Samantha James

A
ll around was a darkness such as she had never known. Blacker than the deepest pits of hell. Shadows shifted and loomed, darting back and forth, in and out, as if to snatch at her with greedy, grasping fingers…

She could feel…something. Something evil. A sense of danger that loomed all around, as heavy and thick and depthless as the shadows
.

The wind rose in fury, wailing and howling. Lightning crashed across the heavens, a blaze of rending light. Thunder roared across the land, shaking the very ground beneath her feet. Great pools of blood splotched the earth. The air was rife with the sickening stench of gore and destruction
.

Then she was running. Over the shriek of the wind, her pulse roared in her ears. Footsteps trampled the earth just behind her
.

Blindly she ran, besieged by darkness. Beset by danger. By those horrible shadows that lurked all around. The specter of death loomed close at hand. Pressing in on her. Smothering her so that she could scarcely breathe…

But all at once there arose before her a hulk
ing shadow. From out of the shadows they came…Man and beast. Knight and destrier
.

He sat atop the great black steed, armed and mailed. For one single, frozen moment, he was dark and faceless, his features hidden behind a cone-shaped helmet. Behind him, lightning ripped the sky apart; it was as if he were cast in silver
.

Slowly he raised his helm. A jolt tore through her. His expression was utterly fierce, pale and glittering and cold as frost; it stabbed into her like the point of a spear. Then slowly he raised his arm. Clasped in one gauntleted hand was a gleaming sword. He raised it high, his weapon poised for the space of a heartbeat. Then it sliced down…down to pierce her breast…

“Alana! By the Rood, girl, what ails you? If you do not cease this screeching, you will surely wake your poor dead mother!”

The voice was scratchy as a hair shirt, dry and raspy with age, yet it was a familiar one. Alana of Brynwald reached for it almost desperately as she surfaced through filmy layers of darkness. She awoke trembling, the shrill of still another scream curdled in her breast.

For a moment she lay huddled there, her cheek pressed into her lumpy straw pallet, her fingers clutching the thin woolen blanket to her chin. Her surroundings were slow to penetrate her muddled senses. Little by little reality seeped in. Only then did her terror begin to abate.

She was here, in the tiny cottage where she had spent her childhood and grown to womanhood. Dawns tepid light slowly penetrated
through the single shuttered window, allowing her to glimpse the furrowed cheeks of the white-bearded man who bent over her.

Her breath left her in a trembling rush. No sword had pricked her breast. There was no dark knight before her who sought to relieve her of her life’s blood. She was alive…
alive
. But the dream, that horrible, horrible dream…

The dream had come yet again.

Aubrey eased back on his haunches, wincing just a little. Beneath the frayed and ragged wool of his tunic, his shoulders were hunched and thin. His hair hung to his shoulders, as white as his beard. Deep lines scored his cheeks and brow, but his eyes were keenly sharp—with both concern and speculation.

“You gave these old bones a fright, child. I heard your cries inside my hut.”

Alana said nothing. She pushed aside the tattered blanket and eased herself to her knees on the damp, cold earth of the cottage, tucking her slender legs beneath her.

Aubrey watched her, his shaggy brows drawn together. She willed her hand not to tremble as she smoothed her hair. Like polished silver and gold it was, a ripple of moonglow shining down the narrow lines of her back to her hips. She had learned to say nothing of these strange dreams that plagued her in the dead of night. Far too often she had been the brunt of the villagers’ scorn and laughter, taunts and ridicule.

But it was not as though Aubrey was like
any of the other villagers, nor had it ever been so. Even now, though his hands were gnarled and his years so advanced, ’twas said he was the finest tanner south of the Humber. And indeed, now that her mother Edwyna was gone, the old man was dearer to her than any other, even—may God forgive her!—her own sister.

Like her mother, Aubrey had not ridiculed the strange visions that had haunted her since her childhood years. Nearly all had come to pass. Yet something stopped her from speaking freely about them. How could she tell him? Aware that Aubrey still studied her, she lowered her gaze.

She’d had dreams before, many a time, many a night. Of strangers. Of those in the village. But she had never dreamed of herself. And now Alana knew only that never before had she been afraid for
herself…

Never until now.

The dark knight. Who was he…or
what
was he? Alana did not know. Yet she sensed that he was her enemy, that he was a threat unlike any other. Why it was so, Alana could not say. But she feared this dark knight as nothing before…

Nay, she thought, drawing on all her strength.
Nay
! She did not want to think of that horrid dream. She did not want to think of
him
.

A small bundle of fur slipped onto her lap—Cedric, the cat who had shadowed her mother for years and now shadowed her. Her fingers twined through thick, yellow fur. She bowed
her head low, unwilling to let Aubrey glimpse her distress. The old man would stew and worry, and she would not have that on her conscience.

“Please,” she murmured. “You know I would never offend you. I would speak of it if I could. But I cannot. ’Tis nothing, this I swear. So do not trouble yourself any further.”

The old man narrowed his eyes. “Then why do you shiver?”

For the first time she allowed a faint smile to curve her lips. “’Tis a cold November morn,” she returned lightly. “Why else would I shiver?”

Aubrey’s thin hand balled into a fist. “Bloody Norman bastards!” he muttered. “They steal our wood so that we can scarcely cook or warm our weary limbs. They steal the crops that we labored long and hard to reap. By the time the winter is finished the villagers of Brynwald will be half-starved.” He choked back his anger. “Indeed, if any of us should last so long!”

With that he hobbled from the cottage. Alana shooed Cedric from her lap and arose. Like the rest of the villagers, her dwelling was a simple one. The floor was of hard, trampled earth. A small trestle table and two wooden stools sat before the hearth. She washed quickly from a wooden pail of water, then she braided her hair into a single long rope down her back. Next she wound a long strip of hide around each slender foot; her boots had fallen apart
months ago. Her stomach rumbled hungrily, but she did not break the morning fast. She and Aubrey had shared most of her meager store of food last eve. There was only a small hunk of bread left and no more.

Nearly a sennight had passed since Brynwald had been taken by the Normans. The soft line of her lips curled. Aubrey was right. They called themselves Normans. But they were called bastards by those they conquered.

Dark was the day, and wretched were the people, for the English were a humble race, mostly farmers here in these northern climes of the land. But there had been no stopping the raiders from across the Channel…They seized their livestock, their food. Their villages were razed as the Normans plundered and warred. Their peace had been shattered, their lands and lives invaded.

For a long moment she stood in the crooked little doorway, her eyes drawn toward Brynwald Keep. High atop a craggy bluff it stood, surrounded by a wooden palisade, overlooking the churning waters of the North Sea. Though the sprawling keep had been her father’s home, it had never been Alana’s home. Nay, her place was not at Brynwald, though she was indeed the daughter of Kerwain, the lord of Brynwald.

A stark, wrenching pain crept into her heart, for Kerwain was no more. He had died beneath a Norman sword—and so had his wife Rowena. But there had been no word of Sybil. Alana took that as a sign that her
sister had survived the fray. She prayed it was so…

Like the rest of the villagers, Alana had scarce ventured out since that first brutal assault. The air had been thick with smoke and the acrid smell of burning thatch. Hair-raising screams shrilled throughout three long days and nights. Even now, the sound of hoofbeats was enough to send the villagers of Brynwald scrambling for the safety of their huts.

Before they had lived in fear of God. Now they lived in fear of the Normans.

But she could not cower here forever. She must see that she and Aubrey had food to eat.

Squaring her shoulders, she took up her bow and arrow from where it hung upon the wall, then slipped a quiver of arrows over the shoulder of her bliaud. When she stepped from the doorway, she spied Aubrey hobbling toward her from across the village clearing. He frowned when he saw the bow in her hands.

“Alana, you cannot mean to go out hunting!”

“We must have food,” she said simply.

“But the Normans have ordered that we stay in the village,” he argued.

“And I would remind you again, Aubrey, we must have food.”

Shaggy brows drew across the bridge of his nose. “And what about the Normans?” he demanded.

Soft lips curled in a faint smile. “Ah,” she said lightly. “Perchance my arrow shall take
aim at bigger, hardier game—a Norman soldier, mayhap!”

Aubrey did not find such jests amusing. He shook his head and glowered at her. Alana smiled slightly, and they set out.

Near the village pasture they passed the alewife and her daughters, but they did not deign to speak to the mismatched pair, only cast them a dark and wary glance. Aubrey scowled at the trio. “Pay them no heed,” he said gruffly. “They are foolish and ignorant.”

Alana said nothing. Her mother had been the village healer and had taught her all she knew of the arts of herbs and healing. But in the months since her mother had passed on, the villagers oft refused her willingness to treat their ailments. They spoke to her only when they could not avoid it.

She kept her chin high, yet a telltale bitterness bled onto her soul. Though she had long been treated so, she would never grow used to it. She had been branded different by virtue of birth, for she was the lord’s bastard daughter; but she had also been branded different by something beyond her control—the visions that came to her unbidden…unwanted. Oh, Alana understood why they disliked her, for they were a superstitious people. They saw the hand of God and the devil in any and all things.

Even now, while the cursed Normans ravaged their lives—her life as well!—she remained an outsider. Her heart cried out at such injustice. She was
not
the devil’s daugh
ter. Why could they not see that she was no different than they, save for these bloody dreams. Nay, ’twas little wonder that she had grown to hate these cursed dreams…

Now more than ever.

Though the day was cloudy and dreary, no rain had yet to fall. But the earth was damp and wet, and so the sound of their footsteps was masked. Though her progress through the forest was slowed by Aubrey’s presence at her side, her efforts were fruitful. By noontide she carried two skinned hares in a pouch over her shoulder.

Aubrey was tiring. He leaned heavily on his staff of ash. And she could hear it in the way his breathing had hastened to a rattle in his chest. Though at first he stubbornly refused, Alana insisted they rest. She stopped near a huge stump of fallen oak and urged him to seat himself. She settled down next to him, letting her bow and quiver of arrows slide to the mossy ground. From the pocket in her skirts she fished out the hunk of bread. Together they shared it.

When she had finished, she brushed the stray bread crumbs from her bliaud. “Aubrey,” she spoke his name quietly. “Do you think I should go to Brynwald Keep?”

Aubrey twisted his head around to stare at her. “The keep! For what purpose?”

Folding her hands in her lap, she did not look at him as she spoke. “There has been much bloodshed these past days. I would know that Sybil is alive and unharmed.”

Aubrey’s tone betrayed his alarm. “Alana, ’tis not safe! The Normans are butchers, all of them. And who knows what harm would befall you were you to enter that den of thieves? Surely if Sybil were dead, there would have been some word.”

Alana shook her head and slowly raised her gaze to his. “But what if she is sick? Alive but hurt? Aubrey, despite all, she is my sister.”

Aubrey scoffed openly. “Do you think she spares a thought for you? I think not!”

But Alana was staunchly determined. “You cannot know that. Nor can I.”

Aubry shook his head. “Would she come to your aid if she thought you injured? Nay! Indeed, she
has
not.”

“Aubrey, I cannot speak for her. I know only what is in my heart. And we are bound by blood—”

“The very blood that has kept you apart these many years!”

For a moment Alana said nothing, for alas, what could she say? Aubrey was right. She and Sybil did not know each other well, for Sybil’s mother Rowena had done all she could to prevent such a thing. Rowena had made no secret of the fact that she did not want her daughter tainted by her husband’s by-blow.

“Your father would have been well put to leave your mother be.” Aubrey slammed his staff upon the ground. “He loved your mother but refused to marry the daughter of a peasant. Instead he chose another that she might
bring him lands aplenty and coin to his purse. Yet even then he would not free her. Many was the time I thought he should give her the chance to leave, to marry another.”

“She would never have left,” Alana said softly. “She loved him.” A wistful sadness flitted across Alana’s features. “They could not be together. Yet they could not be apart.”

“He was selfish, thinking only of his pleasures. That is why he clung to your mother.” Aubrey grimaced. “But married to one such as that hag Rowena, who could blame him?”

Alana’s breath caught. She laid a hand on his sleeve. “Aubrey,” she said, her voice very low. “You speak of the dead.”