Chapter Eighteen

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Near the village of Colesborne

H e hadn't arrived yet.

Cheltenham, that was.

Riggs found himself outside of the village of Colesborne, literally waiting for another army to show up and fight him off. Robin's knight had returned to Cicadia Castle, undoubtedly, to tell Cheltenham to muster the army and move south, but so far, the army hadn't shown up. Riggs was burning and pillaging at will, but it was more of a show than anything else, simply to scare the villagers and create chaos.

Cirencester wanted to make a lot of noise more than he really wanted to damage anything, so his tactics had involved things like opening corrals to scatter livestock or cleaning out chicken houses. If he saw a decent horse, he had his men grab the horse and run with it. It was really just harassment, but it was meant to look like trouble.

Trouble that the de Lohr army would fall right into.

It was just him and about eight hundred of his men. His son, Flavian, had remained at Totterdown Castle because Riggs didn't want the lad involved in a fight. He wanted to keep his son safe while he wrangled an earldom for him. Riggs had even waited three days before taking his army up north, time enough for Robin to send word to Roi about a battle that hadn't started yet, so if Roi had received word over the past couple of days, he was surely on his way.

Riggs was unaware that the message had already gone out, days ago.

At the Withington Turn, as he'd told Mathis, the road led down to a river crossing that was thick with trees. Riggs was already putting archers in those trees because the best thing to do would be to lure Roi into that area and let the archers take him out. Riggs knew that his knights, well armed as they were, still wouldn't have a chance against a knight of Roi's ability, so the safest thing would be to use the archers. A neat, clean job of taking down a de Lohr knight with the least amount of risk.

That was the plan.

Of course, Mathis couldn't lead Roi into the area. There was a chance they'd hit Mathis with an archer barrage, and Riggs wanted to keep Mathis safe. The future Earl of Cheltenham would need a knight like that. Therefore, it made the most sense to keep his army near Colesborne until Roi showed up, and then have the man chase the Cirencester army down the Withington Turn and into the area where the archers would be waiting.

Then they would have him.

Therefore, three days after Riggs sent Mathis back to Cicadia Castle, the Cirencester army spent most of the time simply harassing the village and the outskirts. For fun, they lit some fires that spat black smoke into the air, like a beacon for the de Lohr army. Riggs wanted to make it easy for Roi to find him, and he was doing everything he could short of sending out invitations. The fires and harassment went into the fourth day, all day, and through the night. But on the morning of the fifth day since Mathis had delivered those fateful words— the time is now —an army was sighted at dawn coming from the west.

When Riggs was informed by his scouts, he knew the moment of triumph was upon him. Cheltenham still hadn't arrived yet, but that didn't matter. Roi had come, as they'd planned, and Riggs couldn't wait for Robin to show himself.

The time was now.

*

When Roi arrived at the village of Colesborne, he wasn't any clearer about the situation than he had been when he first received Cheltenham's request for aid.

Something seemed off.

In the first place, Colesborne was not nearly as destroyed as the missive had led him to believe. There had been some burning on the edge of town, and the street of merchants had been mildly looted, but nothing crucial. The villagers seemed scared more than anything, and they were very clear that the Cirencester army was on the east side of the village, out in the heavily forested areas, but the Cheltenham army was nowhere to be seen. Roi and the men he'd brought with him made sure the village was secure and helped put a couple of fires out, but for the most part, the damage wasn't too terrible.

Very strange, indeed.

"For a raid, I would say there is very little damage," Roi said to Adrius. "What in the hell is Cirencester doing?"

Adrius looked around. "I would not know," he said. "But I was thinking the same thing. This was not a raid."

"Nay, it was not," Roi said. "It seems like it was simply annoyance. No one is dead, nothing is stolen. The man at the end of town said one of his horses was taken by the army but that it returned to the corral on its own, unharmed."

Adrius pushed his helm back and scratched his forehead. "This makes little sense," he said, looking around. "And where is Cheltenham in all of this? Should he not be here?"

Roi shrugged. "I would assume so," he said. "But this situation is so bizarre… who can tell? The villagers said the Cirencester army is to the east, so mayhap he's there. If they are engaging, then that is where we should go."

Adrius agreed. He had the sergeants round up the army, which was mostly helping villagers at that point, but barked commands had them all mounting their horses and following Adrius and Roi as they charged to the other end of town in search of Cheltenham's army. Once they cleared the village outskirts and the hedgerows cleared, giving them a view of the meadows and fields around them, they could see an army to the east.

They were simply standing around.

Roi and Adrius looked at one another, baffled, but the moment the other army caught sight of the de Lohr men, they began to yell and run. They leapt onto their horses, tearing off in a panic, and the natural response from Roi was to follow. They chased them across two big fields and onto a narrow road that angled downward. It was surrounded by heavy trees, a green canopy overhead, but Roi continued after them.

Some of the men were branching off from the bulk of the fleeing army, taking off in different directions, and a few of the de Lohr men went off after them. But most of the de Lohr army was close on the heels of the retreating army, and by the time they hit a forested area where the road leveled off and crossed a large brook, Roi could see that they were closing in on the retreating army.

But that was when the sky let loose.

It was raining arrows.

Roi was hit almost immediately, a powerful bolt that hit him in the back, just below his left shoulder blade. It wasn't enough to knock him off his horse, but he knew that he was in trouble. He cursed himself for being stupid enough to chase the fleeing army through an area that was ideal for an ambush. It had all happened so quickly that he hadn't given it much thought, but given the strangeness of the situation, he should have.

Damn… he should have.

They had to get out of there.

Roi had whirled his steed around, bellowing orders to his men to go back the way they came, when another bolt hit him in the chest. That one was enough to topple him from the horse, and as he went down, he could see Adrius going down as well with a bolt through the neck.

Suddenly, a puzzling skirmish had become deadly.

Roi wasn't one to panic, but he hit the ground hard, feeling genuine fear because he was wounded and without his broadsword, which was still on the horse when it darted away. He was in the stream, face-first in the freezing water, but he managed to push himself up and get clear of the water. There was chaos all around him while his men fought for their lives as the trees came alive with men bearing swords. Hand-to-hand combat commenced. Even the retreating army was returning now that Roi and his men had been ambushed. They were being attacked from all sides.

Roi knew they were in trouble.

He could feel the bolt in his back. He didn't know how bad it was, but he couldn't get to it. He could, however, get to the one in his chest, and the moment he ripped it out, he was sorry. It had nicked a lung, and now he had a sucking wound that was causing him to feel faint because he couldn't catch his breath. Slapping a hand against it to try to seal the hole, he staggered over to Adrius, who was lying on his back bleeding to death.

Reaching out, Roi grasped him by the arm and began to drag him away from the fighting, which was quite heavy and quite vicious. A few of his men saw what he was doing, and they immediately rushed to Roi to protect him and Adrius. It was common, in any battle strategy, for the enemy to remove the knights and commanders of the opposing army at the beginning of a battle in the hopes of splintering the army. That was exactly what the ambush had done—taken out the command. Roi thought they might have a chance to get clear of the fighting when a barrage of arrows let loose on his group and the men protecting him all went down, leaving Roi standing there alone, still gripping Adrius' arm.

He looked up to see an armored man and several men with loaded crossbows moving swiftly in his direction.

"Stop," the man called to him. "Stop what you are doing and I will call my men off. If you try to get away, I will be forced to kill you."

Roi was in a bad way. The fighting had moved off toward the west as his men tried to flee, so there were pockets of fighting. From what he could see, he'd lost a few men in the initial arrow barrage, but for the most part, they seemed to be holding their own. They were outmanned—he could see that—but they were giving it one hell of a fight.

But for Roi, that fight had ended.

He dropped Adrius' arm.

"At least let me tend his wound," he said quietly but firmly. "Show us that mercy."

The man drew closer to him, and to Roi, he looked vaguely familiar. He couldn't put his finger on it, but he'd seen that man before. Roi didn't take his eyes off him as the man peered down at Adrius.

"There is no need to tend his wound," he said. "He is dead."

Roi sighed faintly, daring to look down to see that, indeed, Adrius was dead. The man was lying there, blood coming out of his neck, his mouth, and his nose, staring up at the sky. A good knight, so wastefully taken. That realization inflamed Roi, but it was a rage tempered by fear. Fear that he was the next to die, and he very much didn't want to. He wanted to go home to his new wife and live a full life by her side. He'd finally found the love of his life, and the thought that he was going to be brutally taken from her made him sick to his stomach. Not for himself, but for her. He knew how badly she would take his death. But here he was, facing down his own mortality and wondering how in the hell he got here.

He still didn't know what was going on.

"Who are you?" he finally asked, sounding exasperated. "What is this all about?"

The man looked at him for a moment before answering. "What is your name?"

"Richard de Lohr," Roi said without hesitation. "Now that I have told you my name, what is yours?"

The man's face lit up as if he'd just met an old and dear friend. "It is you!" he said. "I was hoping that you were part of that army, but I could not be sure. Finally… Roi de Lohr, in the flesh."

Roi was having trouble breathing, trouble standing, and it was taking every bit of strength he had to stay upright.

"Your name," he said again, decidedly unfriendly.

But the man held up a hand as if begging patience. "We've not been formally introduced," he said. "But I know all about you. I know about your family and your father, the great Earl of Hereford and Worcester. I know that the House of de Lohr controls nearly everything on the Welsh marches. I know the greatness you come from. I also know that you married Diara le Bec."

Roi was at a distinct disadvantage. The man did look familiar to him, but he still couldn't place him. And he didn't like the fact that the man had mentioned Diara by name.

"How would you know about my marriage?" he said, pressing his hand hard over the hole in his chest. " Who are you?"

The pleasant expression from the man's face faded. "I am the last man you will see on this earth," he said. "You see, you took what belongs to me. Now, I am rectifying that situation."

Roi had no idea what he was talking about, mostly because his mind was starting to muddle from blood loss and the inability to breathe. "Be plain," he said. "I've no time for this. Tell me what you want and be done with it."

"Why are you in a hurry to die?" the man said. "You will not leave this place alive, de Lohr. But I wanted you to see the face of the man who took your life. I want you to understand what it took to come to this moment in time. You see, this was all planned for your benefit. The battle, the ambush—it was all meant for you. You have asked who I am—can you not guess? You married the woman meant for my son."

The light went on in Roi's mind. Now, he knew who the man was before him, and he wasn't surprised. But he still wasn't clear on what was happening and why Cirencester had evidently lured him into a trap.

"Cirencester?" he muttered.

Riggs' eyebrows lifted. "Then you know you married a woman who did not belong to you."

Roi wasn't feeling fear at the moment so much as he was feeling rage. He looked around, seeing a few of his dead soldiers on the ground several feet away, seeing Adrius dead at his feet.

Disgust washed over him.

"You set this up to trap me?" he said. "You knew I would come to Cheltenham's aid, so you did this to trap me? To kill me?"

Riggs was back to looking pleased with himself. A faint smile creased his lips. "There was no other way to do it," he said. "Robin and I agreed—"

Roi interrupted him, shocked. "Robin is in on this, too?"

Riggs nodded. "Of course he is," he said. "He realized that he'd made a mistake by betrothing his daughter to you, and since he knew you would not break the betrothal, because what man would when an earldom is involved, this was the only solution. Now, my son will marry Lady Diara and inherit Cheltenham. It's all quite simple."

Roi was feeling sick. Sicker than he already was. In fact, his body was beginning to tremble and he was finding it difficult to stand. To realize that Robin was in on this scheme brought back all of the things Diara had said—how she thought her father was acting strange, how she'd warned Roi about him. How she hadn't wanted Roi to answer her father's call for aid. She'd been trying to warn him, and he'd brushed her off. Her paranoia had turned out to be true. He'd thought she was just being a nervous bride.

As it turned out, she'd been right all along.

Now, he was going to pay the price.

"You two planned this between you," he finally said, trying to keep his balance because his legs were trembling so. "Why in the hell did Robin push a betrothal with the House of de Lohr if you had already made the offer between Diara and your son? I do not understand any of this."

Riggs shrugged. "When your son died, his procession passed through my lands," he said. "That is how I knew Lady Diara's betrothal was no more. When I went to Robin, my good friend, to convey my condolences, he was regretting the betrothal between you and his daughter. He agreed that it was a mistake. I offered to help him fix that mistake… for a price."

"Your son's marriage to Diara."

"Exactly."

Roi shook his head in disgust, but it threw him off balance and he pitched down to one knee. His breathing was growing worse because he was having a difficult time keeping the hole in his chest covered up. It wasn't a horrible sucking wound, because he'd seen those, but it was bad enough. Just enough to cause him problems.

And he had problems aplenty.

"If you were a man of honor, you would give me a sword and at least give me a fighting chance," he said, wondering how long he could draw this out before they killed him outright. "You used a coward's tactics by ambushing me from the trees. A worthy man would have challenged me with a sword, but I can see that was too much for you. I wonder if your son is as cowardly as his father is."

Infuriated, Riggs marched up on him and kicked him in the other knee, causing him to fall heavily on his buttocks. He came in again for another kick, but Roi grabbed his foot and twisted, throwing him to the ground. Wounded and all, Roi pounced on Riggs and gave him a good beating with three or four strikes to the face before Riggs' men pulled him off their lord. One man grabbed Roi by the bolt that was sticking out of his back, yanking on it with the intention of pulling him away, but he ended up pulling out the bolt completely. In agony, Roi was thrown onto his side while Riggs' men kicked him and stomped on him, but Riggs call them off.

"Enough!" he bellowed. "Get away from him. I'll slice that bastard to pieces!"

With that, he withdrew his broadsword. Roi knew that because he could hear it sing as it was unsheathed. He was without a sword, but he did have daggers on his body. The problem was that between his back wound and the chest wound, he was beginning to see stars. His eyesight was starting to dim, and he knew that he wasn't going to stay conscious much longer.

Still, he had to fight.

He had a perfect life now, and he wasn't about to give it up.

With the greatest struggle, he pushed himself onto his back in time to see Riggs bearing down on him. Immediately, he unsheathed a dagger he knew was at his waist, but when he'd fallen, he must have damaged the sheath because he couldn't get it out. That meant his boot came up, and he kicked Riggs in the groin area, causing the man to cry out in pain as he stumbled back.

But it was only momentary.

Fury had Riggs regrouping. He lifted his broadsword over his head and moved in to make the kill. Roi could see it coming and thought quickly—he could try to roll away and get to his feet, or he could fall forward into the man's legs and hopefully send him off balance. All he needed was the opportunity to get the broadsword away from him. He knew that if he did, by sheer willpower alone, he'd have a fighting chance. All he could see or think or feel was Diara, a vision before him that was keeping him alive. She was feeding his fighting spirit. He simply couldn't leave her.

But then something strange happened.

Suddenly, men were charging through the brush, in his direction, and an arrow sailed right into Riggs' midsection. He opened his mouth to scream, but another bolt went into his mouth, through his head, and emerged on the other side.

He was dead before he hit the ground.

The men with him scattered. Battered, wounded, and close to passing out, Roi tried to get up, to face whoever was attacking them through the bramble, but he couldn't seem to make it. He grabbed at the daggers on his thigh, managing to unsheathe one of them, holding it up and preparing to slash anyone who came near him. He was going to fight to the death, damn it, and to hell with anyone who would try to take him down. They would leave their share of blood on the ground.

"Roi!" Someone was beside him, grasping him, holding his wrist so he didn't slash at him. "Let the dagger go, Roi. It's me. It's Peter. Let it go, man. You're safe. I will not let anyone harm you, I swear it."

Roi was quivering violently. The dagger fell to the ground, and he looked up at his eldest brother, so shocked that he could hardly believe what he was seeing.

"Peter?" he gasped. "My God… is it really you?"

Peter smiled at him, but the concern on his face was obvious. "It is really me," he said. "But there's no time for talk. We need to get you out of here, old man."

Roi was trying to get on his feet but he couldn't seem to manage it. "What are you doing here?" he demanded weakly. "How did you find me?"

More men were swarming around him, and Roi could feel arms around him, lifting him up, moving him away from the carnage. They began running with him, through the brush and bramble.

"Everything will be fine, Roi," Peter said steadily, slashing bushes out of the way as they moved. "We need to tend your wounds. You're safe now."

Roi could see his nephew, Andrew, helping to carry him. There were other de Lohr men, probably more than a dozen, all of them carrying him away from the blood and chaos. In truth, Roi could hardly believe it. He was still back there on his knees, preparing to fight for his life.

But he wasn't.

Peter had saved him.

"It was an ambush," Roi said breathlessly. "Cirencester wanted to kill me. He wants Diara. He wants my wife."

"I know," Peter said. "We were told what was happening."

"You know ?" Roi said. "How do you know?"

Peter was trying to keep an eye on the fighting around them, making sure they took Roi some place safe before they set him down. "Cheltenham's knight," he said. "None of this would have been possible had Mathis de Geld not come to Lioncross to tell us about the plot. Papa sent us all to find you—some of us went to Pembridge, some to this godforsaken village of Colesborne. But we found you. Thank God we found you."

They'd reached a crest on a hill, away from the pockets of fighting, and Peter had the men lay Roi down, very carefully. Roi grabbed at his brother, weakly.

"Mathis?" he repeated. "Robin was in on the plot, Peter. Mathis serves Robin!"

Peter looked around, catching sight of Mathis on the road cutting down a Cirencester man. "I do not think he wants to serve him any longer," he said. "Were it not for him, you would now be dead. We owe him everything, Roi."

Roi understood. Sort of. He was so exhausted, so muddled, that all he could do was nod faintly and close his eyes. As Peter and Andrew worked on him to seal up the hole in his chest with the field kit they'd brought with them, they noticed the tears that had begun to stream down Roi's temples. Stricken with sorrow at the sight, perhaps indicative of the real fear Roi had been subjected to, Peter cupped his brother's face with one hand, touching his forehead to Roi's.

"You will be fine," he whispered. "We will patch your wounds and take you home today. You needn't worry, Roi. I promise you will heal."

Roi's voice broke. "I just want to see my wife again," he said. "I did not think I was going to."

Peter felt great pity for his brother, one of the strongest men he'd ever known. "You will see her again," he said softly. "I swear you will."

"Peter?"

"What is it?"

"Thank you," Roi whispered. "For my life… thank you."

Peter kissed his forehead, but Roi didn't feel it. He was in a haze and fading fast. He could feel Peter and Andrew moving him around, stripping off his tunics and protection to get to the wounds, packing the holes with clean linen soaked in wine. As he lay there in limbo with the darkness calling softly to him, he happened to open his eyes. There was a shadow over him, and he swore, as he lived and breathed, that he found himself looking at Beckett.

His son, blond and handsome, with that cheeky smile he remembered so well, was gazing down at him. Roi's face lit up as he beheld his beloved son. He even lifted a hand, trying to touch him. But Beckett was beyond his reach.

He simply smiled down at his father.

"'Tis not your time yet, Papa," Beckett said, his voice as faint as the wind through the trees. "Go home now. Go home and love."

With that, he was gone.

Blissful unconsciousness finally claimed Roi.