He roared her name and she looked up at once, her eyes locking with his in a mixture of amazement and relief. The Saxon looked up too, and his expression of outrage turned to one of implacable resolve as he started to follow her, swinging his sword above his head as if preparing to strike.
Svend drew his dagger and took aim—felt something tear in his shoulder as he flung his arm back.
‘Move!’ he shouted, hoping she would understand, and she moved, dropping to the ground as the blade flew through the air, its sharp tip embedding itself in the Saxon’s shoulder.
The man bellowed and Svend leapt from his horse with a grim sense of satisfaction. There. That evened the odds. Now they both had only one arm to fight with. That ought to be more than enough.
‘Edmund.’ He pointed his sword at the Saxon’s throat menacingly. ‘I’ll give you one chance to yield. That’s more than you deserve.’
‘You can’t have her!’
Edmund wrenched the dagger out of his shoulder, thrusting forward as Svend stepped to one side, slapping the blade away with the flat of his sword before driving his point up towards the other man’s chest. Edmund reeled backwards, parrying wildly with his sword as Svend pursued him remorselessly, closing him down with a rain of powerful blows before pummelling the hilt hard into his face.
Edmund sank to the ground, his nose streaming with blood, and dropped his sword with a grunt of pain.
‘I yield!’
‘I said one chance. You didn’t take it.’
Svend towered over him, his knuckles white, resisting the urge to finish what the other man had started. But he couldn’t do it—not in front of Aediva. She’d said that Edmund was part of her past. He couldn’t kill the man in front of her—couldn’t taint their future with his blood. Better to let FitzOsbern see that justice was done.
‘I’ll spare you for her sake.’
He lowered his weapon with a grimace. In the heat of combat he hadn’t noticed the pain in his arm, but now even his sword felt too heavy.
‘Tie him up.’ He jerked his head at Bertrand.
‘Svend!’
He turned towards the sound of her voice. She was running towards him, arms outstretched, soaking wet and covered in mud, but she looked more beautiful than he’d ever seen her. Eagerly he started towards her—then stopped as her expression changed abruptly, her mouth opening in a silent scream.
He reacted instinctively, spinning around and thrusting his sword up just in time to see Edmund run chest-first onto its point, the dagger in his
hand grazing harmlessly against Svend’s chainmail.
For a moment nobody spoke. There was only an uncanny silence as Edmund’s body jerked and then stiffened. A red stain soaked through his tunic as he made a faint gurgling sound and then folded backwards, collapsing to the ground with a thud.
‘Aediva.’ Svend tossed the sword away, bridging the distance between them in two strides as she stared at Edmund in horror. ‘Don’t look.’
‘You killed him...’
He tensed. Was she angry with him? In spite of everything, would she hate him for killing a Saxon?
‘He killed himself.’
‘I know.’ She met his gaze finally. ‘It was all him. He wanted to kill me too. He hated me so much...’ Her voice caught on a sob. ‘I thought you would too. I thought you wouldn’t come.’
His chest tightened. ‘I told you before—I won’t let you go. I could never hate you.’
‘You trusted me.’ She gave him a look of wonder before her face crumpled. ‘Your shoulder...it’s bleeding!’
‘It doesn’t matter.’ He pulled her into a hard embrace, wrapping his arms around her like a vice, pain forgotten as he held her tight. ‘None of that matters now. Let’s go home.’
Chapter Nineteen
‘Ow!’ Aediva started awake as someone pressed a cold compress to her forehead, letting out a shriek as she saw the identity of her nurse. ‘Cille! You’re here!’
Her sister beamed. ‘We arrived last night—just in time as it turned out. Between you and your husband, the men had quite a struggle getting you back. You were both well-nigh unconscious.’