The Protector Page 6

  Ascanio squeezed her shoulder in reassurance. “There may be no real danger here. There is no indication they will even cross your lands. Still, we should take precautions.”

  Morvan moved closer. He took her chin in his hand and raised her head so he could look into her eyes.

  “This army is indeed coming here, isn't it? You know it is.”

  “Aye.” She brushed his hand away. “We have lived through hell these last months, but I never expected the devil to arrive at the gate.”

  “Then you had better explain who the devil is, lady, so we know what we face.”

  “She will do so when she has calmed herself,” Ascanio said sharply. “This has unsettled her badly.”

  “I know that, priest, as well as you—”

  “His name is Gurwant de Beaumanoir,” she interrupted. “It is his banner that Louis described.”

  “I know the Beaumanoir family,” Morvan said. “They are among Brittany's leading allies of the French king, are they not? The Franco-Breton lords' taking of a strong coastal fortress would have important strategic implications. Still, trying to conquer an estate so far from their holdings is overbold.”

  “Gurwant could have once had a claim on this estate. That is why he journeys so far, and dares to be so bold.”

  “What claim?”

  “The claim was through me. We were once betrothed. It was annulled.”

  Both men reacted with surprise. Ascanio in particular appeared astonished. He was her closest friend, but there were some things she had never shared with him.

  The fear tried to spread again. She managed to force clarity on her thoughts. Later she would contemplate what she really faced, but right now there were more immediate concerns.

  “Ascanio, we will double the guard. And we do not ride out over petty thefts. It will draw off what few men we have and leave even this castle vulnerable. Tell Josce to personally oversee the gate tower. No one is to enter who is not known to us. I will send messengers at once to my father's closest vassals, summoning them to our aid. They should arrive before Gurwant.”

  She dismissed them, strode from the solar, and went to her bedchamber, where she fetched up her bow.

  “What are you doing?”

  She pivoted in surprise. Morvan stood at the threshold. His sharp gaze took in the weapon that she held.

  “I am going back to the horse farm, to warn the men there.” She was not going just for that. She practiced with her arms at the farm, and had been lax these last weeks.

  “Carlos can warn them. You must stay in the keep now.”

  It sounded a lot like a command. She inspected the string on her bow. “They are still days away.”

  “An advance guard could have been sent ahead, to assess your strength and the terrain. The thieves who have been harassing you might not be mere brigands. You must stay here.”

  “I will be careful.” She slung the bow over her shoulder and grabbed up her sword and quiver, then walked quickly to the doorway.

  He did not move. Which blocked her way out.

  She glared at him impatiently. He returned a severe gaze.

  “Since you will not see to your own safety, Anna, have a groom prepare my horse.”

  Another command. A stupid one. “You are too ill to ride yet, and I do not need your escort.”

  “My strength returns with every hour, and it is not for your escort. I will go and meet this Beaumanoir, and deal with him knight to knight.”

  “He has an army behind him, and that he comes at all speaks of his lack of honor. He will have them cut you to pieces if it suits him. Now, stand aside. I have things to do.”

  He didn't budge. That infuriated her enough that she almost gave him a good shove.

  He moved closer until she had to look up to see his face. A handsome man, she found herself thinking despite her vexation, handsome even when stern like now.

  “While I recovered I swore an oath to protect you,” he said.

  An oath to protect her. Saints. Small wonder he was being so overbearing.

  “You are released from this oath.”

  “It is not for you to release me.”

  “I am its object. I can and do release you. You were ill when you made it. You cannot be held—”

  “It is not a matter of your choice. It is done.”

  An assault of rage hit her. It is done. That was a phrase her father had used to end discussion. The lord's will is done. How often she had heard that imperious statement. And now, from this man, a stranger almost …

  “Sir Morvan, your oaths are between you and God. But know this. Do not expect me to conform to your ideas about protection. I discovered long ago that the price of a man's protection is too high and its value very dubious.” She turned away from his burning eyes.

  He did not leave. He just stood behind her, filling the room with that damned male presence of his, glaring at her no doubt. But she refused to look and see.

  Finally, she heard him walk toward the door.

  “Morvan, know something else. Within these walls, no man commands me, no matter what his oaths. Not even Ascanio, and certainly not you.”

  CHAPTER 7

  ANNA SPENT THE AFTERNOON at the horse farm, training the stallions and using her bow. Carlos arrived near evening, and she used the last hours of light to practice her sword with him. Ascanio was the better teacher, but with Gurwant on the way he could not spare the time for this.

  The activity kept the fear at bay, but the icy fingers again wrapped her heart once she was alone in her chamber that night. She hated the way it made her feel.

  The confining walls seemed to make it worse, so she slipped from her chamber, took a torch from its ring, and mounted the winding stairway up to the roof of the keep. A wind blew off the sea, raising her hair around her head.

  She climbed up to the battlements and positioned herself to look out over the sea. It was a dark night, but the clear sky shimmered with starlight that etched silvery highlights on the incoming waves. Setting the torch in an iron ring, she huddled in her cloak.

  This was where her brother had found her that morning, all those years ago. She had hidden here to avoid the silence in the hall. Even her father had acted cold to her. She realized later that no one had known what to do about what had happened, and so, by silent agreement, they had decided to do nothing. But at the time she saw the reaction as blame aimed at her.

  Only Drago had understood. When he had found her here, still in shock from the night's events, he had taken her in his arms and soothed her. He was only three years older than she, but she had let herself be a child with him.

  He had held her and promised to speak with their father, and swore always to protect her. Then his voice had become hard and old. “Next time, Anna, if you have to stop a man, go for his neck.”

  She shook off the memory, for it threatened to drown her in that childhood terror. Her mind surged up out of it like a body gasping for air.

  If Gurwant was coming here, there would be no negotiation. Nor would they be able to repel his army forever. He was counting on that, on the plague and the absence of a lord finally making the impregnable fortress of La Roche de Roald vulnerable.

  A sound pulled her out of her reverie. She turned and saw a shadow emerge from the stair opening in the roof. Tall and erect, the form paused there in the darkness.

  She knew who it was. She sensed the confidence and strength that he exuded even in the dark. This afternoon she had found that dominating aura infuriating, but she did not feel strong right now and her spirit lifted with something like relief.

  She said his name.

  “My lady.”

  “Join me. The sea is beautiful tonight.”

  He climbed to the battlements and circled toward her. A body's breadth away he stopped and turned to the sea, raising his gaze to the sparkling sky.

  “Do you believe that one can read the future in the stars?” she asked.

  “I had a tutor who did, and he ta
ught me some of it, but the stars always neglected to warn me of the important things, so I lost interest in such matters.”

  “I wish you had been a better student. It would be nice to know what the future holds.”

  “Would you be less fearful then? You are still badly troubled. You hide it well, but all who know you closely can tell.”

  “What woman wouldn't be troubled to learn that an army marches on her home?”

  The torch gave enough light for her to see the planes of his handsome face above the red cloak. She stayed silently by his side, relishing a soothing sense of sanctuary.

  “Anna, there is more to this than you revealed, I think. Tell me the rest.”

  She realized that she was going to obey. Even Ascanio had been spared this story. She didn't doubt Ascanio's love and friendship. When the time came he would fight to save her and die by her side. But this other knight had a power about him that suggested that no one who stood by his shoulder needed to die at all.

  “My mother passed away when I was ten. A year later, my father decided to marry me off. Gurwant's father approached him. It was a profitable match for both families. Gurwant's branch of the family is rich in nobility but poor in property. My father would forge an important alliance, and Gurwant would receive some lands we own inland near Rennes.”

  She collected her scattered memories. “I was twelve when they came for the betrothal. Gurwant was sixteen. I was to return with them to their home to be educated by his mother. We would marry in three years.”

  “Gurwant was not pleased when he met me.” She smiled thinly at the memory of his astonishment. “I was as homely then as now, and already unnaturally tall. I had learned nothing of grace and charm. At the betrothal it humiliated him to have to stretch up to kiss me.”

  “Girls often reach their height before boys. And you are not homely.”

  It was a chivalrous denial of the obvious truth, but it was kind of him to try. “I remember only one thing distinctly about his face. His eyes. They were pale blue, vacant and cold. The feast went on well into the night. Finally, the castle slept.”

  “What happened?” His voice came tight and low, as if he guessed the rest.

  “I remember being asleep, and then they were there. Gurwant and his father. His father held me down, his hand over my mouth. He told Gurwant that he wanted the sheets well bloodied so the betrothal could never be annulled.”

  Morvan placed a hand on her arm. His eyes burned and his mouth formed a hard line.

  “I fought them. Finally, Gurwant told his father that he couldn't. I thought he had taken pity on me. I realize now that he didn't mean that at all. And so his father decided to do it for him. I was in my own chamber in my father's castle, but no one could protect me but myself.”

  “And did you protect yourself ?” It sounded like he hoped that she had.

  “Aye. I managed to move my hand to a table beside my bed where my dining dagger lay. I stabbed his father with all of my strength. In the back, below the shoulder. He never used his sword arm again. I caught Gurwant too, and sliced his face. And then, my mouth free at last, I screamed and screamed.”

  She could hear her quick breath and pounding heart. She could feel the terror anew, but she would never let it own her like it had that night. Not ever again.

  “My brother heard. He burst through the door with his sword. I kept screaming until my father found us, my brother's sword at Gurwant's neck, the sheets well bloodied indeed, but not with my blood. When his father could travel, Gurwant's family left, but without me.”

  “And the betrothal was annulled after all?”

  “Not right away, and not because of that night. My father had it annulled by the bishop two years later. By then the succession war was raging, and he wanted no ties to the French-allied barons. I think that Gurwant's father wanted my maidenhead because he guessed that when the old duke died the lords would split in their alliances, with the result that my father would not go through with the marriage and the Beaumanoir family would lose my rich dowry.”

  “Could they have bribed the bishop and had the annulment set aside?”

  “My brother thought of that. It is why Drago went to Avignon. He brought back a papal annulment. It cost him his life.”

  Morvan battled an explosive anger. His hand still lay on her arm and he felt her tremoring. Facing these memories, he knew, had cost her dearly.

  He pulled her to him and wrapped his arms and cloak around her. When he eased her head to his shoulder, his thumb felt the wetness of silent tears. She didn't resist, but lay against him, her hands on his chest.

  “You have the papal letter?”

  “Aye. I sent copies to Gurwant and to the bishop. I was sure that would end it for good.”

  With an honorable man, it would. But her brother's death had raised the stakes. She was the heir now.

  “Once he defeats us, he means to kill me. For what I did to his father and him.”

  He rubbed his cheek against her hair. “He does not plan to kill you, Anna. You are the key to his plan. He seeks to enforce his old claim, so the estate becomes his and his hold on it cannot be undone. If he takes the keep, he will declare the papal letter a forgery. While it is sorted out in Avignon, he will have you here. If he gets you with child, the annulment will not stand.”

  He could imagine what would happen if Gurwant got his hands on her. There was more than a lust for property driving the man. She had shown him as weak and impotent in front of his father. She had marked his face with her blade. He might well want her dead, but would exact his revenge in other ways.

  Her fear of this other fate must have been bigger than that of death, for it demolished her defenses. She huddled closer. He held her tightly, swaddled in his cloak. The mood from the shelter, so open and close, surrounded them as surely as the wind and wool.

  He was aware of the slight curve of her hip under his arm, and the warmth of her slender back, and her breath near his neck. His senses filled with her.

  He reined in his impulse to caress her. He was not well practiced in self-denial, but he would not betray her trust this night. Still, he wanted to kiss the face nestled close to his, and stroke the strong body curving naively against him. He wanted to take possession of her, and with her the right to defend her.

  Nay, he wanted more than that. Not all of his reactions to her were gentle like the one restraining him now. But tonight her weakness spoke only to his protective instincts, and not to the darker, more primitive ones evoked by her strength.

  “You must leave tomorrow,” he said. “Ascanio can take you back to the abbey.”

  “If I leave, the estate will be surrendered.”

  “I will stay and defend it for you.”

  She pulled away. “You are one man. The others will not fight for a lost cause. If the lord has run away, why should they risk their lives? I am not the lord, but I am the closest thing. You know that I cannot go. It would mean abandoning La Roche de Roald and its people to the Beaumanoirs and the French. Brittany might never regain it.”

  She regained her composure, and her strength. She set off for the stairs. He walked her back to her chamber. At the door she turned to him. “I did not think that we could have a friendship like I share with Ascanio, but I was wrong.”

  He looked down at her troubled face. And then, as he had done that first night, he placed his hands on her shoulders and lowered his lips to hers. He did it because he wanted to taste her. He did it to seal the friendship she spoke of. But he also kissed her to remind her that he, unlike the good Ascanio, was not a priest.

  In her distraction over the more immediate threat, she was oblivious to the message. “Maybe I worry for naught. Perhaps he does not come here.”

  CHAPTER 8

  HE CAME.

  Anna watched the army move toward La Roche de Roald, banners flying.

  Her knights flanked her on the southern wall walk. Fouke and Haarold, the vassals of the adjoining fiefs, had both answered her
summons, bringing a handful of men each. Haarold was a tall, bony man in his middle years with a permanent scowl carved on his face and a censorious set to his mouth. Fouke in comparison seemed placid and smiling, his squarish body going a little fat, his pale scalp gleaming through thinning pale hair.

  Haarold had also brought his son Paul, who had just earned his spurs. The black-haired, heavy-browed young man had spent the better part of the morning staring at her. She had spent most of that time in council with the knights, making it clear that their sparring for leadership was pointless because she would make the decisions.

  The front lines of Gurwant's army drew closer. She could see flashes of armor and weapons, and the black and crimson of his coat of arms on the banners.

  Over a hundred marched with him. She had but fifty, and that many only because Morvan's men, finally free of quarantine, had agreed to fight in exchange for silver. She had sent Carlos to Brest to beg aid from the English garrison there, but he had not yet returned.

  Three hours later, encased in armor from head to toe, she positioned her stallion in front of the gate between Fouke and Haarold on her left and Ascanio and Morvan on her right.

  The portcullis slowly rose. Two servants carrying her banners led the way across the drawbridge. On the field five mounted men approached. The middle one would be Gurwant.

  She squinted at him in the afternoon sun.

  The man bore little resemblance to the youth who had stretched up to give her a betrothal kiss. He was as tall as Morvan, a full head higher than his knights, and possessed a breadth of shoulder to match. Pale blond hair swept back from a sharp peak on his forehead and reached to his chin. He was handsome in a forbidding way, his face made harsher by the thin long scar slashing across his left cheek.

  He stopped fifteen paces away. And then she knew that this tree of a man was truly her adversary, for the eyes that surveyed her knights looked pale, blue, and cold as ice.