The Rose and the Shield (Medieval 2)

Others took up the cry, and Rose bowed her head, tears trickling down her cheeks. If this was to be her last homecoming, it was surely special. One she would never forget no matter what came after.

The horses had drawn to a halt near the keep. Blindly, Rose tried to tug her foot from the stirrup, but a firm hand closed over her instep, freeing her. Warm fingers caught her about the waist, strong arms lifted her effortlessly to the ground. Through her tears and tangled hair she had a glimpse of searching blue eyes, but when she would have retained her clasp on his arm, Gunnar moved back, away from her.

Keeping his distance.

Rose swayed, momentarily distracted, lost in a way she had never felt before. It was not weakness, for she knew now she was strong. It was a sense of lack, as if a part of herself were now missing because he stood too far away.

Before she could grasp the significance of this, a cry shrilled through the noise and chatter about her.

“Lady! Dear lady!”

Constance was hobbling down the steps. Rose ran forward with open arms to hug her. It was only as she held those fragile bones in her strong arms that she realized the old woman had a black eye.

“They have hurt you,” she gasped, her voice shaking with anger.

Constance chuckled. “I have had worse,” she retorted with bravado, though her mouth trembled. “When that Miles found you had gone, he hit me, so I fell down and pretended to take a fit. They left me be after that, lady.”

Rose put a hand to her lips, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. “But you are all right, Constance? Nothing is broken or—”

“No, lady, nothing is broken. I will live to see you give Somerford Manor an heir,

you may be sure.”

Rose shook her head, smiling.

“You should have seen Miles’s face when he knew it was Lord Radulf coming,” Constance went on, eyes gleaming with grim enjoyment. “I thought he’d piss his breeches!”

“Miles is gone?” Gunnar came and frowned down at her, his anger and disappointment palpable.

“Aye, Captain,” Constance replied, eyeing him a little warily. “He escaped before Radulf took back the keep. Gone back to Fitzmorton his master, I’ll be bound.”

She glanced at Rose as she said it, and Rose saw the concern in her face. The old woman was probably wondering if her lady would also be riding in that direction, before the sun had set that night.

Sweyn had followed Constance, and Reynard hovered behind them. Ethelred, his arm tied up in a makeshift bandage, looked pale but determined not to show he was hurt. When he stumbled and grimaced with pain, Ivo gave him an exasperated look and shoved him down onto a mounting block before he fell.

Gunnar was looking around him. “Where are the rest of Miles’s men? There were at least twenty. Did they all escape?”

“Radulf trussed them up and sent them back to Crevitch. They are his proof, he says, when he sends word to the king. Fitzmorton will be out of favor when his treachery is known—Radulf is a king’s favorite, after all. They found Steven trussed up beyond the woods. The boy was bruised but alive, but probably only because they meant to ransom him.”

Gunnar nodded as if that made sense to him. “And Arno?” he added.

Ivo looked to Rose and away again. “Sir Arno was slain, Gunnar. There was courage in it. An honorable death. After Miles had left him, he fought like a berserker. ’Twas as if he preferred death to capture.”

“Aye.” Gunnar also looked at Rose, coolly assessing her expression. “He knew what awaited him if he was captured.”

Rose closed her eyes against them both. Arno, dead? It was inconceivable. As if one of her family had died. Even though he had betrayed her, was a traitor, she could still pity him. She knew, when she thought of him in the days and weeks to come, that she would mourn the man she had once believed him to be.

“Lady?”

Gunnar was standing very close to her, still watching her. Did he think she was going to faint? Rose stiffened her back. “Aye, captain?” she said, as if they had never lain together, panting and gasping from their lovemaking. As if they were strangers again.

“Lord Radulf is here,” he said quietly.

Rose had a sensation of the bailey tilting, and by sheer effort of will she made it right itself. She turned stiffly toward the keep. Radulf was indeed there. He stood in the doorway, watching her, waiting.

The moment she dreaded had come, then.

Rose walked toward him, the soles of her feet touching the earth as if it were unfamiliar to her. When she reached the bottom of the steps, she dipped low in a curtsy. He was her lord and she his vassal. She was in his hands and she knew it. Her future depended on the next few heartbeats.