Knights of de Ware 02 - My Warrior (25 page)

The poorly fletched arrow dropped in midflight, missing its mark by nearly half a yard and lodging in Owen’s thigh. The shot had some effect—he screamed in pain and fell, glaring at her in furious disbelief—but he remained very much alive.

Sir Guy’s eyes widened as he beheld his fallen countryman. That arrow had come from
behind
the lines. He tore the helm from his head, then sought and found the culprit—a peasant woman. With a snarl, he charged the small, shrouded female, knocked the bow from her grasp, and threw her, face-down, to the ground. Anchoring her with his knee, he pulled her head back by the hair. The oxen nearby squealed and stamped, upset by the smell of battle. He held his dagger to the woman’s throat, sorely tempted to slit it at once, too enraged to question whose worthless life he held in his hands.

But Holden was calling him, waving wildly with his sword. Guy hesitated, and in that instant, Holden paid for his inattention to the battle, falling prey to a young Scotsman who had come upon him unawares. Guy cursed as the boy’s sword took a bite out of Holden’s shoulder.

The wench beneath him sobbed in protest. “The arrow missed its mark! Someone must stop him!”

Guy growled harshly. “Rebel spy! Thank
God
your arrow missed its mark! Had you slain my lord, I would have delivered you to hell by now upon my blade!”

Looking up again, Guy saw that most of the Scots had been routed. Holden had almost finished off the one faltering youth, despite his wound, and Owen had vanished, probably to tend to his injury. With the war essentially ended, Guy could leave the battlefield to take the handling of this traitor upon himself.

He pinioned one of his captive’s arms, wrenching her to her feet. Then he pushed her roughly along before him toward the haven of the trees, pressing his blade against her throat. His blood was hot from war, his ire roused, his purpose honed to a fine point. Thus, it was several moments before he realized there was something familiar about his quarry and the chestnut tresses spilling over onto his hands. He relaxed his grip fractionally as doubt flitted through his mind.

Suddenly, he seized his captive by the shoulders and wheeled her around to face him. She met the challenge in his eyes. He stumbled back awkwardly, dumbfounded.

“My lady…” he began in confusion, responding instinctively to her rank.

Cambria thought quickly. Perhaps she could take advantage of Guy’s doubt and play upon his indecision. She brought herself up to her full height, which was unfortunately still well below his.

“How dare you lay hands upon me!” she chided imperiously, trying to intimidate him. She saw with regret that her moment of victory was to be short-lived.

Guy recovered quickly from the shock. He evaluated the situation only briefly before advancing on her.

“Lady you may be, but I serve my lord first and foremost,” he informed her.

Cambria backed away as he came close, but not in fear. She’d been trained to resist, never to surrender. Besides, Owen was still loose. Someone had to stop him. Perhaps there was yet time to finish the job she’d begun. She turned and fled back toward the battlefield.

She hadn’t counted on traffic coming from Halidon Hill. She whipped her head around in time to glimpse the broad ebony chest of Holden’s steed coming straight for her.

Holden cursed. He was able to rein in soon enough to avoid a collision, just barely. Cambria skidded on the wet leaves and fell beneath Ariel’s hooves. He spoke sharply to the horse, effectively stilling its movements so the lass wouldn’t be trampled. Then he reached down a mailed hand to assist Cambria.

He didn’t like the rebellious look in her flashing eyes. Not now, he thought testily. He could ill afford to have the king witness this willfulness on the part of his new wife.

“Don’t make a spectacle of yourself,” he pleaded, towering over her atop his mount, for by now a few of the other knights had begun to take an interest in this woman who had so brazenly appeared on the field of battle.

“Spectacle?” she breathed, her mouth round with shock and hurt. In the next moment, her short temper charged in to rescue her. “You ungrateful cur!” she cried, coming to her feet. “I saved your life.” Then she made the deadly mistake of spitting at his bloody gauntleted hand, turning her back on him and walking away.

A few foot soldiers chuckled. Holden swore under his breath, and before Cambria could reach the shelter of the trees, he kicked his steed into pursuit. In a cloud of dust, the horse skidded to her side, and he scooped Cambria up unceremoniously to deposit her face-down across his lap.

Cambria screamed in outrage. How dare he humiliate her? She bucked in a frenzy to be free of him, nearly losing her balance and tumbling to the ground below. Then suddenly, beneath her kirtle, she felt the hard steel of his mail-covered hand against her naked bottom.

“I should thrash you for your disobedience,” Holden bit out for her ears alone. “Would you like it done publicly or privately?”

Her ears burned, but she stilled. The gauntlet sliding back down her thigh made her shiver.

“Guy!” Holden called.

“My lord,” Guy boomed smugly. “I regret I’m the one to bring news of your wife’s treachery to your notice.”

Holden lifted a brow. Guy didn’t sound sorry in the least. In fact, Guy hadn’t trusted Cambria Gavin since the day she’d allied herself with those Scots rebels to take him hostage.

“She admitted she missed her mark when she hit Owen,” Guy added. “I believe, my lord, she was aiming for you.”

“She did miss her mark.” He grimly nodded his head. “But her arrow wasn’t meant for me. She was aiming for Owen. She intended, I’m sure, to pierce the bastard’s black heart.”

Guy sputtered like a sail with the wind knocked out of it. “Owen?”

“Aye. He’s your traitor.”

“The one who had you waylaid in the forest?”

“No doubt. Since that failed, he was apparently trying to kill me on the battlefield.”

The others who heard began to mutter amongst themselves.

“Then she shot to save your life, not to take it?” Guy scowled, as if he’d been told he’d just swallowed a bug.

“Aye,” Holden answered, loud enough for all to hear.

For the sake of the Gavin name and the name of de Ware, he had to assure the accuracy of the account. Gossips were probably wagging their tongues in the king’s ear even now. He pulled Cambria up to sit before him, while his steed danced in protest at the movement.

“My brave wife acted to save my life,” he announced. “The Gavins have truly shown their loyalty this day.” A cheer arose from the soldiers. In the uproar, he leaned down to Guy and gave a quick command. “Take two others and see if you can find Owen. He can’t have gone far with that wound. And someone alert the king.”

Guy nodded and, drawing his blade, left to comply.

Holden wheeled his mount to duck into a more private section of the wood. He said nothing as they traveled the winding path, too wounded by Cambria’s disobedience—nay, not only her disobedience, but her mistrust. Didn’t she think he could defend himself against one attacker? He flinched as his new injury gave him a stinging reminder of what a single attacker had just cost him. Damn the wench, she unmanned him with her lack of faith.

He reined in abruptly, and Cambria nearly fell against Ariel’s neck. This spot seemed secluded enough, he thought sardonically, far from the eyes and ears of those who might object to him thrashing his wife.

Then he sighed. He wearily slid the mail coif back from his head. He was fooling himself. He’d never lay a hand on Cambria. True, the short ride hadn’t cooled his temper much, but he was capable of confining his violence to his own imagination.

“I commanded you to stay in camp,” he said, turning her face toward him.

“You’d be dead now if I had,” she argued, jerking away.

He swore. “Don’t you think I can defend myself? I knew Owen was there. I’ve fought him a hundred times. I know his weaknesses. I saw the blow before it was struck. If you’d left it to me, I would have easily turned his blade aside. And he wouldn’t have escaped.”

“What? You allowed him to escape?”

His eyes narrowed as quickly as clouds gathering for a storm. “In my concern for
you
, milady,” he bit out, insulted, “I understandably let my attention slip.”

After a moment of fuming silence, she grumbled, “The arrow
was
meant for his heart.”

“You missed by more than a foot,” he replied, raising a brow. “I suppose I should be thankful to be alive.”

“It was a flawed shaft. It was the fletcher’s fault.”

He refused to be distracted by her flimsy excuses. “Your fletcher isn’t the only one to blame. You disobeyed me and—“

“I saved your life!” she cried. “You said it yourself.”

“You
endangered
my life!” he roared back. Ariel bristled at the sudden noise.

Only then did Cambria glance at the blood upon his shoulder where the mail had been severed. He was satisfied by a sharp intake of breath from her.

“Aye, this is the price I paid for worrying about your hide instead of mine.” He winced as his mail rubbed against the slash. “You’ve done a foolish thing, Cambria.”

“Foolish?”

“Aye. Didn’t you think how it might look to have two brothers dead by your hand?”

“But I didn’t kill—“

“There’s no proof you didn’t kill Roger, other than your word,” he said frankly. “There may never be enough proof.” He rubbed a weary hand over his chin. “Look. You’re making it difficult for me to protect you. From now on, I want you to stay away from Owen. I command it.”

She folded her arms across her bosom. “You’re making it difficult for me to protect my clan. I command
you
to stay away from Owen as well.”

He felt his anger dissolve like salt in water as she stared up at him with her elfin eyes. She might be a stubborn witch, but what she did, she did out of loyalty. After a moment, a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Agreed.”

When he took Cambria back to his pavilion, he set a guard at the entrance. He let her believe he didn’t trust her to stay inside, but in truth, the guard was there to keep intruders out. He wouldn’t rest easy until Owen was captured.

As expected, the gossip reached the king before he did, and Holden was subjected to Edward’s interest in the intriguing, romantic tale of his Scots wife defending him against her own people. Holden didn’t have the heart to correct the story’s inaccuracies, argue about Cambria’s less than pure motives, or mention that it was a Fitzroi she had shot. The king, delighted by what sounded like the stuff of a jongleur’s ballad, made him promise to bring the “Heroine of Halidon” into his presence on the morrow.

Cambria paced inside Holden’s pavilion, wearing down the nap of his rug. In the silence of solitude, images of Halidon returned to haunt her, like the nightmares slithering through her sleep lately. She murmured psalms to herself all afternoon, trying to keep her mind busy, attempting to distract herself from too much introspection. She would have given anything for a book or a game of chess, even with Sir Guy, something to take her mind off what she’d seen today.

She flopped down onto the pallet and closed her eyes. Still she saw the gaping wounds of beardless boys. She sat up again, rubbed the anxious wrinkles from her forehead, and began to study the design worked into the carpet.

It was the color of the sanguine battlefield.

A servant brought her roast for supper, but her dagger hand trembled as she cut into it, remembering the wounds inflicted at Halidon. Even the dark wine filling her cup resembled blood pooling beneath slain knights.

At long last, with the dropping of night’s hood, she was mercifully blind to the horrors of the day. She lit no candles, lest their light encroach on her hard-earned peace, and soon repose found her in the formless country between thought and dreams.

The rise of Halidon lay before her again. Cambria moved her mouth in the soundless protest of nightmares as her feet were drawn inexorably toward it. She shut her eyes against the sight, but the vision remained.

The dream was the same as before, but starker, clearer, rendered with details gleaned from the actual skirmish. The refuse of mass slaughter stretched as far as she could see—thousands of bodies strewn about as carelessly as rags, the once fine wool plaids stained with blood and mud. Far off, the high keening of widows rose on the air, at odds with the pleased chuckles from English knights nearby. The coppery smell of fresh wounds was strong in her nostrils, and her stomach lurched dangerously. She glanced down at her hands. They were drenched with blood. Frantically, she wiped them on her skirts, to no avail. The widows’ song blew through her soul like a melancholy wind, and the English laughter grew louder. She rubbed and rubbed her hands, but the blood wouldn’t come off, and the Englishmen kept laughing and laughing…

“Murderers!” she screamed.

Cambria’s moan brought Holden instantly to her side. He hadn’t wanted to disturb her, coming to bed so late, but it appeared her dreams had done that already. His candle cast a halo of golden light around her as he jostled her arm, trying to wake her.

Her eyes flew wide, and she drew back as if he’d burned her. “Murder!” she hissed in horror. “What the English did, it was murder!”

He gripped her shoulder to try to calm her, but she flung her arm wide, knocking the candle from his grasp. It guttered and extinguished itself, plunging the pavilion into darkness.

Then Cambria began to alternately sob and curse. She pummeled his bare chest, hard. He pressed his palm carefully over her mouth to muffle her cries and, guarding his injured shoulder as best he could, let her strike him.

He knew what she was doing. He’d seen it in green knights before, knights exposed to the horrors of war for the first time. All the fury, fear, and despair of battle stayed bottled up inside until it could find an appropriate outlet. For some, it was the lists, the tourneys, the harmless duels fought for honor and a lady’s favor. Others found it at the bottom of a jack of ale or in the arms of a whore. But Cambria had no such outlet. So he let her vent her anguish and helplessness on his own body.