From This Moment On

by Lynn Kurland

  “You are in earnest about this,” she said, somewhat dumbfounded.

  He blinked in surprise and paused in midswing. “Of course I am. Did you think I would pass all those hours driving skill into you only to have it wasted?”

  “But that was then.”

  “And this is now. And as you said, you may be the one guarding the castle now and then. Best you know how to defend yourself if I’m not there to do it for you. Besides,” he said thoughtfully, “you’re becoming a fairly passable swordsman. With enough time, you could likely take on a less skilled knight and do him in.”

  “Think you?” she asked, surprised.

  “Well,” he said doubtfully, “perhaps a less skilled knight without mail who’d spent the night wenching and drinking himself into a stupor. But,” he added quickly, “those are often the most dangerous kind of men, for they’ve no head for chivalry or proper knightly conduct on the battlefield.”

  She tipped her sword down, crossed over to him, and leaned up to kiss him softly.

  “You needn’t fear bruising my feelings,” she said, smiling up at him. “I’ll learn what I can and hopefully it will serve me, but I won’t weep if I’m not your equal in swordplay.”

  He looked so relieved that she put her arms around him and hugged him. She rested her head against his chest and marveled. That she should embrace him so easily showed how much she had grown to trust him.

  Indeed, she couldn’t help but spare a wish that she’d wed him two years earlier when she’d had the chance.

  She pulled back. “I don’t know that I’ve properly apologized for bolting on you,” she admitted.

  “You did what you thought best. I can’t fault you for it, being well acquainted with my reputation myself.”

  “I wasted these two years for the both of us.” She looked up at him seriously. “What if our lives are cut short? We’ll never have those two years back—”

  “We won’t have them back,” he agreed, “and no one can guarantee how long life will last. But we can wring every drop of living from the days we do have together. Who knows, perhaps I can terrify Fate into giving us years upon years,” he said pleasantly. “Otherwise, we’ll just have to make do. And you know, it grows a bit warm out here. Mayhap we should seek out a bit of shade in the monk’s garden and—”

  Ali would have agreed with him, but she didn’t have the chance.

  As if the very hedge had sprouted souls and propelled them into the field, the little area where they stood was suddenly filled with men brandishing swords.

  “Back to back!” Colin shouted.

  Ali turned, her sword in her hand, and pressed herself up against Colin. She felt Colin swinging, hacking, thrusting, but she could do nothing more than hold her sword in front of her, point outward, and pray she didn’t have to use it.

  “Aliénore, fight!”

  “Aye, Aliénore, fight,” called a voice from her right. “Fight like a man.”

  Ali looked to see Sir Etienne holding himself out of the fray. He stood with his arms folded across his chest, smiling in a most unpleasant manner. By the saints, what did the man want? Revenge?

  It was then that she noticed something quite odd.

  Men were standing nearby—as near as they apparently dared when facing her sword—but they made no move to fight her.

  Well, except one who only missed decapitating her because Colin had bumped her elbow and her sword went up at the appropriate time and blocked his swing.

  “Not her,” one of the men shouted. “Just him.”

  “Aye,” said another, “we’d be just nabbing her. But don’t kill him either, else he won’t be able to give us his gold!”

  Ali squeaked as she found herself quite suddenly grabbed by the neck of her tunic and dragged across the field. It all happened so quickly and she was so paralyzed with fear that she could only breathe again once movement had stopped. Colin, who had practically carried her over to the hedge and backed her into it, was standing in front of her, swinging with his usual joyful abandon.

  “All right, whoresons,” he said, with a chortle of delight, “who’s next? Only eleven of you? A pity. I’d hoped for more.”

  Ali spared time for a brief prayer, then put up her sword and pulled her dagger from her boot. She wasn’t sure if she should continue to stare at Colin’s back, or turn herself around that she might counter an attack from behind the hedge. A quick look around Colin’s large form revealed that Sir Etienne stood in his same place, looking smug. His men, and she saw only three in Solonge’s colors, were apparently trying to decide if they should rush Colin as a group or come at him singly.

  Ali could have advised them, but decided not to, for obvious reasons.

  A group of three chose to come first. A thrust, a swipe, and a two-handed cleave sent those men speedily into the next life.

  The remainder of the men huddled together and consulted.

  “Should I run for aid?” Ali asked breathlessly.

  Colin threw her a disgusted look over his shoulder, then bounced on the balls of his feet. “Only eight left,” he said dismissively. “Plus the arrogant fool there. Light exercise, beloved. Not to worry.”

  Five mustered themselves together. Those, however, weren’t the ones who sent chills down Ali’s spine. Colin could take them on easily. It was the remaining three who started for the gate in the hedge that concerned her. Were they making for her? She contemplated her sword. Perhaps with two blades she would not be such an easy mark.

  Colin was obviously not oblivious to the feeble plotting going on around him. He threw himself into the fray with nothing more than a “Draw your blade, Aliénore,” tossed over his shoulder. She did, but found it exceedingly difficult to do anything but watch her husband.

  And be very glad she’d never come at him with his death on her mind.

  He had little trouble plying his trade on the five who faced him. They fell into heaps, some missing limbs, some simply giving forth unwholesome screams of terror before they expired. And through it all, Colin’s blade flashed in the sunlight in a way that seemed to stop not only her, but the remaining three lads in their tracks.

  That was their mistake. Colin bounded over and engaged them before they managed to get through the gate.

  Ali looked about her to see how Sir Etienne was taking the decimation of his little army.

  Only to find him gone.

  She whirled around and saw him clambering over the very prickly hedge directly behind her. She backed up, her blade in front of her, her dagger clutched in her hand.

  “Colin, help!” she squeaked.

  There was more screaming behind her, then three more quick, cut-off shouts.

  And then silence.

  She couldn’t have cared less. Sir Etienne was standing not five feet in front of her and he had already knocked her sword from her hands.

  “Haven’t learned your lessons yet, have you?” he sneered.

  He reached out and grabbed for her.

  She buried her dagger in his forearm.

  She might have been pleased with herself, but when he, howling, pulled his arm back, her dagger went with it.

  But before she could commence praying, or screaming for aid, she found herself pulled around a very large form she recognized quite readily.

  “We meet again,” Colin said pleasantly. “Any more of your lads to see to, or is it just you left?”

  Sir Etienne snarled out a curse. “You’ll find me work enough, I daresay.”

  Ali looked behind her and saw nothing but things the farmer would most certainly not be pleased about having to clean up. Eleven bodies were scattered across the field. There were no other signs of life save Jason of Artane, who leaned on the hedge, looking faintly interested. And beside him, Blackmour’s three healers, wearing various looks ranging from alarm on Magda’s face to amazement on Nemain’s.

  “Can’t believe he managed to wed her,” Nemain said, with an elbow thrown in Jason’s side. “Did you brew him a
convincing potion to use on her?”

  “He did it, if you can believe it, all on his own,” Jason said dryly.

  “Well, I don’t believe it,” Nemain said. “You’ve been experimenting without my permission.”

  “I have not.”

  “Aye, you have, lad, and I’ll have all the details or you’ll regret it.”

  “Aliénore,” Berengaria called, “perhaps you’d care to watch from here.”

  Ali did care to watch from there. Colin made a shooing motion with his hand and flashed her a brief, happy smile, so she had no qualms about leaving him to his business. She joined Jason and his companions safely out of the field.

  “Oh,” Magda said, tapping her spoon nervously against the hedge, “I do hope he doesn’t trip over any of those bodies.”

  “He’s accustomed to that,” Jason said.

  “Powerful fierce, that one,” Nemain agreed. She fixed Aliénore with a steely glance. “How is he at his, you know, husbandly duties? Adequate?”

  Aliénore spluttered, but found nothing to say.

  “I could brew him a potion, you know,” Nemain offered.

  “Nemain, cease,” Berengaria chided. “Aliénore looks happy, Colin looks his normal self, and I daresay all is well with their marriage. You’re distracting me from the swordplay.”

  Ali couldn’t tear her gaze away from her husband. Jason had it aright. The corpses cooling behind him didn’t seem to bother him. Nor did the pair of blades Sir Etienne threw at him. Colin batted them away with his sword as if they’d been annoying flies. But as interesting as that was, it wasn’t nearly as riveting as what Sir Etienne was spewing as he fought.

  “I’ll have your gold,” he boasted. “I deserve it. I deserve to be lord of a fine castle.”

  “Do you indeed?” Colin asked pleasantly.

  “More so than you.”

  “And how is it you intend to buy your castle?” Colin asked. “Or do you intend to murder someone and set yourself up in his place?”

  “It’s been done before.”

  “Aye, quite successfully,” Colin agreed. “And with whom by your side? The lovely and always fatal Marie?”

  Sir Etienne shook his head. “She’s dead.”

  “Is she?” Colin asked in surprise. “How’s that?”

  “Found her a few days ago being attacked by ruffians.”

  “Didn’t you offer her aid?”

  “She fell into the fire. I put out the flames before I left.”

  “Kind of you.”

  “She betrayed me. I didn’t like that.”

  “No one ever does.”

  Ali felt a wave of relief sweep through her. If Marie was dead, then Sir Etienne was the last one who wanted her dead. Or in his thrall, as it were. Unless, of course, Colin had enemies.

  But Ali couldn’t imagine that.

  After all, they were likely all dead as well.

  “It grows hot,” Jason called. “Finish him quickly, won’t you?”

  “I have a few things to repay him for,” Colin said pleasantly. “You needn’t stay to watch if you’re too feeble to do so.”

  Jason looked at Ali. “I have a wound.”

  “So you’ve said.”

  He scowled at her, then turned back to the fray and shook his head. “I wouldn’t want to be Sir Etienne.”

  “I don’t think he wants to be himself,” she mused.

  “How so?” he asked.

  “I think he’d much rather be Colin,” she said, looking at him with a faint smile. “I daresay he’s a little jealous.”

  “And who wouldn’t be with you as his wife?”

  “If you can’t stop slobbering over my wife, Jason,” Colin bellowed, “go back to the hall!”

  “No hound ever created has ears like he does,” Jason muttered. “The things I’ve regretting muttering over the years . . .”

  Ali smiled, then felt her smile fade. Aye, Sir Etienne deserved his fate, but apparently Colin was deeply in earnest about exacting revenge for Sir Etienne’s treatment of her.

  What a lengthy and thorough revenge it was.

  The sun slipped down, yet still they fought. Sir Etienne bled from dozens of wounds, but still he wouldn’t concede. Concede to what, was perhaps the question to be asked. It wasn’t as if Colin would let him live; of that Ali was certain.

  “You will,” Colin said finally, his chest heaving, “never be the swordsman I am.”

  Sir Etienne spat at him.

  “Because there is no mercy in your soul,” Colin finished.

  “And there is in yours?” Sir Etienne panted.

  “Aye. I know when to finish my opponents.”

  And, apparently, he did. Ali watched as Sir Etienne fell to the ground, twitched, and then was still. Colin stood over him for several minutes, then leaned down and closed his eyes. Then he straightened and walked across the field. He was as covered in blood as were the rest of the men lying there, but Ali suspected very little of it was his.

  “A poultice or two?” Berengaria asked mildly. “For the scratches, of course.”

  “A bath,” Nemain advised.

  “A proper soothing draught,” Magda promised. “I’ll see to it myself.”

  Colin walked through the gate, stopped before Ali, and looked down at her gravely.

  “I daresay, my lady, that you can now rest easy.”

  “Thank you, my lord.”

  “We could, however, still hone your skills with a sword.”

  “Aye,” she agreed. “I did not show well today.”

  “There were many of them and few of us. You’re allowed a bit of fear your first time in battle. You’re still standing. That is enough.”

  Jason snorted so hard, he coughed. “What is this?” he demanded. “I’ve never had such kind words from the man.”

  Colin spared him a brief glance. “I’m not wed to you—the saints be praised. Besides, Aliénore hasn’t had your training. I expect less from her.”

  “And you also want a place to sleep tonight that isn’t with the monks,” Jason groused.

  “That too.” Colin nodded toward the monastery. “My lady, if you will? Perhaps there is actually something on the cooking fire that we might ingest. I daresay we deserve it.”

  Ali took his hand despite his hesitation, and walked with him back to the guest hall. She spared a final glance over her shoulder and found herself quite glad she would never have to trample over that bloody field again.

  But equal with that feeling was the gratitude that the terror was over. Marie was dead and so was Sir Etienne. She could sleep in peace, walk outside the gates with no fear, look forward to many happy years with her husband without worrying that her two foes might appear and end her life.

  She squeezed Colin’s hand. “Thank you.”

  He looked down at her and smiled briefly. “For you, lady, gladly.”

  “It has been a very long road to this place, hasn’t it?” she asked, feeling rather wistful all of a sudden.

  “Aye,” he said, squeezing her hand, “but the end has certainly been worth the journey. Wouldn’t you say?”

  Aye, she certainly would.

  And now such a happy and peaceful road before them.

  She wondered what she possibly could have done to have deserved it, but she wasn’t going to argue with Fate. She would take that peaceful road with her husband and walk it gratefully.

  Chapter 42

  Colin found himself, once again, on his horse. It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy riding, or traveling a bit, for that matter. It was that instead of riding alone with his bride, looking forward to a goodly bit of peace and quiet in his own hall, he seemed to have acquired a following of immense proportions that couldn’t seem to detach themselves from his pleasant company. And if that weren’t enough, he was expecting guests from Blackmour when he reached Berkham!

  It was enough to prompt him to ask Aliénore if she minded a fortnight or two in a tent far away from either her family or his.

 
; Now, seeing Christopher, Gillian, and their lads was actually something to anticipate with a bit of relish. They were fine company and Colin looked forward to telling Christopher of the ease with which he’d wooed and won his bride. The lads were a joy as well and he’d missed their antics and youthful amusements. Gillian, he supposed, would have much still to say about his manners, but he supposed he could steel himself for her onslaught. She would be good company for Aliénore, and he found himself incapable of begrudging his wife whatever it was she might want at the moment.

  Aliénore’s father he could tolerate as well. The man had turned out to be a fine talker. And his healthy respect for Colin’s reputation led him to say nothing amiss nor give any trouble.

  A pity his own sire couldn’t have had the same said for him.

  Colin gritted his teeth as another complaint came his way with the speed and accuracy of a bolt shot from close range.

  “Nay,” Colin said, turning and glaring at his sire, “you may not have the lord’s chamber. You may gather your belongings, bid fond farewell to your favorite serving wenches, and contemplate your remaining years spent in prayer for your black soul!”

  “You cannot remove me from my own keep!”

  “Shall we settle this in the lists?” Colin asked pointedly.

  “You,” Reginald said, pointing a trembling finger at him, “are a reprehensible son!”

  “You’re right,” Colin snapped.

  “A good son would see to his father.”

  “As you’ve already said, I’m not a good son. So go live with Ermengarde. I’ll see her dowered lavishly and settled in Harrowden keep.”

  Ermengarde made exclamations of pleasure. Reginald continued to grumble, but it was in a much lower tone.

  “That way the miserable whoreson can be put in the monastery close by if he gives them any trouble,” Colin muttered under his breath.

  “I heard that!”

  Aliénore laughed softly. Colin looked at her and noted the expression of affection on her face. Such a thing was so strange to see on any woman’s face, he found that he often looked at her just to see if she wore it.

  Which she did.

  And quite often, truth be told.

  He found that he simply could not look away from her. She was lovely, she was well-witted, and she was his.