LadyOfConquest:SaxonBride (47 page)

She might have regained her feet, perhaps quickly enough to do what she had come to do, but the crack resounding around the tent told she would not soon rise. If ever.

As Rhiannyn held tight to the babe who had begun to wail, Christophe lurched to his feet. His own meat dagger in hand, he lunged at the old woman.

A step from where Dora slumped against the chest with her neck upon its edge, he halted, and Rhiannyn saw him quake. “I think I have killed her.”

It was not enough to think it, not with one such as she.

Rhiannyn hastened to Elan and passed the babe into her reaching arms before coming alongside Christophe.

As told by the twisted angle of Dora’s head, the slack mouth from which her tongue bulged, and her unseeing stare, she was dead.

Rhiannyn put an arm around the youth. “You did not kill her. That is what
she
came here to do—to kill the babe, me, and likely, Elan and you.”

“I did not wish her dead,” he whispered. “I just did not want her to…”

Rhiannyn stepped in front of him and clasped his face between her hands. “You saved us. Thus, the only thing for which you are responsible is that we live. This is Dora’s doing, she who either had something foul in her or naught at all. The world is a better place without the darkness she cast upon it.”

He swallowed what sounded like a throat full of tears. “I am not my brothers. I do not want to be.”

“Of course you are not. You are Christophe.” She smiled. “My wonderfully brave brother.”

He closed his eyes long, and when he opened them, his mouth lifted in a sorrowful smile. “What do we do with her?” He jerked his head at Dora.

A good question, but the answer was better—a use for the old woman in death.

Rhiannyn looked to Elan who held her fussing babe close, her eyes yet wild with fright. “’Tis over, Elan,” she said. “You and your son are safe.”

“She is dead?”

“She is. Now Christophe is going to help me with something, but he will be back shortly.” Rhiannyn nodded at the babe. “Methinks the breast might soothe him.”

“What would you have me do?” Christophe asked as his sister set to quieting her son.

“Help me get Dora onto your horse.”

He frowned but did not ask her purpose.

The king was adamant. He would pardon the Saxons alongside their leader, yield up Harwolfson’s son, and had himself offered Elan in marriage in spite of her betrothal to Sir Guy—and the fit her father had thrown which had seen him dragged from the field. But William would not yield Etcheverry Castle and its immediate lands. They were to remain Pendery. But the king did make further concessions.

Hoping they would be enough, Maxen returned to Harwolfson. “King William will pardon your followers, grant custody of your son, and award a demesne of a size to accommodate your people.”

“But?” the rebel leader said, knowingly.

“Not Etcheverry Castle. Blackspur Castle, but rather than a quarter of the Etcheverry lands, he will grant you half.”

Harwolfson’s eyebrows rose. “Etcheverry is not negotiable.”

“The king will give no more.”

“Then I regret we are where we were ere Rhiannyn brought the babe to me.” He jerked the reins to turn his horse.

Maxen grabbed his arm to stay him, causing Harwolfson’s soldiers to react with a clatter of weapons answered in kind by William’s soldiers.

“Think, man!” Maxen said. “Consider the lives spent for something that can never be. And if that is not enough, think of your son growing up without his father, his only title that of being misbegotten. Can you live with it—likely die with it?”

All of Harwolfson tense, so much he began to tremble, he jerked his arm out of Maxen’s hold. “Your problem, Pendery, is that you love, and it makes you more a fool than I.”

“If a fool, one who is blessed as never will you be if you stay this course. Accept Blackspur. The castle nears completion, the land is fertile, and there is water aplenty.”

“And ever I shall be under your watch.”

“As the demesnes border, it is natural our goings-on will be seen by each other, but you will answer to the king, not me.”

“Ah, but should I overstep my bounds, you will be there to rein me in, aye?”

Sensing Harwolfson had shifted nearer Blackspur, Maxen did not rise to his bait.
 
But as he waited him out, a murmur rippled through the ranks on both sides.

“What is this?” Harwolfson demanded.

Maxen followed his gaze around and wished to know the same. Rhiannyn came, this time flanked by two knights, surely ordered by the king to accompany her. But more curious was that though she held no babe as she walked her mount forward, someone was over the back of her horse.

“I do not know,” Maxen said, hating that she had left the safety gained in returning to Elan. “Will you allow my wife and her escort to draw near, or should I ride to her?”

“They may come.” Harwolfson signaled to his men.

When Rhiannyn was fifty feet out, Maxen saw whom she had brought with her, but before he could speak, Harwolfson exclaimed, “’Tis Dora!”

Maxen looked sharply at him. “You told you had not seen her in months.”

“I have not. I did not know she was here. Is she…?”

“So it appears.” And Maxen did not think it a bad thing, bad being reserved for what had transpired to return Rhiannyn to the field bearing the old witch. But as she neared, he saw no evidence she had suffered harm.

He captured her gaze, and as she came alongside, she said low, “The worst is over. You are to be proud of Christophe.”

Surely she did not mean the youth was responsible for the body draped over the horse?

Rhiannyn shifted her regard to Harwolfson. “Edwin,” she said, “I know ’twas not by your order, but Dora entered Lady Elan’s tent to slay your son and myself, and ’tis likely she would have stolen the lives of my husband’s brother and sister as well had she not been stopped.”

The horror in Harwolfson’s eyes seemed genuine, and when he spoke, his voice was choked. “What of my son?”

“Christophe Pendery defended us well. Thus, the babe was no more harmed than the rest of us. Though I know not where you are in your negotiation with King William, I ask you to consider if you truly wish to stay the course set by Dora.”

Harwolfson’s lips thinned until they were more pale than the rest of him. “Her course is not my course.”

“Not entirely, Edwin, but they converge. Just as she was willing to spill your son’s Norman blood alongside his Saxon blood, so is your army and King William’s willing to spill the blood of your own people alongside your enemy’s.”

He stared.

“Better that, Dora believed,” she continued, “than the two meet and become something wonderful as they have in your son. But I know you do not believe the same, Edwin. Pray, make your peace with William so a better, stronger England can be knit from our two peoples.”

Moment after moment breathed its last as Harwolfson considered her words, but finally he swung his gaze to Maxen. “Blackspur,” he said with a nod. “Tell your king I agree.”

It was heavens more than Maxen had believed possible when he had earlier awaited the sounding of trumpets. Still, there was regret for Guy. But at least he would live and Elan would be his as promised. “The bargain is struck,” he said.

Harwolfson shifted his regard to William. “Peace for as long as he keeps his end of it.”

Rhiannyn sighed. “I thank you, Edwin.”

He jutted his chin at Dora. “Leave her so we might see her properly buried.”

“Ride with me, Rhiannyn,” Maxen said and reached to her. She came into his arms, and as he settled her on the fore of his saddle, he said, “We will speak again, Harwolfson.”

“Certes, we shall.”

Drawing Rhiannyn back against him, Maxen turned his mount and started back across the field with the king’s knights following.

“It is truly done?” she asked.

He gazed into her upturned face and wished he could say it was so. There would be other uprisings, possibly for years to come, but the end of Harwolfson’s rebellion would likely take the heart out of others that aspired to such size and strength.

“It is not done,
fricwebba
, but the end is nearer.”

“Then I must content myself with that.”

Thinking he owed Christophe more than he could repay, Maxen put heels to his mount. As they crossed the field that, God willing, would only ever know the colors of earth and foliage, the burden that had once felt like the weight of a thousand years lifted further, and he marveled at how light abundant hope felt. And sent up a prayer of thanks that his life with Rhiannyn could truly begin.

EPILOGUE

Blackspur Castle

April, 1070

Edwin Harwolfson was restless. As he should be, Maxen supposed. These past months, the Saxon had chafed at his yoke while the Norman army devastated the north in a cruel winter campaign to put down rebellions.

Though Maxen did not believe Edwin would rend the bargain made with King William, chiefly because of what he now had to lose, the lord of Etcheverry had been charged with ensuring his neighbor and those who had settled with him at Blackspur remained rooted to what had become Norman soil. And mostly, they had.

The ones who believed their people still stood a chance of reclaiming their country had slipped away in the night, and neither Maxen nor Edwin had moved against them. Now many of those hopeful men whose lives had been spared the year before were surely dead. William had England by the throat and would not loosen his hold.

But despite the unease hanging about Edwin like a rain-heavy cloud, he had planted himself at Blackspur for the sake of his son, whom he had named Harold after the king whose death had ended Saxon rule. Though not yet one year aged, the boy was of good size. With a serious, contemplative face and out of eyes as blue as his mother’s, he stared down at the shifting bundle from where he straddled his father’s hip at the center of the hall.

“Your cousin, little one,” Rhiannyn said. “She is called Leofe.”

Harold raised his upper lip to reveal a row of tiny teeth, turned his head aside, and dropped it onto his father’s shoulder.

“’Twould seem,” Maxen said, “we need not worry they like each other more than they ought to—for now.”

Rhiannyn laughed softly and stroked the flushed cheek of their four-month-old daughter who showed even less interest in Harold than he had in her. Sucking a wet fist, her eyes were all for her father. And, as ever, it was no easy thing for Maxen not to become absorbed in the beautiful child Rhiannyn had gifted him.

He gave Leofe a grin that made her smile and coo around her fist, then returned his attention to Edwin whose gaze was on Rhiannyn, the mother of another man’s child. But though Maxen steeled himself for it to be longing reflected on the Saxon’s face, and to be doubly offended considering the man was also wed, it seemed more like sorrow. And he could hardly begrudge Edwin.

He was again the lord of a worthy demesne, albeit half the size it had once been, and he loved the son given him by a Norman, but this was not the life for which he had been prepared to die. But with the further passage of time and fewer uprisings to weigh upon his conscience, he could come out the right end of a world much changed.

“The demesne looks to be flourishing now winter is past,” Maxen said.

Edwin turned his gaze to his neighbor. “Because it does,” he said sharply, though not as sharply as he had spoken during Maxen’s visits those first six months after Edwin had taken possession of Blackspur. He did not welcome a Norman on his lands, and he made no pretense otherwise. Still, his resentment had lightened, so much Maxen had finally agreed Rhiannyn could accompany him to Blackspur.

Edwin looked to the babe. “Your daughter is beautiful, Rhiannyn.”

“I thank you.” She glanced around the hall. For all its simplicity, it was of a grander size than the one at Etcheverry Castle. “Your wife, Edwin. Is she not here?”

“She is, and has been made aware of your arrival. But come, sit and refresh yourselves while we wait on her.” He gestured to the high table, moved Harold to the opposite hip, and strode to the dais.

“How long will you be with us?” he asked when they were seated, their goblets filled and platters of bread and cheese set before them.

“Two nights, if it is well with you,” Maxen said.

Edwin broke off a hunk of bread and yielded it to Harold’s eager hands. “As you will.”

A quarter hour, marked by strained conversation, passed. Then the creak of wooden stairs was heard.

Maxen looked across the hall, but before he could direct attention to the brightly garbed woman descending the last steps, Rhiannyn called, “Elan!” and passed Leofe into her husband’s arms.

She ran to her sister-in-law who halted just off the steps. Moments later, her arms were around Elan, and with gasps of delight, they embraced as if feeling every one of the months since Harold’s birth beside a battlefield whose bloody destiny had been thwarted.

Maxen shifted his gaze to Edwin and was comforted that the dislike that had shown from the Saxon most times he looked upon the woman who had deceived him was not much more than a flicker. Or might it no longer be dislike? Perhaps something more scaleable. Wariness?

Edwin had not wanted to wed Elan Pendery any more than she had wanted to exchange Guy for the rebel. But when it was time to hand over her babe, she could not. With beseeching and sobbing before King William, and despite their father’s objections, she had gained their liege’s consent to remain with her child as the Saxon’s wife—providing Edwin Harwolfson agreed. Though it was with obvious distaste he did so, there had been relief about him to find his son’s mother was not entirely without substance.

Guy had been hurt and angered to have been promised so much and to have it all given elsewhere. Still, in confidence, he had confessed that had Elan easily abandoned her child, it would have made him question if she was the woman with whom he wished to spend his life.

Thinking to distance himself, he had decided to leave Etcheverry. Though Maxen hated losing him, he had known it was best for Guy and the family Elan was making with Edwin. Thus, he had approached the king on his friend’s behalf. It was agreed the knight would join William in further campaigns against the rebels and, if he proved himself as he had at Hasting, be awarded land upon which to raise a castle—a lord in his own right.