Chapter 13
Thirteen
WULFRIC
The horn sounded near the northern path as conversation died across the camp. This was not the sharp warning for danger, but the longer call for riders, and my hand went instinctively to my sword as three men emerged beneath the trees.
Their horses were exhausted, foam dried pale upon their chests, while mud covered the riders from boots to cloaks. One leaned badly in the saddle and another had bloodstained linen tied around his thigh, but it was the shield carried by the third that drew every eye.
King Harold’s colors.
I moved forward as the eldest rider dismounted and nearly fell before Godwin caught him.
“From the king?” I asked.
The man raised his head, his face gray, and cold settled beneath my ribs.
“Speak.”
The rider swallowed. “The battle is lost.”
No one moved. Behind me, even the children had fallen silent.
“Where?”
“Hastings.”
The word passed through the camp like wind through dry leaves as my hand tightened around the hilt of my sword. “And the king?”
The rider looked down. “The king is dead.”
A woman cried out, someone began to pray, Godwin crossed himself, and I closed my eyes for a long moment.
Harold dead. The Saxon army broken. England without its king.
For years men would make songs of this day, but standing beneath the trees, I heard only weeping, a horse breathing hard, and the faint rattle of the goat’s tether.
I did not know what made me look for Darcy as I turned, but perhaps some part of me had already begun to understand.
She stood where I had left her, her face white as the moon.
And what I saw upon her visage made me hold my breath, for she was not surprised.
There was no disbelief after hearing such news.
Nay, she looked like a woman watching the sea for a ship she had always known would come.
One terrible truth remained. Darcy had known King Harold would die.