Chapter 30 #3
More desperate than ever to deflect the men’s attention from her approach, he baited them with ever more exaggerated scorn, pointing out the gross flaws in the plans they seemed so willing to share with him and even inventing scenarios of what it was going to cost them at the hands of the king.
Pravel retaliated with jibes of his own.
“A fine time we will have with your fortune and your name,” he sneered. “And she wants you to know that it was her idea to betray you, Ravensworth.”
“She betrayed you, Ravensworth,” echoed Percy, and he giggled again, clearly taking perverse delight in the declaration. “Oh, to be sure she did.”
“’Tis a lie!” The words hissed in the dull air. Lily rose up out of the shadowy woods. White-faced and somewhat bent over, she emerged like a vengeful fury, her eyes on fire. The three men jumped visibly at the sound of her voice.
Pravel gave a shout of dismay. “You idiot, how come she—?”
He did not finish his cry. Lily leaped into the clearing and instantly dropped to her knees just behind Percy.
It seemed she could go no further. She did not look at him.
Her eyes flew directly to her husband. “I did not betray you, my lord,” she said low-voiced and broken.
Then, before anyone could react, she lunged forward and with all her strength, buried her serpe into the gap between Percy’s cuisse and the greave at the back of his knee. Just as Master Finch had taught her.
Percy screamed in shock and pain. He swayed. Edward moved like lightning at the sound of Lily’s voice.
“Run for the trees, Lily, move away,” he bellowed. à moi, Black Raven!” His sword swept the air with a cry of its own. He plunged forward to engage Lambert.
Browbeating peasants and murdering villeins was Lambert’s game.
He stood no chance against Edward’s superior skill.
He screamed and would have run but the earl was the quicker and dispatched him with ease.
At that very moment, the trees all around shook as riders emerged and horses leaped down the banks to encircle the crossroads.
Their rallying cry rent the woods around: “Black Raven!” they answered and the thunder of their charge went before them.
Edward’s trap closed over his enemies. The predators became victims.
“Yours, Lanval,” Edward shouted as he raced up the incline and into the trees in the direction he’d seen Lily flee.
He did not have to go far. But a yard or so further, she had fallen, or else her legs had finally given out.
She sat amid a pile of leaves. Countless seasons had carpeted the woods in umber and brown and pale yellow. There she sat, her head bent, her sobs raw and thin. Edward faltered. Tears did not move him, but this sound from his wife was like a wounded animal. It squeezed his heart.
He knelt on one knee before her, his usual hauteur replaced by a mask of sheer terror. He did not dare to touch her in case she broke. More fragile than glass, she looked, defeated, distraught. The panic in his mind blurred his thinking, erased his battlefield detachment.
“Are you hurt? Lily, speak to me. Tell me, where is your wound?”
“I-I did not betray you, Edward. I did not, I did not,” she said brokenly and lifted her filthy, tear-stained face. “I don’t know how to prove it for little Mary is dead. They killed her, brutally, a mere girl, and now I have no way to prove my fidelity.”
But Edward closed his eyes against the wash of anguish on her face.
His hands reached for her, bringing her unresisting into his embrace.
“I know, fairest one,” he said. “Never did I doubt you. You are my soul’s kin.
I have your heart to prove it, remember?
” He kissed her swollen red lids and pressed her head softly into his neck.
“Besides, you have a perfect alibi. You are incapable of harming my son.”
To Edward’s horror at the mention of her babe, Lily began to weep so hard she was forced to suck in huge whoops of air.
“Hush now,” he crooned and rocked her, stroking her hair. Instead of calming her, she grew more distressed, the whooping sounds drawing Edward’s waiting horsemen from the crossroads.
“Lily, beloved,” he said, trying to look at her. She bent her head and would not let him see her until fear drove him to grab her cheek with one hand and force her to look at him. “Tell me, what is it that troubles you? Speak,” he added roughly now.
“I-I- do not know if I have your son, still. It-it’s wet down there. I am afraid to move. Percy threw me from his horse, I-I. It went dark.” She buried her head in his neck, unable to continue.
“The devil’s spleen!” said Edward in a voice like black thunder.
He stood then, lifting Lily with one arm and whistling for his horse.
At the same time, Lanval kneed his horse forward, followed by Mathew and Dunstan.
Diggens stood white-faced behind the knights, staring with horror at his weeping mistress.
Edward barked his orders as Windfar trotted out of the trees and stood waiting.
Without ado, the earl swung into the saddle, and Lanval lifted Lily into his arms. He settled her across his lap and held her head against his heart.
“Lanval,” he said softly, “get Dame Estrid and bring her to me. On the wings of the wind, man, go!”