“I will see her,” he decided.
They came out of the half-darkness at a mad gallop and descended the hill with reckless abandon. Emma heard them when they were half a mile away and she came out of her hovel to see what produced the frightening noise. Forty or more horsemen were swarming towards her and they had surrounded the whole property before she could even guess at their purpose. As they reined in their mounts, they formed a menacing circle that slowly began to close. The dog stood protectively in front of its mistress and growled its defiance. A spear sank into the ground only inches away from the animal and Emma recoiled in alarm.
“What do you want?” she cried.
“The killer,” answered a spokesman.
“There is no killer here.”
“That dog of yours was sent to murder Alric Longdon.”
“He never leaves my side.”
“You put a curse on the miller.”
“He beat me till I bled,” she retorted.
“And so will we,” shouted another voice that was met with a rousing cheer. “Why do we stay our hands?”
It was a signal for the ring of hatred to tighten around them at a faster pace. A second spear all but hit the dog and a third grazed Emma’s fat arm as it passed. The men began to chant, the dog began to bark, and the whole night seemed to fill with pandemonium. The Witch of Crofton and her miserable cur would be put down without mercy. A first sword was lifted to strike.
“Hold!”
Ralph Delchard’s cry cut through the din as he came charging down the hill with his two men riding behind him. His appearance was so sudden and unexpected that some of the men thought that he and his knights were devils from hell who had been summoned to help the witch. Yells of fear went up. A few took flight at once.
Others backed away out of caution. Horses bucked and neighed to add to the general chaos and the dog barked on with renewed frenzy.
Ralph’s destrier cleared a path through the angry mob and came to a halt beside Emma. His men joined him and the three formed a triangle around her.
“Who speaks for you?” demanded Ralph sternly.
“I,” said a voice in the gloom.
“Show your face if you have courage to do so.”
“Keep out of this,” ordered the man, remaining in the shadows.
“You have no quarrel here.”
“Forty men against a solitary woman is not a quarrel. It is a cow-ardly massacre and I will not allow it.”
“Stand aside!” roared another voice.
“Yes!” supported a third, drawing strength from the overwhelming odds. “You will not save this witch. Stand aside or Norman blood will run.”
This threat produced an ear-splitting shout of agreement. Ralph Delchard answered it immediately. His sword jumped into his hand, his horse reared up on its hind legs, and his challenge rang out across the field.
“If any man dare try me, here I am!”
Several riders inched their horses forward to take a closer look at him, then changed their minds at once. Here was no common towns-man who wielded a sword or spear perhaps once in six months.
Ralph was a seasoned warlord with twenty years of action behind him. He had killed his way into England with the rest of the Norman invaders and he thrived on battle. There were enough of them to overpower him, but he would reduce their numbers drastically in the process. His men were trained soldiers, too, and they kept their horses prancing on their hooves and ready for any encounter.
Three men around a shivering woman and a barking dog. Who would strike the first blow or show the first sign of weakness? Both sides glared at each other for a long time.
“Give up this woman to us,” called the spokesman.
“She has my arm to guard her.”
“The woman is a witch.”
“Even witches must stand trial in courts of law.”
“We are a court of law!” he attested.
But the supportive yell was patchy and half-hearted. Ralph took his destrier in a circle so that he could taunt them and put them to shame.
“Go home to your wives,” he advised. “Tell them what heroes you have been tonight. Boast about the woman you almost killed and the dog you all but slaughtered. Away with you all! Tell them how three Normans got the better of forty Saxons. Yes, you sturdy warriors, you have done noble work this day. Begone!”
There were token protests, but the heat and impetus had been taken out of the raid. Emma and the dog were an easy target on their own.
Protected by Ralph and his men-at-arms, they were a different propo-sition, and however much the Saxons loathed the Norman usurpers, they had been taught to respect their military supremacy and the mer-ciless swiftness of any reprisals. If a royal commissioner was cut down in cold blood with his men, a whole army would sally forth from Winchester to exact the most damning revenge. King William would not rest until every one of them had been hunted down and hanged.
“Well?” roared Ralph. “Will you fight or flee?”
There were some token jibes from the men, but they gradually drifted away and set off at a trot back towards Bedwyn. Ralph had savoured the excitement. Sheathing his sword, he jumped down from the saddle to introduce himself to Emma of Crofton. She was suffused with gratitude and the dog added a whining note of thanks.
Danger was over for a while. Ralph could take a closer look at this supposed witch. He grinned amiably, then saw the trickle of blood upon her arm. Gallantry and concern now prompted him.
“That wound needs dressing, lady. Let us go inside….”
While a meeting was taking place between an outcast Saxon woman and a Norman lord, an even more unlikely encounter occurred at Wulfgeat’s house. He consented to meet and talk to Hilda, widow of the deceased miller and thus his natural enemy. Her grief was quite disarming. As soon as he walked into the little room, he realised that she posed no threat and harboured no hostility. Hilda was curled up into a ball of misery in the corner, clutching her stepson for support and trying to make sense of what had happened to them both. She was so pathetically grateful to him for extending the hospitality of his home that he felt embarrassed he had not been courteous enough to welcome her before.
Leofgifu was with him and her gentle presence was a balm to the guests. Where her father might have disturbed Hilda with the urgency of his questions, Leofgifu was a model of patience and tact. She took time to get the woman talking before she let Wulfgeat join the conversation. When she had married the miller, Hilda had indeed been beautiful, but her charms had been buried along with her husband.
Her face was now so white, pinched, and fraught that she looked fifteen years older. Wulfgeat’s compassion rose, but he found it dry up when he turned to the boy, only nine but the image of his father. Cild was a hardy child whose young muscles were already used to work and strain. He not only had Alric’s pallor and bovine ugliness, but there was the same sullen stare in the eyes. Cild could already nurse resentment with the slow intensity of an adult.
When Hilda was guided around to the subject of the abbey land, Wulfgeat took over the questioning.
“Your husband wrote to Winchester, you say?”
“That is what he told me, sir.”
“He had a charter?”
“That is what he told me, sir.”
“Where did he get this charter?”
“From my father, sir. In Queenhill.”
“That lies in Worcestershire,” explained Leofgifu.
“Yes, close to London,” said Wulfgeat. “I knew that Alric had to travel far to find himself a new wife.” He was about to add that no woman in the locality would have cared to look upon the miller as a suitor, but he suppressed the comment out of consideration and turned back to the widow. “This charter of which you speak. Did you see it with your own eyes?” Hilda nodded. “What did it contain?”
The woman look bewildered and appealed to Leofgifu with a gesture.
Wulfgeat needed no translation. Hilda had seen the document, but that was all. She could not read. He picked his way more carefully through her half-remembered story. Alric had gone to Queenhill, talked at length with her father, then wooed and won her. Money and charter had been exchanged between the men, but all detail was kept from her. It was plain that her heart would not have chosen Alric as a husband, but she was obedient to her father. A simple girl saw life in simple terms.