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“You mistake the matter,cousin.” With shaking fingers, Arianne tugged off her wimple, letting her hair tumble free. “I am Arianne come from Galeron to free my brother. He is free even as we speak, Julian. He is fighting alongside Nicholas, driving back your men.” She prayed it was true as she continued imperiously. “Killing the duke will do no good. You have lost. Your reign is over!”
“Nicholas is alive, you say?” Julian sprang forward and grasped her arm, his fingers digging into her flesh so painfully that Arianne nearly whimpered, but she forced herself to remain silent.
“You lie, it cannot be! Cren has announced that he is dead!” Suddenly he struck her across the face. “You would say anything to try to spare your brother!”
The ringing pain from his blow made Arianne blink in fury, but she faced Julian with head held high. “This is the truth! Do you truly wish to continue fighting here, with me—or are you man enough to face the battle raging all through Castle Dinadan? The choice, my brave lord, is yours!”
Arianne flung these words at him with the utmost contempt. She reached out and gripped the weak, trembling fingers of Archduke Armand, who was breathing shallowly beside her.
Cren rushed to the tiny window carved into the stone and peered down at the melee in the courtyard. The air was filled with shouts, screams, groans, and the clanging of swords. Arrows rained down from the watchtowers. Even as he stared at the gallows where the executions were to have taken place this day, he saw a small, dark figure scrambling to ascend the structure.
To his chagrin, he saw it was the gypsy.
“Lord Nicholas lives! He lives! He is within the castle walls, fighting in the name of Dinadan!”
Her rallying shriek echoed even up to that high, secret chamber.
Cren spun away from the window and met Julian’s livid gaze.
“We must kill them both now, my lord, and go down to lead the knights! Our soldiers will win, and the duke’s proclamation that you are to succeed him will still carry weight.”
Julian was literally shaking with anger. “Quickly, then,” he snarled, and, having made up his mind, the utter ruthlessness of his darkest side swiftly consumed him. His sword scraped out of its scabbard.
“Dearest Arianne, you never could learn a woman’s place—you were forever trying to join in the war games of boys. Now you’ll pay the price of death for it.”
But as he advanced on her, Arianne dodged around the small table near the window, keeping him at bay on the far side of it. Breathing hard, she saw Cren rushing toward the duke, and in desperation snatched up the ceramic jug on the table before her. She hurled it at him.
It struck the back of his head, and he groaned, turning a monstrous, glaring face at her.
But the blow had only slowed him down.
“If I had a sword, I would slay you both!” she shouted as Julian started toward her again, but at that instant a hidden panel beside the bed slid open, and Nicholas stepped through.
His garments were tattered and bloody, but he looked splendid and fierce and invincible. His face was flushed, his dark hair slick with sweat, but there was an iron calm in his bearing and in his eyes that bespoke a man in control of his destiny.
Through the rent leather of his tunic, the royal medallion of Dinadan gleamed gloriously against his swarthy chest.
“I have a sword, my sweet love, and I will gladly perform that service for you.”
He seemed to have summed up the situation at a glance, but when his quick hawklike gaze spied his father lying in the bed, all color drained from Nicholas’s face.
Arianne stood frozen, terrified for what he was feeling and thinking at this moment, her heart pounding as she realized that his shock would leave him distracted and vulnerable to Julian and Cren.
“Archduke Armand is not hurt…” she began, but the words died in her throat as she caught the expression on Julian’s face.
He, too, was in shock. Shock at seeing his hated half brother alive andhere.But beneath the shock was hatred, a hatred as raw and ugly as an open sore. Then the terrible rage lashed through Julian as his gaze centered on the royal medallion of Dinadan around Nicholas’s neck.
“The medallion!” he croaked. “You!” He swung his sword in a glittering, deadly arc.
“Kill him!” Julian screamed to Cren and lunged forward. Cren obediently joined the attack against the banished heir.
Arianne flung herself back to the opposite side of the duke’s bed. There was nothing in the chamber that could be used as a weapon, there was nothing she could do but grasp the archduke’s shriveled hand.
“Nicholas will prevail,” she tried to reassure him, but her lips felt numb, and her gaze was fixed in terror on the battle where Nicholas coolly faced two enemies who wielded their swords with deadly intent. It was clear that Julian and Cren had learned their swordsmanship from a master. There was sweat on Nicholas’s upper lip, and he was forced to thrust and dodge and parry at a furious pace as they both came at him at once.
“Julian…you cannot shed…your brother’s blood,” the archduke rasped out feebly.
Arianne would have told him to save his breath. Cren and Julian were attacking as ruthlessly as mongrel dogs fighting over a rabbit. Except that Nicholas was no rabbit.