The Warrior's Wife (20 page)

As he rode beneath the gatehouse itself Rafe glanced warily above him. It was strange how his mind worked. At the very instant he knew relief that there was no hole through which boiling oil might be poured down upon intruders he added construction of just such a device to his list of changes. The bailiff and the sergeant waited for them just inside the gateway, both men clinging close to the gatehouse wall. The old soldier held his bared sword in his hand. Rafe managed a nod terse enough that he didn’t need to lift his head much to give it as he rode by them.

“Sir Warin?” the bailiff called out when he was denied the face he needed to confirm the man who entered was, indeed, the steward.

Unwilling to risk even a glance at the bailiff until more of his men were within the gate, Rafe kept his gaze on his saddle. “I’ll speak with you at the house, Ernulf,” he said. Only when he was a good four yards beyond the gate did he dare to shift in his saddle, keeping his back to the bailiff, as he looked to see how many of his brother’s men were now within the walls. On her palfrey behind him, Kate’s head was bent so low that he could see nothing of her face. Her shoulders worked beneath the folds of her borrowed habit as if she was trying to loosen tenseness from her back. Behind her, Will and Sir Warin’s horse were already within the walls, as were the four men following Will. Two abreast, since that was all the gate or bridge would allow, the rest of the troop filed steadily into Glevering.

Kate made a sound. Rafe’s gaze shifted back to her. Her head lifted. When their gazes met, she grinned. It was a vicious, triumphant smile.

Rafe blinked. She grinned? Where was her gag?

Again her shoulders shifted only this time he could see it wasn’t muscles she eased. Nay, she was returning her arms to the sleeves of her habit. Her hands appeared out of the cuffs. In one was the length of cloth that had stopped her mouth. The rope that trapped her hands was gone.

All hope of owning Glevering shattered. Even as his hands tightened on the reins to turn his horse he knew it was too late. She lifted her head.

“Attack them! These are Godsols!” she screamed. “Attack!”

* * *

The satisfaction Kate felt as her call echoed out over the yard was beyond measure. In the breathless startled instant that followed, the astonishment on Rafe’s face gave way to grim determination. In one smooth movement he dropped her palfrey’s reins and drew his sword, then kicked his horse back toward the gate.

“Hold the doors!” he shouted to the soldier who had been Kate’s keeper.

Even as the Godsol men within the yard turned their horses to race back to the gatehouse the burly little soldier at the gate sprang forward to block their path. “Close the gate!” he bellowed as his weapon rang against that of one of his enemy’s.

Behind the little man Glevering’s massive exterior doors jerked to a halt, then the grinding began anew as they moved in reverse. The Godsol men outside the gates spurred their horses and poured through the ever-narrowing opening, their shields held high. Crossbow bolts sizzled down upon them from the wall above the gatehouse as they rode. Screaming out of the kitchen came the cook and his two lads, their knives at the ready. At the sheepfold, the milkmaids shrieked. Buckets flew. With a flurry of skirts the women left their bleating charges and raced for the safety of the house, the same sanctuary Kate needed.

Winding her hands into the palfrey’s mane, Kate drummed her heels against the foul beast’s sides. For once the idiot creature did as she willed and chased the milkmaids to the stairway at the house’s forefront. Slipping off its back, Kate dashed up the steps, pushing past the last of the screeching women.

At the center of the portal was a heavyset woman, her hair covered with a neat white headcloth. Beneath her water-stained apron her green gowns owned style enough to suggest she was the bailiff’s wife. As each milkmaid sprang into the hall Glevering’s housewife gave the hapless girl a shove to speed her on her way--until Kate came abreast her.

The woman grabbed Kate by the habit’s shoulder and shouted something in the English tongue. Kate needed no translator to tell her she was being refused entry. She threw back the garment’s cowl.

“I am Lady Katherine de Fraisney, the kidnapped daughter of Lord Humphrey of Bagot and heiress to Glevering,” she shouted at the woman. “I command you to let me in.”

Whether it was her French, revelation of her womanhood or her claim to relationship to Glevering’s lord that was the key Kate didn’t care. With a startled sound the portly woman shoved her on into the hall. To Kate’s surprise there was no screen between this hall’s door and its main chamber. Instead, she was thrust directly into the body of the room.

As the final weeping girl followed on Kate’s heels the door thundered shut. Huffing beneath the bar’s weight two maids dropped what was nigh on a tree trunk into the thick brackets at either side of the door. The brackets rang like bells.

Almost before the echoes died away a shouting Sir William Godsol pounded on the door, demanding entry. Every woman in the hall cried out in surprise, including Kate. She backed away from the portal.

What if the Godsols took the day and the women opened the hall to them? A single door wasn’t enough to protect her from the fate Rafe intended to force on her. Pirouetting, she scanned the hall that belonged to her, seeking some a secondary sanctuary. At the far end of the house half a tree bore the weight of the roof’s crossbeam. Sturdy rafters held the thatch above her head. Whitewashed walls gleamed blankly back at her, offering her nothing in the way of hiding place.

A raised hearth filled the chamber’s center, newborn flames leaping on its flat ash-filled stone, smoke drifting up to exit through the guarded opening on the roof. Six sets of trestles sat around the fire, ready for the planks of wood that would turn them into breakfast tables. Those planks, along with the benches used for seating, yet rested against the walls.

There was nowhere to hide! Her feet slid on the thick layer of rushes that covered the wooden floor as she finished her turn and faced the room’s opposite end. Kate breathed out against the miracle when she saw it.

Cut into the stone wall that divided house from keep tower was a single wooden door. Glevering had a private chamber. In the de Fraisney home the only room that had a door, other than the cellar, was the master’s bedchamber. Because Sir Guy kept his treasure in a special chamber located directly beneath his bed, his door had a bar.

Praying that what was true for the de Fraisneys was also true here, Kate lifted her filthy skirts and raced across the room to the stone wall. The door was ajar. She raced inside the chamber and whirled. The bar was already halfway in place, held crossways against the door by some foreign mechanism. In the back of Kate’s mind the oddness of this arrangement niggled, its meaning something she couldn’t place. Who cared! She was saved.

Grinning, she started to shut the door. In the hall Glevering’s womenfolk, all yet gathered at its center, watched her in wordless surprise, even the bailiff’s wife. Kate’s need to repay Rafe for his misuse of her as well as to lay one more barrier between her and the man who thought to force marriage on her brought a falsehood flying from her lips.

“Whatever you do, don’t open the hall door to anyone,” she warned in her sternest voice. “The Godsols out there want to eat your hearts.”

Those maids who knew the tongue of their betters shrieked. One swooned. The bailiff’s wife whitened, her jowls quivering.

Content that their fear would serve her well, Kate slammed the door. It took a moment before she coaxed the strange bar down into its brackets, but it finally fell into place with the most satisfying of thunks. Eyes closed and hands braced against the thick, cool wood Kate drew her first free breath since the previous afternoon.

Safety wrapped its warm arms around her. She leaned her forehead against the door. Despite the heavy panel and the keep’s stone walls around her she could hear sounds of weeping from the hall. So too, could she hear the distant screams of men in battle. The occasional clash of metal was barely louder than the groaning of the gate doors.

A long, slow breath left her. It no longer mattered what happened in Glevering’s yard. Even if Rafe managed to take the day it would surely be hours before the women opened the hall door to him and hours more before he pried open the door to this chamber. That would give her father plenty of time to find and rescue her.

Yet savoring her freedom, Kate turned to see what sort of room this was, only to smile. She’d done Glevering a disservice in imagining it rustic and rude. The keep’s lower storey had been converted into a small but serviceable bedchamber.

It was through an arrow slit cut into the tower’s east facing wall that sound from the yard entered, as well as a sliver of dawn’s light. A simple bed of wooden posts and a rope network to support a straw mattress laid its head against one wall of this tower chamber. The only other piece of furniture was a great brass-bound chest to the bed’s right, no doubt containing the bailiff’s personal effects. The rents he collected for Kate’s sire along with the contracts and fee agreements that bound Glevering’s peasants and serfs to its master would be in the cellar chamber beneath this one. The room’s other corner was empty.

Ah, but what lay at the bed’s foot filled Kate’s heart with joy. Set on a greased cloth to protect the rush matting covering the floor was a large wooden tub filled with water. A pot of soap stood at its side while a yet-dripping cloth dangled over its edge. Judging by the puddles on the floor and the damp apron worn by the bailiff’s wife, the Godsols’ arrival at Glevering had interrupted her husband’s weekly wash.

Kate’s grin widened. His loss was her good fortune. Nay, it was nothing more than God’s compensation for the horrible experiences of last night.

Two steps took her to its side. The water within it was yet warm but it wouldn’t have mattered if it had been ice cold. In one instant, Kate stripped off the monk’s habit Rafe had forced on her then what remained of yesterday’s finery. Stepping in, she sank beneath the water’s surface with a sigh then rose again to sputter happily as the mud that caked her dissolved. Even as she reached for the soap, she yawned. With safety there was no longer a reason to stave off exhaustion. Once she was clean, she’d sleep. Indeed, she was so tired she would likely slumber until her father arrived.

A bit of darkness cast its shadow over her hard-won contentment. Rescue meant she’d not escape the marriage her father planned for her. From the depths of Kate’s mind came a tiny, traitorous voice. It dared suggest that, forced or not, marriage to Rafe was far preferable to a legitimate wedding that made her Sir Gilbert’s mate.

Kate slaughtered the thought but not before her eyes stung. She scrubbed at them. She wouldn’t cry over Rafe. He’d used her affection to his own advantage. Rafe Godsol was a rogue who abused trusting good women. She would never marry him, not even if he managed to break into this chamber and threatened to kill her if she didn’t comply.

 

Less than an hour after he’d first breached Glevering’s gate Rafe stood at the base of the stairs that led to the hall’s door. Beside him stood the nervous little priest who served Will at Long Chilting. Father Philip had a narrow pointed nose, a sharp chin and a fox’s face to go with the red straw that was his hair.

Ernulf, Glevering’s erstwhile bailiff, stood at Rafe’s other hand, looking only a little worse for the battle. His now dry hair stood out from his head in stiff spikes; his fine bedrobe was torn at the shoulder. The blood of Glevering’s sergeant, the only man to give his life in their brief engagement, spattered his face.

As Rafe’s gaze met his, Ernulf’s expression hardened into stone. Rage lurked in his gaze as he stared at his Godsol captor. Rafe took no offense. Ernulf had lost more than his stewardship of Glevering this day. At his age and after losing the property he was supposed to protect, Ernulf knew full well he was a man without hope of further employment, no matter that it wasn’t Ernulf’s fault Glevering fell. Spurred by panic, the men turning the gate machinery hadn’t kept their movements synchronous, and the gates had jammed. Without a way to keep the horde of Godsols out Ernulf had no choice but to cede the manor or lose every man.

One last time Rafe scanned the yard, seeking any remaining hint of battle signs. Gone were the Godsol horses, led off to the far reaches of the demesne. Will and the rest of his troop had herded Daubney defenders into the nearest barn. There, the men would be held until they either gave their oathes to Rafe or were ransomed by Lord Bagot. Along with them had gone the bound Sir Warin although Rafe doubted Bagot would give so much as a groat to ransom his betraying steward.

All this preparation in the hope of breaching the hall before Kate was certain which side had taken the day. Rafe feared that if the hall doors opened and she saw evidence of his victory she might well hold the house against him. He freed a slow sigh at the great hurdle yet facing him. It was only a matter of time now before Lord Bagot and men from Haydon found their way here. Although Will’s engineer was studying the gate machinery the man couldn’t say when he might free the works and close the gates. If Kate didn’t let him in they’d have to resort to Glevering’s ram to breach the hall. With the hall door broken Glevering would be rendered defenseless, and Rafe along with it. Rafe had no desire to lose his new home as swiftly as he’d come to own it.

All of which was why he needed more than ever to make Glevering his by right of marriage as well as by his sword. Only then would the manor truly be his. Rafe looked at Father Philip.

“To be legal must vows be said before a church door or can you conduct a marriage in the hall?” It felt strange to ask this question after so many years of interdict. With priests forbidden to make marriages many a union had been formed before locked church doors, the bride and groom speaking their parts without the benefit of clergy. Still, Rafe wanted to leave no issue for Lord Bagot to use to dissolve his union to Kate. Moreover, taking Kate out of the hall might well mean binding her once more. If Rafe didn’t already own it, that would surely guarantee her eternal hatred.

The priest blinked rapidly as if startled at being addressed then cleared his throat. “As long as there are witnesses to the saying of the vows, then the marriage is legal no matter where the event takes place.”

Witnesses Rafe had in plenty. The thorny issue was finding a way to wring vows from Kate. He looked at Ernulf. “Do it, then. Call for your womenfolk to open the door. Remember, say nothing as to the outcome of the battle.”

The bailiff turned his sullen gaze to the steps leading to the house’s door. It was still another moment before he could bring himself to start up the stair and another still once he’d reached the roofless porch before he could spill the words.

“Wife, it is I, Ernulf. Come, open the door,” he shouted. “The battle’s done.”

Female cries, all sounding relieved, escaped through the hall’s slitted windows. Wood banged against metal more than once as the maids within wrestled the bar from its home. The door gave a low growl as it moved.

Arms outstretched, a plump woman well into her middle years and dressed in green beneath her rough apron, started out of the door, only to stop short when she saw Rafe at the stair’s base. “Ernulf?”

The bailiff gave a rattling sigh, his shoulders drooping along with his head. “Stand aside, wife,” he said to his mate in English. “We’ve lost the manor to the Godsols.”

That brought Rafe up the steps in a hurry, all the while praying Kate either hadn’t heard or spoke no English. On the porch the bailiff’s wife gave a single keening cry and stumbled back into the hall. Rafe followed her, slowing to let his eyes adjust to the dim room.

Screeching women scattered before him, one whole group of maids falling back into the house’s far corner where they eyed him as if he were the devil’s spawn. He scanned their faces. Kate wasn’t among them. Frowning, he turned on the bailiff’s yet dazed wife. The woman leaned against the wall behind her, her hands clutched together as if in prayer. Tears trickled down her cheeks. Her expression was flat, her gaze dull.

“Where is she?” he demanded in her native tongue.

“Who?” the woman asked, her tone as empty as her expression.

“Lady de Fraisney. Bagot’s daughter. I saw her enter when the battle was first joined.”

Ernulf gave a startled cry at this then glanced from his wife to his home’s new owner, hope returning to his gaze. “Glevering’s heiress is here?”

His wife ignored her husband as she frowned at Rafe. “Do you mean that woman dressed as a monk? She barred herself into the bedchamber.” She pointed toward the stone wall shared by house and keep tower.

Rafe almost groaned. The door on the chamber looked as stout and thick as the hall door. He’d be hours breaking it down.

Even as he damned himself for not finding a way to win Kate’s heart before circumstances demanded he take her, he congratulated Kate on her pluck. Never had he known a woman with this much courage. If her cuts and bruises told the tale, she’d not meekly given herself over to Sir Warin. Nor had a second kidnapping dulled her spirit. Of course she’d wouldn’t be pleased when she realized her warning shout about the Godsols had contributed to the defeat of her sire’s forces here. Oddly enough, his growing admiration for her only fed his desire to make her his own. Jesus God, but time was running out for him!

He turned to Glevering’s housewife. “Is there any way past the bar that doesn’t include the ram?”

Life returned to the woman’s pale face, followed by sly comprehension as she realized it was only one woman the Godsols wanted. The very set of her jaw told Rafe that there was, indeed, another way into the room. It also said that he’d have to pay something to learn what it was. He didn’t care. Whatever the cost, it was worth the time saved.

“There is,” she replied, even as her husband sprang toward her, his hands waving, to warn her to silence.

“Say no more, Joan,” he commanded her. “If our lord’s daughter is here, it’s our duty to protect her.”

His Joan set her hands on her meaty hips. “You’d protect Bagot’s get, knowing full well our merciful lord has no mercy in his soul? Nay, after this he’ll turn us out to face starvation and penury even if we should return his daughter to him. The Godsol needs Bagot’s heiress if he’s to own Glevering, right and true, while we need to live on past this day. What we won’t get from our own lord we can have from him,” she gave a jerk of her head in Rafe’s direction.

“Joan!” Ernulf cried in horror, but even as he protested, practicality ate away at a lifetime of honor. As the truth of what his wife said wrapped its arms around him, his back bent. In one instant he aged ten years. “Give him the lady, then,” said the old man.

His wife looked at Rafe. “Vow that you’ll secure us a pensioner’s cottage with the Blackfriars, paying our rent and buying our daily bread until our lives are finished, and I’ll show you how to crack yon door right now.”

A few shillings a year to support this couple with the monks so he might have his Kate? It was more than worth it. He set his hand upon his sheathed sword’s hilt. “Upon my honor and Saint George you have my vow to support you as long as I own Glevering.”

Content, Glevering’s housewife straightened. Her head proudly held, her skirts jerking with each step, she crossed from the doorway to the hall’s hearthstone. There she crouched to remove a loosened stone from the fireplace’s raised base. Reaching into that hiding space, she pulled out a single massive key. This she carried back to Rafe.

“Lord Bagot hoards what little treasure Glevering keeps beneath that chamber. At his command we keep the door locked when no one is within it,” she said, laying the key in Rafe’s hand.

Rafe smiled as he closed his fingers around the key. Kate was his. Better yet, she was trapped. There was never more than one way into a treasure chamber.

But that didn’t change the fact that she’d hate him for the rest of his life when he stood her before his brother’s men and Glevering’s women to force marriage on her. The answer hit him with such impact that he caught his breath. He simply wouldn’t force her. If he wanted her to marry him willingly, it was a seduction he needed, and seduction was the one thing he did very well indeed.

He touched his brother’s priest on the shoulder. “Father, fetch my brother, telling him I need my better clothing from my saddle pack. He should also bring all of those men who aren’t needed to guard our prisoners. I want this marriage well witnessed. That means the rest of you,” he called to the whimpering maids, “will remain here until I’ve released you.”

To the bailiff’s wife he said, “I need soap and water to wash.”

A tiny smile touched the corners of the woman’s mouth as she understood his intent. “As you will, my lord,” she replied with a bend of her head, then called to her maids to do as he required.

Even though Rafe knew she offered the honorific as a sop, it pleased him greatly indeed. The desire to have all--a wife he loved, a home that gave him succor and the lands to support him--firmed. Indeed, if he succeeded in this he’d wouldn’t sit idly by and wait for Bagot to find him. Nay, he’d send a bold message to Haydon, telling the whole wedding party where to find him and his new wife.

* * *

Something startled Kate out of her dreams. She blinked. There was nothing to see but linen. At some time during her nap, she’d pulled the bailiff’s bedclothes over her head.

Not yet certain why she was awake, she lay still and listened. No one screamed or shouted. No arrows sang through the air, no swords clashed. Indeed, there was nothing to hear save the chittering of birds, the peaceful bleat of sheep and someone’s distant whistle.

Kate made a satisfied sound. It seemed the battle of Glevering was finished. Surely the defenders had triumphed, else Rafe would be battering at her door right now, demanding entry. She rolled over, meaning to reclaim sleep’s embrace.

Someone sighed. She froze. As impossible as it seemed the sound came from within this very room. Throwing back the bedclothes, she sat up, only to shriek.

Rafe stood at the foot of the bed, watching her. Clutching the blankets to her naked body, she catapulted off the mattress and into the chamber’s empty corner. It wasn’t far enough. She could still see every fine line of his face.

Damp from washing, Rafe’s hair gleamed like the finest ebony. Except where his beard clung to his jaw line, his lean cheeks were shorn of whiskers. Gone was the leather vest he’d worn last night. In its place was the gray tunic he’d sported throughout the wedding festivities.

Her gaze flew from him to the door. It was still barred. “How did you get in here?” she demanded.

With neither smile nor sneer at his victory over her he held up a massive iron key. “There’s both a lock and a bar on this door.”

Again Kate’s gaze flew to the door. Only now did she understand what she’d been too tired and panicked to comprehend earlier. That was why the bar sat half cocked in its brace. Hidden behind it was a flat iron panel, the insertion point for the key. When the key turned it lifted a lever, pushing one end of the bar out of its bracket so that the door could be opened. Lady Adele had spoken of such devices although there weren’t any in the de Fraisney home. Once more Kate named herself a fool for thinking Glevering unsophisticated.

Rafe started around the end of the bed. Kate squeaked. He was coming to claim her, and she was trapped without so much as a chamberpot to throw at him.

Not that she could have thrown anything at him. Releasing the bedclothes meant baring herself to him, and that she dared not do, not when his touch had so much power over her. Her only recourse was to force herself as far back into the corner as she could go, shivering as her naked flesh pressed against the cold stones.

“Leave me alone,” she commanded, utterly certain he wouldn’t.

He stopped less than an arm’s length in front of her. For a moment his expression was quiet, as if he was considering her demand. He shook his head.

“I can’t, Kate.”