Terri Brisbin - His Enemy's Daughter

Nothing had intervened in her despair for what could have been minutes or hours and then she drifted back to an awareness of herself and her surroundings.

To the sound of her maid and Aldys both praying for her!

Sybilla tried to raise her hand to her face and the source of her pain and found she could not move.

‘My lady,’ Gytha whispered. ‘You are awake!’

Sybilla nodded, but tears threatened again so she did not even try to speak. A hand behind her head supported her as a cup was placed at her mouth and she took a few sips. Watered wine eased the dry tightness in her throat.

‘We feared you would not wake,’ Gytha whispered again. From the sound and tone of the maid’s voice it was clear that there was a need to remain quiet.

‘Where am I?’ she asked. Without sight, everything felt different to her. Unable to see her surroundings, even her bed, if it was hers, did not seem familiar at all. ‘Are we alone?’

There was a pause before Gytha answered and Sybilla could almost imagine the two women exchanging glances between them before speaking. It was something they did frequently now that they both served her needs and when they felt the need to soften the coming blow. Sybilla had seen it when the news of her brother’s death at Stamford Bridge came, then when her father’s fate further south at Hastings arrived here months later. Their wordless exchange was so filled with sympathy, she could almost feel it now. Sybilla tried to push herself up to sit, but her arms and body did not obey her.

‘Hush now, lady,’ Aldys soothed. ‘We cleaned the wound and there is a new dressing in place. The bleeding is almost ceased.’ Sybilla felt the soft touch of a hand across the bandages now in place. ‘We are in your chambers.’ Then Aldys’s voice came from closer to her ears. ‘We are alone, but his lackeys check often and watch everything we do. They probably listen for our words, so have a care.’ Sybilla tried to nod her understanding of their situation.

‘Where is he?’ she whispered, knowing he would have to come here sooner or later now that their marriage had happened. She swallowed against the fear of what would follow.

‘He left the keep after … after …’ Sybilla nodded—she knew when he had left. ‘He can be heard calling out his orders in the yard and even beyond the wall.’

A strong shudder passed through her then, remembering the sound of his voice as he called for Alston’s surrender. And as he’d demanded she step forwards to face his death sentence. She shook again. Not death now, but something she imagined he would make worse than death. As a vision of him in his black armour flashed in her memory, she trembled as the thought of what she would suffer at his hands became clear to her.

‘I … cannot …’ she stuttered without thinking. Shaking her head, Sybilla felt the fear take hold of her. ‘I cannot do this.’

Aldys and Gytha leaned in close, each taking her hand and squeezing it. ‘Hush now, lady,’ Aldys repeated. ‘Rest and gain your strength.’

Because you will need it later were the unspoken words in her warning. But later came much too soon.

‘Lady?’ a voice called from the hallway. Sybilla could not identify the person behind the call.

‘What do you want, boy?’ Aldys asked.

‘Lord Soren sends me to bid you make ready for him.’

‘He sends a boy to tell you such things?’ Gytha whispered.

‘Monsters such as him will use anyone they can to do their bidding—women, children, whoever!’ Aldys’s anger made her voice low and almost unrecognisable.

‘Lady?’ the boy asked.

‘Aye, lad. I heard your message.’ Sybilla nearly could not get the words out, but she asked one question. ‘Are you of Alston?’

‘Nay, lady. I am Raed of Shildon.’

‘Shildon?’ she asked. A village some days’ journey to the east from Alston.

‘Aye, lady. My lord Soren took me from there to serve him.’

Sybilla sank deeper onto the pallet, her head pounding now from the injury and from all that faced her. Dear God in Heaven, he was a monster! He stole children from their families and forced them into his service? She shook her head, unable to say or think anything more.

Agitated by this news of how Soren acted, Sybilla could find no rest. She tossed and shifted on the pallet, for both comfort and ease escaped her. Nothing eased the pain in her head or in her heart. She felt the tenuous control she’d managed begin to wane as the hours passed. When she heard the sound of heavy footsteps approaching down the corridor outside her doorway, she wished she could have fainted and not faced what would follow his arrival.

But the saints above and even the Almighty seemed to ignore her prayers and kept her from sinking into oblivion. Sybilla hoped only not to disgrace herself and her name when he touched her, but from the way the fear took hold, she knew any control she had would end the first moment he came close.

Soren had tried not to think much on the coming night, he just wanted to accomplish as much as possible before the sun set. So, he’d focused his thoughts on how to hold so many prisoners, and how many of his own men had been killed, and how many villeins had fled his approach and how many yet remained to tend the fields, and other matters as weighty as those. It was only as he climbed the steps leading to the second floor of the corner tower of the keep that he realised he’d thought about her more than he wanted to admit … even to himself.

The scorn and scolding he saw in the gazes of his soldiers who stood guard stopped him in his steps. He was about to address their insubordination when Stephen called out his name. Since the man stopped at the end of the corridor and did not come to him, Soren walked back to hear his concerns.

‘Soren, is this wise?’ Stephen asked in a low voice.

‘What do you speak of?’

‘I know that a man’s blood runs hot after battle, but is this wise?’

Coming from this man, someone who had learned the hard lesson of misplaced lust after a battle, gave Soren pause. But, this was not of his concern.

‘If I was caught in the throes of bloodlust, you would be lying unconscious on the floor for asking such a thing and I would already be lying between the wench’s thighs halfway to satisfaction,’ he said. Soren glared at his friend. ‘So, ask me not such things and we will both be the better for it.’ Soren turned away, but was stopped by Stephen’s grasp on his arm. He shrugged it off easily.

‘She is your wife now, Soren.’

‘She is Durward’s get.’ The men who fought with him knew, had heard, his plans for any who carried the blood of Durward of Alston and who came under his control. In all the dark and painful detail. The change in her circumstances mattered not.

‘And now your wife. Different than what you had planned on. A different matter completely now.’

‘And my concern alone, Stephen. Do not make me regret accepting you into my service.’

The warrior looked as though he wanted to argue, but he controlled that urge and nodded. With only one more glance over his shoulder at Soren, Stephen left. Soren continued his path down to the doorway to her chamber. The guards stepped aside and waited for his orders.

‘Stay down there. I will call you if you are needed,’ he said, directing them to the place where he’d just spoken to Stephen. ‘No one comes further until I say so.’

He noticed the sweat on his palms as he reached for the latch and lifted it. He swore he felt no nervousness, but his heart raced and his chest tightened as he faced the next step in seeking vengeance against the man who had destroyed his life … and his body and soul. Soren pushed open the door and stepped inside.