Dragonblade Trilogy - 01 - Dragonblade (13 page)

“Do you suppose that
you shall become Lady Dragonblade?” she asked innocently.

With a scowl, Toby
smacked her sister on the behind and Ailsa yelped.  “No more talk of that,” she
hissed. “I am in no mood for it.”

Ailsa made all sorts
of faces at her sister, who soundly ignored her. When Ailsa realized that her
sister was not reacting, she turned back to the fire. It was warm and wonderful
on her face and she began to perk up. Her bright eyes moved about the hall,
inspecting it, her curiosity now outweighing her disorientation. 

The sounds of boots
suddenly smacked in the keep entry. Both Ailsa and Toby turned to see Kenneth
and the young squire entering the keep. Kenneth was removing his helm and
peeling back his hauberk as Edward began sneezing. Ailsa left her post by the
fire and ran to the squire.

“Are you ill?” she
asked eagerly. “My father told me that wine cures all illness. Perhaps you
should drink.”

Edward took on the
familiar petrified look as Ailsa focused her attention on him.  He veered away
from her, moving to the opposite side of the great table, but Ailsa followed
him. When he sat, she sat. Edward sneezed again, trying not to sneeze on Ailsa
as she sat right next to him.

“Do you feel ill?” she
pressed.

Edward shook his head,
trying to discreetly scoot away from her. “Nay, I am fine. Just dust in my
nose.”

Ailsa saw that he
moved away from her and she closed the gap. “It is good that you are not ill.
Toby is only now feeling better; is that not so, Toby?”

Toby turned to look at
her sister as she pursued the terrified squire across the bench.  Edward would
scoot and Ailsa would scoot right after him. She motioned to her sister.

“Ailsa, come over here
to the fire,” she was attempting to help the lad out. “’Tis too cold over
there.”

Ailsa wouldn’t even
look at her sister; she was gazing adoringly up at the pale-faced squire.
“Where were you born?” she asked him.

Edward looked at her
with the same fear that one would have when gazing upon a man-eating beast. “I…
I was born in London.”

Ailsa batted her big
green eyes at him. “I have never been to London. I hope to go someday. Do you
suppose you will ever go back?”

Edward was starting to
grow red around the ears. “I hope to.”

“Ailsa,” Toby hissed
firmly. “Come over by the fire.  If I have to get up to retrieve you, you will
be very sorry.”

Ailsa noticed her
sister, then. Threats always made her notice, mostly because she knew that Toby
wasn’t bluffing. But she wouldn’t give up so easily; she grabbed Edward by the
hand and began climbing off the bench.

“Come over by the
fire,” she urged him. “It is warmer there. You can tell me more about London.”

Edward didn’t want to
yank his hand away but he was truly terrified of the young girl. He followed
her dumbly until they got within range of Toby, who mercifully reached out and
disengaged her sister’s grip on the young man.

“Leave him alone,” she
told her sister quietly. “He has duties to attend to.”

Ailsa looked outraged,
then disappointed. She gazed up at the tall young man. “Do you really have
duties to attend to?”

Edward nodded feebly.
“I… I must bed the horses.”

“Go, then,” Toby said,
smiling encouragingly at him when he didn’t move. “If you do not, then Ailsa
will talk your ear off.”

Edward nodded, his
gaze moving between Toby and Ailsa, before fleeing the hall. Toby watched him
go until a large obstacle was suddenly in her line of sight.  Kenneth had moved
up to the fire, his big body blocking out half the hall from where he stood. 
As Ailsa moved away to pout, Toby shook her head and returned her attention to
the blaze.

“Your squire is going
to have to learn to stand up for himself,” she muttered to Kenneth. “Ailsa will
take over his will to live if he is not careful.”

Much to her surprise,
Kenneth actually snorted. “He has more courage than he displays,” he replied,
holding up his big hands to warm them. “I would not worry about him.”

Toby lifted an eyebrow
as if she didn’t believe him. “How old is he?”

“Fourteen years,”
Kenneth replied.

Again, Toby shook her
head. “And Ailsa is ten. She will soon be asking if he is betrothed. She is
desperate, even at her age, to find a mate. I do believe she has little friends
telling her that she must be wed by the time she is fourteen or she will become
a spinster like me.”

Kenneth did look at
her, then. “As for the squire, tell your sister to set her sights on someone
else as he is already betrothed,” he told her. “As for you being a spinster, I
suspect that will not be true forever.”

Toby’s head jerked in
his direction, her hazel eyes wide with surprise. “Why in the world would you
say that?”

“Because you are
beautiful and wealthy. You are a fine prize.”

Stunned, Toby lowered
her gaze and looked back to the fire. The big blond knight had barely said two
words to her since their introduction and suddenly he was telling her that she
was beautiful.  She didn’t know what to say.

Fortunately, Stephen
saved her from further bewilderment. He entered the hall with loaves of bread
in his hands, followed by an old male servant with spindly legs and long,
stringy white hair. The old man carried a tray with food laden upon it. Just as
Stephen reached the table, Ailsa suddenly forgot her pouting and she rushed to
the big knight as he put the bread down. In fact, she grabbed a loaf right out
of his hand.

“It is brown,” she
declared flatly. “I do not like brown bread. I want white.”

“You will take what
you are offered and be grateful for it,” Toby said sharply, quietly. “Now sit
and eat. Stop making a nuisance of yourself.”

More pouting from
Ailsa. The old man who had accompanied Stephen pulled back the cloth that
covered the tray he had carried.  He picked up a small earthenware jar and held
it timidly in Ailsa’s direction.

“Do you like honey, my
lady?” he asked gently. “A little honey on the bread will make you think that
angels themselves eat it.”

Ailsa eyed the jar.
“I… I like honey.”

The old man smiled at
her and put the jar down, taking a hunk of the brown bread and slathering some
white butter upon it.  Then he poured honey all over it and handed the
sticky-sweet mess to Ailsa.

She grinned and took
it gladly, chewing into it and getting honey on her face.   Then she looked at
the tray, inspecting the contents.

“What else did you
bring?” she put her dirty fingers on the white cheese.  “Is this all? No meat?”

Toby rolled her eyes.
“Good Lord, Ailsa,” she breathed. “Can you not be grateful for the hospitality
you are shown? One more ungracious word from you and you can go stay with the
pigs. That is where you belong if you cannot show more manners.”

Ailsa took another big
bite of bread and ignored her sister. She moved away from the table and
wandered around the room, inspecting the walls, the floor, and anything else
she could find. Somewhere along the line she began humming a tune; the fairy
tune that Tate had sung days before at Forestburn. Before long she was twirling
about, bread on one hand and the edge of her surcoat in the other, dancing with
unseen fairies or perhaps pale young men. 

Toby watched her
sister prance around the room, thankful that she was at least in better
spirits.  With the events of the past day, she wasn’t at all sure how Ailsa
would recover. But it would seem that she was showing a good deal of
resilience.

“You must eat also,
mistress,” Stephen’s deep voice was low as he placed a hunk of bread before
her. “You must regain your strength.”

Toby eyed the bread
before gazing up at the enormous knight. “I thank you for your concern,” she
said,” but I am not hungry. Perhaps something later.”

Stephen didn’t push. 
He sat down at the table a few feet away from her while Kenneth took position
on the opposite side.  Toby continued to watch her sister flit around the room
as Kenneth and Stephen silently consumed the food on the tray.

“She seems to show few
ill effects,” Stephen commented quietly.

Toby turned to look at
him, watching him nod his head in Ailsa’s direction. She, too, refocused on her
dancing sister. “I know,” she replied softly. “It is quite surprising,
actually. She has never been particularly healthy and she has rarely been away
from Forestburn.  I was afraid that traveling all night in the cold air might
have affected her health but she seems well enough.”

“Has she said anything
more about your parents?” Stephen asked as he took another bite of bread.

Toby looked away from
her frolicking sister. “Not much,” she picked at the bread that Stephen had put
before her.  After a moment, she dared to look up at the men around her. “I
have not yet asked but I suppose I should. Did… did you search for my parents?”

Stephen’s cornflower
blue eyes were steady. “We found them in the rubble of the collapsed manor.”

Toby drew in a long
breath.  “I see,” she murmured, looking at the bread again. “May I ask what you
did with them?”

“We left some men
behind to bury them as we departed for Harbottle,” Kenneth answered her before
Stephen could. 

She looked at the very
blond knight. “Where did you instruct that they should be buried?”

“We did not instruct.
We left it to the judgment of the men.”

“So you do not know
where my parents are buried?”

Kenneth looked at
Stephen and the big knight cleared his throat softly. “I would suspect they are
somewhere on the grounds of Forestburn,” Stephen said. “I will find out for
certain if it will please you.”

Toby nodded faintly,
looking back to her bread. She started to pick at it again but suddenly felt
very much like taking in some fresh air. She needed it. Stiffly, she left the
table, leaving Stephen and Kenneth behind in silence as her sister continued her
dance around the room. The knights watched her go, knowing she would not go far
in her condition. Kenneth returned to his food before Stephen did; the big
knight watched the lady moved towards the entry to the keep, still gazing at
the doorway even after she was gone. 

It was cold outside as
the deepening dawn struggled to lift the fog, strangely bright as the sunlight
reflected off the mist. Still clad in the heavy broadcloth surcoat she had
traveled in, Toby took the stairs slowly and ended up in the bailey. It wasn’t
particularly busy but there were a few people about.  As weak and exhausted as
she was, it actually felt good to walk so she moved across the bailey in an
aimless path. It was slow going. Thoughts of her parents rolled through her
head, people who hadn’t been particularly kind to her for the duration of her
life but people she was fond of. They were her parents, after all.  But now
they were gone. 

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.