Page 127 of Bold Angel
“’Twould seem that much of our worry has been for naught—would you not say so, Richard?”
“Ral!” Caryn came to her feet and he swept her into his arms. “How did you find us?” she asked. “How did you know we were here?”
He tightened his hold protectively around her. “’Twas Gareth. He spied us coming through the forest.”
“’Twas Gareth who helped us escape,” Caryn said.
Richard smiled, Ambra snug in his arms. “Gareth says ’twas mostly that you helped yourselves. He said ’twas your courage that saved the day.” He touched Ambra’s cheek, saw the purple bruise there, and anger suffused his features. “Other women would have acted no morethan frightened lambs led to the slaughter. Once I thought I wanted such a woman. I was wrong.” He kissed his wife’s cheek. “And I am proud of you both.”
Caryn looked up at Ral. “Malvern means to take Braxston Keep. He has gathered a sizeable army.”
“Aye. Gareth has shown us.”
“Where is he?”
“Somewhere in the forest. He will help us if he can.”
“And Malvern?”
“Our only chance is in holding the keep until men loyal to me can arrive.”
Caryn nodded, shivering inside to think of the death and destruction the siege would bring—and wondering what would happen to them all should help not arrive in time.
Chapter Twenty-five
Ral spent the next two days fortifying the castle. With food supplies short and Malvern’s forces cutting off the village, he was uncertain how long they could stave off their attackers. Still, he intended to hold his ground for as long as he possibly could.
Though he said naught to Caryn, he knew that should help not reach them in time, Stephen would give no quarter. It would be certain death for him—and an even worse fate for Caryn.
On the third day of their return, the guard signaled movement outside the walls of the castle. Climbing the steep stone stairs to the battlements above the keep, Ral watched in grim fascination as Malvern’s men swept into the field across from the drawbridge, his green and white pennants flying, lines of armor flashing in the sun. Behind him, Beltar’s forces moved into position around the castle.
Ral’s hands unconsciously fisted. All too soon, the siege would begin. He shuddered to think of the dismal conditions they would be forced to endure, the hunger and disease, the violent deaths his people would suffer, not only here, but also in the village.
He remembered such battles in his past, remembered men walking over the bodies of their fallen comrades, piled into the moat to form a bridge. He rememberedboiling oil rained down through the brattice, remembered men screaming in agony as they suffered a fiery death worse than hell itself.
He remembered only too well and yet there was nothing he could do.
Only time could save them. Time for the knights he had summoned to arrive. Time for support from the king.
From his place atop the parapet, Ral watched his enemy’s army assemble. With Braxston’s archers and men-at-arms at the ready, with their arrows notched and shields in place, with good men manning the walls, they awaited the first assault. Hearing movement behind him, he turned to see Caryn pull open the door that led outside, step out on the parapet and walk toward him. Worry tightened her features and uncertainty darkened her eyes. When she reached his side, she leaned toward him, and he drew her against his chest.
“I am glad that you have come,” he said softly.
She glanced out at the army in the field. “I was lonely. I missed you and the uncertainty is torture. At times, I think that the waiting is the worst part.”
“Nay,cherie,it only seems so until the fighting begins.”
“Can we hold them?”
“For a time. After that, ’twill rest in the hands of God.” He looked out at the hundreds of men in the assembled army, at the siege tower and the catapult being shoved into position. A battering ram waited in the distance beside a giant, metal-plated tortoise that would serve as cover while the men worked to construct a makeshift bridge.
Stephen is well-prepared,Ral thought bitterly, his stomach twisting at the thought of what lay ahead.
He glanced down at Caryn, felt her soft body against him, and for a moment forgot the hellish days they must endure. Instead, he noticed the sunlight reflecting onher flame-dark hair, the way it glistened and shimmered. He recalled the silky feel of it as he had taken her last night in their bed. He had needed her fiercely, and she had filled that need again and again, her feminine curves enticing him, her body responding, becoming so much a part of him they had seemed almost one.
He touched her cheek, tilted her chin with his hand. “There is something I would say to you. Something I should have told you long before this.” Her fine dark auburn brow arched up and he smoothed it with his finger.
“What is it, Ral?”
