Sapphire in the Snow - Award-Winning Medieval Historical Romance

by Townend, Carol

  Walter knew that Mistress Beatrice had cared for the Saxon in the chapel. He’d felt certain no harm would come to her from him. He had seen Beatrice gathering firewood, alone and apparently of her own volition. And during the night he had crept up and had observed the tender way the warrior cradled Beatrice in his arms. He had been reassured.

  But now he was not reassured. The Saxon was threatening Mistress Beatrice. He glowered at the warrior.

  ‘So, Beatrice,’ Edmund grated in her ear. ‘You would conspire to kill me?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Walter only seeks to protect me. He’s my man! It’s no wonder you’re a defeated people. You’re all wanting in wits.’

  Edmund’s fist clenched white on the dagger. ‘Explain this man’s presence here,’ he said flatly. ‘And you–’ he directed his cold, stranger’s gaze at Walter ‘–keep very still, or I shall harm her.’

  ‘Walter came with me from Normandy,’ Beatrice told him. ‘Mother Adèle sent him. He’s a...a sort of manservant. Edmund, he cannot speak. Truly he cannot. I’m sure he followed us for my sake, and not at de Brionne’s command. Is that not so, Walter?’

  Walter nodded eagerly.

  ‘He has no reason to like the baron,’ Beatrice added.

  ‘Who has?’ Edmund responded.

  ‘De Brionne threatened to cut off Walter’s hand. And do you know why?’ She put her fingers to the hand at the dagger.

  ‘No, but I’m sure you’re about to enlighten me.’

  ‘Walter found Hilda hiding out in one of the barns. She was famished. He stole food for her, and the baron found out. Oh, not about her, not at first. Just about the missing food. He accused Walter of stealing, and said he didn’t have enough provisions for the warriors, let alone half-wits.’

  ‘Compassionate as ever,’ Edmund murmured.

  Beatrice gently pulled at Edmund’s wrist. He allowed her freedom and stood facing her, long legs apart, dagger loose at his side.

  ‘De Brionne accused Walter of selling the food. He was to lose his hand as punishment. It was only later that I found out about your sister. Walter did not betray her. He had a chance to inform the baron, but he did not do so. Walter has played no part in the conflict between your people and mine. He’s naught but a kind man who seeks to repay me for some help I once gave him. His only concern is for my safety.’

  Walter smiled.

  Edmund searched her face, and jabbed his dagger in its sheath. He swore. ‘I must be moon-touched, but I believe you.’ He jerked his head at Walter. ‘The fellow’s clearly besotted,’ he said, in Latin. ‘I’ll play along with you for the time being. Though why I should saddle myself with a silver-tongued maid and a simpleton is beyond me.’

  ‘Walter is not simple! It’s just that he cannot speak. There’s a difference.’

  ‘So you say,’ Edmund said carelessly, easing his shoulder. His blue eyes sharpened. ‘God’s Blood! It is true that I am wanting in wits! Walter could not have followed us on foot...’

  Walter looked doubtfully at Beatrice.

  Beatrice smiled. ‘Take him to Betony, Walter. I don’t want either of you to end up hurting each other. We’d better do as Edmund wishes.’

  Feeling as though she’d been through a mill, Beatrice watched the two men leave the clearing and turned wearily back to the cavern. They would be on their way again shortly. But to where? And what did Edmund intend for her when they got to their destination? Shaken by a hacking cough, she gritted her teeth. Only God knew the answers to her questions. She prayed He’d let her live to find them out, for at the moment she felt like death.

  Chapter Eight

  She was installed in solitary state on Betony, while the two men walked on either side. Walter placed himself solicitously at her knee, his brown eyes wide with concern, his hand hovering ready and eager to assist. Not so Edmund. He surged ahead, towing Betony relentlessly in his wake. The Saxon held himself stiffly, and did not glance at her once. None the less it was on the dark, flowing mane of Edmund’s hair that Beatrice fixed her blurring eyes. That black standard fluttered in and out of her vision, along with the rest of the world.

  She braced herself to maintain her seat. Her body was a throbbing mass of cramped muscles and tortured limbs. This journey to the rebel encampment was like a bad dream. Beatrice was beginning to feel she had never known anything but pain. All was agony.

  The wind lifted the dark pennant of Edmund’s hair. It swirled over his cloak and filled her vision. It eclipsed all else... There was no light left. She swayed dizzily in her seat.

  Walter’s semi-articulate cry of alarm brought the raven head snapping round. ‘What now?’ Edmund demanded.

  Beatrice moved her lips, but only a moan came out. She could hardly see. Everything looked hazy. Her throat ached, her head throbbed more with every step they took. She could hear from the tone of his voice that Edmund was angry.

  She felt something touch her hand, but could not have said what it was, save that it was warm.

  ‘Hold hard, Beatrice,’ Edmund said, his voice gentling.

  There was a movement behind her, a creaking of leather, and a sudden rush of warmth. A fur-lined cloak was draped round her failing body and she was pulled back against a lean male form.

  ‘My thanks,’ Beatrice muttered, gratefully.

  ‘I hope we’re not too heavy for your mare,’ Edmund’s voice passed over her head. ‘We won’t be going fast, so I think she won’t be lamed.’ He lapsed into silence. Betony’s steady hoofbeats were muffled by the snow that shrouded the earth.

  Beatrice lost all sense of time. It felt as though she had been travelling for an eternity within Edmund’s encircling arms. They could have been riding thus for days or weeks for aught she knew. She lost all sense of space. Snow-bleached, trackless wastes dazzled her eyes. She was aware of Betony, of Edmund holding her so she would not fall, of feeling sick, but of little else. The snow wavered in her vision like a heaving white ocean. But she was not Anne. She did not suffer seasickness. The white, crested waves were blinding. They hurt her eyes. Great drifts reared gleaming at her. Wall upon wall of snow whipped up by a slashing north wind. Perhaps, after all, she was like Anne. She closed her eyes on the cruel brightness which froze bodies and burned eyes, and trusted Edmund to hold her safe.

  ***

  Someone was shouting. Beatrice lifted stiff eyelids and shifted in Edmund’s hold. The booming voice was male and loud, but she could not for the life of her make any sense of what the man was saying. A knife stabbed in her brain. The pain was a shutter blocking her sight. She pushed it aside and gazed beyond it. She was living a dream. Nothing was real.

  The incomprehensible sounds issued from the mouth of a young man of about Edmund’s age. His fair hair, like Edmund’s, was worn in the long Saxon fashion, but this man was already thinning at the crown – his middle years would see him bald.

  Edmund’s compatriot was clearly overjoyed to see him. His rosy face was all but cleft in two with a broad smile of welcome. Beatrice registered Edmund’s dismounting as a horrid chill on her back, and a feeling that she was estranged and alone. Walter moved at once to stand at a stirrup, but her feeling of isolation did not diminish. Half-blind with exhaustion, Beatrice watched Edmund embrace the possessor of that booming bittern’s voice. The man was familiar, but Beatrice could not summon up the energy to remember when she’d last seen him.

  Edmund had brought them to a clearing in a flat, marshy area, hacked out of a spindly spinney. There were several wooden buildings which looked as though they’d been hastily cobbled together – they’d been mended with worm-ravaged, badly hewn timbers that any carpenter worth his salt would have sold for firewood years ago. Osiers – tall and straight as lances – pierced the carpet of snow on the skirts of the clearing. Rooks floated overhead like flakes of soot rising from a fire.

  The crumbling shacks bore all the signs of dwellings long deserted. It could have been a village for ghosts. But the ill-hewn timber gleamed pale in parts wi
th the mark of the adze. Some had been recently patched. Some were roofless, the thatch rotted through to the roof timbers. Some were being repaired, for Beatrice’s failing eyes dropped to a bundle of reeds, cut to size and waiting to be pegged in place. Here was some shelter from the elements.

  Edmund had forgotten the two Normans. A group of Saxon men, bristling like hedgehogs with weaponry, emerged silent as wraiths and clustered about him. But this was no dream. The warriors were as solid as the horse beneath her and their silence was of short duration. They clouted Edmund on the back in rough salutation, and directed a hail of questions at him.

  From his gestures he appeared to be describing her capture and their subsequent escape. Beatrice picked out her name from Edmund’s speech. One man guffawed, he made a crude comment that needed no interpreter and won an appreciative roar of laughter which scattered the rooks from the trees. Cold Saxon eyes impaled her, and she knew they saw her dead already. Fear gnawed at her belly.

  Edmund flushed. He mouthed a soft retort, and a sinister hush fell over his audience. Beatrice sat as straight as her aching limbs would allow. This must be the heart of the Saxon resistance. Was Edmund their leader, then, that they should defer to him?

  The crashing of a door pointed all heads towards the most solid of the wooden buildings. The tension eased. Beatrice saw two girls coming eagerly towards them. She recognised Hilda’s childish form instantly, rushing ahead. The other girl was older. She took her time, walking with her flaxen head held high and her hips swinging. This Saxon beauty had been the one who had won Edmund’s attention at Anne’s betrothal feast.

  Hilda flung herself joyfully into her brother’s arms, talking nineteen to the dozen. She even had a shy smile for Beatrice. And the other girl...? Beatrice drew her head back with a snap, for she encountered a vindictive glare which made the warrior’s baleful stares seem benign. Turning her back on Beatrice with studied discourtesy, the girl greeted Edmund. She held herself aloof, and her greeting had none of Hilda’s childish exuberance. Reading the silent message, Beatrice clenched her jaw. The Saxon girl wanted Beatrice to know that Edmund was hers. The blonde laid her hand on Edmund’s arm and kissed him chastely on the cheek, but there was something subtly possessive about the way she did it. Her pale blue eyes swung smugly back to Beatrice, and Beatrice felt suddenly strangled.

  Edmund was smiling at the girl. He was pleased to see her...

  Finally he remembered Beatrice.

  ‘Can you not dismount?’ His voice mocked her weakness. ‘Come, my tired Norman, Ingirith will show you where you can rest.’

  He waved the possessive girl towards Beatrice and her heart sank. He reached up to help Beatrice down and she was poignantly reminded of the first time she had seen him. Thus he had held up his arms to her, and thus...Beatrice tumbled into his arms, more exhausted this time than she had been on that first fateful day. There were other differences too: this time there was Ingirith beside them, hissing on an indrawn breath and muttering maledictions. Edmund steadied Beatrice. She leant her head briefly on his chest. Then he was pulling away from her and she found herself trailing stiffly across the clearing after Ingirith.

  Flinging open the door of a dwelling, Ingirith pushed Beatrice inside.

  Beatrice straightened her shoulders and did her best to meet the Saxon woman’s murderous gaze with some semblance of dignity. She was cold, she was tired, and she was hungry. She had no strength even for tears. She looked about her. There was nowhere to rest. Everything in the hut was covered with a dusting of snow, there was not even a bench to sit upon. She lifted her eyes. She could see the sky through rotten, blackened timbers.

  Was this Edmund’s idea of Saxon hospitality? Even Baron de Brionne had accorded Edmund the privilege of remaining in the shelter of the chapel. Did he truly mean her to catch her death? If she ever slept here she knew she would not waken in this world.

  Ingirith smiled, complacent as a cat toying with a mouse before the kill. She fingered a silver bangle at her wrist, looked pointedly at her own immaculate gown and then at the damp, bedraggled rags Beatrice clutched about her.

  Beatrice smiled experimentally at her Saxon hostess. Perhaps she was imagining the hostility. Perhaps Ingirith would respond to friendship – Hilda was Saxon, and Hilda had had a smile for her after all...

  ‘If you could find me another cloak I would be grateful,’ Beatrice said.

  Ingirith lowered her brows and spat in the snow at Beatrice’s feet.

  Ingirith was not to be won over. Defeated, Beatrice shut her eyes. A cough rose up to choke her and she turned aside till it was done. The spasm left her throat raw, and her eyes full of tears. She had to blink before she realised that Ingirith had gone.

  Beatrice sagged against the warped, half-rotten door and rattled the latch. It would not lift. It had been wedged from the outside, and short of climbing the walls to go through the worm-eaten roof timbers, she was a prisoner.

  ***

  ‘In here! Sweet Jesu, who put you in here? Did Ingirith do this?’ The owner of the clipped and furious voice was pulling at her shoulder.

  Beatrice moaned. She wanted to sleep, to sleep. That way the cold wouldn’t hurt so. Oblivion could claim her and the numbing frost would leave her bones forever.

  She was lifted against a warm chest, carried. Every step jarred her bruised brain against her skull. She thought her head would burst. She moved it feebly from side to side and tried to open her eyes.

  She became aware of a musky male scent that was pleasantly familiar. The arms about her were strong, safe arms. They would not hurt her. Beatrice let out her breath and let her pounding head rest against that warm chest. Under her breath she murmured a name.

  She was deposited on something soft. ‘Beatrice, wake up!’ She knew that commanding voice now – Edmund’s. He was shaking her so mercilessly her teeth rattled. ‘Later you’ll have time to sleep, but not yet.’ His tone changed. ‘Hilda, fetch Aelflaeda. Mistress Beatrice needs a hot tisane at the least. Hurry!’ He was unfastening her girdle and peeling off her clothes. They’d grown heavy with damp and stuck to her skin.

  ‘Sleep, must sleep,’ Beatrice groaned.

  ‘Soon,’ Edmund sounded soothing now. Was it really Edmund? She hoisted leaden eyelids. It was Edmund. He was stripping her. Her hands fluttered in feeble self-defence.

  Edmund touched her face softly with the back of his fingers in a gesture of reassurance. ‘Be still, I would have you dry and in warm clothes.’

  She was naked. He flung a cloth over her and rubbed her briskly. There was nothing of the lover in his manner; indeed he reminded her of Sister Agnes with a recalcitrant patient. Beatrice submitted to his ministrations. A prickling in her veins told her she was thawing out, and sensation crept slowly back into her blood-starved limbs.

  She was able to take stock of her surroundings. She was lying on a truckle bed in a small chamber, amid a pile of furs. A fire crackled and spat. She’d been clothed in an amber-coloured gown. It looked new. The cloth was woollen, finely woven and soft. Edmund’s fur-lined cloak warmed her feet.

  He was striding to the door.

  ‘Thank you,’ she whispered, and flinched. Her lips were split and sore.

  Edmund checked mid-stride, small lines creasing his brow. ‘I’ll send our healer to see you. Hilda must have been sidetracked.’ The door clicked shut.

  Beatrice was not alone for long. She had barely time to appreciate the warmth of the small chamber when Ingirith burst in. The Saxon’s face glowed with angry colour. She loosed a torrent of words at the bewildered Norman on the bed.

  Beatrice gazed at her blankly. ‘It is no good. I cannot understand you.’

  Ingirith’s grey eyes narrowed. She pounced on the discarded green robe, and extracted the jewelled dagger. She waved it in the air.

  Another flood of English invective filled her ears. Ingirith repeated one word over and over.

  Beatrice frowned.

  Ingirith jerked the blade free of its sh
eath, and waved it at Beatrice, every look a threat.

  ‘He gave it to me,’ Beatrice said. She tried to smile. ‘Be careful, you could hurt...’ She read murder in Ingirith’s eyes and recoiled. Ingirith’s fist clenched tighter on the jewelled shaft.

  Struggling to move out of range, Beatrice tangled in the covers. She sprawled heavily over the side of the bed, and knocked the breath from her body. Her hands flew to fend off the blow, she braced herself.

  Nothing happened. Surprised, she looked up.

  Edmund had returned. He had hold of Ingirith’s wrist. The dagger clattered hollowly on the boards.

  Ingirith pouted, smiled at Edmund and muttered something in a low, husky voice. Beatrice winced, stabbed with jealousy if not cold steel. The wretched girl could even sulk beautifully.

  There was a movement at the door. Hilda stood there, open-mouthed, an old crone of a woman at her side. The crone watched the scene before her with avid, bright eyes. Ingirith stormed past them and the old woman loosed a delighted cackle.

  ‘Beatrice, keep this close to hand,’ Edmund recommended, handing back her dagger and resettling her under the furs.

  Beatrice curled her fingers round the jewelled hilt. If only he would smile like that more often. ‘What did she say? I can’t speak your tongue.’

  Hilda piped up. ‘Most of it wasn’t worth hearing. She seemed to think you had stolen my brother’s knife and she was accusing you of theft. Edmund told her it was his gift to you.’

  Edmund rubbed his injured shoulder and grimaced. Instantly Beatrice sat up. ‘Your hurt needs attention,’ she said.

  ‘You need care more than I.’ He indicated the old woman. ‘This is Aelflaeda, she is wise in the art of healing. If you could but speak the same language, I think you would find much to talk about.’ He flicked her cheek, and smiled. ‘I’ll leave you in her tender care. There are matters which demand my attention.’

  Beatrice let her eyes follow him out of the chamber. Aelflaeda cackled softly, and Beatrice felt her colour rise. She pretended to examine her nails. Aelflaeda’s berry-bright eyes saw all too much...