Medieval Master Warlords (31 page)

THE END

A Medieval Romance

By Kathryn Le Veque

©Copyright 2014 by Kathryn Le Veque Novels

Text by Kathryn Le Veque

Cover by Kathryn Le Veque

Reproduction of any kind except where it pertains to short quotes in relation to advertising or promotion is strictly prohibited.

All Rights Reserved.

PROLOGUE

1179 A.D., Late Fall

Four Crosses Castle

Welsh Marches

“The gatehouse has been breached!”

The small lad heard his mother issue the words, such panic pouring out of her mouth that it was difficult to understand her. Terror vomited out of every pour in her body. But the small lad understood little of what was causing her such fear. All he knew was that he and his sister and mother had been locked up in the keep of Four Crosses Castle, a castle that had belonged to his family for generations, for two straight days. Food was running in short supply and he had been hungry all day because of it. A little bread and cheese was all his mother had been able to give him and his sister that morning and they’d had nothing else since.

He also knew that there was a great siege going on, great projectiles and war machines trying to break down the walls of Four Crosses, and they couldn’t chance opening the keep in any fashion, not even to accept the wounded that had been shoved into the stables, stables that were now burning. The wounded were burning even as men struggled to move them out of the stables, filling the air with the heavy, greasy smell of burning human flesh.

But the young lad didn’t know what the smell was; he just knew it made his nose wrinkle up. It also made his belly ache, like he wanted to vomit forth but couldn’t. After two days of little food, there wasn’t much to come up anyway.

“Come, Bretton,” Lady Brethwyn de Llion grasped her five year old son by the arm, pulling the boy along as she ran for the chamber door. Her daughter, two years old than Bretton, delayed them slightly by going to grab her poppet, causing her mother to scream. “Ceri,
come
! Come now!”

The little girl scrambled after her mother and brother, following them out of the chamber and down the dark, narrow stairs that spiraled to the next level. There were servants on that level, waiting for them in the darkness, men and women who were weeping and whispering fearfully. Once Lady de Llion reached the group, she gestured frantically to the small hall off to the left.

“Down into the kitchens below and out through the postern gate,” she hissed. “Hurry! There is no time to waste!”

She dashed off, dragging her children along behind her as the servants followed in a panic. It was a great rush into the small hall with its tall hearth and hungry dogs, and on to the trap door cut into the floor that led by ladder to the kitchens below. The trap door had been propped up, tied off with a piece of rope to hold it firm. Lady de Llion put her children on the ladder first, helping them down, as the servants hovered around them and pushed their way onto the ladder once Lady de Llion followed the children.

Even though they had been frenzied, the group had been orderly until a great banging was suddenly heard upon the keep entry door. Like terrified animals, everyone froze for a moment, listening, realizing quickly that it was the enemy army attempting to break their way into the keep. Order dissolved and the servants began shoving each other out of the way, making their way down the ladder, pushing and falling through the hole into the kitchens below. One of the servants, an old man who tended Lord de Llion, fell on top of Ceri.

The little girl was nearly crushed beneath him and Lady de Llion screamed, kicking the man off her daughter and gathering the child into her arms. Ceri was nearly unconscious, badly injured, and cried out when she tried to breathe because it hurt. Lady de Llion was beside herself as she kneeled on the dirt floor, clutching her child against her.

“You fool!” she screeched at the servant, who had broken his arm in the fall. “You have killed her! Damn you!”

The old servant was weeping at what he had done, holding his broken arm against his body in a painful gesture. Bretton stood next to his mother, watching the situation with big eyes, having no real idea what had happened but knowing now that the ordeal was becoming increasingly frightening. They were running, running from something terrible. It was something terrible that they had feared for two days and the terror was tangible now, worse than ever. He could nearly taste it. He wanted his father, a man upon whom all things calmed and comforted. He missed him. He tugged on his mother’s arm.

“Mama?” he asked. “Where is Papa?”

Lady de Llion wept, clutching her daughter in one arm and reaching for her son with the other. She thrust the boy towards an older woman.

“Rosalie, take him,” she begged. “Take him and run. Take him far, far away from here and do not return, no matter what. Do you understand me?”

The older woman with the missing teeth grasped the boy, who was more intent on staying with his mother. In fact, he fought against the older woman for the privilege.

“Aye, my lady,” the older woman said, finally picking the boy up, who was kicking and screaming. “But you must come. Stand up and carry the lass! We will all help you!”

Lady de Llion held her little girl tightly, who now had bright red blood about her lips that were turning shades of blue. She was gasping for every breath, growing weaker by the moment.

“Nay,” Lady de Llion sobbed. “She is… my sweet Ceri is dying. And my husband! He is dead, too!”

One servant broke away from the group and threw open the bolt of the heavy iron door leading out into the kitchen yard beyond as the others hovered around Lady de Llion.

“My lady,
please
,” the woman holding Bretton begged. “Come with us!”

Lady de Llion had already given up the fight. She wasn’t a strong woman in the best of times and now, with the great jaws of defeat snapping at her, she was more inclined to surrender than to resist. She shook her head violently, her wimple coming loose and spilling forth dark hair.

“There is no hope,” she muttered. “De Velt has won. He has put my husband to the stake and soon he will put me to the stake. But I cannot allow it, do you hear? I will not!”

With that, she stood up, carrying her daughter with her, and moved to the butcher block that stood big and heavy in the center of the kitchen. All manner of butcher knives hung from an iron frame overhead and she grabbed a long, slender, and wicked-looking knife that was used to filet meat from the bone. Without hope, without any comfort or sanity whatsoever, Lady de Llion plunged the knife into Ceri’s small chest, stilling the little girl forever. As the servants screamed and moved to stop her, she turned the knife on herself.

Bretton saw the entire incident. It was surreal, beyond the comprehension of the small child, and he was too shocked to utter a sound. He just stared at his sister as her blood ran bright red upon the dirt of the kitchen, mingling with his mother’s blood from a slit throat. It was a horrific scene, but one not unknown in the annals of a de Velt attack. Whenever the man took the offensive, he left no living body in his wake.

Bretton only had a few moments of seeing his mother and sister in their blood bath before Rosalie was stealing him from the kitchen, racing through the dark and bloody night to the postern gate that led down the eastern slope of Four Crosses, down a narrow and treacherous path, through thickets of trees, to a stream below that fed into the castle’s water supply. Others followed in her wake.

It was dark down there, shielded from the castle above by a thick canopy of branches overhead. Bretton, the shock of his mother and sister’s death sinking deep, had begun to weep but Rosalie put her hand over his mouth to still the sound. They could hear men behind them, de Velt’s men, and they were desperate to quiet the boy. The group of refugees plopped into the stream, following its path as it ran through the vale, hiding their tracks from those who would follow. Rosalie carried Bretton until the boy grew heavy and then she passed him to another man, the castle smithy, who carried the sniffling lad for another hour until they felt safe enough to clamor out of the stream.

It was a desperate flight in the dead of night, feeling de Velt’s death-grip that had come upon them all. The land was hilly and rough here and the small group struggled through it with only a sliver moon above to light their way. The smithy, in the lead, ended up on a goat path that wound its way up a small mountain to a relatively flat summit. They had to gain their bearings in this dark land, to determine where to go to safety, but a sight on the eastern horizon caught their attention.

They could see flames in the distance, atop a mountain, and they knew that it was Four Crosses Castle. De Velt didn’t normally burn the castles he confiscated so the refugees of Four Crosses could only imagine that someone, mayhap Lord de Llion himself, had set the castle ablaze. There was no way of knowing who had actually caused the blaze, but one thing was certain: Four Crosses Castle, as they knew it, was gone forever, destroyed by a man whose bloodlust was second only to his evil. Satan himself trembled in fear of Jax de Velt and his apocalyptic destruction. No man survived it. Those who stood on the mountaintop, watching the flames in the distance, knew they were among a very select few. God had been with them this night because they, in fact, had survived.

Gentle tears filled the cold night air, tears from the few women who now realized they were alive, now realized they were homeless. It was much to bear. As the servants began to discuss what they should do now, where they should go, Bretton stood and watched his castle burn.

His papa was there, his mother and sister, too. All he loved was burning before him. He was sad, terrified, and overwhelmed with the course the night had taken. He wasn’t sure what to feel any longer. He was simply numb, as numb as a child could be. All he knew was that a man had caused all of this horror and destruction, a terrible man of terrible reputation, and that man’s name was de Velt.
Ajax de Velt
. It was a name seared into his brain, never to be forgotten.

It was a name he learned to hate. Hatred would breed revenge. Even at his young age, he could feel an unalterable sense of vengeance.

℘

CHAPTER ONE

The month of May, 1205 A.D.

Alberbury Priory

Shropshire, England (the Welsh Marches)

The alarm had come after Vespers when everyone was settling down for the evening and soft prayers were being uttered throughout the cloister. The flames from a few lit tapers danced in the darkness, casting shadows upon the wall, tapers that were quickly doused by nuns who were in a panic. Women in coarse woolen garments had raced through the priory, spreading fear along with them like a great, vast blanket of doom. Something terrible had come to their door, something that did not recognize the sanctity of the church, and the only thing left for them to do was flee. Their only defense, the shield of religion, had been destroyed. Death had come to Alberbury.

In the novice’s dormitory that smelled of lye and smoke, a palpable sense of terror filled the long and cavernous room as the Mother Prioress and several senior nuns flooded in, rousing the neophytes from their beds. These women were in training to become the brides of Christ, living spartan lives and being taught that discipline and suffering were the only true paths to God. Clad only in a rough woolen sleeping shift that they had made with their own hands from wool that had come from the priory’s herd of sheep, the young women struggled out of their beds.

“What is the matter, Mother?” a young woman gasped. “What has happened?”

The Mother Prioress, a very old woman who was, in fact, a distant member of the royal family, grabbed the girl by the arm and very nearly yanked the limb out of its socket.

“No questions,” she hissed. “Thou must do as thou art told. We must leave this place now.”

The reply only bred more fear and confusion. “Please, Mother,” another girl said as she gathered a worn cloak from the stool next to her. “Will you please tell us what has happened? Why must we leave?”

The old prioress didn’t look at her charge. In fact, she didn’t look at any of them. There were eleven altogether, young women from the finest families throughout England, and it was her duty to keep them safe. But it was a duty that she could quite possibly fail at and the thought scared her to death. The proud old woman had never failed at anything. As she opened her mouth to chastise yet another question, a massive crash could be heard back in the abbey, as if the very walls were coming down. The young novices looked terrified while the older nuns simply appeared sick; sick because their world, their lovely and pious world, was about to come crumbling down around them.

“God’s Beard,” the girl who had asked the initial question gasped. Her eyes were wide with fright. “What on earth was that?”

The prioress eyed her associates a moment before answering. “A plague has come to Alberbury,” she whispered, grabbing two of the girls closest to her. “We must flee now or we will not survive. Doest thou understand?”

The girls could feel the woman’s terror, mingling with their own, and it was enough to get their legs moving. It was so dark, however, that one girl tripped over the nearest bed, falling to her knees before being pulled up by her friends. Together, the group of four nuns and eleven novices headed for the rear entrance to the dormitory. It was a chaotic and hectic flight, and as one of the older nuns brought up the rear, hanging on to a small young woman with golden hair, she began to mutter.

“The Devil has come to our door,” she hissed. “Satan himself has emerged from the darkness and now he intends to feed upon us. We will become fodder for his demons.”

The novice nuns looked to the old woman, fear and confusion on their faces, but the Mother Prioress scolded her.

“Sister Mary Josepha, silence!” she breathed. “Thou speaketh nonsense. Keep thy lips closed for if thou must murmur, be it a prayer to God.”

The older nuns’ squabbling was nothing new. It happened constantly and the novice nuns were unmoved by it. As they ran, however, one young woman kept glancing over her shoulder, seemingly above the panic for the moment. She seemed to be calculating the situation, pondering it more than the others. She was afraid, that was true, but she was also trying to figure a way out of it, if such a thing were possible.

“But where will we go?” the young woman with dark hair and bright green eyes wanted to know. She was a pale, delicious beauty with a sharp and inquisitive mind that often saw her knuckles rapped as a result of that outspoken intelligence. “If men are trying to burn down the priory, it would stand to reason that they have more than likely compromised the village down the hill. We cannot go there and there is no safe haven left for miles around.”

The Mother Prioress hissed at the woman. “Silence, Allaston Eugenia,” she demanded. “We will head to the creek and hide amongst the grass and trees. Remember thy Bible; let the rocks and the trees be my army. They will protect us.”

Lady Allaston Eugenia Coleby de Velt wasn’t entirely sure the old prioress was correct but she kept her mouth shut. It seemed to her that they needed to do more than simply hide in the bushes. They needed to get far, far away, but not knowing the area particularly well, for she grew up in Northumberland, she wasn’t at all sure where they should go. Still, it seemed as if the old prioress was being foolish. There had to be more they could do than shield themselves in the bushes and pray they were not discovered. But she was at a loss to know exactly what that “more” should be.

So she followed the group of women, stumbling through the dormitory door that led into the cloister and out across the well-kept dirt of the gardens. The prioress’ accommodations were directly in front of them, a dark and loveless building, and they skirted the one-storied structure, heading for the rear of the priory and the open fields beyond. The moon, a silver sliver in the blackness of the sky, provided little light. Everyone was tripping and scuffling as they went.

The smell of smoke was heavy as they moved and they could hear the shouts of men and the bray of animals coming from the east and south sides of the priory, the areas that were mostly exposed to the road and the world beyond. Although there were fifteen in their small group, there were at least thirty more nuns who were still unaccounted for, women who had either already fled or were foolishly hiding in the priory. At the moment, there was no way to hunt for all of them, so the Mother Prioress had gathered who she could. Fifteen out of a total of forty-five nuns was a dismal statistic but it was the best they could do under the frightening circumstances.

Allaston was towards the rear of their group as they made their way around the prioress’ lodgings. She was helping Sister Mary Josepha with a young woman, not a particularly healthy young woman, who was having trouble running. The girl was wheezing and coughing with the exertion.

“Please, Annie,” Allaston begged softly. “You must be brave. You must hurry. We must run!”

Annie was having a great deal of difficulty. “I am trying!” she gasped, tears in her eyes. “But I am so frightened, Allie. Who would attack a priory? It is a house of God and meant to be safe from all!”

Allaston shushed her because she knew the Mother Prioress would only yell at poor Annie for sounding so weak. The Mother Prioress did not like weak women. “Evil men have attacked us,” she said simply. “In the end, it does not matter who it is. All that matters is that we must get away from them.”

Annie was bordering on sobs, made difficult by her heavy breathing. “What will become of us?” she wept. “Where will we be safe?”

Allaston didn’t have an immediate answer for her friend, trying to think of something positive as the group came around the corner of the prioress’ lodgings. All that lay before them now was dark, open fields and the creek beyond with its copse of trees and heavy foliage. Before Allaston could speak a word, however, those in the front of the group came to an abrupt halt, causing those in the rear to crash into them. Allaston ended up on her behind as the group of hysterical women came to sudden stop.

Allaston had very narrowly avoided hitting the wall of the structure with her head as she went down. Grunting, she picked herself up and her gaze happened to fall on the Mother Prioress and the fields beyond. She was looking to see what had caused everyone to come to a dead stop and as her eyes adjusted to the dark night, she realized that the fields normally filled with sheep were now filled with men. Hundreds of them.

Terror filled her as she realized there would be no safety in the trees and rocks tonight. That which they had been attempting to flee was now surrounding them, like something dark and evil and smothering. Men with torches had been waiting for them, waiting for their quarry without effort, and if Allaston had been any wiser about warfare she would have realized that the commotion at the front of the priory had been designed to drive the inhabitants out of the back and right into a trap. The tactic had worked. They were all snared.

Some of the young women broke into tears at the sight of all those soldiers. Allaston stood up, a big mud stain on her rump, holding on to Annie as more men on horseback began to surround them. They could hear crying and pleading in the distance as several other nuns were brought around from the front of the priory, now joining the group of fifteen. It was more terror than any of them could bear and they huddled together in a frightened mass.

Behind them, there was a good deal of commotion going on as the big priory began to go up in flames. Men were purposely throwing torches through windows to ignite the interior of the structure and great rolling flames could be seen billowing out of the windows near the chapel, lighting up the night. But at the rear of the priory, an army was gathered around the group of frightened nuns, waiting and hovering over the women like vultures waiting for the kill. As everyone seemed to stand around in tense and terrible silence, the Mother Prioress stepped forward.

“Who art thou?” she asked loudly, though her voice was trembling. “Who wouldst sully our sanctuary with fire and terror this night?”

No one replied right away, but one warrior on a beast of a warhorse separated himself from the group. The horse was scarred and nicked, wearing mail across its neck and hindquarters. The warrior dismounted the horse and moved towards the tiny, bird-like prioress, like a hunter stalking prey. There was something heavy and terrible about the way he moved, his massive boots hitting the earth like great hammers against an anvil, reverberating through the dirt itself.

Even if the prioress hadn’t been a small woman, any woman or man or child would have appeared small compared to the size of the warrior that faced them. Several inches over six feet, he had massive shoulders, arms, and enormous fists the size of a man’s skull. Clad in well-used mail that grated wickedly when he walked, he wore a heavy leather tunic over the mail and a broadsword at his side that was almost as tall as the prioress herself. It probably weighed more than she did, too. His helmed head tilted slightly downward, the only indication he was looking at the prioress.

“Who are
you
?”

The voice that emerged from the closed helm sounded like Death; it was deep and raspy. If the Mother Prioress felt terror at the sound, she didn’t show it. She bravely lifted her chin in response.

“I am the Mother Prioress of Alberbury,” she said. “What is thy wish? Why hast thou done these terrible things?”

The helmed head didn’t move. He was fixed on the Mother Prioress. “You have a de Velt here,” he said. “Where is she?”

The Mother Prioress struggled not to look confused or intimidated by the fact that the man was asking for a woman in her charge, asking for her by name. It was enough to crack her composure.

“A de Velt?” she repeated, puzzled. “How wouldst thou know this?”

“It does not matter how I know,” the enormous warrior replied. “I have come for her. Where is she?”

The Mother Prioress stared at him, shocked by the request. But it began to occur to her that this was not a random attack. This man wanted something and he wanted it badly enough to ransack a church to get to it. Apprehension clutched at her but she fought it off. She had never been one to give in to apprehension, anyway. It was an unfamiliar taste upon her tongue.

“What doest thou wish of her?” she asked. “The lady is under my care and we are protected by God. Thou cannot have her.”

The helmed head tilted slightly. “In case you have not noticed, God did not save your priory from my army,” he said. “I suspect he will not protect any of you if you do not provide me what I came for. I want the de Velt.”