Starless

by Kathryn Le Veque

  This was who they were.

  All except for Kevin. He was too young to have gone to The Levant, so he simply listened to the older knights speak of days gone by and wished that he had been there, too. He had been completely silent through the entire meeting and subsequent meal, but when Achilles and Alexander excused themselves to tend to their horses and collect their bags, he moved to follow them but Caius stopped him.

  Kevin paused as the others left the chamber and headed down the stone steps. Hesitantly, he retraced his steps to Caius, who was sitting by one of the big lancet windows that faced over the barbican. A gentle summer breeze flowed into the chamber, mingling with the mustiness.

  “My lord?” Kevin answered politely.

  Caius had a cup of watered ale in his hand, looking out over the countryside. “Sometimes I spend hours staring from these windows,” he muttered, finally turning to look at Kevin. “Do you know why?”

  “I would not, my lord.”

  Caius’ gaze drifted over the young knight. “Because I think about how far I have come from a past that is not so forgiving,” he said. Then, he set the cup down and pulled up the sleeve on his left arm, revealing a massive tattoo of a viper with ferocious fangs. It was a spectacular work of art. “This reminds me of my past every single day, of the times when I did things that I am mayhap not so proud of but were necessary. That is what your brother is doing, you know. Things that he is not so proud of but are necessary.”

  When Kevin realized where the conversation was headed, he lowered his gaze and looked to his feet. “How would you know that, my lord?”

  “Because I am well aware of Sean de Lara.”

  “Did you know my brother well, then?”

  Caius nodded. “Very well,” he said frankly. “Much better than I let on when we were introduced. You see, I love your brother dearly and I know of his task for The Marshal. Do you know how I know? Because when the opportunity arose to position a man close to King John, The Marshal spoke to Sean and me in private. Just the two of us. He presented the situation and asked which one of us wanted to assume the duty. Sean knew the sins of my past and because he knew of the terrible things I did, he spared me more sins and volunteered himself. Were it not for Sean, The Britannia Viper would now be the close bodyguard and advisor to King John. I would be burdening my soul with unconscionable things. Your brother made it so I did not have to and I will always love him for it.”

  It was a shocking admission. When Kevin’s head finally came up, it was apparent that the news had thrown him off-balance. His emotions were on the surface as he looked at Caius with a mixture of distress and anger.

  “You?” he said hoarsely. “You were there when all of this started?”

  “I was.”

  Kevin wasn’t sure how to respond to that, stunned with the realization. But the words, however painful, finally came forth. “Well, I do not love him for it,” he said tightly. “Sean has become something I do not recognize. He is in bed with the devil and has taken the de Lara name with him. I have never in my life been ashamed of my name until the past few years because when men discover I am the Shadow Lord’s brother, they look upon me with contempt. Sean did that to me. Do not tell me how great and self-sacrificing my brother is because I do not share your views.”

  Caius could see the tumult in his eyes and he felt for the young knight. “He is still your brother,” he said quietly. “He has had to make a terrible choice, choosing to have people believe how evil he is over the love and respect of his family. Did you ever stop to think that your anger towards him is only making it worse?”

  Kevin struggled for his composure. “Forgive me, my lord, but you are not in my position. I know what Sean is doing; I have been well informed. But it is something I cannot tell anyone. I must even keep it from my father, who weeps every time he speaks of his eldest son who is now a man known to kidnap women so the king can deflower them, or steal women away from their husbands so the king can have his way with them. John points a finger and Sean does his bidding, up to and including killing men in front of their wives and children. If the king wishes it, Sean does it. John has a knight of unfathomable power and intelligence at his disposal, a knight that everyone in England is terrified of. My brother has become Lucifer personified.”

  “And that is the price of Sean’s service to his king and country,” Caius pointed out. “William Marshal needs your brother there, at the king’s right hand. The information Sean provides to The Marshal is invaluable for keeping this country stable. Do you not understand that?”

  “I understand that.”

  “But you cannot forgive him.”

  “Nay,” Kevin said flatly. “And now that I know you could have assumed that position, I cannot forgive you, either. You let Sean ruin himself.”

  Caius wasn’t upset by the words because they were the truth. “If you think it does not eat at me every day of my life, you would be wrong,” he whispered. “Sean has sacrificed himself in more ways than you can comprehend and it is a debt I can never repay. I am sorry to have disappointed you, Kevin.”

  “Will that be all, my lord?”

  Clearly, Kevin had nothing more to say on the matter. Not that Caius blamed him; it was a great burden for an adoring younger brother to bear. Rather than force him, Caius simply nodded his head.

  Their discussion, for the moment, was over.

  He watched the young knight head back to the stairs, feeling a great deal of sorrow for a young, idealistic warrior in turmoil. Kevin saw the world only one way – righteous. He hadn’t experienced what men like Caius and Sean and Achilles and Alexander had experienced. Living a brutal life where sometimes good and evil intertwine had a tendency to change a man. But Kevin didn’t understand that. Caius didn’t miss when the young knight wiped a hand over his face as he descended the stairs, wiping away the tears that had fallen.

  It was like an arrow to the gut.

  With a heavy heart, Caius went about preparing for his journey to Aysgarth.

  CHAPTER TEN

  It had taken twelve men to capture her and force her into Aysgarth’s narrow vault. Twelve men with swords and clubs, but Susanna had put up a valiant fight. She’d burned down half of the apartments doing it, including her beloved writing kit and new clothing but, in the end, she had succumbed to overwhelming numbers.

  Even then, she’d continued fighting.

  They’d had to put her in chains.

  Beaten, her clothing torn and stained with blood from her swollen mouth and nose, Susanna was chained to the wall of Aysgarth’s vault. She had the ability to sit down and stand up, but that was where it stopped. A pile of straw was her bed but she hadn’t slept, not one wink.

  She sat against the wall, watching the door leading to the steps that led up to the main gatehouse, waiting.

  Waiting for what, she wasn’t sure. All she knew was that her true loyalties were now known and her life was more than likely forfeit.

  Somehow, they’d gotten her missive to d’Avignon away from Meggie. Susanna didn’t even know what happened to her servant and she was worried for the woman, but she couldn’t spare too much concern. The truth was that she was in a good deal of trouble and she needed to save the concern for herself.

  So far, no one had questioned her. With all the fighting going on, mostly from her, there hadn’t been the opportunity, but she knew that was coming. Part of being a Blackchurch knight was being able to withstand various methods of torture, and she’d been through enough to know how much she could take. It was going to take quite a lot on their part to force her to say anything.

  She was ready for them.

  Being that she was in the vault of Aysgarth, with no windows, she had no way of knowing just how much time had passed since her capture. She assumed it was at least a night and a day, based on how hungry she was. As the minutes ticked away, she was becoming increasingly miserable, from her hunger pangs to her throbbing mouth and nose, to the fact that she’d had to piss over against t
he wall and was trying not to sit in it. She was coming to wish that someone would come and interrogate her just so they could get it over with.

  But, so far, it has been a frustratingly long wait.

  More time passed and out of sheer exhaustion, Susanna started to fall asleep. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been asleep, sitting up, when she began to hear footsteps and voices. Instantly, her heart was racing and she forced herself to be alert, to be ready. She braced herself for what was to come.

  And it was, indeed, coming.

  Men with torches appeared. She couldn’t make out any faces, but she didn’t recognize their voices, which told her they were men she didn’t know. De Meynell men and, perhaps, even the same men who had captured her and beaten her, including a knight she’d seen in the tavern in Skipton.

  That had been a distinct shock.

  One of the seven knights she and Achilles and Alexander had licked in the tavern in Skipton had been one of the men to capture her, and while she was throwing punches, she was fairly certain he was throwing them back. He was the one who hit her in the nose, or so she thought. She fully expected him to be part of this group approaching and wasn’t disappointed to see that she was right.

  He was front and center.

  But so was Witton. The Lord of Whorlton kept his eyes on her as he had one of his men unlock her cell and even as he stepped into the large cell, which took up most of the vault, he kept away from her.

  It was clear that he had a good deal of respect for her fighting abilities.

  “My apologies for the delay, my lady,” he said with strained politeness. “I will remove the chains if you promise not to disable my men. We have casualties from the fight last night and I should not like to see you injure any more of them.”

  Susanna’s gaze lingered on him for a moment before turning away. She didn’t give him an answer. Witton stepped closer.

  “So you do not wish to talk,” he said. “That is understandable but it is not wise. We have much to discuss.”

  “We have nothing to discuss,” Susanna growled. “Whatever you are going to do, get on with it.”

  “I am not going to do anything, yet,” he assured her. “But you and I must discuss the situation and come to a conclusion that suits us both, but I will not negotiate with an animal. If you promise to behave yourself, I will treat you accordingly. If you do not, then I will let you rot down here. Therefore, I will remove the chains if you promise to behave.”

  Susanna thought about ignoring him again, but she had been chained up for the better part of a day and a night, and the cuffs were chaffing her terribly. She was also losing feeing in her hands because she couldn’t lower them. It would be much more comfortable for her to have the chains removed so that she could at least lower her arms.

  “I will not strike anyone if you remove my chains,” she finally said.

  Witton motioned to the man standing next to him, which happened to be the very knight from the tavern in Skipton. He came at her with the key for the shackles, unfastening her legs before he unfastened her wrists. Susanna wouldn’t look at him, but the moment he unfastened the last cuff, he slapped her across the face hard enough to snap her head sideways. Susanna responded in an instant by lashing out a foot and kicking the man right in the groin. As he went down, she pounced on him, going right for his face.

  It was instant chaos in the cell as Witton screamed for his men to separate the combatants. Three men pulled Susanna off of the knight, but not before she’d managed to dig her thumbs into both eyes. He was howling with pain as she was hauled away and immediately put back where the chains were. The men were beginning to chain her up again but Witton stopped them.

  “Nay!” he shouted. “Do not restrain her. Leave her!”

  Susanna yanked away from the men trying to chain her up again, throwing herself in the opposite direction and ending up over in a corner of the cell. Witton was ordering his men to back off and they complied, though reluctantly.

  “He hit me first,” Susanna shouted angrily. “I will not allow him or anyone else to strike me again. I can and will defend myself.”

  Witton held up both hands to try to ease the situation. “Easy, my lady,” he said. “You have understandably drawn their ire. Men will react in kind.”

  “And I will react in kind if they try to strike me again!”

  “Calm yourself,” Witton ordered quietly. “You and I have a good deal to discuss and I will not have a shouting match with you. Is that clear?”

  Susanna was edgy, like a caged animal, backed up against the wall as her eyes darted to de Meynell’s angry men behind him. She didn’t answer him but rather stood there, twitching with rage. Realizing he wasn’t going to get an answer, Witton simply continued.

  “Now,” he said. “You and I must discuss the missive you were attempting to send to Richmond Castle. I can only assume you got your information from your brother.”

  Susanna had no idea where Samuel was and she wasn’t going to cast any blame on him. At the cell door, the knight from the tavern in Skipton was just being helped to his feet as he grunted and groaned, giving her an idea.

  “If you want to know where I received my information, ask the bastard who slapped me,” she said. “I saw him in Skipton several weeks ago where he and his comrades had too much to drink and willingly told me everything. Thanks to your men, I am not the only one who knows this information.”

  She was trying to deflect blame, something that had been wholly endorsed by Blackchurch. It was one of their techniques in a situation such as this to create confusion and doubt. It had the desired effect. Witton’s eyes widened and he whirled to the knight as he was just finding his way out of the cell.

  “Bellerby!” he boomed. “Is this true?”

  The man could barely see and one eye refused to open at all. He paused at the cell entry. “Is what true, my lord?”

  “Did you speak on our plans for Richmond Castle?”

  Bellerby looked at his lord in shock. “I did not, my lord, I swear it!”

  “He is lying,” Susanna snarled. “Of course he told me. How else would I know?”

  Bellerby couldn’t see very well, but he could certainly see the woman who was accusing him of treasonous behavior. “She’s mad!” he cried. “She is lying!”

  Susanna went on the attack. “He and his comrades were very drunk at The Horse’s Arse,” she insisted. “If you do not believe me, send someone to the tavern to ask. They bragged on how Richmond Castle would soon belong to the French again. Who knows who else they have told!”

  Bellerby tried to charge her again, held back by his fellow men, and Witton had the unhappy position of standing between him and the lady he wanted to throttle. Witton believed Bellerby for the most part, but there was something in the back of his mind that told him such things were possible. He’d seen his men drink before, too many times to count, and silence was not one of their virtues. The leader of the contingent from The Horse’s Arse, the man who had died of an infection to the gut, was a man named Gael le Sommes and he was not a man known for keeping his mouth shut. He had been brash and aggressive.

  Still, Witton had little doubt that the lady was lying. His men weren’t the ones who had sent a detailed missive to the commander of Richmond Castle warning him of future plans.

  The lady was alone in that action.

  “My lady, allow me to make things clear,” he said, struggling to gain control of the situation. “Your actions were your own. No one told you to write that missive. I suppose it does not matter where you received the information. What matters is what you did with it. Why were you trying to warn Caius d’Avignon. What is he to you?”

  “I have never met the man.”

  “Yet you were sending him a message.”

  Susanna looked away, calming now that her rumble with Bellerby had subsided. “You know that I will not speak to the accusations,” she said. “And they are only accusations. You cannot prove anything.”

  �
�Your maid said you wrote it.”

  “She is lying.”

  “She swore it was the truth before we slit her throat.”

  Susanna didn’t react outwardly but, inwardly, she was feeling sick on Meggie’s behalf. He could be simply trying to get a reaction out of her, but she couldn’t be sure. She kept her composure.

  “That is unfortunate,” she said.

  “Have you nothing more to say?”

  “I have nothing to say at all.”

  Witton sighed sharply. He eyed her a moment before turning to his men, still clustered back by the cell door, and waved his arm at them, silently ordering them out. All but one man; he remained by the door, holding the torch, while the others complied, including Bellerby. He was rubbing his eyes furiously as he quit the vault. When it was just Witton and Susanna facing one another, and Witton’s man standing back by the open cell door, Witton spoke quietly.

  “I want you to understand something, Lady Susanna,” he said. “I am fairly certain that you received your information from your brother, the weak bastard that he is. It does not take a great intellect to deduce that. But he swears he knows nothing of your loyalty to Richmond Castle. He could be lying. I will bring him down here and ask him again, and if he tells me he has no knowledge of your loyalties again, I will cut his tongue out right in front of you for lying to me yet again. Do you understand that I am capable of that?”

  Susanna could take abuse and torture. She knew she could and she was unafraid to face it. But this was the type of threat she’d been dreading; using her own brother against her. She couldn’t, and wouldn’t, stand by and watch them torture Samuel and she suspected there was some part of Witton who knew that. It was one thing to threaten her, but it was another thing entirely to threaten a beloved sibling.

  She couldn’t let it happen.

  “I understand,” she said, turning to look at him. “What do you want from me?”

  “The truth.”

  “About what?”

  “Why you were sending the missive to Richmond?”