Chapter 1
The Minster bell tolled loudly as Emma hurried down Coppergate, gripping her green woolen cloak tightly to her chest against the winter chill. The deep folds of her hood hid her flaxen hair. Only the huge gray hound striding beside her told the merchants who it was that passed their open stalls.
A glance at the nearly white sky warned her nightfall would bring snow. She hastened her step. There were things she needed for Christmastide and neither the ominous weather nor the risk of encountering one of the dreaded Normans would keep her from town this day.
Townspeople on either side of her hurried along, their steps displaying the same urgency of last minute tasks.
Nearing her destination, she heard raised voices in French.
Normans. Her stomach clenched. Where the French knights went, wickedness always followed.
They treated the people of York—even the thegns—worse than serfs, freely taking what they wanted often as not.
It was why, even with Magnus at her side, she was grateful for the deadly seax at her hip.
Both the hound and the knife had been gifts from her father.
She slowed as she approached the altercation and slipped into the shadows in front of the goldsmith’s shop, leading the hound with her.
Across the street, four knights wearing mail hauberks crowded around Feigr’s stall where the best swords in all of York could be found. At the rear of his shop, smoke billowed from the forge, open to the air.
As was the Norman custom, the knights wore no beards and their hair was shorter than any man of York would deign to wear.
She watched as one of the knights abruptly lifted a sword from those Feigr displayed and strode away, clutching his prize.
Feigr chased after him shouting his protest against the knight’s failure to pay.
The three knights who remained laughed.
Emma inwardly seethed, her brows pressing into a frown at yet another incident of treachery from the garrisoned knights.
One among many that had angered the people of York.
Feigr worked hard for the living he provided for himself and his daughter, Inga.
He could ill afford to give away his fine swords.
One of the knights directed a leering gaze at Inga where she stood next to the stall. Garbed in the simple rust-colored tunic she wore when helping her father, Inga was still an appealing young woman, her delicate features and golden hair only adding to her slim body.
And she was now alone with only an old servant.
Magnus moved slightly forward, lowered his head and stared straight ahead at the three knights, a low growl rumbling from his throat. Emma knotted her fingers into the coarse fur of the hound’s neck, feeling the tension in his body. Something was about to happen.
The leering knight suddenly reached for Inga, his powerful hand clutching the girl’s delicate arm.
Inga shrieked in terror.
Magnus’ growl grew louder as his dark eyes narrowed on the Norman who held Inga.
The knight pulled Inga to his chest.
Attempting to break free, Inga tugged her arm back, but she was a frail thing and provided little resistance to the muscular knight.
“I’ve seen the one who will warm my bed this night,” the knight confidently announced in French to his two companions.
“Yea, a fair one,” one of the knights tossed back.
Emma gripped the hilt of her seax, her body tensing to move.
Beneath her other hand, Magnus tightened his muscles to lunge.
She caught the edge of his ear between her fingers and hissed a caution under her breath.
The hound quivered but obeyed, remaining by her side.
The tall Irish hound was more a threat than she was, for his sharp teeth had brought down more than one wolf in the forests of Yorkshire, but she would not yet let him enter the fray.
The knight who held Inga lifted her long plait of dark golden hair, letting it run over his hand.
Inga let out a wail and then a whimper as tears streaked down her face. “Please, no.”
Emma could stay her hand no longer. Anger, building as she had watched the Norman’s ill treatment of her friend, now compelled her away from the shadows. She took a step toward the street, Magnus moving with her.
A hand reached out, staying her progress and tugging her back. A familiar voice spoke from behind. “Nay, my lady, leave it be. See, her father returns. The knight must have paid him for the sword.”
Recognizing the voice, she guided Magnus back into the shadows. ’Twas Auki, the goldsmith, whose shop had been her destination. She shifted her eyes to where Auki pointed to Inga’s father hurrying down the street toward his stall.
Facing Auki, she pulled her arm free. “I cannot let them treat Inga so.”
“You would only put yourself in their sights, my lady, were you to do aught. Feigr will protect her, and see, now the townspeople have stopped to watch.”
Keeping her hand on Magnus, Emma turned toward the gathering crowd, a frown on every face.
It was not the first time the people of York had seen the Normans seize what was not theirs.
Since the garrison of knights had come earlier in the year, fear rode the streets of York like an ever-present phantom.
But this time there was more than fear in the eyes of the people. There was outrage.
Reaching his stall, Inga’s father stepped between his sobbing daughter and the knight, breaking the man’s hold on her arm.
Though smaller than the knight in stature, long years of working with metal had given Feigr brawny shoulders and arms. He faced the knight, his bearded chin raised in defiance, his stance sure.
The knight clenched his fists and leaned into Feigr, touching the sword-maker’s chest with his own, a threat apparent to all.
Emma tensed, worried for Feigr should the three knights attack him together. At her side, Magnus resumed his low growl. Removing her hand from her seax, she stroked the rough fur on his neck to calm him.
The murmurs of the townspeople grew boisterous as they stared at the unfolding drama, their gazes condemning the effrontery of the French knight who dared lay hands on a maiden of York.
One of the knights turned to look at the crowd, then strode to his companion who was confronting Feigr. Placing his hand on the knight’s shoulder, he whispered something in his companion’s ear.
The knight jerked his shoulder away. “What is one of them to so many of us?” he challenged.
“A crowd gathers. The wench will keep, Eude. We are expected back at the castle.”
With a speaking glance at Inga that sent a shiver of fear through Emma, the knight called Eude shrugged and joined his fellow Normans.
As the three of them swaggered away from the stall, Eude made a rude gesture that caused his fellow knights to bellow their laughter.
Rage choked Emma. Had they planned the whole affair taking the sword to lure Feigr away from his shop?
As the French knights sauntered down the street, relief replaced Emma’s anger. She was thankful for the crowd of townspeople that had come. Their show of strength had no doubt kept the knights from doing worse.
“Thank God I did not bring Finna and Ottar,” she muttered beneath her breath. The last thing she wanted was for the two young orphans who lived under her protection to have witnessed the assault on her friend.
The crowd dispersed, shaking their heads.
With Magnus at her side, Emma rushed across the street to where Inga’s father comforted his daughter. Both were clearly shaken by what had happened.
“Oh, Inga. I am so sorry. Are you all right?”
Gray eyes, wide with fear, looked up at Emma.
Barely sixteen, Inga had shouldered much since her mother’s death two winters before, helping her father with his shop as well as their home.
Emma, seven years older, had lost her own mother at a young age and knew well the emptiness it left.
She tried to look after the younger woman, for there was no son to help Feigr, no other child.
Not knowing what to say, Emma reached her hand to touch Inga’s arm in solace. The gesture brought little comfort, for Inga turned her face into her father’s broad chest and sobbed.
Feigr’s eyes glared his hatred as his gaze followed the French knights disappearing down the street.
In the distance the tall square tower of the Norman castle loomed over the city like a great vulture’s nest.
* * *
Talisand, Lune River Valley, northwest England, February 1069
“’Tis enough!” Sir Geoffroi de Tournai called as he sheathed his sword and strode from the practice yard outside the palisade fence.
Passing through the gate, he entered the bailey, heading toward the stairs leading up to the timbered castle, his sweat chilled by the frigid winter air.
Having seen the king’s messenger ride in through the gate, he was anxious to know what that ominous arrival portended.
Geoff stepped into the great hall where sunlight sifted through the shuttered windows to cast pale streams of light onto the herbed rushes strewn on the floor.
Built less than a year before, it still smelled of new wood.
But stronger was the spicy aroma of mutton stew.
His mouth watered as he imagined tender chunks of meat in rich sauce and butter dripping from a thick slice of bread. Suddenly he was starving.
“I suppose ye have a yearning for some of me stew after all yer swordplay,” observed Maggie coming toward him, a twinkle in her green eyes.
As Talisand’s cook, the plump Maggie held a special place in his heart.
When he and the Red Wolf had arrived to claim Talisand the year before, Maggie was the first of the English to accept them, mayhap the only one at the beginning.
That her husband was the blacksmith rendered the pair indispensable.
To knights who wore chain mail, fought with blades of steel and rode iron-shod warhorses, the blacksmith was most valuable, a good one, like Maggie’s husband, highly prized.