LADY UNDAUNTED: A Medieval Romance (13 page)

“I do not like that priest, Jossie.”

He was not always a good judge of character, as evidenced by his fondness for Maynard, but according to Liam, Father Ivo had given him good cause to dislike him. “I will be cautious,” she said.

“As for the Irishman, he may not be the man Maynard led us to believe.”

Then whatever had passed between the two men during their ride to the monastery had cast Liam in a better light—far better than her father, who had been revealed as a gambler and a drinker. “I pray you are right, Father.”

He released her hand and shifted around to remove the bundle tied to the back of his saddle. “Your belongings. I collected them first thing this morn.” He leaned sideways and secured it to her saddle.

He had not peered within. Had he, he would ask after the sword that had been Maynard’s gift to Oliver.

“I thank you,” she said, pleased she would be able to change into the comfort of her own garments when they paused during the journey to rest and tend the horses.

“God be with you, Daughter.” Her father turned his horse back toward the city.

“Love you, A-papa,” Oliver called.

Humphrey Reynard looked over his shoulder, and Joslyn saw the struggle on his face that revealed a longing to profess his own feelings. But he merely winked and lifted a hand in farewell.

Out of the wood they came, like a violent wind through dry grass.

Tightening her arm around Oliver, Joslyn dragged on the reins to turn her palfrey to the right. It obeyed but carried her only two strides before pulling left.

They were surrounded, their attackers all around and among them. Shouting, weapons catching sun on silvered blades, a score of brigands set themselves upon the Ashlingford knights. And soon they would be upon Oliver and her.

Heart pounding so hard she could make no sense of her son’s words, she searched out the one who might prove their savior. But Liam was not to be seen, and she was struck by a thought she did not wish to think—this attack might be the means by which he rid himself of her son.

A thousand times nay,
she prayed.

“Mama?”

She considered the bordering wood, moved her thoughts to the scabbard hung from the belt about her waist, met her son’s wide-eyed gaze. “Hold tight to me!”

He turned into her and wrapped his arms around her waist. But before she could spur away, they were dragged onto another’s horse. Joslyn was certain it was one of the attackers, but those things felt in the alley told otherwise. Liam was keeping his word.

“Do not fight me,” he growled.

She opened her mouth to tell him she had no intention of doing so, but was silenced when she glimpsed the brigand charging toward them, sword cutting the air.

Seeing Liam’s own sword was before him, his other arm around Oliver and her, she was staggered at the realization that just as he now guided his destrier with only the press of his legs, so he must have done when he plucked her son and her off their horse.

“Hold to the saddle!” he ordered.

She gripped the pommel, hunched over Oliver, and felt the clash of swords in her bones. Like the beat of a smithy’s hammer, the song of steel rang in her ears. But it was not a weapon being forged. It was death. And when moisture out of a cloudless sky flecked her hands, she began to pray for deliverance.

“To the devil with you!” Liam shouted, his body following the thrust of his sword and bending her more deeply over Oliver.

Then a cry of pain and rage that turned her prayers to pleadings that it was not Liam’s life laid to waste as she prepared to take the brunt of the fall from Oliver should the Lord’s wishes differ from hers.

Of a sudden, they were moving again, Liam’s breath in her hair, the muscles of his chest straining against her back.

“Thank you, Lord,” she gasped, and opened her eyes to see they had crossed into a shaded wood.

With an urgency that spoke of blood yet to be shed, Liam halted his destrier beside a group of boulders, dismounted, and pulled Joslyn down beside him.

“Get behind the boulders and remain there until I return,” he said as she stumbled under the burden of Oliver. “And whatever sharp thing you have beneath your mantle, make it ready.”

Before she could do so, a shout from the edge of the wood announced the arrival of two brigands.

“Now!” Liam bellowed, teeth bared, nostrils flared.

Thinking here must be the one who had raged at King Edward seven years past, she ran and dropped behind the first boulder. As she peered over it, holding Oliver to her with one arm, reaching with the other for the sword she had donned when their party had earlier stopped at an inn, she watched Liam ride back into the fray.

“Scared, Mama,” Oliver said as she drew the sword from beneath her mantle.

Lest he looked around and witnessed the bloody clash, she pressed a hand to the back of his head to hold him to her shoulder. “All is well,” she soothed.

Lord, it is not,
she spoke heavenward.
But pray, let it be. Let no ill befall Liam and his men.

Liam glanced toward the road where the Ashlingford knights appeared to be holding their own against the attackers, then swept his gaze to the first brigand, a man much his own size. Hopefully, a worthy opponent upon whom the rage of wasted years could be loosed.

With a shout, he spurred his mount forward and slammed his blade across the other man’s. Though the impact knocked the brigand sideways, the man remained astride as Liam urged his destrier past to engage the second attacker. But at the moment his sword should have met his new opponent’s above their heads, Liam reined left and swung his blade downward.

A squawk like that of an incensed bird evidenced the piercing of the soft belly of the brigand who wore no chain mail, the crimson upon Liam’s blade confirming it.

Leaving the wounded man to a fate that would prove he was terribly mortal, Liam wheeled his mount around and once more met the first brigand. They crossed swords, but neither blade gave, causing both horses to rear beneath the strain of locked weapons.

Meeting his opponent’s gaze, seeing a like anger there, Liam forced the other man’s sword off his.

As the horses’ hooves dropped back to the ground, the brigand countered with a stroke that grated across Liam’s mail shirt, then heaved forward to push his blade through the links. But Liam broke flesh first, slicing through an exposed thigh.

The brigand shouted and leaned to the side to thrust the booted foot of his injured leg at his opponent’s chest.

Though the attempt to unseat Liam was unexpected, his knighthood training did not fail him. Reacting with little thought, he grabbed the man’s leg and shoved.

The brigand teetered, grasped at his destrier’s mane, and dropped to the mossy earth.

It would have been easy to run him through before he recovered sufficiently to regain his feet, but Liam’s recent loss demanded better than an easy end to a murderer. Fitting his hand more precisely around the hilt of his weapon, its familiarity against palm and fingers focusing him, he swung out of the saddle.

In spite of a gaping wound, the brigand was on his feet. “Come, you misbegotten canker,” he shouted.

Misbegotten.
More fodder for Liam’s suspicion this attack was by design. But whose? A nobleman who sought Thornemede for himself? Or one who wished Liam as far from Ashlingford as possible—more specifically, in the grave?

He was drawn nearer the possibility it was his uncle, that no matter how many attackers Ivo slaughtered in an attempt to cast suspicion elsewhere, they would die having done him a service. Unfortunately for the priest, they would fail.

Liam lunged and, with a downward stroke, severed dozens of links of shabby mail. “I yet stand,” he snarled as the man staggered back.

The brigand came at him again, allowing Liam to color his blade with the other’s life, fill his ears with suffering, and shout his triumphs to the heavens. And when the brigand swung wide, opening himself to certain death, Liam did not finish him. He let the man recover his breath and, when he charged again, sank his blade into the sword arm offered him.

Spitting curses out of a contorted face, the brigand retaliated with a sloppy slice that earned him like blood.

More aware of the warmth trickling toward his wrist than the pain in his forearm, Liam fended off the next stroke, sweeping his blade high and forcing the man’s sword above his head. “You or me?” he spat.

Fear moved onto his opponent’s face, but a glance beyond Liam moved it off and he rasped, “You.”

Certain the man’s spirit was restored by the sight of others coming to his aid, hoping a more satisfying challenge awaited him, Liam said, “Then we are done,” and closed his left hand over his right on the sword hilt. With a musical ring of steel on steel, he ran his blade down the other, forcing it toward the ground, then arced his sword up and sliced open his opponent.

The brigand jerked, gurgled, and dropped.

As Liam looked upon one who would soon grow still and later cold, he was struck by how many years had passed since he had taken another’s life. This day he had claimed three. But with regret seeking to dilute his anger, he reminded himself that the only way to survive was to add to that number.

In answer to the ones announced by pounding hooves, he swung around and deflected the blow of a brigand who charged him on horseback. There was not enough time to turn aside the next one’s weapon, only enough to jump back and spare his skull the mace’s iron-spiked head. But not his jaw.

Now there was pain, the easing of his anger in the face of death causing him to feel the blow as he had not with his first injury. Excruciatingly aware of both, he considered the attackers who had come about and once more set themselves at him.

Knowing they would kill him if he did not return to the raw, ugly place inside him, he growled, “Maynard, Ivo, Anya.” And when the brigands neared, he was ready.

Wielding his sword in one hand, he reached with the other and pulled his dagger from his belt. Years of practice had perfected the left-handed throw learned at Wulfen Castle, as evidenced by the blade’s unwavering flight into the chest of the brigand who swung the mace. Then the other was upon Liam where he stood in the path of the man’s horse.

Liam spread his legs, raised his weapon, and at the last possible moment leapt to the side and swung his sword up and behind. The blade caught the man mid-back, and though the chain mail spared his flesh, he was knocked forward.

Liam bolted after him, but defend was all the brigand could do, and he soon lost the saddle and was forced to fight across the floor of the wood and onto the road.

When the Ashlingford knights, whose own battles were won, drew near to offer assistance, Liam shouted them back. Thus, they watched as the man who should have been their lord sought to prove himself yet more worthy of the title denied him. And he did, dropping the brigand to his knees and onto his face.

Heaving shoulders straining the sweat-soaked seams of his tunic, Liam picked his gaze over the strewn bodies. Not all the attackers were accounted for. Thus, it was possible those who had fled at the realization they were the weaker force would regroup and attempt another ambush farther up the road.

The Ashlingford knights had not escaped unscathed, the rent shirts of mail and slashed chausses revealing injuries similar to those Liam had sustained. But none were dead, as near a miracle as could be had. Only Sir Gregory had fallen, and he appeared very much alive where he leaned on another knight, a hand to the wound in his side.

Liam strode to the brigand he had put through with his dagger and stared at the weapon that had been awarded him during his knighting at Wulfen Castle—a much-coveted and esteemed Wulfrith dagger, its pommel set with jewels to form the cross of crucifixion. This day, he had honored it.

He pulled the blade free. As he wiped it on the hem of his tunic, he fastened his gaze on Ivo. The priest stood to the right of a disheveled, crimson-stained John. Though his face mirrored repentance for the lives taken with his unholy sword, Liam knew his remorse was not for them but for what they had failed to accomplish. His hated nephew would return to Ashlingford.

Anger surging anew, Liam thrust the dagger into its scabbard and, sword in hand, stepped forward.

Just one more life,
he silently vowed. And what better place for a mock priest to die than on the battlefield he had created? Few, if any, of the Ashlingford knights would object if the man perished among his equals. But another would.

He looked across his shoulder. Did Joslyn yet cower where he had left her? Or were her eyes fixed on him, ready to witness what would seem an unforgivable act?

Suppressing the desire to end the pestilence that was Ivo, he slid his sullied sword into its scabbard and strode toward the wood.

She stood before the boulders, chin up and shoulders back, the only vulnerability about her the little boy huddled in her arms. No cowering lady, this one who had braved the streets of London.

Once again, he reflected on the odd match his brother had made, he who had preferred his women simpering and needy—even if only acting the part. Joslyn was strong, though not as strong as she wished to appear, he saw as he neared and glimpsed in her eyes the haunting of those things seen and heard.

He regretted what she had been made to witness. From the moment he had turned from her, he had been so immersed in the battle to survive he had forgotten her. But it was just as well, for had he tried to shield her from the warrior, he might have yielded up his life. It mattered not what she thought of him. And he owed her no explanation for who he was and what he had done.

He halted before her. “You are well?”

Eyes moving over his bloody jaw, she nodded and said softly, “You are injured.”

“Naught that will not heal.”

Her lids flickered, and she lowered her gaze over the marks of battle adorning his chain mail.

“Are you ready to ride, Lady Joslyn?”

“Aye.”

“Can I look now, Mama?” Oliver started to draw back.

“Not yet, my love.”