Lady At Arms (34 page)

For a moment, he looked to be considering her proposal, but then he laughed. “Ye are as deceptive as yer misbegotten sister.”

Her shoulders slumped as she accepted there was no way to reach him. It was up to Lizanne.

“Now,” Darth said, “ye will tell me everything about Chesne.”

She pressed her lips tight, turned her face away, and looked to where the others were held captive. She would say no more.

The commotion portended ill. Thus, when Lizanne turned, she was not surprised to see Philip in the midst of his men. They were laughing, crowing, making lewd, suggestive comments as he headed toward the captives.

And now he comes for me.

Lizanne retrieved Lady Zara’s dagger and slipped behind Walter as unobtrusively as possible. Praying she would not cut him in her haste, she sliced the weapon up between his bound wrists. The ropes fell free.

“Keep your hands behind your back,” she whispered, then slid the dagger up his sleeve and closed his fingers over the hilt. “’Tis Lady Zara’s. I only regret I cannot leave you mine as well, but methinks I will need it myself.” She clamped her mouth closed as Philip caught her eye.

“Come!” he called, waving her forward.

“I will bring Ranulf,” she murmured as she pushed to her feet. Shaking her head at the men as they moved to shield her, she weaved her way toward Philip.

When he took hold of her and guided her across the camp, she did not protest.

“If you do not fight me,” he said as he drew her past the campfire, “mayhap I will keep you to myself.”

She halted, forcing him to turn to her. “I am resigned to my fate. Do with me what you will.”

He regarded her with suspicion before a smile made its way across his face. “I am glad we understand each other.” He stepped forward and lightly touched the bruises on her face for which he was responsible. “It does not please me to have to mark you.”

Just barely, she contained the inner cringe that threatened to manifest itself outwardly. “Then you will not hurt me again?” she asked in as submissive a tone as her constricted voice allowed.

He brushed the hair back from her face. “That is in your hands.”

“Then I need not worry on it.”

Looking satisfied, Philip drew her forward. As they stepped amongst the trees, he announced himself to a guard posted there before pulling her deeper into the wood.

“This will do.” He released her, unclasped his mantle and, eyes never straying from her, spread it on the fallen leaves. Then he unbuckled his sword belt, but not the one upon which a dagger was hung.

Clenching her teeth, she began to work the clasp of her own mantle and was glad to be shed of it when she let it fall from her shoulders—one less thing to get in the way.

“You seem eager, Lady Lizanne,” Philip said.

Oh, I am.

She glanced at him. Though having only the waning moon for light, she could not be certain he was smiling across the space between them, but she thought it likely.

“Now your bliaut,” he said and lowered to his mantle.

As she pretended to struggle with the laces, she said, “You know I have always loved you, Philip. When you broke our betrothal, I was deeply hurt. For that, I chose Ranulf over you.”

“As thought.”

She nearly snorted at how quick he was to believe that had been her reason.

“What takes you so long?” he snapped an instant later.

She threw her hands out to the sides. “My laces are knotted.” Not a lie. She had made sure of that. “I shall require your aid.” She stepped forward, lowered to the mantle with her back slightly turned to him, and raised her left arm to provide access to the laces.

As he set to them, she slid a hand across her thigh and lower leg, then up beneath the hem of her skirt and closed her fingers around the dagger’s hilt.

Philip tugged, cursed, growled, then wrenched at the material that tore beneath his impatience.

Sending up a silent prayer, Lizanne swept the dagger from its sheath. She did not care where she buried her blade—arm, shoulder, chest, abdomen—providing it incapacitated him sufficiently to allow her to escape.

She felt the displacement of air as she swung the dagger toward him, next the slam of his hand upon her wrist as he arrested her assault inches from his heart.

With a bark of anger, he threw her onto her back and rolled atop her. Catching hold of her other wrist, he pressed it hard to the ground, then forced her dagger-wielding hand high above her head and slammed it against a rock.

Despite the terrible pain, Lizanne refused to release the dagger. It was the only thing that might save her, so thoroughly pinned was she that, no matter how she writhed, she could not raise a knee with which to unman him.

Cursing now, Philip raised his chest slightly, released her other hand that was empty of a weapon, and began to grope for something at his waist.

Though Lizanne was quick to use her freed hand to scratch at his face and neck, a moment later, the point of his own dagger was at her neck.

“You can die now or later,” he said, saliva flecking her face. “Which do you choose?”

She stared into his dark gaze and knew a truth she wished she did not—better death now than after what he would do to her. “Now,” she said.

The name he flung at her was vile. Worse, was the force with which he once more slammed her hand against the rock.

She cried out, and cried out again when her bruised and bloodied fingers spasmed and lost hold of the dagger.

Philip laughed, a crude, rasping sound. “’Twill not be easy to keep you, but I will. For awhile.”

He sat back and, straddling her, lifted his dagger from her throat and considered its blade that was touched by the first light of dawn. “Now, let us see if we can think of an appropriate punishment for you.” He shifted his gaze to where she lay still but for her attempt to recapture her breath. “As I do not think I could stand to look upon you were your face any more spoiled than ’tis, I will have to be creative.”

So swiftly that Lizanne barely saw him move, he put his blade to the waist of her bliaut and sliced it up through the material, parting it to reveal the chemise beneath.

“Are you not frightened?” he demanded when she remained unmoving.

“Are
you
not frightened of what my lord husband will do to you?”

He drew a sharp breath, but before he could physically express his anger, an alarm sounded from the camp, audible even at this distance.

Ranulf? Or were Walter and his men attempting an escape? It mattered not. What mattered was that it caused Philip to rise from her.

“Do not move!” he yelled, waving his dagger at her as she started to sit up.

Struggling to calm herself, Lizanne watched as he retrieved his sword belt and fastened it around his waist. He drew the sword from its scabbard, returned the dagger to its own scabbard, then hauled her to her feet.

Leaving his mantle behind, he pushed her ahead of him through the trees. At a safe vantage point from which to observe the camp unseen, he dragged her to a halt and pressed the edge of his sword against her neck to ensure her silence.

In the soft morning light, Lizanne saw the mayhem caused by the arrival of Ranulf’s and Gilbert’s men, but she did not have time to search out either man before Philip dragged her back through the trees.

Muttering curses, he forced her to a run. Fortunately, she was not without recourse, stumbling and tripping at every opportunity.

They had not gone far when Darth emerged from among the trees, Lady Zara seated before him on one of two horses.

“Lizanne!” Ranulf’s mother cried as her eyes took in her daughter-in-law’s dishevelment.

Darth tossed the reins of the second horse to Philip, then yanked his mount around and spurred away.

Philip ordered Lizanne up ahead of him, mounted behind, and set off after Darth.

“Nay!” Gilbert bellowed.

Ranulf, too consumed by his own inner raging over the fate of his mother and wife, retrieved Lizanne’s mantle from the ground where it lay near another—doubtless, Charwyck’s. Tensely silent, he swept his gaze around the area in search of any clue that might lead him to the two women.

Naught. So they would ride south—

Nay, Charwyck was too clever to continue that course. East, then. The easy terrain would aid his flight, though it would offer little cover.

As he turned on his heel, a glint among the grass caught his eye. He reached down and lifted the object from the base of a rock. It was Lizanne’s dagger, but no blood dulled its shimmering blade. Clenching the hilt, he closed his eyes. It had been his fervent hope she yet retained it. That she didn’t could only mean Charwyck had discovered it beneath her skirts, confirming Gilbert’s belief that his sister had been violated.

If Charwyck had not been a dead man before, he was now. Even if it took Ranulf the rest of his days to track him down, he would see the life drained from the miscreant’s body, drop by stinking drop, for there were only two women who fit inside his heart, and no greater offense could have been dealt him than to steal them away.

The admission surprised—and yet did not surprise—him. And in that moment, he accepted what he had been wrestling with for days. He loved Lizanne. It was not simply infatuation and desire as he had tried to convince himself, but a new emotion that went far beyond the bounds he had previously set. If only he had told her…

Gilbert was still hurling curses to the sky when Ranulf noticed dark spots on the gray surface of a rock near where he had found the dagger. He wiped his fingers across it, stared at the blood that was only now beginning to dry.

Giving no thought as to how it had come to be there or whose it might be, he pivoted, grasped Gilbert’s arm, and urged him toward their horses and the men awaiting their orders.

“They cannot have gone far,” he said, showing the evidence to his brother-in-law.

Gilbert’s eyes widened as he stared at Ranulf’s stained fingers. “God’s rood!” he shouted and ran to his destrier.

Ranulf quickly divided his men, sending the smaller of two groups south before leading the larger one east. They rode hard, at last converging upon a level meadow that stretched for leagues before rising to gently rolling hills.

“There!” Ranulf shouted when he spotted the riders—two indistinct forms upon the crest of a distant hill, one topped by a flash of pale hair.

Abreast, he and Gilbert swept forward, their men close behind. Though their quarry had the advantage of distance, it would be short-lived, for their mounts carried two each—a hindrance that would see them overtaken.

As they drew near, Charwyck looked around, shouted something to the other man, and both horses veered hard right toward the wood where, doubtless, they hoped to immerse themselves and evade capture.

It was not to be. As the pursued descended to level ground, the pursuers swept around them.

Charwyck and Darth reined in alongside each other and considered the many who would see them dead.

Ranulf sought and gained Lizanne’s gaze where she was held by Charwyck on the fore of his saddle. In spite of her beaten face, the wild joy in the eyes with which she regarded her husband gave him hope that the worst had been spared her—but then he looked lower and saw her torn bodice. And knew that not even the ripening of his blade with his enemy’s blood would satisfy him. Nor would it satisfy Gilbert whose tension evidenced he had also seen.

It was stark pale hair and glittering black eyes probing his that stole Ranulf’s regard from Lizanne. So like—nay, identical—to him. His heart thundered as he stared at the man who pressed a blade to the small woman before him, and a chasm opened within him as he attempted to reconcile that the knave was also his brother.

He lowered his gaze to his mother who sat before Darth. She did not look well, her face pressed to her lost son’s chest, arms drawn up around her head. He did not think she knew what transpired, but perhaps that was good, for it would save her from what must follow.

“Let us pass, else they die!” Philip shouted, pressing his blade to Lizanne’s midriff as his horse pranced nervously.

Ranulf exchanged glances with Gilbert. Then, swords drawn, they broke formation and urged their horses forward.

“I have warned you, Wardieu!” Philip yelled.

Still they came, avengers who had set themselves the license of God.

“Release them,” Ranulf demanded, “and prepare to die.”

“’Tis your wife and mother who will die if you do not allow us to pass!”

At fifty feet, Ranulf and Gilbert reined in.

“Would that it could be any other way…brother,” Ranulf said to that other one who, like Charwyck, was without armor. He dismounted and, as he removed his own hauberk, announced, “’Twill be a fair duel.”

Gilbert dropped down beside him and also shed his hauberk. Then, swords before them, they advanced on their opponents.

“Come down, Charwyck,” Gilbert’s deep voice echoed around the hills. “Or are you faint of heart?” When his taunt was met with silence, he laughed. “Know you how to wield a sword, man?”

Surprisingly, it was Darth who first took up the challenge. He set Lady Zara’s limp form over his horse’s neck, swung out of the saddle, and turned to face Ranulf and Gilbert.

“Coward!” Lizanne spat over her shoulder.

“Quiet, wench!” Philip snarled.

“Do you think you can hide behind a woman’s skirts the rest of your days, Charwyck?” Ranulf asked. “Be warned, there is no shield tax that can save you from the service required of you this day.”

In the silence that followed, Charwyck turned a shade of red not unlike vermilion. Still, it was some moments before he dismounted, blessedly leaving Lizanne astride.

“Now you will earn that title you seek,” Charwyck said to Darth.

Breathing easier, Ranulf met Lizanne’s gaze and nodded for her to move clear.

She guided the horse to Lady Zara, took hold of the other horse’s reins, and murmured something to the woman who continued to lean upon the animal’s neck.

Geoff and Duncan rode forward to meet the two women. Though Geoff’s sword was drawn, Duncan, as usual, carried his bow, an arrow nocked in place.