A Lord for Haughmond Read online

  A Lord For Haughmond

  K.C. Helms

  To Helen and Gordon of Shrewsbury.

  Thanks for showing me your wonderful community!

  A History

  Henry III—King of England, Lord of Ireland, Duke of Gascony, and Earl of Chester—was dead. Across the land, ’twas a time of unrest. ’Twas, thereto, a time of opportunity.

  In the North Country, the Scots raided the border communities. To the west, finding circumstances too limited within their miserable hollows, the Welsh marauded and harried his majesty’s troops. Both peoples made of themselves a vexatious nuisance. The country, in turmoil after years of weak rule under the old king, endured rampant corruption throughout the shires. Armed and dangerous rogues roamed the countryside scavenging for food and plunder. Verily all suffered, the landed as well as the common serf. Peace would bring prosperity if trade and agriculture were allowed to flourish. The situation necessitated a purposeful monarch.

  But Prince Edward was on crusade in the Holy Land. ’Twould be years before he sailed for home.

  When at length he returned and was duly crowned, those living on the edge of society found themselves shackled with a shrewd politician, whose sword arm was the best in the land. The new king demanded fealty from his far-flung subjects and his well-trained troops brought the recalcitrant Welsh princes to their knees.

  ’Twas an uneasy peace. But in the decade since Edward’s coronation prosperity had flourished.

  So, thereto, did the burning desire for recompense, as the Welsh chaffed beneath a heavy royal hand.

  A Lord For Haughmond

  Chapter One

  Shropshire, England

  10 January 1282

  Being a woman was dangerous.

  Lady Katherine de la Motte did not consider the unsettling thought a new revelation. She had spent years learning that harsh truth beneath Sir Geoffrey’s influence.

  Garbed in the rough tunic of a peasant and treading cautiously through the darkling forest, she tried not to dwell on the perils of their journey. London lay far to the south. Haughmond Castle and her stepfather lay behind them.

  Too close for comfort.

  Were she a knight, she’d defend her younger sister, Anne, from the rogues roaming the forest. Her fingers clenched into a fist. Were she a knight, she wouldn’t be forced on this harrowing mission. She’d have inherited Haughmond—she’d safeguard her castle and its people from unfair lords and their questionable laws, as was her right and bounden duty.

  Instead, she must needs possess the heart of a lion and all the cunning and intuition of her sex as God had endowed it upon her. Would it be sufficient in traversing England?

  Overhead, dark clouds driven by a raw wind rolled on high like angry demons. The ill pleasing patch of sky gave no hint to their position. She drew in a frustrated breath.

  “Where are we?” whispered Anne.

  “Not far enough, I fear.” Katherine winced. Her leather glove gave scant protection from her sister’s crushing grip.

  “I’m hungry. Is there naught to eat?”

  She reached into the leather satchel hanging from her shoulder and tore off a small piece of bread from the only loaf she’d been able to steal and handed it to Anne.

  Beneath her cloak her tunic slipped once more. She tugged it back up her shoulder, grimacing at the knee-length garment that reeked of grease and human sweat. To disguise their appearance she’d filched the clothing from a peg in the kitchen storeroom, along with mismatched stockings. Cross-gartered out of necessity, having been knitted for stouter limbs, they were a blessing in this biting wind.

  Was God’s mercy with them? Had they escaped Sir Geoffrey and his wicked plot? Her tender sister mustn’t be married to his ally in the Marches, a man who’d buried two wives and bore his reputation as a stern overlord with arrogant pride.

  She shoved the drooping hood from her eyes. Though the deep cowl concealed her long mane of hair, it did hinder her vision of the forest. She shivered, squared her shoulders and forged onward.

  Anne bit into the gritty bread and grimaced. “Faith, ’tis not our normal manchet. You snatched the middling folk’s bread. ’Twas bolted but once.”

  “Another reason to pray for forgiveness,” whispered Katherine, trying not to grow impatient.

  “But is it not ours, by rights?” mumbled her sister between bites.

  Katherine gave her sister’s hand a reassuring squeeze. “’Tis best we’re silent, Anne. The breeze might yet carry our words to those who would do us harm.”

  They trailed the London road from the relative safety of the forest, keeping the high ground of the Wrekin to their right. It was necessary to pass beyond that hill before they could turn southward. Farther on she must trust her instincts, for she had never traveled past the Shropshire border.

  A rustling sound from the thick underbrush on her right froze her steps. Was it the approach of a knight’s horse or merely the wind, cold and fierce, sending dry leaves skittering over the frozen ground? She moved forward in a rush, tugging at her sister.

  “Make haste.”

  “What is amiss?” Anne’s trembling voice seemed to echo like a shout in the still forest.

  Katherine motioned for silence, realizing what had disturbed her. A hint of wood smoke drifted on the wind. In the distance figures moved about a small campfire.

  “We needs find a hiding place,” she whispered into her sister’s ear.

  The acrid scent of smoke grew sharper, assailed her nostrils, filled the pit of her stomach with fear. She backed away, drawing Anne along in an unsteady retreat, her fingers curling around the handle of a small dirk stuffed beneath the leather strap at her waist.

  She’d been half-witted to think they could make their way to the king. The camp ahead could belong to Welshmen, a volatile people who took offense at any imagined slight and wreaked havoc upon the English side of the unstable border.

  Anger boiled up, that she had not heeded the unrest along the Marches. It mattered little whether a nest of thieves or Welsh renegades prevented their progress—one was to be feared as much as the other. She despised herself for putting Anne in danger, whose eyes shone dark and frightened in the dim light.

  But she despised Sir Geoffrey more.

  Her lips thinned into a grim line. Since her mother’s remarriage, her father’s sister, Aunt Matilda, had made many claims—of murder and falsehoods and cunning alliances—all troubles set in motion by Sir Geoffrey.

  He, by turn, loathed his wife’s sister-in-law.

  But would Sir Geoffrey do murder? ’Twas incredible to believe so much misery could be laid at one man’s feet. Yet her aunt was dead a mere four days following their mother’s burial. Her jaw hardened at the thought of her aunt lying in Haughmond’s chapel awaiting burial.

  How did Aunt Matilda expect Katherine, a mere maid, to set aright these charges? How was she to save Haughmond, let alone Anne?

  Aunt Matilda’s last desperate plea gave her the plan she’d put in motion. “Don’t allow that knave to steal Haughmond,” she’d pleaded, clutching Katherine’s hand. “The moment I am dead petition the king for the right of inheritance.”

  She’d followed her aunt’s counsel, had not taken precious time to mourn in the dark and silent chapel. Instead, she’d exchanged their clothes, secreting their own woolen gowns beneath the old lady’s linen-shrouded corpse. With Anne in tow she had set out to secure Haughmond’s future.

  Katherine placed her leather boots one cautious step after the other while she picked her way around a felled tree rotting in the midst of a tangled glade. Now, in the face of peril, she clenched her jaw and silently vowed, “On Saint Winifred’s bones, I will not fail. I will save Haughmond. I will save my sister
.”

  * * *

  The crashing of dry branches and leaves shattered the quiet of the forest.

  Concealed at her end of the felled tree trunk, Katherine drew her knees under her chin and held her breath. With so many feet dashing past her narrow line of vision she feared the band of miscreants had discovered their hiding place.

  For an entire day they had remained hidden, Anne at one end and she at the other, while their meager provision of food dwindled with alarming speed. But there was no choice in their hunger.

  And now there was no choice in their freedom. To be sure, her brilliant plan had fallen apart.

  She wedged her shoulder into the narrow cavity and trembled behind the curtain of pine boughs covering the exposed end of the hollow trunk.

  Without warning, a man vaulted overtop a nearby craggy boulder. His savage yell set her trembling as he charged straight toward her flimsy hidey-hole and fell before her, an arrow buried in his back.

  She smothered her scream with a trembling hand just as she heard the jangle of armor and a horse’s whinny and knew they faced a more pressing danger—mounted knights.

  God help them, ’twas Sir Geoffrey!

  Hooves trampled the underbrush as knights on their destriers plunged into the glade.

  The heated outcry for Welsh redress drew a brief line of defense from those afoot. But the din of metal broadswords drowned out the rally, replaced the angry bellows with shrill and strangled screams of men hacked to pieces. Split and bloodied, the brigands from the routed encampment fell beneath the practiced blows of mounted warriors.

  Katherine had presumed the Welshman to be dead. When the man suddenly stirred, she jolted back in alarm. Her long-tailed hood drooped forward, blocking her vision once again. As she clawed the garment out of her eyes and watched in horror, the man, groaning, rolled onto his side. He clutched her evergreen bough with crusty fingers and struggled to rise, a runnel of blood spilling across his tattered jerkin.

  In frantic haste she yanked the branch back against the log, tried desperately to avoid the man’s glazed stare.

  From overhead, a seasoned sword blade slashed the air, found its mark, and put the man out of his misery. Warm blood splattered the ground and the back of Katherine’s out-reached hand. Fighting down the bitter taste from an unruly stomach, offering up passionate prayers, she dared not move as the horse’s forelegs danced a hand’s breadth from her face.

  Above her head sat Sir Geoffrey’s knight.

  Moments later, with the rampage dwindling and the foe dead or fleeing, there came a new terror. A sharp whistle brought the sound of a dog’s excited bark from atop a nearby hillock.

  Katherine’s heartbeat pulsated in her ears. Their scent would not escape Sir Geoffrey’s hounds trained for the hunt.

  A large, shaggy beast of a dog bounded into view, yelping loudly and racing in frantic circles around a knight who gripped a bloody sword.

  The warrior’s stained chain mail armor made it difficult to observe him clearly in the growing shadows of the forest. It was not difficult, however, to see how eagerly he searched out more combat, twisting in his saddle from side to side. Spying no further opportunities, he lowered his sword and drew rein. Long-legged and broad of shoulder, the knight exuded power and danger and uncompromising strength.

  Katherine held her breath.

  The warrior sat back in his saddle and contemplated the slaughter, at the same time ignoring the boisterous dog, whose leaps and wheeling antics made her head swim. His huge mount, with nostrils blowing steady gusts of steam into the cold air, stood undisturbed by the frenzied rush at his side.

  “Cease, Zeus!” The knight commanded the hound to him and reached down to fondle a shaggy ear when the beast rose on its long haunches to paw the man’s chain mail chausses. He swept off his helm and strapped it to the pommel of his saddle. With a straight nose set below intense blue eyes, he was the embodiment of a formidable hired mercenary.

  Katherine cowered all the more.

  “Begone with you!” Giving the dog a half-hearted swipe, the knight leaned back in his saddle and shrugged off his gauntlets, dropping them into his lap.

  The dog sprang away, racing around the glade, dashing between dismounting knights. Horses nickered and stomped their hooves.

  Katherine lost sight of the animal. She craned her neck to keep the swift hound in her sights, brushing away pine needles jabbing at her nose.

  Suddenly, a menacing growl filled the hollow log and Anne’s frightened scream split the air.

  Katherine thrust aside the pine bough and scrambled over the dead Welshman. She swiped up a stout branch and was at the other end of the log in two leaps. With all her might she cracked the hound over its head.

  The dry wood shattered into bits.

  With its bared teeth coming well past her waist, the huge beast turned in her direction and took a menacing step toward her. She balled her fists and gulped down her fears. It was too late for them, at any rate.

  Anne shimmied forward on her stomach. She grabbed a shaggy hind leg and yanked for all she was worth.

  The animal swung its head in her direction, giving Katherine time to catch up another branch. She whacked the hound’s ribcage once, twice. With a whine, it backed away.

  But in the next instant she found herself sprawled on the ground, her breath jolted from her by the destrier’s broad chest crashing against her back. Once again, her hood tumbled over her face. She shoved it aside. With the huge, deadly hooves prancing far too close for comfort, she scrambled up and flung herself over the log. Her hair spilled free, sweeping across her face, blinding her yet again.

  “God’s bones, ’tis a woman!”

  At the startled exclamation a wave of despair washed over her.

  Though she had failed, her courage had not. She heaved a breath and pulled a small dirk from the leather cord at her waist. Shoving the blinding mane from her eyes, she lunged to her feet.

  A scornful snort from overhead should have warned her of the danger of sharp and thrusting swords. A hot, searing pain smote her hand. The knife fell from her grasp. She stopped short and stared at the sudden blood pulsating from her split leather glove. In disbelief she lifted her eyes to the knight who stood poised in his stirrups, ready to swing his broadsword.

  Was this how her life would end, with Sir Geoffrey’s ferocious knight facing her down the length of a crimsoned blade?

  Katherine’s gaze returned to her bloodied hand, the hand that had clutched her only protection.

  “Holy Mother have mercy,” she cried, condemning herself for not better protecting her sister. Sir Geoffrey’s fearsome face wavered within her imagination. Catching sight of another branch she swept it up and swung at the knight. “May you rot in hell!”

  Chapter Two

  The knight flicked his sword and the tree limb Katherine wielded lay useless on the ground.

  “Another Welsh spy, no doubt.”

  The severe voice came to her from a great distance, echoing as voices often did in Haughmond’s corridors. Did fear do that to a body, she wondered? And what, precisely, had the knight said? She shook her head in confusion and tried to focus her eyes.

  What ailed her?

  “Do you champion my—my stepfather? Pray, I—I have coins if you will allow us our freedom.” She inhaled raggedly and squinted up toward the knight, but only managed to place his spurs within her sight. “Does he skulk back yonder, far from the killing?”

  The knight scowled down at her.

  Raising her chin, Katherine put all her strength into her impassioned pronouncement. “We are for King Edward and his mercy. He will not countenance the delay of innocent subjects.”

  Snorting with disdain, the knight threatened her nose with the tip of his sword. “Are these brigands your escort?” His large, calloused hand swept the glade.

  With her mind whirling, she struggled to gather her wits and blinked rapidly to keep aright. These mercenaries were unknown to her, yet Sir Geoff
rey employed many hirelings. Her gaze darted to the other knights, both of whom had dismounted and were searching the scattered bodies for booty. These men must not be allowed the truth.

  “Sir knight, I beseech you—” She shifted her weight to keep the trees from reeling, yet they spun faster.

  Then, suddenly, she felt herself falling.

  * * *

  Katherine awoke to a relieved smile brightening her sister’s tearful face. “Never have I been so joyed to see you awake,” Anne cried, leaning down to bestow a kiss on her cheek.

  Her sister’s movement gave Katherine a clear view of the knight. He stared down at her from atop his destrier, his distaste obvious in an unremitting scowl.

  A young man held her hand captive while he bound a strip of linen around her palm. Though his touch was gentle and his expression sympathetic, she snatched her hand free and clambered to her feet in outraged dismay.

  Had she fainted? She’d never fainted in her life!

  Without thinking, she smoothed down her rumpled clothing, swiping at a nonexistent gown, belatedly realizing the oversight. She bit her lip and mustered a haughty glare at the knight.

  Anne lunged to her feet and clung to her arm.

  “Tell me of your companions.”

  The knight’s harsh command was daunting. Katherine squinted up at him and struggled to summon her scattered thoughts. It was the first clear view she had of him. His armor was nondescript and stained with rust and blood. He bore no colors of allegiance. Though the chain mail coif obscured much of his head and face, his eyes were unmistakable. An intense blue—cold, observant, and boring straight into her.

  She shivered. “I have but my sister, sir knight,” she replied, dragging forth the words with a sluggish tongue.

  The mounted warrior scowled all the more, his mouth a grim line of dissatisfaction.

  “Those!” With a stabbing forefinger he indicated the littered glade. “What of those men?”