His good luck held. Farman came up the stair, carrying the flagon carefully, which meant it was full. He left it on the table by Frewyn’s door and went to get his pallet, which he put on the floor not too far from the hearth.
Vachel edged out of his chamber and drew the door closed behind him. Then slowly, so as not to draw any eyes by a sudden movement, he slid along the wall toward Frewyn’s door. No one seemed to look toward him. Those of the menservants who were married slept with their wives in huts in the outer bailey. Those who slept in the hall were tired after a day’s work. They thought about nothing beyond laying out their pallets and sleeping.
When he reached the table with the flagon, Vachel had nothing more to do than open his fingers and tilt the contents of the parchment into the wine. The powder slid free so quickly that Vachel hardly seemed to stop. Even so, he could smell the wine, which had been heated and mulled with spices. He had counted on that to cover the taste and the graininess of what he had added, but it was a comfort to have the assurance.
Alex would have been greatly surprised to know how large he loomed in his brother’s mind. He hardly gave a single thought to Vachel. Desperate not to think of his need for Desiree, he concentrated on duties decided upon with Frewyn. That was a truly bright spot in his day because Frewyn was so much stronger that he was able to speak whole sentences before having to stop to breathe. However, Frewyn’s increased energy led naturally to thoughts of action. He had pointed out to Alex that the narrow sea might soon begin to calm and an invasion become more imminent. They needed to rid Exceat of all liabilities.
That turned thought to Nicolaus’s men. They must be branded and released with nothing but their clothing…but not as a group. Because they were trained men-at-arms, as a group they could attack isolated farmsteads; they must be set down miles apart from each other in wilderness.
With considerable effort, Alex refrained from kissing Sir Frewyn. His need for Desiree and his shame over that need had been eating him up alive. Father Harold’s punishment was effective in that he was surely suffering for his sin, but it had not the smallest effect on his desire. Now Sir Frewyn’s order had brought at least a temporary release. He would be able to ride out.
The branding was not pleasant, with the men screaming and writhing, however, since they had been fearing execution and branding assured them they would live, it was nearly a relief. They howled with pain but were almost cheerful when they were bound and chained and driven out of Exceat.
According to Alex’s instructions, Godric had assembled a troop of twenty and now rode with Alex at the head of the group, ten armed men, the fifteen prisoners, and another ten men. Godric was so much at ease, feeling he was in his rightful place, that he asked Alex how far they were to go.
“You may know better than I,” Alex replied. “We cannot loose these men as a group. Even unarmed they could overwhelm a small farm. They must be left singly and well apart because a trained man could find a club in the woods and possibly attack an innocent serf to obtain food, extra clothing, and a weapon—a scythe makes a good weapon.”
“Yes, m’lord. I was worried about that.”
“So we do not want them on Exceat land.” Alex grinned wolfishly. “They came from Nicolaus of Lewes. We will return them to Nicolaus. Let them raid his farms.”
Godric’s eyes opened wide. “Loose them on Lewes’s land?”
“Yes, which is why I said you might know better than I how far we must go. We will need to ford the Ouse.”
“To ford the Ouse, we must go well north of Newhaven, past Tarring Keep—but well away from that place. Lord Gilbert de Neville would not wish to annoy Sir Nicolaus, I think. But, m’lord, if we are caught on Lewes’s land, might we not be taken prisoner as we took these men?”
Alex laughed merrily and his eyes were bright with hope. He was in the right mood for meeting enemies and breaking heads. “Why do you think I bade you to choose twenty seasoned men? We have little enough to fear from fifteen prisoners, bound and chained by the neck. You and two men could have taken them out to loose them. I would not mind at all meeting a patrol from Lewes.”
Remembering when Nicolaus had destroyed Exceat farms and he could not drive those men away, Godric smiled too. He might have his revenge after all. “Then we must turn north beyond the edge of the demesne farm,” he said. “There are tracks from farm to farm. It will be some eight or ten miles to the river north of Tarring.”
They found their ford in the late afternoon. It was not a very shallow ford, but the river was quiet and it was not particularly rocky. With bound hands, the prisoners might have drowned if men-at-arms had not ridden alongside and permitted them to grasp the horses. They were very wet, cold and miserable, and when they learned that they were to be left one at a time they began to curse and plead.
Godric glanced at Alex, whom he thought far too softhearted, but the young man was unmoved. He directed the troop northwest, away from the river for some distance before he found a place he liked. Then he instructed Godric to leave the man’s hands bound before him and tie him to a tree with another length of rope. He would be able to undo the knots before he died of thirst or hunger, but not nearly soon enough for him to follow them and discover where they had left any of his companions.
After setting off westward again, Alex turned south. The sun was not yet set, but shadows were lengthening. It was deepening dusk by the time the last man was bound and left, and after some thought, Godric said that probably the best way was to continue south on what tracks they could find through the hills until they met the coast road.
Alex agreed and they set out, much more quickly now that they had no weeping and moaning prisoners afoot to delay them. However, no one in the troop had any idea just where they were, so Alex enjoined silence on the group until they met the road.
There is no way to silence twenty-two horses, but the track was soft with old fallen leaves and new growing grass. Thus, warning came not from the sound of hoofbeats, which mingled with the sound of their own horses’ hooves, but the voices of men making their way eastward toward them. Alex held up a hand and stopped the troop. Godric gestured, and Brydger rode forward.
“Go see who that is,” Alex murmured. “Afoot. If you are taken, yell ‘Exceat’ and we will come.”
The voices came closer. Alex signaled the men to make ready to fight, and he was just in time. Brydger came running through the trees and there were shouts as someone in the other troop spied his movement. A moment later Brydger flung himself onto his horse, yelling there were two hands of men, and they all heard the crashing of horses forced through the brush. Godric and four men turned in that direction. Alex led the others quickly down the track they had been following. They met the other troop where the two tracks crossed, making a small open space.
Alex had his shield on his arm and his sword in his hand and he was spoiling for a fight to relieve his frustration. Nonetheless, his training with Simon held. He called out his name and the fact that he and his men were only passing through to the coast road.
To Alex’s utter delight, that overture met with no response except a roar of rage and a forward charge with a swinging sword. Lothaire curvetted sideways and Alex met the attacker’s blade with his own. There was a clang, a cry of pain or surprise, and Lothaire was past the swordsman. The great stallion’s bulk and forward motion shouldered aside another horse at whose rider Alex struck.
He connected that time, eliciting a shriek but he could not turn his head to see what he had accomplished because movement on his left was a warning of an attack from that side. His lifted shield warded off a blow. A thrust with it nearly unseated his attacker, and he was free to bring his sword around to thrust at still another opponent coming along the track.
Alex knew he had made a fundamental mistake in his eagerness to close with something or someone he could strike out at. He had come too far ahead of his own troop and his back was vulnerable. The man he had nearly pushed out of his saddle and the one to
his right that he had, he believed, wounded were both again turning toward him with weapons still in hand. The man ahead had brought his shield around in time to catch Alex’s thrust and was now swinging his sword.
With a desperate effort, Alex pulled back and struck backhand at his opponent’s weapon. Luck was with him; although he had not pulled back far enough for blade to meet blade, he did better. His sword hit the other man’s wrist with sufficient force to cut halfway through. The man screamed and the sword flew from his hand; Alex’s sword, halted, rebounded, and he pulled his shield close and struck around it at the attacker to his left.
That blow, landing on the side of the helmet, slid down to hack the neck below the jaw. Had his opponent been a knight wearing a mail hood, the blow would have bruised but not cut. As it was, luck brought the sword edge to strike just between the leather collar and the jaw. Blood spurted like a thin fountain and the man dropped his sword lo clap his hand to his neck, as if he could hold back the blood.
The action rid Alex of one opponent but opened his right side to the other. The enemy’s sword caught Alex in the ribs, hitting hard enough despite the wound the man had taken to beat the rings of mail into the gambeson. It hit true but on the edge rather than the flat, and a thin line of fire sprang alight on Alex’s side.
He grunted with pain and swung his sword to the right, deflecting the backswing with sufficient force to draw a yell from his opponent. But he was aware that a fresh man had forced his way past the dying man on his left and the good sixth sense of all fighting men told him there was someone closing on his back. Since it might be a man from his own troop, he did not dare signal Lothaire to strike, but a shout warned him that it was an enemy.
The stallion had already taken exception to the crowding from the horse on his left and had bitten the intruder’s neck so hard that the horse shied away. Now when Alex’s heels gave the signal, Lothaire stood on his forelegs and kicked backward. A horse screamed and a man shouted.
To his left, the man-at-arms had got his horse under control and was lifting his sword to strike at Alex’s head. Ahead two more men were emerging from the track, both passing to the right where the man he had wounded seemed to be slipping from his saddle. Alex caught the sword blow on his shield and struck with it, but not hard enough to unseat the man as Alex himself was leaning to the right to parry a blow from one of the newcomers.
The second of the men managed to land a blow on the back of Alex’s shoulder that sent a thrill of pain down his arm—and then a man of his own troop was engaging and Hring, laughing, had driven his horse between Alex and the opponent on the left. He only struck out at him once, however, and went on past to engage still another armsman who was coming from the track.
Disconcerted by Hring’s passing attack, the man on the left fell victim to Alex’s next blow, which caught him hard enough on the head to stun him. He slid from the saddle. Alex turned to add his strength to the men who were fighting on the right, but it was all over. Godric and the four men who had gone with him were coming down the track with three unarmed and bloodied prisoners, Alex had killed one and disabled two others, three had dropped their weapons and cried quarter, and Hring was shepherding the last into the open space.
Three of his own men were wounded but not seriously. Alex thought he was probably the worst hurt, and it served him right too for being such an idiot. That annoyed him even more, so that he scowled ferociously on the prisoners gathered in the space where the tracks met.
“Why did you attack us?” he snarled. “You fools. You should have seen we were too many and let us go by.”
His question was met with uneasy incomprehension. Godric repeated the question Alex had asked in English. One of the men who had yielded shrugged and said he did not know why they had attacked. The man Alex had slain had been the troop leader and he was the one who had ridden at Alex.
“Ask him,” Alex said to Godric, taking hold of his temper, “whether they are a patrol from Lewes.”
Oddly, there was another uneasy silence and then the man spoke. All Alex could understand was the name of Lewes, said twice, and then the word Telscombe. That latter Alex had heard before. Simon had said there was a small keep called Telscombe on the cliffs above a small but good harbor called Portobello. Simon had been concerned because that keep had been taken by Nicolaus, but never properly manned.
“He says,” Godric reported in French, “that they came from Lewes but their master has moved to Telscombe. They were sent back to Lewes to bring supplies. He thinks maybe Sir Nicolaus did not want anyone to know he was stuffing and garnishing Telscombe.”
How interesting, Alex thought. I will need to send another messenger to Simon. But what he said to Godric was, “Ask how far we are from Telscombe and from the coast road.”
The answer to that was most satisfying. Telscombe was more than a third of a league to the west and the road perhaps two thirds of a league south. The party with which they had clashed had been taking a shortcut between Telscombe and the road from Lewes to Newhaven.
Now all Alex had to do was decide what to do with the prisoners. It would be hugely unfair to kill them, and actually he did not have that choice. They had yielded on terms. His own men would be horrified if he broke that agreement. In fact, Alex did not wish to punish the men. After all, he was the intruder.
On the other hand, he certainly did not want the men racing back to Sir Nicolaus and reporting his troop. His men’s horses were weary—all except Lothaire, who was trying to sidle up to one of the strange horses, likely to bite it for no reason—and Alex did not want Nicolaus and a full troop chasing them. He shrugged.
To Godric he said, “Gather up their horses. We will take those with us. Gather up their weapons too but leave those a little distance from them. This is their master’s land and they did nothing wrong—except to lose the fight, and we were double their number. Tell them they are free to go where they wish as soon as we are gone.”
Godric translated. Alex noted that some of the men looked relieved and others were upset about losing the horses. Then Godric asked, “South, m’lord?” and when Alex nodded, sent the wounded men from their troop ahead with the captured horses. Then he said, “Please, m’lord, you are hurt too. Go with them. I will see that Nicolaus’s men stay put until our party is clear.”
Alex almost refused, but hated to reject any suggestion Godric made for fear he would stifle forever any hint of independent thought. He nodded and turned Lothaire down the track. His side was burning and his shoulder throbbed steadily. His left thigh throbbed too and he realized he must have been struck there.
Behind him he heard Godric order the men to make way and the master-at-arms second was soon beside him. For a few moments they rode in silence, during which time several new aches made themselves apparent. Alex drew a hissing breath. Ahead, a horse stumbled in the dark and an anguished curse was drawn from one of the wounded men.
“When we come to the coast road, we won’t be more than a quarter or a third league from Newhaven, m’lord,” Godric said. “Moon’s not up yet. It’ll be dark riding. Maybe we could stop there and see to your hurts?”
“And well deserved for being an idiot and charging ahead of my men, but I’m not much hurt. Just a slit in my skin and a few bruises.”
“As you-say, m’lord, but Chad’s bleeding and I think Morly’s got fingers broke.”
Alex sighed. “Right. We seek a healer in Newhaven, but Newhaven is too accustomed to considering Sir Nicolaus almost a master. It would not be impossible for Nicolaus’s men to have reached Telscombe. If Nicolaus sent out a large troop, in Newhaven they would be told where to find us. Or someone from Newhaven might even go to him.”
“We needn’t stay, m’lord. If Chad’s too weak, we can leave him in Newhaven for the rest of the night while we ride on to Seaford.”
“Yes,” Alex agreed, hoping his relief was not apparent in his voice. “It would be safe to stay in Seaford.”
Chapter Sixteen
/> Desiree woke very early, but she lay abed for a little while feeling peaceful and rather contented. At first she was a bit puzzled because usually she woke to sadness and oppression. In moments she remembered that Frewyn was much stronger because of Lady Alinor’s medicine and almost simultaneously felt a strong sense of satisfaction that she was glad about Frewyn despite her desire for Alex.
Of course, as soon as she thought of Alex, she had to get out of bed. It was far too dangerous for her to lie there; she could almost feel his warm, strong body beside her, his hard-calloused hands so gentle as they touched her, cupped her face, her breast…
“Eadgyth!” she cried, rising from the chamber pot. “Bring me washing water. Quickly. The sun is just right for me to examine the new cloth the maids are weaving.”
“Sun?” Eadgyth mumbled, yawning as she sat up. “What sun? It is barely over the horizon. Why are you awake so early? Is that accursed Gunilda whining again?”
Desiree laughed. “No, but perhaps that is why I am awake so early. That sleeping draught we gave her kept her quiet all night so I was able to sleep well. And it is not that early. The sun is up. Go and get my washing water.”
Eadgyth unwound herself from her blankets and pulled on her shift and gown, then her stockings and shoes while Desiree, shivering, got back into bed. Eadgyth went first to revive the banked fire since Desiree, like everyone else who did not sleep in all her clothes, slept naked and would need the warmth to dress, and she hung Desiree’s shift and tunic to warm on a frame by the fire. Then she went out into the main room where Desiree heard her telling the women that their mistress would soon be out of her room and ready to inspect their work.
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