by Nicole Locke
Reynold had also dismounted, but stayed in the front. Arms crossed, he talked to the mercenaries who flanked him. Ignoring him, she turned to concentrate on the carts and their cargo. For now she wanted to ensure Vernon and Helewise travelled well. To change Grace’s linens, to feed Gabriel. She didn’t like that the carts travelled close to the back.
Baldr grabbed her arm. ‘We ride next.’
‘I need to see the child,’ she said.
‘Make no acknowledgement with the carts.’
‘But the boy—’ His expression and hold tightened. She yanked back. ‘We need to talk on how you handle me.’
He loosened his grip, but not enough to free her. ‘I’m not used to your kind of female.’
‘Any female you need to stop hurting, not just me.’
Baldr’s pale face flushed with colour.
Her ire at him eased. Maybe he didn’t know how large or intimidating he was. ‘The passengers haven’t relieved themselves. They’ll need help, please.’
‘Let her go.’
An even, controlled voice behind them. When Baldr released her, she turned. Reynold stood as still as the trees behind him.
‘I want to help with Grace,’ she said. ‘They can’t stay in the carts like this.’
‘Baldr’s correct. Ignore the carts, there are spies.’
‘We’re out of the city, and near the woods. They can’t stay in there.’
‘They need to.’
A sound of carts rolling. Aliette whirled around. ‘They’re leaving!’
Baldr stepped in her way. She stepped around him.
‘Thief. Stay put.’
‘Like the other women?’ She turned to Reynold. He was staring at Baldr, having some silent conversation that she didn’t care to see. ‘Where are they going?’
‘We travel south via horses. The carts will now travel via boat.’
‘South as well?’
A gleam in his eyes at her question. ‘South and they will arrive at our same destination. We don’t have far to go. Another day, maybe less.’
‘And they’re safe on the boat?’
Reynold looked to Baldr again, who stepped closer. ‘The boat is secure.’
Reynold at her front. Baldr at her back. This wasn’t right. Being separated from her family made her apprehensive. Being kept from Grace frightened her.
Everything in her wanted to run towards the carts, but she knew this wasn’t wholly about her. Eude had proved that point. ‘Is that where the other mercenaries are? On that boat?’
Reynold held that eerie stillness. ‘My men are at the dock. It’s how we secured the boat for the cargo.’
He wasn’t answering her questions and there was time to run. ‘Are they safe?’ she said.
‘Do you think I would risk them?’
There was a risk. She watched the carts slowly travelling towards the river. Two men attached to the carts. One man, Guarin, riding alone. Only three mercenaries and much too precious a cargo.
Unable to stand by, she took steps towards them, willing them to know she was just there. They couldn’t travel faster than she could run. Baldr moved to stop her again. ‘Don’t you dare,’ she said.
‘That’s enough,’ Reynold said. ‘We must go.’
‘Can we talk privately?’
‘No.’
Did she trust Reynold wouldn’t put her family, put his daughter, in danger? ‘Tell me truly.’
‘They are as safe as we can make them,’ Reynold said, walking away.
That wasn’t an answer either.
* * *
Riding with Baldr was nothing like riding with Louve. He was larger, thicker, and there wasn’t enough space on the saddle for them both. At her suggestion that she ride in the front of him, like the other women, in a place that presumably would be more comfortable and have more room, Baldr looked alarmed.
She was left with clutching the back of his tunic with each sway of the horse and fearing she’d fall off any moment. ‘I could ride with another.’
‘He wanted you to ride with me.’
To give the illusion to spies that she was a whore. But if she was a whore, Baldr acted as though he was raised in a nunnery. His back was stiff, his arm rigid on the reins. His head kept craning forward as if looking for trouble from Reynold.
There would be trouble, but it would come from her. She’d agreed to travel, but for her family’s sake. Her family who weren’t near, but on some boat in the middle of the Seine.
The fact she could see the boat through the trees was no comfort. It was travelling slower than them and with each breath was becoming smaller and smaller.
Feeling the panic to be near them, needing a distraction from her all-too-frequent thoughts of Reynold, she asked, ‘Tell me of yourself, Baldr.’
He jerked. She clenched his tunic, pinching his skin underneath, and he jerked again. By luck she stayed in her seat.
‘You don’t want to know,’ he said.
They wouldn’t discuss his past then, though she was curious. He spoke French, but wasn’t. What lands did he come from, why was he here now? ‘Do you like being a...mercenary?’
Baldr shifted again, his great weight shifting her as well. She’d plunge to her death trying to talk. That left watching the trees around them and the other men who were quiet. She guessed Reynold still rode at the front, but Baldr’s great width blocked any view forward. She’d known only Paris her entire life. This area was rural, quiet, beautiful, and her family were missing it. Reynold travelled as if he knew where he was going. Did he prefer it here as she was beginning to? Exhaling roughly, catching herself, she needed to not think of Reynold. She needed to remember he wanted—
‘I hate being a mercenary,’ Baldr said.
Aliette straightened. Finally, someone would talk directly to her. Louve with his riddles wasn’t helping her understand Darkness. Except Baldr didn’t elaborate, didn’t say anything more.
‘Is it the guarding, the waiting in the dark or...?’ She couldn’t say the word killing.
Baldr made a funny sound. ‘I have my family. I—’
The pounding of hooves stopped their conversation. Reynold had pulled his horse around and to their side. She never saw him coming. ‘You’ll ride with me.’
Aliette ignored the rough exhale from Baldr as if he was relieved. She also ignored the other men as Reynold dismounted and came to her side.
She could not ignore the way her heart hammered as his hands wrapped around her waist and he eased her down. Hands that felt familiar, the very scent of him almost as overwhelming as his sudden touch.
She was upon his horse behind him within an instant. There was more space in his saddle, but he urged the horse at a faster pace, which forced her to grip his clothing as tightly as she had Baldr’s. She concentrated on that as he wove the horse through his men and the trees until he rode closer to the front again. Closer, but still a bit apart. Enough to talk, though he had told her he didn’t want to.
‘What am I doing here?’
‘You were going to fall off that horse. Baldr had trouble keeping you within my men’s protection.’
Is that why she rode where she did and not because he kept her far away from him? ‘Then let me ride with someone else.’
‘What were you talking about with him?’ he said.
Her first instinct was to tell him nothing. But she wanted to avoid thinking of Reynold and that included talking to Reynold for distraction. ‘He hates being a mercenary and he can barely ride. Was he meant for this occupation?’
Reynold grunted. ‘No. He dislikes every bit of it, except for the food.’
‘Then why are you forcing him to do it? Why are you keeping him away from family?’
Reynold shifted in his seat. ‘His family was starving and in debt. I gave his mother a year’s w
ages before I left the house.’
‘So he’s a servant.’
Reynold turned his head. She saw the myriad of grey in his eyes. The sharp criticism before he spouted his words. ‘Is that what you want to think? You took in Vernon, Helewise and Gabriel. Why can’t I take in family as well?’
Family. He had his own, but where were they? Reynold never seemed as though he needed anyone. Except when he held Grace. She ignored the image of him cradling his daughter. ‘How did you meet him?’
‘I was travelling through his village. My men at the time are not the same as you know today. They were cruder and damaged some fields. Baldr’s father was unwise and confronted me. His mother offered us food. I accepted and she ladled every drop of her dinner into bowls she borrowed from the other villagers. It was...good. So I took him in.’
‘Why?’
He shrugged. The brush of his shoulders, the pull of his wool tunic she clenched in her palm. She released her grip. Eased her hand more flatly again his sides. He breathed deeply as if he could feel that small touch.
‘That soup couldn’t have been that good to take in her son. You took him in because they needed you to. To save their pride you paid wages in advance. Did he know how to hold a sword?’
‘His father was a tenant farmer, his father before that tilled the land as well.’
It would explain Baldr’s brute strength. He was more used to shoving a plough through a rocky field than escorting a woman.
‘What were the terms?’
Reynold huffed. ‘It doesn’t matter. You heard him. He hates being a mercenary and I am a cruel master keeping him from his family.’
She deserved his ire. ‘Is this how it will be between us?’
‘There is no us.’
Cruel words with a bite to them, but it was safer to talk of Baldr then them. ‘Tell me.’
‘I offered it to both her elder sons. A pouch of silver for one year. Baldr was not quite the youngest in the family, there was a babe, but he was least useful to farming, so he volunteered. The year is not up yet.’
Cruel words, generous deeds, and another example of Darkness’s contradictions. But why did he do what he did?
‘Tell me something of your past now, Aliette,’ he said.
Why ask. He didn’t care. ‘You’ve heard enough of mine. Why don’t you tell me yours?’
Silence as she expected from him.
‘That’s what I thought,’ she repeated his words. Though there was a part of her that did trust him. She’d offered herself to him, she slept soundly though he should be an enemy, but she couldn’t fully...freely...trust someone who hid themselves so completely.
* * *
They were followed. Reynold never saw them. His scouts never heard them, but everything in him felt the eyes upon him.
They were more inland from the Seine now and the boat was far in the distance. He knew by nightfall the boat would catch up and dock on the other bank. Then they’d start the journey again tomorrow. But with every warning in him clamouring, he thought to abandon camp earlier than planned. This night wasn’t to be trusted.
Signalling for rest, he dismounted and helped Aliette to her feet. When he could bear to hold her hand no longer, he walked into the woods to wait, to watch, to listen. His men, Louve, would know what to do.
For now, he needed to focus on who followed them, what danger surrounded them. Where they could escape, but in the quiet of the trees with the commotion of his men behind him, he could only think of her.
Her in the dark tunnel with wide blue eyes. Her conversing with Louve, with Baldr. The seething jealousy he felt as she kept gripping the gentle giant. The way she felt against his back. Her fascination with the countryside. He watched and was aware of everything she did. He wondered how she’d react when they arrived in Troyes. When she saw the bed he’d had custom-made to resemble a tree, like in the story of The Odyssey. Why had he—?
‘The boat is turning the last curve. You can see it now if you want,’ Louve said.
‘I thought you’d be too busy to irritate me.’
‘I thought this time around I’d let the others set their own camp. They know where you want your tent by now.’
‘And the horses?’ Reynold asked.
‘You don’t care about the horses,’ Louve said.
‘Do the men need anything?’
‘You don’t care about them either.’ Louve crossed his arms. ‘We both know who you want to talk about. And I know you want to know what was said between us. How it felt to ride—’
‘No more.’
‘You all didn’t talk much.’
‘We talked of Baldr. It was enough.’
Louve laughed. ‘Was that her choice or yours?’
Reynold ignored him.
‘And there’s the truth in your mutinous silence.’ Louve’s mirth died. ‘She shared her past with me.’
And he was all kinds of fool. Reynold would take the bait this time. ‘Tell me.’
‘You should tell her the truth. She’s worthy of it.’
‘I can’t. If the worst scenario occurs, then there might be protection for her.’
‘Or for your daughter,’ Louve replied.
Reynold reached for his dagger before he realised what he was doing. Louve caught it and raised his brow. Willing himself to calm, Reynold said, ‘I won’t sacrifice either one of them.’
‘No, it’s apparent to all despite your distance you’d sacrifice yourself first.’
He never sacrificed himself. That was the point of living the way he did and hiring the men he surrounded himself with. All of them would make the sacrifice.
But the mere image of Louve protecting Grace or Aliette flooded him with protective jealousy. ‘Says the man who talks of loyalty as if the rest of us have any of it,’ he scoffed.
Louve looked to the Seine, then back to him. ‘I think you’re learning it despite yourself.’
‘Tell your story and be done with it, then send Baldr here as well.’
* * *
The sparse moonlight didn’t allow her to see across the water and, despite the freezing weather, no fire behind her on the other side lit the way. If Aliette hadn’t seen the boat dock when the sunlight was dying, she wouldn’t know where to look.
The crunch of the icy ground behind her told her someone approached. The way her body felt told her who.
‘You need to get some sleep.’
Her body was stiff from standing, from staring out across the water, but it didn’t demand rest. ‘I’m not tired.’
‘It’s cold.’
She was past feeling the weather and still there was no movement from the other side. At twilight, she’d seen a few people milling around the boat, but she couldn’t decipher whom. All she knew was that her family and Grace were on the other side and she was too far away.
Why this mattered she couldn’t rightly say. But it was made clear she didn’t have a say...in any of it. Kidnapped, kept captive to care for a child who wasn’t with her. Her family kidnapped and kept away as well.
No matter her loose hair and clothing, she wasn’t like the other women and Reynold had made it clear he had no purpose for her.
‘It doesn’t matter if it’s cold or that I stand here, does it?’ she said. ‘I have no purpose being with you and the men. I thought you wanted me for Grace. Who is taking care of her?’
‘My men.’
‘Your men! Didn’t you rage at me when they held her in the courtyard? And my family isn’t your responsibility.’
‘Your family is part of you and you are essential for my purposes. Are we truly back to arguing this? Grace is important to me. Gabriel...’
He looked away, then back to her, his almost-open expression closing again. Waiting for her reaction? She’d give him one.
‘Gabriel, wh
at?’ she said. ‘What do you want to say about him!’
‘Why was Gabriel’s punishment the loss of his ear?’
Aliette stilled. ‘This is the conversation you want to have with me? And how do you know it was a punishment?’
His jaw tightened.
‘They told you, didn’t they? All those conversations I’ve had with your men and I thought it was their own questions, but it was you ordering them to ask.’
‘I didn’t order them to.’
‘But you demanded the answers. You are a coward.’ She relished his flinch. ‘These questions could have been asked before you took them from their home!’
‘That wasn’t their home. They have no home.’
‘Finally the truth! Will you acknowledge your fortress in Paris wasn’t their home and certainly not that boat they are trapped on?’ At his closed expression, she added, ‘Are they even on that boat?’
‘They are protected.’
‘But we’re not.’ The boat was isolated, covered on three sides by water, protected by mercenaries via land. While she travelled with Reynold and could be surrounded by murderers. ‘Why are you talking to me?’
‘Why did you think I’d lea—’ He jerked his gaze away, exhaled roughly, before continuing, ‘We’re in the middle of the forest. There is no one else about.’
Aliette’s heart beat unevenly. She didn’t know what to say. Too many contradictions with this man, and not enough truth.
‘Who are you?’ she said.
‘I think you know, but are refusing to see. I...hope you are refusing to see.’ He continued to look across the water. His expression a pained reflection. ‘I am curious about them. Will you tell me?’
She wanted to tell him to leave, but knew he wouldn’t, and she wouldn’t leave, not when she could watch over her family from here. Her family that he wanted to know of.
Of them, but not of her. Watch his deeds, but even his deeds to her weren’t kind. He was just like all the rest. It was how her life had been, why it hurt more than any other she didn’t want to examine.
But if something happened to her, would their stories endear them to him? ‘Gabriel doesn’t know, or maybe can’t comprehend why they harmed his ear,’ she said. ‘From what he did tell me, it was the first time he was caught. It should have been a flogging or a branding. I suspect, since his parents were hung, there was some...rage that spilled over onto their son.’