Velvet Song (Montgomery/Taggert 4)

“Has your brother left? I wanted to thank him, although right now I’m not sure this is any better than what could have happened to me.”

“He needed no thanks,” the man said gruffly, “and you’d better not stop because Lord Raine is looking this way.”

With trembling arms, Alyx resumed her exercise, and it was several moments before Raine returned to show her how to hold the sword at arm’s length, one arm at a time, lifting and lowering it repeatedly.

After what seemed like an eternity, he took the sword from her and started walking back toward the camp. Her arms and shoulders feeling as if they’d been put to the rack, Alyx followed him silently.

“Food, Blanche,” he said over his shoulder on the way to his tent.

Gratefully, Alyx sat down on a stool while Raine took another and began to sharpen the point of a long lance. With her head leaning against a tent pole, she was almost asleep when Blanche came in bearing crockery bowls full of stew and curds and whey mixed with soft cooked lentils and more of the heavy black bread, with hot spiced wine in mugs.

As Alyx lifted her wooden spoon, her arms started to jerk spasmodically, protesting what she’d just done to them.

“You’re too soft,” Raine grunted, his mouth full. “It’ll take months to harden you up.”

Silently, Alyx knew she’d die if she had to take even a week of today’s torture. She ate as best she could, too weary to pay much attention to the food, and she was falling asleep when Raine grabbed her upper arm and pulled her up.

“The day’s young yet,” he said, obviously laughing at her exhaustion. “The camp needs food and we must get it.”

“Food?” she groaned. “Let them starve and let me sleep.”

“Starve!” he snorted. “They’d kill each other for what food there is and only the strongest would survive. And you,” he said, his fingers meeting as they encircled her upper arm, “you wouldn’t last an hour. So we go to hunt to keep you alive as well as them.”

With one jerk, she moved away from his touch. Stupid man, she thought, couldn’t he see that she was female? Without another word, he was out of the tent and she ran after him, following him to the edge of camp where the horses were kept. All along the way she saw the people of the camp, resting, digesting their food, no one continuing to work except Raine.

“Could it be possible that you could ride?” he asked, his voice showing he had no hope.

“No,” she whispered.

“What have you done with your life?” he demanded again. “I have never known a boy who couldn’t ride.”

“And I have never known a man who knew so little about the people outside his own world. Have you spent your life on a jeweled throne doing nothing but fighting with swords and riding great horses?”

Flinging a heavy wood-based saddle on his horse, he said, “You have a sharp tongue on you, and if it were not for us training to fight, who would protect you when there is war?”

“The King, of course,” she answered smugly.

“Henry!” Raine gasped, one foot in the stirrup. “And who do you think protects Henry? Who does he call when he is attacked if not his nobles? Give me your arm,” he said and easily pulled her up to sit on the hard rump of the horse behind his saddle. Before she could say a word, they were off at a teeth-jarring pace.

Chapter Five

AFTER WHAT SEEMED to be hours of banging up and down on the bony backside of the horse, her knuckles white from gripping the edge of the saddle, Raine abruptly halted the animal and Alyx came close to flying backward over the tail.

“Hold on,” he growled as he grabbed the nearest part of her, which was her sore thigh, making her gasp in pain. “Quiet!” he commanded. “There, through the trees, see them?”

Dashing away tears of pain with her sleeve, she was finally able to see a family of wild pigs scrounging in the undergrowth. The pigs halted, looked up with their mean little eyes glaring out of their lean, tough bodies and snorted over the long sharp tusks protruding from their mouths.

“Hold onto me,” Raine bellowed seconds before he spurred his horse forward and went after the largest pig, lance held point down. “Grip the horse with your knees,” he said when Alyx, openmouthed, held her breath as the pig began to charge them. The animal was so big compared to the horse’s thin legs.

Suddenly, Raine dipped sideways, his body parallel to the ground. Since Alyx was holding onto him, she went down with him. Unbalanced, falling, she held onto Raine with all her might as he thrust his lance into the backbone of the furious animal. The hideous scream was the voice of death, and Alyx buried her face in Raine’s broad back.

“Let me go!” he growled, shaking the pig off his lance, then prying Alyx’s fingers from his chest. “You nearly toppled us. Now hold the saddle with all your strength.” With that command he was off again, tearing through the forest, dodging tree branches overhead, trees to both sides, as he ran after another pig. Two more were brought down as cleanly as the first before he stopped and again had to pry Alyx’s fingers from his stomach. She had no idea when she’d grabbed him and was glad he made no further comment on her cowardice.

When he was free of her grip, he dismounted, took several leather thongs from his saddle and, after a cautious approach to the animals, trussed their feet. “Get down,” he said and waited patiently for her to obey.

Her legs, unaccustomed to the exercise, buckled under her and she clutched at the saddle to keep from falling.