Alinor (64 page)

Lord Llewelyn's face hardened. His son was his son, and he loved him. If he had known what was best to do for Owain, he would have done it. There was no way he could discover that. It was as likely that inaction would harm Owain as that action would, and here was a chance he had sought for years. Gwenwynwyn was attacking a keep in which his clan brother lay. That brother's wife had sought his help. He had cause enough to absolve him of any guilt for attacking Gwenwynwyn.

"Lady Alinor, you and your men bide here. Whatever caused this assault on Clyro Keep, I know one thing surely. Ian is safer in my hands than in any others. We go forward. We will take your banner, and we will cry Ian's name and fighting call. If they are his friends, they will not attack us. If they are his enemies, we will fall upon them."

"Go," Alinor agreed instantly, "but take my men also. You will need every sword."

"Do not be a fool. How dare I leave you unprotected? In any case, although they are more than we, they are weary already." He saw she was about to argue, and he saw from the stubborn set of her jaw that she would order the men out after him if he did not pacify her in some way. "I see you are determined," he said. "Very well, I will agree with you so far as this. Hold your men back for now. If you see that we are worsted, keep four or five of the best and fly for Clifford where you say your men lie. Send the others to our support. It will soon be dark. With their help, we should be able to make do until night falls. If God is willing, your men from Clifford may be here before the dawn."

"Done," Alinor agreed. "Go then. God go with you."

When she spoke, Alinor fully intended to keep her word, since Lord Llewelyn's plan seemed wise. She did not bother to silence the protests of some of her men, who felt that they were playing too passive a role in the rescue of their own lord. They might growl but they would obey her. There was no long time of doubting whether Llewelyn rode to meet friend or foe either. Hardly were his men clear of the trees and Ian's banner well visible, than the attackers began to turn from the walls.

What Lord Gwenwynwyn would have done had he had a free choice would never be known. Lord Llewelyn had no intention of allowing his rival to decide whether he would stand and fight or retreat. Gwenwynwyn, his rival for power in Wales, would not be allowed to slip through his fingers. So excellent a chance for blamelessly ruining Gwenwynwyn might never arise again. Even if truce had been cried. Llewelyn might have suddenly suffered a disorder of the ears and not heard. As it was, his honor did not demand deafness. Archers, who had been shooting at the men who strove to push away the scaling ladders, turned their bows on the oncoming forces.

The battle was soon joined in earnest, but, before anyone could guess which way it would go, a new and totally unexpected factor was introduced. The gates of the keep opened, and men began to ride out from behind the walls they had so lately defended. Into Alinor's mind leaped the conviction that the battle had been a ruse to cover Ian's death. It seemed to her that a man so lost to honor and faith as Sir Peter would not care how many died to hide his sin. To give strength to her conviction, the gates were not shut after the men came out.

Alinor did not stop to think that shutting the gates would be a useless and dangerous gesture when enemies who could reopen them were already on the undefended walls. Neither did she wait to see with which party those who came from the keep would side.

"That is my keep," she cried furiously. "Mine! The gates are open. Come, let us go to defend it."

Desperately, Sir Guy reached for her reins. If she killed him, it would only be another kind of death, but to allow a woman to ride out onto a battlefield was against everything he had ever believed or been taught. He was, however, too late. The sturdy mare had leapt forward, driven by whip and urgent heels. The men did not even look at him. They charged right after their lady, only too eager to act. Swept into the rout, Sir Guy followed, spurring his destrier viciously to overtake Alinor. It was too late to turn her back. To struggle or delay on the field would draw attackers as a corpse drew crows. He could only hope to protect her.

On the field a tight-knit group of men, riding hard, was actually in little danger except from a chance arrow. Llewelyn's and Gwenwynwyn's forces were too much engaged with each other to trouble anyone who did not launch a blow at them. Perhaps if Gwenwynwyn had known that Lady Alinor was among the riders, an effort would have been made to take her. But Alinor was dressed for hard riding in the Welsh forests, and there was little to mark her as a great lady in her homespun dress and dark, undecorated wimple. Besides, the idea of a woman in the midst of battle was so foreign to all men's minds, that even if one had caught sight of her delicate features, he would have dismissed what he saw as the face of a boy.

The danger lay inside the gates, and Alinor was well aware of that. She slowed her mare's pace sufficiently as they approached, so that Sir Guy and some of the men could precede her. There were, indeed, enemies in the bailey, but those men had fought hard already. Some were wounded; all were tired. Her fresh troop made short work of them, and Alinor called imperious orders for the men to dismount and clear the walls. Her voice rang high and clear, the tones carrying well above the muted sounds of the battle that raged outside the walls. It carried also to the open windows of the keep itself, where frightened servants clustered, watching the progress of the battle below.

They were all familiar with that imperious voice. They had heard it only a few months past when Lady Alinor had visited Sir Peter. To them, now, that voice meant salvation. The lady had brought an army to save them, but even the servants knew that the bailey was no safe or proper place for her. A few of the bolder men, carrying weapons discarded by the dead or wounded, hurried to unbar the door, to run out and beg the lady to come in to safety.

However impulsive, Alinor was no fool. She had achieved her purpose, and her presence was now more a danger than a help to her men. Sir Guy was competent enough in so clear a matter as taking prisoner or driving away the remnant of the enemy on the walls and guarding them from further attack. She delayed no longer than to make sure Sir Guy and the men knew where she was going, and followed the servants inside. There was more than enough for her to do there. Her firm authority brought order out of chaos very quickly. The wounded were separated from the dead; water was set to heating; salves and ointments and silk for sewing wounds were gathered.

Alinor's one act of cowardice was to avoid asking for Ian, but for once good news came swiftly. As Alinor bound up the wounds of one man-at-arms, he whispered thanks to God for her and for her good lord.

"My lord?" she asked, barely louder than the wounded man's exhausted sigh.

"Without him we would have been overwhelmed on the first assault. He showed us—" Then the eyes rolled up, and the man was unconscious. Alinor sat back on her heels for a moment to steady her breath.

"Where is Lord Ian?" she asked the man who lay on the right.

"Ridden out with Sir Peter and those who could ride," was the reply.

With Sir Peter? Alinor bent to look at the next wounded man with her mind in a whirl. If Ian had ridden out with Sir Peter, all her deductions had been false. Her hands tensed, and the man she was working over groaned. Alinor murmured an apology, a promise of greater care. The man gasped his own apology for the protest. At her worst, he assured Alinor, she did not wrench them about like the ham-handed leech.

"And where is he, this leech?" Alinor asked sharply. She had already inquired why the castle leech was not attending the wounded and had been told he was not in the keep. She had not pursued the matter at the time, but now her curiosity was aroused.

"I do not know. He has been gone more than a week, near two. First we thought he was gone to gather herbs to treat Lord Ian's sickness, but―"

"Lord Ian has been ill?" That question was even sharper.

"None said so to me, but he did not come from his chamber for nigh two weeks, nor did his squires. But he is well again, lady," the man assured her earnestly. "No man who is sick can fight like Lord Ian fought this day."

A momentary panic induced by the news soon subsided. Alinor was not soothed by the man-at-arm's conviction that a sick man could not fight. She had seen what Ian's will could enforce on his body, but no matter how sick he had been, there could be no reason to turn a messenger away and say that Ian had never arrived at Clyro Keep. Was it she or Ian who first suggested that Sir Peter was inclining to rebellion? Alinor wondered suddenly. She moved to the next man and looked down at him. She remembered that it was Ian who had mentioned Llewelyn's desire to come to grips with his rival. Had he been sounding her out to judge her willingness to be a party to such a thing? When she disapproved so strongly, had he decided to circumvent her? Was this all some mad plot on the part of Lord Llewelyn, Ian, and Sir Peter all together to entrap Lord Gwenwynwyn into war?

"Pardon lady," the man-at-arms she was staring at quavered. "Lady, what have I done? Be not so wroth."

Hastily Alinor smoothed her features and produced a smile. "I am not wroth with you, good man, but with those who caused you to be handled so roughly."

The phrasing was peculiar, but a man in pain who is listening to a language not native to him makes nothing of such niceties. To him it was sufficient that Alinor absolved him of any fault. Although she was careful to guard her expression, Alinor tended the remainder of the wounded seething. If her men had been so mauled to satisfy some political purpose of Ian's clan brother, she would have a bone to pick with her husband that he would be sorry he ever presented to her.

Outside the keep, the battle was rapidly drawing to a conclusion. There had been a period when the outcome hung in doubt, but that doubt had been eliminated when Salisbury and Alinor's English contingent rode onto the field. When they had come up behind the keep and seen the attack, they had been prey to the same doubts as Llewelyn's party. Decision had come more slowly to them because Salisbury could not enforce his will upon Alinor's men. Sir Henry wished to rush out and join the attackers, sure that they too were bent upon rescuing Alinor's husband. Sir Giles wanted to wait upon the outcome of the battle. Salisbury had convinced them, at last, to move through the woods around to the forepart of the keep, so that they would at least have a chance to determine who was engaged with whom and for what purpose.

By the time they had worked their way around, there was no longer need for doubt. Llewelyn's men, waving Ian's banner and shouting his name and fighting motto, were clearly allies. Swords were drawn, lances set, and Salisbury and Alinor's men thundered out to join the fray. At that point, the battle was over. Those of Gwenwynwyn's men who could, tried to flee, but the party opposing them was now so large that few succeeded. Finally, Lord Gwenwynwyn himself was taken, and the last core of real resistance died away.

There was then the immediate business of the battlefield to see to: prisoners to be collected, stripped, and guarded; the wounded to be gathered up; the dead to be laid out decently so that they could be protected against the carrion feeders who were already gathering in the woods and trees, to descend with the coming of dark. In a great battle, the dead were often left to their fate, the living being fewer than they and sufficiently busy with those for whom hope remained. In this brief action, however, there were not so many dead, and, friend and enemy alike, orders were given that they should be reverently, if hastily, gathered up.

Next, most immediate was both fathers' need for their sons. This need, Ian thanked God, was easily satisfied because Owain and Geoffrey were close beside him. Geoffrey then caused some anxious moments by fainting in Salisbury's arms, but he soon revived and, having been stripped and examined over his protests, was seen to have no serious injury. Ian, still uneasy, told of the blow on the head. Careful probing by the leech, which made Geoffrey wince and curse, could determine no soft spot that would be a token of a dangerous hurt to the skull. Still, the doubt in Ian's and Salisbury's eyes that remained—leeches did not always tell the truth to great men—reminded Llewelyn of Lady Alinor, who would be as knowledgeable as any leech and much more reliable. He cursed himself aloud for having forgotten her.

"Alinor!' Ian cried, abandoning his questioning of Geoffrey, "what do you mean, you forgot Alinor?"

"How did you think I came here?" Llewelyn asked, hurrying out of Gwenwynwyn's tent, which the victors had appropriated to their own use. "Your lady came to summon me to your aid."

"And you brought her to a battlefield?" Ian gasped.

Llewelyn paused for a moment to glance irritably at his clan brother. "If you could have stopped her— short of throwing her into a dungeon—you are a better man than I. She said she would remain down there in the wood, unless the battle went ill―"

Obviously, it was pointless to explain further. Ian was already shouting for a horse, anxiety lending new strength to a body on the borders of collapse. Llewelyn shrugged and returned to the tent. He might as well have his own slight hurts dressed, and then, he smiled with satisfaction, he would have a word or two with the captive Gwenwynwyn. He was deeply immersed in this, for him, delightful conversation when a raving lunatic burst into the tent, seized Gwenwynwyn by the throat, and began to choke the life out of him while beating his head against anything solid he could reach.

Llewelyn leapt upon Ian, struggling to tear him loose before he killed his half-stunned victim, and began bellowing for help. Half a dozen men rushed in. It took all their combined efforts to pull Ian off and restrain him.

"Where is my wife?" he screamed, when he at last realized he could not free himself.

The expression on Gwenwynwyn's face convinced Llewelyn that the man knew nothing of Alinor's whereabouts. "Ian," Llewelyn cried, interposing his body between Ian and Gwenwynwyn and taking his clan brother's face in his hands, so that he could force him to meet his eyes. "Ian, she is a woman. Doubtless she was affrighted by the battle and fled toward Clifford. Calm yourself. Calm yourself. I will send men after her. She will soon―"