by Tamara Leigh
The men did not continue their pursuit, and shortly Guarin had the unfortunate chevalier off a dark grey destrier that appeared too young to be battle-hardened and likely suffered from shock.
Getting astride took effort, not only because the animal was skittish, but the unconscious woman had to be steadied while Guarin mounted behind. Once done, he adjusted her seat between his thighs, causing her head to tip back and hair to fall away from a face exposed to moonlight.
It was scratched and bruised, but not so much it disguised her looks and age. Though her face was strong boned, it was pretty with large eyes and a mouth whose lower lip was full beneath the upper that would present as thin if not for high arches reaching toward a fine nose. She would live and…
He glanced at her hands in her lap, and seeing she wore a wedding band, hoped this day she was not made a widow and her children fatherless. But had she been, the lady should have little difficulty acquiring another husband, especially were she in possession of lands.
Not my concern, he told himself. The sooner I deliver her from here, the sooner she will become another man’s problem. And I can resume my search for kin.
Cyr.
Dougray.
Theriot.
Maël.
Hugh.
Chapter Three
Negotiation of the meadow was slow to avoid setting the horse to flight and trampling the fallen, but finally they entered the wood into which surviving Saxons had fled.
Having stayed far right of that section of Andredeswald that had swallowed the majority of the defeated and a great number of victors who gave chase and met their end at the bottom of a fosse known only to Saxons, he entered the trees.
There were Saxons here, though likely too seriously wounded to flee beyond the enemy’s reach. Keeping one arm around the woman, Guarin released the reins and, continuing to guide the destrier with the press of his thighs, drew his sword.
He would take the lady only far enough to ensure she did not become easy prey to men who would do to her as William’s companion had done, then send her and the horse opposite. That would be the end of it, allowing him to resume his duty and her to praise the Lord she had escaped far worse than already she had suffered—and return home to a world much changed now the duke’s foot was firmly on England’s throat.
Reaching his senses in all directions, Guarin urged the destrier deeper into the wood. When they passed beneath a gap in the leaved canopy that shone moonlight across their path, he caught movement and sounds not of nature but neither from a distance. The woman had regained consciousness, though she stilled as if gone under again.
Likely, she assessed her situation to determine what resistance to offer, and since he did not tighten his hold, when she reached for his dagger she was less cautious than she might otherwise have been.
“Lady,” he growled, “do not.”
She did not, though he sensed she would once she adjusted her plan and expectations of the Norman who had struck her senseless.
Readying his hand at her waist to intercept hers, he said, “I did not like doing it. I but wished to see you off the battlefield. Ahead, I shall…” He did not know the English word for démonter. “I shall get down, and you will ride home. That is all, Lady.”
As evidenced by her grab for his dagger, no more did she believe him now than before.
He gripped her hand, but she was as prepared for his defense as he was for her offense, shooting the other hand past and seizing the hilt.
He released the first hand and captured the second before she could unsheathe the dagger. As he thrust the blade back to the scabbard’s depths, she cursed him, twisted around, and drove an elbow into his injured side.
Pain, hesitation over further harming her, and determination to keep hold of his sword handed her the advantage—until the destrier protested the struggle on its back and swung to the side.
The yielding of his sword the only way to retain hold of the woman, Guarin tossed it away and grabbed the saddle’s pommel as the destrier reared. Its return to the ground was so forceful both riders lurched over its neck and the woman cried out. Now the beast would run.
Guarin straightened, snatched up the reins and dragged on them.
With a toss of its head, the horse shuddered to a halt.
Seeing his sword lay ahead, its blade reflecting moonlight, Guarin decided it was time the woman and he part ways. He gripped her tighter, pinning her arms between their chests. “We are done,” he growled. “Now you go your way, I go mine.”
Straining backward, she raised her face.
If his life depended on knowing one thing about her character, he would say the rage there was directed more at herself than him. But it wavered when her eyes flicked left and right, and in them he saw the question to which he was accustomed the same as nearly all his kin—how was it possible one of relatively few years had so much silver in his hair?
She blinked. “I do not believe you, savage.”
Reminding himself another gave her cause to name him that, he loosened his hold. “Turn forward, Lady.” When argument widened her eyes, he snarled, “You have the word of Guarin D’Argent, and that is enough.”
Further hesitation, then she turned, and he felt the press of her arms test the strength of his.
“Do you not move,” he said, “all the sooner you shall be rid of this savage.”
Defiantly, she jerked her shoulders.
“Be still!” he rumbled and released her. Retaining hold of the reins lest she attempt to trample him beneath hooves, he swung a leg over. The pain streaking his side portending he bled again, he dropped to the ground.
Warily, the Saxon watched as he moved to the destrier’s head. Though he had meant to retrieve his sword and start back immediately, ever he had been good with horses, and this one that survived what its battle-hardened fellows had not, required reassurance were he to heed the commands of a woman rider.
Guarin smoothed its pale mane, caressed its great jaw, in his language said, “You will see her safely home, eh?”
The steed eyed him.
“You are Norman-bred, brave, true. It is your duty and privilege to aid this lady and prove what she will not believe of me.” Feeling the animal’s quivering ease, he looked to the woman and glimpsed uncertainty before she raised her chin to peer down her nose at him.
It was a show. Though she tried to make it appear her fear was overcome, it remained nearly as present as if there were a third person here.
Guarin gripped the bridle, led the horse to his sword, and turned his hand around the wire-wrapped hilt. “I leave you this destrier, Woman. You will return home, will you not?”
No answer.
He stepped nearer, causing her to shift opposite. “I did not delay my search for kin to have you return to where you are not welcome. For the kin that remains to you, await the duke’s…” He fumbled for the word. “…permission to seek your dead.”
“My son is my only family,” she rasped.
“Then for him—”
“He is upon Senlac. Only ten winters aged.”
Despite Guarin’s limited proficiency with her language that confirmed her son was a boy, he did not believe he properly translated the rest that made it sound as if the youth was on the battlefield. He nearly asked for clarification, but he was too long in being reunited with kin.
He looped the reins over the saddle’s pommel and drew his dagger, causing her to draw back. He hesitated over relinquishing something so cherished, but having cast aside her dagger, extended his. “Should you need it, Saxon. Now go home.”
So forcefully she snatched it from him, she took his hand with it.
He pulled free, and she caught up the reins and put heels to the horse.
Here the end of it, Guarin thought. And discovered he was wrong on two fronts—the first when she turned her mount back the way they had come, the second when bearded and long-haired men came out of the trees.
For him.
Isa stayed the saddle, though not for long. Once the destrier rearing before short-haired, clean-shaven warriors returned to earth, she was pulled down. As soon as her feet were beneath her, she managed a swipe of the blade, causing her new assailant to shout before delivering a blow to her wrist that sent the dagger flying.
“Accursed woman!”
She knew the voice, and though he was not Saxon, neither was he the enemy. Or was he?
Hearing her panting breath over the shouts of men and ring of steel at her back, she looked up from the blood seeping through his sleeve.
Before her stood an aged Norman, the one to whom her husband had sent her weeks past to ensure her safety while he fought alongside King Harold in the North, unaware his own people had invaded the South—as ever Roger would remain unaware.
Pushing past hurt that should not have affected her so deeply she relinquished charge of her son to another, she returned her attention to Baron Pendery whose grown sons had taken to the battlefield off which she had been forced. Also of Norman stock, they had fought on the side of Duke William.
Was this man the enemy, then? She glanced past him to where his men stood unmoving as if awaiting orders. Meaning they were not responsible for the clash behind.
She started to look around, but Pendery barked, “As you are under my protection, you dishonor me and my house, Lady Hawisa. And memory of your husband.”
Hating she appeared a witless, frightened female, she said, “My boy and others from the village were seen near Senlac. I must go back and find him.”
“Non, you will return to Trionne with me, and should Duke William allow retrieval of the enemy—” He closed his mouth, but no more need be spoken.
Her people were the enemy to this Norman who had gained much favor under the rule of King Edward before the brief rule of King Harold. If this day she suffered a keener loss, severing her every tie with those of his race—no Norman husband, no half-Norman son—an enemy he would, indeed, be to her.
He cleared his throat. “Should the duke grant permission for the retrieval of fallen Saxons, your husband’s men will search for Wulf.”
My men, she silently corrected. Roger slain, those whose voices she now recognized at her back belonged to her as ever they should have.
Isa clung to that which, in this moment, seemed the only sanity in her world. It offered little distraction against fear for her son, but much distraction for what the vile Norman on the hill had tried to do to her—and failed. Because she was of Wulfrith. Because she had spilled his blood.
“It is good we are in agreement,” Baron Pendery said. “Come.”
“But my son—”
He yanked her around to face men who, unlike his own, were not unmoving. All six were upon the Norman at their center whose hair did not fit a face evidencing he was of an age near twenty and five.
Though ferocious in defense of his person, deftly swinging his sword, shouting, and snarling as he pushed back one Saxon after another, his chance of triumphing against so many was more impossible than those silvered strands.
“Stand down, Saxons!” the baron shouted.
As if deafened by hatred for one of those who had defeated their countrymen upon Senlac, they continued to strike at the Norman.
They played a game, Isa thought as she was pulled toward them. Her men being too versed in sword skill not to quickly end the man’s life, they were the cruel predator to cornered prey.
“I say stand down!” Pendery bellowed.
They obeyed, but only after Jaxon—the one most esteemed by her departed sire—dropped the warrior to his knees then his face.
Isa gasped and wrenched backward, forcing Pendery to halt to keep hold of her. She stared at the one just visible beyond the legs of those who had ceased toying with their prey, he who had named himself…
What was it? No sooner did that which spoke of his hair slip in than she cast it out. Were he dead, it was one less Norman to beat back across the sea. Of course, were all like he who had given her his dagger…
Cease! she silently commanded. They are all like the one you did not allow to take from you what is owed your husband only. And now owed no man ever again.
“I commanded you not to harm him,” the baron thundered, and tried to draw her forward again.
As she resisted, the long-haired, long-bearded Jaxon shouldered past men he had trained. “He would not yield,” he said, halting before Pendery, “and so I did as commanded by my Norman lord, Roger Fortier. I defended his lady and avenged the ill done her—the same as required of you, her protector.”
Isa shuddered at the crimson spray across Jaxon’s beard and chest and the streak along his blade that would only bother him for it not being of greater quantity. Just as her husband had fallen at Stamford Bridge, so had the housecarle’s only son. If Jaxon could not spill Norwegian blood, Norman would suffice.
“To ensure no further harm befalls my lady, she must be returned to Trionne,” he said.
“I cannot go back whilst Wulf remains missing and Aelfled yet searches for him,” Isa protested. “Unless… Have you seen her, Jaxon? Did she find my son?”
“I know not,” he reverted to their language, eschewing her Norman husband’s that had been forced on her household when she wed. “We have seen neither her nor Wulf and the village boys, but it is possible they have returned to Trionne.”
She stepped forward, and Pendery released her.
“Or they are upon Senlac, Jaxon. I must—”
“My men and I will search for him, my lady.”
The baron cleared his throat, and Wulfen’s senior housecarle swallowed his Saxon pride and said, “Providing Baron Pendery agrees, and I do not doubt he shall since your boy was also under his protection.”
She had always respected Jaxon’s skill as a warrior but never cared for one who looked low on the fairer sex, voicing disapproval of his lord instructing his daughter at arms. But in this moment, she could embrace the man who provided the only way around Pendery whose warriors were of sufficient number that more Saxon lives could be lost were Isa’s men not permitted to aid her.
Unfortunately, she would have to make her own way around the baron. But though she detested what that required of her, all the more believable it would be since she had never felt nearer the weak woman over whom he must withdraw his watch.
“I thank you, Jaxon. Pray, go for me. I am so very tired.”
“Of course, my lady.” He looked around. “Vitalis!”
She followed his gaze to the warrior half his age standing this side of the silver-haired Norman, noted as he strode forward the other four housecarles closed the gap the same as done with Jaxon. As if…
What? she demanded of a mind more fatigued than thought. As if to hide from Baron Pendery one of his own slain in his presence?
Vitalis stepped before her. “My lady.”
She looked up at the big man whose long auburn hair was secured back off his brow. He should not be here, but as he had sustained an injury weeks before her husband departed for Stamford Bridge and not recovered sufficiently to accompany his lord, he had joined Jaxon in escorting her and her son south.
“You shall ride with me to Trionne,” he said.
She swept her gaze around the wood. The only horse present was the one upon which the ill-fated Norman and she had entered Andredeswald.
“Our mounts are near and guarded,” Vitalis said, “hidden well back from the wood’s edge where we spied upon the battlefield and saw the Norman take you into the trees. We feared he meant to…”
He and the others had seen enough to know they were as wrong as she about the man of silvered black hair. And yet he was dead. Because that warrior had forced Jaxon to it? Or from her state did her men believe her savior responsible for what another had done beyond the blow to the jaw required to gain her cooperation?
Likely the latter. Feeling sorrow not due an invader no matter his noble behavior, she said loud so the baron heard, “Take me to Trionne. I shall
sleep away these hours until my boy is returned alive and well.”
Vitalis gripped her elbow, and as he led her toward the baron’s men, she heard Jaxon tell Pendery he would take the rest of his Saxon warriors to the battlefield and search for Fortier’s heir.
The baron murmured agreement, instructed him to send word if he discovered the fate of his own sons, then followed his ward and her man.
“The dagger, Vitalis,” Isa whispered when she saw where it had landed after being knocked from her hand. “Gain it for me when I stumble.”
As instructed, he swept it up—along with her as he was not meant to do.
“Vitalis,” she hissed as he settled her against his chest.
“More believable, my lady,” he said, but she knew it went beyond that. He who should never have loved her had loved her too long and taken this opportunity to draw exceedingly close. Hating how much he hurt over feelings for her and fearing this would encourage him, she said, “Set me down.”
“Nay, you will have to be angry with me. Now take the dagger.”
She looked from his bearded jaw to the hand above the arm cradling her back and shoulder, noted how fine a weapon it was. A sapphire was set in the cross guard, and beneath that three letters inscribed in steel the better to ensure the dagger could be recovered were it parted from its owner.
Recalling when the warrior had given his word alongside his name, she shivered. He had been called Guarin D’Argent. Because of her, ever he would be parted from this keen weapon.
She swallowed hard, took it, and slid it in the larger of two empty scabbards.
“Why?” Vitalis asked, surely the same she asked of herself.
“I know he must have killed many of our people, but he only sought to deliver me from a fellow Norman who…” He had not, she assured herself. “…would have violated me. He wished me to return home to my boy.” Her voice caught, and with pleading she said, “Tell me he did not wish in vain. Tell me the bloody duke will take neither my son nor my home.”
