Leaves On The Wind. Carol Townend

wouldn’t. Not you, Rannulf.” she forced a smile.

      “Can you be sure of that?” he demanded coldly.

      “Aye. I think I can. The Rannulf that looked after me four years ago would never force—”

      “Ah, but as you so rightly pointed out, my princess—” Judith bristled. The slaver had called her that in the market. Did Rannulf have to fling it at her as though it were a weapon? A dark brow arched “—times have changed since then. I am a mercenary coming home from the wars. I have bought your beautiful body…” His eyes glittered as he looked at her.

      “But it would be wrong. I do not want—”

      “I am to all intents and purposes a mercenary, Judith. I came on this crusade to earn my way in life. Do you think a mercenary should care for justice any more than Baron Hugo de Mandeville and his Norman compatriots?”

      Judith put her hand to her head. “Rannulf…I’m sorry. I should not have said it. Please do not be angry—”

      Rannulf did not hear her. “Do you loathe mercenaries as much as you despise Normans, Judith?”

      “I…I didn’t know you were a mercenary,” she stammered, wishing there were some way she could reach him, but his anger was a wall between them.

      His mouth twisted. “Mercenaries place themselves beyond what it good and right, Judith. Money is their master. That is their right and wrong. They have no moral code. That is what I have become. I tell you now, so you know. I am no better than an outlaw.”

      Judith tensed She was an outlaw…

      “So why should I not take you if I want?” Rannulf continued. “I have, as you say, paid for you. And by the laws that operate in this place that gives me the right.”

      “I don’t believe you!” Judith flared. “You would not. And you’re no mercenary.”

      “My lord Fitz Osbern paid me to come on crusade in his entourage,” Rannulf told her. “So what does that make me?”

      Judith began to relax. That hard, glittering light was fading from his eyes. “Outlaws do not lack morals—” she’d learned to press home any slight advantage “—it may not be the official moral code, but a code there most certainly is. Even mercenaries must have a code—they must be loyal to the paymaster, or no one would hire them. Mercenaries and outlaws have to know right from wrong. They must abide by their own laws.”

      “How do you suddenly know so much about outlaws?”

      “I know because…because…” Judith floundered under his penetrating green gaze. She’d walked right into a mire.

      Four years of learning to guard her tongue had made its mark on her. An instinctive wariness stopped her tongue running on any more. Even here, she must be careful of what she said about Eadwold and his warriors. If all went well, Rannulf would take her back to the Chase. She shifted her ground. “I know because I want to believe you will not hurt me,” she finished. She knew it was lame and that she sounded feeble, but it was that or risk damaging her brothers’ cause.

      Rannulf’s eyes softened. “No, I’d never harm you,” he confirmed. “But there must be no more talk of what you owe me. You owe me nothing.” His tone reminded her of the one Eadwold used when he was not willing to brook any argument. Then Rannulf smiled and it took the sting out of his words.

      Judith stood up abruptly. The chamber was hot and airless. She felt suffocated. She crossed to the window, flung open the wooden shutter, and cooled her forehead on the white plaster of the window embrasure. There were no bars on the window.

      Judith was weary right through to her bones. She could not have slept properly in weeks. First she’d been captured in the Chase, and then there’d been the voyage in that stinking hell that was the hold of the slave ship. Sheer terror had held her imprisoned in a ghastly limbo that was neither waking nor sleeping. She’d not rested for fear of what she might find when she awoke.

      She glanced at Rannulf over her shoulder. He was watching her. She trusted him, but there was something that made her uneasy…something that she had not yet fathomed…She yawned. It was a miracle that she could still stand up, a miracle she had kept herself going so long. And now, all at once, her head was whirling with fatigue. There was a rushing noise in her ears. The dark chamber blurred. It was as though she’d taken another of Zoe’s potions.

      She peered through the gloom at Rannulf. Her eyes refused to focus and his face remained an unrevealing blur. She wanted to sleep. Summoning up the courage to express her need, she stared out of the window. She did not think she could stand any more mockery.

      Her tired eyes registered the view spread out below, as greedily as a wound soaked up a healing balm. Judith stared, her mind drinking in what her eyes were seeing. It was beautiful. “You can see the sea from here!” She roused herself. “We’re overlooking the bay!”

      Balduk’s house was built on top of a narrow promontory jutting out into the Mediterranean. The sky was liberally sprinkled with stars, and a crescent moon rode majestically among them like an emperor surrounded by his subjects. The ocean was gilded silver-bright. The moon’s rays gleamed on black rocks, bleaching yellow sands to white. Judith watched the sea rise and fall beneath her, rocking, rocking. A warm sea breeze caressed her cheeks. Their chamber was very high up.

      “So that is why the window is not barred,” she murmured, smothering a yawn. “There’s no way out.”

      Behind her, she heard Rannulf move. She tensed.

      He pushed Judith gently on to the window seat and gazed out past her at the sea. He was smiling. His teeth glinted in the moonlight. Out at sea, a weak glimmer betrayed the position of a fisherman’s lonely vigil.

      Judith found her eyes drawn, not out to sea, but to Rannulf’s profile: straight nose, lips gently curving, disordered mane of hair…

      His head turned towards her. She couldn’t breathe. He took her by the shoulders. Judith waited for him to speak, understanding all at once that this strange, stifling, breathlessness she felt was caused by Rannulf, and not the airless chamber.

      His voice was very low, almost a whisper “Is it me you fear? Or this place? Or is it yourself? Are you…afraid of being a woman?”

      His questions jerked her from her sleepy state. Every nerve was suddenly awake and tingling, almost too awake. She could feel his eyes on her—when he looked at her, her cheeks stung.

      He touched her hair delicately with one finger. “So soft,” he murmured. “Why do you wear it short, Judith? To deny your femininity?”

      “N…no.” Her voice came out in an undignified squeak. She cleared her throat and swallowed.

      “An illness then?” he suggested.

      “No.” Her voice was husky. She realised she’d been staring at his mouth. She looked out at the view, too shy to meet those searching eyes. Her heart thumped low and hard against her ribs.

      His breath warmed her cheek. She wanted to run…

      “’Tis a crime to wear such hair cropped,” Rannulf muttered.

      She forced a laugh, noticing with surprise that his voice was husky too. “Aye, ’twas indeed crime that cropped my hair,” she said unsteadily.

      A confused look flickered briefly across his face, and then it was gone. And he was staring at her. And that intent expression was back in his eyes. It overrode all else.

      Judith’s heart was hammering now. Rannulf shifted his grip. He was going to pull her closer, and she did not know what to do. As his hold on her shoulders tightened, she ducked, managed to free herself, and grabbed at the window-ledge. She held hard.

      “Judith, look at me,” Rannulf commanded softly.

      “N…no.”

      The fishing boat out on the sea had been joined by another.