Chapter Sixteen
Stephen thought he had been asleep but couldn’t be sure.
It could have been another bout with unconsciousness.
He’d spent three days chained up to a makeshift stock with no shelter from the weather and hardly any water.
He couldn’t remember the last time he ate.
He thought perhaps the morning before the battle began but he was not sure.
Whatever damage they had done to him in the beating following the capture of Berwick had been complete and thorough. His mind and body were thrashed.
So another day began as dawn turned the horizons shades of pink and purple.
The massive keep was to his left and he kept himself sane by remembering the days he spent there with Joselyn.
He would close his eyes and go back to the day they had met and the subsequent days that saw him fall madly in love with the woman.
He imagined what their son would look like, a boy with dark hair and cornflower blue eyes.
Stephen’s father possessed the same color eyes; they were a Pembury trait.
He imagined the expression on his father’s face when he saw his grandson for the first time.
Stephen just hoped he was alive to see it.
The Scots were burning the last pile of English dead this morning, the scent of burning flesh lying heavy in the air.
Stephen was not sure if Kenneth was part of those funeral pyres but he didn’t think so.
The last he saw the man, he was severing heads and limbs.
He seriously doubted Kenneth had been killed in the battle.
So the question remained what happened to him.
Alan had been killed when the wall had been breached and Stephen hadn’t seen what had become of Lane.
Too many Scots and not enough English had been an eventual recipe for disaster.
The English soldiers were simply overwhelmed by the sheer number.
Henry of Lancaster, delayed by weather further south, had arrived on the outskirts of Berwick on the eve of the first day of battle only to find it completely under siege.
With one thousand men, Henry tried to fight his way to the castle but was repelled by the Earl of Moray and his allies. Under heavy casualties, Henry withdrew.
Stephen didn’t blame him. The odds were too great. He was just thankful that he had listened to Kenneth and sent Joselyn to Forestburn. He could deal with his captivity and uncertain future, but if Joselyn had been compromised, his anguish would have known no bounds.
He must have passed out again shortly after dawn because he regained consciousness just as he fell to the ground.
Someone had cut him loose from the stocks.
He was suffering from several broken ribs as well as a cracked right wrist and multiple cuts and bruises.
He had suffered the broken ribs when he had first been captured and the fractured wrist had come courtesy of a bitter Scots who did it to show off to his friends.
He was beaten and weakened from exposure and no food, unable to resist when several men picked him up off the dirt and hauled him across the compound.
They ended up dragging him inside the keep, inside the solar where he had first formally met his wife.
The room had a multitude of memories but he couldn’t spare the energy to reflect.
He could only lie on the floor in agony where they had dropped him.
He paid no attention to the sounds of people in and out of the solar, to the door opening and closing. It grew silent in the room as he lay there, exhausted and injured, his eyes closed to the pain that throbbed through his body. He had no idea that he was not alone.
“Well, Sassenach,” came a low, somewhat weary voice. “They beat ye like a dog, did they? I confess, I expected worse.”
Stephen’s eyes opened. The only thing in his field of vision was a portion of the hearth. He could barely move.
“You have me at a disadvantage,” he whispered. “It is difficult for me to address you from my position on the floor but you will forgive me that I cannot stand.”
A body was suddenly beside him, on his knees, and Stephen found himself looking into Kynan’s dark, intelligent eyes. The Scotsman shook his head as their gazes locked.
“Ye’re mangled, man,” he said. “I have sent for food. They’ve got no cause tae be treatin’ ye like this.”
Stephen closed his eyes. “I am the enemy,” he replied quietly. “They can do with me as they please.”
Kynan stayed on his knees next to him, studying the man.
He could see how badly injured he was and something inside him, however reluctant, sought to give him some comfort.
Maybe it was because of the last conversation he had with him.
The words rang round and round in his head.
They had ever since he had spoken them. I married your cousin to form an alliance; that is true.
But she loves me and I love her, and there is nothing in this world that I would not do for her.
It was something that had broken down Kynan’s hatred of the man and even now, all he could see was Joselyn’s husband on the ground, not an English enemy.
If Joselyn loved him as he said she did, and he had no reason to believe otherwise, then Kynan was reluctant to destroy something that had undoubtedly brought joy into her life.
And with the life she’d had, he just couldn’t bring himself to cause her more pain. He sighed faintly.
“Where is Jo-Jo?” he asked softly.
Stephen grunted. “Well away from here.”
“She was not here when the castle was besieged?”
“Nay,” Stephen said faintly.
Kynan watched the man a moment before emitting another sigh and planting his buttocks on the ground beside him. His gaze drifted over the big man.
“So the situation has turned,” he muttered. “It was ye looking at me through the iron grates. Now I am the one lookin’ at ye. Ye’re a sight, man.”
Stephen’s blue eyes were dull with pain. “I can imagine that I am,” he whispered. “What do you plan to do with me?”
Kynan’s jaw flexed. “I didna tell them tae do this to ye,” he said in a low voice, avoiding the question. “I told me men tae take Berwick back but I dinna tell them tae beat ye tae death.”
Stephen shifted on the ground, grunting with pain as his ribs screamed. “Your men knew exactly who I was,” he said. “They came right for me with clubs, not to kill but to subdue. You must have told them who I was.”
Kynan nodded faintly. “I told them tae take ye alive if they could.”
Stephen thought of the four soldiers he had sent to follow Kynan in the hopes of gaining information on the rebellion.
The men had never returned. He closed his eyes to the irony of it all, how things had turned out so badly.
He thought he was a better soldier than that.
Maybe he was not. Or maybe his thoughts had been too preoccupied with his new wife to pay close attention to the castle he was supposed to be commanding.
Though Kenneth had never said anything to him directly, he knew the man’s thoughts.
He knew Kenneth too well to not know what he was thinking. Maybe Kenneth had been right.
“So our great plan turned the tables on us,” he muttered, his lips against the floor, his breathing coming in heavy draws. “We let you escape, MacKenzie. I had men following you. But it seems that you outsmarted them and turned the tide against me.”
Kynan lifted a dark brow. “I knew ye did,” he replied. “It was too easy for me tae escape tae be convincing.”
“What of the men who followed you?”
“Dead,” he said without distress.
Stephen had suspected as much. “So you came to take back Berwick.”
“Me men were already comin’ back tae Berwick, gatherin’ the clans while I was in yer vault.”
“You knew this?”
His dark eyes glimmered. “There is much I know that I didn’t tell ye.”
“I figured that out.”
The door to the solar opened and a soldier entered with a tray of food and a pitcher hanging from his hand. Kynan motioned for the man to set the goods down on the nearest table. He didn’t speak until the man left the room and even then, his voice was very quiet.
“You will tell me the truth, Sassenach,” his tone was odd, almost pleading. “Ye told me once that ye loved Jo-Jo. Is this true?”
Stephen’s eyes opened at the mention of her name and he turned his head slightly, looking at Kynan. “Why do you ask?”
Kynan’s jaw tightened, torn between stubbornness and deep compassion for his cousin. He finally lifted his shoulders. “Because I want tae know. Answer me.”
“I told you that I did. That has not changed.”
Kynan absorbed the statement, pondering his next move. “I pray tae God that ye’re sincere. She feels the same way about ye.”
“How would you know that?”
“She told me,” Kynan replied, eyeing the man on the floor. “She… she’s not had a good life.”
“I know,” Stephen answered softly. “I know all about her life and what her father did to her. There are no secrets between us. To elaborate on my answer, I love her more than life. I would die for her without question.”
Kynan could only hold his gaze a moment longer before looking away.
He finally sighed heavily. “I was afraid of that,” he muttered.
He fidgeted with his boot a moment as if pondering his thoughts.
“Me mother and Julia Seton were sisters. I remember when Jo-Jo was born. I was just a lad but I remembered the most beautiful babe I’d ever seen.
Julia was married tae a sick man. Alexander was a gambler and he gambled away most of her dowry, their fine things, and their money.
He was also a drinker and would spend days drunk with wine.
There was times when there wasna food on the table so Julia would bring Joselyn tae our home.
My mother would feed and take care o’them.
And then Joselyn grew older and that’s when the trouble started. ”