“Drop your own sword, Fulkhurst, or she dies,” Gilbert ordered, his voice almost exultant with triumph.
“Warrick, do not!” Rowena cried, assuring him, “He will not kill me.”
But Warrick was not listening to her. He was already throwing his sword down. That easily would he give away his life? Why, unless…?
“Come here now,” Gilbert ordered him.
Rowena’s eyes flared incredulously when Warrick took a step forward without the least hesitation. He was actually going to walk to Gilbert and just let him kill him. Nay, not while she still had her wits about her.
Gilbert stood near her, but closer to the entrance to the alcove than across from her. His dagger was not even touching the skin at her throat, and his eyes were only on Warrick.
Rowena drew her knees up and kicked him toward Warrick, then immediately swung her legs over the window ledge and slipped outside. She heard both men shout her name as her feet touched on the flat square of the battlements with a jarring impact. God’s mercy, it had been so easy when she was younger—and not so encumbered. Jumping the last three feet to the roof of the chapel was out of the question. She was carefully sitting down on the edge of the wall to ease herself the rest of the way down when Gilbert stuck his head out the window and saw her.
“Damn you, Rowena, you frightened me half to death!” he roared at her.
Only half? God’s mercy,whenwas she going to get lucky?
But he did not stay there to berate her further. The sound of swords meeting in deadly combat came clearly through the window to tell her what had distracted him. So the two of them had finally got their wish to kill each other? Never mind that she was out here sitting on the edge of the battlements wall with a hundred-foot drop to the bailey at her back—well, seventy-five feet mayhap, since the forebuilding was not as high as the tower.
The cramp caught her unawares, making her sway, then gasp as she nearly lost her balance. Heart racing, she no longer took her time getting to the roof, but jumped the remaining distance. ’Twas another jarring landing, and another cramp protested it. She bent over this time, holding her breath until it eased, but then a cold chill passed over her. Nay, not now. Her daughter could not want to be bornnow.
She glanced back at her window as she got a firm footing on the two-foot-wide stone wall-walk that surrounded the flat wooden roof of the chapel. Though she was compelled to get back up there to watch what was happening in her room, she doubted she could manage it without help. Getting down off the three-foot-high battlements was one thing, climbing back onto the narrow, crenellated edge of it quite another. Shecoulddo it, but she was too unwieldy in shape just now to make it a safe undertaking.
There was the large trapdoor in the chapel roof, however, near her feet. It allowed men up here during an attack, to shoot arrows from the cover of the crenellations. It dropped down about twenty feet to the chapel, but required a ladder to be used. ’Twas the only entry to these battlements aside from her window.
No ladder would be there now, she knew, but she threw open the door anyway and leaned over to look down. Father Paul was not likely to be there either this late of the morn, but she called his name anyway. As expected, there was no response, so she merely shouted “Help!” instead.
That got her more response than she wanted. A servant came running into the chapel, but he was no more than a boy, and all he did was stare up at her in amazement. And before she could tell him to fetch a ladder, Gilbert was climbing out on the window ledge with sword in hand.
“Move back!” he shouted at her just before he jumped straight to the wall-walk.
But Rowena did not move, too paralyzed with fear that his appearance meant Warrick was dead. He bumped into her when he landed, not hard, but enough to send her back a few feet. He was already weary from fighting Warrick. One of his legs buckled as he landed on the stone walk, and he fell toward the roof. But his knee came down right into the opening of the trapdoor. That threw him even more off-balance, and he would have fallen right through the hole, but his belly struck hard against the edge of the trap, holding his body there. He had been hurt, the breath knocked out of him, his sword skidding across the roof, yet he was able to climb out of the hole easily enough.
And Rowena just stood there, numb with the thought that Warrick was dead. She made no move to push Gilbert through the hole while she had the chance, no move to get his sword and toss it over the wall. She just stood there, spellbound with horror…until Warrick landed right in front of her.
She shrieked in startlement, moved back yet again, coming up against the low wall behind her. He just grinned at her in reassurance, then went right after Gilbert, who had already retrieved his sword.
Her relief was cut short by another pain, not as sharp as the others, but deeper, and worse for that. She ignored it, however, watching the two men hacking away at each other.
They moved back and forth across the small area. Rowena moved out of the way when necessary, careful to avoid the trapdoor, which was still open, as well as the swinging swords. More pains came that she continued to ignore. But finally the fight was confined to the area opposite the trapdoor, so she was able to move to it to find out what was keeping help from arriving. Help had come. More servants were below, grouped around the altar cloth they were holding, and one shouted up for her to jump.
Idiots! She was not a lightweight to go bouncing on altar cloths. She would rip that thin cloth in twain, if it did not rip out of their hands with her landing. Either way, she would end up flat on the stone floor, most likely dead.
But suddenly the choice was taken out of her hands as the fight came back her way. Gilbert backed into her unawares, shoving her right into the hole. She screamed as she felt naught but air beneath her feet. He turned and grabbed her with his free arm, but her extra weight caught him off guard, and he had to drop his sword to use two arms to keep her from disappearing through the hole. He turned his back on Warrick to do this, with no thought other than of saving Rowena.
She held on to him for dear life, and was too shaken to release him even after she was yanked away from the hole and had purchase for her feet again.
Warrick, forgotten for the while, brought himself back to mind. “Step away from her, d’Ambray.”
The inherent threat in those words, as well as the sword point that came across Rowena’s shoulder to press against Gilbert’s chest, was incentive to do as told. But Gilbert did not release her, his hands tightened on her instead, and Rowena knew him well enough to know where his thoughts were going.
“He will not believe a threat to my life after you have just saved it,” she told him.
The expression those words brought to Warrick’s face was almost comical in its frustration. Rowena turned in time to see it and was disgusted in reading it correctly. He truly did not want to let Gilbert go now that he had him, but to kill him now would not be part of their knightly code of fair exchanges. A saved life wasalwaysworth a just reward. But this life in particular Rowena still found despicable. If Warrick had to turn forgiving, could he not have waited a few more—Forgiving? Warrick? Had the vengeful dragon of the north really changed that much?
He had, but he was not exactly happy about it himself. His snarl was less than gracious as he lowered his sword. “I give you your life do you trouble me no more.”
Gilbert had never been one to thumb his nose at a golden opportunity. “Give me back Ambray as well.”
