Spring's Fury

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Late June, 1194

Something heavy hit the bed, and a door slammed.  John of Ashby jerked, startled out of his fever-glazed musing. From his hall outside and to the left of his bedchamber door, folk screamed in terror. An attack!

He wrenched himself upright. The gash on his side reopened, destroying all his daughter's fine needlework. Fiery pain erupted from the wound as the bandages swathing his massive middle grew damp with blood. Blackness whirled in on him, but the ache was a vicious reminder; it was the memory of his sin that kept John conscious.

Oath breaker, he cursed himself. He leaned gingerly against the headboard, and stared in depression at the dark draperies curtaining his bed. What he heard happening in his hall was no enemy assault. 'Twas Rannulf of Graistan's rightful retribution on the vassal who dared raise a murderous sword against his liege lord.

Shame burned in John's gut, hotter than the infection that ate at him. Even if this wound did not take him, his life was over. He'd done worse than shatter his vow of loyalty to Rannulf, he had violated every principle he held dear.

Lord God, but he was a thickheaded fool. His new wife had curled her sweet body around him until he was besotted with lust and blinded to her lies. How easily she had molded his quick temper and slow wits into her weapon. At least what he heard in the hall suggested her plot to kill Rannulf had failed.

John listened in helpless sorrow as the terror-filled screams grew to a louder pitch. Every soul within Ashby's walls would pay for his mindless rage. Threaded into the sounds of panic were a paltry few voices raised in command. His daughter would be one of these.

Nicola.

John's eyes closed, and tears filled their leathery corners. Of all the pains he bore just now, the realization that he had killed his daughter dug the deepest. When she was dead, their family line would be no more. Such was a traitor's fate.

How much longer did he have before Graistan's men reached him? John slumped in sorrow, only to have his soul cry out in protest. This was no way to finish his life. Be damned if they'd find him hiding abed like some craven coward. John buried his hands into the thick drapes, and slowly shifted his huge bulk across the straw-filled mattress, each movement an agony. The bedclothes spilled over the bed's edge before him.

By the time he set feet to the floor, John was again blinking away darkness. Cold metal touched a calf. He glanced down. His sword lay tilted against the bed frame, hilt upward and blade, bared. Who had been so careless with his precious weapon?

He closed a hand about the familiar grip, its leather wrap long since softened into the shape of his palm, then lay the heavy blade across his lap. John stared at it in regret. Would that he could meet his end with weapon in hand, but a traitor had no right to so honorable a demise.

When he again raised his gaze, it was to glance around his bedchamber in loving farewell. Extending from a small, stone keep tower, his home was little more than a barn, with wooden walls and thatch to keep out the rain. Still, the wide window with its dusty shutters in the eastern wall, his armor chest beneath it, even the rising pegs in the warped floorboard were all friends of long acquaintance.

When he was dead, Rannulf would give this place to another man. This new vassal would be the one to collect Ashby's plentiful harvests and hunt in its thick forests. So, too, would Ashby's new lord marry and watch his children take life in this bed, just as John had watched his children come into the world.

John sighed. God had cheated him in his offspring. His son had been a weakling who died five years past, while his daughter was a warrior witch who had learned to use her sword at his knee. From her eighth year Nicola had burned with the desire to hold Ashby as her own fief. She still clung to that childish dream, refusing to believe it was not possible.

He should have forced her to give it up, and insisted on marriage long ago. Many men had offered for her even though Nicola was overly tall and plain, her manner lacking even the slightest trace of feminine softness. Aye, if only John had insisted on her wedding an acceptable husband, he would never have remarried and the events of this day would not have occurred.

His breath hissed from him in the tiniest hint of laughter. How foolish of him. God's teeth, despite the rich contract he and Hugh de Ocslade had drawn between them, Nicola vowed to murder the man if he insisted on marriage.

Nay, forcing his daughter to the altar would have created an equally violent outcome. It would have destroyed John to watch some man beat the spirit out of Nicola. Or—he lifted a brow in brief amusement—shamed him to watch her beat someone like de Ocslade into a bloody pulp. 'Twas best Nicola died in this battle, for were she to live without her father's indulgent protection her life would surely be someone else's hell.

Now at peace with his life's end, John turned his attention to the bedchamber's door only to squint at it in closer study. Gray tendrils of smoke curled into the room from between door and lintel. Fine wisps snaked up the plastered wall, touching and lifting, as if testing for weakness. Even as he watched, a misty cloud began to puddle beneath the reed ceiling. With it came a new, deep rumbling from the hall. Its volume swiftly grew until it was a wicked, rasping roar.

John stiffened in terror. Ashby burned! Jesus God, 'twas better to hang than burn. Even in that short instant, the fire's voice strengthened, drowning out all other sound. The need to escape shot through him.

With his sword's tip braced against the floor, John levered himself off the bed, only to sway weakly in exhaustion once he was on his feet. How in God's holy name was he to escape a fiery death if the simple act of standing was beyond him? The answer was simple; he wasn't. John bowed his head in understanding. He would burn.

When he looked up again it was to stare at the smoke above him. It had grown thicker and darker. Smoldering reeds added an acrid tang to wood smoke, and he coughed as the smell stung his nose. The bedchamber door flew open, ancient leather hinges croaking in startled protest.

Coughing violently, Nicola leapt into the room, a coil of rope over her shoulder. Her hazel eyes were round in fear, her thin face was streaked with soot, her gowns charred. She hurled the rope across the room and slammed the door behind her. It rebounded. She caught it with her back and threw her weight against it, her feet braced to force it shut.

John stared at the rope by the window. His daughter meant to rescue him. Her care for him was deeply touching, but what she wanted to do was impossible. Not only did he weigh more than twenty stone, but the rope would finish what Rannulf's gash had started; he would be torn in two. "Daughter," he said to her, "you cannot save me."

"Papa?" Nicola yelped in hoarse surprise. In that instant, the door exploded open behind her, striking her mid-back. She tumbled across the room to land, facedown and stunned, near the window.

In the doorway stood a knight, tall to the point of being a giant. His surcoat was foul with blood, and his sword rusty with the lives of Ashby's folk. Although his mail coif and his helmet concealed his face, John knew him. His great size alone named him Gilliam FitzHenry, brother to Lord Rannulf of Graistan. The young knight silently entered the room, his blade held defensively before him.

So, Rannulf had set Ashby afire, not content to simply destroy its folk. John's overlord meant to expunge from this earth all trace of him. Such was a traitor's fate.

John relaxed, ready for death. His grip on his weapon eased. He'd not compound the sin of attacking his overlord by resisting his rightful execution at the hand of that man's brother. At the very least, it was a far swifter death than the fire offered.

"Here is where the traitor hides," Gilliam FitzHenry said, stopping a blow's length away. His deep voice was thick from smoke. He pointed with his sword toward the bloody bandages around John's middle. "So, my brother was not as helpless as you might have wished him, eh? Lift your weapon and taste the steel of another of Graistan's sons." The words were cold and hard.

John only stared in disbelief at the young knight, certain he had misheard. An executioner's victim did not put up a defense. In the hall, walls howled in pain, beams groaned in agony. John's lungs spasmed with the bitter smoke. Time was very short. Why did the lad not strike?

Across the room, Nicola stirred, gasping for breath as she returned to her senses. She fought her way onto her hands and knees, elbows trembling. "Nay," she coughed out, "stop!" Her voice was choked and tight.

Gilliam FitzHenry paid her no heed. "Raise your sword," he demanded of the older man, "unless you'd rather burn."

At his words, John's heart tore between sadness and elation. Lord Rannulf's youngest brother was offering this godforsaken traitor an awesome gift: the chance to die like the man of honor John had once been.

It took every bit of his remaining strength to lift his sword tip from the floor. John strove to hold his shoulders level, thus offering the knight a clear target. In doing so, he also assured himself a swift and nearly painless exit from life.

Gilliam nodded once, that simple motion communicating respect for his opponent's courage in facing his life’s end.  It was enough to restore John's shattered soul. He closed his eyes, his spirit soaring free even before the sword bit into his neck.