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The man’s long brown hair was tangled, his tunic torn and trousers mud-splattered. A stained and blood-soaked bandage bound one arm. He was obviously dead.
“My lord.” One of the soldiers had caught his breath enough to speak. “We found this rat in a hut in the village. I’m certain he was one of the rebels who attacked us last night. He had a Viking axe, and nearly shaved off my ear. I sliced him with my sword, but I didn’t see him fall.”
“Must have crawled off to die.” It was Jervois, Radulf’s captain, who commented.
“Scum!” One of the soldiers spat noisily.
Radulf raised an eyebrow, flicking his gaze to Lily, and the man mumbled an apology. Radulf urged his horse closer, the huge feathery feet surprisingly graceful. “Turn him over.”
Lily watched as the two soldiers rolled the body onto its back. A jolt went through her, causing her fingers to tighten involuntarily on the reins. Her mare shifted edgily.
Radulf glanced at her, but Lily kept her eyes down and her face expressionless. She felt that dark gaze move over her, warm like sunlight, probing at her secrets. The color heightened in her cheeks, while the air between them seemed to hum with secrets. I burn for you, lady, he had said earlier. Would he still burn if he knew the truth? Or would anger take the place of passion?
At last he looked away, and a soft sigh of relief escaped Lily’s lips. Once again she furtively inspected the dead man. Yes, she had been correct. He was one of Hew’s men. And if, as Radulf’s soldier claimed, he had been involved in the skirmish last night…
Lily’s shoulders tensed, and the muscles in her neck ached as she worked on unraveling the tangle of thoughts in her weary brain. Hew’s man being in Grimswade made no sense, for when Vorgen was killed, Hew and his men had fled across the border into Scotland to reassess their future.
Hew had come to her the day after Vorgen died, at dawn.
Hew brushed aside Lily’s ladies, stumbling as he entered her chamber. The clumsiness was uncharacteristic, he was always so graceful. And then Lily looked to his handsome face and saw that it had turned old and white with exhaustion and failure. He had betrayed her father, thrown in his lot with Vorgen, and now it was over.
He knelt before her, his head bowed, long golden hair matted with sweat and blood. Lily stood like a cold statue, wrapped in the smoking candlelight and the thick cloak thrown hastily about her shoulders to cover her near nakedness.
Hew rose at last, staggering wearily to his feet, and taking her trembling hand, pressed something small and heavy and familiar into her palm. Lily looked down, knowing what she would see.
The gold ring was still warm from Hew’s grip. Warmer than her chill flesh, when she realized that the return of her father’s ring could only mean Vorgen was dead.
Hew was telling her in a hoarse voice that the battle, and possibly the rebellion, were lost. Radulf, he said bitterly, had won. But Lily was thinking, I am free! Her soul, so long held captive, soared, only to plummet once more to hard earth when she met the desolation in Hew’s eyes. Vorgen was dead, but with the end of his greedy dreams came a new and perhaps more terrible threat.
As Vorgen’s wife, she had been able to cling to the remnants of the old ways. Now they would be swept to oblivion. Radulf would take her lands, maybe even her life.
Blindly, Lily was aware of Hew’s arms about her, his mustache tickling her cheek, the cloying, clinging smells of death and battle. “I am for the border,” he was saying. “Come with me, Lily, before it is too late.”
Yes, yes, she thought.
“King Malcolm was your grandfather’s friend; he will give us sanctuary until we can rally. This is not the end, Lily! We will raise another army, and return to send the Normans fleeing!”
He was fierce, angry, and for a moment he sounded like the boy she had once loved and believed she would wed. But when Lily looked into his eyes she recognized that his emotion was but pretense. Hew was beaten; they were all beaten.
Slowly, Lily lifted her head, looking around her. People had gathered at the edges of the candlelight, with fearful faces, and scared eyes. They were watching her, their hopes, their futures pinned on her actions. If she fled, what would happen to them? She was all they had, all that stood between them and total destruction. They had not asked for Vorgen’s war, just as she had not asked to be Vorgen’s wife. They could not turn tail and run for the border. They could not leave their homes and crops and families.
Perhaps…maybe Lily could secure some sort of peace for them?
But she could not do that if she was hiding in Scotland.
Slowly, Lily shook her head. “I cannot go with you, Hew. I am needed here.”
Pain twisted his face. “They will kill me if I stay!” he cried. “You too!”
She drew herself up. “So be it.”
That had been the last time she saw him.
This new possibility, that some of Hew’s men had remained in Northumbria, caused a flurry of unanswered questions that Lily d
idn’t have time to explore. Radulf’s voice, cutting through the past, reminded her of where she was and of the precariousness of her position.
The Normans were still gazing down at the pitiful body.
