19
The battle was finally joined on a cloudless summer’s morning, in a meadow where larks had saluted the heavens only moments before, and the grass was so verdant a green it hurt the eyes to look at it. The rebel army poured down a gully from their height, trampling the heath and bracken of the moorland. They met Henry’s vanguard upon the open meadowlands and newly planted fields beyond.
The collision was vicious, the ensuing fight a bloody melee. The earl of Oxford led the vanguard, taking the brunt of it in the center, while the remaining force divided to either side. Braesford charged on the left with his company, including David, who was outfitted as a knight this day, while Ross was on the right.
The noise was deafening, an endless confusion of shouts, curses, groans and shrieks amid screaming horses, clashing steel, blows crashing on shields and the whistling of darts used by the Irish. The sun shone down, bouncing off helms and sword blades with blinding force. Half-deaf, squinting against the bright light and dust, boiling hot under his mail, Ross fought with the fury of some infernal machine. He acted on instinct, with rote moves practiced so many thousands of times that he could follow them in his sleep. Time ceased to have meaning. Minutes became hours. He seemed to neither advance nor retreat, but to cleave to the position he must hold or die.
Somewhere on the edge of his field of vision, he was aware of the king. As with most royal commanders, he sat his destrier on a hillock where he followed the action, sending heralds flying here and there with orders. Ross knew his duty. He must not stray far from his place as guard for the English sovereign.
As the center faltered and began to fall back, Henry sent his yeoman guard flying to support Oxford. The king was suddenly alone, virtually without protection.
It was then that a knight, backed by a half dozen more with the same colors, detached himself from the main body. He charged Henry’s hill, lance leveled and steady, shouting something that was lost in the dusty din. Ross glimpsed the knight’s device as it flashed past him, felt the hair stand up on the back of his neck.
Trilborn.
Trilborn charged the king, who had no guard. It was just as Cate had said, after all. If he killed Henry, the battle would be over.
Ross dispatched a German mercenary armed with an ax, then wrenched his mount around while shouting to Braesford and David. The young squire swung toward him, but Braesford did not hear as he slashed his way toward a knot of soldiery protecting the Yorkist earl of Lincoln and the boy-king for whom the battle was being waged. The wind whistled through Ross’s helm as he leaned forward along the huge destrier’s neck, red-stained sword at the ready. His blood beat high and wild and his brain was on fire. Rising inside his chest was that ancient shout, a Scotsman’s call to battle in blood feud. It scraped his throat, filled his ears and rang in his mind with ghostly echoes of a hundred raids with his kinsmen beside him.
Ahead of him, he saw the king slam his visor shut and bring up his sword, saw the royal blade flash as Henry defended himself against the onslaught with fierce and steady strength. His standard bearer, all the protection he had left, received a blow across the chest and dropped from sight. Now the king was surrounded. He could not hold out for long.
Ross’s great-hearted destrier, whinnying in triumph, crashed into the fray. Trilborn’s mount was shunted aside, while one of the other knights lost his balance and toppled from the saddle. Cursing, the English lord disengaged and kicked his way free. Yanking his mount around, Trilborn trampled his own man as he rode upon Ross again.
Ross met the attack with savage power, felt the reverberation of the blow shudder through his arm and down his spine. He spared a glance to where a fierce-eyed horseman with a raven device had come to the king’s aid. David, he saw with an edge of despair, only a stripling instead of a war-hardened veteran.
He and Trilborn settled into a clanking, ringing exchange. Sweat poured into Ross’s eyes. His teeth ached far up into his skull from clenching them. His sword arm burned, yet furious energy powered his every blow, and he waited in low cunning for his opponent to make a mistake. He wanted him dead, this Sassenach bastard, enemy of his clan who had dared to strike Cate, dared to lust after her, threaten her and name her a liar. He would see him dead here, at last.
The man who had engaged the king was down, struck from the saddle and laid low by David. The boy wheeled to face the next who might try to take him.
In that instant, a cry went up. Lincoln had fallen! The false king was captured!
The earl of Lincoln, Yorkist commander, was dead. Young Edward VI, so-called king, had been taken. Braesford had the boy, carrying him up before him as much for his safety, belike, as for a captive of war.
Trilborn cursed and reared his destrier, letting the flashing hooves fend off Ross’s slashing advance. With a howl of hatred, he swung free. He wheeled around and galloped away, fighting through and beyond what had suddenly become a bloody rout.
From where Ross sat upon his destrier, it was clear the battle was ended. The field before him was littered with the fallen, exposed as their comrades ran. Henry’s army had been not only superior in numbers, but better armed and outfitted against primarily Irish troops without swords or bucklers, and protected only by leather jerkins. With something like half their number slain, the rebels had broken and were running away, with the Lancaster forces in pursuit. Henry could plant his standard here at the top of this hill and call himself victor whenever he chose.
Yet Ross could not ride after Trilborn, not yet. Henry was protected only by his own sword and that of one lone squire, David.
Ross stared over his shoulder to where his enemy had disappeared, even as he leaned from the saddle to flick the royal standard upward with his sword point. He watched while David, Henry’s new standard bearer, took it from him and let it unfurl in the warm summer wind.
Trilborn was running away. He was leaving the field, deserting both Yorkists and Lancastrians, riding back the way they had come. He was heading south toward Radcliffe, where Cate waited.
The battle was over and Henry defeated. Both Ross and the king were dead.
Cate shook her head, staring up at Trilborn where he sat his destrier, while her heart stalled in her chest at the news he had brought. “No,” she whispered.
“Come,” he said, shoving up the visor of his helm as he made his appeal. “You must leave here. The camp will be overrun shortly by Lincoln’s army.”
“How…how did it happen?” She could not make herself accept it. Ross was too vital, too strong within himself for such a fate.
“What does it matter? If you stay here, you’ll be forced to spread your legs for every foot soldier in Lincoln’s army. I would save you from that fate. Come with me, before it’s too late.”
It was the curse of the Graces. It had triumphed at last.
Or had it?
Doubt moved through her in a sickening spiral. Faced with the final effect, her mind refused to grasp it.
“Where were you when he fell?” she asked, shading her eyes with her hand against the midafternoon sun. “Were you nearby?”
“God’s blood! What does it matter?” Trilborn demanded, with hot choler rising in his face.
“You swore to kill him, and the king.”
“A stupid jibe only. Cate…Lady Catherine, we must make haste. If you are caught here, I may be unable to save you.”
“Braesford? And David? Are they dead, as well?”
“I know not.” His face darkened with his rage. “Come with me now, unless you plan to be a whore trailing after the Yorkist army. Can you really prefer that to my bed?”
She did. She would rather by far take her chances with the laundresses who had befriended her. To lie beneath Trilborn, to accept him inside her, would sicken her to her very soul.
Was Ross truly dead? She wouldn’t believe it, could not. She would surely feel it in her heart if it were so.
“No,” she said, over the ache that threatened to close her throat. She lifted her skirts as she backed away. “No, I can’t go with you.”
“I insist.” He kicked his huge mount into movement, following after her.
He meant to force her. Eyes wide with the discovery, Cate glanced around her. The nearby tents seemed deserted, though movement could be glimpsed far down the row. She could hear a babble of voices somewhere, thought another rider must have come from the battlefield. No one was paying the least attention to what was happening with her.
Abruptly, the distant shouts took on meaning. “Lancaster! Lancaster! Henry was victor! God save King Henry!”
“You lost,” she said in sudden discovery, even as she skipped backward from the destrier’s steady advance. “You changed sides, and now must run or be hanged as a traitor.”
“They’ll not catch me unless they can reach across the Irish Sea.”
“Flying like a coward. I might have guessed!”
He gave a barking laugh. “But alive, unlike some.”
Had he really killed Ross in the heat of battle as he had sworn? The raw ache of that possibility fueled her rage. “They’ll hunt you down. You’ll never get away.”
“Could be, but I’ll have you first,” he said, and set spurs to his stallion.
The destrier surged forward. Cate broke and ran. She could hear the heavy thud of hooves behind her, smell hot horseflesh and feel the whiff of the huge animal’s breath on the top of her head.
Abruptly, her flying veil was caught, and her hair in its long braid beneath it. She cried out as she was lifted high. Reaching back, she grasped Trilborn’s gloved wrist even as he hauled her against him, crushing her to the hot steel of his armor.
She fought him, twisting, clawing, kicking and shrieking like a madwoman. She almost wrenched from his grasp, almost fell.
He grabbed her again, cursing, dropping his reins. She glimpsed his face, his lips twisted in a snarl as he drew back a gloved fist.
It slammed into the side of her head. Pain burst inside her skull. She reeled away over the neck of the destrier, plunging into swirling gray-black mist. She felt herself caught, jerked upright in a hold so tight she couldn’t breathe. Then merciful darkness took her.
Agony jolted her awake. Dazed, drifting, she remained still with the ancient intuition of the hunted.
The movement beneath her told her she was held upon horseback. She thought the big destrier must have leaped a ditch or low wall, coming down hard with its double burden. Cate sat unmoving, eyes closed. The pain in her head was so fierce she feared she was about to be sick.
Slowly, she recognized her position in front of Trilborn, recognized his scent of acrid sweat and cloves. The armhole edge of his cuirass dug into her shoulder, the big saddle’s cantle pressed into her hip, and she was far too snug against the juncture of his spread thighs. A moan pressed against her throat, and she swallowed it down.
Where were they? How long since they had left the camp? She opened her eyes in the barest of slits, but clenched them shut at once as bile surged into the back of her throat. It had been shortly after midday when Trilborn approached her, and now the shadows were long under the trees, stretching over the field they were crossing.
She had seen no sign of a road in her brief survey. Trilborn must be traveling crosscountry. How far had they come? Where were they headed?
Oh, but yes, the Irish Sea, he had said. He meant to escape to Ireland, and then perchance to Burgundy or some other country beyond Henry’s reach.
Had anyone witnessed her abduction?
The king’s men would be hunting down those who fled from the battlefield. Mayhap someone would be coming after Trilborn. They could be gaining on him even now.
Henry was alive. He must be, if he was the victor. If Henry, then why not Ross?
Tears forced their way from the corners of Cate’s eyes. She could feel their wetness, but would not move to wipe them away.
Her mind was far from clear, yet she had not been raped while out of her senses; she ached in many places but not there. That threat from Trilborn had hovered over her so long it seemed the only thing that could have stopped him was fear of being overtaken while in the act. What if that fear sprang from knowing Ross might be somewhere behind them?
He would come after them, if only because she was his wife. It was a matter of honor, never mind the bad blood between him and his old enemy. If no one had seen them go, Ross might still guess the direction of Trilborn’s flight from simple logic: where else was safety to be found except Ireland? He could be following on their trail even now.
Delay…she must delay him. Yet what could she do to stay their progress to the coast? Surely something would come to her, if she could only think.
Trilborn shifted, turning in the saddle as if to look back. Cate’s head throbbed so viciously with the movement that a moan of protest sounded in her throat before she could stop it.
“’Tis time and more,” Trilborn said, his voice rumbling from behind the visor of his helm that he dropped back in place. “I’d about resolved to leave you behind.”
She breathed deep to help settle her stomach before she spoke. “Would that you had.”
“Not bloody likely, not without having you in every way possible.”
He went on to tell her the many ways that would be. The crude descriptions were as much from the need to cow her as from lust, she thought, as if her helplessness and dread must excite him. It was part and parcel with the way he had struck out at her before.
“I don’t believe these acts possible,” she said, putting a hand to her head, willing the glassy edge of her vision to clear before lowering it to her belly in a protective gesture. “Not on horseback.”
“We won’t always be on horseback,” he snapped.
He was annoyed that she wasn’t shaking with fear. Might that cause him to call a halt, to be certain she had reason to be afraid? It seemed best to curb her wayward tongue.
Still, wasn’t a halt what was required? She could surely find a reason for it that would not involve rapine.
What if he used it for that purpose, anyway? Could she endure it? Would he really leave her behind afterward? And if he did, would she be dead or alive?
The risk was great, but what was the alternative? Once free of England’s shores, Trilborn would make her his doxy, regardless. He would take his pleasure of her in all the degrading and painful ways he had described. She would bear the brunt of his rage, be at the mercy of his fists. She might as well be dead.
If she succeeded, and if Ross or the king’s men were indeed somewhere behind them, then it was Trilborn who would die. That possibility was worth the sacrifice.
Quickly, before she could change her mind, she put out her hand to clasp his wrist. “Stop, stop now. I need…I am going to be ill.”
“Endure it. We’ve no time.”
She lifted a hand to her mouth, speaking through her fingers. “I promise you, I cannot. If you prefer that I spew all over you…”
Trilborn snorted in anger, but altered his course toward the nearest trees. Reaching their shade, he walked the destrier a little deeper among them. He dismounted, then dragged her down beside him.
Cate stumbled, almost fell, with no play-acting whatsoever. Her legs felt like mop rags, and her stomach heaved. Clamping a hand to her mouth, she pushed away from his hold, took a few wobbling steps. With her back to him, she put one hand on the trunk of a large oak and bent forward, quickly thrusting a finger down her throat.
The effort was almost unnecessary. She was violently sick, gasping and choking, while tears streamed down her face. She heaved again and again, until her stomach was empty. Spent at last, she wiped her mouth with her hand, straightened, and then closed her eyes and leaned back against the tree trunk.
Something swung against her thigh with that movement. She was so accustomed to that light weight that it was a moment before she recognized the source.
Her poniard. It was still attached to her girdle, the scabbard hidden among the folds of her gown. Through carelessness, ignorance or similar familiarity, Trilborn had not taken it from her.
“Come, we must make haste,” he commanded. He reached to put a hand on her arm.
She shook him off. Staggering a little, she moved away, walking deeper into the woodland.
“Where are you going?”
“Where do you suppose?” she demanded over her shoulder. She walked on until a screen of shrubbery stood between them.
He allowed that defiance, which seemed miraculous until she realized from the sound that he was availing himself of the opportunity, as well. She caught up her skirts and crouched, watching his shape through a screen of leaves as she did what she must. At the same time, she eased her small knife free of its scabbard. She pushed it into her long sleeve, against the underside of her wrist. With that done, she straightened and moved into the open again.
The urge to run was strong, so strong. Another time, she might have tried it, but not now. Her head felt too large for her body, yet too small to contain the swelling pain inside it. Her vision was so hazy that distant objects wavered, taking on fantastical shapes. A goat on a far hill became a dragon, a rabbit turned into a giant toad and a sapling took on the form of a dark figure on horseback. She blinked, and the sapling wavered, developed two heads. Looking down, she saw she had two right hands, as well. She was seeing double.
Stepping with slow care, she wandered back toward where the destrier stood, though allowing her footsteps to take her to the open edge of the wood. Trilborn, cursing, strode toward her. He had removed his helm, the better to see to his needs. With it under his arm, he wrapped his fingers around her wrist, dragging her along as he turned back toward his mount.
“Wait, wait,” she gasped, covering her eyes with her hand as sickness assailed her again. “Shouldn’t we rest a little longer? Your destrier can’t go on forever, carrying both of us.”
“My worry, not yours.” He shoved her ahead of him. She stumbled and almost fell, would have if he hadn’t dragged her upright, hauling her against him. She could feel the heat of him through her skirts, and the threatening hardness at his groin. He stared down at her mouth, bent his head.
The smell of him surrounded her, sweaty, randy, with his acrid hint of cloves. A dry heave seized her. Moaning with more art than necessity, she let it convulse her body.
His oath was savage as he took a fast step back. It was followed by every scurrilous name for a female he could voice. Snatching her arm again, he shoved her toward the destrier.
She stopped beside the huge stallion, clinging to the saddle leathers with her back to her captor. “I can’t,” she said, hiding her face against the stirrup. “I can’t go on.”
“You can. You will.”
“No.” She moved her head from side to side.
“You prefer to die?” Trilborn demanded. Hard on the words, she heard the slither of metal on metal, the sound of a sword being drawn from its scabbard.
She slid the poniard from her sleeve. Where to strike? His neck? Too easily defended. Between the cuirass that covered his chest and his lower protection? He was wearing a long hauberk that would deflect all but the sharpest point. To merely prick him would invite a retaliation she might not survive.
Abruptly, she knew. His hand and wrist had been bare when he held her arm just now. In relieving himself, he had removed his glove.
Had she a chance?
Did it matter?
She could never submit to Trilborn. She could never give herself, never be taken by any man other than Ross Dunbar.
Cate lowered her arm and turned slowly to face her abductor. She kept the small, sharp knife hidden against her thigh, and her gaze focused somewhere beyond his shoulder so he would not see the purpose in her eyes.
He was scowling at her, though his face changed when it seemed she would obey him. With satisfaction flaring in his eyes, he seated his sword back in its scabbard with a decisive click.
Cate saw these things on the edge of her vision, but her attention was snagged on something beyond the wood’s edge, across the field. The sapling she had noticed just now was closer, larger. It was moving, shimmering in the slanting sunlight. A horseman, after all. A mounted knight with a nimbus of light around his armor.
Trilborn must not see, not yet, not yet. She snapped her eyes shut, moistened her lips. Tears blurred her vision as she lifted her lashes again to focus upon the man in front of her.
“Why?” she asked in hoarse demand. “Why me, why now, when I am married to someone else?”
“You were meant to be mine from the first. Fine looking, of rank, an accursed Grace of Graydon whom a suitor must court death to claim? What man could resist such a challenge?”
“Almost any other, I should think.”
His snort was derisive. “Superstitious fools. You were also an heiress and my purse was empty.”
“That I can accept,” she said with a twist of her lips, “though I think your interest grew sharper when I was given to Ross.”
“That was never supposed to happen, damn his eyes. Never!”
“No, he wasn’t supposed to follow me when I fell behind the hunt, was he? You meant to carry me off then, just as you’re doing now.”
“You figured that out, did you? Oh, yes, I was to play the lovesick gallant who must have you by any means, offering marriage after your rape. You’d have been grateful in your humiliation.”
“Ross was caught in the scheme instead, and you hated him for it.”
“A Dunbar, whoreson border reiver that he is? How could I not? Henry was to award you to me, not him!”
“So you attempted to remove him by vicious attack, expecting him to come to my aid when you turned your ire in my direction.”
“Oh, I was ready to lay hands on you, as well, being you were stupid enough to prefer him.”
“But Ross recovered from his wound.”
“So he did, devil’s spawn, just as he survived an assassin’s knife and my attack upon him and the king this day.” Survived…
She had known it must be so. Still the joy that rose inside her at this confirmation was strengthening beyond anything she’d ever felt. Her heart swelled with it, and the image of a knight on horseback, galloping, galloping, was engraved on her mind’s eye, though she would not, dared not, turn her gaze again to the field behind Trilborn.
“He’s alive,” she whispered.
Trilborn gave a rough laugh. “No doubt his royal majesty will present him with a barony after this day’s work. More spoils for Dunbar, as he was lucky enough to stop me from dispatching Henry. But he’ll not have you to go with it.”
Her captor’s eyes burned in his flushed face. The recital of his grievances had roused him again. He was crowding her, easing closer. He reached to seize her arm.
The poniard was in her hand, its silver metalwork over ebony smooth against her palm. She lashed out without conscious thought, striking across the inside of his wrist.
He howled. Incredulity leaped into his eyes as he looked at her, though it turned rapidly to murderous rage.
His helm dropped from his grasp. He clamped his free hand on the wound while bright scarlet droplets squeezed between his fingers.
Cate did not wait for more. Dodging around him, she staggered into a run. Her head jarred, the pain blinding her more with every pounding step. Her breath came in harsh gasps. Her knees seemed unhinged, and she felt as if she moved through a bowl of custard as she broke from the cover of the trees.
Behind her, she heard Trilborn cursing, grunting as he hauled himself into the saddle, screaming at his destrier. The enormous beast leaped into a run. Its hooves struck the ground with a hollow drumming. She could feel the earth shuddering beneath them.
The dark knight across the field veered toward her. He was coming fast, riding low. He reached to draw the sword that rode at his back, whipping it forward so the sunlight followed it in a glittering arc. He was faceless behind his closed helm, though the red dragon of Henry’s guard marked the tabard he wore over his armor. The thunder of his horse’s hooves blended with those behind her to make a dull roar.
Cate glanced back. Trilborn was gaining on her. His lips were drawn away from his teeth in a snarl. His sword hung from his fist as if dragged down by its weight, and blood made a dark line down the polished steel. As he pounded nearer, he swung it back, swept it up.
She flung herself to the ground. Steel whistled above her, ripping through her flying veil. And above that sound, soaring in rich and deadly threat through the ringing in her ears, came the Scots yell of the Clan Dunbar.
The two men came together with a screeching crash like a metal-clad battering ram against a metal-clad gate. The very earth shook with the power of it. Horses whinnied, stumbling under the impact before recovering. Cate rolled away from the tumult. An instant later, armor clanged and rattled as a body thudded to the ground.
She reared up in time to see Ross leap from his mount to stand above Trilborn, where he lay. Ross put a foot on the downed man’s armored chest, leaned to rest the point of his sword at the hollow of his exposed neck.
“Strike,” Trilborn croaked, his face twisted in a defiant sneer. “Go on, kill me.”