“Fine. For your sake I won’t try to get them.” Bertie stared at the fire, which had grown stronger as Evelyn fed it. His final words were little more than a sigh, and Evelyn chose to ignore them. There was no sense arguing with him, even if those words made her tremble in fear for him. “Not just yet.”
* * *
“How much does Warrick know of his father’s activities?” King John questioned his brother over a private breakfast in his personal chambers.
“I was hoping you could tell me.” Luke scooped up the last of his porridge, grateful for the spices their youngest brother, Mark, had brought back with him from his last sea voyage, which made the bland boiled grains vastly more flavorful. “Warrick has been a guest in our household for over a week now. What has he told you?”
“The same things Garren told you—but you say your eyes witnessed larger numbers of troops and more visible activity in the borderlands.”
“I don’t trust King Garren.”
“I never have. Nor am I particularly keen at having our sister betrothed to Warrick, not if he proves to be as great a liar as his father.”
“But is Warrick being deliberately deceptive or merely ignorant?” Luke set his bowl down and stood, too disturbed by the situation to sit still while he mulled its complexities. He could ask the same question of Evelyn. The woman was full of secrets. But was she intentionally trying to deceive him?
The curtain to the anteroom moved to the side, and Queen Gisela rejoined them, her face pale, one hand over her stomach. “I’m better now,” she assured her husband with a small smile.
Luke studied the pair as Gisela took her place at her husband’s side, and he joined his hand with hers. The two had been married at Christmastide over four months earlier.
King John looked up and met Luke’s measured gaze. Then he whispered something to his wife, who nodded.
The king cleared his throat. “We’ve made no official announcement yet, so I would like you to keep this news to yourself. Still, as second in line to the Lydian throne, you should be the first to know. All signs indicate our good queen is with child.” John’s voice held a mixture of pride and concern.
Luke rushed to extend his best wishes to the two, reserving his thoughts on his brother’s apprehension. King John had lost his first wife in childbirth. For years, he’d vowed never to remarry, never to ask another woman to risk her life bearing him an heir. Only his undeniable love for Gisela had changed his mind. That the queen was feeling the ill effects of her pregnancy no doubt distressed King John.
Rather than increase his worries, Luke decided to end all talk of war and Illyrian intrigues. Such discussions would surely weigh heavily on the politically minded queen, and given her condition, Luke would give her no reason to fret.
Instead, when his wishes had been graciously accepted and the room fell silent again, he raised the question he’d wanted to ask Gisela ever since his arrival at Castlehead. “There is a Frankish woman in King Garren’s household. She is the pale-haired woman who tended my injury at Bern, the one I told you about.”
“The one you’ve been looking for?” John clarified.
“Is she as beautiful as you remembered?” Gisela asked in a voice that carried hope, not teasing.
“She is very beautiful,” Luke admitted, but quickly clarified. “She is a slave.”
“Oh.” The hopeful expressions on the king’s and queen’s faces fell quickly.
Luke understood. With the war behind them, John had been urging his brother to think of marriage and settling down. But as second in line to the throne, Luke’s marriage would, by necessity, be to a woman of noble birth, preferably a match that gained their country greater security and allies in their part of the world. Even his sister’s betrothal to Warrick fit that requirement, though she was the youngest of the four royal siblings.
The rules had never troubled him before. Luke could not consider becoming involved with a common woman. That Evelyn was a slave made her a thousand times less worthy. Even if he bought her freedom, she could not possibly be his wife. Though he understood and accepted their disparate statuses, it rankled him increasingly, even more so as he witnessed the king and queen’s obvious disappointment. Evelyn could never be a prince’s bride. Luke would never consider suggesting otherwise.
If only he hadn’t dreamed of her so many times before he’d learned the truth. He couldn’t deny that she intrigued him. Perhaps on a certain level, before he’d finally found her again, he’d allowed himself to hope she might be royal, a worthy bride for a prince. But finding her otherwise, he tried to put romantic thoughts from his head.
Luke had every intention of making a good match and solidifying the peace of Lydia through his marriage. His feelings for Evelyn, whatever they were, could not infringe on that duty. He knew that and accepted it without protest, but the lowliness of Evelyn’s position still pained him, as did the disappointment on his brother’s face.
“She was raised as a Christian,” Luke continued, getting to the point of his story. “It cannot be easy for her living in Garren’s pagan household.”
“We must bring her here.” Gisela’s face brightened in spite of the hand she still held over her stomach. “I would love to have another Frankish maid.”
“She saved your life, brother,” John agreed. “We owe her a debt of gratitude. If she desires to leave Garren’s household, she would be more than welcome here.”
“Unfortunately,” Luke admitted, “she did not seem keen on leaving when I raised the possibility to her. She has a younger brother, also Frankish, also a slave—”
“He could come, as well.” King John’s deep voice boomed with authority. “Why should they stay in that godless fortress? They are both welcome here.”
“Thank you.” Luke nodded, unsure how he’d lost control of the conversation so easily. “I don’t know if she will agree to come, but what I really wanted to ask—” he rushed on when Their Majesties opened their mouths as though to protest the thought that anyone might refuse their generous offer “—would you, Queen Gisela, be kind enough to teach me more Frankish words? I wish to speak to Evelyn in her native tongue.”
“Evelyn.” John repeated the name.
“Are you sure she’s a slave?” Gisela raised an eyebrow, as well. “Evelyn is not a slave name.”
“She is a slave in Garren’s household. Whether she was born a slave I cannot say. She told me her father brought her from the Holy Roman Empire after her mother died. Her father was half Frankish, half Illyrian.”
“I wonder if he was one of Rab the Raider’s men,” King John mused aloud.
Luke exchanged a wary glance with his brother. Rab the Raider had killed their father disgracefully, tricking him, using King Theodoric’s honor against him before murdering him without remorse. Though they’d sworn to let vengeance rest now that the man was dead, nonetheless, anyone with an association with the man was to be immediately regarded with suspicion.
“I know very little about her. We were only able to speak briefly.”
At that reminder, Gisela rose from the table. “Of course I will gladly teach you as much Frankish as you would like to learn.” She crossed the room to the chest where she kept her most valuable belongings, then returned to the table with a small leather-bound book in her hand. “Take this.”
Luke felt his eyes go wide. “A book?” Written works of any sort were rare and also very valuable.
“A very small book of prayers, hymns and scripture. I copied them with my own hand when I was learning to write. I now have larger books that contain these words and more. I have no need of it. The text is all in Frankish. I’m sure the slave girl cannot read, but you can read it to her. I’ll help you practice pronouncing the words.”
Luke gingerly opened the pages and eyed the fine print. The words made little sense to him, but the
alphabets were quite similar. He could sound out most of the words even without Gisela’s help. Perhaps Evelyn would know some of the prayers and be able to fill in the gaps. He could hardly wait to share it with her.
Chapter Six
Prince Luke tucked the book Queen Gisela had given him safely inside his pack after practicing the words by firelight. The sun wouldn’t rise for hours, but Luke had a long journey ahead of him through the borderlands on foot. Travel by horse would make him vastly easier to spot, and knowing Evelyn planned to join him, he would take every precaution to avoid detection. He wouldn’t risk letting her be caught meeting with him.
He’d dispatched a team to track the prints he’d spotted on the road, but heavy spring rains had erased all but the deepest ones, making them impossible to follow. The only good news they’d been able to report was that they hadn’t spotted any Illyrian soldiers on their journey. It was a small consolation. Luke knew the soldiers had gone somewhere. He prayed they were far from Lydia.
The waxing moon was high in the sky, providing him with enough light to make his way along the narrow deer paths, avoiding the more obvious routes. He’d traveled some distance when the path reached a spring-fed stream. Luke knew the spot. The water there was very good. He stopped to drink and fill his flask.
The burbling brook drowned out the sounds of the night, but when he rose to strap his flask into place, he heard a distant rumbling he recognized all too well.
Horse hooves hitting the hard earth.
Luke moved back behind the cover of nearby trees and crept uphill in the hope of getting a better look. Soon enough he saw them, a party of six men on horseback, riding single file through the woods. Stranger still, the men weren’t dressed as Illyrian soldiers; instead, in keeping with the practices of Luke’s own men, these six wore the garb of woodsmen.
But what would woodsmen be doing riding warhorses through the woods in the middle of the night? Could they be associated with the boot prints Luke had found the week before? There had been no hoofprints on the road then. If these men were allied with the others, it was a sign they were becoming more serious, adding horses to their project...whatever it was.
Intrigued, and unwilling to let the men evade him this time, Luke darted to the next hilltop and watched the horsemen make their way along a trail he’d not noticed before, which looked as though it had seen recent use. Where were the men going? They rode parallel to the border between Illyria and Lydia. If they stayed their course, they’d connect with the road where Luke had spotted footprints before. Those prints had veered off, but the road itself led to the walled city of Sardis, the largest population center in Lydia, which had only just survived the Illyrian siege the previous fall.
If the men were headed to the road, why had they taken such a roundabout path to meet it? Were they purposely trying to avoid detection by circumventing the areas of the borderlands where Luke’s men were known to patrol?
Luke watched the riders’ progress carefully. With their horses at a brisk walk, the horsemen soon passed out of Luke’s sight. He thought about running after them farther to see where they went, but there were six of them, and he was alone. They weren’t his men—he recognized neither the men’s profiles he’d seen by moonlight nor the horses they rode. They were enemy soldiers almost certainly.
Luke looked long in the direction they’d gone, pondering the mystery of their appearance. Unable to reach any conclusions, he turned and continued on his journey. He could come back later with his men and pick up the trail. Six sets of horse hooves couldn’t pass through these damp woods without leaving a trail. There was no sign of gathering storm clouds. If he returned later in the day, the prints would still be clear. He could find the spot easily enough.
But for now he had to reach the place where he’d promised to meet Evelyn. He’d been looking forward to seeing her again since they’d last parted. In spite of his endless reminders to himself that she could never be anything more than a friend to him, that he couldn’t even be certain if he could trust her, still Luke couldn’t deny the surge of joy he felt at the thought of seeing her, speaking with her, and learning more about who she was and where she’d come from.
That he continued to dream of her every night didn’t help matters in the least. Under the veil of sleep, his mind liked to imagine things that could never be. Though it didn’t seem likely that his feelings would be dampened by meeting with her, he’d promised her he’d be there and was looking forward to seeing her.
He’d just have to keep his heart under guard.
* * *
Evelyn arrived early at the appointed place in the woods, having made her way by moonlight to be certain she wasn’t late. She couldn’t risk being detained and missing the prince. She’d tried before to warn him away, but this time she had her grandfather’s threats to back up her words. Prince Luke had said he valued peace. His words had seemed sincere. How could she convince him that he needed to stay away in order to ensure peace between the kingdom of Lydia and King Garren’s Illyrian holdings?
True, she would have liked for him to linger. It had been years since she’d been among other Christians, and she would have loved for him to share with her whatever prayers, hymns and scripture he might know. If that meant being in his handsome presence awhile longer and learning more about him, she wouldn’t have minded a bit. But given the dangers to him and his people, she’d have to put aside her own desires. She’d compel him to leave and never return.
Since it was still dark and not even the first birds had awakened to welcome the sun, Evelyn knelt down to pray. Though she could recall few of the words she’d prayed back home years before, nonetheless, she believed God was listening and would understand the pleas of her heart.
“Open his ears, please, God, so he will understand my warnings and heed them. Protect him from King Garren’s intrigues. Protect his kingdom, as well, and all who dwell there, and please, God, may he be an honest man.”
A gloved hand slipped over hers.
Eyes pinched tight in prayer, she nearly screamed before she turned to see Luke kneeling beside her.
“Don’t let me interrupt you,” he said in Illyrian, and then, in halting Frankish, “You pray.”
Evelyn felt her eyes go wide as she swallowed back the scream that had nearly escaped her lips. Her heart leaped joyously inside her chest. She told herself her reaction was due to hearing her native tongue spoken aloud, but Bertie spoke to her in Frankish all the time without sending her heartbeat hammering so. It might have been relief at finding the prince unharmed, but she hadn’t ever doubted he could see to his own safety, so that couldn’t truly be the cause for her elation.
No, if she was honest—and she had to be, having been caught in prayer—she owed her happiness solely to the joy of seeing him again, his eyes twinkling in the starlight, his smile broad and sincere. He gripped her hand warmly, and she felt a shiver of delight run straight to her toes.
“I’ve brought you something.” Prince Luke pulled out his pack and carefully removed a slim parcel. “It may be too dark for you to see.” He opened the small leather-bound volume and held it to catch the broadest beam of moonlight.
Evelyn bent close. To her joy, the silvery light of the moon illuminated clearly the black pen strokes, each letter formed with precision and care. “Our Father, who art in heaven.” She read the words in Frankish, then explained in Illyrian, “It’s the Lord’s Prayer.” She pulled the book closer, studying the words, ready to weep with happiness that she now held in her hands something she’d so longed for these many years.
She glanced up at the prince, a word of thanks ready on her lips, but the expression on his face silenced her. She stared at him a moment, the nighttime shadows making it impossible for her to guess what he was thinking, though he looked taken aback and almost—could it be?—betrayed.
His brow furrowed. “
You can read?”
In an instant, Evelyn realized her mistake. Of course slaves weren’t supposed to be able to read. She’d been taught by her mother and grandmothers. In Aachen she’d lived between a convent, where the nuns eagerly taught anyone who cared to learn, and the palace, where Charlemagne, then merely king of the Franks, had imported the greatest teachers and intellectuals to be found anywhere in the world. Literacy was highly valued in Charlemagne’s kingdom, and now that he was emperor, that influence spread throughout the Holy Roman Empire.
The Illyrian world was much different.
“I can read,” she admitted in a whisper, anxiously awaiting his response.
“You’re a slave. Does King Garren know you can read?”
“He does.”
“And yet he has you feed the pigs?”
“Reading isn’t often necessary in his household. The pigs always need to be fed. I’ve read for him when he’s asked me to, and written for him, and sewed shut his injured hostages.” She glanced to the place where the prince’s scar lay hidden under his habergeon.
“King Garren is a fool.”
“Indeed.” She wasn’t about to argue.
Prince Luke’s furrowed brow relaxed and the corners of his eyes bent upward with a hint of a smile. “You do not belong in his household. Please, let me bring you with me to Lydia. From there we can arrange for you to travel north.”
Evelyn bent her head. How could she explain to the prince all the reasons why she had to refuse his generous offer? She couldn’t—not without confessing the truth about her brother’s determination to reclaim the signet ring and other jewels their grandfather had stolen from them. And as King Garren had insisted so many times, no one would believe a slave who claimed to own the king’s signet ring. If she told her story, she’d only be labeled a liar.
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