Masters of Medieval Romance: Series Starters Volume 1

by Kathryn Le Veque

  “The man to Mr. Groby’s right is the man to whom I owe everything,” she said. She’d grown quite fond of Queensborough over the past two years. “Meet Mr. Queensborough Browne, a direct descendant of Sir Anthony Browne, who was a close confident of Henry VIII. It’s through Queensborough Browne that I was able to gain access to a Medieval journal that had been in his family’s possession since the Dissolution of the Monasteries. This journal, which is called the Book of Battle because of Battle Abbey, was written by a monk named Jathan de Guerre and when you read the transcript of the Book of Battle, you’ll see that he was probably the very first war correspondent. He gives a detailed account of not only the battle, but of a group of Norman knights known as the Anges de Guerre, led by a man known as Warwolfe.”

  By this time, Dr. Sykes had the ancient book out of its box and the assistant was passing out copies of the transcripts. They hadn’t shared any of this before the viva because they had wanted this event to be the introduction of the Book of Battle to the world.

  Dr. Sykes put the book on the table so that all of the panelists could get a look at it and, as they all stood up to see it, Abigail was essentially forgotten. For such an artifact to be presented to these historical scholars was like a drug to an addict; they were immediately filled with it, enthralled with it, and Abigail watched them as they fawned over it.

  Turning her glance at Queensborough, she could see a hint of pride on the man’s face. From a man who had been terrified to even show her the book those two short years ago to a man who had now gained a great deal of pride for sharing it with the world, Abigail was thrilled with the change. An old man who was able, in the twilight of his life, to find something wonderful to be proud over. She smiled at him and he winked at her.

  Bring them back to life, Miss Devlin.

  She was about to.

  “The Book of Battle details the quest of Gaetan de Wolfe and his men as they went on a quest to rescue one of their comrades who had been kidnapped by a historical figure we all know as Alary of Mercia,” Abigail said, talking even though no one was really paying attention to her. “Alary is also sometimes called Amary, but Jathan de Guerre definitely calls him Alary. This is an account like I’ve never seen before and neither has anyone else because it’s very detailed. It really reads like a novel, actually. Jathan lists the men that went with de Wolfe on this quest and discusses them in fairly close detail.”

  One of the scholars at the table, Dr. Rapkin, was listening to her. He stepped away from the table as the others pored over the journal. “De Wolfe is a fairly well-known name in England, still,” he said. “They’re still the Earls of Wolverhampton, I believe.”

  Abigail nodded, pointing to Anne de Wolfe back in the audience. “That’s Lady de Wolfe right there,” she said. “She has helped me tremendously in discovering the history of the entire de Wolfe family, starting with Gaetan. We’ve been able to clear up a few misnomers starting with an old de Wolfe family legend that Gaetan de Wolfe met his wife, Ghislaine of Mercia, at the Battle of Wellesbourne. The truth was that Ghislaine of Mercia, the sister of Edwin of Mercia, was a warrior woman and she was at the Battle of Hastings. That’s where Gaetan first met her. You’ll read about it in the transcript. It was Ghislaine who helped Gaetan and his men hunt down her brother, Alary, and the Norman knight he’d abducted. The Battle of Wellesbourne didn’t come until well after the Battle of Hastings. You’ll also see in the transcript that one of Gaetan’s men, interestingly enough, bore the name of Wellesbourne.”

  Dr. Rapkin nodded, very interested in this unique subject. “After reading your dissertation, I did a little research myself on the de Wolfe family. He became the Earl of Wolverhampton after the Battle of Wellesbourne.”

  “That is correct.”

  “But the de Wolfes that inherited the earldom of Warenton are a separate branch.”

  Abigail shrugged. “Partially,” she said. “Those de Wolfes came from William de Wolfe, who was the first Earl of Warenton. William was the third son of the Earl of Wolverhampton, the man who had inherited that title through Gaetan. Since William de Wolfe was the third son, he was not in line for that inheritance. He received the title Earl of Warenton from Henry III, but he is a direct descendent of Gaetan de Wolfe.”

  It was clearing up some rather complicated family trees and, by now, more of the panelists were listening. “I also read about the Roman factor in your paper as it had to do with Gaetan’s quest northward,” Dr. Rapkin continued. “Can you please clarify how a lost Roman legion was part of the Norman conquest?”

  Abigail grinned. “Well, you’ll see in the Book of Battle that they weren’t really a lost Roman legion, but merely descended from one,” she said. “The leader was from the House of Shericus, but it was evidently de Wolfe who changed the name to de Shera because he felt it should be in the ‘Norman fashion’. At least, that’s what Jathan wrote. Anyway, several great English houses – de Lara, de Moray, and de Russe – have links to these Roman descendants because they married women from the tribe.”

  Dr. Rapkin rubbed at his chin thoughtfully. “And the House of de Shera? What became of them?”

  Abigail glanced back at Anne once more. “With Lady de Wolfe’s help, I did a little research on the House of de Shera and discovered it was de Wolfe who gave them properties up near Chester when Antillius de Shera, who was a widower, married a Norman woman,” she said. “He had a few sons by her and it was the service of the sons to the Norman kings that gave them the Earldom of Coventry. The House of de Shera and the House of de Wolfe remained allies for hundreds of years after that.”

  It was a very neat story, all wrapped up in her dissertation and explained to the last genealogical detail. Dr. Rapkin picked up a copy of the text from the Book of Battle, scanning it as Abigail sat there and waited for the next question. Considering the fascinating subject, it wasn’t long in coming.

  “De Lohr, de Russe, de Moray,” Dr. Rapkin muttered as he read. “These are some of the greatest Medieval houses during that time. And all of them came with Warwolfe with the Duke of Normandy?”

  Abigail nodded. “That’s right,” she said. “You know that Edward I named his giant trebuchet Lupus Guerre, which means war wolf, but I couldn’t find any definitive information that stated that he actually named it after de Wolfe. But one can only assume he knew of the Normandy’s greatest knight, so maybe that was his homage to de Wolfe.”

  Dr. Rapkin was still looking at the transcript. “It would explain a lot, actually,” he said. Then he began flipping around the pages. “I saw somewhere that Gaetan and his wife had eleven children.”

  Abigail watched him flip around. “That’s in my paper,” she said. “William, Aaric, Elizabetha, Matthias, Juliana, Stefon, Dacia, Edwin, Quinton, Jarreth, and Catherine.”

  When he looked at her strangely for rattling off all of those names so quickly, she knew his question before he asked it.

  “I have an eidetic memory. I see words,” she said.

  He understood. Dr. Rapkin looked back at the papers. “And they all lived into adulthood?”

  Abigail nodded. “Seven sons and four girls, all of them growing up to become pretty great in their own right, but Lady de Wolfe can tell you more about that since it’s her family. My focus was on Warwolfe and Ghislaine of Mercia, not their children.”

  Dr. Rapkin simply nodded as he went to reclaim his seat, still looking at the papers in his hand. In fact, all of them were starting to settle back into their seats and Abigail took the opportunity to plead her case before the heavy questioning started. There were a few things she wanted to clear up.

  “I had someone tell me once that writing about English history like this wasn’t my right because I’m not British,” she said. “As I explained to him, my love of England is in my blood. I may not have been born here, but my heart is here. I didn’t set out to change English history as we know it but I did want to give a voice to those men, those warriors, whose deeds and names had been lost to time. Maybe
it was arrogant of me, but just maybe I actually did something that will make people look back on these knights – the Anges de Guerre – and appreciate them for their accomplishments. Yes, I know they conquered a nation, but it goes beyond that – these were men of great honor, and when you read the transcription of the Book of Battle, you’ll see how much they were devoted to each other. Nowadays, we just don’t see honor and duty like that. These men literally risked their lives for a colleague, just to rescue the man, and that’s a kind of heroism that is largely lost these days. People have forgotten what it means to love your friends like these men loved each other. I think that’s the greatest thing I took away from this whole project – the love these knights had for each other. They were the original band of brothers.”

  By the time she was finished speaking, the entire panel was looking at her. They were reclaiming their seats, refocusing on the task at hand even though there wasn’t one of them that didn’t want to run off with the Book of Battle and bury themselves in a room with it for the next six months. Such history, and such artifacts, were rare in their field. But even more rare was the passion from this young woman who spoke of men who had been dead for almost a thousand years as if they were her real-life heroes. That alone infused her dissertation with a glow that was difficult to describe, but one that was most worth listening to.

  “Then let’s talk about these men, Miss Devlin,” Dr. Sorkin said, a smile playing on his lips. “You speak as if you know them personally.”

  Abigail was dead serious as she looked at them. “I do,” she said. “Let me tell you about them.”

  As Abigail began to speak of Gaetan de Wolfe and his humble origins, Groby and Queensborough sat back and listened with the pride of fathers listening to their children. Abigail was articulate and intelligent, and she spoke of Warwolfe and the Anges de Guerre as if she knew them all personally. But, as she’d said, she did. She truly did. These weren’t simply men on paper; these were men who had lived and died but, now thanks to her, they were living once again. Now, the world would know what Abigail and Queensborough knew.

  The world would know the importance of the Duke of Normandy’s greatest knights.

  Therefore, this was a satisfying moment as well as a defining one, at least for Queensborough. He was proud; so very proud to have been part of something that brought the honored dead to life. From that old book that had remained buried in his family’s artifacts, he was glad he’d been the one that allowed the story to finally be told. It gave him a sense of satisfaction he’d never known before.

  “She told you she would make these men breathe again, Queenie,” Groby leaned over and whispered to him. “Do you believe her now?”

  Queensborough smiled, remembering those words from the day he’d first met the determined Abigail Devlin.

  I’ll make you proud, I swear it. I’ll make these men breathe again.

  She had. And somewhere in the halls of heaven, he was pretty sure Gaetan was smiling, too.

  * THE END *

  De Wolfe Pack Series:

  Warwolfe

  The Wolfe

  Nighthawk

  ShadowWolfe

  DarkWolfe

  A Joyous de Wolfe Christmas

  BlackWolfe

  Serpent

  A Wolfe Among Dragons

  Scorpion

  StormWolfe

  Dark Destroyer

  The Lion of the North

  Walls of Babylon

  WHILE ANGELS SLEPT

  A Medieval Romance

  By Kathryn Le Veque

  “And so it lasted for nineteen years while Stephen was King, till the land was all undone and darkened with such deeds, and men said openly that Christ and his angels slept.”

  ~ Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

  CHAPTER ONE

  Rochester Castle

  Kent, England

  September, 1139 A.D.

  The sunrise is bloody.

  It was her first thought as she looked to the east with its hazy splashes of red and orange across the horizon. As dawn approached, black turned to dark blue and dark blue to azure. She could hear her husband behind her, rattling about their smoky bower, dropping a gauntlet here or a piece of armor there. But there was more to the clumsiness than met the eye or the ear. The wife slowly began to realize that he was dropping things purely to annoy her.

  She did not want him to believe that he had rattled her, though he had. It was a game they played sometimes to see who could hold out the longest. He would annoy her until she took a swipe at him, though it was all in good fun. Such was the playful banter that they so often had. She finally turned away from the lancet window only to find him grinning at her.

  “I was wondering when you were going to put your attention back on me where it belongs,” he said. “Or is the sunrise too lovely to tear yourself away?”

  Her lavender gaze traveled over him, indeed, her irises were lavender. A shade of blue so pure that that it was nearly purple. Surrounded by a hedge of dusky lashes that mirrored the titian color of her hair, Cantia du Bexley Penden was all shades of loveliness. A thousand degrees of beautiful, her husband called her. But eyes so lovely could go from passionate to furious faster that the human mind could track. Her husband both feared and revered that particularly gift.

  “Why do you stare at me so?” Brac Penden held out his hands with mock confusion. “Have you never seen a man dressed for battle before?”

  She lifted a well-shaped eyebrow and sauntered in his general direction. “I’ve seen you dressed for battle more times than I can count,” she replied.

  “That would stand to reason since, as son of the Steward of Rochester, I have been in more battles than I can count.”

  “Such was my misfortune for marrying into the heirs of Rochester. You’re a warring bunch.”

  His grin broadened. “Such is the price of privileged servitude. We are stewards of the bishops of Rochester and, by this privilege, we go where we are told to go and fight whomever we are told to fight. Of course, in payment we are allowed to live in this fine castle….”

  “A cold, howling mess of stone and mortar.”

  He held up a finger to hush her so he could finish his sentence. “And we are granted the lordship of Gillingham, of which you enjoy the status. Now, have you any further complaints to voice before I quiet you?”

  He said it lightly, as it was meant. She approached from his right, coming to rest just out of arm’s reach. “Nay,” she said softly. “I’ve become accustomed to the way of things though I must voice my concerns once in a while or I will surely go mad. More often than not I have the utmost confidence in your return from these skirmishes. But today seems… different.”

  “Why? Because of a red dawn?”

  “Perhaps.”

  Brac was a tall man with an equally long reach, yet he did not grab for her. There was something in her expression that did not invite it. Well built, with a battle-conditioned body and shaggy blond hair that curled and poked in every direction, he was handsome in a way that men often are who have achieved wisdom and character. It was more than his appearance. It was his heart and soul beneath. There was a gentle humor about him, so easy to laugh, so easy to become emotional. It was a time when men seldom showed their emotion. But Brac wore his on his sleeve. And he obviously, insanely, doted on his lovely wife and small son as few men would allow themselves to.

  “We more than likely will not see any action today,” he said to be of some reassurance. “Some of the king’s forces have taken control of the bridge at Dartford and we must retake it. They will not risk an assault on the bridge that Rochester protects along the Medway, so they go further west to attack the larger crossing that has no such local protection. But I am sure that I shall be home before nightfall.”

  “Who has issued this call for aid?”

  “Viscount Winterton,” Brac replied. “Tevin du Reims. You have heard his name.”

  “Aye,” she said quietly, remembering the implicati
on that name brought about. “You have fought for him before.”

  “I have.”

  “You said the man is more formidable than anyone on the field of battle and that his own men have been known to fear him. Is he so terrible, then?”

  Brac fussed with a strap on his shoulder protection. “You have only to see the man to understand why such things are said about him. He looks like a barbarian and fights like Lucifer himself.” He leaned down and picked his gauntlet off the floor. He held it out to her with a gentle smile on his face. “Help me, please.”

  After a brief hesitation, she took the gauntlet and held it firm as he shoved his big hand into it. Then she helped him with the other. A perusal of his body showed that he already wore his mail coat, the hood of his hauberk still draped down the back of his neck, and his greaves. His legs had taken a beating over the years as the scarred leather armor on his legs showed that clearly. She was disappointed that there was nothing else she could assist him with.

  “Your squire has you well dressed,” she said, almost sadly. “There is nothing more I can do.”

  Her husband read her expression. It wasn’t like her to be so melancholy at this time. While other women threw themselves into fits with weeping as their men departed for war, Cantia would smile and pretend that all would be well. He depended on that to see him through these struggles that were consuming their new nation. It was King Stephen against Empress Matilda, ripping the country to shreds with their demands for the throne. Everything the Duke of Normandy had fought for was in jeopardy and the new country that was England threatened to collapse on itself.

  And the barons were caught in the maelstrom, Brac along with them. It was his duty as heir to Stewardship of Rochester. But no, he shook himself inwardly. His duty was to Cantia and their son, Hunt. His duty was to provide a safe country in which to raise his family.