Warrior's Song (Medieval Song 1)

“Hush, my little lad,” Alan said, and stroked his fingers over her.

She cursed him, but her voice was muffled against his thigh. He laughed harder.

He was ahead of his men now. He shouted back over his shoulder, “I will meet ye at the border. Angus, ye go fetch the other men and the cattle. The rest of ye, fight off the English bastards. I will see that our prize is kept safe.”

Jerval rode straight toward the first of the yelling Scots, his powerful arm raised. The man hacked at him, spittle spewing from his mouth as he shouted curses, but it was quickly over. Jerval’s sword plunged into the man’s chest and emerged a foot from his back. He yanked his sword back and saw the man’s eyes widen in astonishment as he slid off his horse and sprawled on the rocky ground.

Jerval wheeled about in his saddle, looking frantically for Chandra. He saw her, in the distance, thrown facedown in front of one of the Scots. “Mark, kill the rest of them, and then follow me.” He wheeled Pith about and dug in his heels.

“Faster, Sunnart,” Chandra heard the man Alan yelling at his powerful stallion. He looked over his shoulder and saw that one of the Englishmen had turned from his men and was galloping after them. “Well, lass,” Alan said, his hand hard against the small of her back to hold her still, “it appears that one of the English wants ye for himself.”

She knew it had to be Jerval. He would save her. She managed to rear up just a bit and yelled, “It is my husband, and he will kill you. You must let me go.”

“Yer husband? That lie will bring ye many a fair night in hell. If he were yer husband, ye stupid wench, ye wouldn’t be here now. Ye’d be safe, far away from here. No husband would let his wife dress like a boy and ride into battle. No husband would be such a fool unless he wanted to rid himself o’ ye.

“And ye were by yerself. Ye lie, for even a gutless Englishman wouldn’t be that stupid. Now ye think that coward will kill me? I dinna think so, lass. I’m hard to catch, much less kill. He has a bit o’ distance to cover to catch us. Already his beast is tiring. My Sunnart will get us to safety. Ye will bring me a fine ransom, my little lad. Mayhap that man is yer lover? Aye, but ye no longer please him in his bed? He wants to be rid of ye now? Aye, that’s it, isn’t it?” And he laughed.

Chandra could see nothing, for the dust the stallion kicked up was clogging her nostrils and burning her eyes. Her plan had gone wrong. Everything had gone wrong. She had broken the glass window in the bedchamber. She had, quite simply, ruined everything.

She had to get away from this man, else he might try to use her to kill Jerval. She would not let that happen. She closed her eyes against the dust, then gritted her teeth. He had to make a mistake soon—he had to. Patience, she had to have patience, and remain alert and ready.

“An insistent man, that Englishman,” Alan said after a few more minutes of hard riding. “He doesn’t know the eastern forest—that will slow him. Aye, we’ll lose him in amongst the trees.”

He raised his hand from her back. Instantly, Chandra tried to wrench herself free. She reared up, twisted even as she was readying to hurl herself to the ground. She nearly made it, knew that when she hit the ground, she had to roll fast. She felt the point of a dagger pressing through her clothes, its razor tip nipping the flesh of her side.

“Hold still, wench, else yer lover will find a dead mistress in a ditch. Does he dress ye like a boy because it pleases him to do so? The English are pederasts—all know that—but to dress a lass like a little warrior and send her out as bait—by a man’s balls, that’s a gutless thing to do. Are ye worth so little to him?”

He believed Jerval was so dishonorable that he’d used her as bait to draw out the Scots? What was a pederast? She lay like a sack of peat, afraid even to breathe. They gained the forest. She saw the blur of trees, heard the crunch of leaves and the tear of bushes beneath Sunnart’s hooves. A branch slashed her face. She pressed her face downward against his thigh to protect herself.

He laughed—the madman actually laughed as he said, “There’ll be time enough later for that, lass. Aye, I’ll show ye what a man can be. A Scotsman is no pederast. It’s pleased I am to see ye so interested. Yer tired of yer cold Englishman? Well, it matters not since he is obviously tired o’ ye.” He jabbed the tip of the knife into her flesh again, and she felt the brief sting, then the wet of her blood beneath her clothes.

Jerval pulled Pith to a halt to wait for his men. He knew he wouldn’t find the Scotsman in the forest; he needed Thoms to track him. Christ, he thought, cold with fear for her, he should have tied her down, left two men to stand over her, guarding her every waking hour. Her pride, her damnable pride. He steeled himself against the sight of her flung facedown before the Scot.

Lambert shouted, “We killed the three bastards. But there’s no sign of the cattle.”

“They split up,” Mark said. “We need to send our men after them.”

Jerval motioned for six men, Rolfe at their head, to go after the cattle.

“Where is milady?” Thoms asked.

“Their leader has her,” Jerval said, and the sound of his own words froze him all the way to his bones, but only for an instant. “He rode into the forest. Thoms, you must track him.”

Then he paused, thinking. “Ranulfe, I don’t believe he will hide in the forest for long. He needs to get to the border, needs to see to the cattle he stole, come together with his other men. We will skirt the forest northward, by the sea. With luck, he’ll veer eventually our way and we’ll have him. But Thoms, find his tracks and keep close to him. It’s possible he may go to the east. We have enough men. Set up a relay so if he decides to come out to the west, we will have warning.”

Jerval was right. Not an hour later, Rolfe shouted, “You were right, Jerval. The bastard is headed northwest, out of the forest. Thoms will stay well behind him, but he said it was obviously the man’s direction. Aye, the damned Scot wants to mak

e better time and he cannot do it in the forest. It’s nearly dark.”

They rode hard, hoping to get well ahead of the Scot before he broke out of the trees. “We must catch them before dark,” Jerval said once, then said it again, and all the men knew what he was thinking.

“Don’t forget that he’s carrying Chandra,” Mark said. “It will slow him even more. You know too that she will fight him at every opportunity.”

Jerval knew it well. He prayed the Scot wouldn’t finally decide she wasn’t worth risking his life for and slit her throat.

But night was falling. It wouldn’t be long now. Jerval thought of the man alone with his wife and thought he’d choke on his rage, and his helplessness.

Alan Durwald reined in his exhausted stallion and slewed his head back. A gentle rise blocked his view, but he could see no clouds of dust from pursuing horses. They’d been out of the forest for only a few minutes now. There was no one about. He was safe. He’d lost the Englishman. He said, even as he pressed his fingers inward on her hips, “Well, my cheeky little lady, it appears that yer lover has at last given up, or I’ve outsmarted him or mayhap he just didn’t care. Another half hour, and it will be dark. And then, wench, we can take our rest. I do hope yer lover will still want to pay yer ransom when I’m done with ye.”