Dark Deceptions: A Regency and Medieval Collection of Dark Romances(191)

Izlyn grinned, laying her cheek against his arm in a sweetly affectionate gesture. Keller merely smiled, standing with the two ladies, hearing sounds of a battle outside the door. He found himself wondering if Trevyn was still lying in the street outside, hoping the body wasn’t being damaged by the fight going on around it. No matter what the girls felt about their father, he didn’t wish for Trevyn’s desecration. It might be a bit traumatic for the ladies to deal with.

“Stay here,” he told the women. “I must see what is happening outside.”

Chrystobel and Izlyn let him go and he made his way to the church entry, gazing out at the activity in the street beyond. He could see the dumped coffin and Trevyn’s body still where they’d left it, but there didn’t seem to be much activity. He could still hear sounds of a battle going on but he couldn’t see where it was coming from. As he stood there, listening to the fading combat, Rhys emerged from the rear of the church.

Rhys made his way over to Keller, unsheathing the second broadsword as he went. “I found the priests,” he said as he came to a halt. “They are in the cloister in the rear. Their throats are slit.”

Keller’s eyebrows lifted as he struggled to conceal his shock. “All of them?”

Rhys nodded, glancing at the women over in the alcove to make sure they hadn’t heard him. “I counted four priests and at least six acolytes. All dead.”

Keller thought seriously on those facts. So much of this situation was puzzling and the mystery seemed to be deepening. “Is it possible that the priests weren’t siding with the Welsh?” he whispered. “Is it possible that the rebels killed them so they would not warn me of the impending ambush?”

Rhys nodded. “My thoughts exactly,” he agreed. “Keller, we must return to Nether immediately and lock it up. Something bigger may be brewing and we do not need to be caught outside of the safety of Nether’s walls.”

Keller couldn’t disagree. “Then we take d’Einen’s body back with us and bury it at Nether until such time as we can return,” he said, urgency in his manner. “Let us gather the men and depart.”

“What do we do about the priests?” Rhys wanted to know.

Keller didn’t like leaving a church full of dead priests but, at the moment, he was more concerned for the living. “Once we have the ladies back to the castle, I will send a contingent of men back to clean up the mess and bury the priests. I shall send word to the Bishop of Welshpool to let him know what has happened, as that is the nearest diocese. Meanwhile, let us put d’Einen back into his coffin and get the women to safety.”

The knights swung into action. Rhys went outside to spread the word of retreat while Keller returned to the women. There were only pockets of fighting now, including Gart and William, who had managed to kill several Welsh who were more poorly armed against the big broadswords. Gart in particular had taken fiendish glee in dispatching anyone he came across, lending credence to the Sach nickname. It came to the point that when the Welsh saw the big knight coming with his bloodied sword, they scattered. That’s the way Gart liked it.

When the fighting finally tapered off, Gart split the forces into those gathering the wounded and those putting d’Einen back into his coffin. Quickly, the coffin was loaded onto the wagon, along with eleven wounded men, and the women were loaded up as well. With no more signs of the Welsh, Keller ordered the funeral party to flee, and flee they did. What had been a leisurely ride to Machynlleth was a harried return to Nether Castle.

Keller was thankful for their very lives, but one thing was certain – Rhys was correct. Perhaps the next attack would be on Nether. The Welsh were cunning and sly, and he would have to be on his guard every moment from this point forward. It was clear that someone was watching him and knew his every move.

He would have bet money that someone was Gryffyn d’Einen.

*

The big knight with the dual blades had nearly taken his head off. As it was, Gryffyn suffered a nasty gash to his shoulder, enough so that it caused him to flee the fighting, fearful that something worse would befall him. It was a bad wound that bled a good deal, and it hurt him to lift his left arm, so he needed to have it treated. The problem was that there was no available physic and he didn’t trust the dirty, crude Welsh soldiers. He didn’t want those dirty hands touching him.

Therefore, he burst into one of the first homes he came across where a woman and her two children were going about their chores for the day. Bolting the door behind him, he beat the woman fairly severely as her children stood by and screamed, beating her to the point where she begged for mercy. Gryffyn was only satisfied when those around him were submissive and once she behaved in a surrendering fashion, he stopped hitting her and demanded she tend his wound. Bloodied and wounded herself, the woman did as she was told.

With shaking fingers, the woman cleaned the gash and stitched it, but she hurt him as she stabbed him with the needle and Gryffyn hit her so hard that her left ear began to bleed. But she finished sewing him, whimpering with fright. When she was done, Gryffyn simply left. No words of thanks, no exchange of any kind. He simply swept out of the hut and headed over to the farmer’s cabin he had confiscated because he had left his mount there, a shaggy brown pony borrowed from Colvyn.

As he made his way back to the farmer’s dwelling, he made sure to stay low to the ground and move swiftly. He dodged behind houses and jumped over fences. He could hear the distant sounds of what he thought might be combat but he didn’t return to find out. His destination was Castell Mallwyd. Whatever men were left after the skirmish with the English would also return there, as they’d been instructed to do. He didn’t even know what happened to Colvyn. He’d not seen the man since he set out after Keller, who had been inside the church with Chrystobel and Izlyn.