The Unveiling (12 page)

Nearly as trying was Charles Shefield, the squire who had known Jame’s brother. Any spare moment Annyn had, rare though it was, she spent avoiding him. He spoke of too many things on which she could not converse, asked too many questions she could not answer. What a fool she had been to claim that Jame’s brother had spoken of him!

“There!” Sir Merrick rasped, bringing her back to the wood. “You see it?”

She peered through the mists. Aye, and a fine deer it was. Having silently chanted throughout the hunt that she could do this, Annyn raised her bow. “I see it.” She swallowed against the sore throat that worsened with each day of straining her voice toward a man’s.

The horse shifted beneath her, sending a whisper of warning through the trees that caused the deer to lift its antlered head.

“Slowly,” Sir Merrick hissed.

She glanced at where he sat his horse alongside hers.

“’Tis yours, Braose. Bring it to ground.”

Grateful it was he who instructed her and not Wulfrith who watched with the others a short distance away, she drew the string to her cheek.

Sight,
Jonas came to her, causing chill bumps to course her flesh.
Steady.

She sighted the deer down her arrow shaft, held steady.

That’s it, Annyn.

“Aye,” she breathed, but still she held when the release of her arrow was all that stood between life and death.

Release!

“Now!” Sir Merrick rasped.

She clenched her teeth, but wavered at the moment of release. The arrow flew through the wood, gusting the air that was all it would pierce this day.

“Not worthy!” Wulfrith shouted as the deer bounded away.

Cur!
Seething as a derisive murmur rose from the dozen squires in his midst, Annyn lowered her bow.

Though disappointment was on Sir Merrick’s brow, no condemnation shone from his eyes. Hard though he pushed her, these past days had shown her that he was not the beast Wulfrith was. Indeed, were things different she might like him.

“We shall try again on the morrow,” he said.

As they had tried again this day after Annyn missed her mark two days past. She slid the bow over her head and settled it on her opposite shoulder.

Wulfrith thundered forward. “
This
day we try again.” He halted alongside. “Come up behind me, Braose.”

At her hesitation, he gripped her upper arm and wrenched her toward him, giving her no choice but to straddle the small space behind his saddle.

“Hold to me!” He jerked the reins and the horse lurched, nearly sending her off its back.

Annyn wrapped her arms around Wulfrith. Through the woods she clung to him, cheek to his mantled back, his muscled chest flexing and tensing beneath her hands, his body emanating heat that, when the sky began to weep its promise of rain, drove the chill from her. And, curse her wayward senses, there were those stirrings again. Of hate, she told herself. After all, she sought his death, did she not?

It was then she remembered the misericorde and realized here was the opportunity she awaited. They were alone in the wood, his back to her, and Rowan was surely near. She could be done with it and gone from Wulfen this very day.

Loosing a hand from Wulfrith, she pressed it to her thigh. The misericorde had shifted higher on her leg, but though she had only to lift her tunic to retrieve it, she clenched it through the material.

The large vein, Rowan had said. She raised her gaze to Wulfrith’s sinewed neck above the collar of his mantle. Four years she had prepared for this, and yet she quaked. But she could do it.

Just as you could loose your arrow on the deer?

The horse veered right, causing her to slip sideways.

“Hold to me!” Wulfrith shouted.

She whipped her arm around him and tightly clasped her hands.

Shortly, Wulfrith reined in. “Off!”

She threw a leg over and dropped to the ground. Though the clouds had yet to issue the torrent they promised—still no more than an intermittent drizzle—the absence of Wulfrith’s heat poured discomfort through her. How she wished she had thought to wear a mantle as he had done.

He appeared at her side. “Nock an arrow.”

Annyn lifted the bow over her head and reached to her quiver. Was the deer near? Surely the chase would have sent it farther afield. She fit an arrow to the string and trailed Wulfrith through the woods.

He slowed and glanced over his shoulder. “Your prey is near. Be ready.”

Hoping she would not fail again, she looked to her bow. Seeing the arrow had ridden up the string, she refit it.

Wulfrith bent low, darted forward, and halted behind an ancient oak.

Annyn crept to his side.

“Go.” He jutted his chin.

Moving slowly as Jonas had taught her, she peered around the tree. There, a pool, but where—?

There, but she would have to draw nearer.

“Lesson three,” Wulfrith hissed.

Act when told to act. She put a foot forward but was halted by a hand on her shoulder. Did she err again?

She looked around, but rather than disapproval, there was encouragement in Wulfrith’s grey-green gaze. Strangely moved, she looked away.

“You can do this,” he spoke low.

“I shall not fail you, my lord.” Pray, let her not fail him. She would rather—

What was wrong with her? This she did for herself, not her brother’s murderer! Which reminded her of the misericorde. Mayhap once she brought down her quarry...

She turned from Wulfrith and eyed the deer. Providing she stayed upwind of her prey, she would not fail. She slipped from behind the tree and on to the next. Tree by tree she advanced, acutely aware of the man who watched.

When the deer was within arrow’s reach, she raised her bow, pulled the string to her cheek, and sighted her quarry where its head was bent to the pool.

You can do this.
With a startle, she realized this voice was not Jonas’s. It was Wulfrith who encouraged her as she did not wish him to do.

She fixed on the deer. A perfect kill. As little suffering as possible. Drawing a deep breath of moist air, she drank in the taste beget by rain upon the wood.

You can do this.

“Leave me be!” she whispered.

The deer lifted its head, exposing its chest.

You can!

Where was Jonas? It was his encouragement she wished.

You can!

And she did. The arrow ran the chill wood and found its mark.

The animal lurched, stumbled, dropped to its forelegs, and heaved sideways.

“Worthy!” Wulfrith shouted.

Was she? She swung around and searched his gaze as he advanced. Approval was there, and though she tried to deny the sensation that shuddered through her, she was heartened. And more so when he loosed a smile from that firm mouth of his.

Again struck by how comely he was, Annyn looked to the ground.

Wulfrith clapped a hand to her back. “It seems we shall have fresh meat for the table after all. Well done, Braose.”

“Thank you, my lord.”

He prodded her forward. “Come, let us see your prize.”

She matched his stride, though only because he did not reach his very long.

As they circled the pool, the drizzle turned to rain—large, brisk drops that flattened Annyn’s hair to her head and made her fear it might also flatten her tunic to her chest. Bound though she was, a thorough dousing might reveal her if any peered near enough.

Looking to the man beside her, she saw his hair was becoming drenched though he could easily cover it with the hood of his mantle. As she watched, a bead of rain slipped from his brow, ran the curve of his nose, and settled on the bow of his upper lip. For an unguarded moment, she longed to brush it away, to feel the curve of his mouth beneath her fingertips. But then he looked down at her.

She wrenched her gaze to the fallen deer and silently cursed the weakness of her sorry soul.

As they drew near the animal, the sight of blood pooled around it caused her throat to constrict. God had put animals on earth to feed man, Father Cornelius told. It was meant to be. Still, as she stood over the deer, staring at the arrow shaft she had put through it, her eyes moistened.

Before she could turn, Wulfrith looked up from where he knelt over her kill.

“I know,” she snapped and swung around, “lesson thirteen: men do not cry.”

He rose at her back. “But men do cry. Of course, ’tis best done when no others are present.”

Had she heard right? Had this man who so often pronounced her unworthy said it? She looked over her shoulder but found no evidence of mockery on his face. Her loathing for him floundering, she turned back to him. “You also cry, my lord?”

“I am far older than you, Braose.”

Not as far as he believed.

“I have learned to command my emotions. Still, I am not without being moved on occasion. Of course, that is when I seek refuge in God.”

Annyn felt as if slapped. He sought refuge in God? This man who was responsible for her brother’s death professed to know God? Aye, he attended mass and was not unfamiliar with Proverbs, but she knew that for what it was. At least, she thought she did.

Brow furrowing as if he were suddenly uncomfortable with the conversation, Wulfrith swept a hand to the deer. “Look to your prize and be gladdened. This night it shall feed hungering bellies.”

She stepped toward the deer.

“I knew you would not fail me.”

She lifted her gaze. “And if I had?”

“Then I would have to teach you better.”

She saw that he nearly smiled again. Where was the beast in him? The one who had put Jonas to the rope? Who was this man who spoke of God with such ease and familiarity? Though she knew she ought to leave off, she asked, “And if still I failed you, my lord? What price, then?”

The light swept from his face, and he was once more a trainer of knights. “Throughout your stay at Wulfen, you will fail many times. Did you not, of what use would be my training? However, for he who is unable to rise above a weak mind and body, the price is dire. To him falls dishonor. He is returned home.”

Sometimes dead? Remembrance caused Annyn to shiver.

Wulfrith swept the mantle from his shoulders and onto hers. “Worry not, young Braose, methinks you are not among those destined to return home in dishonor.”

Though the fortnight was only half done, already she had proven herself? “Truly, my lord?”

“We shall see.” He dropped to his haunches alongside the deer.

Disconcerted by his confidence in her, the unexpected kindness he showed in relinquishing his mantle, and his talk of God, Annyn fingered the collar of the garment that gave his heat to her.

“We shall put the deer over my horse and walk it out of here.” Wulfrith issued a shrill whistle that resounded through the wood and called his mount to him.

Though Annyn helped as best she could, it was Wulfrith’s strength that put the deer over the horse’s back, Wulfrith who bound it, Wulfrith who—

What
was
his Christian name? Surely he had one, though she had not considered it. He was simply Wulfrith. It was all she had ever heard him called.

As they left the pool behind, Annyn berated her pondering, though only because of Rowan. It was his face she glimpsed through the veil of rain before he slipped behind a tree, his questioning felt across the distance.

Wulfrith drew his sword. “Make haste, Braose. We are not alone.”

How did he know? Were his senses so honed?

As she hurried after him, Rowan’s questioning returned to her: Why had she not killed Wulfrith?

There was no opportunity,
she silently defended herself. But there had been. If not the dagger, she could have turned the arrow on him.

What must Rowan think? Was he disappointed? Of course he was. Though Wulfrith had finally pronounced her worthy, she was not—yet.

Despite her churning and her brother’s warning about revenge, she silently vowed Jonas would be avenged.
I give you my word, Rowan.

A score of men were mounted before the raised drawbridge, their flaccid pennants showing the colors of England’s future king, and on either side of them, Wulfrith’s men.

Fear uncoiling, Annyn halted alongside Wulfrith at the edge of the wood. Had Henry come for her?

“By faith!” Wulfrith growled.

“Who comes to Wulfen, my lord?” she feigned.

It was a long moment before he spoke. “Henry’s men.”

Not Henry himself? “Why do they come?”

His shoulders rose with a deep breath. “To make of me an ally.”

He was certain of it? Mayhap he was wrong and they came for her. But if not,
would
Wulfrith turn from Stephen? Go to Henry’s side? “Will they succeed, my lord?”

As if she had not spoken, he tugged the reins with which he led his horse and strode forward. “Come!”

Annyn glanced behind. No Rowan, but he was there. Somewhere.

Resisting the longing to flee to the wood, she drew the hood of Wulfrith’s mantle over her head and hastened after him. As they neared, evidence of Wulfen’s reputation as a formidable stronghold became apparent. Though most of those who stood on the walls were but squires, they were weapon-ready to defend their lord’s castle. Would it be necessary?

Annyn looked to the scabbard on Wulfrith’s belt. He had returned his sword to it as they came out of the wood, and there it remained. If he anticipated trouble, it was not apparent. Of course, his sword could be put to hand in an instant.

True enough, it was not Henry who awaited the lord of Wulfen, but a nobleman Annyn recognized as the one the duke had longest considered as a husband for her. As the hooded man nudged his mount over sodden ground to meet Wulfrith, she silently beseeched her heart to calm. She had the cover afforded by the hood, and even if she came out from beneath it, the man would not likely recognize her. Of course, he surely knew Jame Braose who had arrived with him and Henry at Lillia. If any called her by name, she would be revealed.

“Lord Wulfrith,” he shouted above the fall of rain. “I bring you tidings from the duke.”