Lady Danger (The Warrior Maids of Rivenloch, Book 1) (16 page)

And then the peace was split asunder.

The oak door exploded inward with the sound of a hundred lances cracking.  Splinters flew everywhere.  The iron bands twisted beneath the impact, and the leather hinges ripped from their fittings.  What remained of the door sagged and slumped to the floor like a slain beast.  And into the doorway, through the cloud of dust, her father’s great war axe hanging from one fist, stepped Pagan, looking as ferocious as a Viking invader of old.

Pagan was incensed.  Here he stood, like some barbarian plunderer with axe in hand, forced to break down the door of his own bedchamber—by his own wife!  How dared Deirdre...

Deirdre.

She shrank back, glaring at him with wet-rimmed eyes, as defensive and edgy as a wounded wolf.  He supposed the fact he'd come crashing in with a war axe didn't help matters.

“Leave me alone!” she cried.

Salty tracks stained her cheeks.  Her eyes were red and swollen.  And though she tried to disguise the hitching of her chest, a hiccough betrayed her.  Bloody hell!  His strong, fearless warrior wife had been crying.

His grip loosened on the axe.  His shoulders dropped.  The tension in his forehead relaxed.  Nothing melted Pagan's rage faster than tears.  Something about the soft, sweet lines of a woman's face transfigured by sorrow wrenched at his heart.  And knowing he was the source of her grief...

Guilt washed over him.  "Listen, Deirdre."  He spoke with a gentleness that surprised even him.  He carefully set the axe aside and stepped over the pile of debris between them.

“Get away from me!”

Wild-eyed, she retreated, coming up against the edge of the bed.  Before he could take a breath, she slipped her hand beneath the coverlet and withdrew a length of steel, a yard long and honed to a fine point.  His eyes widened.  Sweet Mary, did the lass have weapons stashed behind every tapestry?

“Look, I’m sorry about your sword, but you gave me no choice.“

”Sorry!” she snapped, lifting the sword to his throat.  The tears in her eyes seemed to freeze into icicles.  “My father gave me that sword, you bastard.”

He winced as the point of the sword jabbed his chin and regretted discarding the axe so quickly.  “Well,” he said dryly, “you don’t seem to be suffering from any shortage of blades.”

“And yet you persist in thinking me unfit for battle.”

He locked eyes with her.  She had a point.  “What is it you want?”

“I want my command back.”

“Nay.”

He saw her temper flare in the fiery depths of her eyes.  But she controlled it like a flame burning in an enclosed lantern.  “Do you know who I am?”  She raised her chin proudly and looked down her nose at him.  “I am Deirdre, Warrior Maid of Rivenloch.  I have routed thieves, maimed robbers, and killed outlaws.  I was born with a sword in my hand.  You have no right to take my command from me.”

“I have every right.  I am your husband and steward of this castle, by command of the King.”

She lowered her eyes to the tip of her sword, poised precariously against the vein in his neck.  “You speak boldly for a man whose life hangs in the balance.”

“You won’t slay me.  My death would incur the wrath of my men and start a blood battle between our people.”

“Maybe I shall only damage you.”

He didn’t believe her for a moment.  She was fierce, aye, and fearless, and she had scratched him once with her blade.  But she was no cold-blooded savage.  He shrugged, as much as he could without driving the point of her sword into his throat.  “‘Twill be
you
, dear wife, waking up next to my mangled body each morn.”

Deirdre had to admire Pagan’s courage, marked in the even tone of his voice.  It would take but a twitch of her wrist to slit his throat.  But he was right.  She had no desire to injure him.  She didn’t take violence lightly.  The only men she’d ever maimed had threatened the life or welfare of someone she cared for.

So they were at an standstill.  And she had precious little leverage left.  They stared at one another a long while, each sizing up the other.

Finally, after a long, weighted breath, Pagan spoke.  “All right.  I may live to rue this day, but I have a proposal for you.”

“Go on.”

He grimaced.  “‘Twould be easier to speak if I didn’t have a blade at my throat.”

Deirdre left her sword point where it was.

He sighed.  “Very well.  Know this, Deirdre.  I will never turn my knights over to your command.  I’ve led them to victory too many times to hand them over to a lass with no battle experience.”  He glanced pointedly down at her blade.  “No matter how many swords she owns.  Furthermore, since we need to combine our forces, I can’t allow you to continue training the men of Rivenloch.”

“What!” she said, poking him accidentally with the blade.

He grimaced.  “Ah!”

“Sorry,” she muttered.

He glared as if he didn’t believe her.  “An army can’t follow two leaders.  You know that.  I also think you’re wise enough to know that pride should never get in the way of common sense.  The simple truth is that I’m more experienced.  I am the better commander.”

A surge of indignation rose in her, and her fist tightened around the pommel of her sword.  “How dare you assume that?  How dare you assume that because I’m a Scot and a woman and a...a few inches shorter, I cannot manage an army as well as you?  ‘Tis an insult, sirrah.”

“‘Tis no insult,” he said softly.  “‘Tis fact.  And you know I’m right.”

She scowled.  Curse his Norman hide, she didn't
want
him to be right.

"You've never seen battle, have you?"

She compressed her lips.

"Have you?" he prodded.

"Nay," she admitted.

"Nor have most of your men."

She raised her chin proudly.  "My father spent his youth soldiering about the Borders."

"That was long ago.  There have been new weapons developed since then, new defenses, new strategies."

She smirked.  "And I suppose you know all about them."

He gave her a wry smile.  "I've done nothing for the past seven years
but
command an army."

Damn him, she thought, chewing pensively at her lip.  He
was
right.  Sometimes her own infallible sense of logic, her grasp of reason, and her stubborn pragmatism were a frustration to her.

Still, Pagan offered her nothing.  He only told her what he intended to take away from her.

“What is your proposal then?” she asked bitterly.  “That I crawl off somewhere and disappear, leaving you to your command?”

“Nay.”  He frowned as her sword point jabbed him again.  “Damn it, Deirdre.  Will you not put away your blade?”

She moved it back a fraction of an inch.  “Speak.”

“My proposal is this.  I’ve already ordered the men not to spar with you, and I’ll not withdraw that order.  But I will make an exception in exchange for something I want.”

“Go on.”

“I’ll allow you to fight,” he said.  “But only with me.”

“With you?”

“
Only
with me.”

Deirdre was astonished.  Given how arrogant he was about his own skills, why would Pagan want to waste his time with someone he considered an inferior fighter?  On the other hand, if she sparred with him, she could learn his weaknesses, which might prove useful one day.  “What is it you want in exchange?”  She expected it would be appreciable.  The immediate return of Colin perhaps?  A large sum of silver for his new construction?  Full command of her father’s household?

“One kiss each day.”

She looked at him blankly.  Maybe she’d heard wrong.  “One kiss.”

“Aye,” he said, completely serious.  “One kiss each day.  At the time and place of my choosing.”

She smirked.  He must be addled.  One kiss was nothing.  She’d dreaded far more from the man who claimed her as wife.  And the time and place of his choosing?  Pah!  What did it matter?  He’d already kissed her in the chapel in full view of all Rivenloch.  The stable?  The kitchens?  The great hall?  It was no matter to her.

But the skeptical part of her experienced a moment of doubt.  Surely such a simple display of affection couldn’t mean so much to him.  “One kiss?”

“Aye.”

“And ‘tis all?”

“Aye.”

She narrowed her eyes.  She might regret it later, but his offer was too tempting to ignore.  “Done.”  She lowered her sword.

“Beginning tonight,” he said.

“Beginning tonight.”

Then he gave her a sly smile that sent a shiver of misgiving along her spine and made her wonder if she’d just stepped into the wolf’s lair.  “I will count the hours, my lady.”

She silently wondered if he
could
count.  Most men of war had more brawn than brains.  Yet she’d already seen Pagan read.  There was definitely more to him than muscles and girth.

With a flourish of farewell, he started toward the doorway.  Eyeing the wreckage, he said, “I’ll send a man up to make repairs.”

“Wait.”  She hated that Pagan had seen her weeping.  “If you tell a soul that I was...that I...”

He sniffed.  "Your secret is safe.  On one condition."  He picked up the axe and slung it over his shoulder, pinning her with a purposeful gaze.  "Never.  Never bar the door against me again."

Deirdre suspected Pagan was speaking of more than just the chamber door, the oak and iron and leather he'd demolished with a single blow.  Nay, he meant the door to her
heart
as well.

She realized that he could shatter that as easily as the wood.  Not that he’d have to.  The residual hitch in her chest reminded her that for the second time, he’d witnessed her loss of control.  Curse her frail feminine emotions, she'd probably given Pagan the
key
to the damned door.

By the time Pagan left and sent the carpenter up with planks and new leather hinges, Deirdre had changed out of her armor and into a soft brown kirtle, and her composure was restored.  She left the workman to his toil and went to seek out Miriel.  There were things to see to, she told herself, besides the castle’s defenses.  Something had to be done soon about Lord Gellir's wagering.  According to Miriel, last night their father had suffered enormous losses to the Cameliard knights.

But when Deirdre confronted Miriel, she discovered that her sister, a paragon of efficiency, had already spoken to the men.  Indeed, Miriel volunteered that perhaps Normans weren’t quite as barbaric as Deirdre imagined, for the knights seemed chivalrous enough about the whole affair, returning their winnings with good-natured humor to restore the coffers, all but Lyon, who had wandered into the forest and been robbed by The Shadow.  Still, Deirdre suspected their cooperation had more to do with Miriel’s sweet nature and beautiful countenance than it did chivalry.

Eventually, despite her determination to keep busy with other things, Deirdre found herself drawn, out of curiosity, back to the tiltyard.  She managed to avoid notice, standing in the shade of the kennels.  From there, she watched as Pagan put her men through rigorous drills, tossing cloth bags of chain mail back and forth until they could barely lift their arms.  Meanwhile, his knights took turns riding at the quintain, sending it spinning so hard, she thought it would fly off the post.  After that, he lined all the knights up in a row and made them stand up straight, whacking them with the flat of his blade if they stooped so much as an inch.  Then he had them practice lunges, not a few dozen, as Deirdre did to warm them up, but a hundred.  In full armor.

She furrowed her brows in disapproval.  Her men would hate Pagan by the end of the day, she was sure.  He tortured them, making them work so hard their limbs trembled.  What use would they be, she wondered, if their legs turned to custard and they couldn’t lift food to their mouths?  Nay, this was no way to establish a cohesive fighting force.  This kind of punishment would make the Scots bitter and mutinous.

She bit her lip, itching to intervene, to put an end to Pagan’s abuse as he challenged her knights to grapple with him, hand to hand.  One by one they accepted his challenge, and one by one they were overthrown by his brute strength, tossed into the dust like discarded offal.  It was a travesty the way he humiliated them.  She shook her head.  By nightfall, Pagan had better watch his back or he’d end up with a knife in it from one of her resentful men.

As she watched Pagan bowl over young Kenneth, the smallest of her knights, wrestling him to the ground as easily as a pup, her instincts took over.  She couldn't stand idly by in the face of such brutal tyranny.  She pushed off the wall of the kennel, intent on repairing his damage.

But before she’d even emerged from the shadows, she froze in her tracks, stunned by the sight before her.  Pagan, laughing in triumph, hopped to his feet.  He helped the fallen Kenneth rise and ruffled the lad’s hair.  And to Deirdre’s shock, Kenneth was grinning from ear to ear.  Indeed,
all
of her men were chuckling.  Despite bloodied noses and blacked eyes, their faces were wreathed with tired smiles.

Where was their rage?  Where was their shame?  They’d just spent hours being battered, beaten, and bruised.  They’d all been bested, soundly and singlehandedly, by a Norman.  Why were they not boiling with indignation?

She slumped back against the wall, bewildered.  How had he done it?  How had Pagan managed to mistreat them so callously and yet earn not only their respect, but their obvious adoration?  That was what shone in Kenneth’s eyes.  The lad clearly adored Pagan.  It seemed all the men did.