The squire pushed open the door with one hand and guided her through perhaps a little roughly, but some of his rudeness seemed to have left him.
'Through the door to the right. My master waits in the dining room.'
She nodded and walked, brushing her damp hair away from her face. She put a smile on and tried to hide her disquiet. She felt more than out of place. The house was grand and full of artefacts. She was pleased that the squire had trusted her to walk through such riches without trying to plunder the hall and escape before he could find her.
Somehow she had the impression, though, that she would not get far.
She walked into the dining room and a small gasp escaped her lips. It was immense. But she was here to work, not gawp, and her gent was watching.
She pushed her bosom out to its full advantage and walked toward the man seated at the end of a long table who was smiling at her. She watched his eyes. They seemed black at this distance.
'Please, my lady. Take the seat at the end. I presumed you would be hungry at this hour and have taken the liberty of having a small repast prepared for you.'
'My lord, such kindness!' she exclaimed breathlessly, pouting.
'For such a beautiful lady…I would go to the ends of the earth.'
Oh, she thought, at least he made the pretence of charm.
'Might I have the pleasure of a name?' he enquired solicitously.
'Ellisindre, lord.'
'And I am Shawford Crale, my lady. Now we are friends. Please,' he waved a hand.
She sat where he indicated, at the foot of the long table. She watched him over the candlesticks…gold, if she was not mistaken. The table, too, was the finest. It seemed to be made of some stone she did not recognise but it had the solidity of stone, even if it was finely polished and seemed to have flecks of gold within it.
She happened to glance down and saw a strange design drawn below her chair. She pulled the chair in and returned her gaze to the man at the head of the table.
He was watching her like a hawk. His eyes had not left her since she had entered the dining hall. She tried to regain her composure and keep her smile on her face, even though her heart pounded in her chest.
The gent clapped his hands and a bent old man entered bearing a tray of delicacies, which the old man placed before Ellisindre.
'Please, business can wait. You must be hungry…'
She tried to pick but the food was delicious. There were sea oysters and plums, a fine strong cheese and a salty hunk of fish which she tore into. The servant returned and filled a glass with a deep red wine which she sampled and then gulped.
It was a meal like she had never imagined. The flavours exploded in her mouth and she used the napkin to wipe the juices from her lips between mouthfuls, until she forgot all efforts at deportment and set to with a passion.
The man seemed content to watch her eat. She watched him from under the cover of her hair which fell over her eyes, wondering that such a fine man could show one such as her such courtesy, a simple woman who made men happy when she could for a pretty.
He smiled at her and motioned for her to continue eating.
She gladly obliged, until she could eat no more.
'Thank you, my lord. It was a meal like no other. It was the best I have ever had. I have no doubt, you too, will be the best…'
The man laughed and his long salt and pepper hair fell across his eyes.
'My dear lady, you are the sweetest thing. Please, allow me to pour you some more wine…then, perhaps, we can get down to the business of the night.'
She smiled coquettishly at him and put a hand to her breast.
He approached with a bottle of the fine wine in his hand. His other was hidden behind his back. Ordinarily it would have troubled her, but she was utterly disarmed and not a little drunk.
*
The little girl had taken a while to find the horse. It had fallen silent some time ago, but for some reason her senses seemed more alive than they had ever been. She could smell it in the night, now approaching midnight by her inexperienced reckoning.
She stepped up to the horse and it whinnied at her and sniffed her hand. She stroked its nose and whispered gently to it, calming the beast.
It was a beautiful creature. So large she could barely reach its soft nose even though it craned its head down for her attentions.
Through the fog she heard her mother’s voice, startling her.
What was her mother doing here, in a lord’s manor?
Tonight was turning into some kind of adventure…perhaps her mother had met a lord…and they had fallen in love! Tomorrow they would come for her on this beautiful horse and they would all ride across the downs!
A mystery to be solved. She crept on stealthy feet closer to the voices and peered through a misted window.
*
'So, my dear. To business? Shall we?'
'Where do you want me, my lord? What do you wish?'
'You look beautiful just where you are…no, no, stay seated,' he said, coming to stand behind her.
She had been mesmerised by his walk. He was a solid man, well built and of middle years. He seemed confident…and more handsome than most of the gents she had known.
His hand touched her shoulder and she sighed. His hands were warm, her shoulder cold. Always cold.
'Such a beautiful neck, my lovely,' he said, and caressed her gently. She felt herself warming to him, a sudden rush of blood where she was barren. Her mind swam from the wine and his hands were so soft.
She didn’t feel the knife that sliced through her neck. She was only aware of the blood when she felt its warmth flooding down the front of her dress.
She tried to scream at the sight of all the blood but only a drowning gurgle came from her rent throat.
Shawford Crale turned suddenly as a scream of rage rent the night from outside the window, bringing the knife to bear. Then the window shattered and Ellisindre’s daughter flew across the room…it was a leap no mortal could have made.
Ellisindre heard a startled cry escape the lips of her murderer and then the man was thrown across the table. Her daughter jumped on top of him and like a nightmare she was at his throat, tearing it open with her teeth. Tearing his flesh and drinking his blood.
She drank, Ellisindre aware only dimly of the slurping, gurgling noises coming from the table…then she felt flesh held against her lips.
'Drink, mother. Drink.'
She could do little else. She drank. The blood from his throat mixed with her own and came out through the hole in her throat…then the hole was closed and she was drinking the pumping warmth from the man down into her full belly. But his blood warmed her through like the food had not. Her throat felt better. The stinging pain subsided and her head cleared.
Her daughter dropped Shawford Crale back onto the table, and for a moment Ellisindre marvelled at the strength it must have taken for her little girl to hold the man for her.
But she was no longer the weak little girl who had been wasting in her room this last month. Her cheeks were ruddy again and her flesh full and plump.
'I understand the sickness now, mother,' said her daughter. 'I feel it. I feel the life pulsing through me. Do you?'
Shawford Crale’s blood trickled out from his torn neck, staining the light marble crimson.
Ellisindre nodded and took her daughter in her arms. Tears dripped and mixed with the blood on her breast.
'I understand now, sweetheart, but my god, how I wish I did not.'
'Don’t weep, mother. I dreamt of this day. That my father would be a lord! That you would be his wife and you would no longer have to haunt the night for a penny.'
'But you killed him.'
'No, mother. I don’t think so,' said the little girl, new and frightening wisdom in her voice. 'I understand. He will be your husband. We have given him life! You will rule him and this house. I read it in a book, mother. The book you gave to me.'
'This is no fairytale, daughter o
f my heart.'
'But if we let it, it could be,' her daughter said, her eyes pleading.
Shawford Crale’s blood dried. Ellisindre sat watching, her daughter eager on her lap, as the master of the house’s throat slowly healed.
By morning the hole had closed. A new day dawned with dreams fulfilled and hearts full of hope.
*
And so, just like in the fairytales, a kiss brought the lord back to life, and they all lived happily ever after.
Dreams do come true.
And so, in the still dark hours of the night, do nightmares.
- end -
Bonus Novel Sample:
The Queen of Thieves
(The Line of Kings Trilogy Book Three)
Prologue
Rena cradled her baby in her arms. The child was a year old. He was a grasping, crawling, babe, his first words gurgled two months ago. He had since fallen silent, as though those first few words had tired the child out.
Rena named the child Tarn, after the boy's father; the last of the line of Sturman kings.
The child would never know his father.
Rena's mother, Mia, bustled by the fire in the middle of their shared hut.
Mia stopped and wiped her hands on a cloth, cleaning off the bright yellow pollen of a carmillion blossom she used in a potion.
'Someone's coming,' said Mia, putting down the stained cloth and stirring the mixture over the peat fire in the circular hearth.
'Who?' asked Rena.
'I don't know...strange...'
Rena heard the footsteps crunching through the snow to the door of the hut. She half-rose to answer the late night call.
'No, tend the child,' said Mia. 'I'll go.'
Mia opened the door before the visitors could knock. A flurry of snow blew in through the front door.
'Who is it?' Rena called from beside the fire, but before Mia could utter a word, a sword ran her through, bursting from her back with a spray of blood.
She had no breath to cry out.
Rena screamed, laid the babe down.
She did not panic. She was a witch. A young witch, still, but a witch, nonetheless.
The closest thing to her with which she could protect herself and her babe was the cauldron. It was a big, heavy thing. She took up the cauldron from the fire, burning hot on her unprotected hands but she did not notice the pain or the weight. For a moment she was blind to emotion and feeling. Blind to everything but the sudden threat to her child.
With a great cry she ran to her mother as a warrior clad in some dark material pulled his sword free of her mother's chest. Mia toppled to the floor, dead before she hit the dirt.
As the warrior, the assassin, drew his sword back to strike again, Rena flung the burning mixture into his face. Her cried out, his skin steaming, and fell back.
With all her strength Rena swung the cauldron, her own hands burning, and caved in the man's skull.
Only then did she look up.
Five more men in dark garb stood before the door to the hut, weapons drawn, faces masked.
'Kill her,' said one, 'and kill the child.'
'No!' she shouted. 'No!'
The first man advanced, faceless behind his mask but with cold alien eyes. He did not make it any further. With a soft sound breaking the night, an arrow thudded into the killer's neck. The missile travelled in and through, the steel arrowhead protruding. The assassin - surely no man - fell to the ground. Breath gurgled for a second then the assassin was silent.
There was a space of no more than a moment when nobody moved. The moment broke and everything seemed to happen at once.
Another of the assassins turned to the new threat, and was taken with an arrow through his eye. In the time it took for Rena to take up a dead man's sword in her burned right hand, another two fell quickly. One remained, and he made the fatal error of looking for the bowman and forgetting the witch behind him.
With a grunt Rena swung the heavy blade up over her head and down into the last killer's skull.
The blade stuck fast and was torn from her grasp when the assassin fell. She stood defenceless, facing the night, blind in the dark and the snow, looking into the blackness for the archer.
'Easy now,' said a man from the forest. She heard his footsteps through the high snow before she saw him.
A long man, holding a curved horn bow. On his back a quiver with two arrows. At his hip he wore a short sword and a dagger.
He bowed before her, then knelt, taking one knee in the blood-stained snow.
'I'm sorry,' he said. 'I was too late.'
Rena, too, fell to her knees and began sobbing.
She sobbed for a time, then stood and wiped her eyes. The man still knelt, head bowed, his hair crusted with snowfall and the grime of the road.
Turning, she saw her mother's form, and her babe crying beside the fire, swaddled in a blanket.
'I'm sorry, my lady, but you must come with me. There is no more time for mourning.'
'My mother...'
'The ground is hard and she is dead,' said the bowman, but softly.
'You know me?'
'Only by name,' he said, 'A mutual friend sends me to bring you forth. We have need of you. Need of your kind...need of the babe...'
'Who?' she asked, as she pulled her mother's body in from the cold.
'Roskel Farinder.'
The thief, she thought. The thief her husband had told her of.
'The thief?'
The bowman laughed softly, despite the grim situation.
'No longer, lady,' he said. 'People call him Steward, Lord Protector of Sturma, now. There are some of us that know him as the Thief King.'
Rena shook her head. 'King?'
'Since your husband fell, Lady. The Thief King is a...nickname...nothing more.'
She shook her head again. 'I must see to my mother,' she said shortly.
'There is no time. There is danger at every turn.'
'Make time,' she told him.
He bowed his head once more. 'How can I help?'
'Watch the night. This is my business,' she told him.
'As you wish,' he said. He turned at the door as she called out to him.
'I should know your name,' she said.
'Lady, my name is Asram Fell, and I am your servant.'
Rena nodded. 'Thank you, Asram Fell,' she said, then turned to her business, that of a witch in mourning, as she closed the door he stood out into the falling snow with no complaint.
*
Part I.
Lights in the Sky
Chapter One
The bald man, Roskel Farinder, sat in a seedy tavern called The Badger nursing a mug full of frothing ale. The tavern was in a dark corner of the docker's quarter. A dangerous place for a man like Roskel, who was not much of a fighter, but he was not concerned. Sometimes the right look could fend off the wrong kind of attention, and Roskel Farinder had the look of the hawk about him.
All around the room drunken sailors and soldiers, maids and wives, old men and young men eyed the Thief King in the corner table, sitting alone. Roskel's shaved head shone in the firelight. He stroked his long moustache and turned his eyes to his cup and his ears to the conversation around the tavern.
Two older men - old, but with teeth still in their heads - were the most interesting of the patrons. One old man was missing four fingers of one hand. Roskel noted this from the corner of his eye, without seeming to turn his head to stare.
No one recognised Roskel with his new shaved scalp, for the last most people had seen of him he had been a dandy, with fine barber cut hair and finer garb. He was largely ignored, but where once the Thief King had been a soft man, responsibility, incarceration, and killing had changed him to a man to match his look.
No longer a dandy. Not quite a warrior...not by a long shot...but dangerous seeming enough to give people pause should they think to accost him along his route back to the castle.
'I saw the suns burning from behind the moun
tains, I tell you, and it was night.'
'Goat's balls, Mange,' said the old man with the missing fingers.
Roskel wiped the ale from his lips and pulled his cloak tighter against the long winter that was surely coming.
The same tale passed many lips this last autumn, of the suns burning bright, or a great firelight over the mountains, when the silver moons should have ruled the night sky.
'Goat's balls, my arse,' said six-finger's friend with a laugh. Roskel would have loved to have sat for longer. The accents within the tavern, the atmosphere, the ale - he enjoyed all of it. Too long had he sat in the seat of power, growing lax.
But he had not forgotten. Power meant he was responsible for these people. Meant he was responsible for the safety of this country, his Sturma.
Roskel had heard enough. He downed the last of his ale and left his mug on the table and pushed himself up. He didn't need to look to see his protectors rise as he did.
Winter was coming hard, and it was bringing something else from the North, too. A fire that burned in the night. Something else was coming right along with winter. Of that he was sure. He was sure, too, that it would be down to him to deal with whatever may come. He was Lord Protector of Sturma and Steward of the Crown of Kings. He never forgot. It weighed heavily upon his shoulders every single day.
The fey light north of the mountains stank of magic, and the only magic on Rythe belonged to the enemies of Sturma.
The Hierarchy, the dark-hearted bastards from across the ocean.
Some days the burden of leadership weighed more heavily than others, and this was such a day. Roskel thought hard as he walked to the castle with two bodyguards behind him in the shadows. He felt the burden of all the souls he was responsible for. His shoulders were sore as he walked, as though from a real weight. Shoulders slumped, he walked to find his brother protectors and prepare for...
The Thief King: The Line of Kings Trilogy Book Two Page 23
