Lily tried to calm herself. Her hands clenched and unclenched in her wool cloak. How did she know it was Radulf? There were many Normans in Northumbria; small bands of them had system-atically destroyed large areas of it. She must be brave and cunning. These men would not know she was Vorgen’s wife, how should they? Lily might be any woman. A Norman lady, perhaps, fleeing the English even as Lily was fleeing the Normans.
And she could easily play the part of a Norman lady. For two years she had been Vorgen’s wife.
She had sat at a Norman table and watched how they lived and ate and thought. She could speak French; these men would not guess she was the woman they hunted.
The western door banged open.
Lily scrambled sideways and pinched out the nearest of the betraying candles, then slid down behind one of the pillars. If she was lucky, they would not find her, but if they did . . . A fleeing Norman lady encountering a group of armed men would naturally conceal herself.
A foot soldier came running up the nave, breath wheezing, feet shuffling. Behind him came another man, this one holding a torch, the flames rearing up to show a young, clean-shaven face and short-cropped brown hair. A Norman face. A boy’s face.
Lily stared, frozen like a wild, hunted thing.
When the boy shouted Lily jumped, clutching her cloak about her tightly, as if trying to vanish into it. Her eyes stung with lack of sleep, for she had lain awake many nights now.
“Priest! Where are you?” The boy’s voice wavered up and down, as if it were not properly broken yet. “Priest, my lord wishes words with you!”
Lily blinked, hard. My lord?
The cold was seeping through her thick wool cloak, numbing her flesh, but her senses were sharp as needles. Where was Father Luc? Perhaps he had known the soldiers were coming. Father Luc might be a priest, but the Normans were a treacherous lot, and Lily could understand the kindly priest not wishing to be caught up in the fighting. More importantly, he might give away Lily’s identity—so it was better that he was absent.
The soldier and the boy with the torch had reached the altar. The flame’s red glow reared up the walls of the choir, glinting in the windows of colored glass. The boy turned, looking back down the nave toward the door, and his voice echoed in the shadows.
“My lord, he’s fled!”
Slowly, afraid any movement might betray her hiding place, Lily leaned a fraction out from the pillar and looked back to the doorway. A dark shape filled it. A man. Behind him, more torches flared as more men ran past, but the dark shape did not move, his very stillness both menacing and compelling.
The boy was hurrying back down the nave, and his torch shone out toward the man, slowly revealing him. Lily’s eyes grew rounder.
Such a tall man, with such a breadth of chest and shoulder. Rona’s word powerful slipped into Lily’s head. Chain mail, a dull silver, covered his body from neck to knees. On his head he wore a conical helmet with a broad nose guard, so that his face was hidden by metal and shadows, except for the pale line of mouth and chin.
“He’s gone, my lord,” the boy repeated dully, revealing his disappointment.
“Gone for now,” the man replied in a deep, husky voice that gave the impression of anger. He moved as if to shrug his shoulders and then caught his breath in a sharp hiss of pain.
“You’re hurt, my lord?”
The knight shook his head impatiently. “Go and fetch my horse. We will have to ride north without the priest.”
“Perhaps,” the boy ventured, “he has gone already. Perhaps he is persuading Vorgen’s wife to surrender to us. Perhaps she has had enough bloodshed, my lord.”
A low laugh was his answer. “They are dull-witted, these English,” the man growled. “They must be shown the error of their ways. Now fetch my horse, boy!”
“Aye, Lord Radulf.”
Lily gasped as her worst fears were realized.
The man and the boy didn’t hear her, but the dog did. Until then, Lily had not even noticed it was present, but now it ran forward with a growl, the soldier behind it. Lily tried to scuttle out of the way, but the dog followed, barking with a sharp, high-pitched sound.
“Here, sir!” the soldier cried excitedly. “’Tis the priest hiding!”
The boy thrust the torch toward her. The heat of it made Lily’s eyes blink, and then rough hands closed on her arms, dragging her forth into the nave and dumping her unceremoniously at the feet of her enemy.
The dog was still snuffling around her, and the soldier pulled it away and led it outside. Lily, her heart leaping in her chest, slumped, frozen and waiting.
The silence seemed to stretch interminably.
“What is this? Have the priests in Northumbria taken to wearing women’s gowns?”
