by Jolie Mathis
"Who are these men?" Isabel asked.
"Mercenaries from the north."
At Isabel's gasp, he answered, "Aye, Northmen, and far more ruthless than Thorleksson's."
All around them, men waged violence. Weapons crashed upon flesh and wood. More than one terrified cry fled Isabel's lips as they wove their way through the melee, thickly defended by the Norse soldiers on all sides.
Stancliff hastened them away from the ocean harbor, to ascend a jagged crag which swept upward into the sky beside Calldarington. Atop the plateau, they moved into the trees. Soon the sounds of carnage became dim. Stancliff took them north, as Isabel had suspected he would, and urged them up the steep incline that would take them to the caves.
The ground sloped steeply beneath Isabel's feet. She and Rowena both slipped at times, but Stancliff guided them to the top. After traversing a narrow embankment, he led them toward the mouth of a cavern. At the edge of the precipice, Saxon officers clustered around her brother. Together they observed the distant battle and conferred on strategy.
A warrior ran past the newcomers, his helm bloodied. Falling to his knees before the strategians, he announced, "The assault has succeeded. We have penetrated the keep."
Her brother, solemn-of-face, nodded and lifted his gaze to her. She saw the gleam of his eye, and the hard slant of his lips, and realized something terrible simmered inside him. She was given no chance to consider that further, for Stancliff led her and her sister past several guards, into the cavern.
Without warning, Isabel felt herself shoved forward, hard. She nearly fell to the stony floor, but did not. She whirled, nettled by Stancliff's unexplained roughness. He still held Rowena by the arm.
"Stancliff?" her sister cried. She pressed at his hand, clearly desperate to pry it from her arm. "You are hurting me!"
"And thou didst not seek to hurt me, beloved?" With a growl he pushed her toward Isabel. With eyes full of fire, he glared at them both. "Answer to your king."
"Aye." A voice growled out from behind him. Isabel tensed. Stancliff moved aside, and there stood Ranulf, his mail argent in the faint light. "Answer to your king."
Isabel held her tongue. Her sister did not. "Ranulf. Dearest brother, my king." She hastened forward and fell to her knees. "God will grant you victory against the pagans. I have prayed it would be so."
"When did you pray this, sister?" Ranulf did not bend toward her; rather, he lowered a dispassionate gaze to the crown of her head. Lightly he trailed a finger along her cheek, but his eyes held no affection. "As you stood beside our traitorous cousin, Devon of Wyfordon, to witness the marriage of the Dane to our sister? A man you wished for your own husband?" He hooked his finger into the circlet of flowers and tore it from her head. Rowena gave a little scream and, holding her head in her hands, sobbed.
"Aye, I have spies. Your disappointment in our sister's match was duly noted." With his boot, Ranulf ground the petals into the dirt.
His hot gaze lifted to Isabel. "And you—"
Isabel stepped back.
"Leave us," Ranulf bellowed.
Stancliff stood rigid at the entrance. He considered Isabel, his face as dark as Ranulf's. "My lord, we are in the midst of a battle for control of Norsex."
"I'm aware of the situation." Ranulf's gaze never left Isabel. "Leave us now."
Stancliff lunged past Isabel to claim Rowena's arm. He yanked her to her feet and led her from the cavern.
Ranulf turned his fury to Isabel. He strode forward, violence in his eyes, but Isabel kindled a rage of her own. She would waste no time defending herself when 'twas Ranulf who should be put on trial.
She backed away from him, ensuring she remained out of his reach. "Tell me this true, brother. Are you the father of my son?"
Ranulf ceased his advance mid-step. As if she had stolen the breath from his lungs, he blanched. "What?"
"Answer me."
After an eternity, he whispered, "God, no." Isabel swallowed hard, but forced the foul accusations from her lips. "I know of the peephole." Her voice quaked.
"Of your visits to my room while I lay rendered helpless by sleeping herbs."
Shock rounded Ranulf's eyes, as if he'd been run through with a spear. "I never touched you."
"Do not lie to me." Isabel rushed forward. She had to see his eyes, to see if he lied or spoke the truth.
But to her shock, Ranulf fell away, into a sudden crouch against the cavern wall, as if he could not bear the weight of her accusation. "God's blood, I swear, never."
It stunned her to see the great warrior-king defeated by a few words from her lips. Her voice took on a shrill pitch. "If you are innocent, then why do you cower so?"
"How I struggled to purge my desire for you. How I prayed to God for succor, but he abandoned me to that sin." Ranulf's eyes gleamed with desperation. He covered his mouth, as if it held a thousand secrets. But at once, he arose to his feet and came toward her. "But I never dishonored you. Never! My love for you exceeds my passion, and I honor God's commandments, at least in my actions, if not my heart. Tell me, sister. Is this why you have turned from me?"
She pressed back against the stone wall. Never before had she been more afraid than in this moment. Ranulf appeared mad. Isabel flinched when he lifted a hand to her cheek. Instantly that hand clenched into a fist as Ranulf disallowed himself from touching her.
"Of course," he whispered flatly. "You must find me disgusting."
"Aye, that I do. In the eyes of the church, and in my heart, you were my brother."
In sudden violence, he pressed her against the stone wall. "If I am already condemned for my sins, why should I not go forth and commit them?"
Isabel tried to shove him away. Her breath escaped in short gasps. "Take your hands from me."
"I desire you, Isabel, as a man desires a woman. For so long I have yearned for you, knowing we could never be together."
"You disgrace yourself," Isabel cried, turning her face. Her blood curdled as his kiss slid wet and cold upon her cheek. She shoved him back far enough to escape, if only momentarily, toward the interior of the cave.
Ranulf stalked her. "God hath turned his back upon me for my sins, and I no longer fear his punishments. Why should I, when I already suffer them, day by day?"
Seeing Ranulf's weaponry carefully aligned along the wall, Isabel grasped up a small mace. "Release me."
"Do your best. I surely deserve death, for the things I have done."
From Isabel's mind swept forth an image of a smiling child brother, a brother who had sat upon their father's lap, and who had once played with his toy soldiers, so much like Godric did now. She could not forget him. Emotion choked Isabel. "Nay, Ranulf. 'Tis not too late. Let us go to Father Janus. He can help you."
Ranulf prowled along the far wall of the cavern, moving slowly toward her, trailing his hand along the gray stone.
"Always, Isabel, I loved you. Waited for the time when perhaps I might see the same light in your eyes as I felt in mine own. I knew we could have no lawful union, but perhaps in secret. It made no sense for either of us to marry elsewhere, when doing so would invite covetous relations, powerful men who would wish to claim Norsex for their own. We could have loved one another in clandestine splendor, and guarded our father's legacy."
"No."
"I loved you so much, loved this place so much. And when I thought it would be taken from me—"
"Taken from you?"
Ranulf stopped. He whispered, "I killed him."
Isabel's blood went cold. "Killed who?" Already she knew the answer. "I killed our father."
A scream clawed inside Isabel's throat. But she subdued the urge, knowing her hysteria might drive him over the edge.
"Why?"
"You already know my secret, Isabel. I was no true son." He shook his head, sadly. "I tried so hard to please him, to become the son he'd always wanted. But in some way I must have displeased him. I loved him with all my heart, but he was going to cast me out and name ano
ther heir."
"No. He would never have done that. Father loved you. Even if you were not his true son—" Isabel remembered. Her father had adored Ranulf, had believed without question Ranulf would lead Norsex into a cloudless future.
"Then why did he send for that cursed Dane?" He spat his next words, his face twisted with envy, "Your beloved mercenary?"
Invited.
"That's right, Isabel. By honest mistake, I intercepted father's missive to Ugbert. In it he revealed to his brother his intention to subdue the usurper—" Ranulf's hand shook as he lifted it to wipe the sweat from his upper lip. "That's what he called me, Isabel, 'the usurper.'"
"Ranulf."
"He was already dying, Isabel." As if in concert with this statement, Ranulf's eyes went dead. "I merely helped him along."
"To secure your place as heir."
"Aye." A resurgence of fire lit his eyes. "And no one knew. No one. No one but the Dane, you see."
"Kol did not know."
"Aye, he did," Ranulf almost sobbed. He smeared his hands across his cheeks, distorting his own image. "I saw the condemnation in his eyes when he looked at me."
"Is that why you tortured him?"
With a guttural moan, Ranulf clenched his fists over his eyes. "Every time he looked at me, I could feel that he knew my sin, knew of the patricide which ate at my heart."
Isabel watched as he paced, as he ranted his fears for her to hear, fears he had held inside for so very long. "I was going to gouge his eyes out the next day, for they haunted me in my bed the entire night. But in the morning he was gone. Set free. By you."
Isabel hovered against the wall of the cave, knowing Ranulf would not allow her to leave this cave with knowledge of what he had done. She would die here.
Slowly, he walked toward her. "He was going to take it all away from me, Isabel."
From outside the cave came shouts, the crisp report of arrows striking against stone. Suddenly Ranulf lunged at her. "I will kill you before I will let him have you."
So distracted was Isabel by the sounds from outside the cave, she failed to escape his sudden grasp. She screamed as he lifted a blade above her.
A hand stopped the downward plunge.
"Ranulf!" Stancliff's voice was hoarse above them. "My God, what are you doing?" With a curse, Stancliff dragged Ranulf away. Isabel raced toward the mouth of the cave.
There she stopped. Up the mountain stormed a multitude of men. Saxon and Danish. And there, at the forefront was Kol. He wore no helmet. His hair flew wildly about his head, tossed by the force of his movement and the wind. All around him fell his opponents, victims of his fury.
Suddenly he paused, and looking up the crag, met Isabel's gaze. She raised her hand to him—
Only to be torn from the earth, a tourniquet crushing her abdomen. She gasped, unable to breathe.
A huge Norseman, one of Ranulf's mercenaries, carried both herself and Rowena toward the tree line.
"We are safe. He has orders to protect us," gasped Rowena, her lips nearly blue from the Norwegian's crushing hold.
Further into the forest they moved. Around her, the world veered and jostled, and finally Isabel lost all understanding of exactly where they were.
The mercenary hurled them to the ground. Isabel rolled to a stop against a tree trunk, as did Rowena beside her.
Isabel's skin crawled, hearing the Norseman's low laughter. Why did he laugh so? She realized the answer quickly enough.
Like a bear seeking prey, the soldier reached out a meaty paw and grabbed her sister. In one quick movement, he tore the front of her tunic. Rowena screamed.
Frantically, Isabel searched the ground for any sort of weapon. She cringed, hearing Rowena's screams, and again, the sound of rending cloth.
Desperately her hands grasped a huge stone, too large for her to lift. Again, she heard the laughter from deep within the man's throat. This time, instead of inspiring her to tremble in fear, she trembled with rage.
She would not allow her sister to be defiled by this foul beast. One defiler of women upon the earth was one too many, and if she had to exterminate them all, one by one, she would begin now.
With sudden strength, Isabel bellowed, and lifted the stone into the air, above her head.
Upon the ground, the beast grasped her sister's hands over her head and sought to part her thrashing legs with his knee.
Isabel staggered beneath the weight of the stone. The beast, intent on his prey, remained oblivious to her presence behind him. A smile curved Isabel's lips.
Steadying herself, ensuring her aim, she catapulted the stone in a downward arc. It landed on the Viking's head and rewarded her ears with a satisfying crunch. Rowena screeched.
The stone bounced off the fiend's skull and rolled to the side, while the mercenary collapsed onto her sister.
"I'm here, Rowena." Isabel scrambled to pull her sister from beneath the unconscious hulk. "He won't hurt you."
Rowena continued to scream, even as Isabel dragged her away. "He was going to... going to—"
"I know. I know. But he won't now."
"Is he... dead?"
"I don't know." Isabel glanced toward the giant. "I think so."
"I can't bear to look at him." As if to emphasize her disgust, Rowena screamed again.
Unable to take any more screaming, Isabel moved to block her sister's view of the man. "Calm yourself, sister. We must think of what to do."
Suddenly, Rowena's eyes widened. A shadow fell across them.
Rowena screamed.
Pain ripped across Isabel's scalp, as if her hair had been torn from her head. Above her, the sky moved in short, jagged bursts. He dragged her by her hair. Pain shot down her spine as jagged stones gouged her skull and back. Desperately, she dug her fingers and heels into the earth.
He stopped and crouched above her, his lip curled into a wicked smile. Blood trickled from his forehead, down his nose, and dripped onto her cheek.
This time it was Isabel who screamed. Though she knew her strength to be futile in comparison to his, she curled her arm and rammed her fist into the side of his face.
Shockingly, his expression went blank. He tilted to the side, and collapsed. Isabel shoved the senseless heap from her shoulder and leapt to her feet. Oh, God, the stench of him. It was all over her.
Frantic, she searched the small clearing for Rowena, but realized she had been left completely and utterly alone with the downed Norseman.
Rowena had run away, leaving her here to fend for herself.
At her feet the man stirred, groaning. Isabel did not tarry another second, but lunged into the thicket. She ran. Beneath her feet the spring foliage crunched and rustled. The sound of her breath echoed off the trees.
"Rowena!" she shouted. "Rowena!"
She paused, listening for a response, but there was none. Not even the sounds of the battle penetrated this deeply into the forest. Isabel heard only the furtive clickings of insects, the rustling of foliage. Bird songs. Nature held herself oblivious to the spilling of human blood.
Behind her arose a bellow of rage, and a startled flock of birds.
Clasping her hands over her mouth, she fled into the thickest part of the undergrowth. She did not call for her sister again.
Chapter 22
"Isabel!" Kol bellowed into the darkness. He had not paused for even an instant after felling the final challenger, before crashing into the forest in search of her.
Ranulf fled north, but Kol did not care. Nothing mattered anymore. Nothing but Isabel. He had to find her. He had seen the mercenary take her and her sister into the forest.
Even now dusk fell in a thick, smothering blanket across the land. How long would he be allowed to follow the trail left by the Norwegian giant?
He forged ahead, tracking the beast. In time, he could no longer perceive the crushed grass, the bruised leaves or broken stems. Fear clenched itself with an iron vise around his heart. If Isabel was dead, he could only hold himself and his pride
to blame. For so long he had pursued his vengeance, scorching his way across the earth and stamping out those he deemed unworthy of a life he would not be allowed to live himself.
He should have lived, he should have loved, regardless of the brief time he would be allowed. Now his time upon the earth, and all its violent glories, faded to nothingness beneath the knowledge his bride might be dead.
Kol fell to his knees and stared up through the trees, into the purple sky of twilight. Had it taken her death to bring him to final redemption?
He halted, perceiving a sound. A low groan. Male.
His nostrils flaring, he lifted his sword and held it ready. But the man, when he found him, offered no threat. He lay crouched, his head in his hands. Blood matted the man's hair, as well as the ground beneath him. A large stone lay nearby, it too circled with blood.
Then he saw them. Shreds of cloth, their weave fine, their color, delicate of hue. Pieces of a woman's tunic. Kol swallowed hard and circled the man. For Kol, the twilight turned red. Blood red. With a foot, he shoved the Norseman to his back.
Through rage-clenched teeth, Kol hissed, "Where is she?"
"Danish bastard." The Norwegian's lip curled. He attempted to spit on Kol, but managed only to spray red hued spittle upon himself.
Nostrils flaring, Kol extended his sword. "My enemy, this death will be the easy one. For if I find you have hurt her I will follow you into your Hell and slay you a thousand times more."
He finished the warrior.
Turning, he peered at the circle of forest around him, his eyes keen for any sign of Isabel's path of escape.
Blood stained the grass, and there, the trunk of a tree. Inside his chest, his heart quaked. He crashed through the forest, his heart growing colder in tandem with the chill of the descent of night. Though his body performed instinctively with the stamina of a warrior, he grew increasingly soul sick. He had seen the wickedness of men firsthand, the consequences of human deviance. Too vividly he remembered these horrors, and could not prevent his mind from placing Isabel's image in their midst.
"Isabel!" he bellowed his anguish into the colorless purgatory which surrounded him.
