The Beast of Renald (The Northern Knights) (2 page)

‘Well, what do we have here? Can this be Lord Halvard’s lady wife hiding here in the tower waiting for her new caretaker with a wet one at her skirts?’

Albeit, broken and heavily laden with their Norman French accent, Caroline was not shocked to hear the man speak in her tongue clearly. She said nothing. These Norman invaders had quickly adapted to the Anglo-Saxon tongue soon after the conquest. She herself had been taught the French tongue along with Latin by a relative during her younger years of education.  

She took another step back as the lecherous looking man came closer and another of his companions, carrying a studded mace followed suit. These Normans were crude looking. Large and barbaric. Their violent nature and intent was written all over their faces.

Both men removed their helms from their sweaty heads and Caroline fought the urge not to vomit as the beefy one spat on the front of her gown. 

She wiped it away with a shocked cry and shouted angrily, ‘Filthy, Norman swine!’

‘I knew that would get your tongue to wag, lady. Who are you?’

Caroline shook her head. What did it matter what she told them?  They would kill her anyway. Being the Lady of the manor to these butcher men would change nothing, so she tried another tactic and said in the most forceful tone she could muster while her legs quaked. ‘There is a child present. Show mercy.’

The man’s mouth dropped open, showing a row of rotted teeth as he laughed loudly. ‘Mercy she says? That word is dead to us this day. Woman, child… dead or alive. Makes no difference to us Norman
cur
.’

His mockery and intent to do them harm flashed in his eyes and he reached out for her breast. The move shook her from her motionless state and Caroline struck out as hard as she could, her hand connecting with his fleshy cheek. Shock froze the man for a moment until his comrades laughed uproariously.

The one with the spiked mace belted out around his laughter, ‘Gan. Come, you let a weakling Saxon whore, comely enough she may be, slap your piss out of you!’

The look that crossed the face of the one he’d called Gan, made Caroline’s blood run cold. Lust and loathing crossed his ugly features and she shrieked when he snatched her up in his meaty fists. She fought vigorously as Kelbie’s loud wails suddenly filled the room
and she managed to rake her nails down the exposed neck of another man that came to help Gan. Over their vulgar remarks of what they planned for her, s
he heard the other men shouting to quiet the boy.

‘Mama! Mamaaaa!’  Kelbie howled at the top of his little lungs as two men held her down by the wrists on the bed. Panic and cold fear swept over her for herself and her son. 

Caroline called out to him. ‘Kelbie. ‘Tis all right. Be quiet for Mama.’ her voice broke off on her sob.

These Normans cared not if you were woman or child. They killed all in their path.  If only she could get him to be quiet, she opened her mouth again and was stopped when the one called Gan covered her mouth with one of his hands, nearly covering her nose and cutting off her breath.

He gave orders to the other men and one grabbed her son and carried him quickly from her sight out of the room. Caroline turned into a wild woman. Terror and rage like she’d never known filled her and she fought the three men on the bed until Gan swatted her against the temple with his fist. 

Dazed, Caroline heard through the spinning fog that enveloped her, their distorted voices and she felt and heard what she thought was the bodice of her gown being torn open.  Hands were soon upon her touching, bruising and adding more pain to the throbbing in her head. 

Then just as darkness threatened to take her, she heard a distinct male bellow and the heavy weight on the bed was lifted. The pain, the hands were gone and something soft soon covered her. She wanted to say something, ask about her son. But nothing came forth but an angry sob. She should have gone with Nesta. Just as she closed her swollen eyes, she thought she heard a soft curse.

Caroline woke to a splitting headache and something hard pressing against her back.  Her first thought was Kelbie and she sat up with a jarring pain from her head to waist with a cry.

‘Kelbie!’ 

‘He is here, my lady,’ a woman’s soft voice came close to her ear and a warm hand rested on her shoulder.

Caroline looked at the rotund woman kneeling next to her.  Warmth and concern marred the woman’s wrinkled and dirt smudged features. Still it was a face that seemed familiar, but Caroline could not place it. 

The woman smiled, her eyes crinkled at the corners and she said. “He still sleeps, my lady. Sound like a babe. Aye, safe too.’

Caroline looked around. She was on a makeshift pallet on the rush covered floor and in what remained of their great hall that had not yet seen a torch. The room soon came into focus with the few lit rushlights spread around them. ‘Twas not yet night and the gaping hole in the roof showed the skies still billowed with black smoke from the fires that had been set. Much time had not passed at all.

The minimal lighting lent to her view of a room filled and spilling over with the sick, wounded and dead. The stench in the room of blood and burnt flesh was overpowering and made her gag.  She took a few quick breaths to ease the feeling, now was not the time to lose her stomach. She needed to stay focused.

Near every exit, she spied Norman soldiers standing guard.  Hot tears pricked her lids and Caroline turned back to the woman next to her. ‘Where-‘

‘All the children are clustered in one of the rooms off the hall there, my lady. Very few injured. Mostly from running over one another.’

‘How many live?’ Caroline asked, fearful. Her throat was dry and hurt.

‘All of the village children by my count and some of the castle folk that did not escape, live, my lady. Except for the poor souls in here. Still, no children were killed.’ The woman gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze.

Glad, saddened and shocked all the same, Caroline could not help but ask. ‘Truly?’

‘Aye. They live, my lady. The leader, he arrived and the bloodletting quickly stopped. He rode up like a wraith through that black smoke, he did, slowly. Not charging, my lady and just like that-’ the woman made a gesture with her hands, ‘All the fighting ceased.’

Caroline was confused and thought for a moment that she still lay asleep from what this woman was telling her.  It made no sense and could not possibly be true and yet, the memory of the lone knight on the large charger came back to her.  Was he the leader?

He had to be. The arrogant and sure way he had ridden through the carnage towards the castle and the entourage of armed men at his back came back to her. All of it had spoken of authority.  Then the memory of the Normans that had nearly raped her surged forth. 

Caroline’s heart thudded loudly in her chest with the thought and her hands slid over the bodice of her gown. Someone had pinned the torn material back in place. Someone had saved her. Her hand shot to her temple and she felt the swollen and tender flesh there.

‘Aye, my lady, ’tis bruised well and good it is. The healer is making her way over here again and a good paste will fix that up right.’

‘Forgive me, I know your face, but I do not know-‘

The woman squeezed her hand and smiled wide. ‘’Tis all right, my lady. You took a hard knocking to your head. Mildred, I am. A milkmaid here since your husband was still wet behind his ears.’

Memories of seeing the woman in and out of the barn and kitchens came back to Caroline. She gave Mildred a weak smile and returned the comforting pressure to the woman’s hand in kind.  ‘Why are we pooled in here? Who brought me down here? Do you know, Mildred?”

 ‘Aye.’  Mildred’s voice dropped even lower as she leaned close. ‘’Twas chaos after the attack, then the leader took over and said we were to remain here until we reveal which one of us is Lord Halvard's wife. He does not know ‘tis you, my lady. He carried you in here himself, he did.’

Caroline jerked her head up sharply. Her mouth agape. ‘What? I don’t understand?’

Mildred gave her a meaningful look. ‘Aye. Do not worry. None has told, my lady.’

Caroline knew she looked dumbstruck for she felt it.  These people hated her and had made it painfully clear since her arrival as the third of Lord Halvard's wives five years ago. They had preferred the wife before her, her cousin, Helen. Why would they protect her now?  Her thoughts must have shown on her face, for the woman squeezed her hand in knowing.

‘There are many of us here who care what happens to you. Aye, my lady, we appreciate and are grateful for the kindness you showed us when you were able. Something which Lord Halvard so failed to do ofttimes. All of us did not agree with what he did to you.’

Caroline saw the truth and tears glisten in Mildred’s eyes. She nodded, and then sighed with relief and a bit of shame that the cruelties she’d suffered had reached as far as the village. Even though many had rejected her at every turn, she’d wished none of them ill. Nay. She did not wish for these people to suffer any further for Lord Halvard’s crimes or chance a beating or worse, their life for payment in turn for not revealing her identity.

 The Normans may have spared the children and she thanked God for that, but these foreigners still could not be trusted. They would not think twice about cutting down any one of them. She needed to see her son and she needed to set things to right. 

She moved to stand.

After some dizziness and against Mildred’s protests, Caroline managed to stand and took a step without feeling like she would lose her stomach. Her gaze swept over the room. 

With so many others standing over moaning bodies, looking to claim and name their loved ones, the diversion allowed Caroline to make it to one corner of the hall in the direction of the rooms Mildred had said the children were being held in before two Norman guards spotted her. Turning from a heated argument with a group of captured and bound Saxon soldiers, their eyes fell suspiciously upon her.

 She paused and quickly pretended to see to the nearest person at her right. The body was that of a woman and Caroline bent and pulled the shawl up over the woman’s bare unmoving shoulder. 

Caroline moved her lips as though she were speaking to the sleeping woman. The woman faced away from the guards so they could not see that she slept. Soon they turned their attention elsewhere. With a sigh of relief, Caroline straightened her own torn bodice and moved to rise when a deep masculine voice came at her back.

‘You some sort of witch that talks to the dead to bring them back to life, demoiselle?’

Caroline, still on her haunches, turned and took in lean and muscular thighs, encased in black fitted breeches, leather ties, a long mail tunic, a long Norman sword hung at his side and up a wall of chest to that thin mouth that seemed eerily familiar. His
cloak was fastened with a brooch over his right shoulder.
The mean looking, jagged scar and those piercing magnetic blue eyes- God’s mercy!

 ‘Twas him!

He’d removed his helm and it sat in the crook of his arm. Dark hair lay in the shape of it surrounded his sharp-boned face and stray strands fell down the back of his thick neck, past his vast shoulders. Shadows of beard growth barely there covered his face. Odd Caroline thought that she’d not noticed that when she’d assessed him down in the yard. His hideous scar and eyes had captured her attention then as they did now.

Cold fear swept over her and she rose on shaky legs. He followed her every move. His watchful and intense gaze caused her to shake even more. 

‘Ah. You pretend not to understand me now, is that the way you wish to play it? So be it. Matters not. I am curious still. Talking to the dead. What sort of conversation could that behold? One of great interest I would imagine. Please, do share it with me.’

Anger sparked in her. He was mocking her.  He had spoken to her in his tongue and now, he had switched over easily to hers. His thick accent made his words hard to understand at first but she knew most of them. Caroline sighed with disgust. He wanted to make sure she understood every word. She realized too late her mistake in reacting to him. No matter. She had to do what she must. 

The look and sardonic grin on his chiseled face told her he knew that she understood him. She was in no mood to play games with this man. She needed to get to her son. 

Caroline spoke before she thought. ‘Dead or alive. The conversation would be too intelligent for you to swallow, you Norman mongrel.’

The man did not even flinch. But something dark shifted in those blue all-seeing eyes as he circled her slowly, his one hand latched onto the hilt of his sword. The way he walked closely around her, less than a hairs breadth betwixt them, curled a finger of cold alarm inside her gut and rattled her already frazzled nerves.

‘Hmm…You did not realize she was dead, did you?’ his lips pulled back into a taunting grin and his eyes glinted under dark arched brows. The amusement in his tone did not reach the dangerous gleam in those eyes of his, nor his intimidating stance.

Caroline felt the color drain from her face and her eyes shot back down to the woman in horror and sadness. Clutching her hands against her tattered gown, she shivered and immediately crossed herself and said a hasty prayer for the woman’s poor soul. She ended her blessing and muttered, ‘Death of the innocent. She did not deserve this.’

‘Who is to say who does or does not deserve death? Everyone must die sooner or later, demoiselle. No one is spared from that fate.’

His indifferent tone infuriated her and fear, she knew, is what made her blurt out, ‘Not by a merciless Norman blade!’

His hand moved from his sword to press over his heart in a closed fist, a wounded expression spread across his face. ‘Demoiselle, I swear to you it was not my blade. How do you know it was not a Saxon one? Caught in the melee she could have been. What know you of how she came to meet her end? Careful where you lay your blame.’

‘You are a cruel man.’ Caroline declared with labored breath.

‘Do you know me?’

He stopped circling her and she stopped breathing. She swallowed and barely managed to shake her head. His aim was to frighten her and he was, but she need not let him know it.