Rogue Knight (Medieval Warriors Book 2) (4 page)

“Malet has much to account for.”

In the face of William’s ire Geoff remained silent.

“And what of our wolf? Where is he?”

“Recovering in Talisand from a grievous wound, My Lord. He
was most disappointed to be forced to remain behind.”

The king frowned, then raised his brow. “He will recover?”

“Yea, My Lord. His lady tends him.”

William nodded, apparently satisfied. “I remember well the
beautiful archer who guards our wolf. A bit too free with her arrows, we
think.”

Geoff smiled at the king’s recollection of the Lady Serena.
It was true Serena would fight any who threatened one she loved. He turned his
horse in a circle to take his place next to the king as the two of them
proceeded to walk their horses toward York.

The Talisand knights circled their horses to join William’s
army behind the king’s guard.

Slain Northumbrians and Normans lay on either side of their
path. The king gave them scant attention. “Have you captured many of the
rebels?”

“Some, My Lord, but many fled when confronted with our
longer swords.”

“We suspect the leaders have slipped through our net once
again,” said the king with narrowed brows. “That apostate, Earl Cospatric, is
likely one of them. Any word of the Ætheling?”

Geoff saw the worry in the king’s face and knew William
feared a rebel plan to have the young Edgar crowned king here in York.
Archbishop Ealdred of York certainly had the authority. “Nay, sire.”

They were almost to the castle when the king paused and
looked up at the tower. “We are of a mind to build a second castle in York to
remind the populace we reign here as we do in the rest of England.”

Given William’s propensity toward building the symbols of
his domination, Geoff was unsurprised. “Might I take my leave of you here,
sire? I’d like to scout the countryside for rebel stragglers and wounded before
returning.”

“Go, Sir Geoffroi. Leave none to escape. We will see you at
the evening meal.”

At Geoff’s signal, Alain and Mathieu peeled off from
William’s army and followed him into the forest. He could only wonder what he
might find.

* * *

Emma emerged from the dense stand of trees, shocked by the
tragic scene before her. Despite her search, she had not found Ottar and,
disbelieving what was shouted in the streets, had come to see for herself. But
not even her dream had prepared her for the slaughter that had awaited her
here.

Dear God
.

She crossed herself and covered her mouth, fighting the urge
to spew at the sight of so much blood and so many bodies strewn about the
clearing, blood congealed on their clothing, their vacant eyes staring into
space. Some of the blood had pooled on the ground to catch the rays of the sun.
The metallic scent of it, carried by the wind, rose in her nostrils.

At her side, the hound whimpered.

So many.

Until the Normans had come, Yorkshire had been a place of
gentle hills, forests and thatched cottages circling a glistening jewel of a
city set between two winding rivers. A place of children’s voices at play, some
of those voices now silenced forever, for among the bodies lying on the cold
ground were mere boys, their corpses cast aside like broken playthings.

At the sound of heavy footfalls on the snow-crusted ground,
she jerked her head around, her heart pounding in her chest.

A figure emerged from the trees, so close she could have
touched him.

She cringed.
A Norman.

A tall giant of a knight, his blood-splattered mail a dull
gray in the weak winter sun, ripped off his silvered helm and expelled an oath
as he surveyed the dozens of dead. The sword in his hand still dripped the
blood of those he had slain. He was no youth this one, at least thirty. His
fair appearance made her think of Lucifer, the fallen angel of light.
A
seasoned warrior of death who has taken many lives.

Had he killed people she knew? Her heart raced as fear rose
in her chest.

Would she be next?

The wind blew his straw-colored hair about his face as he
turned from the field of bodies to stare at her.

She backed away as their gazes met and a frown creased his
forehead, a puzzled look flickering in his stark blue eyes. Was he surprised to
find a living soul among the dead? Or was it because she was a woman?

Beneath her cloak, her hand went to her seax, her mind
screaming for retribution even as fear rose in her throat. Magnus came to her
side but, to her surprise, did not growl at the threatening warrior.

The knight’s eyes shifted to where her hand gripped the hilt
of her knife. “Still your hand, lady. I mean you no harm.” He had spoken in
English.

Wiping his sword on his leg, he sheathed the weapon in a
leather scabbard attached to his belt.

“No harm?” she blurted out. Taking her hand from the hilt of
her blade, she swept it in a wide arc over the bodies. “Is this not harm
enough?” Her voice dripped with the sarcasm and hatred she felt for the Norman
Bastard and his soldiers.

“The rebels brought this on themselves.”

Before she could answer, Magnus let out a sudden bark and
bolted across the clearing to where a mere youth, blood spattered on his tunic,
lay on the snow-covered ground. The hound licked the boy’s face and she heard
the boy groan. A sudden dread came over her when she spotted the familiar tunic
and sun-streaked hair. “Ottar!”

She flew across the clearing and knelt beside him. Magnus
pressed his nose to the boy’s cheek.

“Ottar!”

His eyes were closed and his face was as pale as the snow he
lay upon. Desperation rose in her mind. Placing her ear on his chest, she heard
the sound of a heartbeat.
He lives!

Ignoring the knight behind her, she gathered Ottar into her
arms and tried to stand, anxious to take him home. But the lad was heavy and
she faltered.

The knight’s shadow fell across her. “I will carry him.”

She reached her arm protectively over Ottar. “You’ll nay
touch him, Norman scum.”

“You have no choice but to allow me. ’Tis obvious you cannot
bear his weight.”

“Have you and your kind not done enough?”

He bent and scooped up the boy. “Do not be foolish, woman.
You have my word no harm will come to you or the lad.”

What was the word of a Norman to her? She hesitated, hating
to accept his help but there was the town to cross and she was not certain she
could carry Ottar the distance she must. Nor could she leave him to freeze on
the icy ground. “All right.”

With her words, into the clearing stepped two Normans, one
very large knight holding the reins of a great, gray horse. His dark hair and
the scar on his face rendered his visage frightening. The other man was
younger, his appearance almost boyish, but he held himself proud and erect. He
led two horses, not as large as the gray. Both were black.
A squire.

The blond knight carried Ottar toward the larger Norman and
signaled him to mount, then placed the boy in his arms. “You carry the lad,
Alain. I’ll take the woman.”

The large knight grunted his acceptance and cradled the boy
in one arm, holding the reins in the other. Despite his frightening visage, he
handled Ottar with a gentleness that belied his great size and appearance.

To the younger one, the blond knight said, “Mathieu, check
to see if any others are alive.”

Emma was saddened by the deaths yet relieved not to have
recognized any of the others who had fallen there. She was particularly glad
not to have seen her father among the dead.

Her attention focused on Ottar, she experienced a tremor of
fear at seeing his eyes still closed. She was about to object to being
separated from him when the blond knight mounted his black warhorse, brought it
swiftly to her side and reached down to sweep her into his lap.

She shrieked in protest. “Where are you taking us?”

“Wherever you like, lady. Lead on.”

She breathed a sigh of relief, anxious to get Ottar home.
But what if her father were there? She dismissed the thought. It mattered little
at this point. For whatever reason, this knight, this Lucifer wanted to help.
She must see the boy to his bed, no matter it would be a Norman who brought him
there. No matter what payment he might expect.

The young one named Mathieu finished checking the bodies and
called out to the blond knight, “The boy is the only one living, sir.”

Grateful Ottar might survive and eager to get him home, once
they were inside the city’s walls, Emma directed them down winding alleys and
paths that were away from the main streets. She had no wish to encounter either
Normans or the rebel fighters.

Geoff guided his horse as the woman directed. The large hound
trailed beside the destrier, the dog’s dark eyes anxiously watching its
mistress. Geoff remembered the woman and her hound from the first day he’d
entered York. He had never seen a more beautiful woman nor a dog so large. Even
then, the image of them striding along together through the crowd had captured
his attention. He was certain it was the same woman the hound stared at so
intently. But this was not a day for her to be wandering outside of the city,
even with such an escort. What had brought her to the clearing where a battle
had raged? Mayhap she had been searching for the lad. Or a husband? Her headcloth
told him she was married. Even so, it was foolishness for the woman to risk so
much.

She had the most incredible eyes he had ever seen, even when
they flashed in anger. Blue-green like the waters of the River Lune on a
sun-filled day. She sat before him, wisps of her pale hair, freed from its
plait, blowing across his face like gentle rain. With his arms on either side
of her, leaving his hands free to direct his difficult warhorse chafing at its
bit, she was forced to sit with her back tight against his chest. Her scent was
fresh, like delicate herbs, reminding him the Danes bathed often.

He had not had a woman in his arms for a very long while,
not since London in the days after the Conquest. Talisand had few wenches
available for sport and Eawyn had never invited him to her bed. Now he had one
of York’s women in his lap, her buttocks tight against his groin, her female
scent rousing his senses and causing his loins to swell. A woman he should not
be drawn to but was. There was beauty in her face and spirit in her heart but
he saw hatred in her eyes.

The city was quiet as they made their way through the back
alleys and streets she directed him to take. The rebels that had survived
William’s army would be lying low now that York was once again in Norman hands
with more than a thousand knights to maintain order.

They took a narrow passage between buildings that emptied
onto a street of fine manor homes, much larger than the cottages he had seen
elsewhere. “Stop here,” she said when he nearly passed a large, two-story home.

“You live
here
?”

“Yea.”

It was not the home of a peasant or a common villager. This
was a rich man’s home, on a street of rich men’s homes. “This is your
husband’s?”

“’Tis mine,” she said defiantly. “My husband is three years
dead.”

A widow. A beautiful, young widow.
Was she, too, in
love with her dead husband as Eawyn was?

He dismounted and reached his arms to lift her from the
saddle. Reluctantly, or so it appeared to him, she accepted his help, putting
her hands on his shoulders. Once she was standing, he took the lad from Alain
and followed her to the front door.

Alain and Mathieu dismounted.

She knocked on the door. A man in his fourth decade answered
and, by his simple tunic and leggings, Geoff judged him a servant. The man
pulled the door wide and paled when his gaze fell upon Geoff standing behind
the woman, holding the boy in his arms.

“Praise God you are safe, Mistress, but what has happened to
the boy?”

Her voice wavering, she said, “Ottar is hurt. Prepare his
bedchamber, Artur, and hurry.”

The servant hastened to do her bidding.

With the lad in his arms, Geoff turned to Mathieu and Alain.
“Take care of the horses, Mathieu, then come inside. ’Tis too cold to remain
out here.”

“There is a stable in the back,” the woman said.

The squire nodded and headed for the rear of the house, the
horses in tow.

To Alain, who stood silently waiting, Geoff said in a low
voice, “’Twould be best if you, too, wait within.”

Geoff followed the woman into the house and trudged up the
stairs behind her and the hound to the upper floor where she led him to a
chamber with two narrow beds. A small table was set between them, a chest at
the end of each bed. It was simple in decoration but clean and the rushes,
smelling of lavender, were fresh. Hanging on the wall were two tapestries
picturing children in a field of flowers.

“You can lay him here,” she directed, pointing to the bed
with the cover turned back.

The servant he had seen earlier added a piece of wood to the
fire that burned in the brazier and stirred the glowing coals. “’Twill be
warmer soon, Mistress.”

The hound settled himself next to the source of warmth,
resting his head on his paws.

Once Geoff had laid the boy on the bed, he sat on its edge
and began inspecting the boy for wounds.

“What are you doing?” the woman asked, her beautiful eyes
shouting her concern as she removed her cloak and set it aside. Beneath it, she
wore a deep blue gown that fit snuggly to her breasts and hips. Despite the
anger in her eyes, she was an alluring sight.

He forced his attention back to the unconscious boy. “I am
looking for wounds.” He had seen the blood splattered on the lad’s clothes, but
no tear in the cloth. “The blood on his tunic is not his.” He began to examine
the rest of the boy, beginning at the top of his head. An egg-sized lump
protruded from the side and Geoff’s searching fingers found blood underneath
the boy’s hair. “I believe he was hit by the broad side of a sword. See the
dried blood there and the large bump?”

She leaned closer and tenderly touched the spot. Turning to
the servant, she said, “Artur, get me ice. It will be clean in the back of the
house. And tell Sigga I will need water, salve and bandages.”

“Aye, Mistress.” He dipped his head and departed.

The woman began to undress the lad. When he was freed of the
bloodstained garments, she threw them to the floor and walked to the chest at
the end of the bed, drawing out a clean nightshirt. Seeing her intent, Geoff
carefully lifted the boy’s shoulders so she could pull the shirt over his head.

Her eyes flashed a protest but she did not stop him. He knew
instinctively she would tolerate his presence, and his help, if only for the
sake of the boy.

“Why do you help a boy your fellow knights left for dead?”

Why indeed?
Had it been the woman? He might have
noticed the lad was alive and taken him back to the castle, yet it was the
woman who he had rushed to help. “I would not see children die with men. He
should not have been in the fighting.”

“On that, at least, we agree.”

A small girl peeked her head around the open doorway, a
worried expression on her young face. “What is wrong with Ottar, Emma?”

Ah, the young widow’s name is Emma.

“Ottar has been hurt, Finna, and I am caring for him.” Her
voice was much different when she addressed the child. It was the tender voice
of a mother taking time to explain to her young daughter. But why did the child
call her Emma and not Mama?

The servant, Artur, returned with the items Emma had
requested. The little girl followed him into the room, stopping to pat the head
of the giant hound, unafraid. The hound licked at her hand.

Bent to her work, Emma cleaned the boy’s wound of dried
blood, applied salve from a clay jar and wrapped a bandage around his head. The
little girl walked to the bed and took the boy’s hand in hers, her brow
wrinkled in worry, a tear falling from her eye. The sweet gesture made him
smile.

Geoff stole a glance at Emma as she leaned over the boy,
concentrating on the last wrap of the bandage. The glow from the brazier caused
tendrils of her hair to glimmer a pale gold. Her skin was the color of cream,
her full lips enticing. Her waist was narrow and her breasts rounded and full.
He did not doubt she was lovely beneath the gown.

She ignored him, occasionally shifting her gaze to the large
hound as if she expected him to rise up and growl. But the hound lay content,
not at all disturbed by Geoff being near her or the children. He had always
liked animals and in his father’s demesne in Tournai, hounds abounded, but none
as large as this one.

Geoff was about to leave when the little girl came to stand
beside him, her big brown eyes focused on his bloodstained hauberk. She glanced
from his mail to his eyes, seemingly unafraid. “Are you the Norman Bastard Emma
talks about?”

He held back a laugh, but his lips curved into a smile, his
eyes darting to Emma. She fumbled with the bandages in her lap, keeping her
head down. Because of the innocence with which the question had been spoken,
Geoff was not offended, not even for his king. “Nay, Finna, I am merely one of
his knights.”

“Oh,” she breathed, returning his smile. The child was
charming.

Emma shot him a glance, her expression stern. “You should
leave.”

He rose. Mayhap he had stayed overlong.

She stood. Slowly she raised her head as if gathering her
courage. “You have my thanks for bringing the boy home when I could not.” It
was clear she had been raised a lady, and her breeding would not allow her to
be ungracious to one who had rendered help, even if he were someone she hated.
Still, her hostility made it easier to take his leave. Had his reception been
otherwise, he might have been tempted to pursue her. A strange thought given he
was not looking for such a woman.

But he, too, could be gracious. He bowed before her. “Sir
Geoffroi de Tournai at your service, my lady.” He took a few steps toward the
door, then paused and looked back. “These are perilous times. Should you ever
have need of me, remember my name.”

He turned on his heels and strode through the door, his
spurs sounding loud in his ears in the silence that filled the chamber as he
left.

* * *

Emma took a deep drink of her mead and let out a sigh as she
stared at the pot of stew Sigga stirred over the kitchen fire while humming a
Nordic folk tune as she worked. In her mind, Emma saw only the tall, fair-haired
knight. She had not expected kindness from a Norman. Perhaps he felt guilt for
the children slain? Had her father been one of those he had slain that day?
Might it have been her father’s blood on the knight’s mail?

Sigga paused in her singing to dish out the stew.

Emma spoke her thought aloud. “I am glad my father was not
here.”

“Aye,” agreed Sigga, her dark eyes shadowed by her head
cloth, “’twould nay have been pleasant.”

“But where is he? Many men from York have been killed and he
has not returned.”

“He will be fine, Mistress. Maerleswein is a strong man,
good with a sword and a wise leader of men.”

Emma stared at the shelves that held earthen vessels and
baskets of herbs Sigga used in cooking, but she was thinking of her father.
“Yea, and a leader of the rebellion, too,” she said. “He would have been in the
front of the fighting.”

Sigga glanced up from the bowls of stew set before her.
“Have no worry, Mistress, you will see him ere long.”

Emma drew comfort from Sigga’s words and idly looked around
for Artur, not having seen him since the Normans left some time ago. In the
morning, he was often with his wife.

Sigga’s gaze met hers. “Artur has gone to the Minster to see
how the old archbishop fares.”

“I had not thought to worry about a man of God. Might the
Normans seek to harm him or the church?”

“They will be taking vengeance wherever they can find it,”
said Sigga. “The Minster is large and will draw their attention. And some of
the rebels may seek sanctuary there. We are fortunate to be so far from the
center of town.”

Emma shuddered at the possibility of harm coming to the
church and the archbishop. While there were other churches in the city, to the
people, the Minster was the most significant, the focus of their daily lives
and their hopes for the next life.

Sigga offered her a bowl of the steaming stew. “Here, ’twill
do you good. ’Tis cool enough to eat now.”

Emma accepted the dish, warming her hands around it as she
sat on a stool. Her strength was spent and the aroma of beef, thyme and coriander
roused her hunger. It was the first food she had eaten all day.

“I can take some broth to Ottar and a bowl of stew for Finna
while you eat,” offered Sigga. “How is the lad?”

Emma had remained by Ottar’s side until the boy roused. “He
is awake but says little. No doubt his head pains him. Mayhap you can take him
some willow bark tea with the broth. I will wait to question him until he is
stronger.” She took a spoonful of the rich meaty stew into her mouth. “’Tis
good, Sigga.”

The servant smiled her thanks as she went about fixing the
tea. “All the boy talked about yesterday was wanting to see Maerleswein and his
men.”

“I suspected it was so,” Emma murmured. “He must have
followed my father to the battle outside the city walls. The lad admires him
so. We will have to keep the twins from the streets. The Norman knights are
everywhere now. I fear they are not done with their vengeance for the slaying
of the noble.”

“Aye, I will watch the children more closely.”

Catching Sigga’s eye, Emma remarked, “I saw the flag of
their king and his army of knights with him.” She shuddered at the memory of so
many mail-clad mounted knights headed toward the city. “More Normans,” she
complained. “Mayhap thousands.”

“Would they were all like the one who brought Ottar home,”
Sigga said thoughtfully. “A handsome one, he was, and kind.”

“They are all Normans, Sigga. I would have none in our city
and none in my home.”

* * *

From the trestle table where he sat with Alain eating the
evening meal, Geoff gazed beyond the crackling hearth fire and the ascending
smoke to where Malet sat at the head table with his wife, Helise, and their two
young sons. The hall was crowded with knights eating a dinner of roasted lamb.
The low rumble of male voices in conversation filled the large space.