Free Chelynne by Robyn Carr

face when the time was upon him to either stand up to his father or lie forever under his thumb.
    It was the matter of a neighboring burgh that brought about their first dreadful fight. The closest friend that Chad had known since babyhood was the son of Lord Bollering, the baron of a nearby shire and the humble acreage surrounding it.
    The Bollering family, estate and all, fell upon hard luck. They suffered through attacks from thieves and ruffians, large stores of food and supplies were destroyed, and the people who served them were robbed and ofttimes killed, along with what livestock there was to tend and to transport the goods. Warehouses burned and the town lay ravaged. Bollering could do little to defend himself and bought no aid from the Parliamentarians, since his allegiance was to the crown. Raiders struck other towns, but not as harshly. The final blow came when a charge of treason was levied against Bollering and he could do nothing to stay it.
    During the worst of his plight, Bollering was given aid from a squire who resided in London. The man, Cyrus Shayburn, lent him money and support to help him try to pull himself out. When the final blow was struck and Bollering was removed from his holdings, it was that good squire who replaced him, gaining not just lordship there, but later, when England was in the hands of Cromwell, full title to that land. The impoverished people of Bratonshire found themselves abused by the same men who had robbed and plundered them before, by the privy orders of their lord...Shayburn.
    It was obvious to everyone, even to Chad in his youth, that the plot had been well thought through. Shayburn straddled political alliances for as long as possible and when finally he was forced to choose, by luck he chose profitably, with the Parliamentarians.
    Chad urged his father to fight this injustice, but the earl was reluctant. He, too, was postponing his declaration. He had little concern for the monarchy and the whole of England. His thoughts were only of this portion of England that was his, that his father had first secured. He was bound to keep it and hold it for his son at any cost. He kept silent about the injustice done to his friend and neighbor and in time pledged fealty to the Roundheads. The earl watched then as noble after noble fled into exile, every man and his family that declared for the crown. And Lord Bollering, though charged with treason by his king, died in defense of the Royalist cause, his family left to manage as they could in Cromwell’s England.
    Chad had no regard for the fact that what his father had done might be for the interest of his son. He had no concern for the earldom. Chad was filled with a sense of justice. His father thought it was the altruism of youth, but indeed it drove him even as a man. So Chad fled too, but from his past. He left the earl, Bryant and the whole of England.
    He sought out the exiled court of Charles II and gladly took up his cause. With little training and less reward he met his first battle in the same season he was meeting puberty. They were badly defeated, but by luck and some obscure twist of fate, Chad came out of it with his life.
    He smiled to himself now as he remembered the stories after the battle of Worcester. Charles was the greatest teller of stories, his narrow escape and careful journey out of the country to be recounted many times. But other stories of heroics in battle were recalled, Chad’s among them. Chad lacked the gall to sing his own praises, for in truth the memory most vivid in his mind was the meager fare that left his stomach and joined the blood on the battlefield and the stains on his breeches from the urine that flowed uncontrollably down his legs out of utter fear. He trailed in the tracks of an aging but talented mercenary who later told the tale of Chad: roaring across the field of battle in a rage, swinging a mighty sword that was almost as large as one of his own legs, cutting down men in his path and