This is my first public fanfic ever, though I've done some fan RP. In fact, I made an account here for the first time just to upload this, though I'm a long time lurker, ever since I got into X-Files fic in the 90s. If people like it, I'll upload more, so if I get at least 20 follows or favorites, I'll put up the second chapter. If everyone hates it, I don't want to put more up! Please read and review, and if you like it, follow or favorite!
This is going to be very, very hot, but for the first few chapters, it's just T.
England, 1271
Drumbeats shivered through the forest, reverberating in Anastasia's chest and stealing the breath from her lungs. Her palfrey snorted, tossing its head. She steadied it with a murmur. Down the slope of the hill and across the field, the occasional scarlet surcoat flashed behind the dark line of trees. Her marshal and steward shifted on either side of her; Anastasia knew they shared her fears. How many men had the Earl of Greyholm sent against her barony?
Soon, the snapping of twigs and the jiggle of mail joined the steady thud-thud-thud of the drums, and Anastasia thought she could make out a helmeted head here, a horse's hindquarters there. She straightened, stilling the flutter in her belly.
"Under no circumstances are you to let the knights charge until the archers have got off the first flight," she ordered the marshal tautly.
She heard the grimace in his voice. "They do not like it. There is no honor in allowing bowmen to fire upon knights while they wait as if afraid to meet the charge." Sir Amaury spoke quietly, but Anastasia felt the attention of the closest men sharpen at his words, and coldness brushed her heart.
Not taking her eyes from the forest's edge, she kept her face neutral and softened her voice for her reply. "Come, now. Do our men want their lands stolen from them? These knights, as you call them, have broken the laws of courtesy and honor both, and they do not deserve to face ours as equals. Save your nobility for worthier opponents, good marshal."
"Yes, my lady," Sir Amaury murmured, subsiding. Around her, the tension subtly lessened.
Anastasia squeezed her hands into fists to hide their trembling. Another crisis averted, as real a danger as any approaching army. She was aware of the steward's eyes upon her-the Earl of Rothbourne's hound keeping close watch on that nobleman's ward. Not that she need fear her earl any longer with the main thrust of Greyholm's invasion to distract him. But even that was a mixed blessing; with the removal of the threat of his authority, she also lost his scant self-interested protection. And she had to face Greyholm's younger son alone.
She tipped back her head, clearing her mind of such extraneous thoughts. I must focus. Focus every second or I might not have another to enjoy.
The figures moving behind the screen of trees grew clearer, the drumbeats louder. Anastasia tensed, and suddenly, the approaching army was no longer within the woods but in front of it, a long line of steel and horseflesh, lances and banner-staves bristling as if the army carried the dark heart of the forest with it in a wall of steel-tipped wood.
In the center of the line, just ahead of the crowd of horse sergeants and infantry, rode a man whose surcoat declared him to be Christian fitz Grey himself. Anastasia's palfrey shifted nervously under her, responding to the welter of emotions that hummed through her veins. It is not enough for the Earl of Greyholm to kill my father and brother; now he must send his son to finish the humiliation of my family. The thought was laced with the bitterness that had fermented in her belly for five years, and she glared at their commander as he approached in the midst of his army, the final insult to the Steeles. Though Anastasia had not chosen this war, it was an insult she fully intended to answer. The alternative was unthinkable.
Even with his face hidden by a gilded helm, Anastasia read arrogance in every line of fitz Grey's body. He was sure of this battle, far surer than he should be. Regardless of her carefully cultivated reputation, if he expected to face down a sheltered solar maiden, he had made at least one mistake he would not soon forget.
Fitz Grey raised his arm, and the drums shuddered, shuddered, stopped. The army halted and stood motionless, staring up the hill at Anastasia's troops. In the silence, she could hear the men breathing around her, the snort of a horse, and high above their heads, the mocking cry of a single crow.
There were too many of them. Even though Anastasia had hired extra soldiers to defend against those who would take advantage of an unwed baroness, her forces were evenly matched at best. Where had Greyholm found so many men?
It would be a close fight, far too close for one who would rather not fight at all.
Fitz Grey lowered his arm abruptly, and a blast of horns swallowed the first of the battle cries as the knights spurred their horses forward, their squires and sergeant-at-arms behind them.
"Steady," Sir Amaury called as her own knights began to shift restlessly. The galloping enemy crossed the first flat stretch in moments, then began to slow as their mounts labored up the slope. "Archers, fire when your aim is true."
In front of Anastasia's horsemen, the bowmen drew the arrows that were already nocked to their bowstrings. A breath later, the first shaft arced into the air, flying toward the knights. That one clattered harmlessly off a great helm, but it was joined by another and another, and in a few scant seconds, five riders were toppled from their mounts and three more horses were down.
Anastasia watched the approaching wave of steel, doubting again the decisions that she had made over the past four years-the decisions that had won her a loyal, foolish force of knights who chafed even to allow archers to be first in the field. She had the high ground, and her knights could break every charge as Greyholm's men exhausted themselves against the wall of lances. But the chivalry that she had nurtured so carefully in her knights, the aura she had surrounded herself with, made them both willing to die in the cause of honor and unwilling to live with lesser glory. So she chose the foolish way, the only way, now, and hoped it would not prove her undoing.
She looked at Sir Amaury. She remembered when only a few silver hairs gilded his beard, when he used to take her upon his knee on a winter's night to tell her stories of her grandfather's escapades in the Holy Land. Somehow, she had dazzled even his rheumy eyes, but she hoped not so thoroughly he had forgotten the tactician he had once been. She knew much of men but very little of war.
"Archers, fall back! Horse, charge!" Sir Amaury's voice rang above the trumpets.
The bowmen scrambled out of the way and her knights surged forward, plunging down the slope. The leading figures couched their lances under their arms, holding the tips steady and raising up in their saddles an instant before impact. Flashes of the last tourney Anastasia had seen—the last tourney she ever wanted to see—rose in her mind, and she tensed her body against the shudder that tried to seize her.
The leading pair of knights met, then another and another until the main masses of the opposing forces collided with a deafening crash. Those whose lances found no enemy burst into the ranks of the squires and sergeants and drew their swords. She caught glimpses of familiar blazons on shields and surcoats: her own Sir William, surrounded by his sons; loyal Sir Geoffrey and his band of mercenaries; enemies she had seen before, with whom she had danced at the Earl of Rothbourne's court, or names and devices she knew only from the rolls.
This was no usual knightly battle, a ritual exchange of blows in hopes of wounding and capturing the enemy for ransom. Her knights were fighting for their livelihood, their land, and-perhaps even more-for their lady's honor, and Anastasia forced herself not to press a hand against her roiling stomach as scream after scream pierced the air.
She could not watch—she had to watch—as her barony's fate was decided by the edge of the sword and the blood of her men. Sir Amaury ordered the infantry to charge, and the foot soldiers drew their swords and dashed down the hill toward the melee, their bellows soon lost in the sharper cries.
Sir Lionel, Sir William again. Where was Sir Geoffrey? It was impossible to tell who was winning in the raging pandemonium below. The Greyholm infantry had joined the fray, adding to the confusion.
Through it all, only one figure was clear, rising above the others, a golden helm shining above a scarlet surcoat. Fitz Grey.
Anastasia could feel the threat of his presence even across the field, even surrounded by her marshal, the steward, and four of the steward's men. Four men who should have been on the battlefield and helping their comrades, not guarding a woman, she thought, chafing at her own frailty.
Fitz Grey was not hiding at the edge of the field, shielded by the strongest of his men and sitting on a horse that quivered with his own fear. No, he was in the thick of the battle, and from yet a hundred yards away, Anastasia thought she could hear his voice, calling to his men in French, rallying them around his banner.
If only I had been born a man, I would be down there with my knights, not hanging back while they bled and died for me. Anastasia watched the clashing figures below with a mixture of longing and horror. Surely even fighting was better than this powerless, interminable waiting. Surely…
The battle began to drift across the field, up the slope towards her position. Her breath sped up. Were her troops losing ground, or was it just an aimless movement as the thick of the battle shifted from one quarter to another?
"My lady, we ought to move." Her steward's voice cut through her thoughts, filled with uncharacteristic nervousness. Sparing a glance for him, Anastasia took in his pale, tight face.
"Sir Giles, my knights must see their lady," she replied mildly. The edge of the fray was still fifty yards away, and with such a lead, she could easily outdistance any knight who tried to peel away from the battle to capture her, even if he survived the barrage of arrows from the archers who still surrounded her, holding their arrows nocked to their strings as they watched for stray enemies to be picked off. "Can not you and your knights defend one small woman? Or are you frightened?" She spoke loudly enough that a few of the archers heard her and smothered smiles and snickers. Sir Giles was apt to forget that they were her men, not her earl's, and he had won himself few friends in the barony.
The steward stiffened. "Against knights, yes, my lady. But against arrows—why, we can scarcely hope to throw ourselves in their paths before you are struck."
Anastasia scanned the battlefield. "I see none of the enemy's archers within an arrow's flight of us. You are suffering from an excess of caution, Sir Giles."
The steward made an impatient noise and nudged his mount against hers, and he reached out and closed his hand around her wrist before she could react. Even with the mail hauberk and padded gambeson beneath, the grip was tight enough to be almost painful. Irritated, she tried to jerk free, but his hold did not slip. Alarm seized her, and she looked up into his face to meet a grimly determined expression.
"I tire of these games. You must come with me, my lady."
"I must do no such thing," she hissed back, the gloved fingers of her free hand scrabbling futilely for leverage to pry his loose.
Sir Giles' expression darkened. "Look to your marshal, then, lady."
Anastasia turned. Sir Amaury sat with unnatural straightness upon his horse, one of Sir Giles' knights holding his elbow. The knight shifted, and Anastasia caught a glint of a dagger blade, pressed between the joints in his armor.
"Perfidy," Anastasia whispered, a wave of shock washing over her to swallow her nascent disbelief.
"No, my lady. Common sense. You shall come quietly. We needn't alarm the archers. They might do something foolish, and we don't want anyone to be needlessly hurt."
He had asked no question, but Anastasia nodded numbly anyway. Sir Giles grabbed her fallen reins with his free hand, adding them to his own, and turned her horse with his, heading toward the woods that circled the field on three sides, his knights and the captive marshal behind. Several of the archers glanced up from the battle as they passed, but the mounted group received no more attention than a few sketched salutes and a puzzled glance or two.
What was he about? she thought dazedly. Did he mean to haul her off himself and force her to wed him now that his lord was in no position to punish such impudence? Did he mean to hand her over to someone else? To fitz Grey?
Sweet St. Agnes, no, Anastasia begged silently even as brutal certainty shoved its way into her stunned mind. The images that were never deeply buried flashed before her again—her father and Greyholm meeting in the midst of the tourney field, the lance breaking against her father's helm, Greyholm tightening his grip—tightening it instead of dropping his lance before it could do harm. The broken lance splintering, and her father tumbling from his horse to lie still on the sward, and the blood, the blood that she could see even in the stands, pouring like an accusation from the black eye slit…
And Sir Giles meant to give her over to Greyholm's son.
Fury and terror warred within her, and Anastasia's muscles knotted with the urge to throw herself from the saddle and run-run and never look back. But that would do no more than get Sir Amaury killed; at such a close range, even the assistance of the archers would be all but useless, and only a few strides of his horse would bring Sir Giles to her side again. Yet it took every ounce of her strength to keep still, to keep her face a mask of serenity as the bowmen parted for the calmly walking horses. To know where she was being taken and yet do nothing.
As they passed the last line of archers, one of them glanced up, and his gaze rested briefly on Sir Giles' hand, still gripping her wrist, before flickering wide-eyed to her face. Anastasia's throat tightened with the desire to call for his aid, but all she did was give a miniscule, discouraging shake of her head. His expression grew closed abruptly, and a moment later, Sir Giles had pulled her mount among the trees, and the archers were lost from view.
"We will proceed slowly, my lady," he said. "You might find it too easy to arrange an accident if we traveled with more speed, and I do not want you injured." His face took on an expression of fierce determination, and Anastasia had the sudden realization that he meant exactly what he said, as ludicrous as it seemed.
"If you truly do not wish me injured, then you should take me back now," she replied stiffly.
Sir Giles shot her a pained look. "I am acting only in your best interests. I am sure that, one day, you will come to thank me."
"The day St. Peter guards the gates of hell!" Anastasia heard the note of hysteria in her own voice, and she snapped her mouth closed.
They traveled in silence, Sir Giles turning their party to skirt the edge of the field. The noise of the battle was loud even among the trees, and through the branches, Anastasia could make out the occasional flashing sword and waving banner. It seemed incredible to her that her knights on the field could fail to notice that they were gone—that their commander and lady had both disappeared, and they fought on, oblivious, for what had already been lost.
Anastasia choked on a hiccoughing laugh, and on its heels, a swell of panic rose within her, freezing her mind, gripping her stomach, making her fingers clench on the pommel in front of her as her horse moved with stiff unease beneath her. She fought the numbing fear, trying to think, trying to find some escape.
The soft swish of an arrow jerked her back to herself. She whipped her head toward the sound just in time to see Sir Giles topple from his horse, eyes wide and fingers curled around the shaft that protruded from his throat. Anastasia gagged as blood splashed against her glove, and her horse shied from the body that dropped abruptly before its nose.
There was a shout, then another, and more arrows sprouted in their midst, one flying so close by her ear that one of the fletchings burned her. The sting of her cheek jolted her mind into action, and Anastasia kicked her palfrey into a stumbling canter even as she scrabbled for the reins.
She pleaded silently, frantically to every saint she knew, certain that at any moment she would feel the blunt pain of an arrow piercing her mail. She ducked her head against the leaves and branches, her shaking hands tracing the reins from where they met the bridle as every passing twig threatened to rip them from her grip again. Abruptly, she was yanked back against the cantle. My bow- But before she could do more than realize what had happened, the branch that had caught her released with a snap, and she found herself still in the saddle with the reins in her hands.
An instant later, her palfrey burst out of the undergrowth and onto the battlefield. Anastasia caught her breath; she had lost her sense of direction in the flight. A scant twenty-five yards away, men in mail flailed at each other with their great swords. Above her, on the crest of the hill, her line of archers seemed to beckon, promising safety. She bore hard towards them, her heart hammering in her chest.
As she thundered past a knot of knights, a golden helm turned to follow her progress from the midst of them. Fitz Grey. Anyone but fitz Grey- She bit off a curse, urging her mount to greater speed. But even above the clang of swords and shouts of men, she could hear the rhythm of approaching hooves; his charger was no match for her lady's palfrey.
Gritting her teeth, she wheeled her horse back into the woods, hunching over the pommel as she plunged past the tree line. She gave her mount its head and let it choose its own path, concentrating on keeping her seat as they wove between the trees.
Her horse splashed down into a stream, her spine jarring with the impact. It sped up along its shallow, rocky bed, and she risked a glance back. Though Fitz Grey was out of sight, a distant splash told her he still followed. She strained her eyes, but she could catch no glimpse of movement through the underbrush.
A crack against her skull jerked her back against the saddle. She tried to turn and grab for the pommel, but her feet had already ripped free of the stirrups and she was airborne before she could do more than brush it with her fingertips.
For half a breath, she was suspended above the stream, then she crashed against the rocks beneath the ankle-deep water, her jaw slamming into her skull with a force that made her vision blur. She shoved herself to her knees, gasping against the pain in her ribs, her hunting bow bumping against her back.
Only a few lengths beyond the branch she had struck, her horse stood quivering and looking back over its lathered shoulder at her. But even as she scrambled towards it, it snorted and surged out of the streambed with a single great leap. It plunged between the trees, and an instant later, it was gone.
The splash of the approaching horse grew louder. No. Holy Virgin and all the saints, please, no. Anastasia snatched up her scattered arrows and forced herself to her feet. She took an unsteady step to the bank and caught the trunk of a sapling with her free hand, her feet scrambling at the slick mud as she hauled herself up and under a bush in the same desperate movement. She had scarcely hidden when fitz Grey rounded the bend in the streambed.
He pulled his horse to a halt, and Anastasia caught her breath. Even in pursuit, he carried himself with the same calm haughtiness as he had before the battle, and she felt his cold gaze pass over her as that golden helm swung from side to side, searching. The stream stretched in a long, straight line before him, and he must have realized that there was no way that she could have gotten so far ahead. The marks of her flight were only too clear if he stopped to read them…
Somewhere behind her, Anastasia's palfrey crashed through the underbrush in its fright. Fitz Grey tipped his head for a moment, then turned his horse toward the sound and leaned forward as it hauled itself up the bank.
All Anastasia could see were hooves and hocks, inches from her nose. If he but looked down-
But he passed by without so much as a pause, and Anastasia let out her breath as the horse's hindquarters disappeared between the trees, taking its master with it.
When she was sure it was gone, Anastasia wriggled out from under the bush. Her arms were weak from relief, but she forced herself to return her arrows to her quiver and string her bow-the bowstring, safe in her belt pouch, was still dry, and the bow itself undamaged by some miracle-before starting through the forest at a slow jog, her hauberk dragging at her shoulders and jingling under her gunna.
Sir Amaury—she spared a thought of concern for her marshal, then pushed it aside as she ducked under a low tree branch—Sir Amaury had protested that she would never have to draw a bow. But Anastasia hadn't been willing to gamble, and now she was glad for its comforting weight in her hand.
She headed west, paralleling the stream as she steered towards her demesne and AstlingsmeadeCastle. I am not abandoning you, she mentally sent to her men still in the field, though her own guilty conscience told her otherwise. But without a guard of knights she would be a fool to return to the battle. She would greet her men at the castle-as victors, if the Lord willed it, or to prepare for a siege if they had only held out long enough to cover their own retreat. No. They would win. They had to win.
It was a good ten miles to the castle; unless she dared the roads, night would fall long before she reached the edge of the woods. Fixing her mind on the image of greeting her knights at the gatehouse bathed in the glory of victory, she settled her quiver more comfortably on her back and pressed on.
The sounds of fighting returned as the stream veered close to the battlefield, and she moved more cautiously, wary of scouts or ambushers in the underbrush. Her heart sped up, and her palms grew slick on the leather-wrapped grip of the bow. But she heard nothing over the clash of conflict except the soft crunch of dry leaves under her own boots, and she saw nothing in the trees except the occasional flit of a silent bird from branch to branch.
The noise of the battle grew more muffled as she began to move away. She started to relax, the muscles loosening across her shoulders, her breath coming more freely. A stitch had begun to tug at her side, and she steeled herself in preparation for picking up her pace again.
But just as she took her first jogging step, an arm snaked around her throat, jerking her back against a hard body as a hand clamped around her mouth.