The Saxon Outlaw's Revenge

Exhaustion hit her like a fist. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the tree, thinking it would be all too easy to fall asleep here and not get up again. If she did, would Aelric leave her there to die or carry her to his camp? Images from the past flooded her mind, threatening to upset her composure as nothing else that day had done.

‘You can’t go to sleep here,’ Aelric said firmly.

He nudged her in the ribs and she opened her eyes with a scowl. He passed her a small bottle and Constance took a large swig before realising it wasn’t the weak beer she had drunk before but a deep, rich spirit. She coughed as the liquid hit the back of her throat and tears sprang to her eyes. She took a smaller sip that warmed her from the inside as the liquor travelled through her. She held the bottle out to Aelric who took it without a word, drank and stowed it beneath his cloak.

Constance caught flash of metal at his waist. She thought at first it was her dagger until she realised with a start it had a twin tucked into the belt beside it. He still had the dagger she had given him so long ago, and, more crucially, hers was not securely sheathed. If only she could reclaim it, she would not be in such a vulnerable position.

‘If you’re going to blindfold me, does that mean you plan to set me free at some point?’ she ventured.

Aelric said nothing for long enough that Constance began to fear the answer. She searched his half-hidden face for recognition of the gentle boy she had known, but his eyes were iron-hard and the shaggy beard hid the lips that had once eagerly sought hers.

‘I don’t know. I hope you will be useful to us, but in truth I cannot say what will happen,’ he said abruptly. ‘The choice may not be mine to make.’

His voice was cold. Fear surged through Constance, clutching at her stomach and twisting tightly. They already had her jewels, although they could not know that, and she felt sick imagining what other uses they could put her to.

‘But you’re their leader,’ she protested. ‘They listened to you before. They would do what you decided again.’

Aelric snorted in surprise. ‘Their leader? Not at all. These are free men. There are no leaders here and in any case I would not be that man.’

He pulled his hood back and fixed her with an intense expression that looked out of place on the face in Constance’s memory. The Aelric she had grown fond of had been a gentle boy, serious and scholarly. He would never have been a leader. She wondered if he still played the pipe and danced, but she doubted it.

‘I have not been with the men long enough to earn such a position,’ Aelric explained. ‘I have barely earned their trust and preventing Gerrod from killing you today may have put that in jeopardy. More so thanks to you naming me.’

‘Why do you call yourself Caddoc?’

Aelric grinned coldly. ‘A man must have a name and I gave up Aelric when I became a fugitive. Perhaps my new one will strike fear into Norman hearts in time.’

‘How do you hope to achieve that?’ Constance asked.

‘Taking what is theirs. Making their lives harder. Making them wish they had never come to my land.’

He took the strip of cloth that had covered Constance’s eyes and began wrapping it around his hand. He unwrapped it again, repeating the action over and over until Constance began to wonder whether or not he was aware of doing it at all. She imagined it tightening around her throat until she could no longer breathe and gave a shiver.