Of Midnight Born

by Lisa Cach

  “I have told you before, Thomas,” she said softly, fury burning through her, “that you are never to speak of it.”

  “But you always refer to your scar! You did so this very afternoon!” he protested.

  “It is different when I do, and well you know it. I had enough of mocking from Father and the others: I will not endure it from you.”

  “It’s not half so bad as you think. I don’t even see it most of the time.”

  She moved the dagger up to the edge of his eye socket. “Would you like one to match?”

  “You wouldn’t do that.”

  “Wouldn’t I, though?” she said, and for a moment did not know if she would or would not. She had so little left, it almost seemed simplest to destroy what remained and be done with it. Kill Thomas, kill herself, and be done with fighting to survive. The thought was with her for as long as it takes a spark to die, and then the full fire of her determination to live rose up within her, devouring any thoughts of giving herself over to despair.

  “Serena?” Thomas asked, a wobble of worry in his voice, his eyes wide.

  Her eyes focused on him anew, this, her last remaining kin. She lowered the dagger and climbed off his chest. “Get up, Thomas.”

  She went to go check the stew while he found his feet and picked up the fallen bench. She used serving bowls to serve them, there being no bread for trenchers. When she came back to the table, she saw that Thomas had refilled her cup.

  They ate in silence, and despite the luxury of the meat, Serena did not taste it. She would survive, and she would get Le Gayne. She would not starve here over the winter, scrounging for scraps of inedible food. She would have children whom she would love, and who would love her the way she had loved her mother, without regard to beauty or size, intelligence or grace. Her mind began again to run through and discard possible scenarios for how to capture her soon-to-be husband.

  “We will need to lure him away from whatever men ride with him,” she said, staring into the growing dark of the kitchen, then turning her gaze on her brother.

  Thomas, his face half-lit by the orange flames of the fire, said nothing.

  “What will draw a man away from others?” she asked. “And what will take down his guard?”

  Thomas took another bite of stew, chewed, and swallowed. A long moment went by, in which all that could be heard was the crackling of the fire. “A woman will draw him away,” he said at last, quietly. “The weak and helpless take down his guard.”

  Serena smiled.

  Chapter Two

  “He’s coming!” Thomas said, crashing through the bushes to where she waited by the stream. “And he’ll be alone this time. He’s left his two men to oversee one of the fields. He must think it’s safe, this close to his home.”

  “At last!” Serena said, relief and apprehension mixing together, her heart beating a rapid tattoo. “Do I look all right?” she asked, nervously combing her fingers through her loose hair.

  “Pull the dress down a little lower on your shoulder.”

  “Like this?”

  “That’s perfect. Now, quick, get in position,” he said, and ran to the hiding place they had constructed earlier.

  Serena went and sat at the edge of the creek, pulling her skirts up to midthigh and putting her bare feet in the water. She put her bandage-wrapped wrist in the sling around her neck, and rearranged the too-small gown again, so that plenty of shoulder and half a breast were showing.

  It was the first time in her life she had made an attempt to attract a man’s sexual attention, and she had her doubts that it would work. Thomas had assured her that her hair alone would be enough to catch le Gayne’s eye, fair and silky as it was, growing down past her hips. He had also managed to embarrass her by pointing out that her breasts were quite respectable, and had a good swell to them.

  They had overcome her height by putting Serena on the ground, a position that only increased the false impression of vulnerability given by the sling.

  She started to sing, her voice not particularly lovely, but of sufficient strength to guarantee that their quarry would hear it from the narrow road passing nearby.

  “There were three ravens sat on a tree, Down a down, hay down, hay down, There were three ravens sat on a tree, With a down.”

  She and Thomas had been spying for nearly a week, moving about through the pockets of forest to avoid detection, and masquerading as wandering peasants to avoid questions while out in the open. They were both growing frustrated with being unable to find le Gayne alone, having decided that that was the safest chance of abducting him. This was their first real opportunity.

  “There were three ravens sat on a tree, They were as black as they might be, With a down, derry, derry, derry, down, down.”

  “The Three Ravens” was the only ballad she knew by heart, so there hadn’t been much choice in what to sing. Thomas had insisted that the words wouldn’t matter—all le Gayne would care about was seeing a young woman alone.

  “Then one of them said to his mate, ‘Where shall we our breakfast take? Down in yonder green field There lies a knight slain under his shield.’”

  She saw movement through the trees. It was their quarry. She sang louder, bending over and splashing water up her calves with her unbandaged hand, as if she were a resting traveler washing her weary feet.

  A few moments later le Gayne came through the woods and drew his horse to a halt on the other side of the narrow, shallow stream. She looked up from the water and stopped her singing, her hand going to her throat as if she were startled. “Good sir!” she exclaimed, as breathily as she could manage. She made a fumbling, ineffectual attempt to push down her skirts.

  “What are you doing here in these woods?” Le Gayne was a large man, plainly overfed, his jowls and fat neck bulging beneath his cleanly shaven jawline as he spoke, a massive, rounded gut hanging over his belt. His hair was the dark gray of unpolished steel, and she guessed his age to be in the late fifties. Despite the age and the fat, it looked as if there were muscle under his padding, and she thought he was likely as strong as Thomas had warned.

  Serena bowed her head forward, letting her hair cover half her face and the scar, and looked up at him from under her brows. Thomas had said it was a most pleasing, beseeching look. “I have been wandering in this wood half the day,” she said. “I have lost the road.”

  He laughed, swinging down from his horse. “You are alone then?”

  “Aye, sir, and growing terribly hungry. I am looking for work. Do you know of where I might find some?” She blinked innocently at him.

  “How can you work with an injured arm?” he asked, his eyes on her breasts.

  “Sir, I will do whatever I must. Is there not some use you could find for me?” she asked, per Thomas’s direction. She arched her back a bit, thrusting her breasts into plainer view. She felt the creeping heat of embarrassment coming up her neck at both the whorish role she was playing and her poor performance in it. Surely he must think her ridiculous.

  His eyes went up and down her body. “I might be able to think of something,” he said, and dropped his horse’s reins.

  She made herself stay still as he leaped the narrow stream and walked up beside her, not quite believing that the man was falling for their trap. She felt his fingertips touch the hair on the top of her head, stroking her lightly as if she were a dog.

  “Sir?” she said, trembly voiced, and looked up at him helplessly, being sure to turn slightly toward him so he could get an unobstructed view down her neckline.

  Looking up into le Gayne’s eyes, she saw for the first time in her life a man lusting for her. She shivered, as much from a true sense of fear as a feigned one. Thomas had said that a man like le Gayne would enjoy a bit of cowering and protesting, but she found she need hardly pretend. It was as startling to see that lust as it was terrifying, for she knew right then that this man did not see her as Serena Clerenbold, a sister and a daughter, a person with her own thoughts and feelings. He saw
only a female with breasts, a body to be used. She might as well have been a sheep, for all the care he would give her sensibilities.

  “I am a maid, sir,” she said, covering her cleavage with her hand and looking down bashfully. “I have never known a man.” Thomas had promised that those words would do away with any of le Gayne’s remaining hesitation. Deflowering peasants was great sport among those who could get away with it. She knew her own brothers had occasionally done so, when they got the chance.

  “Today must be your lucky day,” le Gayne said roughly, and grabbed a fistful of her hair, jerking back her head as he dropped on top of her, pinning her to the ground.

  The attack took her by surprise, both her arms caught under his weight on her chest, and she kicked and struggled, trying in a panic to push him off her, forgetting that this move by le Gayne was exactly what she and Thomas had hoped for. All she knew was that the man’s huge weight was on her, and his hand was up her skirt, poking blunt fingers at the most intimate area of her body. She grunted with the effort to dislodge him, silently screaming for Thomas, her fear skittering out of control.

  “You like a fight, do you?” le Gayne said into her ear, one hand still wrapped in her hair. “I like that. You’ll be giving me a wild ride,” he went on, and ran his tongue across her face.

  The scent of his stale saliva on her skin made her gag, her stomach heaving. She thought she’d choke on her own bile.

  There was a sudden loud thunk, and le Gayne collapsed on top of her.

  “Get him off me!” she shrieked, seeing Thomas over her assailant’s shoulder. She squirmed beneath the weight. “Get him off me!”

  “Shh! Serena, for God’s love, be still!” her brother said in a hiss, dropping the iron pot with which he had clubbed le Gayne, and moving to help push away the fallen man.

  The moment his weight was off her she scrambled to her knees and to the edge of the stream, her stomach heaving, trying to keep from retching. She bent her head down, not caring that her hair trailed in the dirt, and tried to gain control of herself. She heard Thomas working behind her, shackling their prey.

  “Are you all right?” Her brother’s voice sounded a few moments later, as he came to kneel beside her, his hand lightly touching her back.

  She moved out from under his touch, reaching down into the stream for water with which to splash her cheeks. “I’m fine,” she said coldly. “Go get the cart.”

  Her brother hesitated until she turned to meet his eye; then he nodded and got to his feet, dashing into the woods. He must have seen the hardness she felt in her own face.

  She rose and went to get le Gayne’s horse, well trained enough to have stood its ground throughout the melee. If nothing else, they could ride it to another county and sell it if their plan fell apart. Or eat it.

  She recrossed the stream, leading the mount, and forced herself to look at their prisoner, lying like a dead pig in the brown leaves, his mouth open and dribbling saliva, his hands trussed behind him.

  This was the man she had chosen to be her husband, the man who would plant his seed in her, and own her body. He would share her bed and put those blunt fingers on her whenever and wherever he wished, and lick her face with his foul-smelling tongue.

  It wasn’t too late to back out. They could remove the shackles and leave him here to wake on his own. He had not seen Thomas, and perhaps would not think to look to Clerenbold Keep to find her.

  But then she and Thomas would be back where they started, minus a week’s worth of harvest time.

  She heard the rumble of the cart, and Thomas appeared a moment later, leading their one ancient pony.

  “It’s not too late to leave him,” Thomas said, echoing her own thoughts. “You don’t have to go through with this.”

  She looked at le Gayne again, this time taking note of the thickness of his flesh that denoted a well-stocked table, and the finery of his clothes that said he wanted for nothing. The horse whose reins she held was a finer creature than any that had been at Clerenbold for many a year. No one would be starving in le Gayne’s fortress this winter.

  She knew what sons the man had sired had died in the Pestilence or the war, just as had her own brothers and father. He would want heirs. He would provide for their children, and keep both them and her safe and fed in his fortress, however much he hated her, and she him. Marriages had never been matters of love, after all.

  She would have children. She would not starve. “We will continue,” she said.

  “Damn you, show your faces, you cowardly whoresons!” le Gayne shouted through the small barred window in the door of his cell. “God rot your filthy souls.”

  “It doesn’t sound like a good time to talk to him,” Serena said.

  “I doubt he’ll get any better tempered as time goes on,” Thomas replied.

  “No, but at least he’ll be a little more desperate, a little more willing to listen.” They were in the cellars under Clerenbold’s main kitchen, around a corner from where le Gayne bellowed in the dark. His “cell” was a storage room that had once held wine and spirits, its door heavy and fitted with a lock.

  “We may as well talk to him now,” Thomas said. “It will give him something to think about as he gets thirsty.”

  Thomas spoke as if indifferent, but Serena could feel his tension, an echo of her own. Le Gayne’s incessant ranting had an unnerving effect, and she was half-afraid he would find some way to break through the door and come after them.

  There was a rising voice inside her saying that this had been a huge mistake, that however rich the man was or however well equipped to father and provide for children, marriage to him would not be worth the price she would have to pay.

  She doubted he would try to kill her. Even a rich man like le Gayne could not automatically get away with killing his wife, and she had no intention of making herself an easy target. She knew how to be on guard. But there were other ways le Gayne could take his revenge out of her hide—like beatings, or in the marriage bed—and no one would lift a hand to stop him.

  Having gone this far, though, there seemed no way to stop, and she quashed the rising voice of her fear, focusing instead on what the marriage could bring them. Life with le Gayne, in however miserable a marriage, was surely better than death in the winter. Besides, he would likely get used to her in time and learn to ignore her, and she would have children to love and raise. She could not let le Gayne’s shouted threats frighten her from her course.

  “Good morrow, sir,” Thomas said, coming around the corner, the light from his torch reaching le Gayne’s face in the hatchwork of iron bars. The man squinted from the light, stepping back from the opening.

  “‘Good morrow,’ he says,” their prisoner returned in a mocking voice. “ ‘Good morrow’ my ass. Who the hell are you? Do you know who I am? There will be soldiers searching for me, and when they find you they will disembowel you before your own eyes. I’ll have them rip out your tongue first, so that you may not pray to God to take your black soul and save you from your torment. Hot irons will—”

  “Your pardon, sir,” Thomas interrupted, “but we will gladly answer your questions.”

  Serena felt her heart pounding painfully in her chest, le Gayne’s ire infecting her with an echo of the panic she had felt at the stream.

  “—burn out your eyes. With my own dagger I shall flay—”

  “He’s not going to listen,” Serena said, quietly enough that le Gayne could not hear. “It’s been only two days. Give him two or three more without food or water, and at least he will be too hoarse to shout.”

  “I do not like the waiting,” Thomas whispered back. “’Tis making me nervous as a cat. I have eaten no more than le Gayne since we took him.”

  “Nor I,” Serena admitted under her breath. It had been so much easier to be brave when this was all a plan and not reality. She had not counted on being frightened of her prey. Where was her courage now?

  They began to move away from the door, but were halted
by a sudden shout. “Wait, you dung-eating sheep buggerers!” he commanded, and then was blessedly quiet for a long moment. “Who the bleeding hell are you?”

  Serena waited for the verbal abuse to continue, and when it did so only in low, muttered tones she and her brother moved once again toward the cell door. They had agreed beforehand that Thomas should do the talking, as it was unlikely le Gayne would listen to a single word from a woman’s mouth in this situation. He would probably see it as adding insult to injury. They’d also decided to pretend the kidnapping was Thomas’s idea, in hopes of lessening any revenge the man might take on her.

  “I am Thomas Clerenbold, and this is my sister, Serena.”

  Le Gayne squinted at them through the window, a further stream of curses dribbling from his lips before he gave an intelligible answer. “Clerenbold. You are Robert’s whelps?”

  “Aye.”

  “Or what’s left of them,” le Gayne said. His small, raisin eyes moved to Serena. “The strumpet by the stream. I should have known. All of the countryside knows of Robert’s scarred monster of a daughter. You’re even bigger than the stories say. Good God, girl, what do they feed you? Horses’ oats?”

  Her nervousness disappeared under a growing wave of furious humiliation, pinpricks of light appearing in the corners of her vision as blood rushed to her head. Her mind filled with a vision of her dagger at his bloated, frog-belly throat, cutting a bright and bloody swath through the stretched skin of it, digging deep and severing his vocal cords. She could see the yellow fat bubbling out the open wound, mixing with the crimson of his blood.

  She felt Thomas take hold of her hand, out of le Gayne’s sight, whether in warning to keep quiet or in comfort she was not sure. His palm felt hot against her skin. Her own must have felt cold as snow.

  “What are you hoping to get from this stunt?” le Gayne demanded, and peppered them with another string of insults, most involving the sexual organs of animals. “Are you hoping for ransom? You’re stupider than you look, if that’s the case.”