Fearsome Warlord

Prologue

'Twas just gone past midday when Commander DuGauche led a retinue of pike-carrying footmen across the lowered drawbridge of Claefton Castle and into the keep's blood-splattered courtyard. War drums pounding, unfurled banners of blue and gold waving, the leader of the mercenary troop had finally put in an appearance...

... a full sennight after his men-at-arms besieged their small settlement, trampling everything within eyeshot of the fortress, including what remained of the village's already decimated populace.

At the loathsome spectacle, her long simmering rage bubbled over.

Common folk had expected the bastard's arrival long before now, if only to bring supplies. At this point, foodstuffs, especially oats to thicken gruel, had dwindled to dust at the bottom of granaries. Surely the Commander must have known porridge cannot be made from salted water alone.

And still, DuGauche delayed appeasing the hunger of the starving.

Adults and children alike had long since given up all hope for the morrow. As 'twas, few babes had survived the last military onslaught. Now those who did survive were sickening... and then... and then...

Her eyes filling with tears, she turned away from the men-at-arms. Their arrival was all for the sake of appearances anyway, just to show off the barbaric leader's military might. Verily, DuGauche cared not one whit about anyone but himself. Peasants - serfs and freemen both - had endured so much of late. The memories of their agonized screams kept her awake of a night.

Hannah nudged her side with an elbow. "Sea - "

In all these years since her arrival here to the Isle, she had never truly thought of herself as Sea, though all who knew her in their village called her so.

"Sea - I've been trying to talk to ye. Just look, will ye, at the righteous horseman Commander DuGauche makes."

"His heralded pageantry makes my belly turn," she scoffed in return. "For a certainty, we here on the Isle will suffer his presence as overlord."

"Mayhap, this one will differ from all the rest that came before, Sea. Ye never know."

She sighed. "Oh, but I do know."

"Why, methinks, he... "

Thankfully, the notes of a trumpet drowned out the rest of Hannah's remarks. The goodwife was a terrible gossip. Though decidedly harmless in her tale carrying, she did go on and on at times. Fortunately for Hannah, kindly King Godfrey had long ago forbad the use of the Scold's Bridle - an iron contraption installed over a busybody's mouth in punishment for spreading unfounded rumors.

She interrupted the goodwife's present ranting. "I will grant you this much, Hannah - DuGauche is a strutting cock if ever I saw one."

A bit of an exaggeration, that. In truth, never had she witnessed a cock strut. Or, for that matter, do much of anything else. Once, she accidentally saw one piss. Though, that hardly counted in the grand scheme of things.

Her rage, hot before, had chilled to cold dread now. This latest invader looked to be the cruel sort. Rather than restore order to the Isle's chaos, DuGauche seemed the kind to visit further acts of violence upon the populace. When would she, herself, be targeted?

Not long now. First, the Commander would order his men to find her. Then, they'd drag her to the dungeon for questioning. Shamefully, she'd do anything to escape her fate. Many gifts had been bestowed upon her at birth. Alas, courage was not one of them. Standing beside Hannah in the dark shadows of the bailey, she trembled at the prospect of more torture, of additional pain.

By the fine looks of him, DuGauche knew little of suffering. His weaponry was past clean into buffed shiny. His shield showed nary a dent in the metal. A full quiver of fancy arrows hung unused from his courser's pommel.

For display purposes only, she decided with a sniff.

Obviously, this man knew naught about the rigors of battle. He couldn't possibly understand the hardship these villagers had been through, not just at present, but for years and years now. The tooled leather sheath at his side told the whole tale of DuGauche's own military experience. Though his scabbard contained many daggers, the blades all honed sharp, no dried blood sullied any of them.

The Commander was an imposter. The Isle's populace would neither accept nor respect his rule. Beside the point to him, she supposed. DuGauche was all about showmanship, not leadership. Otherwise he would've known better than carry heavy armament on the battle-scarred road here. Certainly, he would never have carried it past the ruins at Saint Matthew. At that oft-plundered nunnery, only a handful of cloistered sisters remained, most elderly and feeble. Still, they'd sink to their knobby knees and pray for a pretender like him... if he but gave them the chance. Had DuGauche given them that chance? Or had he bludgeoned them as they fingered their wooden rosary beads whilst praying for the salvation of his immortal soul?

Her teary eyes next sought out DuGauche's war hammer, a fine piece engraved in gold with the Commander's initials. Sod, but that iron club vexed her no end, looking as it did both lovely and lethal and at the same time. On the positive side, no blood stained the weapon's blunt end, meaning the sisters at Saint Mathew's might yet be safe.

Bah! What was she thinking?

Never would DuGauche have carried out the evil deed himself. Any bludgeoning to be done, the Commander's guards would've done in his stead. Poor sisters! And for what reason would they have lost their lives? Not as though the nuns hid warriors beneath their tattered habits. All of the Isle's men-at-arms were planted in unmarked graves.

She knew what she'd do! The nunnery wasn't oh-so-very far. Later, she'd take a walk up there. Though pagan by birth, she'd bury those saintly martyrs herself, if need be. 'Twas an errand of mercy after all. Who else would a hypocrite like DuGauche pray to if not for murdered nuns like them?

The god of false cocks, mayhap, she mused, her attention stalled on the front of DuGauche's armor, where the bulge of an enormous metal codpiece was impossible to miss. Either the Commander had a wry sense of humor or absolutely no sense at all.

The latter, she wagered, and she had evidence to prove it.

DuGauche had just dismounted his destrier and tossed the steed's reins to Bren, of all people. Anyone with eyes in their head could see the stable lad was easily distracted. A butterfly's fluttering wings would do it. Farts in the wind, as well. Most anything could and did divert the youth's attention from the task at hand.

A bit of a dreamer was Bren.

Even now, with the Commander's pointy-toed metal boot lowering to the stable lad's back pockets, Bren's head remained stuck in the clouds. Getting his puny-arse self out of the way of DuGauche's descending foot would never have occurred to him.

She didn't want to do it. She did not! Especially not in public like this. But, no help for it, she nodded at DuGauche's steed. Like magic... for indeed 'twas just that... the horse headed for the stables, a still occupied Bren in tow.

Nice to know she still held sway over beasts of the animal kingdom. Not all beasts. Some beasts. And not all the time. Some of the time. When it came to incantations, hers was a lamentably erratic sphere of influence.

Since a sorceress with unreliable magical powers and an invader reliably bad tempered equaled a disaster waiting to happen, she understood 'twas past time to make her escape. Up to the nunnery, she'd go, clickety-click.

At just that moment, DuGauche raised his helm's face-plate, thus revealing his visage. The Commander's gaze connected with hers. And, my, my, my, was he not the pretty one?

Not one combat scar marred the Commander's even features. Verily, both in whole and in part, his countenance was a thing of singular delight. Most especially his nose. Not squashed down and flattened by swordplay but majestically soaring, like no soldier she'd ever seen.

Probably because he was no soldier in truth.

Whilst she stood there all-agog in the courtyard, her feet refusing to move no matter how she coaxed them to, the Commander demanded of the assembled crowd:

"Where is the one called Nylif? Come forward and present yourself to me."

"No one here by that name, Commander," volunteered Hannah, stepping out from the middle of the gathering. "And I should know, privy as I be to all goings-on around here, including those of the hounds, who I also know by name."

Having yet to make her escape, she whispered over to the gossip. "Mayhap you are not privy to the happenings of everyone. Mayhap one or two wily folk managed to escape your notice, eh?"

"Nay, Sea." Hannah stomped her foot. The leather was badly turned down at the heel from all the goodwife's many such attempts at emphasis. "I know one and all."

"But Hannah... "

Raising her voice even higher, the goodwife insisted with the authority of those never wrong, "Harken to me, Commander. No one by that name lives here. There be no Nylif on this Isle."

"I bid you, Hannah," she whispered, "Question not your talents. No need to defend yourself so vehemently either. Just let this go. Everyone here knows you are the best town crier in all the village."

"Small praise, Sea," Hannah scoffed. "I be the only town crier in all the village. Nay, if this deception be true, 'tis a personal affront to me and must be dealt with here and now. I can no longer trust whoever perpetrated this fraud."

She knew it! 'Twas just as she'd long ago envisioned.

Long ago as in... before losing her self-confidence, her incantations always worked, and her sight was still reliable. Hannah's accusation was only the start of all the mistrust to follow. Soon she would find herself an outcast to one and all.

The goodwife moaned, "I be ruined, Sea. Do ye not hear me? Ruined."

Ha! Hannah should try burning at the stake on for size. Now that was ruined.

"Mayhap no deceit was intended, Hannah," she said, trying to placate the gossip. "Some folk use two names as a matter of course. No harm meant."

"Ye speak in riddles, Sea. What mean ye?"

"Well... someone... yourself, let's say... might be known as Hannah to their face and Big Mouth behind their back. See? Two different names for the same person."

The goodwife's hands went to her generous hips. "Big Mouth? This is calumny. Who calls me so, Sea? I must know the identity of the perpetrator at once."

"Mine was an example only. I had no one specific in mind."

"Nay, nay, nay, Sea. Ye spoke with absolute certainty. What wicked person be this who calls me Big Mouth behind my back?"

"I made it up, Hannah. Verily, I did!"

"This makes no sense. Why would anyone wish to bear two names?"

"Perchance to fulfill a long ago promise."

To a born liar, honesty is always the last resort. After all these many years of subterfuge, she found herself balancing on the edge of truth's sword. And there was no escape.

Save one.