in the biting wind.
‘Open your eyes and watch how those who would threaten your King die, girl,’ Robert commanded in an undertone. ‘Don’t shame me before these Saxon savages or I’ll whip the skin from your back.’
Constance raised her head obediently and forced herself to watch as man after man was lifted high alive and cut down a corpse. Some resisted as the knots were pulled tight, one or two looked on the verge of weeping; others walked with dignity to their deaths. Without exception all spat towards the dais where Robert’s household sat, fixing any Norman who met their eye with a loathing that made Constance shiver with fear.
Their deaths were not quick or easy, but if the uprising had not been prevented and they had joined with those in other counties, how slow and degrading would her death at their hands have been? She’d heard the tales of what had happened elsewhere, of children speared in their beds and women shared between the rebels until they begged for death. Even a twist-footed cripple like Constance would not be spared the degradation. Jeanne was right, it was relief she should feel, not pity.
Finally only three men remained alive. Their ages spanned a decade at least, but the reddish tint in their straw-blond hair and beards marked them as Brunwulf’s sons. The youngest, a man in his middle twenties, could barely walk. His leg was bound to a splint and he clenched his teeth with pain as he was half-carried up the steps. As they were pushed forward to the waiting nooses Brunwulf finally groaned aloud with despair and to Constance it seemed he shrank in stature before her eyes. The eldest called something to his father, his words rapid and in a dialect so thick Constance could not make out a single word. Brunwulf’s lips twisted into a grimace. He nodded and his sons raised their heads to stare at the baron defiantly. As one man they leapt off the ladders, causing their necks to break with the violence of their swing.
Without warning a roar of rage erupted from the back of the crowd. Robert leapt to his feet. People began muttering and jostling as a figure pushed through them. Someone screamed in alarm. Brunwulf swore.
Robert barked orders rapidly and soldiers plunged in among the gathered watchers to find the source, roughly knocking people aside. Cries of indignation and alarm filled the air until eventually two soldiers returned dragging a struggling figure dressed in a dark blue cloak. The soldiers marched to the dais and threw their captive to the ground in front of Robert. One dropped a short sword alongside him. The other ripped the cloak from him and threw it aside, revealing a scrawny figure dressed in a worn tunic and hose with leg bindings where a sheathed dagger was stuffed. He pulled the dagger loose and threw it alongside the sword.
As the prisoner raised his face to glare at his captors Constance got her first clear look at his face. The sight caused her stomach to knot and vomit to rise in her throat. She gave an involuntary start forward in her seat.
Jeanne touched her arm gently and looked at her questioningly.
‘Are you in pain?’
Constance shook her head and gave a half-smile, hoping her sister could not read the shock in her expression. She sat back, her mind whirling and filled with memories of occasions she had put behind her. Unconsciously she raised a hand to her lips, then realised what she had done, lowered it quickly and looked at the boy on the ground.
Aelric. Brunwulf’s youngest son.
To call him a boy was unjust. He was young and couldn’t yet be described as a full-grown man, but he was older than Constance by a year or two. He did not resemble his father at all. His tangled hair was reddish-blond and flopped across angular cheeks that were barely graced with a downy beard. Whereas Brunwulf was burly, Aelric had long limbs that he had not grown to fit completely.
As long as she had lived in Hamestan he had been there as Lord De Coudray’s ward, though everyone knew ward was another word for prisoner, lodged within the manor grounds as a guarantee of his father’s obedience. And now his father had broken that peace in the worst way possible and the boy would suffer. He had vanished from Hamestan after the uprising had been quashed and Constance had hoped he would have been long gone.
One of the soldiers twisted an arm up behind the boy’s back to what looked like breaking point. He seized hold of him by the hair and wrenched his head back, causing the boy to let out a string of expletives, only some of which Constance knew.
‘Why are you here?’ Robert demanded. ‘I thought you had fled to save your neck.’
‘I came to save my father,’ the boy shouted. He winced and gave a gasp of pain through gritted teeth as the soldier twisted his arm higher.
‘You’re too late for that,’ Robert said coldly.
‘Then I will avenge his death and those of my brothers,’ Aelric snarled.
Constance glanced at the men swinging from the ropes and their father waiting in chains. Brunwulf stood, shoulders tense and expression stricken. Robert left the dais and walked to where the boy knelt in the mud. When he reached Aelric he leaned over, putting his face close to the boy’s.
‘And how do you propose to do that, Aelric, son of Brunwulf?’ Robert asked. His voice had taken on the cold, mocking tone that Constance had come to dread.
Aelric’s blue eyes bored into Robert, staring down the man twenty years his senior.
‘By killing you.’
Robert was silent. The crowd hushed in frozen expectation. Constance gripped Jeanne’s hand, waiting for Robert’s response. For him to strike the boy or run him through. Instead he did something unexpected, yet far crueller.
He laughed.
Aelric’s face reddened.
Robert waved a dismissive hand and turned away.
‘Hang him with his father.’
The soldiers seized hold of Aelric, who cried out and struggled as they dragged him towards his father. Constance’s stomach twisted as if someone had taken a stick and wound it through her guts, coiling it tight.
‘Please don’t!’
The words left her mouth before she could stop herself. She realised she had pushed herself to her feet.
‘What do you think you’re doing, girl?’ Robert rounded on Constance, his face knotted with fury far greater than he had shown to the condemned men or the boy. The blood in her veins turned to ice, but she could feel her face flushing. The eyes of everyone in the square were on her.
‘Set him free,’ Constance said.
‘Why should I do that?’ Robert demanded incredulously.
‘He’s so young,’ she said softly.
‘Should I wait until he’s older? I’m sure we can find a gaol for him until he’s managed to grow hair on his chest,’ Robert scoffed.
Aelric looked up and his eyes met Constance’s. The sick feeling returned.
‘He helped me once,’ Constance said, aware of the heat rising to her cheeks. ‘When my horse lost a shoe last winter.’
It had been a cold January day. Her horse slipped in the mud as she rode along the gritstone ridge. The half-familiar boy working in the fields under guard had left his position to take hold of the bridle. Speaking
