Her Battle-Scarred Knight

by Meriel Fuller

  Stepping over to the bed, he hauled the covers back; the spotless, empty white sheet shone back at him, the slight indentation in the mattress where she would have slept mocking him. The scent of crushed lavender rose from the bedlinens, delicious, seductive, reminding him of those long, hot summers in Poitiers, and his heart jerked in memory. That all seemed so long ago now.

  A small sound on the other side of the bed caught his attention.

  ‘She’s not here, my lord.’ Alys sat up on low pallet bed, clutching the covers to her bony chest. Her frizzled hair stuck out from her head like grey lace. Her veins traced blue ridges on the backs of her hands.

  ‘I can see that,’ Giseux replied bluntly, his cheeks sculptured hollows in the sepulchral light. ‘And against my better judgement I’m about to go after her.’

  Big fat tears welled up in the maidservant’s eyes. ‘Oh, my lord, don’t be too harsh on her.’

  ‘Why on earth not?’ he growled back. ‘The woman’s a prize fool, putting herself at risk.’

  ‘She hasn’t seen Hugh for such a long time. Once she has a plan in her head…’ Alys trailed off miserably, her voice rising on a half-sob.

  ‘She’s difficult to rein in, I can see that,’ Giseux replied, grimacing. ‘When did she leave?’

  ‘Not long after you fell asleep, my lord.’

  ‘She hasn’t had much of a head start.’ He thought of the dying embers in the fireplace, calculating rapidly. ‘What does she ride…a palfrey? She wouldn’t go above a trot on one of those. I’ll easily catch her up.’

  The maidservant was silent, staring at him like a ghost, her knotted fingers still clutching the coverlet against her. ‘She…she took your horse, my lord.’

  * * *

  Through the dark tracery of bare branches, the moon appeared sporadically, shifting behind veils of cloud, dribbling a faint light down to the forest floor. A rising breeze sifted through the trees, a sibilant sound that spoke of the old stories surrounding the forest of Sefanoc, the drifting ghosts. The woods held little mystery for Brianna; she had grown up in this place, had laughed and played through the woodland with Hugh. She felt no fear as the giant skeletal shapes of the trees rose up before her, no fear as she glimpsed the deep pools silvered by the light of the moon and heard the twitterings and rustlings of the animals in the undergrowth. Nay, the forest did not scare her. But being caught by Lord Giseux de St-Loup did.

  In despair, she kicked the rounded flanks of the horse beneath her once more. In her haste to leave for Winchester, she had failed to adjust the stirrups to the length of her leg and now they bumped uselessly against the horse’s sides, polished metal hoops shining in the darkness. Even without the use of the stirrups, she considered herself to be an excellent horsewoman, but this animal simply refused to move at anything greater than a sporadic, half-hearted trot! Really, it was as if his master was controlling him from afar!

  All of a sudden, the animal stopped, pointed ears moving round as if to locate a sound. And then she heard it—a shout on the wind. She failed to decipher the words, but she knew, knew it was him. Knuckles rounding tautly on the reins, her heart lodged in her throat—how had he managed to catch up with her so quickly? The horse begun to turn in response to his master’s voice, Brianna yanking desperately on the reins to point his head back in the right direction, but to no avail. The horse turned abruptly in the narrow, muddy track, almost throwing her off in its excitement. In the last moment before the horse took off, Brianna managed to throw her leg over the horse’s neck and slip in a flurry of skirts to the ground.

  Head held high, she stalked forwards, marching purposefully, swiftly, along the lane towards Winchester, wrapping her woollen cloak firmly around her. She could have run to hide in the darkness of the forest, but what would that achieve? He would surely find her—his face held a lean, hunting expression, that of a predator. Moments later, the sound of galloping hooves thumped up behind her. Her heart plummeted, trickles of fear stinging her blood.

  ‘Lady Brianna!’ Giseux bellowed. The words rained down on her back as if they were physical blows and she hunched over, chest thudding painfully. Don’t cower like a guilty thief, she told herself. Face him! Dragging herself up to her full height, spine straight and rigid, she spun around, the toe of her sturdy leather boot sinking into soft rotting leaves beneath her foot.

  Giseux wore no helmet; his hair stuck up in rough spikes. His eyes, sparking anger, glimmered down over her. Despite her determined demeanour, she hoped that a great crevasse would open up beneath him and swallow him up.

  ‘What do you think you are doing?’ The roughness of his tone cut into her. His face glimmered with a sheen of sweat: he must have run to catch up with her before his horse turned back.

  ‘You know what I am doing.’ Not wanting to meet his eyes, to admit that she had defied his orders, Brianna stared mutinously at his mail-covered foot, stuck in the stirrup on a level with her chest, the gleaming armour dulled with spots of mud.

  ‘I told you to wait until morning, then I would have escorted you.’ His voice was low, level, but she detected a steely thread of exasperation winding through. The strengthening breeze stirred the wayward strands of his hair, making him appear more tousled…more devastating, she thought suddenly, a lump in her throat.

  ‘I know the way,’ she replied, truculently. Tilting her head to one side, she crossed her arms across her chest, a defiant gesture. In the shifting moonlight, her copper-coloured hair faded to a pale silk, loose strands drifting treacherously down from beneath her veil.

  ‘It’s not a question of whether you know the way or not,’ he replied tersely, ‘but the fact that you’re a woman. No noblewoman goes out unescorted—it’s utter madness.’

  Brianna pushed the white froth of her veil back over her shoulder. ‘Since Hugh went away, I have had little choice in the matter,’ she replied practically, bending her gaze to his horse’s flank. Beneath the animal’s shining coat, a pulse throbbed near the surface, the beat regular and strong.

  ‘Up to now, maybe not,’ he agreed, ‘but you knew I would escort you to Winchester and you deliberately defied me.’

  She jerked her chin up, eyes flashing fire at his chastisement. ‘I wanted to get to Hugh—I haven’t seen him for three years! Surely you can understand that?’

  Aye, he could. He understood her need, her desire to be with her brother, especially after her harassment from Count John’s men. He suspected the beating he had witnessed today was one of many.

  ‘Besides,’ she continued, ‘who are you to order me about? You are not my lord, or my master. I can do what I want, go where I want. It’s my choice.’

  In the shadows of the forest, the silver embroidery along the hem of his tunic twinkled like starlight. ‘So you do exactly as you please, without any consideration for others.’

  Why, he made her sound like a spoiled brat! ‘It’s not like that!’

  ‘How do you think Hugh would feel if something had happened to you?’

  ‘I can take care of myself!’

  ‘Hah! Like you took care of yourself this morning?’ he growled down derisively. The moonlight turned the ruffled strands of his hair to gold. ‘If I hadn’t come along when I did…’

  She shrugged her shoulders, trying to suppress the doubt that mired her chest. ‘Those men are cowards…Lord Fulke is a coward! They would have left me alone soon enough. You, coming along like that, would have made no difference.’

  ‘Fighting words, my lady! Yet I suspect even you know that you lie to yourself. A woman alone is vulnerable, especially one who is stupid enough to believe she can best a man!’ She reminded him of a wild animal, cornered and vulnerable, the display of viciousness masking its puny strength.

  ‘I can—Hugh taught me how to use the crossbow…and the knife!’ The pitch of her words notched upwards, emerging in a spiral of rising anger and, yes, fear as well. How dare he challenge her methods of self-preservation, her hard-won skill? Instinctively her fingers mo
ved to the jewelled knife hilt on her belt.

  Giseux’s sparkling grey eyes honed in on her movement, his mouth twisting to a derogatory sneer. ‘That knife is more a hindrance than a help; it can so easily be wrested from your hands and turned against you. You would be better off not having it at all.’ The horse sidled beneath him; his big thigh muscles tensed as he maintained his upright position on the animal.

  Hugh had given her the knife, before he went away. It was he who had taught her to use it properly, even though her brother could only guess at what she had experienced at the hands of her husband. She had told Hugh the barest details of her ordeal, not wanting to give voice to her time with Walter, not even with her brother. This knife, its heavy weight bumping against her hip, made her feel safe; now this man, this stranger, had the temerity to undermine its power!

  ‘You have no idea of what you are talking about!’ she flared up at him, long eyelashes fanning out around her blue eyes. ‘You scarce know me, yet you criticise and condemn me! How dare you?’

  In a single, graceful movement he slid down from the horse, from that treacherous animal that had refused to move faster than a snail for her, and stood before her, his angled face leaning down into hers. ‘You’re living in a dream world, thinking you can protect yourself with that blade.’ He was so close that he stood within the folds of her skirts.

  Instinctively, she backed away, throwing back the sides of her cloak as her fingers tightened around the hilt, sliding the knife from the leather scabbard. His arm flashed out, a lightning speed honed from years of fighting, muscular fingers upon hers, crushing, squeezing. An intense pain shot through her wrist, the knife slipping from her weakened grip. ‘You’re not being fair…’ she gasped as it fell. Giseux’s quicksilver reflex snared the blade as it flew downwards; in a trice, he turned the gleaming point, the blade a hairbreadth away from her frantically beating heart. For an endless moment they stood there, tense, taut, breathing rapidly, the moon highlighting the stillness of their bodies.

  ‘See how easy it was?’ His voice looped over her, dry, taunting. His hulking frame loomed so close that she caught the scent of him, a tantalising mix of spice and woodsmoke. A surge of adrenalin pulsed through her, exciting, wicked. She stepped backwards, appalled at the speed of the manoeuvre, appalled by his glittering proximity, then realised she could go no further, her heel kicking uncomfortably against the nubbled back of a trunk. Above them, an owl hooted, its call eerie within the confines of the trees.

  ‘Give me my knife back!’ Her voice, brittle, trembled with confusion. Palms pressed against the immovable oak, her slender body felt exposed to him, vulnerable. ‘I should have shot you when I had the chance!’

  He laughed, a short bark of sound, teeth white in the shadowed tan of his face, flipping the knife back so that she could take the jewelled hilt. ‘Death by crossbow might have been preferable to escorting you.’

  Brianna glared at him, hostile, stabbing the blade back in its sheath. ‘I’m not going back to Sefanoc with you,’ she announced firmly. ‘I’m carrying on to Winchester, whether you like it or not. You can’t make me go back with you.’

  Giseux’s knee brushed against her leg; she flinched at the contact. His voice, when it came, was low, slipping velvet. ‘I can make you do anything I want.’ His eyes bored into hers, darkening gimlets of granite. ‘Don’t kid yourself that I, or any other man for that matter, could not…it’s dangerous to think like that.’

  ‘I’ve managed up to now,’ she spat back weakly. ‘And I’m still not going back with you.’

  Giseux sighed. The woman was a complete fool. Of course he could make her return to Sefanoc—he could simply grab her spindly frame and dump her on his horse, kicking and screaming. Surely she realised that? He was twice the size of her, with muscle power to match. But he was awake now, and in no mood to wrangle any longer. Turning away, he walked over to his destrier, tightening the girth, before throwing himself up into the saddle. ‘Mount up,’ he ordered, kicking the shining stirrup free from his booted foot.

  ‘Wh-what?’ She stared up at him aghast. Vivid images piled chaotically into her brain, images of herself tucked up comfortably in the arms of Giseux, her back against his chest, her arms cradled within his. No! She couldn’t do it! ‘I can’t!’

  ‘You seem to manage perfectly well when you stole my horse.’ He stared down haughtily at her. Beneath him, his horse pawed the ground, dry leaves rustling against its hoof.

  ‘I borrowed your horse,’ she corrected him. ‘Not that it helped much; he refused to move faster than an ambling walk.’

  ‘He’s trained only to respond to me,’ he replied, disparagingly, holding out his hand towards her. ‘Now, come on, mount up.’

  This is wrong, she thought, as she grasped his hand and stuck her slender foot in the stirrup. A quivering coil of excitement licked along her veins as he hoisted her in front of him; she bounced up as if she weighed nothing. Her hips bumped back uncomfortably into the edge of the leather saddle; she scissored one leg over the horse’s neck to ride astride. Leaning forwards, she grabbed a bunch of mane between her fists to maintain her balance.

  ‘Lean back.’ It was a command, not a request. His warm breath puffed over her veil; the material wafted against the nape of her neck making her shiver at the close contact. ‘At the speed we’ll be going, you’ll fall off. Lean back.’ His repeated order was terse, clipped.

  I’m doing this for Hugh, she reminded herself over and over again as she moved gingerly against the solid wall of chest. Every nerve ending in her body sprang alive at the contact; beneath her layers of clothing, beneath the thick wool cloak, the gown of linen, she could feel his chest muscles ripple against her shoulder blades. The bunched muscle of his thighs pillowed her hips, rocking her intimately from side to side as the horse picked up speed. One arm snaked around her middle, the iron band yanking her more securely inwards as the horse kicked up clods of earth in its wake. She had never been this close to a man, this intimate, nay, not even with Walter; what she did now went against every promise she had made herself when she had left that horrible man. Against all inclination, she was thrown back into him, again and again. Brianna pressed her eyes together in shame, cheeks lit with flags of red.

  The maid felt so fragile within his arms, her slim frame light against his chest, thought Giseux. Her appearance belied her inner strength, the innate courage that flowed within her. Like a delicate flower stem rocked by a fierce breeze, it would take a great deal to break her. He sensed she had come close that morning, that he had witnessed her teetering on the edge of total fear, of utter desolation. When those men had laid into her she had fought back like one possessed. Above the silken brush of her hair, his mouth tightened—no woman deserved such harsh treatment, whatever they had done, however they had behaved. Imperceptibly, his arms strengthened around her. Her shoulders rocked back into his chest; he grimaced as his body responded to the delicate press, the drifting lavender scent of her hair. He knew better than to become involved. Since that unspeakable time with Nadia, women, for him, had been reduced to a means of physical solace. He never asked their names in the darkness, never engaged in conversation. It suited him that way and, after what had happened, he preferred it. Without thinking, he rubbed at the aching muscle in his thigh, the single physical reminder of the woman he had loved in the East, the woman who had died trying to help him and his men. She had been on their side and had paid with her life for that loyalty. His wound was a small price in comparison, a continual ache eating into him, reminding him of his guilt, his culpability day after day. That, and the cavernous black void that was his heart.

  Chapter Four

  Once clear of the creaking depths of the forest and the maze of tracks within, the land rose in a series on undulating folds: gentle flat-topped plains, with pale tussocks of grass rippling violently in the wind, like hair under the water. The moon, its glowing orb travelling fast behind lacy wisps of cloud, bathed the landscape in a spectral ligh
t, accentuating the deep shadows, the brittle branches of a solitary hawthorn, contorted and bent over like an old man.

  Giseux knew his location now, recognised the wide, open spaces of his childhood, or at least, his childhood before he had gone to the court of Queen Eleanor in Poitiers to train as a knight. In the forest, in the confusing bundle of trees and trackways, he had been reliant on the maid’s direction, silently following her outstretched pointing arm, until the trees grew thin on the outer boundaries.

  Touching his heels to the horse’s flanks, he urged the animal up the steep sheep trail to gain the plateau above, his body leaning forwards with the altered gait. With the movement, Brianna shifted her position, arching her spine to break any contact with him. Giseux’s mouth twisted into a grimace. The stubborn little chit was doing her utmost to make this journey as awkward as possible, acting as if he were inflicted with some horrible disease, not doing her a favour.

  Gaining the top of the plateau, saddle creaking under the combined weight of both riders, Giseux kicked the horse swiftly to a gallop. Now she had no choice, she had to lean back into him or risk falling off. Winding one arm tight in front of her, he winched her into his chest, sensing every muscle in her body protesting with rigid, outraged hostility. Even through the layers of her clothes, the fragile bones of her rib cage pressed against his forearm, her heart fluttering chaotically against his wrist, a moth’s wing of sensation. Despite her wilfulness towards him, she was afraid. The thought made him uncomfortable; she had no reason to be fearful of him.

  The wind whipped around them as they rode, snaring Brianna’s skirts, flattening them over Giseux’s legs. It tore at her veil, sending the flimsy cloth flying across his face, in front of his eyes, blinding him. Hauling sharply on the reins, he clawed at the silk that filled his nose and covered his eyes, finally pulling it from his face and, in the same movement, tearing it from Brianna’s head. The gold circlet spun out into the darkness, landing with a soft rustle in one of the tussocks of grass.