The Sword and the Rose. V. J. Banis

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СКАЧАТЬ one sound penetrated the others, the cry of a woman in distress. “Help! Help me!” a voice cried.

      Kenneth reined his horse to the right, following the sound. He rode past a group of gypsy tents and saw in the distance a young woman pursued by a handful of English knights, who were laughing and hooting with lustful glee.

      “Help, for the love of God,” she screamed, but the inhabitants of the camp were all too afraid of the armed knights to come to her aid.

      Such sights were not uncommon here; indeed many of the women in this camp improved their desirability with a show of resistance. But this swarthy gypsy girl, as he recognized her to be, seemed genuinely frightened and desperate to escape her pursuers.

      And of course, they were English, and Sir Kenneth was Scottish. He rode to the rescue, his armor clanging, his steed’s hooves drumming the hard ground.

      As the English knights were afoot, it was an easy matter to outdistance them and, despite his armor and mail, lean down and sweep the girl from her feet, onto his horse. Her bare feet still ran, treading the air, as he slowed his horse’s gallop.

      Thinking him to be another of her tormentors, she struggled in his arms and tried to strike him, but in her position, flung across the horse’s shoulders, she could do little more than beat on that noble animal’s body.

      “English pig,” she cried and would have thrown herself to the ground had he not held her firmly at the waist.

      “Not English but Scottish,” he said, laughing, “and not a pig but a falcon, if you will but see. Hold still now before I send you back to your suitors.”

      “Scotsman,” one of the English knights cried, “find your own sport. That one’s too pretty for the likes of you anyway.”

      “Ay, lass,” another cried raucously. “Surely you wouldn’t choose a Scot over a man.” That brought a round of jeers and howls from his friends. Kenneth had reined in his horse now and turned toward them, and he saw at a glance that they were all fired up with drink.

      “Begone, Englishers,” he called to them. “Save your temper for the Turks, who might be frightened of it.”

      One of the knights had drawn his sword and he called, “Come closer with your friend, Scot. I’ve got something to stick in each of you.”

      If the man had been sober, Kenneth would no doubt have dismounted and accepted the challenge, but from the way the man staggered and swayed drunkenly, as if cast about by a mighty wind, he knew that it would be no fight at all. Instead, he drew his sword and rode closer, meaning only to disarm the man.

      It was not necessary to do even that, though. The English knight swung with his sword before Sir Kenneth was within two horses’ lengths of him and his sword slipped from his fingers to go crashing to the ground.

      “Help me, lads,” he cried to his companions but, looking over his shoulder, he discovered that they had chosen the better part of valor and were already running away. For a moment he hesitated, then he too turned and ran, disappearing quickly into the maze of tents and huts that made up the camp.

      Kenneth looked after them and laughed at their drunken flight; but his laugh was suddenly cut short.

      One of the rogues had not fled but stood off to the side, out of Kenneth’s range of vision. Now, seeing Kenneth’s back to him, he lifted his mace—a weighted ball on the end of a club—and, swinging it over his head, threw it at the Scotsman’s head.

      A warning cry from the gypsy girl, who saw the weapon thrown, brought Kenneth around in his saddle so that the blow, which might otherwise have opened his skull in an instant, was only a glancing one. Even so, it opened a gash alongside his head from which the blood began at once to spurt. He swayed dizzily in his saddle, his vision blurring as the ground seemed to rock and heave beneath him.

      Had the villain who struck the cowardly blow followed up his advantage, it would have been no difficult matter to kill the knight on the spot; no doubt he would have done so had it not been for the intervention of Krouba, Kenneth’s faithful dog. That creature, seeing his master struck, turned toward his attacker and with a terrifying snarl, leapt at him.

      It was a brave man who could see that enraged beast setting upon him and not be frightened. This one gave a shriek of alarm and turned to run, tripping over his own feet and falling headlong.

      In an instant Krouba was upon him, his snarls and growls mingling with the man’s terrified bleating and the laughter of the crowd that had gathered to watch the show.

      It was not hard to judge what the outcome of this would have been had not Kenneth, never a vengeful man, called his dog back to his side, letting the English knight flee, his tunic and his pride in shreds.

      The onlookers, convinced that the entertainment was over, began to drift away. For a moment Kenneth sat as he was, becoming gradually aware of the gypsy girl in his arms. She, discovering that he was no enemy but her protector, had ceased struggling against him and had managed to right herself, so that she now clung to him in the saddle. His arm remained about her waist, and he was aware of the feel of soft warm flesh beneath his hand. The scent of perfume drifted up from her dark curly hair, and when he looked down he found her gazing up into his face. Her eyes were green, a mysterious shadowy green like the surface of an English pond in the shade of the willows.

      “You’re wounded,” she said in a low, throaty voice.

      “It’s nothing,” he said. The ground had ceased its rocking motions and he would ignore the throbbing pain that pulsed from the wound through his entire head. “Show me which is your tent and I’ll return you safely to it.”

      The gypsy girl, though, had been watching the knight throughout the incident. Once over her fear of him, she had discovered that here indeed was a fair “son of the cross.” Although he wore his weapons and armor, his mail headpiece was back, revealing a handsome man with a ruggedly chiseled face. His hair was brown, but touched with highlights of red and gold as if it had absorbed the fiery sun of the desert.

      Looking up into his handsome face, she decided that at the moment the solitary “safety” of her tent was the least of her desires.

      She whimpered and pressed her face against a broad, powerful shoulder. “I’m frightened,” she said in a whisper. “Suppose they come looking for me again. Who will protect me when you are gone?”

      “Most of the women here are not so averse to a man’s attention,” he said frankly.

      Her anger at his implication made her forget to be “afraid” and she tilted her face to look up at him again, her eye flashing like green fires.

      “I’m not a whore,” she said angrily. “Why do you think I was running from those English beasts?”

      “It’s a game I’ve seen played before,” he said.

      She gave a snarl, not unlike the snarl of the deer-hound, and lifted a hand to slap him. With a chuckle he caught her wrist in a powerful grip.

      “In truth, I don’t think you were playing,” he said. His voice had such an obvious ring of sincerity that it was impossible not to accept what he said as fact, and her anger faded. For a moment more the two of them sat on the horse, looking at one another frankly.

      “Who are you, and what do you do СКАЧАТЬ