by Jody Hedlund
I bent in again to her ear. “You are, without question, the most beautiful woman I know.”
She laughed lightly, a pleasant sound. “Edmund, you only know two women—Colette and me.”
My mind flashed with a dozen witty responses, but I threw them all away. Instead, I pressed closer. “You are the only woman I need to know.”
The seriousness of my tone must have surprised her as much as it did me because I could feel the quick catch of her breath again.
I didn’t want to frighten her with an abundance of zeal all at once, so I sat up straight. I tried to think of something else to say, but my thoughts jumbled together so much that I almost missed Sheba’s distant call.
The hint of warning penetrated my haze. I listened more carefully, and this time her communication was clear. Men were pursuing and closing in around us.
“Lord Langley,” I shouted, urging my steed forward.
Christopher glanced at me over his shoulder.
“We need to prepare for battle. Ethelwulf’s soldiers are nearly upon us from the southwest.”
At my terse warning, Christopher reared his horse around and began issuing orders. His men immediately scattered to do his bidding. I scanned the surrounding area to find a safe place for the women. Up ahead sat a grouping of boulders. The formation of the rocks would provide a wall of sorts to shield them from arrows and any other dangers.
Even as I spurred the horse toward the safe spot, Sheba’s squawk resounded closer. Christopher glanced up to the sky, apparently now hearing her. She flew high, circling above us.
“How much time do we have?” Christopher called as he scanned the rocky terrain, likely deciding where to position himself now that his knights were scrambling into places.
“A few minutes. Maybe a little longer.” Sheba usually gave me more advance warning. My guess was that yesterday’s hunting had worn her out, and she hadn’t noticed the enemy’s approach as early as she might have otherwise.
Christopher nodded curtly. “I shall remain hidden and take out as many as I can with my bow and arrow. You stay with Maribel and protect her.”
“What about the queen?”
A glance around showed that Adelaide, with several other knights, was already riding back down the path we’d traversed.
“Firmin will defend her with his life.” Christopher motioned toward the giant soldier galloping behind her.
“I’ll protect her along with Maribel among those boulders yonder.”
“If the battle becomes too dangerous, I shall bring her to you.” With that, Christopher urged his horse toward higher ground.
Thankfully, Maribel didn’t protest as we dismounted and took cover among the rocks. And I was grateful she was of the mind to hide away, unlike her sister who had plunged headlong into coming danger.
“Stay low and near the horse,” I cautioned Maribel. “And if anything happens to me, you must get back on and ride away as fast as you can.”
I’d considered asking Sheba to carry Maribel, and perhaps I still would. Even if the eagle was weary, she could lift Maribel out of harm’s way faster than the horse could.
“What about you?” Maribel crouched behind a boulder that was double her size.
I already had my sword in one hand and dagger in the other. Although my wounded shoulder ached, it was healing well thanks to Maribel’s careful attention. I hoped I would find the strength I needed for the battle. “I’ll be fine, Maribel. I may not have learned everything Wade tried to teach me, but I can fight well enough.”
As I spoke, a cry of alarm rose into the air, the sign the enemy was upon us.
Chapter
17
Maribel
The battle echoed all around me. The clash of metal against metal, the pounding of hooves, the shouts of commanders, and the groans of the wounded and dying.
Terrified, I huddled in the spot where Edmund had insisted I wait. Although I couldn’t see him, I knew he crouched nearby. He’d already engaged in combat with a soldier who’d ridden past. While I hadn’t been able to see the fight from my hiding place, I’d heard every gravelly footstep, every clank of swords, and every grunt, even the one that told me Edmund had wounded his opponent.
When Edmund had checked on me a moment later, I’d wanted to throw my arms around him and demand he stay hidden with me. But the grim set of his lips and the crimson dripping from his sword had frozen me in my spot. The idea of men taking the lives of other men went against everything I’d ever learned and been trained to do as a healer.
Mostly, I was worried something would happen to Edmund, that he’d be hurt again.
Have I ever told you how beautiful you are? His words from earlier reverberated through my body. You are the only woman I need to know.
I wasn’t sure what had prompted his boldness, but his declaration had done something to my insides I couldn’t explain, almost as if they’d expanded within my chest, making the space there larger and in need of more of him.
Shutting my eyes and fingering my rosary, I lifted a prayer for him, for Adelaide, for all the rebels. I’d already come close to losing Edmund on several other occasions over the past week. I didn’t want anything to happen today.
At a crunching step behind me, my eyes flew open. Before I could turn, a gloved hand slid over my mouth as the scent of leather and horseflesh assaulted my nostrils. The strong hand bruised and nearly suffocated me with the pressure as I was dragged backward.
It took several seconds for my mind to register what was happening, that the enemy had discovered my hiding place and had crept in from behind. Once the realization hit me, I started to kick and twist and cry out, even though the sound was muffled.
A sharp prick against my spine stopped me. “Don’t fight me, Your Highness,” came a low voice. “You’ll fare much better if you cooperate.”
As my captor began to force me back once more, I ceased my struggle, the painful tip of a knife urging me to submit and move faster.
Sheba cried out and circled overhead. Had she seen my predicament? I willed her to swoop down and carry me away.
“Shoot that eagle,” my captor issued the command, “before it causes us any more trouble.”
“No!” I screamed, but the hand cupped across my mouth stifled the sound.
“Ah,” my captor sneered. “The eagle is your pet?”
“Maribel!” Edmund shouted, racing around the boulder.
The prick in my back moved to my throat right beneath my chin. “Don’t come any farther,” my captor said. “Or I’ll take pleasure in carving the princess up.”
Edmund halted. He was only a dozen paces away, and yet it felt like a league. In an instant he took in the situation, his eyes flickering to me, my captor, and then behind me. The lines in his face hardened, and his shoulders stiffened. He gave a sharp whistle just as the twang of an arrow punctured the air.
I couldn’t lift my head, but at the angry oath from the bowman, I guessed he’d missed Sheba.
“Let the princess go, Theobald,” Edmund demanded in an unyielding tone, one I’d never heard him use before.
Theobald? The captain who’d murdered Edmund’s family?
The captain’s grip remained unrelenting. “So Princess Constance decided to have a Fera Agmen guard her sister.”
Apparently, King Ethelwulf’s people still called Adelaide by the name our parents had given her. And they apparently also refused to acknowledge her title as queen.
“Your skills might have given you a warning of our advance,” the captain continued with his condescending tone, “but it won’t prevent us from taking what we came to get.” He jerked me back painfully, and the rocks that scraped against my legs caused me to cry out.
At my muffled sound of pain, Edmund aimed his knife at the captain.
The man gave a low chuckle as though amused by Edmund’s display of valor. Then, as he jerked me again, he spoke to the two knights accompanying him. “Kill him.”
“No!” I s
creamed against my captor’s hand, thrashing now, heedless of the knife at my throat. I needed to free myself and come to Edmund’s aid.
But Captain Theobald yanked my arm behind my back, twisting it tightly. I screamed in agony, unable to see or think or breathe for several long moments. He hadn’t dislocated the bone, but it hung in the balance. And I had the feeling he’d done so intentionally. He was clearly the expert on how to instill fear and pain.
“You’ve given me quite the chase, Princess Maribel,” he said close to my ear. “If the king wasn’t anxiously awaiting your appearance at court so that you could marry the prince, I’d make you pay for all the men you’ve cost me.”
As he dragged me along with him, the pain became so excruciating I wavered on the brink of unconsciousness.
Edmund
As much as it enraged me to allow Theobald to drag Maribel away, I had no choice at the moment. If I acted too soon, he’d call for reinforcements, and then I’d be even more outnumbered.
His two men lumbered my way, knives and swords drawn, although the smirks on their faces told me they didn’t consider me a threat. Like the rest of the king’s elite guards, they were handpicked from among the largest, strongest, and most physically fit men in the land. At a young age, they’d entered special training for pages and squires. Upon knighthood, like Wade, they’d committed to serving the king with their lives, ready to die in the line of duty if need be.
I was neither large nor muscular the way they were, the way Wade had been. But I was still adept with my weapons. And quick.
Even so, I needed the element of surprise if I had any hope of rescuing Maribel.
I tried to reassure myself Theobald wouldn’t harm her the way he had my family. As Christopher had pointed out, Maribel was an important commodity in the fight over Mercia’s throne. If King Ethelwulf married his son to one of King Francis’s daughters, one of the lost princesses, he’d solidify his family’s hold on the throne and undermine Adelaide’s claim.
Even though I told myself Theobald wouldn’t dare harm Maribel, at least severely, his sneering face continued to flash in my mind—the same madman who had shown delight in slitting open my father’s abdomen and torturing him was the same one pressing a knife against Maribel’s unblemished throat.
I adjusted my grip on my knife and took aim at the weak spot in the right guard’s armor. My fingers twitched to toss the weapon, but I forced myself to wait.
“You better call upon your eagle to help you,” one of the soldiers said as he crept closer.
I’d considered it, but the bowman who had shot at Sheba before was likely still among the boulders and would take aim at her again the moment she appeared.
In the distance, Theobald rounded a tall wall of boulders. The instant he disappeared from sight, I sprang into action. First, I flung the knife. It rolled through the air end over end with a speed and precision the guards didn’t see coming. Before they could show their surprise, the knife sliced into the right guard’s throat, and he fell lifeless, his eyes still open but unseeing.
The second guard hesitated, his gaze following his dead companion’s path to the ground. It was the instant of advantage I needed. I charged forward with my sword aimed at the other weak spot in a knight’s armor, the slight opening in the armpit. When the guard raised his arm in self-defense, I jabbed low and hard, piercing sideways so the blade wedged between his ribs and into his heart.
He, too, dropped without uttering a sound. I prayed the lack of noise from the fight wouldn’t alert Theobald. I’d count on his arrogance and his belief that his strong and competent guards would obliterate me before I could protest.
I wasted no time in retrieving my weapons. As I rose, my gaze snagged upon the pointed ears and long snout poking out from a nearby clumping of stone. “Barnabas.”
The wolf perked up and yipped at me, chastising me for not responding to him when he’d called. I’d been too consumed with Maribel to pay attention to anything else.
At the thought of Theobald and any more of his men lurking nearby, I growled at Barnabas. “Go away. It’s too dangerous for you here.”
He growled back in a low, menacing tone that was laced with his frustration with me.
I didn’t have time to fight with Barnabas right now. “Go on,” I commanded as I sprinted the way the captain had disappeared with Maribel, needing to catch Theobald before he reached the rest of his army.
When I rounded the bend, Theobald was only ten paces away, dragging Maribel by her arm, which hung at an odd angle—one that would allow him to manipulate her painfully but not cause any permanent damage.
Ahead was the bowman, climbing away with his back facing me. Evidently, the archer believed his companions would be able to kill me easily as well. I took aim with my dagger and released it. The knife impaled him and brought him down in an instant.
At the sight of his companion on the ground, Theobald spun. His eyes rounded with surprise as he took me in, unscathed and with my sword drawn. For just a heartbeat, he couldn’t mask his shock over my defeat of his elite soldiers. But then, his expression transformed into anger, even rage, at the realization I’d outwitted him.
He pinched Maribel’s arm tighter, causing her to moan in her half-conscious state.
Though I wanted to charge forward and skewer him on the end of my sword, I schooled myself into impassivity. If he learned I loved Maribel—that I cared for her even a fraction of what I did—he’d have absolute power over me. He’d use her to bend me to his will. And then I’d never be able to free her.
“Who are you?” he asked, studying my face closely, likely looking for any weakness.
I pretended to examine his face just as carefully, although I didn’t need to. His ugly scar and pointed black beard, the tightly woven warrior braids across his scalp, the dark bottomless eyes—I’d lived with the image of him embedded into my worst nightmares these many years.
“I am Edmund Charles Chambers of Chapelhill.” I waited for recognition to spark. But there was nothing, which only fueled the bitterness I held for this man. He’d slaughtered my family and didn’t even remember it. My noble father, my kindhearted mother, and my four older siblings had been nameless faces to him, mere pawns in a political game. They’d meant nothing except for the twisted pleasure he’d derived in hurting them.
“You have been the Princess Maribel’s guard all these years?” He slipped his hand toward his belt, no doubt to reach for his dagger.
In two strides I had my sword pointed against his heart. With his hold on Maribel, he was crippled, although I couldn’t underestimate this man. I’d be wise to kill him now before he could act.
But a part of me wanted him to know exactly why I was killing him. I dropped my sword to his hand and sliced through his glove, drawing blood. “Don’t move again or you’ll lose your hand.”
Maribel moaned once more. Even though I burned with the need to free her, I continued my ruse of impassivity.
“I can see you’ve had exceptional training,” Theobald said casually. He was using the tactic of stalling. It was one Wade had taught me as well.
“I suppose I have you to thank for my training.” The bitterness that had festered in my heart oozed into my voice.
His fingers twitched, and I pushed the tip of my sword deeper into his hand. The strain of the muscles in his neck was the only indication of the pain I was causing him.
“Yes,” I continued, “if not for you murdering my family, I wouldn’t have been an orphan, wouldn’t have been rescued by one of King Francis’s elite guards, and wouldn’t have been trained at the Highland Convent as both a warrior and Fera Agmen.”
If my words startled him, he didn’t give any hint. Like me, he was probably skilled at hiding his true emotions. “Chambers of Chapelhill . . .” He spoke the name slowly as if trying to place it.
Then his lips curved into a cold, heartless smile, one that made his eyes darker and more dangerous. “I know why that name sounds familiar. Bec
ause I just recently executed your grandfather for turning against King Ethelwulf and giving aid to the rebellious Princess Constance.”
My grandfather? Although he’d been away visiting his smelters in Middleton when we’d been arrested, my father had learned through other prisoners that Grandfather had been killed upon his arrival home to Chapelhill.
Why, then, was Theobald speaking of Grandfather as though he’d survived? Was it possible he’d been alive all these years and I hadn’t known it? And now Theobald had murdered him too?
Rage swelled deep inside my chest. From Theobald’s widening smile, I guessed my expression was no longer emotionless, that my surprise and anger were written there, and that I’d given him the reaction he’d wanted.
I couldn’t restrain the bitterness I’d harbored for this man. With a roar that contained my hatred, I swung my sword toward his throat. I wanted him to pay for all the hurt he’d caused my family and me.
Before the blade could make contact, Theobald kicked my feet from beneath me, knocking me sideways and throwing me to the ground.
Even as my shoulder and arm landed, a sickening realization pooled in my gut. Theobald had known mentioning my grandfather’s death would tempt me as nothing else would. I’d let down my guard. I’d allowed my feelings—namely my need for revenge—to cloud my judgment. And now, I’d most likely lost Maribel in the process.
Though the impact of the hard earth jarred my wounds and took away my breath, I rolled and sprang up. Before I could straighten, Theobald shoved me down and pressed his knife against my throat. A piercing pain was followed by the warm trickle of blood over my collarbone.
I grasped for my sword, but I’d lost it during my fall, and it lay too far away.
Even as I strained, Theobald’s blade sank deeper, burning hot. His grin inched higher, and his eyes probed mine as though to see into my soul. “It’s always a pleasure to take care of unfinished business. I’m not sure how you escaped the punishment your family deserved, but you’ll escape no longer.”
He released his knife from my throat and lifted it in readiness to plunge it into my heart. It was my only chance. As he brought the knife down, I threw him off balance and rolled sideways so that the weapon clanked onto the rocky ground where I’d lain seconds earlier.
