by Tamara Leigh
“I think ’twas you, Edwin Harwolfson. Pray, give me your right hand.”
He eyed the one she reached to him, and did as bid.
Cupping his hand in hers, she considered the calloused palm, then raised her other hand and drew a finger down the central crease. “Here I set my dagger so a royal housecarle who wished to end his misery could do what I could not.” She folded his fingers over an imaginary hilt. “When he lost consciousness, I left behind my dagger so he would not be without recourse should he awaken.” She felt a slight tremor. “And he is here now because neither could he do it.”
He pulled free. “Do not think because you know mere minutes of my tale upon Senlac you know all. And if you hope gratitude will turn me from Jaxon, expect grave disappointment.” He settled back against the table and curled his hands over its edge. “What do you want from me, Lady Hawisa?”
“I seek word of one who should not be here. Since our arrival, we have searched for a boy of twelve who departed our camp ahead of us to sooner join your army.”
“He who played your half-Norman son.”
What else had Jaxon told him about her? More, what lies? “Aye, to keep Le Bâtard from taking more of my lands.”
“Your plan succeeded—for a time.”
Stung by her failure, Isa continued, “I believe Eberhard—that is his given name—is near awaiting an opportunity to work vengeance on Normans, above all a mercenary named Raymond Campagnon who abused his sister.”
“I know naught of the boy, my lady. My concerns are far greater than the whereabouts of a reckless child.”
“Still, I would ask a boon of you.”
His eyebrows rose. “Ask, and quickly. I have matters to attend to.”
“While my rebels prepare for the morrow, I request an escort for myself, Vitalis, and the boy’s sister so our search for Eberhard is not disrupted by those loyal to Jaxon who time and again thwart our efforts.”
“With one such as Vitalis at your side, and considering your own skills which I am told are admirable, I wonder you should require aid.”
“’Tis a matter of expediency and concern for your ranks. However, if you do not mind more of Jaxon’s men suffering injury—perhaps so greatly incapacitated they cannot stand with you on the morrow—we can continue as before.”
He laughed, and though that warm sound did not linger, something of a smile did. “I hardly knew your sire, but I believe he would be proud of one who is all that remains of his line—providing, she is loyal to her own.”
“I am.”
“Then you will be at my side on the morrow.”
She hesitated. Though willing to fight, even if she had to face Guarin across the battlefield, she had hardly allowed herself to think there, focusing instead on delivering Eberhard from the encounter to come and hoping something would happen to avert bloodshed. The first was humanly possible, but the second…
Surely only by the Lord’s hand.
“If you wish an escort, Lady Hawisa,” Harwolfson said, “your word I require that not only your rebels shall fight alongside me on the morrow but you. Refuse me, and you add credence to Jaxon’s charge you are a lover of Normans.”
Only one Norman. The silent admission sped from her heart to her head. And he asked me not to do what this one requires of me. But no matter how I wish to take Eberhard from here, that I can do only after leading my rebels.
She set a hand on her sword hilt. “You have the word of a Wulfrith.”
“Then you have your escort and another half dozen to send amongst the tents to aid in your inquiries. But only until the hour ere middle night. If the boy is not found, you and yours will gain your rest in preparation for ridding our lands of the tyrant. We are clear?”
“We are.”
“Then let us see about finding this boy of yours.”
Isa started to swing away, paused. “I do not try to turn you from Jaxon, for I know he is superior at training fighting men but, pray, be wary of disappointing him. He thinks mostly of achieving his end, little of the hearts and souls bridging the in-between.”
“As he and I are mostly compatible, I foresee no difficulties.”
“Unless you veer from his course as I did.” She stepped nearer. “And for it lost Wulfen.”
“We waste precious minutes, Lady.” He stepped around her and tossed back the flap. “Come.”
Hours later, past middle night, the stars shone bright against a sky of spilled ink. Gentle breezes kissed the trees and flirted among the tents. The leaves perched high on their branches whispered to one another of those who slept below and might never sleep again. And the smoke of the fires of warriors on one side and warriors on the other converged on a meadow where a woman knelt at prayer while one with drawn sword stood watch over her.
“Lord, Lord,” Isa warmed her knees with beseeching, “if ever Eberhard was here, let him be making his way back to safety.” She shuddered, pushed fingers into dirt, scraped it into her palms, and prayed harder for the many whose blood seemed destined to wet the earth when next the sun rose.
“Not again,” she pleaded. “Not here. Not this boy.”
She sat back on her heels, lifted her head, and opened damp eyes amid the smoke of Saxons and Normans that drifted, rose and fell, swirled and feinted. And became one.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Darfield
England
They came, the great host emerging from the wood promising to present nearly as formidable a presence as King Harold’s upon Senlac though surely few of Harwolfson’s men were born to the warrior class. Still, most of the rebels appeared well armed and armored, and unlike at the great battle, many were mounted. However, being astride and being proficient at fighting from atop a horse were different things.
Though they were yet too distant, Guarin was certain Harwolfson was the one at the fore of the cavalry. But of greater concern was whether Isa was among his ranks. Likely she was upon Darfield—hopefully only to retrieve Eberhard—but had her rebels come south to join Harwolfson, he had little doubt the daughter of Wulfrith would lead them. Hence, soon he might face her across a battlefield.
“Almighty,” he entreated, that single name all that was left to him after a near sleepless night and pre-dawn visit to Eberhard.
The youth had been conciliatory, thanking him for the watered wine held to his lips, between mouthfuls of bread thanking him again, then promising he would immediately return to Nottinghamshire were he released.
Guarin had agreed, his lack of hesitation giving the youth no time to disguise the satisfaction streaking across his face. Thus, he was further surprised when Guarin once more bound his mouth and assured him after the battle he could return north. Another warning about the patrol had calmed Eberhard. But now that he could hear the gathering of armies?
Hopefully, he had enough control to suppress anger that could reveal him to the Norman patrol reinforced to ensure the enemy did not attack William’s army from behind.
“Look how he comes!” the king snarled where he was mounted on his destrier ahead. Above him, the papal banner flown at Hastings once more shook itself out, while on his right sat both Penderys and on his left a favorite who, like the one Hawisa had slain at Senlac, held the esteemed position of companion. And alongside that one, Maël.
“See how he configures his army to mine!”
So Harwolfson did with three lines—archers, heavy infantry, cavalry.
“He mocks me!”
No mockery, Guarin mused as he fingered the string of the bow set over his shoulder and across his chest. Simply a lesson well learned and answered—identify the enemy’s strength and make it your own. And as told by the Saxons continuing to emerge from the wood in such abundance they might exceed William’s numbers—in great matters, bide your time.
Unlike others who led uprisings, Harwolfson had not moved against the king until he had amassed great numbers. Even so, his chance of success was hindered by those who comprised his army. No matter how
good their training, most lacked the experience of warriors prepared to slaughter and die for their cause. Great damage the Saxons could inflict on William’s men, but when the battle drew to a close, likely their blood would more vastly soak the ground.
“And weapons aplenty,” William noted swords, spears, battle-axes, and bows glinting in sunlight. “I would not have believed it possible.”
“We do battle?” asked the Bloodlust Warrior of Hastings, though not with the eagerness of one who sought blood. Had his two years in the monastery changed him? Or had a woman tamed the heart of so fierce a warrior, the same as Aelfled had done Cyr?
It was the elderly Pendery who answered the younger. “Of course we do battle! I fear not a Saxon dog whose greatest accomplishment is the ravishment of an innocent young woman.”
Guarin’s thoughts shifted to the two women who had accompanied Maxen Pendery to Darfield, the beautiful Saxon he had wed and a heavily pregnant woman rumored to be his sister, the child the latter would bear not of the man to whom she was recently betrothed.
Of a sudden, William’s head swiveled. “Do you think to tell me what to do, Pendery?”
The old man stiffened. “I do not, my king. I but voice an opinion.”
“Too loudly!”
“Pray, forgive me.”
William returned his regard to the Saxons. Now the one who rode fore and center of the cavalry could be seen outfitted in the armor and finery of the royal housecarle he had been before Hastings. Proud. Determined. Formidable.
Would Darfield be the end of him? Guarin wondered as he searched beyond Harwolfson. More importantly, would it be the end of Saxon rebellion?
What his gaze swept over, and to which it immediately returned stopped his breath—grey strips on the sleeves of two score or more Saxons, and center of the mounted Rebels of the Pale, one whose hair and beard were of Vitalis. But it was the one beside him who wore the mail of a warrior, golden hair fastened close to her head, that made his heart test the strength of his breastbone.
“I see him.” Isa stared at where he sat behind and to the right of Le Bâtard, his hair long, face lightly bearded, brothers on either side.
“The day has come, my lady,” Vitalis voiced what she had feared—that they would face each other across a battlefield.
Drawing breath through her nose to clear moisture from her eyes, she said, “He is not the enemy.”
“Yet this day he stands the side of one who is.” Vitalis set a hand on her arm. “Regardless, I shall protect you with my life so if it is possible what was begun between the two of you can find a good end, it shall.”
Kind words, the only falsity about them the hope she and Guarin had a future even should both survive. It was miracle enough Aelfled had her Cyr.
Isa moved her regard to that brother, and as she prayed the father of Aelfled’s babe would return to his wife and child whole, felt something on the air that portended greater ill than the silence between two armies who awaited the command to engage.
Like evil, it slithered among those this side of the meadow, calling to mind the basilisk she had seen illuminated on a manuscript page when she was a girl. Her sire having been present, she had suppressed fear that nearly made her toss the book on the fire, but for weeks that serpent had trailed her dreams. And even now it visited when she was most vulnerable—as it had the one time fatigue closed her eyes last eve.
Seeking the source of the serpent in the Saxons’ midst, Isa looked around. It moved among some of her rebels, but more among the infantry, and perhaps the archers ahead.
Doubt. Worry. Dread. Fear. No matter how much the men and women more of the earth and plow than the blade and shield desired revenge, the prospect of failure and death threatened to root their feet and accept the yoke.
“’Tis the silence,” Vitalis said. “It allows us to hear death walking amongst us, marking those it will take ere night falls.”
“Walking?” She shook her head. “It slithers.”
“I think you are right, my lady.” He jutted his chin at Harwolfson. “And that he senses it as well.”
The leader of the rebellion looked over those who wished to believe no matter the sacrifice, when next the sun rose it would be on an England ruled by the English. But it was no prideful eye that took in his army.
“Then this is for naught, Vitalis?”
“Tides can turn, my lady. Does God will it, we may—”
A high-pitched wail silenced Vitalis, and he looked to the ridge above the meadow where William had encamped on the night past. When another wail sounded, Isa was certain it was of a babe.
During her search for Eberhard, she had overheard talk of a woman large with child glimpsed in the company of the Penderys en route to Darfield. Might an innocent have been born here, its birth horrendously at odds with the butchery to come? If so, why would the Lord allow his newest creation to open its eyes upon so dark a day? There could be no good in it.
And yet what had been still moments earlier seemed a clamor compared to what settled over the meadow as the babe loosed lusty cry after lusty cry. Even when he quieted, the call to battle did not sound. It was as if Isa was not alone in pondering a babe born unto this.
Then all began to stir on the Norman side, causing her heart to race in anticipation she was moments from testing the warrior of her against men more tested than she would ever be, some of whom were not her enemy.
Lord, keep me distant from Guarin, she prayed. Let neither of us see what our people do to the other.
“God in heaven,” Vitalis rumbled, “she made it past.”
Isa lifted her lids and saw a woman with hair as golden as her own spurring her mount away from the Normans, a bundle in one arm.
Was this a ploy? If so, Edwin Harwolfson did not fear it. He urged his destrier forward, causing his men to step left and right to clear a path for him.
As she neared, he commanded his men to silence and shouted, “Come no nearer!”
More beautiful than the Lord ought to make a mortal, the woman slowed and turned her horse sideways.
“What have you come for?” Harwolfson demanded. “More trickery?”
With what seemed a smile of wonder, the woman plucked at the bundle she cradled, and the breath of many a rebel caught when a babe’s face was revealed. “To present your son, Edwin,” she said in Anglo-Saxon, no hint of the Norman across her tongue.
“Son?” He reined in several feet from her.
“Aye, yours.”
Were that so, this woman could not be the mother, Isa thought.
Harwolfson peered at the child, then snapped his head up in response to the Norman spurring across the field.
“Edwin, pray, let him come!” the woman cried. “Surely you cannot fear one man with so many at your side?”
“More Pendery trickery,” Harwolfson snarled.
Pendery—meaning it was the Bloodlust Warrior of Hastings who came?
“I vow he did not know I intended this,” the woman said. “I hardly knew myself. He but seeks to protect me.”
“What do you intend, Rhiannyn?”
Isa did not know the name, but she had heard that like Cyr D’Argent, Maxen Pendery was entranced with a Saxon, one he had taken captive with a great number of Harwolfson’s rebels in retaliation for his brother’s murder. Had the two become lovers?
“Peace,” Rhiannyn answered.
“There can be no such thing between Saxon and Norman.”
“But already there is. If you would just—”
The creak of wood and strain of strings being drawn flew her gaze to those intent on stopping Maxen Pendery.
“Edwin, order them to stand down!”
He considered the child again, then signaled to his men. “The babe is of Elan Pendery?” he asked.
Isa gasped. Then the inconstant young woman she had sought to avoid whilst at Trionne had conceived a child with Harwolfson?
“Aye,” Rhiannyn said, “just born.”
He went very
still, then he said something too low to carry, and when the woman answered, neither could sense be made of her words.
What went between them? Isa wondered, feeling their angst across the distance, and more so with the arrival of Maxen Pendery.
“Almighty!” The warrior halted his horse alongside the woman’s and gripped her arm. “What do you, Rhiannyn?”
“The woman who was first mine has presented me with a son.” Harwolfson said bitterly.
Pendery looked between the rebel leader and the one who clearly belonged to him now, then he breathed deep and asked, “What think you of your son, Harwolfson?”
“As ’tis told he was born of ravishment, he cannot be mine.”
Disbelief and resentment rippled through the rebels near enough to attend to the exchange. They did not believe their leader had forced his attentions on Elan Pendery, but Isa knew so little of Harwolfson she could only hope he had not.
“It is not true he was got in that way,” Rhiannyn said, “but it is true he is yours, Edwin.”
He snorted. “How grand of you to believe me incapable of such behavior—believing me over the Pendery harlot.”
She raised her chin. “Lady Elan recants.”
“What?” both men demanded.
“As she was giving birth, she revealed the truth. She said she gave herself to you to hide her loss of virtue from her father.”
Harwolfson appeared unmoved. “That may be, but do you count the months, you will see the babe comes too early to be mine.”
“He was born young by a few weeks.” Rhiannyn drew the blanket from the infant’s feet. “But Harwolfson blood gave him life. Four toes on this one, as have you, Edwin.”
He stared, then threw his arms wide. “This is your peace, Rhiannyn? A son in exchange for all of England?”
“England is William’s,” Maxen Pendery said.
“Not after this day!”
The Norman leaned in, said, “Even more so after this day if you fight a battle you cannot win.”
Above the rebels’ angry murmurings, Harwolfson declared, “My army outnumbers the usurper’s.”