And on this battlefield, above the scrabbling of crows and the urgent, deadly work of those who despoiled the dead, Marc heard Sunniva's voice, clear as in a dream: "Caedmon loves to sing."
"That is the one," he said.
Edgar's small, deep-set eyes were suddenly bright with malice. "Then he is four hundred years old! Caedmon was a shepherd at Whitby who could not sing a note until God touched his tongue. The story is famous. And Sunniva told you he was her intended!"
Shocked, Marc lowered Edgar back onto the flattened grass. "You lie!"
"I speak true and you know it! She does this. Toys with men. Leads them on. Pretends she is bound. It is a game."
Marc recoiled, sickened by Edgar's malice, but still the wet, gasping voice went on.
"She likes men yearning after her. Why else is she still unwed, at twenty? My father tried to make a marriage for her: twice she has given betrothal vows. Both times the men paid to be released from her: they were weary of being made fools of by her, by her flirting and eyeing other men."
"Lies!"
Marc punched the grass beside Edgar, who did not flinch. He was dead, staring into the sunlight, his mouth twisted in another bout of laughter.
It took Marc the rest of the day to fulfil his now-bitter promise to Edgar. The church he found was dedicated to Saint Jude, which made him smile. Jude is not so far a name from Judas.
He did not believe Edgar, he told himself, as he paid the priest for the burials. The man had been as spiteful in death as in life: he would be a fool to heed anything he said.
But Sunniva.... Why had she not told him she was free? To preserve her chastity? Did she trust him so little, and after he had saved her from the slavers? Caught between rage and hurt he boiled. She had betrayed him. She had lied to him. Over and over, she had lied....
Somewhere on the road back to the convent, Marc made himself a new promise. He would have her, one way or the other.
Chapter 15
"He is here! He is here!"
Wild with joy, Alde pelted out of the convent orchard where Sunniva was working, sawing out the dead wood and picking the few apples. As Judith and Isabella too scrambled down the ladder to greet the lone warrior on the chestnut horse, Sunniva remained where she was, sitting in the apple tree, trapped by her own feelings, caught between shock and a dazed happiness. Marc was alive. He had come back to her.
Picturing his homely face, she kissed her fingers, hardly aware of what she did. She wanted to skid down the tree and race through the orchard to meet him. She wanted to hold him tightly, pluck him right off his feet, big as he was, touch him to make certain he was whole and real, not simply a fragment of a dream. She wanted to wait, anticipating the moment, savouring her relief, as he sought her out. Surely he would do so?
What news did he bring? Had he seen Cena? Bertana? Edgar? Were they safe? Would she see the twins sauntering in behind Marc, secure in his protection? What was happening in the wilder world?
She could see him now, the three girls riding pillion on his horse as he led Theo on foot. Marc was passing through the orchard gate, speaking a word or two of greeting to the gathering nuns. If he had hastened on his return journey there were few signs: he strode tall and straight, jangling slightly with each step. She saw the flash of sun on his dagger and sword belt. His chestnut looked fresh and newly groomed.
As for Marc himself -
Sunniva inhaled sharply, her fingers tightening on the pruning knife. Marc was Marc, yet not. His clothes were different, more colourful, and he had shaved off his beard and trimmed his hair. Even the hair in his ears, she noted inconsequentially, as he released Theo, allowing the stallion to graze where he would, and approached her tree alone.
She drew back into the shielding branches, thoroughly disconcerted. Gone was the bear-man Marc she had talked to. This smooth-faced, trim gallant was unknown. He made her conscious of her plain, apple-bark stained gown and reminded her that her blue head square had a tear in it. She wished he had found her in a more elegant setting: at her embroidery, perhaps. With the pruning knife in her fist and a heap of rotten branches round the base of the tree, a basket of small wizened apples hanging from her shoulder, she felt like a kitchen maid.
"Good day to you," said the stranger, using Marc's voice.
Even when he raised his head and looked straight at her she did not recognize him. Never before had she realized how lean his jaw was, how strong and mobile his lips. His nose was long and straight, his cheekbones clearly defined, his skin taut and toned, lighter than it would have been when he served in the east but still flawless. In profile his features had the clarity, the unblemished strength, of a blade. He was handsome, not homely, she realized with a shock, with bright, knowing amber eyes. The ends of his freshly-trimmed hair curled darkly against his collar, dark-brown hair but no longer bear-brown; full rather of interesting lights: flecks of black, of red, even of silver.
Sunniva hung from the tree, closing her mouth with a snap until she remembered that she had not answered. "Good morrow," she said hastily, although it was afternoon.
"I met a barber on the road," he said, rubbing a thumb along his freshly-shaven chin. "It is cleaner for the summer."
"That is a good thought," Sunniva agreed, astonished by their frivolous conversation while at the same moment wishing, for the second time, that she had met him dressed in a better gown.
He raised a hand towards her and his sleeve slipped down, revealing a tattoo of a dark blue cross emblazoned on his sword arm. He saw her staring and grinned.
"A memory from Constantinople," he said. "My friend Karl did it for me. He is a Viking, but a good one and a good guardsman." His smile faded. "I hope he was not with Hardrada's force, for they lost, and badly."
"My father? My brothers?" Sunniva stammered.
Marc stretched out both hands. "I think it best if you come down," he said quietly.
She knew then, before he told her.
Her eyes had widened when she first saw him but now she was silent as he explained how he found her father and brothers on the battlefield. When he said he had taken their bodies for burial, a spasm of sadness crossed her flawless features but all she said was, "Thank you for that."
"No more than they would have done for me," Marc answered.
Sunniva looked as if she doubted that but said nothing. She glanced at the pruning knife in her hand and drove it, with more force than needed, into another rotten branch. For a second the scent of apples swirled between them as she lowered the basket off her back to her feet.
"You will be wanting to see your youngsters," she said at last.
"The nuns have them busy with something," Marc replied, gazing at her dry eyes. He had expected a few tears, not many, for Cena was scarcely a loveable man, and he and his brutish sons had lately denied Sunniva as one of their kin, but this cool, withdrawn silence confounded him. Did the years she had lived with Cena as a daughter — harried and bullied, yes, but still a daughter — mean nothing to her?
He cleared his throat. He and Sunniva were standing next to each other: should he embrace her for comfort?
Unbidden, Edgar's words returned to goad him. He thought of how Sunniva had teased him, how she had responded to his kisses. Was she truly as Edgar claimed, a shallow, manipulative woman? Was she perhaps incapable of deep feeling?
Did he want such a woman in his bed?
She lied to me, he thought, and the idea of revenge, of punishment in intimacy, through touch and savouring and slow, searching caresses, became mightily appealing.
He smiled, glad he had taken the trouble to change his clothes and get his beard shaved off: her stare had been intensely gratifying. Now, beginning his plan of seduction at once, he said, "You will need to go home, to your people; they are now your responsibility. I shall escort you."
"You?" He thought she paled a little. "But what of your girls?"
"They go with us," he replied blandly. "Alde has told me they have all been well in the time I
was away, eating well and sleeping well. No night terrors. Our departure from the pilgrimage has done them no harm and they enjoy travel."
She did pale now, visibly, at his mention of the pilgrimage, no doubt recalling words like "woman-killer" and "murderer". Enjoying her discomfort, he added, "We shall set out today."
"When you have only just arrived? Your horse —”
He waved aside her objections. "You should make ready. I intend to leave in one hour. The sooner you are returned home, the swifter you may send word to your betrothed."
He waited, wondering if she would take the bait. Even now, if she said something, confessed she was free, he would forgive her, dismiss Edgar's dying words as the ravings of a sad, embittered man.
"It has been a while since I communicated with Caedmon," she whispered at last, examining her fingernails.
"Then he will be anxious." Infuriated afresh by her lies, Marc suddenly longed to sit down under this unruly apple tree, drag her over his lap and spank her until she begged to tell him the truth. Instead, reluctantly, he forced himself to take a step back. "I will say our farewells to the Abbess and then we go."
"I cannot."
He waited again, the temper-blood singing in his ears, fully expecting her to pretend that she must pray for her dead family, but it seemed that even for her, that lie was too much.
"I have promised the Abbess I will help her."
"With the rest of the apple harvest, and to repair the altar cloths and such?" Marc guessed aloud, feeling as brazen as Sunniva must feel as he now lied, "I have spoken to the Abbess. She understands your first duty is at home." He smiled. "Should you not be packing your things?"
He is said to be a murderer. A woman-killer, no less. He has never denied it. Why am I traveling with him for a second time?
The question haunted Sunniva throughout the day and she had no answer, except the brutal, I have no choice. Marc was right, her duty was to her people at home and the black reality was that it was safer journeying with a man, even a man said to be a woman-killer, than to risk traveling alone.
That harsh truth was brought home to her just after midday when, close to the grass trackway they were riding on, a tangle of youths broke cover from a spinney of thin oaks and threatened to surround her horse. Without a word, Marc drew his sword and galloped across, putting himself between her, his nieces and the boys. The five youths immediately fled into the undergrowth, though not before Sunniva noticed their rag-covered faces and antique knives. She could probably — possibly — have seen them off, but five brawny lads, all armed, were not to be trifled with.
"My thanks," she told Marc when they and the girls were cantering south again, this time leaving the grassy road and cutting across country to avoid a sprawling camp of shepherds and their flocks.
He nodded, a strange smile lurking on his chapped yet handsome lips. "My pleasure," he replied. "You are in mourning, and so no doubt less agile in your knife-work."
He spurred his mount on, calling to Isabella — who was sucking her thumb as she rode — to be careful. Checking the gait of her own horse, Sunniva was left feeling on edge as a result of their exchange.
What did she feel for Cena and the others? Nothing. That was the dreadful thing. She could claim shock, disbelief, but she would be a liar. She knew she would never see them again, yet that dull certainty woke no grief.
Desperate, she tried to think of some moment when she and Cena had been close, when she had felt like his daughter, but her memory failed her. Perhaps she was ungrateful, unnatural. Maybe that was why Marc seemed to look at her sidelong, as if she had suddenly grown a snake from her forehead. Or was his own dark nature finally emerging?
Keep close to Isabella, she told herself, praying that even a woman-killer would have some scruple about slaying her in front of his own niece. She would never use Bella as a shield, never put her or Alde or Judith in harm's way, but if their presence checked Marc, stopped him from some act of violence against her, then so be it.
On edge, she could not join in the childhood games of the three girls. Alde tried to teach her some French and Sunniva found she could remember nothing. Judith tried to show her a wren's nest and they all laughed, Marc included, when she asked if it was a buzzard's nest. Even Isabella failed to teach her the game of string she had learned from her uncle, cantering off a few moments later with the words, "I think she is sun-struck, Uncle Marc."
"Is that so?" With ghastly speed, "Uncle Marc" was onto that chance in an instant, turning round in his saddle and saying with seeming reasonableness, "Then we shall make camp now. A good night's sleep will see our lady right, do you not think?"
"Yes!" shrieked his three, already hooking their skinny legs off their ponies.
No! thought Sunniva, but she knew she must make the best of it.
At least the place where they had stopped was good. It was on the summit of a small hill, within sight of the track. While Sunniva dug out a small fire pit and made a fire, Marc lashed together a lean-to of whippy hazel branches, leaves and moss and a similar raised platform within the lean-to that the girls covered with dried grasses. Then Marc produced mead and dried meat, soft cheese and fresh apples from his pack.
"Bought or bartered from more men you met on the road?" Sunniva asked, under cover of the girls' cries of delight.
"Exactly." Marc met her eyes and shook the flask of mead. "We can eat and drink well tonight."
Sunniva glanced at the westering sun and vowed to drink as slowly as possible.
Alde, Judith and Isabella, excited by the novelty of sleeping out of doors on a sleeping platform, were keen to bed down as soon as they had eaten. Marc heard their prayers and Sunniva tried to delay matters a little by suggesting she also hear their prayers but far too quickly the three girls were snuggled together, sleeping softly.
"We should do the same," Marc said, dropping another dried pine cone on their fire and stretching his arms above his head. He yawned and patted the remaining space on the platform. "We must bundle together."
Not in the slightest convinced by his play of sleepiness, Sunniva rolled off the heap of baggage she had been sitting on at the opposite side of the fire and rose to her feet. "I shall take the first watch."
"No need. The horses will alert us if any strangers approach." Marc had also risen and was crossing to her place.
"Have you ever done this with your betrothed?" he asked softly. "Watched the evening star rise? Taken mead together?" He held out the flagon, sloshing it gently in his hand. "There is plenty left, Sunniva."
Somehow, he made her name beautiful. Before she realized what she was about, she had taken the drink from him and raised it to her lips.
The sweet taste was beguiling, as were his eyes, smiling into hers. She took another taste, deciding in a rush that if Marc were a killer she would do well not to provoke him. She should please him instead, throw him off guard...
She did him a curtsey and returned the flagon. "Now you drink."
He bowed from the waist. "As you wish, my lady."
"More," she prompted, marvelling at the strong cords of tendons in his neck, revealed as he drank. "You cannot sip at mead."
He gave her a quizzical glance. "The gospel according to Saint Caedmon?"
"No, mine," she retorted, irked by these references. She did not want to think of her mythical betrothed tonight. She sat down again, heartened to hear him drinking again.
"You will not make me sleepy, you know," he said, and smiled. "I once downed a whole barrel of wine, without ill-effects."
"No doubt as a bet between you and Karl," Sunniva replied, smoothing out a crease in her skirt. She did not raise her head, reluctant to see Marc's knowing face hovering above hers. She thought quickly of another strategy.
"Tell me more about your mother, Marc. Is she like you?"
"What? Large and needing to shave daily?"
Sunniva shook her head, not caring what nonsense he said: it was a safe way of passing time. "I mean, does she
have the foresight?"
"At times." With a sigh, Marc settled on the ground beside her, stretching his long legs in front of him and leaning back on his elbows. "Hers comes at full moon. Then, she can look in a bowl of water — the water must be fresh, mind and the bowl of silver — and see shadows of the future. She thought my sister would inherit her gift. Instead I did."
"Do you regret it?" The question was uttered before she had thought how it would sound. She began to apologize, but Marc merely grunted, "No matter, I regret naught," and rolled onto his stomach.
"There is a treasure down here," he said, after a moment.
Sunniva raised her eyebrows. "I shall leave you to explore it," she said, refusing to be drawn. She wanted to step over him to feed the fire but his legs, now spread-eagled, were in the way. "I must go."
She waited and when he still did not stir, prodded him lightly with her foot. "Excuse —”
A large hand gripped her ankle and tugged. Losing her footing, Sunniva tried to twist away but found herself landing on top of a warm, living log: Marc.
A little winded and mightily irritated, she tried to push away, but his arms were about her, not tight, but she could not break free. "You are lucky I did not scream and wake the girls!" she muttered.
"I knew you would not because of the girls," came back the infuriatingly calm response. Marc ran a finger up her spine and across to her face, tilting up her chin so he could look into her eyes. "Will you forgive me, Lady Sun-Light? I could not resist: I knew you would fall on me as lightly as an angel."
"Hold me much longer and you will find me far lower than an angel!" Sunniva spat back, her breath stopping as he smiled again. How could the lack of beard make such a difference? How had she never noticed before how brutally handsome he was?
"You will be a little she-devil, eh?" Again he twisted her words and part of her wanted to protest, part of her wanted to goad further. But this had to stop.
Not caring for his comfort, Sunniva used her elbows on his chest to prize her upper body away from his. "You will unhand me, sir." She hoped she sounded sufficiently remote: her back tingled where his hand had touched her and she was vividly aware of lying against him, of the long hard length of him. "Would you have me think you less a gentle knight?"
Love and Chivalry: Four Medieval Historical Romances Page 39