Authors: Julianne Lee
Tags: #Kidnapping, #Science Fiction, #Fantasy fiction, #Married people, #Scotland, #General, #Fantasy, #Children - Crimes against, #Fighter pilots, #Fiction, #Time travel
Knight's Blood (21 page)
“Shut up.”
The man shut up.
Finished with her meal and feeling a little stronger now, she wiped her greasy hands on her trews, left the keep, and went looking for Jenkins. She didn’t have to search far; he was sitting atop the ruins of a small outbuilding at the other side of what had once been the castle bailey. His back to her, he was chatting with Simon and some others, more than likely bragging of what he’d just done.
Simon spotted her coming, and he chuckled as he stepped back from Jenkins, who saw this and turned just as Lindsay reached him. She dove the last few feet with her dagger and caught his face as he dodged. He backed into the ruins and she stumbled against the low, ragged wall.
Jenkins let out an indignant cry and scattered his listeners as he drew his dagger to defend himself. Lindsay vaulted the stack of mortared stones to assault him again. She wanted to take off his balls, or at least kick them, but knew a man’s genitalia was the worst target in a fight because it was the one he was invariably quickest to defend. She concentrated on his face and circled to get the sun in his eyes. He fell for it. He probably thought she was stupid, and didn’t realize until he started blinking he’d screwed up.
The rest of the men left the enclosure of the ruined walls and watched in surprised silence. Jenkins smiled. “You think I can’t beat a woman in a fight?”
Lindsay didn’t waste her breath with speech. Her focus was on the task at hand, and she went about it as coldly as she would take a spray insecticide after a bug. Instead she feinted and slashed. Jenkins went for it, and for his trouble ended up with a red gash in his cheek. He shuffled and staggered, and a dust cloud rose from the dirt at his feet. A growl rumbled deep inside him, and his eyes went steely. Now he knew she was serious, and she would have to be careful. She waited for him to move.
He declined. Instead he tried to circle, but she wouldn’t let him. As a result, though, she found herself backed up against a wall she couldn’t get over easily. He had her cornered.
But she waited. She wanted him to move. So she dropped her guard ever so slightly, and when he took the bait she deflected with her left and stepped in to stab him in the chest.
He dodged, her dagger only sliced air, and he retreated. She was able to follow him and get away from the wall to give herself room. Jenkins tried to circle again. Suddenly she wished for her old mace, for it had a longer reach than the knife and she had more fighting experience with it. And with a cold smile she relished the image of Jenkins’ head smashed like a watermelon. In conscious imitation of Alex, she straightened from her guarded crouch, went loose jointed and deceptively insouciant, then pressed him and swiped her dagger at him.
Jenkins dodged again, and on his riposte she dodged backward, then stepped in to shove him around with his own momentum and stab. She caught him in the back, a good, solid stab.
A shrill cry of surprise burst from him, and he backed away. He was still standing, so she’d missed the kidney, and she cursed her bad luck. She followed him as he backed, holding his hand over the wound. She’d hit something, for it bled copiously and stank of bowel. And the pain was enough to make Jenkins go pale and stagger. Any other time she might have taken this chance to get away, having disabled him at least for a while, but she didn’t want to back off. Instead she continued her attack and delivered another stab, to the chest. Pink bubbles rose to Jenkins’ mouth and he coughed, but he was still standing. She hadn’t reached his heart, and muttered another curse for it. He wasn’t dying fast enough to suit her. But his arms were over his chest now and he was swaying, in shock, so she stabbed him in the gut. Finally he dropped to the ground, choking and gasping and holding his belly.
Lindsay’s better sense told her Jenkins was doomed and she should leave him be, but there was nothing left in her heart to make her listen to sense. No mercy, no honor, no chivalry. Jenkins had violated her in a way that called off all bets on the basis of being a woman, or even a fellow man, and now the only way to make this right was to violate him as horribly. Suddenly she was glad he was still alive and aware. She hauled off and kicked him in the side of the head. He fell to his back in a haze of semiconsciousness.
Quickly, before anyone could climb inside the ruins and stop her, she slit Jenkins’ trews up the front. Then his drawers, which still reeked of sex. Without a second of hesitation she grabbed his genitals, and with two swipes of her dagger had them off in one piece. Penis and scrotum now dangled from her fist.
Jenkins screamed. And screamed. He grabbed the bloodied patch at his crotch, still screaming. Then he passed out, probably never to awaken. Not if he was lucky.
Cold, black fury still raging in her brain, Jenkins’ blood smeared over her hand and his organs dangling at her side, she turned to the onlookers and said, “Anyone else care to try me?”
The silence spun out, and she let it. These guys should be entirely certain they did not want to give her any more grief, and she wanted to let that sink in. Finally it was Simon who spoke. “It was a fair fight.” The rest nodded in agreement, though they said nothing. Most of them were pale and staring at the piece of Jenkins in her hand.
Lindsay also nodded, then took her trophy into the keep. The men lounging by the fire looked up as she entered, mildly curious about the outcome of the fight, then scrambled to their feet when they saw what she carried. They moved out of her way as she approached the fire, and she threw Jenkins’ floppy man parts onto the peat coals. The hairs on them flared to flame and smoke rose in a stench. The pink and gray wrinkled skin began to blister and burn, now smelling like charred meat. An alarmed murmur spread about the room.
Lindsay announced to them and to those who had followed her from outside, at a shout that echoed in the stone room, “All you men, listen to me! I am Sir Lindsay Pawlowski and I am not to be trifled with!” Her rage supported the tone of command she’d learned from Alex, and she glared into the eyes of each man present as she spoke. “The next man to touch me without permission will receive the same treatment I’ve just given Jenkins! I will continue in this company until I choose to leave, or until I am killed in battle. I will continue to fight as one of you, and to maintain my loyalty to An Reubair, as I have always done. If there is anyone here who doubts my ability to fight as well as yourselves, speak now and I’ll be happy to disabuse you of that notion.”
She looked around at the silent group and saw a variety of attitudes. Some were horrified. Some seemed angry. As if to bring home the truth of what they were seeing, distant screams from across the bailey drifted to their ears as Jenkins regained consciousness. Weeping, begging for God to relieve him of his life, his voice weakened and finally went silent again, probably with his prayer answered. The men in the tower listened in silence, each one gone pale.
But some of them seemed amused. A few smiles crept to some faces, and that surprised Lindsay into letting the knot in her stomach loosen some with hope. She’d never imagined any of the men would countenance a woman in their midst, but this made it seem possible.
One of the men said, “You didn’t need to kill him.”
Another made a disparaging noise in the back of his throat. “Aye, she did. I would have killed him, and in just such a manner. Would you not have?”
The first shrugged, allowing that he probably would have done so.
A third said, “Speaking only for myself, my life has been spared by Sir Lindsay’s help in a fight. I cannae say as I am pleased by the loss of Jenkins, but I would also not care to lose a fighter such as this one. All things considered, I prefer her to be on my side.”
A voice came from the steps to the upper floor, and it was An Reubair. “She will stay. And you will treat her as a man. If she fails in her service as a knight, she will also be treated as a worthless man who cannot fight. More contemptible than a whore, in my opinion.” He let them think that over for a moment, then he added, “But I believe she will prove herself. Anyone strong and determined enough to relieve the mighty Jenkins of his most prized possession is surely one to be feared and respected.”
Lindsay believed she already had proven herself, but let it pass. They were going to allow her to remain, and all she had to do was fight well. She knew she could do that.
One of the men said, “I’ve no complaint at having a fighter such as herself at my back.”
The others, though not all of them appeared to agree, offered no complaint either.
Lindsay nodded and decided to take her hubris one step further just to see what might happen. “Right. I’ll be relieving Jenkins of all his possessions, I think.” She glanced toward the stairs. An Reubair didn’t offer an argument, but only gazed blandly at her. She looked around for Jenkins’ two squires. “You’ll be going home. On foot. Now. I’ll find my own men to serve me and my horses.” The last thing she needed was young, resentful squires handling her stuff. The two teenagers rose in glum silence and obeyed.
Lindsay looked around the room and the fight adrenaline eased. Someone poked the burning piece of flesh from the fire and tumbled it onto the floor, where it lay, smoking and sizzling. As she calmed, and the smell of charred meat, skin, and hair permeated the keep, a realization came. Jenkins, in his unthinking arrogance, had actually done her several favors. He’d given her an excuse to kill him and had provided her with badly needed money and equipment, but—most important—he’d relieved her of the secret she’d spent so much time and energy to keep. For weeks she’d had to watch everything she said, every gesture, every movement. She’d had to bind her breasts tightly enough to restrict her breathing, and had never bathed or relieved herself without a breathless, panicky rush. Now none of that would be necessary. Now she would be able to live as a knight without living in terror of discovery. A cold smile came to her face.
CHAPTER 11
In a village along the coast north of Berwick, Alex noted that Trefor located and bartered for a sword appropriate to his height. It was the same size as Alex’s, tapered like Alex’s, and gilded like Alex’s. The only thing distinguishing them was that on Trefor’s the hilt guards were curved rather than straight. One up on Alex, and that gave him a weird feeling, but he ignored it. In the end all he wanted to care about was that it would serve Trefor well.
They continued to drill and spar in the evenings, along with the rest of the company who were preparing for the coming raid into English territory. Berwick, on the Scotland side of the Borderlands, was still held by Edward II and was the place from which the assaults to the north had been launched by him and his father for the past several decades. Taking it and holding it against English will was not a possibility; Robert didn’t have the military resources to stand against an English king who demanded this bit of Scotland so close to English territory. But the harrying tactics employed by Douglas were a useful tool to make certain Edward would not attempt to march north again as he had in 1314. The Black Douglas and Alasdair an Dubhar were set to make clear to Edward he was not welcome north of the Tweed.
The night before the assault on Berwick, as the company huddled around tiny fires built small and under tree canopy for the sake of not betraying their position, Alex watched Trefor’s face. They all knew they would be riding against English knights the next day, and Trefor seemed calm. Almost carefree. His girlfriend sat with him, and he spoke to the group of how eager he was to show the English the business end of a Scottish sword. Whenever the locals boasted like that, Alex knew they meant it. They all had reason to hate, especially James, who was always on about how much he would love to march to London and have Edward’s head on a platter. But in Trefor the talk rang hollow. Like whistling past a graveyard. The fear was in his voice and in his eyes.
Alex didn’t have to wonder what was going through Trefor’s mind just then. He’d felt it himself just before his first combat flight over Kosovo a number of years before. Trefor was thinking of what it would be like to die. How much pain there would be. What lay beyond that pain. How it would be if there were nothing on the other side, and that had given Alex the willies more than anything else had. The locals—men from this century—had no doubt about what lay beyond, for they’d been taught all their lives exactly what awaited them. Obviously Trefor lacked that assurance. Alex had his own doubts, though he never dwelled on them. He’d learned to accept that he would one day die and there was nothing he could do about it. He’d long ago reconciled himself to a violent death, for given the life choices he’d made, the odds were pretty much against him living to an old age. With all the wounds he’d taken over the years he didn’t give the pain much thought anymore, beyond settling his focus before a fight so he would not be distracted from the task at hand. He hoped Trefor would be able to sort himself out, but knew talking to him about it would be a waste of breath. It was something each of them had to do for himself.
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