Alisoun was awake again. David stared toward the hammock strung between two trees. The hemp creaked as she carefully turned away from him and toward the deeper woods. She’d done the same thing the last two nights, shifting back and forth while taking care not to wake anyone. Unfortunately, as he slipped into his role as guardian, he woke with her every movement. Last night he had blamed her restlessness on discomfort from the saddle or an inability to sleep out-of-doors, but tonight he could no longer deceive himself. She didn’t trust him to keep watch.
She lifted her head. He lifted his, too, and scanned the area. Nothing. Just darkness filled with the creak of windblown trees, the growls and squeaks of nocturnal creatures, and the rumble of Ivo’s snoring.
Cautiously, she sat up. He sat up, too. No moon lightened the night, the trees’ canopy masked the starlight, yet he could still make out the glow of her hair. He had been surprised to discover that she removed her wimple and loosened her braids to sleep. His wife had been most insistent that ladies never revealed their crowning glory. Of course, Mary had quickly discovered that a woman’s unfettered locks brought on his lustful desires, and she’d done anything to avoid that.
After they had conceived their daughter, he’d done everything to avoid it, too. Not even the prospect of another baby to cherish could overcome his distaste for bedding a woman who increasingly looked like a molting duck and smelled like its favorite grub.
Alisoun had simply rubbed her bare head with her hands as if she reveled in the freedom, and after all, who could see her in the dark? Only David, and he’d had to strain.
Swinging her legs out of the hammock, she stood, facing away from him. He called softly, “What do you fear, Lady Alisoun?”
She jumped and turned, tangling in her own skirt and stumbling into the hammock.
He rose and walked toward her. “I assure you, I’ve kept my ear to the ground and heard nothing.”
She righted herself, then with a composure he couldn’t help but admire, she whispered, “I’m worried about my carts.”
He didn’t believe that for a moment. Because of their weight, the carts couldn’t be moved far from the road, yet she left only Gunnewate to guard them, bringing Ivo and David with her to the site deeper in the forest. She forbade a fire, preferring to eat a cold meal of wheat cakes and cheese. And now she couldn’t sleep.
No matter that he’d observed no sign of pursuit. No matter that the only faces he’d seen were those of the people in his party. Alisoun’s increasing tension had honed his infirm skills. If only she would trust him to do his job, but already he realized the lady Alisoun of George’s Cross perpetually took responsibility for everything and everybody.
“I thought I heard a branch crack,” she admitted.
This sign of weakness in her reassured him. She was a woman like any other, then. She imagined threats where none existed and required reassurance when there was no need. He barely realized what he did when he reached out and patted her hair, then smoothed it as he would have a dog’s. “My lady, dangerous beasts inhabit this wood, but no men. I’ve been alert. I’ll protect you.”
Her fist knocked his hand away, and her voice cracked like a whip over his head. “Do you think this is amusing?”
Bringing his arm close against his chest, he rubbed the sting of her blow. “Nay, my lady, I simply sought to allay your alarm.”
“Don’t patronize me.”
He jerked in reaction. He didn’t doubt her animosity. He’d learned, more than once in these last two days, that she could strip a man of pride, of dignity, of sense with a few well-chosen words. Ivo and Gunnewate remained stoic under the lash of her tongue. The oxen drivers seemed to expect insult. But a pox on her! She couldn’t talk to him, the king’s former champion, that way.
He turned away and walked back toward his mat. “Fretful and nervous,” he muttered, loudly enough for her to hear. She didn’t reply, and he kicked the mat and ruffled the blankets in a blatant display of annoyance. Shoving the log he used as a pillow into place, he lay down, turned his back to her, and closed his eyes.
The silence assaulted his ears. Their conversation and his noisy displeasure had quelled the sounds of nighttime creatures and woken Ivo, who no longer snored, but breathed long and regularly. Ivo waited, no doubt, to hear any further quarrel between his mistress and the man he clearly considered unworthy to serve her.
They were all waiting. What was Alisoun doing? David didn’t hear a sound from her hammock.
He didn’t hear her move at all. Did she still stand where he’d left her? Was she still looking, straining to hear the sound of attack? What kind of man would make a woman so afraid? For afraid she was, and as the silence continued, David began to make excuses for her.
So what if she stripped a man of his pride? She was a woman, and a woman’s only weapon was words. And in a way, he could understand her displeasure. She’d accused him of patronizing her, and he had. He’d treated her like a child in need of comfort, when she was a woman who sought an honest resolution for her worries. Moreover, he was strong, dignified, made in God’s image. A real man didn’t flinch when a woman pouted or reproached. A real man reassured a woman, made her feel safe. David was a real man.
Opening his pack, he found the length of rope he kept with him always, then stood and walked back toward the hammock. Kneeling, he tied a knot around one of the smaller trees at about knee height. Then, uncoiling the rope as he walked backward, he circled another one of the trees that surrounded her. Taking a right angle from the first side, he crossed to another tree, then another, forming a square around the hammock where she slept.
“What are you doing?” Alisoun’s perfectly modulated voice sounded only distantly curious.
“Any man who tries to reach you will fail to see this rope. He’ll trip and wake everyone, and I’ll be on him at once. It’s an old trick, one I’ve used to protect myself for years.”
“I see. That is clever.”
He tied the last knot, then stood up. Straining to see the expression on her face, he said, “So won’t you lie down and sleep, my lady? You’ll be safe now.”
Carefully, she lowered herself onto the hammock.
He watched her and brushed his hands in satisfaction. “Nothing can get you now.”
“I feel safe,” she acknowledged.
She reached for the rug which had previously covered her. It had fallen to the ground, a dark lump beyond her reach, and the hammock teetered precariously as she strained for it. He reached for it, too, grabbing it before she could topple, and shook it out. “If I may?” He didn’t wait for permission, but spread the rug over her legs and tucked it around her feet. Her hand groped for the edge to bring it around her shoulders, and he brushed her fingers aside. Slowly, taking care to respect her person, he carried the fine woven wool up and over. Her skin warmed him when he folded it over her neck. The scars and calluses of his palm snagged her hair and clung when he tried to free himself.
She stayed still, her breath regular and deep. He could see her eyes glistening as he stood over her, and they widened when he gathered the wandering strands of hair into a bunch. He strained to see the color. Blond, he supposed. It had to be blond—pale, washed out, colorless.
But each strand seemed dyed with fire.
He looked back at her. Red? He dropped the hair as if it burned him. Not red, surely. No doubt, the feeble starlight tricked his eye. He cleared his throat. He ought to go back to bed, but he liked this sensation of accomplishment. “It took a real man to make it so safe for you.”
“God bless you for your kind thought.”
He warmed, wondering if God responded to her request with the same esteem everyone else showed her. Then he laughed at himself for his nonsense. The woman might have her men-at-arms completely cowed, but she’d had no mystical effect on God—or on him. “Aye.” He plucked the rope to make sure the tension would indeed snag a man. “I only use this when I sleep alone or with men I have reason to distrust. The rest of the time I credit my senses, but I can see that a woman would gain comfort from the rope. I’m glad I thought of it.”
“I’m glad, too,” she said.
“So just go to sleep—”
Ivo snorted, a huge, moist explosion of exasperation. “How can m’lady go t’ sleep wi’ ye blatherin’ on? Stop praisin’ yerself an’ get back t’ yer pallet.”
David was insulted. “I’m not answerable to you, my man. Lady Alisoun extends her thanks for my protection and I gratefully accept them.”
He’d lifted one foot over the rope to step away when Ivo snapped, “Aye, that rope’ll preserve her if she’s attacked, but it’ll do naught against another arrow aimed at her heart, will it?”
David’s foot dipped, caught, and tangled, and he went over with a crash that shook the very earth.
The village of George’s Cross looked like heaven to Alisoun. Nestled in a valley not far from the sea, it surrounded a square big enough to hold a market every Lammas Day. Her people cheered as she rode through the streets, and she knew without conceit they cheered more than the contents of the carts which followed far behind. Her people loved her—unlike a certain mercenary who clearly had violence on his mind.
As she entered the square, the people crowded in on them. Ivo and Gunnewate dropped back. The carts appeared to be dots on the road behind them. Only David clung close as a burr on a wool fringe as her people surrounded her. He even tried to block Fenchel when he made his way forward, but she laid her hand on David’s arm and shook her head.
“You know him?” David asked.
“He’s the village reeve,” she answered. David considered the skinny, balding little man and apparently decided he exuded no threat, for he moved aside and allowed Fenchel to approach.
“Fenchel, how goes the shearing?” she asked in English, her tone warm to make up for David’s rude challenge.
Fenchel snatched his hat from his head and bowed almost double, replying in English also. “’Tis just over, m’lady. The fleeces are breathin’ in the wool rooms all over the village.”
“The fleeces are still warm after shearing,” she explained to David. “If the night is cold, the fleeces may stir all night long.”
“I know, Lady Alisoun. I, also, produce wool on my small estate.”
“Of course. I meant no offense,” she replied.
David scowled, but he had been scowling for a whole day now, ever since Ivo had opened his big, dumb mouth and plainly told him that an arrow had been shot at her. Lady Alisoun loved Ivo, but he’d created trouble this time, and she’d had to rebuke him. He’d hung his head and not tried to defend himself, and she’d released him after one sharp phrase. How could she not? She understood Ivo’s impatience with David much better than she understood David’s unexpected nocturnal eloquence. She would have called it moon madness, but there’d been no moon. There’d been no warning that the taciturn man who had taken her to task for leaving herself undefended would suddenly develop such a high opinion of himself. If she didn’t know better, she would have thought he had wanted to linger in her vicinity; but why, she couldn’t imagine. By Saint Ethelred, he’d even covered her with her rug.
She glanced at his impatient expression. Usually she understood men only too well, and it fretted her to have one who occasionally escaped definition.
Worse, she didn’t quite understand herself. There had been a stirring in her when he covered her with the rug. A stirring she’d experienced so seldom in her life, she didn’t quite know how to define it. She thought it might be tenderness. Maybe even a tendril of errant affection.
And for a mercenary! For a man she’d hired. Most women wouldn’t even have noticed this warmth called affection, but for Alisoun, this revelation almost shook the ground.
Still, she comforted herself it wasn’t Sir David who had caused such a reaction. It was only her own solitary heart.
“M’lady?”
Fenchel’s wide eyes reminded her of her duty, and she smoothed the expression from her face. “Aye, Fenchel?”
“We’ll be packin’ the wool when ’tis cold, an’ I estimate twelve sacks fer market.”
“Another off year.” She sighed, then looked curiously at David when she heard him choke. “Are you well, Sir David?”
He nodded, his face ruddy and his eyes bulging.
“Get Sir David a drink from the well,” she said to one of the women. Avina hurried to obey, and Alisoun pitched her voice so all could hear. “You’ve done well, considering the drought.”
“Ah, but it rained one day ye were gone.” Fenchel’s rheumy eyes shone with suppressed excitement. “’Tis a good sign.”
“A very good sign,” Alisoun agreed. “Was the weeding finished?”
“The corn’s clear,” Fenchel assured her as he watched David guzzle the water. “Except fer the bindweed, an’ we’ll get that when we thresh.”
“Has the haying begun?” she asked.
“Fair ’til nightfall.”
“Excellent.” In her mind, she calculated the profits. The drought had impacted them, but not so much as the lesser landowners, and with the grain she had bought, they should make it through until autumn and the harvest.
Fenchel continued, “The signs point to a good weather year, so we’ll fill the barns an’ we’ll not have t’—”
“Twelve sacks?” David croaked.
Fenchel and Alisoun turned to David.
He took another gulp of water from the ladle that he held and cleared his throat. “Did you say twelve sacks of wool to market?”
Fenchel and Alisoun exchanged comprehending glances. Woolsacks were huge, so big that wool packers stepped into them to skilfully stomp the fleeces into place. Woolsacks bulged under pressure, for as the last layer was thrown in, the wool packers trod it down and stepped out backward along the top, sewing up the sack as they went. They weighed so much and were so cumbersome, they were hauled in wagons, safe from thieves, for they were too cumbersome to steal. A small landowner might produce two woolsacks, so David’s bulging eyes and avaricious mouth didn’t surprise Fenchel and Alisoun. They’d seen this reaction in other men at other times. Suitors that the king sent, knights and lords who visited as they made their way to another destination: they all struggled to comprehend the wealth encompassed by the estate of George’s Cross. Alisoun repeatedly found herself courted by men who suddenly saw her personal attractions enhanced by her ample lands. She and Fenchel had dealt with it before. Indeed, they had become almost practiced in their reactions.
Squaring his scrawny shoulders, Fenchel projected a fierce hostility. “Who’s askin’?”
“Forgive me, Fenchel, I have been remiss.” Alisoun watched David and saw that greed had replaced his antagonism. That, she understood. That, she expected, and she ignored the tiny disappointment that nagged at her. “As my reeve, you should be acquainted with the legendary mercenary Sir David of Radcliffe.”
Fenchel should have replied rudely, making his disrespect clear. That was the method by which he and Lady Alisoun taught the unworthies they could not have the lady of George’s Cross.
Instead Fenchel stood silent, silent so long she turned to look. Her man—her man—stood looking at David of Radcliffe with admiration and awe. “Fenchel?” she said.
He shook himself as if waking from a dream, and spoke to David in tones of reverence. “Forgive me, sir, but ye are the legendary mercenary, David o’ Radcliffe?”
“That’s me,” David agreed.
“Oh, sir.” Fenchel pressed forward. “Oh, sir! We’ve told tales o’ yer exploits fer years. How ye killed a boar bare-handed when ye were naught but twelve, an’ how the king himself knighted ye on the field o’ battle when ye held twenty French knights at bay—”
David corrected him. “Sixteen and fifteen.”
Fenchel paid no attention. “How ye won the armor an’ saddles an’ horses o’ all the best knights in the kingdom, then sold ’em back fer a pretty profit.”
Holding her hand to her heart, Avina interrupted. “All except one, a young knight seekin’ t’ better himself. Rather than take that poor lad’s only possessions, ye gave ’em back an’ taught him t’ fight, an’ he is yer devoted man t’ this day.”
“Sir Guy of the Archers.”
Alisoun saw that Gunhild finished the tale. All the villagers knew the stories about the legendary mercenary David, and all of them stood, wide-eyed, and stared at him as if visitationed from heaven.
“Look!” Fenchel pointed to the sky. “’Twas clear before, but ’tis cloudin’ up now. Mayhap Sir David has brought us luck.”
Everyone stared at him, then at Alisoun. “In sooth, I do so pray.” Privately, Alisoun admitted that she had experienced that same thrill when she met him. Even facedown in the mud, he had had a prestige about him, but somehow, riding with him to George’s Cross had lessened her reverence. Now all she could remember was his pride when he had pissed farther and longer than either Ivo or Gunnewate. Just like any other man, he seemed to think she took his measure by the size of his bladder—and extremities.
So her villagers’ worship caught her unaware. Seeing them now, seeing how they pressed toward him and touched his boot with reverent fingers, how the women tightened their bodices to plump their bosoms, both embarrassed and infuriated her. David needed no more fuel to feed the fire of his vanity.
Then she caught his eye. Sheepishly, he grinned, shrugged, and said, “Old legends die hard.”
And she realized—that’s why she’d hired him. To give her people a feeling of confidence, to ease their fears for her. To frighten off that shadowy, unseen menace. In fact, there had been no incidents on this trip. She knew that for the first time in months, she’d gone three days without the sense of being watched.
For that she owed him more than money, and as graciously as she could, she said, “I offer my home, Sir David. Make it yours.”
Stunned by the riches in her demesne, he accepted, all the time fearing he gaped like a roast pig. True, he was nothing but the son of a baron, and a poor baron at that, but he hated feeling so much like a dairy maid before the king. Yet when he thought about Alisoun’s twelve sacks of wool, he was in awe. He didn’t even have enough carts to haul twelve sacks of wool, much less enough sheep to grow the fleece. Twelve sacks would support his estate for years!
Lady Alisoun smiled at him, a smooth, practiced movement of her lips that conveyed hospitality. Then she spoke to the peasants crowding around him. “I have returned with grain to keep us until harvest.” Slowly the crowd turned to her. “When the carts have reached the castle, it will be counted and distributed, but remember, good people, that this must last until we’ve brought in our own crops, and if this summer is as dry as the last one and the one before that, it will be a hard winter. So take the burden of extra work with good cheer. Let us be sure that not one of our folk is lost to sloth.”
Fenchel had regained his good sense, for he called, “Hear, hear!” and the crowd responded.
Then they broke up. Fenchel and Alisoun moved to one side of the square. The men strode toward the fields, the women walked toward the large barnlike structure which held the wool.
Well, most of the women walked toward the shed. Some of them had found something amiss with their clothing. Gunhild held her skirt up, adjusting the garters that held her stockings…except she wore no stockings. The sight of her bare leg almost stopped David’s heart, and her flirtatious glance made it clear she appreciated his appreciation.
Pish! He tore his gaze away and found it immediately captured by Avina. Her shift seemed uncomfortably adjusted, and she unlaced her bodice and adjusted her breasts with a hand beneath each. They thrust upward and the dark nipples shone through thin—
He jerked on Louis’s rein and, disgruntled, Louis jerked back. “She wants to bed a legend,” David told him. “She doesn’t care about me.”
Louis snorted, and David had to agree. His groin ached from long disuse, and Louis knew that David’s mood markedly improved with regular swiving. The damned horse danced in place to give David another chance to stare, and David found himself watching the melons that swayed so enticingly.
Alisoun paid him no attention. She didn’t care about him. She wouldn’t even notice if his glance lingered on the flaunted…“Nay!” More forcefully, David directed Louis to move on, and the horse did. Only a fool would gawk at a servant when the mistress was available—especially when the mistress was single and so wealthy her estate produced twelve sacks of wool for market.
After all, it wasn’t as if Alisoun were homely. No, indeed. Her face was very…attractive. And her figure was acceptable…what he had seen of it beneath her voluminous cotte. And her hair flowed down her back like a glimmering river of…molten iron? His gaze lingered on the wimple and gorget she always wore just to thwart him. At least it seemed that way. Red. He’d swear he’d seen red in the dark, but how could such a reserved woman sport such an audacious color?
He shook his head. No, it must be bland blond or reserved brown.
As David rode toward Alisoun, Fenchel backed away, veneration manifested in every line of his slight body. Yet Alisoun watched David, and he would have sworn he saw a flash of cynicism.
Blast the woman! He was observing her again, trying to decipher emotion that another woman would have gladly shared.
“My village women are lovely, are they not?” She stared behind him, where Avina and Gunhild still posed, and he had to fight to keep his eyes focused on where he was going. “They admire you a great deal, and if you wish to linger here, you would still be welcome at the castle when you arrive.”
“Me?” He widened his eyes in what he hoped was innocence. “I hadn’t noticed any individuals among your village women. I only noticed that everyone seemed plump and happy.” Remembering Avina’s bounteous breasts, he thought, overflowingly plump. “It is a tribute to your husbandry that your people are so well fed.”
Solemnly, she considered him, then nodded. “My thanks. Without offense, may I assume that your estate has not fared so well?”
His injured pride blazed fiercely. Through stiff lips he said, “You may assume that.”
“Perhaps you would care to send one of my men to Radcliffe with the first month’s gold you have earned.”
You have earned. Not “that I paid you,” but you have earned. It was a generous offer sensitively put, and that surprised him. She hadn’t been overly sensitive about his previous humors—chiding him for his late arrival, yawning when he won the pissing contest, openly doubting his ability to protect her. But for a woman with twelve bags of wool, he could forgive and forget. “That would be most courteous of you, lady. I thank you for your kind thought. I’d be grateful when a man may be spared.”
There. That comely speech surely proved his fitness to be her consort. A most peculiar expression marred her features, as if she smelled something nasty. Quickly, he examined the bottoms of his shoes, then glanced back to review Louis’s footsteps. Neither of them had stepped in something malodorous.
Her horse moved on before he could ascertain the reason for her expression. “Is your steward to be trusted with such a sum?” she asked.
“Aye, he is.” He grinned at her back. “He is Guy of the Archers.”
She swung around in the saddle and stared, wide-eyed, clearly astonished. “There is really such a man?”
Well! That was a mask she wore. Emotions seethed beneath it. And he’d just proved that he could strip the mask away. “Did you think the legend all lies?”
“Nay, I…nay, it is just so very difficult to realize that the legend lives within such a common…that is to say, that you are the repository of such extraordinary…”
He would have been offended, but he understood. Being a living fable encompassed a difficulty most people could scarcely comprehend. Women lusted after him, sure that his thistle—undoubtedly the largest in the world—would induce ecstasy. Men clung to his every word, gathering insight where none existed. Everyone expected him to be wise and sincere, and he’d learned one thing well—sincerity was hard to fake.
David knew he was just a man, and when others got acquainted with him, they knew it, too. Disillusionment set in, but he was never less than himself and never asked anyone to believe more than the truth.
Alisoun had gone through all the stages, and right now she looked at him through eyes that saw him.
She nodded as if they’d said something important in their silence. “I’ll send someone right away.”
As he rode beside her up the winding track, he concluded that a decisive woman was not all bad. Above them on a hillock, George’s Cross Castle rose like a rocky intrusion on the green, misty mountain. The curtain wall snaked around, mossy green and impenetrable gray. On the highest point, lit by the late afternoon sun, the keep rose, a serpent’s fang of smooth black stone. The place frightened David—as it was supposed to.
Alisoun beheld it fondly. “Home,” she whispered.
She behaved as if George’s Cross Castle would protect her, but she’d hired him for more than the ride from Lancaster to the castle. She’d hired him to protect her, even at her beloved home. Because someone had threatened her? Because…“What’s this tale of an arrow shot at you?”
“An arrow?”
He had hoped to startle her. He hadn’t succeeded. If she’d been cool before, now she was glacial. Icy, unemotional, uninterested.
He didn’t believe it for a moment. “Ivo blurted it out last night. He was angry because I wasn’t prepared to protect you from murder.”
“Murder?” Bringing her palfrey to a halt, she turned to face him with a sincerely amused smile playing around her lips.
It aroused his suspicious.
“I love Ivo, I really do. He’s been my personal man-at-arms for years. But I’m sure you realize he’s a bit weevil-headed, God bless him. He sees danger where there is none. You’ll forgive him.”
Louis stood taller than the palfrey. David stood higher than Alisoun. Together, the stallion and the man towered over Alisoun and her mount, and it gave him a feeling of superiority. False superiority, he knew. Alisoun hoarded the truth and dispensed only as much as she believed necessary.
“M’lady.” A male voice hailed from the top of the curtain wall. “M’lady, ye’re home!”
Alisoun looked up and waved, then waved again. David saw the line of heads bobbing around the crenelations. These were her people, and if she escaped into the welcome of her servants, he would lose his chance to question her in private. He reached for the reins of her palfrey; she pulled them aside and said, “You’re our guest. I’ll ride ahead and have them prepare your bath.”
He almost fell out of his saddle. If Louis hadn’t moved to catch him, he would have. “A bath?”
“A knightly bath. The honor which is bestowed on every knight who visits.” Her voice deepened with relish. “It is proper.”
“Not at my home.”
“Of course not. That’s obvious.” As enthusiastic as he’d ever seen her, she waved at her people. “You have no woman to perform the service.”
He couldn’t pretend that he didn’t know about the custom. He did. He had been a guest in other great homes, been bathed by the wives and daughters of his host—but not for a long time, and never when he’d been celibate for so extended a period. “Your maids are going to give me a bath?”
“Certainly.”
“Not you?”
“Nay.”
He heaved a sigh of relief.
“I’ll supervise.”