Daring Damsels

by Domning, Denise

  Even if his bride reached the town's portals before they shut, the gatekeepers would not let her pass. An unescorted noblewoman was as rare as a horned horse. In that instant, Gilliam forgave her the attempt. This escape had ruined de Ocslade's plot to steal Ashby from him. Gilliam need only shut the gates and drive her from her lair. Ashby was his.

  Rannulf leapt down the steps to stand beside him. A muddy footprint now marred his brother's rich attire. "Damn that idiot vixen," he snarled. "Where does she think she can go to hide from me in my own town?"

  "Uncle!" cried one of de Ocslade's companions as he dismounted to aid his relative in rising. "Are you injured?"

  "Nay," the small knight snarled. His horse reared suddenly, gone skittish with the excitement. De Ocslade grabbed for its reins. "Stupid bitch!" It was anyone's guess whether he meant the girl or his horse.

  "Vile woman," the abbot shouted to the heavens above then flew down the steps to de Ocslade. "This is the last time I seek to intervene on behalf of the spawn of Eve. Here," he shoved the parchment at the knight. It fell between them and lay neglected on the muddy stones. "Take it to some other churchman, and get you gone from my house. Be gone, be gone all of you!" he screamed, revealing the extent to which his pride had been damaged.

  Gilliam glanced at the gate. Geoffrey, now finely attired, was striding toward them. Jocelyn trotted at his heels, wearing a short blue tunic over red chausses. His cloak was clutched tightly around him against the day's chill, his nose already reddening. The boy lacked the bulk to protect him from the cold.

  Rannulf turned on de Ocslade. "I want you and your kin off my lands. Leave now. Arnult, follow them," he called to his castellan. "See to it they are allowed to exit from the gate."

  The small nobleman glanced from one FitzHenry to the other then acknowledged the arrival of a third. "My lord sheriff," he said in greeting to Geoffrey, a smile tugging at the corners of his narrow mouth. "Lord Graistan, believe me when I say I leave you with all haste and joy in my heart. This event has spared me a terrible mistake. Keep the vixen," he offered to Gilliam, "and may you survive your wedding night with no more than that pinprick."

  De Ocslade mounted and roweled his horse into a turn, leaving the contract yet in the mud at his feet. His nephews followed as they left the abbey far more slowly than they had entered.

  Gilliam stared after them. The nobleman was too smug for either defeat or enlightenment. He looked down at the ruined parchment. Why come when he had no seals on the contract? No man was that sort of fool. His eyes narrowed. It must be that de Ocslade not only knew Nicola would elude capture, he was positive she would run to him; he was retreating to their meeting point.

  Damn, but if Gilliam could not find her first, Hugh would sweep Nicola beyond his reach. As Rannulf suggested, with a babe in her belly no one would squabble over who her husband was. Gilliam turned to his brothers.

  "Somehow, de Ocslade believes he already owns the vixen. I think this was the plot from the start. This contract was but a diversion." He kicked at the sodden parchment. "Did you see how his kin made no attempt to stop her as she ran?"

  "Did they not? Well, I did." Geoff looked from one brother to the other, his eye gleaming in suppressed amusement. "Gilliam, there's blood on your shoulder. Rannulf, what happened to your gown? I seem to have missed some awesome event."

  "Laugh, Geoff, and I'll take your other eye," Rannulf snarled. "Gilliam, no spoiled, devious child is going to steal from me what I have given you. Find her. If de Ocslade has her, besiege the stinking place, knowing that I will support you in your efforts. If you catch her first, take her to Ashby and close your gates until your firstborn has teeth. But no matter what occurs, I never want to see her again." He turned and stormed toward the gate.

  Both Jocelyn and Geoffrey turned to watch Lord Graistan leave the abbey. When Geoff swung his gaze back toward his younger sibling, there was yet a trace of a smile on his face. "How did she manage this escape? She nearly ran me down as we were entering the gate."

  "With her foot and her pin." Gilliam displayed the item in his palm. He would keep it as a reminder of how dangerous she could be. Giving his anger sharp rein, he mellowed his voice. "Come, Jocelyn," he said to the boy. "I will give you your first lesson: how to hunt runaway wives."

  Geoff's hand closed over the boy's shoulder as he propelled him toward his new master. "My apologies if I cannot stay to help, but I must return to Crosswell."

  "Have no fear. Jos will do fine in your stead." Gilliam laid his arm around the child's bony shoulders.

  "My name is Jocelyn," the boy muttered.

  Gilliam grinned, pleased by this show of spine. "Geoff, you may tell the boy's worried mama that I promise not to break her son whilst he is my squire."

  The soldiers became huntsmen, seeking to flush the hiding doe. Their search began at Graistan keep's outer walls and moved in an even line toward the town's defenses. Every building was entered, every corner explored before they took the next step toward the walls.

  In their hidey-hole, Nicola crouched, her thigh muscles burning, as Tilda finished her hair. She listened with growing nervousness to the hue and cry. They were close now, very close. "Hurry Tilda, we haven't much longer," she urged quietly, her English words bearing not a breath of her Norman ancestry.

  "It's done," the girl replied as she handed Nicola her dagger. "Put on your hood, and I'll go check the lane."

  Nicola sheathed her weapon in her belt and stood, her head feeling as if it floated far above her shoulders. Her newly-bared neck prickled with sudden exposure to the cold damp air. When she shook her head, the cropped ends of her hair danced against her jaw. As impossible as it seemed, the stuff was even curlier now that it was short. Nicola ran her fingers through it and glanced sadly down at the thick mass around her feet.

  Oh, what had she done? Her hair was the only thing girlish about her. In the next instant, she dismissed the emotion as a moment of weakness and pulled on her brown capuchin. This simple garment was but a hood with an extended hem that reached past her shoulders. With it pulled low over her brow, her face would be disguised. Nicola smiled wryly at that thought, dropping the hood back between her shoulder blades. With her hair gone, why should she bother hiding her face? No one would ever guess she was a woman.

  Against her skin she wore a worn linen shirt, the fabric gone soft with use. On her legs she wore a pair of brown chausses, a combination of stockings and undergarment that served all men. The chausses required crisscrossing strips of cloth from knee to ankle to keep from sagging down to her feet and bound indecently around her hips and thighs. This was decidedly uncomfortable for one accustomed to the freedom of nothing beneath wide skirts.

  Atop her undergarments she wore an old tunic. Once a deep green, it had long since faded into a pale memory of its former richness. She'd had to fold back the sleeves, but its hem hit her just where it should, a hand's breadth above her knees. Finally, there was a hauberk, a sleeveless leather vest thick enough to hide what little feminine roundness Nicola could claim.

  For shoes, there was a pair of short and sturdy boots. A sensible choice, save that Nicola discovered upon donning them they were a tad too small and pinched her feet. She glanced longingly at the fine slippers she'd worn beneath her gowns. Impossible. Not only were they obviously a noblewoman's footwear, they were too flimsy to survive the walk. She sighed. Seeing as she had no other option, she would have to bear the pain.

  Tilda called softly under the bend of the wall, "Come now."

  As Nicola squeezed back beneath the bent panel, muck smeared onto the skirt of her tunic. She came to her feet with a sharp sound of disgust, and tried to brush off the ooze. It was useless and only left her hands dirty. She gave up and joined Tilda at the end of the alley. "Have they turned the corner?"

  "Not yet." Tilda shot Nicola a quick glance from over her shoulder, then caught herself to look again. She gasped and came fully around. "Colette!"

  "What?" Nicola cried, and glanced
over her shoulder, thinking Tilda has seen something awful, like a rat.

  "You," the small girl said, more harshly this time. "Pull up that hood and keep it as far down on your brow as you can."

  "What?" This time it was a question of confusion, rather than concern.

  "Do as I say, Colette, and do not argue." There was sudden steel in Tilda's voice. "If you want free of this place, you'll walk like a humpback and not move that hood off your forehead until we are a league distant. Ask me no more, we must hurry." Her friend's voice became progressively colder as she spoke.

  Nicola frowned, but did as Tilda said. Even after a lifetime together she had yet to fully understand her suckling sister's moods. They blinked on and off, like the sun on a day when the sky was full of woolly clouds.

  She followed her friend around the corner. At the top of the tiny street, there was a soldier. Nicola hunched her shoulders and shuffled alongside Tilda in an appropriately servile gait. The man did no more than glance at them as they passed.

  Nicola's spirits soared. This was going to work; she would be free. Once past the gates, she could make her way to Ocslade, marry and dispose of him, then. . ..

  Then Gilliam would marry her. Or the Church would take custody of her. Or, worse, the royal court would make her its ward and suck the life from her home to feed England's aching treasury. How could she allow any of these things to happen to her folk?

  Her plans died in the face of reality. Holding Ashby as her own was nothing more than a child's fantasy, devised to fill her need for revenge and help pass her empty hours of confinement. No man would ever allow it.

  Nicola stubbornly shook her head, refusing even to listen to herself. She hadn't sacrificed her precious hair only to admit defeat moments later. The plan would work, it simply had to. What sort of daughter allowed herself to be married to her father's murderer?

  Beside her, Tilda laughed quietly. "He did not even raise a brow, the fool," she murmured. "How he will hate himself when he realizes we walked right beneath his nose."

  "Tilda, this is no game," Nicola snapped, not so much irritated at the girl as at her own doubts. "My freedom hangs in the balance, yet all you can think of is tweaking a soldier."

  Her friend shot her a harsh look. "Best be nice to me, Colette. I need only call out your name, and you are a prisoner, once more."

  "Tilda!" Stunned, Nicola stopped to stare. There was nothing new in Tilda's disrespect; the commoner had never behaved as a maid toward her mistress. This was Nicola's fault for seeing Tilda as more sister than servant. It was the new hardness in the girl's tone that shook her.

  "My tongue got away from me," Tilda replied with a sarcastic half bow, then rolled her eyes. "Do stop staring. You know very well I dare not do it. Stabbing a lord may mean only a beating for you, but it will be far worse for me if we are caught." She turned and continued on toward the gate, her hips undulating gently beneath her thick skirts.

  Nicola started after her, hurt and confused by this new harsh behavior. What could have happened to so change the girl? Any answer would have to wait until they were beyond the town wall and could talk freely. She lengthened her stride until she caught up to Tilda, but their walk to the gate was completed with an uncomfortable wall of silence between them.

  The exit portal from Graistantown was only a square gap in the thick wall, framed by a small tower at either side. It was in these towers that the machinery of the portcullis was housed. The metal grate yet dangled aloft on its chains, but the thick wooden doors were tightly shut.

  A number of people were already congregated on the wide, cobbled area that fronted the doors, muttering impatiently to each other. Nicola and Tilda found their way to the far edge of the crowd. Although some folk glanced at them, no one looked for long. There was nothing interesting to note about two young commoners.

  Nicola caught a whiff of stewing mutton on the damp breeze and her stomach growled. It was useless to think of eating. Her purse, a leather pouch dangling from her belt, was just as empty as her stomach. The walk to Ocslade would not only be wet and cold, but hungry, as well.

  The coarse wool of her hood prickled against her bare neck. Nicola lifted her shoulders and turned her head as she tried to ease it, but to no avail. She reached inside her capuchin to scratch her neck.

  "Stop fooling with that thing. You're pushing the hood off your face," Tilda hissed in irritation, then raised herself on tiptoe to peer over the crowd. "Where is he?" she murmured to herself.

  "Who?"

  "The man who will take us away from Graistan, goose. Well, we are early. It did not take as long as I thought to change you." Tilda stared out at the crowd.

  Nicola could only gape at her friend in sick disbelief. "You told someone about me?" Not just someone, some man.

  "Aye, and glad I am I did so, Colette. It will be easier if we pass through the door as two men and a woman."

  "How could you have betrayed me so?' she cried softly.

  "Betrayed, is it?" Tilda turned on her, hands on hips and eyes narrowed. "Are you not free of that wedding you so despised and on the path into marriage with de Ocslade?" An errant breeze filled with the reek of urban life teased a tawny strand from beneath Tilda's gray hood.

  "Aye, but only for the moment," Nicola retorted. "How do I know this man of yours will not give me back to Graistan?"

  Tilda shot her an arch look, then shrugged confidently. "For love of me, of course. Have faith. Alan will see you safely to your destination." She paused, then made a show of shuddering.

  "Oh, Colette, why did you choose that little viper when you had other, more simpleminded suitors to pick? If you think Hugh de Ocslade will stand still whilst you carve him to bits, you are wrong. He all too well remembers how you misused him." Tilda made a sharp sound of disgust, shoving her hair back beneath her capuchin. "Choose another man."

  Nicola laughed harshly, the sound ringing against the stone wall behind them. "Nay, Hugh suits my purposes too well. With him bleeding his own properties dry to live beyond himself, greed drives him to me. It’s his lust for my lands that makes him vulnerable to my knife. If his nephews give me pause, it is only that I must plan their fates as well." Her confidence grew with each word. She would make this work by force of her will alone.

  "Well, I think you a fool to have ever contacted that little snake." The comment was thrown over Tilda’s shoulder as she again scanned the crowd. "Ah, here is Alan now."

  Nicola followed Tilda's gaze and groaned. Leading a flea-bitten nag of uncertain ancestry, a helmet and undecorated shield hanging from its saddle, came a soldier. Dark hair flowed down to his shoulders, framing a bold face and thick beard. There was a good deal of pride in the set of his shoulders, but his armor was no more than a boiled leather vest, thickly sewn with iron rings until it gleamed and jingled with every step. He was either a mercenary or some small landholder's by-blow, looking to make his way in the world. If there were a way to get coins for her, Nicola knew he would trade her in an instant.

  "Tilda, how could you," she breathed in heartbreak.

  The girl grabbed the sides of Nicola's hood and pulled her face down to whisper to her. "Listen closely. He thinks I’m from the hamlet to the northwest of here, for I was returning to Graistan from Ocslade when I met him on the road. You are my very shy brother Nicolas, the cloth merchant's new apprentice, or so I told him. We journey home this day to visit our dying mother. Twit, I have not revealed your identity to anyone. It's only right I let you stew in thoughts of betrayal. I should be insulted."

  Nicola's eyes flew wide in relief and understanding. "And I should kick you, you little brat," she said, half laughing, half angry. Then she sighed in apology. "Imprisonment has left me overly suspicious and irritable. My pardon for doubting you."

  There was a glimmer of something sad in Tilda's brown eyes, and her gay smile lay slightly crooked on her mouth. "Aye, we are friends for always, no matter what happens between us."

  "Tilda, what is wrong?" Nicola as
ked in worry, laying a hand on her friend's shoulder.

  The girl only shook free of her. "This talk must wait for later. Now be shy, brother, very shy, and only glance at him from time to time." With that warning, she turned to greet the soldier.

  Self-preservation made Nicola duck her head and hunch her shoulders, twisting her hands together as if she worried. She peered around the edge of her hood. Alan was bowing low before the petite girl.

  "Ah, Tilda the Beautiful, here you are waiting for me." His English was accented, but it was the accent of one who pretended to be what he was not. He turned toward Nicola. "And here is your brother. Well met, boy."

  "Well met, sir," she mumbled, nodding her head in greeting. When his horse shifted toward her, she gratefully hid against its mangy neck. "Hold your steed?" she offered, making her voice gruff.

  "How kind of you," the man said as if startled by the offer, "but there's no call for that."

  "My brother wants to do it in thanks for escorting us from Graistantown, Alan," Tilda said sweetly. "My goodness, but even I had forgotten how shy he was. I haven't had more than ten words out of him since I arrived yesterday. I do hope you'll not mistake his silence for rudeness while we journey."

  Nicola stifled her urge to rear upright and scream her questions. Tilda had arrived only yesterday? If she'd not lived at Graistan these past four months, where had she been? Yet, all she dared do was peer carefully above the horse's mane.

  Tilda was leaning up against the man, her hand caressing his arm. Alan's expression was glazed with his lust for the girl. Nicola's concern died away beneath bitter amusement. Men were such fools for Tilda. They never saw how the girl used them until she discarded them when they began to bore her.

  "You are still traveling with us, are you not?" the little vixen purred.

  "Aye, I've had no luck finding a place here," Alan replied, his voice growing husky with masculine need. "I look forward to your companionship to help ease my lonely journey."