vengeance ran hot in his own blood and this bit of sympathy for the slain did not cool it. He had cause to seek out and destroy those responsible for his condition, but these villagers—men, women, even children—deserved not the fate of being massacred by their lord’s men. Soren even understood how innocents could be caught up in the throes of war, but this was not warfare.
This was slaughter.
‘Seek any who live and gather the dead for burial,’ he ordered. ‘Burn the bodies of those who fought against us,’ he added.
Stephen hesitated, but did not speak. Soren turned his good eye to gaze at him. The flinch in the man’s gaze lasted less than a heartbeat of time, but it happened and Soren saw it. Worse, though, was the glint of pity that passed quickly through the battle-hardened warrior’s eyes for him.
His stomach clenched in a way now familiar to him when faced with this constant and unfailing reaction to his face. Fear or horror or revulsion followed quickly by pity. By Christ, he was sick of it! Soren turned away and walked off, not waiting to see if his orders were obeyed or not.
His blood boiled with hatred then. He would seek out the get of Durward of Alston and destroy any of them who yet lived and wipe his very name from the earth. The skin over his eye and the ragged scar down his face and neck itched then, reminding him of the damage wrought by the coward Saxon after the battle had been called. Soren fought the urge to touch it, for there were too many watching him now.
Another of Brice’s men called out to him and Soren nodded for him to approach. In tow, the halting shape of a priest walked behind, head bowed, prayers whispering under his breath. The priest did not look up and so he collided with Ansel and stumbled. It was as the priest raised his head that their gazes met and it happened.
The horror. The fear.
The priest instinctually made the sign of the cross and looked away as though unable to bear looking at him. Soren seethed with anger and hatred and lashed out.
‘Get him out of here, Ansel!’ he yelled. His voice echoed in the silence and everyone who was not watching, now did so. Soren did not care.
‘Soren, he wants to bless the dead,’ Ansel explained calmly, unaffected by his fury.
He sucked in a breath, trying to regain control, as the need to strike and hurt and destroy pulsed through his blood and nearly overwhelmed him. Clenching his fists and his teeth, Soren waited for the blinding rage to ease. The priest cowered and whispers rippled through the yard as the people there, both villeins and his men, waited to see his actions.
He could not speak, his throat clogged with anger; his arms and hands ached with the need to hurt someone, anyone. Soren simply nodded permission at Ansel as he strode off. The only thing that helped at times like these was labour—hard, physical toil that would tire his body and drain some of the hatred from his soul. So, he walked to where groups of the men cleared the bodies from the fields and wordlessly joined them.
Hours later, exhausted from days of hard riding and the battle this morn and even more from the digging and carrying, Soren barely made it to his blankets. It would take days to bury all the dead and get things in order here before he could head north to Alston. Days wasted when he should be taking control of his own lands and killing those related to Durward.
He had given his word to Obert and to Brice, so he had no choice but to see this through. And he would, though not happily. Once he had held the charter in his hands, spoken the words making him the king’s man and received the bishop’s blessing, the tension had grown within him. With every passing hour and day, the need to claim his own lands and make his place forced him forwards, like a hunger in his belly for a meal he could not or should not eat.
With every passing day, the gnawing fear that this dream would be snatched away from him grew. Held out like a choice bone to a hungry dog, the promise of these charters enticed them to dance to the king’s tune, regardless of the dangers. Soren and his friends were bastards, never meant to inherit or rule over wealth or lands. This opportunity from the king was unheard of and the threat of failure dogged his every step, just as it had Giles and Brice.
No matter now, he told himself for the thousandth time since regaining consciousness and discovering the offer made by Bishop Obert. Soren’s dreams and hopes for a life had ended on the battlefield and now he lived only for vengeance. Though he would pursue the king’s gift, he had little planned once he actually claimed it.
As he fell asleep on his fifth day of ‘handling’ Shildon for Brice and the king, the guilt struck him. And the irony as well, for he had the same fate in mind for Alston as Oremund had done here—burn it to the ground and wipe the slate clean so he could make his own mark on it. He wondered if he would feel pity for the get of Durward when they were dead at his hand and whether it would wipe him clean as well.
Sleep claimed him before he could answer his own question.
Soren called out for his men to mount up and then did so himself. He fought to keep the smile from bursting forth on his face, for it would only make him appear more demonic than he was without it. After securing the lands and organising the people left alive, Soren was leaving one of Brice’s men in command until Brice decided who would oversee these lands for him.
The thought of riding to the lands that would be his, cleansing it of the vermin now living there and the fighting that would be necessary to accomplish those tasks charged his blood with heat and made his muscles ache to draw his sword. There would be time and opportunity aplenty, so he bided his time now, waiting for his men to fall into line behind him.
His attention was drawn to watching as they formed in their battle-ready lines and he never noticed the small boy approaching from his side. The scrawny child’s bleating scream made him turn just before the boy attacked.
Attacked? The boy did indeed have a dagger in his hand and he held it high as he ran towards Soren and his mount. It took little time or effort to stop the attack, for Soren simply leaned over and grabbed the pitiful thing from his feet by the clothes he wore and dangled him above the ground. Due to Soren’s long reach and the boy’s non-existent one, there was no hope for success or escape.
‘What the hell do you do, boy?’ he yelled, shaking the boy until he dropped the dagger. Pulling him in closer, Soren pushed his hood back and used the horror of his face to terrify him even more. ‘Do you think to kill me?’ Once his men realised there was no threat, they laughed at the boy’s puny attempt and waited for Soren to handle him.
‘You … you …’ the boy sputtered, swinging his fists even though he could not reach Soren.
‘Bastard?’ Soren offered in a low voice.
‘Aye,’ the boy nodded and then spat at him. ‘You bastard!’
That insult had stopped hurting some time ago. Soren had discovered the truth of his parentage at about the same age as this boy here and had learned the hard way not to let it goad him into anger or action.
Insults only had power when you let them control you, Lord Gautier’s voice expressed a long-forgotten lesson of life.
‘As is my king and yours now, boy,’ Soren agreed.
His men laughed, having been taunted with the same words themselves since most of them were born out of the bonds of marriage. That was part of why they’d all banded together and why he was at ease with them. No high-born men in his ranks to belittle him. No legitimate sons of nobles served with him, for only Gautier’s legitimate son
