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

by Kathryn Le Veque

  “What happened?” she asked.

  Gaia was pressed up against her and Corisande could see her eyes darting about nervously.

  “The Scots took us,” she said, trembling. “Don’t you remember? The man hit you on the head!”

  “What man?”

  “The man who stole the wagon with us inside it!”

  Corisande lay there a moment, digesting what her sister was telling her. It took her a moment to remember the raid on the encampment, with Scots pouring out of the trees and stealing the wagons. She remembered leaping into the wagon where Gaia was clutching the bench, unable to convince her to let go.

  And then… nothing.

  Slowly, she started to sit up.

  “Nay,” Gaia hissed, pushing her down. “They keep asking who we are, but I start crying and will not answer. They are waiting for you to awaken so they can ask you.”

  Corisande shoved her sister’s hands aside, pushing at her because Gaia was trying to keep her down.

  “Cease, Gaia,” she said irritably, finally sitting up and regaining her balance. She groaned softly, a hand to her head. “I feel terrible.”

  Gaia looked at her anxiously. “What are they going to do to us?” she asked, tearing up. “Are they going to kill us?”

  Corisande could see an encampment in front of them, with cooking fires spitting sparks into the night sky. A fog was rolling in from the sea, however. She could see it creeping in over the eastern hills.

  “Where are we?” she asked.

  Gaia huddled against her. “I do not know,” she said. “I think we are near Berwick. I could see a big city down that way.”

  She was pointing to the south, but Corisande couldn’t see anything. It was too dark and there were hills in the way. Her head was killing her, she was confused and cold and hungry, and her patience was at an end. She stood up, with Gaia trying to pull her down again.

  “Nay, Cori!” she gasped. “Where are you going?”

  Corisande yanked her arm away from her sister. “Stay here if you want to,” she said. “I am going to find out what is going on.”

  Determined, she marched across the mashed grass towards the encampment of Scots. Gaia ran after her, clinging to her, and she found herself dragging her sister along. Gaia was so much dead weight as Corisande approached a group of Scots huddled around the nearest fire.

  “Who is in command?” she demanded. “I want to speak with him.”

  The Scots looked at her in surprise. One of them stood up, setting his meal aside to face her. His eyes grazed her from top to bottom, lingering on her breasts before returning to her face.

  “Sit with us, lassie,” he said. “None of us have had the privilege of speaking with a proper English lass before.”

  Corisande didn’t like the way he was looking at her. He made her skin crawl.

  “If you do not take me to your commander, I will scream as if you are driving dirks into my heart,” she said. “I’ll scream loud enough to bring the English from Berwick. Will you take me your commander or should I start screaming?”

  The man frowned, putting up his hands. “No need tae…”

  Corisande started screaming. She screamed as loud as she could and when the Scots moved closer to her to shush her, she screamed louder and encouraged Gaia to scream, too. Soon, both of them were screaming their heads off and the Scots around the fire looked on with shock. Their screaming brought more Scots, however, running from all directions.

  They were attracting quite a crowd, standing there and screaming as they were. It was quite unsettling and Corisande was coming to wonder if the screaming tactic had been a good idea. She brought attention, of course, but not the right kind. Finally, a tall, slender man with dark hair and a dark beard arrived, looking at the woman and the men surrounding them as if something terrible surely must have happened.

  “What is the trouble here?” he demanded, looking to the men who had been huddling around the fire, minding their own business until the English woman approached them and started screaming. “What did ye do? Why is she screaming like that?”

  The man Corisande spoke to looked a little ill. “The lassie wanted tae speak with our commander,” he said. “I asked her tae sit and…”

  Corisande cut him off. “And I started screaming,” she said, angry and hoarse. “I demand to speak with the man in command, do you hear? I want to know why we have been brought here. Are you the man in command?”

  The man with the dark hair nodded, his gaze lingering on her. “I’m Alexander MacDuff,” he said. “I am at yer service, m’lady.”

  Corisande marched up to him, looking him over. “MacDuff,” she repeated. The name sounded familiar, but she couldn’t place it. “Why have you brought us here? I demand you release us immediately.”

  She was holding on to Gaia, who was clinging to her sister and weeping. MacDuff looked between the two women, both of them exceptionally lovely, but the older one… she was something spectacular.

  “Ye’re sisters?” he asked.

  “Aye,” Corisande replied. “Now that I have answered your question, it would be polite of you to answer one of mine.”

  MacDuff wasn’t going to do it in front of his men. In fact, he had a good deal he wanted to ask of the sisters, women who had been with the auxiliary group to the rear of the English army. He wanted to know why.

  And he wanted to know what they knew about the English positions.

  “Will ye please come with me?” he asked, sweeping his right arm towards the center of the encampment. “Let me take ye someplace more comfortable. Surely ye must be hungry.”

  Corisande didn’t answer. She was too angry and, truth be told, too scared. But she agreed to go with him, following the man through the encampment that smelled like a thousand filthy animals had gathered. There were men leering at her and she passed by dozens who looked as if they either wanted to kill her or molest her. With Gaia whimpering against her, it was a distressing trek all the way to a larger tent with lion standards flying over it.

  But Corisande had no idea what that meant.

  She followed MacDuff into the tent only to be met by a host of curious faces. There were men all over the tent, in smaller groups, a couple standing over a table with vellum upon it, and then one elderly man sitting in a chair next to a brazier.

  “Yer grace,” MacDuff said to the man with a cup of something steaming in his hand. He had dirty gray hair and gnarled fingers, but the eyes were sharp. “The lady wishes tae speak tae the man in command.”

  The old man set his cup down. “Greetings,” he said with a speech inflection that sounded like a cross between Gaelic and French. “My name is William. Will ye tell me yers?”

  Corisande’s gaze moved from the old man to the men around the tent. The structure was full of heavily armed Scots, but more than that, it was a small armory in and of itself. There were hides on the ground against the dampness and a fine bed with curtains was against one wall.

  Yer grace.

  That was what MacDuff had called him.

  A hint of suspicion came to her mind.

  “William,” she repeated. “Do you have a title, my lord?”

  The old man nodded. “Aye,” he said without hesitation. “I am King of the Scots. May I have yer name, lass?”

  Corisande couldn’t help but react from both surprise and fear. Perhaps his identity had been in the back of her mind, but now it was confirmed. The man Cole had spied upon, the King of the Scots, was sitting before her.

  She proceeded carefully.

  “My name is Corisande,” she said, sounding breathless. “I did not mean to sound rude, your grace, but these circumstances… I am understandably distressed.”

  “Lady Corisande,” William said, motioning for MacDuff to bring over another chair. “And who is the lass stuck tae ye?”

  “My sister, Gaia, your grace.”

  MacDuff brought the chair and William motioned to it. “Please,” he said. “Sit down. Ye must be weary. I
’ll have food and drink brought tae ye.”

  Corisande sat down, but she shook her head to the rest of it. “You do not need to bring us anything to eat or drink, your grace,” she said. “I want to know why we are here. We have done nothing to warrant this. Please let us leave.”

  William looked at the pair. Corisande sat down and Gaia knelt next to her, still pressed against her sister’s torso. “Ye were with the provisions wagons?” he clarified.

  “The surgeon’s wagon,” she said. “I am a healer.”

  “I see,” William said, nodding. “What is yer family name, m’lady?”

  Corisande wasn’t sure she should tell him. She remembered what Cole had told her when they’d first met about William the Lion sending missives to her father through Alpin Canmore. She wasn’t sure she wanted to tell the King of Scotland that her father was the one who refused to join him.

  She wasn’t entirely certain how he would react.

  “I… I am not certain that is relevant, your grace,” she said evasively. “There are many English houses that are fighting your men right now, but I was not among those fighting. I heal – that is what I do. That is the only reason I am here.”

  “Papa says she is the best healer in England,” Gaia suddenly piped up. “She learned from Mama, but I have not learned. I was only here because Papa forced me to come and I want to go home.”

  William focused on the very young woman with the quivering voice. “Who is yer papa?”

  Corisande wanted to stop her from answering, but short of slapping a hand over her mouth, she wasn’t sure what more she could do. In a panic, she ended up pinching Gaia to shut her up just as the girl answered.

  “Alastor de Bourne,” she said, wincing as she looked at her sister. “Ouch!”

  Corisande looked at her sister with a great deal of disappointment and sorrow, but Gaia had no idea why. With a heavy sigh, Corisande returned her attention to William only to see that the man was looking at her most strangely.

  Surprised, even.

  “De Bourne,” he repeated quietly. “The descendants of Eric Bloodaxe.”

  Corisande met his gaze without displaying the fear she was feeling inwardly. Her silly little sister had just put the nail in the coffin that was going to drag them both into the abyss now that William knew who their father was. What she didn’t know, or realize, was that MacDuff had heard the same thing.

  The man who had come to The Keld those weeks ago to force her father to join the rebellion.

  “We cannot choose our family or our siblings,” she said, releasing her sister and shoving her onto her bottom. “Believe me, I would have chosen more wisely had that been the case.”

  William grinned, looking at Gaia, who was whimpering and grabbing at her sister. “Dunna be too hard on her,” he said. “It was the polite thing tae answer my question, since I asked. I dunna know yer father personally but, of course, I know of him. Yer family has a long and distinguished family history.”

  Corisande wasn’t sure where he was going with that line of conversation, but she didn’t want to say anything more than was absolutely necessary, afraid she might say too much.

  “It is not like being in the Scottish royal family,” she said. “You have great expectations and obligations. Our family lineage has no such expectations. Kingdoms do not depend on us.”

  “But they did, once,” William said. “Yer family were the Kings of Northumbria.”

  “Hundreds of years ago, your grace,” Corisande reminded him. “It has no bearing on our lives today. We are simply Englishmen.”

  William’s gaze lingered on her for a moment, suspecting why Alastor de Bourne hadn’t agreed to an alliance. If that was the daughter’s view of their family, then she must have gotten it from someone. It must have been Alastor’s view, too. He didn’t see himself as a man who had a kingdom taken away from him.

  He simply saw himself as English.

  But there was one way to find out for sure.

  “Did ye know I asked yer father tae join me?” he asked. “In this push intae England, I mean. I asked yer father tae join me and my allies. Did he tell ye that?”

  Corisande knew more than she wanted to let on. She was afraid of what would happen if she did.

  “He does not confide in me, your grace,” she said. “Why would he? I am only his daughter, not his wife.”

  “Then ye dinna know about the alliance proposal?”

  She caught sight of movement in her periphery, turning to look at MacDuff, who was watching her very carefully. She sensed hostility from him where she did not sense it from William. Or perhaps he was simply better at hiding it.

  “I only found out about your proposal when the Scots attacked our village last month,” she said. “I was told they came to The Keld to force my father into joining the Scots rebellion but when he declined, they tried to burn our village.”

  “That’s no’ true!” MacDuff spat, realizing he had just been caught in a lie. “They attacked us.”

  Corisande turned to him angrily. “The Scots burned our village,” she countered. “My father and his men rode from the castle to defend the village and for no other reason. They did not attack anyone.”

  MacDuff was turning red in the cheeks but William held up a hand to him. “Enough,” he said. “It is over with. M’lady, how many men did yer father bring with him?”

  Corisande was ready to go to fisticuffs with MacDuff when she suddenly realized that William was asking her pointed questions about the English strength. They were at war and she was a possible source of information, as he saw it.

  Her apprehension grew.

  “I do not know and that is the truth,” she said. “I am the surgeon. I am not consulted on military issues. I do know that my father has almost fifteen hundred men and he brought most of them north.”

  “Who else came with him?”

  She thought on that question. It wasn’t like it was a secret with the way the English armies flew their standards high. “De Lohr, de Winter, Savernake, de Velt,” she said. “William Marshal, too, but I do not know how many men have come. Thousands, at least.”

  “Anyone else?

  “I remember hearing there were more to come, but they are far away.”

  William sat back in his chair, mulling that over. After a moment, he collected his steaming cup again.

  “Tomorrow morning, I am expecting a dozen Northmen longships,” he said. “Thousands of Northmen will be here and will more than likely destroy yer father. I’m told that the English have managed tae capture the city of Berwick, but that willna last. We have the castle and ’tis all we need, truthfully. With the Northmen, we can take back the north of England. Had yer father joined us, he could have kept his lands.”

  Corisande didn’t sense gloating from him, merely the truth as he saw it. She looked down at Gaia, who was gazing up at her fearfully. She put her arm around her sister again as she faced William.

  “If anyone understands loyalty to one’s country, it is you,” she said. “You understand why men feel compelled to be loyal to the home of their birth. My father is simply loyal to the home of his birth, come what may.”

  William nodded faintly. “Ye’re a reasonable young lass,” he said. “Alastor did well with ye.”

  “Thank you, your grace.”

  “Will ye join me for a meal?”

  Corisande shook her head. “You are kind, but I must decline,” she said. “Please, your grace… may we return? We cannot possibly be of any value to you.”

  William’s gaze rested on her for a moment before setting his cup down yet again and rising wearily. He moved away from the women, pulling MacDuff with him, until they were over by his traveling bed. When he was certain they were out of earshot, he faced MacDuff.

  “What were the men able tae get when they raided the provisions wagons?” William asked quietly.

  MacDuff was reluctant to tell him, but he had little choice. “Seven wagons of provisions and two surgeon’s wagons,
” he said. “The men grabbed what they could.”

  “Were the provisions plentiful?”

  “Nay, because the armies took what they needed as they advanced on Berwick.”

  “So ye took empty wagons?”

  “No’ empty, but no’ as full as we had hoped.”

  “And ye abducted two women along with those wagons?”

  MacDuff looked over at the blondes in the middle of the tent, embracing one another. “’Tis a grand opportunity, yer grace,” he said. “Those are the daughters of Alastor de Bourne. Do ye no’ see, yer grace? God has put them in our hands.”

  “He has?”

  MacDuff’s gaze was intense. “We can use the daughters against their father,” he said. “We can force him tae join our fight.”

  That was very true. William knew it was a prime opportunity to force Alastor de Bourne to his will. Once the younger daughter gave away her family name, that very thing popped into his mind. His gaze moved to the women, huddle together, as he pondered MacDuff’s suggestion.

  “What man wouldna do anything he could tae save his daughters?” he murmured. “As a father, I’d do anything within my power.”

  “Then we send the man word tonight?”

  William shook his head. “Nay,” he said. “And I’ll tell ye why. De Bourne has sons and fifteen hundred men tae think about. He has a legacy tae think about. If he turns against The Marshal, he’ll spend the rest of his lifetime, and probably his sons’ lifetimes, being an enemy in the heart of Northumberland. He’ll be destroyed. Men who were formerly his allies will make it so. Is that legacy worth the safety of his daughters?”

  MacDuff wasn’t following him. “Ye said yerself he’d do anything tae save them.”

  “But the family is greater than the children,” William said. “Alexander, a man can stand losing children, but he canna stand losing his entire family or his legacy, and that’s what this would cost him. Nay, he’d no’ side with us, no’ even if we hold his daughters, but I have something better in mind.”

  MacDuff thought the man was going soft in the head. “What is that, yer grace?”

  William’s yellowed eyes glimmered in the weak light. “Send them back tae The Marshal with a message,” he said. “The mercy we show upon those lasses will indebt The Marshal tae me. It will indebt de Bourne tae me. Let them see our mercy because the next time we require such a thing from them, they’ll be obligated tae give it.”