The Conqueror's Lady

by TERRI BRISBIN

  Like a melee, it had swarmed across the yard, men fighting with fists and kicks until just the guards along the walls had remained uninvolved. Since he could not use bows and arrows on his own unarmed men, he had had to wait for them to wear themselves out. Roger and Lucien were yet looking for the reason for the outbreak, but he did know that it involved Lady Fayth somehow, with some insults being bandied around regarding the debacle involving Siward.

  And all of this under the watchful gaze of Bishop Obert.

  The bishop strolled through the keep and yard, visited the village, spoke with Giles’s men, the peasants, Father Henry and anyone else he saw. And he said nothing.

  He’d intervened when Giles had asked about retaining Eudes, but otherwise he seemed to take no action at all, other than saying Mass each morning and joining Father Henry in other prayer devotions.

  Would he be given a chance to defend his actions before the bishop returned to the duke? Giles wondered. And how much time did he have?

  Giles climbed the stairs, intent on first explaining his actions regarding Siward to Fayth and then bringing her down to the hall to eat. Her people, he was learning, became very nervous when they did not see her for several days in a row, as evidenced on his arrival, and then these last days. Hopefully her stomach ailment had ceased, but then even he had felt the need to empty his stomach when he had seen the marks on Siward’s chest.

  Giles listened at the door, but he heard no movements inside. Mayhap she still slept? He lifted the latch and pushed slowly on the door. The chamber was dark, no candles were lit and it appeared that Fayth was not inside. Lighting a candle from the barely burning embers in the hearth, he looked around once more.

  The room was empty.

  He called her name and went to the storage room next, but the other chambers on the same floor were all empty.

  Without raising an alarm, he moved through the keep searching for Fayth, but there was no sign of her. Now that the sun was down, there was no way to search the village or the roads.

  Dear God, he prayed she was not on the road!

  Eudes had left for Huard’s keep not an hour before, and he could not even think about what could happen if the knight came upon her alone. More likely, she was in the chapel speaking with Father Henry. Giles would not be happy that she disobeyed him yet again, but if it was to seek the good priest’s counsel or to give her confession he would not object.

  He alerted Brice and they made their way throughout the rest of Taerford Manor, finding no one who could remember speaking to her that day. On circling back to the keep and talking to all the guards, they still could find no sign of her.

  Now Giles was really worried. He went back to their chambers and searched again with more candles and Brice’s help. When he realised that the carved wooden casket that she kept her ribbons and other personal belongings in was no longer in her clothing chest, he grew more concerned. But when he found her parents’ betrothal rings on the floor next to the bed, he was terrified for her.

  If she’d left him, if Edmund had come for her while she believed her husband would take no action to help Siward and the others, and if she still believed him to be just a heartless Norman lord, she would not have left this behind.

  Not willingly.

  And while his heart pounded with terror at the thought of losing her, he also fought the fear that she would leave him for Edmund. No, she had said she loved him. Though the thought of a lady such as her loving a bastard knight such as him would have been impossible just months before, now he knew it could happen.

  He needed to find her.

  Chapter Twenty

  F ayth was hungry, tired and hurting.

  And her nose itched.

  They’d been riding since he’d taken her from Taerford, using every hour of daylight they had to get as far away as possible from Giles. At least her hands were tied in front of her now, and one of Edmund’s men held her before him in the saddle, instead of slung over it.

  When she woke to find him in her chambers, Fayth did not know what to do. How he’d managed to get in without being seen, what he hoped to accomplish by his visit, and how he planned on getting out all became clear when the chaos broke out in the yards. Every man in the keep and the yard somehow became involved, either trying to stop the fighting or jumping straight into it. A noisy distraction initiated to cover Edmund’s entrance and their exit from the keep.

  But she’d fallen for the worst distraction of all: Edmund claimed to have a witness to Giles’s murder of her father and claiming of his ring. He’d brought a second man in who told of fighting near her father at Hastings and seeing Giles attack and kill him from behind. Then, Giles did not, they said, simply remove the ring, but hacked off her father’s finger to get at it.

  Thinking to disprove Edmund’s allegation for good, she retrieved the ring from Giles’s chest and showed it to them. Sure enough the crack the man described was there. But her doubt of the man’s tale must have shown on her face because he began adding details to support his claim, including something that made her only more suspicious—her father’s location during the battle.

  She realised, as one of Harold’s vassals, her father would fight with the division from Wessex, nearest to Harold, second only in importance to his housecarls and the shield wall. And Wessex always fought to the left of his standard.

  Giles had fought on his duke’s left flank, nowhere near her father’s position.

  She knew they suspected she did not believe so she pretended to gather some things together until she could figure out a way to attract attention. Edmund noticed the box he’d made for her, so she began to stuff it in the sack with some clothes. But before she did, she slipped out the rings tied together and dropped them on the floor, pushing them nearer the bed so that Giles could find them.

  Hoping he would understand her message, she turned to find the men ready with rope and blankets and, before she could fight them, she was gagged, wrapped, bound and tossed over the other man’s shoulder. With no hopes of being heard over the fighting in the yard, she was spirited away before anyone could notice.

  They made a brief stop at the outlaws’ camp she had intended to tell Giles about before continuing on towards the north. She saw some familiar faces at the camp and suspected Edmund did not wish to chance one of them intervening in his plan. When Edmund handed her up to his man, she caught a glimpse of someone who looked like Siward, but that was not possible. That poor man was most likely dead now at Eudes’s hands.

  Now, hours and hours later, they drew to a halt in front of a small cottage and she was handed down like a sack of flour. Put on her feet for the first time in too long, she wobbled until she nearly fell. Edmund’s man untied her hands and feet and unwrapped the blankets that held her.

  The first thing she did was scratch her nose.

  The second thing she did was run.

  But the hours without moving her legs had left them painful and a burning ache filled them, making it impossible for her to take more than a couple of steps before she fell to the ground. Edmund picked her up and carried her inside, ducking through the door and placing her on a pallet in the corner. When she had rubbed and shaken the burning out, he handed her a skin of wine and accepted a torch from one of his men.

  ‘Why, Edmund? Why did you bring me here?’ she asked, trying to figure out where they were. She only knew they were far from Taerford lands. Pushing her hair out of her face, she waited for his explanation. After placing the torch into a holder on the wall, he took the skin and drank from it. Then he crouched down next to her.

  ‘You are the key to saving my father’s lands and mayhap even his kingdom, Fayth.’

  ‘I cannot marry you, Edmund.’ She shook her head, not wanting him to consider that as an option at all.

  ‘I do not plan on marrying you, fair one. I had planned that when I made it alive to Taerford. I thought that holding your lands would be a good place from which to stage our resistance. But now there is someo
ne to whom I have promised you in exchange for the coin and knights we need to push the Normans back.’

  The words he’d used had been almost the exact ones Giles had used when explaining the foolhardiness of continuing to support Edmund. She was no more than a foolish woman who saw more in herself than the lands she brought.

  ‘He will not allow it,’ she said, believing that Giles sought more from her than only lands. She did not deceive herself that those lands had brought him to her, but now, now he wanted her.

  ‘Better for us if he does follow, for that would remove any impediment to marriage if this promised Welshman is so squeamish as to have one. One marriage did not stop my father from pursuing his goals though, so do not hang any hope on that to bring this to a halt.’

  She watched in silence as he moved about the cottage preparing for night. His men, after securing the two small windows and blocking the door, remained outside while he took a place inside. He brought her some cheese and bread and then the night settled in on them.

  ‘You do not want to do this to me, Edmund. My father loved you as his own and thought you worthy of his trust.’

  ‘And I loved him as a father when I was sent away from my own, Fayth. But now, I have the chance to regain what my family has lost, what England has lost, and to keep the name and house of Harold Godwinson in power here.’ Edmund let out a breath and met her gaze for the first time during this debacle. ‘This is larger and more important than either or both of us, Fayth, and I will not fail my father or his legacy by letting this opportunity slip through my hands.’

  She felt tears gathering and was the first to look away. When she’d finished eating, he took the remnants of their meagre meal, tied the sack and stashed it by the door. He handed her a blanket and waited for her to settle before handing the torch back out to his men. Fayth heard him make his way to the wall and slide down it to rest there. A few minutes later, complete silence filled the cottage and she hoped she could sleep.

  ‘You are the key to gaining what we need to fight off the Bastard’s control,’ he whispered to her. ‘Even though I truly wish it was not like this, I cannot let Fitzhenry live or let you go.’

  A shudder passed through her and Fayth began to offer up her litany of prayers. But now she knew not if she prayed that Giles would find her or that he would not.

  Brice thought Giles mad for leaving before dawn, but he would brook no opposition to his plan. If Fayth’s disappearance had done nothing else, it had strengthened his resolve to find and dispose of Edmund. With plans in place for the defence of the manor and its people if Huard’s men should attack before his return, or if Edmund did muster forces against him, Giles left Brice in charge, with Roger at the ready.

  He took only Stephen and Fouque with him to find her, as well as Brice’s promise to aid her however possible if he should fall.

  He reached the rebels’ northern camp at nightfall and discovered that Edmund was several hours ahead of him, on the north road to Gloucester. Several men approached him and offered to help him in his quest to save her—men who had served her father or, like Siward, had benefitted from her kindness in some way. Although pleased by such offers and glad to see that Siward had escaped and made it here relatively unscathed, he knew that any more deaths in her name would destroy her.

  Giles and his men rested a few hours and left before dawn’s light. If Edmund headed, as Giles suspected he did, to Wales and his father’s old enemies to try to form an alliance to regain control of England from the duke, the land would grow more arduous and challenging. Edmund would never chance taking Fayth into the mountains until day’s light broke upon them.

  So there was still time.

  They found the cottage just as the sun was rising and Stephen reported on the four knights outside. Edmund would be inside with Fayth. But before they could get close enough, Giles discovered that rebels could indeed get the better of two, or three, mounted knights. When he came to, he found the three of them trussed like game on the ground in front of the cottage.

  Edmund’s rebel fighters had arrived behind them and took them unaware with little effort. So focused on finding Fayth was he, he’d forgotten to cover his back. Now, they waited for Edmund to decide their fate, though he had little doubt what it would be.

  Fayth heard the men outside before Edmund woke, but dared not move off the pallet. So far, he’d treated her without cruelty, but she feared what lay just beneath the surface in a man as desperate to save his family and name as Edmund was. She had to stay alive and watch for the chance to escape.

  Edmund woke then, and, after belting on his sword, he opened the door, looking out at his men. Then he just laughed, bent over at the waist until she finally left the pallet to see the source of his merriment. Nothing prepared her for the sight of Giles and two of his men, beaten and tied, on the ground there. She tried to go to him, but Edmund seized her and held her back.

  She thought to follow him when he left, but she found the door barred from the outside and no amount of banging and screaming made a difference. Fayth knew he did not plan to starve her, so she waited for someone to bring her food and drink. Listening against the door, she heard nothing and it worried her.

  An hour or so later, the bar was lifted and the door opened. The man who had accompanied Edmund to the keep entered and bade her to come out. She rushed out, expecting to find Giles there, but he was gone.

  ‘Where is he?’ she asked as the man hurried her up a path next to the cottage. Although she could see that more men had joined Edmund there, she saw no sign of her husband. When the man did not answer, she grabbed his arm to make him stop. ‘Did Edmund kill him?’ she asked, dreading the answer.

  ‘See to your needs, lady,’ the knight ordered instead.

  Fayth found they stood at the banks of a small stream. Still intending to find where they kept her husband, she washed and drank hurriedly and saw to her other needs even faster, not trusting the man to keep his back turned. On their way back to the cottage, she saw them.

  Tied against three trees, a short distance behind the cottage, sat her husband and his men. Other than a few bruises, they looked little worse for the wear. When she tried to make her way there, a rough hand on her arm stopped her. Handed a sack and forced into the cottage, she could do nothing against the strength of the knight.

  Edmund came to see her, thrilled that he now held the Norman lord to ransom for the duke. His few moments of enjoyment ended when Fayth explained the duke’s thinking in giving the lands to bastards with little standing. His face grew stern and dark as he realised his error in judgement. Fayth hoped she’d not cost Giles his life with her comments.

  Before storming out, Edmund revealed that they would remain here for another day, waiting for the rest of his supporters and their troops. Then he would take her into Wales to bargain with one of the Welsh princes who’d promised his aid.

  With nothing to do but wait and pray, Fayth began exploring her small prison. Other than the two small windows, too small even if not covered for her and her gowns to fit through, as well as the door, there was no way out. Sitting on the pallet, she noticed that the sun’s light pierced through a worn section in the wattle-and-daub wall. Searching the cottage for some tool to use and finding only a small, rickety stool in the corner, she broke it into pieces, explaining to the guards that it had collapsed under her weight.

  Using one of the legs, she began to work at the worn place. Scraping away the clay filling and continuing the work that looked as if it had been started by an animal, she enlarged the hole bit by bit. Tossing her cloak in front of it, she hid it with her body when Edmund brought her an evening meal. When night fell, the hole was large enough for her to crawl through. She took her chance before Edmund returned to rest for the night.

  Taking off her bulky tunic and with her braid secured inside her veil, she eased her way through, trying to be as quiet as possible. The number of men camping and carousing on the other side of the cottage, obviously in celebra
tion of their coming victories, covered most of the sounds she made.

  She stayed low to the ground and used the surrounding trees to hide her movements before reaching her husband and his men. Crouching down behind him, she realised she had no dagger with which to cut his ropes. Trying to untie them proved a waste of time, for the knots held and her fingers could not loosen them.

  ‘I need a knife or something sharp,’ she whispered, looking over at the camp and wondering if she could find something there without being detected.

  Giles mumbled through the gag and she tugged it free. He began to give her a furious order, but she stopped him with her kiss. Even knowing that danger surrounded them, she took that moment to taste him and to share her love with him. ‘I love you, Giles,’ she said, kissing him again. ‘No matter what happens, do not forget that.’

  ‘There is a dagger in my boot,’ he whispered to her, trying to bring his leg closer so she could reach it without stepping from the shelter of the tree he was tied to.

  Their armour and weapons had been removed, but Edmund’s men had missed the small dagger he always carried there. He waited as she slid her hands down his leg and reached in his boot to take it. The feel of her hands even at the worst of times brought him joy, but for now other matters were more pressing than his ever-present desire for her.

  She was sawing through the thick ropes with the dagger when he heard the sound of someone coming through the trees and brush behind them. Fayth gasped and stood away, but he was able to pull free from what she’d done already. Climbing quickly to his feet, he found his wife holding Brice at bay with only the dagger.

  ‘’Twould seem that my place at your back has been taken up by someone else,’ Brice said.