His Enemy's Daughter

With every passing day, the gnawing fear that this dream would be snatched away from him grew. Held out like a choice bone to a hungry dog, the promise of these charters enticed them to dance to the king’s tune, regardless of the dangers. Soren and his friends were bastards, never meant to inherit or rule over wealth or lands. This opportunity from the king was unheard of and the threat of failure dogged his every step, just as it had Giles and Brice.

No matter now, he told himself for the thousandth time since regaining consciousness and discovering the offer made by Bishop Obert. Soren’s dreams and hopes for a life had ended on the battlefield and now he lived only for vengeance. Though he would pursue the king’s gift, he had little planned once he actually claimed it.

As he fell asleep on his fifth day of ‘handling’ Shildon for Brice and the king, the guilt struck him. And the irony as well, for he had the same fate in mind for Alston as Oremund had done here—burn it to the ground and wipe the slate clean so he could make his own mark on it. He wondered if he would feel pity for the get of Durward when they were dead at his hand and whether it would wipe him clean as well.

Sleep claimed him before he could answer his own question.

Soren called out for his men to mount up and then did so himself. He fought to keep the smile from bursting forth on his face, for it would only make him appear more demonic than he was without it. After securing the lands and organising the people left alive, Soren was leaving one of Brice’s men in command until Brice decided who would oversee these lands for him.

The thought of riding to the lands that would be his, cleansing it of the vermin now living there and the fighting that would be necessary to accomplish those tasks charged his blood with heat and made his muscles ache to draw his sword. There would be time and opportunity aplenty, so he bided his time now, waiting for his men to fall into line behind him.

His attention was drawn to watching as they formed in their battle-ready lines and he never noticed the small boy approaching from his side. The scrawny child’s bleating scream made him turn just before the boy attacked.

Attacked? The boy did indeed have a dagger in his hand and he held it high as he ran towards Soren and his mount. It took little time or effort to stop the attack, for Soren simply leaned over and grabbed the pitiful thing from his feet by the clothes he wore and dangled him above the ground. Due to Soren’s long reach and the boy’s non-existent one, there was no hope for success or escape.

‘What the hell do you do, boy?’ he yelled, shaking the boy until he dropped the dagger. Pulling him in closer, Soren pushed his hood back and used the horror of his face to terrify him even more. ‘Do you think to kill me?’ Once his men realised there was no threat, they laughed at the boy’s puny attempt and waited for Soren to handle him.

‘You … you …’ the boy sputtered, swinging his fists even though he could not reach Soren.

‘Bastard?’ Soren offered in a low voice.

‘Aye,’ the boy nodded and then spat at him. ‘You bastard!’

That insult had stopped hurting some time ago. Soren had discovered the truth of his parentage at about the same age as this boy here and had learned the hard way not to let it goad him into anger or action.

Insults only had power when you let them control you, Lord Gautier’s voice expressed a long-forgotten lesson of life.

‘As is my king and yours now, boy,’ Soren agreed.

His men laughed, having been taunted with the same words themselves since most of them were born out of the bonds of marriage. That was part of why they’d all banded together and why he was at ease with them. No high-born men in his ranks to belittle him. No legitimate sons of nobles served with him, for only Gautier’s legitimate son Simon had ever befriended them. Bastards all, with excuses made to no one for it.

Soren dropped the boy onto the ground and waited to see what his next move would be. Strange, the boy was the first one here who did not flinch or wince at the sight of his face.

‘What are you called?’ he asked.

‘I am called Raed,’ the boy said as he stood and thrusted out his chin.

‘Raed of Shildon, where are your parents?’ Soren realised that the name did match the boy’s colouring, even though his own did not. The boy glanced away from him, looking instead at the freshly dug graves along the road and nodded.

‘I have no mother,’ he answered in a low voice. ‘My da lays there.’

An orphan. Soren glanced over at Guermont to determine if his men had killed the boy’s father. Guermont’s slight shake told him that it had been the work of Oremund’s men.

‘What skills do you claim?’ Soren asked. Something about the boy touched him deeply, in a place Soren had not thought existed any longer. This Raed seemed to have about eight years and Soren remembered how strong pride had filled him at that age. The boy shrugged and shook his head.

‘Foolish and fearless, then, for attacking an armed knight with but a puny dagger is asking for death.’

As the words escaped, a twinge pierced that place again—the one that recognised the truths one did not wish to know. Raed leaned over and picked up the dagger, shifting it from hand to hand, positioning it much as a warrior would. Clearly, the boy had used it before. In that moment, Soren made a decision that surprised even him and for reasons he could not understand fully.

‘Fearless, I can use. Foolish, I can beat out of you,’ he said, gruffly. The boy’s face paled, but he did not run or turn away. ‘I am in need of a squire, I think. Bring him, Larenz.’

The men laughed and Larenz approached the boy, grabbing hold of his shoulder and dragging him to the back of their troop. Not certain why he had just taken on the task of training the boy, Soren raised his hand and gave the signal to ride.

He never caught sight of the boy during the next four days’ journey to Alston, but Larenz reported on him each day. Only the night before they reached Alston did the boy show himself and only for a moment before he tucked himself back into the shadows of the camp.

Soren’s rest was fitful the night before the battle, as it always was—partly due to facing an unknown outcome and partly due to the thrill of battle. He woke from dozing and walked the camp, speaking to some of the men, yet in reality seeking out the boy he’d taken. He found him, curled in a ball far from the cooling ashes of a fire, shivering in the dawn’s chill. Seeing an unused blanket nearby, Soren draped it over the scrawny form and began to walk away, stopped by the quiet whisper of the child.

‘And what are you called?’ Raed asked.

‘Soren,’ he said. ‘Soren the Damned.’

For no matter what happened on the morrow, no matter the outcome of William’s fight against the rebels plaguing his lands, no matter that the blood of his enemy would be spilled, Soren knew his soul was damned to the darkness in which it now lived.

Chapter Two

Sybilla, Lady of Alston, stood up straight and moaned as her back spasmed in response to the movement. Pressing her fists into her lower back, she tried to ease the pain caused by leaning over too much and by carrying too many large rocks to the wooden palisade. They must shore up the defences, said Gareth, the commander of those who yet defended her and the keep. So, she helped as much as she could. Lady or not, another pair of hands lightened the work of all and gave her the hope that the wall could be strengthened to protect the keep from the coming invader.

Sybilla accepted a cup of water from the servant girl passing by, tightened the leather ties around her braid and began anew. They had little time to finish this task before the invader king’s pawn arrived at their gates. After receiving the message that he travelled there to claim the lands of her father, Sybilla and her late father’s steward Algar decided to protect themselves from the devastation committed on their neighbours and kin when faced with the same situation. She did not believe they could hold out long, but if they presented their strength, she and they hoped to negotiate a peaceful transition—one that allowed her people to live and her to travel to her cousin’s convent and live out her life there in peace and contemplation.

With her father and her brother dead, with no other Saxon kin able to come to her rescue or to stand against these invaders as they moved inexorably north towards her lands, Sybilla knew she and her people had few choices and little power.

They worked until nightfall, taking advantage of every moment of summer’s daylight to build the wall as high and strong as they could. Gareth had nodded his approval of their efforts in that stern, serious manner of his, but Sybilla knew it was not enough. Still, they had two days, possibly three, before the invaders arrived and they would take every moment given to them to prepare.

The birds’ song that heralded the dawn also brought terror to their doors, for the invaders crested the hill across from the keep and formed their lines to attack. Sybilla quickly gathered the children and took them to the back of the keep and carried out whatever Gareth ordered. Though she’d lived there for all her life, never once had they needed to defend it from outsiders. Even when her father and brother went off to fight alongside their king—her brother to Stamford Bridge and then her father to Hastings—their defences here were perfunctory and never needed.

Now, though, it meant the difference between life and death.

When things were settled in the keep, she climbed to the top of the wall to see what forces they faced. Gareth ordered her away, but Sybilla thought that meeting the enemy face to face might ease the situation. If Duke William of Normandy’s man thought them no threat, he might not attack before they could negotiate. Holding her hand over her eyes to shade the growing light of the rising sun, she shivered when she saw him.

Black. Everything he wore was black, except for the slash of red on his shield, angling to the left that she understood spoke of his bastardy. Or his duke’s? She knew not which, but once more her body trembled. His armour was black, not reflecting the rays of the sun above him. His horse, a huge, monstrous destrier, was the colour of midnight, without any markings to lighten his coat. And Sybilla felt as though death stood before her on the field.

Or the devil incarnate?

She shook herself from fear’s control and walked to Gareth’s side. His jaw clenched, he issued commands to his men in a low voice so that they would not carry across the open field in the silence. Sybilla noticed the silence then, and counted their numbers, at least the ones she could see.

Holy Mother in Heaven! They would never survive an attack from a force of this strength. She began to think they’d made a mistake when the giant’s words confirmed it.

‘I claim the lands and people of Durward the Traitor and order the gates open.’

Gareth shook his head and, though tempted to call out orders of her own, she acquiesced to his experience and knowledge in such matters. ‘Twas a mistake.

‘Prepare to die!’ the warrior called out and he and his men launched their attack.

Gareth ordered her from the wall and Sybilla rushed down the steps, intending to get back inside the keep before the invaders reached the walls. The wall shuddered in that moment and Sybilla realised that the first line of attackers were using rams to knock down the wall! Worse, they did not approach the strongest part of the wall near the gate; they used their weapons on the newest section, the weakest part. She needed to get past the very place that they were battering down.

Rushing along the path, avoiding the soldiers running to take their places and listening to her people crying out in terror, Sybilla tried to focus on all that Gareth had told her. Instead, every time the walls shook, she paused. Then, her worst fear was realised as the ram did its horrible task and the section of the wall in front of her shattered and fell.

Until Sybilla regained consciousness, she did not know she’d lost it.