EXCERPT

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Two cries. Though he should be heartless enough to continue on his way, even had they not been of a woman, he could not ignore them.

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“God’s rood, God’s tears, God’s patience!” Amaury de Chanson snarled and stretched his legs longer, risking his cover should a fellow villager catch sight of one whose affected limp and bent back made walking appear difficult. Of course, if the woman was victimized by one who recognized this newcomer to the Barony of Woodhearst, greater the loss of his cover for what he would do to the deviant.

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Expecting further cries to continue pointing him toward her, sudden silence forced him to halt and strain for noises beyond those expected of a wood.

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Leave her be, urged the dark of him born of seven years of captivity.

 

“Would I could,” he growled so deeply he nearly looked around to be certain the voice did not belong to a lurking demon.

 

Still, something of a demon, he acknowledged what had caused his grip on the rope securing him to God to slip near its end. For keeping hold of the raveling strands as likely would have been impossible had his last escape attempt failed, he continued toward where he believed the cries issued.

 

Shortly, he leapt a stream and was so intent on trees ahead he nearly missed movement to the far left. On that bank, a young woman flailed, gown up around hosed knees and gloriously red-blond hair spread beneath her. As for her assailant, he must have fled upon hearing Amaury’s advance.

 

Guessing her so hysterical she did not realize she was no longer under attack, he hesitated over approaching her lest she think it was he who set upon her. Then knowing his carefully laid plans could suffer, he muttered another curse, returned a hitch to his stride and, continuing forward, called, “Woman!”

 

Though she had ceased flailing, she convulsed where she lay with her face turned opposite, and as he lowered beside her, he saw in her mouth a wad of skirt used to quiet her.

 

“Cur!” Amaury named whoever did this and sought to remove the material. However, finding her teeth clamped the same as her lids, he paused to consider her profile. She was not as young as her slight figure made it appear, but neither was she of considerable age—no more than twenty to his thirty—and surely a villager, though not from his, and likely wed.

 

Non, he corrected when he saw no ring on her hand, only callouses evidencing her life was one of toil.

 

Once he ensured his cap covered his hair, he set a hand on her shoulder. “Open your eyes. I…” Though he resented losing a word as happened only occasionally now, more he resented it being necessary to abandon muteness that ensured his accent remained hidden in a country at war with his.

 

He drew breath, then affecting an English accent, said, “I mean you no harm. Tell what I can do to aid.”

 

A moan parted her teeth, expelling the material, then she murmured what sounded gloaming, turned her pretty freckled face toward his, and opened green eyes brighter than his own. “Who?” she whispered.

 

Relieved she did not react violently nor sling accusations, he clipped, “Mason. You?” Two words only, one the name he took upon settling in a northern village of Wulfenshire by scratching the letters in the dirt for a priest, the other a request to learn her identity so he could see her returned to her village.

 

“Tired,” she said, denying him a name, though perhaps it was the best she could do after what she suffered.

 

Amaury opened a hand in a gesture of peace, then reached to the skirt knotted up to keep it clear of the mud through which her boots had squelched. When she remained unmoving, he flipped the garment down her legs and, noting a dagger on her belt, thought it a pity she had not had time to draw it on her assailant.

 

Returning his regard to hers and seeing only a glimmer of fear, he said, “Who attacked you?”

 

She blinked, narrowed her lids. “Attacked?”

 

Was she so traumatized her mind shielded her? Though impatience urged him to continue on his way, he said, “Twice I heard you cry out, and here found you struggling.”

 

“Struggling? That is what it looks like?”

 

Was something amiss between her ears? Might she who appeared a woodland sprite be wrong of mind?

 

As once you were, Amaury de Chanson? he recalled the years of striving to think and act along a straight line inclined to go the long way around thoughts, sometimes stranding him midway.

 

“Does it truly look a struggle?” she pressed.

 

Nearly forgetting to suppress his native accent, he said, “You looked to be hurting and fearful. Whoever did this to you—”

 

“No one did this to me!” Her words flecked him with saliva.

 

Denial then, whether ravished or nearly so.

 

“You will not speak of this,” she said with command but also desperation and, he realized, crisp speech unlike most villagers.

 

If not for her callouses and simple dress, she could be mistaken for a lady. Might she serve one? Perhaps the Baron of Woodhearst’s new wife, Lady Vianne?

 

Now with a note of pleading, she said, “You will not, will you, Mason?”

 

She worried over her reputation, virtue considered the greatest gift a bride brought to a marriage, its loss jeopardizing her prospects if not ruining them.

 

“I will tell none,” he said, then seeing gain here, added, “if you do me a good turn.”

 

The tip of her tongue that failed to moisten her lips disappearing, she glared. “What price, Knave?”

 

Settling into his haunches, Amaury draped his hands between his knees. “A fair exchange. I keep your secret, and should we cross paths again, you keep mine.”

 

She tried to lever onto her elbows but dropped back. “I could sleep the remainder of the day,” she rasped, then sighed. “As I do not know your secret, you need not worry I shall reveal it.”

 

“For fear you suffered great harm, I broke a vow of silence. That is my secret.”

 

Her tongue clicked off her palate, and she croaked, “None will hear it from me.”

 

“I thank you. Now I will help you to the stream so you may drink.” Though it would be easy to carry her down the bank, remembering the bend to his back and lameness he could yet affect since she had not seen his advance, he rose to less than his considerable height. Placing most of his weight on one leg, he reached to her.

 

She eyed his hand. “The getting of those must have been nearly as painful as the ones on your face, Mason.”

 

He had thought her too shaken to notice scars on his jaws and cheeks that hardly disfigured for how thin they were. Were it not necessary to scrape away whiskers each day since arriving upon Wulfenshire, they would have escaped her notice—but not the streaks of silver bracketing his mouth and beneath his lip when his whiskers thickened.

 

“Your other hand as well?” she asked.

 

Clearly, she wanted to know their cause, but their bargain made no provision for revelation of the night he was captured outside Calais’ walls, nor other injuries dealt him all those years of hard labor.

 

“Both hands,” he said and flicked the other front to back as if neither were those marks of consequence. “But the pain was tolerable.”

 

Compared to what was barely tolerable, he silently added and felt the flames of vengeance leap higher. Though he knew the Lord would have him be content with reclaiming his greatest treasure—which he would do when the time was right—the one who rendered his son an orphan and sought to make it permanent had yet to answer for the cruelties done Amaury, Mace, and his niece.

 

Dear Séverine, he silently named she whose fortitude had preserved his son’s life during the last of the siege, The Pestilence that followed, and all else they endured before crossing the channel to secure Mace’s training with Wulfrith kin. Now, shockingly, his niece was wed to the baron whose lands comprised the greatest portion of Wulfenshire.

 

These things Amaury had learned since escaping the quarry and arriving on this shire where he had yet to reveal his presence to his son and niece for how precarious his position—not only the French of him, but the pirate whose capture the King of England would reward. Then there was his speech. Though he had recovered most of his fluidity those first years of captivity, during times of great stress he was more susceptible to lost words which, in the wrong circumstances, could make it difficult to speak his way out of difficult situations. Fortunately, thus far the warrior of him overcame such obstacles, fists and his facility with weapons speaking well for him.

 

“I am sorry for what you suffered,” the woman said.

 

He nearly flashed a smile to ease concern as often done with the wife lost to him. Instead, he reached nearer. “It is in the past,” he lied, determined the sooner she was someone else’s problem the better.

 

And more imperative that when something not felt in years moved from her hand to his as he helped her upright. Worse, when she stumbled against him, causing her tresses to shed bits of greenery, the feeling swept to his feet in boots that were fine compared to those held together with strips of whatever foul cloth could be had while he worked the mine.

 

“Forgive me!” She grasped his homespun tunic. “I am fatigued and my legs ache.”

 

Amaury knew women could be schemers the same as men, but for what she had endured, he did not believe she sought anything beyond his support. And when she dropped back her head to peer at him out of an uncommonly pretty face amid disarrayed hair, he believed the fear in her eyes was genuine.

 

“I cannot go home until this is remedied since I dare not be seen like this, Mason.”

 

With the appearance of ravishment, he thought. What had befallen her could knock her off whatever good path she was on, and it so frightened she intended to ask this stranger for further aid. Which he could not give for the need to resume what she interrupted.

 

Maintaining the bend in his back she might not have noticed, he said, “As I am somewhat lame, I can but offer my arm to get you to the stream. Then I must leave.”

 

She blinked. “Lame?”

 

“Bad leg and shoulder.” As she looked to the hunched latter, he drew her to the side and braced her arm between his and his ribs.

 

He loathed behaving a cripple, but there were advantages, above all giving few cause to perceive him as the threat he could become with the rise of a shoulder and straightening of a leg. Then there was the inclination of many to avoid looking near upon his face, saving him the effort of masking emotions some would find frightening when he dwelt on things that could have made a savage of him had his captors not allowed him only enough freedom of movement to labor as neither a warrior nor merchant were meant to do.

 

After urging the woman toward the stream with his practiced limp and handing her down to her knees, she asked, “How came you by those scars?”

 

Pressure in his lungs for greater awareness of other scars striping and grooving his body, he straightened to his bent height.

 

“Something of an accident.”

 

She sighed as if accepting his right to privacy, then leaned down to scoop water. And swayed. Had he not caught her shoulder, she would have gone into the stream.

 

Knowing he could not leave her like this, silently he cursed, and when she looked up, had little time to hide his frustration.

 

“For how fatigued I am, it must have been very bad,” she said, then raised a shaking hand and touched the tip of her tongue. “At least I did not bite it.”

 

Ill of mind? he wondered again. Merely in shock? “Sit back and I will get you water,” he growled. When she settled on her heels, he lowered and scooped up a handful.

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She glanced at his offering, and at his nod, put her mouth on the edge of his hand and drank from the cup made of it until only her lips remained in his palm. It was fleeting, but it so bothered he nearly did not offer more.

 

This time she raised her head before reaching bottom. “I appreciate your kindness, Mason. Now I shall rest before making my way back.”

 

He liked her dismissive tone. Having done what his conscience demanded, he could leave her. Or so he thought.

 

When she lowered her head, causing red-blond tresses to curtain her face, he remained unmoving for how near a child she looked.

 

No matter how slight a man’s honor, he did not leave one so vulnerable in the wood—especially after an attack that could resume with his departure.

 

“Les blessures de Dieu!” he snarled and once more acknowledged the curiosity of the ease with which curses had come off his tongue and lips well before he recovered most of the speech lost to head injury.

 

She raised her face. “God’s wounds,” she translated, then asked, “Are you of France?”

 

Having exposed the full of his accent and his native language, he lied again. “Nay, though as I was there many years…fighting for our king before being injured, often I was among the French.”

 

“The same as my brothers.”

 

Likely archers, he thought as he eased to sitting. Since the King of England required common men learn the bow, for the strength of those who flew arrows at Crécy, the French had been thoroughly defeated.

 

The woman swiped at hair still poked through with leaves and grass, then angled toward him and squinted as if sunlight were in her eyes. “You have proven honorable, but I am recovered enough you need not keep watch. Once my legs are firm, I shall return home.”

 

Heed her, impatience prompted, but unable to ignore the possibility worse would befall her, he said, “The damage is already done. Hence, it will not hurt if I am a bit later.”

 

She arched an eyebrow. “So you say, but it frustrates—perhaps angers.”

 

It shamed that, having survived great trials by controlling the expression of his emotions—his scars and bruises aiding in appearing one of dull wit—he failed to do so now. But then, that had been a matter of life over death with much incentive to lull his captors. This was a harmless woman he was not likely to see again, and even less likely once he established himself on the neighboring Barony of Wulfen to be nearer the son he longed to look upon ahead of deciding how best to reclaim him.

 

As may not be best for him, his conscience trespassed on the corner of his heart he had purged of most things ill when he learned Mace lived. His son being little more than a babe the night it was believed his sire was slain by an English patrol, he would not remember Amaury. But the man who had loved Alainne and made a child with her remembered their boy. If he could recover Mace without jeopardizing the boy’s future, he would. If he could not, he must endure watching from afar as his son grew into a man.

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The woman set a hand on his forearm. “What is wrong?”

 

More troubled by awareness of her touch than his drifting thoughts, he jerked his arm free, causing offense to shine from the eyes of one who was only being kind.

 

Yet distracts you from what matters, reminded revenge-edged anger. And what matters is ensuring the one who thieved years of your life takes no more from you and Mace.

 

Still, regretting his reaction, he offered a sideways excuse. “You are a woman alone in the wood as you ought not be and just had a bad…” He nearly left his mouth open while searching for the word, the usually intentional practice of which had occasionally lowered his captors’ guard.

 

“Aye, Mason?” she said with indignation.

 

Guessing she would walk away were she able to trust her legs, he found the elusive word and said, “After an experience such as yours, I would expect you to fear me, and yet before you knew I am lame, you did not try to flee.”

 

She considered his face, next the cap worn even when there was little chance of encountering others. “I should be afeared, but…”

She looked down his loose garments that concealed a muscular build more impressive than before the siege of Calais, as was needed for what was required of a quarrier of stone. Returning her gaze to his, she said, “Though I can bite, scratch, kick, and am fairly adept with this dagger”—she touched that on her belt—“you would best me unless I had distance on you and my bow to hand.”

 

Amaury did not hide his surprise. “Bow?”

 

There was mischief in her small smile. “My youngest brother says had I the strength to pull a long bow, I could be as lethal as he.”

 

As thought, an archer, and perhaps one who marched on Calais after defeating the French at Crécy. “Your brothers are archers,” he said with more interest than felt, hopeful such talk would sooner see her recovered.

 

“The youngest exceptionally so, the others more accomplished with swords, daggers, and maces.”

 

Common men-at-arms not feared as much as English archers. And yet, even after all these years since arrows devastated French forces, still the King of France relied on men of the crossbow whose missiles could penetrate armor but at a slow rate compared to those flown by the long bow.

 

“Has your youngest brother all his fingers?” he asked as he should not, especially if hers returned home missing those which the French were fond of severing when an archer was captured. Were he not also slain, never again would he draw a string to loose havoc on the enemy.

 

Eyes once more reflecting offense, she said, “Of course he has all his fingers. He has yet to see battle and, I pray, never shall.”

 

Likely he would since England was not done trying to reclaim its ancestral French lands, just as France was not done keeping hold of them—and harbored hope of adding this island kingdom to its possessions.

 

Amaury wanted to spit over the greed of rulers. Never was it enough to have desires beyond one’s needs met. Always there must be more, the greatest expense of which was borne by those they ruled. That he who had once enriched himself by pirating English merchants had further learned when those holding Calais for the King of France were rewarded with broken promises and near starvation. Ironically, the greatest consideration shown them was by King Edward who had not slain citizens put out of the city to preserve food stores. And further the besieger surprised in supplying them food for their journey to safety.

 

I drift again, he realized and, seeing the woman watched him, said, “As the war with France is ungodly, your hope is mine.”

 

She looked to the stream. “I thank you for giving me no cause to fear you.”

 

When her lids began lowering, he nearly groaned. How much longer before—?

 

A screech bringing up their chins, Amaury mused, An owl in the day. Not rare, but neither common.

 

“Goodness!” The woman pushed upright and swayed so slightly he did not try to steady her as he also rose. Shading her eyes to follow the bird’s flight, she said, “I am near certain I know that owl, though the snake…”

 

Snake? Though curiosity bade him ask her to elaborate, it would prolong his vigil.

 

“Gone again,” she said sorrowfully. “I am ready to make my way home.”

 

“I am glad you are recovered, Woman.”

 

When she stepped past him, he started to depart, but as one more minute was nothing compared to those lost, he turned to watch her go.

 

Shortly, she came around and smiled so brightly her fiery-haired loveliness became beauty. “’Twas ill-mannered not to give my name, honorable Mason. I am Fira Wulfrith, sister of the Baron of Wulfen and the new Baron of Woodhearst.”