The Conquest Read online

  The only way the Howard woman could persuade the old man to disinherit his grown sons was to make him believe he and his first wife had not in truth been married. The old man, his mind clear one day and foggy the next, had requested that the parish registers that recorded the marriage be brought to him, as well as the witnesses. But no registers were to be found, and all the witnesses had died—some of them all too recently.

  The old man, dying and in great pain, had declared the sons of his first marriage bastards and had given everything to his wife's waiting family.

  Since that time the Peregrines and the Howards had fought for the wealthy lands that the Howards controlled. Over the years the losses on both sides had been heavy, and the hatred was very deep.

  Zared looked back at the Howard men chasing her, then rode harder than she ever had in her life, her head down to the horse's neck, the mane whipping at her eyes. The horse's hooves pounded on the hard, rutted dirt track, past people and carts and animals. But it wasn't long before she could feel the tired horse losing ground and feel the Howard men gaining on her.

  "Come on, boy," she said to the horse. "If we make it to the king's forest, we'll lose them there."

  She spurred the horse on, her heart beating hard with the horse's.

  They almost made it, but moments before they reached the forest, when Zared could see the concealing safety of the trees ahead, the horse stepped in a hole and went down. Zared hit the ground and went rolling head over heels across the dusty road. When she stopped rolling and looked up three men were standing over her, swords pointed at her throat.

  "It's the youngest Peregrine," one man said, as if he didn't believe his luck. "We'll be paid well for this."

  "Stop counting your money and tie him up. I don't want him escaping before we can get him back."

  One man grabbed her arm and pulled her up. "Little thing, he is," he said, feeling Zared's arm.

  She jerked out of his grasp.

  "Don't fool with me, boy, or I'll give you a taste of my knife. I don't guess Howard will mind whether a Peregrine is delivered to him dead or alive."

  "Quiet!" the first man said. "Put the boy on your horse, and let's leave before his brothers come."

  The mention of the elder Peregrines sobered the men, and one threw Zared up into a saddle and mounted behind her.

  All Zared could think of was that now the feud would start afresh, and before it ended she would lose more of her brothers. She closed her eyes against tears of regret. As long as possible she must make them continue believing her to be a boy. She didn't like to think what could happen were men like these to discover she was a female.

  Tearle Howard stretched his long, muscular legs, gave a great yawn, and leaned back on the sweet grass by the side of the little stream. The sun was warm on his body, and the flies droned lazily. To his left he could hear the low murmur of his brother's three men.

  Tearle meant to fall asleep, meant to idle the day away dozing in the sun, but the men's voices kept him from sleeping, for the voices reminded him of his brother's obsession.

  Until two months ago Tearle had lived in France, had spent time at the court of Philip the Good. Under his mother's direction Tearle had lived a life of education and refinement. He'd learned the finer aspects of music, dance, the arts. His life had been one of ease and plenty, spent in a place where conversation was an art.

  But six months earlier his mother had died, and with her death Tearle's main reason for living in France disappeared. At twenty-six years of age he'd found himself curious about the family he'd never known and rarely seen, so when Oliver demanded his young brother's return Tearle had been pleased and intrigued. Tearle had made the journey back to England in the pleasant company of friends and had greeted his brother and sister-in-law warmly.

  The warmth had soon cooled when Tearle found that Oliver wanted him to wage war on a family named Peregrine. Oliver had been horrified to find that Tearle had not been taught from an early age to hate the Peregrines. According to Oliver, the Peregrines were devils on earth and should be eradicated at all costs. Tearle was just as horrified to discover that the elder Howard brothers had been sacrificed to this long-running feud.

  "Isn't it time to cease all this?" Tearle had asked Oliver. "Isn't the cause of the feud that the Peregrines believe our estates to be theirs? If we own the estates and they do not, would it not make more sense for the Peregrines to attack us instead of our attacking them?"

  Tearle's words had so enraged Oliver that his eyes had glazed over and spittle had formed at the corner of his mouth. It was at precisely that moment that Tearle began to doubt his brother's sanity. Tearle could never get a full answer regarding the true cause of Oliver's hatred of the Peregrines, but after piecing together bits of castle gossip he suspected Oliver's hatred had something to do with his tired-looking wife, Jeanne.

  Whatever the cause, the hatred was far too ingrained in Oliver for Tearle to be able to dislodge it. So while Tearle did his best to stay out of his brother's way, life with Oliver was dull at best. As far as Tearle could see, all of his brother's energies went into his hatred of the Peregrines, and nothing was left over for the finer things in life like music or pleasant society.

  So there he was, idling the day away, sent out on a fool's errand by his obsessed brother.

  "Go and watch them," Oliver had said, as if when Tearle saw the Peregrines he'd see not men but devils with red scales for skin. "Go with my men and see them."

  "You post men outside the Peregrine castle?" Tearle had asked. "You watch them on a daily basis? Do you count the cabbages they buy?"

  "Do not sneer at what you do not know," Oliver had said, his eyes narrowing. "Two years ago the oldest one went with his wife alone into the village. Had I but known, I could have taken him. I did take that wife of his, but she…" He stopped and turned away.

  "She what?" Tearle asked with interest.

  "Do not remind me of that day. Go and see what I fight. If you see them, you will understand."

  Tearle was beginning to become curious about the Peregrines, so he went off with one of the four groups that Oliver planted about the Peregrine castle.

  Tearle had not been impressed by the sight of the crumbling old castle. Some effort had been made to patch the worst of it, but nothing could disguise the poverty of the place. Tearle sat on a hill some distance away and watched through a spyglass as the three remaining Peregrines trained daily with their men. The youngest was a mere boy.

  For three days Tearle sat there and watched the Peregrines training. By the end of the third day he felt he knew them all. In addition to the two men and the boy there were two illegitimate brothers who were awkward with their training, as if the weapons were new to them.

  "Their father's by-blows," Oliver had said in contempt. "Had I known—"

  "You would have killed them," Tearle said tiredly.

  "Beware you do not try my patience too far," Oliver warned.

  The Peregrines in their poverty took in illegitimate brothers, but Oliver, with all his riches, constantly threatened to toss Tearle out. Wisely, Tearle did not make that observation to his brother.

  By the fifth day Tearle had no more interest in watching the Peregrines. He was itchy for exercise and wished he could join the training. "I could take the blond one," he said to himself as he watched Severn down yet another man. He gave the spyglass to one of the men and walked away. He had to figure out a way to get away from his duty as spy.

  He wasn't aware that he was drifting into sleep until the thundering hooves of horses woke him. Oliver's men were gone. Tearle was on his feet instantly. He grabbed the spyglass from the ground where it'd been tossed and looked. The Peregrine men were in confusion, the oldest, Rogan, shouting as he mounted his horse. The slightly younger brother was already galloping away. But no one seemed to know exactly which way to go, so they split off in four directions.

  "The boy," Tearle said. Once before he'd seen the boy ride away from his protective bro
thers, but Tearle had not told Oliver's men. Let the boy meet his village sweetheart, he'd thought, and then he worked on keeping the men's attention until the boy was safely returned.

  Tearle ran to his horse and rode after Oliver's men. Obviously they had seen the direction in which the boy traveled. It took Tearle a while to find the men, and at first he thought he was too late. A stallion he knew to be Severn's led behind them, the men were already heading toward the Howard lands.

  Tearle's heart sank. The capture of the boy would mean open warfare—and the Howards would be at fault. Damn Oliver and his obsession, he thought.

  The men reluctantly halted when they saw Tearle. Their ugly faces were shining with triumph in having captured one thin, weak boy, and they looked at Tearle in expectation of praise.

  Before one of them, sitting rigidly in the saddle, was the boy. Tearle could hardly bear to look at him.

  When at last Tearle could meet the boy's eyes his mouth dropped open in shock. For he didn't look into the proud face of a boy, but into the fiery eyes of a girl.

  In astonishment he looked back at the men.

  "We caught him, my lord," one man said. "Do we take the boy to your brother, or do we kill him here?"

  Tearle could only gape at the men. Couldn't they see that they held a girl? Couldn't they tell the difference between girls and boys?

  "My lord?" one of the men asked, his voice anxious. "The Peregrines will be here soon."

  Tearle regained his composure. He didn't think those Peregrine brothers would stop to talk when they saw their little sister held captive.

  "I will take the… child to my brother," Tearle said. And get the girl out of the hands of these louts, he thought.

  The men hesitated.

  Frowning, Tearle tossed them a bag of coins. "Here, take this. I will deal with this Peregrine myself."

  The men's eyes laughed. They had what they wanted, and they couldn't care less what Tearle did with the boy, or what happened to Tearle, for that matter.

  One of the men rode beside Tearle and half shoved, half dumped Zared into his saddle. Tearle winced when he saw how tightly the girl's hands were tied. "Go!" he commanded the men. "Before they find you."

  They hesitated not a second longer before they spurred their horses toward the Peregrine lands. Tearle fastened his arm around the girl's slim waist, hugged her body close to his, and rode hard and fast into the king's forest.

  Chapter Two

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  Tearle lost himself in the forest, leaving the paths that centuries of villagers' feet had carved, and slipped deep into the dark recesses between the giant oak trees. As he rode he held the girl before him, feeling her slim back against his chest, her slim, strong legs against his. Once a low-hanging branch threatened to hit her, and he put out his hand to protect her, the branch painfully cutting into the back of his hand. Another time, as he leaned forward to duck a branch, he put his face in the curve of her neck, her soft hair on his face.

  He smiled as they rode. Oliver thought he knew all there was to know about the Peregrines, yet he'd never guessed that the youngest son was actually a girl. The Peregrines were right for keeping her gender a secret, for Oliver seemed to be particularly fascinated by the Peregrine females.

  He pulled his horse up sharply when he entered a secluded glade. He dismounted, then pulled the girl down before him. Her hands were still tied behind her back, and she was alone with her enemy, but her eyes showed no fear.

  He put his hands on her shoulders and looked down at her. Her worn, dirty tunic reached to mid-thigh, and from there down her legs were encased in tight knit hose, her little feet in soft boots that reached to her knee. Her dark hair, showing red even in the shadows of the forest, was shoulder-length, curling under at the ends, and she wore a jaunty little cap with a feather on one side.

  For the first time since leaving France he was feeling some interest in life. What an intriguing female she was, he thought, remembering watching her train with her brothers. He suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to remount his horse and take her back with him to his brother's estate. The place was so big he could no doubt hide her there.

  Zared looked at the man who held her by the shoulders, a big man with dark hair and eyes—and the unmistakable look of a Howard about him. The men who had captured her had called him lord, so he must be the long-missing youngest Howard brother.

  Zared had heard stories of this younger brother, so evil he'd had to be sent away to France with his she-devil mother when he was just a boy. Looking at him she could believe all the stories about him. On the ride into the forest he'd felt her body as though to see if she were plump enough for roasting. And his beady little black eyes were glittering as though he meant to have her for a feast.

  Lunatic, she thought, and she would have crossed herself in protection if her hands hadn't been tied.

  While he stood there looking at her as a starving man might look at a meal, she tried to make a plan. She could never have escaped three of the Howard men, but she had a chance with one madman. If she could get him to untie her hands, perhaps she could get to the knife hidden in her boot. With a weapon she could, perhaps, fight him off. He was big, true, but he might be as lazy as his brother, and his large size could be attributed to fat instead of muscle.

  "What is your name?" he asked.

  "Peregrine!" she hissed at him. If he did not untie her, if he meant to kill her, she would not disgrace her family by dying a coward.

  "Your Christian name," he said softly, his eyes gentle.

  What trick is this? she thought. Did he think to make her believe there was anything but evil in him? "My brothers will kill you," she said. "They will take you apart piece by piece."

  He smiled a bit. "Yes, I imagine they would." He took a jewel-handled dagger from his belt, and Zared took a step backward involuntarily.

  "I don't mean to hurt you," he said, talking to her as though she were a frightened wild animal.

  He was stupid as well as crazy if he believed she'd ever trust the word of a Howard, she thought.

  He took her by the shoulder and turned her around, then used his knife to cut the cords that bound her hands. As he turned her back around, in one deft movement she had practiced many times, she pretended to stumble, went to the ground on one knee, removed the knife from her boot, and slipped it inside her sleeve.

  "Are you hurt?" Tearle asked, helping her to her feet. "I fear my brother's men were over-rough with you."

  He had his hands on her shoulders again, and, not seeming able to help himself, he pulled her to him and kissed her gently on the mouth.

  Zared was outraged! No man had ever kissed her before, and that this man, this evil, hated enemy of hers, should dare to touch her was more than she could bear. She dropped the knife from her sleeve into her hand and plunged it into his ribs.

  He stepped back from her, looked down at the blood forming on his tight-waisted velvet tunic, and looked back at her in surprise.

  "Death to all Howards," she spat at him, and she ran to the horse nearby.

  "You are free," he whispered. "I never meant to keep you a prisoner."

  She mounted the horse and glanced at him. He was growing pale, and the blood at his side was spreading wider. She kicked the horse forward and left the glade, putting her head down as she and the horse raced through the forest.

  She had to find her brothers and tell them she was safe. She had to prevent them from attacking the Howards. At all costs she must stop what could become open war.

  It was when she was at the edge of the forest that she realized that there could yet be war between the Howards and the Peregrines, for she had, perhaps, just killed the youngest Howard.

  She rode on. Of course she hadn't killed him. She had merely wounded him. She had not hit vital organs. Had she? The image of his pale face swam before her. What if he lay there and bled to death? Oliver Howard's three men would know that once again a Peregrine had attacked a Howard. The Howards would atta
ck, and because of Zared more of her brothers would be killed. Perhaps this time Oliver Howard would succeed in wiping out all of the Peregrines.

  At the edge of the forest Zared halted. She had to go back. She had to see that the man didn't die. But what if he regained his strength enough to hold her captive and take her to his brother?

  Zared put her hands to her head as though to still her thoughts. All her life her brothers had made decisions for her. She knew that both Rogan and Severn would be so enraged at a Howard taking their sister that they would joyfully destroy the youngest Howard. Should she go to her brothers and tell them what had happened? Should she add fuel to their hatred? Renew all the old hurts and rages?

  Yet it was her own fault for having been taken. Both Severn and Rogan had warned her again and again that the Howards' men lurked just outside the grounds.

  She had to return. She had to keep the man from bleeding to death and thus causing a war. She would take his sword and, if need be, tie his hands and feet to prevent his overpowering her. She had to do what she could to prevent a war.

  Tearle watched the girl go with regret. He guessed he'd never see her again. Peregrines and Howards rarely socialized, he thought with a bit of a smile.

  He looked down at his side, at the spreading blood, and pulled up his tunic to examine the wound. His ribs had deflected her blade, and he was glad she wasn't experienced enough at knifing humans to have known how to injure him more severely.

  He looked about the glade, realizing she had taken his horse. Was he supposed to walk back to his brother's? He calculated how long it would take the three men to get to Oliver, then how long it would take Oliver to mount a body of men and come in search of Tearle and his Peregrine prize.

  Four hours, Tearle thought. Within four hours his brother would be there. Until then he might as well rest and give the wound time to stop bleeding. He stretched out under a tree and was asleep very soon.