“Right now, that woman serves a purpose,” he snarled. “Much like you, or any of my men, she now serves a purpose. She servesme. If you have issue with this, then keep it to yourself for I do not want to hear it. You will not question my decision again, is that clear?”
Grayton was half-unconscious but nodded. He also wisely remained on his back, looking up at Bretton with unfocused eyes.
“Aye,” he grunted.
Bretton wasn’t finished with him yet. “She is a valuable prisoner, as you once stated,” he growled. “If anyone moves against her, I will kill him. And I do mean anyone. Make sure that is well understood within the ranks.”
“Aye, Bretton,” Grayton replied.
Bretton loomed over the man angrily for a moment longer before standing up, coming into eye contact with both Teague and Dallan as he stood back from Grayton. He lifted his eyebrows at them.
“Do either of you have something to say about this?” he demanded.
The two warriors shook their heads, knowing now was not the time to express any concerns over the prisoner. But they, too, realized that their liege had some kind of feelings, or some sense of protectiveness, for de Velt’s daughter. It was a sensitive subject that bore watching.
“Nay,” Teague finally said. “But she should be much more careful about moving in the great hall. I have seen more than one soldier eye her rather hungrily. It would probably be best if she kept to the kitchen and the keep, for her own safety.”
Bretton was still furious about his confrontation with Grayton and struggled to calm the rage. Taking a deep breath, he nodded as he turned away from his men.
“I would agree,” he said, his tone considerably less hostile. “I will make sure she knows.”
They let the subject die as he went back over to his charger, pretending to check the connections and straps, when what he was really doing was evaluating his reaction against Grayton. The man was his closest friend, someone he trusted implicitly.Was it possible that he was correct and that de Velt’s daughter was truly a danger to them all? He couldn’t honestly believe it but, then again, he had been having some very odd feelings where she was concerned. He wondered if his men were seeing something he wasn’t, blinded by her beauty and kindness as he was.
The wait for Allaston wasn’t long. Within ten minutes of Bretton’s punch to Grayton, she came scurrying out of the keep with a small satchel in her hand. She also had a cloak on, the same one she had been wearing since Grayton had given her all of those garments. Brown, lined with rabbit fur, Allaston took great care of Lady Miette’s cloak. As she approached Bretton, he pointed at the bag.
“Where did you get that?” he asked.
Allaston looked at the satchel in her hand, made from brocaded wool. It was quite nice. “I found it in the chamber above mine where I also found a comb for my hair and these clothes,” she said, wondering how much she should say about whom, in fact, it had belonged to. “I am just borrowing it because I have nothing else to carry my possessions in.”
He eyed the bag. “You may have any of those possessions that catch your eye,” he told her. “They belong to me now.”
Allaston looked at him as he spoke rather emotionlessly.They belong to me now. They belonged to him because the real owners were dead, killed by de Llion’s war machine. She wondered how he could be so callous about such things. It was confusing, really. Last night, he had kissed her hand with tenderness only angels possessed, yet he spoke of a dead family’s possessions as if they were nothing at all. It was difficult not to tell him what she thought of his attitude towards the bundle of lonely items that were the sole reminder of a family who had met a terrible end.
So she said nothing, following him as he took her elbow and pulled her over to a horse that was standing rather docile and half-asleep a few feet away from his charger. He took her bag from her, handing it over to the nearest soldier with the instructions to secure it to her saddle before taking her by the waist and lifting her up onto the horse. The saddle wasn’t made for a woman, but rather for a man to ride astride, so she shifted a bit, trying to get comfortable, as he handed her the reins.
Bretton mounted his silver charger, snapping orders to the two commanders who were accompanying them, and the commanders began to form the men in loose columns. Someone shouted to the gatehouse and the gate, a big oak and iron monstrosity that was newly rebuilt in many sections, began to lurch open. The wider the gate yawned, the more the breeze from outside the walls began to infiltrate the bailey, bringing with it the horrible stench of death.
Allaston caught whiff, a horrible sweet and greasy stench, and she immediately sucked in her breath and pinched her nose shut. She glanced sidelong at Bretton and at the two other commanders, one of them being Grayton who was sporting a swollen nose, and she couldn’t help but notice they weren’t reacting to the smell. They were paying more attention to the party that was riding forth and when Bretton finally motioned her forward, she reluctantly kicked the horse in his flank and the animal began to move. The closer she drew to the open gate, the more apprehensive she became. Knowing what was outside those gates made her stomach lurch. And then, she saw them.
Dozens upon dozens of bodies, mounted on poles, exposed to the air like a ghastly army of scarecrows, only the crows weren’t scared. There were flocks of them feeding on the flesh of the corpses. It was a grisly sight. Horrified, sickened, Allaston realized that the great army of impaled men stretched out for atleast a quarter of a mile, flanking the road leading in to Cloryn. There were men on poles almost as far as she could see.
The scope was beyond comprehension. All of these men who had once fought for Cloryn were now dead within sight of it. As she absorbed the hideous sight, the full atrocities of de Llion’s campaign of terror were becoming real. The stench, coupled by the vision before her, brought tears to Allaston’s eyes and she hung her head, unwilling to look at the macabre scenery any longer. They were surrounded by it. As the horse plodded from the gate, she happened to catch a glimpse of something billowing in the breeze off to her left and she glanced over, a reflexive action, to see the most horrific sight she had ever seen, a horror of horrors that made everything else seem tame by comparison.
Lady Miette’s dress was waving in the morning breeze, a dark blue garment of fine fabric that had been terribly weathered these months that it had been exposed to the elements. The woman herself was impaled on a pole that went in between her legs and exited her sternum, coming to rest just below her chin. Her head hung forward with copious amounts of dark hair blowing over her face. It was difficult to see her decayed features but her hands, small and boney, were clasped near her waist as if in prayer. Allaston could only imagine that the woman, as she was dying, set about to pray for her passing by folding her hands in prayer. It was a sad, horribly poignant sight.
Next to her were the remains of a man in pieces of armor and chain mail. He was impaled like the woman, without his helm, and the wind blew his dark blond hair gently as it framed his sunken features. Against his legs, a body of a small boy was trussed up with rope and secured to him. The child’s face was buried between the man’s legs so she couldn’t see it, and his little body was all wrapped up in the rope. In death, the child was tied to his father. It was both horribly saddening and horribly touching.
Every terrible story Allaston had been told about the family and about the horrors de Llion’s army cast against them came crashing down on her and, with a sob escaping her lips, she pulled her horse to a stop and dismounted, making her way through the ghoulish forest of bodies until she came to Lady Miette and her husband. She fell to her knees in front of Lady Miette.
“Ave María, grátia plena, Dóminus tecum,” she prayed, tears streaming down her face as she crossed herself. “Benedícta tu in muliéribus, et benedíctus fructus ventris tui, Iesus.”
Her actions didn’t go unnoticed by Bretton, or any of the others. Bretton was behind her as they’d exited the gates, too far away to prevent her from dismounting her horse. Quickly, he spurred his horse forward and dismounted, moving through the army of the dead until he came to Allaston as she prayed and wept over the family. He didn’t even look at the bodies, for he had seen them before. But he knew she hadn’t. He couldn’t quite grasp why it upset her so, other than there was a child visible. He knew she was sensitive, he’d seen it. But the emotion she was displaying was foreign to him.
“My lady,” he said quietly. “We must be….”
She cut him off, hissing. “How could you do this?” she demanded. “How could you kill this woman and her children? I do not understand what kind of monster would do this heinous thing.”
He stiffened. “You are not to judge my methods, bearing de Velt blood as you do,” he said, trying to keep the emotion out of his voice, which he wasn’t very good at in any case when it pertained to her. “Your father did this to my family. This should not upset you so.”
