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Judith’s vision blurred. She swayed, shook her head to clear it, clutched at the rough bark of the tree, and looked again.
Her eyes locked on her mother’s green robe. Edith was bending over Godric, and that unearthly sound was still issuing from her mouth.
One of the knights had wrenched the spear free. A rush of blood stained her father’s tunic, her mother’s green gown, and the leaf-littered grass. Edith was keening loud enough to be heard in London.
“Cease that wailing, woman.” A voice as hard as stone sounded through the rushing in Judith’s ears. The man’s accent was as foreign as his chain-mail coat. “And be warned. So die all traitors to the King!”
Judith was still numb with horror. Her lips moved, but no sound came out. Oddly, other senses were heightened, for she could feel the hard, deep ridges of the bark beneath her fingers and palms. She heard an animal rustling in the Chase behind her. A wood pigeon cooed.
One of the Baron’s men wheeled his horse round and the pigeon was forgotten. He drew back his arm and threw his torch. It described a flaming arch through the evening air and landed squarely on the cottage thatch. It was then that Judith realised why the smell of burning had set that tocsin pealing through her brain. It was not her mother’s cooking fire that she’d smelled. It was more than that. The cottage had been fired. That knight had not been the first to fling his torch. Blue smoke and yellow fire were already creeping up from under the eaves.
It had been a long, hot summer. Long enough and hot enough to ripen all the grain. Judith had helped Edith dry pounds of fruit for their winter store. The straw on the roof was dry too; a small spark would have been enough to fire it. Now the dry grasses crackled. Golden flames shot along the length of the roof; greedy tongues licked upwards. It would not take long.
“Burn! Burn out all traitors!” Another fiery brand was chucked with cruel carelessness on to the thatch. The man who’d flung it was grinning, pleased with his handiwork. Edith’s lament was loud enough to split the heavens apart. One of the riders laughed. Baron Hugo de Mandeville swayed like a sot in his saddle.
Judith could taste bile in her mouth. To think she’d not believed the stories…to think she’d wanted to see with her own eyes. She believed now. Eadwold was right. They were Devil’s spawn. Something snapped inside her. She felt a scream of outrage rise in her throat. It threatened to choke her. Murderers! Norman swine! She set her teeth and snatched out her dagger. She’d get one of them, or die trying…
Judith lurched forwards.
A hard arm clamped round her waist and jerked her back.
““I wouldn’t if I were you,” a male voice hissed urgently in her car. “A pretty girl like you is all they need to complete their day’s entertainment.”
“Let me go!” Judith twisted to try and confront the owner of that iron arm. “Let me go!”
The arm slackened enough for her to turn, and she found herself looking into the bronzed face of a young man she had not seen before. Judith caught a glimpse of unruly brown hair and vivid green eyes. Someone had slashed his face with a whip. A red weal cut across one cheek.
She remembered her dagger, but before she could even blink the young man moved, and conjured her knife into his hand.
Judith stared at it. Her mind was spinning thoughts so fast she couldn’t take them in. She did not believe any of this was happening.
Her mother’s keening stopped abruptly. Judith’s skin chilled. A horse blew through his nose. A harness jingled. And her mother? Judith moaned and struggled to see.
The house was burning furiously. It crackled and spat. Flames streamed from it like golden pennants fluttering in the breeze. The roof ridge sagged. There was a dull crash. The main beam had collapsed, and a shower of bright sparks went spiralling upwards in the twilight air. Her mother lifted a grief-ravaged face and stared blindly at the wreck of her home.
Desperate to reach her parent, Judith lashed out. Her captor held fast. She opened her mouth, but the wretch read her intention, threw her dagger aside, and clamped a firm hand round her mouth. A piece of burning thatch rolled off what was left of the roof and landed in the grass at Judith’s feet. She was whipped clear.
“We’re not safe here,” the voice muttered from behind her. “That wall is about to fall. We’ll hide in the Chase.” He began to drag her into the wood.
Judith fought to hold her ground. She clawed. She kicked. She bit. Her captor yelped, and snatched his hands away. She’d drawn blood. Revolted, she spat it out. She faced her captor and backed to where her dagger lay. Eyes on the young man, she caught it up. “Go and skulk in the forest, coward!” Her voice shook. “I go to help my mother!”
As Judith’s scornful words penetrated, the tanned face hardened. Green eyes dropped to her dagger and came back to look into her eyes. Judith frowned. She did not want to strike him…
He stepped towards her.
Judith brandished her dagger. She hesitated. It was a grave mistake. A swift hand flicked out, and clamped on her arm. The young man twisted lithely, and suddenly Judith was dangling over his shoulder like an unwieldy bundle of sticks. He made straight for the cover of the trees.
“Put-me-down!” Judith shrieked, legs flailing. The Chase seemed to be swinging up and down. It made her dizzy. She could not see straight. “Let-me-go! I-must-help-my-mother. Please, please, put-me-down!” The words jerked from her mouth in time with her abductor’s running steps. She was wasting air. Her captor did not even falter and she needed all of her breath, for it was being bounced from her with every step he took. Her hair swept the forest floor. A few strides, and her already loosened braids unravelled completely.
Judith clenched her fists and tried beating them against the young man’s leather-clad back, but it had no effect. She thought of her mother and let out a strangled moan.
Suddenly the jarring stopped. The young man bent his knees and Judith was tipped into a drift of red leaves.
She pushed herself to her knees, twitched a leaf from her face and watched him through the golden tangle of her hair.
“We’re far enough away. I don’t think they saw us. You’ll be safe now.” He was breathing heavily, but his voice was low and pleasant. He smiled.
Judith saw him wince. His hand rose briefly to touch his damaged cheek, and continued upwards to rake back his hair.
Judith was in no mood to respond to an easy smile. She glared at him from her ignominious perch among the leaves. “Who are you?” she demanded. “What gives you the right to carry me off like this? Did you not see what they did to my father? And my mother. I cannot desert her. What kind of a man are you to run off and leave a helpless woman to face those…those bastards?”
Her eyes ran over him, and a frown creased her brow. She could not make him out. He was no serf. No serf she knew ever possessed a fine leather over-tunic and trousers like his. His belt was a good one. It boasted a silver buckle, but it was not elaborate enough to mark him as noble. Her gaze dropped to his hands. They were fine-boned and unscarred by manual labour.
A sob rose in her throat, Judith held it down. A ghastly suspicion was taking root in her mind, and she knew she’d gone white. “Who are you?” she repeated. “And what are you doing in the Chase?” Her stomach twisted. She threw a harried look over her shoulder. Was he alone?
There was only one reason that she knew of for a stranger to be lurking in the Chase…
“My name is Rannulf. I was hunting.” He shrugged easily. “What else is a chase for?”
Again that persuasive smile. Judith mistrusted it. She had to find out. She’d never be able to help her mother if her supposition was correct. She sat back on her heels and decided to try a direct attack. “I’m told the slavers are back in the Chase,” she said, bluntly.
“Slavers?” The young man called Rannulf looked startled.
That had wiped the smile from his mouth. He had not been expecting that. Perhaps she might trust him…
“Aye, slavers,” she said. “Where have you been that you’ve not heard the warnings?” Again she watched for his reaction.
He looked utterly bewildered, utterly at a loss. He was no slaver.
“So,” Judith freed a trembling breath. “You claim you’re a hunter?”
Rannulf was frowning at the ground, muttering. “Slavers,” he mumbled, and nodded absently in answer to her question.
That explained the leather jerkin he wore, but not his presence in the Chase. “For whom do you hunt?” Judith demanded. “This wood belongs to the Baron de Mandeville. He was leading those brave warriors who just murdered a helpless old man.” She sobbed. “Do you hunt for him?”
Suspicions crowded back, curdling the food in Judith’s belly. She edged away from this man, Rannulf, feeling like a cornered hind facing the hounds. It appeared she had escaped one trap, only to find herself in another. She shot another look over her shoulder. If she could run very, very fast perhaps she could lose him in the dense undergrowth…
His green eyes were watching her. “I wouldn’t if I were you,” he recommended drily. “I know every inch of Mandeville Chase. I would soon catch you.” He dropped to his knees, and held out a hand palm uppermost, as though she were a wild beast that needed gentling.
Judith shrank back. “You did not answer,” she prompted.
“What?”
“Do you hunt with the Baron’s men?”
His lips curved, and Judith felt her stomach tighten. He had very white teeth.
“I?” He seemed to find that amusing. “Hunt with the Baron’s men? Never!” He fingered the red weal on his cheek. “I hunt for myself. Do not fear that I shall take you to him. He did ever like to break things, and I will not give you up to him. Did I not snatch you from under his nose? I did that to save you. Why should I deliver you to him now, having winded myself in getting you away?”
His hand remained outstretched towards her. Judith hesitated, wanting, but not daring, to trust him. She took refuge in scorn. “You think to reassure me by such words?”
“Aye.”
“Well you do not. If you are not in the pay of de Mandeville, you must be an outlaw.”
“Must I?” Rannulf smiled.
“Why else be hunting in the Chase? “Tis reserved for that nest of Norman vipers. Anyone else caught hunting here is hanged as a thief, and if you don’t mind taking that risk you must be desperate indeed. A man with a price on your head. What would an outlaw want with me?”
Rannulf’s lips curved. “What indeed?” he murmured, eyeing her. Then, seeing her worried look, he relented. “Don’t look so worried, I’ll not harm you. I give you my word.”
“The word of an outlaw is meant to reassure me?”
“I begin to think I have rescued a shrew,” he sighed. “Perhaps I should have left you to Hugo’s men. They’re hot blooded enough to knock some sense into you, though I doubt that you would benefit from the lesson.” Rannulf rose to his feet and swung away.
It seemed to have gone very dark in the wood. The trees loomed in on them, like twisted bars in a prison cell. Judith shivered. She did not want to be abandoned here.
She scrambled to her feet, ran to Rannulf, and touched his sleeve. “I’m sorry, R…Rannulf. Don’t leave me. P…please, take me with you.”
Rannulf’s hand closed over hers. It felt warm.
“I won’t leave you. I know where you can stay the night, and tomorrow—”
“Tomorrow?” Judith bit on her lips to stop them trembling. Her voice broke. “I never want tomorrow to come. My father is dead. And my mother…Oh, God! What has happened to my mother?”
Rannulf grasped her chin and forced her to look at him. His eyes were as green as the Chase in high summer. “Listen,” he said. “We’ll get you safe, and then I’ll go back. I’ll see to your mother.”
Judith clutched at his arm. “You will? Oh, Rannulf—”
“Trust me?”
Judith nodded and swallowed.
“Come on, then,” Rannulf said briskly. “We’re wasting time.” He waved towards the thick of the Chase. “That way.” He offered his hand for the second time, and Judith put hers in his.
Rannulf had been gone from the shelter a long time. Judith pulled the folds of the fur-lined cloak he had lent her more tightly about her body, and willed him to return.
She could hear the night-time stirrings of the forest rise and fall outside the hunter’s hide. That was the sound of the wind in the dying dew-damp leaves, and that was the shriek of an owl baulked of its prey. It was black as pitch.
Judith huddled further into the small bower, wondering what protection it would offer her should a wild boar or a wolf come across her scent and decide to investigate. She fumbled for the branches of her refuge, and shook them to test their strength. She was not reassured.
Two large wattle hurdles were leaning against each other. Tied tightly at the top, they left an opening at either end. Two pieces of leather served as doors, and the outside was camouflaged with turves and leaves. It kept the wind off, but it was not designed to protect its occupant from other, more tangible enemies.
A twig cracked outside the bower and Judith’s breath caught in her throat. Rannulf had returned her knife to her. She groped for it.
The leather curtain was drawn inside. “Judith?”
Rannulf’s voice. Judith dropped the dagger. “M…my mother?” she asked at once, moving to make room for him.
He found her hand. “Judith, I’m sorry—”
“She’s dead, isn’t she?”
“Judith,” Rannulf hesitated. “Judith, I don’t know.”
Hope flared. “What do you mean?”
“I went back, as I promised. Your father was lying as we last saw him. Your house was no more than a smouldering pile of ashes, but your mother was not there. I looked everywhere. She has gone.”
“My brothers!” Judith exclaimed. “My brothers must have got her away. They must.”
“Brothers?”
Judith nodded before she remembered the darkness hid her face. “Aye, I’ve two of them. They are both older than I. They will have her. I know they will.”
“I pray you are right.”
“Tomorrow I will find them,” Judith declared. “And tomorrow we will…we will bury my father.” She sniffed and dashed away a tear. She’d not cry before a stranger.
“Judith?” Rannulf’s voice came softly through the blackness.
“Aye?”
“’Tis no shame to weep.”
Judith sniffed again. A silence fell over them. She could hear the wind soughing in the branches above them.
Rannulf shook her hand. “You must rest. You will need your strength tomorrow.”
“I won’t sleep. How could I?” she asked, rousing herself with an effort to speak.
“If you cannot sleep, at least you can be rested. Come. Lie you here. And my cloak, thus. There. I will stand guard over you. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight, Rannulf. My thanks,” Judith whispered, and settled down into the softness of his ermine-lined cloak.
The Normans had thrust a knife in her heart. They were twisting it. The pain was not to be borne.
Judith screamed and woke. She did not know where she was. Memory flooded back. She groaned aloud.
“Judith, Judith, hush.” Warm arms enfolded her, comforting arms. Childlike, she clung.
“Rannulf?” She gave a dry sob.
“You are not alone,” he said. “Cry. ’Tis better to grieve.” Rannulf stroked her hair from her face. The gesture was oddly reminiscent of her mother.
The dam broke. Tears flooded, and streamed scalding down her cheeks. Judith did not hear Rannulf’s murmured words, did not notice the hand that caressed her. She burrowed closer into his arms. She needed comfort and here was its source.
At length the sobbing eased. Rannulf’s arms fell away.
