Chapter One
Alberbury Priory
Shropshire, England (the Welsh Marches)
The alarm had come after Vespers when everyone was settling down for the evening and soft prayers were being uttered throughout the cloister.
The flames from a few lit tapers danced in the darkness, casting shadows upon the wall, tapers that were quickly doused by nuns who were in a panic.
Women in coarse woolen garments had raced through the priory, spreading fear along with them like a great, vast blanket of doom.
Something terrible had come to their door, something that did not recognize the sanctity of the church, and the only thing left for them to do was flee.
Their only defense, the shield of religion, had been destroyed. Death had come to Alberbury.
In the novice’s dormitory that smelled of lye and smoke, a palpable sense of terror filled the long and cavernous room as the Mother Prioress and several senior nuns flooded in, rousing the neophytes from their beds.
These women were in training to become the brides of Christ, living spartan lives and being taught that discipline and suffering were the only true paths to God.
Clad only in a rough woolen sleeping shift that they had made with their own hands from wool that had come from the priory’s herd of sheep, the young women struggled out of their beds.
“What is the matter, Mother?” a young woman gasped. “What has happened?”
The Mother Prioress, a very old woman who was, in fact, a distant member of the royal family, grabbed the girl by the arm and very nearly yanked the limb out of its socket.
“No questions,” she hissed. “Thou must do as thou art told. We must leave this place now.”
The reply only bred more fear and confusion. “Please, Mother,” another girl said as she gathered a worn cloak from the stool next to her. “Will you please tell us what has happened? Why must we leave?”
The old prioress didn’t look at her charge.
In fact, she didn’t look at any of them.
There were eleven altogether, young women from the finest families throughout England, and it was her duty to keep them safe.
But it was a duty that she could quite possibly fail at and the thought scared her to death.
The proud old woman had never failed at anything.
As she opened her mouth to chastise yet another question, a massive crash could be heard back in the abbey, as if the very walls were coming down.
The young novices looked terrified while the older nuns simply appeared sick; sick because their world, their lovely and pious world, was about to come crumbling down around them.
“God’s Beard,” the girl who had asked the initial question gasped. Her eyes were wide with fright. “What on earth was that?”
The prioress eyed her associates a moment before answering. “A plague has come to Alberbury,” she whispered, grabbing two of the girls closest to her. “We must flee now or we will not survive. Doest thou understand?”
The girls could feel the woman’s terror, mingling with their own, and it was enough to get their legs moving.
It was so dark, however, that one girl tripped over the nearest bed, falling to her knees before being pulled up by her friends.
Together, the group of four nuns and eleven novices headed for the rear entrance to the dormitory.
It was a chaotic and hectic flight, and as one of the older nuns brought up the rear, hanging on to a small young woman with golden hair, she began to mutter.
“The Devil has come to our door,” she hissed. “Satan himself has emerged from the darkness and now he intends to feed upon us. We will become fodder for his demons.”
The novice nuns looked to the old woman, fear and confusion on their faces, but the Mother Prioress scolded her.
“Sister Mary Josepha, silence!” she breathed. “Thou speaketh nonsense. Keep thy lips closed for if thou must murmur, be it a prayer to God.”
The older nuns’ squabbling was nothing new.
It happened constantly and the novice nuns were unmoved by it.
As they ran, however, one young woman kept glancing over her shoulder, seemingly above the panic for the moment.
She seemed to be calculating the situation, pondering it more than the others.
She was afraid, that was true, but she was also trying to figure a way out of it, if such a thing were possible.
“But where will we go?” the young woman with dark hair and bright green eyes wanted to know.
She was a pale, delicious beauty with a sharp and inquisitive mind that often saw her knuckles rapped as a result of that outspoken intelligence.
“If men are trying to burn down the priory, it would stand to reason that they have more than likely compromised the village down the hill. We cannot go there and there is no safe haven left for miles around.”
The Mother Prioress hissed at the woman. “Silence, Allaston Eugenia,” she demanded. “We will head to the creek and hide amongst the grass and trees. Remember thy Bible; let the rocks and the trees be my army. They will protect us.”
Lady Allaston Eugenia Coleby de Velt wasn’t entirely sure the old prioress was correct but she kept her mouth shut.
It seemed to her that they needed to do more than simply hide in the bushes.
They needed to get far, far away, but not knowing the area particularly well, for she grew up in Northumberland, she wasn’t at all sure where they should go.
Still, it seemed as if the old prioress was being foolish.
There had to be more they could do than shield themselves in the bushes and pray they were not discovered.
But she was at a loss to know exactly what that “more” should be.
So she followed the group of women, stumbling through the dormitory door that led into the cloister and out across the well-kept dirt of the gardens.
The prioress’ accommodations were directly in front of them, a dark and loveless building, and they skirted the one-storied structure, heading for the rear of the priory and the open fields beyond.
The moon, a silver sliver in the blackness of the sky, provided little light.
Everyone was tripping and scuffling as they went.
The smell of smoke was heavy as they moved and they could hear the shouts of men and the bray of animals coming from the east and south sides of the priory, the areas that were mostly exposed to the road and the world beyond.
Although there were fifteen in their small group, there were at least thirty more nuns who were still unaccounted for, women who had either already fled or were foolishly hiding in the priory.
At the moment, there was no way to hunt for all of them, so the Mother Prioress had gathered who she could.
Fifteen out of a total of forty-five nuns was a dismal statistic but it was the best they could do under the frightening circumstances.
Allaston was towards the rear of their group as they made their way around the prioress’ lodgings. She was helping Sister Mary Josepha with a young woman, not a particularly healthy young woman, who was having trouble running. The girl was wheezing and coughing with the exertion.
“Please, Annie,” Allaston begged softly. “You must be brave. You must hurry. We must run!”
Annie was having a great deal of difficulty. “I am trying!” she gasped, tears in her eyes. “But I am so frightened, Allie. Who would attack a priory? It is a house of God and meant to be safe from all!”
Allaston shushed her because she knew the Mother Prioress would only yell at poor Annie for sounding so weak. The Mother Prioress did not like weak women. “Evil men have attacked us,” she said simply. “In the end, it does not matter who it is. All that matters is that we must get away from them.”
Annie was bordering on sobs, made difficult by her heavy breathing. “What will become of us?” she wept. “Where will we be safe?”
Allaston didn’t have an immediate answer for her friend, trying to think of something positive as the group came around the corner of the prioress’ lodgings.
All that lay before them now was dark, open fields and the creek beyond with its copse of trees and heavy foliage.
Before Allaston could speak a word, however, those in the front of the group came to an abrupt halt, causing those in the rear to crash into them.
Allaston ended up on her behind as the group of hysterical women came to sudden stop.
Allaston had very narrowly avoided hitting the wall of the structure with her head as she went down.
Grunting, she picked herself up and her gaze happened to fall on the Mother Prioress and the fields beyond.
She was looking to see what had caused everyone to come to a dead stop and as her eyes adjusted to the dark night, she realized that the fields normally filled with sheep were now filled with men. Hundreds of them.
Terror filled her as she realized there would be no safety in the trees and rocks tonight.
That which they had been attempting to flee was now surrounding them, like something dark and evil and smothering.
Men with torches had been waiting for them, waiting for their quarry without effort, and if Allaston had been any wiser about warfare she would have realized that the commotion at the front of the priory had been designed to drive the inhabitants out of the back and right into a trap.
The tactic had worked. They were all snared.
Some of the young women broke into tears at the sight of all those soldiers.
Allaston stood up, a big mud stain on her rump, holding on to Annie as more men on horseback began to surround them.
They could hear crying and pleading in the distance as several other nuns were brought around from the front of the priory, now joining the group of fifteen.
It was more terror than any of them could bear and they huddled together in a frightened mass.