Chapter 3
Aimery and Gyrth raced through the forest, their dun-colored clothes blending with the greens and browns.
Then, as surely as a man walks through the streets of his town, they took to the spreading oaks and moved from tree to tree.
When they had evaded the hunt, they halted on a slope by a stream as their pursuers circled aimlessly in the distance.
Aimery watched in silence as he got his breath back.
Gyrth rolled on the ground laughing. “Norman pigs,” he gasped. “Stupid, shit-eating Norman pigs!” He sobered and sat shaking his head. “Why’d you have to take a risk like that, lad?”
“I couldn’t watch a rape.” Aimery bent down and scooped up water to splash over his face and head, then shook the excess off. She was as beautiful as he remembered, as his dreams told him. He should have killed Odo de Pouissey. The mere thought of the man touching her . . .
“A Norman sow being raped by a Norman hog?” said Gyrth. “The only thing wrong with that is the chance of little piglets.”
Aimery fought the urge to bury his knife in Gyrth. “She’s a woman and deserves protection.”
“She’s the little trollop you trysted with down by the stream, you mean.” At the look in Aimery’s eyes, Gyrth backed off. “So you did your noble Norman duty. You nearly got yourself killed.”
“I was in no danger.”
“Say that if de Pouissey catches you. That was his son you knocked out.”
“I know. I know Odo de Pouissey.”
Gyrth raised his brows. “Nice friends you have.”
“He’s no friend of mine,” said Aimery. “He’s a braggart lout and now my enemy.”
“So,” said Gryth. “Who was the pretty maid? No servant, I’ll go odds, dressed so fine and with gold bindings on her braids.”
“No.” Aimery hadn’t really considered her appearance before. He gave a crack of laughter. “She must be the Baddersley heiress, and I almost rolled her by the stream that day. No wonder she screamed no.”
“Well now,” said Gyrth thoughtfully. “You could do a lot worse, lad.”
“A lot worse than what?”
“Roll her by the stream—after you’ve married her. Baddersley would be in good hands then until Hereward claims it back.”
Aimery was surprised by the wanting that pulsed through him.
He could have her, and finish what they’d begun.
And damned well teach her how to defend herself.
Would she really have tried to hold them off with that little knife?
He suspected she would. She was brave, if foolish, his dusky maiden . . .
“I don’t see her setting up a squawk,” said Gyrth, “after the way she was looking at you today.”
Then Aimery came to his senses. “You should have had this tempting idea before you embroiled me in Baddersley’s affairs. I’ve been here too often now as Edwald. If I move in as lord, someone will soon recognize me, and there’s a traitor in the village.”
“We’ll soon find him and put an end to that,” said Gyrth flatly. “Most of the people would die before they’d betray you. You’re their hero.”
“It would be madness,” said Aimery, tempted all the same.
But then he shook his head. “She’d recognize me.
It would hardly be fair to put her in a position where she would have to deceive the king or betray me.
Nor to tie her to a man walking the perilous path I have chosen. My fall would ruin her, too.”
And his fall came closer every day.
He had a special fondness for Baddersley, and the people here were suffering.
That was why, against his better judgment, he’d returned.
Aimery had responded to the pleas of the most desperate and had agreed to help them flee.
They were gathered in the woods nearby. Aimery would set them on their way to the north country, which was less firmly under the Norman heel, but he well knew some of the more warlike would head east to the Fens and Hereward.
He’d seen Gyrth speaking with some of the young men, recruiting.
And that—providing soldiers for the king’s enemies—was undoubtedly treason. It even went against his own aim of dissuading rebellion. But the alternative was worse: to leave the people under the tyranny of Paul de Pouissey.
Killing Normans. Helping fleeing peasants.
Recruiting for Hereward. One day he would have to pay the price, but he had accepted that when he had set his foot on this path in those days after Senlac.
His only regret was the pain and disgrace he would bring to his parents.
There was no need to add the heiress to those who would suffer.
“I would have thought,” said Gyrth slyly, “that Baddersley held fond memories for you. Aldreda, wasn’t it?”
Aimery couldn’t help a grin. “Yes, Aldreda of the chestnut hair and luscious body.”
Gyrth grinned back. “A man never forgets his first woman.”
And that, thought Aimery, was true.
It had been at Badderseley that he’d become a man.
He’d just turned fourteen, and Hereward had decreed he was ready.
He’d received his last tattoo—the hart on his right hand, which was supposed to gift him with the powers of that animal.
He’d received his ring. He’d chosen his woman and made love to her there in the hall.
It was an honor to be chosen, and neither Aldreda nor her husband, Hengar, had objected.
After the celebration a chosen woman spent the night with the lord, and any child born a nine-month later was considered the lord’s child.
It would be given favor and raised high.
Aldreda had borne such a child, a girl called Frieda, though there was no way to know whether she was his, or Hereward’s, or even Hengar’s.
Aimery realized he should check on Frieda’s welfare in these uncertain times, but he’d have to do it without meeting Aldreda, for if anyone could recognize him, it was she.
He smiled. She’d been only sixteen to his fourteen, but she’d seemed a woman grown to him—shapely, full-hipped, and with long chestnut hair. She’d been kind to a nervous boy and delicious in his arms.
There was a resemblance between Aldreda and the heiress. Perhaps that was why he had been so instantly attracted to her. He pushed the thought away. Madeleine of Baddersley was not for him. Unfortunately.
Gyrth interrupted his thoughts. “So, does that winsome smile mean you’re going to try to win Baddersley for yourself?”
“No,” said Aimery shortly. “It’s safe now. Let’s be on our way.”
They climbed down the far side of the hill, heading for the camp they’d set up for the cottars. People had been quietly slipping into it over the past day. Tonight they would move everyone out.
“Why don’t you want Baddersley?” Gyrth persisted.
“Because I’d like to live to see the year out.”
As they drew close to the camp, Aimery halted.
There were no sounds when there should be, for there were children and even babies among those who sought freedom.
There was no smell of wood-smoke when they had agreed a fire was safe this deep in the woods.
With a hand signal to Gyrth, Aimery moved forward.
The camp was deserted. The fire was trampled out, though wisps of smoke still rose. Only an overturned pot and a forlorn bundle told of people recently in the area. Aimery and Gyrth walked slowly into the camp, puzzled.
A rustling sounded nearby. Aimery spun around, knife already in hand. A boy crawled fearfully out of the undergrowth.
“What happened?” demanded Aimery, still alert for danger.
“Men came,” said the lad tearfully. “On ’orses. With dogs. They rounded ’em all up. Then ’e came.”
“Who?”
“The Devil.” The boy shuddered. “ ’E as ’ow they’d attacked his son. They’re all to be flogged to death. All of ’em!” He fell to wailing. Aimery gathered him in his arms, knowing the boy’s family had been among the taken.
A few other people shuffled out of the dense undergrowth, gaunt with horror.
“But they were pursuing us,” Aimery said.
A woman came forward, a babe at her scrawny breast. “They were as surprised to find us, Master, as we were to be found. That’s why so many of us had the chance to flee. Curse the Norman bitch!” She spat sharply into the ashes of the fire.
It took Aimery a moment to register it. “A woman was here?”
“She came afterward with the Devil, fairly begging him to torture us all. I can’t understand their heathenish tongue, but anyone at Baddersley has cause to learn the word ‘fouettez’. ‘Whip them, whip them,’ she kept saying.”
“Who was she?” It must have been Dame Celia, he told himself. It must have been.
“It were the Devil’s niece, Master.”
Aimery couldn’t believe it. “Chestnut hair, brown eyes?” he queried, praying the woman would say no.
She nodded.
He was chilled. What kind of woman was she, to do this? She knew these people were innocent.
He began to wonder if there was a different pattern to the attack he’d witnessed. Perhaps she made a practice of teasing men. In Odo de Pouissey had she finally met a man without gallantry and almost paid the price? Aimery felt some sour sympathy for Odo. Not much, but some.
“You’re sure it was Lady Madeleine?” he asked again.
“Clear as day,” the woman said.
“And she was begging for the people to be whipped.”
“Fair desperate about it.”
Hope left him. She was deceitful, lewd, treacherous, cruel. The thought that he’d been drawn to such a creature disgusted him. “She will pay,” he promised the people in front of him.
The woman’s eyes brightened. “Praise to Golden Hart.”
It was like a shower of icy water. “What?”
The woman touched the design on his right hand as if it were a sacred thing. “It’s what we call you, Master.”
Aimery looked down. The male deer which leaped down his right forearm onto his hand was of such an ornate design that many would fail to recognize the animal, but not enough apparently.
Done in shades of red, brown, and yellow, it could be called “golden.” But this new name was a disaster.
How had anyone ever seen the marks? He’d been careful to hide them with dirt or a bandage, but they were clearly visible now.