by Lynn Kurland
“And I suppose chain mail would be little protection against such heat,” Rhys agreed solemnly. “Passing warm, I should think.”
“Two-fisted thrust through the underbelly,” a voice grumbled from behind them.
“Nay, brother, better a slash made to lop off the head. Solves the problem of fire from the nostrils.”
“Dodge under the fire,” Connor insisted, “and come up under the belly.”
“And be squashed in the process?” Jared demanded. “Have you lost all sense?”
Rhys heard Gwen sigh lightly next to him, and he wondered if she’d been privy to these kinds of arguments for the past three years. He met her gaze and saw the amusement lurking there.
“A day of leisure?” she asked dryly.
“Matters of war, Mama,” Robin said importantly, “are always a ripe subject for glorious discussion.”
Rhys looked over his shoulder at Connor. “Did you teach him that?”
“Nay, I did,” Jared said proudly. “A quick study, that young one. As eager as you were.”
“Aye,” Connor agreed, “he’ll make a fine warrior, he will.”
“So,” Robin continued, “I think it must be an arrow through the eye.” He looked back at Connor and Jared, seemingly to check to see if they approved of his line of thinking. “’Tis the only way.”
“Thinks for himself,” Jared noted.
“I taught him that,” Connor boasted.
Rhys began to wonder if he’d brought too many guardsmen with him that day. John would have likely been enough. At least he was watching his surroundings instead of chattering them to death.
Gwen cleared her throat pointedly. “And what of the maiden? Shouldn’t you be giving consideration to her rescue?”
“She is the point of the entire exercise,” Montgomery agreed from where he walked in front of Rhys. “Not that you’d know it in this company.”
Gwen snorted and looked up at Rhys. “This is the company you left me with. You can imagine the reaction I’ve had to whatever lays I’ve struggled to compose.”
“Not nearly enough blood,” Connor complained, “though ’twasn’t for a lack of my trying to aid her.”
“Her accounts of battle have improved, though,” Jared conceded. “That was my doing.”
“The dragon, Sir Rhys,” Robin said, tugging on Rhys’s hand. “He is the interesting part.”
“The saints preserve me from the child,” Gwen muttered under her breath. “And to think I spent all these years spinning him tales of bold rescues. I had no idea what part he was listening to the more!”
Rhys listened to the confusion going on around him and found the sound of it sweet indeed. The feeling of a small boy’s hand in his and the sight of his lady’s daughter riding in Montgomery’s arms was delightful as well.
But the most wonderful thing of all was knowing that his love was by his side. Every time he caught sight of her, he smiled. Every time he heard her laugh, he wanted to laugh as well. And every time he thought about what it would take to have her as his own, he wanted to drop to his knees and pray for success. Gold he had. Determination he possessed in abundance. But a plan that would guarantee victory?
It was the one thing he needed, and the one thing he lacked.
“You, there! Cease!”
Montgomery’s shout startled Rhys from his uncomfortable thoughts. And almost before Rhys could think about what he needed to do, he found himself leaping ahead of the company. He caught the strap before it came down another time.
A young boy lay in the dirt at Rhys’s feet, cowering. A very large man held the leather strap in his beefy fist. He jerked it free of Rhys’s hand and glared at him.
“’E’s mine,” a man snarled, “and I’ll beat ’im as I see fit.”
Rhys pursed his lips in disgust. “And what could a child of such tender years have done to merit this?”
“Didn’t work ’ard enough,” the man said. “There’s no place for a sluggard at my board.”
Rhys looked at the man, noted the substantial arms and broad chest. A blacksmith, perhaps, or a mason. Not a pleasant soul, if the coldness in his eyes was any indication. Certainly not a man Rhys would want anywhere near any of his children.
Rhys ignored the man’s growling and reached down to pick up the boy where he had fallen in the dirt. There was blood on the back of his ragged tunic. Rhys pulled the boy behind him.
“How much do you want for him?” he asked bluntly.
The man’s eyes took on a calculating look. “More than you’re willing to pay, likely.”
“Think you?” Rhys asked. “Shall it be a piece of gold or two, or would you rather barter with my fists?”
“Or my sword!” John interjected, bouncing on the balls of his feet as if he itched to show his prowess.
“Or his sword,” Rhys agreed, folding his arms over his chest.
“Take more than a piece of gold to replace the labor I’ll lose,” the man said. “Not that I ever wanted him anyway, but ’e’s a strong lad.”
“For a sluggard,” Rhys agreed dryly.
“What was I to do with ’im?” the man demanded. “Ayre’s young lord came through ’ere one day and took me sister home for his pleasure. Damn ’er if she didn’t return a’carryin’ this whelp. Was I to turn ’er out, I ask ye?”
“How kind,” Rhys remarked.
“Someone had to work for their keep,” the man continued. “And it weren’t to be ’er. Lazy wench.”
“She’s sick,” the boy whispered. “Not lazy.”
Rhys found himself pushed aside by Gwen before she knelt down before the child.
“Your mother is ill, lad?”
His eyes filled with tears. “Aye, lady. Near to dying, I’d say.”
She took his hand. “Where is she?”
He nodded toward the hut.
“Show me.”
Rhys watched her go inside and wondered at the wisdom of it, but he suspected there was little he could do to stop her. When his lady was determined about something, the saints preserve any soul who thought to stand in her way.
He found that he had nothing to say to the man, so he merely stood there and stared, his arms folded over his chest, and waited.
Gwen returned in time, bringing the boy along behind her. Rhys opened his mouth to ask her what had transpired, but she seemingly had no desire for speech with him.
“His mother is gone,” she said shortly to the boy’s uncle. “How much for the boy?”
“Three pieces of gold,” the man said promptly. “’E is me nephew, after all, and dear to me—”
“By all the saints,” Rhys exclaimed, “you were nigh onto driving the life from the lad!”
Gwen removed Rhys’s purse from his belt before he could protest, rummaged around in it, then handed the man four pieces of gold.
“Gwen—” Rhys gasped.
“Here is an extra piece to make certain you do not change your mind. The boy is mine now,” Gwen said to the blacksmith. “If you come within ten paces of him again, I will kill you.”
The man looked at his gold, then at her. And his eyes took on a calculating look she didn’t care for in the slightest.
“Or perhaps Sir Rhys will merely use you as sport,” she conceded. “You’ve no doubt seen his band of mercenaries camped yonder. He is, of course, the fiercest of the lot and more merciless than the rest. I doubt his finishing of you would be nearly as swift as mine would be.”
The man looked at Rhys appraisingly. Rhys mustered up his fiercest look. No sense in not living up to Gwen’s boasts.
“You know,” she continued, lowering her voice as if she had a delicious secret to share, “I’ve heard the sound of screaming soothes him.” She smiled pleasantly. “I wouldn’t want to know the truth of the matter myself, but perhaps you’re made of sterner stock than I am.”
Rhys smiled at the man. The man took one last look at Rhys, then immediately turned and went inside his hovel.
“Mont
gomery,” Gwen said softly, “if you would be so good as to see to the mother’s remains?”
“Aye, lady,” Montgomery agreed.
“Twins, you will see to my children?”
Amanda and Robin were summarily deposited upon broad, Viking shoulders and carried back toward the keep.
“John, go after them and inform my mother we come and we’ve a lad in need of tending.”
John looked at Rhys as if to ask if he should be obeying his sister-in-law.
“I wouldn’t argue,” Rhys advised.
John trotted off obediently.
Gwen drew the boy alongside her. “Rhys, this is Nicholas. Nicholas, this is Sir Rhys.”
Rhys looked down into a dirty little face belonging to a lad who could be no older than Robin, or so Rhys guessed. His hair was filthy enough that Rhys could not divine its color, but the boy’s eyes were pale. And filled with tears.
“Oh,” Rhys said, his heart breaking a little within him. “Poor lad.” He looked at Gwen. “Are we keeping him?”
“Aye,” she said, and he was almost surprised by the vehemence in her voice, “we are.”
Rhys had another look at the lad. Though the child’s uncle claimed the boy had been sired by Alain, Rhys could not see it. The child looked nothing like Ayre, and that was likely why Gwen wanted him so badly. Then again, his lady had a tender heart where children were concerned.
“Well,” Rhys said, “if you wish to have him.”
“Don’t you?”
Rhys met those pale gray eyes and saw the despair there. If humoring his lady hadn’t inspired him to acceptance, the sight of a half-starved, sorrowful little one certainly did.
“Aye, I will take him gladly,” Rhys said firmly.
“I suspect,” Gwen said, “that that isn’t the last time you’ll say that.”
Rhys looked at her in surprise, but there seemed to be no hidden message in her gaze. He surmised that she was pleased with him for his choice, and he accepted that with a smile. Then he looked at Nicholas.
“Do you care to come with us?”
Nicholas looked as if the very thought and the hope it engendered might break him into pieces.
Rhys smiled and took the lad’s small grubby hand in his own. “Answer enough, I suppose. Let us seek out something for you to eat. I suspect you could use something substantial.”
Rhys found his other hand taken by his lady. So much for their leisurely walk. Perhaps ’twas just as well. He needed to make final preparations for their journey north. Joanna seemed determined to come with them, and he welcomed not only the protection from scandal she would provide, but the handful of men she intended to bring along. He was glad of the aid. Perhaps he might even have a bit of help from Fenwyck.
Assuming, of course, he could keep Gwen and Geoffrey from killing each other.
The saints preserve him from the pair of them long enough for him to battle what he truly needed to.
Gwen stood at the doorway of the kitchens and smiled at the sight before her. By his words, Rhys had seemingly intended to go straight to the lists after they had returned to the keep. Somehow, though, he had found himself seated at a table in the kitchens with Robin at one elbow, Nicholas at the other, and Amanda on his lap. Robin was talking as quickly as his chewing would allow, Amanda was investigating Rhys’s purse for anything interesting, and Nicholas was staring at the three of them as if he couldn’t believe where he was.
It was where he belonged, though. Gwen thought back to what she’d learned that afternoon and had to shake her head.
She’d had but a handful of words with Nicholas’s mother, but they were enough to identify Nicholas’s father and how the event had come about. The poor girl had found herself carried back to Ayre from Segrave to be used for Alain’s pleasure. The thought of that had set Gwen’s teeth to grinding, but she knew she shouldn’t have been surprised. It had been on the day of Lord Alain’s nuptials, very late that evening, the girl had found herself meeting her fate, as it were. The man had been, however, so into his cups that he could hardly manage to keep his feet.
As Gwen had bent to hear the man’s name whispered in her ear, she had fully expected for it to be Alain’s.
It hadn’t been.
Gwen looked at Rhys, then at Nicholas, searching for the similarity of features. It was there, but only if one looked very closely and if one knew what to look for. Perhaps things would change as the lad grew.
Gwen wondered if she should perhaps have been jealous of Nicholas’s mother. To have Rhys in her arms for even a night . . .
But nay, Gwen had had him as well, and she had been his first. With any luck at all, she would be his last.
It was enough that Nicholas was found and rescued. Perhaps she would tell Rhys in time, for she very much suspected he wouldn’t notice it himself. For all his skill, he was powerfully unobservant about some things.
“We go Fenwyck?” Amanda was asking Rhys.
“Well . . .” Rhys began slowly.
“We come,” she said firmly, seeming to sense Rhys’s hesitation.
“But—”
“We come!” she announced, her chin jutting out stubbornly. She turned a sunny smile on Nicholas. “And bring him.”
Gwen put her hand over her mouth to hide her smile. Rhys might have bested the most formidable knights France had to offer, but he stood not a chance against Amanda of Ayre.
Rhys sighed, defeated already. “If you wish.”
Gwen left the kitchen and made her way up to her mother’s solar to begin her own preparations. Perhaps she would take an extra wimple or two. Tight ones that would bind her ears more closely to her head. There was no reason to give Geoffrey more to mock her about than he would find on his own. She also packed her sharpest sewing needle and strapped her knife to her forearm. No sense in not being prepared.
She had little desire to halt at Fenwyck, but she could see the wisdom of it. Her father and Geoffrey’s father had been comrades, if not friends, and her mother was certainly still in Geoffrey’s good graces. It would give them a chance to rest before they continued on to the inevitable skirmish at Wyckham. And for all Gwen knew, Geoffrey might find Rhys a more tolerable neighbor than Alain’s troops and be willing to help with the removal of her husband’s men.
She also knew that Rhys had hopes that Geoffrey might speak kindly of him to the king. Gwen had little confidence in such a thing, but perhaps in this case Rhys was using his imagination more than she did. All she could imagine up in her heart was a score of ways to humiliate Geoffrey before he returned the favor.
By the saints, she did not relish the thought of the journey. And to think she had considered three years of waiting for Rhys to be disturbing.
She put her hands over her ears in one last attempt to train them, and continued on her way to her mother’s solar.
30
Rhys thought he actually might have to use his sword on Geoffrey of Fenwyck this time.
Assuming, of course, that Gwen didn’t get to the man first.
Rhys sat on his horse just inside Fenwyck’s gates—and he knew he was damned fortunate to even have gotten that far—and struggled to remind himself of all the reasons why taking his sword and heaving it through Fenwyck’s heart would be ill-advised. He would be killing one of John’s favorite, if not double-crossing, barons. He would be killing one of Gwen’s childhood acquaintances—though he was certain they all still remembered her time in the piggery and Gwen would feel no regret at all if she never had to look Geoffrey in the face again. Unfortunately Rhys had to admit that he would also be killing a potential ally who could very possibly help him convince John that gold in his coffers was reason enough to aid Rhys in further bribing the necessary clergy to see Gwen’s liberation accomplished.
But at the moment, all Rhys could do was stare at the way Fenwyck was slobbering over Gwen’s hand and imagine up in his heart a score of very painful ways to end the man’s life.
Gwen looked about her in a panic.
Her mother only shrugged and smiled. Gwen searched for Rhys. She met his eyes and he could hear her thoughts as clearly as if she’d been shouting them at him: Get him away from me! She had vowed she would do all in her power not to offend, that Rhys might fare better with Geoffrey, but Rhys could tell she was using every smidgen of control she possessed not to draw her sword and do damage with it.
Unfortunately, he felt the same compulsion. In truth he couldn’t blame Geoffrey for the less than friendly welcome. One did not travel with thirty ill-mannered mercenaries and expect to find gates flung open in welcome. But by the saints, it wasn’t as if Gwen’s mother hadn’t brought several of her own guardsmen wearing her late husband’s colors. She had even sent a man ahead with tidings of their impending arrival. Geoffrey had known who had come knocking. It had been a discourtesy directed at him personally, and Rhys was swallowing a great lump of pride to ignore it. Never mind that he would have left his men outside the gates in any case. That Geoffrey had come close to denying him entrance as well was the true insult.
But there he sat, contemplating his next action—and that action would have to come quickly, before Gwen had a good look at Geoffrey and his pleasing face. Rhys knew Gwen’s heart was true, but ’twas rumored that the sight of Geoffrey had made more than one strong-minded maid lose her resolve. At least that was the rumor, and it was one Rhys couldn’t be completely sure that Geoffrey hadn’t started himself.
Of course none of Geoffrey’s supposed charm would have mattered had the man been every day of fifty and as corpulent as Gwen’s former guardian. Unfortunately, Geoffrey was fair-haired and fair featured and damn him if he didn’t look as fit as if he trained regularly with his men—which Rhys suspected he did. He was also a widower and surely the most sought-after of nobles in the realm. Why some clever father hadn’t ensnared the man for a son-in-law before now was surely a mystery. Rhys could only regret the oversight as it surely left him with trouble he didn’t need.
Such as all that slobber on the back of Gwen’s hand.
And now on her palm!
“Ahem,” Rhys said pointedly.
Geoffrey looked up narrowly. “Something stuck in your throat, friend?”