Chapter Two #3
Kathalin’s furrowed brow turned into a full-blown frown. “Why?” she asked, exasperation in her tone. “This is my home, Sir Knight. I do not wish to return to my parents.”
Gates hoped he wasn’t going to have a problem with her. The last thing he wanted to do was carry her, kicking and screaming, out of the priory in his quest to carry out his orders.
“You will forgive me, my lady, for suggesting that your concerns are something you must discuss with your father,” he said. “I am only the messenger. I have my orders and I would ask politely that you help me to complete them.”
Kathalin eyed the enormous man, her first reaction one of refusal.
However, she suspected that refusal would not be well met and she didn’t want to find herself bound and gagged, thrown across the back of his horse for transport to her family’s home.
Although Gates de Wolfe seemed polite and had not been aggressive towards her even when she was beating him in the head with her pot, she was fairly certain that she didn’t want to provoke him.
It would not end well, for either one of them.
Therefore, she took a step back from him, away from arm’s reach.
“But I do not want to go,” she said quietly.
“I appreciate that you have your orders, but I do not want to go. This is where I live. I manage the kitchens and every day, I teach some of the children in the village the good words from the Holy Scripture. My entire life is here and I hope you can understand that I do not wish to answer a summons by my father, who is a stranger to me. He is my father in name only.”
Gates could see that she was trying to reason with him but the fact remained that he had his orders.
“My lady, I can appreciate your position,” he said patiently, “but this is something you must discuss with your father. I cannot make any decision for or against you. You must come with me and after discussing these things with your father, it is up to him whether or not he will permit you to return.”
Kathalin pondered his response. She was terrified that if she allowed him to take her home, her father might not ever let her return to St. Milburga’s.
She had no idea why the man was summoning her after fourteen years of virtual silence; it was the first such summons in all of that time.
She had lived at St. Milburga’s quite happily since leaving her parents, people who were ghosts to her.
She forgot she even had parents most of the time because they had made it clear they had no use for their only daughter.
At least, they had no use up until now. But something had prompted her father to call her home and she didn’t like it one bit. Uncertainty made her very apprehensive.
I do not want to leave my home!
“But why?” she finally asked, feeling tears sting her eyes. “Why does he want me to come home?”
Even though Gates knew why, he wasn’t sure how much to tell her. Still, he felt as if he should tell her something. He could see that she was quite upset by the unexpected summons.
“It is my understanding that your mother wants you to come home,” he said quietly. Then, he gestured towards the door. “If you please, my lady? I should like to leave as soon as possible.”
Kathalin sighed heavily, turning away from him, despondent.
“My mother,” she repeated, disgust in her tone.
“I have not seen my mother in fourteen years, Sir Knight. I do not even know her. Do you know what my last memory of her is? When she screamed at me for something, something I do not even recall, and then she slapped me across the mouth. The next day, I was bundled up and sent away with two soldiers for escort, one of which kept pinching my… well, suffice it to say he pinched something he should not have. Dear God, I was only five years old at the time. What kind of man would do that? And what kind of mother would send her child away like that?”
Gates was listening to her with some sympathy.
But he was mostly watching her delicious backside when she turned away from him, a shapely back that flared into hips that disappeared beneath layers of brown wool.
He found himself wondering what she looked like underneath all of that fabric but when she finished her impassioned speech and turned to him, expecting an answer, he was caught daydreaming about her shapely behind.
Embarrassed, he cleared his throat, trying to cover his blunder.
“My lady, I cannot pretend to know your mother’s mind,” he said. “All I know is that I was ordered to bring you to your parents. Will you please come with me?”
Kathalin was hoping for a bit more compassion from the man. “And if I refuse?”
Gates met her intense gaze with intensity of his own. “I hope you will not.”
“If I do?”
“Then I have been ordered to bring you home by any means necessary.”
So he revealed his true determination that she should come with him. She smiled thinly. “Then all of this politeness from you was a ruse,” she said. “You are going to take me whether or not I comply with your requests. Why not tell me that from the start?”
“Because I was hoping I would not have to.”
Kathalin opened her mouth to reply when a Welsh raider, evidently fleeing English pursuers, suddenly bolted in through the door.
Kathalin screamed at the sight of him and Gates, spurred by her scream, acted on his training; quick as a flash, he threw his big shoulder against the door, slamming the Welshman between the door jamb and the door panel, hitting him so hard that the Welshman hit his head on the door itself.
It was enough to stun him so that the two English soldiers chasing him were able to grab the man and haul him, dazed, away.
Kathalin stood there, hand to her mouth in fright, as Gates watched his soldiers drag the man off.
He also passed a practiced eye over The Garth, noting that nearly all of the Welsh had been commanded to sit on the muddy ground whilst his men corralled them.
Stephan, astride his big, red war horse, was ordering the wounded gathered in one spot.
After several moments of watching the activity, Gates finally returned his attention to Kathalin.
“Well, my lady?” he asked. “Will you come peacefully or will you and I have to slug it out? The choice is yours.”
Shaken by the abrupt appearance of the errant Welshman, Kathalin struggled to appear as if she wasn’t shaken in the least. But it was more than that; when de Wolfe had charged the door and thrown his weight against it to disable the man, she could see in that brief moment exactly how powerful the knight was.
He was unstoppable, as strong as a bull, and she could only imagine his skill with a blade was equal.
He was not one to be trifled with and her fear of him made a return.
It was strength that could be turned against her.
Still, it didn’t lessen her determination not to go with him.
She had been unable to reason her way out of it and it was obvious he had no compassion about her position.
He would essentially be dragging her out of her home, taking her to strangers who had control over her life.
Strangers who had discarded her at a very young age.
Knowing reason or brute strength would be no good against the knight, she had to be more clever than he was.
A battle of wits was her last defense against him.
She had to try because, Sweet Jesus, she truly did not wish to leave St. Milburga’s.
She didn’t want to go.
“I wish to speak with the Mother Prioress,” she said. “Is that too much to ask?”
Gates shook his head. “Not at all, my lady,” he said, smiling to give her a glimpse of those de Wolfe dimples.
It was a calculated move on his part, hoping to dazzle her a bit.
“You and I will go and find her together, although I cannot imagine where she would be in the midst of this mess. Do you have any thoughts on the matter?”
Kathalin wasn’t particularly moved by the dimples, although it made the handsome man ever more handsome.
She was too caught up in her own turmoil to appreciate the glorious gesture.
Moreover, she wasn’t sure where the Prioress was but she intended to hunt the woman down.
There was a very specific question she wanted to ask her, the woman who had been more of a mother to her than her own ever was.
She wasn’t going to leave without seeing the woman one last time and pleading for her intervention.
At this point, it was Kathalin’s last hope.
Will you offer me sanctuary, Mother Benedicta, so I may remain at St. Milburga’s?
Aye, it was a calculated question. Silently, she left the kitchen with Gates right behind her, quite possibly tailing her closely so that in case she decided to run, he could quickly curtail the action.
But Kathalin didn’t have a mind to run, at least not yet.
She wanted to find the Mother Prioress first, a woman who went by the name of Mother Benedicta.
The first big dormitory-like room they came to was called the Refectory where the sick were usually housed, but at the moment it only had a few frightened nuns huddled in it and no Mother Prioress, so they continued on through chambers with names like the Warming Room and the Day Room.
Continuing through the cloister to see that the Welsh had, indeed, torn the place apart in their search for possessions of value, they came to a room called the Prioress’ Seat and, following the peculiar sounds of banging, found the woman locked up in a small wardrobe.
The Mother Prioress, a tall and rather wide woman, was very glad to see Kathalin but very puzzled to see the enormous knight accompanying her.
Even when Gates explained who he was, the Prioress was still not entirely accepting of him.
She was more interested in the state of her priory than in the big English knight, which didn’t help her attitude in the least, not even with Kathalin told the woman that it was the English knights who had saved them from the Welsh.
Gates stood by while Kathalin followed the flustered Mother Prioress around, collecting the nuns and wards and servants, and even a few children, and gathering them all together in the sanctuary to count heads and offer prayers for their safety and health.
He even stood by while they prayed, standing in the back of the cavernous sanctuary that smelled of dirt and heavily-fatted incense, and he was eventually joined by Stephan who informed him that they had forty-four Welsh prisoners as a result of the raid.
Gates certainly hadn’t expected the burden of prisoners when he’d come to collect Kathalin de Lara but that was exactly what he found himself with, and his frustration began to surface.
Mostly, it was centered around Kathalin and the fact that she seemed to find the need for very long prayers on this day.
As he watched the entire priory pray, keeping an eye on Kathalin’s dark head, Gates told Stephan to take the Welsh to Ludlow Castle, only a couple of miles away, where they could better handle the prisoners.
Gates, however, didn’t go himself; he wanted to remain close to the source of his increasing frustration because something told him not to let Kathalin out of his sight.
It was an instinct that proved to be correct.
When prayers were over and the Mother Prioress informed him that Kathalin was not allowed to leave with him because she had been granted sanctuary on the basis of escaping parental abuse and a genuine desire to serve God, Gates unhappily carried out his orders down to the letter and extracted Kathalin de Lara from St. Milburga’s Priory by force.
In the end, he did what he hadn’t wanted to do – he ended up carrying a struggling woman, bound hand and foot, out of the only home she had ever known.