Chapter One

      1152

      Gisela could hear the sound of angry voices as she rode through the forest towards Aldith’s assart cottage. She glanced worriedly towards Oswin who was riding with her. In this troubled year of 1152, when every man feared attacks upon his property from both known enemies and suspected ones, Walter of Brinkhurst had always insisted that Gisela ride accompanied. Her father’s reeve had been inspecting the autumn work on the field strips and was now escorting her on a visit to her former nurse.

      Aldith’s husband had cut the small assart clearing, but he had died two years ago and Aldith had continued to live in the snug little cottage he’d built for her with her fifteen-year-old-son, Sigurd. Her older son, who had died within the first month of his life, had provided her with the milk to feed Gisela, whose own mother had died soon after the birth, and Aldith had given all of her hungry love for her dead child to her master’s daughter.

      Though she no longer lived at Brinkhurst Manor, there was still deep affection between them and Gisela visited her nurse frequently.

      Gisela put spurs to her palfrey and urged on Oswin, whose usual speed was slow and dignified.

      “That sounds as if it is coming from Aldith’s cottage. She has always insisted that she is safe there, but Father has been urging her to come to live at Brinkhurst for some time now.”

      Within minutes Gisela and her mount burst into the clearing to find Aldith at the gate of her rough wattle fence, facing two men-at-arms and struggling to hold back Sigurd, who was intent on doing one of them some mischief.

      Gisela saw by the blue chevron device on their boiled leather coats they were Allestone men. She kicked her feet free of the stirrups, leaped down easily without Oswin’s assistance and hastened to reach her frightened nurse, with Oswin puffing more slowly in her wake.

      “What is it, Aldith?” she said breathlessly. “What has Sigurd done?”

      She was aware that some of the villeins and serfs frequently broke the forest laws in their pursuit of game. Old Godfrey of Allestone had, like her father, usually turned a blind eye to these proceedings, yet he had, on one or two occasions, delivered judgement on the miscreant at the manor court, though always tempered with mercy.

      Now that Godfrey had been killed in a recent skirmish between royal and rebel troops near Gloucester and had had no living heir—his son having died three years before in the war,—the castle and desmesne had been granted to Baron Alain de Treville, by King Stephen.

      Gisela knew little about the baron, having seen him only once from a distance in the nearby town of Oakham. He had looked, to her eyes, to be a tall, forbidding figure; she was now afraid that Sigurd might be in trouble and that this man would have little mercy for his misdemeanours.

      “He has done nothing, Demoiselle Gisela,” Aldith said, hastily cutting short Sigurd’s excited attempt to explain, “but these fellows say we must leave our cottage before Sunday next. I keep trying to tell them that we have nowhere else to go but this sergeant says…” She broke down, tears streaming down her brown, workworn cheeks.

      Gisela put a comforting arm round her nurse’s shoulders and turned to the intruders.

      “I am Gisela of Brinkhurst, the neighbouring manor,” she said peremptorily. “Aldith is my former nurse. She is very dear to me. What is all this about?”

      The older of the two men, a grizzled veteran of about forty, cleared his throat, obviously embarrassed.

      “Begging your pardon, demoiselle, I understand your concern, but this is Allestone land and, as you know, to cut an assart in the wood is strictly unlawful.”

      “We are all aware of that,” Gisela snapped, “but there are many such cottages hereabouts. Rolf, Aldith’s late husband, worked for Godfrey of Allestone as a skilled forester, a free man, and his assart was tolerated by his master.”

      “Aye, demoiselle, but the desmesne now belongs to Baron Alain de Treville and he has ordered me to clear this woodland to a depth of half a mile from Allestone Castle, and, as you can see for yourself, this cottage must be destroyed to allow for the total