Furious, Igrainia reined in her horse as Sir Morton called out an order to his men. He did not intend to await the enemy. He meant to attack first.
“Sir Morton!” She raged with fury, her heart sick as she watched the men spur their horses to his command. In seconds, the liege men of her late lord, Afton of Langley, spurned her order and took flight down the hill.
They seemed to sail in a sea of silver, armor gleaming in the sun. The colors they flew, the rich blue and red, noble colors, created a riot of shades along with the silver stream. Down the hill, a display of might and power . . .
Bearing down upon a sad rabble, scattered horsemen on fine enough mounts, some in tarnished armor, most in no more than leather jerkins to protect their hearts from the onslaught of steel that would soon come their way.
At her distance, she could see their leader. She frowned, wondering what madness would make a man risk certain death. She narrowed her eyes against the sun, studying the man. A small gasp escaped her.
She had seen him before. She knew, because he rode without protection; no helmet covered his head, and the length of his tangled blond hair glinted in the sun with almost as much of a sheen as the steel helmets worn by her own people. She had seen him dragged in with the other captured men, shackled in irons. He had looked like a wild man, uncivilized, a barbarian, yet despite the dirt and mud that marred his clothes, she had seen his eyes once, when they had met hers, and she had read something frightening in that glance. She had the odd feeling that he had allowed himself to be taken prisoner, though why, she didn’t know. Or perhaps she did. Castle Langley, as her husband’s home was called, had just been turned into quarters for the king’s men when they had come through, bearing the families of Scottish outlaws to London, where they would be held until their rebel kin surrendered.
And offered their own necks to the axeman’s blade.
Sir Morton’s men were nearly upon the riders. In the glittering sunlight, it was almost a beautiful spectacle, the gleam and glint of steel and color . . .
Until the riders came together in a hideous clash, horses screaming, men shouting, steel becoming drenched in the deep red of blood. Tears suddenly stung her eyes; Afton had wanted no part of this. He had been furious with the order to welcome the king’s men, to house renegades who were his own people. He had demanded that the hostages not be treated as animals, even when they spoke with their highland language and strange burrs, and looked like wild creatures from heathen times. He had stood, a proud voice of reason and mercy, until he had fallen . . .
And neither her love nor her prowess with herbs had managed to save him.
He would have been furious at this bloodbath, had he been with her.
Had he had his way, they would never have come to this . . .
She gasped, bringing her hand to her lips as she saw that a rebel had met Sir Morton head on, ever ready to do battle. The rebel was the wild man with the tangled blond hair.
Sir Morton’s sword never made contact with the rebel’s flesh.
Sir Morton’s head fell to the earth and bounced as his body continued through the mass upon his horse, until that part of him, too fell to the ground to be trampled upon.
Bile filled her throat. She closed her eyes, and lowered her head, fighting the sickness that threatened to overwhelm her. Dear God, she had just left plague victims, nursed the sick and the putrid and the rotting and . . .
With her eyes closed, she could still see the head, bouncing.
The clash of steel seemed to rise in a cacophony around her; she heard more cries, shouts, the terrified whinnies of warhorses, animals accustomed to battle and mayhem. She forced herself to look up.
The finest armor to be found had not protected the men of Langley from the fury of the rebels’ wrath. Men lay everywhere.
Armor glinting in the sun. The shining intermittent, against the bloodstained field. Some had survived. Unhorsed, the men milled in a circle. There were shouts and commands; the blond giant was on his feet as well, approaching the eight or so men of Langley who remained standing. Watching, appalled, she didn’t realize her own danger. Voices carried on the air.
“Do we slay them now?” someone inquired.
The blond man replied, then shouted at the survivors. Swords fell to the ground. One man fell to his knees. Did he do so in absolute desolation, or in gratitude for his life?
Were they to be executed? Or were their lives to be spared?
She couldn’t tell. Others were talking, but they spoke in softer voices.
One of the rebels pointed up the hill.
Then, suddenly, the blond man was staring at her.
She couldn’t see his eyes in the distance. She could only remember them.
He started toward his horse.
Only then did she realize her own situation, and that he was mounting to ride once again, after her.
She spurred her horse, praying that she knew this region better than he, that her mare was a fresher mount, ready to take her to greater bursts of speed . . .
For a far longer period of time.
She prayed . . .
There had been a time, not so long ago, that she had wanted to die. When the death and despair had seemed so great that she would willingly have taken Afton’s hand, and entered the afterlife with him. That moment when she realized that she had lost him, that he had breathed his last, that his laughter would never sound again.
And yet now . . .
She did not want to depart this life at the hands of a furious barbarian, bent on some form of revenge. She thought of how Edward I had killed Wallace, of the horrors that had taken place, of the English furor at the crowning of Robert Bruce.
And she rode as she had never done before, flat against her mare’s neck, heels jamming the beast’s haunches, whispers begging her to ever greater speed. The rebel’s horse had to be flagging; their animals had been foaming when they first met with the men of Langley. If she could just evade him for a distance . . .
She galloped over the hill, through the thick grasses of the lea to the north. The forest beckoned beyond the hill, a forest she knew well, with twisting trails and sheltering oaks, a place in which to disappear. She could see the trees, the great branches waving high in the sky, the darkness of the trails beneath the canopy of leaves. She could smell the very richness of the earth and hear the leaves, as she could hear the thunder of her horse’s hooves, the desperate, ragged catch of her own breath, the pulse of her heartbeat, echoed with each thunder of a hoof upon the earth. There . . . just a moment away . . .
She was never aware that his horse’s hoofbeats thundered along with those of her mare; the first she knew of him was the hook of his arm, sweeping her from her horse in a deadly gamble. She was whisked from the mare and left to watch as the horse made the shelter of the trees. And for a moment, she looked on, in amazement, as she dangled from the great warhorse, a prisoner taken by a madman.
She began to twist and struggle, and bite—a sound enough attack so that he swore, and dropped her. His horse was huge; she fell a distance to the earth, stunned, then gathered her senses quickly and began to run. She headed for the dark trail, desperately, running with the speed of a hunted doe.
Yet again, she was swept off her feet, this time, lifted up, and thrown down, and the next thing she knew, he was on top of her, smelling of the earth and the blood of battle. She screamed, fought, kicked, yet found her hands vised above her head, and the barbarian straddled atop her, staring at her with a cold, wicked fury that allowed no mercy.
“You are the lady of Langley,” he said.
“Igrainia,” she replied.
“I don’t give a damn about your name,” he told her. “But you will come with me, and you will demand that the