We are a family, Sunniva thought. These are my family.
Yet Cena was also right. To her people at home Marc would be the enemy. They would never accept him.
The dream was a sign. Her people needed her. "Have I no choice?" she whispered. "Must I go? Must I give up my happiness?"
How could she leave him?
Marc, stirring when he felt her kiss, heard her anguished questions and guessed everything. He lay very still, forcing himself to be quiet. If she could leave, then how much, really, did she care?
I will not force her to stay, he promised himself. I will take her to the very door of her house, see her safe, and then leave myself.
He lay awake, dreading the dawn, his heart aching in his chest.
Sunniva moved late: the sun was high in the sky when she eventually yawned and stretched. The saddle cloth roof above her head was gone, the camp made tidy and Marc, Alde told her, had gone to find more water.
"He is fishing for us, too," the child went on. "With Isabella and Judith chattering on, I do not think he will catch anything." She reached toward Sunniva. "I have a comb. Would you like me to comb your hair?"
Sunniva was ashamed of the hero-worship in the girl's handsome, strong face. She did not deserve such a follower.
"Yes, please," she replied, and sat meekly under Alde's careful ministrations, while the youngster seemed intent on combing each hair in turn.
"Alde," she said, after a moment. "May I braid your hair, too?"
"Oh, yes! Yes, please!"
The child's unabashed pleasure made her still more ashamed. If she had to leave, she could not bear to say goodbye, yet to say nothing would be worse. She had to try. Alde would remember her words to pass on to the others, especially to Marc.
Oh Freya! Marc!
"Alde?" Her treacherous tongue felt too large in her jaw.
"Mmm?" Alde, her tongue protruding slightly between her teeth as she concentrated, looked up from the hank of hair she was tending. "Yes, Sunniva?"
"You know, you and your sisters, how much I care for you?"
Alde looked puzzled, as if unsure where this conversation was going. Then she shook her own sparse brown locks. "That is obvious," she stated.
"And Uncle Marc, too."
Alde giggled, covering her mouth with the comb. "Of course, Uncle Marc! We all can see how you gawk at him, especially when he is grooming the horses!"
Oh, dear. Sunniva coloured to the very top of her scalp. She had not realized her interest was so obvious. "Yes, that is how grown-ups are," she said hastily, "But that means that you know, if I have to leave, I shall be very sorry. Very."
"Leave where? What do you mean? You are not going away?" Alde dropped the comb, her face becoming pinched. "You cannot! It is not fair!"
"No, no, dear one, you misunderstand." Sunniva swooped down to gather the comb and to sweep the stiff-limbed girl into a warm embrace. "I only meant if I had to leave. If." She teased the ends of Alde's simple plait with the comb, sensing her relax. "Would you like one plait or more?"
Alde was entranced again. "More!" she crowed, her eyes glowing.
"Your wish is my command," Sunniva answered, spinning the girl round lightly, sitting her down on her cloak, settling to the task.
If only her own wish could be granted as easily....
She remained in a tense coil for the rest of that day. Marc returned, having astonishingly caught a large, succulent trout, which she gutted and cooked over warm stones. He praised her cooking lavishly and afterwards announced that he was going back to the river to bathe.
"But our journey?" Sunniva ventured, trying and failing to stop imagining herself being with him in the river, splashing together in the sun-warmed waters. To wash and soap that magnificent body — her mouth became parched at the thought.
But if I am supposed to leave him, what better time to slip away?
"As you say, the day is very warm, and we have made good progress," she said hastily, afraid she was actually spluttering. Marc gave her a wide smile that seemed to flip her heart over.
"I do not remember your comments on the weather, dear one."
"Dear one," echoed Alde, tugging on one of her new plaits. She and Judith glanced at each other and giggled.
"Hush!" Marc hunkered down and tweaked another of Alde's braids, ignoring her delighted squeak of protest. "But, as you say, Mistress Sunniva, the day is so fine we should not waste it." He stood up, swooping Alde up with him. "We shall all bathe."
"Yes!" yelled Isabella, tossing aside her fish bones.
Please no, thought Sunniva, but she could think of no ready excuse. Her mind was blank. How could she leave Marc? How could she bear to leave him? How could she leave the girls? They were her world.
If you do not go, you are a traitor to your English blood, Cena hissed in her head. And what if your blessed instincts are wrong? What if he is a woman-killer? She flinched and looked straight at Marc.
"Yours is a good idea. Let me first —” she scrambled for an occupation that would lull him into thinking she was all compliance. "Let me bury the remains of our meal and douse the fire — in case of dogs, who could alert strangers."
He grinned, swinging Alde to and fro in play. "Excellent!"
Sunniva nodded and knelt to deal with the fire, trying to ignore the excited exclamations of the girls. Her hammering heart slowed as she heard them move off, then quickened again as Marc returned and crouched beside her. She busied herself with earthing over and patting out the last embers.
"You look very appealing with your fingers smeared with cinders," he murmured, dropping a kiss onto the side of her nose. "Dirty little sun-beam."
Why did he have to call her such loving names? She had never known love-teasing until Marc and now she adored it. Unbidden, it seemed, she found her hands rising, mock-threatening.
"I can soot you up, too," she said, horrified the instant she spoke. What was she about with such taunting and play? She was leading him on, and it was not honest, or fair.
But Marc did not seem to care about that. He thrust his face closer. "Go to it, then."
She darted a finger forward, dagger-quick, but he was faster. He captured her wrist and flicked her hand into his hair.
" 'Twill cover any grey hairs I have," he said, kissing her surprised mouth. "And later we shall see which of us is the cleaner."
"An inspection?" Sunniva breathed, thinking, say no more!
He raised an eyebrow. "Will you be looking closely?"
The words "Very closely" rose to her lips but she choked them off and merely nodded, feeling a hypocrite even with that small gesture.
How could she leave him? How could she stay?
She opened her mouth. "Take our youngsters to the river and I will follow on," she said, praying that she did not blush.
"Soon?" he asked.
"In a little while, Marc."
He knew. The instant she said his name, almost in valediction, he knew. Give her another chance, he thought. It may yet be nothing.
He rose to his feet and walked away in the direction of the stream and his laughing, scampering girls. Every step took him further, yet he did not look back.
He knew.
Chapter 23
She dared not watch him stalk away in case she broke down completely. Listening, tense and unhappy, she heard his footsteps fade into a muddled crashing of undergrowth as he and the girls wandered off to the river. She realized she had only moments but moved slowly, her limbs stiff and unyielding, her mind frozen.
Should she take her horse? Yes. Should she saddle it? Her fingers were icy, clumsy; she could not make them work for her.
Leave the saddle, she thought. In her distracted state, she was afraid she would drop it, alert the others. She patted her bay mare, longing to be comforted herself. If she left now, was she doing the right thing?
Marc was not English. Marc might be a woman-killer. Marc would always be a stranger to her people. She had to return to Cena's homestead:
it was her duty.
Slowly, falteringly, she slipped a bridle over the mare's tossing head. "Easy there, girl," she whispered. "We need to be quiet."
She shook from head to foot as a large hand closed over the bridle.
"What do you think you are doing?"
Wordless as a bird she stared up at Marc. She had not heard him return — because she had not wanted to listen? Or because her heart was drumming so fast?
"Are you an utter fool?"
Tears flooded into her eyes at his harsh tone and question. His features seemed carved from granite, his eyes dark pools of fire: truly the face of a murderer. Moving with a jerky rigidity that showed his anger, Marc clamped an arm about her and hauled her against him.
"Do you think so little of me? I would have taken you to your wretched home and left you there — you need only have asked! If that is truly your wish. Ha, King Christ! Why do I even try to speak? You have made up your mind!"
It was like being driven against stone, all the breath was knocked from her. Her hands raised in a silent plea. He took both wrists in one hand and glowered at her.
"Why did you never tell me about Caedmon?" he demanded. "It was Edgar who told me the truth, while he was dying on the battlefield! Why did you never say that you had no betrothed? Do you trust me so little?"
"No!" Sunniva felt desperate: so Marc knew that Caedmon of Whitby was an invention! How could she justify it? How would he understand?
"Why did you not tell me? Why?"
"I do not know!" Sunniva burst out. "There was never a good time to speak of it! I am truly sorry, Marc, sorrier than words can say, but I was afraid —”
"Of me?"
"Of your reaction! Of losing your good opinion! Please —”
"Enough! I believe you." Something changed in Marc's eyes; there was a brief softening in his face, as if he understood. But her relief was short-lived: in another instant he had acknowledged her apology and then returned to the attack.
"Believe me, Sunniva, I can understand why you acted as you did: no doubt it seemed prudent to invent a male protector and then once created, Caedmon took on a life of his own. But do you know what is out there, right now? Armed men, desperate men, greedy men — and those are just the defeated English!"
Driving the mare's picket back into the earth, Marc tipped her over the horse's back. Her belly and breasts bounced painfully against the horse's flanks but as she tried to raise her head he held her in place.
"I should tie you thus; that would stop you from straying!" He slapped her bottom, once, twice, his hand stinging her fiercely. Ashamed, she began to weep, her tears glistening against the horse's rough pelt.
"Enough!" Marc dragged her off the horse and back into his arms again, forcing her head up so she had to look at him.
"We shall speak no more of this for now," he growled. "But later, Mistress —”
It was both promise and threat.
Now they rode on — the bathing idea had been a ploy, Sunniva realized, a test to see where her loyalties lay that she had dismally failed. Now Marc ensured that she did not attempt to "stray" as he put it, by the simple expedient of suggesting that Alde rode with her on her bay mare. Alde gave a whoop of joy at the prospect and talked at Sunniva's back for the rest of the afternoon.
Light-headed with anxiety, her stomach coiling about itself, Sunniva rode where Marc directed, oblivious to the track they were on or the countryside about them. Her bottom stung where he had smacked her, fading quickly to a low level throb of heat that was unnerving in another way, because it put her in mind of love-making. Her loins burned and itched with desire, even as her mind despaired. He despised her now.
And there was still the night and "Later" to come....
As evening fell they came to a tiny wayside church and a smaller priest's house. Marc spoke to the priest. Sunniva did not hear what he said: the two men stood with their backs to her, mumbling together. She saw a flash of metal, silver coin, pass from Marc's hand to the priest's. Then Alde, Judith and Isabella were escorted by the priest into his home, to be welcomed and fussed over by a sparrow-boned old woman whom Sunniva guessed was the priest's mother.
She remained where she was, on horseback, while Marc approached, leading his charger and the girls' ponies.
"If you make me chase you, you will regret it," was all he said, grabbing her horse's reins. "We are bedding down in the barn."
Panic reared in her. "The girls?" she gasped, knowing that she was clutching at straws.
"Tonight they are sleeping under cover, in a good bed, with the mother of the priest. She will feed them, too. It is arranged."
Sunniva managed to wet her wind-flayed lips with her tongue. "You trust them?"
"As much as I do you," came back the stinging response, to which she had no answer.
"Later" had arrived.
Marc groomed the horses swiftly. They were skittish, nervous, sensing his anger, and he dealt with them as carefully as he knew how.
The "barn" he had paid for was in reality a low-roofed lean-to, but it was dry, with just sufficient space for their mounts and the priest's elderly dappled nag, and with a goodly quantity of straw and feed. Best of all, there was a narrow platform, used by the priest as a sleeping space whenever he or his mother had guests. The platform was where he had ordered Sunniva to stay, and for good measure he had ensured her compliance by taking her shoes and by another trick — one he was not exactly proud of, but it would serve. Angry as he was, he reckoned she was still safer with him than adrift on the roads.
Thinking of her made his head ache. Her foolish lies over Caedmon of Whitby he could accept — Sunniva had been put in a hard place by Cena: doubtless she had felt ashamed of being unwed at twenty and so she had made herself a pretend suitor. He had forgiven her for that before they had made love and her recent stammered explanations had more than satisfied any lingering hurt of his. But her action today seared him. She had been prepared to slink away, without saying a word to him. The injustice of her action seared his heart, as if she ripped it from his chest and cooked it on a griddle. Did she think so badly of him? Trust him so little? He had been willing to go with her right to her home, deliver her safely. Saying goodbye would have been almost impossible, but he would have done it. For her. How had she not known this?
And the potential danger to which she could have exposed herself, mile by mile and hour by hour: the thought of that sickened him.
It was easier to be angry.
"I have done here," he called up to the small, prone figure lying on the sleeping platform, bundled in fresh straw and the priest's old, patched blankets.
Straw rustled and a pale face looked down at him. He almost added that the priest had given him a flask of warming blackberry tisane and a freshly-baked flat bread, studded with exotic raisins: an unexpected bounty of hospitality in this isolated place. Instead he said nothing, choosing to be annoyed because she did not speak, merely nodded. Was that any kind of answer?
He lunged up the ladder, as fast as if he were scaling enemy battlements. His prize was here: he warned himself to be cold, stern as a king, but his heart fluttered like a moth. He was a moth and Sunniva the flame.
Crouching — the sloping roof was too low for him to do otherwise — he edged closer. He wanted to berate her for her folly. Mute, he stared at her.
"I am sorry."
Her apology gave him back his voice.
"Alde told me a strange tale this morning," he began. "She was distressed because you had spoken of leaving us. Of course, she did not know you meant it."
Sunniva said nothing.
"No excuses?" he jeered. "But you are usually so good at those. No ‘You are a Breton, which is as bad as a Norman, and you are a murderer besides?’ I thought you would trot those out."
Tell her the truth about the pilgrimage, his conscience ranted, but pride saddled his tongue and made him silent. He sprawled alongside her, marking how she did not draw back. Instead she raised her arms,
extending her hands toward him.
Shame burned and then iced up and down his back when he saw how the rough cord he had used to bind her wrists together had chafed her delicate skin.
"It is your own fault," he almost said, but stopped himself, recognizing the self-justifying lie, the manipulation, for what it was.
It was still easier to be angry.
"Free yourself. You should have had enough practice."
She blanched, flinging herself back from him. "You are a bully," she said, in a taut, curiously deep voice, as if the words were being dragged up from the depths of her soul. "You are unfair."
As you were over Caedmon of Whitby, he almost said, but that was past now, over and done, so he said nothing.
"You are unfair," she repeated, and now he answered in heat:
"And you are so cowardly, you would not have said goodbye to me!"
"Stop it!" Tears streaming down her cheeks, she kicked at him, and when he registered no more than a grunt, she kicked him again. "If you knew how hard this has been for me, you would say nothing! Bully! How could you —”
Determined to prove her wrong, he dug his fingers into the ties around her wrists and snapped them apart. "Go, then," he snarled.
Instantly, she scrambled back from him, but not towards the edge of the platform or the ladder. Rubbing her wrists, she knelt up on her haunches and then leaned forward, closing the gap between them.
"I am no coward," she said.
"No, but you are unwise."
She tossed her head: the first time he had seen that haughty gesture from her. "I have my daggers. I can defend myself."
He did not remind her that her knives were in one of her head-squares and that he had placed them there after he had bound her wrists.
She tapped her arm. "You caught me by surprise. You could not do that again."
She was a challenging, haughty little changeling. "You think I could not catch you?" he demanded softly.
"By no means!"
Then let us see, shall we, Mistress? He said nothing but his flailing at her she read correctly as a feint and ducked forward, under his attack. She was very quick, too: squirming for the ladder before he had whipped round.
Love and Chivalry: Four Medieval Historical Romances Page 44