Anita Mills (6 page)

It was hopeless, and Elizabeth knew it, but she would not die easily. Her stubborn pride in her blood would not let her surrender meekly—afore God, but she’d take more than one of them to hell with her. They circled her now, staying just beyond the range of the deadly mace as she taunted them. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw their leader raise his sword above Rannulf, and she challenged him loudly.

“Art so great a warrior you would kill a disarmed man? Nay, but you cannot even take one poor woman, can you? Does King Stephen know ’tis cowards who do his bidding?” Even as she taunted she ducked low, swinging the mace at the knees of a horse who came too close. The animal screamed as its legs buckled beneath it.

“Take her!” he shouted, stung by her insults. Leaving Rannulf, he rode angrily for her. “She is but one!”

“Aye! Take me and your souls rot in hell!” She saw some of them hesitate as her voice rose. “Come on—do you think I will die unavenged? I am born of the blood of—”

Her words were lost in the ensuing din as riders thundered over the hillock above them, scattering those who had been circling her. For a moment they tried to regroup, but the newcomers were upon them, their battle-axes raised, shouting at them in a mixture of Norman French, Saxon, and the Scots tongue. As Elizabeth wielded her mace with renewed fury a knight bore down on her tormenters, spraying her with the blood of one, then leaned in his saddle to reach for her. She fought him off, swinging wildly, glancing a blow off his heavy shield. But he was quick for a big man, and despite his mail he lunged to catch her wrist, wresting the mace handle from her hand. She lost her balance, and for an awful moment feared to be trampled beneath flailing hooves.

He saw the panic in her eyes as she went down and he shouted, “Roll free!”

She hit the ground hard and tumbled away from her rearing horse, her legs tangled in the heavy wool of her habit. The man above her dismounted quickly, standing over her with his drawn broadsword, holding it before him with both hands, ready to defend her. Behind him a giant swung a heavy axe, decapitating a horse in a single blow.

The battle was fierce and short, the newcomers falling on the surprised attackers with an almost barbaric ferocity. Wild, eerie battle cries rose above the din as the Scots hacked brutally with broadaxes, splitting shields and cleaving bodies from shoulder to breastbone. The leader of her attackers broke off from the melee and tried to flee. Furious, Elizabeth scrambled for the axe of a dying man, picked it up, and swung it at one of the riders. She missed her mark but his horse shied, dumping the enemy onto the ground beside her. Before she could swing again his comrades in arms rode over him, trampling him beneath their horses’ hooves. He screamed, jerked violently, then was still.

The tall knight who’d unseated her backed up to her, shielding her with his body, shouting for her to cease, that her tormenters were routed. Thinking it a ruse she brandished the axe, ready to cut him down.

“Nay! Come no closer!”

“Have done!” he yelled over the din. “You are safe enough!” Ducking quickly beneath the arc of the battle-axe, he caught her arm, holding it.

“Bastard!” she spat at him, still struggling.

“Holy Jesu, but art warlike for Christ’s bride,” he complained under his breath. “I tell you—they flee.” As he forced her to drop the weapon she began to shake, and he thought she did so from fear. “Nay,” he said more gently, sliding an arm about her for support. “I’d not harm you.”

He’d expected her to weep and clutch at him like other women, but she twisted away. “You let them escape!” she screamed at him. “They go unpunished!”

“Art overwrought,” he muttered, grasping her arm more firmly and shaking her lightly. “I tell you you are safe.”

“Safe?” she fairly howled, kicking at him. “Look not to me—after them! I’d see them dead for the insult they have offered me!”

His grip loosened briefly, then as she lunged free he caught her from behind, dragging her back. “Nay, ’tis enough of this, I think,” he told her curtly. “I have not the men to pursue them, sister.” He waited for her to acknowledge the truth of that before he released her. “Jesu, but art strong for a woman,” he observed when finally he let her go. “Had I not felt otherwise, I’d take you for a man.” As she whirled to face him, a brief smile twisted his mouth, then disappeared.

Her retort died on her lips, for he was one of the biggest men she’d ever seen. His broken and mended mail seemed to have been stretched to cover a body that was both exceedingly tall and proportionately broad. It was the first time she’d stood before a man and felt as though she were less than a giantess herself. He was, she judged, at least as tall as her father, and where his cloak fell away from his shoulders she could tell he was thicker, more powerfully built than either her father or her brother. The image of a great black bear came to mind. For a moment, she gaped.

“ ’Tis strange arts they teach in convents, madame.” He bent to retrieve the blood-stained battle-axe. “I had supposed nuns spent their days praying for the repose of dead men’s souls rather than dispatching them to hell.”

She started to deny, then recalled herself before the stranger. Whereas he’d rescued a nun, he might well seek ransom for the daughter of Guy of Rivaux, for by the looks of him he was no better than a thief himself, and not a very prosperous one at that. “Aye, but I have a brother,” she explained quickly. “I was used to watch him practice. I was not always in the nunnery, my lord.”

He straightened and his black eyes traveled the length of her, taking in her unusual height. For a long moment he considered her, and the thought crossed his mind that she was the most uncommon female of his memory. Despite her coarse woolen habit she carried herself as though she thought she were the Empress, and those eyes of hers met his with an assurance that matched his own. Somewhere, he was certain, there was an abbess glad enough to see her gone.

“The life would scarce seem to suit you, but then I suppose ’tis as it is for a man—if they’ve nowhere else for you, ‘tis the Church. Alas, but the custom makes bishops and abbesses of doubtful piety.”

“Aye.”

His gaze moved to her face, and he noted the fine, straight profile and the extraordinary green of her eyes. And he knew it was wrong to give her to the Church. A woman like that ought to belong to a man. It was a waste that made him almost angry.

Unused to the open appraisal of a lowly knight, Elizabeth bristled. “Art done gaping?” she snapped. “Jesu, but you have forgotten Norman manners in this forsaken land!”

His jaw tightened perceptibly, and his eyes went hard and cold. “Nay, you mistake me, madame. I am Scots born.”

God’s blood. Her eyes widened as his words took on meaning for her. Even in her father’s Norman keeps there were tales of the bloodthirsty Scots, of the terrible raids, the burnings, and the destruction they inflicted on their English neighbors. Her father called them a lawless breed.

The revulsion in her expression angered him. Tattered tunic, mended mail, and dented helmet withall, he was still the one whose service had saved her. “Aye,” he said bitterly, “there are those who name me Butcher. As for manners, do you always count it your due when men risk their lives for you, sister?” As he spoke, he ran gloved fingertips over the sharp edge of the axe, checking the bloody blade for damage, before he looked at her again.

She flushed at the censure in his voice. “Nay. For that I give you thanks.”

It was not enough. There was still that impersonal tone in her voice that rankled. “Tell me, was there no dowry for you—or did your temper outweigh your lands?” he asked suddenly. He cocked his head, measuring her height against his own. “Or mayhap you were overtall for a husband,” he decided. “I suppose most would wish for a wife smaller than themselves.”

“Mayhap I chose the veil,” she retorted coldly. “Mayhap the choice was mine.”

“Nay, you did not.” Abruptly, he turned back to where his men counted the fallen. “Well, Will, was it worth the battle?” he called out to his giant who walked amongst the dead.

“Nay. None to ransom, and but seven dead,” Willie answered in disgust. “ ‘Twas better for our souls than our purses.” He jerked his thumb toward the corpses they stripped, then spat at the ground. “Mercenaries.”

While his attention was diverted Elizabeth brushed past him to where Rannulf lay still on the ground, his face pale against the dark mud, and a sense of foreboding stole over her. In her folly, she’d cost her captain his life. Hot, angry tears welled in her eyes as she dropped to the ground beside him. Turning her face away that they could not see her weakness, she mumbled a quick prayer. Then she leaned over him, laying her head close to listen for the rush of his breath, but heard nothing. Swallowing, she looked up. Hugh of Liseux moved forward.

“Lady, I—”

“You! Coward! Get you away from me!” she spat at him.

Giles saw the color drain from the man-at-arms’ face and realized the nun was of some import. His heavy boots broke dead twigs as he came up behind her. “Your man rode for aid, sister. But then I forget: you are not overgiven to gratitude, are you?”

Despite the heavy mail he wore, he dropped to his knees beside Rannulf and pushed her away. Drawing off a glove with his teeth, he felt along the fallen man’s jawline with his fingers, seeking and finding life. “You fear for naught—he is but stunned.” As he spoke he pulled the captain up against his knee, then delivered a quick blow between the man’s shoulder blades.

Rannulf coughed, then roused, opening his eyes, blinking his confusion. “Wha … ?” Obvious relief flooded over him when he saw her, and he tried to speak.

“Nay, I nearly cost your life,” she cut in quickly. “Rest you until you have regained your wits.” She looked up at the knight beside her significantly. “We are saved by … ?” she asked, hoping the Scot’s identity would warn Rannulf.

“ ’Tis of no matter,” Giles answered curtly. Rising, he wiped his bare hand on the heavy wool surcoat that covered his mailed chest and thighs. “I am but passing this way.”

Reaching upward, he twisted the polished helm he wore, dislodging it and lifting it from his head, revealing a strong, well-chiseled face made harsh by high cheekbones and squared jaw. Had it not been for the coldness of eyes so black she could not see the pupils he would have been a handsome man. But as it was there was a distance there that set him apart, that made him less handsome than either her father or her brother. The winter sun shone on thick, curling hair as black as hers. And as he dropped the battered helm to the ground at his feet, she glimpsed the wide scars on the palms of his hands.

Nodding toward the dead men, he asked her, “Art too weak-stomached to look, or would you see if you know them?”

There was a certain contempt in the way he said it, as though he expected her to quail before the sight. “Nay.” Despite the heavy skirt of the habit, she managed to rise unaided. “Though I would doubt I know them. In the convent, there is no discourse with men save the priest.”

“A pity,” he muttered dryly, standing aside.

She walked a few paces until she stood over the now nearly naked corpses of her erstwhile attackers. And despite her resolve to show no weakness before the lowly Scot, she flinched when she looked down. The scene was ugly rather than glorious, a reality far removed from the songs of the bards. Nudging one gingerly with the toe of her shoe, she managed to lift a face still contorted by the agony of his death. What she saw sent a shiver of apprehension through her. She sucked in her breath and let it out slowly as the Scot watched her. “Nay,” she lied, “I know them not.”

“ ’Tis strange they would attack a nun.”

“Aye, but the times are perilous, are they not?”

His eyes narrowed. “And still they would let you travel? Where is it that you risk your limbs to go?”

She considered lying about that also, but decided ’twould serve no purpose to do so. “Harlowe.”

“Harlowe? ’Tis many leagues!” he responded with disbelief. “And ’tis a fortress rather than a nunnery.”

“I am charged to travel there, my lord—for my abbess,” she added beneath his incredulous stare. “I am to see the countess.” Aware that he watched her closely, she sought a plausible explanation, hoping that he would be satisfied. Her mind racing, she reached beneath her mantle to draw out the small leather pouch that hung from her girdle. Although she had little patience with such things, she’d allowed her mother’s tiring woman to give her a purported relic for Eleanor, and there was no reason it should not be useful now. Opening the pouch, she gave him a glimpse of darkened bone.

“The Countess Eleanor gives an endowment to Saint Agnes for Earl Roger’s soul, and I am commanded to deliver a relic to her in return, that it may be placed above his tomb,” she explained. When he made no move to inspect it she added, “ ’Tis St. Catherine’s finger bone, blessed by the archbishop at Rouen.”

“Jesu!” he snorted derisively. “Another saintly marvel? Nay, but ’twould take a thousand hands to provide bones for the chapels that claim them in England alone.”

“God in His Wisdom and Mercy makes wondrous works,” she murmured, trying to sound very pious. “ ’Tis not for us to doubt.”

“The only greater fraud is the True Cross, sister,” he retorted cynically. “Aye, else Our Blessed Saviour must have carried a timber as long as Jerusalem itself.”

“ ’Tis blasphemy you utter, my lord! Your words imperil your very soul!”

“If would you ask, there are many to tell you I have none to imperil,” he countered. “But believe what you will. Willie,” he called out, “are we again ready to ride? We are for Harlowe!”

As a ripple of disbelief spread amongst his men, Elizabeth felt a sense of unease. Did he think to raid and burn the rich fields there? Or would he seek to use her to gain admittance to the keep itself? “My lord, there is no need,” she said hastily. “As the danger is past, we shall but go on ourselves. Rannulf and Hugh accompany me.”

“As they saw you here?” he countered sarcastically. “ ’Tis not safe for any on the roads, as well you have seen.”

“Sir, I cannot allow—”