Chapter Three
Cloryn Castle
Welsh Marches
Three long weeks.
Well, at least she thought it had been three weeks because she had scratched off every passing day on the wall with a small rock.
It had been three weeks since she had been abducted from Alberbury Priory and taken to an unknown castle and put into a vault that was dank, dark, and dirty.
Moss grew on the stone like green slime and there was a constant water drip against one of the walls, puddling up on the floor and giving everything a terribly moldy smell.
It also made Allaston sneeze and she had been doing little else since being locked up in this dismal hole. It was a horrible, depressing place.
She had a bed of old straw to sleep on and a few rough blankets that smelled like horses, so she assumed they were for the livestock.
Normally, she would have shunned such things, for she grew up in a house where she wanted for nothing.
Her parents had spoiled her, just as they had spoiled all of their children, but the past year had seen her attitude for finery change dramatically.
The nuns of Alberbury had pushed thoughts of material pleasures right out of her mind, which had been difficult considering how overindulged she had been.
Her pride, and tastes, had been a difficult thing to contain, but now, sitting on her bed of straw and covered with horse blankets, she found she had no pride at all in material things.
If she hadn’t the blankets, she would have frozen to death so she was grateful for what she had, however raw.
Three weeks. Those words kept rolling around her head because she was fearful that she was going to spend the rest of her life down here in the darkness.
Since the cell had no window, she really only knew the number of days from the meals she had been brought.
She was given food to break her fast and then a small supper every night, usually consisting of terrible leavings from what looked to be bigger feasts.
She was given the scraps. Hungry as she was, she ate them.
Allaston hadn’t seen the blue-eyed knight since the day she had been brought to this place and locked away.
The only people she saw were soldiers as they brought her food, and those soldiers spoke with Irish accents.
Two of them did, anyway, which confused her but she didn’t dare strike up a conversation with them to ask them where they were from.
They didn’t seem to be the conversational type.
So she sat and waited, but waited for what, she didn’t know.
She had no idea why she was even here and she had long since gotten over being terrified for her plight.
No one had hurt her or had even tried to in spite of the fact that she was a prisoner.
She was cast into the vault and left alone, forgotten. She was positive she was forgotten.
Until the morning of the nineteenth day of captivity.
She had slept a miserable night, cold and hungry, and the sneezing she’d suffered from since her arrival had turned into a cough.
Her head was stuffy as was her chest, and her throat felt as if it was on fire.
As she lay on the straw, shivering, she heard the iron grate at the top of the stairs open.
The stairs led down from the gatehouse into the vault and she could hear heavy bootfalls on the stone as someone descended.
She assumed it was a soldier bringing her some food but she was too weary and ill to sit up.
Besides, there was no reason to eat if she was going to spend the rest of her life in a dank cell.
The quicker she hastens her death, the better.
She didn’t want to live like an animal for the rest of her life and from her perspective, she couldn’t see any way out. She was trapped.
So she lay there, unmoving, as someone came to her cell door. She heard the bolt being thrown and the door as it was jerked open. Because of the moisture in the vault, the oak door tended to swell and stick. Big, heavy footsteps entered the cell.
“Get up, woman.”
It was a deep, raspy voice. Allaston had heard it before.
Startled, her head popped up and she struggled to sit up as her eyes fixed on a man of enormous proportions.
He was clad in a leather tunic, woolen breeches, and massive boots, and she would have had no idea who the man was except that she recognized the vibrant blue eyes.
They were the eyes of the knight who had burned Alberbury.
Stunned, Allaston managed to sit up enough so that she was on her arse, but the entire time her focus was riveted on the man before her.
He had black hair, cropped short, and a square jaw beneath a sprouting beard.
His neck was thick and muscular, just like his shoulders, and his arms were easily as big around as her torso.
She’d never seen such size. True enough, he’d been covered with tunics and mail the night they had met and she had attributed that to his colossal size.
She was coming to see, however, that the man was simply big in general.
The mail and other protection didn’t make a significant difference in his overall bulk.
He was, simply put, built for the raw brutalities of warfare.
The knight stood in the cell, filling it up with his fearsome presence. His gaze was steady upon Allaston as she stared back apprehensively.
“We must speak on a few things,” he said in that rumbling, hoarse voice. “I am assuming that three weeks in this hole has not dulled your sense of reasoning. I am assuming we may carry on an intelligent conversation or has the mold gone to your head?”
Allaston shook her head, her fear turning into disgust at his callous attitude towards her current situation.
It was in his tone, in everything about him.
He couldn’t have cared less for her state of being.
She should have known that from the three weeks he had left her in the vault, but hearing him speak was the ultimate confirmation.
In fact, the more she looked at him, the more disgusted she became.
He was heartless, cold, and evil, and biting her tongue had never been one of her strong points.
She spoke before she could stop herself.
“What kind of man would keep a woman locked up in this… this beastly place?” she asked. “I have committed no crime yet you treat me as a criminal. Why have you done this to me?”
The knight’s gaze remained even. Slowly, he cocked his head. “I suppose it is natural that you want to know who I am and why you are here,” he said. “That is a fair expectation.”
“Fair?” she repeated, her tone bordering on incredulous. “What would you understand about fair? Fair is not locking an innocent woman away in a horrible, moldering cell when she has done nothing to warrant it. How have I wronged you that you would abduct me from Alberbury and lock me away?”
It was a snappish tone she used, one of rebuke. Her abhorrence toward him was evident, but the knight’s expression didn’t change.
“I would suggest you not speak to me in such a fashion,” he said evenly. “You might not like my reaction.”
Frustrated, furious, Allaston sighed harshly and turned away.
She couldn’t stomach looking at the man any longer.
She started coughing, struggling with the illness that was sweeping her, and trying not to succumb to the depression that grasped at her like cold, knowing fingers.
Those fingers knew she could be easily snared given her circumstances.
As Allaston grappled with her emotions, she could hear the knight’s joints popping as he shifted on his big legs.
“My name is Bretton de Llion,” he said, his raspy voice low.
“I was born in Wales at a castle called Four Crosses. It is north of our location, near Powis Castle. When I was five, a great plague swept through the Marches, destroying everything in its path. Castles were burned, men put to the stake and murdered, and babies crushed. The plague soon came to Four Crosses and killed my father, my mother, and my sister. That plague had a name – Ajax de Velt.”
Allaston, who had been facing away from him, remained still as his words sank in.
Even when the full impact hit her, she didn’t look at the man because, suddenly, everything was coming clear.
Now, she understood why he had taken her from Alberbury without benefit of further explanation. Aye, she understood a great deal now.
As she’d know on that bloody, terrible night when Alberbury burned, the knight, now given the name of Bretton de Llion, had come to the priory with a purpose.
He had been seeking a de Velt, but the mystery had been his purpose.
Now, he had revealed it. Allaston was no fool.
She could smell vengeance upon the still air of the cell.
She knew what her father had done those years ago.
Her parents had never hid the fact, although the man Jax de Velt was today was quite different than the man he was years ago.
The man back then had been an animal. This knight, this big and horrible knight, was out for vengeance against that animal. Allaston’s depression deepened.
“Just kill me now and be done with it, then,” she muttered. “That is why you took me from Alberbury, is it not? To kill me? Then do it and let us be done with this madness.”
Bretton continued to stare at her. He was very good at remaining impassive. “Who said anything about killing you?” he asked. “I do not intend to kill you, at least not at the moment.”