Chapter Seventeen #4
He sent all six soldiers away from the gate under orders to search the keep and see if they could find any bedding that the men in the bailey could use.
He also told them they could keep anything of value they came across since the keep hadn’t been fully looted yet, which thrilled the guards and they readily did his bidding.
They were also under instructions to return to him once they’d raided the keep, which they agreed to.
When the six disappeared into the keep, Bretton made a break for the kitchen structure.
He found the old knight, the father, and the mother awake, each one of them holding a sleeping child.
Indicating for them to remain silent, Bretton freed them from the kitchen and led them out into the dark night and to the postern gate, where he told them to flee and never return.
He also told them that if they informed anyone of Bretton’s merciful gesture, that he would hunt them down and kill them, so it was best for them to keep their mouths shut on how they truly escaped Comen.
The mother and father were the first ones through the postern gate, down the narrow path that led to a wooded area below, but the old knight, holding his youngest granddaughter, was the last to go.
He held Bretton’s gaze a moment, wondering why this conqueror, this killer, had spared his life, especially given that the old man had been with Jax de Velt during his campaign of terror.
Old Ares was going to ask for the reasons behind the show of mercy but decided better of it.
He simply thanked Bretton and fled after his son and daughter-in-law, down the shadowed path and into the darkness that signaled freedom.
They didn’t have any weapons, money, food, or clothing, but they were alive and free, and that was all that mattered.
Bretton stood there and watched them go, wondering if he had done the right thing.
There was an odd lightness in his heart that told him he had.
I would ask you to show mercy. In his own way, he had.
An hour later, when the six soldiers returned from raiding the keep, Bretton ordered them all into the kitchen structure, which he then closed and locked from the outside with an iron fire prong wedged against the door latch, preventing it from being opened.
He then proceeded to burn the kitchen down with the six inside so that, in the morning, well after the hot cinders had reduced bone and flesh to mostly ash, all anyone was able to find of those who had been in the kitchen were small pieces of bone and teeth, and portions of six charred skulls.
It was enough to convince the commanders, and anyone else, that Bretton had burned the commander of Comen alive along with his aged father, one of de Velt’s original knights, the commander’s wife, and their three daughters.
No one was the wiser to the truth, and no one would ever know the mercy Bretton showed that night.
Except for Allaston. Bretton meant that she should know.
*
It was early morning at Comen Castle and the stench of smoke and burning bodies hung heavy in the moist morning air.
It was just before sunrise when the sky was turning shades of dark blue and pink, and Bretton’s men were up and moving, preparing to return to Cloryn.
Bretton himself hadn’t slept all night and was back in the kitchen yard, watching the kitchen smolder in ruins, leaving his commanders in the bailey to organize the men.
Word had gotten around that he had burned one of de Velt’s knights in the kitchen blaze, so everyone assumed he was reconciling the death against his sense of vengeance.
He was rightly lingering over a personal victory.
Grayton had already agreed to remain behind at Comen to oversee the rebuild, leaving Teague and Dallan to return with Bretton back to Cloryn.
The four commanders would then be down to two, and those two would be taking charge of future castles on Bretton’s list of conquest. Still, all three had suffered through the strained relationship with Bretton as of late and Olivier, having been at Rhayder Castle since it had been taken over by Bretton, had not been aware of the fact that there was increasing distance between Bretton and his commanders.
Therefore, the two that were remaining were the ones to deal with Bretton’s distraction with Lady Allaston.
She was the reason for the separation, the reason why the men weren’t entirely close with Bretton any longer.
They had tried to reason with him about her, but it was clear the man was obsessed.
Whether it was because she was de Velt’s daughter, or because he was simply infatuated with her, no one seemed to know.
All they knew was that she seemed to have more power over him than they did, and no one liked that. Least of all Grayton.
As Bretton pondered over the smoldering kitchen, Grayton gathered Teague and Dallan.
It was time for the three of them to discuss the future as they saw it, the future that Bretton had promised them.
Even though they had conquered Comen Castle, as Bretton had promised, the future was uncertain.
Mostly, to Grayton, it was not as he had envisioned.
In the burnt hall of Comen, the three commanders gathered. Amid the smoldering ruins and rubble, they remained out of sight as the men outside prepared to depart. Grayton backed Teague and Dallan into a corner, away from prying eyes and ears.
“You two are heading back to Cloryn Castle today,” Grayton said, his voice low.
“I must remain here to see to the rebuild, which means I will not be able to keep an eye on Bretton. That is something you both must do. I fear… I fear that Bretton has lost his direction in all of this. I fear that we are on the verge of a change that none of us will appreciate.”
Dallan’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean?” he wanted to know.
“Bretton has not lost his focus. He has done everything he said he would and we have the riches to prove it. You have been sour since the day de Velt’s daughter smacked Bretton over the skull, Grayton.
Now you are being a doomsayer to things that do not exist.”
Grayton’s lips tightened into a flat, angry line.
“I am closer to Bretton than anyone and I am telling you that the man is verging on a change,” he insisted.
“I can see it in his manner, especially when he gets around that de Velt woman. She changes him. We have all seen it. She even convinced him to take down the impaled bodies at Cloryn and burn them. He told us that he intended to leave those bodies up for six months, yet she asked him to take them down and he did!”
That was an undeniable fact that had the commanders perplexed since it had happened, but Dallan eventually shook his head.
“It means nothing,” he insisted. “The stench was so bad that it was affecting everyone’s appetite. He took them down for that reason.”
“He took them down because she begged him to!” Grayton fired back. “But it will not end there, nay. I fear that she will convince him to go back on everything he has promised us. Do you not understand? That woman has bewitched him!”
Dallan sighed heavily, looking at Teague, who was the most level-headed out of the three. Teague didn’t cushion his opinion.
“You speak treason,” he said to Grayson. “I think Bretton is obsessed with the woman for the sheer fact that she is de Velt’s daughter. You seem to think she has hypnotized him so that he will only do her bidding. I do not see that happening.”
Grayson was flustered that the commanders were not on his side, not seeing what he was seeing. He jabbed a finger at them.
“Mark my words,” he said. “He will not kill de Velt because she will beg him not to. If that happens, I can guarantee that everything we have been promised will be for naught. He will go back on his word to us because of her.”
Teague shrugged his big shoulders. “If it comes to that, then we will deal with the situation accordingly,” he said.
“I, for one, do not intend to allow de Llion to break his promise to me. I am well on my way to being a very rich man and I plan to be richer before this campaign is through. If Bretton does not provide me what he promised, then I will act accordingly, but not until, or if, that moment comes.”
Dallan was already heading out of the hall, moving for the door. When Grayton called to him, he waved the man off irritably. He didn’t want to hear his nonsense. As Teague turned to leave, Grayton grasped him by the arm.
“Listen to me, Teague,” he said. “I have seen what a woman can do to a man. A woman’s will can topple the mightiest of men, Bretton included.
Watch and be wary… if she convinces him not to kill de Velt, the only thing that has kept him driven and has kept us rich, then everything shall crumble. Remember that.”
Teague just looked at him, eyeing the fingers on his arm until Grayton reluctantly removed them. Even as he left the ruins of the hall, Grayton’s words echoed in his mind as much as he didn’t want them to.
Watch to see if she convinces him not to kill de Velt….
Try as he might, Teague couldn’t seem to shake Grayton’s sense of foreboding.