So absorbed was she in the display of dazzling swordplay she was scarcely aware of the Lady Tyra moving onto the bench beside her.
“Good morning, Lady Annora,” Tyra said softly, her voice hardly audible above the clashing swords.
Annora swiveled noticing at once the looming figure of Laird Harris standing in the shadows to the side. Her heart jumped. His gaze was following Edmund’s every move and the expression on his face was almost a sneer.
“Good morning, Lady Tyra. Fergive me, I didnae see ye there.”
Tyra smiled, shaking her head. “’Tis naught, milady.”
A few moments later, Edmund and Lionel took a break from their bout to refresh themselves
Edmund swilled some ale from a flask offered by a small boy, whose job it was to ensure there was drink for them whenever they needed it.
Lionel mopped his forehead with a linen cloth. “Ye’re fast this morning, I’m becoming overheated wi’ the effort of keeping out of the way of yer sword.”
At that, Harris stepped out of the shadows. “Would ye allow me to take yer place, MacLaren?” he asked smoothly.
Courtesy required that should a change of partners be offered, it was the unspoken rule that the place should be relinquished and a new sparring partner should step up.
Edmund gave a barely perceptible nod and Harris moved into the sparring square. He too was clad in a padded gambeson, but he had pulled on his hauberk over the top.
Annora immediately felt uneasy as the new clash commenced. Edmund, without his mail hauberk, was vulnerable to this new adversary.
It became obvious very quickly that this was not a friendly sparring match as it had been with Lionel, but something far fiercer and more aggressive. Annora’s heart was in her mouth as she watched MacDonald’s vigorous movements. Although she could see he lacked Edmund’s skill, he was powerful, and his sword thrusts, although sometimes clumsy, seemed frenzied. His actions displayed a murderous intent that should one of his wicked lunges hit home, it would deal a deadly blow.
Annora puzzled over Edmund’s changed tactics. He displayed none of the deft skill that had been evident in his sparring match with Lionel. Instead, he was merely defensive, allowing himself to be beaten backwards, parrying each blow as it came, but making few thrusts of his own. Suddenly the blood left Annora’s face, a painful knot formed in her stomach and her hands began trembling. This was a cruel game of cat and mouse where one of the participants was almost unprotected, with only his own skill between him and a painful injury or worse.
At one particularly close downward thrust by Harris which would have been near enough to slicing Edmund’s arm from its shoulder, her belly roiled with nausea. The painful knot inside her tightened with every fierce blow from MacDonald’s sword. She was tempted to leap to her feet and scream “Stop this!” but something held her in place, relying on Edmund to see it out.
Finally, it seemed to Annora that Edmund had grown tired of MacDonald’s endless swiping at him with his long sword and, with a shocking movement as he stepped back from one of the frantic blows, he sidestepped, allowing the tip of Harris’s blade to make a long slice through the sleeve of his gambeson, drawing blood from a shallow cut along his arm to his shoulder.
The armorer leaped to his feet, and Lionel called out in a voice hoarse with anger, “Hold. First blood tae the Laird Harris. The bout must end now.”
But even as he was endeavoring to put a stop to the contest, Harris raised his sword one more time.
At once the armorer put up a hand and stepped forward. “Laird MacDonald,” he shouted in a voice that would brook no defiance. “Lower yer sword. The bout is at an end.”
Harris seemed to catch himself in mid blow and his arm slackened, the sword coming to rest by his own leg. Edmund, who had already lowered his own sword, stood calmly, eyeing Harris with contempt.
Foregoing the customary shaking of hands between opponents, Harris swiveled and strode past Tyra, who scrambled to her feet to follow him. Head down, he made his way past the few scattered observers and took the narrow set of stairs leading up into the space behind the stables, Tyra at his heels like a pup following its master.
Annora dashed toward Edmund, who was standing beside Lionel appearing utterly unfazed at the display of bad manners and inappropriate emotion from Harris MacDonald. Blood was trickling through the gash in his gambeson, soaking the fabric.
He shook his head as Annora darted over, frowning. “Ye’ve nay need tae look like that, lass, I’m all right.”
She looked up at him. He was grinning.
How dare he frighten her as he’d just done and now stand there with a grin on his face.
“Excuse me Lionel, but I must insist on taking me husband straight to the infirmary. That cut must be treated at once.” She huffed loud enough for all those gathered to hear.
Edmund gave a snort of laughter. “Dinnae fash, lass.”
She huffed again, tugging his sleeve. “The laird daesnae fight fair.”
Lionel nodded. “Go wi’ yer wife, milord. We shall speak of this later.”
Without protesting further, Edmund accompanied Annora back along the bailey and up the steps leading to the infirmary.
