The glint of ironic laughter she had seen in his eyes just before he cut her ropes only went to prove her point. No sane man would find humor in such a situation.
Tears threatened, but again Lily held them back.
She had lost everything and she trusted no one.
She was all alone again, just when she had begun to allow herself to feel safe. Perhaps she would always be alone; perhaps it was meant to be.
Lily knew she should be using these moments to plot what she would say when she came face to face with King William. She did not fear that she would break down and sob for clemency; she had shown courage enough before when Vorgen had threatened her, and William could be no worse.
But she was numb, and the words would not come to her.
The sturdy wooden walls of York glowed warmly in the late afternoon sunshine, while roofs and spires appeared tipped with gold. The city had been fortunate in that none of its many occupying forces had sacked and burned it.
The Romans had long come and gone. The Vikings and Danes had known the city as Jorvic, and made it prosperous with their trade and their ships. Then York had been the capital of the Angli-can kingdom of Northumbria. Now the Normans were here, and William had proclaimed York his center in the north, the second city in England after London.
The rivers Ouse and Fos enclosed York, their watery arms a silver sparkle. The Ouse was the larger, its banks crowded with ships loading and unloading, and seamen, merchants, and their minions conducting business. King William’s castle, a wooden tower raised high upon an earthen mound, reared up beyond the walls. He was in the process of building a second castle on the opposite bank of the Ouse, the unrest in the north having made extra fortifications necessary.
As Radulf’s band of soldiers drew nearer to the city, Lily could see an iron chain barring their approach. It was strung across the road, several yards in front of the gate through the city walls.
Guards were prominent at the bar, as well as on the walls behind it.
Lily sighed and managed to stretch her aching muscles without whimpering out loud. Compared to their previous manic pace, their travel over the past few days had been slow. Lily had overheard some of the soldiers muttering their relief that at last their lord had outrun his anger.
Lily disagreed.
Radulf’s anger had just seeped inside, where it would gather and ferment. Apart from his sense of betrayal, Lily had made him look a fool, and no Norman took well to that.
No, his anger was with him still, and Lily would suffer for it.
After Radulf had cut her ropes, he had left her untied and, as if by a silent and mutual consent, Lily had no longer refused food or water. Radulf’s reason for freeing her was not kindness; she knew that.
He wanted her alive and alert when he brought her before William. He wanted her to see and hear and feel every bit of her punishment. If she had not eaten, she was sure he would have forced her.
The things he had said to her that night at Trier!
And the arrogant way in which he had refused to listen to her explanations . . .
With difficulty, Lily swallowed down her grief and anger before they choked her.
She should have told Radulf the truth at the very beginning, from the moment he found her in Grimswade church. Then she would never have seen that glimpse of paradise, and would not now be suffering.
The soldiers bunched together as they passed beyond the bar and Bootham Gate. A tattered group of alms seekers watched them clatter down Petergate, one of York’s main thoroughfares. As the armed band passed by wooden houses and shops and a stone church, the smells of the city alternately attracted and repelled. At any moment, Lily expected to be faced with the grim bulk of William’s castle, but instead Radulf led them down a narrower street. The soldiers necessarily pressed even closer about Lily, their sweat competing with wafts of ale and pastries coming from the building directly before them. Above the noise of the horses’ hooves, she heard Radulf call a halt.
The weary band shuffled to a less than precise stop, horses blowing and puffing, the soldiers’ tired faces stoic beneath the grime of their journey.
Lily looked about her in bewilderment. Instead of the castle, they were stopped before an inn.
Radulf had summoned Jervois to his side. His captain was listening carefully, and there was an air of tension about them. Radulf’s black war horse seemed to sense it too, edging away, ill-tempered, from Jervois’s mount, its huge feet stamping, its head tossing.
Radulf spoke again, urgently, and Jervois nodded slowly. Seemingly against his better judgment. The expression on the younger man’s face proclaimed him more than a little dumbfounded by his orders. Then the two men turned, Radulf stony-faced, Jervois with reluctance, and looked straight at Lily.
She held her breath. Something momentous was about to happen. Oh God, why did Radulf look so stern? He spurred his destrier toward her.
Lily refused to flinch, although her heart was thundering inside her chest and each breath was a struggle and she wanted to turn and flee . . .
Radulf reached her, pulling his irritable horse up at the last moment. His gaze was fastened on hers, and it took a few seconds for her to realize his words were not addressed to her, but to his men.
“Secure this inn. We will stay here tonight, and we want the whole house.”
