“Whore!” He stumbled but almost caught her, his dirty fingers grabbing her hair. Ignoring the white-hot pain of her scalp, Matilde tore herself free, but he charged at her a second time, heavy and blundering and as dangerous as a maddened bull.
She jinked round him and ran, losing her balance as her foot caught in a tree root. Sprawling full length, she tried to roll away but now he was on her, ripping and tearing, gouging at her breasts, smashing his elbow against her throat and pawing her.
The stench, the weight, the malice of his attack was too much. Matilde kicked and writhed but she could not buck him off.
“Got you, whore!”
Her vision was doubling, her lungs burning, feeling to be full of smoke. She could not breathe. “No!” she choked, flailing with her hands, trying to dislodge that fatal, suffocating arm.
“Too late, bitch!” He was laughing, still clawing at her and laughing.
“Get away from her!” Gawain yanked her filthy attacker aside. His sword bit into the ground where the outlaw had sprawled but the man slithered out of reach, hacking back with a knife. Again Gawain struck, with a muddy fist, slamming into the outlaw’s head.
The man toppled and lay still. Moving with a speed Matilde found hard to follow, Gawain tore the outlaw’s cloak and bound him, hand and foot.
“Let us be rid of this.” Speaking, Gawain dragged the stranger away.
He returned alone, a few moments later. Panting, chest-heaving, his tunic daubed in mud and worse, he dropped to his knees beside her. “I was told there were two of the bastards, two, not three.…”
Matilde tried to speak, tried to look at him, her knight, but now the double dots dancing in her vision merged and she blacked out.
* * * *
Never had he run so hard and fast or been so afraid. Gawain wrapped his battered little bondswoman in his cloak and cradled her, fighting down the urge to vomit. He had thought there were two outlaws, two he had left pinned in the woods, ready for his lord. The second had gabbled of treasure and more before Gawain had knocked him unconscious, but Gawain had been in no hurry to look for booty, or anything else. Matilde. I must get back to Matilde.
Thank God above that he had not gone looking for treasure. He had hastened to the holly tree and there had seen the clumsy new trail, a trail of broken leaves and dirt like the slime track of a slug, and his heart had felt to plummet inside his chest. He had sprinted then through the prickly heart of the holly, desperate to reach Matilde.
He had saved her, but had he been only a few moments later…. Gawain hugged her afresh, tears splashing down his grimy face, his teeth chattering and rattling within his aching head.
“Are you hurt?” Matilde’s eyes were open and she was trying to touch him, give comfort to him. She was trembling now that she was awake, but still her first thought was of him. Gawain caught her hand and kissed it.
“No, love,” he said, with a calm he did not feel. “Rest now, all is well. Rest.”
Any plans must wait. I want Matilde out of this forest. No unicorn is worth her safety.
But where could he take her?
Chapter 6
When Matilde woke, warm and safe, feeling rocked in a great ship, she found herself on horseback with Gawain. “Riding” was too active a term to describe what the big bay was doing. He was ambling, almost plodding. Around them, the forest trees sheltered and arched and the night air was full of sparkling moths and wafts of scent. Through leaves and branches peeped the full harvest moon, bright as a coin.
The moon, the harvest moon and what it symbolized, should have spurred her into action, or at least to urgent speech, but she was too comfortable. Ambling with Gawain, feeling his thighs brushing against hers, his arms snug about her, smelling his clean, sharp scent, was a tormenting delight. She could have “ridden” all night.
“Where are we?” she asked.
“Riding for the castle.” Gawain’s smile filtered down to her and his fingers, pressed briefly over hers, were gentle. “Forgive me, Matilde, but I have to tell our lord of the outlaws.”
“Will he reward you?”
She felt him chuckle. “I greatly doubt it, but no matter. He has to know.” His arms tightened about her. “I want you safe, too, most of all.”
“He will say you have failed in your quest.”
Gawain shrugged, the matter clearly of little weight to him. Indeed, she saw his eyes crinkle at the corners. “I wish to speak to the priest of our forthcoming marriage.”
She smiled in return, although she was less easy than before. Surely he cannot mean this? “I have not yet said yes.”
“You will,” came the confident reply. “I want you as my own dairy maid.”
“You have no cows,” she reminded him.
He clicked his tongue, urging the bay over a fallen branch. “In time, who knows?”
I must still be dazed for that sounds reasonable. She was too happy to mention that he had no land on which to graze the cows, either.
“Would you miss working with them, the animals?” he asked.
A week ago, Matilde might have answered tartly, “Not the icy mornings and the aching back and the bruises I have from cows squashing me against the railing of their stalls.” Now, hearing the hopeful, anxious quality in Gawain’s question, she said simply, “In time, who knows?”
Swaying, Gawain ducked beneath a low branch, shielding her with his body. She inhaled more of him, feeling strangely voluptuous and heavy, and kissed his chest through his tunic. Somehow, she knew he was smiling.
Do we have far to travel? she almost asked, but then discovered she did not care. It was enough to be with him. If you could marry him, how would you live? You would have to leave your family and land. Would he leave Lord John? If he did, how would he find another patron? She knew knights were bound by fealty and honor and not serfdom, as she was, but how binding were those ties?
She yawned and kissed him again, putting the matter aside. Even if Gawain asked him for permission to marry me, our lord would never allow it. Lord John would tell my knight to make me his mistress and he would be right. Yet, to be Gawain’s wife…It was a lovely thought, a dream.
To be with him, live with him, to have the right to be with him. I would be the happiest woman in Christendom. She told herself she was not in love. To admit that would open the door of her heart to pain and she wanted only joy in her time with Gawain. I will have time enough to mourn when I am forced back to milking cows again.
“Let me not see or hear that he has married, that is all I ask,” she whispered, unsure if her wish was a prayer.
“Perhaps we should say we have a unicorn horn,” she said suddenly, surprising herself. She felt Gawain’s stifled laughter through her chest.
“Why should we do that?” he demanded.
“For a reward?” she ventured. “My brother has described a horn to me. You are good with carvings, you say, making things. Perhaps we could between us fashion the likeness of a horn—”
“False,” Gawain said flatly. “And when our lord or lady takes sick from a poison that this false horn does not detect?”
He pulled sharply on the reins, bringing his mount to a stop on the forest trail. “Had you not already been beaten by the outlaw, you would be over my knee for that suggestion, girl.”
The moon showed his darkening eyes and face, but now her temper flared. “So knights never lie, do they? How saintly they are!”
“I am weary of you always bringing up our differences in rank, Matilde.”
“I am not always bringing them up!” she retorted, genuinely stung.
He swung down from the saddle and hauled her from his horse. Not to spank her, as she half dreaded, half hoped, but to set her down beside him. He clasped her arms and looked deeply into her eyes. “Look at us, Matilde! Here we are, man and woman as much as Adam ever was to Eve. What else matters? Do you not trust me?”
Dangerous ground, Matilde thought. Gawain truly believed it. That belief of his, and th
e idea that she would hurt him if she denied it, tempered her response. “With all my heart,” she answered, and meant it.
And then they were in each other’s arms again, and kissing.
* * * *
So easy and devilish, Gawain knew then, to tease and fondle his indignant maiden into submission. She was as hot as him, as passionate, and would be glorious to take to bed. But such seduction was not for him, not now. If I bed her, she will argue she is my mistress. I want to have her as my wife.
We shall do more than kissing soon, but not now. If he was to win her, he would need to negotiate with his lord and for that, he needed something. Matilde’s notion of the false unicorn horn, though unworthy, might have been a start.
Reluctantly, he broke their kiss. “We must ride on.” Even as he was pleased that she looked disappointed at the prospect, an idea came to him. “I will take you to the church. You will be secure there.”
“And you?” she asked softly, her lips all plump and reddened from their kissing, her golden hair a tangled crown about her pretty face. He loved her tender look and he loved her sharp and angry look. He loved her.
This revelation was quiet, almost as if his soul and body expected it. There was no shattering insight, no rush of blood, merely a deep surge of joy. Because Matilde was in the world, vivid and alive, and he loved her. How could I not?
He smiled at her puzzlement that he had not answered, then remembered he was puzzled by her, too. “I am for our lord and I ask you to pray for me, Matilde, so I may do my best. But before we ride again, will you tell me?”
“Tell you?”
She looked wary, as if she expected him to propose again. That will come later, my milkmaid, when you are in no position to say no. “Tell me why Lord John ordered you to go with me and why your lands are under threat.”
She swallowed and stared at the ground. “How did you guess?” she asked in a small voice.
“You talk a great deal, even in your sleep.” He took it as serious when she did not scold him for that poor jest. “You called out, ‘Not the land.’ What did you mean?”
A moth blundered between them, and off in the distance a nightjar made its screech. Gawain crossed himself against any ill-omen and waited.
“Can we ride on?” Matilde whispered. “Should we?”
He nodded and helped her to mount before him, ensuring she was settled before he urged his horse into a gentle trot. The soft earth drummed beneath them and still he waited, giving her the space to speak.
“Do you know our lord intends to create a deer park? And a hunting lodge?”
Had he been less laconic, Gawain might have instantly demanded, “How do you know that?” but now, absorbing this surprising news in silence, he guessed how it could affect Matilde.
“A deer park made from some land that is yours and your family’s by custom?” he prompted.
“And by legal right,” she replied at once. “We have it by way of the church.”
Not quite understanding, Gawain shook his head. “If it is on our lord’s lands,” he began, but Matilde interrupted, clearly eager to explain.
“Lord John has a part of his lands from the church and so do my family and half a dozen others. It is an old right. The king’s justice comes after harvest to listen to any disputes concerning land and other matters. When the justice realizes that this is land held by way of the church, he will send us to the church courts. And there I shall win our case.”
Gawain raised his eyebrows. He was reluctant to disillusion or crush her, but even so— “You are very confident.”
“I saw the documents at the abbey. I heard them read out.”
To his further astonishment, Matilde recited what must have been almost a full parchment roll’s worth of text, rights and dues of her family and of their lord’s, and all held by way of the church. “How do you remember so much?” he asked, when the steady stream of words was over.
He felt her shrug. “I remember a great deal,” she said simply. “I always have.”
Gawain stared down at the downy golden head in front of him. “How old were you then? When you saw the rolls and heard them read? How old?”
“Four years. My grandfather carried me on his shoulder for part of the way when we walked to the abbey.”
A memory like a parchment roll. That must be useful. Yet also terrible, for every grief, every slight, is also recalled, in vivid detail. “No wonder you are so aggrieved,” Gawain remarked, feeling aggrieved and frankly staggered himself. Yet, was there not cause for anger here? Lord John was intending to steal her land, her family’s lands, by claiming they had no legal claim to them. And Matilde knew otherwise.
“You think the abbey will still have the proof?” he asked, dropping a kiss on that golden head.
Matilde clapped her hands softly together. “I can take the abbot to the very shelf where the roll is stored. I was with my grandfather and the clerk when my granddad asked for the great writs and deeds to be brought out and examined. Granddad went with the clerk to retrieve them and I went, too.”
“But no such examination has happened since then?”
“No.”
“And our lord hopes the existence of such proofs has been forgotten.”
“I believe so. He does not know I was with my grandfather, then, that day in midsummer.”
Gawain heard her take in a deep breath, like a swimmer before a dive.
“But I think he suspects that I know something. Which is why he ordered me away on this quest.”
Matilde fell silent and Gawain said nothing for several moments. He recognized the truth of what she said and also the trust she had shown in admitting it. If our lord knew for certain that she knew this detail, he might do more to prevent it emerging. She hopes to confront him with it before the king’s justice. And she knows I could gossip to Lord John and steal her surprise and moment of attack, but she trusts me. She trusts me. He felt humbled by that trust.
“How do you know all this?” he asked, after clearing his throat. “The deer park?”
He saw a deep flush staining the back of her slender neck and guessed she was blushing strongly. “I overheard one of my lady’s maids talking, while I was making cheese. The maids had come to take fresh milk for our lady.”
“You listened to their conversation.” He brushed her neck and skimmed down her arm with a finger. “Another fault I must correct you for, it seems.”
“And knights never gossip?” she retorted, flaring up, but not, he noted, protesting about any correction. Nor did she argue about my dealing with her. She is accepting me as her husband even without knowing it. Pleased, he tickled her lightly under her ribs.
“I merely asked,” he said, as she squirmed and giggled. “Now we must plan what to do next.”
At once her laughter died, like a snuffed candle. She twisted about to stare at him and he chuckled, hugging her. “You know the law, sweeting, but I know tactics. This is my world, though we must use your knowledge, too.”
Fired at the prospect, he clicked his tongue. “For news, any news, to be worthwhile, it must be first. Hence I must see our lord and let him know he has outlaws in the forest.”
“Trussed and captured outlaws, waiting for him,” Matilde said, almost primly, and he grinned. Now that he considered the wolf’s-heads again he was reminded that they had been well-armed, with expensive knives. And the one who had gabbled about treasure had also shouted about “shares” with Lord John. Lord John who is mine and Matilde’s lord. And the forest has many tracks running through it, with travelers and merchants wandering through from many places. A new idea concerning the outlaws hovered in his mind, like a hunting kestrel. The more he considered, the more he thought it more than likely. The knowledge chilled him. I should warn Matilde, too.
First, he needed to know more about unicorns. I must confront our lord face-to-face when I speak of the outlaws and watch his reaction. For that, I need a way in, a means to gain an audience with him, and unicorns will d
o as well as anything else.
“Tell me again of unicorns. What are their droppings?”
“Such is their magic they are said to pass pearls.”
“White or dark?”
He sensed her frown. “White. Yes, white, like their horns.” she said, nodding.
“Do they ever shed their horns?”
She huffed a little. “You said you did not want a false horn…No, I have not heard or read of them doing so. But surely they cannot grow forever?”
“I do not know. Their tracks? They are unshod, so what kind of prints do they leave?”
“Narrow and small, like an unbroken pony.” She turned and glanced at him sidelong. “Do you intend to tell our lord you have seen unicorn droppings and tracks? That the outlaws have driven it away?”
He smiled at her insight. “You are right to speak of the outlaws, driving things away. Remind me never to play merrils with you.”
He felt a soft kiss on his arm. “You will need to teach me that game,” she said.
“Gladly.” And other games, but not tonight. “May I share my plan with you?” It was right that he should, he thought. “I have an idea, but I will not act on it unless you agree. There are risks here, which could fall upon you or yours. I want you to know that. And to know you can trust me. I swear I shall do my all to win you justice, as a knight should.”
He heard her catch her breath and knew he had surprised her by his oath and his vehemence.
“Tell me.” She listened intently, to his fractured tale of unicorns, land rights and outlaws, and afterwards she kissed him. “I think you should do it,” she said then. “If you are right…Holy Mother! The lord and lady have broken faith with all of us.”
“Yes, they have,” said Gawain grimly. “And you will stay safe in church?”
She nodded quickly and he had to be content with that.
“Now we make haste,” he said, and spurred the horse.
Chapter 7
Gawain rode into the castle bailey at daybreak, having said a brief farewell to Matilde inside the church. They had ridden hard through the night and he was certain she would sleep now, snug and warm in the nave. The priest knew she was there and he would give her a breakfast when she stirred.
The Virgin, the Knight, and the Unicorn (BookStrand Publishing Romance) Page 6