Conquest

She had had few opportunities as a child — her origins were too humble to afford her an education or a husband of status — but she had a sharp mind and the body of a seductress, leaving her only two options: to use her mind in a convent, or her body in a rich man’s bed. She had chosen the latter; Thurstan was not the first of her ‘benefactors’.

‘Thurstan will kill you if he finds you here, and I dread to think what he’ll do to me…’

‘Gythin, stop! You have nothing to be frightened of while I’m here. It would take ten men to take you from me.’

‘Hereward, you are big and strong but you are a child in the real world of cut-throats and murderers. I won’t let you be hurt.’

‘I’m no child. Have I not put to the ground any man who’s faced me? No one can better me on a horse, with a sword, or in a grapple.’

‘I don’t doubt your strength, or your courage. If it’s what you choose, one day you will be a great warrior, but you’re not yet trained in real combat and you’re not skilled in the underhand ways of men who kill for money. Thurstan knows such men.’

Hereward felt sufficiently insulted to want to continue the debate. But he had held Gythin closely for long enough to feel the stirrings of another powerful emotion. His arousal soon provoked a response from Gythin and he forgot all notions of challenging the ominous men she was so certain would find him wanting.

‘Let me show you what this “child” can do for you, madam.’

Gythin started to sob uncontrollably, but her spasms of distress gradually lessened and did not quell the intensity of her embrace as her mouth and her tongue began to devour Hereward in a frenzy of fear and passion. She pulled him inside the doorway of her small cottage; in their haste, they were naked in an instant and their forceful lovemaking over quickly before they both fell into a fitful sleep.

Hereward’s infatuation with Gythin had blinded him to the risks they were taking. He was both naive in making light of his lover’s vulnerability and arrogant in assuming he would be able to deal with any threat their liaison posed, especially to her. For her part, Gythin had rarely experienced a meaningful relationship and beneath her concubine’s cloak was emotionally frail. In Hereward she had found a lion of a man to share her bed; not just a leonine lover, but a man in whom she recognized exceptional qualities.

But Hereward’s dalliances with Gythin had not gone unnoticed in Ely. She was right: Thurstan knew where to find men of evil.

Stealth is the assassin’s way; he chooses his moment and strikes swiftly and silently. This one had been hired three weeks earlier. An Andalucian by birth, he had learned his two prodigious skills from the Moors: great deftness in cutting stone with a mason’s chisel and equal dexterity with an assassin’s knife on rather more pliant material — human flesh. He would cut anything for money: a stone cherub to grace the nave of one of God’s holy places or the neck of a young woman to exact retribution on behalf of one of God’s priests. He and four formidable companions had spent the last week planning their move.

As the pall of a moonless night descended on Gythin’s remote dwelling, the first intruder pulled back the crudely woven woollen screen at the single window, climbed in and silently let in the other four through the door. Gythin woke first with a jolt, letting out a piercing scream as her eyes focused on five shadows, half-lit by the flickering bedside candle.

Hereward was on his feet in an instant, but they were ready for him and, before he could take a pace, a heavy hunting net enveloped him. As he stumbled forwards, struggling to free himself, a wooden mace thumped into his neck, toppling him sideways into the hearth. In the same moment, the net was pulled towards the door, tightening itself around him. As Gythin rushed to Hereward’s aid, she was struck heavily in her midriff by the dark man from Spain, a blow which cost her her breath and her momentum. She fell to the ground, doubled up in pain and gasping for air. This freed all five men to pull their netted quarry outside the hut, across the small clearing and towards the nearest tree.

A thick rope was tied to the net, thrown over the sturdiest branch and Hereward, barely conscious and unable to put up a struggle, was hauled into the air. His assailants secured the rope to an adjacent tree, leaving Hereward swinging like a trapped animal. After they had pulled his hands through the net and tied them firmly to the rope above him, they threw a pail of cold water over him to bring him back to full consciousness. The leader then spoke to him in stilted English in an accent that Hereward found difficult to understand.

‘When I finish woman, I come back. I geld you so you become quiet boy. I not hurt you much, my blade very sharp.’ His face contorted in a demonic grin as he reinforced his point with a deep slash to Hereward’s cheek.