Warrior's Surrender

by Elizabeth Ellen Carter

  The story of the baron’s heroic rescue, aided by the baroness herself, quickly spread, ensuring he and Frey remained the center of attention well into the evening. He noticed she was uncharacteristically agitated and wondered at the cause.

  Sebastian knew Frey’s sense of duty matched his, but tonight she had been reluctant to leave his side whereas she would ordinarily mingle with the rest of the gathering. In public, she was always careful to demonstrate the utmost propriety, but as they sat at the high table, her hand found its way into his beneath the tablecloth and held on tight.

  Not that he was complaining; he enjoyed having his wife by his side. Her hand parted from his and stroked his thigh.

  “You seem particularly eager for attention, princess,” Sebastian said quietly, his eyes following the beadle and Gaines making their way toward them from the far end of the room.

  “Mmmmm? Did you say something, my lord?” she inquired sweetly.

  “Excuse me, Baron?”

  Gaines’s arrival with the beadle at his shoulder wasn’t a welcome one. From the expression on Frey’s face, it was to her even less so. Her flirtatious expression fled and a stony mask took its place.

  “If I may be excused, my lord,” she said, glancing as his man-at-arms. “I find myself in need of fresh air.”

  Without waiting for leave, she stood, greeting the beadle as she left the table without a second glance.

  Sebastian frowned. Something was amiss. He looked at Gaines, who merely gave him a neutral expression.

  “We’ve had news from Eanfirth,” the beadle began.

  “So the southeast crossing is now passable?” Sebastian asked.

  “Aye, but there’s more than that…”

  Pinpricks of awareness spread across the back of his head. He did not wait for the explanation.

  “Another? How long has the girl been missing?”

  The beadle blinked, surprised that the need for revelation had been bypassed.

  “Since this morn.”

  Sebastian pushed himself back from the table and stood.

  “Gaines, tell Robert and Duncan they are to be ready to leave at dawn with you and me. And inform Larcwide he's to pick a couple of men and escort Lady Alfreya back to Tyrswick. The remaining men can stay here for two days to finalize repairs.”

  At this, Gaines revealed a small smile of approval.

  “Very good, my lord.”

  “Where’s Dominic?”

  “I believe the friar is outside,” answered the beadle.

  “Ask him to join us out at the stables.”

  The man hurried off on his errand.

  Sebastian also made his way to the door. Outside, he addressed Gaines as they made their way to the stables.

  “Dominic will ride with us.”

  “Why?” Gaines asked. “It’s not going to take four men and a priest to deal with one mad dog.”

  “No one has known more about the Beast of the North than Dominic; he’s been on his trail for months. The Beast has eluded discovery so far, but this ends now and before another young woman loses her life.”

  “The Beast?” Gaines stopped in his tracks, his voice rising angrily. “We don’t even know it is the Beast!”

  Sebastian glared at him. Gaines's voice softened, though only, it seemed, in deference to being overheard. “All we have is Friar Dominic’s suspicion that four itinerants at Eanfirth are the same ones from the past year.”

  “He’s a man of God.”

  Gaines gave Sebastian as close to a look of contempt that he would ever dare give.

  “Do you think God gives him their names? Perhaps the good friar should ask God a few questions about why he turned a blind eye to the slaughter of innocent girls.”

  Before Sebastian could respond, Gaines’s voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper.

  “Did you ever stop to think how he knows so much?”

  Sebastian was aghast. In the ten years they soldiered together, never before had Gaines spoken such arrant nonsense.

  “Where’s this coming from, Henry?” Sebastian asked, deliberately addressing his man-at-arms by his Christian name instead of his most oft-used family name.

  The man looked sternly back at him.

  “I’m just saying that things have not been right ever since last summer when we found the body of that girl you placed in the crypt.”

  Gaines paused as though contemplating adding more. Sebastian could see his expression change. It seems his man-at-arms did have more to say, and it had obviously been festering for months.

  “Sebastian, you’ve changed.”

  The baron straightened and folded his arms, a gesture he recognized in himself as defensive. He was putting distance between himself and a man he wasn’t sure he recognized right now.

  Gaines plunged on.

  “You and I have known each other for a long time. I know you, better than anyone alive. We’ve covered each other’s backs in battle more times than I care to count. You’re predictable as sunrise in the morning and sunset in the evening. I could rely on you.

  “But ever since you married that woman—”

  “My wife,” interrupted Sebastian, severely. “Watch how you speak of her.”

  “And that would be my point. You will hear nothing said against her—”

  “Has she been a good mistress of the Keep?” said Sebastian, cutting him off again.

  “I’ve heard no complaints.”

  “Have you ever witnessed anything to suggest that she is anything less than exemplary in her behavior?”

  “No, but that’s not the point—”

  “That’s exactly the point! You judge her by prejudice.”

  “No. I judge her by the company she keeps. Like her former lover who, do I need remind you, promised to raise an army against Tyrswick?”

  “Go no further, Henry, for the sake of our friendship as well as your place at Tyrswick.”

  The threat was like a splash of icy water. Gaines’s heated expression immediately cooled to shock, but he kept his mouth closed.

  Sebastian lifted his head to draw Gaines’s attention to the approach of Friar Dominic.

  “I hope you’re not going to accuse him to his face of being the Beast of the North,” he said. “The friar may be shorter, but I’m certain he could whip both our arses.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Frey lay wide-eyed and awake long after the rest of the village slumbered. She turned in the unfamiliar bed, sorely wishing for her soft and comfortable one in Tyrswick. She listened to unfamiliar noises in an unfamiliar room and waited for Sebastian to return.

  She had seen him step outside with Gaines and wondered what they were meeting about that was taking so long. The hackles that rose at dinner at seeing the man flared again.

  How dare he? The personal insult to her integrity was just a minor jab compared with the below-the-belt blow of doing so when Sebastian’s life was imperiled.

  Did Gaines mean her to miss?

  The thought hit with a jolt. The friar reminded her evil could wear many faces; could Gaines be one of them? Who could she trust with her husband’s safety if not the man who had sworn allegiance to him?

  The sound of squeaking door hinges heralded the return of Sebastian. She could tell his presence by his footsteps. Soon the bed curtains opened and he slipped in behind her and greeted her with languorous kisses along the length of her exposed neck.

  Frey offered a sigh of contentment and snuggled back into the warmth of his body. His warm naked body.

  “You were magnificent today,” he told her as his hands slipped up under the hem of her night shift and drew the garment over her head. Rough, callused fingers softly skimmed across her skin, raising delightful gooseflesh.

  Her sigh became a hum and she stretched before him, breasts presenting high and ripe to the touch. And he did touch, softly and reverently. “Perhaps I should pledge fealty to you and have you fight by my side,” he whispered. But his actions gave lie to the sof
t words when lips and tongue began a campaign of domination in which he encountered no resistance at all.

  * * *

  At the sound of an osprey calling overhead, Frey wheeled her mount around and stopped to watch five men venture farther and farther down into the valley. Sebastian was easy to spot on Ebon, the horse’s rich black flank glistening in the sunlight.

  Beside him, Gaines sat on his horse, and on the other side rode Friar Dominic. She had never seen the friar on a horse before. Behind them, Robert rode alongside Duncan.

  “My lady?” Larcwide called. “We need to leave now if we’re to make Tyrswick by nightfall.”

  Reluctantly, she pulled her focus away, sending heavenward a plea and a prayer that Sebastian would remain safe and if Gaines were indeed treacherous, Friar Dominic would know and offer warning.

  But every mile that separated her and Sebastian was a chasm filled with regret. Any goodwill forged by their lovemaking in the night withered and died with the morning sun when Sebastian told Frey that she would be going back to Tyrswick without him.

  She had watched him dress in the surcoat that bore the Tyrswick coat of arms.

  “It’s not a suggestion, princess, it’s an order.”

  “I’m armed and I’m with the finest warrior knight in England, what fear have I?”

  “Flattery and your own skills notwithstanding, I can’t be distracted from my mission by worrying about the well-being of my wife.”

  She handed him his belt, which he mounted around his hips.

  “You need someone to look out for you.”

  “That’s what Gaines is for.”

  “Gaines? He—”

  Frey's argument was silenced with a finger to her lips and a warning look in his eyes.

  “It’s not negotiable, Frey.”

  They eyed each other in a battle of wills for several long moments before her eyes slipped from his and she nodded her consent.

  “You’ll go back to Tyrswick?”

  “I’ll go back to Tyrswick without complaint on one condition.”

  “I said no negotiation.”

  Frey shrugged and gave him her most determined look. He sighed.

  “Oh, very well then, what is your condition?”

  “You watch your back around Gaines. He’s not to be trusted.”

  Frey could see now the hardening of Sebastian’s features.

  “I’ve known Gaines for a very long time, princess. Be very sure before you make accusations of one of my best men.” His voice verged on the edge of bitterness. “It’s clear you do not like one another, but do not expect me to choose. Neither of you will be satisfied with the outcome.”

  Frey now swallowed her disappointment and it settled as a nagging ache instead. Suddenly she became aware of Larcwide’s scrutiny and turned it back onto him.

  He had aged, her faithful man-at-arms and friend. His hair was all gray now, and the creases around his eyes more pronounced.

  Knowing he had her attention, Larcwide moved off and she made her horse follow at a slow canter, catching up with him, then settling to a walk.

  They rode in silence for some time, Frey lost in her thoughts, when Larcwide finally spoke.

  “You need to understand the difference between men and women, Alfreya.”

  The use of her first name startled her from her reverie, and she considered him cautiously, unsure whether she wanted to hear what he had to say.

  “I’ve been married for nearly six months, my friend, do I need further instruction?”

  Larcwide ignored her attempt to deflect him with a jest.

  “Men are designed to do one thing at a time and do it well. Women seem to do fifteen different things at once,” he began awkwardly. “He needs you to let him go and do the things he needs to. He’s not rejecting you; he’s not dismissing your skill. Do you understand what I’m talking about, lass?”

  The truth of his words resonated with her, so she nodded.

  “He loves me.”

  “Aye, he does.”

  “Gaines doesn’t like me.”

  “No, he doesn’t,” Larcwide concurred.

  “I don’t trust him to keep Sebastian safe.”

  “Do not doubt the man’s loyalty to his lord. I’ve worked alongside him these past few seasons. I trust him and Sebastian trusts him. He does not have to like you. He just has to be loyal to his liege.”

  Frey let the matter drop.

  The countryside changed as they ascended the valley toward Tyrswick. They passed through copses of trees that had withstood Viking invasions, and past vineyards and orchards planted by the Romans. They skirted small enclosed fields tended by crofters.

  There were rumors still in the villages of a fortune in gold and silver that the Romans had left behind, hidden somewhere in the mines burrowed into the hills.

  She smiled. If there had been such a treasure, her father never found it and neither had her husband, despite the assurance of one villager that a hermit up there knew of its location and kept it guarded.

  Land that had been covered with snow was now blanketed in the soft green of spring grasses. Crocuses added color to the paths along with newly spouted yellow buttercups and the soft purple of the heather.

  The hills wore a mantle of a darker hue of green, peppered with silvery-gray granite rocks over which sat a vivid blue sky studded with small white clouds.

  Familiarity with this beautiful landscape comforted Frey at an elemental level. This was Tyrswick. This was home.

  She paused in her thoughts. This place couldn’t be her home now without Sebastian. They could be in the far corners of the Norman Empire, even down to the Mediterranean Sea, where she heard tell of olives and oranges growing all year round.

  That would become home if her husband was there.

  How much she had changed in a twelvemonth. Only last spring, she stepped across the Scottish border into England for the first time in nearly seven years filled with hate and vengeance in her heart for the bastard usurper of her family’s rightful inheritance.

  Now she was wed to the very man she swore then was an enemy. All it had taken was the remembrance of an act of kindness for her to see Sebastian for who he really was. What if she lost him now? Her heart would break and never recover. Of that she was certain.

  They stopped for a noonday meal and decided to press on to make it back to the Keep before nightfall.

  Without a laden wagon to slow their progress, the party of three were making good time through the countryside, even at the leisurely pace they set.

  They had passed a few people on the journey—mostly farmers, the occasional swineherd, even a gooseherd who caused them to stop as he shepherded his flock across the track up to the grain trough and pen where they would be safely corralled for the night.

  On the crossroads that took travelers either north to Tyrswick village or west toward Cumbria and the Scottish border crossings, a peasant traveler dressed in roughly woven wool stood in the middle of the path waving his arms frantically.

  “Sirs! My lady! Thank the good Lord you’ve come! My wagon has overturned a mile or so that way.” The man pointed to his left. “The wife and bairn need help.”

  “How badly are they hurt?” asked Frey, already turning down the road the man had pointed.

  “I fear my good wife has broken a leg, but my little girl won’t wake up.”

  Larcwide hesitated only a moment.

  “Talbot, to the village, quick as you can, lad. Get some men here with a litter and send someone to the Keep to tell of our return.”

  The young knight followed the orders without a second thought and soon disappeared around a bend, leaving Frey and Larcwide with the middle-aged man.

  “Quick! Follow me.”

  The man ran down the lane, then veered off the path into a ditch out of sight of the two riders on horseback.

  “Where are you, man?” Larcwide yelled after him.

  “Down here!” a disembodied voice called through a thicket o
f trees.

  Frey could hear the whinnying of horses and dismounted, taking with her a rucksack that held some bandages and small jars of ointment.

  “I don’t know how they came to be down here,” she said. “We can’t go through on horseback.”

  Larcwide, too, dismounted and landed heavily. Frey turned to her man-at-arms. His face looked as gray as his whiskers.

  “Are you well?”

  “Aye, my lady, just my age catching up with me.”

  At her alarmed look, Larcwide shook his head and nodded toward the trees. “I’ll be fine. Let’s go see to the people who need help.”

  Only a few yards through the trees, Frey could see the upturned wagon. It seemed the party had tried to take a short cut through a field. Long, thin brown tracks where the wagon had made its way through the mire were evident.

  The anxious father was running the two hundred or so yards to where the overturned wagon lay. Even from Frey’s slightly elevated vantage point, she could not see the injured woman or child.

  From among the upturned boards of the wagon, she could hear a weak cry. She rushed immediately toward the sound.

  “My lady!” She heard Larcwide call but ignored the warning implicit in his voice and outpaced the man.

  She ran with the stranger who then halted at the wagon’s edge. Frey rounded the corner and saw a figure huddled in a cloak; from the size, it must be the farmer’s wife, rather than the child.

  Without looking at the man, she placed her hand on the covered shoulder and asked, “Where’s your child?”

  There was a pause. Frey looked up and glanced at Larcwide, who had caught up with her now but bent in an attempt to catch his breath. She then looked at the peasant.

  She asked the question again of him, but there was no reply, just an odd look on his face.

  As though sensing something was wrong, Larcwide straightened himself and reached for his sword.

  The shape shifted under Frey's hand and moved to sit up, but she ignored it, concerned by the florid hue blooming on Larcwide’s face.

  “Mistress, move toward me now.”

  Larcwide’s voice was tight.

  “What’s going on here?” she asked, rising to her feet.