Knight of Westmoorland: The Queen and the warrior

Knight of Westmoorland

The Queen and the warrior

M.S. Toboorg

Knight of Westmoorland: The Queen and the warrior

Copyright © 2012 by M.S. Toboorg. All rights reserved.

First Kindle Edition: December 2012

Cover and Formatting: Streetlight Graphics

All rights reserved. This eBook is licensed for the personal enjoyment of the original purchaser only. This eBook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this eBook and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

The characters and events portrayed in this book are a work of fiction or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Coming soon by M.S. Toboorg

Knight of Westmoorland:

The Warrior and the Queen

Chapter One

T
HE WARRIOR WANDERED AIMLESSLY THROUGH the marketplace of Cambridge. Villagers passed him without a second glance. He’d chosen his disguise carefully to be able to blend in. He’d let his reddish-brown hair grow to a shaggy length and hadn’t shaved or trimmed the hair on his face for weeks. His clothes were stitched together from sackcloth: a baggy pair of pants with a drawstring waist and a shirt, two sizes too big. The loose fit of the garments hid his build, the muscular arms and legs that protected his life on the battlefield.

He had been there two days. In that time, he’d seen Queen Gracelyn twice. The first day, she was on her balcony greeting her people. They gathered on the ground below her window, cheering and reaching their hands up towards her. She stretched to touch them, leaning so far over the rock wall that he feared she would fall.

Earlier that morning, she came down the castle steps, giving fruits and sweets to the village children. They ran to her, wrapping their skinny arms around her legs, her waist, even her neck. They touched her dark hair and fine dress with grubby hands.

She laughed and hugged them, tousling this one’s hair, stroking that one’s face, her smile as sweet as he remembered.

Both times, the warrior kept to the edges of the crowd and simply watched her. This was his mission: to stay in the village for a few days and observe. He paid particular attention to the Queen’s guards. Their stance was relaxed and their uniforms were finely woven tunics and pants. They didn’t wear chainmail, and several of them didn’t even carry swords. They had no reason to fear for their Queen. Everyone in Cambridge loved her.

He wasn’t from Cambridge. He was a Knight from Westmoorland.

But he didn’t look like a knight. He looked like a simple peasant. And on this morning, the marketplace was crowded with peasants and nobility alike. He strolled along, keeping his eyes down, though he remained alert.

A Lady, her social position evident by the finery she wore, was coming in his direction. He stepped out of her way, bumping into someone behind him. She continued without a glance and he turned to see whom he’d bumped into.

Behind him was an old peasant woman wearing a dark hooded cape, her tangled gray hair sticking out from under the hood in disarray. She raised her head to look at him. A scrap of cloth covered the lower part of her face and her eyes were surprisingly bright, for one so aged.

He ducked his head. “My apologies, Ma’am,” he said softly and hurried on.

Minutes later, he saw the first guard and tried to wander away, inconspicuously. A second guard joined the first. He picked up his pace slightly, still trying to blend in. A third guard stepped out of a crowd in front of him. He changed directions again, trying to disappear in the throng of people. Two more guards appeared. He broke into a run, turning down an alley he thought was safe.

It wasn’t. It was a dead end. He stopped short and whirled to face the five soldiers entering the alley. At least, with the wall behind him, they could only attack from the front.

He didn’t have his sword; there was no way to carry it hidden. He whipped out his dagger, his only weapon, and waited.

The first guard lunged at him, thrusting his sword. The warrior sidestepped the sword and then blocked the guard’s arm with his body and slashed his dagger across the man’s chest.

Another guard was already charging. He blocked the charge with his arm and plunged his dagger into the guard’s shoulder. As the guard reacted to the pain, he pulled out his dagger and thrust it into the man’s side. He yanked his dagger free as the guard fell to the ground.

Two down.

The three remaining guards paused, their eyes wary. They’d watched this lone man, armed with only a dagger, best two of their comrades, wielding swords. And none of the three guards left carried a sword. They drew their daggers and stood their ground, neither charging nor retreating.

The warrior recognized their strategy. He knew these guards would only try to keep him cornered and wait for more soldiers to arrive. He charged the one to his right, the smallest of the three.

The man’s eyes grew wide, and then narrowed as he lunged forward, thrusting his dagger. When the warrior moved to block him, he changed his aim and his dagger cut the warrior’s arm.

The center guard rushed in and the warrior felt the man’s knife in his left side. He twisted, keeping the wound shallow, but the dagger pulled across his flesh, leaving a long gash. He drove his own blade into the side of the guard in front of him, slamming his elbow into the face of the guard at his side, and darted between them.

If he could escape the alley before more soldiers arrived, he had a chance.

Thirty feet of cobblestone lay between him and freedom. He ran.

The reinforcements arrived, cutting off his escape. The alley was filled with soldiers, too many to count. And yet, he fought, slashing madly back and forth with his knife. But for every soldier who fell back wounded, two others took his place. They drove the warrior back, inflicting numerous minor wounds, until he was against the wall. The points of five swords pressed against his flesh, daring him to move. He opened his hand, dropping his dagger in the dirt.

“Frederick! No!” A guard pushed through his friends and dropped to his knees beside one of the wounded men. He was a stout, burley fellow, with black curly hair and a full beard. He raised his dark eyes to the warrior, rage twisting his features. Drawing his sword, he charged forward.

“Stop! He has surrendered and Queen Gracelyn wants him alive,” commanded another soldier, laying his hand on the guard’s arm. This soldier was tall, with light brown hair and a neatly trimmed mustache and beard.

“I don’t give a damn what she wants, Philippe!
I
want him
dead
!” The guard spit on the ground at the warrior’s feet.

Philippe calmly faced his fellow guard, speaking to him quietly. Finally, the dark-headed guard sheathed his sword. As he did, he spied the warrior’s dagger lying on the ground and picked it up with a sneer. “But if he tries anything, he’s
mine.
”

With the guard’s words echoing in his mind, the warrior gave no further resistance. Two of the soldiers grabbed him, one on each arm, while the others kept their swords drawn. They dragged him through the marketplace. The crowd parted to give them passage, the adults and older children watching curiously, while the younger ones hid behind their mothers’ skirts. They took him through a side entrance and down a set of stairs to a dungeon in the bowels of the castle. The heavy wooden door was open and waiting, and they shoved him into the center of the chamber.

The chamber was cold and damp. Moisture glistened on the dark rock walls. Smells assaulted him, filling his senses with the stench of mildew, sweat, blood and death.

“Take off your clothes,” the dark-haired guard ordered. When the warrior hesitated, the guard stepped forward, weaving the confiscated dagger in the air. “Need some help?”

Backing away from the guard, he began stripping. He took his time, using the opportunity to appraise his surroundings. The windowless dungeon was rectangular-shaped, lit by burning torches set in stanchions built into the walls. A fireplace squatted in one corner and a sturdy wooden table lay along the adjacent long wall.

Chains hung from the ceiling over his head, attached to a pulley. Large eyebolts were bolted into the floor in front of him and spaced around the walls.

Another table was set against the other long wall, various instruments of pain and torment scattered down its length. In that corner, a Rack torture device towered above a wooden chair with nails imbedded in the surface of the seat, back and armrests. Beside it stood an Iron Maiden, her doors open.

The chair looked new. The flickering light from the torches danced on its malevolent barbs, shiny and unstained. The Iron Maiden had been used. The bowl at her feet and her deadly spikes were coated with a dark reddish-brown substance that resembled rust, but wasn’t.

His gaze fell on the Rack and he suppressed a shudder. It was older, its wooden surface scratched and its attached ropes stained from use.

King William of Westmoorland often used a Rack to extract a confession for even a small infraction. The warrior had witnessed the event only once. Once was more than enough. The man’s screams had haunted him and echoed now in his memory.

Naked, he faced his enemies, his heart pounding and his breath ragged in his throat. Several soldiers descended upon him and he struggled against the urge to fight. Without a weapon, taking on nearly a dozen armed men would be suicide. Suicide would be dishonorable. He was a Knight. Dishonor was not an option.

The guards shackled his hands behind his back and locked a wide collar around his neck. The collar rose high on both sides, with a quarter-mooned shape cut out for his chin. It held his chin up, preventing him from turning his head to either side.

They turned him around, putting his back to the door, and forced his legs apart, chaining his ankles to the eyebolts in the floor.

The dark-headed guard approached him and, without warning, drove his huge fist into the warrior’s stomach. “That’s for Frederick,” he muttered, as the captured warrior doubled over, striving to keep his balance. “And this—”

“That’s
enough,
Marcus.”

The warrior looked up. Philippe had intervened again. He stood beside Marcus, his hand on the guard’s arm.

Marcus shook him off. “Damnit, Philippe, don’t forget your place!
I
am Commander of the Knights; you are second. You can’t tell me what to do.”

Philippe took a step, placing himself between Marcus and the warrior. “I haven’t forgotten my place and I’m not telling you what to do.” Philippe spoke quietly, his tone calm and even. “But Queen Gracelyn wants him alive and if you kill him, she will be angry with you. Besides, do you want your parents to learn of Frederick’s injury from peasants? They need to hear it from you. You need to go see them.”

Marcus’ face crumbled. “I know. You’re right.” He turned to leave, but then stopped. Anger returned to his face; he spat on the ground and then circled the warrior.

The warrior heard the snap of a lock as Marcus attached a chain to his shackled wrists. He grunted in surprise as the guard secured the chain to his collar, pulling his hands upwards and twisting his arms.

The stanchions held no lit torches and the rock fireplace in the corner of the room was cold. No source of light or heat. This was how they’d left him: in total darkness, brutally restrained, naked. The cold dampness of the air raised gooseflesh on his bare skin. The only sound was the clinking of the chains any time he moved. He’d lost all sense of time.

He heard the door open behind him and saw the flickering light from torches dance upon the walls. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a handful of soldiers fit the torches they carried into the stanchions. One kept his torch, stepping in front of him and holding the flame up to his face, blinding him. Squinting didn’t help.

He felt Queen Gracelyn before he saw her. She raked her nails down his left side, barely missing his wound. His skin quivered. She moved in front of him and the soldier stepped back, allowing him to see.

She was incredibly beautiful. Standing 5’5”, slender, with dark hair that tumbled in waves down her back. He had seen her before, on her visits to King William, when there was peace between Cambridge and Westmoorland. He’d always admired her from a distance. Though his place within his kingdom was high—second in command of the Knights—approaching guest Royalty was not something he was allowed to do.

“So,” she scoffed, “is this the mighty warrior who was so difficult to capture? He doesn’t look so formidable.” She stepped closer and met his gaze, her dark eyes shining with a mix of anger, humor and anticipation.

He glared at her defiantly.

“Though he did manage to seriously wound three of my soldiers, and left several others needing stitches.” She reached out, curling her fingers and dragging her nails down his right side. He remained stoic. “I should have you killed; hanged, beheaded, or drawn and quartered. But I appear to be a little short-handed on soldiers. Deny your King, swear your allegiance to me and I’ll let you live.”

“Never,” he responded through gritted teeth. “I am loyal to my King. I will never bow to you, never serve you.”

Her laughter caught him by surprise. “I expected no less. Had you surrendered so quickly, I would have had you killed. I have no need of a man without loyalty. Let’s begin. I haven’t had such a challenge in a long while. I will take my time, my pleasure in breaking you.”