Claiming Her (Renegades & Outlaws) (44 page)

“Fools.”

“They do it for love.”

He took a step toward her. “Is that why
you
do it, cunt?” He pulled her up out of the chair. “Share your charms with a dirty Irishman and not me?” She jerked on her arm, but he shook her so hard, her teeth rattled. On the other side of the table, the commander got to his feet.
 

“That’s enough, Bridge,” he said coldly.

“No, it is
not
. These marches need an iron grip, and your rebellious spirit is proof of it, Katarina. You grab hold,” he shook her arm, “and you squeeze.” He tightened his fingers into a painful circlet of anger. “And you never let up.
That
is how you rule a lawless land and a barbarous people. The Irish understand nothing less, and apparently, neither do you.”
 

He backhanded her across the cheek.
 

“
Stand down, Bridge
,” ordered the commander.

She reeled away from the blow, but Bertrand yanked her back. “No self-restraint”—he slapped her—“no honor”—another backhand strike—“no discipline.”
 

The commander came up from behind, hauled him off and spun him as he released, so Bertrand ended up on the far side of the tent.
 

Katarina, cheeks burning, lifted her chin. “I quite agree, my Lord Bridge. Men who have power but no self-control are unfit to rule.”

Bertrand turned between her and the commander, who was staring at him with flat eyes, then gripped his hands together, rubbing the knuckles that had struck her as he paced the tent. “Well, what of it? A moment’s loss of control…you cannot think she did not
earn
that. With so much at stake…
She
”—he pointed and started back around the desk toward her—“must be taught a lesson. A woman’s place, and an Irishman’s place—”
 

She spit at him. Her spit was mixed with blood, and it sprayed across his face.

He lunged for her, but the commander gently pulled her out of the way and put a hand out, stopping Bertrand. He looked down at her. “My lady, we are wasting time. Open the gates for us, and you will be spared.”

Blood pooled hotly in the corner of her mouth from her split lip, then trickled down her chin. Shaking, her breath coming fast and shallow, she realized now there was no hope. None at all. Nothing but open defiance. She had become her father.

“No, my lord, I will not. Even if I wished it, I have not that power. Aodh commands the castle now, and he will not open the gates for anything.”

The commander eyed her. “I doubt that,” he said, and turned for the tent flap.
 

A knife blade of fear slicked through Katarina’s belly. “What do you mean?”
 

“Bind her and bring her to the front, Bridge.” Ludthorpe ducked out of the tent.

“What are you doing?” She took an instinctive step after him, but Bertrand loomed, and she stopped.
 

Ludthorpe glanced back through the tent flap. “I’m going to stand you up on the cannon and offer Aodh Mac Con a choice: he surrenders, or you die.”

Chapter Forty

AODH STOOD on the southern wall, chewing a piece of bread and talking with Ré as they surveyed the army below, when a small group broke free from the main camp and came forward.

“Does a new dawn bring any further clarity to your stubbornness, Aodh?” Ludthorpe’s voice carried thinly through the speaking trumpet up to the battlement wall.
 

Aodh shook his head and turned to Ré. “Reckless. We are being
reckless
. Why do they keep calling it stubborn?”

Ré lifted an armored shoulder and let it drop. “Translations.”

Aodh cupped his hands around his mouth and called down, “I remain as clear as ever. Rardove or death.” He paused, then shouted again, “Your westward cannon is sinking.” He pointed.

“Perhaps I can add an additional option to consider.” There was a shifting of the men who flanked the commander, then a lithe figure with blowing skirts was pushed to the front and thrust up to stand on the cannon beside the commander.

Aodh jerked as if punched, and in an instant, his heart fell and fell and fell into the coldest, deepest pit he’d ever known.

“
Jesus God
,” someone muttered.

“My lady!” someone else gasped. Rippled exclamations of horror and outrage moved down the walls, a wave of curses and shrieks.

Aodh stared down at the sight of Katarina, her hands bound behind her back, her chin up, her small, pale face pointed right at him.
 

He gripped the stony walls tighter and tighter, until hard bits of rubble broke off in his hands. They bit into his skin like fangs. Blood dripped down his hands, but he didn’t notice. His head pounded.

“We have your stubborn lady, Aodh,” the commander called.
 

“Reckless,” Cormac muttered.

“I will see she has a traitor’s death, Aodh, unless you surrender yourself.”

Sickness soured his belly, and he dropped his head as the images held at bay for so many years were finally, finally unleashed on him.

His father, bleeding on the battlefield, clutching Aodh’s shoulder with a mangled hand, making him vow to get Rardove back by whatever means necessary. His father, dragged away by his heels through the mud, black earth mixing with red blood. His father, hanged and taken down while still alive, tied up and cut open, disemboweled, his traitorous parts flung to the far corners of the kingdom.
 

Katarina, facing the same.

Slowly, his hand fisted tight around the rubble, he started to go down to his knees.

He heard someone curse and there was a jerk on his arm, then Ré was there, holding him, pushing him up against the high crenel with a forearm, his hip against Aodh’s, holding him up. “Aodh. Aodh!”

He shook his head, clearing it.
 

He jerked free, then wiped his hand over his mouth and swung back to Katarina. Her gown flowed around her. The small figure of Ludthorpe moved, then lifted something to her face. The trumpet. She was to say something to him. No doubt a call to surrender.

“Do not!”’ Thin and tiny, her voice came up. One of the soldiers holding her gave her a hair a shake. Aodh almost lunged over the forty-foot wall. “You promised,” she called again through the trumpet, wrenching free from the constraining arm. “
You promised me.
”
 

He whirled back around and stared into the horrified faces of his men. Ré, Cormac, Bran, all staring at him in stupefied silence.
 

Aodh stared back at them for a heartbeat. Here then was the true danger of Katarina. She could do what armies and mercenaries and kings and queens had not been able to: she could make him give up Rardove.

He turned and hurried down the rampart wall, making for the stairs. “Open the gate.”

Ré cursed and hurried after. “Wait, Aodh, speak to me.”

“Walk with me.” Aodh leapt down the last two steps and hit the bailey ground in a puff of dirt. Ré jumped down after.
 

As they passed through the bailey, people turned and stared, as the news began moving through the castle. They walked past staring eyes and dropped jaws, the inhabitants and allies of the lord of Rardove struck dumb by this disastrous turn of events. There were more people within the walls of Rardove at this moment than had ever been there in its history, yet silence reigned as he and Ré strode through its center.
 

The only sound was the squawking of chickens and the jingle of horse tack and knightly gear: bridles, buckles, sword hilts. Somewhere, far back, a dog barked, and drifting in from over the walls, the low murmur of death that an army always carries on its back.

“You cannot go out there,” Ré insisted, his face sweaty.

“I am to leave her out there?” Aodh replied, grabbing hold of a rope that hung by the gatehouse and swinging himself up five or six steps, then taking the rest three at a time, climbing to the top of the gatehouse, en route to the inner stairwell that would lead to the door outside.

Ré followed after. “I shall go in your stead.”

Aodh stopped short and spun, clapping Ré on his shoulder. “Never, my friend.”

“
Please
, my friend,” was all Ré said, his voice tight and low. It echoed off the stone of the gatehouse they’d just entered. “They need you here.”

“They need her.”

“They need you
both
.”

“Very well. But if there can only be one, ’tis better she than I. You know this is true. She has been here longer than I. She loves it more than I. I brought brief glory and war, but for nigh on a decade, she ensured peace and safety.”

Ré said in a furious, low voice, “We shall have you both. We will work something out…come up with some plan…”

“There is no time.” He turned into the gatehouse. It was cool and dark. His boots echoed as he clattered down the stairs.

Ré grabbed his shoulder and spun him back around. “Aodh, it cannot end like this.”

Aodh’s gaze searched his, then he smiled faintly. “God’s truth, Ré, who said this is an end?”

Ré’s angry eyes met his. “If not an end, then what? What are you doing?”

“I’m going to get Rardove back.”

“You’re going to get killed.”
Hanged, disemboweled, beheaded.
 

“Katarina is Rardove, Ré. I’m going to get her back.”
 

His soldiers stared as he passed them by, clattering down the inner stairway, patting them on the shoulder as he passed. He reached the bottom and pushed the door open.
 

Golden sunlight poured inside. In the distance, like little poking sticks, the army waited.

Aodh glanced back at Ré’s ashen face. “Do not let Cormac have St. George.”

“Goddammit
,”
Ré muttered, his voice cracking.

He stepped out into the sunshine.

Chapter Forty-One

“YOU COULD HAVE BEEN spared all that is to come, my lady,” Ludthorpe said to Katarina as he pulled her down off the cannon.

She felt the cold, in her chest, down her belly, great folds of it, like a frozen
leine
was being wrapped around her.
 

“How?” she whispered, staring at the castle. Aodh’s figure was no longer on the walls. He must be coming. Coming for her. Coming for his death.

“You are English. It did not need to be this way.”

She looked over. Her neck seemed to have stiffened, her arms and shoulders too, so it took some time for her to turn. “I am Irish, my lord, to the marrow of my bones. And you cannot take it from me, nor me from it, without tearing out my very bones.”

“Then tear them out we shall.”

“You cannot grind them so small that it will disappear.”

He looked at her a moment, his nostrils quivering. “Then I am sorry for you.”

“No, sir,” she said coldly. “You are afraid of me.” Then she saw the gatehouse door open, and her heart stopped beating.

Aodh’s tall, unmistakable figure appeared, coming down the hill. From a thousand yards away, she would have known it was him.
 

“No!” she screamed, jerking against the ropes and Bertrand’s constraining hand. “Go back!”