Beguiled By The Forbidden Knight
‘I’m travelling alone. Are you alone also?’
She eyed him warily, then nodded. Irritation surged in Gui’s chest.
‘If you think the country is so dangerous, why are you dancing around in fields and singing to yourself?’
He jabbed a finger towards her, his temper rising and mingling with an unexpected sense of protectiveness towards the silly girl. He wondered again if she was a simpleton to put herself at such risk.
‘Why are you bathing and fishing if you fear you might be set upon at any moment? Who knows you are here? Who would search if you don’t return home?’
His volley of questions came as rapidly as the arrows he had once loosed. She folded her arms defensively across her small, firm breasts.
‘No one knows I’m here.’
She snapped her mouth shut. Gui watched with private amusement as she realised the stupidity of what she had just admitted to a naked stranger, even one who had professed benign intentions.
‘I’m doing nothing wrong,’ she added, a shade too defensively.
Something struck Gui. Wherever she was supposed to be and whatever she should be doing, it wasn’t fishing and bathing. The breeze whispered around Gui’s body, raising the hairs on the back of his neck.
‘I have somewhere I need to be and I suspect you do, too. The water is getting colder so I suggest we both get out. On our own sides of the river, of course.’
She nodded slowly, glancing behind him to where her heap of clothes lay. She shivered and tightened her arms around herself. Her pale lips trembled and she looked colder that Gui felt. The breeze was becoming stronger and her soaking wet shift must offer little protection.
‘Go on. Get yourself to where you need to be.’
She took a step towards him, then stopped and stepped back.
‘You’re in my way.’
‘And you’re in mine.’ Gui grinned. ‘What do you propose we do about it?’
‘Close your eyes while I walk past you.’
‘No. I doubt I’m going to see anything more than I already have. You go one way. I’ll go the other.’
He took a step to his left. The girl did the same and they circled round each other, wading in a wide arc. As soon as she was close to her own bank the girl turned and waded in long strides that sent deep ripples around her back towards Gui. He stood and watched her. Water lapped against his belly, caressing him like fingers.
The girl heaved herself on to dry land, giving Gui a perfect view of her rounded buttocks as she pulled herself up. She gathered her clothes and bag and turned back to look at Gui. He averted his eyes, not wanting her to know he had been so openly admiring what he saw, but when she did not move he looked up. They held each other’s gaze briefly, then the girl was off, running away through the grass, a white slip among the greenery.
Gui watched until she turned a bend and was out of sight. He looked down and the sun glinted on metal on the riverbed. He bent to pick up her fishing hook, which turned out to be a horseshoe-shaped brooch of silver with the pin twisted at the tip. The design was like others he had seen both men and women wearing in York. Gui closed his fist over it and waded to the bank.
He tugged his fingers through his hair to remove the knots as best he could, then dressed. He examined the scratch the girl had given him with the brooch. Blood seeped out in places where the wound was deep and he hoped he would escape infection.
The last thing he did—the last thing he always did when he dressed—was to spread out the leather thongs that were sewn to the cuff of his padded leather glove and push the padding until it formed the shape of the hand it replaced.
The stump where his hand had been removed was no longer puckered and red as it had once been, and far less unsightly than the horrific scabbed wound when his hand had been amputated in the aftermath of the victory at Senlac Hill. Gui could look at the ruin of his arm without recoiling even if no one else could. That it caused his stomach to tighten in despair until he felt physically nauseous every time he thought of how his life had changed since that dark day was something he was resigned to.
He ran his fingers over the end of his left wrist, musing on the fact that when faced with the choice, he’d rather the strange girl had seen his nakedness than this mutilation. He pulled the glove over the stump and tightened the laces of the high cuff, winding them around his forearm to secure it in place. He held his arm up before him. Hidden in this manner no one could tell that beneath the leather was nothing more than thickly wadded wool.
He put his head in his hands—hand—hand and glove. He still caught himself referring to them in the plural at times. The girl had thought him a monster and that had been without appearing to have noticed his deformity. How much worse would she have thought him if she had seen that? He looked across the river, but there was no sign that she had ever been there. He fixed the brooch to the left shoulder of his tunic as a memento of his curious encounter and folded the neck over it. He pulled his cloak on, fastening that awkwardly at his right shoulder.
The day was growing late. He had spent much longer than he had intended to in the water and he still had a way to go down this side of the river before he came to the ford and was able to take his horse across. He heaved himself to his feet and unhitched the reins from the branch. The mare snickered in greeting, pushing her velvet nose against Gui’s shoulder. He nuzzled her neck, smelling the earthy warm scent of horse. Rather than mount immediately he walked on foot back to the road, occasionally glancing over his shoulder at the river.
He would be at the priory before curfew even if he walked. He cast a final glance across the river, wondering where the girl had come from, or was returning to, and whether she would learn from her adventure not to go dancing about the countryside alone when there were men such as him roaming it.
Chapter Three
Aelfhild ran, not caring she was soaking wet and dressed only in her shift, which tangled between her legs and slowed her down. Not caring the stones in the grass hurt her bare feet and her plait was becoming a knotted rope down her back.
She ran until the river was safely out of sight and with it the alarming man in the water.
She threw herself on to the ground, her heart thumping, and dropped her bag beside her. To her horror, her legs began to shake. She clamped her hands on to her knees to stop the shameful reaction and stifled a sob. She had no time now to indulge her emotions, not when she should never have stopped to bathe in the first place and would be missed if she did not return to the priory soon.
She gathered her shift in her hands and wrung the water out as best she could. When she had decided to swim she had thought she would only be in the water briefly and would have plenty of time to dry herself. She shuddered, imagining what might have happened if she had taken the shift off and swum naked as she had briefly considered. As the man in the water had.
Her knees had stopped shaking, but at the memory of the muscular form rising before her the trembling began again and a curious fluttering filled her belly. Aelfhild unrolled her dress and dragged it down over her head. The shift would have to dry beneath her tunic as she walked and she would have to suffer the damp. Her hand slid to her collar and she gave a cry of dismay.
Her brooch! She had dropped it in the water when the Norman had pulled her under. Her lip quivered. The brooch had been a gift; the only token she had to remind her of a man who had once been dear to her, but she could not go back to search for it now. The man might still be there and even if he wasn’t she would be missed if she took that much time. She would have to try to slip away at another opportunity and hope it would be on the riverbed where it had fallen.
She pulled on her stockings and shoes and sped across the fields, arriving at the priory from the rear. She could enter via the main door, but the portress would raise her eyebrows at Aelfhild’s dishevelled appearance. She strode instead to the tree with overhanging branches. No one but her seemed to have discovered its use as a ladder, but then again, no one except her seemed inclined to leave the priory.
The timbered building loomed above her. Aelfhild shivered at the idea of re-entering the dim confines. She hid behind the wall and pinned the veil on, hiding the tangle of hair beneath it, then went inside to find Sigrun. With less than a year between their ages, Aelfhild had been raised to be part-maid, part-companion to Sigrun under the watch of Lady Emma, who had shown more kindness to the foundling than she had any need to do. In a house with three boys, the two girls had bonded and mistress and servant were as close as sisters.
Sigrun was in the small cell in the dormitory that the two girls shared, praying as she most often was. Most inmates of the priory—sisters, nuns and women sent there like Aelfhild and Sigrun to be shielded from the horrors of the conquest—spent their days sewing or cleaning, gardening or taking alms to the nearby villages. Sigrun spent much of hers on her knees; hands clasped, eyes closed and motionless, leaving Aelfhild to ensure practical tasks were completed.
It was rare that Aelfhild felt her lower status too hard and she willingly took on Sigrun’s chores. If Sigrun’s heartfelt prayers were heard by any gods listening, Aelfhild’s soul might reap a little of the benefit, too.
Aelfhild stood in the doorway, reluctant to disturb the devotion that was more sincere than most she had witnessed. When Sigrun finally stirred and opened her eyes she turned to Aelfhild with a serene smile, indicating a peaceful soul that Aelfhild envied.
‘I heard you come in, Aelfhild. You didn’t have to wait there. You wouldn’t have interrupted me. You might even have joined me...’
Sigrun left the suggestion hanging. Aelfhild ignored it as she always did, but returned the smile. She sank on to her cot in the corner and leaned back against the cool stone wall. Sigrun’s expression changed from serene to anxious. She joined Aelfhild and took hold of her hands.
‘What’s wrong? Did something happen in the village?’
The morning had been so overshadowed by what had occurred since that Aelfhild had almost forgotten she had left the confines of the priory to take medicine to Brun and his neighbours.
‘No, nothing happened in the village. Brun seemed in so much pain he barely recognised me, but he slept after he had drunk a draught.’
She rummaged in her chest for a dry shift, removed her veil to let her hair free and pulled her dress over her head.
‘You’re soaking wet!’
Aelfhild peeled the damp linen shift from her skin and hung it on the peg by the narrow slit of window. She wriggled into the dry one and followed it with the dress. She grinned at Sigrun; less perturbed by the memory now she was home and dry.
‘Not any more. It was so hot and the day was so fine that I decided to stop to bathe. I thought I might try to catch a fish.’
Sigrun looked horrified. ‘You shouldn’t have done that! If anyone finds out you’ll get another whipping!’
The last whipping had been five days ago when Aelfhild had retorted sharply to the wrinkled nun who had tugged her hair for making too-large stitches in her embroidery. She frowned at the memory and rubbed her calf even though the wheals had subsided days ago.
‘No one will find out if you don’t tell anyone,’ she told Sigrun sternly.
Aelfhild found her comb and began to tease the knots from her hair. Sigrun took it from her and continued the task. Aelfhild twisted her hands in her lap, then turned to her mistress.
‘There’s more. There was a man. In the water.’
Sigrun stopped combing and clutched Aelfhild’s arm.
‘Did he hurt you?’
Her fingers settled on the same spot the Norman had grasped her. Aelfhild shuddered as she remembered the lurching terror as they had sunk down and the unsettling pressure of his muscular arm enveloping her, holding her tight against him and dragging her back to safety.
‘He didn’t hurt me. He was bathing like I was, only I didn’t see him at first so we surprised each other.’
Her stomach squirmed as she recalled the sight of him emerging from the river, water streaming off him in a cascade as he rose above her, dark hair on his head and torso. She waved her arms to try describing the size and shape of him and capture the broadness of his body, the sense of tightly packed muscles that had reminded her of a horse or ox.
‘He had dark hair that masked his face, his nose was crooked and his lips were scarred. I thought he was a river monster, but he was just a man after all.’
She broke off as her cheeks flamed. He had most definitely been a man. The—the—conspicuously large thing between his legs had been proof of that. She’d felt it pressing against her as they had tumbled together in the river, tracing a path from her inner thigh to hipbone. At the time the sensation had been unsettling, but now as she recalled it the odd fluttering filled her lower belly again and a pulsing ache made her thighs tighten.
She’d never seen a naked man before, but how could she have behaved so wantonly as to openly stare at him as she had done? She understood the practicalities of how babies were created, but how something that size could possibly fit where it was intended to seemed to her mind incredible. Perhaps he was not human after all, because what human could be shaped with such a body part?
The fluttering inside her grew stronger, spreading out in every direction like ripples on water after a stone broke the surface. Something was inside her; it felt as though a living creature that she could not identify was struggling to escape.
She was aware of Sigrun’s arms slipping about her waist and that she had been lost in a reverie for too long.
‘Poor Aelfhild, you must have nearly died with terror. I know I would have done in your place.’ Sigrun’s blue eyes were full of distress. She, no doubt, would have fainted and drowned.
Aelfhild shook her head thoughtfully. She had been scared at first but that had given way to fury as he had laughed at her. She’d wanted to fight him, not run, to be one of the women of legend who drove attackers from her home, a shieldmaiden like the traders who came to York laughed about as they boasted how they would best and bed such women.
If Aelfhild were such a woman no one would easily bed her without her consent! She remembered the flush of satisfaction as the Norman had wiped away the blood she had drawn, but that thought turned to sorrow. She twisted to look at Sigrun. Tears filled her eyes as she admitted what she had done.
‘I lost the brooch Torwald gave me before he left to join the rebellion in York.’
Sigrun’s mouth twisted and she pulled Aelfhild closer. The two women embraced silently. They both grieved for Sigrun’s brother, but for different reasons: Sigrun with the natural sorrow anyone would feel at her brother’s death and Aelfhild for the additional loss of the first man who had touched her heart. The difference in their status meant he would never have married her, she was realistic enough to understand that, but she had treasured the hours they spent together.
‘I’ll go back for it.’
Sigrun shook her head with a violence she rarely exhibited.
‘No! You mustn’t leave the priory again. You could have been killed, or worse! We’re safe here as my mother wanted. No one can touch us within these walls. No man.’
Sigrun’s voice was full of terror and her body convulsed. She had been in York itself when William’s army retaliated and had narrowly escaped rape. To her, sex was a thing of horror to be endured.
Aelfhild looked on with mingling pity and interest that something she craved could cause such a reaction in her friend. ‘I won’t, I promise.’
And there was the difference between them, Aelfhild mused as Sigrun continued the heroic task of de-knotting Aelfhild’s hair. Sigrun shrank from the idea of ever leaving the priory, whereas Aelfhild burned to escape even if it meant facing dangers such as she had encountered today.
If she ever left the safety of the priory she would have to learn to fight. She had been victorious today, but a scratch on the arm would not stop most men. She also suspected, from the way he pinned her to his body and lifted her from beneath the water with such ease, that if the man in the river had wanted to take her, she would have been powerless to prevent it.
She ground her teeth, hating the small flame between her legs that flickered disloyally into life at the memory of his hands on her. No man would take her in the manner the men of York had joked about heroes taking the warrior women of legend. The Normans had taken England, but no one would conquer her.
* * *
By the time the women made their way to the refectory for the early evening meal, Sigrun had recovered her composure and Aelfhild showed no signs that she had spent the day doing anything out of the ordinary.
They crossed the cloister side by side in a silent procession with the other inmates. The women ranged in age from their teens to their mid-forties. Some had chosen the life of the veil either through a sincere devotion or in preference to what life intended for them otherwise. Others like Aelfhild and Sigrun had been placed there by guardians to safeguard them. At least one to Aelfhild’s knowledge had arrived with a swelling belly and now wandered the cloisters red eyed, grieving for the child she had given up. No spoke of how they viewed their home. Only Sigrun knew that to Aelfhild the place was a prison rather than a sanctuary.
The bell tolled for the second time. The women quickened their pace. Hilde, the prioress, disliked lateness. She ran her establishment with an iron hand, perhaps hoping one day to be spoken of with the same reverence as her namesake at Whitby was.
Midreth, leading the procession, reached the heavy wooden door to the refectory and pushed it open. Instead of the oppressive silence that usually greeted them a male voice boomed out.
‘I have not travelled all this way to be thwarted at the last! I respectfully ask, again, that you bring her to my presence at once!’
Aelfhild reeled. Her limbs became water. The voice was unmistakable, the tone of exasperation equally familiar, the demand for her to be brought more dreadful than any other utterance she had heard. The Norman was here and he was looking for her.
How had he discovered where she was? More than that, why? The small injury she had caused him with her pin could not have been enough to warrant seeking her out to demand vengeance. Vomit rose in her throat. She should run. Leave the priory and hide somewhere where he could not mete out a punishment. Possible places to shelter filled her thoughts, but she knew as she thought it that such an idea was impossible.
Midreth turned and looked back at her companions in alarm. ‘What should we do?’
Seeing that she was not the only one startled by the unexpected male invasion of their female domain gave Aelfhild the courage she had briefly lacked, and her legs regained some of their solidity. Now she was furious that her first impulse had been to escape rather than to confront her adversary. She had been tested and found wanting.
Straightening her back, she slid a glance to Sigrun to see if she had noticed Aelfhild’s reaction, but she was whispering with the two novices and had seemingly not seen anything untoward in Aelfhild’s behaviour. No one had.
The prioress was replying to the visitor’s unsettling demand in her low, firm voice. Aelfhild couldn’t make out her words, but her tone was decisive.
‘We should go in,’ the woman standing behind Aelfhild whispered.
There were murmurs of agreement. Everyone apart from Aelfhild was curious to discover the owner of the voice.
‘Why hasn’t the message arrived? A letter bearing news of my arrival should have been sent a week ago!’ the Norman replied angrily. ‘Why are you not expecting me?’
Aelfhild’s shoulders sagged with relief and she almost laughed aloud. When they had met, he had mentioned that he was travelling. He was not here for her and their meeting had been coincidental. She would slip away and he would never know she was here at all. She turned to go, but Sigrun seized her arm and pulled her towards the doorway. Reluctantly Aelfhild followed.
The women crept into the refectory and made their way on silent feet to the back of the long, high-ceilinged room. The Norman was standing in front of the fire with Hilde. That he had succeeded in gaining entry this far into the building was notable in itself. Most visitors were admitted no further than the porch. Hilde protected her domain fiercely—an elderly, tiny woman whose size belied her strength of will and strength of arm. She came barely up to the Norman’s chest. Her head was tilted back, his forward as they stood face to face in a manner that reminded Aelfhild of pieces on a hnefatafl board. Which player would withdraw first was anyone’s guess.
Aelfhild bowed her head in what she hoped would pass as modesty and peeked out at him from under her veil. Three more novices whose turn it was that day to prepare the meals had been carrying food to the tables, but now gave up all pretence that they were ignoring the spectacle and joined Aelfhild’s group. Aelfhild followed the cluster and stood in the corner of the room behind the others, hoping to remain unnoticed.
‘I receive many messages. Until I know who you claim to be from, how should I know if you speak the truth?’ the prioress said calmly. ‘I most certainly will not release any woman from my care other than to the designated person.’
The Norman gave a cold laugh. He delved inside his cloak and brought out a leather pouch on a long cord. He tipped the contents into his left hand, then held up a large ring. It glinted gold in the shaft of late afternoon light that streamed through the high window.
‘I may have no letter to prove my legitimacy, but perhaps this will secure your co-operation. The seal of Gilbert du Rospez, knight of King William.’
A soft murmur rippled through the women, this time with a hint of warmth. A Norman, but a noble one. A rich one, perhaps. The ring had done nothing to melt Hilde’s frostiness. She waved a hand at the gathered women to silence them.
‘The name means nothing to me. Why should I send away one of my charges on the sight of a seal?’
The Norman seemed to pause. Perhaps it took time to translate the meaning to his own tongue. He folded his arms. ‘What if I was to tell you I was the owner as well as the bearer?’
‘Is that what you claim?’ Hilde stared at the Norman. ‘Do you bear the name as well as the seal?’
‘Would it make a difference?’ the Norman asked sardonically.
‘I am not foolish enough to bring the wrath of our King on my establishment. I have seen how you Normans deal with resistance. Are you Gilbert du Rospez,’ Hilde snapped, ‘or are you merely a rogue who has come by this seal by foul means?’
The Norman lapsed into silence. He seemed to be battling with some inner turmoil, then came to a decision. He folded his arms and jutted out his chin.
‘I am du Rospez. Now, tell me, who is my bride?’
The word bride caused the women to burst out once more in a riot of talking. Even Hilde’s curt demand for silence did nothing to quell the noise. Sigrun slipped a trembling hand into Aelfhild’s, who pressed it tightly. Aelfhild glanced around in her scorn, wrinkling her nose in distaste that such news could excite the women.
Hadn’t their fathers, brothers, lovers been cut down by men such as this? Were others so keen to be released from confinement here that such a possibility could excite them? She would rather live the span of her life as a solitary anchoress than marry such a hated enemy.
‘Not tonight,’ Hilde said firmly. ‘As you can see we now have an audience and this is no longer the private matter I intended it to be. I shall not name the girl under these circumstances. Neither will you name her, or I shall have you turned out instantly.’