There were so many questions Alyx wanted to ask, but she had no idea where to start. Her emotions showed on her face.
“You’ll have to come,” Stephen smiled, kissed her cheek and disappeared into the trees, the short plaid swirling about his thighs.
What followed for Alyx were three days of relative peace. Raine seemed to grow an attachment for the crippled Brian and was impressed by Brian’s eagerness to learn.
“The hate is eating him,” Raine said as he and Alyx lay in bed. “He thinks that if he trains hard enough he’ll be able to fight his brother, but Roger is formidable. He would slay Brian in one thrust.”
“Brother against brother,” Alyx whispered and shuddered.
Alyx felt sorry for Brian, who slept apart from the people of the camp.
“I don’t trust him,” Joan said. “He says too little and he has nothing to do with anyone.”
“He’s been hurt. He’ll get over it,” Alyx defended the boy.
“He’s planning something. He’s been gathering the down from thistles and yesterday he paid a man to send a message to someone.”
“To whom?” Alyx demanded, immediately concerned. Perhaps Brian was actually loyal to his brother and was planning to lead Roger Chatworth to Raine, or worse, to send the King’s men in.
“I don’t know who it went to.”
“We must tell Raine,” Alyx said, grabbing her maid’s wrist and dragging her toward the training area.
“I know of the message,” Raine said when Alyx told him. “Brian wishes to find out the condition of his sister.”
“Have you had a reply?”
Raine jabbed a sword at a quintain. “My little brother’s seed has taken and Lady Elizabeth carries his child.”
Alyx thought of the lovely Elizabeth—and her sharp tongue. “She’ll not like that. She’ll not like any man taking her to bed, then discarding her.”
Raine gave her a hard look. “You seem to give my brother all the credit. Perhaps this Elizabeth is a wayward wench and seduced my brother. Then, when he loved her, she left him. If Chatworth struck Miles, it would seem that Miles fought to keep the woman.”
“Perhaps, but Miles—” She broke off at the sound of trumpets in the distance. “What is it?”
Raine turned to some ex-soldiers near him. “Find out what that is.”
Within seconds, the men were on their horses and away into the forest. Long minutes later, they returned. “Roger Chatworth is accepting your challenge, my lord.”
“Raine!” Alyx bellowed at him.
After one quelling look, he ignored her. “I have issued no challenge. Perhaps Chatworth means to make the first move.”
“No, my lord. He—”
“I sent the challenge,” Brian Chatworth said from behind them and they all turned. “I knew my brother would not respond to a challenge from me, so I sent it in the name of Raine Montgomery.”
“You can just go and tell him what you’ve done,” Alyx said, as if talking to a child.
In the distance, the trumpets sounded again.
“Go now,” Alyx said, “and explain.”
“Alyx,” Raine said in a low voice. “Go to the tent. This is not business for women.”
She looked up at him, still bruised from Stephen’s beating, and what she saw there frightened her. “Raine, you can’t be thinking of accepting the challenge? You didn’t issue it. You surely have more sense than to—”
“Jocelin,” Raine ordered. “Take Alyx away.”
Alyx waited for her husband inside the tent, pacing back and forth, snapping at Joan until the maid left her.
When Raine finally appeared and their eyes met, Alyx gasped. “No, Raine,” she said, wrapping her arms around his middle. “It wasn’t you who made the challenge.”
He pulled her away from him, his hands on her arms. “You must understand that it’s a matter of honor and it’s been a long time coming. When Chatworth is dead, perhaps then my family can live in peace again. If I don’t kill him now he’ll go after Miles for impregnating his sister. He swears Miles took her by force.”
“Let Miles fight Chatworth!” Alyx yelled. “I don’t care. Let all your brothers fight, but not you.”
“Alyx,” Raine said gently. “I realize you’re a woman and more, you haven’t been raised to our ways of honor, but now I must ask you not to insult me more. Help me dress.”
“Help you! Honor! How can you talk to me of such things? What do I care for honor when the man I love may die? I have fought long and hard to keep you safe, but now because of some foolish games of a boy you must pay the price. Let Brian fight his brother.”
Color was rising in Raine’s neck. “Brian is no match for Roger Chatworth. And it’s the Montgomery family who has been insulted. Do you forget my sister who died because of what Chatworth did to her? I don’t fight for Brian but for Mary and for Miles and for future peace.”
She dropped to her knees in front of Raine as he sat on the edge of the cot. “Please don’t go. If you aren’t killed, you’ll be hurt badly.”
“Alyx.” He nearly smiled at her as he touched her hair. “Perhaps you don’t know, but the estates I have I purchased with money I’d won in years of tournaments. I’ve been through hundreds of these challenges.”
“No,” she said with feeling. “Not like this one. The hatred that you and Chatworth have for each other wasn’t involved in those fights. Please, Raine.”
He stood. “I’ll listen to no more. Now, will you help me arm myself or must I get Jocelin?”
She also stood. “You ask me to help prepare you for your death? Should I be the dutiful wife and murmur soft words about honor? Or should I talk of Mary and how she died and add fuel to your hate? If Mary were alive would she want you to fight for her? Wasn’t her whole life an attempt at peacemaking?”
“I don’t want us to part with angry words between us. This is something I must do.”
She was so angry she was shaking. “If we part now as you walk off to answer a challenge that wasn’t made by you, then it will be with angry words—and it will be final.”
Their eyes held each other’s for a long while.
“Think carefully on what you say,” Raine said quietly. “We’ve quarrelled before over this matter.”
“Raine, can’t you see how this hatred is eating at you? Even Stephen saw how it had changed you. Forget Roger Chatworth. Go to the King, beg his forgiveness and let us live, not this constant talk of death and dying.”
“I am a knight. I am sworn to avenge wrongs.”
“Then do something about the Enclosure Acts!” she screamed. “They’re wrong. But cease this hideous feud with Roger Chatworth. His sister will bear a Montgomery. A new life for Mary’s. What more could you want?”
Outside, the trumpets sounded, and the noise went through Alyx.
“I must dress,” Raine said. “Will you help me?”
“No,” she said quietly. “I cannot.”
“So be it,” he whispered. With one last look at her, he turned toward his armor.
“You are choosing between me and Roger Chatworth today,” she said.
He didn’t answer her but kept at his armor. Alyx left the tent.
“Go to him, Jocelin,” she said once she was outside. To Joan, she said, “Come, we must pack. I’m going home to my daughter.”
Alyx had every intention of being out of the forest before any fighting began. Of course Raine could win, she thought, but could she stand by and watch bits and pieces hacked off him? She was sure Roger Chatworth would be as filled with hatred as Raine was.
It was two hours before she heard the first sounds of steel against steel as they echoed through the forest. Slowly, she dropped the gown she was folding and left her tent. Whatever he did, whoever he fought, for whatever reason, he was hers.
She was almost to the clearing where the men fought when Joan stopped her.
“Don’t look,” Joan said. “Chatworth is merciless.”
Alyx
stared at her maid a moment, then started forward.
“Joss,” Joan called. “Stop her.”
Jocelin grabbed Alyx’s arms, held her in place. “It’s a slaughter,” he said, catching her eyes. “Perhaps Roger’s hatred was greater and has given him more strength. But whatever the reason, Raine is losing badly.”
Alyx pushed away from Joss. “Raine is mine in death as well as alive. Let me go!”
With one look at Joan, Jocelin released her.
Nothing could have prepared Alyx for the sight in front of her. The two men fought on foot, and Raine’s armor was so covered with blood that the gold Montgomery leopards were nearly hidden. His left arm seemed to be hanging by a thread, but he kept fighting, swinging valiantly with his right. Roger Chatworth seemed to be toying with the weakened, bloody man as he circled him, teased him.
“He’s dying,” Alyx said. Raine always believed in honor so much, but now, to die like this, as an animal in a cage, at the mercy of Chatworth’s torments.
She started forward, but Joss caught her. “Raine!” she yelled.
Roger Chatworth turned toward her, looked at her, although his face couldn’t be seen beneath the helmet. As if understanding her misery, he circled once more and plowed his ax into the small of Raine’s back.
Raine hesitated for a moment then fell forward, face down, Roger standing silent over him.
Instantly, Alyx pulled away from Joss and ran forward. Slowly, she knelt beside Raine’s torn body and pulled his head into her lap. There were no tears, only a deep numbness, a feeling that her blood was also pouring onto the ground.
With great reverence, she lifted his head and removed his helmet.
The gasp she let out at the sight under the helmet made Roger Chatworth turn back. After one long moment of disbelief, he threw back his head and let out a horrible cry—a cry very much like the one Raine had given when he heard of Mary’s death.
“A life for a life,” whispered Brian from Alyx’s lap. “Now Mary can rest.”
With a trembling hand, Alyx touched Brian’s sweaty cheek, watched as he gave his last breath and died in her arms.
“Leave him,” Roger said as he bent and picked up his brother’s body in his arms. “He is mine now.”
Alyx stood in her blood-soaked gown and watched as Roger carried Brian toward the waiting Chatworth men and horses.
“Alyx,” Joss said from beside her. “I don’t understand. Why is Chatworth taking Raine’s body?”
Her body was shaking so much she could hardly speak. “Brian wore Raine’s armor and Roger has killed his young brother.”
“But how—?” Joss began.
Joan held up thistle down, the ends of it soaked in blood. “He must have planned this for a long while. No doubt he used the down to pad a hauberk so Lord Raine’s armor would fit.”
Alyx turned to them with wide eyes. “Where is Raine? He wouldn’t have docilely allowed Brian to take his armor.”
It took them some time to find Raine, his armor missing, lying in his leather padding, soundly asleep under a tree. Joan laughed when she saw him, but Alyx didn’t. The unnatural position of Raine’s body alarmed her.
“Poison!” Alyx screamed and ran to her husband. The warmth of him showed he wasn’t dead, but he might have been for all the notice he paid her.
“Fetch Rosamund at once,” Jocelin ordered Joan.
Alyx started to slap Raine’s cheeks when her voice couldn’t rouse him. “Help me stand him up.”
It took all Joss’s strength and Alyx’s to lift Raine’s inert form, but still he slept on.
Rosamund came running and after only a glance at Raine she looked at Joss with fear in her eyes. “I hoped I was wrong. My opium was stolen two days ago, and I hoped the thief knew how to use it.”
“Opium?” Alyx demanded. “Isn’t that a sleeping drug? My sister-in-law used it.”
“It’s common enough,” Rosamund answered, “but what most people don’t know is that if too much is taken, the victim could sleep until death.”
Alyx’s eyes widened. “You don’t think Brian Chatworth gave Raine a great deal, do you?”
“A thimbleful is too much. We must assume Lord Raine has taken too much. Come, there is much, much work to be done.”
It took a full day to clean out Raine’s system. Rosamund gave him vile-tasting concoctions that made him vomit, that emptied his bowels. And constantly, men took turns walking him.
“Sleep, let me sleep,” was all Raine would mumble, his eyes closed, his feet dragging.
Alyx allowed no one to stop walking him nor would she let him turn away from the liquids that were forced down his throat. After many hours, he began to regain control of his feet and started walking somewhat under his own power. His body was empty of all solid matter and Rosamund began to make him drink buckets full of water, hoping to flush him more. Raine was waking enough to protest more loudly.
“You didn’t leave me,” he said once to Alyx.
“I should have, but I didn’t,” she snapped. “Drink!”
At noon of the second day, Rosamund finally allowed Raine to sleep and gratefully, she and Jocelin also rested. Tired beyond belief, Alyx went to each of the people of the camp and thanked them personally for helping her with Raine.
“You ought to sleep yourself,” came a gruff voice, and Alyx recognized one of the men who’d accused her of stealing. “We don’t want to save one of you just to lose the other.”
She smiled at him so gratefully that he turned red and looked away. Still smiling, she staggered into Raine’s tent and fell asleep beside him.
* * *
Alyx stayed with Raine for another week—until he found her holding a woman’s baby and crying silently.
“You must go back to Gavin,” Raine told her.
“I can’t leave you.”
He raised one eyebrow. “You’ve seen that your presence here won’t prevent what’s going to happen. Chatworth will lay his brother to rest, then we shall see what will happen. Go home and see to our daughter.”
“Perhaps a visit,” she said, her eyes alight. “Maybe just for a week or so, then I’ll return to you.”
“I don’t think I can live long without you. Go now and tell Joan to pack for you. You can see our Catherine in three days’ time.”
Alyx’s thanks, her joy at the thought of seeing her daughter again, made her leap into Raine’s arms. And her kisses soon led them elsewhere. Before either of them realized what was happening, they were rolling on the floor on top of a Saracen carpet, tossing pieces of clothing here and there.
Gleefully, they made love and Raine was pleased to see so much happiness in his wife’s eyes. Afterward, he held her close. “Alyx, it meant a great deal to me that you stayed during the fight with Chatworth. Whether you admit it or not you have a high sense of honor—not the honor I believe in but your own special sort. Yet you forgot it for love of me. I thank you for that.”
He smiled when he felt her tears wet his shirt. “You are going to see our daughter, yet all I get are tears.”
“Am I selfish for wanting everything? I want you to see our daughter, for the three of us to be together.”
“I will soon. Now give me a smile. Do you want me to remember you in tears or with your own special impish smile?”
At that she smiled and Raine kissed her. “Come on, let’s start getting you ready.”
Alyx kept telling herself the parting was only for a month or so, but she had a sense of permanence, as if she’d never see the forest camp again. The people seemed to think the same thing.
“For your baby,” said a man as he handed her a toy whittled out of a bit of green oak. There were more gifts, all homemade, all simple, and each one brought fresh tears to her eyes.
“You stayed up with ray baby when she was sick,” said one woman.
“And you buried mine,” said another.
When it was time to leave, Raine stood quietly behind Alyx, his hand on her shoulder, and he wa
s radiating his pride in her. “Don’t stay away too long,” he whispered, giving her one last kiss before setting her on her horse.
Alyx rode away, her head twisted back over her shoulder, watching all the people waving at her until the trees hid them.
Chapter Twenty-two
FOR TWO WHOLE weeks, Alyx was content to play with her child, to create lullabies for Judith’s son and Catherine. She sent long, glowing messages to Raine describing the perfections of their daughter and parcels of medicines to Rosamund. A messenger returned with the news of the camp saying that Blanche had been caught stealing and had been banished from the forest. Alyx felt no joy at the announcement.
After two weeks of bliss, she began to miss Raine, and she left the children’s nursery in search of his family.
“I’d heard you were with us again,” Gavin teased, “but I wasn’t sure. Come and join us. Judith is with the falconer and I was about to join her.”
“Do you think the King will like this hawk, Simon?” Judith was asking the grizzled old falconer.
“Aye, my lady. There’s no finer in the land.”
Judith held the big, hooded bird on the end of her gloved arm, studying the hawk, frowning.
“Are you planning a gift for the King?” Alyx asked.
“I’ll try anything” Judith said vehemently. “Since Brian Chatworth’s death and Elizabeth’s pregnancy, the King despises the name of Montgomery.”
“And now since the Queen’s death—” Gavin began.
“Queen Elizabeth died!” Alyx said loudly, and the hawk fluttered its great wings until Judith soothed it. “I’m sorry,” she said. She knew nothing of hawks and hawking. “I hadn’t heard the Queen had died.”
“He’s lost his eldest son and his wife in under a year and his son’s widow’s family threatens to take her dowry back. The man does little but brood now. Once I could have gone to him and talked to him.”
“And what would you ask him?” she asked, hope in her voice.
“I want this feud ended,” Gavin said. “There has been a life taken from the Montgomerys and one from the Chatworths. Perhaps if I could speak to the King I could persuade him to pardon Raine?”