Nunnery Brides

by Le Veque, Kathryn

  It was this rose-scented oil that ended up in her morning water, and she used a rag to wash her body down with the warmed water. With the weather warm, she tended to sweat, and she hated the smell of her body, so the water washed away whatever she considered an offensive odor. She couldn’t help but notice the oil was getting very low and soon she would have none, which would present something of a problem. Even the nuns at Alberbury would let her use grease or oil on her cracked hands. She realized she would soon have to do the same thing here and end up smelling like a side of pork from the grease smeared on her skin.

  The yellow surcoat from yesterday that Bretton had torn down the front was in a pile on the chair by the fireplace, waiting to see if it could be acceptably mended, so Allaston dressed in a linen shift and then a heavier linen surcoat the color of eggshell because it wasn’t as heavy as some of the woolen dresses. It was a simple garment with a square neckline, long sleeves, and two strips of cloth fastened to the waist that were meant to tie in the back, pulling the bodice snug. She put it on, braided her hair, slipped on her worn leather slippers, and headed out for her morning tasks.

  Coming down the steps to the entry level, she couldn’t help but peer into the open room where she had last seen Bretton. She had left the man there after his meal and he was still there when she had gone to bed. He had been sitting with that open missive, undoubtedly pondering the many things the parchment represented. He was clearly still upset by it. She didn’t disturb him as she went up to bed and half expected to see him still sitting in the same spot this morning. But he was gone and the room was cold and dark. The parchment on the table was gone, too. Opening up the keep entry, Allaston headed out into the mild gray dawn.

  She came to a halt at the top of the steps, looking with surprise at the collection of armed and mounted soldiers gathering in the bailey. Grayton was also there, wandering among the soldiers, and another knight with long auburn curls. She kept her eyes on the group as she descended the steps, wondering why they had gathered, when her attention was pulled away by the sound of Bretton’s voice.

  He was emerging from the stable area leading a big, silver horse that was wearing expensive and heavy tack, including chain mail across the front of its chest. Bretton was in full armor, speaking to a big bald knight who was also in full armor. As she came to the bottom of the stairs, Bretton caught sight of her and he interrupted his conversation with the knight to lift a hand and flick a wrist, summoning her. Obediently, Allaston headed in his direction.

  As she came close, the knight he had been speaking with quietly excused himself but Bretton stopped the man from going any further.

  “Lady Allaston,” he said. “This is Dallan de Birmingham. I do not believe you two have formally been introduced, so let me do the introductions now. Dallan will be in command of Cloryn while I am away. You will obey him as you obey me.”

  Allaston nodded nervously at Dallan. He had a very grim look about him that she didn’t like. He acknowledged her politely but ran off before any words could be exchanged. Allaston watched him go before turning her attention to Bretton.

  “Where are you going?” she asked. “You said nothing of leaving yesterday when we spoke.”

  Bretton’s gaze glimmered at her in the early morning light. “I am taking your advice,” he said. “I am going to Newtown to meet with my cousin.”

  She was pleased to hear that. She was also rather touched that he took her advice on the matter. She honestly didn’t think he would.

  “Then I will pray that the meeting goes well,” she said. “I pray that you find the answers you seek.”

  He nodded, pulling tight his gloves. “We shall see,” he said ambivalently, as if he held little hope for the truth. “Meanwhile, you will stay to the keep and to the kitchens. The majority of my army is in residence and I do not want men unnecessarily tempted by the sight of a woman.”

  Allaston’s expression tightened with fear. “What do you mean?” she asked. “Will they harm me? They’ve not tried to harm me yet and I have been around them a good deal in the great hall.”

  He shrugged, his eyes moving out over the compound. “These are mercenaries,” he said. “They do not conform to the rules of propriety. If they see something they want, they take it. With me gone, they may be bolder than usual.”

  Allaston didn’t like that thought in the least. “Then I will go to my chamber and lock it until you return,” she said. “I do not want to give anyone the opportunity to do me harm.”

  He looked at her, then. “That may be wise,” he said. “I should only be a few days at the most. You can keep yourself occupied until then.”

  She nodded firmly, eyeing the soldiers on the walls with great suspicion. “There is much I can do,” she said. “I have a good deal of sewing to be done. By the way, it would seem that I am almost out of thread and I do not have the means here to make any. If Newtown is big enough, there should be a merchant who carries all manner of sewing goods. Can you please purchase some thread?”

  He looked at her as if she had gone mad. “Purchase thread?” he repeated, insulted. “Surely you jest. I will do no such thing.”

  “Then I will not be able to mend the things you have given me.”

  He scowled at her. “You can make your own thread.”

  She met his scowl. “Gladly,” she said. “If I had a spinning wheel and raw wool, I could easily do it, but I do not have any of those things. Therefore, you will have to buy the thread.”

  He eyed her, unhappy. “I will not,” he said. “You can buy it.”

  “How can I buy it? I have no money and no opportunity.”

  He shook his head as if he thought the entire situation ridiculous. “You will indeed have the opportunity because you are coming with me,” he said, turning away. Then, he began muttering. “Thread buying. What a preposterous suggestion.”

  She heard him muttering and fought off a grin. She was coming to suspect he didn’t think it ridiculous so much as it was an affront to his masculinity. It was rather humorous to watch him mutter to himself.

  “You can always steal it,” she suggested exaggeratedly. “Just knock his walls down and take as much thread as you can grab in one handful. It should not be hard for a man with your talents.”

  He looked at her as if she had grievously insulted him. The look on his face alone made Allaston break down into laughter. She couldn’t help it.

  “Do you think to taunt me?” he demanded without force.

  She shrugged. “Mayhap, just a bit.”

  He was still frowning at her greatly, but it was all for show. He was in danger of breaking a smile. Allaston could see it. He finally wiped a hand over his mouth and scratched his face to mask it.

  “Go inside and collect a cloak and anything else you might need for the journey,” he said, trying to be gruff but it wasn’t coming out very convincingly. “Do not delay. I do not have time to waste waiting for you.”

  Allaston grinned at him, gathered her skirt, and scurried back into the keep. Bretton watched her, and only her, until she disappeared. Even after she was gone he found he could think of little else but he did manage to send a soldier to the stables to saddle a horse for her. As she packed and the horse was being saddled, he made his way over to the cluster of soldiers waiting for him. Dallan, Teague, and Grayton were among the group and he sought them out.

  “It would seem that Lady Allaston will be accompanying me to Newtown,” he told his commanders. “It makes more sense this way, Dallan. You will not have to worry over her and I can keep her in my protection. Cloryn will be female-free.”

  Dallan nodded but didn’t say what he was thinking. In fact, they were all thinking the same thing and had been for a while. It seemed to them that Lady Allaston had been on Bretton’s mind more than she should have been, and not in a way that made them comfortable. It wasn’t so much in his words but in how he behaved towards her. She was becoming less and less a prisoner and more and more an object that evidently had much
free reign. Somehow, she had bewitched the man. As Dallan simply nodded, Grayton was braver and spoke up.

  “She does not need to go with you,” he said. “I can return her to the vault. She’s a prisoner, after all. She should not be running about here freely as it is.”

  Bretton took the comment as a direct challenge to his authority right away. With this nasty band of cutthroats and murders, he had learned to be on his guard, always, even with his commanders. He looked at Grayton, the bright blue eyes poised for a fight.

  “You were the one that told me to treat her with more courtesy,” he said, hardness in his tone. “You took her out of the vault when I had her there for three long weeks, and now you tell me she belongs there?”

  Grayton could see that the man’s entire posture changed with that suggestion. If he’d had any doubt before that Bretton had feelings for de Velt’s daughter, those doubts were now dashed. He could see in an instant that Bretton had interest in the woman simply by the way he was acting. The Bretton he knew would have dismissed him quickly rather than confront him. He was defensive, a tale-tell sign. The situation went from one of polite conversation to one of hazardous intent fairly quickly.

  “I was wrong,” Grayton said steadily, holding his ground. “She tried to kill you, Bretton. She has the same killer instincts that her father does. It is not safe for any of us to have her roaming the grounds freely. What if she poisons our food next? Have you thought of that?”

  Bretton was surprised at just how furious he was that Grayton should verbally attack Allaston.

  “Foolishness,” he hissed. “If she wanted to kill me, she could have easily done so when she knocked me unconscious with the fire poker, but she did not. I told you why she did it. She was attempting to escape.”

  Grayton shook his head in a flustered gesture. “She is a prisoner,” he stressed. “She belongs in a locked chamber at the very least.”

  “She stays to the keep and to the kitchen,” Bretton countered through clenched teeth. “That is what I told her to do and she has obeyed. Until she destroys that trust, I see no reason to lock her up.”

  Grayton wasn’t satisfied with the answer. He knew there was more to it than Bretton was telling them. A preoccupied liege meant an uncertain situation. He didn’t want a change of plans, nobody did. Bretton had promised them wealth and power, and that was exactly what they wanted, woman or no.

  “What happened to the man who killed a mother prioress to get to his victim?” he wanted to know. “You stopped at nothing to gain the daughter of your enemy and once she was in your grasp, you threw her in the vault and kept her there.”

  “She would probably still be there if you didn’t demand I release her!”

  “I was wrong! She belongs in that hole like the vermin that she is!”

  Bretton balled a fist and hit Grayton squarely in the face, sending the man flying backwards. Teague and Dallan stood back, holding back the collection of astonished soldiers, as Bretton loomed over Grayton as the man struggled on the ground. When Grayton tried to sit up, Bretton hit him again, on the forehead, and the man went down for good. Bretton postured angrily over him.

  “Right now, that woman serves a purpose,” he snarled. “Much like you, or any of my men, she now serves a purpose. She serves me. If you have issue with this, then keep it to yourself for I do not want to hear it. You will not question my decision again, is that clear?”

  Grayton was half-unconscious but nodded. He also wisely remained on his back, looking up at Bretton with unfocused eyes.

  “Aye,” he grunted.

  Bretton wasn’t finished with him yet. “She is a valuable prisoner, as you once stated,” he growled. “If anyone moves against her, I will kill him. And I do mean anyone. Make sure that is well understood within the ranks.”

  “Aye, Bretton,” Grayton replied.

  Bretton loomed over the man angrily for a moment longer before standing up, coming into eye contact with both Teague and Dallan as he stood back from Grayton. He lifted his eyebrows at them.

  “Do either of you have something to say about this?” he demanded.

  The two warriors shook their heads, knowing now was not the time to express any concerns over the prisoner. But they, too, realized that their liege had some kind of feelings, or some sense of protectiveness, for de Velt’s daughter. It was a sensitive subject that bore watching.

  “Nay,” Teague finally said. “But she should be much more careful about moving in the great hall. I have seen more than one soldier eye her rather hungrily. It would probably be best if she kept to the kitchen and the keep, for her own safety.”

  Bretton was still furious about his confrontation with Grayton and struggled to calm the rage. Taking a deep breath, he nodded as he turned away from his men.

  “I would agree,” he said, his tone considerably less hostile. “I will make sure she knows.”

  They let the subject die as he went back over to his charger, pretending to check the connections and straps, when what he was really doing was evaluating his reaction against Grayton. The man was his closest friend, someone he trusted implicitly. Was it possible that he was correct and that de Velt’s daughter was truly a danger to them all? He couldn’t honestly believe it but, then again, he had been having some very odd feelings where she was concerned. He wondered if his men were seeing something he wasn’t, blinded by her beauty and kindness as he was.

  The wait for Allaston wasn’t long. Within ten minutes of Bretton’s punch to Grayton, she came scurrying out of the keep with a small satchel in her hand. She also had a cloak on, the same one she had been wearing since Grayton had given her all of those garments. Brown, lined with rabbit fur, Allaston took great care of Lady Miette’s cloak. As she approached Bretton, he pointed at the bag.

  “Where did you get that?” he asked.

  Allaston looked at the satchel in her hand, made from brocaded wool. It was quite nice. “I found it in the chamber above mine where I also found a comb for my hair and these clothes,” she said, wondering how much she should say about whom, in fact, it had belonged to. “I am just borrowing it because I have nothing else to carry my possessions in.”

  He eyed the bag. “You may have any of those possessions that catch your eye,” he told her. “They belong to me now.”

  Allaston looked at him as he spoke rather emotionlessly. They belong to me now. They belonged to him because the real owners were dead, killed by de Llion’s war machine. She wondered how he could be so callous about such things. It was confusing, really. Last night, he had kissed her hand with tenderness only angels possessed, yet he spoke of a dead family’s possessions as if they were nothing at all. It was difficult not to tell him what she thought of his attitude towards the bundle of lonely items that were the sole reminder of a family who had met a terrible end.

  So she said nothing, following him as he took her elbow and pulled her over to a horse that was standing rather docile and half-asleep a few feet away from his charger. He took her bag from her, handing it over to the nearest soldier with the instructions to secure it to her saddle before taking her by the waist and lifting her up onto the horse. The saddle wasn’t made for a woman, but rather for a man to ride astride, so she shifted a bit, trying to get comfortable, as he handed her the reins.

  Bretton mounted his silver charger, snapping orders to the two commanders who were accompanying them, and the commanders began to form the men in loose columns. Someone shouted to the gatehouse and the gate, a big oak and iron monstrosity that was newly rebuilt in many sections, began to lurch open. The wider the gate yawned, the more the breeze from outside the walls began to infiltrate the bailey, bringing with it the horrible stench of death.

  Allaston caught whiff, a horrible sweet and greasy stench, and she immediately sucked in her breath and pinched her nose shut. She glanced sidelong at Bretton and at the two other commanders, one of them being Grayton who was sporting a swollen nose, and she couldn’t help but notice they weren’t reacting to
the smell. They were paying more attention to the party that was riding forth and when Bretton finally motioned her forward, she reluctantly kicked the horse in his flank and the animal began to move. The closer she drew to the open gate, the more apprehensive she became. Knowing what was outside those gates made her stomach lurch. And then, she saw them.

  Dozens upon dozens of bodies, mounted on poles, exposed to the air like a ghastly army of scarecrows, only the crows weren’t scared. There were flocks of them feeding on the flesh of the corpses. It was a grisly sight. Horrified, sickened, Allaston realized that the great army of impaled men stretched out for at least a quarter of a mile, flanking the road leading in to Cloryn. There were men on poles almost as far as she could see.

  The scope was beyond comprehension. All of these men who had once fought for Cloryn were now dead within sight of it. As she absorbed the hideous sight, the full atrocities of de Llion’s campaign of terror were becoming real. The stench, coupled by the vision before her, brought tears to Allaston’s eyes and she hung her head, unwilling to look at the macabre scenery any longer. They were surrounded by it. As the horse plodded from the gate, she happened to catch a glimpse of something billowing in the breeze off to her left and she glanced over, a reflexive action, to see the most horrific sight she had ever seen, a horror of horrors that made everything else seem tame by comparison.

  Lady Miette’s dress was waving in the morning breeze, a dark blue garment of fine fabric that had been terribly weathered these months that it had been exposed to the elements. The woman herself was impaled on a pole that went in between her legs and exited her sternum, coming to rest just below her chin. Her head hung forward with copious amounts of dark hair blowing over her face. It was difficult to see her decayed features but her hands, small and boney, were clasped near her waist as if in prayer. Allaston could only imagine that the woman, as she was dying, set about to pray for her passing by folding her hands in prayer. It was a sad, horribly poignant sight.