Dragonblade Trilogy - 01 - Dragonblade (6 page)

She gave him an ironic
smirk. “I thought I clearly established that I will never marry. If I go, I
shall have to go alone.”

“Unacceptable. If it
comes to that, I shall take you myself.”

She laughed, a gesture
that lit up the sky. “My lord, although your offer is most gracious, I will not
hold you to it. You could barely stand to be near me for an evening. How on
earth could you stand it for months on end?”

Tate was completely
entranced by her smile; it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. “If
you laugh like that more often, I should easily stand it.”

His tone was quiet,
sincere. It made Toby’s heart leap. She looked at him, amazed he would say such
a thing, uncertain why he would. Not knowing how to respond, her cheeks burned
brightly. It was a delicious spot of color amongst the gray of the morning
mist, not lost on Tate.

“Is Wales like this?”
she asked.

The change in subject was
blindingly swift. Tate nearly had his head ripped off at the rapidity of it and
he had to turn away lest she see him grin. “Beg pardon?”

“Wales. I hear that is
where you were born. Is it like Northumberland?”

“In a sense; Wales is
more mountainous.”

“I hear that it is a
wild place.”

“No wilder than the
borders of Scotland.” He rubbed his chin with a gauntlet-clad hand. “What were
we just speaking? Oh, yes. Laughing. I would suspect you do not do it nearly
enough. Perhaps if you did, it would ease your brutish manner. It might make
you more attractive to a husband.”

She raised her
eyebrows at him. “How did I graduate from an appalling manner to a brutish
one?”

He was struggling not
to smile at her, but he couldn’t help it. He had a devilishly attractive smile,
his teeth straight and white.  “Forgive me for moving you up the ranks so
swiftly.”

“At least have the
courtesy not to do so until I have done something to warrant it.”

“Of course, mistress.
My most genuine apologies.”

“Accepted.”

Much to his surprise,
she was showing a delightful sense of humor. He would have never have guessed. 
“Thank you,” he covered his heart with one hand sincerely. “Now, tell me; why
do you not laugh more often than you apparently do?”

“How often do you know
I laugh? You have known me for less than a day.”

“I can see it in your
expression. It is as if your entire face is surprised to show a measure of
delight.”

She looked away
peevishly, but it was in jest. “I have no idea what you are talking about.”

“Is your life so bad
that you have no reason to laugh?”

“The sheep should be
up this road about a mile and a half. If we pick up the pace, we will be there
in well less than an hour.”

“I do not want to pick
up the pace and neither do you.”

“I do not?”

“Nay. But you do want
to answer my question.”

She gave him a
sidelong glance. “I see a pattern in you. Last night, you bullied me about
marriage. Today, it is laughter. You talk more than any man I have ever met.”

“Not really.”

The conversation had
been flowing easily until that moment. Suddenly, Tate seemed to quiet and Toby
found herself sorry she had shut him up. She truly hadn’t meant to; she had
been enjoying the conversation very much. With every step the horses took, the
silence grew more and more deafening.

“I smile as much as I
am able, I suppose,” she finally said. “It seems as if there is not much reason
to at times. I rise in the morning and take care of my invalid mother before I
go and assist my father in conducting business with his farm. My father rises
early in the morning and is usually drunk by noon and cares little for the
daily operations of our farm. He did, once, but no longer. By the time I am
finished handling his affairs, I must tend my mother again and my younger
sister and see to the management of Forestburn.  If my manner seems appalling
to you at times, it is perhaps because it has to be. There is no one but me to
see to the care of my family and this business my father has worked so hard to
achieve. I am strong because I have to be.”

By the time she had
finished, Tate was gazing at her intently. The mist had turned to freezing
rain, dripping off of his dark lashes. He spurred his charger up a few paces
until he was next to her, looking down at her from a gray warhorse that was a
head taller than her mount.

“If I offended you
with my comments on your demeanor, then I am truly sorry,” he said quietly.  “I
can see now that my observations were incorrect.”

“Not necessarily. I
can be quite aggressive at times.”

“It seems to me that
you have had much responsibility laid upon you and instead of allowing it to
crush you, you became strong with it. I would not call that aggressive. I would
call that survival.”

She was coming to feel
foolish for telling him everything about her when they hardly knew each other.
Moreover, the man was her liege, not a peer, and the realization made her feel
increasingly awkward. But she didn’t have any friends to speak of, at least no
one she could confide in, and the words had just tumbled out. There was far too
much familiarity with Tate. Self-preservation swept her when she realized his
last statement sounded too much like pity.

“Forgive me for
explaining too much,” she sounded crisp. “I was not complaining and my
apologies if I sounded as such. My life is truly nothing to be sorry for. We
are better off than most people.”

Where Tate had seen
vulnerability moments earlier, it was swiftly replaced by the guarded woman he
had come to associate her with. He liked the vulnerability much better.

“I never thought you
were complaining, mistress. You were simply answering my question.”

He didn’t think she
would reply to his statement and he was correct. She pointed a glove hand down
the road.

“The village of
Lorbottle is north of here,” she said. “I can have the sheep brought to market
there, as they have a rather large livestock grounds.  It is popular with the
border Scots.”

“That sounds
reasonable.”

“Where shall I send
the money?”

“That depends. How
long do you think it will take to sell everything?”

“Within a day with the
proper buyer. I would say at this time of year, we will find the proper buyer
within a week. This is the middle of the season, and most sheep are not shorn
until spring.”           

“Then send the money
to Harbottle Castle. I have other business to conduct in the region and will
expect it there.”

“As you say, my lord.”

He watched her from
the corner of his eye, wanting to say something more to her but not sure he
should. He hardly knew the woman, yet he felt an inexplicable draw towards her.
He recalled yesterday how he had thought her beautiful, but lacking in other
fine qualities. After their conversation today, he wasn’t so sure that was
true. She had great strength of character and a sharp sense of humor. But she
was also too stubborn for her own good. The woman was a paradox.

They drew near the
field where the sheep were kept, a vast foggy land with a hint of green where
the grass lay. Toby reined her horse to a stop along the stone wall that fenced
in the herd.

“They are out there,
somewhere,” she indicated the field that disappeared into the mist. “In this
weather, however, they will blend in with the fog and we will never find them.”

Shrouded in the
clouds, they could hear bleating. It was one or two of the sheep at first,
followed by several responses. Toby dismounted her horse, followed by Tate and
the others. Deftly, she jumped on to the top of the rock wall and slid down the
other side into the wet grass. She knew this field well and it seemed oddly
quiet to her.

“We have three men
that tend the herd,” she looked around. “I do not see them. I will go and call
for them.”

Gathering her skirts
as much as possible to keep them out of the wet, she walked out into the misty
field. Tate and his men fanned out slightly, their eyes ever-watchful. 

“Gordon?” she called
out. “Emmit? Can you hear me?”

There was no answer.
The sheep suddenly started bleating wildly. Concerned, Toby picked up the pace
in the direction she thought the sound was coming from.  Soon, she was running,
unaware that Tate and his men were keeping pace behind her.  The mist was
denser the further she ran into the field. Something suddenly flew past her ear
and she yelped, startled.  As she tripped and fell to her knees, she bumped
into a mass on the ground. A shepherd lay there with an arrow through his neck.
Before a scream could bubble to the surface, a warm body fell atop her and she
was buried underneath it, sandwiched between the wet earth and a pile of armor.

Tate had thrown
himself on her when he realized arrows were flying. His arms were around her
head lest an arrow come flying in that direction. Toby could hear the zinging
sound of the projectiles sailing over them.

“Bandits!” she gasped.

Tate could not
disagree. But their situation was precarious. They were in the mist, shielding
their enemy from them, with nowhere to hide. Their survival now would depend on
a combination of skill and luck. He called out to his men.

“Stephen?” he hissed.
“Kenneth?”

They answered
affirmative in rapid succession. “Where is John?” Tate asked.

“I am here,” the
squire was several feet away, on the ground.

“Are you well?”

“Well enough,” the lad
sounded frightened. “Where are the arrows coming from?”

Tate could not have
guessed at the moment. They seemed to be coming from every direction. “Stay
down,” he commanded. “Do not move until I can see something in this soup.”

Tate would have
reconnoitered himself, but he couldn’t. He didn’t want to move and possibly
draw their attention to himself and, consequently, to Toby. That last thing he
wanted was for the arrows to come flying at her unprotected body. He shifted
his weight slightly, more closely against her, and heard her grunt beneath him.

“Sorry,” he whispered,
knowing he must be quashing her.

“’Tis all right,” she
grunted. “But your knee.…”

He shifted again,
removing his right knee from what was surely the back of her thigh. When he had
come down on her, much of his weight had come down on the right side of her
body. He hoped he hadn’t broken any bones.

“Better?” he muttered.

“Aye.”

“I did not hurt you,
did I?”

“Not at all.”

He was quiet after
that. He didn’t need to give his adversaries a homing beacon with his voice.
His biggest priority at the moment was to put Stephen and Kenneth on the move
to scout the source of the arrows. As he turned his head to call to the
knights, the dogs that had been following them since Forestburn suddenly ripped
past them on a dead run.  All teeth and a blur of legs, the dogs disappeared
into the mist and there was a chorus of snarls, growls and various other
unidentifiable cries. Tate listened to the grunts of men being bitten by the
dogs and singled out at least three different voices.  The dogs’ snarling
faded, the yipping rolling off into the distance. Then, it was eerily quiet.

Still, he didn’t move.
He was a warm, protective cocoon over Toby and he wasn’t about to leave his
position. Besides, he rather liked being this close to her in spite of the
deadly circumstances. When one of the dogs suddenly emerged from the fog and
went up to Toby, licking her forehead, Tate knew that all was well. He whispered
a prayer of thanks for the dogs, sorry he had thrown the rock back at
Forestburn. The animals had served a valuable purpose.

Still, he was
cautious. Dogs or no, he wasn’t comfortable in an open field covered with mist.
Standing up, he pulled Toby to her feet. She was soaking from having lain on
the grass.

“You are wet,” he
observed. “We should return you home immediately.”

Her face was pinched
from the chill. “I need to see what has happened to our shepherds,” she said.
“I only saw… Emmit.”

She wouldn’t look at
the body, a few feet away. Tate muttered something to Stephen, who was the
closest, and the knights disappeared into the gloom. The men at arms came to
stand near Tate and Toby, crossbows drawn and cocked. The squire walked up,
wiping the mud from his face.

“Did anyone see them?”
he asked. “Were they Scots?”

Tate shook his head,
resisting the urge to throw another rock at the dog sniffing at his leg. “I
never saw them. They were clever to blend with the mist.”

“The sheep,” Toby said
quietly.

“What about them?”

“I do not hear them.”

Tate cocked an ear,
but there was nothing in the air. It was quiet but for an occasional bird. “We
will not go look for them now,” he said. “Better to wait for the fog to lift.”