Chapter Eight
Jehan rode over the crest of a ridge and came upon the army of the Prince of Wales.
Four or five hundred men-at-arms were spread out in a field, suited, armed, and mounted, as well as a lesser grouping of rag-tag foot soldiers and a cadre of archers in formation. At their head, the Prince of Wales sat high on his cloth-draped warhorse, the pale gray light glinting off the gold thread of the rampant lions and the fleur-de-lys embroidered upon his surcoat. His polished helmet gleamed in his lap, and the mist caught in his drooping black mustache.
Jehan raised a hand in greeting, rode down the ridge, and pulled his stolen horse to a halt. “My lord.”
“By God, St. Simon,” the prince barked. “Is that a plow horse you’re riding?”
“It is.”
“And that cloak looks full of fleas.”
“Escape,” Jehan said ruefully, “was quite an adventure.”
“You have more lives than a cat.”
Jehan grinned.
“Tonight you can tell me the whole story,” the prince said. “But now we have work to do.”
“I heard about Seissan.” Jehan cast a wary glance over the mounted men, all those helmeted heads, realizing the army had only just halted. “What bastide is next?”
“Answer my questions first.” The prince gestured to his squire who pulled a bladder of wine out of a saddle bag to hand to Jehan. “How many fighting men are within the walls of Castelnau?”
Jehan seized the wine as his ribs tightened. He yanked out the cork and drank deep, taking a moment to think. He told himself that the prince couldn’t possibly be considering a siege. There were no trebuchets or other heavy war gear in the field. One glance told him that this highly-mobile army was made for swift, destructive raids, to plunder, burn, and move on.
Still, best to deflect any bad idea the prince might be considering.
“Two score or more men, at least,” he said, pulling his lips from the mouth of the bladder. “Once the viscount heard about Seissan, he prepared for the worst. They’ve got full larders and plenty of fresh water.”
“Archers?”
“A dozen or more.”
The prince barked a reckless laugh. “This will be fine sport.”
The wine in Jehan’s stomach soured. “Fine sport, my lord?”
“Overrunning the castle.” He waved a dismissive hand. “As easy as scaling the walls at the bastide of Seissan—”
“I counsel against it.” Jehan’s skin prickled as the prince glared. “Whatever your scout reported to you about this castle, I know better. The open field in front of the gate isn’t even large enough to hold half your men.”
“Being a prisoner has made you soft.”
“I see your army and I know the castle.” He straightened on his horse. “To attack would be a waste of time and resources.”
“Better to tuck our tails and run away from a challenge, then?”
The prince’s voice dripped with sarcasm and the words cut Jehan deep. Jehan wanted nothing more than to rain bloody vengeance on the viscount, but three honorable knights and a brave young woman had risked their lives for his sake. He’d made promises to them all.
“Three knights helped me escape,” Jehan said.
“So there it is.”
“I have an honor debt to them.”
“If they live through the day,” the Prince said, “they will be rewarded.”
His throat tightened. “There is also a woman.”
“Is it she who cut off your balls?”
“She saved my life in defiance of her own father.”
“A noblewoman?”
“The viscount’s daughter.”
“Of noble blood, then, if tainted by her father’s rebelliousness.” The prince bent his head and slipped the helmet over it. “She’ll be under my protection nonetheless.”
“My lord—”
Through the open visor, the prince’s glare cut through Jehan like steel. “The viscount sealed his fate when he murdered your squire, a boy of my own house that I put under your protection. Now gird your flea-ridden loins and fight like the knight I know you are, for this cause is as much yours as mine.”
The prince turned away and raised his clenched fist. A great metallic rustling began as hundreds of men-at-arms gripped the hilts of their swords. The prince shouted “Forward!” and the living mass of men and horses shot up the ridge with a thunder of hooves.
Jehan gripped the leather reins of his stolen plow horse as the army flowed past him. All of his screaming thoughts could not stop it from pouring down the slope, and when they passed he was left with only one thought in his mind.
Aliénor.
His heart pounding, he wheeled his horse and kicked it hard so it lunged ahead. He followed the line of mounted men surging over the top of the ridge where he could see the limestone walls of the castle tinged pink by the lowering sun. He was too far away to make out those watching from the crenelated ramparts, but some instinct told him Aliénor stood among them, witnessing the approaching danger.
A cold determination stole over him, stiffening his muscles and his resolve.
He would protect her.
Beneath him, his stolen mount faltered, slick with sweat. Foam splattered from its mouth. Men-at-arms on fresh horses surged past them, eating up the distance to the bridge across the Arrats River. Around him rose the clatter of armor, the beat of pounding hooves, and a growing cacophony of battle cries as he fell back among the foot-soldiers who trotted by with their scaling-ladders.
With rising dread, he saw the prince’s vanguard charge across the bridge. By the time Jehan reached the river, the foot soldiers carrying ladders had shot by him and were now running up the slope toward the castle. He dug his heels into his mount but his horse halted, refusing to go past the village where no doubt the beast had a fine berth in a warm stable. Jehan’s hand ached, his head throbbed, and his leg burned like lightning, but he dismounted and abandoned the horse to find its own way home. Then Jehan set off for the cliff path on foot, running in spite of the sear of his leg wound.
Heaving with exertion, Jehan reached the top of the hill. Across the field, he saw a dozen ladders already laid against the castle walls, their bases solid in the packed dirt of the filled-in moat. Men swarmed up those ladders, shields over their heads protecting them against arrows and projectiles hurled from the ramparts. The prince’s archers hid behind the pines close to the northwest wall, stepping out to shoot at the viscount’s men on the ramparts.
Jehan had seen the prince use these tactics before, overwhelming walled villages and small castles with a shockingly swift, forward rush of mounted troops, but he’d expected Castelnau to put up a better defense than what he was witnessing. Already shouts and grunts and cries came from the ramparts as the Prince’s soldiers swarmed over.
Gears ground as the drawbridge dipped, stopped, and then descended again. He heard the loosening rattle of the chains supporting the portcullis. The prince’s mounted knights milled on the far edge of the clearing, shields raised against a spattering of arrows, poised for when the drawbridge hit the ground. Jehan saw the prince’s squire separate from the mounted knights to gallop in Jehan’s direction. The boy handed him a helmet, a baldric, and a sword before riding back to his liege lord.
Jehan set the helmet aside but buckled on everything else as he watched the drawbridge descend.
Hide, Aliénor. For the love of God, hide.
The drawbridge slammed against the ground to reveal a gaping opening into the courtyard, the portcullis already raised. Jehan took off at a limping trot, feeling the tug of his wound as he joined the surge into the castle. The clashing of swords rang throughout the courtyard. Some of the viscount’s fighters lay scattered on the ground, wounded, or stood with their backs against the walls with their arms raised, already taken prisoner. He caught a glimpse of Sir Thibaud snarling at an English man-at-arms. He saw Sir Rostand lower his own sword as an English knight pressed steel against his throat.
Then Jehan heard the wail of a hound. His heart thundered. He ran in the direction of the noise and saw Aliénor struggling in a knight’s grip.
***
Aliénor shrieked as the knight squeezed her tight. Her cry brought the hounds from all corners of the courtyard.
The knight stopped his pawing and shifted her body in front of him. He pulled his sword and swiped at the hounds. One hound’s growl dissolved into a yelp of pain that only enraged the other dogs more. They barked and snarled, blurs of raised hackles, their teeth bared with saliva dripping from their gums as she’d only seen them in the hunt. They backed the knight up against the limestone wall of the donjon—and her with him, as a shield against snapping teeth.
This wasn’t real, of course. She wasn’t being handled like a sack of grain by an English knight. She was sleeping, and this was a nightmare, the manifestation of everything she’d feared from the moment her father had chosen to leave this castle ill-guarded. Any moment now it would all dissolve before her and she’d find herself in the warmth of her bed, gasping for breath.
Suddenly the knight released her. She glimpsed his raised hand before her feet left the ground. Her forehead connected with something cold and hard. She felt herself falling before blackness clouded her mind.
Sometime later she woke with her cheek pressed against a paving stone. From a distant place she heard the snarls and yelps of her dogs.
“Can you find no better foe, knight, than these hounds and a woman?”
The commanding voice sounded familiar. Not Hugo, though the pitch was as bass-deep. Not her brother, who lay sprawled upon the stones within her sight, still moaning from the cuff he’d taken from her attacker when she’d been seized by the knight. Perhaps it was Thibaud who’d come to her aid, for he’d enough sense not to run away with her father and half the castle’s defenses.
“This woman,” her attacker growled from close above her, “is mine.”
“This woman,” said the voice, “is the daughter of Tournan.”
“All the better,” snapped her attacker.
“Do you disobey the prince’s orders?”
“I heard no such orders.”
A sword scraped out of its sheath. She tried to raise her head only to have her view blocked by a mastiff who ventured forward to lick her face. She gripped the dog’s fur and hugged him, using the steadiness of his massive body to lift herself to a sitting position. She tried to make sense of the shapes in blurring motion before her.
Jehan.
Sensation flooded through her, a bitter wash of shock and anger and relief. He fought bare-headed, his black hair clinging to his forehead and neck. A baldric hung low about his hips. He swung his sword as if unhampered by half-healed wounds though she saw blood spotting his hose.
Her attacker surged. Jehan uncoiled to release a blow with the flat of his sword to the warrior’s hip. The man grunted and backed away, then charged anew.
“Stop!”
The bellowed voice came from high above. All she saw, at first, were the muddy, shaggy hooves of an enormous war horse. The knight upon it yanked off his helmet and tossed it to the ground between the knights with a clatter. Even with her senses clouded, she recognized the quartered arms of England and France on his surcoat.
With an awful turning in her chest, she realized the Prince of Wales stood in the courtyard of her castle.
“Have my knights grown so bored,” the prince shouted, “they fight among themselves amid great bounty?”
“This knight,” her attacker shouted, “would steal a prize from me.”
“No prize of his,” Jehan retorted. “This is Aliénor de Tournan, the viscount’s daughter.”
She became acutely conscious of the prince’s perusal. Fighting off dizziness, she used the wall of the donjon to shimmy herself up to her feet.
“So this is she.” The prince ran a hand over his drooping mustache. “Not your usual type, St. Simon.”
“She saved my life.” Jehan stepped between the prince’s horse and where she stood, setting the point of his sword to the ground as he grasped the hilt with both hands. “I am bound to protect her.”
“As am I.” The prince turned his attention to her attacker. “Stand down, knight.”
The man huffed, but after a brooding pause, he bowed to the prince and sheathed his sword.
“As for the rest of you,” the prince shouted, turning his warhorse about, “smoke the viscount out of the rat hole in which he hides, show mercy to the men-at-arms who surrender, and raise tents in the field for our well-deserved rest.” He tossed the reins of his horse to his waiting squire. “We shall gather in the hall anon. I believe the lord of this place is hosting a feast in our honor.”
The milling men laughed and cried huzzah before setting off on their tasks. Trembling with shock and despair, Aliénor watched as they spread to every corner, running hands over the horses in the stable, making kissing noises to the women clustered by the kitchens, marching Hugo and the stable boys into a guarded circle by the northwest tower along with the wounded men.
Thibaud had once told her Castelnau had never been taken by frontal assault and had never surrendered by siege. It had to have been a lie, all a lie, because within minutes of the prince’s knights appearing before the castle gates, all was lost.
Lost.
Her knees went loose. Her head scraped against the wall behind her. She felt the ground rushing up to meet her.
Then Jehan caught her in his arms.