Cortez looked at him strangely. “What… what do you mean you did not bury him?” he asked, now gravely concerned. “What did you do with his body?”
The priest lifted his shoulders. “But he is no’ dead!”
Cortez had no idea what the man was talking about and he began to grow agitated. “Of course this man is dead,” he said. “He had a gaping chest wound. It would have killed him. What did you do with him?”
The priest shook his head and grabbed him by the wrist. “The man who wore this tunic is no’ dead,” he insisted. “He is upstairs with the rest of the wounded.”
Cortez had never run so fast in his entire life.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The priest was calling after him. In fact, most of his men were calling after him, but Cortez ignored them. He mounted the stairs to the second floor faster than he had ever moved in his life, ignoring the sounds of running boots behind him as his men overtook the priest and practically shoved the man down the stairs in their haste to get to Cortez. They thought he had gone mad and were desperate to get to him. They hadn’t heard what Cortez had heard. All they knew was that he was running like the devil.
The dormitories on the second floor were divided into a bigger dormitory and a smaller one. The smaller dormitory was directly to the right at the top of the stairs and it was the first room Cortez burst into. Immediately, he could see several beds in the room, shoved close together so they could get as many men as possible in the room, and he could see that the beds had occupants. As the priest came in behind him, Cortez turned to the priest and barked.
“Where in the name of God is he?” he roared.
Frightened, the priest pointed to the bed in the corner, back by an alcove that had a big drape across it. Cortez turned in the direction of the bed. All he could see was a body in it but not much else. Rushing to the bed, he threw back the rough linen coverlet only to be confronted with something he’d never thought he’d ever see again.
Robert Edlington in the flesh.
With a cry, one of anguish and utter, complete astonishment, Cortez fell to his knees next to the bed. He stared at Robert, who didn’t look like the man he knew. He was sporting a massive growth of beard and his dark blond hair was long and unkempt. The mustache he had taken such pride in was blending in with the rest of the hair on his face. His eyes were sunk deep into his skull and he was at least one hundred pounds lighter than the last time Cortez had seen him. He didn’t look like himself at all, little and shriveled and skeletal, but as Cortez’s knights came up behind him, he could hear each one of them gasping in turn. Edlington! Christ, it’s Edlington!
Cortez didn’t know what to say. He sat there on his knees, staring at the man who was just starting to come around. He was feeling so much anguish that it was eating him alive. He was so selfish, he knew, to think that Edlington’s life meant death for his marriage to Diamantha. If the man wasn’t dead, then Diamantha was still married to him. His Diamantha. As he sat on his knees, watching Robert’s eyes flutter open, he began to openly weep. It was the worst day of his life.
Robert’s vision wasn’t what it used to be and neither were his reflexes, but when he opened his eyes and saw Cortez next to his bed with tears streaming down his face, he stared at the man for a full minute before reacting, and he only reacted at that point because he saw Keir St. Héver kneel down next to Cortez. Up until that moment in time, he wasn’t entire sure he hadn’t been dreaming. But now, he was coming to realize that it was no dream at all.
“Cortez?” he asked weakly. “My God, is it you?”
Cortez nodded, tears rolling down his cheeks as Keir put an arm around his shoulders to comfort him. Cortez didn’t seem to be able to speak so Keir answered softly.
“Robert,” he whispered. “We thought you were dead, man, and here we find you alive? ’Tis a miracle!”
Robert looked at Keir, blinking his eyes rapidly. “St. Héver?” he groaned. “What… what are you doing here?”
Keir reached out and grasped Robert’s fleshy arm. “We came to bring you home for burial,” he said, his pale blue eyes glittering. “We thought you were dead and we came to find your corpse and bring you home for burial.”
“Diamantha wanted you to come home,” Cortez found his voice, feeling so much grief that he was having difficulty functioning. “I came here to bring you home because she wanted it.”
Robert just stared at him, growing more lucid as he began to realize what was going on. “Diamantha?” he whispered. “My wife… she has sent you?”
Cortez couldn’t help it. It was an emotional rage like nothing he had ever known. “My wife,” he hissed through clenched teeth as tears and spittle when flying. “You asked me to marry her, remember? You begged me to do it and I did. She is my wife.”
Keir had hold of Cortez, eyeing his friend with great concern. “Cortez,” he whispered, his heart breaking for the man. “You cannot blame him. He did not plan it this way.”
As Cortez struggled, Robert’s hand shot out and he grabbed Cortez by the arm. “You married her?” he breathed.
Cortez nodded, so very miserable. “I did,” he whispered. “I married her. I love her. She is my wife.”
As Keir tried to quiet him, Robert yanked on his arm with as much strength as he could muster.
“Good!” Robert cried, his voice sounding strange and weak. “You married her and for that I am glad. Glad, do you hear? I am half a man, Cortez; look at me. The priests were miraculously able to save my life but at what cost? I cannot walk or move. I lay in this bed day after day, praying for death. Diamantha does not deserve what I have become and I could not bear to be such a burden to her. You must not tell her that you found me, do you hear? You will not tell her!”
Cortez burst into sobs. “How can you ask me not to tell her?” he wept. “You are her husband and she has mourned you deeply. You are her rightful husband, not I. It is you!”
“Nay!” Robert rasped, trying to grab on to Cortez with two hands now. He was desperate. “You will not tell her! She cannot see what I have become, a wasted shell of a man! She must remember me how I was! It is the only chance I have to know peace, knowing she remembers me as her strong husband and not as a crippled invalid. Please, Cortez. Grant me this mercy. You must not tell her!”
It was a gut-wrenching situation to all concerned. Cortez’s knights watched the scene with tremendous anguish; Robert, for not wanting Diamantha to see him as a cripple, and Cortez for understanding that Robert was her rightful husband. Both men were weeping, filling the air with their utter and complete torment. The pain in the room was a palpable thing, cutting through them like the blades of a thousand knives. No one was immune. Suffering was everywhere.
Drake watched the scene with his hands on his head in agony while James stood there and wept. Oliver, who had once been a good friend of Robert’s, had to go to the other end of the room. He slumped against the wall, heartbroken and crushed. There wasn’t a dry eye in the chamber as Cortez and Robert vented their mutual anguish. Keir, next to Cortez, reached out and grasped Robert’s hand.
“No matter what you want, Diamantha is still legally your wife,” he said, a lump in his throat. “She has every right to know you are still alive.”
Robert squeezed Keir’s hand. “What if you were lying on this bed, Keir?” he rasped. “You cannot feed yourself. The priests must clean your mess constantly because you have no control over yourself. I am not a man. I am a thing, a thing to be tended. Would you want your wife to take care of you like this for the rest of your life? How fair is that to her?”
Keir didn’t have an answer to that. He understood what Robert was saying. He understood very well. He understood the pride of a man in being a man, not a cripple who couldn’t do for himself. But this wasn’t his battle. He couldn’t make a decision that would affect Cortez or Robert, so he stood up and moved away from them, afraid he would be overwhelmed by the emotion surrounding the two of them.
When Keir wal
ked away, Robert returned his attention to Cortez. He was struggling to calm himself, realizing that, in all likelihood, Cortez was going to tell Diamantha that he was, in fact, alive. No amount of begging was going to stop the man from doing what he believed he had to do, no matter what the cost. He couldn’t let that happen. Somehow, someway, he couldn’t let it happen.
“Cortez,” he begged quietly. “I purposely did not send word to Diamantha that I was alive. No matter how much the priests begged me to tell them of my kin, I would not do it. I do not want her seeing me like this. Do you understand?”
Cortez had his head down, staring at the ground. When he lifted it, it was covered with tears but he wasn’t openly sobbing as he had been earlier. Now, he simply felt numb.
“I do,” he said softly. “But I cannot keep this from her. No matter how much I want to, you know that I cannot. She must know.”
Robert fell silent a moment, contemplating his next move. He had to do what was best for him and what was best for Diamantha. What was best for Diamantha was not living her life with a shadow of the man that she used to love. It would ruin her.
“You said that you love her,” he said to Cortez. “Does she love you, too?”
“Aye,” he muttered. “She loves me and I love her. We have been very happy.”
“And Sophie?” Robert asked. “How is Sophie?”
Cortez thought of the very sick little girl back at the tavern. He wasn’t sure he wanted to tell Robert of the child’s illness. It would only upset him further. It was one of those mercies Robert had spoken of. Grant me this mercy, Cortez. He didn’t need to know.
“She has a lot of animals,” he finally said. “And I think she would sleep with that pony if we let her.”
A smile came to Robert’s pale lips. “General,” he remembered. “I think she loves that pony more than she loves anyone else. And my father? Is he well?”
“George is well.”
Robert seemed to calm a great deal with that knowledge. Diamantha was loved, Sophie had her pets, and George was well. Those were the only people in the world he cared about. He was a content man.
“Thank you, Cortez,” he said. “Thank you for taking care of my family. I am at peace knowing they are well cared for. You have given me the greatest gift of all and I am more grateful than you will ever know.”
Cortez couldn’t respond. He was too overwrought to show any measure of generosity towards the man. He was crushed. Still, he knew it wasn’t Robert’s fault, any of it. He sighed heavily.
“Mayhap you should let Diamantha decide what she wants to do with her life,” he finally said. “This is her choice, after all. You cannot make it for her and neither can I. She will want to see you, you know.”
Robert’s gaze was surprisingly steady. “Then you really are going to tell her?” he asked. “You will not change your mind?”
Cortez exhaled sharply. “I told you that I will not keep this from her,” he said. “If she ever found out, she would hate me forever. It would not be fair to all concerned.”
Robert didn’t say anything. He simply looked at Cortez, seeing how utterly distraught the man was. It was clear that he was hurting badly. Robert was hurting badly, but not for the same reasons. It was time to finish what that Scots archer had started those months ago.
It was time to go home.
“Embrace me,” Robert said, holding up his arms to Cortez. “Before you go, please… embrace me. Let me feel your strength one last time, as you held me upon the fields of Falkirk and called me Brother.”
Cortez looked at the man. He didn’t want to hug him but the moment he did, his guard went down and the tears came again. He could feel how weak and tired the man was simply by his embrace. He had no way of knowing it was a ruse, for the moment Cortez’s guard went down and he hugged Robert tightly, Robert grabbed the small dirk had had seen nestled in the belt at Cortez’s waist. Before anyone realized what had happened, Robert took the blade and plunged it deep into his chest, straight into his heart. He was dead in an instant.
Cortez realized something was wrong soon enough. He felt Robert’s hand at his waist and before he could move, Robert grabbed the dagger and plunged in into his chest. Cortez screamed out in anguish, as did Keir and Michael, who had witnessed Robert grab the blade but were too far away to stop him. As Robert collapsed back onto his bed, bleeding out, Cortez stood over him and roared.
“Nay!” he cried. “Robert, no! You cannot do this! Dear God, no!”
Michael and Keir rushed at Robert, removing the blade and watching bright red blood run out all over him. They felt for a pulse, checked his eyes, but it was clear that the man was very dead. They looked at each other, at Cortez, with open grief on their faces. Cortez, however, stumbled back and collapsed against the wall behind him. It was too much to take.
“My dagger,” he breathed. “He used my dagger to kill himself. My dagger. When I tell Diamantha we found him alive, she will think… she will think I killed him with my dagger!”
Keir went to him, falling to his knees beside him. “Nay, she will not,” he assured him, “because you are not going to tell her anything. Think, Cortez, what good will it do her? She will have mourned for him twice! Let her remember him as he was. That is what Robert wanted, why he took your dagger to his chest. You must never tell Diamantha about this, do you hear me? She does not need to know!”
Cortez looked at Keir, hearing his words of wisdom through his overwrought mind. It made a good deal of sense. The righteous part of him was determined to tell Diamantha everything but the reasoning part, the part that was so capable of mercy, agreed with Keir. It would do Diamantha more harm than good to know what had truly happened to Robert. She had already mourned for the man and to tell her of this event would undo all of the healing. It would hurt her more than help her, and he simply couldn’t do that to her. Not when he loved her so.
“Nay,” he finally whispered. “I will not tell her. She does not need to know. Let her remember Robert as he was.”
Vastly relieved, Keir pulled Cortez off the ground and they both stood there for a moment, gazing at Robert’s body. It was a sad sight, but in a sense, it was a comforting one, for one very good reason.
“He is free now,” Cortez said softly. “He is truly free.”
The other knights began to gather around, their attention on Robert’s corpse. Whether or not they agreed with Robert’s actions, they understood why he did what he did. Not only did he do it to spare Diamantha future anguish, but he did it to save himself. The man had control of his life taken away those months ago by a Scot’s arrow. Today, he took control back. As Cortez said, he was finally free.
Robert Edlington’s body would make the trip back to Corfe, after all.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Sophie was feeling better.
Cortez’s first clue was when he felt soft baby claws digging at his belly, awakening him from a dead sleep. When he tried to move, he heard little giggles and the bark of a puppy. Opening his eyes, he saw Sophie standing next to the bed, playing with her animals as they nestled against his torso. He smiled sleepily.
“Sophie?” he asked softly. “What are you doing, sweetheart?”
Sophie looked at him and he saw the light go on in her eyes. She was pale, that was true, but her big smile and bright eyes told him that she was well on her way to mending.
“They want to play here,” she told him. “They like you.”
Cortez grunted when baby kitty claws dug into his ticklish middle. “And I like them,” he said. “But can you please remove them now so I can get up?”
Sophie nodded, picking up the two kittens and the rabbit, and carrying them over to the other bed. Cortez picked up the puppy and the fox kit as he sat up, handing them to Sophie when she came back to collect them. She was a happy little girl and he patted her head, smiling at her as she carried the remainder of her pets over to the bed.
“There once was an old whore named Rose,” Sophie sang, “with
a wart on the end of her nose….”
Cortez flinched when he heard his song come out of her mouth, immediately looking around to see if Diamantha was in the room and hoping she hadn’t heard. He saw her immediately, sitting over near the hearth. She was looking at him, a faint smile on her lips, and he smiled back.
“Good morn to you, sweetheart,” he said, scratching his scalp and hoping he wasn’t about to get a scolding for the naughty song Sophie was singing. “I must have slept long.”
But Diamantha either didn’t notice or she didn’t care. She stood up from the chair with something in her hand and Cortez could see that it was Edlington’s stained tunic.
“You were exhausted,” she said as she sat down on the bed next to him, accepting a kiss on her cheek. “I am sorry that Sophie woke you.”
Cortez put a big arm around her shoulders, giving her a squeeze. “It was the best thing I could wake up to,” he said, eyeing the little girl as she played with her pets. “She looks much better.”
Diamantha looked at her daughter, also “She is,” she said, relief in her voice. “She has already eaten a big bowl of mush this morning and so far she feels fine. I cannot tell you how grateful I am.”
Cortez kissed her temple. “As am I,” he said, then looked to the tunic she was holding. His manner sobered. “What are you doing with that?”
Diamantha looked at the tunic, too. After a moment, she sighed faintly. “I was just looking at it,” she said. “I made this for him, you know. He was quite proud of it.”
Cortez wasn’t sure what to say to that. She seemed sad but resigned. In fact, she had been sad and resigned since he had returned to the tavern yesterday evening with the tunic in his hand and the news that he had, indeed, found Robert Edlington.
Diamantha had taken the news better then he thought she would. There had been a rather steely resolve about her, or perhaps it had simply been the fact that she’d had months to accept his death. In any case, as she had held the tunic and wiped away tears of both sadness and relief, Cortez had been very careful in explaining that the priests had collected the dead and wounded from the battlefield, and that had included Edlington. The man had been at the church all along. He told her that he was having the priests build a box in which to place Robert’s body and that they would soon be taking him home. All of it was true, of course, because the priests were indeed building a coffin for Robert, and the man was being washed and prepared that afternoon for his journey home.
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