its sheath met her declaration and she offered up a prayer for her soul as she waited to meet her fate.
Chapter Three
Hatred raced through his veins as she spoke her name. Months of waiting, months filled with nothing but pain and suffering, had brought him here and he pulled his sword free from its scabbard. The red haze of fury and anger filled his vision as he raised the weapon of her death above his head and savoured this moment he’d dreamed of and prayed for since the battle at Hastings. For a moment he was tempted to drop the sword and use his bare hands to wring the life from her body, knowing it would appease some primitive need within him for vengeance, but he gripped the sword’s hilt tightly as he shouted out his hatred for all there to hear.
‘Death to all who carry the blood of the traitor Durward!’
But, before he could swing his weapon and end the life of the last of them, his vision cleared and for a brief moment he saw only the woman kneeling before him. It was all the delay that the crowd needed for they took advantage and surged forwards and pulled her into its centre. She fought against them, trying to push herself forwards, but they did not allow it.
He took a step towards them and the entire throng backed away, finding themselves between his men and the corner of the hall. They could go no further and had no chance of surviving an attack by armed knights and archers, but they would not relinquish their lady to him.
‘Soren,’ Guermont whispered at his side. ‘Mayhap this is not the way?’
Soren turned to him, unable to hear out of his right ear, and glared at him. In spite of his momentary hesitation, he had not come this far and got so close to his purpose to be defeated or delayed by some villagers and children. And that was all who defended her now. Her men were either dead or prisoners, and yet, the least of her people gathered around her as though they could indeed stop him. Still, Guermont’s words of warning slowed his actions. Killing innocent peasants would damn him even more than he was already cursed by God.
He slid his sword back into its scabbard on his belt and strode towards the crowd, his men following behind as they formed a wedge that moved through to its center. When they’d pushed or pulled her free and dragged her from the rest, the crowd did not slow in its defence of her. First an old woman, one of those closest to the lady, fell to her knees and began to beg.
‘Mercy, my lord! Mercy!’ she called out loudly.
‘Mercy! Mercy!’ another called. Then another and another until the hall shook with their pleas for a mercy he did not have. Or he thought he did not have until the wench’s hand touched his and she fell to her knees.
‘Spare them, I beg you. They seek to only to protect me,’ she implored. ‘They are not to blame here.’
In spite of her condition, in spite of the bloody rags tied around her head and her torn and soiled gown, she looked every bit the proud daughter of the old lord. Her defence of her people, now his people, touched him regardless of how much he hated this moment of weakness in his hour of triumph.
‘What happened to you?’ he asked, not even trying to keep his anger from his voice.
‘The wall … stones …’ she began to say. ‘My eyes …’ She could say no more, for her body began to shake and tremble as though hearing the news herself for the first time.
‘You are blind?’ he asked.
A defect like this gave him complete absolution in disregarding the king’s wishes for him to marry her. It could be grounds for an annulment of any betrothal. It was an impediment to a true marriage and could be.
She cannot see me!
Soren realised that it was the tiniest seed of hope that spoke those words inside his head. Blind, she would never see his deformity. She would never look on him in revulsion as his torn and mangled flesh was revealed. Blind, she would never gaze in fear or pity at him the way others did.
She could not see him.
‘Take her,’ he said quietly.
The hall erupted in screaming and lamenting as those present believed he would have her executed. The lady said nothing and did not resist his men as they led her forwards to the front of the hall and up the steps of the dais there. His warriors had to form a line between the people and the dais to keep them from pushing forwards to her side.
He climbed the steps there and walked to her side, glaring at those who would argue his power to do as he would. Her quiet voice forestalled any orders before he could call them.
‘My lord?’ she said, turning her head to gauge his position and proximity. ‘My lord Soren?’ she said again.
A flash of heat pierced his body as he imagined the sound of her sultry voice in his bed. She would whisper it over and over, acknowledging his power over her body and soul as he pleasured her for hour on hour. She would cry out his name as he entered her, thrusting deep within her flesh, making her his and his alone.
Soren shook himself from such a vision and glared at her. Realising the futility of it, he walked to her.
‘Aye,’ was the only word he could force out.
‘Would you grant me a moment with a priest before.?’ Her voice faltered for a moment. Only a moment. ‘Before my death.’
He would have admired such bravery in anyone else, but he steeled himself against her. Angry at himself for even the fleeting thought of showing kindness, he turned away.
‘You will have need of a priest, Sybilla of Alston,’ he barked out, ‘but I do not intend to kill you this day.’
‘My lord?’ she asked. ‘Am I to be your prisoner, then?’ He watched as she tried to come closer and stumbled. Damn it! He fought the urge to reach out to help her.
‘Prisoner of a sort, lady,’ he said. ‘You will be my wife.’
The hall erupted again; the people surged forwards, trying to free her from what they thought would be a fate worse than death. The lady remained silent and then crumpled to the floor.
Chapter Four
His head pounded. His eye burned. His throat grew hoarse from shouting. His hands yet itched to twist the wench’s neck and end the line of Durward’s seed, but his words had put a stop to the possibility of killing her quickly. Soren raised his arm and rubbed his hand across his brow, trying to ease the pain there. A moment of weakness and he would now be responsible for her. A weakness he thought crushed out of him by the relentless suffering and pain of his ordeal and by the humiliation and torment of his condition and the loss of everything he valued in life.
The object of both his hatred and his newest pledge now sat silent and unmoving in a wooden chair he’d called for when she collapsed before him at the news of not her impending death, but her impending marriage to him. Soren only knew that her reaction was far less hysterical than if she could look upon his face and see him as he was now. Shaking off any regrets and trying to accept his path now that he’d stated it for all to hear, he searched the
