A Dishonorable Knight - By Morrison, Michelle Page 0,169

tugged at her cropped hair. Where could he be?

“You there, boy!” A large hand grabbed her shoulder and swung her around. “Do you not heed your master’s call?” A slender blonde man scowled at her. He was long of chin and broad of brow, but handsome nonetheless. But for his helm he was fully armored.

“You are clearly too young to be fighting. You are not trying to sneak onto the field are you? Where is your knight?”

“Sire,” a man panted as he ran up to the blonde man. “Lord Stanley yet awaits with his troops. He did not heed your summons, but neither does he join Richard’s men.”

The blonde man’s mouth twisted wryly. “He no doubt waits to judge who will emerge victorious before committing himself. Send word to him that we will await his leisure amongst the bodies of Richard’s men.”

The messenger appeared confused, but obeyed. “Yes, Your Grace.”

As the blonde man turned back to Elena, she suddenly realized who he was and sank into a curtsey. Belatedly realizing that young boys did not curtsey, she continued down to the ground, affecting a faint.

“Hold, there,” Henry Tudor said as he bent to help her up. “Are you ill?”

“Nay, sire. Only...only hungry. ‘Tis been a while since I’ve eaten.”

Henry frowned. “You’ve not eaten and you wander unarmored through the ranks. I will have words for your knight. Who is master of your household, boy?”

Elena thought frantically. She was about to name Gareth’s father, but did not want to gain him trouble from the would-be king. “I belong to no household, sire. I only sought to...to help Your Grace in any way possible.”

Henry rumpled her hair and smiled indulgently. “‘Tis very brave of you, if foolhardy. You’ll do no good if you collapse from hunger.” He glanced up as his trumpeters called his men into formation. His squire waited at his elbow to hand him his helm. “You can help me most now by staying alive. Should I emerge victorious this day, I will need such devoted men as you. Join my pages with the baggage. You will be safe there.”

“Yes, your grace,” Elena said, bowing and backing away as quickly as possible. There was no way she would be able to find Gareth now, with thousands of men moving toward the battlefield. She began to make her way to the back of the lines but was swept forward by the rush of troops.

“Let me through!” she cried, but her plea was lost in the battle cry of thousands of men. She made small headway before being swept forward again. Without knowing how, she found herself at the crest of the hill. She glanced down and gasped.

The battle had begun. The archers were exchanging volley after volley of arrows, the Welsh easily discernible with their longbows, which wreaked havoc in the enemy’s line. The man beside her was struck in the throat by a stray, lucky shot. Elena screamed and redoubled her efforts to push her way through the line. “Let me through, I say. By order of his grace, Henry Tudor.”

That had some effect and Elena was roughly pushed to the back of the lines. Bruised and feeling as though she had fought a battle, she collapsed on the trampled ground to catch her breath.

She returned to the baggage line where the pages were pretending to be busy organize the packs, bundled tents, and spare weapons.

Several of the pages tried to get her to join them, but Elena refused, curling up on the ground beneath a cart. She prayed with a devotion she had never felt as the minutes slowly crept by.

To her surprise, she awoke some time later. Terrified that she had missed something, she scrambled out from her hiding place.

“I tell you, the battle is over!” said one of the pages.

“Our orders are to remain here,” argued another.

“And miss our share of the bounty? I think not!” the first boy said, and left with a small group for the ridge. Elena hurried to keep up with them and thus had her first view of the aftermath of the battle.

In a small field that would have barely held a flock of sheep, ten thousand men had met in fierce combat. There was not an inch of ground that had not been trampled, turned, or bloodied. The lush grass was flattened and torn to a matted pulp on which the dead and wounded cushioned their heads. Everywhere she looked, one gruesome sight or another met her eyes. Bodies were hacked