Chapter Eight #3
They would be heroes.
*
The ceremony was over. Rebecca’s father still lay in the dirt, weeping like a child.
Dustin, sniffing and sobbing, watched as the priest tried to give the man a few words of comfort, but he was unsuccessful in convincing him to rise.
Christopher’s arm tightened around her as they stood there silently.
After several long minutes, Dustin could stand it no longer. She lowered the handkerchief she was holding, unaware when it fell to the ground.
“I must comfort him,” she whispered to her husband, moving away from him and to the crumpled figure in the dark dirt.
Christopher and the knights stood silently as Dustin knelt beside the man.
They could hear her soft voice, soothing and even, as she spoke to him, trying to persuade him to rise.
And they could also hear the man refusing, lamenting loudly to whatever gods would listen as to why his wife and daughter had been taken from him.
The more the farmer cried, the calmer Dustin became, until eventually she was able to convince him to get up and return with her.
Christopher watched his wife’s gentleness, amazed that such a firebrand of a woman was capable of it. As she helped the stricken man to his feet, Christopher bent over to pick up the kerchief that she dropped.
As he straightened up, he heard a faint high-pitched whistle and knew exactly what it was before he even saw it. He had no time to react at all before the whine grew deafening and behind him, David let out a loud grunt and slammed to the ground in a crash of metal and bone.
The knights were in action before David had even hit the ground.
The farmer be damned, Christopher pulled his wife to him and shielded her with his big body, moving her out of the trees and towards his destrier.
Leeton and Edward had David each by an arm, dragging him free of the wooded area and back to the horses in the open field.
The de Velt twins and Jeffrey were already mounted with swords in hand, spurring their destriers in the direction the arrow had come from.
The peasants who had attended the funeral were screaming and running for their lives.
David, hit in the shoulder, was still able to control his own destrier as Leeton helped him mount.
Christopher, having no idea who their attackers were, was desperate to get Dustin back to the keep. He thrust her at Leeton.
“Get her and David back to the keep and stay there,” he ordered. “Edward, to me!”
Before Dustin realized what was happening, she was mounted in front of Leeton and, along with David, racing back to Lioncross.
The last glimpse she caught of her husband was of him astride his massive white destrier, huge sword in his equally huge hand, tearing off in the direction of the trees.
They reached Lioncross in short measure, helping David into the keep with a nasty-looking spine protruding from his shoulder.
David’s wound was not deep. The arrow had hit him in a weak spot in the armor, doing no more than embedding itself a couple of inches into the man’s soft flesh.
Leeton had removed it easily while Dustin had cleaned and patched it up.
Stripped to the waist, David was propped up with pillows as Dustin lay in a few stitches, cringing every time she stuck him with the needle. He did no more than smile at her and she was at a loss.
“Does this not hurt you?” she demanded.
“A tickle,” he told her, studying her features at close range. She had been quite elusive as of late and he was not surprised to discover she was even lovelier up close.
She cocked an eyebrow, securing a stitch. “Somehow I doubt that,” she said.
He turned a little, pointing to a large scar just below his rib cage. “Now, that one hurt. The scar is much smaller than the actual wound.”
“What happened?” she glanced at it, a scar on an otherwise perfectly formed torso. Christopher had a slight matting of blond hair on his chest, but David’s was as smooth as a baby’s bottom and very beautiful. His arms were like thick oak branches.
“A Saracen,” he said. “He caught me off guard, without my armor. But it was a good fight.”
“How did he catch you without your armor?” she wanted to know.
David cleared his throat. “I was well….I didn’t have any clothes on at all. I was… you see….there was this….”
“You were bathing,” Dustin put in quickly, not wanting to know the rest. She had an idea of what he was about to say.
“Aye, I was bathing,” he agreed rapidly, relieved. “What a bath.”
She shot him a reproachful glance, returning to the next stitch. He smiled broadly, remaining silent as she finished mending the wound.
“Christopher will be pleased to see that you were not badly injured.” She finally stood up, glancing at Leeton as he stood beside the bed. “Where do you think they could be? They have been gone a long time.”
“They will be back,” Leeton said. He had sent one hundred men-at-arms to assist the knights when they had first returned to the keep and was confident that any trouble had been swiftly quelled.
Dustin sat with David while Leeton went down to the bailey to check on the progress of the action.
David insisted he was fine and able to resume a normal schedule, but Dustin had fits and demanded he stay abed.
David complied reluctantly, knowing that Christopher would order him up as soon as he returned.
Until that time, he was perfectly content to sit and gaze at his lovely new sister-in-law.
“I still find it hard to believe your father did not marry you off before he left with Richard,” he said softly.
She glanced up at him as she cleaned up the items used to tend his wound. “Why do you say that?”
“Because you are so lovely,” he replied. “Surely there were men beating down the door to marry you.”
Dustin dropped her head again. “Idiots, all of them.”
David grinned. “Including my brother?”
Dustin sighed irritably. “He did not beat my door down,” she said. “My father simply handed everything over to him, including me.”
“And that displeases you?” he pressed, although gentler.
She slowed as she gathered the last of the cat gut and needles. “Why do you want to know this? It is of no concern to you.”
“My brother is my concern,” he replied. “But if you do not want to talk about it, I understand.”
“Thank you,” she said, turning for the big wardrobe in the chamber to put everything away.
He eyed her. “Christopher didn’t want to marry anyone, either. But he has reconsidered.”
She busied herself at the wardrobe. “Is that so? Well, I care not. We are married whether either one of us wants to be or not.”
He scrutinized her as she tried to ignore him. “Do you not like Chris?”
She looked at him. “He is my husband.”
“That isn’t an answer. Why do not you like him?” David persisted.
She cocked her head, not as irritated as she had been earlier. “You are the prying sort, aren’t you? And I never said I didn’t like him. I do.”
He grinned. “Good. He likes you.”
She shrugged, pretending indifference when she was secretly gladdened with his words.
Not knowing what to say, she finished putting everything away and then went about straightening up the chamber just so she wouldn’t have to sit and answer David’s questions.
He was nosy and, being unsure of her feelings and certainly not wanting to share them, she pretended to be busy.
David watched her work, surprisingly pretty and feminine for a woman who seemed rather rough.
He could see the wall around her, the front she put up, yet the woman he had seen at the gravesite today had been completely open and vulnerable.
She tried to be tough in front of everyone and David wondered if that still held true when she was alone with his brother.
No wonder Christopher was afraid to lay himself open for her, even if he did like her.
David had a feeling the woman could sting if she wanted to.
As he watched her wipe at a table, they both heard a loud shout from the bailey outside, and Dustin rushed to the lancet window that faced the northeast side of the bailey. She could partially see the big gatehouse, now with its gates opening wide.
“What is it?” David asked.
Dustin turned around. “They are returning,” she replied, setting the needlepoint down. “I shall go see.”
David almost stopped her, but refrained.
It seemed to him that she wanted to go down to meet Christopher.
As soon as she left, he got out of bed and went to the windows, gazing out over the bailey as the huge gates spilled forth men into the ward.
He spied the knights, and saw that they carried a prisoner.
Hastily, he went in search of his clothes.
*
Dustin stood in the open door of the castle, shielding her eyes from the sun that had suddenly decided to make an appearance from behind the clouds.
She’d never seen so many soldiers in her bailey, all mobilized and ready to fight when in fact they were returning.
She knew these men to be a mixture of Christopher’s loyal men-at-arms and men that her father had taken with him to the Holy Land, but under her husband’s direction, they seemed to be much more disciplined than her father’s troops had ever been.
The knights, including her husband, were congregating over near the eastern wall of the keep. Leeton was there, and she could see him wrestling with a man that had been trussed up on the back of Max’s destrier. Curious, she stepped out onto the large stone step to get a better look.
Christopher dismounted his destrier and moved around to the prisoner, now held between Anthony and Leeton. Without a word, he motioned for the man to be tied spread-eagle between the two six foot poles near the wall. The man yelled and screamed and begged, but he was no match for the knights.
When the prisoner was secured, Christopher stood before him, his visor up and his eyes like blue ice. He stared at the man for several moments, enough to intimidate the hell out of him, and the man was visibly shaken.