A Killing Season

Chapter Three

Baron Herbert looked down at the bloody corpse. Was there anything in the mess of battered flesh he still recognized as his second child?

Squeezing his eyes shut, he tried to remember all that this hollow shell had once been, and, although his heart screamed in agony, his eyes remained dry, refusing to grieve. He opened them and reached out to caress his son’s twisted neck. His fingers touched skin, but he felt nothing.

“Of course I would not,” he whispered, turning his callused palm upward. “This is not my son, only inanimate clay.”

He knelt by the body and took a deep breath. The odor of death was little different from that of a slaughtered deer.

Rage filled him. Like a possessed man, he began to pound the stone floor until his hands bled. “This is still my boy,” he roared, then stared at his torn fists.

Death, violent and irreverent, was well-known to him. In war he had seen countless dead bodies: some slaughtered in combat, others in villages by soldiers still crazed with battle frenzy. He watched as men were burned to charcoal, screaming for their mothers, and walked past bodies of women raped with spears while their wailing babies were smashed against walls.

Many of these were infidels, for whom he felt no sorrow. Their death agonies were paltry aches compared to what their benighted souls would suffer in the eternal flames of Hell.

Others were known to him, men with whom he had shared wine before battle or a fire on a bitter night. For these, he felt a prick of grief, yet any sadness was offset by the knowledge that their souls were in Heaven, freed of worldly imperfections or any care.

“But this is my flesh and blood, made with my seed,” he wailed, shaking his fist at God. “My son!”

Slowly he reached up and touched the torn clothing that covered the corpse.

“Nothing,” he whispered. “Nothing.”

In utter despair, he bent double and howled like a wolf under the full moon.

***

A woman stepped back from the chapel’s open door. For a moment she stood, eyes raised, and listened to her lord husband’s wild keening.

Then Lady Margaret turned her back and walked slowly away.