by Hannah West
Her Norman Lord
Norman Lords:
Book One
By Hannah West
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2015
Cover Art by WCD
Chapter One
The wind was howling with the bitter cold of a frost bitten winter that had crept up on the land as William had finally been crowed the rightful King of England and his faithful warriors were granted their rest after many a year of bitter war. The war had been bloody and many men were lost and no one felt this more the Adrian de Lyon, King William’s right hand warrior and longtime friend. Adrian had been the one to train most of the men who had gone to war for their new king and he had known each one as an equal in battle whether they lived or fell.
Now at the age of two score he was bone wary of war, tired of the blood as only a man could be after he lost his soul to killing so many. Adrian was a hard and bitter man, his body shaped by war and scarred by the hands of lesser men.
Adrian sat silently on his horse beside his king as they road to Carlye Castle that would serve as the king’s temporary court. He was stiff in his old worn saddle covered in the dirt and sweat, hard bent to finally find some rest. It didn’t take long for his younger friend and king to look over to him with narrowed eyes and a frown on his wane face.
“I know that look, my friend,” William said quietly. “What bothers you?”
Adrian looked over to him and gave a small jerk of his head. “You know what it is that ails me, my king.”
William blew out a sigh. “Indeed, indeed. I am just sorry this had to come about the way it had. But be gladdened the war is over for the most part.”
Adrian’s eyes hardened and he nodded as his throat tightened. “Death can only come too soon for me now that you sit atop your throne.”
King William shook his head. “Tis the talk of death that has you in a foul mood. I have something to bequest to you.”
“I want naught of yours,” Adrian said, his mouth set in a grim line.
“You take not, seek not, and do not that which I have never asked you to do. But this you shall take from me if only to save me the trouble,” William said, his voice glinting with steel.
Adrian nodded tightly.
“I be gift you the lands of Kildenry. They are vast and now without a master since DeLarren refused my offer to join in the war. I fear the lands were hit hard in the war these years past. They need a firm hand to guide them and bring them back to the side of their king.”
Adrian in surprise gaped at his king as if he was a youth of ten again. “I beg your pardon, my king?”
William smiled a little at the corners of his mouth. He too was a man hardened by war and life, but he felt lighter now giving his friend this burden. Adrian, who had been born of nothing, had become everything in winning the war for the throne of England. There had been nothing he would not have done for William now or then. He held the darkest secrets of what had happened behind the war. Hardened to the point of no heart, William feared Adrian was on the edge of insanity. His mind was breaking and he now needed to recover.
“You will be given the Earldom of Kildenry, upon the marriage of DeLarren’s only daughter. It shall all be yours. Tis’ the little I can do for your score of years in service to me and my father before me, and your father’s before then.”
“You cannot bequest a land and a title to the son of a slave, my king,” Adrian said quietly. It was his shame, his darkest secret. “Nor can you mingle the blood of a slave’s son with a daughter of the noble line.”
William’s smile grew. “She was the niece of the last king. You will marry into the royal line and noble line and add good strong Norman blood to the weak Saxton line. It is what you deserve, and nothing less. If any truth is to come of this, you are too good for her.” He stroked his golden beard. “I have heard tale of DeLarren’s daughter. She has a great many talents, but a more pure lady there never was. But do not say a thing to my wife!”
William flicked his reins and Adrian followed.
“Are you sure, my king?” Adrian was stunned by the words of his liege. He could not believe and dare not hope. It had been a long time since he owed something more than his name and sword.
“It has already been done. My wife holds the documents for us at Carlye. I am afraid that you will have to leave on the morrow to reach your lands in time for your wedding. It is a fortnight to reach your castle. You will not have time to woo your bride, but all the better methinks. You are too gruff with the fairer sex and will most likely scare her into an early grave. After all it isn’t everyday a young maid marries the Shadow of Death,” William said with a wink. “You are welcome in my hall anytime, old friend, but now would not be a choice time.”
“Wife,” Adrian whispered. The thought in his two scores of life had never crossed his mind. He figured he would have died in war and if not in the hall of his lord as one of his personal guard. He hadn’t been within the glancing range of a female in over ten years due to the war. He wasn’t even sure if he could tell one part from his men if he saw one!
The steaming hot water was poured over his head by his young squire and Adrian felt his muscles loosen for the first time in a decade. He didn’t have to watch his back or the shadows, for he was safe at the moment.
It was oddly freeing, but he never let his guard slip.
He slipped deeper in to the water, took the soap that was offered him and began to scrub months of dirt and sweat from his skin. He almost did not know what to do with the feeling of being clean. But he growled in pain as his left back shoulder pulled.
“My lord?” Warren, his squire, questioned with a slight trimmer in his voice.
“Fear not, boy. War has been nasty but there is no more need for blood,” Adrian said in his usual growl.
“Tis not that, my lord, tis the wound on your back. Tis’ not healed yet, and it looks pretty bad. Shall I seek a healer?”
“I seek no village witch, boy. It will make do; I have had worse and lived.” Rising from the water he dried off with the bath linen and slipped into a new pair of clean dark hose and a black tunic. Long black locks curled over his shoulders, his thick black beard streaked with grey at the far ends almost reached his chest.
He knew he looked older than he was, but he had no true reason to care for his appearance beyond his battle gear. He eyed his chainmail and shook his head.
“Tell the men to eat, get a good night under them and we leave at dawn. I am for bed, young squire, and so should you be,” Adrian growled and turned his back on the boy to find his bed.
Chapter Two
A brisk knock sounded on the door of Adrian’s chamber and with a grunt of protest he rose from his bed and unlocked the bolt on the door, knife in hand. One could never be too careful.
The one on the other side of the door was Alrek, a giant Viking, with thick white blonde hair tied back in braids and dark sapphire eyes taking in the knife in Adrian’s hands.
A decade the junior of Adrian, Alrek had trained under him and had become one of the new king’s very own men. He missed his northern homeland and the icy seas, but the new land held an appeal that even he could not deny.
“What is it you come for at this god forsaken hour,” Adrian growled.
Alrek walked into the opened door and closed it behind him.
“My king has asked me to travel with you at dawn. I will see you to your new home, see you settled and then will be
off to my own.” A wide grin cracked beneath his short tidy beard. “We both have been gifted for our years of service, my old friend. Land, gold, and women fit for kings. We are now titled nobles and rich. We own our souls again and Odin be praised for it!”
“You best be watching that tongue of yours. You know William does not like the talk of pagan rites,” Adrian said with a sigh as he sat down.
Alrek eyed his friend and smiled sadly. “A hard life you have lived, my friend. This is much deserved for you. William cares not for what I believe as long as he has my oath. However you are an old man and as such it is time for you to be put to rest.”
Adrian reached over and cuffed him smartly on the side of the head. Alrek sat back with a hearty laugh and got to his feet, heading for the door.
“I will see you at dawn, my friend.” He looked back, dark eyes searching Adrian’s wary face. “Try to trust those of your new dwelling. Trust the woman who is to become your wife. Trust is the base of all things and a marriage you cannot carry only on your shoulders alone.” With that he quit his friend’s chamber and returned to his own.
Adrian sighed deeply and rubbed his left temple that throbbed from an old injury.
Trust? Who was Alrek to question him on such? Being distrustful of others is what had kept him alive his whole life. He trusted his king and most of his men, what more need he put his trust in? A woman?
The thought made him want to laugh. Trusting a woman would be the end of him. He was the one in power and the wench merely needed to give him an heir and she could be placed elsewhere, out from underfoot.
Suddenly an idea came to him. What would she look like? How did she act? He would bet half his new holdings she was a spoiled brat, with which he would be tempted to throttle. She would be a shrew as well, no doubt. With her family having been as rich and titled as it was and being a lesser branch of the royal family, she would have wanted for nothing. Just like he had wanted for everything when he had nothing in life.
But the thought of young tender flesh pleased him greatly. William had assured him that she was not a child who would have turned his stomach, but neither was she yet a full grown woman, but a young lady. But never having laid eyes on her could say no more. But if the union pleased William and granted Adrian his lifelong wish, then he was pleased with it as well.
Adrian rolled over and let something that resembled a smile cross his lips. It felt foreign, but then again everything was changing.
Sarina ducked under the branches of the trees in the forest as her horse, Storm, a great black warhorse that had been her brother’s, ran swiftly toward the bubbling brook. She laughed breathlessly as the cold wind stung her cheeks, whipping back her long chestnut locks back over her shoulders. Green eyes sparkled with excitement and innocence as they gazed out into the leafless trees.
Sarina loved to be out no matter the weather and it would have broken her heart if she had to be kept inside. Her father had never made her stay inside to learn how to sew much to her mother’s protest, but whenever her mother had seen her smile she had smiled back with a sigh.
It hurt Sarina’s heart to think of her lost family and that she was the only one left, but with William now as king, there was no need for worries.
Her father had fought against William, while her brother had fought for William to become king, both losing their lives for it. Sarina’s mother had passed on just before her twelfth, birthday. She knew no different now that all of them were gone. It seemed as if she were trapped in a pretty dream that could shatter at any moment.
She was not a babe and she knew that she was passed the age where most girls marry. William would find her a husband and he would take over her father’s lands. She hoped for a man of kindness, whom would not mind her odd ways.
But that remains to be seen.
“My lady!” a guard bellowed from behind her.
Sarina wheeled Strom around to wait for the man. They never followed her, mayhap something was wrong.
“Yea, sir knight?” she inquired.
He stopped his horse next to her and from the grim look on her face; Sarina knew something bad was afoot.
“There is a troop of men coming from the south, my lady. The scouts say there are at least seven hundred of them.”
“Do they fly any colors we know? The castle was only cleared of siege a year ago,” Sarina asked, biting her lip. They were so undermanned since her father’s death that they couldn’t defend themselves for long.
The knight shook his head. “They fly no colors I have seen before.”
“What colors do they fly?” she asked again.
“Black and silver with the crest of a wolf,” the man said stiffly.
The blood drained from her face. She had heard tale of those very colors from her brother. It was an army of a thousand men, standing behind the Shadow of Death himself. The left hand of the king and the wolf of the war.
But why would they be coming to Kildenry? The king had her support and her oath.
“It is the Shadow, Luther. The king’s left hand man. Go back to the castle and tell them to ready all that they can within the hour. We have guests of the king coming. I’ll be long shortly,” Sarina commanded and the man fled.
She gazed over the hills that crested around Kildenry Castle that had protected in for the better part of four centuries, but saw nothing. But that never meant they weren’t there.
Chapter Three
After two weeks of rough mountain travel in the bitter cold of early winter, Adrian was ready to be at his new holding and sitting in front of a great roaring fire. His bones ached with the cold and he had many old wounds protest, but the pain that sliced through his back with each movement he made that did him in. He would have to seek out a healer.
It was the final leg of the journey when he fell from his horse into the muck burning with fever. He was out of his head with fever and burning so greatly Alrek feared the worst.
Alrek halted their men and after settling Adrian in a tent under furs he lifted himself onto his mount and headed toward the castle where he hoped some poor soul could save his friend.
After the trials of life, Adrian deserved to die in his bed of old age surrounded by family, not by infection.
The first soul he came upon was a lone female and before he thought better of it, he swooped her from her horse and headed back the way he came.
He had been told females in this land know how to treat such wounds.
The woman in his arms shrieked as he snatched her, but after he bit out a few sharp words she fell silent.
The ride took longer than he would have liked but when he reached the lands where the men were camped for the night the woman screamed and fought him again.
“Silence woman!” Alrek growl and shook her. “We want nothing more from you then your skills of healing. My friend is naught on death’s bed. Please tend him.”
Wide green eyes set in a striking face stared at him. “A sick man is why you took me?”
He nodded.
Suddenly she set her face and nodded. “Take me to him, if you please. I will need boiled water, a clean knife and bandages.”
Alrek barked orders and took her into the tent.
The Nordic giant who had snatched her from Strom's back led her into a dark tent lit with a single oil lamp. A man lay on his back on a pile of furs, his thickly muscled chest naked to her view, sweat covering him, but he was shivering. Thick long black hair was spread around him and a tick beard covered half his face hiding the rest from sight.
This dark giant was quite the sight to behold and she swallowed down her nerves.
“What befell him?” she asked clearing her throat.
“An axe wound to the back. He said tis’ fine but now I believe it is infected. He will die if he does not get the help he needs,” the Nordic giant said softly.
“Turn him over and remove the rest of his clothes,” she ordered braiding her hair and tying it off with a piece of leather.
When the man was turned she gasped at what she saw. It was worse than she had ever dealt with. It was deep, bleeding and oozing yellow goo.
Her requested items were brought in and she asked for a needle and thread. The cut was long and nasty, but after getting it as clean as she could and all the infected skin was cut away she sewed him closed.
He would need a poultice, but she could only make that at the castle.
“We need to get him to the castle,” she told the Nordic.
He nodded grimly. “That is where we were to be, but this happened. Can we move him?”
She nodded, “But it will be very slow moving. We can have him there within the hour. The castle already knows you are here.”
Sharp sapphire eyes glanced her over and she blushed.
“Who be you, lady?”
“That is not of import as of now. Tis’ this man that needs our help. But if you must know, my name is Sarina.” She smiled quickly and tied another band around the wound. But it faded quickly as the man groaned in pain. “He is lucky he didn’t die.”
“No one but Death can take Death, Lady Sarina,” he said eyes meeting green gems. “You have saved the life of a man many would not, but you were brave.”
“Who is he,” she asked with a trembling lip.
“Lord Adrian de Lyon, the new Earl of Kildenry. He will repay you I swear, but no one must know of this beyond us. Swear this to me.”
Tears stung Sarina’s eyes as she looked down at the older man who would be her husband, who she had mayhap saved. She looked up at the Nordic man.
“I swear,” she whispered.
Chapter Four
His head hurt as if he had been kicked by his war steed, his body felt heavy as if he had been drugged. In his foggy state of mind he pushed the pain aside and slowly his eyes slid open.
