Page 13 of Rogue Knight
“You have no choice but to allow me. ’Tis obvious you cannot bear his weight.”
“Have you and your kind not done enough?”
He bent and scooped up the boy. “Do not be foolish, woman. You have my word no harm will come to you or the lad.”
What was the word of a Norman to her? She hesitated, hating to accept his help but there was the town to cross and she was not certain she could carry Ottar the distance she must. Nor could she leave him to freeze on the icy ground. “All right.”
With her words, into the clearing stepped two Normans, one very large knight holding the reins of a great, gray horse. His dark hair and the scar on his face rendered his visage frightening. The other man was younger, his appearance almost boyish, but he held himself proud and erect. He led two horses, not as large as the gray. Both were black.A squire.
The blond knight carried Ottar toward the larger Norman and signaled him to mount, then placed the boy in his arms. “You carry the lad, Alain. I’ll take the woman.”
The large knight grunted his acceptance and cradled the boy in one arm, holding the reins in the other. Despite his frightening visage, he handled Ottar with a gentleness that belied his great size and appearance.
To the younger one, the blond knight said, “Mathieu, check to see if any others are alive.”
Emma was saddened by the deaths yet relieved not to have recognized any of the others who had fallen there. She was particularly glad not to have seen her father among the dead.
Her attention focused on Ottar, she experienced a tremor of fear at seeing his eyes still closed. She was about to object to being separated from him when the blond knight mounted his black warhorse, brought it swiftly to her side and reached down to sweep her into his lap.
She shrieked in protest. “Where are you taking us?”
“Wherever you like, lady. Lead on.”
She breathed a sigh of relief, anxious to get Ottar home. But what if her father were there? She dismissed the thought. It mattered little at this point. For whatever reason, this knight, this Lucifer wanted to help. She must see the boy to his bed, no matter it would be a Norman who brought him there. No matter what payment he might expect.
The young one named Mathieu finished checking the bodies and called out to the blond knight, “The boy is the only one living, sir.”
Grateful Ottar might survive and eager to get him home, once they were inside the city’s walls, Emma directed them down winding alleys and paths that were away from the main streets. She had no wish to encounter either Normans or the rebel fighters.
CHAPTER 4
Geoff guided his horse as the woman directed. The large hound trailed beside the destrier, the dog’s dark eyes anxiously watching its mistress. Geoff remembered the woman and her hound from the first day he’d entered York. He had never seen a more beautiful woman nor a dog so large. Even then, the image of them striding along together through the crowd had captured his attention. He was certain it was the same woman the hound stared at so intently. But this was not a day for her to be wandering outside of the city, even with such an escort. What had brought her to the clearing where a battle had raged? Mayhap she had been searching for the lad. Or a husband? Her headcloth told him she was married. Even so, it was foolishness for the woman to risk so much.
She had the most incredible eyes he had ever seen, even when they flashed in anger. Blue-green like the waters of the River Lune on a sun-filled day. She sat before him, wisps of her pale hair, freed from its plait, blowing across his face like gentle rain. With his arms on either side of her, leaving his hands free to direct his difficult warhorse chafing at its bit, she was forced to sit with her back tight against his chest. Her scent was fresh, like delicate herbs, reminding him the Danes bathed often.
He had not had a woman in his arms for a very long while, not since London in the days after the Conquest. Talisand had few wenches available for sport and Eawyn had never invited him to her bed. Now he had one of York’s women in his lap, her buttocks tight against his groin, her female scent rousing his senses and causing his loins to swell. A woman he should not be drawn to but was. There was beauty in her face and spirit in her heart but he saw hatred in her eyes.
The city was quiet as they made their way through the back alleys and streets she directed him to take. The rebels that had survived William’s army would be lying low now that York was once again in Norman hands with more than a thousand knights to maintain order.
They took a narrow passage between buildings that emptied onto a street of fine manor homes, much larger than the cottages he had seen elsewhere. “Stop here,” she said when he nearly passed a large, two-story home.
“You livehere?”
“Yea.”
It was not the home of a peasant or a common villager. This was a rich man’s home, on a street of rich men’s homes. “This is your husband’s?”
“’Tis mine,” she said defiantly. “My husband is three years dead.”
A widow. A beautiful, young widow.Was she, too, in love with her dead husband as Eawyn was?
He dismounted and reached his arms to lift her from the saddle. Reluctantly, or so it appeared to him, she accepted his help, putting her hands on his shoulders. Once she was standing, he took the lad from Alain and followed her to the front door.
Alain and Mathieu dismounted.
She knocked on the door. A man in his fourth decade answered and, by his simple tunic and leggings, Geoff judged him a servant. The man pulled the door wide and paled when his gaze fell upon Geoff standing behind the woman, holding the boy in his arms.
“Praise God you are safe, Mistress, but what has happened to the boy?”
