He smiled at the memory of her voice, her pale eyes all but closed and yet seeing so much. He had made her wait a long time, but maybe at last the moment had come. Soon, if his future turned out the way he hoped, he would need a wife. Not a Norman lady—they were for the wealthy or the ambitious, and being neither, he had no use for them. No, give him a good earthy peasant woman. Someone he could hold without fearing she might shatter, or kiss without going down on his knees for permission. A plain, good woman to keep him warm at night; that was what he needed to cure this melancholy that had lately afflicted him.
Aye, a woman in his bed and his own land beyond his door!
“The gate is open.”
It was Ivo who spoke, drawing him back to the matter at hand. Gunnar frowned. The gate was open. Wide open. Such a lack of caution or care was not good. If they had been a band of outlaws, they could have ridden straight in. Five minutes, and all who lived would have been dead.
Had the Somerford garrison grown so careless that they had forgotten such simple precautions? Any lord or lady who neglected fundamental laws for the protection of people and property deserved nothing but contempt.
Gunnar and his men clattered across the narrow bridge, its sturdy legs straddling the deep ditch outside the wooden ramparts. The bridge was approximately the width of a cart, and they were forced to ride in double file, therefore exposed to the dangerous fire of arrows and slingshots from the walls above—if there had been men there to loose them. Gunnar noted that there was not even a single guard to give warning.
His face hardened.
The Lady of Somerford had much for which to answer.
“I will speak for us all,” he reminded them, as they followed him into the bailey. “Take my lead. And remember, we are men who will do anything for money…even change our loyalties.”
Ivo nodded, and Gunnar felt a surge of affection and gratitude for the dark brooding strength of his friend and second-in-command. Many times in the past Ivo had been at his back, and now it would be so again. One last time.
Inside the bailey there was plenty of activity, and for a moment no one seemed to notice them. A couple of oxen bellowed their resentment at being harnessed to a cart filled with wood. A smith was busy in his open forge, the smell of fire and metal so familiar to Gunnar that he breathed it in with pleasure. A trio of women were drawing water from a well, gossiping, laughing. One by one they stopped, gazing in alarm at the newcomers, though more particularly upon Gunnar himself—and now the women’s eyes widened in admiration.
Gunnar didn’t pay any attention to the staring women. They had turned to look all his life—ever since he was old enough to be called a man. Not that there hadn’t been times when he enjoyed their bedazzlement to the full, but their admiration did not make him what he was.
Tall and broad-shouldered, Gunnar was aware that his chain mail tunic made him seem more so, and as he removed his helmet, his hair caught the sun like a fortune in copper coin.
Physically he was a big man, very much as he imagined his father Olaf the armorer must have been in his youth, his upper body grown muscular from wielding the swords and battle-axes made by his father, or working in the forge beside him when he was young. His dark red hair was worn long to his shoulders in the English fashion, and twisted into narrow braids either side of his face. His eyes were the dark blue of the oceans his ancestors had crossed so readily to raid unwary shores.
Slowly, all around them, the comfortable bustle of the bailey had fallen silent. Now, each and every one of Lady Rose’s people was still and staring, totally focused on the new arrivals.
Gunnar was aware of the picture he and his men presented—hardened warriors in rough coverings of wool and hide and metal, armed for battle. Men for whom no crime was too great, or too unspeakable.
They were a pack of wolves set down in a dovecote.
“Ah,” said Gunnar. “Now they are afraid. Now that it is too late.”
“There are no guards,” Ivo added, glancing about. “A few men, but they are either unshaven boys or ancients. Maybe the gate was open because it required too much strength to close it.”
Sweyn chuckled, and then the smile slid from his face. “Someone comes, Captain.”
Gunnar looked up, wiping all expression from his own face. The approaching figure was that of an older man with close-cropped dark hair streaked with gray. He wore a sword at his hip, and beneath his well-made brown tunic and breeches his body appeared sturdy and strong. Clearly a Norman knight—it was there in the arrogant way he walked, the hard look he gave them. Gunnar’s information was that this man was probably Lady Rose’s lover—and her coconspirator in treason.
“Sir Arno d’Alan,” Gunnar observed softly to his companions.
Silently the band of mercenaries watched him approach. Gunnar’s men were used to being insulted by such as Sir Arno d’Alan, and from the expression on the knight’s face, today would be no exception.
“State your business,” the Norman knight demanded, dark eyes narro
wed as he peered at them against the bright sky, taking in their disreputable appearance and the casual way they sat their horses. In fact he was at a disadvantage on foot, but he acted as if he were not.
“I am Gunnar Olafson,” Gunnar replied in a measured voice that conveyed his thoughts not at all. “Captain Olafson. And these are my men. We have come in answer to your need for fighting men.”
“Olafson…?” Sir Arno frowned, and then the lines on his brow cleared as he understood, his arrogant mask slipping into something more calculating. “The mercenaries. Ah, then, Captain, I am Sir Arno d’Alan, and this is Somerford Manor. I had heard that a troop of men was coming to our aid, but I did not expect anyone so soon.”
“Your gate was open.”
Gunnar stared down with expressionless blue eyes, one hand on the hilt of his sword. There was no criticism in his voice, but Sir Arno seemed to sense something. His lord-of-the-manor pose slipped.
“Open, you say?” Arno glanced across the bailey as if he hadn’t noticed before. “Mayhap the Lady Rose gave the order. That need not concern you.”