Dark Deceptions: A Regency and Medieval Collection of Dark Romances(170)

As Gart struggled not to become frustrated with his follower, Izlyn was completely and utterly entranced with the massive bald knight. She had seen him the night before in the great hall as he’d feasted with Sir Keller. In fact, she’d watched him quite a lot. He was very handsome, she thought, and she knew he was kind. She could tell by looking at him. The entire time she’d watched him, he’d never hit anyone like her brother often did, so she knew that meant he must be very nice.

Therefore, like moth to the flame, she was drawn to the enormous English knight with the brooding presence. She decided that she liked him very much. She might even marry him, but she had not decided on that yet. Still, she knew she liked him. As the big knight followed her sister and Sir George towards the stables, Izlyn happily skipped after them.

Little did she know that, from the shadows, her worst nightmare was watching.

*

He’d managed to slip in through the secret tunnel that led from the Gorge of the Dead up to the kitchen, which was built against the northern wall. It was meant to be a secret escape route if the castle was ever overtaken, but Gryffyn used it to gain entrance. The opening in the gorge was hidden by a few strategic rocks, concealed unless one knew where to look. The stairs, carved into the bedrock, were tiny and slippery, and he fell twice as he made his way up the passage and into the kitchen. When the cook saw him, he had strangled her and dragged her body into the passageway so no one would find it. Now, he had full access to the castle and he intended to use it.

He intended to find his sisters.

Knowing Nether as well as he did, he was able to dodge servants as they went about their duties by hiding in alcoves or in niches, away from those who would recognize him. He also had a rough woolen cloak, one he’d borrowed from Colvyn, so he was less recognizable to those who would know his fine dress. He was worried about his boots, however, because they were of the finest leather, so he made sure to dirty them up before proceeding into the castle. He hoped that all of these measures would prevent him from being noticed before he could accomplish his task.

He’d managed to make it from the kitchen to the stables without being noticed. The fact that de Poyer had saturated the castle with his own men worked in Gryffyn’s favor. None of the English soldiers recognized him and he was able to move past them relatively unnoticed. Once inside the stables, he climbed up into the loft above and buried himself in the dried grass used to feed and bed the animals. Heart racing with fear and excitement, he planned his next move among the smell of grass and horses.

Stable servants moved around underneath him, tending the horses, and he listened to their inane chatter. Unfortunately, they didn’t speak of anything useful so he continued to plot on his own, knowing that whatever he did had to be accomplished before the English knights returned to the castle which, he assumed, would be before nightfall. So he lay there, buried under grass, and waited for the servants to move out so he could leave the stables and make his way to the keep.

But that wasn’t an instantaneous happening. In fact, he had no idea how much time had passed while he wait, for he actually fell asleep at some point, exhausted from the mayhem of the past two days. It was a dreamless sleep, like the kind of sleep he had when he was young and without care. The smell of dried grass reminded him of those days. When he finally woke some time later, it was to the sound of Chrystobel’s voice.

Startled by the familiar tone, he struggled to gain a view of her and not make too much noise or commotion in the process. Grass was noisy, and crunched, so he eventually lay still because he knew he was creating too much noise and didn’t want anyone heading into the loft to see what was causing the disturbance. So he remained immobile and realized he could see part of the stable entry through the slats in the loft. He strained to catch a glimpse of his sister as she spoke to someone about a coffin for Trevyn.

She is here! He thought to himself gleefully as he spied her at the mouth of the stable entry. Already, he could feel her soft flesh in his hands as he squeezed her neck just as he had squeezed the cook’s. To think of Chrystobel breathing her last as he gazed into her eyes, watching her life slip away, thrilled him beyond compare.

His hatred seemed to fixate on her more than anyone else, the foolish wench who looked so much like their mother. The bitch had died shortly after Izlyn had been born. He should hate Izlyn more for killing their mother, but he found his hatred focused on Chrystobel because she looked and sounded just like Elyn. Elyn had been the only person Gryffyn had even remotely loved, and when she died, his hatred and anger had become mainplace. It blackened his heart. Anger and hatred towards the world in general, and mostly towards a sister who looked like the woman he had loved and lost. Chrystobel reminded him of his loss on a daily basis.

But no matter, Gryffyn shook himself of his bitter and sweet memories, of a mother he tried not to remember. He hated her now and that was all that mattered. Hated her for dying.

Below him, Chrystobel’s voice distracted him again and he peered at her through the slats, listening to her speak to someone regarding funeral services for Trevyn at St. Peter’s in Machynlleth. A funeral, he thought, as if a great idea had just occurred to him. She would be out of the castle and it would be easier to get to her, stealing her out from under de Poyer’s nose. Aye, that would be a much smarter move than trying to corner her here in the castle. In Machynlleth, there would be knights and soldiers about, that is true, but if he employed Colvyn and his personal Welsh guard to assist in the covert operation, men who were sly warriors and who could distract the knights while Gryffyn captured his sister, then success would be guaranteed.