The Briton

by Catherine Palmer

  Gildan appeared stunned at her sister’s words. Then her expression hardened. “I thought you would be the last to abandon hope, Bronwen. You have always been the one to tell me everything would work out well. Have you grown weak and spineless now—just when we need your courage?”

  “Your sister is hardly spineless, Gildan,” Jacques said. “At Warbreck, she very nearly took off my head.”

  For the first time since they had met again, the hint of a smile tipped the corners of Bronwen’s mouth. “You well deserved any fright I gave you, sir. Your Norman army stole a large portion of an ancient and vital land. You violated Amounderness, and I weep for our loss.”

  “Whether you believe it or not, dear lady, your small wedge of swampland already belongs to another people. Aeschby is merely a caretaker of a holding that will soon belong to Henry Plantagenet.”

  He had gone too far, Jacques knew. Bronwen turned away from him and spoke to her sister. But as he listened to her words, he sensed she intended them for him.

  “You say I lack courage, Gildan,” she said. “You are wrong. I’ve not lost my dream of happiness and the boldness to strive for it. But one thing I learned in my marriage is that life—and the people you meet in it—are not always as you may expect or hope them to be. You cannot depend on things to turn out the way you plan—and you can never be certain people are who you thought.”

  Jacques could not let that rest. “You avow that people are not what they seem,” he said, taking her elbow and forcing her to meet his eyes. “You think of me as nothing more than a Norman conqueror. Allow me to prove you wrong. Again, I offer my protection and care at Warbreck Castle. For you, your sister and your nursemaid.”

  “Who is this knight, Bronwen?” Gildan asked.

  “Jacques Le Brun is the man who took Warbreck from my husband. He is a Norman under fealty to Henry Plantagenet.”

  Gildan’s lips parted in astonishment. “We want neither protection nor care from Normans. Your people are nothing but scavenging dogs, devouring everything in sight. I beg of you—depart our company at once.”

  Jacques studied the bruised and ragged woman. Then he turned his attention to her proud sister. “I’m learning firsthand of Briton prejudice and hatred,” he told them. “I’ve done nothing to deserve your ill will. Though I took your husband’s lands for Henry Plantagenet, I treated you fairly, Bronwen. You will find Henry to be a just man, as well—far more intelligent, capable and respectful than the Briton who left this church moments ago. Upon my honor, I believe you would much prefer Norman lordship to that of any other.”

  Bronwen moistened her lips as if preparing to speak, but he no longer had patience for her injustice and defiance. Beautiful and spirited though she was, the woman clearly had no desire to know him more intimately. Though her kiss had been filled with yearning and her eyes spoke of deep longing, she always chose her family and her heritage over him. The doors to her heart were locked tight, and he did not have the key with which to open them.

  “I offered you my protection once, and I have offered it again. Though spurned twice, I remain constant. Only say the word.”

  With that, he turned and strode down the aisle and out into the day.

  Bronwen stood rooted to the floor, staring after him. With all her inner self she wanted to run after Jacques—to fall into his strong arms, to tell him she was sorry, to go with him back to Warbreck. But how could she allow herself to trust a man again? And especially a Norman.

  At the sound of a door opening, the women’s attention was drawn to the young priest, who was walking toward them.

  “Ladies,” the man addressed them in a near whisper. “There are several nunneries near London. A merchant I know—he comes often to Preston to trade in spices and silks from the Holy Land—sets sail for London this very day. He is a pious Christian. If I spoke to him, perhaps he would take you there free of charge.”

  Bronwen glanced at her sister and then at Enit. Both looked aghast at the very idea of traveling so far from home. But what other options did they have?

  “Please go and ask the merchant on our behalf,” she told the priest. “We’ll await you.”

  As the women followed him to the door, Bronwen considered what their tutor had told them of Christian nuns—women who served God, read holy books, prayed in silence. The idea flooded her with unexpected serenity. Perhaps this was the life for her, after all. Perhaps this one God, this unknown deity, wanted her to become His servant.

  Fearful that Aeschby lingered nearby, Bronwen peered around the church door into the crowded market. A gentle gust bore a heady mixture of smells—the musky scent of new wool, the pungent odor of fresh fish and newly slaughtered lamb, the sweet aroma of honey and cakes. Cries of the fishmongers and fruit sellers filled the air over the sounds of earnest bartering. Great round orange cheeses lay piled in pyramids, brightly dyed fabrics—blues, yellows and reds—flapped in the summer breeze.

  Mounds of fruit—red and green apples, golden pears, berries and grapes—filled the stalls and flowed out onto small tables. Piles of nuts, brown and white eggs, jugs of fresh cream and bunches of vegetables—beans, peas, parsnips, cabbages, turnips, carrots, celery, beets and onions—crowded other small stands.

  It was a magical place, and she longed to explore it. But she spotted the young priest running toward them. “Come! Come!” he shouted. “The ship departs even now.”

  Bronwen grabbed one of Enit’s hands, Gildan took the other and they started after the priest. In short order, they caught sight of the water lapping against a dock where a sturdy-looking ship was taking on the last of its cargo.

  Bidding the young man farewell, they crossed a ramp to the vessel’s deck where a short, weather-beaten man stood calling out orders.

  “Three of you?” he said on noting them. “The priest told me two.”

  “This is our nurse, Captain,” Bronwen told him.

  “My name is Muldrew.” The old man studied Enit. “You’ve been at sea before, woman?”

  Enit squared her shoulders. “Of course. Scratch a Welshman, find a seaman, as they say.”

  “You hail from Wales! I, too—from the north, just past the isle of Anglesey.”

  “Upon my word—my home was very near there.”

  “Welcome then. Excuse me, ladies, for I must see that we cast off.” With a jaunty bow, the captain strode away.

  Bronwen turned to her nurse. “Enit, you hate the sea. You cursed the snekkar. What is this about scratching—”

  “Whist, Bronwen. Mind your tongue. He has taken me aboard. Don’t endanger my passage.”

  At that moment, the sound of clattering hooves drew Bronwen’s attention, and she spotted Aeschby riding toward the wharf with Haakon at his side. Gildan screamed and hid behind her sister.

  “Cast off!” Captain Muldrew shouted. “Cast off!”

  The ship began to drift away from the dock, but Aeschby brandished his sword. “You’ll not escape me, Bronwen!” Aeschby roared. “I’ll have my wife back, and I’ll keep my holdings! And I shall see you dead!”

  A nearby movement caught Bronwen’s eye and she turned to find Jacques Le Brun’s gray steed thundering down the wharf.

  “Aeschby!” the dark Norman shouted, drawing his sword. “Stand by, man! You have driven the women from this land—let them go in peace.”

  Aeschby whirled his horse. “This is none of your affair, Norman!”

  Jacques reined his mount. “I defend the honor of Bronwen the Briton. Pay your insults and threats to me, knave.”

  At once, Aeschby spurred his horse and drew his sword.

  “Bronwen, he means to kill you!” Gildan wailed. “And now he’ll murder the man who saved you at the church.”

  Bronwen held her breath as the men galloped toward each other. At the first clash, she wrapped her arms around her sister and closed her eyes. “We will escape Aeschby. He’ll never find us again. The Norman is bold and able. I pray he can defend himself.”

  “But the
re are two of them against him.” Sniffling, Gildan pivoted her sister toward the fracas on the wharf where Haakon had joined Aeschby in attacking Jacques.

  For all her confidence in Jacques’s skills as a swordsman, Bronwen’s heart quaked. She had seen Viking bloodlust, and she knew with what fervor a Briton could do battle. Could the Norman hold them back? Would he survive their assault?

  As the ship made its way toward the sea, the figures on shore grew faint. “Why is the Norman fighting Aeschby?” Gildan asked. “What did he mean when he said he had come to defend your honor, Bronwen? I cannot understand it.”

  “Nor can I, Gildan,” her sister said softly. “Nor can I.”

  Chapter Nine

  After a few days and Gildan’s endless complaints over the ship’s tight and smelly quarters, Bronwen decided to venture to the deck and speak in earnest with Captain Muldrew. He was well traveled and would have good advice for three lone women on their way to London. Clutching the rigging to keep her balance, she picked her way through coils of rope and buckets of pitch. The old vessel creaked and groaned with every wave. A stench of bilge water wafted up from below deck, and the tall mast overhead swayed like a willow in the breeze.

  Bronwen much preferred the snekkar with its long narrow body and deep secure seats to this creaky old sieve. At last she spied the captain talking with two of his crew.

  “Ah, madam,” he called as she approached. He dismissed the men. “I’m happy to see you on deck. I began to fear I’d dreamed the lot of you.”

  She smiled. “My sister labors to accustom herself to sea travel.”

  “Tell her we’ll be on dry land soon enough. Tomorrow evening, we weigh anchor at Chester where I’ll be taking on a load of cheeses. Then we’ll stop in Bangor, and after that Cardiff.”

  “When will we arrive in London?”

  “Exeter and Southampton will be our final ports before the great city. You’ll see France when we pass Dover, but it won’t be long before we’re sailing up the old Thames. We should be at sea no more than two weeks. I’m bound to arrive before the first of August. I’ve a load to pick up from a merchant who wants it shipped to the Holy Land.”

  “You go there often, sir?”

  “It’s my regular route. The crusades have brought much interest in trade between England and the east.”

  “Do you know of Antioch?” she asked.

  “A beautiful place!” he exclaimed. “Antioch is a walled city that sits between a river and a mountain range. Never have you seen such homes as those in Antioch, madam—marble walls, painted ceilings, floors inlaid with mosaics. The homes of the wealthy have great wide windows to let in the fresh air, and gardens and orchards filled with oranges, lemons and fruits you’ve never seen. Their baths use water piped in through aqueducts from the springs of Daphne. The people lay large tapestries they call carpets on their floors, instead of rushes as the English do. Antioch is fairyland indeed, madam.”

  Bronwen tried to make his words form pictures in her mind, but she could not even imagine such things. “Do you know many merchants in Antioch, Captain Muldrew?”

  “Every one, madam.”

  “Have you heard of a man, Charles, who went with Robert of Normandy on the First Crusade?”

  The captain nodded. “Indeed, he is one of the wealthiest merchants in Antioch. He married a local woman, and they have several children. How do you know him?”

  “I met his son, Jacques Le Brun.”

  “You must mean young Jacob, the second son. Does he call himself by his Norman name now? Then I suppose he has left his homeland. It stands to reason. His older brother was to inherit the father’s business. The last I heard of Jacob, he was a student of law at the college in Antioch—a fine intellectual and very bold as well. He studied swordsmanship under a great master. When did you meet him?”

  “He usurped my husband’s lands, and I was widowed during the battle. Your young Jacob has become a knight in the service of Henry Plantagenet. He is now lord of Warbreck Castle in Amounderness.”

  “Fancy that,” the old man muttered.

  The gnarled seaman and the young woman stood in silence on the deck. Bronwen supposed the captain was trying to envision the youth he had known as Jacob, now a powerful Norman lord. And Bronwen was trying to see the Norman as a boy.

  What had it been like to grow up in a city such as Antioch? she wondered. What was a college—and how could one study law? And how had the second son felt, knowing his older brother would inherit the family’s trade, and he would have nothing? Perhaps that had driven him to embrace his father’s Norman heritage and serve Henry Plantagenet—a man who also struggled to gain power in a world that would deny it to him.

  Nothing was as it had seemed to her in the firelit chamber inside Rossall, Bronwen realized. People could be very different than she had been taught. Vikings were not all cruel barbarians. Rossall was not a great hall, and though Warbreck had seemed a mighty keep, the castles she had seen along the English coastline were far grander.

  Preston had been an enormous town but she knew Chester was much larger. London would be bigger still. Marriage had appeared to be a secure, orderly tradition—until Bronwen had learned that husbands could be treacherous, deceitful and cruel. The gods she worshipped had seemed all-powerful, but believers of the one God and His Son had conquered much of the world. As she leaned on the ship’s rail, Bronwen wondered how many new ideas she must accept before she could be at peace with herself again.

  “I have a proposal,” Bronwen said. The three women—all on deck at last—took in the sights as the old boat slipped down the estuary of the River Dee toward Chester. “Gildan, you must trade one of your gold rings for fabric. On our way to London, we shall sew new tunics for you and Enit. I would like to wear black mourning garb, for I have not given proper homage to my husband.”

  The plan breathed life into Gildan at once. “A widow’s dress must have wide sleeves and hang loosely to the floor. We’ll make a short black veil and then fashion a guimpe.”

  The white fabric would cover the upper part of Bronwen’s chest, encircle her throat and join the veil. Would this sign of grief be just a farce? she wondered. Had she any real desire to honor the old man she had barely known? Since leaving Warbreck, Bronwen had tried to picture Olaf Lothbrok, but she found it difficult to recall any distinguishing features. She could only form the image of a great bulk of a man, standing like a shadow over her.

  “We’ll cut the instep of your stockings, too,” Gildan said, as though she were creating a costume for a mummer’s play. “Then you’ll look like a proper widow in mourning.”

  The sun rising behind them cast soft pinks and oranges across the purple waters of the River Dee—one bank of which was Wales, the other England. Trees were still black silhouettes, while snow-white gulls wheeled and dipped above the ship. In the distance, a great old walled city began to emerge from shadow as men gradually filled the wharf and set to the day’s tasks….

  “’Tis a lovely city, Chester,” Captain Muldrew said as he joined the women. “The Romans built her more than a thousand years ago—named her Deva and put one of their main forts up on that high sandstone ridge you see there where the river bends.”

  “Romans?” Bronwen said. “How strange to imagine Romans living on our land.”

  “Land is owned by God,” he said. “Men may fight and die for it, but they never truly possess it. The Romans came and went. Saxons took their place. Aethelflaeda, daughter of the Saxon king Alfred the Great, refortified the old city. She built some of those very walls you see in order to keep out the Vikings. That was more than two hundred years ago, when they were at their worst. Vikings. One never hears of that forgotten race these days.”

  Gildan was about to speak up when Enit nudged her into silence.

  “You must go into the city and have a look,” Muldrew went on. “You’ll find three churches—St. Werburgh’s, St. Peter’s and St. John’s—and the Roman amphitheatre. The great castle begun
by William the Conqueror is now home to the Earl of Chester, a Norman of course.”

  As the captain wandered off to begin preparations for weighing anchor, Enit spoke up. “Perhaps we should not leave the ship. What if he is here?”

  “Aeschby? He’ll be back at Rossall, fearful that the Norman will usurp his holding if he stays away too long.”

  “We must be careful, though,” Enit said. “Your husband may have slain the Norman.”

  “That handsome fellow has twice the strength of Aeschby,” Gildan returned. “Though he’s a Norman dog, I thought him beautiful beyond measure. Did you see his eyes? They never left Bronwen once. Frankly, I cannot help but wonder how you managed to draw his attention, sister. It is obvious he feels great affection for you.”

  Bronwen’s heart ached at the reference to Jacques Le Brun. How cruel she had been to him—insulting the man and his entire people, spurning his offers of protection, accusing him of every manner of evil and treachery. And yet he had left his newly taken holding and ridden to her rescue—speaking of honor, defending her name. The man was a mystery she could not begin to unravel.

  Her last memory saw him battling the hate-filled Aeschby, who had vowed to take her life. Haakon, too, had joined in the fracas. The thought of Jacques lying dead on the wharf filled her with unspeakable dread. From their first meeting, the man had been with her constantly—his gentle touch and admiring words always in her thoughts.

  Surely she would have been wise to accept the Norman’s offer to go back to Warbreck. Had he not proven his honor when he came to defend her on the wharf?

  She pulled the black mantle around her shoulders and touched the dagger at her side. Why had she scorned him? What had led her to believe without question in the villainy of England’s Norman conquerors? Captain Muldrew had spoken truth about the land she held so dear. Tradition held that Britons had populated Amounderness—indeed all England—since time began. But the old seaman had recounted the rule of Romans, Saxons, Vikings and now Normans.