“Papa looks tired,” she whispered. She turned to look at her mother’s tear-ravaged face, then quickly looked back.
No one!
Suddenly, Aidan, one year older than she, staggered into view and fell to the ground, clutching his chest. A shrieking Scot appeared, leapt onto her beloved seventeen year old brother and plunged a dagger into his back.
“Aidan,” she rasped, her throat dry as dust. She furrowed her brow in anguished disbelief, and rocked to and fro, hugging her knees. “They’ve stabbed Aidan.”
Her mother crawled away from the wall and curled up, whimpering.
Where are Papa, and Branton, and the villagers?
Agneta couldn’t help it. She was drawn to look back at the slaughter. Before long, she’d witnessed the murders of Branton and her father. Bloodied, broken bodies lay piled in the courtyard. The only sounds were the crackling of the burning timbers and the victorious laughter of the barbarians who’d perpetrated this horror.
Fear gripped her as tears blurred her vision. Her mother had gone strangely quiet. Agneta sniffled, wiped her runny nose with her sleeve, and looked through the crack again. Her stomach clenched and she blinked rapidly. A man in chain mail crouched beside Aidan. He dragged him into a sitting position, and cradled her brother’s shoulders with his arm. Agneta fisted her hands against the wall, her fingernails biting into her palms.
Please don’t hurt him.
The warrior smoothed the hair off her brother’s face then laid him back down. Agneta flattened her palms against the wall and clawed at the splintering wood. Everything seemed to have tilted and she was afraid she might swoon.
Aidan, Aidan—
Unexpectedly, the man rocked back on his heels and stood slowly, brushing the dirt from his leggings with his gauntlets. With the back of her fist she strangled a cry that threatened to burst from her throat. Even seen from her high perch, he was a giant.
Oh God! He’s looking up.
Her insides pitched and rolled, but she willed her body to be still. The man removed his helmet and wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. Black hair fell to his shoulders. She couldn’t look away. Soon another man came to stand beside him, similarly clad.
These are the treacherous Saxons.
The two men conversed together quietly, still looking up. She couldn’t move, transfixed with fear and fascination. The man with black hair shook his head when the other put his hand on his comrade’s shoulder. Both seemed troubled. They put their helmets back on, turned and walked away.
She retched against the wooden wall.
The first grey streaks of dawn were lighting the sky when she woke to find herself alone. The voices had fallen silent, and the house had burned to the ground. The stench of smoke filled her nostrils. With trembling hands, barely able to cling to the rickety ladder, she climbed down slowly from the loft, forcing her numbed legs to move, and went in search of her mother. A deep longing wanted to believe her father and brothers might still be alive, but why then hadn’t they come for her? How would she and her mother cope without the protection of their men?
Wandering in a daze, rubbing the smoke from her eyes, she was vaguely aware of other shuffling figures. Suddenly, she caught sight of her mother, slumped over a body. Agneta ran over and shook her by the shoulder. “Mamma, Mamma,” she coaxed, looking into the dead eyes of her beloved Papa.
There was no response to the wail she couldn’t control. Thinking her mother had fainted, she grasped her shoulders and pulled.
She must have screamed when she saw the ceremonial dagger she recognized as an heirloom from her Danish grandmother. It was embedded to the hilt in her mother’s breast. “No,” she shrieked in anguish. “What about me? What about your little girl?”
She tried in vain to wrench the dagger from her mother’s hand, desperate to plunge it into her own heart, but death’s grip held firm. Hurling hoarse curses at the grey sky, she buckled, collapsing to the hard ground, tearing at her hair, retching uncontrollably.
Later that day the nuns found her curled up in a tight ball beside her brother’s body and took her to the abbey under construction nearby.
Tempting Fate
Edwinesburh, Scotland, October 1093
Lady Ascha Woolgar worried for her son. He and his friends had joined forces with a band of Scottish marauders and they’d been raiding deep inside Northumbria. None of her entreaties seemed to change his mind. “Caedmon, you are too stubborn. The poor people of Northumbria suffered enough from the brutal harrying carried out by the Conqueror all those years ago. From what I’ve heard, the land and the people who survived are only now recovering. Yet, you’re intent on raiding there?”
“We only target Norman holdings,” he reassured her. “King Malcolm Cenn Mór isn’t prepared to attack now, so skirmishes are what we have to content ourselves with for the moment.”
They returned from their forays dirty, bruised and exhilarated with the Norman plunder they hauled back. They outfitted themselves, like their Scots comrades, in leines and brats, though Caedmon told his mother once that some of the Scots stripped naked when raiding and greased their bodies. “They say it makes them more terrifying. They’re right. Sometimes they terrify me.”
“You’re a Saxon knight, Caedmon Brice Woolgar, not a barbaric Scot.”
He put an arm around her shoulders. “Mother, this is good training for when King Malcolm launches his next offensive. We mostly use pikes and axes. I’m already skilled with the sword and this provides me with more choices. We don’t take as many chances as the Scots. They’re the fanatical killers. We Saxons concentrate on relieving the Normans of their ill-gotten gains. And don’t worry, I’m not likely to strip off my clothes when I go into battle.”
Ascha shook her head. “You speak as if it’s an outing.”
“Mostly that’s what it is, though…”
Ascha waited, knowing he would talk when he was ready. He bit his lip and scratched his head. When he spoke, his words terrified her.
“There was one raid, a few months ago, when I first joined them. It didn’t go the way Leofric and I anticipated.”
Ascha looked hard at her son, afraid to ask, “In what way?”
“They weren’t Normans.”
Ascha sank into a chair. “Caedmon! You raided Saxons? Tell me you didn’t.”
He went down on one knee and took hold of her hands. “I wish I could. We were near Alnwick, not far from the Earl of Northumbria’s castle. We assumed from the Scots that all the estates in that area were held by Normans.”
She gripped his hands. “But they weren’t?”
Caedmon hung his head. “One turned out not to be.”
Again Ascha waited. Though Caedmon was a warrior, he wasn’t a cruel man, unlike the brute he believed was his father. She recognized his need to confide in her. They’d depended on each other for many years.
He stood and walked away to the hearth. “By the time it became obvious they weren’t Normans, the Scots couldn’t be dissuaded. They murdered the lord and his family. They may have been Danes—or Saxons. He and his two sons fought bravely, but they were no match for the barbarians. There was nothing we could do. Their bloodlust sickened me.”
Ascha’s voice failed her.
He knelt again before her, his hand over his heart. “I admit I plundered their manor, but I didn’t kill anyone.”
She took his hands and squeezed them tightly. “Caedmon, this is much too dangerous. What were you doing close to a Norman stronghold like Robert de Mowbray’s castle? It’s foolhardy in the extreme.”
He frowned and rose to his feet. “Mother, what other choices are open to me, other than to be a mercenary? I have no lands, no titles. I must make my own way in the world. My skill as a warrior will perhaps bring me wealth. Otherwise, I have nothing to offer any woman if I wish to marry.”
“There’s the manor house at Ruyton.”
As soon as she uttered the words, Ascha wished she’d bitten her ton
gue, but she dreaded what might happen if he continued to tempt fate.
He turned to look at her. “Ruyton?”
Ascha chewed her lip. “Shelfhoc Hall was your father’s estate. It’s mine now, and has been administered for me by a steward since I left.”
“A steward?”
She couldn’t meet Caedmon’s enquiring gaze. “Yes, Ruyton is in the Welsh Marches. After your father died, the Earl of Ellesmere offered to administer and protect Shelfhoc, to safeguard it from the Welsh.”
“The Earl of Ellesmere? A Norman? A Norman earl administers your estate?”
She rose from the chair and walked over to the window, fidgeting with her wimple, her back to him. “Not all Normans are monsters.”
“Huh! Show me one that’s not. This has been the source of your income all these years? It never occurred to me. I assumed the money came from Uncle Gareth’s estate.”
She turned to face her son. “Some of it did. As you know, when my brother Gareth and his son Gawain were killed fighting to restore Edgar the Aetheling to the English throne, this house devolved to me. But Shelfhoc is your birthright, Caedmon.”
Caedmon scratched his head. “What fee does this great earl impose for his Norman benevolence?”
Ascha sensed her face had reddened in the course of the conversation but she remained determined to keep her voice steady. “There’s no fee. It would be vulnerable to the Welsh without his protection.”
He slumped down into a chair, stretched out his legs and put his feet on a stool. “Well, mother, I’m not interested in riding off to live in the Welsh Marches. There’s work to do here for King Malcolm. He’ll need strong warriors for his next attack on Northumbria. The rumors are it will be soon.”
Ascha didn’t know whether to weep or rejoice that he wouldn’t go to Ruyton.
“Sire, your queen lies gravely ill, surely you don’t intend to leave her to attack Northumbria now?”
Sitting in the Chart Room of his castle, King Malcolm Cenn Mór sighed. His emotions were in turmoil. Duncan Kincaid was one of his most trusted advisors, but the die was already cast. “My beloved wife’s illness breaks my heart. She will not recover.”
He stood and banged his fist down on the map table. “I must strike now, Duncan. It’s not enough that King William Rufus has cut us off from parts of Cumbria we’ve held sway over with his damned castle at Carlisle. No, he insults me at every turn, like his father, the Conqueror.”
Duncan shifted his weight from side to side, plainly ill-at-ease. “But we’re not prepared. The Saxons in our ranks are an undisciplined lot, and our own Scots have no sense of unity.”
Malcolm looked Duncan in the eye. “We must regain Northumbria,” he said slowly, drawing out each word, but he could see Duncan remained unconvinced.
“Your Majesty, the Earl of Northumbria has a highly trained and well equipped force waiting for you there. They have been strengthening the border for several years, especially after the recent bloody raids by renegades and their Saxon henchmen. You’ll be marching into disaster.”
Malcolm snorted with contempt. “De Mowbray can’t be everywhere in Northumbria. We’ll use evasion tactics and march right past him, deep into the heart of Norman territory. My mind is made up. It will be a glorious victory. Northumbria will at last be ours again.”
Duncan shook his head, and Malcolm wondered briefly if he should continue. “My son Edward will accompany me, to experience how it feels to grind the Normans into the dust. He can return home a hero, and lighten the heart of his ailing mother.”
The color drained from Duncan’s ruddy face. “But sire, he’s Queen Margaret’s eldest son. You’ve named him your heir. If anything happens to him—”
Malcolm held up his hand in a dismissive gesture and sat down again. “I’ll hear no more objections. My mind is made up. Summon the clan chiefs. We’ve battle plans to lay.”
Alnwick
“I’m frustrated with our slow progress,” Caedmon complained to Leofric. “We’ve been on the road for a full day and have yet to cross the Tweed into England. The last time we came this way…”
He stopped when his friend clenched his jaw. Landmarks on the route had roused unwanted memories of the return journey from Bolton months ago, resurrecting the guilt. He was glad their intended route would avoid the manor house they’d helped destroy. The castle at Alnwick was their destination.
“We seize Alnwick,” King Malcolm had declared in a rousing speech, “and Northumbria is ours.”
“Patience,” Leofric replied. “We’re engaged in a more important campaign than that disaster. Bear in mind most of this Scottish rabble is on foot.”
“And in front of us,” Caedmon said hoarsely. “Wyvern and I are sick of eating their dust. The Great Chieftain could at least have put us in the vanguard with the other mounted troops.”
He and his fellow Saxons were exhilarated by the prospect of striking a blow against the mighty Norman fortress and taking part in the reclaiming of Northumbria, but it was gallingly apparent the Scots had no regard for them.
“Apparently, the king maintains this is the opportune time to attack Alnwick with the earl away at Bamburgh on the coast,” Eivind remarked.
“Not that we would know,” Edgar whined, “since we weren’t privy to the strategy sessions.”
“I suppose we can only hope the informants are correct that the earl has taken his troops with him,” Leofric added.
“I heard he doesn’t have enough men to oppose our army in open battle in any case,” Eivind said.
The conjecture made Caedmon nervous. King Malcolm seemed to have based his decisions on a great many assumptions. “We’ll just have to complete the siege quickly, before Mowbray has time to hie back from Bamburgh. Norman soldiers are disciplined, unlike our army.”
A fortnight after the army set out, the Scottish court, dressed in deepest mourning, grieved the Great Chieftain’s death. Malcolm Cenn Mór and his son and heir had both been killed in a bloody ambush in Northumbria, their army decimated. There were whispers of treachery. Roger de Mowbray had caught the Scots by surprise, trapping them before the ramparts as they prepared to lay siege to Alnwick.
“Queen Margaret has sent for the Black Rood,” Lady Ascha Woolgar murmured tearfully to Enid, leaning heavily on the maid who’d been her confidante for many years. “It’s the most precious of the possessions she brought from Hungary—a fragment of the True Cross, encased in a gold cross, with an ivory image of Christ,” she whispered, as if in a trance. “She won’t last the night. Her heart is broken. The Black Rood will bring her consolation as she faces death.”
Enid struggled to control her tears.
Ascha wondered where she would find consolation for her own broken heart. Caedmon had not returned with the few mangled and maimed Saxons who had barely survived the trap at Alnwick.
Blood And Gore
Alnwick, Northumbria, November 1093
The handful of nuns and monks from the religious community, accompanied by villagers from Alnwick, made their halting way through the piles of already decaying bodies, strewn like broken puppets across the field. The earth had been churned to mud, then hardened to ruts by the frost. They’d all but given up hope of finding anyone else alive amid the carnage of the bloody slaughter by de Mowbray’s army.
Despite the cold air, masses of buzzing flies, drawn by blood and the stench of corruption, swarmed around them relentlessly. Mangy dogs sniffed dismembered corpses. Buzzards floated ominously overhead. Braver crows were already pecking out eyes and tearing at fingernails. Ragged human scavengers picked over the remains of the dead.
“Quick Sister, o’er ‘ere,” came an unexpected shout. “I found one alive. I think.”
Numbed by the horror of the gruesome reality through which she staggered, terrified of falling on the fallen, Agneta fought to hold down the acrid bile rising in her dry throat. She would have to point out to Thomas Swineherd she wasn’t yet a Sister, only a novice. The final vows
would be made once she came of age. She’d been at the nunnery for—how long was it now? Eight months—since she’d lost her family and her home.
Then her paralyzed brain absorbed the significance of what Thomas had shouted. Raising the edges of her habit, already stiff with mud, she stumbled over to where a nervous horse snorted and shied, eyes wild. A man lay beneath the mutilated corpse of another fallen warrior. The bodies were tangled, muddied and bloodstained and it was impossible to tell on which side they had fought. Was this man a Norman, a Saxon or a Scot? She didn’t care. None of them were worth saving. If she nursed them back to health, they would leave and kill again, or be killed. It was the way of men.
“’E’s badly wounded, Sister,” Thomas said, shooing away a persistent crow. “We must get t’others off ‘im. Don’t look like a Scot—don’t want to save a fyking Scot. Blest be God their curst King Malcolm died ‘ere. Mebbe now the raidin’ll cease. Wouldna found thisun if t’weren’t fer ‘is ‘oss standin’ o’er ‘im like a sad dog.”
She should say something pious about God not caring on which side mortals fought, but the words stuck in her throat. She did care.
Thomas and another villager struggled to lift the rigid corpse off the fallen warrior, and Agneta fell to her knees on the hard ground beside him. She clenched her fists on her lap, hesitant to touch him, and looked for signs of life. The reek of his body assailed her nostrils. She straightened her back and wrinkled her nose.
“Are you sure he’s alive?”
“Looks like he’s pumpin’ air, I reckon. Smells like it too,” Gilbert chuckled.
She wondered how anyone could keep a sense of humor amid all this sorrow, but noticed an almost imperceptible rise and fall of the warrior’s broad chest. Convinced it was the cold seeping into her knees causing her to tremble, she reached out a hand to place it near his lips and felt a faint wisp of air caress her frozen fingers. He moaned suddenly and she snatched her hand away, toppling over.
Redemption (The Montbryce Legacy Anniversary Edition Book 3) Page 2
