The Rose of Blacksword (10 page)

The silent man who strode before her was small comfort, for she was sure he would be glad to be rid of her, even if it meant fighting his way free. He had agreed to see Cleve, and she wanted to believe that he would then be convinced she was not lying. But as they traipsed along the overgrown trail that led up to the ominous castle remains, she was hard-pressed to be optimistic. What if Cleve was out of his head with fever? What if he couldn’t convince this Blacksword?

What if he wouldn’t?

At that disconcerting thought she stumbled over a root and nearly fell headlong onto the path. Ahead of her, her taciturn companion only sent her a glance over his wide shoulder, then kept on at the same sure pace. Ungrateful wretch! she thought to herself. But she could not afford to dwell on such venomous thoughts. Instead, she needed to
solve this new wrinkle. What would Cleve say when he found out she had bound herself to this menacing stranger, this condemned murderer? Although he was just a boy and only a servant, she was well aware of his protective nature toward her. Hadn’t he proved that yesterday when he had attacked that horrible man at the river?

She bit her lip in dismay and debated her choices. If she told him that Blacksword was just someone she hired …

He would be skeptical and alarmed; however, he would have no reason not to believe her. But if he knew they were handfast wed … She shook her head and sighed. No, she could not tell him that, for even as small as he was, Cleve would very likely attack any man who dared claim his mistress’s hand in such a vulgar fashion. And she could not imagine this Blacksword taking such an affront lightly. She did not like to lie, but if she and Cleve were to get home safely it seemed the only way. But she still felt uneasy as they approached the black shadow of the semidemolished adulterine.

“Where is this Cleve?” Blacksword finally spoke as they came upon a breach in the stone coursework wall.

“In an old lean-to,” she answered as she tried to get her bearings. The night made everything look different, and for a moment she panicked, unsure now where she had left the page. But then she saw the overgrown herb garden and she was reassured. “This way,” she said as she clambered over the rubble and started across the littered bailey. “We’re nearly there.”

But when she finally located the right shed and called out to Cleve, she received no answer.

“Cleve? Cleve?” she called more shrilly. Was she too late? Had he been hurt far worse than she had thought? An icy dread washed over her as she pushed her way into
the roofless little building. “Cleve, are you here? Are you all right?”

“Milady?” The whisper came soft and shaky from the deepest recesses of the room. “Lady Rosalynde?”

In an instant she was at his side. She did not see the man behind her stiffen at the boy’s mumbled words. In the impenetrable darkness she fumbled for Cleve, and even through his tunic and her cloak, which he clutched around him, the heat of his fever was unmistakable. She did not pause at all as she plotted what must be done.

“We need a fire. And water too.” She found the broken bit of crockery and turned to where Blacksword stood, silent and faintly silhouetted in the gaping hole where a door must once have been. “The well is toward the far end of the bailey, opposite where we came in,” she said. Then when he did not respond, her voice grew fierce. “Here. Take it.”

“You go for the water and wood. I’ll wait here with your friend.” His answer was cold and unemotional, and for a moment Rosalynde’s confidence wavered.

“He needs my help,” she began. Then she paused as his concern suddenly became clear to her.

“This is no trick,
Sir
Blacksword, or whatever your name is. Cleve is hurt. Dear God, he’s just a boy!” she cried. “Come and see for yourself.”

There was an achingly long moment when he did not move. Then he advanced warily and when he squatted down near her, she reached for his hand to let him feel for himself the fever that consumed poor Cleve. But at the first touch of her hand on his arm he tensed. Had she not been so worried for Cleve, she would have pulled back from him, for she again felt that frisson of heat, like a warning jolt of danger when they touched. But her cause was too important. Cleve’s very life might be at stake.

“Feel his head,” she insisted as she tugged at his rigid forearm. “Feel for yourself.” In the inky darkness she could see very little, but she felt when his arm relaxed, and she guided it to Cleve’s overheated brow. “You see? I need water to cool him, and a fire for light to work by. I implore you, if you ever had a friend or a comrade you cared for, please, help me care for him.”

Rosalynde could not hear the sincere plea in her own voice. She could not know that the meager moonlight shimmered in her dark hair much like a halo might. In the grueling afternoon she had appeared a dirty-faced ragamuffin, a desperate urchin scrabbling as best she could for survival. But shielded now by the night, and flattered by the silver glimmer of the moon, she was a different creature entirely. The man, Blacksword, did not need to reason out the sudden confidence he had in her story. She had not lied so far, not about the boy nor about her noble rank. He’d heard the sick boy call her milady. And she had taken quick control of this new emergency as well, much as any accomplished chatelaine might. He stood up abruptly, taking the crockery with him.

“You’ll have your fire, my thorny Rose. And your water. But we may not stay here overlong. I give them till their heads stop pounding—midday at the latest—before they come searching me out once more.”

“Then you’ll do it? You’ll take us to Stanwood?”

“Aye,” he slowly agreed. “For the promise of reward I’ll take you to Stanwood.”

So saying, he turned and left her there, wondering at his own perversity for lingering even this long near the cursed village of Dunmow.

It did not take him long to gather sufficient wood and build a small fire in the sheltered lee of the wall. He brought her water as well. Then as she began the difficult
task of ministering to the injured boy, he settled back against a far wall, watching her as she worked. His stomach growled with hunger and the night air was cold where his arms and chest were exposed. But he suffered his discomforts willingly. Gladly. By every right he should be dead now, hanged by the neck, choking and writhing until his eyes bulged and his face grew mottled, like those other poor bastards today. But he was alive. Alive! And by the damnedest bit of good fortune imaginable.

He shifted against the cold stone wall, seeking a more comfortable position as he watched his curious savior. What had possessed her to claim him in such a way? he wondered as he took a bite of a bruised and overripe pear. Even with the ailing boy and the distance she yet had to travel, her gamble was still a foolish one. Were he even half the villain he was accused of being, he would not hesitate to slit her throat, and the boy’s too. She was blessedly lucky to have selected him and not that vermin Tom Hadley who’d swung today. That slack-jawed coward had babbled incessantly last night, confessing to anyone who would listen every black-hearted, cold-blooded deed he had done in his brief but effective career as a highwayman. As if his confession at this late date could save his immortal soul.

He took a last bite of the pear and tossed the remains into the fire with a snort of disgust. If she had picked Tom to save her, she would be raped and left for dead by now.

At the sudden flare of the fire she glanced up at him, clearly startled. Although their eyes met only briefly before she returned her attention to bandaging the boy’s head, there was no mistaking the fear in her eyes.

Smart girl
, he thought cynically. It was best that she maintain a healthy fear of him and follow his orders without question if she expected him to get her to Stanwood
Castle. The promise of reward—a horse and weapons—was sufficient motivation for him to do as she asked. He owed her that much. But he would be damned if he’d risk losing the opportunity for revenge that he had so unexpectedly been handed.

Yet the fear in her eyes bothered him. If she knew he was not what he seemed …

He killed that thought before it could properly develop. No one in Dunmow had believed he was a knight—why should he think she would?

In London he’d been filled with his own success after winning that prized black sword at the King’s tourney. Yet not three days later he’d been named a thief and thrown into that hole at Dunmow. It was bad enough to have fallen into such humiliating circumstances—to be brought so low as to be condemned as a common runagate! But now that he was freed, there was no reason for anyone else to know of it. Besides, until he knew for sure why he had been singled out and thrown in that gaol, it behooved him not to trust anyone in East Anglia.

He focused once again on the girl across the fire. Yes, he would take her to her father’s castle and he would collect his reward. Although it rankled him to waste the time necessary to see her home, he knew his chances of finding his accusers were next to nothing without weapons to challenge them. It might take longer now—he would have to backtrack to the beginning and hunt them down—but he would not rest until he had found and killed the men who had used him as their pawn. He’d lost his well-trained destrier, his pack horse, his tournament weapons, and the black sword. That magnificent black sword.

His jaw tightened as he thought again how close he’d come to losing his life as well. Whether she was a thorny little Rose, or the Lady Rosalynde as the boy had called
her, she had saved his neck to be sure. But gratitude was a poor second to the vengeance that consumed him now. Once these two were out of the way, he could get on with his need for revenge, he vowed. Once he had repaid his debt to her and collected his reward, he would then be better able to hunt down the men who had hoped to see him hanged.

And when he found them, he would kill them, and take complete pleasure in the doing of it.

6

Sir Gilbert Poole, newest Lord of Duxton, quaffed the remainder of his wine, then banged the heavy tankard down on the littered table with his one good arm. The cruel scowl on his face caused the man who stood before him to take a nervous step backward.

“Idiot! D’you think I gave the orders to cease the raids lightly? D’you think when I told you to lay low, it was not well considered?” In a fury he flung the metal tankard at the now-cringing man. “For your stupidity and greed you may have ruined everything! Everything!”

From his crouched and cowering position the man peered warily at his enraged lord. “But ’twas such easy gleanings. You see what we brought in. All that wine. The fine clothes you can—”

“That’s a pittance compared to what I seek! For this meager gain—no gold!—we make richer travelers even more cautious! ’Twas no easy thing to lay a trap for that meddlesome knight, curse his hide. And then to bribe the mayor to forgo the trial and hasten the hangings. When word of this latest attack is heard—”

“N-no one will ever know. There was no one left among them to tell,” the man stammered in self-defense. “We killed them all.”

At that the furious Sir Gilbert’s eyes narrowed. “All of them? You’re certain?”

“Every one of them.” The man did not hesitate to lie if it meant saving his own skin.

“What of the bodies?”

“We threw ’em in the river. They’re half the way to the sea, like as not.”

There was a tense silence. Finally the still-angry Gilbert rose from his seat and began to pace the chamber, rubbing his aching arm, which was bound tightly to his side. When he turned, he fixed his pale-blue gaze on the other man. “You’ll receive only half of your portion of the profits this time. The rest is forfeit to me—to remind you not to make the same mistake again.” Then, as if he anticipated the larger man’s objection, he picked up a long sword that rested across the top of a wooden trunk and appeared to admire the fire-tempered blade.

“We’ve both benefited handsomely the past months. You need me to sell your ‘goods,’ and I need you to supply them. I see no need to quarrel over this matter.” He paused and smiled coldly. “Do you?”

The other man opened his mouth as if to speak, but then his eyes fell to the sinister blade in Gilbert’s hand. In the torch-lit room the rare black blade had a strange ebony sheen. The devil’s own blade, it appeared. He clenched his jaw, then met Gilbert’s cold, expectant stare.

“I’ll not quarrel with you, milord,” he reluctantly conceded. “But I cannot hold off much longer. My men grow restless. They cannot remain hidden in the hills forever.”

“Did I say it would be forever! Dunmow has by now hanged its outlaws. We’ve nothing to fear there.” Once again the young Lord Duxton twisted the sword so the magnificent black blade caught the light. “ ’Tis time we moved our trade to fresher markets.” Then he let out a
dark malevolent laugh and struck out at the air with the razor-sharp sword. “Yes, ’tis time we seek riches farther afield.”

After his minion left the room, Sir Gilbert laid the heavy sword across the table and rubbed his broken arm once more. Soon he would not need to soil his hands with the likes of such vermin, he thought as he stared at the wicked blade. That man and the others like him whom he employed had their uses, to be certain. He had kept his pockets well lined and himself well fixed in London while they’d ransacked the Essex and East Anglian countrysides at his direction. But now that his accursed father had finally died and he himself was ensconced at the castle in Duxton, he must be more cautious.