Читать книгу The Conqueror - Kris Kennedy - Страница 11

Fading into unconsciousness, Gwyn didn’t realise the weight was gone until the warrior stood above her, sword dangling in hand, blood streaking down the side of his face.

Beside her lay the bloody-headed soldier, rather more bloodied now. His skull was split in two. Already his innards were oozing out, a pulpy mass, mixing with the mud.

Gwyn’s mouth began moving but no sounds came out. In the distance, the sounds of running footsteps faded away. Her saviour spun as if to give chase, then, with a few muffled words, turned back.

“Is he dead?” she whispered, as if someone might hear her and somehow not have noticed the combat of a moment ago. As if the hacked body might still, somehow, hold life and be awakened by her words.

Dark, shadowed eyes flicked to the prone body. “Quite.” He kicked the body away and stretched out a gloved hand. “Come.”

“Completely?”

“All the way.” He held his hand in front of her nose.

“Truly dead?”

“Nay, he’s but half dead, and will haunt you for years to come. Now, come, get up.”

Flat on her back, Gwyn frowned. A gnashing pain crowded into the back of her head. “I am more afraid of being haunted if he is fully dead, sirrah.”

This brought a moment of quiet. “Are you getting up or not?”

“Have you killed so many men, that one more means naught?”

He straightened and glanced around the deserted road. When he turned back, she could see only the gleam of his teeth as he smiled grimly. “And you, lady, have you been on so few highways that you know not the danger of riding on them alone?”

She opened her mouth, shut it again.

“Know you so little of men that you would think one such as he is not better off dead?”

Again he gestured to the man’s body. His smile receded as he ran his fingers through his hair, ruffling the dark locks into damp spikes.

“Know you how weary I am, and that I wish only to be home?”

He towered above her outstretched body but she was not afraid. Certes, he’d just saved her life. Whyfore be affrightened?

Her mind catalogued the various and persuasive reasons: perhaps because he was such an imposing figure, all hard slabs of muscle and piercing eyes? Perhaps because he’d just killed four men in less time that it took to de-feather a chicken? Or perhaps because he held in his hand a sword that still dripped with raw blood.

“Get up.”

“I…I—”

“You—” He reached down and grabbed her hand. “Do not listen well.”

He lifted her clean off the earth, hauling her away from the body. The soldier’s split head lolled to the side and a thin trickle of reddish spittle dribbled from the corner of his mouth. Dropping to one knee, her saviour lifted his chin, as if inspecting his handiwork, then crossed to the other dead men and did the same before dragging them to the side of the road.

Her saviour’s next words came from the dense stand of trees, where he was depositing the still-warm bodies. “We’ve only a little time. D’Endshire will know as soon as de Louth reaches the gate, and then he’ll be after you.”

“Or you.” She ran her hands over her dress from collar to waist, fluttering. “Happens he might enjoy finding you more, at the moment.”

There were sounds of shuffling and earth moving, then he emerged with a costly steel arrow-tip in his palm. She stared in horror. It could only have been plucked from the dead man.

He picked up his sword. “As I have said, his pleasure is not my concern.” Lodging the arrow-tip in his belt, he walked towards her, sliding his blade back into its sheath with a whispery sound. He retrieved his bow, lying beside the oak tree. Then he whistled.

From nowhere came the sound of a snorting horse, and a raw-boned rampager appeared from between two giant oak trees. He looked like a furry error, all slanting edges and legs. He wore a bitless bridle inlaid with silver, though, a headpiece that would cost more than a bribe for the Nottingham sheriffdom. Costly finery for an error.

The warrior made a gesture with his hand and the horse started picking his way over. She watched as he ran an affectionate hand over his horse’s neck, murmuring in the tongue of the Normans to his obviously beloved mount.

Her gaze drifted aimlessly, then froze. Why, there was her slipper, huddled along the side of the road like a frightened child, half-hidden beneath the muck. She hobbled over and picked it up. By all the saints, how had she thought to save her saviour with that?

And what was she to do now? Her original destination, so swiftly planned as she tripped and ran down the streets of London, was St. Alban’s Abbey. But the monks were twenty miles away, and unhorsed, that had become an insurmountable distance.

She put her hand to her forehead. Everything seemed sinister. The mists, the dark, rutted road, and most especially the sword-bearing stranger who was watching her now with grey-blue eyes, his body motionless. What before had been red-hot fire in her blood became ice-cold fear, and it slid down her back in knife thrusts.

“So,” he said with a booming roar—at least that’s how it sounded—“what am I to do with you?”

The chill plunged deeper into her spine. What did that mean: do with her? Hadn’t she spent the whole first part of this evening assuring no man should do anything with her?

To this awful end.

She shoved her foot into her slipper. Cold, wet mud slopped out the sides. “My thanks for saving me, sir, but there is nothing you are required, nor invited, to do with me.” He lifted an eyebrow. “I am truly grateful for the risks you have taken here,” she added. “Not only to your person, but any reputation you might have.”

He didn’t appear overly concerned about that last, considering that nothing about his grey-eyed, taut-bodied regard changed. He didn’t appear very pleased. She didn’t have many choices. She cleared her throat.

“You wouldn’t be pilgrimming towards Saint Alban’s Abbey, now, would you?”

He shook his head.

“No, I didn’t think so.” She took a breath. There was one other option, much closer, although she did not know the way herself. But perhaps this knight did. Of course, it was not the safest option. Papa had always said Lord Aubrey of Hippingthorpe, who had estates nearby, was a man with a ridiculous name and a most dangerous temperament.

Well, Gwyn decided, pushing her foot deeper into the cold muck filling her slipper, danger was really quite relative now, wasn’t it?

She looked up at her saviour. “You wouldn’t be able to direct me towards Hippingthorpe Hall, would you?”

The smallest flicker altered his gaze. “Are you to name every stop along the road to York?” he asked coldly.

She drew back, hugged her tattered cloak around her shoulders, and lifted her chin a little bit. “No. Of course not. My apologies for all the…troubles. May I recompense you?” She began fumbling with the bag of silver tied around her waist.

“No.”

“Are you certain? Your tunic was torn, and…?” She drifted off as he crossed his arms over his chest and regarded her like he might some heretofore-unknown insect.

“Well, then,” she remarked brightly and turned on her heel. With great dignity, she began hiking down the highway, a lone, dark, limping figure, damp skirts clinging to her knees, which she kicked away on every alternate step.

“For certes, I stepped onto a strange path when I left the house tonight,” she muttered, pushing unruly strands of muck-covered hair out of her face. “If I thought life was a thing in my control, I have been proven wrong.” She fumbled to remove the heavy clump of fabric that edged its way higher and higher between her legs. “And I do not like that.”

Behind her, Griffyn ‘Pagan’ Sauvage stood for a long time, staring down the road. A breeze crept up and blew persistently around the hem of his cape.

The last thing he needed, the very last thing in all the world, was another burden. Tonight of all nights.

Griffyn’s mission was clear and uncomplicated: Prepare England for invasion. Lure the powerful, enlist the merchants, persuade the wise, and bribe the fools, but come hell or high water, clear the way, because Henri fitzEmpress, Count d’Anjou, Duke of Normandy, and rightful king of England, was poised to blow through the country like a tempest and conquer it from Sea to Wall.

Landing in secret on the English coast six months ago, Griffyn had met with dozens of war-weary lords since then, men balanced on the edge of a knife, and convinced them Henri’s blade was the sharper. He had done things no other man had been able to do, and he was planning to do them one last time, tonight, in the most vital meeting of his entire mission. At a remote hunting lodge half a mile off the king’s highway. One carefully-arranged meeting with the most powerful baron in Stephen’s realm, the earl of Leicester, Robert Beaumont. Turn him, and they had the country.

The name of that hunting lodge? Hippingthorpe. The very place she’d asked to go.

Could she be more in the way? Literally, in his path.

The fate of two kingdoms rested on this meeting. Turn Beaumont and England would fall like chaff.

And Griffyn could finally go home.

A flash of pain eddied into his chest. Dimmed by time, it was always there, a burning ache: home. Sweetly scented hilltops, primeval forests, and heather bracketing the everlasting moors. Mountains and seas. Wild, windswept, home.

He did not need a distraction. Not tonight, not ever.

He watched her lone, dark, limping figure diminish in the distance for a moment longer, then cursed softly and swung away.