Page 21 of The Red Wolf’s Prize

“Well then, I will speak to Sarah, but I am certain she willapprove. Being a page is the first step to becoming a knight. Go see Mathieu,my squire, and tell him of your new position. He will assign you tasks and seeyou have proper clothing. Unless you are in work clothes, you will wear thewolf on your tunic.”

“Thank ye, sir!” The boy’s eyes shone as he turned and rantoward the armory.

“Do you know where you are going lad?” Renaud called afterhim.

The boy stopped and turned. “Aye, sir. I watch yer squireclean yer armor each day.”

“Well, then, be off with you.” Renaud’s eyes followed theboy as he hurried off.

“That was kind of you, Ren,” said Geoff. “You bestow anhonor on the lad far above his station. Better take care or the people willthink the Red Wolf has a soft heart.”

“I have watched him each day with nothing to do but a fewchores, and no one to care for him except Sarah, who walks with him to thestables. If he can be groomed to become a squire, one day he might be a loyalknight. I like the lad. And he seems intelligent enough.”

* * *

Serena looked into the yard from the roof walk where sheobserved the knights talking to Jamie. She could not hear their words but shenoted the Red Wolf run his hands through the boy’s sun bleached locks as ifteasing him. The Norman was proving to be different than the cold, cruel knightshe had envisioned. Often arrogant, and at times short with his words, he heldto a code of honor she grudgingly admired. Though his coming had stripped herpeople of their freedom and their rights under Anglo-Saxon laws, he had nottaxed them overmuch. At least not yet. She knew when the work on the castlebegan he would compel Talisand’s men to build it. Such a task would not go downwell with her people.

She grew angry at the reminder he had all of Talisand underhis thumb. Yet she remembered his gentleness when he’d kissed her, a kiss shewas trying hard to forget. She remembered the heat of his powerful body when heheld her close. She had wanted him to touch her. Yet she hated her attractionto the powerful Norman knight for he was her enemy.

And now he was being kind to the boy she loved.

* * *

“Would it be so bad to be the Norman’s wife, to again be theLady of Talisand?” Cassie asked softly, looking at Serena with hopeful eyes.Serena had gone to help her friend in the folding of linens in the back room ofthe washing area where they were alone for the moment. “He seems an honorableknight, even if he is a Norman, and a bit…fearsome. He’s so tall. EvenSir Maurin is nay so tall.”

Serena stared at her friend, disbelieving. “Cassie! That‘honorable knight’ you find frightening is among the men who killed my fatherand our King Harold and ravaged half of England. I cannot believe you wouldhave me wed one of them. Have you forgotten they have taken our land by force?Slain thousands of Saxon men and women? And now he claims the people ofTalisand as his serfs!”

“Nay, I havna forgotten, but ye canna change the past,m’lady. Ye must look to the future. I say this as yer friend. The Red Wolf isthe new lord and there be a new king in England who, though he is a Norman,seems to be staying whether we like it or no. Ye’ll want bairns one day, no?”Not waiting for Serena’s answer, the handmaiden continued. “Talisand will needan heir, and it willna come from Steinar as we had thought.”

“I’d not have a Norman heir for Talisand, Cassie.”

“Would a bairn of yers born in England be a Norman?”

Serena pondered her handmaiden’s words. “He’d be at leasthalf Norman.”

“If the tales we heard be true, there will be many bairnsborn in England this year who are only half English. At least ye would have thestatus of wife—and a countess. Many of those mothers have no husbands at alland will bear only Norman bastards.”

“Oh, Cassie. I am still hoping to escape to Scotland andjoin Steinar. Rhodri tells me many English have fled across the border, waitingto fight the Normans. Good and true men who have not surrendered all. He saysit was fear of an uprising that brought the Norman king back from Normandy latelast year. Why should I give in if there is still hope? The Red Wolf’s knightsdo not even speak our language!”

“They are making an effort,” insisted Cassie. “Sir Maurin’sunderstanding of English has improved much.” Setting down the cloth she wasfolding, the handmaiden said wistfully, “He has been verra kind to me.”

Though the Norman knights and men-at-arms were making aneffort to learn the English tongue, mostly to speak to the young women and giveorders to the old thegn’s men, Serena recalled they spent evenings in the halldrinking Talisand’s ale and telling jokes in their own language. Her knowledgeof the Norman tongue had given her the ability to understand much of what theysaid. Many times she had grimaced at their ribald jokes and their slurs againstthe Saxons they had defeated in the south. Each night she tried to convinceherself it was England, not Normandy, she was living in.

“I have seen Sir Maurin smile at you, Cassie…would you marryone of them?”

Cassie looked off into the distance. “I might. I, too, wantbairns, m’lady. Sir Maurin is older than the others, ’tis true, and his faceshows signs of a hard life, but he is a man with a good heart. And though he isa knight, he does nay seem to mind I am not high born. Besides, there are nayany others at Talisand left that I would wed.”

“But there are many who would have you as wife, Cassie.”

With the death of many of Talisand’s young men at Hastings,her lovely handmaiden had fewer choices, though many who remained lusted afterthe redhead. That her father was the beefy blacksmith kept them at bay. Serenawanted to see her friend wed and happy. Raised together, they were more likesisters than lady and servant. She enjoyed Cassie’s honest bantering. Very muchher mother’s daughter, Cassie freely spoke her mind.

Serena stared at the dust motes in the sunlight pouring inthrough the open door while her hands worked independently to fold the dryingcloths. Her mind drifted to the past and to a time when a tall English guardwho worked for her father had captured her interest. For a while, they hadwalked the river bank together in the afternoons. He’d even stolen a kiss once.Oswine was killed at Hastings defending his thegn. Though it had been the loveof a young girl, it might have grown into more in time. Alas, she would neverknow.

She thought it was probably inevitable that some ofTalisand’s women would marry Normans. God knew there were widows enough. But ifshe were to accept the fate the Norman king had willed for her, it would be asign to all she had given up the fight for England and for Talisand. She shookher head and set her lips in a thin line. No, I will not do it.

“If ye willna have a Norman, m’lady, even the new lord, whatabout young Morcar? When he was still Earl of Northumbria, wasna he one of themen yer father was considering for yer hand? A most handsome and charming manto me memory.”

“Aye, Morcar is fair of face and charming, but he has only afew years more than me.” She was thinking of the Red Wolf who was older andmore virile than the younger Mercian, who she remembered with fondness. TheMercian had paid several visits to her father before he had gone to fightagainst the King of Norway but her father had not promised her hand to him.Morcar laughed easily and his people loved him, but she did not. Even if shehad wanted to wed him, could she do so when she had been given to the Normanlord? “And he lost his lands with the coming of the Normans.”