Claiming Her (Renegades & Outlaws) (2 page)

“There must be sixty of them, my lady! Well armed enough to scare away the wind!”

All her guardsmen were young and hardly gentle born—not a single knight among the lot—but they were brave and possessed the pragmatic, unvarnished warrior skills known to those who bobbed at the edge of a sea of war. This made them enthusiastic about anything that could be used as a weapon in an unabashed,
enveloping
sort of way: swords; pistols; the redheaded lass from the town below. Wicker in particular rather burst with fervor for all three.
 

 
“You can see them now, lady, cresting the rise of the valley.” He crouched at the top of the stairway and stuck out a hand for her. “You’ll see when you come up.”
       

“Excellent,” she replied brightly. She did not come up.
 

“Right up here, on the walls, my lady.” He patted the stone parapet. “That’s where you’ll see them.”

There was nothing for it, then. Up she went, to witness the wondrous sight of her betrothed riding in with a small army to assess the degree of Rardove’s loyalty, and then to ensure it, by becoming the new Lord of Rardove.

Not as reassuring as one would think.
 

The English Crown had long ago given up on conquest, and settled on maintaining what it had in Ireland, erecting a veritable wall of forts and castles around the perimeter of the Pale, a small arc of English settlements that huddled around Dublin like kittens around a bowl of milk. Rardove was one of the few English fortresses outside this protected ring, the Crown’s longest claw, flung out far beyond the Pale. A lone royal watchtower over the edge of the wild.
 

It could be worse, she told herself as she lifted her skirts and started up the stairs. Bertrand of Bridge, the man the queen had sent to question her, and, assuming he was satisfied with her answers, the one given the right to wed her and assume the title Lord of Rardove, was a most excellent queen’s man. Powerfully built, fierce, ready to the fight.

He would fit perfectly out here.

Which, most assuredly, was not reassuring.
 

Queen Elizabeth had become increasingly brutal to those suspected of treason, and as it was ever a more simple matter to be labeled suchly, Katarina was grateful the queen had allowed her to be questioned here in her home, indeed to be questioned at all, rather than simply accused and dispatched.
 

But to be wed into the bargain…it was difficult not to see
that
as punishment from the queen she’d always served so loyally.

But then, such things were always in question, were they not, when one’s father had lost his head on account of treason?

Katarina would acquiesce. Again. It was the only way.

As she neared the top of the stairs, her men gave a shout and all but hauled her the rest of the way up, attending her with the sort of energetic devotion that at times left her exhausted and slightly bruised. They gently manhandled her to the nearest crenel opening and pointed over the wall.
 

“There, my lady.”

The wind sliced through her cloak and burned her cheeks, but the shiver that moved though her was entirely unrelated to the weather. Wicker had not misspoken.
 

Her soon-to-be-betrothed traveled at the head of a fearsome-looking contingent, large and bristling with armaments. They rode at a leisurely pace over the sere grass, for even the maddest of the mad Irishry would not dare attack such a group. All bore long swords and a legion of other steely weapons. Armor peeked through long woolen cloaks and hoods, glinting in the dim, cloudy morning light.
 

One of the men riding in the van lifted his helmed head and swiveled it slowly. It stopped when it was aimed directly at the walls where Katarina stood.
 

She pressed her palm to her temple, pressing her hair down. Her skirts blew out to the side. After a moment, she lifted her hand in case he was watching.

His rose in reply.
 

A smile tugged at her lips. Silly, to smile over such an exchange.
 

The small army started down the hill, and she turned toward the stairs. Her guards sprang to assist, but Wicker won and grinned back up at his companions as he preceded her down the stairs. He looked back at her, still smiling but his gaze full of silent questions.
 

Katarina, fingertips touching the wall as she descended, lifted her brows in equally silent permission.

“He’s brought a proper force, hasn’t he, my lady?” he burst out. “We didn’t expect so many, did we?”

“No, we did not,” she agreed.
 

“’Tis a bold force.”

“Very bold.”
 

“And their armor, did you see their armor?”

“I most certainly did.”

“Toledo, do you think?”

“At a distance of several hundred yards, I found it difficult to assess. It was exceptionally…steely.” It had reflected the pale sun in sharp daggers of light.
 

Wicker’s grin never faltered. “Toledo,” he assured her. “And their horses.” His voice crossed over into the territory of reverence. “Warhorses.”

“Yes, their horses,” she echoed. It seemed Bertrand of Bridge had brought everything but a cannon.

At the bottom of the stairs, Wicker, so nicknamed because he was so tightly wound, his energy braided but ready to burst, turned and put out a hand for her, tilting his helmed head up, his exuberance suddenly extinguished. “We are fortunate, are we not, my lady? Now that he is come?”

Things will go easier now? Things will be better? You will be safer? Aye?

He would never say such things aloud, but he was thinking them. They were
all
thinking them. Beyond the Pale, one was either a wife, a warrior, or dead.
 

Thus far, Katarina was none of those things.
 

Everyone knew it was only a matter of time.

God knew life was harder than stone out here, and this last year had been boulder hard. Everyone was past ready for life to become a simpler matter, by any means necessary. Even if it meant Bertrand of Bridge.

Everyone except Katarina.

She patted Wicker’s mailed arm. “Fortunate, indeed. Now go tell Sir Roger you need to be relieved of your post. I want you to roll up the wine barrels from the cellars.”

His exuberance rushed back. “Very good, my lady! Wine and mayhap…butter?”

She gave him a level look, intended to censure such bold forays into their larders, then said, “Of course.”

He emitted an improper whoop, all but swung her off the bottom step to the ground, gave an irreverent salute, and bolted off to do as he’d been told.
 

She was still catching her breath and righting her skirts when a voice came in from the side.

“You ought make them show more respect, my lady,” the voice said.

Katarina closed her eyes briefly. “Walter.” Her clerk and steward. “What have they done now?”
 

“
They
do nothing, my lady.
You
allow much. Wicker ought not treat you as if you were his sister. And your maidservant ought not tug on your sleeve when she is excited, and chatter inexhaustibly at all other times.”

“Susanna is…ebullient,” Katarina admitted about her sole lady’s maid.
 

“She is a bubble,” he said dourly. “A great, noisy, impudent bubble.”

“She is vibrant, Walter. In these dark times, we need all of that we can get. I am surprised to hear you disapprove of such things.” She started toward the gate. Walter stepped with her, taking her arm to assist her over the rutted cobbles.

How she hated being assisted over rutted cobbles.

“I disapprove of maids acting like ladies, soldiers acting like councilors, and men and women of all ages forgetting their place.”
 

“Just so, Walter. I will counsel Susanna to flatten herself forthwith.”
 

Gray-browed and disapproving, he regarded her levelly. “You should rein them in, my lady.”

A fissure of irritation opened up inside her. “They are not horses, Walter.”

“They most certainly are. Stallions too loose on their lead. They need restraint.”      

She looked away. He was right. The boundaries of propriety had broken down rather tragically at Rardove. It simply seemed so…unnecessary. So unhelpful. So ungrateful.
 

And there was the truth of it. Her men, most of whom were barely men at all, were steadfast and loyal when they need not be. There were far richer, less remote, and less dangerous gates to guard south and east. She had no notion why they stayed with her, but in consequence, in
gratitude
, she gave them a great deal of meat, a great deal of ale, and a great deal of leeway when it came to matters of propriety.
 

She relied upon them. She cared for them. And they knew it.
 

No doubt she was in error with this approach. But it was the only one she could think of short of shouting, and Katarina knew very well her voice would not carry far in the wilds of Ireland.
 

Even so, irritation at her steward rose up more sharply than usual. She wanted to shout
No, no, no!
at him, like a petulant child. But the familiar inner voice called up,
Simply agree with the man.

Her inner voice was extremely sensible.

“You are right, of course,” she said quietly.

They stared at each other. Or rather, he stared, while she looked intently at his eyebrows, since they were so pronounced, and looking directly into his eyes might cause her to do something highly
in
sensible, like grab his ears and yank.

“Now, Walter,” she went on brightly, “we seem to have been caught unawares by Bertrand of Bridge, and I without my good hood.”

He shifted his frown to her blowing hair.
 

“Might you see to it for me? The green, if you will. And inform the servants of Sir Bertrand’s arrival? So that we might make the proper impression?”

That, of course, was Walter’s weak point, and she aimed for it ruthlessly.
 

“It would be more proper yet for you to wait indoors and have Sir Bertrand brought to you,” he grumbled but, realizing the futility of arguing, turned and strode off to the keep. Walter had, after all, been her father’s steward before hers, and had seen her at her most improper yet.

He went, clearly resigned to minimizing the damages of Katarina’s improprieties.

She gestured to the door warden standing at the inner bailey gate, and he ducked inside the gatehouse. A moment later, the winches began to turn, and the squeal of iron streaked through the bailey like a cold star. The gate began to lurch upward.
 

She stood, waiting, letting the wind blow back her cloak. It was no use trying to stop such things. Doors opening, winds blowing, the warrior about to ride through her gates; these sorts of things were unstoppable.

A moment later, hoofs clattered over the cobblestones, and the riders swept into her home.

Chapter Three

SIXTY-FOUR MEN rode through her gates.
 

Katarina saw one.

Hooded and helmed, riding a pale gray horse, their leader resembled mist taking shape. A simple dark gray woolen cape was draped over his horse’s dappled rump, and silver-gray armor covered his legs and forearms. Under helm and hood, it was impossible to see where he was looking. But Katarina did not need to see. She
felt
his gaze on her, as if a long, taut cord had been plucked inside her.
 

Swinging off his horse, he spoke a quiet word to his men, then started toward her with long, confident strides, somewhat like a mountain in motion. It wasn’t that he was so very large, although he was tall. It was more a sense of the space he took up, the
certainty
of him being in that space, moving aside the air to inhabit it.
 

But then, “presence” was to be expected when an armed knight strode through one’s bailey, cape tugged back in the steely winds, a heavily armed detachment spreading out behind him like an unsheathed blade.