Warrior's Surrender

by Elizabeth Ellen Carter

  “What do you mean?”

  Diera shrugged.

  “You’ll know.”

  A gust of wind blew a cloud across the sun, plunging the glen into deep shadows.

  Frey shivered, not just from the chill, but also, in the certainty one knows only in dreams, that she and Diera were not alone.

  Frey picked up a fallen branch from the yew and all of a sudden it was a bow. She became conscious of a familiar weight on her back that told her she wore a quiver full of arrows.

  She got to her feet and turned away from Diera.

  Her heart pounded as she faced a lone figure about six yards away. He—Frey was certain of that because of his bulk—was shrouded in a forest green cloak that fell to the floor, arms tucked into the wide sleeves, and his face, looking to the ground, was obscured by the cowl.

  Diera started muttering indistinctly as the wind picked up in strength, but Frey could hear snatches of her words:

  For now we see through a glass, darkly, but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known…

  They were repeated over and over, faster and faster, ever increasing in pitch.

  The cowl started to shift as the figure slowly raised his head. Dread terror filled Frey, but she found an arrow in her hand and, with a precision born of practice, she sighted her target and released the projectile.

  Her aim was true, but as the arrow pierced the garment, the robe fluttered into a shapeless, uninhabited puddle of green fabric.

  * * *

  Frey put the dream behind her as she broke her fast in Tyrswick Keep’s great hall. She had not seen Sebastian that morning, but that was probably just as well. How could she face him after last night? The remembrance of searing passion lingered still, and Frey wondered whether it wrote itself on her face as well.

  The hall was mostly empty. Servants started clearing the benches from the morning meal and catered to those break-fasters who lingered. Frey warmed her hands around an earthenware mug of spiced milk and considered her fate.

  They were to be wed, but she was still uncertain of Sebastian’s motives.

  Perhaps he simply considered her and Brice a problem to be solved for the sake of peace on his lands and for the security of England. There was, without doubt, passion between them, but what foundation for a marriage was that?

  Sebastian was bound to make the announcement tonight, but, as yet, no one in the household knew except for Baron Rhys, who glanced suspiciously at her from time to time from across the table shared by the senior members of the household.

  In that case, Lady Rosalind knew also. No wonder the woman appeared highly distracted this morning and was being coaxed into eating by both Rhys and her companion Gwenda.

  Might there one day be a genuine marital affection between her and Sebastian as she witnessed between Rosalind and Rhys?

  She didn’t know.

  Orlege entered the hall and, on seeing Frey, held her gaze. In answer to a slight frown, Orlege shook his head and disappeared through the door. Frey’s frown deepened as she excused herself from the table and followed.

  She found him behind the back of the stables where the warmth of the autumn sun was a welcome respite from the shadows that hugged the cold to their breast.

  Here, a scent of herbs—sage, thyme, lavender—plucked by the breeze from the nearby garden enveloped them.

  “The baron ordered Larcwide to accompany him on patrol this morning,” he said.

  Frey nodded. “I told him about Drefan last night.”

  “Aye, that would explain it then.”

  “Did you find the messenger?”

  “I spoke to the lad before he left this morning. He said when he was about three miles away from the keep, a knight he thought he recognized asked him to take a letter to the baron. He didn’t think anything of it.”

  “And what of you? What do you think of it?”

  “I think it means trouble.”

  Silence fell between them, colder than the shadows cast by the Keep.

  “Do you hold me to blame still?” Frey asked after a moment.

  “Some, maybe.” Orlege shrugged. “Hardly matters now. What’s done is done.”

  “But you resent me,” Frey pressed.

  This time he turned with his face full of resentment and agitation.

  “I’ve discharged my duty to your father, what more do you want from me?”

  Frey dropped her head for a moment, wounded. Orlege, along with Larcwide, were her most trusted men, and this estrangement had worn away at her for months.

  Orlege exhaled deeply, making clear that he did not want to continue the conversation. He scuffed the ground with his booted feet and in doing so, dislodged a stone, which he then kicked into the garden.

  “I’m no good with words. I don’t know if I can make you understand,” he said. “I’m a soldier. I pledge my life for my lord. He goes into battle and I go with him. I use a sword, a battle-axe, a pike staff, a bow to attack and defend. Understand?”

  Frey shook her head.

  “I would willingly take a life to preserve yours, my lady, but I don’t know how to fight rumors or battle gossip and evil words.”

  “Whose?”

  Orlege’s face hardened and he refused to answer at first, though the question plainly vexed him, going by the twitch of a bitter smile that fashioned itself on his mouth.

  At last, his face turned away, he spoke. “First it was about your virtue, living unprotected among rough fighting men, then your damned bow and arrow against the wolves,” he said.

  “It got worse since they found the girl killed like Diera was months back, and this morning I hear from Baron Rhys’s men there’s another rumor saying you’re in league with the devil and have bewitched the baron of Tyrswick into giving you sanctuary.”

  He faced her again. “What weapons can I use against that enemy, my lady?” he spat. “How do I kill slander?”

  And, as though he had revealed too much, Orlege stalked off, shoulders slumped.

  Frey stared into the distance, where the wooded hills around Tyrswick rose, fancying if she looked hard enough, she could see Drefan’s golden hair glint in the sunshine. Instead, the hills seemed to enclose her in arms of green.

  She shuddered, remembering her dream.

  On the walk back into the Keep, Frey observed the people around her, watching them for any signs that they watched her in return and considered her evil.

  Was she so unaware of the level of antipathy toward her? She didn’t think so. Frey had been welcomed warmly by those who had served her father, and she believed she had the good opinion of those who were new.

  But who could tell? And did Sebastian know of this?

  Before Frey could long ponder the questions, she was bumped by a rushing and unseeing Heloise, who was pale and wore her panic plainly.

  “Heloise?”

  Frey pulled the poor girl out of the path of a hurrying servant who carried a tub of steaming water. It told Frey all she needed to know.

  “Heloise! Is it Lady Rosalind? Does the baby come?”

  * * *

  Sebastian de la Croix was not a difficult man to spot among the group of riders emerging over the rise; he rode in the center, flanked on each side by two men Baldwin would recognize instantly—the supposed stick-up-the-arse Gaines and the old man Larcwide, who was, laughably, man-at-arms to that Saxon bitch.

  Another two men behind them Baldwin knew also, but ignored to keep his crossbow sights on the three men leading. His body twitched subtly as he mimed their execution.

  Tyrswick Keep’s patrol drew nearer to him, then turned away, the riders following the contour of the countryside.

  Now, the party presented itself to Baldwin broadside. It would take but few moments to carefully sight the baron’s head through the heavy shelter of a scattered tumble of rocks that hid him from view. Baldwin started at the sound of rustling behind him and lost his quarry. He turned quickly to find Drefan proppe
d against a rock, casually slicing an apple with a small knife.

  Despite being a man of means, Drefan played the part of a peasant today, dressed simply in gray breeches and shirt. His boots were dusty and travel-marked, but anyone who looked closely at them would know they were of the highest quality.

  “Patience, my good friend,” Drefan counseled in a soft drawl. A breeze tugged at his longish blond hair and made the dark arch of his brows stand out more starkly against his face.

  “It would be so easy, so quick,” Baldwin responded, dropping back behind the boulder that had been his hunter's perch and deftly catching a round, shiny apple Drefan lobbed his way.

  Baldwin took a bite. The crunch and sweetness of the flesh was satisfying, but it would do little to salve the bitterness that festered in him with respect to his former lord.

  “That’s exactly my point,” said Drefan. “You don’t want it easy and quick. If you want to destroy a man, you don’t take his life. You let him live. Then you take his peace of mind, his possessions, his loved ones…everything he owns. Then he’ll beg you to kill him.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Frey was grateful to find the solar empty. Solitude was what she craved at the moment.

  Despite the increasingly chilly autumn evening, Frey stood on the forebuilding roof to watch the colors on the long ripples of cloud bleed from gold to pink then purple as the sun finally sank beneath the hills to the west.

  Her legs ached from numerous trips up and down the stairs since adopting the mantle of chatelaine in Lady Rosalind’s stead. Rosalind might be occupied having a baby, but there was still a household to run, and Frey felt more use doing that instead of remaining in the bed chambers, listening to the cries of pain increase in frequency and duration.

  However, Rosalind had had an easier time of it than most, thank God, and Baron Rhys knew enough to stay well out of the way, Frey reflected, as his wife delivered him the boy child they wanted.

  She smiled briefly to herself, thinking of Heloise’s resentful stomping at her assumption of the role of Mistress, but even the girl's nanny realized, seeing her in the hall distressed and near to tears, the youngster was in no fit state to do anything much of use.

  Poor Heloise, she so wants to be grown up.

  As childishly petulant as Heloise could sometimes be, Frey felt some pity for the girl. She was dreadfully spoiled, and Frey considered what she was doing at the same age.

  Remembrance of the fighting at Durham and the late-night escape with her father and brother played itself anew in her mind.

  Although she had not known it then, she made a life-changing decision that night in taking the young Sebastian at his word and making their escape.

  Frey remembered she’d seen something she could use as a litter, a flat-sided wheelbarrow made for carrying bales of hay, and she dashed from her hiding place to get it. When she returned, her father had collapsed from the pain. Brice was staring at him, eyes wide in horror and mewling sounds of hysteria bubbling from his lips.

  She had no time to be gentle. A slap on the boy’s cheek stopped the sound.

  “Go to the door and look about,” she hissed. “And be careful!”

  With the fear of discovery growing ever stronger, Frey roused her father sufficiently for him to aid her efforts to haul him onto the litter. Now bearing a load, it was difficult to move. Fear caused Frey to surge forward even as her muscles strained, and at last the wheels turned, bringing the cart closer to the door.

  “Is it clear?”

  Brice rapidly shook his head.

  Frey lowered the litter and crept to where Brice stood hidden in the shadows.

  Him!

  Between the door of the barn and the breach in the palisades wall was the young Norman who had turned his back on them and walked away when he could—and should—have exposed them. He had his back to them again now and was engaged in seemingly easy conversation with another man about his own age. Whatever they discussed ended in laughter and the second soldier moved away out of sight.

  Illuminated by the flames from the burning Saxon compound, Frey could see one side of the young man's face, bathed in gold light, then the other as he looked this way and that.

  Without glancing back, his arm down by his side, he made one terse wave of his hand. Its meaning was clear.

  “Go, go, go,” Frey breathed.

  Brice pushed on the back of the litter while Frey pulled, steering the little hand cart out of the compound and into the night.

  With the recollection, she considered how incredible it was that the young Norman knight who had showed her and her family mercy that night had become the baron of Tyrswick, the man she had fought against for so long without even recognizing him—and now she appeared destined to be his wife.

  She shook her head in disbelief. Sebastian's wife? She had been destined to be another's wife before now.

  Suddenly, with that thought, she felt watched by him, by Drefan, even now, just as he had done in Edinburgh, always with that mocking half smile of his.

  Frey looked out over the meadows and the hills beyond the Keep. It was now fully night, with the shadowed landscape darker than the star-filled sky above. Frey shuddered and it wasn’t all to do with the cold. The thought of Drefan being so close after all that went before had cast a pall over her mood ever since his note arrived. No wonder she had sought the solitude of the solar forebuilding roof this evening, but now the sense that he was out there watching made her uneasy.

  She retreated inside and tried to warm herself by the fire in the main room, but the chill was inside her. A moment later, Sebastian exited his chambers and joined her by the hearth.

  “Why are you not in the hall celebrating the birth of my nephew?” he asked softly.

  Frey glanced at him, then focused her attention on the flames. Sebastian was dressed as he was, a man at peace in his own domicile, relaxed in dark blue hose, white shirt loosely tied at the neck, and a soft brown jerkin. She wished she could share that ease.

  “I’m tired and I was looking for quiet.” Frey shrugged. “Besides, it’s a family occasion.”

  “You’re family, at least you will be as my wife.”

  The promise of finally belonging again was like honey mead—warm and sweet—and her soul drank it greedily. Frey shook her head in mute resistance, giving herself the excuse the fire was too warm, so she could step away from him and sit on a cushion-covered settle.

  “Are you not afraid for your reputation, Baron?” she said, looking up at him, her voice leaden with disdain. “Being seen unchaperoned with a woman rumored to be a witch, with wolves as her familiars? It might impede your chances of a more successful match than I.”

  His look was contemptuous.

  “I thought you had too much sense to listen to superstitious nonsense.”

  “Nonsense it may be, but other people think it.”

  Frey looked away and fiddled with the cuff on the sleeve of her maroon kirtle as she continued, “All of Tyrswick for miles around seems to hold you in the highest regard. They’ll question your wits for marrying me, so it’s just as well you have an order from the Crown to compel you. Surely, they won’t believe my powers extend that high.”

  “Thank you for being considerate of my feelings.”

  Something in Sebastian’s sober inflection made Frey raise her head. A twitch of humor leaked from the corner of that sensuous mouth of his and ignited a spark of emotion in Frey.

  “I’m practicing to be a good wife, dearest,” she retorted.

  Her barb hit a target, but not the one she aimed at. Instead of hurt and anger, Sebastian laughed.

  Frey was perplexed.

  “I do not understand you,” she emphasized with a shake of her head. “Why do you have to be so kind?”

  “You would prefer me not be kind?” he asked, amusement still coloring his voice.

  “Yes. Yes, I would have you not so kind.”

  “And why, pray tell?”

  “B
ecause it would be too easy for me to—”

  Frey threw both hands over her mouth with horror before the words “love you” could slip out, but it did not escape Sebastian, who pounced on it like a cat.

  “Well, princess, as we seem to be in agreement on something, perhaps we should go downstairs and share the good news since it has the Crown’s blessing.”

  Exasperation got the better of her.

  “Will you be serious for a moment?”

  And Sebastian was. His easy smile flattened to a tight line, the twinkle of humor in his eyes went out, and Frey instantly regretted being the cause of their absence.

  “You seem so certain of everything,” she said. “How can you be? No one knows what tomorrow will bring.”

  Frey stood and unconsciously reached for him, his large hand sitting coldly in hers.

  “I fear you are too impetuous,” she insisted, “and a few years hence you will come to regret your decision and resent having settled for”—Frey swallowed—”something less than you deserve.”

  “Perhaps you underestimate yourself, Frey.” Slowly, his fingers curled around hers, and those mesmerizing green eyes softened.

  “You’ve refused to speak of love between us and that I understand. But love is not the only foundation on which a marriage is built. You are in need of a husband—and I’m conceited enough to believe I would make a tolerable one—and I am in need of a wife. You're experienced in running a household and know and love this land, so you would not pine for a more active life in York or London.”

  Sebastian stepped closer, and Frey’s hand, caught up now in both of his, found its way to his lips, where the warmth of his breath and the butterfly-light touch of his lips poured molten heat through her.

  “We could make this arrangement work if you are willing,” he intoned. “Are you willing, Frey?”

  Frey’s eyes flickered closed for a moment.

  It would be easy to fall in love with Sebastian. His compassion was a balm that could heal the wounds of the past if she would let it. Could she allow herself to surrender to what this man promised?