A Dishonorable Knight - By Morrison, Michelle Page 0,167
that rose at the thought of her home destroyed and forced her mind to wonder where her parents were. Surely they were not dead! Surely they had escaped. Finding no relief in thoughts of her parents as they stumbled over tree roots, Elena instead turned to the men responsible for destruction. That they belonged to Richard, she had no doubt. She had oft enough in the last year seen Richard become so enraged as to lose his grasp on logic and order something which he later regretted. He could have easily fined her parent's heavily for her actions; or better yet, stripped the estate and all titles from them. Instead he had no doubt ordered a troop of men to ride their horses into the ground to reach her father's home so quickly, had ordered them to raze it to the ground.
The more she thought of the whole scenario and the more she choked on the smoke from her family home, the angrier she became. No, she thought, angry wasn't the ride word. Though she'd had little experience with her present emotion, she knew it to be rage. Rage that grew and tinted her vision red as she and Dafydd continued to push through the thick orchard. Rage that gave strength to her exhausted muscles and pushed her forward until she was leading Dafydd. Rage that did what her newly discovered pride in being Welsh could not: it made her turn firmly and wholeheartedly against Richard of York. No longer was she ambivalent to whoever wore the crown of England. Though she was but a young woman with, now, little or no wealth, she would do all in her power to drag him from throne. And if she discovered that he had found and killed Gareth, she would not rest until she had--
They had reached the moonlit clearing before the house. Dafydd insisted she remain in the protective cover of the trees and Elena did not argue. She watched as he silently crept across the ground, blending in with the shadows. He climbed over the rubble that had been the sturdy walls and disappeared amongst the blackened ruins of her home.
Elena strained her eyes trying to see what had become of Dafydd, strained her ears trying to hear something other than the cracking of scorched timbers.
She whirled around at a rustling behind her but it was only Dafydd, returning through the woods.
“My parents. They are–“
”Come, my lady. Let us return to the village. I promised you would sleep in a bed tonight, did I not?”
“No! My–“
”They are dead, my lady,” Dafydd said as gently as he could.
Elena’s knees buckled and Dafydd caught her as she sank to the ground. “I am sorry, Elena,” he whispered.
Sometime later in the innkeeper’s cleanest room, her tears exhausted, Elena longed for Gareth, longed for his arms to comfort her, his shoulder to lean her weary head upon. Where was he tonight? Was he dead too? No! That she would not accept. She rolled onto her back and wiped the tears from her face. She did not know where Gareth was now, but she knew where he would be soon. He would be at the battle between Richard’s forces and Henry’s. Very well, then. So would she.
Chapter 34
On the outskirts of Lichfield, Elena and Dafydd stopped and made camp. They had traveled at a breakneck pace since hearing of Henry Tudor’s landing and subsequent march to the heart of England. They had spoken little during their journey, but had settled into a companionable kinship.
“Wait here until I determine who holds this town.”
Elena nodded but said nothing as he turned to leave. She unsaddled her horse and set about gathering firewood and lighting it. She stared into the small blaze and absently ran her hands through her cropped hair, mourning its loss only briefly. She felt as though she had aged a lifetime in the last week and the fact that she had needed to cut her beautiful hair to pass as a boy was of little consequence.
The idea had been hers. Dafydd had thought to deposit her in a convent for her own safety, for regardless of the outcome of the upcoming battle, the nuns would care for her. Elena decided not to tell him of the borderland abbess who’d quite calculatedly betrayed Gareth and his friends.
“No,” she said implacably. “I shall travel with you. You seek to join Henry Tudor’s army, do you not?”