One moment, he had her arms, and in the next, he was holding her hair and wrapping it around his gloved hand. In fact, his grip on her hair bloody well hurt, and she winced, but she didn’t stop fighting. But her resistance had no effect on him, as he somehow managed to get her up over his shoulder and take the ladder down to the next platform, where he took yet another ladder down to the ground.
Elle fought and twisted the entire way, but it was difficult when he had her head so tightly trapped. In fact, she couldn’t move her head or neck in the least, and she had to admit his grip was badly paining her. With her slung over his shoulder, but quite awkwardly because of the way he was holding her, he ended up on the pontoon bridge that the English had strung across the moat. He was halfway across when Elle twisted enough to throw her thigh into his head, knocking him off balance.
Into the moat they both went.
The knight landed on his feet, but Elle landed upside down, her head and face in the brackish water. She had water up her nose and in her mouth because she’d been unprepared for the plunge into the water, and, caught off guard, she started to inhale it. The knight didn’t notice she was in the water until he was nearly to the edge of the moat, when he suddenly flipped her right side up and tossed her, nearly unconscious, onto the shore.
The knight rolled her onto her right side, pounding on her back as water poured from her mouth and she began coughing up that horrible moat water. But the near-drowning experience had washed the fight out of her for the moment, and he heaved her onto his shoulder again, dazed and limp, and marched with her to the English encampment just beyond the tree line, about a quarter of a mile away.
Elle was coming around by the time they arrived, but barely. She was gradually aware that they were heading into a tent as the knight, far more gently this time, pulled her off his shoulder and put her on a cot or a bed of some kind. Elle didn’t even know what it was, and she hardly cared because she was still struggling to breathe. There was still water in her lungs. Off to her left, she could hear someone speak.
“I thought you might be interested in this one,” the knight said. “She threw herself at me as I came over the wall, and we fell back to the platform. She’s fortunate we didn’t fall all the way to the ground.”
Another voice, deep and serious, answered. “What happened to her?” he said. “Why is she wet?”
“She was fighting me and we fell into the moat,” the knight replied. “You might want to have the physic take a look at her. I think she swallowed a good deal of water.”
“Whois she?”
“That is for you to find out, Papa,” the knight said. “She says this is her castle.”
Elle suddenly came alive, still dazed, but the fight was returning. “I’ll kill you both,” she said, her eyes rolling around to the back of her head as she tried to sit up. She balled her fists, putting them in front of her. “Do not think that just because I am a woman, I cannot fight. I will fight you with one hand tied behind my back. I’ll fight you with my eyes closed and I’ll win. I’ll kick you to death!”
As if to emphasize her point, she tried to kick out, but ended up knocking herself onto the floor. That brought the knight and the man he’d been speaking to right to her side. They lifted her up and put her back on the cot, but she slapped at their hands and tried to kick one of them. She didn’t care which one—whoever was closer. But the knight pushed her back on the bed.
“Lie down and behave yourself, lady,” he said. “You’ve done enough fighting for one day.”
“Never,” she said. “I’ll never submit to you Saesneg hounds.”
“I do not think you have a choice.”
That wasn’t what Elle wanted to hear. She kicked and swung her fists again and ended up on the floor once more. But this time, she crawled under the cot before they could grab her, so they didn’t try. They simply backed off and left her alone. Somehow, being under the cot seemed to calm her down because it was a false sense of protection. She huddled underneath the cot as the older man with thick gray hair turned to the knight.
“Continue with your duties,” he said. “I will tend to the lady.”
“I do not need tending!” she shouted.
“Shut up,” the knight barked at her, irritated.
“I will not!”
“You will if I come over there and put a gag over your mouth.”
“Try it and I’ll bite your fingers off!”
The knight started to move in her direction, but the older man stopped him. “Go,” he told him, softly but firmly. “I will take care of the lady.”
“I do not need to be taken care of!” she declared.
The knight waved an annoyed arm at her as if to wash his hands of her for good. He was finished arguing with a fool. As he marched from the tent, the older man moved over to a table that had a pitcher and cups on it. He poured himself some wine as Elle crouched under the cot and shivered.
“Shall I tell you what is happening to your castle now?” he finally said.
He had a fatherly, deep, and gentle voice. Elle coughed again, still clearing her lungs, but she realized her teeth were chattering.
Her situation was not improving.
“Nothing is happening to it,” she said with more confidence than she felt. “My men are stopping your army from coming over the walls. You will go home empty-handed, Saesneg.”
