The Last Arrow RH3 (7 page)

She looked instinctively to the stranger's hand and, expecting it to be as strong and well formed as the rest of him, she was mildly taken aback to see the extensive scarring on the fingers, knuckles, even the wrist of the one he extended, as if the flesh had been scalded in boiling oil or scorched by fire.

The iced jade eyes followed her stare then waited until it returned to his face. The knife was winking at her, reflecting points of light from the river, and she almost smiled herself. Did he really think her so foolish as to accept his casual invitation to disarm him? More than likely she would be the one who found herself weaponless and dazed, the blade held to her throat.

"You may toss it over there, beside your sword. The fish too," she added as an afterthought.

The curve in his mouth spread wider. "Indeed, a carp can be a dangerous weapon."

The calm, unnerving stare held hers long enough for a warm flush of blood to bloom in her cheeks and spread down her throat. His gaze kept her pinioned, kept the heat in her complexion at its peak as he tossed first the knife, then the fish over to where his sword rested against the boulder. Then to further mock the act of surrender, he lifted his hands and laced them together at the back of his neck.

The movement and the stance only served to embolden the massive display of muscle and brawn she had thus far managed to ignore. But now the last of the sky's fading light played across his skin like teasing gold fingers, luring her eyes down to the hard, boardlike belly, the narrow waist and hips. His legs were long and planted apart for balance, and even though her eyes did not stray there, every pore and hair on her body tingled with awareness at the size of the bulge that swelled the juncture of his thighs.

An unexpected wave of giddiness washed through her, and the irony was not lost. Here then was the first man who inspired her to stare, to really and truly stare, and he was most likely a spy or a thief or an assassin in the pay of the English king.

"Your name?" she demanded, her voice a little raspier than she would have preferred.

"Renaud. Griffyn Renaud. And yours?" "You have no need to know it."

"Oh, but I do," he said evenly. "It has been a good many years since anyone has crept up on me unawares. Even longer since anyone has disarmed me and threatened me with impalement... and then lived to tell of it."

This last was said so softly she nearly missed it. She did not miss the look in his eye, or the revenge it promised.

Startled by the insinuation that he was merely humoring her, biding his time until the tables could be turned, she glanced once again over her shoulder, wondering if any part of his arrogance was bolstered by way of an accomplice watching them from the woods.

"Surely you have not walked all the way from Orleans by yourself?"

The smile was back, this time with a spark of genuine humor reflected in his eyes. "Surely not. Though I am surprised you are only just inquiring now."

"You have a companion?"

"I do."

Brenna stepped closer to the river and turned so that she could cover more of the embankment while still keeping the stranger under the point of her arrow. "If he is armed, or is thinking of trying anything foolish ..."

His eyes had the amazing ability to convey a changed expression without altering their shape in the least. Nothing on his face betrayed the fact it was only a grudging respect for her bow arm that was keeping his temper in check, yet the pale glimmer in his eyes was clearly telling her it was the height of foolishness for a woman on her own to be engaging him in a battle of wits and wills.

"I promise you, he has no carp on him. Shall I summon him hither?"

Brenna cursed the two hot patches flaring in her cheeks and nodded. The gray-green eyes shifted to the trees and he curled his lower lip between his teeth, splitting the stillness of the air with a single shrill whistle.

Almost immediately he was answered by a faint but strident response. The ground thundered with the sound of hoofbeats, and a moment later, a foreboding curtain of mist was pushed out of the trees, preceding the explosive arrival of an equally gray and demonic giant of a destrier.

He was no common forester's beast, that much could be seen in the wide breast and powerful flanks. He was fully, if somewhat plainly, caparisoned; the saddle was of good leather and the saw-toothed cloth beneath it was wool, but devoid of any trim or cresting to betray the owner's identity or origins. There was a thick, rolled bundle attached to the back of the saddle from which a few links of chain mail protruded. Both the horse and the gear could have been stolen, of course, but Brenna did not believe it any longer than it took for the stallion to prance to his master's side, the velvet nostrils flared to snort out a frothy inquiry.

"Centaur, behave yourself," Renaud murmured, unlacing one of his hands from his nape to rub it affectionately down the tapered snout. "Can you not see we are the prisoners of this bold lady archer?"

"This is your companion?" Brenna asked.

"The only one I have needed thus far on my journey, although"—his gaze fell once again to rove speculatively over the soft thrust of her breasts—"it looks to be a cold night ahead and I imagine I could be persuaded to share my blanket."

Brenna's fingers tightened longingly on the bowstring. "You may find yourself in a hot place sooner than you expect, M'sieur Renaud. Do you still refuse to tell me your business here in these woods?"

"You have no need to know it," he said lightly, using her own words to add insult.

"Then you leave me no choice but to take you to my father—the man whose land you happen to be trespassing upon and whose fish you happen to be poaching. He has every right to know, especially if your business concerns him in any way."

"Is he as likely to show the same hospitality to a lost and weary traveler as his daughter?"

"He is likely to disembowel you and toss your liver to the dogs if you give any false—or insolent—answers to his questions."

Renaud gave the horse's muzzle another scratch and stared calmly back at her. His face was handsome beyond decency, no small part of her could deny it, yet for all the warmth he exuded and friendliness he inspired, it might well have been carved from the same block of marble that shaped the rest of him. The smile that came and went so effortlessly was no more than a practiced arrangement of muscles, heart-stopping to some no doubt, but to Brenna it suggested he was dangerous and deceitful, and probably could not be trusted beyond the blink of an eye.

Even as she debated his credibility, he was studying the faint tremors that were causing the laces of her jerkin to shiver with each rise and fall of her breasts. Her arm was tiring, the muscles beginning to cramp from the strain. His mouth curved up at the corner and he started to lower his hands, but Brenna's voice cut short whatever his intentions might have been.

"If you touch your sword or your knife, or reach for a weapon of any kind, I will shoot your horse first. Then you."

The pale eyes shot back to hers and she felt their heat, their power, their fury cut clean through her flesh and scrape on her bones.

His voice, when it came to her through the gloom, was a soft snarl. "I think it would give me great pleasure to teach you some manners, demoiselle."

"It would be difficult to teach something you so obviously lack yourself," she retorted smartly. "Now get dressed.

We have a long walk ahead of us."

The first challenge of manners came before they had cleared the campsite. They had not yet shaken the wet earth from the riverbank off their boots when Brenna announced her intention to ride the stallion home while he walked a suitable distance ahead.

A knight, armored or not, was a formidable opponent on horseback. Destriers were trained to charge, lunge, rear, pivot, and trample, all through subtle commands delivered by the rider's thighs, calves, feet. Man and beast learned to fight as one unit, and a single knight, mounted, could easily lay waste to a dozen men on foot. Stripped of his horse and weapons, however, and forced to use his feet for something other than swinging a stirrup, a knight was reduced to a mere man. And a mere man was no match for Brenna Wardieu, regardless how much she admired the breadth of his shoulders or the long, fluid strides that swallowed the miles beneath him.

Clearly, the thought of her riding while he walked was as ludicrous as the notion of her being able to control the highly strung temperament of a blooded warhorse. Just as clearly, he had expected to see her clutch at the reins and tumble out of the saddle the first time he gave his destrier a softly trilled signal. But Brenna had been anticipating his deviousness and was ready. She weathered the high, rearing lurches and kept her seat expertly through the violent twists and leaps meant to spill her on her rump. Moreover, when she proved she could still nock and fire an arrow from the back of a rampaging charger, another quiet whistle ended the confrontation.

Renaud had said nothing as he extracted the arrow from the soft earth an inch in front of his toe, but he had promised her the world through his eyes as he held the shaft in both hands and snapped it in two.

Full darkness had settled over them like a thick sable blanket by the time the man and rider made their way through the forest and emerged at the small village of Amboise. There was a single fire blazing in the square; the only other signs of life came from the glowing red halo that surrounded the open doors of the smithy. Most of the cottages had been shuttered and barred for the night and would remain steadfastly so until morning. The villagers were a superstitious lot and believed the devil roamed abroad in human guise at night, searching for souls to steal.

The gray stone fortifications of the castle dominated the high ridge above the village. Seen in daylight the tall, crenellated battlements were a comfort to those who lived and toiled in its protective shadows. At night, with its darkened ramparts, towers, and spires etched against the sky, it became the lair of its legendary master, the Black Wolf of Amboise, and none who valued the seamless contours of their throats would dare venture near the fiery maw of its gates without invitation. Two pitch-soaked torches blazed in iron cressets on either side of the barbican towers, the only lights visible from outside the forty-foot walls. There was only one entrance and only one approach.

The crusader who had built the original keep over a century ago had kept the swift-running river at its back and dug a deep, wide trench to protect the remaining three sides. He had stopped short of cutting into the river to flood it, but in the past few years, with the political strife constant between England and France, and loyalties changing every day, Lord Randwulf's men had completed the work. The moat was now a vein of the River Loire, black and turbulent, with a draw that could be suspended to seal off the entrance if needed.

The outer battlement walls were twelve feet thick, faced with rough-cut limestone blocks mortared around a core of rock rubble. The encircling sentry walks were nearly a mile in length and were patrolled day and night by guards in full armor, each boldly wearing the device of Randwulf de la Seyne Sur Mer: a sinister depiction of a prowling wolf, the gold head full-faced and snarling against an ebony field.

The barbican towers that flanked the entrance were in themselves small fortresses, the walls hollowed to house passageways for archers, the roof fitted with chutes for pouring boiling oil and pitch on the heads of unwanted guests. Once inside, the castle held true to the design of most Norman strongholds, with the inner stone keep being the central structure around which other buildings and wards had been added over the generations. The keep itself was the tallest and best-fortified structure, as it would be the site of the final defense should the castle come under attack. The massive stone tower rose sixty feet from its widened base, buttressed by earthworks and protected by a second draw and moat. Crouched around the outer ring of the moat were the barracks, stables, armory, psaltery, cook house, bath house, smithy, and weavers' cottages—all comprising a small community contained within the inner curtain wall. This second wall was no easily breachable defense either, but a block-and-mortar barrier fifteen feet high and twelve feet thick, guarded by double-leaf iron doors hinged between tall, square watchtowers.

Between the outer wall and the inner was a bailey that contained, among other things, the practice yards and tilting grounds, orchards and gardens, also the pens and stables that housed the livestock. Sealed off from the outer world, the chateau was completely self-sufficient and had been designed to withstand a siege lasting many months.

To outsiders, the chateau was a menacing display of military efficiency.

To Brenna, it was simply home.

"Hold up," she called softly as she eased the destrier to a halt just before the drawbridge. She had seen movement beneath the portcullis and guessed Robin and Will were there waiting for her, wanting to see her prize and gloat over their own paltry hares and piglets. A belligerent knight and a prime warhorse should be more than adequate to claim victory, however, and she was smiling even before she saw the shadows walking hesitantly into the glare of the torchlights.