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So this is England, she thought with pleasure. Her father had called it a foggy, wet island, but today at least, she saw no evidence of such unpleasant weather. This is my new home. Here I will build a new life for myself, a life where I am my own mistress, at no man’s beck and call.
After she had been a-horse for some three hours, Gisele urged her palfrey up to the front of the procession, where the captain was riding with another of the men. “How far is it to London? Will we reach it tonight, Sir Hubert?” Gisele asked LeBec.
He wiped his fingers across his mouth as if to rub out his smirking grin. “Even if we had wings to fly, my lady, ’twould be too long a flight. Nay, we’ll lie at an abbey tonight—”
“An abbey? Is there not some castle where we might seek hospitality? Monastic guest houses have lumpy beds, and poor fare, and the brothers who serve the ladies look down their pious Benedictine noses at us,” Gisele protested, remembering her few journeys in Normandy.
“We’ll stay at an abbey,” Sir Hubert said firmly. “’Twas your father’s command, my lady. Much of southern England is sympathetic to Stephen, and the even those who were known to support the empress may have turned their coats since we last had word on the other side of the Channel. You’d be a great prize for them, my lady—to be held for ransom, or forcibly married to compel your father to support Stephen’s cause.”
His words were sobering. “Very well, Sir Hubert. It shall be as my lord father orders.”
He said nothing more. Soon they left the low-lying coastal area behind and entered a densely forested area.
“What is this place?” Gisele asked him, watching as the green fastness of the place enshrouded the mounted party and seemed to swallow up the sun, except for occasional dappled patches on the forest floor.
“’Tis called the Weald, and I like it not. The Saxons fleeing the Conqueror at Senlac once took refuge here, and the very air seems thick with their ghosts.”
His words formed a vivid image in her mind, and as Gisele peered about her, trying to pierce the gloom with her eyes, it seemed as if she could see the shades of the long-dead Saxons behind every tree.
“Then why not go around the Weald, instead of through it?” she inquired, trying not to sound as nervous as he had made her feel.
“’Tis too wide, my lady. We’d add a full day or more onto our journey, and would more likely encounter Stephen’s men.” Evidently deciding he’d wasted enough time in speech with a slip of a girl, he looked over his shoulder and said, “Stay alert, men. An entire garrison could hide behind these oaks.”
Gisele, following his gaze, looked back, but was made more uneasy by the faces of the other five knights of the escort. Faces that had looked bluff and harmless in the unthreatening sunlight took on a secretive, vaguely menacing, gray-green cast in the shadows of the wood. Eyes that had been respectfully downcast during the Channel crossing now stared at her, but their intent was unreadable.
For the first time Gisele realized how vulnerable she was, a woman alone with these six men but for the presence of Fleurette, and what good could that dear woman do if they decided to turn rogue? What was to stop them from uniting to seize her and hold her for ransom, figuring they could earn more from her ransom than a lifetime of loyal service to the Count de l’Aigle? Inwardly she said a prayer for protection as she dropped back to the middle of the procession to rejoin Fleurette.
Fleurette had been able to hear the conversation Gisele had had with LeBec, and it seemed she could guess what her mistress had been thinking. But she had apprehensions of her own. “’Tis not your father’s knights we have to worry about in here,” she said in low tones. “’Tis outlaws—they do say outlaws have thriven amid the unrest created by the empress and the king both striving for the same throne. ’Tis said it’s as if our Lord and His saints sleep.”
Gisele shivered, looking about her in the murky gloom. The decaying leaves from endless autumns muffled the horses’ plodding and seemed to swallow up the jingle of the horses’ harnesses, the creak of leather and the occasional remark passed between the men. Not even a birdcall marred the preternatural quiet.
Gisele could swear she felt eyes upon her—eyes other than those of the men who rode behind her—but when she stared into the undergrowth on both sides of the narrow path and beyond her as far as she could see, she saw nothing but greenery and bark. A pestilence on LeBec for mentioning ghosts!
Somewhere in the undergrowth a twig snapped, and Gisele jerked in her saddle, startling the gentle palfrey and causing her to sidle uneasily for a few paces.
Gisele’s heart seemed to be ready to jump right out of her chest.
She was not the only one alarmed. LeBec cursed and growled, “What was that?”
Suddenly a crashing sounded in the undergrowth and a roe deer burst across the path ahead of them, leaping gracefully into a thicket on their left.
“There’s what frightened ye, Captain,” one of the men called out, chuckling, and the rest joined in. “Too bad no one had a bow and arrow handy. I’d fancy roast venison for supper more than what the monks’ll likely serve.”
“Those deer are not for the likes of you or me,” countered LeBec in an irritated voice. Gisele guessed he was embarrassed at having been so skittish. “I’d wager the king lays claim to them.”
“What care have we for what Stephen lays claim to?” argued the other. “Is my lord de l’Aigle not the empress’s man?”
“You may say that right up until the moment Stephen has your neck stretched,” the captain snapped back.
For a minute or two they could hear the sounds of the buck’s progress through the distant wood, then all was quiet once more. The knights clucked to their mounts to resume their plodding.
In the next heartbeat, chaos descended from above. Shapes that Gisele only vaguely recognized as men landed on LeBec and two of the other men, bearing them to the ground as their startled horses reared and whinnied. Arrows whirred through the air. One caught the other man ahead of Gisele in the throat, ending his life in a strangling gurgle of blood as he collapsed on his horse’s withers.
“Christ preserve us!” screamed Fleurette, even as an arrow caught her full in the chest. She sagged bonelessly in the saddle and fell off to the left like a limp rag doll.
“Fleurette!” Gisele screamed frantically, then whirled in her saddle in time to see the rear pair of knights snatched off their horses by brigands who had been merely shapeless mounds amidst the fallen leaves seconds ago. Then Lark, stung by a feathered barb that had pierced her flank, forgot her mannerly ways and began to buck and plunge. Gisele struggled desperately to keep her seat while the shouts and screams of the men behind her and ahead of her testified to the fact that they were being slaughtered by the forest outlaws. The coppery smell of blood filled the air.
With no one left to protect Gisele, the outlaws were advancing on her now, their dirty, bearded, sweat-drenched faces alive with anticipation, holding crude knives at the ready, some with blades still crimson with the blood of the Norman knights dead and dying around them. She was about to be taken, Gisele realized with terror, and what these brigands would do to her would make LeBec’s mention of being held for ransom or forcibly wed sound like heaven in comparison. They’d rape her, like as not, then slit her throat and sell her clothes, leaving her body to be torn by wild animals and her bones to be buried eventually by the falling leaves.
But her palfrey was unwittingly her ally now. As Gisele clung to Lark’s neck, her mount plunged and kicked so wildly that none of the brigands could get near her. One of them picked up his bow and nocked an arrow in the bowstring, leveling it at the crazed beast’s chest.
Then another—perhaps he was the leader—called out something in a guttural English dialect unknown to Gisele. The gesture seemed to indicate that they were not to harm the palfrey—no doubt that man, at least, realized the mare was also a valuable prize. The brigands fell back, but their eyes gleamed like those of wolves as they circled around Gisele and her mare, looking for the opportunity to snatch the wild-eyed horse’s bridle.
In a moment they would succeed, Gisele thought, still striving to keep her seat, and then they would rend her like the two-legged wolves they were. Our Lady help me! Then, on an impulse, she shrieked as if all the demons in hell had just erupted from her slender throat.
It was enough. Terrified anew, the mare sprang sideways, knocking a nearby outlaw over onto his back, then bolted between two other outlaws and headed off the path into the depths of the wood at a crazed gallop. Gisele bent as low as she could over the mare’s straining neck as branches whipped by her face, tearing at her clothes, snatching off her veil and scratching her cheeks.
The sounds of the brigands’ foot pursuit grew more and more distant behind her. If she could just circle her way back out of this wood, Gisele thought, she would ride back to the nearest village. She’d find someone in authority to help her go back and find the rest of her party, though she was fairly certain none were alive. Fleurette had probably died instantly, Gisele thought with a pang of grief, but there was no time to mourn now. A parish priest would surely help her find assistance to get to London and the empress—and she’d send the sheriff back to clean out this nest of robbers!
But Gisele had no idea which way the mare was headed. She had lost her reins as well as her sense of direction in the attack. For all she knew, the terrified beast was going in a circle that would lead her right back into the brutal arms of the outlaws!
She ducked just in time to avoid a painful collision with a stout oak branch, and after that she did not dare to raise her head again. The ground blurred by beneath her. Saints, if she had only been riding astride, it would be easier to hug the horse’s neck, but ladies did not ride astride.
Ladies did not usually have to flee for their lives, either, Gisele reminded herself. When a quick glance revealed no low-lying branches immediately ahead, she renewed her clutching hold on the beast’s streaming mane and threw her right leg over the mare’s bunching withers. There was no stirrup to balance her on that side, of course, but she gripped with her knees as if her salvation depended upon it. Without reins, she would just have to wait until the palfrey wore itself out, and hope that the Weald was not as deep as it was wide. Surely she’d come out before she was benighted here, and find some sort of settlement on the other side.
A log loomed ahead of them, and Gisele tried in vain to persuade the mare away from it by pressure from her knees and tugging on her mane, but having come so far on her own impulses, the palfrey was seemingly loath to start taking direction now. The horse gathered herself and leaped the log, with Gisele clinging like a burr atop her, but then caught her hoof in a half-buried root at her landing point on the other side.
Whinnying in fear, the mare cartwheeled, her long legs flailing. Gisele had no chance to do more than scream as she went flying through the air, striking the bole of a beech with the side of her head. There was a flash of light, and then—nothing.
Chapter Two
Gisele awoke to a gentle nudge against her shoulder. Lark? But no, she thought, keeping her eyes closed, whatever pushed against her shoulder was harder than the soft velvety nose of her palfrey. More like a booted foot…
The outlaws had found her, and were poking her to see if she lived. She froze, holding her breath. In a moment they would try some more noxious means of eliciting a response, and she would not be able to hold back her scream. Doubtless that would delight them.
She waited until her lungs burned for lack of air, then took a breath, eyes still closed.
“The lady lives, my lord.”
“So ’twould seem.”
They spoke good Norman French, not the gutteral Saxon tongue of the outlaws. Gisele’s eyes flew open.
And looked directly up into eyes so dark and deep that they appeared to be black, bottomless pools. The man who owned such eyes stood over her, gazing down at her with open curiosity. He had a warrior’s powerful shoulders and broad chest, and from Gisele’s recumbent position he seemed tall as a tree. He wore a hauberk, and the mail coif framed a face that was all angular planes. The lean, chiseled face, firm mouth, and deep-set eyes shouldn’t have been a pleasing combination, but despite the lack of a smile, it was.
Next to him, the other man who had spoken leaned over to stare at her, too. Even taller than the man he had addressed as my lord, he was massively built, and wore a leather byrnie sewn with metal links rather than a hauberk. Possibly a half-dozen years younger than his master, he was not handsome, but his face bore a stamp of permanent amiability.
“Who—who are you?” Gisele asked at last, when it seemed their duel of gazes might go on until the end of the world.
“I might ask the same of you,” the mail-clad man pointed out.
Gisele wondered if she should tell him the truth. By his speech, the quality of his armor, and the presence of the gold spurs, she could tell he was noble, but whose vassal was he? If he was Stephen’s and found out she was the daughter of a vassal of Matilda’s, would he still behave chivalrously toward her, or treat her with dishonor? She dared not tell him a lie, for in the leather pouch that swung from her girdle, she bore a letter her father had written to introduce her to the empress. If the man standing over her was the dishonorable sort, he might have already have searched that pouch for valuables, and discovered her identity and her allegiance. But he did not look unscrupulous, despite the slight impatience that thinned his lips now.
“I am Lady Sidonie Gisele de l’Aigle. And you?”
He went on studying her silently, until the other man finally said, “He’s the Baron de Balleroy, my lady. What are you doing in the woods all alone?”
“Hush, Maislin. Forgive my squire his impertinence, Lady Gisele. My Christian name is Brys, since you have given me yours. Might I help you to your feet?” he asked, extending a mail-gauntleted hand.
Up to this point Gisele hadn’t moved from her supine position, but as she pushed up on her elbows preparatory to taking his hand, it suddenly seemed as if the devil had made a Saracen drum out of her head and was pounding it with fiendish glee. With a moan she sank back, feeling sick with the intensity of the pain.
“She’s ill, my lord!” the squire announced anxiously.
“I can see that,” she heard de Balleroy snap. “Go catch her palfrey grazing over there, Maislin, while I see what’s to be done. I can see that your face is scraped, my lady, but where else are you hurt? Is aught broken?”
She opened her eyes again to find de Balleroy crouching beside her, his face creased with concern. He was reaching a hand out as if to explore her limbs for a fracture.
“Nay, ’tis my head,” she told him quickly, before he could touch her. “It feels as if it may split open. I…my palfrey fell, and I with her. I…guess the fall knocked me insensible. How long have I lain—” she began, as she struggled to sit up again.
“Just rest there a moment, Lady Sidonie,” he began.
“Gisele,” she corrected him.
He looked blank for a moment, until she explained, “I go by my middle name, Gisele. I was named Sidonie for my mother, but to avoid confusion, I am called Gisele.” There hadn’t been, of course, any confusion in the ten years that her mother had been dead, but de Balleroy needn’t know that.
She started to lever herself into a sitting position, but he put a hand on her shoulder to forestall her. “As to how long you lay there, I know not—but ’tis late afternoon now. And as my squire asked, what were you doing in the Weald alone?” There was an edge to his voice, as if he already suspected her answer.
And then she remembered. “Fleurette! I must go to her! And the men! Maybe I was wrong—even now, one or two may still live!” She thrashed now beneath his hand, struggling to get up, her teeth gritted against the pain her movement elicited.
“Lie still, my lady! You gain nothing if the pain makes you pass out again! You traveled with that party of men-at-arms, and the old woman? My squire and I…well, we came upon them farther back, Lady Gisele. There is nothing you can do for them. They are all dead.”
He could have added, And stripped naked as the day they were born, their throats cut, but he did not. Lady Sidonie Gisele de l’Aigle’s creamy ivory skin had a decidedly green cast to it already. If he described the scene of carnage he and his squire had found, she just might perish from the shock.
She ceased trying to rise. Her eyelids squeezed shut, forcing a tear down her cheek, then another. “We were set upon by brigands, my lord,” she said, obviously struggling not to give way to full-blown sobbing. “They jumped out of the trees without warning. I saw the arrow pierce my old nurse’s breast…but I hoped…”
“Like as not she was dead before she hit the ground, my lady.” Brys de Balleroy said, keeping his voice deep and soothing. “I’ll come back and see them buried, I promise you. But now we must get you to safety—’twill be dusk soon, and we must not remain in the woods any longer. Do you think you can stand?”
She nodded.
“Let me help you,” he told her, placing both of his hands under her arms to help her up. Over his shoulder, Brys saw that his squire had caught the chestnut mare and stood holding the reins nearby, his face anxious.
Lady Gisele gave a gallant effort, but as she first put her weight on her left foot, she gasped and swayed against him. “My ankle—I cannot stand on it!” Pearls of sweat popped out on her forehead as he eased her to the ground. Her face went shroud-white, her pupils dilated.
Leaving her in a sitting position, he went to her foot and began to pull the kidskin boot off.
She moaned and grabbed for his hand. “Nay, it hurts too much….”
He took the dagger from his belt and slit the kidskin boot open from top to toe, peeling the ruined boot from around her swollen ankle before probing the bone with experienced fingers.
He looked up to see her gritting her teeth and staring at him with pain-widened eyes. “’Tis but sprained, I think, my lady, though I doubt not it pains you, for ’tis very swollen. You cannot ride your mare, that’s clear, so you will have to ride with me.”
“But surely if you’ll just help me to mount, I can manage,” she insisted, trying once again to rise.
“You’ll ride with me,” he said, his face set. “You still look as if you could swoon any moment now, and I have no desire to be benighted in this forest with no one but me and my squire to fend off those miscreants. They may come looking for you, you know, so I’ll hear no more argument. Maislin, tie her palfrey to a tree and bring Jerusalem over. I’ll mount and you can lift her up behind me, then lead her mare. You can manage to ride pillion, can’t you, Lady Gisele? I’d hold you in front of me, but I’d rather have my arms free in case your attackers try again before we get out of the wood.”
She nodded, her eyes enormous in her pale oval face. Brys could not tell what hue they were, not in this murky gloom, but he could see she was beautiful, despite the rent and muddied clothes she wore. She had a pert nose, high cheekbones and lips that looked made for a man’s kiss. Beneath the gold fillet and the stained veil which was slightly askew, a wealth of rich brown hair cascaded down her back, much of it loose from the thick plait which extended nearly to her waist.
Once Brys was mounted on his tall black destrier, Maislin lifted Lady Gisele up to him from the stallion’s near side, his powerfully muscled arms making the task look effortless.
“Put your arms about my waist, my lady,” Brys instructed her. “Jerusalem’s gait is smooth, but ’twill steady you as we ride.”
A faint essence wafted to his nostrils, making him smile in wonder. After all she had been through, Lady Gisele de l’Aigle still smelled of lilies. He felt her arms go around him and saw her hands link just above his waist; then felt the slight pressure of her head, and farther down, the softness of her breast against his back. God’s blood, what a delicious torment of a ride this would be!
“You have not said how you came to be here, Lady Gisele,” he said, once they had found the path that led out of the Weald.
He felt her tense, then sigh against his back. He could swear the warmth of her breath penetrated his mail, the quilted aketon beneath, and all the way to his backbone.
“I suppose I owe you that much,” she said at last. “But I must confess myself afraid to be candid, my lord. These are dangerous times….”
Stung by her remark, he said, “Lady, I do not hold my chivalry so cheaply that I would abandon you if I liked not your reason for being in this wood with such a paltry escort. And even if I wanted to, Maislin wouldn’t allow it. He aspires to knighthood and his chivalry, at least, is unsullied.”
He heard her swift intake of breath. “I’m sorry,” she said at last. “I have offended you, and ’twas not my intent, when you have offered me only kindness. But even in Normandy we are aware of the trouble in England, as one noble fights for Stephen, the other for the empress. I know not which side you cleave to, my lord, though I know I am at your mercy whichever it is.”
The idea of this demoiselle being at his mercy appealed to him more than he cared to admit. Aloud, he said, “Then I will tell you I am a vassal of the empress. Does that aid you to trust me? I swear upon the True Cross you have naught to fear of me, even if you are one of Stephen’s mistresses.”
He felt her relax against him like a full grain sack that suddenly is opened at the bottom. “No, I am assuredly not one of those. The de l’Aigles owe their loyalty to Matilda as well, Lord Brys. In fact, I am sent to join her as a lady-in-waiting.”
“Then we are on the same side. ’Tis well, is it not? And better yet, I am bound for London with a message for the empress, so I will consider it my honor to escort you to her court.”
“Our Lord and all His saints bless you, Lord Brys,” she murmured. “I will write to my father, and ask him to reward your kindness.”
“’Tis not necessary, lady. Any Christian ought to do the same,” he said. He felt himself begin to smile. “I am often with her grace, so we shall see each other on occasion. If I can but claim a smile from you each time I come, I shall ask no other recompense.” He could tell, from the shy way she had looked at him earlier, that she was a virgin. Alas. Lady Gisele, if only you were a noble widow instead of an innocent maiden, I’d ask an altogether different reward when I came to court. Brys felt his loins stir at the thought.
Behind him, he heard Maislin give a barely smothered snort, and knew his squire was struggling to contain his amusement at the fulsome remark. He would chasten him about it later, Brys was sure.
“And when did you come to England, Lady Gisele?” he asked, thankful she was riding behind him and could not see the effect his thoughts had on his body.
“We landed at Hastings but this morning, my lord.”
Brys considered that. “Lady Gisele, forgive me for asking, but if your father is as aware of the conditions here as you say, why would he send you with but half a dozen men and an old woman?”
She was silent, and Brys knew his words had been rude. What daughter could allow a parent to be criticized? “I’m sorry if I sounded harsh—”
“Nay, do not apologize, for you are right. There should have been a larger escort. I know that had my horse not bolted, I would have been lucky to escape those brigands with my life, let alone my honor.” Her voice was muffled, as if she fought tears. “Poor Fleurette—to have died because of my father’s…misalculation. And those six men, too. They did not deserve to perish like that, all unshriven.”
He was ready to swear she’d meant some other word when she’d said miscalculation, and he wondered what it was—and what was wrong with the Count de l’Aigle that he valued his daughter so cheaply.
“You have a tender heart, lady.” He only hoped it would not lead her astray at Matilda’s court.
