Trapped at the Altar

And then there was the first shout of alarm, and he caught a flicker of flame through the cracks in the shutter, the faint smell of smoke growing stronger.

He swore a barnyard oath and pushed Ari off him as he leapt to his feet. She lay shocked out of her afterglow, wondering what on earth had happened, and then she smelled the smoke, heard the shouts. “What’s going on?” She struggled up.

Ivor already had his shirt on and was tugging on his britches and his boots. “Attack,” he said curtly, buckling his belt. He grabbed his sword and took up the two flintlock pistols he had placed beside by the bed earlier, thrusting them into his belt. “Stay here. If you value your hide, Ariadne, don’t move.” And he was gone, his boots clattering on the stairs.

Ari tugged on the leather britches she wore beneath her riding skirt and tucked her chemise into the waist, then thrust her feet into her boots. She pulled on her riding jacket; the skirt was surplus to present requirements. Her knife went into the waistband of her britches, and she half tumbled down the stairs in her haste.

Tilly was standing wide-eyed in the middle of the room. “What’s happening, Miss Ari? Is it an ambush?”

“Something of the sort.” Ari yanked open the door. “Stay here, put water on to boil, and see if you can find anything to serve as bandages, in case anyone gets hurt.” Judging by the noise that greeted her, the latter was inevitable, she reflected grimly. The mayhem was in the yard in front of the barn. She could hear the highpitched whinnying and stamping hooves of the terrified horses as the smoke filled the air.

She ran around the cottage and paused at the entrance to the barnyard, taking stock. It was hard in the smoky, flickering light of the fire to distinguish one man from another, but as far as she could see, the six Daunt men were hard pressed, fighting back a group of about ten. She saw Ivor, his sword slashing as two men attacked him from either side. Other shadowy figures were hauling trunks out of the burning barn, the trunks that contained all the wealth that was to set them up at court. The jewel casket was safely under the bed; Ivor had stowed it away as soon as they’d arrived. But the rest of it, the rich materials, the provisions, the silver chalices and gold-rimmed platters that were to furnish a home fit for a wealthy noble couple in London, were all stacked in the barn.

Someone had betrayed them. Ari hesitated, then made up her mind. The screaming horses were defenseless, Ivor was not, and possessions were not irreplaceable. She raced for the barn, hauling on the double doors as smoke billowed out at her. Coughing, covering her mouth and nose with her arm, she ran bent double into the smoke, flinging back stall doors, leaping to one side as panicked horses stampeded for the outdoors. They would scatter far and wide in their terror, but they could be rounded up later.

She ran for the pump in the middle of the yard and filled a bucket. Darting around the battleground, she hurled the bucket of water at the nearest brigand, who was hauling one of the trunks to a wagon waiting at the entrance to the yard. The man yelped as the icy water hit him. Dripping, he spun around, but Ari had ducked out of sight beneath the belly of the horse in the traces. Deftly, she released the cart horse from the traces and gave him a sharp slap on the flank. The smoke and noise had spooked him sufficiently to kick up his heels and make his own escape.

Ari grinned. Without a horse, they couldn’t get away with their treasure. She looked around to see where else she could usefully enter the fray. Her breath stopped in her throat as she saw that Ivor had been driven against the fence, his two attackers pressing him hard, swords in hand. The sound of a shot from a flintlock pistol spun her around on her toes. Jake had fired, and one of the enemy was on one knee, clutching his chest, before he slowly crumpled to the hard-packed earth. She looked back at Ivor. The loud report had had no effect on his assailants. His sword flashed from side to side, but she could see he couldn’t get at his own pistol with both men pressing him against the fence.

She took her knife from her waistband, her breath very still now, forcing her mind to focus, to close off the sounds around her, the sights, the smells, concentrating only on the target she had chosen. She held the knife lightly between forefinger and thumb, drawing back her arm, her eyes fixed on the point between her quarry’s shoulder blades. Then she threw. The blade left her fingers, flew through the smoke, and buried itself deep into the man’s back.

He gave a cry of surprise and pitched forward. His companion, startled, took a step back, and in the same instant, Ivor’s sword took him under the arm, and he fell to the ground.

Ivor looked across the chaotic scene. He saw Ari standing still a few feet away, her knife hand held loosely at her shoulder. And then she ran forward, bending to retrieve her weapon. Where next? Her eyes raked the yard, but Ivor had already plunged back into the fray, his bloodied sword slashing.

Ari looked down at the bodies at her feet. They were not dead, she decided, but they were certainly hors de combat, and as her eyes made sense of the chaos against the background of the dancing flames, she could see that the Daunt men were prevailing. It was their business, after all, robbing and ambushing, setting fire to barns, creating bloody mayhem in their wake. They were the best in the business, she thought with a sardonic twist of her lips. Only fool amateurs would attempt to take them on.

It was all over in the next few minutes, the would-be brigands on the ground, clutching their wounds. “Secure them, and leave them against the fence,” Ivor instructed as he assessed the damage. “Who else is hurt?”

“Just a scratch, sir,” the coachman said, tearing off a piece of his shirt with his teeth to fashion a bandage around his bleeding arm. “And Jake there got his shoulder out of joint.”

“Tilly’s inside waiting,” Ariadne said. “She’ll put your shoulder back, Jake, and she’ll have bandages and poultices and whatever.”

“Where are the horses?” Ivor looked around, frowning.

“I let them loose. We’ll have to round them up when it’s light,” Ari told him.

He looked at her as if he were seeing her for the first time. Anger glowed in his deep blue eyes. “Get inside,” he instructed sharply.

It was an odd tone to use to someone who’d just saved his life, she thought, but she was going inside anyway, so she wiped her knife blade on a piece of straw and made her way back to the cottage.

Tilly was in the taproom tearing an old sheet into strips. Her little bag of herbs was on the counter together with a jug of steaming hot water. “How bad?” she asked, glancing up as Ari came in.

“Our own men? Nothing too much. Jake’s put his shoulder out, and Abe has a cut on his arm. There may be other minor wounds, but everyone’s on their feet . . . at least, our men.” She went to the fire and piled on more logs. “It’ll be dawn soon. Where’s our genial host and his lady?”

Tilly shook her head. “Haven’t seen ’em. Once the shouting started and the fire, the lad went off running like the devil was on his heels. There’s not a soul in the kitchen.”

“Wise of them to beat a retreat,” Ari observed. “I wouldn’t give much for their chances if our lot got hold of them. At least the rain stopped the fire from taking too quickly.”

The door opened on a wet gust, and the Daunt men came in in a group, wet, muddy, and bleeding. “Jake, you first,” Ari called, seeing the man’s ashen face as he cradled his limp arm against his chest. “Tilly, can you put it back for him?”