Warrior's Princess Bride (15 page)

‘Langley!’ Benois hailed his friend, covering the length of the hall in just a few quick strides. He sprang up the wooden steps and on to the high dais, to clap his friend on the back. Langley glanced up, gave a sheepish smile. ‘I didn’t expect to see you!’

‘And I certainly didn’t expect to see you…so soon!’ Henry frowned, his expression stern. ‘Surely you haven’t managed to visit all the border castles?’

‘Nay, I haven’t.’ Benois threw himself into the chair next to Langley. ‘But Malcolm is still hard at it.’

‘Explain.’ Henry’s lips settled into a terse line.

‘Malcolm is doing a fine job on his own, Henry.’ Benois sensed his King’s irritation. He drank water thirstily from a pewter goblet in front of him.

‘I gave you an order, Benois,’ Henry replied slowly, ‘and I expect you to follow that order.’

Benois set the goblet down, placing it back on the table with deliberate slowness. His eyes glittered like chips of honed granite. Henry recoiled, flinching back into his seat under Benois’s crushing regard. Caught in the middle of the two men, Langley cleared his throat.

‘I realise, of course,’ Henry’s voice faltered, ‘that I am in no position to insist that you follow my orders.’

‘My thoughts exactly.’ Benois’s response was clipped. ‘I have no wish to fall foul of you, sire,’ he continued respectfully, ‘but there was no need for you to send me on such a mission.’

‘Maybe there was,’ murmured Henry.

‘Tell me.’

‘That woman will make a fool of you, Benois. You came back because of her, didn’t you?’

Benois leaned back slowly in his chair, his eyes sweeping Henry’s face. ‘So that’s it.’ He smiled briefly, shaking his head. ‘I never suspected you to be the jealous type, my lord.’

‘Sacré bleu!’
Henry swore. ‘Benois, this is no laughing matter—she will ruin you, make no mistake of it! Once your mind becomes distracted with a woman, you will lose your skill, your prowess on the battle field!’

‘And what makes you think I want to carry on with a life like that?’ Benois said slowly. ‘I’ve spent all my years fighting your battles for you; maybe it’s time for a change.’

Henry’s eyes darkened. ‘I knew it! I knew she’d crawled under your skin!’

‘Where is she?’

Langley began to rip a bread roll into small pieces, white crumbs scattering over the dark oak of the table.

‘Look at you, man, you’ve gone soft in the head over that girl already.’

‘Where is she?’ Benois repeated, standing bolt upright from his seat. ‘Henry, tell me, where is she?’

T
he sunshine percolated through the fresh young growth burgeoning on the spreading oaks and spindled birch, reaching down to the arching fronds of the ferns on the woodland floor. The trees were alive with birds, calling and whistling over the frilling tops of the branches, whilst in the under growth, they foraged in the deep piles of decaying leaves. Through the dappled shadows of the wood, Tavia steered the grey palfrey with confidence, trying to ignore her restive heart, trying to prevent her thoughts from straying from their current purpose. She had found the wooded valley easily, intricate the route she had oft taken with her mother in her mind’s eye. It had been only when Tavia had discovered the true identity of her father that the significance of her mother’s destination had become clear.

Behind her, Ferchar snorted with laughter at some jest, no doubt ribald, that his soldier related to him. He had been de lighted when Ta via had told him she knew of the location of her father’s treasure, and had begun making preparations immediately for the short trip. Tavia tried to keep her balance as the mare began to descend on the narrow path, hooves slipping a little on the loose stones over the dried earth. This track would eventually lead to the valley floor. Tavia’s thigh muscles protested pain fully as she gripped the saddle under her, the weight of her body thrown back awkwardly. Would she never be come accustomed to this accursed riding? An image of Benois thundering into the bailey on his midnight black destrier flew into her mind—an image of man and animal working in perfect harmony together, a symbol of power and grace. She hoped, wherever he was, that he was safe. Her heart flipped lopsidedly; she chewed her lip, hoping she had made the right decision in breaking her promise to him, by going to Ferchar before he returned. She hunched her shoulders forwards, but, nay, she had done him a favour—in truth, would he really care? More like he would be glad to see the back of her.

‘How much longer, my lady?’ Ferchar’s shout took on the petulant whine of a child.

‘Not much further, my lord,’ Tavia replied, keeping her eyes firmly ahead so she would not fall off the horse. ‘If I remember rightly, the place lies at the bottom of the valley.’

‘You’d better remember rightly, my lady,’ Ferchar blustered, ‘or I’ll clap you in irons for leading us all on a wild goose chase.’

Tavia began to feel more stable as the horse levelled out onto the path along the bottom of the valley. All around her, the fluttering wood anemones spangled across the valley floor, scattered like white stars on a green back ground. Tavia swept her gaze around in awe at the beautiful sight: the filtering light, the delicate petals…

‘Is it here?’ Ferchar rapped at her. She hadn’t been aware of her horse stopping.

‘A little further.’ Tavia tapped her heels lightly against the horse’s flanks to urge the animal forwards. To her right, the rushing, warbling notes of a stream drifted into the air…There! The spreading oak, ancient in form, the breadth of its trunk patched with the pale blue-green florets of lichen rose before her: the key to her freedom. Her eye darted to a curious outcrop of rock, shafting upwards on a slant from the ground, its riven surface deco rated with the softer shapes of ferns and mosses. Reining in the horse, Tavia swung her leg forwards over the horse’s neck, jumping down neatly to the spongy ground. Without waiting for Ferchar, she forged her way through the under growth, the low plants catching at her hem, the pungent scent of wild garlic filling the air. Reaching the rock, she worked her way around until arriving at a jagged crevice just big enough for her to crawl into. Tavia hesitated, unsure, as Ferchar, flanked by two burly soldiers, crashed to her side. Wiping the sweat from his face with the sleeve of his surcoat, he stared expectantly at her, pale eyes brimming with excitement.

‘Go on!’ He choked the words out. ‘This is it, is it not?’

Dryness invaded her throat, as she ducked her head, using both hands on the rock either side to ease herself into the narrow space. Under her fingers, the rock felt cold, gritty, uninviting. A smell of dank, rotting vegetation pervaded the air, as she felt her way along the rock. She was certain this was the place, so certain that she could almost feel her mother’s presence in this tiny cave—was this where the lovers had met? She smiled to think of them together.

‘Have you found it?’ called Ferchar, his voice muffled from outside the cave. Tavia, running her fingers along the wet shale, chose not to reply. At her level, the rock was smooth-faced, but, raising her arms upwards, she realised the crevice was deceptive, for the sides of the cave stretched high above her head. Lifting her eyes in the gloom, she peered upwards into the darkness. And there it was.

On a narrow ledge, just above the top of her head, sat an iron strong box, rectangular, with a heavy metal hasp sealing the lid, flecked with orange rust.

‘I’ve found it!’ she squeaked, squeezing her way out of the entrance, blinking in the daylight. ‘But it’s too heavy for me to lift down.’

‘Get in there!’ Ferchar growled to the stronger-looking of the two soldiers. The man looked doubtfully at the size of the cave entrance before managing to wiggle himself inside and extract the strong box. Bending at the knees, he placed the box before Ferchar. The other soldier fetched his mace from the horse, and smashed down on the lock. The sound reverberated about the woods, bouncing back from the solid trunk in a cacophony of noise. After a few minutes of heavy bashing, the lock disintegrated in a shower of iron flakes.

Ferchar sprung down, his bony fingers throwing back the lid. Tavia gasped. The two soldiers took a step back in awe at the sight. Ferchar just smiled and plunged his hands into the pile of glittering jewels, crowns, rings, neck laces, all wrought from the finest gold and silver. ‘My God!’ he breathed, ‘I’ve actually found it.’ His hands moved reverently over the strings of pearls, the filigreed brooches studded with rubies, with sapphires, his fingers encountering a single piece of parchment, folded, nestling amongst the jewels.

‘Tavia.’ Ferchar read the words written on the outside of the paper, handing it to her with scarcely a glance, unable to wrench his eyes from the glittering tumble of gem stones.

Tavia broke open the red seal of wax, stamped with Earl Henry’s coat of arms, and unfolded the parchment, a nervous shake to her fingers. Powerful black marks rose up from the paper… ‘I can’t read it.’ She looked up, disappointed.

With an impatient snort, Ferchar snatched it back, scanning the con tents. ‘“To my darling daughter, Tavia,”’ he intoned derisively. ‘“If you have found this box, then I must be dead, and I’m sorry that I couldn’t have known you better. Unfortunately, my cir cum stances dictated that the situation between your mother and me could not have been different. I have always loved your mother and you, and whatever path you choose in life, the contents of this box belong to you…” Pah!’ In disgust, Ferchar threw the note to the ground. Tavia bent and picked it up, folding it so she could tuck it into the pouch hanging from her girdle. A warm glow surrounded her heart—Earl Henry had loved her mother, deeply, of that she was certain.

‘And as I am now your guardian, my dear,’ Ferchar leered obsequiously, ‘anything that belongs to you, belongs to me.’ His head whipped towards the two soldiers. ‘Shut your mouths and stuff that lot into the saddle bags…and you—’ he glared at Tavia as if expecting a protest ‘—mount up. If you behave yourself, I might let you have a small trinket…for now. Something to remember your parents by.’ He spoke of her parents as if they disgusted him, as if what they had done was beneath the bounds of propriety. Tavia clenched her fists at her sides; she would not allow Ferchar to sully the beauty of her parents’ relationship with his derisive speech.

‘I don’t want any of it, just this.’ She patted the embroidered pouch containing the parchment.

‘As you wish,’ Ferchar replied, tilting his head to one side in puzzlement. How could the stupid chit not want any of this fortune? She clearly was addled in the head! ‘Then mount up, girl, and we’ll head back to Dunswick.’

Tavia lifted her head. ‘I wish to stay here a while; I’ll follow on.’ The yearning to spend some time in that special place, without the distractions of Ferchar and his men, flowered in her breast. This was the place where her parents had met, talked, made love, the place where their energy had been concentrated. She wanted to be a part of that.

Ferchar’s brow furrowed. ‘I can’t leave you here without an escort, and I need these solders with me, considering the amount of gold I’m carrying.’

‘I know my way back. I’ll be quite safe.’

‘I’ll stay with her.’ A familiar, resonant voice cut across their deliberations. Tavia’s head bounced up, her heart pounding immediately, the beats tripping over one another in rapid succession.

The gold lions emblazoned across Benois’s scarlet surcoat glimmered in the sun as he strode into the clearing, the embodiment of over powering masculinity, leading his snorting, sweating horse. His piercing, contemptuous glance perused Tavia’s pale, exhausted face; she quailed under his stern regard, at once sensing his anger.

‘So be it,’ announced Ferchar hastily, in a hurry to return home and assess the true worth of their discovery. ‘And I trust you, my lord Benois, to act in a fitting manner around the sister of the king.’

Benois bowed jerkily, watching as the small party climbed on their horses and made their way out of the clearing, saddle bags bulging lumpily with the jewels. His disdainful glance flew to the strong box, now forlorn and empty, nestled amongst a clump of white wood anemones.

‘So you found it after all,’ he murmured, almost to himself, leading his horse over to a nearby branch. ‘You promised that you would wait until I returned.’ His voice slid over her, gritty, condemning.

‘It wasn’t like that!’ she pro tested sharply. A cold, isolating feeling slipped through her veins. ‘King Henry implied that you would be gone for a long time, and I…I…’ She toed the damp ground with the soft leather of her shoe.

‘You…what?’ Benois loomed up close, towering over her. ‘You thought that you could do it without me? Is that it?’ He wore no helmet, the sable strands of his hair gleaming silkily in this shifting light under the trees. The chain mail coif of his hauberk had been pushed back from his head to gather in metallic folds emphasising the ruggedness of his features, the corded muscles of his neck.

‘You didn’t need to come after me, Benois. I thought…’ She twisted her fingers into a painful knot. How could she tell him that he was better off without her? That King Henry thought he was better off without her?

‘Thought what? Go on, tell me, I’d be interested to know what goes on in that head of yours.’

‘I thought you would prefer it if I wasn’t at the castle when you returned,’ she blurted out in a rush, the blueness of her eyes seeking his, asking for his understanding.

‘You…what? Whatever gave you that impression?’

‘Your king suggested it would be a good idea,’ she replied, twisting her slender fingers into an agitated knot about her girdle.

The grey turbulence of his gaze flicked over her, his mind recalling their last kiss, the warm, pliable feel of her body as he swept her up against him, the soft touch of her lips. An over whelming sense of protectiveness swept through him—what had Henry been thinking? ‘My God, woman, when I think of you, on your own, with Ferchar…who knows what could have happened?’ Without thinking, he stuck one hand furiously into his hair. A fleeting look of pain traced over his stern features; he paled visibly. He bit his lip, trying to recover from the raft of agony that swept across his body from his injured shoulder.

Tavia grabbed his elbow. ‘What’s the matter? What have you done to yourself?’

He shook her hand away. ‘It’s nothing,’ he snapped. ‘Just a scratch.’

‘Nay.’ Tavia spoke slowly, touching a finger gently to the patch of blood blossoming at his shoulder through the metallic links of his chain mail. ‘It’s more than a scratch.’

‘Leave it,’ he growled, resisting the urge to knock her hand away. How typical of a woman to avoid the argument in hand by homing in on in significant details, trying to distract him.

Tavia planted both hands on her hips. ‘Nay, Benois, I will not leave it. That needs to be looked at before it develops into something more serious.’

He set his mouth in a mutinous line, impassive before her. ‘Stop nagging at me, woman!’

She shoved at him then, annoyed at his stub born ness, placing two hands flat on his chest. He swayed from the force of her attack, amazed at the power in that small, lithe body.

‘Sit down,’ she ordered, ‘before you fall down. Otherwise I might have to get cross with you.’

He smiled weakly at her words. ‘You talk to me like a child.’

‘That’s because you’re behaving like one,’ she replied archly.

‘It was only a nick,’ he began to explain. Tavia reached her hands up, placing both palms on his shoulders in a vain attempt to pull him down. The urge to loop his arms about her slim waist, to swing her around, loomed temptingly, but a further glance at her determined expression made him realise the foolishness of that decision.

‘I’m all yours,’ he acquiesced finally, subsiding to his knees before her. The fragile scent of the wind flowers lifted on the breeze as he knelt on the ground, crushing a few of the delicate heads beneath his powerful calves.

‘We need to take this off.’ Tavia tugged at the hem of his surcoat, his hauberk. As she reached down, the wide neckline of her dress gaped forwards, offering a tempting glimpse of her rounded bosom.

‘Let me.’ He pushed her fingers away, pulling off the surcoat, then his hauberk, followed by his white linen shirt, covered with a soaking patch of blood on one side. Removing his garments made him almost gasp out loud at the ripping pain in his shoulder, but he managed a shaky smile when he finally knelt before her, naked from the waist up.

‘Oh!’ Tavia gawked at him, the tapered muscles at his waist, the honed plates of muscle across his chest. Her determination to tend his wound had driven her on; now, faced with a broad, naked torso, her sense of purpose shrivelled in a moment.