After traveling all the previous day, they had moved out before sunrise for their last few miles to Cloryn. The castle was sighted in the distance just as the sun began to rise and Bretton sent a rider on to the castle to inform the inhabitants of his approach. He also requested food and comfort for his men, a message that was directed at Allaston. As the army drew closer, Cloryn’s gates opened to welcome them.
Approaching the castle from the east, they weren’t hit with the stench of the dead until they were very close because of the path of prevailing winds. Riding at the head of his army with Dallan, Teague, and Grayton, the stench was stronger than usual because of the warm weather they had been having. Flies and insects were swarming as they approached the gatehouse. Near the gate itself, now open with the great fanged portcullis lifted, were the bodies of the lord and lady of Cloryn. But Bretton wasn’t looking at the decaying corpses. He was looking straight ahead at the open gatehouse. But his commanders were looking at the bodies.
“Bretton,” Grayton ventured. “Far be it from me to suggest how you conduct your campaign of terror, but this smell is not going to help anyone’s appetite. It has been four months. Mayhap it is time to consider burying our enemies.”
Bretton was still looking straight ahead as the gatehouse loomed overhead. “Six months,” he said steadily. “Not a day less.”
“Why?”
“Because that is how long de Velt left them up.”
“And how would you know that?”
“Ask anyone who was alive during the time of de Velt’s raids and they will tell you,” he said. “He left the bodies of the dead up for six months.”
Grayton looked at Dallan, who shrugged. There was no use trying to convince the man otherwise. He was obsessed withemulating, and punishing, de Velt, so it was not a subject open for debate. In fact, his obsession had been lucrative as of late, so they let the subject die and focused instead on what lay ahead. Food, comfort, and rest that they were all looking forward to.
Bretton entered the bailey of Cloryn and realized he was hoping to see Allaston right away, waiting to greet him, but all that met him was the vast, dusty bailey and several soldiers he had left behind to guard the fortress while he was away. Word of de Llion’s victory was spreading among the men and Bretton could hear a cry of triumph ripple through the men as he dismounted. Men were shouting his name, rallying victory, as he pushed through them, heading for the keep. Behind him, they had brought three big wagons loaded with spoils back with them from Rhayder and he could hear his men happily claiming the treasures.
As Dallan, Teague, and Grayton began disbanding the men, Bretton entered the dark and cool keep. The first thing he noticed was that the floor was swept and dried rushes, tall grass that was harvested and dried especially to cover the floor, were spread about. It smelled like hay, which wasn’t a bad smell at all. He liked it. The open room straight ahead that he sometimes used for conferring with his men was also swept and the tabletop scrubbed clean. There was even a fire in the hearth, inviting. He stepped into the room and ran his hand over the tabletop, noting it smelled of lye when he sniffed his fingertips. The lady had obviously been busy in his absence.
Taking the stairs to the second floor, he stuck his head into both chambers on this level but was met with silence. The top floor chambers, both of them, were the same. Curious that Allaston was not in the keep, he descended back to the entry level and headed out to the kitchens.
The kitchen yard was busy. There were two big pots boiling away over carefully stoked fires and he peered at both of them.One was a stew of some kind with beans and carrots, while the other seemed to be a big pot of chunks of meat and gravy. As he stuck his dirty finger into the gravy to taste it, he heard a woman’s voice coming from the stone kitchen. Like a siren’s call, the sound lured him.
Bretton came to a halt in the doorway of the kitchen, his gaze falling on Allaston as she faced away from him. Great smells assaulted his senses and heat slapped him in the face as the big bread oven was going full-bore, red-hot with crackling flames to bake with. As he watched, Allaston appeared to be kneading or beating something, he really couldn’t tell. Whatever it was, she was working it heavily on the big, wooden tabletop in front of her.
“Uldward?” she called, looking over her shoulder towards the cook working on the other table. “Do you have the garlic chopped yet? I must add it to this dough. We must get it into the oven.”
The big, burly cook hustled over to her, his hands full of something, and dumped everything he was carrying into the dough she was working.
“Salt!” Allaston commanded.
The cook grabbed a covered bowl that held their precious salt and liberally sprinkled it into the bread. He also put peppercorns in it, quite generously, and Allaston continued to knead it furiously. After flipping the dough over several times, as it was quite a bit of dough, she finally stood back from it, wiping at her sweaty forehead with the back of her hand.
“Now, form this into several smaller loaves of bread,” she told the cook. “This should make at least fifty smaller loaves, two men to a loaf. Let me go see to the stew outside and then we will make more dough once all of this gets into the oven.”
The cook moved forward to begin fashioning loaves of garlic-peppercorn bread as Allaston turned around to head out of thekitchen. But the moment she turned, she caught sight of Bretton in the doorway. Startled, she gasped.
“My… my lord,” she stammered. “I did not hear… I thought someone would tell me when you arrived. I did not know you had returned!”
Bretton could see that she was flustered, quite possibly frightened, that she hadn’t been advised of his return. Perhaps she thought he had expected her to greet him. In any case, he held up a hand to calm her.
“We just now returned,” he said, his eyes drinking in the sight of her. She was dressed in a light yellow surcoat and pale linen shift with her dark hair in a big, thick braid. He’d never seen anything more delightful and all of those days of dreaming about her were summarily satisfied by the sight. “My men are disbanding as we speak. I sent word ahead to have a meal prepared and I see that you have it well in hand.”
Allaston had to admit that that she was startled by the sight of him as well as fearful. This warrior, thisDevil,had finally returned. After all of the horrible things she had been told of him yesterday, she wasn’t quite sure how she would feel upon seeing him again. At the moment, all she could feel was anxiety. But in the same breath, she felt something more, something very odd– something of warmth stirring within her chest, and the sight of his handsome, scruffy face was doing something very strange to her emotions. She thought her heart might have actually fluttered.
“Aye,” she agreed, pointing out to the kitchen yard. “I have a bean and pork soup cooking and also the last of the mutton we had. It is cooking in a gravy that has peppercorns and onions.”
His gaze remained on her, smoldering and weary, before turning to see what she was pointing at. “Have you done all of this by yourself?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I have had help,” she said, thinking to perhaps emphasize the value of the servants he had not put to the stake. Perhaps emphasize her value, too, now that she knew what he was capable of. “Uldward and Blandings have been extremely helpful,” she said. “Robert cut up the mutton to put in the pot. I could not have done it without them.”
He turned to look at her again. “Who are they?”
“The cook and kitchen servants.”
He lifted his eyebrows. “I see.”
