The Original de Wolfe Pack Complete Set: Including Sons of de Wolfe

by Kathryn Le Veque

  Kristoph debated whether or not to obey but he knew if he didn’t, things would go badly for him. He didn’t want to agitate a very agitable man. Slowly, he pulled himself out from beneath the wagon bed. Alary made his way over to him as he came out from beneath, the mist drifting down onto his face and head.

  “Look at you,” Alary said drunkenly. “You look terrible.”

  Kristoph couldn’t very well disagree. “I do not smell very good, either.”

  Alary laughed. “That is to be expected,” he said. He gazed at Kristoph a moment, sobering. “We must speak, you and I. There is much to tell.”

  The last time Alary had been friendly like this, Kristoph had lost part of a finger. Therefore, he was extremely wary as Alary plopped down beside him, sitting in the old straw as he gazed up into the misty sky, blinking his eyes because he was getting water in them. But he kept staring up into that dark sky, reflecting the darkness of his troubled mind.

  “You will be happy to know that my spies tell me that your Norman friends are no longer following us,” he said. He cast Kristoph a sidelong glance. “Does that surprise you?”

  Kristoph wasn’t surprised because of one primary factor – he didn’t believe Alary in the least. He suspected the man was trying to play some kind of demoralizing mind game with him but he wasn’t about to let Alary get the better of him. If the man was trying to cause him grief, then he was in for a disappointment.

  “You sent them the tip of my finger,” he said after a moment. “If it were me, I would take your threat seriously. They did what they had to do so that you will not cut off something more vital.”

  Alary nodded thoughtfully, as if they were having a perfectly normal conversation. “But to back off completely?” he asked. “They must not be very loyal friends if they have abandoned you.”

  “You are probably correct.”

  “Is that what Norman loyalty is worth?”

  Kristoph wasn’t sure if he was trying to antagonize him or ask a genuine question. Kristoph knew it was safer, for him, to simply agree with him.

  “You told them to stay away, and they have,” he said. “I should think you would be pleased.”

  Alary nodded, looking up at the sky again as the soft mist fell on his face. He closed his eyes, feeling the cool cleanse of the mist upon his face but he also began to tip backwards because of the drink in his system. He ended up bumping back against the wagon.

  “Norman,” he said after a moment. “Why have you come here? What will your people do now that they have killed my king?”

  Kristoph had heard variations of this question since his abduction and, for once, he sought to take charge of the conversation. Much as he did with the lady warrior that first day he’d been abducted, Kristoph viewed this moment as an opportunity to make himself less of an object of hate and more of a man who had simply been obeying orders. It had worked with the woman, but Alary… he was different. There was something not quite right about the man, which made Kristoph proceed very carefully.

  But it had to be done. If had any chance of survival, he would have to take it, in any form.

  “I was only following the commands of my liege,” he said, leaning forward to look Alary in the face. “But what of you? Are you frightened now that the Normans have come to the shores of England? Truthfully, England has had many enemies come to her shores, men who have taken chunks of the country for themselves. The Danes, for instance. They continue to raid and loot, not only in England, but as far south as Breton. We have had our troubles with them. Why do you fear the Normans so?”

  Alary blinked as water pooled in his eyes. “Would you not also fear men who came to your shores and killed your king?”

  It was as vulnerable and truthful as Kristoph had ever seen Alary. He knew it was the drink talking, but it didn’t matter. It was a surprisingly weak question as the wine removed all of Alary’s inhibitions and controls. Perhaps there was something human inside the man, after all, and it was to that human part of him that Kristoph intended to appeal to.

  “You want to know what the Normans will do?” he asked. “I will tell you quite simply – they will come. They will continue to come and abducting me will not make them stop coming. If you want to survive this conquest, then you must ally yourself with the Normans and holding me hostage will only make you the enemy in their eyes. You can cut off my hands, my feet, my ears, and send it all back to them with threats, but I am one knight who is meaningless in the grand scheme of things. They will not care if you cut me to pieces and send me back. It will only make you more of an enemy in their eyes and they will come for you. They will not stop until they have you. Do you want to survive? Then you will listen to me. I will tell you how to survive.”

  By this time, Alary was looking at him, his drunken expression rippling with concern. “How many men have come with Normandy?”

  “Tens of thousands. You were on the field of battle; you saw how many there were.”

  Alary had. Suddenly, his drunken state wasn’t quite so pleasant. It was magnifying his emotions, fear or jubilation or sorrow. He looked at Kristoph, his brow furrowing.

  “If they keep coming, I will send you back to them in a puzzle that no man could put back together,” he said, growing agitated. “That will keep them away!”

  “I told you it would not. They do not care about a solitary knight when it comes to conquest.”

  “They must not come to Mercia!”

  “They are already in Mercia.”

  Alary’s eyes widened as he realized what the Norman said was true. He groaned, as if becoming ill. “They are crawling all over the south of Sussex and Wessex,” he hissed. “Of course they are in Mercia!”

  Kristoph watched the man closely, hoping this didn’t mean he was about to lose another body part. “Do you want to keep them away?”

  “They must stay away!”

  “Do you want to keep them away?”

  Alary labored to climb up from the dirty straw, staggering because he couldn’t quite catch his balance. He ended up leaning against the wagon to steady himself.

  “How do I keep them away?” he finally asked. It sounded like a plea. “Tell me!”

  Kristoph felt a huge surge of hope in that question. Maybe – just maybe – he could keep himself alive and in one piece until he had the opportunity to escape. If he could convince Alary that he was of help, that he could help him keep the Normans away, then perhaps that opportunity would come at some point.

  Kristoph could only pray.

  “I will tell you the secret on how to keep the Normans away,” he said. “But you cannot threaten me any longer. You cannot cut off any more fingers and, for God’s sake, feed me and let me sleep in a bed. Keep me alive and I will tell you how to keep the Normans away.”

  Alary was so drunk that he didn’t have his usual steadiness of mind. What Kristoph was offering was quite attractive to him. Even though Tenebris wasn’t actually his but a fortified lodge belonging to his brother, still, it was the only thing he had. He didn’t want to relinquish it. The fear of losing it to the Normans was wreaking havoc within him.

  “I will,” he finally said, wiping his running nose with the back of his hand. “What will you tell me?”

  “Feed me and we will discuss it.”

  One of the best moments of Kristoph’s life was when Alary ordered his equally-drunken men to unchain the prisoner, but he wasn’t so drunk that he left Kristoph unattended. With a drunken four-man escort, Kristoph was escorted over to the smelly, low-ceilinged tavern where he sat on the floor by the hearth and enjoyed a feast of boiled mutton and bread.

  But to Kristoph, it was the best meal he’d ever tasted.

  He tasted hope.

  Maybe he would live through this, after all.

  At least, that was what he thought until the next morning when Alary woke up with a headache and no memory of their conversation.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  A Fire Within

  Nearing Worceste
r

  Worcester was a city that was partially in ruins.

  Surrounded by a massive forest and bisected by the River Severn, a waterway that flooded the city now and again, Worcester had seen better days. Tribes had attacked it from the south some twenty years earlier and burned a great deal of it, and reconstruction had been slow because of continued tribal battles that had been going on since the great burning. But the cathedral stood, soaring into the cloudy sky, like a great bastion of hope and faith amidst the ruins of the struggling city.

  After leaving Evesham, she was back to riding her shaggy mare, Ghislaine led the knights through trees and meadows towards this downtrodden city. Three days since the arrow strike that had nearly crippled her, she was wasn’t feeling particularly well but she wasn’t one to give in to illness or injury of any kind. The Normans had learned that about her. She’d only ridden with Gaetan the night of her injury when he’d rushed her to Evesham Abbey where the knights had proceeded to tend her – all of them, in fact.

  Every one of them knew what she had done to draw out the enemy and save them from an ambush, so in that one swift motion, she’d changed the minds of them all. It had been an act of bravery by a woman like none other. Even de Moray, who had always been so suspicious of her, was now a believer in her honesty and intention to help. Although the price of proving her worth had been high, it had been worth it in Ghislaine’s opinion. It was worth it even more in the way that Gaetan was now being so attentive to her.

  But he wasn’t the only one. When it came time to tend her wounds, it was like having nine physics while Jathan simply stood by and watched, praying furiously while the knights dealt with the wound. When they’d reached Evesham after the attack, the priests from Evesham’s cathedral were very helpful and brought boiled linen and medicines, herbal remedies, that promised to help the wound.

  Once they were able to take a close look at the damage, they could see that the arrow had missed her bone. It was a clean puncture straight through her leg. Unfortunately, Aramis has been correct – it was a dirty wound. The arrow had pushed leather and fabric into her leg as it traveled and that was something that needed to come out. The knights knew it and so did Ghislaine. As she bit off her groans of pain on a rag, Gaetan plucked out the debris by candlelight with a long set of iron tweezers provided by the priests.

  It had been a rather harrowing experience but one that had understandably bonded Ghislaine to the knights. They’d all been wounded at one or more points in their lives so they well understood her agony when it came to cleaning out a wound.

  But Ghislaine was strong. She didn’t faint or go into hysterics even when Gaetan put stitches in her leg, and Aramis patted her on the shoulder more than once during the procedure. The big knight with the muddy dark eyes remained by her side until Gaetan’s eyesight began to give out in the weak light and then he took over, cleaning out what Gaetan had missed. When both Aramis and Gaetan were satisfied they’d sufficiently cleaned the wound, it was doused again with wine to cleanse it and honey was applied as a salve to keep away the poison. Gaetan then wrapped it up tightly.

  But Ghislaine didn’t stay awake long enough to suffer extended pain. Exhausted to the bone from the events of the day, the monks had given her a draught of wine with poppy powder in it to make her sleep, and sleep she did. She slept well into the morning and no one bothered to wake her up.

  In fact, as she slept against the wall of the cathedral covered up by several cloaks that the knights had so thoughtfully deposited on her during the course of the night, Gaetan and his men secured all entrances into the cathedral and refused to let anyone in while she slept. They threatened anyone who tried. For that day, the priests of Evesham had to hold mass on the steps at the front of the church.

  When Ghislaine finally awoke well into the morning and realized what Gaetan and his men had done, she had to admit that she was very touched. Aramis and Lance de Reyne brought her food, simple gruel and watered wine, but she slurped it down as Aramis went to check her wound. But that brought Gaetan around and he pushed Aramis aside as he checked his handiwork on her leg personally. Little did Ghislaine know that he was getting a bit of a thrill at the tender white flesh of her thigh and, Gaetan thought, so was Aramis.

  There was a competition afoot.

  In fact, Gaetan became somewhat territorial over her, especially around de Russe whom, he suspected, was becoming rather enamored with the woman who bested him at Westerham. He’d known Aramis for years and he’d never shown much attention towards women, considering them a necessary nuisance and nothing more. So for Aramis to show Ghislaine the concern he was, in fact, had Gaetan concerned.

  It shouldn’t have, but it did.

  Gaetan wasn’t entirely sure why, other than the fact his attitude towards Ghislaine was different since the arrow strike. He’d been pulled towards her from the start but now, that pull was stronger than he could control. He’d once considered taking her as his bedslave but, somehow, she was too good for that. She didn’t deserve to be relegated to a man’s bed. She was courageous, beautiful, and strong. So very strong. A woman like that deserved to be a queen.

  Or the wife of a great warlord.

  That thought had occurred to him while he was cleansing her wound again with wine. She flinched but she didn’t utter a sound, not like she had before. She was steeling herself to the pain, becoming accustomed to it, and the more he held that tender white thigh in his hands and tended the arrow wound, the more he admired a woman who should bear her pain so stoically. But when that word crossed his mind… wife… he’d almost dropped her leg and probably would have had de Lara not been holding the ankle to steady it.

  It was a foolish notion that had startled him. He wasn’t meant to have a wife. He had three bedslaves, three children, and he didn’t need a wife. At least, those were his usual thoughts, thoughts he’d had for years. But in the same breath, it occurred to him that he had never wanted a wife because he’d never met a woman he considered worthy. What better wife to take than the sister of Edwin of Mercia, linking Norman and Saxon, cementing alliances? But he wouldn’t marry her simply for the alliance.

  He would marry her because he was coming to think she was something very special, indeed.

  But Ghislaine was oblivious to Gaetan’s thoughts as he checked her wound twice more that day before she went to sleep. The knights had delayed their journey for two full days to tend to the woman who had sacrificed herself for them. But the morning of the third day, they set out for Worcester through dense forests and a road that narrowed so much, at times, that they had to pass through in single file. The weather had been rainy one day, sunny the next, and as they neared the city, the temperature rose to the point where the water in the ground and in the trees turned into steam and the air became heavy with moisture. Compounded with the humidity from the river, it made the air rather uncomfortable.

  The knights were sweating beneath their mail and tunics and even Ghislaine was feeling hot as the air around them turned into a steam bath. She was wearing layers of clothing and she rolled her sleeves up as much as she could, trying to find some relief from the sticky warmth. She kept wiping the sweat from her forehead but she soon came to realize that her cheeks were also very hot – unnaturally hot.

  Riding behind Gaetan as they passed through a stretch of trees that, once again, had them riding single file, she touched her cheeks discreetly, realizing with dismay that she had a fever. She’d felt rather queasy all day but she has attributed it to the fact that she was taxing her body by traveling with a nasty wound to her leg. It didn’t occur to her that it was because she was beginning to run a fever.

  Fear kept her silent as they continued to travel, fear of becoming a burden, of even being left behind as the knights continued on to Alary’s lair. This was her quest, too, and she didn’t want to surrender this moment of moments, when she finally felt as if she was a part of something, accepted by men she’d proven herself to. It had been a difficult and long fight, and
she wasn’t about to relinquish it. She prayed fervently that the fever would be mild and that it would quickly pass. It was simply her body’s way of dealing with the poisonous humors that were inside of her as a result of the arrow wound.

  God, please rid me of this fever, she prayed silently. It was a prayer she said repeatedly as they traveled beneath the bright sun, which was only compounding the problem. When the road would widen and the knights would spread out, Gaetan would end up on one side and someone else, usually de Russe, would end up on the other. She was terrified they would see how red her cheeks were so she tried to keep her head down and not speak with any of them, as much as it pained her. Gaetan was finally showing her the attention she had been hoping for and she very much wanted to show that she was receptive to it, but now she was afraid to.

  Afraid he would see her illness in her face.

  After several hours of travel, they stopped to rest the horses along a small creek in a thicket that was heavy with moisture. The water bubbled down the rocks as the horses drank. Wellesbourne and St. Hèver even went so far as to pull their horses into the water, splashing them to cool them off. Ghislaine, meanwhile, had wandered upstream a bit, kneeling down with her painful leg beside the crystal-clear water to splash some on her face. It was cool to her skin and felt wonderful. As she dried her face off with the sleeve of her cote, she heard footsteps next to her. Turning slightly, she caught sight of Gaetan’s boots.

  “Is the weather always ridiculously hot in October?” he asked.

  She kept her head down, pretending to still splash water on her face. “Nay,” she said. “A day like this is most unusual.”

  Gaetan moved up beside her and crouched down as well, putting a big hand in the water and drinking from it. “How does your wound feel?”

  She nodded. “It aches,” she said, an understatement. She paused a moment before continuing. “I… I have not had the opportunity to thank you for tending it so carefully. I do not think any physic could have done a better job.”