Free One Knight's Bargain by Alexandra O'Hurley Page B

grasp. “Don’t worry, sissy boy, this will all be over soon.”
    She hoped the assumption she heard in his statement
wasn’t true. Would they kill everyone in the house? She hoped they wouldn’t
find the two upstairs. She closed her eyes in prayer, asking for some small
pittance. When she reopened them, two other men had captured Felix and Magda , and they were being brought outside. Her gut
clenched as they stepped out into the open air, the sunlight pouring over them
as they stopped before the large man who had led the bandits inside.
    “No girl?”
    “No, just two boys and an old
woman.”
    “They don’t interest me. I came here for the girl. We
must find her.”
    Sybille was confused. Were they talking of her? She
was the only girl in the keep, but why would they be looking for her? Her mind
reeled as she considered what they were about, but her thoughts refocused on
the two small boys being drug from the house. Men deposited Gui and Nicolas on the ground within the lower
bailey. Red-rimmed eyes looked to her in need. She had no idea what to do.
    “So these are the last of de Campion’s whelps?”
    “He claimed to have seven sons and had four with him
in
Paris
, yet
we find four sons here,” came from the young man who had held Nicolas. He
looked to be close to Sybille’s eight and ten, but there was something about
him that made her consider him younger.
    “What of the daughter?” asked the big man.
    “I do not know. We did not see any other souls here.” The
younger boy pointed toward Sybille and the others. “Perhaps we ask them. These
little ones will not help much.”
    The bandit strolled over to Sybille, drawing her free
from the man who held her and lifting her into the air to face him, her feet
dangling in the air. “Where is the little wench?”
    She knew in that moment she needed to sacrifice
herself for the boys. They had to survive, somehow. The truth was the only way.
“I am a lady, not a wench.”
    The big man chuckled before ripping her helm off,
allowing her golden locks to fall about her face and shoulders. “The lady
thinks herself a boy?” He looked closely at her as he dropped her to her feet
and caught her face in his grasp. “You are as fine as your mother. You will
warm my bed well.”
    “I will do no such thing!”
    “Did your parents not send word? I have won your hand
as well as these lands. All here is now mine ,
including you and your brothers. Be good to me, and perhaps I’ll spare their
lives.”
    “My parents sent no such word.” Sybille gazed at
Nicolas, her eyes widening before looking back at the bandit. “And may I ask
whose hand I have supposedly been given to?”
    “The name is Sir Eustache of
Rouen
, at your service.” The man bowed before
her and then rose to his full height, head and shoulders above her own. “Your
parents were so relieved with the bag of gold I thrust into their hands, I
doubt they stopped counting the pieces long enough to send you word.” He thrust
the same vellum at her that he’d shown to Guillaume and Petior before they’d killed them. She was hesitant to take the sheet as she’d seen the
outcome of the last reading.
    “Take it, here’s your proof.”
    She grasped the edges in her shaking hands and read
over the surface three times, as she couldn’t believe it was true. Right there,
in her father’s own hand, was an agreement such as Sir Eustache had just
outlined. The keep and lands were now his, including everything within it. Including her and the children. How could her father have
just sold them off as chattel?
    She handed the document back over to Sir Eustache, her
body and mind numb. She could be sold as chattel because she was a woman.
Sybille had been expecting something of this sort for years, as many young
women were already married, with three or four wee ones, by the time they’d
turned ten and eight. She’d always assumed it was her parents’ lack of gold
that had kept suitors at bay. Being sold to a