Page 16 of The Rose at Twilight

H ORSES SCREAMED, MEN SHOUTED, and a trumpet blared, the sounds mixing with the thunderous crash of hooves and clangor of swords and lances on shields and armor.

The roar of the river was lost in the din.

The horn blew more frantically, and Alys could hear Sir Nicholas’s shouts above the others’, but she could not understand what he said.

Only when she heard another voice screaming orders in English did she realize he had shouted his in Welsh.

At least she supposed it had been Welsh.

It certainly was not French, for she could speak a little French herself.

She drew the mare a short distance further away from the battle but made no attempt to flee, for she could not imagine that either side would do her harm, since the attackers must be Yorkists.

Peering through the mist into the melee, she fancied she recognized one or two who had visited Middleham or Sheriff Hutton, though it was hard to recognize anyone for certain when one could not see the devices on their surcoats.

For that matter, only a few of the men seemed to bear such devices.

Suddenly, a group of the attackers broke from the skirmish and charged toward her.

Before she had time to think, one man reached out and grabbed her bridle.

The palfrey plunged and struggled to be free of him.

“Tha’rt wi’ us, lassie!” the man shouted.

His mail was rusted, and he looked fierce and wild, and in any case, Alys had no wish to ride off with a group of unknown men.

Remaining in the Welshman’s charge was preferable to that.

She slashed at the man’s arm with her whip, but the stroke had no effect through his mail sleeve.

“Nay, lass, none o’ that!” he exclaimed, snatching the whip from her hand. Kicking his horse to a faster pace, he forced her palfrey to follow. Then suddenly, glancing ahead, he wrenched his mount to a halt again and released her rein, shouting at his men to look out. “’Ware riders! Get thee gone!”

The group Sir Nicholas had sent ahead with Hugh, having heard the clarion call of the trumpet, had turned back and could be seen now galloping toward them, growing clearer as the leaders emerged like ominous but substantial shadows from the mist.

No sooner did the attacker bellow his warning and release Alys’s mare than he and his men seemed to vanish into the forest, but when one of Sir Nicholas’s men wheeled his horse to follow, the Welshman snarled at him to hold.

Then, giving spur to his destrier, he galloped up to her, reining in with such violence that the stallion reared, pawing the air with its sharp hooves, sending shudders of terror through her mare.

Not turning tail instantly at the sight of him had taken most of Alys’s courage, for Sir Nicholas alone, bearing down upon her out of the ragged skirts of fog, had looked more dangerous than the entire rebel force.

But when her mare began to tremble, she straightened in her saddle, her anger lending color to her cheeks. “Control your mount, sir,” she snapped.

“’Tis not Black Wyvern you need fear, Saesnes ,” he retorted, “but me. I commanded you to ride on, to take shelter in the forest, but you dared yet again to defy me. You had best learn, and right quickly, to obey when I give a command.”

“Those men would not have harmed me,” she said, hoping she sounded more sure of that than she felt.

“You know them then?”

“No,” she replied swiftly, telling herself it was so, that she had not really recognized anyone.

He looked long at her, then said, “Those rebels no doubt hoped to use you as a pawn against Harry Tudor, but they were fools to attack a larger force, or else mighty desperate. In either case, you ought never to have trusted them.”

“I did not!”

“You did not run, though I told you to do so, and I saw no sign when they approached you that you resisted them.”

“They took me by surprise!”

“They could not have done so had you obeyed me.”

“I am not such a coward as to ride away and hide!”

“You will learn, Saesnes. ” He raised his mailed fist, and she gasped, thinking he meant to strike her, but she realized even as the fear ripped through her mind that he was merely signaling to his men.

While they regrouped and moved up behind, Alys saw by the expressions on a number of faces that they must have heard every word that flew between Sir Nicholas and herself.

She grimaced but was glad to see that other than one soldier whose arm was wrapped in a bloody rag no one appeared to have been badly injured in the brief but hard-fought battle.

When Sir Nicholas gave the signal to ride, Alys scowled at him and muttered for his ears alone, “You have no right to command me, sir. I am not one of your men.”

Making no attempt to keep his voice down, he said, “I have been patient with you, Lady Alys, but you will do well to test my patience no further. You were foolish not to obey me. I will do you the courtesy to believe you did not know them, but that means only that you could not have known they meant you no harm. They might have decided that a lady’s dainty ear—or her finger or hand—sent to our Harry would encourage him to agree to any demand they might choose to make.

’Tis not unknown for rebel abductors to begin with a lock of hair and proceed from there. ”

Paling, and distractedly jerking her rein so that the mare danced nervously in the road, she cried, “They would not dare!”

He grabbed her rein, halting the mare and demanding grimly, “And why would they not?”

She opened her mouth to tell him she believed that at least one or two must have known her brother, but she caught herself before the words were spoken, swallowing them, and after a long, uncomfortable moment, said only, “They would not, that ’s all.”

“Only a liar or a fool would make such a statement,” he said.

“I do not know which you are, but I’ll tell you one last time that you’d best obey my orders.

I have only your safety in mind, nothing more, but while I am responsible for you, you must do as I bid or suffer the consequences. Where is your whip?”

She bit her lip at the transition his thoughts had made but answered steadily enough, “That villain snatched it when I tried to strike him with it.”

His expression softened. “I see. I wronged you then, by believing you did not resist. Still, mi geneth , you will do as I bid next time, for your own safety. If you persist in defying me, I will have no choice but to order your hands tied and place you in charge of one of my men, who will lead your mare and, if we are attacked again, take you instantly to cover.”

Instead of cowing her, the threat, coming as it did on the heels of what amounted to an apology, helped steady her, for she could not believe he meant it.

No man would treat a lady so. She smiled, looking at him from beneath her thick lashes.

“I was glad to see Goorthfan Gower and his men.” She tried to match Ian’s pronunciation but clearly failed, since Sir Nicholas looked bewildered.

“The one you call Hugh,” she explained. “Is Goorthfan Gower not his proper name?”

Amusement lit his eyes. “Welshmen do not have surnames as you English know them. In legend Gwr Gwrddfan is a strong, tall man, a giant. Tales are told in Brecknockshire, where our homes lie, and in nearby Glamorgan, of a giant called Gwrddfangawr. The men began to call our Hugh the same, because of his size. But you and I do not speak of him now, mistress, only of you.”

“Ought we not to ride on, sir?” she asked with an innocent air. “You have spoken often of your wish to travel swiftly.”

“I want your word of honor that you will defy me no more, Lady Alys, and I will have it before we ride another league.”

“My word of honor, sir? Do Welshmen believe—No,” she interjected quickly, realizing that he would only twist her words if she asked such a question. Smiling again, albeit wryly, she said, “Would you really trust my word, sir?”

“May I do so?”

She nodded, serious now, holding his gaze with her own. “If I give it, you may trust it. I know that women are not held to that same high standard by which knights abide, but—”

“In these modern times, mi geneth , even knights can no longer be trusted to abide by that standard.”

“That is not something about which to speak lightly, sir!”

“I do not speak lightly, mistress, but I do speak truth. I said before that the world is changing, and that manners and morals change with it. One cannot say if such changes are right, but they come to us, and the Lord does naught to hinder them; and so, though ’twas once true that the word of a knight could be trusted, your Richard found, to his misfortune, that that is no longer the case.

Harry Tudor uses change to suit his own good.

No doubt, when it was expedient, Richard did the same.

“That is not true! Richard was an honorable knight.”

“So honorable that none can say what became of the nephew who by rights should have sat upon the throne in his stead, or of that lad’s younger brother. So certain are men of their fate, in fact, that none do question it.”

Alys opened her mouth, then clamped it shut again.

“Well,” he prompted when she remained silent, “have you naught to say to that, mistress?”

She had much to say and much to do to keep from saying it, but the conversation had now taken a tangent too dangerous to explore, for she knew both too much and too little.

In truth, she had her suspicions and little else, but since she dared not make those suspicions known to him, she could say nothing.

Her thoughts tumbled over one another, without order or sense, and suddenly, for the first time since her illness, she remembered the possibility that there had been men hiding at Wolveston, and she wondered if they had been among the recent attackers.