Chapter 7
Seven
WULFRIC
The scout had seen thirty Norman horsemen, perhaps forty, upon the old southern road.
I did not blame Eadric for the uncertainty. A man hidden belly-down beneath wet bracken, with enemy riders passing close enough that he could hear the leather of their saddles creak and see the breath of their horses, might be forgiven for failing to count every helm.
“They did not turn toward Ashford?” I asked.
“Nay, my lord.” Eadric stood before the fire in my hall, rain dripping from his cloak and gathering in a dark pool around his boots while Gilda pressed a cup of hot ale into his hands.
“They went west first, then north. Two wagons with them, and more men behind, though I could not see how many.”
“Scouts?”
“Some, mayhap. Others stopped at the farms.”
For food, livestock, information, or whatever else armed invaders believed belonged to them simply because they had arrived carrying swords.
I turned to Godwin, who stood near the long table with one hand braced upon the scarred oak. “Send word to the eastern farms. No one sleeps outside Ashford tonight, and anything that cannot be hidden or carried is brought within the village.”
“And the southern watch?”
“Double it. No fires after dark.”
Godwin nodded and went to see it done, ducking around two boys who came through the door carrying bundles of arrows and nearly collided with Gilda, who informed them in language that might have blistered the ears of lesser men that the hall was not a pig yard.
Spears leaned against the walls beneath the old painted shields of my father and grandfather, sacks of barley crowded the benches, and two bows lay upon the table among the wooden cups, a wedge of hard cheese, and half a loaf of rye bread somebody had attacked with such force that the knife remained buried in the board.
Men came and went so often the door scarcely closed, letting in gusts of cold rain that made the fire hiss and Gilda swear at the weather as if it had come inside merely to vex her.
Darcy stood near the hearth. She had been quiet since Eadric arrived, which was unusual enough to draw my notice.
Her gown was green wool, plain and somewhat too broad through the shoulders, though Anya had belted it tightly enough that it no longer threatened to swallow her.
Damp curls had escaped the plait hanging down her back, and one had fastened itself to her cheek while she watched the people moving around her.
A man carrying arrow shafts nearly struck a child.
Gilda shifted a sack of meal before someone could stumble over it.
Wystan came through the door with a split knuckle and tried to conceal the blood upon his hand.
When she turned and saw me watching her, she scowled. “What?”
“Something troubles you. You made a face.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What sort of face?”
“As though someone has served you sour fruit.”
Godwin, who had returned for his cloak, made a sound suspiciously like a cough.
Darcy folded her arms. “I’ll have you know this is my thinking face.”
“Then your thoughts must be unpleasant.”
“Currently? Very.”
Despite myself, I smiled.
“Careful,” she said. “People might think you enjoy my company.”
I should have returned to the business of war, which was simple enough compared with the business of Darcy. Norman riders could be watched, counted, followed, and, if need be, killed.
But the woman? She had arrived as if the sea itself had brought her to me, carrying knowledge she explained only when pressed and secrets she guarded with the determination of a man defending a gate.
“Come,” I said and walked out before she saw the smile I could no longer prevent.
The rain had eased to a fine mist by the time we crossed Ashford, though water still dripped from the thatch and ran in silver threads through the muddy lane.
Smoke pressed low beneath the gray sky, carrying the scents of wet earth, dung, woodsmoke, and the onions Hild had put into the black iron pot outside her house.
Children carried small bundles under the eyes of older women while men repaired leather harness, sharpened spearheads, and checked bowstrings beneath the shelter of the storehouse. Near the well, Anya was arguing with Edwin Reeveson.
Darcy slowed. “What now?”
“He moved a sack of flour.”
“Without telling her?”
“Aye.”
She stopped walking. I knew that look.
“Darcy.”
“What?”
“We are going east.”
“This will only take a minute.”
It did not.
By the time we continued, Edwin had been informed, with considerable force, that moving supplies without telling the person responsible for them was how food vanished, people went hungry, and entire kingdoms apparently crumbled. I waited until we were well beyond his hearing.
“Entire kingdoms?”
“I got carried away.”
We reached the eastern rise, where men were strengthening the earthworks beneath the dripping trees. Beyond them, the ground sloped toward a narrow stream before climbing again into woods stripped nearly bare by autumn.
She had spent the morning amongst my people as if she had always belonged there, arguing with Edwin, checking upon Wystan’s bleeding hand, making Tova laugh when the child had begun to cry because her mother was frightened.
Yet whenever I asked where she herself belonged, where she had come from, every door closed.
“Where is your home?” I asked.
Darcy stopped.
“Who did you leave behind?”
Her shoulders tightened beneath the wool of her gown. I should have stopped. Instead, I continued, because the question had been with me since the day she walked out of the forest and gave me a name that told me nothing about her.
“Your kin? Friends? The men and women you worked beside?”
“Yes.”
“Do they live?”
“As far as I know.”
A strange answer.
I studied her face. “Are they searching for you?”
She looked toward the trees. “Probably.”
“Then why do you not return?”
“I told you. I can’t.”
“Because the road is closed?”
A humorless little smile touched her mouth. “In a manner of speaking.”
“That is not an answer.”
“No.” She looked at me. “It isn’t.”
The hurt came before I could stop it. It was an absurd thing, and I despised myself for feeling it. Four days ago, I had not known she existed, and now I stood in the rain wanting the truth from a woman who owed me nothing.
“Is anyone hunting you?” I asked.
“No.”
“Did someone harm you?”
“No.” She narrowed her eyes at me
“Were you cast out from your village?”
“No.”
“Then why will you not tell me who you are?”
The silence stretched between us until I thought she might refuse me altogether.
“Because you wouldn’t believe me.”
“You have not given me the chance.”
She looked at me then, and what I saw in her face was fear. Not fear of me, that should have eased something inside me.
“What could be so strange?” I asked. “You have already told me of men and women who run into burning buildings, of carts that carry water and towers higher than churches. You speak like no woman I have known and appeared wearing garments I have never seen before.”
For one breath, I thought she might tell me as her lips parted, but then her gaze dropped to the center of her palm.
I had seen the mark there before, pale now but still visible, a perfect raised circle against her skin, almost like a brand.
Darcy closed her hand.
“I’m sorry, I can’t.”
Below us lay Ashford, every roof and field I had sworn to protect, while somewhere beyond the southern trees William of Normandy stretched his hand farther into England. I should have had room for nothing else.
Instead I knew Darcy disliked our cheese, enjoyed our ale, and had not yet learned to walk in her gown without muttering curses.
I knew she touched her wrist when frightened and watched every doorway when she entered a room.
She ate little unless someone placed food before her, slept less than she believed anyone noticed, and had an astonishing gift for irritating me precisely when I was closest to despair.
I knew none of the things she would not tell me, but I knew what she did when people were frightened. Perhaps, for now, a man could begin there.
She looked up at me.
“Are you angry?”
“You may tell me your tale when you are ready.”
Her gaze snapped toward me. “That’s it?”
“Aye. But until you do, the story remains. You are my widowed kinswoman from beyond the western sea.”
She groaned. “That still sounds dreadful.”
“It is a fine story.”
Darcy stared at me before she laughed, the sound making me let out a bark of laughter.
The sound surprised me enough that I almost stopped, though the greater surprise came from the warmth that followed it, swift beneath my ribs.
“So,” she said when the laughter faded, “you’re still protecting me.”
“Aye.”
“Even though you know I’m lying.”
“I know you are not telling me everything. I do not know who you are, Darcy Patterson. Not truly.”
For a moment, the world seemed to narrow to the space between us, and I had the uneasy sense that whatever had begun there was no longer simple enough to dismiss as curiosity.
Then a horn sounded from the southern watch.
One call. Two.
The men on the rise froze as a third blast came, longer than the others. A warning.
I turned toward Ashford just as Wystan burst from the trees below, running hard enough to stumble when he reached the slope.
“My lord!”
Wystan bent double, dragging breath into his lungs.
“Riders crossed the stream.”
“How many?”
He looked up, fear plain upon his young face. “More than fifty.”
Behind him, from somewhere deep in the southern woods, another horn answered.
Norman.
I drew my sword.
“Ring the bell.”