BOUNDLESS: A Medieval Romance (AGE OF CONQUEST Book 6)

by Tamara Leigh

  “If you give the Normans no cause to pause here, God willing they will pass through without harming the villagers and their homes,” Marguerite said. “Now go!”

  In the light of torches set on either side of the inn’s door, his upper teeth showed, then he raised a hand.

  She jumped back from the slap she should have known Hendrie would not allow to land.

  Holding to the Aetheling’s arm, the Scotsman growled, “She is my king’s ward. Behave, boy!” He shoved him back.

  Edgar’s resentful eyes moved from Hendrie to Marguerite. “You are right, Lady. Best to draw the Normans away.” But rather than gain the saddle, he ordered a score of his men to ride west, all those named appearing the least of his warriors—and Saxons rather than Scots.

  Because the former were more likely to do as bid? Because he dared not risk Malcolm’s men? Regardless, those twenty would be sacrificed in the hope Normans did not pause where Edgar hid.

  However, from Marguerite’s time with the rebels and all that was told of the harrying, she feared his solution would benefit him no more than the villagers. If the Normans did not search the village, once they overtook their weary prey and discovered their numbers were reduced, they would return—and wreak destruction even were the Aetheling gone.

  Marguerite looked beyond the warriors to the men, women, and children kicking up cold earth as they fled, then lunged at the prince.

  Hendrie caught her back. “The little man is decided. We can but ensure ye are safely delivered home.”

  Home. Still she had one, but these people… “Edgar!” she called. “You must—”

  He swung around. “I must stay alive! That is what England’s rightful king must do.”

  Despite misgivings in the short time she had known him at Malcolm’s court, she had hoped he would prove worthy to wear the crown, but from what she had distantly witnessed when the Rebels of the Pale joined his forces to take York and now this, that to which he aspired seemed impossible. Perhaps he was too young and inexperienced. Perhaps given much time he would grow into a leader. But who would be sacrificed in the in between?

  After ordering the mounted men to ride, Edgar said, “If you truly wish to protect these people and yourself, Lady, give aid in finding a place to hunker until danger is past.”

  She wanted to refuse, but soon riders yet black upon the night would appear, then would come the silver of sweeping swords, the red of blood, the bright of fire.

  She looked to Stephen on her right who held close his words as once she had done and who had scouted the village before they secured lodgings. “I believe already you know where we will be safest.”

  The Norman who only appeared a Saxon inclined his head. Then Edgar and what remained of his men gave themselves into his hands.

  Fire in the night. Again.

  He could not put them out, so great the raging and rapid the spread, but that did not stop him from drawing near nor doing what his fellow Normans would deem witless.

  Sir Theriot of the family D’Argent knew he had risked his standing with the king—or worse—when he declined William’s order to lead a contingent in destroying the homes, food, and livestock of innocent Saxons. Though preventing those resources from falling into rebel hands would sooner hobble the resistance, his conscience would not permit him to be the cause of more suffering by people who had accepted Norman rule with assurances their lives would be better than when they were ruled by one of their own.

  King William had been angered, but as if anticipating the youngest D’Argent brother would insist on serving in a manner that might singe his soul but not consume it, he had yielded. Thus, the same as once his brother had done, Theriot used his tracking skills to disrupt pockets of resistance lest their efforts lead to the loss of more lives and homes.

  The flames in the distance rose higher, the same as all fires he happened upon in the wake of the harrying. But this one set by Normans was unlike others. Those Theriot had not been responsible for.

  “You should have stayed gone, Edgar,” he growled. “This battle you cannot win. That crown your narrow head cannot support. These people do not deserve one who thoughtlessly endangers them.”

  As the last of the Normans who had fallen back to torch the village set after those in pursuit of the Aetheling, Theriot patted his restless horse. “Now we go, my friend,” he said and spurred across the night whose smoke thickened as they neared the village which, hopefully, Edgar’s arrival and departure had emptied of its residents. As that had not been true of several burning communities from which Theriot had plucked old people, children, and animals, here he must go as well—and more imperative since he shared the blame for this.

  Albeit confident he had the favor of God who kept a hedge of protection around him, he must do his part by proceeding with caution. Though he eschewed the gnashing of scissors and scraping of blades to allow his hair to lengthen and face to whisker, he knew it only looked possible he was Saxon.

  Blessedly, the desperation of those he aided and that he spoke no word had allowed him to preserve the lives of dozens caught between the rebels and a Norman king who had lost patience with those he claimed had forced him to do the unimaginable that was now far more than imagined.

  Had Theriot a say in it, he would lock King William in a room with Edgar and King Malcolm and toss in swords. Whoever emerged would rule.

  He nearly laughed at that. Though he knew little about Edgar beyond his age and that his sword skill was unremarkable, and he understood Malcolm’s reputation as a warrior was well earned, he was certain if William fought both at once, the duke who became a king would triumph.

  The way of mankind, he thought. In matters of power and money—and when do the two not clasp hands?—the biggest, meanest, and most cunning prevails.

  He reined in near enough the village to quickly get in and out, but not so near to be seen providing he kept watch on clouds moonlight occasionally penetrated.

  Dismounting, he wrapped around his lower face the cloth he had carried on his person since surviving the Battle of Hastings. Before the harrying, it had been a reminder of how untouchable the Lord had made him compared to his kin. Of late, it also served to filter smoke.

  Theriot touched the D’Argent dagger on his hip, then sent up a prayer for the sharpening of senses whose edges had been somewhat dulled by the tracking of Edgar that left little time for restorative sleep.

  “Amen,” he said and took a handful of grain from one of his packs. His horse gazed at him out of eyes so pale their blue was seen even in the night, then nudged his rider’s shoulder.

  Theriot opened his hand. When it was emptied, he drew his sword. “Be still, Ciel. I shall not be long.”

  Not all the village was alight. The Normans who torched the inn, smithy’s shop, and a dozen thatch houses had been too eager to rejoin the hunt to ensure complete devastation. Too, since recent snowfall dampened all, fire would not easily jump from one building to another.

  He happened on no bodies along the main road and side streets, and it could only be hoped none were in the blazing buildings. Certes, many of the inhabitants had made it to the wood ahead of the Normans’ arrival. Not only did Theriot sense the fear of those who huddled there watching their village burn, but anger that caused fine hairs to prickle. And there could be eyes and anger here, too.

  Cautiously, he advanced lest his shifting chain mail reveal him, reaching out with his senses for any who sought to harm him while he searched for Saxons left behind like the elderly man and woman recently pulled from a burning hovel.

  After passing between two buildings untouched by fire, he slipped around the back of one across from the inn and heard a sound so shrill it rose above that of a roof collapsing farther down the road. Was it of a child?

  It came again, and he was inclined to believe it a cat, but the rumble, crackle, and hissing of fire feasting on timber could be responsible for the distortion.

  Not a child, he beseeched. Then staying low and cl
ose to the cover of buildings not yet aflame, he began making his way toward the cry that came again and again.

  Chapter Two

  A child is out there! Do you not hear it?”

  “I believe so, Lady,” Hendrie said where he sat beside Marguerite in the long-abandoned stable.

  As Stephen anticipated, the building had escaped fire, either because it went unnoticed, else the Normans saw no reason to waste time on something so dilapidated it could be of no use to anyone.

  Albeit dangerous, its timbers creaking though there was barely a breeze, it was safer for the mounted riders crowded inside than outside, too little time having passed since Edgar’s pursuers spurred away and it being possible one or more Normans would turn back to confirm no one of interest appeared.

  “We must give aid!” Marguerite turned in the saddle.

  The Scotsman groaned, and when she dropped to the ground, he and the escort who had brought her North did the same, including the Saxon injured during an encounter with Normans shortly after they began the journey to Scotland.

  “Remain here,” Hendrie said. “We will go—”

  “If ’tis a child, more easily I can coax it out.”

  “Very well, though only because it appears the Normans are gone.”

  “What do you, Lady Marguerite?” Edgar demanded.

  “I heard a child.”

  “As did we all. Now accept it is doomed and get astride.”

  “Nay!”

  “I will not have you risk revealing us!”

  She stepped alongside his mount. “That we might do were we to ride from here, but we go on foot.”

  “Get astride!”

  She turned away.

  “Hendrie, take that woman in hand!”

  “We shall protect her,” the Scotsman said and accompanied her outside.

  Marguerite was grateful that past the hard of Hendrie was a soft heart and, like her sire and their king, he indulged her.

  As they ventured from the stable cast in the shadows of ancient trees, the cry came again, and they veered toward three outlying homes, the center of which was aflame.

  “That may not have been a child,” Hendrie said.

  She recalled its last cry. It had not sounded entirely human, but terror made animals of men, women, and children, just as it had done her when she fled her grandfather’s men, running farther and faster than believed possible.

  “But it may have been,” she said, and continued forward until he yanked her down amid winter grass.

  “See there,” he rasped as the others went to ground. “At least one doubled back.”

  “I see naught.”

  “’Twas fleeting. To reach those homes, he had to travel amid fire light.”

  “Those homes?” she asked warily.

  “Likely, he heard the cry as well.”

  Now more she feared for the child. Still, lest the man merely sought to aid one of his own, she said, “You are certain he was Norman? His hair cut close and—”

  “That I could not determine, but he carried a sword. Even if a villager possessed such a blade, I warrant none moves like a warrior trained for stealth—indeed, I wager much ’tis a Norman come to finish what was begun.”

  “The child,” she whispered and heard it cry again before timbers snapped and the house began to collapse.

  She scrambled to her knees.

  The cry sounded again with less volume, and momentarily a figure appeared amid the flare of flames. His silhouette revealed though his hair was not long like that of most Saxon men, neither was it cropped close. And he did carry a sword, meaning more likely a murderous Norman than a villager.

  Marguerite did not believe her wit was quick, but in that moment she knew how to turn him opposite. After what she had witnessed of the harrying during her journey, tempered as it was by her escort going the long way around, if this Norman fell to her efforts to keep his bloody blade from a child, so be it.

  She looked to the men who had paused at the inn with her, directed three to retrieve the child, and before they could question her, thrust upright and said, “Hendrie and Stephen, we shall draw the Norman away. Now give chase.”

  Feeling Hendrie’s hand on her skirt, she wrenched free of one whose reflexes in his younger years would not have allowed her to escape, and ran toward the enemy.

  A cat. Seeing a lithe body leap from the window of the house nearest the one consumed by fire, Theriot exhaled relief that it was no child and the animal was safe.

  But then a scream split the air.

  Two figures ran from the direction of a deeply shadowed building on the outskirts of the village, and one wore a gown. There was a lope in the stride of the man coming behind the woman as if he was injured, but he gained on her.

  Though fatigued senses sounded a warning to which Theriot ought to attend, knowing hesitation could be the difference between saving and losing the woman to injury or death, he raised his sword high and reached his legs long.

  She screamed again and veered toward the dark that would improve her chance of escaping one of Theriot’s countrymen—non, two, another Norman appearing behind the first of those who had surely turned back from pursuing Edgar.

  To sooner be recognized as the scout who set them after the Aetheling, he yanked the cloth down around his neck. “Leave the woman be!”

  He could not be certain they understood, but hopefully his accent would give them pause, allowing their prey to further distance herself.

  Immediately, they ceased their pursuit. Then they were running at him.

  Not his countrymen, he saw now, and those who sought to harm a woman of their own people were not of the class who worked nor prayed. They were of the class who fought, and this D’Argent had revealed a Norman in their midst.

  He veered away. Though it would appear he fled, it was strategy for this warrior who knew the dark better than most. Amid the ring of chain mail whose weight burdened in the moment but would prove invaluable, he widened the distance between himself and the enemy, trading the fire’s glow for the shadows just as the woman had done.

  Then he halted, pivoted, and looked from the silhouetted Saxon with the hitch to the other who followed. As the former drew nearer, Theriot shifted right to gain the full breadth of both opponents’ shadows which the fires cast long across the winter field.

  Their faces were unseen, but he knew the Saxons intended him great ill. If he remained concealed in their shadows, the light behind them would reveal their swings and maneuverings far better than they would his own.

  Unfortunately, the clouds were beyond his control, but not the Lord’s. Providing his great protector prevented the moon from shining full upon the land, Theriot could come out of this whole as he had every seemingly hopeless clash—above all, that of Hastings when each Saxon blade that sought to end his life was deflected.

  Now in this northernmost English village, another clash. The Saxon of hitched stride was muscled, as told by his silhouette and slam of his blade.

  Theriot’s strength was beyond equal to his opponent’s who he guessed nearly twice his age, though it required much effort to hold to the dark as he drove the man back. Now with the second Saxon nearly upon him, he swung his sword harder, causing the first Saxon to lurch to the side.

  Theriot turned his attention to the new arrival. This warrior was of lean build and fast, requiring a half dozen meetings of the sword before Theriot spilled first blood.

  The man cursed in Saxon, but it was not his native language, his accent so diluted it had to have been many years since he crossed from Normandy.

  Continuing to keep his back to the dark and move inside his opponents’ shadows, Theriot confirmed he had bled the second one’s sword arm when the fire’s glow revealed the man clasped the upper portion with the opposite hand to keep his blade before him.

  Theriot could have finished him, but the gap between that blow and the one the older Saxon now sought to land was too narrow. Trading one shadow for another, Therio
t swept up his sword to meet the one swinging toward his head.

  “Valiant, lad!” the man mocked in a graveled voice that went beyond confirming his years. Just like Theriot’s other opponent, neither was he Saxon, his accent that of the Scots, which made more sense than that the woman was attacked by one of her own—at least in this circumstance since often the fairer sex had to protect themselves from supposed friends as much as foes.

  A prey for all seasons, his sire had once described women as being vulnerable in this world whose minutes, hours, and days were measured out by men. For that, Theriot had done as Godfroi D’Argent would approve, providing distraction that permitted the woman to escape.

  Now as he and his opponent pushed off each other, realization struck. After locating the Aetheling, Theriot had stayed near until he could overtake a Norman contingent to set after Edgar. During that time, he had seen Scots amid the Saxons, and among them an older one who rode at the Aetheling’s side and walked with a hitch—this man, meaning those who fled ahead of the Normans had left some behind, possibly the prince himself. Had these men sought to capture the woman for fear she would reveal them if Normans returned?

  As the Scotsman once more came at him, distant movement drew Theriot’s gaze to where he had found a cat. Three sword-wielding figures appeared amid firelight, and they came this direction.

  God willing, they were Normans, but since they would be nearly upon him before he could confirm it, he must eliminate these two.

  He bellowed, and his backhanded swing caught the Scot’s blade near the hilt, twisting the man around and sending his sword flying. But once more the killing blow would have to wait, the one injured earlier approaching from the left.

  Staying the shadow of the Scotsman who sought to recover his weapon, Theriot arced his blade down and up to protect his sword arm. As the meeting of metal staggered both men, Theriot drove an elbow into his opponent’s nose. It dropped the warrior, and this time there was space to land a killing blow. And that he did.