Anne Herries - Medieval Brides

‘Liar! Filthy liar!’

Adam shook his head. ‘She’d been beaten and is in a far worse state than I.’

Abruptly Gunni released Adam and, horror dawning on his face, turned. ‘Judhael? Brun said you went that way. Did you see anything?’

‘No.’

Gunni’s gaze sharpened. ‘Judhael, you wouldn’t…?’

‘Of course I wouldn’t,’ Judhael said, swift as an arrow. ‘The bloody Frank did it.’

‘No!’ Cecily burst out. ‘Adam would never do such a thing! But you…that bite…that bite on your hand…’ Across the clearing, a corner of Adam’s mouth lifted. It was the smallest of movements, virtually imperceptible, but Cecily was absurdly alert to everything about him—from the bruising on his face, to his empty sword scabbard, to the mud on his boots…

Judhael stalked across the boggy clearing, elbowed Emma aside and towered over her. ‘Soft, is he?’

‘Not in the least,’ Cecily said. Her skin was like ice, but she refused to quail before him. ‘But nor is he cruel. Adam had his man punish Lufu for laziness, but he only put her in the stocks. He wouldn’t have her beaten. None of them would. But you…your hand testifies to what you have done.’

Emma’s breath hitched, and Cecily realised that Gunni was not the only person to be watching Judhael in appalled disbelief. Emma and Edmund wore expressions that must mirror her own. This was her father’s housecarl, Judhael, but he was not the honourable man of old. He had become a tyrant.

‘Brun? Stigand?’ Edmund gestured at two of the men by the campfire. ‘You went out with Judhael earlier. What have you got to say?’ The two looked uncomfortably at Judhael and clamped their lips together. Surely they would exonerate Judhael if he had had nothing to do with Lufu being hurt? Their silence condemned him. ‘Judhael?’ Edmund’s hand went to his sword hilt.

‘Sweet Christ—as if I would! Surely you don’t believe his word over mine? The blasted Breton is trying to divide us. Gunni, continue.’

‘He did it,’ Le Blanc said, his gaze pinned on Judhael. ‘I…how do you say?…I watched him.’

Gunni’s face suffused. ‘You bastard, Judhael!’ A large fist slammed into Judhael’s face and Judhael went down. Gunni looked at Adam. ‘At my hut, you said?’

‘Aye.’

Gunni snatched a horse from a scout, flung himself into the saddle, and was off, mud spraying in his wake. A skin-shrivelling silence gripped those who remained. Something cold was thrust into Cecily’s palm. Emma’s eating knife.

‘Emma?’ But Emma was not looking her way—she was staring at Judhael as though he’d crawled out of a cesspit.

Not stopping to think, Cecily hurled herself across the clearing to Adam. No one attempted to hold her back. She gave a swift, featherlight caress to his bruised cheekbone and swollen eye, and was rewarded with one of his lop-sided grins. And then she was sawing for all she was worth at the leather ribbons binding him to the yoke.

‘Hurry, Princess,’ Adam murmured, glancing over her shoulder at someone coming up behind her.

‘I know, I know.’ But the chill had had turned her fingers into thumbs, and the leather resisted Emma’s eating knife, and Cecily was terrified lest she slice through one of the arteries on Adam’s wrists, and…

‘Let me,’ a voice said, directly behind her. Edmund, with Gurth at his side…

Desperately, Cecily gripped Emma’s knife.

‘Gurth, the yoke,’ Edmund said. ‘Hold it fast.’ Gurth moved behind Adam.

‘Edmund, no,’ Cecily moaned.

Edmund grinned, and for a second Cecily glimpsed the old Edmund—the Edmund she had known in her childhood, before she had been sent to the convent, before the Normans had crossed the Narrow Sea. Edmund’s seax flashed, and the yoke dropped into Gurth’s waiting arms. Gurth hurled it to the ground with a thud.

Adam’s arms fell, and he blanched as the blood rushed back into them. Taking his hand, Cecily draped it over her shoulder. Adam gripped her to him like a vice, their fingers entwined, and suddenly, despite the mud, despite the damp and the cold, it felt like summer.

Le Blanc too was freed from his yoke. He stood, bemusedly rubbing his wrists, his eyes fixed on Judhael, who sprawled in the mud with Stigand’s sword at his throat. One hand over his nose, Judhael attempted to rise, but Stigand’s sword, a slim silver line in the firelight, held him down.

Pointedly, Edmund sheathed his seax. ‘I’ve travelled as far as I’m going with you, Judhael. You take roads that I’ll not walk on. Lufu…’ Wearily, he scrubbed at his face. ‘You should not have done that. Lufu is one of us.’

‘That trollop has a loose mouth. It needed closing.’

‘But to leave her unconscious and bleeding, out in this weather…! No, Judhael, that was ill done.’

Stigand allowed Judhael to struggle up on one elbow. Blood trickled from Judhael’s nose, his lip curled. ‘So, Edmund, you’re allying yourself with the new Lord of Fulford?’

‘I didn’t say that, but I’ve done travelling with you.’

‘And what about me? Do you hand me to the Frank, so he can dangle me from the nearest gibbet?’

Emma put her hand to her mouth and sucked in a breath. Leaving the shelter of Adam’s arm, Cecily started towards her. Faint hoofbeats could be heard in the thickets to the south of the clearing, from the direction of Seven Wells Hill.

‘Make your mind up,’ Judhael said, wiping the blood from his nose. ‘The Breton must have laid a trail for his cavalry—listen, they’ve tracked us down.’

‘Damn it, Judhael, you’re a brother to me. I can’t see you in your winding sheet.’ Edmund waved at Stigand, who sheathed his sword. ‘Go on—get out of here.’

The hoofbeats were getting louder. Scrambling to his feet, Judhael dived at a horse and threw himself into the saddle. Wheeling about, he offered Emma his hand. ‘Not the life I’d hoped for, love, but will you join me?’

Emma stumbled back. ‘I…I…no! I’m sorry, Judhael. I…I can’t.’ Blindly, she fled to the awning, cheeks glistening with tears.

Judhael’s jaw dropped and he seemed to age ten years. ‘Emma? Emma?’ He spurred after her, but Edmund snatched at his horse’s bridle.

‘Go, man, if you value your life. They’re almost on us!’

Judhael singled out one of the men by the fire with a look, and lifted an eyebrow. ‘Azor, are you with me?’

‘Aye.’ Slapping Gurth on the back in a gesture of farewell, the man grabbed a horse from its tether and vaulted up.

‘Eric?’

‘I’m with Edmund. When it comes to bludgeoning our womenfolk…’ Eric shook his head.

White about the mouth, Judhael directed a last frown after Emma, and clapped his heels to his horse’s sides. Mud flew. He and Azor thundered out of the clearing, heading north as the last rays of daylight gilded the tops of the trees.

A heartbeat later, Wilf and Brian Herfu cantered up to the campfire at the head of Adam’s troop.

Candles lent the loft room at Fulford a soft glow, and the braziers warmed Adam’s skin. Washed and stripped to the waist, he was standing on the rush matting, submitting resignedly to Maurice’s ministrations.

Naturally he would rather have had his hurts tended by his wife, but she was below, behind the curtain in the sleeping area of the Hall, caring for Lufu. He was only suffering from a black eye and a few cuts and bruises. True, his eye throbbed like the devil, and it had puffed up so much that seeing out of it had become impossible. However, he had had a black eye before, and in a few days it would be back to normal. He might yearn for his wife to take the place of his squire, but it would be churlish indeed to summon her when Lufu’s needs were greater.