Laird of the Wind (37 page)

Seeing Eustace, Isobel grasped his hand, smiling. She had not seen him since the day of the skirmish in the forest, when her horse had run away with her. "You look well," she said, and kissed his leathery cheek.

"Isobel, lass," he said, smiling. "The life of a forest brigand has been good for you. I have not seen such roses in your cheeks or such a sparkle in your eye since you were a wee girl."

She felt herself blush. "I am rested now, and much stronger." She listened as he told her of his time at Stobo and at Alice's house most recently. Then she turned to greet Henry and Geordie, glad that the lad was recovered.

"When I learned we might fight Southrons for you and Margaret, they couldna keep me away," Geordie said.

"Lad, I want you to stay here to help protect Alice," James said. He looked at Isobel. "We should go—the sun is nearly up."

"I'll go alone," she said.

His eyes were dark in the half light, his face lean in the steel mesh frame. "You will not."

"I need no protection from a priest I have known all my life."

"That may be so. But you do not know where the old oak is, where you are to meet."

Alice approached them. "Let me keep that hawk while you both go."

"I want Isobel to keep the hawk with her," James said. "If there is a threat, he will bate, and no one will come near you while he frets. We will be close by."

"Naught will happen to me," Isobel insisted.

James leaned close. "For a prophetess," he murmured, "you can be thick as a stone."

"'Tis your welfare I care about, you great brigand," she whispered. She saw a flicker of amusement in James's eyes, but he looked determined.

He handed back the hawk to her, then gestured to the others. "Come ahead, then."

Chapter 24

An old, massive oak tree rose at the center of a grove, its wide, leafy canopy providing dim shade. Younger trees formed a circle around the oak. Beyond it lay the forest, and in an opposite direction, an open moor. James headed toward the oak while the others followed.

He waded through a sea of green ferns, ducking his head and shoulders beneath low-hanging branches. Partly hidden by leafy boughs, a large knotty crevice formed a long, hollow space that he and his men had used before.

He grabbed Isobel's hand and pulled her inside the narrow cavity, their bodies pressed close in the confined space. The others swung up into the boughs and found seats along the wide, thick branches to keep watch.

As Isobel looked up into the branches, James saw the light spill down to touch off a diamond sparkle in her eyes. He rested a hand on her shoulder and looked toward the grove. On Isobel's fist, Gawain lifted his wings and stirred. She shushed the bird—she had a way with him now, James noted—and then she perched the bird on a branch, while James tied the jesses there.

Her body was warm against his in the small space. Time seemed to suspend for him as he waited, his awareness of her beside him growing more and more keen.

"Father Hugh should be here soon," she whispered.

"I will go with you," he said, and when she shook her head, he sighed. "Then know that we are here, close by, keeping watch."

"Stay here," she whispered. Her eyes seemed to plead with him.

"If the priest should come with someone else—"

"He will not let harm come to me. But I worry that you will be seen."

He gazed at her. All else seemed to fade from his vision—a wave of love and desire poured through him with stunning strength. He touched her cheek.

She tilted her head up, her body snug against his, her cheek near—he turned, seeking, and she flowed into his arms. His mouth fitted to hers, swift and hard and hungry, and his hand found her cool, silken hair as he tilted her head. He took her mouth again, slipping a hand to the curve of her waist. She gave a soft cry against his lips and kissed him with such fervor that his heart pounded. He leaned her back into the heart of the oak, drinking in her breath, her heart, her soul.

He was a fool to let her go—with anyone, anywhere. He craved her, body and soul; she was sustenance to him now. He would not flourish without her.

He had not protected Elizabeth as he should have, and that would always haunt him. He would not let that happen again. Isobel had to be safe. She had to leave the forest—leave him.

But for now, she was in his arms. He took her face in his hands, kissing her again, lingering over lips, cheeks, eyelids. His blood, heart, slammed. He could not exist without her, and yet must. He drew back, made himself do so.

"Jamie," she whispered. Her fingers touched his jaw. "I do love you."

He closed his eyes and let her words sink into his soul. He loved her, he did—but if he said so, he would never be able to follow the course he had set. He held her in silence.

"The priest is in the meadow," Quentin called softly, above them. "He is alone."

Isobel pulled away and James reached up to untie the hawk's jesses. The bird stepped to the glove. Isobel glanced up at him with the glint of tears in her eyes. Then she edged out of the nook.

"I will be here," he whispered.

"I know," she breathed. Then she stepped away.

James watched her go. Beyond the trees, the sun brightened over the moor. Isobel moved toward the sunlit grove, holding the hawk's leather jesses as securely as she held the strings of his own heart. James felt the tug of it.

A man rode to the middle of the moor and dismounted to walk toward the grove, dark-robed and short, his wide face pale beneath the shelter of his hood. Isobel greeted the priest and they stood talking for a bit. The priest took her arm, urging her to walk beside him. She hesitated, but then nodded and went with him.

James grabbed his bow. A shiver went through the small hairs along his arms and neck. Isobel might trust this man, but he did not. Hefting the bow, he edged out of the hollow in the tree.

Out on the moor, Gawain bated, lifting his wings and squawking. Isobel stopped to calm him, and the priest drew her along.

James ducked under the low-hanging oak boughs and whistled softly to the others. He heard them thump to the ground one by one behind him.

Before he could call a warning or run to her, men on horseback surged out of the forest and crossed the moor at a thundering pace. James snatched an arrow and nocked it in the bow as he began to run.

Three men rode toward Isobel, and the rest cut across toward the grove. The priest stepped back as they came near. One man leaned down to grab Isobel, hauling her onto his saddle as he rode past, his horse's hoofbeats digging up heathery clods.

The hawk fluttered his wings wildly. As Isobel was yanked upward, she lost her grasp. The tiercel soared above the moor with swift wing beats, slanted high, and vanished into the trees.

James stared, stunned. Isobel and the goshawk, both swept away from him in the space of one swift and awful moment.

He roared out and ran forward. He allowed himself to think only how many arrows, how long the bowshot, how many men. The white horse carrying Isobel disappeared into the forest, and James felt rage surge in him.

The other riders neared the grove. Behind James, his friends arranged themselves, bows and weapons drawn. Henry Rose raised his longbow and released the shaft. It sailed between the trees and struck one of the soldiers in the chest.

James shot too, then nocked and pulled again. The horses came at him so fast that soon arrows were of little use. He drew his sword from the scabbard at his back, and swung it brutally, teeth bared, legs planted apart, as the first rider came toward him.

Horses circled him, and he fought ferociously, his strength stoked by rage rather than by fear. Isobel had trusted the priest, and she had been betrayed. She was gone. The hawk was gone. James could not think beyond his gut-deep need to cut past the men who confronted him, who prevented him from going after what had been torn from him.

He had meant to send her away himself, but safety, always protected. This betrayal and capture had endangered Isobel. Fury burned like a yellow-red glaze in his vision. All he saw took on a slow and terrible grace, as if he looked through the golden irises of a hawk.

In front, behind, beside, horses and soldiers surrounded him. He swung the two-handed sword savagely, driving a couple of the horses back, slicing at the thighs of the riders, his blade striking steel, bounding back, arcing down again.

He could not see his men. His vision was filled with the heaving flanks and shoulders of horses, with faceless men in chain mail and blood-red surcoats, with glinting steel blades and cruel weapons swiping relentlessly toward him. He ducked and swung, turned, avoided a coming blow, spun, cut upward with the blade, turned again.

One of the soldiers cried out, clutching an arrow in his chest; another whirled away from clashing his blade with James to struggle with an unseen foe on the outside of the circle. James knew his men were there, and fighting with him, though a heavy barrier of horseflesh trapped him.

He turned, seeing an opening as one of the horses shied back. But as James tried to slip past, the spiked steel ball of a mace flung into the air and came down in a merciless arc.

He felt the shock of the blow on the side of his head, and fell forward into darkness.

As he slammed into the hard earth, he thought he heard the cry of a hawk.

* * *

Isobel looked frantically over her shoulder again, past the shoulder of the man who carried her across the front of his saddle. They rode at a steady pace through the forest, while she sat over his legs, trapped in the circle of his arms. Chain mail bit into her through her clothing. She had never seen him before; though his face was bearded and his dark eyes somber, he seemed young. He scarcely spoke to her.

Far behind them, she saw Father Hugh, riding with two other guards along the forest path. She looked away swiftly, feeling ill with anger as she recalled how the priest had broken trust with her. He must have known that Leslie's patrol waited in the forest, ready to steal her away and go after the outlaws.

She had caught sight of James only once after she had been taken, when she had looked back wildly to see him running toward her through the trees, his bow drawn, his face fierce. Then a phalanx of horses had surrounded him, and the horse that carried her entered the forest, and the trees had obscured her view.

She knew that James had gone down. She had seen the same sight in a vision, days ago. He had fallen inside a circle of horsemen, his face darkened with blood.

She gasped and covered her face with her hand. Her other hand still wore the hawking glove. Its weight reminded her that the hawk was gone too. The awful realization of that double loss hit her again with devastating force. She felt as if her breath might stop. Squeezing her eyes shut, she forced back tears as her captor rode on.

Kee-kee-kee-kee-eerr.

Startled, she looked up at the vast, swaying canopy of leaves overhead. A hawk swooped there, slanting his wings as he cut through the treetops. He glided like a sylph, the sun golden on the fingers of his wings. His jesses trailed behind him like ribbons on the wind.

Excitement and hope stirred in her. Isobel held up her gloved hand. "Gawain!" she called. "Sir Gawain, here to me!" She began to sing the kyrie. The guard looked at her as if she had gone mad.

"Gawain?" he asked.

"My hawk," she said. "Just there."

He craned his head around. "The goshawk, there?"

"A valuable bird," she said. "I must have him back."

"Gosses are naught but trouble to train, which gives them some worth. Yours, then?" He shook his head. "He will not come back now he's free. Before noon, he'll be as wild as the day he was born."

"He will come back," she insisted. She watched the goshawk swoop and soar, then alight on the uppermost branch of a tall tree. "He will. Stop—let me call to him. Please, I beg you!"

The guard glanced over his shoulder at the priest and the other guards who rode a fair distance behind them. "Any hawk named Gawain ought to be saved," he mused. He drew rein and circled the horse. "You must stay with me, though. Sir Ralph Leslie charged me with your safe arrival."