “I want this as proof. No one will bloody believe it.” His sharp dagger was dull with blood.

  Rafe gasped as the demon appeared, coming out of the midst of fire, heading toward them. His eyes glowed red, like the devil himself, and Rafe knew immediately who it was. “McDowell,” Rafe croaked.

  “Can’t ya see I’m busy here?” McDowell insisted, putting the blade to her white forehead.

  Suddenly, a weight so intense it threatened to crush his arm bore down upon McDowell’s shoulder and he was lifted up until his feet were dangling in mid-air. The pain dulled his shoulder and his arm, and he dropped the dagger. Then, he was spun around until he was staring into eyes as black as coal.

  “She is mine.”

  The words seemed to come from the depths of hell, for the demon’s lips barely moved.

  “Beggin’ your pardon, sir,” Rafe interrupted meekly. When the black eyes turned to scorch him to the ground, Rafe quivered and stuttered, “Your Princelyship… Your Darkness… I – I believe she’s dead.”

  For the first time, the Prince of Darkness’s shadowy eyes fastened on the woman and he released McDowell, who dropped to the ground like a heavy stone. “Pray you are wrong,” the giant snarled, and bent beside the Angel of Death.

  Rafe edged around the warrior woman and the giant, moving to his friend’s side. The two exchanged glances and then turned back to the Prince of Darkness…to find that his black gaze was fixed on them. The demon stood slowly from his crouching position and Rafe’s knees shook.

  “Be gone from this place,” the demon said, his eyes glowing as if the fires of hell had leapt to life in his body.

  The two beggars turned and ran. McDowell slipped once in the mud and blood of the battlefield, but quickly stood and raced after Rafe.

  ***

  Bryce watched until the two scavengers were out of sight, then turned back to her.

  “Ryen,” he said, kneeling again at her side. And then more tenderly, “Angel.”

  He slid his hand behind her neck and attempted to lift her head, trying to awaken her. He immediately felt moisture and pulled his hand away to see blood staining his fingers.

  Anguish jarred his body and he scooped Ryen up into his arms, pushing another fallen knight from her legs. “Ah, God, Ryen,” he whispered miserably, wishing for the hundredth time that she was not a knight. And especially not his enemy.

  With long strides, he took her to his tent.

  Bryce stared at Ryen’s face. Gently, he ran the rag over her cheeks, wiping at the mud. He had removed her armor and cleaned and bandaged the cut on the back of her head. Through the whole process, she had not moved, not even groaned.

  Bryce’s stomach was twined so tight that he thought he would snap. He wasn’t sure what the ache in his chest was, a heavy pressure that constricted, crushing his lungs until he could hardly breathe. Perhaps he was getting sick. He found that he could not take his eyes from Ryen’s somber face. It was as if she were sleeping. Her entire face was relaxed, her soft lips parted.

  Bryce felt a sudden need for her. He wanted to kiss her, thrust his tongue between those lips. The memory of her kiss had lingered like the delicate fragrance of a rose these past weeks, unwanted and distracting. The thought had returned during the long, lonely nights, and he thought upon the vow he had given to Ryen in the last moments he was with her: I’ll find you again. For weeks he had wondered what had possessed him to promise that. No woman could be as he remembered her. So defiant and headstrong, yet so soft and innocent.

  As he stared down at her, she was more than he remembered. Softer, more fragile.

  “Damn,” he murmured, standing and raking a hand through his hair. Where had the hatred gone? Only weeks before he had convinced himself that he had vowed to find her so that he could bring her to England to be humiliated for the death of Runt, so she could be punished, imprisoned in his dungeons. He had told himself that had been the plan all along. Nothing more. The hatred had sustained him through the long nights and through the pain of missing Runt.

  Then, in King Henry’s camp, word had reached them of her “betrayal”. He remembered the day with heavy guilt. He had been eating with Henry, discussing the strategy for reaching Calais. The French had been cutting off the roads so that forward progress was impossible. The conversation had somehow turned to Ryen.

  “What is she like?” King Henry had asked.

  Bryce had pondered the question for a moment. He would not lie to his king. “She is…a warrior, my lord.”

  “No, no. What is the woman like? Is she ugly?”

  “No,” he had answered, more quickly than he had intended. “When she does not have her armor on, she is delicate and soft. But she likes to pretend she is not. She is also as cunning as a fox.” He had looked Henry in the eye. “If she were born English, all of England would be at her feet.”

  “I have never heard you praise a woman so. She is pretty, then?”

  “The little vixen has caused me more than one restless night.”

  Henry bit into a pear tart. “And a warrior, too? It is obvious you are intrigued by the girl. What does she think of you?”

  Bryce thought upon the night he had been called to her tent, the way she had responded to his kiss, his touch. He did not answer, but attempted to change the subject. “I look forward to engaging the French Army.”

  Henry’s eyes narrowed, and he pursued the topic with an unwavering single-mindedness. “She may not be there,” he replied.

  Bryce paused in mid-bite to glance at his liege.

  “Tell me, Bryce, did she aid in your escape?”

  The hairs at the nape of Bryce’s neck tingled. “No. Talbot got me out.”

  “Most of France believed she aided you.” Henry dabbed at his mouth with a napkin. “She has brought dishonor to herself.”

  Bryce’s brow darkened with each slanderous word. He dropped the meat onto the table and rose, w
alking to the tent flap. He stared out at the tents of English knights without really seeing them.

  “This new disturbs you?” Henry wondered, his voice curious.

  Bryce could not answer for the anger that closed his throat.

  If Bryce had looked up, he would have seen his liege studying him with pensive eyes, obviously intrigued by his reaction. “Because if that disturbs you, I know something that may disturb you even more.”

  Bryce felt his shoulder muscles tense, his neck grow stiff.

  After a long pause, Henry said, “She has been betrothed to another man.”

  Betrothed! Bryce felt his jaw clench, his hands tighten to fists. Rage burned through him like a roaring fire, enflaming his veins. The thought of another between her creamy thighs… His knuckles cracked, he was squeezing his fists so hard. He wiped the image aside. That was not the reason he was so angry, he told himself. She had to return to England with him to pay for Runt’s death.

  “Bryce?” Henry called.

  He turned and saw the glimmer of curiosity in Henry’s eyes. He could not get the picture of her vicious people ridiculing her out of his mind. His jaw ached from clenching his teeth, and his mind burned with feverish fury at the torment and anguish Ryen must have endured. “They are lies. She did not help me. She has been wrongly accused.”

  “She did not publicly deny it.”

  Bryce frowned in confusion.

  Even now, as Bryce stared down at her peaceful face, the confusion returned. Why had she allowed the rumor to spread? And what of her marriage? Did she love the man? Bryce fumed. She would not marry anyone.

  He had laid claim to Ryen, and no other man would touch her.

  “Prince. The king has ordered all prisoners executed.”

  Bryce spun to find Talbot standing in the entrance to his tent. His right arm was in a sling, but his left hand held a sword. The fall from Ryen’s ledge to the murky waters below had cost him the use of his arm. Bryce had reset it the best he could.