Dragonblade Trilogy - 03 - The Savage Curtain (17 page)

Stephen and his men had spent all
night upon the walls shoving back ladders of Scots attempting to breach the
castle.  Stephen had received a gash to his face when an enemy sword tip
inadvertently struck him, barely missing his eye, but was otherwise unharmed. 
He had spent nearly all his time at the gatehouse fighting off ladders since
the gatehouse was the flattest portion of land on which to brace a ladder.  It
was the Scots’ rally point. 

The Scots were apparently calling
in reinforcements because the swarm around the castle was becoming heavier. It
made Stephen wonder what had happened to de Lara; he hoped the man had somehow
survived. The alternative distressed him tremendously but he could not dwell on
it; he was in the midst of his own mortal fight.   He would fight off men from
one ladder, shove it away from the wall only to see that two more had been put
against the old stone walls of Berwick Castle.  It was becoming apparent that
they would have to do something drastic or the castle would eventually be
breached and his mind began to work furiously for a solution.

Near him, a few of his soldiers
were having trouble fighting off a group of Scots who were beginning to climb
off their ladder and on to the wall.  Stephen went to their aid, striking down
two of the men and throwing one of them back over the wall.  He didn’t see the
second ladder that came up behind him nor an angry Scot heading for him with a
sword drawn.  Someone yelled at him to beware and he turned in time to see a
Scotsman upon him.  He didn’t have time to raise his sword; all he could do was
try to duck the blow.  But as he rolled to the deck, positive he was about to
receive a nasty wound, an English soldier was suddenly behind the Scot and
gored the man through the back.  The enemy did nothing more than fall
harmlessly on Stephen, who swiped the man off him and tossed him to the bailey
below.

Stephen leapt to his feet,
nodding his head at the English soldier to acknowledge his help.

“My thanks,” he said. “I thought
my living days were over.”

The English soldier was older,
with a worn and leathery face.  But he smiled with the few green teeth he had
and tipped his helm back, wiping at his sweaty brow.  When his hand came away,
Stephen notice the thick, faded half-moon scar near his scalp line.

“A pleasure, m’lord,” the man
replied.

Stephen’s blood ran cold as he
envisioned the scar. Like a half-moon, it was an obvious feature like a nose or
an eye.  A wave of nausea swept Stephen as he held the man in his steady gaze,
studying him, flashes of the horror that Joselyn had described rolling through
his brain. The rape of a young girl, the pain and terror she felt, the
subsequent child that resulted. All of it flashed before his eyes until all he
could feel was fury.

“What is your name?” his voice
sounded oddly strangled.

“Bowen, m’lord,” the soldier
replied.

“Whom do you serve?”

“Carlisle, m’lord,” he said, his
dark gaze moving in the direction of de Lara’s distant troops. “There are about
fifty of us in the castle. We were separated from Lord de Lara when the siege
began.  Do you suppose we will have a chance to aid the earl?”

Stephen didn’t reply. He
couldn’t.  When he should have been focused on a nasty battle, he found that
all he could do was stare at the man before him. The nausea grew. 

“You will answer a question,
Bowen,” he realized he was quivering. “Did you serve Andrew Harclay?”

“Aye, m’lord, I did.”

“And eleven years ago in the city
of Carlisle, did you rape a young girl?”

Bowen looked struck.  When he
didn’t answer, Stephen produced the broadsword and put it at the man’s throat.

“Answer me,” he growled.

Bowen suddenly looked terrified;
he tried to back away from Stephen but had nowhere to go; the parapet was
behind him and a thirty foot drop to the bailey.

“I… I don’t…,” he stammered.

Stephen cut him off. “Tell me or
I kill you where you stand.”

Bowen’s terror was turning into
panic. “I don’t remember!”

“You are lying. I will give you
one more opportunity to answer me or I drive this sword through your neck.”

Bowen was backed up against the
parapet; the only place to go was down and he put up his hands in a pleading
gesture. “I didn’t rape her!” he warbled. “Her father owed me!”

Stephen paused, an expression of
supreme confusion on his face. “What do you mean by that?”

Bowen was breathing rapidly with fear;
his chest heaved laboriously. “The man had a gambling debt to me,” he told him,
his voice shaking. “He came into Carlisle often, to the barracks, and would
engage in gambling with the soldiers. We all knew him. But he lost to me one
time too many and when I tried to collect the debt, he couldn’t pay.  So I took
his daughter instead.”

“What do you mean you took her?
You raped her?”

“I took what he had of value. It
was my right to collect the debt any way I saw fit.”

Stephen’s nausea intensified.  He
just stared at the man, unable to fathom that manner of huan being.  It was the
vilest thing he had ever heard. “She was eleven years old,” his voice was a
sickened rumble. “You stole the innocence of an eleven year old in payment for
a gambling debt?”

The sword had backed off somewhat
and Bowen regained a measure of his courage.  He feared Pembury; they all did. 
But that fear did not prevent him from speaking his mind; like most of the foot
soldiers, he did not know that Pembury had taken a Scots wife. Had Bowen known
that, he might have shown more restraint. Instead, his ignorance would cost
him.

“I did not take her innocence,”
he grumbled. “It was not the first time her father had sold her off. She was a
whore.”

The sword went through his neck
before he could draw another breath.

***

Joselyn had sent an entire night
listening to the sounds of battle all around her. Closed up in her bower with
Mereld, Tilda and the fawn, they had huddled in fear as the sounds of hell
filled the air.  She felt as she had not a week earlier while she sat with her
mother and father in the great hall of Berwick as the English closed in; they
knew they were facing their demise.  Little did she know at the time that it
did not signify her death but her rebirth.

She hadn’t slept the entire
night, worrying about Stephen. She knew that if the Scots managed to take the
castle, they would not hurt her. But she was terribly concerned for her
husband. Not knowing if he was safe or dead ate at her like a cancer, odd since
only the day before the man had been her enemy.  But no longer.

As dawn broke, the smell of smoke
was heavy in the chamber.  A breeze was blowing to the east, carrying upon it
smoke from the fires in the city. She dared to peer from the lancet window
facing the bailey and part of the great hall and could see the wounded being
carried into the great hall.  It occurred to her that, as Lady Pembury, she
should tend the wounded.  Although life at Jedburgh had not prepared her for
that, she knew her duty all the same. Stephen had told her not to leave the
chamber but she could not shirk her duties.  The wounded needed help and she
was intent to provide it.

Moving away from the window, she
roused Mereld and Tilda.

“We must go and help the
wounded,” she told them, pointing to Stephen’s bags against the wall. “Gather
my husband’s things.  He had all manner of medicine in his bags and we will
take it down to the great hall where the wounded are.”

The old women moved to do her
bidding, struggling under the heavy bags. “Do ye know what to do, Jo-Jo?” Old
Mereld asked. “You have never tended a wounded man before.”

Joselyn shrugged. “If he is
bleeding, we stop it. If he has a hole, we sew it up.” She lifted her hands.
“What more is there to know?”

The old woman scowled. “There is
more to it than that.  What if his bones are sticking out? What then?”

Joselyn opened her mouth to reply
but a sharp bang on the door cut her off. Startled, she rushed to the bolted
door.

“Who comes?” she demanded
fearfully.

“Open the door.” It was Stephen’s
muffled voice.

Thrilled, she threw open the
panel and prepared to throw her arms around him.  But Stephen charged in,
grabbing her by both arms and lifting her off the ground.  He continued to
charge until he was clear across the chamber and had her cornered against the
wall, trapped by his massive presence.  She went from thrilled to terrified in
the wink of an eye.

“Stephen,” she gasped; he was not
hurting her but the pressure from his grip was intense.  “What is…?”

“Enough,” he snapped, his
cornflower blue eyes blazing into her. “No more half-truths or lies, Joselyn,
else you will not like my reaction. You will tell me the absolute truth.”

She was shaken. “Truth? What
truth?”

“Your
father,” he demanded before she finished her sentence. “Did he use you to pay
off his gambling debts? Is that why the soldier raped you?”
      Joselyn’s face turned white; they could all see it.  Her trembling
worsened. “Who told you such things?”

Stephen was so enraged, so
sickened, that it was all he could focus on. He was in battle mode but now
confronting perhaps the most important thing he had ever faced.  In battle, he
at least had the ability to protect himself with armor and shield. But with
Joselyn, his heart was naked, his soul vulnerable, and he was having a
difficult time.  There was no defense.  After what Bowen had told him, he could
think of nothing else.

“It does not matter,” he growled.
“Is it true?”

Joselyn opened her mouth. But she
could not speak and the tears came. “Let me go.”

He shook her, hard. “Not until
you tell me the truth,” he seethed. “The rape by the soldier in Carlisle was
not the first time a man had touched you, was it?” his voice was a growl.
“There had been other times before that, wasn’t there?
Wasn’t there
?”

She broke down, weeping.  Before
Stephen could force her to reply, old Mereld rushed forward with the fire poker
in her hand. She slapped at Stephen’s armored arm, trying to force the man to
release Joselyn. When he didn’t budge, she whacked him again.

“”Tis not her fault!” the old
woman smacked his shoulder. “She had no choice! Her father forced her to!”

Stephen looked at the old woman,
unable to speak for the revelations that were coming forth. Tilda rushed up,
hovering nervously, also prepared to defend Joselyn against her enraged
husband.  Two old women against a massive knight was hardly a fight but they
were prepared to defend their young lady to the death. There were truths to be
known that, being servants, should not have come from their lips.   But it was
clear that Joselyn’s life was at stake and they could remain silent no longer. 
The young woman had been through enough and now, when she had finally found
happiness, old horrors were intent to ruin it.

“Alexander Seton knew her value
at a young age,” Tilda was almost weeping as she spoke. “He had a gambling
sickness and when he could not pay his debts, he would use Jo-Jo as security. 
Some men would use her to work off the debt with labor while others would
simply keep her as a guest for a time. But there were a few who… they would….”

By this time, Stephen had let
Joselyn go.  He faced the old women with more emotion than he had ever
displayed in life.  It was unrestrained, unbridled and spilling out all over
the place.

“What would they do?” he demanded
hoarsely.

Tilda twisted her hands anxiously.
“She was young and beautiful, m’lord,” the woman’s tears broke through. “She
developed a womanly body at a young age.  They would take her to sport.”

Because Tilda was crying, Mereld
began to weep also. “She had no choice,” the old woman wept. “Jo-Jo would run
away and her mother would hide her, but Alexander would always find her and
return her to the men to whom he owed the debts.  Sometimes he would beat her
for her insolence. It was finally Lady Julia who sent Jo-Jo to Jedburgh so she
could be free of her father. Then she married off Lady Margaret by the time she
was nine years of age so her father could not use her in the same way he used
Lady Joselyn.  Why do you think Lady Julia went mad? She had a husband who was
a soulless devil.”

Stephen just stared at them.  The
cornflower blue eyes were filled with shock.  An eternity of silence followed,
punctuated by the distant sounds of battle.  But Stephen remained frozen as if
unable to move, unable to accept what he had been told. When he finally closed
his eyes to ward off the horror of Joselyn’s life, tears rolled down his
cheeks.

Slowly, he turned to his wife.
She had collapsed on the floor, huddled against the wall and weeping as if her
heart was broken.  He went to her, woodenly, his posture indicative of his
exhaustion and emotional level.  He crouched wearily next to her, gazing at her
lowered head.

“Joselyn,” he murmured hoarsely.
“Look at me.”