"Soon, or late, Jean-Pierre will come to make certain his holdings are secure. If we send his man to him, he will come soon and we can be ready for him."
Chrétien thought it over and finally shrugged. "Likely, you are right."
Wulfgar nodded and moved back to the man. "The message you will take to Jean-Pierre is this: Your bride is now mine and thus her lands, as well."
The man glared at Wulfgar sullenly. "Who am I to tell him sends this message?"
Wulfgar leaned down until he was almost nose to nose with the man. "The Saxon who’s bride he slew and who’s lands he now calls his own. I am Wulfgar."
Three men were allowed to leave with him. Wulfgar sent a dozen men with them to see them to the coast and aboard a ship bound for England—to lessen the chance that they might decide discretion was the better part of valor for messengers bearing ill tidings.
Most of the soldiers were mercenaries and given the choice of accepting a new overlord or seeking their fortunes elsewhere. Some chose to leave and were escorted to the boundaries of Alinor’s lands. The men who remained Wulfgar divided up and absorbed into his own troops, who were under orders to put them to the sword if they so much as hesitated to follow a command.
Taking a troop of men, Wulfgar set out to retrieve his wife while Chrétien stayed behind to oversee repairs from the battle.
* * * *
‘We have taken my lady Alinor’s keep.’ Alinor had been both relieved and terrified when the messenger had arrived and brought word to her and her mother—terrified, quite naturally because until the messenger had related the message she and her mother had been under the amiable impression that Chrétien expected to take the keep peacefully. Her father had certainly been at great pains to create that impression. Wulfgar had been his usual uncommunicative self and given her no clue at all of what his thoughts were on the matter, of course, which had caused her some uneasiness. She had decided, though, that her father was probably right—it was her dower property and there was no reason to think Jean-Pierre would be suspicious of her father inspecting it—and Wulfgar’s caution was just that.
She supposed, to Wulfgar’s mind, the message he had sent was expected to reassure her and her mother that all was well. Unfortunately, he had left out the tiny details of whether he and her father were well—or wounded in battle--and when another week passed with no sign of Wulfgar Alinor became convinced that he had been injured, might be even now hovering between life and death.
Her mother did her best to reassure her, but since she was equally convinced that Chrétien had been mortally wounded, neither believed the other’s reassurances and they did not comfort each other much.
When word came at last that a troop was spotted approaching the keep, both Alinor and Claire raced to the window of the solar and threw it open, jostling each other for a better position to see who it was that had come. By that time, the troop had already entered the keep, however, and neither of them could see the men at all.
They were still debating whether to meet the men in the courtyard or wait in the solar when Wulfgar strode into the room. Alinor and her mother both paled. "You are well?" she asked, examining his face for any sign of weakness or pain. "You were not wounded?"
"Where is Chrétien?"
"He stayed at the keep to oversee repairs," Wulfgar said curiously.
"He was not wounded?"
"No more than I—a scratch or two—I sent word. Did the messenger not tell you?"
With her arm wrapped comfortingly around her mother, Alinor glared at him. "You have frightened … me … my mother half out of her wits. You might at least have thought to add that no one was greatly hurt. We could tell nothing at all about the message beyond the fact that there had been a battle for possession when we had not expected one."
Wulfgar’s eyes narrowed as he looked from one woman to the other. "You did not expect me to return? I am sorry to disappoint you." With that, he turned and stalked from the room, only pausing in the doorway long enough to tell Alinor she should make ready to travel to Maison de Vardon.
When he had gone Alinor and her mother exchanged a dumbfounded look. "What is it that he thinks we have done?" Alinor asked in a quaky voice, afraid she knew already.
If possible, Claire had turned even more pale than before. "I am not at all certain," she said evasively.
Alinor’s face crumpled. "He thinks you have plotted to rid me of my husband and I was a party to it!"
"Do not look at me so accusingly! You know very well we did not! It is not my fault that he looks for plots under every bush! You should have told him we were only anxious that they had been harmed. You were not used to be so careful to hide your feelings! Why did you hold yourself back instead of going to him?"
"He is Saxon, not French! They are very reticent, and suspicious or repulsed by displays of emotion!" Alinor moved to a chair and sat, covering her face with her hands. "I always say or do the wrong thing, no matter how I try! He is convinced that I am his enemy. That is why he turns everything I say over and examines it for a different meaning! I do not know how I might go about convincing him that I care for him."
Claire moved to her and patted her bowed head. "Pride can lead to your downfall, Alinor. Be yourself. Eventually, he will realize that subterfuge is not your strong suit and you are more like to say and do exactly what you think and feel."
Chapter Thirteen
"You were wrong to believe that I hoped ill would befall you, or that my parents had conspired to make it so. My parents are not pleased by the circumstances of my marriage, but they have accepted you because they know it is what I want …. I was glad that you returned safely," Alinor said tentatively when she had recovered sufficiently from their bout of lovemaking to think clearly once more.
Wulfgar grunted, but said nothing.
It was amazing, Alinor thought that one could convey so much without saying anything at all. For herself, she could have talked for an hour and still not have conveyed the depth of skepticism Wulfgar had with only a grunt. She was torn between despair and irritation.
"We might as easily have suspected you had done something to my father … if we were devious enough of mind to consider everyone else so!"
"You accuse me of being devious?" Wulfgar demanded tightly.
A shiver went through Alinor. They were lying as they generally did, with her back tucked tightly against his belly. It was dark in the room in any case, which would have made it impossible to read his expression even if she had been facing him.
There was no doubt, however, that he was angry still.
"Mother says that people only suspect you of doing things that they would do."
He merely grunted this time.
"I think she is right—mostly—but, of course, that does not take into consideration the things one learns of other people."
He didn’t even grunt that time and Alinor wondered if he had fallen asleep.
"I was worried for your safety," she said in a small voice.
"This is why you bit my head off when you saw that I was not hurt?"
Alinor bit her lip. She supposed, from his point of view, she could see where it might seem to contradict an assertion of concern. "No. That was because you had allowed me to spend a week worrying when you were perfectly all right."
Wulfgar caught her jaw, forcing her to tip her head toward him. He studied her for several moments and finally covered her mouth in a scalding, but disappointingly brief, kiss. "Sleep. We leave at first light."
* * * *
The household goods that had been purchased for Alinor upon her betrothal had been sent behind her when she had left for England and, not surprisingly, had not been returned when she had failed to arrive. Therefore, she had had nothing with which to set up a household when she returned home with Wulfgar. Alinor’s mother had set about remedying the situation when Chrétien and Wulfgar had left to secure the property, however, and Wulfgar was plainly appalled at their efforts. He took one look at the
baggage train that had been assembled and stopped dead in his tracks for several moments. Finally, looking like a thundercloud, he helped Alinor and her mother to mount, climbed upon his own horse and they rode out.
The Maison de Vardon was not far distant from Arrus—as the crow flew. They could have reached it cross country within a couple of hours. By road, in they had not had the baggage train, they would have made it in little more than half a day. The oxen pulling the baggage carts, however, had been bred for strength and stamina, not speed. Moreover, due to the weather, the road they had to travel was not in very good condition.
All things considered, Alinor thought they made good time, for they arrived at Vardon before nightfall the same day that they had set out.
Her parents stayed only a week. Wulfgar and Chrétien spent their days preparing for battle, and their evenings discussing strategy. It was finally decided that Chrétien and Claire would return to the Chateaux, where Chrétien would prepare his own keep—either for siege if Jean-Pierre attacked Arrus first, or to come to Wulfgar’s aid if Vardon was attacked first.
Wulfgar did not believe they would wait long before Jean-Pierre made his move. Once he had seen to the defense of the keep, he concentrated on gathering together supplies to ensure the protection of Vardon and its people in the likelihood that Jean-Pierre would try to destroy all that he did not seize to feed his troops.
Wulfgar wasn’t particularly comfortable with the method of warfare necessary to defend a keep. He was accustomed to battling in the open, with room to maneuver, to retreat or attack as necessary. Chrétien’s advice, he knew, was sound and the majority of the men under him were accustomed to the European practices even if the men who had come with him were not.
He did not like the notion of skulking behind stone walls and pitching battle with his enemy, however, and more than that, he did not care for the fact that Alinor would be in the midst of the fighting. He was almost certain that Jean-Pierre would head straight for Vardon and he was tempted to send Alinor with her parents. It was the ‘not quite’ that prevented him from doing so, for he felt better to defend Alinor himself than to leave her defense to anyone else, even her father.
Alinor found the entire situation unnerving. If she had thought of it at all, she would have been convinced that Jean-Pierre would not come so far only to make war to gain more land—but he had gone to England to gain land, when he had already believed that he had hers and his own French estate, and she was obliged to admit that Wulfgar might be right.
If the circumstances had been different, she would have welcomed the distraction. She was fairly certain she and Wulfgar had not resolved the little misunderstanding that she had inadvertently created, but he was too caught up in preparing for war to spare much time for her.
To make matters worse, she was afraid she had a new problem.
She wasn’t at all certain she was with child, for she could see no sign of change in her body that would reassure her. She had not had her menses since before Wulfgar had taken her. The old crone had, apparently, assured Wulfgar that she was with child, even though there had been some question that she had miscarried, but her belly was as flat as before. Surely, in all the time that had passed, she should at least have a little pooch?
She was certain she must be with child by now, even if she had not been before. The problem was that the child had been one of the reasons Wulfgar had decided to wed her. She had berated him for getting her with child and refusing to marry her.
He would remember that.
If she had the child a year or more after they had first met then he would know she could not have been with child when she claimed to be. To his mind it would be a lie, and he hated deceit in any form, big or small.
The worst of it was that he had begun to caress her belly at night, as if he were thinking of the child—anticipating its arrival.
If he had not been so distracted, she felt sure he would already have noticed, perhaps even questioned her about it, for she was—should be—nearly four months gone, nearly upon the time when she should feel the quickening.
She would have been willing to lie to prevent yet another barrier from being erected between them, but, because she had been so stupid as to put it into his mind that she might have a roving eye, he coupled with her far too often for her to complain of her woman’s time, to claim miscarriage—to claim anything at all, and she was fairly certain she was not up to feigning a miscarriage even if not for the fact that it was too late to do so.
Briefly, she entertained the wild idea of flinging herself from the tower, just so she would not have to face the inevitable confrontation with Wulfgar—She rather liked the notion of him weeping over her broken corpse, but it lost its luster when she realized she would not be there to enjoy it and she could not convince herself that he would be devastated anyway. Moreover, she was not at all certain that the fall was high enough to kill her outright and the idea of lingering for days, weeks, months or even years after she had mutilated her body past mending had no appeal at all.
She was fairly convinced, then, that she must be with child for she was not generally prone to such insane urges and her mother had told her it was not uncommon for women who were with child to ‘not be themselves’. She liked to think that might also account for some of the more bizarre things that she had said and done since she had met Wulfgar. It gave her hope that, once the babe was born, she might then be able to win his affection instead of steadily driving him further away.
She was finally able to put her fears to the back of her mind when she awoke one morning to the news that an army had crossed onto their southern boundary and sacked the small keep at Coyne. The standard they carried was the boar’s head. Jean-Pierre had come. Wulfgar assembled his men and went out to meet him.
* * * *
"In matters of war a woman’s opinion is never welcome. Any expression of concern will, at best, earn a woman a pat on the head and advise to attend to women’s matters. At worst, it will result in an argument that could endanger your man’s life, for they can not afford distractions of any kind when they are about the business of trying to hack each other to death," Claire had told her daughter more than once over the years.
Alinor was certain it was sage advice. She was just as certain that there could be no one worse than she when it came to handling a matter diplomatically. She merely watched Wulfgar’s preparations to leave in tense silence, therefore, her tongue firmly between her teeth, although she was in an agony of dread. She was still trying to decide what expression she should be wearing if Wulfgar chanced to glance at her when he did.
He frowned and she decided the petrified look probably wasn’t the least provocative expression she could have come up with. "You will be safe here."
Alinor nodded, although it hadn’t crossed her mind to be fearful for herself. It should have. She had an unpleasant certainty of what Jean-Pierre was capable of, and knew that, if he could, he would make her a widow first and a bride shortly behind that.
She could not presently think beyond the possibility of becoming a widow, however.
"I shall leave half the men here to hold the keep."
Alinor gaped at him in horrified dismay. It was bad enough to think of him meeting Jean-Pierre on an open field when he would have been far safer behind the walls of Vardon. She saw no reason for him to expose himself to more danger by leaving so many to hold the keep. "You will not need them?" she asked faintly, before she had time to think better of it.
"I can not afford to leave the keep virtually unprotected. If he should outflank me … I want enough men here to hold it until your father can come to your aid."
Alinor blanched. Was he expecting to die? Hoping to join his beloved Freda? She wondered a little wildly. "Must you go out to meet him?"
He studied her for several moments and finally strode toward her, enfolding her in a tight embrace. "You will be safe. I swear it. I can not sit idly here and wait for him to ravage all that lies between here
and Coyne."
They could burn it all to the ground for all she cared, but, as frightened as she was for his safety, she realized Wulfgar would be insulted if she suggested he could not best Jean-Pierre. In truth, she had no reason at all to believe he was not equal to or far superior a warrior than Jean-Pierre. She clung to him tightly. "You will take care? You will not expose yourself foo—needlessly?" She said anxiously.
"Nay, love. I have no death wish," he said soothingly, stroking her hair. He pulled a little away from her and placed a palm on her belly. "I have a wish to see my son come into this world."
Alinor summoned a wavery smile. If he had said anything but that! Now she would be worrying herself sick that the child in her belly was a female!
It occurred to her that, perhaps, it was the opening she had hoped for. She should seize this moment to tell him that it might be many months more than they had anticipated before that day arrived, but before she could summon the courage to do so, he kissed her briefly on the lips, released her and strode from the solar.
Chapter Fourteen
When she heard the troop ride out, Alinor left the solar, crossed the courtyard and climbed the stairs to the walk at the top of the keep walls, moving to a position where she could watch Wulfgar until he and his men disappeared from sight. When she turned away at last, she saw that the captain of the guard had come to stand nearby. "Did my lord send word to my father that he would go out to meet Jean-Pierre’s army?"
He glanced at her and frowned. "Nay, my lady. He said nothing of it to me."
Alinor nodded and turned to stare into the distance. "I should think my father would wish to know."
"Should I send a messenger then, my lady?"
Alinor turned and smiled at him. "That is an excellent idea, Captain!"
She felt somewhat better after that. Very likely her father would do as Wulfgar had, take no more than half his men if even that many, but it could only improve the odds in Wulfgar’s favor to have more men with him.
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