Masters of Medieval Romance: Series Starters Volume 1

by Kathryn Le Veque

  That was the plan.

  Therefore, he didn’t let his depression in the situation get to him. He’d been watching Alary for the better part of four days, analyzing his enemy. The man was petty and suspicious, but he didn’t seem particularly bright. Kristoph was fairly certain he could outsmart him at some point.

  As he stood by the horse this chill morning with a few of Alary’s men standing around on guard, he noticed when a rider on a weary horse arrived and began asking questions of some of Alary’s men. Someone pointed to the inn and the man disappeared inside, which led Kristoph to wonder if the rider was looking for Alary in particular. It seemed to him as if the man was looking for someone from the way he was behaving.

  But Kristoph didn’t give the rider any more consideration than that as the same man who had given him the half-loaf of bread untied his hands and gave him watered ale to drink and another cup full of a barley gruel, which Kristoph sucked down in one big swallow. He smiled gratefully to the man and handed back the wooden cups about the time another of Alary’s men came bolting from the inn, heading in his direction. Kristoph heard a reference to himself, twice, and his curiosity piqued. Soon enough, he discovered that he’d been summoned.

  Fighting down his trepidation, Kristoph’s four-man escort took him to the inn, which was essentially one long single-room building and little else. There were people sleeping all over the hard-packed earthen floor although at this time in the morning, men were rising as serving wenches moved among them, delivering food. Coughing, snorting, and farting abounded as men woke to a new day.

  Kristoph hadn’t slept in the inn the previous night. He’d slept on the cold ground next to the cart, so the stale heat of the inn was welcoming as his escort took him over to Alary, who was sitting next to the blazing hearth. Alary was breaking his fast for the day, eating his bread and cheese as he sat at the table with the rider who had so recently arrived on the weary horse. Kristoph had been correct in his assumption that the rider had been looking for Alary. When Alary looked up from his food to notice that Kristoph had arrived, he indicated for the man to sit.

  “Join me,” he said, mouth full. “Have you eaten?”

  That was more than Alary had said to him their entire journey north. Kristoph was instantly on his guard.

  “I was given a ration,” he said.

  Alary shoved bread and cheese at him. “Eat,” he said. “You and I must have a discussion and you cannot do it on an empty stomach.”

  Kristoph was increasingly wary. He eyed the man sitting with Alary; a pale, young man dressed in rags with a running nose and bushy hair. He looked cold and hungry. He didn’t know the lad but that didn’t mean anything; something was amiss. He could feel it. Being that he was still starving, however, he took the food where he could get it. Breaking off a big piece of the warm bread, he took a healthy bite.

  Alary looked up from his meal. “How are your injuries healing, kriegshund?”

  It wasn’t the first time Alary had called him by that name. Kristoph spoke several languages and he wasn’t particularly insulted by being called a war dog. He was one.

  “As well as can be expected,” he said, swallowing the big bite and taking another.

  “Do your ribs still hurt?”

  “Aye.”

  “Your face is not so swollen anymore.”

  “I will heal.”

  Alary nodded, sopping up gravy on his trencher with his bread. “Tell me something,” he said. “Why would my sister be following us with a Norman army?”

  Kristoph was puzzled by the question. He had to think a moment. “Your sister?” he repeated. “She is following us?”

  “Aye.”

  “Who told you this?”

  Alary indicated the weary rider. “He did.”

  Kristoph looked at the young man, who was gazing back at him with a good deal of anxiety. That was the only thing Kristoph could read from his expression. He returned his focus to Alary.

  “I would not know why she is following us,” he said. “She is your sister.”

  Alary nodded. “Aye, she is, but I have never known what is in her mind,” he said, rather casually. “This rider has come from Westerham. We were there the two evenings past, if you recall. This rider says that my sister is at Westerham with an army of Norman soldiers and she has told Lady Gunnora, the lady of Westerham, that they are following us. I have been asked to wait for her to catch up to us. Now, why do you suppose my sister is coming after us?”

  Kristoph was astonished to hear this but, in the same breath, he was thrilled. His mind began to work very swiftly. The woman had been more than concerned for him when Alary and his men were beating him. She protected him and tried to stop them. Even after he’d been beaten unconscious, she’d evidently spoken to him because Alary’s men had seen her, although Kristoph had no memory of what she’d said. But she clearly had believed he was her prisoner and she had been furious with Alary for taking him from her. That much, he remembered.

  My prisoner, she’d said.

  If I had something I wanted back very much, wouldn’t I try to find help from a sympathetic source?

  Kristoph pondered that very question which led him to a myriad of possibilities, not the least of which was the fact that he knew Gaetan would not give up looking for him. He knew that Gaetan would spend his entire life searching for him. That was truly the one hope that kept Kristoph brave in this dire situation.

  What if… what if the lady warrior had somehow found an unlikely ally in Gaetan? The lady had been enraged at her brother when he’d taken Kristoph. Was she enraged enough to seek revenge against her brother by summoning the Normans to rescue her prisoner? And Gaetan, of course, would be happy to comply.

  It made perfect sense to Kristoph.

  “If your sister is in league with my countrymen, then that is not something I would know,” he said, skirting the subject. “I only met the woman once she’d captured me. I think that if she had been a Norman collaborator, she would not have captured me at all, so what you are telling me makes little sense.”

  Alary swallowed the bite in his mouth, reaching for his cup of watered ale. “I agree,” he said. “But, then again, Ghislaine has never made any sense. She is a foolish woman, even more foolish once her husband was killed. I think his death did something to her mind because she was not the same afterward. Now I am wondering if she is not bringing the Normans to exact some kind of vengeance against me for taking you away from her. Would you not agree that is logical?”

  That was exactly what Kristoph was thinking but he didn’t want to admit it. “My countrymen are not so easily swayed,” he said. “It is more likely that she is their prisoner.”

  He was trying to throw Alary off the scent but Alary was sharper than he’d given him credit for. “Lady Gunnora did not seem to think so,” he said. “If my sister is following me, then it is for a reason. She wants you returned. And she wants to punish me.”

  Kristoph could sense something foreboding coming about. He didn’t like the look in Alary’s eye. “My countrymen are not so foolish that they would follow a woman,” he said. “I would not worry over it.”

  Alary shrugged. “Mayhap,” he said. Then, he turned to the young man sitting at the table. “Do you know who Ghislaine of Mercia is?”

  The young man was wide-eyed with fright in the face of Alary’s question. “I… I think so, my lord.”

  “You have seen her before?”

  “I think so, my lord.”

  It wasn’t much of an answer but it seemed to satisfy Alary, at least moderately. “Then I want you to take something to her and you will also deliver a message for me.”

  As the young man nodded nervously, Alary turned to Kristoph.

  “Give me your hand.”

  Kristoph’s blood ran cold. “Why?”

  “Give it to me or I shall force my men to give it to me. It is your choice.”

  Kristoph studied him a moment, trying to determine why he wanted to see his ha
nd. Give me your hand. Nay, he didn’t want to see his hand. He wanted the hand. He began to feel the familiar rush of battle because he knew, no matter his injuries, that he was going to resist with everything he had. If Alary wanted his hand, then he was going to have to fight for it.

  “If you tell me what you are going to do, I will consider it,” he said evenly.

  Alary’s eyes narrowed. “I have given you a command, prisoner. You will obey!”

  “Nay.”

  With that, Alary stood up and made a grab for Kristoph’s arm, but the knight stood up and dumped the table over, tossing the remains of the meal back on to Alary. He then threw a big fist at the first man who charged him. As that man went sprawling, a second man charged and Kristoph slugged the man in the nose, sending him to the ground. The third man who charged him was the soldier who had been kind to him and had given him food, and that momentary hesitation cost him. The fourth soldier, seeing the fight, got his hands on one of the big iron pots near the hearth and struck Kristoph across the back of the head with it.

  The knight fell like a stone.

  Within a few minutes, the terrified rider from Westerham was back on his mount, carrying the top portion of Kristoph’s left pinky finger with him. The message he was told to deliver to Ghislaine of Mercia was simple:

  Follow me and the next time I will send a bigger piece of the Norman back to you. His life is in your hands.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  ‡

  A Price Too High

  He met them on the road.

  A frantic young man, a portion of a finger, and a message to Ghislaine from her brother was all it took to bring a two-thousand-man army to a standstill.

  Setting out from Westerham, Ghislaine had been permitted to ride up near Gaetan, which was evidently quite rare. Aramis rode behind her and off to the left so every time she looked over her shoulder, he was there glaring at her. And then he would flash a smile and look away, letting her know that he really wasn’t glaring at her. Something about besting the man the night before had made him something of her watch dog, or worshipper – Ghislaine couldn’t really tell but she thought it all rather wonderful. These Norman knights were starting to warm to her and it was something of a comfort.

  But that all ended when the frenzied rider heading down the road towards them very nearly crashed into Gaetan and would have had de Russe and Wellesbourne not rushed out to intercept him. The young man was hysterical, asking for Ghislaine of Mercia and she was brought forward, but Aramis made sure to stay between her and the young man, who proceeded to pull out a coin purse that he handed to Aramis, who in turn handed it to Ghislaine.

  She recognized the purse.

  There was a star carved into the leather, the same kind of star that Alary had on a seal that he used to sign missives. As the young man babbled and sobbed the message that Alary had given him to relay, Ghislaine’s stomach was in knots as she timidly opened the pouch to peer inside. She couldn’t see much, however, so she shook out the contents into her palm.

  The bloody tip of a finger appeared.

  Horrified, she shrieked as Gaetan, who was now standing next to her, plucked the finger chunk from her palm. As Ghislaine stood there with both hands over her mouth, utterly appalled with what she was seeing, the young man spat out the message a second time when Gaetan demanded it. The lad added the circumstances under which the finger had been taken and Gaetan’s face turned pale.

  It was Kristoph’s finger.

  Follow me and the next time I will send a bigger piece of the Norman back to you.

  With her hands still over her mouth, Ghislaine watched Gaetan make his way to the side of the road, the finger still in his hand, before promptly doubling over and vomiting the contents of his stomach. The rest of the knights were beside themselves when the reason for Gaetan’s illness was relayed to them, the revolting fact muttered from one man to another.

  Even the knights from the rear of the column – today it was de Reyne, de Lara, and St. Hèver – heard from their comrades what had happened and they stood, as the others did, in a tense group, watching Gaetan struggle with his composure.

  It was a horrific turn of events.

  It was Téo who finally went to stand next to Gaetan, putting a hand on the man’s shoulder in a comforting gesture before taking the finger from him and going in search of the original pouch it had been delivered in. Ghislaine still had it and she handed it to him, watching the man grimly seal up the finger in the leather pouch before glancing to de Russe and de Lara. Something had to be done; they all knew it. Téo finally muttered to Aramis.

  “Get the men off the road and into the trees,” he said quietly. “I do not want the army standing vulnerable if that Saxon bastard knows we are following him. Do not have the men set up camp but tell them to sit and wait. It is clear that something new has been added to the situation that the commanders must discuss.”

  Aramis nodded, gathering Wellesbourne, de Moray, St. Hèver, and de Reyne to him, all of them the great movers of men, and the five of them began moving the column off the road and into the trees to the west. Horses, wagons, and men plowed through the thick wet grass and into the trees beyond. Meanwhile, Jathan had come forward and when Téo whispered what had happened, the priest took the leather pouch and began to pray earnestly over it.

  Everyone was clearly in shock but they were working through it as their training kicked in. Moving the men off the road until the situation could be discussed was how some of them dealt with it while others, Téo and Luc and Denis, stood near Gaetan, waiting for a command to come forth. The hysterical messenger stood near Ghislaine and she pushed her revulsion aside long enough to pull the man away from Gaetan, pulling him back down the road towards his exhausted mount. When they reached the frothing horse, she grabbed the man by the collar.

  “By all that his holy – what has happened?” she hissed. “How did my brother know I was following him? And how did you know to find me here?”

  The young man had fluid leaking from every part of his face; mucus, tears, saliva. “Lady Gunnora sent me to find Lord Alary,” he told her. “She sent me last night. She said your brother had gone ahead of you and she wanted me to tell him to wait for you to catch up.”

  That wasn’t what Ghislaine had expected to hear. Witchcraft or the devil’s own work had been on her mind, but not Gunnora’s intervention. Not her friend. When Ghislaine realized what the woman had done, her eyes widened dramatically.

  “She did what?” she shrieked. “She told you to find my brother and tell him I was coming?”

  The young man could see that the message he had carried from Gunnora had evidently not been welcome and, given what had happened this morning, he wasn’t surprised.

  “Aye, my lady,” he said, now fearful of Ghislaine and her bulging eyes. “She said he should know. But Lord Alary… he was angry when I told him. He… he cut that poor man’s finger off.”

  Hearing those words was like a blow to her gut, a sickening roll of nausea washing over her. “You were there?” she hissed. “You saw it?”

  The young man nodded, wiping at his face. “Lord Alary… he was calm at first,” he sniffled. “He wanted to know why you were following him. He asked the man but the man did not know.”

  “You mean he asked the knight why I was following him?”

  “Aye, my lady. But the man could not tell him.”

  “So he… he cut off his finger?”

  The messenger nodded unsteadily. “The man fought against Lord Alary but in the end, he was subdued. Alary cut the finger himself.”

  Ghislaine wanted to vomit. Little by little, the situation was becoming clear and she was aghast beyond words. Gunnora’s well-meaning gesture had ended up in a man losing part of a finger. She could hardly believe what she was hearing, now terrified for Gunnora when Gaetan found out what she’d done.

  But that wasn’t the worst of it. She hadn’t told Gaetan yet about Alary having been at Westerham two nights past. They�
�d moved out of Westerham in the darkness of pre-dawn and she’d not even seen Gaetan until they began traveling on the road and the sun was rising. But the most tragic part of all was that she’d briefly forgotten about telling him because she’s been so swept up in the fact that Gaetan and his knights were warming to her, making her feel as if they were not entirely opposed to her presence, that Alary’s visit to Westerham had completely slipped her mind.

  She’d been a fool.

  “God in heaven,” she breathed. “What has she done? What has she –?”

  “Lady Ghislaine!”

  It was Gaetan. He saw her speaking with the rider and was making his way over towards her with Téo and Luc in tow. When Ghislaine turned to him, startled, she could see the fury and desperation in his eyes. Selfishly, she wasn’t only worried for Gunnora now; she was worried for herself, fearful of what these knights would now think of her. She had no idea how this situation could possibly be salvageable.

  “My lord,” she said, feeling incredibly nervous as she spoke. “This messenger is not from Alary. He is from Westerham.”

  Pale and slightly wild-eyed, Gaetan looked between Ghislaine and the messenger. “Westerham?” he repeated. “I do not understand.”

  Ghislaine took a deep breath, praying that Gaetan wouldn’t strike her down where she stood when he found out what had happened. She had no choice but to tell him everything.

  “Last night at the feast, Lady Gunnora told me that Alary had visited Westerham the previous night,” she said, watching his eyebrows lift in surprise. “I… I was going to tell you, as I knew you would want to know, but you… you seemed to be enjoying yourself so much during the meal that I did not want to ruin your mood. Jathan said that it was very rare when you were able to relax and we thought it best to tell you this morning. You could not do anything about the information last night even if I had told you. I thought….”

  Gaetan didn’t let her finish. He was on her in a flash, looming over her, those bronze eyes flashing with rage.