Alinor (17 page)

CHAPTER SEVEN

"Ian! Ian! Stop! Ian, stop!"

No man's voice could reach that pitch. No one there would call him by his name. How long had it taken him to hear her? Ian opened the hand that held the shaft of the morningstar, allowed the loop of the weapon to slide off his wrist. He lifted his eyes from what lay at his feet. There should have been a wild rush of relief when he saw Alinor, safe and well. He did feel gladness, but it was strangely muted, as if the emotion was blanketed under a heavy weight or was a thing perceived at an immense distance.

Alinor was spattered and streaked with blood, but the sight did not shock him. Although it was true that he was, at that moment, incapable of feeling shock, Ian knew the blood was not hers. Obviously, it had come from the dead things in the clearing and had sprayed from the weapon he had been wielding. Slowly and carefully, Alinor raised her hands and took his face between them. Ian stared at her with recognition but without feeling. There was a surprising absence of human voices. Horses stamped and nickered nervously, and there was a soft sound of sobbing. Ian looked more closely at Alinor, but the sound did not come from her.

"Ian?" she questioned gently.

It was very peculiar. Ian felt cold and tired and as if everyone was a stranger to him. Most peculiar. He turned his head a little to one side and then to the other. His men-at-arms were backed away as widely as the clearing would permit. On the ground were the remains of what had been men—probably, it was hard to tell now. Ian brought his eyes back to Alinor.

"I lost my temper," he said inadequately, then, distantly, remembered why. "I thought—Are you all right? Did they―"

"I am quite unharmed. Unhurt. No one touched me except to bind my hands and lift me from one horse to another."

Alinor's words were slow and distinct, her voice exaggeratedly soothing, but Ian's eyes were quite sane now, merely shadowed with a faint anxiety. Alinor let her hands slide from his face to his shoulders. He sighed, remembering terror, but as a faint, faraway thing.

"The way you were lying—I thought you were dead."

"No. The fools did not even take my eating knife from me, and they tied my wrists in front. I curled up so that they would not see me freeing my hands while they stood and argued."

"I see. Well, thank God we were in time." He glanced around again. The killing done seemed unnecessarily brutal, but what was wrong with everyone? "Do you remember how many men there were, Alinor?"

"Fourteen," she replied promptly, still watching him.

He could not understand her expression. That was most peculiar also, but he was too tired to ask. "Good," he replied. "You keep your head."

"Why not? I was not even much frightened." If she had been shaken to a jelly, Alinor would not have admitted it. The last thing she wanted was to set Ian off again. She allowed one hand to drop away from him, but she touched his cheek with the other. "You should not allow yourself to be so overset," she suggested gently. "If they had been clever, they would never have laid hands upon me. Since they were so stupid as to try to take me, you should have known I would manage somehow to keep them at bay until you could come for me."

Ian sighed again. He wondered why Alinor said he had been overset It was surprising how tired he felt. His arm ached as if he had been fighting all day. Yet it could not have taken long to subdue 14 ill-armed and ill-trained men. He turned from Alinor and counted. Eleven. Three were missing. That was what was wrong. His eyes swept the circle of men-at-arms.

"You allowed three to escape," he said harshly.

"Nae, thegn,"
Jamie replied. He gestured quickly, and three trembling creatures were dragged forward.

"Kill them," Ian said coldly.

"Ian," Alinor protested, laying a hand on his arm. "They did me no harm."

He looked down at her. "They dared to threaten violence to a gendewoman. If they had only dared
think
of it, they would deserve to die." He nodded sharply to his man-at-arms, and repeated, "Kill them." To Alinor he said, "I am in a hurry, or I would have had them drawn and quartered in the town in public as an example."

The berserker was completely gone, Alinor realized, watching him. There was no hatred, no emotion at all, in his order to kill. It was a rational, considered act. As Alinor thought it over, she realized she would have been capable of giving the same order had she not been momentarily sickened by what she had already seen. There was also the fact that she could hardly believe what had happened. Alinor could hardly believe that any group of commoners would abduct a gentlewoman. Such a thing had never happened on her lands before, and she had never considered what would be a suitable penalty. Now that she did think of it, her brisk nod mirrored Ian's.

"You are right my lord."

Suddenly the people in the clearing jerked into normalcy. A babble of voices broke out as the brief execution was arranged. Owain came forward carrying Ian's discarded shield. He proffered it to his master, who looked at it a moment in amazement before he slid it automatically over his shoulder. Alinor "tchk'd" with irritation but said nothing. Perhaps the bandaging would be sufficient to keep Ian's back from being rubbed raw again. Owain bent and picked up the morningstar, which was bloodied and clotted with pieces of flesh right up to the handgrip.

"Where is Geoffrey?" Ian asked sharply.

Owain jerked his head toward the far edge of the clearing. "Sick," he said briefly, and then swallowed convulsively himself.

Ian shrugged. "Tell him to swallow his gorge and come here." His eyes fell on the morningstar, which swung from Owain's hand. A faint frown passed over his face. "See if you can clean that a little. It will drive my horse mad."

For some reason Ian could not understand, Owain swallowed hard again. "Yes, lord," he remarked feelingly.

"Where is the horse?" Ian asked next with some concern, aware suddenly that everyone was afoot.

"There are four men battling with him back in the woods," Alinor said. "Most of that," she waved toward the mutilated corpses, "is your work, but some of it is the beast's. Any creature that rose up and tried to flee and ran by mistake in his direction he kicked and tore to pulp. Is he safe to ride, Ian?"

"Of course," he replied, rather surprised. "That is his training. He did not touch me. He knows my smell now. He will be quiet as soon as I am in the saddle."

"Then perhaps you should mount him," Alinor suggested, "before we are four men-at-arms the less."

"Let Geoffrey go tell the men to bring the horse," Ian agreed, almost smiling.

Alinor shook her head and took hold of Ian's arm. Seeing the message in her eyes, he gestured to Owain to wait and bent his head so that she could speak softy. "You had better speak to the child, Ian. He is not only sick, he is sickened. He saw what he is really too young to see, and the horse will make everything worse."

"It is his first battle, Alinor. That he should be sick is a usual thing. Every boy needs to be blooded. He must grow accustomed."

"God forbid!" Alinor exclaimed.

"God forbid!" Ian echoed in amazement. "Geoffrey must learn that battles make dead men. Thirteen is not too young to see death."

"It is too young to see his master fighting berserk."

"Berserk? I?" Ian's eyes wandered to the flesh-and-blood-caked morningstar, then down his own body. He was completely covered with blood, his hands and arms dyed with it well above the elbows, his surcoat stiffening almost as hard as untanned leather as the blood dried. "Good Lord," he said mildly, "no wonder you said I should not permit myself to be so overset." He turned from Alinor to his squire. "Owain, did I act in any way unusual?"

"Lord, I have never seen the like. Of the eleven men, you struck down eight. And the horse followed you, trampling any who rose."

"Not then," Ian said impatiently, "before the battle. Did I fail in giving any order to the men that was needful?"

"Oh no, my lord."

Ian nodded with satisfaction. "I thought I remembered dealing with the men as usual. The rest is not important. Go send Geoffrey to me. Give order also that the bodies be tied to the worst of the beasts. They can be loaded into carts when we come to the nearest farmstead."

"Ian," Alinor said softy when the squire was gone. "It is not unimportant. You threw your shield away. Those creatures were nothing, but in a real battle—"

"I do not run berserk in an ordinary battle," he replied drily. "Why should I? I do not hate or fear my opponents in battle." He put out a hand, looked at the blood on it and let it drop without touching Alinor. Suddenly feeling came back to him, and he needed to stiffen his body to keep from trembling like a leaf, to keep from clutching Alinor to him and weeping over her. "Do you not understand? It was because―"

"Lord?"

The trembling whisper checked the words on Ian's lips. A flicker of anger was swallowed in relief. Alinor was herself again, warm, concerned for him, friendly. He had almost pushed her back into coldness by speaking of love. Fool that he was, would he never learn? He turned toward Geoffrey. The boy did not cringe away, but his eyes widened apprehensively. Ian smiled at him.

"You know, Geoffrey, I was pleased when you decided to stay with the fighting group because I thought it was time for you to be blooded. I did not expect there would be―er—quite so much blood."

The strained look diminished appreciably as Ian's calm voice and practical words began to penetrate. The vision of the berserker, bludgeoning already dead men into red jelly, faded. Geoffrey watched his master remove a gauntlet and grimace distastefully at the red-stained hand. There had been so much blood that it had soaked right through the leather glove.

"You must not be distressed that you felt sick," Ian continued. "I hate to tell you how often I have emptied my belly after a battle, and Owain still does so now and again. It is a common thing. No one will say aught to you or think less of you for it."

Alinor retreated gently. The boy did not need her and would speak more easily to Ian if they were alone. He was a most excellent master to his squires. It was too bad Adam could not stay with him. But that would not be suitable anyway, Alinor thought. Even if she were not going to marry Ian, he was not the right person to be Adam's lord. He was too fond of Adam, too accustomed to thinking of Adam as a "baby" to deal with his young manhood. Either Ian would overprotect the "child of his heart" or, in trying to avoid that pitfall, would thrust him into too much danger. He could judge what to do for Geoffrey and Owain because they were not "children" to him. He had never held them in his arms or received their wet little baby kisses or steadied their first stumbling steps. Ian knew Geoffrey and Owain only as young males growing into manhood. She half turned away, as if her attention was elsewhere, but her ears were tuned to the pair she had just left.

"I was frightened, lord," Geoffrey said, very low.

A fine boy, Alinor thought. The words came as if drawn by a winch, but he had confessed what he probably believed was the ultimate sin and shame.

"But you did not run away," Ian comforted gravely. "As you grow more sure of your ableness with weapons, that feeling will grow less. Even if it does not, so long as you do your duty, it does not matter how you feel inside. For example, it is my duty to instruct my men and deploy them so that they accomplish their purpose at the same time as they suffer as few losses as possible. Usually this is easy for me out of long practice. Today I was so angry because that filth had dared—" his voice faltered. "What I mean to say, Geoffrey, is that I did not wish to bother to tell you where to ride or to tell Jamie to guard you or to tell the men to surround the clearing before they charged. I wished only to come to grips with those who had offended me. Yet had I not done my duty, had I charged and laid about me as I desired, most would have escaped."

The boy nodded stiffly, still not able to accept what he had seen. Ian smiled at him.

"Usually, of course, this trouble does not arise. In a war called by the king or even to defend my own lands, there is no reason to be angry with those who fight against me. Or, at least," Ian's lips twitched, "not so angry as that." He gestured toward the shambles in the clearing.

There was interest in Geoffrey's eyes now, and a tinge of color in his cheeks. Ian judged that whatever shock the boy had was sufficiently dissipated to allow time and the next battle, which was bound to be cleaner, to complete the process of adjustment to violent death. An unguarded crashing, to which Ian had been attending with half an ear while he soothed Geoffrey, resolved itself into the gray destrier being brought around through the woods behind the clearing because no one dared try to lead it across past the dead men. Ian looked at the horse and barely restrained a shudder.

Blood dyed die destrier's legs right to the hocks and splattered the belly and breast and even the face. Two men hung on the reins close to the bit and two others to the harness. Even with that weight restraining him, the horse persisted in trying to rear and snap. Weals on shoulder and neck showed where someone had taken a stick or the flat of a sword to the animal. Ian's mouth opened to ask who had committed that outrage, and then closed. Doubtless there had been no other way to subdue him. In essence he had committed the outrage himself by abandoning the poor dumb creature to his own devices. Trained to respond to the smell of blood with rage instead of the normal reaction of terror, the horse had run as mad as he when the controlling hand was gone.

Ian gathered the rein in his hand and rose into the saddle. As soon as his feet found the stirrups, the men sprang away from the horse's head and ran for safety. It was, as Ian had foretold, completely unnecessary. The stallion stood quietly now that authority and security had been restored with the solid weight on his back and the steady pull of the bit on his lips. Ian uttered an exclamation of irritation. In his concern for his mount, he had forgotten Alinor. He turned to apologize for not lifting her into the saddle and saw that she, too, was remounted.