“Cedric. Thank goodness it’s you. Please, you must help me. My cousin, Sir Stuart, has gone quite mad. He thinks to be the Ealdorman of Strathfeld.” Della rested her hand on Cedric’s arm as she motioned to Stuart. As she turned, she froze at the smirk on her cousin’s delighted face. Her heart sank from her chest.
“And so shall he be,” Cedric gloated behind her in merriment. “So shall he be.”
* * * * *
“I don’t see any signs of a raid,” Gunther said to Roldan. He reined in his horse as he motioned his hand along the evening sky. Their band of knights had ridden hard all afternoon. “There is no smoke, no signs of trouble, and I have yet to see a slaughtered cow.”
As if to prove his point, a nearby heifer mooed loudly in the pasture. The sound caused the herd to move further away from the mounted men. Gunther’s scowl deepened.
“Yea, it is odd. We passed the area it was supposed to be nigh on an hour ago. Methought perchance they had been mistaken in the location, but none of Strathfeld’s people live beyond yonder ridge.” Roldan shook his head. “This is not as it should be.”
“I agree,” Gunther said. Both men looked steadily at each other. His stomach tightened, as they turned to the men behind them. “Who reported the raid? Let the man come forward.”
“It was Cedric,” one of the knights hollered from the back. “He was left behind to guard Lady Blackwell.”
“Yea, the coward volunteered to be a nursemaid,” another knight offered. The soldiers laughed.
Gunther frowned at Roldan, who in turn nodded. Swallowing visibly, he looked around one more time. He gripped his reins and spurred his horse in a tight circle. Clearing a path through the men with his steed, he galloped toward the keep. Roldan was directly behind him.
“Back to Strathfeld, with much speed. There is trouble at the castle,” Gunther yelled, spurring his horse faster to race forth to Strathfeld.
The men’s faces sobered and soon they beat a trail back toward the castle. Gunther feared they might be too late.
Chapter Twenty Two
Blessed Saints!
Della moaned as she fought for consciousness. Her heavy eyelids fluttered and she forced them open. All around her was ominous darkness and she could make out a faint humming, low and cheerless, coursing through her ears. Soon the humming turned to crackling and the darkness began to fade into an orange glow. She blinked several times, trying to focus her vision.
The strong odor of musty animal skins penetrated her nostrils. Even fainter, but not any less repugnant, was the smell of stale air and rotting wood. Shivering, she closed her eyes, willing the stench to go away. It only grew stronger with her concentration and she was forced to once again open her eyes.
The eerie orange light that radiated around her grew as her eyes shifted around in her head. Her temples throbbed as if someone had driven wooden spikes into her skull and she pressed her palms over her eyelids. When the pain lessened, she pulled her hands away and was able to focus on a decaying piece of timber. It leaned against a wood and earth wall. She was in an old cotter’s hut.
Jolting fully awake, she realized she couldn’t be at Strathfeld. There were no old dwellings like this on her land. Then she remembered Stuart and his declaration. Nausea rose in her throat, making it hard to concentrate. Her body ached terribly. She pushed up from the cot she was on, feeling the rub of dirty, matted fur under her hands. A matching fur had been thrown over her body for warmth. Though she tried to remember more, the last thing she recalled was Cedric’s cruel laughter before her world had gone black.
“Yer awake.”
Gripping the fur coverlet in terror, she spun around on the bed to face the bearer of the loud voice. Instantly she was sorry. White lights shot through her eyes with a searing pain. The pitiful, sullied chamber dimmed for a moment. “Cedric?”
“Yea.” All formality was gone from his tone.
Della blinked several times. Cedric sat on the only chair in the chamber, one leg lifted to rest atop a roughly hewn wood table. The chair was tipped back on two legs and he chewed absently on a piece of leather that hung from his thick lips. Taking the strip from his mouth, he snorted and spat disrespectfully on the floor in her direction before putting the leather back between his yellowed teeth.
“Cedric, where have you taken me?” Della asked as calmly as she could. The cottage had clearly been abandoned long ago and she doubted anyone would be left in the area to hear her cry out. “You know your lord will not take kindly to your kidnapping me.”
“Now, the way I see it, his lordship might not care at all that you are gone.” He didn’t take the leather from his mouth as he spoke. “He didn’t seem to care that you were there.”