The Rose and the Shield (Medieval 2)

“I told you to stay in the boat,” he said harshly in French. It sounded like a reprimand—it was a reprimand.

The hand was removed. He could picture the look on her face, it would be all Lady Rose. “I am paying you, Captain, not the other way around.”

Some mischievous demon made him say, “Last time we bargained, lady, you were paying me…only it was not with coin.”

She drew in her breath with a hiss, but before she could prolong the argument, he began to repeat the elder’s words to her. Before he had finished, she came out from her safe spot behind him, and only his hand on her arm prevented her from boldly walking right up to the merefolk.

“I will take Somerford back, and there will be peace once more for the villagers and the people of the Mere.” She said it with complete sincerity. “But for now, just for a little while, until Radulf comes to our aid, we need shelter and food. Will you shelter us?”

The old man listened, his black eyes never leaving Rose, and then he turned and consulted with his people.

“You should have stayed in the boat,” Gunnar said.

He felt her eyes on his profile, trying to read the emotion behind his face.

“I am not one of your mercenaries,” she told him quietly. “I do as I think fit. Remember it.”

His mouth curled. “I am yours to command, lady.”

Rose didn’t say anymore.

The elder turned to face Gunnar and Rose again. “We will shelter you

for a day or so, but you cannot stay long. If you are fleeing Fitzmorton he will come after you and then he will kill all of us here on the zoy…the island.”

“We understand that,” Gunnar said. “We don’t wish to put your people in danger.”

His black gaze slid curiously over Gunnar. “You are not from Somerford.”

“I am Gunnar Olafson,” and Gunnar smiled as if he hadn’t a care in the world. “I am Lady Rose’s shield, her protector.”

The elder nodded, although there was an answering half smile on his timeworn face. “I am Godenere. Come with me and I will show you where you can rest.”

Rose swallowed another piece of her fish and sipped fresh, warm goat’s milk from a wooden bowl. The inside of their burrowed hut was small and dark, and the smoke from the small fire in the middle of the room spiraled up through a hole in the turf roof. The furniture consisted of a couple of shelves on the wall, a bench, a stool, and a small table. The bed was on the ground, a mattress stuffed with sweet, dry foliage and covered in soft skins.

It was not much different from some of the Somerford village huts, and Rose knew she should not be surprised. Did it take a crisis like this to make her realize the merefolk were no different from their brethren on dry land? Certainly, if what Godenere had said was the truth, they were not her enemies.

It was Fitzmorton and his kind who were the enemy. They were the ones she should have been preparing herself against all along. But she had trusted Arno because he was Edric’s friend, and in trusting him she had foolishly lost everything.

I will get it back. Lord Radulf will get Somerford Manor back.

Aye, he probably would, eventually. But how many people would die in the process? And what of the harvest, so close now? Would that be lost while powerful men squabbled? Aye, and the poor folk would suffer—it was always the way. And what of Rose, who had lost Somerford Manor in the first place?

No, Rose did not expect to be given a second chance.

Despondently she sipped more milk. The goats were penned at one end of the village. The village itself was built on the highest point of the island or, as the merefolk called it, the zoy. There were numerous cottages and huts, with ducks and geese roaming at will. Children had watched from doorways, big-eyed, as she and Gunnar had walked passed. It was probably Gunnar who fascinated them, she decided. So big, a giant with copper braids and storm-blue eyes, he was as out of place in the island village as a Viking ship in a duck pond.

Rose finished her fish and bent to examine uneasily a mound of green vegetable in another bowl. It looked unfamiliar, some sort of waterweed, mayhap. Certainly nothing she had ever eaten before.

“’Tis good, lady. Our children grow strong when they eat it.”

Rose looked up. A woman—girl, really—was watching her with a faint, superior smile. Rose raised her eyebrows at Gunnar. “I think she is telling me to eat it up, but her English is so strange, I cannot be sure.”

“Something like that,” he agreed, in French. He was sitting in the shadows like a pagan god, his copper braids framing his handsome face. Rose wasn’t surprised to see that blank, besotted look slip over the girl’s pretty features. It was exactly the same expression she had seen on the faces of the women in her own hall—womankind were all alike, it seemed, when it came to Gunnar Olafson.

He murmured something in English to the girl, and she simpered as she collected the empty bowls. Rose knew she was staring but she could not seem to help it. The girl filled his cup with more milk before she left, turning for one last lingering glance. Outside there was a noisy burst of chatter. Another face peered into the hut, this one not so young or pretty, and then it was withdrawn and there was more laughter.

Rose, becoming seriously alarmed, was glad to hear Godenere’s voice. She didn’t completely understand his words, but he seemed to be telling the crowd to go away and allow the strangers some rest. The chatter and giggles faded away as the lust-struck women dispersed.