“Why?” Her hand went to her throat. “Why did you kill her? She was a kind woman.”
Stuart’s stunned expression turned to a scowl of fury as he hissed at William, “I told you to stay out of her sight. I warned you. You have ruined everything!”
“Tell her, Stuart. Tell her why her mother died. Tell her of your father’s greed for land. Tell her why I tied her head so your father could watch and command us from behind her. Tell her how he drank her brother’s blood to seal his pact with hell.” William laughed in wicked satisfaction, thoroughly enjoying the moment. He didn’t take his eyes from Della as he spoke. Stuart’s face turned dark in his fury.
“Stuart?” She eyed her cousin, hurt that his treachery could have gone so far. “You knew? All these years you have known? You knew and you tried to make me believe that Brant’s father…”
Della couldn’t continue. Tears blinded her to reason and her heart ached at the true depths of her cousin’s betrayal. She started to turn, intent on getting away. Her feet slipped in the mud and she landed hard upon the earth. Pushing desperately at the slick ground, she righted herself, not knowing where she would run only that she must try. She took a hasty step toward the forest, but before she could get away something hard crashed against her temple.
Della stumbled, falling in a daze. She landed roughly on her hands and knees. Her fingers gripped the ground in pain. Through a fog, she heard Serilda cackling above her.
“I told you she wasn’t changed,” Serilda gloated. Della heard the woman circle her like a hunting beast. The salty flavor of blood filled her mouth and dripped to the ground. “We should kill her and be done with it. Then there will be no one left to naysay yer claim. You will be the only heir to the land.”
And that was the last Della heard. Her limbs trembled as she tried to stand, wanting to defend herself against the treacherous midwife. She never reached her feet. Serilda leaned over and hit her head again, causing her world to go black.
* * * * *
Stars peeked through the purpling sky as the orange glow of the sun set against the horizon. The threat of rain was over for the moment, but the humidity the dark clouds brought was not. Brant listened to the forest. No animals made noise and even the insects were quiet. The wind picked up, blowing over the land, crashing the leaves together in a natural melody on the trees.
Brant slowly urged his horse toward the large oak. The old tree bent naturally to the east, just as Della wrote. He knew in his gut that his wife was not there, felt that she wasn’t. He wasn’t surprised, for he hadn’t expected her to be.
Brant watched the trees, not knowing what to believe. He was no fool to think Della had meant it when she wrote she loved him. She’d said just the opposite to him on many occasions. But why the deception to gain his trust? Was she really so heartless as to throw his words of love into his face now? Or was it because she loved Stuart still? For it was with the help of Stuart and Serilda that she had her message delivered. He knew Edwyn played no part in his wife’s deception, only that Rab had no knowledge of the secret passage. That was why the boy thought the elderly man helped the midwife.
Suddenly, an arrow whizzed by his ear, missing the lobe by less than an inch. Brant responded with an instinct born from years of combat. He charged his horse behind the protection of the oak’s thick trunk before swinging swiftly to the ground. He landed silently on the moist earth and drew his sword as another arrow hissed by to land near his feet. He heard a string of curses before the forest went silent.
“Blackwell!”
“Yea,” Brant yelled tersely. He straightened and relaxed his sword a bit, angling it toward the ground. “What was that all about?”
“Methought to give you at least a bit of sport this day,” Gunther answered in return. Brant heard the smirk in his friend’s voice. “Are you hit?”
“Nay,” Brant growled. “Did you find the archer?”
“We got him,” Roldan answered. Another curse echoed the forest and then a loud, pained grunt. “Yea, his manhood fell on my foot. He will not be moving fer awhile.”
Brant relaxed his guard and glanced around the wooden trunk of his sanctuary. He was barely able to move his head when a sword thrust deftly near his face. He struck up with his blade in one fluid motion to block the attack, returning the man’s paltry blow with one of his own more powerful ones. Brant forced the hidden attacker to stumble away from the protection of the tree and into his view.
“Cedric,” Brant acknowledged with a sharp growl. He shook his head in mocking amusement. The knight righted himself and swung around with a lift of his smaller sword. Brant once again deflected the blow. “Give this up, boy. You are no match for me. I have seen you practice. I know all six of your moves.”
“Blackwell,” Cedric spat in ire. His face turned red at the insult. “How is it I should be frightened by an old man who fights with the skill of a crippled elder woman?”
Brant grimaced at the poorly delivered slur as he blocked the man’s assault. His broadsword dwarfed the man’s smaller, slender Anglo-Saxon weapon. Cedric dashed his blade forward several times and each time Brant expertly countered the blow. The younger man lacked the skill to thrust his weapon close to the more experienced fighter. As Brant thwarted another attempt, Cedric turned quickly and took him by surprise. His blade glanced off Brant’s unprotected arm, nicking his flesh enough to draw blood. Determined, Brant held back though he had perfect opportunity to kill the knight.
“Tell me where Lady Blackwell is,” Brant commanded, as he darted away from an unsuccessful attempt. The metal of their blades met and clanged several times, drowning out any response. Brant ducked as Cedric swung wildly for his head. With each passing second, the traitor became more desperate.
“She is with her true husband, Blackwell. The true Ealdorman of Strathfeld.”
“So you are loyal to Stuart, that son of a pig,” Brant deduced with little surprise, getting more aggressive, pushing the man back toward the trees. His sword moved with such skill that the knight could do nothing but block the oncoming blows. “Where has he taken my wife?”
“She is not yer wife fer long. Not after I take yer head and collect my reward.” Cedric tried to assault Brant from one direction and then the other to no avail. He backed his body closer to the forest. Sweat beaded on his worried brow. “And she was not taken anywhere she did not want to be. She begged me to take her to Stuart!”
Cedric’s feet crunched on the dampened leaves. He saw red at the man’s implications. It was as he feared. Della had gone willingly to her cousin. She had tried to set Brant up to die and she used his own words of love against him.
Cedric smiled at his opponent’s fallen look and charged, angling is sword toward Brant’s chest. A look of sweet victory crossed his mouth, but he was mistaken in thinking the pain of his words would lessen the ealdorman’s guard. The anger only drove Brant onward, determined to live so he may find his lovely wife and strangle her. Brant moved from the inept knight’s path, instead sinking his blade into the soft skin of Cedric’s stomach.
Cedric gasped in surprise. Brant grunted as he forced his blade deeper. Blood ran thick from the stricken knight’s mouth. Cedric’s sword clanked awkwardly to the ground and he grabbed the sharp bladed edge of Brant’s sword and tried to pull it from his body. The sword didn’t move and Cedric lost a finger trying.
Brant watched the life drain from the man’s eyes, unmoved by Cedric’s silent plea for mercy. Cedric could not speak and when he opened his mouth, he choked on his own blood. It was too late for compassion, even if Brant had wanted to give it. Kicking the man from his sword, he turned his attention to the forest. The man fell to the ground, forgotten.
“Gunther! Roldan!” Brant ordered. Tortured, the pain in his chest was unbearable as he choked it down deep, trying to bury it.
“Yea.” Gunther came forward.
“Stuart?” Brant asked.
“Nay, it was only Cedric and this one.” Gunther helped
Roldan drag a prisoner between them, each grasping one of the man’s arms. The prisoner’s legs were bound tightly together and his wrists were tied in the same fashion behind his back “We did not see Cedric hidden behind the oak. Otherwise, we would have stopped him before he attacked.”
Gunther dropped the man to the ground and Roldan let go soon after. The dark captive fell with a snort, hitting the dirt with his face. Rocking up, he spit out a tooth with a defiant look up at the men.
“He is William,” Roldan said as the man thudded his feet hard on the ground next to Cedric’s body. “He is willing to make a deal fer his life.”
Brant nodded and stepped forward. He glared down at the man before nudging the prisoner’s chin with the tip of his shoe. William’s hands strained against the rope as he twisted to look up. Brant angled his toe so that it embedded in the tender part of the man’s chin. A large, angry welt was on the side of his temple, showing through a tangle of his long, black hair.
“Let him speak,” Brant ordered. The entire time, he didn’t take his eyes from William. He dropped his boot and took a step away. Motioning his head, he ordered Roldan to flip the man on his back.
The knight obeyed, kicking William over before saying, “Speak.”
“I will tell you where Stuart is,” William panted. He looked at Brant and smiled. “I have no care who is Ealdorman of Strathfeld. I was hired only to do a task.”
“A mercenary,” Brant concluded with a frown. “An untrustworthy cur.”
“Nay,” William protested, not showing fear as he negotiated for his life. “That is why you can trust me. I owe no allegiance and now have reason to betray him.”
Brant nodded, bidding the man to continue. William might be his only hope of reaching Della and his unborn child. Listening, he made his way to gather his horse’s reins. The well-trained animal hadn’t moved.
“I will tell you where they are, in exchange fer my freedom,” William offered.
“Tell me,” Brant conceded, “and I will have you taken as prisoner to my castle. Do not and I will have you slaughtered like a sow right here and now.”
“Then no deal,” William said.
“If you tell me, I will have you taken prisoner until I have retrieved my wife,” Brant paused, and enunciated in words this kind of man could understand, “my property. She is mine and I will have her back.”
Brant raged inwardly, but his expression remained eerily calm. Even through his anger, he wanted Della safely home. He refused to say her name and it pained him to call her wife.
William grunted, starting to deny the claim. “She is—”
“But,” Brant continued, “if you have harmed my property and thus insulted me in any way, I will have you killed for your offense to me.”
William didn’t move as he contemplated his options.
When the man didn’t readily agree, Brant tossed his head to Gunther. “Gut him.”
“Nay!” William denied, as Gunther reached into his belt for a knife. Gunther leaned over him with the blade and paused to look at Brant. William gulped, showing his first sign of fear. “I will tell you.”
Brant tilted his head to order Gunther back.
“That is what methought.” Gunther chuckled darkly. His hand rested on his knife.
“Speak,” Brant ordered. “And make it good, lest I change my mind and kill you.”
* * * * *
“Be still, Della.” Stuart dug his fingernails into the soft skin of her inner elbow, holding her still.
Della struggled in protest. The ropes binding her arms above her head bit into her wrists, digging painfully into her flesh until she felt a raw sting with every jerk. Wrenching away from Stuart’s touch, she shot him a deadly glare. Her cousin flinched at her blatant hatred, but soon found his composure.
She’d regained consciousness only to discover that she’d been gagged and bound to the cottage bed. Della paid little mind to the throbbing in her temple. Her fear outweighed any physical discomforts.
Serilda laid out devilish, gruesome instruments along a table, deliberately placing them within Della’s view. A large, thin knife glinted in the firelight, as the midwife held it up. Della closed her eyes and looked away. Serilda chuckled. Stuart said nothing.
Pulling frantically against the ropes at her ankles, she found they too were strong. Desperate tears stung her eyes and her heart pounded so hard she felt it throughout her body. She muttered curses against the gag in her mouth, breathing heavily through her nose and refusing to look at Stuart. Pleading with him would do no good.
It hadn’t taken her long to realize Stuart had known the truth behind her mother’s death and of William’s part in the deed. She’d read the hardened reality in their eyes before Serilda struck her.
Please God, don’t let them take my baby. Don’t let them take Brant from me. By all the Saints, don’t let them harm my family.
Glaring at her cousin, she struggled against his hands on her shoulder. His touch repulsed her. She screamed against the gag.
“Quiet,” Serilda said.
Della closed her eyes and continued to mutter every obscenity she could think of. She even found use of a few Nordic curses she’d heard from her husband when he didn’t know she listened.
Serilda sharpened the gruesome knife against a grinding stone. “M’lady, it will hurt less if you do not move. I should hate to see you bleed to death.”
“You will not cut her unnecessarily,” Stuart told the midwife. “If she dies, you die.”
Serilda paled and said nothing more, but her hand shook at the warning. Della whimpered, remembering the rough treatment she’d been given during the checking. With mounting fright, she realized Serilda planned on sticking the knife inside of her. She fought harder against the press of Stuart’s hands, but her bonds held her fast to the bed like a metal vise.
She closed her eyes, too scared to watch as Serilda stopped grinding the blade. A tear trickled over Della’s face and her heart yelled for Brant. She heard the midwife step toward the bed, her footfalls were the ominous sound of defeat. Della braced herself for what was to come. Fear welled inside her. The only thing she could think of was Brant and his smiling face. And she knew she would sooner die than live without him.
* * * * *
Night was fast approaching and the evening sky blanketed the ground in its darkness. Brant sent Roldan back to Strathfeld with the prisoner before making his way to the abandoned cottage with Gunther. Everything was like the man had said. They had no trouble finding it and Stuart obviously hadn’t expected his plans of an ambush to go awry because they had no difficulty sneaking inside.
As Brant stepped silently across the threshold of the cottage door, he lowered his drawn sword. The small room was musty and abandoned, and the fire pit was cold. Brant sniffed and could detect nothing that proved his wife had been there.
Turning, he motioned Gunther from the doorway, signaling his friend to check around the cottage before coming inside. Gunther nodded and ducked out into the shadows. Brant stepped into the room, worried he’d misjudged William’s fear and that the man had lied to him. Then, out of the silence, he heard a muffled scream. Tilting his head to the side to better listen, he hardened his stance. A shuffling sound came from the back of the room. That is when he noticed the small door in the side wall of the front chamber.
Della! He began to rush forward, but then held back as heard the voices from the other side. Bile rose in his throat.
“Get on with it, Serilda.” Brant recognized Stuart’s voice. “It’s taking you too long.”
“Keep her still,” Serilda answered. “Hold her legs open.”
“It would be better if we could give her something for the pain. Did you bring none of your potions?” Stuart again.
“She had me tossed from the manor before I could gather my draughts. It’s her own fault,” Serilda returned, her tone harsh. A muffled sound followed the words.
“Della.” Stuart’s voice was strained, but the
n softened. “Keep still lest we are unable to get that heathen brat from your womb. It will only hurt for a moment and then you will be free of it.”
Brant was sure his heart stopped beating as Della’s stifled response answered her cousin. He hadn’t wanted to believe that Della betrayed him. He didn’t want to believe that she plotted to have him killed. But the evidence was too overwhelming.
And now she is killing my child, just as she first promised to do.
Without thought of his own safety, Brant smashed through the door in a violent rage. All he saw was his murderous anger as he glared at the chamber’s occupants, taking it all in within a second. His wife was bound to the bed with a bit tied in her mouth to help with the pain.
Her skirts were thrown over her waist, lying bare her thighs and stomach for all to see. At his entrance, her eyes grew round. Stuart sat by her shoulders, possessively caressing the soft skin of her neck and Serilda kneeled between her thighs with a crude knife and a forked metal spike. Disgusted, Brant’s blood ran cold.
“Blackwell,” Stuart squeaked, his face instantly pale. “It’s not possible. You should be dead!”
Serilda dropped her knife. The crude weapon landed on the dirt floor with a thud and she scrambled off the cot to retrieve it.
Della groaned and struggled against her ties. Tears fell from her eyes to leave clean trails on her dirty face. She stared at him, pleading with him. But for what? Mercy? Brant couldn’t give her that. After her betrayal, he had none left. He had nothing left.
“Yea, it’s very possible,” Brant said, the words dark and passionless. “You sent a paid fool and a boy to kill me.”
Stuart shot to his feet and looked hastily around the chamber for a weapon. His hands visibly shook as he didn’t find one. Serilda lifted her knife and backed away slowly, refusing to give it over to him when he motioned her to come nearer.
Lord of Fire, Lady of Ice Page 36
