by Betina Krahn
* * *
It was nearly dawn before the search party returned to the palace. It had been a long and sleepless night for Thera and the council, and as soon as her page came running to her chambers with word that Saxxe and his party had returned, she donned her surcoat and hurried to learn what had happened.
She found the elders collected into an anxious knot in the Great Hall, waiting for her. By dawn’s light, she led them out to the arched portico in the front of the palace . . . where they stopped stock-still at the sight of Saxxe and Gasquar dragging a trussed but thrashing form from the back of a horse. Thera steeled her nerves as they wrestled the booted, mail-clad stranger forward and Saxxe forced him down on his knees before her.
“Here he is. The one who did the sheep killing,” Saxxe declared, tightening his grip on the neck of the intruder’s mail tunic. “We saw no others, but that does not mean there were none. This one is reluctant to talk”—he looked at Thera, then Cedric and Hubert with a flinty expression—“but we can soon remedy that.”
As Thera and her elders looked on in widening shock, Saxxe seized the grizzled intruder’s bound arms and wrenched them sharply higher behind his back. “Where are they . . . your comrades? Tell us now and save yourself the ordeal of having your tongue loosened.” When the fellow growled and doubled over in pain, the elders covered their gasps and averted their eyes.
“Please sir!” Cedric lurched forward at Thera’s side, clasping his hands.
“That will be enough!” Thera declared tautly. As Saxxe looked up, there was a stony cast to his chiseled features that added to her distress. During the long night just past, her worry over the outcome of their mission had been equaled by her worry over the fact that her people had taken this problem straight to Saxxe . . . without so much as a by-your-leave to her. It was a small but telling transfer of power, and through the night she had wrestled mightily with the conflict it generated in her.
“It is not necessary to break his arms in order to make him speak.” She addressed the swarthy, bearded prisoner herself. “How did you get into our valley? Where do you come from?” But as the elders looked on expectantly, the sheep killer refused to answer, ignoring her demands with a smirk.
“He’ll not tell you anything of his own will,” Saxxe insisted, wrenching the thief’s arm a bit higher so that the smirk disappeared with a jolt. “But a few breadless days in prison will persuade him.” He looked to Hubert. “Where is your dungeon?”
“Dungeon?” Hubert said with a stricken look. “We have no dungeon.”
“Imprisoned and denied bread?” Elder Audra said, stepping forward. “We could never treat a visitor in such a fashion.”
“He’s not a visitor, he’s an enemy,” Saxxe said forcefully. “Look at him . . . there’s not a drop of repentance in his miserable carcass. He killed two of your sheep and would have taken more if we hadn’t caught him, and he may have friends hiding in the hills, ready to take more than sheep from you.” His voice dropped to an ominous rasp. “It is well-known that wolves run in packs.”
A number of eyes darted anxiously toward the distant rim of the valley as Saxxe’s words finally had some impact. But even the male councilors were loath to see danger in the presence of just one man.
“Is that true?” Thera demanded of the prisoner. “Are there others in the hills?” His only response was to drag his gaze insultingly over her body.
“Perhaps he was simply lost. He might have strayed from the trading road and stumbled into our valley,” Audra said, edging closer to Thera. Several nods lent credence to the possibility.
“Yea—it has happened before,” Elder Jeanine reminded her. “Years ago.”
A murmur of agreement followed, and Saxxe watched them edging closer to the prisoner, more curious than concerned. They had no idea of the calculation and treachery that were daily facts of life for men in his old trade.
It struck him: they approached this hardened soldier with the same innocence and good faith that had led them to accept him without question. This was undoubtedly the way they would deal with the rest of the outside world as well . . . with endearing but potentially disastrous eagerness for the new and different.
“The others may not understand, but surely you do, Thera,” he said with a compelling gaze, willing her to see the danger. “He is a soldier, seasoned by years of battle. Look at the blade marks on his armor.” He pointed to the prisoner’s battered mail tunic and the weapons Gasquar held out in evidence. “Look at the marks of use on his long blade and daggers. If he will not speak, it is because he has something to hide. And what else could it be besides his comrades . . . and their plans?”
Thera wasn’t sure what she understood. She only knew that the sight of this fierce, sullen stranger in her kingdom sent a chill into the very marrow of her bones. And when she looked at Saxxe just now, she saw a tough-minded soldier . . . a man whose experience of the world had taught him to see all other men as potential adversaries. And she understood too clearly that the strength she was drawn to in him was very much a part of the volatile power that she feared.
“What I see,” she said with regal deliberation, avoiding Saxxe’s glare, “is that thievery has occurred. Hungry or not, this man has secreted himself in our valley and killed our sheep. Until we can be sure . . . we will keep him under lock and key, as we would any lawbreaker amongst us.”
When the prisoner was locked away, Saxxe and Gasquar led Castor and Pollux back into the hills on horseback to search for other intruders. For Thera, the day seemed interminable, and when night fell and they still had not returned, the darkness of her bedchamber filled with restless whispers of recent passion, present uncertainty, and fears for the future. But when the sun rose the next day, golden and glorious, Lillith brought word that Saxxe and Gasquar had returned empty-handed, and the anxieties of the long night evaporated.
Relieved, Thera plunged into the tasks of governance . . . the ordinariness of which served to underscore her determination that nothing had changed in her kingdom.
* * *
Even as things returned to an uneasy peace in Mercia, the Spaniard Juan was making his way down out of the hills carrying word of its existence to the Duc de Verville. The duc’s restless army of barbarians and mercenaries was always on the move. But to find them, Juan knew, he only need follow the trail of wrecked villages in the foothills and lowlands.
It was dusk of the second evening when he rode up a windswept knoll and through the still-smoldering wreckage of a village to reach the stone keep of the duc’s latest conquest. He found the duc’s captain, Scallion, near the doors to the old lord’s hall, and the captain questioned him, then dragged him through the hall and into the old lord’s bedchamber to repeat it all to the duc.
“One of the Spaniards with El Boccho, mon duc,” Scallion said, thrusting him forward and onto his knees. “Tell the duc what you discovered.”
“The woman in white . . . she comes from a kingdom in the highest mountains. To the north and east.”
“A kingdom in the mountains?” De Verville rose from the bed, his eyes burning, and waved away the body servant who tried to wrap him in a robe. “All of those lands, all the way to the sea, belong to the Duc of Brittany.” He came to stand over the little Spaniard with his fists clenched and his face reddening.
“But I swear, mon duc, I have seen it all with my own eyes!” He gestured with two fingers toward his eyes. “It is a rich valley, with a small city and marble palace. The people dress in samite and silver, and they have fat cattle and many sheep . . . and the storehouses of their grain overflow.” Beads of sweat appeared on his forehead as the duc reached for Scallion’s dagger and drew it with a threatening gleam in his eye. The duc’s reputation for cruelty and for liberally sharing plunder were what kept his army of jackals together.
“I swear, mon duc!” Juan continued nervously. “El Boccho and I, we crept through their city at night to spy it out. It is rich . . . but more important, it has no walls, no
ramparts”—he swallowed hard, praying his information would appease his dark master—“and no garrison.”
Interest flared in de Verville’s eyes as he glimpsed honest fear in the little Spaniard’s face. “No garrison . . . you mean to say, no soldiers?”
“None, mon duc. We saw only three or four men with sword or daggers . . . the others go unarmed. They have only a small forge . . . and make no armor.”
“Then how is it this rich, unprotected ‘kingdom’ is unknown to us?” the duc sneered, laying the dagger blade casually atop Juan’s shoulder.
“It is well hidden in the mountains . . . all but impossible to reach. We stumbled across the passage in. And while there, we searched out a second entry . . . easier but farther away and still difficult.”
“And just how far away is this hidden jewel of a kingdom?”
“Two days’ ride,” Juan said, swallowing hard. “It is not so far, but the terrain is steep and difficult. I can take you there. You can see for yourself.”
De Verville slid the edge of the blade to his spy’s throat and watched the growing terror in his eyes. If the wretch was telling the truth, as he seemed to be, then de Verville had found the means to implement all his plans and schemes . . . a kingdom of his own, high in the mountains, inaccessible, secure enough to exist without walls. A base from which to raid and conquer . . . a natural fortress and retreat in which to enjoy the spoils of his future campaigns.
And it came with a lovely princess to slake his passions and bear him sons.
The duc withdrew the blade, and the little spy nearly melted with relief as he turned to Scallion with a pleased expression. “Take him out and feed him well, then bring him back to me. We must pry every detail about this little kingdom from his head, so that we may develop a proper plan of attack.”
* * *
That same evening, as Thera was emerging from the church after Vespers, the head stonemasons and carpenters asked her to come and see their progress on the forge’s new hearths. She was surprised to hear that they had been laboring day and night and that the construction was proceeding at an astonishing rate.
Taking Cedric and a number of the other elders, she strode through the market square in the lowering light. A shout of laughter from an opening tavern startled her and she turned, expecting to see Saxxe. Instead, one of her townsmen was standing with his fists on his hips and his feet spread in a blatant imitation of Saxxe’s characteristic pose. As she paused and looked around the square, it struck her that she was seeing his bold manner and unbounded vitality in the men’s swaggers and energetic talk, his sensual assurance in their seductive banter with the women. And it was certainly Saxxe’s beard she spotted in the lengthening stubble on a number of their chins!
She knew that aliveness of being, that grander-than-ordinary way of experiencing the world. It was exactly what she felt in his presence. And she didn’t know whether to be glad they chose to emulate the extraordinary man she had brought among them, or to be terrified that they would follow his aggressive male example too closely.
By the time she reached the forge, she scarcely heard the smith’s and the head mason’s glowing reports. She nodded and frowned thoughtfully and feigned appreciation of the impressive size and excellent construction of the rising stone hearths. But internally, she kept seeing and hearing Saxxe as he stood beside the half-destroyed hearths, declaring that they needed bigger, better, and more ironwork. And before she knew it, she was agreeing to allow Randall to take on several more apprentices.
“A thousand prayers of gratitude for you, Highness!” He beamed. “I cannot tell you how hard it is to keep up with the work with only two lads.” He turned to share the news with his current apprentices and found them missing. “Where’s Gaston . . . an’ that sluggard Robert? Robert!” he roared, loud enough to awaken even the laziest apprentice.
“Ain’t here, Randall,” said the head stonemason, nearby. “They’re off with the others . . . trainin’, remember?”
“Training?” Thera asked with a frown. “Training for what?”
Randall gave the head mason a silencing look, flushed, and lowered his eyes to his boots. “Just . . . trainin’, Yer Grace.”
They were keeping something from her, and their dread of her disapproval sent a rush of alarm through her.
“Where?” she demanded.
In mere heartbeats, she was bound for the fields at the heart of the valley. Halfway there, she met Lillith hurrying up the road, on her way back to the palace.
“I was just coming to get you!” Lillith called, running to join her. “It’s Saxxe and Gasquar. They have a number of the young men and they’re—”
“Training,” Thera finished for her, without breaking stride. “They’re teaching them some sort of wretched mayhem, you can depend on it.” Lillith nodded breathlessly and fell in beside her. “Why is it every time I yield him an inch,” Thera said with a groan, “he takes a blessed mile?”
A wild clamor of voices and sounds of wood striking wood drew them across a fallow field. There they discovered scores of Mercia’s young men hidden among the trees near the stream . . . paired off and endeavoring to knock each other senseless with stout wooden poles.
In the thick of that chaos Saxxe and Gasquar were striding back and forth . . . fairly vibrating with unspent physical tension. Both had stripped off their tunics and wore only hose, boots, and daggers as they shouted advice and snatched staffs from the men’s hands to demonstrate hand placement, footwork, or thrusts.
“Watch your opponent’s eyes to anticipate his swing, and begin yours an instant later . . . catching him on the back side of his swing,” Saxxe declared, demonstrating a vicious-looking blow that stopped a hairbreadth from its wide-eyed target. “Go for the knees, the groin, and the face. On an armored soldier, those spots are most vulnerable to a staff. Once he’s down”—he demonstrated by tripping a fellow and jabbing the end of the staff toward his shocked face—“use the end of your staff in his face . . . and he’s out of the battle.”
He was teaching them to hurt and even kill . . . preparing them for battle. And after she had forbidden it! Fury rose like black bile up her throat. She charged in, ordering the combatants to halt and calling Saxxe’s name above the roar of the fighting. He whirled with the staff in his hands and she saw him brace at the sight of her.
“Thera!” he said, flicking a look around him as he lowered the staff in his hands and turned to meet her. “What are you doing here?”
“Seeing for myself your latest outrage,” she declared, planting herself several feet away with her back rigid and her hands clenched. His heated male presence crowded her senses as he came to her, but she refused to retreat.
“I warned you, Rouen—no more fighting.”
“No more blade fighting, you mean,” he corrected.
“One and the same,” she insisted, growing steadily more furious with him.
“Nay—it is not. You forbade me to take up a blade, and that is an entirely different thing. It takes years of training to wield a proper blade, and your lads have neither the steel nor the years required to learn to use it. Gasquar and I are teaching them the rudiments of the staff instead.” One corner of his mouth crooked up. “And they’re taking to it like ducks to water. Want to see?”
She nearly choked. “I didn’t come to watch—I came to stop it! You will halt this madness this instant and send them all back to their work and their families. And you will cease encouraging my subjects to engage in brute violence!”
In the fraught silence that followed, his half grin faded. “With all respect . . . I’ll do no such thing. Whether you want to believe it or not, Mercia’s days of isolation are numbered. Already you have had one intruder, and there will be others. Someday, perhaps soon, Mercia will face the greed and violence of the outside world, and I will not stand by and watch as lives and homes are destroyed. Two nights ago I took an oath pledging to defend Mercia, its ruler and its people,” he said with rising heat, “an
d I intend to honor that vow.”
“Mercia is not in danger,” she said fiercely, angered by his reminder that her own acceptance of that vow had given him a place in her realm and a part of her authority. And just look how he had used it! “And even if we were in peril . . . these are my people and defending them is my task!”
“And just how do you intend to do that, Princess?” he demanded harshly, his patience stretched to its limits. “By offering your enemies half of your treasury to go away? By locking them all in your granary and feeding them a fatted calf until they grow so fat they burst?” His eyes narrowed. “Or perhaps you mean to just talk them to death?”
His comment was sharper than he intended. It shot straight to the vulnerable core of her doubts and fears like a steel-tipped arrow. How could she defend her people? She gasped as her long-suppressed anger, fear, and confusion exploded. She snatched the oak staff from the hands of the nearest trainee and swung it at Saxxe. He scarcely had time to bring his own staff around to intercept the blow.
“What in Seventh Hell are you doing?” he exclaimed. But she came at him again, swinging with surprising force. He fell back and countered her blow, still scarcely able to believe she had attacked him. But his disbelief evaporated as the end of her staff smacked into his upper arm, jolting his nerves to the familiar edge of battle readiness. “Thera!”
“My people are peaceable and gentle and loving,” she shouted, swinging at him again and narrowly missing the side of his head as he ducked. “I’ll not have you corrupting them with your lust for fighting!” Bettering her grip on the thick pole, she used the side to push him back through the gathering crowd. “I won’t let you make Mercia into an armed camp . . . or drag us into battles just because you see enemies behind every rock and bush!” She swung again, and when he parried her blow, the vibrations rattled her teeth.