Captured By Her Enemy Knight

And it was a bitter reminder of who she truly was. The Archer at all costs must be contained. Urgency overtook him to find somewhere to confront her.

In the end, coin was on his side, as was the sword against his hip. He entered the nearest inn and ordered the best room, which was on the ground floor. Large enough to sleep many, but sparsely filled, which provided space inside for his heavy frame. The only bed seemed adequate to support him.

Out of every scenario he had ever envisaged when he finally captured the Archer, her being a woman tied to his bed was never one of them. Every accusation he expected to fling, every slam of his fists, every broken finger and absolute punishment thwarted.

He had the Archer and no way to release his wrath. The world for him was only good and evil. Right and wrong. When there was evil, there was justice. The Archer was a woman? God’s bones, toes and any other body part, now he had questions.

Using his left hand, and staring down at her diminutive form, he yanked the gag away. ‘Explain yourself.’

Licking her lips, Cressida stared at Eldric. Her Eldric. Only once had she dared be this close to him. It was at a Christmas dance in Swaffham where she thought to observe this warrior from afar, but he’d requested a dance. To hide her identity, she’d darkened her hair and worn a mask, but every moment her heart had pounded in her chest much like it was doing now.

‘Explain myself? For what? You snatched me from a tree and have tied me—’ She opened her eyes and feigned shock. ‘I’ve my maidenhead. Please don’t hurt me. My family will pay whatever silver you want.’

‘Don’t,’ he growled.

‘Don’t what?’ she pleaded with all the innocence she’d never felt. She must keep Eldric distracted until she escaped. ‘I have done nothing! I—’

‘Nothing!’ Eyes burning with retribution, his vibrating body loomed over her. Bound tight, she pulled her head away and caved her stomach to avoid what blows she could.

A rough sound escaped his throat as he stepped back. She had truly hurt him when they’d fought. His nose and one of his eyes were swelling. There was a mark at the side of his neck where she had elbowed him. Tomorrow that would be purple, as would the rest of his face. She’d given him all of her fiercest of blows and none of them had been enough to take him down.

‘Don’t,’ he enunciated very carefully, ‘do that either.’

This time she didn’t know what she’d done. Her confusion real.

His brows drew in. ‘Did you think I would strike you?’

Never, her action was only instinct and training. Unless in battle, Eldric was all too careful with his body. When she dared watch him with women—before she couldn’t watch any more—he was painfully formal, his arms unnaturally at his sides. The women always appeared inadequate for him. It didn’t seem to matter for him, they often… Cressida squashed the familiar burning of jealousy in her chest.

‘How would I know what you would do?’ She tried to put disdain into her words. Knew they were weak because of past hurts she had no right to feel. ‘I don’t know you!’

‘Thank you for your lies. A dear reminder of who you are.’ He unsheathed a dagger at his waist, aimed the blade towards her throat. ‘No flinching?’ he mocked. ‘Don’t presume I wouldn’t hurt you. For months now, that is all I have thought of.’

‘You wouldn’t hurt a woman,’ she answered, knowing the truth. Unbeknown to him, she’d watched him for years.

He pressed it to her throat. ‘You don’t know me, though, remember?’

How many times would she forget her ruse? She felt the cool metal press her skin, but it did not bite. ‘Knights don’t hurt women.’

He eased the blade up, but his eyes flared. ‘Chivalry has long been gone from knighthood. It has no place during war. And we both know you’re no mere woman.’

Every ounce of Eldric was steeped in chivalry, though he hid it well when he did Edward’s nefarious deeds. As for the insult…that she deserved. Even now she could feel the sting on her forehead from when she’d tried to break his nose. Her foot throbbed where she’d kicked him and, after falling and losing her breath several times until she fainted, she still couldn’t catch her breath. A woman would normally only have these issues because she’d fainted from tightened undergarments. A true woman wouldn’t be bruised in the ribs after plunging from a tree to escape an enemy.

A true woman wouldn’t know what an injury was, let alone be able to inflict them on a giant of a man. No, she wasn’t a mere woman. If it wasn’t for that dance they had shared last winter, where she’d dressed and for one night pretended, she’d wonder if she was a woman at all.

‘I’m not anything,’ she said, covering her lies in partial truths. She was born and raised to be only what her father wished. ‘If it’s coin you want—’

‘Coin! I want your head and you well know it.’

It was a fact she wished wasn’t true. ‘Please, if you’d only listen to me—’ she didn’t need to hide the pain in her voice ‘—I can give you coin. I have family. If you let me go, I can get it for you.’

Eldric snorted. ‘You play a dangerous game, taunting me. Pretending I don’t know who you are or what you have done. I’ve caught you; I’ve bound you. You must know your life is mine to forfeit.’

Her forfeited life was something which was never in doubt.

Her father had raised her from infancy, kept her cloistered in different abbeys until she turned ten. On that birth date, he altered her role with him. No longer was she trained in private and kept hidden within the highest of walls; instead, as long as she wore her hood, she could travel with him. To learn to spy, to observe from afar and sometimes to thieve.

At first, he didn’t risk her life on enemy camps, but on fellow English ones. And that was when, a year or two later, she had first seen Eldric. It wasn’t his size that caught her attention. By then she’d travelled and seen enough of men that she only noted their weaknesses in case they should become targets.

No, it was Eldric’s actions that had arrested her. He whistled. She had never heard music until then. Prior to that, there had been no festival or celebratory events for her. The constantly rotating abbeys she was kept in secluded her in private chambers and the inhabitants never spoke to her.

At first it had been shocking to be around camps and noise, but Eldric was something other than mere noise. The songs he made were hauntingly beautiful.

Thus, she’d watched him most of all; she was grateful for his size, for it made it easy to see him as he went about his day with ease and laughter. And all the while from one tent to another, from one task to another—even in training. Constantly whistling.

Perhaps because of his size, strength and skill, he felt safe enough in the world for such exotic behaviour. If she had such a noticeable habit, her father would have carved out her tongue.

It also made it easy to find him again as the years went by and he kept his strange custom. And as time passed her fascination with him changed from that of a child to that of a woman. Until one day, when her father had given her another mission. Eldric had accepted King Edward’s position to spy. So, her father had ordered what he always did with Edward’s spies: for her to kill him.

‘What do you intend to do with me, or rather, with the person you believe I am?’ she whispered, coming back to the present with the awareness that his expression had changed to malice once more.

‘Think! I have pursued you for seasons now. Do I act like a man who is not certain? I know exactly what I will do with you. You are bound for the Tower of London for execution.’ His smile did not reach his eyes. ‘Ah, finally a reaction.’

‘Of course I’d react. I don’t know who you think I am. You snatched me from sleep, bound me to rape me and now tell me you want my head. Sir, please, you have the wrong—’

The pounding on the door made them jump. Aware of her vulnerability, she wrenched on the bindings until the bed creaked.

‘Stay still and quiet,’ he hissed. ‘It is only the supplies I ordered.’

As her father’s weapon, the Archer, she’d stay quiet, but as a female unlawfully abducted, her best bet would be to call out for help. She breathed in to call out—

‘Do you think to cry out?’ he sneered. ‘How would that favour you?’

He was right. She couldn’t trust the being on the other side to believe she was innocent. But she had to keep her ruse as a frightened female.

‘Let me go!’ She struggled.

‘You’re not going anywhere.’ With a harsh laugh, Eldric cracked open the door and stepped out. A moment or two more and he carried in a large tray with a small water basin and several linens and set it down on a chest. Another moment outside and he brought inside a smaller tray, laden with food and drink, and set it on the one available table.

The aromas of food and ale filled the room. Despite her training to go without, her mouth watered. He eyed her eyeing the food and smirked.

‘I didn’t think it would be so easy to break you,’ he said.

‘I’m already broken—what man ties a woman—?’

‘One that knows better when it comes to you, despite your gender. Despite your—’ His eyes skittered from her bound wrists down the curves of her body to her wrapped feet. Fear, and something else, brushed just under her skin as his gaze darkened and became almost calculating before his frown grew fierce and he jerked his head away.

She suddenly wished she hadn’t kicked off the linen that covered her. It was a weak protection, but at least in this moment it would prevent him from seeing her so clearly. The fact anyone could see her was a vulnerability. But for Eldric to do so was—

No, Eldric wasn’t looking at her as a woman. He was taking note of her size and seeing if the bindings held. Fully revealed to him, he could see the odd colours of her hair and eyes. When sunlight came, he’d see her freckles across her nose, the numerous scars. He’d compare her to his other women.

She’d only imagined his eyes lingered on her bound hands, at her body stretched against the bed. Imagined he saw her as a woman. Eldric would never see her as anyone other than the person who had killed his friends.

Her only option was to lie until she could escape. ‘You only think you know who I am. I’m trying to tell you, if there’s someone you’re trying to…capture, I’m not they. You’ve got me here, but the person you want could be escaping even now.’

‘Of course, you would continue to lie since every weapon you have is gone. Please, tell me more. Entertain me. I have all the time in the world to find the truth.’ He scoffed as if he was amused with her words, but a muscle ticked in his jaw as if her falsehood got under his skin. He gestured to the food. ‘I can eat while you starve. I can leave for the garderobe while you soil yourself. I can and will do what is necessary because we both know you’re anything but broken. But I will get you there.’

As if to prove his point, he leisurely unfastened his outer vest, throwing it towards a chair, though it slid to the floor. At the tray with the basin of water, he soaked the linen and wrung it. He did this slowly, methodically, as if his every thought were on those water droplets.

After all the accusations, the room seethed with a taut wariness punctuated by the sounds of splashing water and the wringing of cloth. She was used to her father and his games. Used to being ignored until he focused everything on her. And that focus was always violent. Words. Deeds.

Eldric wasn’t her father, but she was woefully without any other comparison. She might have watched others from afar, but she herself had never interacted with anyone. She didn’t know what to expect. Would he launch the dagger he threatened her with? Force her mouth and nose into the sodden linen until she suffocated?

Abruptly, he looked over his shoulder and caught her eye. She didn’t turn her gaze—it was all she had, to watch him as if he was just any other man to her. She concentrated on easing her heart rate, slowing her breath. Faked a bored mien though she could do nothing about the heated restlessness that coursed under her skin which she knew had everything to do with the proximity of this man. Another matter she could do nothing about. She’d been fascinated by him for far too long not to react when he was this near.

With a huff, he reached behind, yanked off his tunic and threw it towards the same chair. It also slid and billowed to the floor. Keeping that eerie silence between them, he lifted the cloth to his face, held it there. Dipped it back into the basin to soak.

All these years, she’d watched him from afar as he went about his daily routine. Never close enough, never fully, truly seeing him. Not like now.

His clothing couldn’t hide the structure of his body, but she could never have been prepared for what was underneath. The width of his shoulders defined by the mounds and striations of muscles from his arms to his neck. His spinal cord providing a straight boundary for the arrow-like cording that arched outwards.

The entirety of his back tapered fast and hard to his waist where his breeches hugged. The fabric was thickly woven and his back was to her, but now that his tunic was gone, there was nothing that hid his gender from her. His breeches outlined every honed muscle.

She swallowed.

How did she dare fight or think she could escape him? He was nothing but formidable strength and magnificent male. If she assessed him as simply an enemy, there would be no stopping him, his arms providing an easy reach should he snatch her and too long for her to get up close with a dagger. That was before he applied any strength. No, only with an arrow could he be killed.

The thought was unbearably desolate. The fact that there could be a way to fell him, that anything or anyone could harm him at all.

A grunt from him brought her eyes back up. He held the cloth to his face. She watched him minutely move his arms as if he was adjusting his nose. It was swelling, but she didn’t think she’d broken it.

She wanted, needed, to know. As far as he was concerned, she was an enemy, but for her…she didn’t want him hurt. ‘Is it broken?’

Another huff of breath and he dropped the linen. ‘If it was, would you add it to your trophies?’

Trophies were for those who wanted to boast of their winnings. Trophies, like mementos of sentimentality, were kept around a house to fondly remember past days. She had neither friends to regale, nor a home to hold such things…even if she owned anything. Even if the trophy was a mere ring, she couldn’t keep it. Anything that wasn’t essential to her survival was forbidden. In truth, she didn’t expect to keep her own life to fondly remember any past.

If fondly was a way to describe her past, which she doubted.

No, his talk of trophies made little sense to her, but the bite behind Eldric’s words did. She knew why he raged and wished her dead. She’d known it the moment his friend fell because her arrow pierced him. Though she hadn’t meant to harm his friend at the time, she had.

She’d been ordered to kill Eldric, but of course she couldn’t. Unbeknown to her father, she’d already been immersed in the warrior’s music and laughter. But she had to appease her father…and something in her wanted to help her warrior as well. She’d notched the arrow, meaning only to skim his arm so he’d swerve away from her reach. Her intention was to tell her father that the target was too far away.

Cressida tried to stop the next memory of that day. Tried to cease the piercing ache of guilt from creeping into her thoughts. But she couldn’t stop either, just as she couldn’t stop the past. She’d timed the arrow and the warning shot with absolute precision…and then the English warrior flanking Eldric’s side had dodged another opponent and unerringly went into the trajectory of her arrow. She watched as the man fell, as Eldric roared and searched the field so he could make amends.

The absolute anguish on his face, the whispering of vows made. She knew then that the dead man wasn’t merely a fellow warrior. She’d killed Eldric’s friend without meaning to, but that mattered little. Death was final and intentions meant nothing.

Ever since, Eldric had searched for her…the weapon, the murderer. All so he could tear her down and exact his vengeance. He had a right to his wrath, but it pained her all the same.

Eldric turned and she realised she hadn’t answered his question. His gaze skimmed her features and seemed disappointed, before he raised the linen to his face again. The water couldn’t be cold enough to stop the swelling.

‘You need peppermint,’ she whispered through a throat closed with remorse. She had hurt him…again.

Throwing the linen in the basin, splashing the water out of the bowl, he said, ‘Poison. That’s not your way.’

She was a weapon and possessed many lethal skills. In fact, she was quite adept at poison; still, he was right that she preferred the more direct route. One that separated her from her enemy. More and more she found she used the arrow as her means to kill. She feared it had nothing to do with her proficiency in it, but rather that she was beginning to feel something for her victims.

‘I—I don’t know what you mean,’ she purposely stammered as if she feared him and his accusations. ‘Being a healer, I understand about poisoning, but I…would never poison someone. That goes against everything I am. I’m only suggesting something that could help you.’

‘This is the lie you come up with to entertain me? I will tell you this, it doesn’t. Attempt something else.’

She shook her head, knowing there was no answer for that. His presence was enough to make it difficult to keep the ruse that she was merely a woman visiting at the docks. She knew enough not to feign that she was the woman who threw up her skirts for coin and food, but she could be a traveller, one who was merely resting out in the open until her ship left.

But being around Eldric when he was so familiar made fissures in her ruse. The fact he refused to believe her even more. But he couldn’t know who she was, not really. He didn’t appear to recognise her from that night they had danced, when his hands had touched hers and her skirts had swirled between his legs.

Nor could he know for certain she was the Archer for her father. She’d maintained her distance from this man, from all men. No one saw her.

So maintaining she was somehow innocent was her only available option. It was a cover that couldn’t be maintained long term, but if there was the smallest chance she could cause doubt, convince him he had captured the wrong person, she would. Otherwise…

Otherwise, she’d have to be what her father made her. But even she knew she could never be a true weapon around Eldric. Didn’t even want to test the assumption. So she was left with falsehood or the truth. It was safer for Eldric if she lied.

‘Peppermint isn’t poison,’ she continued as if he’d answered her. ‘When crushed until its oil is released, it cools.’

He retrieved the linen and brushed it across his shoulders and arms, along his torso, as if he was bathing in his chamber alone. As if she didn’t exist. She watched the small linen as it was shoved brutally across his skin, sloughing off the embedded dirt from their altercation and from whatever journey he’d made to reach her.

How could she not know he was following her? In pursuing her father, she’d made herself vulnerable. Allowing her entire focus to be consumed with a rumour. Foolish mistake. No one had surprised her ever before. Eldric, a giant of a man who whistled, truly shouldn’t be capable of stealth.

Not that Eldric was her enemy, though she knew she was his. Or…at least, he thought her an enemy. And for his safety, it would remain that way until she was dead.

Another brush of the linen up his neck and around to his chest. He rubbed roughly there. She could imagine what it felt like, the water cool after the heat of the morning and their fight. She’d hit him hard and wished he’d turn completely so she could see the extent of the damage…if he needed peppermint or wrapping. After all, if she was bound and he injured, they would be at a disadvantage if they were attacked.

That was the reason she cared, not because of bruising, swelling or pain. If those existed, peppermint would help. Rubbed along his tender side, swirled to reach… Trying in vain to stop her errant thoughts of applying the oil herself, she kept up with her useless babble while that strange restlessness increased and she shifted her body to ease it. ‘I was a healer in my other village before I’d decided to take a ship to—’

Throwing the linen with such force the wooden bowl rattled against the table, he strode to the refreshments. Swiping the flagon in one hand, he didn’t bother with the goblet and drank straight from the curved jug. His profile to her, she watched his throat take in the liquid in one, two, three gulps before he slammed the vessel on the table. It toppled over, empty.

He didn’t bother to straighten it. She glanced to his strewn clothes, the washing area slopped over with his mud-and-blood-splattered linen. That was when his gaze acutely returned to her.

She swallowed. ‘I could make some for you. It won’t heal instantly. But it will feel better. You must be in pain.’

He rolled his shoulders and a harsh breath flared his nostrils. Pivoting, he took the two steps to his satchel on the floor and yanked out a tunic that he shoved over his head.

‘Perhaps comfrey,’ she continued as if they were carrying on a conversation. ‘That may help with the colouring of it all, though I suppose you’re not bothered with aesthetics. And it should be used sparingly. But it’ll aid with—’

He scraped a chair over to the bed, turned it around backwards and straddled it to face her. It brought the hulk of him perilously close. Enough to smell the fragrant ale and the saltwater he’d washed in. Enough to smell him…a scent like frost on evergreen.

Keeping his silence, he laid his hands against the back of the chair and leaned his chin on them. Like this, he looked…boyish. Draped on the chair, his body in repose, he could have been any mother’s son.

But the look in his blue eyes was a man’s. And the lethal glare told her he sat this way not to be congenial, but to barricade himself.

Since she was already bound, the shield wasn’t from her, it was to block his own action, his own reach. And some twisted thing inside her cherished his trying to protect her…even if it was she who aggravated him. No one had ever tried to protect her before.

Yet, for both their sakes, she must still provoke him. She must escape. ‘I don’t know what you want with me, what…you intend to do with me, but I feel we must have got off on the wrong foot. I’m a traveller, like you.’

He tilted his head, his blue eyes, already swallowed by the dilating of his pupils, darkened even further. His chin remained rested on the back of the chair, but now his hands clenched the seatback, the tips of his fingers turning white.

‘I’m travelling to France, to meet my family.’ It was as much of the truth as she could muster. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt you, you simply took me by surprise… I was defending myself. Surely you can realise that, you grabbed me and—’

‘Are you done?’ His deep voice resonated around the room like a sentence. It wasn’t a question; it was an order. ‘Because I’m done.’

‘I don’t know what—’

He made a sound of frustrated anguish and soared out of his chair so fast the heavy oak slipped and slammed on the bed. The carved back of it didn’t hit her, but she felt the heavy weight of it against the overstuffed mattress.

It was the man towering above her who was the true danger. His hands clenching and unclenching at his sides, his chest heavy. He seemed to want to get hold of himself and couldn’t.

If he picked up the chair, he could easily slam it against her. Bash her head in and there would be nothing she could do about it. This wasn’t even something she could arch her body to avoid. Nothing. But she did keep her eyes open, her mouth shut.