Knight's Blood (28 page)
Authors: Julianne Lee
Tags: #Kidnapping, #Science Fiction, #Fantasy fiction, #Married people, #Scotland, #General, #Fantasy, #Children - Crimes against, #Fighter pilots, #Fiction, #Time travel
The men who slept near her began to give her long, dark stares of doubt. Nobody asked, but she knew they were thinking she was weakening. She had to make the dreams stop. So she kept herself busy during the day, exhausting herself, and some nights she slept soundly enough to at least not remember the visitations of things she wanted to forget.
Sometimes she did forget in the intense struggle to maintain her place among the men. Finding men to spar with required little effort. The fights became harder and more aggressive as each of them ratcheted up the competition. Testing her. Soon Lindsay felt as if she were fighting for her life, and began to take injuries for it, giving them as well. To be sure, she began to intimidate some of the men, and comments arose that she’d lost her mind. A secret smile touched her lips whenever she heard that. Better to be thought crazy than weak, for all men feared a mad-woman, but no man feared a normal one. Perhaps she wouldn’t have to consider Reubair’s offer after all. With luck, she could hold her own here and think of a way to approach the Bhrochan on her own.
But the faerie wouldn’t let it go. One day while sparring, she looked up to find him there, his sword in one hand and the tip of it resting on the ground beside him. He said to her opponent, “Leave us.” The man obeyed and took his sword to another challenge. An Reubair faced Lindsay with a grin on his face and a friendly stance. “Care to take me to task today?”
“You want to practice?”
He twirled his weapon in a lazy mulinette and hefted his shield in his other hand. “I want a good fight and will get the best one from you, I think. I see by the scars and fresh cuts on your hands you do not hold back anymore.”
Her chin raised. “I never used to.”
“You did. Now you don’t. I want to see what you’ve taught yourself.”
“Why should you care what I may know or not know? You say all you want is to know what sort of babies I make.”
“And I would have a look at the one you’ve already made, to know better what to expect from you. Meanwhile, I like a challenge and will test your heart as well as your body.” He took a stance with his sword held high, and she countered with a forward one, her shield and sword both held to the front.
“I’m likely to hurt you.”
“That we shall see.” With a flourish he attacked, and she fended easily with her shield. He was slow and sloppy, and she knew he was playing with her. Nobody in this company was that bad a swordsman. So she held up her guard and knew his real attack would come soon. When he came at her again, he was as thoughtless as before. Again she fended, and held her ground. Shields clashed with a wooden thud, and Reubair relented.
Her impatience rose, and she taunted. “Is that all you have to offer?” If he believed she thought he was really fighting, he might underestimate her as much as he wished to be underestimated himself.
Reubair attacked again, this time with all his skill and force. Fending wasn’t so easy this time, and he backed her away. But she took the stroke with her shield and returned with her sword for a long exchange. Their swords clanged in the afternoon air, and Lindsay was glad to have the preliminaries done with. Then they separated and circled to eye each other for more openings. Lindsay feinted, but Reubair didn’t go for it and she held back the real attack. Some more eyeing of each other, and she feinted again. Again he didn’t go for it, but guarded the other side instead. A third time she feinted, and this time he went for it, but she still held back her real attack. He stumbled, but recovered quickly. Immediately she feinted to the other side, he went for it, and she made her real attack where she’d feinted before. Her sword slashed his surcoat and he staggered back in surprise.
“Oh ho! If your reach were any longer!” He appeared genuinely amused, and he came back on her with a series of attacks she fended until she was able to scurry to the side and begin circling, sword held to the rear, ready to swing at the next opportunity.
“I pulled that one.”
“A lie, and an unworthy idea in any case. You spared me nothing, and you shouldn’t. I don’t need it.”
“Very well. You’ll bleed, then.”
“Try to kill me.”
“Then who would pay me?”
“Indeed, and who would find your baby?”
That was like a sock in the gut, and An Reubair took advantage of the moment. He attacked and backed her up in a hurry. Before she knew it, he thrust his sword through an opening to the side of her shield and stopped just short of stabbing her. She jumped back, but they both knew he’d scored a body hit. Had he been a real opponent, she might have been dead.
Reubair mulinetted his sword in a gesture of victory and stepped toward her. “See what I told you about holding your own? You have weaknesses the other men don’t.”
Other
men? A smile touched Lindsay’s mouth. Her commander’s eyes flickered as he realized his error, and he continued. “In any case, you understand me, I’m certain. You are not a man and cannot stand up to the rigors of being one.”
men? A smile touched Lindsay’s mouth. Her commander’s eyes flickered as he realized his error, and he continued. “In any case, you understand me, I’m certain. You are not a man and cannot stand up to the rigors of being one.”
“I daresay I can. And have.”
A shadow of anger crossed his face as she made herself clear she was not inclined to give up and marry him. “Your effort is pointless.”
“My freedom is the most precious thing I have left to me and worth whatever effort might be required to maintain it.”
“Worth more than your child?”
A twinge of guilt knotted her gut, and anger rose at the low blow. “You’ve not shown me anything to prove you even hold sway with the Bhrochan, let alone that they have him to begin with. I would be a fool to marry you on such a flimsy promise.”
His cheeks flushed briefly with frustration and his lips pressed together as he glanced off to the side as if in search of a reply, but he took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He stepped closer and said in a voice gone quiet, soft, “’Tis an oath. I swear I will find your son if you would marry me.”
Lindsay wasn’t stupid, and knew his game, but this new tack was an assault from a direction she’d thought well protected and now she found it wide open. An oath, to Christian men of this time, was a cost to one’s soul and answerable to God. An Reubair was laying himself open to a vulnerability he took seriously, and effectively offering himself to her. This was on the level of a twenty-first-century man uttering the words “I love you.”
She ventured a look into his eyes and found him staring straight into hers. She had to look away, and mentally cursed herself for the weakness. Even worse, she realized that during the moment she’d locked eyes with him she’d nearly wanted him. Not quite, but nearly, and there was a dim stirring in her belly. She’d saved herself in time, before her betraying hormones could do their work on her resolve. Now she gazed at the trampled grass beneath her feet and reminded herself who this was. Nemed’s vassal. The faerie commander of a troupe of reivers. A creature committed to taking what he could get and never mind who got in the way. A man who wanted her body but not her heart, and didn’t feel the least compunction about using her vulnerability against her as blackmail. As much as he now sounded as if he felt something for her, she knew he could not and would never. She let out a cough, shook her head to clear it, and then looked back at him again. “Again, you ask me to take your word.”
“On my soul.”
She looked up. “Do you even have one?”
He feigned offense. At least, she assumed it was a feint. He laid a hand over his heart and tilted his head toward hers. “I must, for it cries out to you.”
Lindsay had to laugh at that, and uttered a chuckle, but made the mistake of looking into his eyes again. The spark of humor in them caught her off guard once more, and for the briefest moment she considered his offer.
No. That was too much. It was time to make this stop. She scabbarded her sword, hefted her shield onto her shoulder, and without a word headed in the direction of the ruined keep.
Reubair hurried behind her and took her arm. She wrenched herself free and continued walking. He grabbed her again and she stopped to listen.
“Tell me what you would have me do to win you.”
No. She wouldn’t listen. She had to keep strong. But when the image of Alex came she thrust it aside. Alex wasn’t here, and he was unlikely to ever be here. He was seven centuries in the future, and if she ever saw him again it wouldn’t be in this lifetime. Only her will to be independent would keep her from caving and accepting this offer. No matter how much she wanted to find her baby, this was not the way to do it. She needed to find the Bhrochan herself and make them tell her what they’d done with him.
Which had been exactly what she’d thought about Nemed when the baby had turned up missing. How wrong had she been about that? There was no telling where she should look, and it was only Reubair’s conviction the Bhrochan were no good that made him point to them as culprits.
It was time to get out of there. To stay with this company any longer would be to invite temptation. She turned to her commander and said, “I’m going. I can’t stay here. I don’t believe you really mean to find my son, and so I have to decline your offer. Since you seem to be right about the men not accepting me, then my only choice is to move on. I must restore my disguise and return to my search for my baby.”
“No, stay.”
“For what? As you’ve so thoroughly explained to me, there’s nothing to keep me here. I’ve no hope of success among these men, so I can only go elsewhere.”
“I can make you stay.”
“You can kill me or restrain me. Hardly the same thing.”
His lips pressed together, his fair cheeks flushed, and his eyes darkened with his customary anger. For a moment he looked as if he might hit her, but instead he glanced to the side as his jaw muscles worked. He was thinking, deciding. Finally he said, “I will find your son.”
“I think not. You’ll look for him, but only until I either leave or marry you.”
“Then promise to marry me after I’ve found him.”
An odd note of pleading in his voice caught her attention. He seemed truly afraid she would leave his company of knights. They both knew he wouldn’t kill her if she did, and they both knew she had the advantage for that. Now he was offering all for a promise from her.
There were only two choices, as happened with nearly everything else in life. Stay or go. Accept or decline. Do or do not. She searched his face and found him looking straight across at her. There was no love, and that was a relief. But there also was nothing hidden. By all her skills at reading people, he seemed sincere.
In her silence, he pressed his case. “Stay and I will make certain the men will not annoy you anymore.”
“I can’t let you do that. You’ll only make it worse. I have to make them stop on my own.”
His face brightened. “Then you’ll stay and accept my offer?”
She opened her mouth to say no, that wasn’t what she meant, then closed it. It was time to decide, and she liked the idea of An Reubair joining the search without having to marry him first. Who knew what the future would hold? He could be an ally without having to be her husband. So she nodded.
CHAPTER 15
The large cavalry of James Douglas moved more slowly than Alex preferred, and it chafed him. In his service under Edward Bruce before Bannockburn, he’d commanded a small patrol that had made lightning strikes on convoys and performed reconnaissance in the Scottish Lowlands, and he’d liked the speed and freedom of it. Cutting through forests and avoiding established tracks made stealth far simpler, as well. James had always been more mobile than Robert and Edward, even when he’d commanded foot soldiers from the Highlands, but these days his numbers were still ponderous and heavy equipment, including a couple of captured siege engines, made their progress more slow than a small patrol would be. Alex found himself wanting to head south on his own, to cut into the heart of England.
“Tell James you want to take your men north.” Trefor was at Alex’s tent flap to present his great new idea. Then he added in a pointed tone, “My lord.”
Alex looked up from the crude map in his hand, drawn by one of James’ scouts. Hard to tell much from it, but if it was at all accurate he had misgivings about the terrain ahead. “North? Yeah, sure. This is me, telling James I want to head home in the middle of the campaign.”
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