Three Nights With the Princess Read online

  She hadn’t a prayer.

  She did, however, find a scream.

  * * *

  In a smoky tavern just yards away, ale and talk flowed freely among the crude planking tables that were bathed in the smoky light of tallow lamps. The heat of a cook hearth and of touchy male pride combined to raise both spirits and tempers among a tough contingent of patrons around those tables. And squarely in the midst of the contention sat Gasquar LeBruit.

  “I say it is the Moors,” he declared, his bearded jaw jutting. “You have not been truly tested in battle unless you have honed your blade against Saracen steel. They fight like the very demons of Hell itself,” His eyes caught fire and his voice dropped to a dramatic rasp. “Why, in the battle of Cardiz, I cut off one swordsman’s hand and he caught up his falling blade in his other hand and continued the fight.” The caws and laughter his claim produced only spurred him to greater heights. “By the saints”—he lifted a callused hand—“I swear it is true. Then when I cut off his other hand, he caught his blade in his teeth and came at me again.” His eyes flashed with wicked lights and the corners of his broad mouth began to curl. “By the time I was done, there was naught but an ear and a pizzle on the field of battle. And—Sacre Bleu—I tell you a truth—that pizzle put up a hell of a fight!” The place went up in a roar of laughter, and the proprietor shoved yet another tankard of ale into Gasquar’s hand.

  “Ask my friend if it is not true!” He stalked toward Saxxe, who sat at a table against the wall with a number of battle-toughened warriors who wore a motley assortment of odd garments and armament garnered from the four corners of the earth. Some of that rough brotherhood enjoyed Gasquar’s tale and some dismissed it, but none disputed it, for one of the few courtesies that gathering of hard-bitten soldiers and knights for hire accorded one another was the privilege of the grand lie.

  Gasquar staggered over and sank down on the bench beside Saxxe and the others, his face ruddy with pleasure. Just as he opened his mouth to say something, a scream penetrated the thick, sweat-laden air. The noise in the tavern stilled briefly, then resumed at a lower level. Saxxe drew a deep breath. closed his eyes, and downed the dregs of his tankard, willing himself to ignore that unsettling sound. Screams, especially women’s screams, meant trouble. And he didn’t mix in trouble of any sort unless there was a clear profit to be made from it.

  “It is an odd fact of our trade,” he mused, “that after a while we get quite good at reading screams. That one, for example. A woman, of course. And angry. Mad as a wet guinea hen. The sort of scream a woman makes when she’s caught her husband in a bit of ballocking on the side.” He flashed a wicked grin and the others chuckled as he picked up Gasquar’s tankard and drew a long draught from it.

  “Now, some women scream when they’re shocked or surprised . . . like when they discover a rat in a rain barrel,” he continued, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “That’s a short, hard shriek of a sound. One blast and they’re done.” His hand lingered to smooth his thick, dark beard, then fell to the huge broadsword that lay propped against his thigh. “And then there’s—”

  A second scream rolled through the unshuttered window, and Saxxe’s gut tightened in spite of himself. “Two screams,” he observed casually, sliding his hand over his blade, tracing the bronzework on its scabbard. “In my experience, a woman seldom needs more than two . . . one to get your attention, the other to get her meaning across.” The others laughed, while Saxxe cast a restless, sidelong glance at the open window.

  “Alors.” Gasquar turned to Saxxe with an upraised finger. “Do you recall the demoiselle in Venice, mon ami, when we fought for the Duc de Montalba? The little dusky one with the voice so sweet?” A lusty smirk stole over his face as he turned to the others. “At the height of her passions, this sweet little flower would open her throat and scream like a panther caught in a trap. Such screams.” His gaze drifted past his audience into remembered vistas. “Such loving.”

  “He was half deaf before we left Venice for Rome,” Saxxe declared, giving Gasquar’s shoulder a shove.

  The drunken laughter that followed was cut short by still another cry from the same throat; this one shrill and vibrating. Saxxe’s thigh muscles tightened and his belly tensed. He shifted on his seat, rubbing his palm restlessly against the pommel of his sword, then wrapping his huge fingers gingerly around the handle grip.

  “Three,” he said, running his other hand back through his long, shaggy hair. “And she’s gone from furious to frightened. High-pitched and wavering . . . that’s the sound of fear. Perhaps her old husband has decided to teach her a lesson or two.”

  At the fourth scream—shriller still, but somehow weaker—Saxxe shoved abruptly to his feet and cast Gasquar a taut, speaking look as he headed for the door. Gasquar lifted a rueful eyebrow and turned back to the others.

  “Dieu—you are hopeless, Rouen,” Saxxe muttered to himself, stepping into the darkened street and pausing to listen. There was a low rumble of voices, but he could not say whether it came from the open tavern door behind him or somewhere else. “Look at you. A few miserable screams and you are quivering like a lute string.” He held his breath, waiting. And this time when it came again, raw and terrified, he lurched into motion and followed the sound straight down the alley beside the tavern to its source.

  In the cluttered and ill-lit back street, half a dozen mercenaries were holding a struggling woman down on the filthy ground. One held her hands and two her feet, while another knelt between her legs and tore at his clothes. Two others slouched against the back wall of the tavern, emptying a wine jug down their gullets and calling guttural encouragements as they waited their turns. They were so drunk or so brazen that they did not even try to muffle the woman’s cries.

  Saxxe shifted from one foot to the other, clenching his jaw and feeling his wretchedly chivalrous impulses rousing at the odds the woman faced. “Six on one,” he muttered, wincing. “And it would be Mongol-Slavs. Vicious, treacherous animals—their sort gives hired soldiers a bad name.” He pulled his blade sling over one shoulder, resettled his twin daggers to the sides of his waist, and tightened his grip on his sword hilt. He paced two steps away, then two steps back, his muscles going taut, his nerves beginning to vibrate with a familiar tension.

  “It is no concern of yours, Saxxe Rouen.” He jabbed a finger at the shocking scene. “That six-on-one would become six-on-you.” He growled from between clamped jaws. “And God knows, there’s never any profit to be made in rescuing a demoiselle in distress.”

  Then the barbarian fell atop the poor woman, and the cry that issued from her throat hit Saxxe like a fist slamming into his gut.

  “Gasquar!” he bellowed, unsheathing his blade in a single powerful motion. “Gasquar—we fight!” he roared, charging in with his blade swinging.

  The barbarians were not so drunk as Saxxe had hoped. With the advantage of surprise, he made it to the woman and delivered her abuser a hard kick in the ribs that lifted him partway off her. But those holding the woman fell back only for a moment before abandoning their prize and scrambling to their feet. The two by the wall had dropped their jug and unsheathed their weapons in a trice, meeting his attack full out. Their blood ran hot with carnal expectation and they now bent that coiled energy to the fight.

  Saxxe swung and dodged and slashed, fighting to make a stand beside the woman, who seemed too hurt or too stunned to take advantage of her sudden release. Twice he felt a blade rake the leather braces on his chest, and at least twice he felt his own blade dragging through leather or flesh—he knew not which. They came at him from all sides and he pulled one of his daggers and used his feet, drawing on every bit of his agility to keep from being battered away from the woman’s side or sliced open from groin to gullet. It seemed an eternity before Gasquar’s familiar call rang out in the chaos.

  “Ah-haaa!” Gasquar rushed down the alley with his blade drawn and his grin broadening. “I see you have managed to find us some trouble, mon ami
!” He charged in with a bold laugh, and the odds were suddenly six to two.

  The Mongol-Slavs rushed to meet Gasquar as well, and the fighting was fast and fierce and showed no signs of a quick ending. Without shields they were forced to fight two-handed: slash, thrust, and downcut, over and over, intercepting Mongol steel with one blade while striking with the other. When Saxxe finally caught sight of the woman struggling to make it to her hands and knees, he realized the rescue was already accomplished. And he knew from years of experience that nothing would be served by hacking it out to the finish with such unpredictable opponents. The risk of bloodshed was too great, and a mercenary’s livelihood depended upon keeping his skin intact in order to fight another day.

  Deciding, he made a sudden, powerful charge and managed to wound one of his opponents and send another sprawling into the dirt. He called to Gasquar to guard his back, and the burly warrior bolted to shield his comrade’s movement, pivoting and engaging the barbarians fearlessly. Saxxe sheathed his weapons and hauled the woman up and onto his shoulder, making for the street end of the alley,

  Gasquar made a valiant stand against odds of four-on-one, then as soon as Saxxe was cleanly away, he too made a fierce final charge, then wheeled and ran like the very Devil. With battle-roused fury, the Mongol·Slavs sent up a cry and rushed after them,

  Chapter Three

  Saxxe raced through the dark streets, his mind churning like his powerful legs. He knew that Gasquar would have taken a different turn, which would force their pursuers to divide forces in order to catch them both. But the woman on his shoulder grew heavier by the stride, he could hear the barbarians behind him, and he had no assurance that Gasquar’s tactic had worked. If he stopped now, he might find himself facing the lot of them again, single-handed. His best course was to find an unbarred door and get behind it until the mongrels gave up and slunk back to whatever pesthole had spewed them forth.

  He began trying doors—any door, every door—in the maze of crowded alleys, and it wasn’t long before he found one that yielded. Pushing back the weathered planks, he ducked inside and slammed them shut behind him. In the dim light, he searched for a bar to brace the door and seized a warped plank that looked as if it had served the purpose before. He managed to wedge the wood between the iron and wooden brackets, then rolled the woman from his shoulder against the wall. She slid, and when he instinctively leaned in to support her with his body, she began to struggle and cry out—still blindly fighting. As voices and thudding feet approached outside, he thrust his weight full against her and clamped his hand over her mouth to prevent her from giving them away.

  “Quiet—damn it—they’re just outside!” he commanded in a fierce whisper, seizing one of her frantic hands and pinioning it above her head. It was all he could do to control her wriggling body and muffle her cries. “If they hear you and come after us—I’ll hand you over to them, I swear it!” His threat must have penetrated her confusion, for her cries stopped and her movements slowed.

  The sounds of rattling weapons and shouts came from just outside the door. Something—a fist, boot, or shoulder—banged against the door, and Saxxe watched the aged planks vibrate under the blows. After an interval, there were other, muffled, thuds which seemed farther away. Then, as abruptly as they had come, the voices receded along the street as the barbarians moved off to continue their search.

  As the sounds of their pursuers faded, she began to struggle again, shoving against his ribs and trying to call out. “Be still, woman. You’re safe enough,” he said, his chest heaving. But his demoiselle in distress either didn’t hear or wasn’t convinced; she writhed and twisted frantically.

  She was a fiery one, Saxxe realized. Attacked by a horde of barbarians, she had managed a number of impressive screams and still refused to surrender. He briefly considered shaking her to bring her to her senses, but decided that it went against the noble spirit of his deed.

  It took a while for her to wear herself down, but she gradually stilled against him, and he could feel her bracing for whatever he intended. Saxxe closed his eyes for a moment, recovering the rest of his breath and his self-control, then pushed back enough to look down at the woman he had just rescued.

  His heart gave a powerful, arrhythmic thud.

  Above the hand he held clamped over her mouth, he saw large, light-colored eyes, beautifully shaped and thickly lashed, set in skin that was smooth and clear. She was young, and if the rest of her face matched what he could already see, she would prove quite a beauty. His taut, overheated body and battle-fired senses focused instantly on the womanly shape and softness pressed against him.

  “Well, well,” he said, still panting, his broad mouth curling up on one end, Giving in to curiosity, he removed his hand from her mouth. His gaze fastened on full, aristocratic cheekbones, then slid down a straight, delicately carved nose to a pair of seductively bowed lips that seemed to be made of ruby-red silk. She was beyond lovely, he thought with some shock; she was breathtaking. Surprise sent a hot trickle of carnal excitement through his loins, and he stiffened and ruthlessly quelled it. A demoiselle this beautiful was undoubtedly valuable to someone . . . someone who would pay well to have her back....

  The instant Thera looked up at the huge shadowy beast who held her pinned to the wall with his body, she felt a frisson of fear. She’d been snatched from beneath one filthy, rampaging barbarian by another smelly brute who seemed intent on squashing her witless himself!

  Potent and utterly foreign feelings of helplessness, fear, and disgust roiled through her. For the first time in her life, both her circumstances and her responses to them raged out of her control. Of all that had happened to her, it was that utter loss of command, that sense of powerlessness, that terrified her most. It struck at the very core of her royal being, and her frayed and embattled defenses rose to meet it . . . striking out to reclaim what power and authority they could.

  “Let me go,” she demanded in a strained rasp. Saxxe looked up to find her striking eyes filled with molten anger. “Take your wretched hands off me.”

  “What?”

  “Get off—get away from me, you brute,” she ordered, jerking her face as far away as she could and pushing at his stomach with the heels of her palms.

  “Brute?” he echoed.

  “Release me immediately, or—” She halted, trying desperately to think of a threat that a fierce, pillaging barbarian would find intimidating. “I swear, I’ll . . . I’ll see you hunted down and . . . and drawn and quartered.”

  “Drawn and quartered? For what?” he demanded, with a snort of disbelief. “Rescuing you?”

  “For carrying me off and holding me prisoner.”

  His jaw went slack. “Carrying you off—” Instead of the tearful gratitude he might have expected, he found himself accused of the very offenses he’d just prevented . . . and by the victim he’d just rescued. He choked on the absurdity of it. “Dieu—of course I carried you off! If I hadn’t, you would be lying naked and senseless in that alley even now . . . with a Mongol-Slav bastard in your belly.”

  His words hit her like a slap. Naked. A bastard in her belly. For one fleeting moment, she again felt their hands pawing at her, pushing her to the ground, and wrenching her legs apart. What had almost happened rose in her mind with sickening clarity. For the first time, she connected it with her own physical body—her belly, her thighs, her womanly parts—and understood the pain and physical violation she might have suffered. Then once again she recoiled from the horror of her own vulnerability and retreated into royal prerogative.

  “Now, instead, I’m standing squashed and half suffocated in a hovel,” she hissed, “with yet another heaving, malodorous barbarian breathing down my neck.”

  “Heaving . . . malodorous . . . barbarian?” Each word sounded harder and flatter. In the midst of that huge shaggy head, two large dark eyes began to burn like hearth coals, and she felt his body lean harder into hers.

  She couldn’t help flinching as he traced a men
acing path along her collarbone to the edge of the rounded neck of her gown . . . and beneath it. Hooking the fabric of her gown and chemise on his finger, he twisted and jerked hard, pulling them up and away from her shoulder. A huge, blue-bladed dagger suddenly arched above her and came crashing down, wrenching a strangled cry from her as it tore through the cloth and sank deep into the wall behind her.

  She quivered with shock as he hooked the other shoulder the same way and sent a second dagger plunging through it into the wood behind her. Then he backed away, leaving her pinned against the wall. She hadn’t even realized she had been standing on her toes until she slid and landed flat on her feet . . . and felt the shoulders of her gown lift and heard the sickening rip of cloth. She gasped and wobbled back up onto her toes, reaching for the hilt of a dagger but unable to pull it out with only one hand.

  The full extent of her plight dawned when she reached for the dagger with both hands and heard a huge rending sound. She flattened against the wall and found half of the shoulder of her gown cut through and the rest threatening to part at any moment. She was trapped . . . held captive by her own garments!

  A sardonic chuckle brought her head up, and she found him watching her with what she sensed was a vile look of pleasure, though she could not be certain for the shadows that covered the top half of his face and the disgusting bush of hair that covered the rest.

  “A little trick I learned from the Saracens . . . though I believe their particular practice involves catching a bit of flesh as well as cloth,” he said in a deep rumble, folding his arms over his chest. “We barbarians keep our daggers double-edged and sharp for just such occasions, demoiselle.” She couldn’t stop the heat flooding into her face or the chill that raced through her shoulders, but she did try to recoup some of her self-possession by standing straighter and raising both arms to grab the dagger handles on each side of her. The ominous sound of tearing threads stopped her again.