They circled yet again. It was Lacklin who was retreating before Roger’s advance, but Roger could detect no weakening in his technique. Every attack was met with a smooth parry and riposte, and every counter-riposte of Roger’s was coolly repelled. It did not take long for Roger to realize that Francis was conducting no offensive of his own. Experimentally, he feinted off-balance, leaving his right side undefended and eliciting a gasp from Alix. Francis’ eyes were bland as he ignored the opening and fell back.
“Stop mocking me,” said Roger. “Fight, damn you!”
“I am admiring your technique.”
“Torment me, if you will. But this is unfair to the spectators, and Alix has suffered enough. Let it be decided, one way or the other, without undue delay.”
Francis did not reply, but he began to move with the skill of a master.
From the dais, Alexandra watched the two men with growing, albeit reluctant, admiration. She had not caught their words, but she had heard them speak, and then something had changed. The bout that had been careful, measured, almost dull, transformed itself into an elegant, stylized dance of death.
They were well-matched. Better matched, somehow, than they had been last summer in the forest. Then Roger had clearly been on the defensive. Now he was more assured, more determined, and more threatening. A certain dramatic flair characterized his movements as he beat, parried, thrust, riposted in perfect synchrony with Lacklin’s identical movements. Tall and slender as he was, his grace was evident, but so was the power in his strong shoulders and long arms, the subtlety in his firmly flicking wrists, the palpable masculine force in his lunging thighs. Francis Lacklin is not so beautiful, she thought idiotically as they wove a trail of silver ribbons through the air around them.
And she wondered at the perversity in human nature that could create such an illusion of beauty at the very borderline of death.
They fenced with this beauty and precision for many long minutes, moving back and forth across the hall, up and down and around. But such perfection could not continue indefinitely. Sooner or later, one of them would make a mistake. When he did, the other would strike.
The thought had barely run through Alexandra’s mind when Roger missed his footing. He recovered, but the moment cost him. Alexandra’s heart nearly choked her when Lacklin feinted cleverly, then thrust high, catching the edge of Roger’s right shoulder as his sword dropped in error to defend the low inside line. Blood welled up instantly, and the spectators groaned. The heir of Whitcombe could bleed. He could die.
It was a trifling wound, but Roger felt slightly ill as he acknowledged it. Francis had disengaged. His face was taut with tension. “First blood to me. I am satisfied if you are.”
“No.” Roger felt a stinging; no real pain and, more important, no numbness or stiffness. “We will continue.”
“We have fenced scores of time, but always with blunted tips. It gives me no pleasure to watch your blood flow. Let us end this folly now. You may do whatever you want with me. Whatever you believe to be just. Turn me over to the crown. Hang me. It matters not. But please don’t make me kill you.”
“What a shame you felt no such scruples about the other people you killed.” Roger raised his blade to reengage. “Defend,” he insisted, and attacked.
It was as if his wound served to increase his energy, for Roger fought ferociously now, forcing Lacklin to retreat. Alexandra pressed her hands together, praying inarticulately. The pace increased, and soon both men were breathing rapidly. Roger drove Francis back against the tapestries that hung upon the walls, where, for an instant, the older man faltered. But he defended himself adequately against Roger’s attack, pressing him back in turn while he swiftly recovered, finding an opening and seizing it. Another ring of steel, another parry, high this time as for a moment they grappled body to body. Alexandra moaned, unable to see, in the tangle of thrashing limbs, precisely what was happening.
They sprang apart, blades cutting wildly as the fine art of the match was abandoned. The referee yelled something and they disengaged, backing a few steps away from each other, both gasping air, both running with sweat. They eyed each other warily and circled again, engaged only at the tips. There was anger between them now. Alexandra could feel it. Control—both bodily and mental—was disintegrating as the raw passions that moved them built toward the flash point.
They fenced energetically for several minutes more, and then the pace seemed to slow. Alexandra guessed that they were both growing tired. Then, unexpectedly, Lacklin attacked again, driving Roger backward at the speed of a run. Roger missed a parry and Lacklin’s blade snaked through his weak quarte defense. Alexandra cried out as the steel shot toward her lover’s heart. But instead of falling to the floor in a heap, Roger did an astonishing twist in the air and avoided the thrust. Lacklin’s immediate retort sent Roger to one knee, his blade thrust up like a crossbar, protecting his throat and chest.
There was utter silence for a moment; then Francis fell back. “Get up.”
Roger’s eyes blinked closed for a moment as he acknowledged the fear within him. Again, as usual, he was going to lose to Francis, and this time he would die. It had been foolish to think he could turn this particular tide. Here, at least, Francis would always be his master.
His dismay startled him. He had faced death before without faltering. But it was different today; he was not ready to die. Why had he allowed Alix to watch? He could not bear the thought of her witnessing his death.
He glanced toward her as he rose, noting her pale face. Take heart, I’m not dead yet. Then he saw something else. Behind Alix, leaning on Dorcas’ arm, was the baron, his father. He had risen from his sickbed to see the outcome of this fight.
Body of Christ! He was amazed that Dorcas had allowed it. Surely this would qualify as precisely the undue excitement that his father was supposed to avoid.
Grimly Roger engaged blades with Francis once again. His father was dying. There was no love between them, it was true, but there was the family honor. His father’s eldest son had died at Francis Lacklin’s hands, and Roger was determined that the baron should not go to his grave grieving over the loss of yet another son and heir.
Steel clashed and rang as they attacked, parried, feinted, and lunged, neither of them exhibiting much panache now that they were so exhausted. Roger’s shoulder was hurting, although the bleeding had stopped. His wrist was losing some of its power. And so far he had not penetrated Francis’ guard, not delivered even so much as a scratch. He tried to concentrate on strategy, but all his plans seemed to have disappeared in smoke. He battered the high lines, watching intently for a slip, a momentary falter, an opening of any kind. But there was nothing. And his own defense was working on instinct alone, as he relied on his limbs to act without his conscious direction.
Suddenly he realized that his original strategy was working: Francis was even wearier than he was. Roger forced his gritty, burning eyes to study his adversary. Francis was breathing heavily; his shirt was soaked through with sweat. There were dark shadows under his eyes, the like of which Roger remembered from those days when he and Alix had hovered over Francis’ bedside on the Argo. For the first time that Roger could recall, his old friend’s swordplay was loose, careless. Once, as he extended his arm in an attack, the arm trembled, and his face contorted in pain.
Jesus. Roger feinted skillfully, then again, and watched in disbelief as Francis dropped his blade to parry the second feint, leaving, at last, an opening. Roger lunged; for an instant, gray eyes met brown. Francis leapt to the side so quickly that Roger’s tip caught his arm instead of his chest. Cloth ripped and Roger felt the sickening jar of flesh giving way beneath steel. There was blood; more blood than there had been with Roger’s shoulder wound. And this was Francis’ sword arm.
“Very good,” said Francis, as coolly if he were acknowledging a hit in a practice bout.
Roger leapt back, disengaging. “You may bind it up.”
But this time it was Francis
who said, “No, we will continue. Let’s get this over with.”
Once again their blades clashed. It was apparent to everyone that this would be the last phase. Both combatants were wounded; both were too tired to fence with any art. Alexandra watched in growing horror as they fought with obvious desperation, their faces pale and set, their arms heavy, their movements slow and vicious. When Lacklin’s blade cut through the air where an instant before Roger’s bare throat had been exposed, Alexandra averted her eyes, only to look up and discover that her lover had ducked in time. Beside her Roger’s father groaned as he watched; his breathing seemed as hard as his son’s. Alexandra signaled Dorcas with her eyes to get the baron away, but with tears streaming down her cheeks Dorcas whispered that he was determined to see this through. The baron heard.
“I owe him this,” he told her. “I’ve never stood by him, never encouraged him, never shown him any love. Dorcas has told me why you came back to England, and why he followed. I have misjudged him. I’ll be here for him now, though it be the final act in my wretched life.”
Alexandra squeezed the baron’s hand. “He appreciates your presence, I’m sure.” But in fact she didn’t know whether Roger was even aware of it. He was fighting for his life, and Francis seemed stronger once again. He forced Roger back until they were directly in front of the hearth. Its blaze threw their silhouettes high on the walls, two grappling shadows, dark as death itself, each trying to lay the other low.
Roger misinterpreted a feint. Off-balance, he parried wildly as Lacklin attacked in quarte, striking for the heart. At the last moment, Roger’s blade whipped up to defend, the force of his desperation jarring Francis’ injured sword arm. Then Lacklin, overextended at the end of a lunge, did not recover in time, and Roger’s savage counter parry wrenched the blade from his hand. It clattered to the floor. Francis straightened, empty-handed, disarmed. And the edge of Roger’s rapier followed, lodging against the hollow of his opponent’s throat.
There was complete stillness in the hall. They stood less than two feet apart, two friends, two enemies, heaving for breath and staring into one another’s eyes. “My victory,” said Roger. His ribs were burning; he could hardly speak, but he managed to get the words out: “For the death of my brother, for Ned, for Priscilla Martin, and for Alexandra, I call your life forfeit.”
Francis showed no trace of fear. He half-smiled. “I congratulate you. You’re the first man to defeat me in nearly fifteen years. You are your own master now.” He paused for an instant, and then added, “I am ready. Good-bye.”
Oh God! Roger’s trembling hand jerked the blade a couple of inches back. He could not. At the end of a thrust… perhaps. But like this?
“Do not falter,” said Francis in a voice so low only Roger could hear. Silver-gray eyes stared into his, wanting nothing, waiting for nothing but surcease. “Do it. It’s what you want. It’s what I want. End it, Roger, now.”
Roger tried again, scraping the blade across his old friend’s skin, but unable to press, to cut, to kill. Jesus! The coup de grace is given swiftly, kindly, surely. ‘Tis monstrous to make him wait.
The hot sweat that had been steaming from Roger’s skin turned icy cold. The world darkened around him and he was back on the Thames riverbank, watching Francis deliberately thrust himself in the way of a blade that was intended for him. No, he thought. No. “I cannot. God help me, I cannot.” And he threw down his sword.
There was more stunned silence; then several things happened at once. People began shouting, cheering. Alexandra burst from the dais and ran to Roger, flinging herself into his arms. Francis swayed, and had to support himself on the mantel above the hearth. The baron bent over in his chair, burying his face in his hands.
“You did it,” Alexandra was saying, cradling her exhausted lover in her arms. “You fought him and survived. You won! Do you realize what you’ve done? You’ve defeated one of the finest swordsmen in Europe.” She let out a whoop of pure delight. “You defeated him, and you’re both still alive!”
She kissed his lips, and then let him go, for the others were beginning to crowd around to congratulate him. She checked his shoulder briefly, and was relieved to see that the bleeding had stopped. The same was not true of his opponent, whose sleeve was crimson with still-flowing blood. She went to Francis, who was alone, his forehead pressed against the wall, his shoulders heaving as he continued to fight for breath—unwanted breath. “Francis?” It mattered not a jot that this man had tried to drown her. “You’re bleeding. Let me see to your arm.”
But he twisted away from her, not wanting to be touched. She desisted, saying softly, for his ears alone, “I know. You would rather be dead. But for his sake, be grateful you’re not. How do you suppose he would feel, going through the rest of his life knowing he’d cut your throat?”
Then gently, impersonally, she examined the gash on his arm. It was nasty, far nastier than the wound on Roger’s shoulder. She quickly tore a piece from the bottom of her shift and bound it around the seeping wound. “That’ll stop it temporarily, but it must be properly cleaned.” She called out to one of the servants, “I’ll need hot water and bandages, if you please.”
But the woman called back, “Mistress, I think you’d better look to my lord the baron. ‘E doesn’t look so good. ‘E’s clutchin’ ‘is chest and ‘is breathin’ sounds funny.”
Both Alexandra and Roger rushed to the dais, where the baron was still bent over in his chair. Dorcas was holding his head, her eyes round with fear.
“I’m well,” the baron was insisting, even as he fought for breath. Alexandra noted the bluish tinge around his mouth.
“Where’s his physician?”
Roger was cursing, his victory temporarily forgotten. “Probably drunk in some comer, as usual. Christ Almighty, Father, why didn’t you stay in your bed?”
The baron looked up and met his son’s eyes. “I wanted to be here for you. I vowed to be here even if it was the last thing I ever did.”
“As it may well have been,” Roger snapped, but there was a gentleness in his eyes that Alexandra had never seen him betray to his father. “You thought he was going to defeat me, didn’t you?” He glanced around at the others, who avoided his eyes. “You all thought so, didn’t you?” He laughed softly. “I’ll confess I feared it, too.”
Alexandra had loosened the baron’s collar. She was taking his pulse, which was rapid and irregular. He seemed to be breathing a little more easily, but there was still a trace of cyanosis around his lips. “Let’s get him back to bed, please. Now.”
The baron tried to rise, but Roger cursed and pushed him back down. “You’re not walking. Here.” He bent over. “Put your arms around my neck.”
“You cannot carry me, my son. You are exhausted.”
Roger gave his father a jaunty grin. “It’s just sinking in that I’ve actually fought Francis and lived. I could carry the world at this moment, I think. Come.” And with no apparent effort, he lifted his father’s wasted body into his arms.
“What about him?” one of the men-at-arms demanded, pointing to Francis, who hadn’t moved from the fireplace.
Roger spared a glance at his old friend. “Lock him in a cell. His fate will be settled on the morrow.”
“Settled? How?”
Roger bore his father toward the stairs that led to the upper reaches of the keep, taking care not to jolt him too much. “He is guilty of murder. You may construct a scaffold. At dawn tomorrow, he will be hanged.”
Chapter 40
Roger’s father slept for the rest of the day after the duel, gravely ill but clinging to life. He woke that evening and asked to see his son. Roger was about to enter his father’s chamber with Alix when he was called aside by the baron’s master-at-arms.
“I’ve just had a report that there’s a troop of armed men riding up the road toward Whitcombe. ‘Tis the queen’s men, the lookout believes. Led by Sir Charles Douglas, whom he recognizes by his red hair and beard.”
“Oh
sweet Jesu,” said Alexandra. “Not my father. Not here, not now. You must hide, Roger. Or flee. He’ll take you back to London to stand trial.”
Roger scowled. “Let him come.”
“Roger, please—”
“My father is sick, perhaps dying. He wishes to talk to me, he says. Have done, Alix. We are hundreds of miles from Queen Mary Tudor, and I’ve known Charles Douglas for most of my life. He isn’t going to arrest me.”
“He’s still angry for what he imagines you did to me. He didn’t believe me when I swore I was willing. If you think he won’t act, you’re deluding yourself, Roger.”
“When he finds out you are carrying my child, the worst he will do is drag us both in front of a priest.”
Alexandra grimaced. She wasn’t at all sure what her father would do.
“Trust me.” He touched one finger to the side of her cheek, and then walked into the room to find Master Theobald fussing with his father. “’Tis passing strange. I told you once I would not care if the old bastard fell down dead at my feet. Now I find that I do care.”
“Roger?” The baron’s voice was thin but urgent. Both Roger and Alexandra hurried to his side. Richard Trevor gestured at the physician. “Get rid of him,” he said to his son. Roger looked at Alexandra, who nodded. Theobald was incompetent; she’d always thought so. Besides, at this point there was little anybody could do.
“If I don’t attend him, I won’t answer for the consequences,” Theobald said. “He could die before the night is out.”
“Get thee gone!”
Theobald went.
“He wants to keep me alive so he can retain his post here,” the baron said. “Dorcas has been fool enough to provide him with an unlimited supply of food and drink.” He smiled at Roger. “Your first act as baron should be to send the blackguard packing.”
Linda Barlow Page 48
