Chapter 2

Jemma waited outside the castle with Marshal Victor for Thomas and Ragnar. The marshal introduced her to them and then left, acting embarrassed by the whole situation.

“Is that all your belongings?” Thomas asked as he noted that she only had a small sack with her.

“Yes,” Jemma answered quietly.

“Did you want to stop and say goodbye to your parents before we leave?” Thomas asked.

“My parents are religious.”

Thomas didn’t need to ask more because he saw the sadness in her eyes. Going home would only cause trouble.

“All right, we need to make a stop before we leave,” Thomas said as he led Jemma and Ragnar to the barracks where the mercenaries were being housed.

As they walked in, he noticed that Leif was pacing, while the other three men looked sullen. Eric and Grim perked up when they saw Jemma. Thomas was disappointed in himself for bringing her into the barracks. It was assumed that a young woman came in there for only one purpose.

“Get your heads out of the privy. She is under Thomas’s protection,” Ragnar said to straighten out the two youngest mercenaries.

Thomas couldn’t really blame them for being interested in Jemma. She was only a year or so older than he was. Being the cook’s assistant meant that she was well fed and had some meat on her bones, giving her curves. Most common girls were rail thin due to food shortages. Jemma also looked to have bathed recently.

Nana Millicent had insisted that Thomas take regular baths. She claimed it helped prevent sickness. Thomas had stopped resisting her when Roger had explained that if he could smell Thomas coming, then the game in the forest could, too.

With Roger’s stamp of approval, Thomas ignored the taunts the village younglings made about him being a sodomite. That, combined with him getting bigger and being trained to fight, made his life easier.

As Thomas got older, he realized it wasn’t just the baths and clean clothes that made him a target. He was the son of a duke, and as such, he never went without. This meant that, unlike the village children, he never knew real hunger. Being well fed also meant that Thomas developed faster than the younglings his age. As he became a better hunter, Roger had him take the extra game to the village. That was what finally won the other children over.

“Have you decided what’s to be done with us?” Leif asked, voicing the question that was weighing on his group.

All the mercenaries stared at Thomas. He debated the best course of action. His father’s suggestion finally won out because of how the duchess had acted. Thomas feared that she wouldn’t let his leaving interfere with her plans to someday have her unborn son become the Duke of Montrose.

“I’ve been ordered to the capital to join the King’s Royal Guard, and I’m to take Jemma and the woman who raised me to Inglewood. I want you to accompany me for our protection. I’ll pay you your normal rate for the trip. If all goes well, we can discuss what’s next once we get there,” Thomas offered.

Everyone but Leif was pleased.

“Do you expect trouble?” Leif asked, showing his experience.

“I hope not,” Thomas said.

“As do I, but we should be on guard,” Ragnar added to sober the other three.

Leif and Ragnar looked at each other, and Thomas saw them communicate something. Then Leif looked at the other mercenaries and they all looked relieved to hear they weren’t going to rot in the stockade. Leif finally nodded his agreement.

“When do we leave?” Leif asked to get down to business.

“It would be best if we were on our way,” Ragnar suggested.

Thomas nodded in agreement.

Thomas upgraded the mercenary’s cart to a wagon because they would need the added capacity to move Nana Millicent. Leif had Grim drive the wagon and instructed him to teach Jemma how to do so. Once she was comfortable doing that, it would free up Grim to resume his role as a fighter.

Thomas noted that Grim’s brother, Eric, didn’t look happy when he learned that he wouldn’t ride with Jemma. Thomas was becoming worried that having her along was going to be a problem.

“Settle down,” he warned when Fury tried to bite him again as he mounted his new horse.

He jerked the reins to pull the petulant stallion’s head away from his leg. That caused Fury to dance sideways in an effort to unseat his new owner.

“Let’s go,” Thomas announced to get them all moving.

He took one last look around his old home and wondered if he would ever set foot inside its gates again.

They bypassed the main road through town since it was full of people there for the festival. Once they cleared the outer walls, Thomas felt himself relax. Fury also settled down as they made their way to the cabin in the woods.

As they drew close to the cabin, the mercenaries all started when Roger slipped out of the woods in front of them.

“I need your help.”

Thomas smiled when he saw his mentor had brought Thomas’s bow with him.

“I was told to hunt for enough meat to feed this bunch,” Roger explained.

Nana Millicent was known for laying on a fine table, and hearing Roger, Thomas knew she wanted to impress his guests.

“How did...?” Leif began.

“I heard you coming for the last half hour. Nana Millicent is waiting for you at the cabin. Just follow the trail for another quarter mile,” Roger instructed.

“Ragnar, Eric ... go with Thomas,” Leif said businesslike while leaving Thomas no room to object.

Roger gave Thomas a look that told him that he would hunt on his own if the mercenaries were going with Thomas. Roger slipped back into the woods, making sure to show Thomas which direction he was going. Thomas knew that the huntsman would go out ahead of them. He would use the noise created when the three men moved through the woods to drive the game to a clearing up ahead. It would provide him with a clear shot when the time came.

“Where did he go?” Leif asked when Roger pulled his disappearing act.

“He’s hunting,” Thomas said as he got off Fury and tied him to the back of the wagon.

The warhorse must have been tired because he didn’t try to nip his master. Ragnar and Eric both dismounted, and they waited until the rest of them were on their way to the cabin.

“What are we hunting for?” Eric asked.

“Nana Millicent will want something special since we are having guests. Roger will be hoping to find a wild boar.”

“Isn’t boar hunting done on horseback?” Ragnar asked.

“This is not a ‘sport’ to please the aristocrats. This is hunting,” Thomas explained.

The ‘sport’ of hunting was an event that was done to show off to other people of influence. The typical hunting party included the lord of the hunt (often the landowner) and fellow aristocrats, along with other members of various ranks: master huntsman (themselves frequently titled nobles), pages, valets, assistants, huntsmen, and servants.

Hunting boar was considered the pinnacle of these types of hunts because of the danger involved. A wild boar was more than capable of killing or maiming a man, dog, or even a horse. Knowing that worried Ragnar. When you faced a charging boar, being on the ground usually meant you were in serious trouble.

“Don’t worry. Roger will kill the boar while we make noise to nudge the animal towards him,” Thomas explained.

He had Ragnar and Eric draw their swords, just in case, while Thomas nocked an arrow to his bow. Thomas warned them to use their swords to stab the beast and not try to slash at it if they were charged. He had them spread out so that Thomas could just see both of them on his flanks.

His heart skipped a beat as they entered the woods. Thomas took in his surroundings as he began to hear and see the familiar woods. Staring up at a hawthorn tree, the golden rays of the sun trickled through the branches, dusting everything with a warm glow.

Thomas made sure that both Eric and Ragnar could see him before moving through the woods. The forest became quiet as the three of them tromped deeper into the trees.

Fifteen minutes later, Thomas heard the release of a bowstring, and a split second after that, there was a loud thump and the squeal of a boar. Thomas’s heart went to his throat as he ran toward Roger because the boar wasn’t dead yet. He heard another arrow loosed and hit home.

As he sprinted into a clearing, he witnessed the boar finally collapse, and Roger jogged out of the woods with a big smile on his face. Roger had bagged a young male that would be enough for Nana Millicent’s feast and for their coming travels.

Then Thomas felt as if he had suddenly stepped too close to a flame on his left side. He turned to see what caused the feeling and almost pissed himself as a huge wolf leaped towards him. On instinct, Thomas drew and fired his bow a split second before he was bowled over.

He felt the final hot breath of the wolf against his bare neck. He was both terrified and elated to discover his arrow had killed the wolf, but he now found himself trapped under it. Ragnar and Eric reached him first and wrestled the animal off him.

Thomas got shakily to his feet, knowing that he should be either dead right now or wishing he was. Once he’d gathered his wits, Thomas found Roger examining his kill with a worried look. It had a beautiful silver coat and yellow eyes.

“I never thought I would see one of these. There hasn’t been a direwolf seen in over a hundred years. I thought they were extinct,” Roger shared.

“Why the worried face?” Ragnar asked.

“He’s worried that she’s not alone,” Thomas explained. “Direwolves are supposed to be intelligent and travel in packs. This one obviously has a litter of pups,” he said.

“Someone needs to find out,” Roger said to agree with his assessment.

“I’ll see if there are more,” Thomas offered.

“While you do that, I’ll dress out the pig and skin the wolf,” Roger said to divide up the work.

“We’ll go with you,” Ragnar said to Thomas.

“No, it’s best that you don’t. Thomas can handle himself in the woods. You two will run off any wolves with all the noise you make,” Roger reasoned.

“Help Roger. I’ll meet you all at the cabin,” Thomas said and left before they could object.

He began to track where the big wolf had come from. If she were like a regular wolf, she might very well have traveled forty or more miles today. While he didn’t plan to cover that much ground, Thomas wanted to make sure there wasn’t a pack roaming the woods nearby. If there was, he and Roger would either have to drive them off or kill them. Her attacking him highlighted the potential danger to the nearby village.

Where the wolf had come from was only one mystery. Another was her having pups right before winter. Most animals had their young in the springtime. The only thing he could think was that she’d traveled south to avoid the harsher winters of the north to protect her litter. Then she’d run into men and hadn’t understood that she might no longer be the apex predator.