Saxon Lady

Both options were difficult to swallow, though he knew not why he should care. Lady Aelia and her brother were no more than two obstacles to that which Mathieu desired with all his heart—this land, and the prestige of being one of William’s conquering champions…and the pride of bringing a beautiful, wellborn bride here, to his own rich holding.

A stringed instrument stood propped against one of the chamber walls, and a beautifully carved fruitwood recorder lay upon a trunk at the end of the bed. As one who had spent many a leisurely hour making his own carvings, Mathieu appreciated the fine craftsmanship of the piece, even as he imagined Aelia’s lips upon the instrument, and the music she would make. He opened the trunk and removed several articles of clothing—delicate chainsil and sturdy woolens. Placing the recorder across the center of the pile of clothes, he rolled it all into a neat package and carried it from the chamber.

“Find something to put this in,” he said, handing the bundle to one of his men. “And put it with the packs that will return to London with me.”

Hours passed, with no news of what was happening to Aelia’s home, to her people. When the acrid smell of smoke permeated the air around her, chafing her nose and burning her throat, she blinked back tears and vowed revenge. “The village!” she whispered to Osric. “They’ve torched our village!”

So many cottages, the shops, the livestock. All would be destroyed by the Norman bastard, who would take her father’s land and enslave her people.

Osric jumped to his feet, pulling the rope that bound him to Aelia. “I will kill him,” he said. But one of the Norman guards shoved him to the ground once again. “And you, too!”

“Take care, little brother,” Aelia said, blinking back her tears. She would be the one to exact their revenge upon Fitz Autier. She did not know how she would manage it, but somehow, she would kill the bastard and take Ingelwald back for their people.

As dusk grew near, riders approached and dismounted. “We’re to break camp,” one of them said. “And get these two back to the hall.”

Hall? Aelia almost laughed at the absurdity. What hall? She fired her questions at the Normans, but they did not give her the courtesy of a reply, merely ordering her and Osric to start walking.

Osric denounced the Norman guards in English, in French and in Latin as he trudged back through the forest toward Ingelwald. Aelia was too angry to say a word, and worried, too.

Would Fitz Autier kill her and Osric now? Had he waited until his victory was assured before executing them?

As they came closer to Ingelwald, the smoke became thicker, hovering low amid the branches in the woods. Aelia’s eyes teared so badly that her vision was impaired when they reached the edge of the wood and entered the village that lay outside the walls.

“’Tis still here!” Osric exclaimed.

Aelia wiped her eyes, though her sight still was not clear. “Hardly, Osric.” She knew about the Normans’ tactics—the devastation they wrought that took years to repair.

Yet Aelia gradually saw that the cottages remained intact, for the most part. The tannery, the weaver’s shop, the tavern…none had been destroyed. Fowl and swine ran loose between the buildings, and people called to her from their doorsteps.

Aelia’s throat felt too raw to answer. She stumbled blindly through the village until they reached Ingelwald’s timber gate, which lay shattered on the ground beneath her feet. Inside the walls, she heard the sounds of weeping. Here was proof of the Normans’ brutality.

The smallest of the buildings within the walls had been burned to the ground. Her father’s house remained, only because much of it was constructed of rock and stone, but Aelia had no doubt that the Norman bastard would raze it, too, when it suited him.

Osric pointed toward the area beside the armory, where a long row of bodies lay upon the ground, and a number of women stood holding each other, weeping.

Aelia’s heart lodged in her throat. Heedless of the knight who shouted at her, she walked toward the grieving women. Dead Normans and Saxons lay beside one another, as though they’d not spent their last days trying to butcher each other.

“My lady!” cried one mourning widow. She grabbed Aelia’s sleeve and knelt, pressing her forehead to Aelia’s knee. Her tears soaked through the soft wool of Aelia’s braies. “My Sigebert! ’Tis my Sigebert lying at your feet! What am I to do? Our children…”

“Hilda, come,” said another of the women.

“No! These Norman bastards killed him…my Sigebert….”

The woman took the widow away as others knelt and kissed Aelia’s hands.

Aelia swallowed. Her hatred had become a palpable thing. Everything in her field of vision became clouded by a red haze of rage, and her hands itched to do violence. She would vent her anger, but not just any Norman would do. When she loosed her wrath, ’twould be upon the leader of these vermin.

The guard tried to lead her back toward the great hall, but Aelia shrugged him off, pushing Osric ahead of her. “A weapon,” she said to her brother. “We must find something to use against these foreigners.”

“On the bodies,” Osric replied. “One of them must have a knife or… Look, Aelia,” he said. “’Tis Selwyn.”

True enough, the man who’d been chosen to be her husband lay among the dead. Aelia mourned him, not because of any particular fondness for the man, but because he was Saxon. He did not deserve this ignominious fate. Aelia vowed that he and all the other Saxon warriors would be decently buried.

Aelia reined in her temper and walked down the line of bodies, hesitating at each one to say a short prayer, while she searched for an overlooked weapon. When she came to the body of a woman laid out among the warriors, she gasped. ’Twas Erlina One-Ear, the pitiful crone who lived in a tiny cottage at the farthest end of the village. In recent years, Erlina had started muttering incoherently to herself as she walked through the village, and though her behavior seemed to become more bizarre with every passing month, she was harmless.

“’Twas murder,” Aelia said to Osric.

“There is no wound upon her.”

Aelia whirled ’round to face Fitz Autier, who stood watching her with his hands casually perched upon his narrow hips. He closed the distance between them. “Don’t try to convince me that you weren’t thinking the worst of me and my men. We didn’t kill the old woman.”

“Then how did she die?”

“Mayhap you should examine the body and tell me.”

“I am no leech, Norman. But neither was she a soldier.”

He wore a long, split hauberk, but his head remained uncovered. His hair was not barbered in the usual manner of Normans, but neglected and left to grow as it would. With one day’s growth of beard and the terrible slash across his cheek, he looked imposing and dangerous. Still Aelia found herself alarmingly drawn to him.

He slid her knife from his belt and sliced through the rope that bound her to Osric. “Take him to the prisoners’ quarters.”

“No!” Aelia cried, reaching for him. “He’s just a child!”

“I’m no child, Aelia!” Osric countered angrily. “I will stay with our men until it is time.”

“Time for what?” Fitz Autier asked, his voice an ominous growl of pique and displeasure. “Time for what, boy?”

Osric stared defiantly at the Norman leader, then spoke through his teeth. “For my execution, bastard.”

“Osric, no!” Aelia’s breath caught in her throat and she resisted closing her eyes against the surety of what was about to happen.

But rather than gutting the boy with the knife in his hand, Fitz Autier motioned to the guard to take him away.

“What will you do with him?”

Fitz Autier took hold of the rope that bound Aelia’s hands and pulled her beside him. “Better for you to consider what I will do with you, demoiselle.”

Aelia swallowed hard and stumbled alongside the Norman as he strode into the great hall of her father’s house. A fire burned in the massive hearth, providing the only light in the cavernous hall. A number of Frenchmen with bloody wounds lay upon pallets here, sleeping or moaning in pain.

Fitz Autier continued walking until he reached the stairs, then pushed her in front and made her climb. “Where are you taking me?”

“Keep moving,” he replied.

“I—I’m hungry.” She had not eaten all day.

“Gilbert!” He did not stop moving, but shouted to someone below. “Send food.”

“You…you can’t…I…”