Master Of Surrender (29 page)

A
s Manhku led her toward the knoll where just yesterday Rohan had practiced with his men, she was shocked to see so many gathered. Every villager from every corner of Alethorpe, Dunleavy, and Wilshire appeared. She even saw a few faces from Dunsworth. She had forgotten about Arlys. Was he still being held hostage in the stable?

As she looked closer at the throng, Isabel’s heart clenched. She looked upon the group Enid had spoken of. A more pathetic assemblage of churls she had never seen. Some two score of them, all shaven, even the women and children, but more noticeable and frightening were the X’s burned into their foreheads. They huddled as one, their dark, murderous eyes locked unwaveringly on Henri and his men.

When the devil knight beheld them, he stopped in his tracks. He waved to Rodger, who walked beside Isabel and Manhku. “Seize those churls! They are under arrest by my order!”

“Nay!” Manhku shouted. “Sir Rohan has given them safe haven here. They are no longer your property.”

Henri threw his head back and laughed. “My brother has become Saxon overnight?” He smiled at Isabel. “What magic do you work with that addled crone Wilma?”

Isabel smiled. “You will see shortly.”

Henri’s face fell at the implication of her words, but he turned around and continued toward the knoll, where Rohan stood in all of his mailed glory, ready to take his brother down once and for all.

Once they were all assembled, Rohan made brief eye contact with Isabel. But when he pressed his hand to his chest, she smiled. It was all she needed from him. He would be her champion. She had known the first time she laid eyes on him that cold morning not long ago.

Rodger’s heralds blew their horns, and soon the gathered crowd was quiet.

“In the name of William Duke of Normandy and heir to the English throne, I hereby give notice. A tourney between Henri de Monfort…” The crowd jeered, and scores of missiles in the form of rotted fruit and vegetables sailed from its midst. Rodger raised his hands, calling for order. The crowd quieted. “And Sir Rohan du Luc.” The crowd roared in approval. Isabel smiled and looked to Rohan, whose face she could not see behind his helmet, but the outpouring from the villagers filled her heart. Their acceptance of the man she loved was more than she hoped for.

Once the crowd settled, Rodger continued. “The tourney rules are thus. Each knight will use his own sword. No other weapons will be allowed. Should one appear, then all is forfeit, and to the other go the spoils, which in this case is the lady Isabel.” If the crowd had cheered for Rohan, they nearly lost their voices in their zealous cheers for her. She smiled and waved, her chest swelling with pride. She would never forsake them.
Ever.

“The prize is the lady Isabel and the lands she is heir to. At the conclusion of this tourney, the last knight standing will be declared the winner, and for that he shall never again be challenged for the lady or the lands.”

Rodger turned to both knights. “William has expressed deeply, he does not wish for death for either of his knights this day. Do not aim for any vital organ. This is a test of strength only.”

He looked to Henri, then Rohan. “Do you accept the terms of this tourney?” They both nodded. “Choose your seconds.”

Rohan chose Thorin, and Henri chose a knight Isabel did not recognize, but apparently several villagers did, for there was a buzz amongst the crowd when he stepped forward. Isabel looked to Manhku in confusion. He shook his head, unable to give her an answer.

The two warriors faced each other at a distance of no more than four horse lengths. Their eyes, like those of a hawk eyeing its prey from on high, never strayed from each other. Rohan knew his brother was not invulnerable, but he was a more than worthy opponent.

As he expected, Henri moved first, stepping around Rohan in a circle. Matching his motion, Rohan moved in the opposite direction. And as Rohan also expected, his impatient brother raised his sword and rushed him. Rohan met his blade steel to steel. Their swords sang out in a single howl above their heads. Rohan parried Henri, sending him flying past him. Rohan turned, and the two changed directions.

“Surely, you intend to do battle face-to-face, brother.” Rohan grinned through clenched teeth.

Henri did not reply but charged once again. His sword, striking downward, was met by a defensive counterstrike, and the toe-to-toe battle was on. Long before the rift that drove them apart and divided them, as boys, the brothers had practiced regularly together using wooden replicas. Each had become so accustomed to the other and his tactics that their sessions often lasted well past the expected time, resulting in a draw.

But much time and emotion had passed between them. Rohan knew with clarity that there would be no draw today. One of them would not get up.

The angry sound of steel on steel rang out as the two fought for advantage. Henri struck down upon Rohan’s sword, then raised his sword and struck down again from the opposite direction, all the while moving his feet in a small circle. Forced into a defensive position, Rohan could only muster protective blows. Sensing that the weight of the sword would soon take its toll on Henri’s arms, Rohan hoped to bide his time for a counterstrike.

Yet Henri continued to move with lightning speed, his barrage of potentially deadly strikes unending.

Sweat poured down Rohan’s face. He blinked rapidly to keep his devil of a brother clearly in his sight. He ignored the sting as well as the increasing fatigue in his arms and shoulders. Strike after strike, blow after blow, brother to brother, they prolonged their dance.

Suddenly changing his tactic, Henri swiped at Rohan from the opposite side. Planting his steel blade deep into the earth, Rohan pushed off from the weapon and leapt skyward and away from his brother’s attack. His weight above the sword gave it additional resolve against the strike; the ensuing reverberation stung Henri. He could barely maintain his grip.

Sensing the opportunity before him, Rohan wasted no time in going on the offensive. In one upward motion, he yanked the sword from the hardened soil and swung it like a club at Henri. Clods of earth trailed its motion through the air as the tip of the blade narrowly missed Henri’s chin, and he stumbled backward. Rohan swung again from the opposite side and advanced on his adversary.

Rohan grinned beneath his helmet. Advantage Rohan, and Henri knew it. Struggling against his own fatigue, Henri managed to deflect the onslaught of strikes barraging him. He continued to retreat while looking wildly for a way out.

But Rohan was a man possessed. Striking from every direction, he was consumed by his advance. Henri realized his brother had more reason to win than he did himself. Henri’s heel caught on a rock protruding from the soil. Suddenly, he fell onto his back while thrusting his sword upward at the juggernaut before him. Rohan’s momentum carried him uncontrollably forward and into the cold steel of his brother’s sword. Heat seared his side.

All motion ceased as the reality of what had just happened struck them both. Rohan’s eyes widened; his heart screamed for retribution. He could not die, not by Henri’s hand, not when Isabel would suffer for his folly.

“Nay!” he cried. “You will not have her, brother!”

He heard Isabel’s scream, but he could not look to her. Instead, he looked down to where blood slowly ran down the blade of the great broadsword stuck in his left side. He grabbed at the site of the wound. A slow burning worked its way across his midsection as he tried to wrap his mind around the scene before him. Henri had won? Nay, it—could not be so…

Rohan looked to Henri. A slow, maniacal grin twisted his face as he drank in his victory. His hand still on the hilt, Henri slowly dragged his weapon from the wound, reveling in the additional pain it caused his sibling.

Tiny pinpoint stars danced in front of Rohan’s eyes, and his legs quaked, no longer able to support his weight. Still gripping his sword before him with his right hand, he dropped to one knee, while trying to hold back the tide of crimson with his left. He struggled to catch his breath, with his shoulders rounded and his chin pressed against his chest. He fought simply to stay conscious.

“Struggling, brother?” Henri taunted from nearby. “Stay with me for just a moment longer. While your pain will soon disappear, I want your eternal memory to survive. Go to your grave, brother, with the knowledge that while you sleep in the cold of the earth, I sleep between the warmth of your woman’s thighs!”

Isabel’s scream rang out, slicing the cold December air. Rohan pressed his hand to his chest, remembering the ribbons there.

A droning like that of a buzzing hive of bees filled his ears, but slowly Rohan’s vision cleared. He willed his body to rise and defend itself against the wound. With each breath, he became more cognizant of his surroundings. He still held his sword in his right hand. Henri’s feet and legs were poised before him. He lifted his head and gazed at Isabel. Manhku held her back; the horror twisting her beautiful face wrenched his gut.

That Henri thwarted William’s decree of no fight to the death, Rohan was not surprised. It had to be this way. Only one of them would rise.

“It is done,” Henri crowed. “To the victor go the spoils, and to the dead the afterlife. Haunt me no more, brother.” Henri stepped toward Rohan and, with a wide base, dug his feet into the ground. Grasping the broadsword with both hands, he slowly lifted the weapon above his right shoulder and over his head. His chin rested on his left shoulder as he looked down on his brother. “For Eleanor, Rohan, and for our sire, who could not see past his by-blow to his noble son, who would have given him the world had he but paid the slightest bit of attention!”

As Henri brought his blade down, Rohan let out his chilling battle cry and thrust. Henri’s body jerked but hung as if suspended by an invisible string above Rohan. Henri’s eyes widened, and his chin quivered. His legs shook, and his hands slowly broke grip with the sword he still held. It fell to the ground behind him. His arms slowly dropped to his sides. Poised on his toes, he looked in confused astonishment at Rohan.

Rohan let out a long breath. In that single moment of superiority, dominance, and victory, Henri had been vanquished. Consumed with his triumph, Henri had failed to notice Rohan take his own sword with both hands and thrust it high into his groin. Rohan wasted no time in withdrawing the blade, ensuring a wide and fatal wound.

Falling to his knees, Henri came face-to-face with Rohan. “You have killed me, brother.”

Rohan nodded. “You left me no option.”

Henri fell to Rohan’s right no longer able to maintain himself. Rohan turned to the man fate had determined should be noble born but unloved. Henri’s head rolled to one side facing Rohan. He seemed to struggle for words, but none came. Slowly, the life force drained from his body, and his eyes turned hard and lifeless. They stared blankly up at him. Rohan closed them with his hand.

The final chapter to Henri’s unhappy life closed, while another chapter opened for Rohan. As he turned to find his lady, he squinted in the sunlight, sure that he was hallucinating. For while Isabel stood, she stood with Dunsworth. What was this? His men swarmed him, but Rohan shook his head and pointed toward the woman two seers had prophesied would be his for eternity.

Isabel wrestled against Arlys’s grip. But the more she wrangled, the harder he pressed the tip of his short sword into her back. “Be still, Isabel, or your knight will have a corpse for a leman,” he hissed in her ear.

As it occurred to Rohan’s men that he was directing them back to Isabel, they stopped their mad rejoicing. Dunsworth, along with his men who had accompanied him to Rossmoor several nights before, stood armed and holding the lady Isabel as hostage. A Willingham no doubt had a hand in their escape.

“Stand back, Normans!” Arlys cried out. “Stand back, or the lady will pay the penalty for your trespass!”

Les morts
stopped.

Using her as a shield, Arlys moved Isabel toward the gathered throngs of Saxon villagers. “Take heart, my countrymen. We will win the day here. Take up arms now so that we might clear this scourge from our midst!”

When they did not respond with gusto, Isabel saw her chance. “Nay! Do not listen to him! He would have sold me out to de Monfort! He is not worthy to lead you!”

Isabel turned and pointed to Rohan, who had been helped up by his men. The wound at his side bled heavily. Tears blurred her vision. She twisted out of Arlys’s grasp but was caught by one of the X’ed Dunsworth churls. He held her to him. When Arlys made a play to regain her, the man raised a spiked club.

Isabel turned to her people. “William may not be rightful king in our eyes, but he will be crowned. He has the mighty arm of seasoned knights; he has the treasury to fight us. He is a vindictive duke and will bring suffering to all who rise up against him.” She looked at their faces and saw fear and indecision. She pointed to Rohan and his knights, who stood battle-ready. “These knights have not pillaged or plundered our home. They have not raped our women. Nay, they have gone out daily in search of the cowardly raiders who seek only to kill and maim. They hunt and replenish the larders with fresh meat.” Isabel took a deep breath. “Sir Rohan is a fair man; his men are fair; he is strong and has the ear of the duke.”

She turned and pointed an accusing finger at Arlys, who stood, furious, not two steps from her. “He is a liar.” A hard sob caught high in her throat as sudden realization dawned. “Beware of the fox in sheep’s clothing,” her father had told Rohan.

“’Twas you who slew my sire!” She broke free from the churl’s grasp. When Arlys’s face twisted in fury, she knew she had touched the truth. “Did you slay Geoff as well?” By his silence, she knew she had hit home. “Was it you, Arlys, who led the marauders into the forests, destroying the people and the lands?”

He shook his head and backed away from her. “Nay, not all.” His eyes darted to Henri’s second, who stood listening intently. Arlys pointed a finger. “’Twas Henri’s idea. He wanted to kill as many of Rohan’s churls as possible and make them fear all Normans. He hoped to instigate an uprising.”