Laurie Grant - My Lady Reluctant

Ladies did not usually have to flee for their lives, either, Gisele reminded herself. When a quick glance revealed no low-lying branches immediately ahead, she renewed her clutching hold on the beast’s streaming mane and threw her right leg over the mare’s bunching withers. There was no stirrup to balance her on that side, of course, but she gripped with her knees as if her salvation depended upon it. Without reins, she would just have to wait until the palfrey wore itself out, and hope that the Weald was not as deep as it was wide. Surely she’d come out before she was benighted here, and find some sort of settlement on the other side.

A log loomed ahead of them, and Gisele tried in vain to persuade the mare away from it by pressure from her knees and tugging on her mane, but having come so far on her own impulses, the palfrey was seemingly loath to start taking direction now. The horse gathered herself and leaped the log, with Gisele clinging like a burr atop her, but then caught her hoof in a half-buried root at her landing point on the other side.

Whinnying in fear, the mare cartwheeled, her long legs flailing. Gisele had no chance to do more than scream as she went flying through the air, striking the bole of a beech with the side of her head. There was a flash of light, and then—nothing.

Gisele awoke to a gentle nudge against her shoulder. Lark? But no, she thought, keeping her eyes closed, whatever pushed against her shoulder was harder than the soft velvety nose of her palfrey. More like a booted foot…

The outlaws had found her, and were poking her to see if she lived. She froze, holding her breath. In a moment they would try some more noxious means of eliciting a response, and she would not be able to hold back her scream. Doubtless that would delight them.

She waited until her lungs burned for lack of air, then took a breath, eyes still closed.

“The lady lives, my lord.”

“So ’twould seem.”

They spoke good Norman French, not the gutteral Saxon tongue of the outlaws. Gisele’s eyes flew open.

And looked directly up into eyes so dark and deep that they appeared to be black, bottomless pools. The man who owned such eyes stood over her, gazing down at her with open curiosity. He had a warrior’s powerful shoulders and broad chest, and from Gisele’s recumbent position he seemed tall as a tree. He wore a hauberk, and the mail coif framed a face that was all angular planes. The lean, chiseled face, firm mouth, and deep-set eyes shouldn’t have been a pleasing combination, but despite the lack of a smile, it was.

Next to him, the other man who had spoken leaned over to stare at her, too. Even taller than the man he had addressed as my lord, he was massively built, and wore a leather byrnie sewn with metal links rather than a hauberk. Possibly a half-dozen years younger than his master, he was not handsome, but his face bore a stamp of permanent amiability.

“Who—who are you?” Gisele asked at last, when it seemed their duel of gazes might go on until the end of the world.

“I might ask the same of you,” the mail-clad man pointed out.

Gisele wondered if she should tell him the truth. By his speech, the quality of his armor, and the presence of the gold spurs, she could tell he was noble, but whose vassal was he? If he was Stephen’s and found out she was the daughter of a vassal of Matilda’s, would he still behave chivalrously toward her, or treat her with dishonor? She dared not tell him a lie, for in the leather pouch that swung from her girdle, she bore a letter her father had written to introduce her to the empress. If the man standing over her was the dishonorable sort, he might have already have searched that pouch for valuables, and discovered her identity and her allegiance. But he did not look unscrupulous, despite the slight impatience that thinned his lips now.

“I am Lady Sidonie Gisele de l’Aigle. And you?”

He went on studying her silently, until the other man finally said, “He’s the Baron de Balleroy, my lady. What are you doing in the woods all alone?”

“Hush, Maislin. Forgive my squire his impertinence, Lady Gisele. My Christian name is Brys, since you have given me yours. Might I help you to your feet?” he asked, extending a mail-gauntleted hand.

Up to this point Gisele hadn’t moved from her supine position, but as she pushed up on her elbows preparatory to taking his hand, it suddenly seemed as if the devil had made a Saracen drum out of her head and was pounding it with fiendish glee. With a moan she sank back, feeling sick with the intensity of the pain.

“She’s ill, my lord!” the squire announced anxiously.

“I can see that,” she heard de Balleroy snap. “Go catch her palfrey grazing over there, Maislin, while I see what’s to be done. I can see that your face is scraped, my lady, but where else are you hurt? Is aught broken?”

She opened her eyes again to find de Balleroy crouching beside her, his face creased with concern. He was reaching a hand out as if to explore her limbs for a fracture.

“Nay, ’tis my head,” she told him quickly, before he could touch her. “It feels as if it may split open. I…my palfrey fell, and I with her. I…guess the fall knocked me insensible. How long have I lain—” she began, as she struggled to sit up again.

“Just rest there a moment, Lady Sidonie,” he began.

“Gisele,” she corrected him.

He looked blank for a moment, until she explained, “I go by my middle name, Gisele. I was named Sidonie for my mother, but to avoid confusion, I am called Gisele.” There hadn’t been, of course, any confusion in the ten years that her mother had been dead, but de Balleroy needn’t know that.

She started to lever herself into a sitting position, but he put a hand on her shoulder to forestall her. “As to how long you lay there, I know not—but ’tis late afternoon now. And as my squire asked, what were you doing in the Weald alone?” There was an edge to his voice, as if he already suspected her answer.

And then she remembered. “Fleurette! I must go to her! And the men! Maybe I was wrong—even now, one or two may still live!” She thrashed now beneath his hand, struggling to get up, her teeth gritted against the pain her movement elicited.

“Lie still, my lady! You gain nothing if the pain makes you pass out again! You traveled with that party of men-at-arms, and the old woman? My squire and I…well, we came upon them farther back, Lady Gisele. There is nothing you can do for them. They are all dead.”

He could have added, And stripped naked as the day they were born, their throats cut, but he did not. Lady Sidonie Gisele de l’Aigle’s creamy ivory skin had a decidedly green cast to it already. If he described the scene of carnage he and his squire had found, she just might perish from the shock.

She ceased trying to rise. Her eyelids squeezed shut, forcing a tear down her cheek, then another. “We were set upon by brigands, my lord,” she said, obviously struggling not to give way to full-blown sobbing. “They jumped out of the trees without warning. I saw the arrow pierce my old nurse’s breast…but I hoped…”

“Like as not she was dead before she hit the ground, my lady.” Brys de Balleroy said, keeping his voice deep and soothing. “I’ll come back and see them buried, I promise you. But now we must get you to safety—’twill be dusk soon, and we must not remain in the woods any longer. Do you think you can stand?”

She nodded.

“Let me help you,” he told her, placing both of his hands under her arms to help her up. Over his shoulder, Brys saw that his squire had caught the chestnut mare and stood holding the reins nearby, his face anxious.

Lady Gisele gave a gallant effort, but as she first put her weight on her left foot, she gasped and swayed against him. “My ankle—I cannot stand on it!” Pearls of sweat popped out on her forehead as he eased her to the ground. Her face went shroud-white, her pupils dilated.