Chapter One #2
Ellowyn ended up in the puddle of urine she had tried so hard to avoid and she bolted up, muddied and dirty, and pushed her way between the men with more determination than before. When the knight wouldn’t look at her, she hammered a fist against his dented breastplate.
“Touch me again and you shall suffer the consequences,” she hissed. “My name is Ellowyn de Nerra and you have eight hundred of my father’s men under your command. My father has sent me with a message for you.”
That got his attention. The warrior looked at her, perhaps more closely this time, although his stone-like expression didn’t register as much.
“You are de Nerra’s daughter?” he asked.
Ellowyn was so angry that she was shaking. “I am,” she seethed, “and when I tell my father how you have shown me such disrespect, he will cease all ties with you, I am sure.”
The warrior could see how furious she was. “Lady Ellowyn, had you told me who you were at the first, I would not have had cause to cast you aside,” he said in a deep, rumbling voice. “You did not identify yourself.”
“And this is how you treat every woman who does not identify herself? Are you so grand and glorious that you feel yourself head and heart above the rest of the world?”
He didn’t rise to her anger, although he had to admit, it had been a long time since he had faced such fury.
No one dared show him any emotion other than blind obedience, but this small and quite beautiful woman was different.
She had much courage. Her anger threatened to bring a smile to his impassive lips, but he fought it.
“I thought you were a whore,” he said bluntly. “What message does your father have for me?”
If she had been outraged before, his forthright reply set her to fuming. Her delicately arched eyebrows flew up.
“Do I look like a whore?” she nearly shouted.
He felt that odd urge to smile again. “Nay, my lady, you do not,” he thought perhaps he’d better make some attempt to ease her before she exploded in all directions. “As I said, you did not identify yourself and….”
She waved a sharp hand at him. “Bite your tongue,” she barked.
“Listen to me and listen well. My father wants all of his men rested and ready to return to Erith Castle immediately. He expects a full accounting of how many men he has lost and expectations as to when he can expect monetary or manpower compensation for those losses. I am staying at Grey’s Inn on Holborn Road and you will have all of my father’s men delivered to me tomorrow at dawn.
If you delay, I shall return home and tell him of your utter lack of respect for him and his directives. Is this in any way unclear?”
It had been years since he had been intimidated or fearful, but looking down into that beautiful red face, he realized that not only was he intimidated, he was contrite. He really was. Shocked, and somewhat amused at himself, he simply nodded his head.
“It is, my lady.”
“Do you have anything more slanderous or offensive to say to me?”
“Nay, my lady.”
“Then I bid you good day.”
With that, she turned around and hustled off, dodging errant soldiers and beasts of burden. The warrior just stood there and watched her storm off, eventually surrounded by her escort who had, throughout the exchange, simply stood by in shock as their lady raged at a man three times her size.
More than that, she was raging at the deadly and legendary Duke of Exeter, Brandt de Russe. There was no one living in recent memory that had managed to do such a thing and emerge unscathed. Brandt reached up and scratched his head as if the entire circumstance had confused him.
“That was de Nerra’s daughter?” he turned back to the knight standing next to him. “I did not even know he had one.”
Sir Dylan de Lara lifted his dark eyebrows, catching a glimpse of the well-dressed woman as she faded down the avenue.
“He does indeed,” he replied. “His son and heir committed himself to the Benedictines some time ago, a sincere shame because from what I heard, the man had the makings of a great knight. But he lives in a monastery somewhere in Lincolnshire while de Nerra’s only other child is the lady you just met. ”
Brandt digested the information. “With that courage, she would make a fine knight herself,” he muttered, scratching at his neck because his mail was chafing badly. “I do believe I have just been threatened.”
“I concur.”
“Then I suppose I should do as I have been instructed and have her father’s five hundred and sixty-two men waiting for her at Grey’s Inn come dawn.”
“That might be wise.”
He stopped scratching his neck and pulled at the mail irritably. “Perhaps I should simply take them over to the inn tonight and be done with it. I shall let her worry about how she is going to house and feed almost six hundred exhausted men.”
“I am not entirely sure that is fair to the men.”
De Russe was at the end of his part in the discussion. He mounted his massive warhorse, scarred and muscular, and spurred the animal up the avenue where the hordes of men had gone.
De Lara watched him go, thinking that perhaps he should follow.
He was, after all, the man’s second-in-command, a position that few men could hold simply because de Russe did not allow anyone, man or woman, to get close to him.
He had known Dylan and his twin, Alex, for a few years and they all had much the same brooding, intense and courageous personalities.
In that respect, they could tolerate each other. It was enough to keep them bonded.
Mounting his big bay stallion, Dylan spurred the edgy horse off the cog and followed de Russe’s trail, heading into the heart of London.