He shrugged.
“I care not what you do with them; make what you will of them,” he said indifferently.
“Thank you my lord!” said Annis.
Elissa was to curse somewhat at being involved in getting the chests up to Annis’ turret room; but she could not help exclaiming with Annis over some of the beautiful fabrics.
“Gowns galore for both of us” said Annis happily, startling the woman warrior. “And these ones that have just been stuffed in for being worn, torn and rubbed, why then, that we may use in decoration, in the making of hangings to make the room warmer for the winter, and patched onto old blankets to give another layer as quilts.”
“None of this ‘we’,” said Elissa “I don’t sew.”
“No matter; I do” said Annis cheerfully “And well too; oh my, there be furs in this chest!”
“No!” Elissa came to look.
“Fine ones as well as common coney,” said Annis happily, “And look at this sable; I be certain I saw a black brocade in one of those chests, I might make Lord Gyrfalon a sable-lined robe as a Christmas gift. I should think he’d like that, don’t you?”
“You’re insane,” said Elissa. “Yes he probably would; if you still be here at Christmas.”
“Don’t be so negative,” said Annis “Once I persuade him I am more use to him as a healer than a hostage I be sure he’ll like to keep me.”
“Girl are you truly mad?” demanded Elissa “Nice young girls flee from Gyrfalon’s very name; they don’t ask to stay with him!”
“Well you chose service with him, did you not?” said Annis, unanswerably.
Elissa grunted and chose not to answer what she could not without getting bogged down in the difference between a sell-sword who was not acceptable to many lords for the fact of being a woman and a lady of gentle birth that this silly chit seemed not to be aware of.
Between sword practice and the brewing of simples therefore Annis sewed contentedly. And Elissa sighed in wonderment and left her to it, whilst covertly admiring the clever way garments took shape beneath Annis’ nimble fingers.
Chapter 3
The next few days saw the establishment of a routine. Morning and evening Annis applied her lotion to Gyrfalon’s face; and in the morning before her visit to the warlord she took lessons in sword from Elissa. The other sell-swords in Gyrfalon’s motley band were inclined to make game of the slight, young girl, and insult her; and since she wore breeches and a tunic as the most practical garb, some felt she might yet be easy, conveniently forgetting her stand against Solly in the forest, and attempted to handle her indelicately. Elissa fought one verbal tormentor; and when one man laid his hand on her pert little breast, Annis deliberately plucked the knife from his own belt and transfixed the offending member. The man howled with pain and rage: and his friends began to advance upon the girl, hands going to knives and menace in their faces. She dropped into a defensive stance with her sword, Elissa behind her, and prepared to fight. Once again she found trouble forestalled by Gyrfalon as his harsh mocking laugh rang out.
“The girl has taught you an object lesson I shall not have to, Ralph,” he said, striding over. “She is a hostage; and she is no value deflowered before she can be returned to her bridegroom.” He ignored the scowl Annis gave him. “I do,” he purred silkily “so dislike my orders being disobeyed. I do trust it will not happen again?”
There were frightened murmurs of assent from the men. Gyrfalon’s disciplinary measures for disobedience were inclined towards the rather final. The warlord smiled grimly.
“Good,” he said. “Girl, you are getting competent, but I note that Elissa is teaching you her own bad habits. I will take over your training myself.” In truth, Gyrfalon had been impressed by the girl’s tenacity and instincts and felt her a potentially worthy pupil. He had seen few enough with the swordsman’s instincts since he had trained his brother Falk as a boy. It would prove interesting.
Never one to waste time, Gyrfalon looked appraisingly at Annis.
“We will begin today I think,” he said, “as your lesson with Elissa was cut short.”
Annis nodded and buckled her sword back on. Gyrfalon gave a brief nod of approval that she wasted no words; not out of fear of denying him – he believed she would speak up soon enough an she disagreed with him – but because there was no need to speak.
The watching men had retreated somewhat; but as they were not dismissed outright, they remained to watch the fun. Gyrfalon was worth watching for his prowess at any time; and the men had seen those of their fellows who though they could best the warlord given painful and punishing lessons for their contumely. Besides, the linen tunic that Annis wore clung to her slender body where sweat had dampened it and it was a view the men enjoyed for its own sake; though Annis herself was unaware of the effect and the impact that it had.
Gyrfalon noticed it too; but said nothing. The garb the girl had chosen was practical to fight in, and his men had been warned not to pursue the lustful thoughts the sight would arouse in them. The chit would just have to put up with the lewd looks that would inevitably be cast her way at the soft curves of her trim figure.
The warlord set aside his cloak and surcoat for the exercise; well developed muscles rippled under the sleeveless leather vest beneath, a reminder of his panther-like speed and strength. Annis noted a white scar running across his chest beneath the lacing of the vest and wondered what story lay behind so grievous looking a wound. Her healer’s eye approved his physical condition and was impressed with what she saw. There was not an ounce of surplus flesh on him and the tautness of the muscles on his flat belly showed his dedication to keeping himself fit. It was, reflected Annis, an attractive trait.
His voice broke harshly into her reverie.
“Do you know how to watch the belly muscles to see when your opponent signals that he is about to strike in his own body’s betrayal of him – and why?” he asked.
She nodded briefly.
“Some men will change their expression; others shift their grip. But all flood the lungs with air and it creates a ripple” she said.
He nodded, well pleased.
“A more useful catechism for you to learn than any the church teach; though later I will show you how a man in the peak of fitness do not do that; that he may increase his lung capacity enough that he have enough air without drawing in more than a normal breath,” he said.
“And I presume you do such that make it harder for me?” she said wryly.
“When I fight for real; for your training I will try to remember to let my belly muscles speak to you – to give you some chance to defend,” it was half a jeer. “Now, on your guard!”
Fighting with Gyrfalon was both more wearing and more rewarding than with Will Steward or Elissa; and soon Annis ached in muscles she scarcely knew she possessed. Yet by punishing the weak points in her guard he showed her graphically how an expert could kill her over and over. Soon she was so tired her breath came in sobbing gasps and she could hardly raise the sword’s point; and he slapped her flanks with the flat of his blade.
“Enough,” he said harshly “You have stopped learning. We must needs work also on your stamina – if you still wish to be a worthy swordsman,” there was half a sneer there, and Annis’ eyes narrowed.
“You will not put me off, my lord,” she managed, breathlessly. “I will gain the stamina and skill to prove myself to you.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“I thought you learned for to please yourself,” he said. “What does mine opinion matter?”
“I do so learn for myself; and for mine own protection. But,” her chin went up in defiance, “I will teach you not to sneer at mine efforts. One day, my lord, I will be ready to slap you across the backside.”
There was an appreciative gleam in his eye at her spirit, still there after a gruelling hour’s work; and there were too subdued murmurs of approval and grudging admiration from those of his men who had suffered sword practice against
the warlord.
“What, you’d not use your skill to run me through?” He asked mockingly.
She considered.
“That were gross ingratitude to a teacher, methinks,” she returned. “Besides, although there were times just now that I heartily detested you, I think on the whole I quite like you.”
He laughed, a harsh sound, containing as much self mockery as mirth and the men shuddered.
“Quite like me? Girl, did no one ever tell you that emotions concerning me involve fear, hatred, respect, loathing and at best dislike?”
She shrugged.
“It sound half hearted to only quite like you I suppose; but it comes with respect. And as to emotions, Lord Gyrfalon, why methinks I go mine own road. I do not like or dislike to order or the command or even recommendation of others. And though I may fear consequences and actions, I would scorn to fear any man; for we all feed maggots one day. And none shall make me fear to order; I be too stubborn” and she drew her brows together.
“Indeed!” His brow rose; and he stepped a deceptively small slight step to seize her by the throat in his hands, pressing until she felt the bruises come, and her blood pounded in her head leaving her giddy.
“Do you now feel fear of me?” he asked.
Annis whispered perforce; but her voice was even.
“No fear, my lord; only pain.”
It was true; common sense told her that he would be unlikely to kill a potentially valuable hostage on a whim; and moreover her deep faith led her to believe that she would go straight to Heaven. Indeed, a passing thought of pity touched her that she had a certainty of salvation that the warlord did not; that his own fear of death made him wish to frighten others. And perchance something else that made his sense of self-worth less than it should be, deep down; that he must needs dominate.
Gyrfalon released his grip on her and stared.
“Can it be that you Christian women wish death?” he wondered.
She shook her head, scorning to wince as it hurt, resisting the urge to touch her bruised throat.
“Oh no, not at all,” she sad emphatically. “Indeed, to die now would be very inconvenient and would make me all irritable so I shouldn’t enjoy Heaven as much as I ought until I got over such grumps. Just because I do not fear death does not mean I will not do my best to avoid it you know! I enjoy life very much at the moment; I have every reason to live to continue enjoying it, for apart from such occasional megrims of yours you have been a most excellent host to me!”
“Megrims?” he enquired waspishly.
She smiled sunnily.
“Well, I can think of no other way to describe your odd starts of wanting to be frightening,” she said. “It does not trouble me, you need not fear on that ground, and do not in anywise spoil mine enjoyment of your company.”
Gyrfalon glared at her and turned on his heel to swing away, picking up his surcoat and cloak on his way back to his room.
“Are you trying to make him kill you, little fool?” Said Elissa. “You don’t talk to Lord Gyrfalon like that; he’s far too bad tempered. Megrims, indeed!”
Annis beamed on the female warrior.
“He’ll just have to get used to being aggressively liked, won’t he?” she said.
Elissa muttered something unrepeatable to herself.
Annis was outside her understanding.
Later Annis came to Gyrfalon’s room to apply her salve and found him uncommunicative. Cheerfully she embarked upon a monologue about the havoc worked in the kitchens by a large water rat so agile that several men had tripped and injured themselves in their clumsy attempts to catch it.
“And then do you know what happened?” she chuckled.
“I neither know nor care,” Gyrfalon snapped, “Cease your prattling girl!” and then he refused to speak further. Annis laughed unconcerned.
“You are being a crosspatch!” she said merrily “And I hope that wondering what became of that rat will haunt your thoughts all day! Can it be that you seriously believe that it be possible that one day I shall be able to break your guard and spank your fundament? ‘tis an ambition methinks that will take many years of practise; that I am well willing to put in if you will teach me but it also assumes that you will not learn new skills in the meantime; for no man ever stops learning.”
She elicited no response; but at least he showed no rage, and she held her tongue. Instinct told her – and Annis relied heavily on instinct – that confidences could not be easily forced with this complex, enigmaic man.
Gyrfalon stood it for about an hour after Annis had left then sent for a pot boy and demanded peremptorily if the water rat in the kitchens had been dealt with suitably.
He was goggled at briefly in awe at his omniscience.
“Oh my lord it were wholly nimble!” said the boy “Half the servants did fall over tryin’ to catch it and then it knocked a pot right over it and tried to run off, that the pot scuttled on little legs and we all fell about laughing it looked so comical, my lord and then cook he put the spit through it.”
“I hope he cleaned the spit before roasting anything for me,” said Gyrfalon dryly. “Very well boy, you may return to your nether regions and get on with your duties; and if the pot that fell on the rat has not been scrubbed do that on your return.”
The boy tugged his forelock and fled thankfully, glad to have survived an encounter in person with the warlord.
Gyrfalon pulled a wry face. There was a crude humour to the situation; and it would have probably been funnier as described by Annis. Well, now he knew. And was served for his ill humour with the chit that he had a cruder and less well crafted telling of the incident than she would have managed.
Well she need not think that she could make him laugh for the trying.
And one might see how much she was laughing after several more practices.
The next day Annis came prepared for the punishment she knew she would take from the warlord in sword practice; for he was quite relentless. Again he told her roughly that she had ceased to learn as she tired and dismissed her; but at least when she came to him to smooth on the salve he spoke to her of the practise.
“You are slow getting the sword up to parry,” he said. “Your muscles are weak.”
“Yes my lord; and I wondered if I might do some exercise in addition to sword practise to help strengthen them,” she said. “But I am not sure what.”
“Well you are a glutton for punishment” he grunted.
“I am pragmatic enough to recognise that one gains nothing without putting in the effort, aye, and the pain too, for the gain,” retorted Annis. “I may hope that as my muscles develop the practise becomes less painful; until you increase the pressure you put on me as I am sure you will.”
He laughed harshly.
“It will be the only way you will learn,” he said. “Now why do I bother? You may be gone to your father’s house ere you make a decent swordswoman.”
“Or you could tell him to go away and keep me instead,” said Annis. “I’m more use to you than I am to him; and you’re more use to me than he is, though that hardly flatters you for I have no time for my father.”
“You can exercise by lifting and lowering something heavy,” said Gyrfalon, ignoring the last comment “A sword in each hand would do well; that when you have a sword held in both hands it be by comparison light.”
Annis nodded.
“Very well; that exercise I shall do - twice a day?”
“Aye; morning and evening, twenty lifts to start with increasing one every day. And think not that I shall let you off practice for this.”
“Such never crossed my mind,” said Annis. It had not; she had assumed any exercise would be supplemental to her practice.
So Annis began exercises; and Elissa watched her amused but somehow impressed by the girl’s stubborn will to succeed.
“You do realise, don’t you, you silly wench that if you were being forced to take this level of pain it would be called torture be
yond what your church would consider reasonable for a male prisoner, let alone a girl?” said Elissa.
Annis shrugged.
“You mean I’m a fool to care that he not sneer at my weakness and should sit back with my hands folded? That likes me not Elissa. And whether he laugh at me that he may make me take this pain or whether he do not, I will be the gainer in the end for learning and for being stronger.”
“You will,” Gyrfalon’s silkily dangerous voice came disembodied first as he revealed himself by vaulting over the wall by which Annis stood to practise lifting. Elissa shuddered. He had such a trick of being where no-one expected him to be. “And I do not laugh at you girl. I am not displeased that you have the stubbornness to take the pain. The level of torture, is it. Elissa?”
“It might be so argued if she be returned to her father’s halls, my lord,” said Elissa, trying to sound calm.
“And I would be bothering to tell my idiot father for what reason?” said Annis scornfully “He has no need to know; then when I challenge him to a duel, if he does not die of an apoplectic fit from laughter as might yet happen then I shall more readily kill him. I have no complaint, my lord, of your treatment of me, nor of Elissa’s protection.”
“Good,” said Gyrfalon. “Keep up the exercises; you may yet succeed as a fighter if you do” and then he was striding away.
“He is the devil himself popping up out of nowhere,” said Elissa.
Annis laughed.
“I suspect he would but thank you for the compliment if he heard it,” she said. “He has a quiet tread, that is all; a warrior born. Methinks there has seldom been his like.”
“And plenty would thank your God for that,” said Elissa dryly. Annis chuckled.
“And you his follower!” She laughed “You’re supposed to be proud of his cat-like tread and status as a pre-eminent warrior aren’t you?”
“Well yes, but he gives me the frights,” admitted Elissa. “And the more when you, you crazy creature, will insist on baiting him.”
Falconburg Divided (The Falconburg Series Book 1) Page 4