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fragile bones would endure further abuse.
    Vivian ceased breathing altogether as he stripped off thick leather gloves and crouched low before the old woman with a graceful ease in spite of the heavy layers of battle armor he wore. At that moment she was certain he understood the vile things Meg had said. Then he stunned them both as he seized a handful of flowing white hair and gently angled Meg’s head up so that she was forced to look at him.
    She screeched several more vile profanities as she clawed and scratched at his hand  clamped over her hair. Undaunted, he angled her head back, her wrinkled face marred by bruises that Vachel had inflicted. Meg threw her hands up as if to protect herself from another blow, making grotesque gestures. Only Vivian understood the ancient signs the woman made with her hands, calling on every evil creature she could summon from the bowels of Darkness, every possible disease she knew of, and a few even Vivian wasn’t familiar with.
    She was stunned when Rorke FitzWarren didn’t strike the old woman. Instead, he clamped his other hand over her thin wrists and drew them away from her face.
    “Do not think to hex me or conjure up some spell, old woman!” he warned her. “For I do not believe in such things.”
    “You will believe!” Meg hissed at him. “When your eyes fall out of your head and your manhood shrivels no bigger than a worm!”
    He ignored her threats as he turned to Mally. He slipped fingers beneath the girl’s trembling chin and angled her face up so that she too was forced to look at him. She whimpered, tears streaming down her bruised face, her gaze carefully averted.
    “I will not harm you,” he said with such surprising gentleness that Mally looked at him from beneath her pale lashes with guarded wariness.
    “Though God knows you have enough reason to fear me,” he added, speaking once more in French, unaware that any but his own men understood. “And even more reason to doubt what I say.”
    Vivian was stunned by his unexpected kindness toward the girl, and watched him with new curiosity. Then he told Mally in English, “Look at me.”
    Eventually, she looked up, eyes wide with fear amidst the bruises marring features that might have been pretty if not for the swelling that cruelly distorted her appearance. She looked more like a pathetic kitten that had been trampled underfoot and barely escaped with its life.
    “Let her go,” FitzWarren ordered the soldier who still held her prisoner. Terrified and bewildered, Mally slipped into the shadows at the wall when he released her.
    FitzWarren’s voice was like winter’s death, and unforgiving as he told Vachel, “If it were left to you, you would kill all Saxons, including the healer!”
    Vivian’s startled gaze fastened on Vachel. Until that moment she assumed he sought a healer for a healer’s purpose—to tend to someone who’d been injured. What could this other knight possibly mean by his accusation? Why would Vachel want her dead?
    As if he heard her silent thoughts, Rorke FitzWarren slowly turned to her. When he stood before her, those gray eyes assessed her with a far different expression. His gaze lingered at the cut fabric of her gown and the bloodied mark on pale flesh beneath.
    “My apologies, demoiselle. The king would be offended to learn you have been so sorely abused.”
    Her auburn brow lifted slightly as she answered him in French, her words dripping with all the loathing, hatred, and contempt she felt at that moment for all Normans.
    “You no doubt speak of King Harold,” she answered defiantly. “And you are right, milord. He would never tolerate such abuses of his loyal subjects, nor would he tolerate foreign tyrants on English soil!”
    He looked at her with new curiosity in discovering she spoke the French language as well as he.
    “I speak of William of Normandy,” Rorke informed her. “Your new king.”
    “William is not my king,” Vivian vehemently denied. “The road