Dreams of Stardust

  "And you'll spill the beans?"

  "I'll spill the beans."

  "All right," she conceded. "Two weeks. What can it hurt?"

  "What indeed," Kendrick murmured.

  * * *

  Chapter 31

  Jake wondered at the advisability of having accepted the horse he was currently riding. It was Jasper, Amanda's mountain, and Jake knew he was definitely not equal to Jasper's potential. But the stallion was fast and that seemed to make up for Jake's lack of skill when compared to Robin and Nicholas.

  And it wasn't just Amanda's brothers that he was trying to keep from falling off in front of. Though the major part of Artane's garrison had been left behind, Robin had selected three men to come with them, three grim-faced Thad-style warriors who didn't seem to have smiles in their repertoires. Jake didn't mind. Help was help, whether it was cheerful or not. But he still didn't want to look like a wuss in front of them.

  They rode like the wind for the rest of that day, stopping only to water the horses and rest for a bit. By the evening of the second day, they were within striking distance of the abbey. Jake could see Seakirk castle in the distance. He tried not to let that unsettle him, as unsettling as it was.

  Life was, he decided, very, very weird.

  "Let us be about it," Nicholas said after they had paused for a brief moment to regroup.

  "Wait," Robin said, holding out his hand. He looked over the countryside with a jaundiced eye. "I do not care for the feel of this."

  "You're daft," Nicholas growled. "Let us fetch her out before another day passes."

  Jake hesitated. "I have to agree with Robin. There is something that feels…" He searched for the right word, but came up with nothing. He shrugged. "I don't like it either."

  "You're mad as well!" Nicholas exclaimed. "'Tis the countryside, you fools. How is it supposed to feel?"

  "Well, for one thing," Robin said placidly, "I daresay we should be seeing a peasant or two. Have you seen any?"

  Nicholas sighed heavily. "Nay. Not for the past league or so."

  "And as fierce as we might be, we are only six," Robin said, "and though we go to parley with nuns, they may have men-at-arms of their own. Perhaps 'tis best we go quietly. Think you, Jake?"

  "I think," Jake agreed. "And night time is a good time for leaving our horses behind and doing some scouting. It's always best to know more than the enemy than he knows about you."

  "Ha," Nicholas snorted. "Even I know that, dullard that I am."

  "I never suggested you didn't," Jake said frankly. "You are much of the reason I think we can overcome any, er, resistance inside. Your cunning, Robin's sword, and my hands. How can we lose?"

  "To a gaggle of terrified nuns?" Nicholas asked, only slightly less antagonistically than before. "The saints pity us if we cannot rout them out."

  Robin dismounted. "Let us remain here until 'tis dark, then proceed on foot and see the real face of our enemy. And let us hope 'tis only Amanda's bout of surliness we encounter, not something more sinister."

  Jake didn't like the delay, but as it had been his thought as well, he couldn't exactly complain about it. He sat on a log and looked at his hands, wondering just what they would do before the night was over. He didn't want to kill anyone, but would he have a choice? And what would the consequences be?

  Perhaps life in the Middle Ages wasn't so simple after all.

  It was late in the evening when Robin rose. He chose one of his men to stay behind, then motioned to the other two to come with him. Jake got up and followed him and Nicholas as they set off toward the abbey.

  Jake walked, still more lost in thought than he probably should have been. He could hardly believe where he was, or that he was walking alongside medieval nobility on a rescue mission to liberate another bit of medieval nobility from the gentle clutches of some no doubt very kindly nuns.

  Oh, and he was wearing a sword.

  The hair on the back of his neck stood up suddenly, almost as suddenly as Robin held his hand up to stop them all. Robin started to go forward, but Jake stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. He pointed to the knight sitting with his back against a tree some twenty yards in front of them.

  "Let me," Jake breathed.

  "Don't kill him," Robin whispered.

  "I wasn't going to. Just cover me." Jake looked for a bow or something useful in Robin's hands. "Well, cover me with something."

  Robin drew his knife and grinned. "I'll manage it somehow."

  Jake nodded and walked on silently. Fortunately he'd had years of experience in doing just that, though his experience had come mainly from humoring Thad on long marches through inhospitable terrain. If you had to walk, according to Thad, you had better be quiet about it.

  So it was with ease that Jake crept up behind the unmoving man. It was no great stretch to realize the man was sound asleep. He beckoned over his shoulder and soon had Robin there with him.

  "Where are the others?" Jake asked.

  "Scouting. Let us wake this one and see if his powers of speech will avail us." He walked around to stand near the man and drew his sword. Then he kicked the snoozer awake.

  The man leaped to his feet, but Jake took him down before he could produce any kind of weapon. The man squeaked as Jake knelt in the middle of his back.

  "Whose are you?" Robin demanded softly.

  "Ledenham's," the man said promptly. "Never liked him—oy, go easy with that knee—and don't like him now. Terrorizing hapless nuns. Beastly bugger."

  "He'll likely terrorize you for falling asleep at your post," Robin said sternly. "Where are your fellows?"

  "All guarding the abbey," Ledenham's guardsman said. He looked up at Robin. "Artane, are you?"

  "His son," Robin agreed.

  "Don't suppose you'd be needin' a new guardsman, would you?"

  "I don't, but I might know someone who will in time." He looked at Jake. "I say we tie him up and if there's anything left of him when we return, we'll take him home with us. Do you have a family, sir knight?"

  "Aye," the man said. "I've a sister who is one of Lady Ledenham the elder's attendants. She'd likely wish to come too, so you'd best make it look as if ye bested me fairly, so as she can."

  Robin pursed his lips. "I've no need for a man who surrenders so easily."

  "I'm no fool," the man wheezed. "I'd cast my lot in with anyone who wasn't Lord Ledenham, and I can't do that if I'm dead now, can I?"

  He had a point. Jake hauled him to his feet. The man stood there and waited for Robin to do something to him.

  "Insult him," Jake suggested.

  The man took a deep breath. "Is my sister the one blonde you haven't sired a bastard on, my lord?"

  Jake gasped at the words, but Robin did more than that. Jake waited until an appropriate amount of damage had been done, then pulled Robin away.

  "Touchy, aren't you," he said, rolling the man over so he could tie him up.

  "Well," Robin said, his chest heaving, "you told him to insult me."

  "He did a proper job of it apparently." Jake gagged the man with his own tunic sleeve for good measure, then rose and looked at Robin. "It was an interesting choice of words. Not that it's any of my business."

  "It isn't," Robin said shortly. He paused, almost spoke, then shook his head. "Too long a tale. We'll speak of it some night when we're well into our cups and our ladies are not within earshot."

  "I can hardly wait."

  Robin rubbed the knuckles of his right hand then smiled at Jake. "I've had a taste of what's to come. Let us be about our business and finish it quickly. I understand the abbey sets a poor table, but there's also the rumor that the abbess keeps everything edible for herself. I've a mind to verify the truth of that."

  "Lead on, my lord," Jake said with a nod. "I'm with you."

  Robin led on. Jake had a hard time finding Nicholas and their two knights as they neared the abbey, but he saw them eventually, slipping out of the shadows when several more of Ledenham's were found guarding
the outside of the abbey's walls. These men were not so quick to lie down and play dead. They were dispatched, though, all to an oblivion which would include waking up with gargantuan headaches.

  Jake slipped over the abbey wall with the others and dropped down onto the soft grass of what Robin said had to be the abbess's private garden.

  "Quite a luxurious life for a nun," Nicholas said sourly.

  "Hmmm," Robin agreed, then continued on.

  Jake followed him, then stopped Robin with a hand on his arm. "Look," he said, pointing.

  A cluster of armed men stood in front of a small house. Whether it was bad luck or Fate with a thumb on her nose, the men were looking straight at them and immediately set up a cry.

  "Damnation," Robin said shortly. "Well, lads, let's be about this business and have it over with."

  Jake knew he shouldn't have been surprised, but he was, just the same, to find one of the men coming at him as if he had every intention of killing him. Jake drew his sword and held his own, but it wasn't easy fighting at night. The only thing that aided him was the torch sitting in the sconce near the abbess's front door—and even that was almost of no use.

  He realized within minutes that he was the only one still fighting. Robin and Nicholas had dispatched their opponents, as had their men, and were merely watching him dispassionately.

  "Will he manage, do you think?" Nicholas asked.

  "With me as his swordmaster, he had better, hadn't he?" Robin said. "Be about it, Kilchurn. The real test waits inside."

  Ledenham's guardsman yelled suddenly and threw himself forward in a ferocious attack. Whether it was skill or just misfortune, Jake had his sword up at the right angle at the right time. And the man skewered himself on it.

  He gurgled out his last breath, twisted, and fell to the earth, sliding back off Jake's sword.

  Jake stood there and thought he just might lose the remains of that cold supper of eel he'd just ingested a couple of hours ago. And he was neither weak-kneed, nor a coward. But there was something about killing a man you didn't know and hadn't really wanted to do in…

  And then he found his sword taken from him. Robin cleaned the blade on the man's tunic, then shoved the sword back into Jake's hands.

  "Put it away."

  Jake resheathed it numbly.

  Robin backhanded him. Jake blinked, then shook himself sharply.

  "Thank you."

  "It won't be the last time you do that," Robin said harshly. "Accustom yourself to it. Grieve in private, if you must, but do not do it here."

  "Right," Jake said curtly.

  Robin hesitated, then looked at Jake seriously. "When we return home, I'll introduce you to the keg in my father's cellar and we'll have ourselves speech then. Right now, think on the fact that Ledenham could be bedding your love."

  Jake needed no further encouragement. He nodded curtly and followed Robin to the door of the abbess's house. They threw themselves against it and shattered the wood. He rolled to his feet only to find Ledenham hopping nimbly out the window.

  Robin strode across the room to stop in front of the woman sitting at the table. Jake suspected, by her dress, that she was the abbess. He knew by her mein that she was not a pleasant woman.

  "Where's my sister?" Robin demanded.

  "Why, my lord Robin, she is not here," the abbess said, blinking innocently.

  "Liar," Robin said, slapping his hands on the table. "Where is she?"

  The abbess only smiled. "You're too late. Indeed, I suspect His Lordship is already on his way to the chapel to retrieve his bride. His properly trained bride. You see, there was much pride to drive from her." She sighed, then shook her head sadly. "It took great effort on my part—"

  Jake didn't stick around to hear any more. He vaulted out the same window Ledenham had and bolted after him. It would have helped if he could have seen him, but he had no trouble finding the abbey. Now if he'd just known which door to go in—

  "This way," Nicholas said, passing him at a dead run. "Follow me."

  They leaped up the steps, wrenched open the massive doors, and spilled into the antechamber. Massive iron gates separated them from the nave of the church.

  "Keeps the rabble in their places, that," Nicholas growled. "Look, there Ledenham is, trying to undo the lock."

  Jake strode forward, put his hand on Ledenham's shoulder, and spun him around. He leaped back only on instinct but he still wasn't fast enough to avoid the sting of a knife grazing his ribs.

  "Damn you," Jake gasped.

  Ledenham was quick as a snake and just as merciless. Jake spent the first thirty seconds doing nothing but leaping out of the way as Ledenham continued to come at him. He managed to get his sword belt undone and his sword tossed to Nicholas without getting himself killed, but it was close. Ledenham stopped his attack long enough to stare at Jake in surprise.

  "You threw away your sword," he said, nonplussed.

  "Throw away yours and we'll be even," Jake said. "Or not, and I'll still kick your ass."

  Ledenham only snorted and drew his sword. Jake wasted no more time with pleasantries. He kicked the sword out of Ledenham's hands, then followed that immediately with a quick jab to the underside of Ledenham's chin. And while the man was still trying to see if he had all his teeth left, Jake took his hand and wrenched it so hard he heard the bones snap. Ledenham screamed. Jake did them all a favor and plunged him into unconsciousness. Jake looked around.

  "Key?"

  "I have it."

  He looked over to find the abbess standing there, a triumphant smile on her face.

  "Not that it will serve you," she added. "Look."

  Jake looked and saw the figure laid out before the altar. He couldn't tell who it was, only that the woman was dressed all in white and lying face-down.

  "Amanda?" Nicholas asked in a choked voice.

  "Has she taken her vows?" Robin demanded.

  The abbess shrugged. "Who's to say?"

  "You'll say, you bloody wretch," Nicholas said, whirling on the woman.

  The woman only continued to smile.

  "Give me that damned key!" Nicholas bellowed.

  "Come find it, my lord," she said, a knife suddenly in her hands. "I must protect my charges and I will, if need be."

  Jake looked up. The top of the gate was above his head and crowned with spikes. He had visions of himself slipping and impaling—well, it wasn't pretty, that vision. So he considered, then looked at Robin.

  "Find me some sort of utensil. Do you have forks? How about a thin spoon? Something I can bend."

  Robin, who apparently knew better than to ask too many questions of a twenty-first-century man, merely nodded and left. Jake gripped the bars and stared into the nave, listening with only half an ear to Nicholas making increasingly ugly threats to the abbess and the abbess in turn vowing to find ways to see his eternal soul damned. Jake suspected Nicholas didn't care; he also suspected the abbess didn't have the power, so in reality, they were at an impasse.

  Robin returned before long and handed Jake several eating implements.

  "All I could find."

  "They'll do."

  It took him half an hour, and Thad again would have been appalled at that, but Jake finally had the gate open. Nicholas even stopped his litany of threats long enough to notice.

  "Well," he said, taken aback.

  "See you in the dungeon, bud," Jake said with a smile.

  And for a brief moment, Nicholas smiled back. Jake suspected that he might have just caught a glimpse of why people liked him so much. But that disappeared quickly when they jockeyed for position, trying to be the first one into the nave.

  "Move, damn you," Jake said, elbowing him in his mailed ribs.

  "I am her brother."

  "So what?" Jake said, pushing past him and striding down the aisle.

  Nuns scattered like leaves. Well, all except one, who stood over the figure on the floor.

  "Move," Jake suggested.

  "When I'm
dead," the nun said, folding her arms over her chest. "The child deserves peace. You will give it to her."

  "Oh, by the saints," Robin said in disgust from behind him. "I remember a time when it was a very spiritual bit of business to come to Seakirk Abbey and be allowed in the chapel. I can see that things have indeed changed."

  And with that, he disarmed the nun who had a blade hidden up her sleeve, and moved her bodily aside.

  Nicholas leaned over to haul the white-robed body to her feet, but Jake stopped him.

  "What if she's hurt?" he said.

  Nicholas hesitated, then knelt down next to her. Jake did the same, running his hands gently over her arms and legs. He looked down and saw Amanda's fingers coming from within that white robe, but they were white and bloodless.

  Hoping that he didn't do her permanent damage, he slid his hands under her arms and hauled her—and it took no effort at all—to her feet. He put his arms around her to steady her.

  She cried out in pain.

  The hood fell back from her head and all three of them, Jake, Robin, and Nicholas, gasped as one.

  "Who cut your hair?" Robin demanded.

  "I did," the abbess called defiantly from outside the gates, where she was being looked after by Artane's men. "Just today, and I did it with pleasure!"

  Nicholas drew his knife and Jake half thought he was going to go after the abbess. Instead, he slit the back of Amanda's robe.

  And that gasp was something entirely different.

  Jake only caught a glimpse of the damage, but that was enough to keep him from stopping Nicholas as he strode angrily away. He wasn't sure how he could do anything for Amanda; he couldn't pick her up; he couldn't hold in her in his arms. He settled quickly for helping her over to a bench. He sat, then eased her down onto his lap. He wasn't sure where he could touch her back without hurting her, so he held her hands in one of his and stroked what was left of her hair—and that wasn't much.

  She started to cry.

  Jake winced. "I'm sorry," he whispered.

  She said nothing, but one of her hands crept up and rested on his chest. She leaned against him and wept like he'd never heard anyone weep before. He wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not, but he wasn't about to stop her. So he held her on his lap and closed his eyes, listening to the goings-on around him but not really caring about their outcome. Robin and Nicholas would do whatever needed to be done and he supposed they would pick up the pieces when it was all over.