by Tamara Leigh
He had no time to determine her state of consciousness, a glance behind revealing more Normans who rode past the injured one.
Though Anglicus now carried two, the destrier outdistanced their pursuers, but as Guarin did not know the lay of Wulfenshire, it was no guarantee of escape. Hoping Hawisa had acquainted the beast with more than the ride between her home and camp, Guarin let it choose its path. And thanked the Lord each time he looked behind and saw the Normans fell farther behind. Then they went from sight.
It was a quarter hour before Guarin slowed Anglicus. Ribs heaving, the horse continued to a stream and halted to take water.
Knowing it would be difficult to dismount but must be done to determine how best to aid Hawisa, Guarin was relieved when she raised her head from his shoulder.
“You lost them?” she slurred.
Looking near on the arrowhead come through her tunic, so coated in blood little iron was visible, he said, “I did, as predicted once more keeping you from the king’s wrath.”
She moaned low. “Oui, but also you told you would…bring the Lady of Wulfen into the Norman fold. Never.”
Very possible, but for her and her people’s sake, he hoped she would accept William as her sovereign.
She forced up lowering lids. “I thank you for not abandoning me to my enemy. You are not the same as them. You are…one of us.”
Her words should have offended like a slap, but something stopped them from leaving a mark on unsuspecting flesh. “I am not one of you,” he growled. “I am Norman and shall ever be.”
“Not Guarin D’Argent who wished the company of this Saxon.”
For which he had motive, though that was not all. Each passing of six days had been more tolerable knowing at the end of the seventh they would speak outside the cave. He frowned. “Why no rope this day, Hawisa?”
“The last time we met, I sensed soon you would attempt an escape and thought to decrease the risk by…speaking with you inside the cave. But ever the greatest risk has been letting you off your chains.”
Feeling the manacles’ grip, hearing the links rattle, Guarin gnashed his teeth and set her hand on the saddle’s pommel. “Hold while I dismount.”
Once he was on the ground, he lifted her down. Though she had to be in great pain, a whimper was the only sound she made as he lowered her onto her side on the moss-covered bank.
He dropped to his haunches at her back, bent forward, and peered into her face. “I am no physician, so I dare not remove the arrow, but I will snap it near its entrance so the wound can be bound and more swift the ride to one capable of tending you.”
She looked sidelong at him. “Wulfen Castle. My physician is there.”
And further captivity, he thought. Still, he would risk it to save her, delivering her as near as possible, placing her on the ground, and alerting those on the wall. Then Anglicus would carry him away.
That was the plan. If it ended as well as the one which this day saw him freed, soon he would return to Normandy.
“I must raise your tunic, Hawisa.”
“You may.”
When he exposed skin that was smooth as if carved from ivory and of that same creamy color but for the streak of blood reaching to her chausses, she shuddered. And Guarin, struck by the impulse to press his lips to that lovely back and murmur assurances against quivering skin, wondered if he had been wooed more than she.
I will free myself of the hold she has on me, he told himself, then raised the tunic higher.
She lived only because the arrow had entered high to the right of her shoulder blade and exited above her collarbone. It did not mean she would survive, but greater the chance since it appeared nothing vital was pierced.
“Once I have fashioned bandages to bind the wound, I will snap the shaft,” he said, then cut two strips from his tunic’s hem and tied them together. As he washed the foul from them in the stream’s chill water, he felt Hawisa’s gaze.
“I do not know how near William’s men, but long they will search for us,” he said when he returned to her and presented the wet branch taken from the stream bed. “I will be as gentle as possible, but the pain you feel now will be worse.”
She parted her teeth, and he fit the wood between them in the hope she would bite hard enough to crack a tooth were it required to keep her scream from alerting her enemy.
“Be Boudica for me,” he said.
A weak laugh slipped from her, and he knelt at her back. Closing one hand low on the arrow’s shaft, he curled the other directly above it.
She stiffened.
Knowing the more relaxed she was, the less possibility of a violent reaction that could cause further injury, he sought something with which to distract her. And could think of only what had often distracted him when the walls of the cave closed in.
He leaned down and put his mouth near her ear. “Never shall I forget how it felt to hold you, Hawisa Wulfrithdotter.”
She drew a sharp breath.
“Your feet upon my feet.”
She turned her face toward his.
“Your back to my chest.”
Grey eyes searched green.
“Your heartbeat matching mine.”
Her tension eased.
“Your scent filling me.”
A soft breath slipped past the branch between her teeth.
“And neither would I have you forget how it felt to be held, Hawisa.”
She made a mewl of surrender, and the muscles of her back softened.
Lest any sudden movement cause her to tense again, Guarin made do with the awkward leverage of bending near and snapped the shaft between his hands.
She convulsed, eyes slammed closed, teeth clenched on the branch, tears squeezed past her lids.
“The worst is over,” he said, and though he knew he should not, pressed his lips to the outer corner of her eye. “Now all you must do is heal.” A lie, since there remained the jarring ride to return her to wherever Wulfen Castle lay, and more the lie if she did not heal well. But it was all the comfort he could offer.
The salt of her pain on his lips, he drew back, and when he saw she was conscious, hoped soon she would succumb to darkness so she would not suffer the binding of the wound—worse, the ride.
Her eyes fluttered open and the branch tumbled from her mouth. “Guarin? Pray, bandage me and…take me home.”
“Cease struggling to remain present,” he said. “The sooner you give over, the less your suffering.”
“You do not know the way to Wulfen.”
“Does Anglicus?”
“He does.”
“Then rest.”
“Bandage me.”
He began binding her. Though he was gentle, she shook and was panting when he finished.
“Give over, Hawisa,” he growled.
“Get me astride.”
Silently cursing, he slid an arm around the middle of her back, the other beneath her knees, and eased her toward him.
She cried out and muffled the sound by pressing her mouth to his chest.
Certain soon she would lose consciousness, Guarin determined it best to wait and, sitting back, settled her atop his thighs.
For some moments, her deep exhales heated his skin through his tunic, then she lifted her face. “Take me home.”
“First rest.”
“I must—”
“Tell me about the son and husband lost to you.” Though he did wish to know of them, he asked in the hope of sealing her lips as done each time he had ventured there.
Her eyes closed, but in her own language she whispered, “Wulf. None can replace my boy. Roger. I did not want him…did not love him…as he loved me. But I grew fond. The Norwegian invaders…” She shook her head. “Roger feared for us, sent us to the Penderys, while he…joined King Harold at Stamford Bridge.”
Never suspecting he sent his wife and son into greater danger, Guarin mulled.
“I hurt when word came of his death. And more for how it pained our son. I…s
hould have lied.”
“Lied?”
Her lids rose. “Told Roger I loved him. Mayhap that was needed to bring him back to us. Had he lived, our son would not have sought revenge against…other invaders. Would not be dead.” She gasped. “Dear Lord, the bane of regret. The same as grief, it is a disease one cannot sleep away.”
A sob escaped her, and once more she closed her eyes. “I blamed my maid, Aelfled, for not…keeping better watch over him. But it was for me to protect him. I should have been with him, not abed. Weak. Unworthy.” She began to cry.
Though Guarin knew her emotional pain was greater than the physical, he guessed the latter more greatly moved her body, making her sharp draws of breath sound around the wood.
He turned her face to his chest and touched his lips to the crown of her head. “Give over, Hawisa, and all the sooner you will be home.”
Her outpouring ebbed, and when it was barely a hiccough, he raised his head.
She peered at him through the glazed eyes of one descending into sleep from which they would not be roused easily. “Never have I hurt so much.” She lowered her gaze to his mouth, shifted it to the side, then raised a hand and drew his hair through her fingers. “I wondered how silver would feel. This wolf’s hair is not coarse. It is soft.”
Feeling a stirring inappropriate at this time, this place, and with this woman, he said, “You must rest. All will be better when—”
“Tell me I am dying.”
“You are not. Why would you wish to hear such?”
“So I might greatly err but one last time.” She moved her hand to his jaw. “This time without regret.”
“What say you?”
“Neither my head nor heart is right.” Again, she looked to his mouth. “It is long since I was kissed, and also I wonder…” As he tensed further, she moved her thumb beneath his lower lip. “Tell me I am dying.”
That he would not do even if she begged. Nor would he kiss her as she invited only in the hope she would not live long enough to regret that intimacy with him.
Her lids fluttered. “Too long, Guarin.” She lifted her face, offering her mouth.
He came the rest of the way, so lightly touching his lips to hers it was possible he did not. But a moment later there was no doubt about it, whether she raised her face higher or he set his nearer.
He did not expect her to return his kiss, and she did not, but she murmured, “I wonder no more.”
Guarin drew back and saw the glitter of her eyes between narrowed lids. “I will get you back to your people, Hawisa. You will not die. You will live again, smile again, your years many and blessed.”
When her head lolled against his shoulder, he pressed a hand between her breasts to confirm her heart beat. Feeling it, he wondered if she would remember the joining of their mouths and how that intimacy came to be.
But what mattered now was delivering her to the castle, every minute saved or lost a step toward life or death. Careful not to disturb what remained of the shaft protruding from her back, he enfolded her and stood.
Anglicus raised his head from the grass and eyed their advance.
Guarin halted at the destrier’s neck. “We have done this before, old friend. We can do it again.”
The beast nickered.
As upon Senlac, it was difficult getting them both astride, and Guarin was grateful Hawisa remained oblivious the same as when he had been forced to land a fist to her jaw.
Once Anglicus resumed their journey, hopefully toward the castle, the sun too directly overhead to determine east from west and north from south, Guarin considered Hawisa. She looked as if she belonged in his arms. She did not, and yet he was struck by the thought that though he would leave her this day, never would he be shed of her.
More disturbing was the hope, fleeting though he rendered it, that thought would prove true. It was a Norman lady he was destined to wed, not a Saxon.
Chapter Twenty
Once more you deliver yourself into the hands of your enemy, Guarin rebuked as Jaxon’s patrol sent out this morn sprang all around near the edge of the wood he had moments earlier realized bordered the ravine. The Norman-bred Anglicus had failed him. But then, it was to Hawisa he now bowed.
Guarin looked to Vitalis who had been sent to bring back the patrol, then the woman who had thrice regained and as many times lost consciousness as Anglicus negotiated the wood. “Captive again,” he murmured and knew this time and this stand could be his last. “For you, my lady.”
Regret served itself a generous portion of Guarin D’Argent. Hawisa had named regret a disease, but though he was afflicted with such, he knew he would feel more regret had his escape ended in her own capture or death. If only she had not pursued him…
He returned his gaze to the five circling him. From their expressions, there was no question fear of threat to their lady kept them from slaughtering him as done the Norman family—and fear of Vitalis.
Wrathful eyes moving between Hawisa and the one once more her captive, the warrior commanded the others to keep their distance and urged his mount forward.
Though Guarin’s own anger and pride protested defending himself, the need to survive demanded it, citing that if there existed even a sliver of opportunity to escape, it was in this direction.
“It was not my arrow that pierced her.” He nudged Anglicus around to keep Vitalis directly in front of him. “She was pursued by the king’s men. Though I am at fault, having done what you yourself would have and causing her to pursue me, I return your lady to you. I tended her injury as best I could and believe she will live, but she is in need of a physician.”
Vitalis halted his destrier before Anglicus, looked nearer on Hawisa, back at Guarin. Were he a dog, he would be frothing in anticipation of sinking his fangs into his enemy. “You know what is required of you, Norman!”
Keeping one arm around Hawisa, Guarin drew the sword from beneath his belt and tossed it on moldering leaves gathered amongst an ancient tree’s roots. Next, he lifted Hawisa’s scabbarded sword and dagger whose belt he had hung from the saddle and cast them down.
“I shall come alongside, and you will pass the lady to me,” Vitalis said. “Speak wrong, breathe wrong, twitch wrong, and you are dead.”
Unarmed, it was possible. Were his life’s blood not spilt by this man, Jaxon’s patrol would seize the opportunity and see it to its desired end.
The transfer of Hawisa was uneventful until Vitalis adjusted her seat between his thighs. She cried out, and her eyes flew open.
“Dullard!” Guarin named her man.
Vitalis showed teeth. “You are responsible for this.”
“Guarin?” Hawisa’s eyes searched the face above hers, swept around and landed on the one she sought.
“As promised, you are back among your own,” he said. “Now rest, Lady.”
Her lids lowered.
“Farewell, D’Argent,” Vitalis said, and as he urged his destrier forward, called, “The Norman is yours to do with as you please!”
Immediately, Jaxon’s men closed in on their prey who might soon breathe his last—but not alone.
Guarin looked to where he had tossed his sword, tensed in readiness to bring it to hand, and felt the destrier respond in kind.
“Do not, Vitalis!” Hawisa cried. “He is mine. To do with as I please.”
Her man reined in. “My lady, he will try again and—”
“I have spoken. He is not to be harmed. Return him to camp.”
Vitalis looked to Jaxon’s men. “Does he resist, do what you must to subdue him, and that is all. Now I must deliver our lady to the physician.”
Am I of a mood to resist? Guarin pondered as he had not since Hawisa discovered he was her captive and ended his beatings. Though reason told he should go peaceably, especially now a rebel had moved between him and his sword, what was left to one whose anger uncoiled at having once more sacrificed all for a woman? Too, at last here were worthy opponents upon whom to vent his wrath.
> Once Vitalis went from sight, Jaxon’s men showed they were also of a mood. But though provided opportunities to prove their fists superior to those of a warrior as fit as when he cut down Saxons upon Senlac, Guarin was subdued only when all united against him. Then he was bound, put over Anglicus’s back, and returned to his prison.
Wulfenshire Rebel Camp
England
“You should not have resisted,” Vitalis said once Rosa departed the torch-lit cave.
Guarin shifted his single-eyed gaze from the entrance that had spit out the woman to the warrior who halted too near a chained man—providing the captive remained of a mind to resist.
He did not. On the first day of his second round of captivity, Guarin’s anger and fists were fairly satisfied, but he hurt, blessedly not so much he needed to fit himself back together as when first this cave was his prison.
Settling against the cool rock wall where he had lowered to allow Rosa to tend him, he said, “You knew I would resist.”
Vitalis raised his eyebrows. “I did.”
Guarin lifted the cup of water Rosa had poured him, drank.
“For all your supposed concern,” Vitalis said, “you do not ask after Lady Hawisa.”
Guarin cracked open the swollen eye bruised and closed by Jaxon who would have landed more blows had not his men repeated Hawisa’s command the Norman not be harmed. “Supposed… concern…” he tested the words, then considered the bruises on chest and arms to which Rosa had applied salve after cursing him for his betrayal and endangerment of those who sought to take back their country.
She was more hurt than angry, he was certain—that he had used her to gain his escape, resulting in injury to her lady. Some of her hatred had resurfaced, but it seemed forced. And proof of that was given when one of Vitalis’s men appeared and demanded to know who had sent her. She had rounded on him, told she sent herself, and warned if he wished her gone, he would require another’s aid.
The man had departed and not returned. Though Rosa had been rough in her ministrations, he did not think a single scratch, cut, or bruise had not been tended.
Vitalis stepped nearer. “Put the question to me.”