Breath of Heaven (11 page)

She saw the dark form of a man and horse crash into the four riders who were breathing down their necks. Rhys! She heard his deep-throated war cry and heard the clash of steel. She felt the stream of blood that splattered across her back and Aletha’s hindquarters.

“Away, Mathias!” Rhys shouted. “Take milady away!”

“To the mill!” Eliane said. There would be men there. Crofters and laborers, townsfolk. All would come to their aid with whatever weapons they had. She was relieved to see Llyr running at her side as she bent over Aletha’s neck. She looked over her shoulder at Mathias. His face was as pale as death and splattered with blood. Was he wounded?

He has no shield…no armor
…Rhys at least wore his sword and leather hauberk, but he was not prepared for battle. They were on Aubregate lands. They were supposed to be safe. This was to have been a day of celebration, not desperation.

The flock of sheep scattered before them as they pounded through. Eliane caught a glimpse of the shepherd, who seemed as shocked as she was that anyone would dare to venture an attack on Aubregate lands.
Who? Why?

Eliane slowed Aletha. “We need to capture one of them.”

“Milady?” Mathias gasped beside her.

Eliane did not answer. She looked beyond Mathias. What she saw chilled her.

Rhys de Remy fought like a madman. He stood in the midst of three men, fighting them all at once. Bodies lay around the group, her men, the attackers, a horse; all were silent except for the grunts of the men and the clash of steel. Yorath stood off to the side, steady and waiting for his master’s command.

“I must stop him.” She turned Aletha to ride back to the battle.

Mathias merely looked at her. His blue eyes were wide in his pale face. He placed his hand on his cheek and looked at it in horror when it came back streaked with blood.

Eliane grabbed his arm. “It’s not yours.” She tilted her head toward the battle. “We must help him.”

Mathias swallowed hard. “Yes, milady.”

“We must save one for questioning.” What that questioning would entail she did not want to know. Was Rhys capable of torture? One look at him fighting assured her that he was.

Mathias swung his sword and they rode back to the battle with Llyr once more bounding by her side.

One of Rhys’s combatants had fallen. Two were left. Rhys swung viciously with his sword at the back of a leg, and the man fell to one knee. He dropped his sword and raised his arms in surrender. Rhys turned to face the last one. The attacker thrust violently with his weapon. Rhys stumbled back and tripped over the man who had surrendered. He fell on his back with his sword extended up.

The man with the wounded leg once more grabbed
his sword. He fought without honor. Rhys was down with two men swinging at him. He used his sword with both hands, quickly parrying their thrusts as he tried to get his legs beneath him.

Eliane did not hesitate. With a cry she raised her arm and slashed her sword at the unwounded man as Aletha charged through. He toppled sideways. Rhys rolled to his feet and jabbed his own blade through the remaining man. He fell just as she turned Aletha.

Rhys looked at her with dark and frightening eyes. The eyes of a demon. He did not say a word but stalked to her with the intensity of a wolf after its prey. The look on his face was desperate, yet terrifying. He snatched her from the saddle before she could take a breath. His face was streaked with blood and his black eyes glowed like coals. He buried his hand in her hair and her braid came loose and tumbled down her shoulder. He said one word before he lowered his mouth to hers.

“Mine.”

His lips claimed her. They branded her. His hand was splayed across the back of her skull so she could not move. She felt the steel of his blade and the heft of the hilt at her back as he wrapped his sword arm around her. Her arms were trapped between them. The leather of his hauberk pressed through her clothes and she knew there would be bruises where the buckles touched. She felt the ridge of his erection as it pressed against her stomach, and her body lurched at the brazenness of his claim.

No man had ever kissed her. No man had dared to touch her, yet this man laid claim to her with the blood of his victims smearing his face as if he were a
Viking chieftain of old. Ancient Viking blood ran in her veins, and she felt the stir of it deep inside her, like a wolf calling to its mate. Indeed she heard Llyr’s rumbling growl beside her as Rhys made his claim. She could not breathe; she could not move; but she did not want to protest. It was his right to claim her.

He finally stopped, his lips pulling at hers as he moved away and she gasped, clinging to his leather-clad shoulders as she drew in air. He studied her, intently, his dark eyes studying her face as if he were seeing her for the first time.

“Milord?” she was finally able to say. “Are you hurt?”

Her braid had come undone. It fell across one shoulder and he picked up the end of it. He rubbed the loose strands between his fingers, and then stopped, suddenly, when he realized they were covered with blood.

He looked down at Llyr, who looked up at him with his hackles raised. The two of them took each other’s measure with their dark eyes until finally Rhys turned away. “Mathias?” He released her and she staggered at the loss of his strength.

I have killed a man
…She looked at the body and placed her hand to her mouth to keep the contents of her stomach from fouling her lips, from diminishing his kiss.
I would do it again. There was no other way.

“Here…sir.” The boy’s voice was weak. He sat on his horse, looking, it seemed, everywhere at once. He swiped at his mouth with his hand and Eliane knew that he had lost his breakfast sometime during the kiss.

“See if any are alive,” Rhys said. “Before the sun sets, I want to know who ordered this and why.”

I
’ve never seen anyone fight as he did,” Eliane confessed. Madwyn ran the brush down the length of Eliane’s freshly washed hair. She had hoped to wait until the day of her wedding to wash it but the blood must be rinsed out.

“Did he frighten you?”

Did he? He fought like a man possessed. He fought as if he were one of God’s avenging angels, or mayhap Satan incarnate. Did he frighten her? Not in the way Madwyn meant. She was not afraid he would run her through with his sword or strike her down with his fists.

“He does not.”

There was another fear. One that she dared not mention, even to Madwyn, who knew everything there was to know about her. In truth she did not know if she could put into words exactly what it was that frightened her, only that she was truly frightened. But not by Rhys de Remy. He was presworn to protect her and keep her safe. Her father would not give her into the man’s keeping if he felt there was danger there. It was her own foolishness that terrified her.

What had happened when he’d kissed her, nay, branded her? That was no simple kiss of peace they’d exchanged. That was a turbulent whirlwind of…something. Eliane touched her fingers to her lips. She had
not told Madwyn of the kiss, only the attack and the resulting deaths of all involved, save one who galloped off to the east, according to the steward, who had stayed safely back during the episode.

“It should please your father to know Lord de Remy is more than capable of defending Aubregate.”

“He needed neither armor nor shield to slay nine men.”

“Your father said he was trained by a great warrior,” Madwyn reminded her. “Your father met him at Anjou. He was blooded at a young age.” Madwyn placed the brush on the table and dipped her hands into a crock. She smoothed the ointment into Eliane’s hair to tame the ends and enhance the shine. “Some men thrive upon battle,” she continued. “They embrace fighting as they embrace their wives.” Madwyn pulled back a side section of Eliane’s hair and worked it into a small braid. “Indeed, for some, battle is all they desire. Some go so far as to seek their death in battle.”

Eliane still felt the heat of Rhys’s embrace, despite the time that had passed since he jerked her from the saddle and took her into his arms. The thought of his embrace warmed her to her very core, in places that Father Timothy had often warned her against thinking about because it would lead to sin. But it was not sin with a husband. Desiring one’s husband was a good thing. If only she knew exactly what it was that she did desire. She knew about the act. One did not grow up around animals of every kind without observing it. But the wanting she’d experienced, the warming, the feelings tumbling about inside her were things she had never known, until Rhys de Remy branded her with his kiss.

Eliane knew her color would give her thoughts away to Madwyn, who could read her face as well as any words put to parchment. She concentrated instead on the soothing feel of Madwyn’s hands in her hair.

“His gifts of the bandit’s horses to the families of those who fell were most generous,” she said.

Rhys had given instructions to the steward for the possessions of the attackers to be divided among those who’d suffered the most. Unfortunately those possessions held no clue as to where the attackers had come from. Nor did it explain the why. Men from both the keep and the forest searched for the escaped rider, but Eliane held no hope for his capture.

“Do you think it was Renauld?” Eliane asked.

“Word is he is still at court,” Madwyn protested. “How could it be possible? And why now?”

“Why not now when my father is nearly…dead?” She did not want to say it, but she forced the word from her lips. “What better time than now?”

“If he were close at hand, I would say yea, but from court…” Madwyn shook her head.

“He is devious enough and greedy enough to send men to take me. He would think nothing of getting me with child, so he could claim me as wife.” The thought made her bile rise, even though it was a threat she had lived with her entire life. “Then he would kill me so Aubregate would be his.” Eliane rose from her stool and paced to the window in her tower. It looked over the forest, now nothing more than a black mass in the distance. The forest was her refuge and her sanctuary. It was where she went to worship, to think, and sometimes to hide as she had done just a few days past, before she learned that she was to be married. If
only she could run to the deepest part of it and hide. If only she did not have the weight of all Aubregate resting upon her shoulders.

Rhys de Remy had showed himself to be a mighty warrior today. Was he strong enough to protect the secrets of Aubregate?

Madwyn joined her at the window. “Let me finish your hair so you may dress. You must go down and play the gracious bride and hostess. You must put on a brave face for your father and smile and tell him that he leaves you in good hands.”

His hands upon my body
…She could still feel them, one in her hair and the other fisted against her back. So different from the first day when he barely touched her cheek, just enough so that he could turn it and look at her ears. He could be gentle, or he could be strong. Which Rhys would come to the marriage bed? Which one did she want to come? Which one did she fear the most?

“Are you certain there will not be a backlash?” Rhys asked. Father Timothy took the parchment from him and bent to sand his signature. The contracts were finalized, noting all the details of his alliance with Edward’s daughter.

“The church cannot grant a dying man the peace of seeing his daughter well wed?” Father Timothy’s voice held a hint of hostility in it. “There are special dispensations that allow a hastening of the banns. Certainly this situation warrants one.”

Edward’s face on the pillow was anxious and desperate. Cedric hovered beside him.

“I was thinking about the bride,” Rhys said in hopes
of relieving some of Edward’s anxiety. While he hoped to coax a smile from Edward, he did not speak in jest. Eliane
was
all he’d thought about since the attack. He would never forget the sight of her charging toward him with her sword in her hand and that fierce look on her face when she swung the blade.

Having the wedding within the next hour was not soon enough for him. After hearing of the attack, Edward and Father Timothy were of the same mind. The marriage must be consummated at once so that Eliane and Aubregate would be safe.

“She will do as she is told.” Edward’s voice was weak, but it rang with conviction. She would do as her father bade her. Rhys had doubts that she would be as obedient a wife as she was a daughter. The Eliane he knew was hardly compliant.

“She knows it is for the best.” Edward must have seen Rhys’s doubt. His words cost him dearly and he collapsed into a fit of coughing that racked his ailing body. Cedric supported his frail frame and held a piece of linen to his mouth. It came away bloody. The hand of death was upon Edward. Eliane must consent to the marriage now, or Edward would not live to see it.

“Bring me my daughter,” Edward gasped.

Father Timothy followed Rhys from the room. “We need witnesses,” he said. “It would help if it was someone of title.”

“It seems that noblemen are in short supply in these parts or you would have had a groom long ago,” Rhys said.

“Your squire?”

“Nay, he will be just a knight, and only if he survives my training.” They arrived in the main hall,
where Ammon, the stable boy, sat on a bench at the table with a young maid. “Tell him to call forth those of importance from the town.” Father Timothy nodded at Rhys’s instructions. “They will have to suffice.

“You,” Rhys said to the maid, who looked at him with brown eyes full of fear. He did not recall seeing her before. “Fetch the cook.” She dashed off, nearly tripping over her skirts as she left the bench.

“Milord?” Ammon asked when Father Timothy was finished speaking. “How is Lord Edward?”

Rhys saw the concern in his eyes. Would any of his vassals ask after him with the same worry were he on his deathbed? He thought not. Would any of them dare to address him directly? Never. But these were not his vassals. They were Edward’s. Tomorrow they would be his and Eliane’s. Would they be more afraid then?

“He still lives for now.” He tilted his head toward the door. “Go, and make haste.” Ammon was gone, passing the cook on her way in. Rhys looked around and wondered where Mathias had gotten off to. There had not been time to counsel the boy after the battle. There was too much to be done, and now he was even more preoccupied. He was to be wed within the hour.

The cook bustled up and bowed her head as she wiped her hands upon her apron. “How goes the wedding feast?” he asked.

The woman’s wide face stretched into a smile. “Well, milord. Tomorrow the kitchens will be busy, but all should be ready.”

“The wedding will be this eve,” Rhys said. The woman’s eyes grew wide, and she spared a look upward to the lord’s chamber. “ ’Tis his last wish.” Rhys placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. “To see us wed.”

Tears welled in her eyes but she nodded. “All will be ready, milord.” She hurried off.

Was he this kind with his servants at Myrddin? His grandmother had taught him fine manners and he was never harsh or abrasive in his speech. But he never really cared what they were feeling. He knew they laughed and cried and sickened and died, but it never seemed to involve him. There was always someone else available to step in and take a missing servant’s place. Meals were served, horses were fed and groomed and saddled for him when he desired to ride. Crops were planted and levies paid. But at Aubregate Eliane was not the only one who would grieve for her father. The servants and vassals would mourn him as well.

“Matilde? Have you seen Mathias?”

“I saw him earlier,” she said. “He passed through the kitchen and has not come back.”

Rhys let out an exasperated sigh. He did not have time to hunt for his squire. His thoughts were jumbled, wondering what was happening in Edward’s chambers with Eliane. Would she object to this hastening of their vows? She seemed practical. Surely after the events of the day, she would see the need, but still…

If only he knew who was behind the attack. That they’d been after Eliane was evident, but for what reason? Did they hope to ransom her? Why now? There had not been an attack on Aubregate since Edward’s return from war. Did it have something to do with Rhys’s arrival or the announcement of Eliane’s marriage?

“First things first.” The wedding was the first order of business. Everything else could be dealt with afterward. Before the ceremony he needed to bathe the blood and dirt from his body. To do that he needed his
squire. He followed Matilde to the kitchen, where she pointed out the direction Mathias had gone.

Rhys found the boy in the kitchen garden, sitting beneath an arbor on a long flat stone. Mathias sat with his legs pulled up before him, his arms wrapped about his limbs and his chin resting upon his knees. His cloak spilled about him and blood smeared his cheek. His eyes were tightly shut, as if he wanted to blot out his visions from the battle.

Rhys well recalled his first blooding. He was nine and newly squired to Lord Allan. The battle of Anjou was not a pleasant one. Most of it he’d put from his mind, but sometimes at night the horrific images still haunted him.

Mathias saw him and jumped to his feet. “Milord?”

Rhys tilted his head toward the castle. “ ’Tis a wise man who knows when to escape the madness of preparations for a marriage.”

“Sir?”

“It seems that I am to be wed before the sun sets,” Rhys said. “I would prefer not to be covered in blood when it happens.” He added an encouraging smile.

“I will go prepare your bath at once,” Mathias said.

“Mathias.” Rhys stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. “Thank you for what you did today.”

“Milord?” Mathias’s blue eyes darted to Rhys, and then away as his face turned pale once more.

“You pulled milady away from the battle. It was your first thought, was it not? To protect the Lady Eliane?”

Mathias nodded. “I had my sword—” he began.

“But no armor or training. You made the correct decision under the circumstances. Protecting milady was your first duty.”

“I had fear of the beating you would give me were I to do otherwise, milord,” Mathias said. His eyes darted again to Rhys’s face, but this time there was relief in them, instead of fear.

Am I too kind to him?
Mayhap he was. But Edward’s kind words, and Peter’s helpful instructions, had had more impact on him than any sharp cuff or curse he had received at Allan’s hand.

“I still may beat you,” Rhys said. “If the bath is not to my liking. Now go. And see to yourself as well. Do not humiliate me in front of my bride.”

Mathias gave him a quick bow and was off.

Rhys did not follow, knowing that it would take a few moments for Mathias to prepare. Instead he ducked through a narrow passage in one of the bailey walls.

He turned to enter the castle but was stopped by a call from Han. He stood in the passageway between the inner and outer bailey with a boy leaning heavily against him.

“Another attack?” Rhys rushed to his side. Several huntsmen stood behind the pair with an injured man carried between them on a long plank. They moved through with their burden while Han stayed with the injured boy.

“Nay, not against us,” Han said. “We found these two in the forest. Escaping from those who sought to kill them.”

The boy who leaned on Han straightened when he saw Rhys. “I am William, squire to Peter Salisbury,” he said.

“Peter?” Rhys questioned.

The boy’s head was bloody and a bruise marred his cheek, but his eyes lit upon Rhys with relief. “Milord
bade me say if it is your purpose to marry the Lady Eliane, then please do so in all haste. The king’s attention has been directed this way by Renauld Vannoy, who desires to make her his own.”

The earth beneath Rhys’s feet suddenly tilted.
Renauld Vannoy desires Eliane.
“Is there more?” he asked as his mind whirled around the one statement.
Renauld Vannoy desires Eliane.