Assassins

by R A Browell

  assassins

  Book Two of

  The Carfax Chronicles

  by R A Browell

  First published in the UK in 2018 by

  Tyne Bridge Publishing, City Library,

  Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom

  www.tynebridgepublishing.org.uk

  Copyright © R.A. Browell 2018

  The right of R.A. Browell to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with Sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988.

  Cover image by Katy Hackers

  Edit/Layout by David Hepworth

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, in any part of the world, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  ISBN-13: 9780951048825

  This book is a work of fiction. Any similarity between the characters and situations within its pages and places or persons, living or dead, is unintentional and coincidental.

  ‘Whoever tasted once of that sweet food wished not to see his native country more nor give his friends the knowledge of his fate. And then my messengers desired to dwell among the lotus-eaters, and to feed upon the lotus, never to return.’

  Homer’s Odyssey

  The Battlefields

  Bleedstone, 1348

  Like Moses when he parted the Red Sea, Morwick strode purposefully through the dumb-struck crowd, a hundred terrified faces lining his path as he headed towards the last of the smouldering flames and the young woman who was still roughly tied to the upright rowan tree.

  She looked down at his face. It was mostly concealed by his hood but his eyes managed to penetrate through the rain. They fixed on hers, holding them as he stopped in the centre of the castle courtyard and faced Vebbia Carfax and the Grand Master.

  The Master was a broken man. He stood trembling in his shredded garments, his pale face blackened by the blast. His hair had been scorched, turned prematurely white in the split-second of a lightning strike and he had soiled himself. Morwick looked at him in disgust. This Grand Master, previously so powerful and arrogant, who had put hundreds of innocent women to death, was now so overcome by his fear that he didn’t even notice the stench of charring flesh as the east wind swirled around him, picking up fragments of his former colleagues. Charcoaled bone and light coloured ash flaked off the blackened corpses as the cremated remains of the dead blew back and forth within the castle walls.

  At first the crowd of onlookers seemed oblivious to the fact that they were being coated with a fine grey-coloured dust, which only moments earlier had been living flesh and pumping blood, but as realisation struck, they were torn. They wanted to escape from the grey ash, which was quickly becoming a thin sludge as it mixed with the rain and ran down their faces, but they also wanted to know what would happen next. Before their very eyes, God’s judgement was being played out and everyone was a participant, a fundamental part of the grim theatricals, and so they kept watching; their eyes fixed firmly on the three figures at the centre of the stage.

  The rain was still falling, the heat of the fire quashed by the cooling droplets as the anvil-shaped cloud continued to overshadow the entire courtyard. It rumbled loudly again, the low deep sound reverberating through the bodies of everyone standing there.

  ‘You came back,’ she whispered, the grey water running down her face, falling over her eyelashes, down her cheeks and finally across her cold pale lips as she looked into the face she knew so well. He brushed the drenched rabbit-fur cowl with his hand, briefly allowing his fingertips to touch her cheek and then he reached around her delicate frame and started to untie her hands from the biting rope.

  ‘Why did you let them do this to you?’ he frequenced, using the silent means of communication available to sanguins, natural human vampires, who had affinity. ‘Why have you allowed yourself to become so weak?’ His hands worked quickly to tear the tight knots. He glanced towards the crowd and shook his head slowly. ‘You could have swept them away in a breath. Broken their bodies in one swift movement and disappeared. Look at them. Do you value your life so little? Why wait for this? Why wait for me?’

  Vebbia Carfax, only surviving child and heir to Carfax Castle and all its estates, looked away. Words were difficult. Her husband was returned, he was here rescuing her and yet she still didn’t understand what had happened. How she’d managed to escape the Judgement by Fire when hundreds before her had been burned alive.

  Was it him? Had Morwick brought powers that had wasted her oppressors? Some gift from the gods; powers from Thor or Taranis the ancient god of the storms? Were the old cults still alive and was Morwick now summoning the elemental furies on her behalf?

  She thought back to how happy he’d been when he’d realised that she was like him and so different from most others around them. How he’d helped her. How they’d grown together, learning to master their new-found strengths and abilities and working out how to hide them too, particularly their new tastes and yet now that she looked at him, she wondered if there was more to this man, of which she wasn’t fully aware.

  The little stone pendant felt warm against her skin. At first she’d thought it was the heat from the fire that had caused it to glow but now that the fire had cooled, it still lay there, warm and comforting against her breast.

  ‘Come,’ he said firmly and placing his hands around her narrow waist he lifted her down from the smouldering trunk.

  She rubbed her bleeding wrists and noticed that the gouged flesh from the cruel rope was already starting to heal. Some of the onlookers, along with the Grand Master, noticed it too. They looked from her face to her hands and back to her face in wonderment. Vebbia dropped her hands quickly, trying to hide her healing skin within her cloak, but it was too late. For the simple people of Bleedstone, this healing, together with her miraculous escape from the holy flames, was enough to evidence divine approval and welcome her into the canon of sainthood.

  ‘Saint Vebbia!’ a voice shouted from the battlement walls where the windows brimmed to overflowing with awestruck faces, ‘Saint Vebbia of Bleedstone!’

  ‘Yes! Yes! Saint Vebbia!’ others called, as first one then another made the holy sign across their breasts then clasped their hands tightly together and fell to their knees.

  They dropped where they stood; falling into dirty puddles, pelted by the pouring rain as they looked up to the raging sky and appealed to the heavens for some sign of forgiveness. Some wondered how they could ever have harboured doubts about this girl, others praised God out loud.

  The Grand Master wiped the grey sludge out of his hair and gazed with a silent bewilderment at the crowds, then up at the swirling, angry sky. In all his years he’d never seen anything like it. Then he too raised his hands to the heavens and dropped to his knees, his mouth moving as rapidly as the other believers as he uttered incantations to the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. The great anvil-shaped rumbling cloud started to move away.

  ‘Vebbia, we must go. A crowd can change its mind as the wind changes direction. Soon they may decide that you are not a child of the Christ. Come we must hurry,’ he urged as he caught hold of her hand and led her back through the amazed multitude. Both walked with their heads held high; composed, with an inner calm and confidence. She could feel the uneven surface of the cobbles through her drenched, slippered fe
et and pulled her soaked cloak around herself as they made their way towards the huge gateway with its heavy iron portcullis. It was open, the seven sharp stakes pointing at the earth like daggers waiting to fall on their next victim.

  ‘Where are we going?’ she asked him silently.

  ‘Later,’ he replied, his face once again hidden under his hood.

  Vebbia felt a drag at the bottom of her cloak and looked down to see a woman’s face. She was pale and sickly, her weak hand reaching out to catch hold of the fine blue woollen cloth.

  ‘Help me Mistress. Please. My sickness,’ she begged and what started as one desperate gesture of faith snowballed and grew as more and more of the sick and unfortunate pressed forward; pushing, trying to stroke the cloak of their new deity as they attempted to grab hold of a little piece of heaven.

  Vebbia swallowed hard. She reached down to touch the sick woman but Morwick pulled her away and towards the arched stone gateway.

  ‘There isn’t time!’ he said firmly, dragging her away from them, only too well aware that the crowd could easily pull her back. ‘Vebbia!’ he said. She turned and looked up into his eyes, remembering the familiarity of his voice with its seductive timbre and tone. ‘You’re finished here,’ he continued silently, frequencing to her in their familiar unspoken way. ‘It would be impossible to stay. Not now. You’re known. What you have become, what you are is too obvious. There would be too many questions. It would be foolish to even think about it,’ he explained, his words echoing deep in her mind.

  ‘But my child?’

  ‘Child?’ he repeated. ‘You have a child?’

  ‘We have a child,’ she replied, waiting for his reaction but he said nothing as she continued to hold his dark eyes with her own. ‘Named after your mother,’ she explained softly. ‘We must go back for her.’

  He looked away; out through the open gateway to the farthest hills beyond, his face still hidden in his hood.

  ‘It’s impossible. We can’t go back and even if we could, Eleanor de Reymes is dead. A granddaughter would be of no use to her now.’ He paused. ‘Where is the child? Is she safe?’

  ‘Your mother is dead? How?’

  ‘I asked you if the child was safe?’ he repeated, ignoring her question.

  She nodded obediently. ‘Yes she’s safe,’ replied Vebbia silently. ‘She’s with those who can be trusted. Everything is settled for her but we must go back. We’re her parents. We must take her with us.’

  He shook his head, a movement so slight that it was imperceptible to anyone in the crowd.

  ‘That’s impossible,’ he repeated still in frequence. ‘You’ve got no idea about the child. Whether she’s like us? Whether she’ll change? What happens if she remains fully human? What then? What life do you think she would she have with us? Would you cast her out or maybe worse?’ His words stung as they ricocheted around her head but he remained emotionless, focused on looking straight ahead as he led her towards the gate.

  For Vebbia, the calls from the crowd were now a distant noise; muffled as though from a dream-world, far away. She thought about what he’d said. It seemed sensible to leave the child where she was, safe and secure, but to abandon her daughter, whilst she was alive and free seemed cruel and wrong. Then there was Eleanor de Reymes. She was old and death was a part of life but Vebbia was saddened, she’d always found Lady Eleanor remote but kind. Morwick had been no more than a boy when he had been sent a great distance from his family home to live with Vebbia’s guardians at Carfax Castle and when she had finally met the lady, the de Reymes matriarch had treated her daughter-in-law with a careful formality which Vebbia understood. A second son was of far less importance than his elder brother and their first born son and heir would always be the de Reymes priority but Vebbia had hoped that a grandchild for the great couple would soften their feelings towards Morwick. Vebbia sighed. That was before he had left. Before he had gone to the battlefields in France. Vebbia hadn’t heard anything from anyone in nearly two years and now he was back, here in Bleedstone, with supernatural power over the elements and helping her to escape.

  They reached the main castle gate as two knights on white horses crossed their path and stopped. The first knight was seated proudly, his white shift with its red-cross motif flapping in the strong wind.

  ‘Stand,’ he ordered, ‘the Tribunal is still in session. You have no authority to leave these walls with the accused.’

  He was was reinforced at each flank by two others, each with a sword in hand; a solid wall of horseflesh and steel.

  Vebbia sighed. Even now, after what had happened to the judges, when men had been blown asunder by a powerful explosion from the lightning strike, even now, they still wouldn’t give her peace.

  Morwick started to laugh but it was a cold, menacing laugh that Vebbia hardly recognised.

  ‘I have no authority, do I?’ he asked stepping forward.

  ‘Stand down!’ the knight ordered. ‘Uncover your head!’

  ‘You have no authority to demand that I do either,’ the tall cloaked figure replied slowly.

  ‘I have the authority of Rome and of the King…’

  ‘You do, do you?’ replied Morwick with a wry smile. He reached up both hands and slowly uncovered his head, locking eyes with his opponent, pouring cold hostility into those of the knight, as he glared with the dark intent of a killer.

  The knight remained steady on his mount, but both Morwick and Vebbia were alert and could smell fear. Their senses heightened, they noted how all three soldiers tightened their grips around the hilt of their swords with their fingers pressing into the ornamented leather grips; the leather swelling as it absorbed the tiny droplets of sweat from the knights’ nervous palms. They listened to the six heartbeats of three men and their trusted mounts and heard the blood rushing from auricle to ventricle; being pumped faster and faster as adrenaline flooded the bodies of all six creatures. The knights were preparing to fight but the horses could sense the presence of superior predators and even though battle trained, they lifted their hooves and twisted and turned against their bridles as they tried to make their escape.

  ‘Vebbia Carfax has been found innocent of all charges by your own Judgement by Fire. The flames were quashed, your Tribunal vanquished. Now remove yourselves or you will be answerable to another judgement,’ continued Morwick, standing his ground. His words were ice-cold. He released Vebbia’s hand, protectively pushing her back behind him and then he waited.

  The crowd hushed, all faces turning to the gateway, the silence hanging heavy over the cold grey courtyard. Some onlookers were confused, struggling to understand why Christ’s knights were blocking the release of this newly validated holy-woman. Others could sense the tension and looked on with horror as the terrified horses pounded the ground with their heavy hooves, trying to rear, whinnying for freedom.

  ‘Hold steady,’ ordered the first knight. ‘You dare to question our authority? My authority?’ he said and glared at Morwick, further tightening the grip on his sword as he gathered up the reigns of his mount and prepared to force the animal to rear up onto its hind legs. His aim was simple; to trample into the earth this civilian upstart who dared to challenge everything that the Knights of Christ believed in.

  ‘You have been warned,’ Morwick replied. ‘Now move aside and let us pass or suffer the consequences. I will not ask again.’

  As he finished speaking, the three knights looked at each other and then simultaneously raised their swords, dug their spurs into the sensitive bellies of their pure-white steeds and turned them in; forcing the animals to rear and a wall of skull-smashing hooves to rise up in front of the cloaked stranger. Before the hooves could crash down, Morwick had lifted his arms and was driving the rearing horses backwards on their hind legs. He pushed them further and further back towards the great gate, ignoring their terrified whinnies and snorts and then, in a movement quicker than any human eye could follow, he jumped onto the inner walls of the stone gateway and started climbing.
As he jumped, the horses reared so violently that it was impossible for the knights to stay mounted. They fell heavily onto the filthy, rain soaked ground. Vebbia heard a couple of smaller bones crack against the cobbled surface, followed by groans of pain, but her eyes were following the outline of her husband. He was now climbing high, with a lizard-like gait, to where the pulley mechanism for the portcullis drop was housed. She watched as he quickly withdrew a small dagger from his cloak and swept its sharp edge against the thick rope, stroking the strong twine, taut with the burden of the heavy iron gate, wiping its keen blade against the rough fibres as though he were cleaning it after supper and Vebbia knew instantly what was about to happen.

  She looked down at the ground and at the sprawling knights as they struggled to pick themselves up from their fall and then stared at the falling portcullis and its seven dagger-sharp points, closing her eyes as the heavy iron spikes fell, swiftly penetrating skin, flesh, sinew and bone.

  The crowd gasped as they saw the great gate fall; then fell silent as they heard the crunch of three men being smashed and ground into the mud. Every eye turned to survey the mangled, twitching mess.

  Then nothing. No mutters, no murmurs. Only silence.

  In the distance, the rumble of the passing storm lingered but even that was growing faint as it moved further away and still the terrified crowd watched in horrified silence as the cloaked figure jumped down from the winding mechanism and started lifting the iron portcullis with his bare hands. He moved it effortlessly, as though he were lifting nothing but thin air. The mortal remains of the impaled knights clung to the seven points. Their bodies twitched, like those at the end of the hangman’s noose, as the final electrical impulses were spent. Thick red dripped from the portcullis points - nobleman’s blood now mixed with the mud, straw and detritus of commoners in the deep, dirty puddles.