The Novice Bride. Carol Townend

Mother Aethelflaeda judged that it was misplaced pride for anyone but herself to be styled ‘my lady’.

      ‘Cecily, be pleased to translate for me,’ Mother Aethelflaeda said in English, her tone less imperious than usual. ‘These…’ the brief hesitation was a clear insult ‘…men are the Norman Duke’s, and they are come on his business.’

      It was on the tip of Cecily’s tongue to protest, for Mother Aethelflaeda spoke French almost as well as she did. Like her, Mother Aethelflaeda came from a noble family, and while Mother Aethelflaeda might not have had a Norman mother like Cecily, Norman French was commonly understood by most of the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy.

      Calm, Cecily, calm, she told herself. Think of baby Philip, who needs your help. These men are the means by which you may reach him. Put fear aside, put anger aside, put thoughts of revenge aside. By hook or by crook, you must get these men to help you care for little Philip. That is all that matters…

      ‘As you will, Mother Aethelflaeda.’ Cecily laced her fingers together and forced herself to smile at the mailed knight.

      His squire stepped into her line of vision. ‘Lady…that is, Sister Cecily…we are looking for one Emma of Fulford. My scouts tell me she came here. I’d like to speak to her.’

      The squire came yet closer as he spoke. Cecily, who for four years had had scant contact with strange men, apart from villagers like Ulf with whom she was familiar, found his physical presence overpowering. His eyes were green, and once they had met hers it was hard to look away. His face, with its strong, dark features, was pleasing, yet somehow unsettling. His black hair was cropped short and, again in the Norman fashion, he was clean-shaven. Most of her countrymen wore their hair and beards long and flowing. Cecily blinked. She had thought it would make a man look like a little boy to be so close shaved, but there was nothing of the little boy about this one. There were wide shoulders under that cloak. And his mouth…what was she doing looking at his mouth?

      Becoming aware that they were staring at each other, and that he had been studying her with the same intensity with which she had been studying him, Cecily blushed. It’s as though I am a book and he is learning me. He is not polite after all, this squire. He is too bold.

      ‘Emma Fulford?’ Cecily said slowly. ‘I am afraid you are too late.’

      ‘Hell and damnation!’

      Mother Aethelflaeda bristled, and Cecily bit her lip, waiting for the rebuke that must follow the squire’s cursing, but Mother Aethelflaeda subsided, managing—just—to adhere to her pretence of not speaking French.

      The squire’s sharp eyes were focused on the Prioresss, and Cecily realised that he knew as well as she that the Prioress did speak French, and that she affected not to speak it merely to hinder them. The knight remained in the background, leaning against the wooden planking, apparently content for his squire to act for him.

      ‘Did Lady Emma say where she was going?’ the squire asked.

      ‘No.’ The lie came easily. Cecily would do penance for it later. She’d do any amount of penance to keep that mailed knight from finding her sister. Would that she could do something to ensure her baby brother’s safety too…

      The squire frowned. ‘You have no idea? Lady Emma must have told someone. I thought perhaps she might have kin here. Who was she visiting? I’d like to speak to them.’

      Cecily looked directly into those disturbing eyes. ‘She was visiting me.’

      His expression was blank. ‘How so?’

      ‘Because Lady Emma of Fulford is my sister, and—’

      A lean-fingered hand shot out to catch her by the wrist. ‘Your sister? But…I…’ He looked uneasy. ‘We were not certain she had a sister.’

      Trying unsuccessfully to pull free of his hold, Cecily shot a look of dislike at the knight lounging against the wall, looking for all the world as though these proceedings had nothing to do with him. ‘Is it so surprising that your Duke has an imperfect knowledge of the lands he has invaded and its people?’ she replied sharply. She bit her lip, only too aware that if she were to find a way to help her new brother she must not antagonise these men. She moderated her tone. ‘Emma had a brother too. Until Hastings. We both did.’ She looked pointedly at the fingers circling her wrist. ‘You bruise me.’

      Stepping back, the squire released her. ‘My apologies.’ His eyes held hers. ‘And I am sorry for your brother’s death.’

      Cecily felt a flash of grief so bitter she all but choked. ‘And my father’s—are you sorry for that too?’

      ‘Aye—every good man’s death is a waste. I heard your father and brother were good, loyal men. Since they died at Caldbec Hill, defending their overlord when the shield wall broke, there’s no doubt of that.’

      ‘Oh, they were loyal,’ Cecily said, and try as she might she could not keep the bitterness from her tone. ‘But what price loyalty when they are dead?’ Tears pricked her eyes, and she turned away and struggled for composure.

      ‘Perhaps,’ the squire said softly, ‘you should more fairly lay the blame for what happened at Hastings on Harold of Wessex? It was he who swore solemn oath to Duke William that the crown of England should go to Normandy. It was he who went back on his word. It was his dishonour. What followed lies at the usurper Harold’s door rather than my lord William’s.’

      Because Mother Aethelflaeda was in the habit of hugging what little news that filtered through the convent walls to herself, Cecily’s knowledge of goings-on in the world was limited. Her years in the novitiate meant she scarcely understood what the squire was saying.

      A movement caught her eye as the knight—what had Emma called him? Sir Adam Wymark?—uncrossed his legs and pushed away from the wall. After stripping off his gauntlets, he lifted his helm. When he brushed back his mail coif to reveal a tumble of thick brown hair, and smiled across the room at her, the foreign warlord responsible for her family’s troubles vanished and a vigorous, personable man stood before her. Like his squire, he was young—not so handsome as the squire, but by no means ill-favoured…

      Cecily fiddled with the rope of her girdle while she considered this sudden transformation, and an idea began to take shape in her mind—an idea that Emma had half jokingly presented to her. It was not an idea she had any great liking for—particularly since, given a choice between the two men before her, she would choose the squire.

      Emma’s alarming parting shot: ‘Sir Adam Wymark…I give him to you, for I do not want him’ still echoed in her mind. Could she do it? For herself, no, Cecily thought, staring at the mailed knight. But for her brother and her father’s people? She straightened her shoulders.

      She’d do it. For her brother…she must do it…

      Mother Aethelflaeda shifted. ‘Hurry them up, Cecily,’ she said in English, in a curt tone which told Cecily she was fast recovering her sang-froid. ‘The sooner these Norman vermin are out of our hair, the better.’

      ‘Yes, Mother,’ Cecily said, deceptively meek, but in no hurry herself—for every minute they spent talking was giving Emma more time to get away.

      The squire’s green eyes captured hers. He was frowning. ‘Your sister said nothing to you of her destination?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘You’d swear that on the Bible?’

      Cecily lifted her chin and forced the lie through her teeth—not for honour, which was a cold and dead thing, a man’s obsession, but for her sister’s sake. Emma had been so desperate to escape. ‘On my father’s grave.’ She steadied herself to make what she knew all present would condemn as an improper and an absurdly forward suggestion. But just then the squire turned and sent a lop-sided smile to his knight.

      ‘It would seem, Richard, my friend,’ he said, ‘that my lady has well and truly flown.’

      Cecily caught her