“Lady,” he tried one last time. “You are bleeding. The wound must be tended.”
Her breathing was coming in strange pants and her eyes had a wild look to them. “Get out, de Velt,” she snarled. “I do not want the help of a vicious murdering criminal. I would rather bleed to death.”
His gaze lingered on her a moment, the hatred in her voice echoing in his head. For lack of a better response, Jax jerked his head at Amadeo, who quit the room silently. Jax followed, his gaze lingering on the cowering woman on the other side of the bed. Perhaps she would calm down if he left the room for a few moments. He did not know what else to do.
When Jax shut the door, Kellington managed to stand on unsteady legs. Stumbling to the door, she threw the bolt and locked it. Then she promptly fainted.
*
When Kellington came to, it was dark. She was lying on her stomach and she could see the flicker of flames against the wall. It took her a moment to orient herself, realizing she was in her own bed and the sun had set. The events of the day came rushing back to her and she stirred, grunting when a bolt of pain shot through her left shoulder.
“Are you awake, darling?”
Lavaine’s sweet face and deep brown eyes were suddenly in her line of sight. Confused, and slightly startled, Kellington blinked as if sure the woman was an apparition.
“Levie?” she whispered. “What… what are you doing here?”
Lavaine had a cool cloth in her hand; she wiped down the portion of Kellington’s face that was not pressed into the mattress.
“Tending you,” she looked off to her right, into the darkness of the room. “Matilda, bring me that broth. That’s right. Bring it here. Perhaps Lady Kelli is ready to eat something.”
Kellington grunted again as she shifted her body, trying to gain a look at her surroundings. “What happened?” she muttered, still struggling to orient herself. “My… my shoulder. Is it…?”
Lavaine cut her off. “De Velt’s surgeon tended it,” she replied as she accepted the broth from the servant. “It was not deep enough to warrant stitches, but you’ll probably have a scar.”
“His surgeon?” Kellington repeated, her tone gaining strength. “I told him that I did not want anyone touching me.”
Lavaine sighed heavily when Kellington shook her head at the broth. “He did not listen to you,” she said. “He was forced to kick your door in when you locked it. He brought me up here after the surgeon had tended your wound and told me to take care of you.”
Kellington tried to push herself up but wasn’t doing a very good job. “I do not need taking care of,” she managed to roll over onto her right elbow. “Levie, where did they take you after I was cut? What happened?”
Lavaine set the bowl down, tears forming in her eyes again. “Matilda and the servants took me to the kitchens to hide me from the knights,” she said softly. “Cook gave me wine until I calmed somewhat. At least… at least I was not screaming any longer.”
Kellington reached out to touch her hand. “Levie, I am so terribly sorry,” she said, now verging on tears of her own. “It is unthinkable what de Velt and his men have done. I tried to talk to them… they simply told me it was the way of war. It is the way of their war.”
Big pools of tears filled Lavaine’s eyes and spilled over onto her round cheeks. “They took the baby,” she choked out. “I have not seen him since. And Trevan….”
She began to weep softly again. Kellington struggled into a sitting position and put her good arm around the woman, the one that wasn’t hampered by a painful wound. She did not know what else to do.
“I’m so sorry, my dear friend,” she wept with her. “I had no idea such atrocities even existed. We have lived such a good life here that I had no idea horrors like this were possible.”
Lavaine sobbed into her shoulder. “If… if we could only bury him. He does not deserve to be perched on a post for all to see. He was a great knight.”
“Aye, he was,” Kellington struggled to dry her tears; they were not helping her friend. What she needed was to formulate a plan, something to ease all of their suffering. “And we will indeed bury him, have no fear. We will bury them all.”
Lavaine looked at her, wiping at her cheeks. “But how?”
Kellington’s golden-brown eyes were serious with thought. She was chatelaine of Pelinom, after all. It was her duty to aid her vassals and friends, to right the wrongs, and to do whatever she could to champion them. De Velt had created a hell when he had commandeered her beloved castle and devastated her people. She had to do something.
“Do not worry,” she assured her friend softly. “I will do what needs to be done.”
CHAPTER FIVE
“My lord?”
It was Caelen, standing in the entry of the great hall. Jax and Amadeo were seated towards the far end where a massive hearth burned brightly, spitting smoke and sparks into the upper portion of the room. The gallery was cloaked in a silver fog as the two men hovered over an old vellum map. It was Jax’s map of conquest, one he studied religiously, for it showed him where he was and what more he needed to do. Studying the map was a nightly ritual.
“What is it?” Jax looked up from the vellum.
Caelen jabbed a thumb in the direction of the bailey. “The lady,” he said. “She was pulling the body of that knight off the spike. She bit me when I grabbed her, so I threw her and her servants in the vault.”
Jax looked at him as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing. Slowly, very slowly, he stood straight and focused on the knight who had borne such news.
“That’s impossible,” he said flatly. “The last I saw her, she was passed out on her bed as the surgeon tended her shoulder. There’s no possibility that she was….”
“I know, my lord, but she was just the same,” Caelen insisted. “She and a few women were trying to bury that dead knight.”
“You should have let me kill her,” Amadeo grumbled from across the table. “If you do not quell this immediately, it will get out of hand. We never have women in our installations and for good reason. Why do you deviate from that practice now?”
Jax turned his gaze to his second in command, his two-colored eyes simmering with fury.
“If you question me again, you will join that knight outside on the pole,” he rumbled. “Is that clear?”
Amadeo knew he was not bluffing; the man never bluffed. He replied without fear. “It is, my lord.”
Jax’s gaze lingered on Amadeo a moment longer before turning back to Caelen. “You say she is in the vault?”
Caelen nodded. “Aye. I smacked her good when she bit me, the little bitch.”
Jax lifted a dark eyebrow but did not reply. He moved away from the map with Amadeo and Caelen in tow. The three of them descended the old wood and iron steps, crossed the bailey under a brilliant blanket of stars, and took the narrow, mossy stairs from the ground floor of the gatehouse into the depths of the vault below.
It was very dark but for a single torch burning in an old iron sconce. It hardly lit the vault with its two large cells. Off to his left he could see a few figures huddled in one of the cells; it was the same cell that Kellington had been in earlier in the day. Now she was right back in it. He took the key off the wall and opened the grate.
His mighty presence sucked up all the air in the cell. While the three servants cowered, Kellington sat on the old straw, her hand on the side of her face, gazing up at him with baleful eyes. He met her gaze, wondering if Amadeo wasn’t right in one breath and strangely glad to see her with the next.
“I see you have landed in the vault again,” he said in his deep, intimidating baritone. “You will explain yourself.”
The entire left side of Kellington’s face was red and swollen where the big knight had slapped her. She kept her right hand over it to ease the throbbing; her left arm had limited mobility with the pain from her wound. Seeing Jax made her angry and sick all over again.
“We were trying to bury Trevan.�
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She said it so softly that he barely heard her. “Speak up, lady,” he commanded.
The golden-brown eyes flashed. “I said that we were burying Trevan,” she said, louder. “There is no reason why you must leave his corpse to rot. The man was simply defending his post. He did nothing to warrant such disrespect from you.”
“I told you that you could not bury him.”
“You have no reason to deny him a decent burial,” she shot back, furious and in pain with her shoulder. “If you do not allow this man a proper burial then you are indeed the monster I’ve heard tale of. I tried not to believe it until this moment, but if you cannot show respect to a man’s passing then I find you completely without honor and a horrible devil of a man.”
Caelen and Amadeo froze, looking to Jax and waiting for him to tear the woman apart with his bare hands. They’d seen such things before. The servants were weeping and shivering in the corner of the cell, knowing their deaths would be next. But Jax remained where he stood, unmoving, unblinking, the dual-colored eyes undoubtedly concocting the most horrible death imaginable for the sassy wench. After several long, anxious moments, Jax’s jaw began to tick.
“Remove the servants,” he ordered in a rumbling voice. “Clear everyone out of here.”
Caelen and Amadeo moved past Jax, yanking the three serving women to their feet and hauling them away. Kellington sat there and trembled, her hand still over her face, knowing she had pushed the man past his limits. But she frankly didn’t care; she was beyond caring at the moment. She knew horrible things were going to happen and she had driven him to it.
Jax stood there a good long while before making any move. Kellington flinched when he finally began to walk towards her but admirably held her ground. When Jax came to within a few feet of her, he crouched down in front of her.
Kellington met his gaze, watching the disturbing two-colored eyes as they studied her. She tensed, waiting for a massive hand to come flying out at her. But for several long seconds, nothing happened. Then he spoke.
“If I am the horrible monster you have accused me of being, you and your servants would all be dead,” he said in a quiet tone. “I would have shown you no mercy. Yet I have.”
She eyed him, wondering why he was bothering to justify himself. “But the men in the bailey….”
“Are casualties of war. How many times must I explain this?”
“But they are men, not animals. They were defending their fortress. They should be given a proper burial. That is every man’s right; even yours.”
“Oh?” he lifted his eyebrows. “And do you think that if I had died in battle that those men would have given me a proper burial?”
“My father would have. So would Sir Trevan. They are honorable men and would have allowed you your due.”
He drew in a long breath. He seemed to be looking at the hand covering her face. His enormous hand came up and she instinctively flinched, as if to pull away from him, but he stopped her.
“Let me see your face,” he said as he pulled her hand away. He studied the big red welt. “It will fade. You should not have bit him.”
She frowned. “He should not have grabbed me.”
“He was stopping you from doing something you were not supposed to be doing in the first place. Moreover, you must be weak with that bad shoulder. What were you doing trying to bury a man?”
She lowered her gaze. “I… I am all right.”
“I do not think so but it is a noble lie. In fact, your actions in defending your lady today were most noble. You have courage.”
Kellington didn’t know what to say to that. She looked up at him again, feeling her anger abate as a strange sense of desperation took hold. She had to get through to the man.
“Please,” she asked softly. “Please let me bury Trevan. He was a good man, a kind man. His wife is my friend. They loved each other. It is such torture for her to see him impaled on a spike in the bailey. Will you please show us this mercy?”
“I thought you said I was a monster without mercy.”
She sighed heavily, miserably. “I was angry. I do not understand why you are doing what you are doing to men who did nothing but try to defend themselves from your onslaught. If… if you show us this one mercy by allowing us to bury our dead, then I swear I will do whatever you wish. I will keep to my rooms, curb my tongue, serve your meals…anything… if you will please show us this one mercy. It is so very important to us. Can you not understand that?”
He regarded her. After a moment, he lowered himself to his buttocks, one leg bent and an arm resting on his knee. One of his thighs was larger in circumference than Kellington’s torso. He was so very, very big and so very, very frightening. But Kellington was only looking at his face, waiting for a response to her plea. She couldn’t think about anything else.
“Understand something about me, lady,” he said after a thoughtful pause. “What you see in the bailey is the way of things. I have not become the most feared warlord in England because I show mercy. I show men what I am capable of and that in of itself is a powerful weapon. Right now, the border is watching this place. They know I have it. They know this is not the last castle I will take. They know I will be aiming for the next castle soon and when I do, it would be smarter of men to simply flee and leave me the fortress because they know that they, too, shall find themselves made examples of if they do not. Those men in the bailey signal victory. And they send a warning.”
Kellington watched him carefully, realizing he meant every word. He was devoid of compassion or understanding. After a moment, she shook her head in wonder. “Who has made you what you are? What fiend has molded your mind into believing that this is the right and honorable way to achieve your ends?”
“There is no other way.”
“Of course there is,” she shot back softly. “De Velt, you do not have to brutalize your conquered army to prove you are powerful. You can still be fierce and show compassion and fairness.”
“Compassion is weakness. I am not weak.”
She cocked her head, wondering who in the world had imparted such rigidity to him. “How many castles have you conquered like this?”
“Eleven in England, six in Wales, two in Scotland and fifteen in France.”
Her eyebrows rose. “And you did this to every army you conquered?”
“Every one.”
Her head wagged back and forth slowly, staggered by the sheer numbers. “Who told you this was the right way to force people into submission?”
“My father.”
She didn’t want to slander the man’s father, but he was obviously a madman. Beseechingly, she reached out and touched his massive booted foot.
“De Velt, I would never disparage your father, but doing what you do… it simply isn’t right.”
“Of what do you speak?”
“All of it. But leaving men to rot without a proper burial simply isn’t right. It doesn’t make people fear you. It simply makes them hate you.”
His eyes moved to where her small white hand rested on his boot. He swore he could feel the heat through the leather.
“Do you hate me, then?” he asked, lifting his eyes to look at her once again.
She gazed at him a moment. Then she just shook her head. “Hate is a strong emotion. I do not admire what you do, that is for certain. I fear you have been misguided in your life to believe that your methods are honorable. I… I feel sorry for you, I think.”
He stood up so fast that it startled her. “I do not require your pity, lady,” he growled. “You would do well to keep that for those scarecrows in the bailey.”
She stood up, slowly, favoring her left arm and shoulder by cradling it with her right hand. “I did not say that I pitied you. I said that I felt sorry for you and I do.”
“Why?”
“Because I think you are a very unhappy man if things like impaling enemies give you your only sense of satisfaction.”
He gave her a strange look. “Wh
at makes you think that?”
She shrugged. “I do not know. Only it seems to me that you are never satisfied with what you have. Why else do you go about conquering castle after castle, never satisfied with what you have and always looking for more? What need are you trying to fill? What appetite are you attempting to sate?”
He looked down at her, the way her blond hair brushed gently around her chin and the way her eyebrows arched over her golden-brown eyes. It frightened him to think on how wise she was, how much she knew what was in his mind when he himself didn’t even like to think on it.
“You talk too much,” he said simply.
She gave him a quirky smile. “I know,” she agreed. Then her smile faded. “What can I do to convince you to bury the men in the bailey?”
“I will not bury all of the men in the bailey.”
“Then what can I do to convince you to bury Sir Trevan?”
He eyed her. He could demand most anything and she would more than likely see it through. He remembered well earlier in the day when she had followed through on her commitment to accepting punishment on behalf of the people of Pelinom. He had little doubt that she would follow through on anything he asked of her. He could simply take what he wanted and satisfy both his curiosity and his lust; aye, he lusted for her. There could be no other reason why he showed her such leniency. But with the same thought, he realized that he did not want to take from her or order her into submission. That satisfaction she spoke of; he could not think of anything more satisfying than if she were to give herself to him willingly.
“I will extract a heavy price to bury your knight,” he finally said.
It was the first positive admission she had heard from him to that regard and her heart soared even as her brain quivered with fear; her head heard the words but her heart was encouraged by his compliance no matter what the cost.
“Name the price, my lord,” she said. “What will you have me do?”