Defending His Lady (Norfolk Knights Book 4)

by Saskia Knight

  There was no way he could fight his way out of this, not without endangering his brother and the girl. He’d entered the enemy camp and was surrounded. All he could do was submit and then leave at the first opportunity, just as he’d planned to do. Except he’d be married—to the wrong woman.

  Chapter 5

  Kezia’s head spun as laughter and music erupted and she found herself at the center of everyone’s attention—the one thing she’d been careful to avoid. Women leaped forward to prepare her for the wedding, their hands reaching out for her, poking and prodding her, pulling away her clothing and inspecting her figure. She tried to fight them off, snatching her rough robes from their hands but as soon as she’d succeeded with one, more had taken their place and assaulted her from behind.

  She felt like an animal caught in a trap and thrashed as wildly as one until her hands were held tightly behind her and she had no choice but to stand still and let the women have their way. She tried to keep her breathing even—she needed to keep her wits about her if she was going to escape from this hellish place.

  Events had turned so quickly that she could hardly believe what was happening. As she tried to ignore the pinches and prods of the women, her thoughts were stuck on that one word—marriage. She understood the word, knew what it meant, but had never considered it in connection with herself. The Romani people had their own ceremonies, which bore no resemblance to such as this.

  She raised her eyes and saw Rufus, who looked as stunned as she was before the women pulled her toward a corner of the hall where a dress had been conjured up from somewhere, along with other fripperies, the likes of which she’d never worn.

  Marriage? To this man? He might not be as hateful as all the rest, but there was nothing she knew about marriage to recommend it. Still, it mattered not. She’d have to do as she was told, and then she’d escape, back to the freedom of the forest.

  “Ow!” she cried, holding onto her hood which the women were determined to pull off her. She didn’t succeed.

  “Look at the strange color of her hair!” exclaimed one woman. Kezia clamped both hands firmly over her head. The cook had emerged and shot her a look of sympathy, before shaking his head and disappearing to the kitchen. “Here, give her this!” One woman pulled off a headdress and tossed it to another who clamped it low on Kezia.

  “It is too big!” the woman declared.

  Kezia glared at them from under the headdress but made no move to take it off. It, and the veil, hid her more than her old garb.

  Kezia was thankful they stripped her only of her outer robes before pulling on the showy tunic. It, too, was too large. She looked like a child at play.

  “And this!” A mummer tossed some cheap, gaudy material at her, and the women wrapped it around her shoulders.

  “Girl!” Everyone looked up, and the way was cleared for her to proceed to the priest, who was wiping his greasy mouth on his habit before he stumbled forward. His bleary eyes looked as startled as the rest of them. Now free from the women’s hands, she pulled off the gaudy thread and tossed it to the floor, leaving the headdress. She lifted her chin and walked forward.

  The king laughed and looked at Rufus. “It appears your affianced is not so shy as yourself.”

  “It can hardly be a marriage without banns,” remonstrated Savari.

  “It can be what I say it is. Who is to gainsay me, hey? You? I am the highest authority in the land. There is no one above me, but God. And he also wants this union, does he not, priest?”

  The priest looked too well fed to say that God had different plans for either of them and so nodded in agreement, keeping his shifty eyes away from Rufus’s gaze.

  Kezia had never been so frightened: not on a hunt with her people in the forest, nor on the long journey to the castle to find Ethelinda. She was not afraid of known enemies, not afraid of things she could anticipate and be one step ahead of, but this? She looked around at the drunken crowd which jostled against her and Rufus. One of the jongleurs had produced his monkey and dressed it up as a bride, parodying her. People were screaming with laughter.

  No, this was beyond her experience. But she knew there was no way out. In which case she would be damned if she allowed them to intimidate her. She’d kept her face low since working here, but now she tilted up her chin with determination and eyed not the king, not the priest, not the man who was Rufus’s brother, but Rufus himself. He was the only person present who was undergoing the same humiliation as her, being wedded to someone unwillingly. And what she saw there, in his eyes, she clung to.

  Despite the chaos, Rufus stood strong, apparently also resigned to the inevitable. Or, if not resigned, he had some plan to get through this debacle. Someone tried to push her and she shot him a black look, itching to retaliate with her fists, as she’d have done with her people. Instead, she turned to Rufus who extended his hand to her, his eyes never leaving hers.

  She hesitated before raising her hand toward him. He took it and enveloped her small hand in his. For a brief moment, the din of the chaos around them receded, and all she was aware of was the strength of his hand around hers, supporting her. She felt that strength travel down her arm, igniting her heart, and sending ripples of heat and power throughout her body. He nodded, as if acknowledging her reaction, and she stepped forward to him. He was like a rock amidst a treacherous sea, and she was a survivor. Ethelinda had always called her that. She held on to his hand.

  He turned from her, his face now shuttered and frozen as he looked at the king. But the king was looking at her, approvingly. Rufus’s hand tightened around hers. The king stepped forward and looked down at Kezia, who refused to turn away from any of them now.

  “Why, she has prettier eyes now she’s up close.”

  She could have sworn she heard Rufus growl. “Let’s get this foolishness over with.” Rufus turned to the priest. “Priest!”

  The king held her gaze for a second longer and then stepped away, as if making a decision. “She’s all yours.”

  The priest cleared his throat. “Do you, Lord Winterton declare to take this… this woman—”

  “You need her name, priest!” interrupted the king. “What is your name, girl?”

  “Kezia, sire, your majesty,” she stuttered, unable to think what to call the king whom she’d never before had to call anything in her life.

  The king indicated the priest should continue. “Do you, Lord Winterton declare to take this Kezia”—he coughed—“to be your wife?”

  “I do,” ground out Rufus.

  “And you, Kezia…” The priest hesitated, with a questioning eyebrow, waiting to hear her other name, but Kezia had no idea what that was, so made no response. She’d wished she’d been quick enough to invent a name. But the fact that Kezia wasn’t the name she was born with, but the name she’d been given by the Romani, probably meant that it was of no import. “Do you take Lord Winterton to be your husband?”

  “Of course she does!” shouted someone. “Why wouldn’t she? A nobody like her marrying a lord?”

  The man had a point. She looked up. “I do.”

  And then, it appeared, the ceremony was over. Later, Kezia realized she must have been sustained by Rufus’s hand because she had little memory of anything else. With the handfasting ceremony concluded, they were escorted back to a table, set apart from the others. It seems the king thought it more amusing to make an exhibition out of them.

  It was the first time that Kezia had sat at a table. Her new husband, Rufus, sat to one side of her while to her other sat his brother, Savari. She focused on the food before her, and felt ill—her stomach was tied in knots, and the food was cold and greasy.

  “So, it is done,” said Savari, bitterly. Kezia looked at him, wondering if he was talking to her.

  “Aye,” replied Rufus. She looked at her trencher, whose contents remained untouched. “It is done.” It seemed she was invisible.

  “And our family’s prospect of peace and prosperity lies in ruins.” She caugh
t a swift glance of contempt from Savari aimed at her. She bridled. This was hardly her fault.

  “We fight for it, that’s what we do, and what we should have done all along.” Rufus’s words were barely audible to her. Savari narrowed his gaze on Rufus.

  “What?”

  Rufus looked up. “You heard. It is our only recourse.”

  “But diplomacy—”

  “I’ve seen what your diplomacy does for us, brother—the opposite of that which we seek. No, there’s only one recourse. We fight for our lands.”

  “But the marriage…” Savari shrugged, narrowed his eyes and took a sip of his wine as his gaze ranged across the people, to make sure they weren’t being overheard. “It will be annulled as soon as possible.”

  Rufus looked at him scathingly. “On what grounds? Impotence? Will you have me attempt to be not aroused by beauties sent to test me? Hey?”

  Savari raised a quizzical eye. “I am not so stupid as to do that.”

  “Then on what grounds? That we are too closely related? I think not.”

  Savari ground his teeth, and Kezia waited for his reply. But when it came, it was not what she’d expected. “Desertion then. The girl will have to go. One way or another.”

  Kezia balled her fist and leaned forward and looked first at Savari, then at Rufus and then back to Savari. “The girl has a name, sir. And I will go, I can guarantee that. With, or without your permission. This marriage is just as hateful to me as it is to you and your family.”

  “I’m sorry, Kezia,” said Rufus. She looked at him in surprise that, not only had he remembered her name, but he’d also apologized to her. She couldn’t remember the last time anyone had done that. And not only that but he’d addressed her directly, his eyes steady on hers, as if she mattered. It was not the custom of nobility to acknowledge peasants as if they were of any importance. “But you will benefit from our plans. It will enable you to be released from this marriage and for you to continue working here.”

  “That is not my plan, sir!”

  Savari rolled his eyes and tried to interrupt, but Rufus held up his hand to stop him. “Then, tell us, what are your plans?”

  She looked from one to the other of them, wondering how much she could trust them. “To leave. To return to my people,” she added.

  “And where are your people?”

  “In the forest. Two days’ walk from here.”

  Rufus nodded and turned back to Savari. “As soon as the weather permits, we leave also.”

  “I will stay, Rufus, and do what I can for us here.” Savari looked up at the king. “Although only God knows what can be done to remedy our situation now.”

  Rufus drained his cup. “Only God and the king know.”

  “Who thinks they’re one.”

  Alarmed, Kezia looked from one to the other. These men must be mad to be talking like that so close to the king’s men. But no one was listening. The hour was late and, after the excitement of the wedding, many had drifted away, or were sleeping at the table. The king himself had disappeared with Lady Maud.

  “What a day, Rufus,” said Savari, pouring some more wine for them both, ignoring her. “Marriage.”

  “But to the wrong woman.”

  “To a nobody.”

  Kezia flushed and looked straight ahead. She might be a nobody to them, but inside she felt anything but a nobody. No one knew from whence she’d come—not the Romani who’d rescued her so many years ago, and certainly not herself. All evidence had either been taken by the bandits or destroyed—both people and things. Apart from one solitary possession—the ruby brooch—which she kept secreted on her person, close to her heart. But even if she didn’t have the brooch Kezia knew, deep down, she was different from her adopted family. She felt different. Something must have happened in her early life to instill in her a sense of importance, a sense that what she did, who she was, mattered. She was somebody, and one day people would realize that.

  She rose and slipped away without a backward glance. Her pace quickened as she left the hall. Without the frippery which she’d discarded as soon as she could, no one noticed her leave. Kezia’s walk turned into a run and she didn’t stop until she’d found the corner of the castle where she could be alone. A long-forgotten chill room built between the two walls which must have been a privy years before, but now was used for storage. She sat and pulled her knees to her chest to keep warm. Married! Trapped! Tied! The words meant all the same things to her—things which were foreign to her free spirit.

  She gulped mouthfuls of icy air and buried her head in her arms as she tried to quell the rising panic. Calm. She needed to think, to get herself to safety.

  But her first thoughts were of Rufus. She knew he must be a good man because why else would he have risked his future on defending her, a mere nobody? But he was also a hasty man, without thought, because he’d ruined his own plans as a result. But thought was something she could do, and do well. She needed to leave this evil place now and return to her people and she’d use this new husband of hers to return home. He’d be leaving as soon as he could, and she’d make sure she was with him.

  She might be a nobody for now, she thought as she closed her eyes against the pain of her head that hammered from the wine she’d been forced to drink, but she was a nobody who was more accustomed to this world than her new husband. And she would survive—with him at first, and then, once he’d arranged the annulment his brother insisted on, it would be without him.

  Rufus looked out across the battlements to the dark forest—black trees upon a black, starless sky—and knew that at least there would be no freeze that night.

  Water dripped from the castle walls, turning the snow to slush, and the bailey into a quagmire. Someone cursed in the dark as they slipped in the mud. A strip of light momentarily illuminated the bleak scene, as the person re-entered the Hall. The door slammed closed leaving Rufus once more alone with his thoughts.

  His ears pricked at the sound of footsteps ascending the stone steps up to the battlement where he paced. He was instantly alert, but it was Savari, come looking for him.

  “I knew I’d find you up here,” Savari said, passing Rufus a cup filled with the king’s best burgundy. “Even as a boy, you always hated being inside.”

  “I feel like a tethered animal.” Rufus sighed and drank deeply of the wine.

  Savari nodded to the dripping world which surrounded them. “Even the trees weep for you,” he said wryly. “And you know what that means.”

  “Aye. The way is clear for me to leave.”

  “And leave you must. You’ve nothing to be gained staying, not now you’re married, and you risk angering the king further.”

  Rufus frowned. “How so?”

  Savari gave him a wry smile. “Simply by being you, brother. Simply by being you.”

  Rufus grunted. “I can be no other.”

  “And that is why you must leave this night.”

  “Will you come?”

  “No, I cannot.”

  “But it won’t be safe for you here.”

  “Yes, it will. Our family might not be in favor, but the king wouldn’t dare harm me. I am too useful to him.”

  Not for the first time, Rufus wondered what kind of game Savari was playing at court. He opened his mouth to speak, but Savari shook his head.

  “Nay, brother, do not ask about me. It is best you do not know.”

  Rufus gave a soft grunt. “I swear you read people as well as you do books. I pray that you can read the king’s thoughts as easily.”

  “Aye, I can. Fear not, I’ll survive.”

  “Then you’re a better man than me, brother.”

  “Better? I think not. But more able to survive through my tongue and wits alone. You’re right. You should leave immediately, but you must take care. The forest in winter is a formidable foe.”

  “That I can deal with. It is inside the warmth of the castle that life is more dangerous to me.”

  “Then stay out of s
ight until you leave.”

  “I intend to.”

  “And once you are safely returned to Norfolk, you must do whatever is required to have the marriage annulled.”

  “There is nothing to be done on that score unless the wench deserts me. And, if she does, I’ll not be marrying again. I’m made for fighting, not marrying. And I’ll protect our family in the best way I can.” Rufus flexed his hand. “But first, I need to retrieve my sword.”

  Savari pulled aside his cloak and handed Rufus his sword. “Here.”

  Rufus gripped the sword’s hilt—an action as familiar to him as breathing—and slid it into place at his side. He brought his cloak around him once more. “I thank you, brother.”

  Savari passed him a bag, full of food. “It was all I could find without rousing suspicion.”

  Rufus clapped his hand around Savari’s shoulder and they stared out into blank darkness, feeling the weight of the enemy all around them.

  “I know not when we’ll next meet, Savari, but I wish you luck because that appears to be all there is between winning and losing in this accursed world of caprice and dishonor.”

  “Nay, I do not believe that. Be not afeared, Rufus, I can look after myself and intend to do so. I must return now.” He stepped away and for one long moment they held each other’s gaze in the dark, lightened only by the dull silver orb of a heavily shadowed moon. They nodded and with a sweep of his cloak, Savari disappeared into the bowels of the castle, leaving Rufus to watch the clouds scud across the slowly lightening sky. It was time.

  Chapter 6

  Rufus paused at the foot of the stairs and looked around the shadowy bailey. Apart from the servants who he could hear beginning their day’s work in the kitchens and the grunt of pigs from the pen beyond, all was quiet. But, as he moved closer to the stables, he heard something that had him stepping into the shadows while he tried to figure out the source of the sound.

  Muffled voices, followed by a short sharp slap and a thump as something was thrown against the stable wall. Rufus slipped into a side door of the stables and waited until his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness. He comforted his horse who gave a soft whinny of greeting and continued on until he stood in the small open space, where he saw for the second time within so many days a sight which sent a roar of blood soaring through his veins. The roar exploded into his mouth as he leaped forward and dragged off the man who was holding a figure by the throat against the wall. One well-aimed punch at the man’s jaw sent him flying to the floor. As he stood over him, he recognized him for the first time. Sir Gilbert.