Isabella found herself wondering if they could make a child, the child she’d longed for and never had.
She snuggled into his arms and it was only when he moved slightly and winced that she remembered his injured leg.
“Alric, your leg!” she cried guiltily.
He gave a deep chuckle. “I beg you will not bind it too tightly, lady.”
She smiled, and then she laughed, and for a time she laughed and wept against him. When she was quiet again she felt as if she had been stripped of a burden, lighter and freer.
“I could not bear it if Freemantle took Godestone,” she whispered in the dawn light. “And I could not marry him.”
“He will not have either of you,” Alric said confidently. “If he tries, Isabella, I will kill him. I swear upon my life and my honour that he shall not have you.”
Isabella woke, yawning, to the sound of weapons clashing outside in the bailey. She had returned to her bed barely before the servants were rising, and slept deeply for an hour or two. Her body ached but the knowledge that it was Alric who had taken her so tenderly and passionately made the ache pleasurable and she smiled.
Alric, the husband she should have had, was here at Godestone. He would help her fight Freemantle, and together they would be victorious. To imagine anything else was impossible.
Rising she went to her window and peered out. Her men were training under Alric’s direction. She could see him in his chainmail, swinging his sword, ignoring his injured leg.
They practised for hours, and Isabella, who came down to the bailey to watch them, could see that her men were novices in comparison to Alric and his men. These were true warriors, trained to kill, and time and time again they showed up weaknesses in her garrison. And then they set about rectifying them.
If they were not ready for Freemantle when he came then it wouldn’t be Alric’s fault.
A murmuring among her men sharpened her gaze, and she watched as Simon, a giant of a man and her best swordsman, came forward. “We did well enough before you came here,” he growled. “You’re trying to show us up before Lady Isabella, strutting about like a cock in front of her. I know your game.”
Isabella was tempted to call a halt. Simon was loyal, but his words made her uneasy. Was that what all the men were thinking? She caught Alric’s glance and stopped herself. Almost as if she read his mind, she knew he would handle this better than her.
As the fight commenced though she found her loyalties torn—of course she wanted her man to win, didn’t she? But a small voice in her head reminded her it was not Simon she was hoping would find his way to her bed that night! Both men were skilful and it did seem a fairly even match but it wasn’t long before it became clear that Alric had been playing with his opponent. When he grew bored he quickly stepped in and had Simon on the ground with a sword at his throat. He looked over at Isabella and smiled and she admitted to herself that she was not sorry her man had lost. Simon took Alric’s outstretched hand and stood to his feet, looking bewildered but unhurt.
“We both fight for Lady Isabella,” Alric declared. “She is the lady of Godestone and always will be.”
The men gave a ragged cheer, and Isabella stepped forward and called for ale for them all, though she murmured to Hugo, not too much. The seneschal nodded and went to do her bidding, and if she noticed his backwards glance toward Alric and the strange expression on his face then it was soon forgotten in the preparations for Freemantle’s arrival.
***
They didn’t have long to wait after all. Freemantle came in the night, beating at the gates and shouting for entry. Isabella, lying in her bed with Alric’s arms about her, her body warm and tingling from their lovemaking, jumped up and ran to the window. Torches blazed along the road to Godestone, illuminating a large army. Behind her, Alric rested a hand on her shoulder, and she glanced up into his face.
He seemed calm and controlled, and if he had the same nervous flutter in his stomach as Isabella, then he wasn’t showing it.
“I will speak with him,” he said, “and he may go away.”
Isabella shook her head. Freemantle would not go away. “How far away are Stephen’s men, Alric?”
“A day. More. We cannot rely upon them, my love.”
Freemantle’s army, being denied entry, camped outside the castle. Isabella felt their menace, and wondered, like Alric, why they did not attack. They must have ladders and siege engines, what were they waiting for? But they found out that too, soon enough.
“Lady, this cur was trying to get outside the gates.”
Simon, her soldier, dragged the hapless Hugo before her where she sat on the dais in the great hall. The seneschal looked the worse for wear, his clothes torn, and he had a black eye.