The Devil of Nettlewood (The Anarchy Tales) (3 page)

The burning settlement was more than a stone throw’s distance but less than a half-day’s journey. Mitri headed there.

Avoiding the main road and keeping to the cover of bushes, she hid from group after group of retreating soldiers. The men-at-arms left the besieged area like rats from a sinking ship. Laughing and jeering, drinking their horns of ale, the cruel warriors related tales of how earlier that same day they had fanned out over the countryside , plundering and raping and killing as they went. Their victims had probably pleaded for a swift death as opposed to a slow incineration, and these murderers celebrated!

Pray, over what did they rejoice?

Surely not over a few sacks of stolen cabbage!

One soldier held up a skin of mead. “Death to the usurper, King Stephen,” he toasted. “Long live the Empress Matilda, the true and rightful heir to the throne of England and our future queen.”

After the cheers died down, the soldier continued his speech. “And this day, our commander, Axehand, has contributed mightily to that end. The settlement here is no more. All five score villagers are dead and Lord Harold with them. Let this be a warning to others who support the pretender to the throne.”

And then Mitri understood. Insurrection had sparked this destruction. ’Twas common knowledge that Harold, the baron landlord up on the hill, was a loyal supporter of King Stephen. These must be Matilda’s men, bloodthirsty mercenaries to a one, come to destroy a loyalist’s holdings.

Mitri had never imagined such cruelty existed. Before horror struck this day, villagers in this remote hamlet far removed from the hustle and bustle of London died of old age, peacefully abed.

Dear heaven! First famine, and now this. What else must the common people endure in this anarchy?

Best to feel naught than suffer this horrible grief.

Numb to everything, Mitri dragged herself on. Inside the charred gates of Lord Harold’s smoldering demesne, she held a hand over her nose and mouth.

’Twas no use. The heat and smoke, the sight and stench of burned bodies strewn amid the ashes of their meager possessions, proved too much. She cracked like pottery, the fragmented pieces too many to repair. Marching boots pounded in her head; a wooden portal splintering replayed before her eyes. There was no escaping her broken thoughts.

Save one.

The central bonfire beckoned like a candle in the dark. She did so love candles. The fire was her escape.

Her ripped kirtle sweeping the soot, she started for the leaping flames.

Chapter Two

On his return trip from Talon’s keep at Ironguard, Spur reigned in his mount and scanned the smoky sky.

A brisk breeze ruffled the leaves today, the wind’s westerly direction foretelling the cause of the ominous gray cloud drifting overhead.

He quickly crossed himself.

In nomine Patris, et filii, et spiritus sancti!

Anarchists had struck Lord Harold’s manor. The timber settlement, located halfway between Spur’s massive keep at Nettlewood and Ironguard, his brother’s sprawling stronghold on the windswept moors, was burning. No other explanation would account for the quantity of ash and cinders billowing in the air.

Though both compatriots of France, Harold and he had enjoyed only a limited acquaintance in England. A hand’s count of conversations at King Stephen’s palace at Winchester was the extent of their familiarity. Nonetheless they were political allies, and so Spur kneed his charger toward the baron’s manor estate to see what, if anything, he could do.

Even at a great distance, Spur suspected there was naught for anyone to do.

Still, doing his duty, he drew nigh—but not too close lest those who set the fires remained—and dismounted. After tying his steed to a tree, he proceeded onward on foot. A short journey.

Within eyeshot of his destination, he knew the once-thriving village was no more. Charred debris and cracked rocks were all that remained of the settlement. As for the populace—no one could have lived through such an inferno.

Still, doing his duty, he proceeded to conduct a search for survivors.

As a seasoned warrior, he was well used to carnage. But this scene differed tremendously from the blood-soaked deaths he came across on the battlefield. Those losses were all men-at-arms, stouthearted warriors who knew the inherent dangers of warfare and understood conflict ofttimes resulted in the end of life. Whereas here, by all outward appearances, barbarians had herded
unsuspecting
villagers into the Great Hall—in this particular instance, a separate building set apart from the central manor house—barred the portal on the outside, and then torched the Hall’s timber walls and bundled-stick roof.

All trapped within perished. Men. Women. Children.

Innocent
children who had no part to play in this anarchy.

Throughout the night, the screams of their ghosts tormented Spur as he searched for anyone who might have eluded the flames. Alas, he could find no one alive.

A not entirely accurate assessment, Spur promptly corrected. He had come upon a few serfs in the throes of death, burned beyond recognition. His dagger had ended their suffering. And with each merciful slash of his blade, his fury had risen.

Anarchy had taken a firm hold of the land. Every day people died in the streets of starvation. And men must do what they must to provide for their own. To put bread on the trestle table, some turned to outlawing, others to mercenary soldiering—for both King Stephen and his rival for the crown, the Empress Matilda.

Sure as Spur breathed, Matilda’s henchmen had done this treacherous deed.

Certainly the king’s men would not have butchered Lord Harold and his people. The nobleman was a loyal subject of the crown and a vocal supporter of Stephen’s right to sit on the throne. Nay, Matilda’s men had done this, all right. No argument, these were hard times, but that did not excuse men for behaving like animals. Nay, worse than animals. Packs of hungry wolves acted with more compassion toward their kills than had these guttersnipes.

Spur hurled his bloodied dagger pointfirst into the scorched earth, the hilt vibrating with the force of the throw.

By Christ, the curs responsible for the senseless slaughter here must be brought to justice. King Stephen must stop his present softness toward his adversaries and put down Matilda’s army of murderous thugs once and for all! Atrocities like this one would only escalate so long as the empress thought she had a chance of reclaiming the crown. But rather than retaliate to the fullest extent of his might, ofttimes the king espoused the policy of simply turning the other cheek. Conniving barons on both sides of the political tangle took advantage of the king’s laxness. One could not be soft in a hard world.

Dawn broke. Whilst he brooded on the deaths of innocents and the remedy for future such massacres, a flash of movement caught Spur’s eye. A heartbeat later, a bare-breasted young woman glided past him like an eerie specter. ’Twas as if she never saw him.

But he spied her. At least he
thought
he had.

To clear his sooty vision, Spur blinked, then blinked again.

There could be no mistake. Despite the improbability of it, there she was, heading toward the bonfire in the middle of Lord Harold’s devastated courtyard.

How could this be?

No one had survived the fire. He had checked the settlement twice. The thoroughness of his search left Spur with but one conclusion to draw.

The brazen, half-naked woman was a camp follower, most likely the female companion of the mercenary commander in charge of this destruction.

What else could he think?

She wore no coif, a symbol of modesty in women, and she had about her an indecent air, a wanton air her half-garbed state only emphasized. She looked ill-used, pawed.
Fucked
. He recognized that look. Prostitutes who worked the London stews carried the same air of abandonment. Dull to her surroundings, she wandered about, seeking out her murderous lover, no doubt. All mercenary leaders had such sluts at their disposal.

“Filthy whore,” he muttered under his breath.

In light of her fraternization, she would get no consideration from him. Lie down with wild dogs, rise up with fleabites. ’Twas Spur’s practice to eradicate all vermin on contact.

After retrieving his blade, Spur went after her, a loping stride that closed the gap between them in short order. He came alongside her, so close he swore he could almost smell the mercenary leader’s cum on her, so near he did see the discoloration of the cur’s fingers on her pale skin. Her nipples, praiseworthy in size, showed the vestiges of her lover’s caresses. The marks adorning the distended tips were fairly fresh too, still red and angry, as if she had only just recently finished rutting with the cur. A celebratory fuck after wiping out a whole village of innocents.

Some more innocent than others.

In the course of his search, he had discovered a newborn babe cradled in his mother’s arms, fire melting their flesh together for all eternity.

Spur’s jaw jutted beneath his helm. Jesus! His urge to strike out, to lash out, to strangle with his bare hands the coldhearted bastard who killed infants could not be denied.

Where is he? Where is the guttersnipe who did mass murder here? Drawing and quartering is too good for the monster.

Quickly now, before he lost his only connection to her thug lover, Spur overtook the half-naked whore. A gloved hand on her bare arm, he swung her around to face him.

At another time, in another place, her features might have mesmerized him. Lovely, symmetrical, and with more than a hint of intelligence, the composition of her face only repelled him in the here and now.

And still his cock stirred.

Not with desire. Even the thought was repugnant. He could never desire an accomplice to slaughter. Nay, his cock stirred with something else.

Vengeance.

The raw passion of retaliation cried out for release.

Here was someone on whom to vent his bloodlust. He shook with the righteousness of the punishment he would mete out.

Mail armor gauntlets encased his hands. The press of steel studs against her soft skin would most certainly pain her. With grave deliberation, he dug his fingers deeper into her silky flesh.

Scream, whore, scream!

But nay. Thwarting him, she made not a sound, not even a pained whimper, but stared silently up into his helm’s guard, slack of jaw and vacant of expression.

Her glazed-over brown eyes moved him not at all.

Naturally she would look dazed—her mercenary lover had no doubt abandoned her. Her lost and bewildered mien, as if she had not quite grasped the enormity of her participation in murder, combined with her rogue lover’s desertion, would of course leave her disoriented.

The slut deserved none of his sympathy. The recently departed souls here in this once-thriving settlement had already claimed all his pity and then some. She would get naught from him…save his justifiable fury.

No longer enough to hold her arm in a viselike metal grip, he pointed his retrieved dagger at her heart. In transit, he brushed a studded finger across her distended nipple, a delicate shade of rose—in marked contrast to the crimson stripes inflaming her breasts. A guileless hue was that fair shade of rose—in direct contradiction to the black-hearted treachery of her guilt.

“Where is he?” His voice quaked with deadly wrath.

Making him no answer, her stony stare continued.

His anger exploded, and he shook her, shook her hard, shook her so that her perfect teeth rattled. “I say, where is the mercenary leader who conducted this massacre?”

And still she maintained her cool poise.

“Unfeeling whore,” he raged, his gaze falling to her bared breasts and resting uneasily there, scrutinizing the areolas. The delicate rose rings had reddened as if she were in heat, an animal’s heat.

His sights never leaving those reddening circles, he growled, “Are you armed?”

No response.

Her lack of reaction left him only one choice. As any wary warrior would, he patted her semiclothed person, down her legs, back up in between, over the rounded contours of her buttocks. He surveyed her concave belly, where the bottom half of her ripped garb hung lopsidedly on a finely boned hip.

As far as he could tell, she carried no weaponry. But only the most chivalrous of knights would risk life and limb over decorum toward a female.

He was no chivalrous knight.

However, even the Devil must follow certain protocols. Stripping a woman naked because his erection clamored for it violated rules of military combat. But stripping the enemy naked in a weaponry search was prudent. As cohort to a traitor, she was an enemy of the Crown. One never knew where a traitor such as she would hide her treachery.

“Remove your shoes,” he ordered.

When she failed to act, he stooped down and yanked her feet free of the rundown leathers.

He examined the discards. Good! She carried no weaponry stuffed in the insoles.

Next his survey went to her high-arched bare feet, lovely bare feet, and lingered. Her bare feet would not stay lovely for long on this soot-laden ground. Heat rose from the courtyard in waves. The hot ground would blister the soles. Rubble would nick the toes. Walking without shoes would raise calluses.

He tore his gaze away.

Disgruntled at how melancholy all that made him, he kicked her discarded shoes into the bonfire and watched them burn.

Go barefoot, slut, and see if I care.

He turned back to her.

“Raise your hem,” he ordered and pressed his dagger to her pale chest with those animalistic reddened nipples.

No reply save silence.

“Raise it or die,” he shouted. “Your choice.”

“I would prefer the flames to the knife,” she said softly.

Aha! The whore finally speaks.

Evidently threats loosened her tongue.

“Your preference matters naught to me, wench. Pull the garb to your waist and be quick about it. I would be gone from here. There may be villagers in need of assistance hiding in the woods…”

“Nay, there are not.” She shook her head in agitation. “No one got out alive.”

“How do you come by this information? Are you admitting your guilt?”

“I am guilty of living whilst all here lay slain. No soul escaped the inferno, my lord. They all to a one perished in the flames. The leader saw to it. Looking in the forest will only waste your time.”

“How do you know?” he seethed.

“I know because five score people, the total amount of villagers living within the manor’s barricaded walls, died here this day, plus Lord Harold.”

Five score and one. The exact number Spur had tallied in his count of corpses.

The fiendish bitch tugged on her ripped kirtle, and the wool rose. Past the turn of trim ankles, up shapely legs, past female knees to tempting thighs, where its ascent stopped.

“Bare the rest,” he said cruelly. “I would examine that which you seek to hide.”

“I hide naught.”

She hid her genitals, the inlet of which was well trafficked, he wagered, and which might have a blade strapped to it. He had seen the ruse done before, and to the detriment of one of his best men, a gallant warrior too respectful of womanhood to conduct the required search. That soldier lay dead now, killed by a blade the camp follower had secreted to her privates. She’d used her weapon without remorse, a slash to that respectful warrior’s throat. Spur would never forget how his courtly vassal had bled out onto the dirt whilst the prostitute laughed.

He pricked this camp follower’s flesh with his dagger. A droplet of blood sprang forth from a vulnerable area slightly above her jutting nipple.

“Uncover your cunt,” he raged.

“If you want it, ’tis yours. I give it to you gladly. Only take me away from this place. I care not where we go or what you do to me, but I cannot stay here.”

“You two quarreled, eh? You and the mercenary leader had a parting of the ways, did you?”

“Aye. Exactly. If he sees me, he will first have his troops kill me, then you. You are but one man against many.” She batted her lashes. “Why stay here, surrounded by death, when we could be off enjoying ourselves? Hmm?” she added seductively.

Wicked doxy. What she suggested was despicable—even without direct involvement in murder. With involvement, her offer smacked of the depths of depravity. What manner of evil did he deal with in her?

His people called him the Devil of Nettlewood, but even he was out of his element here. He had no firsthand knowledge of calculating women like her, selfish females only concerned about their own precious necks. His partners in bed sport were wholesome and earthy creatures, despite their royal titles. Frustrated widows living at court, ladies-in-waiting weary of their boring lives in Winchester. This whore was everything he knew naught about, an immoral slut agreeable to anything if it meant saving her head.