Masters of Medieval Romance: Series Starters Volume 1

by Kathryn Le Veque

  He might even like it, too.

  It was to thoughts of dear Gaetan that she fell into a heavy sleep, hardly even stirring when the dog jumped onto the bed and lay down beside her. But her sleep became dreamless and heavy, until the sounds of screams began to reach into her subconscious. Even then, she didn’t awaken until Camulos, alerted by the sounds, jumped off the bed and sat by the door, whining. Soon enough, someone was shaking her awake.

  “My lady?” It was Jathan. “My lady, awaken!”

  Ghislaine forced her eyes open but it was difficult. She could see Gaetan’s priest hanging over the bed. He’d been outside the door, guarding it, but now he was inside. She was about to ask him what the matter was when another scream, this one nearby, had her sitting bolt-up right. She looked at Jathan with wide eyes.

  “What is happening?” she demanded.

  Jathan shook his head. “I do not know, my lady,” he said, “but I am going to come inside and bolt the door. We should remain here for safety.”

  Ghislaine quickly nodded and Jathan pulled the heavy oaken door shut, throwing a heavy wooden bolt. The hut didn’t have any windows but slits up around the top of the walls where they met the stone roof to allow for light and the ventilation of the smoke from the cooking fire. There really wasn’t any way for them to know what was going on but the advantage was that it also kept them very safe, like a prison cell.

  The sounds of screaming were becoming more frantic outside. They could also hear what sounded like roaring or growling of some kind. There were men speaking in a language Ghislaine couldn’t quite make out. She looked at Jathan with a good deal of apprehension, hearing the sounds of a struggle going on outside.

  Then there were sounds of splashing and men laughing. Ghislaine swung her legs over the side of the bed, laboring with her sore right thigh.

  “I wish I had my dagger,” she hissed. “I do not have a weapon at all!”

  Jathan put his finger up to his lips to silence her as he reached into the belt around his waist and handed her a fairly large dagger. It was heavy and sharp, and Ghislaine felt much better with it in her hand. But she remained silent as they listened to the screaming going on outside. It was terrifying.

  Suddenly, there was a great pounding at the door. Ghislaine jumped but Jathan remained calm. He had his sword leveled, prepared to defend the lady with his life, but then the pounding came again and someone was shouting his name.

  “Jathan! Open this door!”

  It was Gaetan. Jathan threw the bolt on the door and it burst open, nearly knocking him down. Gaetan and Aramis were in the doorway and Gaetan grabbed Ghislaine without a word, picking her up and thrusting her at Aramis, who literally dropped his sword in order to catch her. Ghislaine’s dagger fell to the floor but Gaetan ignored it; he picked up the fallen sword and handed it to her instead. His expression was serious but calm.

  “There are raiders in camp,” he told her quickly. “They have come for the women and we must get you to safety. Can you use this sword?”

  Ghislaine looked at Aramis’ big broadsword, now in her hand. “Aye, I can.”

  Gaetan nodded swiftly. “That’s a good little mouse,” he said, a hint of affection in his tone. But he turned serious again in a flash. “Aramis will be your legs but you must be his sword. I will be your shield. Come now; follow me.”

  Together, the four of them plus the dog left the hut, out into the chaotic night where people were still screaming and running as phantoms chased them through the shadows. As they neared the end of the row of cottages that fronted the pond, a big man wearing bones all around his neck and chest jumped out and bellowed, lifting a massive club with spiked ends. Gaetan kicked the man in the gut and when he doubled over, he sliced his head clean from his body. As the head went rolling, the group continued running.

  Ghislaine had to admit that she was terrified. She’d been in plenty of battles, that was true, but she’d been able-bodied and able to protect herself and fight. Now, she couldn’t walk or run, and she was at a distinct disadvantage. She watched Gaetan deftly kill two more men who had charged at them and even Jathan managed to badly wound a man who had tried to club him in the head.

  As they neared the kitchens that serviced the convening hall, they saw Antillius and two of his men fighting against at least four men wearing bones around their necks. One of the men had Lygia by the arm, yanking at her, as her father tried to hold on to her. Ghislaine pointed to them in a panic.

  “Gaetan!” she gasped. “That is Lygia! You must help her!”

  Before Gaetan could move, Aramis put Ghislaine on her feet and took his sword from her. “Nay,” he said. “Gate, you take your lady to safety. I will handle these fools.”

  Gaetan didn’t argue with him. He picked Ghislaine up again and, with Jathan running in front of them to protect their path, carried Ghislaine all the way to the convening hall where he had to beat on the door before someone opened it. Once inside the door, he set Ghislaine on her feet as Jathan and the excited dog came in after him.

  “You and Jathan will guard the door,” Gaetan told Ghislaine, handing her a dagger from his waist. “If anyone comes through that door that is not an ally, kill them.”

  Ghislaine nodded firmly. “I will, I swear it. I will not let anyone pass that is not a friend.”

  Gently touching her cheek in a sweet gesture, it was all Gaetan could manage before charging back out into the night to help Aramis and Antillius. Ghislaine shut the door and bolted it, looking at Jathan to see that the entire event had the priest fairly rattled. But he held his sword tightly, preparing to kill just as Gaetan had ordered. He was, after all, a trained warrior even if those duties were something he struggled with.

  Now that they had reached relative safety, there was an odd stillness to it all that was unnerving. Outside, people were fighting for their lives while inside, the frightened and injured huddled. Soft weeping drew their attention and they looked around to see that the convening hall was half-full of women and children, all of them shaken and terrified.

  “I will watch the door,” Ghislaine told Jathan. “Mayhap you should pray with these women and comfort them.”

  Jathan shook his head. “If Gaetan discovers I have left my post, I will be the one needing prayers.”

  Ghislaine grinned at the man but she understood. “Very well,” she said. “When things settle down, mayhap your prayers would be welcome then.”

  Jathan could still hear the sounds of the struggle outside. Battle, to him, never became any easier. It was all death and mayhem as far as he was concerned.

  “I think I shall pray now,” he said.

  “I think that is a good idea.”

  He did.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  ‡

  The Sleep of the Dead

  He’d picked up the pace, Kristoph was sure, because of him.

  Ever since the fight outside of Warwick that had left two men dead and another wounded, Alary had been keeping his distance from Kristoph as they headed north at an increased pace, but certain things had changed. Now, Kristoph found himself chained in the bed of the provisions wagon, secured more tightly than he’d ever been before and, since the death of Mostig, he hadn’t been fed with any regularity which, he suspected, was part of the plan. A prisoner weakened with hunger was less likely to fight back.

  But not Kristoph. He was still prepared to fight back and escape, no matter what they tried to do to him.

  Still, he had to admit that the hunger was drawing him down. He’d last eaten yesterday morning, a bit of cold and probably rank fatty beef that had been thrown at him. He’d sucked it down, fat and all. Anything to drink had come from the rain that had fallen off and on for the past few days but it hadn’t quenched his thirst much. It had only prevented him from becoming completely parched.

  His misery had a name these days and that name was Alary of Mercia. The first thing Kristoph planned to do when he was free was kill the man. For every offense against him, Kristop
h was going to make Alary pay many times over. Rather than thoughts of his wife and daughter keeping him alive, now thoughts of killing his captor were feeding that sense of survival.

  It was something that Alary surely sensed these days if he didn’t outright know it. A madman at times, he wasn’t stupid. As the wagon bumped down the road on this morning that blended in to the many mornings before this as they traveled north from Harold Godwinson’s defeat, Kristoph thought on his situation, on the man holding him hostage, and on what was waiting for him at the end of this road. The men were hurrying more than ever to reach Tenebris. Kristoph knew he had to escape before they reached it.

  It was either that or die.

  Somewhere near the nooning hour, the skies cleared and the sun came out, drying up the wet ground as well as a wet Kristoph. He’d had no protection from the rain. The wagon came to a halt at some point and the men around him began to break out rations of biscuits and wine. Kristoph was starving but he knew they wouldn’t give him anything so he didn’t ask; he simply looked away, trying to look anywhere that men weren’t eating and drinking. Inside, his gut gnawed away painfully.

  “Norman.”

  That was what they called him these days. Norman. He didn’t even have a name to these people. Kristoph turned to see one of Alary’s henchmen standing beside the wagon, coming in his direction. Kristoph knew the man; he was the one who had survived the fight in Warwick, although he was still showing signs of the beating Kristoph had given him. His left eye was still bruised and he was missing two front teeth. Kristoph braced himself because whenever this man was near, bad things happened. He continued to watch the man as he came closer.

  “If I unchain your arms to allow you to eat, will you swear upon your oath not to fight?” the man asked, standing out of arm’s length.

  Kristoph’s hunger was stronger than his will to resist at the moment. He nodded shortly. “I swear.”

  “If you break this promise, you will spend the rest of your life in chains. No one will help you.”

  Kristoph simply looked at the man, his blue eyes circled with malnutrition and fatigue. “I told you that I would not. I may be many things, but a liar is not among them.”

  The henchman hesitated for a moment before he motioned several men behind him. In a group, Alary’s soldiers moved forward to both watch over Kristoph and unfasten his chains. As a result of his poor treatment and the heavy shackles, both of Kristoph’s wrists and ankles were heavily chaffed and bruised. The skin was so very painful to the touch. As one of the soldier’s removed the binds around his wrists while another handed him a big loaf of dirty brown bread, Alary suddenly appeared at the end of the wagon.

  Kristoph saw him and he paused a moment before taking a massive bite of the bread. There was grit in it, and sawdust he thought, but it didn’t matter. He was starving. As he ignored Alary and accepted a bladder of cheap wine to wash down the bread, Alary came around the side of the wagon bed.

  Now, he was closer and Kristoph could no longer ignore the man. He was eating as fast as he could, fearful that Alary would grow enraged over something, anything at all, and take his food away, so he was determined to eat it as fast as he could. As he swallowed a massive bite and washed it down with the terrible wine, Alary spoke.

  “I see you have recovered from killing my man back in Warwick,” he said. “But you did not kill Emred. Did you recognize him?”

  He was gesturing to the henchman. Kristoph knew the man by sight but not by name. Returning to his bread, he nodded. “I recognized him.”

  Alary watched him eat the bread like a lion devouring its prey. It was rather exciting to watch; it gave Alary a sense of power knowing he could starve this man so. Perhaps he couldn’t physically defeat him, and mentally he hadn’t been able to break him, but he could starve him. He could cause the man to eat as if he’d never eaten in his life. To Alary, that was a small victory.

  “I have a need to speak with you, Norman,” he finally said. “There are things you should know.”

  Kristoph was hesitant to ask the obvious question. He knew Alary was expecting him to. Therefore, he would not. “Oh?” he said.

  He didn’t seem concerned, which caused Alary to smile thinly. “We are nearing Kidderminster,” he said. “By late tomorrow, we shall be at my fortress of Tenebris.”

  Kristoph had suspected they were drawing near the end of this journey simply because of the increased pace of travel. “I see,” he said. “And once we reach there, then what?”

  Alary leaned on the edge of the wagon. “I will not release you if that is what you are asking,” he said. “I still consider you something of value even though you’ve yet to provide me with any real worth.”

  “Then why keep me?”

  Alary shrugged. “I have told you why,” he said. “If I keep you, the Normans are less likely to force me to their will. News travels fast. I heard last night whilst we supped in the small town of Redditch that the Normans were marching on London. Everyone is fleeing north to get away from them and I know that, sooner or later, they will come north. When they do, you will be my assurance that they will leave me in peace.”

  Kristoph was near the end of his bread so he wasn’t hesitant to speak his mind at this point. “I told you that it would not matter. They will come and they will take your fortress whether or not I am your prisoner. Do you honestly believe they would allow one knight to divert their plans of conquest?”

  Alary didn’t like that answer. “You seem to have little faith in your worth.”

  Kristoph was becoming annoyed. “That is because I have no worth in the grand scheme of things,” he snapped. “Did you really think William of Normandy would bow down to your pathetic plans? By all that is holy, if you are going to kill me, then kill me. If you are going to fight me, then fight me. I have never seen such a foolish excuse for a man in my entire life, so if you are going to do something to me, then get on with it. I grow weary of your idiocy.”

  Alary wasn’t used to being spoken to like that. In a fit of fury, he reached out and slapped Kristoph across the face. It was hardly a blow and Kristoph’s head didn’t even move from the force of it, but the sharp sound reverberated.

  “I hold your life in my hands and you speak to me in such ways?” he hissed. “You are stupid, Norman. Stupid!”

  Kristoph was hoping to provoke the man into unchaining him just so they could have a fair fight. At least if he was free, he would have a chance of survival. He wouldn’t fight; he would run, and they wouldn’t be prepared for it.

  Challenge him!

  “Mayhap,” he said, “but you are afraid of me.”

  “How dare you say that!”

  “Then why do you keep me chained?”

  “Because you are my prisoner!”

  Kristoph cocked a smug eyebrow. “Because you are afraid of what I will do if you remove these chains. That makes you a coward. Remove these restraints and prove to me that I am wrong.”

  Alary was so angry that his face was turning red. He landed a few more slaps on Kristoph’s face.

  “I do not chain you because I am afraid of you,” Alary snarled. “I chain you because you are an animal and deserve to be chained. When we reach Tenebris, I am going to throw you in the vault and let you rot there!”

  That wasn’t exactly what Kristoph had in mind but he took heart in the fact that in order to move him to the vault, they would have to unchain him from this wagon bed. Moving under his own power meant he still had a chance to run, a chance to escape Alary to freedom. It was a chance he was willing to take because he knew that once he entered the vault, the odds of him leaving alive were stacked against him.

  “We shall see,” was all he said.

  Enraged, Alary ordered him chained up again as the man headed back to his horse. He wanted to make it to Kidderminster by nightfall so that the following day, it would be a short trip to Tenebris where he would lock himself in. Kristoph knew this because he could hear Alary shouting to his men, de
claring that there was no army in the world that could breach his walls.

  They were the ravings of a madman.

  As the wagon lurched forward to continue their journey, Kristoph found himself looking at the landscape, wondering where Gaetan and his brothers were but knowing in his heart that they were out there somewhere. He hoped they made their move soon, wherever they were, because once he was inside the walls of Tenebris, it would make his rescue considerably more difficult. If he couldn’t escape before they were able to help him, then the situation would be dire, indeed.

  If you are going to make your move, Gate, now is the time!

  “Your assistance against the Men of Bones was appreciated more than you can know,” Antillius said. “You and your men are, indeed, great warriors.”

  It was early morning in the village of the Tertium as Antillius and Gaetan stood near one of the big outdoor fire pits where men were warming their morning meal or simply warming their bones. It had rained off and on most of the night, even after the Homines Ossium had been repelled, and only now were people awakening to assess the damage left by the raiders.

  Gaetan had only gotten a few hours of sleep himself, staying awake until just a few hours before dawn to patrol the village and ensure that the raiders wouldn’t return. Ghislaine had been moved back to her hut with Jathan to stand guard over her while Aramis had remained with Antillius’ daughters because the trio seemed to have been targeted by the raiders. But the rest of Gaetan’s men had patrolled the village as Gaetan did, well into the night.

  This morning, the outlook was a little brighter and the damage seemingly minimal. Gaetan had just finished off a massive slab of bread slathered with the pork and wine sauce from the previous night, but he had steered clear of the “mad Mercian beer”, as he called it. He had consumed the apple drink, sweet as it was, but at least it didn’t make his head swim. Belly full, Gaetan now stood with Antillius, listening to the man’s praise.