by Amber Dane
Water splashed her face and Caroline shot up with a startled shout.
‘‘Tis alright, my lady. ‘Tis just me, Mildred. You are safe now.’
Caroline cleared the water away from her eyes to see a grinning Norman soldier holding an empty scrub bucket. She glared at him as he whistled and walked away. Orienting herself, she saw that they were now outside and in the back of a wooden cart.
From the bank to the tower all was a ball of fire.
The tower was engulfed fully in flames and as she stared at it, it gave an earsplitting howl as though in pain and fell in on itself to the ground in a plume of spraying sparks.
There was nothing left to their home. The last of it now a pile of rubble alongside the rest of the sacked and burning village.
The air held a sweet sickly scent outside of the burning wood.
Death.
Blood soaked, charred bodies and body parts lay strewn this way and that across the grounds. Caroline averted her gaze from the gruesome sight and her stinging eyes swept over the rest of the busy yard in search of Kelbie.
Mildred’s soft voice came next to her, quickly, ‘He is there, my lady with the rest of the children in the other carts.’
Caroline followed where the woman pointed and she saw her son, covered from head to toe in black soot, his large eyes, wet with his tears, huddled amongst the other children watching her. His thumb in his mouth.
Fresh tears began anew and she swallowed hard to quell the horror threatening to consume her. She straightened her back and moved to get off the cart. Mildred tried to restrain her, but she wrenched free and stepped down to the ground.
She had not even taken her first step when the all too familiar male voice halted her in her tracks.
‘Not a wise move, demoiselle.’
Caroline whirled to see the blue-eyed leader standing right behind her. Where had he come from? The choking smoke from the fire swirled around his head. She coughed and waved a waft of smoke from her face.
Again, she could not hold her tongue. Raw emotions ran through her at the senseless deaths around her. The weight of the whole day caused her to lash out at him without thought. Why it was so with this man, despite his intimidation and fierce scowl, she did not know. And that angered her too. She needed to yell at someone and since her husband was now dead. This arrogant Norman would do.
She spat on the ground and the words tumbled out of her mouth, ‘Murdering Norman pig!’
He surprised her with what he did next.
A burst of rich laughter came from that mouth and he watched her for a long moment before those thin lips turned back into that crude line.
‘Think what you will. Come, your king waits.’ He waved his hand out in front of him in the opposite direction of the cart which held Kelbie.
Caroline stayed rooted to the spot. She needed to retrieve her son. ‘Not without my son.’
Her hard, firm words were not lost on the leader. Something flickered in his blue gaze. Was that admiration? Nay, his look was one of loathe as surely as was hers. Again the moment seemed to stretch an eternity, then he nodded or at least she thought the brief movement of his dark head was a nod.
He strode past her, his long muscular legs and big stride had him at the cart which held her son in seconds. Caroline opened her mouth to call out to him to tell him which one he was when he turned. She was left speechless that he had Kelbie already in his arms.
As they came closer, her son, pale as a ghost squirmed in the man's arms and wailed at the top of his lungs.
The lieutenant dropped him quickly to the ground and Kelbie's little legs carried him the rest of the way to her skirts. Caroline hugged his trembling little body tight, her eyes never leaving the lieutenant.
He stood over them. This time she was not mistaken in what she read in his eyes, pain and hatred. The look was masked as she heard voices come up behind her. She straightened and stood, Kelbie latched onto a thigh as she tried to quiet him. She accepted the woolen cloak that Mildred held out to her and wrapped it around them both. The fires had cut a strong blanket of heat through the chilly winter day but the chill seeping into her bones came from a different direction.
The lieutenant clasped both his hands behind his back and made a slight bow. Caroline’s insides turned liquid again and coldness seeped into her bones. Nay!
She turned and William and his small retinue stopped before her.
‘Tame this scrap, boy.’ William’s booming voice drew a gasp from her just as she reached out for something to hold onto before her shaky legs made her fall at his feet. At the same time a monster sized Norman behind the king moved to snatch her son. William called this man a boy? The man’s massive hand wrapped around her son’s small arm and sent her into a panic, and she forgot herself.
‘Nay’ Caroline cried out and shoved the man’s arm aside roughly. ‘Do not touch him!’
‘My lady, calm yourself lest you find yourself and your son imprisoned or worse. William only has so much mercy.’
Caroline’s eyes shifted to the lieutenant in surprise at his hushed warning. She looked back to see if the king had been close enough to hear her outburst. If he had, he made no indication that he had as he’d his ear bent to one of his guards before he turned his attention back to the lieutenant.
‘You have proven your valor, Darc Renald time after time and I can but only reward your triumphant victory again. Seeing the Lord of Westlan home and now…routing out this treasonous and coward filled stronghold.’ A genuine smile lit the king’s lips and gleamed in his hard eyes. ‘Come, my friend.’
Caroline wanted to die! Darc Renald. That name was well known and feared in these parts, but it came with another word attached.
Beast.
All knew by now how William sought power, wealth and order and ruled with an iron-like fist of unyielding power. He’d many acquaintances, but there were very few he called friends.
She did not like the look in the kings’ sharp eyes as he clasped a beefy hand on the scarred beast’s broad shoulder as he glanced over her briefly. The painful and long silence had her holding her breath. Then he turned away and the two spoke rapidly in their Norman French tongue.
Caroline caught snatches of key words here and there. Favor. Death. Marriage. Woman. Child. With haste.
Every nerve ending inside her screamed as she forced herself not to turn to look at the lieutenant as the king smiled wide at him. But she lost the battle.
Her eyes traveled down the scar lining the whole left side of Darc Renald’s face and she let out a tight breath. Anything, anything but marriage to another monster. To this, this Norman heathen!
She turned away just as quick for his black look pierced her with resolute loathing. The scathing look unsettled her.
She had been handed from one man to the other like a lamb to slaughter. She screamed inside and when the bubble threatened to choke her, she bit her lip drawing the metal taste of her own blood into her mouth. Nausea washed over her and she swayed.
Had it not been for her son's quiet sniffles, she would have fainted again she was sure of it. Her heart raced and her eyes shot from the tip of the beast’s leather boots up to the top of his dark head.
Something was not right and she had a feeling she would not like what came out of the king's mouth next.
Dare she hope she had misheard? Nay, for the king repeated what he’d said in her tongue.
‘This spot will be cleared and I wish for you to build another stronghold here to keep these Saxon sheep in line. Also, I think it time you took another wife and set your roots. Sort of a new beginning, eh?’
She knew that was not all of it. He’d only repeated what he had wanted her to hear and clearly. Like a warning. She could scarcely breathe, the thick smoke and acrid smell of burning flesh filled her nostrils, but it was also William’s words that burned her throat too.
While trying to fold her five year old son into the tattered remains of her gown, her red-rimmed, tired eyes
shot quickly back to the king. The look he gave her told her he meant what he’d said.
“Seek a priest.’ William’s booming voice rang loudly through the sudden clang of steel and chaos around them. Men moved to do his bidding as he stood there watching her and the beast.
The king could not be so cruel as to mean they were to be wed while Lord Halvard’s headless body yet burned behind them in the scorched frame that she once called home. Aye, he could.
Roiling dust and smoke plumed around them like steam in an unwelcome wraith of destruction, nearly blocking out the sky. Caroline wanted to hang her head and give in to her grief.
Her life would never be one of joy and love. Dreams like that had died within the walls of the tower Lord Halvard had locked her in. Caroline lifted her chin and faced the beast’s unforgiving look with one of her own. She was being punished for Lord Halvard’s crimes against the Norman king.
Kelbie finally quieted as he tried to disappear deeper within the folds of her skirts. Caroline licked her parched lips nervously and chanced another glance at the large man standing next to the king. The dark look on Darc Renald’s face told her something far worse. The look in the man’s eyes said he wished she had gone up in the engulfing flames along with her now dead husband.
Caroline jerked back from the harsh, vivid look and prayed for mercy though she knew mercy had abandoned them long ago.
As the king continued to roll off his tongue to the gathered crowd news of their new tenant-in-chief and the changes to come, she could only pray that he would be more kind than Lord Halvard had been.
Were she to try to escape, how far could she truly expect to get with her son at her side? Tears pooled in her eyes and she did not care as they slid down her cheeks for they were tears of anger, despair, lost hope and she raged against God for sending them to another hell.
Then just as quickly she begged for forgiveness and strength. ‘Twas a matter of survival and she had to survive for Kelbie. For she would not abandon him to be cared for by another. For him, she would be strong.
She would survive.
With that declaration, Caroline straightened her spine and faced the man that would become her second husband.
Darc Renald.
The Beast of Renald to many.
CHAPTER THREE
Darc barely heard anything after William had mentioned marriage, his king’s words filtered in with his own. He was numb for a moment.
‘Put to use Halvard’s men and rebuild. It would be a good idea to widen the moat after the debris is cleared and the bodies removed. Should do rather nicely,’ William was saying. The visions Darc had had earlier, the thoughts, things he’d envisioned riding in here, vaguely flitted through his mind.
He’d envisioned a large palisade around the deep bank for defense. Another Norman castle under his belt for his service. Aye, he’d known it.
‘Twould serve as a fitting beacon of intimidation as did his own castle near York. Halvard’s property lay at the cross of two key roads.
Aye, he’d envisioned much.
But now those feelings and images seemed distant and all he could do was force himself not to show his true feelings. He could hardly contain himself, but he did and quickly masked his fury from the king.
However, William’s keen eyes stared a moment longer into his told him his liege knew he was not pleased.
Mattered not what Darc thought or wanted, his liege lord had spoken and he clasped his hands behind his back and straightened his shoulders. His narrowed gaze settled back on the woman and child.
Soot and ash covered both their small forms. He’d known who the petite woman was even before she’d spoken. Their once fine clothes, now ragged and filthy hung from their pitiful looking frames giving them the look of starving serfs.
The little boy whimpered at her torn skirts and it pained him as much as it sickened him. The boy could be no more than five or six summers and was showing weakness already.
The lady on the other hand did not. She stared back at him with the same volatile intensity he bestowed upon her. The large cloak covered her from neck to thigh and he could see nothing of her body now, and he was glad. For he had seen enough of it when he had come to her aid earlier to tear her from the clutches of his men when they had set out upon their wenching.
Her honey-colored wide eyes, too large for her oval face stood out against her long, chestnut matted hair. She possessed a long beak for a nose and pursed thin lips with cheekbones to cut glass.
Just what he did not want or need, another witch.
This demoiselle was by far no raving beauty as his first wife had been but the haughty air about her and how she’d spoken to him earlier, despite her fear and threat of possible death, along with the regal stance she now struck, told him her qualities were the same through and through. And now she would be his burden.
Nay!
He would see them settled here at his castle in York and he would return to Normandy as soon as he gave instructions for the Norman castle to be constructed and erected on Halvard’s fertile lands that they had not burnt.
William could force him to marry her, but he could not force him to make a life with her.
Something he had no intention of doing. He had no wish for a son of his loins from her. A blinding pain of protest lanced through his chest as an old ache stirred inside his chest and the buried memory struggled to come forth. He clamped his teeth tight and fought the image off and focused all of his attention on the thought of going home to Normandy and held onto it. It gave him the will to nod briefly in her direction just as the shaking form of a Saxon priest was dragged forth by two large soldiers for the hasty ceremony.
CHAPTER FOUR
Renald Castle
They rode all through the evening until dark. Pitched tents covered and protected them from the cold drizzle of snow and rain when they stopped to camp briefly before his troops and the people of Halvard were forced to ride again before the crack of dawn.
Nesta had run off with the others and Caroline could only pray that they had not been downed by William’s archers and had found safety.
Through and over hills, they rode, past steep valleys and small towns before they came to a dark shadow that loomed before them the third night. The sound of water rushing nearby reached Caroline’s ears just as the wind picked up, its chill wrapped about them. They crossed over a bridge and the large structure before them got closer and closer as they rode up and up towards it.
Caroline held Kelbie close to her chest through it all. She thanked God that his exhausted little body kept him asleep for the duration of the harsh journey. She was numb and everything passed her by as if she had been seeing it through someone else’s eyes.
Castle Renald, a formidable and impregnable fortress, obviously had been built to stand against any bold attackers and to oppress the Saxon people for even in the black of the night, she could see the advantage points from every corner of its many towers.
She did not respond to anything or anyone. She was barely aware of anything other than her new husband’s ever watchful gaze upon them. She was surprised she even remained in the saddle; her own thoroughly exhausted body had protested the hard ride.
But no one said aught as the beast had ridden them furiously across the countryside as if the demons of fiery hell were on his heels.
The spikes of the raised portcullis as they passed under it looked like a gaping mouth of iron teeth ready to swallow them whole. They were rushed through to the inner bailey, where they were greeted by even more soldiers. Though torches lit the entrance, it shed little light on the rest of the enormous fortified structure. The winches being pulled on could be heard turning from the massive gatehouse behind them.
Then they were greeted by, what Caroline could only guess was the Bailiff by his military stance and stocky build. The older man’s coarse features softened for a second when his eyes lit upon Kelbie, before returning back to his stoic expression.
She look
ed over at her new husband. The beast had his side profile to them as he spoke to his people. She had not expected anything to change. All he’d done was bark and order everyone else about and his wealth was evident. She’d noted many things the moment the portcullis had been lowered.
Someone helped her and Kelbie down. Her husband barked another order and they were marched forward inside past the large wooden and iron wrought doors.
Warmth from the large fire burning in the hearth in one corner enveloped them and Kelbie, awake now, struggled to get down from her arms.
Caroline sniffed and lowered him to the ground where he lost himself in the folds of her skirts and the cloak away from the dark look of the beast. She trembled and waited, her eyes watching his. The man had not spoken a word to her in three days.
An old woman dressed head to toe in black voluminous skirts shuffled from the shadows and greeted him. Other servants peeked round the corners from the arched alcoves that lined the wide and dimly lit long corridor. Finally, her husband opened his mouth, his blue eyes locked on hers as he addressed the servant woman.
‘See that she and the child bathe and the stench is removed from their flesh. Their journey here has been long, hard and tiring. They will take their meal in their chamber. See that a platter of plenty along with drink is sent as well. What I need to discuss with her can wait till the morrow.’
He’d spoken as if she were not there. Something in Caroline folded over that and she could not explain it. ‘Twas not a sign of a good start. Too dazed and lost yet in the whirlwind of horror of the past days she bit back the urge to hurl a scathing retort at his dark head. As it was she barely managed a nod when he executed a slight bow and mumbled, ‘My lady.’
His clipped tone filled her shocked ears and caused a shiver to ripple through her already quaking form as he continued, ‘Laur will show you to your rooms. See that you and the boy remain there until you are summoned.’ Turning on his heel, he left them standing there in front of the curious and displeased gathered servants.