Chapter 30
John wasn’t sure if chain mail was going to be a help or a hindrance, but he didn’t protest when his father helped him into it. He wasn’t unused to battle, but he had to concede that eight years of being away from it left him feeling rather less prepared for it than he would have been otherwise. No sense in not being protected against an attack he might not see coming.
Rhys put his hand on John’s shoulder. “We’ll finish our conversation later, after this annoyance is seen to. And after that conversation, I intend to have a goodly bit of speech with your wife. I’m sure she’ll provide me with details of yours I’ll be most interested in.”
“She’s a scholar, just so you know,” John said. “Her specialty is medieval political thought.”
Rhys blinked in surprise, then laughed. “You’re not serious.”
“Oh, I am. She has her degree from Cambridge.”
“Does she, indeed?” Rhys asked in surprised. “I can scarce believe the place still exists. I assumed the windbags there would blow it over somewhere in the fifteenth century.”
“It wasn’t for a lack of trying, I’m sure,” John said dryly. He stretched, but there was no hope for finding any comfort from that. “That damned Everard. What is he thinking?”
“You’re assuming ’tis Everard who vexes us,” Rhys said. “For all we know, ’tis Roland behind this idiocy.”
“Nay,” Montgomery said, walking up to them and shaking his head. “Everard wants Segrave much worse than Roland ever did. I’m quite sure he’s been loitering in the area like a carrion bird, waiting for the spoils.” He smiled. “Canny of Joanna to thwart him by giving the keep to you, wasn’t it? You might have to come back now and again to see how your crops are coming and keep Everard out of your larder.”
John blew out his breath. “I can’t think about that right now. Let’s go rid ourselves of this plague, then discuss it later over a decent supper.”
“And then to the standing up,” Robin said cheerfully from behind him. “And to think I feared I might miss out on that joy with you.”
John turned around. “Have you managed it with any of your siblings?”
“Nay,” Robin admitted with a grin, “but hope, as they say, springs eternal.”
“Not with me it doesn’t,” John said. “So wipe that smirk off your face before I must see to it myself.”
Robin only smirked once more, then laughed as he walked away with their father. John scowled at his back, then looked at Montgomery, who was standing next to him, watching him with a faint smile.
“You aren’t going to echo him, are you?” John asked in disbelief.
Montgomery smiled more deeply. “Of coure not. And if it makes you feel any better, he tried the same thing with me. I left him with the aftereffects of my fist in his mouth. Miles finished the job whilst I went off to more pleasant labors.”
“The saints be praised for brothers with sense.” He shrugged his shoulders again to adjust his mail, then blew out his breath. He wasn’t unaccustomed to a case of nerves before a battle or a tourney, but in the past all that had been at stake had been either his honor or his own life. Now . . . now he had much more to worry about.
He shoved his worries aside. He had been in enough battles over the course of his youth to believe he could emerge from one more unscathed. His sojourn in the Future had added eight years of learning to fight with his hands and feet, something no medieval knight would expect. If he found himself in true danger, he would toss aside his honor and do what was necessary to keep himself alive.
He looked up at the sky that threatened rain, then back at his brother. He wished he’d had the chance to talk to Montgomery in more detail before, but there was nothing to be done about that now.
“When did you see Everard last?” he asked, settling for a question that wouldn’t require aught but a brief answer.
“A pair of months ago,” Montgomery said. “I cast him from my hall, though I’ll admit I have wished since that I’d kept him close a bit longer. He had rallied a handful of my garrison knights to his banner, but I imagine they soon realized that they had made a grave mistake in following him.” He paused, then looked at John seriously. “I’ve been curious about his activities, especially given that he watched Pippa come through the gate at the end of my drawbridge.”
“Do you think he had any idea what he was seeing?” John asked unwillingly. Though he would have liked to have believed that Everard was the fool his brothers thought him, there was simply no guaranteeing that the man hadn’t watched eight years ago as John disappeared into that gate near Artane. If he had subsequently watched Pippa do the same near Sedgwick, then . . .
“I doubt he had any idea what he’d witnessed,” Montgomery said. “Besides, if he had gained the Future, why would he have returned to our time?”
“To make a spectacle of himself?”
Montgomery smiled. “This is a great deal of trouble for that, don’t you think? Nay, I suspect ’tis nothing more than it looks. He wants Segrave and thinks that an attack at this moment, when we’re likely caught up in our grief over Joanna’s impending passing, will win him what he wants.”
John was willing to try to believe that—at least until he could prove otherwise. He looked up to find his father coming back toward him. “Who leads the charge?”
“Some burly lad wearing Chevington colors who isn’t Everard,” Rhys answered, “though I imagine Everard is lurking somewhere in the company. Why do you ask?”
“Just resigning myself to a pair of hours spent schooling the whoreson in manners when I find him,” John said with a sigh. “I’m for having that over with as quickly as possible.”
Rhys nodded, clapped him on the shoulder, then went to take the reins of his horse from a squire.
John swung up onto the back of his borrowed horse and rode through the gates, then found himself back in a medieval frame of mind without having to try. The battle began without fanfare, but with a desperation on the part of Everard’s lads that was unusual. Perhaps Everard had inspired his men more successfully than Montgomery had supposed he might.
Not that it would matter, in the end. His father and siblings were still formidable, their men terrifying. John was profoundly relieved to be fighting with them, not against them. It was almost as if no time had passed since the last time he’d stepped out into a fray with Montgomery on his left. He hardly had to give thought to what he was doing, which provided him with the opportunity to look for Everard. He didn’t see him, but then again, chainmail coifs weren’t precisely made to reveal who the wearers might be.
Or, he realized with a start, perhaps not, for there was at least one lad he recognized.
Roland of Chevington, loitering uselessly at the rear of the press.
It was at that moment that something else occurred to him, something that left him feeling as if he’d taken an enthusiastic fist to his gut.
If Tess had it aright—and he had no reason to think otherwise—and Roland of Chevington was in the Future Roland of Sedgwick, then the man who was fighting feebly with his sword was in a great bloody bit of danger at the moment. All it would take was a stray bolt from a crossbow, or a purposeful sword between the ribs to render him quite dead. And if he were dead—
“John?”
John looked at Montgomery who was still beside him. “What?”
“You look as if you’d seen a ghost,” Montgomery said with a frown. “What is it?”
“Tess thinks that Roland is the man who gave her the keep in the Future,” John said hoarsely. “Your keep, I mean. And if he dies now without going to the Future, then—”
Montgomery blanched. “Pippa never falls into my moat, and you don’t meet Tess.”
“Exactly.”
“Bloody hell,” Montgomery managed.
John left his brother to a renewed enthusiasm for his work and cut his way across the field over toward Roland. Perhaps he was imagining it, but it seemed as though things heated up
in direct proportion to how close he came to the key to his future. Perhaps Everard’s lads had been told there was treasure inside Segrave and Roland was the one to help them procure it. It was odd that they were fighting so fiercely with no one to lead them, but perhaps those tales of spoils had been rather more embellished than they should have been.
Or so he thought until he realized that they weren’t leaderless.
Everard of Chevington stepped out from behind a group of very large soldiers and looked at John with a smirk.
John realized with a start that Everard had a pair of sunglasses hanging around his neck. It was without a doubt the most ridiculous thing he’d ever seen on a battlefield. He would have wasted the breath to mock him, but he suddenly didn’t have any breath because the ramifications of what he’d seen hit him.
Everard was sporting sunglasses, which meant he had gone to the Future. He had made sure John saw them so John would know he had gone to the Future. And for the final blow, he looked at Roland, looked back at John, then lifted his eyebrows briefly before he began to move purposefully toward his brother.
John would have bet his life it wasn’t to keep that brother safe.
In fact, he was certain it was quite the opposite. He swung down off his mount, because he felt more comfortable on his feet, then fought furiously with men who had obviously been instructed to concentrate solely on him. He would have called for aid, but he was too busy trying to keep his body unpierced by half a dozen well-wielded swords. He looked for Roland out of the corner of his eye, then swore viciously.
Roland was cowering, holding his sword over his head and using it as a shield against his brother’s relentless attack.
Everard finally cursed, then simply reached out and took the sword away from his brother. He slapped him with it, then tossed it aside in disgust. He looked at John.
And he smiled.
John fought as if his life depended on it because, as it happened, it just might. He cast aside his honor and any pretense of fighting fairly. He slew half the men facing him with the sword, then used dirty street-fighting to render the rest of them senseless. If Roland died . . .
He shoved the last man out of his way, then sprinted across the distance that separated him from the brothers, hoping he would get there before Everard’s falling sword cleaved Roland’s skull in twain. He slew the final man standing in his way, then flung himself forward again.
He stopped Everard’s sword with his own approximately three inches from Roland’s empty head.
He shoved Everard backward by means of a foot in his belly, then put himself in front of Roland. Everard regained his balance, then stepped back, accompanied by a look of utter boredom.
“It seems unsporting to slay your brother,” John said, his chest heaving.
Everard only shrugged carelessly. In his eyes, though, there was a callousness that was chilling.
John looked over his shoulder at Roland and jerked his head toward the keep. Roland took the hint and decamped for safer environs. John watched him run bodily into Jake who seemed happy enough to take him in hand. John nodded his thanks, then turned back to the fool in front of him. He watched as Everard lifted his sunglasses up and frowned thoughtfully at the blood spattered on them.
“Buy those at Boots?” John asked pointedly, suppressing the urge to reach out and make a grab for them so he might strangle the whoreson with the strap.
“I did, actually.” He allowed his sunglasses to drop back down to his chest, then patted them affectionately. “I’m finding your adopted time to be much to my liking.”
John rested his sword against his shoulder. Roland was safe and most of Everard’s men had been rendered unable to aid their leader, so he might as well have a few answers for his trouble. “How have you managed?”
Everard shrugged. “I threw my lot in with a group of fools pretending to be knights. One of them was willing to ferry me about in his car after I told him I would share with him the hidden treasure only I knew was lying in Sedgwick’s cellar. As for anything else, ’twas simply good fortune to drive through the village near Sedgwick and see you standing outside your shop.”
“Then you’re the one who took my sword,” John said flatly.
“Of course,” Everard said pleasantly. “And I did a smashing job of laying out tea, didn’t I?”
John pursed his lips and decided that didn’t merit an answer. “Why vex me?”
The change in Everard’s mien was swift and unsettling. “Because I loathe you,” he spat. “My bloody father held you and your unholy shadow of a brother up to me every day of my bloody life as perfect examples of chivalry. I failed to strike out at Montgomery, but I had every intention of succeeding with you. And I knew just how to do it.”
John imagined he did. “Then you slit Tess’s brake lines,” he said, “and you wrote the note—nay, you couldn’t have written the note I found in my car because you can scarce sign your name.”
Everard’s look was murderous. “I had my servant do it, of course, because it was beneath me. I also left your sword in the forest and arranged it so your little wench would have to stop on a particular piece of ground to avoid running into it. And I sent you after her, because I could.”
“It seems a fair bit of trouble,” John began evenly, “to use slaying your brother as a way to strike out at me.”
”But he doesn’t want to kill Roland,” said a voice suddenly from behind him.
John whirled around to find Tess standing there, dressed, damn her to hell, in lad’s clothes. “What?” he demanded incredulously
“He doesn’t want to kill Roland,” she repeated. “He wants to kill—John, look out!”
John shoved Tess away from him, out of danger, then spun around. The only reason he hadn’t been skewered on the end of Everard’s sword was because Tess had shouted out a warning. He managed to keep himself alive after leaping aside only because he’d spent most of his life honing his skills with his father and brothers. Everard was hardly his equal, but he was apparently dredging up previously untapped reservoirs of desperation. John, had he been a lad with a weaker stomach, might have thought himself in a bit of a spot once or twice.
But since he could see out of the corner of his eye that the men of his family were watching him, their arms folded over their chests, and he could hear Tess behind him, making little sounds of distress, he collected every ounce of skill and strength he possessed and fought as if his life depended on it. Everard feinted to the left, then, to John’s absolute surprise, kicked John’s sword out of his hands. He followed that up with the heel of his hand under John’s jaw.
John went sprawling backward in the muck. He looked up through the stars spinning around his head, then rolled to avoid Everard’s sword stabbing where his own empty head should have been. He rolled again to avoid another thrust, pulling a knife free from his boot, then rolled to his knees and shoved his blade upward.
Everard gasped, then looked at the haft of John’s blade protruding from his belly. His sword fell from his hands.
“I’m dead,” he said in surprise.
John leaped to his feet and watched as Everard stumbled backward over the body of one of his men and went down hard upon his arse.
John glanced briefly over his shoulder to find Roland standing there, gaping at him. The future Earl of Sedgwick looked suddenly quite green, then turned and lost whatever he’d eaten that day. Tess clapped her hand over her mouth, presumably to keep herself from joining him.
John strode over to Tess and started to pull her behind him, then thought better of it.
“What did you mean back there?” he managed, feeling as if he were on the edge of falling into an abyss. “He wanted to kill whom?”
“You,” she said breathlessly. She was splattered with the filth of the battlefield and looked absolutely terrified. “If Everard had wanted to kill Roland, he could have done it at any time, either here or in our day. But he left his brother alive. The only reason that made sense was
because he didn’t want anything Roland had—”
“I want what you have,” Everard gurgled. “There, in that other world. And I’ll have it yet.” He lifted his head and glared at John. “And your wench, too, if she knows what’s good for her.”
John handed Tess off to Montgomery who had taken his bloody sweet time about sauntering over to offer aid, then walked back over to where Everard was now lying back in the muck. He checked again for weapons he might not expect, then looked at him.
“But why here?” John asked. “Why not slay me in the Future?”
“No body,” Everard gasped, “no proof. I leave you here . . . and escape to there. Don’t you watch . . . telly? Some snooping bobby . . . would . . . have . . . caught me up . . .”
John watched as Everard’s eyes closed and he breathed his last. He sighed deeply, then bent and pulled his knife free of Everard’s lifeless body. He found his sword and resheathed it, turning over in his mind what he’d just learned. He supposed Everard’s plan made sense. Why not lure him back to medieval England, slay him, then return back to Future and take over all his affairs? It wasn’t as though he had any close associates, no one who would have known the difference between him and someone pretending to be him. Everard could have gathered up all John’s assets and disappeared into any number of luxurious locales.
He wasn’t sure how Everard had thought to win Tess over, but perhaps he simply hadn’t thought that far. Tess would not have gone quietly, John could say that much with certainty.
He scanned the battlefield quickly, but the skirmish was ended. His father, his brothers, and their men were simply milling about, making certain the threat had been eliminated. John took a deep breath, then looked behind him. Roland was now standing ten paces away, watching silently. John pursed his lips.
“And why are you here?” he demanded.
“I wanted to see what my brother was combining,” Roland said with a shrug. “And to give you a few answers I thought you might want.”
“Well, ’tis for damned sure you didn’t come to save my life,” John muttered. “I assume you’ve been doing a little traveling?”