"Take cover!" he shouted, but she took no notice, her whole body shaking as she struggled to draw his bow.
She managed half-way and then the string slipped from her hand, the arrow loosened too low and flat, disappearing into the river less than a spear's-length behind him.
Sunniva screamed and tried to notch another arrow but Theo was moving more swiftly now, his feet sure as they reached the shallows. He and Marc burst from the water and Marc hauled his would-be-saviour across his saddle. To his surprise she was burning, her face brilliant with anger.
"Let me down!" she yowled, kicking against him, slapping his bow against him. "I can fight! I can help! I saved you—"
"So you did—No, I mean it." He was tempted to laugh, she was so prettily indignant, but he recognized the hurt behind her protest and the justice of her complaint. It was true, anyway: she had helped him.
"Easy there." He landed her lightly on the grass and slid swiftly off the saddle. His instinct warned that the soldiers had not finished their pursuit. "Where are the girls?"
Silently, almost scornfully, she jerked a hand farther along the bank and he saw them, waiting hidden behind a stand of alders, their faces pinched and blank in shock.
"Come then." Ashamed that his three had been subjected to this latest alarm, Marc hurried them all away, closing his ears on the shouts, threats and curses issuing from the other side of the river.
Chapter 13
The convent was very small and very old and they had reached it only after a long, increasingly dry, increasingly hot journey, arriving hours after twilight, but now Alde, Judith and Isabella were sleeping, bundled all together in one bed, in the novices' cell. They were the only girls there, except for Sunniva, who watched them from the threshold while she spoke softly with Marc.
Or rather, Marc spoke to her. Since he had beckoned her out of the cell he had done all the talking.
"I am glad they sleep," he was saying. "Even my haunted Isabella has slept soundly for many nights, ever since — " He stopped, words seeming to hover on his lips, then abruptly changed whatever he was about to add — "Ever since the night of Largebelly's feast."
A demon goaded Sunniva to contradict him. "Isabella is not haunted."
"Not with you, for sure," Marc agreed and he smiled. "I did not think a straw pallet could survive such a pounding as she gave this one here. She has not romped in this way before sleep for months."
His voice faded and Sunniva knew he was thinking of his dead kindred. Quickly, to divert him, she asked, "What think you of this place?"
His bushy eyebrows drew together as he scratched his beard. "I have not seen so many old women before this evening. Or is it the nuns' habits that makes them seem so grey and sparse? When I speak to them, I feel as if I talk to flitting shadows: they scurry off, squeaking, and I am no wiser."
"They liked your gold," Sunniva reminded him.
"That they did." Marc leaned past her to replace a piece of hanging wattle plaster with a dab of spit and his thumb. "I wonder if I should offer to replace the cross-beam over their refectory doorway? It is riddled with woodworm."
"A knight of Constantinople, working wood?" Sunniva teased, wondering, even as she spoke, why she did so. He had made his lack of interest in her plain, but then there were those barbed comments about her betrothed, and Marc's kiss. He had kissed her, more than once....
"As a boy, I made ships," he answered.
"I see," Sunniva said, intrigued by the thought but wary of pursuing it. Any conversation with this man was unwise. He might ask her more about Caedmon.
I wish I had never told him I was betrothed.
But then, what difference would that first lie make? Perhaps even if he knew she was in truth free, Marc would still deal with her as a nothing, sometimes useful as a child-keeper, sometimes pretty enough to embrace, but no more than that.
What am I but the daughter of a slave? What is he, but a woman-killer? Yet how can he be such? My every instinct tells me he is not!
"What will you do now?" she asked, speaking as much to herself as to Marc.
Again he scratched his beard, a nervous gesture.
"I spoke with the Abbess before the nuns retired tonight — I think she was the Abbess — she was the youngest and least timid of the seven old women here — and she has agreed to shelter you and my three..."
He had done that for her, Sunniva thought, her mood lifting.
"....While I must away for a day or so. I must find out what is happening with the Viking invasion. Though I think I was right not to continue the pilgrimage to Durham, and the signs are such that I am confident my choice has been vindicated, I dare not move the girls any great distance until I know the roads will be safe."
He straightened, dusting more loose wattle plaster off his leggings and spoke now without looking at her directly. "I mean to offer my sword to the English king, unless I am already too late."
What signs? Sunniva wondered, while her mind also explored his last statement. Had she heard right? "You mean to —? "
"I have no lands in this country." He spoke as if to Isabella, very slowly, explaining as he continued, "I came to teach the old King's warriors how to fight on horseback, but now old King Edward is dead and new King Harold does not know me. I must win his trust if I am to have a choice whether to stay in England. What better way than to fight for him?"
Sunniva felt a sudden chill at the idea of Marc in battle. For an instant, she pitied his enemies, then thought of another aspect. "What of William of Normandy? Surely if he comes and you have fought for King Harold, William will be angry?"
She thought her questions reasonable, but Marc merely snorted. "He is becalmed, the winds of the narrow sea are against him. He will not come this summer. King Harold will hold England." He drummed his fingers on his sword-belt, muttering, "He will if I have anything to do with it."
Suddenly, he looked at her. "Where is Whitby? When I return from the battle to collect my brood, I can take you to your betrothed."
"I, I —” For an instant, Sunniva floundered. Where was Whitby? "That is generous of you, but there is no need." Inspiration struck. "I will send for my betrothed."
"For sure." He gave her a considering look from those dark, wine-coloured eyes of his, but to her relief he did not pursue the matter. "I must away to look to our horses: I think the nuns here know little enough of sheep, much less ponies."
"And the mule," Sunniva prompted. "Do not forget him."
He smiled at her then. "How could I do that, seeing how much work the beast cost the both of us?"
He touched her cheek with his fingers and stalked away, whistling.
Chapter 14
Marc hated to leave the next day. It was the first time he had left Alde and her sisters since the night of the fire and he was anxious they might slip back into grief and nightmares. Sunniva was with them, though, dry-eyed and smiling, radiating confidence as she wished him God speed and a safe return. He knew she disapproved of his action but for the sake of his children she restricted her comments to a few pointed words: "I trust your instincts are as sound on this as they were at the river. Luck to you, Marc de Sens."
"And to you, Lady Sunniva." He wanted to kiss her, but not while the nuns were watching. As he swung himself into the saddle she hugged Isabella, Judith and Alde, then hurried across the tiny, muddy convent yard to his horse.
"If you encounter Cena and his sons," she said, in a low, tense voice, "Give them my greetings."
"I will. I promise." He clasped her cold hand in his, felt it tremble and realized how hard his departure was for her. In a flash of understanding, he realized the courage involved in waiting — he would find it difficult, much tougher than riding to war. The not-knowing, the terrible uncertainty — it needed bravery of a more resolute, subtle kind than the animal cut-and-thrust of battle, where thought was replaced by raw passion for survival.
Shamed, he rode off quickly without further speech, without looking back. As the miles
sped under Theo's plunging hooves he pictured Alde, Judith and Isabella tight about Sunniva, her arms spread over them like protective angel's wings. They would be safe with her: he trusted her care of them without question.
Gratitude for Sunniva warmed him and he spurred Theo on, glad to be alive in the same world as such a woman.
She may be betrothed, he told himself, but in these war-like times, who knows what can happen? Caedmon of Whitby could die in battle. The grim thought pleased him as, whistling, he turned south, towards York, and prepared to find King Harold's war-host.
He rode hard all day and through the night, stopping only when his horse began to falter. A few midnight hours sheltering under a holly tree, with only Theo and two stray sheep for company failed to quash his spirits, although he missed his lady sun-shine. He slept and dreamed of Sunniva: her smile, her walk, the way her voice lifted at the ends of words, and how she swayed in time to the beat whenever any music was made.
He stirred early, jolted awake by a sheep nibbling his cloak, and found the heavens washed and pale, the sun a silver-and-gold disc sliding free of the distant hills. Stretching, Marc whistled for the sheer pleasure of being alive, and for the lack of rain for a second day. It seemed a good omen to him, a sign that Sunniva and his three girls were still safe.
Was he right to leave them? Yet if he were to stay in England, make a new life here for him and his nieces, he had to find out what was happening. As he had learned from serving in Constantinople as part of the Imperial guard, to influence events you had to be part of them. If a battle was to be fought here in the north, he had to be in it.
And on the winning side, the cynic in him whispered, while he fell into a glorious day-dream. King Harold, victorious, honouring him, granting him whatever he desired. He would ask for Sunniva: lands, treasure and Sunniva.
He smiled and rode faster, hastening to meet his new fortune.
Further south he ran into a group of men loyal to Lord Morcar of the North. They were weary and battle-worn, having fought with the Vikings several days earlier, at a place south of York, called Fulford. Both sides had sustained losses but these men of Lord Morcar had endured enough: they were going home. Marc's questions about King Harold's force were met with blank looks and the shaking of heads. The men were friendly enough, glad he was no Viking, but they knew nothing more. Marc deemed it prudent to bid them farewell and move on.
He came to a stream and followed its winding track, knowing that York lay on a great river and that there would be settlements somewhere close to a source of fresh water. The day grew brighter then, as the sun dipped in the west, he found the stream broadening to a ford.
By the ford he saw his first dying Englishman.
It was almost a family death-bed: Marc was reminded of when his father had died and all his kindred and servants had filed past the foot of his great bed to bid him farewell. The Englishman was clearly a noble with a retinue of followers, all guarding him as he lay, swathed in cloaks and furs, on the damp grass and earth, and gasped his life away.
Marc felt like an intruder. Without asking the questions that had hurled themselves at his lips — Where was the battle? How was it going? Who was winning? — he raised his hand in a salute and sped off, riding across the ford and straight off the track. He made for the crown of a low hill, hoping to find a place where he could look out.
Galloping hard through grass and gorse for another half-mile, he knew he had chosen the right way. There were few places in this broad vale where the ground rose enough to see far into the distance but this small ridge was enough. As he cantered to its low "peak", he saw another river spreading before him, and a wooden bridge on the floodplain of that river. Close to the bridge was the battlefield.
Marc drew rein, not caring that he was sky-lined, for there was no living warriors left to see. He had come too late to the battle: all who were left here were the scavengers and the dead.
Now he could see the corpses, black with crows, and snapped spears. A glint of a broken battle-axe, arrows stuck into a hawthorn bush and a body draped over the lower branches of the bush like a bloody cloak. He was glad the wind was blowing on his back: the stench in the vale would be terrible. He edged Theo forward, sensing the stallion's reluctance and hardly eager to approach himself. Once, the horse's hoof kicked against a helmet without a head, causing Theo to skitter sideways and a flock of crows to streak skywards, breaking the heavy silence with their cawing. Feeling his mount shudder, Marc stroked Theo's long, glossy neck and murmured a few reassurances in Breton. After a few more paces, he dismounted and led the horse on foot.
Not a moment too soon, for here were sights to chill the bravest war-charger. A head without a helmet. A severed hand. Another broken axe-head. A body hacked and gouged by many spears. Flinching away, Marc spotted a human scavenger: woman or man, he could not tell from the slight, ragged figure as it bent over a corpse, doing something with a knife. Feeling the bile rise in his throat he passed on.
Who had won here? The Norse King Hardrada? Or King Harold? Where were the survivors of the armies now?
"Water! Please, water..."
Marc stared at the whispering, creeping corpse-come-to-life at his feet then reacted. Pushing away another body, he knelt and turned the bloody wreck over, spraying the man's face with his water as he tried to find the fellow's mouth. It was hard to tell: his nose had been sliced off.
Holding the man's shoulders, Marc supported him as he drank. He had been in battles many times but never the aftermath, never lingered amongst the dead and broken. It horrified him and he wondered how many others lay injured on this field of slaughter.
"Water, please, for my father. He is close... somewhere. I cannot see...."
"Do not trouble, man," said a new voice somewhere above him.
Still on his knees, Marc twisted round and met the eyes of a Englishman, small, wiry and sunburnt, who had approached on foot.
"What do you mean?" he demanded.
"He will be dead within the hour. I have seen it many times already." The little Englishman indicated the blood-soaked field. "Heat and weariness: it has felled both sides, especially the enemy. We have been picking up Viking mail shirts all day."
It was hot riding yesterday, Marc recalled. "What is this place?"
"The bridge by Stamford." A nod to the river and its bridge, both choked with blood and bodies.
"Who won?" he asked the stranger, who grinned.
"We did, of course," he said. "We caught the Norse napping, waiting to exchange hostages. It was hot and dry, so they must have seen our dust rising as we came, but still we beat them."
Marc scowled. "I have arrived too late. My horse went lame," he added, in case an explanation was deemed necessary.
"Do not let it trouble you." The wiry Englishman clapped him hard on the shoulder. "We will bury our own and leave the Vikings to rot and then get back south, fend off William the Bastard. Kill a few Normans, that should ease the blood-thirst of your blade."
"Water!" A straining whisper broke through this curious exchange.
The stranger shrugged. "For me, I would save my water, but you must do as you think." He nodded and passed on, exactly as if they were townsmen chatting in a street. A few moments later, Marc heard him hailing another Englishman.
Shaking his head at the strangeness of war, Marc mopped the dying man's forehead and tried to find his mouth again to give him more drink. As he heard the frenzied gulping, he was glad he was dressed in the English fashion, with beard and hair to match. The stranger had thought him a thegn, one of the English fighters. It saved many questions.
"Better?" he asked the ruin lying on his knees.
"I know you." The man clawed at his arm. "You will see my father and brothers and me well-buried, at a church. Promise me!"
Father and brothers... Marc realized who it was. "Edgar Cena-son," he said flatly, marvelling at how fate had brought them together. Sunniva had asked him to give her kin her greeting and here they were.
"Your promise!" Edgar gargled, coughing in his indignation.
"I promise," Marc repeated. How he would do so with only one horse and where he would find a church he had as yet little idea, but these were small matters. He touched the neck of the body sprawled closest and found no beat of life. Rolling over a second corpse he saw Cena, mouth frozen in a shout. The third body, with its guts spilling onto the turf, must be one or other of the twins.
Numbly, he tried to think of a prayer for the dead, but failed. While Edgar lived, though, he could do one last service for Sunniva.
He gave Edgar another drink, glancing down the man's upper torso. Edgar had a knife wound in his belly, low down, one of the worst kinds. Marc sagged. The English stranger was right: by the end of today, if not sooner, Sunniva's brother would be dead.
Fighting down a wave of revulsion at dealing with a man with less than half a face, Marc lowered his head.
"Edgar, where is Caedmon? Is he here on this field of battle?"
"Who?"
"Caedmon. Caedmon of Whitby. The betrothed of your sister."
"No sister," Edgar mumbled, spraying drool onto Marc's tunic.
Fighting a terrible pity, which urged him to let the poor man die in peace, Marc persisted. "You and she lived in the same house. She cared for you all as a sister does her brothers. She waited on her father, your father. She is your last remaining close kin."
"Not ours!"
More spit landed on Marc's tunic.
"Where is Caedmon of Whitby, her betrothed!" Marc hauled Edgar into a sitting position, wincing as Edgar grimaced. "Can you see him here?"
He knew he was being ruthless but he had to know.
"Where, Edgar? Then you can rest."
Propped by Marc, holding his injured belly, Edgar began to shake, making a curious whooping noise that Marc finally realized was laughter.
"Caedmon of Whitby?" Edgar gargled. "The man who sang for Abbess Hilda of Whitby?"
Love and Chivalry: Four Medieval Historical Romances Page 38