Warrior's Surrender

by Elizabeth Ellen Carter

  Sebastian turned to glance at her, and Frey realized she had spoken out loud. She raised her head and looked back at him, daring him to say something.

  He didn’t and, after a moment, turned away.

  Brice should be your only focus, not trysting with the enemy, she told herself, more quietly this time.

  But it was becoming increasingly difficult to consider Sebastian an enemy, though to think any more kindly of him than a man simply doing his duty was dangerous indeed. She stared at his back as their horses walked along.

  He was so different from Drefan. Drefan was witty and charming. Sebastian was serious and sober.

  Frey let her mind wander back two years to when her family first met Lord Drefan. He was already a favorite in King Malcolm’s Edinburgh court while the rest of the displaced Saxon aristocracy was merely tolerated.

  Tall, fair, and devastatingly handsome, he told all that he was the indispensable right hand of his cousin Edgar, who was still being persuaded by King William’s disaffected son, Robert Curthose, to contest the English throne from his new home in Flanders. It had been rumored, on the basis of his looks and reputation, that Drefan had bedded almost every noble woman at Malcolm’s court, but Alfred advised his young daughter to ignore spiteful chatter and welcome their new friend.

  And what a friend he was.

  Drefan would engage in mock battles with Brice and run through the halls neighing and whinnying loudly with the boy on his back, playing at being his trusty steed. He would drink late into the night with her father, enthusiastically listening to his stories of bygone battles and flattering him on a military career cut tragically short due to a pikestaff through the thigh.

  That wound, attained during William the Bastard’s harrying, cost Alfred dearly. His health never recovered from the blood loss and wound. Wine, ale, and mead at every meal—two or three goblets’ worth—made the pain more manageable, but his limp was pronounced. Scotland’s cold, damp weather left him such agony on some days that he could not leave his chamber.

  On these occasions, the only medicine that would dull his pain was what the Scots called uisge beatha—”water of life”—made by local monks from a fermented grain according to a recipe the Crusaders brought back with them from the Holy Land.

  As always, Frey recalled, Drefan was there, very attentively listening to her drunk father wax lyrical about the wealth Tyrswick held. Why, the gold he carried with him was merely a trifle compared to the fortune his land could raise. Crops that could feed a multitude, sheep the size of cattle, cattle the height of horses, trout as big as a hunting dog.

  If he could only mount an army to deal with those thieving, gorbellied bastards, Alfred had told anyone in shouting distance, then he would be able to single-handedly raise the coin for the rightful king to take England back from those Norman dogs.

  Thinking on it now, Frey was ashamed of herself. She had been embarrassed by her father when he was in his cups, but there too was Drefan, offering her a wry smile and a wink to tell her he understood.

  Was it any surprise she had thought herself in love with him?

  Like the time when Larcwide sheepishly approached her to say that the men had not been paid for well nigh two months, it was Drefan who offered coin from his own purse. Grateful beyond measure to this family friend, Frey asked how she could possibly repay him. She assured him her father did indeed have some gold but would be completely insensible to answering to its location until he emerged from his drunken sleep.

  Drefan looked her from the top of her head, covered as it was with a pale blue veil held in place with a plain silver circlet, down to the hem of her skirt, a smile spreading across his handsome features.

  “I’m certain we can find a way to repay your debt,” he assured her.

  A deep shudder of revulsion brought Frey back to herself.

  She straightened in the saddle and brought her horse up to a trot to match Ebon’s gait.

  “I know you suspect foul play,” Frey said when she reached Sebastian.

  He glanced at her before looking ahead again.

  “On the road today…the wolves,” she pressed.

  “What makes you say so?” Sebastian eventually responded.

  “The landfall was no accident.”

  Sebastian slowed Ebon to a walk and shifted in his saddle to give Frey his undivided attention. When he spoke, he made no effort hide his irritation.

  “So you say. I want to know why.”

  Larcwide had counseled her to put their series of campaign misfortunes down to mere bad luck, but she was not convinced.

  Surely the run of calamities should have ended.

  But after today…

  “Things happened before we met,” she started, and was met with skeptical expression.

  Frey took a deep breath and started again.

  “It’s hard to explain,” she breathed.

  “Try. Because that ‘accident’ nearly cost us our lives.”

  Frey bristled.

  “It would have been convenient, would it not?” he said, voice low, steady, and unmistakably angry. “The baron of Tyrswick killed while out riding, the heir of the original estate ready to take over? Perhaps you lied when you said the rest of your party fled. You may have men ready to ambush me.”

  Frey was horrified.

  “You cannot think we had anything to do with that? Do you think me so desperate and base I would use a gravely ill boy as a lure? Maybe you think I strangled Diera with my own hands?”

  “Men have done worse to obtain what they want,” he replied, grinding out his words through clenched teeth.

  Frey was livid. How dare he question the integrity of her men, moreover to insinuate they would be so evil as to arrange the murder of her only friend in the world?

  “All of my men gave their oath of honor and allegiance to you and William,” she responded vehemently. “Those who had no one to vouch for them agreed to be bound over to keep the peace. What more can you demand of them?”

  Sebastian paused, drawing air into his lungs so his chest rose. Frey imagined him silently counting. When he spoke, it was clear he was in control of his temper once more. “I don’t know what to think, Alfreya.”

  She started at Sebastian’s use of her first name.

  “But I do know you’re still keeping secrets,” he continued, “and I mean to have them.”

  His eyes that normally sparkled green were now as black as Whitby jet and they seemed to speak to her heart. There was more here than anger or lingering alarm from today’s encounter with the wolf pack. A warrior of Sebastian’s stature would have seen more than his share of danger.

  Unbidden, she found herself drawn into those eyes, dark pools that appeared so calm on the surface, but beneath which she saw an intriguing glimpse of the complexity of the man.

  Gazing at him, she took in his lips, firm and full, and her own tingled with the memory of them meeting hers. The urge to lay open her heart to him beat powerfully in her breast.

  As much as she told herself she hated the thought, Frey knew she was indebted to his kindness and acknowledged he deserved to know it all. A recitation of facts she could give him; anything else was beyond her, despite the pleasure his eyes, his lips, and his hands promised.

  “What do you want to know?” The question came out breathless.

  A small measure of triumph flared in his eyes before his expression cooled.

  “Everything,” he told her. “I want everything.”

  Frey pursed her lips. That was exactly what she was afraid of.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “Frey. Wake up.”

  The familiar voice stirred her from her sleep.

  She lifted her head and looked around. Everything seemed in order. Brice lay sleeping deeply in the cart just a few feet away.

  Dear sweet lad. She loved him as much as if he were her full-blood brother, not just the half they shared with their father. Indeed, she loved Brice more than her full-blood elder brother,
which she knew was a sin she really ought to repent of.

  The gentle tendrils of sleep were reclaiming Frey once more when the voice called again.

  “Wake up!”

  This time the voice was insistent and Frey awoke with a start.

  Instead of the gentle rocking of the cart where she last recalled laying her head, she awoke under the shade of an evergreen yew, her pillow a gathering of dense and springy yew branches covered with her robe.

  She stood.

  Brice was nowhere to be seen.

  Frey’s eyes fell upon a figure in a forest-green cloak standing about ten feet away. With the hood of the cloak covering the head, Frey couldn’t immediately tell whether it belonged to a man or woman, but the identity of the voice that called to wake her, she suddenly knew.

  “Diera?”

  “Frey. Wake up.”

  Frey started. The voice came not from the cloaked figure but from right beside her.

  Turning, she found Diera exactly as she had last seen her, dressed in a practical brown kirtle, her long hair the color of the goldenrod flower, several shades darker than Frey’s own, plaited and lying across her shoulder and over her right breast.

  Diera’s doe-brown eyes were liquid with spilling tears, and Frey felt her heart breaking at the sight. She loved Diera as a sister. In fact, they often were mistaken as such.

  “Hush, my dove, what’s wrong?” Frey asked. Diera did not answer but encircled Frey firmly in her arms.

  “Are you afraid?” probed Frey.

  Perhaps it was the figure in green she feared. Frey twisted in her friend’s hold, intending to yell at the cur who would frighten a girl.

  The robed figure was no longer there.

  Turning back, she returned Diera's embrace with emotion.

  “You’re here! I was told you were dead!”

  Frey rested her head on Diera’s shoulder and felt the comfort of a feminine hand soothing her back.

  “Why would anyone be so cruel?”

  Again, Diera did not answer, but lay down, tugging on Frey’s hand, urging her to share the yew twig pillow.

  “You’re tired,” she said at last. “Come, lie by me.”

  Frey complied, but, lying on her back beside Diera, she did not close her eyes at first, instead looking up into the heights of the great tree, watching the sun and shade ebb and flow with each movement of breeze.

  Hypnotized by the motion, Frey's eyes closed against the dappled sunlight, and she took comfort in holding Diera’s hand, feeling more peace than she had in a very long time.

  Perhaps she slept. Frey couldn’t be sure.

  But when she opened her eyes again, she was certain of one thing, that some amount of time had passed and the bright sunny day was now cast in the strange half-light that heralds a soon-coming storm.

  As if to confirm this, a gust of wind tugged at her skirts.

  The hand that clutched hers was icy cold. Frey squeezed it to gently wake her friend.

  “Diera?” she whispered. “It’s time for us to go home.”

  There was no response, and an agonizing dread flowed slowly through Frey’s being.

  Thunder rolled in the distance as Frey scrambled to a half-seated position and stared.

  Diera’s beautiful long hair had been chopped off, wispy strands left behind waved in the rising breeze. Her eyes were carmine, the size of pennies, from which tears of blood dripped down her cheeks as if in everlasting regret.

  Frey’s view was drawn to Diera’s right hand, which lay across her stomach. At first she thought her friend was clutching something, but then she realized the hand would never hold anything again. The fingers were missing. Only the thumb remained.

  Frey shuddered violently as the dread turned to horror and demanded a voice.

  Heaven vented its fury at the desecration with flashes of angry declamation and weeping from the skies, but even that could not drown the piercing scream that came from Frey’s own lips.

  “Frey! Wake up.”

  A familiar voice pulled Frey from her sleep.

  Although now fully awake, she could still hear the terrible cry linger and covered her ears against it. Frey opened her eyes to then find Sebastian looking at her, his expression a mix of concern and confusion. She turned her head and looked at Brice.

  Beads of sweat on the boy’s brow glistened in the torchlight as the cart and the rest of the Tyrswick party passed through the gates and into the grounds of St. Cuthbert’s Abbey.

  True to Sebastian’s word, they had pressed through the afternoon and now stars were appearing in the last of the twilight sky. For a moment, it seemed the terrible screeching returned, but Frey recognized it now as the gate being closed for the night on its rusty hinges.

  When it ceased, all she could hear was the sound of their own travel—walking horses, jangling bridles, rolling wheels of the cart along the grit-covered drive—along with the footsteps of two monks with lanterns lighting their way to the main abbey complex.

  The sound of lowing cattle and the bleating of sheep and goats protected in their enclosures for the evening was a comfortable and familiar sound. Frey now felt safe.

  Brice’s hand felt warm in hers and that felt right too. She brushed her brother's damp hair from his forehead.

  “Almost there,” she whispered in his ear. The boy didn’t stir.

  “Aught amiss?”

  Frey shook her head, not yet willing to answer Sebastian’s gentle inquiry.

  Despite her bitter accusations that afternoon, he made her feel safe too, although she would rather kiss the king of England than tell him so.

  He was tired, she observed.

  Long shadows hid much of his face. The dark growth of beard and slightly hunched posture in the saddle added to the appearance of exhaustion. In the split of his surcoat, she could see his bandaged calf and, in the center of it, a dark spot like a bull’s-eye from the worst of the wounds received from the wolves.

  Perhaps they were wounds he sustained while saving her life.

  That was another unpayable debt she owed despite the fact she herself saved his life with her timely arrival this afternoon.

  Frey wondered how Sebastian felt about that.

  The cart rolled to a stop at a familiar outbuilding—a long, narrow rectangular structure made of timber and thatch that stood several hundred yards from the main building.

  Frey reflected that she knew St. Cuthbert’s Abbey well, standing as it did less than two days ride from Tyrswick.

  St. Cuthbert’s was largely self-sufficient and represented a way point for pilgrims heading to the famous Holy Island of Lindisfarne. Not only did the monks raise sheep and cattle behind the sturdy stone walls that survived the Viking raids, but they also grew crops to feed themselves and a growing number of orphaned lads they furnished with a home and an education.

  It was hoped some of them would take holy orders. Those who decided against a life of prayer and worship were highly sought after by the newly elevated Norman aristocracy, who desired trusted men who could read and write Saxon, French, and Latin to manage their new estates.

  Frey watched Sebastian dismount and hand the reins over to Talbot, who took Ebon along with his own mount and Gaines’s horse to the stables.

  Sebastian moved stiffly and Frey wondered whether his wound had reopened.

  With the help of Orlege and Larcwide, two monks hoisted Brice’s litter from the conveyance. The four men walked through the door at the end of the building and disappeared.

  Frey was about to follow when she felt Sebastian’s restraining hand on her arm. From the door through which Brice had been taken, the abbot himself, dressed in his voluminous black robes, emerged.

  “Greetings and peace be with you, although we didn’t expect you until morning,” he said pointedly. “We’ve only just finished Compline and many of our brethren have retired for the evening.

  “Forgive our untimely interruption, Father,” replied Sebastian, “but we were beset by wolves t
his afternoon so we felt it best to press through to safety.”

  The man’s expression changed at the news.

  “Then you did the right thing, my son,” he agreed. “Apart from the lad are there any others who are injured?”

  “No,” said Sebastian.

  “Yes,” said Frey.

  The abbot looked confused while Sebastian appeared annoyed. Frey ignored him.

  “Father Abbot, the baron here has suffered an injury that might benefit from treatment. I believe he may have been bitten.”

  The abbot looked alarmed. A wolf, a dog, any bite may be serious.

  Sebastian turned to her angrily. “It’s nothing more than a scratch.”

  “Nevertheless, it would be good to let Brother Halig examine the wound,” determined the abbot.

  Frey crossed her arms, satisfied in spite of Sebastian’s mutterings. Their host turned to Frey.

  “And where is your attendant, my lady?”

  Frey blinked and cast her eyes downward.

  “She has recently passed away, Father.”

  There was an awkward moment's silence.

  “I see. Then it wouldn’t be appropriate for you to bathe in the balneary alone,” the man said briskly, getting down to business. “I’ll arrange for one of the brethren to bring a tub to your room.”

  He turned to Sebastian. “Baron, let your men know they will wash before they eat. One of the novices will show them where they will sleep this evening.”

  * * *

  The door closed soundly behind Frey, followed by the rasp of a bolt being thrown home.

  She stared at the bare wooden door blankly for a moment. It was the first time she had been under a solid roof in nearly six months. It felt foreign.

  The white-washed walls were unadorned but for a crucifix. The cell’s small window was covered by wooden shutters. Her door was bolted for her own protection, so she was told. Yet sleeping in the open air with quick access to the small knife she kept strapped to her ankle as well as her trusty crossbow, made her feel much safer than being locked overnight in this sanctuary.

  Still, the tin bath from which alluring curls of steam rose and beckoned her to join them was very tempting indeed; so too the narrow cot that was to be her bed. Narrow though it was, it did have a real mattress and the softest woolen blankets Frey had felt since Scotland.