Prisoner of the Flames (Leisure Historical Romance) (35 page)

The moon rose at dusk, veiled with a misty halo. The day would dawn soft with rain, but that was still far off. Just after dark, a new odor bled into the rest. Violette smelled it first.

“Are there fires in the village?” she said, craning her neck toward the west.

“I cannot even see the village yet,” he returned.

“You will,” she said. “Breathe in. These are not hearth fires that I smell…it is like the Huguenot village—
the forest,”
she shrilled. “Does it burn?”

“Shhhh! Be still,” he cautioned. “We do not know whose ears are near enough to hear us. We have nearly left the forest. There is no danger, Violette, unless it be that soon we lose the trees’ protection.” He took a deeper breath, and strained through the trees with narrowed eyes toward the clearing.

“Something burns, I tell you!” she insisted. “I smell it…”

All at once, so did he. Close scrutiny toward the land ahead proved that her warning was sound. It wasn’t the forest. It was the village, well on the way of being reduced to cinder, slag, and ash.

Robert uttered a string of oaths under his breath, and pulled up short just inside the thinning trees that marked the end of their protection.

“What is it?” she murmured.

“The village,” he said emptily. “They have sacked it.”

“What will we do?”

“There is nothing we can do,” he said. “We will wait for the moon to rise higher and show us if they have moved on, or if some still linger.”

“The horses?”

“It isn’t likely that we’ll find any fit to ride here now. They will have taken what there was. If I didn’t have you with me, I would go on ahead and scout.” He popped a cryptic laugh, remembering his last attempt at that, at Rouen. That all seemed so long ago to him now, like another lifetime.

“You won’t leave me?” she cried.

“Never, Violette. Whatever happens to us now, happens to us both.”

He said no more. The moon soon rose higher in the ink-black vault above, and stars winked down through the clouds that had begun to drift overland from the east off the sea. Seeing no movement, they crept closer to the village—close enough for Robert to see the smoldering remains of thatched-roof dwellings tinting the night sky an unearthly shade of red.

Bodies of the dead were strewn about the streets, and the Scot was glad that Violette was blind.

“There is death here,” she murmured. “I am smelling blood.”

“These people have been taken unaware. They never had a chance.”

The echo of dogs barking in the distance sent cold chills down Robert’s spine. They had seen the carnage, and were running mad with fright. He prayed they wouldn’t meet them. But those words were scarcely murmured when they met with something else—something far more dangerous. They’d nearly left the village behind, when two lingering
warriors strode from one of the dwellings that hadn’t been burned. The sound of female moans leaking through the open doorway told all too well what had detained them. Cold sweat ran over Robert’s raised hackles and he shoved Violette behind him.

“Stand still!” he charged, ripping the
sgian dubh
from his boot. “The land hereabout is open and fairly level. If I tell you, you must run! I will find you.”

But there was nowhere to run. They stood face-to-face with two armed Northumbrian warriors, whose shouts brought two others from behind.

They were surrounded.

R
obert’s footwork earned him a sword when his
sgian dubh found its mark in the belly of one soldier, while the boot he’d drawn it from temporarily stayed the advance of another. Now he had two weapons, and he quickly sheathed the
sgian dubh
again and hefted the Northumbrian’s sword. Violette screamed, and he spun toward the sound. The other two latecomers had grabbed her, and he lunged at the men, his sword at the ready, but the winded warrior, on his feet now, was attacking him from behind.

Sparks flew from edged cold steel in the darkness. All around, new fires were flaring up. Loose thatch trailing flames broke free and rained down in the dusty street as the combatants hacked at each other in the moonlight.

Violette’s screams ran the young Scot through like javelins, as he battled the Northumbrian, matching thrust for thrust. In quick glimpses, he caught sight of her struggling with the men who had seized her, just as she had struggled with the gendarmes beside the bridge in Paris, when they first met, though these were far from drunk. She pummeled them with her fists, and drubbed their shins with the toes of her slippers. She used her teeth when all else failed, and it took the two of them to hold her.

Impaling the soldier he’d engaged upon his sword at last, Robert withdrew the blade and shoved the warrior down. Then spinning on his heels, he dove for the two who had hold of Violette. But while he struggled with one, the other let her go, and thrust his sword. It sliced through Robert’s leather jerkin and pierced his side.

Robert hesitated. Pain starred his vision. The blow caused a shift in his rhythm momentarily. This was no mere surface wound. It was serious. He was losing blood. This he could not let either of the raiders see, and he raised both blades with a savage cry on his lips and met the warrior who had run him through head-on.

Violette’s screams assailed his ears as though they were coming from an echo chamber in competition with the pulse thudding in his brain. The other Northumbrian had hold of her again, and he struck her a blow to the face that knocked her to the ground. Sudden blood loss was sapping the young Scot’s strength. This was his worst fear—that he would die and leave her at the mercy of such as these that had hold of her now. Grinding clenched teeth, he lunged, driving the Northumbrian down, then rolled as the man righted himself and thrust his sword with all his strength. It was much the same maneuver that he’d employed against Garboneaux at the prison. It struck true, and the raider fell upon him, dead.

Robert rolled the fallen raider off his body. He had suffered many battle wounds, but this was different. It wasn’t the pain, it was the weakness that struck terror in his heart—terror at the prospect that he would not be able to spare Violette a cruel fate at the raider’s hands. The warrior who had hold of her didn’t seem to view him as a threat, writhing in the dust as he crawled toward them. That gave him an advantage. Violette was semiconscious from the blow. She could no longer defend herself. Robert, in that instant, knew it wasn’t likely that he would survive hand-to-hand combat with this seasoned warrior, but he still possessed enough strength to cheat him of his prize. He needed precious little to plunge his blade into Violette’s tender flesh. Only courage. It would be quick and clean…and he would soon follow.

Intent upon attempting to tear Violette’s shift away, the
soldier didn’t see Robert drag himself to his knees. Robert dropped the sword. He hadn’t strength enough to wield it. Instead, he raised the
sgian dubh
that fit his hand as though he’d been born with it, and hesitated.

More fires had flared up, shooting long, lean tongues of flame into the night sky. Why was the ground shaking? He was losing consciousness. That must be it. It wasn’t the ground. It was his
knees
that were shaking as he inched his way closer.

One of the fires that spread from roof to roof was engulfing the cottage the first two warriors had quit when he and Violette first entered the village. All at once the figure of a woman reeled through the flaming doorframe. Her shift hung in tatters from her shoulders, her naked body beneath smeared with soot and slime and blood. Staggering over the lane studded with bits of burning thatch barefoot, she bore down upon them whimpering, a burning wattle raised above her head.

Robert’s eyes oscillated between his bride and the woman approaching, the
sgian dubh
raised in both his hands, and he was poised to strike the blow that would free Violette and break his heart. Struggling with Violette’s skirts, the Northumbrian had left her throat exposed. Robert was about to seize the opportunity to come from behind and drive the blade home, when the flaming wattle in the advancing woman’s hands came crashing down upon the raider’s head and shoulders, setting the man’s hair and tunic afire.

“He rapes no more!” the woman shrilled, shuffling away, her wails siphoned off on the wind. As she disappeared in a belching cloud of smoke, Robert lunged, but not at Violette. With all his strength, he sank the
sgian dubh
into the Northumbrian raider’s back, as he twisted in a vain attempt to escape the flames that had set fire to his torso. Shoving the man aside, he turned to Violette. Groping the ground, she had grabbed the flaming wattle the woman had dropped,
and commenced beating the raider with it. Dodging her random swings, Robert took it from her, and gathered her into his arms.

“Enough,” he said, holding her close. “He is done…”

She groped his face.
“You live!”
she cried. “I thought they’d killed you…”

Robert didn’t answer. Holding her close, he buried his face in her hair, and she clung to him, sliding her hands the length of his body. When they touched the blood oozing from his side, he flinched.

“You are hurt!” she cried. “Tis deep, this…”

“It is…nothing,” he lied, prying his black dagger loose from the dead raider’s back.

“Listen!” she cried. “More horses come…many more than before.”

He felt the vibration again, and recognized it for what it was—not his weakened knees as he’d supposed, but horses indeed, and he gripped the
sgian dubh
in a white knuckled fist, and poised it over his bride’s slender throat.

“These do not come from the same direction,” she said, ignorant of the blade that was about to take her life. “Listen! They come from before us, not behind, like the others.”

Robert strained his ears for the sound her extraordinary hearing had already made plain to her. The ground beneath them now shook with the thunder of many heavy horses approaching—
from the west.
Were these the rest of the raiding party returning…or…?

All at once, they were surrounded. Soldiers mounted on warhorses flooded the lane, but
whose
soldiers? He had no better advantage than she did, trying to penetrate the thick clouds of smoke with dazed eyes all but blind from blood loss.

“Seize them!” their leader thundered, dismounting, while two others, already on the ground, laid hands on Robert and disarmed him.

The leader strode closer, and pulled up short.

Robert was afraid to trust his eyes.

“God’s toenails!” the towering, red-haired warrior brayed. Reaching down, he gripped the Scot’s forearm in a burly fist. “Robert Mack!” he said. “Well met! We’d given you up for dead.”

It was Hamish Greenlaw, his mother’s consort, and keeper of his legions.

“And who is this pretty flower you’ve plucked?” said Greenlaw.

“My lady wife,” Robert returned. “She is blind, Hamish…Uncle Aengus gave the blessing…before he died.”

“Ahhh, sad news to bring your mother,” Greenlaw said, his expression clouding. His eyes narrowed when he caught sight of Robert’s injury.

Greenlaw squatted down and examined the wound, then vaulted to his feet and spun toward his men.

“Bind his wound, and make a litter,” he commanded. “This is your liege wounded here.” He turned back to Robert. “You have need of Baldric’s skills,” he said. “I send you and your lady wife to him with my escort. I cannot escort you myself. We seek the rest of these that you have slain here. The whoresons tried to raze Paxton Keep not two hours ago. I saw this fire, and thought mayhap they had sacked this village instead. If we hadn’t come this way…”

If he said more, Robert didn’t hear. Groaning, he spiraled into the dizzying mist of unconsciousness.

It was a sennight before Baldric was ready to declare Robert officially among the living. Several days later, he opened his eyes to the sight of two doting women fussing about the elevated bed, where he lay heaped with quilts in his sleeping chamber.

“You will stay at home now awhile, I think,” said his mother. Her eyes were moist with unshed tears. “This fine
daughter you have brought me has shared shocking tales of your adventures. That you have come home at all is a miracle.”

“Can you not wait until I’m on my feet to admonish me, Mother?” said Robert, as Violette went into his arms.

“He cannot leave again ‘til he has shown me every flower in Scotland,” his radiant bride said. “He promised.”

“Then he will be at home for some time,” Lady Gwen replied.

“I am outnumbered,” Robert said, embracing his bride. “I have no need to go abroad again. All that I want or need, or ever will is here.”

“I won’t deceive you, my son,” his mother said. “There are grave dangers here at home that were only rumors when you left. John Knox will not rest ’til all in Scotland become slaves to the Protestant religion. What we face here now is not dissimilar from what you faced in France, Robert. These are troubled times. Heads will roll—nobility among them. No one stands upon firm ground here anymore, else he knows which way to swing, and when.”

“I’ve had my fill of politics—religious or otherwise,” Robert said, brushing Violette’s brow with his lips. “I’ve seen firsthand what lust for power amongst religious factions does to men in the name of God.” He brushed her brow again. She smelled of heather, reminding him. He admired the fine shift and tunic of embroidered silk his mother had provided. It was a shade of blue that rivaled the sky, and her long honey-brown hair was dressed with pearls. “I promised my lady wife a bed made with quilts and bolsters and pillows of down,” he said. “The politics of that are all that moves me now.” He stroked her face, as she reclined beside him atop the coverlet and nestled in the crook of his arm. “How do you find it, Violette, this bed of mine?”

“It is soft, and fine,” she said, “but not so fine as the bed of heather in the valley—no bed will ever be.”

How soft and warm she was in his arms. She would never know how close he’d come to sending her into the afterlife and following himself. It was a secret he would carry to his grave, and he made a solemn vow that he would never face such a test again.