The Lily and the Sword (Medieval 1)

“Gone for now,” the man replied in a deep, husky voice that gave the impression of anger. He moved as if to shrug his shoulders and then caught his breath in a sharp hiss of pain.

“You’re hurt, my lord?”

The knight shook his head impatiently. “Go and fetch my horse. We will have to ride north without the priest.”

“Perhaps,” the boy ventured, “he has gone already. Perhaps he is persuading Vorgen’s wife to surrender to us. Perhaps she has had enough bloodshed, my lord.”

A low laugh was his answer. “They are dull-witted, these English,” the man growled. “They must be shown the error of their ways. Now fetch my horse, boy!”

“Aye, Lord Radulf.”

Lily gasped as her worst fears were realized. The man and the boy didn’t hear her, but the dog did. Until then, Lily had not even noticed it was present, but now it ran forward with a growl, the soldier behind it. Lily tried to scuttle out of the way, but the dog followed, barking with a sharp, high-pitched sound.

“Here, sir!” the soldier cried excitedly. “’Tis the priest hiding!”

The boy thrust the torch toward her. The heat of it made Lily’s eyes blink, and then rough hands closed on her arms, dragging her forth into the nave and dumping her unceremoniously at the feet of her enemy.

The dog was still snuffling around her, and the soldier pulled it away and led it outside. Lily, her heart leaping in her chest, slumped, frozen and waiting.

The silence seemed to stretch interminably.

“What is this? Have the priests in Northumbria taken to wearing women’s gowns?”

The husky voice was full of a wry humor that surprised Lily more than if he had struck her with his fist.

“No, my lord.” The boy didn’t seem to notice his master’s amusement, and took his words at face value

. “’Tis a woman in truth.”

Radulf did not answer him, speaking instead to Lily, at his feet. “Lift your face, woman, and let me see you.”

It was an order. Lily might be gentle, but she was no coward, and she had never yet shown her fear to the Norman conquerors. To them, her reticence appeared as frigid hauteur.

Straightening her slim shoulders, Lily slowly lifted her head.

The man towered over her, all brawn and bulk.

Iron spurs decorated the heels of his leather boots, and dark breeches molded his strong legs, the cloth firmed by leather cross garters. One big hand rested on the hilt of his sword in its scabbard, and Lily noted a scabbed cut across his knuckles. His tunic of chain mail, or hauberk, was dull and stained from the day’s fighting, and there was a rent at his broad shoulder.

Beneath his conical helmet Lily was able to make out his clean-shaven chin and his mouth, full-lipped despite being so rigidly held. To her consternation, her interest remained fixed on that mouth, only slowly lifting to his eyes, which glowed darkly either side of the metal nasal. They stared deep into hers, and there was a quick intelligence in them that once again surprised her.

Perhaps something of her thoughts showed on her face, for the gleam was abruptly doused, the dark eyes narrowed suspiciously, and Radulf demanded, “Who are you? What are you?”

Lily glanced down at her hands to give herself time to concoct a believable story. Her fingers were clasped tightly at her waist, and on her thumb something gleamed gold in the torchlight. A ring.

Her father’s gold ring! Given to him by Lily’s mother, and which Vorgen had taken from his dead finger, and which in turn had been taken from Vorgen’s finger when he was killed. Lily had worn it ever since, for it rightly belonged to her. It was a ring like no other, a symbol of leadership. Her father’s device, a hawk, was chased on a black niello background, the hawk’s eye set with a bloodred ruby. Around the hawk design an inscription was engraved, the words also filled with black enamel or niello: “I give thee my heart.”

Appreciating the value of symbols, Vorgen had taken the hawk as his own when he killed Lily’s father, and it had flown on flags and banners over every battlefield on which he had fought.

Radulf would recognize it.

Lily lifted her gaze and fixed it on Radulf, not knowing what she would say, only that her life depended on it. Beneath the cover of her cloak her fingers were busy tugging at the one thing that might give her secret away. Her voice tumbled out, breathless.

“My lord, I have been staying with my cousins over the border, in Scotland, during this trouble in Northumbria. When we heard Vorgen was dead, I was sent home with a group of men-at-arms. My father, Edwin of Rennoc, is a vassal of the Earl of Morcar, and lives ten leagues south of Grimswade. We had reached the forest just north of here when we were attacked by outlaws. I managed to escape on my horse. I don’t know what happened to the men.”

The English Earl of Morcar had been King William’s man and had refused to join Vorgen in the rebellion. So any vassal of Morcar’s would also be William’s man, and Lily knew Edwin of Rennoc had a young, fair-haired daughter.

“I was weary and afraid and took shelter in this church. I hoped to find sanctuary. There is so much warring in the north, I did not know who was friend and who was foe.”