Gaetan merely shrugged. “It is possible,” he said ambivalently. Then, he turned to de Moray and his men. “I had the same idea as Marc suggested – using Harold’s body to exchange for Kristoph’s freedom. Téo and I discussed it earlier with just that possibility in mind. We will send the lady back with a message – Kristoph for their king.”
Ghislaine was quickly growing agitated. “Alary cares not for Harold’s body,” she insisted. “He served the king only to gain his favor because he has two brothers who hold great lands while he himself has none. Now that the king is dead, believe me when I tell you that he has no use for the man. And sending me back to him with a message from you will only sign my death warrant. My brother will want to know how I became a messenger for Norman knights.”
Gaetan turned to her but, before he could speak, the big knight, de Moray, spoke again. “Then I will ride into the encampment and exchange myself for Kristoph,” he said. “I have no wife to mourn me. If the man wants a prisoner, then he will take me. Kristoph has a child and a wife who need him.”
Gaetan put a hand on de Moray’s shoulder. “Although I admire your sacrifice, I will not lose you, too,” he said. “We will regain Kristoph without anyone sacrificing himself. I need my anges intact. I will lose no man and I will leave no man behind. You know this.”
It was true that they did. That had been their mantra from years back; no man left behind, no man lost. It was part of the bond that kept them so strong. It was that faith in their unit as a whole that gave them the illusion of their own immortality. As the men pondered the next step in regaining Kristoph, a round, dirty figure pushed himself forward from behind the row of knights.
It was the priest. Jathan had heard de Reyne summoning the men to Gaetan’s tent and, even half-asleep as he had been, he scrambled up from his pallet and followed the tide of exhausted men into Gaetan’s quarters. Now, he’d heard the reason they’d been summoned and he sought to lend his aid. He, more than anyone, understood the loyalty that bonded these men together and he knew that de Moray would sacrifice himself without question.
“My lord,” he said to Gaetan. “Surely they would not harm a man of the church. I will go into the Saxon encampment and see to Kristoph myself. Mayhap, I can negotiate for his release.”
Gaetan turned to his priest, as did the rest of them. Jathan had been a knight before he’d been a priest and was therefore an excellent fighter, but he still had the look of a killer about him. He’d preach the good word in one breath and snap a neck in the next. Gaetan shook his head, sadly.
“You still look like a warrior no matter how much you pretend to be a priest,” he said. “Although I appreciate your offer, I fear they would not believe you were a man of the church.”
Jathan wouldn’t be deterred. “Then I shall go to the nearest abbey and solicit assistance from the priests,” he said. “They can go to the Saxon encampment and negotiate for Kristoph. If one of us cannot go, then the church must intervene.”
Again, Gaetan shook his head. “That would take time,” he said. “The Saxon army is not going to remain to the east forever, as the lady has mentioned. They will be moving out soon and I suspect the only thing we can do is go now ourselves and bring Kristoph back. Not with a great army as the lady suggested, but just the nine of us – this is either a job for a great many men or just a few. We can slip in and take him without raising an alarm.”
“Then let me at least offer myself as a prisoner,” Jathan insisted. “Surely they would not harm me. Mayhap they would even take me to where Kristoph is and, from that position, I can help him when you come to free him. You will need a man on the inside if he is as injured as the lady has said.”
De Wolfe didn’t look entirely convinced. “There may be truth in that,” he admitted. “But we would have to coordinate that carefully so as not to create a great alarm. We must be stealth, whatever we do.”
Still over by the edge of the tent, Ghislaine nodded eagerly. “They are in the forest where there is a good deal of cover for your movements,” she said, relieved that they were finally understanding the seriousness of the situation. “I will take you there and I will show you were I last saw your knight. Mayhap, they have not even missed me these few hours and will not have even known I have left, so I will be able to move about the encampment freely.”
As Gaetan considered her offer, de Moray spoke up again. “How do we know you weren’t sent here to take us all to our deaths using Kristoph as bait?” he asked, somewhat savagely. “I do not like that you are so eager to help us regain him.”
Ghislaine could see their point, in a sense. Therefore, she tried not to be too offended by it. “I swear by my mother that I have not been sent here to lure you to your deaths,” she said steadily. “I have given my reasons to your lord for coming; among them is the fact that my brother is a wicked man who holds your friend captive. When you rescue your friend, if my brother falls victim to your sword, I will not mourn him. I will thank you for doing me and the rest of Mercia a great service.”
Now, the situation had a bit of a twist on it that was unexpected – a Saxon woman seeking the assassination of her terrible brother, who just happened to hold a Norman knight captive. It was difficult not to believe her sincerity and even de Moray’s hostility had banked somewhat. He looked at Gaetan.
“Is this true?” he asked. “She has come seeking her brother’s murder?”
Gaetan’s gaze was on Ghislaine as she stood on the other side of the tent, looking at all of them with a mixture of fear and hope. He was a good judge of character because his life depended upon such things and he was coming to think that the lady was sincere. A bit foolish, perhaps, but sincere. She seemed a little too na?ve about the ways of men to be anything else. Strangely, he was starting to feel the least bit of compassion towards her.
“There is something you should know,” he told his men. “Towards the end of yesterday’s battle, I captured what I thought was a Saxon archer. It turned out to be Lady Ghislaine. I spared her life and, in turn, when Kristoph was captured, she spared his. Of course, there is no way of knowing if she is being truthful until we regain Kristoph and speak with him, but given that we have no other alternative, I am willing to trust that she is a lady of her word. I am willing to trust that Kristoph’s situation is as she says it is and that we can depend on her for her assistance in regaining him. But at the first sign she is lying, I will not hesitate to slit her throat. Make no mistake.”
Deadly words from de Wolfe and Ghislaine had no doubt that he meant them. But she didn’t show her fear. She simply looked him in the eye, steadily, to emphasize the fact that she wasn’t lying about anything. They needed their knight returned. She needed vengeance against her brother.
There was an old saying… my enemy’s enemy is my friend.
Perhaps this would work out, after all.