The Conqueror (Hot Knights)
Read The Conqueror (Hot Knights) Online
Authors: Mary Gillgannon
Tags: #Knights, #England, #Medieval Romance
The Conqueror
By
Mary Gillgannon
First published as
The Saxon’s Daughter
by Zebra Books under the pseudonym Tara O’Dell
Copyright 1998, 2013 by Mary Gillgannon
Digital Edition published by Mary Gillgannon, 2013
Cover Design by
Rae Monet
Digital Design by
A Thirsty Mind
, 2013
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To my father, Robert Marquardt, who raised me to have the faith and courage to pursue my dreams.
England, A.D. 1067
“H
ang them!” Jobert de Brevrienne barked out the words, glaring at the group of Saxon prisoners.
Beside him, Alan Fornay, his second-in-command, rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “All of them?”
Jobert scanned the bedraggled gathering. They looked young for warriors. One prisoner in the back did not even need to shave yet. But as Jobert’s gaze met the Saxon’s defiant blue eyes, his vague sympathy faded. Wolf cubs grew up to wolves. He would not leave any alive to fight another day. “All of them,” he said.
Jobert jerked around and began to walk away, wondering if Alan questioned his method of dealing with the rebels. King William would have cut off an arm or leg each rather than hanging them. His treatment of prisoners at Alencon had earned him the appellation “the Crippler.”
Jobert set his jaw. Hanging was better. Less brutal than leaving men alive but ruined. And there was not the need to cauterize the stumps, a messy business and time-consuming. They had enough to do.
The manor must be secured and the food supply guarded, the livestock gathered up before the Saxons could steal it. Some of his men were already seeing to that. He heard the low of cattle as they struggled to enclose the beasts in paddocks near the pastureland down by the river.
A woman’s scream in the distance reminded him that he had sent a group of soldiers to search the village. He hoped they had the sense not to harass or injure the remaining villeins too badly. They would need workers when planting time came next spring. If all the able-bodied workers were dead or had fled to the forest, they would be hard-pressed to get a crop in.
Jobert pushed the worry from his mind and turned his attention to the wooden palisade built on a rise above the valley. With hills to the east and the river to the south and west, the place had a fair defensive position. If he deepened the ditch at the bottom of the hill and replaced the timber defenses with a stone curtain wall, they would be able to withstand all but a long siege.
He followed the upward sloping trackway a distance, then turned to gaze across the valley. Fat, white sheep dotted the dun-colored hillsides, while farther down, the golden stubble of harvested barley and cornfields and still-green hay meadows banded the silver river. On either side of the valley, the autumn foliage of oak and beech blazed like molten metal.
A bountiful land, abundant in forage for livestock and game, with a river full of trout, lampreys and eels. Jobert felt almost dizzy with his good fortune. England was all King William had promised. To a landless knight, it seemed paradise.
He began walking toward the palisade again, squinting against the afternoon sun. Above the timber walls, he could see the thatched roof of a large two-story hall and several other buildings.
Oxbury, the place was called in Saxon. It had belonged to a man named Leowine, who supported Harold, the Saxon eorle who unlawfully claimed the kingship of England. Now Leowine was dead and all his property forfeit to the new king.
Jobert wondered briefly if Leowine had any choice in Who he supported. If Harold was his overlord, how could Leowine have done other than fight for him?
He shook off the vaguely troubling thought as he neared the manor. The timber walls were heavily weathered and the ditch around the fort half filled in with rubble. Despite the turmoil of the past year, Oxbury seemed untouched, utterly peaceful.
One of the men he had sent ahead greeted him as he crossed the ditch. “All’s quiet, milord. Either the place has been abandoned or everyone inside is hiding.”
Jobert nodded at the man’s words even as he drew his sword and gestured that the knight should do the same. He would not forget the ambush attempt in the woods. Although one of his men had seen the archers in the trees and sounded a warning, the scheme had cost them a good warhorse that foundered in a mantrap set by the Saxons. Jobert had no intention of underestimating his enemies again.
Calling over the half-dozen other knights he had sent to secure the fortress, Jobert gestured to indicate they were going in.
He used his sword to pull open the unlocked gate. It swung aside with a creaking sound, and they advanced cautiously into the courtyard.
Chickens pecked in the dirt. A sow and her half grown piglets rooted around one of the buildings. Otherwise everything was quiet.
Jobert took a deep breath. It did not seem possible that conquest would be so easy.
“Over here.” One of the knights pointed toward a timber structure. Jobert indicated that his men should search it.
As the door of the storage building swung wide, two dozen women and children blinked solemnly in the sunlight shafting in on their faces. One of the children whimpered, but otherwise there was no sound.
“What do we do with them?” a soldier named Hamo asked.
Jobert’s gaze took in the Saxons’ utter dread. He pushed back his helm and addressed the gathering. “My name is Jobert Brevrienne. I claim this land in the name of William of Normandy. You will serve me now.”
They stared at him as if they did not understand his words, which in all likelihood they did not. Although the Saxon king Edward the Confessor had brought many Normans into the country during his reign, their influence had not extended beyond the royal court at London. Everywhere else, none but the Saxon tongue was spoken.
“Search the rest of the place,” Jobert ordered. “I would know how many remain.”
They found an old man cowering in one of the stalls of the stables, while an inspection of the other storage buildings yielded mountains of gleaming grain and several older boys who were probably grooms. In the kitchen lean-to, they found skullery wenches hiding under the tables and behind the storage shelves. Jobert was on his way to search the manor house proper when someone hailed him.
He turned. “What now?”
Alan, who he had left in charge of the hanging, hurried across the courtyard. “There’s a problem with the prisoners. One of them is a woman.”
Jobert thought back to the ragged group they had dragged out of the woods. Barefoot, filthy wretches dressed in long, loose tunics. He’d observed no females among them.
“What are we going to do with her?” Alan asked. “You can’t hang a woman, even a Saxon one.”
“Give her to me.” Hamo drew up beside them, brown eyes gleaming. “What better way to subjugate a Saxon bitch than to fill her full of good Norman seed?”
“I don’t need my men fighting over a woman,” Jobert said.
“If we mistook her for a man this long, how many others will want her?” Hamo retorted.
Jobert sheathed his sword. He supposed he must have a look at their unexpected prisoner. God knew, he did not want to. His thoughts were all on his new property.
They left the fortress and made their way back down the hill. Jobert told Alan the results of their search. “Nothing but women, children and men too old or too young to do battle. The force we met in the woods must have been what is left of the old thegn’s fighting men.”
“Then we are fortunate. The rebels will all be swinging from the trees by evening.”
Jobert shook his head. “The leaders of the ambush escaped.” He pointed toward the gold-cloaked woods. “I wager even now they watch us, waiting for their chance.”
“They are fools if they don’t surrender.”
“Fools?” Jobert’s russet-colored brows rose. “Because they don’t let us hang them? Do not forget that in their minds, we are the usurpers.”
“They are outlaws,” Alan argued. “When they chose to support Harold in his unlawful pursuit of the kingship, they forfeited their rights.”
Jobert considered his earlier reflection that the Saxons had little choice in whom they followed. In the conflicts of kings and great lords, it was easy to be caught on the wrong side.
When they arrived at the edge of the woods, two of the prisoners had already been hung and cut down. They lay under one of the trees, their limbs growing rigid, their skin gray beneath their fair hair.
The rest of the outlaws remained shackled together, looking miserable. Except one who sat with head up, back straight Defiant. Jobert realized it must be the woman.
He had attributed the lack of a beard to the prisoner’s youth. Even now, dirt so obscured her features that it was hard to tell if she was ugly or fair.
He gave the order for one of his men to bring her to her feet, and then moved closer to get a better look.
She was near as tall as many of his men, and from what he could observe beneath the loose tunic, broad-shouldered and brawny as well. Her blue eyes were filled with unwavering hatred. She put the rest of the prisoners to shame with her bold fury.
He wondered what to do with this fierce, half-savage Saxon wildcat. If he let his men have at her, she’d probably maim someone.
He jerked his gaze to meet Alan’s. “There must be a cellar or souterrain back at the manor. Put her there.”
Alan and another man went to take hold of the prisoner. As soon as they severed the rope that bound her to the others, she began to struggle. Jobert, watching, saw that it took both his men to subdue her. After a few blows from the bitch’s flailing elbows, Alan lost his temper and grabbed the thick braid that had been hidden beneath the tunic. Using it for leverage, he managed to get behind her and thrust her forward, her head pulled back.
She passed Jobert, her eyes like blue daggers, raking him with fury.
* * *
The Norman soldiers huddled around the hearth, eating salted meat and tough bread from their saddle kits and washing it down with water. They had yet to find the manor’s supply of ale, and there was little wine left. Despite the plenty all around them, no one had been able to communicate with the frightened Saxons enough to get hot food made, nor had they time to roast the sow they’d killed.
Jobert put down his bread and dug his fingers beneath his padded gambeson, searching for an elusive itch. A bath. What he would not give for a real bath. He’d given his men leave to bathe in the river and many of them had done so before they supped. He’d not had time himself.
There was a large wooden bathing tub in the upper chamber. He’d seen it when they opened the room and been assaulted with stale, stuffy air.
The lavishness of the furnishings had surprised him. A big carved bed, elaborately embroidered wall-hangings, a tall wooden coffer, and several bound chests he’d not had a chance to look inside. The Saxon lord’s family had obviously fled as soon as they heard of the Normans’ approach, and taken little with them. No doubt they hoped their ambush would turn the invaders away, and they would be able to return to their home.
He wondered if any of the rebels they had captured had been of the Saxon thegn’s family The people all looked alike to him, with their golden hair and broad, sun-burned faces. Once they were said to be famed warriors, but at Hastings, the Saxons’ weaponry and armor could not match that of Lord William’s men, and they had no cavalry. They were a subject people now, useful only as farmers and servants.
He thought suddenly of the woman. She did not have the compliant nature necessary for a serf, but he could not kill her outright either. He didn’t know where his men had put her. Mayhaps he could forget to ask.
A sudden screech disturbed his thoughts. It was one of the women they’d found in the lean-to. Two knights, stripped to their hose and gambesons, were chasing her around the hall. The woman’s pale hair had come unbound and flew around her shoulders. Her thin face was flushed, her eyes desperate.
Jobert frowned at the men but said nothing. A certain amount of brutality was inevitable. If the woman was clever, she would submit to the knight she preferred, and then convince him to protect her.
They needed to find a way to communicate with the remaining Saxons. He hoped they could find someone who knew a little Norman French. Otherwise, it would be the devil’s own work to make them understand what was wanted of them.
One of the knights finally caught the woman. In his grip, she quieted, although she still looked like a bird caught in a snare. To Jobert’s relief, her captor did not immediately thrust her down and mount her, but led her away to a private corner of the hall, speaking soothing words.
Adam of Aubrey was the knight’s name. Jobert recalled him as a man who had a way with women. All to the good if he could use persuasion to convince the Saxon wench to cook for them. They were all hungry for something besides soldiers’ rations.
Jobert closed his eyes. Fresh food. A bath. The big bed. The luxuries so close at hand tormented him. But he had yet to inspect the guard he’d set on the manor. They dare not become too comfortable. If his assessment was true, the nearby forest teemed with plotting Saxons.
He opened his eyes and rose. As he turned toward the door, a young knight named Rob came striding in and plunked a bucket of apples on the trestle table. They gleamed red and gold in the torchlight. “A new crop,” he said, grinning
“Where did you find them?”
“In the cellar where I put the woman.” Rob spread his arms wide. “There’s bushels more. And cabbages and onions. We’ll eat well this winter.”
The reminder of the woman made Jobert’s stomach clench. “Did you leave her bound?” he asked.
Rob nodded. “She fought so hard, we dare not untie her. We didn’t put her in with the food, but in another chamber. Like an
oubliette
it is, dank and dark. But secure. She’ll not escape.”
Had he wanted her to escape? Jobert surprised himself with the thought.
The men reached greedily for the apples, and he took one for himself. It was crisp and tart, delicious.
He made the rounds of the palisade. The guards were alert, albeit high-spirited. Like him, they knew the exhilaration of possession. It meant something to them to follow a lord who held such rich property.
Satisfied that the manor was secure, Jobert returned to the hall and climbed the stairs to the upper chamber. He would have to forego a bath this night. They’d made no cooking fires, and it would take forever to heat water on the main hearth. Besides, he was too tired.
The events of the day rushed through his mind as he lay down on the broad comfortable bed covered with a blue silk coverlet. He recalled the near-ambush in the forest, when they’d captured the Saxons. Many of them had escaped, including, he suspected, the leaders of the attack. He was surprised they’d abandoned the woman. What was she, some warrior’s leman? Nay, too feisty for a camp follower. The memory of her blazing blue eyes reminded him of her current predicament. Bound and abandoned in a dark hole.