Knight's Lady, page 27
part #1 of Tenebrae Series
“You failed to capture An Reubair?”
“He gained sanctuary with Nemed, who responded with a force of several hundred.” He wasn’t going to mention the conversation with Danu and Nemed.
“Casualties?”
“Eight dead, three dying, seven wounded who will live:’
Dagda grunted and nodded. “Thirty against hundreds. They’re brave men.”
“It was a tactical error. I should have sent a scout over the ford. I should have smelled the trap. I was in too much of a hurry to catch up with him.”
Dagda considered that for a moment, then nodded. “Perhaps. Then perhaps if you’d dawdled he would have simply gotten away, in any case.”
Trefor allowed as that was true.
“Be that as it may,” continued Dagda, “I’m moved to reward bravery and loyalty. Other men could learn by your example.” He glanced around at the stone walls of the room and added, “Also, I find myself with lands in need of a lord. Lands remote from the place I would center my own life.”
The faerie lands? “You wish to confiscate Castle Finias from Nemed?”
A shadow crossed Dagda’s eyes. “The elf has shown himself not a good choice to husband this part of my realm. I intend to relieve him of half these lands. That half, including this garrison, I will award to you.”
Trefor couldn’t help his jaw dropping open, but then he shut it again in a hurry. Then he opened it to say something, but whatever it had been fled his mind and he was left speechless once more. He clapped his mouth shut. Dagda smiled at his discomfort.
“Stop gaping like a trout. If you’re to be laird of this realm, you’ll need to learn the art of rule.”
“Aye, your majesty.”
“There will be a formal announcement of my decision at supper in the Great Hall this evening. You will preside over the meal as my host. Then, tomorrow, you will commence to organize your garrison and man it with your own household knights. At least a hundred, and as many as two hundred if you’ve the income for it.”
Trefor boggled, for he had never commanded more than fifty of Alex’s men and ten of his own. But he said only, “Aye, your majesty.”
“Now go, claim your bedchamber.” He indicated the master’s chamber, the only room above his own. “Get some sleep, and I’ll see you at board.”
Trefor could only say, “Aye, your majesty. And thank you.”
“Nonsense. I expect a dutiful vassal out of you.” His voice carried the threat of what would happen to Trefor if he proved otherwise. Trefor nodded and withdrew.
***
Tired, hungry, and bowled over by his sudden good fortune, Trefor went to the bedchamber Reubair had once occupied with Trefor’s mother. It smelled of Reubair, and he hoped he wasn’t detecting Lindsay as well. He noted the closet bed and opened the door of it to see it had been slept in. Good. As he unloaded his weapons onto the table and began to shed his gauntlets, surcoat, and armor, he finally thought about something besides his failure to capture the faerie, and that was to wonder if Lindsay and Alex had made it away from this place. He’d not heard anything, so he figured no news was good news, and the longer it took for Reubair’s pursuing faeries to return and discover their master was no longer in residence, the better the chance his parents had made it to human-occupied Ireland.
A knock came on the door, and before he could go to open it a servant entered and bowed low. It was Reubair’s human valet. He looked up from his bow, his eyes filled with one question. Trefor answered that question unasked.
“Serve me well and you may stay.” He wasn’t ready to give a faerie free run of his bedroom yet, and so was glad to have this guy stay on.
The valet bowed quickly again, with a sigh of relief. “Thank you, sir.” Then he stood and continued, “A visitor to see you, sir.”
“Who is it?”
“The Lady Morag, sir.”
Lady. Right. But Trefor only said, “Show her in.”
Morag entered, fully clothed and rather ladylike in spite of herself, a smile on her face. In fact, she appeared downright demure in one of the finely made outfits she’d previously worn for Dagda. Her beauty touched him in his most sensitive places, and his heart clenched that she was such a whore.
He said, “All out of magic? Nothing left for popping in and out?”
The enthusiasm in her eyes lost its edge, but she maintained her smile. “I come to present myself formally.”
“Why?”
“As I said before, I wish to be your consort. Not to put too fine a point on it.”
“Yeah, that’s you. Straightforward without fail. Honest as the day is long.” The heavy sarcasm was not lost on her, and the smile faltered.
“Do ye not agree I should be by your side?”
‘No, I do not agree.” He turned to continue making himself comfortable, shrugged his hauberk over his head, and dumped it on the table with a crash of metal links, then added sharply, “Not to put too fine a point on it.”
Now Morag’s expression was sincere. Anger burned in her eyes. “And why not?”
His weight shifted with irritation, and with a nod he indicated the chamber below the floor. “Does His Majesty know you’re here? Am I about to be hauled away as a traitor for banging the king’s mistress?”
“As I’ve said before, we’re not married. Dagda cares nothing of who I ‘bang,’ as you say. ’Tis not as if any child of mine would be his heir.”
He eyed her for a moment, then said. “’Tis not as if you would ever have a child, I think.”
“I would have yours.”
“And a DNA test, for me to believe it.”
She frowned, puzzled, but he waved away the comment rather than explain. He considered shining her with a lie that would salve her pride and make it easier to get her to leave, but a perverse desire to see her suffer made him tell the blunt truth. “I don’t trust you, Morag. I haven’t trusted you for a long time. I think from the very beginning you’ve been hustling me—”
“Hustling?”
“Leading me on. Steering me in directions that suit you and your agenda.”
“I’ve guided you in the way you should go. You shouldn’t complain. You’ve gained property. A place in the world.”
“Why me? I’m not so powerful.”
“Who else but you?”
“I was malleable.”
“You were destined.”
“You believe that crap?”
“Of course I do. You can see, it has come true, what Brochan said.”
“You’ve lied to me, and told me what you wanted me to hear. You manipulated me so I would commit murder. It’s only because I saw what you were doing that I was able to keep from assassinating the king.” It still rattled him that he’d nearly done it.
“You were never supposed to kill him.”
Trefor blinked, stunned. “Then what was all that about, with the ‘He needs killing’ stuff?”
She smiled, as if talking to a fool. “You were never destined to kill the Dagda. We all knew that.”
“Brochan said I was.”
“Brochan said only that your destiny lay with Dagda. He never once said you were to kill him.”
Trefor frowned with concentration, thinking back, and realized she was telling the truth. Brochan had never said anything about killing. “But you did.”
“Because I wished you to do it. I still think he needs killing, and you’ll regret not doing it. Whether it was your destiny — or still is — is another matter entirely.”
“If I’d killed Dagda I wouldn’t have been awarded Castle Finias.”
“Of course you would. It was your destiny. I told you that. Regardless of what you might have done, or whom you might have killed, the Castle was bound to be yours. And I’ll point out that it was not your destiny to murder the king yesterday, and so you did aught but what was in store for you.”
“I did what I thought was right.”
“It was what you were made for. You wouldnae have had it in you to commit cold-blooded murder.”
“I could have told you that.” A lie, for even he hadn’t known it wasn’t in him until the time had come.
Morag gazed at him for a moment, as if assessing his words, then said, “Perhaps. In any case, your destiny was in place and there was naught for you to do but follow it.”
Trefor opened his mouth for a denial, but there was no argument to be found. Nothing he’d done contradicted Brochan’s prophecy. As far as he could see, the prediction had come true. It was a terrible realization. The universe seemed to close in on him, binding him to a belief he didn’t want. If his entire life was already written, then what was the point of living it?
He turned his back on Morag and made like he was examining his new quarters. “So, to reply to your offer, I don’t want you here.” He picked up a silver candlestick holding a burnt stub of candle and turned it over in his hands. “I said I don’t trust you, and I meant that.”
“You trust Deirbhile more?”
He gave her a sharp glance. He’d not thought of Deirbhile but once since leaving Tiree, but on hearing her name a warmth surged through him. Deirbhile. He’d like to see her pretty face again.
“Aye,” whispered Morag to herself. “He’s in love.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Ridiculous, indeed. She’s planning to cuckold her husband; there’s a trustworthy wench. One wonders if any of her children will look like him.”
“On the contrary, she said she had no intention of bearing any children but his.”
“Easier said than accomplished, and that from one who knows how to accomplish it.”
Trefor shrugged, deeply uncomfortable with the way this discussion was going. “In any case, she’s irrelevant. She’s betrothed, and that’s that.”
“And you’re not man enough to take her from her intended, though she loves him not.”
“She can learn to love Wonder Boy.”
“Why would she, when she not only believes it impossible, she thinks it a bad idea.”
“And why should you care what happens to her? Or to me, for that matter?”
“Ye dinnae believe I love you?”
“No.”
“Then it would be a waste of breath to tell you otherwise, wouldn’t it? Nevertheless, I cannae stand here and let you think you’re finished with Herself.”
“I thought I was.”
“I assure you, you’re not.”
He considered that for a moment. Fate again? Or did she simply see something in his demeanor? Then he said, “Is that your opinion, or is this more of Brochan’s bogus prophesy?”
Now she smiled, a sly look he disliked. “Free will. If you would persist in believing you control your destiny, then why do you want to know what Brochan has to say?”
He pressed his lips together. Smart-ass bitch.
She continued, “I suggest you go to her and find out which it is. It’ll take aught but a month or two to determine the truth in this. Meanwhile, I’m certain things here will sort themselves out without your assistance.”
For a long moment he gazed at her, ideas tumbling in his mind. Was she trying to manipulate him? Of course she was. But which way? Did she want him to go to Deirbhile or stay here? There was no telling.
Then he realized that caring what she wanted him to do was exactly what she wanted him to do. So he stopped. He considered what he wanted to do. That was the important thing. And he wanted to go to Tiree. He wanted to see Deirbhile again, while she was still unmarried.
He decided he would leave in the morning.
***
To Lindsay it was strange to think of Eilean Aonarach as home. During the past several years she had thought of this century as nothing more than the place she was bound to live if she wanted to stay with Alex. But the sight of granite walls clinging to the high cliffs over the castle quay brought a sense of shelter she’d not had since leaving her flat in twenty-first-century London.
Safe within the laird’s bedchamber carved into the mountainside, she attended to Alex, who sat in the large, wooden chair by the fire. He was stronger now that he was eating every day. Color had returned to his cheeks, and on his return he had been able to climb the steps from the barbican. Slowly, but under his own steam at least, and that was important progress. Now he lounged by his fire and gazed into it, deep thoughts smoldering in his eyes as Lindsay heated some spiced wine in a pot on the hook over the hearth.
She was afraid to speak. Her thoughts turned with Reubair. What she’d done, what she’d nearly done, what she still felt, to her great shame. Alex could never know. He could know Jenkins had raped her, for that was only her body. But he could never know she’d desired Reubair. Ever. She looked over at her husband, whose gaze into the fire smoldered like the embers there.
“What are you thinking?” she asked.
He glanced at her, then back at the fire, and she wasn’t sure he intended to reply. But then he said, “Trefor came.”
She nodded. “He did.”
“Why would he do that? He wanted to get next to Robert; now he’s blown that.”
“Are you angry that he reneged on his promise to represent you?”
He shot her a puzzled look. “No, why would I be? He made it possible for us to escape, and he stayed behind. God knows what’s happened to him. He should have caught up to us by now. They may have killed him.”
“Or not.” Lindsay had seen how well Trefor got along with Reubair. Trusting his motives came hard. “If he’s alive but not coming here, then where is he? In cahoots with one of the faeries? Nemed?” He was her son, but she’d not raised him. What God, and only God, knew was whether Trefor was to be trusted at the end of the day. And Alex could never know the thing Trefor had seen in her.
“He saved our lives. I think he’s proven himself.”
“We’ll see.” Lindsay smoothed the shaggy hair away from Alex’s forehead. His eyes closed, tired.
“We’ll trust him if he’s dead?”
“We’ll trust him if he returns to us and takes his place as your knight.” God willing, that would never happen.
Alex uttered a noncommittal grunt.
“I suppose it will be a while before you’ll be charging off to war again.”
Again Alex grunted and stared into the fire.
“You’ll need someone to run things around here while you recover.”
“I’m not that sick.”
“You don’t want to overtax yourself.”
“I said I’m not that sick, and most of my men are still in Ireland. Without me.”
“I could take over command of your knights when they return. You know I can do it. I got us out of Finias. I deserve to be taken seriously.”
He looked over at her, then back at the fire again. A long sigh eased from him. “Talk it up around the fire at night. Tell the tale, and make it good. Lie a little; they all do it themselves, and it’s expected. If you don’t brag, they’ll think you have no confidence.”
“I know the drill. I’ve been there.”
His gaze turned on her, and it wasn’t unsympathetic. “You hid in disguise. You’re wearing a skirt now, for which there is no drill in this. You’re in unknown territory, and you’ve got to make it look better than good. You’ve got to be perfect, or they’ll destroy you. Then they’ll start on me.”
“So, you’re saying you’ll let me be your second?” She came to kneel between his knees.
“Aye. I know I’ll regret it, but I can see you’re not going to accept any other answer.”
Lindsay kissed him, then smiled, for he was right.
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Copyright & Credits
Knight's Lady
Tenebrae Book Three
Julianne Lee
Book View Café Edition May 7, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-61138-257-0
Copyright © 2013 Julianne Lee
First published: Ace Books
Cover design by Dave Smeds
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About the Author
At twelve I began to write for fun, which I think is the only real reason to write fiction. Daydreaming with a purpose, and gradually I realized I could gain approval for the very thing teachers used to criticize me for in class. When I was thirty I decided to write for money and bought a copy of Writer’s Digest.
Twelve years, twelve completed novel manuscripts, and eight proposals for uncompleted novels after buying that Writer’s Digest, I sold a novel. Son of the Sword was my thirteenth completed manuscript. Lucky thirteen. Since then Berkley has published two time travel series set in historical Scotland, and two straight historicals set in Tudor England. I also write historical mysteries set in Restoration London, under the pseudonym Anne Rutherford.
About Book View Café
Book View Café is a professional authors’ publishing cooperative offering DRM-free ebooks in multiple formats to readers around the world. With authors in a variety of genres including mystery, romance, fantasy, and science fiction, Book View Café has something for everyone.
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Book View Café authors include New York Times and USA Today bestsellers, Nebula, Hugo, and Philip K. Dick Award winners, World Fantasy and Rita Award nominees, and winners and nominees of many other publishing awards.
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Sample Chapter: Kindred Spirits
What a gorgeous house!
Shelby's heart soared as she walked up the drive with a bag of groceries cradled in her arm, gravel crunching beneath her boots. Afternoon sun, bright and gleaming as a reflection from polished chrome, warmed the slumping red-brown brick. It raked slantways across ridges of weathered clay and peeling paint, making the flaky texture stand out in thousands of tiny black shadows, like the creases in an old man's face. It gave character. Darkness on light, crevices and bumps and places where the mortared lines curved slightly to reveal the settlings of the past two centuries. Even so, it was the most beautiful house she'd ever seen. The structure was two stories high not including the attic or basement, and it was all hers. A dream come true.
