She could still feel the warmth of his hand on the small of her back. After all these years and even in this cold place her body remembered the rough touch of his strong hands and she awoke breathing quickly with hard nipples.
When Una’s eyes adjusted to the close darkness in her cell, the warmth faded quickly. As jails go, this one wasn’t bad. A nun’s room in a quiet monastery. The room was stark. The sisters made sure she had clean bedding and they let her brothers’ wives bring food and water. Occasionally they even sneaked a bottle of the sweet red wine that Una liked under their skirts. On those nights she would sing her old eddas a little too loudly and the mother superior would put her soft, fat face into the door and shush her.
But Una couldn’t go out when she wanted, when she needed, to feel the wind on her face. And she hadn’t kissed the soft muzzles of her horses in so long.
Her eyes needed some light, but she couldn’t strike a candle for fear the monks across the cloister would see it flickering and stop their self-flagellation to rush over and try to find her having a drink with one of their horrible demons. So she closed her eyes and reached out to the stars in the moonless sky. She whispered an old chant:
Hail night and her daughter now!
Look on us here
with loving eyes.
It started small, almost imperceptible: a little lopsided glow twisting lazily through the darkness. Una repeated her chant and breathed on the shining weir. It grew to a small sphere of light that she held in her hand and placed beside her pillow as she lay down again.
Her grandmother had taught her do it when she was young and would wake up crying from bad dreams. Her baba never told her how it happened, Una wasn’t sure she knew the specific natural process that produced the cool blue light that sat on her pillow. But it always worked.
Una drifted back to sleep for a little longer. When the sisters called her to the inquisitor the glow was gone.
They walked her through the quiet cloister, all the nuns under a vow of silence. The candle of the nun leading them through the halls threw a meager light in front of them as they moved through the courtyard. Una wished that the sun had risen far enough for her to see what season she was in, but it was still dark.
In the inquisitor’s office, she stood against a cold, stone wall as he sat behind a table. He had not been particularly cruel to Una. She had heard stories of brutal questioners. But this was a Teutonic Knight. He had seen enough killing in his Holy Land that he was not fascinated by pain and blood. Occasionally, especially when she talked about Guillaume, he would soften, almost imperceptibly. She wondered if he had known Guillaume in their foolish crusade. On the rare times that she made him smile during her testimony, he made Una think of Guillaume.
“Are you a witch?” He started every interrogation this way.
“I practice certain crafts that my mother and grandmother taught me. They have been in this country longer than your rituals,” she answered.
“Have you had intercourse with Satan or one of his minions?”
“Ugh. Don’t be disgusting sir knight. From what I understand about your devils and demons, they would not make very appealing lovers.”
The inquisitor smiled slightly. “But doesn’t your kind gain power over people by intercourse with evil beings?”
“I’m not sure what you think ‘my kind’ is. But I don’t use my knowledge to gain power over people. My mother taught me to use these things to care for people and the forest and especially the horses. To use it for my own greed would betray what my ancestors left to me.”
“Have you never used your ‘knowledge’ for your own pleasure?”
“Well, have you never used your position in the church and the military for you own pleasure? I work very hard. I don’t think a little enjoyment is misusing my skills. Especially if the pleasure is mutual.”
The inquisitor blushed. Una wondered if it was as easy to make all old crusaders blush.
Her Guillaume never blushed easily.
——————–
She found him crying, expending his exhausted strength grieving over a dead horse. Bodies littered the area, the last few with crushed sculls and chests. The dead horse’s hooves and legs spattered with the remains.
The warrior had many wounds, the worst, an arrow in his thigh, still bleeding. She reached cautiously to tend it and he hardly noticed. He gave one more weak sob and passed out on his back. She tended him thoroughly. A couple of the other injured moaned.
“Una, help me.” One of them called to her but she ignored him. When she was younger, Una thought she was in love with this one. He was the first boy she made love to, and almost the last. He was so clumsy, and quick. She felt like someone was poking her with a pot handle.
They were bandits. Her village would be better off without them.
She tore her underskirts into strips for makeshift bandages and slowed the bleeding and ran to town to get her brothers and a wagon to bring Guillaume back. She worried that he might die before she got back to him or that more thieves might come. But everything seemed the same when she returned.
They loaded him, very carefully, into the wagon. He still breathed, but barely and had lost so much blood.
She cut the front lock from the horse’s mane and took most of the tail, bound them with twine and set them close enough to the warrior that he could smell them.
“Per,” she called to her oldest brother, “bury these others, but not too deeply. We’ll let the wolves consume this filth.”
“Una, they have family in the village.” Per tried to argue. Una just looked at him with her sea-green eyes and he did as she ordered. All the brothers knew not to argue.
They erected a funeral pyre for the horse, laid him on it and lit the flame. She chanted incantations for the honored dead as the fire turned him to air.
We have greatly fought.
Over the enemies we stand
that our blades have laid low.
Great our fame though we die
today or tomorrow.
None outlives the night.
Then they left, moving slowly to keep the warrior from bleeding more.
He was unconscious a long time. Una took his clothes off as gently as she could. He must have been caught completely off guard, his chain mail armor was still in his saddlebag and he only wore wool trousers and a dark linen tunic with a coat of arms that looked like a hawk with a crimson tail embroidered on the chest. The shirt was torn and bloody beyond repair, but Una would keep the embroidery.
The only place Guillaume didn’t have scars was where the thieves had just left wounds. He must have seen a lot of war. Una wondered how anyone could live through so many battles. She wasn’t sure that he would live through this one, but she would make sure he had a fighting chance.
She worked all through the first night, keeping her fire roaring and making sure his bleeding was minimized.
After a short nap the next day, she sent her brothers out for more firewood. They argued with her, warning that winter would come soon and if she used all her wood for the stranger, she would freeze to death. But they gathered more anyway. They knew their sister couldn’t be contradicted.
Despite her best efforts and the herbal salves and poultices, the fever came over him. She listened to him murmuring and shivering for a week. She tried to feed him pulverized lamb’s meat mixed with mead to strengthen his blood, but more often than not he just retched it back, making the wounds on his ribs bleed again. She finally just gave him watered down wine with honey to keep him hydrated.
And she sang to him. Like he was a child, she would sing lullabies and nursery rhymes until his fevered murmuring calmed.
I remember yet the giants of yore,
Who gave me bread in the days gone by;
Nine worlds I knew, the nine in the tree
With mighty roots beneath the mold…
Then he held the bundles of horse hair to his chest and repeated, “Barbaro, Barbaro”, until he fell quiet and slept.
On the morning before the day that the Christians went to Sabbath, his fever broke. He returned to consciousness just long enough to reach out his hand, touch her hair and say in his Breton accent, “You are very lovely, aren’t you? If I didn’t feel so bad, I would think I was in heaven with an angel.”
She wondered how many times he had used that line on innocent village girls.
For two more days, he mostly slept. She got him to eat and color started to return to his face. Despite his earlier flirting, his mood was low. When he awoke, he would just hold the bundles of horse hair and stare into space.
At the evening meal, on the second day after his fever broke, he asked her where his horse was.
“I gave him a warrior’s cremation,” she said. “I chanted the prayers for the valorous dead in our old way, because it was obvious from the battleground remains that your horse fought bravely. All of the bodies closest to you were killed by his hooves.”
“That wasn’t the first time he saved me in battle,” he said.
“He was a small horse for a knight,” she said, “how did you come to ride him?”
“He was a gift from a Muslim Caliph in the Holy Land.”
As he talked, he began to eat more. She just smiled as he went on and kept him in the gaze of her ocean-colored eyes and refilled his cup and plate as he emptied them. The story was conjuring as much healing magic as her herbs.
“I had protected his family from rogue crusaders. After the truce was signed, the regular armies left the Holy Land, went back to their homes and families. Too many of us don’t have that, though. I have no family. Guillaume isn’t even my given name. The French speaking English nobleman who bought me from my family in Brittany called me Guillaume. I don’t know remember what my real name is.
“We were newly unattached mercenaries who just drifted around the Holy Land, hiring out our services to whomever needed a strong sword for a while. Some formed gangs and preyed in travelers. I never could abide that sort of scavenging. I came on a bunch of highwaymen ambushing a Saracen family on a lonely stretch of road in the mountains of Lebanon.
“My Christian brothers were not happy when I took the head of their leader and tossed it into a dung heap at the side of the road. They shot my poor horse out from under me with their arrows, but they were sloppy warriors and I wasn’t long in sending the rest of them to the pile of shit with their captain.
“The Caliph gave me Barbaro from his own stables in gratitude. He was actually the largest horse in the stable. The infidels ride lightly armored on small mounts and are incredibly fast. They almost always outmaneuvered us, which is the reason we never really won back the Holy Lands.
“I loved Barbaro instantly, and he cared for me from the beginning.”
She grabbed the cup from his hand before he spilled it over himself and the bed as he dropped back to sleep.
She poured herself a cup of hot cider still boiling from the hearth and walked out of the late afternoon stuffiness of the hut. A cool, damp wind moved the oak and elder leaves.
Una looked back at her little house. Rough timber and wattle with a thatch roof. The smoke drew well out of the center. Her father had it built for her mother, even over the protests of his wife. Her half brothers always made sure it was in good repair and well stocked.
Autumn lay near, the green leaves barely hiding the riot of color to come. She bent and rested her arms on the rough wooden table, cradled the warm cup in her hands and squinted slightly, trying to focus on the coming months.
But the present walked back to her along the path to her house.
“Una, you have to send the stranger away,” he was upset. He had just come from the village square.
“He couldn’t move right now if I wanted to get rid of him, and I don’t,” she answered without moving her gaze.
“One of the bandits lived long enough to get back to his family and tell them about the fight and about you tending to the stranger and ignoring the rest of them. Half the town lost kin to this man.”
“This man was defending himself against trash. He was the only one worth saving.”
“Una, they will come after you.”
“Then they will meet the thunderstorm. You know this, Per.”
He just looked at his shoes.
“You and your family and all the others can come out here with me if you need protection. You know that.” She held his chin in her warm hand.
He smiled, “That’s alright. You are only the witch, half-sister. No one holds you against us.”
Una laughed, kissed his forehead and pinched his ass.
“Hug my nieces and nephews for me fungus-brains. You also know that I love you all.”
“Do you want help with the horses?” he asked.
“Not right now. But I may call on you during foaling season.”
He waved to her as he walked into the forest. She watched the trees swallow him into their wall and then walked the old path back to the stables. She hummed an old song as she came into the clearing built over with structures for the horses. They already waited for her at the wooden fence and nickered softly as she rubbed their noses.
Una fed and fretted over the horses who followed her like pet dogs. She walked back to the supply room and rummaged among the training tack for a few minutes, then pulled out a scabbard and sword. It was light weight with a thin double-edged blade and a small antler handle made for a woman’s hand.
She hadn’t used it for a long time. It needed sharpening and polishing and she needed practice. But Una knew she had time. The angry families would come, but they had to find courage first.
That would give her a few days.
A week later they did come.
They were up past their children’s bedtimes, the smell of the local beer preceding their arrival. Una didn’t want to hurt any of them, most had worked in the stables at one time or another and she had brought their babies through fevers when the priest’s rosaries had failed.
“What is that racket?” Guillaume asked. He tried to stand, but she made him know that he would stay where he was.
“But I can help you” he argued.
“And you’ll tear open that thigh wound again,” she said. “You’re going to pay for your care with hard work as soon as you’re fit, and I don’t want any delays. I can handle these folk.”
Una reached behind a table at the front of the house, brought out the sword and smoothly unsheathed it. The blade was newly sharpened, polished and oiled. It hissed softly coming out of the scabbard. Guillaume watched her feel it’s weight in her hand and take a few deft practice flourishes.
She checked the lock on the front door then placed the sword and scabbard on the central table. The knight watched her close her eyes and breathe deeply.
Then, to Guillaume’s surprise, Una began to undress as she sang softly. He started to say something, to remind her that he was awake and in the room, but she held a hand up and he just watched as she took off all her clothes.
She took the sword in her right hand, the scabbard in her left and stood in front of hearth-fire, stock still as she sang softly to herself.
The knight watched, mostly in terror, as her soft, desirable flesh, glowing golden in the fire light, began to harden and the muscles of her back and legs took on hard, definite lines, the corn silk colored hair stood out around her head. She turned the color of tempered iron before his eyes.
He heard them try to open the locked door and she turned to meet them. As the latch gave way and drunk angry men began to spill into the small house, she shrieked. That sound stopped them all for a long instant, then a burly bearded man found some courage and raised his shovel against her. She made an almost imperceptible movement of her sword arm and the first joint of the littlest finger of the man’s weapon hand fell to the floor and blood spattered across her face.
All watched as she licked a bit from her upper lip, seemed to relish the taste and crouched to spring on the rest of them.
They ran over the ones behind them getting out the door. Una waited for them to get halfway across the garden and sprinted after them, screaming like a banshee.
The knight heard the sounds of a panicked retreat fade into the forest and for a few moments he heard silence. She walked back in, still naked, recovering the soft, golden lines of her untransformed body. She laughed quietly as she wrapped a blanket loosely around her.
“We won’t have that kind of trouble again for awhile,” she said as she poured a cup of the local sweet red wine for herself and one for Guillaume. She still had blood on her cheek.
Guillaume just looked at her with an open-mouthed stare as she gulped down her cup and filled it again.
“What’s wrong with you?” she asked. “I think you’ve seen more than one naked woman in your life.”
“ Many more,” he said, “but none transformed into a shrieking weapon of war before my eyes, until now.”
“Oh. That’s a trick the old ones taught us a long time ago. What a man most desires is also what he most fears. So we fight naked.
“When our people first came to the area from the countries to the north and west, there were already tribes living in the area. We fought and defeated all we met, but one group came to us to make peace.
“We didn’t make peace easily most of the time. But I think we were tired. My grandmother told me stories of conquering one tribe, starting to settle down only to have to mount a campaign against another before the crops had ripened.
“In those days, our men did the fighting and planting. Women died in childbirth.
“But the people we made peace with taught us to do things differently. Their men went to war when the snow melted. The women planted and tended the animals, especially the horses. And they defended the villages.”
Guillaume raised an eyebrow, “The women defended?”
“Yes, and very well,” she said. “They were trained along with the boys from the time that they could hold a small blade. They were called the Sword Maidens.”
Una drank her cup of sweet wine and poured another.
“I’m the last one,” she said. She smiled, but her eyes were filled with tears.
“I wouldn’t be here, but that my mother initiated an affair with one of the village’s bright young men. If it had happened now, they both would be tortured and burned by the holy church. But my mother knew the old one’s ways with the horses, which is how we make our fortunes here. So she was spared. And father married a proper woman and raised proper children and bought his way into Rome’s kingdom of heaven.”
Guillaume sipped his sweet wine and wondered what kind of being he owed his life to.
She drank down her cup of wine and bustled up, smearing tears across her face.
“Let me look at that thigh,” she said abruptly. Guillaume lurched to hold the blankets down, but too late. She tossed them aside as quickly as she had removed the drunk’s finger.
“Oh,” she said. “I guess I should give you a little time to sheath your own sword.”
Una covered him up and smiled.
“I’ll take some liniment to the wife of the oaf. She’s a friend of my mother. We’ve both tended her for his treatment for years.”
Guillaume got stronger. The winter came in softly and covered Una’s gardens in a blanket of snow. She put him to work clearing paths and gathering firewood. His leg was stiff but once the tissue firmed under Una’s care he had little trouble moving.
The villagers gave her no more trouble and her brothers made sure she had enough meat and helped with the horses.
She wouldn’t let Guillaume around the stables for a long time. Una told him that she didn’t like strangers around the horses, so he respected her wishes. But he was very curious about them. They seemed to be the still point around which the whole area turned.
“I can’t stay here, you know,” he said. “I’m wanted by one of the lords of Poland.” They were having a cup of hot cider after supper one cold evening.
“I could protect you,” she said.
“I don’t doubt you can. But I need to settle this. I don’t like running.”
“Guillaume, tell me the last thing you remember before they took you from your home.”
Una took his hand in one of hers and sprinkled something in the lantern flame that sparked and popped for a moment. It smelled odd, sweet but with almost a sour tinge. Then she locked him the gaze of her ocean-green eyes.
“I was 12 or 13, the middle child. My father was a farmer, but the harvest had been bad for several years so he tried to make up for it by fishing. We weren’t that far from the sea.
“I awoke one morning from a dream and was drawing the bird that I had seen…
“What are you doing there, boy?”
“I’m drawing something I saw in a dream, Da. I’ll be finished soon and out to the boats before you leave.”
“I swear, kid, I don’t know what to do with you.” The old man slapped the boy on the back of the head hard, but not hard enough to do any damage. “You spend so much time in dreams and drawings and stories you’ll never learn to get along in life. Get up and get to the boats before I have to hit you for real.”
The boy put his drawing away and pulled on his shoes. The walk to the pier was windy, a storm brewed to the northwest over the channel.
“Corentin!” his older brother yelled at him from the bow of a fishing skiff.
Guillaume flinched. He wasn’t sure if he had dreamed the memory or just visualized it so vividly while he told it to Una that he seemed to live it again. But he had his name back.
“Do you want me to call you by your given name?” Una said.
“No. Not yet. That was so long ago, and I am so different now.”
Not long after, the weather turned warmer. It was still winter, but the snow melted to a thin jacket and everyone came out of their huts to stretch their legs and breathe some clean air.
Una had put Guillaume to work gathering more firewood. When he returned with a load, she stood at her table and called him to follow her. She took him down the path to the stable that had been forbidden him.
The sweet smell of hay and grain grew stronger and blended with the musty odor of horse manure. Guillaume loved these smells and realized how much he had missed them since he lost Barbaro.
The thought of Barbaro filled his eyes with tears again. He bit back sobs as the path passed through forest dense enough that almost no snow was gathered.
Una took his hand. She could hear his broken breathing as he struggled to keep his composure. When they broke out of the forest into the large clearing where the stables were, the sunlight off the snowfield blinded them both for an instant. Guillaume’s eyes adjusted and opened onto a vision of early foals capering across a sparkling meadow, horse-laughing as they tested their long legs. His tears spilled out then, as did laughter. Una laughed too and the horses, all of them, answered her.
She walked into the pen and all the horses crowded around her. She treated the powerful animals like children, clucking at them, huffing to them and slapping them softly on their faces. They acted like children as they jockeyed for position next to her and nipped one another.
“Come up close to the fence, Guillaume. I have someone I want to introduce you to.”
Guillaume composed himself and started to open the gate to join her.
“No, no,” she yelled, “don’t come in! They’ll think you are threatening me and trample you to death. Just walk up closely to the fence.”
He did as she said and Una grabbed one bay stallion by the ear and slapped the other horses away. He followed her to where Guillaume stood.
“OK, put your head through the fence and gently breathe into his nostril.”
Guillaume followed her instructions and the horse promptly smashed him in the brow with his own forehead.
“Shit” Guillaume yelled and put his hand to his head. “Oh, that hurts,” he whined.
Una laughed.
“You have scars all over your body from battle and you complain about a little head butt?”
“Why do you think I wear a helmet?” he said. “I hate being hit in the face.”
“Well, Stormfront has greeted you as he would an equal,” she laughed. “He is yours. I thought he would like you.”
Guillaume watched the stud stalk and prance around the pen, making the other horses aware of his position. He was the smallest adult in the remuda, but he commanded deference even from the dominant stallion.
“Tonight, I will check your thigh wound and if it is strong enough, we’ll start training you with Stormfront tomorrow,” she said.
Guillaume still felt shooting pains in his thigh as he walked, but he had felt pain before and stood his ground on the battlefield. Una felt around the wound and poked it like she was testing a pudding. But he just smiled and got a little horny.
He knew he would ride again in the morning. He hadn’t been on a horse since he lost Barbaro. He could hardly sleep thinking about being in the saddle again. All night he would try to regulate his breath and start to fall unconscious, only to jerk alert again. Una snored softly a few feet away. Her nearness didn’t help his restlessness much. He could smell her sweet cinnamon scent.
Finally, just before sunrise, he drifted into a fitful unconsciousness only to be awakened
by Una trying to silently bang pans around the fireplace for breakfast.
“Are you sure you can handle a horse today?” Una said as she ate an egg whole. “You look like Hell.”
“If I don’t ride today, I will kill you,” he said, a ghost of smile on his face.
“You might try,” she taunted back, “but I think you are ready.”
He was surprised when Una wouldn’t let him use a saddle on the smallish bay she called Stormfront.
“You need to get a feel for how he moves, she said, “especially since you rode Barbaro so long. He’s smaller than my other babies, but he’s bigger than your friend was. He will move differently.”
She was right. Feeling the horse’s gaits without interference of the saddle made a more confident relationship between horse and rider. Soon they were charging through the spring meadow in full battle gear, Guillaume guiding the stud’s direction with the least pressure of his legs and movement of his head.
“I have hoped you two would take to one another,” Una said. She was in a blue dress standing in the middle of a meadow glowing with yellow and gold wildflowers. Guillaume walked the horse in light chainmail to the barefoot woman who grabbed the ear of the warhorse and kissed his soft muzzle.
“Stormfront is the future,” she said. “He’s small and quick, agile and strong. I had to make sure I had a couple of foals that mirror his confirmation before I could let you have him.”
She pointed to the next pasture where a bay colt, a miniature image of Stormfront and a palomino filly danced for joy of speed and movement.
“You are the perfect rider for such a horse, since you spent so much time on your Barbaro. The lords of Poland will all want our stock when you and Stormfront turn back the Mongol hordes.”
“I don’t think I can ever leave this place, lady Una,” Guillaume said. I don’t think I can leave you.”
Una smiled and even blushed a little.
“Don’t call me lady, Guillaume. I work too hard for that title.”
“I have lived among princes and caliphs and high priests, Una. And you are the finest person I ever known,” he said.
She ignored him, “You will have to leave soon. My brothers said bounty hunters were asking after you in the next village. Unless you’ve changed your mind about my protection, you’ll need to go after the festival of the Spring Full Moon.”
They led the horse toward the stables. Both had a hand on the reins as they walked through the meadow. Stormfront tossed his head and their hands came together. He shied away from the sudden flush of a covey of quail. Una and Guillaume stumbled into one another’s arms. He held onto her a moment and then leaned down to kiss her.
All the time that he had spent in her small house, he hadn’t kissed Una, but he wanted to from the moment his fever broke and his consciousness returned. He kissed her softly on the mouth and felt like it was the first kiss of his life.
Una let him put his arms around her and felt his lips warm on hers. She started to relax against his body and then tensed, drew back, her hands pushing against the chain mail on his chest.
“I’m sorry, lady,” Guillaume said. “I don’t know what came over me. I didn’t mean to dishonor you.”
“No Guillaume, don’t be ashamed. I’m just a little startled. And it’s not a good time for such things.”
She walked looking down at her feet, arms crossed over her chest. She smiled to herself.
“You have done me no dishonor, trust me. And stop calling me lady. I’ve already told you about that,” she said laughing.
Guillaume spent the whole afternoon of the day before the Festival of the Spring Full Moon training with Stormfront. After he brushed down the horse and gave him a little sweet-feed as a reward for a good ride, he went down to a secluded bend of the river, dropped his clothes by the bank and let the cool current carry the grime from his skin.
He lay back in a shallow and watched the clouds chase the light wind across the deepening blue of the sky. Guillaume wondered if he had been happier. He wondered if he could ever be happier.
When he left the water, he just wrapped his light tunic around his waist and walked back to Una’s hut. He didn’t worry about her seeing him mostly undressed. She had kept him naked for weeks while she treated his wounds. Modesty now would be insulting.
She wasn’t at home when he got there. But a new set of clothes was laid out for him. The pants were ordinary enough, good strong wool trousers, but clean and new. The tunic was something special, though. Linen, cream colored and well sewn. Embroidered on the chest was his coat of arms, the red-tailed hawk that he had seen in his dream so many years ago in the upper left diagonal. In the lower right, a golden owl, something new. Guillaume wondered what it meant. As he slipped it over his head, he could smell Una’s scent on the fabric.
To have been in the area since the fall season, Guillaume knew very few of the villagers. This was the first time he had been in the village itself. He talked to a couple of Una’s brothers for a few minutes, smiled at the plump wife of the man whose finger Una had cut off. She had a bruise across her cheek; her husband’s hand must have healed.
He settled on a bench with a view of the square and sipped a big mug of the strong mead and scanned the area for Una’s appearance.
She walked into the other side of town when the sun threw its last rays across the square, red and golden and purple. She walked casually, a tall woman with long strides, her saffron yellow dress flowed around her like a waterfall reflecting the sunset.
Guillaume stood and she saw him. The smile that spread across her face made his heart jump into his throat. She walked the rest of the way across the square and said, “Your new clothes are very nice on you.”
“They feel wonderful, thank you,” he answered.
He offered her his arm, which she took and they began to walk around the town talking. Nothing profound, just small things to keep the sound of one another’s voices filling the air. Darkness crept across the sky, but the torches and lamps fought it back. A bonfire flared across the middle of the town and music played.
Guillaume watched her dance with other women and laughed as she made faces at him. The music changed and she took him by the hand and they swung at the perimeter of the firelight alternating darkness and light, darkness and light.
She kissed him. In front of the whole town, she kissed him and then took his hand and led him to the shadows.
Guillaume wanted her immediately. He had taken others and now, slightly drunk on the mead, he started to press his advantage in strength. Una stopped him. With one slender hand to his throat, she stopped him, overpowered him and then she kissed him hard on the mouth, bit his lower lip, drawing blood.
She led him through the dark forest to the stables. In the clearing where the horses rested, she dropped her saffron colored dress and leaned against the rough wooden fence, her smooth body glowing silver in the light of the Spring Full Moon.
Guillaume was out of his clothes in a flash. He took her against the fence, the horses agitating in the corral. He would have made quick work of his conquest, but Una held him tightly around his waist and he felt his feet leave the ground. When he opened his eyes, he was hovering over the stables, Una holding him fast, the horses capering and laughing below them.
“Don’t be afraid husband,” she whispered into his ear.
That was easier said than done under the circumstances. Suddenly they soared over the river that he had just bathed in, now a thin silver thread in the moonlight. They followed it to a lake on a mountain and the speed finally stopped.
Una and Guillaume hovered over the moon bright water for a few moments, turning slowly in the air. He saw the face of the full moon reflected in the still lake then saw the moon itself as he rolled with Una above the surface of the beautiful earth. He wondered for an instant what someone on the ground might think if he saw them, naked, in a lover’s embrace, hanging above the lake.
Then they began to climb the sky. He lost himself in speed. He lost himself in motion. He lost himself in the rich smell of her golden hair. He lost himself in Una.
They awoke in the cool of the morning on the horses’ clean hay under the animals’ rough wool blankets. They made love again. More earthbound this time, but no less pleasurable.
For the next several days, they lived as a honeymooning couple. Interrupting their love-making only to feed themselves and the horses. One evening Guillaume asked her to go to a priest with him to be married.
“Guillaume, I have been married to you since I found you in the forest covered in blood and crying for your horse. I don’t need a ceremony,” she said. They made love again.
In the morning he awoke alone for the first time since the full moon. He wrapped a blanket around himself and walked to open front door.
Una was talking to her brother. Per waved to Guillaume, hugged his half-sister and walked back into the forest. She watched him disappear into the trees and wiped tears from her eyes. She took Guillaume’s cock in her hand and then made love to him in the doorway.
“Per said that the bounty hunters are in the village. You have to leave now,” she said breathlessly.
They hurried to gather his things. He slipped the new tunic over his chest. As they trotted to the stables, he asked what the owl meant on the new crest.
“That is my familiar,” she said. “He tells me what goes on in the forest.”
“Is that how you found me?” he asked as they saddled Stormfront.
“No. Barbaro called me to you.”
“Barbaro? How…?”
“I am the Horse Witch, husband. They all talk to me.”
“I will come back,” he said after he kissed her a last time and mounted the horse.
“And I will be waiting for you.”
She turned to tend the rest of the horses as he started away. She heard him stop and turn the horse around to look back, but she didn’t turn to him. She knew he would come back.
As Stormfront’s hoof beats grew fainter Una wiped tears from her face. She put a hand to her stomach and felt the stirring in her womb. By the time Guillaume returned they would have a new foal to train.
She grabbed the bay colt by the ear and kissed his soft muzzle.
——————————–
Back in her cell, Una felt restless. She didn’t do well shut inside so much. And her horses worried her. Per could take good care of them, she knew that. But would they let him? The town’s magistrates and the new abbot of the monastery had tried to get control of the horses for years. Especially since Una had brought the Mongol stock back and produced the new, fast breed that all the nobles in the surrounding countries wanted for their petty land-grab wars.
Una was not silly about the horses. She knew that they provided the means for her whole area to prosper. But they were never just a commodity for her either. They were as much her children as her own son.
Eric would say Una cared for the animals more. But then he would smile, and Una would see Guillaume in his expression.
——————————
Una sat on the palomino mare, staring over the never still surface of the lake spread out below her. The reflection of the last sliver of the moon shimmered weakly in the water. The stars competed for attention.
She couldn’t sleep, hadn’t slept in nights. When she did manage to doze, always the same dream. Stormfront, the horse she had given Guillaume, his ears moving rapidly, his eyes searching all around him, the anxious neigh. They were in trouble at the war and Stormfront called her to help.
Almost from the moment she had regained her strength after the difficult birth, Una had bad signs about the father of her son. He had been gone so long now, running before the bounty hunters sent out after him by the lord who had employed Guillaume’s warrior skills.
That seemed so long ago. Though she could still taste his blood on her tongue from the bite she gave his lip the first night they made love. Then he had to leave and her belly grew with their baby. The pregnancy was easy. She didn’t even have morning sickness. But her delivery was late. Eric should have been born in late winter, but the trees were already budding when the pains started.
And they went on and on until Una thought she would die before he came. The wives of her brothers chided her at first. Scolding her for being such a complainer. But even they began to worry. Then the baby arrived feet first, as though he was trying to climb back into her warm womb. She could feel herself tearing. But the sisters worked like field-hands to bring the boy into the world and to keep Una in it. Even the young one who was so pious. Una thought this one would welcome her death. But Eva prayed while she bustled around, helping these in-laws stop the bleeding of this strange half-sister of her husband.
They laid the squalling baby on Una’s chest. He was beautiful, a big wriggling lizard with a head full of black hair like his father’s and green eyes, even just after birth, the color of the ocean, like hers.
She wanted to nurse him. She had felt his tongue on her breast for weeks before the birth. But her vision started to dim. The dark tunnel began to grow larger and the circle of light in which she could see her brothers’ wives began to diminish.
“Someone take Eric,” she yelled. The newest wife plucked him from the edge of the bed just as Una lost consciousness.
For an instant, she couldn’t see anything and only heard what sounded like wind rushing around her ears. Then she heard a rhythm like the cantering hoof beats of her golden mare, Argent.
When light returned to her sight, she seemed to be hovering at the top of her hut’s ceiling. She could see herself on the bed slick with her own blood. Per’s wife, the oldest of them and the best with a needle and thread was sweating over her vagina trying to sew up the tear and stop the bleeding.
Eva was nursing her Eric. She was trying to wean here own child, a beautiful little girl with blond curls. Her breasts ached with the surplus of milk, so Eric’s hunger must have felt wonderful.
All of these good Christian women… women that Una thought would wish her gone to remove the pagan stain from their husbands’ family. They all strove to keep her alive, praying to their severe God all the while.
Maybe they chided that God, scolding him for trying to take a mother from her son.
Una watched herself growing colder and flatten on the bed where she tended Guillaume for so many months. She realized that women were sisters if they allowed themselves to be. They fought for one another even against their own gods. Una loved them all.
Then she heard Stormfront scream. She knew it was Guillaume’s horse because of the resonance in his voice, almost like a growl. The wind rushed by her ears again very hard and she saw the bay stallion with the blazed face looking at her. They were in an army bivouac. He was agitated, ears fidgeting. He nodded his head and Una could see Guillaume sleeping peacefully on a pallet nearby.
The old warrior was beautiful to her. His dark, silver-streaked hair spread out on the rolled up saddle blanket he used for a pillow. It was a warm night and he had kicked the blanket off. She could see the scar on his thigh from the arrow wound she had tended for so long.
She wanted to lie down next to him and breathe his sharp breath again.
Stormfront grunted at her. His eyes were wide, ringed red and white. He was upset. Something was wrong despite this peaceful scene.
She heard the wind again and for a while saw darkness. Then she awoke in great pain, groaning. Per’s plump wife was pouring warm tears over Una’s cold hand.
“Thank the saints,” Agnes cried and the sisters began to laugh. Even Una chuckled through her agony.
They tended her all through the spring and into the summer, along with several of the other women of the village. All of them scolded Una for being such an uncooperative patient. Agnes was especially insistent.
“You and your mother, bless her memory, have seen everyone in this area through fevers and accidents. Now it’s your turn to take a little care.”
“But who will see to training the horses?” Una said.
“Per has been working at your feet with those animals since he could walk. You know he can take care of them.”
She was right of course. But Una didn’t like to be fussed over and cooped up in the house. Besides she wanted to play with her pretty baby boy.
Young Eva proved a wonderful nurse and nanny for Eric. At her breast he grew strong and healthy. She was kind as well. She brought him to Una everyday and often would spend nights in her house, rising to feed the boy. Eva said that he seemed more comfortable in Una’s house.
The oldest of the priests became a frequent visitor. He surprised Una. She had always thought he disapproved of her. The younger priests certainly did. They would raise their ornate crosses and turn their soft faces away when she met them in the village.
She asked him straight out one warm day in late spring, “Why do you come to the house of the region’s most notorious witch and spend so much time with me?”
He smiled a little bitterly.
“I’ve watched you and your mother before you all my time in this village. I’ve never seen two women treat more people with more love and care… and for so little in return.”
He took her strong slender hand in his large soft one.
“I think you act more like my lord Jesus than most of the people who claim to follow him,” he said.
Una was completely abashed by such a statement.
“I like your Jesus,” she said. “I have heard his stories and I think he is as wonderful as people say. But I don’t like your church.”
The old priest smiled again, the bitterness pulling at the edges of his mouth and eyes.
“I’m afraid it’s only going to get worse,” he said.
—————————-
Stormfront came to her in her dreams more often as she grew stronger. Una knew that Guillaume was in trouble.
She had to go to him as soon as she was strong enough.
This night, almost moonless, was the first she spent without Eric. She felt like someone had cut a piece from her side. Eva would care for him fine, she had already become as much a mother to him as Una. But she couldn’t stop missing him and she couldn’t put off this dangerous trip any longer. Her dreams of Stormfront and Guillaume had gotten more urgent and her owl had returned upset. The war must have gone badly for Guillaume.
So now she traveled by night, following her owl, the familiar that kept her informed of so many things and she trusted the instincts of this gold-colored horse to carry her to her husband.
When she rode to the other side of the lake, she would be farther from home than she had ever been in her life.
He hacked his sword halfway through the thigh of the oncoming soldier who stumbled and received the full impact of Stormfront’s hooves on his head, which cracked like a ripe melon.
Guillaume, on foot, retreated several steps to catch his breath and his riderless horse followed him. Most of the good fighters that might come against him were redeployed to heavier action. But he was exhausted, and there were just so many. His commanders had forced the rest of his company to abandon him. He shouldn’t have argued with the lord’s son.
Guillaume leaned against the stallion’s withers. He thought he could smell Una’s hair in the horse’s mane. Funny what tricks memory plays when you’re about to die. The enemy soldiers regrouped. He tried to lift his sword. It was like a block of lead and his hands were numb from the impact shocks.
Maybe he could take one or two more to Hell with him.
Still the memory played tricks. To his left, he thought he could hear the same war call Una had given the night some of the drunken villagers came to drag him out of her house. He smiled; what a sight she was. A good memory to die on, Una naked, calmly chasing grown men panicking from her house.
He looked to his left to see what was really making the noise.
She tore the last shred of clothing from herself, her body already that iron color it takes when she fights. The gold mare charged in a dead straight line, directly for his position, ears laid back and nostrils wide open.
Una rode without a saddle. She had her antler-handled sword in her right hand and the hardwood scabbard in the other. The mare was so well-trained that the single rein was loose on the crest of her neck. That was a hallmark of Una’s training. Guillaume could ride Stormfront the same way.
She bore down on the enemy line with a constant scream. They stood, anchored to the ground, no idea how to react to this noisy, naked apparition rushing toward them.
They were already too late.
Una leaned far forward as she contacted the battle-line. She made a double movement of her sword arm. One head fell to the ground, the body of another twisted and dropped. She shifted to the other side of the horse and repeated the strikes.
As her golden horse drove at full gallop to the spot where Guillaume stood, bodies fell like wheat stalks to a scythe. Crimson fountains sprang up and dropped, then new ones sprang up closer. The soldiers of the Golden Horde had no time to panic. This screaming, deadly shape dropped to Guillaume’s side before they could react.
For a moment, the battlefield fell quiet. Una turned to Guillaume, his mouth open, staring. She threw her scabbard arm around his neck and kissed him hard on the mouth. She bit his lower lip, drawing blood. She stepped back, licked her lips. Guillaume’s cock hardened instantly under his chain mail. They looked around themselves, the horses standing at their sides.
The four of them screamed in the face of the infantry of the Golden Horde and began to strike them down where they stood.
Even berserkers get tired though.
The infantry had to walk on top of the bodies of their brothers to advance, but they kept coming. Una and Guillaume retreated until their backs were against the forest. They smiled at one another between sword thrusts and both seemed resigned.
Una thought, “At least Eric will have a good home with Eva.”
Then the infantry left.
Guillaume and Una stood on top of the dead at the edge of the trees, the horses tiredly stamping body parts into the mud.
All at once they realized they were still alive. Una pushed Guillaume into the wall of the forest. She tripped him onto his back and pulled his cock out his trousers and sat down on top of him. For an old warrior, he could keep it up a long time.
But neither of them needed much endurance. She came on top of him quickly, her blood-lust transformed body convulsing hard against his shaft. As soon as her organism relaxed around him, Guillaume ejaculated so strongly he thought Una might explode into a sticky cloud.
They both screamed. Then they both laughed.
“Guillaume!” a voice from the edge of the forest startled them.
“Give me you chain tunic, husband,” Una commanded.
He complied.
“Guillaume!” the voice was louder.
“I’m here Gustave,” Guillaume yelled.
A thickset man with a red beard rushed to where they stood, both still dripping from killing and sex. Guillaume’s chain mail made a fairly modest dress for Una.
“My friend” Gustave yelled and hugged Guillaume roughly. “You’re still alive after all that?”
Guillaume turned him to Una and said, “Gustave, meet my salvation… Una, meet the sorriest horseman and the best friend a man could have.”
“Lady,” Gustave said to Una, “I saw you flying down that cliff’s face on your golden horse. I thought the heat had overcome me until I saw you mowing down the soldiers with your blade.”
“Husband,” Una said, looking sternly at Gustave. “Why do all you old crusaders persist in calling all women ‘lady’”?
“It’s part of our training, Una,” he laughed.
“Husband?” Gustave said. “That explains why you hardly ever went to the taverns with me after you came back. And why you only drank when you did. I was beginning to think that scar on your thigh went deeper than I could see.”
“Una nursed me back to health, gave me that wonderful horse and made me her husband. Now she cuts down armies to keep me alive. The least I can do is keep my cock in my trousers when we’re apart.”
Gustave laughed. “Let me see that sword of yours, please Una. My grandmother told me stories of women warriors who were expert with a slender, two-edged sword. She called them the sword maidens and said they disappeared into the forests when the Church moved to north.”
“There is one left,” Guillaume said and he kissed Una. “Gustave’s father is a master smith. He made the most coveted swords among the crusaders.”
“That’s how I came to be a cavalryman,” Gustave said. “Father traded for my commission. As bad as I am on a horse, I couldn’t earn it.”
Suddenly Mongols surrounded them. The three of them jumped to battle readiness, but the leader held his hand up and indicated truce. Guillaume sheathed his blade. Una and Gustave followed his lead.
The Mongol captain led them out of the trees and started across the battlefield. It was quiet of the clash now. Only the groans of the dieing and the laughs of the spoils gatherers. Una caught up the reins of Argent and Stormfront. A foot soldier tried to stop her but he received the mark of her fingernails. The captain called him off before he took her head with his sword. The captain coaxed the reins from her hand and gave them to a squire. Una stayed close to the horses, holding the squire in her gaze every step.
They walked all the way across the battlefield to the camp of the Mongols and then were led into the biggest tent.
The general was still cleaning the blood off himself. He was shirtless and wet, showing a strong, mature upper body, scarred by so much war.
He ignored them as he finished his rinse and slipped into a blue silk tunic. His attendant gave him a large mug. The general emptied it in almost desperate shallows, the excess washing down the sides of his mouth and onto his shirtfront. He wiped his mouth on his shoulder and greeted the three guests with a nod. He spoke in several languages until Guillaume could respond.
“We await you’re discretion,” Guillaume said. He translated to Una and Gustave as best as he could.
“Crusader,” the general said to Guillaume. “We have a belief in our country that what we do and how we act in this life will affect how we live when we are reborn. Do you understand such things?”
“I have heard such ways,” Guillaume said. “My grandmother followed old Druid traditions and they are alike.”
“Good, then maybe you will understand why I want to let you live. Through many wars I have gathered much bad karma. I try to balance that with enough good action to ease my next life a little. I have never seen such courage as you, your fierce woman, the fighting horses and even your fat friend have shown.”
“Thank you, my general,” Guillaume said. “But we will not beg for our lives.”
“You don’t have to. All I ask is that you quit the battlefield.”
“My general, I have no love for those I serve. But if I don’t fight for them they will chase me until I’m dead, and hurt the one’s I love. Please let these two go, but I have to stay in this war.” Guillaume looked at Una.
“Don’t bother yourself with that. The head of this lord’s son is already decorating the south entrance of this camp,” the general said. “His father will hang at the north gate tomorrow.”
“Then we will leave straight away and pray for your good karma.”
The general and guard escorted the three of them toward the edge of the camp. Una saw a horse tethered under a canopy and walked to get a closer look. Guards blocked her and started to push her around.
The general stepped in to stop the trouble and asked Guillaume, “What is this woman doing?”
“She is in charge of the horses in her village and is very curious about new breeds and breeding practices. She just wanted a closer look at this handsome stallion.”
“This is my mount. He is bred from a long line of war horses. We guard him with the same care that is shown a prince.”
Guillaume explained to Una what the general told him.
“I certainly didn’t mean to upset them,” she said, “but can you imagine what breeding this horse to my mares would produce? The foals would fly they would be so fast. Ask him if he would trade this horse for more good karma.”
“Una! We just killed and maimed an entire company of this man’s infantry. Do you really think he will give us more than our lives?”
“Just ask him Guillaume.”
He shook his head and turned to the officer. “My general, this lady wants to know if you will make a gift of this magnificent stallion.”
The general asked him to repeat the statement. Then he laughed. “I guess a woman who will charge down a cliff-face with no saddle on her mount, naked, into the teeth of an army will presume most anything. She can’t have this horse,” he said. “But I have a full son to him in my string who isn’t battle trained yet. I’ll have him brought to you along with your own mounts and weapons. Maybe I’ll visit you in a few years and look at your stock, we may work out a trade.”
Guillaume let himself breathe again. When he told Una the deal, she smiled and nodded at the general.
He walked through the camp with the escort. Such camps had been his home since his family sold him as a young boy into apprenticeship with an English lord passing through Brittany on his way to a crusade. He had long since grown deaf to the screams coming from the surgeon’s tent. The smell of men in close quarters with horses and livestock had long ago stopped offending his nose.
But now it all washed over him in a wave, his stomach turned over and he had to concentrate not to vomit. He had to fight back tears. Una grabbed his hand. She recognized the jagged breathing and lent him her strength again.
Guillaume looked down at her hand in his. It was still iron gray and caked in blood. He was sick of war and killing. He would leave this battlefield and never raise another sword.
The horses were brought to them at the edge of camp. They mounted and started riding. Una whistled and several loose mounts fell in line behind them.
As they entered the forest, Guillaume felt tears begin to track down his face. Gustave started to give him a hard time, but Una stopped him. “Let this good man start to heal, Gustave.”
Guillaume began to sob openly, loudly. The deeper they went into the forest, the more he shouted against the business of death.
The gibbous moon rose high in the sky before he quieted. He could hear the hoof beats of the slow moving horses. He could hear Gustave snoring, asleep in his saddle. He could hear Una singing softly at the front of the group and an owl answering her song.
————————
They traveled, slowly through most of the night. If the war was going badly for the Polish lord, his mercenaries would soon abandon the field and the forest would get dangerous.
About 2 hours before sunrise, they had to stop, though. Una hadn’t slept in nights and she couldn’t stay on her mare’s back anymore. She was asleep even as Guillaume stripped his chainmail tunic off of her and replaced it with one of his spare shirts. Gustave snored contentedly a few feet away. Guillaume had never seen him sleepless unless he wanted to be.
He settled the exhausted woman on top of a blanket and covered her with another. The air was warm, so he wouldn’t need a fire. He really didn’t want to risk a light this close to the battlefield. There may be lurkers already.
Guillaume was tired, almost to the point of collapse. The desperate fight for his life had worn out every part of his body. And that was just the culmination of all the arguing and petty maliciousness he had endured from the Polish lord’s son. Renec had so mismanaged the strategy and resources of his father’s military assets that Guillaume confronted him in front of his companions. Not the most politic thing to do, but Guillaume was sick of watching his hard-fighting men go down in stupid maneuvers on the battlefield.
He just wanted to sleep. But sleep would have to wait. If Renec’s head already decorated the Mongol camp, the mercenaries would start to leave, looking for other employers. He couldn’t let down his guard just yet.
The old warrior could hear soft sounds in the trees already. He put his hand to his sword-hilt and waited. Whatever it was came closer, sounded like an isolated breeze whirling through the undergrowth. He could just perceive her, just barely. She shimmered lightly in the forest shadows. Guillaume slapped himself, thinking he must have fallen asleep. She smiled. He could see her large, dark eyes close to his face, her long black hair falling over her naked breasts, almost indistinguishable from the shadows. She was transparent, but he could still hear her footfalls.
“Sleep, brave-one,” she whispered to Guillaume. “We’ll watch over you and our little sister.” She showed him her slim, double-bladed sword. It had an antler handle made for a woman’s hand.
He saw others with her. Unclothed women and men in animal skin armor. Guillaume could feel himself falling. Then he seemed to lie in Una’s stream, letting the cool water wash decades of gore out of every pore in his body.
———————-
The crying woman in his dream tried to cover her sobs, but he wanted to move close to here put his arms his around her. But he couldn’t move. In his sleep he wasn’t tied, but he felt like the air was too thick move through. Guillaume lay on the ground for several minutes, trying to will himself toward the sound of the woman’s crying. Finally a bug bit him on the thigh and woke him up enough to stretch his limbs.
He realized Una was crying. He forced his stiff body to her side and held her. She put her face in his shirt and cried harder. Guillaume just held her for a while. She had changed into his spare pants and tunic from the chainmail, but he could marks on her face and neck where it had bitten into her while she slept. He should have changed her before he went to sleep.
She felt different to him. Like she had been torn apart and put back together. Una was still impossibly beautiful, her ocean-colored eyes, even red-ringed and bloodshot from crying, took his breath away. But something had happened to her.
Una started to quiet and catch her breath.
“What’s wrong, Una, what has happened?”
“I keep seeing their faces as my sword slices into them. I’ve never been in a real battle before. How do you do that day after day?” Una said.
“Oh my god, Una. I’m so sorry you had to know this. There is nothing good in this kind of carnage. I’ve known it my whole life and I’ve never seen it do any good.”
Una began to compose herself a little. “I’m sorry to blubber all over you, husband. Yesterday when I was in the middle of everything, I just wanted to get you and Stormfront to safety. But it all came back to me in my dreams and I couldn’t get it out of my mind after I woke up.”
She wiped her eyes on her shirt-tale and blew her nose into a leaf.
“I hope our son never has to know this war,” she said.
Guillaume said, “If I am lucky enough to have a son by you, I will do everything I can to keep him out of this business.”
Una looked at him and knitted her eyebrows, thinking. Then her cheeks turned red and she put a hand to her mouth and laughed. Guillaume thought maybe the stresses of the trip and the horror of the battlefield had driven her crazy.
“Guillaume, my husband! I forgot to tell you….You have a strong, fine son!”
He look at Una for a moment, like he didn’t understand her language.
“His name is Eric, but we can change it if you want to,” she said.
Guillaume still just stared. “Are you alright?” she asked. Una started to get a little concerned. She watched as his mouth moved as though he wanted to say something. Then he looked into her eyes again, his face lost color, his eyes rolled up and he bumped the back of his head as he fell.
Una made a short scream and leaned over him to see if he was still breathing. Gustave came back into the camp laughing.
“Get me water, Gustave and stop your laughing.”
He brought her a tin cup full of water, but he couldn’t stop laughing.
“Una, I heard and saw everything as I was coming into camp. I’ve seen Guillaume face down the most hideous creatures you can imagine without batting an eye. But you’ve slain him with your talk about a baby! That’s funny.”
Guillaume started to come conscious again. Una chuckled a little herself.
“I’m starting to see why Guillaume keeps you around,” she said.
“I have many talents.” Gustave pulled a dress out of his pouch and handed it to Una. She smiled and took off her shirt, folded it and laid Guillaume’s head on it as he struggled to regain sense. It was a little big, but would be comfortable for the long ride back.
“I have a friend at the roadhouse who had this in an old trunk. I traded favors for it.” Gustave winked lewdly.
“I think your friend gave up all the favors in this deal,” Una retorted. “But I am very grateful for the dress, Gustave, thank you. Sleeping in chainmail is not good for the skin. I think I’ll have scars.”
Guillaume sat up and shook his head. His long hair spread out like a lion’s mane.
“Una… a son? We have a son?” He wrapped his arms around her a held her until he feel her heart beat against his stomach.
“Yes, husband. He almost killed me, but he is beautiful. Dark hair like you and my eyes. You will be proud of Eric.”
“I hate to interrupt this warm family scene,” Gustave said, “but you must have had a very busy night, Guillaume. Did you kill those bandits with your bare hands? I didn’t see any cuts on them?”
“Bandits? I slept like a rock all night…” Guillaume shook his head again and rubbed his temples. “It must have been them, the shadow people.”
Una and Gustave looked at one another.
“Husband, who are you talking about? There is only us here.”
Guillaume smiled at his own words.
“I was trying to stay awake to keep watch. I was so tired and the numbness was going away, the aches starting to overwhelm me. Then she came to me and told that they would watch over us. She called you little sister and had a sword like yours.”
Una’s face blanched. “What did they look like? Was she dark haired and did the men wear old style animal skin armor?”
“Yes,” Guillaume said, “just like that.”
“The old ones,” Una said. “My baba used to tell me that they had faded into the forest and would help the Sword Maidens. Of course now, the Christian mothers use those stories to scare their children into obedience, call them goblins and demons.
“But my grandmother said they got tired of fighting all the time and used their knowledge to become part of the forest. She told me that they would always help me if I used their secrets the way I was supposed to.
“I’m never seen them. I’m glad they are here.”
Gustave looked around a little sheepishly. “So we are under the protection of things my church calls demons? I guess that’s a good thing.
“I suggest we stay here another night and rest a little before starting home. I have an appointment with my pretty friend in the roadhouse. I’ll be safe from bandits and demons.”
“That sound’s like good advice. Una, should we stake down your new horses?” Guillaume said.
“No, they’ll stay near enough I can gather them.”
“Good!” Gustave yelled. “I will join you in the morning!”
————————————
The inquisitor wanted to know more about his charge. He had seen her Guillaume on the battlefield in the Holy Land. He fought bravely and fairly. Some of the best mercenary recruits in his company had come to him with papers of introduction from Guillaume de Breton. If he had chose this woman for his wife, she must have some worth… or she had put a spell on Guillaume.
The inquisitor looked at the records of the old priest who had died a few years ago.
“In the late summer, the horse mistress returned with the one called Guillaume. He was believed to be the father of her child. A companion of his traveled with them, name of Gustave. He set up a smithy shop…”
Siegfried knew Gustave. He was well known in the Holy Land as the worst horseman and the greatest philanderer in the Christian army. The inquisitor would pay a visit to his forge.
The sun of the early afternoon felt good as Siegfried walked across the town square. The monasteries and nunneries he spent so much of his time in these days were always cold and dim. And dank. The decades of war had taken a toll on his body and having to sit on his ass in a humid room for hours at a time aided the aches and pains in his joints and muscles. Sometimes he could hardly make a fist. He wondered if he could hold a sword strongly enough to use it in a fight anymore.
But moving through this warm, fresh air knocked a little of the rust out of his blood. He unsheathed his blade and put himself through a few exercises. A few of the women in square stopped their chores and errands to watch the usually dour inquisitor dancing through his paces. He liked the attention and traversed the whole plaza in a happy pas de deux with his double edged sword.
The sweat rolled down his neck by the time he made it to smithy. Siegfried called Gustave out of the forge to keep from melting. Gustave didn’t mind a break. He was almost overheated himself.
He handed a bottle of hard cider to Siegfried.
“What does the Holy Roman Empire want with a simple village smithy, my lord inquisitor?” Gustave asked. He stripped to the waist, wearing his leather apron and sweating profusely. Siegfried drank deeply for the bottle. He had gotten unused to such men. To much sitting in the powered chambers of priests.
“Let me see that blade,” Gustave said. He held it in his beefy hand and looked down the edges. “I’ll put a decent edge back on this and polish it up for you. I know you don’t use it much these days, but I saw you a time or two in the Holy Land and you used it well. It deserves a little care.”
“Thank you, Gustave. I have neglected it.” He took another pull from the cider bottle and felt like he could breathe a little more freely. “Gustave, I don’t much like my current task.”
“I didn’t think you could,” the smith answered. “She is a good woman, Siegfried. Maybe not a Christian, but she has helped many more Christians around here than that pig-sty that claims to be a church.”
“Watch your language, smithy. We both killed a lot of men in the name of this church. We saw too many die to curse it now.” Siegfried handed the bottle back to him.
“Tell me what happened, Gustave. I don’t want to hurt the woman a man such as Guillaume de Breton called wife.”
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All of her eddas had narrated epic journeys taken by the great loves of the legends. Una’s trip back home was not anything like those stories.
They were all exhausted and she couldn’t sleep for dreaming of the ones she had killed. Guillaume had a brief flare of joy on hearing he had a son, but then turned back in on himself and rode most of the way brooding quietly. And Gustave… like traveling with a fussy old lady, the ground was too hard, the nights too warm, why did we have to bring all these horses. The only time his whining relented was when he went whoring and left them alone.
In those too few hours Guillaume was tender. Una knew he must have been capable of gentleness, but he was either injured or passionate or running away while he had been with her. In these quiet nights under the trees with the Old Ones invisibly guarding their camp and the horses snorting and farting among the underbrush, Guillaume transformed into a tender man. The change was as startling as Una’s transformation into her warrior glamour in its way.
“I think… I want to paint things, Una.”
“What things? You mean like the priests’ icons?”
“No. Like this.” His hands swept in an arc that took in the forest around them. “And this.” His hands reached to the moon-bright sky. “And this.” His hands framed her face and he kissed her.
“I didn’t know you painted, Guillaume. I think I will learn a lot about you now. We have time and no one is chasing us… and no one is near death.”
“I hope you’re right, sweetheart. I don’t know what it’s like to live without the face of death close. I’m not sure I can get used to it.”
“I’ll help and so will little Eric. And you’ll make friends in the village this time. All of them have fallen in love with your son and will want to know you better.”
“I hope you’re right, sweetheart.”
Her ugly little village never looked as good to her as when she saw the forest break open and passed the first houses. Further down the road, Eva was waiting with Eric. News travels fast in a small town of course, and several of Una’s brothers and their wives waited for them on the outskirts of the village. The witch, the two armed warriors, the string of war-horses and the members of the prominent local family made quite a procession moving through town and more people joined them out of curiosity.
Per and his older sons took the new horses to the stables so the travelers could relax a little. An impromptu party broke out on the square. Everyone brought whatever food they had on hand and the mead and wine started to loosen the tongues of the group. Gustave proved to be a particularly good storyteller and soon had the whole town gasping and laughing at their exploits… most of the episodes were even the truth. Una and Argent galloping down the cliff into the teeth of the invading army was a popular story and would be retold many times.
The story of the Old Ones protecting the camp at night was received with considerable reticence though. Some of the priests had joined the ruckus and no one wanted to get them started on the dangers of consorting with demons in the forest. It would be whispered as many times as the fighting stories were proclaimed.
Una could hardly hear any of it. Eva had given her Eric. Mother and son seemed to fall in love at once. She cried at his toothless smile and the smell of his dirty cloth. Guillaume watched in awe. He kept stroking Una’s hair. As the sun started to set, she suddenly plopped the wriggling baby into Guillaume’s and left to relieve herself.
The color drained from Guillaume’s face and he held Eric like a sack of rocks. Eva laughed and set the boy in his arms correctly. Then she left, too, with the awkward father calling after her. Something kicked the warrior square in the nose and he had a flash of anger. Then a small, but surprisingly strong foot landed a hard kick to Guillaume’s eye. He instinctively started to jerk the baby into a firm choke-hold and then froze.
Eric’s ocean green eyes went wide with fear and Guillaume realized he was the cause of it. He looked around to find someone to give the baby to before he hurt him. But everyone was involved in conversation or the drunken goofery of a spontaneous party on a late summer day.
Guillaume was stuck with Eric who was starting to cry very loudly. He didn’t know what to do. He tried making faces, but the boy just acted frightened and cried harder. He tried to tickle him, but his battle scarred hands weren’t gentle. Guillaume looked around again, and still couldn’t find anyone to give Eric to. He started to panic, the crying just got louder. Maybe he had hurt him.
Guillaume finally just held him to his shoulder and started to talk to him like he would a horse spooked by something on the trail. He even patted his head and stroked his back, shushing and cooing softly to calm himself as much as to settle Eric.
It worked. The boy quieted and relaxed. Guillaume held him at his chest and looked into his eyes. Eric smiled and reached up to grab his nose. Now Guillaume was crying.
“So, me petite chou, you already kick old da around, huh? Are you going to do this forever now?” Guillaume laughed at the boy. “I guess we’ll have to figure this out together.”
Eva and Una returned together, laughing.
“Husband, have you ever had a more worthy opponent?”
“You were watching? Why didn’t you come help me? I could have hurt this child.”
Eva said, “You had to meet your son sometime. This seemed like a good moment.” She reached out to take the baby from him and Guillaume turned a shoulder to her.
“You had your chance. Now I get to keep him for awhile.”
————————————-
He finally surrendered the baby, though. Fatigue conquered the old warrior. Eva took the boy from him before he dropped him. Una and Guillaume supported each other to the hut and they fell into a perfect sleep.
A simple dry room and bed had never felt so luxurious.
She woke sometime in the afternoon. Una had no idea how long they had slept. She felt almost drunk, so she buried her head into the cool water of the rain barrel next to the door. When she couldn’t hold her breath any longer she stood and let the water rundown the front of her dress and shock her back to consciousness. By the time she had walked to the village market most of it should dry.
The needed food. The only thing in the pantry was an unrecognizable furry green mass. Una might be able to use it in a potion, she was afraid to eat it. She needed the walk too. After weeks on horseback and days spent prone in sleep, every muscle in her body was screaming for some gentle motion.
The market should be full now. Harvest was just around the corner and a lot of the early fruits and berries were in. There was a cool edge to the old summer. Autumn would rule soon. Una wanted to see Eric too. Her first stop would be Eva’s hut.
She walked through the village square, Eva’s house was on the other end of town. A large hand patted her on the back. She jumped and started into defense position. Weeks of being on guard against ambush returned in an instant.
The old priest’s face blanched at Una’s menace.
“I’m sorry my friend,” she said. The priest’s color returned when she smiled her recognition. “I’m afraid it’s been a very tense journey for me, Alrede. I’m still on edge.”
“Una I’m the sorry one. I didn’t mean to startle you. You’re trip must have been eventful. Per says that the new horse-stock is unbelievable. He’s not sure what you’re planning, but everyone in the region is speculating and arguing about the new breed.”
“Alrede, I’m not sure what I’m going to do, yet. But I know these horses from the east will be important.”
They walked through the village a while, chatting and the weather and the coming harvest. Father Alrede seemed agitated, but Una let him find his own voice.
“Una,” he seemed to find some courage. “I baptized Eric.”
She didn’t know what he meant at first. Then she remembered being invited to her parties to celebrate something that had happened at the church when her half-brothers were babies. It must have been sacred in the old priest’s eyes.
“Eva insisted that the baby be brought into the church. I thought we should wait for you to come back, but she threatened to get a younger priest to do it. I think she meant well, Una. Eva’s very pious. She doesn’t want the boy to go to Hell.”
Una considered it a moment. She remembered Eva’s care while she was hovering between life and death after the hard birth. She remembered Eva nursing her son from her own body when Una couldn’t.
Memory flash: looking between the ears of her horse, down the cliff. She watches the good christian lordlings pull their troops from the field, even whipping one away from where her Guillaume fought alone. She recognized the whipped rider in her mind’s eye as Gustave. He tried to get back to help Guillaume.
Even now, on this pleasant walk, talking to her friend, Una had to swallow hard to keep from screaming in anger and frustration as she had when she torn the light clothes off her body and plunged over the cliff on her gold-maned horse.
The sudden red bloom in Una’s face and the muscles in moving in her jaw as she clenched her teeth startled Alrede. He stopped talking.
“I’m glad you performed the ceremony instead of one of the others,” Una said. “But I wish this hadn’t happened without talking to me first.
“I think I need to take Eric back home with me.”
“I’m sorry to upset you, Una. I know Eva just wanted to make sure the boy’s soul is safe…” Una interrupted him.
“From what I’ve seen of christians, I think his soul would be safer and healthier without their interference.”
Her complexion started to turn iron-colored as Alrede watched. His own hands started to shake.
“Please Una. I know you’re upset, but think of Eric. He isn’t weened yet and you can’t feed him yet…”
“Look out, priest.” A harsh voice interrupted. “The witch is turning demon-colored. She’ll eat your soul if you’re not careful.”
Una saw Herman, the thief she had left for dead the day she found Guillaume. His face had scars and a lopsided aspect now. He must have limped along the other side of the road as they talked, shadowing them until he couldn’t stay quiet any more.
“Drinking again so early, Herman?” the priest said. “I think you need confession today. Brother Warren is in the booth now, why don’t you pay him a visit?”
Herman’s crooked mouth worked like he wanted to say something. The priest blessed him and the old bandit walked away, lifting his jug to his mouth and dribbling it all the way down his front to the ground.
Una noticed her hands had gone to the war glamor without her realizing. She remembered an edda:
The prudent one
will make a measured use of power
when among the brave he fares.
She breathed deeply and took her normal form again.
“You’re right Alrede. But I want Eric weened and back with Guillaume and me as soon as possible. And I don’t want him in church all the time.”
“I understand Una. But I still believe in the same God as Eva and I think the religious upbringing will be good for the boy.”
Sigfried watched the sisters bring the alleged witch into the damp room and stand her against the cold wall once again. He wished that he could offer her a comfortable chair and sit with her, without the jailer-nuns and just talk.
She was beautiful, too. She was well past the age when most women are in their prime. The others of years in this area tended to go toward heaviness. Maybe working with horses kept her more slender. If you watched her walking away from you and couldn’t see the white hair, you’d think she was a young woman.
By rights, he should already have pronounced sentence against her. She had admitted to practices that Rome’s law considered punishable by death already. But he also knew that the primary motivation for this inquisition was economic. Una held the horses and the fat priests and town burghers wanted that for themselves.
It was ridiculous. She already gave all the proceeds from the horse trade to the town, keeping only enough to take care of her family and the horses. But she gave nothing to the church herself and that is unforgivable sin.
Her hands fascinated him. They were strong and slender. The type of hands that would jerk a halter on an unruly horse or pass easily into the mare’s womb to turn a breech foal. Every day, when she first comes into the interrogation room, she would rub one hand along the scar on her face. (add this in the battle scene) Gustave had told him the mark was a souvenir from her rescue of Guillaume.