Protected by the Warrior

by Barbara Phinney

  “Anyone who deliberately puts an entire town at risk should be imprisoned, but, nay, Lord Adrien pledged to Lady Ediva he would protect all in Little Dunmow. Apparently, that includes you. I will escort you home.”

  Did he think her a fool? She’d have to be addled not to realize that Kenneth would want Rowena’s child given to his father and, as a result, would stay close to discover her location.

  Ha! If Kenneth believed that by dogging her footsteps day and night she would, out of frustration, finally tell him where she’d hidden Rowena, he was sadly mistaken. She was the oldest of several children and had dealt with all her siblings’ childish ways. She could easily outlast this one man’s pestering.

  But ’twas a moot point. “I am not ready to leave Lady Ediva yet.”

  “Is she still in danger?”

  “Nay, but—”

  “Is the babe safe? Is Margaret there to watch them?”

  “Aye, but—”

  “Then there’s no reason for you to linger. By not resting, you risk your own health. Lord Adrien will come here soon, and with Margaret’s help they will be fine dealing with Lady Ediva and her babe. Now, get your cloak.”

  Irritated that she’d been interrupted and annoyed even more that Kenneth was right, Clara pursed her lips.

  “As I suspected, your stubbornness will be your downfall.” He turned. “Stay, then. Lord Adrien will not be happy to see you after he ordered you home to sleep. I expect he’ll suggest the dungeon instead. Or, just as unpleasant, the grand hall. By the way, all the soldiers have been celebrating the birth of Lord Adrien’s son....”

  “Fine,” she snapped. She was not unreasonable. And, aye, she needed a good night’s sleep. “Wait here.”

  She slipped back into the solar, carefully took her wimple and veil, and fitted them hastily on before throwing her cloak over her shoulders and returning to the corridor.

  In the flickering torchlight, she noticed Kenneth’s mouth turn up at the corners ever so slightly. She huffed as she marched past him and his smug insolence.

  Downstairs and out in the bailey, they waited for the gatekeeper to open the small door within the larger gate, and Kenneth stepped out first, his hand on the hilt of his sword. Obviously satisfied that all was safe, he held out his hand to help her step through. She took it, finding it warmer and stronger than she expected. But as soon as she was safely on the path that wound down into the village, she tugged her hand back.

  The late-spring night had turned colder than she’d expected. Clara looked up at the display of stars, bright because the quarter moon had yet to dominate the darkness. Clear skies always went with chilly nights. She pulled her long, dark blue cloak closer while darting a glance at Kenneth, noting that the cold didn’t seem to bother him. He wore only a lightweight cloak tossed over his broad shoulders and a knee-length tunic over snug leggings. The leather thongs that secured them pressed against his sculpted muscles. Long and lean, he was the very essence of both ease and readiness.

  Clara slowed as they approached her hut. Only a short time ago, she’d spied a stealthy figure enter her hut. Now, as they rounded the corner of her hut, she could see light bleeding from around the edges of the old, worn door. Her intruder was still there.

  Was it Rowena? Had the young mother slipped into the village with her child? Clara swallowed. Was her babe sick? Was that why Rowena risked a visit?

  Clara turned, determined to capture Kenneth’s attention to keep it away from the door. “You have seen me home, Kenneth, and I thank you for it. Good night.”

  The man laughed, a noise that bore little resemblance to humor. “Do you expect me to depart? ’Tis not what will happen. Since we now know why you were sent here, don’t you think ’twould be best if you were guarded? Surely you realize that your own life is at risk should Lord Taurin arrive.”

  “Then why didn’t Lord Adrien insist I stay in the keep?”

  Kenneth took her upper arm and continued to guide her up the short path toward her door. “No doubt he won’t have you that close to his wife.”

  She steeled her spine and yanked back her arm. “I would never hurt Lady Ediva!”

  He took her arm again, this time at the elbow. “Of course not. You aren’t that foolish.”

  She pursed her lips into a thin, tight line, not willing to engage him in an argument if Rowena lingered behind her closed door. She knew Kenneth’s type. Hidden strength came with those wiry muscles, so different from her clan of shorter, thicker Saxons. And she had no strength tonight to do anything save trudge to her door.

  Still, her foolish tongue belied her fatigue. “You’ll find it a waste of time to guard me. If you’re hoping I’ll slip away tonight, you’ll be hoping in vain. I’m dead on my feet and I plan to do nothing but sleep.”

  “Good. It has been a long day for both of us.”

  She stalked up to the door, hoping her long cloak would block the thin light seeping under it. “Since you are so set on guarding me and there’s only one way in and out of my home, I suggest you spend the night out here. I’m not the sort of woman who allows men in her home overnight.”

  “And I am not the sort of man to be enticed inside, woman, certainly not by so sly a female as you.”

  She shot him a blistering glare. “You have a lot of—”

  A short, harsh clunk sounded within the hut. Before Clara could draw her next breath, Kenneth had shoved her behind him.

  She heard his sword scrape free of its leather scabbard just as Kenneth’s booted foot connected with the door.

  Clara gasped. Kenneth was prepared to kill whoever was inside!

  Chapter Three

  Kenneth charged into the hut, a single thought slicing through his mind. Protect Clara. And he would do so even if it cost him his life—

  A downward shot of dun-colored clothing met his glare and he stabbed at it in the dimly lit hut. A whimper, weak and childlike, reached up to him as his sword snagged a scrap of wool and tore it free from a small body. Another soft cry rent the air in front of him.

  A child? Immediately, Kenneth pulled back and lowered his sword, accidentally elbowing Clara. Her fingers curled around his lower arm as if to hold him still. The cowering soul in front of them whimpered again.

  “Wait!” Clara whispered in his ear as she leaned forward, so close he could feel her sharp gasp brush his neck. “Brindi?”

  Kenneth blinked. The sister? He focused on the heap of pale clothes cornered in front of him, scarcely visible in the low lamp flame the intruder had kindled. The bundle moved and he saw how small it was. ’Twas indeed a child! He blew out his breath, trying to will his heart to stop racing at the horror that could have happened.

  He’d nearly killed the little girl.

  Clara shoved past him and dropped at her sister’s huddled form. The small girl lifted her head as her whisper penetrated the hut. “Aye, Clara, ’tis me.”

  As Clara drew her sister to standing, Kenneth sheathed his sword and hastily turned up the wick on the old lamp on the table. The thin light strengthened to fill the room.

  “How did you get here?” Clara exclaimed as she gave the girl a hard hug. “I sent you home to Mama!”

  Brindi kept her head buried in her sister’s cloak, and Kenneth could barely hear her answer. “Mama sent me to you. She was always angry at me, saying I ate too much. I didn’t want to be there anymore.”

  Clara set her away from her to search her face. “When did she send you?”

  The girl shrugged. “A few days ago.”

  “A few days ago! Have you been walking here since?”

  “Nay, she sent me to Colchester.”

  “Didn’t you remind Mama where I was sent?”

  “Aye, but she kept forgetting. I hid in your old home, but the guild masters found me and told Lord Eudo. I said I didn’t want to go home to Mama. She’s too old now. But he said I was too young to live alone and I must go to you.”

  Clara glanced over at Kenneth.

  “Lord
Eudo’s courier delivered her to the keep,” he explained. “She was supposed to stay in the kitchen with the cook. Obviously, the child disobeys as easily as her sister.”

  Clara shot him a scathing glare, which he deflected immediately. Aye, her mother had pushed her own child out of her home, and his threatening her with a sword after the ordeal she’d already endured was harsh, but, he argued with himself irritably, if she’d stayed in the keep’s kitchen as she’d been told to do, he wouldn’t have nearly killed her just now.

  “You knew Brindi was here and you didn’t tell me?” Clara’s voice was a mere breath of shock.

  He stiffened. “You were in the dungeon. I would have seen she was cared for. I’m not a beast.”

  “But you knew she was at the keep all the time we were walking here? That she was brought here like a sack of grain?”

  “Aye.” He tightened his jaw. “In Lord Eudo’s letter, he warned his brother that the guild masters feared a confrontation with Lord Taurin—”

  Clara’s brows shot up as she interrupted him to ask, “You know him?”

  “Nay, I have not met him. But I read the missive that explains how Lord Eudo discovered the truth about why you were sent here.” He shook his head. “You brought trouble to your people with your own stubbornness and refusal to reveal a slave girl’s location. I suspect that once the townsfolk discovered Brindi, they feared the same of her and shipped her off to Lord Eudo. I don’t blame them a jot.”

  Clara pulled her sister closer and covered the child’s ears. Then, with a glower at him, she set Brindi down on one of the two benches, the child’s back to him. She kept her hands on the girl’s shoulders. “What do you know about Rowena?” she asked Kenneth over her sister’s head.

  So that was the slave’s name? ’Twas a good start to finding her location. He kept his face impassive. “I know enough. You have no right to interfere with a Norman lord’s personal affairs. And you certainly do not have any right to send fear through the town of Colchester or bring trouble to Dunmow.”

  “If I caused any fear, ’twas for good reason. And I have every right to help save a person’s life.”

  “The girl and her child would not have been hurt!”

  She let out a laugh. “I beg to differ! She has run away from a cruel man. If he catches her, he’ll kill her!”

  “How do you know what Lord Taurin will do? ’Tis clear he wishes to keep the child, and if so, ’twould hardly be in his best interests to kill the girl on whom the babe depends.”

  Her eyes flared. “What is the punishment for a slave running away?”

  He shrugged, looking away, not wanting to tell Clara that slavery had been abolished. ’Twould have Clara heading to London to demand Rowena’s release, right from King William. “A beating?”

  “I doubt Rowena would be so fortunate,” Clara answered. “Besides, as a new mother, would she survive a simple beating?”

  He remembered Ediva’s struggle in childbirth. Nay, this Rowena would not have survived a beating had it come directly after childbirth. But it had been at least a month since the child had been born. Surely Rowena had recovered sufficiently to bear her punishment now. He asked, “And you aiding her? What would your punishment be?” In Normandy, those who abetted runaway slaves were often punished more harshly than the slaves themselves. Though the king had abolished slavery, the Normans here would have brought their punishments with them. Aye, Clara was also in danger.

  “My punishment is not important. I am pledged to save lives.” She shook her head, flame-colored hair dancing like a fresh fire. “As a soldier, you wouldn’t understand. You take lives. You don’t save them.”

  He bristled, his teeth set on edge by her accusation. But he would not be drawn into a useless argument. There was nothing more sinister here than a child who’d slipped from the cook’s supervision. “At least all is well, then.”

  She flung out her arm in the direction of the doorway. Her cyrtel, simple and faded, swished out with her. “Nay, all is not well! You’ve terrified my sister, and look what you’ve done to my door!” Her words, like her hand, sliced the air with alarm.

  He turned and cringed briefly at the sight before him. He’d not meant to batter down the door, but ’twas an old thing, brittle with age and weather. The sun had beat down on it for too many years. Now it lay in splinters, good for nothing save kindling.

  His heart sank. The surge of fight in him a moment ago had cost Clara much. Good solid wood was saved for the keep, for defenses and strongboxes. The most Clara could hope to purchase to replace her door, should she have the money, would be a mix of discarded pieces patched together, something that wouldn’t hold up in any of the storms they’d see during the coming winter.

  And even now, the night’s chill rolled unhindered into the tiny hut, one draft fluttering the lamp’s flame. He swallowed, then straightened. “I will replace it on the morrow.”

  “With solid, quality wood, reserved for the keep?”

  He groaned inwardly, knowing the cost and his duty to pay for it. “Aye, solid wood.”

  “And what of tonight? ’Tis cold out.”

  “Burn the scraps we have here.” He glanced around, spying the worn yet laundered curtain the old midwife had used to separate her sleeping chamber on the far side of the hearth. He pointed to it. “Use that for a door tonight.”

  “And what about safety? You were quick to draw your sword, so you know of the dangers that night can bring.”

  He had been quick to draw his sword because he’d thought that someone had broken into her home. “Very well,” he said. “You and Brindi build a fire and share the pallet in the other room. I will sleep in front of the door.” He’d planned to do so, anyway. Nighttime would have been a perfect opportunity for her to slip out to visit Rowena. He had planned to use her table as a bed, as was the custom of many soldiers.

  But considering what he’d just done to the door, ’twould be wiser, not to mention warmer, to set the table on end to block the nighttime draft. “I’ll use the table as a door.”

  With a heavy sigh, Clara began to gather up the scraps of wood, cradling them in the crook of her left arm, but keeping her fingers curled. Brindi, with one eye on Kenneth lest he draw his sword again, reached out to snatch up a few pieces, also.

  Kenneth sagged. ’Twas not the way this evening was meant to go. Aye, his few meetings with Clara today had not gone favorably at all, but if he was to discover where Rowena was, or to convince both Clara and Rowena that the child was better off with his father, acting as he had just now was the worst plan of action.

  As Clara kindled the fire, he hefted up the table and blocked the doorway with it. Soon, the hut glowed with heat and light, a welcome sight for all three. Clara herded her sister into the other room. Then, with a cautious and oddly fearful look on her face, so different from what he’d seen on it when they met in Colchester a month ago, Clara drew closed the curtain that separated the rooms.

  Had it only been a month? He’d gone to Colchester to escort Clara back. The tension in the town that day had been rife, but no one had said a word as to why. He’d just assumed it was Clara’s fiery personality that had made the others eager for her departure, but of course, now he knew differently. Still, she could take a lesson or two from Lady Ediva, who, though strong-willed, was gracious and not given to flares of temper.

  Once the makeshift door was set firmly in place, Kenneth turned. This hut seemed to be some combination of two buildings, with the hearth and its chimney wall shared by both rooms. The sound of Brindi’s quiet whispers rolled through the space above the crackling fire. Kenneth could barely hear Clara’s soft, soothing answers. Deciding to ignore them, he wrapped his cloak around him and stretched out in front of the upended table, his back to the fire and his heart heavy with the knowledge that he’d nearly killed the baby sister of the woman he was sent to guard.

  * * *

  After bedtime prayers, Clara tied her spare sleeping cap under Brindi’s chin a
nd settled her sister on the pallet. Just before curling under the furs they used for bedding, she peered furtively through the flames to Kenneth’s back. With the exception of her family, never in her life had she had a man sleep in such proximity. And yet, she felt safe. Safer than she would have if they’d used the curtain as a door.

  Any manner of beast could have wandered into her home. Bad enough that one of the stray cats had slipped in one morning a week ago and, after having been trapped inside for the whole day, had torn her home to shreds. And there were wild dogs and rodents and who knew what else out there in the night—

  Goodness, though, Kenneth had broken down her door, then simply grabbed her table as if ’twere a child’s toy! And before that, he had threatened her sister with his sword. He may be protection against wild beasts, but who would protect Clara and Brindi from him? Mayhap she should have insisted he sleep on the other side of the door.

  Nay, she knew the night air was unhealthy. And she’d long ago decided that she would not cause harm to anyone. Her aunt, gone now two years, had been Colchester’s best midwife and healer. She had insisted, when Clara made her decision to become one also, that she pledge to God that she would not harm anyone. Clara took that promise seriously and refused to dissolve it for anyone, even surly Norman soldiers.

  She snuggled down against her sister, only now remembering the splinter in her palm. The throbbing heat in it told her it had begun to fester, but ’twas too late tonight to dig it out and cleanse the wound. And she was far too tired and cold to do so.

  As with all children, Brindi was warm, and despite the circumstances, Clara was glad she had been found in Colchester and sent to Dunmow. Who knew what Lord Taurin would have done to Brindi had he found her?

  She bit her lip. ’Twas an awful situation. And out there, hidden away, closer to Dunmow than Colchester, was Rowena. Clara would have to make sure that Taurin never found her. And never learned she and Brindi were here in Little Dunmow, despite there being only a day’s journey on horseback between the two settlements.

  Please, Father, don’t let the guild masters tell Lord Taurin anything!