Masters of Medieval Romance: Series Starters Volume 1

by Kathryn Le Veque

  It was a crowded place and badly lit. He hadn’t taken five steps into the tavern when someone grabbed his wrist. With an intolerant expression that only Brandt de Russe could adequately deliver, he looked to his left and was surprised to see the very woman he sought clutching his arm. It was Ellowyn de Nerra in the flesh and, for a split-second, Brandt allowed himself to appreciate the sight of a truly beautiful woman. He just couldn’t help himself, realizing she was far more beautiful with the second encounter. But his momentary appreciation vanished and before he could open his mouth, Ellowyn spoke.

  “Sweetheart, I am so glad you have arrived,” she said, through clenched teeth he was sure. “This… this knight has been harassing me and will not leave me alone. Perhaps your mere presence will cause him to flee in fear.”

  She said it rather dramatically and, for a moment, Brandt was both puzzled and stumped. But then he tore his quizzical gaze from the lady’s somewhat desperate features and noticed a heavily armored man standing a few feet away with a bloodied hand. The knight pointed an accusing finger at Ellowyn.

  “Is this your wife?” he demanded. “She stabbed me, the little cow. She has injured me.”

  “I told you to go away,” Ellowyn shot back. “Had you not grabbed me, I would not have had to defend myself.”

  “I did not hurt you!”

  “But you grabbed me!” Ellowyn accused. “I never, at any time, gave you permission to touch me. Now that my husband is here, you had better run for your life. Go, now, before he becomes enraged.”

  There was a huge amount of conversation going on involving Brandt that he was not directly a part of. He simply stood there as Lady Ellowyn and some foolish knight shouted at each other. More than that, Lady Ellowyn was sucking him into something he had nothing to do with. Just as she had threatened him earlier, now she was in another confrontation with some other warrior. Perhaps it was habit with her, being aggressive with men she did not know. Brandt thought it all rather odd and rather ridiculous.

  The knight, perhaps rightfully fearful of the lady’s sincerely enormous husband, took a few steps back but did not leave. He held up his bloodied hand for all to see.

  “Your wife has injured my hand,” he nearly shouted at Brandt. “I demand compensation.”

  That seemed to snap Brandt out of his stunned silence. “Compensation?” he repeated, distain in his tone. “Compensation for what?”

  The knight jabbed a finger at Ellowyn. “Because of… of her, I may not ever be able to hold a sword again. This is my sword hand.”

  Brandt cocked a dark eyebrow. “I see,” he said, feeling Ellowyn as she clutched his wrist. “What did you have in mind?”

  The knight seemed to lose some of his aggression, looking between Ellowyn and Brandt. “Well,” he said after a moment. “One hundred crowns ought to do nicely, I think. That would keep me comfortable while I recover.”

  Brandt’s eyebrows shot up. “One hundred crowns?” he echoed. Then he removed Ellowyn’s hands from his wrist and extended them towards the knight. “Take her instead. You can sell her to the highest bidder and regain your compensation. Or you can simply have her work it off, for I am not paying you one hundred gold crowns.”

  Both the knight and Ellowyn looked at him, shocked. Before the knight could reply, Ellowyn yanked her hands out of Brandt’s grasp.

  “He cannot sell me,” she raged. “How dare you suggest such a thing.”

  Brandt realized he was fighting off a grin as he faced off against a, yet again, very angry Ellowyn de Nerra. He’d never seen her any other way and wasn’t hard pressed to admit he found it entertaining.

  “I can do anything I wish,” he told her. “I am your husband, am I not? I am not paying that man one hundred gold crowns, so he can take you instead. Perhaps next time you will think twice before assaulting a man.”

  Ellowyn’s beautiful face turned shades of red. “You…,” she seethed, backing away from both Brandt and the knight. “You… you barbarian. You beast! I will not let you do this, do you hear? You have no right.”

  Brandt bit his lip to keep from grinning, for he’d never in his life seen anyone so angry. “I have every right. If I want to sell you, I will. You have been far too much trouble since the moment I met you so perhaps this will teach you a lesson. You will be his problem now, not mine.”

  Ellowyn had backed into the table that contained the remains of her meal. Infuriated beyond reason, she grabbed the first thing she could reach and hurled it at Brandt’s head. The wooden wine cup went sailing through the air, barely missing him. As he bobbed out of the way, Ellowyn picked up the nearly empty pitcher of wine and slung it at the knight, hitting him squarely in the chest. Wine sprayed everywhere, but there was no time to wipe it away, because now the fork was flying at him and the remains of the bread. Whatever Ellowyn could get her hands on went flying at Brandt and, if she thought about it, the bloodied knight. But mostly at Brandt, she was singling him out for a particular brand of hatred at the moment and he was going to feel her wrath.

  Brandt couldn’t help the grin on his lips now. Lady Ellowyn was having a full-fledged tantrum and he ducked a platter as he made his way over to her. The closer he got, the more furious she became. By the time he reached her, she was trying to throw a stool but he yanked it out of her hands. Bending at the waist, he tossed her up onto his shoulder and headed for the door.

  “Call my wife a cow again and you forfeit your life,” he made a point of making eye contact with the foolish knight. “Consider the fact that you retain your life this night the only compensation you shall receive from me.”

  The knight didn’t say a word, watching rather wide-eyed as Brandt carted the snarling lady out of the inn. The last he saw, the big man had planted a trencher-sized hand on her bottom, causing her to howl. He could hear her howling once or twice more outside.

  Ellowyn was howling because his swat bloody well hurt. She was not only in tantrum mode, she was also in panic mode. Brandt had her out in the street, marching across the muddy avenue as he spanked her soundly, not once but at least four times. She could hear men cheering and laughing, and it only served to fuel her agitation.

  Finally, Brandt moved to set her on her feet. Realizing that he was releasing her, Ellowyn started smacking at him as he set her down, hitting him on his vulnerable ear and neck. But Brandt didn’t react. He simply set her to her feet as she took a few more angry swings at him.

  “You brute!” she hissed. “You… you uncivilized fiend! I will never forgive you for this, do you hear me? Never!”

  Brandt drew in a long breath, still fighting off the grin that he had struggled with for the past few minutes. He crossed his massive arms calmly.

  “Is it not exhausting being so aggressive all of the time?” he asked.

  The comment only seemed to inflame her. “Beast! Monster! Son of a…!”

  He cut her off, casually, losing the battle against the grin. “Are you finished?”

  Ellowyn scowled. “Not by any stretch of the imagination,” she jabbed a finger at him. “I have met my share of infuriating and callous men, but you are the worst of the lot. What possessed you to do what you just did?”

  “Do what?”

  She threw up her hands. “Throw me over your shoulder like a… a….”

  “Common wench?”

  Now her eyebrows flew up in outrage. “Common?” she was turning red in the face. He could see it even in the moonlight. “Now I am common?”

  “Given the behavior I have seen from you since the onset of our association, you have given me little else to go on,” he replied steadily. “Therefore, in response to your demands earlier today, I have delivered your father’s men as ordered. You will find all of them over there to the left, by the livery stables, and none of them have been fed since earlier today. I hope you have made arrangements to feed and shelter them until the morrow, because they are very weary and will not be able to make the trek back to Erith Castle in their present condition. They nee
d food and rest, which you will now provide. Good evening to you, Lady Ellowyn.”

  Ellowyn’s outrage fled in favor of genuine surprise and, if she were to admit it, apprehension. She should have been wildly furious at his insult, but she could only seem to focus on the fact that he was literally dumping almost six hundred weary soldiers on her doorstep.

  “Wait,” she stopped him as he turned away from her. All of the agitation had disappeared from her tone. “I have no means with which to house and feed over five hundred men tonight. You were supposed to bring them to me tomorrow.”

  “You were not clear on what time of day to return them to you,” he said. “I assumed you wanted them as soon as possible. Now you have them. Good eve to you.”

  Ellowyn’s mouth popped open as she watched the enormous man turn on his heel and walk away from her. She was stunned but she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of knowing it. He had made it clear he wanted nothing more to do with her so to seek assistance from him was out of the question.

  She’d already made a fool out of herself in front of the man, and he had duly insulted her. Perhaps rightly so. She’d always had a temper, and a bit of a mouth as well, so mayhap he was entirely correct.

  Certainly, they had gotten off to a very bad start. He had ignored and then insulted her, and she had taken his head off for it. If she thought very hard about it, he’d tried to apologize but she wouldn’t hear of it. She’d been too angry at the time. Damn her temper!

  Exhausted, and now faced with a very large and unexpected problem that she had more or less brought down on herself, she couldn’t help the tears of exhaustion and despair that sprang to her eyes.

  Wearily, she planted her bottom on the edge of a stone watering trough, trying to figure out what she was going to do next. It was growing late and she had no idea how she was going to feed and shelter all of those men. She looked over to the inn, looking for a sign of her escort but noting instead that de Russe and another big knight were mounting their chargers. So he really was leaving her with all of those exhausted men. Maybe she deserved it.

  As Ellowyn floundered in self-pity, Brandt mounted his snappish charger and turned the beast around to return to the docks near the Thames where he had left the bulk of his army. As he put his helm back on his dark and sweaty head, he couldn’t help but notice that Ellowyn hadn’t moved from where he’d dropped her. In fact, she was sitting on the edge of a water trough, looking at her hands.

  Brandt’s movements slowed as he gazed at her lowered head. Oddly, he was coming to feel some remorse. She wanted her men back, so he had obeyed her wishes, only he had done it in a fairly vindictive fashion. He knew very well that she wasn’t equipped to handle all of them this night, but he had brought them to her anyway. That had been his spiteful-self talking and he could indeed be spiteful when the mood struck him. Maybe he had been too harsh about it.

  He didn’t like feelings of remorse. He wasn’t a remorseful man by nature. His confusion trickled into brusque movements, which his charger sensed. The animal was feisty and exhausted, dancing nervously as they headed back the way they had come. Brandt tried not to look at the lady as he rode past her, but a creeping sense of guilt was eating at him.

  More than that, he suspected his actions would meet with de Nerra’s ears and the man would become incensed at him. He didn’t need that kind of an enemy. Perhaps he should try to ease the situation before the daughter’s version of the story roused all of Erith against him.

  With a heavy sigh, he pulled his charger to a halt and turned back in the lady’s direction, but his horse wasn’t cooperating. The beast fought him and kicked up great clods of mud that flew right at Ellowyn, hitting her squarely in the chest and neck. She was so startled by the flying mud that she lost her balance and toppled back into the trough.

  Brandt was off his mount, rushing to pull her from the water. She was sputtering by the time he reached her, grasping her by both arms and pulling her effortlessly from the cold, dirty water.

  “I am sorry, my lady,” he said. He meant it. “I fear my horse is to blame for your misery.”

  Ellowyn was cold, upset, and pushed beyond her endurance. She opened her mouth to yell at him but the words wouldn’t come forth. The fight had gone out of her. Instead, she burst into tears.

  “Just… go away,” she sobbed softly, picking at the sopping garment. “Go away and leave me alone.”

  “But….”

  “I asked you to leave me,” she snapped, sounding more like her aggressive self. She struggled to gather up her very wet, and very heavy, skirt. “I do not require your assistance. You have done your duty by delivering my father’s men and I would be grateful if you would simply go away and forget we ever met, for certainly, I will try and do the same.”

  Brandt watched with regret as she gingerly picked her way across the muddy, rutted road and back towards the inn. She was absolutely soaked and trying to avoid dragging her dripping surcoat through the dirt. As he stood there and debated what to do, the door to the inn flew open and the knight that Ellowyn had stabbed in the hand came barreling through.

  The man was all fire and curses, shoving men out of the way that didn’t move fast enough. The bloodied hand flailed through the air like a monument to his injury, held high for all to see. But the moment he spied Ellowyn in the middle of the street, his manner changed. He went from simple rage to a deadly malevolence all in a split-second. He may have even growled. Ellowyn had her head down and didn’t see the man as he headed right for her.

  “You are brave when your husband is about,” he snarled. “Does your bravery hold true when you are alone, you little bitch?”

  Ellowyn’s head snapped up at the sound of the voice, her eyes widening with fright when she saw who had uttered it. Her escort picked that moment to round the corner of the inn, having no idea of the danger she was in. They were only focused on her and not the angry knight advancing on her. Ellowyn tried to back away from the knight but was hindered by her very heavy and very wet skirt. She ended up stepping on the hem and falling to her backside as the knight closed in on her.

  She might have uttered a cry because her escort was suddenly moving very quickly in her direction, but before they could reach her, a massive form moved between her and the advancing knight. She couldn’t see much other than big, armored legs, and then she heard a strangled grunt followed by the sounds of something snapping. A body hit the ground next to her, splattering mud, and she shrieked.

  Startled, she looked over to see the knight with the bloodied hand lying in a heap next to her, and he was quite dead. His head was bent at an odd angle and, horrified, she looked up to see de Russe standing over her. Before she could say a word, he reached down and pulled her to her feet.

  “Are you all right, my lady?” he asked. “Did you hurt yourself?”

  Ellowyn was feeling disoriented, astonished and sickened. Everything she could possibly feel all rolled into one. Her exhaustion, coupled by the events, all fell in line and before she realized it, she was feeling rather woozy. She couldn’t look at the man with the snapped neck on the ground next to her and she tried to turn away, but she couldn’t quite catch her balance. She could see the trough in front of her and she thought she might make her way to it and sit down again, simply to collect herself, but her body had other ideas. She hadn’t taken two steps when the world faded to black.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  It was that field again, the one with the men dying upon it, as plentiful as driftwood upon the sea.

  She was slugging through the bloody mud, trying not to step on the dead and avoiding the desperate hands of the dying. She should have felt guilty for ducking those who needed care, but she couldn’t manage it. All she could feel was a desperate yearning to seek out something, something that drew her to it like a moth to flame. She could think of nothing else and her heart was near bursting with fear and anxiety because of it. God, if she could only find it!

  The bottom half of her surcoat
, shift, and cloak were soaked with mud that smelled like the bowels of Hell. The stench was everywhere. She thought perhaps she would smell that scent forever, like a fog that would never leave her. It was horrifying. As she pushed through it, her cloak snagged on something and as she reached down to yank it free, a hand grabbed at her from one of the countless bodies strewn about and took hold of her glove. He yanked it off as she drew her hand back in horror. Her naked hand, exposed to the dark and heavy hair, glinted oddly. Gazing at her exposed flesh, she could see a ring on it.

  A wedding ring.

  *

  Something was popping and crackling, and there was a great deal of warmth on her face. Ellowyn gradually became aware of heat on her body and the smell of smoke, and her eyes rolled open to the sight of an enormous fire a few feet in front of her.

  Somewhat startled, she pulled away from it, realizing that she was laying on a floor in only her shift. It was dirty and cold. Her heavy brocade surcoat was hanging above her head on exposed rafters, drying in the heat of the blaze.

  Confused, frightened, she looked around the small, dark room. She had no idea where she was, or what had happened, but as she rolled into a sitting position, bits of her memory began to return. She remembered the inn, the aggressive knight, and de Russe’s appearance. Hand to her aching head, she remembered tripping on the road when the aggressive knight came after her but nothing after that. Looking around the small room again that smelled heavily of unwashed bodies, she had no idea what was going on.

  Standing up unsteadily, she reached up for her surcoat and realized that it was wet. Parts of it that were nearer the fire seemed to be warm and moderately dry, but other parts were almost sopping. Curious, she was in the process of fingering it when the door to the chamber jerked open.