Elizabeth Chadwick - The Leopard Unleashed

‘They’ve got Elene!’ Henry bellowed, hacking at his own opponent. The blade bit into the man’s arm and lodged in bone. He screamed. Henry grunted with effort as he wrenched his blade free and spun his stallion in the direction of the escaping mercenary. He found himself accompanied by several of the enemy, but none of them bothered to engage him, and in the moment that he realised why, an arrow thumped into his right pectoral and sent him reeling from the saddle. As he struck the ground, he heard the shaft snap. Fluid filled his mouth. As he lost consciousness, the last thing he saw was Adam’s sorrel stallion buckling beneath a rain of arrows and Adam trying desperately to scramble free of the saddle.

Renard slowed Gorvenal from lope to walk as he reached the crossroads where he had arranged to meet Elene and her escort, and discovered that he was the first to arrive.

‘You could have spared me another hour abed, Fonkin,’ he said, dismounting to stretch his legs and gaze into a windswept distance of half-naked autumn trees that obscured the road from view.

William squinted at the dull haze of the sun. ‘It’s not that we’re early,’ he said, ‘but that they’re late, and that’s very unusual for Adam.’

‘But not for Henry. He’d miss his own funer—’ His eyes narrowed as a startled flurry of birds wheeled above the treetops.

‘That will be them now,’ said William as Smotyn sidled, nostrils flaring to test the wind. ‘In a hurry, whoever they are,’ he added as the sound of galloping hooves came to them, accompanied by a dull vibration.

Renard caught Gorvenal’s bridle and remounted. ‘It can’t be Adam, there aren’t enough horses.’

Around the bend and into their sight pounded a grey palfrey racing at full stretch. Astride her was a young man in a half coat of mail whom William recognised immediately.

‘It’s Gerard, Adam’s squire, and that’s Heulwen’s mare!’ he cried in alarm as the youth galloped up to them, reined his mount back on her haunches, and all but fell out of the saddle.

‘Lord Renard, Lord William, grave news!’ he gasped. ‘We were hit by a mercenary troop five miles back! They snatched Lady Elene and made off with her. Lord Henry’s sore wounded and Lord Adam’s horse killed beneath him … They sent me … lightest man … fastest horse … fetch you!’

‘Blood of Christ!’ William muttered.

Renard set his jaw. ‘All right, lad, well done.’ His gaze moved from the youth to the road. ‘I’ll have to leave you with the mare. When she’s recovered enough, ride on down to Ravenstow and raise the alarm there.’

‘Yes, sire.’

Renard grilled the squire for the finer details and fixed them in his mind as he rode for the place described. Again Gorvenal started to outstrip the other horses, but this time no one hailed him back.

He found Heulwen kneeling beside Henry, one of the knights’ cloaks pillowed beneath his head.

‘Renard, thank Christ!’ Adam exclaimed.

Renard flung himself down from the saddle. He spared a brief glance for his brother-by-marriage, saw that he was not injured beyond nicks and bruises, and knelt quickly beside Heulwen.

She gave him a desolate look. ‘He fell on the arrow and broke the shaft. The head will have to be dug out and it’s in deep …’ She drew a shuddering breath and choked down a sob. Such a wound was almost certain death, and if by the remotest chance he survived, he would never wield a sword again.

Henry’s sparse sandy lashes flickered as he heard Renard’s voice. ‘I saw them coming,’ he said hoarsely. ‘I saw them coming and I ignored them!’ His eyes were hazed with pain and there were gashes in his lower lip where he had bitten down on it.

Heulwen made a small, helpless gesture. ‘He saw the flash of armour just before they attacked and he keeps blaming himself for dismissing it.’

‘Idiot.’ Renard’s voice was gritty with emotion. ‘From what I hear it wouldn’t have made that much difference.’

‘Except between life and death,’ Henry gasped through clenched teeth, his complexion turning grey.

‘Lie still,’ Heulwen murmured. ‘It’s no use to rail.’

He swallowed. ‘Renard, get Elene before anything happens to her. I’ll never forgive myself …’

Renard stood up, grasped Gorvenal’s bridle and remounted. He felt as if he had been punched.

‘I sent one of my men after them,’ Adam said. ‘He’s a good tracker, and he should be able to keep them in sight. He’s leaving signs for you to follow.’

Renard nodded. ‘Send William after me when he arrives. I’ll leave you to get Henry to shelter. Take my remounts when they come. It was de Gernon’s men, I suppose?’

Adam shrugged. ‘Your guess is as good as mine. They were well led though, not just rabble and de Gernons has long had his eye on destroying the union between you and Elene.’ He shook his head. ‘I would have stopped them if I could, but you can see what their archers did. We could not pursue in force. It was well thought out. I was in half a mind to bring Miles and the girls on this trip. Thank Christ I left them at Thornford.’

As Renard rode off, Gorvenal snorted and shied from the corpse of a destrier with arrows quilled in throat and chest — Adam’s sorrel Spanish stallion, and, after Heulwen and the children, the pride of his life.

Renard felt Gorvenal heave beneath him as he ploughed through the mud and took to the wooded slope. He knew how it felt to have a horse killed beneath you. He had been a stripling of fifteen when his mount had been gut-shot by a Welsh arrow during a skirmish and he had had to finish the horse himself with his dagger. Putting his hand in reassurance on Gorvenal’s warm black neck, he saw in his mind’s eye that other horse of his youth screaming and threshing on the ground, the look in its eyes as he went to it with the knife … the look in Henry’s eyes. For a moment he bent over the saddle as the anguish became a physical cramp. The spasm passed, to be replaced by an implacable rage. Setting his gaze to the trail, he sought the enemy.

When Elene’s first shock wore off, it was replaced by outrage that she should be thus handled on her own territory, and when she truly realised the enormity of what was happening, the outrage in its turn gave way to terror. The man holding her had a wrestler’s grip. The rivets of his hauberk hurt her as she was squashed back against them, and his breath was sour on her cheek.

Her mare started to labour beneath the double weight and a brief halt was called while her abductor remounted his own sturdier stallion. She was bundled kicking across the saddle and they were off again at a lumbering canter, heading for the forest that shrouded the border between Ravenstow, Wales and the earldom of Chester.

They forded a wide stream and water splashed into her face and soaked her clothes. The horse stumbled and Elene’s breath caught on a cry of alarm.

‘Never you fret, demoiselle,’ Hamo growled. ‘I won’t let you fall. You’re too valuable a prize for that.’ Elene gritted her teeth, as his grip dug painfully into her ribs.

‘Ranulf de Gernons will be mightily pleased to offer you his hospitality, so pleased that he’s going to reward me with a fine young wife and a rich fief—’

‘Never!’ she spat. ‘You’ll never get me before a priest!’

‘Oh, one way or the other it’ll be managed,’ he said. ‘With or without your consent, it makes no matter to me. The church approves of men who repent the sins of their lust and make proper amends.’

Elene swallowed a retch as she took his meaning. Rape to assert his immediate claim and then marriage to appease the church and secure her lands. God help her, how was she going to escape from this?

Towards dusk they stopped in a clearing to rest their blowing horses and water them at a forest brook. A mass of dead leaves carpeted the ground and more were twirling down to join them in a fitful golden rain.

The men fetched oat cakes from their saddle rolls and unslung their wineskins. They lit a cautious fire on which to roast slivers of flesh from one of the piglets they had taken earlier in the day.

Hamo dismounted and dumped Elene on the ground, and taking out his own rations, sat down beside her to eat. ‘Wine?’ he offered.

Elene averted her head. She heard him laugh and then the sound of him washing down his mouthful of food with long, wet gulps. This was not happening, she told herself. In a moment she would wake up in her own bed at Woolcot and thank all the saints in heaven that she had endured nothing worse than a particularly vivid nightmare.

The fire crackled softly and a wispy streamer of smoke drifted upwards. In the dusky silence all the autumnal colours of the forest were suddenly so sharp that to look at them hurt her eyes. She dropped her gaze to the rumpled folds of her thick woollen riding gown. She felt cold and shaky, wanted so much to cry that her throat ached, but not for the world would she let her pride break before this odious routier.

Hamo studied her and continued to chew his food. Pale with shock, she was not even remotely pretty. The hair that was straggling free of its braids was as black as jet and coarse and her eyes were a muddy, indeterminate shade somewhere between brown and green. Her body, however, was pleasing; he had had opportunity enough to handle it over the last few miles. High, round breasts, a willowy waist he could span with his two hands, and haunches lithe and firm from the active life she led. His mind imagined and his breathing quickened.

Gulping down his last mouthful, he wiped his hands on the ground and stood up to remove his swordbelt and then his hauberk. ‘We might as well get it over with now,’ he said. ‘The sooner it’s done, the sooner you’re mine.’ He stooped to grasp her arm and jerked her to her feet. ‘Meurig, Saer, come over here a moment, I need witnesses.’