The Briton (26 page)

Bronwen smiled and mounted her horse. Just as she had settled herself on the gelding’s saddle, the first snowflakes of winter began to fall. Pulling the hood of the black mantle over her head, she urged the horse forward away from the river.

As the travelers started for the road that led out of London, Bronwen noted the sandy-haired young man standing alone at the edge of the water, bent and weeping for his lost love so lately sailed away to France.

Jacques rode well to the front of the company, ensuring that Bronwen and the cart with her nursemaid and their supplies remained safely surrounded by his men. They would make haste for the city of Coventry, for the road was frequented by outlaws. Jacques had no desire to expend valuable weapons on such wastrels. He had little doubt that his men and their arms would be needed once they neared Amounderness, especially with Henry Plantagenet expected at Warbreck not long after Jacques arrived.

Remote inns would provide secure lodging for the nights their journey must entail. After Coventry, the next town was Lichfield, and after that, Chester. The route would take them
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past few villages or castles, for the country remained wild and open with vast expanses of virgin forest always threatening to close over the road.

As they set out across the white moorland, Jacques turned to see how Bronwen fared. She rode her horse alongside the cart, and he could not make out her features beneath the hood of his mantle. That she still wore the gift pleased him beyond measure.

Her tongue was sharp and her will strongly set against him, but her heart had softened the moment they’d met. The few times he had held her in his arms, she’d yielded willingly to his touch. Her kisses matched his in ardor. Her eyes pleaded for more. Even as she pushed him away, the expression on her face beckoned him to return. And he would.

The old nursemaid, just visible under piles of blankets, lifted her grizzled head and smiled at him. He knew that despite the unexpected company, both women could not deny their joy in starting for home at last. He, too, anticipated his return to Warbreck. Before leaving, he had commissioned many improvements to the battlements and refurbishments to the hall, and he was eager to see how his workmen had fared.

Looking about at the stark black trees with withered brown leaves still clinging to the branches, Jacques wondered how long it would take to reach their destination. The safest place in England must be Amounderness, he thought. It was a land so marshy and so heavily forested that hardly anyone lived there. Not even kings could bother themselves to count the population.

Yet Amounderness had come to the attention of Henry Plantagenet, and Jacques was happy to begin the quest of taking it bit by bit for England and the throne. If Edgard of Rossall had known the political situation his daughter under-Catherine Palmer

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stood now, what would he have done? Could he still have believed it possible to return the entire island to Briton rule?

If the father was anything like his daughter, Jacques thought, not a single dream would have changed.

That evening as the sun slanted across the dusting of snow, the travelers came to an inn at the edge of the forest. Determined to cause Bronwen no discomfort in the presence of his men or her nurse, Jacques said little to her as he arranged for rooms. The night passed swiftly, and soon dawn was upon them.

The track wound around small hills and beneath great silent oaks and beeches on to Coventry. That night and the next, the party managed to find inns able to welcome them for a few coins. Each day the track grew more crooked and rugged. Never once did they meet another traveler.

On the evening of their third day, Jacques realized they must make do in open air as best they could. Needing to feed an entire contingent of hungry men, he decided to lead a large hunting party into the forest in search of deer and small game.

He left four guards to protect Bronwen and her nurse, who were spreading their blankets on the cart to wait for his return.

The hunt took him to the top of the nearest hill, where he spotted a fine buck standing alone in a clearing. With one arrow, he took the deer through the heart. Several of his men joined him in dressing the meat, for they did not wish to leave the offal near their camp.

Tired but satisfied, Jacques was returning to his horse when a shout rang out from the vale below.

“Lord have mercy on us! Help! Help!”

He instantly recognized the voice of Enit, the nursemaid.

Turning his steed, Jacques saw a band of shapes ride out of the trees and surround the cart.

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“Where is she?” a man shouted over Enit’s screams.

“Get her!”

In an instant they swarmed the two women. As Jacques called out to his men, he saw the glint of steel and heard the sound of clashing weapons below. Thundering down the hill on his horse, he caught sight of Bronwen standing on the cart and fighting with the dagger he had given her.

A familiar figure stood out among the rest.
Aeschby.
His golden hair whipped about in the chilling wind, and his mantle gleamed a blood-red. Jacques realized the man had not yet reached Bronwen, and he was shouting to Haakon, who was still on horseback.

“’Tis a black witch!” someone screamed in agony. “The woman has sliced my arm nearly in twain!”

As Jacques’s steed finally broke out of the forest, he saw Bronwen slashing and stabbing at the men who reached for her. His own guards did battle with others, sword against sword, ax, mace and knife. Drawing his own blade, Jacques began to cut his way toward Bronwen. But before he reached her, Haakon leaped from his horse and threw the woman from the cart into the wet snow.

“I have her!” the Viking yelled. “Aeschby! I have the wench!”

Gritting his teeth, Jacques hacked an enemy’s ax handle in two as he made for the woman. Wielding her dagger, Bronwen fought Haakon until he slammed her face with the back of his mail-clad hand.

Now Jacques was at her side, but Haakon bellowed in rage and clubbed her again. As her eyes rolled back in her head, Jacques’s sword found its mark.

With great effort, Bronwen summoned a breath. She lay cheek down in the snow, her arms twisted and her body
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pressed by a great weight. All she could see was the silver moon hanging just above a rim of black trees. Except for the stamping of horses’ hooves and the hiss of swords sheathed, the air was silent.

“Here’s one,” she heard a voice say.

“Dead?” another voice asked. “Bring him along then.

We’ve got four here.”

Bronwen heard the crunch of boots on the snow beside her head, but she could not lift her face to look. She sensed a figure kneeling at her side.

“Dear God, help me now, I beg You,” a man said under his breath.

The weight lifted from her chest, and a blanket slipped beneath her frozen cheek. A sword that had been thrust into the ground beside her was drawn away. Gentle hands turned her, but a sharp pain knifed into her ribs and she cried out.

“She lives,” the man breathed. “Thanks be to God!”

Bronwen blinked through the milky clouds across her eyes and tried to focus on the face before her. Two dark eyes, black hair curling down chiseled cheekbones, a noble nose above a pair of familiar lips.

“Jacques,” she murmured.

“My dearest lady.” The Norman lifted her in his arms and wrapped the black mantle close about her shivering body. She could feel the tension in his arms as he carried her to the cart and placed her into a cocoon of blankets.

“I was almost too late,” he muttered as he smoothed her hair.

“Enit,” Bronwen croaked. “Where is she?”

“Your nurse lies beside you. I fear she has taken a grave blow to the head.”

With a cry of dismay, Bronwen struggled to sit up. “You must let me help her. Fetch the healing bag.”

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“Rest, Bronwen, I beg you,” Jacques said as he found the pouch. “You’re injured yourself. Tell me what to do.”

She reached for the old woman and found Enit’s hand.

Holding it, she spoke to the Norman. “Build a fire and heat water for washing.”

He shouted at his men to set about it at once. Indeed they must have built a fire already, Bronwen realized, for soon a bowl of steaming water sat on the cart floor.

“Lift her head and bathe the wound,” she told Jacques.

“There will be much blood.”

“Yes, and her breath is shallow.”

Bronwen nodded. “God has sent His gift of darkness so she feels no pain. Now find the container of comfrey-root poultice in the bag.”

“Smell this. Is it the one?”

Bronwen sniffed the jar he held beneath her nose. She shook her head. He tried two more. The third was comfrey root. “Smooth it across her head, directly on the wound. Now bind it tightly so the bleeding will cease.”

Looking up in the moonlight, she could see the man’s furrowed brow as he worked on Enit. His mail glimmered a silver-white. A small muscle flickered in his jaw, and the grim line of his mouth turned to a frown at each corner.

When the binding was done, he turned his attention to Bronwen. “Your face is bruised and torn,” he said, stroking his fingers down her cheek. “Aeschby did this—and Haakon, his henchman.”

Bronwen lifted a hand to her swollen cheekbone and felt the tender skin around her eye. “Aeschby intended to kill me.

Haakon did his best.”

“Aeschby fled, Haakon is dead and you live.”

“How could they have found me?”

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“Aeschby has spies,” he reminded her. “And after all, there are few roads between London and Amounderness. It wouldn’t have been difficult for him to guess your path.” He bent and kissed her forehead. “Where do you have pain?”

“My side,” she said. “My ribs are broken.”

Biting back an oath, he pulled Bronwen’s blankets aside, tore the mantle clasp from her neck and spread the cloak apart. He probed gently, but Bronwen winced in pain as his fingers brushed the fractured bones.

“This injury I have had myself,” he growled.

Tearing a strip from the hem of a thin blanket, he lifted her and wrapped the cloth tightly about her ribs. Chill wind whipped across the vale as he worked to secure the ends of the bandage. With her chest bound, Bronwen knew instant relief, and she relaxed in his arms.

“Are you better?” he asked softly.

“Well enough,” she murmured. Drowsy in the warmth of his chest against her cheek and his arms about her, Bronwen closed her eyes again.

The next days Bronwen spent in the jolting cart, tending to Enit and trying to rest her own aching body. The days grew a little warmer and no snow fell, so the road turned to mud and slush.

As she watched the bone-thin tree branches lacing across the blue sky, Bronwen wondered if Aeschby now believed her dead. He had seen Haakon throw her from the cart and would think she could never survive such an attack. Perhaps he felt himself secure in Rossall—secure enough to lay plans against Warbreck. This was all to her advantage, she realized. During the long journey, she had at last formulated three possible means of regaining her father’s holding.

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The guard she had met near the river pledged an oath of service should she need it. With effort, she might assemble a small force of armed men still loyal to Edgard the Briton. The old butler knew secret ways to enter the hall, and he would help Bronwen and her allies slip inside and take Aeschby by surprise.

If that failed, she would have no choice but to enter Rossall in disguise and face Aeschby one-on-one. Untrained in weaponry, she feared she must surely be vanquished—even slain. Yet if she lived, she could resort to her final option. She would show her father’s will to Henry Plantagenet and beg him to honor it. Vowing to support his cause, she would plead for an army to conquer Aeschby.

If it came to this, Rossall would then become a part of the Norman fold, and her father’s dream would be dashed forever.

Yet, some hope remained, for the holding would remain in Briton hands. Perhaps she might make a marriage to one of her countrymen and bear him a Briton son—and through that child a flicker of the dream would live on.

Nights arrived quickly in the winter forest. When the party stopped, Bronwen would clamber down from the cart and join the men by the fire in their evening meal. Enit barely stirred, and Bronwen worried that she would starve. Little nourish-ment had slipped between those torn lips in the days since the attack. Bronwen and Jacques spent no time alone together in the camp. He made a point to ask after her well-being every evening, but they had no other exchange. She slept beside Enit in the cart.

During the day, Jacques continued to ride ahead, so far ahead that Bronwen rarely caught sight of his broad back and the black waves of his hair. She understood his haste, for his men often spoke of their eagerness to meet Henry Plantagenet.

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One night while seated beside the fire, Bronwen heard a soft moan coming from the cart. She hurried to Enit’s side and saw the papery eyelids slide open.

“Oh, Enit, you wake!” Bronwen said softly. “No, don’t turn your head—you’ve had a terrible blow.”

The old woman’s thin lips opened. “Where am I?”

“We travel to Rossall. Aeschby and his men attacked, but we were saved. Come now, can you sip a bit of broth?”

Jacques appeared at her side. “Enit wakes at last.”

“Esyllt,” the old woman rasped.

Bronwen turned to her nurse. “What did you say?”

“Esyllt, your hair needs a combing, child.”

“But I am Bronwen. Esyllt was my mother.”

The blue eyes wandered across Bronwen’s face for a moment. “Esyllt, your hair is a mess. Come, bring the ivory comb and let me plait it up for you.”

Her eyes filling with tears, Bronwen tucked the blanket beneath Enit’s chin. As she wiped her cheek, she felt the Norman’s hand touch her back.