Meriel Fuller - Her Battle-Scarred Knight

Head held high, she stalked forwards, marching purposefully, swiftly, along the lane towards Winchester, wrapping her woollen cloak firmly around her. She could have run to hide in the darkness of the forest, but what would that achieve? He would surely find her—his face held a lean, hunting expression, that of a predator. Moments later, the sound of galloping hooves thumped up behind her. Her heart plummeted, trickles of fear stinging her blood.

‘Lady Brianna!’ Giseux bellowed. The words rained down on her back as if they were physical blows and she hunched over, chest thudding painfully. Don’t cower like a guilty thief, she told herself. Face him! Dragging herself up to her full height, spine straight and rigid, she spun around, the toe of her sturdy leather boot sinking into soft rotting leaves beneath her foot.

Giseux wore no helmet; his hair stuck up in rough spikes. His eyes, sparking anger, glimmered down over her. Despite her determined demeanour, she hoped that a great crevasse would open up beneath him and swallow him up.

‘What do you think you are doing?’ The roughness of his tone cut into her. His face glimmered with a sheen of sweat: he must have run to catch up with her before his horse turned back.

‘You know what I am doing.’ Not wanting to meet his eyes, to admit that she had defied his orders, Brianna stared mutinously at his mail-covered foot, stuck in the stirrup on a level with her chest, the gleaming armour dulled with spots of mud.

‘I told you to wait until morning, then I would have escorted you.’ His voice was low, level, but she detected a steely thread of exasperation winding through. The strengthening breeze stirred the wayward strands of his hair, making him appear more tousled … more devastating, she thought suddenly, a lump in her throat.

‘I know the way,’ she replied, truculently. Tilting her head to one side, she crossed her arms across her chest, a defiant gesture. In the shifting moonlight, her copper-coloured hair faded to a pale silk, loose strands drifting treacherously down from beneath her veil.

‘It’s not a question of whether you know the way or not,’ he replied tersely, ‘but the fact that you’re a woman. No noblewoman goes out unescorted—it’s utter madness.’

Brianna pushed the white froth of her veil back over her shoulder. ‘Since Hugh went away, I have had little choice in the matter,’ she replied practically, bending her gaze to his horse’s flank. Beneath the animal’s shining coat, a pulse throbbed near the surface, the beat regular and strong.

‘Up to now, maybe not,’ he agreed, ‘but you knew I would escort you to Winchester and you deliberately defied me.’

She jerked her chin up, eyes flashing fire at his chastisement. ‘I wanted to get to Hugh—I haven’t seen him for three years! Surely you can understand that?’

Aye, he could. He understood her need, her desire to be with her brother, especially after her harassment from Count John’s men. He suspected the beating he had witnessed today was one of many.

‘Besides,’ she continued, ‘who are you to order me about? You are not my lord, or my master. I can do what I want, go where I want. It’s my choice.’

In the shadows of the forest, the silver embroidery along the hem of his tunic twinkled like starlight. ‘So you do exactly as you please, without any consideration for others.’

Why, he made her sound like a spoiled brat! ‘It’s not

like that!’

‘How do you think Hugh would feel if something had happened to you?’

‘I can take care of myself!’

‘Hah! Like you took care of yourself this morning?’ he growled down derisively. The moonlight turned the ruffled strands of his hair to gold. ‘If I hadn’t come along when I did …’

She shrugged her shoulders, trying to suppress the doubt that mired her chest. ‘Those men are cowards … Lord Fulke is a coward! They would have left me alone soon enough. You, coming along like that, would have made no difference.’

‘Fighting words, my lady! Yet I suspect even you know that you lie to yourself. A woman alone is vulnerable, especially one who is stupid enough to believe she can best a man!’ She reminded him of a wild animal, cornered and vulnerable, the display of viciousness masking its puny strength.

‘I can—Hugh taught me how to use the crossbow … and the knife!’ The pitch of her words notched upwards, emerging in a spiral of rising anger and, yes, fear as well. How dare he challenge her methods of self-preservation, her hard-won skill? Instinctively her fingers moved to the jewelled knife hilt on her belt.

Giseux’s sparkling grey eyes honed in on her movement, his mouth twisting to a derogatory sneer. ‘That knife is more a hindrance than a help; it can so easily be wrested from your hands and turned against you. You would be better off not having it at all.’ The horse sidled beneath him; his big thigh muscles tensed as he maintained his upright position on the animal.

Hugh had given her the knife, before he went away. It was he who had taught her to use it properly, even though her brother could only guess at what she had experienced at the hands of her husband. She had told Hugh the barest details of her ordeal, not wanting to give voice to her time with Walter, not even with her brother. This knife, its heavy weight bumping against her hip, made her feel safe; now this man, this stranger, had the temerity to undermine its power!

‘You have no idea of what you are talking about!’ she flared up at him, long eyelashes fanning out around her blue eyes. ‘You scarce know me, yet you criticise and condemn me! How dare you?’

In a single, graceful movement he slid down from the horse, from that treacherous animal that had refused to move faster than a snail for her, and stood before her, his angled face leaning down into hers. ‘You’re living in a dream world, thinking you can protect yourself with that blade.’ He was so close that he stood within the folds of her skirts.

Instinctively, she backed away, throwing back the sides of her cloak as her fingers tightened around the hilt, sliding the knife from the leather scabbard. His arm flashed out, a lightning speed honed from years of fighting, muscular fingers upon hers, crushing, squeezing. An intense pain shot through her wrist, the knife slipping from her weakened grip. ‘You’re not being fair …’ she gasped as it fell. Giseux’s quicksilver reflex snared the blade as it flew downwards; in a trice, he turned the gleaming point, the blade a hairbreadth away from her frantically beating heart. For an endless moment they stood there, tense, taut, breathing rapidly, the moon highlighting the stillness of their bodies.

‘See how easy it was?’ His voice looped over her, dry, taunting. His hulking frame loomed so close that she caught the scent of him, a tantalising mix of spice and woodsmoke. A surge of adrenalin pulsed through her, exciting, wicked. She stepped backwards, appalled at the speed of the manoeuvre, appalled by his glittering proximity, then realised she could go no further, her heel kicking uncomfortably against the nubbled back of a trunk. Above them, an owl hooted, its call eerie within the confines of the trees.

‘Give me my knife back!’ Her voice, brittle, trembled with confusion. Palms pressed against the immovable oak, her slender body felt exposed to him, vulnerable. ‘I should have shot you when I had the chance!’

He laughed, a short bark of sound, teeth white in the shadowed tan of his face, flipping the knife back so that she could take the jewelled hilt. ‘Death by crossbow might have been preferable to escorting you.’

Brianna glared at him, hostile, stabbing the blade back in its sheath. ‘I’m not going back to Sefanoc with you,’ she announced firmly. ‘I’m carrying on to Winchester, whether you like it or not. You can’t make me go back with you.’