That was their undoing.
Suddenly, there was as dull thud and Isabella fell to the ground. As Isalyn bent over to see what the matter was, someone grabbed her by the arm. It was a strong, biting grip and Isalyn found herself looking into the face of a man she didn’t recognize.
He was older, with graying hair and a sloppy beard, and his gaze focused intently on her.
“You look like him,” he muttered, his breath foul. “I see Steffan in you, Lady Isalyn.”
He was holding something in his hand and it took Isalyn a second to realize that it was a sword, but he was holding it hilt upward, like a hammer. As Isabella groaned, it occurred to Isalyn what had happened.
Panic surged.
“You hit her,” she hissed, trying to yank her arm free. “Why did you hit her? Who are you?”
The man was trying to sheathe his sword and hold on to Isalyn at the same time. “Shut your mouth, Woman!” he hissed. “You’re coming with me.”
Isalyn went from stunned to panic to full-blown hysteria. She began to twist and fight, trying to yank her arm from him as he held her fast.
“I’m not going anywhere!” she yelled. “Let me go!”
The fight was on.
The man, whoever he was, was strong. Unable to sheathe his sword, he tried to hit Isalyn in the head with it as he’d hit Isabella, but Isalyn dodged and kicked and scratched. She started to scream and he was forced to drop the sword, pushing her roughly against the wall, hard enough to knock the wind out of her.
He clamped a dirty hand over her mouth.
“Be quiet or I will kill you where you stand,” he growled. “You’re coming with me.”
In her terror, Isalyn brought up a knee and rammed it into the man’s privates. He faltered and loosened his grip enough so that she was able to break free, but he was on her in an instant, grabbing her by her long hair and falling on top of her when she tripped and fell forward.
Using his body to pin her down, his hands went around her neck, squeezing as she struggled to breathe and scream. Unfortunately for Isalyn, she couldn’t get her hands up from the way he was pinning her and the world was starting to go black. She tried her hardest to scream, to fight, but he was heavy and strong, and he had her trapped. The world began to fade and her struggles lessened.
Soon enough, everything went black.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
He thought it looked rather odd.
Barbara had taken a horse from the stables to the inner gatehouse, telling the soldiers that she wished to ride around the inner wall and collect some wildflowers. Since that wasn’t unusual behavior from Barbara, the soldiers let her through, but Fraser was watching from the yard when she’d ridden through and he thought that something about her looked strange.
Then, it occurred to him.
She had two big, heavy saddlebags on the back of the horse. Those types of bags belonged to knights, as he had a pair of his own. They were custom made, durable pieces of equipment, tailored to each owner. They weren’t something that young women out to gather flowers would normally carry, nor would any bags she carried have a three-point shield burned into the leather.
… shield?
Suspicious, he followed.
Fraser was looking for Tor or Christian or any other knight as he ran to the stable yard, but he didn’t see anyone. He thought they were probably in the great hall at this time of day, but he didn’t want to take the time to find them. He did, however, grab a stable servant and sent him with a message for Tor – that Barbara had left through the inner gatehouse and Fraser was following her.
Satisfied, he grabbed the nearest horse, threw on a bridle, and leapt onto the back of the skittish beast. Digging his heels in, he took off across the outer bailey, heading for the inner gatehouse.
The men on the wall were pointing to the east, the direction that Barbara had gone, and Fraser followed. There was a path around the castle inner walls with the moat down below, so he followed that trail as quickly as he could, rounding the southeast corner and then finally the northeast corner, coming around the bend only to see something quite confusing over near the postern gate.
He could see the horse that Barbara had ridden out on, but she was off the horse now and simply standing there holding it. Lenore was there, too, but she looked worried. She was wringing her hands. As Fraser drew near, a man suddenly appeared carrying a limp woman in his arms, and Fraser recognized him as the sick man who had come to Blackpool for help. The same man that Barbara and Lenore were supposed to be tending.
Only he wasn’t sick any longer.
It took Fraser less than a second to see that the woman in his arms was Isalyn.
He spurred his horse into a gallop.
Suddenly, he was plowing through Barbara and the horse she was holding, and he could hear screams as Barbara went rolling down the embankment towards the moat. The horse, too, slid down the embankment and Fraser heard a big splash as the animal fell into the water. Lenore screamed and ran back inside the postern gate as the man with unconscious Isalyn in his arms lost his balance and dumped Isalyn down the slope. Fraser leapt from this horse and onto the man, and the fight was on.
Since Fraser wasn’t armed, all he could do was throw punches at the man he had believed to be deathly ill. They all had. But clearly, the man was well enough and certainly hearty enough to fight back. Big fists were flying as Fraser got the upper hand, pummeling the man as he tripped over his own feet and fell to the ground. But the minute Fraser threw himself onto the man to finally subdue him, the man produced a dagger and Fraser leapt right on it.
It sank into his body, by his hip.
Momentarily stunned by the pain, it was enough of a pause for his opponent to throw a fist into Fraser’s face. As Fraser snapped back, the man charged him, slamming him against the inner wall. Furious and in pain, Fraser ripped the dagger out of his body and turned it on the man, stabbing him in the shoulder by his neck. The man screamed as Fraser drove the dagger deep. It was disabling, but not crippling.
The battle went on.
Isabella awoke to the sounds of a scream, but not just any scream. There was a man screaming, somewhere, and she lifted her head, having no idea why she was laying in the mud. The last she remembered, she was walking with Isalyn towards the postern gate and then… nothing.
Lifting her head, she could see the postern gate in front of her, open, with Lenore standing there, weeping hysterically.
Something terrible was going on.
Head pounding, and feeling nauseous, Isabella staggered to her feet. She could hear sounds of a fight and Isalyn wasn’t anywhere to be found, so she went into panic mode. The buttery was immediately to her right and there were a couple of old wooden butter churns, one used to make the butter. They were big and heavy, but one of the paddles was partially chipped, which was why it wasn’t currently used. Grabbing the heavy butter paddle, Isabella wielded it like a club and staggered to the postern gate.
The first thing she saw was Lenore, weeping and gasping, and Isabella didn’t hesitate. She swung the paddle at Lenore’s head and hit her squarely on the side of her skull, sending the woman down the embankment towards the moat. Down below, Isabella could see a horse swimming in the moat, trying to pull itself up on the other side, and Barbara up to her waist in the murky water, trying to claw her way out.
But the noise was coming from the fight to her left and Isabella turned to see Fraser in a vicious fight with a man she didn’t recognize. They were both covered in blood and Isabella screamed at the sight, but her shock didn’t prevent her from acting. Convinced that Fraser’s life was in danger, she lifted the paddle high and charged the men fighting, bringing that heavy paddle to bear on the man locked in mortal combat with Fraser. She whacked him on the back of the skull, twice, and he released his grip on Fraser. But as he started to fall, a nasty-looking bolt plunged right into his back.
Down he went, face-first into the mud, never to rise again.
Still
in panic mode, Isabella looked to see where the arrow had come from and she could see Christian on the wall above, crossbow in-hand. Realizing there were soldiers now rushing to help and protect them, Isabella threw the paddle aside and ran to Fraser, who was just rising to his knees. She fell down beside him, her hands reaching out to steady him.
“Fraser!” she gasped. “What happened?”
Fraser was beaten and bleeding, but he was alive. Breathing heavily, he had one hand over the dagger wound near his hip, but the other one came up to cup Isabella’s panicked face.
“Easy, Bella,” he said softly, breathlessly. “I am not as bad as I look, I promise.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “What happened? Who is he?”
“That is the sick man we brought in for Barbara and Lenore to heal,” Fraser said between heavy breaths. “I saw Barbara ride out on a horse with what I am guessing are that man’s saddlebags and I discovered him taking Isalyn outside of the postern gate, so I… Isalyn! Where is she?”
Isabella shrieked as she and Fraser started looking around in a panic for Isalyn. Men were starting to spill out from the postern gate, including Blayth, Ronan, and finally Tor, who had been summoned from the great hall by a terrified servant. Tor saw a bloodied Fraser, a dead man with an arrow in his back, a wet horse on the other side of the moat, and Barbara and Lenore down by the moat’s edge.
“Tor!” Isabella screamed. “We must find Isalyn! She must have fallen down the slope!”
Tor was on the move. He had no idea what had happened. But at the mention of Isalyn, he was moving, sliding down the slope, searching for Isalyn somewhere in the grass and muck. He finally caught sight of her lifting her head out of the tall grass down by the moat’s edge. She had a hand to her head, and her dirty hair was all over her face. Tor rushed towards her as fast as his legs would carry him. He ended up slipping because of the angle of the slope, falling heavily on his left side, but he scrambled and clawed his way over to Isalyn.
His arms finally went around her, holding her tightly as if to never let her go.
“Isalyn,” he said, his voice trembling. “What in the hell is going on? What happened to you?”
Isalyn was groggy, a hand on her aching head. “Lenore,” she muttered, trying to remember what had gone on. “She said that she and Barbara wanted my forgiveness. They wanted to make amends. She said they had a gift for me and they brought me out to the postern gate, but a man grabbed me. I don’t know who he was and… God’s Bones, where is Isabella? He hit Isabella!”
“She is well,” Tor said, feeling lightheaded with both relief and fear. Fear of what could have been. “She is with Fraser. You said that Lenore and Barbara brought you out here?”
Isalyn collapsed against him. “They tried,” she said, closing her eyes because her head was killing her. “That man was waiting for me and he tried to kill me. Tor, they brought me right to him.”
Tor still didn’t really know what was going on, but he had heard enough. He turned to see his uncle halfway down the slope and he called to the man.
“Uncle Blayth!” he shouted. “Barbara and Lenore – get them to the vault!”
Blayth was on the move and, along with Ronan, managed to grab Barbara and Lenore. Tor could hear them screaming but he didn’t care. They could have drowned in the moat at that very moment and he wouldn’t have cared. Any semblance of concern he’d ever had for them was gone forever.
Forgive me, Jane.
They had committed the last crime they were ever going to.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Armathwaite Nunnery
One week later
The moon was full overhead, the stars beyond like a sea of diamonds against the black expanse of sky. As Tor walked away from the walls of the ancient nunnery, he could still hear the sobs of Barbara and Lenore as the nuns took them away, pleading with him not to leave them. Begging him to reconsider. Telling him how Jane would not have wanted it this way.
But he was immune to it.
For the first time in almost seventeen years, he was numb to it.
Barbara and Lenore were dead to him now.
Blayth, Fraser, Ronan, and Christian were waiting for him in a group. They were mounted, with Ronan holding the reins of Enbarr and the two other horses that had brought Barbara and Lenore to their final destination. Tor took his beloved steed from Ronan and deftly climbed into the saddle.
As the party began to move north, he didn’t look back.
“How do you feel, Tor?” Blayth asked quietly. “I know that this was difficult, but it was the right thing to do.”
The moon was so bright that it appeared as if the entire land were lit by a million white torches, everything so bright that it was like daytime.
For Tor, it was, indeed, as if a new day had dawned.
The first day of the rest of his life.
“I feel fine,” he said. “I feel as if a great burden has been lifted. I’m only sorry it took me so long to come to my senses.”
Blayth glanced at Ronan and Christian, the men who had known Tor better than most. “It was quite a burden,” he agreed. “And quite complicated. Who knew that the sick man who had come to Blackpool was a rogue de Royans knight? We would have never known had I not recognized the body. I had seen the man come with Kelton de Royans to the gathering of the northern warlords last year. I feel badly that I did not see him when he first came to Blackpool. Mayhap we could have avoided this whole situation.”
Tor held up a hand to ease him. “It was not your fault, Uncle Blayth,” he said. “We took him in, as it was the right thing to do, having no idea that he was only pretending to be ill to gain access to Blackpool and to the House of de Wolfe. Barbara and Lenore played right into his hands.”
“Kelton de Royans said that it was rumored that Joah de Brayton and Steffan de Featherstone were lovers,” Blayth said quietly. “I care not who a man loves, but I do care about his character and de Brayton seemed to be lacking, according to Kelton. To seek revenge for a foul scheme gone wrong only comes from a man with poor standards and even worse judgment.”
Tor glanced at his uncle. “Sometimes, it can happen in the best of families,” he said. “Look at Steffan. Gilbert is a good man and Isalyn, of course, is beyond reproach, but Steffan had a distinct lack of character. Kelton pressed one of his other knights, a friend of Steffan’s, who said that Steffan only sought the betrothal with Isabella to gain access to the de Wolfe war machine. He had promised Joah a great position once he married her. Thank God he didn’t.”
They all turned to look at Fraser, riding along silently, listening to everything that was being said. When he saw all of the attention on him, including Blayth’s, he smiled weakly.
“Thank God, indeed,” he repeated, a smile on his lips. “I would not have the great honor of becoming her husband next week.”
As Blayth cocked a stern eyebrow at the man, the others started laughing. “We are fortunate to have you in the family, Fraser, and do not let Papa make you think otherwise,” Ronan said. “He may look like a terrible barbarian, but he already loves you. I can tell.”
“Shut up,” Blayth grumbled to his son. “You are not to make him feel so welcome until he has been married to Bella for a while. If you make him feel comfortable, he will not fear me.”
“I will always fear you, my lord,” Fraser said smoothly.
Now, Blayth was trying not to smile as the others laughed. “Smart man,” he muttered.
The party continued on, the mood lighter than it had been in some time, ever since Barbara and Lenore nearly carried out their final, terrible plan to remove Isalyn forever. After the scare, Tor had summoned his father and married Isalyn in the man’s presence three days later, and she had worn the gorgeous wedding dress that he had purchased for her. Upon her finger, never to be removed, was the ancient posy ring they so cherished.
I choose thee.
“Did you tell Gilbert what Kelton de Royans told you, Uncle Blayth?” Tor asked, anxiou
s to return to Blackpool and to his new wife, who was in the care of his father and her father at the moment. “He knows that Joah came from Netherghyll, but I was not sure how much more you told him.”
Blayth shook his head. “There is no reason to tell him anything more,” he said. “Would it do any good to tell him that his son’s lover was seeking revenge for his death? That he was mad with rage and that his son was trying to dupe the House of de Wolfe by marrying Isabella? Nay, I did not tell him. Steffan may have been a terrible son, but he was Gilbert’s only son. He knows that the man was a coward and a scoundrel. I do not want to pile on and tell him even more than that.”
It was a compassionate decision on Blayth’s part. Tor faced forward, watching the road ahead, calculating that they would make it home just before dawn. Just in time for him to climb into bed with Isalyn and make love to her while the sun rose.
His wife.
He never thought he could be so happy again. But he hadn’t reached this point without help.
He’d had a lot of it.
“I want to thank you all for everything you have done,” he said after a moment. “Uncle Blayth, my thanks to you for your wisdom and advice. Ronan, you are my younger cousin, but you are more like a brother to me. Christian, you are my cousin and my second in command, but you are the best friend a man could have. And Fraser… you have quickly integrated yourself into the House of de Wolfe. I have a feeling you and I will be spending many years together, closely, because it has become apparent that Isalyn and Isabella cannot be separated. Isabella very nearly sacrificed her life for Isalyn and I will never forget her bravery. And you… you nearly died trying to protect Isalyn. I will never forget that, either. Not ever.”
Fraser smiled faintly. “My position with Gilbert was a long and lucrative one,” he said. “But now… now I feel that I finally belong somewhere, and to someone. Thank you for accepting my fealty at Blackpool. I will not fail you.”
WolfeStrike (de Wolfe Pack Generations Book 2) Page 29
