Her Battle-Scarred Knight. Meriel Fuller
‘She hasn’t seen Hugh for such a long time. Once she has a plan in her head …’ Alys trailed off miserably, her voice rising on a half-sob.
‘She’s difficult to rein in, I can see that,’ Giseux replied, grimacing. ‘When did she leave?’
‘Not long after you fell asleep, my lord.’
‘She hasn’t had much of a head start.’ He thought of the dying embers in the fireplace, calculating rapidly. ‘What does she ride … a palfrey? She wouldn’t go above a trot on one of those. I’ll easily catch her up.’
The maidservant was silent, staring at him like a ghost, her knotted fingers still clutching the coverlet against her. ‘She … she took your horse, my lord.’
Through the dark tracery of bare branches, the moon appeared sporadically, shifting behind veils of cloud, dribbling a faint light down to the forest floor. A rising breeze sifted through the trees, a sibilant sound that spoke of the old stories surrounding the forest of Sefanoc, the drifting ghosts. The woods held little mystery for Brianna; she had grown up in this place, had laughed and played through the woodland with Hugh. She felt no fear as the giant skeletal shapes of the trees rose up before her, no fear as she glimpsed the deep pools silvered by the light of the moon and heard the twitterings and rustlings of the animals in the undergrowth. Nay, the forest did not scare her. But being caught by Lord Giseux de St-Loup did.
In despair, she kicked the rounded flanks of the horse beneath her once more. In her haste to leave for Winchester, she had failed to adjust the stirrups to the length of her leg and now they bumped uselessly against the horse’s sides, polished metal hoops shining in the darkness. Even without the use of the stirrups, she considered herself to be an excellent horsewoman, but this animal simply refused to move at anything greater than a sporadic, half-hearted trot! Really, it was as if his master was controlling him from afar!
All of a sudden, the animal stopped, pointed ears moving round as if to locate a sound. And then she heard it—a shout on the wind. She failed to decipher the words, but she knew, knew it was him. Knuckles rounding tautly on the reins, her heart lodged in her throat—how had he managed to catch up with her so quickly? The horse begun to turn in response to his master’s voice, Brianna yanking desperately on the reins to point his head back in the right direction, but to no avail. The horse turned abruptly in the narrow, muddy track, almost throwing her off in its excitement. In the last moment before the horse took off, Brianna managed to throw her leg over the horse’s neck and slip in a flurry of skirts to the ground.
Head held high, she stalked forwards, marching purposefully, swiftly, along the lane towards Winchester, wrapping her woollen cloak firmly around her. She could have run to hide in the darkness of the forest, but what would that achieve? He would surely find her—his face held a lean, hunting expression, that of a predator. Moments later, the sound of galloping hooves thumped up behind her. Her heart plummeted, trickles of fear stinging her blood.
‘Lady Brianna!’ Giseux bellowed. The words rained down on her back as if they were physical blows and she hunched over, chest thudding painfully. Don’t cower like a guilty thief, she told herself. Face him! Dragging herself up to her full height, spine straight and rigid, she spun around, the toe of her sturdy leather boot sinking into soft rotting leaves beneath her foot.
Giseux wore no helmet; his hair stuck up in rough spikes. His eyes, sparking anger, glimmered down over her. Despite her determined demeanour, she hoped that a great crevasse would open up beneath him and swallow him up.
‘What do you think you are doing?’ The roughness of his tone cut into her. His face glimmered with a sheen of sweat: he must have run to catch up with her before his horse turned back.
‘You know what I am doing.’ Not wanting to meet his eyes, to admit that she had defied his orders, Brianna stared mutinously at his mail-covered foot, stuck in the stirrup on a level with her chest, the gleaming armour dulled with spots of mud.
‘I told you to wait until morning, then I would have escorted you.’ His voice was low, level, but she detected a steely thread of exasperation winding through. The strengthening breeze stirred the wayward strands of his hair, making him appear more tousled … more devastating, she thought suddenly, a lump in her throat.
‘I know the way,’ she replied, truculently. Tilting her head to one side, she crossed her arms across her chest, a defiant gesture. In the shifting moonlight, her copper-coloured hair faded to a pale silk, loose strands drifting treacherously down from beneath her veil.
‘It’s not a question of whether you know the way or not,’ he replied tersely, ‘but the fact that you’re a woman. No noblewoman goes out unescorted—it’s utter madness.’
Brianna pushed the white froth of her veil back over her shoulder. ‘Since Hugh went away, I have had little choice in the matter,’ she replied practically, bending her gaze to his horse’s flank. Beneath the animal’s shining coat, a pulse throbbed near the surface, the beat regular and strong.
‘Up to now, maybe not,’ he agreed, ‘but you knew I would escort you to Winchester and you deliberately defied me.’
She jerked her chin up, eyes flashing fire at his chastisement. ‘I wanted to get to Hugh—I haven’t seen him for three years! Surely you can understand that?’
Aye, he could. He understood her need, her desire to be with her brother, especially after her harassment from Count John’s men. He suspected the beating he had witnessed today was one of many.
‘Besides,’ she continued, ‘who are you to order me about? You are not my lord, or my master. I can do what I want, go where I want. It’s my choice.’
In the shadows of the forest, the silver embroidery along the hem of his tunic twinkled like starlight. ‘So you do exactly as you please, without any consideration for others.’
Why, he made her sound like a spoiled brat! ‘It’s not
like that!’
‘How do you think Hugh would feel if something had happened to you?’
‘I can take care of myself!’
‘Hah! Like you took care of yourself this morning?’ he growled down derisively. The moonlight turned the ruffled strands of his hair to gold. ‘If I hadn’t come along when I did …’
She shrugged her shoulders, trying to suppress the doubt that mired her chest. ‘Those men are cowards … Lord Fulke is a coward! They would have left me alone soon enough. You, coming along like that, would have made no difference.’
‘Fighting words, my lady! Yet I suspect even you know that you lie to yourself. A woman alone is vulnerable, especially one who is stupid enough to believe she can best a man!’ She reminded him of a wild animal, cornered and vulnerable, the display of viciousness masking its puny strength.
‘I can—Hugh taught me how to use the crossbow … and the knife!’ The pitch of her words notched upwards, emerging in a spiral of rising anger and, yes, fear as well. How dare he challenge her methods of self-preservation, her hard-won skill? Instinctively her fingers moved to the jewelled knife hilt on her belt.
Giseux’s sparkling grey eyes honed in on her movement, his mouth twisting to a derogatory sneer. ‘That knife is more a hindrance than a help; it can so easily be wrested from your hands and turned against you. You would be better off not having it at all.’ The horse sidled beneath him; his big thigh muscles tensed as he maintained his upright position on the animal.
Hugh had given her the knife, before he went away. It was he who had taught her to use it properly, even though her brother could only guess at what she had experienced at the hands of her husband. She had told Hugh the barest details of her ordeal, not wanting to give voice to her time with Walter, not even with her brother. This knife, its heavy weight bumping against her hip, made her feel safe; now this man, this stranger, had the temerity to undermine its power!
‘You have no idea of what you are talking about!’ she