‘And what did he say?’ Baldwin raised his brow at his friend, speaking in his normal voice. The others would know soon enough and he didn’t want to keep secrets from them.
‘He said to Adal that they had heard rumours of a foreign invasion, which is why they rode east. But I wasn’t with Adal, I was behind his troops, listening to them talk amongst themselves.’ Gozfrid paused, and Baldwin could see that he was trying to choose his words carefully.
‘I recognised a couple of soldiers from Gaston’s training exercises, Win. Ones that thought themselves better than the old man. Hot-heads, like the bastard who leads them.’ Gozfrid snorted in disgust. ‘He plans to kill you and your son, and carry the Princess off to Senlis. There is a dungeon there, and they will hold her prisoner until she agrees to take the veil.’
Baldwin blinked silently at his friend, working out his battle strategy in his head. He had no wish to kill his wife’s brother, but he would protect her and his son with his last breath and he knew his warriors would fight by his side to their own deaths.
This battle was not of his making, but by God, he would finish it.
A movement behind him attracted his attention and he turned to see Judith, his son cradled in her arms, coming towards him from the side of the stall.
‘It cannot possibly be Louis, Baldwin. He wouldn’t threaten us. He has been helping us.’ Baldwin heard the bewilderment in her voice, and he went across to her and put his arm around her waist, bending his head to speak quietly into her ear.
‘It isn’t Louis, my love.’ He shook his head to emphasise his words. ‘It is the other one.’
Judith gasped and he felt a tremor of apprehension pass through her. She well understood the unpredictability of her middle brother.
‘Charles?’ He nodded grimly, and met her questioning gaze. ‘But why?’
Baldwin shrugged and Gozfrid stepped forward, dipping his head deferentially before he spoke. ‘I heard the men say he wants to prove himself to your father so he will divide his kingdom.’
Judith turned to Baldwin, placing her hand on his chest and gazing up at him. In her other arm the babe snorted and snuffled, squirming slightly as his mother held him just a little too tightly. ‘I will speak to him, Baldwin.’
He heard the steely determination in her tone, but he had to at least try to dissuade her. ‘My love, you can’t.’
The thought of what Charles might say to her twisted in his gut. She had not seen her brother since she was twelve and he was ten. Much had changed about both of them since then, and whereas Judith had developed into someone generous, gracious and determined, he had to think that Charles had become the opposite.
‘But I must. He is my brother.’ She squeezed his arm to reinforce her words. ‘I know him, Baldwin. We shared a childhood.’ He heard the earnest timbre of her voice, and knew she wouldn’t be dissuaded. But perhaps she would heed a warning.
‘He is no longer the boy you knew, my love.’
His heart sank as she turned away from him and spoke over her shoulder. ‘Nevertheless, I will speak with him. Reason with him.’ He watched as she handed the baby firmly to Alys and then strode out of the barn, calling a command to Adal for her horse.
As Baldwin gazed through the barn door to the field beyond, thinking that today might be the day when his fate caught up with him, but not caring as long as Judith and his son were safe, he heard Gozfrid step up to his shoulder.
‘The thing is, Win, he is exactly the boy she knew. Except this time he has his own army at his back.’
***
Chapter 131
Judith guided her pony tentatively up the stony rise to where her brother waited with his war band, Adal watchful and alert at her side. Amid the grass that bordered the dusty track were rocks of varying sizes rising from the green sward, and Judith absently wondered if the farmer had thrown them there after ploughing his field, or if they were remnants of some sort of settlement from long ago. Many were shrouded with moss and lichen, weathered into smoothness yet others seemed sharp and jagged as if they had just sprung upwards from the depths of the earth. Her horse snickered softly, apparently choosing where he stepped in order to keep Judith safe.
Behind her she could hear the clattering hoofs and jingling bridles of Baldwin and his warriors. It was a comforting sound, reinforcing the fact that, although Baldwin would let her speak with her brother, he still didn’t trust the Prince and wanted his troops at the ready. Ralf, she knew, would be mortified that he wasn’t by her side. But she needed Adal, someone her brother would view as unthreatening, at least while they spoke.
The reassurance of her husband’s war band behind her was welcome. With her thumb, Judith rubbed the swan brooch she had quickly pinned inside her sleeve, pleased that her favourite emblem was with her to give her courage. As she reached the brow of the hill, she straightened her spine and set her shoulders, lifting her chin as a great-granddaughter of Charlemagne should.
On the ridge, the unadorned helmet with the closed cheek-pieces did nothing to disguise the figure of Charles from her; she knew from the way he sat his horse which of the warriors he was, even before she drew near enough to see the emblazoned breastplate.
‘Charles.’ She waited, his name flying away on the wind as soon as it left her lips. The warriors on either side of him moved closer, as if sensing a threat in her merely uttering her brother’s name. The comforting music of the harnesses behind her had the opposite effect on Charles’ troops and she relished that fact.
‘Judith.’ The response was flat, almost a question but not quite. She could see Charles’ eyes glitter behind his closed helmet, and wished she could make out his face. When they were young, she had become adept at discerning when he could be persuaded to abandon whichever reckless idea had entered his head, and when he could not. Judith hoped he could still be reasoned with.
‘Baldwin and I have been blessed by His Holiness the Pope, Charles. Why will you not let us pass?’ Judith forced her tone to reasonableness, when she really wanted to shriek at him for daring to try and stop her, a Princess of Frankia, a descendant of Charlemagne and equally as noble as he, from pursuing her own happiness. She pushed the anger away, allowing it to simmer slowly in the background of her mind.
‘You shame us with your behaviour. A Princess of Frankia should live a modest, godly life. Not whore herself to any man who pushes her in front of a priest.’ Judith heard the sneer in her brother’s words. ‘You should have come home after your first widowhood, sister, instead of inveigling a second marriage against the laws of God, not to mention this third abomination.’
Judith clenched her jaw, knowing that how Ӕthelbald had behaved would mar her reputation forever. She took a breath, steadying her mount, which was shifting from side to side in agitation at the snorts from the huge war-horses in front of it.
‘I am no whore, Charles.’ Judith swallowed and raised her voice. ‘I am Baldwin’s wife, and the mother of his son.’
‘A bastard,’ shouted Charles dismissively, ‘conceived against the wishes of God. Sister Seraphina told us of your shame. Well, you will not drag father’s name into infamy with your own. You will submit to his will as your King, and mine as your brother.’ He turned his glance to the warrior beside him and gestured impatiently.
‘Take her,’ he commanded.
The soldier moved towards Judith’s mount and reached awkwardly down from his lofty position to grab her reins, the harness of his own horse grasped in the same hand with which he held his long sword. Adal was on her other side, Baldwin behind her, and Judith reacted as she had been taught.
With one sweeping motion, she drew the dagger from her belt beneath her cloak and jabbed up at the man’s throat, which was exposed as he lea
nt downwards and his mail gapped away from his neck. With one thrust, the blade pierced his skin above his breastplate and Judith ripped sideways as Baldwin had shown her. The soldier shrieked in pain and surprise, throwing himself backwards as blood gushed from his throat.
The abrupt motion startled his horse, which reared up and unbalanced its rider. His hand, grasping the reins and the hilt of his sword flew upwards and he toppled from his saddle. The weight of his armour and the height of the rearing horse caused him to crash against the mount Charles was astride and the Prince also began to fall.
Misunderstanding the sudden commotion, Charles’ other soldiers abandoned their Prince and charged into Baldwin’s band of warriors, swinging their swords wildly. Baldwin’s men had learned their lessons well. Their horses were trained for battle and they moved closer to one another forming a wall. Charles’ men divided themselves and swung around the obstacle, so the men on the flanks jabbed at them as they passed, unseating them from their mounts and spearing them with their swords.
Amid the shrieks of wounded men, and the cries and whinnies of frightened horses, Baldwin tried to make his way through the maelstrom to protect Judith. Prince Charles was unhorsed by his own man, and the other warrior at his side was making a grab for Judith’s reins, unsettling her pony in the melee. Baldwin watched helplessly, the distance too great, as Judith began to tumble in her saddle, crying out with fright.
To Baldwin’s relief, Adal kicked his mount to her side, catching her on the shoulder of his foreshortened arm and shoving with all his might to push her back into her saddle and prevent her from falling under the hoofs of the frightened horses.
Judith righted herself and met Adal’s worried gaze with a small smile of reassurance.
‘Thank you, Adal. I thought myself crushed,’ she shouted above the noise of clashing metal on metal, grunts of fighting men and shrieks of terrified animals. Adal grabbed the bridle of her horse and led it away as Baldwin’s well-trained war band decimated the soldiers accompanying Charles.
After a few more minutes, a shout went up and the soldier that had been trying to grab Judith raised both hands towards Baldwin.
‘Lord! Lord! We surrender!’ he shouted. ‘The Prince is injured and we would yield.’
From the side of the battlefield, Judith saw her brother’s prone body. His helmet was dented into the side of his skull, and she could see one of the sharp stones behind his head. Blood seeped from beneath his helm and soaked into his cloak and the earth beneath.
The clanging of metal swords being thrown to the ground assaulted her ears, those men of Charles’ war band that survived tossing their swords to the grass. Baldwin’s troops, all alive although a couple had blood on their leggings from sword-cuts to their thighs, rode between the soldiers, relieving them of their daggers and other weapons under instructions from Sigram, as Gozfrid walked his horse in the direction of Charles.
Baldwin came to Judith’s side and she saw the anxious look on his face.
‘I am quite well, Baldwin.’ Judith smiled reassuringly, although her voice trembled uncontrollably. She had been far more frightened by almost falling from her horse than from stabbing the soldier in the neck with her dagger. ‘Adal saved me from being crushed beneath the hoofs.’ Her grateful smile turned towards her steward and he bowed his head briefly.
‘My pleasure, Princess. And my congratulations on a well-aimed dagger.’ The older man grinned at her and then looked to Baldwin, tipping his head towards Judith. ‘Another member of our war band here, Lord. She even had the sense to hold onto her weapon.’
Judith blinked at him, then looked down to see her bloody dagger still clutched in her fingers as she held onto the horse’s reins. She hadn’t realised she had kept hold of the blade after she had thrust it into the man’s neck, but Baldwin had always emphasised the importance of holding onto her weapon in case there was more than one attacker. Another lesson she had obviously learned well.
‘Win!’ Gozfrid called Baldwin’s name and both he and Judith turned their horses to cross over to where Gozfrid was gazing at the unconscious body of Prince Charles.
‘What shall we do, Lord?’ One of Charles’ followers glanced between Gozfrid and Baldwin for an answer.
‘Take him home to my father,’ answered Judith flatly, gazing at the bloodied figure of her brother.
‘But what shall we say, Princess? The King forbade him to challenge you, on pain of losing the land the King was going to gift him.’ The man’s voice was filled with concern, his eyes fearful in case he or his colleagues were to be blamed for the Prince’s recklessness.
‘Tell them it was an accident then.’ Judith shrugged, irritated that yet again Charles’ behaviour was being excused and covered up for the benefit of their father. ‘Say you were out hunting or some such, and he was knocked to the ground by a tree branch he didn’t see.’ She nodded at the ground, the blood of the Prince covering the stone that had pierced his helmet. ‘It is the rock that has damaged his skull; that much is obvious. Take it with you, show the King. It doesn’t have to have been a sword-blow.’
‘You will not tell your father the truth, Princess? You will allow the Prince to keep his honour?’
Judith snorted and turned her horse towards the barn. ‘The Prince forfeited his honour when he attacked me and my husband without just cause. But I shall allow my father to keep his illusions.’
***
Chapter 132
Judith pressed her naked body against her husband’s side, receiving a chuckle and a growl in response. Her breasts were starting to ache, and she knew she would have to feed her son before she decided which gown to wear, but the freedom that employing the wet-nurse had given her was so delicious she couldn’t bear to relinquish her husband quite yet.
After the skirmish on the hill, her party had travelled to King Lotha’s court and were received with such generous delight they had decided to look for a property nearby so they could stay close to their friends.
Lady Waldrada had given birth to her own son, an enormous child with rolls of flesh around his wrists and neck that gave him the appearance of a toddler by the side of Judith’s tiny mite, although there were only around four months between them. King Lotha was saddened by the fact that they hadn’t returned with his own dispensation, but grateful they had submitted his petitions to the Pope.
‘I shall simply keep on asking, my dear. And this Pope is an old man, so how much longer will he last? That’s what we must ask, isn’t it? How much longer until we get a new Pontiff that may take a different view and allow me to marry my darling Waldrada. We have to remain hopeful, dearest Judith. Hopeful and fruitful.’ He gave a high-pitched chuckle and nudged her unexpectedly with his elbow, bestowing a wink on her surprised countenance.
‘Has she not told you, my dear?’ the grinning King had asked in a conspicuously loud whisper, nodding his head towards his Lady who was sitting serenely opposite on a silk-covered chaise eating honeyed pears. ‘She is to give me another child.’
‘Already?’ The word had left Judith’s lips before she could stop it, and she coloured immediately, relieved that Baldwin was out training his troops and not a witness to her embarrassment.
‘God blesses us, my dear. He makes us fertile to glorify His name. Now if only that old rascal in Rome would bless us, our happiness would be complete.’ Lotha had beamed around the room, gazing with desperate fondness at Waldrada who was chewing her way through another pear, sticky lips smiling back at her lover. Judith supressed a shudder at the thought of a blessing from Nicholas and silently sipped her wine.
But now, here in Lotha’s castle, she and Baldwin were able to enjoy uninterrupted nights entwined in one another’s arms while the wet-nurse fed their son when he woke. Judith found herself
being less shy and reticent in her lovemaking and she knew that Baldwin enjoyed her new-found daring.
‘I shall have to go and begin the training session, my love,’ growled Baldwin as she began to stroke her hand over his belly, despite the fact that they had already made love when they awoke in the dim grey light of dawn. Judith huffed a disappointed sigh and flattened her hand on his skin.
Pouting, she groaned and turned flat onto her back, stretching up her arms and flexing her back. Her breasts were full of milk, heavy and sore, and she knew she couldn’t delay the morning feed much longer. Then she laughed as she felt Baldwin’s lips on the skin surrounding her nipple.
‘Training session, Baldwin?’ she asked, sliding her hand into his dark hair, feeling his reluctant nod.
‘Yes, my love. So stop being such a temptress, or I shall tell our son to break his fast elsewhere.’ Baldwin lifted his head with a lecherous smirk and then kissed her lips briefly and rose from the bed. Judith turned onto her side so she could watch him dress, pulling on his leggings and then his leather trousers as she watched the muscles in his buttocks and thighs flex. It was one of her favourite sights, along with the movement in his powerful shoulders and broad chest as he tugged his shirt over his head and slid his arms into his leather jerkin.
She sighed with disappointment when he was dressed, and pushed herself into a sitting position, grabbing her carelessly-tossed shift from the floor and shrugging into it quickly. The morning air was chilly on her skin after the warmth of the comforter and fur throw on the bed, and she stood to allow it to drift around her ankles. The garment was tight across her swollen bosom, and she knew if she didn’t hurry, there would be damp stains on the front very soon.
Baldwin lightly brushed her cheek with his lips and strode from the room, as Judith pulled on a thick padded robe and thrust her bare feet into low velvet slippers. Then she heard booted feet hurrying outside the door.
‘My love, we have guests,’ grinned her husband, and she tied the sash on her robe more firmly. The excitement in his eyes reassured her that the visitors were welcome, and she glided towards him with a questioning smile.
Judith, Twice Queen of Wessex Page 43