Her Battle-Scarred Knight

by Meriel Fuller

  One big fat raindrop touched her face, startling her out of her reverie. Overhead, lumpish grey clouds amassed, signalling the onset of rain, and she started walking again, increasing her pace. Sambourne lay due east from here; she would reach it before the light went completely from the day. Rolling her arm in its socket, the ache in the back of her shoulder subsiding, she decided to ride once more. Hitching her skirts up, she stuck her foot into the gleaming stirrup, her other leg bouncing comically across the spongy mess of leaves as she attempted to lever herself into the saddle without the aid of a convenient mounting block.

  ‘Allow me.’ Firm hands either side of her hips boosted her upwards. Hastily scissoring her legs over the horse’s back, Brianna narrowed her eyes through the slanting rain, refusing to acknowledge the flare of relief in her heart.

  ‘Why didn’t you wait for me?’ Giseux bellowed up at her, raindrops sluicing down his face. Droplets hung, like brilliant jewels, from the tips of his hair.

  ‘I don’t wait for murderers!’ she shouted back, contemptuously, yanking her hood over her rapidly flattening veil. Yellow, star-shaped leaves floated down diagonally between them, hastened by the squalls of rain; one landed on Giseux’s shoulder, gold against the blue cloth of his cloak. ‘What you did was despicable!’

  In response he bunched the leather straps of her horse’s bridle between his fist, pulling her horse into the lea of a stand of larch trees, out of the stinging rain. ‘And let go of my horse!’ she scolded him, childishly.

  Beneath the shelter of the trees scarcely a raindrop fell; the air filled with an audible hush, an expectancy. Giseux’s head was on a level with her midriff, his eyes bright, translucent in the dimming forest. Above his head, the bronze needles of the larch fanned out against the silvery sky, small rosettes of cones bunched like seeds at the end of each branch, swaying gently.

  ‘I let him live, Brianna.’ He released her bridle, throwing himself onto his destrier in one easy movement.

  ‘You…?’ Her mouth, opened to harangue him once more, snapped shut. The full impact of his words swept over her, her heart sung.

  ‘Aye, that’s right, Brianna,’ he growled out, staring out at the slashing rain. ‘I let him live. Against my better judgement, probably,’ he muttered, swinging his brilliant eyes towards her.

  ‘Does he still have his legs?’ Brianna’s question held the tint of apology. Her anger at him ebbed away, drained from her body like the receding tide.

  Giseux laughed; there was no humour in the sound. ‘He had no idea I was there.’

  ‘But why?’ Brianna asked, incredulous. ‘What made you stop?’

  You, Brianna, he thought. Her simple, powerful words had seeped into his soul, reached into the far corners of his frozen heart, warming, nurturing. The fog, that cold, listless fog, had lifted from his brain; he could think clearly again. Her words had penetrated his dark thoughts, forced him to acknowledge the consequences of his actions. Brianna was right—killing would not bring Nadia back.

  ‘He was not worth bloodying my sword for,’ he replied, lightly, peering out into the gloomy drizzle.

  ‘What was she like, Giseux?’

  His leonine head whipped around, astonished by the temerity of her question, astounded by the way the words kicked him, hard, driving into the middle of his solar plexus. The destrier pawed the ground, nervous, sensing his rider’s tension.

  Reading the sadness in the diamond chips of his eyes, Brianna expelled a deep, shaky breath. She had gone too far. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered, her throat closed with remorse, ‘it’s none of my business.’

  He tried to conjure up the image of Nadia, attempted to recall the details of her face, her hair, the smell of her. Unusually, he wanted to speak of her, describe her to Brianna, but all he could see was the sweet oval face of the maid before him, her lips sheened with the colour of the palest rose petal, the wayward tendril of coppery hair escaping from her hood.

  ‘She was beautiful,’ he said, finally. ‘Like you.’

  Chapter Seven

  Giseux shoved a few clothes into a leather satchel, his movements quick, efficient. Glancing around the chamber, at the rich grain of the panelled walls, at the extravagant folds of the velvet bed curtains, he told himself he had no need of such wealth, such trappings. He was just as comfortable in a tent, with scant possessions and a horse to travel on, alone. Or he had been. The restlessness that had plagued him since he returned from Jerusalem seemed eased somehow, lifted, the frozen lump that chilled the marrow of his body shifting, melting slowly. But it was time to go, on the direct order of Queen Eleanor, to find her son, the King, and organise his release. A few days ago, he would have relished the chance to travel, to throw himself into the difficult task, now, curiously, he had no wish to leave Sambourne.

  A pair of bright, periwinkle-blue eyes swung into his mind. Brianna had been so cross, so angry with him in Merleberge, when she realised his intentions; her furious little face turned up to him like a brilliant flower, cheeks flagged with fury. Her scornful speech had driven the rage, the anger that fuelled his revenge, from his body, now, he was amazed at the uncomplicated strength of her words, the effect they had wielded upon him. Shaggy brows furrowing over his glimmering eyes, his chest tightened as a dawning realisation flooded over him: he would miss her.

  Someone tapped lightly at his door.

  ‘Come in.’ His deep voice was terse as he turned to sort out the muddle of his chainmail, piled in a heap in the corner of his room.

  ‘Giseux?’ His mother’s light tone tripped across the chamber, her eyes drawn immediately towards the silver pile of armour, the shield, the sword. Her lips pressed together, a sign of regret.

  He turned and smiled ruefully, pushing back a lock of sable hair that fell over his forehead with the movement. ‘If I’m going to wear this, I’d better sort it out before I…What’s the matter?’ Lady Mary had moved swiftly across the room in a flurry of green silk, her delicate veil fanning out behind her, and now clutched at his arm.

  ‘Hugh is asking for you…he wants to speak with you, urgently…and alone.’ Her heavy emphasis on the final word forced Giseux to concentrate on her words.

  ‘You mean…without his sister overhearing?’

  ‘Precisely. I managed to persuade her to take some breakfast with your father; she was so tired from yesterday that she went straight to bed last night.’ Mary threw her son a critical glance. ‘Did you find who you were looking for…in Merleberge?’

  ‘Aye, Brianna took me straight to him.’

  ‘She’s a plucky little thing, don’t you think? Managing to cope for all those years with just a servant for company?’

  ‘She’s courageous, I’ll give her that,’ Giseux agreed, moving around his mother to stand in the open doorway, ‘but she’s vulnerable too.’ He frowned. ‘I can’t imagine what Hugh wants to say to me without Brianna’s presence. They seem so close.’

  ‘You’d better go, now.’

  ‘Could you go down to the great hall…maybe stall her a little?’ Giseux walked alongside his mother out into the corridor.

  Lady Mary’s fair head bobbed with approval. ‘It would be my pleasure.’ She paused at the top of the steps, one hand clasped around the curving iron-forged banister that snaked downwards alongside the spiral staircase, and glanced back at her son, a small smile on her pale pink lips. ‘I do enjoy talking with her.’

  At the sight of Giseux, Hugh pushed himself up on one elbow. ‘Thank God you came! I need to speak to you!’

  ‘How are you feeling?’ Approaching the bed, Giseux dipped his upper body to lay a hand on Hugh’s forehead. His skin was cool and the disorientated, crazed look had disappeared from his eyes. ‘Much better, obviously,’ he pronounced his own verdict. He dragged a wooden chair over to the bed, and sat down, elbows resting on his knees as he leaned forward. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Giseux, I’ve done something…it’s to do with Brianna…’ Hugh hesitated, eyes shifting to the door, check
ing it was closed. The clear, periwinkle blue of his eyes matched those of his sister. ‘She’ll not like what I’ve done, but believe me, I have her best interests at heart.’

  ‘Why not speak to her about it?’ Giseux replied evenly, an uncomfortable feeling nagging at his innards. He glanced downwards, studying the scuffed toes of his leather half-boots.

  Hugh plucked at the bedsheet. ‘If she knew, she would refuse to go through with it.’

  ‘Go on,’ Giseux urged.

  ‘I’ve asked Brianna to find my betrothed and my son.’

  Giseux’s eyes widened fractionally. Hugh had talked to him briefly about Matilda and the little boy on the journey back to England. Brianna had not mentioned such a task to him, but then, why would she? He was nothing more than a stranger to her.

  ‘I don’t know if I will survive this illness; I need to marry Matilda, to make sure the boy, my son, inherits Sefanoc.’

  ‘And Brianna?’

  ‘Matilda’s father has agreed to give his daughter’s hand in marriage on one condition.’ Hugh rolled on to his back, stared at the ceiling, his eyes fluttering closed for a moment. ‘Brianna will see the sense of it, once she becomes used to the idea.’

  ‘What condition?’ Giseux’s question sounded hollow, his tongue awkward within his mouth. For some unknown reason, the image of Brianna, sprawled and helpless against the frozen water trough, leapt into this mind. What was Hugh about to tell him?

  Hugh rolled his red-rimmed eyes towards Giseux, a loose smile contorting his dry lips. ‘On condition that Brianna marries him. Walter of Brinslow, Matilda’s father, wants Brianna’s hand in marriage…again. He wants her back, Giseux. She was married to him before…and she ran away before the year was up. By all accounts he was happy to let her go. But now, he wants her back.’

  Giseux rose abruptly, stepped over to the window, his hands balled into fists on the stone ledge. The movement prevented him from going to the bed and violently shaking Hugh. So this was the marriage to which Brianna had referred in this very room, when he challenged her about her behaviour, her voice bitter and cold, her whole body quivering in the aftermath of her outburst. And Hugh was proposing that she go through the whole thing again.

  He turned around, propped one hip up on the ledge, folding his big arms over his chest. His toe knocked against the pallet bed, skewing the light wooden frame across the glossy floorboards; the linen pillow still held the crushed imprint of Brianna’s head. ‘She would never agree to it, Hugh, surely you can see that?’

  ‘She doesn’t have to agree. Brianna has no idea of that part of the plan. If she did…well.’

  ‘.she would run a mile.’ A half-smile touched his lips: aye, the knife would come out, and the crossbow no doubt; the chit certainly had the wits and intention to defend herself, even if she didn’t have the muscle power. A raft of admiration sifted through him. He remembered her sobbing speech after he had rescued her from Count John’s soldiers, when she had believed him to be her enemy, that she would rather die than go with him.

  ‘Precisely.’ Hugh’s lips tightened suddenly. ‘That’s why I want you to go with her.’ He coughed, a wheezing rattle emerging from his lungs.

  ‘It’s not possible. I have orders to go to Germany.’ Giseux’s response emerged, clipped and tight. ‘There’s a boat leaving from Southay this evening.’

  ‘It wouldn’t take above a couple of days to deliver her,’ Hugh wheedled, the faintest trace of spoilt grumpiness in his voice. ‘You could take another boat in a couple of days.’

  Deliver her? Was that what Brianna had been reduced to? An inanimate package to be hauled from one place to the next? ‘Hugh, she’s your sister, for God’s sake!’ Giseux bellowed at him, flint eyes snapping. ‘How can you do this to her?’ Hugh scrabbled back on to the pillows as Giseux hulked over the bed, his broad shoulders blocking out the light from the window, his demeanour threatening.

  ‘Sit down,’ Hugh croaked. ‘I didn’t know you cared so much.’

  Giseux forced himself back into the chair beside the bed, squashing down smartly on the flare of disquiet he felt for the maid. ‘She’s been through so much, Hugh, surely you can see that? Life has been hard for her whilst you’ve been away.’

  But Hugh wasn’t listening. ‘I suppose I’ll have to find someone else then. It’ll be difficult; she’s so stubborn, set in her ways. I blame our father; he allowed her to make decisions too early, gave her too much independence. Now she’s a devil to handle, far too wilful. I assumed that’s why her marriage was annulled so soon, because she was so difficult. Walter must be mad for wanting her back.’

  ‘She’s kept Sefanoc going for you, managing both the estate and lands, on her own.’

  ‘She knows how important it is to me,’ Hugh replied pompously.

  Giseux glanced at him, surprised at the smug haughtiness in his tone. He had only known this man in sickness; now, with his return to health, Hugh’s true character seemed to be emerging: Hugh the landowner, Hugh the arrogant lord. Without thinking, he rubbed at the cramping soreness in his right thigh. ‘Brianna loves you, Hugh; she wouldn’t expect you to do something like this.’

  ‘Brianna needs to learn to do as she’s told,’ Hugh retorted, bending his arms upward behind his head.

  A dangerous light entered Giseux’s eyes; he sprang from the chair, prowling on noiseless feet about the chamber. ‘Brianna has had enough. You need to leave her alone.’

  Hugh twisted his thin, mottled face up to Giseux’s, blue eyes narrowing. ‘Brianna is my sister, Giseux, and she is my property; I decide what happens to her. She is nothing to do with you.’

  Rage clouding his vision, Giseux wrenched the door open.

  Brianna stood in the passageway, the light slanting down over her amber hair from the window in the stairwell, her hand suspended in mid-air, about to press her palm against the wooden slats to push the door inwards.

  ‘Oh, it’s you!’ A faint colour bloomed immediately across her cheeks; she crossed her arms over her bosom, acutely conscious of the tighter fit of her borrowed dress. Lady Mary had insisted that her pale green gown, her only gown, was sent for laundering, lending her one of her own garments as a replacement, a slim-fitting gown of mauve silk velvet. The silver trellis of flowers decorating the curving neckline winked and sparkled in the half-light…

  ‘What’s the matter?’ she breathed fearfully at the wild, precarious look in Giseux’s eyes. He filled the doorway, his rumpled hair almost brushing the heavy oak lintel, broad shoulders encased in a brown fustian tunic. ‘Is it Hugh?’ The memory of Giseux’s words sang through her, he had told her she was beautiful, like the girl he had loved in the Orient. For some inexplicable reason, the tiniest sliver of sorrow washed through her veins.

  His body melted at the sight of her, as if all his muscles recognised her presence, and softly acquiesced, cleaving forwards. The form-fitting bodice of her dress smoothed over the rounded curve of her bosom, the slashed neckline gaping fractionally to reveal the shadowed gap between her breasts. ‘Hugh is all right,’ he bit out. Apart from the fact that he is about to betray you, about to push you back into a marriage that you will do everything in your power to avoid, he is all right.

  ‘Brianna…is that you?’ Hugh’s querulous voice rose from the bed.

  ‘I must go to him.’ Brianna lowered her head, indicating that Giseux should move to one side.

  ‘Wait,’ he murmured huskily, lowering his lips to within an inch of her shell-like ear. A delicious perfume rose from the warmth of her neck; his breath stirred the dainty silk of her veil. ‘Meet me in the stables, as soon as you can. It’s important.’ His eyes, smoking silver, bore into hers. ‘And don’t speak of this to Hugh.’

  After the noon-day bell, after the peasants had stumbled in from their morning chores and eaten their fill at the scrubbed, rickety trestle tables in the great hall, under the watchful eye of Jocelin’s bailiff, the castle slumbered. On this icy day, cold hands and feet warmed quickly with t
he heat blazing out from the huge fire; drowsy faces reddened and heads nodded, bodies somnolent, exhausted from the early morning start. Despite the time of year, there was plenty of work on the estate, from tending the livestock to hedging and ditching, and working in the forests to ensure enough timber to keep the fires burning.

  Carrying her brother’s empty tray, Brianna stepped lightly down the spiral staircase from Hugh’s chamber, her embroidered hemline slipping behind her, the rich material lapping down each polished stone step.

  Hugh seemed much recovered, with more colour in his cheeks; she had left him propped up against several feather pillows after he’d finished sipping the broth brought by one of the servants. He had talked and talked, speaking of his plans for Sefanoc, for his son. In the years that Hugh had been away, Brianna had forgotten what it was like to be bossed around by him; now, she found herself balking at his authoritative tones. All the time he had talked to her, mouth full of soup, or bread, Brianna’s fingers fidgeted along the side of her chair, flickers of nervous anticipation coursing through her frame, resisting the urge to leap up, to chase down after Giseux. Her mind failed to concentrate on Hugh’s words, her thoughts darting hither and thither like butterflies: what could Giseux possibly wish to say to her? Her heart thudded treacherously.

  When Hugh had finally leaned back against the pillows, eyelids drooping, muttering about how important it was for her to travel to Walter’s castle, about how he would ask Jocelin for a couple of soldiers to accompany her, she had leaped at the opportunity to carry his dirty dishes back downstairs. Reaching the main entrance hall, she handed the tray to a passing maidservant, the girl bobbing a quick curtsy before diving off behind a thick brocade curtain, no doubt in the direction of the kitchens. Twisting the chunky iron handle of the main door, wooden panels studded with iron rivets, Brianna stepped outside, wrapping her arms about her midriff to ward off the blast of the icy east wind. Her cloak lay upstairs in the chamber; to have worn it would have been to alert Hugh to her destination outside. Guilt swept over her; Hugh had always been her confidant, her only confidant, but something, something in his manner, made her hesitate. His illness was obviously affecting him. Striding across the cobbles of the inner bailey, the breeze chasing around her stocking-covered shins, she headed for the uneven row of open-fronted barns.