Shattered Vows

by Carol Townend

  ‘Rosamund! For God’s sake, stop!’

  Her stride broke, he wasn’t angry, he sounded desperate. When he used that tone, she could almost imagine him pleading with her, asking her to stay...

  ‘Rosamund!’

  She faltered. She hated herself for being so weak, but he did sound desperate and she wasn’t made of stone. Slowly, she turned, and there he was – closing the distance between them, pausing only to snatch up her cloak. Chest heaving, he stood before her and his flurried breath fanned her cheeks. His eyes glittered. Ruthless and predatory. Lord, he was livid, she shouldn’t have stopped.

  He dropped her cloak. As if waking from a trance, she made to run, but she was too slow. Strong fingers bit into her shoulders and caught in her hair.

  ‘That hurts!’ Her breath was as uneven as his and her hair was an untidy cascade about her face. Intentionally or not, he was pulling on it.

  His grip eased, but he didn’t release her.

  ‘Oliver, I had to go. Don’t you see? I made my vows to Alfwold and I must speak to him. I’m not free and I won’t be damned for a man who can’t love me!’

  ‘Mon Dieu, you’re a honey trap!’ With a bitter laugh, Oliver gave her a hair-tangling shake. ‘You knew I’d follow you! You witch, you knew they’d be waiting. You knew from the start!’

  His voice was so filled with loathing it was almost unrecognisable. As for his face – she was blinking up at a stranger.

  An owl hooted. Oliver gave her a black look. ‘I’ll have my Judas kiss.’

  ‘My hair’s caught.’ Vainly, she tried to pull her hair out from under his fingers. ‘You’re hurting.’

  ‘Hurting? I could kill you for this!’

  His head swooped down and his mouth met hers in a kiss utterly unlike any she had ever had. It was all hate. His lips ground against hers. His fingers were curving into her shoulders like talons. A sob rose in her throat, he was bruising her soul and that hurt far more.

  As his mouth pressed cruelly against hers, the owl hooted again. He lifted his head. Behind him, a twig cracked and something shifted at the edge of her vision. Her every nerve felt as tight as a bow-string, any tighter and she would snap. The pitiless, silver eyes never left her. Oliver’s lip curled. He seemed to be waiting for something.

  The shadows deepened and her breath stopped. ‘Oliver! There’s someone...’

  ‘I want to see your face,’ he muttered. ‘I want to watch as you see me betrayed.’

  He made no sense. His grip on her shoulders tightened. And over there in the dark, a figure was moving. Stealthily. They were being stalked!

  She shoved at his chest. ‘Someone’s behind you!’

  ‘My angel.’ His tone was not loving.

  ‘Don’t look at me – turn around!’

  ‘And present you with my back?’ He snorted. ‘I wouldn’t turn my back on you if you were the last person on earth. What price did you set on my capture? A silver penny? Or was it thirty pieces?’

  She didn’t have the faintest idea what he was talking about. ‘Holy Mother,’ her voice cracked. ‘Look behind you!’

  His gaze was fixed unwaveringly on her. She gripped his arms, the muscles were tense, corded like rope. Why wouldn’t he listen? There was something out there, something malevolent...

  She choked down a sob. ‘Oliver, please...’

  She thought he winced, but no, it must have been a trick of the light. His face was like marble. Immovable. There was a blur of movement and a heart-sinking thud as something connected with his skull. His body jerked against hers.

  ‘Oliver!’

  ‘Judas.’ His eyes, though clouding, were on her.

  There was another blur of movement and this time she caught a glimpse of a cudgel. She tried to ward off the second blow. Oliver held her away from him. It flashed into her mind that he might be protecting her.

  His body sagged. His groan clawed at her insides. She gripped his arms to give him support, but he was pushing her away. Holy Mother, she realised with dawning horror, far from protecting her, he was keeping her from him. He couldn’t bear to touch her. His eyes closed. As he fell he took her with him.

  She scrambled to her knees. ‘Oliver,’ she whispered, though she knew from the way he’d fallen that he couldn’t hear her. He was still as a corpse and his face was a ghostly blur. Dead? Shaking top to toe, she touched a lean cheek and felt his breath.

  The undergrowth rustled.

  ‘Who’s that?’ She wrapped her arms about him, she could see nothing but shrubs outlined against the stars. Oliver’s sword hilt was digging into her thigh. His sword hilt? Her mind raced – if she could but draw it, she’d make his assailant pay a toll for his brutality...

  A few yards away the shadows solidified. Four men stood there, silently watching them. Four. Her heart hammered. ‘You shan’t hurt him!’ she said, fumbling for the sword. Her voice trembled. One of the four flung back his hood and the gesture rang a bell in her mind.

  ‘Father Eadric?’ Her fingers froze on the sword hilt. She couldn’t attack a priest, even if it looked as though he consorted with outlaws.

  ‘The same. Thank you for your help, my child. You may go, the path you are seeking lies yonder.’ A bony finger pointed upstream.

  ‘Father?’ She kept one hand on Oliver’s hair, the other closed on his sword hilt.

  ‘Go, child,’ the priest said softly. ‘You have no business here and the less you know, the better.’

  The others edged closer.

  ‘Go.’

  ‘I...I don’t understand.’

  ‘Eadric, get rid of her,’ one of the men said, squatting by Oliver’s feet. He had bushy eyebrows and thick, untidy hair. Leaning forward, he slapped her hand from the sword. Heart in her mouth, she shuffled back, watching as he unbuckled Oliver’s sword belt.

  Who were these men? Outlaws? Angevin rebels?

  Drawing the sword, the man lifted the blade and moonlight gleamed along it. He whistled with approval. He was so busy with the sword that he hadn’t noticed Oliver’s purse had fallen to the ground when he’d pulled off the belt. Rosamund flicked her skirts over the purse and rushed into speech. ‘Who are you? What are you doing?’

  ‘I’m keeping this for a start,’ the man said, fastening the sword belt about his waist. He ran his hands down Oliver’s body, ending at his feet.

  Her blood turned to ice. ‘Thief! Leave him alone!’

  ‘Shut up!’ The man was scrabbling about at Oliver’s ankles, she couldn’t think what he was doing. ‘Eadric, get rid of the wench,’ he said. ‘Or I’ll still her tongue – permanently.’

  The thief hunched over Oliver’s ankles. She saw the unmistakable flash of steel as he hacked at something with his dagger. What was he doing? Her eyes stung. ‘Don’t. Please, don’t.’

  Oliver’s hair was soft and warm under her palm. It felt sticky. She glanced down. Saints, he was bleeding. Badly. Dizzy with horror, she shook her head to clear it.

  Father Eadric’s hand fell heavy on her shoulder. ‘Why do you stay?’ he asked, softly. ‘I thought you were trying to escape him?’

  Rosamund would never trust a soft voice again as long as she lived. She squared her shoulders, but the hand remained. ‘You keep strange company for a man of God, I doubt you’d understand.’

  One of the men let out a bark of laughter and the priest joined in. ‘Why, I do believe you’re preaching, lass. Take care – for a woman who prefers bedding with a knight to bedding with her own husband you are on very uncertain ground.’

  She clenched her fists, discovering with a flash of surprise that anger took the sting out of fear. ‘You mistake the matter, Father. And he is no knight. He is but a sq-’

  The man at Oliver’s ankles let out a shout of triumph. He was brandishing a pair of golden spurs. She sagged with relief – he’d sliced through the straps fastening the spurs to Oliver’s boots. For a sickening moment she’d fancied him to be butchering an unconscious man.

  Golden spurs?
>
  Her jaw dropped as the significance of what she was seeing sank home. Two shining golden spurs, not ordinary spurs made in base metal, but gleaming gilded ones. They shone like gold, even in the moonlight. The spurs of a knight. She stared wide-eyed at the head beneath her hand, at the fan of dark eyelashes resting against the pale cheeks. Oliver had been knighted.

  The priest grunted. ‘Good, they’re just what we need. Give them to Hamo. Hamo?’

  A stocky figure stepped away from the bushes. ‘Father Eadric?’ He bowed, mockingly.

  ‘Enough of that,’ Father Eadric said, curtly. ‘You know what to do?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Do it then. And remember, Hamo, this is no jest. You can ride?’

  ‘I’ve straddled a nag or two in my time.’

  ‘Our friend’s destrier is tethered at the crossing, take him. Do you think you can handle him?’

  ‘The horse hasn’t been born that I can’t handle – one way or the other.’

  ‘Good. Mark their numbers. And for God’s sake don’t do anything rash.’

  The spurs flashed through the air, Hamo stowed them in his pouch, and headed downstream – back towards the stepping stones.

  Father Eadric frowned at Oliver and tossed a length of rope at a hooded man. ‘Tie him up.’

  ‘Where are you taking him?’ Rosamund said. ‘What are you going to do with him?’

  The priest caught her by the hair, pulling so hard her eyes watered. As she jerked to her feet, she snatched at Oliver’s pouch and twisted it onto her belt. She didn’t think Father Eadric had noticed, he was smiling at her, though his smile was anything but kind. ‘It would seem we owe you some thanks, girl, your lover is a knight.’

  ‘So it would seem.’ She still couldn’t believe it – in the short time since she’d last seen him, Oliver had been knighted. Not that these men were showing any respect for his rise in status – the one with the rope was trussing him up with a ruthless efficiency that reminded her of Baron Geoffrey’s huntsmen. She’d come across the tail end of a hunt once and she’d watched the huntsmen tie up a deer this way. Her stomach churned. What were they going to do to him?

  ‘It beggars belief that you should be truly worried about him,’ the priest said, thoughtfully wrapping her hair about his fist. ‘Especially since you were so recently wedded to...Alfwold wasn’t it?’

  ‘You know my husband’s name well enough.’

  ‘Let me give you a warning. Go back to the mill.’

  ‘No.’

  The man who’d taken Oliver’s sword let out a crude laugh. ‘Let her stay, we could do with a woman to pass around with the ale.’

  More laughter came from somewhere in the bushes. Her heart felt like lead. How many of them were there? What could she do against so many? Yet she couldn’t stand meekly by while they took Oliver. There must be something she could she do.

  ‘This is the miller’s daughter,’ the priest said, releasing her hair with a flourish. ‘We can’t afford to offend the villagers, it’s difficult enough to get enough supplies as it is. Go home, girl.’

  Two men, their faces indistinguishable because of their hoods, grasped Oliver by the shoulders and feet, lifting him. Taking him away. She darted forward. ‘Mind his head!’ As she reached out to steady him, it dawned on her why they were taking him prisoner. ‘You’re going to ransom him! That’s why you’ve not killed him.’

  ‘Maybe we are and maybe we’re not,’ Father Eadric said. ‘Mark my words, girl. If you value your skin, you’ll go back to the mill and you’ll say nothing of what you’ve seen.’

  Rosamund’s head throbbed. Go back to the mill? Say nothing? He was asking the impossible.

  ‘You won’t take care of him,’ she said, pointing at the ominous dark stain on Oliver’s tunic. Words poured out of her. ‘Look at him, there’s blood all over the place. You won’t get a penny if he dies. Take me with you. I’ll bandage him up, I’ll make sure that he lives and you’ll get your ransom.’

  Oliver was being carried up a slope away from the river. She lurched after him, determined not to lose him. Behind her, she could hear the harsh breathing of the priest.

  ‘Very well,’ Father Eadric said. ‘Come with us, but don’t come whining to me if you’re unlucky enough to get raped. I’ve better things to do than act as wet-nurse to a blunt-witted wench.’

  Rosamund held her damp skirts clear of the dew and hurried on. ‘Thank you.’

  Father Eadric’s laugh was exasperated. ‘You won’t be thanking me when you see our encampment. Ingerthorpe Castle it isn’t.’

  ‘I’ll survive.’

  ‘We’ll have to see about that, won’t we?’

  Her skin prickled. A threat? It certainly sounded like one. She gripped her skirts and pressed on. Whatever happened, she refused to be separated from Oliver. Never mind what Father Eadric and his men were up to, she couldn’t abandon him.

  ***

  Lantern in one hand, the priest wrenched at the hovel door. Warped wood groaned. Rosamund had been tied by her ankle to wooden post and Oliver had been dumped, bound and unconscious, on the floor nearby. He too was roped to the post.

  ‘You’re leaving us in this shack?’ she asked.

  The priest’s smile was chilling. ‘Looks that way, doesn’t it?’

  Through the door, Rosamund could see several men hunched round a glowing fire-pit. In all, there were dozens of them. A small army. They’d built their fire in a pit so the flames wouldn’t be visible beyond the encampment. Were these the Angevin rebels the local lords had been so concerned about earlier? Were they trying to raise money for their cause? Sweet Mother, had it really only been that evening when she’d been in the bailey, edging past Lord Gilbert’s horses? It seemed a lifetime ago.

  Gripping the lantern, the priest made to leave. He’d brought them to what must be the most ruinous hut in England. The floor dipped alarmingly in the centre and the air smelt of damp. Of rot.

  ‘Wait!’ She bit her lip, unable to hide the shiver that went through her at the thought of being left in such a place. ‘Don’t leave us in the dark.’

  Indifferent eyes met hers.

  ‘I...I need water to bathe Sir Oliver’s head,’ she said, making a point of stressing Oliver’s title. ‘And light to see by. And bandages. Something to drink. And-’

  ‘Yes, ma dame.’ His mocking laugh chilled her to the marrow.

  She put up her chin, determined he wouldn’t see how afraid she was. ‘I’m to care for him, remember?’ Oliver, wake up. Please wake up.

  The door grated and the light retreated. The fire-pit and the rebels were lost to sight. She heard a rasping noise – a lock was being fastened. Metal chinked. The air was sweet with decay. The room was full of silence – a black, impenetrable silence. Her brief sight of the hut hadn’t been encouraging, they’d been buried alive.

  Smiling grimly, she gave the rope about her ankle an experimental tug. She grimaced, the place was falling apart but the central post was sound. And that, naturally, was the one they were bound to. Whoever they were, these men were well-prepared. They might not be Angevins, it was entirely possible they were outlaws happy to use the Angevin cause to plunder and pillage.

  She couldn’t hear anything except the pounding of her heart. Oliver hadn’t moved. She groped her way to him and gave him a little shake.

  ‘Oliver?’

  Nothing.

  She pressed her ear to his chest. Nothing. With a sob, she found his mouth and listened again.

  A flutter of breath feathered across her cheek. The relief had her sagging against him and for a moment it was enough to kneel at his side and press her head against him. Even when he was unconscious, there was comfort to be drawn from being close to him. Hand resting gently on his head, she inhaled his scent. It was calming. Except, a faint metallic scent caught in her nostrils. Blood. He hadn’t stopped bleeding.

  Wishing she could see, she felt for the knots at his wrists. She must free his hands. She began to fumble
with the rope, but when she heard a gale of laughter coming from the fire outside, her fingers faltered. Perhaps not. Not until he was awake and could defend them. She didn’t like to think what they might do if they discovered she’d loosed his bonds.

  The door rattled and her head shot up. Someone with a lantern was peering through the gap, the weak light threw his face into sharp relief. The bushy eyebrows and shaggy hair were familiar, this was the man who’d stolen Oliver’s sword.

  ‘Here’s what you asked for,’ he said, stepping inside and depositing several things on the floor – the lantern, a couple of jugs, a bundle... When his mouth twisted, Rosamund saw with a frisson of unease that he was staring at her breasts, her hips. She shifted closer to Oliver and his grin widened.

  ‘Is there’s anything else you require, little lady? I wouldn’t want a proper ‘lady’ like you to go missing your...’ he sneered at Oliver’s recumbent form ‘...usual comforts.’

  Rosamund tightened her grip on Oliver. ‘Thank you.’ She kept her voice steady. ‘I have all I want. You may go now.’

  The man’s eyes glittered. ‘You may go now,’ he repeated, sidling towards her. ‘Why thank you, ma dame, for your condescension. I will go, but not before you have thanked me more prettily than that. On your feet, ma dame.’

  Her throat went dry. Realising she was clutching at Oliver’s tunic, she forced her fingers to uncurl. ‘If Sir Oliver were awake, you wouldn’t dare to address me in such a manner.’

  ‘You’d be wrong there, sweetheart.’ Taking her shoulders, he hauled her up. He smelt rank, like a fox. ‘There’s much pleasure to be had in seeing a knight squirm. Doesn’t look quite so fine lying there like a corpse.’ He gave Oliver a sharp kick in the ribs. ‘A corpse.’

  ‘Don’t hurt him.’ She strained away, trying to break free, trying not to breathe in the rank stink of fox.

  ‘One little kiss?’ Pointedly, he drew his foot back a second time.

  ‘If you’ll let him be.’ The bile rose in her throat and she shut her eyes. She wished she were anywhere but here. In the south of England perhaps, where Oliver had come from. But of course she was not in the south, she was in a squalid hovel near the edge of the moors and this...this outlaw had her pressed up against him. His fingers felt like claws and they were scraping across her breasts. She gagged – she was going to be sick.