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My home is attacked, yet by it I may be saved. Strange that my executioner has suffered the fate meant for me. But I must move from this place or I may follow him. Would that be not the ultimate irony?
    Bound feet shuffling, she managed a half turn away from the dangerous edge, but the movement unbalanced her. Shivering uncontrollably, she swayed toward the gulf below as a man with hair like deepest shadow and shoulders broad as the hills appeared on the wall. He raced in her direction.
    She beheld him as if in a dream, a tall man garbed in black from head to toe, even to the blackened chain metal of his hauberk. Naught broke the unrelieved pitch save a scarlet sash around his waist. Within its folds, she glimpsed twin gold lions passant, the insignia of the House of Normandy.
    Little shocks pulsed through her frame, vying with the bedeviling shivers.
    Norman! He is Norman. The enemy is come. A dark knight sprints toward me. How very odd that he…oh! I am falling!
    Her knees buckled, but determined intent blazed from the knight’s eyes. He vaulted onto the parapet.
     
    ***
     
    Fallard swept his arms around the Lady of Wulfsinraed and drew close her slight, quivering form. His jaw tightened.
    Saint’s teeth! That was too close. But a moment longer and I would have lost her to the river.
    He cradled her to his chest, startled at the intense heat that radiated from beneath her tattered cyrtel. He raked her features with his eyes. Dusted beneath a gaze unnaturally bright were dark smudges. A large bruise marred the left side of her face, and more ringed her slender throat. Her face was drawn and flushed.
    She is afire, aye, blazing with fever. Will she understand my words?
    “My lady, surrender. I have won you fairly, and with honor.”
    He awaited her response. She blinked, a languid movement of the lids over eyes the color of the emerald moss that grew beneath the forest canopy. She inhaled, slowly, deeply, the cool air of the freshening morn.
     
    ***
     
    His voice was deep as the realms of the sea-gods. In that moment, in the feverish imagining that ruled her thoughts, he seemed a fantasy emerging from a vision of mists, destined to rescue her from death. Handsome as the gods, he was a lover who held her with an embrace both powerful and gentle. He appeared the epitome of all of her youthful, maidenly reveries, so ruthlessly crushed by her husband.
    He was but a fancy, naught more than imagination. Could she not say what she would to a dream-warrior, and ’twould make no difference? She burned as her look met his, and whispered her answer. “My lord, I surrender in truth. Do with me as you will.”
    His smile was triumphant and altogether male. “Aye, lady,” he said. “That is how it will be.”
     
    ***
     
    Fallard doubted the lady knew whereof she spoke, yet the words were said. He would not allow her to recall them later.
    He turned to take in the scene in the courtyard below as a misty rain, its touch soft on his face, cooled the fierce battle heat from his body. Trifine oversaw the incarceration of Ruald of Sebfeld and the surviving rebels to the upper floor of the gatehouse. They would be interrogated before transport on the morrow to London for trial. William’s footsoldiers would provide escort, while Sir Gyffard, their commander, would carry to the king any particulars pertinent to William’s battle strategies against the rebels.
    Except for his men, none but a few retainers of Wulfsinraed Hall remained in the courtyard. As planned, the villagers had fled to their homes once the attack began. As he regarded each countenance staring up at him, he spoke loudly, in the Saxon dialect, that all might hear and understand. “I am Fallard D’Auvrecher, Baron of Wulfsinraed! In the name of William, King of England, who has granted to me honorial rights, I claim Wulfsinraed Burh and all its fiefs and burhfolc. I grant mercy to all who foreswear to take up arms against me, and offer their oath of fealty to me