Knight Tenebrae

by Julianne Lee

  “Can’t...breathe...”

  “Don’t talk.” He drew his dagger to cut the leather between the horn plates, and found a long slash in her side. The armor had taken the brunt of the blow, but the sword had been sharp enough to make it through her padded tunic and shirt, and still it had opened up her side and caved in the bottom of her ribcage. If not for her armor, she would have been sliced in two.

  Fear filled her eyes, and he knew the question she would ask if she could. He said, “You’re bleeding, but not so bad as to kill you, I don’t think. I’m betting you’ve got broken ribs, but I’m not seeing any bubbles. Do you taste blood?”

  With her tongue she pushed out her lower lip, where he saw it was badly split, swelling and purple, covered with blood.

  “Oh. Okay, we’ll just wait to see, then, if you’ve punctured a lung. Just lie still, and wait until I can get someone to help me carry you back to camp.”

  She nodded, then as he sat next to her she pointed to the bolt sticking out of his leg. It made him laugh. “Thanks, it hurts now. I didn’t feel it until you reminded me.” The pain radiated to his hip, and he knew it wouldn’t do anything but get worse until he pulled the thing out. No time like the present, so he grabbed the shaft as close to the wound as he could grip, took a deep breath, and yanked. A grunt blew out his nose, then he looked the bolt over once and threw it away. He poked at the hole in his cuisse, bleeding nicely now, and figured he’d live.

  When he looked back at Lindsay, her eyes were closed but she was still breathing. He drew his plaid from around himself and laid it over her.

  Hector came. His nose was neatly cut across the middle and bleeding merrily down past the corners of his mouth, where the blood dripped from this chin and splattered his woolen plaid. He looked around at the bodies lying in a rough circle around Alex and Lindsay. Some had faces blown away, others displayed large, bloody holes through chain mail. “Och, it’s a fearsome warrior ye are, Ailig. I can’t say as I’ve ever seen the like of this.”

  Alex kept his head down and said nothing. Just then he didn’t care what anyone thought about what he’d just done.

  Hector then looked down at Lindsay. “Is she dead?”

  Alex shook his head.

  “Give thanks to God, then. And pray she never does anything this foolish again.” There was a strained look about Hector that made Alex ask, “Who did you lose?”

  Tears began to glisten in the laird’s eyes, and he looked off toward the horizon for a moment before he could turn back to Alex and reply, “We, Ailig. We lost our brother. Alasdair Og fell, toward the last.”

  That hit Alex harder than any loss he’d had since coming to this time. Many of his own men had been killed in battle, but Ailig Og had treated him like a brother, and in many ways Alex thought of him as one. He thought of Ailig’s wife and young children back on Barra, and had to swallow his own tears.

  So instead of dwelling on the loss, he said. “Here, help me take her back to the forest. Both together; careful, I think she’s got a broken rib.” They knelt on either side and slipped their arms under her, then lifted her and carried her like that all the way into the forest. Colin was already there with the horses he’d retrieved or captured from the field, having come through the battle himself with only a badly bruised face. “Go get my tent from the pack train,” Alex ordered. Colin ran to obey.

  Alex and Hector laid Lindsay on a thick, grassy patch near a tree, then when Colin returned with their pack horse the three erected the tent over her. Inside it, Alex and Hector shifted her to her pallet. Alex then told Colin, “Go and bring some water in the pot. Build a fire, and set the water on to heat.”

  “Aye, sir.” Colin ran once more to do his master’s bidding.

  Hector helped Alex remove Lindsay’s cut armor, then left him to do the rest. Alex unbuckled his sword belt and let it drop to the ground in the corner, then pulled off his helmet and coif and dumped them as well before kneeling beside Lindsay. Her padded tunic was history, as was the shirt underneath. He removed those garments as gently as he could, then drew his dagger again to cut the bandage that bound her chest.

  “No.”

  He paused. “Why?”

  “I...need...that.”

  With a sigh, he pulled the pin she’d used to secure the thing since the demise of the flimsy clips months before, and with utmost care unwound it from around her upper chest. The wound was long and ugly. He could see rib bone between the edges of it, cut but not through. The bleeding had slowed, and the bone was stark white inside the purple gash. “This’ll have to be sewn up.”

  “Hurry...”

  He looked at her, and she elaborated. “While...it...still...hurts. ‘Cause...it’s...gonna.”

  That made him chuckle. “Okay.”

  Outside the tent, Colin had lit the fire and put the pot on to boil. Alex went to wash his hands of the battlefield dirt and blood. It took him half an hour to walk to the burn and back. His leg was beginning to stiffen, and by the time he returned he was limping badly. When the water was heated, Alex took a needle and thread from the kit and dropped it in. Once he figured it had been in there long enough to do some good, he picked it out with his dagger and dangled it so the needle would cool.

  Inside the tent he sat on the ground next to Lindsay. “All right, young knight, ready yourself. And remember to breathe. If you don’t breathe, you’ll pass out.”

  “Sounds...like...idea.”

  Alex grinned and shook his finger at her.

  The wound took twenty stitches. Alex worked carefully but steadily, drawing the skin together as he went, trying not to press on the fragile bones beneath. Each poke of the needle brought a sharp breath, then panting through her nose, but she never cried out. Toward the end, tears began to run from her eyes down the sides of her face, but there was never a peep. He finished up, then cut the thread with his knife. For several minutes afterward Lindsay lay, panting quick, shallow breaths. Then gradually they lessened until she was breathing more or less normally.

  Alex ripped off a piece of the linen he kept for her, dipped it in the hot water, then sat again, dabbing dried blood from her, just as his adrenaline crash came. Suddenly it was all he could do to keep on through the overwhelming, bone-deep exhaustion, washing away blood that turned to pink rivulets and colored the cloth he used. This was Lindsay’s blood, and the horror of it blew through him. Her hand was crusted nearly brown. This should never have happened. She should never have been in any sort of battle. She hadn’t been meant to even see such things, let alone participate.

  He bent his head and raised her hand to his face, kissed her palm, held it there for a moment against his cheek, and the relief she was still alive swarmed in on him. That she was still part of his world, still on the earth, breathing, able to speak to him, meant more than his own life. More than anything or anyone else in his life. The thought of how close she’d come to leaving him forever choked him so he could hardly breathe, and a tear ran down the side of his nose.

  “Don’t...cry.”

  He sat up. “I’m not crying.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Gently he finished cleaning her hand and laid it on her belly. Then he rubbed his eyes dry with the heel of his hand as he stood to go search for something to eat, but his legs would hardly hold him up.

  “Lie...down...before you fall...down.”

  “I told you not to talk.”

  “Sleep.”

  He looked at his pallet, and considered. Sleep or food? Suddenly his body felt too heavy to carry itself, and his wounded thigh would hold no weight. He eased himself onto the parachute to drop into unconsciousness like a rock in a pond.

  When he awoke, still with the loud and drunken voices of celebration all around though it was sunrise, he was dismayed to find he’d slept in his armor. “Aw, jeez.” Every part of him ached, and his legs were numb from the poleyns strapped to his knees. His feet felt swollen inside his hoots, the leather tight where it shouldn’t have been. He gr
oaned as he sat up and struggled to unbuckle the poleyns and cuisses, and wriggled out of his hauberk. His wound was throbbing, and he let down his trews for a moment to poke at it. It was purple and swollen, but still had feeling and showed no sign of infection. He restored the trews.

  Lindsay was still sleeping, and he let her. Tottering on sore feet and a bad leg, moving like an old man, he left the tent and went in search of food. But first he had to see to his men and find out how many had survived the fight.

  Sir Henry was among the group camped nearby. Alex went to sit with them, and cut a piece from the remains of a haunch they’d roasted the night before. “How many of us are left?”

  Henry reported only five of the knights had been killed, but fifteen squires had lost their lives. Alex allowed as those who had died had all been brave men and had given their lives to the cause of freedom for Scotland, and it was true. Nobody else knew it yet, but yesterday’s battle meant the end of English control in northern Scotland for the next three centuries or so, and that meant a firm foothold for King Robert over the next decade and a half of finishing the job in the Lowlands.

  Together the men rehashed the battle, each telling his story and Alex only listening. He had no desire to tell what he’d done, and so encouraged everyone else to speak. They all laughed about the English being cowed by the lowly infantry, each of them certain the defeat would have been even more overwhelming had the cavalry been the first to charge. Alex knew better, but still said nothing.

  Then the conversation turned to what was going on with the higher-ups. Rumors had been living since yesterday, as they always did among soldiers who were rarely told anything beyond the very next set of orders. One had it that the king had kept watch all night over the body of the Earl of Gloucester, and another had it Robert was treating the English prisoners as guests while arranging ransoms from Edward II. In general, Robert’s behavior in victory was well admired by both armies. Some prisoners had even been released without ransom, a gesture that would surely go far to turn the hearts and minds of both English and Scottish nobility in his favor.

  And tales of the booty taken from the English baggage train were boggling to the point of incredibility. Word was that many of those who had come north with Edward II had brought wagonloads of rich goods with them, expecting to occupy captured castles after the fight.

  That was good for a long, hearty laugh among the Scotsmen.

  Belly full of beef, Alex requested some for Lindsay and was granted a large piece, which he carried back to his tent. She was awake.

  “Here, eat.”

  She tried to sit up, but he wouldn’t let her.

  “Nah, nah, nah. Stay still. I’m a lousy doctor, and you’ll pull your stitches if you do that. Wreck all my hard work. Lie back.” He sat down next to her and began tearing pieces from the meat and handing them to her.

  “I’m starving.” She ate as fast as he could feed her.

  “Good sign. You’re breathing easier, too, it looks like.”

  “It still hurts, but not as much.”

  He fed her some more, then said, “You’re lucky.”

  A glance at him, then she said, “I had you to protect me.”

  “You could have taken him.”

  “No, I couldn’t. I’d be dead if you hadn’t come.”

  His fingers twiddled a piece of meat for a moment, then he placed it between her teeth and said, “Are you mad at me?”

  “No.” Her reply was unequivocal. “Are you nuts, as you say? Sorry you saved my life? I don’t think so!”

  A smile came, and his heart lifted. He fed her the meat. Then, though he knew it was foolish to mess with this moment and ruin it, he said, “You shouldn’t be a soldier.”

  There was a large wad in her mouth, and she swallowed it quickly to reply. “Because I’m a woman? I’m not as brave as the guys? Not tough enough?” A tense edge crept into her voice, and warning lit her eyes.

  “No. You’re as brave as any man I’ve ever known. And as tough.” He paused, thinking hard of how to put this, and glanced at her sideways before he added. “But not in a way that makes a good soldier.”

  “Why?”

  “You don’t want to be one, for one thing.”

  “I want to do well. I train as conscientiously as anyone.”

  “But you don’t want to be a soldier. I’ve known women who were as good, or better, than most of the men I’ve fought beside. Women tougher than me, and some as skillful. But those women have something you don’t, and that’s a willingness to make it a life. Without reservation. You’re doing it because it’s what you fell into, and I can tell the things you’ve had to do are eating at you.”

  “I did them nevertheless.”

  “And you’re to be commended. But I wonder if it’s worth it for you to continue struggling against your nature. You’re not built for this.”

  “But you are.”

  For a moment he considered his family’s long history of military service, and further what he’d learned of his MacNeil ancestry and traditions of Scottish bravery in battle, and knew it had been bred into his bones for millennia. “Yeah.” He nodded. “I am.”

  There was a long silence, then she said, “I hate myself.”

  “You’ve got no reason to hate yourself. I, for one, love you to distraction. Marry me.”

  At first there was no reply, and Alex braced himself for what she would say. But then she said, “Let me think about it.”

  He blinked, not certain he’d heard right, and tilted his head at her. “Think about it?”

  “Please.”

  She would consider it. Hope rose, and for the first time since the crash he thought there might he a future for him. She’d think about it. A grin widened on his face. “Cool.”

  All that day and the next Alex attended to Lindsay. It attracted some comment for him to wait on such a junior knight, but there was nothing for it and at this point he didn’t care much what anyone thought. Lindsay, with her broken ribs, couldn’t bind her breasts, so letting anyone into the tent other than Hector wasn’t going to happen. Alex looked after her, and waited as she thought over his proposal.

  On the evening of the second day after the battle, Alex was told by one of Robert’s pages of a summons from the king.

  “Our king?”

  “Aye, sir.” The boy was small and skinny, and had been running back and forth through the forest the past couple of days, summoning other knights. As young as he was, there were shadows of exhaustion below his well-bred eyes.

  “You’re sure he meant me?”

  The royal page laughed. “Alasdair an Dubhar MacNeil, he said.”

  Alex nodded. That was him, all right.

  The kid ran off, saying, “Promptly, he said, sir.”

  Alex didn’t know what to think. A smile touched his mouth, but he suppressed it. All right. An audience with the king. This is special. Quickly he slapped some of the dust and crud from his tunic and donned his sword belt. No self-respecting Scot ever went anywhere unarmed, and he would feel undressed without the sword. Then he ran his fingers through his rather longish hair, and scratched his chin, wishing he’d shaved that morning. No time to do laundry or bathe. “Promptly,” the king had said. Damn.

  He told Lindsay, “I’ll be right back.”

  “I’ll leave the porch light on for you.”

  That made him chuckle.

  The king’s tent was huge in comparison to the tiny piece of cloth that sheltered Alex and Lindsay. It had several rooms, hung with rich curtains and tapestries, and lit by colored candles in gilt stands, and bejeweled oil lamps. All of it recently arrived from England, Alex was certain. He was escorted into a remote end of the complex where stood a heavy, wooden chair on a dais, surrounded by the king’s ministers. On it sat Robert, his face aglow beneath his royal dignity, for it surely had been a pleasant few days for him to bask in a victory so complete and unexpected. Alex couldn’t help but smile with him, though he had no clue why he’d been sum
moned.

  “Alasdair an Dubhar!”

  Alex knelt and bowed as gracefully as his stiffened thigh would let him. In front of the king, he never let the pain reach his face. “Your majesty.”

  “Rise.” The command was perfunctory, as if the king were eager to get the formalities out of the way and proceed with his busy day.

  Alex stood.

  “Alasdair, I understand your performance in the late conflict was exemplary. More than exemplary, it is reported to be heroic among men who rightly consider themselves heroes.”

  Good. He wasn’t going to be chewed out for something. Alex took a deep breath and said, “All the men fought well, your Majesty.”

  “Indeed, they did! But I’m told that when all was finished and the English had turned tail, you stood on the battlefield, surrounded by no fewer than ten dead men, all of which they say you killed on foot.”

  Uh-oh, Alex raised his chin so as not to appear guilty. “Aye. Ten.” He’d actually killed more like twelve or thirteen if one counted the ones he’d put away before drawing the pistol, but he wasn’t going to volunteer that information. Bragging at this point would he unseemly, and apparently unnecessary, and might attract too much scrutiny as to how he’d killed so many.

  “That is an amazing thing. To wound is difficult enough, but to dispatch to hell so many in so short a time is magnificent! Prowess beyond compare!”

  Alex had no idea what to reply to that, so he said, “Thank you, your Majesty.”

  “No, it is I who thank you.” The king stood and waved away Alex’s modesty to get down to business. “The English pack train was large, and well laden. There is now the means to thank all the men who have fought so well and with such loyalty. In particular, the men whose talents have proven so valuable in the struggle, for the fighting is not ended. I’ll need skilled commanders. Loyal commanders.” Then he paused, as if waiting for a reply, so Alex obliged.

  “Aye.” He figured his loyalty was without question.