The Knight's Fugitive Lady

by Meriel Fuller

‘What is the name of this place?’ Lussac flipped the lad a silver coin. It spun through the air, oscillating, and the boy’s grimy face split with a huge grin as he reached up and caught the twisting silver in one dirty fist.

  ‘Why, Framilode, my lord.’

  ‘And how far is Longthorpe from here? The Dauntseys’ place?’ Lussac dismounted in a creak of leather, moving around to the front of his horse, patting the animal’s nose.

  Katerina froze, breath snaring in her throat. Her fingers, suddenly icy, curled woodenly around the reins, clutching on to the narrow leather straps as if her life depended on it. Could she twist her horse around now, in this narrow space, and make a run for it, a desperate dash for freedom? But Lussac would catch her in no time; she had to be cleverer than that.

  ‘Longthorpe?’ the lad was saying, ‘I’m not certain. Let me think...’ He trailed off, peering up at the inn’s sagging, wooden shutters as if they would provide an answer.

  Lussac pinned Katerina with a withering glance. ‘Come on, Katerina, surely you must know the way from here? How far is Framilode from Longthorpe?’

  ‘Oh, I...’ She stared down at her hands, her short pink nails digging into the white leather reins. ‘I—’

  ‘No, I remember now,’ the lad chirruped, interrupting. ‘You’re heading in the wrong direction. Longthorpe is north from here. You need to follow the old Roman road that heads to Ipswich, and then on to Bury.’

  Lussac’s features hardened. In two long strides he was beside Katerina’s horse. ‘Come here,’ he said, menacingly, all but yanking her from the top of the horse. His strong fingers burned into her waist through the thin stuff of her tunic, leaving an imprint.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ she squeaked, confidence deserting her at the fury in his face.

  ‘You lied to me, Katerina,’ he ground out, his tone unstable, volatile. When her sturdy boots touched the ground, he kept one hand on her shoulder, pressing her down, holding her to the spot. His eyes blazed over her, threatening. ‘And I bet you’ve had a great laugh at my expense, leading me a merry dance all morning.’

  ‘Can you blame me?’ she threw back at him, voice wobbling beneath his anger. Fear clutched at her windpipe as his fingers clenched at her shoulder. ‘I told you I couldn’t go home, yet you kept on pushing, demanding that I come with you! You’ve dragged me away from my life and my work, insisting that I go somewhere that I have no wish to go! What was I supposed to do? Sit back and allow myself to be led home, like a willing dog on a lead?’

  ‘Yes!’ he roared at her. ‘That’s exactly what I expected you to do. That’s what most women would have done; they would have done as they were told!’ But even as the words burst from his mouth, he realised how misguided they were. From the first moment he had encountered this luminous slip of a girl, he had always suspected that she would do exactly the opposite of what anyone asked her to do. Why had he not heeded his own instincts? He was a fool, an idiot, drawn in by her sweet, innocent face, entranced by a lithe, graceful figure in the saddle, allowing her to lead him astray like some dumb animal.

  She folded her arms defensively across her chest, mutinous, bunching the rough, threadbare fabric of her tunic. ‘Well, I am not “most women”.’

  Catching her chin between thumb and forefinger, he tipped her face up, causing her hood to slip from her head. Sunlight struck the intricate coils of her flame-coloured hair. ‘You have no idea what this means to me, do you? How important this is to me?’ His speech was raw, bereft of emotion.

  She jerked her head to one side; his fingers dropped away. ‘I have no idea how important this is to you, Lussac, because you have told me nothing. I have no idea why you want to go to Longthorpe, no idea how you came by a cuff that has been in my family for generations...’ His eyes widened at her revelation. ‘Yes, I admit it. Every member of my family wears a cuff like the one you wear on your wrist. My father, my uncle, my mother...God rest her soul. So how, how did you come into possession of such a thing?’

  The smell of charred wood pierced his nostrils; the memory of sickening, suspended quiet as he climbed the fire-blackened stone steps cloaked him. His sister’s small feet peeking out from beneath her silken hem, the leather cuff clutched within her lifeless fingers, her other arm stretching out across the floorboards, fingers trying to reach her fallen mother. Were they trying to link their fingers together before they finally succumbed to the smoke? His heart gripped with blackening sadness, breaking, splintering. How could he speak of such atrocities, or put into words what had happened to his family, explain? And how could he tell the maid at his side that he believed one of her family members as being guilty of such a crime?

  ‘Lussac?’ Katerina tilted her head to one side, her dark-fringed eyes quietly assessing. He gave the tiniest shake of his head, as if trying to negate something, his eyelashes shuttering fractionally to hide the diamond glitter of his eyes. But not before she saw it. Saw the bleak desolation cross those turquoise depths, acknowledged the raw, bitter intensity of his ravaged expression.

  ‘My God,’ Katerina whispered abruptly, ‘what happened to you?’ Instinctively, she reached out, catching up his loose fingers that hung by his side, snaring her hand with his, a fleeting touch of recognition, of support. Of connection. Heat burned from his roughened knuckles into the soft cup of her palm.

  Warmth, desire, he knew not what, swirled in his chest as he savoured the polished silk of her fingers, before he turned, pulling his hand from hers. ‘It’s a long story,’ he replied. A story he was unwilling, or unable to tell. ‘Come, we will have some food and then we will start again. The right way, this time.’

  She followed his broad back on shaky legs, into the inn. He had found her out, discovered her ruse and she had survived. But his determination, his need to reach Longthorpe, was plain for all to see. She had read the desperation in his eyes. He was not going to let her go. She needed to find a way out and fast.

  Inside, the inn was almost deserted. A couple of men sat at one end of the long trestle talking quietly whilst another man, thick-set and burly, swept the floor. The delicate nature of the twiggy broom looked incongruous against the man’s fat, stubby fingers. The two men broke off their conversation as Lussac and Katerina entered, staring blatantly at Lussac’s expensive tunic, the jewelled hilt of his sword, the powerful muscular presence of the newcomer with his servant trailing behind him.

  ‘Pull your hood up,’ Lussac muttered quickly. He ran one finger in the gap between his neck and his hood; sweat slicked across his fingertips.

  Warmth flooded her belly at his request—surely he felt no responsibility for her? Obscured in the shadows behind Lussac, Katerina obeyed his command, blinking in the dim, smoky light of the interior. Despite the unseasonable heat outside, a slow fire sputtered in the centre of the room, the smoke trailing up and out of a ragged hole in the roof.

  Lussac gestured to a bench alongside a trestle, indicating that Katerina should sit. He slung himself on to the bench on the other side of the unevenly-planked table, nodding at the landlord to bring him some ale.

  ‘What do you want to drink?’ he asked Katerina.

  ‘Just water, please,’ she replied, wrinkling her nose at the reek of horse-dung, the rank smell of tallow fat from the guttering candles.

  He noted her grimace, threw her a quick smile. The unexpected gesture lit up his face, made him seem younger, more boyish, somehow. ‘Surely you’ve been in places worse than this?’

  ‘Hardly.’ She raised her eyebrows at him, haughty. ‘We sleep in the open air, remember. No inns for us. Too many undesirable people.’ She stared at him, the heated curve of her cheek half-obscured by the lip of her hood.

  Lussac shifted uncomfortably. It was almost as if she levelled the accusation at him. No doubt he deserved it. In these past few years of battling, he had forgotten how to treat women, preferring to bark order
s at unwilling soldiers or retreat into the solitary silence of his own brooding company. He had forgotten their softness, their sweetness.

  ‘Look...’ He cleared his throat. ‘I’m sorry if I’ve been rough with you—’

  Katerina’s eyes flicked over him. ‘Are you?’ she interrupted. ‘I don’t think you care one jot about anyone else. All you care about is achieving your own ends, whatever they might be, running roughshod over anyone who gets in your way.’ She dropped her gaze, picking with her fingernail at a loose splinter on the table.

  ‘I’m not as bad as you think.’

  ‘No?’ She arched one fine eyebrow in his direction. ‘Then why do you glare at me as if I’ve crawled out from beneath the nearest stone? As if I’m the last person on earth you want to be with? I thought you wanted me to help you?’

  Was he really such an ogre? ‘I did. I do.’ He smiled with devastating suddenness, turquoise eyes sparkling in the dim light. ‘There, is that better?’

  The smile lit up his chiselled features, softening the hard lines of his face. Her heart squeezed dangerously, driving the breath from her lungs. ‘I suppose so,’ she responded shakily, unable to control, to pacify, the accelerating beat of her blood. Why had she said anything to him at all? Her own resources simply couldn’t cope; it was far easier to deal with his cold, detached authority than this, this look of...understanding?

  Lussac nodded in thanks as the landlord dumped a tankard in front of him, slopping the ale on to the coarse-grained wood. The man plonked another tankard in front of Katerina, then held his tight-skinned fingers out for payment. Lussac placed a few coins in the outstretched palm and the man shuffled off, resuming his sweeping.

  ‘Ugh!’ Katerina peered down into the murky depths of her tankard. Flecks of dirt floated across the surface.

  ‘You can’t drink that, you’ll be ill,’ Lussac said. ‘Here, have some of mine. The brewing takes away the nastiest bugs.’ She watched as he slid the tankard across the table towards her, spine tingling with awareness. To share this man’s drink seemed unexpectedly intimate, to touch her lips to the same vessel that his lips had touched. But she needed it, needed the fluid and the energy it would give her. Winding her hands around the chill pewter, she lifted the tankard to her mouth. The cool liquid slipped down her throat, reviving her, and she licked gratefully at the last drops, a plan forming slowly in her mind.

  ‘Thank you, that was lovely,’ Katerina murmured softly. ‘But now, I think I need to...er...pay a visit?’

  Lussac, mesmerised by a single errant drop on Katerina’s bottom lip, frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean I need to go to the garderobe,’ she hissed. ‘Women’s business.’ There, that should keep him away for a bit. Men normally couldn’t stand such things.

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘And I’m supposed to believe that?’ It was as if he had read her mind, she thought with dismay.

  ‘Lussac, I need to go!’ she hissed at him. She extricated herself from the narrow gap between trestle and table. ‘It will be at the back somewhere. I’ll go and look.’

  Lussac stood up, the links of his chainmail hauberk glittering in the gloom. Behind him a tallow candle guttered and danced in a wall niche.

  ‘What are you doing?’ She clutched onto her bag in consternation, fiddling with the long strap.

  ‘Coming with you. You don’t think I’d let you go there on your own, do you? After your performance this morning? Think again, Katerina.’

  Katerina fumed and fretted as Lussac followed her towards the back of the inn, directed by the innkeeper. The garderobes were positioned for convenience over the wide, swirling river, with narrow windows cut high into the stone walls for ventilation. Lussac stuck his head inside, making sure there was no way Katerina could escape, retreating quickly at the foul smell.

  ‘Are you coming in there with me?’ she taunted, setting her head on one side in question. ‘Or am I allowed a modicum of privacy?’

  ‘I’ll wait out here,’ he announced companionably. ‘You don’t want to spend too long in there.’ Leaning his broad shoulders against the stone wall, he folded his arms high over his chest.

  ‘Well, I might be some time,’ Katerina warned. He shrugged his shoulders, unperturbed.

  She shut the makeshift door, gulping nauseously at the hideous smell pervading the cramped, confined space. Looking up, she could have cried with relief. The window was small, a narrow slit cut in the stone. Lussac had obviously noticed it and thought it presented no problem. But Katerina knew she could climb through, and she was quick about it.

  * * *

  By noon, she had reached Ipswich, the market place alive with people thronging in the small cobbled square. Teetering, narrow buildings surrounded the space, built cheaply and quickly with cob walls and thatched roofs. Leading off from the market place, the streets were muddy, rutted and uneven; a central gulley ran with stinking water. Rubbish lay everywhere, randomly strewn about; broken crates and empty barrels towered up in high, precarious piles. Merchants shouted from their stalls, each vendor trying to outdo his neighbour in selling his wares and make himself heard above the general hubbub. The space filled with noise, colour and people. But not Lussac.

  He had not come after her—of that she was certain. He wouldn’t waste his time in pursuit now anyway—he had been told the direction to Longthorpe by the stable-lad; he had no need of her. She made her way along the row of trestles, keeping her head low, her eyes averted, until she came upon an old woman selling floury rounds of bread. Her mouth watered. Handing over her pennies into the wizened fingers, she clutched the warm loaf in one hand, resolving to find a quieter place in which to eat it.

  Behind her, a horse screeched in alarm; instinctively, she turned towards the sound, as did the other people who jostled around her. On the other side of the square, the same animal reared up, forelegs pawing the air as the crowd scattered sideways, outwards, anything to avoid the powerful, thrashing hooves, the rider leaning forwards and clinging to the mane to stay in the saddle, to avoid falling.

  The rider.

  The warm, yeasty roll dropped from Katerina’s fingers, spinning along the filthy cobbles to lodge beneath a nearby trestle, snapped up moments later by a hungry dog. The horse dropped back to the ground, eyes rolling white and wild, whilst the dog that had nipped at the horse’s legs in the first place slunk away to a dark corner of the market, ribs moving visibly under mangy fur. Garth Trevallyan. Katerina stared and stared at the man, her face pale, distraught. She should move, fade away now, but her limbs were frozen, rooted to the spot, her feet like vast lead weights, pinning her to the cobbles. Garth Trevallyan was a hired soldier, hired by her father and her uncle to search for her, to bring her back home. Home to a marriage that made the bile rise in her throat at the very thought of it. A marriage to which her own father had agreed, had actively supported! She recognised the square, florid features, the cheeks stained permanently red from too much drink and the fat, protruding stomach straining at the fastenings of his surcoat. The surcoat embroidered with her family crest.

  She passed a hand across her face, scrubbing roughly at her eyes. Maybe her sight played tricks upon her? But, nay, the silver dogrose on the red background gleamed across the market square, unmistakable, the same emblem that adorned the tapestries, the shields, even some of the pewter-ware in her home. And the cuff clasped high around her forearm. Her mind cast back to the many ferocious arguments witnessed between her father and her uncle, the petty jealousies, the wrangling. There had only been one day, she recalled, when they had been in the same room without arguing. The day she had inadvertently overheard their muted conversation, her uncle’s proposition and her father’s agreement; the same day she had packed her bags and fled with Waleran.

  And now.

  Now, Garth Trevallyan was here. Was it by chance, or had someone seen her, given h
im the knowledge that she was in the area? She had no intention of staying around to find out. Pivoting on her toes, she turned abruptly in the direction of the north-west route out of town, towards Bury. That was where the troupe was headed; she would rejoin them, and be safe.

  ‘My lady?’

  A young man stood before her, a rough-coated dog on a chain at his side. A tall, burly young man who blocked the way, who wore an identical surcoat to Trevallyan, embroidered with the silver-rose emblem of her home.

  In a trice, she ducked her head, allowing her hood to drop further over her face, shadowing her features. Panic rose in her gullet, a lightning streak of pure, unadulterated fear that weakened her knees, dragged at her shoulders. For one single, insane moment, she thought of Lussac, wanted that tall, powerful knight at her side, protecting her. What a fool she was! She was on her own, now, just like she always was. And she had to make the best of it.

  Katerina ignored the young man’s words, hoping to give the impression that he addressed someone else in the crowd, despite the fact that he stared directly at her with bland, hazel eyes. She made to pass by him, on the side without the dog, but a gauntleted hand on her forearm rippled her tunic sleeve, prevented her moving forwards.

  ‘My lady Katerina?’ he said politely. ‘You are to stay with me.’ As if to emphasise his point, the dog let out a low, rumbling growl.

  ‘Nay, you are mistaken,’ she replied, as gruffly as she could.

  In reply, he knocked the hood back from her hair with one bunched fist, revealing the glorious auburn shine of her tightly bound hair, her delicately wrought features, the sprinkle of tiny fawn freckles across her nose and cheeks.

  He smiled, an unpleasant twist to his mouth. ‘I don’t think so.’ His teeth sat in a crooked row, stained and yellowing. Beneath his knee-length surcoat, made of red wool, he wore a chainmail hauberk, the links rusty and inflexible. ‘Over here!’ he shouted above her head towards Trevallyan, who had managed to calm his horse and was edging his way through the crowds towards them.