The Dark Spawn (Battle Lords of de Velt Book 5)

by Kathryn Le Veque

  It put him right on the edge of the battle.

  “Before I left Pelinom, I instructed my son, Julian, to take his mother and sisters away from Pelinom,” he said. “Something told me to remove them. Call it a hunch, I suppose, but Julian and about a hundred men are taking my wife and daughters south to Alnwick Castle. Pelinom is strong, but it cannot stand against thousands of Scots and Northmen, so they are heading south as we speak. As for Berwick, it is my sense that it is a three-pronged attack, meaning we will have three objectives.”

  The Marshal was looking at him with interest. “And that would be?”

  Jax thumped on the map, next to Berwick. “We have Scots coming from the north,” he said. “We have Berwick Castle, and we have the arriving Northmen. Part of the army needs to engage the Scots to drive them away from Berwick while another part of the army shall go for the castle itself. The remains of the army will sit at the mouth of the River Tweed and prevent the Northmen from entering the river by any means necessary.”

  It made perfect sense and The Marshal sighed heavily. “That will take a good many men,” he said. “We have six thousand with us now with an addition five or six thousand still coming north. Maxton, can you send word to Caius to take Richmond’s army directly to Berwick?”

  Maxton, standing behind David, nodded. “Aye,” he said. “In fact, I will ride to meet him and come north with him. May I suggest something?”

  “Please do.”

  “If the Northmen haven’t arrived yet by the time this army reaches Berwick, then you can divide your army into two groups to go after the Scots and after the castle,” he said. “Richmond is big enough to take the mouth of the River Tweed and wait for the Northmen.”

  The Marshal cocked an eyebrow. “Providing they move fast enough,” he said. “He is at least two days behind us.”

  “We will move faster,” Maxton assured him. “What about Northwood Castle? Are they sending men?”

  “I have sent a messenger to Lord Teviot telling him what is happening,” Jax said. “He is sending men to join with Pelinom’s troops. We will have at least fifteen hundred men between the two of us.”

  “Excellent,” The Marshal said with some enthusiasm. “That reinforces our numbers greatly. What about Castle Questing? Baron Dudforth has a small army, though the man hasn’t been right in the head since returning from The Levant. Something about a sword he lost on crusade. He’s apparently always looking for it. Jax, do you know the man?”

  Jax nodded. “I do,” he said. “He has a fifty-man army, and that’s being generous. Dudforth has one of the largest castles in the north and a tiny army to staff it because no one in their right mind would attack that place. I can say with some certainty that asking him for men would not be to our advantage. He does not have enough to make a difference. There are several other castles in the area, like Wark and Roxburgh, but they belong to the Scots right now.”

  The Marshal looked back to the map. “Then we’ll have to make do with what we have,” he said. “But every army that is set to join us must be told to go directly to Berwick. Sherry, can you make sure that happens?”

  Alexander nodded. “I will have the missives drawn out within the hour.”

  The Marshal glanced up at him. “De Lara, Forbes, de Nerra. They must be told.”

  “I will make sure of it.”

  The wheels were in motion, everything focusing on Berwick. Alastor stepped away from the table, rubbing his eyes wearily. “Then it is settled,” he said. “I must make sure my army is ready to depart on the morrow, so you will excuse me. I must ensure the provision wagons and quartermaster and surgeon are prepared.”

  The Marshal waved him on. “Do what you must,” he said. “I plan to eat and then sleep for a few hours. We shall regroup here two hours before dawn to go over the plan with everyone before departing.”

  The group began to fracture, breaking into little clusters of conversation, but Cole remained by the hearth, thinking about the last few words Alastor had spoken.

  Provision wagons and quartermaster and surgeon…

  That meant Corisande.

  He wasn’t going to mention that to Alastor, not in front of everyone, but the more he thought about it, the more opposed he was to her going on a battle march, and possibly into one of the nastiest battles the north had ever seen. He didn’t want her involved in that.

  He didn’t want her involved at all.

  Over to his left, Christopher and his father were in conversation. He could hear his father ask about Cassian, his youngest son, who had been serving at Lioncross Abbey for a few years. Jax wanted to know if he’d come with Christopher only to be told he’d been left at Lioncross because Christopher had pulled so many of his senior officers with him when the army moved out. Someone had to stay behind and protect Lioncross, he said, and Jax seemed glad. It was bad enough that he had one, and possibly two, sons involved in the battle at Berwick, so leaving his third son behind to be bored but safe… he seemed quite agreeable to that.

  He wanted at least one son safe.

  And Cole wanted Corisande safe.

  Without another word to the men in the solar, he quit the keep in search of a certain blonde he was very much in love with.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  She knew he wasn’t happy.

  In fact, he was bloody well furious.

  Corisande knew Cole was deeply upset that she was riding with the wagons at the rear of her father’s army, but it couldn’t be helped.

  She had a job to do.

  The past two days had been a whirlwind. The armies of William Marshal had descended on The Keld and within the space of one night, the army of Castle Keld had been mustered and that included the surgeon’s wagon.

  Knowing how Cole felt about her accompanying the army, Corisande had struggled to focus on properly supplying what she needed as a field surgeon. She had been her father’s surgeon for quite some time, as she had told him, and she knew what to do. She knew what she needed and she knew how to organize. But this time was different.

  Cole was watching her.

  He hadn’t said anything to her about her father’s command to muster the army so quickly. He hadn’t said anything to her about the surgeon’s wagon going along to Berwick with her in it. In fact, he hadn’t said anything at all, but he had watched her as she went about her business. She had been moving between the keep and the kitchens and the stable yard where the surgeon’s wagon was located, and everywhere she went, she caught a glimpse of him watching her from afar.

  Lingering.

  Corisande suspected that he wanted to say something to her, to tell her how much he disapproved of her going along with the army but, to his credit, he didn’t make the attempt to actually speak. He pretended to be busy, too, but in his case, he really was. His father had arrived from Pelinom Castle and he spent a good deal of time with his father as they helped William Marshal in the duties leading to the departure of the armies for Berwick.

  But the truth was that Corisande was watching out for him, too.

  Every time she went outside with an armload of boiled linen or the sewing kits that she used to stitch up the wounded, she would look around for him. Mostly, she had seen him with his father and she didn’t want to interrupt, so she put her head down and continued to go about her own business, although she was acutely aware of his.

  She hadn’t talked to Cole since their rendezvous in the buttery and what he had told her then held true – his duties took him away from her and there was no time to speak. There was a great chaos going on at The Keld with multiple armies and multiple commanders, and although Corisande didn’t know the exact details, she had caught wind a few things from her brothers in passing. Anteaus had told her that the Northmen were already at Berwick and they were taking a massive army to essentially chase them away, so she knew whatever battle they were facing was going to be a serious one.

  The anticipation in the air was a palpable thing.

  But there was somethi
ng else on her mind as she went about her business.

  She wondered if Cole had asked her father for permission to marry. When he had left her in the buttery, it had been with the intention of going straight to her father and speaking with him. There was a large part of her that had been waiting for him to tell her what had transpired, but because of the arrival of The Marshal’s armies, all of that seemed to have become a lesser priority.

  She understood, but it was still disappointing.

  An entire night of preparations and little sleep had translated into a completely assembled army just after sunrise. Corisande had been exhausted from being up all night, but the surgeon’s wagon was ready and it pulled out of the stable yard along with the quartermaster’s wagons and the provisions wagons about two hours after dawn. Because there were so many men to move, the army from The Keld was the last one to move out at the rear of The Marshal’s procession.

  And just like that, they were going to war.

  There was some added drama before they left, however. Because Corisande was going, Alastor forced Gaia to go as well. There was a tradition of women surgeons in the House of de Bourne, so tearful Gaia was forced into the surgeon’s wagon, too.

  Corisande sat in the rear of the wagon with her sister as it lumbered along the road, driven by one of her father’s soldiers. Behind them was a division of her father’s army to protect their rear, and Corisande remained awake and alert throughout the morning, but by the time the nooning hour passed, she was becoming drowsy for lack of sleep and the constant roll of the wagon. She ended up curling up underneath the wagon bench and falling asleep to the sound of Gaia’s unhappy sniffles.

  She didn’t awaken until sunset, when the army halted so that the men could be fed. Because they had spent all night preparing to depart, many of the men had not slept, either, so a complete halt was called so that the men could eat and sleep for a couple of hours. They were traveling during a full moon, so there was plenty of light at night to travel by.

  It was clear to Corisande that the army was desperate to get to Berwick because there was very little rest for the men. The knights were pushing the foot soldiers, and her brothers would charge up and down the column, shouting encouragement to the men to keep them moving. That tension she had felt back at The Keld followed them, driving the army north. Corisande may have had it easy sitting in the back of the wagon and sleeping on occasion like she was, but she knew that would end as soon as they entered into the battle.

  She would be lucky to have any rest at all after that.

  Because there were so many men and the army was so big, travel was somewhat slow, which is why they chose to travel most of the night to make up for lost time. On the second night of travel, they stopped out of pure necessity on the outskirts of a small village and set up camp on a meadow to the southeast. A brook ran through the camp and men washed their faces and rested while the cooks from the different armies prepared meals for their men. Tomorrow, they would be in Berwick and the madness of war would begin in earnest.

  It was a final night of peace before the chaos.

  With nothing much to do, Corisande helped the cooks with the de Bourne army. There were four cooks, in fact, and they pulled out a side of pork and began to boil it with beans and celery, creating a rich and inviting stew. Bread was baked in portable ovens, which were nothing more than clay kilns set on the edge of the fire. As Gaia remained in the surgeon’s wagon, unwilling to help in a domestic chore and feeling sorry for herself, Corisande was busy helping the cooks by stirring the enormous pots of boiling beans and pork when she heard a voice behind her.

  “My lady, you have been summoned.”

  Corisande stopped stirring, turning to see Cole standing behind her. He was armed to the teeth, dressed for battle, and sporting a growth of beard on his chin from travel and no rest.

  “Who has summoned me?” she asked.

  Cole simply beckoned her with a crooked finger and, frustrated that he wouldn’t even answer a simple question, she turned back to the stew.

  “Whoever it is, you may tell them that I am busy,” she said. “I’ve no time for your foolery, Cole.”

  “It is not foolery, I assure you,” he said. “Please stop what you are doing and come with me. Your father has asked me to bring him to you.”

  She stopped stirring, then, and wiped her hands off on the apron she was wearing. She was wearing a brown broadcloth garment, durable, with long sleeves and a heavy skirt. The apron was part of the outfit and although she had washed it, there were faded bloodstains on it. She always swore it when she went to battle with her father’s army. Leaving the bubbling pots, she brushed a stray piece of hair from her forehead with the back of her hand and followed Cole.

  Clouds had drifted in from the sea to the east, scattered across the sky beneath the moonlight. Every once in a while, one would cross in front of the moon and darken the landscape. As Corisande walked next to Cole, feeling his silence to the bone, a cloud passed in front of the moon and she missed a small hole that was right in front of her. As she tripped over it, Cole reached out to keep her from falling, but she yanked her arm away angrily.

  “Stop it,” she said. “Leave me alone. If you cannot be civil enough to speak to me, then you need not worry over my health.”

  She heard him sigh sharply. “I am not being uncivil,” he said. “I simply haven’t had the opportunity to speak with you. We have been traveling for two days.”

  She hissed at him. “That is a lie and you know it,” she said. “I have been sitting in the surgeon’s wagon ever since we left The Keld. There has been ample opportunity to speak to me, but you will not do it because you are punishing me for obeying my father’s order and coming on the battle march. Well, I will not tolerate your behavior. If you want to be angry, be angry at my father. Better still, be angry at the Scots for starting this stupid mess. But instead, you’d rather be angry at me for doing my duty. It is a shallow man who would do such a thing.”

  “I am not going to apologize for being concerned for you.”

  Her response was to stick her tongue out and make a rude sound. “Pish,” she said. “Save your insincere sorrows. I am not interested.”

  Cole came to an abrupt halt, grabbing her by the arm so she was forced to stop right along with him. Beneath the silver moon, he faced her.

  “I am sorry if I have upset you,” he said, his voice low. “Truly sorry, Cori. I am. But this will be a brutal battle and I will not apologize for not wanting you near it. Battle is no place for a woman and especially not my woman.”

  She pulled her arm out of his grip. “So you do not speak to me for two days to convey that concern? That is very petty, Cole.”

  He was trying not to look too contrite. “Mayhap,” he said after a moment. “Mayhap I am petty and shallow, just as you have said. But I also happen to love you and if something happened to you, I would want to die. I lost one wife, Cori. I could not lose another, not before our life together even started. I am not displaying that concern well enough and, for that, I will again apologize, but this is all new to me. I am doing my best.”

  Corisande was starting to soften, just a little. When he put it that way, perhaps she wasn’t all that angry with him, after all.

  “It is new to me, too,” she said. “But becoming angry at me will not solve the problem.”

  “I am not angry with you.”

  “They why have you not talked to me for the past two days? Why have you simply lurked and stared at me, as if I am doing something wrong?”

  He made a face, looking at his feet. “Because I was afraid to say what I was thinking, knowing you did not wish to hear it,” he said. “It was wrong of me, I know, but I did not know what else to do. I still don’t.”

  He sounded a little lost. Corisande took pity on him and put her hands on his, squeezing them tightly.

  “I will be safe with the wounded,” she assured him softly. “I know how to use a bow and arrow, and I know how to use a dagger. I c
an protect myself, I promise. I’m more concerned with how Gaia is going to do on a battle march than I am with any threat from the Scots. Truly, Gaia is going to be the biggest problem I have.”

  Cole relented completely, looking around to make sure they weren’t being watched before pulling her into his arms and kissing her deeply. But it was a quick kiss because he didn’t want anyone to see them, so he released her almost as fast as he grabbed her.

  “I do not envy you the situation with your sister,” he said. “You should have brought Gratiana. She seems more willing to help.”

  Corisande nodded. “She is, but my father has sent her home,” he said. “She is only a ward, after all, and with these battles, he did not want her in such a volatile situation. I will miss her, but it is better for her to return to her home and be safe.”

  “It is better for you to return to your home and be safe.”

  She shook her head in resignation. “Cole…”

  He put up his hands in surrender. “I know,” he said. “But I had to say it. Come along, now, before your father sends your brothers out to look for us. I think they are already getting suspicious.”

  They started to walk again, heading for the big de Bourne tent that had been pitched in the distance. Corisande could see the red and yellow striping of the tent, even beneath the moonlight.

  “What does my father want to talk to me about?” she asked.

  Cole shook his head. “I do not know,” he said. “But you should know I did have a few words with him about permission to marry you before The Marshal arrived.”

  She looked at him with some excitement. “And?”

  “And I barely got it out of my mouth when we were interrupted. He’s not yet given me an answer.”

  “I see,” she said, disappointed. “Did he seem receptive?”

  “He didn’t instantly deny me. I think that’s a good sign.”

  She smiled, but she wasn’t entirely enthusiastic. She was disappointed that her father hadn’t instantly approved. Discreetly, she slipped her hand into the crook of his big elbow as she collected her skirt with the other hand, using him to steady herself as she crossed a particularly muddy part of the ground. At least, that was her excuse.