Meriel Fuller - The Warrior's Damsel In Distress

‘But I do care about you. You are my friend.’ Katherine’s voice trailed away miserably. ‘I find it so difficult, having to treat you like that, seeing you dressed like this...’ She glanced disparagingly at Eva’s garments: the coarse strip of linen that served both as a wimple and veil, covering her glossy chestnut hair and winding around her neck, the simple cut of her gown and under-dress, patched in numerous places, the apron tied around her slim waist. No cloak, no gloves. The only reminders of Eva’s past life were the good leather boots and fine woollen stockings hidden beneath her hemline.

‘I have no other choice. You know that,’ Eva whispered. The children raced around them in a circle, darting in and out of the women’s skirts, playing tag, shrieking with laughter as they snatched at each other’s clothes, then raced off again.

‘You will always be the Lady of Striguil to me, Eva. What that man did to you...’

Eva shook her head, hunching her shoulders forward. Her eyes filled with unexpected tears. ‘Please, don’t speak of it. I’m here now, thanks to you, and that’s all that matters.’ Shivering in the icy air, she wrapped her arms across her bosom, aware that the children had stopped running and were pointing at something on the distant ridge. A flash of light on the horizon, reflected by the sun. She took a deep, unsteady breath. Katherine’s words had kindled a rush of familiar panic, a surging terror that gripped at her heart, her throat. How long would it be? How long would it be before she could acknowledge what had happened to her without being reduced to a useless, quivering wreck? It had been a whole year now, yet the slightest reminder turned her to a stuttering idiot. She had to be braver, more stalwart, if she were ever to put those awful days behind her.

‘Horsemen,’ Katherine announced, following the children’s pointing fingers. ‘Heading this way.’ She dropped her gaze, uninterested, retying the loose strings of her youngest daughter’s cloak.

Eva narrowed her eyes, bracing her feet wide on the icy hillside: a stance of mock courage. Her skirts swept around her, the biting wind pinning the fabric to her slim legs. Fear trickled through her belly, a chill runnel, as if her mind already knew what she was about to see. She focused on the black figures, advancing swiftly. Not horsemen. Knights. The dying sun bounced off their shields, their chainmail, forcing her to squint. Friend or foe, it was difficult to tell. But whoever they were, why were they here, in this remote corner of the Marches? Her terror grew, lodged in her throat, and her breath stalled.

‘There’s no other reason they would take that path,’ she stuttered out. ‘There’s nowhere else to go, but here. We need to go back. Now.’ Her voice emerged jerkily, low and urgent. ‘Come on, Katherine.’

‘What is it? What’s the matter?’ Katherine rounded her brown eyes in astonishment. ‘Surely they’re only travellers, looking for somewhere to stay the night? They’ll find lodgings in the town.’

‘Maybe.’ Eva’s lips tightened warily. ‘Maybe not. King Edward has not stopped punishing the Marcher Lords who rebel against him. He is determined to quash them.’ Seizing the hands of the two youngest children, she began to stride purposefully down the hill, her generous hem whisking at the ice-covered grass to leave a long dark trail. If she and Katherine walked quickly they would be back within the castle walls before the knights arrived. The horsemen still had to make their way through the forests to the north of the castle and then pass through the soldiers on the town gate. Eva prayed this would delay them long enough for the castle guards to throw the bolts across the gates and keep them out.

Katherine ran to catch up with her, her cloak billowing out like a wing. ‘But they wouldn’t bother with me, surely?’ Doubt shadowed her features. ‘A widow, living alone with my three children? And my trusty nursemaid, of course.’ She squeezed Eva’s forearm. ‘The King has long since forgotten about me; he’s too busy fighting his battles.’

‘But you are his niece and therefore his responsibility. And you are the widow of a rebel lord. You hold the fortunes of three men: your father, your brother and your husband, God rest their souls. You are rich, Katherine, and therefore useful. Remember, I thought the same before Lord Steffen plucked me from my castle. I thought that I was safe.’

But Katherine failed to hear her. She seemed distracted, looking back up the slope. ‘Where’s Peter?’ Katherine’s oldest child had an annoying habit of scampering off and hiding at the most inconvenient times. ‘Where is he?’ Her voice rose, the note shrill and wavering.

‘Here, take these two.’ Eva handed Katherine her daughters, darting a concerned glance towards the figures on the far hillside, galloping at full pelt down from the ridge. Had they spotted them up here, colourful cloaks pinned against the drab-coloured grass? ‘Go now, run, and bolt the gates behind you. Don’t let those people in, whatever you do. I’ll find Peter.’

* * *

Dropping his reins on to the glossy neck of his destrier, Bruin, Count of Valkenborg, twisted his tall, lean body in the saddle and reached for the satchel strapped to his horse’s rump, extracting a leather water bottle. Sidling to a standstill, the huge animal pawed the ground impatiently, jerking its head upwards in irritation, iron bit rattling against enormous teeth. Bruin pulled off his helmet, giving it to a soldier riding alongside him, and pushed back his tight-fitting chainmail hood. Vigorous blond-red curls sprang outwards. He pushed one gauntleted hand through them, the icy air sifting against his sweating scalp. The leather glove rasped against his chin. There had been no chance to shave the short hairs from his face in these last few days of continual riding and now his beard glowed red, like the Viking beards of his ancestors. Dragging off his gauntlets, he slipped frozen hands through the chainmail openings across his palms to open his flagon.

‘Hell’s teeth!’ he murmured as he failed to undo the stopper. Clenching his fingers into his fist a couple of times, he encouraged the blood to run through his numb veins. ‘God, but it’s cold!’ Balancing the flagon on the saddle in front of him, he blew into his cupped hands, a hot gust of air, rubbing them together briskly.

Moving his horse alongside his companion, Gilbert, Earl of Banastre, laughed. ‘You, of all people, should be used to this kind of weather!’ With his face obscured by his helmet, his voice was muffled, an odd, hollow sound.

‘What, because I was born across the North Sea? It’s warmer over there, I swear. And definitely flatter.’ Bruin’s grey eyes crinkled at the corners as he smiled, finally removing the stopper with his teeth. Tipping his head back, he gulped the water down with relish, wiping stray drops from his mouth with his chainmail sleeve, the silvery links glinting in the low sun. ‘Is Melyn much further?’ Tucking the bottle away, he rolled his shoulders forward, trying to relieve the strained muscles across his back. ‘We’ve been riding for a long time.’ He yawned.

Gilbert tipped up the visor of his helmet. He sighed. ‘The journey would have been a lot quicker if the rebels hadn’t burned all the bridges over the river.’ White hair straggled out from beneath his chainmail hood. The metallic links, a few flecked with rust, gripped the fleshy folds of his cheeks in a perfect constricting oval. He inclined his head to one side, a questioning look crossing his face. ‘But I’m surprised you, of all the knights, should volunteer to accompany me,’ he chortled. ‘Surely such a task is beneath a soldier of your calibre? That’s why the King decided to drag me out of my comfortable retirement and send me to escort Katherine de Montague. Why did you not travel north with Edward? Flush out more of the rebel barons?’