Carol Townend - His Captive Lady (Wessex Weddings)

Many thanks are due to my editor Joanne, for her
thoughtful (and always tactfully phrased!) suggestions.
She is worth her weight in gold.

Westminster--December 1067

C aptain Wulf FitzRobert sat waiting on a stool by the fire in the middle of King William's cavernous new barrack-hall. Waiting, waiting. It was an exercise in patience, he told himself, but even so, he was unable to keep his keen blue eyes from straying to the top table where the great lords were in conference. He was hungry for his next commission.

The freshly whitewashed walls around him displayed a formidable array of shields and lances, which winked in the fitful candlelight. Thick beams arched above Wulf's head, beams that had been cut so recently that he could smell sawn timbers, could see the marks of the adze. While Wulf kicked his heels and mastered his impatience, a troop of foot soldiers tramped in and headed for the wine jugs.

Glancing down at the worn brown tunic that stretched across his broad chest, at the shabby and barely serviceable grey hose that barely covered his long legs, Wulf noticed a rip in the weave and grimaced. His clothing needed to be replaced and he could ill afford it. Advancement, that was what he craved, more advancement.

Under the high table two wolfhounds--a grey and a brindle--were snarling over possession of a bone. Wulf's mouth twisted. So it was with those lower in the ranks, he thought, lifting his gaze once again to the noblemen and commanders clustered around the board; that is what we are reduced to, fighting over scraps dropped by those above.

Parchments were scattered across the tabletop--maps, most likely. Wulf knew what the lords were about: they were busy slicing up lands won in the recent conflict. Estates that had once belonged to Saxon noblemen were being parcelled out among King William's most loyal supporters. Campaigns for suppressing rebellion were being planned; offers were being made for the most wealthy of the Saxon widows and heiresses.

Just then, the brindle hound lunged amid a flurry of growling and snapping. The grey yelped and dropped the bone and in a moment it was all over. The brindle darted into the shadows with the bone fast in its jaws, while the loser slunk away, tail between its legs.

Was time running out for him? Wulf thought. England had only so much land; there were only so many titles. If he did not get a decent commission, there might be nothing left to win, neither land nor title nor heiress. Not that Wulf had ambitions for an heiress--no, the shadow over his birth meant he could not look so high. He was illegitimate. But lands and a knighthood, yes, he certainly had ambitions for those. And with no noble family to sponsor him, Wulf must shift for himself.

The lords had wine cups at their elbows. Of delicate imported glass, they were a world away from the clay goblet Wulf had warming by the fire. As well as the maps, there were several jugs of sweet red wine on the high table; wine that Wulf knew had only that morning been shipped in from Normandy. Briefly, Wulf spared a thought for the merchant willing to risk his ship to a winter crossing, but then this was King William's hall, so doubtless the man and his crew would have been well rewarded. Wulf propped his chin on his hand. Rewarded as he hoped to be, when he was given a good chance to prove himself...

One lord in particular held Wulf's gaze: William De Warenne, his liege lord. As one of the King's most trusted commanders, De Warenne had recently been granted estates on the coast south of London, near a place called Lewes. Wulf had heard that his lord was also in the running for more land, land in the remote east of England, somewhere in the fens. Wulf had never set foot in the fens, nor did he want to. If what he had heard was true, the fen country was marshy and waterlogged even in high summer. And at this time of year, in midwinter, the fens would be frozen solid.