Meriel Fuller - The Knight's Fugitive Lady

Descending towards the salt marsh, they began to pick their way across, heading for the beach, the suck and crash of waves that landed on the shore in a boiling froth of foam. To their left, shallow cliffs, grass-topped, began to rise: sandy, amber-coloured flanks striated with clay. The wind snatched at Katerina’s cloak as they rounded the base of the cliff into the next bay, Waleran walking a little in front of her, playing the role of her protector, as always. He stopped suddenly, abruptly, staggering back, swinging one arm back to stop Katerina.

‘What...?’ she blurted out, confused by his unexpected halt.

And then she saw.

Further up the coast, bathed in the pinky-orange glow of morning, a fleet of maybe thirty ships clustered to the shore, coloured square sails flapping in the wind. Horses, muscled, shiny warhorses, their eyes rolling in fright at the prospect of entering the water, were being led down wooden ramps, pulled by their bridles through the foaming surf to the shore. Men, hundreds of men dressed in glittering chainmail, helmets obscuring their features, swarmed over the sides of the ship, running through the shallow sea to gather on the beach. Already, some had mounted up, swinging their horses about with a look of intent, orders shouted in a harsh guttural language.

‘Lord in Heaven!’ breathed Waleran. ‘Who are they?’

In the rising sun, the metallic shields of the soldiers shot back the light; it was difficult to decipher the colours. Heart thumping, Katerina screwed up her eyes, forced herself to focus on one shield only. Dark-blue background, gold fleur-de-lys. A gold crown above. Her stomach dropped, hollowed out in panic, and her legs began to shake.

‘It’s the Queen, Waleran,’ she managed to judder out. ‘Queen Isabella...of England.’ She touched a hand to her face, unsure, confused. ‘But I don’t understand. Those are not English knights...’

Waleran paled. He grabbed her hand. ‘This bodes ill, Katerina. We must run...and run fast, away from this place. It’s not safe.’

Heeding the wavering panic in Waleran’s voice, the warning, Katerina spun on her heel, leaping the ditch behind them with the easy agility of a deer, her tunic’s loose hem fluttering out over slim legs encased in woollen braies. Waleran paused, assessing the creek’s wide gap, wondering if he would make it.

‘Got you!’ a gruff voice echoed in his ear.

Something, someone, hauled roughly at his belt, dragged him unceremoniously backwards. All he could see was Katerina’s expression, white and stricken on the other side, the safe side of the creek, her mouth falling open in horror at whoever was behind him. Fear crawled in his gut; he had no intention of turning around.

A group of four or five soldiers clustered around her friend, the oldest and burliest of the group holding on to Waleran. There was no doubt as to their identity: gold fleur-de-lys glinted dully on their dark-blue cloaks and on their shields. Steel helmets obscured their faces, shining silver, the rest of their bodies clad in chainmail.

‘What’s in the bag, boy?’ The lead soldier indicated Katerina’s satchel, his eyes glinting out, narrow and mean, from the shadowed confines of his helmet.

‘Let my friend go and I tell you,’ Katerina replied. An angry helplessness swept over her as she watched Waleran’s futile struggles within the soldier’s burly grip. There was little point in her going to him; she hadn’t the physical strength to wrest him away, but every instinct in her body wanted to do it, to go there.

The soldier’s features darkened; he shook Waleran, but kept his eyes on Katerina. ‘Don’t play games with me, lad. You’re in no position to bargain. I ask you again, what’s in the bag?’ His voice was threatening.

One of the other soldiers, a younger one, shuffled uneasily. ‘Hey, Bomal, take it easy. We weren’t sent out to torture the locals, remember?’

‘Keep out of it!’ Bomal snarled back. Katerina lifted one hand self-consciously, making certain that her hood was pulled over her fine features. If they worked out she was a woman, the situation could develop into something far more serious for her.

The soldier set his head to one side, waiting for her answer.

‘A couple of rabbits,’ she relented, finally, remembering to keep her voice pitched low.

‘Been poaching on the lord’s land, eh?’ the soldier jeered at her. ‘Hand them over, then.’

Despite the spurt of fear in her veins and Waleran’s soft brown eyes imploring her, beseeching her to follow the soldier’s instructions, her fingers clutched more firmly around the bag-strap.

‘Let my friend go and then I’ll chuck over the bag.’

The soldier scowled, pulling a short knife from a leather scabbard attached to his belt. The steel blade glinted, the light bouncing off the shiny metal. He held the blade to Waleran’s throat.

‘What do I need to do to convince you?’ he shouted over to her.

Katerina was convinced. Body quaking with fear, she threw the bag over. Sheathing his knife, the soldier caught the bundle in his meaty fingers. ‘Thanks very much, young squire,’ he addressed her, his tone mocking, false. ‘And now you, young man—’ he kept a firm grip on Waleran’s upper sleeve ‘—you’re coming with us. We need someone to lead us to the nearest village.’

‘Let him go!’ Katerina’s voice rose perilously close to a screech. Stop playing with us! she wanted to shout out loud. We are nothing, nobody. We are just humble travellers, trying to earn a living, trying to find a morsel of food to fill our stomachs from one day to the next. And now these fat-bellied soldiers had stolen them, stolen the rabbits that they had spent all morning trying to catch. They couldn’t, they wouldn’t get away with this!

She watched dismally as Waleran was boosted up into the saddle behind the youngest-looking soldier, endeavouring to smile at her friend as he looked back at her, eyes pitiful. She refused to succumb to helplessness, to a wavering vulnerability that threatened to encroach her, to weaken her. A few stupid soldiers wouldn’t beat her! Without a doubt, she would find the means to outwit them.

‘Don’t worry, Waleran,’ she whispered, as the horses’ glossy rumps retreated, heading northwards to a dark stretch of trees. ‘I will come for you.’

* * *

Lussac, Count of Belbigny, leaned his elbows against the wooden rail of the forecastle and watched, through narrowed turquoise eyes, as the last of the soldiers, a jumbled mix of hired mercenaries and exiled English lords, made their way to the shore, dutifully following their Queen. Some were fortunate enough to clamber into the few rowboats brought with them across the North Sea from Hainault; others were not so lucky, splashing and stumbling in their heavy armour through the knee-deep waves, raucous curses splitting the morning air. Behind him, taut stay ropes now released, the huge square sail hung limp, ineffectual, beneath the crow’s nest, flapping dismally in the breeze. It had taken two days to sail from the Flanders coast, two long days and nights of churning seas, and an unexpected storm that had thrown the ships off course. Their exact location was unknown; it could be anywhere on the east coast of England north of the wide mouth of the river that led to London.

‘Lussac, come now, you are the last!’ A shout from one of the row-boats drawn alongside the high-sided wooden cog hailed him. He peered over the side, straight chestnut hair falling over his tanned forehead, trying to locate the owner of the familiar voice who shouted to him from the shadows of the vessel.

‘Come on, man! Do you want to go back? The ships will leave directly.’

Lussac smiled tersely, a muscle leaping in the shadowed hollow of his cheek. He had no intention of going back. After four years of battling the demons, of never being able to rid himself of the black bile that clagged his heart, King Charles of France, his friend, had offered him a life-line, a way out. When Queen Isabella, Charles’s younger sister, had announced her intention to overthrow her husband, King Edward II of England, by way of an invasion commanded by Roger Mortimer, Charles had suggested that Lussac travelled on the ships to England, to seek revenge and heal his tattered soul.