The Damsel's Defiance

by Meriel Fuller

  A sinewy hand snaked round, snaring her wrist lightly. ‘Leave it!’ Talvas ordered hoarsely. The firelight highlighted the rugged outline of him as he drew her around, within the muscular ‘V’ of his thighs. ‘Nay, do not pull away,’ he said, aware of her resistance. ‘I must talk to you.’

  Emmeline nodded, acutely conscious of the sturdy feel of his thighs on each side of her legs.

  ‘You need to come with me, with us. It’s too dangerous for you to stay here. The Empress has taken a shine to you; she will use you against me, for certain.’

  ‘But…but my own sister needs me,’ Emmeline replied, her head reeling at the unpredictability of the future. ‘I must travel to her on the morrow,’ she continued firmly. ‘Surely the Empress will let me leave?’

  Talvas shrugged his shoulders. ‘Who knows the ways of a spoiled princess?’ he murmured. ‘Especially one as enraged as she. She has lost the one thing, the throne of England, the only thing that meant anything to her. Her craving for power is insatiable.’ His hands moved up to cup her shoulders; the warmth from his fingers seeped through the cloth of her bliaut, heating her chilly skin beneath. ‘Come, you’ll be safer with me.’

  His words looped around her, luring her, reeling her in; the uneven seductiveness of their timbre igniting tiny sparks of desire deep within her belly. She didn’t feel safe with him at all. ‘Can we travel by way of my sister’s?’ She asked, hopefully.

  ‘Nay, it’s a different direction, it would slow us down. Once I reach Matilda, then maybe an escort can be found.’ An owl hooted, once, twice, outside. Talvas stood up so abruptly, she almost toppled backwards, but he maintained his grip on her shoulder, balancing her. ‘There’s Guillame now; are you with us, or nay?’

  ‘I’ll come.’

  ‘Good girl.’ Moving to the window embrasure, he slung one long leg over the sill to sit astride it. ‘Come,’ he urged, ‘I will let you down, and Guillame will catch your feet. It’s no great height.’

  She wrapped her cloak around her anxiously, biting her lip. ‘Come on, Emmeline,’ he repeated sternly. ‘Why do you hold back so? Surely a girl who can climb a mast in churning seas has no fear of heights?’

  Nay, I have no fear of heights, she thought, just a fear of you. Despite her disquiet, she moved to the window, threw both legs over the sill so that she faced outwards. Down below she caught the faint click of the horses’ harnesses. Talvas grabbed her hands. ‘Ease yourself down,’ he instructed. She shuffled her bottom forward and let herself fall vertical against the stonework. The pain of her body pulling against her arm sockets as she swung against the wall was excruciating.

  ‘I’m not sure…’ she began to say.

  ‘Guillame, catch her!’ Talvas ordered sharply, and let her wrists go. Emmeline’s mouth opened in shock, before Guillame’s sturdy arms caught her round the waist.

  ‘Well met, my lady,’ Guillame said politely, grinning as he shoved her up onto a waiting horse and vaulted into the saddled horse beside her. ‘Let’s go!’

  ‘But Lord Talvas…?’ She turned and looked up at the window, only to see him balance briefly, then jump, cloak billowing around him, straight into the saddle of the third horse. Digging his heels into the horse’s flanks, he wheeled the animal about.

  ‘Let’s go!’ he whispered.

  Muffled shouts carried to their ears from the inner depths of the castle. Had Talvas’s escape been discovered? Emmeline didn’t want to wait to find out. Kicking her heels down lightly into the rounded flank of her mare, she followed the rump of Talvas’s horse into the swirling mist, the damp air curling the wispy tendrils that had come loose from her braid. They followed a muddy trail through the marshes, a trail that wove this way and that through the tussocky mounds of spiky grass. Emmeline heard the slick sound of water to her right, and guessed they moved north alongside the river, through the marsh beds that were exposed at low tide. It was difficult to see much: despite the moonlight, the mist wreathed and trailed about, touching her face with cold, vaporous fingers.

  ‘We need to walk,’ Talvas threw back suddenly. His piercing tone penetrated Emmeline’s exhausted brain, causing her to start. Her fingers seemed frozen onto the bridle. Had she fallen asleep? The mist was so thick now, she could scarce see her fingers in front of her face. She threw her leg over frontways and slithered awkwardly to the ground. The stiffness in her legs made her movements jerky, uncoordinated.

  ‘Keep up, mistress,’ Guillame prompted from behind. ‘Do not lose sight of Lord Talvas. He alone knows the way through the marshes.’ Emmeline caught the bridle of her horse beneath its chin, urging it forwards. She could still make out the swishing tail of Talvas’s stallion. Her leg ached from the exertion, but she ploughed doggedly on, taking longer and longer strides in an effort to keep up. They walked in single file, the mysterious mist moving like a thick, white swirling blanket before her, behind her, cloaking her in its clinging, seeping embrace.

  And then she heard the hounds. Talvas heard the baying, too, checked his stride momentarily at the sound, then increased the pace. Nay, she wanted to shout out to him, slow down, but she didn’t for fear of alerting the soldiers who were now undoubtedly on their trail. The nose of Guillame’s horse nudged at her back.

  ‘Guillame, go before me,’ She whispered back. ‘I will come last. They are after you, not me.’ A doubtful look crossed his face. ‘Besides, you can reach Talvas and tell him to slow down a little, and wait for me.’ She smiled encouragingly. She had no intention of allowing either Talvas or Guillame to lose their freedom because of her inability to keep up. Guillame nodded, and slid himself and his horse past her on the narrow path. It seemed as if the mist were solid, she thought, as she marched resolutely behind Guillame. She kept her eyes fixed rigidly on the blue swirl of his cloak, her ears trained on the faint chinking sound of his bridle. With no one behind her, a cold, exposed feeling crept over her back, making her hunch her shoulders against any possible onslaught. As a raft of mist slunk between her and Guillame, she pushed herself forward. Fear slithered through her veins, her hand clammy on the leather strap as she suddenly realised she couldn’t see him anymore.

  ‘Guillame?’ she called softly. ‘Talvas?’ Her voice inched up a notch, a waver of panic shivering her tone. ‘Guillame?’ she called again, then sighed in relief as she bumped against him. ‘Thank God!’ she murmured. He had waited for her!

  ‘Thank you for waiting, Guillame,’ she said, clutching gratefully at his cloak. ‘I thought to have lost you!’

  ‘The pleasure is all mine, mistress.’ Earl Robert smiled nastily.

  Chapter Eleven

  The baying of the hounds grew fainter and fainter, until the eerie, ominous sound dissipated in the rain-filled air. Talvas dragged back on his reins, conscious that the pace had been fast, that the maid would surely need a rest by now. The swirling mists that had shielded them through the marshes now dropped away into the valley behind as the horses stepped up a narrow winding path.

  ‘Let’s rest awhile,’ Talvas said. His broad shoulder caught against a spindly low-hanging branch, springing droplets of rain from it as he turned in his saddle. His eye rested briefly on Guillame, riding the chestnut behind him, but of the pink-nosed grey palfrey and its gentle rider, no sign.

  ‘Where’s the maid?’

  Silence resonated in the forest, swollen with implication. Guillame stared at him miserably, face white, his big shoulders hunched into his cloak.

  ‘Where’s the maid?’ Talvas demanded again. ‘I thought she rode before you?’ A bolt of panic sheered through him; his heart thumped. Throwing himself from the saddle, he marched back to Guillame’s side, blue eyes flashing fire, searching for an explanation.

  ‘She asked me to go before her,’ the younger man mumbled. ‘I thought it would be for the best, my lord. She was tiring, holding us back.’

  ‘You knew she was dropping behind? And you let her go? God’s teeth, man, what were you thinking? Why did you not tell me?’ Shame washed ov
er him, bleak in its intensity. God in Heaven! He had persuaded her to come and she had trusted them, him, to lead her to safety!

  ‘How could you do it, Guillame? How could you let her slip away?’

  Guillame dismounted swiftly; the two men faced each other.

  ‘I knew you would wait for her, and we would have been captured. She knew it, too, my lord. She wanted us to go on.’ Guilt wove through Guillame’s words.

  Talvas strode back to his horse, springing into the saddle, heels digging into his stallion’s flank to wheel the animal round, to head down the path once more. ‘I must go back, I must fetch her.’ His mind filled with the sweetness of her face, the limpid delicacy of her skin, the gentleness of her fingers as she had attended to the wound on his head. Talvas squeezed his horse past Guillame, leaning back in the saddle as the animal descended the slope. ‘I can’t leave her there!’

  ‘The woman has turned your mind to mush,’ Guillame said curtly, grabbing the bridle of his horse to pull the animal aside. ‘Sire, think logically, I beg of you. If we travel to Winchester, we can fetch the soldiers we need to fight the Empress. Most of Stephen’s army is based there. What are the two of us on our own going to achieve? Certainly, we may extricate Mam’selle de Lonnieres if we go back, but surely it’s more prudent to return with an army of loyal men?’

  Talvas hauled on his reins, trying to still his restless mount. Deep down, he knew his squire’s words made sense. Yet logic fought against another, far more powerful feeling that rose untrammelled, unbidden in his heart. A burgeoning awareness for Emmeline, stronger than anything he had ever experienced before. ‘Nay, Guillame, you travel on to Winchester alone, tell Stephen what has happened. I must go back.’

  ‘Don’t risk your own life for Mam’selle de Lonnieres,’ Guillame continued bluntly, sticking his toe into the stirrup, preparing to mount.

  ‘I owe her,’ Talvas replied. ‘She risked her neck on the ship, and warned me against a blow that would have killed me. I never asked her, or forced her, to do those things, yet she did them willingly, without complaint. It’s more than most people would do in a lifetime, yet in the space of a few days, she has shown more mettle than a normal man.’

  Guillame shook his head. ‘Her beauty has addled your brain, your judgement. Have you forgotten where your loyalty lies?’

  ‘I am beholden to no one, Guillame, and well you know it. I choose to fight for Stephen because he is my sister’s husband and for no other reason.’ Talvas yanked smartly on the reins. ‘And every minute of this idle chatter puts Emmeline’s life in danger. I would go to her.’

  Emmeline twisted her shoulder angrily, trying to shake off the Earl’s bruising grip. ‘Let go of me, you whoreson, you cur!’

  Through the slipping, fluctuating mists, the Earl’s narrow mouth crooked downwards into a sneer. ‘Think you to fly me, wench?’ he laughed hollowly, his waxen features transforming into a self-satisfied smirk. He lifted his chin, his fingers pinching into the soft flesh of her shoulder. ‘Guards! Over here. Take this one back to the castle while I go after Lord Talvas. I do believe the dogs have picked up his scent.’

  Emmeline’s fingers grabbed at the Earl’s cloak. ‘You’ll never catch him!’

  ‘It will be easy with these hounds; they are well trained, able to pick up the faintest trace of a man.’ He grinned, the skin on his cadaverous face stretched thin. ‘How ironic to think that I have turned his own dogs against him.’

  ‘You hunt him down like an animal.’ Emmeline’s eyes sparked fire, but fear curled in her veins.

  ‘A traitor deserves such treatment; when I bring him back, Maud will slit his throat for sure. He’s lost her the throne and for that she will not forgive easily.’

  ‘Lord Talvas is a man who would take neither side. I think you have him wrong.’

  ‘How touching,’ the Earl stated drily, casting her hands away from his cloak with distaste. ‘Think you to save your man with this petty wrangling, these witless arguments? Nay, lady, nothing can save your man now. I will bring him back and you can watch him die, and rue the day you ever met him. Guards, take her back!’

  Earl Robert disappeared down the track, the hem of his cloak flapping wildly like the wings of a mad crow, pursuing the haunting echo of the hounds as their barking rose across the marshes. Two burly soldiers attached their meaty fists to her shoulders and marched her off in the direction of Hawkeshayne. As she stumbled over the loose stones, her thin leather soles sinking into the mud between, she forced her mind to think, to deduce a way out of her predicament. Talvas would not return; he’d be killed for certain if he did. Instinct and determination were her only allies now.

  The swirling, bubbling noises to her left told her that the tide was rising in the river, and rising fast. With any luck, the Earl would lose the trail and become stuck thigh-deep in mud where the rising water would overtake him, she thought. Lifting her face to breathe in the fresh tangy air that swept up from the sea with the incoming tide, she noted the towering ramparts of Hawkeshayne looming out of the fog, the grey stones wreathed in mists of threadbare lace. It was now or never.

  As they approached the wooden bridge that led to the gatehouse, she moaned suddenly, slumping forwards. ‘Ow!’ she complained. ‘My foot!’ Both guards dropped their hold immediately, the shorter of the two crouching down solicitously to try to discover the source of the pain. In a trice, she shoved at the guard still standing, then jabbed the chin of the guard hunched over her foot. As he toppled backwards, Emmeline leapt over his sprawling figure, aiming for the river, just a few steps away. At the bank, where the river ran deep and fast around the lower walls of the castle, she took a deep breath, then dived.

  In the dark, in this mist, they had little chance of seeing her. Treading water in the lee of the castle, she dragged off her cloying veil, leaving it floating on the surface near the green, algae-covered walls, before striking out into midchannel with a strong, self-assured stroke, feeling the current drawing her upstream, pulling her to safety. As the water ran over her face, she tasted the salt on her lips, and wondered how long the current would be on her side before it turned to sweep her seawards. It was not long before her arms began to tire, the hem of her overdress beginning to wrap around her legs, hampering her movement. She twisted onto her back, resting, floating in the inky blackness, fingers of exhaustion creeping over her body. She found it difficult to judge her distance from Hawkeshayne, but she knew that if she didn’t stop now, she would surely drown. She struck out sideways, toward the edge of the river.

  Moments later, her fingers scrabbled erratically at the bank, clutching uselessly into the wet, slippery mud, unable to find a handhold. It was awkward to move in the shallows; the high tide had begun to recede in the short time she had been in the water and now it had begun to expose the mudbanks at the river’s edge. Beneath the water, her knees sank into the thick, sticky gunge, but by sheer dint of effort, she crawled up the bank to fling her weary body finally onto dry, level earth. Rolling onto her back, she cast her eyes heavenward, to stare up bleakly into the layered, rolling blackness. Where in God’s name was she?

  What folly to jump in the water, she thought, sitting up abruptly to hug her arms about her shivering body. Whilst swimming strongly, she had been unaware of the iciness of the water, but now, in the thick, crushing night, the cold leaked from her sopping garments into her skin. The mud that caked her sleeves, her arms, even her face, began to dry and harden in the freshening air. She needed shelter, and fast, otherwise she would surely freeze to death. Already, the bitterness of the north-east wind brought the occasional flake of snow that brushed her face, sharp needles that nipped at her skin with a sense of foreboding.

  Standing, she concentrated on placing one foot in front of the other, keeping the sound of the river on her right as a guide, her hands outstretched to stop herself walking into a tree. Occasionally she stumbled over unseen roots, but hauled herself back up again, dogged, determined. Her right foot dragged slightly.
The snow seemed thicker now, flakes whirling like mad dervishes before her eyes.

  And then she saw it. Looming out of the night, a small wooden hut, a shelter for animals, no doubt. She staggered toward the hovel, unable to keep the sobs of relief from emerging as the snowflakes stuck to her eyelids, her cheeks. But she forced her wooden limbs to keep going, to keep moving forward, throwing herself through the wide opening and onto the floor of the hut. Crawling forward, her hands touched earth, damp and hard-packed beneath her sore, frozen fingers and then, aye, straw, a huge mound of straw! Trailing her bone-weary joints to the centre of the sweet-smelling grass, she attempted to draw as much of it over her before sleep consumed her.

  That voice. That low, melodious voice pulled at her brain, pushing fingers of consciousness, of awareness into the deepest, flickering regions of her mind. No cloying wet garments dragged at her; indeed, a languid warmth suffused her body, making her want to stretch out, to luxuriate in it. Moving her fingers surreptitiously, slowly, she realised in horror that she was naked, swaddled in the softest pelt, like a baby! God in Heaven! Skin flushing with embarrassment, she forced her eyes open.

  Talvas sat opposite her, on the earthen floor of the hut, the broad lines of his back propped against the coarse mud and straw wall. One leg was drawn up; his forearm rested upon it, the sinewy tendons of his hand highlighted by the light of a fire. The flames burned brightly, their incandescence bathing the simple space in a suffusing, yellow glow. The shuddering flames, jerky in the frequent gusts of wind that swept through the open doorway, lit the craggy outline of his cheek and jaw, throwing shadows that gave him the look of the Devil.

  ‘You!’ The straw rustled beneath her hair, prickling her scalp as she angled her head to look over at him, incredulous at his presence. Her mouth dry, she licked her lips, tasting salt.

  A soft smile played across his features, his lean fingers turning a solitary stick first one way, then the other. ‘Aye, mistress, ’tis I.’