by April White
“It’s a promise, I guess. A legal contract that says ‘I promise to be your partner for life.’ And after that, there’s kids and a house—”
Ringo cut me off. “We’re not talking about after ‘cause ye can’t take more than a step at a time without trippin’ over yer own boots. Do ye ‘ave any plans of promisin’ to be anyone else’s partner for life?”
I scowled. “Of course not.”
He looked sideways at me. “Would ye want ‘im to choose anyone else to be his life partner?”
“No.” My tone of voice made it very clear exactly what I thought of that idea.
Ringo shrugged. “Ye’ve pretty much already made the promises to each other. It seems the only thing missin’ is the legal bit.”
“But why does that matter?”
Ringo turned my chin and made me look him in the eyes. “Because it’s the one thing no one can take from ye. Look, anythin’ could ‘appen, right? For ‘eaven’s sake, ye could get lost in time as much as either one of ye could die doin’ the things ye do. And then ye’d just be … done. But with that contract, ye’d be ‘is wife no matter what, and ‘e’d be yer ‘usband. And that means somethin’, Saira.”
Ringo’s inhaled breath had a shudder riding on it, and I knew we weren’t just talking about me anymore. “It means somethin’ that ye’ve made that promise, because not everyone gets to.”
I looked at Ringo for a long time, and I realized his face had changed since I’d known him. The angles had grown sharper, and the planes had widened. He had long eyelashes framing almond-shaped eyes, and cheekbones with the faint shadow of facial hair on them. He wasn’t a street urchin anymore, and hadn’t been a kid in a long time. There was something hurt in his eyes that I knew had to do with Charlie, whom he hadn’t seen since she left 1429 with Valerie Grayson.
“Would you marry Charlie?” I asked quietly.
“If we were to each other what ye and Archer are – without a doubt or ‘esitation.”
“You wouldn’t think you’re too young?” My voice dropped to a whisper.
“Are ye so young as all that, then? Ye’ve fought in wars, ye’ve battled men, and ye’ve stayed alive when the odds were against ye. Are ye really so young as yer years say?”
I shook my head no, and he touched my cheek.
“Then do what’s in yer ‘eart, and tell yer ‘ead to mind its own business.”
I smiled at that, and he grinned back. “It was a good one, eh? Tell yer ‘ead to mind its business?”
I burst out laughing, and the sound drew Archer’s and Bas’ attention up to us. We both stood to begin our descent. “You’re a good friend,” I said softly.
“You too,” he responded.
He led the way back down his route, and we were back on the stone floor of the church in under a minute. I took a deep breath, squared my shoulders, and strode up to Archer where he stood with Bas. I gave Bas a kiss on the cheek in greeting, which somehow seemed like the appropriate way to greet him, then turned to Archer.
“I need to talk to you.”
Bas took a step back. “I’ll leave you, then.”
I shot him a quick look, but then my eyes were back to Archer’s. “Not in a church.”
Archer took my hand and led me outside without a word. The night sky was blanketed with the kind of stars you can only see when light pollution is of the hand-held, don’t-trip-on-the-way-to-pee variety. We walked around to the back side of the church, away from the village shops, to a small walled garden. When Archer led me inside, closed the door behind us, and sat me down on a stone bench in the middle of a patch of herbs, I finally knew what I was going to say.
I looked around the garden. “Did you know this garden was here?”
“I hoped.” His voice held all the rich, deep tones of the man I’d loved for almost a year – but a year that spanned centuries and with the kind of experiences that could fill a lifetime.
“Why?” This Archer and I had never sat in my mom’s walled garden. He hadn’t buried Henry in one outside Orléans. He couldn’t know what they meant to me.
He tilted his head a little as he considered, maybe wondering if I was testing him. I wasn’t really. I already knew my answer.
“Why did I hope there was a walled garden here?” He inhaled, as if gathering his courage. “Because it’s where I should have asked you to marry me. There is a walled garden at my father’s estate. He had it built for my mother, and she planted everything in it herself. I never knew my mother’s touch, or the way she looked, but I always imagined that she smelled like the herbs and flowers in that garden. After you left, I stayed with the Missus for several months, healing and learning to be … myself. My father’s land borders the Wood, and often, after his estate staff had gone to sleep for the night, I sat in my mother’s garden thinking of you.”
He held my hand softly. “I wondered about a life together. I wondered what you were dreaming of in that moment, I even wondered what your favorite wildflowers were.”
“Bachelor’s buttons.” My voice was barely above a whisper, so I tried again. “Bachelor’s buttons are my favorites.”
He smiled. “Just the blue ones, or the pinks and purples, whites and the deep wine colored ones as well?”
“All of them.”
He smiled. “I called them cornflowers when I was young. They were my favorites too.”
Archer got up and wandered around the church garden for a few minutes. He was wearing dark trousers and a black pullover sweater that made him nearly invisible, but his eyes were the first thing I saw when he came back. They were focused on me as he handed me a tiny bouquet of bachelor’s buttons.
I smiled through the tightness in my throat that threatened to come with tears when he knelt in front of me and held my free hand. “Saira Elian, will you marry me?”
This was Archer – my Archer. He was my best friend, the first person I wanted to talk to every night, the last one every morning. His arms around me made me feel safe. His voice in my ear gave me comfort. His heartbeat matched my own in every way, and I knew that what gave him joy and peace would be the source of joy and peace for me too.
“Yes,” I whispered. “I will marry you.”
We asked Bas and Ringo to come with us to the walled garden. Ringo stood next to Bas, facing us and grinning with his whole body. In one hand, I held the bachelor’s button bouquet, and in the other, I held Archer’s hand. Bas placed his own hands over ours, top and bottom, and looked around the garden in delight.
“It is my honor to marry you under God’s own roof,” he looked up at the star blanket filling the sky, “and much easier to explain to those that would care that neither of you is Catholic, and I am only so until the tide of my education turns again.”
We laughed, and lightness filled every space in my heart, mind, and body. For a moment, it felt like Archer’s hand holding mine was the only thing keeping me on Earth, and that without it, I could have easily floated right away. I was really doing this. I was really marrying him.
“And as my education has been so thoroughly steeped in words, I shall use some of my favorites to bind you in each other’s love.”
Archer squeezed my hand, and I felt like my smile lit up the garden.
Bas took a breath, then began. “Archer, please repeat after me. On this day, I give you my heart.”
His eyes held mine as he said the words. “On this day, I give you my heart.”
“I promise to be your lover, companion, and friend. Your greatest advocate and toughest adversary, your comrade in adventure and your accomplice in mischief, and your ally in all things.”
Archer grinned, his eyes never leaving mine. “I promise to be your lover, companion, and friend. Your greatest advocate and toughest adversary, your comrade in adventure and your accomplice in mischief, and your ally in all things.”
Bas’ voice was deep and rich. “I promise to communicate fully and fearlessly, and pledge my love, devotion, faith, and honor as I join my life to
yours.”
My heart filled to overflowing with his words as Archer repeated the vow to me, and when it was my turn, the voice I was afraid had deserted me came back with full confidence and volume. Ringo’s grin as I spoke was utterly infectious, and by the time I got to “accomplice in mischief,” we were all laughing.
Bas didn’t even try to keep a straight face as he declared. “By the power vested in me, by every God I have ever served, and all the rest there still may be, I pronounce you husband and wife. Lord Devereux, you may kiss your Lady.”
Archer laughed out loud with a joy I had never heard from him before, and then swooped me into a low, dramatic dip and kissed me on the nose before he set me back on my feet. Apparently the outrage on my face was hilarious, because all three guys cracked up, and then promptly shut up when I threw my arms around Archer and kissed him properly. On the lips. Like a wife kisses her husband.
I knew my eyes were shining because I saw them reflected in his when the kiss finally ended and we just stared at each other, face to face, inches apart. Time may have stopped for a while because I wasn’t aware of anything at all except the man in front of me.
Ringo’s voice was the thing that finally snapped me out of the blissful daze I was in.
“Ye get to kiss ‘er yer whole life, yer Lordship. There’s two of us ‘ere who want to congratulate yer Lady.”
I laughed as Ringo tugged me out of Archer’s arms and pulled me into his own. He gave me a huge hug and swung me around. I shrieked in surprise, and then surrendered. “When did you get strong enough to pick me up?”
He set me down again and scoffed. “Ye suffer delusions of size, milady.”
I snorted right back. “Since when do you call me milady? And seriously, I’m huge.”
“Ye’re tall, but I’m faster and stronger and always will be. And you became milady when you married ‘Is Lordship.” He gave me his cheekiest grin, then kissed me right on the mouth. “And that’s the last one of these ye’ll get until I’m married and ye get to give it back.” My eyes must have been enormous in my head because he laughed and let me go to hurl his arms around Archer. They pounded each other’s backs with the hug of brothers as they laughed.
I turned to find Bas behind me wearing the same grin as I did watching Archer and Ringo. Bas turned the grin to me, then took my hand and lifted the back of it to his mouth with a courtly kiss I hadn’t seen since Tudor times. “Milady, you have my deepest admiration and warmest congratulations.”
Milady again. The title felt itchy and weird, and I thought I might get used to it when I was about ninety. I hugged Bas tightly. “Thank you.”
He kissed my cheek and spoke into my ear. “It is I who thanks you.”
I pulled back to look at him questioningly. He smiled and took both my hands in his. “Your love makes him feel whole, and you have given him peace our kind rarely allows ourselves to feel. You may not have chosen this path yet had he not asked, and I understand and respect that in your time one does not necessarily marry so young. But I do believe in the rightness of things. And this …” He indicated Archer and I together. “This is right.”
He turned to Archer. “Devereux!” He called to him in a way that sounded like lords calling across a grand dining hall to each other. “Your wife, sir.” He gave my hand to Archer, who pulled me in to his side. “Come, Ringo. Let us leave them to the small privacy of these four walls.”
Bas grabbed Ringo around the shoulders, and the two guys closed the garden door behind them. Neither of us spoke, and within moments the nighttime insects resumed their chirping.
Archer pulled me into his arms and just held me close. His heart beat steadily against my chest, and his warm, spicy scent filled me with calm peacefulness.
“I forgot this,” he said quietly as he pulled away. He reached into his pocket and pulled something out. I couldn’t see it clearly in the darkness until he took my left hand and slid a ring onto the fourth finger. My heart thumped hard as I held my hand close and studied the ring. It was a gold signet ring – a heart with a crown that blazed with flames from the top. It was so beautiful and so instantly familiar it took my breath away, and an abiding certainty that I was meant to wear it settled into my soul.
“It’s my family crest. This was the ring my father had made for me when I turned thirteen. The heart and the crown symbolize love and loyalty, and every Devereux gives this crest to his bride.” His eyes locked onto mine and he touched my face with gentle fingers. “It unlocks everything I have, and everything I am – to you, Saira Elian Devereux. I am yours, mind, heart, body, and soul.” He smiled to release a bit of the tension in the air. “You’ve always owned me. Now it’s just official.”
I kissed him again, softly. We lingered like that for what felt like hours and was only moments, letting the sweetness feed something deeper, something that became laced with desire.
A breath caught in my chest, and his hands clutched my hair. I could feel the pounding of his heart as need for his touch swept through me.
I pulled back and looked at him, and I tried to fathom that we belonged to each other now. I had been a legal adult since my last birthday, but now, finally, I began to feel maybe I could trust myself as an emotional adult too. A sigh of contentment and peace mingled with the desire for his touch, and I leaned forward to kiss him again.
And then a scream tore through the darkness, and the nightmare began.
Tom – Oradour-sur-Glane – June 10, 1944
The scene was a nightmare, like something out of a low-budget horror film where the monster lurks in the woods to pick off the heroes as they shrink back in disgust from the tableau of dead bodies left for them in a burned out ambulance. This time, I wasn’t the monster.
I hadn’t seen the rest of my squad since I’d woken – except Karl, always Karl, who guarded me like a loyal pit bull while I slept. I didn’t know which of us was more hated by the snipers they’d sent me to France with – Karl for his lap-dog tendencies, or me for holding the leash. Probably me, because I held all the leashes, and they felt like they were all big, mean Schäferhunde with spiky collars who should be allowed to roam the countryside terrorizing Frenchmen with impunity.
Which was probably what they were doing now.
Sturmbahnführer Kämpfe was most likely dead by now. The Maquis had taken him last night, and they couldn’t know the storm that was preparing to descend on them, especially after SS Sturmbahnführer Diekmann saw this tableau of horror, set up by the Maquis for his viewing pleasure. Diekmann had gone mad at the news of Kämpfe’s kidnapping. They had been friends before the war, and Diekmann had ordered the countryside searched for him. It was made clear that finding Kämpfe was the first priority, but finding Maquis, their weapons, and anyone who helped them in their terrorist activities was equally vital.
I knew there were Maquis operating in the area around Oradour-sur-Glane, and I’d followed some to Gaspard’s farmhouse several nights before. I considered blending in with the rough group that had set up camp around the farm, until I heard the Australian woman’s voice and realized I wasn’t quite prepared to kill her if need be. I’d avoided the area since then, but an explosion at a railroad bridge two nights ago, and then Kämpfe’s kidnapping, had made it impossible to stay away. Now a group of SS had discovered the burned out ambulance just outside the village, and Karl had dragged me here tonight because he’d heard the SS talking about reprisals. I wasn’t a fan of the French – those Maquis were as brutal as the Germans were, and twice as hungry for it – but I couldn’t stomach reprisals against common farmers.
We had arrived before Diekmann, and Karl gagged as he opened the back of the ambulance. The driver and passenger were both from the advance 2nd SS Panzer Division and had been transporting wounded German soldiers to a hospital in Limoges. All of them were dead, and the Maquis had wired the driver and passenger to the steering wheel, which likely meant they were conscious while the fire consumed them.
Karl and I moved away from
the SS soldiers who stood in a loose formation around the site, and I spoke to him in low tones. “When Diekmann sees this, he will take his men straight to the village. If we can round up a couple of Maquis before he gets there, maybe the farmers won’t become his target.”
“Yes, sir,” Karl said shakily. He really wasn’t cut out for this bad guy business. He should have been home reading books or making bread for his mother. The kid had learned baking from his grandmother and had been very excited to come to France to eat real French bread. I didn’t bother to tell him that the bread we got now was coarse and grainy in comparison to what I knew French bread could be. He thought it was the food of heaven.
The regular soldiers left us alone as we drove away from the site. They knew enough to stay away from the Wolfsangel armbands, and it suited me to be left alone. Self-destruction is one thing, but in war, there’s always someone else to kill, and I had become alarmingly good at it.
Karl drove carefully. I hadn’t learned how to yet, and didn’t think it was a skill set the walking dead needed. The village seemed eerily silent as we drove past shuttered shops. When we arrived at the town square, we suddenly understood why.
We were too late. People were milling about, looking frantic and terrified, while a group of SS rounded them up with machine guns and shouts in German. I spotted one of the snipers from my unit – the short, weasely one called Oskar – and a couple of others whose names I hadn’t bothered to learn. They had managed to join up with a half-dozen SS thugs led by one of Diekmann’s right-hand men.
“What are they doing?” Karl whispered to me.
“Inviting them to tea.” I didn’t hide the anger in my voice, and Karl flinched. They had emptied the houses to search for weapons, and the square was full of farmers and shopkeepers. If there were any Maquis among them, it was purely accidental.
Karl parked the truck behind a barn just outside the town square as a transport truck came barreling into the village from the other side. SS soldiers poured off the sides, and I knew it was futile to hope any of the villagers could stay hidden in cellars and attics. With this many men, the SS could do a proper house-to-house search and find nearly everyone.
