Naked by Eliza Redgold Read Free Book Online Page A

your courage will fail you now.”

 
    6
    She sent a herald forth,
    And bade him cry, with sound of trumpet
    —Tennyson (1842): Godiva
    The morning dawned cold and bright. The scent of grass in the air too soft a perfume for the day ahead. On the mud-trod plain outside Coventry our warriors were gathered.
    Uneasily I shifted on Ebur’s saddle. My armor was light, as armor went, as I’d told Lord Leofric, but the weight still lay heavy on my shoulders.
    My grip went to my braid as it often did when I was nervous. But my hair wasn’t in its usual thick rope. Instead, my fingers touched the metal of my helmet.
    Earlier, Aine had tied my hair back. “It must be firmly fastened.” With skillful fingers, she’d twisted it into a braided coil and secured it with a string of wool. “There. That will fit below your helmet, and it won’t come loose, whatever happens.”
    Whatever happens. Aine’s words rang in my ears as I stared across the vast field at a terrifying spectacle.
    The Danes. So many more than the Saxons. Panic overwhelmed me at the sight of the solid wall of men, most on foot, a few of them on horseback. How could we defeat them once their shields were up, their axes high, their catapults, heaving with stones, at the ready? I could hear their jeering and hooting, calling out curses and threats. They’d found out we were coming to meet them on this open stretch of grassy land. I didn’t know how.
    Had I led us into a trap? I darted a peek over my shoulder. We had men for our own shield wall, tall, strong men, many of them young and bold. Once their shields were raised, the edges touched. Surely they would form a defense too hard for the Danes to break.
    Behind the shield warriors were the townspeople, men I had known my whole life. Wilbert, shifting his axe from hand to hand, his expression firm. The blacksmith, the inn keeper, no doubt wishing himself on the mead-bench instead; the butcher, the miller and his two sons, a farmer, carrying only a hoe … all of them had come. Closer to me were the warriors who were now my bodyguard, Edmund leading them. They were mounted too, but later, when the horns blew and the battle began, we would join the men on foot.
    When the battle began.
    Courage , I told myself. Courage.
    I hadn’t known it would feel like this. I hadn’t known fear would sour in my mouth, that my stomach would churn, my palms dampen inside my leather gloves, or my legs turn so weak I could barely hold on to Ebur’s sides with my clenched, leather-clad thighs. It was fortunate I hadn’t been able to break my fast that morning, though Aine had tried to make me eat. There was no way I could keep anything in my roiling belly.
    No! I refused to give in! Fear was the point at which weakness could enter, like a pottery bowl made poorly, or a thread loose in the loom, leaving a bowl to break, a garment to unravel. Fear would not enter into my soul, just as no Dane would trample the soil of my lands. No Danish blade would take the lives of the women and children of Coventry, huddled in their homes now, praying that the men of the Middle Lands, and the men of Mercia, too, would hold off Thurkill the Tall.
    The men of Mercia. I cast a sidelong glance at their leader, mounted beside me. His jaw was set hard as he stared straight ahead, coolly surveying Thurkill’s troops. His leather armor, battle-scarred, spread across his vast chest, his helmet low over his brow. He held himself taut, at the ready. His black horse, the magnificent animal on whose back I’d first seen him, hoofed the ground into clods of mud, seeming as eager to begin battle as his master.
    “It’s not too late for you to retreat to your hall,” the earl said, low. “I can lead the battle.”
    “I must do this.” I took a deep breath, as if I could draw courage in like air. “It’s just … there are so many of them.”
    “Numbers don’t decide the victor, just as size does not.” He glanced at my armor, shaped to fit me