FEARLESS: Book Two: Age of Conquest

by Tamara Leigh

  Nay, he was of Normandy, and no matter what persecution she faced, ever she was of England. It would have to be enough to have loved a man as she had thought never to do. And to be loved in a way—no matter how small the measure—she had thought never to be.

  She shook her head, entreating Guarin not to interfere, then swung out of the saddle and saw Harwolfson peered at her over his shoulder.

  Regret and anger were in his eyes, doubtless at being helpless to stop the humiliation of a Saxon lady forced to battle one of her own.

  She released her shield from the saddle, then strode between two hostages and past the man who no longer led England’s greatest rebel army.

  When she halted twenty feet distant from Le Bâtard, Jaxon said, “Dagger as well,” causing the soldier who had passed him a sword to consult his king.

  William shook his head. He might not know how swift and accurate the warrior’s throw, but he had to know were Jaxon given a clear path, he would let the blade fly toward his greatest enemy.

  The thought struck Isa she herself might seek such a means of putting finish to William’s rule—and be justified in taking the life of the man responsible for her son’s death—but even had she the skill, could she calculatedly slay another?

  The answer making her soul shift toward darkness, she thought it good she had yet to master the throw of a blade so she might remain true to what was required of her rebels—Take no life but in defense of your own and others. By her hand, none would die this day. But one would bleed, even if he triumphed over her.

  As Jaxon turned the sword side to side and peered down the blade’s edges, the usurper said, “But do provide the old man a shield.”

  That old man, who was no more than ten years beyond William’s age, snapped up his head and growled, “I require no shield, though the woman may keep hers.”

  Pride nearly made Isa cast hers aside, but she recalled her sire’s admonition—Be proud, but not so much pride raises your head to a height that exposes the great vein in your neck. She slid her arm through the strap fastened to the inside of the shield, cinched it only tight enough to stabilize the movable wall, and curled her fingers around the center grip.

  “Dotter is eager to begin your contest,” William said as she drew her sword. “Proceed!”

  Jaxon moved his gaze down her, on the return paused on her belt from which Guarin’s dagger hung.

  Let him come to you, she told herself. Note his stride, the lay of his shoulders, the shift of his eyes, the grip on his sword. In the space between now and partnering in this deadly dance, firm your resolve, bolster your courage, accept death could be your end.

  Not her words, but her sire’s spoken low shortly after the passing of his last male heir. In facing the skilled young man set at her—Jaxon’s son who, unknown to her sire’s man, Wulfrith had concurred was an unsuitable match—she had conformed to his instructions. And been beaten, though not soundly. Though her sire was pleased with her efforts, she had remained a womb for breeding warriors as evidenced by his decision to wed her to Roger.

  “I have become more, Father,” she whispered, and when Jaxon moved toward her, slid into the warrior.

  Three strides distant, her sire’s man halted. “Ever ’twas meant to be,” he said.

  “My sire would not agree. He would be appalled to find his heir betrayed by one he counted a rare friend.”

  “I knew him better than you, Hawisa Fortier, am certain he would accept what I do to one who once more proves unworthy of his name—a name that may never have been yours in truth.”

  And so begins the taunts meant to mangle my resolve, she thought, but no matter where he thrusts the blade of falsehood, I shall turn it aside.

  He grinned. “Mayhap talk of your mother’s cuckoldry was not all talk.”

  No such rumors. Her mother had passed before Isa could form memories of her beyond a haze of movement and sweetly crooning words, but Wulfrith’s wife had been esteemed by all.

  “Again, you betray my sire in dishonoring the memory of his wife,” she said. “He would not know you at all, Jaxon, would himself set you out of Wulfen.”

  “More he would not know you! To ensure the Wulfrith line ends with him, I shall choke the earth with your blood.”

  Shoulders aching from bearing the weight of mail all these hours, Isa shifted her feet and set her sword’s blade nearer the shield’s edge, its point centered on Jaxon’s chest. “In boasting of having known the mighty Wulfrith well,” she said, “you forget freedom is forfeited should one of us slay the other.”

  He took a step forward, said low. “The word he gives is the word he takes away. Whether or not one or both of us live, neither of us goes free.”

  She feared that as well but more so that he believed it, meaning he might make good his threat to end the Wulfrith line.

  “Come, Jaxon!” Le Bâtard shouted. “Do not be afeared. Beneath that mail she is all soft woman.”

  Not so, Isa silently disputed. She had her soft places, but all else that could be made muscular had been.

  Of a sudden, Jaxon swept his sword back and rushed at her with a bellow that showed his teeth, the absence of many, and a humped tongue.

  With so much thrust, weight, and width hurtling at her, defense was Isa’s only option. Blessedly, she excelled at it, being lighter, shorter, and fleet of feet. Then there was timing, another skill to which she could lay claim.

  At the moment before his blade came down on hers, she bent, leaned left, and let the force of his steel sweeping across hers spin her to the side. Her blade skittered down his, stuttered over the cross guard, then slid down his mail-clad arm and back as he continued past.

  She turned on a toe and just missed the opportunity to slap her blade against his buttocks, a humiliation that could turn him reckless and render him vulnerable.

  Or more dangerous, she allowed as she pushed off with her back foot and, raising her shield high, ran at him as he turned.

  She had the advantage of being on the offensive, but quickly he set himself at her. Their swords met again, and his saliva sprayed her face as he cursed and thrust her back.

  She stumbled, regained her balance, lunged. This time she shouted as she brought her blade down on his, shouted again as she knocked his sword to the side, then drove her shield up into his chin.

  His head snapped back, but the impact was insufficient to knock him senseless. He found his balance and charged, driving her backward, striking from on high, the sides, and low. The last slice came off her sword into the gap between it and her shield, and the tip of his blade cut through her chausses and the inside of her calf.

  Fear that Guarin would do what he ought not made her swallow a cry of pain. Then with her shield she deflected Jaxon’s next blow, swept up her blade, and scored the back of his free hand. It was hardly blood for blood, but she was pleased to so soon take some of what he had taken from her. And from the rousing of Normans and Saxons, the contest between the renowned trainer of warriors and his lady held them captive.

  Isa distanced herself from her opponent and came back around.

  The hitch in Jaxon’s advance reminded her of a lesson taught her rebels—exploit every known or perceived weakness your opponent presents. For Jaxon, that was his hip injured in his younger years when he was thrown from a horse.

  It was more pronounced than ever she had seen it, but there was no time to determine how she had caused it.

  Knowing he was slower to turn that side, she veered in that direction, with a ring of chain mail leapt up to match the height of his sword to hers, and slammed her blade against his. As she continued past, she landed the flat of her blade against his hip.

  He lurched around and widened his stance. But before he could fully recover, Isa struck again with an upward cut he deflected mid-sword and a downward slice he evaded with a sidestep. Then, as if to gain time and space to recover, he pounded toward where the contest had begun near the usurper.

  The Normans came to attention
, and the ranks began to close around William, but when Jaxon had put twenty feet between him and his opponent, he turned back. As the Normans eased their guard, he beckoned, “Come, Norman lover! I would have my freedom.”

  More greatly she felt Guarin’s gaze, but again suppressed the temptation to give her regard to one who could make her feet stick when movement counted for everything when blades sang.

  Shifting her shoulders beneath mail that grew heavier, becoming aware of the scent and feel of perspiration that made tunic and chausses cling, she advanced slowly to give herself time to recover her own breath.

  As she neared her sire’s man, she glanced at William. She expected a smile of satisfaction, but no longer was there lightness about his mouth. Because he found this demonstration of Wulfrith training lacking?

  One moment she was ashamed at not better representing her sire, the next glad. If he deemed the contest a poor showing and she lost, perhaps she would be passed over as a hostage.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Hold! Guarin commanded himself. This is what she desires and William requires. Leave it to her else you will undo any chance she has of gaining her freedom.

  Determined he would act only if it appeared Jaxon meant her mortal harm—better she find herself a hostage than dead—he tensed further as he inventoried the moves required to defend her.

  “Patience!” Maël growled, referencing the bargain struck when Guarin was pinned and on the knife’s edge between remembering and forgetting who kept him from Hawisa.

  “I hold,” he rumbled.

  “By a frayed thread,” his cousin bit.

  And more frayed now Jaxon moved the fight back toward William, alarming the king’s guard who were too quick to relax once the Saxon warrior swung around to face Hawisa. Though not certain Jaxon would put her through, Guarin had no doubt he would seize an opportunity to do what no other Saxon had accomplished—kill their Norman king.

  Guarin looked between William and Jaxon. Though the king had refused the latter a dagger, he was no fool to believe a well-thrown sword could not prove his undoing, albeit the chance of that was thin. Eyes sharp upon the warrior, subtly William nudged the destrier left and right to ensure he presented as narrow a target as possible.

  When Hawisa drew near enough to resume the contest, she halted, positioned body, feet, sword, and shield.

  As Guarin had no hope of reaching her in time to give aid with his sword, he flexed his hand on the bow he made pretense of leaning on, and opened and closed his other hand in anticipation of snatching one of his remaining arrows from the quiver.

  “Only if you must,” Maël said, “and then make it look very good—though not my teeth, hmm?”

  Gaze fixed on the combatants, Guarin said, “Only if I must. And not your teeth.”

  Isa had assured herself she could prevail against Jaxon, but this was more effortless than it should be, his increasingly pronounced hitch slowing him, over and again giving her the advantage.

  She took blood from his lower leg, his side and shoulder, his cheek. He cut her as well, cursed her, spit in her face, and snatched at her hair to loose its vulnerable length, but ever she danced away before he could make minor victories great ones.

  And so it went, his sword beating her back toward Guarin, hers beating him toward the conqueror—until her foot slipped in grass muddied by their combat and he landed a thrust to her forearm. Her mail stopped the blade from penetrating beyond its keen point, but the impact sent pain reverberating to her fingers.

  She leapt back, ducked beneath his next swing, and sprang upright to slam her shield into his gut.

  A great blur. Darkness. Rain the color of blood bursting across the black come down over her eyes. Then she was falling backward, memories flashing amid reeling consciousness—Jaxon’s arm knocking aside her shield, his face coming toward hers, dropping her chin to deny him the soft landing of her nose, forehead striking forehead.

  Isa’s rear hit first, and as she fell onto her back, she felt the emptiness of her left hand that had worked the shield. Of greater detriment, no longer was her right hand intimate with the sword.

  She struggled to bring Jaxon to focus, drew a sharp breath when she saw he was also bereft of sword and the step he took toward her evidenced he was dazed.

  She flipped onto her hands and knees. Seeing black again, she crawled forward, blindly sweeping her hands in search of her weapon. As she did so, her vision cleared, but not sufficiently to point her toward her sword.

  Hearing her name shouted in warning—was it Guarin?—she looked around and saw how near her opponent. Blessedly, neither had he recovered his sword.

  She thrust upright, and as she whipped around nearly plunged back to earth.

  Face bright with exertion and moist with perspiration, Jaxon took another step forward. As he did so, he lowered his gaze to her waist, and it lingered on the only weapon between them—freedom if she could set Guarin’s dagger near enough her sire’s man to prove herself the victor.

  She snatched it from its scabbard, placed her back foot further behind, and glanced past Jaxon to Le Bâtard who leaned forward in the saddle. “’Tis over, Jaxon. Yield!”

  “Not while still I can gain my freedom,” he slurred loudly as she had only heard him do when he imbibed to excess.

  As suspicion rose up around her, he blinked and gave his head a vicious shake. “Non, Hawisa, you are done playing at being worthy of your sire’s name.”

  “No play this. It is all Wulfrith. Now yield!”

  He peered over his shoulder, said in the language he detested, “And disappoint the conqueror who has yet to have his fill of entertainment?”

  This time, the dust of suspicion cast itself in her eyes. He wished the enemy to understand what was spoken between them, meaning he calculated more against the usurper than her.

  I am exactly where he wishes me to be, she thought and tightened her grip on the dagger a moment before he lunged.

  She swung the blade to the side and up, forward, down, slashed his exposed collarbone beneath gathered beard and above the unlaced neck of his mail tunic, saw red on the blade, then droplets on the air as momentum carried the dagger to her opposite side.

  Intending to land a backward upper cut, she reversed her swing, but before the dagger began its ascent, his hand closed like steel over hers on the hilt.

  Amid gasps of surprise, delight, and disappointment, he jerked her forward. Breath foul, yet soft on her face as if he hardly labored, he grinned. And increased the pressure on her hand when she tightened it on the hilt.

  “Ah, unworthy one,” he rasped in Anglo-Saxon, “who would have guessed you would share a sliver of my glory?”

  He did mean to move against William, all this a farce to draw near, distract, and throw a dagger.

  “Now struggle—curse, kick, scratch, bite—then loose the dagger and fall backward.”

  Would the blade land true, toppling William of Normandy, leaving him as dead as King Harold, England once more in the hands of—?

  Nay, there hopelessness. It was not one man who had the English by the throat. Hundreds of his warrior nobles with their scores of castles would fill the void, and eventually one would rise above all. Thus, no quick end to this conquering—if an end at all. And those now upon Darfield…

  In the frenzy sure to follow the death of a king, there would be great slaughter. And Guarin—

  “Make your sire proud, Hawisa!”

  Tears flooding her eyes, she said, “’Twill be for naught.”

  His mouth quivered, nostrils dilated as if to take in all the air in all the world, then he jammed her hand down and dropped her to her knees, nearly making her cry out as his fingers threatened her bones.

  “I say she yields!” Jaxon shouted, then peered across his shoulder. “What do you think of your Wulfrith hostage, Le Bâtard?”

  She could not see past him, but she did not doubt he made no friend of William in naming him that.

  Isa wrenched at her
hand, and feeling sharp pain from the heel of her palm to her wrist, feared he had snapped a bone.

  “The contest is not over, old man,” the usurper said. “Even does she yield, I require her life be in your hands, not her fingers.”

  Jaxon looked back at her, muttered, “Loose it, and I vow to put it in his eye the same as the Norman arrow in Harold’s eye.”

  She squeezed the hilt tighter.

  “Nithing!” he hissed. “Unworthy!” Then his other hand shot forward, closed around her throat, and squeezed. “In my hands!” he shouted.

  An elbow to Maël’s nose, a reach over the shoulder, a shaft in hand, its end nocked, string drawn, missile flown.

  The arrow was not meant to kill, though great the temptation. However, in the space between release and landing, Jaxon tore the dagger from Hawisa’s hand and, shifting his weight around to do as Guarin suspected, moved the target from shoulder to chest.

  The Saxon warrior screamed as his body twisted with the arrow’s penetration of his mail, then he fell onto his side atop the beaten grass.

  Halfway to Hawisa who had dropped forward with one hand flat to the ground, the other at her neck, Guarin flung aside the bow and lengthened his stride.

  As he neared, she stumbled upright and raised her face to William who, bâtard he was more by nature than birth, looked upon her with amusement and satisfaction—moments later what seemed curiosity when one of his guard urged his horse near and spoke in the king’s ear.

  As something dark replaced curiosity, Hawisa stepped forward, fell to her knees, and rolled Jaxon onto his back. Whatever she spoke to the warrior who gripped the shaft above a blood-stained beard and however he responded was masked by the din of their audience. But when Guarin lowered beside her, he heard her say, “’Twas all for naught.”

  Seeing Jaxon work his crimson tongue and lips as if to further stain her with blood, Guarin gripped her shoulder. “Come away.”