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“He’s fainted!” Sir Lyndon’s rude voice intruded on her confusion.
It was true. Sir Philip flopped back on the stretcher, his mouth open and his eyes rolled back. Edlyn dropped to her knees and examined him. His clammy skin and chalky color proclaimed his weakness. Even this outing had taxed his strength to the limit.
“Take him back to the keep,” she said. “Put him to bed.”
She watched unhappily as the knight she trusted was taken down the narrow stairs.
Sir Lyndon blew out his breath in disgust. “He’s no good to you. You’ll have to depend on me.”
Depend on him? But he despised her. He might show respect when Hugh was in residence, but now that he was gone he didn’t hesitate to undermine her decisions with mockery. She didn’t want to depend on him—but surely the men-at-arms needed a knight in charge.
Especially since Pembridge had proved that he knew her identity and carried a grudge.
Grims didn’t seem to agree. “Don’t fret, m’ lady, we’ll keep ye safe.”
Her? She stared at him through glazed eyes. If she lost this castle and Pembridge razed it to the ground, nowhere would be safe for her. She would have destroyed Hugh’s dream as surely as if she’d moved the stones with her own hands, and he’d want to kill her.
Nay, worse, he’d think it nothing more than what he expected from a woman, and he’d never trust her again.
Or…or he’d imagine that she’d done it for revenge, because she still loved Robin or because she was in collusion with Edmund Pembridge.
A woman’s screech down in the bailey brought the men-at-arms to the edge of the wall walk. “The knaves are coming through the wall!”
“Nay!” Edlyn couldn’t believe that. If Pembridge’s men were tunneling beneath the wall, they could get through but not so quickly. Such an operation took months…
Grims muttered words in English, then began shouting to his men.
Sir Lyndon grabbed her upper arm and squeezed it tight. “You need me, lady. Give me command!”
“Let go!” She didn’t have time to worry about him. Allyn and Parkin rushed to the edge of the wall walk overseeing the inner bailey, and she lunged to bring them to safety. Holding them struggling, she strained to see for herself.
Armed knights wearing Pembridge’s device burst through the thin lining of stone that separated them from the inner bailey. Long ago Pembridge had somehow built a tunnel beneath the wall, lined it with stone, and shored it with timbers, then covered it with stone that matched the wall that rose above it. The workers on the other side of the wall hadn’t been tunneling. The villagers had been simply removing the chiseled stones.
Now she stood far from the safety of the keep. Burdett stood below, directing the castle folk and villagers with frantic gestures. Her sons tried to push her behind them in the valiant manner of lads who’d never seen battle but knew their duty.
“You need me,” Sir Lyndon said again.
The knight wanted to be in charge, but she didn’t trust him. She refused to answer, refused to give him her blessing.
“Nothing’s going to stop them, and who else is going to defend you?” he asked contemptuously. “You don’t understand combat!”
It was true. She didn’t. Always she’d depended on her wits, but they failed her now.
Oh, why had she never learned to fight?
The first time Hugh heard the woman scream, he ignored her and leaned over the neck of his destrier to urge it on. What was one more woman’s shriek compared to the blood and agony of battle that he’d just witnessed? He glanced off into the forest. It was probably just some shrew yelling at her husband.
But she screamed again, loud and shrill, and even his horse checked. There was no anger in the sound, only pure terror. Edlyn would have demanded that he stop and check on the woman.
But Pembridge was after Edlyn, and if what Ethelburgha had said was true, Edlyn was in great danger. In this instance, at least, she would beg that he disregard the plea implicit in that shriek.
The woman screamed again.
Who was he trying to fool? Edlyn would have gone off to check on the screamer herself if he had refused. Somehow, without his realizing how, Edlyn had begun to ride with him everywhere.
As he slowed his destrier, the cloud of dust from the road caught up with him. It coated his clenched teeth as he asked, “By Christ and all the saints, what’s wrong with that wench?”
His men rode around him and glanced at each other.
