Dragonblade Trilogy - 03 - The Savage Curtain (18 page)

She wept harder, pressing her
face into the wall. “Nay,” she sobbed, holding out a hand as if to ward him
off. “Go away and leave me.”

He grabbed the hand, yanking her
off the floor and into his arms. She fought him for a half second before
succumbing to his powerful embrace.  He held her tightly, his face in her
hair.  Her sobs undid him and tears fell from his eyes faster than he imagined
possible.

“I will never leave you, ever,”
he whispered. “Why did you not tell me the truth?”

She sobbed her anguish. “How
would you have accepted it?” she asked, almost angrily. “The night we met was
bitter enough. How would you have accepted the truth?  That you were forced
into a marriage with a woman whose father abused her and used her to pay his
gambling debts? But I had to tell you something; you would have found out
quickly enough that I was not virgin, so I told you of the rape. It was not a
lie.”

He rocked her gently, knowing she
was correct to a certain extent. He would not have accepted the truth well the
night they met.  He was dazed with the revelations but it did not change what
he felt for her; if anything, it deepened his sense of compassion and
connection with the woman. He could not believe how horribly she had been
mistreated yet had still managed to maintain her fight, her sense of humor and
her dignity.  She was, in every sense, an amazing woman.  At the moment, he
felt extremely fortunate to have her.

He sighed faintly, wiping his
tears from his face. “Then the soldier from Carlisle truly raped you.”

She nodded. “He did,” she
whispered. “I did not know until afterwards that he had my father’s permission.”

“And the child?”

“He was a result of the rape. My
mother committed me to Jedburgh so my father could no longer use me. She did it
out of desperation.”

“How… how many other times were
you taken advantage of before Carlisle’s soldier?”

“My father used me twice. The
first time, I was nine years old.”

Stephen grunted with the horror
of it, closing his eyes tightly at the thought.  The thought of his sweet,
vulnerable wife being abused by faceless, nameless men made him physically ill;
the nausea had returned full force. Joselyn abruptly pulled her face from the
crook of his neck and looked at him, her pale blue eyes wide with grief and
horror.

“I do not blame you for your
disgust,” she murmured. “It disgusts me also, more than you can imagine. I wept
the night you consummated the marriage because all I have ever known is the
brutality and pain of coupling. I did not know it was meant to be a sweet and
intimate act, and even if you walk from this room and never touch me again, I
will always revere you for showing me that such tenderness existed. You have
been the one ray of sunshine in a life that has known little and for that, I
thank you.” 

He held her face in his two
hands, gazing into her lovely features. There was no disgust in his heart, only
adoration. He rubbed her cheeks with his thumbs.

“Then the man to punish is not
the soldier from Carlisle but your father,” he murmured. “You have always
defended him most staunchly.”

She was not sure how to respond.
“Good or bad, he is my father,” she offered with a shrug. “He always felt great
remorse for what he did, but his sickness was stronger than his loyalty to me.”

“What he did to you was evil.”

“I know,” she whispered. “But it
was finished eleven years ago. I try not to think of it. With time, the fear
and resentment for my father has faded.  I had not seen him for almost eleven
years until he recalled me from Jedburgh last year. And then when I saw him
again, it was as if he was a different man. He was changed.”

“How?”

She shook her head. “I do not know,
exactly.  It was as if he had grown beyond his sicknesses.  He had been kind
and respectful since I have returned home. For the first time in my life, I
felt safe with him.”

Stephen drew in a long, steadying
breath as his anger began to shift from Bowen to Alexander Seton. “Be that as
it may, it is well and good that the man is away from Berwick,” he said, “for
surely he would be in mortal danger right now.  The man will pay for what he
did to you; mark my words.”

Joselyn was calming as she
listened to his words and watched his expression. She timidly touched his chin,
his square jaw. “I am sorry I did not tell you all of it,” she murmured. “I was
afraid to at first but increasingly afraid as we grew to know each other.  You
are like no man I have ever known, Stephen. I did not want to lose whatever
warmth was growing between us. It means everything to me.”

“And to me,” he responded softly,
relishing the feel of her gentle hands on his face. “But I will ask you now and
let this be the end of it; is there any other humiliation I should know of?
Anything else you have been afraid to tell me?”

She looked rather sad. “Isn’t
what you’ve been told quite enough?”

He smiled weakly, leaning forward
to kiss her gently. “More than enough.”

Her eyes began welling again. “Do
you forgive me, then?”

“There is nothing to forgive. I
understand why you did not tell me at the first. But let that be the end of any
secrets between us.”

“I promise.” She suddenly threw
her arms around his neck, holding him fast. It was a powerful, impulsive
gesture.  “Oh, Stephen, I do love you.”

He heard her words like an arrow
into his heart. They embedded themselves, held fast, never to be let go.  He
had only known the woman two days but within that time, he felt closer to her
than he had ever felt to anyone in his life.  Gone was the sense of
self-protection; his emotions were flowing freely for her and he could not stop
them.  He squeezed her so tightly that he heard her grunt as all of the air was
forced from her lungs.

“And I love you also,” he
whispered so only she could hear him. “I will love you until I die.”

She broke into soft tears at his
declaration and he kissed the side of her head, her cheek, and finally her
lips.  It was an unbridled display of emotion between them, feelings and emotions
that had grown into something neither of them could have anticipated or
expected.   

All the while, Tilda and Mereld
stood back, watching the exchange, more relieved and joyful than they could
express.  Thinking they should perhaps leave the couple alone, they moved to
the door but Stephen caught a glimpse of their movement from the corner of his
eye and stopped them.

“Nay,” he told them, standing up
with his wife still wrapped in his arms. “You will stay here with Joselyn. The
battle is still waging and I would have everyone safe.”

Joselyn wiped the last of the
tears from her eyes, gazing up into his handsome face. “But I saw many wounded
being moved into the hall,” she said. “We must tend them.”

He shook his head. “You will
remain here. It is not safe for you outside of the keep.”

“Who will tend the wounded?”

He wriggled his eyebrows, moving
to collect his saddlebags with her still wrapped against him. “Most fighting
men have experience tending wounds,” he told her. “There are plenty of men to
tend the injured.”

“Where are you going?” she asked
as he moved for the door.

He set her gently on her feet.
“The battle still rages,” he told her, slinging the enormous packs over his
shoulders. “I must return and end it.”

She looked perplexed. “You left a
battle to speak with me?”

His cornflower blue eyes bore
into her. “There is nothing more important than you.”

He seemed like he wanted to say
more but refrained. Kissing her again, a lingering gesture, he slammed the door
shut behind him.

***

Having been a Hospitaller for
many years, and spending a good deal of time in the Holy Land, Stephen was well
versed on more than the knighthood or the art of healing. He had also picked up
strange and wonderful information in his travels, one being the secret weapon
called Greek Fire. He’d seen it used, many times, and had been given the
secrets of its composition by an alchemist he had befriended in Tyre. Stephen
had the ingredients for Greek Fire with him although he doubted he had enough
to accomplish his intentions. Still, he had to try. The Scots quest to mount
the walls was stronger than before.

He found Lane near the gatehouse
and sent soldiers running for Ian and Alan.  When he was finally joined by the
two knights, he pulled his men into the armory for a swift and private
conference.

“I have an idea that will turn
the tides against the Scots should it be successful,” he said quickly. “There
is not much time and I need your help.   We need as much quicklime as we can
get our hands on. Does anyone know where we can find some?”

Lane and Alan looked perplexed
while Ian suddenly appeared very excited.

“There is a good deal of it in
the kitchen,” Ian said eagerly. “There are bags of it.  The Scots were using it
during the siege of Berwick before their defeat at Halidon to aid in the burial
of their dead.”

Stephen’s cornflower blue eyes
fixed on him. “Get it,” he commanded. “Get all of it. And take as many men as
you need to accomplish this. Bring it back to the armory.”

Ian and Alan fled, leaving
Stephen with Lane.  Stephen knelt over one of his saddlebags and began removing
leather pouches.

“Here,” he tossed one to Lane.
“Set this against the wall and go and find the biggest cauldron you can. And
hurry.”

Lane quit the small room, leaving
Stephen to organize his ingredients.  After several long minutes, during which
Stephen was called to the wall to help fend off more invaders, Ian and Alan
returned with several men at arms bearing sacks of quicklime.  There were a
total of seven bags of the ingredient mined from the limestone quarries in
Yorkshire. It was a very common ingredient with, as Stephen had learned, a
variety of uses.  It had been at Berwick to use liberally over the dead to
prevent the spread of disease. Lane returned shortly with another soldier,
bearing an enormous iron pot between them.

Stephen was working with a
building sense of urgency; the Scots seemed to be increasing their onslaught
and he knew it was only a matter of time before a significant number managed to
mount the walls and make their way down to the gate, which they would then open
to admit their comrades.  Then the castle would be compromised and their duty
to hold the city would be made more difficult. Stephen knew that time was not
on their side.

He ordered the quicklime dumped
into the pot.  White dust billowed up, coating them and causing a chorus of
coughs.  Into the quicklime, Stephen dumped his mysterious ingredients of
yellow sulfur powder and saltpeter.  He stirred it with Ian’s broadsword, the
only thing he could find at the moment, watching the ingredients integrate. 
The screams and shouts from the attack were growing louder and he finished
stirring quickly.

“Now,” he said. “Refill these
quicklime sacks, cut a hole in one end, and dispense this powder along the top
of the parapet. We will need a thick, heavy line from one end of the castle to
the other, all along the top of the wall. Make sure there is no break in the
line. Go!”

The men at arms used their helms
to scoop white powder into the sacks.  Taking a sack for each man, they dashed
from the armory to the walls and began laying a thick, white line along the top
of the wall.  When all of the men were gone, including Lane, Ian and Alan,
Stephen took the leather pouches that had contained the saltpeter and filled
them with the remaining mixture.  There were five in all.

He had to kill three Scots in
order to move to the center of the gatehouse to start the chain reaction that
would literally set fire to the wall of Berwick.  He was counting on the hot,
rapid fire caused by the quicklime mixture to chase off the invaders.  The
fighting was worse than before and he knew there was no time to waste.   Taking
all five pouches, he lit them one after the other with a flint and stone.

The pouches flared into a wild,
brilliantly blinding white light.  Stephen threw the pouches on the Scots at
the gate below, watching them explode and spread fire over several men at
once.   Soon, there were a few dozen men below that were on fire and their
screams of pain filled the night air.  What was worse, however, was when their
friends tried to put the fire out with water; it would make the fire burn
hotter and brighter.  It was a horrifying predicament as the smell of burnt
flesh began to drift upon the night breeze.

But Stephen wasted no time in
viewing his handiwork; he sparked the flint and stone and lit the nearest
streak of white powder, watching it flare brilliantly and burn swiftly down the
length of the wall.  On and on it would go, lighting the next trail of white
powder, until it reached the wall facing the river. There was a huge flare as
it picked up another row of white powder and then continued along the wall, to
the south side of the castle, and continued onward.  Stephen and most of his
men watched with baited breath as the fire eventually encircled the entire
castle.