“You brute!” she hissed. “You… you uncivilized fiend! I will never forgive you for this, do you hear me?Never!”
Brandt drew in a long breath, still fighting off the grin that he had struggled with for the past few minutes. He crossed his massive arms calmly.
“Is it not exhausting being so aggressive all of the time?” he asked.
The comment only seemed to inflame her. “Beast! Monster! Son of a…!”
He cut her off, casually, losing the battle against the grin. “Are you finished?”
Ellowyn scowled. “Not by any stretch of the imagination,” she jabbed a finger at him. “I have met my share of infuriating and callous men, but you are the worst of the lot. What possessed you to do what you just did?”
“Do what?”
She threw up her hands. “Throw me over your shoulder like a… a….”
“Common wench?”
Now her eyebrows flew up in outrage. “Common?” she was turning red in the face. He could see it even in the moonlight. “Now I amcommon?”
“Given the behavior I have seen from you since the onset of our association, you have given me little else to go on,” he replied steadily. “Therefore, in response to your demands earlier today, I have delivered your father’s men as ordered. You will find all of them over there to the left, by the livery stables, and none of them have been fed since earlier today. I hope you have made arrangements to feed and shelter them until the morrow, because they are very weary and will not be able to make the trek back to Erith Castle in their present condition. They need food and rest, which you will now provide. Good evening to you, Lady Ellowyn.”
Ellowyn’s outrage fled in favor of genuine surprise and, if she were to admit it, apprehension. She should have been wildlyfurious at his insult, but she could only seem to focus on the fact that he was literally dumping almost six hundred weary soldiers on her doorstep.
“Wait,” she stopped him as he turned away from her. All of the agitation had disappeared from her tone. “I have no means with which to house and feed over five hundred men tonight. You were supposed to bring them to me tomorrow.”
“You were not clear on what time of day to return them to you,” he said. “I assumed you wanted them as soon as possible. Now you have them. Good eve to you.”
Ellowyn’s mouth popped open as she watched the enormous man turn on his heel and walk away from her. She was stunned but she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of knowing it. He had made it clear he wanted nothing more to do with her so to seek assistance from him was out of the question.
She’d already made a fool out of herself in front of the man, and he had duly insulted her. Perhaps rightly so. She’d always had a temper, and a bit of a mouth as well, so mayhap he was entirely correct.
Certainly, they had gotten off to a very bad start. He had ignored and then insulted her, and she had taken his head off for it. If she thought very hard about it, he’d tried to apologize but she wouldn’t hear of it. She’d been too angry at the time. Damn her temper!
Exhausted, and now faced with a very large and unexpected problem that she had more or less brought down on herself, she couldn’t help the tears of exhaustion and despair that sprang to her eyes.
Wearily, she planted her bottom on the edge of a stone watering trough, trying to figure out what she was going to do next. It was growing late and she had no idea how she was going to feed and shelter all of those men. She looked over to the inn, looking for a sign of her escort but noting instead that de Russeand another big knight were mounting their chargers. So he reallywasleaving her with all of those exhausted men. Maybe she deserved it.
As Ellowyn floundered in self-pity, Brandt mounted his snappish charger and turned the beast around to return to the docks near the Thames where he had left the bulk of his army. As he put his helm back on his dark and sweaty head, he couldn’t help but notice that Ellowyn hadn’t moved from where he’d dropped her. In fact, she was sitting on the edge of a water trough, looking at her hands.
Brandt’s movements slowed as he gazed at her lowered head. Oddly, he was coming to feel some remorse. She wanted her men back, so he had obeyed her wishes, only he had done it in a fairly vindictive fashion. He knew very well that she wasn’t equipped to handle all of them this night, but he had brought them to her anyway. That had been his spiteful-self talking and he could indeed be spiteful when the mood struck him. Maybe he had been too harsh about it.
He didn’t like feelings of remorse. He wasn’t a remorseful man by nature. His confusion trickled into brusque movements, which his charger sensed. The animal was feisty and exhausted, dancing nervously as they headed back the way they had come. Brandt tried not to look at the lady as he rode past her, but a creeping sense of guilt was eating at him.
More than that, he suspected his actions would meet with de Nerra’s ears and the man would become incensed at him. He didn’t need that kind of an enemy. Perhaps he should try to ease the situation before the daughter’s version of the story roused all of Erith against him.
With a heavy sigh, he pulled his charger to a halt and turned back in the lady’s direction, but his horse wasn’t cooperating. The beast fought him and kicked up great clods of mud that flew right at Ellowyn, hitting her squarely in the chest and neck. Shewas so startled by the flying mud that she lost her balance and toppled back into the trough.
Brandt was off his mount, rushing to pull her from the water. She was sputtering by the time he reached her, grasping her by both arms and pulling her effortlessly from the cold, dirty water.
“I am sorry, my lady,” he said. He meant it. “I fear my horse is to blame for your misery.”
Ellowyn was cold, upset, and pushed beyond her endurance. She opened her mouth to yell at him but the words wouldn’t come forth. The fight had gone out of her. Instead, she burst into tears.
“Just… go away,” she sobbed softly, picking at the sopping garment. “Go away and leave me alone.”
“But….”
“I asked you to leave me,” she snapped, sounding more like her aggressive self. She struggled to gather up her very wet, and very heavy, skirt. “I do not require your assistance. You have done your duty by delivering my father’s men and I would be grateful if you would simply go away and forget we ever met, for certainly, I will try and do the same.”
