Blades of Valor

by Sigmund Brouwer

  Katherine wept freely. Though she was not alone in the Tower prison cell, her cries went unheard. The other occupant of the cell was Thomas, unconscious. Moments before, two guards had dragged him in. His head sagged like a broken puppet’s. They had shackled him to his place along the wall.

  Now, the chains kept him from falling forward completely, though his hands, attached to the chains, reached behind his back at an unnatural angle. Katherine hardly dared guess how much it tore his muscles to have his entire weight straining so awkwardly against his chest and arms.

  She reached for his face.

  She didn’t need the clank of chains that followed her every movement to remind her that it was impossible. From where she stood, she could only move a foot away from the wall. Her own wrists were shackled, and even with lifted arms reaching and pushing against the chain, her fingers stopped inches short of Thomas’s face.

  “My love,” she cried, “awaken. Please.”

  He did not.

  Tears streamed down her cheeks. For five days, the guards had taken him away during midmorning. For five days, they returned him less than an hour later. Each time he had been placed unconscious in those chains. Each time it had taken longer to rouse him.

  She longed to touch his face. In sudden rage, Katherine yanked her chains, uncaring of the stabbing pain of the cruel metal of the shackles biting into the softness of her wrist. But her fingers fell tantalizing inches short.

  “Thomas,” she whispered again. “Please. Please look at me.”

  In the quiet, a rat rustled in the straw at her feet. She cared little. Rats were as common as the fleas, and her attention was on Thomas’s pale face, motionless in the sunlight that fell through a high, narrow window.

  Thomas stirred. Groaned. Blinked. And slowly found his feet.

  “Katherine,” he croaked. Joy filled his voice. “You are still here.”

  She turned her head so that he would not see the tears. How could he think of her first when they inflicted so much pain upon him?

  “I am still here,” she said, her voice muffled by the hair that clung to her wet cheeks.

  “It is my worst nightmare. That I will return here and find you gone. I … I … could not bear this prison alone.”

  “Nor I,” she said simply.

  She brought her face around again to the sound of the shuffling of his chains.

  They stared at each other.

  Thomas brought his hand up, as she did hers, but the chains brought them short. Their fingertips could get no closer than six inches apart.

  “I dreamed you called me ‘my love,’ ” Thomas said.

  “I did,” Katherine replied. She waited long moments, as if debating whether to speak. “It is a subject we have avoided,” she said. “My love for you. Yours, I pray, for me. My own fear was this. To declare love for you yet be helpless against the Druids.”

  “We are not helpless,” Thomas vowed. “For I have not revealed to the torturers the secrets of my childhood monastery.”

  “But to save your life …”

  “No. Sir William hinted that my knowledge could turn the final battle. To reveal it now means my life is worthless.”

  “Yet—”

  “No, Katherine. There is no ‘yet.’ ” He grinned. Blood trickled from one corner of his mouth. “We shall watch for escape.”

  Anger seemed to strengthen his voice. “I have said it before. We shall watch for escape. Then, we shall return to the monastery, and I will solve the final puzzle, find what it is the Druids so badly seek! With that, they shall be defeated. Dreaming of this final crushing blow sustains me.”

  The effort of rage cost him his reserves of energy. Briefly, he sagged again against the chains. “Then we shall talk of our love,” he finished softly.

  This time, Katherine made no attempt to hide her tears.

  Thomas gritted his teeth and clenched his fists. Anger once more gave him strength to stand upright.

  “Katherine,” he began. “Do not despair. You will see a chance for escape. Or I will.” His voice rose again. “All we need do is reach the monastery.”

  Forty-Five

  Isabelle looked up from the bolts of wedding dress material to watch Rowan through the window. It warmed her heart to see him scowl from his post at the door at any passerby that he deemed suspicious or a possible threat to her.

  It began to sprinkle rain.

  Isabelle called, “Rowan, come inside.”

  He poked his head inside the shop. “No, m’lady.”

  She had learned he was too stubborn to sway.

  He remained in place as if it were the sunniest of days, and he staunchly waited another hour until she reappeared.

  By then, the rain had ceased, and Rowan’s hair had dried.

  “M’lady,” Rowan said gravely as they began to walk down the cobblestone toward the waiting carriage, “we must talk.”

  “Talk?” Her mind was on the misery ahead of her. The dress would be ready in two days, and the day after, she would be the Duchess of Whittingham.

  “I can see you are not happy,” he said. “ ’Tis the marriage ahead of you.”

  “There was a time,” she confessed, “when I had hoped for another.”

  She could not explain to Rowan that she meant Thomas. For that would begin to unravel all the lies she had told Rowan about the need to stop Thomas in the Holy Land.

  “Have you not the right to refuse this marriage?” Rowan asked.

  “It has been arranged,” Isabelle said. There was much more to it than that, of course. The secret society of Druids. Her role. Waleran’s role. “It is how life is.”

  “But once the king had complete rule,” Rowan said. “And now he assembles a parliament to vote on matters. Things change. What if you refused to marry?”

  “My father is Lord Mewburn. This marriage is for political alliance. If I refuse, it would be a direct challenge to my father’s power, and he would not allow it, for it would make him look weak. I would be banished from the household, and when the money that I have is gone, I would be forced to live as a peasant or a working girl. Craft guilds rarely allow women. I would spend all my days spinning wool or selling fish.”

  “Is that not worth the price of freedom?” Rowan asked. “The castle and position as the Duchess of Whittingham is a prison, is it not?”

  “I have no choice but to obey my father.”

  “You just told me you have a choice. And I’ve learned how much knowledge you have in medicines and potions. You could be a healer, helping others as you have selflessly helped me.”

  Isabelle couldn’t think of a suitable reply. The boy in front of her had no idea that she had deceived him from the beginning, simply so that she could have a trusted guide.

  Rowan continued, “When you get into the carriage, m’lady, I will not accompany you.”

  She tilted her head, puzzled. She’d come to rely on Rowan’s loyalty as something as sure as the rising of the sun.

  A tear trickled down his face. “I heard the duke tell you that the only way I would get an audience with the Harcourt family is if you become the Duchess of Whittingham. Your happiness is more important to me than my own. I have decided that I must leave your side and depend on others to defend you. With me gone, you may then more easily decide to refuse to become the duke’s wife.”

  “Rowan,” Isabelle said, “I do not have your bravery. I am afraid of a life beyond the castle. Without money and power and position, life would become too uncertain. I am fated to become the Duchess of Whittingham, so stay with me and I will petition the Harcourt family.”

  “You do have bravery,” Rowan said. “I trust in your goodness.”

  He knelt on one knee and bowed his head to her, as if he truly were a knight. Then he rose and walked away without looking back.

  Forty-Six

  A key turned in the lock.

  A huge, surly guard—the one who shoved food at them daily—kicked open the door. From behind him, a blare
of royal trumpets.

  “Make way for the king!” came a shout. A courtier dashed inside the prison cell.

  Then, without further fanfare, King Edward II, the reigning monarch of all of England, stepped through the doorway.

  He was a tall, powerfully built man with fair skin and reddish-blond hair. He carried the royal scepter, so brilliantly studded with jewels of all colors that his purple robes and white fur collar seemed poor in comparison.

  He stood still and stared at them, his face completely empty of all emotion.

  Katherine felt a shiver go through her. This man need only lift a finger, and we are free. Or dead.

  “This is the traitor with the tongue of stone,” King Edward observed.

  “Your Majesty, I—” Thomas began to say.

  The guard reached out and slapped Thomas across the face.

  “One does not address His Majesty unless asked a direct question,” the courtier declared.

  “I am not—”

  Another slap. This one rocked Thomas back against the wall.

  Katherine’s eyes filled with tears again.

  “I am not a traitor!” Thomas roared.

  The guard prepared to strike Thomas again.

  “Enough,” King Edward said. He moved forward to examine Thomas.

  “I am told our best men cannot break your spirit.”

  Thomas raised his head tall and met the king’s eyes. “Innocence gives strength, m’lord.”

  “Indeed,” King Edward said noncommittally. He turned to examine Katherine.

  “And you are as beautiful as the rumors hint.”

  Then he walked away from them both and filled the doorway again.

  “I have heard many declarations of innocence,” King Edward said. “From men as brave as you. From men who have endured the very chains you wear. Indeed, often I think it takes greater bravery to be a traitor than to serve the king. For traitors know the terrible price they will pay.”

  Katherine’s eyes were on Thomas. He opened his mouth to speak.

  “No.” With the full weight of royal authority, King Edward’s command halted any words. “There is nothing you can say to convince me. The Duke of Whittingham has told me enough, and if I cannot trust him …” King Edward shrugged. “If I cannot trust him, my kingdom is worthless.”

  Katherine wanted to shriek. But it would sound like the raving of a lunatic, any talk of Druids and Immortals and kingdom-wide conspiracies. Without the book, they had no hope of presenting their case. In chains, against the word of the king’s chamberlain, they had even less hope.

  King Edward fixed Thomas with a hard stare. Then Katherine.

  “Why am I here, you might well ask, for I refuse to hear your case.” King Edward paused. “Not for curiosity, be assured.”

  His voice became quiet with menace.

  “My son has been kidnapped,” he said. “I have many enemies, all linked to the prisoners here, and I am here to tell each prisoner the same, so that word may spread and my son be returned. My royal proclamation is this. Edward III will be returned safe within a week, or all prisoners within the Tower shall be beheaded.”

  Thomas and Katherine were fed twice each day. In the morning, their guard brought a bowl of thin, fly-specked porridge. In the early evening, it was bread, often holey with beetle burrows, and a bowl of beans boiled to mush. There was nothing unexpected about the guard’s arrival for the evening meal. He would jangle his keys for several minutes and fumble with the lock, then kick the door open, and grunt his way into the cell.

  The guard was so large that he had to squeeze sideways to get inside. That action usually forced him to spill a major portion from the bowls he juggled. Worse, he enjoyed too much beer throughout the afternoon, and this led to more unsteadiness. That he always drank too much was evident by the foul breath that somehow overwhelmed the usual stench of the cramped prison cell. His eyes were bleary and his nose a brilliant red. Because he was so large, most of his movements inside the small cell meant collision with Katherine or Thomas.

  Three nights closer to the eve of their execution, Katherine and Thomas received their usual warning of his arrival.

  The door clanged open and the guard struggled through. This time, however, he strained harder than normal to wheeze air into his lungs. His eyes were unfocused and his entire face the red usually restricted only to his nose.

  He bent to place one bowl at Thomas’s feet and barely managed to keep his balance. He then turned to Katherine. He smiled uncertainly and his breath made her choke. His large, stubbled face loomed closer, his double chins wobbling.

  I’m glad my stomach is so pinched, she thought, for this sight would dull the keenest hunger.

  Her thoughts turned to sudden alarm. For the ugly face did not stop its approach.

  This is not an attempted kiss!

  It was not.

  The big man sagged forward and fell into Katherine. His bearlike arms engulfed her.

  “Thomas!” she tried to shout, but the guard’s weight suffocated any words that might have left her lungs.

  The stench of his unwashed clothing gagged her, the rubbery feel of his flesh nauseated her, and still he pressed against her into the wall.

  She tried to beat her arms against his chest, but she was pinned too securely. Yet his weight was passive, as if he were not attacking, but had …

  … collapsed?

  As if answering her thoughts, he rolled downward and fell in a heap at her feet.

  Katherine found herself staring at the ring of keys on the guard’s belt.

  She hardly believed this might be real. Slowly, she reached down and tugged on the keys.

  The guard did not respond.

  It took Katherine less than a minute to find the key that unshackled her wrists.

  Forty-Seven

  Home!” Thomas shouted. “I … am … home!”

  His long-drawn-out words echoed throughout the valley below from where Katherine and he stood at a vantage point among the shadows of large rocks.

  The valley itself was narrow and compressed, with more rock and stunted trees on the slopes than sweet grass and sheep, a direct contrast to the richer and wider valleys to the south. Like most of the land around, it belonged to a large order of Cistercian monks. Yet unlike the land farther south, the valley had proven over time barely worth the investment of an obscure abbey hall, library, and living quarters made from stone quarried directly from the nearby hills.

  From their vantage point, towering trees blurred the walls of the abbey hall. It was, as Katherine knew, the monastery where Thomas had been raised, forced to pretend he was an orphan.

  “Home!” he shouted again. Birds scattered from a nearby bush.

  “Thomas!” She tried to sound angry but could not. His joy was too contagious. After all, they had survived a hurried trek through most of England to reach these moors so close to Magnus.

  “There is none to hear me,” Thomas said. “The monks have long since left.” He grinned. “You’ll remember the cause of that.”

  She did. It had been the start of his path to conquering Magnus, the beginning of all that had led to this moment above the valley.

  “Come on,” he whispered, as if conspiring. “Let me show you the way.”

  Thomas moved quickly from the exposed summit into the trees. Thomas gave ample proof that he knew every path; he would approach a seemingly solid stand of brush, then slip sideways into an invisible opening among the jagged branches and later reappear quietly farther down the hill.

  “Hurry!” he called.

  Why, he is almost skipping like a boy.

  Katherine smiled at his enthusiasm. No matter their troubles, here was a time to set them aside and for a moment enjoy the sunshine, the feel of grass against her ankles, the babble of the tiny river that ran past the abbey.

  Their first destination was not the abbey itself.

  Instead, Thomas moved directly to the river and stood at its bank. The moss of the ro
cks beneath the water waved in the current like tails of tiny fish.

  “You know about the cave, do you not?” Thomas asked her.

  Katherine nodded. “Hawkwood and I once waited for you here. It was agony, to not be sure whether you were Druid or Immortal, to not be able to simply join you instead of follow.”

  “We are together now.” He said it in such a dismissive way that Katherine sensed he did not want to discuss the reason for that mistrust.

  If his mother had not died while training him to be one of us, she would have been able to impart so many more secrets as he came of age. Instead, her death left Thomas to struggle long in the belief that he was alone in pursuing his destiny. And we, in our isolation, feared that the Druids had found him in this obscure abbey and had managed to turn him against us.

  When Katherine looked at Thomas again, she saw his eyes were closed, his head bowed.

  Minutes later, he lifted his head again. “She was a remarkable woman,” Thomas finally said. “There is much that I owe her.”

  Then, perhaps to dispel the somber mood, he smiled. “Never would I have dreamed that I would regard this abbey with fondness.”

  He pointed past the abbey. “The pond there? Many were the times I could not be found by those wretched monks. Little did they know I was beneath the water, that I excelled at breathing through a reed.”

  He pointed at the massive gray walls of the abbey itself. “My bedchamber was there, that tiny window. I slept on a straw mattress placed atop a great wooden trunk. At nights, I escaped down those walls.”

  He laughed at the surprise on her face. “There are enough cracks between the stones for a determined boy to find room for fingers and toes.”

  She laughed with him. And marveled at how his usually stormy eyes seemed almost blue beneath the clear skies.

  What a dream. That he and I could one day be together and never be on guard. If only our last desperate actions will—

  “We have stood here long enough?” Thomas asked.

  She nodded.

  Thomas turned and led her to the cave.

  Several bends upstream from the abbey hall, comfortably shaded by large oaks, stood a jumble of rocks and boulders, some as large as a peasant’s hut. Among them, nature had created a dry, cool cave, its narrow entrance concealed by jutting slabs of granite and bushes rising from softer ground below.