by Regan Walker
Merewyn stared, open-mouthed, still shivering in fear. Part of her bow was beneath her, her quiver of arrows pressing into her back.
Without a word, Alex reached for her, pulling her free of the boar. Lifting her from the ground, he swept her into his arms, holding her tightly against his chest. “By the grace of God, you are safe.”
She clung to him and the hard strength of his body, her heart hammering in her chest. “You… you saved me.”
He pulled back to look at her. “Did you not see the boar?”
“Nay!” she spit out. “I went to check on the deer and the boar was in the bush. He caught me unawares. How did you know to come back?”
“I was heading back to find you when your pony screamed. In these woods it could mean only wolves or boar.”
The sound of pounding hooves made her push away from Alex to stand apart, her arms wrapped around her leather jerkin. Her bow still lay on the ground but the quiver of arrows remained over her shoulder.
Into the clearing rode Alex’s father, Sir Geoffroi and Jamie followed by Rory and Guy.
Talisand’s lord gave the scene a studying perusal: the dead boar with the spear protruding from its wiry hide lying next to the deer with an arrow sticking from its body, Alex and Merewyn on either side, more intent on each other than on the beasts between them. With a concerned look, he asked, “You are both unharmed?”
“Aye,” said Alex. “A fortunate shot stopped the beast.”
“Fortunate?” scoffed Sir Geoffroi. “ ’Twas not mere luck, that. ’Twas more like miraculous.”
“You have rescued the fair damsel,” said Guy with a grin.
“It was a close thing,” said Alex, glancing at Merewyn and then looking away.
“If it had not been for Sir Alex,” she said to his father, “I would not be alive.”
* * *
Alex’s hand shook as he grabbed the pommel of his saddle and swung onto Azor’s back. The pounding in his chest was only beginning to subside, but a quick look at Merewyn assured him she was well.
What horror had gripped him when he’d ridden into the clearing to see the boar’s tusks mere feet from Merewyn’s slender body. He remembered little of what followed, certain he’d gone mad. Enraged, he had flung his spear at the beast. Surely God had been with him to enable him to pierce the beast’s heart as he had dropped from his horse in a blur.
He’d had close calls in battle and faced death more than once. But never had the life at risk been Merewyn’s. The pain he felt at the thought of losing her was like no other he had experienced. The moment he’d realized the boar was intent on taking her life, killing the beast was his only purpose.
During the ride back to Talisand, he pondered what the girl meant to him. Kissing her had told him he wanted her in his bed, but his feelings had gone well beyond lust for a beautiful woman. He could not abide the thought of any harm coming to her—or of another man having her. And he had no desire to take another woman to his bed though several made clear they were willing.
Rory and Guy had sought their pleasure and were quick to tell him of their conquests. When his companions noted his unusual abstinence, Alex had said nothing.
“Are you certain you are not ill?” asked Rory one morning when Alex ignored a village girl’s flirting at the practice yard.
“Do I appear ill?” he snapped back. Alex had just defeated Rory in their sparring, thus he expected the reply that followed.
Rory took in Alex’s appearance, which, except for the sweat on his forehead from their lively swordplay, conveyed his readiness to spar again. He was not even winded. “Nay, you do not seem ill.”
When Guy, who had been listening to their conversation, suggested the cause was Merewyn, Alex returned him a dark scowl. He would not allow her name to be bandied about.
In response, his friends grinned widely. “You’ll hear no complaints from this quarter,” Rory said with a smirk. “Leaves more women for me.”
“And me,” put in Guy.
Alex no longer wanted to be a part of his friends’ search for comely wenches to bed. Their pleasure excursions now seemed shallow and his former behavior dishonorable. Being in Merewyn’s company was somehow more satisfying even if he could not touch her.
After they returned from the hunt with the animals they had taken, Alex and his companions left for the river to wash and then change for the feast that would follow. When the time for supper drew near, the enticing smell of boar, spiced with sage and roasting in its own juices, filled the hall, making his mouth water.
As the men and women gathered for the meal, the roast boar was carried into the hall on a huge wooden plank and set on a special table where it was carved. Wine flowed freely as he and his companions ate with Merewyn, Lora, Bea and Alice at the end of one of the trestle tables nearest the dais.
Jamie joined them, commending Alex on his kill. He was glad to see Merewyn appeared to have recovered from her encounter and was exchanging pleasantries with Guy.
They were still eating when Alex looked up to see a man dressed in the king’s livery step into the hall and stride toward the dais.
“From the king,” the messenger said, bowing before the Earl of Talisand and thrusting the scroll toward him. His father accepted the parchment, broke the seal and quickly read the missive. Then he asked the man to hand it to Alex.
The message contained only one line:
You are summoned to Westminster for a meeting of the barons in a fortnight.
A scribe had no doubt written the message, for the king was unlettered, but it was signed with William’s mark. A date was scrawled below which, according to Alex’s figuring, left them ten days to reach London.
The messenger handed his father another scroll. “This, too, my lord.”
His father took it and read the second message but did not pass it to Alex. Instead, he proclaimed, “The king’s summons has come.” Turning to Alex’s mother, he asked, “Do you still wish to go, my love?”
“I do. ’Tis time I called upon your king.” Then glancing toward Merewyn, she said, “My student of the bow has never been to court. She will attend as well, as we have discussed.”
His father nodded, seemingly content with his wife’s plans. Mayhap he was pleased she would go. Alex knew his mother would never claim a Norman as her king but his father told him she had once entertained the Conqueror at Talisand for the sake of her husband’s honor and her brother’s life. Her willingness to go to court now and bow before William Rufus suggested age had softened her.
Alex looked across the table at Merewyn, studying her expression. What it would be like to be with her on the road for many days? There would be two other women on the journey, his mother and her maidservant, Nelda, and for that, he was glad. ’Twas best he and Merewyn would not be alone.
“Can you be ready to depart at dawn tomorrow?” Alex’s father asked his lady.
“Since I expected the summons, Maggie and Nelda have been readying the chests that will go with us. We need only one cart and it can be loaded this evening.”
Before Alex left the hall, Maugris came to speak to him. “Might I have a word?”
Alex drew the old one aside, wondering what vision he had seen now, hoping it was not a harbinger of doom. “Aye.”
“Honor is revealed in the face of temptation, my son, and courage in the face of fear. You have passed one trial but still face another. It is near, even at your door.”
With that, Maugris wished him a safe journey and abruptly turned and walked through the door to the bailey.
Alex stared after him, mystified.
* * *
Merewyn stifled a yawn and accepted the groom’s help mounting Ceinder. Unused to rising before dawn, she was still tired from the restless night before. Then, too, as she dressed, she and her bow had exchanged words about her decision to accompany Lady Serena to London. But in light of Maugris’ counsel, she ignored her bow’s scolding. London would be an adventure, one she eagerly anticipa
ted.
Since they would be stopping in a village and then going on to Earl Hugh’s castle in Chester, Lady Serena had wanted her to wear a gown for the travel. Merewyn was so pleased to be included she did not complain of having to struggle with skirts and Nelda had been there to help with the laces.
The linen gown she chose, the color of rust, would bear up well under the dust of the road. On her head she wore a straw hat like many of the villeins did when working in the fields. Her dark green cloak was tied behind her, secured to her saddle with her bow and quiver full of arrows.
Alex dipped his head to her and his mother as he rode to the head of the column where he joined his father. The knights wore no mail and, because they did not ride to war, their destriers, even their squires, remained behind. Still, every man had his sword and a long knife at his belt.
The sun was rising on her left as Merewyn and Lady Serena fell in behind Alex and his father. Following the two women were Sir Geoffroi, Guy and Rory with several men-at-arms behind them. A male servant brought up the rear, driving the cart in which Nelda, Lady Serena’s maidservant, rode with the chests, tents and food stores.
Lady Emma, Sir Geoffroi’s wife, had not come with them. All knew the reason. After the Norman Conqueror’s devastation of her home in York, she would have nothing to do with the Conqueror’s son. Merewyn, too, had reservations. At Talisand, she had known Norman knights of noble character like Earl Renaud and Sir Geoffroi, but her own mother’s terrible fate had taught her many were not like them. She hoped never to meet a knight like the one who had sired her.
A few hours later, the sun beamed from the sky full of puffy white clouds that reminded Merewyn of the white roses growing wild near Talisand. They would miss the harvesting of crops that had just begun, but mayhap the harvest of spring grains would still be going on when they returned.
With no rain on the horizon, she settled into her saddle, looking forward to the day’s journey. The countryside opened before her, broad and green, with tree-covered hills in the distance. Her spirits lifted as they made their way south, following the old Roman road toward Chester. The huge gray stones placed there by the ancients a thousand years before still provided a wide path and marked the way. It was the same road she had traveled less than a year before when she had returned from Wales and the one Rhodri and Fia had led her along six years earlier when she had first gone with them.
But this time it would take her to places she had never seen.
She tried to imagine the wonders that lay in London. Even Chester would be new to her. When Rhodri had taken her to Wales, they had passed close to the city but he had not stopped there. No Welshman would be welcome in Chester. Ten years before, Gruffydd ap Cynan, who had only just been named the King of Gwynedd, had been captured by treachery and imprisoned by Earl Hugh, the Norman lord Rhodri called Hugh the Fat.
When her eyes were not on the countryside, they were on Alex, riding in front of her atop his great black horse. The two of them seemed a matched pair: long black manes, muscular bodies and power restrained by force of their will.
One day, Alex would take his father’s place as the Earl of Talisand and she would return to Wales to fight and mayhap die with the Welsh who had been so good to her. She did not shy from her fate but the longing for what could not be tore at her heart.
At midday, Alex turned in his saddle to look back at her just before his father called a halt to water the horses. Alex dismounted and came to help her down from her horse. She might have managed without him but it was a kind gesture since her skirts made dismounting awkward. “Thank you,” she said as she placed her hands on his shoulders trying to avoid his eyes. But when his powerful hands circled her waist, his heat invaded her body and she turned to meet his penetrating gray gaze. Then her feet were on the ground and he dropped his hands.
They walked their horses to the stream not far from the road. Merewyn removed her hat and wiped her brow. The shade and cooler air beneath the canopy of trees was welcome. They stayed long enough to eat some cheese and dried venison while sharing their thoughts on the countryside they had passed.
Just as she was finishing, she felt Alex’s dark eyes upon her. “Do you consider me peculiar, sir knight?” she asked, trying to make light of his unrelenting gaze.
“I find you fascinating. A beauty, aye, but a fierce one with your bow and that look in your eyes, more like a warrior’s than a woman’s.”
“I assure you I am a woman.” She had never considered herself a beauty, not like Bea, Guy’s sister, and she was not a warrior as the strongest of the Welsh were. “It has taken me much practice to become proficient as an archer.”
“I know of only one other woman who has done so.”
“Your lady mother?”
“Aye. Maggie told me that when my mother was your age, she hunted rabbits for Talisand’s kitchens.”
“An unusual pursuit for the daughter of a thegn. In my conversations with Lady Serena, I learned she first took up the bow for sport. Later, it came to mean much more to her, as it has for me.”
He looked at her expectantly, as if he thought she would say more, but she could not. She did not want him to know she had been a frightened girl when she’d asked Lady Serena to teach her archery. It was enough that he admired her skill and compared her to Talisand’s lady.
He tossed her one of his amused smiles. “And, like my mother, you have added to our stores of food.”
“The deer—”
“And the boar.”
“You make light of what was a harrowing experience,” she said, frowning.
“Just teasing you.” His slight smile confirmed his words. She supposed it was best to find some cause for laughter in the incident, although she would always shudder to recall how close she came to being speared on a boar’s tusks.
“I will never forget that you saved my life.”
He chuckled. “Given your inclination to danger, I expect there will be other opportunities.”
A call from Sir Geoffroi returned them to the road where they resumed their travel. That night, they stayed in the village of Wigan on the River Douglas where the local priest arranged lodging for them. Merewyn had no complaint, for the company was good and the rabbit stew they were served satisfied her hunger from the long day’s travel. And being with Alex made any place grand for she noticed little else but him.
The next day, they pressed on toward Chester.
’Twas a long, tiresome journey that finally brought them to the city that lay a stone’s throw from Wales. Merewyn knew of it from the many evenings she had spent around the hearth fire with Rhodri and Fia. It was the place the Normans had decimated. Then they built a great castle set against the ancient Roman walls, the place where the Earl of Chester lived, a Norman dreaded by the Welsh.
Merewyn looked from one side of the road to the other, trying to absorb all she was seeing. Her life had been spent in small towns and villages and here was a walled city. They passed cottages nestled closely together inside the city’s red stone walls. In the distance, next to the River Dee, she glimpsed a tower.
“That was once an old Saxon church,” said Lady Serena, “but a few years after Chester was securely in Norman hands, Peter, the Bishop of Lichfield, moved his see here. The old church was not good enough for him, so he tore it down and began a grand new one. The sandstone walls of the new tower were his creation.”
Merewyn eyed the jagged appearance of the building next to the tower. “It looks unfinished.”
“The bishop was still building the cathedral when he died six years ago. I am told work continues to this day. But the bells in the tower work well enough. You will hear them ringing out the hours from Matins to Compline.”
Talisand’s church lacked a bell tower but Father Bernard had asked one be installed so that he could call the faithful to prayer.
They rode on, the castle’s wooden tower looming high above where it sat upon a great motte. Around the motte on two sides flowed the River
Dee. As they drew closer, the castle seemed to grow in size.
A brief conversation between Earl Renaud and the guard at the gate and they were allowed to enter the bailey.
The head groom and his stable boys took their horses.
Merewyn accepted Alex’s help and slipped from her saddle, his hands on her waist lingering long enough for her to find his masculine presence disturbing.
“You are all right?” he asked.
After so many hours in the saddle, her legs were sluggish and it took a moment for her to walk comfortably. “Aye, just a bit unsteady.”
Once she was walking with ease, she followed Alex to where her fellow travelers stood as a group in the bailey.
“I was here with the Conqueror nearly a score of years ago when he took this city,” remarked Sir Geoffroi “ ’Twas a terrible winter and a worse memory.”
“I have heard tales, awful things,” she said. “Was it as bad as they say?”
Sir Geoffroi regarded first Alex, then Rory and lastly, her. “The three of you were mere babes at the time and Guy had yet to be born.” Shaking his head, he continued, “As bad as they say? ’Twas worse. The Conqueror showed no mercy to the English. As he did in York, he killed many and ordered us to destroy the food stores and salt the land to assure there would be no support for a future rebellion. The people were starving.”
Talisand’s lord placed his arm across Sir Geoffroi’s shoulders and said to the others, “Geoff and Alain risked William’s wrath to help as many as they could reach a nearby abbey where there was food.”
“You did what was right,” said Lady Serena. Her words were met with nods from the men. Alex’s father squeezed his friend’s shoulder and then moved to stand next to his wife.
“I like to think so,” said Sir Geoffroi. Then raising his eyes to the timber castle, he added, “Chester was the last of England to be subjected to the Conqueror’s will and when it was done, William ordered the castle you see to be built.”
All of England knew the timber castles stood as symbols of the Normans’ power and authority and, in many instances, the Normans’ cruelty. Merewyn admired Sir Geoffroi for his courage to defy his king in order to help the people.