by Sara Bennett
Constance smiled, showing many gaps in her teeth. “Oh, I’m content, Captain. For now.”
“You fought with the English at Senlac?” Rose demanded, her voice far louder than she had meant.
A hush fell over the hall. She was aware of the other mercenaries suddenly focusing their full attention upon the conversation.
Gunnar Olafson sighed, and gave her a narrowed look that yet held a hint of humor.
“Aye, I did, lady,” he answered her with a wry reluctance. “I thank you for spreading my fame far and wide.”
Rose blushed vividly, refusing to acknowledge the goggling crowd. “I was surprised,” she replied in a voice as unemotional as his. “I am sorry if you didn’t want it known, though the people here at Somerford will like you for it. They remember the time before the Normans with longing. However, these days, not many men admit to fighting with the English. They are always on King William’s side.”
“Then many men are liars.”
There was something about him, something in his hard honesty that appealed to her on a different level from his physical attractiveness.
Sir Arno laughed in drunken mockery. “They lie because they were on the losing side!” he bellowed. Constance shot him a glance full of dislike, while Brother Mark smirked into his wine.
“Aye, we did lose,” Gunnar Olafson agreed, “but we fought bravely that day, and if we had not been so worn down from the march from Stamford Bridge, we would have won. And I killed many Normans; Fenrir ran red with their blood. He fed well at Senlac.”
Arno’s face was red, too, but with anger. “You forget yourself, Captain,” he spluttered furiously. “Lady Rose lost her brother at Hastings. I myself lost many friends and comrades.”
The rebuff was a just one. The mercenary’s blue gaze shifted to Rose, but she would not look at him. Had he killed her brother with that sword of his? she wondered. And what would Arno think of her if she said that she didn’t care? Her brother had treated her abominably, and when he had died she had been relieved—God forgive her, but it mattered not to her who had killed him.
“Lady!”
So intent upon her own thoughts was she that Rose had not noticed the stir in the room. One of the guards was moving toward her—old Edward, wearing his padded vest and an ancient helmet that looked as if it had done service in King Alfred’s time. “Lady!” He came at a running shuffle, his eyes fixed on her, and in his haste he had forgotten to bow or lower his voice.
Sir Arno tried to rise from his seat, crying, “What is it?” but he was so unsteady that Rose reached out a hand to stop him. His muscles trembled under her fingers and he was breathing heavily. Another moment, she thought in despair, and he would be beyond speech.
“Edward?” she demanded. “What has happened?”
Edward was clearly agitated, his rheumy eyes wild, his gray-whiskered jaw trembling. “The villagers are shouting at the gate, lady! They say they’re being attacked and their houses are burning. Please, lady, give me permission to open the gate and let them in!”
Chapter 5
Shock gripped Rose, but almost immediately she had regained her wits and risen to her feet. “Of course you must open the gate and let them in! At once!”
“And if it is a trick?” That deep, quiet voice was much closer than she had expected.
Gunnar Olafson was standing behind her.
Rose gave him an impatient glance, trying not to show how edgy his proximity made her. “Edward is not a fool, Captain. He knows his own friends and relatives. Let them in, Edward!” The old man scuttled away before anyone else could gainsay him. Rose turned to Arno, ignoring the mercenary captain. “We must send a troop of men to the village, Sir Arno. If the attackers are still there, then we will be able to capture them. If they are gone…well, we must help where we may.”
Sir Arno stared at her glassy eyed. “Merefolk,” he muttered, and laughed. “Capture the merefolk? Ah, but can you, lady?”
The wine had clearly done its work, and he was incapable of making sense. She should be angry—she just felt bleak. Arno’s drunkenness meant she would have to go herself.
Rose took a step forward, only to be halted again by a very strong, very warm hand clasping her shoulder. Startled, she turned and met Gunnar’s calm blue eyes.
“Lady, is this not the reason we are here?”
She had forgotten. She had believed that, as usual, it was all up to her, that she must stiffen her shoulders and carry this burden as she had carried all the others. And now suddenly here was the enigmatic Captain Olafson, steadying her with his grip, offering to take this task upon himself.
She wanted to refuse him, and yet at the same time the thought of his help was an exquisite temptation. Rose found it curiously difficult to breathe.
Could she trust him? And did she want to?
Rose stepped back, away from the others, until the wall hangings brushed her sleeve. As if he read her mind, Gunnar followed, treading softly after her. He was so large that he blocked the hall from her sight, until all she saw was him, his chest and shoulders in woad blue, a pulse beating in his throat. His face was in shadow, his eyes dark hollows, only his hair caught the candlelight, an aura of molten fire.
She made herself look up at him and hoped her haughty exterior was firmly in place. A disguise for the tumult within.
“Captain, I will not have anyone harmed unless it is completely necessary, unless it is a matter of life or death, and even then I do not like it. Do you understand me?”
He stared back at her.
Can I trust him? Or is he, right now, just trying to think of a lie to tell me that will satisfy me? It was no easy thing for Rose to place the lives of her people in this man’s hands. Why didn’t he answer her? Mayhap it was just that she was a woman, and he did not take his orders from women. Best she disabuse him of that matter right now!
“You may think that Sir Arno rules Somerford Manor,” she went on in her firmest tone, “but I am lady here, and I give the orders. If you cannot abide by that, Captain Olafson, then you had best step aside and let me go in your stead.”
Something flared in his eyes. “I have no difficulty taking orders from a woman,” he said softly. “I wondered whether you would trust me now that you know I fought against your brother.”
Rose hesitated, carefully choosing her words. “That is not something that would cause me not to trust you, Captain. Many of the people at Somerford fought for Harold, any one of them may have faced my brother, perhaps even dealt him the deathblow. I do not hate them for that.”
Still he stared and did not speak. As if she had said something remarkable.
“Well then…?” she demanded impatiently. “Do we understand each other?”
“If I can find one of these outlaws I will bring him back to you, lady,” he offered.
She tried to read his expression. The blankness had gone; he looked curiously elated. “Why would you do that?”
“He will tell us his secrets.”
“Why should he?” she replied.
He bent closer, crowding her. His body gave out heat and strength, his thigh brushed her gown. His breath against her skin was warm and faintly scented with cloves. “Because I am better even than the Lady Constance at making men give up their secrets. There are ways.”
Of course there were, Rose thought, her skin prickling, and a man such as this would know them all. Savage tortures far beyond imagining. And yet what choice had she? What he suggested, capturing one of the merefolk, made perfect sense. She answered him carefully, her throat feeling constricted.
“Do not…do not do anything until I have seen and spoken to any man you capture. There must be no killing. Do you swear it, Captain? Do you swear to obey me?”
He held her gaze for a long moment. She sensed some struggle in him, though she could not read what it was in the vivid blue of his eyes. And then he sighed, a barely audible sound, and his voice came quiet and intense.
“Aye, lady, I swea
r it.”
He didn’t wait for more. Rose watched him turn and stride quickly through the hall, a brief nod sending his men hurrying to fall in behind him. And then they were gone and the keep seemed empty without them.
Rose felt shaky and hot, as though she had experienced something difficult and traumatic, and she knew it was not just that her village was on fire and her villagers crying out for help.
Gunnar Olafson was like no other man she had ever before encountered. He was not checked by the boundaries that confined other men. He had his own rules. He was a pagan, a savage, and a soldier who fought and killed because it was what he did best. And yet, despite all that—or maybe because of it—Rose trusted him.
She had asked for his word, his sworn promise, and he had given it to her.
He had given her his word, and she knew in some deep part of herself that he would not break it.
“Rose?”
Arno was watching her from the table, his brown eyes slightly more alert than they had been a moment before, and full of suspicion. Rose wondered if he had overheard her conversation with the mercenary and thought she had best soothe any hurt feelings. Arno might not be the most reliable of men, but he had been loyal to Edric and he was loyal to her.
“I have sent the mercenaries to the village, Sir Arno. It is why they are here, after all. But they will do as I tell them and nothing more. Our captain had best remember that, if he wants his six marks.”
Arno gave a drunken smile at her dry tone. “So you do not approve of our handsome mercenary?”
Constance narrowed her eyes. “At least he can stand upright.”
Arno glowered back at her. “Hold your tongue, old woman,” he slurred, “or I’ll cut it out with my dagger!”
“If you can hold your dagger steady enough.”
Rose shrugged and left them to their pleasantries. Outside, the darkness had been made light with torches, and grooms were saddling horses for impatient men. As the gate creaked open, an unsteady mob hurried through. One woman sobbed hard, while a man was being supported by his companions. In the flare of the torches their faces were ghostly, pale and frightened. Voices babbled hysterically.
And then one deep voice cut through the noise.
“Ivo! Take Alfred and Reynard, and circle around to the far side of the village. The rest, with me. We have work to do. Edward, is it? Close the gate behind us!”
The troop of mercenaries set their mounts at the open gate and, horses’ hooves thundering on the hard ground, quickly vanished into the night.
Rose stared after them as Edward—puffed up with his own importance—closed the gate behind them. The mild evening breeze that stirred her gown and her veil brought with it the smell of burning thatch. The scent of destruction. She allowed herself one brief image of Gunnar Olafson, riding into possible danger, and then she closed it off. There was too much else to be done.
Rose descended the stairs to offer her villagers what comfort she could.
Gunnar sat upon his gray horse while all about him the flames turned the village crimson and orange, and the smoke hung suffocatingly low. The heat seared his skin. Fire had caught in thatches and roared through the wooden-framed walls. Although the villagers and the men from the keep had worked desperately, the fire had gained too great a hold on some buildings. An irascible old serf called Hergat had died in one of them, too stubborn to come out to safety.
When Gunnar and his men had first arrived at the village, they had found the place in chaos and the attackers already fled. As no one seemed clear in which direction they had headed, there was little point in pursuing them into the darkness. “Better to wait for daylight,” Gunnar had told them. “Whoever these people are, they will have left some trace.” Then he instructed his men to help gather up the belongings of those among the villagers who wanted to make their way to the safety of the keep.
In fact, the arrival of the mercenaries had frightened the villagers almost as much as the attack on them, but once it was made clear Gunnar and his men were there to help, to be on their side, they were accepted…albeit warily.
Gunnar had himself helped beat out fires that were still capable of being snuffed—there were others beyond stopping, raging their way through cottages of timber and sod. In one instance he helped an old woman to corner and capture a small spotted piglet.
“The merefolk did this,” the ancient crone had muttered darkly as she crammed the squealing animal into a willow basket and fastened the lid. “God curse ’em for it! ’Tis true they’ve always hated us and us them, but I never thought that one day they’d come and murder us in our beds!”
“You are safe now,” Gunnar had assured her. “We will take you to Lady Rose’s Keep.”
Her wrinkle-wrapped eyes had peered up at him hopefully. “She be one of God’s angels, our lady.” The eyes blinked and widened. “You be a handsome one. I’ve never seen aught like you before in this manor.”
“You will see me often from now on, old woman. I am here to drive the merefolk back where they belong.”
She had given him a thorough and appraising look, ignoring the pig’s shrieks. “Aye, I believe you could!”
Gunnar thought now of the marshy levels, the watery stretches, and their strange, dark islands. Was it really possible the merefolk had decided they no longer wanted to follow the old ways? Maybe the years of living beside Somerford Manor, watching the rich harvests come and go, had proved too tempting. Maybe the merefolk thought to drive off the villagers and make this land their own.
But what of Lady Rose and her secret need for mercenaries? Radulf believed she was quite probably a traitor, a vassal who was no longer loyal to him, and Gunnar trusted the King’s Sword as he trusted few other Normans.
Gunnar shook his head; the whole matter smelled rank.
Impatient now, he urged his mount forward, unseeing as the bright flames around him turned to black smoke and crumbling ashes. A gaggle of geese ran past, squawking, into the darkness, their white feathers ghostly.
I gave her my word.
Gunnar’s hand clenched upon Fenrir’s hilt, the cold patterned metal warming to his touch. His word was precious to him, and once given he would hold to it, always.
He had given his word to Lady Rose of Somerford. The very woman he had come to spy on in the hope of exposing her treacherous, black heart. The very woman whose land he coveted.
Why had he given her his word?
Perhaps it was because of the way she had spoken to him, so straightly, without guile—he had met few Norman ladies who did not use their looks or feminine weaknesses to gain advantages over the men around them. For a moment back there in Somerford’s great hall he had thought she meant to take up a sword, don armor and ride out to protect the village all by herself!
She was brave and determined—he could admire that. But he did not trust her—he could not afford to trust her. If rumor was true, she already held Sir Arno in her toils, and Gunnar had himself seen evidence that there might be something between the lady and the knight…
They are lovers!
He wanted to deny the truth of it. The vision of Lady Rose flushed and tumbled from Arno’s caresses made him angry in a way he could never remember being before.
He was jealous.
Odin help him if he should be caught up in her spell!
Gunnar shook his head. No, if there was a spell, then its name was lust. He was but a dog-wolf scenting the female of his kind. Lust could be dealt with, expunged. Radulf had said nothing about remaining celibate; if Gunnar had a chance to sample the Lady Rose, then maybe he should take it.
But could he have her once and walk away? Would his lust then be slaked, or would the churning inside him grow worse?
“Captain!”
Thankful to have his thoughts interrupted, Gunnar turned, and was instantly alert. Alfred was running swiftly toward him, dispelling the darkness with the fiery torch he carried in his hand.
The ruined side of his face showed up st
arkly—a maze of raised, white scars and puckered, pink flesh. The son of an English thane, a noble landowner, Alfred had been maimed in a skirmish against the Normans that had decimated his entire family. He had been a cheerful boy; he had become a sullen man—Alfred rarely smiled. Of all the men in his troop, Gunnar worried most for Alfred, and hoped the young man would remain with him at Somerford when this, their last mission, was done.
Gunnar’s gray horse shifted nervously as it caught the acrid scent of Alfred’s smoke-drenched clothing. “You have found something?”
Alfred glanced back over his shoulder, towards the mill that stood at the farther end of the village. There was a small cottage beside it, the blackened walls and glow of embers telling another tale of destruction. His voice was grim. “Aye, Captain, I’ve found a man. He’s dead. Looks as if he was caught in the fire.”
“Is he one of the villagers, like this Hergat?”
“No, Captain, I don’t think so. Come and look.”
Gunnar nodded and they moved off at a walk. He sensed there was more to this than Alfred was saying, but he would bide his time until he had seen for himself.
The miller’s cottage was little more than a shell, although strangely the mill itself remained untouched. Maybe the attackers had been disturbed before they could set fire to the mill, or the miller had stopped them. As they drew closer, Gunnar could smell the river and hear the rush of its swift-moving water. Two figures were standing by the burned cottage, one a child and the other a young woman. The glow from the smoldering timbers showed the woman’s face was smudged and her clothing dirty. At the sight of Gunnar on his horse she clasped the child hard against her, her expression at once afraid and defiant.
“The miller’s children,” Alfred murmured. “The miller himself has not yet been found.”
Gunnar nodded at the woman—he saw now she was only a girl—and the child. “Where is this dead man?”