Their advance party had been one hundred men strong just half a year ago. They had been modestly equipped but sustained by the promise of rapid reinforcements and reprovisioning from Scotland by Lord Drefan, cousin of Edgar the Atheling. Their lord, Alfred, had been certain of taking back his home by the end of spring.
Then they lost forty to skirmishes against the new lord of Tyrswick, a man who clearly knew the skill of warcraft well. Among the fatalities had been Lord Alfred himself, killed by an arrow within the first month of direct engagement.
Spring turned into summer and Lord Drefan’s promised support failed to appear. Another forty-five men and their women melted back over the border to try their fortune on a venture more assured of success.
The rebellion might have ended right there if not for the faith Lady Alfreya placed in Drefan's promises of support and her determination that her younger brother would take his rightful place as earl of Tyrswick.
It was to her, not the boy Lord Brice, whom the men looked for leadership over the past three months.
Now at twenty-one summers old, Lady Alfreya commanded this guerrilla band of thirteen men, planning strategies that over the past four weeks had centered merely on staying alive.
As the small clearing came into view, Orlege regretted Alfreya hadn’t been born a man and Brice a girl. She had the temperament and fortitude of a warrior, while her ten-year-old brother was a sweet lad with no fight in him.
Now, they lived like outlaws on land they once owned and worked, avoiding the determined pursuit of de la Croix and his men, and forced to forage and steal food that would be increasingly scarce until autumn, with its promise of the harvest and better hunting.
A ragtag group of three weather-worn canvas tents provided their shelter.
Orlege and Larcwide approached the largest of these.
* * *
Inside the tent, Frey removed a hard-stone ring set in silver and an elaborate enamel brooch from her small timber and brass-work casket before closing the domed lid and returning the box to its sack.
She stood and fastened the brooch to the cloak that had once been her father’s. The blue enameled jewel, with intricate interlinked squares picked out in gold, was designed to instill no doubt the wearer was of power and substance.
Frey surveyed her appearance the best she could. Her light blonde hair, the color of primrose, was braided and tied with a leather thong so it fell just above her waist. Over a long shirt, again formerly her father’s, she wore a hauberk that came to her knees. The hauberk was unfamiliar and heavy. It had belonged to a young squire killed several months ago.
Her success with the crossbow over these months relied on her ability to move quickly—something she could never do wearing armor—but now it was necessary to do so.
Over the dead squire's tunic of chain mail, Frey wore her father’s surcoat bearing the armorial of the House of Tyrswick.
Hose covered her legs and her feet were clad in sturdy boots of soft brown leather, the only thing of value she owned now. Everything else had been abandoned or sold in order to survive.
Frey looked to where her younger brother lay on a narrow cot that occupied nearly the width of the tent itself. The boy watched her through half-lidded eyes.
Frey worried her lower lip with her teeth.
He is so weak, she lamented, and she had nothing to nourish him, let alone ease his fever. “Oh God,” she prayed, “Brice is but ten summers old. Don’t take him away from me too.”
The boy shuddered despite the heat, and the violence of his movement steeled her resolve.
“Frey?” Brice’s voice was thin and reedy. “Does Lord Drefan come? Is that why you are so anxious to go in my stead to greet him?”
Frey swallowed back tears and coughed to find her voice. She crouched down to draw a hand tenderly across his forehead. It was slick with sweat, darkening his fair hair.
“I am going to meet with someone who will help us,” she told him.
How could she tell her brother they were defeated and the only way any one of them would survive was to throw themselves on the mercy of their enemy? Brice would now never be earl of Tyrswick. Would it be a blessing if he died never knowing his inheritance had gone forever?
Frey rebuked the thought. No! Brice must live, with as good a future as she could negotiate for him.
“I’ll be back before nightfall,” she promised, nodding to further affirm her words.
“Frey, do not treat me like a lytling,” he said, annoyance evident in his voice. “I am lord of Tyrswick and I should be the one to greet Lord Drefan.” He sighed, the effort of speaking nearly too much. He curled his hand around his sister’s fingers and gave them a weak squeeze.
“He should ask me for your hand first,” he added quietly. “It is only proper.”
Frey didn’t answer but squeezed his hand in return.
Eight months ago, she would have gladly put aside misgivings to accept the marriage contract for the sake of her father and brother, but now, since Drefan and his promised armies had failed to appear, she put no faith in any man’s pledge.
“I have to go, brother,” she whispered. Frey squeezed his hand one more time and left the tent. She spotted Orlege and Larcwide approaching a few yards off. She squared her shoulders and walked toward them confidently.
“Is the baron waiting for us?” Frey called some distance out.
“Aye, my lady, he waits at the edge of the meadow as you requested,” answered Orlege.
The rest of Alfred’s band gathered near to listen.
“Then let’s go through this as we agreed.
“Grimbold and Sar, you attend to Lord Brice. Orlege and Larcwide will accompany me. The rest of you wait at the edge of the woods.
“Do not act except in my death or incapacitation, and then do everything necessary to protect Lord Brice.”
The men nodded readily though Larcwide was slower to respond. His reticence was not missed by Frey, who arched an eyebrow.
“Is aught amiss, Larcwide?” she asked.
In the absence of her brother’s taking his rightful role, she was leader. She would not let her men-at-arms forget. They would just have to overlook her sex.
“It’s not right, my lady. One of us should be going instead.” He crossed his arms as he spoke, and Frey recognized the sign of resistance from living in such close quarters with him for half a year.
Larcwide was as dear to her as an uncle; she had known him since infancy and knew he had only her family’s welfare at heart. And she knew his objections. He had voiced them three days earlier in front of the men.
Her response had been to brandish her knife and threaten to slit his throat from ear-to-ear for his rebellion.
Frey had hated to do it, but if she did not stand firm on her resolve, she would lose the respect of those who remained. How would it serve Brice if she gave in?
She looked at him sternly.
“It is not your position to question the decision of the clan leader, Larcwide.”
The man's lips drew to a tight, colorless line.
CHAPTER TWO
The sound of a long clear whistle cut across the meadow and Sebastian looked up at the signal from one of the parties at the left flank.
A moment later, a young squire by the name of Robert rushed to the tent. “My Lord, three men approach!” he said.
Sebastian nodded, allowing the young man to recover his breath.
“Describe them, lad,” demanded Gaines, Sebastian's captain.
“The two on either side are warriors, most likely men-at-arms, but their armor is incomplete and neither is wearing a helmet. Their clothes are faded and dirty.”
“Then our battles with these rebels have had an effect,” observed Gaines. “They could be offering for surrender.”
“If that were so, they could have had it months ago, and with favorable terms,” Sebastian pointed out. “But Alfred’s message specifically said he wanted to parley, not surrender.” The young b
aron shook his head thoughtfully. “No, they are playing some game, but I mean to end it. I will not have rebellion foment on my land. Enough blood’s been shed.”
He moved to the front of the tent to watch the party make their way down the hillock and across the open field toward them and scanned the tree line looking for others. By his count, nine men waited at the crest.
The three approaching were now at the edge of the lea.
Robert was right. The two men on the flanks had the bearing of experienced warriors, but were clearly undergoing hardship.
Sebastian turned his attention to the figure in the center.
The man was dressed in bright armor and a clean surcoat, although the design was hidden by a scarlet cloak. Sebastian frowned. Something wasn’t right.
“Gaines!” he yelled. The man rushed to his side. “Look at them. What do you see?”
“That’s not Earl Alfred,” the knight observed after a moment.
“Agreed. So who the hell is it? Alfred’s eldest son and heir was said to have been killed twelve years ago. There is supposed to be a much younger son, but if that’s him, he’s tall for a lad who can be no older than ten.”
Sebastian concentrated on the figure.
The gait was confident, but the armor ill-fitting. The hem of the surcoat fell to the ankle when it should have been at the knee. The scabbard did not sit as it should.
And the shoulders were not as broad as a man’s, so the figure under the cloak must be a youth—yet there was something about the way he walked that seemed so much like…
“A woman,” announced Sebastian.
Gaines looked at him as if he had taken leave of his senses.
“Our guest is a woman.” Sebastian nodded back at the trio.
“What kind of trickery is this?” Gaines demanded as he identified the feminine form for himself.
At that moment a breeze swirled, lifting the hood back from the woman’s head, revealing her face for the first time. Sunlight painted her pale hair with gold. Another gust pushed the volume of the cloak away like a sail, fully revealing the surcoat on her slender body.
The garment was sky blue with an embroidered gold cipher of interlocked squares.
Sebastian straightened in surprise and frowned. Unease coiled in his gut.
“Earl Alfred had a daughter, did he not?” he asked.
“Aye, but she was killed months ago,” answered Gaines. “Identified by her ring. She was interred in the crypt at Tyrswick.” Gaines paused and looked at his lord quizzically. “You ordered that yourself.”
“And so I did,” agreed Sebastian grimly. “So the question remains…who is this woman?”
* * *
Frey saw two men from the blue-and-red-striped tent step forward to watch them approach.
One was a knight in armor, his head covered by mail and his features so stony, he might as well have been wearing his full helmet.
The second man—the baron himself, Sebastian de la Croix—was bare-headed, wearing only the aketon for protection.
He looked young for a baron, Frey decided, but then that was no less than what Drefan had told her. William the Bastard installed young, inexperienced men to take charge of England’s border regions in contempt for the true rulers of Northumbria.
Frey’s father had been in his cups that night as he heartily concurred with Drefan’s declaration, boasting that one middling Saxon warrior could easily defeat six of the best from France.
Now Frey knew from bitter experience her father exaggerated. He fell with an arrow through his neck, and his body lay not in consecrated grounds at his ancestral home, but in a glen a mere league from where she now walked.
She had prepared his body herself, allowing no one to see the thegn until he was cleaned and dressed, and everything Alfred had been—father, husband, earl, leader, lord—was memorialized with a hastily erected pile of stones.
Frey swallowed the bitterness of the memory, knowing it could not help her now, not when Brice’s life was in the balance. She would bury her loathing for the invader as deep as she had buried her father.
Twenty yards from the tent, Frey halted. Orlege and Larcwide stopped with her.
“Wait here,” she told them before walking alone toward the tent, unsure whether or not she heard Larcwide mutter another complaint under his breath.
Each step forward was a trial, every beat of her heart warning her to turn back. And yet for Brice she would do this thing.
The knight to her right looked implacable; his hard, chiseled face and dark mustache might have been hewn from rock, and his eyes lay in shadow, so Frey turned her attention to the man on her left, whose eyes and face she could see and read.
Strangely enough, seeing his eyes gave her courage. It meant he was a man, not a monster. At least that’s what she told herself as she called to the men.
“I am Alfreya, daughter of Alfred of Tyrswick, the sister of Brice who is now, by virtue of the death of our father, earl of Tyrswick,” she announced loudly in French to the party of Normans. “I am the one who called for parley.”
She heard a murmur go through the gathering of the baron’s men at the sound of her voice. No doubt they were surprised. The call for parley was unusual enough under the circumstances, but that it should be called by a woman as a leader was unheard of.
“Have you proof of your claims?” yelled the knight.
Surely the ability to speak their hated Frankish tongue fluently ought be proof enough of noble birth, Frey fumed, but she nonetheless stopped a few feet away and unsheathed the sword she wore.
The knight stood to attention with a hand on the handle of his own sword, alert to potential threat. The baron merely stood with his arms crossed, his expression fixed.
His lack of reaction ignited her spirit. “He means to humiliate me,” she decided angrily. “He won’t get that satisfaction.”
With energy, she tossed the sword in the baron’s direction, smugly satisfied with the look of surprise on his face. He stepped back, deftly catching the sword by the grip and turning it so he could see the hilt consisting of interlinked squares engraved on quality steel.
Frey was satisfied with the grudging respect that fell across his features as he examined the blade. She knew as well as he did that it was an expensive weapon made for a man of means. Without question it had belonged to Alfred.
“The sword is insufficient proof,” he told her, stepping forward and presenting the weapon back by the pommel.
Frey had anticipated a challenge to her identity but was taken off guard by the return of the sword. She wasn’t sure whether it was out of respect or whether, in this man’s opinion, she posed so little threat to his person.
“I have further proof,” she said, pulling the large, masculine ring from her thumb and holding it up for the baron to observe. “I hold the seal of Tyrswick.”
He held out the palm of his hand. Frey refused to pass the ring.
Sebastian caught her wrist in a rapid movement and pulled her closer. Frey's shoulder collided with his broad chest and she gasped in surprise. Her heart beat loudly in her ears.
The grip was sure, but not cruel. Frey licked her lips nervously. This man exuded raw power; it would be a mistake to underestimate him.
After her initial expression of astonishment, a neutral mask shuttered her appearance.
Sebastian raised her hand slowly until sunlight glinted across the surface of the ring. Deep-cut depressions in the carnelian revealed its function as a seal. Interlocked squares and the word “Tyrs” were reversed in the relief.
He pulled her closer and she heard him take a deep breath as he saw for himself the truth she held in her hand. The baron straightened and his fingers brushed against her rapidly beating pulse in a light caress as he released her wrist.
Frey smiled at him triumphantly.
“Are you ready to begin negotiations, my lord?” she asked sweetly.
He gave her an assessing look.
“There’s ju
st one problem,” he said before pausing significantly. “Lady Alfreya of Tyrswick has been dead for the past two months.”
Frey paled and rocked back on her feet.
No, this cannot be! What manner of trap was this?
“She wore a ring as proof of identity when her corpse was found,” he continued bluntly.
“Diera? Oh dear God in heaven, what have I done?” she breathed, lapsing into Saxon.
“Is that your real name, girl?” Gaines interjected.
“No!” Frey yelled at him. “I am Alfreya of Tyrswick!”
The men who accompanied her shifted forward and Sebastian’s men responded in kind.
Without looking behind, Frey raised an arm upward and her two men stopped their advance.
“At ease,” Gaines ordered, and Sebastian’s own men stood down.
Frey wavered in her resolve for a moment. Tears welled but did not fall.
“What was she doing near Tyrswick?” Frey asked herself out loud before addressing her interrogators.
“Diera was my maid. I gave her a ring as both a token of remembrance and to use for trade should the need arise. She left with the others three months ago. They were supposed to have crossed the border back into Scotland.”
“Do you still hold that you are Alfred’s daughter?” the baron asked.
His question was delivered softly, as though motivated by compassion, but Frey knew that could not be so. Normans had no compassion.
“I am,” she avowed without hesitation.
As Frey looked defiantly at the men, the daylight changed from gold to pink as the sun retreated farther down the sky. The shadows deepened, heralding the beginning of twilight.
“Then let’s parley,” Sebastian announced suddenly, stepping aside from the entrance to reveal a small wooden campaign table and two stools within.
Frey walked into the tent and sat on the seat he indicated. A page dashed forward, placed two small horn cups on the table, and filled them with wine before rushing away.
Frey’s mouth watered at the rich and fruity bouquet. Nearly five months had gone since she last tasted grapes. There had been no wine since their party left Scotland.
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