“Stephen!”
Would the boy be there, or had he gone with the soldiers? As she waited, she snatched up a few blackberries left from the morning repast and sipped a half-filled mug of milk.
“Lady?”
He sounded and looked sullen; he had clearly been instructed to remain there with her while the others went to fight. Despite the tenseness of the moment, she hid a smile.
“Stephen, I must find Lord Radulf. Will you come with me?”
He stared a
t her as if she had gone mad. “L-lady?”
“You heard me. Is my mare still here, or has she been taken to the fighting?”
He shook his head, still watching her carefully. “No, lady, your mare is still here.”
“Good. Then the sooner you fetch her, the sooner we can go to Lord Radulf.”
He stared at her a moment more and then quickly turned away, but Lily noticed a jaunty little skip to his step as he hurried to where the horses were stabled.
The mare was all that remained. The other animals, no matter how old or hobbled, had gone to be used by the cavalry, or to carry the wounded home again at the end of the day. Lily’s mare had been left, perhaps because she was Lily’s.
Whatever the reason, she was grateful. She must find Radulf and speak with him before he went into battle. He treasured her; he had said so. Surely, even in his anger, he would be pleased to know that she loved him?
Or would he?
Memories of his face and his voice and his words last night returned to deflate her. Was she better off keeping her feelings safely contained? Should she cling to those last shreds of her dignity, and deny him? Lily rejected the safe course. This time she would say what was in her heart, even if it killed her. What if it was her last chance?
“They’ve probably started already,” Stephen grumbled, as he brought the mare and helped her to mount.
“It is not yet dawn,” Lily retorted. “Hurry up! Climb up behind me, Stephen, and hold on.”
The boy did as she asked, and Lily kicked the mare into a trot, then a gallop, and turned her head toward the valley where the battle was to take place.
She prayed that she would make it in time.
Jervois leaned forward over his galloping horse’s neck, cursing under his breath, the cold wind stinging color into his face and tears into his eyes. He had not wanted to return to camp; he was ready to fight. But neither was he a man to disobey his lord, especially after that lord’s generosity in regard to Alice of Rennoc.
“Bring my lady here,” Radulf had told him, his voice harsh with some tightly contained emotion. “I believe her Englishmen will fight better if they see her beside me.”
“Lord Radulf—” Jervois had begun, but one glance from Radulf had stopped his protest in his throat.
“Bring her here,” he repeated the order. “Now go, quickly!”
There was nothing for him to do but obey. He had climbed upon the fastest horse he could find and set out to fetch Radulf’s wife.
“‘Fight better if they see her beside me,’” he muttered under his breath. “Aye, my lord, and pigs might fly! You want her with you, that is what it is. You rode off without her, and now you are heartsick.”
He spurred the horse, taking a low rise and starting down the other side. That was when he saw the other riders coming toward him, two upon the one mount. He slowed and halted his horse.
“Good, lady! You have saved me much time!” He wiped a hand across his brow, sweat dripping down his face beneath the helmet.
Lily gave him a bewildered look. She was as white as her breath in the cold light.
“Lord Radulf has sent me to fetch you. He says the English will fight better if you are there.”
“I was just now going to Lord Radulf. I was thinking the very same thing.”