Captives by Emily Murdoch Page A

surprised me. I did not think them so… ungrateful. I had considered the efforts that I had made with this country to be sufficient to gain their loyalty.”
    “You must remember,” Fitz said softly, “that to many here, we are foreigners. The majority of the English have never heard of Normandy, let alone been there or known who we were. Our arrival was a shock to them, and a few years cannot undo the many that they have enjoyed owning their own land, running their own country!”
    “And yet we are here now!” King William exploded, and then hushed his voice, realising that they could quite easily attract attention. The darkness, after all, did not cloak the noises that they made. “I am here now, and I am the King!”
    “And yet their allegiance is not to you.”
    “I hope that the castles will do their work,” William sighed. “Castles have always been the perfect way to control people, back in Normandy.”
    “And yet, the people here are so different,” countered Fitz softly. “How are we to know, truly, what they are like?”
    There was a moment of silence between them as both men considered the two peoples that they were now surrounded by. On the one hand, the Normans: their own people, the culture that they had been raised with. Their voices spoke the Norman tongue, and they thought Norman thoughts. And here, the English: a foreign race of troublemakers, the people over the water. Their history was dark and mysterious, and their language a class in acrobatics for those Normans, like Fitz, who decided to learn it.
    “Thankfully, no rebellions have succeeded,” Fitz said quietly. “We should be grateful for that.”
    “Gratitude can only lead a country for so long.”
    “But what else can we do?”
    “Whatever it is, it shall not be done by you.”
    Fitz blinked. “My lord King William?”
    “It is not that I do not value you, my friend,” said William heavily. “If anything, I have depended too much on you since the invasion of England. You must be tired. It has been months – nay, years since you have seen your homelands. How do your children fare?”
    Fitz swallowed, and stammered. “Well, it – it has been almost a month since a letter from my family has reached me. We move about so much, my lord.”
    William clapped a large hand on Fitz’s shoulder. “No man should go so long without seeing his wife. I found being away from Matilda torture, and I see no reason why I should detain you from your family any longer. I am sending you back to Normandy.”
    “My lord!” Fitz’s cheeks burned red, although his companion could not see them in the dark of the night. “If I have offended you in any way, please tell me – do not send me home like a child who has forgotten his manners!”
    “Peace, Fitz,” William said calmly. “I commend you for the work that you have done for me. There could have been no one better to have within my council, and beside me through these troubled times. But you will become useless to me if you do not rest. Come now: you know this to be true.”
    “I wish…” Fitz’s voice tailed off. “I wish it were not so,” he said simply.
    “And I, too,” said William. “But there it is. I shall send word for your passage across the sea to be arranged.”
    Fitz inhaled, and slowly let the breath out. There was nothing for it, then. He was going back home.

 
    Chapter Thirteen
     
    Her eyes were shut, and her face was warm. The sunshine was beating down on her aching old bones, and she was enjoying the last of the sunshine of the day. The skirts of her red dress were spread around her, and every muscle within her body was desperate to relax. The summer was truly upon them, and just like every summer before it, Catheryn was worshipping it. She would soon be brown, much to the disgust of her family – but then, her family were nowhere close to her now. She would have the disapproval of others to contend with this summer.
    Catheryn sighed, and opened her eyes. It