chair in the abbess’s chamber and stepped out of shadow into light she had brought inside when she opened the door.
She did not hate him. Thus, that dark emotion was not responsible for a heart making its every beat felt at the memory of him. She did not like him, so neither was affection responsible.
“What, then?” she whispered, and through the cloth pressed to her chest, felt the thud also throbbing in neck and wrists. Naming it attraction, she closed her eyes.
Though she would admit it to no one, she did not want to stand with her back to his chest, head beneath his chin. She wanted to turn into him, step atop his booted feet, set her chest against his chest, and feel the absence of breath between their mouths as they waited to discover whose yielding would first stir the air between them.
His, she thought since all she knew of kisses was the indiscretion that had freed her from marriage and those she allowed Bjorn to press upon her.
“Silly Nicola,” she rasped, but still she saw herself with Vitalis, still she imagined the kiss which would give her cause to slide her fingers over his beard into his hair.
Raising her lids, she opened her hand. The mantle piece was all she would ever have of him, and not for much longer were she to escape the isle and see it returned to William.
As is best, she thought. There was advantage to a landed Norman taking one of the conquered to wife in that it aided in gaining acceptance from Saxons answerable to him. But a Saxon deprived of his lands taking to wife a Norman who brought only herself to the marriage—and a questionable self considering this lady could not have gained a good husband in Normandy… And were that not impossible enough, the mighty Vitalis was hunted by the King of England. Hopeless, even were he greatly attracted to her.
She curled her fingers around the cloth. “Very well. I neither hate nor dislike him. I am angry, that is all. And rightly so.”
Ducking her head beneath the cover, returning Vilda to mind, she rasped, “And I am sad. What did my people do to you, Lady? Certes, worse than all that has been done to Nicola of the conquerors.”
“The earl has secured her in a room on the second floor of the inn near the church. For now she is safe.”
Though the vixen was of less import than the meeting following the Danes’ arrival on Ely, Zedekiah had begun his tale with the docking he watched from nearby cover where he witnessed what landed the lady in the water.
Have you any greater enemy than the one behind your eyes, Nicola? Vitalis wondered. Not that her defense of Hawisa and her husband was wrong. It was ill-timed.
“What of the alliance, Zedekiah?”
“Though often I had to reposition myself to ensure I was not seen, I heard nearly all.” He sighed. “It shall commence with Peterborough Abbey, a joint effort between Saxons and Danes.”
Vitalis ground his teeth. This morn he had heard talk of Hereward’s desire to take the abbey’s treasure—not to enrich himself and the resistance, but to keep it out of enemy hands. The Saxon abbot having passed months ago, a Norman had been appointed to replace him. It was said that since the new abbot behaved more a soldier than a man of God, William had decided to give him someone to fight.
Though fairly certain Hereward but wished to protect the abbey’s treasures, never would Vitalis believe that of the Danish earl. “When?” he asked.
“Since Abbot Turold arrives in less than a sennight to assume his position, two days hence the alliance goes upriver to empty the abbey of its precious objects and transport them to the isle. The Danes agree it is only to prevent the Norman abbot from making plunder of them, but…”
“They lie,” Vitalis said. And how he wearied of the lies choking England, including his own!
Dragging the thong from his nape that prevented the sweat of his exertions from thoroughly dampening his hair, he said, “Do the Danes not claim all of it, the greater portion will end up on their ships.” Leaning forward, he lifted from above crackling flames a spit of roasted meat that was prey before his arrow granted the hare a quick death.
Since Zedekiah preferred meat thoroughly cooked, the man turned his own spit to further roast the other side. “Will you speak with Hereward when he reveals the