Knights and Kink Romance Boxed Set (69 page)

What a fine mess this was. Sabina had thought that
by running away to Glastonbury, she’d solve all her problems.
Instead she just created more problems (not to mention danger and
heartache) than she’d ever thought possible. Her life would have
been so much simpler if she’d just quietly accepted her fate and
married Lord Reginald in the first place.

Sabina choked down a sob. She shut her eyes tight,
but that did little to stop the tears from flowing down her
cheeks—or the sinister laughter erupting from Tostig of York’s
mouth.

****
Lord Reginald de Guillaume paced up and down in front of his battle
pavilion with such ferocity that he threatened to dig a trench in
the ground with his steel-booted feet. He swore in a mixture of
Latin, French, and Arabic, shocking his servants and lackeys.

“What’s the matter, Sire?” Pierre asked in French.
“Did your evening meal not agree with you, perhaps?”

By way of answering, Lord Reginald planted a fist on
Pierre’s chest and knocked him to the ground.

“Sire!” Pierre cried in a plaintive voice. “How have
I offended thee? “

“We are betrayed,” Lord Reginald growled. “Our
position is known, our battle plan is known, and my lady is now in
the hands of the enemy. Only someone working within my own ranks
could have leaked this information, and I intend to stop at nothing
to find out who is responsible. Mark me, heads will roll.”

Pierre cowered at his lord and master’s feet. “I
pray you, Sire, to believe that I am your most humble and loyal
servant!”

“You are my most annoying and useless servant!” Lord
Reginald retorted. “Begone from my sight, lest I run you
through!”

Pierre went white as cream and crabwalked his way
backwards until he was out of his master’s line of vision—only to
be tripped over by the Duke of Angwyld.

“Ack! Knave!” the Duke shouted at him, shaking his
fist. “Watch where you step—ahem, crawl!”

Pierre stumbled to his feet and skittered away,
doubled over with embarrassed bows. “A thousand apologies, Your
Grace! A hundred thousand.”

Lord Reginald shook his head and sneered. “Useless
drivel. I’d bet my Tuscan farm he’s the one let slip the
information that betrayed our cause.”

The Duke gave him a blank look. “Betrayed, Sire?
What do you mean?”

Lord Reginald reached into his pocket, pulled out a
message written on a scrap of vellum. “I just received this from
one of my scouts,” he said. “Tostig of York and his army awaits us
on the other side of yonder forest. My mercenary employee Cuthbert
of Northumbria has double-crossed me and captured one of my best
covert spies, and may even be in cahoots with Robert de Tyre, my
mercenary who has become besotted with your daughter. And adding
injury to insult, Master Robert apparently has allowed Tostig to
capture Sabina.”

The Duke nearly had an apoplexy. “Are you sure, my
lord?”

“Positive,” Lord Reginald said, handing the note to
the Duke to read. “The note is written in Tostig’s own hand. I know
it well, having corresponded with him for many years. We were
allies once, then merely indifferent colleagues. Today we surely
are enemies, for not only has he captured your daughter and my
beloved, he has amassed an army the likes of which hasn’t been seen
since Hastings. I believe he intends to make a play for the
Crown.”

The Duke tried to feign horror, but Lord Reginald
couldn’t help but notice that the Saxon’s gray eyes twinkled just a
bit. Of course the Duke would welcome any attempt by a Saxon man to
overthrow the Normans—even if he’d never admit it to his future
son-in-law. All the more reason for Lord Reginald to rid the world
of him just as soon as he and Sabina were married. “We must mount a
rescue for your daughter at once,” he declared. “Unfortunately,
however, the only way to accomplish that now is to engage with
Tostig’s army. I’m ordering a full-on assault of both infantry and
cavalry this afternoon. Please ready your men.”

“But Sire!” protested the Duke. “Surely we cannot
attempt such an assault without a proper battle plan! And mounting
a battle with my daughter still under Tostig’s fist will endanger
her even more! Surely we must try to negotiate first!”

“It’s a risk we’ll have to take, I’m afraid,” the
misshaped old Norman growled. “Every moment we delay diminishes our
advantage. Tostig fully expects us to attempt a negotiation for her
release. Attacking him full-on instead will catch him off guard,
and therein will lie our advantage.”

The Duke’s forehead had broken out in a cold sweat,
and his chainmail shirt rattled as his whole body shook. “My lord!
I beg of you to reconsider!”

“You will ready your men, Your Grace,” Lord Reginald
seethed. “We attack at three o’clock.A full-frontal assault, and be
prepared to fight to the last man. ”

“And if I refuse?”

“Then I shall have you taken out and shot by my team
of archers.” Lord Reginald slithered up to him, poked a gnarled
finger in his face. “Remember that you are a Saxon, Your Grace, and
your very existence upon this world depends upon your favor with
Normans like me. Lose my favor, and lose your life. Are we in
agreement?”

The Duke’s shoulders slumped and he looked at the
ground. “Yes, my lord. I shall go and ready my men.”

The Duke shuffled away, ruing the day he ever threw
in his lot with the most notorious, bloodthirsty Norman in all of
England.

Chapter
18

Robert and Cuthbert had climbed to the top of a
large oak tree in the middle of the forest so they could have a
birds-eye view of the armies that had gathered on either side of
it. Both of the assembled fighting forces were vast and
well-equipped, but it definitely seemed that Tostig of York’s
forces had the advantage. Tostig’s army was by far the larger one,
and it also occupied the high ground. Tostig’s men also controlled
the main route to the sea, where several speedy Danish warships
awaited him in case he and his men needed to make a speedy
departure.

It seemed Lord Reginald had the advantage of
surprise, however. While Tostig’s troops languished over campfires
and field rations, Reginald’s were preparing for an attack.

“Looks like it could go either way,” Cuthbert
observed.

Robert agreed. “We need to prepare for both
outcomes, then. I think our only chance to get Sabina out of there
is to descend in the midst of the battle confusion.”

“Good thinking, lad. Perhaps we should each disguise
ourselves as fighting for one side or the other. I never confessed
it to ye before, but I was working for Lord Reginald on the sly til
you showed up, and I still have some battle tabards o’ his in my
cellar at the Cock and Robin.”

Robert rolled his eyes. “Why am I not surprised? So
much for you being retired, eh?”

“Once a mercenary, always a mercenary. ‘Tis the
golden rule of our profession, lad. Something ye should always
remember if ye ever try to quit the business.”

Robert turned to Cuthbert and grinned. “I take it
you say that because you tried to quit the business yourself?”

“Aye, lad. And I’m afraid I couldn’t stay away for
long. I’ve got some tunics in my cellar that will pass for Danish,
too. So take your pick, lad. Do you want to pretend to fight for
Lord Reginald or Tostig?”

“Oh, Tostig for sure. I’ve left Lord Reginald’s
employment far too recently to get away with posing as one of his
own. Likely he’s ordered all his officers to have me run through on
sight.”

“So be it then. Though I left Lord Reginald’s
employment a lot more recently than you did. Like this
afternoon.”

“True, but you could rip him in two with your bare
hands,” Robert remarked. “I might be a good swordsman, but I’m not
a wild Yorkshireman. Some things are just in the blood, my
friend.”

“Too true, too true.” Cuthbert began to descend the
tree, and Robert followed. “I think we might make use of my cows,”
Cuthbert remarked as he jumped from the lowest branch to the
ground.

“Cows? How?”

“Well, I haven’t had much luck with my dairy
business o’ late, lad. Been looking for a way to dispose o’ the
cows for a while now. I think perhaps if we lead my herd into the
middle o’ the melee, that’ll create enough confusion for us to
steal into Tostig’s camp and get the girl. What d’ye think?”

“Only you could come up with a battle idea that
outrageous, Cuthbert,” Robert said. “And you know what? I think it
just might work.”

****

Sabina dozed where she sat, still tied down to
Tostig’s carved battle throne. He’d left her alone in the tent
while he went off to do some errand or other, but he’d made sure to
post guards at both tent entrances, and had even parked a guard in
the chair opposite her for added security. But that guard was fast
asleep, and wasn’t likely to offer much protection.

Sabina’s eyes were closed and her mind wandered, yet
she was not totally asleep. She was drifting in a misty, gray place
somewhere between sleeping and waking, dreaming and not dreaming.
Images flew past her, sometimes even touched her lightly on the
shoulder or elbow, like the fluttering of a moth’s wing. Her
father’s face. The rolling mossy hills of Angwyld. The kitten she’d
found and raised as a child, her Welsh governess, snippets of
stories, songs and poems she’d heard from the bards. Through it
all, she heard Robert de Tyre’s soft baritone ringing through the
mist, saying soft words of endearment that she could never quite
make out. She saw his face, his body floating in the mist just out
of her reach. She leaned forward, reached her hand out to touch
him, and his image dissolved, becoming one with the mystical fog.
It was a metaphor for their time together—just as Sabina had gotten
close to Robert, she’d lost him, and now it seemed she would never
get him back.

Sabina jerked awake at the sound of a commotion just
outside the tent walls. She heard sudden and frantic yelling in the
coarse Danish language, followed by the stomping of feet and
clanking of armor and weapons. The very ground beneath her feet
began to tremble, then to shake violently as if from an earthquake.
But it wasn’t an earthquake at all.

Sinister shadows began to play on
the tent walls—cavalry soldiers on horseback running their swords
and lances through the midsections of Tostig’s men, most of whom
had been lounging next to campfires or napping in their tents just
moments earlier. All around her were the horrible sounds of
death—men gurgling and choking on their own blood as the enemy
stabbed them through the heart, men begging for mercy or crying out
for their mothers-—no matter what his native tongue, it seemed that
the word upon almost any dying man’s lips was
mama.

It was an ambush. Tostig’s base camp was under
attack. But by whom?

Sabina strained her ears, trying in vain to make out
what the fighting and dying soldiers around her were saying. Most
of it was unintelligible; what few actual words there were drowned
out by bloodcurdling shrieks, grunts, cries, and shouts, along with
the crashing and ringing of sword against sword, armor against
armor—all of which made up the brutal language of death.

There were more shouts, more cries, and the ground
shook even harder as hundreds of cavalry and thousands of
footsoldiers took to the move in and around the camp. Sabina
cowered in the chair that was her tiny prison—still tied down, she
could do nothing to escape or even protect herself from the surely
coming onslaught. It was obvious from the cries and moans in a
rough mixture of Danish, English and French all around her that
Tostig’s men were losing the battle, and losing badly. Whoever had
ambushed the camp—be they friend, foe, or otherwise unknown—was
sure to march into Tostig’s personal pavilion soon. They’d burst
through the canvas walls, swords drawn, probably hoping to find
Tostig himself inside so he could be respectfully beheaded like any
defeated nobleman on the field of battle. But what would the
victors do when they found her here instead? Rape her? Behead her?
Carry her off to places unknown? Sabina was naïve, but she still
knew enough to understand that women were war prizes just as much
as gold and lands and booty were. Men went to war to gain something
they and their heirs could exploit, even at the cost of their own
lives, and that included women. Women were valuable property,
perhaps the most valuable war booty of all. They could produce
sons, provide lands by inheritance, as well as certain bodily
comforts. Whether women were comfortable while providing all three
was pretty much irrelevant.

One thing was for sure—Sabina was extremely
uncomfortable at the moment. She’d been tied down in the same
position for hours, her bladder was full, and hand-to-hand combat
between two vast armies went on just a few feet away from her on
the other side of a flimsy canvas wall. It was only a matter of
time before the entire world came crashing down around her, quite
possibly taking her with it.

Whatever happens, please let it be
over quickly
, she prayed silently to
herself.

As if on cue, a strange loud erupted from the south
side of the pavilion. It seemed far away at first, then gradually
grew closer and closer, until Sabina thought she recognized what it
was.

There was the sound of stomping hooves, lowing,
and—cowbells?

Sabina’s father had raised hundreds of cattle on his
Angwyld estates, and she knew the sound of a cattle stampede when
she heard one. And it was headed straight for her.

Sabina cast her eyes heavenward. Of all the ways she
could leave this world, was her end really going to be underneath a
cattle stampede? Was this God’s idea of a joke? Or perhaps divine
punishment for her willful disobedience? She supposed she’d never
know.