Read Captives for Free Online

unsure how this strange man could look so odd and foreign but with familiar and safe words pouring from his mouth.
    Fitz’s smile broadened. “Is this your shop?”
    The child shook its head slowly. “It is the shop of Cyneric.”
    His or her voice was soft, and didn’t give away any secrets.
    “And where is Cyneric now?”
    “Gone.”
    “Gone?”
    The child took an uncertain step backwards, but did not run away as Fitz suspected it wanted to. “He went away to fight the bad men.”
    Fitz froze. “The bad men?”
    The child nodded slowly. “Bad men like you.”
    Shame coursed through Fitz, and he almost opened his mouth to argue – but then, where could he start?
    “I am not a bad man,” Fitz lowered himself onto his haunches, trying to make himself look smaller to this slip of humanity. “I’m really quite nice.”
    The child shook its head slowly, and said nothing.
    “Did Cyneric not come back?” Fitz knew the answer; knew it as plainly as he could see the dust coating the man’s livelihood; and knew that it would almost break a small part of him to see this child say it out loud. And yet he had to ask.
    The child shook its head again. “Cyneric did not come back. No one did.”
    Fitz didn’t know what to do with himself, but he arranged his face into what he hoped was a sensitive and thoughtful pose. The child ran. It obviously did not work.
    Fitz turned on the spot, taking in everything that was left of a man’s life. This man probably thought that he would be back home within days, ready to pick up the threads of his life again.
    A cold breeze swept in, bringing with it a scattering of rain. He shivered. It reminded him that he should continue; that he needed to purchase a few items before evening fell.
    Leaving the shop, however, Fitz saw that the child he had been speaking to had returned. With him – or her, he reminded himself – were four other children, all of various ages, and only two of them were definitely boys. The other two, like the first, were garbed in a mixture of shirts and off-cuts that hid exactly what they were.
    “Hello,” Fitz said uncertainly. “Who are these people?”
    It was now Fitz’s turn to take an uncertain step backwards. He had heard of bandits, but if these children really hoped to overpower him, surely they could not possibly think about doing it during daylight – in the centre of a busy street?
    “I wanted you to see,” the child stared up at the man who looked so frightening, and swallowing, maintained its composure. “I wanted you to see some of the children that have been left behind.”
    Fitz smiled sadly. “Your fathers did not return after the invasion? So your mothers and you are all alone?”
    The children looked up at him, confused. One spoke up; a boy.
    “Mother was taken away.”
    Fitz felt physically sick. He had heard – of course he had heard – of the unspeakable things that some Norman soldiers had done to the local women. He had assumed that it was a mix of bravado and lies. He had been sure that no man could ever… would ever…
    The children still looked at him, still confused. There was no self-pity in their faces.
    Fitz thought about his family. About the wife he had left behind.
    He shuddered.

 
    Chapter Six
     
    It had taken four days of hard riding, but at last the journey was over. Catheryn patted her horse gently on the shoulder. It was, like her, unaccustomed to such long days, but Catheryn had the added problem of adjusting to the sunlight. It had been too long since she had been outside.
    Her destination, she had been told by the man who wore the colours of Queen Matilda, was but a short journey around the hill that they had stabled their horses at. The sun shone high in the sky, and Catheryn shifted on the horse, trying to find a place that wasn’t uncomfortable.
    She was weary, and saddle sore.
    Turning a corner in the path that curled around the hill, Catheryn’s eyes caught sight of the place that was to be her