by Tamara Leigh
“Campagnon,” Dougray growled, evidencing if all other words had escaped him, that name had not. “He follows William around like a pup refusing to be weaned.”
Guarin looked to the blond among them, saw his regard was on the wood where Harwolfson prepared for the day of judgment he believed would be in his favor. Was Dougray thinking of the slave, Em? Wondering if she was with Hawisa?
Someone approached, and as usual, Theriot detected it first. When the other brothers turned with him, they saw it was Maël. Whether he had avoided them earlier or been occupied with the king’s business, at last he came.
Fatigue in the bow of his shoulders, he peeled off his gloves, tucked them beneath his belt, and halted before his cousins. “I apologize we could not meet sooner. Many are the preparations to ensure a quick end to Harwolfson’s rebellion.”
“Understandable,” Guarin said.
Maël looked to Cyr. “How fares my mother?”
“Lady Chanson is well, though you would know if you visited more often.”
Will Cyr deliver the tidings now? Guarin wondered.
Maël’s eyebrows rose. “I am sure she understands.”
“Understands? That you could not pause overnight following the victory at York?”
“I am the king’s to command as he pleases, and he pleased to send me and my men the long way around Wulfenshire.”
Cyr breathed deep. “Providing you can tear yourself from our liege’s side long enough to attend your mother’s wedding, I am sure she will forgive you.”
All expression fell from Maël’s face. When it returned, it was no disinterested, half-hooded eyes or slack mouth upon which the brothers looked.
“Whom does she think to wed?” he growled.
“My good friend, Father Fulbert. Though he wished to approach you himself and for that accompanied us here, I thought it best you hear it from me first.”
“He is as much Saxon as Norman,” Maël said. “More, he is of the Holy Church.”
“So he is—of good benefit at this time in England and a portent of things to come, do we not hope?” Cyr nodded. “A fine, godly husband he will make Lady Chanson.”
“The Church looks ill on married priests,” Maël said. “For this, among other offenses, reform comes to England’s church.”
“Comes, but not yet here, Cousin. Hence, so what Chanson and Fulbert wish cannot be forbidden or undone, they shall speak vows within a fortnight. You will attend the wedding at Stern, oui?”
“She is a widow!”
“Indeed, and yet too young to spend the rest of her life thus when years of happiness, of which she has had few, are offered.”
“Few?” Maël stepped nearer. “You say she was unhappy with my sire?”
Cyr advanced as well, tempting Guarin to pull him back lest they come to blows. Assuring himself he, Dougray, and Theriot could pull them apart before great damage was done, he resisted.
“All know the same as you, Hugh was undeserving of Chanson,” Cyr said.
Maël’s hands closed into fists.
“None would dispute your father was an outstanding warrior and trainer of knights, but that was his first love, perhaps his only love.”
Maël swept his gaze over the other brothers. “Had I known I was to be berated for a poor son, my sire berated for a poor husband, I would have joined William and Campagnon at meal rather than kin.” He dipped his chin. “’Til we meet again on the morrow and put finish to the rebels.” He pivoted and strode back toward hundreds of lamp-lit tents, torches, and campfires that defied the darkness to warn rebels they had no hope of a night attack.
“Perhaps he will speak to me alone,” Guarin said, though it was unlikely, having failed each time he tried during his recovery at Stern.
Theriot snorted. “Did you not hear? He would rather share a trencher with Campagnon than give account of what goes behind those scars.”
Still, Guarin followed. Just inside the outermost ring of tents, he overtook his cousin.
“I thought you would come,” Maël said. “A waste of much hope you would not.”
“Will you share with no one what Hastings wrought in you, Maël? And do not say it wrought naught. You are much changed.”
His cousin turned to him. “Are we to share now? You will tell what was done you while Lady Hawisa held you captive?” He thrust his face near. “Dare not say it was not she. Just as I am certain, so is William it was because of her you were returned to your family half dead.”
Guarin hesitated, said, “It was because of her, but—”
A group of soldiers veered toward them, not drunk in any obvious way, but of good cheer as evidenced by boisterous speech and coarse laughter.
“Pardon, Sir Maël!” one exclaimed and directed his companions opposite.
Maël grunted, demanded of Guarin, “How will you excuse what she did to you? Or perhaps the real question is why you would excuse it?”
“For now, it is enough to tell I live because she willed it—and for that made an enemy of her man, Jaxon. Now ’tis for you to give. What besides your sire’s death and a blade to the face changed you?”
“You think that not enough?”
Guarin set a hand on his shoulder. “I believe it goes beyond that to whatever caused you to distance yourself from your family when we went into battle at Hastings.”
Defiance grooving his face, Maël stared.
Movement ahead, so quick as to appear furtive, drew their attention to a hunched figure in profile dashing between two tents, a glint of silver at his side. Was this the prelude to an attack the Normans were certain would not befall their camp?
“I think that Wulfrith come spying,” Maël rumbled.
It took Guarin a moment to realize he referred to the boy Rosa had said Jaxon wished to gain control of, Jaxon had let slip was an imposter, and Cyr had told Hawisa had presented as the twin of her son slain upon Senlac. Was the young man to be sacrificed, if necessary, to map the way in and out?
“Non,” Guarin said, “it cannot be him. Lady Hawisa would not allow him to be used thus.”
“And yet I am fairly certain it is him.” Maël started forward. “This will greatly amuse William.”
Guarin caught his arm. “At best, he is a very young man.”
“Trained in the ways of Wulfrith, he is more than a young man, and he means us ill.”
“For that, we will take him to ground.”
“And?”
“I will ensure whatever his scheme, no Norman will be harmed. You have my word, Maël.”
He did not agree nor disagree, and when once more they caught sight of the Saxon, Maël went left and Guarin right. There were opportunities to overtake the young man as he evaded other Normans, but in exercising patience, the cousins discovered his destination when he hunkered behind the tent of one of William’s companions.
Tapping the tip of a dagger against the toe of his boot, he stared at the immense tent outside which a guard stood, while William and his dinner guests drew and drew again their shadowed figures against lit canvas.
Guarin looked to Maël twenty feet distant, and when his cousin inclined his head, started forward—and stilled at the appearance of a tall warrior striding toward William’s tent.
“Baron Pendery,” the guard greeted the younger of the two barons who had not only replaced his monk’s robe with armor but wed the Saxon once betrothed to Edwin Harwolfson—a great beauty as seen this day when she accompanied the Bloodlust Warrior of Hastings to Darfield.
“I would speak with the king,” Maxen Pendery said.
“A moment, my lord.”
It was little more than that before he was ushered inside and William’s voice rose above the others in greeting.
Another glance at Maël, another nod, then Guarin lunged toward the one who had taken the name of Hawisa’s heir, clapped a hand over his mouth, and caught the wrist of the hand wielding a blade. But the youth had strength and skill—twisting, kicking, and jabbing so viciousl
y it was difficult to keep his grunts and shouts from spilling.
As Guarin pinned him back against his chest, Maël appeared. “Almighty, he is a wiggly one,” he muttered, then drew back a fist. “You may thank me for this later, Cousin.”
The blow to the temple caused the young man to slacken and drop his dagger.
Rubbing his knuckles, Maël said with mock defensiveness, “It was that or rouse the guard. Now take him from here while I reinforce the sentries around the camp.”
Guarin heaved the youth over his shoulder. “We are not done sharing, Maël. We will speak later.”
His cousin’s only response was a smile that told later might never come.
In a copse of trees well back from the ridge and distant from the sentries the trespasser had slipped past, Guarin bound his prey to a tree and gagged him. Two sharp slaps, and the young man snapped up his head.
“I am Sir Guarin D’Argent,” Guarin said in Anglo-Saxon. “You know the name?”
The young man glared at the Norman crouched before him, bared his teeth above the gag.
“I think you do, and that I was Lady Hawisa’s captive for nearly two years. Now you are at this Norman’s mercy just as this Norman was at the Saxons’ mercy. But I am not your enemy. If in seeking out the king you hoped to slit his throat, you would have failed and would now be in the hands of his guards. Else dead.”
He strained to the side, surely testing the rope that would give only enough to snag his tunic against the bark.
“Do you wish your freedom, boy?”
His eyes narrowed.
“I shall remove the gag, but two things you should know. Do you call out, it will be to the king’s sentries, and here they will find you trussed and ready to deliver to…” He shrugged. “Likely, they will not bother informing the king so unseasoned a rebel stole into camp. As for the other thing you should know from my every encounter with your lady, I mean her no harm. So nod if you will behave the young man rather than the boy who cries for help that is not here.”
He jerked his chin, and Guarin tugged the pull knot and dropped the gag beneath his chin.
Shifting his jaw, the young man set his head back against the tree. “They called you the wolf.”
Guarin raised his eyebrows. “The one this side. You were sent by the one on the other side?”
His nostrils flared. “Our wolf is more formidable than that of the Normans. When Harwolfson moves against you, he will succeed a thousand-fold where I failed.”
“He did not send you?”
“He did not, nor Lady Hawisa.”
No surprise the latter. “What did you hope to accomplish in drawing near the king, Wulfrith?”
“That is not my name!”
“Then give another.”
“I am Eberhard.”
“For what did you steal past our sentries, Eberhard?”
“I knew I could not get near enough Le Bâtard, but Raymond Campagnon? Possible.”
Guarin frowned. “As he is no longer the Baron of Balduc, for what do you bear so great a grudge you risk your life to seek him in the midst of Normans?”
“For my sister, Em. Campagnon tore us apart at auction, bought her, abused her.”
This surprised, though it fit. At that same auction, Hawisa had purchased Eberhard to play the half-Norman son lost upon Senlac to preserve as much of her lands as possible. “Unlike your sister, you were not made a slave, were you, Eberhard?”
He shook his head. “My lady burned my papers, and yet she did naught to aid my sister though she knew Campagnon had her. For that, I cannot…” Tears sparkled in his eyes. “I do not know I can forgive her.”
Guarin set a hand on his shoulder and felt him tense. “Slavery is wrong, but until it is abolished in your country as it has been in Normandy, it is no easy thing to take from another the one his coin has purchased.”
“Because those who know it is wrong do not do the hard thing to make it right!”
A sound argument. “Your sister is free now. Think on that and how we are to return you to her.” And here the means of discovering how near Hawisa was. “Em is with your lady in Harwolfson’s camp?”
“I do not know. When I learned my lady did naught to aid Em, I left camp ere it was decided whether the Rebels of the Pale would come south, and I have been cautious moving amongst Harwolfson’s followers lest I come to Jaxon’s notice. He wanted to use me to hold Wulfen, and though I am of no use now, he is vengeful.”
As was Guarin who feared he would find no rest until that villain was no longer capable of harming anyone.
“Eberhard, I am going to ask you to trust me as I believe your lady would trust me.”
Suspicion flew across his face. “Trust a Norman?”
“This Norman who was captured twice for aiding your lady.”
“Nay, I will not betray my people.”
“I do not wish you to. What I ask is you trust me to return you to your sister and lady no matter where victory falls on the morrow.”
“How?”
“You number only one and are barely a man. Accept Harwolfson has rebels aplenty to battle William, and I will take you to my tent where you will await the outcome.”
“Cowering on the side of the enemy!”
“Not cowering—preparing to reunite with those you love so you may grow into a man to whom they can turn for protection.”
“Nay.”
At least he did not lie. “Then here you shall remain until I come for you.”
“I will not!”
“So says the Saxon who thinks I seek permission.” Giving him no time to cry out, Guarin wrenched the gag up between his teeth and secured it with a knot more easily cut than pulled free.
Eberhard kicked, dug his heels into the dirt to raise himself up the tree, and knocked the back of his head against the trunk when his boots skittered out from beneath him.
Guarin leaned near. “Save your efforts for when you are certain Saxons are near, not the Norman patrol who will pass close enough to investigate your sounds of struggle.”
Though the words muffled by the gag were surely curses, the young man ceased struggling.
Guarin straightened. “I am guessing it will not be earlier than middle day ere I return.” And I will, he assured himself, more certain William would win the day than Harwolfson.
But blood would tell…
Chapter Thirty-Five
Harwolfson’s Rebel Camp
Darfield, England
Isa had not expected to be granted an audience so soon. But of greater surprise was that the man before whom she was escorted was not entirely a stranger.
So jolted was she, it was as if it were just the two of them in a tent dominated by the table behind which Edwin Harwolfson and Jaxon stood. Even the latter, on whom her regard had first landed, could not return her gaze to him no matter how much his beckoned.
Did the rebel leader also recognize her? Certes, something had leapt in his eyes when first they fell upon her, and still he stared the same as she.
“Welcome, Dotter,” he finally said in a voice as dense and coarse as wool. “It was not expected you would bring your Rebels of the Pale south to share in the glory of returning an Englishman to the throne.”
Doubtless, a belief seeded and watered by Jaxon.
She cleared her throat. “My men and women are prepared and honored to fight alongside yours.” And it was true. So eager were all but a handful who remained behind, there had been no delay in departing the same night Eberhard left a scrap of parchment revealing he would wreak vengeance on Campagnon at Darfield. How Em had cried! And Isa had nearly crumbled…
Harwolfson shifted his regard to the man beside her. “You are Vitalis?”
“I am.”
The rebel leader nodded at Jaxon. “I am told neither of you can be trusted—that you are Norman lovers.”
Isa looked to the betrayer. As usual, his hair and beard were bound at the nape and beneath the chin, but both were lustrous rath
er than dull and matted. And his garments were hardly worn. The last time she had seen him so well groomed was when her sire lived and Jaxon was accorded much honor for being nearly as proficient as Wulfrith in training warriors. Though in this moment he appeared expressionless, the glint in his eyes evidenced he was pleased she was on the other side of the table.
“If by lovers you mean we do not kill indiscriminately,” she said, “I must correct the bearer of…misinformation. We are not Norman lovers. We are Christians who, seeking to protect ourselves and our families, first give warning when feasible. When not feasible, we take up arms.”
“And prefer humiliation of our oppressors over death,” Harwolfson said. “Thus, some of those we must cut down on the morrow will be the same you could have cut down sooner, saving what might be scores of Saxons.”
“Possible, but what I think more possible is such aggression would have lost a greater number of innocents upon Wulfenshire against whom the Normans would have retaliated. Perhaps even a harrying such as that threatened when the man who stands so smugly at your side condoned the murder of a Norman family, among them children.”
A flicker in Harwolfson’s eyes, a convulsing about the mouth. Might he still possess a vestige of humanity? “I will speak to Lady Hawisa alone,” he said.
“Edwin!” Jaxon protested.
“Alone!”
Stiffly, Jaxon came out from behind the table.
“I am safe, Vitalis,” Isa said at his hesitation, “but you are not.”
“Be assured, I will watch my back.” He followed Jaxon from the tent ahead of the guards who positioned themselves on either side of the opening. When the flap fell, Harwolfson strode around the table.
Isa raised her chin, opening her face to scrutiny. So intense was it, it was as if his fingers moved over brow, eyes, nose, lips.
He nodded as if to himself, said, “I think ’twas you, Lady Hawisa.”