She knew what strength and skill it took to wield a sword well. Larcwide had schooled her in the basics, and with each action Sebastian made on the field, she felt her own muscles stretch and strain in sympathetic response. It wasn’t in her nature to be idle, and so to watch her husband from the sidelines, helpless to do more than pray, was a torment hitherto unknown.
At the beginning she thought to distract herself and considered her position, seated three along from the bishop of Durham on the raised dais shared by the nobility. From this position, one, just one, well-aimed arrow from her bow, and their enemy would lie dead, and the spirits of Diera and Larcwide—even Master and Mistress Duignan—could be at peace.
So as much as she had resented the beads that slipped through her nerveless fingers, she was grateful for the occupation now.
Duncan sat beside her and Talbot, one row down. She'd learned the lad was put out his lord had chosen Robert to be his attendant, and Frey could see the young knight spent as much time watching the campaign tent, where Gaines and Robert were stationed, as the fight.
Again and again, Frey worked the prayer beads through her hands.
The shadows in the inner bailey melted away as the day advanced and Sebastian stepped up his attack, putting Drefan on the defensive. Controlled swings left and right were deftly blocked, but Drefan had ceded ground, edging closer to the rail on the far side of the list.
The crowd rose as he stumbled, his shield tumbling from his arm with a noisy clatter.
The man quickly regained his footing and, now shieldless but with both hands to control his blade, he sprang back menacingly and swung wildly, missing Sebastian’s neck only barely.
Frey suppressed a scream as she watched her husband duck and the blade scraped noisily along the edge of his helmet.
Sebastian dropped his own shield, pivoted, and answered with an upward-angled drive that missed his opponent’s thigh by a finger’s width.
Talbot sat bolt upright and turned back to Duncan.
“Did you see that? The baron’s helmet shifted; the blow must have sliced the leather chin strap.”
Duncan glared at Talbot and pointedly nodded at Frey. The young knight murmured his apologies, which Frey acknowledged with a distracted nod.
The absence of shields spurred both men on. Attacks and answering blows increased in pace.
Drefan concentrated his attack with left and right broad swipes now centered at Sebastian’s head. On a return swing, Sebastian swept his blade upward, opening a gash along the length of Drefan’s right forearm. Red rivulets seeped through the tunic where flesh was exposed.
First blood.
Drefan dropped his sword and clutched at his arm. Sebastian held his sword at the ready, waiting for his opponent’s next decision. Drefan bent at the waist, gasping from the long exertion and the pain of his wound.
“End this now!” Sebastian told him, loud enough for the crowd to hear. “Call craven and it will be over.”
Drefan buckled at the knees and Sebastian lowered his sword and stepped forward.
Then with a mighty roar, a scream the likes of which Frey had heard only from the guttural throats of Scottish highland warriors, Drefan rose, holding the blade end of his sword and swinging again for Sebastian’s head.
The pommel of the sword caught the side of the helmet, leaving a dent an inch round in the steel.
Sebastian staggered, dropping to one knee with the force of the blow.
Frey may have screamed; who would have known in the din of the crowd? They sensed that the battle was now turning deadly.
Drefan lined up for another blow when Sebastian aimed a sideways kick to his knee and Drefan too dropped to the ground.
The combat turned hand-to-hand as the men grappled for dominance. Sebastian’s helmet rolled several feet away in the dirt. Through the roiling dust Frey could see short, sharp blows exchanged and a glint of blade as the combatants struggled to retrieve their weapons.
When both regained their feet, only Drefan was armed.
The tunics and surcoats clean and resplendent that morning were now dust, blood-, and sweat stained.
Drefan continued to hold his sword in the middle of the blade, offering short, sharp jabs designed to pierce through the links of mail. Sebastian leaped back once, then twice, away from the wicked point, eyeing his own sword, which lay three feet to the left and behind his adversary. Every lunge forward by Drefan drove Sebastian farther away from his weapon.
Frey realized her husband’s only choice would be to make a dive for the sword, but the consequence of doing so would break the cardinal rule of combat—never present one’s back to the enemy.
But there was no other choice. Sebastian made the leap.
Drefan turned, holding his sword like a dagger in both hands, raising the steel above his head.
Sebastian reached for his sword and grasped it, rolling onto his back.
Drefan plunged his blade down as Sebastian raised his, and the honed edge of Sebastian's weapon sliced through flesh from thigh to chest. Drefan sank to his knees with a groan.
By the time his head hit the ground beside Sebastian, Drefan was already dead.
Frey rose with the crowd, although the bishop and his party remained seated.
“Take me down there, now!” she ordered Duncan and Talbot.
The young knights forced their way through the crowd that surged to the edge of the ringed tourney field. Decorum be damned.
Frey ducked beneath the rail and ran to where Sebastian now stood, his back to her in quiet, earnest discussion with Gaines and Robert.
She didn’t look at Drefan’s broken body, now being attended to by Baldwin and another man she did not recognize.
“Sebastian!”
He turned to her, his face ashen.
Gaines stepped forward between them. “Listen to me, my lady,” he told her in urgent hushed tones. “This is not over yet. The bishop still has to pronounce the verdict.”
Frey studied Sebastian’s face thoroughly; beads of sweat that had nothing to do with the sun overhead poured down his face and dripped unchecked from his chin. She traced his beloved face with her fingers, and she could see pain found its expression around the corners of his eyes and in the taut line of his mouth.
“How seriously are you hurt?” she asked.
“Ribs,” he gasped before shaking his head.
“He needs a stretcher.”
“No, my lady,” Gaines told her firmly. “As the baron and Drefan were both plaintiffs, the bishop may hold off making judgment until he sees whether Lord Sebastian lives. You can be sure that is what Baldwin as Drefan’s second will demand. We press for settlement now.”
Gaines gave her a look of such compassion that she wanted to scratch it right off his face. If he was being kind to her, it meant Sebastian’s condition was grave.
Frey opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. She tried again and this time found her voice.
“Then what needs to be done?”
Four knights ringed Sebastian and Frey, shielding them from view. Gaines stepped forward and pressed a wad of linen into her hand.
“Keep this pressed against his wound, my lady,” he told her. “Sebastian, put your arm around your wife.” No one questioned Gaines’s familiarity.
Frey carefully embraced her husband around the middle. As she pressed the cloth to his chest, he let out a low moan. Her fingers were immediately sticky with blood. Robert and Talbot arranged Sebastian’s cloak to conceal his injury.
“Ready?” asked Gaines.
Sebastian nodded once. His shallow, rapid breathing worried Frey, and, as though aware of her concern, Sebastian looked down and squeezed her shoulder.
“Courage, princess,” he murmured.
* * *
Gaines took the lead as the remaining soldiers adopted guard positions around them.
“We’ll pay our respects to the bishop and beg his indulgence to clean up. He’ll be expecting us to attend the
bishop’s Hall tonight.”
Someone had thought to remove the rail in front of the bishop’s seat, and they made their way toward it.
Frey bit her tongue to stop the sobs she knew were just below the surface. She could feel Sebastian struggle for breath. He sucked in lungfuls of air, only to have his breath hitch.
The group stopped in front of the bishop.
Sebastian bowed his head. Frey curtsied in the same movement. When Sebastian arose, he stood taller and addressed the cleric with a voice harsh but strong.
“Your Grace, I am vindicated.”
Walcher looked him over before glancing behind them, where Frey imagined Drefan’s body was now being removed from the courtyard.
The bishop addressed the crowd.
“I attest, and ye are my witnesses, that God has given the right to Lord Sebastian de la Croix, baron of Tyrswick. If any man says differently, let him step forward now.”
The crowd, substantially smaller—many having already left, their desire to see blood sated—fell quiet.
No one stepped forward.
“Then Sebastian de la Croix, baron of Tyrswick, heaven and I declare your vindication.”
Sebastian bowed once more as Walcher rose and, with his retinue, returned to the castle.
Sebastian remained with his head bent for long moment, his breath coming in rattling spurts.
Then breaths stopped.
Frey felt the pressure of Sebastian’s weight come to bear on her shoulders, and she staggered beneath it. During the few moments that elapsed before Duncan and Talbot ran back with the stretcher, Sebastian did not move. His head was bowed, legs buckled, and arms stretched out, his body upright only with the support of Gaines and Robert.
Laid on the litter, he looked worse. To Frey’s horror, his surcoat, once white, was red with blood. It was his face that was drained of color.
The men rushed with all speed toward the entrance and were some distance away before it occurred to Frey to follow after them. She took a few faltering steps before she realized that people were staring at her.
Frey stared back, bewildered.
“Come child, let’s get you inside,” a compassionate voice at her shoulder told her.
She looked down as Friar Dominic gently took her hand.
Her gown was nearly black, a part of her mind registered.
Blood. So much of Sebastian's blood.
Too much.
By the time she had entered the chambers, she found Sebastian lay stripped to the waist. Streaks of gore, darkening to rust as it dried, were smeared across his torso like the marks of claws. At the center, an area hastily cleaned for the application of a large linen bandage was sealed on three sides with salve, while the loose edge fluttered slightly. Sticking from the center was a hollow reed.
Frey tried to look Gaines in the eye, but she couldn’t see past his arms, bloodied as they were to the elbows. He looked away, rinsing his hands in a bowl while Duncan poured steaming water from a ewer.
“Is he…?”
Frey didn’t trust herself to give voice to the rest of the question.
“Nay, my lady. It was a close thing, but Sebastian still lives.”
“Then how bad?”
The question was met with silence from Gaines. Frey looked around the room.
There were no answering looks from anyone else in the room. Robert and Talbot kept their eyes resolutely to the ground. They had all seen chest wounds in battle, and almost all were fatal.
“Tell me!”
Friar Dominic clasped a firm hand on her shoulder.
“His life is in God’s hands now.”
Bitter gall rose in her mouth and she swallowed hard.
Gaines cleared his throat to draw the attention of the men in the room. He jerked his head in the direction of the door and they followed him out silently.
Frey reached out toward Sebastian, her hand shaking.
Sebastian, a man full of life, with a ready smile, was too still, his body waxy and pale against sheets now tinged pink with water-diluted blood from the cleaning of his wound.
Frey was aware of a hushed conversation between the two older men who remained, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away from Sebastian.
Spots of deep red, minor puncture wounds, were scattered across his chest and arms. Frey picked up a piece of linen and plunged it into the still-steaming water in the ewer. Lovingly, she wiped and caressed each arm, washing them clean.
Then his chest. Frey’s fingers lingered over his heart, feeling for his pulse.
It was there. Thank God it was there.
A gum of myrrh held the dressing in place. The cloth packed around the reed was stained red, but it did not spread. Her hands hovered over the bandage.
“Gaines tells me the sword thrust pierced his lung.”
Frey started and looked up. Friar Dominic stood on the other side of the bed, the deep lines on each side of his mouth pronouncing his concern for Sebastian more than words ever could.
The next days passed in a mind-numbing haze of routine. Frey insisted she be the one to clean and dress Sebastian’s wounds. No one would gainsay her on the matter.
Fever came at the start of the second night, with pain and tremors so violent it required the combined strength of Gaines, Dominic, and Robert to hold Sebastian still long enough for Frey to administer an opiate.
Then he slumbered so deeply that Frey counted away the hours watching his chest rise and fall, holding each of her own breaths until she saw Sebastian take his next.
* * *
Frey woke with a start.
When did she sleep?
Bright sunlight filtered through the branches of the spreading yew.
She knew this place. It was the place where ghosts lived.
“Pray for your husband, Frey.”
Frey turned swiftly. Diera stood before her wearing an expression of peace on her face and dressed in a fine gown of creamy white, her plaited yellow-gold hair a thick rope over her shoulder.
Diera looked like an angel. Then her words penetrated through the surprise of seeing her.
No, no, no, no, no!
Bitter tears, long suppressed, fell unchecked down her cheeks. He was gone. Sebastian had left her. Soon she would see his ghostly visage in this ephemeral place as well, then suffer it every night for the remainder of her life.
Frey turned and ran through a meadow of knee-deep grass, shining ribbons of green and yellow that bent in the gentle breeze as though worshipping the sun in the distance.
She stopped at the rise, panting and out of breath. Tyrswick Keep rose like a sentinel out of the landscape.
Frey ran again, finding herself at the chapel.
She halted at the entrance and looked into the gloom. Light from a window illuminated a point on the floor. It drew her to the spot before the altar where she knelt and traced the inscription with her finger.
est anima meaquiescit
My soul is at rest.
“He’s not here.”
Frey jumped.
Diera stood behind her with the same beatific expression she wore beneath the yew tree.
“You’re looking for Sebastian. He’s not here.”
“Then why am I here?”
“Because you need to tell him for me.”
“Tell him what?”
Diera’s smile widened, and it seemed that the chapel filled with light.
“Tell him ‘thank you.’”
EPILOGUE
It would be three more long days before Frey could be certain that Sebastian would live. He opened his eyes and squeezed her hand weakly.
She nurtured Diera’s message in her breast for a further six months before she was sure he would be ready to hear it.
Long before then, news arrived that Baldwin had been found hung one night, by his own hand or by that of others was unknown, though the latter more likely. And the remnants of Drefan’s men were now back in France.
The discovery of another tro
ve of silver, coins like those produced by the unmourned Baldwin at the Durham court, came during an exploration of ancient Roman lead workings near Tyrswick, which also yielded a rich vein of precious ore.
Running of the Keep fell to Frey and Gaines jointly while Orlege honored his old friend and mentor’s memory by using Larcwide’s training systems and drills with the new squires.
But seasons change and so did life at Tyrswick.
As the leaves in the forests around the district turned to red and gold, Sebastian healed loudly, stubbornly, and sometimes not with good grace.
Before the last of the brittle autumn leaves fell to the ground, he regained his mount, but a ride to the village and back taxed the reserves of his energy, so county sessions were held only in the Great Hall of the Keep.
The beginning of winter brought news that Rosalind and Rhys were expecting a second child, and Heloise and her husband their first, along with a message from the young woman filled with remorse and begging forgiveness.
Sebastian started light sparring with Orlege as the first flakes of snow fell in the training yard.
Christ’s Mass this year was further declared to be a time of thanksgiving for the good health of the baron and for the abundant harvest and new wealth found in the mines, which brought prosperity across Tyrswick.
And Brice joined them for one last Christmas and New Year to proudly announce he had been invited to Bolognia to study with the greatest minds of Christendom at the new Studium Generale. Sebastian settled a generous sum on the surviving son of the last Saxon earl of Tyrswick so he would never want for money to continue his education.
Soon, thickening branches and budding twigs heralded the arrival of spring as well as a summons to assembly at Durham by all barons. There, Ligulf of Lumley made his case that Northumbria should prepare for an impending Scottish invasion.
His concerns were—predictably—dismissed by Walcher, and, it had to be said, by others too. Sebastian kept his counsel but quietly ordered Orlege to increase patrols.
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