The Warrior's Wife

by Denise Domning

  “Looking at her won’t make it sting any less,” Will said. However quiet his words there was no mistaking the laughter in his brother’s voice.

  Rafe straightened in the saddle to narrowly eye Will. From the men behind them came various chokes and coughs. Every Godsol man was chortling up his sleeve at their leader’s sibling. All because of Kate.

  With a grin, Will clapped a hand on his younger sibling’s back. “Well, what did you expect?” his brother asked, then lowered his voice so the lady behind them wouldn’t hear. “Did you fancy that she’d still be pleased with you once she knew that it was only Glevering you wanted?”

  Rafe flinched as what Will said drove through him like a stake. But of course that’s how Kate saw what was happening right now, especially after being kidnapped by both him and Warin. She was only rejecting him because she thought he was using her. Relief gusted from him on a sigh. If that was the crux of the matter then all he need do was convince her that if it was Glevering he wanted for his family, it was her he wanted for himself. That was, if he could get her to listen to him.

  Will laughed again. “Ah well, in a few more moments you’ll trick our way into Glevering,” he said, his tone conversational once more. “As long as the Daubney heiress is already bound and gagged you may as well take her to the chapel and marry her on the spot. I say do it swiftly and be finished with it. That’ll leave you plenty of time, years even, to repent the deed whilst she chars your ears over it for an eternity.”

  Bile rose to burn the back of Rafe’s throat. Will was right. If he forced Kate into wedlock, their marriage would be naught but misery, and that wasn’t what he wanted from his Kate. There had to be a way to soothe her into marrying him of her own volition.

  “There it is, Glevering,” Will said, poignant longing in his voice.

  At the center of a long, flat plain rose a length of tall, solid wall, black against dawn’s gold and pink sky. Unlike Will, Rafe hadn’t ridden into battle time and again against Bagot; he had little memory of Glevering. He studied the place that would be his new home with sharp interest.

  From this western side he could see none of the several hundred cottages that found protection near its walls. A small, squat tower lifted a fool’s cap of a roof at the north end of the wall while the sun, only now cresting above the horizon, sent brilliant beams of light between the great stone blocks that stood like giant’s teeth atop the gatehouse at the wall’s south end.

  With the return of the sun every bird in the woodlands offered up its song in riotous celebration of daybreak. From within Glevering’s walls, a cock crowed, then another. Those animals penned within and without the walls joined in this raucous chorus. Cows lowed and sheep bleated as they waited for their milking. Where the tower met the wall, water spouted out of a drain. The stream glinted like jewels in the newborn light.

  Rafe counted the men stationed atop the manor’s walls, one, two, three, then more, outlined by the sun. All of them faced the oncoming troop.

  “How many men does Glevering house?” he asked Will, now worrying that they hadn’t brought a big enough force with them.

  “No more than two dozen during times of peace,” Will replied. “What you see above us is surprise because we’re unexpected. Thank God, visitors are all they see.” Will grinned at his younger sibling. “I’m wondering to myself why I never before thought to have our men remove any color that names us Godsol when we came knocking at their door. Clever of you, Rafe.”

  Rafe only grunted his response. With his confidence already on insecure footing he studied the walls before him. Unlike other manor houses that girded themselves in wood, years of feuding over its ownership had left Glevering’s residents protected behind expensive stone. A dry moat mined with sharpened sticks encircled its defenses. Framed in the gatehouse’s arch was a set of doors leading through the walls. Made of thick oak, they were bound with iron and twice a man in height. Metal studs, meant to shatter battering rams, peppered their fronts.

  The only flaw Rafe could find was that Glevering had no drawbridge. Instead, there was but a flimsy wooden span crossing the man-made ravine that defended it. True, such a bridge was easily dismantled and hauled within in case of attack. Far better that his new home might have the additional strength of a drawbridge between his gates and a besieger’s assault.

  Drawbridge or no, the gates were still stout enough to resist fifty Godsols, especially since they had no ram and likely had no longer than a day to make their way into the walls. Worry grew. If Glevering held he’d still have Kate, along with the wee income from her de Fraisney dower, but he and his wife would be landless until the courts settled the issue of her inheritance. Nay, he couldn’t afford to give Bagot the chance to hold up their lives for years. He wanted his home and his wife, and he wanted them now.

  He brought his horse to a stop at the edge of the bridge before Glevering’s gatehouse. His hand dropped instinctively to his sword hilt. He caught it back into his lap. Daubney’s steward wouldn’t come to Glevering’s gate looking as though he meant to attack.

  With those who followed gathering close behind him, he arranged his cloak against his jaw to hide his beard then turned his face to the men above him. The watchers were no longer looking his direction. Instead, their gazes were aimed at the gatehouse roof.

  The bang of wood against wood cut through the quiet of dawn’s arrival: the sound of a trapdoor hitting the floor from which it was cut. A new man appeared against the sun’s light. The newcomer yet wore his bedrobe, a thick red gown. It looked rich enough to suggest it had been his lord’s before he owned it. The man’s gray hair stood up in sharp spikes and gleamed as if it was wet. It seemed their arrival had disturbed him at his bath.

  “That’s Ernulf de Glevering, Bagot’s bailiff,” Will hissed from beside him, his own cloak hood now pulled low over his forehead to disguise his face. So were all the hoods of the men behind them. The Godsols were well known to the men within these walls.

  “Sir Warin,” the bailiff called down from the gatehouse roof. The man crossed his arms, the very picture of skepticism. “Is that you?”

  “Aye, ‘tis,” Rafe called back, doing his best to sound like the man he pretended to be only to grimace, certain he’d failed. To cover himself he coughed into his hand. Pulling his cloak more tightly about his face, he gave a mummer’s shiver. “Pardon, the rain caught us last night and I fear I’m feverish with the wet.”

  Ernulf de Glevering nodded slowly. “I know your message said to expect you, but what are you doing coming here when you should be with our own gracious lord across the shire at a wedding?”

  Glevering had received a message telling them to expect Sir Warin? Hope took flight as a wild grin tried to stretch Rafe’s mouth. Lord, but Sir Warin was as determined as he to keep Kate for himself. How it must eat at the knight now, knowing that he’d paved the way into Glevering for his enemy.

  In the next instant Rafe’s newborn optimism crashed. He didn’t know what sort of excuse Sir Warin had put into his message. The hours Rafe had spent concocting a tale that might explain why so many men rode around a single churchman were all be for naught, depending on what Sir Warin had written. There was nothing to do but continue on and hope it went well.

  “For the moment, your lord and mine finds it convenient to lend me to Bishop Robert. We escort yon priest”--a jerk of his thumb indicated Kate in her borrowed habit--“now turned monk at the bishop’s decree to his new monastery. Our man here erred badly when he diddled with the bishop’s niece.”

  Coughing once again to hide his nervousness and disguise his voice, Rafe forced himself to continue. “At any rate we’re road weary and wet to the bone. With Glevering so near, I brought them here to rest our horses and sleep an hour or two before proceeding.”

  He carefully peered up at the wall as he finished spilling his lie. A new man appeared beside the bailiff, having followed his better up by the gatehouse stairs. Thick and stout, this one was a soldier; so said th
e steel chips sewn to his leather hauberk and the metal cap upon his head.

  From beside Rafe Will gave a quiet sound of recognition. “That’s Glevering’s sergeant-at-arms. He’s a canny one, a good soldier and a man not easily tricked,” he offered, unaware of how his words shattered his younger brother’s hopes.

  Rafe stared at the soldier. He wasn’t going to have his home because none of this was going to work. Glevering’s gate wouldn’t open because of whatever Sir Warin had written in his message and Kate would never forgive him for taking her, even though he kidnapped her after Sir Warin. In another moment, the men on the walls would begin shooting crossbow bolts and slinging stones down on those beneath them as they recognized another attempt by the Godsols to reclaim what was theirs.

  On the wall top the bailiff conferred with his sergeant. From time to time the two of them paused to look out at those beneath them. In what was surely a futile attempt to turn the tide in his direction Rafe leaned over to pat Sir Warin’s warhorse on the shoulder. Unlike the riderless Gateschales, who was being led at the rear of this troop because he tolerated no man save Rafe atop him, this horse was less chary, especially after a hearty meal of hand-fed oatcakes. Even so all Rafe’s caresses won from Warin’s steed was a huff of annoyance. At last the sergeant threw up his arms and backed away from his better.

  Ernulf turned to face those waiting outside his gates. “So it’s a fallen churchman you bring calling, is it?”

  So stunned was Rafe by the man’s friendly tone that for an instant he could but stare. When he caught himself at it he forced another cough to cover his reaction. “Aye, so he is. The way I see it, he’s lucky the bishop let him keep his balls.”

  Even before the last words left his mouth, chains rattled and clanked. Wood groaned. It was the sound of the bar lifting. Rafe’s heart took flight as beside him Will sucked in an astonished breath. They were in!

  Beneath the concealment of his hood Will’s face took light in unholy fire. “God be praised for you, Rafe. Never would I have conceived that such a ruse might work,” he told his younger sibling in a soft voice. Grinning, he offered his landless brother a quick salute. “Go. Lead us as we do what our forebears could not and take back what is ours.”

  Nowhere near as certain as Will that Glevering was already theirs, Rafe buried his bearded jaw in the folds of his cloak and led Kate toward her dowry property. Will and Sir Warin’s warhorse followed, the weight of four horses and three riders making the flimsy span beneath them groan. Aye, this place definitely needed a sturdy drawbridge.

  Ahead of him, the gates moved steadily inward as the machinery groaned on. Rafe peered past the doors to scan the yard within the walls. The garden that kept Glevering’s stewpots savory with turnips and leeks took up a good part of the area within the walls. To his left were the stock pens. Standing tall among the huddled sheep, milkmaids gawked at their unexpected guests. Crosswise from the gate was a small keep tower so narrow that it could only be a defense of last resort. Rafe doubted more than twenty people could be housed in it and then not for more than a week before they all ailed from too much closeness.

  The house sprang into the yard from the keep’s side. Rising off a stone foundation almost a storey in height, the house was built of wood with naught but thatch for roofing and a smoke hole to guide the fire’s breath outside its walls. Still, it was neatly whitewashed and the roof looked in good repair. A sturdy wooden stairway reached to its raised entryway.

  At the opposite end of the yard from the house stood a tiny chapel, God’s cross marking its doorway. Exactly halfway between house and chapel was the kitchen shed. A man and two lads stood in its doorway: the cook and his assistants. Knives glinted in their hands as they watched the newcomers. Despite that, Rafe’s hopes rose. All in all, Glevering would make a comfortable, even cozy, home for a man who never hoped to have one of his own.

  As he rode beneath the gatehouse itself Rafe glanced warily above him. It was strange how his mind worked. At the very instant he knew relief that there was no hole through which boiling oil might be poured down upon intruders he added construction of just such a device to his list of changes. The bailiff and the sergeant waited for them just inside the gateway, both men clinging close to the gatehouse wall. The old soldier held his bared sword in his hand. Rafe managed a nod terse enough that he didn’t need to lift his head much to give it as he rode by them.

  “Sir Warin?” the bailiff called out when he was denied the face he needed to confirm the man who entered was, indeed, the steward.

  Unwilling to risk even a glance at the bailiff until more of his men were within the gate, Rafe kept his gaze on his saddle. “I’ll speak with you at the house, Ernulf,” he said. Only when he was a good four yards beyond the gate did he dare to shift in his saddle, keeping his back to the bailiff, as he looked to see how many of his brother’s men were now within the walls. On her palfrey behind him, Kate’s head was bent so low that he could see nothing of her face. Her shoulders worked beneath the folds of her borrowed habit as if she was trying to loosen tenseness from her back. Behind her, Will and Sir Warin’s horse were already within the walls, as were the four men following Will. Two abreast, since that was all the gate or bridge would allow, the rest of the troop filed steadily into Glevering.

  Kate made a sound. Rafe’s gaze shifted back to her. Her head lifted. When their gazes met, she grinned. It was a vicious, triumphant smile.

  Rafe blinked. She grinned? Where was her gag?

  Again her shoulders shifted only this time he could see it wasn’t muscles she eased. Nay, she was returning her arms to the sleeves of her habit. Her hands appeared out of the cuffs. In one was the length of cloth that had stopped her mouth. The rope that trapped her hands was gone.

  All hope of owning Glevering shattered. Even as his hands tightened on the reins to turn his horse he knew it was too late. She lifted her head.

  “Attack them! These are Godsols!” she screamed. “Attack!”

  * * *

  The satisfaction Kate felt as her call echoed out over the yard was beyond measure. In the breathless startled instant that followed, the astonishment on Rafe’s face gave way to grim determination. In one smooth movement he dropped her palfrey’s reins and drew his sword, then kicked his horse back toward the gate.

  “Hold the doors!” he shouted to the soldier who had been Kate’s keeper.

  Even as the Godsol men within the yard turned their horses to race back to the gatehouse the burly little soldier at the gate sprang forward to block their path. “Close the gate!” he bellowed as his weapon rang against that of one of his enemy’s.

  Behind the little man Glevering’s massive exterior doors jerked to a halt, then the grinding began anew as they moved in reverse. The Godsol men outside the gates spurred their horses and poured through the ever-narrowing opening, their shields held high. Crossbow bolts sizzled down upon them from the wall above the gatehouse as they rode. Screaming out of the kitchen came the cook and his two lads, their knives at the ready. At the sheepfold, the milkmaids shrieked. Buckets flew. With a flurry of skirts the women left their bleating charges and raced for the safety of the house, the same sanctuary Kate needed.

  Winding her hands into the palfrey’s mane, Kate drummed her heels against the foul beast’s sides. For once the idiot creature did as she willed and chased the milkmaids to the stairway at the house’s forefront. Slipping off its back, Kate dashed up the steps, pushing past the last of the screeching women.

  At the center of the portal was a heavyset woman, her hair covered with a neat white headcloth. Beneath her water-stained apron her green gowns owned style enough to suggest she was the bailiff’s wife. As each milkmaid sprang into the hall Glevering’s housewife gave the hapless girl a shove to speed her on her way--until Kate came abreast her.

  The woman grabbed Kate by the habit’s shoulder and shouted something in the English tongue. Kate needed no translator to tell her she was being refused entry. She threw back th
e garment’s cowl.

  “I am Lady Katherine de Fraisney, the kidnapped daughter of Lord Humphrey of Bagot and heiress to Glevering,” she shouted at the woman. “I command you to let me in.”

  Whether it was her French, revelation of her womanhood or her claim to relationship to Glevering’s lord that was the key Kate didn’t care. With a startled sound the portly woman shoved her on into the hall. To Kate’s surprise there was no screen between this hall’s door and its main chamber. Instead, she was thrust directly into the body of the room.

  As the final weeping girl followed on Kate’s heels the door thundered shut. Huffing beneath the bar’s weight two maids dropped what was nigh on a tree trunk into the thick brackets at either side of the door. The brackets rang like bells.

  Almost before the echoes died away a shouting Sir William Godsol pounded on the door, demanding entry. Every woman in the hall cried out in surprise, including Kate. She backed away from the portal.

  What if the Godsols took the day and the women opened the hall to them? A single door wasn’t enough to protect her from the fate Rafe intended to force on her. Pirouetting, she scanned the hall that belonged to her, seeking some a secondary sanctuary. At the far end of the house half a tree bore the weight of the roof’s crossbeam. Sturdy rafters held the thatch above her head. Whitewashed walls gleamed blankly back at her, offering her nothing in the way of hiding place.

  A raised hearth filled the chamber’s center, newborn flames leaping on its flat ash-filled stone, smoke drifting up to exit through the guarded opening on the roof. Six sets of trestles sat around the fire, ready for the planks of wood that would turn them into breakfast tables. Those planks, along with the benches used for seating, yet rested against the walls.

  There was nowhere to hide! Her feet slid on the thick layer of rushes that covered the wooden floor as she finished her turn and faced the room’s opposite end. Kate breathed out against the miracle when she saw it.