Holiday Defenders. Debby Giusti

      “She will be restored when the babe is born,” Agravar said blandly. He was a great admirer of the Lady Alayna and knew her to be a gentle lady with a heart as fierce as her husband’s, but never petty. And though Agravar could understand his friend’s impatience at Alayna’s uncharacteristic moodiness, he had no tolerance for any complaint Lucien might make.

      For, as Agravar knew, the kindness of the Fates was fickle. Lucien had been gifted with the miracle of a peerless love. It was something the Viking had never known in any form. And he had, at the advanced age of thirty and four, resigned himself to the disappointment that he never would.

      These thoughts kept him in sour company as he threw the saddle over his destrier and tightened the cinch. When Lucien spoke, his voice was barely a whisper. “I cannot think straight until she is delivered safely of the babe. Her restlessness…it has given me a bad premonition. I am…I…” He bowed his head.

      Chagrined, Agravar said nothing to his friend’s mangled confession. He had been thinking Lucien consumed with self-pity when it had been worry that tore at him.

      Recovering quickly, Lucien asked, “Tell me where you learned that maneuver you used back there? It might be useful, if one is unlucky—or unskilled—enough to find oneself on one’s back in battle.”

      “I learned it from the gypsies.” To Lucien’s incredulous look, Agravar shrugged as they mounted their horses and kicked them into action. “I gather techniques wherever I can.”

      Lucien grunted, pointing up ahead. “Pass yonder, Agravar. As we speak of techniques to be tried, it has reminded me that I had the smithy forge finer, lighter weapons from the steel I had imported from Spain. I am told it is far superior to our domestic blends.”

      “Impossible,” Agravar scoffed, but he was happy to oblige the change of direction when he noticed the three women lying in wait who would be avoided by a diversion to the forge.

      “Garron!” Lucien called, and the smithy shuffled out to see to his lord’s bidding. “Show my captain the new swords you have fashioned.”

      “Oh, lovely beauties, they are, sir,” Garron exclaimed, fetching one of the blades.

      Despite himself, Agravar was impressed. The weapon was sleek and quick, cutting through the air like a whisper. “I doubt it would cleave a man in two as deftly as this,” he said, tapping the heavy broadsword resting at his hip. “But it feels extraordinarily clever in one’s hand, almost as if it has a life of its own.” He passed it to Lucien, who made a few swipes with it and gave it back.

      Untouched in Lucien’s scabbard was his father’s sword. There was no question of him relinquishing that blade, even for an exceptional weapon. It was a symbol of what he had come back from hell to recover, along with his lands, his life, his soul.

      That quest had given Agravar something to believe in for the first time in his lost, uncharted life. He had become Lucien’s right arm. Good God, he had even committed one of the most heinous acts known to mankind in order to save the friend he counted as brother.

      But now, in this time of peace, he would gladly trade his bloodletting broadsword for this delicate instrument, a weapon as elegant as the soft, peaceful life it bespoke. Aye, he’d once told Lucien he’d be content to mount his weapons upon the walls as monuments to his bloody past, and it was true enough.

      True enough.

      “I shall test the weapon,” Agravar said. Tossing his broadsword to the smithy, he ordered, “Give it a good sharpening while I test this and I’ll tell you what I think of this new steel.”

      The soldiers took the short but roughly cut route through the woods as they were dreadfully late. Lucien, anxious not to further upset his disgruntled wife, had assured Alayna that he and his men would beat a quick path to see her cousin escorted from the edges of his lands to inside the castle gates.

      They were just about to clear a scruffy copse into a meadow when, to their astonishment, two riders appeared, a man and a woman, cutting across to disappear into the woods.

      “Strange,” Lucien said in a low voice.

      Agravar exchanged glances with him. Then a sound from behind caught their attention. Twisting in his saddle, Agravar listened. Was that weeping?

      Casting a glance back at the two riders, he saw they were at the other end of the meadow, just entering the forest that extended all the way to the north road.

      “Out for a ride, do you think?”

      “Probably.” Lucien squinted. “But I do not recognize them. Of course, it is some distance.”

      “We should make certain. I shall go after them,” Agravar said with a nod in the direction where the riders had disappeared. “You best take the others and investigate that caterwauling.”

      Lucien scowled at having drawn this duty, but he pulled his destrier around as Agravar kicked his into action and raced across the meadow.

      Chapter Three

      Agravar came upon them at the stream by Fenman’s forge. He spotted a flash of color through the trees. They had stopped, perhaps watering the horses. Reining his destrier, he slid onto the ground and crept up on foot, staying close to the thicket. Quietly, he unsheathed the new sword from his scabbard and held it low lest some of the sunlight filtering in through the canopy catch the steel.

      They were just ahead, the man and woman. She was bent over by the stream. Her hair, the color of dark honey strewn with sunlight, was loose and thick, left unbound in the maidenly fashion. Her face, in profile, was striking in its clean lines—straight nose, strong chin, generous mouth and deep-set eyes under a delicate pale brow.

      A noblewoman. Could this be Rosamund Clavier? Agravar wondered, for she was no one he had seen before in these lands. If so, what had happened to her traveling party? And who was this man with her?

      The man in question watched the woods as the woman bent over the shallow waters to ladle water with her cupped hands. He wore a jaunty red hat with a ridiculous plume stuck in it. It appeared he was nervous, but he allowed her to linger long enough for Agravar to move closer.

      “Come,” the man said, touching the woman on the arm. “We must make haste.” When she didn’t respond, he said more insistently, “Lady Rosamund.”

      Her head snapped up. She stood. And Agravar stood.

      First he caught her eyes, bright, rounded orbs of pale honey brown. Agravar cleared three long steps before anyone moved. Raising his weapon, he crept up behind the man in the red hat. That one finally realized someone was coming up behind him and whirled about.

      “Step away. I am Agravar the Viking and have come to fetch the lady to safety.”

      The look of horror on Rosamund’s face, her single, reflexive step backward as if in recoil, stung him. He was used to people reacting to his Nordic looks, his size, his heavily muscled frame, but the stark fear in those grave eyes slipped under his defenses like a stiletto wheedling inside the links of mail.

      His gaze snapped back to her companion, who had drawn his sword. Agravar raised his own blade to meet the challenge and issue a silent threat. The damnable thing felt like a feather. Agravar wished for the comfort of his old familiar broadsword.

      He spoke. “Be reasonable, wretch. You cannot hope to best me. Your ransom is lost, if that was your aim.”

      The man with the ridiculous headgear advanced nonetheless, holding his weapon in front of him as if it were a cross wielded to ward off evil spirits. “You’ll not take her whilst I stand.”

      “Fool—the game is lost.”

      The man’s dark eyes glittered. “I will not leave behind my gain, sir!”

      But the gain left without him. The lady in question whirled in a gentle swirl of hair and skirts and fled without a sound.