Bullard grinned at Annis sheepishly and offered his arm; and Annis took it, smiling reassuringly. Confidently she walked up the aisle; and though the chapel lacked a bell she was given a resounding if cacophonic carillon of a welcome by the village lads on a variety of pots and pans. Annis bestowed a grateful smile on their unmusical efforts; and reduced the older ones at least to blushing, lock-tugging incoherence.
Father Michael looked at the bride’s face; and most of his fears were stilled. When he looked at the bridegroom he knew he was doing the right thing; for Gyrfalon’s face had softened at the approach of his bride; and the look in his eyes was one of love. Michael surreptitiously crossed himself and gave thanks; and begged his God to illuminate the mind of the warlord through his love for his young wife. He opened his prayer book and began to read the time honoured words.
Outside the castle, the cacophony, muffled by the enveloping fog, carried faintly to Falk’s ears; and soon thereafter the sounds of laughing, music and merrymaking as those soldiers not on duty and the villagers danced and revelled in celebration to the rude music of the village waits. The village managed to field two rebec players, a bagpipe player and a man who played pipe and tabor, banging out the rhythm with enthusiasm and some skill with one hand whilst playing his three-holed pipe with the other, reaching the higher registers by overblowing. The villagers were delighted to rejoice with and for their lord and his new lady and celebrated enthusiastically. The reason for such sounds of revelry puzzled Falk; for he could not conceive of a joyous occasion taking place in the same vicinity as his brother. Yet it were clearly a celebration, for the music that could faintly be heard was of such a nature as to be unmistakeably happy; and the voices faintly raised seemed merry, not terrified. Falk drew his already sodden cloak closer about himself and sighed, confused.
Not least in his thoughts was the lame lad; that Gyrfalon had carried, so eager was he not to be deprived of the least of his possessions; for so Falk read it. He hoped the warlord ignored the peasant boy and did not make him too much a butt of his ill temper.
He would have been surprised to have seen the lame lad proudly carrying the warlord’s sword that he wore not to a wedding and refusing to be relieved of it by some larger person, though it were heavy indeed and tired him.
Gyrfalon finally took it from the boy and declared that it was now his responsibility to care for his bride, not his page’s; and Lukat beamed on him.
The newlyweds sat on a dais while the rustic celebrations continued beneath the salt. Gyrfalon had at first demurred at the idea of being on display; but Annis had been adamant.
“It will make little difference to us, my lord,” she admonished, “and means so much to them.” Gyrfalon had shrugged and agreed to please his bride as she added, “Though of course we cannot feast as such; that would be profligate and improper for us to feast even a little when our people must needs be frugal.”
Gyrfalon had grinned at this.
“With all the wildfowl in the marsh?” he had said “Duck roast and watercress with cat-tail pottage will surely do for any feast.” Delighted at Annis’ confounded look he had explained, “There is a secret water-gate out of the castle hidden in withies and reeds. And I have some good fensmen here!”
Duly then, the fensmen had done the castle proud; and all feasted with duck meat in their pottage, even if the choicest morsels were saved for the high table. And Annis knew that with a secret exit, their people had a better chance of withstanding a long siege. She held her lord’s hand lovingly, as she smiled pleasure at the well wishers who approached them to offer their clumsy greetings.
Gyrfalon leaned over.
“And will you permit us to slip away, now?” He asked her. She turned and smiled up at him; and his heart skipped at the adoration in her eyes.
“Yes, my lord and my love,” she murmured “We have been properly inspected and approved. Now our presence would be ….inhibiting.”
Gyrfalon smiled at his young bride’s worldly wise air and earthy instincts that told her that without the presence of the Lord and Lady the bawdier sides of their vassals would emerge. He rose, taking her by the hand to help her, and they left; and Annis may have assumed a worldly wise air but her cheeks were scarlet as the celebrating peasants shouted out cheerful advice to their overlord.
Alone in Gyrfalon’s chamber, the warlord pulled Annis unceremoniously to him.
“And now my wife….” he said, almost savagely.
Annis chuckled throatily.
“I can think of a better use for my lord’s lips than talking,” she said.
Gyrfalon obliged.
Without the castle the sounds of louder singing drifted down to the cold, wet besiegers.
“Bastards, they make celebration on purpose to make us the more miserable” said one foot soldier “To remind us that they have proper walls and roofs; and goodly fires for hot food.”
Falk, overhearing that comment, wondered if there be any truth in it; that Gyrfalon had ordered a feast purely to wage warfare on the morale of those without. He would not put it past his brother. And one of the songs drifting down seemed to be declaring at every chorus that ‘who can? Gyrfalon can, Gyrfalon can and he’s a man’ or some such. What it was that his brother could do, Falk could not make out; but there seemed to be a great number of verses, and the chorus roared out by all the voices as each verse ended.
The song was rather bawdy and Annis and Gyrfalon chuckled ruefully over some of the suggestions included in it; and then ignored it utterly, following their own inclinations rather than the recommendations of their people.
But Gyrfalon was amazed that he was named in the song; for such songs were sung generally of the popular lords or commanders; and that his people respected him enough to sing such was as moving as it was faintly irksome.
Later – much later – Annis asked drowsily,
“Will we be expected to display the sheets as proof of my virtue, my love?”
Gyrfalon snorted.
“A stupid ceremony. Few country folk bother with marriage ‘til the bride’s a good few months gone.”
Annis blushed rosily.
“Will less time do, Gyrfalon? I – I am not totally sure yet, but…..”
She looked up at him; he was gazing down at her, stunned a moment, then he gripped her hand.
“You are with child?”
She nodded.
“I – I think so. I am late with my courses…. I never have been before….”
Gyrfalon grinned suddenly and swept her into his arms.
“Annis – dear one – you must take care!” he exclaimed. Annis laughed happily.
“It is quite a natural phenomenon, dearest. Do not cosset me – promise?”
He laughed.
“Has the irony struck you over asking wicked Lord Gyrfalon not to cosset you?” he said.
She touched his face.
“But I know you,” she said softly.
Annis lay happily beside her husband, the muffled sounds of a few hardy and determined revellers drifting intermittently up to their window. Gyrfalon’s quiet breathing beside her was comforting; and she reached out a hand to touch his warm, muscular body. He murmured in his sleep and flung an arm across her; and she snuggled up, one tiny hand touching her belly in hope that she might give him a son. A son who would also be Falk’s nephew.
Annis sighed.
Would the feud go on for another generation? Would Falk hate their son for his father’s sake?
Annis came to a decision.
The feud had to be stopped; and she had to stop it.
Chapter 12
Next morning, Gyrfalon and Annis surveyed the besiegers as had become their wont; the numbers had swelled. Gyrfalon pointed out the pennants of a variety of lords and warriors with dry comment concerning their reputations or prowess. Some were undoubtedly enemies of his; others merely opportunists hoping to gain some loot and a piece of the action.
“Or at least,” Gyrfalon added,
shrugging, “I do not recall making enemies of them. Lords Baudwine of Amelberg and Berhard of Weinwal are old enemies of mine, so they are honest foes. I see the banner of Arnul of Czernitz who is an eastern marcher lord, whose opportunism is only exceeded by his rapacity. With Melis of Hunisland and Walter of Liutenberg I have no quarrel, and I must suppose that they support my brother. They would not turn out of their comfortable castles for a relative upstart like your father, who has no pretentions to aristocracy beside his marriage to your mother, who was the child of our king’s illegitimate half-sister. I was well drilled in heraldry in my youth,” he added, as he pointed out the various banners to Annis.
Annis smiled wryly.
“I dare say a few more will not discommode your mind greatly,” she declared “If we have game from the marsh, then they may sit there until they rot. Though it will go hard if we be late with the sowing season next year as well as the coming one.”
He touched her face.
“You are such a pragmatist, my dear,” he said approvingly.
Annis scanned the ranks of the enemy, the colours of the flags and pennants making a brave – if futile – attempt to compete with the lowering grey skies. She picked out Falk’s pavilion, his white hawk on a green ground fluttering above it to identify him.
“Aye,” she said, answering her lord’s approving comment. “I am little given to flower and fancy, I think, and take it all with deplorable equanimity. Yet I think there is only one foe here that moves you, my lord.”
“Falk.”
It was a statement; it was an insult.
She touched his gloved hand.
“Is our child to grow up to a feud?” she asked wistfully.
He turned and stared. She continued,
“You loved him once; can you find yourself big enough to forgive him? For my part, selfish being that I am, I am grateful to him, for it is I that have you, not Alys.”
Gyrfalon blinked, taken aback.
“My dear, you make me happier than Alys could ever have done,” he told her, finally acknowledging it to himself. “Aye, she loved to hear stories of derring do; but I recall that she got squeamish if it involved too much real danger, and wept for the enemy if I had slain any; regardless of circumstances. The idea of teaching her to fight with a sword – of her being capable of lifting one, though she were a sturdier lass to my recollection than you – is laughable. You, with your pragmatism, you are a warrior’s wife. Alys would have been merely the mother of my sons. Yes; you are right. The anger towards Falk is habitual. I am willing to forgive him that; and forgive Alys too. She has no hold on mine heart or – if I have one – my soul anymore. For my birthright? That is harder to forgive. And yet that was more my father’s fault than Falk’s; that he let himself be blinded. Falk ran tales to him too; but under the circumstances, and with the way he was brought up it were not so surprising. Of course, the problem then lies that it is unlikely that Falk would ever forgive me; for Alys or our father. I am a parricide, remember. For I lost my temper with the old man for believing the rumours without verifying them, and for believing that I had turned against him, also. Which turned me against him. And I have gone out of my way to commit atrocities since to appal Falk as much as for any other reason. Childish really.”
There was a note of regret in his voice; the older Gyrfalon examining the angry impulsiveness of the younger, perhaps wishing things different. Annis put her arms about him and smiled serenely.
“Then we shall just have to test the extent of our brother’s Christian charity, shall we not!” she declared.
Gyrfalon gave a whoop of delighted laughter; and the besiegers that heard it stirred uneasily.
“My love, that sounds uncommonly like the devil quoting the scriptures to his own ends” he said dryly “Yet somehow I could almost imagine you talking him into it; you are as stubborn as any ass and as persuasive as the devil himself when you’ve a mind to it!”
Annis smiled up at him and Gyrfalon hugged her to him fiercely.
“Rather a backhanded compliment – as usual, my lord!” she said demurely.
“Know, my love,” he said, taking her face in his hands, “that if anything should happen to me, you are to go to Falk. Whatever else he may feel towards me, he will protect you.”
“And if he is the one that harms you?” She retorted “Shall I then meekly place myself in his hands and not seek revenge? He obviously feels that it were meet that Alys should cause you so grievous a cursed wound; though I doubt he can understand the depth of the pain and what that do to a man, year in, year out. He must not be surprised, if he harms you, that I would want to harm him back.”
“Revenge will not help you and the child stay alive,” he said harshly. “Falk can teach our child how to be a warrior. And the Elfsword will at least then stay in the family, not fall into the hands of strangers…..let him not teach our child that I am all bad; and my love, my dear Annis, I pray you will not learn to love him.”
Annis shivered
“That I would never do….. though I might take a subtle revenge of making him love me and then rejecting him,” she said coolly. “My love, have you had some bad presentiment that you talk thus?”
He shook his head swiftly, seeing the fear in her smoke blue eyes.
“Nay, dearling, merely normal pessimism,” he told her “And a warrior must ever have contingency plans.”
She slipped a cold hand into his and stared once more on the mass of their foes. Already their ally, the marsh, had carried casualties and she heard the moans of the fevered.
“The marsh heals what the marsh deals,” she murmured “You will not let me tend the unfortunates out there, I be sure, my lord, but may I at least despatch a list of herbs that their healers need?”
He blinked.
“Yes” he said “I have no objection; if only because worrying about them make you jumpy as worrying about me shooting them does not. But whether they will heed your words or not I cannot say. They will probably consider it some witch’s brew.”
“Call for Falk” she suggested “I will write him a note; he may have the native wit to heed it if his brains not be too much afire with hatred.”
“Perhaps,” said Gyrfalon sceptically.
Gyrfalon leaned forward as Annis fetched parchment and quill.
“FALK! Come parley!”
It was not many minutes before Falk appeared.
“You want to discuss terms?” he asked. Gyrfalon snorted.
“My wife pities your fevered soldiers since they are struck down by nature – or the hand of God if you will – rather than by me. She wants to send your physicians a list of locally found herbs to use on your patients.”
Falk had gasped audibly when Gyrfalon described Annis as his wife and pursed his lips grimly.
“And why should you permit her to do this, Gyrfalon? Are not the sufferings of honest men as music to your wicked ears?” he asked scathingly.
“My wife shares your religion, brother; she is disposed to be kind to all, even the enemy. Possibly even to cardinals though I wonder if even Annis has her limits. I am inclined to humour her; husbands are supposed to humour their brides.”
Falk was suspicious.
He was also taken aback when Annis’ face appeared over a crenellation, clutching in her hand a longbow.
“Gyrfalon, you have failed me!” she said crossly.
“Indeed?” Gyrfalon was taken aback.
“You have not instructed me in how to use this wretched thing!” she said. He laughed.
“It takes all a man’s life to learn how to use a longbow properly, my dear; shouldst stick to a crossbow as I do. Besides, the deformation caused to the shoulder would be a shame on your perfect figure.”
He added that purely to make Falk grind his teeth.
It worked.
Annis shouted down,
“Lord Falk, I think you should stand back” she advised “For I have never fired a bow before and I should hate to miss. Or rather, no
t to miss, if you see what I mean. I have written a list of herbs and tied it to the arrow; ‘tis what they do in bad romances so I hope the writers have it correct, Gyrfalon you are laughing at me!”
“Yes,” said Gyrfalon unrepentantly.
Shakily, Annis set her arrow to the string, and drew it back, a little taken aback as the tightly wound list still caught slightly. She fired off an inexpert shot that went sideways more than forward; though it did at least clear the moat.
“Oh dear” said Annis “Where did that go?”
“I see now, brother,” called Falk “You have the girl act in good faith, expecting me to collect the note from under the fire of your archers. Nice try, Gyrfalon; but it will not work.”
Gyrfalon turned to one of his archers, a burly man head and shoulders taller than the warlord.
“By his feet,” he said quietly.
An arrow sang and landed between Falk’s feet.
“As you see, brother, I have no need to bring you closer,” called Gyrfalon. “You can get your note unharmed. The lady Annis is merely of charitable turn of mind; but then, what woman does not have her faults? She is in other respects an admirable wife, meaning that I have no interest in harming you, for I have better things to do. Oh yes, and she said you should keep your feet dry and your back warm; as her advice keeps my army whole and healthy I make no doubt that you would be wise to listen to her. A good day to you!” he added half mockingly before turning away.
Falconburg Divided (The Falconburg Series Book 1) Page 16
