The Wolfe (27 page)

“Are we there?” She sat bolt up,
banging her head on William’s helmet. “Ooch.”

He snickered and put his big hand
over her small one as it rubbed her head. “Nay, we are not there yet, my lady.
Did you sleep well?”

She winced. “I felt fine until I
collided with that bucket ye wear on yer head,” she said. “Take yer hand from
my head, English, ye’ll muss my hair.”

He complied, re-wrapping his arm
around her waist. Deinwald was watching her closely as she smoothed her hair
and straightened her flowers.

“My lady, you have weeds growing out
of your hair,” he said. It was the closest William had ever heard him come to
speaking pleasantly to her.

She sneered at him. “Yer one to talk,
Deinwald Ellsrod. Yer hair looks like it hasna seen soap in a year.”

“Aye, ye tell him, Jordi.” Jemma was
several feet behind her but had heard everything. “He looks like a cave-man.”

Deinwald looked over his shoulder
and flipped up his visor, scowling at Jemma. “Keep yer Scot opinions to
yourself, banshee.”

Jemma stiffened and Kieran tightened
his grip. “Why does everyone call me a banshee?”

Deinwald began making faces at her. “Because
you are wild and daft like one,” he yelled back to her. “And because your face
is…ahhhh!” He made a horrible face and rolled his eyes fiendishly.

Kieran’s visor came up. “Look who’s
talking - the king of the Scot-dogs,” he looked at Michael, his ever-ready
audience. “Did you see his face just then? He really looks like that. The face
we see now is the result a white-witch’s spell so that mere mortals may look
upon his face without turning into a pillar of salt.”

Jordan was craning her neck around
William, trying to watch Kieran and Jemma as they harassed Deinwald.

“Ha.” Deinwald countered. “At least
I do not have to ride with Lady Medusa.”

“She is
not
Medusa,” Jordan
jumped in. “And she is no banshee and I demand that ye stop calling her that.”

“Why are you spoiling our fun?”
Paris said from behind his closed helmet. “Would you prefer that we call
you
banshee?”

“Call her banshee and I will call
you out,” William said, not turning around to look at any of them.

Jordan gave them all a triumphant,
childish smile and stuck her tongue out at everyone who was looking at her.
From anyone else it would have been an arrogant gesture, but coming from her it
was sassy and fun.

“Dunna call me banshee.” Jemma was
back to the same old song. “I dunna like it.”

“Fine, then, we must think of a new
name for you,” Paris said. “Help me, if you will, Lady Jordan. Does your cousin
have a nickname?”

Jemma shrieked. “Dunna ye dare tell
them, Jordi, or I swear….”

Jordan smiled quite devilishly. The
knights saw that the game was afoot and began pounding her with questions while
Jemma screeched her threats. Jordan quite enjoyed fending off their pleas and
questions, turning her back and hiding coyly in front of William while denying
their inquiries. Underneath his visor, William was smiling broadly.

They were relentless. Finally,
Jordan turned back around to face them if only to gain some peace.

“Enough.” she called out and they
went quiet. “I will give ye a hint and that is all. The rest ye must do on yer
own. Her nickname had to do with waterfowl.”

“Jordan.” Jemma moaned. “Now ye have
done it to me. I shall tell them yer nickname now, I will.”

“You have a nickname?” William asked
with interest. “What is it?”

“Nothing, English,” she told him
firmly, settling back down in front of him once again.

The arm around her tightened. “Tell
me,” he said.

“I shall tell ye.” Jemma cried. “Uncle
Thomas used to call her Pony-legs because she had such skinny legs.”

Jordan sank down low, humiliated in
a good-natured sense. She did not want anyone calling her that, it had taken twelve
years to outgrow the name.

“Do you still have skinny legs?”
Deinwald wanted to know. “Let me see.”

William lifted his hand as if to
back-hand his knight. “Do not even think to look.”

“They’re not skinny.” It was Corin,
riding back behind Kieran. The knights turned to look at him, wondering how in
the hell he knew.

Corin looked rather embarrassed with
all the attention on him. “I must confess, when she sat down today on the
grass, I was blessed with a quick glimpse of the most beautiful legs I have
ever seen. Ask Lewis; he saw them, too.”

Jordan was truly embarrassed. She
had no idea she was being an exhibitionist. It was flattering, but embarrassing
nonetheless.

William dipped his head next to her
ear. “Is this true? Do you really have beautiful legs?”

“I dunna know,” she shrugged. “I
have never given them much thought.”

“Now tell us Lady Jemma’s nickname,”
Deinwald demanded harshly, interrupting his captain’s conversation.  “I would
know it now.”

She looked at the knight. “Uncle
Nathaniel called her Waddles because she walked like a duck.”

The knights let loose on Jemma as
Jordan smiled with satisfaction. William let them have fun at Jemma’s expense
for a minute or so before demanding peace.

“I swear I have not heard so much
talk,” he snapped. “You will be all silent until we reach the gates.”

They fell silent, but grinning and
chortling between one another. Jemma, her cheeks flushed, was plotting revenge
against her cousin until Kieran leaned next to her ear.

“You do not waddle,” he whispered. “I
think you have a lovely gait.”

She turned to look at him. “Thank
ye, sir knight.”

“My pleasure,” he sat straight, the
conversation ended.

Jemma fought off a smile. It had
been worth the embarrassment just to hear him say that.

***

It was soon after that the massive
turrets of Northwood came into view.

Jordan’s heart leapt into her
throat. They had arrived at their destination and she anxiously studied every
detail of her new home. To see it now so real and massive before her was
overwhelming and blocked out all else around her as she studied it.  Here was
her future.

The closer they came, the more
apprehensive she became. Northwood was three times the size of Langton, a
red-stoned fortress with a colossal curtain wall, a smaller inner wall, and
massive gatehouse. She could see the top of an enormous keep with three big,
square turrets that reached for the sky. It was black against the late
afternoon sky, silhouetted like an evil castle from the horror stories she had
heard as a child.  It was everything dark and awful that she had ever imagined
an English castle to be.

As the party drew closer, she could see
that the whole fortress was surrounded by a moat filled with thick sludge and filth. 
She could already smell the stench  from it permeating the air.

Her first thoughts were that
Northwood was not a hospitable place and that it was everything she had hoped
it would not be. From what she had come to know of William and his knights, she
had somehow imagined that they would hail from a polished white castle with
gold trim, not this clearly sullen structure.

.

“My lady is quiet,” William’s voice broke
into her thoughts.

She prepared a brave reply but it
quickly left her. “I think I am going to be sick,” she moaned softly.

Behind his helmet, he smiled. “Be
brave. You do not believe I would lead you into the lion’s den, do you?”

She shook her head. “Nay, sir
knight, I dunna,” she said quietly. “But it smells of the lion’s den. Why dunna
ye clean the moat?”

“Because, my lady, ‘tis very simple,”
he said. “What solider would not think twice before charging headlong into a
moat filled with misery? Were I to clean it up, ‘twould be most inviting.”

“I should think the walls would be
deterrent enough,” she remarked.

”Not against the Scots, my lady,”
Deinwald said from their other side. “Not even the moat, such as it is, is much
of a deterrent. Why, I have seen those bloody bastards…”

He abruptly stopped as a host of
helmeted heads turned in his direction and he suddenly realized with whom he
was speaking.

Jemma was glaring at him but,
remarkably, said nothing. Only Jordan was not focused on him. She seemed
entranced by the fortress.

“Continue, Deinwald,” she said most
mildly. “For whatever it is ye have seen the Scots do, I can match ye with a story
of equally bad taste. Ye see, my father insisted that I be at every battle he
commanded since I was a lass of eight years old. I have been tending Scot
wounded for that long, as well as dispatching English wounded I happened to
come across,” she turned her head to him and he was shocked to see such blatant
disgust in her eyes. “Ye canna shock or impress me with yer battle stories,
Deinwald, so do remember not to try in the future. I am not interested. I know
what the Scots, as well as the English, are capable of.”

Deinwald was actually rather
depressed after that speech and somewhat embarrassed, though he would never
admit to such. He turned his attention back to Northwood with a somewhat better
insight into lovely Lady Jordan.

The entire column of men, wagons and
knights made their way to the massive gates of Northwood. Jordan heard shouting
up on the wall and, suddenly, a host of male voices began to chant. Curious, she
looked up to see hundreds of soldiers looking down upon them and she stiffened;
it was an awesome sight. The only time she had ever seen that many English
soldiers were when they were attacking her kin. No matter that she was shrouded
in William’s arms, she felt distinctly at risk.

It sounded as if the soldiers were jeering
her, a queer sort of chant that began to grow louder as more men-at-arms picked
it up. Within seconds, every soldier at Northwood had taken the hymn and was
calling it resonantly.

It frightened her. It was so loud it
was nearly deafening and she fought the urge to bury herself in William’s
protective embrace.

“What are they saying?” she asked
apprehensively.

Paris, riding next to them,
answered. “Listen. What do you hear?”

She shook her head fearfully. “They
dunna want me here. They are trying to scare me away.”

“Nay, my lady, they are not calling
to you,” Paris assured her. He could see her fear. “They are calling to
William. They are saying ‘Wolf’.”

She listened and realized that
indeed the very haunting chant sounded like ‘Wolf’. She was relieved and
strangely proud at the same time. She smiled timidly at Paris when she realized
she was not the object of their attention.

“He is better than God to them,”
Paris boasted softly, tipping his head in William’s direction.

The column came over the crest of a
small hill and Jordan could see that the gates of the castle were open and
thousands of people were lining the narrowing road. She could hear them picking
up the chant from the soldiers on the wall. They were waving and cheering and
Jordan was overwhelmed by the sheer number of excited inhabitants. She also
discovered that she was hounded by an entirely new set of fears with the
appearance of all of the people.

Sweet Jesu’
, she thought, she
was in an enemy land and all of these people she was facing were literally her
enemy.

She remembered when William had
ridden into Langton to retrieve her and the open hostility he was given. She
would now be the recipient of the same but knew she would not bear it with the
same dignity he had. She wished with all of her heart that she could turn and
run like hell.

They were passing between the
assembled throng of screaming peasants. Much to her surprise, women were
throwing flowers and children rushed forward to touch her dress. She kept
waiting for someone to rush forward with a dagger and slice her to bits, but
strangely, she sensed no hatred of any kind. In fact, the population of
Northwood seemed very excited to see her. She was puzzled but warily pleased.

The flowers and words of welcome
shouted from the populace eased her fears somewhat and she found she was
actually able to smile a little. Yet she knew that the majority of the
excitement was for the soldiers and knights of Northwood and she was pleased to
see that they were so obviously loved and respected.

Mayhap someday if she worked hard
enough she would have the love and the respect of the people, too. Mayhap,
eventually, they would forget she was Scot. It was almost too good to hope for.

With renewed determination, she
thrust up her chin and began to meet the eyes of Northwood’s population,
smiling benevolently and trying to show them just exactly what they were
receiving as a new countess.

But, Sweet Jesu’, was she worthy to
be countess over all of this? She was a simple earl’s daughter. A new crop of
worries began to flood her mind and dampened the lighter feelings she had so
recently experienced. She was so young and unworldly to come into this realm of
English court and law. Her newly found confidence sank a little and she once
again felt like hiding. She felt as if she were going daft.