His Enemy's Daughter

‘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.’

‘So she lost consciousness?’ he asked. Gytha nodded. ‘For how long?’

‘Until you … you broke into the keep. She’d just awakened then.’

He’d seen many men who became dazed and confused after head injuries in battle. Some forgot themselves for a time. Some believed they were other people and some even became violent or attacked others. Some never recovered. A head wound would explain much.

‘Teyen, see to her. A calming brew might—’ Teyen’s shaking head stopped his suggestion.

‘It is better not to let her sleep deeply, my lord. Some do not awaken after such an injury if left to sleep too long.’

‘Whatever is necessary. Let her maid go in first and see to her condition, then follow.’

‘Aye, my lord.’ Teyen stepped back to allow Gytha entrance.

When the girl gasped at seeing her lady huddled on the floor, clutching pieces of the broken loom, Soren grabbed her arm and shook his head. ‘If you cannot be calm, you cannot go in,’ he ordered. Soren waited for her to accept his words and then released her. He did not miss that Stephen stepped closer as he’d grabbed the girl and watched the exchange with an intensity that spoke of more than a casual interest.

The older woman approached as Gytha touched her lady’s shoulder and began to whisper in a soothing voice to her. Though she seemed too nervous to do it, the maid had the wench off the floor and walking to the bed within moments. She, Sybilla, now limped, he noticed, favouring her left leg and foot as she moved slowly. Just when Gytha guided her to the side of the bed and began to help her in, Sybilla began to shake her head and became agitated. Gytha quickly took her to a chair that remained standing and sat her there.

‘You asked if she has lost her wits, my lord?’

The older woman’s voice surprised him. Soren turned to face her.

‘The lady has lost everything but her wits, my lord. Her father, her brother, both lost in battle. Her mother lost years before that. Her future lost today. And now, worst of all, her sight.’ The woman took a breath before continuing. ‘Such loss cannot help but overwhelm a person of such kind spirit and good heart as my mistress.’

He watched as Gytha began to evaluate the lady’s injuries and tended to them. The older woman’s words brought a feeling into his heart he did not recognise at first. Many times the target of it himself, it took him some moments to accept that it pulsed through him now.

Pity.

He pitied his wife.

Worse, he pitied the daughter of the man who had destroyed his life and his future.

Faced with this emotion, one he did not wish to feel for anyone who carried the blood of Durward within them, Soren did what he needed to do before it could take hold and ruin his plans for vengeance—he fought it and walked away the winner.

‘What are you called?’ he asked, backing out of the room and crossing his arms over his chest. If it was a defensive stance, he would never admit it.

‘I am Aldys,’ she said, with a bow of her head.

‘I am holding you responsible for your lady’s care,’ Soren said. ‘See to it.’ If she questioned or doubted or misunderstood his command, he knew not, for he was down the steps before she could open her mouth and get words out.

Chapter Six

Although the darkness of Sybilla’s heart never lifted, the confusion of her mind eased as the pain in her head did over the next several days. Or, at least, she thought several days had passed. Without the ability to see the sun’s passage through the sky or the falling of dusk and night and without the regular duties of her life before his arrival, Sybilla did not know for certain.

She gave herself over to the grief that festered unreleased in her heart and soul and could do little more than sob or sleep the hours away. Truly, there was little else to do now. She could not see and she could do nothing for herself. She had nothing now that this invader had destroyed her home, imprisoned those set to the duty of protecting her and finished the task his king and other foolish men in power had begun by taking everything and everyone that mattered away from her. The worst moments were those she somehow remembered through the haze of pain and loss—the exact one when she lost control over her grief and her actions.

The loom.

Blind, with her thoughts muddled and with her only plan being escape, she’d stumbled in a panic around her chamber without being able to see her route. Though she’d lived in that same room for years now, without sight it became like a foreign terrain with no path to follow. She lost more self-control with each misstep until he dragged her to the bed. But when he destroyed the loom in the corner of her room, the only remaining remnants of her world came crashing down along with the wooden structure.

It was the last thing that connected her with her father and her brother, for they’d built it for her after her mother’s death in an attempt to assuage her grief and draw her back to the daily life in their household. It had been successful; working on the loom soothed her heart and kept her busy.

Now it and every other trace of her family was gone, save her. And from the sounds of his threats floating in the air, her life was also in danger from the man to whom she was now wed.

Her appetite fled with each passing day and the only sustenance she took was what her maids forced into her in a cup. Why bother sustaining herself when there was little to live for now? And her survival meant nothing to anyone here any longer?

Any hope, any tiny flare of it, had been dowsed when Teyen had removed the bandages and she’d managed to open her swollen eyes … and faced an obliterating blackness. Nothing.

No hint of light or movement.

Nothing.

She was truly blind and time would not restore her sight to her as her faithful servants had persuaded her to believe. So she let herself sink into that darkness a little more with each passing day. She hid from all those she’d sworn to serve and to protect, unable to face them as she was. Unable to offer them anything now that she’d lost everything. Then, just when she believed she could do no more than content herself to exist in this dark oblivion, he invaded once more, using the boy to bring his commands to her.

Her maids were more nervous than her—flitting around her chambers, arranging and rearranging her hair and clothing several times and fussing over her more than ever before. As though her appearance mattered when nothing truly did.

Sybilla sat in silent darkness, waiting for his arrival. The sound of his footsteps rumbled like thunder moving closer, but she could not seem to rouse much fear or any other feeling at all. These last days had emptied her of her grief and every other emotion. Like the husks left strewn on the ground after harvest, there was nothing left within her.

She heard the door open on hinges that clearly needed to be oiled and then silence filled the chamber. The shallow breathing of those waiting by her side sounded like the horses in the stables when she sneaked in on a cold winter’s morn to visit them. Laboured, low and fast, they grew more erratic as the seconds passed.

‘Out!’ he ordered in a gruff bark.

One word and her loyal servants abandoned her to him. Whatever he did to engender such obedience did not go unrecognised by her. Fear. Deep, abiding fear.

They’d described his horrible injuries in specific gory details to her, clucking over her marriage to him and alternately praying for her deliverance. They whispered rumours of his black deeds—the innocent crushed under his heels without mercy. They exposed their fears to her without regard for her own. But it mattered not, for she felt nothing.

He closed the door with no effort to be quiet and then strode around the chamber, his steps tracing a loud path until he stood at her side. She knew because she could now hear his breathing very close to her. Standing before him in the hall, she’d felt tiny, but sitting while he stood made her feel like a dog at his feet. Sybilla would have stood, but she was as yet unsteady on her feet, her balance thrown off by the lack of sight and her injuries.

‘Lady,’ he said in a tone more respectful than she thought possible from their last encounters, ‘are you well?’

‘What does your healer report to you?’ she asked in a voice unused to speaking. She’d had little to say over these last days.

‘Teyen said your wound no longer bleeds and the dizziness is lifting. Is that true?’

Although his words seemed to show an interest in her condition, there was no concern underlying them. She could hear that much. Strange, how she noticed that now. Without sight, she had only hearing to provide her with information about the world, and people, around her. Sighing, she nodded in reply.

‘And the pain?’ he asked. Sybilla noticed a slight inflection in his voice, one she might not have if forced to look upon him.

‘‘Tis not the worst I have ever suffered through,’ she said.