A Daughter's Love - Book 2 The Frencolian Chronicles (complete)

Chapter Twenty-Nine

A tangle of knights, soldiers and horses, met her view. Strewn on the cobblestones, she saw her father's invention, all in pieces, being packed into large saddlebags, ready for transportation.

For a moment, her eyes were fixed on the pieces of the gizmo; then to her horror, they ran like captive prisoners, along a river of blood to where Peppy and Trip lay, both mutilated by the vicious thrust and slash of sharp swords.

Her tear-filled eyes lifted to see a horse, then a man, bound and gagged, his hands fastened securely, behind his back, to a high-pommelled saddle. As his eyes met hers, he twisted violently and would have fallen, pulling the saddle over sideways, but a soldier pushed him back to the upright position.

"Papa!" Jobyna cried, "Papa!" She struggled uselessly with her captors as she was dragged, unceremoniously, towards the woodshed.

"Ah, yes! Miss Jobyna; at last! We have them all now." It was Sir Tristan's voice.

Jobyna stared in wonder at the knight, wearing his helmet with the visor closed. She was forced through the woodshed and pushed into the smaller chamber.

Wordlessly the mother grasped Jobyna and embraced her with fierceness. The sound of nails being hammered into the closed door came to their ears. Thick planks were fastened over the door and nailed in place. The hammering continued.

"Take a deep breath, and hold it, Jobyna!"

Jobyna heard her mother's voice as though from a great distance. Somewhere, in the back of her mind, she hoped she was asleep, in the middle of a nightmare.

The reality of the crowded room; the protesting voices; it pressed into her consciousness like a heavy weight.

A dirge of loud laments rose from the far corner of the room and she recognized voices amongst the refrain as being Mavis, Letty and Josie. She hid her face against her mother's shoulder and tried to obliterate the stricken stare her father had given her.

Jobyna did not want to think about the meaning of his bonds.

"Where's Luke?" Jobyna pulled away from her mother to see Luke close to her, as were Louis, Marcus, and Ellie. Over sixty servants and soldiers were crammed into this small area.

Jobyna learned that a message, now believed to be bogus, had arrived from the king, requesting all troops at the manor house to ride to Frencberg to help deal with a crisis that had arisen there. It was this large company that Jobyna had seen ride away.

A skeleton crew, consisting mainly of traitors, had remained.

The prisoners grew progressively silent as horses' hooves sounded out, moving away from the back of the house.

Felix grasped Luke by the shoulders and pulled him along, pushing through the crowd towards the back of the chamber.

"See if you can fit through the gap near the roof." Felix commanded, and a soldier helped Luke climb up on Felix's shoulders.

Luke's head and shoulders squeezed through the gap, but he was held back firmly by the thickness of his chest. Extracting his head, he climbed back down. Rubbing a grazed ear, he spoke in defeat, "It's no use. What could I do when I got out there, anyway?"

"You'd run and fetch help from the village to free us, and some of us would ride to Frencberg to warn the king. We must do all we can to rescue the baron."

Felix pushed his way back through the servants and stopped in front of Elissa, staring down at Jobyna.

Reading his thoughts, Elissa put her arms protectively around her youngest child, pulling Jobyna tightly against her.