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Mathieu took a deep breath and inhaled Aelia’s scent. He felt her softness against him and hardened his thoughts against any unwelcome mercy.
She was his prisoner, nothing more. And there was no excuse for his thoughts to keep returning to his arousing dream, or to wonder if he could make those sighs of pleasure that he’d imagined real. Better to think of Lady Aelia with a stout rope around her pretty neck.
Or not think of her at all.
Mathieu and Auvrai took the main path, while the men who flanked them rode through the sparse woods. Mathieu had decided to approach Ingelwald with only a few men visible. The rest would remain beyond the line of trees near the Saxon holding, awaiting the results of the parley that would take place with Selwyn. He had already instructed the herald, Gilbert de Bosc, on what was to be said, and that he wanted the Saxon’s words translated.
“Will you allow me to speak to Selwyn?” his captive asked.
“I am no fool, Lady Aelia. Either he agrees or he does not. I am prepared for either decision.”
She took a shuddering breath. “If he agrees, then we will become your slaves. If he refuses, then you must execute me. And Osric.”
Chapter Four
’T was still early when they reached the walls of Aelia’s home. The morning was cold and clear, all the better for Selwyn and the others to observe her sitting astride the Norman’s massive steed. To bear witness to her defeat.
Aelia swallowed reflexively. A light breeze ruffled her hair and her muscles tightened in spite of her resolve to appear serene. Her body was so tense with her hatred for this Norman scoundrel, she felt her bones might break if she moved even slightly.
The Norman herald rode forth and blew his horn. Then he called out to those who waited beyond the walls. “Hear ye, men of Ingelwald!”
Aelia clasped her hands into fists in her lap and gazed up at the high battlements. Without a weapon, and with no hope of escape, she could do naught but wait upon Selwyn’s pleasure. Would he trade Ingelwald for her life?
Aelia felt Fitz Autier’s breath in her hair, his powerful arms like steel bands around her. His armored thighs bracketed her hips, making her feel inadequate and small. Fitz Autier was ready for battle, but what about her? She and Osric were unprotected. If Selwyn commanded the archers to fire upon them, Aelia and her brother could easily be wounded or killed.
She glanced over at Osric, who was struggling against the Norman knight who held him fast, and felt an unrelenting urge to grab him and run.
’Twas impossible. They were doomed, unless some practical plan suddenly came into her head.
But she’d been over it a hundred times. Selwyn would never give up Ingelwald for her. If he could win this battle against the Normans, her father’s rich holding would belong to him. The Normans would kill her and Osric, and Selwyn would have no rival for possession of the estate.
Aelia could not see any way for her to win.
“Selwyn will not barter for me.”
Fitz Autier said naught, but Aelia felt his breath leave him. Whether ’twas in anger or frustration, she did not know. He must have hoped he could engage in a peaceful exchange—her life for Ingelwald. Now he would have to win it in battle.
And execute her on principle.
“After my father died, I told Selwyn I would not wed him. He has no claim to Ingelwald unless I am dead.”
The Norman tightened his grip on the reins and turned his horse, signaling Sir Auvrai to follow. “You might have mentioned this before now, demoiselle.” His tone was gruff, ill-tempered.
She took a deep, quavering breath and held on to the horse’s mane. “I thought—”
Aelia heard the first arrow hit Fitz Autier’s armor, but he seemed to suffer no damage. He retreated so fast she had difficulty seeing whether the other knight followed him to the safety of the trees. They were under attack, and Aelia felt the Norman lean over her to protect her from the volley of arrows that rained down from her father’s high walls.
She did not understand. Why didn’t he just throw her into the line of fire and be done with her?
Fitz Autier’s mounted regiments advanced, but the soldiers made way for their leader as he rode through their ranks, retreating well behind the line of battle.
He beckoned two of his foot soldiers. “Take this woman and her vexing brother back to camp!” She felt his hands encircle her arms and he swung her to the ground. “Tie them securely, and don’t take your eyes off them.” He lowered his visor and turned toward Ingelwald as Sir Auvrai dropped Osric unceremoniously beside her.
Aelia watched the two Normans turn to the battle. Neither one looked back.
The sounds of battle horns and clashing swords raged in Aelia’s ears. She barely noticed her hands being bound by the Norman guards, nor did she heed Osric’s torrent of curses and complaints when they were tied together with a sturdy rope. She heard men’s angry voices in the distance, and the clash of steel upon steel. The unmistakable tones of taut bowstrings and loosed arrows filled her ears.
One of the guards gave her a shove and they started on the path toward the Norman camp. There was a better route, but Aelia would not show it to them. There might come a time when she and Osric would need to use it, and ’twould not do to have the Normans too familiar with the terrain.
Ingelwald would fall to Fitz Autier. The absolute certainty of it shook Aelia, and she stumbled blindly as they trod across the uneven ground in the woods. Her life as she’d known it was over, but perhaps her people would go on as before. They were no threat to these French bastards. This war was between Saxon landholders and the Norman encroachers, Frenchmen who would take all that the Saxon lords had built, and steal it for their own.
The people of Ingelwald would go back to their cottages and fields, but Aelia dreaded to think what would happen to her and to Osric. Were they to be sold as slaves to the Scots who raided Ingelwald lands when they had need of cattle and laborers? Mayhap Fitz Autier would send them back to Normandy, to face a future of servitude there.
She shuddered at the thought that they might yet be killed as an example to her vanquished people.
The fighting was now confined to the third level of Wallis’s hall. Mathieu fought hand to hand, with Auvrai at his side, until they reached the last pocket of resistance. Five men defended the uppermost chamber, a circular tower with arrow nooks opening in each direction. Mathieu was certain the man giving the orders was Selwyn, Lady Aelia’s spurned betrothed.
He was no suitable husband for as beautiful a maid as Aelia. Selwyn was middle-aged, with grizzled features and a decided lack of respect for the woman whose family had given him refuge. Mathieu knew that the man’s lands had already been confiscated by King William, and that Selwyn had sought refuge at Ingelwald.
“This is the worm who would not negotiate for his lady’s life,” Mathieu called to Auvrai. He crossed swords with the man, letting his anger dictate every parry, every thrust of his blade. “He would prefer to steal her family’s holding from her than keep her from harm.”
Auvrai did not reply, nor did Mathieu expect an answer as they fought the cohorts of this Saxon lord. The battle was fierce, and when one of the whoresons swung his ax toward Auvrai’s blind side, Mathieu skewered the man.
He used both hands to wield his broadsword, slashing and hacking until one of the men swung his mace and nearly caught him in the throat, where his helm offered little protection. Mathieu ducked the blow and shoved the Saxon out the door, causing the man to pitch down the stairs. Selwyn bellowed at him in his Saxon tongue, clearly castigating him, but Mathieu had had enough. Too many of his men had been killed or wounded. Fires burned in the castle courtyard, and there was panic among the women and children. ’Twas ungodly hot in his armor, and Mathieu was out of patience.
“Yield!” he shouted.
Selwyn responded, but clearly did not yield.
“Your last warning, Saxon! Give in now, and I will consider sparing your life!”
Selwyn lunged, but Mathieu speared him with one last fatal thrust. Only a breath away from death, the Saxon tried to wield his sword again, muttering incoherently. He took one step toward Mathieu, but collapsed before he could raise his arm.
There were still two Saxons standing. When they saw Selwyn’s fate, they gave up their weapons.
“Pick him up,” Mathieu ordered, gesturing toward Selwyn with the tip of his broadsword.
The men did not understand his words, but Auvrai showed them what was required. The largest of the men hoisted Selwyn’s body to his shoulder and carried him to the stairs, then down to the main hall, where Norman knights continued to fight furiously for domination over their Saxon opponents.
One by one, the battles ceased as Ingelwald men caught sight of Selwyn’s bloody carcass. They pointed and exclaimed, and soon all were subdued by Mathieu’s men, who seized their weapons and herded them outside. The elation of victory was upon the Norman soldiers, and Mathieu knew there would be hell to pay if he did not take steps to protect that which had not yet been destroyed.
“Auvrai, Gilbert! Restrain them!” he shouted. “Osbern, find the ale…get some food. Divert these men from their bloodlust. I want the village and all who dwell within left intact!” Mathieu ordered. He would not begin his tenure here as a hated overlord.
’Twas several hours before Ingelwald was fully secured and his own warriors well occupied. Women and children were spared, as were any Saxon men who willingly laid down their weapons. Mathieu made his rounds, surveying the damage done, taking note of all that could be salvaged. He walked through Wallis’s hall—Aelia’s home—and gave instructions regarding the former lord’s possessions.
He entered a bedchamber that overlooked a courtyard, and realized he was in Lady Aelia’s private quarters. There could be no other occupant whose size fit the suit of cuir-bouilli, the hardened leather armor that lay on the narrow feather bed. When he picked up one of the gauntlets, his own hand dwarfed it, and he was appalled to think he might have met her in battle had she not ventured into his camp the previous night and become his prisoner. He would have assumed he was fighting an adolescent lad, not a woman.
’Twas not to say he had decided what to do with her. Should he hang her and the red-haired brat to demonstrate his power to the villagers? Or take her to William, where she would suffer a public humiliation before her execution?
Both options were difficult to swallow, though he knew not why he should care. Lady Aelia and her brother were no more than two obstacles to that which Mathieu desired with all his heart—this land, and the prestige of being one of William’s conquering champions…and the pride of bringing a beautiful, wellborn bride here, to his own rich holding.
A stringed instrument stood propped against one of the chamber walls, and a beautifully carved fruitwood recorder lay upon a trunk at the end of the bed. As one who had spent many a leisurely hour making his own carvings, Mathieu appreciated the fine craftsmanship of the piece, even as he imagined Aelia’s lips upon the instrument, and the music she would make. He opened the trunk and removed several articles of clothing—delicate chainsil and sturdy woolens. Placing the recorder across the center of the pile of clothes, he rolled it all into a neat package and carried it from the chamber.
“Find something to put this in,” he said, handing the bundle to one of his men. “And put it with the packs that will return to London with me.”
Hours passed, with no news of what was happening to Aelia’s home, to her people. When the acrid smell of smoke permeated the air around her, chafing her nose and burning her throat, she blinked back tears and vowed revenge. “The village!” she whispered to Osric. “They’ve torched our village!”
So many cottages, the shops, the livestock. All would be destroyed by the Norman bastard, who would take her father’s land and enslave her people.
Osric jumped to his feet, pulling the rope that bound him to Aelia. “I will kill him,” he said. But one of the Norman guards shoved him to the ground once again. “And you, too!”
“Take care, little brother,” Aelia said, blinking back her tears. She would be the one to exact their revenge upon Fitz Autier. She did not know how she would manage it, but somehow, she would kill the bastard and take Ingelwald back for their people.
As dusk grew near, riders approached and dismounted. “We’re to break camp,” one of them said. “And get these two back to the hall.”
Hall? Aelia almost laughed at the absurdity. What hall? She fired her questions at the Normans, but they did not give her the courtesy of a reply, merely ordering her and Osric to start walking.
Osric denounced the Norman guards in English, in French and in Latin as he trudged back through the forest toward Ingelwald. Aelia was too angry to say a word, and worried, too.
Would Fitz Autier kill her and Osric now? Had he waited until his victory was assured before executing them?
As they came closer to Ingelwald, the smoke became thicker, hovering low amid the branches in the woods. Aelia’s eyes teared so badly that her vision was impaired when they reached the edge of the wood and entered the village that lay outside the walls.
“’Tis still here!” Osric exclaimed.
Aelia wiped her eyes, though her sight still was not clear. “Hardly, Osric.” She knew about the Normans’ tactics—the devastation they wrought that took years to repair.
Yet Aelia gradually saw that the cottages remained intact, for the most part. The tannery, the weaver’s shop, the tavern…none had been destroyed. Fowl and swine ran loose between the buildings, and people called to her from their doorsteps.
Aelia’s throat felt too raw to answer. She stumbled blindly through the village until they reached Ingelwald’s timber gate, which lay shattered on the ground beneath her feet. Inside the walls, she heard the sounds of weeping. Here was proof of the Normans’ brutality.
The smallest of the buildings within the walls had been burned to the ground. Her father’s house remained, only because much of it was constructed of rock and stone, but Aelia had no doubt that the Norman bastard would raze it, too, when it suited him.
Osric pointed toward the area beside the armory, where a long row of bodies lay upon the ground, and a number of women stood holding each other, weeping.
Aelia’s heart lodged in her throat. Heedless of the knight who shouted at her, she walked toward the grieving women. Dead Normans and Saxons lay beside one another, as though they’d not spent their last days trying to butcher each other.
“My lady!” cried one mourning widow. She grabbed Aelia’s sleeve and knelt, pressing her forehead to Aelia’s knee. Her tears soaked through the soft wool of Aelia’s braies. “My Sigebert! ’Tis my Sigebert lying at your feet! What am I to do? Our children…”
“Hilda, come,” said another of the women.
“No! These Norman bastards killed him…my Sigebert….”
The woman took the widow away as others knelt and kissed Aelia’s hands.
Aelia swallowed. Her hatred had become a palpable thing. Everything in her field of vision became clouded by a red haze of rage, and her hands itched to do violence. She would vent her anger, but not just any Norman would do. When she loosed her wrath, ’twould be upon the leader of these vermin.
The guard tried to lead her back toward the great hall, but Aelia shrugged him off, pushing Osric ahead of her. “A weapon,” she said to her brother. “We must find something to use against these foreigners.”
“On the bodies,” Osric replied. “One of them must have a knife or… Look, Aelia,” he said. “’Tis Selwyn.”
True enough, the man who’d been chosen to be her husband lay among the dead. Aelia mourned him, not because of any particular fondness for the man, but because he was Saxon. He did not deserve this ignominious fate. Aelia vowed that he and all the other Saxon warriors would be decently buried.
Aelia reined in her temper and walked down the line of bodies, hesitating at each one to say a short prayer, while she searched for an overlooked weapon. When she came to the body of a woman laid out among the warriors, she gasped. ’Twas Erlina One-Ear, the pitiful crone who lived in a tiny cottage at the farthest end of the village. In recent years, Erlina had started muttering incoherently to herself as she walked through the village, and though her behavior seemed to become more bizarre with every passing month, she was harmless.
“’Twas murder,” Aelia said to Osric.
“There is no wound upon her.”
Aelia whirled ’round to face Fitz Autier, who stood watching her with his hands casually perched upon his narrow hips. He closed the distance between them. “Don’t try to convince me that you weren’t thinking the worst of me and my men. We didn’t kill the old woman.”
“Then how did she die?”
“Mayhap you should examine the body and tell me.”
“I am no leech, Norman. But neither was she a soldier.”
He wore a long, split hauberk, but his head remained uncovered. His hair was not barbered in the usual manner of Normans, but neglected and left to grow as it would. With one day’s growth of beard and the terrible slash across his cheek, he looked imposing and dangerous. Still Aelia found herself alarmingly drawn to him.
He slid her knife from his belt and sliced through the rope that bound her to Osric. “Take him to the prisoners’ quarters.”
“No!” Aelia cried, reaching for him. “He’s just a child!”
“I’m no child, Aelia!” Osric countered angrily. “I will stay with our men until it is time.”
“Time for what?” Fitz Autier asked, his voice an ominous growl of pique and displeasure. “Time for what, boy?”
Osric stared defiantly at the Norman leader, then spoke through his teeth. “For my execution, bastard.”
“Osric, no!” Aelia’s breath caught in her throat and she resisted closing her eyes against the surety of what was about to happen.
But rather than gutting the boy with the knife in his hand, Fitz Autier motioned to the guard to take him away.
“What will you do with him?”
Fitz Autier took hold of the rope that bound Aelia’s hands and pulled her beside him. “Better for you to consider what I will do with you, demoiselle.”
Aelia swallowed hard and stumbled alongside the Norman as he strode into the great hall of her father’s house. A fire burned in the massive hearth, providing the only light in the cavernous hall. A number of Frenchmen with bloody wounds lay upon pallets here, sleeping or moaning in pain.
Fitz Autier continued walking until he reached the stairs, then pushed her in front and made her climb. “Where are you taking me?”
“Keep moving,” he replied.
“I—I’m hungry.” She had not eaten all day.
“Gilbert!” He did not stop moving, but shouted to someone below. “Send food.”
“You…you can’t…I…”
