The Damsel's Defiance

by Meriel Fuller

  Talvas shrugged his shoulders. ‘I was young and foolish, foolish enough to want to marry her, a lovesick swain. When I realised what sort of woman she was, I was happy to let her go…but to take our newborn child, to hide her from me? It beggars belief.’

  Sylvie hunched forward, cowering under the fierceness of his speech, drawing her tattered shawl about her thin shoulders. ‘I’m sorry for what I did, Talvas. Believe me, I am sorry.’

  His mouth flattened into a hard, stern line; a muscle jumped in his cheek as he shook his head. ‘I find it hard to forgive you, Sylvie. I lost my baby girl twice; first, when you left, and then, when I learned that she had died.’

  A sob tore from Sylvie’s throat; Emmeline felt the slight frame of her sister slump against her. Throwing an arm around Sylvie’s shoulders, in an effort to comfort her, as well as keep her standing, Emmeline struggled to quell her own bewildered emotions.

  ‘Talvas, go easy on her, please! I think she’s been through enough for today. Her village burns, her people are injured and afraid and her husband is nowhere to be seen!’

  Talvas’s eyes bore into hers; bright coals burning in the stern implacability of his face. He wanted to rail, to shout, and above all to blame, yet drinking in the gentle calmness of Emmeline’s beauty steadied his rattled senses. He nodded stiffly.

  Removing her arm from around Sylvie, Emmeline stepped toward him, placing her palms on his chest. ‘It’s a long time ago, Talvas. You must let go of the memories.’ Keeping her eyes pinned to the filigreed silver of his chain-mail, she drew a deep shuddering breath. ‘Your child didn’t die alone.’

  Anguish ricocheted through his body at the trembling words, a quicksilver bolt of grief charging at his innards. He gripped her shoulders, the power of his fingers squeezing through the fabric of her bliaut to clutch at her flesh. A jerky, peculiar tone pulled at his words. ‘You were with her?’

  Emmeline recoiled at the hoarseness, the torment in his voice. Without thinking, she placed her palm against his cheek, feeling his cold skin, the prickle of stubble against her hand. Under the rugged tan of his skin, his face was chalk-white. She ached to enfold him in her arms, to wipe away his stricken expression.

  ‘Aye, Sylvie brought Rose to my mother and me in Barfleur.’

  He rubbed at his face with a trembling palm. ‘I had no idea.’

  ‘It’s not Sylvie’s fault that Rose is dead, Talvas.’ She dropped her hand from his face, feeling the force of his body against hers. ‘Rose was with my mother and I when she caught a fever…’ Her speech trailed to silence; she had no wish to torture him with details.

  ‘Why? Why was she with you?’ The raw emotion in his voice plucked at Emmeline’s soul.

  ‘Sylvie left the baby with us when she came to England with…Lord Edgar.’

  ‘So that was his name.’ He clenched his fists by his sides, his cold, arrogant gaze sliding over Emmeline’s shoulder at the forlorn, weeping Sylvie. ‘She never bothered to tell me the name of the man for whom she broke our betrothal.’

  ‘Betrothal?’ Emmeline’s question rang with dull hollowness. Jealousy gripped at her innards, twisting like a coiled, enraged serpent.

  ‘Aye, mistress. Your sister and I were betrothed.’ Talvas glowered. ‘Against my parents’ wishes, I might add. The marriage of a lord’s son and a servant did not immediately win their approval.’

  At a shout behind him Talvas whipped round, causing Emmeline to stagger back under the force of his movement. A young lad burst through the gatehouse arch, his eyes wide and staring, his face streaked with tears. ‘Mistress!’ he shouted to Sylvie. ‘Mistress, they have returned. The soldiers have returned.’

  ‘Then God save us all.’ Sylvie crossed herself. She appeared as a wraith, a ghost, in the middle of the cobbled courtyard, shivering in her light blue bliaut.

  ‘Get her inside!’ Talvas shot the order toward Emmeline, drawing his sword with a deathly hiss. Face stony, he marched off in the direction of the burning cottages, the clouds of black smoke belching out below the gatehouse, an eerie howling renting the air.

  ‘Talvas, nay! Don’t go!’ Emmeline darted after him, clutching at his sleeve. He stopped, eyeing her with surprise, one slashing eyebrow quirked. ‘Don’t go out there on your own! You could be killed!’

  ‘Are you proposing to go with me?’

  She nibbled on a nail. ‘Well, not exactly. But you are one and they could be many.’

  ‘It’ll take more than a few soldiers to scare me, mistress. I suggest you deal with her—’ he jabbed toward Sylvie with a leather-gloved finger ‘—and keep her out of my sight.’

  Emmeline tracked his purposeful, long-legged stride until his tall, muscular form disappeared into the gloom of the gatehouse. In every rigid step he took, she sensed his pain, his sadness at hearing about Rose. Seeing Sylvie once again had made the memories surface. She wanted to run after him, to protect him, but a sense of loyalty to her sibling rooted her to the spot.

  ‘Why did you bring him here?’ Sylvie gasped.

  ‘I didn’t do it on purpose, Sylvie.’ Emmeline forced her eyes from the gateway to the frail figure of her sister. ‘I had no idea that you two shared a history…that you were…betrothed.’ She stumbled over the words. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘’Tis a period of my life that I’m not proud of, Emmeline.’ Sylvie hung her head in shame. ‘Talvas has every right to hate me.’

  Emmeline frowned, ‘Oh, but I’m sure…’

  Sylvie threw her a wan smile. ‘Nay, Emmeline, do not try and make light of it. It will take a lot to persuade Talvas to forgive me…to forgive what I did.’ Tears began to track down Sylvie’s wan, exhausted face.

  Emmeline put her hands up to cup Sylvie’s shoulders. ‘Don’t despair, Sylvie. He understands a great deal more than you think. He’s a good man.’

  ‘I was so wrong about him.’ Sylvie shook her head, a wispy blond curl blowing across her face. Emmeline reached up to smooth it back, her fingers tracing over a purplish bruise that shadowed her sister’s chin. ‘How did you do this? Was it the attackers?’

  Only one, thought Sylvie, bitterly, her gaze blurring. Edgar had said he would teach her a lesson, and he had, destroying the one thing she cared about in this godforsaken country: the villagers of Waldeath. Oh, he had made her beg, made her plead and promise to do unto his bidding, but it hadn’t been enough. Wearing the stolen surcoats of King Stephen over their chain-mail, helmets obscuring their features, he and his soldiers had torched the village, killing and injuring his own people purely to teach her a lesson. He had returned to the castle, triumphant, and had sent away everyone, anyone who could possibly be her ally, to leave the building empty, cold and her totally alone.

  She had thought herself saved when Emmeline rode into the courtyard—her darling sister, who had read her desperate letter, who had come to England to take her back to France. But her hopes had fallen once more, plummeting to the depths of despair, of disbelief, when her eyes had set upon Talvas. He would never help her, not after what she had done to him. The lithe, energetic squire of eighteen winters, the boy who had chased her skirts as she drew him with coquettish glances and shy smiles, had turned into a devastatingly handsome man and a rich one, if one judged by his clothes. If only he had done her bidding, if only he hadn’t insisted on making his own living from the sea, then her life might have been different. But it was her own stupidity, her greed, that had driven her into the arms of Edgar, the rich lord who had visited the estates at Boulogne, who had swept off her feet. She couldn’t blame Talvas for that. How could he have known that his decisions would drive her into marriage with a violent bully of a husband? She had done that, all by herself.

  ‘Sylvie?’ Emmeline prompted, trying to erase the distant look that appeared in her sister’s eyes. ‘Come, let’s away inside, before we are in any danger.’ A leaping coil of fear spiralled in her breast—would Talvas return in one piece?

  ‘Too late!’ The wide, drooping sleeve of
Sylvie’s pale blue bliaut billowed out like a sail as she lifted a shaking arm, pointing. The muscles along the back of Emmeline’s shoulders tensed as she spun around, dread rattling her senses. Relief poured through her as she recognised Talvas immediately, unharmed, his great legs powering over the damp, glistening cobbles. At his side, a tall blond man paced, talking animatedly. Despite the mud spattered over his garments, his clothes were fine, braies made of the softest fulled leather, a scarlet surcoat emblazoned with two golden lions covering his chain-mail. And behind the two men, a group of some twenty knights on horseback, their kite-shaped shields gleaming in the noonday sun, their upright spears resembling a glistening metal forest.

  ‘Mother of Mary,’ breathed Sylvie, her shoulder nudging Emmeline as she moved forward before dropping to a deep curtsy. ‘It’s the new King.’

  Emmeline thumped the last mound of risen dough onto the long-handled wooden platter and pushed it into the bread oven at the side of the kitchen fire. A great deal of food seemed to have been left midpreparation: she had already rescued a couple of roasting chickens from the spit, and several rounds of bread that had been left in the oven. Wiping her floury hands on the borrowed linen apron, she started to scoop handfuls of flour from an unwieldy hessian sack into a bowl, adding butter and water to mix it into a pastry.

  ‘It seems if your servants had no warning of an attack,’ Emmeline commented softly, casting her eyes at Sylvie’s figure slumped over the kitchen table. She frowned, concerned at her sister’s listless behaviour. When King Stephen had announced that he and his men, exhausted from riding, were starving, Emmeline had volunteered to make preparations for a meal, thinking that the kitchens would be the best place for her and Sylvie to talk in private. She tried again, hoping to elicit some response from Sylvie. ‘Have you no sentry, no guard who could have shouted a warning, and closed the portcullis before the attackers came into the castle?’

  ‘It was a complete surprise,’ Sylvie whispered, her voice a dull monotone.

  ‘Did Edgar and his men pursue the attackers?’ Emmeline began to bring the pastry together. ‘Is that why he’s not here?’

  ‘Edgar did this.’

  Emmeline’s fingers stilled, the lump of dough sticky and cold under her fingertips. Sylvie’s hands covered her face, the points of her elbows jabbing into the rough wood of the kitchen table as she cowered forward.

  ‘Your husband, Lord Edgar, attacked his own village, his castle?’ Emmeline repeated her sister’s words, incredulous. ‘Why, in Heaven’s name?’

  Sylvie’s hands dropped to the table. Her red-rimmed eyes sought her sister. ‘To teach me a lesson, Emmeline. To show me who is lord and master, who is in charge.’ Big, fat tears welled up in the corners of her eyes, gathering to roll down her cheeks and drop onto the table, dark splotches on the light oak boards.

  ‘Sweet mother of God.’ Emmeline yanked her fingers out of the pastry, wiping them cursorily on the front of the apron. Sticky dough adhered to her hands as she swept around to Sylvie, sitting beside her on the bench, putting her arms tightly around her. To Emmeline, the true nature of her sister’s marriage revealed itself through her sister’s depressed behaviour. ‘Oh, Sylvie. How long has this been going on?’

  Sylvie clutched her arm, her expression pleading. ‘You’ve got to take me away from here, Emmeline. Take me back to France before he comes back.’ A wildness entered her eyes, panic threading her voice. ‘I don’t know what he’s likely to do next.’

  Emmeline nodded sharply. She didn’t need to ask Sylvie the details of what had been happening with Edgar; it was obvious. The bright, vivacious, proud and beautiful Sylvie had been reduced to a hollow shell: a forlorn, broken woman who teetered on the edge of madness. ‘Let’s sleep tonight, Sylvie, then on the morrow, I’ll ask Lord Talvas for an escort and a ship. We’ll travel on the morrow.’

  Sylvie’s mouth turned upwards into a faint smile. ‘Oh, Emmeline, do you promise? Do you promise that you’ll take me away from this place?’

  Emmeline hugged her. ‘It’s why I came to England, Sylvie. I promise.’

  The heavy oak door banged back on its hinges. Both women jumped, guilt etching their faces.

  ‘Ah, what a touching scene.’ Talvas’s rough words fell on the sisters as he shouldered his way through the door carrying a platter littered with bones. ‘Sorry to break up the reunion, but the men need more food.’ Emmeline rose uncertainly, patting her sister’s shoulder in reassurance before slipping from the bench to resume her pastry making. Talvas stepped down into the heady warmth of the kitchen, his body moving with pliable grace. ‘What were you plotting?’ His surcoat and chain-mail had been replaced by a dark blue overtunic, the neck slashed to reveal a white linen shirt beneath, the brilliant colour stark against the tanned cording of his neck.

  Emmeline pursed her lips, concentrating on lining a piedish with the rolled-out pastry. She knew he awaited an answer, her heart beating erratically under his sapphire perusal. ‘We’re not plotting anything, my lord,’ She said eventually. ‘Merely our journey on the morrow.’ She picked up a long knife, beginning to attack a piece of cooked ham, slicing it into large chunks to put in the pie.

  ‘What journey?’ Talvas reached out, snaring her wrist. She had pushed up the sleeves of her underdress to reveal pale forearms, a delicate tracery of blue veins under her skin. Under his grip the knife slipped from her fingers, clattering to the table. Her face lifted, emerald eyes luminous, magical in their depths. His heart jumped at the beauty of her countenance. A smudge of flour dusted her cheek; he wanted to smooth it away. And yet again he asked himself the question that had dogged him all day—how could two sisters appear so similar on the outside, yet differ so radically in their character?

  The warmth of his fingers enervated her, sparking her veins. She quivered, the burning vitality of his gaze unbalancing her resolve, the sweet pressure of his fingers demanding an answer. ‘I will take Sylvie back to France tomorrow,’ she replied, her voice wavering. ‘She can stay here no longer.’

  He grimaced, his mouth stern. ‘It’s not going to happen, Emmeline. Stephen has other plans for you.’ The arrogance of his tone needled her. ‘Other plans for us.’

  Emmeline shook her head, muscles tensing in her stomach. ‘Then he must change his plans…don’t you think it’s time we left?’ But her heart jumped with joy at the chance to be with him for longer.

  ‘Aye, I do. I think you’ve been through enough. Besides, England at the moment is no place for a woman without protection.’

  A woman without protection! She bristled. ‘I can take care of myself…and my sister.’

  He stepped toward her. ‘Nay, Emmeline, that’s where you are wrong. I agree you’re strong up there—’ he tapped the side of her head ‘—with a mind to equal any man’s. But don’t fool yourself that you can best a man physically. That way of thinking will lead you into danger.’

  ‘Then don’t place me in it!’ Frustration coiled in her belly. How she hated the way these men tried to control her every move!

  ‘There’s nothing I would wish for more, Emmeline. But I can’t disobey a royal command.’

  ‘Do you always do what Stephen tells you to do?’ she bit back, irritation flaring in her eyes.

  ‘There’s such a thing as loyalty,’ he replied calmly, ‘or maybe you know little of that.’

  ‘Depending on others is foolish,’ she said, trying to keep her tone on an even keel.

  ‘Maybe you should try it some time,’ he murmured. ‘You might be surprised.’ Their eyes caught, snagged. Were they still talking about the same thing? she wondered.

  ‘I’ve promised Sylvie.’ Emmeline darted her eyes toward her sister’s ravaged face, streaked with tears. ‘Talvas, she’s in danger!’

  ‘We’re all in danger if we don’t stop Maud, Emmeline.’

  ‘How can I possibly help? Surely you need an army?’

  ‘Your skills in navigation are needed. As a woman, you’ll draw less suspicion. It wi
ll make it easier to approach Sedroc by stealth.’ He dropped her wrist, pushed a hand up into his hair, tousling the dark strands. ‘Believe me, Emmeline, I’m as against this idea as you are. But Stephen has made up his mind. He’s adamant that we two can achieve more to oust Maud than a whole army.’

  ‘We two?’ Her voice rose a notch.

  He shrugged his massive shoulders. ‘Stephen feels that the two of us would be able to break into the castle at Sedroc, flush Maud out.’

  At the table, Sylvie whimpered. ‘Don’t go, Emmeline! You promised, you promised to take me away from this place.’

  Guilt coursed through Emmeline’s body, her resolve wavering. The heat from Talvas’s fingers lured her, held her. She knew her loyalty should lie with her sister, but Talvas, Talvas was giving her the chance of spending more time with him, and every ounce of her heart wanted to leap for it, the opportunity to be at his side for longer. ‘Maybe we could sort something out, Sylvie? Perhaps you could stay till I return from Sedroc?’

  Sylvie picked at a splinter that had come adrift from the edge of the table. ‘He is making me pay for what I have done to him,’ she answered, her tone resigned.

  ‘Nay, Sylvie, he’s not! He’s under orders from the King!’ Emmeline glanced at Talvas—since when had she began to defend the actions of this man by her side?

  ‘He’s taking you away from me.’

  ‘Not for long, Sylvie. I’m sure the King will grant some soldiers for your protection.’ A brief nod from Talvas confirmed her statement.

  Sylvie began to back away, pointing a finger at Talvas. ‘If you forgive me at all, Talvas, then grant me my sister. Don’t take her away from me, please!’ She turned, a half sob clutching at her chest, and disappeared, a wraith on the steps.

  ‘I must go after her, Talvas!’ Emmeline stepped away from him, disloyalty like a foul taste in her mouth. The hem of her bliaut flicked upwards as she whisked around the table, pulling off the apron.