The Age of Knights and Highlanders: A Series Starter Collection

by Kathryn Le Veque

  The reality of their deaths began to sink in. She had been too ill to care yesterday but at the moment, she found that she cared a great deal. She traced the progression leading up to their deaths only to realize that she had been very ill for the past several days and recalled very little. The most she remembered was waking up to hear the young squire fighting off a monster of a man. She had tried to defend him. She remembered the man calling the squire young Edward, something that had no meaning until this moment. The intruder had seemed very certain that the squire’s name was Edward and not John as she had been told. Then Tate had brained the man before he could do any further damage.

  As the fog lifted from the ground, the fog in her mind seemed to do the same. Pacing back along the stables, her mind was wrapped up in the chaos of the past two days as she recollected. Men had burned her house down and Tate seemed to know who they were. He didn’t seem surprised at all. In fact, it was almost as if he had expected it. Just as he had not been surprised that men had attacked them in the mist the day they went to visit the sheep herd. He had been gone for hours trying to locate the attackers. Then he had returned and she had become ill.

  Toby came to a pause at the corner of the stable block that faced the kitchen yard. There was a rough-hewn bench there with some farm implements on it and she shoved the tools to the ground and wearily took a seat. As she watched a puppy chase chickens around the kitchen yard, her thoughts inevitably turned to Tate.

  He was a man of wealth, skill and supreme power. Long had she heard the rumor that he was Edward Longshank’s bastard. It was an accepted fact. It was also an accepted fact that he had served Longshank’s son, Edward, until he had been imprisoned by Isabella and Mortimer. She thought of the man and his undeniable status, visions of his storm cloud colored eyes filling her mind and his handsome face invading her senses. For the first time since she had met the man, she admitted to herself that she found him wildly attractive. But he clearly had little use for her; at least, she thought so until he had kissed her on the forehead. The kiss had made her heart leap crazily, but it had been a wonderful sort of crazy. Yet she could not get her hopes up about the man. He was unreachable; especially to her. He was of royal blood and she was a farmer’s daughter. That was the reality of things.

  She hung her head moodily, eventually distracted by a noise off to her left. She turned to see the young squire quit the stables and head towards the keep. He was a tall lad, blond, and seemed nice enough. As she watched him avoid a pile of horse dung, she remembered what the intruder back at Forestburn had called him; young Edward. He said that he had been sent to retrieve him. Toby remembered asking Tate once if he was running from someone and he assured her that he was not. But he had come to Cartingdon Parrish to raise money for young King Edward’s cause, a boy crowned while still quite young and now being hunted by his mother’s lover.

  And that’s when it hit her. King Edward. Toby nearly fell off of the bench as the realization struck. There could be no other explanation; John of Hainault could be no other than Edward the Third. Traveling in the company of his Uncle Tate, the only man capable of protecting him from his mother and her vicious lover, the young king was disguised as a squire. What else would explain de Lara, two massive knights and a contingent of heavily armed men-at-arms around the boy? It made perfect sense. The more she thought on the awareness, the more stunned she became. And the more frightened.

  She rose on shaking legs. The men who had destroyed Forestburn had obviously been hunting for the young king. They must have been Mortimer’s men and the Cartingdon family had been unknowingly caught in the crossfire. Terrified, furious, Toby could only think of one thing; she had to get out of Harbottle. She had to take Ailsa and flee far from the young king and the murderers who pursued him. She had to get away to save them both; otherwise, surely they would end up as their parents had.

  It was difficult to walk across the bailey on shaking legs. She made it to the stairs, pulling herself up until she reached the entry to the keep. Her fatigue was growing worse but she ignored it, determined to retrieve her sister. As she moved inside, she could see that Kenneth and Stephen were still sitting at the table, only this time they were joined by the squire. Ailsa was still dancing around the room. Toby staggered into the hall as fast as her weak legs would take her and went straight to her sister.

  Ailsa took issue with being grabbed. She glared up at her sister until she saw the look on her face.

  “What is wrong, Toby?” she asked.

  Toby had her arm around Ailsa, eyeing the knights at the table. “Keep your voice down,” she hissed. “We must leave this place right away.”

  Ailsa frowned. “Leave? We just got here.”

  Toby had a grip on her sister’s arm. “You must trust me. We must leave this very moment and I do not want you to argue with me. Just come.”

  “But I do not want to leave,” Ailsa said loudly. “Stop grabbing my arm. You are hurting me.”

  By this time, Stephen and Kenneth had heard pieces of the conversation. Toby tensed when Stephen rose to his feet.

  “Leave?” he repeated. “Who is leaving?”

  Toby was exhausted and frightened. She couldn’t even look at Edward, stuffing his face with bread. At this point, it would do no good to lie about her reasons or intentions. She had never been one to mince words.

  “We are,” she announced, trying to pull Ailsa with her. “We are leaving this place and you will not stop us.”

  Stephen’s gaze was steady. “Why are you leaving?”

  Toby was backing up with Ailsa in her grip. Her hazel eyes moved rapidly between Stephen and Kenneth as if waiting for them to leap up and grab her.

  “Because we must,” she said firmly. “We must return to Forestburn.”

  “Forestburn is ashes.”

  “No thanks to you,” she snapped; her quaking legs had spread to her body, making it difficult to remain balanced. “Those who burned my home were after you. I suppose I knew it all along but my illness has affected my thought processes. Now I know that my sister and I must leave if we are to survive. It was a mistake to come here with you.”

  By this time, Kenneth was on his feet. “Mistress, perhaps you should sit,” he suggested. “You have been ill and….”

  “I do not want to sit,” Toby exploded, losing her grip on Ailsa. She stumbled backwards and in a reversal of roles, Ailsa was now the one with a firm grip on her arm. “I want to leave. I must leave. I do not want to be here when Mortimer’s men burn this place down around our ears. I want to go home to Cartingdon where I belong.”

  “Toby, what is wrong?” Ailsa was starting to tear up. “Why are you so angry?”

  Toby was losing ground fast. She struggled to stay on her feet as she looked at her sister. “I am not angry,” she insisted hoarsely. “I am terrified; terrified because de Lara and his men have lied to us since the beginning. Those men who burned Forestburn and killed Mother and Father were sent by Roger Mortimer. They are looking for the king and we were caught in their path.”

  Ailsa’s eyebrows lifted in disbelief. “The king? But…?”

  Toby threw an arm in the direction of the table. “That squire, Ailsa. He is not a squire at all. He is King Edward the Third. They had come to kill him but killed our parents instead.”

  Astonished, Ailsa’s head snapped in the direction of the table. Not surprisingly, Edward was no longer eating. He was staring wide-eyed at Toby, his expression one of a mouse caught in a trap.

  Toby’s pale face was clouded with loathing as she met his stare. “It would have been the decent thing to tell us who you really were rather than carry on a lie that would cost us everything,” she directed her venom at the boy. “At least if we had known, we could have made an effort to protect ourselves. But you left us open and vulnerable without regard for our safety. Is that the kind of king you really are? Do you care nothing for your subjects?”

  Slowly, Edward rose to his feet, swallowing what was left in his mouth. H
e wiped at his lips with the back of his hand.

  “How did you know who I was?” he asked with surprising firmness.

  Toby sighed heavily, her weakness growing. Lamely, she lifted an arm and let it slip back down to her side. “I did not for certain until this very moment,” she realized that she felt overwhelming sadness more than anything. “We have lost everything because of you. Why did you have to come to Cartingdon in the first place? Why could you not have simply left us alone?”

  “Because Cartingdon is my holding and I serve the king.”

  Tate emerged from the stair hall, his storm cloud eyes riveted to Toby. His progression into the room was slow, deliberate, the expression on his face unreadable. He had heard most of her rant as he came down the stairs, not surprised that she had figured out who the young squire was. She was a very smart woman. He found himself oddly torn as he faced off against her; torn between remorse and duty. He was sorry she had been put through such trauma but it had been, in fact, in the line of duty. And he was not going to apologize for his sense of duty.

  Toby watched him as he moved towards her, his stalking gait and powerful form. The terror she had initially felt was fading, being replaced by a strange numbness. Her body was shaking with fatigue and emotion and it was increasingly difficult to hold a thought.

  “You should have told me who he was,” her voice was quivering. “Out of trust and generosity, we showed you hospitality and you allowed harm to come to my family. If this is the kind of king that Edward plans to be then I will side with Mortimer before I trust him again. He has allowed us to come to devastation.”

  She was so pale that she was gray; Tate knew she wasn’t feeling well but he was having difficulty keeping his temper down. He was extremely protective of Edward, even against an ill young woman who had every right to be angry.

  “In the first place, Mistress Elizabetha, it is not your right to know the business of the king,” he said steadily. “In the second place, you have no choice in who you trust or support during this dark time. I am your liege and you will support whom I dictate.”

  “My parents are dead because you withheld the truth,” she fired back with more strength than she felt. “My home is burned and my life devastated. You are no better than Mortimer’s men sneaking around in the mist except that you deliver your deception under the guise of virtue.”

  “There was no deception.”

  “We trusted you!”

  The last exchanged was rapid-fire, overlapping, Tate’s calm voice against Toby’s agitated one. They stared at each other, feeling more emotion than they should have. Toby was filled with sorrow for reasons she could not begin to understand while Tate resisted the urge to beg her forgiveness. He did not like to see her so upset, especially when he knew she was right. He had tried to leave Forestburn before things got too dangerous, but the threat had come too quickly. It had been upon them before they realized it and had been the cause of the destruction of her home. But he would not surrender.

  “You are overwrought,” he said, his voice quieter as he tried to calm the situation. “Let me take you to rest. You will feel better when you have had some sleep.”

  She shook her head and turned away from him, almost falling for the weakness in her legs. “Nay,” she whispered. “I… I want to go home. I must leave this place.”

  “Why?”

  She whirled to him and ended up stumbling against the wall. “Because whatever poison follows that boy will come here and destroy us all. I do not want to be here when it comes. I do not want my sister to fall victim to it. If you will not protect us, then I will.”

  Tate could feel himself softening. “So the true reason is revealed,” he murmured, taking slow steps in her direction. “You do not feel that I will protect you.”

  On the verge of collapse, tears welled in Toby’s hazel eyes. “You did not protect my parents.”

  He was almost upon her as she slumped against the wall, his storm cloud eyes gentle as he gazed into her pale, lovely face. “Had I known what harm was to come, I would have most certainly done my best to protect you,” he said quietly. “But I swear to you now, upon my oath, that I will protect you with my life; you and your sister. No harm will come to you as long as I have breath in my body, Elizabetha. Please believe me.”

  She stared up at him with her almond-shaped eyes, so beautiful yet so sorrowful. When she finally blinked, fat tears splashed onto her cheeks. Tate moved in closely; so close, in fact, that his torso brushed against hers. His voice was low, soothing.

  “Do not blame the boy,” he murmured. “He has sorrow enough with his mother and her lover attempting to destroy him. We never meant that your family should fall to destruction.”

  She sobbed softly, unable to continue with the conversation. Without another word, Tate swept her into his arms, feeling more relief that he would admit when her arms went around his neck and she wept quietly against his shoulder. He wanted nothing more than to soothe away her fears. His gaze found Ailsa, a few feet away, and he smiled weakly at her.

  “Come along, sweetheart,” he said quietly. “You and your sister are off to bed.”

  Ailsa trotted after him as he quit the hall. The chamber on the third floor was dusty but passable. Tate put Toby on the bed and covered her with the cleanest blanket he could find, a dusty old thing that had been tossed into a corner. Ailsa climbed in next to her and Toby wound her arms around her sister, holding her tight. Tate pulled the blanket over Ailsa as well and tucked them both in very tightly, like a father tending his children. But Toby was still weeping softly and he just couldn’t leave her in that state. He felt responsible. After a moment’s deliberation, he lay down against Toby and pulled both ladies into his arms.

  “Go to sleep,” he kissed the back of Toby’s head as he felt Ailsa squirm around to get comfortable. “Nothing will happen to you, I swear it. You may sleep peacefully.”

  Toby didn’t even protest, nor did she say a word. She simply lay there, a hiccup now and again as her tears faded. She could feel him against her and rather than fight it, she accepted the comfort it gave her. Through all of the illness and turmoil over the past few days, Tate had proven himself to be a rock. At the moment, she needed the rock, no matter how unattainable he was. For the moment, she would pretend otherwise.

  Tate lay with his chest against her back, feeling her soft body against him and thinking there was surely nothing more wonderful in the world. His thoughts began to drift to the day he first saw her and how beautiful he thought she was in spite of her boorish demeanor. But that opinion had quickly fled; she wasn’t boorish at all. She was simply strong, opinionated and intelligent. As his mind began to reflect on the days past and the moments when he saw her smile, Ailsa’s head suddenly popped up.

  “Sing the baby song!” she demanded in a loud whisper.

  Tate frowned at her. “Hush,” he hissed sternly. “I will not sing anything if you do not lay still.”

  Ailsa stuck her lip out but obediently lay back down. When all was still and quiet in the room and Ailsa stopped fidgeting, Tate’s pure baritone filled the stale air as gently as the brush of a butterfly’s wing.

  To the sky, my sweet babe;

  The night is alive, my sweet babe.

  Your dreams are filled with raindrops from heaven;

  Sleep, my sweet babe, and cry no more

  The words faded and he began to hum the tune, his lips against Toby’s head and his arms tightly about her. He swore he felt her snuggle against him, sighing contentedly with slumber, and Ailsa wrapped a little hand around his enormous fingers as she drifted off to sleep. When he should have been seeing to his men and the threat of Mortimer’s assassins, he found himself content to daydream away the morning with Toby and her little sister.

  It was a joy he had been denied once, those years ago when his wife and child perished in childbirth. He would not be denied it again.

  Chapter Six

  The room was dark with dusk as soft sounds from the
bailey wafted in through the lancet window. The old door to the chamber creaked open and someone entered the room quietly. Tate wasn’t asleep; he’d heard the door open even though his back was to it. And he recognized Stephen’s footfalls by the hollow sound of the boot.

  “What is it?” he asked softly, his mouth muffled against Toby’s head.

  “Our sentries have seen movement about a half mile to the south,” Stephen whispered. “You are needed, my lord.”

  Tate looked up over his shoulder, seeing Stephen’s face looming in the dim room. “Is the fortress locked down?”

  “Wallace has it sealed up tightly.”

  “Then I shall be down in a moment. You and Kenneth assemble in the solar and wait for me.”

  There was something in Stephen’s lingering gaze that peaked Tate’s curiosity. It was no more than a flicker before he turned away to do his liege’s bidding, but in that flicker was something alien. Tate had known Stephen for years and wasn’t sure what he just saw in the man’s reflection. But he made a mental note to ask him about it later.

  When the door to the chamber shut softly, Tate tried to very carefully disengage himself from Toby and Ailsa. But Toby had a grip on his arm and Ailsa still held his hand. He managed to get free of Ailsa but when it came to gently disengaging Toby’s grasp, he woke her before he could complete the task. When she rolled onto her back to look sleepily at him, he smiled.

  “Go back to sleep,” he whispered, placing her arm beneath the blanket and tucking it in around her. “I will be back.”

  She yawned. “Where are you going?”

  “Not far. I promise I will return shortly.”

  He gently touched her forehead and moved away from the bed. But she reached out to grab his hand before he could move away completely. There was a strange look of anxiety to her eyes and he kissed the hand that held onto him.