The Redeeming (39 page)

Robert retreated and came again, flecking Christian with spittle as he cursed and shouted with each blow he laid across his opponent’s blade.

Though he did not stand nearly as tall as Christian, he was a well-seasoned warrior and thickly muscled. Add to that his hatred and that he had nothing to live for, and he was more deadly than most who made their living by shedding the blood of others. Thus, Christian embraced Abel’s strategy of defense over offense that he had said could tire a deadly opponent sufficiently such that, with the least amount of effort, one’s defensive stance turned offensive.

Anticipate and counter,
Abel instructed.
Seek the pattern, the bunching of muscles, the placement of feet and elbows and shoulders, the shifting of eyes.

That last was not possible given the night, and yet as they circled and lunged, met and withdrew, Christian sensed where best to place his blade. It was as if he stood not before Robert but behind him, guiding the swings and jabs and slashes, knowing where each would land before the clang and spark of steel on steel proved it so.

Blow after blow, some bloody, others a resounding shock to muscle and bone, he felt Robert’s fervor until, at last, his misbegotten brother tired and all that remained was for Christian to put his weight and height and strength behind him—to move from sword play to sword lust that he might forever end Robert’s treachery and depravity.

He swept his sword left and up, preventing his adversary’s blade from finding his heart.

Robert drew a guttural breath, swung again, and ran his blade up off Christian’s. However, as he moved to reverse his swing, Christian abandoned his defensive stance and slammed his blade into his brother’s. The force staggered Robert back, allowing Christian to claim that moment in time when his brother laid himself open. With an arcing slash, he drove his blade hard into Robert’s armored forearm and felt and heard the crack of bone.

Robert bellowed as the hand of his sword arm lost its grip and the weapon dropped to the trampled ground.

Here, then, the end Christian sought that required but one final thrust of the blade to ensure Robert Lavonne never again worked harm upon any.

As Christian watched his brother take another step back and clasp a hand over his slack arm, he remembered Abel rasping,
When next you face a true enemy, you must wish his death.

And in the dark and desperate places of Christian, he did wish it. Before today, he had doubted he was capable of embracing death, but after what Robert had wrought upon Sir Mark, Aldous, Helene, D’Arci’s men and retainers, Abel, Durand, Beatrix, Gaenor…

He was a scourge, an evil if ever evil dwelt in bodily form.

“’Twould appear,” Robert panted, “the little monk has learned to swing a sword.”

Christian stared through the moonlight into his brother’s pain-contorted face. “That I have.”

“Then for what do you wait?” Robert thrust his uninjured arm out to the side, opening himself wide. “Cut me down and be done with it.”

Embrace death. Finish it now.

Christian shifted his grip on the hilt in anticipation of the killing blow that would be most merciful placed at the neck.

“If I stood where you stand, already I would have done it,” Robert spat. “And you know not how I would rejoice in giving the ground a good, long drink of your blood!”

Christian knew it was so, that death would be fast upon him had he been the one disabled. And yet…

Yet it was so because his father’s misbegotten son embraced those dark, desperate places that anger, resentment, envy, and hatred had long ago carved into him—places that had opened within Christian with the unfolding of this night.

Was that behind Robert’s taunting? His final act of revenge to turn the “little monk” into one who killed a defenseless man without thought or question? To scour God from Christian’s soul?

As Christian drank deeply of the cool night air that was a balm against the heat coursing his skin above and below, he struggled to cast out the pitch-black places that sought to convince him that only the spilling of blood—here and now—would ensure that never again would those Christian loved be threatened by Robert’s evil devices.

Embrace death!
Abel rasped.

Christian drew a deep breath and eased it out. In circumstances such as these, Abel’s road seemed the easiest to travel. But it was a road Christian would not set himself upon lest it was one he could not cede—one that would take him far from Gaenor.

Though he knew Abel’s—and Everard’s—instruction was surely responsible for his victory, there was something over which the youngest Wulfrith brother erred. One did not have to choose between the class that prayed and the class that fought. One could be both.

Christian lowered his sword. “’Tis done. As King Henry is eager to grant you an audience, I will give you over to his men that you may be returned to London to account for your crimes.”

Robert gripped his broken arm and stumbled back to support himself against a tree. “And here I thought Abingdale’s liege might finally prove worthy. But still you prefer clasping one hand with the other over clasping a sword—prostrating yourself before an altar while another does the deed and duty that is yours alone.”

Christian pitied his brother who would rather die here than be given into the hands of an angry king. But though it would likely be more merciful to end this now, and he would have if they had remained matched in skill and fervor, he would not put his sword through a man no longer capable of defending himself. He would not embrace death as it was not meant to be embraced.

Christian motioned D’Arci’s men forward. “Bind him.”

The men hastened past him and over the shadowed ground.

“Have a care,” Christian warned. “Somewhere on his person is a dagger eager to spill your blood.” And for this as well, Robert had surely encouraged his brother to end his life—the possibility that, in doing so, Christian might draw near, foolishly supposing a warrior whose sword arm was injured could no longer dispense death.

Amid Robert’s cursing, struggle, and shouts of pain, the men relieved him of the dagger with which he attempted to fend them off, but it was the one secreted in his boot that proved the prize.

“’Tis a Wulfrith dagger, my lord,” one of the men-at-arms called as the other set to binding Robert’s wrists before him.

Sir Mark’s dagger. The knight would be pleased to have it returned.

“Finish it!” Robert shouted. “Now!”

Christian sheathed his sword and, when D’Arci’s men herded his brother before him, said, “Methinks you need not fear the king will be slow to dispense justice for those you killed in escaping his prison.”

Robert bared his teeth above the rough brush of beard. “Ah, but you ought to fear,
brother,
for as I escaped Henry once, I shall do so again. I will be back.”

It was largely an idle threat, especially considering his broken arm, but still Christian would take no chances where Gaenor was concerned. “’Tis possible, and for that I shall accompany you to London and not leave your side until I see for myself that never again will you darken the lives of those I love.”

Robert shoved his thick body forward, straining against his captors’ hold. “Love!” he spat.

Christian turned away and led the way across the wood.

As expected, Robert did not come quietly, his anger and desperation resounding through the trees. Lest his din rouse other brigands who might have eluded capture, Christian remained alert. However, their passage was uneventful and, when they reached the clearing where Beatrix was to have met her death, the only evidence of what had happened in that place was the bloodied and torn bodies of two brigands.

Though grateful D’Arci had wasted no time seeing Beatrix and Gaenor away there, Christian could not help but wish his wife were waiting for him. Of course, the ill of this night might not yet be done, for it was possible Beatrix had not escaped dire injury, might even now—

“Make haste,” Christian called above Robert’s foul protests that, thankfully, had abated considerably, likely due to the pain of his injuries.

When they neared the border of the wood a short while later, a figure separated from a thicket ahead.

Instantly, Christian put his sword to hand. “Who goes?” he demanded, motioning for D’Arci’s men to halt.

“Sir Durand,” the knight called in a strained voice. “’Tis you, Baron Lavonne?”

“’Tis. And D’Arci’s men.”

The knight lurched forward, evidencing his weakened state. “Lady Beatrix?”

“I believe she is well.”

Another lurch, and Christian wondered how near to death Beatrix’s champion was. “You
believe
?’ Sir Durand rasped.

“As her husband has surely returned her to the castle, I cannot be certain, but soon we shall know.”

“Ha!” Robert crooned. “Does she live, I wager she is more dumb than before.”

Sir Durand’s bent figure halted its advance and straightened in the glow of moonlight between trees. “That miscreant is alive? Again you have let him live?”

Though Christian knew he owed the knight no explanation, he was moved to alleviate Durand’s distress. “Death will be his end when the king is done with him, and never again will he harm any you hold dear. You have my word.”

“’Tis not enough,” Durand growled. “I have not given all that Robert Lavonne should outlive me. Whether it be heaven or hell that awaits me, I will not go until I am certain Lady Beatrix is safe.”

Christian did not want to take offense that Durand’s concern was all for Beatrix when it was Gaenor with whom this man had lain, but he was angered that Durand had so little regard for the woman Christian esteemed and loved. Though, prior to the shock of coming upon Gaenor and Durand this day, Christian had come to believe his wife’s claim that her relations with the knight had happened the one time and many months before Christian had taken the name of Sir Matthew in the chapel at Wulfen Castle, here was further proof that, just as Durand’s heart did not belong to her, hers no longer lay in the knight’s direction.

She is mine,
Christian whispered into his soul.
I am hers.

He drew a deep breath. “Neither my wife, nor Beatrix D’Arci, will ever again suffer at my brother’s hands.”

Robert’s laughter was loud and almost crazed. “Only my death will ensure that. And I am far from dead,
Sir Durand
.”

The injured knight took another step forward. And stilled. He did not move for a long moment, then he drew his arm back and the blade that rode the cool night air whistled as it cut a path across the wood.

A thud sounded behind Christian. As he pivoted, a gurgle rose above the sharp shift of chain mail and Robert sagged between D’Arci’s men who immediately eased him to the ground.

Christian strode forward and dropped to his haunches alongside his brother. It took but a moment to determine that Durand had done what Christian had not at Beatrix’s trial. He had flown a dagger meant to kill, and it had found its mark in the column of throat above the chain mail tunic.

Robert convulsed, mouth opened and closed, eyes shuddered side to side, then he seemed to sink into the ground.

Christian momentarily lowered his lids. “God forgive you,” he breathed, then reached forward and closed the eyes of one who had happened upon an unexpected savior eager to give him the quick and merciful death for which he had longed.

Christian straightened and turned away, but where Durand had stood, he now lay. Christian ran forward and, shortly, confirmed that Beatrix’s champion lived, his breathing shallow and labored though consciousness was wiped from his face.

“My lord?” called one of D’Arci’s men.

“Leave Sir Robert,” Christian said. “Bring Sir Durand.”

Thus, the knight was carried out of the wood to Castle Soaring where he was laid upon a trestle table in the great hall alongside those whose wounds would, for all of their lives, tell the tale of what had transpired this night on the barony of Abingdale.

T
he sight of her where she sat with her back to him beside the postered bed clasping Beatrix’s hand and speaking in hushed tones made Christian pause. Though he had been assured that she and her sister were well enough to allow D’Arci to turn his attention to Abel’s tenuous hold on life, not until this moment of seeing his wife did he turn from beseeching God to praising Him.

Grateful for the hasty shedding of his chain mail, the ring of which might remind both women of what neither wished to soon revisit, he stepped over the solar’s threshold.

“‘Twas you who saved me, Gaenor,” Beatrix said, gingerly shifting against the pillows and drawing Christian’s regard to the sling that held her left arm.

He clenched his jaws. Obviously, he had not quickly enough cut the rope to prevent her from being injured. Still, though her arm had likely been pulled out of joint, at least it had not been torn from her body.

“Truly,” Beatrix continued. “Michael says it is so.”

Gaenor leaned forward and brushed the hair off her sister’s brow. “It was not all me, but I am glad to have given back some of what you gave me when…”