Jack Whyte - The Saxon Shore

The thought was not complete before I had put Germanicus to the slope, flying to intersect Shelagh's path. Then I saw her pursuers and reined him back again. There were two of them, on foot, bounding downwards towards her on an intersecting course from the crest of another hill, across from me. They had not yet seen me. My mind drew imaginary intersecting lines from them to her, and I realised that they would intercept her soon, before I could. Now I knew where I was, and how they could pursue her on foot, when she was mounted. The path on which she rode was almost circular, making its way almost entirely around a low but steep-sided and densely treed hill between Camulod and the river. If they had seen her from the top of it, they would have had time to cut across in front of her, even on foot.

As that thought occurred to me, one of the two stopped running and brought up a bow, and with a thrill of fright I recognised it as a Pendragon longbow. Even as I flung myself down from the saddle he loosed his shot and I watched it helplessly as it sped across the intervening distance and zipped between Shelagh's body and her horse's neck. Then, filled with flaring rage, I launched an arrow of my own and watched with satisfaction as it took the fellow squarely in the chest, sending him crashing on his back. His companion had seen none of this, intent upon reaching Shelagh's path and unaware that he was approaching me as well with every leaping step. I sighted on his chest and then, for no clear reason that I could define, shifted my aim and shot him in the groin, above and to the right of his genitals, piercing the socket where his thigh bone met his pelvis. He doubled over violently, crashing headlong downhill to land on his face, screaming in shock and pain. I shouted to Shelagh, calling her by name and jumping back up into my saddle. She reined in brutally, bringing her horse down onto his hindquarters and gaping at me in disbelief.

Our meeting was constrained by shock on her part and bewildered incomprehension on mine, for now I saw that Shelagh wore no clothes other than a long, light cloak that failed utterly to conceal her body. She seemed completely unaware of her nakedness, however, and sat gazing at me wide- eyed until I reined in my horse beside her.

"Merlyn," she said, her voice sounding very strange. "Where did you come from?"

I barely heard her words, my mind and eyes full of the bareness of her body beneath the long, light mantle. The white smoothness of her belly and the skin between her breasts was slashed diagonally by the broad, black band of her knife belt, its five sheathed knives forming a line of overlapping crosses on her flesh. I raised my eyes to hers and saw the blankness there, the emptiness, and all at once I felt my guts contract in fear, so that I had to struggle to find the words I needed to say.

"Shelagh, where are the others, the children? What has happened? Why are you here like this and who were these people?"

The harsh tone of my voice must have penetrated her dazed mind, for her eyes widened and grew more alert and she turned her head quickly towards the man I had crippled, who now squirmed, screaming, on the hillside just above her and to her left. She looked at him and shuddered, then dropped her reins, crossing her arms over her bare breasts.

"Safe," she whispered. Then her eyes quit the writhing wretch and turned back to me as her voice grew stronger. "The children are safe. I left them with Ludmilla and rode for help."

"Like that?" I nodded towards her nakedness.

She looked down at herself without interest or concern, then her hands moved again, drawing the edges of her mantle together so that they covered her thighs. "Aye, like this. There was no time."

"No time? In God's name, Shelagh, what happened?"

She shook her head, a terse, violent motion like a shudder.

"We were attacked. By strangers, like these." She indicated the two men I had shot. "Julia and the children were attacked. Ludmilla and I weren't there. We had moved away, out of sight, but we heard their screams. Arthur and Bedwyr were both hurt, but not killed. Julia is dead."

Julia's face flashed before my eyes and vanished, banished by the news that Arthur had been hurt. Shelagh's tone rang in my ears like a death knell. A thousand questions sprang into my mind, but I rejected all of them as they clamoured for my attention. There was no point in asking questions other than the most important one.

"Where are they now?"

Shelagh twisted around in her saddle to look back the way she had come, then faced me again, raising her hands to her face, which she squeezed and rubbed as though washing it. When she spoke again, I knew she had regained possession of herself.

"Not far. I had thought them safe, but now I see I could be wrong. If there were these two, whom I had not seen, there might easily be others." She stopped, eyeing my bow and the quiver of arrows that hung from my shoulders. "You only have your bow? Where is your sword?"

I jerked my head impatiently, hefting the bow. "This is enough to kill with."

She thrust her hands through the front of the mantle, seizing her reins again and pulling her horse around, kicking him into motion. "Come quickly. It's not far."

As I galloped behind her back along the narrow path, the light cloak fluttered high around her, fanned by the speed of our passage, but I saw nothing erotic in her naked loveliness. I was aware only of the vulnerability of her bare flesh and of my own unarmoured body, clad in a light tunic. And I wondered why she was unclothed and why the belt of knives that hung, as always, from her right shoulder did so beneath her cloak, rather than over it.

It was less than a curving mile from where our paths had crossed to where the river ran, slow and somnolent, through the grassy glade that had been a favourite summer spot in Camulod for generations. We reached it in a far shorter time than I would have expected, and as we broke from the screen of trees surrounding the meadow I was already looking around for signs of life. There were signs of death everywhere. I saw four or five men's bodies scattered on the grass and noted that the only blood in sight lay spilled around them. Shelagh ignored the bodies, standing in her stirrups, looking about her. As she saw me look at her, she wrenched her horse to the left and sent him bounding down the gently sloping gradient towards the water, to where a giant elm hung outward over the wide swimming pool. I pulled up when she did, and saw a flash of immobile whiteness against the bank. I swung down from my saddle and ran forward.

It was Julia. She lay face down in the water, bereft of all humanity and grace, her long hair drifting slowly about her head, one ankle caught in a snag of tree root on the bank. Her bare, white buttocks thrust obscenely upward above the surface of the water, stained with blood in the crease, and a great diagonal slash high on her back gaped open, ragged-edged, washed clean by its immersion and eloquently fatal. My chest ached with the pain of my discovery and I moved instinctively to rescue her, but I knew she was dead and that my first task must be to find the others. Grimly, I spun on my heel and ran back to remount.

Before I was upright, Shelagh had kicked her horse forward again, pulling it round to the right and heading uphill, back towards the fringe of the forest that surrounded the clearing. I stayed close behind her, urging Germanicus to greater speed as we bounded up the steepening slope and into the undergrowth, climbing steadily until we breasted the first hill and Shelagh stopped, holding up her hand. As I drew level with her she stood in her stirrups again, calling Ludmilla's name, and was answered immediately by a cry from farther down the hill, deep within a dense thicket. We rode forward slowly, picking our way among trees and saplings, and as we went, the three oldest boys, Arthur, Gwin and Bedwyr, came running to meet us, calling at the tops of their voices. They were all safe, although Arthur had a blood- filled lump the size of a goose egg on his right temple and Bedwyr's left arm was heavily bandaged in a blood-stained cloth. Gwin seemed to be unharmed. Ludmilla emerged from the brush behind them, holding little Luceiia and Octavia by the hands. Behind her came the youngest boy, Ghilleadh, his eyes wide and staring, his face streaked with dirt and tear tracks.