Chattan Bride

Chapter 15 - Part 1

"Stop fussing so, Annie," Isabel complained as the woman worried over her wrist abrasions. They sat well protected in a cottage joined by Gillian and her two children as well as Rose. Alysandir towered above the nurse and patient. Isabel knew what kept him from his duties on the front. She did. He was certain that Isabel would dash off to join her men. He was right.

"I can't trust you to stay here for the battle, wife. I'm tempted to tie you up again."

The three other women inhaled sharply in shock. But none of them spoke because they well knew it was within Isabel's nature to interfere with her husband's duties.

"We will keep her occupied with needlepoint," Rose cheerfully offered, ignorant of Isabel's feelings.

She smiled up at her husband. "I would rather be tied and gagged or slain in battle."

Without looking up, Annie said lowly: "You'll stay put for the bairn you carry."

Alysandir met Isabel's stunned expression. Gillian squealed her delight and Rose quieted the awakened baby. "I carry no child, Annie," Isabel corrected.

The warrior brushed Annie aside and knelt near his wife. The tenderness in his eyes would have forced any woman to comply. "You will stay here and be safe. I will return by nightfall. Understand?" He didn't wait for her to answer but kissed her hard, demanding her obedience. He was gone the next moment.

Absorbed in his thoughts, he mounted Rampage. Exuding all male satisfaction over the possibility that his seed was so strong that he conceived an heir even the first time he mated with Isabel made a rare smile melt his warrior expression. Gilbert was defeated now no matter what. All that was left was to disconnect his head from his shoulders, and that he would do in all haste.

Moments after he left, Isabel peeked outside. The cottage was guarded at the door. It was a hot day and Isabel was in no mood to listen to prattle and play with fabric. So if she couldn't go out, she would go up. So quickly did Isabel climb up the chimney that the women did not know where she went. She somersaulted quietly over the thatching and dropped easily to the ground. No one was wiser. She wore only her hauberk of boiled leather and knew that she must retrieve the rest of her protective gear. Properly suited within the hour, she snuck off to the front.

What she saw horrified her. Bamborough's men were outnumbered two to one, but that was endurable. The field was so littered with bodies of Gilbert's men that she deduced that this morning, Alysandir must have been outnumbered ten to one. She noticed a scout on his way to her husband to tell him of her presence, so clipped him with a stone from her sling. He turned and caught her warning look. The next stone would do more than smart. With her black hair flowing, she ducked back among the foliage.

Her husband was overseeing the trajectory of a ballista already armed with stones aimed toward the enemy's right flank. Ingram commanded their left flank and it was beginning to give. Andrew commanded their right flank, which was beginning to break the enemy's lines. Revenge was restless to move into the battle. So was Isabel.

Suddenly Gilbert's army released their mangonel, slinging medium-sizes stones that rained over Andrew's men. Most of the men fell or scattered. The front line of the right flank was now composed of a dozen men who one by one were surrounded by the enemy and felled. Bravely, Andrew was holding on but he could not flee and he could not maintain his ground. Isabel knew it. He would soon fall.

Barely conscious of her actions, Isabel urged Revenge into a full gallop and raced to her first's defense. Her arrows took out the men that had surrounded him until she ran out of them. Instantly pulling unused arrows from a fallen man's grasp, she mounted again and continued her defense from a distance.