Chapter 9
Nine
DARCY
By sunrise, the forest camp had become a village.
The refugees who’d arrived the night before had brought four children, two old men, six women, a lame dog, three cooking pots, one handcart with a broken wheel, and a black grumpy chicken Hild immediately declared inferior to every chicken she’d ever known.
No one had asked Hild, but this hadn’t discouraged her from sharing her opinion. In my own time, she would have been one of those older women who dyed their hair purple, wore outlandish outfits, said what was on their mind, and basically scared the crap out of everyone.
“I can tell by the feet,” she said, holding the bird under one arm.
“What’s wrong with its feet?”
“They are much too narrow.”
I looked at the chicken. “I’m going to be honest. I’ve reached the limit of my poultry expertise.”
Hild sniffed. “A woman should know her chickens.”
“Why?”
“So men cannot cheat her.”
“Cheat her with chickens?”
“About anything.”
There was a logic buried in there somewhere, though it was early and I hadn’t had anything to drink except a cup of thin, watery ale.
The forest camp stretched through a broad clearing ringed with oak and beech, hidden from the nearest path by a thick swath of woodland.
What had been orderly yesterday was now overcrowded, smoky, noisy.
I had to step over two sleeping children, a basket of onions, and several sleeping people before reaching the central fire.
At some point during the night, the new arrivals had been given blankets and spaces beneath the hastily constructed rough lean-tos.
Families shifted closer together without being asked.
Anya had taken in a woman with a baby. Godwin had surrendered his dry sleeping place to one of the old men and then spent half the night complaining about the root beneath his own blanket.
I knew this because Godwin had told everyone. Repeatedly.
By now I knew who snored, who stole blankets, who slept curled in a ball, and who could somehow occupy enough ground for three people despite weighing less than a sack of barley.
I knew Gilda drank her ale warm and Hild wanted hers cold, which seemed optimistic given the absence of refrigeration and a long walk to the nearest stream.
Osric cheated at dice. Edwin cheated worse.
Both brothers complained bitterly when the other won.
And Wystan avoided unpleasant jobs by appearing deeply interested in whatever I was doing.
“Go help Leofric with the water barrels,” I said.
His face fell. “I am helping you.”
“You’re watching me eat breakfast.”
He stood up straight. “I am keeping guard.”
“Against what?”
He looked at the oat cake in my hand. “That.”
I tapped it against the wooden bowl with a thud.
“These could be useful when the Normans come.”
Wystan grinned. “You mean to throw them at the soldiers?”
“I mean to build a wall,” I said as I tossed him the oat cake. He chomped into it with a smile on his young face.
The pottage had improved dramatically since my first encounter with it. Someone had added leeks, beans, onions, and salt. There was a little smoked pork in it too, and the whole thing had cooked overnight in an iron pot until it was thick, hot, and unexpectedly delicious in the morning chill.
I took another spoonful as Gilda, seated across the fire with a spindle in one hand, watched me.
“You like it.”
“I’m reconsidering my previous judgment.”
“About my cooking?”
“Let’s not get carried away.”
She barked out a laugh, then nodded toward the edge of the clearing.
Wulfric had just come through the trees.
He’d been gone since before dawn checking the southern approaches.
His dark green cloak was damp at the hem, mud covered his boots, and his fair hair had come loose again from its leather tie.
It was annoying how good he looked while I looked like I’d been camping for a month with no access to running water or a brush.
Gilda leaned closer. “He has a fine backside.”
I inhaled my spoonful of pottage in a coughing fit that nearly killed me.
Wystan helpfully pounded me between the shoulders hard enough to dislodge a rib.
“I’m fine,” I gasped.
Gilda looked offended. “I merely spoke truth.”
“You can’t just say things like that.”
“Why?”
There was entirely too much why in this century.
Wulfric crossed the clearing toward us, which meant I had approximately three seconds to stop coughing and erase all knowledge of his fine backside from my face.
“What has happened?” he asked.
“Pottage,” I said.
Wystan said, “Gilda.”
Gilda said, “Nothing.”
Wulfric looked from one of us to another. “Aye,” he said at last. “I see.”
Clearly, he didn’t, thank God.
When he turned, I caught sight of the blood. It had soaked through the sleeve of his tunic near the upper arm, not much, but enough to make me set down the bowl.
“You’re hurt.”
“It is nothing.”
Every man in every century apparently attended the same school.
I stood. “Sit down.”
Behind him, Wystan grinned.
Wulfric arched a single brow. “See to the water barrels.”
The grin vanished as Wystan left muttering under his breath.
I pointed at the fallen log beside the fire. “Sit.”
“I have much to do.”
“And I have eyes. We’re both very talented. Sit down.”
With a sigh, he pulled his tunic over his head and sat, giving me full view of a torso that looked like it had been sculpted out of marble.
Gilda made a suspicious noise that might have been a laugh, gathered her spindle, and departed with her pottage as she muttered about the lord’s fine figure.
The cut wasn’t serious. A branch had caught him when his horse shied on the return journey, slicing the outside of his upper arm. Once I cleaned away the blood, I could see the wound was shallow, though long enough to need a bandage.
He watched me rinse the cloth in boiled water that had cooled beside the fire. “You enjoy giving orders.”
“I’m pretty good at it.”
The muscle beneath my fingers tightened as I cleaned the cut.
Which was unfair, because I was trying very hard not to notice the warmth of his skin beneath my hand or the way his shoulders filled the dark wool of his tunic, or how many old scars crossed the arm I was holding.
There was one near his elbow, another pale line along his forearm, and a small crescent near his wrist. A life written in wounds.
I wrapped the linen around his arm and tied it off.
“There.”
Neither one of us moved. Around us, the camp continued without the slightest concern for the fact that something had changed. Children chased one another between the shelters. An axe struck wood. Someone argued over a blanket. The black hen with offensive feet scratched near the fire.
Wulfric’s voice was quiet. “Is there no one waiting for you where you come from?”
For one terrible second, the forest disappeared as I was back in London at the station. My colleagues, Ellis and Hassan. And Brian’s empty locker. People who would never know where I’d gone, who’d wonder why I hadn’t come back.
“Everyone,” I said.
Something changed in Wulfric’s face as I thought he must have misunderstood. He thought I meant I had no one. I should have corrected him. Instead, I looked down at the linen around his arm and said, “There. Try not to bleed on it.”
His hand closed gently around my wrist before I could step away.
“Darcy.”
He was close enough now that I could see the gold in his beard and the pale scar across his cheek. A moment later he let go of my wrist, giving me every chance to step back. When I didn’t, he bent his head slowly, and when his mouth touched mine, the kiss was gentler than I’d expected.
His lips were warm against mine, careful, until I caught the front of his tunic in my fists. That changed matters as his hands came to the side of my face, rough palms against my cheek, and for one moment there was no war or camp, no thousand years between my life and his. Only Wulfric.
A horn sounded from the southern lookout. One long note then two more which ended the kiss as we stood there looking at each other. My heart was behaving as though it had discovered a previously unknown emergency.
He turned before the last note died, and whatever had been in his face vanished beneath the hard focus of the warrior.
The scout burst through the trees moments later, breathing hard.
“Normans,” he said. “Eighty men. Mayhap more. Close.”
Wulfric’s hand went to his sword.
“How close?”
“Less than an hour. They have found us.”