“You know this area,” he said. “Are there any towns nearby?”
Mostig nodded. “A few,” he said. “Smaller villages.”
“Then we will avoid them. When we leave, the first places Alary will search are the nearby villages. But I will tell you something; a secret.”
“What?”
“I do not believe my Norman brethren have stopped following us. They would not let me go so easily. I believe they are around, somewhere. All we need to do is find them.”
Mostig’s eyes widened. “Are you certain?”
Kristoph shrugged. “I know them. They would not give up.”
“That is an interesting bit of news.”
It wasn’t Mostig who replied. It was Alary, entering the livery with a pair of his henchmen with him, men who were always at his side to do is bidding. They were also the men who had beaten Kristoph in the first few days of his captivity and the men, he suspected, who held him down when Alary cut off his finger. They were mindless, brutal dogs.
Kristoph’s blood ran cold when he saw them enter the livery. He heard us! He thought in a panic. But how much did he hear? Kristoph would have to be extremely careful with this situation if he wanted to survive it. All of the hope he’d been feeling drained out of him like liquid through a sieve. Now, he felt empty.
Empty and apprehensive.
As Kristoph tried to gauge just how bad his punishment was going to be, Alary looked at Mostig.
“Excellent work,” he said to the man. “You have done well this night.”
Kristoph looked at Mostig, unsure what Alary meant as Mostig stumbled to his feet, looking at Alary in terror.
“I did not do anything, my lord,” he cried. “The Norman spoke of escape but I did not do anything!”
Alary looked very pleased. “I knew you were developing a friendship with him,” he said. “I have seen it from the start. Now you have tricked him into confessing that his Norman friends have not given up the chase, after all. I knew they had not but I also knew our captive would not tell me. You have done that for me, Mostig. Well done.”
Mostig was overwrought with terror. He looked at Kristoph with such horror upon him that it was palpable. “I did not…,” he breathed. Then, he looked to Alary again. “I would not betray you, my lord. Forgive me!”
Alary shook his head. “There is nothing to forgive,” he said. “You have shown me your true loyalties. Tell me you did this for me and I shall believe you.”
Mostig was trembling as he nodded his head. “I have done this for you, my lord, I swear it.”
Alary approached him, casually, putting out a hand to rest on the man’s slumped shoulder. “Tell me that you love me.”
“I do, my lord, most earnestly!”
Swiftly, Alary unsheathed a dagger that was at his side, a bejeweled weapon that was quite magnificent. He’d stolen it off of a dead Saxon lord a few years back and now it was at his side every moment. It was the dagger he’d used to cut off part of Kristoph’s finger. Before Mostig even realized what had happened, Alary slipped the blade between his ribs and straight into his heart. Mostig was dead before he hit the ground.
With the man in a heap, Alary stood over him.
“I lied,” he said, kicking the corpse. “I do not believe you!”
Kristoph had to admit that he was quickly reaching a greatly apprehensive state. He couldn’t even think of Mostig’s death. Now, he had to think about himself. He was still chained and, in a fight, he wouldn’t be very effective, but he knew they were rapidly approaching that state and he intended to fight for all he was worth. He wasn’t going to let Alary slip a blade between his ribs as easily as he’d done to Mostig. As Alary turned to him, he braced himself.
The moment of life or death, for him, was coming.
“So your Norman brethren are nearby, are they?” he asked, wiping the bloodied blade off on his trousers. “Where are they?”
Kristoph’s gaze never left Alary’s face. “I would not know,” he said. “And what I told Mostig was a guess. I have not seen any of them, if that is your meaning. For if I saw them, so would you and I would not be here right now. What I expressed was a feeling and nothing more.”
Alary was closing in with his two henchmen by his side, all of them looking at Kristoph with the expressions of hunters who had just sighted their prey.
“You seemed rather certain,” Alary said.
Kristoph simply shook his head, trying not to appear any too leery of what was coming. “What happened to the Saxon lord Mostig spoke of?” he asked, trying to change the subject. “I thought you were going to sell me to the man for his daughter.”
Alary shrugged. “His daughter was so ugly that even I could not resign you to such a life,” he said. “Moreover, the man did not want to pay my price.”
“I told you that my family would pay any price you asked for my release.”
Alary came to a halt and his henchmen along with him. “I wonder if your Norman brethren would pay to keep you alive.”
Kristoph was coming to desperately wish that he was unchained because he very much wanted to strike the first of many blows he knew were coming. He knew he was in for another beating, perhaps the worst one yet.
“Mayhap,” he said casually. “But know this; if you kill me, they will hunt you down. You will never be safe. I have told you this before, Alary. It is in your best interest to keep me alive and well so that my comrades will not punish you by stripping your skin from your body while you are alive. They will make sure you suffer a more painful death than I could ever suffer, so remember that before thinking to kill me.”
It was a threat, a line drawn between them that Kristoph was instructing the man not to cross. But Alary wasn’t smart enough to realize it. He saw it as a threat to his safety and nothing more than that. He didn’t realize that Kristoph was trying to save his life.
In fury, he struck out.
The first blow missed Kristoph because he ducked, but after that, the fight was on as Alary’s two men jumped on Kristoph and began beating on a man who was severely restricted by his chains. But Kristoph was strong, much stronger than Alary had realized. In the end, he’d strangled one of the men with his chains and kicked the other one unconscious, all the while as Alary stood back and watched.
This time, Alary didn’t step in to disable Kristoph. The man had taken a beating but it was clear he was ready for anything that came at him. He was strong, bound or not, and Alary backed off. He had a stronger sense of survival than most. Therefore, he left Kristoph alone that night, leaving the dead bodies of two of his men while the third, once he regained consciousness, limped from the livery and disappeared.
As for Alary, he spent the night in the tavern where it was warm and dry, pondering his next move with the Norman knight who was not so injured as he had wanted everyone to believe.
That night, the Norman knight showed his worth, and Alary realized he had a prisoner who was very capable of killing.
He would have to kill his prisoner before he was the man’s next victim.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
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Legio Tertium Augustus