Chapter Two #2
Joselyn was beyond shocked; it never occurred to her that the man would not believe her. Her shock turned to rage such as she had never known and the fire of the Scots, so inherent to her soul, bubbled up like a great raging beast.
“Perhaps shallow English wenches tell stories that are meant to bleed the heart of sympathy, but I do not lie and I do not weave elaborate fabrications,” she seethed.
“What I told you was the truth. I should have expected no sympathy from a dishonorable English hound that would hang a young boy and call it justice.”
Stephen merely lifted an eyebrow. “I did not hang a young boy. And he would not have been hanged had your father possessed any honor and stuck to his bargain.”
“He tried to keep his promise but his men would not listen,” she fired back passionately.
“Do you not understand this? He wanted to honor the deal struck with the English, to surrender the city on the appointed date, but his men refused to do his bidding. So my father watched as you hanged my little brother, a sweet young lad who had never caused harm to anyone. He watched, weeping, as Thomas was hanged beyond the city walls. He cried his name as my brother breathed his last. Don’t you dare accuse my father of a lack of honor; you are hardly worthy to speak the man’s name much less judge him. ”
Stephen still sat perched on the edge of the table, his arms crossed as she fired her speech at him with all the subtlety of an exploding trebuchet.
He was, in fact, mildly impressed with her courage.
And the more he watched her, the more intrigued he was with her unearthly beauty and inherent strength.
“Then your father is a poor commander,” his manner was cool.
“Had he been a capable leader, his men would have done his bidding without question. It simply proves my point that the Scots are savages without honor, your father included. He is a weakling to have allowed his son to be hanged because he was unable to control his men.”
She stared at him, so much rage and disbelief in her mind that she could no longer verbalize it. Unable to stomach the sight of him any longer, she turned away from him.
“You contemptible bastard,” she hissed.
Stephen didn’t take offense one way or the other; he had no regard for what she thought of him.
She was intelligent and well spoken, and she was undeniably beautiful.
But the fact of the matter was that she was a stranger, and an enemy at that, now destined to be his wife.
He was more displeased with the prospect than he had been when he had first entered the room.
There was no more point in conversation; they had said all that needed saying and anything more might see them start a physical battle.
There was bitterness between them and a good deal of animosity, and with nothing more to do but wait, Stephen remained perched on the end of the table, watching the weak fire in the hearth and wondering what his future held for him with an enemy wife.
He suspected he was going to have to be on his guard every hour of every day so she would not slit his throat while he slept.
He suspected separate bowers would be in order, his with a big fat lock.
The night dragged on as the acrimonious mood settled. By his estimate, Stephen had been staring into the flames for almost an hour when there was a soft knock at the door. Rising, he went to the panel and unbolted it. De Lara was on the other side.
“The priest has arrived,” he told him. “Are you ready?”
Stephen didn’t say a word; he moved to grab his betrothed from her seat against the wall only to realize that she had fallen asleep sitting up.
He paused, his hand on her arm, refraining from yanking her awake.
For some reason, he didn’t feel like being overly cruel to the woman in spite of the harsh words between them; he watched her as she slept, the gentle curve of her face and the way her perfect little nose twitched now and again.
It was rather fascinating. The longer he watched her, the more entranced he became.
“Stephen,” de Lara had come in to the room and was standing behind him. “Hurry up! There is no time to waste.”
Snapping out of his trance, Stephen grasped her arm and shook it gently. “My lady?” he said quietly. “’Tis time to awaken. We have an appointment to make.”
Startled, Joselyn awoke to two strange knights gazing down at her.
Half asleep and forgetting where she was, she suddenly threw her fists up and caught Stephen in the mouth.
His head snapped back but he maintained his grip on her as she screamed and fought.
Tate came up beside him and, between the two of them, managed to get her on her feet. But she was still fighting.
“Lady Joselyn,” Stephen wiped the trickle of blood from his split lip, understanding she was not fully awake yet. “Calm yourself. You are not in danger and you will not come to harm. You are at Berwick Castle, remember?”
Hair askew, Joselyn blinked unsteadily at the two enormous knights as they tried to lead her out of the solar. She brushed the hair from her face as her wits returned, the familiar bailey of Berwick coming into view.
The moon had risen fully in the time that she and Stephen had been sequestered in the solar, giving the landscape an eerie white glow.
Being that it was July, she could smell the night blossoms upon the air, mingling with the smoke and stench of death.
It was an odd smell. Taking a couple of deep breaths to clear her sleepy mind, she removed herself indelicately from Stephen and Tate’s grasp.
“I am quite capable of walking unassisted,” she informed them.
They allowed her to yank herself free. Neither man said a word as they continued to escort her across the bailey and into the great hall.
It was still a crowded place, filled with English knights and lords, and somewhere near the hearth her family still hovered.
The moment she entered the hall with a massive English knight on either side, however, her mother began to wail.
It was a chaotic sound that the husband tried to quiet and Edward tried to ignore.
The priest was a fat man in dirty robes that smelled strongly of alcohol.
The mother’s wailing grew louder as Stephen took Joselyn by the elbow and guided her in the direction of the priest. Edward barked at the priest to begin the wedding mass and Stephen firmly pushed Joselyn to her knees.
He knelt beside her, seemingly unaffected by the entire thing.
There was strength and dignity to his posture while Joselyn seemed dazed.
Lady Seton’s wailing grew to titanic proportions and she began lamenting her daughter’s future loudly, almost drowning out the droning of the priest. Edward kept shooting the woman baleful looks, hoping Sir Alexander would take the hint and shove a fist into the woman’s mouth to shut her up.
But Seton was actually paying attention to the wedding ceremony, murmuring prayers in response to the priest’s intonations.
Infuriated with a new round of cries from Lady Seton, Edward picked up the nearest cup and threw it at her.
The woman screamed as it sailed past her head and into the wall behind her.
Jolted, Joselyn almost bolted to her feet but Stephen held her firm as the priest made the sign of the cross in holy oil on their foreheads.
But the woman’s screaming continued and the priest was forced to speak louder and louder until he was almost shouting to be heard above the wailing.
Edward would have thrown more cups had he been able to find them, cursing and muttering even as the priest prayed.
Through the chaos, de Lara was the only one, other than Stephen, who kept his composure.
Truth be told, however, had he possessed any less control, Tate would have been laughing his head off.
The priest finished with the final blessing and Stephen abruptly pulled Joselyn to her feet.
Before she could draw another breath, he grabbed her upper arms and kissed her chastely on the cheek.
As she opened her mouth to speak, her mother suddenly broke free and, with a piercing scream, hurled herself into the massively blazing fire.
Hysteria erupted as Joselyn and the other Seton woman, a grandmother, screamed in horror.
Without hesitation, Stephen grabbed his new wife and swept her swiftly from the hall.
She was hysterical, beating on him and crying for her mother.
But Stephen was resolute that she be removed from the bedlam.
There was nothing either of them could do for the crazed mother and he had little doubt that it would have done Joselyn more harm than good to watch her mother burn to death.
As they crossed the bailey, they could hear the screams and shouts coming from the hall.
Stephen was focused on the keep in front of him, thinking of the night ahead and the duty he must perform.
It would undoubtedly be made more difficult by the events of the night.
But his instincts to remove her from the hall had been correct; what they did not see was Edward preventing Seton from pulling his wife from the blaze as de Lara took his broadsword and gored the burning woman through the chest to end her agony.
Death was almost instantaneous and only then did de Lara pull the body from the hearth and extinguish it.
The woman was barely recognizable. As Seton threw himself across his wife’s scorched corpse, de Lara and Edward fell away to regroup, watching the Seton clan deal with their catastrophic loss.
It had been a harrowing end to a harrowing day.
They hoped, just between the two of them, that Stephen fared better.
*