The Rose and the Shield (Medieval 2)

Rose felt shaky and hot, as though she had experienced something difficult and traumatic, and she knew it was not just that her village was on fire and her villagers crying out for help.

Gunnar Olafson was like no other man she had ever before encountered. He was not checked by the boundaries that confined other men. He had his own rules. He was a pagan, a savage, and a soldier who fought and killed because it was what he did best. And yet, despite all that—or maybe because of it—Rose trusted him.

She had asked for his word, his sworn promise, and he had given it to her.

He had given her his word, and she knew in some deep part of herself that he would not break it.

“Rose?”

Arno was watching her from the table, his brown eyes slightly more alert than they had been a moment before, and full of suspicion. Rose wondered if he had overheard her conversation with the mercenary and thought she had best soothe any hurt feelings. Arno might not be the most reliable of men, but he had been loyal to Edric and he was loyal to her.

“I have sent the mercenaries to the village, Sir Arno. It is why they are here, after all. But they will do as I tell them and nothing more. Our captain had best remember that, if he wants his six marks.”

Arno gave a drunken smile at her dry tone. “So you do not approve of our handsome mercenary?”

Constance narrowed her eyes. “At least he can stand upright.”

Arno glowered back at her. “Hold your tongue, old woman,” he slurred, “or I’ll cut it out with my dagger!”

“If you can hold your dagger steady enough.”

Rose shrugged and left them to their pleasantries. Outside, the darkness had been made light with torches, and grooms were saddling horses for impatient men. As the gate creaked open, an unsteady mob hurried through. One woman sobbed hard, while a man was being supported by his companions. In the flare of the torches their faces were ghostly, pale and frightened. Voices babbled hysterically.

And then one deep voice cut through the noise.

“Ivo! Take Alfred and Reynard, and circle around to the far side of the village. The rest, with me. We have work to do. Edward, is it? Close the gate behind us!”

The troop of mercenaries set their mounts at the open gate and, horses’ hooves thundering on the hard ground, quickly vanished into the night.

Rose stared after them as Edward—puffed up with his own importance—closed the gate behind them. The mild evening breeze that stirred her gown and her veil brought with it the smell of burning thatch. The scent of destruction. She allowed herself one brief image of Gunnar Olafson, riding into possible danger, and then she closed it off. There was too much else to be done.

Rose descended the stairs to offer her villagers what comfort she could.

Gunnar sat upon his gray horse while all about him the flames turned the village crimson and orange, and the smoke hung suffocatingly low. The heat seared his skin. Fire had caught in thatches and roared through the wooden-framed walls. Although the villagers and the men from the keep had worked desperately, the fire had gained too great a hold on some buildings. An irascible old serf called Hergat had died in one of them, too stubborn to come out to safety.

When Gunnar and his men had first arrived at the village, they had found the place in chaos and the attackers already fled. As no one seemed clear in which direction they had headed, there was little point in pursuing them into the darkness. “Better to wait for daylight,” Gunnar had told them. “Whoever these people are, they will have left some trace.” Then he instructed his men to help gather up the belongings of those among the villagers who wanted to make their way to the safety of the keep.

In fact, the arrival of the mercenaries had frightened the villagers almost as much as the attack on them, but once it was made clear Gunnar and his men were there to help, to be on their side, they were accepted…albeit warily.

Gunnar had himself helped beat out fires that were still capable of being snuffed—there were others beyond stopping, raging their way through cottages of timber and sod. In one instance he helped an old woman to corner and capture a small spotted piglet.

“The merefolk did this,” the ancient crone had muttered darkly as she crammed the squealing animal into a willow basket and fastened the lid. “God curse ’em for it! ’Tis true they’ve always hated us and us them, but I never thought that one day they’d come and murder us in our beds!”

“You are safe now,” Gunnar had assured her. “We will take you to Lady Rose’s Keep.”

Her wrinkle-wrapped eyes had peered up at him hopefully. “She be one of God’s angels, our lady.” The eyes blinked and widened. “You be a handsome one. I’ve never seen aught like you before in this manor.”

“You will see me often from now on, old woman. I am here to drive the merefolk back where they belong.”

She had given him a thorough and appraising look, ignoring the pig’s shrieks. “Aye, I believe you could!”

Gunnar thought now of the marshy levels, the watery stretches, and their strange, dark islands. Was it really possible the merefolk had decided they no longer wanted to follow the old ways? Maybe the years of living beside Somerford Manor, watching the rich harvests come and go, had proved too tempting. Maybe the merefolk thought to drive off the villagers and make this land their own.

But what of Lady Rose and her secret need for mercenaries? Radulf believed she was quite probably a traitor, a vassal who was no longer loyal to him, and Gunnar trusted the King’s Sword as he trusted few other Normans.

Gunnar shook his head; the whole matter smelled rank.

Impatient now, he urged his mount forward, unseeing as the bright flames around him turned to black smoke and crumbling ashes. A gaggle of geese ran past, squawking, into the darkness, their white feathers ghostly.