Page 4 of The Captive Knight
Chapter Two
“Unhand me.”
Aliénor spoke firmly even as her hand went numb. His eyes, fogged with pain, bored into hers from beneath his matted hair. Terror made her insides soft, but for eight years she’d run a castle full of fighting men under the capricious rule of her mercurial father. She knew better than to show fear.
Suddenly the room rang with the sound of a sword being scraped out of a scabbard.
“Don’t.” She threw up her free hand to stop Rudel from approaching. “The prisoner will come to his senses.”
That cloudy blue gaze flickered to the men looming behind her. Rudel shuffled uneasily under her restraint. Hugo made low grunting noises. Then those eyes shifted back to look her over from scalp to knees.
“What’s this mischief?” he rasped. “Does the viscount send a woman to kill me?”
“I am unarmed.” She twisted her torso so he could see she wore no dagger. Then she tipped her head to where Hugo had placed the tray. “I have brought food and wine and the means to tend to your wounds.”
“Not by his orders,” he retorted. “That murderer would sooner send his maiden daughter to share my bed.”
A flush blistered her cheeks. The gall of the man to speak so, even if he didn’t know who she was. “It’s the viscount’s food,” she insisted, “the viscount’s wine—”
“—sent by another knight. One of the viscount’s better men. Sir Rostand, perhaps,” he said, “or another?”
“Does it matter, if it fills your belly?” The tips of her fingers began to tingle.
“I trust no gift from Tournan.” His gaze dipped to the gape of her surcoat with a speculative gleam. “Unless he’s seeking forgiveness by offering you up—”
“Accept my hospitality—or don’t,” she interrupted. “But release me now, or my guard will relieve you of your hand.”
His jaw hardened and he breathed hard, like the huff of a buck. With a grunt, he loosed his grip. She tumbled onto one hip. Righting herself, she gestured for Hugo to bring the wine.
Rubbing the blood back into her wrist, she watched as Sir Jehan pushed himself up to a sitting position, wincing all the way. He took the jug Hugo offered to him and lifted it by the handle. His hand shook, making droplets run over his chin and spill upon his chest.
Mad with pain, she thought, her heart still pounding. Mad with thirst. And she was the maddest of all, to have expected calm, reason, or gratitude.
She slid out of his reach to remove his metal shoes, gathering her wits while she mentally listed his wounds. Blood soaked through his chain-mail hose where broken links revealed a cut on his thigh. His left hand lay bruised and swollen by his side. She wondered if the bones were broken or crushed, but she was more concerned with the wound still seeping on his head and, more alarming, the source of all the blood soaking his surcoat. How could he have been wounded so seriously on the torso? Swords were nearly useless against mail, and if this knight wore a coat-of-plates, as most knights did, the daggers that might break chain mail at close contact could not possibly have penetrated the plate defenses.
She would find out soon enough, she thought, as she removed his round knee-plates. He breathed hard as he sagged against the wall, alert in the way of a man trying to battle unconsciousness. She ordered Hugo to bring the platter of food closer to give the thief something else to do than stare.
“No poison here?” he said, tearing into a duck’s leg.
“Poison’s a coward’s weapon.”
“A woman’s one, too.”
She flung his knee-plates away so they clattered on the stone floor.
“No poisoned wine, no poisoned food, and no dagger in my heart,” he said. “It’s a daring woman who’ll defy the Viscount of Tournan.”
She frowned, annoyed he knew her father’s nature so well. “Lean forward so I can remove your surcoat.”
He canted away from the wall. Pain spasmed across his face. He raised his arms, favoring his swollen hand, so she could lift the bloody rag over his head. He wore no coat-of-plates beneath the tunic, which was odd, and the links in his chain mail were broken in a few places. That meant the wounds on his abdomen must be from daggers.
For his sake, she hoped they were not deep.
“The viscount caught us when we were riding down a roebuck,” he said. “Neither I nor my men were fully armored.”
She ignored the fact that he’d read her mind and reached for the buckles on his shirt of mail.
He placed his rough, swollen hand over hers. “It will not be a pleasant sight for such pretty eyes.”
