One look was enough to tell the smugglers they were outnumbered, so rather than stand and fight, they made for their boat. They dropped their swords as they ran to have both hands free to shove it into the water.
The tide was against them, and before they could get it deep enough, Ranulf and his men were upon them.
A few left the boat and ran back for their weapons. More abandoned the boat, their weapons and their fellows, and rushed for the path to the top of the bluff. Shouting his commands, Ranulf sent Gareth and five of his men after them, while he and Kiernan and the rest of his soldiers dealt with those at the boat.
Out of the corner of his eye, Ranulf saw Kiernan lunge at one of the smugglers. “Don’t kill them,” he ordered as he raised his sword. “Catch them but don’t kill them!”
Then Kiernan was forgotten as Ranulf attacked a man with a long scar down his neck, wearing motley clothes and swearing in Italian.
“Surrender and you can live,” Ranulf told the man who gripped his sword as if it were a club. “There’s no need to die.”
A slew of foreign words, obviously a denunciation and refusal, issued forth from the man’s nearly toothless mouth.
Perhaps he didn’t know English, and if so, there’d be no way to get information out of him, Ranulf thought. But just because this fellow swore in those other tongues was no guarantee he didn’t speak English. Ranulf still had to try to take the man down while keeping him alive.
Ignoring everything else around him, Ranulf concentrated on his ragged opponent. Patience, boy, patience, he thought, as Sir Leonard had admonished the lads in his care a hundred times. Look for your enemy’s weakness. Let him strike first. Watch how he moves, how he holds his weapon. Battles were won not with mere brute strength, but with patience and cunning, with skill and vigilance. Winning was in the head, Sir Leonard used to say. Don’t lose yours.
Circling his enemy, Ranulf noted that he not only held his weapon clumsily, he moved like an ox on two legs. Deft Henry would have fairly danced around him.
The man raised his sword, bringing his arms too far back and throwing himself off balance before he brought his weapon slashing downward. Ranulf easily sidestepped the blow and then, as the man stumbled back, he saw his chance. Upending his sword, Ranulf struck the top of the man’s head with the base of the hilt as hard as he could.
Splaying his hand upon a pile of rock, the man groaned and staggered, and struggled to stand. Again Ranulf struck him on the head and this time, his opponent collapsed, his face in the sand.
Pleased and only slightly winded, Ranulf turned to go back to the boat. In that same moment, a sword sliced through the side of his tunic. And his flesh.
Holding his left side, the blood flowing between his fingers, Ranulf glared at the one-eyed man who’d struck him. This man knew how to hold to his sword and how to wield it, too.
Nevertheless, and despite his wound, Ranulf planted his feet—firm to the ground, as Sir Leonard used to say—and prepared to defend himself.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CELESTE’S SCREECH OF HORRORechoed against the stone walls of Penterwell. Bea made no sound at all as she ran toward the bloodied, exhausted men riding into the courtyard. She lost all ability to speak when she saw Kiernan mounted on his horse and holding Ranulf in front of him, one arm around her beloved’s sagging body.
“Kiernan, are you hurt?” Celeste called out. “What happened?”
Kiernan answered, but it was not to Celeste he spoke. He looked down at the distraught Bea clutching his stirrup as if she was about to fall herself. “We saw some men putting in up the coast and tried to capture them. We were winning the fight until more came to join them. That’s when Ranulf was wounded.”
Wounded. Wounded, not dead.
As something approaching vitality returned to Bea, she gestured at the grooms who’d come rushing out of the stables when they, too, heard the sentries sound the alarm.
“Take Sir Ranulf to his chamber,” she ordered, the words little more than a hoarse croak.
As the men hurried to obey her, Maloren appeared at her elbow. “Oh, my poor lamb! My lady!”
Bea straightened, shoulders back, expression resolute—a lady of power and majesty and strength of purpose. “I’m not the one who’s hurt. It’s Ranulf and some of these other men whoneed help. Find me clean linens for bandages and I’ll need hot water. Please bring them to Ranulf’s bedchamber.”
As Maloren rushed to do as she was bidden, Bea walked over to Kiernan. She ignored Celeste, who waited anxiously nearby.
“The smugglers—what happened to them?”
“I don’t know, my lady. After Ranulf fell, we retreated because by then, we were outnumbered.”
Bea turned next to the garrison commander, who was likewise sweaty and exhausted. “Send a soldier to summon the townsfolk to the market street, Gareth. After I have seen to Sir Ranulf’s wounds, I’m going to address them. We’ve been patient long enough.”
Gareth nodded, awed by the determination in Lady Beatrice’s face as she turned on her heel and marched into the hall.
THANKGOD THE WOUND WASnot deep, Bea thought as she pulled a needle through Ranulf’s ruined flesh. His assailant’s blade had slid along the ribs, sparing the vital organs, and although Ranulf was unconscious, she guessed it was more from lack of blood than anything else. He moaned softly as she finished and she spread his own ointment over the stitches, just as Constance had done for Merrick not so long ago.
