Claiming Her

“The queen was always lenient if I did her bidding. Under all other conditions, she is perilous. If you think otherwise, Charles, you do not know her.”

*

BERTRAND, LORD OF BRIDGE, stared at Ludthorpe when he rode back into camp. “You mean to say you simply let him go?”

“I did,” Ludthorpe replied curtly, sliding off his horse and striding purposefully into his tent.

Bertrand followed, scowling. “Why?”

“I was within arrowshot of a hundred bowmen.”

Ludthorpe bent over his small camp desk and scribbled out a few words on a piece of paper, then handed it to a young soldier who stood waiting.

Outside the tent, the campfires were burning. Soldiers stood around them, eating cold food and drinking warm ale and glancing up into the darkening hillsides and forests that surrounded the valley. Unease flowed through the camp like a fog. All around, the trees seemed to move and whisper as evening winds kicked up. But it wasn’t the winds rustling amid the trees; it was the Irish.

No one had expected him to amass allies so swiftly. And if Aodh spoke true, more were coming. Ludthorpe saw no reason to doubt it. Indeed, he’d just received intelligence reporting the O’Fail tribe was mustering, and that was trouble. They would be here in a few days. All the more reason to get the hell out of Ireland.

Aodh had always been exceptionally persuasive, Ludthorpe thought with grim admiration. In only this one matter, of Rardove, had the man failed to get his way.

And it was upon this one that his life would hang.

A pity, the arrogance, and stubbornness, the foolish commitment to a cause that did not translate directly into money or comfort. For Ludthorpe, causes were a waste of time and manpower. Food and featherbeds mattered far more, particularly as he got older. If he handled this matter of Aodh and Rardove to the queen’s satisfaction, he would get precisely that, via a grant of the monopoly on the pepper. A rich retirement awaited.

Still, Ludthorpe had to admit, he admired Aodh. And he certes liked him far better than the noble idiot now crowing in his ear, Bertrand of Bridge.

“You should have lured him closer to our side of things, and we’d have had a clear shot at his head,” Bertrand complained.

“Had I lured him into my tent, Bridge, we were still in parley. Those are the rules of parley: you do not kill each other.” He pushed away from the desk and stared out of the tent. Through the flap, which was tied open, twilight grayed the sky. The campfires shone as bright red dots across the plain.

Bertrand hurried out of the tent after him. “Rules?” At the high-pitched angry word, soldiers turned to stare. “Rules? What is a rule?” Bertrand demanded. “Against the Irish, the only rule is burn them out. Stamp them flat. You are a fool, Ludthorpe, if you think—”

“Have a care, Bridge. Rules are the only thing that keeps me from taking a broadsword to you right now.”

The commander called for one of his men, then swung back suddenly and said, “I know not what the queen sees in you, Bridge, but heed me: do not gainsay me in front of my men again. If you do, I will push you outside our lines myself, and let the Irish have their way with you.”

Chapter Thirty-Nine

WALTER APPROACHED KATARINA in the gardens the next afternoon, while she was laying down a new row of onions.

She could stare at the army only so long. Nothing seemed to be happening—Aodh was correct, no army could lay an effective assault on Rardove. So it seemed they were in for a long siege. Rationing had begun, but again, even there, Rardove provided: men had tromped down to the seas by the treacherous cliff pathway just this morning and netted a large catch of fish.

Being in the garden not only gave her somethi

ng to do, it was soothing to be kneeling in soft piles of dirt, concerned with nothing but how to make something small, grow. Beside her, Susanna crouched, her happy, undemanding chatter as soothing as the sun and earth.

Walter’s shadow fell over her and he said in an urgent voice, “My lady, come swiftly.”

Startled, she yanked her hands out of the dirt and stared in shock. Walter’s face was sooty, and he smelled of smoke, as if he’d been standing over a fire. “What happened?”

“There was a small fire—”

She shot to her feet. “Where?”

He waved his hand. “All is contained now, my lady. But you must come. Hurry.” He glanced around nervously as he said it.

She wiped the dirt from her hands and swiped her arm across her forehead. “Walter, I—”

“Come my lady, ’tis most urgent.”