LAWLESS: A Medieval Romance (AGE OF CONQUEST Book 7)

by Tamara Leigh

Throughout that lash of the tongue, the woman’s face darkened further, but though Vilda tensed for an attack, when Theta struck it was not with fists nor feet but spit. As it slid down Vilda’s face, the woman spat, “Jealous shrew!”

  Now Hereward came, but before he could reach them, the bunched hand with which Vilda preferred to sling stones over bruising her knuckles found a mark slightly off the one desired when the harlot sidestepped.

  Impact with Theta’s cheek rather than the soft of the nose caused pain to shoot up Vilda’s arm, but when Hereward gripped his cousin’s shoulder, she jerked free and once more set herself at the woman. This time it was not spit the harlot landed but a blow to the nose and punch to the ear.

  Both stunned, putting blood on Vilda’s lips and making her head ring, but she managed a backhanded slap before her cousin dragged her away and Earl Morcar wrapped his arms around one who struggled and cursed.

  “Silence, Theta!” Hereward shouted. “Else when I cast you in the water, it will be with a gag in your mouth!”

  As she ceased raging, the rebel leader pulled Vilda around and raised her chin. “They are words. Only words, V!”

  Nose and ear aching, she opened her mouth to command him to release her, but the concern in his eyes—one lighter than the other—closed her lips and tempted her to allow him to be the strength going out through the soles of her feet.

  Firming her legs, she whispered, “Only words,” then freed her chin and lowered it so she would not have to look at the others who regarded her with much interest. Occasionally, the temper birthed on her wedding day flared, but rarely did it express itself beyond kicks to men who slept when they should be keeping death from Ely.

  Though she had agreed words were benign, she did not believe it. How could they be when history bore witness to savage, bloody acts begun with words spat upon those capable of making men, women, and children suffer? That which was spoken could be as terrible as a hacking blade. Still, she should not have turned violent.

  Feeling the burn of a swelling ear, she wiped the back of a hand across her bloodied nose and sidestepped her cousin.

  Shortly, she urged her mount after the men accompanying Hereward to the shore, all the while keeping her eyes on Theta who was seated on the fore of Martin’s saddle. The fight had gone out of the harlot, but Vilda was certain she was not resigned to her fate. She plotted—or so it seemed until she fell to weeping.

  Chapter Three

  The Fenlands

  The Norman camps were strategically spaced, distant enough to prevent the rebels from easily encircling all and putting their enemies to death by blade and fire, but near enough each force could come to the aid of others under attack.

  William approved, though his tour and interaction with men who sacrificed much for him was nearly cursory.

  Guy had caught the king’s twitches of impatience which eased only when they neared the shore that provided an unobstructed view of the blockade before the isle William would wrest from Hereward—a quest that, like so many others, was to mark the end of unrest, allowing England to begin healing in earnest.

  The king halted. “Almighty, it is magnificent! I have only seen it from a distance. Though I knew it was of import, this…”

  It surprised Guy the ruthless conqueror appreciated beauty that was but a face upon Ely whose proximity to the narrow sea made it a rallying point for rebels in England and those Saxons who had fled to the continent, as well as their fickle allies, the Danes.

  “Better I shall appreciate this victory gained by my own hand,” William said. “Follow! I wish to look nearer upon what was stolen from me.”

  De Warenne was not prepared to provide a closer view than that gained from the reed-whiskered shore against which water gently lapped, but when William ordered him to commandeer three flat-bottomed boats, he did so with the confidence and efficiency expected of one given charge of great forces.

  The boat master on the fortified dock sounded the horn and hand signals caused three boats to put oars in the water and come about. It was no surprise those were chosen. Not only were they the largest, each capable of carrying a dozen men and providing space in which to maneuver should the enemy be engaged, but their taller sides offered more protection and a place on which to hang shields for quick retrieval should greater cover be required.

  Smoothly, the boats traversed the distance, slowing when the shallows and dense reeds forced them to exchange oars for poles. The warriors who docked greeted their king respectfully, then half were ordered to disembark to make room for William and his party.

  Bones creaking from their sedentary watch, the fortunate ones who would enjoy respite from the strain and tedium of searching for rebel movement traversed the dock to the shore.

  Guy was not pleased to share the same boat as the two Williams, Taillebois, and the captain of the guard, but he was glad for Maxen’s company though they would have even less privacy in which to tender an apology.

  Once the men of the guard were divided between the other vessels, the remainder of the warriors summoned by the boat master reached long poles over the sides to free the hulls of sludge and reeds. It took effort, during which De Warenne ordered the commanders of the boats carrying the guard to flank the king’s as soon as oars could be used.

  Guy would have done the same. Though he was not as well-acquainted with William as the other man, he knew enough of the conqueror’s temperament to know he would venture nearer the isle than advised.

  “Do you think we will have to use the shields?” Maxen asked low and with derision where he stood near Guy behind the king, De Warenne, and Taillebois.

  To counter the lurch of the boat coming free of the shore’s embrace, Guy gripped the side at the same moment as his friend and those ahead. “As we have learned to keep our distance when we are at our most vulnerable,” he said, “shields are rarely required in daylight, nor bows and arrows.” He jutted his chin at a canvas-wrapped bundle beneath a forward bench. “But it is possible they will be of use this day.”

  The warriors who had worked the poles having dropped onto benches, they began propelling the craft with oars slotted through side openings. The advance was so smooth that those who remained standing were able to release the sides.

  “You have been missed, my friend,” Maxen said as the king, De Warenne, and Taillebois talked among themselves.

  “As have you,” Guy said, then smiled apologetically. “You would not know it from my reception, eh?”

  “I knew to expect you here, Guy. Regrettably, you did not expect me.” Maxen lowered his voice further. “As neither did I before William rode on Etcheverry and ordered me and a score of my warriors to accompany him.”

  Doubtless, none of the fighting men chosen by Maxen were Saxons though he had their fealty. The king expected the English who accepted his rule to fight alongside Normans against resistant Saxons, but the Baron of Etcheverry would not ask that of them.

  “I pray you will forgive me,” Guy said.

  “I would were it necessary, my friend. It is not.”

  There was more to be said, but it could wait. When the rowers slowed to bring their boats in line with others of the blockade that, as much as possible, ringed the isle, William commanded, “Nearer!”

  The warriors manning the boats resumed their pace and soon all three glided past the blockade.

  Though no one spoke for a time, the tension of Normans long in the Fens increased the nearer they drew to the isle. It was Ivo who first voiced concern. “As soon as heads appear above those crude barriers on the shore, we are in arrow range, my liege. Then we will have to raise our shields.”

  William turned his face from the northern reaches of the isle to the southern. “I see few fortifications there.”

  “They keep watch over that stretch,” said De Warenne, “but the approach is so treacherous—a great mire responsible for many of our early losses—it requires little defense other than that formed by God.”

  The king jutted his ch
in. “Go that direction.”

  “Your Majesty!” Taillebois exclaimed. “Water that appears deep there and other places around the isle is deception, the mud beneath the clouded surface so wet it is likelier to suck down a pole than give aid in pushing off. And if the crew is not swallowed with the boat, those heathens will put finish to any who do not know this godforsaken land.”

  William seemed to consider the warning, then suddenly leaned forward, that which had captured Guy’s regard capturing his—riders heading single-file toward the shore. “South,” he said firmly.

  “My king!” De Warenne exclaimed. “Truly, those waters—”

  His liege clapped him on the shoulder. “I have courage enough to share with you,” he said, then shouted, “South!”

  “Tell me when I ought to take up shield and bow,” Maxen murmured, the warrior rising in eyes that surveyed the shoreline.

  “Providing we draw no nearer the northern fortifications and there has been no great shift of the river bed to ground us ere we catch sight of the muddy ridges, we are mostly safe,” Guy said. “However, do we venture too near the dock to which the riders progress, much peril.”

  There were no further protests on the king’s boat, and though some were heard from oarsmen on the flanking crafts, the guards rebuked the naysayers though they must also be concerned. Hardened warriors might resist expressing unease, but they were attuned to that of fellow men of the sword.

  Vigilantly, the oarsmen kept the vessels running parallel to the isle and out of range of rebels who surely waited with nocked arrows, and maintained that distance once they were beyond the fortifications behind which the resistance hunkered.

  The riders had reached the dock but remained astride, watching the boats distant from those of the blockade. Though it appeared none brought bows to hand should the enemy draw near enough to pay a price for their daring, doubtless many carried them on backs and saddles.

  A moment before De Warenne growled, “Methinks that Hereward at the fore,” Guy acknowledged it. Not only was that one of the same stocky build as the rebel leader, but tattoos coursing bared arms were visible.

  “Too long I have waited to give form to that devil,” the king said. “Now I would give face to him. Nearer!”

  Taillebois grumbled something, and the warrior working the oars nearest Guy ground his teeth loudly, but William was obeyed. All those aboard the boats could do was pray the river bed had not shifted significantly and those working the oars remembered which areas to avoid.

  “God’s rood!” the king exclaimed a short while later. “Is that Morcar?”

  Guy was fairly certain of it, though not from any confrontation with that earl dispossessed of his lands—rather, from when Morcar was all but a prisoner at William’s court. The two had never spoken, but Guy had known him by sight. Though now relatively distant where he sat alongside Hereward, his proud carriage, build, and color of hair and beard evidenced he was the same.

  This past spring, he and his brother, Eadwine, had escaped the court when words were whispered in their ears that William intended to imprison them. Whereas Morcar had gathered a good number of his men and other prominent English rebels to join Hereward on Ely, Eadwine had decided to seek sanctuary in Scotland. If rumor delivered to Ely was true, Morcar’s brother had been slain by servants during the northward journey.

  “So fine a horse as that, likely Morcar,” De Warenne agreed. “And just as I am certain that is Hereward, I am certain we must cease advancing lest what they hope for comes to pass.”

  “We are still out of arrow range?” William asked.

  “Barely,” said Taillebois. “Of greater concern is the river. Though it is possible to negotiate a bit farther providing we slow to allow time to avoid the unseen or extricate ourselves should the mud take hold, it is best we turn back.”

  “As I would have that outlaw know I have come, we slow,” the king said.

  None furthered the argument, and the rowers were commanded to reduce their speed to one half. The timing could have been only slightly better, one of those on the other boats leaning over the side to watch for danger shouting, “Go right!”

  That vessel lurched before it could correct its own course but came free of the obstruction avoided by the other two.

  “Slower!” William ordered, he and the others once more bracing themselves.

  Guy exchanged a knowing look with Maxen. The king understood the necessity of a more cautious advance but not of retreat. He would go nearer yet.

  “My liege, do you not think we should turn back?” De Warenne said.

  “Not until I am certain there can be no doubt it is the rightful King of England who comes to survey what belongs to him.”

  Thus, they continued south, weaving left and right when lookouts gave warning.

  When they were near enough the dock the rebels’ features were fairly fathomable, De Warenne said, “We are within arrow range.”

  “Halt!” the king shouted.

  Oars were reversed, and when the boats stilled, all those aboard retrieved shields should the rebels on the shore or any lurking in the sparse wood beyond think to make targets of those on the water.

  For some minutes, enemy regarded enemy as if across an unsullied battlefield ahead of a charge that would desecrate the landscape with the blood of the slain. Then Hereward looked around and motioned to someone.

  A big man urged forward a horse shared with a woman whose head hung as if in shame, dark hair concealing her face. He halted past Hereward, swung out of the saddle, and lifted the woman down. She swayed, and when her knees buckled, he put her over a shoulder.

  “What is this?” William demanded as the rebel struck out across the dock. “Some heathen ritual?”

  “Likely punishment,” Ivo said. “Months past, my eyes and ears upon Ely reported that following Hereward’s failed foray in which he lost five men, some of those who escaped with him encouraged him to yield to you. It so enraged the outlaw, he bound them and cast them out of the boat, leaving them to drown.”

  “Savage,” William snarled, and again Guy and Maxen exchanged looks, the former certain the latter was also thinking of those who lost eyes, hands, and feet for words spoken against the king. As most bled out, their deaths were more excruciatingly slow than death by drowning.

  When the man halted at the end of the dock and drew the woman off his shoulder, De Warenne said, “Mayhap she is accused of being a witch and this a test—sink and she is innocent, float and she is guilty.”

  “She is not bound,” the king pointed out that part of the trial by ordeal was not observed.

  Guy shifted his jaw. He despised superstition and the cruelties suffered by those who fell under it, but naught could be done to help the poor creature.

  Movement returned his regard to Hereward, and he saw one of those mounted behind draw alongside the rebel leader—another woman, this one of golden brown hair. It was not possible to look near upon her, but he guessed she was young and could see she was not as well-endowed of breasts and hips as the one beginning to struggle at dock’s end. As she was the only other woman present, might she be the harpy who cursed him months past, the same who patrolled Ely’s shore at night?

  Of a sudden, Ivo snarled, “I think that my spy.”

  Guy narrowed his eyes on the woman Taillebois called his pretty eel whose screeches sounded across the water as she attempted to free herself of arms holding her to a broad chest.

  “Then she has been found out,” the king mused. “Soon the eyes and ears of which you boast will be closed unless she knows how to swim well and stay clear of the mud you say has quite the appetite.”

  Ivo laughed. “That Theta does, my liege.”

  The name given his spy that he had never before spoken caused Guy to look sharply at his friend. Could it be the same servant who had so plagued Maxen’s wife he had sent the woman to serve at Blackspur Castle which would have been given to Guy had William not made it part of the bargain to bring Edwin
Harwolfson to his side? Was that Theta still there, now plaguing Elan, or had she come to Ely?

  “Just as Theta was cast out of Etcheverry,” Maxen said knowingly, “she was cast out of Blackspur.”

  Isle of Ely

  “Lest I am wrong about her—and I may be—you will not allow her to drown, will you, Cousin?”

  A muscle in Hereward’s jaw ticked, and Vilda knew her question moved his thoughts to the foray that cost him the lives of five men at the Normans’ camp and one on the riverbank. That night, shortly after making it past the blockade, several of those in the boat had proclaimed their cause lost and urged their leader to surrender to the conqueror.

  Fury being Hereward’s response, he had set on the dissenters with fists, knocking them in the water and refusing to allow them aboard until they vowed not to speak treason again. Only one had refused, and he had drowned—but not died. Hereward had gone in after him, and after pounding water from his lungs and refilling them with his own breath, brought the rebel back to his side.

  The day after, it had taken all of Vilda’s restraint not to slap Theta whom she heard speculating about what had happened.

  Perched on the lap of a thane who had gone into exile following the great battle and returned to England to join Hereward, the woman had said she believed it more likely some of those told to have been slain by Normans were drowned by Hereward.

  Pure spite spoken against the rebel leader who spurned her advances, Vilda had been certain. But just as one of Hereward’s men had drowned, so might this disagreeable woman. And she might not be revived.

  “When Theta is not testing my resolve to remain faithful to my Turfida, she is rousing such jealousy in men who are as brothers that often they bleed each other,” Hereward finally answered. “Though I am tempted to let what happens happen, I will not let her drown, V.”

  As relief eased her shoulders, he touched her tender nose and swollen ear. “For a sennight, you shall bear her marks.”