A Man of Value Read online

  “There’s the manor house at Ruyton.” As soon as she said it, Ascha wished she’d bitten her tongue.

  He turned to look at her. “Ruyton?”

  Ascha bit her lip. “Shelfhoc Hall was your father’s estate. It’s mine now, and has been administered for me by a steward since I left.”

  “A steward?”

  She couldn’t meet Caedmon’s enquiring gaze. “Yes, Ruyton is in the Welsh Marches. After your father died the Earl of Ellesmere offered to administer and protect Shelfhoc, to safeguard it from the Welsh.”

  “The Earl of Ellesmere? A Norman? A Norman Earl administers your estate?”

  She rose from the chair and walked over to the window, fidgeting with her wimple, her back to him. “Yes, Caedmon. Not all Normans are monsters.”

  “Huh! Show me one that’s not. This has been the source of your income all these years? It never occurred to me. I assumed the money came from Uncle Gareth’s estate.”

  She turned to face her son. “Some of it did. As you know, when my brother Gareth and his son Gawain were killed fighting to restore Edgar the Aetheling to the English throne, this house devolved to me. But Shelfhoc is your birthright, Caedmon.”

  Caedmon scratched his head. “What fee does this great Earl impose for his Norman benevolence?”

  Ascha sensed her face must have reddened in the course of the conversation but she was determined to keep her voice steady. “There’s no fee, Caedmon. It would be vulnerable to the Welsh without his protection.”

  He slumped down into a chair, stretched out his legs and put his feet on a stool. “Well, mother, I’m not interested in riding off to live in the Welsh Marches. There’s work to do here for King Malcolm. He’ll need strong warriors for his next attack on Northumbria. The rumours are it will be soon.”

  Should she weep or rejoice that he wouldn’t go to Ruyton?

  ~~~

  “Sire, your Queen lies gravely ill, surely you don’t intend to leave her to attack Northumbria now?”

  King Malcolm Cenn Mór sighed. His emotions were in turmoil. Duncan Kincaid, the man who stood before him as he sat in the Chart Room of his castle, was one of his most trusted advisors. “My beloved wife’s illness breaks my heart. She will not recover.”

  He stood and banged his fist down on the map table. “But I must strike now, Duncan. It’s not enough that King William Rufus has cut us off from parts of Cumbria we’ve held sway over with his damned castle at Carlisle. No, he insults me at every turn, like his father, the Conqueror.”

  Duncan shifted his weight from side to side, plainly ill-at-ease. “But we’re not prepared. The Saxons in our ranks are an undisciplined lot, and our own Scots have no sense of unity.”

  Malcolm looked Duncan in the eye. “We must regain Northumbria,” he said slowly, drawing out each word, but he could see Duncan remained unconvinced.

  “Your Majesty, the Earl of Northumbria, de Mowbray, has a highly trained and well equipped force waiting for you there. They have been strengthening the border for several years, especially after the recent bloody raids by those renegades and their Saxon henchmen. You’ll be marching into disaster.”

  Malcolm snorted with contempt. “De Mowbray can’t be everywhere in Northumbria. We’ll use evasion tactics and march right past him, deep into the heart of Norman territory. My mind is made up. It will be a glorious victory. Northumbria will at last be ours.”

  Duncan shook his head, and Malcolm wondered briefly if he should continue. “My son Edward will accompany me, to experience how it feels to grind the Normans into the dust. He can return home a hero, and lighten the heart of his ailing mother.”

  Duncan looked shocked beyond belief. “But sire, he’s Queen Margaret’s eldest son. You’ve named him your heir. If anything happens to him—”

  Malcolm held up his hand in a dismissive gesture and sat down again. “I’ll hear no more objections. My mind is made up. Summon the chiefs, and the Saxon leaders. We’ve battle plans to lay.”

  ~~~

  Three sennights later, the Scottish court, dressed in deepest mourning, grieved the Great Chieftain’s death. Malcolm Cenn Mór, and his son and heir had both been killed in a bloody ambush in Northumbria, their army decimated. There were whispers of treachery. Roger de Mowbray had lain in wait at Alnwick.

  “Queen Margaret has sent for the Black Rood,” Lady Ascha Woolgar murmured tearfully to Enid, leaning heavily on the trusted maid who’d been her confidante for many years. “It’s the most precious of the possessions she brought from Hungary—a fragment of the True Cross, encased in a gold cross, with an ivory image of Christ,” she whispered, as if in a trance. “She won’t last the night. Her heart is broken. The Black Rood will bring her consolation as she faces death.”

  Enid struggled to control her tears, wondering where her beloved mistress would find consolation for her own broken heart. Lady Ascha’s only son, Caedmon, had not returned with the few mangled and maimed Saxons who had barely survived the trap at Alnwick.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Alnwick, Northumbria –November 1093

  The handful of nuns and monks from the religious community, accompanied by villagers from Alnwick, made their halting way through the piles of already decaying bodies, strewn like broken puppets across the field. The earth had been churned to mud, now hardened to ruts by the frost. They’d all but given up hope of finding anyone else alive amid the carnage of the bloody slaughter by de Mowbray’s army.

  Despite the cold air, masses of buzzing flies, drawn by blood and the stench of corruption, swarmed around them relentlessly. Mangy dogs sniffed the distorted corpses. Buzzards floated ominously overhead, waiting patiently. Braver crows were already pecking out eyes and tearing at fingernails. Ragged human scavengers picked over the remains of the dead.

  “Quick Sister, o’er ‘ere,” came an unexpected shout. “I found one alive. I think.”

  Numbed by the horror of the gruesome reality through which she staggered, terrified of falling on the fallen, Agneta fought to hold down the acrid bile rising in her dry throat. She would have to point out to Thomas Swineherd she wasn’t yet a Sister, only a novice. The final vows would be made once she came of age. She’d been at the nunnery for —how long was it now—eight months—since the murder of her parents?

  Then her paralyzed brain absorbed the significance of what Thomas had shouted. Raising the edges of her habit, already caked with mud and gore, she stumbled over to where a nervous horse snorted and shied, its eyes wild. A wounded man lay completely covered by the mutilated corpse of another fallen warrior. The bodies were tangled, muddied and bloodstained and it was impossible to tell on which side they had fought. Was this man a Norman, a Saxon or a Scot? She didn’t care. None of them were worth saving. If she nursed them back to health, they would leave and kill again, or be killed. It was the way of men.

  “’E’s badly wounded, Sister,” said Thomas, shooing away a persistent crow. “We mun get t’others off ‘im. Don’ look like a Scot—don’ wan’ save a curst Scot. Blest be God their curst King Malcolm died ‘ere. Mebbe now the raidin’ll cease. Wouldna foun’ thisun if t’weren’t fer ‘is ‘oss standin’ o’er ‘im like a sad dog.”

  Agneta felt she should say something pious about God not caring on which side mortals fought, but the words stuck in her throat. She did care.

  Thomas and another villager, Gilbert, struggled to lift the rigid corpse off the fallen warrior, and Agneta fell to her knees on the frozen ground beside him. She clenched her fists on her lap, hesitant to touch him, and looked him over for signs of life. The odour of his body assailed her nostrils. She straightened her back and wrinkled her nose.

  “Are you sure he’s alive, Thomas?”

  “Looks like he’s pumpin’ air, I reckon. Smells like it too,” he chuckled.

  She wondered how anyone could keep a sense of humour amid all this sorrow, but noticed the rise and fall of the warrior’s broad chest. Convinced it was the cold seeping into her knees causing her
to tremble, she reached out her hand to place it near his lips and felt a faint wisp of air caress her frozen fingers. He moaned suddenly and she snatched her hand away, toppling over.

  “Nowt to be ‘fraid of, sister. ‘E’s in no fit state to do thee any ‘arm.”

  She reddened, feeling foolish. Thomas was right. What was there to be afraid of? If the wounded man wasn’t lying here half dead, she would be terrified of him. He was big and likely intimidating to behold. But he was hurt, and his life was in her hands now. She was in control. It was a not altogether welcome feeling and blood rushed to her head.

  Don’t swoon, don’t swoon.

  Pulling herself together, she placed her palm on his forehead, then pressed the backs of her fingers to his neck. Heat from his skin warmed her frigid hand. “He’s alive,” she said quietly.

  And in need of soap and water.

  The nervous stallion backed away.

  “Reckon ‘is ‘oss ‘as the stench o’ dead ‘orseflesh in ‘is nostrils.”

  The warrior’s iron helmet was badly dented and partly knocked off and she suspected a blow to the head had taken his wits. A livid gash snaked from his right temple down to his chin. It had bled, but wasn’t deep and the blade had missed his eye. The purple bruising made it look worse than it probably was. She couldn’t tell if any bones were broken beneath his heavy, blood-stained hauberk. The worst injury seemed to be a deep, angry wound to the front of his right thigh. It still oozed blood through the slashed leggings.

  She held out her hand and Thomas helped her to her feet. “I can’t do much in the field, Thomas. He’s obviously a knight. We must get him back to the nunnery. Carry him over to the haywain. Can you pry his hand from his sword? It might take three of you to lift him. He’s not a small man.”

  There was something vaguely familiar about him. An acquaintance of her father’s maybe? Perhaps this one was worth saving? She hoisted her habit, slogged her way back across the field, and stumbled into the oxcart.

  “Lay him with his head on my lap,” she instructed. She would be uncomfortable, sitting on the rough planking of the haywain with the knight’s heavy weight on her. The villagers, already exhausted by the difficult expedition across the field, struggled to lift the warrior. His helmet fell to the ground, and Thomas, breathing hard, stooped to retrieve it, tethering the reins of the warrior’s horse to one of the rough-hewn wooden slats. The animal was further alarmed by the proximity of the oxen, and pulled away, jolting the cart and causing Agneta’s hands to fly to her mouth.

  The man filled the two-wheeled cart. She felt overwhelmed by his size, pinned against the side by his malodorous body. She pushed against the rough wood, trying to shift her weight, her bottom already feeling numb. A spile of wood pierced her hand. She resolved to deal with it later. “Gilbert, please tell Mother Superior we’re taking a casualty back to the infirmary. Go, Thomas. Quickly.”

  Thomas led the beasts along the rutted track at what seemed like an interminably slow pace. The lumbering dragons snorted frozen breaths on the frigid air. Agneta peeled off the hood of the knight’s hauberk. His long black hair was plastered to his head with sweat. There was no blood. She felt a large swelling on the back of his head.

  “He has the look of a Norman, though his hair is too long,” she mused, brushing back a strand from across his face. She was calmer now, more in control. Detachment, mantra of the nuns, took over. She assessed the man’s pallor. Careful to keep his head cradled on her lap, she used her other hand to press the linen cloths from the infirmary against his wounded thigh, trying to stem the blood. She shivered as the cold November wind gusted around them, but felt the warmth of the warrior’s head on her thighs. “Looks like rain,” she suddenly shouted to Thomas, who peered at the sky, coughed, spat and grunted.

  A deep groan emanated from the man’s throat, reverberating through her, destroying her fledgling confidence and making her sweat despite the cold. Sixteen when she was brought to the nunnery, she had no knowledge of men, except for her darling brothers, brutally slaughtered by the likes of this warrior. She looked down at him and noticed his lips were parched. She licked her own. She had to get his weight off her—soon.

  When they arrived at the community, monks and laymen hurried out to assist in carrying the man to the recently constructed infirmary. She breathed a sigh of relief as the weight was lifted from her, but missed the warmth on her legs as the cold trickled back into his sweat on her habit. They laid him on a raised pallet.

  Agneta found fulfillment in her work in the infirmary and Mother Superior had told her she had a way with healing. It had saved her from madness, given her a purpose. Others recognized her talent and acceded to her.

  “We must get his hauberk off to see the extent of his injuries. Take care. I believe his ribs are broken.” She was surprised at the note of urgency in her voice.

  Remember, a nun must remain detached.

  The idea of detachment appealed to Agneta. If she could ever achieve it, never again would feelings destroy her.

  Two monks helped raise the man’s upper body, and two others dragged the bloodstained and muddied hauberk over his head. Agneta and another novice cut away the sweat soaked padded clothing beneath it. Mayda wrinkled her nose.

  “I know it’s not pleasant,” Agneta said with a wry smile. “We must be grateful to God it’s the healthy odour of male sweat, and not putrefaction.”

  The knight’s broad chest and well-muscled arms were covered in livid bruises, but no wounds. A close inspection did reveal broken ribs, but seemingly no other major bones broken. They unlaced his boots and eased them off, then two monks stripped off his mailed leggings. Agneta looked away, admonishing them needlessly to be careful not to inflict further damage to his thigh wound.

  The monks set to work bathing him. Agneta kept her eyes on his face, and applied salve to the gash, judging it wasn’t deep enough to stitch.

  “Cover him as soon as you can,” she said over her shoulder to one of the lay helpers. “We mustn’t let him get chilled. But leave the thigh wound uncovered. I’ll stitch it once we’ve bound his ribs and set poultices on the bruises.”

  The wound still bled, and required pressure. She felt the sticky warmth of his blood on her hands, and hastily wiped them, one at a time, on her habit. The sight of blood had never bothered her before, except when—no, she would not resurrect that buried memory. Once the bleeding stopped, she sewed up the gash with the smallest silken stitches she could contrive, her hand shaking. Then she bound the wound with the help of a monk.

  “It’s fortunate he’s still in a stupor, Brother Manton,” she remarked, trying to sound calm.

  For me as much as for him.

  “His fever worries me. He lay for hours in the wet mud. I hope the metal of the hauberk may have protected him from the damp.”

  Despite being naked and injured, the warrior exuded masculinity and power, and she found working on him exhausting. She’d tended other men in the infirmary, farmers with broken bones, old men with rheumatism, boys with scrapes and bruises, serfs with the ague or the bloody flux. She’d done it all dispassionately, devoid of feeling since the bloody massacre of her family and her mother’s betrayal. Why did this man bother her? He was a man of violence. Perhaps that was the reason? Or had the horror of the scene she’d walked through worn her out?

  She wanted to get nourishing liquids into him. Brother Manton crooked his arm under the man’s head, and she poured cooled vegetable broth into his mouth. He had difficulty swallowing and started to cough. “He’ll do more damage to his ribs,” the monk remarked quietly.

  Agneta longed to sleep, but sat by the warrior’s side for a few hours, trying once in a while to drip broth into his mouth. Desperate for sleep, she left him in the care of another novice and sought her bed. She was to be called if he worsened.

  In her cramped dormitory cubicle, she kicked off her boots, untied the cord at her waist, and removed her rosary and cross, kissing them reverently and placing t
hem carefully in her tiny dresser. She peeled the soiled scapular over her head, barely able to lift her arms. The black wimple came off next, and then she breathed a sigh of relief as she dragged the starched coif off her head, releasing the pressure on her neck and cheeks. She rolled her head back and forth. The tunic followed quickly, and lastly the stiff black underskirts. The nuns had cropped her brown hair when she’d entered the novitiate. She hadn’t cared. Nothing mattered. Each month, one of the older sisters sheared the hair of the novices.

  Once she’d freed her tresses from the coif and wimple, the candlelight reflected on the golden highlights of what remained. Mother Superior often lectured her charges on the sin of pride, but Agneta couldn’t deny the guilty pleasure she felt as she ran her fingers through her loosened hair, and smoothed her hands along the developing curves of her body. Her breasts, concealed when she wore the habit, had grown to be firm and round. The cold air teased her nipples to tautness. She was thin at the waist. Her mother had been fond of telling her she had beautiful eyes that were neither brown nor green, but a combination of the two.

  Memories of her mother conjured a vision of the ornate steel blade of the Danish dagger. The weapon reposed in a place of safekeeping known only to Mother Superior. Agneta had wanted to hurl it into the depths of hell. She stretched to rid her slim body of the tension of the past few harrowing hours, then washed with a cloth and water from the ewer, anxious to be rid of the lingering smell of death. The cold water raised goosebumps on her skin. Quickly she slipped on the simple linen chemise, her teeth chattering. She succeeded in wiping most of the mud from her only habit, but wasn’t sure how to remove the bloodstains.

  Warrior’s blood. Always so much blood.

  Climbing onto her pallet, she tugged the rough woolen blanket over her to ward off the chill night air. The stricken knight occupied her thoughts. She’d allowed herself to care about another human being. She would have to be sterner. If he lived, he would probably kill again, for she had no doubt this warrior had killed. Then she wondered if he had a family, perhaps a wife. Would someone be grieving for him as she’d grieved?