The Conquest Read online

  Zared dismounted and left the horse some distance from the glade. Then, knife in hand, she crept back to where she'd left the man.

  Dead, she thought when she saw him stretched on the ground. He was already dead, and she was too late to save him.

  Tearle heard her coming from some distance off, knowing by the lightness of her step that it was she. He had to prevent himself from smiling. So much for the cruel, inhuman monsters his brother spoke of. This Peregrine, at least, had a much softer side to her. Whatever he did, he must not frighten her away. He must seem helpless and keep her near him as long as possible, he decided.

  He moved just a bit and gave a groan of pain.

  Zared jumped at the sound, then gave a sigh of relief that he was still alive. Cautiously she moved forward, creeping nearer to him. With her knife at the ready she nudged him with her foot. He gave another little groan.

  "A priest," he murmured. "Get me a priest."

  Zared lost her caution at that. She had to save him. She went to her knees beside him, slit his tunic away, and examined his wound. She had hit his ribs, but she couldn't tell how deep her knife had gone. There wasn't much flesh over his ribs, just skin and muscle, but he seemed to have lost an extraordinary amount of blood.

  She glanced at his face and saw that his eyes were closed and that he wore a pained expression. Were Howard men so weak that they died from such slight wounds? She'd seen her brothers hurt that way and continue fighting for a full day before the wound was dressed. Yet the man was calling for a priest because of a mere cut.

  She cut away more of his tunic and sliced a long strip of his linen shirt away. She wadded a piece of his shirt against the wound, then tried to wrap the linen strip around his big body.

  He was an inert weight, and lifting him was impossible. She could have as easily lifted a dead horse. She leaned across him and tugged. She put her arms about his neck and tried to lift him. She heaved against him with her shoulders, but he just lay there, oblivious even to her presence.

  "Wake up!" she commanded.

  He stirred but didn't open his eyes.

  Zared gave him a few sharp smacks on his cheeks, and at last he opened his eyes. "I am trying to get this bandage about you. You must lift yourself up."

  "You must help me," Tearle said in a hoarse whisper.

  She gave him a look of disgust, then leaned over him and helped to pull him up. He was very weak and ended in clasping her to him, his body heavily against hers. Zared had difficulty reaching around him to pull the bandage about his ribs, and holding him up was straining her back, but she managed to dress the wound.

  "Lie down now," she said. The man really did seem to be quite stupid. She had to tell him the simplest things. She eased him back to the ground, but he had to have Zared's help all the way, and she had to peel his arms from around her body when he was lying flat once again.

  "You will be all right now," she said. "The wound is not deep. Stay here and rest. Your brother will come soon. He is never far from Peregrine lands." She started to rise, but he caught her hand.

  "You would leave me? I will die here alone."

  "You won't die," she said in disgust. Perhaps the Howard had been sent away as a child not because he was evil but because he was such a weakling that his family was embarrassed by him.

  "Wine," he whispered. "There is a bottle of wine on my horse."

  Zared gritted her teeth. Her brothers were no doubt frantically searching for her, yet she was playing nursemaid to a sniveling Howard. Reluctantly she went to the horse, removed the hard leather bottle, and handed it to him. But he was too weak to sit up without Zared's support; he couldn't even hold the bottle to his lips.

  This is the enemy? Zared thought. This cowardly, weak, trembling, oversized child is something to fear?

  She took the wine bottle from his lips. "I must go," she said. "I will leave the bottle here and—"

  "Stay," he said, clasping her hand in his. "Please stay with me. I am frightened."

  Zared rolled her eyes skyward. She was sitting on the ground, and he was leaning against her as though he could not support himself.

  "I will die if you do not stay."

  "You won't die," she snapped. "You ought to at least try to have some courage. The bleeding's stopped, and besides, I have to leave. My brothers will be searching for me, and it's best if they don't find me… here."

  "Ah. You mean with a Howard. Do you know that I am a Howard?"

  "We know much about the Howards. You are our enemy."

  He sighed and leaned limply against her. "Surely I am not your enemy."

  "If you are a Howard, you are indeed the enemy of all the Peregrines."

  "Yet you returned for me."

  "I came back to prevent a war. Had you died, your brother would have attacked my brothers." She tried to move out from under him, but he had her trapped by his weight.

  "You returned only because of your brothers?"

  "Why else?" she asked, genuinely confused.

  He lifted her hand to his lips. "Perhaps you know all of us, but it seems we do not know all about the Peregrines. We did not know the youngest was a daughter and a lovely young woman." He kissed first one fingertip and then another. "Did you not perhaps return because of our kiss?"

  It took a moment for the words to sink in, but then Zared began to laugh. Still laughing, she squirmed out from under him, stood, and looked down at him. "You think I care for a kiss? You think a kiss from a Howard could make me forget my four brothers your family has killed? You think me shallow enough to betray my family for anything a Howard could give me? I could slit your throat now, but your death would mean open war, and that I do not want."

  Her laughter was changing to anger. "You Howards are less than nothing to me. Did I not show you what I thought of your kiss?" She nodded toward the bloody bandage on his side.

  She stepped away from him and gave him a look of contempt. "I would feel a kiss that was from a man, but not from a spineless weakling such as you. Oliver Howard is no doubt greatly ashamed of his youngest brother—and well he should be."

  She crossed to the horse and mounted. "I will free your horse at the edge of the forest, for I do not want my brothers to see me on a Howard animal. I will not tell them of your men's skulking treachery or of your touching me. My brothers have killed men for less."

  She gave him one last look. "Even the Howards do not deserve such a half-man as you."

  Tearle was on his feet by the time she'd turned the horse, but she was out of the glade before he could catch the bridle.

  Rage gave color to his pale face. Half-man?! His brother should be ashamed of him? A spineless weakling?

  He? He, Tearle Howard, a weakling? In France he had won tournaments since he was a boy. He beat all comers. Women threw themselves at him. Women begged him for his kisses, yet this… this boy-girl had said his kiss was not that of a man!

  As though she knew one kiss from another. As though she were such a lady of sophistication that she knew anything about kisses—or anything else, for that matter. All she knew were swords and warfare and… and horses. She'd have to be a woman to know if a kiss came from a man or not. She'd have to—

  Abruptly he stopped his silent tirade and began to chuckle. Perhaps he had appeared to be a little too helpless. But it had been nice having her lean across him in an attempt to lift him. When her chest had been against his he had felt a hard padding and guessed she must bind her breasts down in her attempt to appear a boy.

  And what a futile attempt that was, he thought, for her every movement screamed that she was female. How anyone could believe her to be male was beyond his understanding.

  A boy wouldn't have come back to see if his enemy was all right. Of course, Tearle wouldn't have kissed a boy and thus prompted the stabbing, but either way, a boy would not have returned.

  He leaned against a tree and closed his eyes for a moment. What an intriguing girl she was, all passion and fury, yet softness underneath. She w