Brides of the North

by Le Veque, Kathryn

  Diamantha moved towards him, her expression sincere. “Please…,” she said. “Please come back here. You may sleep with us.”

  To Cortez, it seemed like an open invitation. He could hardly believe his ears. “If that is your wish,” he said gently. “It might be a bit… crowded.”

  Diamantha shook her head. “We will make do,” she said. “Please return to us when you have finished. I… I believe I would feel much safer if you did.”

  Cortez didn’t have to be asked twice. Impulsively, he reached out to touch her on the cheek. “I will return, then,” he promised. “Rest assured.”

  Diamantha shut the door behind him after he left but she didn’t bolt it. Her thoughts lingered on the man, on his heroics, and she realized she was starting to see something different about him. This night had been full of revelations for her regarding Cortez de Bretagne. Her first impressions of him had been that of a spoiled, forceful man, but the past several hours had seen that opinion drastically change. There was more to Cortez de Bretagne than his good looks and arrogant manner. He is a good man, James had said. More and more, she could see that James had been correct.

  After a meal had been delivered by the harried barkeep and her satchels had eventually been brought up to her by one of Cortez’s men, Diamantha was sufficiently calm enough to prepare for bed. She had brought soap and other toiletries with her, all carefully wrapped in a soft pouch, and she washed her face with rose-scented hard soap and brushed her teeth with a frayed reed and a mixture of ashes of burnt rosemary and mint. She was still in her traveling clothes, the heavy blue woolen ensemble that had seen her through rough weather, and she happily peeled it off, stripping down to her shift, and hanging the clothing up on one of the pegs near the hearth to dry out.

  In the darkness of the room, she took her rag and soap and washed herself as best she could, drying off with a small piece of linen she had packed just for that purpose. Her long hair, braided for travel, was unbraided and brushed vigorously with a horsehair brush before being braided again for sleep. All the while, Diamantha’s thoughts lingered on Cortez and on the events of the night. It was only their first day of travel. She could only pray the rest of the journey was easier.

  The little animals were stirring in their cage so right before she went to sleep, she poured some of the milk the barkeep had brought up for Sophie into the small wooden bowl, watching the babies drink hungrily. Even the rabbit sipped at it. She put a few bread crusts, part of an apple, and a few pieces of meat into the cage as well, sealing it up for the night. When she finally laid down to rest, sleep was nearly instant.

  When Cortez returned to her well after midnight, it was with great anticipation and a bit of nervousness. He was a bridegroom, after all, and he wanted their first night together to be something pleasant and memorable. Given the rocky nature of their entire association, he could only pray for the best.

  Posting guards in the corridor so he and his knights could sleep without fear of reprisal from Dornauld and his men, he entered the small room with the two small beds, looking forward to the night to come. His thoughts were already heated, thinking of her soft flesh against his, and when his eyes grew accustomed to the weak light in the chamber, what he saw sent his lustful thoughts into ironic disappointment.

  Diamantha had asked him to return to sleep with them, but now he saw that she hadn’t meant what he’d hoped she had meant. Diamantha was snuggled into one of the small beds with Sophie, leaving the other small bed for Cortez to sleep alone. He was sleeping with her, all right, all by himself in another bed.

  He fell asleep watching Diamantha’s slumbering form from across the darkened room.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Cortez awoke to movement in his bed.

  It was dark in the room and he could feel something up against his belly, something warm and soft. He could also hear a whispering voice, too. Without moving his head, he opened his eyes to little slits and looked down at the midsection of his bed, just in time to see Sophie standing there.

  She had something in her hands and as he struggled to focus in the darkness, he could see two kittens and a baby rabbit up against his torso. Sophie had the fox kit in her hands, telling it that it would be safe now as she put it next to the others. Then, she took hold of Cortez’s blanket and covered him back up with the baby animals nestled against his belly. Like any good mother, she was tucking them all in.

  “Sophie?” Cortez whispered. “What are you doing?”

  Sophie turned to Cortez and, seeing that he was awake, went over to stand next to his head. “I am putting them to bed with you,” she told him.

  “Why?”

  “Because they were afraid.”

  “I see,” he replied, looking at her sleepy little face. “How do you know they are afraid?”

  She turned and pointed to the cage, now open, nestled next to the nearly dark hearth. There was hardly any fire at all. “They were shivering,” she said. “They were afraid.”

  It was very cold in the room with the fire out and he suspected the animals weren’t afraid as much as they were simply cold. He thought he should get up and stoke the fire but didn’t want to move too much with four small animals tucked against his torso. He opened his mouth to say something but the stabs of tiny claws as the kittens happily kneaded the skin of his belly had him wincing. Cortez’s deep, dark secret was that he was ticklish as hell, and the baby claws were about to send him into fits.

  “Ugh,” he grunted as tiny stabs poked at him. He tossed the covers back and went straight for the scratching kittens, picking up the entire menagerie in one big hand. “Sophie, sweet, can you please bring the cage over here? We should put them back so I may rise.”

  Sophie obediently padded over to the cage on the floor and picked it up, bringing it over to him. Cortez took the cage, gently putting the animals back inside. Then he closed the door, sitting up on the bed. Both he and Sophie hovered over the cage, inspecting the little animals.

  “I will find them clean straw before we leave,” Cortez told her, looking at her little blond head. “Have you fed them yet this morning?”

  Sophie shook her head and Cortez patted her on the top of her soft hair, rising from the bed. His bare feet met with a very cold floor and he headed over to the fireplace to stir the embers a bit. As he moved, he happened to glance at the other bed only to realize that it was empty. Diamantha was missing. Fear gripped him.

  “Sophie,” he tried not to sound panicked. “Where is your mother?”

  Sophie shrugged. She was more interested in the animals. “She left.”

  Cortez was already yanking on his boots. “Where did she go?” he asked, fear in his tone. “Did she say where she was going, sweet?”

  Sophie shook her head again, her hands in the cage as she petted her kittens. Cortez didn’t linger. He secured his last boot and bolted to the door. He paused, however briefly, before exiting as he looked pointedly at Sophie.

  “You will say here,” he told the little girl. “Do you understand me? Stay in this room and do not leave.”

  Sophie nodded again and even looked at him, her big eyes staring straight at Cortez. He could only pray she understood what he was telling her, so he rushed out of the room and shut the door. As he seemed to recall, the child had a habit of slipping away. He didn’t want to have to turn the town upside-down looking for an errant little girl.

  There were soldiers in the small corridor and he headed straight for them. “Where did Lady de Bretagne go?” he demanded.

  The soldiers, three of them, pointed towards the stairs. “She went that way, my lord,” one of them said.

  Cortez was already moving to the rickety old stairs. “The little girl is still in the chamber,” he told them. “Make sure she stays there. In fact, one of you go into the room and sit with her. Keep her in your sight and keep her safe at all costs.”

  The soldiers nodded but Cortez didn’t stick around to confirm the understanding of his orders. He was already flyi
ng down the steps, his gaze searching out every corner of the common room looking for Diamantha. It was full of people sleeping on the floors, on the tables, but no sign of his wife. His wife. It still seemed odd to think that way. He had a wife again and it was the best feeling in the world. It was also the most vulnerable. He would have been devastated if something happened to her before he got the chance to truly know her. When she was out of his sight, he felt frantic. Vulnerable. As he charged towards the entry, he heard hissing behind him.

  Whirling around, he saw Diamantha coming in through the rear entrance to the tavern. She was gesturing at him, trying to get his attention. Relief such as he had never before experienced washed over him, rendering him weak. After a deep breath and a hard swallow to regain his composure, he went to her.

  “Where did you go?” he asked, trying not to sound demanding or accusing. “I woke up and you were gone.”

  Diamantha was back in her traveling clothes, the heavy dark blue woolen dress and cloak. In fact, she appeared refreshed and lovely in this early hour. She pointed to the door she had just come through.

  “The privy is outside,” she said softly. “Why? Where did you think I went?”

  He should have assumed it was something so simple. He knew she would never have run away, leaving her daughter behind, and felt rather foolish that he had reacted so. He put a hand on her elbow to escort her back to their chamber.

  “I thought a gang of savages had abducted you,” he said, trying to cover for his lack of faith. “I was coming to save you.”

  She smiled at him, an astonishingly beautiful gesture in the weak light of dawn. “Like you did last night?”

  He returned her smile. “For you, my lady, I would do that and more.”

  Her smile broadened at his rather gallant reply. “I did not thank you for your chivalry,” she said. Then, her smile faded. “I was a bit upset, I suppose. I have never had anything like that happen before.”

  His smile faded as well as he lifted his eyebrows, perhaps in resignation of a world full of dangers. “Hopefully you never will again,” he said as the reached the steps leading to the upper floor. “Which brings me to my next point, for your own safety, you should never go anywhere unescorted, even if it is to only find the privy.”

  She paused on the steps and looked at him. “Oh,” she said thoughtfully. “You are correct, I suppose. I did not think of it that way.”

  He nodded as he urged her up the stairs. “You said yourself that you’d not been out of Corfe much,” he said. “Traveling as we are, the road is wrought with dangers. You must trust that I know best in these things.”

  They reached the top of the stairs and she glanced at him. “After last night, I would say that you know a great deal more than I do about the world in general.”

  “It can be an unpredictable place.”

  “That is putting it mildly,” she agreed. “But I seem to be traveling with my own guardian angel and for that, I am truly grateful. You are a sight to behold in times of need.”

  He didn’t know what to say to that. It was a sweet compliment and one that made him nearly bashful… him, bashful? He didn’t think it was in his arrogant nature to be bashful, but evidently it was. Lady de Bretagne had brought that out in him with her gentle accolade. Therefore, for lack of a better reaction, he merely smiled at her as he took her back to the room where her daughter had let the animals out of their cage and they were now running wild in the room.

  As Diamantha dressed Sophie for the day, Cortez found himself wrangling baby animals and putting them back in their cage. But he didn’t really mind. Seeing Sophie’s happy smile when all of her animals were safe and sound somehow made it all worthwhile. In fact, waking up to her sweet little face had been one of the best things he’d ever done. He knew he could get used to it; he could grow to depend on it. That, and waking up to Diamantha every morning. There was something about that thought that seemed to make his entire life complete.

  As the sun began to break the eastern horizon to reveal a rather clear and bright day following an evening of a massive storm, Cortez and his party were on the road again, heading to points north.

  After the wild rains from the previous day, the brilliant blue day of travel seemed rather surreal. Everything was crisp and green, and more than once they saw fallow deer grazing in the meadows. The road, however, was rutted and still very muddy, making it difficult for the wagons to pass. Cortez’s soldiers had to keep breaking rank to get in behind the wagon carrying Sophie to push it out of a hole.

  Eventually, Sophie wanted to ride General, who had been growing very fat and lazy being led around and constantly fed by the soldier in charge of the horse provisions. About three hours since their departure from Shaftesbury, Cortez put Sophie on General and strapped her onto her little saddle. But Sophie wanted to ride with her cage of baby animals and Diamantha had to convince her daughter that it was best to let them remain in the wagon. Sophie wasn’t happy about it but she did as her mother instructed. After that, Diamantha took General’s reins and led the pony next to her.

  Unfortunately, horseback travel wasn’t particularly exciting for a three-year-old. Less than an hour after Cortez put her on General’s back, Sophie was growing restless. Diamantha tried to distract her daughter with butterfly or bird sightings, and that worked for a while, but then the little girl would grow restless again and ask for something to eat. She seemed to be growing increasingly restless until one of Cortez’s soldiers came to the rescue.

  Luckily, the quartermaster was nearby and, having two young boys of his own, understood how to handle a small child. He presented Sophie with a small bag of dried apples, which she happily ate. She wanted the quartermaster to give General some, and the man did. The pony ate them eagerly. All the while, the quartermaster walked next to Sophie and listened to the little girl’s chatter. Sophie seemed to like to chat with any man that would listen to her, as she had with Merlin on their trip from Corfe, and Diamantha knew it was because Sophie had been used to having her father and grandfather around. It gave the little girl comfort to have a man to talk to, a man who reminded her of her father. It was a bittersweet thing to watch.

  The day continued on and they stopped briefly for a meal around mid-day. The party paused by a rather large stream that fed into a crystalline lake, and as Diamantha stretched her legs, Sophie played contentedly with her cage of baby animals. Cortez lingered near them both, vigilantly watching over their personal safety, as his knights checked on the men, and inspected the soundness of all of the animals, before finally settling down to wolf down a quick meal.

  Diamantha watched how Cortez was with his knights. The man had a calm manner about him in both command and service, and it was clear how much his men respected him. As she sat back against a tree with the remnants of a nooning meal spread out next to her, she found herself watching Cortez as he interacted with his men, seeing flashes of humor or bouts with seriousness as they engaged in conversation. At one point, Sir Drake even provoked loud laughter, which was charming to see. The more Diamantha watched Cortez, the more charming she found him. Aye, that rude and aggressive man who had come to Corfe to claim her was changing before her eyes and she didn’t mind one bit. She was even coming to like it. But that was her last pleasant thought before a grimy hand went over her mouth.

  Startled, Diamantha yanked away from the hands that were grabbing her from behind the tree, screaming as loud as she could. Cortez and his men bolted, running in her direction, as the copse of trees behind her came alive with men wielding studded clubs. As they ran towards the knights, Diamantha managed to escape the hands that were clutching at her and ran straight for her daughter.

  Fortunately, Sophie was just a few feet away and she grabbed the girl, and her cage of baby animals, and made haste for the wagons upon the road. The quartermaster, being an older man who didn’t involve himself much in fighting unless absolutely necessary, bolted from his wagons and rushed forward to help her. As men with weapons
began to clash violently near the tree line, the quartermaster took the cage of animals from Diamantha, grabbed her by the elbow, and helped her up to the road where the wagons were.

  As Diamantha and Sophie sought shelter in the wagon, the quartermaster grabbed a sword he usually kept hidden for events just like this one. He stood next to the wagon, next to Diamantha and Sophie, with the sword in a defensive position as he watched the battle in the distance. And what a battle it was.

  Dornauld followed us. It didn’t take a genius to figure that out. Cortez knew it the instant he heard Diamantha scream and saw men with clubs emerging from the trees. Unfortunately, the shifty sheriff had delivered on one of his promises. He had brought at least a hundred men with him, men who were armed with those spiked clubs, and although Cortez and his men had very sharp and serious weapons, he knew they would be overwhelmed by sheer number.

  But it wasn’t in his nature to run. Cortez knew he had to beat Dornauld once and for all if they were ever going to have any peace. Therefore, he aimed for the sheriff as the man sat just inside the trees astride a fat white horse. But he didn’t make a move before shouting to the soldier nearest him.

  “Go back to the wagons and tell Bean to get the wagons moving,” he said. “Tell him to get the lady and her daughter out of here and head to Warminster. We will catch up once we’ve taken care of this fool and his men. And you go with them!”

  The soldier nodded sharply and was gone, running at top speed back to the wagons. When Cortez was certain the wagons were starting to move, thus removing them from danger, he turned back for Dornauld.

  Cortez had to fight his way through groups of battling men as he made his way towards the man on the round white horse. Around him, his knights were making short work of Dornauld’s less-experienced men, cutting off limbs and heads with skill and ease. Very shortly, the battle had turned into a blood bath, and all of it spilled by Dornauld’s men. Cortez was growing more furious with each successive step that the fool sheriff was bold enough to attack them on the road. Damn the idiot! He intended to make the man pay.