Love Thine Enemy

  * Cultural Atlas of France, John Ardagh with Colin Jones, Page 210

  * Eyewitness Books: Arms and Armor, Michele Byam

  * History of Everyday Things: The Middle Ages, Giovanni Caselli

  * Life in a Medieval Castle, Joseph and Frances Gies

  * Live in a Medieval Village, Frances and Joseph Gies

  * Men at Arms Series: The Armies of Crécy and Poitiers, Christopher Rothero

  * Tales of the Table, Barbara Norman, Page 81

  * The Armourer and His Craft. From the XIth to the XVIth Century, Charles ffoulkes

  * The Black Prince, Henry Dwight Sedgwick, Pages 15, 16, 23, 38, 108, 117, 109

  * The Civilization of the Middle Ages, Norman F. Cantor

  * The Hundred Years' War, Desmond Seward/ Pages 21-23 78

  * The Medieval Health Handbook, Tacuinum Sanitatis, George Braziller, Illustration XLI, Illustration XXXIII

  * The Middle Ages, A Concise Encyclopaedia, Edited by H. R. Loyn

  * The Search for Personal Freedom, Lamm/Cross/Turk

  THE WAGER

  By

  Carolyne Cathey

  Chapter One

  England, 1284

  Wiltshire

  “Abandoned?” Pain throbbed in Eleanor’s bloodied feet as she scanned the fog of the mysteriously empty village green. To have struggled all this distance on burned and blistered soles, only to find the place deserted. Mist curled around the vacant pillory and stock. Too-quiet wattle and daub cottages lined the village green, fading in and out of the shifting fog like hesitant spirits. Not even a dog barked. Where had everyone gone? And why? Clammy fear shivered into her bones. How would she survive when even one more step seemed beyond her strength?

  The ground vibrated.

  Hoof-beats! Plundering knights? Was that why everyone had fled?

  With her heart beating as rapidly as the approaching hooves, Eleanor frantically searched the fog to see from where the riders approached, for the sound reverberated as if from more than one direction.

  Phantom figures of three men racing their mounts emerged from the murkiness, growing larger, more distinct as they pounded toward her. Cloaks flapped behind the riders like wings of black vultures in search of prey. Hooves sliced earth; mud flew. Dim light licked along a drawn sword. Terror struck along with the truth: They meant to kill her!

  Run! She lifted a foot. Pain seared up her leg. Heaven help her. The nuns must have sent the men to capture her after her escape from the nunnery, but being a mere servant, she expected only severe punishment for running away, not death.

  The mounted horses surrounded her, their hooves stamping dangerously near her unprotected feet as the three men leapt to the ground. Two of the men grasped her arms. The third seized her wrist, his fingernails cutting into her flesh like slivers of glass.

  "Who are you, woman?" The grandly garbed nobleman peered beneath her hood, then bellowed a sinister laugh. "The last scum I thought I'd find standing out here as brazen as brass. I expected to beat the undergrowth afore we found your thieving frame. Because you stole my grain…" He jerked her arm straight and raised his sword. "…I’ll take your hand." The weapon slashed downward!

  Eleanor screamed. Metal clanged as cold steel slammed against her wrist. She tensed for excruciating pain--that never came! Forcing her eyes open, she stared, stunned. Her captor’s blade had caught on the flat side of another sword that pressed, frigid, against her flesh.

  "What goes on here?" A man’s voice thundered like the impending storm, a voice practiced in the issue of command.

  Eleanor heard an answering rumble in the distance as if the heavens responded. The air grew heavy, almost too thick to breathe.

  With her pulse at a frantic pace, she tore her gaze from the crossed swords and toward the shadowy figure who had prevented the sever of her hand.

  In the rolling fog, astride a destrier black as sin, sat a knight, tall, broad of shoulder, a masterful power that demanded homage, a power that obliterated all else from her world. Even though his stallion stamped, restless, the knight handled the beast as if with no effort. His forceful concentration burned deep into her core, potent, hypnotic. The knight moved his arm to steady his destrier.

  Eleanor gasped. The white cross of the knight's heraldry fairly glowed against his black surcote.

  A white cross against black. Her prophetic dream.

  A tingle shivered along her spine.

  Mist swirled around his vague image, dipped and curled, obscured the color of his eyes, the details of his face. Yet, she knew.

  He is the man foretold.

  The vision flashed into her thoughts like lightning, brief and bright.

  Again she saw the midnight sky where hung the cross that glowed and pulsed, white-hot. A mounted knight streaked across the blackish void. Dim stars scattered like firesparks in his wake. With gauntlet-covered hand, he snatched the cross from the firmament, raised it high in victory, then faced her. He held out his other hand for her to grasp. The dim stars became peasants who wiped away tears of despair, their faces brightening with joy.

  The vision faded, but not the message. Somehow, and in some way, she and Lord Kyle were to save the villagers from an evil presence.

  Her divulgence of the prophecy to the nuns at the convent had brought her only fear and pain. They had burned the soles of her feet to purify her soul and to remind her of the torture for witches should she persist in her Satanic revelations. They had then thrown her into an underground pit without light and food until she felt certain she would die, forgotten. She had promised never to speak again of the dream since the nuns claimed such messages didn't exist except with the Devil's touch.

  Yet, there he sat. As if he had risen on the mist from the bowels of the earth to rescue her.

  "What goes on here is none of your affair, knight." Her captor’s enraged tone roused her from her trance. "Now, move your blade."

  "Injustice is always my affair. As to moving my blade..." The knight flicked his wrist and her abductor’s weapon thudded into a puddle a good five paces distant. At her rescuer’s nod, a ghostly figure moved from out of the vapor and picked up the contraband.

  "The insolence!" Her accuser whirled to confront the knight, then his eyes narrowed and his sneer curved into the whiskered edges of his ebon goatee.

  "I should have known. Welcome home, Lord Kyle." The man’s tone oozed contempt. He seemed to force his knees to bend as he knelt on the sodden ground, drawing his cloak to protect himself from the dampness, or perhaps to hide his flamboyant jewelry and lordly raiment. Eleanor wondered why one nobleman would show such deference to another. And surely the nuns wouldn’t send a man of such rank to deal with her, a laborer. Even more confusing, he accused her of stealing his grain.

  "Lord Kyle?" Alarm in their tones, the two accomplices dropped to their knees, heads bowed.

  With her unexpected release, pain bolted through her feet and up her legs. She locked her knees and ordered herself not to collapse.

  "Satan’s curse, Brigham, you’re more than my steward. Rise and tell me what hails here." The knight’s demand boomed into the dankness. The coming storm grumbled as if echoing his irritation.

  She trembled, suddenly fearful of this mounted knight whom even the heavens seemed to champion. In truth, the approaching storm sounded abnormally menacing. The thunder rolled deeper, longer, than she had ever heard before. And the air hung heavy midst the fog, another oddity, for certain.

  The beginning of the vision?

  She shuddered along with the rumbling. Then her breath caught with remembrance from the name Lord Kyle had called her accuser.

  Brigham? Villagers and travelers she had passed on the road whispered about a fiend called Brigham, one whose reputation for cruelty stank like the tortured and rotting flesh of his victims.

  Brigham pushed to his feet much faster than he had knelt. "I but protect your interests during your absence, as is my duty, Lord Kyle. Verily, you were away for so long I began to
doubt your return." He shrugged. "As to this disturbance, 'tis only a small matter, of no consequence."

  Eleanor felt her mouth drop open. "Of no consequence? I consider the matter of a lost hand of much consequence, Sirrah. Especially when the hand in question is mine."

  "You’re a thief."

  "I only just arrived."

  "You lie!"

  She flinched as Brigham lifted his fist as if to strike.

  "Halt!" Kyle’s shout froze Brigham, mid-swing. "Brigham, lift your arm to strike a woman again and ‘twill be you who loses a hand." Lord Kyle turned his indistinct visage toward her. "The laws of England are severe for thievery."

  "I tell you true, my lord. I stole naught."

  "I saw her pilfer the sack of grain from the wagon! Cutting off a hand is traditional for such a crime. Do you not see, Kyle, I must set an example for the peasants, else they’ll steal us into poverty."

  "She ain't the one!" A shriek sounded from behind Eleanor. A woman flung herself to her knees in front of Lord Kyle’s steed. All Eleanor could see from her shaky position was the dark, wet hair, the same color as her own, streaming over the woman's shoulders.

  "Please, milord! She ain't the one you're after." A sob broke her speech. "I be the guilty one."

  "Be ye related?" Brigham stared as if stunned, first at Eleanor, then at the groveling female. "Do you pile your sins upon your own head, woman? Do you defy me by seeking your kin’s presence here without my permission? As penalty, you’ll lose more than your hand."

  The woman jerked her gaze upward.

  Eleanor’s heart cramped as she glimpsed at what seemed like her own reflection in a wind-rippled pond, except the woman had some broken teeth, her face lined from what must have been a difficult life.

  "Lucinda?" Eleanor fought for composure as she watched her sister’s eyes widen with a mixture of shock, elation, alarm. Eleanor cursed her injured feet that prevented her from kneeling to embrace the sister she hadn’t seen or held for a lifetime.

  "Lucinda, ’tis I, your sister Eleanor.” The years of forced separation rushed through her veins like bitter tears on a raw wound. Ten and four years ago their mother had sold the then five year-old Eleanor to the convent as a laborer. Then she had dragged away the crying Lucinda and sold her to the ale-master at Trystonwood. Eleanor never saw her again, till now. She chilled to ice. Lucinda had admitted theft. To Brigham.

  Panic filled Lucinda’s expression. She shifted her attention to Lord Kyle. "Please, milord!" Lucinda reached out that tentative hand Brigham craved for a trophy. "I need me sister to help with me young 'uns. I'm right fearful of what will happen now that me husband is dead."

  "Cease your babbling!”

  With Becket’s dictate, Lucinda ducked her head.

  "Silence, Brigham." Saddle-leather creaked when Lord Kyle leaned toward Lucinda as if to better hear her soft-spoken voice. "Tell me, Lucinda. What happened to Robert?"

  Lucinda’s gaze flew to Brigham, her face the hue of the grayish fog eddying around them, her brown eyes glazed with fright.

  "Life is harsh, Becket, as well you know." Brigham pinned Lucinda with a glare as if in warning while he stroked his well-trimmed goatee. "The grim reaper calls a-many afore their time." Then he shifted his attention to the mounted knight. "‘Tis not the past that is of import here, Kyle, but our future." He grasped Lucinda’s wrist. "’Tis better that a wench lose her hand than we lose control."

  Desperate to protect her sister, Eleanor flung out the first argument that came to mind. "Sirrah, you aren’t allowed to sentence her without a hearing. English law declares she has a right to a trial in a manor court."

  "Someone must pay, else we’ll have anarchy!"

  "So be it." Eleanor faced the mounted knight. "Lord Kyle, I wish to suffer my sister's punishment in her stead."

  Lucinda emitted a soft cry. "Nay! I won't permit ye!"

  "Please, Lucinda, allow me to finish." Although Eleanor couldn't see Lord Kyle's eyes, she felt the intensity of his stare. She clasped her fingers to hide their trembling. "However, Lord Kyle, I will be of much better use to you if I work out the penalty with both of my hands. I swear you my solemn vow; I will repay the debt in whatever way you see fit and for as long as you deem fair."

  Eleanor paused. Should she speak of the fortuitous dream? Nay. Not until she stood in a position to inform him of his role, as well as hers, in the prophecy. Dread scraped along her nerves. The telling would be most dangerous, for she knew not how he would react with her revelation. With scorn? With laughter? Or, with an order to burn her as a witch?

  A falcon screamed from on high as if to verbalize her fear. Her stomach tightened and became like one of the hard stones that littered the road.

  She sensed Brigham staring at her as if mentally scrambling how to crush her proposal so that he could then punish her for her audacity.

  "Put back your hood, wench."

  The strength of Lord Kyle’s command, although spoken low, demanded she comply. She trembled as she grasped the edge of the wet hood, pushing it back until the wool crumpled onto her shoulders. Moisture dampened her flesh, cold on cold. Surely he heard the pounding of her heart as she focused for an eternity on his mist-veiled face.

  He nodded. "A bargain. Brigham, place her upon my horse."

  Relief rushed out of her lungs in a sigh.

  "But, Kyle, what about the theft?"

  "Brigham, we do not ravage the unfortunate, but protect them. We do not starve the hungry, but feed them. Give Lucinda another bag of grain and let her be. Moreover, her sister has offered to satisfy the debt."

  "You would let us starve?"

  Lord Kyle slipped the sword-tip under Brigham’s heavy gold chain that held an even heavier ruby atop his chest. The blood-red stone glimmered in the dim light. "A weighty bauble."

  Brigham snatched the pendant from off the sword and let the ruby drop to beneath his cloak.

  "Brigham, I've come a long way. I'm exhausted. Just bring her to me. Now."

  "Ride on your horse? On that giant beast?" She had never before been on an animal's back. And the saddle allowed no room. Eleanor should insist she walk, but she knew better. Even though she had forgotten the pain while under Lord Kyle's spell, her feet now reminded her. Wondering if Brigham would relinquish her without further contention, she chanced a brief glance his way.

  Brigham met her glance, his hatred as sharp as a honed sword. He jerked upright as if alarmed. "Green eyes. Witch’s eyes."

  Terror surged through Eleanor like spewed venom.

  "Lord Kyle, she's a witch. Let me dispense with her and then I must see you in private. King Edward--"

  "Not now, Brigham."

  "But the king--"

  "My first moments home after four years and we are quick to argue? 'Tis our destiny?" He lowered the tip of his weapon again to point toward Brigham's chest. "Bring her here. I will not ask again."

  Brigham glanced at the now-vacant puddle where his sword had fallen.

  Eleanor wondered what sort of odd relationship existed between the two men, and why Lord Kyle allowed such disrespect from his steward.

  Brigham fisted his gloved hands as if he preferred them around someone’s neck, then nodded to one of her former captors. "William, do as Lord Kyle orders."

  The conspirator stepped forward and lifted her from the ground. Pain from her feet screamed through her body, replaced quickly by fear as the man carried her toward Lord Kyle--and his enormous steed, which grew even larger with each spur-jangled step her bearer took.

  "Merciful heaven, give me strength." Determined to show bravery she didn't feel, she clenched her teeth and held her breath. When William lifted her higher, she swung her leg astride the huge stallion that would surely eat her if given the chance. She held her feet out so as not to muddy her master's boots and groaned as the blood throbbed in punishment.

  Lord Kyle settled her atop his steel-like thighs, and with his arm around her waist like a keg strap.

  Th
e black beast pranced and stepped sideways.

  Eleanor clutched Lord Kyle's arms, his strength obvious beneath his drenched cote. She knew the smell of wet wool would forever bring to mind his mysterious, fog-wrapped image.

  "Be not afraid." His voice sounded gentle, husky. "I'll not let you fall."

  "I'm not frightened, Sire, only startled." Not entirely true, but she gained courage with the pretense.

  Lord Kyle pulled her tighter on the wedge of his legs, and she felt oddly safe within his arms. She let her frame melt into his. Her savior would keep her from harm; her heart assured her as much.

  "I thank you for rescuing me, my lord. I'll serve you well. Aye, I'll serve you well."

  His rumbled chuckle sent an uneasy tingle through her back to the pit of her stomach.

  "Aye, you will, wench. You will."

  ***

  If you enjoyed Love Thine Enemy, then you might also enjoy The Wager, a historical romance sent in England, 1284 AD.

  Eleanor, a peasant, escaped the convent nuns who called her a witch because of her prophetic dreams. Rescued by Lord Kyle of Trystonwood who is determined for her to share his bed, he challenges her to perilous game of chess.

  The wager? If he wins, she’ll serve him as leman. If she wins, she’ll become his lady.

  Against all odds Eleanor won! And yet, the king forbade nobles to marry peasants and expects Kyle to wed the king’s cousin. And yet, he gave his knight’s word. Might the king charge Kyle with treason?

  As to Eleanor’s confessed visions, Kyle, too, dreams of a dragon. Is the dragon King Edward? Or Eleanor? Or is Eleanor truly a witch who has cast a dangerous spell on him.

  Awards:

  Second place in the Northeast Oklahoma’s Romance Author’s Crystal Heart contest.

  ***

  Thank you for reading Love Thine Enemy. I hope you enjoyed Rochelle’s and Becket’s love story.

  Carolyne Cathey

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  [C1]Check name.