Page 28 of The Captive Knight
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 ofmy own housethat I put underyourprotection. 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.
Hewouldprotect 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?”
