King's Warrior (Renegade Lords Book 1) Read online

  “Now, Maggie,” he said, stopping to fold back the loose sweeps of hood that had shrouded her face and narrowed her vision. Bright winter sunlight hit her face, making her blink. She let the sun warm her face a moment, then opened her eyes, and smiled.

  The harbor spread out below them, blue and sun-lit. Far in the distance, she could almost see the distant shoreline, of France, of Saleté de Mer. Her past was in those roiling black storm clouds that could still be seen even now, bringing down rain and snow over her old home.

  But up here, high on this hill, the sky was winter-crisp blue and bright, and she could see for miles over the shining water where the tall ship masts bobbed and swayed, glinting as sunrays crashed into it, blinding golden wrinkles on the silk robes of some underwater god.

  And Tadhg was by her side.

  His voice broke into her reverie. “What are you smiling about?”

  Still looking at the harbor, she said, “Have you studied the Greek gods?”

  He gave a low laugh. “I cannot follow your mind. No, I have never studied Greek gods.”

  “I believe there is one of the sea.” She pointed at the water. “I think he must live here, in this beautiful place.”

  Tadhg studied her profile in silence. Her cheekbones were rounded on a faint smile, her eyes half-closed, heavy-lidded, as if she could not take in all the beauty at once.

  He felt the same way.

  He turned and looked out at the sea with her, inhaling the fresh winter air, warmed by the sun. The cries of gulls were sharp and beautiful as they wheeled and dove. The sound snagged on an edge of Tadhg’s heart he’d sworn had been worn to flatness years ago. But something inside him tugged, a longing, deep and poignant, to see home again. To smell it. To hear his gulls, to see his sunsets.

  “That god doesn’t live here,” he said quietly.

  She rustled. “Are you certain? It is so beautiful.”

  “Aye. He lives at my home. I will show you.”

  She closed her eyes with a soft inbreath. “Yes, of course.” A second later, her eyes popped open. “Well, what are you standing there for? Take me home.”

  He straightened reflexively at the tone of command, then shook his head and gestured to her hair. “I am trying, Maggie, but truth, your hair is a mess.” She gasped as he started pushing at errant strands of it. “I’m trying to fix it.”

  She batted his hands away and began fussing, doing something complicated with her hair and the golden netting and soon, she had her long tresses encased in a fashionable netting of the knightly class. She draped the sky blue veil overtop. The silver embellishment down the sides caught the sunlight, and rimmed her clear-cut face, her dark eyebrows and bright eyes, like a spring twilight with the stars just coming out.

  She tipped her face up with a worried frown. “Oui? I will do? I am no longer a simple peasant woman?”

  “You shall fit in any lordly home, not a question asked.” She smiled as he went on. “Which is well, for that is where we are going.” He took her arm, and they began walking. “I will now begin to repay you for your reckless, intemperate, utterly unfounded faith in me.”

  “It is not unfounded. In what manner, ‘repay’?”

  “Och, you’re a merchant at heart, lass.”

  She gave a little shrug. “It is in the blood.”

  “Eventually, repayment shall take the form of clothes, jewelry, anything else you desire. More directly to hand, a very fine meal.”

  She looked over swiftly. “I am perhaps the smallest bit hungry,” she admitted.

  It felt as though she’d stabbed him. He tamped down the sharp blade of guilt and said lightly, “A meal it is, then. Excellent, hot food. Bacon and pork pot pie. Pigeon and roast chicken slathered in butter. Stewed plums.”

  “Pigeon slathered in…butter?” she repeated skeptically. “In winter?”

  “Truly? You have followed me this far, woman, and your faith is strained upon the matter of a pigeon?”

  She sniffed. “’Tis the butter that strains credulity, sir.”

  “Mmm. Well, let me test it further: there will also be a hot bath.”

  Her eyes lighted. “How hot?”

  “Exceptionally. You will probably be scalded.” She laughed. “It will be set in front of a roaring fire. With rose petals in the water.”

  She was smiling at his outrageous fantasies, he knew, because she had never had such things, and so could not imagine them. But Tadhg had. He’d once had such things, been surrounded by men who considered them not a luxury but a necessity, men of high privilege and unending wealth. And now, Maggie would have some of it, too.

  “You are mad and ridiculous, Tadhg.”

  “And wine in silver goblets, and slippers for your feet.”

  She was clearly uncertain if this was a playful jest designed to uplift her spirits, or simply an outrageous lie. But it was neither; he meant for her to have these things, all of them and more, from the pigeon to the bath, if he had to steal a castle to make it so.

  “And cushions and velvet and gold buttons on anything you could imagine a gold button being set upon.”

  Her smiled faded. “I do not need all those things,” she told him gently.

  “Yet you shall have them, all the same,” he said fiercely as they drew up outside a tall, high building, set apart from the others, behind a walled gate.

  She turned to examine the three storey building, with all its expensive stone and the equally extravagant slate roof. “Is this where the pigeon with the butter resides?”

  “And the scalding bath.”

  She tipped her head back further, her lips parted as she stared up its impressive façade. “Methinks I believe you about the rose petals.”

  “Did you not?”

  “Yes,” she said softly, almost to herself. “Of course I believed.”

  Tadhg felt a powerful knot begin to unwind in his belly. Because whatever she said, surely she had doubted, at least a little. It would be madness not to. There must have been some small crevasse of doubt inside her, gouged through the middle of her incredible faith in him, a stranger who’d brought nothing but peril to her life, about whom she had no proof but his own word.

  So now she would be given the start of she was owed: some proof of his word, after all she’d done for him on faith.

  He ushered her up the fine, stone steps to the door and rapped on it. No one answered. He hammered harder.

  No guards came running, no stablehands appeared from the inner courtyard. The house appeared deserted, as if the entire household had packed up and left.

  But William the Marshal would be here. He must be. He was one of Richard’s chancellors while the king was on crusade, helping rule in the king’s absence and keep men like Prince John from igniting any more mischief.

  He would be here. If not in person, then someone from his household would be here. Someone who could get him a message…

  Tadhg hammered again.

  “Earl’s not in residence,” said a passerby.

  Tadhg spun. “The Marshal is not here?”

  The man, clearly wealthy, looked Tadhg over, then turned his skeptical gaze to Maggie, and his suspicion dropped away. “Nay. The whole household cleared out after Prince John….” He dipped his head to the side, as if the silence would tell all.

  Tadhg came down the steps. “After Prince John what?”

  The man squinted at him. “Where have you been, man? The prince has claimed the king is dead.”

  Tadhg rocked back on his heels. “What?”

  The man nodded, coming nearer, the prospect of being the first to share gossip too powerful a lure.

  “Indeed, Prince John is in a frenzy. He says his brother the king died on return from crusade, and has claimed the crown for himself. Noblemen are swarming to his banner like flies. We merchants, of course, stand aloof,” he said proudly. “For now.”

  Tadhg’s mind reeled.

  Maggie came down the steps beside him. “Tell me sir,” she said, her
voice soft and earnest. “Is everyone saying this, that King Richard is dead?”

  “Oh, well, my lady, there are some rumors that the king was captured on his return home, but…can you imagine that? Madness, to say our lionhearted king, victor of Acre, could be captured in some dirty little mountain town, disguised as a servant.” He dismissed the absurdity with a wave of his hand. “But dead…dead is far more likely.”

  He swept another look at Tadhg. Perhaps he did not like what he saw this time, for he straightened and stepped back. “Still, we shall see who is in the right and who is not, and in any event, as a result of all their machinations, war is pending and business is booming,” he finished brightly.

  “War?” exclaimed Maggie.

  “Indeed, my lady. Prince John has the ear of the French king, and between the two of them, they’re amassing armies, ready to claim England for the prince. Or rather the…king.” He looked uncomfortable at his own confusion as to whom, precisely, was his king. “And they’ll not thank people for making any claims that could get in their way.”

  Tadhg lifted his head slowly. “Do you think your king dead, merchant?”

  For a simple question, it had the force of a command, and the man took a step back.

  “I don’t see where it matters whether I do or whether I do not,” he said with prim dignity. “I make my money on wax candles, and every side is going to need candles. That is how and where and why I make my money and it is good enough for me. I intend to pledge my allegiance whichever way they wish me to. The wax cares not if it is melted by a Frenchman or the prince’s man or the king’s, so why should I? You cannot fight the powers that be,” he concluded, looking angrily at Maggie, perhaps because it did not seem wise to look angrily at Tadhg.

  “So you do not think your king is dead, but you do not care,” Tadhg summarized coldly.

  Maggie rested a hand on his forearm and smiled at the man. “Thank-you for your explanation and your time.”

  “My lady,” he said, nodding and starting to turn away. Tadhg’s words stopped him.

  “Where has the Marshal gone?”

  The man shifted the packages in his arms. “No one knows. Prince John claimed the king was dead, and the next day, the Marshal disappeared. Many men are flocking to the prince’s banner, you know. Hard to stand against two armies, and for what? Some say the Marshal has merely done the same, joined the prince’s rebellion. If a rebellion it be.”

  He shrugged and moved on, glancing back at them, then turning to look down the hill at the bay, filled with boats and soldiers. Then he hurried away faster, clutching his packages to his chest.

  Tadhg reached for Maggie’s hand. “I am not yet done,” he vowed harshly.

  He bustled her past more elegant homes until they drew up at another expensive stone residence, with three chimneys puffing out smoke. Once again, Tadhg hammered on the door.

  Once again, they were sent away.

  “He’s not to be bothered by,” the door guard looked them up and down, “strangers.”

  “Tell him,” Tadhg paused, then lowered his voice. “Tell him the king’s sword arm is here.”

  “The king? The king is dead,” the man said with a sneer, but he looked uncomfortable saying it.

  Tadhg’s hand snapped out and almost closed around the man’s throat before he forced it back down to his side. “You toy with treason. Tell your master who is here.”

  Perhaps it was something in his tone, or his eye, but the door guard did as bid, left, then came back a few moment later with a derisive scowl. “Said he doesn’t know any king’s men.”

  For a second Tadhg stared in amazement, then quickly turned them back around, out into the streets, whisking Maggie with him.

  “Where are we going now?” she asked.

  Fear and impotent fury tangled inside him like a rope, thick and prickly. What if every door was barred to him now? What if the next one he tried hid the treasonous men who had flocked to Prince John? What then? It would be madness to keep trying.

  “Tadhg,” Maggie said softly. He turned his troubled gaze to her. “Think not of these men’s greatness and wealth. Think of their character. In a battle, who of the men who live in this place would you trust at your back?”

  Not one of them, not now. They’d all toppled at the first gust of uncertainty. Yet, now that he allowed himself to think through it, he shouldn’t have been surprised. Like the merchant, they were loyal to their coffers.

  “Is there not one?” she prodded.

  And a name filled his head. “Merek,” he said softly.

  He and Merek had rarely seen eye to eye, but more than the others, Merek had been loyal to the king. In that they had been united. He could not believe Sir Merek would turn traitor.

  “Then let us go see this man, Merek,” she said with all the confidence of a queen summoning her subjects.

  “Yes,” he said, grabbing onto the plan, hoping it wasn’t a fool’s decision. “We’ll find aid with Sir Merek.”

  But even as he spoke, he feared. He could only imagine the doubts running through her mind. The fear she surely hid.

  Why do these men not know you?

  Who are you?

  What have you done to my life?

  THEY REACHED Merek’s home as the sun westered behind the spires of the cathedral. Like knobbly bones, the dark stone bisected the yellow and blue sky.

  Maggie waited by the gate as he climbed the steps alone to hammer on the door. It swung open and he said without preamble, “Tell Sir Merek the king’s swordarm is here.”

  The servant hesitated a moment, then was pushed out of the way by a powerful, blonde-haired knight who loomed in the doorway. He stared at Tadhg. “Christ’s mercy, Irish, I didn’t think you’d ever make it back alive.”

  A cold river of relief washed down his spine. He blew out a gusted breath and stepped forward. “Thank God, Merek. The Marshal is missing, and everyone else is declaiming the king, and me. We must speak. I have news, and I need—”

  The knight put a hand on Tadhg’s chest. “Get out.”

  Tadhg stared down at the hand, then slid his gaze back up in low-banked fury. “What did you say?”

  “You’re poison now, Irish. Go on, get out.”

  The sweat on his neck turned cold. “Not you too, Merek. You cannot believe the lies Prince John is spreading. I swear to you, the king is not dead. I was with him when he was captured—”

  “So be it,” the wealthy knight hissed. “The king is in Vienna, or Dubrovnik or heaven or hell, or God knows where, but what does it matter? Prince John is here. And King Philippe’s army has arrived now too.”

  “All the more reason for us to gather our forces.”

  “All the more reason for men like you and me to hunker down for the coming storm.”

  Tadhg stared at this man who had been part of Richard’s inner circle of bachelor knights, one of his trusted confidantes. “You jest,” he said, but this was no jest. This was treason staring him in the face.

  Merek’s handsome face twisted. “If Richard wanted his kingdom, he ought to have come back for it. He cannot expect it to simply sit by and wait for him while the vultures circle. Indeed, John has promised much to those who join him.”

  Cold fear and hot fury knotted in Tadhg’s spine like barbed wire. “You bastard. You traitorous—”

  The knight’s face twisted. “Have a care, Irish, ere I alert the authorities to your presence. Do not think the prince would not pay much for such information. Your name is anathema to him.” He went on in a steel-thin voice. “Now get out. That is my mercy to you, Irish. I give you one moment to leave. If you require two, my men will take you. Directly to the prince.”

  He shoved on Tadhg’s chest and pushed him backward out the door and down the steps, out into the street. The door slammed shut and the lock turned.

  Tadhg tripped back to the stone wall, his energy gone. He closed his eyes. Just for a moment, stillness and blindness, a moment to think.

 
Maggie rustled before him.

  “Tadhg.”

  Her voice, low and gentle, barely penetrated his racing mind. Options and alternatives tumbled through it, but it was all a delaying tactic. There was only one choice now.

  “Tadhg,” she said again, softly.

  Only one option. Which made it neither option nor choice. One terrible decision.

  She put her hands on his shoulders, stood up on her toes, and put her face directly in front of his. “Tadhg. Can you not go to your Scottish earl?”

  His attention snapped to her. “Who?”

  She made an impatient gesture. “The Scottish earl you spoke of, the one who said Ireland is not so far from Scotland, should you ever need help?” She peered at him intently. “Does this not constitute a need for help? Might he be willing to assist?”

  He stared at her in silence, the blood hammering through his head. Then with a gust, he started breathing again. He snaked out a hand around the back of her head and pulled her to him.

  “Bloody, clever woman,” he rasped, hauling her up on her toes to kiss her.

  He took a full three heartbeats to kiss her then setting her back on her feet, his mind already adhered to the new plan.

  In truth, he wanted to throw it all away. Fling the dagger into the churning sea and let the tides wash it up on someone else’s shores, just claim Maggie and run. Forget wars and kings ever existed.

  But they did exist, and Maggie’s safety was now bound up with them. So the dagger must be delivered to someone powerful and trustworthy enough to protect it. Maggie had provided the answer: the earl of Huntingdon.

  Safeguarding England’s throne had passed entirely to a pair of Celts and one very clever French woman. How ironic.

  Unfortunately, he had no idea where the earl was. Which meant he might need to go to ground. And that was far too dangerous a path for Maggie to tread, for all her bravery.

  And so, the one terrible choice which was not a choice at all, remained his only choice.

  Maggie must protected.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  SHERWOOD ARRIVED in the city before sunset drew its crimson veil. He stepped off the boat as the ropes were being tied and stared up at the city crawling up the hill in front of him. His men spread out behind.