Authors: Julianne Lee
Tags: #Kidnapping, #Science Fiction, #Fantasy fiction, #Married people, #Scotland, #General, #Fantasy, #Children - Crimes against, #Fighter pilots, #Fiction, #Time travel
Knight's Blood (20 page)
The burn was dastardly cold though the weather had been warm enough for bathing all the past week. Lindsay hurried as much as she dared, and scrubbed the clothing stains thoroughly. Not the slightest discoloration was allowed to remain, not the faintest line or shading. Then she checked her sark again for spots and found none, and draped the wet clothing over some gorse bushes in the sunshine. Unwilling to be caught lying down, where her shape would be evident under the sark and her hippy, woman’s legs would be seen by anyone happening by, she sat cross-legged in the middle of the clearing and pretended to be praying, bent over clasped hands.
The pretense did segue to actual prayer once or twice, but she was there a long time and her mind wandered to many things. Alex and the baby, wondering what their futures would be. Her hope to kill Nemed and that his future would never happen. Her hope Iain would keep the blood smell to himself.
A crashing of boots through brush approached, and Lindsay tugged at the hem of her sark to make certain it covered enough. Then came two knights to the spot by the burn. She didn’t look up when they stopped to stare.
“Praying, then?” It was Jenkins, accompanied by Simon, she saw by his boots. Lindsay’s pulse picked up. She didn’t particularly like Jenkins, and knew the feeling was mutual.
She looked up and feigned impatience that her prayer had been interrupted. “Of course. You should try it sometime.”
He snorted. “God and I have naught to say to each other.”
“That’s your affair, but please leave me to my own conversation.” Her heart was pounding now, for Jenkins and Simon both were staring hard at her legs.
“Do you always pray naked?”
“When I’ve got wet clothing drying in the sun.” The questions were pointed and made her uncomfortable. Jenkins was suddenly far too nosy.
“I hadn’t noticed them needing cleaning.”
Now she unfolded her hands and gave him as disparaging a look as she could muster in her awkward position. “Not that it’s any affair of yours, but I had thought I had a fart coming and was mistaken. I’m certain you know what that is like. Be glad you weren’t here for the cleaning of it.”
Jenkins grunted but didn’t reply. He instead went to the burn for a drink, then the two left the clearing. Lindsay continued to wait for her clothes to dry, and now prayed in earnest.
The wool and linen weren’t quite dry when she put them back on, but the stains were gone and she could go stand by the fire for a while to be rid of the clamminess. Her fingers trembled as she dressed, relieved to restore her protective clothing as a man. She hurried back to the tower, where she would collect her bread ration, for it was late afternoon and she was quite hungry.
When she emerged from the wood, the men busy with their masters’ horses near the tower fell silent at her approach. A charge of alarm skittered up her spine, and it was an effort not to react to it. She ignored the squires and pages as they stared after her on her way to the tower.
Inside the crumbling structure, the lounging knights also fell silent and stared. She stared back, for this was too obvious to ignore. Too wrong. The universe shifted subtly around her, and suddenly all her points of reference were slightly off. Something had been said, and she needed to thwart the rumor before it became credible. “What?” she said as casually as possible, and tried on a smile in hopes of making it all a joke.
Jenkins said, “Get all the blood out, did ye?” He was lounging against a stack of someone’s stuff near the fire. His place was upstairs with An Reubair, but apparently he was slumming with the lower-ranking knights this afternoon.
“Do we ever?” Certainly everyone in the room had tried to wash blood from their gloves and surcoats at one time or another.
“Not from my drawers, I never have needed to.”
“I told you why I had to clean my linens.” The explanation was a good one, but the very fact that she had to explain at all was an indication all was lost. Jenkins knew, and he’d told everyone. They believed, and now she was going to be asked to prove what she could not. Through her terror she sifted for ways out of this, and at the corner of her eye she saw a couple of knights, Simon and the faerie Iain, move toward the door to block it. If she didn’t get out of there right away, she would be trapped. She muttered to herself as if the two knights weren’t there, “Och, I’ve forgotten to cover my horse. Wouldn’t want him to fall ill from the cold, now.” She turned and tried to move past Simon and Iain, but the faerie shoved her backward and into the room. She drew her dagger.
“Let me by.”
“You were at Bannockburn, Sir Lindsay?” Jenkins rose from his seat by the fire and approached her. His rowel spurs clinked as he walked.
“Aye.” She kept her eyes on the men in front of her but sensed everyone here was now her enemy.
“And how many years as the squire of An Dubhar before that?”
Trick question. Now she wished mightily to know whether Jenkins knew about the seven-year gap when she and Alex had gone into the knoll and skipped from 1306 to 1313. She turned toward Jenkins, lowered her chin, and gazed at him with what she hoped was less fear and more barely controlled irritation, and gave the same explanation Alex had at the time. “I was extremely young when I was made squire and my master brought me to Scotland. Tall for my age, and stronger than most.” She let an edge come into her voice on that last, in hopes Jenkins would understand her threat. She’d clobber him if he came at her.
“You’ve no beard.”
She chuckled and rubbed her chin. “To my shame, my beard has taken its time to grow in.” If he would only let it alone. The more she had to explain, the worse this became. She considered making a run for the door but figured she wouldn’t get past Simon and Iain.
Jenkins leaned over to peer into her face. “Indeed, you’ve no beard at all. Not so much as a sprinkling at the chin and lip. Even the most callow youth should have a hair or two on his face. Shameful, indeed.”
The jig was up. Lindsay took a swipe at Jenkins with her dagger, and he dodged and drew his. She turned and rushed the door, but the two guarding it snatched her by the arms. Her dagger flew from her hand and went skittering and clattering across the floor, and she was lifted from her feet. Jenkins came from behind and clouted her in a kidney.
Screaming pain shot through her, and she shouted out and went limp. Her legs would no longer hold her up, and she hung by her arms from the men who held her. They yanked her higher, and Jenkins fumbled under her tunic for the strings that held her trews. Lindsay struggled and twisted to thwart him, but as the initial pain subsided her captors held her tighter. Jenkins yanked down her trews, then her linens, then he reached around to grab her crotch. At confirmation of his suspicion, he uttered a string of curses punctuated by vulgar epithets. Each of the men holding her had a grab for his own confirmation, and they were equally offended they’d been fooled by a woman who presumed to call herself knight.
Lindsay continued to struggle, kicking as she was lifted entirely from the floor. She bit and clawed, but with no sword and no dagger she had no hope of having any effect through the mail and leather these guys wore. Jenkins grabbed her hair and pulled her head back as far as her neck would bend, and he spat into her face. Then he said into her ear, “Stupid woman. You should burn for this.”
Her heart pounded in terror. These guys would do it, if they got it into their heads she needed burning. But she said nothing, for they were perverse enough that if she pled for her life she would doom herself.
Jenkins said to the two holding her, “Take him . . .
her
over there. Put her across the end of the step.”
her
over there. Put her across the end of the step.”
The two dragged her past the others in the company, still squirming, to the stone steps that led to the upper floor. There they bent her over the edge of one step that was waist high. Her trews and drawers around her ankles, her bare behind faced the room, and as Simon and Iain pinned her arms against the damp stones she let out a long scream and tried to kick Jenkins behind her.
“Hold still!” He smacked her on the side of her head, but she still squirmed as much as she could. She wasn’t going to make this easy for him, and hoped he would knife her in the struggle. Far better than burning afterward.
There was a moment while Jenkins freed himself from his own trews, then his hand was at her thighs. Another scream erupted from her, and she tried to hold her legs together, but he rammed her from behind hard enough for her belly to slam against the stair. It knocked the breath from her, and once again he hit her in a kidney with his fist. All strength bled away and she went limp again, facedown on the step. Quickly Jenkins reached around with one hand to pull her thigh aside, opened her with his other hand, and then he forced himself into her.
She screamed again, this time with no strength. More than the pain, the humiliation and invasion made her cry out. She called him names but knew they were no longer effective, as they would have been had he still thought she was a man. That particular humiliation angered her even more than the physical assault. Jenkins shoved hard as she continued to scream and struggle as best she could with her arms pinned, her kidneys aflame, and her belly slammed hard against the stone with each thrust of his hips. Her vision grew red, and in those moments all she could think of was that she wanted to kill him. Then she fell silent as she realized she now wanted to live so she could do exactly that. She stopped struggling, to let him finish in hopes he would not kill her after.
It seemed an eternity. The minutes dragged on, though they were probably very few. Lindsay squeezed her eyes shut and concentrated on not feeling the pain, just as she had when she’d been wounded in the past. Finally Jenkins emitted a roar and a grunt she figured he must have thought very manly, then he withdrew. Simon and Iain let her go, and she collapsed to the floor and leaned against the stone with her eyes still closed as tight as she could get them. She didn’t want to look at Jenkins. She hauled in her breaths with great gasps in her struggle to not cry. No way would she let anyone see her cry.
“Let that be an education for you. Now you’ll leave this place.” A note of amusement slipped into his voice. “Unless you care to service the rest of the men as well.” He gave that a moment’s thought, then added, “To be sure, you’re welcome to stay if you would earn your keep in a manner befitting you.” He had a good chuckle at that, then walked away. The two who had held her went with him.
Tears made their way to her eyes, but she wouldn’t let them come. There was only a damp line at her eyelashes before she swallowed hard and held them back. Like a lifeline, she clung to the idea that she couldn’t cry so she would not lose herself. Alex wouldn’t cry for something like this. Only once had she ever seen him break down, and that was when he’d thought she was about to die. This wouldn’t kill her; she would live. Alex wouldn’t cry, so neither would she. Long ago she’d lost her sense of safety; this was nothing compared to the wound she’d taken at Bannockburn. Nothing compared to the first time she’d killed a man. Jenkins had let her go, she would live, and all she needed for the moment was to know Jenkins had made the mistake of his life. All else was trivial.
It was probably several minutes that she sat there, huddled by the stairs with her clothes down around her ankles, unable to move. But finally she decided she couldn’t sit there forever, and she opened her eyes. The other guys in the room were still watching her, taking glances in the silence. When she shifted, they all looked away.
The pain in her kidneys began to subside, and her back hurt less than it had. She was able to climb to her feet and restore her drawers and trews. The smell of semen gagged her and turned her stomach, but she ignored it. Left it there, as if she didn’t care. She wouldn’t give any of those guys the satisfaction of thinking she’d been hurt by that. Only the pain of having been clobbered with his fists was an acceptable hurt. It was the only one they could understand. They all knew how it felt to be socked in a kidney, but not what it was like to be physically invaded by another person. Slowly, as if she had all the time in the world, she secured her clothing and straightened it all.
Then she looked around. Each still took sideways glances, and it was plain many of them were hoping she would stay to service them. Not all men were rapists, but most were dogs. Dreamers. She lifted her head and looked them each in the eye. They looked away.
Her dagger lay where it had landed, by the wall, and she went to retrieve it. Then she went to the fire and cut a sizeable chunk of meat from the haunch over it, which she ate quickly, standing up.
“Lindsay—”
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