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

by Kathryn Le Veque

  “At the gatehouse.”

  “Then I will go and see him. I owe the man a debt of gratitude.”

  William waited while Patrick stuck his head back into his chamber to tell Brighton that he would return soon. He then followed his father down to the entry level and out into the bailey beyond, which was not particularly busy at this time of day. It was a very warm day and the flies were out in force, buzzing over people and animals, as William and Patrick made their way to the Douglas Tower.

  On the way there, they caught sight of Alec upon the battlements, and Hector and Colm near the armory. Patrick didn’t see Anson or Damien but he knew the men were busy, somewhere, seeing to their tasks. He took a moment to drink it all in, this empire he commanded, appreciating it as he’d never appreciated it before. There was such a wonderful, vast world here that he couldn’t imagine being Henry’s Lord Protector would be any greater or make him any happier. Nay, he quite enjoyed his life here at Berwick and his reputation as Nighthawk. The addition of Brighton only made him realize how very special it all was to him and how grateful he was.

  Aye, it was a fine and good day.

  The cool innards of the guard’s room beckoned and he entered after his father. His eyes adjusted to the dim light. He saw Damien in the chamber near Tommy Orry, who was standing near the hearth with a bundle in his hand. When Damien saw William and Patrick enter, he went to the pair.

  “The Scot is ready to depart,” he said. “I have provided him with enough provisions to get him back to his home and his horse has been readied.”

  Patrick’s gaze lingered on Tommy. The man was still a dozen feet or so away from him. “Did he tell you anything more?” he asked Damien, his voice low.

  Damien shook his head, turning away from Tommy as he spoke. “He told you everything,” he said. “I am fairly certain of that. But he did stress how volatile Richard Gordon is. He fears that man a great deal even though he seems to call him a friend.”

  “Oh?”

  “And there is something else – he told me that he and the mother prioress were fond of each other as children. They were not betrothed, but they were evidently lovers when they were young. That was before she was raped by someone from Clan Haye. That ended everything.”

  That information confirmed to Patrick why the mother prioress would be so willing to see harm come to a bastard of the Haye Clan. But it didn’t explain why Tommy, who was supposedly in love with the mother prioress as a child, had betrayed her. But he supposed it didn’t really matter in the end. Putting a hand on Damien to silently thank him for the information, he took a few steps in Tommy Orry’s direction.

  Tommy, who had been watching the English knights warily as they whispered to each other, straightened when the big knight came close.

  “I’ve given ye all of the information I can,” he said to Patrick. “I must be a-leavin’ lest it be discovered that I came here. That wouldna bode well for me.”

  Patrick could see that the man seemed nervous about it. “How would they even know?”

  Tommy shrugged his thin shoulders. “Ye dunna know Richie,” he said. “He has gangs of men who do nothin’ but track others and spy upon them. I canna say for sure that I was followed, but ’tis possible. So I must leave.”

  Patrick didn’t want to cause the man trouble since he had provided a very valuable piece of information for them, so he simply nodded his head.

  “Then go,” he said. “Your horse is prepared. Know that we are grateful for your information.”

  Tommy simply nodded, heading quickly from the guard’s chamber and out to his pony. The horse was waiting for him outside.

  Without a hind glance at the Sassenachs, Tommy fled the gatehouse. He lost himself in the streets of Berwick, heading for the town gate that would purge him from the city and into the great north beyond.

  Home.

  It was a very fine day for travel as far as Tommy was concerned. He was barely an hour out of Berwick but he’d made excellent time on his sturdy pony under clear skies and light winds. The land was warm and green, with brooks bubbling deep in their carved-out trenches. His pony had chased a few rabbits out of their dens and birds soared overhead, happy in the sunshine.

  In all, it was a lovely day and he was feeling content with himself. Days of battling with his conscience before he decided to ride to Berwick because it was a known de Wolfe property had ended well enough. He’d cleared his conscience and gained a few coins in the process. Although his loyalty should have been to Richard, he simply couldn’t support the man’s idea of crucifying an innocent woman.

  Somehow, that kind of brutality pulled them all down into the mud of inhumaneness, and Tommy wasn’t that kind of a man. He had a soul and a heart, and he had compassion. Probably too much at times.

  But he feared Richard; most of the men in the clan did. Richard’s father had been only slightly more benevolent but from somewhere in the family lines, Richard inherited an evil streak. Ysabella was simply a pawn in his game.

  In a sense, Tommy felt as if he’d scored a victory against Richard by telling the Sassenach of Richard’s plan for the Coldingham lass. Although he never asked where the lass was, something told him she had been at Berwick from the way the knights were reacting to his information. Something told him that there was more to the lass’ presence there than met the eye.

  Something personal.

  His thoughts were lingering on the mysterious lass that seemed to be so important to not only Richard and Ysabella, but also to the English, too. A postulate that would now need to find a new priory where she could serve. But those were Tommy’s last peaceful thoughts as the foliage in front of him suddenly came alive with red grouse, all of them bursting out of the bushes and flying up to the sky. His pony startled a bit, as did Tommy, so he pulled the horse to a stop and watched the grouse fly off, wishing he had something to kill them with. They would have made a fine supper. But what came shooting out of the foliage next was not so fine.

  Men were running out at him and someone knocked him on the back of the head. When Tommy came to, he was lying on his back staring up at Gordon men, men he recognized. But the face he recognized the most was that of Richard Gordon.

  Dear God, it canna be!

  His heart sank.

  “Richie?” he said in disbelief. A hand went to the knot on the top of his head. “What’s happened?”

  Richard, swathed in filthy woolens that were dark in color, the type of woolens they wore when he was hunting or had a need for stealth, glared down at Tommy.

  “I woulda never believed it had I not seen it with me own eyes,” Richard said with disgust. “Not me Tommy, I would say. He wouldna betray me.”

  Tommy’s heart began to pound against his ribs. He didn’t try to sit up, fearful that Richard might take that as a challenge.

  “And I wouldna,” Tommy said, trying to sound firm and not frightened. “Why would ye say such things?”

  Richard crouched down beside him. He wasn’t wearing braies, simply his woolens, and his dirty, hairy balls were visible as he crouched. Tommy didn’t like having the man so close to him, hairy balls and all.

  “I will ask ye this and ye willna lie tae me,” Richard said. “Why did ye go tae Berwick?”

  Terror was swelling in Tommy’s chest. “Who told ye I did?”

  Richard’s eyes narrowed. “I saw ye!” he snapped. “I was told ye left our village yesterday and ye said nothin’ to me about leavin’, so we followed ye. I couldna imagine where ye might go but we saw ye go intae Berwick. What business did ye have there?”

  Tommy wasn’t sure if they actually saw him go into Berwick Castle or simply into the city. The situation might yet be salvageable and he grasped at the hope that all was not lost. But there was a small problem; he never actually thought what to tell Richard or his men if they asked for an explanation. He struggled not to panic as he thought up a reasonable excuse, saying the first thing that came to mind.

  “Can a man not go tae to
wn for women he canna find in his own village?” he demanded, trying to make it sound as if he were doing something completely normal. “I went tae seek the comfort of a woman, if ye must know. Dunna tell me mother for she’ll accuse me of lyin’ in filth.”

  Richard was unmoved by his speech. In fact, he seemed to grow even more intense. “Men saw ye goin’ tae the castle, Tommy,” he said. “Were there whores in the castle a-waitin’ for ye?”

  So now Tommy knew what, exactly, they’d seen and he’d just perjured himself by stating he’d only gone whoring. Before he could open his mouth, a pair of Richard’s men flipped him onto his belly, right on the rocky road, and bent his arms up behind his back. Tommy began to scream.

  “Oooch!” he cried as someone pushed his face into the dirt. “Richie! Why, Richie, why?”

  Richard stood over Tommy as his men bent his arms back, causing the man to scream in pain. But there was no remorse in Richard’s heart, not in the least.

  “Why did ye go tae the castle, Tommy?” he asked calmly.

  Tommy didn’t answer. He didn’t answer while Richard’s men bent his left arm back so far that they dislocated the elbow. As Tommy’s screams of agony could be heard, the men then flipped him onto his back and extended the dislocated arm as far as it would go. Someone put a foot on Tommy’s wrist, stomping down on it and breaking it when Tommy wouldn’t clearly answer any of Richard’s questions.

  As Tommy writhed in agony, still more men frisked him, finding the silver coins that William had paid him. They turned the coins over to Richard, who looked at them in the palm of his hand as if they were the most telltale things he’d seen yet. Now, he was starting to grow angry.

  “What did ye do for the Sassenachs that they would pay ye silver?” Richard asked, his temper starting to flare. “Paid ye silver like the Judas ye are, did they? What did ye tell them?”

  Tommy lay on the road in utter anguish, knowing that if he didn’t tell them the truth, worse things were yet to come. His left arm was broken and useless, but his right arm was still functional; he knew that wouldn’t last if he didn’t tell them what they wanted to know. But he also knew that telling Richard why he had gone to Berwick would sign his death warrant.

  “Please, Richie,” he breathed, spittle dripping from his lips. “I… I was lookin’ for the Coldingham lass for ye. I thought I could find her for ye bein’ that she is with de Wolfe.”

  That statement brought some interest to Richard. “Is she at Berwick?”

  Tommy clutched his left arm against his chest. “I dinna see her,” he said. “But I asked for the lass and they all acted… strangely. As if they had some bond with her. Berwick is close tae Swinton lands so I thought it would be the men from Berwick who would have taken the lass. ’Tis the Nighthawk’s lair, ye know. He lives at Berwick.”

  “Did ye see him, then?”

  “I… I think so.”

  “But he dinna tell ye if she was at Berwick?”

  “There is no other place she could be. If the Nighthawk took the lass from the Swinton, then he would take her back tae Berwick. More than that, William de Wolfe, himself, was there – isna he the man who wrote tae Ysabella and asked about the lass?”

  A light went on in Richard’s eyes. “He was,” he agreed. “Then the lass must be at Berwick since William de Wolfe is there! What did ye say tae them, Tommy? What did they tell ye?”

  Tommy was in so much pain that he could hardly speak. “I told them that I… I had come on behalf of Coldingham and that they wanted the lass returned. I… I even offered tae escort the lass back tae the priory meself. They wanted tae know why. They… they wouldna tell me more than that. If ye’ve been followin’ me, then ye know I wasna there for very long. I left quickly.”

  “And the money on ye?”

  “I told them me mother was sick.”

  It was the only lie Tommy could come up with quickly enough and Richard knew it wasn’t the truth. He wasn’t clear why Tommy had gone to Berwick Castle but he didn’t much care at that point; he’d gotten what he wanted out of the man, which was the very real possibility that Ysabella’s postulate was there, guarded by the mighty Nighthawk and The Wolfe himself. But it didn’t seem to matter to him; simply knowing the lass was at Berwick fed his bloodlust because he wanted nothing more in the world that to get his hands on that woman regardless of who was guarding her. She belonged to him, didn’t she? He paid enough for her.

  He wasn’t going to fail in his second attempt to take her.

  “We tell the allies that the Sassenach at Berwick have somethin’ that belongs tae me,” he said to the man standing nearest to him. In fact, he was speaking to the half-dozen men who were standing around Tommy. “We’ll tell them that it was the Sassenach who raided Coldingham where my sister is the mother prioress. We’ll tell them that they took a lass, a Scots lass, tae whore with them at Berwick. We will rally the allies with the promise of Berwick’s riches if they help us save me sister’s postulate. I want that lass! She is mine!”

  The man standing next to him, with curly auburn hair and dirty as if he’d never taken a bath in his life, didn’t seem convinced.

  “Berwick is a big place, Richie,” he said. “Big walls, two gatehouses, and the river on one side o’ her. And she carries a big army.”

  Richard wouldn’t be deterred. His face began to turn red. “Cowardly, ye are!” he snarled. “Berwick can be breached like any other castle if we get enough men. We build ladders and come in from the north, where there is only a wall between us and the keep. We can breach her, I say! Purge de Wolfe from the castle once and for all! Do ye know how many Scotsmen would rise tae the call if they thought they could defeat William de Wolfe? De Wolfe shall be our battle cry!”

  With that, he turned away from Tommy, shouting for his horse and shouting his intention to destroy Berwick. He wanted the girl within the walls and he was going to rally as many allies as he could to get to her. Once he had the lass, he would invite the allies to be part of his vengeance against Clan Haye. His allies weren’t fond of Haye, in any case, so Richard knew he could reward them with riches from Berwick and the opportunity to see justice served.

  Was it a mad dream? Probably. Even Richard was willing to admit that his battle plans smacked of madness. But he wanted the Haye lass badly enough that he didn’t care. He had been planning for that girl for too many years to let her go so easily. Now, it was his pride that had him in its grip, a pride instilled in him from his father and something he couldn’t let go. The more he shouted condemnation to those at Berwick, the more that pride got in his way.

  He had set his own path, whether or not he truly believed it was the right one.

  As Richard rode off towards the Gordon stronghold several miles away, the men that remained behind didn’t forget about Tommy. They tied his ankles up with hemp rope, secured the rope to his pony’s saddle, and smacked the pony on the behind so the animal spooked and took off down the road. Tommy took off right along with it.

  And that was the end of Tommy Orry Gordon.

  An hour after the departure of the Scots visitor, Anson and Colm entered the guard room to find Patrick, Damien, and William still inside, engaged in quiet conversation. Anson, who had been on the wall, went to a small table in the guard room to unload some of his heavy weaponry. On this warm day, wearing mail and leather was sticky on top of hot.

  “So,” he said as he pulled off his mail hood, “I saw our Scotsman depart and disappear to the north. He seemed to be in a hurry.”

  The group turned to look at him. “Why would you say that?” Patrick asked.

  Anson went to the bucket of cool water near the door and poured a ladleful over his head, cooling himself. “Because he was moving at a clipped pace,” he said, wiping the water from his eyes. “He seemed to be eager to leave.”

  Patrick shrugged. “We have been discussing the same thing,” he said. “Tommy expressed fear that he’d been followed here. It would make sense he would want to return to his lands a
s soon as possible.”

  Anson shook the water from his hair and went on the hunt for the pitcher of watered wine that was always around for the men to drink. He found it over by the hearth and collected a cup. “I simply cannot believe he traveled all the way from Gordon lands to tell us about Richard Gordon’s plans for Lady de Wolfe,” he said. “It seems as if he went to great lengths for the enemy.”

  Patrick followed him, taking another cup as Anson poured him something to drink. “Whatever his motives, I am grateful,” he said. “He must have had a serious attack of conscience to come. Or, mayhap, he simply needed the money.”

  “Mayhap it was all a lie,” Colm said as he, too, unstrapped his sword and set it on the table next to Anson’s. The others looked at him curiously because Colm only spoke when he truly had something to say. He wasn’t one for idle chatter. “Mayhap, he came here to scout us out. Did you ever think of that? Mayhap, he told us that story as purely fiction simply to gain access to the castle.”

  Patrick took a chair at the end of the table, considering his words. “But for what purpose?” he asked. “To see our weaknesses? We have none. And if he did come here to see the interior of Berwick, then he can return to Richard Gordon and tell him that Berwick is impenetrable.”

  Colm sat at the table as well. “Mayhap,” he said. “But I just found his appearance very odd.”

  “Odd, indeed,” William said. He, too, went to take a seat. “Let us presume that most of what he said was true – that the mother prioress is the sister of the chief of Clan Gordon and that Clan Gordon has a score to settle with Clan Haye. There is no purpose to even tell us that because we have no bearing on Clan Gordon. At Questing, we rarely deal with them because they are far to the north.”

  Colm looked at William. “He came looking for you, my lord,” he said. “He asked for you by name. He was not sure you were here, but your appearance confirmed to him that you were. Mayhap… mayhap he was seeking intelligence on your location but told us that story on Lady de Wolfe to throw us off the truth of his appearance.”