Kim Iverson Headlee Read online

  “Not if Dragon thinks we have tried to throw him off the scent,” Lofwin said. “But our departure will be noticed.”

  “Sooner or later,” Alain agreed. He shrugged into his robe and cinched it about his waist. “We leave our remounts and everything that isn’t armor, weapons, or tack.” By this time, his tentmates had finished dressing. Alain spread his hands like a priest preparing to deliver a benediction. “Brethren, let us pray that our skill, luck, and the fog will see us to our destination before Dragon realizes aught is amiss.”

  “YOU LET them leave camp?” Eosa, seated behind his field table, couldn’t believe what he’d heard. “All of the fongers?”

  The sentry ducked his head and scrunched one shoulder in a shrug. “Don’t rightly know, sir. Hard to tell, what with everyone hooded and leaving at nigh unto the same time.”

  “Find out, and report back to me. Wait,” he said as the sentry saluted and began to leave. The man halted. Eosa rose from behind the table, snatched his cloak from the post, and pinned it in place as he strode past the sentry. “Show me their camp.”

  The heavy fog caused both of them to pull up their hoods.

  Eosa’s thoughts churned as he squelched with the sentry through the camp. If Waldron’s men had come to spy on them, why in hell would they leave after just one night? Eosa had ensured that nothing incriminating had been present during his meeting with Lofwin. Their mission could be one of confirmation—but why would Waldron have sent a hundred men? Why not just two or three to observe from a distance and depart?

  And how the fonging, bloody hell had Waldron learned of the pilgrim ploy?

  Not from Ulfric; Eosa would have staked his share of the mercenaries’ payment on that fact.

  Unless…Eosa’s thoughts wandered back to a much more pleasurable task he’d enjoyed recently, though it had been cut short. Ulfric would have killed him if he’d dared to take any further liberties with Lady Kendra than he had done. And the temptation had been so strong, with the bitch brazenly baring her legs to show where they had been chafed. In fact, if Ulfric’s summons hadn’t come when it had, Eosa might have swived her anyway, in spite of the strict orders to the contrary.

  A startling realization halted him. If not for Ulfric’s summons, he, Eosa Thorgudson, might be feeding the ravens along with the rest of the outlaws.

  “Sir?” The sentry looked puzzled. “We’re not there yet.”

  Feeling stupid for the lapse, Eosa motioned the man onward and matched his stride. When they reached the area near the encampment’s eastern edge where Waldron’s men had pitched their tents, he was not surprised to find them all empty.

  Oh, the bedrolls, shovels, flagons, wineskins, rations, and cooking utensils lay strewn about, but not one scrap of saddle leather or so much as a dagger had been left behind. It looked as if the men might return, but Eosa knew better. He also had a strong suspicion he’d find a hundred horses missing from the picket lines and dispatched the sentry to confirm his guess.

  After the man departed, Eosa berated himself for failing to discern Lofwin’s true intent soon enough to have prevented it.

  Ulfric was going to be livid.

  Resisting the urge to clutch his throat, he strode away as fast as dignity allowed. Before reaching his headquarters tent, the sentry caught up with him and blurted out the news that Waldron’s men had retrieved their mounts.

  “Any idea where they went, man?”

  “Thornhill, sir, on your orders, or so they claimed.” The sentry shrugged. “In this bloody fog, the picket guards couldn’t rightly tell which way they went.”

  Naturally. But was Thornhill a ruse, or their intended destination?

  Having worked out a plan, he stopped at an adjacent tent to speak with his second-in-command. He shouldered between the sentries, yanked aside the flap, and thrust his head through.

  “Dirk, I need two hundred of your best men, armed and mounted.” Eosa would have preferred a much larger force but couldn’t afford to give Waldron’s men the advantage of time.

  “When?” The warrior everyone called Dirk—in reality Ursa, the oldest son of Thane Oesc—was sitting on his cot, paring his fingernails with the garnet-inlaid weapon that had inspired his camp name.

  “Now.”

  Dirk stood and sheathed the blade. “The mission?”

  Eosa couldn’t suppress his smile in response to Dirk’s undisguised eagerness. After so many days of waiting out this Godforsaken weather, he wasn’t immune to the lure of proposed action either. But his smile soon soured.

  “Thornhill.” Whether a ruse or not, it was the logical place to start, for either way, Ulfric would have to be apprised of this development. “Our king—and perhaps our entire endeavor—stands in grave danger.”

  KENDRA, USING Ulfric’s arm as a crutch and wishing she didn’t have to, was sitting down to the morning meal on the dais inside Thornhill’s feast hall when the far doors burst open and banged against the walls. Thanes and men-at-arms alike swiveled their heads toward the intruders.

  Swords drawn and blood spattered across their clothing, dozens of panting, sweating, grim-faced men poured through the doorway.

  Ulfric and the others leapt to their feet, groping for weapons that they hadn’t brought for breaking fast.

  “Guards!” Ulfric shouted, whipping his head about.

  The only men to answer his summons emerged from the servants’ doors behind the dais.

  As the thanes’ men gripped their meat knives and adopted guarded poses, the intruders spread throughout the hall while their leader, trailed by two of his men and a black hound, stalked toward the dais.

  Kendra, who had jumped up to stand behind her chair, clinging to its tall back, all but fainted from relief.

  The skirmish—with Ulfric’s watchmen, she guessed—hadn’t winded Alain as much as it had the others, for he was the first to regain control of his breathing. But his color ran high and what she could see of his hair beneath the hood was matted by sweat. Blood smudged his right cheek, though it did not appear to be his.

  If Alain’s scowl could kill, Ulfric would have died where he stood.

  She glanced at her cousin, who was was…smirking?

  “So. The squire pretending to be a knight has returned to reclaim his ladylove.”

  “No squire stands before you, Thane Ulfric, or ever has.” Alain shoved the hood back to reveal his mail coif. He stripped off his robe, let it fall to his feet, and stepped free of the woolen puddle. A sleeveless, calf-length, dark saffron surcoat flowed over his mail, embroidered across the chest with a white rose surrounded by a tangle of greenery.

  Kendra, I am Sir Robert.

  Her jaw dropped open and her eyes stretched wide. Her heart’s joyful dance turned to dread. She slapped a hand over her mouth as her entire world teetered on the brink of flipping upside down.

  There remained one chance to salvage reality. “You—” After clearing her dust-dry throat, she lowered her hand. “Sir Robert sent you, Alain? Is that why you wear his colors?”

  His gaze reflected an odd pairing of love and regret.

  “I am profoundly sorry, Kendra. I tried to tell you the truth in the cave.” Squaring his shoulders, he tore his gaze from hers to regard Ulfric. “Upon the command and authority of William, Duke of Normandy and King of England, I, Sir Robert Alain de Bellencombre, have come to claim Lady Kendra of Edgarburh as my bride.”

  “Nay…nay, it—it cannot be…” Her heart shuddered from the force of her erupting anger. “Nay!” She glared at the man she thought she loved. “I shall never marry you, Sir Robert, un-unless—” A sob welled as she recalled the last time she’d uttered the phrase that popped to mind. “Unless it snows in July!”

  Tears streaming, she spun and fled out the servants’ door as fast as her weakened condition would permit.

  Chapter 20

  HER DECLARATION SADDENED but didn’t surprise him as he watched the love of his life race through the back door, dodging past a pair of startled m
enservants.

  No royal decree could ever bring her back.

  Ulfric’s harsh laugh claimed his attention.

  “It seems my dear cousin has some difficulty with your pronouncement, Sir Robert.”

  “What transpires between Lady Kendra and me is no concern of yours.”

  “Ah, but it is my concern.”

  The thane’s smile turned predatory as he raised his fists to shoulder height. He closed his eyes and crossed his arms, laying his palms flat on his chest as if he were preparing for burial. When he opened his eyes, their color had changed from blue to sea green…exactly like Alain’s.

  The changes didn’t end there. For a moment, Ulfric’s face seemed to blur. His hair muted into a darker shade of blond.

  Alain gaped. Behind him, he heard Ruaud’s swift intake of breath. The resemblance was far from perfect—with a too-high forehead and eyes too widely set—and Alain had no clue how Ulfric had managed such a feat, but he found himself confronted with a face he knew better than the back of his sword hand.

  Still grinning at Alain, Ulfric uncrossed his arms and thrust an open hand toward one of his guards. The man filled it with the hilt of his own sword.

  “I remember where I have seen you before, Sir Robert.” The more words Ulfric spoke, the more his voice modulated into a light but unmistakable Norman French accent. “At Hastings, you stood rooted by fear, while I”—he swept his free hand toward the face that looked uncannily like Étienne’s—“died.”

  “You lie!” Frustration and rage propelled Alain forward. His sword hit Ulfric’s with a deafening clang. Ulfric parried the stroke and dodged around the dais, dealing out as good as Alain gave him. “There were too many men in the way. I couldn’t get to you—him in time!”

  Alain whirled away to disengage and sharpen his focus. If he allowed Ulfric’s ploy to distract him, he’d never live long enough to even contemplate how he might earn Kendra’s forgiveness.

  He clung to that hope. It was the only thing that kept his sword arm moving.

  Grimly, he reapplied himself to his work, but he had found a worthy opponent in Kendra’s kinsman.

  Shouts and the clash of arms erupted throughout the hall. Alain dodged away to glance up and see another group of men burst in to engage Waldron’s fyrd. The already wounded Cæwlin and a dozen others fell in the initial onslaught, victims of a barrage of spears.

  Alain faced Ulfric in time to watch the thane make another transformation…into the likeness of Noir. He almost dropped his sword. Noir began to growl.

  Ulfric the hound wriggled out of the pile of discarded clothing, bounded to the servants’ door, leaned on it with his front paws, and pushed through.

  The real Noir, teeth bared and fur bristling, sped to the door and stopped, looking imperiously over his shoulder at Alain as if ordering him to come along.

  Alain regarded the melee before him, recognizing Dragon and other men he’d seen in the encampment. Dragon’s presence, and the familiar ease by which he seemed to move through Ulfric’s hall, confirmed what Alain had believed all along. Ulfric must have engineered this plan, aided by other thanes, to build a mercenary army with the intent of deposing King William, financing it through the outlaws’ raids of Norman and uncooperative Saxon estates, merchants, and churches.

  Though outnumbered by three to one, Ruaud and the others seemed to be acquitting themselves well against Ulfric’s men. Bodies sprawled everywhere, only some belonging to Waldron’s fyrd. But their surviving opponents fought with desperate determination, and Alain knew the fyrd from Edgarburh could not hold them off forever.

  Never in his life had he felt more torn.

  He hefted his sword and advanced upon the fray.

  “Go, Alain,” urged Ruaud between breaths after dispatching another foe. Alain grieved to see his friend bleeding from several cuts on his arms where mail had yielded to steel’s bite. “We help you fight for your lady, but only you can save her.”

  Five men, led by Dragon, rushed them. After Alain killed one of Dragon’s men, he found himself facing the point of the leader’s sword. The man’s lip twisted, deepening that perpetual snarl. The memory of Kendra’s distress flooded Alain. “This one is mine,” he growled to Ruaud, who was busy either killing or maiming the other three assailants.

  “Why such vehemence, Norman?” Dragon asked as they traded preliminary blows to test each other’s strengths and weaknesses. “I have done nothing to you.” The scarred lip tightened into a distorted grin. “Yet.”

  “You molested my bride.”

  Alain’s thrust grazed Dragon’s rib cage, slicing the leather jerkin and drawing blood. If the man hadn’t dodged, the blow would have struck home. Alain recoiled to await another opportunity.

  “Ah, Lady Kendra. What a delightful morsel of female flesh.” Dragon initiated a rapid series of blows, trying to wear Alain down. Alain countered, but one lucky chop landed on his left arm, cutting through the mail and grazing his flesh. “Sampling her was one of the greatest pleasures of my life.”

  If Dragon had thought to enrage Alain into fighting carelessly, the warrior had miscalculated. Alain saw his chance and, in a great sweeping arc, struck away Dragon’s sword. Dragon’s hand went with it. He crumpled, clutching the spurting stump and howling.

  Others weren’t so eager to attack Alain after that.

  Pointing at Dragon, Alain said to Ruaud, “That’s their leader; keep him alive for questioning.”

  “I know,” Ruaud insisted. “Lady Kendra needs you more than we do.” He lunged toward someone who had just felled Garth and was attempting to take Lofwin unawares. Ruaud plunged his sword into the enemy’s side. The Saxon went down with an agonized scream. Lofwin gave a brief nod of thanks before engaging the next threat. Ruaud grinned at Alain. “You plan to leave her alone with Ulfric, then?”

  That was all it took.

  Alain sheathed his sword and sprinted for the door. Noir raced out with him. In the thick fog, the hound loped ahead, nose to ground and baying. Alain increased his pace, loath to lose sight of Noir. The shadowy outline of low buildings coalesced out of the mist. The clamor of pursuit, probably made by some of Ulfric’s men-at-arms, sounded fragmented and disorganized. But he could not afford to stop and deal with what might lay behind him.

  While he had no clue where Noir was headed or the buildings’ purpose, or what threats lurked nearby, he held unflagging faith that Noir would lead him to Kendra and the madman-dog-demon standing between them.

  HER LEGS felt leaden, and she thought her lungs would burst. Without thinking, for her impulse was to put as much distance between her and Alain as possible, her steps had taken her toward King Harold’s cottage. As she entered the invalids’ village, she stopped, doubled over with hands to knees, to catch her breath.

  “Lady Kendra, most excellently well met.” Brother Oswald’s voice crackled with relief. She rose, still winded, to regard him. Worry deepened the creases of his face and not, she suspected, because of her own frail health. “He is dying and wishes to see you.”

  Brother Oswald’s first announcement came as no shock. King Harold had been dying, by agonizing inches, for almost a year. Kendra had just prolonged the inevitable, and everyone privy to his condition knew it.

  However, that the king wished to see her, a lowly thane’s daughter, she had trouble believing.

  Without waiting for her reply, the monk strode toward the cottage. Kendra strove to keep up as best she could. She felt as if she were wading hip deep in muck.

  She wondered if she might be dying too.

  It had happened to her mother, who probably had endured far less strain than Ulfric had forced upon Kendra.

  But the thought of dying didn’t frighten her as much as it once might have. By passing from the earthly realm into the eternal one, she could escape the many men who would try to use her to achieve their own ends.

  Alain included.

  The more she pondered the idea, the more earnestly she anticipated bein
g reunited with those who loved her for who she was, not for what she could do for them.

  She reached the cottage door, which Brother Oswald was holding open, drumming his fingers on the frame. Smiling apologetically, she stepped past him into the gloom.

  The aromas of mint and lavender scented the air, emanating from an iron pan discharging smoke beside the hearth. She glanced toward the bed where the king lay, wheezing, attended by Ethel and Brother Eric. If Ethel had thought the scents would aid the king’s breathing, the pan needed to be placed closer to him to do any good. Kendra snatched a small cloth from the table, wound it around the pan’s handle before grabbing it, and walked it over.

  Brother Eric looked up and, as he had done so often before, surrendered his seat to Kendra and left the cottage to resume his post outside the door. She set the smoking pan on the floor near the headboard and seated herself.

  But when she took the king’s limp, cool hand into her own, she felt not even the most tenuous of connections. She glanced toward Ethel and shook her head. “His body still lives, but I—it is beyond my power to reach him.”

  She couldn’t bear to voice the fear that if she could not reach the king’s mind, she had no hope of coaxing him back to the realm of the living.

  Ethel rose and walked around to Kendra’s side of the bed, holding a small pouch. She disengaged Kendra’s right hand from the king’s, crumbled a few petals into Kendra’s palm, spat, and pressed the mixture into a paste. With that hand Kendra grasped the king’s and closed her eyes.

  Ah, Lady Kendra, you have come.

  Of course, Your Majesty. How could I fail to obey your summons?

  No. No more ‘Your Majesty’ nonsense for me. There is but one Majesty where I am going, and He tolerates no pretenders.

  She felt her lips bend into a slight smile. If it pleases Your—if it pleases you, sir, I shall accompany you.

  A wave of the king’s surprise rippled through her. Why? Your entire life lies before you. A good life, I should think.