Defy Not the Heart Read Free Page B

thoughts and feelings better than any man. Was it only because he felt such strong aversion to Lord Rothwell that he would not take his money to commit us to this task?”
    “He did not tell the man he would not do it.”
    “Nor did he tell him he would,” Eric replied.
    Walter laughed at that. “Aye, I thought that ‘we shall see’ was most eloquent coming from someone of Ranulf’s surly disposition.”
    “Think you that is why Rothwell insisted we take fifty of his men?”
    “Certainly. Men like him are not given to trust, especially when something is this important to them. The man cannot even trust his own vassals, or he would not have needed to hire us, would he? If that gout had not laid him up, he would be here himself. He no doubt thinks his men, in greater number than our own, will be incentive enough to see the task done.”
    “Then he does not know Ranulf,” Searle said with a laugh.
    “Nay, he does not,” Walter agreed, smiling himself.
    “But what did Ranulf object to in the man?” Eric wanted to know. “He seemed harmless enough, if somewhat crafty.”
    “Harmless?” Walter snorted. “You should have talked to his men to learn what manner of man he is.”
    “Did you?”
    “Nay, I saw what Ranulf saw, that he was another like the Lord of Montfort, with whom we both were fostered. Montfort took us both as his own squires, rather than giving us to one of his knights, and if you think Ranulf has been a difficult master, you do not know what hell is truly like. Pure meanness was what Ranulf sensed and reacted to in Rothwell.”
    “But what of this task?” Kenric asked. “’Tis not by any means unusual, though we have never been hired before to bring a reluctant bride to her betrothed. Was Sir Ranulf truly reluctant to do it, or simply unwilling to assure Lord Rothwell that we would do it?”
    Laughter sparkled in his brown eyes as Walter smiled at each of them. “Now if I told you that, children, what would I leave you to gossip about?”
    Searle and Eric both glowered to be called children when Walter was only twenty years and four himself. But Kenric’s groan drew their attention to see Ranulf leaving his tent, fully armored.
    “God help us, Lanzo is too quick this morn,” Walter said, his humor flown. “Fie on you, Kenric, letting me stand here in my underwear gabbing like awoman. Move, lackwit, or he will ride off without us!”
    Which was a very real likelihood and would have happened if Lady Ella had not scorned Lanzo’s offering and gone off to stalk her own meal. Ranulf would not trust the cat to find him, even though their destination was less than an hour away. They had to wait until the feline returned with her field mouse and was set in the supply cart to enjoy her meal.

Chapter Three
    R eina caught the wounded man before he fell, but his weight was too much for her and they both went down to the floor. He had pulled the arrow out of his shoulder before she could stop him, and now there was a gaping wound there, and she had nothing at hand to stop the flow of blood. She did not even know who he was, he was so covered with ash and smoke from tending the fire, but he did not take well to pain, promptly fainting to avoid it, and she could not leave him there to bleed to death.
    “Aubert, I need a scrap of cloth, something…”
    Aubert was not listening, or else he could not hear her over the continued pounding of the battering ram. The closed drawbridge had been smashed through, as well as the first of the two portcullises inside the gatehouse. The men working the ram were inside the gatehouse now and could no longer be reached with boiling water or sand, though the fires needed to be kept burning, the water dumped again when the army finally advanced.
    It was time to retreat into the keep. The others who had attended the fires were slumped against the walls in exhaustion. The men-at-arms were still firing arrows when a target moved out from behind cover. The rest of the army