LORD OF WAR: BLACK ANGEL
A Medieval Romance Novel
By Kathryn Le Veque
ENGLAND
In dreams we grasp at finite bits of reality, premonitions of what may come to pass. In dreams we are all witches, straining to see what the future holds.
~ Anonymous Poet, circa. 13thcentury
CHAPTER ONE
January, 1356 A.D.
London, England
She’d had thedream before. She was standing on the edge of a meadow, looking at a massive castle in the distance, partially obscured by sheets of driving rain. In spite of the weather, smoke rose in ribbons over the damaged battlements.
Overhead, the sky was the color of pewter with fat, angry clouds, but upon earth, the field was flooded from the unforgiving rain that had been falling for days, perhaps weeks, mayhap even months. It was difficult to know. It seemed as if it had been raining forever.
A great battle had concluded upon the field and there was a sea of bodies strewn about, like pieces of driftwood upon an endless muddy sea. Her heart was in her throat as she observed the scene, her breathing coming in panicked little gasps. Something was here for her, something she loved so desperately that she couldn’t think of anything else. The feelings were so strong that they overwhelmed her, blinding her to her own safety as she plunged into the sea of death, searching, looking for something she wasn’t quite sure of yet could feel it more strongly in her heart than anything.
… her heart….
She awoke in a cold sweat.
*
London, 1356 A.D.
Reign of Edward III
It smelled likedeath.
Chargers bearing great and bloody knights clip-clopped wearily along the street leading from the great wharf along the Thames followed by equally weary men-at-arms who had seen perhaps one too many battles. They were exhausted, beaten, bloodied and doomed by the depression that often infects those who have witnessed much strife.
They collectively expelled a stench that smelled like death. The Lady Ellowyn de Nerra ignored the stench for the most part as she watched the great army of the Duke of Exeter disembark their sea-scarredcogs.They filtered up from the wharfs along the Thames, a great rolling tide of humanity that brought about the reality and carnage the Black Prince’s war in France had delivered to England.
Ellowyn wasn’t observing the downtrodden army because she was curious. She was looking for someone, the great duke who had taken command of eight hundred of her father’s retainers. Although she’d never actually seen the man whose warrior skills were legendary, she’d heard much about him from her father as well as others. He was a warrior whose name struck fear into the hearts of both English and French alike, a name so awesome that to even whisper it was like mentioning the Devil himself. Men did not take the name of Brandt de Russe lightly. The French even had a name for him;L’Ange noir, they whispered fearfully.The Black Angel. The most powerful knight in the arsenal of the Black Prince, the Black Angel brought the Apocalypse with him wherever he went.
The duke’s army was kicking up clouds of dust in the already dirty city of London. They were heading for the training grounds about a mile west of the Tower of London, the mammothstructure that loomed over to the east from where Ellowyn was standing. She could just see the black spires of the White Tower reaching to the sky. However, her attention was on the army as it rumbled past, turning to the escort of soldiers she had brought with her from her father’s seat of Erith Castle. These men had remained behind while others went on to fight with the Black Prince, but they knew de Russe on sight.
“Do you see him yet?” Ellowyn asked the soldier standing to her right.
The man, seasoned and blind in one eye, shook his head as his one good eye skimmed the returning troops. “Not yet, my lady,” he replied, “but make no mistake. You will know de Russe when you see him.”
Ellowyn looked at him queerly. “How is that possible when I have never met the man?”
The soldier wriggled his bushy eyebrows. “Because he is the biggest man alive and he wears armor with great spikes blooming from the shoulders. Some say he drinks the blood of his victims and hangs their innards over his shoulders. That is why they call him the Lord of War. In battle, the man has no equal.”
Ellowyn thought on that a moment before returning her attention to the men shuffling past her. There were so many of them and she was beginning to get impatient.
“Well,” she sighed. “I wish the man would hurry along. We must return home soon or father will drag himself from his sick bed like Lazarus rising from the dead and hunt us down.”
The old blind sergeant fought off a smile. “Your father is a determined man, my lady,” he said, thinking that Deston de Nerra’s headstrong daughter was far more determined than her father ever was. “But I doubt he… by Jesus and Mary,therehe is. Do you see him, my lady?”
The sergeant’s excited tone had Ellowyn’s head bobbing to catch a glimpse, although she was not entirely sure who, exactly, she was straining to catch a glimpseof.
