The Longing (4 page)

He sighed. “I did what I could. Some things cannot be helped.”

It was true. Neither he nor Sir George could have refused Sir Talbot’s summons, but that did not mean she was in this man’s debt. Yet.

Sir Elias eased up onto his elbows, and when his blanket slipped down, she was relieved to see he wore an undertunic. “How fares the boy?” he asked.

She hesitated. Though committed to what she had come to ask of him, still she feared it could be a mistake. Unfortunately, there was none better to aid her. “That depends upon you, Sir Elias.”

“Me?”

“Judas and I require your help.”

“Another favor?”

She tried not to swallow hard, but there it was. “More than ever I have asked of you, but which, I believe, you are honorable enough to grant.”

He chuckled. “Am I?”

“Certes, you have heard tale of what happened to my nephew in your absence and must know ’twas by design. Thus, I ask you to save him from further attempts upon his life.”

“How do you propose I do that?”

Catching herself dragging her teeth across her bottom lip, a nervous gesture vanquished years ago, she quickly remedied the habit. “By delivering Judas and me to Wulfen Castle.”

His eyebrows soared, and he whistled low. “That is no place for a lady. Indeed, I am told women are forbidden within its walls.”

Susanna knew that, but the fortress renowned for training boys into knights was where she would find the one who might be able to alter the dangerous new course set for Judas’s life. Whether the man could be moved to do so was another matter.

“And even if you find welcome there, my lady, ’tis a good two days’ ride.”

“This I know, but it is all that is left to us. Will you take us?”

“If I do,” he said slowly, “you know I cannot return to Cheverel. Indeed, it could prove difficult to sell my sword arm to another lord.”

“You are assuming Judas will not be awarded his father’s title, and I tell you that when he is, your services to Cheverel’s new lord will be much needed. And Sir Talbot’s will not.”

He stared at her, then he began to smile. “It seems you have bought yourself a savior, my lady.”

She sighed loudly.

“However,” he added, “this favor will cost you more than one of your kisses.”

Though her soul jerked, she nearly laughed. Of course it would cost more, but if it saved Judas…

She rose to her feet lest this time he demanded payment in advance and said, “So be it. After you have delivered us safely to Wulfen, you shall have your reward.”

Thus, the bargain was struck—a great favor for something far greater than a favor. But that was the way of things. At least in the life of Susanna de Balliol.

Before the sun thought to part the darkness and warm the land, the three of them stole from the manor house that, by all rights—or perhaps not—belonged to the boy who peered longingly over his shoulder until they were distant enough to spur the horses to flight.

CHAPTER FOUR

Wulfen Castle, England

May, 1160

Everard Wulfrith, second born of Drogo Wulfrith, was not in the habit of rising three hours before dawn—often two, but rarely more. However, something had disturbed his soul. A dream? A sound? Movement where there should be none? That other sense that could not be called upon but had often proved as valuable as his other senses?

He breathed out, peered at the night-shrouded land through the white mist expelled from his mouth, then pushed off the battlement against which he had braced a shoulder this past quarter hour.

The squires he passed along the wall acknowledged him with one “My Lord” after another and he nodded at each in turn. Noting one who was unsteady on his feet and making an effort to keep his eyes open, he marked it in his mind to discuss with the knight charged with the squire’s training the appropriateness of giving the young man a night watch. Age and size were not always the measure by which one moved through the ranks toward knighthood.

As he neared the steps that both descended to the outer bailey and ascended to the roof of the gatehouse, his ears picked up the sound of what, perhaps, that other sense had first known.

Two horses, perhaps three. And four more that rode in pursuit, the latter belonging to the mounted guard that patrolled the castle’s bordering wood for occasions such as this.

Everard shouted a warning and was pleased when he saw that already those on the walls were lighting additional torches to illuminate the land before the walls. Changing course, he took the steps two at a time to the gatehouse roof where he found the aged knight who had once been in service to his sister-in-law, Lady Annyn.

“My Lord,” Sir Rowan said, then set himself in the space between two battlements.

Breathing in the breeze that skittered across his face and over his shaved head, Everard strode to the battlements to the right of the other man. He leaned forward and caught sight of two horses carrying three riders, next the four mounted guard who would soon overtake them.

Within two hundred feet of the walls, the trespassers were surrounded and held at swordpoint.

Everard smiled at the fearless efficiency of those young men who would soon don spurs and a Wulfrith dagger that proclaimed to all that they were the worthiest of knights.

The words exchanged between the uninvited and the guard carried across the cool air, but they were too distant to make sense of them.

When one of two figures mounted on a single horse struck out at the squire who had edged near to yank back his hood—rather,
her
hood, as told by the voice that berated him—Everard murmured, “That is settled.”

It was rare for the uninvited to be admitted to the castle, nearly unheard of for a woman to be let in.
Nearly
since his sister-in-law, Lady Annyn, had found a way in and his own sister had, for a time, needed to be hidden from King Henry.

Though tempted to leave the mounted guard to send the riders on their way so he might sooner set to his morning prayers, Everard held.

“I shall deal with them, my lord,” Sir Rowan said when the squires, flanking the trespassers, guided their mounts toward the gatehouse.

Everard neither accepted nor declined, for though he knew his time was better spent elsewhere, his curiosity was roused.

As those escorted forward drew near, he noted the man wore the trappings of a knight—chain mail and sword. The woman who rode beside him with her hood down about her shoulders had the bearing of a lady. Much of her hair, torchlight giving it the cast of a river stirred with silt, had escaped the neck of her mantle and fell around the dark-haired boy who sat on the saddle before her with his face turned up and eyes fixed upon the walls.

“Who goes?” Sir Rowan called as the horses were reined in a few feet from where the uppermost edge of the drawbridge settled when lowered.

The lead squire’s gaze first found Everard, but quickly shifted to the one who had called down. “Sir Elias Cant requests sanctuary for the lady, the boy, and himself. He tells they are pursued by those who seek their deaths.”

Everard returned his regard to the boy who had yet to move his gaze from the castle walls. He was of a good size, well on his way to manhood. The woman…

Her gaze, intense even in torchlight, grazed his before shifting to Sir Rowan. Guessing she was near the age of thirty, Everard concluded she was the boy’s mother. Was the knight her husband? More, was it true someone wished them dead?

“With regret,” Sir Rowan said, “we cannot grant admittance. Women are not permitted within our walls.”

The lady turned her head sharply toward Sir Elias, gripped his arm, and leaned near. Whatever she spoke, the words were not loud enough to reach those on the walls, but they were impassioned.

Sir Elias nodded and returned his regard to the battlements. “Sir Knight, our situation is dire, for our pursuers are not far behind and our horses cannot carry us much longer.”

There was little room for exaggeration in that last bit, for even from such a height, Everard could see that the animals whose breath heaved white clouds upon the night had been ridden hard.

“I see no immediate threat,” Sir Rowan replied. “Ride on!”

Once more, the lady appealed to her knight, and with such animation that the boy finally tore his gaze from the walls to attend to the exchange. As the woman settled back in the saddle and raised her face to Sir Rowan, Sir Elias called, “We ask that you deliver a message to Sir Everard Wulfrith.”

Everard frowned. He was certain he did not know the lady. Not only had she shown no recognition when her eyes lit upon him, but Wulfen Castle was nearly all there was to his life, especially since it had been mostly given into his keeping following the marriages of his older and younger brothers. Perhaps she simply knew
of
him from a son or brother who had trained here.

“What message?” Sir Rowan demanded.

“We pray he will grant us admittance—if naught else, for the sake of Lady Judith.”

Everard jerked. Not even the cruelest blade could have so deeply delved and bled his innards as that name. But his
Judith? Judith who had become another man’s wife? Judith who was no more?

Realizing he no longer drew breath, he straightened from between the battlements, slowly breathed in, slowly breathed out.

Movement to his left returned him to the present and he looked across his shoulder at the knight who advanced on him—and who was not quick enough to disguise the concern upon his face.

“My Lord?” Sir Rowan halted alongside him.

Discomfited at having slipped into the skin of the young man he had been at twenty and two years of age, Everard expelled his next breath on the words, “Lower the drawbridge.”

CHAPTER FIVE

She had not wanted to speak the name. Not yet. But it had accomplished what she had prayed it would, and so quickly that she knew the one whose aid she sought must have been near.

Had he been the silent figure between the battlements? Nay, his face had been too distant to recognize, but she had seen he was bald and Everard Wulfrith had the most beautiful hair a man could have—the envy of many a woman, including herself. Of course, it had been eleven years…

Even so, thirty and three was not so great an age that he would have lost his hair.

“Dismount!” a stern voice ordered above the grind and screech of the lowering portcullis that competed with the rumble and clank of the rising drawbridge.

Having brought her horse to a halt alongside Sir Elias’s in the midst of the mounted guard who had escorted them into the outer bailey, Susanna looked to the aged knight who stood before them with hands on hips. It was the same one who had conversed with them from atop the gatehouse. But where was that other one who had stood with him there? More, where was Everard Wulfrith? 

Distantly aware of Sir Elias swinging out of the saddle, she swept her gaze over the wall walks that dimmed as the additional torches lit during their approach were extinguished.

Hoping it would cause their pursuers to ride past believing their prey had done the same, she peered into the shadows of the outer bailey. But there was no one to be seen—until a tall figure whose bald head caught moonlight appeared before the raised portcullis of the inner wall that accessed the donjon. And then he was gone.

“Come down, Judas,” Sir Elias said where he now stood alongside Susanna.

Grateful he did not reach to her nephew which, no matter the boy’s fatigue, would have offended, Susanna drew her arm from around Judas’s waist.

Immediately, he dropped down beside Sir Elias.

The reward of her favor near at hand now that the knight had fulfilled his end of the bargain, she was tempted to do the same when he lifted his arms to her, but she reminded herself that if it was possible to put him off, it would not be done with the vinegar of her disdain. Thus, she went into his arms—and groaned softly as her worn, aching muscles protested their unfolding. 

“Surrender your weapons,” the gatehouse knight ordered as Sir Elias set her to her feet, “and give me no grief!”

“I do not like this,” Sir Elias muttered.

“Such precautions are to be expected,” she said and reached beneath her mantle to remove the dagger from her girdle.

One of the two young men who had dismounted stepped forward to receive from Sir Elias his sword and two daggers, next her dagger, lastly, Judas’s. Then the second young man came behind the first and said, “Raise your arms, Sir Knight.”

Grudgingly, Sir Elias complied and the squire ran his hands up and over him. His search produced another dagger, causing the gatehouse knight to grunt.

The young man moved to stand before Susanna, and she saw it was the one she had struck when, refusing to lower her hood for fear of revealing she was a woman, he had done it for her. “My lady?”

Dear Lord, he will enjoy this.

“You jest!” Sir Elias barked, but she shook her head at him and he ground his teeth.

She pushed the mantle back off her shoulders and raised her arms out to the sides. Surprisingly, the young man quickly and impersonally patted her down and, finding nothing more, moved on to Judas.

Empty-handed, excepting the dagger Sir Elias had secreted in his boot, the squire turned to the gatehouse knight. “They are disarmed, Sir Rowan.”

The knight nodded and turned away. “Follow me.”

“Certes, I hope you know what you are doing,” Sir Elias said low as they crossed from the outer bailey into the inner where the donjon rose massively at its center. “As I have warned time and again, the Wulfriths do not suffer fools gladly.”

“Then I had best not be a fool.”

They were met at the base of the donjon by a young man who appeared to be of an age that would soon see him knighted. Though fully dressed and alert, his tousled blond hair evidenced he had been roused from sleep.