The Knights of Brittany

The delay was hardly noticeable, but he noticed and he would hold the priest accountable for it later. Once he began, Father Medwyn accomplished the joining quickly, and if the bride’s vows were not loud and if the groom’s were not enthusiastic, no one dared comment on it. Once they were pronounced wed, Soren glanced at the windows to gauge the amount of daylight still remaining and estimated the amount of work yet ahead of them before any could seek their rest.

Calling out orders, he strode from the dais, mindful of so many things and yet forgetting one until his man brought his attention back to … her …

‘Soren?’ Guermont yelled over the growing din of soldiers and villeins and the general mayhem and confusion of those conquered. ‘My lord?’

Soren paused as he replaced the leather hood he wore on his head and tugged his mail coif over it into place. He shook his head, refusing his helmet from one of the younger men and turned to see what Guermont wanted. Guermont simply nodded his head and Soren realised he’d left her … his wife … standing in the hold of the soldiers awaiting his word.

‘Take her …’ he began, then realised he did not yet know the layout and accoutrements of this manor and keep and could offer no direction in which to send her. He turned to those still huddling along the wall.

‘Where are her chambers?’ he called out, aiming his question at the woman who had fallen to her knees first, crying out for mercy for Durward’s daughter. When neither she nor the others answered, he shrugged. Turning back to Guermont, he shook his head.

‘Tie her there—’ he pointed at the chair where she’d been sitting ‘—and you can find a place for her later.’ Just as he thought would happen, the old woman called out then, emboldened by his threat.

‘My lord?’ she said, not waiting for his permission to approach. ‘I served her mother before her and serve Lady Sybilla now. I would see to her care.’

As he’d suspected, they would dare much for their lady. This old woman did not grovel or beg, she did not even look away from him when he met her gaze. Not willing nor able to give in before all of his men and those newly vanquished, Soren rose to his full height and strode over to the woman … who had the good sense to bow her head at his approach.

‘And you will continue to serve her at my pleasure,’ he said, watching her face for signs of rebellion. But she schooled her expression in respect and obedience and if it hurt to say the words, he could not see it on her face.

‘As you say, my lord. At your pleasure.’

Appeased for the moment, Soren nodded. ‘Show them where to take her and prepare her for me.’

‘My lord?’ the woman asked before he could turn away.

‘What part of my words do you not comprehend? I made no secret of the only use I have for the traitor’s daughter. Once I have secured the land, I will consummate our vows.’

Lord Gautier would have taken a cane to his back for such flagrant words of disrespect, but Soren could not help it. And, as usually happened with such ill-spoken words, the bitterness of them burned his tongue before they even left his mouth. Still, he would not, could not, relent in this, so he glared at the woman until she nodded her understanding.

‘See to it,’ he ordered as he strode from the hall into the yard to sort out a different kind of chaos than the one that now made his gut clench.

Sybilla barely heard a word or sound around her. The pain pulsed through her head and burned her eyes, making it difficult to even remain standing. Instead of fighting the strong grip of the men holding her, she let their strength keep her on her feet. It was wrong, so wrong, to speak vows before a priest to a man she had no intention of marrying, but the shock and sorrow of the day crushed her into compliance.

To his will and not her own.

One day she would need to answer for her failure to object when asked by the priest if she consented to this marriage, but now she felt too overwhelmed to dwell on it much. And Sybilla found she had not the strength of body or will to focus her efforts on anything but not being dragged like a sack of flour through her own hall.

The soldiers said nothing as they followed Aldys to the stairs and then up to the second floor where her chambers were in the corner tower. When she tripped for the third time, unable to judge the height of the steps and to adjust her pace to those hauling her along, the tears began. This was her home, the place she knew better than anyone, yet she could not tell how many steps there were or how steep they were. By the time they reached her chambers, the fear about her fate and her injury and the possibility of being blind for the rest of her life took control and she collapsed in a crying heap when the soldiers released her.

Nothing had intervened in her despair for what could have been minutes or hours and then she drifted back to an awareness of herself and her surroundings.

To the sound of her maid and Aldys both praying for her!

Sybilla tried to raise her hand to her face and the source of her pain and found she could not move.

‘My lady,’ Gytha whispered. ‘You are awake!’

Sybilla nodded, but tears threatened again so she did not even try to speak. A hand behind her head supported her as a cup was placed at her mouth and she took a few sips. Watered wine eased the dry tightness in her throat.

‘We feared you would not wake,’ Gytha whispered again. From the sound and tone of the maid’s voice it was clear that there was a need to remain quiet.

‘Where am I?’ she asked. Without sight, everything felt different to her. Unable to see her surroundings, even her bed, if it was hers, did not seem familiar at all. ‘Are we alone?’

There was a pause before Gytha answered and Sybilla could almost imagine the two women exchanging glances between them before speaking. It was something they did frequently now that they both served her needs and when they felt the need to soften the coming blow. Sybilla had seen it when the news of her brother’s death at Stamford Bridge came, then when her father’s fate further south at Hastings arrived here months later. Their wordless exchange was so filled with sympathy, she could almost feel it now. Sybilla tried to push herself up to sit, but her arms and body did not obey her.

‘Hush now, lady,’ Aldys soothed. ‘We cleaned the wound and there is a new dressing in place. The bleeding is almost ceased.’ Sybilla felt the soft touch of a hand across the bandages now in place. ‘We are in your chambers.’ Then Aldys’s voice came from closer to her ears. ‘We are alone, but his lackeys check often and watch everything we do. They probably listen for our words, so have a care.’ Sybilla tried to nod her understanding of their situation.

‘Where is he?’ she whispered, knowing he would have to come here sooner or later now that their marriage had happened. She swallowed against the fear of what would follow.

‘He left the keep after … after …’ Sybilla nodded—she knew when he had left. ‘He can be heard calling out his orders in the yard and even beyond the wall.’

A strong shudder passed through her then, remembering the sound of his voice as he called for Alston’s surrender. And as he’d demanded she step forwards to face his death sentence. She shook again. Not death now, but something she imagined he would make worse than death. As a vision of him in his black armour flashed in her memory, she trembled as the thought of what she would suffer at his hands became clear to her.

‘I … cannot …’ she stuttered without thinking. Shaking her head, Sybilla felt the fear take hold of her. ‘I cannot do this.’

Aldys and Gytha leaned in close, each taking her hand and squeezing it. ‘Hush now, lady,’ Aldys repeated. ‘Rest and gain your strength.’

Because you will need it later were the unspoken words in her warning. But later came much too soon.

‘Lady?’ a voice called from the hallway. Sybilla could not identify the person behind the call.

‘What do you want, boy?’ Aldys asked.

‘Lord Soren sends me to bid you make ready for him.’

‘He sends a boy to tell you such things?’ Gytha whispered.

‘Monsters such as him will use anyone they can to do their bidding—women, children, whoever!’ Aldys’s anger made her voice low and almost unrecognisable.

‘Lady?’ the boy asked.

‘Aye, lad. I heard your message.’ Sybilla nearly could not get the words out, but she asked one question. ‘Are you of Alston?’

‘Nay, lady. I am Raed of Shildon.’

‘Shildon?’ she asked. A village some days’ journey to the east from Alston.

‘Aye, lady. My lord Soren took me from there to serve him.’

Sybilla sank deeper onto the pallet, her head pounding now from the injury and from all that faced her. Dear God in Heaven, he was a monster! He stole children from their families and forced them into his service? She shook her head, unable to say or think anything more.

Agitated by this news of how Soren acted, Sybilla could find no rest. She tossed and shifted on the pallet, for both comfort and ease escaped her. Nothing eased the pain in her head or in her heart. She felt the tenuous control she’d managed begin to wane as the hours passed. When she heard the sound of heavy footsteps approaching down the corridor outside her doorway, she wished she could have fainted and not faced what would follow his arrival.

But the saints above and even the Almighty seemed to ignore her prayers and kept her from sinking into oblivion. Sybilla hoped only not to disgrace herself and her name when he touched her, but from the way the fear took hold, she knew any control she had would end the first moment he came close.

Chapter Five

Soren had tried not to think much on the coming night, he just wanted to accomplish as much as possible before the sun set. So, he’d focused his thoughts on how to hold so many prisoners, and how many of his own men had been killed, and how many villeins had fled his approach and how many yet remained to tend the fields, and other matters as weighty as those. It was only as he climbed the steps leading to the second floor of the corner tower of the keep that he realised he’d thought about her more than he wanted to admit … even to himself.

The scorn and scolding he saw in the gazes of his soldiers who stood guard stopped him in his steps. He was about to address their insubordination when Stephen called out his name. Since the man stopped at the end of the corridor and did not come to him, Soren walked back to hear his concerns.

‘Soren, is this wise?’ Stephen asked in a low voice.

‘What do you speak of?’

‘I know that a man’s blood runs hot after battle, but is this wise?’

Coming from this man, someone who had learned the hard lesson of misplaced lust after a battle, gave Soren pause. But, this was not of his concern.

‘If I was caught in the throes of bloodlust, you would be lying unconscious on the floor for asking such a thing and I would already be lying between the wench’s thighs halfway to satisfaction,’ he said. Soren glared at his friend. ‘So, ask me not such things and we will both be the better for it.’ Soren turned away, but was stopped by Stephen’s grasp on his arm. He shrugged it off easily.

‘She is your wife now, Soren.’

‘She is Durward’s get.’ The men who fought with him knew, had heard, his plans for any who carried the blood of Durward of Alston and who came under his control. In all the dark and painful detail. The change in her circumstances mattered not.

‘And now your wife. Different than what you had planned on. A different matter completely now.’

‘And my concern alone, Stephen. Do not make me regret accepting you into my service.’

The warrior looked as though he wanted to argue, but he controlled that urge and nodded. With only one more glance over his shoulder at Soren, Stephen left. Soren continued his path down to the doorway to her chamber. The guards stepped aside and waited for his orders.

‘Stay down there. I will call you if you are needed,’ he said, directing them to the place where he’d just spoken to Stephen. ‘No one comes further until I say so.’

He noticed the sweat on his palms as he reached for the latch and lifted it. He swore he felt no nervousness, but his heart raced and his chest tightened as he faced the next step in seeking vengeance against the man who had destroyed his life … and his body and soul. Soren pushed open the door and stepped inside.

Her servants, both the older, stout-figured one and the younger, lithe-bodied one, stood like statues next to the pallet. The wench lay nearly motionless on its surface—motionless but for the quick and shallow rise and fall of her chest and the curling of her fingers as though she tried to take hold of the bedcover and could not find purchase of it.

‘Can she see?’ he asked. The injury to her head did not necessarily mean blindness. ‘When the bandages were removed?’

With a stiff shake of her head, the older woman confirmed her condition and he let out his breath.

‘I told you to prepare her,’ he said, moving then and making his way slowly across the chamber. ‘Undress her and get out.’

‘My … lord …’ the younger one stuttered, bowing her head now in an unsuccessful attempt to placate him. ‘Twas too late for that.

He hesitated in spite of his intentions and watched as they helped her to stand next to the bed. Now in a clean gown and tunic—what did they call those, syrce and cyrtel?—with her injury tended to, Soren could see her loveliness. And he could see the terror that drained her face of any colour and made her body tremble with fear.

Her pale hair fell in waves over her shoulders, but it was her hands that caught his eye. Fine and graceful, like the curve of her neck as she whispered to her servants. Any trace of the earlier bravery she’d displayed had fled her and he could see that she was younger than he first thought … more beautiful as well. But it was her delicate features that struck him now. She was a well-born lady and he was.

He shook his head to clear his thoughts and to focus his intentions. ‘Either you undress her or I will see to it,’ he said, harsher than he needed to, but he made his point.

Soren turned away then, trying to ignore them, hearing them move to do his bidding rather than allow him to do it. Soren busied himself with removing his heavy leather belt and scabbard, and lifting the chain coif from his head and loosening the leather helm. Turning away, he positioned the leather patch to make certain it hid the stitched flesh that covered the place where his eye should be. When it grew silent behind him, he turned back to find the wench lying under the bedcovers and her garments in the hands of her maids.

Good. He let out a breath he did not realise he’d held. His task here would be done quickly and he could see to more important matters. If his seed did not take, he could visit her until it did and then not see her until the birth of his heir.

As he’d realised during his hours of toiling to make this place his, apathy would be a more fitting punishment than the hatred that simmered just below his skin, waiting to tear free of his control and wreak havoc on his enemies … on her. Though vengeance was key in his plans for her, he would make this woman nothing but a vessel that would bear his seed and fulfil his needs.

Soren smiled grimly, glad that success felt so close at hand. With a nod, he ordered them from the room and when the door closed he took in and released a deep breath. But the smile remained. Only when he was within an arm’s length of the bed did he notice her trembling once more. The curling mass of her pale hair outlined her head and shoulders and distracted him again from his contemplation of vengeance sought and found. Though the bandages had been removed, she lay with her face turned away from him as though she did not wish to look upon him.

The humiliation he’d felt when others had turned from the carnage that used to be his face returned in an instant, pouring bile into his stomach. But, one glance at her empty gaze and he remembered that she could not see him at all. Relief flooded his senses in that moment and the tension evaporated within him.

She cannot see me.

He allowed himself to revel in that realisation and he felt lighter than he had in all the months since that September day. Standing over her now, Soren noticed the creaminess of her skin and wanted to caress those graceful lines of her neck, the fullness of her lips and the fragile daintiness of her slender figure. It would, he realised, take little effort to tug the linens out of his way and see the rest of her feminine curves and skin laid bare. With just this small hint of her comeliness, his body warmed and readied for the task ahead. Soren reached over to lift the sheet away when she startled so suddenly that he jumped back.

‘Sybilla,’ he said, realising he should offer her some words of explanation. He did not doubt she came to this ill-gotten marriage a virgin.

The sound of her name on his tongue for the first time felt rough and ill-fitting. He swallowed and cleared his throat. Before he could move closer or do anything, she tossed the covers back and pushed herself off the bed, sliding away from him. He reached over to grab her, but slipped and landed across the bed, with an empty hand. Leaning up, he watched as she tried, like a trapped, wild animal, to run with nowhere to go.

Her bare feet skidded on the wooden planks of the floor and her momentum carried her as she stumbled across the chamber. Soren climbed over the bed and reached for her just as she got to her feet and dashed away. Like a madwoman, one too caught up in escaping to remember she could not see. Confused and probably still dazed from her injury, he watched as she pressed herself up against the wall, whispering and shaking her head.

Soren spoke her name several times, but clearly she was incapable of hearing him. He approached her as he would a high-strung mare, trying to gentle her with a calm voice.

‘Sybilla,’ he said, sliding off the bed and trying to get to her before she caused more damage to herself. ‘You must stop.’

She stood motionless, but only for a deceiving second, and then she bolted as soon as he moved towards her. He almost got hold of her when she knocked over a small table that held a jug and cups. Soren managed to take hold of her shoulders and stop her from further injury, but she began to wail as soon as his hands touched her skin. It was a pitiful sound that he hated hearing, both for what it made him want to do and what it made him feel. Sybilla would have backed away from him but for his hold on her and she surprised him again when she collapsed to the floor.

Soren told himself that she simply sought to avoid the inevitable and that he had every right to claim her body this night, but something deep within him refused to let him take that step. Instead, he whispered her name and tried to calm the devastated woman he had forced into marriage. Somehow he guided her over to the bed and settled her under the bedcovers.

He ran his hands through his hair as he gazed around the chamber and wondered how he had so mismanaged this situation that had seemed completely under his control just minutes before. His plan to bed her regardless of her feelings on the matter fell apart in the face of her pitiful condition. Some remnant of his old self ate at him as he witnessed the fall he’d planned for so long. But only for a scant moment as he realised he could not, would not, bed her this night.

Acknowledging it, acknowledging that he could not take her against her will, no matter his will or his desire on the matter, seemed to let loose all the anger he’d held inside for so long.

She’d won again.

Her father had defeated him yet again.

Soren felt the rage seething and turned away from the bed and her. He struck out in blind anger, at the only thing he could, grabbing a nearby wooden loom and throwing it frame first against the wall, then crashing it to the floor. He heard Sybilla scream out, but ignored it this time. He’d given up much this night and could give no more.

Unfortunately, the loom had landed partially against the door, blocking the path of his retreat, his exit, so he had to call out for the guards. When they opened the door immediately, Soren knew they’d been right outside and not down the hall.

‘Get this damned thing out of here!’

Only as they began to collect the wooden beams did she react, sobbing and sliding from the bed where he’d placed her. He blocked the guards’ view of her and wrapped a blanket around her as she scrambled towards the remnants of the loom. He shook his head in confusion and disbelief.

Was she mad as well as blind?

As he watched, Sybilla tried to gather and touch the pieces of the frame in her arms, all the time rocking to and fro and sobbing. Stephen arrived at the doorway and frowned as he watched the strange scene before him.

‘What happened, Soren?’

Soren shrugged. At first he thought fear had taken hold of her. Fear of consummating their vows would be something he could understand since she was a maid and was his bitterest enemy. But then, she seemed to have lost her wits and her way. Now, the heart-wrenching sobs that seem to come from her soul confused him. Damn it! Why did Stephen have to be right in his warning?

‘The loom fell,’ he explained, leaving out the part about his unleashed anger causing it. Incomplete. Inaccurate. It was as much as he was willing to explain.

‘She does not seem well, Soren,’ Stephen said as the wench continued grasping and crying. ‘Should I summon her maid?’

What else could he do at this point? There would be no consummation this night and he wondered if he’d made a mistake by taking her as his wife. He looked around the chamber at the damage caused and shrugged. Mayhap the women could calm her and even explain this to him.

‘Aye, get them and seek the healer.’

Stephen left and Soren observed her from where he stood. She had not moved from her place on the floor and did not appear to even feel or hear anything as she rocked and cried. When he heard the sounds of the women’s approach, he stepped slowly out the door, continuing to face and watch her. With a motion of his hand, he stopped them several paces from the door.

‘Stop,’ he ordered in a whisper. ‘You, you come here quietly,’ he directed to the older woman. When she walked to where he stood, he nodded. ‘Tell me of your lady’s behaviour.’

The older one leaned over and peeked in the chamber, gasping at the scene before her. When she moved to enter, he held her back with his arm.

‘Tell me why she acts as a madwoman.’

‘What did you do to her?’ the maid demanded.

Soren reached over and grabbed the woman by her garb, hauling her up close to him. ‘I do not explain my actions to a servant,’ he growled through clenched jaws. Pushing her away, he nodded at the lady in question. ‘Has she lost her wits?’

Her answer was interrupted by the healer, a man brought with them who understood how to treat injuries and heal with herbs. Brice’s wife had spoken highly of his treatments and Soren was pleased to find him still alive after the slaughter and brought him here to Alston for the time being.

‘My lord?’

‘Teyen, have you treated the lady for her injuries?’

‘Nay, my lord. Her maids saw to her while I saw to those more in need,’ he explained. ‘Should I now?’

Soren rubbed his forehead, trying to ease the shattering pain growing there in the face of this absurd situation. ‘What happened to her?’ Soren asked. ‘You, there.’ he nodded at the younger servant ‘. what are you called?’

‘Gytha,’ she stammered out.

‘Gytha,’ he said, ‘tell me how was your lady blinded?’

‘When you … the attack began, she was running to collect the children into the keep as Gareth directed. The wall shattered in front of her and struck her down.’