by Shari Anton
On the edge of his vision he caught movement among the soldiers, a form too short and stealthy to belong. Two long strides put him in striking distance. With a quickly flung arm he captured Edward by the scruff of the neck.
“No, Edward. ’Tis too dangerous.”
“But me mum!”
“I understand your concern, but you will stay here.” Alberic spun the boy around and took a firm grip of those young shoulders. “I shall make you a bargain. You stay here, and I will find your mother and have her brought into the keep.”
Alberic could hardly blame the boy for hesitating to agree. Why trust the lord who’d put his mother in danger?
Then Edward squared his shoulders. “As you say, milord.”
Alberic desperately wanted to hug him, but refrained when he saw Gwendolyn running toward the gate. Her relief upon spotting Edward said all.
“Go to her ladyship. I believe she needs your help in the hall.”
The boy dashed straight into Gwendolyn’s arms.
“I should box your ears,” he heard her say in such a loving tone he knew she’d do no such thing.
She will make a good mother.
Not willing to contemplate his abilities as a father, Alberic ran toward the village.
Already the hut nearest the church was beyond hope. The graveyard separating the two structures gave the church some protection, but flying sparks from the thatched roof had set a second and third hut ablaze. The fire would spread from rooftop to rooftop if not halted.
And Gwendolyn had the measure of the villagers. Every man and woman was employed in the daunting task of hauling water up from the well and passing the buckets down the lines, shouting encouragement at one another, until the one at the end tossed the water on the fire then ran the bucket back to the well.
Efficient and orderly. Unfortunately, they made little headway trying to put out all three fires. The first hut must be sacrificed to save the rest of the village.
But when he shouted the orders to alter their efforts, some looked at him as if he’d lost his wits, and others turned toward the soot-coated, crestfallen couple in the middle of the line.
The man came forward and waved a hand at the flaming hut. “My lord, this is all we own. If we save naught of it—”
The choked-off words speared Alberic’s heart, but he stood his ground. “Come see me on the morn, but for now go help the good folk who tried to help you.”
Then half the roof fell in, sending bits of burning wood and thatch upward and outward. People scattered, some screaming, to avoid the rain of fiery embers.
Alberic batted at a shard of glowing wood that landed on his arm, putting it out. His chain mail provided a barrier, but the tenants weren’t so fortunate. Chaos erupted as clothing and hair caught fire, the buckets of water put to use now on people and not huts.
He felt so helpless he didn’t know what to do next, until he saw a woman lying on the ground, her skirt aflame and her screams panicked.
He ran to her, as did others. He tore at the fabric, singeing his fingers. A bucket of tossed water doused most of the flames and turned the dirt to mud. For what seemed an eternity, they worked frantically. Only when the fire was out and the woman’s screams subsided to deep sobs did he realize he knew her. Mistress Biggs.
Her legs were badly burned, but she would live. And by the gods, if he had his way so would everyone else. Huts could be rebuilt, but people couldn’t be replaced.
He shouted for Thomas, who came running. “Get the older women and any child too young to heft a bucket into the keep. And tell Gwendolyn that when these fires are out I am bringing everyone else in, too.”
Thomas raised an eyebrow but set about organizing the older women to round up the children. The able- bodied went back to work hauling water.
They wet down rooftops, turned cattle loose in the meadow, and shooed honking geese and flapping chickens out from underfoot. Voices grew rough with throats sore from both exertion and the sting of smoke.
By the time fire no longer threatened to consume the village, they’d lost two huts, a third was badly damaged, and a fourth would need repairs.
Alberic’s fingers bled from both burns and abuse. His back and legs hurt, and his arms were too weary to lift.
“Gather whatever blankets and provisions you can carry and get to the keep,” he told the bedraggled crowd gathered around the well.
No one argued, just drifted off to their huts, leaving him alone with the few soldiers he’d brought out with him. They all looked worse than if they’d been in battle, ready to fall where they stood. Many of them, Alberic knew, had not only fought the fire but made several trips back and forth to the keep, escorting to safety those who’d been burned or whose strength gave out.
“Well done, men. You have proved your mettle this night.” A few smiles broke out, but most were too weary to bother. “Hurry the villagers along and herd them into the keep. I warrant our beds will have never felt so good.”
With grunts of agreement, the men spread out to obey the order. Thomas took a few steps, then turned around.
“Coming, my lord?”
“Aye, as soon as I fetch my helm and sword.” Which he’d taken off only God knew how long ago. “What word from the keep? Any sign of impending attack?”
“Nay. I do believe Roger is disappointed.”
Alberic had to smile. “Well, I am not. How goes it in the hall?”
“Last I knew Lady Gwendolyn had all well in hand. She asked after you.” The squire smiled sheepishly. “Beg pardon, my lord, but I told her you fared well but would need a bath upon your return.”
Alberic couldn’t help a bark of laughter. “That assumes my body will bend to fit in the tub.”
But damn, a bath sounded good, and a bed even better. A glance at the moon’s position said dawn was hours away, yet he felt he’d been exerting himself for days.
On his way toward the oak tree under which he’d placed his belongings, he again surveyed the damage. Guilt almost overwhelmed him.
So much lost. All his fault.
He could almost hear the earl of Chester remonstrate him for putting a dram of trust in the word of a Welshman. The judgment, of course, came from long years of sparring with the Welsh along Chester’s borders. The judgment also came from a man whose word was suspect, his reputation little better than ap Idwal’s.
Alberic strapped on his sword, and when he bent down to pick up his helm he caught a shadowy movement in the graveyard. A place no one should be. Father Paul was in the keep. The villagers surely weren’t visiting the dead at this time of night.
He put on his helm, his anger flaring. The only one who might be skulking among the mix of monuments and Celtic crosses was the enemy. Possibly the very man who’d started the fires and then stayed to watch the huts burn.
The whoreson!
Anger boiled over into fury, the need to punish someone for tonight’s outrage thrusting him toward the graveyard. A satisfied grin hurt his cheeks when he saw ap Idwal step out from behind a cross. That two others came out of hiding, too, didn’t give him a moment’s pause.
He advanced on ap Idwal, relishing the prospect of a punishing fight.
Ap Idwal sneered. “How nice of you to oblige me, Norman. We will not have to carry you far for burial.”
“I will see you in hell first.”
Alberic drew his sword, his arms no longer weary, every fiber in his being prepared. Behind him he heard Thomas’s indistinct shouts, likely mustering the guards to the graveyard.
Ap Idwal gave no sign of retreat, merely stood by the cross he had hidden behind, a smug smile on his face, his sword at the ready.
Then Alberic’s head exploded, his ears ringing and vision blurring. As he fell face forward into the dirt, he realized his error. He’d been so intent on ap Idwal he’d neglected to thoroughly study his surroundings.
Just as Sir Hugh de Leon had been so intent on killing the earl of Chester that he’d forfeited his life.
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br /> Gwendolyn!
He closed the eyes that refused to remain open, envisioning Gwendolyn in the arms of Madog ap Idwal. The earl of Chester stood beside them, shaking his head in disappointment at his bastard son’s inexcusable misjudgment.
Gwendolyn was nearly at her wit’s end when Alberic’s eyes finally opened.
Prone in their bed, Alberic stared up at her, his gorgeous green eyes clear and wide open—this time open for good, she hoped. He’d opened his eyes before and closed them again too soon.
“I must be in heaven,” he murmured. “An angel watches over me.”
She almost cried for joy that he spoke, even if his gallantry was misplaced. “You have not yet left this earthly kingdom, so your sight must be faulty.” Then she considered the possibility that his sight might be affected by the head injury. “Have you trouble seeing?”
“I see you perfectly well, Gwendolyn. What confuses me is that I fully expected to awake in heaven . . . or elsewhere.”
Gwendolyn sat down on the bed she’d hovered over for long hours. “You took a nasty blow to the head. If you had not been wearing a helm . . .” Best not to speak her worst fears aloud. Her voice might crack. “You have a lump the size of an egg. Does your head hurt?”
He reached behind his head, turning it slightly, and winced. “It does now.”
“Well, now that I know you will live long enough to drink it, I will have Cook brew willow-bark tea. Stay still. I will not be gone long.”
She started to get up; his arm shot out to hold her in place.
“Not yet. What happened . . . after?”
Unsure of which “after” he meant, she began with what she thought he most wanted to know.
“Thomas could not reach you before one of the bastards swung a club at your head from behind. By the time you went down, your soldiers and the villagers were rushing the graveyard.” She smiled. “Madog must have realized how badly outnumbered he was and fled back to his camp. Thomas forswore pursuit and brought you back to the keep.”
Muddy, soot-coated, his hands burned, and unconscious. With the help of his squires she’d cleaned him up and put him to bed and waited, and prayed to every deity she could think of, both Christian and pagan, to spare Alberic’s life.
She didn’t know which goddess or saint had answered her plea, but was so grateful she intended to send her thanks to all. Given Alberic’s inclination to put himself in harm’s way, she might need their goodwill in the future.
But that was for later; Alberic wasn’t completely out of danger yet.
He sighed. “So now ap Idwal gloats in his camp.”
“Nay, he is gone.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Gone?”
“Since you thought the idea a good one, at dawn I sent Father Paul and Rhys out to the camp. As you suggested, Father Paul threatened Madog with excommunication should he persist in his folly, but I suspect that bothered him less than Rhys’s threat to put Madog’s dishonorable behavior to song and spread the tale far and wide. They also let him know in most explicit terms that I had no wish to be rescued. Within the hour they broke camp and went back to Wales.”
His eyes closed briefly, and she almost wished he’d kept them closed longer. Now within them lurked both sadness and a vulnerability she would never expected of him.
“I failed them, Gwen. I failed all of us.”
Gwendolyn could hardly believe what she heard.
“How, pray tell? I grant you, you should not have gone into the graveyard alone. But how were you to know someone would sneak up behind you and swat your head? You had best not let Edward overhear such talk. You are his hero!”
“I allowed the enemy to fire the village, which injured his mother.” His eyes narrowed. “Is she all right?”
“The burns on her legs will pain her for some time, but she is thoroughly enjoying her son’s fussing. Sweet mercy, Alberic. Very few of the villagers have left the keep. They are awed that their lord would endanger himself on their account, and realize that more of the village, if not the whole of it, would have burned had you not been there. Most have not gone home. They remain in the hall to pray for your recovery.”
“I nearly made you a widow. Ap Idwal almost won.”
His failure to see sense irked her. “But he did not. You did! The siege is over, the enemy vanquished.”
He closed his eyes then, not because of the pain in his head or weariness, but to shut out her arguments.
Gwendolyn refrained from tossing up her hands in frustration. Why he should feel so wretched when all had turned out so well, she didn’t understand.
“I am going down for the tea and to let everyone know you have wakened. Shall I bring food up, too?”
“Nay, not hungry,” he whispered.
His lack of appetite didn’t surprise her. His head must hurt as badly as Emma’s did when gripped by a sick headache, and Gwendolyn had always known a headache was coming on by her sister’s lack of hunger.
Gwendolyn left the bedchamber door wide open. As she suspected would happen, her announcement that Alberic had awakened and spoken lucidly elicited cheers loud enough to carry up the stairs and into the chamber.
She hoped the accolade would lift his spirt. True, he’d suffered a knock on the head tonight, but he’d also proved himself a capable and caring lord. Surely he would come to realize that, in time.
All the while she strode out to the kitchen to brew tea for his aching head, she wished she knew of a potion or balm to cure an ailing spirit, which she suspected might take longer to heal than Alberic’s injury.
Chapter Fifteen
TIS UNCONSCIONABLE FOR THOSE who profess to believe in Christ to participate in pagan rites.” In obvious despair, Father Paul waved a hand at the Maypole. “To raise this . . . this reprehensible abomination within such short distance from the church door is . . . is heathen.”
Alberic had heard the Church’s position on the celebration of Beltane before. As for the Maypole, which some believed represented a male phallus, he thought the villagers had done a fine job with it. The ash tree had been harvested yesterday and installed in the village green last eve. The women had decked it with a huge crown of flowers and hung the long red and white ribbons that would later be woven around the pole by merry dancers.
He refused to have the Maypole removed, even for the priest partly responsible for convincing ap Idwal to end his siege.
“I understand your concern, Father, but the rites of spring are celebrated all over the kingdom. I shall not deprive Camelen’s people of the pleasures of the tradition.”
“Pleasures,” the priest said as if the word were foul- tasting. “If you do not, at the least, forbid the bonfire, the tenants will commence with pleasures at the lighting and not cease until the last ember dies. I warrant we will count fewer virgins in our midst come the morn.”
No doubt.
Alberic remembered a Beltane or two when he’d snuck off with a lusty maiden, heady from the ale and the dancing, cavorting naked in the woods, and the inevitable, successful completion of the rites.
“Perhaps you should caution the fathers to keep a close watch on their daughters.”
“Humph. More than a few fathers would not be upset should the girl swell with child and be forced to marry and move out. One less mouth to feed.”
Alberic couldn’t dispute the charge, though he thought the priest might be a bit harsh in his judgment. And while fire yet haunted his dreams, among other horrific memories, he’d not forbid the bonfire or the ale or the dancing.
“Come, Father, look around you. Given that we still have a village, and the repairs and rebuilding are going well, and the planting has gone on as scheduled, I think the people deserve a day of play. If that be Beltane, so be it.”
The priest gave a deep sigh. “I suppose I could speak with the fathers.”
“A good decision. I am sure God will look down on your efforts with favor.”
The disgruntled priest wandered off, and Alberi
c continued on his interrupted quest to inspect the repairs and rebuilding. No work would be done today, of course. Even those whose homes were only partially repaired, and who currently resided in the keep, had other plans for the day.
Gwendolyn had been up and out before dawn to lead a flock of women to the meadow to wash their faces in the first of May dew—why, he had no notion—and to gather armloads of flowers. Even now, she and a few others wove white-, purple-, and yellow-headed flowers into evergreen boughs to hang in the hall.
He’d escaped the nearly overpowering scents and, as he had each day for the past week since Gwendolyn finally pronounced him fit enough to leave their bed, he now stood before the new huts.
Not even the scent of flowers could banish the stench of smoke. Not even seeing stout oak center beams and patches of new thatch could obliterate the vision of flames and flying sparks.
His head no longer ached and the burns on his fingers were nearly healed. Paying most of the cost of restoring what was lost eased his conscience but didn’t diminish his guilt.
Not a day went by he didn’t suffer doubts about the quality of his lordship over Camelen, and not a night passed that he didn’t awake at least once, sweating, terrified that ap Idwal had somehow won.
Only by curling around Gwendolyn could he go back to sleep.
Leaning on Gwendolyn for comfort, even though she never woke and didn’t know, bothered him immensely. Never had he turned to another for succor, relying only upon himself. The dreams had to abate sometime, and that time couldn’t come quickly enough to suit him.
Giggling alerted him to the return of the village women. From the oldest to the youngest, each wore a circlet of flowers. Many carried an evergreen bough to hang over her hut’s door. Mistress Biggs wasn’t among them, her burns too severe to allow her to walk much yet.
Alberic began the trek back to the keep, hoping that enough of the greenery had been carried out of the hall to allow breathing. Soon enough he learned that the scent of evergreen could be ignored when one beheld the festive look of the hall.
