My Lady Faye (28 page)

“Do you think I an unaware of the fact?” Sir Arthur stood.

The squire jumped back a step. “Nay, my lord. It is just that I am a squire and we do not, as a rule, parley.” The last words came out in a rush as if the boy could hardly believe his own daring.

“Now is your chance.” Sir Arthur strode over to his cot and sat on the edge. “Go.”

The boy left the tent at a run. He was back again a scant moment later. “What sort of gesture?”

“Tell that whoreson he has someone Lady Faye would like to see released. He has until I wake to comply or there will be no quarter when I take his keep.”

The boy turned.

“And squire?” Sir Arthur stretched his length on the cot. “Make sure he believes I am in earnest.”

“Aye, my lord.” He left at a trot.

“Father?” Faye frowned at Sir Arthur. “You have me as confused as that poor boy.”

“Are you still here, Faye?” Sir Arthur crossed his ankles. “Because I believe we discussed your returning to Anglesea.”

“I—”

“Come along, Faye.” William rose. “Let him get some rest. We can get you and Simon ready to travel.”

Despite the situation, Gregory wanted to smile. Sir Arthur knew exactly what he was doing. Inside those walls, Calder could seethe and simmer, but his fate rested in the hands of the man feigning sleep on his cot. He put his arm around Faye and drew her from her father’s tent.

Her shoulders stiffened with resistance, but she allowed him to lead her out. “I am not leaving until I have Ruth with me.”

Gregory nodded. He expected no less from his lady.

Outside the tent, an armed party readied itself for travel. They were experienced men and Gregory trusted Garrett to see Faye to Anglesea safely.

A shout arose from the men nearest the wall.

“Stay here.” Not trusting her, he remained where he was, waiting for Faye’s nod. He wouldn’t put it past her to scale those walls on her own.

Faye’s lips thinned. “I swear I will stay here.”

William strode ahead of him. He pointed to the small gate within the larger gates that opened. A figure staggered out as if being thrust.

Shock held him frozen. He had believed Faye, but seeing the girl in the flesh sent the anger rushing through him afresh. Calder was not a man, he was a savage beast.

William walked toward the girl.

“Cover him.” Gregory motioned the archers. William had more ballocks than good sense. A member of Sir Arthur’s family would be welcome target practice from the walls. Then again, the men in this family never expected others to do what they would not do themselves.

Around him the archers nocked their arrows. The creak of drawn bows a soft ripping in the air. William hoisted the girl into his arms. She lay limp and broken across his chest as William brought her back to the camp.

Gregory sensed Faye beside him. He grabbed her arm as she tried to slip past him. There were still archers on those walls and it would be like Calder to put an arrow through Faye because the opportunity presented.

Faye stepped up to William as he drew closer. “Ruth.”

The girl stared at Faye with dead eyes that had seen too much. The fury rekindled in Gregory. How could any man inflict this sort of pain? For this, too, Calder must pay.

Faye stroked a stray lock of Ruth’s hair from her face. “You are safe now, Ruth.”

Gregory made a quick prayer for Ruth’s broken soul.

“Father Piety!” Calder’s bellow carried through the quiet evening.

Gregory tensed. Calder’s favorite joke of an evening had long since worn thin. One more mark in the tally against the whoreson.

“I see you, Monk.” As he stood in clear view of the battlements, this was no great achievement. Gregory turned to face the walls.

“I have an offer for you.” Calder’s head appeared between the crenellations. How easy it would be to instruct the archer to put an arrow right between his eyes. Sir Arthur had the best archers in the land, trained as well as any Welsh longbow man.

The nearest archer raised a brow in question. At this distance the arrow would punch straight through the back of Calder’s head. Gregory shook his head and faced the walls. “What is your offer?”

Faye gasped.

“An end to this.” Calder gestured the army camped at the base of the keep. “With minimal loss of life.” Sieges were long, protracted and messy and the body count would grow before this was done. Gregory braced for what came. Calder saw this as his last opportunity to enact some revenge.

Faye dug her fingers into his arm. He would wager she made much the same guess.

“A challenge,” Calder yelled.

Aye, Gregory did not need to be a prophet to see that one. Let Calder declare his intuitions, the deceitful cur. “A challenge?”

“Man to man.” Calder thumped his chest and thrust his fist at him. “Between you and I.”

“To the death?”

“Nay.”
Damn!
“A challenge to surrender.”

“Why would we do that?” From behind them, Sir Arthur boomed. “Your surrender is merely a matter of time.”

“Aye.” Calder came back quickly. He must have been thinking on this. “But many within the keep will sicken and die before I do. You know this as well as I, old man.”

“I am going to make him eat that ‘old man’ from the end of my blade,” Sir Arthur said.

Sir Arthur would have to wait his turn. Gregory had some words of his own to feed Calder.

“If I lose, Sir John will open the keep.” Another face appeared beside Calder. “You know you can trust him.”

“Done!” Gregory yelled before anyone else could speak. He wanted this, with every fiber of his being. The chance to meet Calder in open combat.

“Are you addled?” Faye glowered at him, pinching his arm so hard he winced,

“I will not lose.” Calder was a good swordsman, but he was better. Much better.

“He knows that.” Faye jerked her head in Calder’s direction. “The only reason he challenges you must mean he has some knavery planned.”

Gregory drew in a deep breath before he responded too curtly. “I know that, Faye.”

Concern for him was writ clear across her face.

Her love soothed his nipped pride. “There is no doubt Calder has something planned, but I am wise to him.”

“Then why would you take this risk?” She loaded the question with all that had passed between them. Why would he risk leaving her again? Why would he risk his life when they had only now found each other? Always, the past stole between them like a thief to rob their future. It ended. Now.

Gregory cupped her cheek. Her skin was finest silk. “I will not lose.” He put as much reassurance as he could muster in the simple statement. “I have too much to risk through losing, much more than Calder.”

“It would bring this matter to a swift end.” Sir Arthur came up beside Faye.

She turned on her father. “Gregory could die.”

“He will not.” Sir Arthur smiled at her. “He will fight and we will watch for trickery.” He gestured to William, Roger and Garrett standing behind him. “Trust me. Trust your man.”

* * * *

Faye trusted Gregory with everything she had, but asking her to condone a challenge between Gregory and that beast she had married was too much. She understood Calder, better than any of them. For him to issue such an open challenge could only mean he was sure of the outcome. As one, the men in her family faced her, calm certainty on their features. They meant her to draw confidence from them, but she could not. They did not understand.

“Please.” She must try to reach Gregory. He knew Calder almost as well as she. “Do not do this.”

His face settled into implacable lines. “I must.” Always so blasted stubborn. Faye wanted to shake him, to beat on his chest until it cleared his deaf ears.

“My lady.” He turned her to face him.
Accept this,
his steady regard entreated her. “I cannot call myself a man, your man, if I do not take this opportunity to avenge the wrongs he did you.”

Men and their pride and vengeance. It angered her enough to scream. How could vengeance comfort her if Calder killed him? “You do not have to risk yourself to be my man. You are that already.”

“I must do this. Will you give me your blessing?”

Faye railed within. Even should she deny him, it would not stop him. She could see it in the determined lines of his face. Gregory would do this, will she or nil she, with or without her blessing. She had no choice. To send him into the challenge thinking her wroth with him. Nay. To have him distracted by her anger when he fought for his life. How many times had her mother faced this moment? If Lady Mary could do this, then so could she. “You have my blessing, always.”

Relief flooded his features and his mouth softened into a smile. He kissed her forehead. “Trust me.”

Faye clung to him. She wanted never to forget the feel of his lips on her skin, the strength of his arms beneath her fingers.

“I must prepare.”

She tightened her grip. “Will you not wait until daylight, when you can see better.”

“Nay.” He stepped back.

The small space of air between them made her chest ache. She needed to draw him close and keep him with her. Her face near cracking with the effort, she nodded and smiled. “Go with my love.”

“In an hour.” Sir Arthur shouted to the keep. “Gregory will meet you here in one hour.”

“I will be there.” Calder’s voice floated down to them.

Of course he would. It filled Faye with an unshakeable dread. She kept her feet where they were as Gregory strode beside Roger to prepare.

An arm settled about her shoulders and William stood beside her. “You are a woman of remarkable courage.”

Nay, she was a terrified and stupid woman. She should call Gregory back, refuse her blessing, insist he not do this. Perhaps plunge the sword into Gregory herself before Calder did. Anything would be better than watching him do this awful thing. She merely shook her head in denial.

“Aye.” William clasped her to his side. “You are. We are strange creatures, we men.”

Faye glared at him. Did he want to debate with her now?

William chuckled and shook his head. “We are so many parts, but pride forms the greatest piece of the whole. It is a wise and brave woman who understands this.”

“But I do not understand.”

Gregory disappeared into the tent behind Roger. There he would don hauberk and helmet, pick up a shield and sharpen his sword. She hated fighting and all that came with it.

“Every blow you have suffered and every hurt is carved on his soul like a seeping wound.” William touched his finger to the bruise beneath her eye. “Every time he looks at this, he sees only his failure to prevent it. Now, you gift him with absolution.”

William spoke true, she knew it in her heart, but still it rankled. “You do not know this.”

“I do know this.” William glanced back to where Ruth huddled, a solitary heap, beside the fire. “When I look at her, I feel it.” He thumped his chest. “In here. How much worse would it be if she was the woman I loved?”

“I will see to Ruth.” What else could she do?

Gregory tested the haft of his sword. His hand curled around the grip like a second skin. He belonged here. The sword his old friend.

Calder entered the field.

By mutual agreement, they dispensed with shields. Blade against blade, short and brutal, to the point of surrender. Around them, a ring of men watched, silent and grim. Calder had brought a party of ten and they stood to one side of the circle. On the walls of the castle, archers waited, bows at the ready. Braziers cast flickering orange light across the field. Daylight would have been better, but Gregory was done waiting. This ended tonight.

Calder stood a few inches shorter, but built compact and powerful. The cur was fast and light on his feet. Blade gleaming with reflected light from the brazier, Calder took up a fighting stance, weight balanced between his feet, sword raised, testing the air before him like a serpent’s tongue.

Calder favored his right foot, his balance off. Gregory assumed fighting stance and fixed his stare on Calder’s shoulders. The blade was a mere extension. The blow would start there before the blade moved.

Calder circled, shifting his blade through the air.

Gregory watched his shoulders. He couldn’t afford to let the flickering blade distract him. He shut out the sounds of the men, the torchlight, the smell of wood smoke.

Calder danced forward, feinting to his shield side.

Gregory blocked the blow, held the bind long enough to gauge its strength and twisted his wrist.

Calder danced back out of range.

The next blow came at his head. Gregory parried and thrust, testing Calder’s reflexes. Calder’s sword blurred and blocked.

They danced free.

They were matched in speed. Gregory had the advantage of reach. He cut to the left.

Calder twisted and hit him on the weak, pushing his sword away.

Not as quick to the side. Gregory tucked the information away.

Calder leapt free and came at him in second ward, sword raised for the head blow.

Gregory blocked, twisted to weak and released.

Calder lunged, a sweep to his right.

Calder would need to be faster than that. Gregory parried to the left, ducked low and swept in from below. Calder stumbled out of the way, slightly weaker on his left leg. Gregory pressed the small advantage in a rapid succession, left, right, overhand left and bind.

Sweat coated Calder’s top lip, and his glare gleamed feral. He hesitated in the bind as if his strength waned. Calder had grown soft. Gregory shoved him out of the bind onto that weaker leg and closed again. Swift to the shoulder, blocked only in time, but not fast enough to prevent first strike. Gregory’s sword glanced off the mail of Calder’s upper arm.

Calder hissed, his lips tightened and a flicker of real fear crossed his face. No blood, but that would hurt. Gregory came in fast before the other man could recover, forcing Calder to fight off the left foot, leaving him to block cross body and testing that bruised arm.

Calder growled, his face tight with rage. Craven pig did not like his opponents to fight back.