The Return of Black Douglas (9 page)

They continued on as the red ball of sun dropped lower and the air grew colder, and she was thankful for the warmth and protection of the man who held her close. The peacefulness of this place surrounded her as they rode out of the trees and into a long, narrow glen dotted with prickly gorse. She felt her eyelids growing heavy.

They had no more than entered the glen when the ears of his horse pricked forward and the animal started to snort and dance sideways, tossing his head.

“Have a care, lass. Put yer hand around the pommel and hold tight.”

Chapter 13

He was a verray

parfit gentil knyght.

—
The Canterbury Tales
Geoffrey Chaucer (1343?–1400)
English poet

The last word had yet to die away, when two hawk-like men burst forth from the stand of trees at the other end of the glen. They raced toward them, hooves thundering at breakneck speed, their mighty swords drawn, twisted grimaces on their dark faces. Her heart hammered furiously. Dear God! They would be cut down like ripe corn. She suddenly felt herself grabbed about the waist and rudely dropped to the ground.

“Stay there and dinna move, no matter what happens.”

Like she could go anywhere with her ankle throbbing like a drum and prickly gorse jabbing her in the backside.

Alysandir let out a bloodcurdling war cry and spurred his horse into a dead run. What happened next would be forever imprinted upon her mind. With her heart pounding triple time, she watched how his magnificent little stallion held a straight course, throwing up clods of turf as they raced across the clearing.

It was two of them against one of him, and she realized he was all that stood between her and bloodthirsty marauders in search of booty. She didn’t like thinking of herself as a battle prize, and she could tell they would not be as chivalrous as Alysandir. She held her breath and thought of covering her eyes, but she had to watch no matter how bloody it became.

Alysandir dropped his reins to dangle free as he drew the huge sword and held it in both hands, high over his head. He rode between the two men, slashing first the one on his right, with a full stroke that sliced across the stomach, and then to the left. The second brigand’s roar was reduced to a ghastly gurgle as the great blade sheared with a deep hack between his neck, shoulder bones, and ribs.

Blood spurted and sprayed everywhere, covering the silvered blade of Alysandir’s sword and dulling the shine of his mail shirt. Both men toppled to the ground while their horses kept running.

As easily as a scythe cuts wheat, he had stopped the attack, which lasted only a few minutes. It could have been a scene from an epic film. Except that this was not a movie but the real thing, with a Highland warrior-knight doing what he was bred to do. In her time, this would have been considered barbaric, criminal even. But he was of another era when people lived by a different code and when a good horse, a keen eye, a strong arm, and a deadly sword meant the difference between life and death.

She rose to her feet awkward and wobbly as a newborn foal, not thinking about her scratches as she watched him, her mouth still dry and her thoughts in a jumble. She hoped he would not, in the aftermath of battle, forget he had tossed her into the briar patch and ride off into the sunset without her.

He leaned forward, caught up the reins, and turned his horse around in a tight arc. Without ever slowing, he thundered back the way he had come, transferring his sword to his left hand as they galloped at breakneck speed toward her. She was terrified he did not see her and that his horse would cut her down like a scythe to grain.

At the very last moment, the horse veered slightly to her left and Alysandir leaned down, almost touching the ground. Without realizing she did so, she lifted her arms, her gaze never leaving his face as he swept her off the ground and up into the saddle before him. His sword came to rest across her lap, and the blood upon it still ran warm as it trickled down her leg.

He did not slow down until they approached the thick stand of trees just ahead, and only when they were swallowed into the screen of dense growth did he slow Gallagher to a walk.

In college, she had written a paper on “The Warrior Mentality,” and she recalled that warriors, as well as modern-day soldiers and athletes, could become so “super-charged” with rising hormone levels during a battle that they could actually go into trances. They could enter into a kind of altered consciousness—so that their sense of pain was subdued and their sense of well-being highly elevated. They were often highly charged in a sexual way as well…

“I am sorry ye were witness to that,” he said. “’Twas an inescapable encounter.”

She nodded, thinking for a moment before she said, “Sometimes it is impossible to escape from danger, no matter how badly we want to.”

“I am no’ as barbaric as I seem. There was naught I could do to prevent the outcome.”

“I know,” she replied. She decided not to tell him she would never be able to wash the stain of what she witnessed from her mind. Yet, in spite of the horrific scene, she did not think killing came easily to him.

“Ye are a wise lass, and ye dinna seem to have a fondness for complaining. ’Tis no’ an ordinary thing to discover in a woman. How come ye by it?”

“There are so many things to complain about in this world that I find it difficult to choose just one.” She turned slightly to see how her attempt of humor went over with him. She was pleased to see the slightest uplift at the corners of his mouth.

He gazed at her curiously. “Would that I could carry with me such a clean conscience.”

“I’ve heard it said that conscience is a more expensive encumbrance than a wife or a carriage,” she said, without telling him that was actually a quote by an eighteenth-century author, Thomas de Quincey. When he did not say anything, she continued, “I know you don’t like killing, and it is obvious that you wrestle with devils each time you must take the life of another. Be careful that you do not overthrow more than your enemies.”

“Ye speak not words but thoughts and wisdom. ’Tis not the way of an ordinary lass. It makes me wonder if ye are an angel sent to change my warring ways, for ye did appear suddenly in the midst of a battle. Are ye a messenger, a spirit that protects and offers guidance? From whence came ye, mistress?”

She wasn’t certain if he was serious or teasing her. But, she knew she had to change the direction of things quickly. “I am no spirit but a woman born of an earthly father and mother, and mortal enough that I felt the prick of briars when you tossed me on my erse in the bracken.”

That actually produced a chuckle, and she almost swooned with relief. He did not speak of what happened again, but that did not mean he had forgotten it. She did her best to ignore the fact that blood, recently flowing in human veins, was now drying upon her legs. Silence, she decided, wasn’t half-bad, for it gave her time to take in the stark beauty of the hills lined up beneath the fading blue sky and the hidden hollows of the moors.

They had been riding for quite some time when they approached another burn, this one larger and slower flowing than the previous one. Bordering it were spiny clumps of yellow-flowered gorse and weedy fronds of green bracken, as dense as thickets. The nearby hills seemed gaunt and inhospitable, their gorges littered with rocks, reminding her of the place where she had fallen.

Alysandir drew rein and dismounted. He placed his sword on the grassy slope before he turned and pulled her from the saddle and into his arms. He stood looking down at her for a moment and then, without speaking, carried her to a boulder close to the gently flowing water.

He set about unsaddling his mount before he led Gallagher to the burn to drink. Alysandir rubbed the pony down with dry grass and then dropped to his haunches beside the water and washed himself in what had to be freezing water, for the air temperature had to be hovering around 60 degrees.

There was no conversation, and she was beyond thrilled to have this rare opportunity to watch a warrior of old, for this was history in the making, and she was in the midst of it. Speechless, she observed how he ministered according to the code of chivalry and viewed the sequence of his priorities: first the damsel, then his horse, and his own needs last.

He rinsed his sword and used sand and grass to clean the dried blood from the blade. She observed the beauty of the motions as he performed each task. She had a feeling those hands would stroke a woman’s body with the same practiced ease and mesmerizing skill, and the thought made her mouth dry. By the time he replaced the sword in his scabbard, his horse was grazing nearby.

She watched him walk to the edge of the burn, where he removed his bandolier and dropped it to the ground. Then he removed the chain byrnie and washed as much blood from it as possible before he placed it on the grass to dry in the sunlight. He pulled the shirt he wore beneath the byrnie over his head and she swallowed hard. She admired the finely hewn muscles of his back and the powerful forearms. The next moment, she was shocked into stupefied silence when he removed his boots and started to unhitch his chausses. She should have looked away.

It was an intensely sensual moment, and she felt lost in it. She wanted to touch him, to know the scent and texture of his skin, to feel the muscles of his warrior’s body, to discover if he was real. She had not realized he was watching her. Their gazes locked, and he made no move to break the visual connection—waiting for her to do what any lady would do and look away, but she was frozen in place and her body did not seem to speak the same language as her mind.

She thought she saw the faintest hint of a conquering smile, just before he gave her his back and peeled the tight trews away from his body. And there he was, naked as a needle, and she was forced to stare at his bare backside with the driest mouth and wickedest thoughts imaginable. It was a stunning display of male anatomy, and, to her way of thinking, if he didn’t mind baring it, she didn’t mind looking.

It sure beat R-rated movies, for none of the actors in them could compare to the beautiful specimen standing before her. She was amazed, actually, that she did not have one shred of embarrassment as she checked him out, stem to stern.

“Thou strong seducer, Opportunity,” as the English poet John Dryden had written. She was seduced, all right, and if Alysandir had so much as crooked a finger in her direction, she would have crawled, if need be, to get to him. There he stood, as magnificent as creation, as perfect as Adam, as beautiful as Lucifer before the fall.

When he entered the water, she was still captivated by his beauty. Everything about him conveyed power and stature. His was a body full of life and passion, and she could feel it reaching out to her. She longed to go to him, to strip as naked as he, and join him in the burn.

And freeze your erse off. What are you thinking?

He waded further into the frigid water and washed away the blood with wet sand. Gawking like a simpleton, she could not look away as he waded back to the bank. He was exemplary of a warrior at the peak of his virility, and every feature, down to the most insignificant muscle, was the standard by which others should be compared—from his commanding brow and Roman nose to his well-defined chest and stomach muscles, down to his shamelessly uncovered—she quickly turned her head away.

She would retain forever the memory of his potent and boldly naked form. She closed her eyes and listened to the sounds of him dressing, relishing the heat that the sight of his wet-slicked body sparked within her. She was overwhelmed with feelings she had never experienced before—sensuality, lust, and desire. His body left her breathless and craving more.

“’Tis safe to look now.”

She expected to see him dressed in his trews and chausses, not with his body gleaming and his plaid wrapped low around his slender hips. Fascinated, she watched him walk toward her, and she fervently wished he would drop the plaid… no she didn’t. She was her own worst enemy, and she was beyond thankful when she found her rational voice.

“Why aren’t you dressed?”

He threw back his head and laughed at her. “To keep my clothes dry,” he answered, and swept her up into his arms. Pure instinct sent her arms curling around his neck. His skin was cool and damp, and he smelled clean, like the air after a rain. She had to resist the urge to touch his chest. She sighed, thinking this was like a dream or something out of a movie, only better.

He turned and carried her toward the burn. “You aren’t going to drown me, are you?”

He paused and gazed down at her upturned face. “Not with water, but I’m tempted to pour a little more mead down yer throat. With yer mouth gaping as long as it was, it has to be… parched.”

She became suddenly conscious of the fluid movement of his body against hers and the press of her hipbone against his battle-hardened muscles. Her arms were still around his neck, and her head found a resting place in the cove of his shoulder. She had not realized until this moment, when she felt safe and comfortable in his arms, just how very weary she was. After all, it wasn’t every day that she traveled five hundred years.

He stopped and slowly lowered her until her feet touched the ground. “What pleasures ye, lass?”

Everything you’re doing, so far.
She wanted to tell him that whatever she found pleasurable was illegal, immoral, or fattening, but she decided to temper her words to the time period and hope for a little sensual indulgence. “Oh, books, fruit, music…”

He cut the list short when he threw back his head and laughed heartily, and she wondered why she had the feeling it wasn’t something he did frequently. She looked at the dancing water and shivered with anticipation. “It looks very cold.”

“Aye, verra cold, but there are ways to warm ye quickly once ye are oot.”

She didn’t doubt that for a moment. She decided not to tell him the wild imaginings going on in her mind. “How many ways are there?”