Lord of My Heart (6 page)

Aimery watched her in bemusement, then rubbed his hands over his sweat-damp face. That little encounter had been intended to exorcise her effect on him and leave him at peace. Now he wondered if he’d ever have peace again. His body hurt, and his mind was tied in knots.

If she really was a virgin, she was wasting a natural talent. He’d lost his head as soon as he touched her. What a pleasure it would be to show such a fiery piece all the wonders of her delightful body, but he wasn’t risking another encounter like this one. He’d be a wreck before Midsummer Day. The only solution was to put as much distance as possible between them. He began to climb the slope. A two-day walk to Banbury was just what he needed.

She shuddered. It was madness, but just now being with him almost seemed worth whatever came afterward.

She checked her appearance, sure her wickedness would be written there. Her gown was straight and decent but, oh Lord, there were two wet circles over her breasts where his mouth had been.

The dizzy heat swept over her at the memory, and she pressed her hands against the aching nipples.

“Lady Madeleine!”

Madeleine saw her guard trotting toward her. She looked down at her telltale gown. With a little laugh, she tipped herself forward into the shallow stream.

“Lady Madeleine!” The man splashed over to her. “Are you all right? I thought I heard something.”

Madeleine pushed herself up, soaking wet. “I’m fine. I just tripped.”

“But earlier? I heard a cry.”

“Oh, that. I thought I saw a snake.” Madeleine allowed him to help her over to the other side of the stream. “You are slow to respond, though. That was ages ago.”

“No, it weren’t,” the man protested. “ ‘Tweren’t more than a few minutes. Dorothy and I just wondered as to whether we’d heard anything, and then I came find you. You shouldn’t go out of sight, my lady . . .”

Madeleine felt as if she had been gone from the real world for hours, days even, not just minutes. She was not at all sure she was back yet, or ever would be. As the guard shepherded her back toward Dorothy, Madeleine cast one wistful look back at the thicket by the stream.

Ten miles from Banbury, Aimery and Gyrth heard rumors of the enslavement. The culprit was Robert d’Oilly, which hardly surprised Aimery. D’Oilly was a coarse French mercenary—a vicious and effective fighter without any other virtue. It was a tragedy William had had to use such as he to win England, and now thought fit to reward him with land.

Aimery and Gyrth soon fell in with a group of men walking to Banbury market. It was easy enough to get them talking.

“Took my sister’s nephew. Just like that. He’d done nothing wrong.”

“Hear tell the priest over Marthwait tried to stop ‘em and they broke his head. Still ain’t recovered his wits. Bloody Normans. Bastards, every one of ’em.”

“Who’s overlord?” asked Aimery in the same rough tongue the villagers were using.

One spat. “Should be Earl of Wessex, but they up and killed him at Hastings, didn’t they? Now there’s none but the bloody king, and a fat lot of use it’d be complaining to him.”

“Worth a try, though,” said Aimery. They looked at him as if he were half-witted.

“Tell you what,” said one man sarcastically. “Why don’t you stick around the next time the Bastard king happens to be riding by, then you can tell him. And get kicked in the face.”

Aimery put an edge of authority in his voice. “I know what I’m talking about. I’m an outlaw, but I know William of Normandy has no love for slavery. If you can get word to him, he’ll put a stop to it.”

“He’d turn against Norman for Englishmen?” one man scoffed.

“He’ll enforce the law.”

“What about our women?” cried one young man. “Those guards take what they want and none dares stop them. My sister . . .” He turned away, his face working.

“Rape is against the law, too,” Aimery said firmly.

The thunder of hooves shut off the talk. The villagers bolted for the woods even as a troop of horsemen swung around the bend and bore down on them. In moments they were surrounded, and none had escaped.

It was d’Oilly’s men on the hunt for more forced workers. Aimery cursed his luck. There were five horsemen, but they had a slovenly look which suggested he and Gyrth could take them with even minimal help from the villagers. But violence only ever brought retaliation on the ordinary people. Instead he worked at avoiding attention.

It wasn’t easy. He was half a head taller than the tallest villager and much better built. He slouched and nudged Gyrth. Gyrth got the message, and Aimery hoped the others would play along.

One of the soldiers unhooked an ox-whip from his saddle. “Well,” he said in French, “we’ve found a likely lot here.” He changed to clumsy English. “Lord d’Oilly has need of laborers. You, you, you, and you.” He pointed to the youngest and strongest, including Aimery but not Gyrth.

Gyrth instantly spoke up in English. “Sir, my cousin here is . . .” He tapped eloquently on his head. “He can be no use to you.”

“He’s strong. You come, too.”

Within seconds the chosen ones were cut out of the group. One man resisted. “You can’t do this! You have no right. I am a free man—” The whip cracked over his head and he fell silent.

The five prisoners were herded a mile or so to the river where a bridge was being built to ease access to Robert d’Oilly’s new castle. A dozen men were working there, some of them already exhausted. Aimery suspected more slaves were among the workers to be seen assembling the wooden keep on the raw motte, or hill, in the distance.

Two of the villagers were added to the men loosening rocks from the bottom of an escarpment; Aimery and another were ordered to join the weary line carrying the rocks down to the bridge. Because of his greater age, Gyrth was put to work there laying the rocks in place.

As the day passed they were offered no rest or refreshment, though the guards let them scoop water from the river to drink. The five guards slouched in the shade, cracking a whip if they thought any of their slaves were idling. They shared a wineskin and, at one point, some meat pies.

They frequently shouted comments in French which alarmed the peasants, but they were invariably just scatological insults, pointless because they must assume none of their victims understood.

Aimery understood, however, and anger grew in him. These men were the scum of the earth, mercenaries brought to England by the lure of easy pickings. The urge, the need, to obliterate them was a hunger in him far greater than the pangs of his empty stomach. He kept telling himself that violence here would destroy his chance to do greater good later, and would bring harsh retribution on the local people, but it grew harder and harder to pay attention to logic.

He hauled a leather sling of stones onto his bruised shoulders and shambled down to the river. As he passed one pot-bellied guard, the man shouted, “Hey, big boy! Bet you’ve got an enormous one. Bet you stick it in your mother!” Aimery pretended to be deaf. He tried to ease his fury with anticipation of the king’s reaction when he heard of this injustice, but he could taste the pleasure he’d get from slitting the man’s throat.

As Aimery slouched back up the hill for another load, the man in front of him stumbled. Aimery helped him up. The closest guard sneered but made no objection. The worker’s breathing was labored, his eyes glassy.

“He needs rest, lord,” Aimery mumbled.

“No rest,” said the guard, and aimed the wineskin at his mouth.

Aimery helped the peasant fill his sling with rocks, putting in as few as he dared. It was a mercy they were hauling the heavy weight downhill, but he doubted this man would last much longer. What would happen when he failed? If the guards had any sense, they’d take some care of their beasts of burden, but scum have no brains. They probably thought there was a never-ending supply of slaves.

They set off back down the hill, the man began to weave. Aimery did his best to help, going in front and guiding him, but suddenly the peasant stumbled and fell to his hands and knees, his head hanging like the exhausted beast of burden he’d become.

The pot-bellied guard stirred himself to his feet and cracked his whip. “Up, you misbegotten swine. Up!” The man twitched but slumped down again.

Even as Aimery dropped his sling of rocks and ran to help, the whip cracked again and bit. The peasant twitched and gave a guttural cry, but even the pain couldn’t move him. The whip whistled and cut again before Aimery reached him.

“Out of the way, dolt!” snarled the guard in French, moving closer, “or there’ll be more of the same for you.” He switched to English. “Move!”

Aimery turned to face the brute, whose heavy paunch and slack face revealed he was poorly trained and exercised. “Mercy, lord,” he said in French.

“An honest word from a worm like you?” The guard jerked his thumb eloquently. “Scat!”

Aimery rose slowly as if befuddled. The guard paid him no more attention and swung his whip back with relish.

Aimery leaped. With an arm round the man’s throat and a knee in his back, he broke his neck. As the man fell, Aimery whipped the sword from his scabbard, grimacing at the clumsy feel of it and the old blood and rust marring the blade. He kicked the body out of the way—scum, as he’d thought—and turned to face the first of the four other guards. He deliberately shambled and held the sword as if he had no idea what to do with it.

A glance showed him Gyrth leaping onto a guard and the peasants standing around terrified. “Don’t let them escape!” he shouted.

“They ain’t going to help you, pig’s swill,” sneered the nearest guard, thinner but still with the belly of self-indulgence. He showed a scant collection of yellow and black teeth. “And I ain’t going to kill you quickly. Not quickly at all . . .”

Aimery raised his sword awkwardly, and the man laughed. “We’ll have you dance with one foot, turd. And then we’ll play blindman’s buff with a real blind man . . .”

As the guard continued his pointless taunting, for he must assume his victim understood little French, Aimery assessed the situation. None of these men could be allowed to live if the villagers were to survive and his identity was to be protected. But the villagers were numb with terror.

Gyrth had killed his guard and taken his sword. The other two Normans were on him, and the sword wasn’t Gyrth’s best weapon. He’d need help.

Aimery swung his sword wildly as an untrained peasant would. The guard howled with laughter. He sidestepped the swing and moved in contemptuously to slice off Aimery’s right arm. Aimery adjusted his grip and slammed his sword up against the other. While the guard was still stunned and his arm tingling numb, Aimery said, “God save you,” in crisp French and decapitated him.

The head on the ground looked profoundly surprised.

Aimery ran over to join the other fight. The guards were wary now, and Gyrth had been hard pressed to defend himself. Aimery could no longer appear unskilled, and within moments both men gave up and turned to flee.

Aimery caught one and ran him through. The other guard turned and slashed at Gyrth, slicing into his leg and sending him to the ground.

“Stop him!” Aimery yelled at the gaping peasants.

A few moved to try, but as soon as the soldier turned with his sword they cowered back. Aimery raced after the man, but this one was lean and fleet. A glance back showed the peasants making for the woods like terrified animals and Gyrth on the ground trying to staunch the bleeding.

With a curse Aimery threw his sword after the man like a spear. But a sword is not a throwing weapon, and it only caught the man on his mailed shoulder, spurring him on to greater speed. Aimery turned back to kneel by Gyrth.

“I’m all right,” Gyrth gasped. “Go after him.”

“Don’t be foolish.” Aimery slit strips off a guard’s clothing and bound the wound, grimacing at the filthy state of them. “My mother holds wounds bound with clean cloth heal better than those bound with dirty,” he remarked. “We’ll have to hope she’s wrong.”

“Wounds heal or not as fate disposes.” Gyrth heaved himself up. “If I’d had an ax, that one wouldn’t have lived.” He looked up at Aimery. “He could write your death warrant.”

“And yours.”

“I’m a rebel anyway. Now so are you.”

Aimery shook his head. “They were breaking the law. If my part in this slaughter becomes known, I’ll claim I was freeing myself from slavery.”

“If your part comes out, it’ll all come out. That guard could recognize you if he bumps into Aimery de Gaillard. Then what?”

Aimery shrugged and put an arm around Gyrth to take his weight.

“I’ll be admiring your head on a pike one of these days,” said Gyrth angrily. “Go back to being an ordinary Norman, lad. Either that or join Hereward and throw the Bastard out.”

“I’ve never been an ordinary Norman,” Aimery replied, “but I’ll never be a traitor to William either.”

“Goddammit, lad!” Gyrth cried in exasperation. “Hereward and the Bastard’ll be fighting as to who gets first cut at you!”

Aimery smiled. “You should meet my father. You have a lot in common. Come on. Let’s get out of here.”