Crown of the Realm (A White Knight Adventure Book 2) (24 page)

Stephen heard the war-whoop before any of them. He flashed Drake a vehement gesture. They discarded reins
, drew swords, goaded palfreys with knee and heel, and closed ranks.

Emerging
out of the thicket of humanity, the chestnut steed approached at full gallop. The horseman’s sword cleft the wind. In quick succession, two of Mercadier’s men went down, engulfed in screams and gore. Mercadier himself was attacked at rear quarters but contrived to duck the blade’s descent, only to fall from his horse and plunge into the river. Béthune took a slash in the arm, screamed in agony, yet valiantly brought his horse around on the counterattack. When their compatriot fumbled the stroke, Chauvigny and Fors rushed in, one following the other. But the attacker was too agile or too determined or possessed of preternatural powers that enabled him to strike down the knights in less than the blink of a grit-filled eye.

It came down to two brothers to prevail as shields against a master swordsman who rent sky and flesh with equal fervor.

To look at the assassin was not to look at an outwardly dangerous villain. Indeed, his long yellow hair, swirling in the commotion, marked him a pretty man. But when his sight lighted on the knight who had gotten the better of him once before, the violet eyes darkened with recognition, then with loathing, and finally with fear.

In a blur of muzzle and tail, the assassin lost command of his steed. He crossed himself
with a mangled arm and crippled hand. For now, Holy Mother of God, there were two of them. To invoke a second charm, he crossed himself again. As the three horsemen circled, collided, and sidestepped, the assassin’s blade struck out haphazardly. If he went for the apparition and sliced through vapor, he was done for. If he went for the other and succeeded in cutting out his black heart, the shade would come for him. Either way, he was a dead man. Either way, making a choice, any choice, promised defeat.

Drake shouted, “Your hand! Give me your hand!”

Instinctively, self-protectively, he held the gnarled arm to his breast. His eyes shifted. With a thunderous yowl, he lifted his sword arm and cut a straight path towards his target.

Calm and unruffled, t
he king let him advance.

When the
routier
took a miscalculated swing, Richard deflected the blow, and with the same stroke, slashed his opponent’s sword arm, drawing a spurt of blood. The assassin’s hand unlocked. The sword broke free from his fist, flipped end over end, and dropped to the ground point down. Sun glazing off its shiny surface, the sword stuck. It swayed. It wobbled. And marked his impending grave with a cross of silvery death.

The
routier
wasn’t dead yet.

The
chestnut beneath his haunches reared on hind legs. On the rise, a sliver of steel materialized. In a burst of energy, the dagger ripped asunder the golden samite of the king’s surcote. The blade dipped again and again, and struck home as many times. The king’s stallion screamed as blood sprinkled withers and braided mane.

I
n a collision of bodies and horses, Drake rushed toward the
routier
and swung his damascened sword. The edge struck on a killing angle and cleaved the assassin nearly in two, rending surcote, hauberk, and aketon in a single stroke.

The
routier’s
maddened eyes opened wide at the reproach. The pain, the gushing blood, the reality of his mortal wound had not caught up with him quite yet since his mind, fixed on a single purpose, overruled his body. Not understanding how he had been reduced to two bloody parts of a whole, the mercenary threw himself at Richard … and became impaled on the king’s sword, taking the stroke full in the belly, or what was left of it.

Like
bone in socket, the two men—assassin and king—became irrevocably interlocked. They crashed to the earth together, arms, legs, and torsos tumbling into a twisted knot. The chestnut palfrey bucked and galloped off. The king’s stallion gallantly held his ground, pawing one leg into the turf and flourishing a proud head. Blood covered the one man as much as the other. Their entangled limbs did not stir. The resurgence of wits, if any were left, arrived slowly.

Drake was paralyzed, as were they all.
He dismounted and reached down a helping hand. “Milord!” he yelled.

Richard unsnarled himself from the carnage and stood on his own
, wiping blood from his face.

Drake could hardly bring himself to speak. “Are you hurt, milord?”

“I am sound of limb, grace to you.”

“You’re bleeding.”

“Not mine.” And recovering his breath, his reason, and his bluster, Richard roared, “Three shirts of mail! Can the king to go nowhere without wearing three shirts of mail?”

Botolphe lay supine
on the ground, his grotesque arm wagging like the docked tail of a hound. The fatal gash delivered of Drake’s sword had turned a living, breathing man into a slab of beef. Drake swallowed his own gore and tore the dagger from the Brabançon’s claw. The ruined arm waved accusingly. Not understanding that he was moments from death, Botolphe struggled to rise.

Drake put the point of his blood-coated sword to
the assassin’s throat. “Who? Who sent you?”

The pretty man, pretty no more, growled. “She only used you!”

Arriving at Drake’s side, sword drawn, Stephen said, “As she only used
you
!”

Blood
regurgitated from somewhere deep inside the
routier
. Something approaching a smile spread over his face. His eyes, wholly black and stuck open, stared at Drake, then moved over to Stephen, and finally saw no more.

R
aising his voice in a maddened bellow, Drake whipped the dragon sword above his head, swung it on a downward trajectory, and chopped off the
routier
’s head, clean and nearly bloodless. The yellow-threaded skull rolled like a child’s ball, eyes seeing nothing, and came to a halt face down in the mud.

“M
ERCADIER!” DRAKE SHOUTED
as he remounted his horse. “You have my trust!”

“To the death!
” he said, having regained firm ground from his dunk in the river. “Now go!”

Stephen joined his brother
, and the Arabians spurted off as one. Peering keenly ahead, they entered the foot of the bridge and wrestled through the approaching throng. All looked mundane. The stream of humanity stretched to the horizon. Those who had started the crossing were making their way across the span at a plodding gait, most unaware of the recent drama that had occurred at the landing. Some folk conversed, still others laughed, while the rest concentrated on the tedious task at hand, that of traversing from one side of the bridge to the other without incident. Only those who were just completing their journey, and had viewed the grisly remains of the headless corpse, learned of the calamity. Even then, only gasps and alarmed whisperings passed among them, since the event was too horrid to imagine and the details too scarce to render judgment.

W
hen a hooded horseman cloaked in purple from head to legs entered the western span, Drake signaled his brother.

The
rider rode a Camargue, the legendary white horse of the sea. The steed bore its heavy head forward while its plumed tail caught the wind. In a sea of bay, ebony, dun, and chestnut, he shouldered other horses commandingly aside. Jennets nickered and whinnied. Destriers yielded. Palfreys protested but gave way. And the Camargue advanced.

His
intelligent head and strong quarters led the way without requiring a great deal of direction or urging. Yet in Drake’s mind, the manner in which the rider sat his proud horse did not ring true. While he demonstrated needful mastery over the wide-hoofed and unshod gallant, his riding seemed slightly undisciplined. It might have been in the way he held the reins, hunched his shoulders, or sat forward in the saddle that made him seem a tad ungainly, slightly off balance, and somewhat frenetic, as if he had an important task at hand, one that couldn’t wait.

The horseman had
progressed halfway across the bridge when he craned his neck and focused his vision on the eastern landing, where pennons of red-and-gold rippled in the wind, where the armor of the king’s knights shone brilliantly, and where the king, remounted and stripped of surcote, appeared hale and in command. The rider held his sights momentarily on the august figure and mumbled to himself, shaking his head in denial.

Drake saw it in
his eyes. Single-minded determination, impatience, annoyance, pique, and something else … a kind of madness.

Invoking a curse,
he fumbled for something beneath his cloak. A dagger appeared in the taut grip of his hand. He shook the hood away. A whirl of dark ermine hair flew about a face wild with jubilation. With a calculating grin, he jerked the reins and spurred the horse. The Camargue heeded his master and picked up his pace. The horseman released a war cry, high-pitched and warbling. As he raced headlong toward the front of the column, his dagger caught the sun’s reflection. The haft was bejeweled. The steel was long and lethal.

Stephen
raised an alarm and charged past his brother.

The rider, blinded by his
unwavering purpose, didn’t see Stephen advance until it was too late. After blocking the Camargue’s advance with the broadside of his steed, and despite being lashed across the face by the stinging reins of the rider, Stephen easily reached down, grabbed the Camargue’s bridle, and reined in the horse. The assassin, not understanding who or what had thwarted his charge, pushed back the tangles of his hair to better see his opponent.

Coming up on his brother and the
tussle taking place on the rise of the bridge, Drake didn’t recognize the assassin at first, even though he noticed something familiar about the sheen of his brunette locks, the brilliance of his sapphire eyes, the poutiness of his cherry lips, and the curve of his alabaster neck. The same sense of familiarity struck Stephen, but by the time he figured it out, it was too late.

With
the strength of a titan and the wickedness of a fiend, Alais de Capét whipped her arm around. The tip of the dagger drew blood. Stephen flinched from the assault but reacted quickly. Letting go of the bridle, he placed her wrist into a crippling grip. She did not surrender easily. She fought dirty. She swore foully. Screaming at the heavens above and cursing the fires below, she called upon the gods to wreak vengeance on her enemies, and this enemy in particular. “Aha!” she squawked after admiring her deft handiwork. “At least now, people will be able to tell the difference between the fitzAlan brothers, though I know you too well, Stephen fitzAlan!” Through sheer force of will, she forced her trapped fist downward and drove the dagger straight toward Stephen’s Adam’s apple. She missed the aim and struck chainmail. The tip of the blade deflected backwards, wrenching her arm. She yapped but kept at him, fingers turning into claws and eyes blazing with ire.

Stephen
looked back at his brother. “Are you just going to sit there?”

The
wrangling would have been laughable if it weren’t so tragic, but Stephen had the princess of France well in hand, even if it required brutish strength along with a great deal of head-bobbing and body-lurching. Drake said pleasantly, “You don’t seem to need my help.”

“You
are
a bastard.”

“
If I am, then so are you, dear brother.”

With a bone-breaking twist, Stephen disarmed the
woman and flung her from the saddle. She fell hard against the wooden planks of the bridge, the wind knocked out of her. Smiling grimly, he dismounted and confiscated her weapon. Regarding it and then her, he surmised whether she was a sheep in wolf’s clothing or a formidable opponent. Having made up his mind, he calmly swiped blood from his cheek and swabbed it across her comely though scowling face.

Other riders
milled around to see what the excitement was about. Some sniggered lightly. Others, unimpressed, grumbled. Still others laughed heartily.

When at last
Alais regained her breath, she did not surrender lightly. Instead she launched a scuffle bred of stubbornness, which Stephen was only too glad to accommodate. Shoving her to the flat of her back, he straddled her torso and tightened his fist around her pale and delicate throat. She kicked her feet and threw out her arms, landing several effective blows. Stephen ignored the insults, painful as they might have been, and increased the pressure. Under the chokehold, she was succumbing by degrees. The once rosy face paled. The once pretty eyes faded. The once shapely lips grimaced. She let out a final gasp, fluttered long eyelashes a final time, and went utterly limp, legs athwart and hands turned up.

“Enough, Stephen. The king won’t like it.”

Stephen glanced up. “Which one?”

“Both.”

He
conceded the wisdom of his brother’s advice and opened his hand, and just as he did, something snapped. The noise seemed insignificant at first, like the splintering of an oak branch or the clap of far-distant thunder. The hammering repeated. Repeated again.

Drake
looked around for the source but found none, only the curious alertness of everyone else. The crunching wasn’t merely a sound. It was a vibration, a shudder, a shiver that threw him and the steed beneath him off balance. The palfrey whickered, shook his head, stamped his hoofs. Shouting went up. Horses bucked. Men scrambled for safety.

Drake
met his brother’s eyes and saw alarm in them.

The rumbling increased in volume. The
river churned. A tremor traveled the length of the bridge like a galloping horse. Someone cried out. Other voices joined in. A chorus of voices wailed in terror. The bridge visibly began to sway. Wood creaked. Something heavy settled with a lurch followed by a sickening thrust. The bridge let off a final groan, low-pitched and mournful.

Everything happened at once. Panic took hold. Horses
bolted willy-nilly, throwing off riders and bowling over men. The railing broke apart and splashed into the river. Seeing a way out, many jumped into the waters. Others were tossed aside like so much wreckage and waste.

Only then did Drake understand the magnitude. Under the weight of men, horses, and wagons, the bridge was collapsing.

Stephen rolled onto his back. In a sluggish pile of arms and legs, the would-be assassin followed, the two locked together in a death grip. Stretching out a hand, Drake tried to reach them, but with a dying gasp, the bridge heaved. The distance separating twin from twin widened. Stephen took a last look at his brother before pylons gave way and the bridge began to sink, taking on water and regurgitating mangled bodies.

A
final explosion thrust the middle of the bridge upward like a rising pyramid and sent the far sections sinking beneath crushing weight. Stephen splashed into the stygian river, taking with him as bride to groom Alais de Capét, comtesse of Vexin, princess of France, and king’s future queen.

* * *

Stephen fought rescue.
Fought the clamp beneath his chin and the wrenching grasp beneath his armpit. Fought being trawled through the tumescent waters. Fought being hoisted onto dry land. Even fought the heeled palms bearing down on his ribs. But when the need to fight came to an end, he turned his head and disgorged river water from his lungs.

After c
limbing off his brother, Drake crawled onto all fours and ejected his own share of the Rhône, then gave into feebleness and crumpled, huffing in choking gasps. Lying prone on the ground, unable to move a muscle, he croaked, “Who taught you to swim? Because whoever did, did a damnably poor job.”

Stephen opened his eyes. “You,” he rasped.

“I feared you would say that.”

Slumped b
eside Drake, waterlogged the same as his masters, Devon was engaged in his own coughing fit.

“Where
is …?” Stephen said, looking about.

Drake
nudged his head. “On the other side of you.”

Stephen
shifted sluggishly and beheld Alais. Her eyes were sealed shut. Her face was pasty. She looked like death. But the heaving of her chest said she was very much alive. With a weak arm, he pushed her onto her back. Arms and legs gracefully unfolded. Water rose in a gush from her peevish mouth. She coughed her way to consciousness. Her pale blue eyes opened to narrow slits and blinked skyward.

From the towering height of his
stallion, Richard looked down on her lovely face. A voice, even-tempered and sonorous, said, “Alais, my sweet wife-to-be.”