FEARLESS: Book Two: Age of Conquest

by Tamara Leigh

  For that, she had set herself at his back when he followed her into the cave he had not expected her to enter. Why had she chosen this vile place, especially as it seemed she wanted something from him? But there the greater question—what she would ask of one from whom already she had taken much. To learn the answer and give warning, he had shown himself in the wood. But not recklessly.

  Though the Hawisa he knew meant him no harm, it was possible she kept company with a Hawisa he did not know—one formed by a changed heart, mind, and resolve following Jaxon’s betrayal, forfeiture of the last of her lands, and tidings her former captive had been given control of Wulfen.

  The blade pricked deeper, and in her language she said, “I did not come alone.”

  Not a lie, but a threat? he pondered as he moved his gaze around the cave. Or warning only? he considered as he set to settling his soul as was only possible since venturing here alone and removing the greatest evidence of his captivity—manacles, chains, iron rings set in the wall.

  Settled enough, he told himself and looked around.

  Her dimly-lit face to the right of the cave’s entrance was as familiar to him as his would have been to her when he entered with his hood down to allow her to sooner confirm his identity.

  “How fitting you should catch me absent solitude, my lady,” he said, “though I ought tell, this time I have the advantage. And a great one. Just as you set men around the camp in anticipation I would follow you here, hours earlier I set men around in anticipation you would lead me here.”

  Fear leapt from her. Watched by Guarin’s men, no protection could they afford her. And none themselves.

  “I do not believe you.” Her words sounded more hopeful than firm.

  “I saw you in the wood ere you saw me, Hawisa, to shepherd you onward made myself heard near the stream when you paused. And ere entering the cave, I ensured I was heard again, certain it was safer for all I not catch you unawares.”

  Silence.

  Having left bow and quiver outside, sword and dagger on his belt, he opened empty hands to the sides. “My neck begins to stiffen, and much I desire to look close on you. Will you come around?”

  She hesitated, then stepped wide to the side and in front of him.

  Face and hair lit by sunlight angling between jagged stones, lovelier than ever he had seen her, she set the blade’s tip beneath his sternum.

  A glance confirming it was his dagger seen as she tethered Anglicus, he said, “I am glad you did not bestow my gift upon Vitalis a second time.” Truth, though also a means of probing whether that warrior had survived Jaxon’s attempt to slay him the night Guarin would have given much to be at his brother’s side.

  Though Cyr had ridden on Wulfen to retrieve the woman he loved, upon finding the two rebel forces clashing outside its walls, he and his men had allied with Vitalis and his Rebels of the Pale, as they were now known for the strips of material tied to their arms to differentiate them from Jaxon’s rebels.

  Vitalis had been the first to follow their common enemy into the donjon after the doors came down. When he fell to Jaxon’s sword, it was left to Cyr to defeat the one who had not only dragged his brother to the edge of death but pursued Hawisa, Aelfled, and the castle folk through the underground. For it, Cyr had nearly been buried beneath the collapse.

  But what of Hawisa’s man who yet lived when the two parted ways, only to go missing with a dozen of his rebels when the injured and dead were numbered? As Vitalis had been left in the care of Zedekiah, it was believed the big man carried him from Wulfen. But for naught?

  Though tempted to ask, and much he wished to know if one of those beyond the cave was the housecarle who loved his lady more than he ought, he said, “Do you intend to put the blade through me?”

  “You know not how much I wish you were Le Bâtard,” she said, then gave a huff of disgust. “Wishes—a fool’s hope for light in a world bereft of sunshine, at times even wax and wicks.” She took a step back, ran her eyes over him. “You are healed, look again the warrior first I met. Or nearly so. I expected your hair shorn and face shaven, but still you appear more a Saxon than a Norman.” Her mouth curved. “Have you found something about my countrymen you like?”

  He lowered his hands to his sides. “I grew accustomed to the style and, particularly, less time spent submitting to the tug and scrape of blades.”

  “As also you grew accustomed to my mantle though it is worn and of Saxon cloth and cut?”

  “It is comfortable. And keeps near memories of my captor.”

  Seeing her tense as if that last was threat rather than admission of feelings that distracted him beyond good sense, he rebuked himself for allowing one truth to embitter another. But then, she had chosen this place to face him.

  Suppressing anger he did not intend to direct at her, he lowered his gaze over her garments whose wear evidenced her reduced state—likely the same tunic and chausses worn the night she and Vitalis released him. On the return to her face, he closed fingers into his palms to keep from reaching to her golden tresses.

  “You look well yourself, though I did not know it proper for a Saxon no longer a maiden to wear her hair unbound and uncovered outside the marital chamber.”

  “’Tis not. I but wished you certain of whom you followed.”

  “Since I expected you on those hunting grounds, I had no cause to question it.”

  “Will you tell how you knew I would be there?”

  “So you may find me unprepared the next time?”

  “There will not be a next time—certes, not like this. I sought to meet with you because there is something I need, not for myself but…” She sighed. “It is for me, though now your king has taken all, I am no longer Lady of Wulfen.”

  “My curiosity is roused, but I am more curious about how you intend to charm a favor out of one against whom you hold a blade.”

  She lowered the dagger.

  “So we might ease the minds of our men and ensure we are not interrupted,” Guarin said, “let us show ourselves and speak outside.” Beyond the cave as once they had done, their meetings keeping him from tilting into a place so dark it might have claimed him no matter how high and cloudless the sun.

  At her hesitation, he said, “If Vitalis is among the six come out of the North with you, he will not long be content with your absence.”

  Something resembling satisfaction flickered in her eyes. “How were you not only aware I would be on those hunting grounds but whence I came with my men?”

  “First we ease their minds, Hawisa, then I explain, and next we speak of what you want from me. And what I want from you.” The latter spurred by recent events in the South.

  Her eyebrows gathered. “I will not surrender myself nor my people.”

  “I would not ask it of you.”

  “Then?”

  He motioned her to precede him.

  She started to slide the dagger in its scabbard, paused, and extended it.

  As done before, he said, “I will collect it later.”

  “Do you not take it now, you may not see it again.”

  “I believe I will.”

  She shrugged, sheathed the dagger, and exited ahead of him.

  Imagining her men’s relief, Guarin felt satisfaction that soon they would discover the Saxon rather than the Norman was prey—and the futility of attempting to defend their lady. Or so he hoped, yet troubled by what he might have seen in Hawisa’s eyes.

  Shortly, she settled on her rock and he on his, in sight of those who watched but distant enough their conversation could not be heard, providing it remained civil.

  Clasping her hands, she lowered her gaze to them and slid one thumb over the other. Again and again.

  More remembrance, he guessed and was also drawn there though with less strength than during an earlier visit to the camp when he had flayed some memories and been flayed by others.

  She swallowed loudly, and he saw now she looked at his hands. “I am glad you are no longer bound
, Guarin. I wish you had never been.”

  He glanced at his scarred wrists. “Wishes, a fool’s hope for light in a world bereft of sunshine, did you not say?”

  Her lashes fluttered. “I hope you know how great my regret.”

  “I do.”

  She glanced at the wood. “Will my men and I be permitted to leave?”

  Did she recall her pledge she would not make it easy for him to capture and hold her and his threat to do so for what he had named restitution—a threat fulfilled later than hoped, but with less effort than expected?

  He inclined his head. “All will be permitted to leave.”

  “Unbound?”

  “Unbound.”

  “It would be hard to begrudge you a lie.”

  He gripped his hands between his knees as had not been possible when last he sat here with her. “No lie. Providing your men do not aggress against mine, all may leave the same as you came.”

  “I thank you. Now will you tell how I failed my sire?”

  “Your sire?”

  “I thought I understood the training required to make men proficient in stealth, but that you knew my plan means it was executed poorly.”

  He smiled. “Fear not, Hawisa. Your men are admirably proficient.”

  “Then?”

  “Dougray.”

  Color bloomed in her cheeks. “The third D’Argent brother you revealed is not of the same sire,” she said with resentment for one who liked her no better, possibly as much for what one of her people had taken from him at Senlac as the captivity Guarin had suffered. “I understand he who is not of the silvered hair and lost an arm at Hastings is the same who disguised himself as a Saxon to insert himself in Vitalis’s sortie, thereby allowing Cyr to capture all at Lillefarne.”

  Guarin nodded. “He is gifted with stealth beyond many a mortal. When weeks past I sensed I was watched and could not satisfy my suspicion, I had him follow me at a distance. That first day, Dougray rooted out the one tracking me and each day thereafter. As never did your scouts seek to engage me, he did not engage them though great our curiosity over the one for whom they sought a pattern. I hoped you sent them but also knew it could be Campagnon or—”

  “Campagnon?” she exclaimed. “But he was arrested.”

  “And released, his men standing firm he was unaware of the attack on Stern. More unfortunate, weeks past those mercenaries were also released, their months of imprisonment deemed adequate punishment.”

  “Dear Lord…”

  Was she thinking of the slave, Em, whose presence at Wulfen during Jaxon’s siege Aelfled had mentioned?

  “So this is how your William the Great rules England,” Hawisa scorned, “punishing Saxons with death, Normans with—what?—a slap? A flick on the nose?”

  “I like it no better than you.”

  “Not possible!”

  He breathed deep. “In an England where Normans are the great minority, William makes good use of eager swords like those of Campagnon and his men.”

  She gasped. “Then that miscreant did not depart our shores with the mercenaries Le Bâtard released from his service.”

  He was not surprised she had heard that, following William’s recent defeat of rebellions in the Southwest, the Midlands, and the North, the king had rewarded men eager to return home and sent them away. But whatever hope she found in fewer enemies roaming her country was surely trampled by despair over William’s confidence he had a stranglehold on England.

  “He remained behind,” Guarin confirmed, “doubtless hopeful of earning another award of land and, in between, filling his purse with coin.”

  She gnawed at that in silence, then said, “No ill was intended in having you followed. I but wished us to meet alone. When a pattern to your solitary hunts could not be found, it was determined the best place to forge a meeting was the eastern wood since it is most distant from the castle. And safer yet could I draw you here.”

  “Where your men lay in wait.”

  “Only to defend me. I did not think it necessary, but they insisted. This is my fourth journey here.”

  “One every three days,” he said, “the pattern Dougray found.”

  Her eyes widened. “How?”

  “On days I did not depart the castle, he took it on himself to watch for your scouts and track their routes. He discovered no matter how many times they twisted back lest they were followed, always a mount awaited them in the eastern wood to carry them north. Hence, when a scout did not appear for two days, Dougray ventured there. And found a woman garbed in men’s clothes, golden hair unbound, sitting atop a grey, flaxen-maned destrier.”

  Hawisa flushed as if ashamed of being oblivious to her own watcher.

  “After wandering the wood for several hours,” Guarin continued, “you departed, and he followed you here where you collected your men and rode north. As I believed you sought to meet with me, I joined Dougray the next day, but you did not come, nor the next. However, on the third day whilst I visited villages, my brother witnessed your return and saw you did as before—wandering the wood before retrieving your men and going north. He persuaded me to allow him to discover a pattern, and then we prepared for this day by seeding the camp with men before yours arrived.”

  She sat straighter. “Your murderous uncle taught you and your brothers well.”

  His first thought was to defend Hugh, his next he could not. Cyr having aided Aelfled in removing the bodies of five boys from the battlefield—including Hawisa’s son—he had verified the likelihood their uncle slew the youths and told he believed the only way they could end Hugh’s life alongside their own was if the warrior was seriously injured.

  “Not the best of men,” Guarin said, “and far from the worst, he gifted his son and nephews with unsurpassed training. I am sorry he took the lives of your son and the sons of others.”

  Her jaw convulsed.

  “Though I cannot tell you it is in the past and to leave it there since I have not lost a child and pray never shall I, you are not without a future, Hawisa.”

  “Am I not?” she exclaimed. “Is not all that was Wulfrith now your brother’s—and yours?”

  Her tone offensive, Guarin said, “Despite my every warning of what you risked in raising rebel forces whilst bending the knee to William, you stayed the course.”

  “You say this is my due? Me and mine should suffer for defending our lives and homes?”

  Her voice having risen enough to reach her men, Guarin raised a hand. “I do not say that, and I would make two things clear. First, no testimony had William from me that you led or conspired with the rebels, and only Jaxon and Sigward did I name as my captors. Nor did any of my family speak against you. Hence, your lands were forfeited because of the division between the rebels who set themselves at each other and information pried from Jaxon’s injured men.”

  Her eyes widened. “What of Vitalis’s injured men? I was told Cyr and you allowed them to return to their villages.”

  “We did—those upon Wulfenshire and the few from beyond our borders—possible only because Cyr had the injured who wore the pale taken to Stern where they recovered without the king’s knowledge.”

  The relief softening her face was short-lived. “Does your cousin know this?”

  Silent Maël, as changed by Hastings as Dougray, though not all because of the damage done the most handsome D’Argent. “He knows.”

  “And is the king’s man!”

  “We are all the king’s men, Hawisa. But first, in between, and in the end we are D’Argents.”

  She parted her lips as if to contest that, then pressed them tight.

  “I hope you do not think betrayal the reason those returned to their villages have not sought you out,” he said. “They agreed to the terms of release—to live peaceably and raise arms only to defend family and home. Too, those upon Wulfenshire are watched closely.”

  “Then you do not trust them to keep their word.”

  “Mostly I do, but fear and desperatio
n make oath breakers of many. Too, I am not the only D’Argent who risks much in sheltering those who defied William.”

  “I understand, as should you that never would I begrudge my people their safety. They are where I would have them be.”

  He believed her. “Now the second thing I would make clear. None of what was taken from you belongs to me.”

  She startled. “But you hold Wulfen.”

  “Hold. I remain in England only because the king commanded I administer this demesne until he awards it elsewhere.”

  Her breath caught.

  “Hawisa?”

  “I wish to take back my home, but should that prove impossible…” She shook her head. “I would be as well as I could knowing your Norman hands are the ones in which my people find themselves.”

  Her good regard caused his chest to tighten just as when he thought of her as he ought not—and spoke as he should not as done during Cyr’s recent visit. Though he wanted to blame too much wine for his musing aloud England suited him and suggesting the second born remain their sire’s heir as when it was believed the first was dead, he had done so before making it to the bottom of his first pour.

  “I am honored, Hawisa, but the king will cast his gold, silver, and dirt where he wishes, and when he casts Wulfen upon a favorite, I shall return to Normandy and my inheritance.”

  “Of course,” she murmured, then asked, “What of Cyr? William added Balduc to Stern. Will he not add Wulfen as well, making my lands whole beneath one D’Argent?”

  “He will not, though it is possible he would have had not my brother angered him by wedding Aelfled.”

  Her lids narrowed. “Because she is Saxon.”

  “Because she is not you, daughter of Wulfrith.”

  No surprise leaping from her, she said, “I did consider a union with your brother would benefit my people.”