#ladyknights

Lady Katherine was the only child of Lord Vernon Ashmore and therefore, was the heir to his title and his duty. The Knights of the Crown had sworn an oath to serve Queen and country and when not reporting to Queen Victoria herself, they assisted Scotland Yard with their protection of the people.

Scotland Yard, however, refused to listen to or ask the help of Lady Katherine. It left her with little choice but to demand their case files and seek criminals on her own. When she provided them tied up and squirming under the heel of her boot, they had little choice but to arrest the captured villains.

Lady Katherine, unlike many of The Knights of the Crown and other aristocrats, had the respect and assistance of the poor. They would offer her honesty words and advice in exchange for her coin. They knew she was always good on her word and that she had helped many a child or woman in need.

Lady Katherine did not just cut down a criminal but she tended to the ill and abused, finding them better shelter and donating her money and her time. Where The Knights of the Crown took pleasure and comfort in their status, she took pleasure and success in her duty. Lady Katherine would walk a hundred filthy streets to protect the poor rather than dance at a dozen lavish parties where her gun and sword were little more than golden ornaments.

Where there was a crime to be solved and murderer to capture, Lady Katherine made it her business to be involved.

When she first overheard talk of a murder occurring in Whitechapel Lady Katherine was at Scotland Yard. There were other Knights of the Crown heading to view the body and she had followed them. She could only grit her teeth and clench her sword at the sight that she had seen. The woman’s throat was severed by two cuts, and the lower part of the abdomen was partly ripped open. They were told that there were other incisions on the abdomen that were made by the same attacker.

Scotland Yard were searching for witnesses and she and her two fellow knights were quick to join them in Whitechapel. The victim was a lady of the night, but no one had any information on her attacker. The trail quickly ran cold and many of the knights and police turned their attention from the case to other business, but Lady Katherine was not dissuaded. The brutality of the attack had her worried it was not an attack of passion or familiarity, but opportunity.

Her fears were only confirmed when, just over a week later, another woman was found mutilated. It was someone Lady Katherine had seen mere days before. It infuriated and disgusted her. Lady Katherine became determined to protect these helpless women from a madman.

She began to walk the streets each day and night, becoming as familiar with each cobblestone as she was the rooms in her own house. Lady Katherine learned the names of many of the people who lived there. She saw their fear and she saw the women of the night continue to earn their trade despite knowing their next gentleman caller could be a killer.

Lady Katherine barely slept, hardly ate, she stalked the Whitechapel streets as a silent phantom; her gold finery glinting in the lights of the streetlamps, her gun held firm in one hand while a lantern was carried in the other.

It was in the earlier hours of Sunday morning over three weeks later that Lady Katherine finally found her man. She had heard a muffled cry and pleading off the street she was on and rushed to the scene. She found a woman tearfully begging as a man raised a bloody knife to her throat. Lady Katherine aimed her gun and fired without mercy; killing the man with dark and deadly precision. 

The woman let out a fearful shriek but Lady Katherine ignored her as she slowly stepped forward, her gun still pointed at the man’s still form. The closer she came, the more she was able to observe; he was most certainly dead. He was also shabbily dressed but in clothing that still indicated he was from a different, more upper class part of London.

When she felt a trembling hand grip her arm, Lady Katherine turned back to the terrified woman who was frantically gasping out her gratitude, tears running down her face.

Lowering her gun back to her side now that she was assured of the man’s death, Lady Katherine took the woman from the alley and hailed the first person she saw, demanding they call Scotland Yard and the Knights of the Crown. 

The body, when it was identified some time later, belonged to a doctor and when his home was investigated they found a uterus in a jar, something that had been taken from the second victim. It made Lady Katherine certain she had found and stopped her madman.

The young woman who had been saved found Lady Katherine in Scotland Yard, clutching her hands and thanking her profusely once again. Lady Katherine had merely patted her arm and sent her on her way. She had done her duty as a Knight of the Crown, and she could rest easy tonight, knowing that no more women would be harmed by this murderer.

The head of the Knights however, was not impressed by her actions.

He called on her the following day, her servants leading him to her parlour where she was cleaning her blade and her gun on the table. He took a seat and eyed her shrewdly as he chastised her for the actions she had taken by walking Whitechapel streets without another knight and with no regard for the appearance of the order. Lady Katherine had listened with a half-ear as she continued to clean her sword, long used to such remarks.

“You are a lady, and should act accordingly,” he reprimanded her.

Lady Katherine’s lips thinned and she finally looked at him. “Elizabeth Stride is grateful I was nearby to aid her, Lord Kenward; were I being more demure, she would be one more body in our morgue.”

He stiffened in his seat, glaring at her. “You should not be unaccompanied, had you failed you would have disgraced our order with your death.”

“When the knights don’t defend the innocent and allow them to die,” she told him; the sound of her blade being resheathed loud and sharp in the quiet of the room. “That is a day when our order is disgraced.” She stood and it forced the Lord to do the same for the sake of propriety. She just eyed him coldly. “Mary Ann Nichols and Annie Chapman are dead, but Elizabeth Stride lives; today, I live up to my oath.”

Lord Kenward gritted his teeth, but he had no way to rebuke her; instead he was forced to praise her with a tight voice, “The Knights of the Crown honour your work.”

Lady Katherine gave a soft incline of her head in appreciation. Lord Kenward nodded back before wishing her clipped good day and leaving her home. Lady Katherine merely waited until he had departed to focus back on her gun.

The streets of London were only temporarily safer, and Lady Katherine would be ready for whatever new threat came to haunt them. She was a Knight of the Crown and whatever dared to attack her people and her city, Lady Katherine would hunt and she would slay.

Thank you for reading! 

Please feel free to like, comment and reblog but please don’t respost/take credit for my prose :)

I really hope you liked what I did with your character @caitlynkurilich and are happy for me to keep playing around with backstories for your other lovely ladies!

And kudos if you got the historical references woven into the story!