Honor & Roses (21 page)

“Cecily,” he said desperately, “you can’t love me. You definitely can’t be seen loving me. Do you understand how dangerous that would be? For both of us?”

She set her jaw, about to protest again.

Just then, they heard footsteps crunch on the gravel outside the ruined building. Alric went still.

“My lady Cecily!” someone called. It was Octavian, and the concern in his voice was palpable. “Are you about?”

“He’ll find us,” Cecily whispered, hiding in Alric’s arms. “What do we do?”

“We can’t be seen together, not like this,” he told her in a low voice. “Go out to him. Tell him you were wandering, lost in memories. You’ll be safe with Octavian. He’ll take you back to your tent.”

“But…he’ll suspect we…”

“Octavian won’t suspect a thing. He hasn’t that sort of mind. I’ll come back to the camp by a different path. No one will put us together. You’ll be safe.”

“Alric…” Cecily looked as if she was about to burst with everything left unsaid and undecided.

Octavian called again, his voice closer.

“Go,” he urged her, though the last thing he wanted to do was send her away. “This isn’t the time. Trust me, Cecily. Go now.”

* * * *

Morning brought clear skies but no peace for Alric. He’d spent a restless night, trying to think of a single way to honorably claim Cecily and break off her marriage contract.

Of course, there was nothing. The path was set. It led Cecily away from him, and there was nothing that could be done.

He rose as soon as the light grew strong enough to see by. Yet he wasn’t the first person out and about. Octavian was just returning to the camp.

“Something amiss?” Alric asked, realizing he had nothing but a dagger on him.

Octavian shook his head. He looked puzzled, but not worried. “Just before dark fell last night, I saw a curious thing. This morn I went back—and it’s no less curious in the light. Come with me.”

Alric followed him and asked no questions, sensing that Octavian wouldn’t answer them anyway.

“Here we are.” Octavian stopped abruptly as they came around a copse of trees. “Do you see?”

The earth had been disturbed in this area, the grassy surface marked by lines of digging. At the far side of the clearing, someone had stacked logs in tidy piles. Alric walked over and noticed chips of wood littered over the ground.

“Someone is making lumber. They’re building…something.”

“And they’re digging,” Octavian added. “If I saw this near a battlefield, I’d say someone was building earthworks.”

“That’s exactly what it looks like,” Alric agreed.

“No one lives here, though,” Octavian said, addressing the obvious point. “Certainly the lady Cecily knows nothing of what’s happening—she rediscovered this place only by some distant memory.”

“But the land is still hers…or Theobald’s. If someone is fortifying the area again, without permission, that is a violation.”

“We could wait here a few days,” Octavian suggested. “We just missed whoever was working here. I found a fire pit with the coals still warm, and a place where a tent was not long ago.”

“They saw us coming and hid.”

“No one does that unless they fear the lawful owners. If we pretend to leave, and hide, we may see them return.”

Alric considered it, but shook his head. “We can’t spare the time. We have days to travel yet, even if all goes well. I must deliver Cecily to Malvern Castle well before Lammas Night. That’s not negotiable.”

“Then let me stay behind,” Octavian said. “One man is all that’s needed.”

“What if the people you’re watching are armed?”

Octavian smiled slowly. “I’m not concerned.”

No, he wouldn’t be. Alric had seen the young man fight, and understood his confidence. But he still said, “It might be nothing more than local residents carving out an assart.”

“Then I will carry the news back quickly. But if it’s more serious, then both Cecily and her uncle should know of it.”

“Very well,” Alric said. “You may linger and keep watch. No more than a few days. Then you must either return to Cleobury, or find us on the road to Malvern, as you think best.”

Octavian nodded. “I shall do so. And you will have Rafe to accompany you north now, so the entourage will be as well defended as before.”

Alric said nothing to that. He should not share his suspicions about Rafe with the younger knight. He still had no proof of Rafe’s ill intent.

But he would have to be careful for the rest of the journey. He’d hate to arrive at Malvern Castle with a knife in his back.

* * * *

Alric and Octavian agreed on a plan that would allow the young knight to circle back to the ruins after appearing to leave with the entourage.

They struck camp and continued north not long afterward. Alric took care to treat Cecily exactly as he had the day before, though every time he looked over at her, he wanted to order the entourage back south.

Cecily caught his gaze once and offered a secret smile, raising her hand to her lips and subtly kissing the tips of her fingers. She looked away demurely after a moment, but it was enough. He hadn’t dreamed last night’s encounter. Cecily remembered it, too.

If only that was all that was needed for him to make her his.

His mood plummeting as quickly as it had risen, Alric turned back to the task of escorting the entourage north. As planned, Octavian volunteered to ride as rear guard, which would allow him to be out of sight of the main group. When they paused for the midday meal, it was Cecily who noticed the absence of the young knight.

“Alric,” she said anxiously. “Octavian is gone!”

He nodded. “I know. Don’t let it concern you.”

“But where is he?”

“He has to attend to a small matter.”

“What has happened?”

“Cecily, it doesn’t concern you,” he said, more firmly. “Whatever I may order, the goal is your safety. And if I don’t tell you something, that’s for your safety too.”

“Such as not telling me you love me until it’s too late?” she asked, very quietly.

He closed his eyes. “I should not have said that last night. You were better off not knowing.”

“I disagree.” She watched him with a newly mature and unsettling gaze. Then she turned and walked away, leaving him alone.

Cecily should not have brought
up the topic again, but her heart was full to bursting. She knew he felt far more than he was showing—the flicker in his eyes betrayed that he was unhappy with the task he’d been given.

If only he would talk to her about it, rather than rushing her northward. As soon as she reached Malvern Castle, all hope for another outcome would be gone. Yet Alric chose honor over love.

Should she have expected him to do otherwise? Alric valued honor over all.

The entourage continued on, and by the next day they reached the southern border of the Ardenwood, the place they’d been warned about.

True, nothing in the surroundings suggested evil. The trees were just as verdant, the birds and game even more abundant. Here, the path became sunken, showing centuries of wear. The land rose up on either side of it, with trees and shrubs growing close, their branches often tangling overhead. It was like traveling through a green tunnel, and as they pressed forward the feeling of being in a strange land increased.

The men-at-arms looked about uneasily the whole time. Alric rode in the lead and Rafe took up the rear, each prepared to shout a warning if an enemy should be seen.

Cecily was ordered to keep inside the carriage, with heavy cloth pulled over the windows.  Agnes rode with her, and soon fell to dozing. The air inside was hot and close, but she dared not complain, though she peeked out when she could.

Despite all their preparations, it was still a shock when the unmistakable sound of arrows came whistling through the trees.

Shouts of warning followed, and Cecily yanked aside one of the curtains to see what was going on. Agnes woke up, spouting a string of anxious questions.

She saw shadows running along the higher ground that rose along the side of the sunken road. She glimpsed one masked face, and then a flash of steel.

“We’re under attack,” she said.

“Saints preserve us!” Agnes gasped.

The carriage ground to a halt as the driver stopped the horses and leapt down to the ground. More shouting came from all directions—orders, calls for help, desperate questions.

Then a voice rose above the others.

“They’re using the terrain against us!” Alric called to the other fighters. “The sunken road keeps us trapped if we stay. Climb up and then engage!”

A moment later Alric appeared in the open doorway of the carriage. “Are you hurt? Either of you?”

“No. What should we do?” Cecily asked him, feeling oddly calm.

“Time for a game of hide and seek, ladies.”

Ange stared at him. “What?”

“I understand,” Cecily said, recalling the childhood games she played with Alric at Cleobury. She pulled Agnes with her, and both women climbed quickly out of the carriage. Alric pointed to a thicket of green about fifteen paces away. “In there. Keep your hoods up.”

She nodded, and led Agnes into the thicket, keeping her close by. “Put your hood up,” she warned her nurse. “We must pretend to be rocks or tree stumps. Crouch down, and don’t move.”

Alric made a commotion while Cecily and Agnes hid, keeping attention on him as he ran a little way away from the thicket. He then shouted a command, and all the Cleobury men seemed to reemerge in different places, each finding a masked attacker.

The hasty plan worked. The attackers, whoever they were, expected their prey to huddle up and defend the carriage and the carts. The sudden dispersal of all the men-at-arms caused confusion.

A few masked men jumped out into the road and cautiously approached the carriage. One held a sword, but the other two only had long knives.

Cecily held her breath, watching through the leaves. Beside her, Agnes hunched up under her cloak and whispered prayers.

The sound of steel rang out over and over. Cecily noticed it all, but most especially Alric, who circled back and rushed at the three men who’d approached the carriage.

One against three didn’t seem to matter to Alric. Cecily watched with wide eyes as he turned into a storm, striking out repeatedly at the gang of men.

They were fighters too, but not in his league. After a few minutes, he forced them back, and then two turned and ran as their companion fell into the dirt.

Alric bent to pick up the injured man, perhaps to demand a name.

Just then, Rafe howled from forty feet away, “Alric! Watch your back!”

Alric turned just in time to parry a thrust from another masked man. Cecily choked off a scream, and her heart kept pattering, even after Alric dispatched the new opponent.

Cecily saw his head turn to Rafe, and she looked too. Rafe was fending off an attack himself, and he seemed to be having trouble standing on the rough terrain. Alric moved swiftly to help.

Two knights were too much, and another masked fighter fled into the trees.

After that, Alric’s men controlled the skirmish, and within minutes, all the masked gang had either run off or disappeared into the green.

Cecily scrambled out of the thicket to find out if anyone had been hurt. However, the worst anyone suffered was a cut or, in one case, a knock on the head. With the help of Agnes, Cecily treated and bandaged the wounds of the men-at-arms, and then approached Rafe, who was holding a hand to his leg.

“You’re hurt?” she asked.

“Scratch,” he said. “I’ll have to wash this outfit six times before the blood comes out.”

She recognized his words as bravado. “I’ll wash the wound and bind it for you.”

“I’ll take care of myself,” he said. “I’m used to it by now.”

“Let me,” Cecily said, ignoring his refusal. “After all, I’m the reason you got attacked in the first place. If not for me, we wouldn’t be here.”

“That’s undeniable,” he agreed.

Alric joined them. “Well, at least some of the rumors about the Ardenwood are true.”

“Are you hurt?” she asked anxiously. “What happened?”

“I’m well. What happened was an ambush. They were after the carriage and your goods.”

“There are gangs like this everywhere,” Rafe said.

“These men were well trained, and they had a plan that must work nine times out of ten. First the trap of the sunken road, then the rain of arrows to frighten us.”

“They missed.”

“They meant to. They wanted to steal what we had. They didn’t want to bury bodies.”

Rafe laughed. “No? Then why did three men go for you?”

“I went for them,” Alric corrected. “But you saw the one who would have got me in the back. Thanks for the warning,” he said.

“You’d have done the same.” Rafe didn’t meet his eyes. As soon as Cecily bound his wound, he walked away, saying he needed to move or the muscle would seize up.

Alric stood close by Cecily. She turned, asking, “His warning saved your life?”

“Quite possibly,” Alric said. “He could have kept silent.”

“But he didn’t. I must have been mistaken, when I thought he was against you.”

“I hope so.”