Bold Brenna- Chapter 3 Coda

 

Much, much later, her clothes were returned to her and she dressed awkward with much interference from the yoke.

“Step lively there.” Steyr ordered. Steyr and Deroth followed behind her as she began the ascent of the great staircase, they both armed and she still in the yoke. “It’s a long way up.”

In short order, she entered the court of Lord Darron. Could it be called a court? It was a glorified longhouse, but of late the lord had taken to putting on airs. Steyr and Deroth followed closely behind her.

Darron sat his seat well, almost casually. He leered as  she approached him, but she met his gaze without flinching. At his right hand, aptly, stood Honnhig. And to Honnig’s right, Vaedhal. Her heart skipped a beat. It had been a fun romp, that encounter by the Grey Fork, and now he seemed at ease at the side of her to whom he was trothed. 

And to Darron’s the left hand was Jeth Coalheart, his chief arse-licker.

Honnhig had changed much in the intervening years. Still the hatchet-faced bitch that Brenna remembered, but she had filled out, gotten harder. Elysia had her beat in sheer beauty, but Honnhig had a lean, hard warrior’s body that was not uneasy on the eye. Brenna mused that should anything happen to Darron, the clan would be in good hands.

“Kneel before the lord of Barrik!” Coalheart exclaimed.

Seeing no other options, Brenna knelt as well as the cumbersome prisoner’s yoke would allow, until she was eye-to-eye with Darron, Lord of Barrik. The man seemed to have aghed little in the last decade. He was still the strong, fearless warrior who had built Barrik’s warriors into a conquering army and subjugated the neighboring peoples as far north as the Relfstone and halfway to the Welkon river in the south.

“I should kill you.” He began. “It’s within my rights.”

“Yet here we are.”

“You were banished and you dare to show your face. Not only that, you took my daughter’s maidenhead. It’s a pity I can’t hang you twice.”

“It was never yours to give. It’s no secret that Elysia prefers the fairer sex. I did you a favor; when the fat swineherd she’s trothed to grows tired of her rebuffs, the tricks I taught her will come in handy when she takes a lover. Milord.”

“You bitch!”

He wasn’t wrong, but this was growing tiresome. “Let’s get to it, then. Hang me, gut me, or allow me an honorable death in the circle, but don’t force me to kneel here any longer. Your breath smells like shit, milord.”

“Much as I’d like to spit you over a fire or keep you caged and let my warriors take turns with you until you starve, I need you alive.”

“Alive?” For just a moment, she seemed at a loss.

“My wayward   wife has stolen something from me. I need it back. As much hatred as I bear toward you, gods damn your eyes, I need your help. And if the legends are true, ...hers as well.”