That could not be. No one would ride at such a pace in so difficult a terrain. The rider would risk both his own neck and his horse’s. She struggled through failing vision to make sense of it.
There was a shout of command, then a challenge, and the man who held her released her so suddenly that she fell to the ground and lay there gasping. He had held her finally by the throat for some of the time in an effort to control her struggles and she had been choking; now she could only lie and fight for breath.
Dimly she was aware of running feet and the arrival of more horsemen, riding more cautiously this time. At last she looked up wonderingly and encountered Baron Alain’s furious dark eyes staring down at her beneath the shadow of his conical helmet and noseguard.
Chapter Seven
For one moment Gisela was too amazed to do anything but stand awkwardly and stare back at her husband. He had dismounted, come to her side and now seized her arm in one mail-gauntleted hand so that she was able to steady herself against his body. She could feel the hard cold steel of his mail and she laid her forehead against his shoulder and let out one little choked cry. She was temporarily oblivious of all that was going on around her.
She had believed herself doomed to die—and horribly—and here was salvation so unexpectedly in the presence of her own lord. Her breath was still coming raggedly, then she forced herself to lift her head and begin to breathe more slowly.
He bent and gave her shoulder a little shake.
“What in the Holy Name of God are you doing out here?”
She gazed about somewhat stupefied, for signs of her assailant, but saw only a small troop of the Baron’s men gathering in a half-circle to protect her.
She tried to thrust herself free of Baron Alain’s hold, but he continued to grip her tightly, his gauntlet digging mercilessly into the soft flesh of her upper arm just below the shoulder.
His voice came again in an infuriated hiss. “Tell me. What were you doing here? Have you so little concern for your own safety and, incidentally, for my commands? Did I not warn you not to venture far from the castle without suitable escort and permission?”
She ignored the question and peered round for sight of the men she had been so steadfastly pursuing.
“Why are you wasting time asking foolish questions?” she demanded. “Get after those men. They will escape us even now. I am certain I recognised that red-headed fellow as one who was present at the Brinkhurst attack.”
His voice was rock-hard. “I am not interested in the fate of such rabble, only in the safety of my lady wife. Answer me, damn you, who was so crassly foolish as to let you ride here?”
She exerted all her strength and wrenched free from him, swinging round to face him, breast heaving and blue eyes snapping with cold fire.
“I command you to ride after those routiers, take prisoners, force a confession from one of them. That is all that matters to me.”
He surveyed her coldly. “The man who held you turned and ran as I rode into sight. He will have gone to ground by now. By God’s Holy Wounds, he might have killed you.”
“But he did not,” she ground out, her temper rising by the moment. “Why do you think I risked myself to follow him? I want him taken and questioned and Mauger de Cotaine arraigned for the villain he is.”
“I dare say you do,” he said suavely, “but there are other considerations of more importance. By the blessing of the Virgin you are safe. My prime concern is to return you to the castle and see if you are hurt and require Joshua’s attentions.”
She stamped her foot, causing acute pain to her injured ankle. “I am well enough. Leave me, sir, and get after those men. It is your duty to lead a hue-and-cry posse after disturbers of the King’s peace. They are laden with booty taken from yet another stricken manor.”
He turned to his sergeant, who was questioning Edwin. Another man was bending low in the saddle and held Sigurd’s arm in a harsh grip.
“Send one of your men to see if he can track those fellows,” the Baron barked. “The rest of you return with me to Allestone.” His brooding gaze fixed on Edwin. “I’ll question you later.” Then, to the man who was holding Sigurd prisoner, “See that fellow is held in the gatehouse guardroom until I can deal with him. Secure my lady’s mount. She rides with me.”
“I can ride—” Gisela began but he cut her off and, sweeping her up into his arms, carried her to where his destrier was restlessly pawing the ground and laid her across his saddle bow, then effortlessly sprang into the saddle behind. While keeping a firm grip on Gisela with one hand, he used the other to gather up the reins and turned his mount skilfully in the narrow way, calling for his men to fall in behind to ride back towards Allestone.
In vain Gisela protested that she was safe and uninjured and perfectly happy to remain in the clearing while her lord rode in pursuit of the mercenaries. Her objections were ignored and the Baron rode steadily onward as if he had not heard her.
Choking back her disappointment and anger that her quarry had escaped her, Gisela was forced to lean back submissively against her husband’s body and allow him to return her to her home. They rode in sullen silence through the village until Allestone Castle came in sight and they passed beneath the gatehouse arch and into the bailey. Instantly grooms sprang to attend to their Baron’s needs and one gently assisted his lady down.
Gisela made to run impatiently towards the keep steps, but her ankle almost gave way beneath her and she gave a sharp cry of pain. She could not believe that her husband would have wantonly ignored her pleas for assistance in arresting those men and did not know whether it was pain or absolute fury that brought tears to her eyes.
Without a word Alain de Treville lifted her once more into his arms and strode across the bailey, up the keep steps, through the hall and up the tower steps beyond to their chamber. Here he laid her carefully down upon the bed and stepped back.
“Do not stir,” he commanded. “I will send Joshua to you. Your maid is already in the hall.”
“My lord,” she called him back as he reached the doorway. He stopped and turned. She saw his eyebrows raised in part amazement that she should question his order and part irritation.
“What is it?”
“Why did you not ride after those men?”
“I told you. They are of little or no importance to me. Your safety was my only consideration.”
“But mine was to pursue and punish them.”
The hard line of his mouth did not relax. He continued to regard her haughtily.
She deliberately changed her tactics. “Can I have been mistaken in the mettle of the man I married? Were you afraid, my lord?”
She heard his one short intake of breath, then he came hurriedly back to the bed. He lifted his hand as if to strike her and she thrust up her chin defiantly as if to receive the blow. His hand fell back to his side and she saw his Adam’s apple move as he swallowed back his anger.
“We will talk of this later, when both of us are in a more receptive state,” he said coldly. “I found Algar riding through the village as if all the devils in hell were close on his heels and, when stopped and questioned, he told me of your idiotic notion to pursue those routiers. I could do nothing but ride after you. Have you any idea what peril you were in? Do you think those scum would have spared you, even knowing who you are?
“You are my wife and you will obey me and no one else. I do not answer to you, madam, neither will I stoop to explain my reasons or to excuse myself of such an insulting charge. You will do as I say, wait for Aldith and Joshua and we will talk further when I am in the right mood to discuss this. It may well be that the matter will be broached no more. Do you understand me?”
She drew back from him across the width of their bed. Her intense blue eyes, brimming with tears of helpless fury, met his obsidian dark ones. She made as if to speak, then thought better of it and nodded dumbly. He looked down at the length of her tautly angry, youthful form, then turned and stalked from the chamber.
Joshua
ben Suleiman arrived very soon after, bearing his small chest of medicaments. He examined Gisela’s ankle very gently under Aldith’s baneful glare. Aldith considered that her own nursing skills were sufficient to treat her lady and was somewhat jealous of the Jewish physician’s standing in the household.
“There appears to be no broken bone,” the old man said quietly. “The limb is merely sprained and badly bruised. You should rest it for a day perhaps, my lady, and all should be well.”
He applied a soothing compound that Gisela, from her own herbal lore, thought to be comprised mainly of witch hazel but to which was added some other exotic-scented balm she could not identify. Almost immediately the pain diminished and she thanked the physician, who bowed in his courtly Eastern manner and went off to report to his lord.
Gisela sank back upon the bed and gnawed her underlip. She was still raging inwardly at what she considered Alain’s perfidious behaviour. How could he have allowed those marauding devils to escape him? Guiltily she recognised that her accusation of cowardice was totally unfounded, yet why had he not before ridden out against Mauger de Cotaine, whom all in the county knew to be the master of these men?
Quite apart from her own need for vengeance, there were other innocent, vulnerable people who would suffer in the future if these depredations continued unchecked. If King Stephen had placed her husband in a position of trust here at Allestone, surely it was his duty, as she had reminded him, to assist the shire reeve in apprehending those responsible for these outrages.
She poured out the cause of her dissension with her husband to Aldith’s usually sympathetic ears but, this time, found her maid less responsive.
Gisela checked and leaned down towards Aldith, who was frowning abstractedly and, clearly, had not listened to half of what her mistress had said.
“What is it, Aldith? Do you think I was unwise to tax my husband with dereliction of duty?” She did not add that her most telling insult was even more ill advised. Aldith must not know of that.
Her former nurse regarded her doubtfully. “I imagine the Baron is most concerned for the defence of the castle,” she said bluntly. “Naturally he would not consider a minor raid on some small nearby manor as grounds for an attack upon a neighbour.” She paused and then added succinctly, “I think, since you ask, my lady, that it would be wiser not to anger your lord husband unnecessarily.”
Gisela was about to retort that she did not consider the need to prod Alain de Treville into action against these lawless routiers unnecessary when she sensed Aldith’s very real alarm.
“You are very worried—about Sigurd?”
Aldith turned a pale, frightened face to her lady. “He is held in the guardroom. It will be discovered that he went to the wood to poach after being warned. I am afraid…”
Gisela caught her breath in a little gasp. She had been so incensed against Alain that she had had no thoughts for the men whom she had inveigled into helping her. The two men-at-arms would decidedly come under the Baron’s intense displeasure, possibly Sir Clement too, for the seneschal had not taken great care to enquire too closely into her reason for leaving the castle, yet, surely, she had given a good enough excuse and Sir Clement should be exempted from blame.
But Sigurd and Edwin had led her into the wood despite their avowed fears for her safety and she knew they would doubtless be severely punished. Aldith’s hoarsely expressed fear earlier which had led them in search of the boy, “He could lose his hand,” hit her forcefully and she quailed at the knowledge that she could be responsible if the worst were to happen.
Had she not insisted on the boy acting as guide, he would not have been discovered by his lord in a questionable position and Sigurd would not now be languishing in the guardroom in fear of the consequences of his “feckless but understandable” misdemeanour, performed only in the desire to please his light of love. It hit her squarely too that, by her own actions, she had placed herself in a postion where it would be extremely difficult for her to plead with Lord Alain to be merciful.
She said, with a confidence she did not entirely feel, “I will speak with my lord about Sigurd the very first opportunity I have. I am sure he will be pardoned, Aldith.”
Aldith’s tortured countenance, as she faced her mistress before leaving the chamber with the bowl of water and towels used for bathing by Joshua ben Suleiman, was anything but optimistic.
Gisela lay back against the pillows and tried to understand Lord Alain’s behaviour. Sir Clement had told her that he had refused to ride out to de Cotaine’s manor shortly after the attack on Brinkhurst. The terrible thought occurred to her, hastily dismissed, that the two men could be in league with each other.
Men previously considered honourable before now had behaved so disgracefully during the long years of this anarchy in the pursuit of personal gain. No, that could never be. It was not to be thought of. Alain de Treville was true to his oath of fealty. She knew that instinctively. Then why was he so reluctant to deal with this man who terrorised the neighbourhood?
She would have to face her husband soon and be more conciliatory, if only for Sigurd and Edwin’s sake. Surely Algar had naught to fear. He had gone immediately for assistance and could not be faulted for that.
There was a sudden scrabble of paws upon the stair and Hereward hurtled on to the bed, throwing Gisela backwards against the pillows, licking her frantically. Laughingly, she tried to thrust him off as Huon burst into her chamber, red-faced and anxious. He caught the excitable and ecstatic dog by the collar and pulled him free of Gisela’s helpless form.
“My lady, I am so sorry. He got free of his leash and flew up the tower stair before I could prevent him and—and,” he said breathlessly, “Lord Alain said he was not to be allowed to get to you, for you are hurt.”
“No, Huon, it is nothing.” Gisela sat up on the bed, still laughing. “I am glad to see Hereward, indeed I am. I have wrenched my ankle, that is all. I will not allow your lord to censure you. I know how determined this naughty dog is.”
She reached out and ruffled Hereward’s soft fur and gently pulled his ears while he stuck out a rough pink tongue and panted in delight, his round brown eyes regarding her adoringly.
She had no opportunity to enquire after Sigurd’s fate as she had promised Aldith. She found her sprained ankle more painful than she had thought when she attempted to put weight on it and was unable to descend the tower steps into the hall for supper.
She sent her apologies to Lord Alain by Aldith but he did not come near her and sent merely a terse message that he was sorry she was still indisposed and ordered supper to be served to her within their chamber. Nor did he join her in their bed that night.
She was left to lie wakeful, regretting her impulsive accusations and longing for him. His discovery of her presence near Kenrick’s tomb had already put a barrier between them and this rift had now been deepened by their later altercation in the wood.
The interpretation he had placed upon her desire to see the routiers taken and hanged must surely be that she passionately desired vengeance for the loss of Kenrick. Soberly she considered this in the darkened chamber. Yes, that could not be denied. Nevertheless, if she were to live in some degree of harmony with her husband, the rift must be bridged.
She had flung at him the greatest insult a woman could give to a man of honour. She punched her pillow, now wet with tears, in helpless frustration and vowed that tomorrow she would rise early before he had a chance to ride out into the village and make her apologies.
Later, she would do her utmost to convince him that the acts committed by his men and the young serf were due to her determination, which they had dared not disobey since any attempt to do so would have left her in peril. Surely then he would hold his hand and not punish any of the three too severely.
She and she alone deserved punishment. A shiver went through her body as she thought that any other man might well have asserted his right of chastisement and thrashed her had he been so provoked. Alain de Tre
ville had been about to strike her, he had been very close to doing so, yet he had held back.
Unfortunately she was prevented from confronting her husband as her father, now much improved, paid a very early visit to her chamber. She was still not fully dressed and Aldith wrapped her in a bedrobe before admitting Sir Walter and, at Gisela’s nod, left the chamber afterwards.
He came straight to the point. “I hear there has been some quarrel between you and your lord.”
She gestured for her father to seat himself. “What have you heard?” she asked cautiously.
“I heard that you deliberately placed yourself in danger and that Lord Alain took you to task for it,” he said grimly. “It is all over the castle that Lord Alain’s lady has deliberately disobeyed him. Daughter, you must know this has placed Lord Alain in a humiliating position—and before his own men, too.
“While I understand this marriage is no love match, I expected that you would play your part and be a good wife to de Treville. He has a right to expect loyalty and obedience from you.”
She did not attempt to excuse herself. She sank down on the bed beside him, clutching her furred robe close around her, her eyes searching the ground at her feet, unable to meet his gaze.
“Did you know why I disobeyed him?”
“I understand you went off hawking or some such nonsense in Allestone wood.”
“No,” she said in a low voice, “I went in search of young Sigurd who has been poaching and has already been warned off but—” she took a hard breath “—while we were there we found signs that routiers had holed up in an abandoned charcoal burner’s hut.
“I persuaded my escort to follow, hoping they might be apprehended and punished. It was clear they had been on another raid and I wanted—” She broke off, tears raining down her cheeks, and he reached out and took her hand.
“I see. Vengeance can sometimes turn out to be a very cold dish indeed, daughter.”
“Yes. You do not know the worst of it. Lord Alain refused to ride after those men and—and I accused him of cowardice.” There, it was out and she winced inwardly at the ugly sound of the word.
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