The Recruit Read online

  Darkness had fallen while she was in the church, and as they rode down the hill into town Mary started to pay more attention to their surroundings. She’d never been in town this late at night, and there was an unsavory element that seemed to have replaced the merchants and tradesmen of the day.

  Sir John must have sensed her unease. “You have nothing to fear. You are safe with me. No one would dare attack the king’s men.”

  Mary wasn’t so sure. Many of the rough-looking men they passed looked as if they would dare quite a lot. But she was somewhat relieved to see a number of women in the crowd as well.

  The crowds were getting thicker on the high street. It was almost as if something big were about to happen. A performance, perhaps? Some kind of festivity?

  Her suspicions were confirmed when she heard a large cry go up, the roar of a crowd exploding in applause. “What is that?” she asked.

  Sir John’s eyes narrowed as he held his hand up for his men to stop. He scanned the row of tall buildings and narrow wynds. It wasn’t hard to see where the noise was coming from. There was a large pool of light shining from down one of the wynds. “I don’t know, but we are going to find out.” He held his hand out. When she hesitated, he added, “This won’t take long.”

  Somewhat curious and bolstered by the presence of Felton’s half-dozen armed and mailed men-at-arms, Mary allowed herself to be helped down, careful to protect her stomach to keep anyone from learning her secret. As with her first child, Mary had put on a relatively small amount of weight. In her heavy gowns, she looked more plump than pregnant. Although with the child due in less than two month’s time, she was much more uncomfortable of late and easily tired.

  Another cry went up as they entered the wynd. It was dark between the two buildings, but there was enough light coming from ahead of them to enable them to see.

  As they drew near, she could see Sir John’s mouth harden.

  “What is it? Is something wrong?”

  He shook his head. “It’s as I expected.”

  It didn’t take her long to figure out what he meant. By the time they reached the source of the light, everything was perfectly clear. The narrow wynd opened up before them into the space of a small square courtyard. A building had once stood there, she realized, and in the bowels of that building two men were fighting.

  Like a circle of fire, torches had been hung on the structures around the makeshift pit, casting the entire area in blazing light. The crowd was dispersed around the pit on a haphazard mix of old walls, stones, and planks of wood set out like stands. People were also watching from the tops and windows of the adjoining buildings.

  “A clandestine tourney?” she asked.

  Sir John nodded. “The king will be very pleased to hear what we’ve discovered. He’s been trying to put an end to all the unsanctioned combat tourneys in the Borders—if you can call the crude brawling of common ruffians a tourney.”

  She’d heard of the illegal brawls before but had never seen one. They were essentially a melee of two. A no-holds-barred, no-rules fight that was supposed to end when one person uttered “craven,” but often ended in death.

  The crowd was chanting something. It sounded like “ice.” Curious, she edged forward a few feet, trying to get a better look at the contestants.

  She gasped in horror. Both men were helmed but stripped to the chest, wearing only their braies and chausses. Sweat and blood stained their broad, muscled chests as they attacked each other with a ferocity she’d never witnessed before. There was nothing elegant, nothing noble. It was a contest of raw strength and brutality. Each man wielded one crude weapon in addition to his fists. The taller and more leanly muscled of the two had a crude-looking hammer; the heavier-set man, with a neck as thick as his head, held a stave with a mace. Unlike in regular tournaments, the weapons were not blunted.

  The sight of such brutality alone would have made her knees go weak. But that wasn’t what made her stomach lurch to the ground and her legs turn to jelly. Despite the steel helms they wore to mask their identities, Mary instantly recognized the taller of the two men as her husband. She would know those arms and chest anywhere.

  Any relief she might have felt from discovering that he wasn’t in some tawdry tavern with a woman was overwhelmed by the more immediate concern of the danger he was in both from the man trying to kill him and from Sir John, were it discovered that he was fighting in an illegal tournament.

  The question of why he was fighting here and not with the other English soldiers floated to the back of her mind to be answered later. She had to get Sir John and his men out of here.

  She spun around on her heel to insist that they leave, accidentally bumping into the man next to her. Under normal circumstances it wouldn’t have been of any circumstance, but at that moment something happened in the pit that caused everyone to lurch forward. Unbalanced, as much from the movement as from her pregnant stomach, Mary cried out and started to fall.

  She would have fallen backward into the pit a dozen feet below if Sir John hadn’t caught her.

  She was still leaning toward the pit, her arms latched around his neck, when their eyes met.

  His were stunned. “You’re pregnant!”

  Something was off tonight. For nearly a month Kenneth had fought twice—sometimes three times—a week in the Pits of Hell, as the secret combat tourney was called. He knew it was risky to fight in the illegal tournaments, but Felton’s taunts had only worsened as the weeks passed, and his control where his wife was concerned was stretched to the breaking point. The fighting had provided both the outlet he needed to take the edge off his anger and a means of preparing himself for the upcoming war and his place in the Guard. Ironically, it was MacKay’s hidden-identity appearance in the Highland Games that had inspired him.

  He was undefeated. A champion and a crowd favorite. Normally, the shouts of Ice—the war name he’d jestingly given himself as a reminder of why he was here—invigorated him. Got his blood rushing and made his muscles flare with anticipation.

  But not tonight. Tonight he felt none of his usual excitement and bloodlust. He exchanged punishing blow after blow with his opponent, more with an eye to ending the fight as soon as possible than to savoring victory.

  His thoughts weren’t on the fight but on the conversation earlier with Mary. She’d been trying to tell him something, but he’d been too focused on what he needed to do to listen. Time was running out, and he had to get her to safety. Removing her from the castle would be the first step. But of course, she hadn’t understood. How could she, when she didn’t know the truth?

  Distracted, his head snapped back when his opponent’s meaty fist connected with his jaw. A swing of his mace followed. Narrowly evading the sharp points in his ribs, Kenneth realized he’d better focus on the thick-necked brute doing his best to kill him.

  He’d just landed a rib-crushing blow of his hammer on his opponent’s side and followed it with a leaping kick that sent him careening to the ground, when a cry pricked his senses. A woman’s cry.

  His gaze shot in the direction of the sound. He saw a flash of movement—a woman lurched toward the pit before being pulled back by a man.

  Not just any woman. He tried to tell himself it wasn’t possible. But every flared nerve ending in his body told him it was his woman.

  He didn’t know whether it was the delayed panic of almost seeing her tumble into the pit, knowing that he wouldn’t have been able to do anything to stop it, that made him snap or the fact that the man who did stop it—and who now held her in his bloody arms too tightly and for too long—was Felton.

  He looked as if he were about to kiss her, damn it.

  Catapulting out of the pit by stepping on a piece of the broken wall, he launched himself at Felton. “Get your hands off her!”

  Felton looked up at him in shocked recognition.

  “Kenneth, no!” Mary cried, extracting herself from the other man’s embrace.

  But he was too far gone to heed