Knight Triumphant. Heather Graham

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СКАЧАТЬ back along the path until they came to the place where Anne and her party had tricked the young men.

      Joseph and Jacob had apparently attempted some fight; the two were dead, locked in a strange embrace where they had been deposited by the side of the road. Anne and her lethal sisters now cowered together near a tree, all but ignored, as two of Eric’s men, easily recognizable in their mail and tunics, worked over the fallen men. Two were prone and crumpled, but Brandon was obviously breathing; the one called Timothy was holding his head in his hands and trying to explain what had happened, yet still so stunned by the events that he didn’t seem to be making sense.

      “We never thought . . . who would have feared . . .”

      “It was them!” Anne called out. “They attacked us! We had no choice. And now you’ve killed my poor husband!”

      Igrainia cried out, “You wretched liar!”

      Eric reined in. Before he could dismount or help her down, she was sliding from the horse, nearly tripping and falling in her haste. She approached Anne with loathing and hatred, seeing that Thayer remained on the ground, not moving. She started for Anne, her fury so deep she didn’t know what she had intended. “You liar! You murdered good people, people trying to help you, my God, how could you—”

      Anne let out a scream as if she had been gutted. “She! She caused this. She knew that we had coins in our hems, she bewitched the men, she told them to attack us, it was her! We might have all died, and now our poor men are fallen for trying to defend us—”

      “Liar!” Igrainia charged, and kept coming, not at all sure of what she intended, only that she was so angry she had to strike out at the woman. But as she came near Anne, the woman let out another shriek and came tearing at her, a knife, which she must have hidden in her skirts, suddenly glittering in the sun as she moved. Igrainia saw the blade in time and sidestepped. Eric had seen the danger as well, and caught her from behind as she moved, casting her far from harm’s way. She fell in the dirt, but there was no need for anyone to go after Anne. Her force brought her crashing past the place where Igrainia should have been, and she tripped upon a pothole in the trail and fell flat upon the earth. She remained where she fell, and didn’t move.

      “Anne!” Lizzie shrieked, leaving Beth to stand alone as she raced to the spot where her sister had fallen. She turned Anne’s prone form, and Igrainia saw that Anne had unwittingly brought about her own destruction; she had fallen upon the blade of her knife. It protruded from her chest, and the blood that soaked her breast made it apparent she had managed to drive the blade into her heart.

      Lizzie let out a terrible wail.

      Igrainia picked herself out of the dirt, wincing as she did so, realizing more and more with each passing moment that she was bruised and sore.

      Again, she could feel nothing but a terrible coldness in her heart where once she would have felt sorrow at the sight of death.

      “What do we do with the other two?” one of the men asked Eric.

      “I don’t know—yet. But tie them—they seem to have weapons everywhere. Yorick, gather the horses you can find,” he commanded, speaking to another of the men. “It seems we will have a strange party returning.”

      Igrainia hurried to where Thayer lay, falling to her knees and trying to ascertain just where he had been struck, and how many injuries he had received—indeed, if he had survived at all. She let out a small sigh of relief; he was breathing. Slowly, laboriously, but his chest rose and fell at regular intervals. One strike of the knife’s blade had struck just beneath his shoulder, and another had gone through his side, and she could only pray that the blade had not damaged his insides. She began to rip at the hem of her linen gown for bandages to stop the flow of blood.

      As she wound material and pressed it against the wounds, she realized that large booted feet were at her side. She looked up. Eric was standing there.

      “He was trying to find a way to survive, and get money home to his mother and family. They were all off to make new lives . . . their lord was killed, their lands were decimated. . .”

      She was afraid that he meant to stop her. She was startled and nearly jumped when he came to her side.

      To her amazement, he took one of the makeshift bandages from her and expertly applied pressure to one of the wounds.

      “He has a chance, I think,” he said.

      “But he can’t ride.”

      Eric was silent. After a moment, he stood, and Igrainia realized it was because Merry and John had reached them. Merry had come to see what help they could give the fallen men.

      Eric moved off. She saw him speaking with the man he had called Allan.

      “He is a strong one,” Merry told her, amazingly calm for the events that had been occurring around them. “If he has just a few days’ time, and the rot does not set in . . .”

      Igrainia leaped to her feet, gasping, as Eric strode toward them with a sudden determination. He hunkered down by Thayer’s side, and Igrainia placed a hand on his shoulder, trying to stop whatever it was he intended to do. “I’m telling you, these were decent men—”

      He ignored her, casting off her touch, and lifted Thayer with an amazing care. He started straight for the trees, and she found herself running after him. “What are you doing? Wait! If you mean to throw his body into the woods to hide it and leave him to die, I will not let you. You can’t. I don’t care about your cause, or Scotland, or the English, or . . . any of your bloody intentions. You cannot just leave a man to die!”

      He stopped dead, turning on her with anger and impatience. “There is a cove with a good stream just a few feet in. If you want this man to live, his wounds must be cleansed, and if you want any of us to live, we’ve got to get off the roads. Do you think your evil friends are the only monsters preying on the remnants of war? Nor am I particularly willing to die myself in this wretched pursuit of you, and the health and happiness of the companions you acquired along your escape route.”

      She fell silent, staring at him. He started walking again and she followed him, and realized that the path behind her was filled with soft voices and the rustling of trees as the others followed behind them.

      It seemed that they walked far, yet perhaps the path seemed long and winding because her every footstep seemed a painful chore. Her shoulder ached now as well as the rest of her bruised and battered flesh and muscle. But they came at last to a break in the dense forest and brush. There was a fast rushing stream before them, beautiful as it sparkled suddenly in the sunlight that was no longer obscured by the green wealth of the trees in the forest despite the trampling of armies upon the land. The bank of the stream was richly carpeted in pine needles, and the earth here was soft with the wealth of moisture provided by the stream.

      As she walked, she heard soft words.

      “Pardon, my lady.”

      As he spoke, Allan passed by her side, and laid down a woolen cloak at the base of a tree, and it was there that Eric paused with his heavy burden of the wounded Thayer, and set him down with the same care to his injuries with which he had first lifted him.

      And then he turned to her.

      “Madam, you may tend to your new friend, but one of us will be with you at all times. And if anyone makes any attempt to part company with us again, they will be slain upon СКАЧАТЬ