by Tamara Leigh
He sees me, she thought as she raised the flask he passed to her. He sees me the same as Nicola said her cousin saw me.
Such would not please Abbess Mary Sarah, but it pleased the Mercia of old who had hoped one of the young, attractive Saxon nobles whose attention she captured would seek Gytha’s permission to court her. Had they ever, naught had come of it before, during, and after her grandmother gave her in service to the one who became queen of the King of England, albeit brief that distinction.
“I am glad you seek to please me,” Canute said.
Did he suspect her of motive beyond pleasing him? she wondered as she slid cool wine between her lips. She did not think him a fool, but since he held himself in high regard, it seemed more possible he saw Nicola’s beautiful arrangement of the former abbess’s tresses and the snug lacing of her gown as a means of attracting rather than escaping.
She returned the flask and smiled as learned mostly through observation during her short stay at court. A teasing smile. A look-near-upon-me smile. A think-upon-kissing-me smile.
She moistened her lips as also observed of other women. “Though I never wished to be of the Church, I was so long inside those walls the world outside became foreign. And now to be given no moment to even think on returning to the living…” She sighed. “Pray, be patient, Canute. I will grow accustomed to it.”
He tipped the flask to his own lips, then dragged the back of a hand across his mouth. “I make allowances for you, and one is Lady Nicola.” He looked at the young woman who sat on the opposite side of the fire in the camp raised several hours after the cessation of rain allowed them to resume their northward journey.
Nicola did the same as Mercia, feigning interest in Bjorn who sat near, smiled, and touched her hand.
“I do not understand how Lady Nicola is an allowance made for me,” Mercia said.
“Bjorn needs a soft woman, and that one will command him as he ought to command her. But so you are not lonely, I give him what he thinks he wants. For now.”
That last worried, but lest she rouse suspicion, she did not question him. “You are considerate.”
“I will make a good husband.”
“As I will make a good wife.”
He turned thoughtful. “Since you are not much more a young woman, you will have to be quick to birth children. I want four boys and one girl—though she should be born last.”
He offended, and yet she nearly laughed over expectations he believed she could meet merely because he voiced them.
A frown creased his brow. “You think it funny?”
“I do not,” she lied. “I think it worthy of happiness. I feared being childless, and now I am to be the mother of many children—mostly fine boys.”
He nodded. “Likely one will be king after me.”
She donned her best smile. “I am glad you came for me, Canute.”
His eyes flicked over her face, lingered on her hair. “As am I.”
When he reached to her, she leaned toward him rather than away.
Setting a hand on her jaw, he slid his thumb over her cheek. “I can kiss you?”
Reminding herself to follow Nicola’s plan, she said, “You are my betrothed. But I beseech again, be patient. I am unlearned in such things.”
“I will teach you.” He pressed his lips to hers.
She felt neither pleasure nor distaste, surprising since she ought to feel something for all the talk overheard of kisses both wonderfully passionate and terribly disappointing. His breath and pressure on her mouth was all she felt—until heated by embarrassment over the other Danes’ expressions of approval.
Canute drew back. Appearing annoyed by the attention, he said, “As told, I will teach you, and I will like it better.”
Not if the plan unfolds well, she silently countered, then glanced at Nicola who discreetly inclined her head.
“I look forward to your next lesson, Canute. Now, as the ride was long for one unaccustomed to the saddle, will you see me to my pallet?”
“I shall, my lady.” He rose. As she set her fingers across his palm, he looked around. “Bjorn, it is time Lady—”
“Ah nay, let the young ones enjoy their time together,” Mercia beseeched.
He grunted. “A half hour, Bjorn, then she must gain her rest.”
“I thank you, Cousin.” The young Dane returned his attention to the one he believed he charmed.
Shortly, unbound as hoped, Mercia lay on the pallet. A blanket pulled up to her chin, she prayed Bjorn would also trust Nicola enough to allow her to sleep unfettered. If not and Mercia was not awakened to be fastened to the other woman, the plan must be altered as Nicola insisted and her fellow conspirator feared.
If naught else, the escape of Gytha’s granddaughter would slow the Danes who would seek to recover her, giving their pursuers a better chance of overtaking them and freeing Nicola.
And that was as it was to be, Mercia accepted when Canute reminded Bjorn to bind Nicola—this time hands and feet so Mercia’s sleep was not disturbed.
When it was darkest night and the campfire burned low, Nicola rasped at Mercia’s back, “Go now. All sleep but the patrol.”
The progress of which Mercia had followed. Thus, she knew there would be no better time to slip away than while the men were most distant. “I fear leaving you, Nicola.”
“I am not afraid. Not only does Bjorn think I return his affection, but this Norman cannot be faulted for being abandoned by a Saxon, hmm?”
“But—”
“The sooner you go, the more time my family has to save us both.”
Once again, Mercia felt she was the younger one, but she would not allow pride to ruin what might be her only opportunity to remove the D’Argents’ sister from danger.
Lord, she prayed, quiet my feet and turn them in the right direction. That of the monastery glimpsed an hour before Canute made camp. Help and safety were within those walls, and more so if she identified herself as the abbess abducted from Lillefarne.
“Godspeed,” Nicola whispered as Mercia eased from beneath their blanket.
“Be wise, Nicola,” she rasped. Then bending low, she set a diagonal course between the patrolling Danes.
Though she heard no hue and cry raised over her disappearance, she did not pause until she was a league distant, and only then realized she had neither drink nor food to sustain her should she lose her way.
All the more reason I do not, she told herself, and rather than search out a stream to moisten her mouth, continued in the direction of the monastery—or so she hoped.
Chapter Ten
Were not the monks equally comprised of Saxons and Normans and had not the abbot been replaced with one from Normandy, Maël might have questioned their assurances no Danes had been sighted near the monastery.
Still, he was certain his prey had been in the vicinity. Yesterday’s rain made it difficult to track, but each time the trail was lost it was found again, surprisingly once when Zedekiah commented it only appeared to disappear.
In response to Maël’s disbelief, the rebel had said he had no care for the Danes who betrayed the resistance by refusing to engage William in open battle and accepting his bribe to provide no further support to the rebels. Too, it was right he advise foreigners on how to read the land of his birth the sooner to retrieve the abbess and sister-in-law of the Lady of Wulfen.
Maël had heeded his advice and, shortly, the trail that had gone cold warmed again—as it must this day in the absence of a sighting.
As he guided his horse past the door in the wall a tall monk opened for him, he looked ahead to where he had left his men. They numbered only six, including Zedekiah.
Though instructed to water their mounts at a nearby stream, all should have returned by now and be ready to depart. Had those absent encountered Danes?
The door hinges whining, wooden planks groaning, Maël urged his destrier forward and reached his men before the bar dropped into iron brackets to secure the monastery.
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“Where are the rest of my men?” he demanded.
“When the last group did not return, I sent Daryl with two others to rouse them,” Aiken said, “but still naught. I had just decided to go myself when you came out.”
Maël looked to the others, momentarily pausing on the thickly muscled rebel in whose hand he almost wished he could place a blade. “Arm yourselves,” he said, then drew his sword and spurred away.
She had chosen her perch well, albeit with little thought. It was the nearest tree with branches low enough to catch hold of and sparse enough her mantle and skirt did not become entangled in grasping fingers as she stepped one branch to the other like rungs on a ladder until the narrowing trunk began to bend beneath her weight.
As evidenced by one of those circling below who had tried to climb the young oak after her, causing each branch he set foot on to snap, the only way to get to her was to starve her down or take an ax to her refuge.
What had happened to two of her novices who but enjoyed a walk in the wood on a spring day would not happen to her—at least, not without far more effort than what had been expended by the enemy who ravished those women and sheared their hair.
“Come down!” called one of the three who, a quarter hour past, joined those who had sent her up the tree. “We will not harm you.” Unlike the others who passably addressed her in her language, his speech marked him as one of her people. Like the others, he was close-shaven.
Fearing confirmation she was a Saxon would sooner make her prey to their perversions—one or more dulling his sword in reducing it to an ax—she stared at them where she held tight to the trunk with one hand and with the other gripped the branch whose crook she sat in.
When first she had heard horses, great her hope the riders were of Wulfen, but she had not waited to confirm it where she knelt at the stream. As revealed by their appearance and accents, those who first gathered beneath the tree she climbed were Norman. Thus, the only hope left to her was these were Sir Maël’s men, but it was not to be, the one who could free Nicola not amongst the first arrivals nor the next.
Forcing breath in and out of her quaking body, once more Mercia silently appealed, Lord, if not for the sake of this deceiver, aid me for Nicola.
“Come down, come down, little bird,” her countryman called.
“Traitor,” she whispered, then wishing she were in the chapel’s rafters, trapped but ever out of reach, she closed her eyes and recalled being on her back there before her fractured world began to buckle.
“Come down, little bird of glorious plumage!” called a Norman whose accent made Saxon words sound obscene and her long for the head covering to conceal her vanity. “Come—”
Of a sudden, he quieted. She did not care what made him do so, was simply glad something had, allowing her to feel again the cool stone against her back, look upon the light in the eye of the bird overhead, and follow its flight out of sight.
More riders, she acknowledged the pound of hooves. Surely Normans, and possibly among them one eager to sacrifice the keen of his sword to make plunder of her. Though she feared that, more she feared being unable to keep her promise to Nicola.
Hearing more enemy voices, she tipped up her face and, staring into the dark behind her lids, silently counseled, The rafters, Mercia. Look there, not below. Go there, remain there. The shadows will shield you for a time, perhaps long enough for the Lord to intercede.
“It feels we have been here before, Abbess.”
The words soared into the rafters and strode into the shadows, not because they lacked a Norman accent—indeed, much they boasted one. Because here was a familiar voice. Because here was a memory to fit his words. Because here was a prayer not answered as she wished, but answered better than feared.
He had come, meaning those who sought to coax the vain bird out of her tree were his men.
Still she kept her chin up and eyes closed. She was not ready to look upon the chevalier in this vulnerable, powerless state that was far from that other time he remembered when she denied him entrance from atop Lillefarne’s wall and he asked if they had met before.
This day, might he place her at Westminster? Recognize the younger of the women whose identity she had recently reclaimed?
“Surely you err, Sir Maël,” one of his men said. “That looks no holy woman.”
Of course she did not, garbed in a lady’s gown, albeit soiled, hair plaited and looped, albeit disheveled.
“I see it not,” said the Saxon who first tauntingly named her a bird. “No holy woman I have glimpsed has hair like that.”
Since most, if not all, he encountered surely covered their heads, his reasoning tempted her to shower him with scornful words.
Ignoring the men, Sir Maël called, “As the tree will not bear my weight, you must come to me, Abbess.”
Her quaking having begun to subside, Mercia opened her eyes upon the blue above the tree’s thin branches and searched for a bird. In the distance one careened as if at play, so high it need not fear a stone’s throw nor arrow’s flight.
“Abbess?”
Uncertain if it was concern or annoyance in his voice, she reminded herself she was still Mary Sarah to him and looked down.
Sir Maël having remained astride, his silvered dark head tilted back and a shaft of sunlight full upon his face, she saw first the scar that coursed the right side beginning just above and to the side of the eyebrow it divided in two.
Yet still he is handsome, she acceded and tensed over thoughts she wished were all the doing of the young lady who said her cousin had seen Mercia and believed one not an abbess in truth could save him.
“Nicola!” Mercia gasped, fear for her own fate and surprise over Sir Maël’s appearance having caused her to forget his cousin was alone in the company of men surely angered by the escape of Gytha’s granddaughter—perhaps so much the smitten Bjorn would be unable to protect the woman he wished for his own. “I escaped the Danes who abducted us, but Nicola was bound and I could not—”
“Abbess!” Sir Maël said sharply, “your seat is precarious. Secure your hold and descend slowly. We shall discuss my cousin once you are down.”
Unaware of having loosened her grip and shifted forward, now she felt the branch beneath her rear rather than thighs, relaxation of her hands, and the sway of the tree.
Holding tighter both sides, she said, “I shall come down.”
“Slowly,” he repeated.
She jerked her chin, causing the settling tree to unsettle. Praying she would hold firm, she released the branch she sat on and, turning swiftly, slung that arm around the trunk above the other arm.
“King’s men!” Sir Maël commanded as she slipped off the branch. “Stand well back.”
She thought he feared for their safety should she crash down on them, but when cool air swept up her skirt as she set her feet on the nearest branch, she realized he sought to preserve her modesty.
Chest tight to the trunk snagging her bodice as it had done during her ascent, she peered down. Seeing now she blocked the sun that had lit the chevalier’s face, she was struck by the realization her shadow covered him as his had covered her at the abbey. A silly thing to note, and yet it felt…
Naught, she rebuked. It feels naught. Then she called, “’Tis just as unseemly for you as your men to be directly below me, Sir Maël.”
“Agreed, but one of us must catch you if you fall.”
“From atop your horse?”
“In all our years together, in and out of battle, he has endured far more than the weight of a slight woman. And if you are concerned where I place my eyes, I vow I look only near enough to ensure you land in my arms.”
Norman though he was, she believed him.
“I will not fall,” she said and began working her way down, once more making rungs of branches, once more catching her braids on branches. She did not realize how near she was to the chevalier until he gripped her waist.
“Let go,” he said as his men began
murmuring and making sly comments. “I have you.”
Wondering why his accent did not make her language sound obscene, she released the branch. As he lowered her to the saddle between his thighs, so relieved was she to be out of the tree and in his company, she nearly sank against him.
Looking across her shoulder and around one of her braids into dark green eyes, she said, “I thank you, Sir Maël. I feared…”
“This I know, and I regret you had cause. Unfortunately, few of my men were chosen by me.”
“One is a Saxon.”
“Two—Daryl and his sire, Aiken.”
“Traitors,” she hissed.
“As they have been since the beginning to profit from aiding my liege.”
“The beginning?”
“Both were present for William’s coronation at Westminster—among the few who remained throughout the ceremony though surrounding buildings were set afire.”
“Not by Saxons,” Mercia murmured, recalling smoke seeping into the chapel, its haze and scent rising to the balcony where this chevalier had confronted two Saxon women, then the flight with her grandmother through streets thronged by looting invaders and fleeing Saxons. “It was the—” She closed her mouth.
Suspicion narrowed his eyes. “You heard right. Mercenaries mostly, though some of William’s liegemen were also roused to destruction and looting.”
“You were there?” she asked, then wondered what so afflicted her she could not let the matter die.
“I was. Were you, Abbess?”
“Nay, I was en route to take up my post at Lillefarne.” A lie by a few days only, she told herself. A lie all the more necessary now Gytha had put her pawn in play far beyond being the Godwines’ eyes and ears upon Wulfenshire.
Much Mercia had pondered her situation these past days, and one thing was clear. That she was to be used as a weapon against Le Bâtard in King Sweyn’s bid for the throne made her valuable to the enemy should they learn of her lineage and role in gaining Saxon support and acceptance of Danish rule. If she fell into William’s hands, she could be locked away the remainder of her life or forced into marriage with a Norman to effect the opposite of what Gytha and Sweyn wished. Possibly worse. Were it known whom she served during King Harold’s reign and were it believed she knew that one’s whereabouts, she might be subjected to torture to tell what she did not know.