Commanded By The French Duke

Guilhem sighed. ‘I promised my mother I would visit my sister. She has travelled over to be married to an English noble and I believe his castle is not far from here.’ He grinned as Edward’s mouth turned down sulkily. ‘It’ll only be one night and then I’ll join you at Knighton.’

“You need to rest as well. Why not come with us now and see your sister on the morrow?”

“Alright.” Guilhem nodded, then tilted his head, listening intently. ‘Someone’s coming,’ he said softly, drawing out his long sword from the scabbard. The steel blade rasped along the leather, a sibilant hiss. His eyes searched the area swiftly, body poised, tense and alert in the saddle. The sound of twigs breaking, of horse’s hooves thumping heavily, came from the other side of the clearing. One of Edward’s outriders came flying towards them, his helmet gone, face red and excited. He pulled so violently on the reins that his horse skidded to a stop, the whites of its eyes rolling back wildly. ‘There’s a problem!’ he managed to gasp out.

Chapter Two (#ulink_3fbd4568-7245-5252-8e96-055e0dddc6b6)

The only problem, as far as Guilhem could gather, seemed to be a diminutive nun dressed in what looked like a grey baggy sack and holding a large sword which he suspected did not belong to her. The substantial blade dwarfed her neat frame, semi-precious stones winking dully at the leather-bound helm. The maid stood at the apex of a packhorse bridge, legs planted wide, a laden ox-cart tilting precariously behind her; at intervals she would swish the sword from left to right in a vaguely threatening manner. From what he could work out, not one soldier had made any attempt to overthrow her; instead, they stood in a miserable group on the river bank, helmets off, horses plucking in desultory manner at the spindly grass. Why were they holding back? Surely it was a simple matter to take her down?

‘What is going on here?’ Edward said, dismounting swiftly, reddish-blond brows held together in a deep frown.

‘Er...well, this...this lay sister...’ one of the soldiers began to explain, clutching at his hand. The other men collected around him, shuffling their feet, nodding encouragement to their companion.

‘Are you bleeding?’ Edward demanded roughly, snatching at the man’s hand and opening the stubby fingers. Blood trickled slowly from a deep cut across the soldier’s palm.

The soldier flushed to the roots of his hair. ‘She did it.’ He nodded in the direction of the bridge.

Edward glared at him, pale blue eyes narrowing to slits. ‘She did it? Are you trying to tell me that a nun attacked you? God in Heaven, call yourself knights?’

‘Look at her, sire. She’s giving us the evil eye, muttering godforsaken words at us. Words of the Devil. We tried to make her move the cart, but she slashed at my hand and took my sword! Then she raised her cross and...and put a curse on us! I swear, it’s the truth, sire. We daren’t touch her.’

‘What utter nonsense,’ Edward shot back. ‘Let me deal with this.’

‘Allow me,’ Guilhem said, stalling Edward’s forward step with a burly arm across his friend’s chest. Shoving his helmet towards a soldier, he pushed back his chainmail hood so it settled in loose folds across his shoulders. ‘It wouldn’t do to have the King’s son cut down by a woman.’

‘As if!’ Edward snorted. But he stopped, sweeping his arm out with mock courtesy. ‘However, I have no wish to be cursed, either. Be my guest.’

* * *

The knight who walked towards her was tall, a red woollen surcoat covering his muscled torso and broad shoulders. Despite his height, he carried his body with graceful athleticism, like an animal: powerful, self-assured. Beneath his surcoat, glittering chainmail covered his massive arms, but, in contrast to the other soldiers, he wore no plate armour on his shins. Instead, calf-length leather boots and woollen trousers covered his long legs. His head was bare, chainmail hood pushed back to reveal a thatch of burnished hair, more dark blond than brown, strands thick and wayward, framing a lean, tanned face, prominent cheekbones dusted with sunburn.

Alinor licked her lips rapidly, desperate for a drink of water, for something to calm her, to quell the rising tide of fear that filled her chest, that channelled her breathing into short, quick gasps. Her wrists were weak, fatigued from holding up the cumbersome sword. Her left arm ached, the scar pinching painfully. Where had he come from? Suddenly the short, rotund soldier who had first accosted her seemed infinitely preferable to this approaching barbarian! Everything about him frightened her: those fierce, glinting eyes of midnight blue; his stern mouth set in a grim, intimidating line and that imposing height—all made her innards quail, leap with terrified anticipation. Her heart fluttered incoherently. Have courage, she told herself. You’ve managed to hold them off so far, you can do it again. This is not your grain in the cart and the nuns need the income from it in order to survive. If you let it go now, they will have nothing.

The knight had reached the head of the oxen.

Blood thrummed in her ears. ‘Go away!’ she stuttered out, waving the sword threateningly in the direction of his chest. The heavily embroidered gold lions danced before her eyes. ‘Olim erat urbs magna, nomine altum est!’ The Latin speech poured out of her, nonsensical.

To her utter surprise, the knight laughed, his wide mouth breaking into a smile. Small lines crinkled at the side of his eyes. ‘Your curses don’t scare me, Sister. I don’t believe in God, or the Devil either. We have no intention of hurting you; we merely want to cross the bridge, but you seem to be blocking it.’

‘The wheel is broken,’ Alinor explained. Her voice juddered out, high-pitched. ‘Your men know that already! And that one over there...’ she jabbed the sword point in the direction of the first soldier who had come across to her ‘...started cutting at the sacks, spilling the grain, pouring it into the river!’

Guilhem stuck his thumbs into his sword belt. The supple leather around his slim hips emphasised the bunched muscle in his thighs. He frowned, blue eyes sweeping across the damaged sacks behind her. A lock of burnished hair fell across his brow, blond tips grazing his tanned forehead. ‘And for that I can only apologise,’ he replied. ‘The man overstepped the mark, but I think he has paid the price; you’ve cut him quite badly.’

‘He deserved it!’ A vivid colour flushed Alinor’s cheeks. ‘I thought he was going to help me and then...to waste the grain like that!’

Her eyes were truly the most astonishing colour, Guilhem thought. The wimple wrapped around the perfect oval of her face seemed only to enhance the clear, brilliant green of the irises, glowing like huge emeralds, translucent glass. His heart lurched suddenly, unexpectedly.

‘Just give me the sword, Sister,’ he demanded gruffly, annoyed at the unwelcome nudge in his groin. A nun, for God’s sake! What had got into him? She was nothing to look at: short, no doubt with a vast mountain of flesh beneath that unbecoming gown and a shaved head under that head-covering. A bride of Christ, married to Our Lord. Untouchable. He should know better.

‘Never!’ Alinor hissed out. ‘Why should I trust you...or them—’ she nodded mockingly over at Edward’s men ‘—to do the right thing? Your reputation, or should I say, your notoriety, precedes you! Everyone knows what Prince Edward is like! He’s a devil and a rogue, and that goes for all who serve him, as well! I’m staying here and I’m not moving until my friend comes back with help to mend the wheel.’

Irritation burned through him at her rudeness. ‘Be careful, maid.’ His voice lowered in warning. ‘Your accusations are treacherous and based on ignorance; you would do well to remember who you’re dealing with, lay sister or not. Edward does not take kindly to those who defy him...’ his sparkling eyes roamed over her ‘...and neither do I.’

Alinor reeled back in fright as he lunged forward, wrenching the sword helm easily from her and lobbing it back along the bridge with a clatter. The blade spun away, sliding across the flat cobbles. ‘No...o...o!’ she protested weakly, senses spinning; for one sickening moment, she thought she might faint. Quickly, she wound her fingers into the oxen’s leather harness, thinking to stay close to the cart that way.

‘Forgive me, Sister,’ the knight said, but there was no forgiveness in his tone. ‘But if you refuse to move, then I will have to move you.’

Roped, muscular arms looped tightly around her waist; she gasped out, a mixture of terror and outrage, fingers snarling in desperation around the harness. But to no avail. He plucked her up with ease, lifting her so high that her feet flailed above the ground. Under the sheer force of the movement, her grip loosened on the harness, fingers flailing in the air as he slammed her against his solid frame to carry her away.

The jolting impact of the man’s body against her own sent shock waves coursing through her; her face was on a level with his, his chest hard up against her soft breasts, her hips bouncing intimately against his muscle-bound thighs. A wild, hectic colour flooded her pale skin; she wanted to die in shame. Never, never, had she been so close to a man before!

‘You let me go! This instant!’ she demanded, fury and humiliation shunting aside her fear. Battering small fists down on the top of his shoulders, she wriggled violently in his fearsome grip, wanting him to drop her, kicking at his shins and stubbing her toes against the inflexible muscle. ‘Put me down! I’ll make you pay for this!’ Beneath his tunic, the tiny links that made up his mail coat poked into her raging fists.

He chuckled, a throaty sound rippling upwards from his chest. ‘You make a lot of threats for someone supposedly from the house of God. And for a woman.’

Bashing furiously at his shoulders, Alinor failed to hear him. ‘Let me go,’ she shrieked again, ‘let me go!’ Sanity fled, as if snapped away in a sharp breeze. She would do anything to extricate herself from his punishing grip. Instinct drove her, the instinct to survive. Leaning forward, she sunk her teeth into the soft, downy lobe of his ear, senses poised for the smallest release of his arms so she could wriggle away.

It didn’t come.

‘Why, you little...!’ Guilhem roared at her, outraged, his brawny arms still clamped around her, muscles like iron rivets against the small of her back. ‘You bit me!’ His eyes flared across her white, fearful face.

Her confidence shrivelled; convinced he would release her after she had bit him, she had given no thought to the consequences. Why had she not been meek and mild, subservient? How foolish she had been! What would they do to her, a single maid in a group of royalist soldiers? My God, it didn’t bear thinking about! A shriek rose up on an engulfing tide of fear, a high-pitched screeching welling in her chest, bursting out from her mouth in incoherent splutters, gathering strength; her mind blanked completely, washed through, crumpling into a vast wasteland of utter terror.

Her screams, shrill and anguished, made his ears hurt. Wincing, Guilhem reached the riverbank with the struggling bundle in his arms. He wanted to assure the maid that everything would be fine, that they had no intention of hurting her, and that all they wanted to do was be on their way, but he knew his words would make no impression. Given the noise the nun was making, she simply wouldn’t hear him.

‘Sweet Jesu! Will you stop that caterwauling?’ Edward said as he strode towards the pair of them. ‘I’ve had enough of this!’

The blow came out of nowhere, a large fist slamming into the side of Alinor’s cheek.

The maid’s body reeled sideways at the violent impact, limp in Guilhem’s arms, unconscious. Her head lolled forward on to his shoulder, linen veil fanning out across his surcoat. He didn’t even have time to step back, to pull her away from Edward’s damaging swing, the full force of his blow. ‘I’m sorry,’ Edward said, staring with dismay at the senseless maid in Guilhem’s arms, ‘but that infernal screeching was crawling under my skin; it made me mad.’

‘Really?’ Guilhem replied, his tone constrained, dry. He adjusted his arms so that the girl’s body was more evenly balanced against him. God, when would Edward learn to control his temper? He swung her legs up towards his chest, so that she lay secure against him, her weight light, surprisingly delicate. Her voluminous gown concealed a trim figure, a slender indent of waist. The curve of her hip nudged against his forearm. ‘It was completely unnecessary. To hit a woman, Edward, and not only a woman, a lay sister!’

‘I know, I know,’ Edward said, pale eyes immediately contrite. ‘I wasn’t thinking.’

Guilhem’s eyes lowered, scowling at the mass of purple bruising on the woman’s cheekbone. Blood trickled down towards her wimple, staining the white cloth, blooming steadily across the fabric like a blossoming flower. Her eyes were closed, long velvet lashes fanning her cheeks. But her breath puffed against his jawline, warm and regular. Thank God. Ignoring Edward, he carried her over into the shade of a beech tree and laid her down, carefully, on the ground.

He walked over to help the other soldiers unload the grain sacks, stacking them neatly at the side of the bridge. Unhitching the oxen, they led the animals over to the trees, securing their reins to the lower branches. Watched by Edward, grim and unsmiling on his horse, they managed to half-drag, half-carry the ailing cart from the bridge, depositing it safely on the river bank.

‘What I can’t understand is, what was the stupid chit doing on her own?’ Edward said suddenly, exasperated, trying to mitigate his guilt, as if he were less likely to hit a woman if she had a man with her. ‘I mean, what woman travels alone, these days? It’s unheard of. Foolish. Stupid.’

‘I couldn’t agree more,’ Guilhem said. ‘But apparently she told the soldiers she had sent her man to fetch help with the broken axle.’ He flicked his gaze over to the spreading beech tree, at the prone, motionless figure, the stark white face.

‘My mother would tear a strip off me if she found out that I’d hit a woman,’ Edward said, his narrow mouth turning down ruefully.

‘I doubt it,’ Guilhem replied. ‘The Queen adores you and well you know it. She would blame the girl for bringing it upon herself.’

Edward threw him a curious lopsided smile. ‘Well, her behaviour was completely out of order...’