From Tamara Leigh, a new series set in the 11^th century during the Norman Conquest of England, unveiling the origins of the Wulfrith family of the AGE OF FAITH series. Releasing Winter 2018/2019

The battle was done. England was on its knees. And in the space between horrendous loss and brazen victory, a new day breathed light across the dark. But no beautiful thing was it, that splayed wide to the eyes more terrible than the half moon had revealed and the ripening scent forewarned.

The bloodlust that had gripped thousands on the day past yet treading the veins of Cyr D’Argent, he felt it further displaced by revulsion and dread as he moved his gaze over the gray, mist-strewn battlefield.

Among the crimson-stained bodies of numerous Saxons and numbered Normans, he glimpsed blue. But was it the shade that eluded him throughout his night-long quest to recover the last of his kin?

Might his eldest brother and uncle yet breathe amid the slaughter? Might they be found the same as the third D’Argent brother whom Cyr had culled from gutted Saxons at middle night—though cruelly wounded, yet in possession of breath?

It did not seem possible a dozen hours after the death of England’s king had decisively ended the battle, so decisively that few would argue the crown was destined for Duke William of Normandy. Still, Cyr would continue his search until he had done all in his power to account for the fate of those he held dear.

As he traversed a blood-soaked battlefield so liberally cast with bodies no straight path was possible, he questioned if his youngest brother and cousin remained among those searching for kin and friends. If not, it was only because they succeeded where Cyr failed. Regardless, hopefully both would keep their swords to hand. Of greater concern than the daring Saxon women and elderly men retrieving their fallen were the profane of his own divesting the dead and dying of their valuables.

“Lord, let us not search in vain,” Cyr prayed. “Let my brother and uncle be hale and whole, merely seeking us as we seek them.” Possible only if they had gone a different direction since Cyr looked near upon all who had crossed his moonlit path.

Another stride carrying him to a heap of bodies that boasted as many Normans as Saxons, he drew a deep breath and rolled aside two of the enemy to uncover the warrior garbed in blue. The face was too bloodied to make out the features, but the man’s build was slight compared to a D’Argent. The only relief in the stranger’s death was the possibility Cyr’s kin yet lived.

He straightened, and as he turned from the sloping meadow toward the next visible blue, what sounded a curse rent the air and ended on a wail.

Farther up the slope, an aged Saxon woman whose white hair sprang all around face and shoulders wrenched on the arms of a warrior she dragged backward. Was it a dead man she sought to remove? Or did her loved one yet live?

Struck by the possibility his own sword was responsible for her struggle and heartache, Cyr was pierced by regret he did not wish to feel. It was the work of the Church he had done. Or was it?

Before the question could infect a conscience holding its breath, he thrust it aside and started to sidestep one of his own—a chevalier with whom he had crossed the channel. Younger than Cyr by several years, his eyes had lit over talk of the reward he would gain in fighting for William and the hope it was sizable enough to allow him to wed the woman awaiting his return home. She would wait forever, a Saxon battle-axe having severed links of his hauberk and breastbone to still the heart beneath.

Cyr swept his gaze over the bodies of long-haired, bearded enemies. Struggling against a resurgence of bloodlust that demanded justice for the young Norman, forcefully he reminded himself it was for kin he searched through night into dawn, not to wreak vengeance on the dead and dying.

Purpose recovered, he raised his head and considered the bordering wood of Andredeswald where what remained of the Saxon army had fled on the afternoon past. Had his brother or uncle been among the Normans who gave chase into the trees?

Only had they turned berserker, as sometimes happened to the most sensible and disciplined. Indeed, the battle madness beyond courage had pried away Cyr’s control when two chevaliers fell on either side of him. Surrounded by axe-wielding Saxons, he had yielded to the fury lest he join his fellow Normans in death.

Finding little comfort in recall of his superior skill and reflexes, he veered toward the wood where the ranks of dead began to thin. At the base of a hill to the right sat a young Saxon woman.

The soft mournful strains of her song stirring the mist surrounding her, she bent over one whose head she cradled. Regardless of whether or not her kin still lived, she bared her heart to loss. And her body to violation if the Normans picking over the fallen determined to plunder her as well. Until the duke granted the Saxons permission to retrieve their dead, they risked much in venturing onto the battlefield.

Concern for the woman distracting him from his purpose, he lengthened his stride to more quickly move past her.

To the left, a half dozen Saxons sprawled atop Normans, beyond them one of his own crushed beneath a bloodied and bloated warhorse. Ahead, impaled on a single arrow, enemy embraced enemy. But no recognizable blue.

As he neared the Saxon woman, more clearly he heard her song. Being ill-versed in the English language, her words held little meaning, but its lament made him ache such that were it not for what he glimpsed beyond her, he would have veered away.

The mist hung heavier there, the bodies deeper. Thus, he could not be certain it was the blue he sought amid the browns and russets of the Saxons, but something told him there he would find his kin.

Feeling blood course neck and wrists, hearing its throb between his ears, he moved toward the fallen with his sword going before him.

Of a sudden, the woman’s song ceased.

Cyr rarely faltered, but he was jolted when she raised her head and her sparkling gaze fell on one responsible for the death of scores of her people. Like a candle beset by draft, a myriad of emotions crossed her face, including alarm when her regard moved to the blade he had cleaned on his tunic’s hem.

Once more regret dug into him, but it eased when he was past her and fairly certain his search yielded terrible fruit.

He sheathed his sword, and with strength he had thought nearly drained, cast aside Saxons who had met their end atop a Norman chevalier. The latter clothed in a blue tunic rent and blood-stained in a half dozen places, Hugh D’Argent’s close-cropped head lolled with the removal of the last enemy whose long hair his enormous hand gripped. There in the place between neck and shoulder was a cut that had severed the great vein, confirming the eyes staring east toward home would never again look upon France.

A shout broke from Cyr, and he dropped to his knees. He could not have expressed in words exactly what he felt for his uncle who had been coarse, hard, and demanding, but what moved through him dragged behind it pain that would go deeper only had the blue clothed his eldest sibling. He had cared much for the man who trained him and his brothers in the ways of the warrior. Now Hugh was lost to all, most tragically his son who would add another scar to the visible ones bestowed on the day past.

Eyes burning, Cyr gripped a hand over his face. An arm one of two younger brothers had lost to a battle-axe. A handsome face his cousin had lost to a sword. A life his uncle had lost to a dagger. And the eldest D’Argent brother who should not have been amongst Duke William’s warriors? Whose fate would he share?

“Accursed Saxons!” Sweeping his blade from its scabbard, he thrust to his feet.

Bloodlust pouring through him, his mind and body moved him to swing and slice and thrust, but somehow he wrenched back from a precipice of no benefit to any. Better he pursue those who had fled to the wood. However, as he stepped over a Saxon he had thrown off Hugh, he stilled over how slight the figure. And the face…

He stared at one who could be no more than ten and two, then looked to the others he had tossed aside. Boys. All of them. Boys who had given their lives to bring down the mighty Norman. Boys intent on defending what was now no longer theirs to defend. Boys who would never grow to men. Boys soon to return to dust.

Another lay farther out. Smaller than the ones who had toppled Hugh, he sprawled on his belly, arms outstretched as if to crawl home and into his mother’s arms. And the fifth boy was the one over whom the Saxon woman bent.

Her brother? Likely, for she appeared too young to have given life to one of that age.

Guilt gaining a foothold, he reminded himself of the papal blessing bestowed on Duke William for the invasion of England, as evidenced by the banner carried into battle. More than for the crown promised and denied William, more than for the land and riches to be awarded to his followers, the Normans had taken up arms against the heathen Saxons for the reformation of England’s Church. Regardless of who had died on the day past, first and foremost they had done it for the greater good. Had they not?

Trying to calm the roiling that was no fit for a warrior, he breathed deep, filling mouth, nose, and throat with the scent and taste of death never before so potent. He expelled the loathsome air, but it was all there was to be had. Breath moving through him like a wind, chest rising and falling like a storm-beset ocean, he sent his gaze up his blade to its point.

Were we not justified? he silently questioned. Was I not?

Images of the day past rushed at him—the flight of arrows, slash and thrust of blades, shouts and cries from savagely contorted mouths, blood and more blood. And laid over it all, the faces of ones who could barely be named young men.

Distantly separated from his uncle and eldest brother, Cyr’s sword arm could not have taken any of the boys’ lives, but considering how thoughtlessly he slew the enemy, ensuring those come against him did not rise again, it was very possible had he been alongside his uncle, he would not have noticed their attackers were children. Like Hugh, he would have put them through.

“Boys,” he rasped and dropped his head back. The bones of his neck popping and crackling, ache coursing shoulders and spine all the way down to his heels, he slammed his eyes closed. But more vividly memories played against the backs of his lids, and with ground teeth he gave over to them.

Aelfled of the Saxons stared at the warrior in horrified anticipation of his desecration of the dead, and when it did not come wondered if here was God’s answer to the prayer flung heavenward when the Norman pig drew his sword. Whatever stayed his hand, his survey of the savagery had landed on her and the boy before moving to the blade that had surely let much blood. The blood of her people…

Were she not pulled taut between the Lord whose comfort she sought and hatred over what had been done the Saxons, the barbarian might have made her tremble with fear. Instead, what spasmed through her was anger so reckless and unholy she dare not look longer upon the warrior—just as she dare not allow him to see that from which she had turned back quaking fingers.

She tugged up her skirt’s hem. Hoping she would not cut herself, she slid the beautiful instrument of death into the top of her hose, glanced at the warrior to ensure he had not seen, and returned her attention to the boy dragged from beneath the blue-clad Norman.

Lids flickering, chest rattling, he would not reach his eleventh winter. In her arms he would die rather than the arms of his mother who had lost her husband a fortnight past when he joined King Harold in defeating the Norwegian invaders at Stamford Bridge. Thus, it was for Aelfled to carry tidings to Lady Hawisa that another was stolen from her, this time by the Norman invaders.

She looked around, wondered if any of those moving among the dead carpeting this portion of the battlefield was her lady. During the ride to Senlac on a horse shared by both women, time and again Hawisa had risen above weeping and cursing to cry out to the Lord to keep her son safe. Were she not near, it was because she had moved her search farther out. Never would she depart until given proof of her son’s presence or absence, be he alive or dead.

Soon dead, Aelfled once more pushed acceptance down her tight throat to her aching heart. Loathing herself for believing the word of one who, struggling to suppress tears over his sire’s death, had spouted vengeance against any who sought to conquer England, she reeled in her searching gaze and paused on the boy’s companions where they had landed when the Norman tossed them off. Village boys, all of an age similar to the one she held, all christening themselves men by taking up arms against the invaders. To their mothers, Aelfled must also carry news of loss beyond husbands, fathers, and brothers.

“Merciful Lord,” Aelfled whispered, then caught back a sob as anger once more moved her head to toe. Merciful? Where was His mercy when Saxons sought to defend their homeland? Where was His mercy when boys abandoned childhood to wield arms? Where was His mercy in allowing Normans to cut down Saxons like wheat to be harvested? Where was His mercy—?

Appalled at the realization her faith was bending so far it might break its backbone, she gasped, “Pray, forgive me, Lord. ’Tis not for me to question You. But I do not understand.”

“Aelf,” breathed the one whose head her hand rested upon.

Blinking away tears, she bent closer, causing her throat to spasm over the odor of spilled blood. During her search for her lady’s son, the sight and scent of death had twice caused her to wretch, but though her belly had been emptied of foodstuffs, there was bile aplenty eager to make the climb.

“I was trying…to be a man, Aelf.”

For that he brought sword and dagger to the battlefield, while the village boys carried any implement they could bring to hand. The sword and dagger of her lady’s son were gone, but that had not stopped him. Though she could not be certain the weapon beneath her skirts belonged to the fallen Norman, it seemed likely, and as evidenced by its bloodied blade, it could have dealt the killing blow.

The boy whimpered. “Aelf?”

“Wulf?”

“I tried.”

She attempted to smile encouragingly, but it was as if something learned was forgotten. “You more than tried,” she choked. “You succeeded, and I am proud of your defense of England as I know your father would be and your mother shall be.” Such lies, but perhaps they would ease the pain of his passing.

“Then you forgive me for…not keeping my word?”

They were both liars, but the damage done could not be undone. “Naught to forgive, Love.”

His eyes widened, and the corners of his dry, cracked lips barely creased as if neither could he remember how to smile. “Love. Truly, Aelf?”

That she did not mean in the way he meant it, but what was one more lie? “Ever and ever, here on earth and in heaven, dearest.”

“Love,” he breathed, then passed from this world comforted by the belief the one he had vowed to wed when Aelfled entered his mother’s service years past—she who was now ten and eight to his nearly eleven—loved him as a woman loved a man to whom she wished to be bound.

She touched her lips to his forehead, and as her tears fell on his slackening face, prayed, “Lord, receive this boy. Hold him close. Let him know Your peace and beauty. Give his mother—”

“Mon Dieu!”

She snapped up her chin, swept her gaze to the warrior who interrupted her audience with God as if he, arrayed in Saxon blood, were more entitled to call upon the Almighty.

Where he had dropped to a knee alongside his fellow Norman, he beseeched in a voice so accented it took longer than usual for her to render Norman French into English, “Forgive me my sins.”

Her breath caught. Never in her hearing had such humble words sounded so sacrilegious. Without considering what she did, she eased Wulf to the ground, staggered upright on cramped legs, and drew her meat dagger from its sheath on her girdle.

The warrior gave no indication he heard her advance, and soon she was at a back made more vulnerable for being divested of chain mail. As she raised her dagger high, she looked upon hair cropped short the same as most Normans. And stilled at the sight of so much silver amid dark. She had thought her enemy no more than twenty and five, yet he was silvered like men twice his age—though not as much as the one before whom he knelt.

She gave her head a shake, determinedly lowered her gaze to his back. But no nearer did she come to committing that most heinous sin, her conscience forcing her to retreat a step and lower the blade.

“Pray, Lord,” the Norman spoke again, “forgive me.”

Dark emotions tempered by horror over what she had been moved to do, Aelfled said in his language, “Do you truly believe He gives ear to a savage, a murderer, a slayer of children?”

When he neither startled nor looked around, his still and silence made her question if this were real, but such sights and scents were not to be imagined. She was here. He was here. And her lady’s son and thousands of others were dead.

He continued to ignore her as if confident she could not—or would not—harm him. And so she waited, for what she did not know, and it was she who startled when he straightened. As he came around, revealing a face that confirmed he was below thirty years of age, she raised the dagger to the level of her chest.

Though she had seen he was marked by her slain people from brow to toe, she was unprepared to be so near evidence of his bloodlust and had to swallow to keep bile from her mouth—and breathe deep to match her gaze to his, the color of which could not be known absent the spill of light across the battlefield. Not that it mattered. To her, ever his eyes would be black.

They slid to her dagger, the tip of which was a stride and thrust from his abdomen—were he of a mind to remain unmoving while she did to him what he had done to her people.

Returning his gaze to hers, he said with little emotion, “Offensive or defensive?”

Ashamed his words caused her lids to flutter, she bit, “Were I a man, offensive.”

He inclined his head. “Were you, you would not have been allowed near my back—would be gasping your last.”

That she could dispute only were her size and physique equal to his. Standing nearly a foot taller, shoulders as vast as any warrior, he had to be twice her weight.

“How do you know my language?” he asked.

The question surprised, though it should not. Few Saxons spoke Norman French, and even fewer among the lower class of freemen to which she belonged. But there was no cause to reveal she served in the household of one whose Norman husband’s family had dwelt in England since the reign of Edward, the recently departed king who was fond of Normans owing to his exile amongst them previous to being seated upon the English throne—the same throne Harold had next ascended and from which Duke William had toppled him on the day past.

As Cyr waited on an answer not likely to be given, once more he considered the dagger whose sole purpose the Saxon would have him believe was defense. Even if only for a moment, it had come close to being used offensively against one who shed his hauberk on the night past to more quickly search among the dead.

He had sensed she came to him to put the blade between his ribs, but in the grip of prayer—more, something so foreign he could only guess it was that great slayer of souls known as apathy—he had done naught to prevent her from adding his death to his uncle’s.

Returning his regard to her face, he realized he had fallen far short of one of the most important skills possessed by a man of the sword, that of being observant. Until that moment, he could not have well enough recalled her features to describe one whose pooled dark eyes, delicate nose, and full mouth were framed by blond tresses whose soft undulations evidenced they had recently lost their braids.

She might not be called beautiful, but she was comely enough to become the pick of the plunder once the less honorable Normans came looking for sport. Though her French might be nearly without fault, it would be of little use to one who numbered among the conquered, especially were she of the lower ranks as her simple gown suggested.

He started to warn her away, but in a husky voice almost sensual in its strains, though the rough of it was likely beget of tears, she said, “You have not answered me.”

Casting backward for what she had asked, he recalled words spoken while he beseeched the Lord’s forgiveness. Did he truly believe the prayers of a savage, a murderer, a slayer of children would be heeded?

Offended as he had not been earlier, he fought down ire. There was much for which he required forgiveness, but he was none of what she named him. He was a soldier the same as her men with whom he had clashed. And she who had witnessed a humbling to which he had only subjected himself in his youth mocked him for it.

“My prayers are between God and me,” he growled. “His forgiveness I seek, not yours, Saxon.”

She set a hand on a thin psalter suspended from her girdle, its leather cover stained at its upper edge. “What of the forgiveness of a mother soon to learn one most precious to her is lost? What of she who shall mourn her slaughtered child unto death?” The woman jerked her chin at the boy whose blood had likely stained the psalter, then with more contempt than he had managed, added, “Norman.”

Cyr was not steel against imaginings of such loss he knew must be greater than that felt for a brother gone too soon. Had the eldest D’Argent son not survived the battle, never would their mother recover.

The Saxon lowered her chin, slid the dagger in its sheath, and stilled. It was the psalter that gave her pause, and as he watched her slowly draw her hand away, he knew she had been unaware of the blood upon it.

A sound of distress escaping her, she pivoted and started back toward the boy.

It was then Cyr became aware of gathering voices and looked down the hill across the meadow. The Normans who had slept off the day’s battle were rousing.

“You should leave!” he called.

She halted alongside the boy, peered over her shoulder. “I am not the one who trespasses.”

He shifted his jaw, allowed, “You are not, but those who have little care for who has the greater right to be here will care even less when the unfolding day allows them to look near upon their dead.”

Her brow furrowed, and he knew she questioned his concern. Then she laughed, a sound that might have soothed a beast were it not so barbed.

“You are not safe here,” he snapped.

She narrowed her eyes at him, swept them over the body-heaped meadow. “This I know, just as I know none of England is safe whilst beasts like you trample it.”

“You are a woman alone.”

Her hands curled into fists. “What care you?”

What did he care? She was no concern of his—unlike Hugh whom he ought to be delivering to his son. Still, he said, “Leave!”

“When I am done.” She lowered, whispered something to the boy who had surely heard his last, then slid her arms beneath him and drew him against her chest. What followed was so great a struggle she would not get far even if she managed to regain her feet. The boy was young but of a build befitting one destined to defend his people.

Cursing himself, Cyr strode forward and caught her around the waist. As he pulled her upright, the boy rolled out of her arms onto his side.

She swung around. “Loose me, nithing!”

He did not know the meaning of the word, but having heard it shouted by her people during battle, it was something to which one did not aspire. Staring into eyes the rose of dawn confirmed were so dark as to be nearly black, he demanded, “What do you?”

She strained to free herself, but she would go nowhere without his leave. Chest rising and falling against his, she said, “I would take him to the wood that he be returned to his mother as whole as he remains—that his body not suffer desecration.”

That to which grief over Hugh had nearly moved Cyr. As if he had committed the ungodly act, the weight of guilt grew heavier. And urged him to atone. Though he longed to leave the woman to her fate, he set her back and scooped up the boy.

“Non!” She snatched the child’s arm.

“I mean you no ill, Woman. I would but see you sooner gone that I may deliver my uncle from this carnage and resume the search for my brother. Now loose the boy and lead the way.”

Lips parted as if to protest further, she searched his face for a lie she would find only were it imagined. Then her shoulders lowered. “I thank…” As though rejecting the expression of gratitude, she gave her head a shake and turned.

The wood was near, and though she did not venture far into the deeply-shadowed place where what remained of the Saxon army had fled and some might yet lurk, he engaged all of his senses lest he find himself set upon.

At an oak so ancient a dozen men could conceal themselves behind it, the young woman halted and turned her head in every direction.

“What is it?” he asked as he came alongside.

“Our horse. It is gone.”

Cyr tensed further. “Our horse? You did not come alone?”

He more felt than saw the gaze she settled on him and the wariness there. “Non, the boy’s mother and I rode together.”

“Then she has taken your mount and departed.”

She shook her head. “She would not leave without her son. Another took it.” She looked past him toward the battlefield, and he guessed she intended to return there to search for one soon to grieve the death of a child.

Though Cyr wanted to command this Saxon to make haste to those of her own who would aid in delivering the boy home, it would be futile. If she heeded him at all, the moment he resumed his own search she would do as she wished.

So be it, little fool, he silently conceded, it is not on me but you. He would complete this act of atonement, give one further warning, then attend to his own kin.

“This seems a good place,” he said.

She stepped around the backside of the tree, and he followed her several strides distant from the roots. As he settled the boy on the ground, she unfastened the girdle hung with psalter and dagger and unsheathed the latter.

Immediately Cyr’s hand itched for his own dagger opposite the sword on his belt, but the intent of hers proved neither offensive nor defensive.

She dropped to her knees, planted the blade’s tip in the ground, with great sweeps of the arms cleared the thin layer of leaves, then retrieved the dagger and began assaulting the earth.

“Surely you do not think to bury him?” he barked.

A shudder moving her bowed shoulders, she turned her face up to his. “But a depression covered over with leaves to conceal him should your kind come to the wood.” She swallowed loudly. “They will, will they not?”

Some would, whether to search out fellow Normans felled by Saxons during their retreat or plunder. “They will.”

As she resumed digging, Cyr unsheathed his dagger and paused to consider the intricately fashioned pommel, hilt, cross-guard, and blade. The rising sun scantily penetrating the canopy did not light the latter’s silvered length, though only because he had not wiped it clean the same as his sword.

He stared at the stained steel and saw again those who had fallen to it when it had been necessary to wield two blades to preserve his life and the lives of other Normans. The shedding of blood was inherent in being a knight and certainly not unknown to him previous to the day past, and yet in that moment it seemed almost repugnant, and more so when he looked to the one at his feet.

For the first time he noted that, unlike the others pulled from atop Hugh, this boy was arrayed in finery not of the common. A chain was visible above the neck of his tunic, garments were fashioned of rich cloth, boots cut of good leather, belt buckle shone silver, and the empty scabbards at his hip were faced with polished horn.

“Who is he?” Cyr asked.

The woman stabbed the earth again but did not pry the dagger free. Wisps of perspiration-darkened hair clinging to her brow, she tilted her face up. “A child.”

He gnashed his teeth, said between them, “Is he of noble blood?”

“He is—rather, was.” She nodded as if to force the clarification on herself. “Just as he was of your blood.”

It took Cyr no moment to understand, but he could not think how to respond.

The corners of her mouth rising in an expression too sorrowful to be a smile, she said, “Oui, on his sire’s side.”

Then he was born of a union between Norman and Saxon, the former likely drawn from one of the families who had long resided in England. If his father had sided with King Harold as seemed likely, he would forfeit all when Duke William ascended the throne—had he not already on the battlefield the same as his son.

“Who were you to him?” he asked.

“Were,” she breathed, then in a huskier voice, said, “Maid to his mother and, on occasion, his keeper.” A small sob escaped her. “As fell to me on the day past.”

Did she count herself responsible for his death?

“If only we had not come south. Had we remained in Wulfenshire as my lady…” She squeezed her lids closed, shook her head.

“Wulfenshire?” he turned the name over. Though during the fortnight since the duke’s army arrived on the shore of Sussex he had become familiar with the names of places within a day’s ride of their encampments, here was one he had not heard. Wondering if it was near Yorkshire where England’s usurping king had defeated Norwegian invaders days before the Norman landing and for safety’s sake her lady had brought her son south, he asked, “How far north?”

The woman’s eyes flew open, and there was alarm in their depths as of one surprised to find she was not alone. Then came resentment, and she dropped her chin and reached to her dagger.

Cyr did not understand why he wished to know how the boy had come to be here, but what he did understand was it was not for him to question.

Huffing and grunting, the woman returned to driving her dagger into the land to which she had been born. Again. And again.

Cyr knew he ought to leave her, but he muttered, “God’s mercy!” and pulled her upright. As she drew breath to protest, he said, “Do you stand aside, the sooner we shall both be done here.”

“I do not need—”

“Stand aside!” He pushed her toward the boy, then it was her enemy on his knees. With one hand he plunged his blade into the ground, with the other scooped out displaced loam and rocks. Though reviled at making a tiller of soil one of two weapons that had elevated him above many a chevalier, there was satisfaction in the thrusts and twists that cleaned the blood from the blade as the wounded earth yielded up the depth sought.

One foot, Cyr told himself, then I shall leave her to whatever fate she chooses.

So intent was he on a task unbecoming a man of the sword, once more he committed the deadly error of exposing his back to the enemy—not the woman but any number of her men lurking in the trees. However, not until he heard rustling leaves, skittering rocks, and labored breathing did he heed the voice urging him to attend to his surroundings.

Thrusting upright, he swept his dagger around. But as he closed a hand over his sword hilt, he recognized the one come unto him. The cause for the woman’s great draws of breath was the boy she carried, he who had tried to crawl back to his mother, he who had aided four others in severing Hugh’s life.

And whose young lives your uncle severed, his rarely examined conscience reminded. Mere boys.

Murderous boys, he silently countered, but with so little conviction it yet served, rousing anger better suited to the nephew of a dead man. “What do you?” he demanded.

Near the boy Cyr had conveyed to the wood, she eased her burden to the ground, sat back on her heels, gripped her knees, and raised a face tracked with tears. “He also has a mother, as do the other three.”

Darkness once more rising through him, Cyr looked to the depression in which he stood. Did she expect him to enlarge it to accommodate all who had spilled Hugh’s life? Hugh who had yet to know such consideration? Hugh whose body might even now suffer plundering?

“It must be widened,” she said.

He thrust his dagger into its scabbard, growled, “Not by my hand.”

She pushed upright. “Then by mine.”

“So be it.” If she had no regard for herself, why should he?

As he started past her, she said, “It would be a lie for me to thank you.”

He did not believe that. Not only had she drawn back from expressing appreciation earlier, but he sensed her declaration was an attempt to convince herself they were enemies. Still, it was good to be reminded they stood on opposite sides of the great fire set on the day past. Just as Normans would rebel against any who sought to yoke them, so would Saxons. Indeed, were the fire well enough fueled, it could rage for years across this island kingdom.

“Just as it would be a lie for me to welcome false gratitude,” he said and, assuring himself he would think no more on her, strode toward the battlefield.

“Norman!”

He cursed, turned.

Hitching her skirts clear of her slippers, she hastened forward and held out the psalter.

Cyr spared it no glance, instead looked nearer on a face the rising sun confirmed was as lovely as thought—so much he was tempted to brush aside blond tresses to view all of it. And she surely saw the temptation, wariness softening the hard light in her eyes and causing her to retreat a step.

Still, she extended the psalter. “Take it.”

He flicked his gaze over it, lingered over the blood. Was this spite? An attempt to bait him? Punish him?

“For what?” he asked.

“Prayer and guidance, of which methinks you are in greater need than I.”

The warrior wanted to reject that, but the man who felt twisted and bent out of a shape so familiar as to be comfortable could not.

“It is in my language,” she said.

He frowned. “I know less of the written than the spoken, so of what use?”

She tilted her head, causing a tress to shift and expose more of her slender neck. “Do you and yours not learn the language of the conquered, how will you govern your new subjects?” She raised her eyebrows. “Or is that not your duke’s intent? Does he—do you—mean to kill us all?”

Baited, indeed. And yet he snapped at her hook. “It is not our intent!”

She thrust the psalter nearer. “I dare not ask for your word on that, but if you speak true, here is a good place to start—a means of enlightening your kind on how to rule those from whom you have stolen lives, hearts, even souls. And of course, let us not forget land.”

He could not. Though he wished to believe he and his younger brothers had accepted the invitation to join Duke William’s forces more for the Church than the possibility of becoming landed nobles the same as their father’s heir, it was a lie.

Perhaps that was what made him yield though the woman greatly offended—and further offended when their fingers brushed as he accepted the psalter.

She snatched her arm to her side and, setting her chin high, said, “Methinks you will not mind the stain, Norman.”

As if he rejoiced in the blood of her dead. As if he had not shown her mercy and compassion. As if he had not sought to protect her.

Anger his only comfort and defense, he flung the psalter at her feet. “Take that and be gone.”

She lowered her gaze, stared at her offering until raucous laughter sounded from the battlefield.

And so it began. “They come,” Cyr warned.

She shifted wide eyes to his, and he was glad for the abundance of fear if it meant she would leave this place. “So they do,” she said softly and turned away.

He stared after her as she moved toward the fallen youths. Though it was past time he left her, he longed for reassurance. “You will depart?” he called.

For answer, she stepped into the depression and began plying her dagger. Were it only to accommodate the second boy, he would leave her to it, but if she intended to collect the other three…

As he strode forward, he glanced at the psalter fallen open to a page of precise text on one side and a simply-rendered cross on the other.

Halting before her, he demanded, “Will you take yourself from here after these two are covered over?”

“I will not.”

He dropped to his haunches, but she continued to drive her blade into the ground. “For the love of God—if not yourself—leave the other boys!”

“Non.”

Then it is on her, he told himself. But when she stabbed her blade into the ground again, he closed a hand over her fist gripping the hilt. “Unlike your lady’s son, the others possess nothing worthy of plunder.”

Her head whipped up. “Still they could suffer desecration, and if their bodies are moved they may not be found again.” She swallowed loudly. “They must go home. They absolutely must. Now”—she jerked free—“collect your dead and leave me to mine.”

As she resumed her assault upon the earth, Cyr straightened. Assuring himself he had done all he could to save her and vowing he would forget her, he strode opposite.