The Virgin's Spy (Tudor Legacy #2)(92)

Stephen was elusive, but not infallible. The mercenaries nearest to him, in the tight knot cleaving their way through Dane’s forces, didn’t aim to kill Kit or his men, but their blows fell harder the closer they got. Soon enough someone was going to die. “Stephen!” Kit shouted, but if his brother heard him, he paid no mind.

And then, all at once, there were Irishmen around him, four men surging into Kit’s view, and he knew they would not spare a single soldier on the English side. One of his men went down and Kit wheeled his horse in a tight, frantic circle, deflecting blows. Only one of the Irish was mounted—the other three were using the mounted soldier and his horse as a shield and thrusting pikes into men as though they were tossing hay.

One thrust caught Kit’s right arm and ripped through cloth into flesh. He was wearing half-armor, but if he lost his seat he would be trampled as easily as speared. Kit swore, but kept his grip on his sword tight. One of the Irish had seen the blow land, and using his pike as a club, the man battered the wound so that Kit’s arm blazed and his fingers went numb. He dropped his sword.

And then Stephen was there, not fighting the Irish but shoving them aside with his horse and his voice. “Leave him!” he commanded, and Kit had never heard anyone sound so much like their father.

As there was bloodshed enough to spare, the Irish swept away into another wave of it, leaving the brothers momentarily face-to-face. “Get out of here, Kit.”

“Not without you.”

Stephen turned his horse’s head. “Go home.”

In that brief exchange, Julien had slipped his way in behind with one of Kit’s men. At Kit’s nod, the soldier seized hold of the horse’s harness. Stephen jerked away, but Julien brought the hilt of his sword against Stephen’s helmet. It jarred him enough to drop the reins, and a second carefully aimed blow got him off the horse.

Kit and Julien dragged him out of the thick of the fight, Stephen half conscious, and into a protective circle of Tiverton men. Kit prepared to remount, in order to make sure Ormond had seen what happened so he could move on with his own part of the plan. But Kit had only one foot in the stirrup when he was tackled hard from the side.

His skull jarred inside the helmet when he hit the ground and he clawed it off and threw it at his brother. Just as he knew Stephen’s form when riding, he’d been tackled enough by his older brother to know the feel of it in his bones.

“What the hell are you doing?” they both yelled at the same time.

Kit scrambled to his feet and Stephen shoved him back. “Let me through!” he ordered.

“No.”

And then it was like they were boys again, Kit an eight-year-old who resented his ten-year-old brother’s title and, even more, his calm temperament, which everyone marked was so like their father. No one ever said Kit was like Dominic Courtenay.

They shoved and punched and wrestled—but they did not draw weapons. Not until Kit landed a heavy blow to Stephen’s face that probably made his head ring and would certainly leave a nasty mark. Then, instinctively, Stephen drew his dagger and pointed it at his opposition.

Kit couldn’t even swear that Stephen knew who he was anymore, if he could see his little brother or only saw the man who was keeping him from what he wanted. They were going to have to knock Stephen out again and then bind him if they wanted to get him off this battlefield. Julien was moving behind Stephen to do just that when there was a sudden lull in the noise of battle and one of the Tiverton men who’d been wise enough to keep watching outward shouted to Kit, “Ormond’s got him!”

Kit knocked Stephen’s dagger aside with the back of his hand. “You’re going to want to see this.”

It was even odds whether Stephen would listen. He did. The men opened a gap in the armed circle and the brothers stepped forward with Julien to look out.

As hoped and planned, the Earl of Ormond had got his man. The plan had been simple, if not easy. Kit dragged Stephen clear of the field, and Ormond took charge of Oliver Dane. Unlike Stephen, Dane had a long dagger at his throat.

Ormond had a voice built for carrying. “Draw off,” he commanded equally to both sides. “Send forward your Irish leader and we will discuss terms.”

Julien stayed behind, but Kit and Stephen strode forward without looking at each other. They were joined by a fiercely unfriendly Irishman who ignored Kit but glared at Stephen as though he’d gladly run him through whatever the cost. No matter that they’d been fighting on the same side.

They held their parley protected by a knot of Ormond’s men, weapons readied outward to keep any ordinary soldier from disputing their leaders’ discussion.

Dane’s face was so suffused with furious blood Kit thought he might die of apoplexy on the spot. When he saw Stephen, he instinctively lunged forward. “This is your doing, English bastard!” he snarled.

Ormond jerked him back, reminding him of the dagger at his neck. “You’re English,” he said to Dane. “And shut up, this isn’t your show any longer.”

“What makes it yours?” Stephen shot back.

“I do,” Ormond said grimly. “Now everyone who isn’t Irish born and bred, keep your mouths shut.” He turned to the rebel next to Stephen. “Your name?”

“Diarmid mac Briain.”

“Of the Kavanaughs.”

“Yes.”