“I would hazard to guess that they are planning on burning the city,” he said to Lane, standing alongside him. “They would rather burn it than see it fall into English hands.”
“It is already in English hands, my lord,” Lane said frankly.
Stephen smiled ironically. “They are so blinded by their bitterness that they will cut off their nose to spite their face and call it victory.”
Lane and the two young knights snorted in agreement, watching the smoke grow heavier near the main city gates. Dusk was approaching and a battle by night was not something Stephen relished. He wondered how de Lara was faring. They could hear sounds of battle in the distance but were too far away to catch sight of what was happening. Ian was reading his mind.
“Shall we take a contingent of soldiers to de Lara, my lord?” he asked. “There is no knowing how many Scots he is facing.”
Stephen shook his head. “We cannot risk a breach of the castle. We must stay locked up tight. De Lara will have to fend for himself until such time as we can gain the upper hand and send help.”
Ian nodded, the sunset reflecting in his dark eyes. He was a very tall, very slender man with large facial features. His counterpart, Sir Alan, was average in height but powerful. He had a rather wide-eyed appearance as he watched the city in smoke. Stephen passed a glance at him, suspecting the battles for Berwick were his first battles as a knight and he had not yet learned the art of viewing the blood and fear as part of the vocation. He was still young and anxious.
They began to see a flow of men moving towards them from the interior of the city. Hundreds of Scots were advancing towards them, howling like a barbarian tide and carrying several ladders they meant to put against the walls of Berwick to gain access. The castle itself sat upon a hill with a massive curtain wall that stretched down to the river. Stephen could see a group of Scots moving for the river, knowing they were going to immerse themselves in the water in an attempt to get around the wall in order to gain access. The siege was growing more critical.
Calmly, he turned to Ian and Alan.
“And so it comes,” he said evenly. “Disburse your men along the walls and ensure that the postern gate is heavily guarded. We will have a contingent of men coming from the river side, so make sure you concentrate your men on that side of the castle. Ian, you have command of the river side of the fortress. Alan, you have the rest of the wall. Make sure it is properly covered. I will take the gatehouse.
The knights disbanded, going about their duties. Stephen remained on the wall of the gatehouse, watching the Scots as they charged the wall and began to put up their ladders. His helm, having been held in one hand, was placed atop his head and the chin strap secured. He was a knight in full battle armor, as deadly as any man who had ever walked the earth.
“Weapons!” he bellowed to the soldiers on the wall.
The troops sheathed broadswords and produced the smaller, shorter blades meant for close quarters combat. He had about five hundred men in the entire castle. Gazing at the group below, he hoped it would be enough.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The siege of Berwick waged well into the night and continued into the next morning. It was apparent that the attack on the city and castle had been planned since the defeat of the Scots at Halidon Hill, for the men from the north came well prepared with ladders and siege engines. Arrows, some of them Welsh in origin with their long, spiny shafts and serrated heads, had come flying over the wall and struck down several soldiers in a series of barrages. As daylight dawned, lovely and bright, Berwick Castle was in yet another horrific battle in a history that had been full of them.
Stephen and his men had spent all night upon the walls shoving back ladders of Scots attempting to breach the castle. Stephen had received a gash to his face when an enemy sword tip inadvertently struck him, barely missing his eye, but was otherwise unharmed. He had spent nearly all his time at the gatehouse fighting off ladders since the gatehouse was the flattest portion of land on which to brace a ladder. It was the Scots’ rallying point.
The Scots were apparently calling in reinforcements because the swarm around the castle was becoming heavier. It made Stephen wonder what had happened to de Lara. He hoped the man had somehow survived. The alternative distressed him tremendously but he could not dwell on it. He was in the midst of his own mortal fight. He would fight off men from one ladder, shove it away from the wall only to see that two more had been put against the old stone walls of Berwick Castle. It was becoming apparent that they would have to do something drastic or the castle would eventually be breached and his mind began to work furiously for a solution.
Near him, a few of his soldiers were having trouble fighting off a group of Scots who were beginning to climb off their ladder and onto the wall. Stephen went to their aid, striking down two of the men and throwing one of them back over the wall. He didn’t see the second ladder that came up behind him nor an angry Scot heading for him with a sword drawn. Someone yelled at him to beware and he turned in time to see a Scotsman upon him. He didn’t have time to raise his sword; all he could do was try to duck the blow. But as he rolled to the deck, positive he was about to receive a nasty wound, an English soldier was suddenly behind the Scot and gored the man through the back. The enemy did nothing more than fall harmlessly on Stephen, who swiped the man off him and tossed him to the bailey below.
Stephen leapt to his feet, nodding his head at the English soldier to acknowledge his help.
“My thanks,” he said. “I thought my living days were over.”
The English soldier was older, with a worn and leathery face. But he smiled with the few green teeth he had and tipped his helm back, wiping at his sweaty brow. When his hand came away, Stephen noticed the thick, faded half-moon scar near his scalp line.
“A pleasure, m’lord,” the man replied.
Stephen’s blood ran cold as he envisioned the scar. Like a half-moon, it was an obvious feature like a nose or an eye. A wave of nausea swept Stephen as he held the man in his steady gaze, studying him, flashes of the horror that Joselyn had described rolling through his brain. The rape of a young girl, the pain and terror she felt, the subsequent child that resulted. All of it flashed before his eyes until all he could feel was fury.
“What is your name?” his voice sounded oddly strangled.
“Bowen, m’lord,” the soldier replied.
“Whom do you serve?”
“Carlisle, m’lord,” he said, his dark gaze moving in the direction of de Lara’s distant troops. “There are about fifty of us in the castle. We were separated from Lord de Lara when the siege began. Do you suppose we will have a chance to aid the earl?”
Stephen didn’t reply. He couldn’t. When he should have been focused on a nasty battle, he found that all he could do was stare at the man before him. The nausea grew.
“You will answer a question, Bowen,” he realized he was quivering. “Did you serve Andrew Harclay?”
“Aye, m’lord, I did.”
“And eleven years ago in the city of Carlisle, did you rape a young girl?”
Bowen looked struck. When he didn’t answer, Stephen produced the broadsword and put it at the man’s throat.
“Answer me,” he growled.
Bowen suddenly looked terrified. He tried to back away from Stephen but had nowhere to go. The parapet was behind him and a thirty foot drop to the bailey.
“I… I don’t…,” he stammered.
Stephen cut him off. “Tell me or I kill you where you stand.”
Bowen’s terror was turning into panic. “I don’t remember!”
“You are lying. I will give you one more opportunity to answer me or I drive this sword through your neck.”
Bowen was backed up against the parapet. The only place to go was down and he put up his hands in a pleading gesture. “I didn’t rape her!” he warbled. “Her father owed me!”
Stephen paused, an expression of supreme confusion on his face. “What do you mean by that?”
Bowen was breathing rapidly with fear; his chest heaved laboriously. “The man had a gambling debt to me,” he told him, his voice shaking. “He came into Carlisle often, to the barracks, and would engage in gambling with the soldiers. We all knew him. But he lost to me one time too many and when I tried to collect the debt, he couldn’t pay. So I took his daughter instead.”
“What do you mean you took her? You raped her?”
“I took what he had of value. It was my right to collect the debt any way I saw fit.”
Stephen’s nausea intensified. He just stared at the man, unable to fathom that manner of human being. It was the vilest thing he had ever heard. “She was eleven years old,” his voice was a sickened rumble. “You stole the innocence of an eleven year old in payment for a gambling debt?”
The sword had backed off somewhat and Bowen regained a measure of his courage. He feared Pembury; they all did. But that fear did not prevent him from speaking his mind. Like most of the foot soldiers, he did not know that Pembury had taken a Scots wife. Had Bowen known that, he might have shown more restraint. Instead, his ignorance would cost him.
“I did not take her innocence,” he grumbled. “It was not the first time her father had sold her off. She was a whore.”
The sword went through his neck before he could draw another breath.
*
Joselyn had spent an entire night listening to the sounds of battle all around her. Closed up in her bower with Mereld, Tilda and the fawn, they had huddled in fear as the sounds of hell filled the air. She felt as she had not a week earlier while she sat with her mother and father in the great hall of Berwick as the English closed in; they knew they were facing their demise. Little did she know at the time that it did not signify her death but her rebirth.
She hadn’t slept the entire night, worrying about Stephen. She knew that if the Scots managed to take the castle, they would not hurt her. But she was terribly concerned for her husband. Not knowing if he was safe or dead ate at her like a cancer, odd since only the day before the man had been her enemy. But no longer.
As dawn broke, the smell of smoke was heavy in the chamber. A breeze was blowing to the east, carrying upon it smoke from the fires in the city. She dared to peer from the lancet window facing the bailey and part of the great hall and could see the wounded being carried into the great hall. It occurred to her that, as Lady Pembury, she should tend the wounded. Although life at Jedburgh had not prepared her for that, she knew her duty all the same. Stephen had told her not to leave the chamber but she could not shirk her duties. The wounded needed help and she was intent to provide it.
Moving away from the window, she roused Mereld and Tilda.
“We must go and help the wounded,” she told them, pointing to Stephen’s bags against the wall. “Gather my husband’s things. He had all manner of medicine in his bags and we will take it down to the great hall where the wounded are.”
The old women moved to do her bidding, struggling under the heavy bags. “Do ye know what to do, Jo-Jo?” Old Mereld asked. “Ye have never tended a wounded man before.”
Joselyn shrugged. “If he is bleeding, we stop it. If he has a hole, we sew it up.” She lifted her hands. “What more is there to know?”
The old woman scowled. “There is more to it than that. What if his bones are sticking out? What then?”
Joselyn opened her mouth to reply but a sharp bang on the door cut her off. Startled, she rushed to the bolted door.
“Who comes?” she demanded fearfully.
“Open the door.” It was Stephen’s muffled voice.
Thrilled, she threw open the panel and prepared to throw her arms around him. But Stephen charged in, grabbing her by both arms and lifting her off the ground. He continued to charge until he was clear across the chamber and had her cornered against the wall, trapped by his massive presence. She went from thrilled to terrified in the wink of an eye.
“Stephen,” she gasped. He was not hurting her but the pressure from his grip was intense. “What is…?”
“Enough,” he snapped, his blue eyes blazing into her. “No more half-truths or lies, Joselyn, else you will not like my reaction. You will tell me the absolute truth.”
She was shaken. “Truth? What truth?”
“Your father,” he demanded before she finished her sentence. “Did he use you to pay off his gambling debts? Is that why the soldier raped you?”
Joselyn’s face turned white. They could all see it. Her trembling worsened. “Who told you such things?”
Stephen was so enraged, so sickened, that it was all he could focus on. He was in battle mode but now confronting perhaps the most important thing he had ever faced. In battle, he at least had the ability to protect himself with armor and shield. But with Joselyn, his heart was naked, his soul vulnerable, and he was having a difficult time. There was no defense. After what Bowen had told him, he could think of nothing else.
“It does not matter,” he growled. “Is it true?”
Joselyn opened her mouth. But she could not speak and the tears came. “Let me go.”
He shook her, hard. “Not until you tell me the truth,” he seethed. “The rape by the soldier in Carlisle was not the first time a man had touched you, was it?” his voice was a growl. “There had been other times before that one, weren’t there? Weren’t there?”
She broke down, weeping. Before Stephen could force her to reply, old Mereld rushed forward with the fire poker in her hand. She slapped at Stephen’s armored arm, trying to force the man to release Joselyn. When he didn’t budge, she whacked him again.
“’Tis not her fault!” the old woman smacked his shoulder. “She had no choice! Her father forced her to!”
Stephen looked at the old woman, unable to speak for the revelations that were coming forth. Tilda rushed up, hovering nervously, also prepared to defend Joselyn against her enraged husband. Two old women against a massive knight was hardly a fight but they were prepared to defend their young lady to the death. There were truths to be known that, being servants, should not have come from their lips. But it was clear that Joselyn’s life was at stake and they could remain silent no longer. The young woman had been through enough and now, when she had finally found happiness, old horrors were intent to ruin it.
“Alexander Seton knew her value at a young age,” Tilda was almost weeping as she spoke. “He had a gambling sickness and when he could not pay his debts, he would use Jo-Jo as security. Some men would use her to work off the debt with labor while others would simply keep her as a guest for a time. But there were a few who… they would….”
By this time, Stephen had let Joselyn go. He faced the old women with more emotion than he had ever displayed in life. It was unrestrained, unbridled and spilling out all over the place.
“What would they do?” he demanded hoarsely.
Tilda twisted her hands anxiously. “She was young and beautiful, m’lord,” the woman’s tears broke through. “She developed a womanly body at a young age. They would take her to sport.”
Because Tilda was crying, Mereld began to weep also. “She had no choice,” the old woman wept. “Jo-Jo would run away and her mother would hide her, but Alexander would always find her and return her to the men to whom he owed the debts. Sometimes he would beat her for her insolence. It was finally Lady Julia who sent Jo-Jo to Jedburgh so she could be free of her father. Then she married off Lady Margaret by the time she was nine years of age so her father could not use her in the same way he used Lady Joselyn. Why do you think Lady Julia went mad? She had a husband who was a soulless devil.”
Stephen just stared at them. His blue eyes were filled with shock. An eternity of silence followed, punctuated by the distant sounds of battle. But Stephen remained frozen as if unable to move, unable to accept what he had been told. When he finally closed his eyes to ward off the horror of Joselyn’s life, tears rolled down his cheeks.
Slowly, he turned to his wife. She had collapsed on the floor, hudd
led against the wall and wept as if her heart were broken. He went to her, woodenly, his posture indicative of his exhaustion and emotional level. He crouched wearily next to her, gazing at her lowered head.
“Joselyn,” he murmured hoarsely. “Look at me.”
She sobbed harder, pressing her face into the wall. “Nay,” she cried, holding out a hand as if to ward him off. “Go away and leave me.”
He grabbed the hand, yanking her off the floor and into his arms. She fought him for a half second before succumbing to his powerful embrace. He held her tightly, his face in her hair. Her sobs undid him and tears fell from his eyes faster than he imagined possible.
“I will never leave you, ever,” he whispered. “Why did you not tell me the truth?”
She sobbed her anguish. “How would you have accepted it?” she asked, almost angrily. “The night we met was bitter enough. How would you have accepted the truth? That you were forced into a marriage with a woman whose father abused her and used her to pay his gambling debts? But I had to tell you something. You would have found out quickly enough that I was not virgin, so I told you of the rape. It was not a lie.”
He rocked her gently, knowing she was correct to a certain extent. He would not have accepted the truth well the night they met. He was dazed with the revelations but it did not change what he felt for her. If anything, it deepened his sense of compassion and connection with the woman. He could not believe how horribly she had been mistreated yet had still managed to maintain her fight, her sense of humor and her dignity. She was, in every sense, an amazing woman. At the moment, he felt extremely fortunate to have her.
He sighed faintly, wiping his tears from his face. “Then the soldier from Carlisle truly raped you.”
She nodded. “He did,” she whispered. “I did not know until afterwards that he had my father’s permission.”
Border Brides Page 122
