Dragon Tree (36 page)

Odo studied
his brother’s features—the beautiful long-lashed eyes, the square
jaw, the full sensual lips. How often had he damned his brother's
sexual tastes? How many times had Odo wanted to slay his own
brother out of shame? How many times had he fought to erase the
image of Rolf de Langois naked on his knees, his legs spread for
the rutting pleasures of another man?

It was not
natural. It reviled and disgusted Odo each time he saw his brother
cast a lascivious eye across the haunches of a passing stableboy.
Yet were it not for this depravity, Odo might not have won himself
a place in such high favor with Prince John. The regent was a
collector and hoarder of secrets and he rewarded those well who
shared their knowledge of the deepest, darkest sins of others. And
this—this handsome Cyprian who was also Odo’s brother, harbored the
darkest sin of all: the sin of having a king for a lover.

It was a sin
that Odo knew would have to be eradicated the same time as the
sinner.

Regicide and
fratricide. Odo would be killing a king, then killing a brother. It
was fortunate their father had died of the pox a dozen years sooner
or he would have tossed in patricide and slain the old bastard for
good measure.

Moreover, he
still had a wife to kill.

The missive
from Prince John had not been met with any great enthusiasm. He had
impressed upon Odo the urgent need for speed if he was to reach the
coast before the king's landing. Odo had not been happy to abandon
the hunt for Elizabeth. Something in the manner of the green-eyed
slayer of dragons had not sat well with him. Odo would have staked
his gut on the fact that the bitch had been somewhere inside those
walls, and his gut was rarely wrong. He had left one of his best
men behind to find a way into the castle and confirm his
suspicions. He had also left a small party of excellent trackers
hidden in the woods to keep watch on the island fortress and follow
anyone who tried to leave.

There were no
eyes as keen as his own, however, and for that he had initially
resented the prince's orders to remove himself to the coast at
once. But two things had happened since then to make him feel as
though he was once again in complete and utter command of his
destiny.

The first had
come in the form of a writ also delivered by John's courier. It
granted him title to all the lands and holdings attached not only
to Hawk's Nest Castle, but to the wealthy demesne of the Three
Benches. Elizabeth's uncle had finally gone toes up, and being sole
heir, everything she inherited on his death had passed legally into
Odo's control. Where he may have had to keep her alive for a while
after he caught her, that need was now removed. He could kill her
how and when the pleasure to do so came upon him, and for all the
trouble she had put him through, his pleasure would be to hear her
scream in pain until she had no breath left to do so.

To that end,
the second incident that made his lips curl with bloodlust was the
arrival in camp of Hugh de Bergerette, who had initially startled,
then angered Odo with the news that he had seen Ciaran Tamberlane
at St. Albans Abbey. At first Odo had doubted the sighting, for
none of the watchers he had left behind had sent an alert that the
Dragonslayer was no longer behind the walls of his island fortress.
But the one-armed mole was adamant that he had, indeed, seen the
former Crusader. How could he forget the face of the man who had
taken his arm? Moreover, de Bergerette had caught a glimpse of a
woman who had been sharing the monk's cell with Tamberlane, and
from the description, Odo's gut had twisted again for he knew it
could be none other than his yellow-haired slut of a wife,
Elizabeth de Langois.

Even more
frustrating, the crippled fool informed him the pair had left the
abbey mere hours before Odo had passed through the valley. As to
where they had gone, he knew not, but his best guess, supported by
something one of the friars at the abbey had said, was west toward
Exeter.

A convent. For
a slut. Escorted there by her new lover.

Odo would deal
with them both in due time. For now, he had an ambush to plan. He
had not yet shared with anyone in his troop, other than Rolf, the
identity of who they were planning to welcome with their swords on
those high cliffs. Most mercenaries were loyal only to the number
of coins that landed in their purses, but he was not taking any
chances that one or more might balk at killing a king.

“Post sentries
on the high ground,” he growled. “I want to know the instant a ship
appears from any direction. When it arrives you, brother dearest,
will show all of the enthusiasm of a carefree, flush-faced lover as
you make the descent to greet its passenger. Our knights and
archers will bide here, on the high ground, to present a warmer
welcome after he has huffed and puffed his way to the top of the
goat path.”

Rolf’s clear
blue eyes regarded his brother as a sleepy lion might regard a
snake slithering through the long grass nearby. There was no wealth
of trust in those eyes. He knew all too well the way Odo’s mind
worked and Rolf was not naive enough to believe the ambush was
being set for Richard alone.

~~

"They are
huddled together like a school of fish," Sir Boethius remarked. "We
could take them now and end it."

Ciaran looked
up at the sky. He wore neither armor nor a helmet, not wanting a
stray sunbeam to flash off a metal surface and alert the Red Boar
of their presence.

Three days
after committing themselves to King Richard’s rescue, Tamberlane’s
small host of defenders had arrived in the town of Sandwich. Time
had become as much their enemy as Prince John or Odo de Langois,
and keeping to the greenwood was neither practical nor beneficial.
Caution was sacrificed to speed as they endeavoured to stay ahead
of the winds that might carry news of their presence to those who
were so close upon their heels that Quill had been able to double
back and filch a haunch of venison off one of their cookfires.

Amaranth’s
knowledge of the town and the outlying area proved to be
invaluable. She had led them to the castle and unerringly to the
ground above the tiny cove, where Tamberlane had immediately
discovered disadvantages that made it impractical to go below and
intercept the king before he climbed to the top. For one thing, the
rocks were tumbled and set back from the narrow strip of beach, and
anyone walking along the cliff could not help but see any men
crouched below. Moreover, to judge by the lines of seaweed and salt
stains, the water level rose sharply at high tide, submerging the
only few plausible places of concealment.

The top of the
cliff itself, from the rim above the cove to the manor house a half
mile away was open meadow, where the grass was not long enough to
hide a fieldmouse. The forest that encircled the base of the slope
was thick, but again, there was that open field to contend with,
well suited to the skills of Quill and Fletcher, who set to work
immediately to trim the fletching on their arrows to make them fly
farther.

They were
seven against thirty-eight and possibly more if Odo’s host had been
joined by more men than Quill had counted when he filched the
venison. Ten of those men were knights, well mounted and armored.
And twenty-eight crossbowmen, while lower in the fighting ranks
than knights, were not to be entirely discounted as a threat.

The code of
chivalry demanded that Tamberlane make his presence known and give
his enemy a fair chance before launching an assault. But the code
had not been written for men like Odo de Langois, who attacked
villages without warning and made plans to ambush a king.

Any ambuscade
Ciaran set would have to rely heavily on surprise. He needed his
foresters to take up prime killing positions, to fire swift and
steady, and to disregard the next highest rule amongst the legion
of rules that shaped the covenant of chivalry: They would have to
aim first for the knights.

At dawn, when
Amaranth found him, he was standing on the cliffs pondering his
decisions, wrestling with his conscience. She used the excuse of
bringing him bread and ale to break his fast, but her heart swelled
when she saw his face dusted by the rising light, saw his eyes so
intent upon the sea, his hair dark and ragged where it blew forward
on his cheeks. If they failed in their quest to save the king, it
would not be for lack of courage or honor.

One by one,
beginning with the two burly knights, the men approached the
Dragonslayer and went down on one knee to pay homage, pledging
their loyalty and their swords, their very lives into his command.
The gesture almost surpassed the one Tamberlane had planned as he
ordered Roland to remain on his knees while the Order of Knighthood
was bestowed upon him. The solemn vows were made and witnessed and
when he rose from his knees, he was pronounced to be Sir Roland
Longchamps de Monteau. The investiture was applauded by much
slapping of shoulders and wide grins and afterward, Ciaran regarded
his meager host of comrades-in-arms with a long unused emotion:
pride.

It was a
motley crew who had departed Taniere a sennight earlier, but it was
a band of men who stood on the meadow that morning. No knight
declared precedence by placing himself ahead of a squire or
forester; they would stand together as equals and as equals would
defend against those who would murder a king.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-THREE

Rolf de
Langois spent the morning contemplating the duplicity of his
brother, smugly satisfied that he had thought of a way to turn the
tables on Odo, when he caught sight of a distant speck out in the
Channel. At first glance it could have been just another wave
peaking far out along the easterly horizon. The surf was surging
against the rocks below the castle with much crashing and heaving
of whitewater spume, but Rolf's keen eyes, which had scanned those
same waters many times before, picked out the tiny pyramid of sail
on the horizon before any of the sentries noticed it.

"Ship," he
cried. "I see a ship!"

Odo was a
dozen paces away when he heard the shout, but before he could
react, a brace of arrows streaked out of seeming nowhere and struck
with the force of an axe. The first caught Rolf high on the throat,
severing his windpipe and driving through to lodge at the back of
his skull. The second pierced his chest, the power behind the iron
head punching cleanly through the chain mail armor and shattering
his spine as it exited.

Dead before he
could gasp his surprise, Rolf slumped heavily onto his knees then
pitched face down on the wet grass, his last despairing glance
aimed out to the sea.

~~

The brace of
arrows that struck Rolf de Langois were fired almost simultaneously
from the weapons of Quill and Fletcher. They had communicated their
targets of choice by a series of hand signals, but at the last
moment, the glare from the sun sheeting off the waters of the
Channel had caused both men to blink.

When they
looked again, not only had both their arrows struck the same man,
but their main quarry, Odo de Langois, had heard the distinctive
whoosh thunk thunk
and had leaped instinctively behind his
horse. Both foresters nocked and fired twice more in rapid
succession but were only able to strike the saddle and notch the
ear of the huge destrier before moving on to more exposed targets.
Within the first thirty seconds, there were nine men dead, near as
many writhing on the ground, and the rest scattering in search of
cover. There were shouts of astonishment and confusion from the
knights and screams from the horses who found their flanks or
withers pierced with arrows.

Foresters,
land-bound creatures for the most part, instinctively feared those
beasts almost more than the men who rode them, knowing that the
great, blooded warhorses were trained to rear and slash a man with
iron-clad hooves, or worse, trample him to bloody mash on the
ground. Thus, despite Tamberlane’s directive to aim high, a goodly
number of arrows were thrown low. Horses dropped and thrashed on
the ground; their riders tumbled free only to stand and find
themselves the next target.

Behind the
veil of trees, Tamberlane dropped the visor of his helm and raised
his sword. He glanced both ways to acknowledge his three mounted
companions, then touched spurs to the flanks of his magnificent
piebald.

The sight of
four armored knights charging out of the woods, their shields and
swords raised, caused many of Odo's lingering retainers to break
for cover. The four knights fanned apart like the horsemen of the
apocalypse and galloped straight into the confused scramble. Swords
scythed downward and blood sprayed through the air. The four
thundered clear across the meadow and pulled up on the far side
before wheeling about and charging again, cutting a bloody swath
through the panicking guardsmen and driving them straight into the
waiting arrows of Quill and Fletcher.

Tamberlane
identified Odo de Langois screaming furiously for his horse and
using a rock to step himself up into the saddle. He had lost his
helm in the initial scramble for cover and the mail of his coif had
been loosened and pushed back off his head revealing the shock of
bright red hair.

Ciaran's big
stallion responded to the command in his master’s knees and drew to
a snorting halt a dozen broad paces away from where de Langois was
still trying to gain control of his horse.

Odo saw the
threat and bared his teeth in a snarl. “What devilry is this? Who
are you? And how dare you attack without provocation!”

“Aye, there is
devilry in the air. But you should not be one to protest about
attacking without provocation, for it would appear to be your habit
of late."