Boadicea's Legacy (43 page)

The earl was staring at her, as was her mortified husband. He didn't like emotional displays, and she was about to faint. That wasn't emotional—he couldn't be angry about that—could he?

A physical response to stress, that's all it was. She bit down hard on her inner cheek. “Yow,” she mumbled, tears springing to her eyes.

“Ela? What is the matter with you?” Os stepped forward.

“Nothing's the matter—nothing's wrong—I'll be right back.” She ran up the stairs toward her chamber, feeling ten times the fool. She burst into her room and stopped with a screech. “Warin? What are you doing in here?”

He turned, his face mottled and ruddy, a bruise forming above his left eye. “What did you do with it?”

“With what, Warin? Let me get you a towel … who hit you?”

“Don't touch me, witch—don't think I don't know about you. You bewitch everyone with your hair and eyes. Where is my mother's bag?”

Ela stumbled backward into the wall. “Your mother? The Lady Steffen?”

“Lady Whore, you mean? That bitch deserved to die—now where is the bag she carried when I pushed her down the stairs?”

Gasping, Ela focused on his aura—too little, too late. Black and muddy brown. Blood red and olive green. Her head spun.

“I don't understand.” Ela put her hand to her throat.

“Are ye stupid? My mother had many husbands and many children. Thomas and I are the only men. The rest are whores like her.”

“But Natalia was in the room with me that night. How did you … I …”
Keep him talking and get the dagger from your boot
.

“We set it up. She would steal from you or I would kill her—I wanted the spear, but you didn't have it. I've been all over this damn keep, and I can't find it.” His eyes were wild, and spittle flew from his mouth.

“So she did what you asked of her …” She reached down and slid the knife into her palm.

“And I killed her anyway. Tried to put the blame on you, but it didn't work. Bitch.”

“Let me get the bag. I had it wrapped for the earl to take to the countess. That's why you couldn't find it.” Ela slowly got up and walked to the wardrobe. She opened the door and pulled out a pretty papered box. “It's in here.”

She held it out for him and when he reached to take it, she threw it at him and hit him in the face with it. Then she ran.

“Damn you, come back here.”

Ela opened the door and fell into Os's arms. She quickly pushed out of his embrace. “‘Tis Warin—he's crazy.”

The door slammed shut behind her, and they heard the lock engage.

“He'll go out the window.” Ela led the way to the stairs, pulling on her husband's arm. It was like tugging on marble. “Osbert? Are you coming?”

“Ela. You were threatened. In our own home.”

“I escaped.” She tapped her toe.

“Without me.”

“I am not going to wait around and ask your permission each time I am in a scrape, Os. That is ridiculous.”

He shouted back, yanking at his hair. “What is ridiculous is that you find trouble no matter where we go. You collect trouble. You draw it to you somehow. I could put you in a bloody convent and you would find trouble.”

A loud whistle interrupted their argument. “Hello? I am looking for the always calm Osbert Edyvean? I know he would never shout at his wife—especially not in front of guests.”

Ela turned around and put her hand on her hip.
“Mayhap you will listen to reason. Warin is Thomas de Havel's half brother. He just admitted to killing his mother, the Lady Steffen. He more than likely has made it out my window and to the stables and possibly the road by now. And instead of going after him like a sane man, my husband would rather yell at me and tell me that I attract trouble.”

“You try my patience, my lady,” Os said stiffly.

She held up a hand and walked past the earl down the stairs to find some cheese. Emotional affairs such as these were beginning to make her hungry.

“Are you going after her?”

“Nay. I am going hunting.” Os reigned in his temper and turned it to cold steel. Hard, unyielding, and deadly.

“Wait. Now that we are certain who our man is, we can set a trap.”

“If I was that twisted son of a bitch de Havel, I'd want to come and get what was mine. He wanted us to think that he was going to France, and he paid that little weasel from London to come and lie. Sick, but not a bad plan. He wants us to have our guard down. Warin will run to him, wherever he is hiding, and warn him that we know of his plan.”

“My men are here, under your command. What would you have them do?”

Os rubbed the furrow between his brows, which grew
deeper every day. Having a wife was stressful. Having a pregnant wife upped the stress by three—or would that be four? He shook his head. He and the earl formulated a plan.

“Do the cooking, make sure there is plenty of ale for my men—my men. What am I? A goat?” Ela tromped across the kitchen hall, looking up into the open night sky. She stopped, exhaled, and tried to find a reasonable bone in her body that she could perhaps use to hit Os over the head.

There was no reasoning with a man of logic. Not when his wife and home were under threat of attack. Her body buzzed with apprehension. She could feel energy come from the mound below the keep. It kept her teeth on edge.

What would her sisters do in such a situation? Better yet, what would Ana have done?

It comes down to the cursed spear
.

She shook her head, thinking of all the things a spear could be disguised as. It could be anything from a bed rail to a walking staff. It was an iron stick, for pity's sake. Bowing her head, she sent a prayer to St. Jude, the patron saint of hopeless causes, that she could find the spear before her enemies. Britain's enemies. Boadicea kept telling her she had it, but didn't say where.

That wasn't very helpful at all.

You believe in your power? The power that you were going to throw away on a worthless man who is even now scaling the
walls of the palisade?

Boadicea?

Tell me I am not very helpful—pah. You are dense, girl. MY Ana would never have taken so long to do what I told her to do
.

Hey
.

Ela crossed her arms and scrunched her brow. Then she started running for her husband. “Osbert! Os—” She bumped into St. Germaine. He caught her around the arms.

“I was looking for you.” His voice was stern.

Warin had said he was looking for her. Was St. Germaine in league with de Havel too? She couldn't trust anybody. She backed up, then ran around St. Germaine's large body. “Osbert! Thomas is here, at the keep—coming over the palisades.”

He turned to look at her from up high where he was mounted on Bartholomew's back. She wondered if he would listen to her. Then he shouted for his men, organizing them to cover the palisades with their arrows. She ran to his stirrup with relief. “I'm willful, and I don't always remember that I am a lady wife.”

“And I forget that I am a husband—a lord now, who needs to remember to ask, mayhap, instead of order.”

She blinked away tears. “Be careful, Os. Come back to me.”

“Now who is worrying overmuch? This is what I do.” He kicked at Bartholomew, who lunged across the dirt toward the knights lined up in a row. “Go to your room,” he
said over his shoulder.

She bristled, but then remembered that it wouldn't hurt her to do as he asked—every once in a while. Besides, she would collect all the extra knives for weapons. She could throw from her window, if she had to.

Filled with purpose, she soon had a basket filled with throwing utensils. She opened the door to her room. Which was empty, thank all the saints. She went inside, lit more candles, and stared out the window at the scene below.

Her blood sang. She longed to be a part of defending her home and her husband. It was in her ancestral history to be in the battle alongside her man. She tapped her toe.

Thomas de Havel's men were many. Paid mercenaries. She shivered, remembering what Os had said they would do if men like that caught her. Rape and plunder was part of their price.

She grabbed her favorite knife and balanced the hilt in her hand. Whoever thought to touch her would die.

Where was Osbert? She lost sight of him, his blond hair a halo in the darkening night.

Suddenly there were small fires everywhere. Thomas was using fire arrows! Ela couldn't just sit back and watch from her ivory tower like a princess without a brain. She hefted her knife. Without a weapon.

A flaming arrow landed at her windowsill, and the roof smoldered. She glanced around for anything to put the fire out with. Her bed linens were too fine and would catch fire. Her tapestry. Thick cloth.

No
.

Her new home, or the legend that she could keep passing down? Tears filled her throat as smoke curled beneath the window frame.

Her home. Osbert's home. Her children's home. “Forgive me, Gram.”

She yanked the tapestry off the wall, but it wouldn't come. The painted rod was set in half rings attached to the wall. She pulled harder. The tapestry was sewn around the rod, and it wouldn't come down. Smoke filled the room.

Ela climbed on her bed and reached over to slice the tapestry from the rod. Who knew how old this tapestry was? The yarn wrapped around the rod was practically solid. Stiff with age.

The rod
.

She started to laugh.

A body crashed through her window, breaking expensive glass. It wasn't Osbert, she could tell right away. It was de Havel.

He grinned, bleeding from a head wound. “My lady Ela.” “I want a bedroom without a window.”

Y
ou are mine,” he said, his pinched mouth cruel, his narrowed eyes desperate.

“I am married now to Osbert. What do you want?”

“You'll be a widow soon, if all goes well. My half brother hired some of my own mercenaries to be your knights.”

Betrayal. She had to warn Osbert—or trust that he already knew.

She jumped down from the bed as if his words didn't affect her. “Help me get this tapestry, I would try and save it from the fire.”

He walked over and used his sword to slash through the center of it. “You don't need a tapestry, my lady. I'll lay claim to you on your own feather mattress.”

Ela, on guard for such a move, had her dagger out and pointed at his throat. “You forget I am not a wilting violet.”

Using his sword, he pushed the dagger away and lunged for her, so that he was straddling her on her own bed. “‘Tis what I like best about you.” He leaned down and licked her
cheek. “You are unusual. Like me.”

She shoved him off, and he fell to the floor. “I am nothing like you.”

“You're strong,” he grinned.

She stood on the bed, determined to reach the rod, or she knew then and there that she would die. Never would she let him rape her. Boadicea wouldn't allow it.

“You are weak,” she said, reaching out for the rod, balancing carefully on the edge of her bed frame. Her fingers barely brushed the cool metal.

“Wench.” His teasing tone disappeared. “My mother was like you. A bitch in heat. Panting after men for their money and land. I see you married the one that could get it to you?”

Ela used the tips of her fingers to push and—she got it, just as she slipped, bouncing off the mattress.

Thomas caught her by her hair.

“Let go. You said you didn't want me.” She clenched her jaw and tightened her grip on the six-foot rod.

“That was before I knew about your special healing abilities.” He yanked her head back, exposing her throat. “Heal me.”

Ela blinked. Was that what he had wanted all along? She remembered the old man saying how Thomas knew he was depraved. Did it go further than just his desire for male flesh? She softened her voice, unable to ignore anybody's personal pain. “I can't heal you. You are soul sick. A sickness in the spirit. If it was only your body, I could do it. I
would
do it.”