Merciless

by Tamara Leigh

  That she had not promised, had only expressed the possibility one day she might. “If you recall, you told you were not in need of forgiveness.” Hoping to end their audience, she added, “Why are you here?”

  He strode forward, and it took all her will not to retreat around the desk. When he halted, near enough she could smell the scent of his hard ride but not so much she had to strain her neck to hold his gaze, she was not as staggered by his effect on her as she might have been had she not already spent many a night with Cyr D’Argent.

  Too often, remembrance of the warrior kept her awake until she forced her thoughts elsewhere—of necessity, having learned only then might he remain outside dreams that were not always of Senlac and blood. Even so, at times he awakened her, his presence in her small dark cell so strong she clasped her hands close lest she reach to him. And find him there.

  Silly, she named herself, but it never stopped her from feeling him.

  “There is something I wish to return to you,” he coaxed her back to daylight and his indisputable presence.

  It took her some moments to arrive and more to translate his words. Dare she hope he wished to return the psalter he had rejected and she had been unable to find? “What would that be?” she prompted.

  He reached to the left side of his belt, but there was only a scabbard there. And it was not the sword he drew from its throat but another thing of good length hidden on the other side of the hilt.

  Isa, she silently bemoaned, you did deliver him unto me.

  Praying she revealed no recognition of that which she had only been told, she fit puzzlement on her brow. “I am unaware of having lost an arrow.” Did she sound as breathless as she felt? She raised her gaze from the black-feathered shaft to green eyes. “Indeed, I did not know I possessed one.”

  His lids narrowed. “The day of my arrival upon Wulfenshire, two of the escort the king provided were captured by rebels, abused and humiliated. The unseen leader known as Dotter had them deliver this with the message its absence from my heart wipes clean a debt.”

  “You think I am that woman?”

  “If I am owed anything, in all of England there are only a handful who might feel indebted—the young woman I aided upon Senlac and the mothers of the boys whose bodies were recovered. It could be any, but most likely it is you…else the mother of the noble boy whose death in your arms has left her with but one son to pass her lands to.”

  Once more, Aelfled rebuked Isa. Fiercely, her lady strove to protect what remained of her family’s holdings—and to keep safe those who did her bidding. However, the thoughtless act of sending an arrow to her Norman neighbor could undo all to which she aspired, leading to the loss of what remained of her lands and more blood-tainted streams and blood-soaked ground fed by Saxon lives.

  “I should take your lack of denial as admission?” Cyr D’Argent said.

  She blinked, wondered how it was possible not to see him for however long she had allowed Isa to put hands around her throat. Were this man capable of becoming one with his surroundings, it ought to require much more effort.

  “You should not.” She sent up a prayer for forgiveness. “Beyond what you tell, I know nothing.”

  A muscle in his jaw jerked. “I believe you do.” He extended the arrow.

  She ignored it. “I believe I do not.”

  Catching up her left hand, he slapped the shaft across her palm, then released her. Though his touch was momentary, it stole her breath.

  “Admit it, deny it, it makes no difference,” he said. “Even were you not at the end of that arrow when it was given unto the king’s men, I am fair certain you know who was, what they do, and when they do it. And this I tell, Aelfled of Senlac—”

  “Not of Senlac!” As if this time being named so horrendous a thing had the weight of a fist behind it, she dropped the arrow and stumbled back against the desk. And once more knew his touch when he gripped her arms…chest brushed hers…breath moved the hair across her eyes…

  Supported more by the warrior than the desk, she looked up. And when she found herself further touched by dark green eyes, trembled.

  Desperate to distract him from what had moved from beneath her skin onto its surface, she said again, “I am not of Senlac.” And hated it was with so little conviction it sounded as if she pleaded for agreement.

  Breath flaring his nostrils, he released her and stepped back. “Until the raiding, burning, and killing across Wulfenshire ends, else you prove you have no hand in such, that you are to me.”

  She longed to curl her fingers over the desk’s edge behind to ensure her softening knees did not betray her, but she resisted lest she reveal exactly how much he affected her.

  “I will end the rebellion, Aelfled of Senlac. Whilst I lord Stern and Balduc, there will be peace amongst its Saxons and Normans.”

  “Peace!” That word and further offense over being named of that ungodly place, firmed her knees and raised her chin. “My people lived well enough in peace before your William set to murdering us and stealing our lands to award them to his fellow bloodletters, Merciless Cyr.”

  That last was retaliation for what he named her. But though there was little satisfaction in causing his eyes to darken, she told herself she did not care what she wrought since it was blood-soaked truth she spoke.

  “They will live in peace again,” he growled.

  Ignoring the voice warning it was reckless to further aggress—that she acted the same as her lady who sent the arrow—she stepped into the space from which he had retreated. “Even do you give my people cause to forgive you for what happened at…”

  She detested the name, and all the more now he sought to identify her by way of that meadow. Determining to call the place of her people’s defeat that by which most referred to it now, she said, “After what happened at Hastings and what has happened since, I do not know it possible to live in peace with your kind.”

  He lowered his face nearer hers. She caught her breath, not because now he aggressed on her, but for how softly—as if to soothe a wounded animal—he said, “England can never be as it was. And if you are honest enough to open your eyes to the country lost, you will see your people did not live in peace. Oui, there is much suffering now, but there was suffering then, Aelfled.”

  Only Aelfled, not of that place. And how different her name sounded come off his lips than off any other’s. It was more than the deep of his voice…more than his accent…

  Upon her shoulder he set a hand so large and warm her knees loosened once more. “When the rebels who darken these lands become reconciled to Hastings—”

  “W-what of Campagnon who darkens these lands more than those who but give answer to what he does to their people?” she retorted. “He may no longer be baron, but he shall continue to plague us.”

  “You know I have no care for him. As told your abbess, as soon as I have cause to send him from this shire, I shall.”

  “Cause being beatings, even deaths, of more Saxons? Is that what it will take?”

  He sighed heavily. “I am bound by the wishes of our king. And those wishes—rather, orders—include ending the rebellion.”

  Of which he believed her a part. And rightly so, though not as thought. She looked down, and seeing the arrow she had dropped, sidestepped and bent. “I do not raid, burn, or kill, nor lead those who do.” She straightened and offered the arrow. “This is not mine.”

  He studied her face, looked to that which she reached to him, then cupped his hand around hers on the shaft. “What do you when you go to the wood, Aelfled? Certes, this day you dug in the dirt, but for what other purpose were you there?”

  His touch again, of greater alarm than what he asked of her—until she followed his gaze and saw what he saw. And remembered when last she was with him and her hands had been as fouled. As had his, perhaps more so.

  “Not to hide the bodies of slain children,” she whispered and felt his hand tighten. “To dig for mushrooms…gather nuts…pick berries.” It
was true. He need not know she had also left a message beseeching Isa to rethink the full moon, nor that Aelfled would go to the wood on the morrow to leave another message, this one alerting her lady Cyr D’Argent had come.

  “I am not the one you seek,” she said.

  “As Bernia would also have me believe.”

  Aelfled snatched her hand free. “You have met my grandmother?”

  “This day in the village of Ravven. When she came to my notice, so much she resembled you I guessed she must be kin and determined I would speak with her.”

  She swallowed loudly. “Surely she did not reveal I reside here?” Her nearly sightless grandmother would not knowingly endanger her. But if she had trusted him…

  As I may have given her cause to, Aelfled recalled all she had told of their encounter and how Bernia had praised the Lord for placing in her path the only godly Norman amongst the thousands.

  “She did not tell I would find you at Lillefarne,” he said. “A guess brought me here when she bemoaned that as you weary of being led where you do not wish to go, you aspire to don a habit.”

  Wily Bernia, Aelfled silently rebuked, more than Isa you led him to me.

  He put his head to the side. “Is her fear founded? If so, for what would you spend your life within these walls?”

  To escape what Isa requires of me, she could not say. Were I a Bride of Christ, only then might my lady absolve me of a debt I can never repay.

  Though Isa was angry with God for not keeping her son safe and surely tested His patience over her involvement with the rebels, Aelfled was fairly certain she yet believed. And perhaps more so than Aelfled whose faith was so frayed, the abbess did not believe her charge was ready to make her profession.

  “Mayhap you but seek the protection and cover afforded by the Church, Aelfled of Senlac,” D’Argent submitted.

  Setting her teeth against further protest over what he once more named her, she accepted that on the protection side of it he was right—she wished relief from the debt owed Isa—but not the other side that alluded to gaining cover to coordinate the rebels.

  She cleared her throat. “What Bernia told is true. I am not the one you seek.”

  “I pray it is so,” he said with what sounded sincerity.

  Here a means of turning the conversation. “Do you really pray, Cyr D’Argent?”

  “More than ever, as advised when you gave me your psalter—for prayer and guidance you said, of which you believed I was in great need.”

  “But you cast my gift aside.”

  “Wrongly so.”

  “Then after you brought the other boys to the wood, did you…?”

  His sorrowful smile made her ache. “I did, and I have carried it since and every day looked upon its stained cover and read and prayed its words and wondered if you miss them. Do you?”

  She did, though the Lord gave her little reason to feel so bereft.

  “I think you must,” he said, “that now you are in greater need than I.”

  Because he did not believe what she and her grandmother told?

  “Thus, when next we meet, I shall return it to you.”

  “Next?”

  “And the arrow…” He glanced at where she clasped it against her abdomen, its feathered shaft angling up from her hip, its point center of her chest. “It shall remain absent not only from my heart but those of my men. Are we of an understanding?”

  The thought of it piercing him nearly made her shudder. “As told, it is not for me to understand.” She thrust the arrow forward. “As also told, this is not mine.”

  He took it. “Then I shall have to increase my efforts to discover its owner.”

  Heart convulsing, she held his gaze.

  He turned and tossed over his shoulder, “I give warning. You will fare well to stay out of the wood, little Saxon.”

  As would he and his men, especially come the night of the full moon when the rebels moved again, making no allowances for Normans they happened upon, overwhelming those who sought to turn them from their purpose. And this time it could be the warrior who had been her savior upon Senlac.

  “As you would fare well to gather in that which can easily be taken from you, Baron of Balduc,” she heard what seemed another’s warning. But it was she who voiced it before she could think better of it.

  Slowly, he came around. “I thank you for the warning.” He bowed low, straightened. “I shall heed it, as I pray you heed mine.”

  He opened the door, wished Rixende a good day, and went from sight.

  “Lord,” Aelfled breathed, “what have I done?”

  It is but hay, she told herself, not that which keeps my people from starving. But she fooled herself. Hay was of great import, providing winter fodder for animals who supplied fresh meat, breeding stock and, occasionally, surplus to be sold.

  But now it will be different, she countered. Just as Theriot D’Argent did not take from the Saxons of Stern any more than they could give when his crops were lost, neither will his brother. And no more will Campagnon be allowed to take from the people of Balduc.

  But what of Dotter? It was not just hay and wheat to her. It was vengeance. And that she was not done with.

  “He is gone, Aelfled.”

  She looked to the woman in the doorway. “I thank you, Rixende.”

  “Are you well?”

  “I am but tired. I think I shall seek my rest.”

  Minutes later, Aelfled knelt in her small cell and reached beneath the cot upon which she spent many a Senlac-haunted night. She drew forth the bundle, unfolded the wool cloth, and looked from the intercepted missive informing Campagnon of Cyr D’Argent’s arrival, to the hilt from which she had turned back Wulf’s fingers.

  So deadly a dagger with so horrendous a history did not belong at the abbey. Nor had the arrow she returned to Cyr D’Argent.

  She folded the cloth back over missive and dagger, slid the bundle far beneath the cot, then went to the kitchen and wielded an entirely different sort of blade against what remained of the mushrooms.

  “I have her.”

  Fulbert inclined his head. “As thought. Is she the one who sent the arrow?”

  Cyr settled in the saddle, retrieved the reins once more passed to Dougray who had shown no interest in the reason for the detour to Lillefarne. “I pray not.”

  “Pray or think?” the priest called him to account.

  “Does it matter?” Dougray growled. “They are all of them devils.”

  Feigned disinterest, Cyr silently corrected the depth of his brother’s presence in the conversation. “If it was not she who sent it, Fulbert, then likely one of the mothers of the boys who died at Senlac by my uncle’s hand.” He glanced at Maël who sat with his men beyond the abbey’s outer wall, was glad he not hear again the shameful manner in which his sire was felled. “Had I to guess, I would say it was the Lady of Wulfen since she is of a line of esteemed warriors and, better than any, would know how to breed and lead rebels. And all the more did she under the direction of King Harold’s mother, Gytha.”

  Or Edwin Harwolfson, he reflected on another rebel leader plaguing William from the depths of Andredeswald where the Saxons had fled when their king fell. Believed to be the only one of Harold’s bodyguard to survive the great battle, it was said Harwolfson was dragged nearly lifeless from the field by a hag who enlisted the devil to return him to the living. Not for the first time, Cyr wondered if the cursing, wailing white-haired woman he had seen struggling to remove a warrior’s body from Senlac was the one named Dora.

  “If the Lady of Wulfen sent it, then she cannot be bedridden.” Dougray again, voice so bitter it would be unrecognizable had Cyr not become accustomed to it since his brother’s return to consciousness and discovery the lower half of his arm had been removed.

  “That I had hoped to determine this week,” Cyr said. “Unfortunately, my audience with her must wait.”

  Dougray narrowed his eyes. “For what?”

  “We must harvest
the lord’s hay.”

  Fulbert made a sound of dissent. “Did not your aunt say it would be done twelve days hence providing two more days of good rainfall? That it is then the villagers next owe service to their lord?”

  “She did, but Aelfled of…” He paused, told himself she gave him no cause to regret attaching her to that place where he had met her. But he did regret it, as when she had recoiled. Had he not aspired to provoke her to reveal what she held close, he would not have further pained her.

  “Continue,” Fulbert prompted.

  “Though Aelfled of Lillefarne revealed very little, upon our parting she advised the Baron of Balduc to bring in what can easily be taken from him. I think it must be the lord’s hay upon that barony, a warning if it is not harvested before its time it will be burned the same as last year.”

  “Witch!” Dougray growled.

  Letting that pass, Cyr recalled the missive Theriot had sent last June to report the loss of the lord’s hay and assure his brother he had not retaliated against the rebels by taking the villagers’ crops as done by Campagnon upon Balduc. Instead, he had ordered what remained of the hay be harvested lest it was also lost to flame and stored it at the castle to apportion it between lord and villagers throughout the winter. When the hay ran low before frost’s end, more had been purchased from a southern shire.

  Surely of frustration to the rebels, the torching of the lord’s hay had proven of benefit to the D’Argent demesne. It prompted Theriot to place a guard on grain crops until they were harvested two months after the hay. Thus, nearly all crops that would keep the people of Stern from starving were saved, unlike those of Balduc to which the rebels had turned most of their efforts. Doubtless, when Cyr toured those lands added to Stern he would discover much misery among the Saxon folk. And death.

  The rebels—and Campagnon—had much to answer for.

  “Reconcile yourselves to a long day,” he said. “The tour of Stern shall be completed ere night’s fall so we may acquaint ourselves with Balduc on the morrow.”

  “What of Stern’s hay?” Fulbert said.