Rexanne Becnel (30 page)

Read Rexanne Becnel Online

Authors: The Bride of Rosecliffe

BOOK: Rexanne Becnel
4.13Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
Then came a shout and a sharp cry, and everyone jumped.
“I can help. I can!” came a child’s agitated voice.
By the saints, it was Rhys! He must have followed them.
Josselyn saw Owain rise, his face mottled with anger. He shot her a venomous look that he turned on his son when the boy was dragged into their presence. Rhys flailed like a wildcat, but Glyn held him by the nape of his neck. When the man shoved him to his knees, however, and Rhys spied his father, the boy’s fury dissolved to fear. “I’ve come to help—”
“I told you to stay behind!”
“But I want to fight with you.”
“Fight? Fight who?” Owain laughed as the child rose. “Go home, skinny pup. Go home and fight the other babies.”
“But Papa—”
Owain’s slap came out of nowhere. It knocked the child off his feet. “Begone, brat, and leave the battling to men.”
Josselyn started for the boy. But he snarled at her and scrambled away. Only when he was gone did Owain laugh again. “He has guts, that one. He will make a great warrior one day.”
“And he will hate you,” Josselyn muttered.
Owain looked at her. “So he will, as I hated my father. ’Tis the way of the world. But no one will ever say I raised a coward.”
Weeping in the woods, Rhys did not hear his father’s perverse praise. A true warrior would not cry, but he could not stop. His cheek burned. His ear rang. He’d bitten the inside of his cheek and the awful taste of blood filled his mouth.
He wept anew, but he also cursed and vowed to prove his father wrong. Wiping his eyes, he turned his pony north. If he spotted the English before they arrived, his father would have to acknowledge Rhys’s prowess as a warrior. He would see that Rhys was more important than this girl child Josselyn had borne, or the babe Agatha carried in her increasing belly.
He was the firstborn. No one else could claim that. He was rightful prince of these hills. He would let no other wife or offspring change that.
R
and and his men rode in bands of five. Slowly. Carefully. Rand suspected a trap. He’d pondered long and hard over Josselyn’s visit. Had she been sincere? He wanted to believe so. She’d tried to betray him and failed. Only then had she confessed the truth.
But had it been the whole truth, or only as much as Owain had seen fit to reveal to her?
Rand planned to arrive at the Welsh camp long before dawn. But he knew Owain was too crafty to reveal his entire plan to Josselyn. It followed, then, that the Welsh ambush might come at any time and location along their route.
So he’d ordered outriders to sweep the hills along the way, and late in the afternoon his caution paid off. Jasper’s party hauled in a Welsh boy, a dirty little wildcat who hurled curse upon curse at them, so fast neither Rand nor Jasper could interpret them all.
“What is it about these Welsh that their offspring are so vicious?” Jasper muttered, shoving the boy at Rand, then wiping his hands clean in a bunch of long, wet grass. “First that bloodthirsty little girl, now this brat.”
Rand studied the child. “I know this boy.
Are you son to Owain ap Madoc?
” he asked in the boy’s language.
The boy met his stare without flinching. “
I am, and my
father will cut off both his hands for the way he has handled me,
” he said, referring to Jasper. Then he added, sneering, “
He plans to slice off your balls and feed them to his dogs.
”
Rand grinned. “Beware, Jasper. This pup of Owain’s threatens us.” To the boy he added, in Welsh, “
I plan to capture your father and render him harmless. He will use his knife on no one ever again, least of all any of my people.
”
“
Yes he will!
” the boy shouted. “
You’ll see!
”
“So you believe
, Rand said, goading the child. “Send him home. He cannot hurt us.”
“
Just you wait! Before you reach the next vale your blood will stain the earth red
—” The child gasped and backed away. But it was too late for him to take back his words. Rand caught him by the nape of his neck.
“Hold him in a safe place,” he told Jasper. “Send word down the line that the Welsh lie in wait just ahead.”
But before he turned over the boy, he crouched down, holding him by both arms so that they were face-to-face. The boy obviously realized the gravity of his blunder, for no longer did he struggle to escape. Tears wobbled at the edges of his thick-lashed eyes.
“
Where is Josselyn ap Carreg Du?
” Rand gave him a little shake. “
Where is she
—
and where is her child?
”
The boy’s chin trembled, but young as he was, he remained defiant. “
My father has her, and you’ll never get her back. ’Cause you’ll be dead!”
Rand signaled Jasper to take the child. But that shrill voice echoed in his head.
My father has her. My father has her
.
Was Josselyn with Owain willingly or not?
And where was her child?
His child.
For the first time he feared as much for the unseen babe she claimed was his, as he did for Josselyn. But fear had no place in battle, he reminded himself. First he must defeat
Owain’s forces. Then he would find Josselyn and Isolde.
The word was passed. They could engage the Welsh at any moment. They started forward, only half the men now, with two separate groups of reinforcements following close behind.
Then the signal came from the outriders: the shrill cry of a kittiwake. Once, and then again.
Immediately ahead
was the meaning it carried.
Through the trees Rand could make out a narrow clearing, a thin place in the deep forest. The heavy cloud cover lent a feeling of dusk to the afternoon light, a bruised purple. A chill.
Rand gestured to his men to brace themselves. Then he made a sign of the cross, fitted his small shield on his left arm, and urged his horse forward.
God save me this day, so that I may know my child, he prayed. God save me that I might find Josselyn and profess my love to her. God save me that I might bring peace to this place someday, not bloodshed.
Then a twig to his left snapped. The thunk of a bowstring. The whir of an arrow. He lurched to the side, jerking up his shield. Only God could have guided him so.
The arrow split his shield and grazed his shoulder, but buried itself harmlessly in a tree trunk beyond him. At once the sylvan glade turned to bedlam. The Welsh came screaming down upon them, swords slashing, battle-axes flying.
Horses shrieked and fell; men cursed; and the smell of blood swiftly drenched the woods in the awful stench of death. It was a stench Rand abhorred, and yet, as always, it worked on him like a black magic. His instincts took over, and he fought like an animal, not a man. He spun his horse and trampled two Welshmen in the process. One quick slice, a second merciless swing, and each of them fell, dead before they hit the ground.
Josselyn could see nothing of the battle that raged down
the hill from her. But she heard the screams of pain, the curses, and the grunts. The gasps for a final breath. Welsh or English, she could not tell. All men died the same, she realized. They lived for the same things—food, power, love. And they died the same way.
Why must they battle one another when they were so clearly alike? Why not join forces instead?
Horrified by the terrible battle, she struggled against the leather bindings that held her to the tree. But it was useless. Owain had wanted her near the battle, to watch her lover die, he’d said. Was Rand down there in the middle of the hellish fight? She knew he was.
Was he hurt, or even dying?
She prayed with all her heart that he was not.
She clawed at the ties until her fingers were raw, all the while assaulted by the shouts and cries of both men and beasts. Then a different sort of shout went up and she stilled. The crashing of another wave of warriors overpowered the sounds of battle.
Reinforcements. English reinforcements.
Then came a third wave of screaming attackers, from the opposite direction of the first, it sounded to her. More English soldiers.
A fresh fear shuddered through her.
Please do not slaughter them all, Rand. Show mercy to my people.
Suddenly the battle seemed to surge in her direction. One man clambered up the hill, his head bloody, his weapons gone. Another came, carrying a comrade, slipping on a damp rock, then struggling up again. Owain’s men were fleeing. They’d been routed.
But where was their leader? Where was Owain?
The answer was swift in coming. A horse burst up through the bracken and charged straight at her. Owain leapt off the sweaty animal and Josselyn instinctively shrank away from him, twisting desperately against the thongs that held her to the tree. Blood caked his hair; blood
stained his leather hauberk. But it was not his blood, she realized, rather that of his enemies. Rand’s?
He gripped his sword with one hand and his dagger with the other. Both dripped more blood still.
“You bitch!” he snarled. “You betrayed us.”
“No. I didn’t know enough of your plan to betray you,” Josselyn swore. She tried to squeeze her hands free, but only rubbed her wrists raw.
‘‘You knew enough to betray your own people.” He was upon her now and she turned away, bracing for the blow.
I love you, Isolde. I love you, Rand.
But the blow never came. Instead he thrust his sword in the ground and caught her chin in a hurtful grasp. “You should have chosen me. You should have known I would soon succeed my father.”
He was going to kill her. There was no other way he would allow this to end, she realized, and that knowledge provided her with a perverse sort of courage. She stared at him, for once unafraid. “You hastened his death, didn’t you? Didn’t you!”
For a moment he looked startled, then he laughed. “You should thank me for ridding you of him.”
“How could you do that? How could you kill your own father? And Gower,” she continued. “It wasn’t the English that killed him, but you!”
His fingers cut into her jaw. “No one can ever prove that. Besides, I only did what I had to, to keep my people together.”
“Killing an innocent boy? Killing your own father?” she spat, sickened by him.
“The boy’s death roused the people to my side,” he said, growing impatient now. “My father’s death freed you so that I could have you.”
“You already have a wife,” she screamed at him, trying to twist away.
“And now I have you too.” Though the sounds of his fleeing men surrounded them, he pressed his lips over hers.
It was a mockery of a kiss, for he wanted to hurt her with it, and he did. But though she could not escape him, she refused to give his tongue entrance.
He broke off with a guttural curse. “Cold bitch! You turn away from your own kind, yet embrace the godforsaken English. But I’ll heat you up. I’ll fuck you on top of your dead lover’s body.”
With a quick upward motion he cut through the leather thongs. She felt the sting of his blade where it nicked the base of her thumb. But that didn’t matter. She was free of her bindings.
But she was not free of Owain. Manacling her wrist with his unrelenting grip, he dragged her away from the battle that was beginning to ease behind them. They reached his horse just as Conan limped up.
“Glyn is hurt. Bad,” the man said. He sported a gash on his head as well as one to his thigh.
“Leave him!” Owain barked. He flung himself onto his horse, then dragged Josselyn, kicking and flailing, up before him. “Hurry. Fitz Hugh will be fast upon us. He wants his whore, but I have her. I have her and he’ll have to come through me to get her back.”
“He won’t come,” Josselyn swore, striking at his face.
Rand wouldn’t come for her, would he?
Owain shoved her down, then turned the horse, holding her too tight to allow escape. “He’ll come, if only for pride. But I’ll skewer him on his pride. And when I’ve had my fill of you, I’ll do the same to you,” he added in an obscene whisper. Then he kicked the animal and they were off, through the densest woods, into the rockiest terrain, into the rugged mountains that had ever been the last bastion of Welsh rebels.
 
Josselyn was nowhere to be found. Neither was Owain.
Rand paced the main hall at Afon Bryn. They’d taken the town with a minimum of opposition. He’d expected to confront Clyde and his men at the village, for they had not
participated in the ambush. But they’d not been at Afon Bryn either. They’d not fought him at all this day. Had that been Josselyn’s doing?
In Afon Bryn, few had remained beyond the old and infirm. Now as the prisoners were herded into town—the able carrying the wounded and carts ferrying the dead—more and more of the villagers ventured down from the thickly forested hills.
Rand had no interest in slaughter, and the sight of the wounded being tended must have convinced their wives and families. First one woman. Then a pair. Then a straggling line of frightened children. By sunset full half the village made their way down from the hills to see their men. But no sign of Josselyn or her child.
Outside a bonfire sent flames licking up to the sky, a sign to the craven Owain that his village had been taken. But Rand felt no triumph in his victory. What matter this mean village if Josselyn was gone? Had she lied to him again—or was she in mortal danger?
Or dead already?
“Christ’s blood!”
He stormed out of the hall. He had to do something, else he would go mad. Outside his men caroused in the glow of the giant fire. Ale ran freely. Wine as well. The Welsh were subdued and confined. The English were victorious. His men wanted only women to complete the glories of this day.
Rand wanted a woman too—but not just any woman. So when a woman was led forward, timid and cowed, his lips curled in disgust.
“My orders were clear,” he barked at his brother. “No woman is to be taken unwillingly, even by me.”
“She asked for you in particular,” Jasper replied in an injured tone. “When she learned I spoke her language, she asked for you. That doesn’t sound unwilling to me. Her name is Agatha.”
Rand looked at her, a small creature carrying an infant
in her arms. And if her thickened girth were any indication, she swelled anew with another babe.
“Deal with her,” he snapped. “I have other matters to attend.”
But when Jasper tried to oblige by steering the woman away, she began to cry. “
No, no. He must take the child. She is his. Take her. Take her!
”
His child! Rand spun around. “Is that Josselyn’s child?
Josselyn’s child?
” he repeated in Welsh.
The woman nodded and held the baby out. Rand swallowed hard. His eyes darted from her to the child and back again. “
Where is Josselyn?
”

Other books

Guardian Nurse by Joyce Dingwell
The Little Woods by McCormick Templeman
Dream Warrior by Sherrilyn Kenyon
Taken by the Sheikh by Pearson, Kris
The Bestseller She Wrote by Ravi Subramanian
Searches & Seizures by Stanley Elkin
Warrior from the Shadowland by Cassandra Gannon